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Bradford Affordable Tomorrow

Video

Did you turn on the microphones?
Kim, do you know how to do that?
No.
But I brought you cookies, Bruce.
Yes, you did.
You actually paid for them this.
Oh, sorry.
Gave me money last time.
That's because you wanted to make sure they're going to be.
I know.
That's why I couldn't.
Oh, I'm pretty much time to bake them, but.
I may have to be a little hurt if it starts right.
Yeah.
It's not kind of stung, rain for a while.
Did you walk?
Oh, but my driveway was done.
Oh, mess it up.
Tarr or a stone?
Sounds good.
Let me, I think I just saw Steve, so let me just peek out there.
And if she's out there and I imagine it, we'll just get started.
Well, there was one, and then Sue had some revision.
They're just sick of it.
I have the one with it on the other button.
Finger to me, huh?
Actually, they're probably over there.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
They're at my house.
Walk my lazy family over there.
So you involved it all tomorrow's something?
I know Devon's running or something tomorrow.
First thing in the morning, I'm you doing?
Saturday, sorry.
I'm like, wait a minute, wrong day.
Saturday, yeah, you're like walking in the morning or I know you guys are getting your pictures.
You're going to be ready for that.
Let's call the meeting to order.
It is 631, I think.
So the first item of business is our roll call, and as is our tradition,
let's start with an icebreaker.
So my icebreaker today, given all the bugs flying around in the air,
is what is your least favorite bug?
So I'm Kim Perth, and my least favorite bug is the Pelmetto book of the South,
which is essentially a flying cockroach.
Exactly.
Karen Hamilton's Corpian.
Scorpion.
I've never seen one, that was like, it was one, 18 inches from where my little boy was sleeping
when he was 14 months old.
That's good.
Yeah.
Bruce Gisleman, Carparnerianz, because they eat your damn wood.
I have something to like so.
No, but I know how to kill him.
Not all of us. I don't care about snakes.
All of those snakes. All of those seasons.
And any one of the New Hampshire seasons, the black fly season.
Any of those seasons.
All of those seasons, the noceum season?
Devin Pendleton, he's spiders.
Oh, I had one this big in my ground.
So I think.
our first after roll call item of business is to approve the minutes did everybody
have a chance to review minutes yes I do I make a motion to accept the minutes as amended
you you see one more you see one more old business minutes 2026 literally
second line under under minutes two oh two oh two oh two oh two oh two oh
money money
very little
my motion so says so because I said as amended
it's just amended all those in favor
any opposed
the eyes have as the same goes
um
Susan's 15 minutes so at our last meeting
Susan asked for
oh hey Steve
welcome no problem what's your least favorite bud what's your least favorite bud
and then we all time yeah it's your time so we so far have approved the minutes and then at our
last meeting you probably remember that Susan asked for Susan five which I said
it's really realistically going to be 15 minutes
So Susan has all kinds of great questions all the time.
And we decided that Susan's questions are probably questions that people who might be watching on the camera have the very same question about.
So Susan plays dump the chump with us to see if we can get her questions answered.
We can we circle back with the right answers.
So Susan.
Okay, so the first one which Dawn reminded me to talk a little bit about last.
but in the tan notes so just wondering can they be do we might we need them at any
time of the year or is it usually at the end of the year or it's usually at the end of the year
it's a cash flow thing if things are tight and you're heading into the June
tax period take them out early the trip with taxing to participation notes I think we
We, in the past, we have applied for them in February right after the first of the year, so they're in place.
And then we can access them at any point in time.
It's just a phone call, you don't have to wait while the paperwork's day.
So our limit at that for the last bunch of years was 600,000.
You can't take 200 and then 200 and then, no, you can take them in increments, and then pay 200, and then, no, you can take them in increments, and then pay 200 back.
and then take 400 you take you can max you can only withdraw 600 so you can't
whatever you pay back during the year whether it's in April or June or December can't
you can't really borrow that same money it's all due December 31st it's a it's a cash
it's a short term it is it's a cash
I'm talking about a month.
No, it's, well, it could be.
If you take it out in November, it's a month long.
You need a little boost.
Like when we were doing the, Beeman Bridge, we needed a little boost.
I think some year, when we took it out in May because we had to pay the bill and submit for the reimbursement.
So there was a little bit of a cash flow, right?
So that's why we put the $1,000 interest on the town in the operating budget every year because just in case.
in case we take it, yeah.
And at the end of the year, that goes into general fund, whatever we help is.
Yep.
That was the end of the tan questions.
The next was CIP.
So just kind of wondering, like, what it is and what it improves.
Dawn is on the CIP.
What it informs.
What it's, if it's in some column it says for 2026, we have $35,000,
does that mean they're?
There should be or might be or could be a warrant article for $35,000.
Okay, that year?
So let me explain a little bit about the process.
Not unlike the Budget Committee, only we're more reports in a total organization.
Different departments or boards will come with us and say, we need, for example, let's say,
Brian, I need a $1.5 million fire truck in this year, but I wouldn't hear as he says, we're going to need to report.
We're going to need to replace it.
We have to figure out what is in the words,
how much we need to budget over time so that we're not getting
this massive bill on one year that he's predicting that we need.
So, and to that end, it might cost 1.5 million today.
By the time we get there, that's a whole other question.
It probably will be a little bit more.
And again, so, you know, we get these requested, we'll be a little bit more.
requested we only have to prioritize what's more urgent than other things so it's
a significant combination of a lot of different priorities and you know we try and avoid
catastrophic failure but it's very difficult to quantify that this is what it is
because it's very fluid as Karen can attest to it's a plan it's a long-term plan
and the further out you go the fuzzier it is and then for watching the meetings
it seems like you also want to see what the impact you get on the tax
yeah it's to manage the jobs over here and you I put a little less around there and you
yeah and that's what I said is very fluid
because priorities change from the year to year and so you know what what we
didn't need to to budget for or to plan for two years from now and now it's moved
up now we need to claim for this year because there's been an urgency or the dump-up
we thought we could buy in three years we got to buy next yeah exactly and that's
why it's very hard to you know just say this is specifically what they
every time because it is very fluid I suppose maybe rarely but something that
you've been planning for it turns out did not be necessary and you can
embrace it from a that's wasteful thinking more likely it seems that there's an
emergency that whatever it was that was on the CIP to begin with needs to be
moved up right as we've seen with dump trucks and things like that from
highway department but but to that end last year
Steve Paul gave us a list of equipment and when he anticipates it's going to be in
replacement the year and approximately ends of last year what it will cost which is
great that is the first time we've found that really helpful one of the items he had there
was sandpaper he wanted he wanted to replace last year you never put it on
the CID request so I said to him I would love to help me Steve you see you didn't
you didn't follow procedure you better make it last another year and he was like it's
really old I said is it working yes good keep it working so sometimes department heads will
say yeah I really need the sand sweeper yeah I can push this trailer or this other
piece of equipment out a couple of years right so they they move their own stuff around right
because he was talking about the fan shed that that's been on there forever come up with a
quick fix that'll hold it for a few more years so he's
Yeah, and so, you know, it's a wish list, but it's all to a reality list.
So I would really like this, but I also know that I need these repairs or I need this equipment, you know,
you know, replaced or whatever.
So it's a negotiation, it's not going negotiation.
Yeah.
And you have in mind some, you know, tax rate that you want to stay below or?
No, that is set by the select board.
We asked them what, what is, what is, what is our, you know?
what is our target? And they tell us, it's not up to us to some.
That's also kind of a combination of what are the needs, and you know, you plunk everything in,
and then you look at the bottom and go, okay, we got it, we've got to do something that seems manageable.
And we try to trim it back up to something that seems manageable.
If there's something big, like a fire truck in one year, you might have a bump, you might have a big bump.
Right.
That would be unavoidable.
Well, no, there's nothing yet.
The only one I have is from the trouble.
Yeah, we're working on now.
No, current here.
Okay.
What's in the current here has been called for numbering.
Oh, right, yes.
And what you're looking at has been in the drawlers,
but there is a list of specific items.
No, they're actually in there.
Those items are in there, too.
So it does have a reality.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Susan, if you want to read more on capital improvement programs, everybody thinks it's a plan.
And Marcia Keller, if you were here, we'll tell you, no, no, it's program.
The Central New Hampshire Regional Planning website has a whole bunch of information on, you know,
how do you, what is it the CIP, how do you set it up, what's the purpose?
So.
That's under budget.
I think I wrote that.
I was looking into it today on HM.
And I think there's a, it's also, it's also,
within the budget educational interest as well.
Yeah, but Central New Hampshire Regional Planning has a nice 13-page packet.
It's got a lot of grading in it.
And if anybody listening wants to look at the current plan or previous plans,
how would they find that?
I'm sorry.
If somebody wanted to look at the capital improvement program
for Bradford, the information that Susan has in front of her,
where would they find that?
It should be on the town website.
On the town website.
website.
That's my knowledge of it.
I don't, I've given it enough to the office, so.
Sounds good.
Does that, does that do it?
Yeah, we can put the next question on.
What's the next question?
Well, it's about one specific item on the .
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
So, um, and if we don't know, we can think it's the next time.
I just have a question about the, um,
revaluation and assessment so how is that paid out and do we pay the guy
every year a certain amount and then revaluation year is more or less or
yes how does assessments work so every we have town contracts with an assessor
to do the basic assessing every five years the state mandates you can do
a full revaluation in those interesting
from four years, the assessor visits about one quarter of the properties.
So each property gets double-checked twice within that five-year period.
Okay.
The regular assessing, the annual assessing is contained within the operating budget.
It's under 41502, whoever I think is the code.
The revow, we actually have a revile.
reval trust fund and we try to put money into that to build up because that's generally,
you know, you know, 30,000 to $40,000.
It's, it was, there used to be 30 and now it's,
the last time we did it was like 33, so it's creeping up.
And we try to build that up enough so that there's not a big blip in the reval year.
And so when it gets paid in those four years, in the fifth year, is it the same?
the same or is more in that big revaluation?
Generally, there's a contract and it says, you know, it's for this service, for abatements,
it's this much hourly, for the annual review, it's this much.
And then the reval contract is a totally separate contract.
It's like, hardly mentioned in it, but it really stands alone.
And that's, that's a different additional amount.
On the CIP for,
the 2008 Re-Evaluation Capital Reserve Fund.
So we've got $35,000, which is the year's run on the top of each page.
2030, I think it is.
And then 34,000.
It should be 28, 2028.
It is 2028, right?
I think it's, we did it in 24, so it should be 28 or 29.
Yeah.
28 is 0.
It's 0 until 2030.
29.
30 and 2032.
Are you in?
So the CIP is kind of an interesting thing.
Okay.
The CIP, the first section down to, I think, about here,
these you, no, I'm sorry, those for,
you have expenses.
And then you have capital reserve savings.
So expenses were into here, savings,
and then offsetting the savings,
and then offsetting the savings.
revenues.
So I'm not sure what you're looking at down here.
You're looking at offsetting revenues, yeah.
So that would be coming, the offsetting revenue, this whatever,
would be coming out of the capital reserve fund with any luck if we saved it.
So let's look at expenses.
The capital reserve fund is savings, right?
Yes.
Yes.
So where's read that?
But then every year also there's an article.
an article that we vote for $1,000 to put into the trust fund.
Yeah, that's part of the capital.
Which isn't going to get you the 35.
Exactly.
So, yeah.
Why don't they just put in the operating budget?
Why don't they just bump it up by $1,000?
Because if the intent is to use it for the revow,
then you want to put it in a fund that's specific for the rebound.
Yeah.
Okay.
And Steve Bennett, that's making resources in the trust funds.
the trust fund so that they're creating some revenue, right?
I would be taking the noise.
Scott McAisle's trust.
Right?
That's the trust.
I did not.
Yeah.
So it's generating some revenue.
Yeah.
One of why don't.
Yes.
Please.
I don't see.
Which
which we don't.
Right.
If you all you've done, you're on doing now, the intent to stop who present with the slides.
You guys just, try?
Yeah, much better.
Thank you.
Do we do the same thing on the trust funds?
Yes.
Trust funds are permanently invested and only taken out the needed for the case.
Operating questions that we vote on re-saluation, 477,
we don't use that whole mail for whatever reason.
That just goes into the general fund.
It doesn't go back to the, yeah.
But then, you know, depending on, you know, like the same.
you know, like the selectmen, but you're retarring this one here, and it was a little more expensive than they originally planned because they had to do some repairs.
So that's where that kind of extra money winds up getting spent.
So.
Okay, so good catch.
Here's where the redial is expended in 2029.
And unfortunately on the upsetting revenue, it's in the wrong year.
So it really belongs over here.
But yes, this is where, you know, you're saving, saving, saving on in this section, down here, to spend it in 2028, or 2029, rather.
Clear mug.
So I think we should probably move on, right?
Okay.
Thank you for your great question.
We'll look forward to stuff to jump again next month.
So just a reminder as we like dive in, I think the main objective for today is for us to focus on.
the survey, but I thought it would be helpful for us to all to kind of re-ground ourselves
in our mission statement, sort of minimize Bradford's property tax increases by exploring
and presenting data-driven strategic opportunities to town residents and the select board.
Data-driven strategic opportunities.
So just our slide, which we probably should update on the why, that we feel that as we looked
depth and trends associated with the operating budget and reward articles that these trends
are unsustainable, particularly with the reevaluation rates and where we are today.
So at the April affordable tomorrow meeting, we prioritize administration of a survey, and I think
these were our two wives to encourage civic engagement and to garner input from residents
who don't attend town meeting, realizing that the cohort of people who are making all the decisions
are a really small percentage of overall town residents so in the old business I
believe that Don had an update for us you had a conversation with the select board
I believe since our last year I said here's the survey if you have any
questions I don't know never heard that okay so so we've given them a draft survey
but okay and I don't know if anybody would like Devon did you guys even
I don't think the board discussed that yeah I mean I said I thought that we were sort of
on hold until the meeting conversation oh I think you're right it was okay yeah I think we
we have as you'll see in a second some more work to do anyway but you might remember that at our
last meeting in May
Karen had mentioned that she has and this is actually the reason I'm doing the
PowerPoint presentation so I always feel that when we have learning it's really
helpful to capture it in PowerPoint and then we can put it on our website and
becomes part of the public record so Karen very kindly introduced me to an
incredible staff person that she has in Hopkins who's got tons of skills and lots
of experience administering surveys so I I geeked out with her and interviewed
her and learned a lot about best practices and some things that they're doing in
Hawkington so they have been and if I get anything wrong here I think town
administrator please feel free to stop me so Beverly gave me she said well
there are best practices and these are the best practices that she talked about so
first of all she said that it's really important to coordinate public surveys
across the town so thinking about town departments boards and committees to
make sure that the
public is not overwhelmed with multiple simultaneous surveys so I don't
think we're really doing that necessarily and I remember even when years ago
now that I did the budget survey there was another survey and another one
you know so you know I think that we could do a better job of coordinating this
which probably rests with the select board another best practice that she
talked about was administering them no more frequently than once a month so if a
longer strategic survey is
that these pulse surveys should be temporarily suspended so the idea
is like you know the public doesn't want to be inundated with these surveys and
so to be thoughtful about what you're putting out there she also recommended
having a consistent and recognizable format so in some ways this is creating
a precedent for other pulse surveys that might come because she said this way
residents can instantly identify and respond like this you know this isn't a fake
you know like right now all of us are being innovated by things that were like
this spam or is this spam so knowing like where it looks like where
it's usually from to make sure that it's a survey and not somebody trying to steal
your data and then another best practice that she talked about was the
importance of sharing results with the community and identifying actions that
will be taking to build confidence in the importance of participation so she
said these pulse surveys that they've been administering are really intended to be
a temperature check on specific questions for example specific
work projects these were examples that she provided so specific
public work projects sometimes specific questions around budget cycles and
on meetings and she said they're really helpful where there are gaps and
information or attention points so we're trying to make a decision and we just
want to sort of get a pulse check on what what people think another specific
example which I thought was a really great idea was she administered a pulse
a pulse survey right after the town meeting so you know what is this a good
time would you prefer to do it on weekend would you prefer to go on a week
night so you know again just trying to maximize participation because
Hopkins and also struggles with the same challenge that we have in
Bradford that they have low participation at the town meeting so this was a way
to sort of collect feedback from folks and she emphasized to me that
police are not intended to be it's not a research project you know we're not
looking for the word I'm looking for deep information you know that
well and also like a we're not expecting to have a certain number percentage of the
town that responds to make it a balanced survey it's it's not research like that
it's really a temperature that's what it's intended for and she said in that vein
having it be short so Don had suggested this and I agree with her
and Beverly said the same like three or four questions so participants can click
on it and they know they can answer it immediately it's not something they
have to sit with for a half hour lots of open-ended questions and do it give
their thoughts move on so then we started geeking out on how we do it like the
specifics of it so they also use Google forms which has its pros and its cons on
the pro side it's super easy to administer it's free so so those are all really good
but it does require that participants
have a Google account otherwise you can't log into it and if you don't have a
Google account then you have to give your personal information you have to give
your email address and things like that and that is going to be a no-go for
some residents also it this approach can't guarantee that someone won't take it more
than once so she said she gets around that by including language in the
survey like we're all making good things like this is
take you know take the survey in good faith you know we're all neighbors here
or we're all responsible community members or something like that like appealing to
people's values so they're not like intentionally trying to make this the survey
results invalid by taking it more than once and I think some of that was
going on when we did the budget survey and the Google form is super easy to administer
but again it's an electronic
tool and the demographics of Hockington are very different than the
demographics of Bradford you know we skew older and we definitely heard some
feedback when we did the budget survey that there were a lot of older residents
I remember talking to some as I was handing out my flyer she's like do you know
how old I am I am not doing that so we may want to consider paper which is
is harder because then you have to manually enter it into the tool and you know
there's also room for error and that so if we choose not to do that and just go
electronically we have to know that we're missing a whole group of people that
potentially that either the digital divide is a problem or they just are
unwilling to complete things electronic
to say do it they have a flip phone they have they have the normal phone
so then we talked about marketing so she said again these are you know I
think have become kind of part of the culture in Hockington and correct me if I'm
wrong but like they're administered enough like frequently enough that people
know to look for them on the town website or on Facebook so that's primarily the
way that she pushes them out and like I had done when I did the budget survey
I literally did flyers and put them around town I handed it out at the when people
were voting so I talked to a lot of people it practically went door to door so I did a lot
more it was very time-intensive to do but this is not what it's done here with this
poll survey it's intended to be quick you know she doesn't she said she gets you
know like 50 depending on what it is 50 or so responses and she does it's not super
time-intensive for her but
She acknowledged that assumes a tech-savvy population and again paper copies are not distributed.
So that's all I have on my PowerPoint presentation.
But I thought it would be a good way for us to sort of begin a conversation about the specificity of what we want to do.
Did you say whether they are, are they multiple choice questions?
Are they filling your own answer?
I think it just depends on what questions.
they have generally Beverly likes to do click on an answer you know choose one of the
above yes or no and then we usually have an open end one at the bottom we see it
that so I guess my my for me my first takeaway of this is that I love the idea
of having these pulse surveys but in some ways this is somewhat mission creed for
us like going back to our mission statement which I can go back to you like
this is our space here and asking people how they like the Fourth of July
celebration which might be a perfectly good pulse survey is kind of out of our
domain right or asking about what day town meetings should be is sort of out of our
domain yeah I just say those are more a select board it's got to come from
right where when they get the information or the feedback that's where we can help
out
Right.
But I think
as it pertain to
minimizing
property tax
again.
Right.
So any
things that we
would propose
to the select board
I would think
would have to
align with our
mission, right?
And I don't, I think
it would be up
to the select board
to decide if
this is a tool
like, I mean,
if it were me
and I was
sitting in Devon's seat,
I think I would
start with an easy
one.
Like starting with a
specific one,
like, let me, let me just propose one that it'll be shocked that I will
would say, should we have a full time, should we have evening on-call hours for the
police department, right?
That might be something that our committee might want to know, because we've learned some
about the police department in our research, but like to start with that as a poll
survey, I think that'd be kind of a tough one.
So.
Is it, did these poll surveys, it sent?
you know what is it advertising?
If you can go on the town website.
Oh, it's not like that.
Is there internet?
It's something you access from the website,
Facebook.
Or just put it up there gets people on our website.
Right, and I think...
Just put it up there.
To see if there's...
You're going to do
Huffington hymn H.
Oh, there you are.
Um.
Search.
for survey. Let's see if the, if it's still...
There's a perk. Your website has over ours.
You have a research teacher.
It does not.
So Huckington House survey.
We can talk website later.
No, that's cool.
You give people to go to the website.
Oh, that was an old one.
Yeah.
2023. That was not a Beverly one.
This wasn't one that she did.
That was before she came.
So there wasn't one for...
I don't see.
I think.
That might be survey results.
What was the recent topic?
Go to town meeting.
I don't know that.
What was the results of their survey about
when to do the town meeting?
I don't know.
I didn't ask her that.
It was all over the place.
It was it really.
It was what we already knew, you know?
It was really funny.
Because we put it now.
It's a little bit exciting.
So, Devin, I know that you're one person on the select board.
There's a three, three people, and I'm not asking you to speak for the select board,
but do you have any initial thoughts about, like, the idea of doing these poll surveys?
Do you think it's a good idea?
Should we...
I mean, because we want to partner with the select board, right?
But our part of it is focused, right?
But I could imagine it being, you know, useful for the town overall, but outside of our domain.
I like the idea of doing.
it because I like getting feedback and hearing what residents have to say.
And it's a way to communicate with people besides the typical meeting where, like,
you can always get people to come.
So I like the idea of doing it.
I don't like the surveys that's currently written.
I feel like it's too long.
I feel like we're taking very preconceived, like, ideas and asking people to rank, like, you're
to rank like your ideas, not actually like organically getting feedback from people.
I think if you're going to make a goal of doing like pulse surveys,
like whether it's like one or two quick questions on one specific topic and more open-ended,
like I don't know what you would do with all this information.
If you handed me a list and said, you know, 12 people like these four things at the community center,
people want to see support local businesses,
businesses, improve Main Street.
I don't know what to do with that.
What does it mean to support local business?
Do we have a, do you want financial support to them?
Are we encouraging people to shop there?
It's all really big and I don't know.
I just don't like this survey, but I like the idea of doing surveys.
But I think we need to present people with less, like,
lists of your ideas and ask more for their information.
Like, if you just send out a question, like,
what is affordability?
What is affordability?
mean to you? Or what are you struggling the most with affordability in town?
Or is there anything you think the town could do?
See what, you know, maybe 20 people respond and you see a theme in that.
Then you can gauge if that's where your questions are going.
But when you hand people five answers and you're like, right for these,
you're just, you're taking your ideas and asking people to sort that,
and I don't think we're actually getting information from people.
That's the part I don't like about these.
I feel like you're getting less of a pulse and asking people to prioritize your ideas.
I think that was.
I would look at this and say there's way too much in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we didn't have this information before.
Yeah.
I'm going to show you the other one.
Yeah.
And I think, I don't know, like, from what she described,
it has to be specific.
So where do we have gaps in information
that we're going to be action-oriented around?
Because that was a clear best practice.
And or areas of attention and controversy.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Like, do we need overnight coverage at the police department, right?
Like, that's, I think, a question, right?
Sometimes with attention, the particular party.
And I think if you do it on more specific things that you can be actionable about,
when you get a vague survey with a bunch of things, you give your information,
it sits on somebody's desk, we talk about it, and then nothing happens,
then you send out the next one, well, why am I going to waste my time to do them this, not the camp, then?
If you ask me a quick question, if something on like the next agenda, we can go through,
and if I'm sitting at a meeting and 50 people responded and, I don't know, had feelings about X, Z,
it feels easier to make action on that, or we can show people, hey, we heard you,
now we're taking the next step.
Right.
So the town meeting question could be, do you attend town meeting?
Yes, no.
If not, why not?
Why not?
I mean, one approach.
Those people would, maybe people would say, I like my voice would be heard anyway, or it doesn't matter, or, you know.
I think that's, I mean, we've talked about that as one of our goals to be thinking about how we encourage civic engagement at the town meeting.
So I think that would be a great first one.
That's a great idea.
I love that.
Yeah.
I've encouraged the town to move it to a Saturday.
You've been offering free child care for years.
care for years. We got sponsors and did a big breakfast buffet.
We're trying anything to get people there.
It would be a great first one too because it's super simple, right?
And I mean, if, like you say, 50 people respond and they say, well, I'd rather have it on a Saturday,
or I'd rather have it on Facebook.
Facebook Ditch.
I don't know how to get it in Facebook.
Money.
This is not money.
It was just joking about this.
If we put something really controversial on the warrants every year, you'll get people.
We were laughing.
I was like, see something crazy.
Well, it's a couple years ago when they did the way of changing the vote.
And we too.
Yeah.
We got a lot more people that here.
You know the voting.
Yeah.
You have some.
No.
That's exactly.
But that's also, I mean, if you step back and look at it, that's also information.
Like the standard stuff that we're putting on, maybe people are comfortable with what's happened.
They don't care, you know, they don't care enough.
I don't like saying it like that, because people do care.
It's not a high enough priority to come out of vote or they trust that the people who are going to know
we're going to do the right thing.
They're comfortable with the status quo and just figure everything will be fine and
and then we'll be fine at town meeting and that then you have these really controversial things that people are passionate about, that they want to come out and do it.
You know, so it's interesting just to find out more what people think about town meeting.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So another, no, no worries.
Another thing that I was thinking about, you know, again, like realizing that some of the, some of the things that might be
asked a poll survey or outside of like our committee charge, I wondered if it made
sense to do a little survey of the department heads to see if they have questions that they
would want to ask the public.
So to, and again, and also understand if they have any surveys out there, because I don't
want to assume that they don't.
So again, best practices is that this is coordinated and right now there is no mechanism that I know
about to coordinate and we do seem to have a little bit of a challenge with that.
So anyway, I was thinking about that as the next step.
What do you think about that?
It doesn't want to let you.
I can't see it.
I can't see the motorcycle quite.
No.
Let me take the farthest away picture you can see.
The question could be are you?
Sometimes I fail these and I'm like, all right, I'm not human.
No.
The motorcycle that I'm missing?
Not that I can.
see but I think that's one.
I think those might be motorcycles.
Try that.
You're a very first survey.
Are you a robot?
Yes, right?
Do you know what motorcycles?
Well, we can certainly get copies, Karen,
of a piece of survey.
They got in.
They said you're not a robot.
robots.
I'm still on Parks a lot, by the way.
I can't watch that.
Do you want to put you?
Do you want to go?
It's cookies.
Who don't care?
Thank you.
So where are we team?
So.
I think we passed as old.
Do you have a little past the parts of market
counts?
Like when I am going to do.
So, do you think it would be appropriate for our committee?
I don't know.
So, should, do you think it would be appropriate for our committee?
I mean, this is like, again, sort of mission creep, I think, for us.
But, like, we could do it, just in the interest of, like, coordination,
knowing that we want to insert some questions here at some point just to ask
to survey the department heads and see if they have surveys that are circulating
and or if they have questions that they would like to be part of the point?
to be part of the poll survey?
Does that make sense?
I think so.
Okay.
I think it's better just to start with that topic.
Like town meeting?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But again, best practices that this is coordinated in.
So if you don't ask the department
has that question, then we're not going to know.
Are we too early now for a poll survey on town meeting?
Yeah.
But it's only like for coming in two July.
Yeah.
We'll say every year.
It's the same every year.
Same people.
I'll go to town eating every year.
But if your role for a poll survey is like small,
like, short, actionable, like,
if you ask people now about town meeting,
well, I don't think we should do it
because I'm thinking maybe, like, we would field it in the fall
or something like that.
But if you're saying your first question.
But if based on the results, we want to try to
attempt to make any change in town meeting.
Don't we need leave time for that?
And I don't know.
I don't know.
Doesn't that have to, yeah, doesn't somebody
at the state have to be notified?
No?
Maybe.
To do a survey?
No, to change town meeting.
No, it just has to be notified
with two months in advance or something.
So if we did it say in September.
If you changed it to a Saturday,
it's just a matter of noticing that goes out.
And then all of those deadlines
are based on the voting day, which is always the Tuesday.
always the Tuesday. Your town means starts on Tuesday with the voting section.
And it's adjourned to.
Yeah.
I think my interest in a survey
right after we do our celebration here.
What did you folks think about our celebration?
But I think that goes back in Kim's point.
It's not tied to our mission.
Yeah.
Once we get it set up, the select board could decide to do that
and they could ask the administrator or Maureen to do that.
to do that. That might be another issue with the website.
Yeah, I guarantee you that it'll be an issue with a website.
Well, there's difficulty with making changes to the website.
Adding things, taking things, you know, you're going to add something
only for a month and then you want to take it off.
I mean, that's extra work from that office.
Yeah.
I thought we called the Karen's clunky website.
I'm showing you.
It was not sold. I'm amazed that there's no search methodism.
Yeah, and I've never seen a website without one.
Yeah.
And it was just like, really?
Every time they go out, they knew that we'd be about how old.
Really?
I use it and I use it with other times.
It works for.
If you know what you're looking for.
I am more topical.
So, again, what they do at Hockington is.
What they do in Hockington is they push it out through the website and Facebook.
So who, is it Maureen that's responsible for doing that?
Who updates the website and is there somebody that, is there a Facebook page?
I don't even know if there's a Facebook page.
Yeah.
I don't think it's updated that often, but they do add whatever the upcoming meetings are.
I don't think the last time the website or Facebook?
Facebook.
But I did go on, and I can't remember if it was the website or Facebook, that they had the people that were in, like the planning board, the members of the planning board, there were missing, like, four people.
The website.
That's the website?
Yeah.
It's not updating.
And I know if you go to Brian's website, that's always updated.
That's always updated.
Yeah, I like that one.
So I'm just sort of thinking through like the mechanics if we wanted to do it.
We would need to ask a select board permission to update it on the website and the Facebook page.
Somebody has to do that.
We don't have authority to do that.
It might make sense if you put down when you wanted to.
I mean, we could come up with a list of questions from our committee.
I'll go on the Facebook page.
Facebook page tonight to see how it is.
Okay.
Facebook?
Not the website.
Websites terrible.
If I don't have to go on there, I don't.
So there's something posted about June 27th.
Traffic flow.
Culvert work on West Road.
It was June 15th.
So somebody's updating it.
So somebody's updating the Facebook.
Good.
Okay.
So to your point.
point committee we have as a follow-up item like we have one great question that
Susan came up with about the town meeting but maybe we brainstormed like with these new
parameters like short short questions about specific topics and we bring
to our next meeting specific questions like that and then we present the whole
thing to the select board and I don't know I'm going back and forth in my mind about
whether or not we should be survey and
department heads because we don't have the authority to do that so I don't think we
should be doing that even though I know I said that because I feel like someone should do that
I don't think we should do it so I think it would be up to I mean we could share
we could share some of these best practices with the select board or when we make our request
and then they can decide to do it or not right how about that?
Yeah
I was just going to get a hundred paper copies.
I was just going to say that.
Good question.
So one way we could do this.
Now I don't think we're going to get like a hundred paper copies making this super...
The first one let's put it.
Let's make 25.
And if they get all used up then we know next the next one maybe we'll put out 50.
Yeah well Susan you had had this as an idea like way back.
You said wouldn't it be great to have like an idea of all
or something like that and put it here at the time we could do it.
We could create something like that and have it be the question
that is live.
You know what I mean?
With paper copies.
We could put one here and one over at the community center.
And people, you know, we put, you know, make it kind of cute
so it brings people's attention, you know, something simple
and then put the question on it and then
have the things and put it in.
Put it in the bridge.
And they fill it out, they tear it out, and they drop it off in the box of their choice.
And so then there would be basically three ways.
Facebook, the website, and then paper copies in two places.
And Beverly said that she usually has it live only like 10 days.
She doesn't keep it for a really long period of time.
So maybe we want to play with that time period.
But she said it's usually short.
Okay.
I encourage people also.
Yep.
Get your, get your, I don't want to call it a ballot, but,
get your survey in by able to or whatever.
Part of the draw of a sixth question
called survey where you just click, click, click, click,
and it's quick and you don't go, oh, this is to take it too long,
I'll come back to it, and then you don't.
So that's kind of trying to put this.
The other thing, too, is it like, you're not so long,
not so long would be necessarily...
I think we have the board.
Doing the surveys, but if we create a culture of, like, these pulse checks
and, you know, having them into the way to communicate with people,
everything doesn't have to be, like, about affordability or taxes,
but, well, how do we communicate with people?
Totally.
Do you go with Facebook or using the town website?
Do you want to see a newsletter?
You know, then maybe next month you're talking about tax stuff,
and then people aren't just, like, like, bogged down, like, ass on tax taxes.
Yeah.
And then all of this, I mean, it does relate to.
like how we effectively communicate with our residents.
Like, are we reaching people the way they want to be reached?
Can we do something better?
Just different topics that keep people engaged.
Yeah, yeah.
And then, you know, if you can keep acting on those,
you know, if everybody tells you we meet the website
and want something else and change it,
now they're like, oh, yeah, nice and they work.
And then we start asking deeper questions or harder things,
people like to be better answers.
Yeah.
Well, we can come up with our, like, related
to our committee's charge.
But then, like, the select board can decide, like,
what other questions, and the select board can ask
their department heads, you know, about what
priorities or questions they have, too, are gaps in information,
attentions, or however Beverly described it.
So, but we could create a template.
Once it's set up, then you just feed in the question,
you know, go, you know, go, you know,
you know, automatically load up and then we'll open there.
Yep.
And I don't know if this has happened yet,
but Scott was talking about, and I think we put it in the budget,
getting SharePoint for different,
like SharePoint that is shared by committees,
like SharePoint licenses.
Remember how you talked about that?
Yeah, that's what I mean by SharePoint.
So that's what I mean by SharePoint.
So that, like, so that, like,
create something on the, like, if we don't currently have access to the towns.
I think it's called SharePoint, Microsoft SharePoint.
But Scott was talking about getting different licenses.
I think he was talking about everybody having their own email address
for a Nanyway request.
I don't know that he was talking about sharing information.
Not like a shared Google Drive.
Yeah.
No, no, it was like really differently.
Everybody would have to have access to it, so.
And you've got to give permission.
and you're a strict act, but SharePoint is much more complicated
that you really are talking about.
Oh, I did SharePoint.
Yeah, I know.
I thought he was talking about, you know,
then the Energy Committee could go into the website and
up say fair page.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I thought.
If you do that now, all he has to do is give them a log in.
Yes, that's what he talked about, giving a different committee.
Well, why don't I write down as a to-do that I will talk to Scott about that?
About that.
about, because, like, if I create a template, a Google template on Kimfer's personal sharepoint,
we don't want Kimferth administering the towns from her personal sharepoint.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it has to be, the data has to be owned by the town, not me personally.
So I'll talk to Scott about how we might come.
And they're also talking about changing website providers, right?
Yes.
So.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's a matter of way.
Did somebody push back on town cloud?
Because, yeah.
It was not what we have.
Yes, that was not what was what was what we thought were sold.
Yeah.
I don't know if they're pushing back to a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I have.
It was not supposed to.
Yeah.
It was not supposed to.
So one more question for you.
So thinking about the pros and cons of Google,
book form, is everybody comfortable with the recommendation
that we move forward with Google Form?
I mean, again, it's just that criticism that,
oh, I can take it more than once.
I mean, I like the language that barely suggested,
that like, come on, we're doing this in good faith.
Like, why would somebody intentionally sabotage?
But it happens, right?
So.
back end who your responses are when you do it in the form?
It depends on how you say it about it.
Yeah.
You can see email addresses, but if some people
have multiple.
So they're going to get through the trouble.
First, creating.
It happens.
And then.
It's all I'll say.
Just for a survey, it's really not worth it.
Right.
Right.
That's how I feel.
Yeah.
I mean, does anybody, just Google form?
I mean, it's super easy to use and it's free.
I mean, I can see if you feel so, so, so, so, so,
so strongly about something that you really need to respond 35 times,
then
somebody should reach out to you to find that white.
But if you're just trying to discredit the survey,
get a life.
All right.
So I think we have a plan, right?
Don, what are our action steps?
Yes.
You're going to share best practices regarding the surveys in the select board.
You also want to talk to Scott about the SharePoint site.
And you're going to recommend suggesting using Google for surveys to the select board.
Well, I don't think we're ready to go to select board, yes.
Okay.
Yeah, because I think we have some details to work out.
And you want everybody to brainstorm about survey questions to bring to the next meeting.
Yeah, and they don't all have to be asked for months.
No.
Pick out two or three.
And so, survey questions.
How about so many topics?
Yeah.
Okay.
That are relevant to our mission.
That are relevant to our mission, not other things.
That might be of interest but are relevant to our committee.
Do you like the color neon pink for general?
Or, you know, tell me about the Fourth of July celebration or other controversial things that are not part of our committee.
Okay.
So, I would think it would be interesting.
So that sounds good.
So at the next meeting, why don't I, I'll come with a draft.
This is something concrete.
I will come with a draft presentation for the select board and then we'll...
Can you send that around beforehand?
Yeah.
Give you some feedback on it.
Yep.
Yep, definitely.
Am I allowed to do that with 91A?
Can I do that?
If you blind copy, everybody?
Well, it's like when we send out minutes, right?
She's asking if anyone has any revisions, let me know.
So you're sending out that.
If anyone has any revisions, let me know.
I think that we don't reply all.
I think that that's the key.
When you reply, just reply to me directly.
Don't reply all because then it has to be...
People do that law.
Because I will apply to this senator,
but I see that on the menu.
What I've been doing in Hapington is when I send an email,
when I send an email to the select board, the select board is blind copy.
But if I am including the police chief, I'll say,
hi folks, and you'll see police chief in the top,
and then in parentheses I'll put, you know, select board blind copy.
Right, yeah.
So they can reply, and they will get the police chief in myself,
but they won't get each other.
So if you, if all of your people are, all of this committee is blind copied,
the only person you can reply to this is Sunday.
I mean, I have to say that was very eye-opening to you
when this whole 91A thing was explained,
that like the three select board people,
you don't talk with each other about any topics,
except for once, twice a month.
In public on camera.
Yeah.
But I hear things, like, like,
or like molasses as far as getting done.
I mean, it's similar.
Because you could be working in between meetings to get stuff done,
but you're not supposed to be
talking about whatever, how to proceed,
and then you can present it.
Yeah, that's what we had talked about.
We're like, forget this subcommittee stuff.
We're going to just work in between meetings and send emails,
we can work electronically, and then we realize
no, we actually can't do that.
If you're an appointed committee at this report, you can't.
Yeah.
Right, right.
Which we are.
Well, so the surveys are how we are attempting to get the data to make our driven recommendations.
Yeah.
I mean, I just kind of feel like we're, I don't know,
we're their mission statement just like, I don't know, we don't feel like we're there.
We don't feel like we're there.
Yeah.
We had a conversation, wasn't it in the last meeting?
and maybe that we need to look at our mission again?
Oh, revise our mission?
Yeah.
And suggested.
This was the first time I was seeing it, and a lot of it, like,
the first thing that jumped out of me was like,
wasn't that kind of the point in the CIP that, like,
reduce tax rates?
And, like, that feels like what a lot of the goal of the CIP is?
And, like...
That's true.
Budgeting in general, like, you know, that should be, like, the goal
as we go through budgets, like, is not?
But I think this.
committee came out of a group of people who wanted to take a deeper dive into
what really, you know, constitutes our budget or tax rate and spending we do.
And where can we find efficiencies?
Right.
So the trend is just raising.
Right.
And so originally, you know, we got into subcommittees, one of the subcommittees,
which I think is probably where we have the biggest opportunity,
because budget doesn't have a lot of fluff in it.
It's shared services.
services. So Steve did some research and Steve and Bruce did some research, just trying to figure out, like, who's been doing this?
Because honestly, I feel like it's inevitable that towns are going to have to start working together because everyone is experiencing this.
Property taxes are the main way we pay for everything in New Hampshire.
And all the costs of the feds are coming down to the state and down the state to the locals, right?
And so, like, we're going to have to start working differently.
So Steve.
Nothing has been downshould as appropriate.
Education?
No, about that, Steve.
Well, I'll give a specific example.
I was
in my role in the Budget Committee, I was working with Erica
on her budget, and she talked
very specifically about costs
that used to be born by the state
that are now being pushed down to the locals
and are included in the budget.
I asked her, why are these things increasing?
She said, the state is requiring
them unfunded mandate. The state used to pay for this. Now it has to be paid for by the state.
So that's an elections, you know, a very specific example of how some costs are being downshifted
to local tax pay.
I think the states are to make an extra cost.
Complexity, complexity is growth.
Well.
And I'll completely.
Well.
But Stephen, yeah.
Either way that the costs are increasing.
And your school is still, what, 60-some-odd-percent?
That's right.
Right.
So one of the things that we had talked about in the shared, you know, so they did some research
to try to find out what other municipalities were doing.
They came up with two really great examples of police departments that had merged.
And we thought, well, you know, maybe there's something that we could do to convene people.
And, you know, maybe we could do.
bring in guest speakers that might include these municipalities that had managed to do this
and then have it be sort of a brainstorm session.
But again, like this was an idea, and at the time the select board was very against the idea of
changes.
So, you know, it's just our job to present ideas and it has to be the select board that decides
whether or not to move forward with it.
I think just sharing the contract is the easiest place to start.
I mean, every town.
has their things and these are my things and I don't want to share them with you and what you were like
but let's you know we need whatever paving and Hopkins needs paving let's get together and contract with one person give them a bigger job and we can get it for less or something like that
just sharing contracts yeah I mean I could imagine like you know guest speakers and like have it be an opportunity just to have a dialogue about like what are the possibilities I mean I you know I personally
feel like we have an incredible police department. We have people on our police department
who are like national, I mean, or state leaders, you know, who are on the SWAT team, who are, you know,
like the highest trained police officers in the state. And we also have, you know, based on our data,
a police department that's much larger than most towns of our size. And there isn't a will on the
select board to reduce the size of the police department.
but perhaps there are opportunities to share some of the, and Ed is an excellent administration,
like probably the best administrator I feel like all the department heads.
So what if he was the chief of three towns, you know, and administered the, you know, the services of three towns, you know,
and the police departments were combined in some way.
That could save everybody resources and still have the same high quality of public safety.
Well, Ed has approached Warner in the past because when the Warner was one of the selectmen from Warner.
But then he got shut down by the other selectmen in Warner because they did not want, for whatever reason, they did not want to merge,
which I feel would be almost ideal for the two kind of us ago.
There are a lot of considerations. I've talked to Ed about it before. There were a lot of considerations.
I was in a meeting today where there's the former Hanover town manager has kind of gone off and become a consultant on his own.
And one of the things that he's put out to my administrators group is talking about shared services.
So he and I were talking after the meeting and I said, you know, what's it going to take?
Because in the meeting, Hancock, who has a part-time police officer, lost their police chief, cannot seem to hire anybody,
is now contracting with Peterborough for police services.
And I asked Hancock, I said, so how's that going?
He goes, it's great.
He said, the response time is amazing because that's, you know, one of the,
oh, you've got to go all the way to Warner or all the way to Sutton or whatever.
Response time is better, not than having their own, but then having state police, obviously.
It is more expensive, but I think there's some tweaking that could probably happen there.
And, you know, they're going to,
The table was saying, yeah, you probably ought to just write this out of it and see how it goes.
Because it's an interesting...
And I was going to say it sounds like there was a need.
Exactly.
And we don't have a need.
And neither does Warner right now.
They were pushed into it.
Exactly.
And so when there's a need and an opportunity, that's when it's going to happen.
And that's what the consultant said.
And I think that is a challenge.
What is he doing?
Because you were copying me on staff, like, he was trying to get conversations.
She's going to another town.
I think that's what it was.
He was trying to like, you know,
he had a big thing a lot about trying to increase town
participation.
And I listen to talk about his stuff.
But what's he doing there?
So he's doing a bunch of different things.
He can't think of his nonprofit.
He's doing wage surveys for different towns
and combine a database of wages and jobs and things like that.
He's been, he works on recruiting for, you know,
usually town managers or town administers.
or town administrators, you know, who'll go in and he'll kind of run the job search and then kind of like MRI,
probably less expensive.
He's really into collecting data, so this whole shared services thing is something he's interested in.
That's great.
Basically, Alex Torpe, I can't think I will send him his contact.
U-I.
T-O-R-P-E-Y, yeah.
We could give back to police.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
police.
Yes?
We're right in the dark about the law and what it was purpose.
Police in general, you mean?
I know.
I have, I have, every six weeks, I have one on it.
I get together with the sheriff in Holmesburg County.
And the sheriff of America.
Okay.
And it's just, it's a casual outside of them.
Both of them will.
them will relay to us without providing details.
The intricacy and expands of police work going on across the state that does involve your local police.
We're talking drugs, child pornography, child molestation.
It's not just our police department immigrated.
There are service happening to and from
and from the sheriffs on all sorts of things.
And there's things that go on for months before they come to fruition.
And our police, they're not going to talk about them.
They shouldn't.
It's a problem.
When the sheriffs are sharing the topics of what they involve.
So, handbots involved here, Peterborough's involved here,
King's involved here.
This involved.
Dover and Manchester and Nashville.
And that's involved.
between there's a tremendous amount that I'm
I'm not saying that at all.
Yeah.
But I know it's brought that out
that they are doing a tremendous amount
in an umbrella capacity to provide safety.
And maybe there's a more efficient way to administer that.
And Devin, I just wanted to get back, you know, you were saying,
and maybe we should talk about this at our next meeting,
the mission scene.
the mission statement
Yeah, so you had suggested that maybe we need to revisit the mission statement.
And then Devin said,
and then Devin said, she thought that was a good idea
and asked, how is this different,
how is this committee's work different from the CIP?
And I think from my perspective,
the difference is that, one, is about the town's needs.
town's needs and this is about downward pressure where there is no other
place in town committees to look at that like reducing costs there's no it's not
the budget the budget committee would say I've been on the budget committee for
years now it's not the budget committee's role to determine the level of
services we just look at is the budget that is presented to us by the department
heads recently but there's no opportunity for downward pressure really at the
budget committee other than a conversation with the department
saying, gosh, you know, do you really need that much salt?
And even that is like a negotiation and it's like, well, you didn't, you're budget, you know, it's,
and it's like literally like almost pennies, you know, in the big picture.
And the CIP committee is basically their job is to collect all of these requests of $10,000 or more,
you know, life cycle or whatever, and put them on a spreadsheet and try to flatten the impact.
It's not to say,
You really don't need a truck then, you know, it's to flatten it.
So it's not, it's not a, it's collecting and displaying.
It's not like really diving in and making judgments on things.
Right.
So we, so we wanted to give it a world and see whether or not there were opportunities if we dug in to try to find those opportunities for downward pressure.
And, you know, we looked at, you know, different areas when we did that, you know, broke into something.
committee so so so should we add that to our agenda next time don did you want to say
something no oh okay revising or mentioned statement is that what you said well I think
that's what you had suggested right well I don't know I mean it just seems that this is our
third meeting talking about a service which hasn't gone out and hasn't happened yet and
may not or will not up through the next meeting
So this is the data that we're waiting for to do our data-driven thing.
We're saying we're being very, very thoughtful about it and making sure we get the data that was good helpful.
Yeah, I think that what we talked about, what the goal of it was to encourage civic engagement and to garner input from residents who don't attend town meeting.
So that's what we had said at our April meeting was the goal of the survey.
So it's a piece, I think, of the overall.
Not to push on the spot, Devin. But do you think there is a mechanism and maybe take the
question home and ponder it and then ponder it with your board members? Is there something
that this committee could do to support the select board in some of these things and, you
know, managing the tax rate? Is there, you know, um. Think about that.
How can we talk? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's what I said. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but, you know, you know,
The mission that we presented to the board a little over a year ago was what was there and does that still apply?
Is there more specific?
And it came out of a bumpy process, I think, you know, where there were a bunch of people who said,
hey, we need to do something, and the board said, yeah, okay, go go do something about, you know, these taxes and increases and things.
But I would say the early meetings were somewhat contentious.
And I think this committee, I don't think the select board said to this committee, go figure out taxes by feeling the select board was terrified of this committee.
Yes. Yes. Well, I'm just trying to be delicate about it. So what I'm suggesting is perhaps there's a way for this committee to support the select board in doing some of that. And if there is, that would be great.
Yeah. Because honestly, we don't being helping on it. Yeah. And honestly, we don't know.
We don't have a whole lot of power.
And so, like, I mean, if this isn't of utility to select board, we have better things to do, you know?
So, I mean, I also don't have a problem disbanding either.
You look at the town, and there's all the towns, and breaks it down by school, state.
Counting and, yep.
We're in a pretty good position relative to what we take to school.
We're under five-lawful.
A lot of towns are in seven or like in the middle of a pack. I've looked at that too.
Okay, that's because Lake Sonopi, that is concentrated in Newport.
The one half the budget is based on property.
And those two communities are going to half the budget and pay a bunch.
So our upper pupil cost is still under.
I think it's, I mean, not to betty.
I think it's a benefit.
Our town cost in over seven is probably a buck and a word for about 50 higher than many towns on size.
You scan across the state just in town.
I know that's what we're supposed to concentrate.
That seems to be bubbling.
It truly excludes the law online within on the town.
within our time.
Now, Loverie disappears in those sometimes
can go get to be a disaster
because they have no school
because they have opted to tuition cases.
That's not, that's not
here saying that you know.
People talk that for 20 years.
Well, so it sounds like at our next meeting,
we will revisit the mission statement
and whether or not needs to be revised, whether or not
Do we want to get feedback from the select work
before our next meeting as to what they think?
as to what they think we can do to help.
Well, I think Devin said that she'd think about it
and talk to the select board about it
and we'll put up, you know,
before the next meeting, we'll put a presentation together,
I guess we'll finalize a list at our next meeting
of topics that our committee would like to include
in the Pulse Survey and a, like a sample,
a sample Pulse survey, maybe, or like a template for a
whole survey and then maybe asked to join the select board at the meeting after that to present it and maybe
to ask their feedback at that meeting because I think it has to be public you know about
partnership between this committee and this select board what did help if we put
together a memo that we sent that could be part of do you get your do you get packets or anything
ahead of time.
Yeah.
It would be part of that.
Sure.
Maybe we should do that.
Okay.
Sounds like a good idea.
Or, yeah, or PowerPoint.
Yeah, just something for them to ponder ahead of time.
Sure.
Sounds good.
Any other new business?
Do I hear a motion to adjourn?
I'll make a motion to adjourn.
I'll make a motion to adjourn.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
I just wish we could get competed down from the town we were in in in Vernon.