WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.710 --> 00:00:12.389
Town of Plainfield: Well, good evening. My name is Peter Youngbear, Chair of the Select Board, and we'll call this meeting to order at 6 p.m.

2
00:00:12.500 --> 00:00:16.530
Town of Plainfield: And we'll note, that,

3
00:00:16.720 --> 00:00:27.170
Town of Plainfield: Annie Robinson, Karen Hatcher, Francis Rose Soviando are all here in person, and we are expecting Patty to join us

4
00:00:27.310 --> 00:00:30.880
Town of Plainfield: Online, but she's not with us yet.

5
00:00:31.300 --> 00:00:32.420
Town of Plainfield: Okay.

6
00:00:32.530 --> 00:00:37.719
Town of Plainfield: I would ask if there are any changes to the agenda.

7
00:00:38.230 --> 00:00:46.810
Town of Plainfield: And Karen, you had something? I did. Yeah, just a discussion, on the request we got from Senator Welch's office regarding, earmarked funds.

8
00:00:47.770 --> 00:00:51.569
Town of Plainfield: And where would you want to put that on the agenda?

9
00:00:52.050 --> 00:00:54.469
Town of Plainfield: You know, you can just, we can just…

10
00:00:54.940 --> 00:00:59.959
Town of Plainfield: Put it right before the grant administrator's report? How about that? Okay. Would that work? Okay.

11
00:01:00.140 --> 00:01:00.785
Town of Plainfield: Right.

12
00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:06.320
Town of Plainfield: Anyone else have a change to the agenda? That was the one I was tracking, too.

13
00:01:06.710 --> 00:01:08.310
Town of Plainfield: Cool.

14
00:01:09.100 --> 00:01:23.210
Town of Plainfield: Moving back around to the appointments, the formalizing the Select Board's recommendations for the… the two appointments that are actually made by the state, but that you have to make the recommendation for. Okay, and

15
00:01:23.350 --> 00:01:39.139
Town of Plainfield: Remind me again, one is, like, the forest fire warden. Yep, forest fire warden, and then the town, health officer, and I have the terms, here. For Jody, right? Yeah. Right. And that's… we have to do that online, right?

16
00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:45.240
Town of Plainfield: I guess so, yeah. I think there's a form. I don't actually know if you have to do anything here, but…

17
00:01:46.200 --> 00:02:00.930
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, they actually technically make the appointments, we don't, so… Peter, I have one other change, and that is that the, the item called, Plainfield Village Cemetery Grant Proposal, not sure we're discussing that tonight,

18
00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:06.540
Town of Plainfield: the… because of my email with Lydia, and it looked like,

19
00:02:07.350 --> 00:02:26.269
Town of Plainfield: that's not something we need to do. I think that if they're interested in that grant, they can, take that up, but… I don't think we need… I don't think we need to vote on it, but I… We can talk about it. Yeah, I don't know that any of the representatives can be here tonight, so… That's okay. Okay, fine. Okay. Very good.

20
00:02:26.810 --> 00:02:31.800
Town of Plainfield: So the cemetery, and then the other was those two appointments.

21
00:02:32.100 --> 00:02:38.010
Town of Plainfield: Okay. So why don't we do those after the town clerk's report appointments?

22
00:02:39.170 --> 00:02:40.500
Town of Plainfield: Alright.

23
00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:41.630
Town of Plainfield: Alright.

24
00:02:41.820 --> 00:02:44.359
Town of Plainfield: Any announcements?

25
00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:49.680
Town of Plainfield: I have two,

26
00:02:50.000 --> 00:03:13.059
Town of Plainfield: First is, I've begun the, sort of general letter communications with all our commissions and committees, reminding them of their statutory duties, of people like chairs to take the, open meeting law training that's required each year, and also the, municipal ethics, training, so…

27
00:03:13.060 --> 00:03:15.639
Town of Plainfield: I'm trying to get those out.

28
00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:33.740
Town of Plainfield: before each of the groups meet. I don't know if I'm going to be 100% successful with that, but, anyway. And that's a reminder for all of us, we need to take that training if you haven't already. I did. Okay. Second, I would, your question? Yeah. Ethics training is also from the Secretary of State, or where does that come from?

29
00:03:33.740 --> 00:03:42.509
Town of Plainfield: It comes from the Vermont Ethics Commission, okay? Thank you. Basically review the policy that's on our town website, so…

30
00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:54.650
Town of Plainfield: The other announcement I have is that, we had a, meeting, it was Carl and I, and… were you there?

31
00:03:54.650 --> 00:04:13.850
Town of Plainfield: For the road? Yes. Okay. I forgot when you went out of town, but, so, Michael was part of it, Arian Taboomeri would have been the other person who wasn't able to attend the meeting, but we, had a meeting with Vermont Emergency Management over the issues of the,

32
00:04:13.850 --> 00:04:33.050
Town of Plainfield: roles being played by FEMA with the buyout properties, but also federal highways with the bridges, which abut against a number of the buyout properties. So it was an interesting, discussion on the phone, with no real conclusion, because a major partner, FEMA, is

33
00:04:33.050 --> 00:04:40.599
Town of Plainfield: closed down at the moment. But it was basically a heads up that we need to pay attention to this. And there are, discussions going on, particularly

34
00:04:40.670 --> 00:04:45.729
Town of Plainfield: Already between, water and, sewer.

35
00:04:45.730 --> 00:05:02.900
Town of Plainfield: Tristan and the bridge designer for the Mill Street Bridge, because that either has to carry or bury, the water and sewer. And, I did talk with Evan Dietrich, who is with VHB, the firm that is…

36
00:05:02.900 --> 00:05:07.050
Town of Plainfield: Our municipal project manager for the two bridges.

37
00:05:07.050 --> 00:05:20.099
Town of Plainfield: In the village, and so they are aware of the potential, for abutment, issues there, and possible redesign on the, what do they call, the wings?

38
00:05:20.210 --> 00:05:36.739
Town of Plainfield: the concrete wings, etc. He also did confirm with me that, the design expectation for the Mill Street Bridge only has sidewalk on one side. That's always been the plan, going to the crosswalk, I guess, that used to be there, so…

39
00:05:36.870 --> 00:05:52.070
Town of Plainfield: related to that, another small group of us, Carl and I, met with, Ross Gowan from VTRANS, Pat Travers, who is with,

40
00:05:52.430 --> 00:06:11.220
Town of Plainfield: blanking on the name of it. He's the municipal project manager for the three bridges and the Grand Canyon out the Brook Road, which has now all been made into one project. And that was awarded, we scored and awarded that to VHB, and Brian Dietrich is the, evan.

41
00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:19.260
Town of Plainfield: Evan Dietrich, sorry, is the, head… head of that, etc. So,

42
00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:39.219
Town of Plainfield: And they are going to have a preliminary meeting of their state-level work group. I think they're trying to do it this Thursday. Well, I saw some emails on that, but we'll find out. They are then going to plan for a public meeting here in Plainfield

43
00:06:39.220 --> 00:06:54.590
Town of Plainfield: early summer is the words he used, so we don't have a specific date on that. I don't think we'll get to it, but that will be an opportunity for anyone to come out. We'll probably call it a special select board meeting, but basically it'll be all about the projects there, and…

44
00:06:54.590 --> 00:07:02.620
Town of Plainfield: I think if folks want to raise questions about the two bridges in town as well, because Evan's involved on…

45
00:07:02.620 --> 00:07:06.829
Town of Plainfield: Both of those, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer, so that's… that's coming up.

46
00:07:10.760 --> 00:07:19.210
Town of Plainfield: Michael, do you have a… A very, a very quick little announcement? Because of something you just said earlier, actually, which is that,

47
00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:29.719
Town of Plainfield: Given that I'm stepping back from my emergency management duties in early April, I agreed to become the chair of the Hazard Mitigation Committee, so that's,

48
00:07:30.670 --> 00:07:35.779
Town of Plainfield: that's in effect now. I would be one of the people who would need it, potentially, to take training.

49
00:07:36.280 --> 00:07:41.929
Town of Plainfield: But I'm now… we'll change it on the website, but it's… it hasn't been changed publicly yet.

50
00:07:43.280 --> 00:07:48.540
Town of Plainfield: Okay, is that… so the committee elected you the chair? That's correct. Okay.

51
00:07:50.210 --> 00:07:58.130
Town of Plainfield: Were you there at that point, Francis Rose? I don't… Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Alrighty.

52
00:07:59.070 --> 00:08:10.590
Town of Plainfield: So you're stepping back in early April? Correct. Instead of May? I'm sorry, early May. You're correct. I'm sorry. I don't want to rush it. Early April is not correct. Early May.

53
00:08:10.810 --> 00:08:12.779
Town of Plainfield: Alright, thank you.

54
00:08:13.070 --> 00:08:20.060
Town of Plainfield: All right, hearing no other announcements, is there public comment? One more announcement, is the…

55
00:08:24.540 --> 00:08:29.240
Town of Plainfield: The Treasurer Financial Director position is live and on Indeed.

56
00:08:29.590 --> 00:08:49.359
Town of Plainfield: I just wanted to… that's one more announcement. Thank you. Yes. Tell your friends. Please. Who know anything about accounting. Yes. Tell your mom, tell your mom. I have two applications in already, so… One from Nairobi, Kenya, which I don't know if they're coming for the interview or not, but that's what happens with Indeed sometimes.

57
00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:55.810
Town of Plainfield: Alright, Patty has joined us, I see, online. Welcome, Patty. Anybody have, public comment?

58
00:08:58.710 --> 00:09:10.140
Town of Plainfield: Hearing none… So, I just want to acknowledge that, public comment is coming from the internet, that at least one person is struggling with sound and video, and so we're just doing some

59
00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:12.540
Town of Plainfield: Troubleshooting?

60
00:09:12.880 --> 00:09:19.139
Town of Plainfield: I think maybe… This person behind iPhone.

61
00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:23.199
Town of Plainfield: Might be unique in not being able to hear us.

62
00:09:27.790 --> 00:09:37.539
Town of Plainfield: Do they… aren't they supposed to put their pictures up so you can see who we are? We… it's first and last names. iPhone came in before the waiting room is up.

63
00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:38.950
Town of Plainfield: Agreed.

64
00:09:43.100 --> 00:09:45.469
Town of Plainfield: Walter Hope, that's a real person. Thank you.

65
00:09:46.590 --> 00:09:58.389
Town of Plainfield: Could you repeat the… what people are supposed to do to join? The ask to enter the Zoom room for select board meetings is to list first and last names full.

66
00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:02.499
Town of Plainfield: And if not that, your video.

67
00:10:03.260 --> 00:10:05.839
Town of Plainfield: And show us a picture of themselves. Right.

68
00:10:06.530 --> 00:10:13.880
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, a video of you. Nothing naughty. Yeah, so really, iPhone should not be on… in the meeting at this point.

69
00:10:14.040 --> 00:10:15.520
Town of Plainfield: They're trying in again.

70
00:10:16.270 --> 00:10:17.350
Town of Plainfield: Okay.

71
00:10:19.810 --> 00:10:27.100
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, they're leaving and then coming back in, so… Okay.

72
00:10:32.110 --> 00:10:33.620
Town of Plainfield: Alright.

73
00:10:33.780 --> 00:10:40.820
Town of Plainfield: Town clerk's report. Hi. Hi. Greetings. And I am to report.

74
00:10:41.230 --> 00:10:50.169
Town of Plainfield: Okay. I have, like, 3 little subsections here, just for organization. Let's see if… That sticks.

75
00:10:50.500 --> 00:11:03.339
Town of Plainfield: One big thing of, like, this season is election follow-up. So, obviously, there was, like, certifying the results of the election and reporting that, but then there's, like, the,

76
00:11:03.650 --> 00:11:23.050
Town of Plainfield: voter participation stuff, which isn't due for a little bit. And then there's multiple, like, organizations that, request an updated list of all of the town officials, elected and appointed. So, I've been going through…

77
00:11:23.100 --> 00:11:24.890
Town of Plainfield: In my, you know…

78
00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:38.650
Town of Plainfield: In the time that I have, in doing those. So, one cool thing about that is that we'll be very well updated with, all of these organizations, like the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

79
00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:47.620
Town of Plainfield: Vins, the election management system, also you put your stuff in there, and

80
00:11:48.260 --> 00:11:53.669
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. So that's… that's a lot.

81
00:11:54.450 --> 00:12:11.010
Town of Plainfield: dog licenses, it's dog licensing season. Woof woof. Woof woof! That was Kristen Broski, and also just shout out to Kristen and her just amazing, vibrant energy, and just, like, whew, like…

82
00:12:11.170 --> 00:12:17.169
Town of Plainfield: Just… just being on it and being an absolute blessing and a boon to the office and the town.

83
00:12:17.230 --> 00:12:32.049
Town of Plainfield: Thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Kristen. And thank you, Select Board, for authorizing, us to… How many days is Kristen coming in? So, she's doing 2 days a week, Mondays and Fridays, from, like, 9 to 4.

84
00:12:33.920 --> 00:12:47.489
Town of Plainfield: And actually, I have a question about that. I don't know when will be the best time about that, but, yeah, I'll go ahead and do it if you need to think about it. Go ahead. So, yeah, she realized that, you know, we had one of the…

85
00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:49.870
Town of Plainfield: parameters, I guess, for this…

86
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:56.510
Town of Plainfield: short-term help was, like, a maximum of 30 days. So, I would love clarity on if that's, like.

87
00:12:56.970 --> 00:13:08.670
Town of Plainfield: calendar bound, or if that's, like, days of, like, assistance. Because basically, she can do 3 weeks in a row, and then she can't do, like, the fourth week, so she's wondering, should she come back

88
00:13:09.250 --> 00:13:24.679
Town of Plainfield: For a week after that, or is that, like, outside of the… Well, I think the 30 days was meant as a 30-day slot, but it's also capped by the dollars there, so we didn't know how many shifts, so, I was interpreting those 30 work days. Yeah.

89
00:13:25.230 --> 00:13:38.920
Town of Plainfield: I was interpreting based on when the money runs out, she stops working for us. Yeah. And we authorize a certain amount of money. And we can come back and add to it, or whatever, so… Okay, cool. I mean, I don't know how many hours, two days a week.

90
00:13:38.920 --> 00:13:50.490
Town of Plainfield: uses up of that, but… Yeah, it's like 16. Oh, gosh, math. We'll have another… 16. We'll have another meeting before it runs out. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great, thank you.

91
00:13:50.490 --> 00:14:00.880
Town of Plainfield: So yeah, she's been so helpful, in, you know, tending the window for people coming in with stuff, especially the dog licenses.

92
00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:04.190
Town of Plainfield: And also, I just wanted to share that,

93
00:14:04.430 --> 00:14:11.259
Town of Plainfield: I think, yeah, 36 dogs have been licensed this year since, January 1st.

94
00:14:11.740 --> 00:14:18.899
Town of Plainfield: 2026. And, that's, that's decreased significantly from

95
00:14:19.020 --> 00:14:38.069
Town of Plainfield: prior years, it's kept going down. So it seems like it's kind of fallen out of practice, and I would love for us to be able to, like, enliven that again. It seems really boring to, like, register your dog, like, I don't know, that just seems…

96
00:14:38.220 --> 00:14:42.700
Town of Plainfield: very mundane and not cool, but I wanted to just highlight that,

97
00:14:43.350 --> 00:14:50.659
Town of Plainfield: It's $11 for a dog who's spayed… spayed or neutered. Spayed or neutered, yep. $15 for a dog who's not.

98
00:14:50.850 --> 00:14:57.809
Town of Plainfield: with either one, $3 goes to, rabies control programs in the state of Vermont.

99
00:14:58.040 --> 00:15:16.110
Town of Plainfield: And then $4 of each license goes to spay and neuter programs. So it's… it's good for the town. We, we get, what, $4 of it, too, for our administration stuff. And it's good for other doggies and animals and…

100
00:15:16.790 --> 00:15:41.769
Town of Plainfield: Well, and as we know from a couple of incidences in town, knowing whether that dog has their rabies shot or not is very key to public health. Rabies is not a kind disease. Yes, so yeah, do it for your neighbors, do it for your dogs. Your dogs want you to do it. I mean, it seems like a connected thing. I just wanted to ask if there's a plan to do a posting about it.

101
00:15:41.770 --> 00:16:05.309
Town of Plainfield: to put something on Front Porch Forum, to put something on the Facebook page, you know, to really encourage folks to report what you just reported, because very few people on. So, you know… That's a great idea. Now that you've said that, yes, there is a plan. There you go. Thank you. And I think I was gonna tag on that, this seems connected to our conversation about municipal ordinances.

102
00:16:05.310 --> 00:16:10.019
Town of Plainfield: And, authorizing… Peter Yassis?

103
00:16:10.180 --> 00:16:13.859
Town of Plainfield: Who is the animal control officer in town, to be able to…

104
00:16:14.170 --> 00:16:17.140
Town of Plainfield: I write a ticket for people who don't.

105
00:16:17.500 --> 00:16:29.799
Town of Plainfield: And the health officer. They also were given that. But we're not quite there yet, right? Like, those were not the first municipal ticketing, ordinances that were coming online.

106
00:16:29.900 --> 00:16:30.650
Town of Plainfield: Would I?

107
00:16:30.650 --> 00:16:55.639
Town of Plainfield: Animal control we did, didn't we? Yeah. I think so. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Because that one… that one only… we only had… that was the one where we took out the clause from the old policy that said that they can go onto people's property unannounced, which had its own safety issues as well. And, you know, it's not designed to threaten. This is, like, the fines aren't even that great. But, however, you know, the reason we're doing

108
00:16:55.640 --> 00:17:20.610
Town of Plainfield: this is to, like, put more teeth into what the town is doing and wants to be doing, and wants to be supported and doing by the rest of the town. You really want to go with teeth? Teeth is not… Robin foaming teeth. Alright, so that's the stick, and I'm all in favor of the stick. I would also propose a carrot. Please. Which is… and I'll make a donation to do this, but I suggest we get a gift certificate

109
00:17:20.609 --> 00:17:45.109
Town of Plainfield: from one of the local pet stores, and then everyone who's registered is entered into a raffle, but you have to be registered to be entered into the raffle, and you get a $25 gift certificate or something for your pet. I think that's brilliant. That's really great. Let's do both. Yeah, great. Okay, and can we do second and third places, too, where, you know, we get a new tag every year? We have to order new ones.

110
00:17:45.110 --> 00:18:10.049
Town of Plainfield: We don't use them all. And you can pick the color, and you can pick the shape. So, second and third. All you, Jane. All you. I'll take care of the gift certificate, you take care of it. Great, we got it, okay. I think this is great, and, you know, what they say about advertising is, until you hear the ad six times, you haven't heard it once, right? So, like, if you put something out on, you know, Front Porch Forum, and then Peter Yastas

111
00:18:10.050 --> 00:18:20.650
Town of Plainfield: followed a couple weeks later, and Valerie Velarde, Jody Velarde called, followed, you know, there could be some consistency to the message, and I think, you know.

112
00:18:20.650 --> 00:18:45.489
Town of Plainfield: we should see those numbers bump up. Awesome. And also, also, I feel like, the, like, clerk… clerkdom has a little bit of, like, tools that are… that we haven't really utilized, and I don't… I don't know how feasible they are, but, one of them is, like, you can generate a list of people who have registered their dogs before who haven't this year, and just send them a mail thing. Reminder. It'd be so nice, you know.

113
00:18:45.490 --> 00:19:03.959
Town of Plainfield: obviously that costs money, but I think it would be really sweet to just, like, reestablish communication with folks who haven't been in touch in that way. Jamie, do you have anything else for your report? I… There might be a question to this from Daniel Hardy online? Daniel, is this about the dog?

114
00:19:04.170 --> 00:19:06.739
Town of Plainfield: Registering, or something else?

115
00:19:10.350 --> 00:19:12.430
Town of Plainfield: You're on mute, we can't hear you.

116
00:19:18.180 --> 00:19:20.969
iPhone: Yes, it's about a topic, yes.

117
00:19:22.360 --> 00:19:28.750
iPhone: Go ahead. My experience is I see a lot more stray cats on the road than dogs.

118
00:19:29.140 --> 00:19:36.660
iPhone: And, what about all the cat owners that are around? That's… that would generate more money as well.

119
00:19:36.660 --> 00:19:42.170
Town of Plainfield: Well, I wish we could register cats, but they don't count in Vermont, I guess.

120
00:19:42.700 --> 00:19:59.040
iPhone: Well, why wouldn't they? I mean, and most cats don't have a tag on them. Most dogs do have a, you know, a collar. But I see a lot… just personally, I see a lot more cats jumping out in front of me than a dog, that's all.

121
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:03.440
Town of Plainfield: I think… I think you have to take that up with the state legislature. That's not the…

122
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:05.690
iPhone: Alright, I took it up with you. I took it up.

123
00:20:05.690 --> 00:20:08.560
Town of Plainfield: Not for jurisdiction.

124
00:20:08.560 --> 00:20:09.610
iPhone: Alright.

125
00:20:09.610 --> 00:20:19.140
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Michael, on this subject? Yes, indeed. I was thinking of it as an opportunity that when people come in to register their dogs.

126
00:20:19.290 --> 00:20:28.980
Town of Plainfield: if we have a half-page printed out that just have our dollars of coordinates on them. In other words, about being leashed and not being off-leashed.

127
00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:37.260
Town of Plainfield: about non-harassing livestock, about that kind of thing. Just the basic ordinance that we have, because I think, over time, people forget them.

128
00:20:37.370 --> 00:20:43.370
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Okay. And Andy, did you have any further comment? No. Okay.

129
00:20:43.370 --> 00:21:07.150
Town of Plainfield: All right, as this new Select Board discusses how we're going to operate and stuff, we may come back to you for items that we're looking for in the Town Clerk's report, and how often you come to us. We're looking at that for all of our entities, and I suspect that it might be once a month rather than

130
00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:19.510
Town of Plainfield: every meeting, and the same thing for the town treasurer once we have one, so… Okay. But we'll, we'll discuss that, but anyway, just a heads up. All right,

131
00:21:19.510 --> 00:21:30.170
Town of Plainfield: Next is the schematic town office layout discussion. You said we would put appointments at the office? Oh, sorry, I had that little arrow there, sorry. And these are the two non…

132
00:21:30.630 --> 00:21:40.349
Town of Plainfield: the health officer, right, we're recommending to the state that Jody Velarde be that person again. Yep. They're very willing, and I believe that's a…

133
00:21:40.350 --> 00:21:50.839
Town of Plainfield: 3- or 4-year appointment, okay, but the state… Start expiring 2029. Yeah, the state actually makes that appointment. There's an online form to fill out, so… Okay, great.

134
00:21:50.840 --> 00:21:56.779
Town of Plainfield: Is the verb we're nominating, or what's the verb for what? We're recommending. Recommending? Thank you. Yeah.

135
00:21:57.030 --> 00:22:07.099
Town of Plainfield: And then the other one being the Forest Fire Warden, Andy Hebert, for a new 5-year term, starting now, ending 2031.

136
00:22:07.410 --> 00:22:20.429
Town of Plainfield: I know, right? Such a huge number. Wow. And that's by the Department of Environmental Conservation, I believe. Sounds right to me. Yeah, yeah. Fire warden? Forest fire warden.

137
00:22:21.670 --> 00:22:33.219
Town of Plainfield: Not to be confused with the tree warden. The fence warden and the… all the other wardens. Do we still have a layer of coal? No.

138
00:22:33.630 --> 00:22:58.290
Town of Plainfield: He's a fence viewer. Fence viewer. Not a fence of horse. Sorry. I think the way of coal was done away with by the legislature. Alright. Do you need a motion? Yeah, I would entertain a motion to recommend, Andy Hebert for Fars Fire

139
00:22:58.290 --> 00:23:03.440
Town of Plainfield: Warden and, Jody Velarde for, Health Officer.

140
00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:04.770
Town of Plainfield: I'll make that motion.

141
00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:15.560
Town of Plainfield: Any second? Andy? Want to note the 5-year term for Andy Hubert? They're set by the state, and the other is 3, so, yeah.

142
00:23:15.910 --> 00:23:18.210
Town of Plainfield: We have no…

143
00:23:19.040 --> 00:23:25.870
Town of Plainfield: input. Alright, so we had a motion and a… A second. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye.

144
00:23:26.110 --> 00:23:28.140
Town of Plainfield: Patty?

145
00:23:34.830 --> 00:23:35.650
Town of Plainfield: Adding there.

146
00:23:35.850 --> 00:23:36.390
Patti Jamele: Aye.

147
00:23:36.800 --> 00:23:46.210
Town of Plainfield: She votes aye, okay. Thank you. Alright, so that's unanimous. Let me make a quick note here, if I may, Chair, which is I have been informed

148
00:23:46.210 --> 00:23:56.829
Town of Plainfield: As the note-taker, that we are not statutorily required to say and list who moved and who seconded, just that something was moved and seconded without actually attaching names to that.

149
00:23:56.990 --> 00:24:05.760
Town of Plainfield: So, you won't be seeing that in the minutes. Anymore. I have no idea. Oh, okay. Talk to Jamie.

150
00:24:05.760 --> 00:24:19.660
Town of Plainfield: Okay, so the next… let's go to the Schematic Town Office layout discussion with stakeholders, and we have 15 minutes set aside for this, so, I don't know who wants to lead off.

151
00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:40.560
Town of Plainfield: Carl, I know you have been making drawings and stuff, and… Well, I made the drawings with the little cutouts, so let people move furniture around in miniature. Maybe… oh, sorry, please, go ahead. I'm just gonna say that Jamie has been able to start working it, so…

152
00:24:40.920 --> 00:25:00.150
Town of Plainfield: And I'm glad you started an online dialogue. I've seen there's been a lot of input. I see Sandy Ross is here, I know she's weighed in, I saw Karen Story weighed in, I can't remember who all is. Michael weighed in. Michael weighed in, yeah. Christy, that's right, historical site, yeah, so…

153
00:25:00.410 --> 00:25:07.050
Town of Plainfield: We're all there. Alright. So broadly, why are we, why are we having this conversation? So, yeah,

154
00:25:08.690 --> 00:25:17.620
Town of Plainfield: One of the main things is that we… Are gonna hire a treasurer.

155
00:25:18.130 --> 00:25:30.489
Town of Plainfield: Just for context, the clerk and treasurer, probably as everyone knows who's right here right now, were… that was all one person before. That role split.

156
00:25:31.140 --> 00:25:33.469
Town of Plainfield: A couple years ago,

157
00:25:33.590 --> 00:25:48.350
Town of Plainfield: but then the space didn't really… we didn't redistribute that space, so the clerk and treasurer had been sharing an office, which is not ideal. So getting a, you know, a quiet workspace for the treasurer feels…

158
00:25:48.750 --> 00:25:56.889
Town of Plainfield: very important, so it feels like we have this window of time to do it before we hire them. Hopefully soon.

159
00:25:57.270 --> 00:26:07.350
Town of Plainfield: And, yeah, our downstairs, I feel like, is pretty, you know, pretty… Loaded, pretty packed,

160
00:26:07.560 --> 00:26:19.059
Town of Plainfield: And, yeah, as we had talked about in the chat, it really makes sense for all the people who are downstairs now to continue to be downstairs, because,

161
00:26:19.500 --> 00:26:26.539
Town of Plainfield: prioritizing access to the vault, which is downstairs in the, sort of, clerks area.

162
00:26:26.820 --> 00:26:39.130
Town of Plainfield: So, yeah, just trying to look at where, if anywhere, there's flexibility in the upstairs area, or getting creative with enclosing

163
00:26:39.470 --> 00:26:46.190
Town of Plainfield: more spaces where there are little funny spaces. So just have more room for operations.

164
00:26:46.360 --> 00:26:50.899
Town of Plainfield: Town operations, which currently are pretty cramped.

165
00:26:51.120 --> 00:27:04.789
Town of Plainfield: kind of on top of each other, and very disorganized. So yeah, so is the plan that the treasurer would be upstairs? I think that probably makes the most sense, considering,

166
00:27:05.190 --> 00:27:21.359
Town of Plainfield: Well, we don't have no input from that person yet. We don't know, but, I mean, there's no room downstairs to put that person. Yes. Right. One of the things I saw, one of the reasons I took that on was, I just saw lots of space that's not being very well used.

167
00:27:22.470 --> 00:27:27.699
Town of Plainfield: Either underutilized, or improperly utilized, or,

168
00:27:27.780 --> 00:27:44.610
Town of Plainfield: you know, just could be better, could be more efficient, and make everybody more efficient. The other thing I'm thinking about is that we may have project managers who need space to work in the future for bridge projects and road projects and things like that.

169
00:27:44.790 --> 00:27:49.590
Town of Plainfield: They should have a space that they can be with communication and…

170
00:27:49.730 --> 00:28:00.840
Town of Plainfield: quiet, so they can get their work done. So I'm thinking, not only did we go from a two-person office way back to now four.

171
00:28:01.540 --> 00:28:09.170
Town of Plainfield: not counting the Listers, who are, you know, there, too. But the, there could be…

172
00:28:10.350 --> 00:28:17.399
Town of Plainfield: several more people that are… need… need space. So, that's what I'm looking at. I have a question.

173
00:28:18.350 --> 00:28:30.850
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, question that I just realized never came up online in any of this discussion. The select board… former select board room upstairs is in the form of an L, and it has an extension that goes to the front of the building.

174
00:28:31.070 --> 00:28:41.449
Town of Plainfield: It's not reused, that extension. It's just sort of like spare space. Could someone like Barry build a wall and a door there, and then there would be another office created?

175
00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:56.990
Town of Plainfield: I don't know the spot that you're… When you're in the meeting room, it's the… it's the L off the meeting room, and there's storage, and there's some storage there now. That's a fire exit, is it? Well, it's not really. Yeah, but how else are you gonna get out?

176
00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:15.519
Town of Plainfield: I think that's a fire exit. Okay. Good point. So the… so my question… Sandy has her hand up, too. My question is, if we reimagined the upstairs, I know Michael's got his office… For 3 people. For 3 people, right? And then a storage area, right?

177
00:29:15.820 --> 00:29:20.219
Town of Plainfield: There is the select board meeting room that we were using during Grant's time.

178
00:29:20.730 --> 00:29:27.649
Town of Plainfield: It's not getting used a lot by us anymore, but the… And then there's the office off of that, which is…

179
00:29:27.810 --> 00:29:40.189
Town of Plainfield: Historical? Well… Right? People are claiming space without really, you know… So I'm just wondering about reimagining the upstairs,

180
00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:42.560
Town of Plainfield: you know…

181
00:29:43.850 --> 00:29:52.929
Town of Plainfield: From a… from kind of more of a blank slate, but clearly there are things that are going to be there, but it seems like that's… if downstairs is

182
00:29:53.850 --> 00:30:02.830
Town of Plainfield: full and operational in the way that you would want it to be, then the upstairs is the conversation, isn't it? Yeah. Okay.

183
00:30:03.170 --> 00:30:06.660
Town of Plainfield: Sandy, you had your hand up?

184
00:30:07.290 --> 00:30:08.830
Town of Plainfield: You're muted.

185
00:30:09.630 --> 00:30:12.059
Town of Plainfield: You're still muted. You're muted.

186
00:30:13.420 --> 00:30:14.010
Sandy: Sorry.

187
00:30:14.660 --> 00:30:20.579
Sandy: This is something I've been asking for a long time, and it's really not that big a deal.

188
00:30:20.890 --> 00:30:36.659
Sandy: We used to have a big round table in there, which we used when we discussed things with the public, when we needed to set out the maps, which are huge and need a big space to… to roll out, and…

189
00:30:36.850 --> 00:30:54.720
Sandy: That was moved, and I believe it's somewhere folded up upstairs, and instead, a desk was put in there with some kind of handicapped remote voting thing that hasn't been used in years, and.

190
00:30:54.720 --> 00:30:59.899
Town of Plainfield: When you're talking about sin. Excuse me, Peter? In the Lister's office.

191
00:30:59.900 --> 00:31:02.320
Sandy: In the Lister's office.

192
00:31:02.800 --> 00:31:03.370
Sandy: Sorry.

193
00:31:03.370 --> 00:31:03.990
Town of Plainfield: Okay.

194
00:31:03.990 --> 00:31:10.419
Sandy: In the Lister's office. We don't need that desk in there, we don't use it, nobody's using it.

195
00:31:10.460 --> 00:31:26.990
Sandy: And I would like it… we would like it removed, and our round table brought back in, which we do use. That's a minor thing, and it's not really reconfiguring much, but it would be much more useful for us.

196
00:31:29.950 --> 00:31:31.769
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, thank you for saying that.

197
00:31:32.070 --> 00:31:41.880
Town of Plainfield: Chrissy. So, one of the ideas, that I didn't, circulate in our email chain was the idea that the Historical Society

198
00:31:41.880 --> 00:31:53.759
Town of Plainfield: Little offices were moved to where the conference space and the annex is. I did some measuring, and I think it's actually less square footage than the real estate that we hold right now.

199
00:31:53.760 --> 00:32:07.410
Town of Plainfield: But that… that is choppy little offices right now, and then one of the rooms has a large dining room table in it, which is really not conducive for moving around in there, but it could seat 6, you know, if it was pulled away from the wall, so…

200
00:32:07.410 --> 00:32:32.279
Town of Plainfield: instead of, like, constructing new offices, it seems like, you know, a person or two could occupy those little smaller rooms. What do you mean by the annex? Annex, I don't know what that is. The annex is… we… Bram had offered us the use of the annex in exchange for absorbing a large collection. What's the annex? Off the conference room. Off the conference room. It's the back corner, as you're, you know, if you're facing…

201
00:32:32.280 --> 00:32:48.410
Town of Plainfield: It's right next to the conference room. It's the room off of the conference room. Oh, that corner room. Yeah. We wanted to unload about 13 boxes of materials that were stored downstairs, and I said, we can't… we don't have room for them.

202
00:32:48.410 --> 00:32:57.800
Town of Plainfield: And he said, well, you know, what if we gave you more room? And I said, well, we'll take them, right? And, you know, add them to our collection. So that's how we ended up with the annex, but it's…

203
00:32:57.880 --> 00:33:08.229
Town of Plainfield: very disjointed from the space that we're at now, and also, I'm hopeful, as the new president, that we would be able to welcome public into

204
00:33:08.230 --> 00:33:24.560
Town of Plainfield: view and share that collection. It's gathering dust, and nobody gets to see it other than those of us that are using those spaces. And if we had a larger room like the conference room, you know, we can hang up the quilt that you all just, handed off to us, and we could receive guests

205
00:33:24.560 --> 00:33:38.409
Town of Plainfield: not just on old home days, but, you know, for other events that we might want to hold. So, do you have… do you have another office upstairs? Yeah, we have all of the cubbies… not cubbies, they're small offices behind Michael's office.

206
00:33:38.670 --> 00:33:55.409
Town of Plainfield: So, there's a suite. There's, like, 3. You've got 3 rooms. Yeah, that area is 3 rooms, with, you know, one is definitely a fire egress, right? Because it's after the hallway, it goes to another area.

207
00:33:55.410 --> 00:34:00.739
Town of Plainfield: I have a question here about the Historical Society's collection.

208
00:34:00.950 --> 00:34:05.930
Town of Plainfield: You know, I just saw that room today for the first time.

209
00:34:06.080 --> 00:34:24.870
Town of Plainfield: So you're right, no one knows it's there, unless you know it's there. We didn't have a sign! I had seen that sign before. But, so my question is, is it realistic to think or assume that the municipal building can function as also a town museum?

210
00:34:24.870 --> 00:34:26.199
Town of Plainfield: Is there enough?

211
00:34:26.330 --> 00:34:38.630
Town of Plainfield: supervision, you know, I guess a museum docent would be someone who would, like, escort someone to, like, view the collection. Is that necessary? Are we inviting people to go wandering upstairs?

212
00:34:38.630 --> 00:34:51.850
Town of Plainfield: wandering through the collection? Like, so what… to fill out… Not unsupervised. Considering all those doors are locked coming in from the outside, particularly the inside doors, it's going to be disruptive to town staff

213
00:34:51.850 --> 00:35:04.190
Town of Plainfield: You know, unless there is a docent, if you will. Why I'm asking is that, like, it seems like the dream is nice, to, like, bring the people, invite them to view the history and to be a part of it, and to touch it.

214
00:35:04.270 --> 00:35:06.950
Town of Plainfield: But is it actually a realistic goal?

215
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:11.040
Town of Plainfield: Given the space, and, you know, I guess…

216
00:35:11.630 --> 00:35:27.959
Town of Plainfield: I don't even know, I'm thinking about Alice Skye's house for sale or for rent in the village. There's like, does the historical society want a village museum? Or a town museum in the village? Is that reasonable? Because all of a sudden, then, storage and,

217
00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:32.890
Town of Plainfield: You know, curation happens someplace that can be visited.

218
00:35:32.890 --> 00:35:34.650
Town of Plainfield: You don't have that kind of faith.

219
00:35:34.650 --> 00:35:54.179
Town of Plainfield: Right? And so what we have now is access to this space that's in the municipal building, right? And my hope is that we would be able to offer, like, office hours, right? Like, this window, maybe it's only one time a month where public is welcome to come in, right? We would use the back stairway, and…

220
00:35:54.180 --> 00:36:00.880
Town of Plainfield: You know, people could come and view the collection with supervision for some of the autonomous society.

221
00:36:01.420 --> 00:36:08.569
Town of Plainfield: I want to bring this back to what I think was the impetus for this whole discussion, which was…

222
00:36:08.680 --> 00:36:12.340
Town of Plainfield: How the town office staff functions.

223
00:36:12.390 --> 00:36:22.970
Town of Plainfield: basically the people in the front who were doing the town's business, on a daily basis. And, that…

224
00:36:22.970 --> 00:36:38.109
Town of Plainfield: It's close quarters, that conversations are overheard, that it's hard to have a quiet space, etc, and that really, the priority needs to be, how can we support those people working in that space?

225
00:36:38.140 --> 00:36:51.460
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, there are other functions. There's lister functions, there's zoning functions, etc, but that's not every day. And so, I'm just wondering, having seen all the input online and heard the comments.

226
00:36:51.460 --> 00:37:01.270
Town of Plainfield: And Carl, you know, we've looked at your diagrams and pieces of furniture and, you know, and whatnot. You know, do you have any…

227
00:37:01.740 --> 00:37:04.899
Town of Plainfield: Comments after chewing on all this for a bit.

228
00:37:05.070 --> 00:37:18.910
Town of Plainfield: You're… you're looking at me? I am, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but… No, I think that's very valid. I think the whole impetus was that it was… there was too much going on in the office.

229
00:37:18.930 --> 00:37:31.819
Town of Plainfield: you know, and it was loud, and it was… you couldn't be private, you couldn't have a private conversation, even if the doors closed, because the walls aren't that tight. So,

230
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:35.249
Town of Plainfield: That was a… that was a motivation, so yes, that was…

231
00:37:35.830 --> 00:37:43.849
Town of Plainfield: What we're trying to achieve, is make it more a pleasant place to be working, and not so chaotic, and…

232
00:37:44.260 --> 00:37:46.729
Town of Plainfield: I mean, it's feeling better now, maybe it's just…

233
00:37:47.850 --> 00:37:53.990
Town of Plainfield: we still don't have a treasurer, so that's gonna add back in. Yeah, could I, okay.

234
00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:04.919
Town of Plainfield: And I get… I do understand no money and trying to run a non-profit, I get it. I'm wondering, though, about Goddard?

235
00:38:05.160 --> 00:38:08.090
Town of Plainfield: the Goddard campus, and whether there isn't enough space

236
00:38:08.420 --> 00:38:11.290
Town of Plainfield: Perhaps for the Historical Society there.

237
00:38:11.470 --> 00:38:27.430
Town of Plainfield: We've had those conversations, but again, you're talking about really significant costs. Yeah. And still the same, like, I'm the baby of the group, right? Yeah. Our volunteers are very limited in what they can provide for support to.

238
00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:40.259
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, right, right. I mean, the Historical Society used to have a building, you know, on School Street, which is, you know, disappeared, you know, but…

239
00:38:41.260 --> 00:38:55.229
Town of Plainfield: I don't know about the switchboard, but we do have the old post office, which we're paying to store, which could fit in this space. Andy, you know who I am.

240
00:38:55.470 --> 00:38:56.640
Town of Plainfield: So…

241
00:38:56.780 --> 00:39:11.949
Town of Plainfield: My sense is that I think the town office will be the home for the Historical Society for the foreseeable future, and I don't know what that means, a year, two years, 5 years. I don't think it's a permanent solution for the reasons I have been discussed.

242
00:39:12.470 --> 00:39:16.329
Town of Plainfield: I'm also wondering about the future of the church.

243
00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:20.779
Town of Plainfield: Because there's conversations about re-thinking about that building.

244
00:39:20.970 --> 00:39:29.489
Town of Plainfield: Because the membership is very old, and it's not going to be a church for a whole lot longer, and I know others have been in conversation with them about subsequent uses of that bill.

245
00:39:29.870 --> 00:39:34.010
Town of Plainfield: And that could be a home for you guys, and might be a free home for you.

246
00:39:34.460 --> 00:39:43.510
Town of Plainfield: And it's, you know, it's in the village, it's accessible, it's more of a public-facing building. Because you are literally, right now you're a museum in somebody's attic.

247
00:39:44.890 --> 00:39:54.399
Town of Plainfield: And I think as a temporary solution, it's good. I hope you guys will think more broadly about how you become a more public-facing thing, which requires a more public-facing building.

248
00:39:54.860 --> 00:40:04.040
Town of Plainfield: So, I think we talk about this as a temporary solution, but I hope it's not the permanent home. I think you can find a better home. Can I just ask…

249
00:40:04.040 --> 00:40:04.990
Sandy: Andy.

250
00:40:04.990 --> 00:40:14.040
Town of Plainfield: Hang on. Carl? And then Sandy. I was wondering, was your idea to move the entire…

251
00:40:14.210 --> 00:40:37.030
Town of Plainfield: operation over to the river, right now, the meeting room? The meeting room and the annex space that, you know… And then we can have a meeting room go back and make the space you're currently in. Okay, I just wanted to understand. Yeah, that meeting room gets met in, so I'm concerned about that. Yeah, we have… yeah, we just requested another group go there instead of here. Yeah, yeah, okay. Sandy?

252
00:40:37.450 --> 00:40:41.999
Sandy: Andy, I think that's a great idea, and I just wanted to say…

253
00:40:42.140 --> 00:40:48.950
Sandy: Cause this may come into play at some point, a non-profit like the…

254
00:40:49.050 --> 00:40:52.610
Sandy: church in order to have a federal

255
00:40:52.730 --> 00:40:56.639
Sandy: Exemption from paying, corporate taxes.

256
00:40:56.640 --> 00:40:57.130
Town of Plainfield: Good day.

257
00:40:57.130 --> 00:41:03.270
Sandy: If they liquidate, and because they're exempt for the property taxes, if they

258
00:41:03.320 --> 00:41:18.379
Sandy: cease to operate, they can't sell to somebody for a profit. They have to sell or donate to another, non-profit. So that may work in, the Historical Society's favor at some point.

259
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:29.879
Town of Plainfield: Yep, non-profit dissolution clauses, yep. Thank you, Sandy, for the inside knowledge. What's that? There's another hand.

260
00:41:30.250 --> 00:41:33.210
Town of Plainfield: That's Daniel Hardy, yeah. Daniel?

261
00:41:35.310 --> 00:41:37.830
Town of Plainfield: Unmute yourself.

262
00:41:38.260 --> 00:41:38.920
iPhone: Yes.

263
00:41:39.030 --> 00:41:51.359
iPhone: Thank you. Well, I will remind people, years ago, Amy Cutler donated the old co-op behind the fire department for $1.

264
00:41:52.180 --> 00:41:54.760
iPhone: And I think that,

265
00:41:55.190 --> 00:42:04.809
iPhone: The town is giving way too much into real estate purchases for things that we don't need for, especially when we're

266
00:42:05.100 --> 00:42:09.010
iPhone: When a generous woman donates

267
00:42:09.700 --> 00:42:17.480
iPhone: something to the town for one buck. And that, in turn, is sold for a profit, and…

268
00:42:18.520 --> 00:42:28.260
iPhone: Think on that before you start getting into the real estate business of what more we can buy for tax dollars, monies. That's all. Thank you.

269
00:42:29.060 --> 00:42:41.650
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you. I have one more thought. I want to end this, but go ahead. I was… so I was there today looking at the space, and, I was looking at it through the lens of, like, low-hanging fruit.

270
00:42:41.650 --> 00:42:51.779
Town of Plainfield: I agree with Andy that moving the Historical Society is not a near-term solution, because there's a lot of solutions that need to be found to make it even possible to do so.

271
00:42:51.980 --> 00:42:57.779
Town of Plainfield: Therefore, you know, I guess what I noticed was that there are…

272
00:42:58.430 --> 00:43:14.299
Town of Plainfield: two or three rooms up there that would make nice offices that are piled with boxes. The emergency management room is one of them that's on the other side of the hallway of your office. Yes, it has an opening.

273
00:43:14.920 --> 00:43:35.230
Town of Plainfield: It has an opening? Yeah, there's an open pass-through. Yeah, the pass-through, the room with the pass-through. To me, that would make a beautiful office. And there are other closets and storage places in the building, and I wondered if those boxes could get moved to some of the more out-of-the-way storage places to create a room.

274
00:43:35.230 --> 00:43:47.320
Town of Plainfield: for work, where there is, right now, storage. But I know it's not just you. This is not me calling you out. This is… there are two to three rooms up there that would make nice offices that are piled in boxes. And there are…

275
00:43:47.320 --> 00:43:53.799
Town of Plainfield: I think ample additional storage spaces within the building that could serve…

276
00:43:53.840 --> 00:44:04.729
Town of Plainfield: that function also. The third floor is a possible place for dead storage, but things you want to preserve, but not put in the basement where it could get wet.

277
00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:11.269
Town of Plainfield: You can't get to the third floor, so can I… because you're talking about us, can I speak there? Just…

278
00:44:11.350 --> 00:44:16.619
Town of Plainfield: A quick observation is that we were looking for other places. This is not just boxes, we've got…

279
00:44:16.660 --> 00:44:33.529
Town of Plainfield: 8 dehumidifiers there, we've got shop vacs, we've got shovels, we've got… in other words, this is for staging equipment immediately in the day after a disaster. So, wherever we go, it has to be accessible and removable quickly.

280
00:44:33.630 --> 00:44:39.050
Town of Plainfield: So that's… that's basically why it's where it is now. I think that's an achievable goal.

281
00:44:39.050 --> 00:45:02.240
Town of Plainfield: Okay, we can discuss that, certainly. So, I want to bring this back to, to me, what is going to need to be the priority is that we need a good workspace for our new treasurer, person. And so, that should be the focus here. And so, with all of these stakeholders in the room hearing each other and having seen each other's comments, I would

282
00:45:02.240 --> 00:45:27.029
Town of Plainfield: push this back to you folks to say, where… where is this? If… if, as was initially proposed, the treasurer would take over the listers room on the first floor to be there with the town clerk, and, assistant town clerk and treasurer and administrative assistant, dealing with those things, which are daily, that would push the listers upstairs, which

283
00:45:27.260 --> 00:45:31.280
Town of Plainfield: We've heard they don't like.

284
00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:55.760
Town of Plainfield: But, if the treasurer were to move upstairs, I can… I am sympathetic to the fact that they interact less with the public than the clerk's side of things, and might appreciate the quiet space. But, you know, I would want to know, what about the, like, the computer wiring, because those systems do have to be connected, and whatnot.

285
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:58.689
Town of Plainfield: And so, I'm not personally…

286
00:45:58.690 --> 00:46:20.930
Town of Plainfield: fluent in that technology and what is needed there, but I think we need to look at the space with that in mind as well. Yeah, Andy. So, I'm willing to be wrong on this, but I'm not convinced that the minutiae of figuring this out is the Select Board's work, and I think we could authorize staff to come to us with a solution, or just come up with a solution without getting our approval for it.

287
00:46:20.930 --> 00:46:24.090
Town of Plainfield: I don't know if we need to approve town office layout.

288
00:46:24.130 --> 00:46:49.029
Town of Plainfield: No, unless there's expenditures involved, like, Leo, there have been proposals to, you know, wall off the back area, which raised questions about what do we do in elections, which brought the question to, well, you could use the lobby for the elections downstairs, but that would involve moving some, you know, emergency management stuff into storage as well. But, you know, I… you know, I think there are places where they would need to come back to

289
00:46:49.030 --> 00:46:50.430
Town of Plainfield: But, yeah.

290
00:46:50.970 --> 00:47:01.110
Town of Plainfield: So… So we're saying go back and do your work. I'm happy to stay with us, if you want, yeah. Okay. All right, thank you, thank you all for your input.

291
00:47:01.110 --> 00:47:04.030
iPhone: I have, I have, I have, I have my hand raised.

292
00:47:04.940 --> 00:47:07.199
Town of Plainfield: Whose hand? Dan.

293
00:47:07.200 --> 00:47:08.040
iPhone: Alrighty.

294
00:47:08.040 --> 00:47:12.400
Town of Plainfield: Okay, you've already spoken twice, and we're over time here. Do you have something?

295
00:47:12.430 --> 00:47:21.750
iPhone: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be very brief. We have ample space, in my opinion, between the, the opera house

296
00:47:21.900 --> 00:47:32.160
iPhone: what we currently have. For people with privacy, I worked in an office environment for years where the confinement was much more

297
00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:46.330
iPhone: condensed than what is currently in that office. There are… there are dividers that can be put up, soundproof glassing, that can be put up for their privacy. That's all. Thank you for the time.

298
00:47:47.180 --> 00:47:51.959
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you, thank you, appreciate that.

299
00:47:52.790 --> 00:47:57.290
Town of Plainfield: Carl, you're up next again as Road Commissioner. 10 minutes, please.

300
00:47:57.640 --> 00:48:17.160
Town of Plainfield: I'm back! You never left, you never left. Yeah. So, Michael Bingham and I are getting together every other week. We were supposed to get together Thursday, but he got… he was sick, and he didn't want to spread it, which I was happy about, so,

301
00:48:17.160 --> 00:48:24.419
Town of Plainfield: We did talk today, but I didn't have time to write out something. But normally, I think what I'd like to do is send you just a little synopsis of what

302
00:48:24.550 --> 00:48:28.770
Town of Plainfield: is going on, and… and Zoom if necessary, but…

303
00:48:29.210 --> 00:48:45.669
Town of Plainfield: I think that's probably all you need. But there was a few things that I did want to talk to the group about, and the main one is the radar, signage that will hopefully slow people down in two directions on…

304
00:48:45.690 --> 00:48:53.479
Town of Plainfield: Route 2, and I've gotten quotes from two different vendors, and I talked to Mike today about

305
00:48:53.560 --> 00:49:01.569
Town of Plainfield: which ones seem to be best. And we found one company that,

306
00:49:02.050 --> 00:49:24.819
Town of Plainfield: for 2… for 2 units, which we need, it's a $7,295. And what did we approve before? I think it was $7,500. That sounds about right. The second… the second quote came in at about $84, but it was much more… they had strobes flashing if you're going too fast, and they had signage that could…

307
00:49:25.130 --> 00:49:39.380
Town of Plainfield: you know, have a nice day, you know, you could change that. And it seemed like too many bells and whistles to me, and I think V-Trans doesn't care for those as much. They like the basic sign, you say, you're going too fast, here's your speed.

308
00:49:39.380 --> 00:49:51.569
Town of Plainfield: My 5-year-old likes to look for the smiley face when we enter a village. Right. We won't be able to do that this time. But, my thought was…

309
00:49:51.860 --> 00:50:05.190
Town of Plainfield: we should go ahead and get two of those. We can put them in, we're responsible for them. But these are solar power, battery backup, illuminated signs that the trans…

310
00:50:05.270 --> 00:50:24.720
Town of Plainfield: likes… do they like the orange and green colors, so that… And this says your current speed is? Yes. Okay, and it's right on a speed limit sign. The new ones they put in, that you and Patty got done, they would mount to the pole underneath that standard sign.

311
00:50:25.150 --> 00:50:40.400
Town of Plainfield: And what's the price again? $72.95. $72.95. Still good with numbers. And, for two, two units. I just found the, the motion from December, where, you approved…

312
00:50:40.570 --> 00:50:57.039
Town of Plainfield: the expenditure up to $9,000, so that's, like, well… Okay, yeah. So this seemed to be reasonable, Michael agreed. I think simple is better. So the question is going to be, do we just have Michael Werderer?

313
00:50:57.320 --> 00:51:01.380
Town of Plainfield: Well, don't we still have to get the state 111 permit?

314
00:51:01.720 --> 00:51:16.949
Town of Plainfield: Which I filed for, but… Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah, I did, but I never saw anything back. Maybe I have to check with you on that. Maybe I could send, which allows us to do… Patty Coburn, a note on that, to say, hey, okay. Yeah.

315
00:51:17.970 --> 00:51:32.440
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, it allows us to do the work to install it and service it later. Okay, so, and thank you for finding that motion, and that, Karen, you can help me out here. This money came from that one-time

316
00:51:33.050 --> 00:51:39.669
Town of Plainfield: money that went to all the towns in Vermont, and I forget if it was $50,000 or $75,000. That's the COVID money?

317
00:51:39.890 --> 00:51:46.650
Town of Plainfield: Act 27 funds. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I don't know what that is. And what was the total, what was the total of that?

318
00:51:47.230 --> 00:51:48.280
Town of Plainfield: We've got…

319
00:51:48.280 --> 00:52:11.589
Town of Plainfield: $50,000 or something? That I didn't know. Statewide? Yeah. Oh, the, for the town? Yeah, we were gonna use that for the sidewalk grant match and stuff, but we still had only allocated only about half of it. Yeah. So, to my knowledge, none of it has been spent, so this will be the first expenditure. I think that's true. So, okay. Okay. Just a heads up.

320
00:52:11.630 --> 00:52:14.229
Town of Plainfield: Okay. And just a couple other things,

321
00:52:14.570 --> 00:52:22.449
Town of Plainfield: Reminder that we want to use the, road report for anybody who has issues.

322
00:52:22.670 --> 00:52:37.710
Town of Plainfield: when Andy called me about Lower Road, I put it into the road report, and the crew was out there a couple days smoothing it out, so we want to try to get people to use that. And I'm going to try to figure out how to tie it into my phone, so when somebody has a

323
00:52:37.710 --> 00:53:00.459
Town of Plainfield: you know, tree down, or something happens, I'll get it right away. That would be great, because I have no idea how to do that. And the road reporting form is on the website. It's on the website. It's on the homepage. It's on the splash page of the website. And what I like about it is that you can put in your report, and then the road crew will have a

324
00:53:00.760 --> 00:53:20.230
Town of Plainfield: follow-up, and what they did, when they did it, who was involved. I mean, it's really good. This was Josh's work, and he did a great job of that. Can I step in briefly, also, to add something, Clark? What's that? Which is that, long ago, at the end of the 2024 flood, we started to get a municipal account with Waze.

325
00:53:20.230 --> 00:53:21.439
Town of Plainfield: Which is the…

326
00:53:21.440 --> 00:53:35.929
Town of Plainfield: guide for motorists to tell them when a road is blocked, or when a road has an accident, or something like that. I'd love to be able to talk with you about how to… we have a Waze account, we can post things that we do sometimes. I haven't figured out how to coordinate with Michael to do that, maybe I could coordinate with you.

327
00:53:35.930 --> 00:53:42.470
Town of Plainfield: we can, we can talk about that. I think that's great, and that would be a great service for folks, yeah.

328
00:53:42.690 --> 00:53:54.419
Town of Plainfield: Just want to alert people that the fuel costs are going to go up, probably go over budget. They're just paying, they're paying $5.70 a gallon now for diesel, and it's…

329
00:53:54.570 --> 00:54:03.480
Town of Plainfield: Only going up, so just be aware. For everybody. Down the road, Michael would like, to consider putting in a

330
00:54:03.620 --> 00:54:10.410
Town of Plainfield: Communication system with a repeater, a repeater up on a high hill somewhere outside of town, so that

331
00:54:10.740 --> 00:54:29.180
Town of Plainfield: the highway department can communicate with each other without worrying about cell phone coverage. Now, isn't that what Michael Birnbaum just put up on the poll this week? Not the same. This is a different system. This is for the fire department and the… and the road, the highway department.

332
00:54:29.400 --> 00:54:30.769
Town of Plainfield: There's two channels.

333
00:54:31.290 --> 00:54:38.759
Town of Plainfield: He may have put up a repeater, but whether it's for his… Well, he was here at a public meeting a couple…

334
00:54:38.840 --> 00:54:46.910
Town of Plainfield: I don't know, a month or so ago, and he was asking about that, because the issue of that… I think when we were talking about the budget.

335
00:54:46.910 --> 00:55:04.649
Town of Plainfield: Because that was put in… that was put in the budget, and he was asking, and then I know when we had the power outage with Cloud Alliance this week, he said he put that up there for the fire and road department. Oh, I'll have to talk to him. I'll talk to him. Okay. But, that's…

336
00:55:04.940 --> 00:55:11.679
Town of Plainfield: That's something that they really would like. Yeah. And, so I'll talk to Michael about that. And that's in the budget?

337
00:55:11.860 --> 00:55:15.390
Town of Plainfield: Okay. We approved that in this year's budget, so…

338
00:55:15.450 --> 00:55:39.579
Town of Plainfield: The only other thing, was the new, we have to get new bids on the paving for Main Street. We got a bid, but it's only good for 30 days, which has already run out, so there's gonna have to be a new bidding process. Oh, let me, let me say something about that. Yeah. Because after the bond votes passed, okay, I called, Eli, Bond Council, and said, what, what are our

339
00:55:39.580 --> 00:56:03.119
Town of Plainfield: next steps, and he said, you have no steps to take for 30 days. There is a mandatory waiting period for allowing petitions for revotes, and I said, should we prepare the bids? He says, no. Okay. Don't do anything. So, for 30 days. So, I was waiting for the 30 days to be up, and then say, okay, you know, because the sewer and water

340
00:56:03.120 --> 00:56:04.989
Town of Plainfield: As a… as a bond.

341
00:56:04.990 --> 00:56:28.840
Town of Plainfield: And, and the roads have to bond. And I've talked to Ken Lingy, is that his name? The bond council? Because the roads will probably go through one fund, and the water and wastewater will go to another, which has lower interest through the state, but… Well, Michael Bingham is aware of the 30-day delay, and then he's aware of the fact that we have to then refit, or re-quote, get re-quotes. Yeah.

342
00:56:28.840 --> 00:56:42.079
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. That's… he's got that on his schedule. Yeah, so Eli's supposed to be preparing something. I think there are, you know, as with the bond votes, there are always documents and declarations that have to be signed for that, so… Great.

343
00:56:43.530 --> 00:57:01.069
Town of Plainfield: So, we'll see how that comes about. And then, any word on the safety netting on the Mill Street Bridge? I did not get a commitment from him, because I… but I'll follow up on it. Thank you. Yeah. It's gone. Yeah, it was taken down, I'm sure, because of the snow.

344
00:57:01.290 --> 00:57:14.739
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I imagine the plows. The plows clearing the bridge. Yeah. I'll make sure I talk to them about that. Can you do something about the snow not coming anymore? We're all done with snow. Come on. That's it. Thank you.

345
00:57:14.740 --> 00:57:39.229
Town of Plainfield: So, did you have anything else, Carl? No, that's it. Okay. Thank you, Carl. The next item is the next Brook Road public meeting update. I've covered that in announcements, so we can move over that and move to the Grant Administrator's report. Senator Welch's item. Senator Welch's item before that. So I'll just… Okay, I see that little inject, yeah. Okay, great. So we received word from Senator Welch's office that there, through, Mary Turris, that

346
00:57:39.230 --> 00:57:45.209
Town of Plainfield: They're looking for, projects to put into,

347
00:57:46.030 --> 00:57:56.879
Town of Plainfield: to potentially fund with, earmarked money, next round. So, they were looking to see if we had anything in particular that we wanted to fund.

348
00:57:56.950 --> 00:58:14.409
Town of Plainfield: Peter responded, how about matching other federal money? Which we know won't happen. So I just wanted to bring it up to the group to… the deadline is the 26th, it's like this week, but, you know, if there were things that were kind of in the works that we could potentially fund.

349
00:58:14.620 --> 00:58:33.119
Town of Plainfield: Michael, you have an idea? Yeah, we've been trying to find funders to replace our lift and to put air conditioning in this room, and I just got the historic preservation permission to put air conditioning in this room. In other words, we had to have their design overview first, and so we are poised to ask for that money from somebody.

350
00:58:33.420 --> 00:58:36.039
Town of Plainfield: Which is about $65,000.

351
00:58:36.280 --> 00:58:56.769
Town of Plainfield: Are you around tomorrow morning I could call you? Sure. Okay. It's air conditioning and what else? And replace the switch, got it. Which is near the end of its lift. Yep. Okay, I'll give you a call tomorrow. That seems more actionable than… Yeah, we needed something that was in the works, because… Yeah, it's very much in the works, that's great. Okay. Thank you.

352
00:58:57.830 --> 00:59:00.670
Town of Plainfield: And this would be in the federal budget?

353
00:59:01.110 --> 00:59:04.639
Town of Plainfield: for the fiscal year that begins October 1st.

354
00:59:06.990 --> 00:59:15.679
Town of Plainfield: All things being equal. Best case scenario. All things being equal, who knows? Yeah, best case scenario. Who knows? But, yeah, who knows if it'll even happen, but it's… but to be able to.

355
00:59:15.880 --> 00:59:18.040
Town of Plainfield: Have us in the mix would be good.

356
00:59:18.240 --> 00:59:21.280
Town of Plainfield: Michael, how much is that?

357
00:59:21.530 --> 00:59:33.899
Town of Plainfield: Generally, how much money, how much is the cost at this point? $45,000 for the lift, and $25,000 for the air conditioning. Thank you. $70,000. Okay, thank you.

358
00:59:34.010 --> 00:59:57.900
Town of Plainfield: You know, do we need to move approval of a submit? Because we're not going to meet between now and Thursday. It's, it's, I don't know that it… I mean, at this point, it's an application, it's not a… I don't think there's anything we… until we hear we've gotten something. I mean, I'd be interested in, you know, the Select Board hires… has a contract with the Public Arts for the management of this building.

359
00:59:58.080 --> 01:00:08.139
Town of Plainfield: And so, I haven't heard anything from that organization on these items. I've heard from Michael… They failed. They tried to write things.

360
01:00:08.360 --> 01:00:13.749
Town of Plainfield: They wrote a grant to the Arts Council last year for the lift, and the Arts Council turned them down.

361
01:00:14.090 --> 01:00:18.700
Town of Plainfield: So, it was… the first line of defense was to ask them to ask for the money.

362
01:00:19.190 --> 01:00:21.749
Town of Plainfield: It is our building, but, I mean…

363
01:00:22.260 --> 01:00:34.780
Town of Plainfield: It's the town's building, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we… And we're trying to get a lift. We do need to have it accessible, so… Didn't happen. And it's a capital expense, I mean, this is what we're talking about, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

364
01:00:35.490 --> 01:00:54.379
Town of Plainfield: Hopefully the, the form isn't very complicated, and… but you know how that goes. It's really just a letter. It's a letter. Yeah. Okay, so we'll… Get it out of the works. We'll work on it. And Andy, I think it would be appropriate if we wanted to encourage that, if you wanted to make a motion. Yeah, I will… I will move that,

365
01:00:54.640 --> 01:00:55.870
Town of Plainfield: the town…

366
01:00:56.680 --> 01:01:05.070
Town of Plainfield: applies for funding from Senator Welch's office to replace the lift and get air conditioning in the office.

367
01:01:05.430 --> 01:01:06.520
Town of Plainfield: Second.

368
01:01:07.060 --> 01:01:08.420
Town of Plainfield: discussion.

369
01:01:08.680 --> 01:01:17.210
Town of Plainfield: I did get a comment from someone earlier today on this issue, and I forget who it was. It may be in an email.

370
01:01:17.890 --> 01:01:22.009
Town of Plainfield: I don't… that their priority was

371
01:01:22.010 --> 01:01:38.890
Town of Plainfield: fixing the back of this building, where the foundation has already been poured, and we need that. And I know that when we were preparing for town meeting, I… we got very loud complaints

372
01:01:38.910 --> 01:02:03.220
Town of Plainfield: from the highway department that they had to come and shovel this place out. I then got complaints from vendors here at the farmer's market, and others who, when they rent the space, are told that they have access to load out here, and the snow was never cleared all winter long. And so, when we're talking about this building and management for the public and for the town.

373
01:02:03.380 --> 01:02:13.939
Town of Plainfield: we need to be holistic and look at all of those needs. And so, I'm wondering if we might not include, and I don't know if there are plans.

374
01:02:13.940 --> 01:02:25.940
Town of Plainfield: for the addition out the back. There must be, because the foundation was poured. I believe there are plans, yeah. If we… so if what we did was applied for capital improvements.

375
01:02:26.280 --> 01:02:29.990
Town of Plainfield: To this building, and named what those would be.

376
01:02:30.400 --> 01:02:35.430
Town of Plainfield: As one application. I think that would…

377
01:02:35.480 --> 01:02:53.360
Town of Plainfield: Because, you know, in my thinking, you know, $70,000 is nice, but it's also small. If you're gonna get in your mark, it'd be nice to, like, really get one. So, so if there are… if someone… who has the information about what those capital improvements

378
01:02:53.770 --> 01:03:09.490
Town of Plainfield: The numbers would be 5 years old. Yeah, so… That's correct. We would have to estimate anyway. But, does Plainfield Arts have that? They… I'd have to talk to Dan. I don't…

379
01:03:09.490 --> 01:03:17.029
Town of Plainfield: I don't have access to myself, but… Okay. Because he was here when it was being done. The other person who would know is Dave Strong.

380
01:03:17.030 --> 01:03:35.510
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. And if you can get to Dave in the Sugar House this week, he might actually know those numbers. Oh, he'd know, for sure. I'll talk to Dave. Yeah. Okay. Because he's in town now. So, Carl, I'll follow up with you. So, what was the original motion? Original motion was, to apply to Welch's office

381
01:03:35.710 --> 01:03:42.300
Town of Plainfield: For $70,000 to replace the lift and to get air conditioning in the room. So we wanna… you wanna make amendment?

382
01:03:42.300 --> 01:03:59.930
Town of Plainfield: Or a friendly amendment to, you know, make capital improvements here that would be inclusive of the lift, the air conditioning, and the addition. Complete the project. Complete the project that's there. And I don't have a number, you know, we'll try and get one.

383
01:04:00.200 --> 01:04:14.900
Town of Plainfield: Okay. And I should say, also, the Community Foundation, which has been helping us here on Town Hall, did turn down our request to, help with the lift of the air conditioning. They don't fund capital. They don't do capital. They do not. So I'll second that motion.

384
01:04:17.620 --> 01:04:19.290
Town of Plainfield: Any further discussion?

385
01:04:19.730 --> 01:04:26.700
Town of Plainfield: All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay. Patty votes yes. Thank you.

386
01:04:26.790 --> 01:04:40.919
Town of Plainfield: That's unanimous, thanks. Alright. Alright. Grant administrators report? Yes, so, the, the big news is that, after all the work of the last year and a half, there's actually money coming in.

387
01:04:40.920 --> 01:04:51.920
Town of Plainfield: Woohoo! It's big news, big news. So, this, this week alone, 600 and…

388
01:04:52.330 --> 01:05:06.020
Town of Plainfield: over $600,000, came in, combination of reimbursements from, the Mill Street Bridge and Brook Road, permanent projects, as well as, FEMA.

389
01:05:06.360 --> 01:05:18.839
Town of Plainfield: I got FEMA payment, $128,000. I also filed papers today for another $353,000, from FEMA.

390
01:05:18.900 --> 01:05:27.359
Town of Plainfield: And there's still another $500,000, that will go in that we're waiting on, some work we have to… some numbers we have to come up with.

391
01:05:28.050 --> 01:05:31.099
Town of Plainfield: For water wastewater ones. But,

392
01:05:31.230 --> 01:05:40.490
Town of Plainfield: But it's really exciting because it's really, like, we're starting to actually see it now, so this is, really, really good. It's kind of real.

393
01:05:40.490 --> 01:05:41.559
Patti Jamele: Long time coming.

394
01:05:41.750 --> 01:05:51.699
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Karen, let me ask about the water wastewater line. This goes back to the conversation I had with Evan Dietrich just a couple days ago.

395
01:05:51.700 --> 01:06:12.809
Town of Plainfield: About the relocation. We were talking about the right-of-way, and Arian said that he thought the right-of-way on the heartbreak side went quite a few feet onto the land, because there's a manhole there, and that the water and sewer actually is quite a ways off the center of the road there. Right. And he also said that, he says.

396
01:06:12.850 --> 01:06:25.219
Town of Plainfield: he said, why are you burying the water and sewer under the brook? He says, most days it's now attached to the bridges, and sumps on either side, and, you know, I don't know what's…

397
01:06:25.220 --> 01:06:39.049
Town of Plainfield: needed, you know, but he says that's not uncommon at all, so… Who said that, Evan? Evan did. Well, we have Evan, so Evan is working with Tristan right now, so the… so the… the small group that's working on getting those estimates

398
01:06:39.140 --> 01:06:41.970
Town of Plainfield: So that we can complete this…

399
01:06:42.200 --> 01:06:46.460
Town of Plainfield: claim, actually, this project, with FEMA.

400
01:06:46.520 --> 01:07:00.319
Town of Plainfield: Is Evan and Tristan, primarily. Right, but are they following a Bury It Under the Brook model? I don't know, I don't know the detail of that. No, I just throw that out there just to share. That is, that's,

401
01:07:00.330 --> 01:07:11.890
Town of Plainfield: beyond my pay grade. Honestly, I mean, we rely on the experts for that, and I just don't know what the best way to go is, but we do know… we follow with,

402
01:07:12.340 --> 01:07:18.739
Town of Plainfield: with the guidance we get from our consultant on it, it's, you know, making sure that we're doing the things that FEMA will pay for.

403
01:07:18.740 --> 01:07:40.530
Town of Plainfield: And making sure we're staying within the guidelines of FEMA in terms of, the projects. So… so it is… so that… so Lauren Scott, who is our rep, is working with Tristan and Deb, so everybody's coordinating to make sure… what we're doing is making sure that the… so the design and engineering work is… is being done by the Federal Highway

404
01:07:40.530 --> 01:07:41.670
Town of Plainfield: contract.

405
01:07:41.670 --> 01:07:52.490
Town of Plainfield: And then the actual work will be done by FEMA. So, construction, basically. The construction. So they're coordinating the two pieces, but it's the… it's the diciest project we have, because

406
01:07:52.490 --> 01:08:03.320
Town of Plainfield: of the way the two bump up against one another, and they… in that… in that space, so… but it happens there at Mill Street, it happens at Brook… the Brook Road Bridge as well.

407
01:08:03.540 --> 01:08:06.810
Town of Plainfield: But they're working on it.

408
01:08:07.070 --> 01:08:13.769
Town of Plainfield: But anyway, that's… so that's kind of what's happening. You guys got my written report, so you know.

409
01:08:14.060 --> 01:08:22.519
Town of Plainfield: generally what's going on. No movement on the buyouts at this point. We did have, I've got Brian Voight on

410
01:08:22.520 --> 01:08:35.389
Town of Plainfield: for the next item, to talk with us about the Emergency Watershed Protection Grant. we are moving forward with… So we're moving to that? Yeah, so I'm just gonna… unless there were questions on…

411
01:08:36.890 --> 01:08:47.139
Town of Plainfield: I think maybe it'd be a good point for me to add that, although the Secret Board knows, because I let you know Friday, that I received a $31,000 grant for the town.

412
01:08:47.460 --> 01:09:01.239
Town of Plainfield: VISTA, which is to fund a full-time emergency management assistant to take the place of Sylvan, who is leaving soon. That's great. Well done. That's really good. Yeah. Cool. So, so we have,

413
01:09:02.000 --> 01:09:05.300
Town of Plainfield: Brain is on, because, brain's with,

414
01:09:05.370 --> 01:09:14.000
Town of Plainfield: Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, and, they've been helping us with this grant program, the coordination. So, we had,

415
01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:25.990
Town of Plainfield: As you may remember, we had, 4 properties involved. We now have 3. The 1495 Coburn Road has dropped from the program. They've determined, that they're not going to go forward.

416
01:09:26.029 --> 01:09:35.690
Town of Plainfield: We're at the point where, we're looking at getting the engineering and design work done, which is 100%, covered by the grant.

417
01:09:35.689 --> 01:09:50.430
Town of Plainfield: And, up to, about $151,000. And Brian is on to talk with us about where we are, with the RFP and the hiring, of an engineering firm, and where all that is. So, Brian, turn over to you.

418
01:09:50.439 --> 01:09:57.929
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Great, thanks, Karen. Hi, folks. Yeah, Brian Voigt, Program Manager at the Center for Vermont Regional Planning Commission.

419
01:09:58.189 --> 01:10:07.359
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: So, we put out an RFP for Engineering Services, oh, a little over a month ago at this point, maybe a month and a half.

420
01:10:07.469 --> 01:10:20.339
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And received, two bids, as part of that process. Both of the bids were well in excess of the technical assistance funding that we had disposal, at our disposal.

421
01:10:20.419 --> 01:10:29.869
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: We reached out to the lower-priced, bidder, who was, Du Bois and King, and…

422
01:10:29.989 --> 01:10:48.549
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: talk to them a little bit more about the, sort of the division of labor, and, both, Center of Vermont Regional Planning Commission's ability, as well as the Natural Resources Conservation Service, ability to contribute some additional, sort of,

423
01:10:48.969 --> 01:11:04.709
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: assistance with things like permitting and, stakeholder engagement. So, just looking for creative ways that we could get the cost down. D&K did come back with a revised bid, and, originally.

424
01:11:05.189 --> 01:11:20.749
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: still more than that $150,000 amount, but much closer to the… the neighborhood there. We were working with NRCS to decide on whether or not, and when to request additional

425
01:11:20.889 --> 01:11:29.969
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: technical assistance funds when Karen found out that the Coburn Road property was… had elected not to move forward.

426
01:11:30.149 --> 01:11:38.019
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: I spoke with the, the lead engineer from Du Bois and King today. I was not able to catch up with him last week.

427
01:11:38.440 --> 01:11:51.489
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And, told him about the situation, and he is taking another look at their proposal, and will come back with a sort of a revised, proposal.

428
01:11:52.350 --> 01:12:07.660
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: it's unfortunately not quite as easy as just saying, oh, the Coburn Road project was gonna be roughly $40,000 in engineering, so we're just gonna take $40,000 out. They are aware of that $150,000 price cap, so they're…

429
01:12:07.660 --> 01:12:16.569
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: really doing what they can to work with us to meet that, so that we don't have to go back out to the federal NRCS and request

430
01:12:16.570 --> 01:12:25.770
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: additional funding. I expect to hear back from D&K in the next day or two, and we, Karen and myself.

431
01:12:25.950 --> 01:12:37.590
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: are meeting with staff from the, Natural Resources Conservation Service later this week, I believe, to have that conversation. Yeah, on Thursday. So,

432
01:12:37.690 --> 01:12:43.799
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Really sort of belaboring this, but, we're trying to get under this $150,000

433
01:12:43.810 --> 01:13:02.539
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: marker, because it's not clear that there will be other technical assistance funding available, so this particular storm has really blown through the engineering budget that the feds were originally awarded, and so given, the…

434
01:13:02.550 --> 01:13:15.669
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: scarcity of funds already allocated to this storm and the current political environment in DC. There's no guarantee that, we would be able to access additional technical assistance funds. So.

435
01:13:15.670 --> 01:13:23.800
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: All that said, I'm hoping for a positive response from the D&K team in the next couple of days.

436
01:13:24.050 --> 01:13:36.920
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: When that happens, we will put together a contract for engineering services, and that would be between the town and Du Bois and King.

437
01:13:37.750 --> 01:13:49.410
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And, at that point, yeah, you'll just be ready to, execute the contract with signatures from both parties, and, hopefully move forward and get some design work moving.

438
01:13:50.840 --> 01:13:59.930
Town of Plainfield: So what we need is a motion tonight to authorize the board chair to sign that agreement when…

439
01:14:00.170 --> 01:14:05.029
Town of Plainfield: When we get it, so it probably won't happen before the next meeting.

440
01:14:05.670 --> 01:14:08.979
Town of Plainfield: So, am I right, Brian? That's what we're…

441
01:14:09.240 --> 01:14:26.369
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: So, yep. Yeah, I mean, I expect, like I said, I expect to hear back from… from D&K, this week, and once we are clear that the project is going to move forward, we can draft a contract really quickly and, have that over.

442
01:14:26.440 --> 01:14:29.380
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Over to you and DMK, as well, for signature.

443
01:14:30.200 --> 01:14:34.430
Town of Plainfield: Okay. So this is a… this is a contract to do the design.

444
01:14:34.980 --> 01:14:37.299
Town of Plainfield: But there's no money to do the work.

445
01:14:37.610 --> 01:14:39.500
Town of Plainfield: Oh, this money to do the work.

446
01:14:39.820 --> 01:14:56.470
Town of Plainfield: But that money is… that money is at 75%, and the, the match comes from the… The property owners. Yeah. Yep. But we're not there yet. We're at the, we're at the engineering and design phase. Yeah.

447
01:14:56.800 --> 01:15:11.530
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Yeah, so the, the, you know, the outcome of the engineering work will be both the design plans, but also a request for bids for construction, and then assuming there are projects that move forward with construction.

448
01:15:11.570 --> 01:15:17.509
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: The engineer would also provide construction oversight services as part of their award.

449
01:15:19.360 --> 01:15:20.240
Town of Plainfield: Charlie?

450
01:15:20.700 --> 01:15:27.559
Town of Plainfield: Two points. Microphone, please, for the listener. Thank you. Charlie Cogville, two points.

451
01:15:27.570 --> 01:15:42.889
Town of Plainfield: One of which is, I'm wondering about the original grant agreement that was accepted, about a year ago, and that was amended about 6 months ago.

452
01:15:43.020 --> 01:15:51.869
Town of Plainfield: As I understand it, there are terms and conditions of that agreement that do not mention the landowners. They mention only the sponsors.

453
01:15:52.390 --> 01:15:54.119
Town of Plainfield: I wonder if that's true.

454
01:15:55.020 --> 01:16:12.990
Town of Plainfield: Secondly, I have some questions. In this, dealing with the contract with the engineers, are there any specifics in that contract about the location of which that project will take place?

455
01:16:13.710 --> 01:16:29.330
Town of Plainfield: In other words, where. And actually, more important, is there any plans for involvement from the landowners or abutters of that land when we know where it is? Yep.

456
01:16:29.710 --> 01:16:34.789
Town of Plainfield: So the… so let's say what order to take that in.

457
01:16:35.230 --> 01:16:41.719
Town of Plainfield: So, yes, the contract names sponsor, doesn't name, and the sponsor is the town.

458
01:16:41.890 --> 01:17:01.269
Town of Plainfield: But, Brian, in your work with these contracts, and in our conversations with the… with the state, well, it's with NRCS, it's… it's the landowners that are responsible, unless the town… unless the town decides that it will pay. But that's… that's in a… right?

459
01:17:01.270 --> 01:17:19.300
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Yeah, let me jump in here real quick, Karen. So, the NRCS is not able to directly award funds to a private landowner, so they're not able to work directly with them. So, you could think of this as the town sponsoring this project on behalf of the landowners.

460
01:17:19.300 --> 01:17:32.469
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And as Karen mentioned before, you know, the town could pay 100% of the implementation… I'm sorry, they could pay the matching cost for implementation if they so chose, so the feds would pay 75%

461
01:17:32.470 --> 01:17:37.690
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And the town could pay 25, the other 25%. But…

462
01:17:38.050 --> 01:17:41.880
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: It's more likely that the landowners will be

463
01:17:42.010 --> 01:17:51.550
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: On the hook for that 25% share, and that the town itself is just a conduit between the federal government and the private landowner.

464
01:17:52.500 --> 01:18:07.749
Town of Plainfield: And the… so then the… the other part of the question, so the locations are noted, in the contract, and in the estimates, and… and I know that the address for…

465
01:18:08.220 --> 01:18:20.929
Town of Plainfield: the one area that is, what we've referred to as Martin Meadow, which is actually a series of properties, behind the Plainfield Health Center all the way up to the Friends Meeting House.

466
01:18:21.040 --> 01:18:31.730
Town of Plainfield: We're… that is one of the projects. The other two are listed 99 Brook Road and 125 Berry Hill.

467
01:18:31.920 --> 01:18:50.090
Town of Plainfield: Those are the ones that we're talking about, and in terms of involving the landowners, yes, the part that we're at right now is getting the engineering and design work done. That can happen whether we go forward with any construction or not.

468
01:18:50.090 --> 01:18:52.530
Town of Plainfield: And it has to happen ahead of…

469
01:18:52.530 --> 01:18:56.679
Town of Plainfield: Going forward with any construction, because it will give us, then, the estimates

470
01:18:56.680 --> 01:19:12.599
Town of Plainfield: For what this is actually gonna look like, and how much it's gonna cost. And once we have that, then we will have meetings with the landowners to look at it together to see what are we really looking at, and what's it gonna cost, and who's gonna… how can landowners

471
01:19:12.780 --> 01:19:23.469
Town of Plainfield: pay for it or not pay for it, and will the town pay for it in some way? So we… there's… there's still many steps, but that's… this is the part we're at right now, which is to get the design and engineering done.

472
01:19:23.620 --> 01:19:25.009
Town of Plainfield: Does that answer it?

473
01:19:25.250 --> 01:19:38.509
Town of Plainfield: Not completely. Okay, go ahead. Okay. the points, that I made were that, the location of the project, you were writing a grant… a contract.

474
01:19:38.600 --> 01:19:46.220
Town of Plainfield: for engineering services, I would assume that that contract would say where they're going to design it.

475
01:19:46.490 --> 01:20:08.910
Town of Plainfield: Yes. And, saying it's a stretch of 3 properties along the Winooski River is too vague… Yes. …or any contract. Well, I apologize, because that's the Karen Hatcher version, the laywoman, but there are people who know what the actual locations are and can note them on a… on GPS, and so that's within what

476
01:20:09.050 --> 01:20:20.609
Town of Plainfield: will be in the contract, am I right, Brian? Because this is, like, it's not just addresses. This is, you know, all of this, surveying work has been done, so that will be clearly marked in the contract.

477
01:20:20.610 --> 01:20:37.030
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Yeah, so the Natural Resources Conservation Service comes out and does preliminary site surveys. In some cases, they actually collect topography data specific to the, to the parcel in question. They define the, I'm gonna…

478
01:20:37.030 --> 01:20:55.350
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: mess up, it's an acronym that I can't remember, but it's essentially the area where project work will occur, including the access to that portion of the property, you know, so crossing the property, crossing an adjacent property to get out to wherever the work itself is…

479
01:20:55.350 --> 01:21:02.129
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: to be done. They've defined… they, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, has defined that envelope.

480
01:21:02.130 --> 01:21:13.760
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And, they did so, because they need to perform a cultural resource assessment, wetlands assessment, and, I feel like there's one other thing that they need to do. If…

481
01:21:13.760 --> 01:21:35.229
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: during the design process, the engineer thinks that the design needs to extend further, cover a greater extent. If the access needs to happen in a different place than where the NRCS originally thought, then the NRCS comes back, again, revisits the site, redoes the assessments that I mentioned.

482
01:21:35.230 --> 01:21:40.419
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: Before, and, in that way, the, that area is specified.

483
01:21:41.540 --> 01:21:44.760
Town of Plainfield: Thanks, Brian. I think it's incumbent.

484
01:21:45.440 --> 01:21:47.990
Town of Plainfield: That the landowners and the butters

485
01:21:48.280 --> 01:21:54.219
Town of Plainfield: To this project have some input, not after it happens, but before it happens.

486
01:21:55.860 --> 01:22:01.079
Town of Plainfield: Is that doable? Is it, Brian, is that,

487
01:22:02.470 --> 01:22:04.769
Town of Plainfield: So, how do we do that? So…

488
01:22:05.300 --> 01:22:11.510
Town of Plainfield: Charlie, do you want to have a conversation with… is it all of them, or is it… I haven't made a final statement.

489
01:22:12.270 --> 01:22:28.450
Town of Plainfield: I have a question for you. Am I allowed to ask you a question now? I want to ask you a question. So, if… so, if you would like to have input into this process,

490
01:22:29.150 --> 01:22:39.060
Town of Plainfield: I'm just… I'm just curious about how to… how to include you, because I want to… I would like… it's… I hear you, and I want to make sure that we…

491
01:22:39.460 --> 01:22:46.919
Town of Plainfield: that if you have input and you want to speak with Brian or speak with the NCRS folks, that you're able to do that.

492
01:22:48.020 --> 01:22:49.369
Town of Plainfield: I've already done that.

493
01:22:49.490 --> 01:23:03.049
Town of Plainfield: I have been out with NRCS on their field excursions. I have seen what they have done. I have talked with them on the telephone. Okay. I have had a, Zoom meeting with them.

494
01:23:03.820 --> 01:23:06.299
Town of Plainfield: Okay. And I've hit a stone wall.

495
01:23:06.450 --> 01:23:13.940
Town of Plainfield: I have not yet learned what properties are being affected by this project.

496
01:23:14.180 --> 01:23:17.950
Town of Plainfield: And no one has ever asked me for my input.

497
01:23:20.020 --> 01:23:21.950
Town of Plainfield: Okay.

498
01:23:22.570 --> 01:23:31.500
Town of Plainfield: And… I don't think it'll happen, but this is very akin to taking.

499
01:23:31.760 --> 01:23:38.740
Town of Plainfield: Work is being done on private property without the private property owners.

500
01:23:39.140 --> 01:23:45.690
Town of Plainfield: aware of what's going on. Well…

501
01:23:47.130 --> 01:23:55.569
Town of Plainfield: I will say that any time anyone has been asked for permission to go onto the property, I have contacted the property owners.

502
01:23:55.600 --> 01:24:07.609
Town of Plainfield: to let you know that they would like to come on to do surveying, or that we're flying drones. So, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, because… I have given permission once.

503
01:24:08.620 --> 01:24:13.089
Town of Plainfield: Myself, for one property, For you to fly a drone.

504
01:24:14.040 --> 01:24:23.529
Town of Plainfield: I have been informed by you about 3 visits by NRCS, one of which, by the way, was at the wrong date, but I spelled back with that.

505
01:24:23.700 --> 01:24:32.419
Town of Plainfield: Okay. No one has ever asked me during those processes whether they could go on my land or other land that they went on to.

506
01:24:35.270 --> 01:24:39.210
Town of Plainfield: Okay, I hear you. I don't… I'm… okay.

507
01:24:39.480 --> 01:24:43.840
Town of Plainfield: Okay. I hear it. Yeah, this is… this isn't really a complaint.

508
01:24:44.100 --> 01:24:45.659
Town of Plainfield: It's a plague.

509
01:24:47.080 --> 01:24:54.359
Town of Plainfield: I see that I, and others, could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

510
01:24:54.900 --> 01:24:56.740
Town of Plainfield: And have no control.

511
01:24:59.380 --> 01:25:02.890
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: I just want to be really clear, you don't have to do anything.

512
01:25:03.390 --> 01:25:19.629
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: You could… if you… if you want to pull the plug on it now, we don't have to do any engineering on your property. If you want to see what the design looks like, and offer feedback to the engineer to see if that can be incorporated into the design, you're welcome to do that.

513
01:25:19.630 --> 01:25:39.139
Brian Voigt - CVRPC: And if it still doesn't meet your needs or expectations, at that point, you can pull the plug then. And you're never going to be forced to construct something on your property and then cough up a 25% cost share for a project that you don't want through this program. That's just not feasible, and it's not the way the program works.

514
01:25:39.680 --> 01:25:42.699
Town of Plainfield: Yes, and it isn't practical at this point.

515
01:25:43.370 --> 01:25:45.859
Town of Plainfield: I would like to see what, in fact.

516
01:25:46.090 --> 01:25:58.520
Town of Plainfield: I would love to have the project solve the problems that were originally presented. And I add, this was all initiated by my request of the time.

517
01:25:58.630 --> 01:26:07.380
Town of Plainfield: I think that it is a wonderful project. I'm excited that it's going ahead.

518
01:26:07.500 --> 01:26:10.400
Town of Plainfield: I'm just terribly frustrated.

519
01:26:10.940 --> 01:26:17.259
Town of Plainfield: By having an awful lot of toes in the fire.

520
01:26:18.930 --> 01:26:28.579
Town of Plainfield: And not knowing what is going on. And, I think, with input from people at the beginnings.

521
01:26:29.030 --> 01:26:34.490
Town of Plainfield: You'll probably save money, and maybe we can pull the plug and save the whole bunch.

522
01:26:35.070 --> 01:26:37.040
Town of Plainfield: Okay.

523
01:26:37.530 --> 01:26:38.530
Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

524
01:26:38.870 --> 01:26:45.260
Town of Plainfield: Thank you, Charlie. I think we've… the message has been delivered. So,

525
01:26:45.320 --> 01:27:00.500
Town of Plainfield: Quick technical point. If I may. Quick technical point. Is there's another party in one of these properties that hasn't been mentioned, which is VHP. Given that VHP is working on the

526
01:27:00.530 --> 01:27:05.550
Town of Plainfield: bridge design for 21, for bridge number 21 on the Brook Road.

527
01:27:05.550 --> 01:27:24.169
Town of Plainfield: That is immediately adjacent to and embraces an area that's slated for EWPP, so I just want to make sure that they're all check-talking with the… At the 99 Brook Road location. 99 Brook Road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. VHP is actually planning the right-of-way and the apportionment of property there. Yeah. Okay.

528
01:27:24.480 --> 01:27:27.809
Town of Plainfield: So, I would just ask the board,

529
01:27:28.530 --> 01:27:37.350
Town of Plainfield: At this point, to… to make a motion to be able to authorize the chair to sign an agreement to get the engineering and design work done.

530
01:27:37.520 --> 01:27:40.840
Town of Plainfield: Once Brian has negotiated it.

531
01:27:41.530 --> 01:27:45.759
Town of Plainfield: You just made a motion. I'm making that motion, please. Thank you.

532
01:27:49.850 --> 01:27:52.970
Town of Plainfield: Is there any further discussion on that?

533
01:27:55.270 --> 01:27:56.050
Town of Plainfield: No.

534
01:27:56.190 --> 01:28:00.729
Town of Plainfield: All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

535
01:28:01.160 --> 01:28:03.969
Town of Plainfield: Unanimous. Thank you. Thanks, Brian.

536
01:28:05.730 --> 01:28:11.380
Town of Plainfield: And I will wait for somebody to put a paper in front of me that says what it's supposed to.

537
01:28:12.010 --> 01:28:22.310
Town of Plainfield: Alright, let's move to the Plainfield Village Cemetery grant proposal. Oh, yes. Okay, so… Alright,

538
01:28:22.680 --> 01:28:28.869
Town of Plainfield: So, we received, word about a potential grant this week that,

539
01:28:29.430 --> 01:28:42.909
Town of Plainfield: that is for planning, related to cultural, projects. And it's also another one of those… oh, and by the way, it's due on the 26th. So,

540
01:28:43.920 --> 01:29:07.670
Town of Plainfield: So the idea… so we had just gotten, a request from a member of the community, looking to make some improvements to the… Mo Cerruti. Mo Cerruti, to make improvements to the town cemetery. And so when I saw this grant proposal come through, I thought, well, this might be a good fit, for doing some planning work around the cemetery.

541
01:29:07.680 --> 01:29:14.500
Town of Plainfield: And so, that was shared with, members of the Cemetery Commission, who…

542
01:29:14.500 --> 01:29:37.180
Town of Plainfield: none of whom could make the meeting tonight, and they wondered why the Select Board was even involved in it. So, I apologized, and said that that was my mistake, because I didn't know that they had their own money and their own budget, and they could do their own… I did say that in the email. Yeah, well, my mistake, I missed it, so there it is. And, so I don't think there's anything for us to do about that tonight. I did give them the link.

543
01:29:37.180 --> 01:29:44.350
Town of Plainfield: to the information about the grant if they wanted to take it forward and offered help if they needed it, but I have not heard back, so…

544
01:29:44.590 --> 01:30:07.189
Town of Plainfield: That's where that is. I did, you know, read Mo Cerrudi's thing and whatnot, and his vision is broader than the cemetery, because he was talking about the metal handrail that used to run up the hill along the sidewalk from Belinda View's house to the park and ride, which I actually remember and have used in my lifetime, but it's all gone now.

545
01:30:07.190 --> 01:30:12.109
Town of Plainfield: That's an interesting historic, piece.

546
01:30:12.110 --> 01:30:28.629
Town of Plainfield: And I don't know, with the repaving project that's going on, I don't think they're touching the sidewalks with that, I think that's just pavement, but, that's outside the cemetery, so that wouldn't be the Cemetery Commission's, you know, bailiwick there, so…

547
01:30:29.110 --> 01:30:34.239
Town of Plainfield: But… Well, I would say that,

548
01:30:35.590 --> 01:30:51.440
Town of Plainfield: With the number of things that are going on in the grants area right now, I'm not going to be able to probably pick it up at this point and try and make something happen, so… Yeah. And they still never got the wrought iron nice gate fixed for the plane mount.

549
01:30:51.500 --> 01:30:58.249
Town of Plainfield: That somebody ran into years ago and smashed up. That's why there's no gate desks.

550
01:30:58.320 --> 01:31:07.769
Town of Plainfield: Years and years ago. Right. Now, that is cemetery commission. Yep, again, and that's part of the reason why there's so much vandalism up there.

551
01:31:08.610 --> 01:31:26.500
Town of Plainfield: All right, moving along, thank you. We have the, Cutler Memorial Library. Is there someone from Cutler here? No, no. I had emailed Angela as a follow-up to this item, but I have yet to receive a response.

552
01:31:26.640 --> 01:31:51.569
Town of Plainfield: So it's possible we can table this until the next meeting. Okay, and just out of curiosity, I mean, obviously the… we have an outfit, Plainfield Arch, that we contract with for management of the space here, so that seemed to me that there would be… want to be some input in terms of scheduling, but are they really asking us a policy question here, since they're not a town entity, they're a private entity?

553
01:31:51.570 --> 01:31:58.380
Town of Plainfield: what… I mean, insofar as the policy says, on occasion, should our events

554
01:31:58.990 --> 01:32:02.140
Town of Plainfield: would it make sense to have our events here? Maybe.

555
01:32:02.770 --> 01:32:20.929
Town of Plainfield: So that is a policy, I suppose. Where are they asking for, exemption from fees? They're asking for a comp, yeah. I mean, the history, the brief history that I understand is Angela used the space for 3 events last year that were well attended, they were all on environmental teams.

556
01:32:21.290 --> 01:32:30.650
Town of Plainfield: There was two authors here in person, one came in on Zoom, and I believe they got use of the Opera House for free for those events.

557
01:32:30.910 --> 01:32:35.049
Town of Plainfield: So there is some precedent of them coming to somebody and asking for comps.

558
01:32:35.160 --> 01:32:47.159
Town of Plainfield: For that purpose. I don't know if they came to this select board, I don't know if they went to Plainfield Arts. I assume they came to… I have a question here about jurisdiction. Yeah, right. Who even makes this call? Is it Plainfield Arts, or is it Odds?

559
01:32:49.480 --> 01:32:52.109
Town of Plainfield: I mean… It sounds like it should be Plainfield Arts.

560
01:32:52.360 --> 01:33:11.400
Town of Plainfield: I think… I think this is slippery slope. Yeah. You know, if you… if you say… and I used to be on the library board, so… and I love the library, but I think, you know, if you… if you grant one group, a special arrangement, and you don't do it for other groups.

561
01:33:11.670 --> 01:33:14.209
Town of Plainfield: That also might have, you know.

562
01:33:14.900 --> 01:33:23.249
Town of Plainfield: trouble paying for a rental, but also that benefit the community. I think, you know, it is a policy question. It's whether or not

563
01:33:24.730 --> 01:33:38.319
Town of Plainfield: you know, you want to be in the business of comping specific groups, but I think if we have a management team here in Plainfield Arts who manages the space and the fees for the space.

564
01:33:40.450 --> 01:33:57.420
Town of Plainfield: you know, sounds like they've been able to make that call in the past, and maybe they could continue. I don't remember the library coming to us for… I don't remember that either. …request, so I think it was handled by them, so… Yeah, I would send it to Plainfield Arts to make that decision, because they're the managers.

565
01:33:57.540 --> 01:34:13.449
Town of Plainfield: All right. So we don't need to take any action here tonight. Okay. So, we have the professional service contract with Momentum and Structural Integrity Organizational Consultants,

566
01:34:13.500 --> 01:34:20.109
Town of Plainfield: I know Francis Rose and I have met with them online, and I think there's somebody here. Yes.

567
01:34:20.420 --> 01:34:28.799
Town of Plainfield: And Andy, you actually made the recommendations for these folks at some point. So, who wants to lead off?

568
01:34:30.770 --> 01:34:37.020
Town of Plainfield: Well, I can start, and then we'll give it to Elise, who's online here.

569
01:34:37.480 --> 01:34:40.349
Town of Plainfield: Hi, Lise, good to see you.

570
01:34:40.600 --> 01:34:44.840
Town of Plainfield: So, there was a conversation about trying to improve workflow in the office.

571
01:34:45.740 --> 01:34:58.340
Town of Plainfield: And at some point, before I was on the select board, this was bounced around, and I said, I know people who do that work, and I feel like they do it well. So I gave some references, and then you two followed up on the references.

572
01:34:58.880 --> 01:35:07.119
Town of Plainfield: And what's interesting here is I actually gave the name of two firms, both of which actually work together pretty often, and they're coming in on this together, and Elise can speak to that.

573
01:35:07.630 --> 01:35:09.970
Town of Plainfield: So I would, I would give it to our guest.

574
01:35:11.940 --> 01:35:13.200
Town of Plainfield: Elise?

575
01:35:13.680 --> 01:35:14.150
Momentum Consulting: Okay.

576
01:35:14.150 --> 01:35:15.310
Town of Plainfield: Welcome.

577
01:35:15.310 --> 01:35:17.480
Momentum Consulting: Hi, everybody.

578
01:35:17.900 --> 01:35:23.479
Momentum Consulting: So, I just want to have a sense of who's in the room. Is it the full select board, and…

579
01:35:24.640 --> 01:35:29.970
Momentum Consulting: staff and community members, or just… just so I have a sense of who I'm… who I'm talking to?

580
01:35:30.280 --> 01:35:33.160
Town of Plainfield: All three. All, all three, all three.

581
01:35:34.460 --> 01:35:35.690
Momentum Consulting: Okay, great.

582
01:35:35.690 --> 01:35:52.520
Town of Plainfield: You have the full, the full select board, there's a member of the press here, careful what you see grandchildren. Yeah, and a couple of other, town employees and, members of the public, committee, committee members, so…

583
01:35:52.700 --> 01:35:56.569
Town of Plainfield: And there's… I think there's a couple people online listening in.

584
01:35:57.730 --> 01:35:58.310
Momentum Consulting: Great.

585
01:35:58.580 --> 01:36:05.479
Momentum Consulting: Okay. So, so what was described, for me as, is,

586
01:36:05.740 --> 01:36:25.629
Momentum Consulting: what the select board, was interested in, and which the scope of work, responds to, is, a few different things. And so, momentum is… and will play one role, and then structural integrity plays a… plays a bit of a different role. So we have a different set of skills.

587
01:36:25.930 --> 01:36:36.349
Momentum Consulting: So, the first thing we talked about was, doing a baseline understanding of where select board members and staff

588
01:36:36.520 --> 01:36:51.009
Momentum Consulting: assess what is working well and what are areas that need improvements, and specific agreements, for working together. So, that, that involves

589
01:36:51.400 --> 01:37:09.899
Momentum Consulting: like I said, a survey. It also involves a set of conversations or interviews or group discussions to figure out what needs to happen to have a, a successful operating and partnership between the Select Board and the staff.

590
01:37:10.040 --> 01:37:25.319
Momentum Consulting: Okay, and then the staff, with other staff members, and the… and the select board with other select board members. So that's… that's a piece of the work. Then from that, we would, develop, again, some… some clarity on agreements.

591
01:37:26.230 --> 01:37:31.460
Momentum Consulting: The other work we talked about was, where structural integrity comes in, is

592
01:37:31.510 --> 01:37:37.960
Momentum Consulting: Some organizational documents, such as updating job descriptions, workflows.

593
01:37:37.960 --> 01:37:49.710
Momentum Consulting: and other internal policies that would come out of the recommendations. So if we know what's working well and what's not working, and where the area for improvement, then I hand the baton

594
01:37:49.710 --> 01:38:03.619
Momentum Consulting: To Sage, who, from Structural Integrity, who would work on some of those, those job descriptions and workflows. So, so what we talked about was identifying where are there gaps in communication.

595
01:38:04.180 --> 01:38:19.779
Momentum Consulting: Where are their role ambiguities? And what are, you know, what are… generally, what are the patterns that are impacting, you know, the overall effectiveness of, of, you know, of the function of this, of the staff and the, and the, select board?

596
01:38:22.150 --> 01:38:32.630
Momentum Consulting: Yeah, so that's pretty much what the scope describes, and then specifically, it's through, like I said, surveys, and then facilitated, conversations.

597
01:38:35.100 --> 01:38:37.360
Momentum Consulting: Happy to answer any questions.

598
01:38:37.680 --> 01:38:40.659
Town of Plainfield: Elise, what's the timeframe, how many months?

599
01:38:42.160 --> 01:38:48.540
Momentum Consulting: I think what we talked about… let me see here… I think things have.

600
01:38:48.540 --> 01:38:50.930
Town of Plainfield: It says March until October.

601
01:38:50.930 --> 01:38:52.810
Momentum Consulting: Yeah, so I think…

602
01:38:53.110 --> 01:39:04.980
Momentum Consulting: I think that, yeah, probably, exactly. So, we had originally a little bit earlier, because it was… we started talking before, town meeting day, but we're looking for this work to happen over,

603
01:39:05.290 --> 01:39:07.789
Momentum Consulting: you know, the next several months through October, yes.

604
01:39:15.620 --> 01:39:31.139
Town of Plainfield: Have you had a chance to… I did look at it, yeah, I did. I just was able to read this this afternoon. I couldn't open up the document. I thank Francis Rose for opening the door.

605
01:39:31.630 --> 01:39:37.189
Town of Plainfield: I had a question about the time schedule as well. Other than the 6 months

606
01:39:37.430 --> 01:39:46.869
Town of Plainfield: window for the entire thing. I didn't see any, like, benchmarks, and whatnot. And I… where I'm coming from here is…

607
01:39:47.090 --> 01:39:58.289
Town of Plainfield: We still have yet to begin the process of hiring… we've just begun the process of hiring a treasurer, and so I know it's been our interest to…

608
01:39:58.650 --> 01:40:14.849
Town of Plainfield: make this investment in the team that's gonna be there, you know, as opposed to, you know, right now, where we don't have a complete team yet. And so, I'm wondering if you might have a comment on that, and I had a couple other

609
01:40:15.010 --> 01:40:16.680
Town of Plainfield: questions,

610
01:40:16.900 --> 01:40:28.849
Town of Plainfield: You talk about group sessions, facilitated group sessions. Are you involving the select board as a group there? Because if we have three of us in a room, we have to warn it, and it's a public meeting.

611
01:40:29.680 --> 01:40:44.519
Town of Plainfield: Which is an odd, I think, way to work here. You know, you could have a subset of us, you know, two people, and we wouldn't run afoul of that, but that's a different thing.

612
01:40:44.540 --> 01:40:51.489
Town of Plainfield: And I also, while there's a price tag, I didn't see an hourly rate in here anywhere.

613
01:40:52.000 --> 01:40:54.359
Town of Plainfield: So, I throw those out.

614
01:40:55.040 --> 01:40:59.110
Momentum Consulting: Okay, let's see. So, the…

615
01:40:59.120 --> 01:41:01.640
Town of Plainfield: I, I think Sage…

616
01:41:01.640 --> 01:41:03.070
Momentum Consulting: Should I answer your questions?

617
01:41:03.410 --> 01:41:04.040
Town of Plainfield: Yes, please.

618
01:41:04.040 --> 01:41:14.930
Momentum Consulting: Okay, so Sage and I, you know, are flexible on moving this back a little bit, so we did talk about, I think on our last call,

619
01:41:15.430 --> 01:41:23.449
Momentum Consulting: this idea of the, you know, the select board, at least, could begin this… this… to answer the survey, right, to figure out

620
01:41:23.470 --> 01:41:41.870
Momentum Consulting: what… where you see improvements, what's working and what's not, so we talked about starting that piece of work. We can also wait until you've hired and you have your full staff, so… so both are… are fine. We also discussed that because,

621
01:41:42.010 --> 01:41:48.390
Momentum Consulting: We weren't sure of the availability that would… that we would sit down and create

622
01:41:48.390 --> 01:42:06.029
Momentum Consulting: a schedule with you. So we'd have a work plan with a schedule that would include milestones, but the first step was just sort of getting this scope of work going, and to engage with you before we, you know, get into those really specifics, and we would create,

623
01:42:06.120 --> 01:42:13.440
Momentum Consulting: Yeah, a pretty detailed work plan, I would say, which is an important next step.

624
01:42:13.850 --> 01:42:23.870
Momentum Consulting: let's see, I think, we… I… I think we put in the proposal, let me see, because I… I think we actually,

625
01:42:24.570 --> 01:42:33.469
Momentum Consulting: are giving a lower rate than our… than our usual rate for the select board, so let me just find… right, this is what we said here.

626
01:42:41.690 --> 01:42:46.330
Momentum Consulting: So, our usual rate is $200 an hour, but I think we did not…

627
01:42:46.810 --> 01:42:48.500
Momentum Consulting: Let me just see here.

628
01:42:54.360 --> 01:43:03.379
Momentum Consulting: We, have $180 an hour in this scope, which is… so, like I said, it's a reduction of our hourly rate.

629
01:43:03.650 --> 01:43:05.160
Town of Plainfield: Okay, alright, thank you.

630
01:43:05.270 --> 01:43:15.260
Town of Plainfield: Carol, you had your hand up. You brought up the point that was exactly what I was thinking as I started talking. Right now, I think it's a waste of money, because we don't have the staff

631
01:43:15.770 --> 01:43:27.120
Town of Plainfield: to tell, like, who's gonna do what. We actually… a lot of jobs have not been cleared who is doing them since, late fall of 2022.

632
01:43:27.120 --> 01:43:27.620
Momentum Consulting: Mmm.

633
01:43:28.640 --> 01:43:34.669
Town of Plainfield: And it just kind of fell, and then when you went to separate Treasurer and,

634
01:43:34.780 --> 01:43:40.550
Town of Plainfield: Again, it went, throw it up in the air, and whatever falls down, someone catches it.

635
01:43:40.760 --> 01:43:49.359
Town of Plainfield: So, right now, I think it would be a waste of $180 or $200 an hour, because you don't have the people to give those assignments to.

636
01:43:50.240 --> 01:43:52.120
Town of Plainfield: So I agree with what you're saying.

637
01:43:52.300 --> 01:44:01.130
Town of Plainfield: So here's… I'd like to add something here. You know, I'm hearing you, Elise, speak to different layers or levels of work happening.

638
01:44:01.130 --> 01:44:12.709
Town of Plainfield: you know, both in sequence and simultaneously. And, I mean, I think I'd like to clarify that there is work that can be started that is not

639
01:44:12.710 --> 01:44:17.430
Town of Plainfield: Kind of trying to solve problems about a scene we don't yet have a grasp of.

640
01:44:19.150 --> 01:44:21.310
Town of Plainfield: I see you nodding. Is that a yes?

641
01:44:21.310 --> 01:44:22.770
Momentum Consulting: Yes, is that a question?

642
01:44:22.900 --> 01:44:25.549
Town of Plainfield: Sorry, I didn't know if you… I didn't know if you were stating…

643
01:44:25.550 --> 01:44:27.750
Momentum Consulting: I don't know if we were stating a fact or a question.

644
01:44:28.100 --> 01:44:31.109
Town of Plainfield: So I'm reciting a feeling, which I think is true.

645
01:44:31.320 --> 01:44:38.870
Momentum Consulting: Sorry, yeah, so the Select Board, right, I think the Select Board, right, as, you know.

646
01:44:39.130 --> 01:44:45.039
Momentum Consulting: there's a role for the Select Board, an important role for Select Board to play in terms of

647
01:44:45.500 --> 01:44:54.880
Momentum Consulting: what is the environment that you want to create? What has not worked well? And where do you want to see,

648
01:44:55.010 --> 01:45:02.320
Momentum Consulting: you know, the partnership and the staff moving forward, right? So that work could start, because your select board

649
01:45:02.510 --> 01:45:07.540
Momentum Consulting: is decided, right? So you've got… you know, you know, that group, at least.

650
01:45:07.710 --> 01:45:23.519
Momentum Consulting: The staff work, yeah, I think, I think that's a really good point. And I didn't quite hear everything, I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear everything, that individual said, but, but, I think a staff survey and creating those agreements should have

651
01:45:23.650 --> 01:45:28.450
Momentum Consulting: everybody on board to, you know, to have that conversation. So that point is well taken.

652
01:45:34.600 --> 01:45:35.750
Town of Plainfield: Michael?

653
01:45:36.510 --> 01:45:54.269
Town of Plainfield: I remember earlier in this meeting where we were talking about the allocation of space in the building, which also has to do with workflows and efficiency, and the Select Board at that time said, turn it over to Jamie and the staff, and let them make a proposal and bring it back.

654
01:45:54.540 --> 01:46:00.799
Town of Plainfield: And since Carol and Jamie and all the others have been working together for so long.

655
01:46:00.870 --> 01:46:15.029
Town of Plainfield: maybe we should start with them. That's what I'm asking, in terms of having them talk about what their preferences are, and how they work well, and how they feel they're frustrated, have them report, in other words, be the source of the beginning of this. That's my question.

656
01:46:15.130 --> 01:46:24.450
Town of Plainfield: beginning of this momentum consultation. Beginning the momentum of terms of how does the workflow become, better for the objectives that are put in front.

657
01:46:25.160 --> 01:46:37.029
Town of Plainfield: I think we're past… well past that. I mean, the beginning and initial, part of this came months ago, that it involved many meetings.

658
01:46:37.070 --> 01:46:55.660
Town of Plainfield: With staff, but among staff, with select board, in private, in public, in executive session, in the office, etc, etc. And so, the desire was to have folks who know what they're doing.

659
01:46:55.660 --> 01:46:59.339
Town of Plainfield: come in and advise us with this. The question, I think, now is.

660
01:46:59.360 --> 01:47:15.670
Town of Plainfield: when is the timing best for this investment? And, I think it's, you know, once we have another major team player here, then it's like, okay, now, you know, space is part of it.

661
01:47:15.670 --> 01:47:30.170
Town of Plainfield: Dynamics and chemistry is part of it. Jobs descriptions is a part of it. There are many front facets to this issue. So, I think, you know, I don't know how… when we started talking with these folks, it was last year.

662
01:47:30.620 --> 01:47:39.979
Town of Plainfield: Was it quite so early as last year? I'm not sure. I think it was in 2025. That's possible, yeah. I mean, I guess I wanted to note, maybe I'm,

663
01:47:41.400 --> 01:47:52.430
Town of Plainfield: continuing a thought from before, which is, I mean, as I conceive of design, I mean, this is an elaborate design process to help the office work better.

664
01:47:52.430 --> 01:48:01.519
Town of Plainfield: And so, as I conceive of design, like, first steps, you know, would include goals articulation and site analysis, and assessment.

665
01:48:01.740 --> 01:48:17.759
Town of Plainfield: And those are things that, to me, seem like they could begin with the people who have been here, and the select board who is responsible for the space, and who has any awareness about the function of the place.

666
01:48:18.130 --> 01:48:35.769
Town of Plainfield: you know, it's going to be an addition to, you know, take the site analysis and receive the goals of any new treasurer or financial director. But I guess this is me, you know, publicly saying, I'd rather not wait until all the pieces are, like, well settled.

667
01:48:35.850 --> 01:48:39.109
Town of Plainfield: To begin what can be begun.

668
01:48:39.380 --> 01:48:48.250
Momentum Consulting: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that point, you know, I think what you're saying… what I'm hearing from you is that there is an opportunity to set.

669
01:48:48.390 --> 01:48:48.920
Town of Plainfield: up here.

670
01:48:48.920 --> 01:48:57.089
Momentum Consulting: new employees for success, right? So, there is some work that can happen to

671
01:48:57.300 --> 01:49:13.670
Momentum Consulting: integrate them, right, to… to explore what does… what does, you know, a good partnership and good operation look like, right? And by the way, that's coming from listening and discovery, or… or hearing from you all to learn

672
01:49:13.710 --> 01:49:27.980
Momentum Consulting: what has been working and what hasn't, right? I will… I won't know that. Sage won't know that until we start working with you, right? So… so what… what you're describing is, what is that learning process, what we call discovery.

673
01:49:28.110 --> 01:49:39.179
Momentum Consulting: And, understanding, again, that… so that we can move into, you know, working with the team, and with which we'll have some new team members.

674
01:49:39.340 --> 01:49:52.960
Momentum Consulting: In the future, as opposed to, you know, folks come on board and then we have to get started, right? There could be a lag there. So, yeah, so I think, I think it makes sense. And I also,

675
01:49:53.170 --> 01:50:04.910
Momentum Consulting: my senses, and having, you know, worked with other groups in this, you know, scheduling, making it work, fun, you know, that takes time too, right? So,

676
01:50:04.910 --> 01:50:13.709
Momentum Consulting: getting moving doesn't mean that, we're going from A to Z, you know, in the first couple weeks, right? That's what we've got a process in mind.

677
01:50:17.360 --> 01:50:20.370
Town of Plainfield: Well, I would just say that I'm comfortable with the…

678
01:50:20.480 --> 01:50:31.039
Town of Plainfield: with the idea that there are things that we can begin, and that we should begin, and not wait. And we should trust that you've done this work enough

679
01:50:31.170 --> 01:50:40.419
Town of Plainfield: That you can guide us to know which things are the right things to do at this point, and which things come later, when everybody's in place.

680
01:50:40.620 --> 01:50:55.409
Town of Plainfield: So, you know, that's why you hire people who know what they're doing, to help. So, you know, I'm comfortable… the fact that you've been recommended by Andy, who's been working in this space for a lot of his career,

681
01:50:56.050 --> 01:51:00.689
Town of Plainfield: you know, I'm comfortable going ahead with what's been presented to us.

682
01:51:03.360 --> 01:51:22.999
Town of Plainfield: Would the Chair entertain a motion to… The chair would entertain a motion. I would make a motion that we, authorize the Chair to sign the contract with Momentum Consulting and Structural Integrity, nested wherein, to offer the Town Office, organizational consultancy.

683
01:51:24.180 --> 01:51:27.730
Town of Plainfield: As per this contract.

684
01:51:28.040 --> 01:51:29.610
Town of Plainfield: And I'll second that.

685
01:51:30.770 --> 01:51:55.729
Town of Plainfield: Whatever she said. What she said. What she said. I'm doing my best. We'll need you to read it back. It's recorded. We'll clean it up if needed. Yeah. I mean, I'll throw in a quick discussion point here. I had… I don't do this in public very often, but I had a little epiphany the other day. I was over at the granary, and they… I was talking to Chris and Aiden, and they were fixing the place.

686
01:51:55.730 --> 01:52:03.190
Town of Plainfield: up, and they've got somebody moving in there, and it's a total fly-the-plane-while-you're-building-it situation.

687
01:52:03.190 --> 01:52:12.000
Town of Plainfield: And then I thought the move of the co-op, which I was deeply involved in, was the same sort of situation. That plane was flying before it was fully built.

688
01:52:12.190 --> 01:52:36.190
Town of Plainfield: And I feel like this is the culture of Plainfield, Vermont, is we sort of jump in and do stuff before we 100% know what we're doing, and we figure it out. I think that's one definition of this town, and I like structure, and I like goals and all that stuff, but I'm learning to sort of live with the ambiguity of all of this, which we were just speaking to. Is there some ambiguity in this?

689
01:52:36.620 --> 01:52:46.050
Town of Plainfield: And I'm sort of good with that. So, I will vote in favor when this comes around. It's not the perfect moment, but I think it's a good enough moment to start. There you go.

690
01:52:46.190 --> 01:53:11.179
Town of Plainfield: I'll have a couple comments, and I think you captured some of the characteristics of playing field. Michael, you might be the exception to what I just said. You're organized. You are organized, but you're surrounded by people who are less organized. Well, let me continue with my sentence, which was to point out that I am a

691
01:53:11.180 --> 01:53:19.220
Town of Plainfield: Virgo, and I have… I pay attention to probably more details than is sometimes healthy.

692
01:53:19.220 --> 01:53:23.860
Town of Plainfield: But, I think…

693
01:53:24.440 --> 01:53:30.109
Town of Plainfield: we need to… and Carol asked me this question in an email.

694
01:53:30.120 --> 01:53:49.159
Town of Plainfield: what did I mean by bringing professionalism here? And, you know, this is part of what I think it means, which is to take those issues that have been unresolved and loose around the edges and try and tighten them up.

695
01:53:49.260 --> 01:54:01.179
Town of Plainfield: Because I think we can be better off, we can be more efficient, we can use our money better, and we can accomplish things, if we are…

696
01:54:01.560 --> 01:54:09.000
Town of Plainfield: orderly, more orderly about it. And I think also, in many instances.

697
01:54:09.430 --> 01:54:14.140
Town of Plainfield: We try and do too much. We're a town of less than 1,400 people.

698
01:54:14.380 --> 01:54:27.349
Town of Plainfield: And I don't know how many people, I think you commented on it at our last meeting, that we just appointed 50-some of them to various positions and committees and commissions. It's like…

699
01:54:27.350 --> 01:54:43.640
Town of Plainfield: almost anyone who is not a child, not… not… Not homebound. Not homebound, you know, or otherwise incapacitated, you know, is doing something. And it's like, how do we do it better together? That's good.

700
01:54:45.030 --> 01:54:49.879
Town of Plainfield: Very good. We have had two sermons tonight.

701
01:54:49.880 --> 01:55:04.039
Momentum Consulting: I love it. This is what I… this is what I think about, you know, when I think about playing field, is, is, you know, some of the things that you described. And I will say that, Peter, I'm also a Virgo, but… but more importantly, I'm a systems thinker.

702
01:55:04.040 --> 01:55:14.790
Momentum Consulting: And I really do believe that you can create clarity with structures and systems that can solve some of the challenges around

703
01:55:14.890 --> 01:55:27.599
Momentum Consulting: personalities and relationships, right? Because, you know, often we point blame, but really, there's probably a structure or a system or a policy that can get you most of the way there.

704
01:55:28.930 --> 01:55:32.370
Town of Plainfield: That's good. That sounds good, that's good. Alright. So, call the question?

705
01:55:32.730 --> 01:55:35.399
Town of Plainfield: Unless there's any further discussion.

706
01:55:36.190 --> 01:55:43.900
Town of Plainfield: All those in favor of the motion basically authorizing me to sign this contract. Right. Aye, that's it. Aye.

707
01:55:44.100 --> 01:55:45.550
Town of Plainfield: Alright, any opposed?

708
01:55:46.310 --> 01:55:47.929
Town of Plainfield: Patty, are you and I?

709
01:55:51.190 --> 01:55:54.950
Town of Plainfield: Patty, you're muted, are you there? Oh, yeah, she's muted.

710
01:55:55.420 --> 01:56:00.850
Town of Plainfield: Heidi's drowning in grandchildren. Heidi's got a sick grandbaby.

711
01:56:01.190 --> 01:56:13.540
Town of Plainfield: Okay. Well… Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you all, too. Yep. Alright. Thank you, Elise. Thank you.

712
01:56:13.540 --> 01:56:15.520
Momentum Consulting: Okay, bye everybody, have a good evening.

713
01:56:15.770 --> 01:56:16.920
Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

714
01:56:17.530 --> 01:56:24.089
Town of Plainfield: Alright, Andy, community listening sessions, Idiation and discussion.

715
01:56:24.770 --> 01:56:34.719
Town of Plainfield: So, the word ideation is mysterious to me, but I think I'm supposed to have ideas. I had an idea. There you go. I have an idea. That's ideation.

716
01:56:34.720 --> 01:56:35.959
Patti Jamele: Here, I said I.

717
01:56:36.290 --> 01:56:39.709
Town of Plainfield: Oh, good. Oh, Patty votes. Welcome back.

718
01:56:39.710 --> 01:56:41.659
Patti Jamele: Yes, thank you.

719
01:56:41.660 --> 01:56:45.529
Town of Plainfield: Tell us about your idea. Yeah, my idea is this,

720
01:56:47.220 --> 01:56:50.669
Town of Plainfield: I would like to create some opportunities for…

721
01:56:50.790 --> 01:56:58.549
Town of Plainfield: Community members to come and share ideas, vent, complain, listen.

722
01:56:58.800 --> 01:57:18.620
Town of Plainfield: Perhaps be inspired by others. I don't see this as a formal warned meeting. I don't see minutes. I see one or two select board members making themselves available at a time and a place, and then probably also on Zoom at another time, just for people who want to come and talk.

723
01:57:18.950 --> 01:57:33.549
Town of Plainfield: Tax Day! It's not bad. Well, I, I, you know, and some of this is coming out of the whole, struggle around the housing project. And there are people who did not feel heard.

724
01:57:34.300 --> 01:57:46.549
Town of Plainfield: And I want to hear everybody. I don't have an agenda, I just want to create space where people can come and share what they think the town should be doing, or isn't doing, or might be doing, or what they're…

725
01:57:46.550 --> 01:57:57.560
Town of Plainfield: Frustrations and concerns, and also ideas are. I don't know if any of this is actionable, but I think it's a gesture to say, here we are, we are designated leaders in the community, we're here to listen.

726
01:57:57.730 --> 01:58:06.719
Town of Plainfield: And there are some people who might attend something like that who wouldn't come to a meeting like this, because this is formal, and it's a little intimidating, and everything's being recorded, and not everybody wants that.

727
01:58:07.690 --> 01:58:24.559
Town of Plainfield: So, I feel like, moving forward, I want to… healing is not quite the word, it's too grandiose, but I want to create space for people to be heard, and maybe to hear others. Will there be snacks? Snacks, absolutely. There's gotta be food, thank you, Karen. Got to be snacks, right on.

728
01:58:24.560 --> 01:58:28.479
Town of Plainfield: And, I mean, I think it's, you know, I would do these myself.

729
01:58:28.530 --> 01:58:35.980
Town of Plainfield: But if another select board member wanted to be present, if there's fewer than three of us, we don't have to warn it, we can just be there. Francis Rose is in.

730
01:58:36.530 --> 01:58:37.830
Patti Jamele: Yeah.

731
01:58:38.060 --> 01:58:40.729
Town of Plainfield: So, that's my proposal.

732
01:58:41.870 --> 01:58:48.730
Town of Plainfield: And then I have a related question, and Peter, you can help answer this, because this is only my second meeting, so I'm learning how this works.

733
01:58:49.010 --> 01:58:56.390
Town of Plainfield: I can go out and just talk to people as a select board member, right? I don't have to be authorized, I can just go talk to people.

734
01:58:56.840 --> 01:58:57.950
Town of Plainfield: Good, I will.

735
01:58:58.390 --> 01:59:07.550
Town of Plainfield: I only bring this out because there's some people I would like to get to know better, who have strong opinions about stuff, and I would like to sit and listen to them.

736
01:59:08.120 --> 01:59:09.440
Town of Plainfield: And just be present.

737
01:59:09.960 --> 01:59:12.360
Town of Plainfield: So, that's my idea.

738
01:59:12.660 --> 01:59:19.879
Town of Plainfield: Great idea. And I don't think we have to move it or, you know… I mean, I would like to know… it sounds like you're interested, Francis Rose, you'd like to be part of this.

739
01:59:20.140 --> 01:59:29.119
Town of Plainfield: Maybe we'll put our calendars together and pick a few days that work for us, and we can put it on a French book form, and put it on Plainfield People, and have a venue.

740
01:59:29.330 --> 01:59:38.980
Town of Plainfield: I think we need to do at least one on Zoom for those who are less likely to go out, and more likely to participate online. So it's an accessibility piece.

741
01:59:41.300 --> 01:59:43.470
Town of Plainfield: Great, sounds good. Yeah, I'm…

742
01:59:43.470 --> 01:59:45.650
Patti Jamele: I'm interested in this kind of venue, too.

743
01:59:46.820 --> 01:59:49.199
Town of Plainfield: Good. Be part of it.

744
01:59:49.200 --> 01:59:50.369
Patti Jamele: I love it, thanks.

745
01:59:52.230 --> 01:59:55.859
Town of Plainfield: Great. Okay, just quick. Thank you for the idea. Thank you.

746
01:59:55.980 --> 01:59:58.029
Town of Plainfield: Alright,

747
01:59:58.220 --> 02:00:11.010
Town of Plainfield: Now that we have a day. We have a 20-minute session here, which is Select Board discussing internal organizations, and we kinda… and there's been a request for a break, which sounds,

748
02:00:11.290 --> 02:00:15.799
Town of Plainfield: Oh, that was a request. Reasonable. Like, I need a break. Oh, you need a break?

749
02:00:15.800 --> 02:00:33.709
Town of Plainfield: Well, we could take a nature break. Could we do that? That would be fine, yeah. So let's… While we're breaking, we'll do a dictionary definition of ideation. Yes, please, you bring it to me, bring it to me! Ideation is the structured, creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas to solve problems or explore opportunities.

750
02:00:34.870 --> 02:00:35.900
Town of Plainfield: Cool.

751
02:00:41.990 --> 02:00:48.399
Town of Plainfield: Let there be ideation. And it was good. My… my…

752
02:00:48.500 --> 02:01:13.410
Town of Plainfield: liberal arts college education appreciates that definition. It's a good… My gut says anybody walking down the street could come up with an idea. I don't need a system to come up with an idea. Thank you very much. But, as Elise says, systems can sometimes help. Yeah, well, it's an interesting layer added to the idea. Got some entertainment.

753
02:01:13.410 --> 02:01:16.079
Town of Plainfield: Amy, this is a redeeming dismantle as well.

754
02:01:16.300 --> 02:01:28.579
Town of Plainfield: Is this like a musical interlude? This is like a humorous… this is a stand-up comedy act from Carol's granddaughter. I don't know if it's… You should bring it close to the owl, so Patty can hear it, too.

755
02:01:29.220 --> 02:01:29.770
Patti Jamele: Oh, yeah.

756
02:01:31.200 --> 02:01:38.339
Town of Plainfield: Is that the one you want? Yes. Okay. It won't stop.

757
02:01:38.500 --> 02:01:44.589
Town of Plainfield: How's Iris, Patty?

758
02:01:45.270 --> 02:01:50.300
Patti Jamele: She's much better, thank you very much for asking. She's been sleeping a lot today.

759
02:01:55.680 --> 02:01:58.900
Patti Jamele: Now, put them on a few…

760
02:02:01.920 --> 02:02:03.390
Town of Plainfield: When did you get across the river?

761
02:02:03.390 --> 02:02:04.740
Patti Jamele: Generally or not.

762
02:02:06.840 --> 02:02:08.209
Town of Plainfield: Because why?

763
02:02:08.630 --> 02:02:19.480
Town of Plainfield: Jamie was laughing so hard today. The car, the cars.

764
02:02:19.980 --> 02:02:25.949
Town of Plainfield: Oh, like… You don't get it?

765
02:02:25.950 --> 02:02:26.650
Patti Jamele: Oh my god.

766
02:02:26.650 --> 02:02:31.900
Town of Plainfield: Explain it for fun?

767
02:02:34.840 --> 02:02:38.460
Town of Plainfield: Why didn't the chicken cross the road?

768
02:02:42.240 --> 02:02:42.590
Patti Jamele: Oh.

769
02:02:42.590 --> 02:02:52.439
Town of Plainfield: check out, and this is what happens? Yeah. Carol had that on her phone.

770
02:02:53.270 --> 02:03:04.259
Town of Plainfield: Andy's over there. Alright. We need to speak here.

771
02:03:04.260 --> 02:03:04.699
Patti Jamele: Good one.

772
02:03:04.700 --> 02:03:12.320
Town of Plainfield: ready for, internal organizational discussion? Yes, I will, hopefully. I know.

773
02:03:16.700 --> 02:03:17.990
Patti Jamele: Can you hear Who knows?

774
02:03:17.990 --> 02:03:19.059
Town of Plainfield: Or.

775
02:03:19.060 --> 02:03:21.600
Patti Jamele: You guys hear me? I think you're going in and out.

776
02:03:21.600 --> 02:03:22.719
Town of Plainfield: We can hear you.

777
02:03:22.720 --> 02:03:24.560
Patti Jamele: Okay, thank you.

778
02:03:24.560 --> 02:03:34.710
Town of Plainfield: It's a little chaotic here right now, Patty. Why did the student eat their homework? Because it was a piece of cake.

779
02:03:34.970 --> 02:03:36.800
Patti Jamele: Oh, that's a… I've heard that one.

780
02:03:38.050 --> 02:03:44.989
Town of Plainfield: Okay. Jamie made the request, I have to honor that request!

781
02:03:46.700 --> 02:04:02.869
Town of Plainfield: All right. What's the first? What's the difference between, a bad joke and a bad joke? Oh, that's a big thing now, what? Very little. The first letter. Okay, that's what I thought, that's what I thought. Literally.

782
02:04:02.870 --> 02:04:04.149
Patti Jamele: Why'd you hear that?

783
02:04:06.150 --> 02:04:22.510
Town of Plainfield: Jesus. I know. We're all back? We're all back. Alright, so, to start off this agenda item, I would just like to turn to Karen.

784
02:04:22.510 --> 02:04:42.380
Town of Plainfield: I'm gonna put you on the spot, because, you wrote up the initial outline in an email a little while back, and I know we kind of kicked some points around at the last meeting, and how to divvy it up, and so here we are, and what I see here is goals and strengths, so you want to…

785
02:04:42.450 --> 02:04:52.219
Town of Plainfield: I will. Maybe flesh that out. I will, I will. So, so, so the first item was set goals for the coming year, and,

786
02:04:52.370 --> 02:05:01.599
Town of Plainfield: you know, and I had offered some ideas, but these are starting points and don't have to be, the ones we end up with, but…

787
02:05:01.600 --> 02:05:16.579
Town of Plainfield: I think there are some of the things that we're already working on and, would be able to measure over the course of the year that we've made progress toward or achieved. So the first one I had was stabilize and professionalize town office staff.

788
02:05:16.850 --> 02:05:22.470
Town of Plainfield: That staffing, and we're working on that, clearly, so… was one.

789
02:05:22.730 --> 02:05:32.459
Town of Plainfield: The second one was to, this is personal… gain clarity on grant income and timing for upcoming recovery projects.

790
02:05:32.620 --> 02:05:38.940
Town of Plainfield: Because, that feels to me like a really big nut, trying to get our brains around

791
02:05:39.330 --> 02:05:49.550
Town of Plainfield: All the projects that are going on, and how much money we're actually gonna see coming in, and how much we're gonna be responsible for, raising in some way to be able to match.

792
02:05:49.620 --> 02:06:04.850
Town of Plainfield: So, so, getting clarity. Let's not discuss these now. Get the points out. Get clarity. Yeah. Thank you. I'm not discussing. Three. Three, create a clear, concise, and understandable system of financial management.

793
02:06:05.170 --> 02:06:09.019
Town of Plainfield: Clearly, you know, we're hiring someone for that.

794
02:06:09.140 --> 02:06:19.470
Town of Plainfield: This one is move from a reactive to proactive form of governing. So to move ourselves away from just responding, right, but being…

795
02:06:19.790 --> 02:06:36.410
Town of Plainfield: proactive. And then, the last one I listed here was evaluate, any needed town charter changes and set that process in motion, because that takes time, and if there are those kinds of things, we should identify them early. That's what I kind of started with, and then I thought.

796
02:06:36.640 --> 02:06:38.090
Town of Plainfield: Whatever else, you guys.

797
02:06:38.810 --> 02:06:40.470
Town of Plainfield: Want to talk about.

798
02:06:40.930 --> 02:06:50.820
Town of Plainfield: So, that's number one. Okay. Somebody else want to comment on the discussion of goals and strategies? Those goals.

799
02:06:51.300 --> 02:06:57.660
Town of Plainfield: Are there other goals that folks have in mind? I mean, I will echo what Peter has been

800
02:06:57.900 --> 02:07:06.260
Town of Plainfield: repeating, which is that one of the goals seems to be, let's kind of…

801
02:07:06.370 --> 02:07:10.710
Town of Plainfield: Reset a bit the tracking of…

802
02:07:10.850 --> 02:07:18.620
Town of Plainfield: town committees. Town commissions. Who's… who's on them? For how long? What…

803
02:07:18.730 --> 02:07:23.710
Town of Plainfield: what are the terms? Starting when, ending when, that had kind of fallen off.

804
02:07:23.790 --> 02:07:42.349
Town of Plainfield: And you've been a champion, Peter. Well, and Jamie did a fabulous piece of work, leading up to last meeting in terms of pulling that stuff together. I mean, in terms of moving from reactive to proactive, you know, one of the things that the last select board did

805
02:07:42.350 --> 02:07:55.899
Town of Plainfield: over the course of a year, was to take the personnel policies, which hadn't been looked at in years, and updated them, and we've actually amended them a couple times, but that's a living, breathing document, and we need to…

806
02:07:55.900 --> 02:08:20.819
Town of Plainfield: remember that. And so, you know, it's not like it's set there and it's never to be touched. It's like you use it to react to and stuff like this, but I think… and if the… you new folks haven't read it, start to finish, it's a good time to do that. Scintillating lead. It won't take you that long. It won't take you that long until I pour myself a drink.

807
02:08:20.820 --> 02:08:25.770
Town of Plainfield: Yeah. Pretty dramatic. But it, it, it, it,

808
02:08:26.020 --> 02:08:45.099
Town of Plainfield: it does provide the context for the staff and the other town employees and how they work, and you do need to know it, because there are times when it comes up. We talked about adversary goal clarity, but to go to the committee point, okay,

809
02:08:45.150 --> 02:09:04.450
Town of Plainfield: And understanding those committees and stuff, I have started reaching out since our organizational meeting, and I have a template for all the commissions to remind them that they need to do their public meeting, open meeting law and ethics stuff, and whatnot. But what I would like back.

810
02:09:04.450 --> 02:09:07.229
Town of Plainfield: From all of them is…

811
02:09:07.800 --> 02:09:31.909
Town of Plainfield: municipal calendar for us. Jumping the list now, you know that, right? No, I don't. But it's, you know, if we're talking… Number 6. If we're talking about moving from reaction to proactive, it's like, okay, that's good. Who is going to come before us with a request for action? Is it a new zoning ordinance? Is it an emergency thing? Is it…

812
02:09:31.910 --> 02:09:33.379
Town of Plainfield: You know,

813
02:09:33.580 --> 02:09:50.879
Town of Plainfield: you know, is the Housing Committee gonna be asking us to do this? Is the road commission, you know, there's a bond vote that came, you know, and so we can plan our… we know that come the end of November, we're gonna move into budget season, you know, so…

814
02:09:50.880 --> 02:10:15.860
Town of Plainfield: you know, when is the time, when are the opportunities in between for those commissions to come out to us and say, not just give a report where we sit around and talk for 15, 20 minutes about what they're doing, but they're doing their things. What are the things that we as a select board need? What are the policy issues that they need decided? You know, that's… we're the legislative

815
02:10:15.860 --> 02:10:22.079
Town of Plainfield: You know, we set those policies, but others implement, you know, and so…

816
02:10:22.090 --> 02:10:33.910
Town of Plainfield: How do… how do we… how do we do that? Yeah, I want to jump back to the personnel policy. Deep in the recesses of the future agenda document, there is personnel policy new business.

817
02:10:33.960 --> 02:10:50.140
Town of Plainfield: That was mostly put off. It's like, the last big… You've kept… you've kept a little side list of stuff. Well, so the last big push in the personnel policy was kind of filling in the holes, that which was incomplete, which… thank you. But yeah, we had kind of…

818
02:10:50.140 --> 02:10:58.030
Town of Plainfield: bookmarked that there would be new… new business coming into the personnel policy. And I was just wanting to…

819
02:10:58.650 --> 02:11:04.150
Town of Plainfield: Do we want to clarify any of those specific goals about adding to the personnel policy this year?

820
02:11:04.790 --> 02:11:24.030
Town of Plainfield: I'm… what I'm wondering about is if there aren't people who are, like… if we couldn't, for each one of these goals, have a champion who is kind of saying, like, I'll be the person who is monitoring our progress on that goal, or making sure that we are doing the things we're supposed to do around that goal.

821
02:11:25.280 --> 02:11:33.349
Town of Plainfield: that maybe that's a way, so it's not all the accountability isn't landing with the chair, but… I don't know what you guys think about that.

822
02:11:34.340 --> 02:11:35.579
Town of Plainfield: I like it.

823
02:11:36.050 --> 02:11:48.930
Town of Plainfield: And I want to go back to what Francis Rose said before I lose it, which is, I think the work we're doing with Elise and SAGE is going to give us a lot of information about updating personnel policies.

824
02:11:48.930 --> 02:12:00.560
Town of Plainfield: Because a lot of stuff's going to get uncovered in that process that we can then regularize and put into some sort of document. So I think we watch that, and we use that to do what you just said. Sounds great. Thank you.

825
02:12:00.640 --> 02:12:05.579
Town of Plainfield: Okay. When I looked at the goals here,

826
02:12:06.130 --> 02:12:09.499
Town of Plainfield: I sort of came down to…

827
02:12:09.860 --> 02:12:16.250
Town of Plainfield: short-term goals and long-term goals, you know? And some of the short-term goals are…

828
02:12:16.250 --> 02:12:41.179
Town of Plainfield: reactive, not proactive. It's like, get the treasurer hired, you know, and get, you know, finish up with Nemrick and Bonnie Batshelder, who are trying to get our books and systems in order for us to not only carry on the normal orders of business, but to, successfully pass a professional audit, which hasn't been

829
02:12:41.180 --> 02:12:51.530
Town of Plainfield: done in years, and the federal single audits that we know are coming because of those things. You know, now, to me, those are going to get done

830
02:12:52.010 --> 02:12:57.310
Town of Plainfield: and then be behind us, you know, and I'm learning your gestures here.

831
02:12:57.310 --> 02:13:20.640
Town of Plainfield: I have this next idea. But it's like… Mimicry is the highest form of flattery. Yeah. Once you're past that… I'm Italian. Once you're past that, you know, then you're back to, okay, we're back to normal, and so now, you know, move forward. And that doesn't mean you can't, and I think we must, and I think the last…

832
02:13:20.640 --> 02:13:38.280
Town of Plainfield: iteration the Select Board did do both. We were able to do some cleanup. We were able to take care of some basics, and at the same time, still deal with all the stuff that comes to you on a daily basis. I see…

833
02:13:38.480 --> 02:13:44.189
Town of Plainfield: We have the opportunity to shift that balance dramatically forward.

834
02:13:44.330 --> 02:14:03.210
Town of Plainfield: To that point, what I'm thinking is, I like what you said about there's short-term and there's long-term. And I think that within each one of these goal areas, that if there were a champion for each one, that what that person could do is name the short-term goals

835
02:14:03.210 --> 02:14:05.439
Town of Plainfield: And the long-term goals in that area.

836
02:14:05.440 --> 02:14:20.849
Town of Plainfield: So that this… it's an overarching goal, but then there are these action steps that… that we're taking, and so… and then we will be reporting back to each other, you know, like, here's the progress we're making on that.

837
02:14:20.930 --> 02:14:23.690
Town of Plainfield: Particular area.

838
02:14:24.210 --> 02:14:25.870
Town of Plainfield: Short-term, long-term.

839
02:14:26.030 --> 02:14:27.020
Town of Plainfield: Nope.

840
02:14:27.280 --> 02:14:49.870
Town of Plainfield: First of all, you guys are destroying my vision of Plainfield as disorganized. Excuse me. I'm not a Virgo, but… I'm not going to recognize anyone from the audience until the Select Board is done talking on this subject. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah. I'm gonna add another goal, if I may. And it's… because all of these goals are necessary and important, and they're all structural.

841
02:14:49.870 --> 02:14:53.379
Town of Plainfield: This is all systemic stuff. It doesn't speak to culture.

842
02:14:53.960 --> 02:14:55.460
Town of Plainfield: And so…

843
02:14:55.560 --> 02:15:10.269
Town of Plainfield: you know, I don't know how to phrase this, but it's something along the lines of, as a select board, how we interact with each other, and how we interact with our community, we have to model compassion, listening.

844
02:15:11.210 --> 02:15:21.210
Town of Plainfield: creative thinking, forward thinking, proactive thinking, right? But I think we set the tone for the town.

845
02:15:21.640 --> 02:15:25.319
Town of Plainfield: And I thought the previous select board did a really nice job of that.

846
02:15:25.570 --> 02:15:45.269
Town of Plainfield: I admired that greatly, and I would like to continue that, but I'd like to actually name it as a goal, that we actually create culture. And I would like to make a specific suggestion on that, and this came from the League of Cities and Towns Orientation to New Select Boards webinar, and that is that we…

847
02:15:45.490 --> 02:15:47.700
Town of Plainfield: Go as a select board.

848
02:15:48.100 --> 02:15:49.620
Town of Plainfield: and visit.

849
02:15:49.760 --> 02:16:04.700
Town of Plainfield: our facilities. The fire station, the garage, the town hall, okay? The municipal building. Because we… the sewer… The waste water, absolutely. Yeah, sure. Because…

850
02:16:04.980 --> 02:16:23.699
Town of Plainfield: And we're allowed to do that under the open meeting law, as long as we don't discuss town business there. So we can go and look, we can get the tour, if you will. But by doing that, we'll be interfacing with those people, we'll be listening to those employees, and we'll be seeing

851
02:16:23.850 --> 02:16:41.580
Town of Plainfield: what we talk about in terms of budget figures and stuff, so… Oh, that truck really does need replacing. Oh, etc. Anyway… So I would like to see you and raise you, which is all of that, plus community events. Like, there is a supper every Friday night at church, and the Prince Charles was very involved in that.

852
02:16:41.580 --> 02:16:48.960
Town of Plainfield: We should all be there from time to time. Either collectively, but also individually. I haven't made the effort yet, but I need to.

853
02:16:49.059 --> 02:16:50.170
Town of Plainfield: And…

854
02:16:50.340 --> 02:16:56.550
Town of Plainfield: you know, I feel I don't have the time to do this, but I feel like we need to drop in on the committee meetings and just listen.

855
02:16:56.950 --> 02:17:11.869
Town of Plainfield: And maybe we could divide them up. Well, we sort of had liaison. The liaison conversation really will fit here. But any… so the goal, just to say the words that I heard you say… Please. Modeling the culture we want to create. Thank you, I love it.

856
02:17:17.980 --> 02:17:21.480
Town of Plainfield: Patty, do you have any things to jump in here with?

857
02:17:21.990 --> 02:17:26.239
Patti Jamele: I'm just listening to everything, it's like, you know, be who you want to be in the world, it's great.

858
02:17:28.170 --> 02:17:31.660
Town of Plainfield: be who you want to be in the world. So…

859
02:17:31.790 --> 02:17:39.869
Town of Plainfield: So, what do we think about the, the idea of having a champion per goal, or something like that, or one or two?

860
02:17:39.870 --> 02:17:51.389
Town of Plainfield: I think wherever there is the opportunity for one champion, it's better held between two. Okay. And I also acknowledge that the next piece on this mini-agenda, within the agenda.

861
02:17:51.389 --> 02:18:01.579
Town of Plainfield: is strengths. Right. We could also talk about, because that probably has some bearing on which goal will be championed. Agree. Best. Agree.

862
02:18:01.690 --> 02:18:03.800
Town of Plainfield: So it all kind of really fits together.

863
02:18:03.830 --> 02:18:26.680
Town of Plainfield: Brilliant, Karen. Well, before I nominate Karen to be the grants liaison… Karen, what are your strengths? Well, I'm not a Virgo. I'm a Gemini, actually, but I'm really well organized, and .

864
02:18:26.920 --> 02:18:27.510
Patti Jamele: Yeah.

865
02:18:27.510 --> 02:18:34.109
Town of Plainfield: And, I have a lot of board experience, so,

866
02:18:34.740 --> 02:18:41.589
Town of Plainfield: And a lot of, small organization experience. So, small office.

867
02:18:42.139 --> 02:18:45.150
Town of Plainfield: Small nonprofits, small staff.

868
02:18:45.590 --> 02:18:52.720
Town of Plainfield: But I also have run large staffs, so, I have big project experience.

869
02:18:54.180 --> 02:19:02.730
Town of Plainfield: And I'm a detail person to the point where I… I'm a list checkbox person, where I… I know what has to get done, and I can track.

870
02:19:02.840 --> 02:19:07.319
Town of Plainfield: those things. So I'm good at those… I'm good at that.

871
02:19:07.660 --> 02:19:10.320
Town of Plainfield: I also really like to have fun.

872
02:19:10.639 --> 02:19:20.059
Town of Plainfield: So, I wanna, I wanna do work that, like, I'm happy to do, and that I'm enjoying, and not work that feels like drudgery.

873
02:19:20.410 --> 02:19:25.100
Town of Plainfield: So, I would love to see… I'd love to bring the joy back to service.

874
02:19:25.730 --> 02:19:44.249
Town of Plainfield: Right? It's too easy to beat each other up and to be hard on each other. I just really want to enjoy this. This is 3 years. This is like, you know… You know, it's 3 years! That's a good point. And so, you know, so I wanna, I wanna be the joy champion, and

875
02:19:44.290 --> 02:19:48.550
Town of Plainfield: There are other things I'm good at, but I, you know, as I think about it.

876
02:19:48.710 --> 02:20:01.269
Town of Plainfield: you know, I've been involved in the… for the last two years in the recovery issues and the grants, and I think that I should stay involved in that because I have a pretty deep knowledge of it. So I would… I would stay there.

877
02:20:01.600 --> 02:20:12.819
Town of Plainfield: And then be willing to, support town staffing if that's something that, you know, is needed, but… but I'm willing to serve in whatever capacity

878
02:20:12.940 --> 02:20:20.039
Town of Plainfield: I could be most useful, but I also want to have fun, so… That's me. Cool.

879
02:20:20.840 --> 02:20:21.950
Town of Plainfield: Who's next?

880
02:20:23.590 --> 02:20:28.980
Town of Plainfield: Andy? You asked her. Yeah, go ahead.

881
02:20:29.560 --> 02:20:47.600
Town of Plainfield: Like Karen, I have a lot of experience with organizations. I have spent 45 years in and around nonprofits. The last 30 years I've spent running my own business, supporting them with planning and fundraising and board development and systems, and a lot of the stuff we're talking about today, so…

882
02:20:47.670 --> 02:20:55.569
Town of Plainfield: I'm sort of marinated in all these things, what's my strengths?

883
02:20:57.250 --> 02:21:02.799
Town of Plainfield: I aspire to listen better. I…

884
02:21:02.880 --> 02:21:21.380
Town of Plainfield: am pretty well organized. I will jump in and take care of stuff when it needs to be taken care of. For example, there was a lot of stuff we had to do this afternoon in advance of our executive session later, and I just, like, took an afternoon and did all the things that we need to do to get ready for that, and I'm…

885
02:21:21.380 --> 02:21:21.700
Patti Jamele: Wayne.

886
02:21:21.700 --> 02:21:25.960
Town of Plainfield: I can be that person to a fault, but I'm gonna treat it as a positive.

887
02:21:26.060 --> 02:21:37.199
Town of Plainfield: I will second that, because I was gonna do it, and then I saw Andy was doing it. I said, code, baby! Yeah, next one's on you, dude. And,

888
02:21:37.850 --> 02:21:40.420
Town of Plainfield: I'm pretty good at knowing what I don't know.

889
02:21:41.100 --> 02:21:53.599
Town of Plainfield: And I think that's a huge… we're all flying blind here to some degree, and I'm humble enough to know when I don't know what I don't know, and I think that'll help. Yeah.

890
02:21:56.510 --> 02:22:09.360
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, you know, I aspire to be kind. I aspire to be compassionate. I think this is a job, but as you say, it's also service. There should be some fun involved. I look forward to knowing all of you and all of you better.

891
02:22:09.910 --> 02:22:13.780
Town of Plainfield: That's my report.

892
02:22:14.540 --> 02:22:15.900
Town of Plainfield: Francis Rose?

893
02:22:21.130 --> 02:22:29.440
Town of Plainfield: I, like, lean deep into culture. I relate well with people.

894
02:22:32.410 --> 02:22:35.200
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I'm… I'm really here for…

895
02:22:35.570 --> 02:22:40.919
Town of Plainfield: Moving the needle on culture toward greater compassion, greater understanding.

896
02:22:42.350 --> 02:22:47.479
Town of Plainfield: Greater willingness to share and hear and be heard.

897
02:22:49.640 --> 02:22:59.310
Town of Plainfield: I'm also a systems thinker, so yeah, it's like, it is super resonant to hear Elise speak of, you know, the power of systems and systems design.

898
02:23:04.440 --> 02:23:10.130
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I'm… I think I'm good at holding the spaces in between. Hmm.

899
02:23:11.140 --> 02:23:18.560
Town of Plainfield: And I think that's part of the role of the Vice Chair, as I've experienced it over the last, you know, year and a half, is…

900
02:23:18.820 --> 02:23:24.220
Town of Plainfield: Like, holding the spaces in between the elements that comprise the larger

901
02:23:31.850 --> 02:23:32.180
Town of Plainfield: Okay.

902
02:23:32.180 --> 02:23:32.960
Patti Jamele: Because everyone doesn't.

903
02:23:32.960 --> 02:23:33.770
Town of Plainfield: Naddy?

904
02:23:34.380 --> 02:23:38.710
Town of Plainfield: We're looking at your name on the screen. We can't see you.

905
02:23:39.290 --> 02:23:40.760
Town of Plainfield: I'm gonna go, it's because…

906
02:23:40.760 --> 02:23:43.030
Patti Jamele: what's happening in my household?

907
02:23:43.070 --> 02:24:02.939
Patti Jamele: I am a really good listener, I feel like I'm really good at engaging people and finding out what their skills are, and I was really hoping that I got on the board that I would engage… that we would engage a lot of people. A lot of people would feel confident and more comfortable about coming forth and helping the town, because I don't think we can do it by ourselves.

908
02:24:03.090 --> 02:24:06.449
Patti Jamele: And I think we need everyone, and I guess I'm…

909
02:24:07.710 --> 02:24:11.069
Patti Jamele: How do I say that? I'm that kind of person that kind of involved other people.

910
02:24:11.280 --> 02:24:25.550
Patti Jamele: I don't think I'm better than anybody else. I don't think I have all the answers for any of them, but I think there's always someone that does have the answers. If those people are sitting, you know, not feeling respected and confident, they're not gonna speak up.

911
02:24:26.010 --> 02:24:29.040
Patti Jamele: I guess I'm the kind of person that helps that person speak up.

912
02:24:33.470 --> 02:24:35.050
Town of Plainfield: Cool. Thank you.

913
02:24:35.480 --> 02:24:38.659
Town of Plainfield: I guess it's my turn, right? Your turn, Peter.

914
02:24:41.120 --> 02:24:48.629
Town of Plainfield: I guess I, I am a detailed person. One of my strengths, and I like, is numbers.

915
02:24:49.060 --> 02:24:51.069
Town of Plainfield: So, when we get to budgets.

916
02:24:51.070 --> 02:25:13.680
Town of Plainfield: I like working on budgets. God bless you. Thank God. Well, I mean, you and Dan did an amazing thing last year. Yeah, the work you did to pull the budget together was a big one. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I work doing taxes during tax season, so I help people with their personal budgets and counsel them on that, but as a former legislator, I did, you know.

917
02:25:14.040 --> 02:25:24.570
Town of Plainfield: 8 years on the Appropriations Committee doing the state budgets, you know, and, you know, so I'm not intimidated by the numbers at all.

918
02:25:24.570 --> 02:25:35.950
Town of Plainfield: And I'm also not intimidated by going to powers that be when powers that be need going to. And,

919
02:25:36.220 --> 02:25:45.209
Town of Plainfield: You know, so I… maybe that's a big, big picture thing, but, you know, Plainfield exists in a larger world, and so…

920
02:25:46.080 --> 02:25:58.379
Town of Plainfield: for us to succeed, we need to engage out there as well. And so, I… I kind of see that and like… like that aspect of it.

921
02:25:58.600 --> 02:26:10.130
Town of Plainfield: there's lots of things here that I don't mind doing, and have done, but don't need to do, that others can do, and that's… that's fine.

922
02:26:10.130 --> 02:26:26.079
Town of Plainfield: you know, as the chair, I think there's a different role, and to kind of, you know, keep things moving and get things done. I do like to get things done. Me too. I like to complete projects before I start more. In my house, sometimes my family members

923
02:26:26.080 --> 02:26:45.739
Town of Plainfield: can't even get me to listen. They tell me that they spoke to me, but I was so focused on what I was doing, I didn't hear what they were talking about, you know? So, you know, you guys have to wake me up if that happens, but, so I… I think there's a different… different space there, but,

924
02:26:45.780 --> 02:26:48.449
Town of Plainfield: I like having fun.

925
02:26:48.590 --> 02:26:50.979
Town of Plainfield: You know, I have a clown…

926
02:26:50.980 --> 02:27:15.879
Town of Plainfield: on my license plate for a reason. Having been a clown, I am a clown. I am proud to be a clown. I did not know this. We need to talk. Wow, that's so interesting. No, it's, it's… I think that's a… it's a wonderful profession, quite frankly. And, you know, I don't run away… I don't run away… I'm thinking clown night at select board meetings. Oh, yeah.

927
02:27:15.880 --> 02:27:31.960
Town of Plainfield: Well, create some culture. Create some culture. I mean, like, like the two of you, I have a lifetime of experience living in the nonprofit world, mostly as an executive director. So, you know, I have…

928
02:27:31.970 --> 02:27:51.779
Town of Plainfield: written job descriptions and personnel policies, and dealt with budgets, and dealt with boards, and I'm comfortable doing that. You know, it doesn't mean I have to do it all, because there's others who are doing it, but it's like, I kind of can see that picture, and it's like, okay, if there's something missing, I'll yell about it.

929
02:27:52.670 --> 02:27:56.880
Town of Plainfield: So, I love this town and the people in it.

930
02:27:56.880 --> 02:28:20.029
Town of Plainfield: I… having been a justice of the peace for some 40 years, it's like, it's rare that somebody comes in to vote when I'm sitting at the checklist, and I don't know who they are. You know, and that's like… but there's still new people, every year. And it's like, oh, who are they? Where do they live? You know, etc. So, you know, it does take all of us to make this place happen, so…

931
02:28:21.190 --> 02:28:30.580
Town of Plainfield: I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. Thanks. All right. That is number two. So where we are is…

932
02:28:30.750 --> 02:28:49.770
Town of Plainfield: We have established some goals, some things we say, yeah, that sounds like a good goal to have, and we know what we each are good at and would like to do. And then we… the third bullet here was identifying some potentially… some potential liaison roles.

933
02:28:49.770 --> 02:29:04.710
Town of Plainfield: We were trying to do 1 to 3 tonight, but… but… We are getting short on time. I know we are. I know we are. So, so I wonder if we could pick this up, perhaps, in an…

934
02:29:04.710 --> 02:29:09.319
Town of Plainfield: email, thread, since this is organizational, it's not…

935
02:29:09.460 --> 02:29:12.750
Town of Plainfield: We cannot do it, okay?

936
02:29:13.400 --> 02:29:26.560
Town of Plainfield: I'm looking at the press right. I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. You know, I've read today on the VLCT website that you can actually have retreats. You can have them, and you can talk about

937
02:29:26.560 --> 02:29:50.059
Town of Plainfield: how you're going to be organized and do a number of things together. Those retreats are not warned. They are not warned. That's correct. They are not warned. But that's different than having an email exchange that says, hey, I'll be the liaison to this committee. No, that's business. I'm saying. I'm just saying that this kind of work that we're attempting to do tonight, on top of all kinds of other work that we have to do.

938
02:29:50.280 --> 02:29:56.179
Town of Plainfield: could… could perhaps be best done in a retreat. Interesting. And… and maybe…

939
02:29:56.550 --> 02:30:00.650
Town of Plainfield: Maybe we ought to be doing that, because…

940
02:30:00.800 --> 02:30:04.269
Town of Plainfield: Then we could hammer it out in one session, and…

941
02:30:04.400 --> 02:30:09.709
Town of Plainfield: to jump back to the short-term versus long-term. Yeah.

942
02:30:09.870 --> 02:30:15.810
Town of Plainfield: And somebody said this, you know, two weeks ago, I think it was Dan Fingus who said to us,

943
02:30:16.790 --> 02:30:28.379
Town of Plainfield: your budget… a year goes by quick, sitting here on the select board. And, you know, we have a bunch of short-term business that must be taken care of, but if we thought about

944
02:30:28.960 --> 02:30:36.979
Town of Plainfield: planning a retreat for a year from now, okay? 10 months from now, okay? And said.

945
02:30:37.090 --> 02:30:51.519
Town of Plainfield: let's have that. It's a time where we can say, how did we do with the short-term stuff? And where do we, you know, take these goals and refine them to move forward in the coming year?

946
02:30:51.560 --> 02:31:00.580
Town of Plainfield: Just a thought. Well, could we… could we, before we move off of this topic tonight, just, if there are… if there are goals in the list.

947
02:31:00.670 --> 02:31:22.600
Town of Plainfield: that, really just speak to us as something we'd like to kind of be the champion for. Could we identify that together tonight, and just get that much done? I think that's easy. Would that be? Town office and culture. Okay, so that's the staffing one? Is that the first one? Yeah. Okay, so you're claiming that one. I'm the last one that you know… I'm desperate to say something, if I may, please.

948
02:31:24.170 --> 02:31:31.190
Town of Plainfield: There is… Go ahead. I mean, just as on the goal side, I just can't, I was hoping somebody would bring it up, and it hasn't.

949
02:31:31.720 --> 02:31:32.650
Town of Plainfield: You're…

950
02:31:32.750 --> 02:31:44.280
Town of Plainfield: doing wonderful things, and I'm not criticizing that even slightly, and so it's way a big deal. But this is all business as usual, in the sense that twice our town has been grabbed by the throat

951
02:31:44.510 --> 02:32:00.069
Town of Plainfield: by nature, without one, and thrown into an enormous disaster. And it's been a fo- I'm not a one-trick pony, but as you know, I made that the focus of most of my work for the last few years, and probably for 10 years before that. But the thing that is really important is that we've reached the point

952
02:32:00.610 --> 02:32:08.669
Town of Plainfield: Where… because it could happen any minute. It could happen next week. It could be short-term as opposed to long-term. But to have

953
02:32:08.670 --> 02:32:13.760
Town of Plainfield: the town start to buy in, and particularly at the select board area, to have the select board

954
02:32:13.760 --> 02:32:32.949
Town of Plainfield: move into our next step of planning for the next disaster that comes, and I need help with that. I need help from the Select Board. We're at the point where we're creating what are called incident operating plans that pull everybody together, how does it all talk to each other? And I do… I can't do it by myself, I know that already.

955
02:32:32.960 --> 02:32:44.619
Town of Plainfield: I don't want to be the outlier, just because I'm thinking 10 years ahead. So, for example, Michael, we know that our local emergency management plan must be re-adopted by June 30th.

956
02:32:44.800 --> 02:32:46.410
Town of Plainfield: That's time.

957
02:32:46.410 --> 02:33:11.360
Town of Plainfield: No, it's not. We did one last year, and we have to re-adopt it this year. I don't mean to say… And I pulled out the current one, and I noticed that virtually every single contact in that there is no longer correct. I just talked to the fire chief two days ago about this. We are going to be submitting it before the 1st of June. It's not the Select Board meeting to do that. The Select Board has to adopt it. I know, but that's our job, to get it in front of

958
02:33:11.360 --> 02:33:27.369
Town of Plainfield: And that's what we'll do. I've never blown this. This is not something I can't do. I've done nonprofit work for 45 years myself. Last year, it was 5 months late, if not 7 months later. I was brought on board after it was already in trouble.

959
02:33:27.550 --> 02:33:38.430
Town of Plainfield: I mean, no, last year it wasn't 5 months late. There was a reason for that. We shouldn't be talking about that here. Ken, if you could please hold off on that and deal with me directly. But the part that I want to add is.

960
02:33:39.250 --> 02:33:42.299
Town of Plainfield: We've been pouring full-time work into this.

961
02:33:42.580 --> 02:33:48.980
Town of Plainfield: almost a year and a half. And what I'm saying is that I'd like to be able to

962
02:33:49.180 --> 02:34:04.439
Town of Plainfield: easily interact with the select board without friction. I'd like to be able to really have everybody on board for how we look ahead to the worst of times, as well as the best of times. And also, it's not about forms that are being filled out, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about

963
02:34:04.640 --> 02:34:18.510
Town of Plainfield: the whole community working together to be better prepared the next time we have a disaster. That's all. Michael, could I… I just want to mention to you that in the liaison list is emergency management, so it's part of this discussion we're having. We're just not getting there tonight.

964
02:34:18.510 --> 02:34:33.309
Town of Plainfield: It is, it is identified as one of the areas that there would be a liaison from the board to. Wonderful. I just… I just want to kind of say, I… I wish we never had to think about disasters, but I just want to remind you that we do have to, and that's really why…

965
02:34:33.310 --> 02:34:35.360
Town of Plainfield: So, what I'm…

966
02:34:35.960 --> 02:34:44.080
Town of Plainfield: We'll have to think about how to integrate this. I think you're raising a good point. I would also say, from where I sit, we have an emergency management committee.

967
02:34:44.080 --> 02:34:45.240
Patti Jamele: We have…

968
02:34:45.240 --> 02:34:54.759
Town of Plainfield: We have a disaster response group. We also now have the Plainfield Resilience Hub, which is not a town entity, but is out there doing a certain amount of work.

969
02:34:55.050 --> 02:35:09.739
Town of Plainfield: And so, where I'm sitting with, and you can… not tonight's conversation, it's a longer conversation, given that there's a lot of people in the community who are paying attention to this stuff at a deep level, what is the role of the Select Board that is not redundant?

970
02:35:09.740 --> 02:35:25.749
Town of Plainfield: So that, I think, is one of the things I want to think about in terms of that. Yeah, and I think about that all the time. So, I'd love to be able to be able to do that as a participatory discussion instead of me firing off stuff at you and you firing off stuff at me. I'd like it to be together again.

971
02:35:26.610 --> 02:35:31.920
Town of Plainfield: Okay, so I'll just bring us back to the goals and champions, so…

972
02:35:32.060 --> 02:35:35.879
Town of Plainfield: So, Francis Rose, is town office.

973
02:35:36.190 --> 02:35:47.069
Town of Plainfield: a staffing and modeling culture. Okay. And I know that the second bullet point I'd like to do is the grant income. Yeah.

974
02:35:47.320 --> 02:35:52.870
Town of Plainfield: I'm also willing to be the second person on the town office staffing. Oh, nice.

975
02:35:53.320 --> 02:35:55.300
Town of Plainfield: etc. Great, welcome.

976
02:35:56.670 --> 02:35:57.600
Town of Plainfield: Right?

977
02:35:59.520 --> 02:36:01.169
Town of Plainfield: I am,

978
02:36:03.760 --> 02:36:09.650
Town of Plainfield: I'm happy to also work on the culture piece since I brought it up. And then…

979
02:36:12.050 --> 02:36:21.789
Town of Plainfield: I think I want to look at the town calendar and this whole question of how we be proactive rather than reactive. So, I will go down on that one there. Okay. Yeah.

980
02:36:22.600 --> 02:36:23.560
Town of Plainfield: Peter?

981
02:36:24.090 --> 02:36:24.730
Patti Jamele: I don't…

982
02:36:25.390 --> 02:36:42.910
Town of Plainfield: Well, I have started down the role of being the communicator between the Select Board and our committees and commissions and whatnot, and I see that as, you know, primarily functional, if you will, as opposed to…

983
02:36:43.170 --> 02:36:44.870
Town of Plainfield: You know,

984
02:36:45.540 --> 02:37:02.619
Town of Plainfield: playing the kind of role that Francis Rose and I did with the launch of the Housing Committee, for example, which is, you know, being part of the substantive discussion there and moving that forward. That's a different kind of thing, and I see that, the liaisons between,

985
02:37:03.940 --> 02:37:10.079
Town of Plainfield: us and the various committees are different that time. I'll put you down for that. Yeah,

986
02:37:11.050 --> 02:37:35.640
Town of Plainfield: And clearly, on the finance, right? Yeah, the budget stuff, you know, and it's like, you know, I mean, there's short-term stuff right now that should lead us to a much easier budget season next time around, so I see those as completely integrated. So, in terms of the town staff and stuff like that, you know, I've been very much involved with the…

987
02:37:35.640 --> 02:37:42.660
Town of Plainfield: Development of the job descriptions. We're gonna have one later tonight that we discuss.

988
02:37:42.660 --> 02:37:48.390
Town of Plainfield: And we have one that we developed for the, treasurer and,

989
02:37:48.750 --> 02:37:54.659
Town of Plainfield: finance director that's out there on the, on the website now, so…

990
02:37:54.810 --> 02:38:00.980
Town of Plainfield: But, that's fine. Do you want to stay involved with that? Because I could move to the proactive stuff with Andy.

991
02:38:01.830 --> 02:38:10.320
Town of Plainfield: I think we need… we're gonna need to talk about who's an interview and hiring committee. I mean, I think, you know, I would suggest a model of…

992
02:38:10.490 --> 02:38:13.650
Town of Plainfield: You know, two of us to review.

993
02:38:13.650 --> 02:38:32.289
Town of Plainfield: and choose who to interview, you know, and then, you know, maybe, you know, I don't know how many people are going to apply, you know, they're not breaking down the doors right now, but, you know, bring a recommendation of, you know, ideally maybe 3 people to the full board to…

994
02:38:32.290 --> 02:38:48.149
Town of Plainfield: To talk to? Separate from that, though, if we're… the… you and Francis Rose have been working on the town staffing piece. Instead of me joining that, perhaps I could join Andy on the proactive and just stay there?

995
02:38:48.200 --> 02:38:55.150
Town of Plainfield: My piece here is, I appreciate the spirit of this, I think it's ultimately useful.

996
02:38:55.370 --> 02:39:09.629
Town of Plainfield: And I think the lines blur at some point. Like, you know, for example, I don't think… I'm sitting next to people who have been working in finance and nonprofits for…

997
02:39:09.760 --> 02:39:16.900
Town of Plainfield: As long as I've been alive, as long as I've been alive, and if you, like, add it all up, like, I don't belong in the room

998
02:39:17.030 --> 02:39:18.450
Town of Plainfield: like,

999
02:39:18.900 --> 02:39:41.529
Town of Plainfield: if there's only two of us talking to the prospective financial director, I cede my position to, like, to those in the room who know more about it than I do. Okay. And so, you know, it's like, yeah, I think there's wiggle room. I don't think we shouldn't make this so firm that we start to be hamstrung. Yeah, no, good point. Okay, that's good. That's good. Alright, but I will… but I will just…

1000
02:39:41.730 --> 02:39:56.339
Town of Plainfield: say that on the proactive, reactive to proactive… Yes. I'm interested to see how to be helpful there. Patrick, come on down. Alright, Patty, do you have a place you want to put yourself in these goals? Want to work on culture?

1001
02:39:56.780 --> 02:40:06.770
Patti Jamele: Yeah, I'm not sure where I belong. I feel like I… like, what I said is I'm good at is trying to help people, connect with the town and get more voices, so where… where does that put me?

1002
02:40:08.060 --> 02:40:24.590
Town of Plainfield: Okay. Yeah. Put you in the culture one. Yeah, and we can add more than two if we need to, because there'll be alternates. Okay. Great. So the only ones that just, the only one that isn't owned by anyone is the town charter changes. Surprise.

1003
02:40:26.920 --> 02:40:33.020
Town of Plainfield: Is it urgent? Maybe it isn't. Maybe it isn't. Yeah. But we should…

1004
02:40:33.140 --> 02:40:46.709
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I suggest we revisit it in 6 months when we've got this other stuff stabilized. Revisit. I mean, there are… I mean, I can think of one instance, sewer and wastewater, where the issue of a town charter came up, where it's like.

1005
02:40:46.960 --> 02:40:56.580
Town of Plainfield: a possible solution to an issue requires a charter change, and that's basically at least a 2-year process. Right, but that has to go before the…

1006
02:40:56.580 --> 02:41:21.549
Town of Plainfield: the voters have to vote on that next town meeting, that would be the soonest action. And then the legislature… And then the legislature. Yeah, that's a long, long journey. Right. Well, that's… I'm gonna write TBA after charter changes. Alright, good idea. Yeah, make it easy. And then one day we'll say, who's TBA? Who's TBA? Have all these initials there. Who's TBA? Okay, that's… We have spent… We did it.

1007
02:41:21.550 --> 02:41:26.549
Town of Plainfield: More than 20 minutes. That's enough. That's okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.

1008
02:41:27.060 --> 02:41:37.710
Town of Plainfield: Alright, we have some ministerial stuff to do, and then we do have an executive session. We have approval of minutes from…

1009
02:41:38.700 --> 02:41:40.270
Town of Plainfield: March 9th?

1010
02:41:40.710 --> 02:41:42.590
Town of Plainfield: Whiff.

1011
02:41:42.740 --> 02:41:51.550
Town of Plainfield: Were there going to be amendments? No, ma'am, no, no need. I'll make a motion that we approve the draft minutes for March 9th, 2026. I will second.

1012
02:41:51.550 --> 02:41:52.790
Patti Jamele: Oh, yeah.

1013
02:41:53.060 --> 02:41:54.309
Town of Plainfield: Maddie, you can.

1014
02:41:55.480 --> 02:41:56.829
Town of Plainfield: Go ahead.

1015
02:41:56.830 --> 02:41:58.159
Patti Jamele: I second it.

1016
02:42:01.730 --> 02:42:05.240
Town of Plainfield: All those… any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

1017
02:42:05.240 --> 02:42:06.060
Patti Jamele: Bye.

1018
02:42:06.060 --> 02:42:07.060
Town of Plainfield: Opposed? Nope.

1019
02:42:07.700 --> 02:42:23.570
Town of Plainfield: I passed unanimously. I'll make a motion to approve the warrants, accounts payable, March 6th, 2026, March 16th, 2026, March 19th, 2026, and payroll dates March 13th and March 19th.

1020
02:42:23.940 --> 02:42:25.070
Town of Plainfield: Second.

1021
02:42:26.720 --> 02:42:42.200
Town of Plainfield: I didn't get all the dates. But they're right here in the agenda. They're on your agenda. No, they weren't on my agenda. That's what you get for being so on top of things. Yeah, right. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Alright.

1022
02:42:42.920 --> 02:42:58.929
Town of Plainfield: We have a second, yes? We have a second? Did we have a second? Sorry. I have a second. Andy seconds. Okay, Francis Rose moved, and Andy second. Yes. Any discussion? And Carol, do you remember on the warrant, was this… was the school payment one of these?

1023
02:43:00.670 --> 02:43:01.010
Patti Jamele: Yeah.

1024
02:43:01.010 --> 02:43:04.490
Town of Plainfield: You signed that. I signed that. I printed that out.

1025
02:43:04.490 --> 02:43:05.570
Patti Jamele: I do too, yeah.

1026
02:43:07.020 --> 02:43:13.659
Town of Plainfield: So is that not part of this? Would it be in the folder? That's what I'm looking for.

1027
02:43:14.150 --> 02:43:21.240
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, the 19? Yeah, 19 is one of the dates.

1028
02:43:27.230 --> 02:43:50.230
Town of Plainfield: Excuse me? That's me. You're kidding me! You're kidding me! Yes, here it is. Caledonia Central Supervisor Union. $1,043,187.26. Money come, money go. There it is. Well, basically, we collect it and give it to the pass-through here. Yeah. And,

1029
02:43:50.230 --> 02:43:51.989
Town of Plainfield: We do get, I think, a…

1030
02:43:51.990 --> 02:44:08.620
Town of Plainfield: tiny little bit for administrative fee. Yeah, well, I had a discussion, actually, with Cynthia about that today. She is our, the Nemerick person. The Nimrick person. Yeah. And,

1031
02:44:08.620 --> 02:44:25.130
Town of Plainfield: we had paid $970,000, I think, something like that, for the November payment, which we made in December, January, by the time. And now they have a new business person at the supervisory union, so they sent us an invoice, which had never happened before.

1032
02:44:25.130 --> 02:44:42.269
Town of Plainfield: It's not really necessary, since basically we just send them what we collect. So, but there is an adjustment that's going to come, and if we could be a little bit around there, but we're supposed to keep… I don't know, it's a point…

1033
02:44:42.270 --> 02:44:47.419
Town of Plainfield: Oh, 3% or something. Of a million dollars, that's actual money.

1034
02:44:47.420 --> 02:44:47.940
Patti Jamele: Oh, God.

1035
02:44:47.940 --> 02:44:58.709
Town of Plainfield: 4,000 bucks or something, for our troubles. Call the question. Anyway. All right. All right, just wanted to make sure that one was in there. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

1036
02:44:58.960 --> 02:45:07.639
Town of Plainfield: Patty voted yes, which approved 5-0. Thank you on the warrants and payroll people. I emailed them, like, several times.

1037
02:45:09.180 --> 02:45:12.689
Town of Plainfield: Okay? I spoke to Cynthia today, but yeah.

1038
02:45:12.820 --> 02:45:28.339
Town of Plainfield: Alright, announce the date for the next Select Board meeting. It is April 13th. Okay. Let the record show it's 3 weeks from now, not 2 weeks from now. That's right. There's 5 Mondays this month. Yep. Yep.

1039
02:45:29.600 --> 02:45:31.470
Town of Plainfield: Okay. So, alright.

1040
02:45:31.470 --> 02:45:32.460
Patti Jamele: I agree.

1041
02:45:32.460 --> 02:45:45.639
Town of Plainfield: And, we now have an executive session, so I would take a motion to move into executive sessions. I'll make a motion to move into executive session under 1VSA, section 313.

1042
02:45:46.410 --> 02:45:50.060
Town of Plainfield: Personnel. Is there a second? Second.

1043
02:45:50.620 --> 02:46:04.040
Town of Plainfield: Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Alrighty, thank you. Thanks for coming, everybody. We'll ask the public to…

1044
02:46:04.120 --> 02:46:11.750
Town of Plainfield: share something about the supervisory Union, check collection? I'll make a motion.

1045
02:46:11.750 --> 02:46:12.959
Patti Jamele: No, I thought it was going…

1046
02:46:12.960 --> 02:46:15.190
Town of Plainfield: to leave Executive Session?

1047
02:46:15.780 --> 02:46:24.630
Town of Plainfield: Karen has made a motion that we come out of executive session. Is there a second? I will second that motion. Francis Rose, any discussion?

1048
02:46:25.150 --> 02:46:29.819
Town of Plainfield: If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

1049
02:46:30.580 --> 02:46:35.080
Town of Plainfield: Passes unanimously, 5-0. We're now back in session.

1050
02:46:35.220 --> 02:46:41.589
Town of Plainfield: Are there motions to be made? Oh, yeah.

1051
02:46:43.170 --> 02:46:48.810
Town of Plainfield: Am I the one doing this since I'm looking at this agreement? Yes, sir, you can read them, that would be great.

1052
02:46:48.810 --> 02:46:51.140
Patti Jamele: Okay, I'm…

1053
02:46:51.140 --> 02:47:04.269
Town of Plainfield: I make a motion to ratify the separation agreement and the To Whom It May Concern letter for Bram Tobin, and authorize the chair to sign.

1054
02:47:04.430 --> 02:47:05.490
Town of Plainfield: Second.

1055
02:47:06.550 --> 02:47:11.269
Town of Plainfield: It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion?

1056
02:47:11.800 --> 02:47:21.430
Town of Plainfield: All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? It's passed 5-0. Thank you.

1057
02:47:21.760 --> 02:47:29.279
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. I make a motion to ratify the employment contract with Town Clerk Jamie Hammock.

1058
02:47:29.990 --> 02:47:33.499
Town of Plainfield: We have a second? Francis Rose is second.

1059
02:47:33.500 --> 02:47:34.099
Patti Jamele: No, me.

1060
02:47:34.100 --> 02:47:50.949
Town of Plainfield: Oh, Patty seconded that one. But Andy says we're not going to have the first and seconds in the minutes anymore, so it doesn't matter, that's fine. It's been firsted and seconded. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on that?

1061
02:47:51.290 --> 02:47:54.889
Town of Plainfield: If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye.

1062
02:47:55.160 --> 02:48:14.360
Town of Plainfield: Any opposed? And that passes unanimously 3-0. 5-0. 5-0, sorry, where did I get that? Next motion, are you ready? No, at this point, I think I'm to read something. No, we gotta appoint JDU as town clerk next, before we read something. Yes? Alright, sorry. Yeah, that's the next one.

1063
02:48:14.360 --> 02:48:22.270
Town of Plainfield: So, I make a motion to appoint Jamie Hammock as a town clerk, noting expanded duties in the job description.

1064
02:48:22.800 --> 02:48:46.690
Town of Plainfield: Second. So this is… there is a, there was a ratification of the con… employment contract with Jamie, and to that is a new job description. I would point out that I can't remember last having a job description for the town clerk here in town, so… Okay. And it does cover the statutory stuff, as well as the plainfield stuff.

1065
02:48:47.640 --> 02:49:06.449
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. So that's… that's not included in the motion, that is merely commentary. Commentary. Okay, beautiful. Here comes the next one. Now you gotta read that statement. Wait, we didn't vote on that one. No, no, we didn't vote on that. Oh, you gotta vote on that. Okay, so I'm gonna make it again. Motion to appoint Jamie Hammock as town clerk, noting expanded duties in their job description.

1066
02:49:06.450 --> 02:49:17.990
Town of Plainfield: And that is effective retroactive to, March 4th. Let me make a note of that. Retroactive to March 4th? March 4th. Perfect, thank you for catching that.

1067
02:49:19.420 --> 02:49:21.790
Town of Plainfield: You have a second? Yes.

1068
02:49:23.210 --> 02:49:30.809
Town of Plainfield: It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye.

1069
02:49:30.810 --> 02:49:31.530
Patti Jamele: Aye.

1070
02:49:31.880 --> 02:49:32.920
Town of Plainfield: Opposed?

1071
02:49:33.130 --> 02:49:37.059
Town of Plainfield: Any abstentions? And that passes 5 to 0.

1072
02:49:37.720 --> 02:49:46.109
Town of Plainfield: You get to read a statement now. Alright, I was given a statement here. This is to,

1073
02:49:46.810 --> 02:49:49.010
Town of Plainfield: Amend the minutes.

1074
02:49:51.950 --> 02:50:07.929
Town of Plainfield: So, I'll make a motion to amend or add this to the minutes of the February 23rd meeting to include this statement, and it will also be… no, March 19th. It says 23rd, I think that's correct.

1075
02:50:08.190 --> 02:50:11.510
Town of Plainfield: The February 23rd minutes. Oh, really? Okay.

1076
02:50:12.560 --> 02:50:25.770
Town of Plainfield: That's what it says here. Alright, let's go with it then. That's fine. Yeah. That's correct. That was the Monday night. Got it. February 23rd minutes, and then also… And it will be included tonight as well. Thank you.

1077
02:50:27.330 --> 02:50:35.239
Town of Plainfield: So I'll read this. The Select Board would like to clarify and elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the Town Clerk transition underway.

1078
02:50:35.440 --> 02:50:45.789
Town of Plainfield: On February 20th, 2026, some members of the Select Board had a discussion with Bram Tobin regarding changes the Select Board is making to broaden the duties of the Town Clerk position.

1079
02:50:45.790 --> 02:50:58.869
Town of Plainfield: and to inform Mr. Tobin of the Board's conclusion that Mr. Tobin's skill set did not, in the opinion of a majority of the Board, align with the Select Board's new vision for the position, and thus he would not be reappointed as Town Clerk.

1080
02:50:59.130 --> 02:51:09.630
Town of Plainfield: Mr. Tobin then informed the board he was planning to use accrued leave time from that date through March 3rd, 2026, which was the end of his appointed term as town clerk.

1081
02:51:09.630 --> 02:51:21.150
Town of Plainfield: The Select Board appointed Jamie Hammock as Interim Town Clerk to cover the Town Clerk's duties during Mr. Tobin's leave, and until such time as the Select Board finalizes a new appointment for the position… to the position.

1082
02:51:21.940 --> 02:51:35.730
Town of Plainfield: Though the Select Board has chosen to move in a new direction and not reappoint Mr. Tobin, the members wish to thank him for his dedicated service and the structural changes he has brought to the town, and to wish him well in his future endeavors.

1083
02:51:35.810 --> 02:51:46.930
Town of Plainfield: Mr. Tobin has let the Select Board know that he is proud of his many years and roles working for the Town, and appreciates the efforts of the Select Board in reaching a fair settlement, and supports Town staff.

1084
02:51:49.240 --> 02:51:50.170
Patti Jamele: Perfect.

1085
02:51:50.170 --> 02:52:06.179
Town of Plainfield: So that is read into… so I think we need a motion to add this to the minutes. I would make a motion to amend the minutes of February 23rd with the statement that Peter Youngbear has just read.

1086
02:52:06.850 --> 02:52:09.540
Town of Plainfield: Is there a second? I will second.

1087
02:52:09.710 --> 02:52:11.220
Town of Plainfield: Any discussion?

1088
02:52:11.650 --> 02:52:16.120
Town of Plainfield: All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

1089
02:52:16.720 --> 02:52:20.139
Town of Plainfield: And that has also passed 5-0.

1090
02:52:21.930 --> 02:52:39.800
Town of Plainfield: Next motion. I make a motion to make a one-time compensation payment to Jamie Hammock to reflect the difference between pay rate and assumed responsibilities for work completed February 20th to March 3rd, amount to be determined.

1091
02:52:40.220 --> 02:52:41.360
Town of Plainfield: Second.

1092
02:52:45.520 --> 02:52:59.559
Town of Plainfield: Any discussion? Well, I'm wondering if an amount to be determined is correct here, because we know the parameters of the determination, which is… it's to bring… it's the difference between what they were being paid

1093
02:52:59.570 --> 02:53:19.610
Town of Plainfield: as the, maybe we take out that phrase. Take it out. Yeah, and just say, make a one-time compensation payment to reflect the difference. That's fine. Okay, that's good. So, friendly amendment here. I'll read it, I'll read the new version. The difference in pay rates, yeah. Right. Motion to make a one-time compensation payment to Jamie Hammock to reflect different… the difference

1094
02:53:19.610 --> 02:53:25.010
Town of Plainfield: between the pay rate and assumed responsibilities for work completed February 20 to March 3.

1095
02:53:25.020 --> 02:53:25.910
Town of Plainfield: Second.

1096
02:53:26.090 --> 02:53:30.119
Town of Plainfield: Cool. That's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion?

1097
02:53:30.350 --> 02:53:32.939
Town of Plainfield: All those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

1098
02:53:32.940 --> 02:53:33.400
Patti Jamele: I…

1099
02:53:33.400 --> 02:53:38.360
Town of Plainfield: Opposed? Cool. Abstentions? It's 5-0 again. Thank you.

1100
02:53:38.680 --> 02:53:51.500
Town of Plainfield: Last one. I make a motion to authorize a one-time appreciation payment of $1,000 to acknowledge Carol Smith's hard work and dedication during this challenging time.

1101
02:53:51.610 --> 02:53:54.190
Town of Plainfield: Second.

1102
02:53:54.960 --> 02:53:57.610
Town of Plainfield: Any further discussion on that?

1103
02:53:58.830 --> 02:54:04.699
Town of Plainfield: I would just say thank you, Carol, and all those in favor, please say aye.

1104
02:54:04.700 --> 02:54:05.140
Patti Jamele: Aye.

1105
02:54:05.140 --> 02:54:07.940
Town of Plainfield: Opposed abstained.

1106
02:54:08.150 --> 02:54:14.630
Town of Plainfield: And that also passes 5-0. Is there any other business to become before us this evening?

1107
02:54:15.170 --> 02:54:29.639
Town of Plainfield: If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? And we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.

1108
02:54:29.640 --> 02:54:30.220
Patti Jamele: Hey, buddy.

1109
02:54:30.220 --> 02:54:35.559
Town of Plainfield: Patty. Thank you, Patty. Good night. Good night. Hope everybody gets well.