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Town of Plainfield: Okay, we're… Thanks. Opening the Select Board meeting at 6.03 on December 15th. This is a special meeting to discuss a couple cleanup items, as well as primarily the budget.

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Town of Plainfield: Any changes to the agenda beyond that? You said you had a couple? No, I don't anymore. Okay, fair enough. Thanks.

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Town of Plainfield: And then announcements. Anyone have anything they want to…

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Town of Plainfield: Say, okay. There's no public here, so no public comment. Bram, are you okay up there?

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Town of Plainfield: Do you have any announcements or anything?

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Town Clerk: The, the, sorry, the only thing that I would say,

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Town Clerk: If, I'm just putting together the town report stuff, I don't want to include the minutes of last year's meeting and the report. That's just something that's been a tradition, we're not required. So just, just

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Town Clerk: putting that out there, and if anybody has any issues, we don't have to discuss it, you can just tell me if you think that that's a bad idea. It just takes up a lot of pages, and I don't think it's worth the…

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Town of Plainfield: print.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay. Brandon, did you… did you check statute to make… I feel like that might be one of the required things. Is it not one of the required things in the Town of Florida?

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Town Clerk: Not… no, I mean, I… it's not… it's not. I'll check it. I got an answer from the league, and they said it wasn't.

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Town of Plainfield: Oh, well, then they know better than I do. Yeah. Yeah. Good question, though. Okay, so, and we already adopted them, I think, a couple of weeks afterwards, if I'm not correct. Yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: Well…

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Town Clerk: No, but I mean, just the idea of including them in the… I mean, they're all good to go, I'm just saying, in terms of saving space on something that people don't really need, but whatever, we can discuss it further.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay.

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Town of Plainfield: Alright, let's move to the, we're editing the personnel policy. Personal leave,

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Town of Plainfield: Do we have a little discussion about that? We're supposed to vote on amending our personnel policy? Yep, I think I sent that to you all. Yes, we did. It's basically, this is something that Carol found, that just…

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Town of Plainfield: The personnel policy for, many years, long before we

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Town of Plainfield: took a look at it last year, has read personal leave accrues on a fiscal year, but everything else done in payroll is on the calendar year. So, Carol, just wanted to make… make that line up. It's current practice, there's no effect on the budget, so, it's section,

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Town of Plainfield: Roman numeral 8, subsection 17, entitled Personal Leave, and there are 3 places where it says fiscal year, and we're just changing the word fiscal to calendar.

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Town of Plainfield: So I would make that motion. Okay, a second for that motion? I would second. And all those in favor, say aye. Aye. So that, that change has been approved.

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Town of Plainfield: Road Commissioner Report? Is there anything to…

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Town of Plainfield: Bring us up to date on.

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Town of Plainfield: The, the one thing of major consequences, we did get the, construction estimates back from…

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Town of Plainfield: Du Bois and King, and and… that,

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Town of Plainfield: And this for what? For the, Mill Street Bridge project.

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Town of Plainfield: And, just the Mill Street, or did they do Bridge 21 as well? They're working on it, but this is just the bridge. I think just… I've only just seen the,

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Town of Plainfield: The… Mill Street Bridge, Project 650.

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Town of Plainfield: And, I had it up here a minute ago.

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Town of Plainfield: And…

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Town of Plainfield: The… well, it's, it came in at…

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Town of Plainfield: 3.3 million. I think it's 3.3. And a little, some change. Yeah. Let's call it 3.4.

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Town of Plainfield: Which…

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Town of Plainfield: Gives us a good, number to understand what we have to set aside for matching funds for that, which would be $334,000.

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Town of Plainfield: In… in funds to match that.

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Town of Plainfield: And… And the, we could opt to…

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Town of Plainfield: Locate that money in the reserve fund for… For bridge projects.

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Town of Plainfield: The, the bulk of the things I worked on today were…

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Town of Plainfield: around Federal Highway and getting money back from, Federal Highway, I had to go

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Town of Plainfield: Back and submit some invoicing, cover memos to, municipal assistance, and then that process.

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Town of Plainfield: the… Remainer of the payments coming back to the town for emergency phase work.

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Town of Plainfield: And, so I just have a couple more sheets to send them. And… and then we'll have…

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Town of Plainfield: approximately $850,000 back. As far as, like, other road items, gray road.

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Town of Plainfield: I… I had a discussion with, two separate households on…

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Town of Plainfield: different ends of Gray Road, and asked them, like,

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Town of Plainfield: I got the opinion of 4 residents, and I said, you know, what, if any, are problems you see in, like, the maintenance of your road, and all 4 people seemed quite pleased with the conditions of the road.

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Town of Plainfield: I spoke with John and Lauren Cleary, and I spoke with, Mitch Pauley and Ray Carter, and,

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Town of Plainfield: So The… you know, the…

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Town of Plainfield: The feeling that the road isn't safe is not universal amongst the residents of the town, and

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Town of Plainfield: And so, you know, we… I would encourage, you know, if people do… people who are living on Gray Road have an issue, they should, look to,

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Town of Plainfield: reporting it. Okay, thanks. Sandy, you have a point on this?

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Sandy: I do, I didn't know I was gonna have something to say about this issue. I live at the bottom of Gray Road on the Brook Road. I am the dead end.

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Sandy: And the only way I can get to the village is to go up Gray Road onto East Hill Road. None of the people you talk to, Josh.

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Sandy: have to use the bottom part of the road? I do. And the bottom part of the road is, I would say, 90% of the time, just about impassable.

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Sandy: Once you get up to the clearies, it's much better, for sure.

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Town of Plainfield: But the bottom part…

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Sandy: is horrible.

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Town of Plainfield: And then I have another question, which is, it was my understanding that a town truck went off the road on Gray Road.

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Sandy: Right there, right at the part of.

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Town of Plainfield: Let's like that.

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Town of Plainfield: I mean, I didn't hear the story, I don't know the story, but that, to me, is unusual. Well, nobody stands ahead of the town truck, so that's part of it. But, the… it's not…

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Town of Plainfield: I mean, it's a… it's quite steep, and I don't know, you know, as far as, like, that bit, I'm not sure there's a… a winter maintenance solution that, you know, for all comers can satisfy the, like.

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Town of Plainfield: you know… the needs of the slope, which is quite… quite extreme. The…

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Town of Plainfield: You know, for that part of town.

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Town of Plainfield: that section of road gets sanded 4 times, and Michael has the sander set to maximum.

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Town of Plainfield: And he does 4 passes. The, you know, the…

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Town of Plainfield: the center of the road is always going to look more sanded than the sides, because there's overlap as you go up and down.

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Town of Plainfield: it's, the first pass through that section of town follows the school bus route. So he goes.

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Town of Plainfield: Because you have… you have to do two loops, and the first loop, because you run out of sand.

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Town of Plainfield: So, the first loop is the school bus route that they get done before the buses, and then they come back, re-up the sand, and then they go down and do another.

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Town of Plainfield: loop through with a second round of sanding.

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Town of Plainfield: Can I ask a question? Is the school bus going on a gray road?

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Town of Plainfield: I don't believe it does. I think it goes up East Hill and turns around up there somewhere, and then comes back.

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Sandy: I have seen it come down Gray Road.

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Town of Plainfield: So, maybe that is… why he takes that route.

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Sandy: Well, Josh, it's not just in the winter, although in the winter it's extremely scary, because if you come down, or you slide back.

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Sandy: The only place you can end up is in the brook.

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Sandy: There is no… It's a T, and it comes straight down.

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Sandy: You know this, every… we all know this. And it's not just a problem in the wintertime. It's extremely steep, and gets… people, of course, drive too fast, but it's extremely washboard-y.

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Sandy: And…

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Sandy: it doesn't get a lot of, attention, because there aren't as many people needing it, and I understand that.

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Sandy: But it's really, really bad. All summer, all winter.

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Town of Plainfield: But, am I right? Hearing what you just said, Josh, is… and I don't know about the summer condition, but in the winter, when we're sanding and we're trying to prevent slip, slippery conditions, it's on a second loop.

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Town of Plainfield: Like, many roads, probably my road is on the second loop. Like, I'm guessing they're not… it's not getting less attention than others, it's just we prioritize the bus route, and then we do all the other roads.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, and so, if it… if that is indeed… if the bus is going… the school bus for Twinfield is going on Gray Road, then it will be part of that pursuit.

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Town of Plainfield: Like, I just don't have the, the route in my memory right now.

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Town of Plainfield: I don't know for this going down there. That would be a change, because it always just… the kids on Gray Road always came up to the stop sign on East Hill Road. It's where they got picked up, so that… that might be a change. And the thing… the thing about…

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Town of Plainfield: the… you know, Andrew Stefani lives between…

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Town of Plainfield: John and Lauren and Mitch and Ray, so, you know.

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Town of Plainfield: My… my note was that both sides of, like, our neighbors on… up… up above and down below are in agreement about the road, and…

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Town of Plainfield: I think at the bottom, the problem is a matter of design, I don't… I don't think there is…

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Town of Plainfield: like… You know, a spot in town that's steeper than that spot. And it would be great to,

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Town of Plainfield: like, it would be great to be able to look at… at… redesigning that.

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Town of Plainfield: At some point.

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Town of Plainfield: And may I ask, did Andrea utilize the road report form to report her scene? Yeah. Okay. And… and Michael was pretty responsive, like, you know, and he's contacted the… the…

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Town of Plainfield: fuel company, and they have, like, the… they will let him know if they're making a trip. He will go out and make an extra drop there, just to, you know, make sure everything is copacetic for the fuel deliveries.

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Town of Plainfield: And have you communicated that with Andrea directly?

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Yeah, and I did, too, when she called me. I told her to use that form.

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Town of Plainfield: Because that's what's being monitored. No, I mean this last piece about if she knows she's expecting a delivery, that she can reach out directly to ask for an additional pass. Yeah, and the fuel company can reach out directly to Michael.

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Town of Plainfield: To get, like, so that he…

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Town Clerk: Hey, I just want to interrupt

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Town Clerk: I just want to interject here for a second. I share an office with Josh.

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Town Clerk: And Josh spent an incredible amount of time

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Town Clerk: walking through stuff with Andrea, I just want to make that clear. And he was very respectful.

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Town of Plainfield: Yep. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, well, I… we recognize she has an issue, but I think having the fuel company directly communicate with

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Town of Plainfield: with Michael's probably the best approach. Two comments. Yeah. The road crew…

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Town of Plainfield: It takes them longer to go get another load of sand. Yeah. As well, so they're… they're suffering from, having to, you know, not have access to the Brook Road to get back to the garage. They have to go all the way around, yeah. Same as everybody else. And so that's… we're all sharing in that, in that group. And as someone who has…

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Town of Plainfield: you know, run and walk that loop, gray road, that bottom part is just extremely steep. Very, you know…

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Town of Plainfield: Barring…

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Town of Plainfield: you know, use of explosives, I think, you know, there's not much that the road crew can do sanding-wise to deal with that. You know, as Sandy said, in the summertime, I mean, it's like, you… I have to stop to catch my breath just walking up the hill, you know? Yeah, and if there's washboards, which will happen in the dry periods, it'll make it hard to…

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Town of Plainfield: I want to keep moving on this, because we have a lot of budget stuff to do, too, but is there anything else on that?

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Town of Plainfield: Thank you for dealing with that, Josh.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay, I guess we'll go to the, there was a treasurer's report on the, in the, on the agenda, and then we're going into the budget. Or do we just go into the budget?

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Town of Plainfield: I don't have anything prepared at the moment for the Treasurer's report. Okay. The one thing I'll just mention is that the loan closed for MCRF without any complications. Oh, good. So that's all taken care of.

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Town of Plainfield: And then… the, the…

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Town of Plainfield: And then, some of what I was gonna talk about, I don't have prepared, so… Yeah, let's just move, yeah, that's okay.

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Town of Plainfield: We have our regular meeting next week, so we can do it then.

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Town of Plainfield: So, I gave you a packet, and starting with the fire department, I didn't have…

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Town of Plainfield: I have not been feeling well, and I don't feel particularly well at the moment. But the, as far as the fire department's, budget change, overall, it only went up $50, and, but some things did move around.

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Town of Plainfield: And… The… we lowered some of the items.

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Town of Plainfield: To compensate for other increases, and… the… Main one being that, the…

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Town of Plainfield: What we'd been holding for training seemed to be…

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Town of Plainfield: excessive to what actually gets used. And… like,

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Town of Plainfield: In 24-25, it was about 1,300 billed the training, and then,

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Town of Plainfield: previous to that, it was only $310, and speaking with… and, you know, and we… me and Jonathan, Fire Chief, went over this. We went over everything for about an hour. We looked at different.

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Town of Plainfield: You know, we want to pull some files on, like, how much we're…

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Town of Plainfield: you know, we had spent on fuel, because he was interested in… in that, because he had done some spray foaming of the building. One of the things that would improve the efficiency and save us money on

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Town of Plainfield: Heating would be to get some new garage doors, like we did in the,

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Town of Plainfield: In the town garage. I don't know if that's called out in the, Merck.

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Town of Plainfield: scope of work, so… but we'll go back and look at that. That might help save us some more in the future. I do have expenditure reports for the current year, and

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Town of Plainfield: as of today, and the, previous year, so if you have any questions, I've been entering,

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Town of Plainfield: The previous, year's expenditures and…

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Town of Plainfield: to my spreadsheet while we were sitting here.

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Town of Plainfield: I think the key information for me is that you and Jonathan have gone over this line by line.

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Town of Plainfield: And… feel this is a… a reasonable budget.

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Town of Plainfield: And it's only 50 bucks above last year. Yeah, yeah. Which seems quite reasonable. Yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: this day and age and all that. And one of the things that they did, the previous fiscal year was

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Town of Plainfield: Spent down some of the equipment fund.

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Town of Plainfield: They have a, the new rescue vehicle.

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Town of Plainfield: And so that's been,

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Town of Plainfield: That'll show up as a bit of a…

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Town of Plainfield: It'll look like a big expense, but it was drawn out of the fund.

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Town of Plainfield: Any other fire department questions? It looks like we're adding the same amount of money to the funds, the various funds.

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Town of Plainfield: As we had last year.

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Town of Plainfield: So that'll just continue to build that up again. And can you show us, the current balances in all the reserve funds as we go through the budget?

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Town of Plainfield: It'll be as of, like,

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Town of Plainfield: November. End of November. Just an idea, yeah. So, the Fire Department Building Fund currently is at $58,088.13.

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Town of Plainfield: 58K? Yeah. And then, the Personal Protective Equipment Fund is at $47,603.66.

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Town of Plainfield: And then their, equipment fund, the truck fund, is at $66,055.44.

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Town of Plainfield: That's after buying the emergency vehicle. Yeah. Okay, so it's… It's good to know. Thanks.

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Town of Plainfield: So, are there expected outlays, major outlays coming in those 3 funds?

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Town of Plainfield: Because those are, those are pretty good balances. Yeah, they seem pretty healthy. For, for the building.

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Town of Plainfield: you know, one of the things was the garage doors, looking at that, and but if those are potentially covered by the energy efficiency grant, that would be the way to go there. Yeah, it would be about…

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Town of Plainfield: $30,000 to replace the doors. The reason I'm asking this is, like, when you were looking at the highway budget, and talking about the highway budget, you had, you know.

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Town of Plainfield: recommended numbers for bridges and culverts, for example. You had, you know, talked about asset management and kind of projecting out, okay, you need to replace this many this year, this…

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Town of Plainfield: Is this the same kind of asset management thought behind these numbers, or are we just accumulating a balance here? Well, I looked at, like,

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Town of Plainfield: For the vehicles, We have a, currently a… There are some…

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Town of Plainfield: some… liabilities in terms of long-term debt. They're… we're paying for,

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Town of Plainfield: a fire truck, and then the, pull that up.

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Town of Plainfield: The, and then there's a… Are we paying that out of the reserve fund?

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Town of Plainfield: No, it's just held as, like, a… out of operating. Yeah, but it is, one of them is to the revolving loan fund, so that goes… we basically borrowed from ourselves. From ourselves, okay.

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Town of Plainfield: Let's see… And…

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Town of Plainfield: Your motivation to ask that is to see if we have more than we need? Yeah. Yeah, as we look at the whole budget, and, you know, we have yet to see the revenue side, which Josh says, you know, we probably won't see till January. Yeah, yeah. And we are looking at, you know, our municipal budget, municipal tax rate, it's like, okay, you know.

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Town of Plainfield: I'm looking for the same kind of rationale for this investment here, and, you know, okay, if we need to

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Town of Plainfield: you know, if we set a target and say we want to come in under a certain percent, or we want to come in level funded, or, you know, something like that, where are the pieces that we can move? So that's probably just prodding this.

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Town of Plainfield: So, right now, the, the debt as of November for the fire department truck, is $117,000.

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Town of Plainfield: 851, 38, and that is, that is the,

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Town of Plainfield: For the engine or not, and…

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Town of Plainfield: That's the total. So is it on a payment system of X amount of months? No, it's… it's yearly.

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Town of Plainfield: And it's like, for…

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Town of Plainfield: Let's see… it's about $22,000 a year that we pay out for that loan. And… For how long?

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Town of Plainfield: I think that one matures in 33, and… Yeah, so that looks like 6 more years. Yeah, and Jonathan wasn't anticipating needing a new vehicle,

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Town of Plainfield: in the next 5 years. So I think,

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Town of Plainfield: I felt like the amount of money we've been putting into reserves for the, for the equipment.

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Town of Plainfield: made… made sense to me. So with 66 in there, this would be 76 if you go another 5 years, that's like 126, it's like, okay. And that… and that doesn't even get you a whole truck? No, it gets you mows the one. Well, you… you've been good with the… you've been good with the road, equipment.

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Town of Plainfield: Trying to plan ahead to when you will have to replace things, so that we make sure we have the money.

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Town of Plainfield: I just have to do this. Yeah, yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: That would be a question.

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Town of Plainfield: Or, you know, follow through on that would be nice, to know how much we should have in the bank when we're ready to replace something, like the grader, which is $300,000 plus.

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Town of Plainfield: I know, I know Josh was thinking about that. Can I ask about the fire truck? Like, is it… did we purchase a new fire truck, and how long are the anticipated to last? Do we need another one?

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Town of Plainfield: That's kind of where I was headed. I didn't know where… because Josh has been doing this with other… with a road crew, and he's thinking, okay, we buy a truck, and it's, you know, $150,000 or whatever. It's got a 10-year life, so we need to make sure we have… In 10 years, we gotta have… We've got to have the money in 10 years. So, I'm just wondering if that was done with this.

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Town of Plainfield: Equipment, that's all. Or you end up borrowing. Yeah, and if we can avoid borrowing by paying it into a fund, it's better.

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Town of Plainfield: And… not anticipating needing the money. We're putting it into CDs, which are earning, about 3.2% interest. Yeah, that was a great…

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Town of Plainfield: By the way.

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Town of Plainfield: putting those funds into CDs, because it sounds like we've got a fair amount of interest out of that.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay, well, that's, that's good.

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Town of Plainfield: I would ask if you, you know, you don't have to do it right now, but if you give us a similar line of thinking on the personal equipment fund and the building fund. Yeah, the,

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Town of Plainfield: Yep, to get a… I can get a little more detail from, jonathan, on that, but…

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Town of Plainfield: Just make a note.

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Town of Plainfield: And the… the… Let's see, rebreather…

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Town of Plainfield: Like, the… these are the… the sort of the scuba systems that they have.

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Town of Plainfield: And, they are very expensive.

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Town of Plainfield: The next, the next section that I had ready was, the Town Hall Opera House.

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Town of Plainfield: Now disentangling the… the… Actuals for this, were…

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Town of Plainfield: Turned out to be a bit of a, a headache, because a lot of it in the previous to my starting, some stuff that was labeled, you know, there's a lot of

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Town of Plainfield: stuff marked for the municipal building, which was actually the… the opera house, and and vice versa. So I have to go through and untangle,

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Town of Plainfield: that, all of that stuff. And, and thank goodness we're having an audit. So, that'll be…

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Town of Plainfield: that'll be good to… to do. Dan and I sat down with, Keith last week, the…

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Town of Plainfield: The big,

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Town of Plainfield: changes were that, it looked like… well, I split out maintenance and repair, so we could kind of have more of a distinction of what is sort of ongoing custodial.

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Town of Plainfield: needs versus, like, repair that, you know, to… to… to, like… Like the fire door. Yeah, where there isn't a, like…

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Town of Plainfield: you know.

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Town of Plainfield: like, what do we want to… what do we expect to need to pay out in the fiscal year versus what we would draw out of the reserves? And for, you know, for anything, I thought carrying 2,000… anything above 2,000 felt like, a bit of a,

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Town of Plainfield: You know, felt like something that would probably… we would want to go back and draw from the reserves, and that reserve is,

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Town of Plainfield: Right now.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, $37, $3.55, and 69 cents. Is that… on the line item, is that what's under repairs? There's also a reserve fund for the repairs, is that what you're saying? No, there… No. The, I'm trying to find the rep… There's no money on it. Oh, there it is, down the bottom, I see it. Yeah, and,

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Town of Plainfield: And so… the… Like, in a lot of the stuff that has been done,

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Town of Plainfield: you know, there's been grant funding that, Michael Billingsley's obtained from,

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Town of Plainfield: VCF and other, funding sources, This was…

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Town of Plainfield: I, you know, still kind of remain to be seen if there was a specific, like, you know, what is the asset, management cost of the building overall, and, so some of that is, like, to be determined. The…

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Town of Plainfield: The increase in internet is an increase in the… the quality and quantity of available service here.

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Town of Plainfield: Potentially makes the, the… the…

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Town of Plainfield: the facility more desirable as a… as a venue. You could have live streaming, and, things like that, so…

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Town of Plainfield: The other part is that the… The telephone and internet, here… We had,

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Town of Plainfield: erroneously, we've somehow ended up with a duplication of phone and internet in this location, and Emergency Management wants to keep the copper line associated with the landline, and…

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Town of Plainfield: for… specifically, only for the… that emergency response need. But the telephone, generally, that is, like.

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Town of Plainfield: available here. The quote landline would be, like, through Spectrum Internet, telephone, and…

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Town of Plainfield: And so… The, while it's a big jump in the budget.

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Town of Plainfield: when you actually go through and look at what we're actually spending, it isn't actually much of an increase to the expenditure. I have to go back and… these are… these are all highlighted because I have to go back and look through,

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Town of Plainfield: some… through the accounts payable file. The only… the increase to,

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Town of Plainfield: But the one thing I wanted to call out was.

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Town of Plainfield: the management services, that's a contract, and the higher amount had something to do with the website? Is that correct, Dan?

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's,

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Town of Plainfield: hosting costs and things like that for all of the rental stuff that happens that the town gets the money, all the money for, is all hosted on the Plainfield Arts.

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Town of Plainfield: website and stuff, and so, and then… so, we just… we've never… we haven't increased the amount that we've asked the town for in, like, 4 years. And so, for some of those, like, carrying costs that we have as a non-profit, we ask that it's slightly higher for the next agreement.

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Town of Plainfield: And as far as, like, what, what we're looking at, on this,

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Town of Plainfield: budget here. For the Town Hall Opera House repairs, since we do have, like, a,

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Town of Plainfield: A fund for… for that purpose that,

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Town of Plainfield: You know, for trimming, that would be the… in this…

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Town of Plainfield: in this group, where we… I think we could… we could trim, that $2,000 for repairs, and,

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Town of Plainfield: And you utilize the, the maintenance fund, and then over the next fiscal year, you know, as we're sort of developing these capital planning, tools, like.

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Town of Plainfield: we will… I'll come around to the other buildings, it just hasn't been my primary focus with the opera house and the firehouse, because…

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Town of Plainfield: first off, I was more giving the highway department more attention, given its size. Well, why don't we… why don't we have that in our hip pocket, and

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Town of Plainfield: Just know that that could be something we could…

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Town of Plainfield: trim back if we need money. Yeah, Peter? Three, three questions, because you've moved on, from a couple. So, the… the…

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Town of Plainfield: Town Hall Management Services, the $5,000, which is… the request is to put a $5,600. That's the agreement that we did last meeting, right? Yes, but that agreement goes till June 30th. Right. So this would be the new one that would start the new fiscal year, correct. Yeah, okay. And,

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Town of Plainfield: In terms of the phone and internet, okay. So, the internet goes from 1,500 to 5,300, but phone goes to zero. Is that basically… is another way to read that, is it's going from 3,000 to 5,300? Yeah. Okay.

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Town of Plainfield: And you were talking about the landlines. I understand about emergency management wanting a hard line, but the Town Hall Opera House has its own separate landline?

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Town of Plainfield: It has a telephone, yes.

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Town of Plainfield: And why?

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Town of Plainfield: who uses it, and when? Well, we don't, I mean… We don't use it. It used… when I started even on the Opera House board, I don't know, 4 or 5 years ago, we would still get people who would call us and leave messages for tickets and that kind of stuff. That's obviously gone away, and so we don't… we don't need it anymore. We don't… I mean, we get emails and stuff now, but it just hasn't… it hasn't been taken out.

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Town of Plainfield: Partly because it was the only landline in the building.

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Town of Plainfield: And so, we just kept it also because if there was, like, some sort of emergency, landline would stay on it. But that's not the only landline in the building? Yeah, I think it's the…

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Town of Plainfield: it's the only not battery operated, like, because we… the line that Michael has is one of those

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Town of Plainfield: ones you can bring off the base, which means it could lose battery at some point and not work. But we could just change the phones out or something. But, like, the one that Michael has is the copper line, the old, like, that has its own power. Yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: So you can plug in a, you know, just a touch-tone plastic phone, but the one that's associated with Spectrum runs through the modem.

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Town of Plainfield: And… There is an emergency management case be made for both, because you could have a scenario where the…

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Town of Plainfield: the landline phone went out, but the other phone is still operable. Yeah, but you can make calls from cell phones through the internet, so I don't know that you actually need that other… Yeah, I'm just thinking we could get rid of that one line.

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Town of Plainfield: So, I'll, because we did this sort of package deal, I'll have to… let's see…

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Town of Plainfield: And the internet increase overall from 3,000, or the internet phone together, up to 50 grand, just because we have higher quality internet because of emergency management things, right? Yeah. Yeah, and it's a benefit to the… to making the,

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Town of Plainfield: the Opera House.

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Town of Plainfield: like, an attractive performance space. I don't have a problem with that. Couldn't host these meetings without a heater. I had a question about, the heating and stuff. There was part of the… is it the MRF grant that… MRF, yeah. MRF, whatever it is, got…

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Town of Plainfield: Did that… some of that go into energy efficiency stuff here in this building? I mean, it will, it hasn't. Nothing's happened yet. No, we haven't gotten any of the work done yet. And,

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Town of Plainfield: you know, as… As far as, like, where best…

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Town of Plainfield: where the best bang for the buck is on that. It probably… I don't know if it would be the… money would be best spent at the opera house. Likely best candidate for, you know, savings with Merp would be the,

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Town of Plainfield: would be the municipal building, and the firehouse, and the, well, I know they… But I thought he had a budget for, like, all… Each building, yeah, that's what I… I couldn't find it, I was trying to find it, but in the grant proposal we did, there's budgets for each building. So, about that, the…

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Town of Plainfield: The, the estimates that, we got that came along with that were not…

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Town of Plainfield: they were not good estimates. They were… some things were quite underestimated in what the costs would be, and…

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Town of Plainfield: But I'm working with Sam Lash to kind of sort out what the, because we know how much money we have to work with, and we can move stuff around in that, but, the,

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Town of Plainfield: It's, some of the things were… Quoted…

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Town of Plainfield: much too love for what they were quoting. Was that to… were those quotes to develop the grant application?

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Town of Plainfield: Or are these… are these bids after we got the grant? No, this is, like, the estimates, like, before, like, the… in the Level 2 assessment that came along with the grant application. Okay. Okay. So those are numbers we used to get the grant.

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Town of Plainfield: But they're under… under… Yeah. Well, they're all… I mean, they all were…

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Town of Plainfield: created pre-tariffs, free lots of things that have crossed our way up, right? Like, this was all over a year ago when we got the grant award. Yeah, yeah. But a couple of the things were very, very wrong. Like, I was…

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Town of Plainfield: kind of shocked, like, really?

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Town of Plainfield: So, is there money set aside here for this building? I mean, I seem to remember something about window treatments, or… Yeah, there is money set aside for every municipally owned building.

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Town of Plainfield: The question is, if all the bids were put in too low, we can't do all the work that we said we would do, and so then we have to prioritize. And I guess part of that would be which things are going to give us the best

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Town of Plainfield: Savings.

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Town of Plainfield: Right. And both energy use, but energy use is savings in this case, because it costs money to use energy. And a building like the municipal building, where people are in there all the time, and this building, which is intermittently used, the municipal may take priority. So is Bob working on this actively? Is anybody working on this actively? I think Josh just said he's working with Sam Lash of the Central Vermont Regional Planning on it actively. Yeah, yeah, and

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Town of Plainfield: We had, somebody come in to do a quote for the, energy efficiency, items at,

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Town of Plainfield: At the municipal bill date last week.

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Town Clerk: And the firehouse.

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Town Clerk: And the firehouse.

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Town of Plainfield: I mean, I think it's, you know, it's $306,000 any way we slice it, and I think we…

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Town of Plainfield: We get to help prioritize which ways, and based on where we think we would…

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Town of Plainfield: Like, my guess is the doors at the firehouse are gonna save us more energy than doing something to the windows here in this building. That would be my sense, too. And some stuff has been done at the town garage, right?

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Town of Plainfield: Yes. Yes.

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Town of Plainfield: Primarily, the big thing is putting new doors on the…

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Town of Plainfield: And then sealing around them,

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Town of Plainfield: And you mentioned the automatic opener?

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, that was actually in a different grant. Okay.

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Town of Plainfield: Let's see here… and I have the… I'm getting out of the truck every time to open and close the door. Heads up.

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Town of Plainfield: And it's a safety thing, too.

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Town of Plainfield: So, the Town Hall Opera House…

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Town of Plainfield: Like, they have a quote in here for,

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Town of Plainfield: Like, it… the initial estimate was, like, place storm windows,

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Town of Plainfield: as a low-cost alternative to refurbishing the historic windows. Then they have some, ERV recommendations, but the initial investment dollars they put with that,

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Town of Plainfield: It's only $10,000, and there's no way that that's the right number. That's way too low. Well, it might also be that we put in… I mean, I know that we…

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Town of Plainfield: I think the application that we put in was for more money than we received, and so these numbers are the numbers that they granted. They added up to 306. I don't think we put in for 10. We probably put in for something else, and they shaved from down as they tried to figure out how to spend the $45 million, or whatever it was.

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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I… I don't… that's not the sense I got from Sam, but I'm gonna…

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Town of Plainfield: I'll dig into it, like, anyway, there's gonna be an optimal way to apply that, and yeah. Well, I think finding the best…

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Town of Plainfield: return on investment for any of the buildings is really the right answer. Yeah. It's all… we're paying for it. Yep.

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Town of Plainfield: And obviously, they have the building that has people working in it every 5 days a week. Comfort, other things should be looked at as well. Yep.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay.

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Town of Plainfield: to that camp level pushing forward.

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Town of Plainfield: One thing, quick thing, Dan, the, there was a reserve fund for the opera house? Yeah, for the, yes, for the building itself. For the building? $37,000. Okay, that's… that's where I've written… Yes. Okay. So that's where it plays any major, and if we have no major purchases on the horizon, we've even physically looked at the furnaces and checked their dates.

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Town of Plainfield: But like, yeah, if we had to reach… if we had to change out the furnace in this building, or we…

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Town of Plainfield: Some other big thing. A roof, or something like that. Yeah, the roof is the big one, and I… we don't actually know the year on the roof, but as far as we know, it's not. Yeah. But we… so that's what the $37,000 is for. Okay. It's for any major purchase, like, that would have to happen for maintenance of the building. That's good that we have it there. Okay. Any other questions on the,

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Town of Plainfield: Opera House, I think… I think it sounds pretty good. Yeah.

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Town of Plainfield: So, what's the next one here? So, the next page, starting with listers… the…

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Town of Plainfield: In looking at,

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Town of Plainfield: You know, some of the, things that have come up with, the need for listers is that there's new requirements, by the state.

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Town of Plainfield: There's a desire to add, regular office hours, to add capacity, and in that,

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Town of Plainfield: In that, regard, You know, having, having Kaylee there,

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Town of Plainfield: Or a period of time, every week would, would help steer some of that away from the…

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Town of Plainfield: the office staff, that is fielding the questions of… in, you know, in that realm, and, and the,

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Town of Plainfield: And so there's a… there's a… an A and a B here. And some of the…

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Town of Plainfield: Cost increase here is associated with the,

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Town of Plainfield: What we'd like to do is, to raise the hourly compensation for the listers, to $25 an hour.

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Town of Plainfield: It hasn't been changed in many years. And… Where's it currently?

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Town of Plainfield: 18, I believe. Is what… Hmm…

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Town of Plainfield: what Kaylee's receiving. And, Sandy, if you want to jump in here and kind of give some color commentary on this.

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Town of Plainfield: For what you're looking at for… her needs.

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Sandy: Well, I think the… at the last Select Board meeting that you asked me about, hiring an outside appraiser, since it, you know, like in so many places, increasingly more difficult to find someone.

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Sandy: What we're trying to do is to have it work better, and in order to do that, we have to pay somebody. And Kaylee's been doing a lot, and she has more time, and she's been working for Nimrick also, and if we, for example, contracted with NIMRIC,

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Sandy: who are the only ones, that I know of that would actually take on an outside appraiser job, they're just gonna send Kaylee, because she's their person in our area.

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Sandy: So instead of paying Nimrik $100 an hour, we might as well pay Kaylee $25.

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Sandy: And she would take on more time, more work, and hopefully we can find a third person.

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Sandy: I have been doing this job for 35 years, and, I would like a little increase in pay, too. I mean, I do a lot of work, and I do a lot of it without noting my time.

320
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Sandy: I have to spend lots of time on the phone with people who call with questions.

321
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Sandy: And I never write it down, I never count that, because I feel partly like I'm doing this job, yes, I get paid some, but I partly…

322
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Sandy: All this time, I have felt like.

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Sandy: I wanted to contribute to the town, and I think that that's fine.

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Sandy: But if we want people to stay and do this job, We need to pay them.

325
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Town of Plainfield: Thank you, yep.

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Town of Plainfield: So, so the, the choice B here is reflecting what we would really like to see in the Lister office, is that right? Yeah. With the increased salaries and, and staffing. And so, the,

327
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Town of Plainfield: the… I've sort of… I've shown the… the…

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Town of Plainfield: the administrative function of, like, sharing some of the administrative work for zoning and DRB carried on that first line under Lister salaries, but that is, like, that is sort of shifting some of that added capacity, just to sort of show, like, this is, like, where,

329
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Town of Plainfield: where it would hit on the budget, but, like, in,

330
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Town of Plainfield: You know, in a scenario where we have, like, two listers, and there isn't sort of this… creating kind of this,

331
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Town of Plainfield: Shared administrative, Need. We spoke with,

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Town of Plainfield: Janice, Walraithen about,

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Town of Plainfield: what Kaylee could do for the DRB in terms of, like, carrying some of that administrative work, and, and also, working alongside, Kaylee is interested in working alongside.

334
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Sandy: parents' stories.

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Town of Plainfield: Karen, to… to do, you know, to… to kind of learn the ropes for,

336
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Town of Plainfield: For zoning, and,

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Town of Plainfield: And I think that would take a little bit off of, Karen's, plate over time, and the,

338
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Town of Plainfield: And…

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Town of Plainfield: And I think that, you know, this is a good year to have, to make that change, and to kind of, like, get, you know, get the… get some people in the office, have some office hours, and… and you get a lot of,

340
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Town of Plainfield: like… Spending time in the office will give you a lot of the,

341
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Town of Plainfield: like, institutional knowledge transfer that I think you don't quite get if you're not there.

342
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Town of Plainfield: So, yes, sorry, Dan. So, sorry, and I didn't notice when you were doing this that the orange are all related, and so we're looking at the DRB budget and the zoning budget as well.

343
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Town of Plainfield: So it's really just… 83, I don't know.

344
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Town of Plainfield: 20-something hundred dollars difference, right? If you're, like… I just wonder, like.

345
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Town of Plainfield: I know it's gonna be the same person, but if Kaylee is doing shadowing of, zoning.

346
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Town of Plainfield: shouldn't that still be… that time should be still part of the zoning line? And then if… if they're doing executive assistance, shouldn't it be part of the DRB line? Just so we know, like, what… even if it's one person doing multiple roles?

347
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Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I just wanted to show it this way, so you could kind of see, like… It won't… it'll look a way, but it…

348
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Town of Plainfield: B-Way is just showing… Or… Yeah, I just, like,

349
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Town of Plainfield: You know, and… and, like, if Kelly is not…

350
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Town of Plainfield: taking up some of that administrative need that DRB has, then, then that's… we need to find somebody to… to do that work. Well, no, I understand that. I'm just saying that's why… like, that's why the 2300 needs to be on the DRB line.

351
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Town of Plainfield: if Kaylee's doing it, and that $2,300 goes towards her salary.

352
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Town of Plainfield: fine, but it wouldn't be a lister, like, it wouldn't… she would have, like, a pay… she would have a payroll form where she's putting in which hours she's doing, and we would break it out. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's what I… I get where you're showing us, like, but I feel like it's… It should be in its… It should be where you had them, and just know that, like, like, we don't even… admin salaries going down to $6,000, then there'll be a next line that says.

353
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Town of Plainfield: you know, assistant zoning admin or whatever, and then there'd be $2,500, and we would know that that's $2,500 was going to Kaylee or whatever.

354
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Town of Plainfield: Same with this, I mean, we still have that admin assistant or admin needs, but maybe it doesn't say admin assistant, maybe it says admin functions, and that's 2300. We just know that it's going to KA, but the Lister piece is still going to be…

355
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Town of Plainfield: 4,300, or $4,800, like, it's not gonna be $15,000, it's gonna be $15,000 minus 4800, which makes it only $700 more than… Yeah, if Haley wasn't here, that… the DRB would still need to have that work done. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I understand… this is helpful to show, but I think we need to break it out based on the departments.

356
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Town of Plainfield: Even if it means that one person has 3 different lines of code on their payroll. When you're doing payroll, it's… Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Sandy: Dan, if you're saying that if you separate those out, and it would just leave Lister Salaries at $4,300, which is where it's been…

358
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Town of Plainfield: No, no, that's not…

359
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Sandy: Enough.

360
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Town of Plainfield: No, no, no, it would, it would be, 10,000…

361
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Town of Plainfield: 200 or something. I'm just saying, like, taking the pieces that Kaylee would do for the DRB and the, zoning, putting them back in DRB and zoning, just those pieces.

362
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Sandy: No, I absolutely agree with you, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure there was still left enough money in the Lister salary line item.

363
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Town of Plainfield: Oh, yes. Yes. I think, by my math, it would be 10,200. Right. But, yeah. Yeah, but I… Why isn't it 9,500?

364
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Town of Plainfield: Well, because the 9500 is if there's only two listers, I think. Yeah, and… Okay.

365
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Town of Plainfield: Because this, based on… So this would include a potential third listing? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Got it. And also, the listing? Yeah, this would… the $25 an hour. And it's only half a year. And do we have to…

366
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Town of Plainfield: Because it's a fiscal year. One more lister and paid by, and everybody's gonna pay. Well, that was one of my questions, like, if we put this into the budget, then do we have to do an item at some point that we're actually officially raised the pay of the listers, or is that something that just happens through the budget?

367
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Town of Plainfield: Well, I think you need to set some rate of pay for the listers, aside from… Even though they're a separate elected positions? Yeah.

368
01:00:04.380 --> 01:00:11.109
Town of Plainfield: Okay. We might want to just look into how we do it, because there might be a different mechanism than, like, setting the rate of pay for an employee.

369
01:00:12.650 --> 01:00:17.580
Town of Plainfield: Like, just a straight employee. Yeah, yeah. And,

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Town of Plainfield: And I hadn't had a chance to discuss zoning, and my plan is to… to, sort of, create line items in the same way that I have them for under the Planning Commission and DRB and Listers, for all of the, kind of.

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Town of Plainfield: administrative needs.

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Town of Plainfield: And no change to the Planning Commission budget. That was a very brief call with Will Colgan. And, you know, a lot of the…

373
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Town of Plainfield: Planning commissions, Don't use a lot of money, and…

374
01:01:00.160 --> 01:01:09.190
Town of Plainfield: A lot of that is, if they needed money for specific things, but, I did ask about the…

375
01:01:09.360 --> 01:01:16.459
Town of Plainfield: If we were gonna see added printing expenses, and he didn't think so.

376
01:01:16.670 --> 01:01:30.809
Town of Plainfield: And the Central Vermont Regional Planning number is the new number they've given us, is that, like, our dues to them or something? No, that's a placeholder, but I did expect it to go up, because it hasn't gone up in multiple years. And the,

377
01:01:31.960 --> 01:01:47.329
Town of Plainfield: And the, one thing on the DRB that I went through was, we did not budget enough for advertising, and I went through… So, like…

378
01:01:47.330 --> 01:01:52.019
Town of Plainfield: when we, like, amended the zoning and stuff, but that would come out of this? Well, it's…

379
01:01:52.030 --> 01:02:07.170
Town of Plainfield: the public… the newspaper publishing that we had to do. Like, all of the advertising was… we hadn't been budgeting enough money for advertising. But we went through all of the DRB,

380
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Town of Plainfield: We went through… No, scratch, let me back up. We went through the…

381
01:02:13.850 --> 01:02:23.430
Town of Plainfield: I went through all the invoices of the Times Argus for the… this fiscal year and last fiscal year, and we, we looked through…

382
01:02:24.210 --> 01:02:30.530
Town of Plainfield: with, with Janice, and Janice had all of her records of, like, all of the,

383
01:02:30.560 --> 01:02:48.529
Town of Plainfield: newspaper postings, and how much… and then we cross-referenced that with how much those cost, how much would be expected in the coming year, and it worked out to a little under $600, so we put $600 in there. Yeah.

384
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Town of Plainfield: And, and the, the other advertising,

385
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Town of Plainfield: Budget sections will all be amended appropriately for that increase in cost.

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Town of Plainfield: Okay.

387
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Town of Plainfield: It's wild.

388
01:03:22.150 --> 01:03:24.609
Town of Plainfield: I'll rewrite, some of this.

389
01:03:29.480 --> 01:03:35.829
Town of Plainfield: into the… I'll put things back, but, I do want to have a conversation with…

390
01:03:36.040 --> 01:03:44.820
Town of Plainfield: Because I still need to know from Karen what… What number of hours She expects to have…

391
01:03:45.120 --> 01:03:49.510
Town of Plainfield: At the office, to…

392
01:03:49.680 --> 01:03:55.210
Town of Plainfield: To get a good estimate of, numbers there.

393
01:03:58.860 --> 01:04:14.280
Town of Plainfield: And then… the, the next page here is, salaries and stipends, and, the…

394
01:04:14.940 --> 01:04:19.380
Town of Plainfield: This first page here is the,

395
01:04:20.110 --> 01:04:24.639
Town of Plainfield: Status quo, with no structural changing.

396
01:04:28.110 --> 01:04:29.790
Town of Plainfield: the,

397
01:04:33.650 --> 01:04:46.860
Town of Plainfield: the… And then I put in a few alternative, scenarios where there's been discussion about,

398
01:04:48.610 --> 01:04:54.310
Town of Plainfield: Town administrator, creating a town administrator role.

399
01:04:54.480 --> 01:05:04.350
Town of Plainfield: And, and how that, slots in with the… The…

400
01:05:06.560 --> 01:05:12.950
Town of Plainfield: The rest of the office, and… You know, taking the…

401
01:05:13.820 --> 01:05:24.470
Town of Plainfield: Making the treasurer and the clerk to be kind of these minimal positions, and then… Removing the…

402
01:05:25.120 --> 01:05:34.389
Town of Plainfield: the, there's a potential to change that administrative assistant role,

403
01:05:35.260 --> 01:05:41.679
Town of Plainfield: Or, in another version of this, Have a,

404
01:05:42.510 --> 01:05:48.259
Town of Plainfield: like, in Plan C, you could have this, a roll of…

405
01:05:48.620 --> 01:05:56.189
Town of Plainfield: Admin assistant, and then a public works coordinator, kind of like, into a full-time job.

406
01:05:56.650 --> 01:06:04.570
Town of Plainfield: And that would, you know, all of the… The kind of work that…

407
01:06:05.120 --> 01:06:10.930
Town of Plainfield: In terms of, like, the building and management, maintenance,

408
01:06:11.150 --> 01:06:19.030
Town of Plainfield: You know, and attention to, like, the assets of, like, the buildings and grounds themselves.

409
01:06:19.160 --> 01:06:22.450
Town of Plainfield: We don't really have a specific, like.

410
01:06:22.600 --> 01:06:32.030
Town of Plainfield: point person on that, and so creating that as a position that would be a part-time position,

411
01:06:32.680 --> 01:06:42.170
Town of Plainfield: the, to… to free up some of that, those duties.

412
01:06:43.070 --> 01:06:46.649
Town of Plainfield: But these… You know, and then I…

413
01:06:47.850 --> 01:06:55.059
Town of Plainfield: I just made a blank sheet here to kind of, you know, if you want to have a discussion about

414
01:06:55.270 --> 01:06:59.100
Town of Plainfield: But this, this kind of gets to, like,

415
01:06:59.290 --> 01:07:03.490
Town of Plainfield: You know, if you want to adopt the new,

416
01:07:03.830 --> 01:07:07.170
Town of Plainfield: Town office structure. These were some…

417
01:07:07.350 --> 01:07:20.220
Town of Plainfield: incomplete thoughts that I had around that, but it shows that you can take, you know, reduce some select court salaries, and take out the grants administrator, and the…

418
01:07:20.400 --> 01:07:28.630
Town of Plainfield: And remove the… the… sort of bring the road commissioner duties under the town administrator, and,

419
01:07:28.900 --> 01:07:31.840
Town of Plainfield: And then… Create.

420
01:07:32.110 --> 01:07:35.799
Town of Plainfield: The… a more, you know, minimize some of the…

421
01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:46.239
Town of Plainfield: the duties of treasurer to the stat… just the statutory items. And having a bookkeeper would…

422
01:07:46.350 --> 01:07:53.820
Town of Plainfield: Allow us to implement the… Internal controls that we need to have

423
01:07:56.340 --> 01:08:01.889
Town of Plainfield: I was hoping to be prepared for a bigger discussion on this, but I'm not… I haven't really,

424
01:08:02.550 --> 01:08:05.889
Town of Plainfield: been able to… Put forward the…

425
01:08:06.260 --> 01:08:10.430
Town of Plainfield: The attention on this, because of… Health problems.

426
01:08:11.720 --> 01:08:18.310
Town of Plainfield: Question. You had… I'm looking… you have Bookkeeper in all the models.

427
01:08:18.450 --> 01:08:31.749
Town of Plainfield: So is this what Karen's doing now? No, Karen is the, auditor. Okay. So we have no bookkeeper, per se. That's in-house. Right. Okay, so this is new, no matter where.

428
01:08:32.609 --> 01:08:38.910
Town of Plainfield: Bookkeeper is on the, we did have,

429
01:08:40.080 --> 01:08:45.219
Town of Plainfield: money in the budget last year for Bookkeeper, for this fiscal year.

430
01:08:45.410 --> 01:08:53.430
Town of Plainfield: And, like, that would be, you know, hired out.

431
01:08:53.640 --> 01:09:07.449
Town of Plainfield: But we haven't done that yet. Haven't done that yet. Okay. And the same thing with the building and grounds custodian. We've had… we've been advertising that job on the website for, like, 2 years. That wasn't in the budget, so I put it in the budget now.

432
01:09:07.620 --> 01:09:10.120
Town of Plainfield: But we still don't have any.

433
01:09:11.109 --> 01:09:14.660
Town of Plainfield: I guess my question is,

434
01:09:16.140 --> 01:09:29.340
Town of Plainfield: Are you looking to eliminate these rules to make the salary, or are you rolling some of these rules into the town administrator position? Yeah, like, the town administrator would take on a lot more of the…

435
01:09:29.470 --> 01:09:42.420
Town of Plainfield: you know, take some of the duties of the treasurer. You know, an administrator operationally is going to take on the, you know, the…

436
01:09:44.290 --> 01:09:57.010
Town of Plainfield: You know, it's the person who approves the, the invoices. They are directing, the… the…

437
01:09:58.330 --> 01:10:04.340
Town of Plainfield: the different departments and, and…

438
01:10:04.340 --> 01:10:22.319
Town of Plainfield: that… that power is delegated from the select board, so, HR and, the… a lot of the administrative burden of, like, dealing with all of the grants and projects that are coming up.

439
01:10:22.320 --> 01:10:31.599
Town of Plainfield: And the, and then the treasurer is the, you know, the person who is managing the finances and the

440
01:10:31.930 --> 01:10:38.229
Town of Plainfield: Payables and, reserves and… Dealing with your finances, like.

441
01:10:38.900 --> 01:10:56.950
Town of Plainfield: And then, the bookkeeper's role is to reconcile that. So, in good financial structure for internal controls, you want a triangle where one side of… one part of that triangle is the person who is, saying.

442
01:10:57.940 --> 01:11:16.219
Town of Plainfield: yes, this goes to the town hall electric line item, and I approve this, and then the treasurer goes, okay, I will sign a check for that, and then the bookkeeper reconciles the checking account against the invoices.

443
01:11:16.300 --> 01:11:25.059
Town of Plainfield: And so, the person doing the reconciliation, the person proving the invoices, and the person writing the checks are separate people.

444
01:11:25.410 --> 01:11:36.850
Town of Plainfield: And that creates a robust structure that is, fiscally sound, and should be one that we're adopting.

445
01:11:37.720 --> 01:11:49.500
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. So where does the assistant treasure be in that triumphant? So… In… in the,

446
01:11:51.470 --> 01:11:56.600
Town of Plainfield: Right now, the way we're operating is…

447
01:11:57.510 --> 01:12:02.129
Town of Plainfield: I'm acting as, like, the two parts of the triangle for the town.

448
01:12:02.450 --> 01:12:15.910
Town of Plainfield: And Carol's acting for… in the same kind of regard as the treasurer for the Water and Wastewater Department. And what would make more sense to me,

449
01:12:15.990 --> 01:12:28.119
Town of Plainfield: would be to have one person primarily engaged in, like, receivables, and one person engaged in the accounts payable. Like…

450
01:12:28.650 --> 01:12:37.599
Town of Plainfield: The administrator being inter… in charge of operations, and then, the assistant, treasurer,

451
01:12:38.150 --> 01:12:44.219
Town of Plainfield: Probably doing, you know, receiving bill, you know, billing for,

452
01:12:44.500 --> 01:12:51.740
Town of Plainfield: The water, wastewater, handling all of the tax, receivables.

453
01:12:52.940 --> 01:12:59.240
Town of Plainfield: Instead of having both doing that work, what's the…

454
01:12:59.560 --> 01:13:05.990
Town of Plainfield: Fund accounting system, gets restructured, it'll be a lot easier to deal with that.

455
01:13:07.400 --> 01:13:14.520
Town of Plainfield: to make that change in that, in that way, where… My comment is…

456
01:13:15.040 --> 01:13:21.319
Town of Plainfield: You know, we published this list of… 25 or more vacancies.

457
01:13:21.620 --> 01:13:24.640
Town of Plainfield: Removing or decreasing stipends.

458
01:13:24.920 --> 01:13:29.120
Town of Plainfield: Is, in my opinion, not the way to help fill those positions.

459
01:13:29.470 --> 01:13:36.999
Town of Plainfield: And so just that, strategically, which ones are you referring to? These are the official town…

460
01:13:37.030 --> 01:13:52.069
Town of Plainfield: No, no, which stipend reducing… Well, the one I caught my eye was the grant administrator. Right, we wouldn't have a grant administrator. Okay. The town administrator would be the grant administrator. Select Board is down.

461
01:13:52.370 --> 01:13:55.429
Town of Plainfield: What… I mean, the collector delinquent taxes is…

462
01:13:55.540 --> 01:14:05.930
Town of Plainfield: Gone. They make their own money. It's gone in the first one, too. They get a portion of the money that they… They get paid from the penalty. Health officer is gone.

463
01:14:07.310 --> 01:14:08.970
Town of Plainfield: Road commissioner is gone.

464
01:14:09.490 --> 01:14:15.850
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, the road commissioner would be in the… would occupy the role of the…

465
01:14:16.190 --> 01:14:25.220
Town of Plainfield: But the town administrator would take on those responsibilities. Okay, maybe I just wanted to, like, speak aloud this idea I have that…

466
01:14:25.610 --> 01:14:32.029
Town of Plainfield: Removing or decreasing stipends to save money is not going to help us fill our positions.

467
01:14:32.700 --> 01:14:42.180
Town of Plainfield: Well, we're… get rid of those positions, because we're not filling them, and we make that part of the professional duties of the administrator.

468
01:14:42.450 --> 01:14:43.650
Town of Plainfield: So, like…

469
01:14:43.930 --> 01:14:54.169
Town of Plainfield: the administrator's only gonna be one person. I mean, that is great to a point. Great to a point. And then all of a sudden, it's… this person has too much responsibilities.

470
01:14:56.070 --> 01:15:00.530
Town of Plainfield: Well… I think you gotta look to neighboring towns who've…

471
01:15:00.540 --> 01:15:06.130
Town of Plainfield: done this. I mean, Josh shared with us a while back, like, what Calus does, for example.

472
01:15:06.130 --> 01:15:21.900
Town of Plainfield: And move to this. And I think there was a chart, an organizational chart, where you see, you know, what used to be in other places and is now there. And this goes to the point that, Karen Hatcher raised at our last meeting about.

473
01:15:21.960 --> 01:15:29.049
Town of Plainfield: The state is now looking more and more to whether towns have the capacity to manage

474
01:15:29.620 --> 01:15:36.499
Town of Plainfield: Grants that are, and other program streams that are, that are coming in, you know, a lot of it federal.

475
01:15:36.960 --> 01:15:41.050
Town of Plainfield: With requirements there, and so you need, you need,

476
01:15:41.490 --> 01:15:51.399
Town of Plainfield: for lack of a better word, you know, professional oversight of that, and demonstrated capacity. And, you know, I think, you know, it also…

477
01:15:51.710 --> 01:15:58.310
Town of Plainfield: Is a shift of… responsibility from the Select Board to that,

478
01:15:58.540 --> 01:16:12.809
Town of Plainfield: individual, whether it's a town administrator or a town manager. You know, whereas, you know, the select board would be setting policy and improving budgets, making appointments, but the actual oversight

479
01:16:13.420 --> 01:16:17.809
Town of Plainfield: You know, human resources, for example, you know.

480
01:16:17.930 --> 01:16:25.509
Town of Plainfield: You know, we're supposed to be doing job evaluations of all these people. That would fall to the town administrator to do.

481
01:16:26.640 --> 01:16:28.650
Town of Plainfield: As opposed… as opposed to us.

482
01:16:30.740 --> 01:16:34.330
Town of Plainfield: I, I'm wondering how our town's gonna feel about,

483
01:16:35.520 --> 01:16:44.419
Town of Plainfield: all these… all these heads being chopped off for this… for this position. Like, it's looking like we're… we're getting rid of part-time, we're gonna make the…

484
01:16:45.260 --> 01:16:48.770
Town of Plainfield: The treasurer part-time. We're gonna make everybody else part-time.

485
01:16:49.230 --> 01:17:08.160
Town of Plainfield: And that gives one person, like, all the jurisdiction. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, education of the public about this is required. For example, if you look at the statutes as to what is required of a town treasurer, and what is required of a town clerk.

486
01:17:08.290 --> 01:17:12.199
Town of Plainfield: Both of our town treasurer are current office holders.

487
01:17:12.200 --> 01:17:31.039
Town of Plainfield: do far more than is required by law. And that's why Josh, you know, picked the numbers and says, this person could go back to 32 hours a week, or 24 hours a week, because some of those functions, like in our personnel policy, we name the town clerk as our human resources manager.

488
01:17:31.110 --> 01:17:34.340
Town of Plainfield: You know, because we don't have anybody else. But that's our choice.

489
01:17:34.580 --> 01:17:45.449
Town of Plainfield: as a select board to do that, where we assign it. That is not, in the law, what a town clerk is required to do in the state of Vermont. That's just what Plainfield does.

490
01:17:45.820 --> 01:17:51.689
Town of Plainfield: And so, I think, you know, when we moved to…

491
01:17:51.800 --> 01:18:07.429
Town of Plainfield: appointed town clerk and town treasurer. What we did not do simultaneously was come up with specific job descriptions for those roles, and just because it fell into somebody's lap.

492
01:18:08.300 --> 01:18:17.820
Town of Plainfield: Josh and Bram and the other folks working in the office do what needs to be done to keep the town moving, but their job descriptions don't match.

493
01:18:18.190 --> 01:18:21.190
Town of Plainfield: Those functions, and so we either have to

494
01:18:22.000 --> 01:18:40.559
Town of Plainfield: come up with better job descriptions, or look at an alternative model. And there are external pressures that are pushing towns towards different models just because of, you know, to be competitive in a number of these grants, you have to show that you have the capacity to manage them.

495
01:18:40.810 --> 01:18:45.600
Sandy: Peter, I hope that you're not… I hope that you're not.

496
01:18:45.600 --> 01:18:46.060
Town of Plainfield: external.

497
01:18:46.060 --> 01:18:48.189
Sandy: expecting to tell Carol.

498
01:18:48.290 --> 01:18:52.950
Sandy: That she is going to go to part-time with a part-time salary.

499
01:18:53.120 --> 01:19:11.700
Town of Plainfield: No. That's not in any of these… that's not in any of these examples. No, not at all. Not at all. Okay. But the tasks that she does on a daily basis may change, as they would for the other people in the office. It's a redistribution of the workload to better match

500
01:19:11.850 --> 01:19:16.990
Town of Plainfield: The capacity and the internal and external needs of the town.

501
01:19:17.190 --> 01:19:17.950
Town of Plainfield: Yes.

502
01:19:18.170 --> 01:19:24.380
Town of Plainfield: Would we put this town administrator position out for hire? Would we be publishing?

503
01:19:24.510 --> 01:19:28.270
Town of Plainfield: you know, job ads? We would have to, I think, based on our…

504
01:19:28.880 --> 01:19:38.350
Town of Plainfield: policies. I don't think we can just… we have to do some sort of hiring process. What's the… and can somebody describe, again, the difference between manager and administrator?

505
01:19:38.690 --> 01:19:55.289
Town of Plainfield: One is more of… one is more official, sanctioned by the state, right? The manager? Manager has statutory… is a statutorily defined position. Town administrators can be created by the select board through, like, delegating

506
01:19:55.290 --> 01:19:59.270
Town of Plainfield: Any power that the… the select board holds.

507
01:19:59.270 --> 01:20:09.489
Town of Plainfield: So… you know, The adding… the addition of the town Administrator is a,

508
01:20:09.610 --> 01:20:21.510
Town of Plainfield: You're adding a person, like, and me. And… The addition of that That person should pull, like.

509
01:20:22.030 --> 01:20:26.400
Town of Plainfield: Back work from, like, that is being…

510
01:20:26.640 --> 01:20:38.889
Town of Plainfield: going to Carol, or going to me, or going to Bram, and… and, or falling on, like, Karen Hatcher, or, you know, or…

511
01:20:39.000 --> 01:20:44.389
Town of Plainfield: Stuff that is not getting done to the best of,

512
01:20:44.830 --> 01:20:53.299
Town of Plainfield: in the best way that it should be done. Like, for example, the Merck grant, that there's no one, like, there isn't a lot of, like.

513
01:20:54.200 --> 01:21:12.969
Town of Plainfield: there isn't enough time and attention being applied to that, because we don't have the capacity to do it. We really do, right now, where we're at in town, I think, in my opinion, need another person to… to handle these various things, because the…

514
01:21:13.880 --> 01:21:22.580
Town of Plainfield: the… The volunteer operations are not rising to the needs of… the office at the moment.

515
01:21:24.140 --> 01:21:25.360
Town of Plainfield: And…

516
01:21:26.740 --> 01:21:34.829
Town of Plainfield: It would mean that the Select Board would not have to meet as often either, because you would delegate the…

517
01:21:35.030 --> 01:21:41.970
Town of Plainfield: you know, Your authority to approve warrants, and you could delegate your…

518
01:21:42.510 --> 01:21:46.220
Town of Plainfield: You know, quite a bit of… of what…

519
01:21:46.470 --> 01:21:50.000
Town of Plainfield: you all are doing. That is, like, that is what…

520
01:21:51.180 --> 01:21:59.109
Town of Plainfield: You know, in the… in the interest of being, you know, expedient and having enough attention

521
01:21:59.220 --> 01:22:05.689
Town of Plainfield: Like, placed on those, you know, those… those items.

522
01:22:09.230 --> 01:22:10.299
Town of Plainfield: And jealousy.

523
01:22:10.760 --> 01:22:22.639
Town of Plainfield: The callus model is closest to example C, right? Because their town administrator is also their treasurer and their road commissioner, which I'm guessing is what you're doing in C, because there is no money back for road commissioner.

524
01:22:22.720 --> 01:22:36.929
Town of Plainfield: In example, Steve, are you still have a different line rather than with the bottom line. Yeah, I just didn't have enough room. I'm wondering, actually, how they… Or the public works coordinator could be, you know, handling some of the…

525
01:22:37.230 --> 01:22:38.590
Town of Plainfield: the…

526
01:22:38.900 --> 01:22:54.960
Town of Plainfield: you know, some of that, yeah. I wonder, yeah, I'm wondering how they do the assistant treasurer in Dallas, since it's… you have to have… The clerk is the assistant treasurer. Okay, it just doesn't say that. Even… okay. Because the clerk's still elected, right?

527
01:22:55.540 --> 01:22:58.990
Town of Plainfield: in Calitis, the treasurer's not, at least based on this diagram.

528
01:22:59.240 --> 01:23:16.730
Town of Plainfield: Yeah… It doesn't fall under the select court. Anyway, because they have, like, a clerk and an assistant clerk off to the side. Which is statutory. Town clerk must appoint an assistant clerk. No, no, it's the other way around. Town treasurer must appoint an assistant treasurer. Town clerk can appoint an assistant clerk.

529
01:23:16.730 --> 01:23:26.730
Town of Plainfield: Or… and more than one. You can only have one assisted. We looked at this when we were doing this stuff, I'm pretty sure it's the tracker. Yeah.

530
01:23:26.920 --> 01:23:30.070
Town of Plainfield: I think it's both. It's must in TM. Anyway.

531
01:23:31.390 --> 01:23:35.849
Town of Plainfield: But, and there's a lot to think about.

532
01:23:36.570 --> 01:23:39.400
Town of Plainfield: Well, mostly I wanted to show that, like.

533
01:23:39.870 --> 01:23:55.659
Town of Plainfield: if you move some of the money around, it's not going to shift, like, what we're spending for, wages. Like, overall, it's not that big of a change in terms of, like, the bottom line.

534
01:23:55.710 --> 01:24:08.360
Town of Plainfield: For wages, if we pull from these different, stipend positions, We… You know, and… In terms of, like.

535
01:24:08.640 --> 01:24:12.700
Town of Plainfield: You know, what… If we can get another body.

536
01:24:12.900 --> 01:24:21.809
Town of Plainfield: and it's not gonna cost us an exorbitant amount beyond what we've already budgeted for, then… But we're not really…

537
01:24:22.520 --> 01:24:30.620
Town of Plainfield: in none of these scenarios are we getting an extra body, right? Like, A is obviously what we have right now. Yeah. B…

538
01:24:30.770 --> 01:24:55.640
Town of Plainfield: you go to part-time treasurer, town clerk, you remove the administrative assistant, yet you lose that body, so basically you're shifting an administrative assistant, theoretically, to treasurer's position, and then in the treasurer position, you're doing town administrator. Like, there's not an edge at the bottom. Building and grounds custodian… Well, the custodian, but that's something we've already approved. Or public works coordinator. Well, that's the C. I was talking about B, specifically. Yeah, and…

539
01:24:55.640 --> 01:25:00.240
Town of Plainfield: Okay, we've added a custodian, but we haven't added, like…

540
01:25:00.450 --> 01:25:08.890
Town of Plainfield: I think there's a sh… I think on B, I meant to leave in, the,

541
01:25:09.780 --> 01:25:16.510
Town of Plainfield: administrative assistant. At the $33,000? No, yeah.

542
01:25:17.480 --> 01:25:23.949
Town of Plainfield: So that would actually be a $300,000 scenario. And,

543
01:25:27.490 --> 01:25:30.920
Town of Plainfield: Good question. Well…

544
01:25:37.440 --> 01:25:46.959
Town of Plainfield: Was it a year ago that we… Yeah. Was it a year ago that we had to produce the power to take on a Trendler?

545
01:25:47.300 --> 01:25:52.150
Town of Plainfield: They actually came to the Treasurer was a year ago or two years ago? Yeah, what…

546
01:25:52.390 --> 01:26:02.330
Town of Plainfield: Was it? Boy. It was before the 24th flood. It was before the 24th flood. 23. It was May of 23.

547
01:26:02.550 --> 01:26:15.739
Town of Plainfield: Oh, right, and that's when we went to a five-person board, and that's when we had the clerk and treasurer be appointed. And that was a big ask for people. I remember people being pretty upset, saying that

548
01:26:16.020 --> 01:26:19.759
Town of Plainfield: A treasure… another treasure… a treasure position on top of the tower.

549
01:26:20.540 --> 01:26:26.120
Town of Plainfield: third position… …was gonna be… Yes.

550
01:26:26.300 --> 01:26:27.939
Town of Plainfield: I mean, they're…

551
01:26:27.940 --> 01:26:40.509
Town Clerk: I just want to interject here, if that's okay. I think that in discussing reforming town government, and I think it's interesting talking about CALIS and the reforms that they've made.

552
01:26:40.510 --> 01:26:40.845
Town of Plainfield: Mr.

553
01:26:41.180 --> 01:26:48.169
Town Clerk: I think it's important to note, I know that it might scare people to have change, it's always difficult.

554
01:26:49.000 --> 01:26:52.099
Town Clerk: But I would note, in Callus's case.

555
01:26:52.510 --> 01:26:59.639
Town Clerk: They had a… a couple of years ago, every member of the Select Board, the town clerk.

556
01:27:00.290 --> 01:27:04.249
Town Clerk: I believe, and their treasure all left in one year.

557
01:27:04.720 --> 01:27:24.380
Town Clerk: And I think that our, taking on this difficult, process, having public discussion can avoid that sort of tumultuous, you know, sea change, where people are doing things on an emergency basis. I think they also lost the road crew as well.

558
01:27:24.800 --> 01:27:38.350
Town Clerk: I mean, I think that addressing this and having the difficult conversations now, you know, is something that's important in terms of maintaining town government, just putting that in there.

559
01:27:44.710 --> 01:27:46.980
Town of Plainfield: I've reached the end of my day.

560
01:27:47.110 --> 01:27:52.209
Town of Plainfield: I have to go way down now. Yeah, well, thank you for this.

561
01:27:52.900 --> 01:27:58.400
Town of Plainfield: Thank you, Josh. To be continued, I suppose?

562
01:27:59.040 --> 01:28:02.420
Town of Plainfield: What? This matters to be continued?

563
01:28:04.090 --> 01:28:11.309
Town of Plainfield: Josh, do you know where the Social Concerns Committee is with their recommendation? No.

564
01:28:11.510 --> 01:28:16.630
Town of Plainfield: Is that Judy, or who is that? Judy's one of them, I think.

565
01:28:17.820 --> 01:28:24.689
Town of Plainfield: Judy Ciprian. Ciprian. I can ask, I can ask her.

566
01:28:25.220 --> 01:28:33.579
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, Judy, Gail Falk, and Marcy Hill. Okay.

567
01:28:35.840 --> 01:28:42.539
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I think, I think Graham said it, we, we need to, and, and you said it, we need to,

568
01:28:43.250 --> 01:28:51.000
Town of Plainfield: get the community on board if we're gonna do something. This… this feels really like a big change.

569
01:28:51.170 --> 01:28:57.989
Town of Plainfield: And… you know, our town has been through so many changes. I really like the idea.

570
01:28:58.460 --> 01:29:15.259
Town of Plainfield: I regret that we would have to take out the $8,000 for Karen Hatcher, or somebody who's writing grants, because I do believe a good grant writer will easily pay their salary. But if they're not there, and expect the administrator to do that grant writing.

571
01:29:15.480 --> 01:29:29.289
Town of Plainfield: That seems unreasonable, I'll say. It does, to me, yeah. So, I think that's kind of the discussion I'd like to have. Yeah, I don't like the idea that the administrator is doing… kind of doing everything, it's like…

572
01:29:29.790 --> 01:29:51.029
Town of Plainfield: Well, including, it sounds like, some of the select board's work. Including grant writing, and grant writing is a huge, a huge job, to research the grant, to find the grants, and… and with the way things are going now, it's gonna be harder. It's not like you can sit down and vote all this time to writing a grant, researching a grant and writing a grant when you've got

573
01:29:51.030 --> 01:30:00.559
Town of Plainfield: all this other stuff that's on the plate. Yeah, we're very fortunate to have people, Michael Billingsley, Karen, Bob.

574
01:30:01.080 --> 01:30:16.649
Town of Plainfield: Who have gotten grants for us as volunteers. Yeah. I mean, I will say, at least at the last meeting, two meetings ago, Karen spoke highly of changing to a model like this. So I think Karen has been the thought partner with Josh

575
01:30:16.960 --> 01:30:33.780
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, yeah. She… I think she understands there needs to be somebody, and… and I also believe very strongly that the government is… whoever the government is, state, federal, whatever, are unlikely to give us money if they're questioning whether we can handle it.

576
01:30:34.130 --> 01:30:35.839
Town of Plainfield: Right? And, and…

577
01:30:35.910 --> 01:30:56.229
Town of Plainfield: keep good records and make sure that payments are made out, they're supposed to be made out, and so on. So, from all that standpoint, I like the administrator. Do you feel like that we don't have that capacity now? I think the staff is pretty overwhelmed. I don't know. Do you have an input, Bram? I see you.

578
01:30:56.230 --> 01:30:57.829
Town Clerk: Well, I think that.

579
01:30:57.830 --> 01:30:58.279
Town of Plainfield: That's the price.

580
01:30:58.280 --> 01:31:11.050
Town Clerk: I think that, the current system, I don't think works particularly well. I think we're… we've made changes and improved, but, I think that,

581
01:31:12.340 --> 01:31:19.209
Town Clerk: it's not… the kind of smooth-running ship that you want, and I think that the case

582
01:31:19.830 --> 01:31:37.629
Town Clerk: can be made. I know there was pushback to expanding the board, to splitting the treasurer and town clerk position, but I think that the proof is in the pudding. I think we've come a long way, and I think we're just gonna have to… you know, it's not a question

583
01:31:37.640 --> 01:31:41.760
Town Clerk: The future is coming anyway. In other words.

584
01:31:42.360 --> 01:31:58.860
Town Clerk: we can have these discussions that are difficult now, or we can, you know, have a huge crisis that Calus had that forces everybody's hand in an emergency, and I think that planning it out and discussing it is sort of smoother sailing. That's my feeling.

585
01:32:01.350 --> 01:32:12.480
Town of Plainfield: Yep. At some point, I think there needs to be an accounting, not just of the finances, but the hours of responsibility that we tack on, tack on…

586
01:32:12.480 --> 01:32:21.500
Town of Plainfield: tack on to the administrator role. It's, like, tempting to make it a catch-all, except that it's actually going to be a person.

587
01:32:21.670 --> 01:32:39.400
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, like a human person. I mean, that's what already happens now to certain positions. Assistant Treasurer, Assistant Clerk, over the years, has had more and more responsibility, and there's different… I do think one of the things that we need to do, and I know you've potentially been trying to do this, Francis Rose, and I've asked…

588
01:32:39.920 --> 01:32:42.550
Town of Plainfield: almost every staff, I'm not sure if I've asked Bram, like.

589
01:32:42.950 --> 01:32:47.189
Town of Plainfield: We need every employee in… that staffs that office

590
01:32:47.240 --> 01:33:11.609
Town of Plainfield: to have a job description, to look it over, to account for how much time they take doing it, and where they're doing things that maybe don't make sense within their role that they've just inherited because of the situations. Like, we have to do that. I don't think it makes any sense for us to change the structure of the office until we have a full accounting of what's going on in the office now, and I know staff are overwhelmed, and I have asked

591
01:33:11.610 --> 01:33:32.629
Town of Plainfield: more than once, and usually the answer is, we're too busy to do that. But the only way you can ever not be too busy is if you do that, and we actually make some changes. And so, I don't know, and maybe Bram and others will have ideas, but we have to have some time where we just sit down, and every single staff of the four staff there, maybe also the department heads.

592
01:33:32.630 --> 01:33:44.440
Town of Plainfield: Write out what they're doing, and how much time it takes them in an average week, and what jobs, like, connect and make sense, and what jobs might don't connect and don't make sense.

593
01:33:44.440 --> 01:33:53.639
Town of Plainfield: You know, like an advocate, for example, we have an administrative assistant who's there the days that we're open to the public.

594
01:33:53.810 --> 01:34:00.460
Town of Plainfield: Why our assistant clerk, assistant treasurer, who has so much to do, is the one sitting basically at the window?

595
01:34:00.460 --> 01:34:18.389
Town of Plainfield: and not… not flipped around makes… I mean, wouldn't make sense in any… almost any office that I've been a part of. Right. That somebody who's got this, like, very detail-oriented work would be the person answering the door, right? And the… and the… maybe the main line of the phones. Like, that doesn't make sense

596
01:34:18.460 --> 01:34:23.590
Town of Plainfield: for a setup. And so, like, those kinds of things we just need to look at.

597
01:34:23.690 --> 01:34:31.890
Town of Plainfield: And then you say, okay, you know what, we actually, you know, we need to have a town administrator, which means we do this, but then, like.

598
01:34:31.890 --> 01:34:55.489
Town of Plainfield: which roles make sense and in which ways because of the things that you need to do. Well, there's a good example. Does a town administrator answer the phone? You know, it's like, you can start to come down to those decisions when you have a clear understanding of what the roles are. You had a question, or… Well, yeah, I mean, comment. I totally agree with Dan that, you know, you need to do this analysis and stuff.

599
01:34:55.490 --> 01:34:59.790
Town of Plainfield: You know, we've been struggling as a select board, you know.

600
01:34:59.790 --> 01:35:23.270
Town of Plainfield: currently, it is our responsibility to do all of these people's evaluations, and we don't have job descriptions to do evaluations. We can't do, yeah. And so, you know, we've asked, you know, and, you know, Rose has been trying to pull together an office meeting and getting resistance, and, you know, it's… Yeah, that's really… You know, at a certain point, maybe we put our foot down.

601
01:35:23.270 --> 01:35:25.709
Town of Plainfield: And say, you know.

602
01:35:25.710 --> 01:35:38.109
Town of Plainfield: we need you to do this by such and such a time, or, you know, I, you know, you know, Bram said, well, let's not close the office or something like this. It is totally…

603
01:35:38.190 --> 01:35:50.519
Town of Plainfield: up to us to say, we're going to close the office for a staff, you know, a day of analysis and evaluation, you know? And it's like, I don't have any problem doing that.

604
01:35:50.520 --> 01:36:01.599
Town Clerk: I tell you, you know, Peter, I think it's a little bit of not appropriate for you to say Ram didn't refuse to close the office without giving that context, okay?

605
01:36:01.600 --> 01:36:17.170
Town of Plainfield: Bram, please. I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I was just quoting an email that you said that you didn't want to do that particular thing. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal.

606
01:36:17.340 --> 01:36:30.289
Town of Plainfield: Okay? But I do think that the Select Board does have the right to say, we want to close the office to have an in-house staff meeting and evaluations, whatever we want to call it.

607
01:36:30.630 --> 01:36:32.679
Town of Plainfield: That is within our right.

608
01:36:33.520 --> 01:36:35.429
Town of Plainfield: And, and responsibility.

609
01:36:35.830 --> 01:36:44.249
Town of Plainfield: To do this. We need to figure out a way to do evaluations of all of you, to have appropriate job descriptions for all of you.

610
01:36:44.500 --> 01:36:52.640
Town of Plainfield: And if it takes closing the office a day to do that, because we've been trying to do it other ways, which hasn't been working, I'll try whatever works.

611
01:36:55.730 --> 01:37:12.300
Town of Plainfield: I mean, what about a Saturday? What about a… I mean… Well, again, I… that's what… the whole point is that we would want to do it on a workday that all the staff are there, so they don't have to give up one of their few days off… Exactly. …to do it, which means then, potentially, like, we could… we could do it on a day that the office is full.

612
01:37:12.300 --> 01:37:27.369
Town of Plainfield: normally open. We could shift the one person who's not… who's only working some days of the week, ask them to shift to a day they don't usually work, to do it on a day that the office is usually closed, as long as we… you know, there's other… like, we work it out with staff, but, I mean…

613
01:37:27.370 --> 01:37:33.870
Town of Plainfield: Here's a thought, what about… But also, we wouldn't, I mean, we'd have to either have only two select board members there.

614
01:37:33.870 --> 01:37:41.329
Town of Plainfield: Or, we would have to warn it, open it, and then it would be a personnel executive session… Correct. …that we would go into for…

615
01:37:41.330 --> 01:38:04.879
Town of Plainfield: 7 hours, and then remember to go back on and come out of it, and whatever. So there's different ways that we could do it if all 5 wanted to be there, or more than 2 wanted to be there. We could break it into parts. We could say, you know, do your evaluations on… you know, write your job descriptions on your own time or something, let's get together for a 3-hour session, as opposed to a 7-hour day. You know, you could break out pieces where we didn't have to be together, but…

616
01:38:04.990 --> 01:38:10.499
Town of Plainfield: So, are you saying that… didn't, didn't we, again, a couple years ago, or a year ago.

617
01:38:10.500 --> 01:38:30.590
Town of Plainfield: asked people to write… to kind of work on their own job descriptions? Yes. Yeah, we asked this for this. Okay, but it didn't have it. They didn't do it. Okay, okay. Yeah, they've been busy. I mean, they had been… No, I know that. I think that would help them, wouldn't it? It would help them, and it would help us a lot. I have been thinking about this a little bit, you know, if we go to the statute.

618
01:38:30.590 --> 01:38:45.590
Town of Plainfield: for treasurer and town clerk. And we say, here's what the statute says these officers must do, okay? Town clerk has to do, you know, marriage licenses, run elections, you know, keep the records.

619
01:38:45.600 --> 01:39:05.859
Town of Plainfield: Okay? What else is the town clerk doing that's not there? Same thing with the treasurer. What does it say? What else is that person now doing? And we know they're doing more. And then you could say, okay, you know, the clerk appoints an assistant, the treasurer appoints an assistant, and there are

620
01:39:05.860 --> 01:39:18.900
Town of Plainfield: duties that they do. They're all doing more than that, okay? So that's the kind of analysis that Dan was asking for, is to say, what are the tasks, and how do we reshuffle those so it makes more sense?

621
01:39:19.400 --> 01:39:38.939
Town of Plainfield: you know, under whatever the model is we come up with. Okay, don't other towns have, job descriptions that we can get, that we can look at? We could find job descriptions for all these things, but if that's what… like, here's the thing. If Bram, Josh, Carol, and Jamie said.

622
01:39:39.510 --> 01:39:56.380
Town of Plainfield: give us the job description of someone who does our job in another town, and we will edit it. Or if they said, give me the statute and we will go add on to it. Or if they said, I'll just write down what I do. I actually… I'm happy to help facilitate, or any one of those processes.

623
01:39:56.470 --> 01:40:08.810
Town of Plainfield: But I have asked staff to write down what they do. We have asked them for job descriptions. They are not doing it, because the job description for the assistant clerk, assistant treasurer from Waitsfield.

624
01:40:08.810 --> 01:40:24.279
Town of Plainfield: may not be able to… they may not have a water-wastewater department, or they may not have the things that we have going on, and so it's still going to be different than what ours is. Or their administrative assistant may do different things than our administrative assistant, so I think we… we…

625
01:40:24.520 --> 01:40:41.629
Town of Plainfield: we can… if that's helpful for them, we could definitely do the research, it would be easy, but they haven't asked for that. That would be… They haven't asked for… they haven't… I mean, they haven't… we have asked them to do something, and they have not asked us for assistance in any way to do it, they just haven't done it.

626
01:40:41.890 --> 01:40:58.639
Town of Plainfield: They've also refused our assistance in… They've also what? Refused our assistance, or rather, postponed and postponed and postponed. And at this point, we've been trying to, like, create time and space to be together to discuss roles and responsibilities

627
01:40:58.640 --> 01:41:03.869
Town of Plainfield: for a long time. So couldn't we say at this point.

628
01:41:04.000 --> 01:41:21.269
Town of Plainfield: We want this… we want this done at this point. We want this done… we want this done now. We want… we want to have a meeting with you, we're gonna have it. I mean, can we stop asking them? I mean, nothing we're asking them to do is, like, terrible. So, can we just say to them at this point.

629
01:41:21.270 --> 01:41:26.709
Town of Plainfield: This is what we're gonna do. We want you to write down your job description, you want it done at this date.

630
01:41:26.930 --> 01:41:32.209
Town of Plainfield: what drugs this day. And then we could look at them and, and,

631
01:41:32.290 --> 01:41:47.049
Town of Plainfield: edit them, and do all that stuff. We want you to have a staff meeting. With food! On the state. I think it would be more productive to do it all together, because then we got, like, 4 people who…

632
01:41:47.790 --> 01:41:59.089
Town of Plainfield: clearly don't do all the talking to one another that they could, and so it's like assigning homework about roles and responsibilities. I think a discussion that was,

633
01:42:00.160 --> 01:42:09.259
Town of Plainfield: scrib about roles and responsibilities seems like it would be more productive and less,

634
01:42:10.330 --> 01:42:20.680
Town of Plainfield: Less lengthy, because then we need to do the back and the forth, and the, you know, fixing of the columns, because there's disagreement about who's doing what.

635
01:42:21.100 --> 01:42:25.579
Town of Plainfield: It feels like we need a list of everything that happens in the office.

636
01:42:25.960 --> 01:42:32.510
Town of Plainfield: Just a list, and don't assign anyone to it yet, but then take that to the meeting that you're talking about.

637
01:42:32.810 --> 01:42:36.599
Town of Plainfield: And say, okay, somebody has to do payroll for water sewer.

638
01:42:37.240 --> 01:42:46.100
Town of Plainfield: Who's doing… who's gonna do that? Or who is doing it? Who is doing it? Yeah. And how much time does it take? Yeah. But I think they could generate that list quicker than we could.

639
01:42:46.320 --> 01:43:03.730
Town of Plainfield: Like, what is the town office doing? Popcorn. Let's, like, write it down. Who's doing it now? Is it appropriate? Do you want to do it? Yeah. Is there anybody else who could do it, perhaps better? And as much as I like Dan's idea of getting some other towns

640
01:43:04.020 --> 01:43:19.769
Town of Plainfield: job descriptions, or a list of things that have to happen, it's gonna be different. It's so different. Definitely not my idea. Well, it was my idea, but it was… It's Patty's idea. It's my idea, and it's okay, and it's not a good idea, but I just thought maybe we'd get some ideas about…

641
01:43:20.240 --> 01:43:23.080
Town of Plainfield: job. We're on job descriptions.

642
01:43:23.210 --> 01:43:34.649
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. I mean, so it was my intention to host a moment anyway on Wednesday with whoever's gonna show up, and I'm hoping it's more than one person that shows up.

643
01:43:34.810 --> 01:43:45.719
Town of Plainfield: I'm hoping it'll be at least Jamie and Josh. And, you know, because they're, like, willing to talk about systems. Well, and maybe you can get…

644
01:43:45.920 --> 01:43:48.669
Town of Plainfield: Their answers to these questions, at least.

645
01:43:48.670 --> 01:43:52.780
Town Clerk: I just want to say, I agreed to come to that meeting on Wednesday, Francis.

646
01:43:53.370 --> 01:43:57.630
Town of Plainfield: Okay, so… but it wasn't… when you,

647
01:43:57.730 --> 01:44:15.869
Town of Plainfield: refused to close the office. Bram. Didn't support closing it. Did not support closing the office. That places an extra burden and responsibility on Carol, who's then trying to do the work she's trying to do.

648
01:44:16.390 --> 01:44:21.209
Town of Plainfield: while… keeping the office open. Like, if you're not…

649
01:44:21.210 --> 01:44:25.710
Town Clerk: I think you're really misunderstanding, Francis, and I think Peter is as well.

650
01:44:26.350 --> 01:44:31.100
Town Clerk: The whole reason why I didn't want to close the office is exactly because of Carol.

651
01:44:32.190 --> 01:44:53.049
Town Clerk: So, I mean, once again, we're closed Thursday and Friday next week, and I just… I feel a little bit as if I'm somehow not helping this conversation along when I think I've done everything, and I've borne the burden of having to manage 3 people who

652
01:44:53.050 --> 01:44:56.530
Town Clerk: Really don't communicate very well.

653
01:44:56.590 --> 01:45:00.660
Town Clerk: So, you know, I'll be happy to join the discussion.

654
01:45:00.660 --> 01:45:19.999
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. That's great. I want your presence and participation. I think it's essential, really. But it's also, I'm acknowledging the burden placed on Carol, who doesn't actually necessarily want the office open if she's the only one there trying to do whatever it is she's trying to do.

655
01:45:24.860 --> 01:45:38.400
Town of Plainfield: Why can't the office be closed for everyone? Why can't the office be closed? Why could it be closed Monday? I mean, we're all in a holiday season, right? People are traveling, and I don't know, maybe there's end-of-year things that are gonna be keeping it open, but…

656
01:45:38.400 --> 01:45:45.950
Town of Plainfield: I'm just trying to pick a day that… where you just could have a notice at the door and say, we're closed, sorry.

657
01:45:46.030 --> 01:46:02.739
Town of Plainfield: Well, yeah, or pick a day and then just make sure it's out far enough that people plan for it. Yeah. This was planned for, just to name it. No, no, no. This was planned for, and named weeks and weeks ago. Okay, so we just can't… this is…

658
01:46:03.090 --> 01:46:13.720
Town of Plainfield: this is not the person I am, but… I think we have to… we have to say, the office is closed for this. It's like, schools have days off, or…

659
01:46:14.290 --> 01:46:27.139
Town of Plainfield: Restaurants have days off. People have days off to get themselves together. So, we're gonna say, this day is closed for staff meeting, and all attendance is required.

660
01:46:27.630 --> 01:46:41.809
Town of Plainfield: I mean, I'm so in support of that. The function and the function and health of the town office, as Carl said, it's our… it's our responsibility. And it's, like, not there.

661
01:46:42.430 --> 01:46:50.489
Town of Plainfield: Okay, I mean, they're gonna get paid for the day. They're gonna get paid, so I think everyone… we have to say, this is the day we're gonna have it, and all staff is required to come.

662
01:46:51.080 --> 01:46:58.079
Town of Plainfield: I mean, and so, can it be this Wednesday? Can it be 2 hours on Wednesday to, like, start this process?

663
01:46:59.410 --> 01:47:12.620
Town of Plainfield: I know Carol's only worry was she's… that's her last day before she's trying to take vacation, and so she wants to get all her… I think she thinks that she takes 2 hours in the middle of the day, it just means she's gonna be there 2 hours longer in the evening.

664
01:47:12.620 --> 01:47:22.390
Town of Plainfield: So… and then the next sentence was, okay, January. Yeah. And this… this in December was…

665
01:47:22.560 --> 01:47:30.280
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. No, I understand. And it was July. Yeah, yeah. And it was… Okay. You know, it was like, you know, it's…

666
01:47:30.830 --> 01:47:45.120
Town of Plainfield: we either need to draw the line, as Patty is saying, or expect this to be punted and punted along. I have not seen any… I have not… my trust in this is, like, decreasing without, like, a harder line.

667
01:47:45.230 --> 01:47:55.740
Town of Plainfield: Like, this is what's going to happen. And maybe what it's been lacking is, like, select board unity about that very thing, like, oh, no, actually, we're gonna do it.

668
01:47:57.190 --> 01:48:08.779
Town of Plainfield: I would… I would feel better if we could have that meeting with that list that I was talking about, because… because otherwise I could see us getting all together in one room and just kind of…

669
01:48:08.900 --> 01:48:24.750
Town of Plainfield: you know, it doesn't feel like there's a productive start to it. Well, I was… a thought occurred to me, there's like, you know, perhaps we can assist with the exercise of, you know, writing down all it is that you do by creating a template.

670
01:48:24.750 --> 01:48:38.139
Town of Plainfield: Okay, which includes the statutory duties of town clerk and town treasurer, and say, okay, which of these are you doing? And then space for them to add, what additional things do you do?

671
01:48:38.140 --> 01:48:57.220
Town of Plainfield: Okay, that way you end up with… they don't have to create something from Whole Club, you know, that there's a… there's a working template where they can fill in, I do this, I do part of this, how much time it takes. Well, and I wonder, maybe even more generative, because I don't know that we'll have that, you know, for Wednesday, is…

672
01:48:57.220 --> 01:49:06.460
Town of Plainfield: what if Wednesday, Francois, you have the conversation with the 3-year… whoever, whoever shows up, in this vein, you helpfully create part of a list.

673
01:49:07.140 --> 01:49:14.099
Town of Plainfield: Then we can go against statute and maybe add things that might be missing, or whatever, and then we set a date

674
01:49:14.290 --> 01:49:24.569
Town of Plainfield: at, maybe at our meeting next Monday, after you've had this meeting, where we set a date in January, whatever, like, actual date, and say, you know, Friday, January 9th.

675
01:49:24.900 --> 01:49:26.689
Town of Plainfield: From this time to this time.

676
01:49:26.920 --> 01:49:39.540
Town of Plainfield: you know, required all staff, and then it's a… it'll be a special executive session-only meeting, so we'll have… You're saying in the new year? Yeah, well, I'm just… I'm just trying to, like…

677
01:49:39.760 --> 01:49:46.179
Town of Plainfield: I am totally fine with mandating people to do things and do whatever, but, like, usually in my work.

678
01:49:46.460 --> 01:49:51.340
Town of Plainfield: it's not, like, 2 days from now. It's usually, like, you get a little bit of time, and I just… I…

679
01:49:51.340 --> 01:50:07.690
Town of Plainfield: It's always that balance, and maybe folks feel different, and they think that it should be mandatory this Wednesday. I know you're not trying… I know that it's, like, there's a long history, like, there's, like, all these… but I will say that, like, I don't know that at any point, at least from the communications I've seen.

680
01:50:07.700 --> 01:50:13.089
Town of Plainfield: That every staff member committed to Agreeing to do this.

681
01:50:13.370 --> 01:50:16.030
Town of Plainfield: on this time frame. But maybe I'm wrong.

682
01:50:16.810 --> 01:50:40.829
Town of Plainfield: This last round was, like, pretty solid, but, but then it changed. Okay, well then, I mean… You know, it's only two days out now, because it's two days out. Yeah. Like… Last October. Two weeks ago, it was like, Josh named the range. I spoke with Carol. I mean, I guess I did not hear from Bram about that date specifically. Jamie said yes.

683
01:50:40.830 --> 01:50:49.430
Town of Plainfield: According to the date originally. Yeah. Okay, well, then it sounds like… and Bram says he can make it, and you said Jamie and Josh, I mean, it seems like we just have to…

684
01:50:49.940 --> 01:50:51.430
Town of Plainfield: Push what to happen.

685
01:50:52.540 --> 01:51:02.500
Town of Plainfield: And then from now on, when we… maybe we need to do this more often, maybe every 3 months, we need to close the office for a couple hours.

686
01:51:03.050 --> 01:51:05.940
Town of Plainfield: Until things look like they're really creaming around.

687
01:51:06.280 --> 01:51:10.509
Town of Plainfield: Not for… maybe not forever, but until things look like they're really changing around.

688
01:51:10.690 --> 01:51:17.869
Town of Plainfield: The wounds say, okay, Now that we met today, we're gonna meet again in 2 months.

689
01:51:18.200 --> 01:51:22.690
Town of Plainfield: At this date, it's mandatory. Your office is closed.

690
01:51:23.390 --> 01:51:37.800
Town of Plainfield: I mean, even at its most robust, the thing on Wednesday was never gonna be the full in-service day with the whole board. You know, that was, like, never the program. It was a small bite in the center of the day that was…

691
01:51:37.800 --> 01:51:40.800
Town of Plainfield: Focused to, like, begin the discussion.

692
01:51:40.800 --> 01:51:58.579
Town of Plainfield: And to start to think about the systems of improvement. I would say this, I would urge you to go ahead with that, because I think, you know, there's a couple of things here. One, there's the sort of administrative, you know, let's write clear job descriptions and functions. And the second is.

693
01:51:59.030 --> 01:52:18.779
Town of Plainfield: how do they get along? What's the chemistry? You know, how do folks get together? That's a lot of what you're thinking about. You know, and it's like… but I would hope… I would ask you to deliver the message that we need them to get their job descriptions to us by the end of the year. And as best they can do it. And,

694
01:52:21.230 --> 01:52:35.980
Town of Plainfield: You know, what are the things that you're doing? You know, we want to help you do your jobs better, we want to help the office to run better, and, you know, the lack of clarity of function and job description is a barrier to doing that, so help us out here.

695
01:52:36.200 --> 01:52:39.919
Town of Plainfield: Yeah? Agreed. I think…

696
01:52:39.950 --> 01:52:59.270
Town of Plainfield: It may be intimidating for them in the office to create some whole new job description, but if they could just list the things that they do, right, the tasks they do, very specific, then that would really be helpful. I've had, in different jobs,

697
01:52:59.450 --> 01:53:08.929
Town of Plainfield: for lack of a word, tests, tests where it's like, write down what you did on Monday.

698
01:53:09.310 --> 01:53:33.840
Town of Plainfield: You know, knowing that every Monday's different, and Monday's different than Tuesday, etc, but it's like, it's eye-opening sometimes to say, I spent 15 minutes doing that, oh my god, you know, why? I should have done that in 2 minutes, you know, or something. And it's like, if you do an analysis of your own time, light bulbs go off, you know? And it's like, geez, you know, I could have combined those things. It just gives you a different way of

699
01:53:33.840 --> 01:53:58.799
Town of Plainfield: fresh way of looking at it. And it's like… and sometimes, you know, like, for grants, I've had to say, okay, you know, they want to know, how many hours of this did you do of this? If you're an attorney, you know, you sit down and… Every 15 minutes. Every six minutes. Yeah, every 6 minutes. Every six minutes, it's like, you know, you push a button on your computer, and it's like, you call up your attorney, and like, you hear them click the button in the background, because it's like the clock's running, you know, but it keeps

700
01:53:58.800 --> 01:54:21.270
Town of Plainfield: then track and say, I spent this amount of time on this case, I spent this amount of time on this subject, you know? And it's, you know, that kind of time analysis has not been done here. So it's like, okay, how much time are we spending on, you know, producing the bills, you know? Is there a better way to do that? You know, is the right person doing it, you know?

701
01:54:21.290 --> 01:54:39.440
Town of Plainfield: without getting into an analysis, you don't know. Yeah. Well, and for me, we can't do reviews, employee reviews, and we can't make a decision in my mind, yet about the administrator, unless we have a clearer idea of what has to happen in the office.

702
01:54:39.770 --> 01:54:51.129
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I think, plainfield, people are gonna say, and we had enough time we wanted to add a treasurer. I don't know why. Well, the vote, the vote was actually very clear. There was, there was a lot of conversation, but…

703
01:54:51.130 --> 01:55:15.890
Town of Plainfield: it was a very one-sided vote, I think, both for that and for expanding the… to the five-person board. Well, I'll die, but… Yeah, I know. No, it was pretty… It was a one-sided vote. I think it was… there were… there was a vocal minority, which is typically the case, I don't want to say. Okay, but adding another person without… Well, are we adding another person? Like, that's what… part of the question is, like, when you look at these different scenarios, like.

704
01:55:16.230 --> 01:55:21.880
Town of Plainfield: Some of it is just moving responsibility around, and changing, and like…

705
01:55:21.880 --> 01:55:37.159
Town of Plainfield: you're not… maybe you're not adding a person. That's why I, you know, questioned some of the different things, because… That's why there's more detail needed. You know, we can't… we can't do it by just adding and codifying a hierarchy within the town government and responsibilities.

706
01:55:37.160 --> 01:55:46.019
Town of Plainfield: So, so, it sounds like we're almost out of time here. We had, are any of you able to join me on Monday? We're good. No.

707
01:55:46.290 --> 01:55:55.910
Town of Plainfield: I'm not presenting a webinar. I don't do it, and I will do it. I have an MRI in the afternoon, so it would have to be, you know… What time?

708
01:55:55.920 --> 01:56:09.790
Town of Plainfield: It's, I have to probably get ready at 3, so… Okay, okay. So it can't be in the afternoon. Well, it's lunchtime, right? Lunchtime would be good, or even morning, you know, for a couple hours.

709
01:56:10.070 --> 01:56:12.090
Town of Plainfield: Okay. Okay.

710
01:56:12.620 --> 01:56:17.259
Town of Plainfield: I forget, I had named it time, but let me check what that was, but go ahead.

711
01:56:17.720 --> 01:56:20.249
Town of Plainfield: You had offered fruit at one point, I…

712
01:56:20.510 --> 01:56:34.409
Town of Plainfield: I'm not sure. Yeah, Ms. I mean, I'm keeping people over lunch. I offer food. I know, you go out to tea. No, I thought that was pretty generous.

713
01:56:34.670 --> 01:56:37.369
Town of Plainfield: I think the Select Board could spring for…

714
01:56:37.550 --> 01:56:43.269
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. Spring for lunch, if necessary. Yeah. My eyes will open on Wednesdays.

715
01:56:44.820 --> 01:57:09.809
Town of Plainfield: So the two of us could do it. Yeah. And then… And then, well, yeah, because then we don't have to warn a meeting. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I don't think we want to… But I think in the future, we may want to warrant another meeting. I think the next round, it would make sense to have a special meeting. I left it at lunch, so would you like to name the time? Is that 11 to 1? Is that, like… 11 to 1 would be, I think… Is that good for you?

716
01:57:09.810 --> 01:57:20.010
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, yeah, I can do that. That's it, I will get back to this. Let me just… I'm gonna double-check my calendar, just to make sure I'm not forgetting something yet again.

717
01:57:20.220 --> 01:57:24.670
Town of Plainfield: Hey, Carl. Thank you both. Yeah, thank you. Carl?

718
01:57:25.030 --> 01:57:29.160
Town of Plainfield: Can I make a motion to approve draft minutes from December 8th, 2025?

719
01:57:30.140 --> 01:57:40.550
Town of Plainfield: Yes, you can. Second? I seconded. Second? Amendments. Amendments? Yes. In the town constable's report, I sent this to Jamie,

720
01:57:40.930 --> 01:57:57.979
Town of Plainfield: Dan is the town constable, but Dan Fingus, the board member, raised a couple of points, and Jamie's notes all just say Dan, and I believe points 4 and 5 were Dan Fingus' points.

721
01:57:58.010 --> 01:58:13.440
Town of Plainfield: about… this was when we were talking about making it potentially a requirement for calling the state police if there's another incident, and it was just, I thought, that needed clarification. Yeah, I saw that. Which Dan was speaking there. Yep, that's good.

722
01:58:14.510 --> 01:58:23.349
Town of Plainfield: So I would move that the minutes be amended to reflect that Dan… which Dan… I think Dan Fingus…

723
01:58:23.740 --> 01:58:37.470
Town of Plainfield: raised points 4 and 5, and Nick. Do you have those in front of you? I don't have the minutes in front of me, I'm just writing them down. So we'll have to address it next time, then, right? Unless we… or do you want to… how do you want to…

724
01:58:37.970 --> 01:58:46.890
Town of Plainfield: Approve them. We didn't approve them, I was just gonna look for the minutes. They have not, they have not yet been changed. Okay.

725
01:58:47.050 --> 01:58:48.090
Town of Plainfield: I mean…

726
01:58:49.780 --> 01:58:55.369
Town of Plainfield: I think there are 5 points under the Constable's report, and I believe it's .4 and 5 that were…

727
01:58:55.830 --> 01:58:58.290
Town of Plainfield: Dan Fingus. You know what?

728
01:58:59.210 --> 01:59:10.979
Town of Plainfield: Look at you! They're changed now. Look at you, Dan. Edited. Just added my last name to the two points. So, we can just pass this as… Okay. As they are now.

729
01:59:10.980 --> 01:59:30.809
Town of Plainfield: Oh, okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Carl? Opposed? Yes. Can I, motion to approve accounts payable for December 15th, which wasn't on the agenda, but I see we have it in the folder, and, I'm sorry, yeah, accounts payable for December 15th, and payroll for December 11th, 2025.

730
01:59:31.290 --> 01:59:36.310
Town of Plainfield: Second. Second, and all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye.

731
01:59:36.730 --> 01:59:51.920
Town of Plainfield: And do you want to announce the next meeting? The next meeting will be next Monday, which is the 22nd. Is that right? Wait. It is. Yep. Yep. The 22nd of December. 6 o'clock, Opera House.

732
01:59:51.920 --> 01:59:59.020
Town of Plainfield: Yes, Dan. Motion to adjourn at around 2PM? Question before we… No.

733
01:59:59.140 --> 02:00:01.830
Town of Plainfield: Are we doing more budget?

734
02:00:02.390 --> 02:00:19.690
Town of Plainfield: Next time. Yeah, I think next Monday we need to do more budget. I believe we noted that as an intention. Yeah. Yeah. And we have committee appointments to make. Yes. Both, yes. And I would just point, I took a look at the tracking sheet, and it doesn't look like anyone is using it.

735
02:00:19.950 --> 02:00:22.489
Town of Plainfield: If you're making calls.

736
02:00:22.590 --> 02:00:29.089
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I've been a little lax in my calls, I've made some, but, and I've talked to some folks in person, but…

737
02:00:29.090 --> 02:00:52.910
Town of Plainfield: I've talked to a couple people who were saying, is anyone else gonna give me a call? Yeah. Well, I mean, for the EVAC, we only guaranteed that one select board member was gonna talk to people. At minimum, everyone would get one select board call. So as long as everybody's gotten one select board call, then we're… That was the great thing about that sheet, though, because people could see who was calling who. But yeah, I don't think there was ever an expectation, like, we didn't with EVAC,

738
02:00:52.910 --> 02:01:15.879
Town of Plainfield: have all five select board members call everything. Oh, no, no, we didn't. Oh, no, but I've had people say I'm the only one who's called them, so… Yeah, that's okay. That's fine. Alright. That is… we are all allowed to use our own process. Okay, we have a motion, I think a second. I didn't hear a second. I second it. Oh, Patty. Patty said second. All right. And all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

739
02:01:17.760 --> 02:01:33.949
Town of Plainfield: Thank you all. We can leave the chair and tables, because Thursday's thing is the next, and you guys will need them off, right? Oh, yeah. So, like, we need to leave this, we just need to get… And tomorrow, tomorrow night, we're going to be downstairs.