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Town of Plainfield: Town's happy.

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Town of Plainfield: We're gonna open the meeting at, 6 o'clock. This is the special meeting of the Select Board to talk about the bond vote.

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Town of Plainfield: That is happening tomorrow.

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Town of Plainfield: This is the, discussion we want to have, we're required to have,

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Town of Plainfield: Prior to any vote that involves money. And, I would like to keep the discussion tonight focused on that issue, and not other things. But, we're happy to answer questions that we can answer.

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Town of Plainfield: We are talking about the bond vote tomorrow, or maybe, Dan, you could read what that is saying.

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Town of Plainfield: Tomorrow's ballot, it'll say, Article 1, Shall the Select Board be authorized, but not obligated, to issue general obligation bonds or notes in an amount not to exceed $600,000, subject to reduction by the application of federal and state grants and aid and reserve funds.

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Town of Plainfield: be issued for the purpose of acquiring real property located at 68 East Hill Road and 266 Main Street, the estimated cost of such acquisition being $600,000.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. That's, let's see, so we're just discussing this.

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Town of Plainfield: If anybody has questions about this particular bond vote, now is the time. I'd like to get a sense of who is going to have something to talk about. We would like to get people in a rotation so we don't have

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Town of Plainfield: you know, we have everybody have a chance to speak, including our Zoom members. So we have some speakers, one, two…

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Town of Plainfield: So far. Get those hands up, so that we can, see them. Thank you. Question askers, yes.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay, alright, well, let's, let's get started,

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Town of Plainfield: Would you like to start? Because you, let's use the mic, please, so everybody can hear.

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Town of Plainfield: Hi, can you hear me?

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Town of Plainfield: Yes, okay. Yeah, get close to it. Okay, get close. Okay. So, Victoria McDonald, and I just need a clarification of what's in here, just so I have a good understanding on the Article 1, where it says, subject to reduction by the application of federal and state grants in aid and reserve funds.

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Town of Plainfield: Are you saying that you have other funds that you might apply to the property that is not the 600, and you might not have to…

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Town of Plainfield: go after the whole 600K, you might vote for it for 600K, but you have other things you're applying to it? Is that what this means, or does it mean something different? Like, if the CDVGDR grant comes in less.

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Town of Plainfield: does that happen? That you still can move forward with purchasing the property? I wasn't clear on what this means, so I was just asking for clarification. Okay, well, the board has expressed their sense that if we don't get

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Town of Plainfield: a significant grant, we're not borrowing money. The project needs to be,

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Town of Plainfield: needs to go through in order for us to consider this. The reason we're doing it is to save money.

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Town of Plainfield: Because we can get the interest… the 2% interest rate, and we can, get all the income from the sale of the property back to the town.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, and the specific language and the way it's worded that way is from Vermont League of Cities and Towns, is where we got it, and what that means is the execution date for the purchase and sale agreements is the end of March.

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Town of Plainfield: And so, theoretically, between now and the end of March, something could change. We could find an extra amount of money.

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Town of Plainfield: And we can put that amount of money towards the sale, rather than borrowing the full $600. All it says is we're not locking ourselves into $600 as a figure, if we can reduce it using other ways. Okay. Do you have any, do you have any ideas, or already know of some monies that you might know? This is just in case you find… This is just in case. Okay. Yeah. Just to follow up on what Dan said, the language actually came from Bond County.

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Town of Plainfield: Which is why it says bond or notes, and somebody asked me earlier, well, which is it? And I said, it's wide open because that's the way the bond council said the right. Well, thank you, I appreciate the clarification.

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Town of Plainfield: Questions? I see one here.

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Town of Plainfield: Rita?

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Town of Plainfield: Hi everybody, I'm Lee Schubert. I just have one question. I missed some of that conversation. If we do not pass the $600,000 tomorrow, can you tell me what will happen?

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Town of Plainfield: We don't know, I guess is the answer.

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Town of Plainfield: We don't know… we still won't know what we're getting for the grant.

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Town of Plainfield: We don't know if there's other grants.

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Town of Plainfield: We do know that it will not look favorable on the town to not support a project like this. But, how that affects us, we just don't know what will happen. We'll have to address it as it comes.

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Town of Plainfield: So, excuse me, let me just clarify that. So, the project matters in my opinion. It is in my opinion.

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Town of Plainfield: Sorry, Lena. Get your steps in. So, just to clarify, you're saying that we may look for other sources of funding, or it does not necessarily stop the project, is what I'm interpreting your words.

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Town of Plainfield: Can I see it? Yes.

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Town of Plainfield: Correct. I mean, it wouldn't, in itself, stop the project. We would still be, potentially available to the $9.7 million grant could still come, other funding sources could still come. So, just like the in-person town meeting vote was an advisory vote to, allow us to see if we should move forward or not, this is also an advisory vote. This is about specific. The only thing on the ballot

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Town of Plainfield: tomorrow is specifically this $600,000, and whether the town should get a loan for a 2% interest rate to move… to buy the property. That's the only issue on the ballot tomorrow. It gives the board authority… Authority to do so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And doesn't guarantee that the board will decide to do that. We still have some questions ourselves about

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Town of Plainfield: the process. The readers of the CDBGDR grants from all over the two counties?

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Town of Plainfield: We should use the mic, too, so people on the… This is a microphone right here, just so you know. Yeah. Speak up a little bit. Thank you for that. Yes. With pleasure. So the readers of the grants…

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Town of Plainfield: They are going to determine, regardless of whether or not we pass the $600,000 authorization tomorrow.

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Town of Plainfield: They still are going to decide how much, if any, playing field is offered, and then it remains up to the Select Board to wayfind

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Town of Plainfield: A path forward from there.

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Town of Plainfield: Janice?

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. So, just as the name of Jenny Skrill.

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Town of Plainfield: Thanks. Just as the, town meeting vote was understood to be more than just a vote about the, reserve fund, I'm assuming that

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Town of Plainfield: you will, in some way, understand this vote to be a thumbs up or a thumbs down about the project itself, and I guess my question is that it's a kind of a…

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Town of Plainfield: subjective question, but will it mean anything to you in your decision to go forward with this project if there is a very strong showing that people are not supporting this? Thanks.

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Town of Plainfield: Well, I think it will mean something. We also have a lot of folks who would like to see it proceed, so we will probably keep addressing

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Town of Plainfield: Options that are brought to us.

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Town of Plainfield: But it definitely will be hurting.

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Town of Plainfield: Other thoughts, comments, questions?

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Town of Plainfield: Yes.

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Town of Plainfield: Identify yourself, please. I'm Jen Guarino, and I'm catching up, and I apologize if, this is redundant for some people, but I'm curious to know,

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Town of Plainfield: what the $600,000 would cover in terms of the purchase of the land and or, some of the building of the housing that is intended. So I guess I'm wondering, you know, what is the cost of the land itself?

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Town of Plainfield: And how… how is that intended to be funded? And then, how will the housing be… the development cost be covered? Does that make sense? Yes, I think it does. So there's actually 3 parcels being purchased.

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Town of Plainfield: Or being offered. We have a purchase and sale with the owners.

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Town of Plainfield: This, this money would be used to purchase that property.

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Town of Plainfield: And that's all.

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Town of Plainfield: The development of the land is up to the landowners, who would buy lots.

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Town of Plainfield: The idea is that the lots would be sold.

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Town of Plainfield: By the town, and the proceeds would come back to the town to pay off the loan.

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Town of Plainfield: and some more, I think, but certainly pay off the loan. That's the idea.

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Town of Plainfield: Peter? Yeah, there's something like $30,000 in there, which covers the normal closing costs, as well. You add up what's on the purchase and sales agreements, and then the rest is for closing costs.

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Town of Plainfield: And then meanwhile, the $600,000 is nested in the overall CDBGDR grant, the $9.7 million, minus some hundreds of thousands for other projects that we did include.

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Town of Plainfield: That's going to lay in the basic infrastructure, the village infrastructure, not the housing infrastructure. The roads, the utilities.

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Town of Plainfield: That is where…

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Town of Plainfield: So that gets the… that would get the project to a place where people could buy a lot and put up a house.

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Town of Plainfield: And it was… Favorable, strategically, to not include the $600,000 in the grant.

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Town of Plainfield: application, for reasons that were out of our control, is why this is a separate question, but it is nested in the acknowledgement that we did just apply for, you know, 9-plus million dollars in funding for this project.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, and as Francis Rose says, it's not just this project. We have a significant amount of work to do on the Winooski River banks that are starting to jeopardize homes.

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Town of Plainfield: Among other things. There's… there's more than just… just that.

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Town of Plainfield: Any other thoughts? Oh, sorry.

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Town of Plainfield: Hi, it's Ryan Geiger, Hudson Avenue Plainfield. I just wanted to clarify for Jen, or whoever just asked that question, that

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Town of Plainfield: the reason that we were recommending that the… we borrow the money to buy the land is that if we included the purchase of the land in the CDBGDR grant.

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Town of Plainfield: the town would not be able to keep the proceed… they would only be able to keep 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the fair market value lots. And if we borrow the money from the VCF, the town is able to keep all of the proceeds from the sale of the land.

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Town of Plainfield: Very good point, thank you.

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Town of Plainfield: Oh, I see… I saw, Karen, I think. Oh.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

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Town of Plainfield: Charlie Cockroach, I want to address the $600,000 directly.

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Town of Plainfield: This is a deal made without input from the town, rightfully so.

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Town of Plainfield: Because it was confidential and made through negotiations between the Select Board and the sellers of the land.

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Town of Plainfield: I would like to look closely at that. It is not a total one property, one price. It's three separate properties.

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Town of Plainfield: The three separate properties include Parcel C, which is the easternmost line on East Hill Road, that it was being sold for, or bought for, depending on what side of the transaction you were on, $285,000.

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Town of Plainfield: That is almost half of the total $600,000.

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Town of Plainfield: For the entire three parcels. It is only one-third of the area, and most of that is wetlands.

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Town of Plainfield: There's something flawed here.

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Town of Plainfield: More than half the price for a third of the property that's mostly wetlands.

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Town of Plainfield: Beyond that, The Select Board has had a secondary memorandum of understanding

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Town of Plainfield: that they will, after they acquire that piece of land, Parcel C,

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Town of Plainfield: We'll sell two-thirds of it to an adjacent landowner for $35,000.

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Town of Plainfield: They are putting up 285, and they're getting back 35. They are reserving 1.5 acres of parcel C that has 2.5 lots in the latest plan for the development.

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Town of Plainfield: Effectively, you are paying $250,000 for two and a half lots, one and a half acres.

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Town of Plainfield: I… I don't… my math isn't quite right there, but that's over $300,000.

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Town of Plainfield: an acre.

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Town of Plainfield: Oh, do I slide the floor? Yeah. Okay.

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Town of Plainfield: Secondly, in, bookending.

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Town of Plainfield: the new is a third parcel of about a half an acre, that's on Main Street.

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Town of Plainfield: That, is going to be bought for $80,000 in the purchase and sales agreements.

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Town of Plainfield: By the way, that is over the appraised price. I'm not going to discuss how far over, or how inequitable it might be. That was for the negotiations that took place in… outside of what we see.

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Town of Plainfield: However… That $80,000 has another memorandum of understanding that requires the town to demolish

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Town of Plainfield: The pad and the mobile home that's on it now.

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Town of Plainfield: to provide a new mobile home, to provide one of the lots in the new development for that mobile home. It doesn't say the price, but I assume it's free.

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Town of Plainfield: And also provide 3 years of housing and utilities for the renter of that mobile home.

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Town of Plainfield: So even though you're buying it for $80,000, you are incurring between $100,000 and $200,000 of incurred expenses for that lot, which is another $250,000.

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Town of Plainfield: For a half an acre. I wouldn't want to calculate the price of that.

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Town of Plainfield: There is something flawed in this deal. Not the whole deal, but the two pieces of the three pieces of the deal. I'm not saying it's flawed, legally.

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Town of Plainfield: I'm saying it's flawed common sense.

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Town of Plainfield: The negotiations came up with a deal that many would consider inadequate.

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Town of Plainfield: Maybe it's necessary.

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Town of Plainfield: But it isn't fair.

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Town of Plainfield: And I would like to hear your comments on why you think

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Town of Plainfield: The deal that you made is fair and adequate.

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Town of Plainfield: Peter? Yeah. Charlie, there's two parts to your question, the relocation of the trailer on that particular parcel, and then the Lot C, arrangement. Lot C, which we are purchasing from Syringa Investments.

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Town of Plainfield: You are correct, there's a memorandum of Understanding, and I wrote about this today, online, if you follow that stuff, but,

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Town of Plainfield: is being sold to the hospitals.

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Town of Plainfield: Who maintain, currently, a right of first refusal on the property, and also agricultural liens that prohibit certain activities.

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Town of Plainfield: So the exchange of money is not just for property, it is for the release of liens and right of first refusal. The three remaining properties

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Town of Plainfield: are the developable three lots. And those are of most value to the rest of the project, as is the revocation of the liens and the understanding that the access road, the wetlands protection, buffer zones, etc, will continue. So it is a more complicated than it looks.

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Town of Plainfield: And that is, all of this was done by our attorney, in negotiations, which are confidential, but, that's, that's on that particular parcel. In terms of the,

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Town of Plainfield: the, trailer, the other, the other lot. It is a requirement, a federal requirement, and I'm not gonna remember the name of the relocation Act.

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Town of Plainfield: That requires us to make accommodations if someone needs to be located for the use of federal funds to go ahead. All of those costs, whatever they may be, are going to be covered by the grant.

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Town of Plainfield: Laura? Do you want me to stand up? Yes, please, yeah, just that we need you to be able to be heard by… by others.

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Town of Plainfield: Just to clarify, the, the provision to rehouse a person in the trailer is called the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970. That's why I didn't remember it. Yeah, it's a federal law that provides a uniform, fair, and equitable approach for acquiring real property and assisting people displaced by federally funded projects.

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Town of Plainfield: Go ahead, Charlie, then we'll get to whoever else. I'm not trying to debate this. What I'm pointing out is that a precedent is being set.

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Town of Plainfield: A precedent is being set to give away parts of the original lots.

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Town of Plainfield: Which, by the way, giving away 5 acres of wetlands will change the potential for a PUD in front of the Plainfield Development Review Board as open land.

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Town of Plainfield: It's selling part of, or giving away part of the land before then. Also, it's setting a precedent of giving away a lot and putting a mobile home on it.

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Town of Plainfield: I hope this is not the precedent for the entire development.

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Town of Plainfield: Oh, sorry. And I'll just note, it's moving of the mobile home that this tenant already lives in, so this tenant, long-term tenant in this property, is living in it, it will get moved to the new location, and all we're doing is trying to… the landlord of that property, the owner of that property, did not want to sell if their tenant was going to be unhoused in any way, and so this

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Town of Plainfield: This was a way for us to continue to let them be housed.

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Town of Plainfield: And again, we're just following federal law on the ways that we can do that, and, and again, all those costs are gonna be, and I don't think it's precedent.

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Town of Plainfield: setting, necessarily. It could be a model if it works really well that we decide to do, but like anything else, nothing that… no actions that we take as select board members ties the hands of future select board members or future select boards to follow any kind of specific thing. So, I think trying to act like this is the Supreme Court and everything we do as a precedent seems a little irrational to me. And then I would add, the…

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Town of Plainfield: remaining detailed not yet spoken about the Main Street parcel is its value to the project as a sewage transfer, a gravity-fed sewage

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Town of Plainfield: flow point off of the property, which, if we didn't do that, we'd be setting ourselves up for $100,000 per year in maintenance of a pump, pumping sewage uphill. And I want to say something that,

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Town of Plainfield: Charlie.

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Town of Plainfield: You are taking details that are true about this project, but you're taking them out of context.

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Town of Plainfield: Yes, you can, like, zoom in, and it makes no sense, but the people who have created this and brought it here have done so for thoughtful reasons. For example, saving $100,000 a year in maintenance.

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Town of Plainfield: Meanwhile.

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Town of Plainfield: The parcels left over on parcel C, the sale of those parcels make back the cost to the town.

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Town of Plainfield: And, not yet spoken, the sale of the lots, using the $600,000 that we might borrow.

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Town of Plainfield: Allows us to recoup that 600,000 plus hundreds of thousands more.

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Town of Plainfield: I'm not taking it out of context without having advanced knowledge of what's going on, and I don't. This is the first opportunity that the public has had a chance to listen to this. And I object to being saying I'm taking it out of context when I am asking for an explanation that the populace of this town deserves.

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Town of Plainfield: Eli, you wanna… you wanna raise your hand up? Yeah, sure. And then, I see you back there, Sandy. Yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: Hi, my name is Eli Barlow. This is… I'm… I want to directly talk to you, Charlie.

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Town of Plainfield: Charlotte, great. Okay.

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Town of Plainfield: you're asking these questions, I agree, I wanted to know about this sales agreement, too, and I don't know all the details, and, it was never my responsibility to do that negotiation, so I don't know all the details, right?

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Town of Plainfield: You ended by saying you don't want the gift and housing of some… of a renter to be a precedent, and you don't want a mobile home to go on that land.

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Town of Plainfield: You didn't say that.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay, what… okay, what did you say?

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Town of Plainfield: I said that this could be interpreted as a precedent. That doesn't mean I agree with it or disagree with it. I'm saying what the appearance of it is. Got it.

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Town of Plainfield: it felt to me like you were saying that you didn't want that precedent to be set, and I, okay, I just want it for the public, right? You are saying that you are okay with that… you're not saying whether you're okay or not with that precedent being set. It's just worth noting that I am okay with that precedent being set. Eli, can we focus?

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Town of Plainfield: I'm not kidding. Yeah. Did you get your point through that you had? Okay, great. Sandy?

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Town of Plainfield: That's true.

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Town of Plainfield: Hi, I'm here only to make a very small point that's in the side. I'm Sandy Fitz-Tume, I'm living up here. It's a really earnest discussion tonight, and, I don't live in Plainfield, but I'm very impressed with it. It does not happen in other towns. It's actually a very fortunate thing.

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Town of Plainfield: to have an act of democracy. And I also appreciate the level of discretion being used tonight. I want to point out, I got an email from the owner of the trailer, and his name was beginning to be dragged into Front Porch Forum postings.

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Town of Plainfield: And on Facebook, and it's distressing. It's distressing for people's names and their financial situations to begin to be broadcasted.

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Town of Plainfield: Please, when you are posting on these media, please think about how it would feel if your financial information were being shared publicly. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy.

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Town of Plainfield: Is there anybody up on screen? Karen's got a hand up. Oh, yeah, Karen, sorry. Karen Hasher, Town Grants Administrator. I did want to just respond to an earlier question about what happens next.

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Town of Plainfield: If the vote, passes or fails. And, part of what happens next is on November 20th, there is, a board meeting where the funding committee hears from each of the towns who have applied.

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Town of Plainfield: for funding.

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Town of Plainfield: To hear what we have, what progress we have made on our application since we submitted it.

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Town of Plainfield: And, I am that representative from our town, and for this application. And, I really hope…

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Town of Plainfield: That we can figure our way through to say yes on this, because it puts us in a far stronger position for me to walk in and let that group know that our town

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Town of Plainfield: Has skin in the game. Has figured out that we need to make an investment to be able to accept up to $10 million.

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Town of Plainfield: For our revitalization. That's part of what happens next. If I walk in and don't have good news around that.

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Town of Plainfield: But maybe we have other options. Other options could be good news. But… We have been told.

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Town of Plainfield: That, a no vote.

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Town of Plainfield: Definitely drops us in terms of

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Town of Plainfield: How we're seen, in terms of the commitment the town is willing to make to match

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Town of Plainfield: What this grant could be for us.

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Town of Plainfield: So I… so I just want to put that out there, because this is… this is the reality of this.

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Town of Plainfield: I will go in and report whatever it is, whatever the town decides.

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Town of Plainfield: But I will tell you that we will be in a far worse position if we vote this no.

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Town of Plainfield: Dan? And am I correct? $9.7 million is a lot of money. It is. It's all of our taxpayer money. That $9.7 million is being spent

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Town of Plainfield: whether we get it or another town gets it. That's correct. It's not going to save any taxpayer of this town money if we don't get the $9.7 million. That's correct. Barry has 7 projects being put before that committee.

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Town of Plainfield: So, Art, this is our one.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. I got Jake, and then, and then Vicki.

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Town of Plainfield: J3? I just want to add to Karen's point that, if I'm understanding correctly, this $9.7 million

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Town of Plainfield: isn't just for this project. This is to reinforce banks in other areas of town where other homes are already at risk, to make sure that they don't fall into the river in the future. So, if we vote no on this, we are not only

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Town of Plainfield: We are not only saying that we don't want the funding for this new project, but that also we are less likely to get funding to retain current housing stock and current long-time residents, is that correct?

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Town of Plainfield: I… yeah, it might be a reach, honestly, but yes. But we're less… Jared said we're less likely to get the $1.7 million, which would not just be for this project, but for several other projects. Yes, that's correct, that's correct.

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Town of Plainfield: Yes, you already had your hand up. My question is similar.

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Town of Plainfield: Name it.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, name again, please. Yeah, my name is Jen Guarino.

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Town of Plainfield: Excuse me. So I was curious what the, 9.7 was earmarked for, and so thank you, Kate, wherever you are.

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Town of Plainfield: For asking that question. Then I had a follow-up question, and now I've forgotten what it is. And just for anybody who's interested in the $9.7 million, we had a hearing back in September that went for, like, 4 hours, and the recording is online, and it gets into every single possible detail about that grant and what it would be used for. And the application. …is online.

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Town of Plainfield: But just in a quick summary, it pays for the infrastructure, as Francis Rose said, it pays for professional project management for 5 years, it does some investments with Habitat for Humanity and Downstreet for some special low-income

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Town of Plainfield: housing, it does the relocation, it's the match on the grant that protects the Winooski Riverbank behind Martin Meadow and the Health Center. Those are some of the major highlights, but there's a lot more in there.

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Town of Plainfield: But it's there to look at. I did remember my follow-up. So, is, you know, initially, when the floods happened, we were expecting some FEMA funds to come in.

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Town of Plainfield: Is FEMA completely out of the picture?

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Town of Plainfield: Nope.

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Town of Plainfield: I wouldn't say it's out of the picture, but there's certainly a lot of disruption. It's not being handled normally, and it may be at risk, we don't know. This is an opportunity. Would you like me to answer that? Oh, yeah. Let's get the expert. So, the FEMA Public Assistance Program, which will pay for

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Town of Plainfield: Our repairs to roads, bridges, culverts.

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Town of Plainfield: Water, wastewater, outside of Cork Road. We have, $1.5 million in projects in the FEMA portal. We do expect, I've got my treasurer here with the spreadsheet, with all of it, but, so we have, we have, money we expect.

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Town of Plainfield: From FEMA.

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Town of Plainfield: Wow, Josh, this is huge. Is that just for me? That is the total cost.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah. And then the, yeah, yeah, 1.744 million of the federal share that we expect. That's what's happening with FEMA. There's also a series of… are there new… how many projects for Federal Highway?

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Town of Plainfield: Now? 12 projects for Federal Highway? 12. That amount to… somewhere between 6 and 8 million is what we think, right? When all is said and done? Yes. Somewhere in there. All in play. Still in play.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay. And there's also personal assist… individual assistance? Individual assistance also happened with FEMA. That… that already happened. The buyouts are still… thank you. Buyout coordinator. How many? We have 38 housing units in…

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Town of Plainfield: 27 buildings? 27 buildings, 38 housing units in the FEMA buyout program. How many want buyouts? All of them have applied. All of them have applied.

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Town of Plainfield: Those are all in the program. In process. Okay, that's the whole thing. Thank you, thank you for that clarification. I have an online question from Alana.

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Alana Norway: Hello, my name's Elena, Norway, and I'm wondering about… so I heard that there were other projects, I'm pretty familiar with the grant.

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Alana Norway: application.

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Alana Norway: And it seems like, it's been talked about here tonight that there is

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Alana Norway: Houses that are threatened to be

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Alana Norway: Put in the river, and, it's my understanding that the grant is gonna pay for the match for $300,000, for the other grant that was already received or gotten, and that it will

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Alana Norway: The only one threatened is the driveway to the church down here, and there are no other homes that are threatened.

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Alana Norway: So I just wanted to clarify that, because I think it was far-reaching, the person that spoke before, or a couple people that have mentioned that there's other things that this grant is going to be used for, and that it's going to save houses that are about to fall in the river, and that… that's not right. Okay, thanks.

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Town of Plainfield: Karen's gonna answer that question for you. So, the Emergency Watershed Protection Grant started out at $300,000, Alana, and it went up to $1.1 million, 1.2. And so the match…

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Town of Plainfield: became, 25%, so that was the $250,000… 300,000, because it… about $300,000. You're right that it is not homes exactly along that river. The erosion along the river is from the, from the Friends Meeting House.

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Town of Plainfield: property along to the Plainfield Health Center, and the erosion is happening, and it's eating out… eating underneath the,

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Town of Plainfield: Eating the bed, so, from the bottom. Trying to keep shaking the bed. But that's the laywoman's, version of it. There are reports, and there are things that we are waiting for the federal

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Town of Plainfield: government to be back in. They furloughed all of the people who would help us with this, so…

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Town of Plainfield: So that's… that matching fund is for that section of the Winooski. Okay. Okay.

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Alana Norway: So there's not actually houses that are being threatened, correct? There is a driveway…

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Town of Plainfield: There are properties that are threatened. It's properties that are threatening. I think we have to leave it.

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Alana Norway: I know, but I just wanted to clarify, because it really… it made it sound more like people might go, oh, there's a lot of houses that are threatened, and this is going to help them, and it's not true. So thank you very much.

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Town of Plainfield: Right, that was clarification, yep. Yes. And then, Judith?

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Town of Plainfield: Ricky McDonald, I think… I don't know who it was, but the person before Karen, I think had another part of a question that wasn't quite maybe answered. I know Karen can answer it. But it had to do with the FEMA buyout currently, and was that money at risk for coming to Plainfield? I was just wondering if she could just respond to that.

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Town of Plainfield: Or, or maybe Aaron? Or Aaron. Yeah, we can get an answer, I think. Aaron Boomeri, speaking in as the bio coordinator for the town, Michael Billingsley had a meeting, in-person meeting here in Plainfield 2 or… and I, we, with them, two or three weeks ago with state staff, and, the, the gist of that conversation was.

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Town of Plainfield: Things are moving forward. They're moving forward very, very slowly. They're, you know, but they have no reason to think that the buyouts that were submitted in 2023, which are… which all are actually much further along, have been approved, and there are 3 of those.

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Town of Plainfield: on School Street, and all of those from 2024 are still in process. And we'll continue to receive

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Town of Plainfield: regular requests for additional information, which they find encouraging. However, that doesn't tell us how much longer,

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Town of Plainfield: to wait, but there's no reason to think that it will not come. There are many buyouts all across the state that manage all of those. Some of them had to be resubmitted to four times because of administrative change requests.

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Town of Plainfield: So I… but they have been very diligent and on top of it.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

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Town of Plainfield: Janiece Grill, I just, want clarity if it's possible about this watershed grant, after the 4-hour hearing and after the answer here. I still don't understand. If… does not…

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Town of Plainfield: the grantor have the ability to give us money for just that, if they choose? I mean, or is it the all-or-nothing kind of a situation? It's true. They have the option of granting some part of, but not all of.

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Town of Plainfield: the grant application. Okay, so it's not at risk, if this loan is voted down. Well, it's all part of the same grant, so they would make that decision based on the facts here.

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Town of Plainfield: And we don't know how they will make that decision, if they will decide to fully fund 10 projects and not fund any at all. Like, that's all up to that board who's gonna make that decision. No, sure, but there's nothing about how this vote goes that would have any bearing on whether they granted the money for the watershed project, right? We don't actually know that. We have heard from our grants administrator that

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Town of Plainfield: But a voting no will weaken the overall grant application, and so that may make it less likely, we don't know that for sure, but it… That would seem really unreasonable. Well, that's government. Yes, Lita, yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: I'm still Lee Schubert. I, am not totally demented. I am old, but not totally demented, and I am confused. So, at town meeting, we had a sort of bizarre vote, and everybody took that to mean that we would move forward with the project, although really, we were creating a fund, a place for a fund. There hasn't been any opportunity to really discuss that

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Town of Plainfield: fund, or the project, since then, as I understand. So, going back to my first question.

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Town of Plainfield: If the town votes no tomorrow, if that should happen, and we… which means we don't want to vote $600,000, I would think that would be a vote from the town, indicating that they do not want to proceed with the project. So I'm still confused about why we would continue to make further steps forward, and I'll just stand here in case something occurs to me.

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Town of Plainfield: Which is unlikely. Here's… go ahead, Keith. No, you start a question.

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Town of Plainfield: I'm not quite sure… I know what you're saying. The, first of all, the $600,000 is only if we can secure the funding for a project.

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Town of Plainfield: There's no point in the town buying the land if there's no project. So… so that's… it's not a guarantee the town is going to do it.

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Town of Plainfield: It has a lot to do… So… oh, go ahead, Carl, sorry. So, the point is that we want authorization if conditions are such that it makes sense to borrow up to $600,000.

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Town of Plainfield: for the purchase of the land. But that won't happen with this board. We've talked about this numerous times, that,

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Town of Plainfield: If we don't get funding to do the rest of the project from grants.

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Town of Plainfield: There's no point in buying the land.

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Town of Plainfield: Like, may I, may I? Yeah, please. Yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: I hear your, I hear you. I think I want to go back to the town meeting vote, which is where you began.

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Town of Plainfield: It was… yes, we read that as, like, a yes to continue to explore the project. You know, just to name that this board has been in unanimous support for the exploration of this project.

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Town of Plainfield: If the town votes down $600,000, that is…

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Town of Plainfield: A devastating blow to the exploration. But does that absolutely kill the exploration? No.

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Town of Plainfield: There are backup plans, there are Plan Bs to explore. And I'm sort of confused about why we're having the vote, because, I mean, I know we have to legally, but if we are saying we don't want to appropriate this money.

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Town of Plainfield: it's an indication to me that we don't want this project to continue, but you're saying

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Town of Plainfield: I'll just get to you in a sec. Well, I mean, I'm doing it for Carl's benefit, not for your benefit. He has trouble getting my attention sometimes. Finish lead. No, I forgot my train of thought. I mean, I'm just gonna say… It would be a big data point, right? So, I… so we, you know, every select board member is a different person.

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Town of Plainfield: on the town meeting day, we were asked explicitly, as a select board member, how do you see this reserve fund vote? And I said, and I went back to the recording to make sure that I actually said this, because it's how I remember it, I would see this vote as a, let's move forward, permission for the Select Board to put time and effort into it. I will see this data point as a data point that we slow down.

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Town of Plainfield: we're looking at. But if we get $9.7 million to work on this project, and improve the town, and add infrastructure, and do these things, that's also a data point. And we aren't asking the town, should we do this project or not. And I will be reminded by folks who have come to us a lot since the town meeting vote.

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Town of Plainfield: The words on the paper are what people are voting on.

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Town of Plainfield: And so we shouldn't… we shouldn't. I've heard multiple people say, we shouldn't have overreacted on town meeting day and done too much on the project, and so, depending on tomorrow as well, we shouldn't overreact, and then all of a sudden just say the project is dead. That's where I come from with this.

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Town of Plainfield: No further questions.

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Town of Plainfield: Jake?

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Town of Plainfield: Leah, I was also… Jake McBride's my name, not only shipper. Leah, I wanted to also just address what you said about how this

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Town of Plainfield: this… if this goes through as a no, that's the town saying, no, we don't want to do this project. And I think I interpret it more as, no, we don't want to borrow this money. I know there's a lot of people who are worried about the financial risk of borrowing this money.

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Town of Plainfield: And, for example, would be okay with another grant, who our absolute amazing grant coordinator over here could find us in the future that could fund buying the property. So I guess I don't take this as a no.

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Town of Plainfield: we're, like, we're done. For example, I'm… I am a little nervous about borrowing money, even after all the… all the details. And still, I want… I would like to see the project continue forward, to continue to explore. I'm not like, let's just do it right now. I want to continue at a reasonable pace.

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Town of Plainfield: But I do see this vote as separate from, yes or no, we want the project to continue. It's just, do we want to take this particular financial move that sounds like it would be beneficial to the town in the long run, but would be a risk in the short run? And I just… I don't know if that's helpful clarification, but…

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

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Town of Plainfield: Yes, go ahead.

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Town of Plainfield: Hey, Jen, Laurino? I'm curious about the Vermont Community Foundation loan. So, my understanding is it's a 2% loan.

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Town of Plainfield: What is the payback period on that? Do you know at this point in time?

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Town of Plainfield: We know, I don't, I don't know personally. I don't remember. I don't remember it either. Josh knows. Oh, Josh. Hi there. Will you go on the mic, just so that…

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Town of Plainfield: Josh Bits, town treasurer, hits a…

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Town of Plainfield: 5-year loan with a 2% cyclical and true standing rate.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. So if, if it's a no vote tomorrow, a 600,000 bond,

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Town of Plainfield: Would Vermont Community Foundation still be willing to loan us this money, or are they also watching this vote to see what the tenor of the town is?

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Town of Plainfield: The loan… this loan requires a vote.

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Town of Plainfield: Requires a vote, and if the vote is no.

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Town of Plainfield: We can't borrow. We won't borrow, we can't borrow. Correct. Like, yeah, not from BCE. From BCS perspective, but from the town's perspective. Could someone else offer us a loan? Sure, we'd have to vote on that, too, depending on the terms, etc. There are Vermont laws that require us to take certain…

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Town of Plainfield: of financial moves to the voters, depending on the terms, the amount, how long, etc. Right. But this particular loan is tied to a yes vote for tomorrow. Correct. Yes. Yep.

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Town of Plainfield: Michael.

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Town of Plainfield: Hey everyone, it's Michael Brunbaum.

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Town of Plainfield: Absolutely, this vote is specifically about the loan. This has been a requirement.

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Town of Plainfield: Because it's told yes, you have the authority to borrow.

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Town of Plainfield: Random if you need to.

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Town of Plainfield: And he's sort of, no, you don't.

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Town of Plainfield: But I have to say, to everyone in this room, That it's naive to think

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Town of Plainfield: That this isn't a referendum.

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Town of Plainfield: Everybody in the whole town knows that this is a referendum on whether they feel good about the project.

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Town of Plainfield: And yes, you're only voting on what we talked about, what's in the bond.

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Town of Plainfield: But it's clearly a referendum on whether they think the project is a good idea or not.

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Town of Plainfield: I disagree.

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Town of Plainfield: I want to be included.

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Town of Plainfield: Oh, I'm sorry. Jared Birchmore, yeah, I just want to respond to that and say that I think that is a personal, projection of what you, perceive this vote to be, Michael, and I wouldn't…

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Town of Plainfield: ask the Select Board to assume that everyone that is voting yes or no on this is…

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Town of Plainfield: a referendum on the interest in the project going forward. It is specifically a vote on this form of funding, and whether voters agree or don't agree with pursuing this method of funding. I think…

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Town of Plainfield: assuming grander, conclusions is blowing the vote out of proportion of what it actually is. Thanks. Thanks. Steve, you had your hand up.

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Town of Plainfield: Steven Hardin,

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Town of Plainfield: There seems to be an idea that,

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Town of Plainfield: we're voting on one thing or another. My impression is that

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Town of Plainfield: If we were simply voting to go forward with this project, and money wasn't a consideration.

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Town of Plainfield: The tenor of the conversation and the outcome of the vote would be, I'm a little different than if the only question is, are we going to borrow half a million bucks?

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Town of Plainfield: Fortunately, in order to do one, we have to do the other, so the questions are kind of tied together.

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Town of Plainfield: I thought I understood what was the deal here, and now I'm not so sure that I do. I was of the impression we're getting all kinds of grants, and you graded them, and that the town is simply borrowing money to buy land, that's it.

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Town of Plainfield: But when you read the article, it sounded to me as if there was a possibility there would be some grant money to help in the purchase of the land as well. Am I mistaken in that?

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Town of Plainfield: It is not that there is grant money. It is language that allows, if we find grant money or other ways.

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Town of Plainfield: to bring down these costs, we would take out a smaller loan. It is a… it is allowing for that as a possibility, rather than… so this article doesn't lock us into actually borrowing the money, it just allows the select board to do it, and it doesn't lock us into the $600,000 if we find ways. But we're not saying that there are ways to make it lower, we're saying if we find ways. So when you say… you're not saying there are ways, is that your way of saying…

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Town of Plainfield: If you don't have any aces up your sleeve, or any ideas.

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Town of Plainfield: But we think we actually can do this or that. If you have any ideas, you're not sharing them. I don't think we're… I don't think we have them. We're not in that position. One, most of the hard work in this work is from our grant administrator and from the EBEAC, the advisory committee.

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Town of Plainfield: So, both of those things can either be in grant reports or in those committee meeting minutes, so, like, there's no… there's no hidden anything on this. Right. Right? Like, this is all… so we're not, yeah, we don't have, like, some secret Plan B or something, like, that's just not… No, no, no, but I'm just wondering if there is an option that…

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Town of Plainfield: at least I'm not aware of. So, I don't analyze this stuff on the same granular level that Charlie does, but,

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Town of Plainfield: Basically, half a million is gonna buy all the parcels for this project, is that correct? Correct.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay, now, the next question I have for you is, and maybe you can answer it, but at least like us to think about it. It seems to be that we're in a kind of a…

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Town of Plainfield: bipolar thought in town here, which is that we're gonna buy the land, we're gonna sell the lots, the town's gonna be made whole, everything's gonna be loved. Or the other option is, we're gonna buy the land, and everything's gonna go to hell for whatever reason, and the town's gonna be stuck with the bill.

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Town of Plainfield: There doesn't seem to be any thought about anything in between. And it strikes me that the possibilities are more likely to lie in between those two extremes. So, a couple of questions. One is, do you have an idea what's most likely to happen?

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Town of Plainfield: And if we did wind up having to pay off the whole thing.

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Town of Plainfield: what does that look like? We take out a bond and borrow money and pay it off over the next 30 years? What's that gonna do to our tax rate? And everybody's scared of this thing.

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Town of Plainfield: Or, well, everybody is, but the folks who are urging us to vote no are scared of it. And I'd just like to know, okay, what's the price tag if this thing goes belly up? You know, the average tax rate per 100,000? Do you have any idea what the effect would be? So…

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Town of Plainfield: We have some idea of what to be scared of as we want to be scared. Thanks. Before Josh answers the question, I want to clarify what the question is.

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Town of Plainfield: I want to clarify what the question is, and you say, if the whole thing goes to hell. What do you mean, the whole thing, and on the hook for it? Are you talking about the loan? You have to ask the people that are voting no what they're afraid of. I'm just asking on their behalf, what's happening with this town?

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Town of Plainfield: with what they're afraid of happens. Okay, I'd like Josh to tell us what the question was, or answer the question.

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Town of Plainfield: Alright.

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Town of Plainfield: A 30-year bond.

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Town of Plainfield: Which even suggested… With level annual payments.

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Town of Plainfield: a $1 million bond. Let's say at the end of all of the recovery efforts.

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Town of Plainfield: on the hook for a million dollars, and we decided to… because the BCF loan that we're voting on.

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Town of Plainfield: It's not…

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Town of Plainfield: like, what we're gonna end up at the end point. The end point is everything that we're working on.

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Town of Plainfield: Realigning Brook Road, putting bridges in, all of the other things that we're talking about.

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Town of Plainfield: At the end point of the town, we're on the hook.

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Town of Plainfield: For a million dollars, with no improvement to the grandmas from where it is now. And, mind you, if we don't do this project, the grand list will shrink, and if we do this project, the grandmas will grow. So let's say, net-net, the grandmas as well.

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Town of Plainfield: A 30-year, $1 million bond For the median… Grand list value.

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Town of Plainfield: which the home value would be $355,000, and I got this number from…

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Town of Plainfield: Gary Smith, who's one of our listeners, and confirmed it with the actual grand list, so it is correct and true.

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Town of Plainfield: Per day, for 30 years, you will pay a quarter of a dollar, 25 cents, every day for 30 years.

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Town of Plainfield: And in the course of a year, that's about $91 or so dollars.

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Town of Plainfield: Every 2 weeks, for the median taxpayer, a level annual payment of 30… for a 30-year bond, every 2 weeks is about $3.40. We are talking about…

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Town of Plainfield: Not significant amounts of money in everyone's daily cash flow for us to pay a million dollars over 30 years.

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Town of Plainfield: And if your home value has doubled, Well, that's…

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Town of Plainfield: 50 cents, a half dollar. Like, used to be John F. Kennedy on that coin. Don't see those around much anymore. If you have 4 times the home value on your grandma's value from the median, that's a silver dollar.

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Town of Plainfield: Or a sac of Julia, or we'll take a… we'll take a Susan B. Anthony, if you're, like, feeling, like, you know, cool about it. Like, so, when we talk about the actual, like, individual's payment to this, like, eventuality of recovery.

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Town of Plainfield: We are not talking about

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Town of Plainfield: what it costs to buy a cup of coffee at the Plainfield Hardware Store. We are talking about something that is less than half of the price of a cup of coffee at the Plainfield Hardware Store for a million dollars. So…

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Town of Plainfield: at the end of all of this, when we have to actually provide our share of all of these projects, it is not going to be significant to everyone's bottom line day to day. Okay. And I'm not as good at math as Josh is, but, based on his numbers.

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Town of Plainfield: If we're only talking about 600,000,

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Town of Plainfield: That would be, for the median household income, a year.

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Town of Plainfield: would be $54.75. So, that would be potentially what's at risk for folks. That's worst case scenario. That's if we had to bond… if we had to do a 30-year bond on the $600,000, we're talking about…

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Town of Plainfield: each resident paying $54.75 a year. So, and I think… I think that's the cleanest answer to the question. And I think we have to look at… that's the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is, we have families that are building homes, bringing kids into the school, and adding to the tax base. That's the best case scenario. So, maybe it's somewhere in the middle, I don't know, but…

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Town of Plainfield: It's… it's… I think we… if we look at extremes, we're always gonna see something we like or don't like. Janice, you stood up, let's get… and then I have Andy, and then…

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Town of Plainfield: Okay. Thank you,

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Town of Plainfield: So, I'll go backwards. First, to this question of fear and, money. I know that this is America, and, you know, money is all anyone really cares about, but this is also Vermont, and, you know, it's been asked multiple times, would you give away $10 million?

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Town of Plainfield: Would you not accept $10 million? And I would say yes, if that $10 million is for something that could be damaging to the town, and I don't mean just financially. From the beginning, this project has been too big. From the beginning, it has not…

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Town of Plainfield: respected the… what the land can handle environmentally, and I don't think it's good to spend money on something that's bad. Second point about the referendum, about the loan vote, and what it is and what it is not, I think it's important to understand that, of course, everyone has an individual feeling about that, but we don't have any other opportunity

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Town of Plainfield: to have a referendum on what the town wants about this. There is… I think, you know, some board members have suggested that they might.

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Town of Plainfield: float some kind of, referendum on what people feel, but there's no legal requirement. Many other board members have said no, they don't want to do that. So this vote is the only chance that playing fielders have, the whole playing field, not just the people who show up at town meeting to say whether we support this project or not, and I think that's important. Thanks.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Andy?

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Town of Plainfield: I'm Andy Robinson, I live on Lower Road. I want to talk about risk for a minute.

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Town of Plainfield: When you borrow money, there are two parties taking risks. There is the lender and the borrower.

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Town of Plainfield: And in most cases, the lenders are taking a bigger risk than the borrower, because they may not get paid back. In this case, our lender is Vermont Community Foundation. They are the largest charitable organization in the state of Vermont. They make grants, they also make loans.

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Town of Plainfield: And we worked with them, they gave us some of the loans to move the Plainfield Co-op up to Route 2, work closely with their loan people, and I want to say this in the best sense of the word, they are hard asses.

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Town of Plainfield: They do not loan money lightly.

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Town of Plainfield: I know the guy who runs the program, he talks to me about the number of people he turns down for loans, because they don't meet the qualifications.

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Town of Plainfield: And so these are risk management professionals, and they think this is a legitimate, viable project.

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Town of Plainfield: They look at it, and they go, this is a risk worth taking, and their risk is actually greater than ours as a taxpayer.

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Town of Plainfield: 1.

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Town of Plainfield: 2.

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Town of Plainfield: We have amazing partners on this project. We have Habitat for Humanity, we have Downstream Housing, they are the two premier affordable housing developers in our region.

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Town of Plainfield: They have skin in the game. They are risk management professionals, too.

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Town of Plainfield: They're not going to come in on a project like this if they think it's financially viable, if they think it's environmentally destructive, if they think it's not compliant with the law, and they're all in. And in fact, Angie sent a letter to the Select Board, which maybe we'll read into the record, about how excited they are about this project.

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Town of Plainfield: So we have risk management professionals who are looking at this project, and they're saying, you know, this is a good bet.

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Town of Plainfield: And so, the messages I'm getting, I have neighbors, God bless them.

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Town of Plainfield: Who tell me this is a risky project.

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Town of Plainfield: And then I have professionals who tell me it's actually a pretty good thing.

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Town of Plainfield: And I'm sort of old-fashioned, like, I listen to experts. If my doctor tells me to do something for my health, I do it. If my accountant tells me to do something for taxes, I do it. And in this case, there are professionals who are telling us, this is a viable project.

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Town of Plainfield: So, I think the risk messaging around this

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Town of Plainfield: is very frustrating to me. Because we're hearing… people are speaking their fear, but then the professionals come in and say, you know what, this is legit.

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Town of Plainfield: And I think there's a different risk we're not talking about, which is reputational risk.

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Town of Plainfield: We have invited the Community Foundation, and Habitat, and Downstreet to our table, and they are sitting at the table, and they are the big kids, and we are now at the big kids table.

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Town of Plainfield: And if we say to the big kids, you know, we changed our mind. We don't want to do this.

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Town of Plainfield: The odds of them coming back in the future and supporting us in the ways that they can support us also go down.

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Town of Plainfield: So I don't think we're only putting the $9.7 million at somewhat risk. I think we're putting the town's reputation at risk.

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Town of Plainfield: We want to be a town that says yes, we want to be a town that does stuff, we want to be a town that's proactive.

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Town of Plainfield: So, I mean, I'm clearly in favor of this project, and one of the reasons I'm in favor of this project is because there's people who I trust and admire, who are professionals in this field, who are telling us to go for it.

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Town of Plainfield: Yep, just a second. Yeah, so, as Andy mentioned, there's… we did, as the Select Board, receive a letter from Angie Harbin, who's the Executive Director of Down Street Housing and Community Development. She wrote to us yesterday, Dear Select Board members, Down Street Housing and Community Development is proud to support the East Village Expansion Project and the Town's effort to create new home ownership opportunities for Plainfield residents.

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Town of Plainfield: This project aligns directly with our mission to strengthen the social and economic fabric of Central Vermont communities by developing and stewarding permanently affordable homes. We're especially excited about this location because it embodies the best of what community-centered development can be, a walkable, connected neighborhood that can welcome residents who have struggled to find an affordable home in the region, including those displaced by recent floods.

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Town of Plainfield: If funding and resources allow, Downstreet would be honored to partner with the town by developing five shared equity homes within the new neighborhood. These homes will provide first-time homebuyers with a pathway to stability and wealth building, while ensuring the homes remain affordable for generations to come.

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Town of Plainfield: We're grateful for the town's leadership in advancing this project, and look forward to working together to make the vision of a thriving, inclusive Blainefield Village a reality.

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Jake is up.

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Town of Plainfield: Jake McBride again. I just want to address what Amy said about risk, because I think that that's important. First of all, I want to say thank you, because that was a helpful breakdown for me, and thank you to a lot of people tonight who've just been clarifying so many things. I was raised in a military family, and my dad,

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Town of Plainfield: went to West Point and always told me, no risk, no reward. And my mom always told me, he who hesitates is lost. And those stuck with me, and I think that this is a risk. I think any move ever is a risk. When you cross the street, you take a risk.

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Town of Plainfield: And I think that this is a well-calculated risk, and I want us to think about the risk here, and then also think about the risk if we don't do anything at all.

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Town of Plainfield: And we've talked about this before, but I just want to bring that back up. You know, the risk if you don't do anything at all.

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Town of Plainfield: Someone… someone pointed that on Facebook earlier, that there are 19 homes, there's 19 properties for sale in Plainfield. Why isn't anyone biting?

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Town of Plainfield: I've looked at all of those.

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Town of Plainfield: Like, 4 or 5 of them were in the floodplain, the others are all out of my budget, and the other ones are raw land, where I would have to put in all of the systems myself, and I would never be able to afford to do it. So, talking about risk, okay? What if… what if people don't buy these homes, the values continue to plummet, one of them is literally next to houses that are getting bought out by FEMA.

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Town of Plainfield: I'm not gonna pay $180,000 to have my front yard be Route 2 and the backyard be the river. It's an irresponsible risk. So I'm not gonna take that. So, that's the answer to why people aren't buying those properties.

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Town of Plainfield: I think it… I think it really behooves us to look at the risk of doing something, and the risk of not doing anything. Thank you. Thanks.

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Town of Plainfield: Lord.

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Town of Plainfield: Yes, Lauren Geiger here again. I just wanted to say that I attended the Vermont Development Conference on Thursday, which is a conference of financing people, developers, housing experts all over the state, to learn more about what other towns in Vermont are doing. And towns are increasingly taking on the development of housing because of the housing crisis.

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Town of Plainfield: I heard multiple examples of this in different towns, and in terms of the $600,000, I just wanted to point out that we're talking about 40 units of housing.

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Town of Plainfield: 15 would be accounted for by Downstreet and Habitat for Humanity, at least 25.

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Town of Plainfield: 13 of those remaining 25 have to be allocated, along with the Down Street and Habitat ones, to buyers who make 80% or less of area median income.

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Town of Plainfield: Which is about $62,000 in playing field for a single person. And then 12 would be sold at fair market value. It's the fair market value lots that we're hoping will pay back the $600,000.

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Town of Plainfield: And people have talked about the real estate market in Plainfield and things not selling. I agree with Jake. I've looked at some of those properties. Many are on Route 2, they're not as desirable properties, or you'd have to pay considerable money for land to put in infrastructure. I also consulted my own realtor today about the housing market, and she said that, buyers are still here and ready to buy.

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Town of Plainfield: Interest rates are favorable, and one of the big changes is that people are, instead of building a 2,500 square foot house, they're looking at a 2,000 square foot house.

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Town of Plainfield: Or, you know, making adjustments to make them more affordable. I know that people have voiced a lot of concerns about whether or not these LMI buyers could actually qualify to buy the 13 lots that we're talking about, because Downstreet and Habitat are going to qualify their buyers, and they're going to deal with them. There is a requirement in this grant that people take a home buyer's course.

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Town of Plainfield: in order to buy. So they are going to be trained and educated about what it means to have a mortgage, and etc, etc. And…

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Town of Plainfield: I think that there is considerable demand, and I think that if we're talking about 13 lots where we need to find people who can qualify for loans, even if they're low- to moderate income people, 13 is not a lot when we are saying that… the governor is saying we need between 27,000 and 40,000 homes in the next 5 years. I think there are 13 people out there that we can find, who can qualify.

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Town of Plainfield: To buy those Love it.

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Town of Plainfield: Sandy?

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Town of Plainfield: Just a couple of quick points for you.

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Town of Plainfield: You already mentioned that the true encumbrance wouldn't happen until a lot of other information is gathered, and you know what funding is available, and you could make a really educated choice. That really reduced risk right there.

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Town of Plainfield: And the second point is that the risk is really about what is the residual that might be the gap that, Jake pointed out.

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Town of Plainfield: And if there are 12 lots being sold at fair market value, who knows what that guess is now, but 12 times 50,000 would be $600,000 right there.

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Town of Plainfield: So even if they didn't sell at that price, or you didn't sell all of them in 5 years, which would boggle my mind, just knowing how many people are looking for land with utilities attached.

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Town of Plainfield: That seems to me like a relatively small risk. But then there's really the question of if there is a residual

411
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Town of Plainfield: How would the temp be for that? And the increment of new…

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Town of Plainfield: value is tremendous. At one point, I think it was estimated it's something like $12 million, that… I don't know what the number is now, but by building these 40 homes and having 40 new properties, there will be a new increment added to your green list.

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Town of Plainfield: that that is, a tremendous amount of income coming in. So, many other towns look at that increment, and,

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Town of Plainfield: think carefully about what they could give to developers to encourage them here. You are not even in a situation where you are giving land away. The conference that Lauren mentioned

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Town of Plainfield: St. Albans regularly gives away 1 to 2 million dollars, and in return, they get about that much increment back. Montpelier is looking at giving out $3 million right now.

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Town of Plainfield: And that, I would call a risk, because they're having to do that before they even know what the end result would be. So, I'm looking at the whole spectrum of risk.

417
01:12:44.270 --> 01:12:50.050
Town of Plainfield: And, thank you for letting me present out what I see. Sure, thank you.

418
01:12:50.350 --> 01:12:54.680
Town of Plainfield: Yes. I might also like to address risk.

419
01:12:54.880 --> 01:13:04.219
Town of Plainfield: There's the financial risk, there's the ecological risk, there's the presence of the land, which no one is disputing.

420
01:13:04.880 --> 01:13:11.369
Town of Plainfield: There is a risk of doing nothing, which is, namely, we've already lost

421
01:13:11.690 --> 01:13:14.119
Town of Plainfield: Grand list value. Taxes are up.

422
01:13:14.390 --> 01:13:17.379
Town of Plainfield: Doing nothing keeps it that way.

423
01:13:17.680 --> 01:13:29.860
Town of Plainfield: Yes, the Housing Committee is coming online soon. May there be properties newly available for people to live in, for those properties to get back on the grand list.

424
01:13:30.890 --> 01:13:33.049
Town of Plainfield: Is it going to be?

425
01:13:33.610 --> 01:13:35.469
Town of Plainfield: Dozens of units.

426
01:13:35.810 --> 01:13:36.740
Town of Plainfield: Fast.

427
01:13:36.930 --> 01:13:40.700
Town of Plainfield: Relatively speaking, no, probably not.

428
01:13:42.100 --> 01:13:47.770
Town of Plainfield: Then there's the, what if? What if the CDBGDR grant

429
01:13:47.810 --> 01:13:59.400
Town of Plainfield: didn't care about the purchase price of the land not being included. What if our $9.4 million

430
01:13:59.410 --> 01:14:09.890
Town of Plainfield: grant application was a $10 million loan application, and the Select Board would have all of the money we needed to make the smartest decision

431
01:14:10.270 --> 01:14:22.280
Town of Plainfield: that we could, given the clamor of Plainfield residents who are Aggrieved about their tax burdens.

432
01:14:24.950 --> 01:14:27.809
Town of Plainfield: It's a risk to ignore them.

433
01:14:29.440 --> 01:14:31.810
Town of Plainfield: It's a risk to do nothing.

434
01:14:32.180 --> 01:14:41.399
Town of Plainfield: And for those who are still concerned justly about the ecology of the parcel, please.

435
01:14:41.680 --> 01:14:46.470
Town of Plainfield: Contribute your expertise to make the project smarter.

436
01:14:46.880 --> 01:14:55.059
Town of Plainfield: We have the cooperation of the state and state agencies. They're willing to work with us.

437
01:14:55.760 --> 01:15:04.669
Town of Plainfield: We haven't even seen the next iteration of the design, because we've been talking about this for months.

438
01:15:04.770 --> 01:15:07.560
Town of Plainfield: The next iteration of the design is coming.

439
01:15:08.990 --> 01:15:26.400
Town of Plainfield: Make it wiser. Help the people, your neighbors, who are struggling to stay in Plainfield because they can't afford to stay in Plainfield. Homeowners who can't afford to stay in Plainfield. You can help them by making this project smarter.

440
01:15:27.600 --> 01:15:37.400
Town of Plainfield: And by supporting Bamba, Which allows us to make fiscally responsible and wise decisions in a relative sense.

441
01:15:37.500 --> 01:15:40.680
Town of Plainfield: Given what is at stake in this project?

442
01:15:41.060 --> 01:15:42.530
Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

443
01:15:43.900 --> 01:15:58.969
Town of Plainfield: Jake. This is a question for Ginny's, but for a lot of other… Jake McBride is my Janice. This is a question for Ginny's, and for a lot of other people, who have mentioned, thinking that this project isn't ecologically sound.

444
01:15:59.060 --> 01:16:06.539
Town of Plainfield: And I am also concerned about that, and so I guess I would love to just hear, like, is it because of…

445
01:16:06.540 --> 01:16:22.969
Town of Plainfield: certain studies that you've seen? Is it hearsay? Is it numbers? Is it visuals? Like, I'm just… I guess I'm curious, like, what the data points there are, and maybe they're all in, like, grant applications and paperwork that I haven't read, because I haven't had the time.

446
01:16:22.970 --> 01:16:43.750
Town of Plainfield: But if anyone on the Slight Board, or if anyone out here can tell me where to find those things, that would be awesome, because I do want to look over those. And then if anyone has, data points, paperwork, etc, that show that this is completely ecologically sound, completely legal, I would love to see those as well, just so I can parse through them all. Thanks.

447
01:16:43.750 --> 01:17:02.759
Town of Plainfield: Thanks, Jake. Thank you, Jake, for asking. Well, George Springsten and Rose Paul were experts in flood, danger, water, geology, experts. That's their field, they're professionals. I mean, there are ex- all kinds of experts.

448
01:17:02.760 --> 01:17:05.209
Town of Plainfield: And experts disagree, we know that.

449
01:17:05.210 --> 01:17:23.589
Town of Plainfield: Right? There are experts in finance, experts in real estate, experts in ecology who are… who think this is a very bad project. I know there are some who think it's a great project, okay? So, George and Rose have been very clear. They have, given explicit

450
01:17:23.820 --> 01:17:39.809
Town of Plainfield: explicit discussions of the land, which parts of it are dangerous to build on, which parts of it have eroding gullies, which parts, are too close to wetlands. They have also looked at the Vermont Soil Act, which says that even the land that is not

451
01:17:40.150 --> 01:17:59.559
Town of Plainfield: on, wetlands, has very high water, table, is not appropriate for basements. We live across the street, our basements all get flooded. John and, Jeanette had a total flooded basement in just the regular rainfall, you know, last year, not in a flood.

452
01:17:59.980 --> 01:18:23.209
Town of Plainfield: This is a situation that is dangerous. I'm not saying it's absolutely certain that it will happen, but you have your experts, you have your experts that you've consulted when it comes to Brook Road, and they are the same experts who say 40 units is much too much. And I think Charlie wanted to answer as well.

453
01:18:23.560 --> 01:18:47.360
Town of Plainfield: to Rosen or to love dearly and respect all their work. Like, again, I want to see… Yeah, it's there. Yeah, okay, so I should ask. Okay, I don't want to get into a… It is, just to say, it's on, the, the EVAC website. They have, given a long report. There is a, there are reports in the grant application, very detailed, with maps, all sorts of things. I just want to add one more thing about wetlands.

454
01:18:47.540 --> 01:19:12.270
Town of Plainfield: Governor Scott has recently deregulated wetland usage. It is now fine in Vermont to build on wetlands, okay? There are people trying to stop that and overturn that, but it is now fine. Okay, Charlie, can I just… Yeah, jump in. My day job, I'm the executive director of Vermont Conservation Voters, and know a lot about the executive order that the governor passed.

455
01:19:13.140 --> 01:19:18.429
Town of Plainfield: It does not say that you can just build on wetlands. So…

456
01:19:18.430 --> 01:19:33.339
Town of Plainfield: The governor, in my opinion, did illegal things with this executive order. Overreach goes against statute, which is what the legislature set up, which you can't do. As a governor, much like President Trump, can't just executive order his way around Congress.

457
01:19:33.340 --> 01:19:45.130
Town of Plainfield: But he did… he is trying to lessen the buffers from 50 feet to 25 feet. He is trying to limit how and where we map wetlands.

458
01:19:45.380 --> 01:19:49.059
Town of Plainfield: It does not say you can just build on wetlands. Also.

459
01:19:49.250 --> 01:20:07.850
Town of Plainfield: the guidance is coming out, and the rule that they're going to be, I think, by the end of this week, or maybe early next week, going to be putting out for comment is much narrower from all reports from the administration than what the governor put out as a big statement. So, I think that we shouldn't use the governor's

460
01:20:07.990 --> 01:20:19.090
Town of Plainfield: political attempt to show that he's supportive of housing as another thing to be afraid of, when, one, we don't even know if the rules are going to go into effect, and two.

461
01:20:19.130 --> 01:20:36.330
Town of Plainfield: the rules… there are still rules in place for wetlands, including AGM Natural Resource Permitting, that have to happen to be able to build on wetlands. It's, it's… it's… he's trying to change it to 25 feet. But it's funny that we have, from this project.

462
01:20:36.330 --> 01:20:44.730
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, the current project map shows 50 feet buffers, which is current state law. Yep.

463
01:20:44.780 --> 01:20:47.179
Town of Plainfield: We have a new, new question.

464
01:20:50.390 --> 01:21:12.520
Town of Plainfield: Your name? Will Bennington. So, I'm not… I'm not an expert. I have a degree in forestry from the University of Vermont. It's, like, 20 years old, I've never used it, but some expertise there. The first place I ever lived in Plainfield was 82 East Hill Road. So I've lived, basically, on this land and spent a lot of time on it.

465
01:21:12.520 --> 01:21:37.190
Town of Plainfield: That was a long time ago as well. I'm also an organic vegetable farmer, and manage about 25 acres of land on the other end of town, and am currently attempting to purchase more land, develop land for housing, and help our employees find housing. It's a constant struggle for them. The biggest struggle our business faces is the fact that young people cannot

466
01:21:37.190 --> 01:21:39.100
Town of Plainfield: Find places to live here.

467
01:21:39.130 --> 01:21:52.180
Town of Plainfield: that's more of a rental market issue for us than, you know, we don't employ a lot of people trying to buy houses yet, but it's something we have brought proposals to the Development Review Board that

468
01:21:52.180 --> 01:22:00.949
Town of Plainfield: I mean, God bless them, but it's not easy to do anything creative in terms of development in this town, in this state.

469
01:22:00.990 --> 01:22:18.850
Town of Plainfield: the 5-acre parcel minimum is ridiculous, and if you want to talk about ecological risk, that is your ecological risk. Developing in the village core, I understand that it's a special field, and there might be sensitive soils. I know George and Rose, they're very smart people,

470
01:22:19.020 --> 01:22:43.569
Town of Plainfield: I haven't paid attention to that part of the project, so I don't know, but, we need to develop downtown village cores in this state, and we need to stop the illusion that everyone can have their little 5-acre forested cabin. No offense to many people in this room who I'm sure have that. I also live in a… I mean, I live in a more rural part of the town, but we are working land. We need to have farms.

471
01:22:43.570 --> 01:22:45.580
Town of Plainfield: And manage forest spots.

472
01:22:45.580 --> 01:22:53.040
Town of Plainfield: But that is… that is the greater ecological risk we are facing, is a Vermont that looks like

473
01:22:53.040 --> 01:23:03.649
Town of Plainfield: the New Jersey suburbs that I fled, except it's 5-acre lots instead of 1-acre lots, but it's not good. We do not want that, and this is the only way… or this is…

474
01:23:04.070 --> 01:23:19.059
Town of Plainfield: the risk in not being creative and not seeking these creative solutions is the real risk I see. And yeah, this could flop, and we'll all pay a quarter a day, which I don't want to minimize that. That could be a lot for some people.

475
01:23:19.080 --> 01:23:33.520
Town of Plainfield: But it's like, right, we are facing massive ecological catastrophe, social, economic catastrophe. We need to be creative. And, I think this is a decent risk to take, and we might lose some wetlands that people care about.

476
01:23:33.520 --> 01:23:49.960
Town of Plainfield: some nice meadows that people care about, but, like, development is harmful no matter where it happens. There is no ecologically benign place to develop. We just need to think, like, what, do we want more big forested areas of town, or do we… and a more densely developed downtown?

477
01:23:49.960 --> 01:23:58.049
Town of Plainfield: you want, like, you can't go find 20 acres of forest to walk around in Plainfield, because there's house everywhere. Because that is where we're headed.

478
01:24:00.040 --> 01:24:01.709
Town of Plainfield: Kate, I have a question.

479
01:24:02.330 --> 01:24:08.910
Town of Plainfield: Did you have something you wanted to say? Yeah. And then I'll get to you. And then, Charlie, I'll get to you.

480
01:24:11.080 --> 01:24:18.520
Town of Plainfield: So I just want to say, not as the town treasure, but as somebody who's lived in the town for the last 18 years.

481
01:24:19.160 --> 01:24:26.200
Town of Plainfield: When I moved here, I rented a house, a 3-bedroom house on two and a half acres.

482
01:24:26.440 --> 01:24:44.930
Town of Plainfield: When you adjust that rental price for inflation, it is less than what I pay to live across the street in the old Plainfield Hardware store location, and not the whole Plainfield Hardware, just the part that, like, was the grow shop and the homebrew store.

483
01:24:46.230 --> 01:24:52.470
Town of Plainfield: Above me lives a family of 5 who pays $1,600 a month.

484
01:24:53.860 --> 01:24:57.449
Town of Plainfield: And they are clearly rent-burdened.

485
01:24:58.250 --> 01:25:02.949
Town of Plainfield: at the amount that I get compensated by the town, I'm not ready for.

486
01:25:03.660 --> 01:25:08.289
Town of Plainfield: But, when we talk about these environmental impacts.

487
01:25:08.630 --> 01:25:13.290
Town of Plainfield: To the birds, to the wildlife, to the wetland.

488
01:25:13.570 --> 01:25:21.120
Town of Plainfield: Like, we don't consider the environmental impacts that I experience every day, living next to the highway.

489
01:25:21.130 --> 01:25:38.970
Town of Plainfield: Where, I'm sure, Times Arcus has been a story about asbestos in the sand that they spread on the highways. That was a popular one about 15 years ago. What is the environmental impact to myself and that family that lives upstairs from me? What is the environmental impact

490
01:25:38.970 --> 01:25:44.299
Town of Plainfield: to the people who keep suggesting to me that I should live

491
01:25:44.910 --> 01:26:03.330
Town of Plainfield: 10 feet from the U.S. highway, and can't access… like, I already am ineligible for this project. My name is Joshua, but I should be named Moses, because I will not go to the Promised Land here. I am not…

492
01:26:03.330 --> 01:26:15.949
Town of Plainfield: permitted to access this land. So I'm advocating strictly from a place of compassion for my fellow people who do not own land.

493
01:26:15.950 --> 01:26:30.929
Town of Plainfield: And when only one person in the East Village expansion holds the status of a renter, and so we're drastically underrepresented, and renters are extremely rent-burdened.

494
01:26:30.930 --> 01:26:51.400
Town of Plainfield: What will happen if this project moves through is it will create more mobility economically for the people of the town who can move economically into home ownership, and thus alleviate some of the burden and open the market for renters.

495
01:26:51.800 --> 01:26:57.540
Town of Plainfield: What are birds… what is the rent burden of a sparrow?

496
01:26:57.800 --> 01:27:15.189
Town of Plainfield: Like, do sparrows have to consider first and last month's rent? Like, the environmental impact is shameful compared to the human environment that we are saying to people that they have to live with.

497
01:27:15.190 --> 01:27:18.100
Town of Plainfield: We've got another question. I keep my cats indoors.

498
01:27:18.270 --> 01:27:23.889
Town of Plainfield: And my landlord will access my apartment without my knowledge, and let my cats out.

499
01:27:23.940 --> 01:27:43.690
Town of Plainfield: And raise your hands if you know that's true. And Janiece has been to my house and knows what my house layout is. Josh, we have other questions, Josh. Thank you for your point. We need to consider the human impact that we are imposing upon people who don't have access to housing.

500
01:27:43.690 --> 01:28:06.340
Town of Plainfield: Steve, did you have another thing? Yeah. So, I do just want to say, again, from my day job perspective, we do have to care about people, we do have to look at the housing crisis, we do have to look at, you know, we have higher numbers of people who can't afford health insurance in this state than we did 10 years ago, we have higher numbers of people who have to use food banks.

501
01:28:06.340 --> 01:28:20.640
Town of Plainfield: than we did 10 years ago, but we also have to realize that we want to be Vermont, and that means we have to protect the environment as well, because if people didn't want a beautiful place to live, they wouldn't live in Vermont. So we have to balance those two things, and so I don't… we shouldn't…

502
01:28:20.660 --> 01:28:43.179
Town of Plainfield: And, by the way, I think that this project balances those two things, which I know not everybody thinks so, but as somebody who's done environmental advocacy for a long while now, I do think there's a balance there. I just don't want this to turn into a thing where it's, like, housing versus the environment, because that is not what this situation is. I think the situation is, how do we balance the two? How do we create the community that we want?

503
01:28:43.180 --> 01:29:06.149
Town of Plainfield: And I think that means making sure we're doing the best we can for wetlands and for things, by the way, wetlands are great ways to make sure that we don't have more flooding, but also that we're taking care of people in our community and being an accessible community, so that more people can be part of our community, because we should try to grow as a community, because right now we're contracting as a community, both in businesses and in residents, because of the flood.

504
01:29:07.690 --> 01:29:12.579
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Steve? Steve, and then, and then Charlie.

505
01:29:15.620 --> 01:29:16.710
Town of Plainfield: Steven Barnum.

506
01:29:16.830 --> 01:29:22.940
Town of Plainfield: Again, I'd like to address what, Looks like… extremes.

507
01:29:24.500 --> 01:29:33.790
Town of Plainfield: when you look at the town, it's either, this is gonna be a great blessing, or it's gonna be another fiasco, and I suggested earlier, might actually be somewhere in between.

508
01:29:33.940 --> 01:29:40.820
Town of Plainfield: And for the land, I think it's the same thing. I'm hearing what I'm…

509
01:29:40.950 --> 01:29:48.430
Town of Plainfield: perceiving or understanding to be, you know, when I hear names like Rose and George, I'm hearing what…

510
01:29:49.670 --> 01:29:57.910
Town of Plainfield: what I understand, the concern about wetlands, nature, land, what's appropriate to do with this piece of property, and so on.

511
01:29:58.410 --> 01:30:10.800
Town of Plainfield: And it seems, I don't know, but it seems like the perspective is that if we can stop this project, we're going to continue to be able to cross the street in a nice open meadow.

512
01:30:12.480 --> 01:30:28.669
Town of Plainfield: Correct me if I'm wrong, but, and the other extreme is, if we don't go forward with this project, then some big bad monster developer is gonna come in, and he's gonna do much, much worse.

513
01:30:29.300 --> 01:30:36.509
Town of Plainfield: And again, I think those are two extremes, and I think the reality is probably somewhere in the middle.

514
01:30:36.990 --> 01:30:46.049
Town of Plainfield: I have seen a piece of property adjacent to mine, divided into, I think, it was a nice couple hundred acre farm, divided into something like 8 parcels.

515
01:30:46.050 --> 01:30:57.289
Town of Plainfield: And there's already houses being built on 2 or 3 that I'm aware of. And it's not gonna be the same neighborhood, after all of those parcels are built on. It's just not.

516
01:30:57.400 --> 01:31:05.890
Town of Plainfield: And another one went in across the road from me, and, it's just ridiculously huge.

517
01:31:06.090 --> 01:31:10.899
Town of Plainfield: And, that's what happens. And…

518
01:31:10.900 --> 01:31:27.400
Town of Plainfield: this project, if the town goes forward with it, we, the people have some say in what happens, and if the town doesn't go forward with it, and someone else buys it, we'll have less to no say. So I guess what I would ask of the folks that are considered… concerned about the

519
01:31:27.400 --> 01:31:29.260
Town of Plainfield: environment,

520
01:31:29.260 --> 01:31:35.920
Town of Plainfield: the birds, the wetland, or whatever. I'd like to invite any of them to come to this microphone and say, okay.

521
01:31:36.140 --> 01:31:41.729
Town of Plainfield: What's your alternative? What do you think is gonna happen here if this gets stopped?

522
01:31:45.060 --> 01:31:54.889
Town of Plainfield: I'd like to keep us focused on the bond boat, primarily, but thank you for your comments. Charlie first, Michael? Oh, Charlie, yeah, yeah.

523
01:31:55.870 --> 01:32:02.789
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Yeah, I also want to, focus on the question that we have at hand, which is the cost of this land.

524
01:32:02.900 --> 01:32:08.450
Town of Plainfield: And I'm going to make a slight jump, because I'm saying, what is the cost of wetlands on this land?

525
01:32:09.150 --> 01:32:23.949
Town of Plainfield: I was asked and actually challenged, today what sort of environmental, characteristics, we should be looking at. We should be looking at runoff pollution, we should look at ag lands, we should look at soils.

526
01:32:23.950 --> 01:32:29.889
Town of Plainfield: We should look at wetlands, and especially look at stormwater.

527
01:32:30.500 --> 01:32:33.990
Town of Plainfield: I'm not going to address all this. By the way, I'm a professional ecologist.

528
01:32:34.660 --> 01:32:42.149
Town of Plainfield: I speak for the environment, I'm not against housing, and I'm not against ecology. I'm for ecology, but I'm out of

529
01:32:42.290 --> 01:32:50.940
Town of Plainfield: against nature. What I want to do is just quickly address stormwater. You say you're doing everything that the permits allow.

530
01:32:52.520 --> 01:33:01.010
Town of Plainfield: That is the… a minimum legal. You should do everything that you can for the environment.

531
01:33:01.480 --> 01:33:03.209
Town of Plainfield: I talk about stormwater.

532
01:33:03.740 --> 01:33:07.250
Town of Plainfield: Stormwater, as an example. The health center.

533
01:33:07.810 --> 01:33:22.669
Town of Plainfield: in its first expansion in 2011, built a storm retention pond because they had more than one acre of impervious surface. That, detention pond was built to specifications.

534
01:33:23.290 --> 01:33:31.380
Town of Plainfield: During the flood, before Irene, in May, that stormwater pond almost failed.

535
01:33:31.520 --> 01:33:40.270
Town of Plainfield: and eroded the gully. Actually, it's the gully that was the cause of Act 250 coming into effect.

536
01:33:40.880 --> 01:33:50.260
Town of Plainfield: Literally, that was the gully that was polluted, that Martin Johnson, his Commissioner of water resources, wanted to clean up the pollution in that gully.

537
01:33:50.560 --> 01:33:56.149
Town of Plainfield: They put in a detention pond, and the gully eroded. It is now a chasm.

538
01:33:57.340 --> 01:34:01.680
Town of Plainfield: That stormwater pond costs $300,000.

539
01:34:02.300 --> 01:34:04.190
Town of Plainfield: Put to specifications.

540
01:34:04.830 --> 01:34:20.899
Town of Plainfield: After that valley eroded, they, there was a proposition that actually the town of Plainfield is responsible for maintenance of a secondary detention pond that was put in for $200,000.

541
01:34:21.300 --> 01:34:31.200
Town of Plainfield: to stabilize the gully in its detracted state. All I'm saying here is, if you follow the regulations, you might not protect the environment.

542
01:34:31.830 --> 01:34:40.290
Town of Plainfield: If you believe the experts, you might not protect the environment, but still listen to those experts.

543
01:34:40.700 --> 01:34:46.019
Town of Plainfield: Rose and George have been brought up, but there are many more than Rose and George, including myself.

544
01:34:46.250 --> 01:34:58.109
Town of Plainfield: who are very concerned about runoff pollution, about loss of habitat, about wetlands. By the way, you can't enhance wetlands.

545
01:34:58.340 --> 01:34:59.889
Town of Plainfield: That's nonsense!

546
01:35:01.410 --> 01:35:03.679
Town of Plainfield: That's been proposed for this site.

547
01:35:04.000 --> 01:35:26.900
Town of Plainfield: Or at least one of the proposals. As this, these plans progress, all of those proposals are changing. It's a changing target. But you cannot enhance wetlands, and this project proposes building on wetlands, whether they're protected, whether they're Class 2, or whether they're not protected. It's proposing to impinge on those wetlands.

548
01:35:26.900 --> 01:35:33.800
Town of Plainfield: that are valuable and unbuildable. In fact, they're unbuildable nearby, because it's a drain.

549
01:35:33.800 --> 01:35:44.639
Town of Plainfield: Have you had a soil scientist do the pits, not the drainage, but to see what kinds of soils, and what drainage, and what the basements are gonna look like?

550
01:35:45.990 --> 01:35:48.890
Town of Plainfield: You've got to do this. He did.

551
01:35:49.200 --> 01:35:53.590
Town of Plainfield: I… you didn't get a soil pit to see what they… You did fine.

552
01:35:53.660 --> 01:36:11.750
Town of Plainfield: And what did you find? I read it. I guess they didn't do it. No, I said you can't do the proper sentence. For Bethany, he said, I'm guilty, I'm guilty, let's not argue. We're getting off on the wrong… Exactly. Yeah. Please.

553
01:36:11.850 --> 01:36:20.889
Town of Plainfield: looked at what environmental factors are, and listen, George and Rose and others have been screaming

554
01:36:21.420 --> 01:36:28.830
Town of Plainfield: for these topics to be considered, and they have been ignored. Right.

555
01:36:33.630 --> 01:36:35.430
Town of Plainfield: Michael, yeah.

556
01:36:35.770 --> 01:36:38.840
Town of Plainfield: Thanks, Michael Bernbaum.

557
01:36:40.330 --> 01:36:52.530
Town of Plainfield: There may be one person in this room who hasn't decided how they're voting. Probably not, though. That's kind of what I think. There's maybe two people on Zoom right now who don't know how they're voting? Probably not, though.

558
01:36:54.700 --> 01:36:58.079
Town of Plainfield: This was an informational meeting.

559
01:36:59.230 --> 01:37:02.290
Town of Plainfield: We're here to ask questions and to get answers.

560
01:37:02.830 --> 01:37:09.099
Town of Plainfield: And I think what we're doing… Is sharing information amongst ourselves.

561
01:37:09.710 --> 01:37:15.349
Town of Plainfield: as much as… Doing what the meeting is for.

562
01:37:16.050 --> 01:37:22.939
Town of Plainfield: I've heard a few things that were interesting at me at night.

563
01:37:23.050 --> 01:37:29.310
Town of Plainfield: One of them is that if you're opposed to the project, You're fearful.

564
01:37:30.720 --> 01:37:35.290
Town of Plainfield: Or you're… Obsessed with risk.

565
01:37:36.710 --> 01:37:41.680
Town of Plainfield: And if you're for the project, You…

566
01:37:41.980 --> 01:37:47.509
Town of Plainfield: Are altruistic, and want the best for your fellow citizens.

567
01:37:49.320 --> 01:37:52.620
Town of Plainfield: And neither of those things is really exactly right.

568
01:37:53.500 --> 01:38:03.210
Town of Plainfield: One thing… that Steven said was there's some in-between to consider.

569
01:38:03.700 --> 01:38:07.229
Town of Plainfield: One thing Francis Rose said was.

570
01:38:07.480 --> 01:38:12.180
Town of Plainfield: Well, if you have ways to improve things, come to us, tell us how to improve things.

571
01:38:12.730 --> 01:38:20.170
Town of Plainfield: I think we might be able to combine those two ideas By simply considering

572
01:38:20.670 --> 01:38:30.350
Town of Plainfield: Even at this late date, even at this late date, scaling back the proposed project.

573
01:38:31.400 --> 01:38:35.810
Town of Plainfield: Maybe we can accept the project, those of us who are against it.

574
01:38:36.100 --> 01:38:43.849
Town of Plainfield: Maybe you can accept A real project that happens without opposition if you scale it back a little.

575
01:38:43.970 --> 01:38:48.999
Town of Plainfield: Maybe that will help protect the environment that we're trying to protect.

576
01:38:49.120 --> 01:38:51.880
Town of Plainfield: Maybe it'll help.

577
01:38:52.240 --> 01:39:04.629
Town of Plainfield: minimize neighbors' concerns. Maybe a lot of things could come of a real concerted effort to tailor the project to the needs of the whole community.

578
01:39:05.870 --> 01:39:08.560
Town of Plainfield: This is what should have happened a long time ago.

579
01:39:08.730 --> 01:39:10.950
Town of Plainfield: Not at the last minute like this.

580
01:39:11.680 --> 01:39:13.709
Town of Plainfield: But it's still none too late.

581
01:39:17.880 --> 01:39:21.439
Town of Plainfield: Yep. Thank you. Karen Hutcher.

582
01:39:21.540 --> 01:39:25.809
Town of Plainfield: I want to acknowledge that the timing

583
01:39:26.680 --> 01:39:29.379
Town of Plainfield: Of this whole project and the grant.

584
01:39:30.090 --> 01:39:31.590
Town of Plainfield: Way too fast.

585
01:39:32.370 --> 01:39:35.200
Town of Plainfield: Absolutely. Six weeks.

586
01:39:35.930 --> 01:39:44.870
Town of Plainfield: From the time we heard our pre-application was accepted to having to have a final, full application ready, when it should have taken 6 months.

587
01:39:45.530 --> 01:39:51.869
Town of Plainfield: When we should have had meetings upon meetings in the community to discuss all the elements

588
01:39:52.730 --> 01:39:56.299
Town of Plainfield: We did not have that luxury. We did not.

589
01:39:56.940 --> 01:39:59.099
Town of Plainfield: So we find ourselves here.

590
01:39:59.370 --> 01:40:06.750
Town of Plainfield: Fighting with each other about important things that we should have been able to talk about before.

591
01:40:08.040 --> 01:40:10.090
Town of Plainfield: So what I want to offer is this.

592
01:40:10.420 --> 01:40:11.710
Town of Plainfield: We're not done.

593
01:40:12.020 --> 01:40:15.109
Town of Plainfield: We are at a step in the process.

594
01:40:15.540 --> 01:40:17.310
Town of Plainfield: That will tell us.

595
01:40:18.390 --> 01:40:19.490
Town of Plainfield: Is there money?

596
01:40:19.720 --> 01:40:21.290
Town of Plainfield: Could we move forward?

597
01:40:23.770 --> 01:40:31.230
Town of Plainfield: I think… We have opportunities together. We have the EDAC committee that has subcommittees.

598
01:40:31.400 --> 01:40:39.250
Town of Plainfield: Lots of opportunities for weighing in on all the elements. We had to pull… we had to take the current design.

599
01:40:39.250 --> 01:40:52.540
Town of Plainfield: We had to pull that into the grant application. We had to build around that. Is anybody happy with that? No. Even the people who had to pull it together, we are not happy with it. We know it's not ready. It's not fully baked.

600
01:40:53.980 --> 01:40:59.760
Town of Plainfield: But I believe we have time together, to adjust?

601
01:41:00.230 --> 01:41:10.140
Town of Plainfield: To work through, to keep making it better, if we stop fighting with each other, and we start working together, because we need housing.

602
01:41:10.470 --> 01:41:15.730
Town of Plainfield: There's this money, There's an opportunity in front of us.

603
01:41:16.110 --> 01:41:27.419
Town of Plainfield: Let's not walk away from it. Let's figure out how to be smart together. There's so many good brains in this community. And here we are, like, fighting. It's so frustrating.

604
01:41:27.850 --> 01:41:35.959
Town of Plainfield: We were forced into this situation by the grant. We were forced into it. Would we walk away from it? No, we could not.

605
01:41:36.540 --> 01:41:38.269
Town of Plainfield: So here we are.

606
01:41:41.460 --> 01:41:44.910
Town of Plainfield: All we're talking about is authorizing them, if and when.

607
01:41:45.390 --> 01:41:54.890
Town of Plainfield: Not that they will, but between now and then, we don't even know, we won't even know what we're being awarded until January.

608
01:41:56.090 --> 01:42:01.780
Town of Plainfield: Then, there are many months to work out what the conditions of the grant are.

609
01:42:01.900 --> 01:42:21.709
Town of Plainfield: In the meantime, the EBF is meeting regularly. They have committees. I would offer that people get involved in those committees. Get your input, your expertise into the process, so that when we get word, we can keep working on this.

610
01:42:22.370 --> 01:42:36.440
Town of Plainfield: It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It just doesn't. There is middle ground, as Steve was saying, but I think there is a step we need to take so that we can say, yeah, we're in it. We don't know if this is the right thing exactly, but it's close.

611
01:42:36.530 --> 01:42:45.890
Town of Plainfield: And maybe together we can figure it out. I do believe we can. I do believe we can. There are smart people here. So…

612
01:42:46.470 --> 01:42:50.829
Town of Plainfield: That's just my pitch. Guys, it's… it's not perfect. It is what it is.

613
01:42:51.120 --> 01:42:52.770
Town of Plainfield: We're in the game.

614
01:42:52.960 --> 01:43:01.029
Town of Plainfield: I hope we get some money, I hope it's enough money, and I hope we can figure out if we have to adjust, how we adjust, and we make this work for all concerns.

615
01:43:01.360 --> 01:43:03.750
Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

616
01:43:09.210 --> 01:43:16.650
Town of Plainfield: My name's Evan Barlow. Well said, Karen. Thank you.

617
01:43:17.480 --> 01:43:19.020
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, we're getting to the end.

618
01:43:19.290 --> 01:43:28.569
Town of Plainfield: What's that? We're getting to the end of the time, right? Yes. It's an informational meeting, so if you have a question or something, yeah.

619
01:43:28.860 --> 01:43:36.260
Town of Plainfield: Well, I'm Jana Bargino. I don't really have a question, per se, but,

620
01:43:36.690 --> 01:43:54.639
Town of Plainfield: One of the things that, I think we haven't mentioned anyway when it comes to the ecological concerns, is that moving housing, moving buildings, and people out of the floodplain is going to be really good for that river, and it's going to make it more flood resilient, especially down the stream.

621
01:43:54.640 --> 01:44:00.730
Town of Plainfield: So that's a very good thing. I think it's pretty clear that we can't put housing back in that village.

622
01:44:00.870 --> 01:44:15.630
Town of Plainfield: You know, that's… that's where we are. And so, it's a good thing for the river, and for the town, and for the local ecology, for the floodplain ecosystems to come back. I hope that we will allow for that, for forests, and…

623
01:44:15.630 --> 01:44:30.069
Town of Plainfield: you know, maybe some other kinds of ecosystems along that corner. Really excited about that possibility. And because we can't build in the village either, we permanently lose the housing that we have lost.

624
01:44:30.390 --> 01:44:33.040
Town of Plainfield: Or we find another place for that housing.

625
01:44:33.580 --> 01:44:49.069
Town of Plainfield: And when you look at floodplains in Vermont, and really around the world, we've lost way more acreage than we have upland forests and meadows. You know, if you sort of are looking at calculus here, of ecological value,

626
01:44:49.260 --> 01:45:04.170
Town of Plainfield: I think there is value in protecting our floodplains and figuring out how to move people out of them. And this is one way to move people out of the floodplain, which has to happen one way or the other. So that's another ecological consideration.

627
01:45:04.390 --> 01:45:11.799
Town of Plainfield: To keep in mind. Yeah, thank you. And we should bear in mind that the buyouts are going to result, ultimately, in…

628
01:45:11.900 --> 01:45:28.489
Town of Plainfield: in town parks along the river, which essentially would be floodplains, but wouldn't have structures on them. So that's a benefit to the river and the town, I think. And flood resilience. Yeah. Oh, we don't…

629
01:45:32.120 --> 01:45:37.260
Town of Plainfield: It's a terrible history book, and I really hate public speaking.

630
01:45:37.380 --> 01:45:45.049
Town of Plainfield: But, you know, I was listening to Karen, I've listened here, it's a pretty respectful meeting, but underneath there is seizing.

631
01:45:45.060 --> 01:46:01.750
Town of Plainfield: And I know this because of the social media posts that we've all been reading and what's been going on. There is some underhanded stuff going on, there is some negative stuff going on. If I knew that we could move forward in a much more positive way, I would feel better about this whole thing.

632
01:46:01.790 --> 01:46:10.780
Town of Plainfield: I really do not like what has been going on, even though I have been a part of it, and I think most of us in the room have been a part of it.

633
01:46:10.920 --> 01:46:35.849
Town of Plainfield: Can we be better than that? I don't know. Can people stop misrepresenting facts? Can they stop writing private emails that are destructive? Let's see if we can move forward more positively. Let's see if the EBEAC committee can involve more conversation. Let's see if the Select Board can listen better to the community, because otherwise, we are screwed. And I mean, I've lived here for 55 years.

634
01:46:35.850 --> 01:47:00.620
Town of Plainfield: And I have never seen the passion that we experience now. There are people who hate each other. There are people who don't want to talk to each other ever again. They are lifelong friends who are angry. So I think for us to move forward, the atmosphere has to undergo a major transformation. And you guys are responsible for that, and all of you are responsible for that. So let's see what we can do, because…

635
01:47:00.620 --> 01:47:10.640
Town of Plainfield: If, as Karen says, we're gonna get the damn grant, then we better plan it so that everybody is okay about it. Because otherwise, it's gonna be a disaster.

636
01:47:12.970 --> 01:47:35.990
Town of Plainfield: Jake was standing, and then Steve. Thank you so much, Lita. Thank you so much, Lita, because I kind of prepped a little bit before this to say something similar, which is actually more about the select board than the people, but I agree. It's been… there's just been a lot of vitriol and bad behavior, and it doesn't look good on any of us.

637
01:47:36.740 --> 01:47:55.190
Town of Plainfield: And it's disappointing and unfortunate. No one wants to move forward in a better way. Yeah, I just wanted to say that we have this select board here, and I, you know, I hear you, Rita, saying that they need to listen to the people better, but I also want to name that,

638
01:47:55.300 --> 01:47:56.320
Town of Plainfield: These are not…

639
01:47:57.060 --> 01:48:06.480
Town of Plainfield: These are not, lifelong, trained politicians. You know, these aren't the Clintons, the Bushes, the Trumps, whoever, the Kennedys, you know, these are our neighbors.

640
01:48:07.020 --> 01:48:25.620
Town of Plainfield: And they are people who care very passionately about this town. They fumble, they mess up, and I've seen stuff about them on our Gorge Forum and, Facebook that are, like, not just unkind, but calling their character into question. And I want to really implore us all to not…

641
01:48:26.130 --> 01:48:45.469
Town of Plainfield: to not do that, and to also be solutions-oriented and not problem-oriented. I feel like this whole process has been really problem-oriented, and I really want us to try to be solutions-oriented, and see these folks up here and Patty, whether she's on there or at home, as our teammates. These people care about us. They're not…

642
01:48:45.640 --> 01:48:53.279
Town of Plainfield: you know, getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to shut the government down and not do anything. These are our neighbors. So, just that reminder.

643
01:48:55.020 --> 01:48:55.605
Town of Plainfield: Sweet.

644
01:48:59.990 --> 01:49:00.700
Town of Plainfield: Mmm.

645
01:49:02.920 --> 01:49:12.450
Town of Plainfield: Steven Farn. Well, they may be characters, but… There are characters.

646
01:49:13.500 --> 01:49:17.650
Town of Plainfield: It just derailed my train of thought. Now let's see for a minute.

647
01:49:18.210 --> 01:49:21.109
Town of Plainfield: If I can get it back on track.

648
01:49:21.650 --> 01:49:29.979
Town of Plainfield: Oh… The communications course that I took in college 40 years ago, I learned an interesting piece of information.

649
01:49:30.710 --> 01:49:33.809
Town of Plainfield: Which is that when it comes to communication.

650
01:49:36.720 --> 01:49:41.079
Town of Plainfield: Something like 38% of it is your tone of voice.

651
01:49:42.540 --> 01:49:48.590
Town of Plainfield: 55% is, it's non-purple.

652
01:49:49.530 --> 01:49:51.130
Town of Plainfield: 7%.

653
01:49:51.240 --> 01:50:08.180
Town of Plainfield: the actual word you're speaking. Now, if those numbers don't add up to 100, then I didn't remember them exactly right, but you get the general idea. So, I appreciate the sentence that's been expressed about,

654
01:50:09.050 --> 01:50:12.239
Town of Plainfield: The first book, and what's happened on…

655
01:50:12.420 --> 01:50:26.009
Town of Plainfield: Trump Ports Forum. But I would encourage you to think that those really aren't whole messages, and you're only getting 7% of the message.

656
01:50:26.270 --> 01:50:29.490
Town of Plainfield: And probably the most negative part of it.

657
01:50:30.460 --> 01:50:39.559
Town of Plainfield: I like this kind of a forum, and I congratulate anybody who overcomes their fear of public speaking. You have it, I don't happen too.

658
01:50:39.570 --> 01:50:55.059
Town of Plainfield: We'll be tied. The rest of you. But, you know, I just feel like this kind of a forum is so much more civilized, and I really thank everybody who's come up here.

659
01:50:55.170 --> 01:51:00.969
Town of Plainfield: And, Senator Piss, and I thank you all, and all the volunteers who put so much work into this.

660
01:51:05.510 --> 01:51:25.010
Town of Plainfield: I'll just make two comments about math, Steve, that added up to 100%. Very good. And Josh, there's a flaw in your calculations, because you forgot that this was Free Coffee Monday at the co-op, so…

661
01:51:26.990 --> 01:51:37.409
Town of Plainfield: Is that it? That's it. May I… So, if there is anyone who has not yet cast their vote…

662
01:51:38.300 --> 01:51:49.210
Town of Plainfield: And you can believe that this project, the design of it, can get smarter and wiser with your contribution to it.

663
01:51:50.130 --> 01:51:59.350
Town of Plainfield: I invite you to practice that, and it does mean, maybe, making it over the hurdle of the election tomorrow.

664
01:52:02.380 --> 01:52:06.929
Town of Plainfield: We wouldn't have recommended this unless we thought it was good for the town.

665
01:52:07.200 --> 01:52:18.250
Town of Plainfield: We aren't committing money yet. We have… we're just asking for permission if situation is correct. We feel it's smarter for the town

666
01:52:18.730 --> 01:52:25.049
Town of Plainfield: to buy the land and sell the land and make money with it. But it also has to be done

667
01:52:25.270 --> 01:52:34.629
Town of Plainfield: Properly. And we're still working on that. And we haven't been… we haven't seen all the numbers yet, we haven't seen all the designs yet.

668
01:52:34.920 --> 01:52:37.260
Town of Plainfield: And we're… we're waiting for that.

669
01:52:37.450 --> 01:52:52.319
Town of Plainfield: So… Could I have a final question? Final question. Yes. Could you make sure that the townspeople are involved over their ears in this process?

670
01:52:52.360 --> 01:53:12.119
Town of Plainfield: We certainly can. I mean, we… over their ears. I'm not sure what you mean, but… We'll try to get in the agendas that we post for meetings, items that we can talk about. If there's need for special meetings.

671
01:53:12.120 --> 01:53:14.140
Town of Plainfield: We can call them.

672
01:53:14.830 --> 01:53:17.260
Town of Plainfield: But we need a reason to do that.

673
01:53:18.210 --> 01:53:23.219
Town of Plainfield: Right? No, the reason can be your motion to figure out what the town wants.

674
01:53:26.660 --> 01:53:36.100
Town of Plainfield: Josh, final word? I would like to note there are two auditor vacancies in the town, if you have criticisms of the finances.

675
01:53:36.100 --> 01:53:52.630
Town of Plainfield: There are… there are many, vacancies. Many vacancies. Cemetery commission… Including my own. Running in for Carl Select Board seat. That's right. So, I'm gonna be filling out my term, but, there's…

676
01:53:52.640 --> 01:53:55.349
Town of Plainfield: We would like to find someone to sit in.

677
01:53:55.510 --> 01:54:00.499
Town of Plainfield: With this, with this actually very competent and good group.

678
01:54:00.860 --> 01:54:03.390
Town of Plainfield: So,

679
01:54:03.390 --> 01:54:21.389
Town of Plainfield: There's many other positions. I know the rec committee needs some people, does anyone want the full list? They happen to have it here. I think we're getting ready to… Yeah, we're getting ready to update the website that has all those listings on it.

680
01:54:21.500 --> 01:54:23.460
Town of Plainfield: We have a motion to adjourn.

681
01:54:23.950 --> 01:54:26.900
Town of Plainfield: Second. We have a motion and second.

682
01:54:27.040 --> 01:54:40.149
Town of Plainfield: Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. I have another question, sorry. At the next school board meeting, can we get that list of positions? You can get that list, yes.

683
01:54:43.360 --> 01:54:50.680
Town of Plainfield: Thank you all for coming. Yes. We gotta clean everything up.