WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:19.270
Town of Plainfield: Good evening. I'm Peter Youngbeer, the chair of the Plainfield Select Board. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Excuse me.

2
00:00:20.250 --> 00:00:30.380
Town of Plainfield: We're set to go. Thank you, and thanks all to the folks who are joining on Zoom as well.

3
00:00:30.380 --> 00:00:48.129
Town of Plainfield: This meeting deals specifically with the approximately 2 miles of Brook Road running from Cameron Road to Gray Road. There were 3 bridges destroyed along there, as well as hundreds of feet of major washout that some of you know as the Grand Canyon.

4
00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:56.919
Town of Plainfield: These bridges and watchouts were combined, thanks to our congressional delegation and work with federal highways.

5
00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:09.210
Town of Plainfield: VTRANS, Central Vermont Regional Planning, into one FEMA project, which is really advantageous, rather than having to set up as a separate project for each and every part, so…

6
00:01:09.210 --> 00:01:12.629
Town of Plainfield: Joining them was very important.

7
00:01:12.630 --> 00:01:27.659
Town of Plainfield: And these are the subject of the meeting, which will mostly be run by our contractor this evening, VHP, and we'll come back to that in just a minute. That said, we're also working with another consultant, SLR International.

8
00:01:27.660 --> 00:01:47.149
Town of Plainfield: Which is studying the entire watershed of the Great Brook. The helicopters that flew last week collected data that's now being analyzed and will be available to VHB to help in the design of the project. And we're very fortunate to have this resource available this time around.

9
00:01:47.150 --> 00:01:51.550
Town of Plainfield: To be able to coordinate our response, to what we're gonna do there.

10
00:01:51.890 --> 00:02:16.319
Town of Plainfield: There are a few key people I want to introduce here tonight, both, in person and on Zoom. First is Patrick Travers. Pat, Pat is our municipal project manager. He works for the town, basically overseeing the entire project. Evan Dietrich, who will be our primary speaker tonight, who is, engineer at,

11
00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:23.270
Town of Plainfield: VHB, and Jamie Roy is a structural engineer also at VHB.

12
00:02:23.830 --> 00:02:38.620
Town of Plainfield: I do not know… can I see the who's on the Zoom, please? Yes. I saw… I did see, Ethan Ely, who is with SLR here, and I do not know if,

13
00:02:38.810 --> 00:02:45.240
Town of Plainfield: Roy Schiff is able to join us. He said it depended on his,

14
00:02:45.300 --> 00:02:53.469
Town of Plainfield: cell service where he is traveling. Anyway. But yeah, Ethan Ealy is here as well, so…

15
00:02:53.470 --> 00:03:06.870
Town of Plainfield: And Patty Gemelli, Select Board member, is joining us here, as long as… as well as Francis Rose Soviando and Andy Robinson in the back. So, thank you all. Karen Hatcher is out of country this week, so…

16
00:03:07.180 --> 00:03:16.700
Town of Plainfield: So we also are going to be joined by Rebecca Ellis, who is the, Vermont Director for Senator Peter Welch's office.

17
00:03:16.700 --> 00:03:30.650
Town of Plainfield: Who was very instrumental in, assisting in pulling all these disparate parties together so that this could be one project, with all the consultants that are helping. So we, we thank, them for that.

18
00:03:30.650 --> 00:03:44.909
Town of Plainfield: When we get to the end, we don't have a slide, but if you think of something that you don't get a chance to say tonight, or you know of someone who wanted to attend but couldn't, or you just

19
00:03:45.220 --> 00:04:04.539
Town of Plainfield: don't feel comfortable speaking in public. There is a link on the town website where you can submit public comments. And how long is that going to be up for after the meeting? 30 days after the meeting. 30 days after the meeting. So, please continue to send your comments to that. I won't read you the site, it's like 100 digits here, so…

20
00:04:04.780 --> 00:04:19.630
Town of Plainfield: But you can take a look at that. So, without further ado, I think we'll turn this over to Evan for the presentation, and then to you folks for your comments, questions, and ideas. So, Evan Dietrich from VHB, thank you.

21
00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:32.599
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you, Peter. Welcome, everyone, to the meeting today to talk about Book Road. So, I think, the first slide, some introductions, just to let you know who's all working on this project for the town.

22
00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:56.810
Town of Plainfield: Yep, so Pat Travis, as was mentioned, he's with GPI, he's the Municipal Project Manager, helping the tenant out, run the project. We have VTRANS involved, Ross Gallin, he is the guy who is the conduit where all the money flows through, so very helpful, and he has his, the VTRANS process that we're following for the project, so, they kind of set the guidelines of how things are supposed to happen as we proceed through the different steps.

23
00:04:56.810 --> 00:05:13.929
Town of Plainfield: That'll talk about that. Of course, the Select Board is instrumental, and then, we have VHB, too. Jamie and I are here tonight, and then Keith Cubbin from Central Vermont Regional Planning has also been involved. He's been helping the town out on all things disaster recovery. So we have a bunch of people that are now trying to move this project forward.

24
00:05:14.350 --> 00:05:19.210
Town of Plainfield: Evan, can you go to the mic, please? Yeah. Okay. Yep.

25
00:05:20.870 --> 00:05:24.479
Town of Plainfield: Okay, project overview and background.

26
00:05:24.730 --> 00:05:49.660
Town of Plainfield: So, why are we here tonight? We're gonna summarize what happened in July of 2024 with the big storm events, and the damage it caused to the road and to the structures, and then we want to hear, local concerns from you folks. I mean, the point of the meeting tonight is to hear what you have to say about this project. VHP is not here to decide anything for you. This is a playing field decision. We're going to give you information.

27
00:05:49.660 --> 00:05:52.559
Town of Plainfield: To make decisions with over the next few months.

28
00:05:52.560 --> 00:06:08.660
Town of Plainfield: Gonna explain what an alternatives analysis looks like, that's our first step, before we get into any kind of design. And then, once we are done with the alternatives, we will then move the selected alternative into the design phase.

29
00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:15.849
Town of Plainfield: Right now, the schedule has us working on the alternatives through the end of July, and then we'll be back

30
00:06:15.950 --> 00:06:30.299
Town of Plainfield: around the end of July or August to this very room, and we'll talk about what we found for the alternatives analysis. And it will be up to the town at that point to decide what your preferred alternative is to move this project forward.

31
00:06:34.770 --> 00:06:59.099
Town of Plainfield: Brook Road, it's a Class 2 town highway, and it's part of a federal aid system, and that's why FHWA, rather than FEMA, is contributing most of the money for the project. So it's not exactly a FEMA project, although it's a lot like a FEMA project. And with the money flowing out of FHWA and through VTRANS, we have to follow the VTRANS project development process that they use in the municipal assistance section, like any other

32
00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:10.919
Town of Plainfield: of the jobs across the state, where people are doing sidewalks and bike paths and things like that, through the local projects shop over at VTrans, this is the same thing. It's going through that same municipal assistance section.

33
00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:25.110
Town of Plainfield: And, as Peter mentioned, the town is concurrently conducting an independent study of the Great Brook Hydraulics, by SLR. They are working on that. At the same time, we're working on the, the study to figure out where to put Brook Road.

34
00:07:26.630 --> 00:07:32.240
Town of Plainfield: Okay, so the study area that we have and that we're looking at

35
00:07:33.030 --> 00:07:51.799
Town of Plainfield: I do have a pointer here. Okay, so the village over here, north, kind of facing that way. So then, the study area goes from Cameron Road intersection, so this is Cameron, right? And then up Brook Road, all the way down towards Barry, all the way down almost to Gray Road.

36
00:07:51.860 --> 00:08:06.839
Town of Plainfield: But it will go past Fowler, and then we're looking at a swath of ground all the way up to East Hill Road as well. So, kind of the big yellow triangle area is where we are looking at the alternatives in that area.

37
00:08:08.170 --> 00:08:18.899
Town of Plainfield: So then I think we have some existing conditions up next. Yeah, Jamie's gonna talk about the storm damage that happened in 2024 and show you some pretty cool images.

38
00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:21.420
Town of Plainfield: Excuse me.

39
00:08:21.850 --> 00:08:33.789
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I'm sure you're all very familiar with these images at this point, and have lived through all of this. But yeah, I'm gonna walk you through some of the storm damage, particularly with all the bridges.

40
00:08:37.530 --> 00:08:46.380
Town of Plainfield: Can we pause for one moment? I think I need to adjust this screen. What folks are seeing? It may just be content only.

41
00:08:49.100 --> 00:08:50.480
Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

42
00:08:55.460 --> 00:08:57.710
Town of Plainfield: You should be able to proceed.

43
00:08:58.110 --> 00:09:22.680
Town of Plainfield: Okay, yeah, if you want to head to the next slide. Thank you. Yeah, so the limits of our project kind of start, as Evan mentioned, kind of down near the intersection with Cameron Road. Here you can see… I know Cameron Road was kind of a vital road for the town garage, and this is Bridge 22, so not really part of our project, but, this was all kind of reconstructed and fixed right after the storm events. It's a vital access area and road for the town.

44
00:09:22.830 --> 00:09:33.209
Town of Plainfield: And as we move further up Brook Road, we're gonna, and upstream of the, of Great Brook, we're gonna see even more damage. Next slide, please.

45
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:42.180
Town of Plainfield: Here is an aerial view of Bridge 23, and also another washout area further.

46
00:09:42.490 --> 00:09:47.950
Town of Plainfield: Down here, you can kind of see up here.

47
00:09:47.950 --> 00:10:03.740
Town of Plainfield: that the brook kind of just wants to do what it wants to do, and it's gonna… it doesn't want to go through the bridges, it wants to go around them. It's also washing out significant portions of the roadway. If you go to the next slide, you can see, this is probably what is referred to as the Grand Canyon, I'm assuming. This is…

48
00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:08.120
Town of Plainfield: Kind of an image of that road washout here. Next slide.

49
00:10:08.530 --> 00:10:33.519
Town of Plainfield: This is bridge 23, so this is kind of the start as you're moving south along Brook Road. The first bridge that is not in service is currently closed. This bridge was built in 1991. It's about 51 feet long. Part of the problem with all of these bridges is that their substructures are very shallow and kind of founded just below, or right on kind of the bed… or not on bedrock, sorry, right on the stream elevation.

50
00:10:33.520 --> 00:10:58.230
Town of Plainfield: So, they're highly susceptible to scour. A lot of wood and debris moves through here during flood events, and that was kind of the problem with this bridge in particular. I believe it got clogged with a lot of debris, a lot of wood, and the brook just kind of went around it and washed out a large portion of the roadway here. The other abutment fully separated from the roadway as well, and this bridge needs to be fully replaced.

51
00:10:58.230 --> 00:11:01.329
Town of Plainfield: As a result of the damage that it has seen.

52
00:11:03.500 --> 00:11:19.409
Town of Plainfield: This is just kind of some aerial imagery of what I was just describing. This is the pre-flood you can see on the left here, and then directly after the flood, you can see the water just went right around the bridge after it got blocked.

53
00:11:19.580 --> 00:11:33.530
Town of Plainfield: It went right around the abutment, washed out the approach slab. This bridge also is on kind of a 45 degree skew, which doesn't help. It got clogged, and the water just goes where it wants to go, unfortunately. Next slide.

54
00:11:34.030 --> 00:11:52.830
Town of Plainfield: This one is Bridge 24. This one is kind of near Fowler Road. This one is probably the most intact of all of the three bridges that we're talking about. This one was built in 29, I believe, and is about 28 feet long. Reinforced concrete T-beams.

55
00:11:52.860 --> 00:11:58.899
Town of Plainfield: Still, still standing. You can still drive over this one, even though you're not technically supposed to.

56
00:11:59.060 --> 00:12:21.800
Town of Plainfield: But the storm did cause damage to one of the abutments here, and this bridge actually did receive damage. I think in 23, the other abutment did receive some damage as well. So honestly, this one probably needs a full replacement as well, just given the scour that both of these abutments have seen. They've both rotated, they're both separated from the roadway, washouts as well. If you want to go to the next slide, please.

57
00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:28.300
Town of Plainfield: This is just an image of both Bridge 24 and 12, and the property that it kind of surrounds.

58
00:12:28.520 --> 00:12:35.449
Town of Plainfield: You can still access Bridge 24. Bridge 12, you can get to part of Bridge 12, but,

59
00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:47.419
Town of Plainfield: Just showing the proximity to Fowler Road, and you can see here in the aerial how much of Broke Road washed out at Bridge 12 as well, if you want to go to the next slide.

60
00:12:49.480 --> 00:12:54.739
Town of Plainfield: So another aerial of Bridge 24 here, pre- and post-flood.

61
00:12:54.810 --> 00:13:05.169
Town of Plainfield: Again, this one is still standing, but the abutments have both rotated due to scour. Again, the abutments are set pretty… pretty shallow.

62
00:13:05.220 --> 00:13:19.779
Town of Plainfield: And when all the storm flow comes through here, they just erode underneath the abutments, and they tilt and rotate, and both abutments here need to be replaced. It honestly probably would make sense to fully replace this bridge at this point.

63
00:13:19.830 --> 00:13:23.189
Town of Plainfield: As well. None. Next slide.

64
00:13:23.590 --> 00:13:26.249
Town of Plainfield: And this is Bridge 12, which is…

65
00:13:26.510 --> 00:13:38.700
Town of Plainfield: largely inaccessible at this point. I think you can still get to it if you walk from… from Gray Road. This one was built in 1991. It's also 28 feet long.

66
00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:52.829
Town of Plainfield: I think this one's just a reinforced slab, and if you go to the next slide, you can see, pre-flood and post-flood, and the river really went around this one and fully washed out the roadway.

67
00:13:52.830 --> 00:14:03.490
Town of Plainfield: destroyed the abutment and took the bridge, kind of, like, the whole abutment came out, and the whole slab went down with it. So, this bridge is completely, completely destroyed, and,

68
00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:17.900
Town of Plainfield: is going to need to be fully replaced as well. And again, similar to all the other bridges here, the abutments are very shallow, and just highly susceptible to scour with the high flood forces, and it's very erosive, and…

69
00:14:18.840 --> 00:14:23.160
Town of Plainfield: This is the result, too, with all the… with all the wood that gets backed up here, too.

70
00:15:35.350 --> 00:15:36.959
Bob A-cvrpc TAC: No sound, folks.

71
00:15:40.980 --> 00:15:41.710
Town of Plainfield: Next.

72
00:15:43.860 --> 00:16:03.550
Town of Plainfield: So, we have to develop a, what's called, purpose and need statement, so that defines, the purpose of the project and why it's needed. And that is needed, so that the alternatives that we come up with can be measured against meeting the purpose and need. So, we want to know

73
00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:20.510
Town of Plainfield: why the town wants to do the project, so that when we look at alternatives, we can evaluate if they meet that purpose and need. So we'll be developing a purpose and need statement, and then we have engagement with public and stakeholders, like this meeting tonight. We identify and evaluate alternatives.

74
00:16:20.510 --> 00:16:41.290
Town of Plainfield: And then we select and refine a preferred alternative. This is the meeting in August I was talking about. We'll go back and refine that a bit, and then we will prepare the design based on that preferred alternative. So, within the next couple of months, we want to get to a decision point where we decide what we're going to do with Brook Road, and then we can move into final design, so we can eventually,

75
00:16:41.290 --> 00:16:45.270
Town of Plainfield: Move to either reopen the road, or maybe move the road.

76
00:16:46.260 --> 00:16:47.270
Town of Plainfield: Next slide.

77
00:16:49.780 --> 00:17:13.900
Town of Plainfield: So, again, we want to develop and compare alternatives to restore access along the brook, identify the major engineering, environmental, property, cost considerations that go into it, and then come up with what we think you should do for a recommended alternative, but then ultimately the town and the select board have to decide what direction do you want to go with

78
00:17:13.900 --> 00:17:15.280
Town of Plainfield: With your choice here.

79
00:17:15.319 --> 00:17:22.290
Town of Plainfield: And then, once we have that completed, then we can move into the design and the permitting, and then eventually construction.

80
00:17:24.859 --> 00:17:48.069
Town of Plainfield: Alright, so the potential outcomes, I started to mention, so, in this case, we have 3 major alternatives that we're looking at. The first one, always, when you have this federal money involved, is, should you build anything at all? Does it make sense to build anything, or should we just not do anything? An example of why you might want to do nothing, not saying it's the right, right decision in this case, but sometimes towns

81
00:17:48.230 --> 00:18:07.559
Town of Plainfield: will walk away from a bridge that they are looking to replace because it's not really needed and there's another way around, and then they can apply, I think it's, like, 75% of that money to a different project than 10. So, if it's the kind of thing you don't maybe really need it, sometimes you can do the no-no and use the money on something else.

82
00:18:07.800 --> 00:18:19.909
Town of Plainfield: In this case, we are looking at the no-build, so that'll be one thing to consider. And then, reconstruct existing infrastructure. So, rebuild Brook Road, more or less the way it was on the existing alignment.

83
00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:44.899
Town of Plainfield: and then replace the bridges. Now, the bridges would be improved quite a bit, of course. We wouldn't put back 29-foot spans or anything like that. Bridges that are being worked on in the design phase on Mill Street and the low end of Brook Road, those spans are around 60 feet. So, we would expect that these new bridges would be around 60-foot span if they would be replaced. Also, we would not put the foundation

84
00:18:44.900 --> 00:18:54.570
Town of Plainfield: right at the Brook level, which is more or less where they were in the past, and a lot of bridges after the 27 flood were replaced that way. They just built right down to the…

85
00:18:54.570 --> 00:19:18.209
Town of Plainfield: brook level, and nothing that went down to the ground. So nowadays, with these kind of soils that are out here, we most typically put bridges on piles that go down to the ground, 40 or 50 feet, right? These metal piles, and then we put a metal, or a concrete cap on those, and then the bridge sits on that, so that even if the brook washes away some of the soil around the abutments, the bridge still stands, and you can still get across it.

86
00:19:18.380 --> 00:19:25.110
Town of Plainfield: As long as the road doesn't get washed out. So it's a different kind of construction that we would do today than what we used to do in the past.

87
00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:42.159
Town of Plainfield: So, that would be the second option, is to leave it where it is and rebuild it. Rebuild it back better. And then the third option is to consider a realignment, which was not originally in the program. When FHWA said, oh, you need to rebuild these bridges, well, we'll give you money to go out and rebuild the bridges.

88
00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:46.879
Town of Plainfield: And the town, I think, wisely said, wait a minute, does it make sense to

89
00:19:47.080 --> 00:19:51.440
Town of Plainfield: put this road back. You know, we've had such problems with this road and these bridges.

90
00:19:51.550 --> 00:19:58.449
Town of Plainfield: It's constant… we constantly have to fix this road. Should we not move it to higher ground, and maybe put in a parallel route?

91
00:19:58.910 --> 00:20:11.889
Town of Plainfield: Well, after some discussions with VTRANS and FHWA, they decided that, sure, playing field, we can have you take a look at that as an option. So we are going to look at the alternative alignment option with this project.

92
00:20:12.520 --> 00:20:28.580
Town of Plainfield: Okay, next slide. So, with the alternative alignment, what we've been directed to look at is a route that's roughly 2 miles long, and it would start down here at the intersection of Brook Road and Cameron Road, and then follow Cameron Road for part of it.

93
00:20:28.740 --> 00:20:46.570
Town of Plainfield: And then, I'm not sure how many of you know this, but if you go out to the end of Cameron Road, there's actually an old woods road that goes right through to, East Hill Road, here. That used to be a road, right? So the idea would be go up Cameron Road to some extent, but then peel off, and then cut across.

94
00:20:46.570 --> 00:21:11.419
Town of Plainfield: private property, and come out, cross Fowler Road, and then to the next slide, we have even another half of this, crossing Fowler Road, and then more or less paralleling Brook Road as we work our way back downhill to get to the same elevation as Brook Road, somewhere in this area. Maybe it's up here, maybe it's down here, but those are the things that we're taking a closer look at as we get into this.

95
00:21:11.570 --> 00:21:18.560
Town of Plainfield: So, this realignment route is not terribly far away, but it is en route, and it goes through

96
00:21:18.690 --> 00:21:36.050
Town of Plainfield: things like the woods and people's private property, right? So, it's a big effort to try to get a secondary alignment here to move the Brook Road away from the Great Brook, and get it to safer, drier, higher ground, right?

97
00:21:36.050 --> 00:21:56.000
Town of Plainfield: So that is, one of the alternatives. Yeah, go ahead, next slide is okay. And then the other alternative we've been asked to take a look at is, continue Cameron Road, and maybe not bring it out right to where it used to come out, because there are two houses or a house up right here on the corner now, but maybe do something a bit differently where it wouldn't be right in folks' backyard, but…

98
00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:15.139
Town of Plainfield: Take advantage of East Hill Road, and just make the connection there, because that does wrap around and reconnect to Brook Road eventually, right? So, it would be a kind of a low-cost option, if you will, to make that kind of connection like that. So, it is an option, and we're looking at all of these things over the next couple months. So, what we do.

99
00:22:15.140 --> 00:22:39.349
Town of Plainfield: in my office is Jamie will look at what is… what are we talking about for a new bridge, and what might the new bridges cost if we go with that? And then the road team will look at what do we do with this road, and how does it actually fit in this terrain that the town has suggested? You know, is it too steep, or is the ground too uneven? Is it very difficult to build up there? And then also all of the environmental considerations, you know, are there wetlands out there?

100
00:22:39.350 --> 00:22:44.989
Town of Plainfield: Are there endangered species? And that sort of thing. And then, of course, we look at things like

101
00:22:44.990 --> 00:23:01.349
Town of Plainfield: Property impacts, how many properties might we impact? Are we going to end up dividing properties in two, and that sort of property impact that we look at. And then, of course, there's the cost, right? That's a big component of this, is if we move the road off alignment, how much does it cost?

102
00:23:01.710 --> 00:23:13.039
Town of Plainfield: And then, the permitting, too. So, besides identifying the natural or cultural resources sometimes, we also have to, have to look at,

103
00:23:13.080 --> 00:23:37.069
Town of Plainfield: the, the permitting aspect of it, too, right? So, when we use federal money, we have to go through the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and that's a kind of an umbrella clearance, to make sure we aren't, putting undue burden on disadvantaged populations. We're not having too many property impacts, we're not having too many wetland impacts.

104
00:23:37.070 --> 00:23:56.720
Town of Plainfield: And, there's this, as I say, an umbrella kind of federal permit and federal process that you have to go through called NEPA, that, you have to get a clearance on before you can advance a project through design. And with the, with the NEPA process.

105
00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:20.560
Town of Plainfield: it's going to be a lot more involved with the off-alignment alternative, because it has many more impacts, right? Think about going through the woods, right? So we're clearing deer wintering areas, and we're cutting up properties, and there's just a lot more impacts and more costs, and it takes a lot longer. So, as we work through the alternatives, eventually when we come back.

106
00:24:20.560 --> 00:24:44.950
Town of Plainfield: for this next meeting, we're going to have a matrix that shows this alternative, this alternative, this alternative, and then all these different criteria that we look at, and whether or not it affects them moderately, or greatly, or not at all, perhaps. And you can kind of see in a matrix, like, what the impacts are, and then the costs are in there, how much right-of-way do you have to impact, and all that sort of thing. We'll come back with this kind of a matrix.

107
00:24:44.950 --> 00:24:54.449
Town of Plainfield: And it'll show you this information in a tabular form, so it's a little bit easier to digest, rather than having somebody like me stand up here and talk about it.

108
00:24:54.450 --> 00:24:59.639
Town of Plainfield: So, that's… that's what we're going to be working on here, up through August.

109
00:24:59.960 --> 00:25:01.359
Town of Plainfield: Next slide.

110
00:25:01.520 --> 00:25:25.370
Town of Plainfield: So next steps, we'll develop the purpose need statement coming out of this meeting, so we'll do that, working based on any comments we hear tonight, and then working with VTRANS and the Select Board to come up with the purpose and the need for the project. Develop and evaluate alternatives, present the alternatives, select the preferred alternative, and then we start the design. And whatever that preferred alternative is, then we'll start the conceptual design.

111
00:25:25.370 --> 00:25:49.579
Town of Plainfield: And that will take us until about January of next year, and then we have to go through permitting, the right-of-way acquisition, if there's any of that, final design, and then you get the bid documents. So it's a ways out before we can reopen the road, I'm afraid, but we are actively working on it, and we are trying to have a compressed schedule. Usually for an alternatives analysis, that can take a year in a lot of cases, but we're really trying to condense it so we can keep this thing moving.

112
00:25:49.580 --> 00:25:50.490
Town of Plainfield: wrong.

113
00:25:52.510 --> 00:26:06.760
Town of Plainfield: Okay, and then once we get through the conceptual plans and we're into design, we go through the NEPA documentation I, mentioned, the permitting, the plans, acquiring right-of-way, and then all the way up through final plans and construction.

114
00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:08.889
Town of Plainfield: And that will take a couple of years.

115
00:26:09.710 --> 00:26:15.379
Town of Plainfield: And if we go off-alignment, it'll probably take a couple years plus a couple years.

116
00:26:15.940 --> 00:26:20.000
Town of Plainfield: Okay, so when I come to a meeting like this, Local Concerns.

117
00:26:20.030 --> 00:26:39.430
Town of Plainfield: I don't really want to tell you much about the ideas we have, because we've been given things to look at, but what we really need is to hear from the town what you folks feel is important, what you want to see, what you don't want to see, as equally important, and get your thoughts on

118
00:26:39.490 --> 00:26:42.789
Town of Plainfield: what you would like to see done about Brookright.

119
00:26:43.230 --> 00:27:06.909
Town of Plainfield: So, with that, we have a microphone up here. I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna ask folks to come up and state your name for the record, and then you can say whatever you have to say about the project. Let's try to keep it reasonably long, though. Don't take a bunch of time, because we want to give everyone a chance to speak. So, keep it 72 minutes if possible, but we'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on

120
00:27:06.910 --> 00:27:09.210
Town of Plainfield: About what you think we should do with the rover.

121
00:27:09.350 --> 00:27:15.960
Town of Plainfield: And if you need a mic brought to you, we do have a wireless mic. Yeah, that's okay too, we can walk this around as well.

122
00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:28.310
Town of Plainfield: Any takers? Right here. I'm just gonna pass this around. I'm Cindy Scott. I live on the Brook Road, or we live on the Brook Road, between bridges 23 and 12.

123
00:27:28.430 --> 00:27:35.859
Town of Plainfield: And I personally, or we personally, want the road rebuilt the way it was.

124
00:27:36.450 --> 00:27:42.859
Town of Plainfield: East Hill is substantially more elevated than Brook Road, and for us to get home

125
00:27:43.290 --> 00:27:54.520
Town of Plainfield: If you do relocate the road, it's gonna be a steep, steep hill. Right now, we have a 7-mile detour, and it is a lot.

126
00:27:55.220 --> 00:27:58.860
Town of Plainfield: So I would love for the Brook Road to be rebuilt the way it was.

127
00:28:04.790 --> 00:28:07.470
Town of Plainfield: Guess I'll handle it here first.

128
00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:15.669
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, like Sid, my name's Jeannie Lamek, I live next to Cindy and Louie.

129
00:28:15.830 --> 00:28:21.409
Town of Plainfield: With the third alternative, how long would it take for emergency vehicles?

130
00:28:21.800 --> 00:28:36.139
Town of Plainfield: I mean, that's a big concern with other people. If it takes the same amount, why would we even consider the third alternative? And secondly, with the abutments of these bridges, they're still intact.

131
00:28:36.370 --> 00:28:38.439
Town of Plainfield: Why would we replace those?

132
00:28:43.380 --> 00:29:08.269
Town of Plainfield: Okay, I can, I can offer an answer to the second part of your comment. Why wouldn't we just keep the abutments? They, you know, they kind of look like they're all right, all right, they're leaning, but they're still there, right? They're whole, they're not… generally, they're not broken, right? However, they don't have anything under them that's supporting them any longer. There's… sure, they're resting in a pile of dirt or some soil, but they're not going to last

133
00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:21.449
Town of Plainfield: when you put motor vehicles on them and the next storm comes, those bridges are going to collapse. So they would not be safe to rebuild or to reuse those parts, I'm afraid. So we wouldn't need the new bridges.

134
00:29:21.450 --> 00:29:32.909
Town of Plainfield: I'm sorry, Mr. Hogness, but… We're gonna go around, and we'll get back to you then. I know that a big part of this

135
00:29:33.360 --> 00:29:38.899
Town of Plainfield: Oh, Sandy Ross. I've lived on the Brook Road for 50 years.

136
00:29:39.150 --> 00:29:49.589
Town of Plainfield: And I know a big part of talking about, fixing the road, putting the Brook Road back, is the bridges.

137
00:29:49.970 --> 00:30:05.850
Town of Plainfield: But, if you do any kind of alternative, there are at least 4 places where there will have to be bridges, because there are smaller brooks, at least right now they're smaller, because the

138
00:30:06.010 --> 00:30:19.220
Town of Plainfield: Great Brook was much smaller 50 years ago, coming down into the brook, along that route. So there's 4 bridges right there that would need to be part of any alternative route.

139
00:30:19.330 --> 00:30:27.269
Town of Plainfield: I live at the bottom of Gray Road, basically, on the Brook Road, and it's very, very difficult.

140
00:30:27.270 --> 00:30:48.190
Town of Plainfield: getting out, going up. I'm not stuck, I can get out, but I have to go a long way around. Gray Road is extremely steep, extremely narrow. It's not built for the traffic. East Hill is not built for the traffic. It's very windy, and steep, and…

141
00:30:48.300 --> 00:31:03.010
Town of Plainfield: narrow compared to the Brook Road, which took all the, truck traffic before, and I have to say it's nice because it's quiet now, but I'd much rather be able to get to the village.

142
00:31:03.450 --> 00:31:17.070
Town of Plainfield: On East Hill, a lot of the places where it's steep and turns, and you can't see a truck coming, it's just not made for what it has to do right now.

143
00:31:23.590 --> 00:31:46.740
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thanks. I think with, any kind of alternative that looked at another road, part of the equation would be what kind of improvements are needed on those roads in order to accommodate the type of traffic we expect on a broken road. So, I think that in the analysis of the other routes, we would need to look at, are the curves too sharp? Is the road wide enough? Are the grades too steep? Those sorts of things.

144
00:31:47.030 --> 00:31:49.040
Town of Plainfield: So, thank you for that.

145
00:31:51.750 --> 00:32:05.240
Town of Plainfield: Lewis Scott, most of our land here is very, very sandy. So when you build another road, you would have to, I would imagine, put down a new bed for it and everything. These gorges that,

146
00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:20.509
Town of Plainfield: she's talking about four other gorges. They do get… they get wild in these floods, and so they would have to have the bridges there. But what strikes me the most is the bridges that have been put in in the past,

147
00:32:20.510 --> 00:32:26.800
Town of Plainfield: you say do not go down below the brook bed. The brook bed is lower in itself, in some places.

148
00:32:27.110 --> 00:32:31.340
Town of Plainfield: So, it just seems like if our concern is more floods.

149
00:32:31.670 --> 00:32:38.350
Town of Plainfield: that if the bridges were built, like, say, the bridge over… headed towards, Twinfield.

150
00:32:38.490 --> 00:32:46.750
Town of Plainfield: That guy's building into Onion River Campground, and they drove in pylons, and then they put a cement base on top of it.

151
00:32:47.180 --> 00:32:50.340
Town of Plainfield: It just seems to me that if the bridges were wide enough.

152
00:32:51.050 --> 00:32:53.750
Town of Plainfield: And they were built right.

153
00:32:53.960 --> 00:32:56.290
Town of Plainfield: A flood would not hurt them.

154
00:32:56.540 --> 00:33:11.760
Town of Plainfield: Would we have ground problems? Yeah. I mean, we're on a bed of sand. So, you know, that's gonna happen. But, I just think the bridges could be improved on. And if they were improved, we wouldn't have the astronomical cost of rebuilding.

155
00:33:12.850 --> 00:33:14.110
Town of Plainfield: In future.

156
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:15.670
Town of Plainfield: Beautiful.

157
00:33:16.130 --> 00:33:20.210
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thanks.

158
00:33:20.520 --> 00:33:45.489
Town of Plainfield: Hi, I'm Don Pancher, and I live on the corner of Cameron Road and Brook Road, Little White House. It's on the, it's on the north side of Cameron Road. I've lived there for over 18 years. And, what I, thinking about the realignment, Cameron Road washed out, half washed out in a, in, like, at the, right near the town garage and along my property, in 23,

159
00:33:45.490 --> 00:34:01.049
Town of Plainfield: about the same as it did in 24. Which, you know, alarmed me, like, if the count… you know, if that… if they hadn't repaired the road in 23, then I wondered if in 24 it would have started to get into my yard. And…

160
00:34:01.050 --> 00:34:23.070
Town of Plainfield: the bridge that… the bridge at the bottom there, that didn't… that wasn't because that bridge backed up. That bridge didn't back up at all. That was… stayed clear. So, realigning it from, like, a perspective of, like, the town as a whole, I see some merit in realigning Brook Road, for sure, but, as far as, like, that section of Cameron Road is right next to the Brook.

161
00:34:23.070 --> 00:34:44.569
Town of Plainfield: And I'm just concerned about that part, you know, potentially washing out. Which leads me to my more personal concern, which is when this project was first brought to my attention, and just for everyone's disclosure, if you don't know gossip, by my ex, who owned the property with me previously, who was the previous road commissioner and treasurer.

162
00:34:44.570 --> 00:35:08.619
Town of Plainfield: he mentioned that they might want to purchase… to take some of my land to make that a better corner, and to make the road bigger, I don't know, which kind of… I can see how that might happen. And I also know some of my neighbors on Cameron Road's houses are extremely close to Cameron Road, and I'm just wondering, what the process is and the procedure is for keeping in touch with landowners. I mean, obviously there's, like, landowners who

163
00:35:08.620 --> 00:35:28.069
Town of Plainfield: Might be having, like, we want to buy your land and put a road in the middle of your woods, but also for those of us who are, like, right on the road, who might get our property impacted, maybe in a way that, like, legally takes some of our land, but maybe in a way that just, like, you know, significantly changes how, you know, what it's like to have a right-of-way that close to your house.

164
00:35:28.070 --> 00:35:34.490
Town of Plainfield: So I'm just wondering what the process is for… for that. Yeah.

165
00:35:34.650 --> 00:35:59.640
Town of Plainfield: Sure, with any public improvement project like this that uses state or federal money, there has to be, obviously, ample notice given to homeowners, and the early part of that, though, is going to meetings just like this, and fortunately, you have a great town staff that keeps things up to date. They have the feedback survey that they've already posted for this meeting, right? So, they are going to continue to have

166
00:35:59.640 --> 00:36:20.030
Town of Plainfield: notices on this project, it's one of the biggest ones in the town, and then we'll be giving notices about future projects, too. Only once we decide what the preferred alternative is, then we really get into the finer detail of what property impacts may or may not happen to each individual property as we go along.

167
00:36:20.030 --> 00:36:24.279
Town of Plainfield: But you just have to kind of stay involved in the process until that point.

168
00:36:24.700 --> 00:36:26.680
Town of Plainfield: We have two questions online.

169
00:36:26.750 --> 00:36:46.269
Town of Plainfield: First, from the chat… Come on, get that mic. Thank you. From the chat, the question is, did the speaker say if the town did nothing, it could reuse 75% of the money, or it might be able to reuse the money for other projects?

170
00:36:46.710 --> 00:36:52.100
Town of Plainfield: Other towns have used money for other projects that I am aware of.

171
00:36:52.220 --> 00:37:09.220
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, other projects… other towns have used money for other projects that I'm aware of. I don't know with any certainty if the town could do that in this case, but it is an option that I have seen in other towns. And then there's a second hand raised, T. Buxton.

172
00:37:10.790 --> 00:37:18.109
Town of Plainfield: We have a hand raised for T. Buxton. He's muted. Wanna unmute, if you can?

173
00:37:24.670 --> 00:37:26.870
Town of Plainfield: T. Buxton, are you with us?

174
00:37:28.430 --> 00:37:34.560
Town of Plainfield: I think you're still muted if you're speaking.

175
00:37:41.420 --> 00:37:45.840
Town of Plainfield: Okay, no written question with that? No, I have a question.

176
00:37:45.850 --> 00:37:54.239
Town of Plainfield: Francis Rose, I'm, you know, find myself ruminating on option 3, the alternative.

177
00:37:54.240 --> 00:38:06.280
Town of Plainfield: I'm sensitive to added challenges, but also potential possibilities that might come out of it, and wondering what kind of support there might be to help those who have driveways on Brook Road.

178
00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:28.889
Town of Plainfield: We'll need to, if the road moves, east, we'll need new driveways. And that's at a significant cost. And is that, could that be a part of the program? Meanwhile, like, the flip side, perhaps the silver lining, is it also means there's a significant number of potential properties that could be subdivided with road frontage.

179
00:38:29.040 --> 00:38:40.199
Town of Plainfield: For anyone willing to release any acres from their parcels. And it's like a unique opportunity to perhaps bring more things online like that. Anyway, that's my thoughts. Thank you.

180
00:38:48.410 --> 00:38:49.670
Town of Plainfield: In the back.

181
00:38:54.900 --> 00:39:08.959
Town of Plainfield: Hi, I'm Liz Peralt, and, thinking about the alternative, route, going up Cameron Road, I think the concern you have, about the approach

182
00:39:08.980 --> 00:39:25.720
Town of Plainfield: is very valid. I don't… I would… it's like, why… why bother when it's so close to the brook, has been washed out multiple times, and the approach is horrific? And then my other question is, once you get up, and I'm assuming it follows a ridge.

183
00:39:25.720 --> 00:39:35.720
Town of Plainfield: Along, I would hope. And you're not just plunking on the side of a… this hill. There's gorgeous, like.

184
00:39:36.050 --> 00:39:52.009
Town of Plainfield: the Scots were talking about all along, and so there's gonna be potential for washouts there, there's… like, I'm just wondering, the benefits of creating an entirely new road system if you're really not addressing

185
00:39:52.910 --> 00:39:55.349
Town of Plainfield: Or you're just changing the issues. It's like…

186
00:39:56.580 --> 00:40:04.089
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, trading one for the other. And the benefits of the Brook Road is it's relatively flat.

187
00:40:04.210 --> 00:40:14.309
Town of Plainfield: And it's straight, and that's why it's a truck route, for the most part, from Route 2 to 302. I recognize that that…

188
00:40:14.500 --> 00:40:36.379
Town of Plainfield: also has a lot of issues with washouts and bridges, and… but there are families that live along that road, still, a lot of them, and access for them. And so, you know, and then the extending Cameron Road up onto East Hill, that's just… that feels like a throwaway idea, honestly. That just seems…

189
00:40:36.380 --> 00:40:59.589
Town of Plainfield: a little ridiculous. And then option is do nothing, and we just keep suffering along the way we have, and just do nothing. So, I'm concerned about, the rerouting, over… and creating a brand new road that may just be the same issue, only a little higher. So, that's… those are my thoughts.

190
00:41:01.210 --> 00:41:02.930
Town of Plainfield: Right, thank you.

191
00:41:06.820 --> 00:41:10.290
Town of Plainfield: I have a simple question, Michael Billingsley.

192
00:41:10.390 --> 00:41:23.609
Town of Plainfield: I wondered if someone could compare the number of bridges that would need to be repaired if the brick road was built back as it was, in other words, from Cameron Road up to the top.

193
00:41:23.610 --> 00:41:42.080
Town of Plainfield: and from the Cameron Road intersection up to the top, I mean, compared to the number, I think you said 4, Sandy, of bridges that would likely have to be built on the realignment, and whether there is an immediate sense of the relative amount of

194
00:41:42.310 --> 00:41:56.830
Town of Plainfield: construction cost and trouble comparing putting those bridges back at the Brook Road in an improved way versus new bridges up in the alignment. Is that something that's already been discussed?

195
00:41:57.200 --> 00:42:20.890
Town of Plainfield: Well, we discussed it at VHB, but we haven't done much with it yet, we're just getting started. So, the alternative alignment does go along Cameron Road, and then it kind of follows the ridge. I mean, this is how the idea came to be from the town, because it was like, oh, well, we have this Cameron Road, it's already up on the hill, let's just continue out the ridge on relatively level ground.

196
00:42:20.950 --> 00:42:34.100
Town of Plainfield: And as Brook Road comes back up, then we can meet it 2 miles to the south, and the grades should work okay. So that was the idea. You… the group is right, there are some…

197
00:42:34.340 --> 00:42:49.939
Town of Plainfield: smaller brooks that come down off the side of the hill from the east, and then down into Great Brook. So Great Brook, obviously, is the biggest stream in the area, and the road is right on the brook. So…

198
00:42:50.090 --> 00:42:54.730
Town of Plainfield: It has the best chance of continuing to suffer from washouts in the future.

199
00:42:54.760 --> 00:42:58.760
Town of Plainfield: Again, thus the idea to maybe move the road away from the brook.

200
00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:23.299
Town of Plainfield: We would have to cross several of these crossings that we heard about tonight with the new road, there's no doubt about it. Even one of the streams is Mac. It's got a funny name, Mackinac? Yes. I can't tell you what it is, but I know it's there, it's shown on the map, and that's kind of the biggest brook.

201
00:43:23.300 --> 00:43:48.209
Town of Plainfield: And that, you know, looks to be maybe a third of the size of the Great Brook. I don't know exactly, but there are some other, you can see in the contours, other draws of whatever comes down. These would be smaller streams. So we might be able to get away with some smaller box culverts, or even pipes. The bigger brook probably would need a small bridge. So, these are the kinds of things, though, that we have to look at as we go through the alternatives analysis, so we can provide

202
00:43:48.210 --> 00:44:07.789
Town of Plainfield: with that information. That's just one of the kind of things that we'll be looking at when we get into it. And how many bridges at the bottom was my third part of the question? Well, we have these three in the stretch that we're talking about. So it's bridge 23, 24, and 12 are the three that we're trying to get away from replacing

203
00:44:08.290 --> 00:44:11.099
Town of Plainfield: If we go with this alternative alignment.

204
00:44:11.100 --> 00:44:12.170
Richard Rubin: I'm unmuted.

205
00:44:12.610 --> 00:44:14.879
Town of Plainfield: Those three bridges with this project.

206
00:44:15.230 --> 00:44:32.810
Town of Plainfield: You know, all the way down to Cameron Road is Bridge 22, right? Jamie pointed to that in our first slide. That bridge is in really tough shape, but it was fixed up after the 24 flood, and it's been open to traffic ever since. So it's still standing. The town trying to get that replaced is part of the

207
00:44:32.810 --> 00:44:36.800
Town of Plainfield: all the other projects, and FHWA said.

208
00:44:36.890 --> 00:44:48.570
Town of Plainfield: you already fixed it. We're not coming back and replacing that for you, that's your problem. That bridge has been in bad shape a long time. So, it's up the playing field to fix that bridge, you know, until it falls into the river.

209
00:44:49.090 --> 00:44:56.660
Town of Plainfield: So it's just the three bridges. Plus, there's a couple of big blowouts, too, right? There's whole sections of the road that are gone, so they have to get built as well.

210
00:45:00.580 --> 00:45:19.190
Town of Plainfield: Lloyd Farnam here. The past two floods, me and my sons had worked helping clean out the bridges and get the roads reopened. It was nice to see in the video that you guys acknowledged that the trees were plugging all the bridges, and that's what took them out, because that's exactly what happened.

211
00:45:19.670 --> 00:45:23.919
Town of Plainfield: Two, I'm very familiar with that alternate route.

212
00:45:24.150 --> 00:45:36.630
Town of Plainfield: There's huge canyons down through there. Building that road out through there is gonna create more water by channeling ditches and whatnot, sending it down over the hill to the residents that are still there.

213
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:40.950
Town of Plainfield: The brook has created a huge…

214
00:45:41.410 --> 00:45:55.410
Town of Plainfield: flood zone down through there. If the brook was re-channeled, taken advantage of the area that it's created into a flood zone, new bridges put in big enough so the debris could go down through.

215
00:45:55.630 --> 00:45:57.870
Town of Plainfield: That… the road would probably be…

216
00:45:58.140 --> 00:46:03.340
Town of Plainfield: great the way it was. They did a similar project down in Rutland.

217
00:46:03.480 --> 00:46:06.550
Town of Plainfield: With a brook down through there, they re…

218
00:46:06.670 --> 00:46:12.749
Town of Plainfield: redirected to Brook, created a flood plain on both sides, filled it back in.

219
00:46:12.990 --> 00:46:15.570
Town of Plainfield: That's still there, and it's doing great.

220
00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:20.019
Town of Plainfield: But I think the town as a whole.

221
00:46:20.440 --> 00:46:24.710
Town of Plainfield: Owes it to our neighbors that are being,

222
00:46:26.780 --> 00:46:30.209
Town of Plainfield: Restricted from their homes by going all the way around.

223
00:46:30.470 --> 00:46:34.139
Town of Plainfield: They have property there, we owe it to them to put that road back in.

224
00:46:34.890 --> 00:46:43.869
Town of Plainfield: If we do go an alternate route, we still have… they still have to have the same route that they had, and they're still down in the hole.

225
00:46:44.520 --> 00:47:03.829
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Thank you. There's a stack of three online, so you know. Okay. Let's go one more here, and we'll jump to online. Yeah, I'm Annie Coughlin, and I live on the corner of Brook Road and Creamery Street in the village, and I've lived there for about 23 years.

226
00:47:03.980 --> 00:47:14.340
Town of Plainfield: So I'm thinking about money, and how much everything's gonna cost, And I think that…

227
00:47:14.490 --> 00:47:24.139
Town of Plainfield: even though the feds will pay for a lot, I think that we still have to meet a match. And so, we're a small town.

228
00:47:24.260 --> 00:47:32.039
Town of Plainfield: And… I would be heartbroken if we spent all this money, and then it just got washed out again.

229
00:47:32.420 --> 00:47:38.430
Town of Plainfield: And so, I would really like to come up with a solution.

230
00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:45.959
Town of Plainfield: Where we get out of the Great Brook. I know it's… it's hard, but…

231
00:47:46.710 --> 00:48:01.390
Town of Plainfield: the idea of we get 75% of the money, maybe we can, like, upgrade East Hill, we can make safer and better connections for the people that are cut off now.

232
00:48:01.640 --> 00:48:06.200
Town of Plainfield: And then it doesn't end up getting washed out all over again.

233
00:48:10.310 --> 00:48:21.429
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you. We have some questions online? Yeah, Keith Buxton, are you… you have… you said you would submit comments publicly?

234
00:48:21.910 --> 00:48:26.829
Town of Plainfield: And if not, Daniel Hardy is next, followed by Richard Rubin.

235
00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:33.030
Town of Plainfield: Pick up Dan.

236
00:48:34.720 --> 00:48:40.019
Town of Plainfield: It's muted. You are muted, Dan.

237
00:48:40.410 --> 00:48:42.820
Daniel Hardy: Am I… am I not muted now?

238
00:48:43.210 --> 00:48:44.550
Town of Plainfield: You're good.

239
00:48:44.980 --> 00:48:56.890
Daniel Hardy: I've been listening to this, and I understand the concerns of everybody on this road. I'm Daniel Hardy, I live at 652 Brook Road. I've lived here since 1962.

240
00:48:57.310 --> 00:48:58.950
Daniel Hardy: And I've witnessed.

241
00:48:58.950 --> 00:48:59.840
Town of Plainfield: This.

242
00:48:59.840 --> 00:49:00.600
Daniel Hardy: Bruh.

243
00:49:00.970 --> 00:49:06.579
Daniel Hardy: all these years. And… my immediate perusal

244
00:49:06.970 --> 00:49:11.849
Daniel Hardy: of the floods ever since 62. Every time that man

245
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:14.419
Daniel Hardy: I've tried to correct this brook.

246
00:49:14.830 --> 00:49:16.720
Daniel Hardy: She has come back with vengeance.

247
00:49:17.490 --> 00:49:18.280
Richard Rubin: Bye.

248
00:49:18.280 --> 00:49:19.270
Daniel Hardy: Mother Nature.

249
00:49:19.520 --> 00:49:25.690
Daniel Hardy: And, most recently, 2 years in a row, Ironically, I don't think ironically.

250
00:49:25.890 --> 00:49:29.169
Daniel Hardy: On the same date, and at the same time.

251
00:49:29.540 --> 00:49:31.799
Daniel Hardy: But with more fears and force.

252
00:49:32.050 --> 00:49:43.139
Daniel Hardy: Now, the last comment I heard is that, people are re… are restricted. No, people are inconvenienced. I also suggested way back.

253
00:49:43.250 --> 00:49:46.080
Daniel Hardy: That… I think Cameron Road Bridge.

254
00:49:46.690 --> 00:49:52.480
Daniel Hardy: Leading to my house should not have been corrected. That washes out all the time, too.

255
00:49:52.660 --> 00:50:07.109
Daniel Hardy: And Cameron Road would have another means. I would have another means. It's being inconvenienced. And I like Annie's last question, what is the money? Our taxes here are enormous.

256
00:50:07.780 --> 00:50:16.790
Daniel Hardy: what is that gonna be if Brook Road is built? Thirdly, that is a canyon. That is not a washout. That is a canyon.

257
00:50:16.970 --> 00:50:24.610
Daniel Hardy: And from my understanding of living on this brook, to disrupt the flow of that river is against the law.

258
00:50:25.050 --> 00:50:32.359
Daniel Hardy: And that river, that brook, has taken over the main course of that ravine. And it's a ravine.

259
00:50:32.360 --> 00:50:33.370
Richard Rubin: Do we know what?

260
00:50:34.420 --> 00:50:36.319
Richard Rubin: Where would that spend a month.

261
00:50:37.230 --> 00:50:38.220
Daniel Hardy: I'm sorry?

262
00:50:41.990 --> 00:50:55.970
Daniel Hardy: You know, yes, I do not miss the traffic or the trucks. I understand it. I also remember when they widened this brook road when I was growing up. They took out all the trees on our property.

263
00:50:56.180 --> 00:50:59.279
Daniel Hardy: All the maple trees and everything to widen it.

264
00:50:59.640 --> 00:51:03.449
Daniel Hardy: That may have to be done on, on, on East Hill.

265
00:51:03.640 --> 00:51:08.910
Daniel Hardy: But it was donehill. And also, that washout

266
00:51:09.380 --> 00:51:13.609
Daniel Hardy: after my house, the next bridge up from Cameron Road.

267
00:51:13.720 --> 00:51:18.410
Daniel Hardy: It's a washout. It is… I just can't imagine

268
00:51:18.510 --> 00:51:26.770
Daniel Hardy: The labor and force of not only disturbing that brook, But the money involved…

269
00:51:27.260 --> 00:51:30.760
Daniel Hardy: And all the people, there's many homes there that are abandoned.

270
00:51:31.190 --> 00:51:35.570
Daniel Hardy: And would cost more to get rid of them than what they're worth.

271
00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:47.200
Daniel Hardy: Currently, Ernie's trailer should be removed before it collapses into the brook. It falls down 90 or 100 feet.

272
00:51:47.420 --> 00:51:50.280
Daniel Hardy: And there's squatters living in that now.

273
00:51:50.690 --> 00:51:56.839
Daniel Hardy: So, I understand, the inconvenience. The inconvenience.

274
00:51:57.230 --> 00:52:01.259
Daniel Hardy: Not the restriction, everybody that has property

275
00:52:02.100 --> 00:52:03.729
Daniel Hardy: Has a way to get home.

276
00:52:04.010 --> 00:52:07.430
Daniel Hardy: And I would gladly take a different way to get home.

277
00:52:07.670 --> 00:52:09.809
Daniel Hardy: And… alright.

278
00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:29.369
Daniel Hardy: I think I… and the money. Let's address Annie… Annie's question. The money involved for this. And I'm suggesting that all these people that be… be compensated with that money to move. Their property won't be worth value to sell.

279
00:52:29.550 --> 00:52:34.730
Daniel Hardy: And they would have to get flood insurance. So, that's my two cents, and thank you.

280
00:52:35.260 --> 00:52:37.110
Richard Rubin: Make sure.

281
00:52:37.110 --> 00:52:41.790
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you. Richard Grubman.

282
00:52:42.630 --> 00:52:45.310
Richard Rubin: Hi. Can you hear me? I guess you can.

283
00:52:45.470 --> 00:52:46.210
Town of Plainfield: Yes.

284
00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:52.179
Richard Rubin: I live on East Hill, next to Peter Young Bear, and the traffic that's come through.

285
00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:53.020
Town of Plainfield: from…

286
00:52:53.020 --> 00:53:00.399
Richard Rubin: East Barry, going to Route 2 is significant up here. It's gonna become a different road.

287
00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:08.140
Richard Rubin: It's a real problem. It used to go down the Brook Road, as we all know, so that… I'd like to see the Brook Road reconstructed.

288
00:53:08.330 --> 00:53:13.439
Richard Rubin: The other thing is, we had a fairly mild mud season this year.

289
00:53:13.870 --> 00:53:15.079
Richard Rubin: Believe it or not.

290
00:53:15.210 --> 00:53:19.590
Richard Rubin: But last year, the mud season was terrible, and the…

291
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:24.139
Richard Rubin: 30% increased traffic on this road made…

292
00:53:24.460 --> 00:53:27.129
Richard Rubin: It's 4 miles from my house to the village.

293
00:53:27.520 --> 00:53:44.610
Richard Rubin: It's really difficult to maintain East Hill Road, as well as the safety issues, so that… that's another issue. It's also possible, if the Brook Road were rebuilt, there could be more housing along that 2 to 4 mile stretch, which would bring more revenue to town.

294
00:53:44.740 --> 00:53:45.780
Town of Plainfield: So…

295
00:53:45.780 --> 00:54:00.050
Richard Rubin: I understand the cost, and that's one thing I don't understand how much our share would be, but the last thing is, there was a reference at the beginning to the town actually engaged in some, flood discussion management of the brook.

296
00:54:01.250 --> 00:54:06.710
Richard Rubin: It's probably… I don't know whether that's part of this process, but there is a floodplain potential

297
00:54:07.400 --> 00:54:23.250
Richard Rubin: out into Orange is that big… the big old barn out there. It's a big, huge flood plain, and there's some conversation about making a potential diversion so that the water that comes off of the mountains that flooded us out last year.

298
00:54:23.300 --> 00:54:38.800
Richard Rubin: 9 and 7 or 9 inches of rain could be diverted out into that flat land out beyond where the brook meets East Hill… Brook Road meets East Hill Road. I don't know whether… I hope that's… the town talks about that and discusses that as a way of preventing the…

299
00:54:38.980 --> 00:54:43.740
Richard Rubin: The catastrophic floods from occurring again. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

300
00:54:47.220 --> 00:54:58.820
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you. So, on that note, as far as the town working on another project to potentially increase flood storage, and we heard it from over here, too.

301
00:54:59.100 --> 00:55:05.620
Town of Plainfield: The study that SLR is doing, so the other consultant we mentioned, is studying the brook.

302
00:55:05.620 --> 00:55:30.240
Town of Plainfield: they are going to be looking at ways to help keep the village from flooding. And that may include some recommendations about some floodplain widening or other measures where they can impound water and keep it from rushing all down at the same time and getting to the village. So, that's going on concurrently, but independently, it's not part of this project, but we are hoping that what they are finding

303
00:55:30.240 --> 00:55:33.979
Town of Plainfield: is going to help inform what the town should do with Brook Road as well.

304
00:55:40.660 --> 00:56:05.549
Town of Plainfield: Sandy Ross, I just have two more quick things. You were talking about putting in big box culverts instead of having to build bridges on these gorges. We've had those flood out also, at the top of Fowler Road, and it destroyed half the road, you know, half the length of the road. And the other thing is, I'm not an engineer, and I don't know how this would work.

305
00:56:05.550 --> 00:56:18.640
Town of Plainfield: But one of the things that I've noticed driving on the Brookard all these years is the brook comes down like this, and then the bridge is over here. It's almost a right angle at almost every bridge.

306
00:56:18.650 --> 00:56:24.110
Town of Plainfield: No wonder debris gets stuck. It just has nowhere to go.

307
00:56:25.040 --> 00:56:33.780
Town of Plainfield: You know, I know you can't move everything, but certainly you could make it less of an acute angle.

308
00:56:37.850 --> 00:57:01.190
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, the, the brook and the road are parallel, and almost in the same exact spot. So, when it comes to a point where the brook has to cross the road, you have these wicked skews, which certainly are part of the problem with the Great Brook, trying to… you think about all the stuff coming down the brook, and then it has to turn.

309
00:57:01.190 --> 00:57:25.749
Town of Plainfield: a tree has to turn and get under a bridge. So, what we do nowadays, to the extent that we can, we do try to lengthen those spans and open them up, and we look at the opening, normal to the brook, so perpendicular to the brook, what do you need? So, you know, maybe the brook is only 30 feet, but when you're on this bad skew, it actually has to be 60 or 80 feet, right? So the things coming down can

310
00:57:25.750 --> 00:57:30.580
Town of Plainfield: pass on the bridge. So that is part of what we do in new bridge design.

311
00:57:32.980 --> 00:57:57.950
Town of Plainfield: Hi folks, my name is Nicole, and I live, on the corner of the Brook Road and Peaceful Way. I am on the stretch of road, essentially, between Gray Road and East Hill Road, so my commute, is… it's not an inconvenience of how long it is, it's… goes… it went from, like, 10 minutes to, like, 17 minutes, and I think the other thing, we're thinking about safety.

312
00:57:59.050 --> 00:58:22.190
Town of Plainfield: it's not an inconvenience for me to call for an ambulance or something, and those 7 minutes, if my kid's having an asthma attack or needs an EpiPen or something, that matters, and that's not an inconvenience, so I want to really stress that, that this isn't about, like, trying to… this isn't about inconvenience, this is not, like, convenience, like, it's a lot.

313
00:58:22.190 --> 00:58:28.680
Town of Plainfield: The other thing that I'll say is, like, I guess I am in favor of trying to rebuild the road the way that it was

314
00:58:28.680 --> 00:58:53.189
Town of Plainfield: I am hearing, I've heard from other people that we might need to make bigger sections and other things. What I've also heard from you is that we're looking at taking sections that were 30 feet and making them 60 feet. So, problems that people are bringing up, you've already addressed, you know, by already, like, talking about making these bridges wider and things like that. I do understand funding's a problem. You know, I understand that none of us want our taxes to go up, I get that.

315
00:58:53.190 --> 00:58:57.800
Town of Plainfield: I'm a single mom, none of us want that to happen, but also it's really important that, like.

316
00:58:57.800 --> 00:59:08.270
Town of Plainfield: this is how we're living, and how we're getting to work, and how we're actually, again, existing. Another thing for me is that, you know, all school year long.

317
00:59:08.270 --> 00:59:13.299
Town of Plainfield: I can't have the bus pick up my kid at my house. I'm having to drive her out

318
00:59:13.300 --> 00:59:37.859
Town of Plainfield: to Gray, you know, I'm sorry, to Brook Road and, East Hill Road, because the bus can't make it down Gray Road. Like, it's not safe. So that's why it is important that we are, you know, expanding, you know, access and reconsidering what it would mean to, like, really reopen the road. And, you know, to look at, you know, flood mitigation, you know, ahead of, you know, at the top of things. You know, and I do hear what everyone is saying about cost.

319
00:59:37.970 --> 00:59:55.579
Town of Plainfield: And what I do hear about everyone, and nobody wants to lose their land. There's a lot of things to consider, but also, like, there are people, there are a lot of us that actually live on the other side of, between Gray Road and East Hill Road, and, like, there's a lot of us that are actually impacted by that. So, that's all I'll say.

320
00:59:56.260 --> 01:00:00.300
Town of Plainfield: There's one online here, it's in the chat above you.

321
01:00:03.230 --> 01:00:07.900
Town of Plainfield: From George? The one above is from Bob Atchinson.

322
01:00:08.030 --> 01:00:22.190
Town of Plainfield: Has the previous flooding relieved the pressure points along the Brook Way? And if so, is there a guarantee that the new construction techniques using piles to bedrock will be flood-proof, given the worsening climate emergency?

323
01:00:22.190 --> 01:00:28.200
Town of Plainfield: For example, two bridges built in 1991 are only 35 years old. Yeah, it's kind of funny, those,

324
01:00:28.200 --> 01:00:53.100
Town of Plainfield: I guess it's not funny, but the newer bridges didn't seem to be any better off than the old bridge that was about 100 years old. So, you know, there's no guarantees with engineering. You just can't plan for everything, but the way we build bridges now is quite a bit more resilient than it used to be, especially these style of bridges that you have out there now.

325
01:00:53.180 --> 01:01:17.039
Town of Plainfield: where the foundations are very shallow at the brook elevation, we will likely, if we replace these bridges, go down with piles through the soil, down to perhaps 40 or 50 or 60 feet. And that's where all the weight is supported on these piles, right? So, even if the brook comes through, and it washes away around the abutments, and it washes the road approach behind the abutment.

326
01:01:17.300 --> 01:01:26.270
Town of Plainfield: I've seen many photos of bridges on piles, where the bridge is just still standing there on stilts, effectively, and then the repair is…

327
01:01:26.270 --> 01:01:44.819
Town of Plainfield: quite a bit less expensive than replacing the bridge. You come in, you backfill all the material that was lost around the abutments, under the abutments, and you do some other usually minor repairs, and those bridges are then ready for the next storm, after you do these mostly earthwork repairs.

328
01:01:44.820 --> 01:01:51.289
Town of Plainfield: So, the bridges will be better, will I guarantee that they will not get trashed next time?

329
01:01:52.210 --> 01:01:54.040
Town of Plainfield: We hope not, but you just never know.

330
01:01:59.190 --> 01:02:02.059
Town of Plainfield: Lewis Scott.

331
01:02:02.120 --> 01:02:19.689
Town of Plainfield: I wanna, I wanna, remind everybody that one of the things that went down through, and I'm sure it did a lot of damage to bridges, was our next-door neighbor had a 30-foot camper and a 70-foot mobile home, and both of those went all the way down through, along with 3 full-size vehicles.

332
01:02:19.950 --> 01:02:30.110
Town of Plainfield: That had to have done a lot of damage to the bridges. You know, maybe not the… maybe not the walls and the roof, but the frames to those trailers are quite sound.

333
01:02:30.280 --> 01:02:38.989
Town of Plainfield: So, I know that did a lot of the damage. The other thing that I think about is that if you reroute the road.

334
01:02:39.720 --> 01:02:59.520
Town of Plainfield: do you just leave the Brookbanks the way the Brook has made them, or do we shore it up to maybe make the town a little more secure? And if we shore them up to make the town more secure, you gotta be looking at the cost of doing that as well. So if you're gonna be putting the cost of that into the Brook bed.

335
01:03:00.040 --> 01:03:01.550
Town of Plainfield: I mean, it just…

336
01:03:01.660 --> 01:03:13.940
Town of Plainfield: It just seems to me like you go right through the book road, instead of re-roading it. And by the way, we bought our house 39 years ago, I think, and…

337
01:03:14.110 --> 01:03:18.770
Town of Plainfield: Our… at the bottom of our driveway, we had a brand new bridge.

338
01:03:19.160 --> 01:03:24.040
Town of Plainfield: And about 3 years after living there, we had our first flood that we were involved in.

339
01:03:24.200 --> 01:03:26.029
Town of Plainfield: And it was devastating.

340
01:03:26.090 --> 01:03:42.680
Town of Plainfield: But that tributary stream that comes down through, off from, I guess you'd call it East Hill, go up the end of Cameron, where you're talking about putting in a new road, that picked that bridge right up and turned it. So they had to… that was 5 years later that they had to build another bridge.

341
01:03:42.680 --> 01:03:47.369
Town of Plainfield: So, those tributary streams are nothing to laugh at. I mean…

342
01:03:47.400 --> 01:03:55.130
Town of Plainfield: they rage when they come down through there. So, I just want everybody to be aware of all of that.

343
01:03:55.680 --> 01:04:15.809
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, when we, if we're to rebuild the road, we do certainly want to be putting armoring in those washout spots. Some of that was done after the 23 flood. There was some riprap, heavy stone that was placed against the side of the road to keep it from washing out. There were a couple spots there that had some maintenance like that, but,

344
01:04:15.810 --> 01:04:36.920
Town of Plainfield: Basically, the soils all through there are sands and gravels, highly erodible, and we have to be aware of that and design for that if we were to rebuild the road. The road bed is made of those sands and gravels, so if they're not protected from the forces of the water with heavy riprap, then you can expect to lose sections of the road again.

345
01:04:36.920 --> 01:04:45.999
Town of Plainfield: It's not as expensive as a bridge, but still, it's a cost to the town that we want to design to try to minimize the damage in future events, too.

346
01:04:47.690 --> 01:04:49.090
Town of Plainfield: Next.

347
01:04:50.140 --> 01:05:00.350
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Michael Billingson again. I've heard SLR International mentioned a couple of times, and it hasn't,

348
01:05:00.510 --> 01:05:04.320
Town of Plainfield: escaped my attention. We've got a similar report.

349
01:05:04.600 --> 01:05:29.400
Town of Plainfield: to the townspeople, asking, again, for you to come, and to be as interactive as tonight, to talk about how the bridge and… brook and road behave together, what the bridges… excuse me, what the brook dynamics are, and how… what they will have learned. You're aware that there have been helicopter flights over the last weekend, and they were to really try and see exactly what the bottom

350
01:05:29.400 --> 01:05:52.100
Town of Plainfield: Brookbed look like, and exactly how they had carved a new floodplain for itself so that it could be modeled, and then we could talk hypothetically about whether it can contain a certain amount of water, or a certain level of flooding, or a certain amount of rain. And if you're curious about that whole side of the thing, they're giving their next presentation, SLR, on Thursday night, July 16th.

351
01:05:52.310 --> 01:06:01.780
Town of Plainfield: in this room. This is with the Hazard Mitigation Committee of the Town of Plainfield, and also I should add that anyone who's not familiar with how

352
01:06:01.780 --> 01:06:20.829
Town of Plainfield: streams of this sort, or rivers interact with the terrain around them. We're going to have what's called a stream table sometime in the month of June, where people can come and actually experiment with what it looks like to put debris into a brook and see how it behaves after that, or a dam, or what kind of cutting or

353
01:06:20.830 --> 01:06:37.779
Town of Plainfield: deepening or speeding up happens when you have different kinds of obstructions for streams, so that you can talk together with one another about how this book behaves using the stream table as an example. So, we're looking ahead to that event in June and that later presentation in July.

354
01:06:40.730 --> 01:06:41.800
Town of Plainfield: Thanks.

355
01:06:46.010 --> 01:07:03.239
Town of Plainfield: Hi, my name is Lauren Geiger, I live at 36 Hudson on the Great Brook, and, the comment that, I think George made about the mobile home and the other, debris that went down the Great Brook is resonating with me, because

356
01:07:03.330 --> 01:07:27.369
Town of Plainfield: I've been voluntarily picking up trash at my neighbor's property and around the town, and it's very discouraging to see how much leftover garbage there is at various sites up and down the Brook Road and in other places along the Winooski, and I'm just wondering if the Select Board can do something to encourage

357
01:07:27.550 --> 01:07:38.880
Town of Plainfield: homeowners who still have tons of leftover debris that anytime there's another flood, we know what's gonna happen with it. It's gonna be floating in front of my house.

358
01:07:39.120 --> 01:07:48.699
Town of Plainfield: That debris really needs to be moved, and it would be an issue if we build new bridges, too, so I just wanted to bring that up.

359
01:08:01.320 --> 01:08:26.190
Town of Plainfield: Tammy Farnam. I'm gonna echo also what Lloyd did, so it's a farming thing. I, I really think that we need to stop and consider, even if we do a new road or, you know, fix the Brook Road, I think all of us can say that we drove up Brook Road and said, yep, we're gonna have a flood, because of all the debris that's in the

360
01:08:26.189 --> 01:08:28.659
Town of Plainfield: It's consistent. I mean, it's…

361
01:08:28.660 --> 01:08:37.459
Town of Plainfield: We see it every time. We have a flood, they go and clean it out. We're great for a little while, but then we have high waters, and that gets,

362
01:08:37.500 --> 01:08:56.259
Town of Plainfield: back to having debris in the brook again. The other thing I know they said, I think you said, that we would worry about… seems like we always worry about the roadside and putting debris, you know, the big stones, but it feels like the other side of the brook needs to be addressed.

363
01:08:56.260 --> 01:09:20.950
Town of Plainfield: That's where you're getting the trees. It, you know, hits the side of the bank, and then comes down, and if we could… if we're fixing only one side, how do we keep it away from the other side? Is there a way to get a permit? I know when I was on the select board, we talked about the brook, bridge right in the village, and we were going to get a permit to be able to go into the brook. Is there a way to go and, you know, dig some of that out, keep it in the bank?

364
01:09:20.950 --> 01:09:32.330
Town of Plainfield: itself and address those issues. And then just overall maintenance, I don't… and again, I'm talking about when I was on the sweat board, I know we get bridge reports.

365
01:09:32.330 --> 01:09:46.570
Town of Plainfield: That say how… the condition of our bridge is. And I think that it doesn't matter what we do, we need to start thinking about how to maintain what we have. And that might be looking at these bridges, because most of these bridges

366
01:09:46.569 --> 01:09:54.249
Town of Plainfield: I can honestly say, had issues before this bridge… this, flood happened. So we were kind of… it was a time bomb.

367
01:09:54.279 --> 01:10:02.730
Town of Plainfield: waiting to happen. We had a lot of bridges that needed maintenance, and it only takes one to go, and then we have all that debris.

368
01:10:02.730 --> 01:10:18.479
Town of Plainfield: that… from somebody's lawn, because it creates a surge. So it's something to consider as we go forward, if we decide either way. I think maintaining what we have on a consistent basis. I know Rutland, I think they consistently have,

369
01:10:18.600 --> 01:10:40.479
Town of Plainfield: a construction company come in annually and review bridges and debris and things like that, whether it be chunking up, logs that are in the brook, whatever that be, but I do… I'm gonna echo again what Lloyd said. I think it… as we all saw it coming, and it's, you know, too bad that we didn't do something at that time.

370
01:10:43.570 --> 01:10:46.349
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you for those thoughts.

371
01:10:46.560 --> 01:11:01.650
Town of Plainfield: The, I think the SLR study will, to some extent, take a look at the other side of the brook, you know, more comprehensively what to do with the brook, and how that can be better protected and keep the stuff from the far side falling into it and then coming downstream.

372
01:11:01.900 --> 01:11:07.450
Town of Plainfield: We have a question from Daniel Hardy and a comment from John Cleary in the chat.

373
01:11:07.850 --> 01:11:12.059
Town of Plainfield: Daniel Hardy, you have another question and comment? Are you with us?

374
01:11:12.060 --> 01:11:23.259
Daniel Hardy: Yes, thank you. I first want to address Louis, my good neighbor Louis' comment. That debris of the trailer and the cars ended up on my beach.

375
01:11:23.610 --> 01:11:28.310
Daniel Hardy: I will remind people, again, that I lived here since 62.

376
01:11:28.440 --> 01:11:47.110
Daniel Hardy: Every time that man has interfered with this brook, that brook, when I was growing up, at the widest spot, was maybe 5 feet, 6 feet across, with trees abutting right to the banks. Every time they brought in bulldozers and flattened it out.

377
01:11:47.520 --> 01:11:51.919
Daniel Hardy: It… it just made it, the current, much more flowable.

378
01:11:52.240 --> 01:11:53.170
Daniel Hardy: And…

379
01:11:53.210 --> 01:12:07.109
Daniel Hardy: this last blood to remove the debris that Louis believed ended up in the town, but on my property, they've flattened it out. I have a swath of deserted land.

380
01:12:07.120 --> 01:12:14.519
Daniel Hardy: Mind you, I'm still paying taxes on it. And, it's easily a football field long.

381
01:12:14.840 --> 01:12:17.250
Daniel Hardy: It is flat. It is ugly.

382
01:12:17.720 --> 01:12:18.520
Daniel Hardy: That's all.

383
01:12:21.570 --> 01:12:23.800
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you.

384
01:12:28.580 --> 01:12:33.779
Town of Plainfield: I need to get a comment from John Clarin?

385
01:12:34.070 --> 01:12:44.959
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, I live in Great Road. Initially, I was open-minded that maybe we didn't need to reopen Brook Road, but after months of driving up and around East Hill, I realized this isn't a great option.

386
01:12:45.160 --> 01:12:49.619
Town of Plainfield: I support fixing Brook Road and building bigger bridges in place on the garbage ones.

387
01:12:50.140 --> 01:12:55.370
Town of Plainfield: And look at Scotty's, above, above Daniel Hardy. Yeah.

388
01:12:55.410 --> 01:13:11.450
Town of Plainfield: Heavy riprap didn't help Cameron Road. So this is the fix right at Brook Road? Yeah. That has… what's happened there? Is it failing, or is the road starting to collapse again? It failed at least 3 or 4 times, and has been completely rebuilt.

389
01:13:13.490 --> 01:13:33.059
Town of Plainfield: Thanks. Carl Bissex, I, I'm the road commissioner now. So a lot of this I'm paying a lot of attention to, and I can tell you that the Select Board, when I was on the Select Board, was paying a great deal of attention to what we're going to do with

390
01:13:34.320 --> 01:13:41.380
Town of Plainfield: And recognizing people wanted to stay. I'm interested in hearing your discussion of

391
01:13:41.590 --> 01:13:50.000
Town of Plainfield: the double in the width, which I think is helpful, and the… the, piles that will be

392
01:13:50.480 --> 01:13:52.379
Town of Plainfield: Down much below.

393
01:13:52.860 --> 01:13:59.480
Town of Plainfield: the bed, the stream bed. And I think that's going to make the bridges at least safer.

394
01:13:59.730 --> 01:14:19.060
Town of Plainfield: on the Brook Road if we were to do that. So, I just want to… I think that's a really important piece to know. Also, there was a comment about a 25% match. I think it's less than that. No, no, not, I think a 1% match, but it were, like, millions of dollars, you know?

395
01:14:19.060 --> 01:14:38.869
Town of Plainfield: It will be millions of dollars, no question. It's gonna be a lot of money. So what I'm saying is to put that money, the 75% that we could get for an alternative project, to upgrading East Hill, and then upgrading the access road, like Gray Road.

396
01:14:38.870 --> 01:14:42.160
Town of Plainfield: Okay. And then it would… Wash out of it.

397
01:14:42.390 --> 01:14:44.960
Town of Plainfield: Okay, I misunderstood, thanks.

398
01:14:45.200 --> 01:15:02.889
Town of Plainfield: That's all. I just wanted to mention that. Oh, 10%, sorry. Sorry, I thought it was 1% is 10. Lloyd Firearms here again. I wanted to bring one other thing up that…

399
01:15:02.970 --> 01:15:12.029
Town of Plainfield: The condition that the gray road is now, the town struggles to plow that hill. It's very treacherous. I believe this winter they had issues with the truck.

400
01:15:12.290 --> 01:15:15.500
Town of Plainfield: no, it's, it's, it's…

401
01:15:15.540 --> 01:15:34.979
Town of Plainfield: it's a treacherous road to drive, and then you've got to maintain it. And I think that slows our road crew down for doing other roads, because it takes so long, so you've got to be so careful there. And all the landowners or homeowners there, are driving that same road. Sometimes it's not sanded like it should be, because the town

402
01:15:34.980 --> 01:15:39.689
Town of Plainfield: Doesn't have time to get back there. So that the towns…

403
01:15:39.810 --> 01:15:43.390
Town of Plainfield: Trucks are an issue, and this lady over here brought up

404
01:15:45.150 --> 01:15:53.570
Town of Plainfield: the question of ambulances. Two winters ago, my uncle lives down on Brook Road. He needed an ambulance. The ambulance couldn't get there because of the road.

405
01:15:53.860 --> 01:15:58.730
Town of Plainfield: If I hadn't been there to take him to the hospital, he'd had an issue. So…

406
01:15:58.960 --> 01:16:06.669
Town of Plainfield: The people that live there are at risk, not having fire trucks or ambulances or whatever being able to get to them.

407
01:16:06.900 --> 01:16:15.370
Town of Plainfield: And if you do an alternative, you're still gonna have the roads come down to get to those people's houses. They're still in a hole.

408
01:16:15.670 --> 01:16:27.359
Town of Plainfield: And if we abandon the brook, who maintains the brook bed, the sides, we take out the bridges and just leave it wild? The village is gonna take a really hard hit the next time.

409
01:16:27.460 --> 01:16:42.750
Town of Plainfield: So, we walk away from the brook, leave the bridges, abandon it, nobody maintains it. The village is gonna get harder and harder. At least the road's there, it slows the brook down, we're maintaining it. It would be safer for the village.

410
01:16:43.890 --> 01:16:47.730
Town of Plainfield: There's another question in the chat, Evan.

411
01:16:48.190 --> 01:16:57.829
Town of Plainfield: From Nancy Harrison, Scotty? From Nancy Harrison Online, does this plan include the area between the town garage and the village? So, Cameron Road to Brook.

412
01:16:58.070 --> 01:17:11.540
Town of Plainfield: to Creamery, so the, kind of the north end there. As in that area, the roads, both Creamery and Brook, completely washed out, preventing access to the town garage. That area would need to function in order for the rest of Brook Road to function.

413
01:17:11.540 --> 01:17:21.480
Town of Plainfield: So this project does not cover anything below or north of, or on the village side, of Cameron Road. Those repairs…

414
01:17:21.490 --> 01:17:38.730
Town of Plainfield: were made after the storm, and the road has been reopened, and as far as FHWA is concerned, the corridor is now stable in those locations, so no further work is planned at this time. Unless the town has some sort of separate plan, I'm not aware of.

415
01:17:43.970 --> 01:18:02.240
Town of Plainfield: Christy Farnham, yes, there's three of us. At least. I want to call out a couple of things that I haven't heard tonight, in addition to the safety concerns for those of us that are down one of those, now, detours or dead ends, are the costs of what's happening around us.

416
01:18:02.240 --> 01:18:11.719
Town of Plainfield: You would not believe the amount of illegal dumping, illegal drug activity, illegal squatting, violence, theft.

417
01:18:11.720 --> 01:18:16.369
Town of Plainfield: It is scary as beep to live there now.

418
01:18:16.840 --> 01:18:25.980
Town of Plainfield: In addition to those safety concerns of traveling this detour, which Dan Hardy is not an inconvenience, it's a huge cost and a huge safety burden.

419
01:18:26.250 --> 01:18:39.459
Town of Plainfield: There's also challenges that we're experiencing that we don't get aid for. Do you think the value of my property increased living on a dead-end road and limited access and these safety concerns? It did not.

420
01:18:40.040 --> 01:18:44.630
Town of Plainfield: I'm not eligible for buyout, but I'm still impacted.

421
01:18:46.030 --> 01:18:48.460
Town of Plainfield: The town is more than the village.

422
01:18:48.840 --> 01:18:57.770
Town of Plainfield: This is a community, and all of us deserve the same things. Safe access, getting our kids to school.

423
01:18:58.790 --> 01:19:12.789
Town of Plainfield: I don't want people to just talk about the cost that is, like, written about X number of bridges over, you know, whatever period of roadway, when there are other costs that should be considered here.

424
01:19:14.010 --> 01:19:15.196
Town of Plainfield: That's it.

425
01:19:16.360 --> 01:19:18.120
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thanks.

426
01:19:20.760 --> 01:19:27.510
Town of Plainfield: I guess, to kind of… to add, I guess I'm… we're… I'm on, like, this again, the other side of the brook, like…

427
01:19:27.570 --> 01:19:52.269
Town of Plainfield: everything that has been, like, since the flood and, like, the road and everything, it's directly impacting, like, even my, like, consideration to stay in Plainfield. Like, I don't know if it's going to, you know, and again, I have a child that I want to be in school here, like, I want to… I own property here, I want to be here, but, like, it's literally making it harder… this is making it harder for me to exist with a child, and, like, I understand

428
01:19:52.270 --> 01:20:15.999
Town of Plainfield: we're talking about the longevity of, like, our town and our village. Like, we need to have kids in school here. Like, we need to have young people able to live here and, like, having their kids go to school here in order to keep it going, everyone. So, like, that's… as somebody that's, like, a direct impact of this is that I am considering leaving because of all the… that… and the road is, like, one, like, factor of it.

429
01:20:16.000 --> 01:20:30.969
Town of Plainfield: Like, and I don't really want to… I mean, there's other factors, but, like, it is, like, it is a huge factor for, like, us on the other side. And right, my property value probably has gone down because of this. Like, I'm not… I wasn't eligible for, like, a buyout or anything, but I'm still, you know, really, like.

430
01:20:31.540 --> 01:20:36.810
Town of Plainfield: spot that's been, like, real greatly dissipient.

431
01:20:37.380 --> 01:20:56.739
Town of Plainfield: A comment from Joanna Fowler in the chat. Joanna Fowler says, I live on Fowler Road, not surprising, I guess, which is now a dead end. Recently, the road crew had to close the road to replace a culvert, and that meant that there was no access to my house for 6 hours. I would like to see Brook Road repaired, if possible.

432
01:20:58.790 --> 01:21:02.380
Town of Plainfield: So, before Brook Road was flooded out, it was opened.

433
01:21:02.860 --> 01:21:10.189
Town of Plainfield: Why did we drive on Brook Road? This is the shout-out period of the program. What do you use Brook Road for?

434
01:21:10.300 --> 01:21:21.570
Town of Plainfield: You're going to work? Cutting over to 302? Like, what are some of the reasons? Going to the village. Going to the village. Oh, you could go from beyond. Yeah. One mile compared to 6.

435
01:21:22.260 --> 01:21:24.140
Town of Plainfield: Get going to work.

436
01:21:24.220 --> 01:21:37.589
Town of Plainfield: That's where? I live on East Hill Road, but we often would go down Fowler if East Hill Road was too much, where something was wrong with it. It gave us an option. Folks will live on Fowler now, or Cook Road now, don't have

437
01:21:37.590 --> 01:21:46.489
Town of Plainfield: We have one way in, and I'm concerned with the ambulance and the fire truck and stuff like that. School bus? School bus, really. School bus.

438
01:21:46.890 --> 01:22:08.450
Town of Plainfield: So I live on Gray Road, the infamous Gray Road, and yeah, it's fun to drive, I've driven it my entire life, and if you don't know how to drive it, it will eat you up. What I love working for is, for consideration for mud season, and I alter… because everything breaks up at different times, depending, you know, which thaws out first.

439
01:22:08.450 --> 01:22:18.210
Town of Plainfield: And, so that was very convenient. It was, relatively flat, so it was easy to get, you know, down into the village.

440
01:22:18.230 --> 01:22:28.900
Town of Plainfield: And having… I had run the village. Yeah, back and forth to and from the village, and then, also having alternative routes just during winter, like.

441
01:22:29.030 --> 01:22:37.980
Town of Plainfield: what's plowed, what's been sanded, and I have a lot of different options to get on this treacherous hill.

442
01:22:41.070 --> 01:22:59.100
Town of Plainfield: Are the drivers using Brook Road for different stuff? Yeah, there's a tremendous amount of traffic, because I looked at the Brook Road, and between Orange and Plainfield, people going from Cabot to Barrie, they'll go on the Plainfield Road. And I think now maybe they…

443
01:22:59.100 --> 01:23:17.829
Town of Plainfield: tried to stay on pavement, but there was a lot of traffic that was not in town. It was between towns. Some of the, municipal trucks would get their sand and gravel by going on the Brook Road, and they don't want to drive over this town to get that. In the first 6 months after the flood.

444
01:23:17.830 --> 01:23:29.380
Town of Plainfield: Driving back to my house on East Hill Road and then down Gray Road, I only two times met a car with someone in it who I knew.

445
01:23:31.000 --> 01:23:33.950
Town of Plainfield: There's a lot of other traffic.

446
01:23:34.270 --> 01:23:48.129
Town of Plainfield: Friendly reminder to state your name when speaking. Sorry. It's all good. May I also ask that we use the mic so that each person who's sharing his voice can be heard by all the participants? Sure. Thank you.

447
01:23:50.930 --> 01:24:01.170
Town of Plainfield: Nancy Young. I live on the Brook Road, a couple doors down from Dawn. Do we have an idea of how many households slash people are in this zone?

448
01:24:01.470 --> 01:24:03.699
Town of Plainfield: that are affected.

449
01:24:03.800 --> 01:24:06.499
Town of Plainfield: by the closure of the Brook Road.

450
01:24:10.460 --> 01:24:11.969
Town of Plainfield: I don't know.

451
01:24:12.170 --> 01:24:24.330
Town of Plainfield: How many homes are… well, there's some on Brook Road, right? But not too many, but then there are these other roads that people are using Brook Road to get to and from. Battle Road. Yeah.

452
01:24:24.360 --> 01:24:41.860
Town of Plainfield: In the zone. Yeah, there's a triangle there, Michelle? A lot of them are here. That's not that many people. Well, but there's more people there. Sandy Ross, I know Lister for the town, and…

453
01:24:42.760 --> 01:24:48.569
Town of Plainfield: Sandy Ross, I'm a Lister for the town, and I have been for 35 years.

454
01:24:48.700 --> 01:24:56.369
Town of Plainfield: We counted up the impact along the Brook Road, and it was, if I remember correctly, about 40 houses.

455
01:24:56.750 --> 01:25:15.299
Town of Plainfield: So it's a lot more people than that, and that's just along the Brook Road, not the adjoining areas, like Maxfield Road, or Gore Road, or Fowler Road, or Gray Road, or Cameron, or even Upper Road. Anything that funnels into the Brook Road. That was just along the Brook Road.

456
01:25:23.490 --> 01:25:28.360
Town of Plainfield: Other questions, thoughts? One more from Daniel Harding.

457
01:25:28.650 --> 01:25:29.569
Daniel Hardy: Hi, thank you.

458
01:25:29.570 --> 01:25:31.180
Town of Plainfield: Harvey, you're up again.

459
01:25:31.180 --> 01:25:40.760
Daniel Hardy: Yes, thank you. I'll address Christy Farnum. Everybody should congratulate her on her recent engagement to Dennis.

460
01:25:41.310 --> 01:25:42.930
Daniel Hardy: Balor Road.

461
01:25:45.350 --> 01:25:46.010
Daniel Hardy: And,

462
01:25:47.060 --> 01:25:56.950
Daniel Hardy: Yes, and Christy, I wanted to be inconvenient. As I stated earlier, I didn't think that the bridge after

463
01:25:57.450 --> 01:26:11.779
Daniel Hardy: Dr. Cameron Road should have been repaired. And I… I am also inconvenienced, and I was willing to go out of my way to get to my house. And, Ronnie and Jenny Wells, they were the only ones.

464
01:26:11.830 --> 01:26:18.809
Daniel Hardy: That was… I initially said that, and I'm willing to be inconvenienced. As far as,

465
01:26:21.190 --> 01:26:30.780
Daniel Hardy: It still hasn't been addressed, my initial question a while ago, about, is it legal to re-disturb the flow

466
01:26:30.900 --> 01:26:38.860
Daniel Hardy: of that river, of the brook, that has now taken over Brook Road in that In that canyon.

467
01:26:39.460 --> 01:26:39.970
Daniel Hardy: that is.

468
01:26:40.090 --> 01:26:40.980
Town of Plainfield: After.

469
01:26:40.980 --> 01:26:42.320
Daniel Hardy: The bridge above my house.

470
01:26:42.760 --> 01:26:44.460
Daniel Hardy: And before Fowler Road.

471
01:26:45.930 --> 01:26:47.230
Town of Plainfield: And that…

472
01:26:48.820 --> 01:26:51.260
Daniel Hardy: What is the cost just for that alone?

473
01:26:51.920 --> 01:27:02.449
Daniel Hardy: And, yes, and as I mentioned earlier, our road, all our trees, we had beautiful maple trees, just like East Hill, and they were wiped out.

474
01:27:02.610 --> 01:27:05.189
Daniel Hardy: And, and cut down by the state.

475
01:27:05.730 --> 01:27:06.689
Daniel Hardy: Beautiful trees.

476
01:27:06.690 --> 01:27:08.250
Town of Plainfield: And…

477
01:27:08.250 --> 01:27:18.600
Daniel Hardy: To make room and widen the road and flatten the road. That can easily be done on East Hill as well. It's gonna be ugly, but hey.

478
01:27:19.280 --> 01:27:29.009
Daniel Hardy: That is the alternative. Again, we have to address the cost as taxpayers, as citizens here, in learning from past mistakes.

479
01:27:29.480 --> 01:27:34.830
Daniel Hardy: Again, I'll reiterate, every time that we've done something to alter this road.

480
01:27:35.640 --> 01:27:46.399
Daniel Hardy: Mother Nature has slapped us in our face with all our thoughts, with all our engineering, with all our construction. So, there you go. Thank you.

481
01:27:46.660 --> 01:27:57.920
Town of Plainfield: Sorry, please. Yeah, to, to work in a brook, you need a permit from the state, so depending on what the work would be, that you're talking about,

482
01:27:57.940 --> 01:28:11.059
Town of Plainfield: one would need a permit, the town would need a permit if they wanted to alter the brook itself in any manner. It's, just like putting a bridge in. You need a permit to put the bridge in, and they review things like the configuration.

483
01:28:11.060 --> 01:28:19.200
Town of Plainfield: In the size and that sort of thing. So if you wanted to do anything else, away from the bridges, that too would be subject to a state permit.

484
01:28:20.040 --> 01:28:20.750
Town of Plainfield: Amos?

485
01:28:20.750 --> 01:28:23.999
Daniel Hardy: That would be altering the flow of the river, correct?

486
01:28:24.260 --> 01:28:28.960
Town of Plainfield: Amos, looks like you're ready to speak with us? Yeah, go ahead.

487
01:28:28.960 --> 01:28:39.999
Amos Meacham: All right, thanks. Hey, I… I couldn't be with y'all, Amos Meacham here. I live at the bottom of Gray Road. And definitely really helpful to hear all of the

488
01:28:40.130 --> 01:28:44.380
Amos Meacham: points, and especially people… I guess I hadn't really, kind of.

489
01:28:44.520 --> 01:28:50.500
Amos Meacham: added it up, and I was mostly thinking about this as a decision, like, the town kind of has to make the decision what's best for the town.

490
01:28:50.890 --> 01:28:58.389
Amos Meacham: But then you start looking at the numbers, and it actually is a pretty significant percentage of the town that's directly impacted by it right now, currently, so…

491
01:28:58.840 --> 01:29:07.580
Amos Meacham: that… that… that's… that's kind of appreciating the weight of that more and more. And as I look at it, I mean…

492
01:29:07.580 --> 01:29:19.989
Amos Meacham: this is a… you know, any of this stuff is a huge undertaking. If we can get this kind of federal money and actually build it right, and, you know, something that's gonna… gonna last and be a little bit smarter, and I think it's probably in between a bunch of all this stuff, because

493
01:29:20.170 --> 01:29:25.990
Amos Meacham: you know, I know there's issues that experts weigh in on, and everyone still kind of has their opinions about things, and…

494
01:29:26.050 --> 01:29:40.880
Amos Meacham: It's probably some, a little bit of both, but… so yeah, I'm… I think I'm kind of where John was saying, you know, I think it makes sense to go ahead with it, all the things considered, and hearing how many people are directly impacted by it, and I think it's the right investment for the time at this point.

495
01:29:41.050 --> 01:29:42.240
Amos Meacham: Do it while we can.

496
01:29:45.080 --> 01:29:46.490
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thanks.

497
01:29:52.270 --> 01:30:00.539
Town of Plainfield: Nancy Harrison online has asked, has a plan for an alternate route been made for the other west side of Brook Road? If not, why not?

498
01:30:00.800 --> 01:30:16.679
Town of Plainfield: A valid question, I suppose. It's a cliff. Yeah, I'm not familiar with the, the terrain on that side. Yeah, this was, this was an alternative. Going on the, to the east was an alternative that was,

499
01:30:17.470 --> 01:30:39.480
Town of Plainfield: thought up by the town, as far as I know, and then that was routed through VTRANS and FHWA to allow for an alternative that looked at that east side. I don't know that the west side was ever discussed or thought about. I don't really know anything about the west side and whether or not that should be looked at as well.

500
01:30:49.440 --> 01:30:51.329
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Michael Birnb.

501
01:30:52.170 --> 01:31:03.480
Town of Plainfield: Whichever alternative we select, well, up the two road alternatives, at least.

502
01:31:04.580 --> 01:31:12.570
Town of Plainfield: To me, the most important, most critical thing is to take into account The hydraulics of the stream.

503
01:31:13.280 --> 01:31:27.059
Town of Plainfield: And… Channelizing, or… Armoring stream banks accelerates the water through the village.

504
01:31:28.250 --> 01:31:33.179
Town of Plainfield: We're gonna be taking a dam out at the end of the book.

505
01:31:33.780 --> 01:31:35.780
Town of Plainfield: At Donorski.

506
01:31:36.060 --> 01:31:40.019
Town of Plainfield: When that happens, it's gonna have effects upstream.

507
01:31:40.500 --> 01:31:44.250
Town of Plainfield: upstream in the Brook, and also on the Winooski.

508
01:31:44.560 --> 01:31:46.970
Town of Plainfield: All of those things…

509
01:31:47.200 --> 01:31:57.429
Town of Plainfield: I assume are being taken into account by SLR this afternoon? Yes. And, and hopefully coordinated with you guys.

510
01:31:57.950 --> 01:32:06.720
Town of Plainfield: When we eventually choose an alternative as a town to guide you as to what to design.

511
01:32:07.450 --> 01:32:16.619
Town of Plainfield: I hope that all of us citizens take that principle very, very much to heart, because…

512
01:32:17.360 --> 01:32:27.220
Town of Plainfield: Whatever we rebuild, we want to last. We don't want to accelerate the speed of the river. We want to allow it to spread out.

513
01:32:27.970 --> 01:32:38.710
Town of Plainfield: And if some effects of that are untoward, then we have to help the people who are affected, rather than

514
01:32:39.210 --> 01:32:45.520
Town of Plainfield: Armor to protect a couple of people, and affect the whole stream deck.

515
01:32:50.620 --> 01:32:52.440
Town of Plainfield: Thanks.

516
01:32:55.130 --> 01:33:03.710
Town of Plainfield: Back here. Thank you. I'm Andy Robinson.

517
01:33:04.030 --> 01:33:17.219
Town of Plainfield: I want to make sure there's clarity about the money part of this. In most of these cases, when we have these projects, the feds are paying 90%, the town is paying 10%. So that's a pretty good deal.

518
01:33:17.490 --> 01:33:31.479
Town of Plainfield: And that still means the town is responsible for a lot of money. If this is a $10 million project, we are all on the hook for a million dollars. Our annual budget is about $1.3 million, so this is a big jump.

519
01:33:31.870 --> 01:33:40.530
Town of Plainfield: And what this probably means is we go to the bond bank, and we borrow the money to do it, and then we pay it back over 20 or 30 years. That's how this works.

520
01:33:41.000 --> 01:33:48.079
Town of Plainfield: But to get a bond through, we have to go to the voters and get your approval for the town taking on that kind of debt.

521
01:33:49.360 --> 01:34:02.629
Town of Plainfield: And one possible scenario here as we go forward with this, and we try and bond, and there are townspeople who do not want the town taking on debt, do not want their property taxes to go up, who vote down the bond.

522
01:34:03.200 --> 01:34:04.719
Town of Plainfield: Which is the end of the project.

523
01:34:06.230 --> 01:34:15.360
Town of Plainfield: So, if you're one of those people who doesn't want the town to take on debt, or doesn't want to see your property taxes go up, you need to advocate for this.

524
01:34:16.630 --> 01:34:28.729
Town of Plainfield: Because if we don't… there's no middle ground here, that's where this is going to get paid for, is out of our pockets. And there's value in doing it, I hear the value, but there will be a cost, because climate change is expensive.

525
01:34:29.500 --> 01:34:37.219
Town of Plainfield: So just be mindful that you're going to be asked at some point if we proceed. Some of this is going to come from the community, some of that money.

526
01:34:38.070 --> 01:34:44.549
Town of Plainfield: And we talk about affordability, and we talk about how costly it is to live here. This ain't free.

527
01:34:44.990 --> 01:34:53.729
Town of Plainfield: And I think there's value in going forward, I'm curious to see what they come up with, but we need to be realized that at some point, you will literally be asked to pay for it.

528
01:34:53.950 --> 01:35:02.450
Town of Plainfield: And your neighbors will be asked to pay for it. So, if you're advocating for this, just be mindful that that is coming, and it's coming relatively soon.

529
01:35:05.250 --> 01:35:09.160
Town of Plainfield: We have a question from Brenda Visits, online?

530
01:35:13.520 --> 01:35:15.709
Glenda Bissex: Hi, Am I… can you hear me?

531
01:35:17.110 --> 01:35:22.500
Town of Plainfield: Would you put your mic, or hold it up to the owl? Yeah, we can hear you.

532
01:35:26.450 --> 01:35:36.350
Glenda Bissex: Not long ago, there was… a culvert at the bottom of East Hill Road that needed to be replaced.

533
01:35:36.740 --> 01:35:41.629
Glenda Bissex: That meant, for several hours during a day.

534
01:35:41.890 --> 01:35:47.020
Glenda Bissex: There was no way to get… to my pillier.

535
01:35:47.530 --> 01:35:49.760
Glenda Bissex: Except through Barry.

536
01:35:50.480 --> 01:35:56.610
Glenda Bissex: You couldn't get… into Plainfield to get up onto Route 2.

537
01:35:58.810 --> 01:36:07.370
Glenda Bissex: Not having… Brook Road has created that kind of… emergency situation.

538
01:36:07.870 --> 01:36:15.099
Glenda Bissex: Oh… Just having one way and no options as to how to get

539
01:36:16.030 --> 01:36:21.410
Glenda Bissex: To a major local destination is,

540
01:36:21.660 --> 01:36:25.209
Glenda Bissex: More than an inconvenience in an emergency.

541
01:36:25.840 --> 01:36:27.260
Town of Plainfield: Thank you.

542
01:36:28.840 --> 01:36:30.500
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thank you.

543
01:36:36.660 --> 01:36:39.610
Town of Plainfield: Any other thoughts tonight?

544
01:36:40.330 --> 01:36:57.700
Town of Plainfield: As Peter mentioned, there is a… if you think of anything after the meeting, there is a link on the town's website you can go to, and you… it's a very simple form. You put in your name and give us your comment. So, very easy to get in there and make your comments.

545
01:36:57.890 --> 01:37:00.170
Daniel Hardy: I have another question or comment.

546
01:37:09.590 --> 01:37:29.229
Town of Plainfield: Tammy Farn, so I guess I have a question in the sense of, you just gave us the money talk, which I appreciate. But I guess I have to ask a question, like, if… is there a way for the town to determine if we want an alternative, or if we…

547
01:37:29.230 --> 01:37:54.230
Town of Plainfield: can we take a, I guess, a poll on that before we spend a lot of money? Their time's not cheap. So is there a way… because if we're really not in… you know, the community wants to rebuild Brook Road versus looking at the alternative now that that's been presented, is there a way for us to, I guess, save some dollars if we choose not to go that avenue, or it's not at least a

548
01:37:54.230 --> 01:37:56.020
Town of Plainfield: 50-50 decision.

549
01:37:56.490 --> 01:38:19.779
Town of Plainfield: Well, that's an interesting question. You know, the way the project was programmed, the town has, advocated to get this project where you look at a couple of alternatives, and, that was, that was the direction forward, according to FHWA and VTRANS. If, as a result of this meeting, or other factors, the town suddenly says, you know what, we're just gonna put Brook Road back where it was.

550
01:38:19.780 --> 01:38:25.969
Town of Plainfield: I would think that FHWA and VTRANS would be on board with

551
01:38:25.970 --> 01:38:39.240
Town of Plainfield: kind of a redirect, and just immediately moving into the design phase without doing any more in the alternatives. I would think that it would be agreeable to that. It seems to make sense to me. So, it might be a question where the Select Board would have to ask VTRANS

552
01:38:39.390 --> 01:38:46.260
Town of Plainfield: You know, the town is comfortable moving forward with just the option to rebuild, and we don't really want to look at another option.

553
01:38:47.200 --> 01:38:54.910
Town of Plainfield: So, that would be up to the Select Board, if you want to advocate for that.

554
01:38:56.800 --> 01:38:58.879
Town of Plainfield: We'll, we'll come back to that.

555
01:39:00.760 --> 01:39:05.909
Town of Plainfield: Michael Billingstein. I, just following up on that,

556
01:39:06.260 --> 01:39:22.059
Town of Plainfield: I don't know, we've said it out loud, but FHWA stands for Federal Highway Works Administration, for those who don't know. Have they already paid for, or at least committed to pay for, your work? In other words, what I'm saying is.

557
01:39:22.500 --> 01:39:36.840
Town of Plainfield: do we have to pay more as a town to have the alternative study, or is it already actually paid for, and we can have both studies in hand before we make a choice? What is the situation with the funding of the study itself?

558
01:39:38.500 --> 01:39:55.859
Town of Plainfield: FHWA and VTRANS have agreed to fund most of the study. The town has the local share. They haven't paid that money yet, because we haven't done the work yet. So if we don't do the work, they won't pay that money, even though the money's sitting in a bank account, so to speak. They have the money available.

559
01:39:55.860 --> 01:40:00.880
Town of Plainfield: But they haven't spent it yet, and they wouldn't have to if we moved directly into design.

560
01:40:03.360 --> 01:40:28.030
Town of Plainfield: I'll go back to the, kingpin over here. No kings kind of thing, yeah. I would just say that, one of the reasons that we did push with, V-Trans and Federal Highways was because there is such a wide variety of opinions on what to do with the Brook and the Brookly

561
01:40:28.030 --> 01:40:40.240
Town of Plainfield: wrote, and that we were successful, in getting them to agree to pay for the studies. As Evan pointed out at the beginning of the presentation on the timeline.

562
01:40:40.240 --> 01:40:53.030
Town of Plainfield: We're talking about coming back at the end of July and the beginning of August, which is not that far away, about 2 months away, with real numbers and real,

563
01:40:53.030 --> 01:41:15.860
Town of Plainfield: information about how many bridges or culverts we would have to do on an alternative route at that type of thing, and what the cost would be of repairs in the Brook Road. So we actually have facts before us, as opposed to opinions, in order to make that decision, and personally, I'm willing to wait 2 or 3 months to get to that.

564
01:41:15.860 --> 01:41:20.449
Town of Plainfield: particularly when we're only on the hook for 10%.

565
01:41:20.450 --> 01:41:45.210
Town of Plainfield: That said, I did want to follow up what Andy talked about, the money took the money talk, if you will. We have lots of other requests for money for infrastructure in this town. Tammy, you mentioned one of the bridges before that, you know, on the slickboard at the bottom of Cameron Road. That's 100% on us. All those small bridges up in the bedrock at the south end.

566
01:41:45.210 --> 01:42:08.010
Town of Plainfield: I have a hard time, it goes uphill, but it's south. Where East Hill comes into Brook Road, those bridges are all broken, but they're not part of the Federal Highway, so we have to consider the maintenance of those, or if something happens to those bridges, that's going to be 100% on us.

567
01:42:08.010 --> 01:42:31.769
Town of Plainfield: Unless it's a significant enough flood to get federal highways and FEMA involved again. So, you know, people want sidewalks, people want the intersection, people want the sewer plant, you know, we… there's a lot being requested here, so we have to put it in the context of that. I personally like the idea of getting the facts.

568
01:42:31.950 --> 01:42:34.219
Town of Plainfield: Before I make a decision.

569
01:42:35.030 --> 01:42:39.249
Town of Plainfield: I'm willing to wait till August.

570
01:42:44.930 --> 01:42:55.610
Amos Meacham: Hi, Alan, it's Meacham. I was wondering, and I feel like I should know this, but, in terms of, like, what was awarded, or what we have available in the federal funds, is that…

571
01:42:55.750 --> 01:43:11.040
Amos Meacham: I mean, is there a situation where, you know, we go into design, especially start adding in hydraulics, and it ends up being 20 million instead of 10? I know someone just said 10 for the purposes of a figure, and who knows what exactly the numbers we're talking about.

572
01:43:11.110 --> 01:43:18.419
Amos Meacham: But is it gonna be, you know, oh, it's gonna be great, because we're gonna be able to, you know, design it the way it is, and then we're not able to actually

573
01:43:18.710 --> 01:43:19.989
Amos Meacham: Bring that to…

574
01:43:20.350 --> 01:43:27.239
Amos Meacham: If there's the cost overruns and stuff. So is it a fixed amount, I guess is what I'm asking, that we've been awarded on the federal?

575
01:43:29.530 --> 01:43:37.050
Town of Plainfield: No, it's not a fixed amount coming from the feds. Typically in, disaster relief.

576
01:43:37.050 --> 01:43:49.759
Town of Plainfield: projects. There's an initial estimate that's done by FEMA or FHWA, and, and a certain intent. So, we're gonna fix the road, replace 3 bridges.

577
01:43:49.780 --> 01:44:09.650
Town of Plainfield: For instance, and there's a ballpark cost that's estimated for that, and the town agrees that they're going to go ahead with the project, and FHWA VTRANS agrees that it's going to cost about that much. But then when the bills come in from the contractor, generally the funding agencies say, yep, we understand there's a change, it costs

578
01:44:09.650 --> 01:44:31.829
Town of Plainfield: 12 million, not 10 million, so here's our 90% of that money, and they will pay for that as long as it's not a change in the scope of the work. So if the project remains the same, they will fund more than what everyone thinks it may cost in year one, when you get to year four, for instance. That's generally how it goes.

579
01:44:39.030 --> 01:44:42.470
Town of Plainfield: Okay, anything else tonight?

580
01:44:42.470 --> 01:44:43.970
Daniel Hardy: I waved my hand to speak.

581
01:44:43.970 --> 01:44:49.739
Town of Plainfield: Oh, wait. Daniel? Daniel Hardy?

582
01:44:49.740 --> 01:44:50.520
Daniel Hardy: Yes, hello.

583
01:44:50.520 --> 01:44:52.829
Town of Plainfield: One last time, go ahead.

584
01:44:52.830 --> 01:45:00.740
Daniel Hardy: first of all, from the bridge above my house, the next bridge after Cameron Road.

585
01:45:01.010 --> 01:45:08.929
Daniel Hardy: Has there been an assessment… As to how much money that would cost to fill that ravine, that canyon.

586
01:45:11.310 --> 01:45:11.740
Daniel Hardy: And…

587
01:45:11.740 --> 01:45:13.089
Town of Plainfield: this point now.

588
01:45:13.090 --> 01:45:27.190
Daniel Hardy: Not at this point. Again, I'm surprised that you were not familiar with the east and west side of the brook in your perusal and preparation. If you go anywhere on this road.

589
01:45:28.220 --> 01:45:39.150
Daniel Hardy: You will see it is only sand and banks on both the east side and west side of that brook. And it is a mess on every side.

590
01:45:39.300 --> 01:45:46.359
Daniel Hardy: So, I'm surprised that wasn't, included in your surveillance, and that you weren't familiar with the west side.

591
01:45:47.020 --> 01:45:54.669
Daniel Hardy: That's my own opinion. And again, I also thought that the bridge The first bridge…

592
01:45:55.110 --> 01:46:01.429
Daniel Hardy: I'm surprised… has that been paid for? The first bridge on Brook Road, after Mill Street?

593
01:46:02.510 --> 01:46:19.949
Daniel Hardy: between George Cushing's house, has that been paid for? And if so, I'm surprised that was done. None of the people in the village, had that bridge not been repaired, or paid for repair, nobody in the village would be landlocked.

594
01:46:20.570 --> 01:46:21.160
Town of Plainfield: Right.

595
01:46:21.160 --> 01:46:23.629
Daniel Hardy: That's my two cents again. Thank you.

596
01:46:27.840 --> 01:46:29.479
Town of Plainfield: Okay, I agree.

597
01:46:31.040 --> 01:46:46.980
Town of Plainfield: Comment over here. One last firm? Last time, Lloyd Fernum here. The comment had come up several times about the bottom of Cameron Road washing out two or three times.

598
01:46:47.760 --> 01:46:57.829
Town of Plainfield: That bank was fixed, maybe back late 80s or 90s, with concrete blocks at the bottom. It was done correctly. It stayed for a long time.

599
01:46:58.290 --> 01:47:13.240
Town of Plainfield: The last 2 or 3 times that it was fixed, it was fixed very quickly to get the road open to the town garage, and it was not fixed adequately. I mean, the stone size was wrong, there was no design, it was just thrown in there to get the road open.

600
01:47:13.340 --> 01:47:30.679
Town of Plainfield: there's another section up the brook that Granfield did about the same time, placing large stones on the far side of the brook. Those stones are still there. They're all embedded in, the roots have grown over them, so I think fixing the far side of the brook would definitely benefit that brook.

601
01:47:33.950 --> 01:47:35.730
Town of Plainfield: Okay, thanks.

602
01:47:36.910 --> 01:47:39.230
Town of Plainfield: Huh? Back to Peter.

603
01:47:44.350 --> 01:48:01.160
Town of Plainfield: I just want to respond to Dan about the bridges in the village. Those two bridges, Creamery Street and the first one on Brook Road, are already in the design phase. That's about 2 years ahead of this project. Again, that's a 10% local match.

604
01:48:01.190 --> 01:48:08.900
Town of Plainfield: And as… if I recall the numbers, each of those is… was estimated to cost about $3.6 million.

605
01:48:08.930 --> 01:48:33.849
Town of Plainfield: they're about 55 feet to 60 feet long, so they're wider. The geometry is planned better for the books. We're gonna get, and VHB is the contract, is the, you're the project manager, you're the pat… I'm the patent on that project. Du Bois and King is actually the builders there. And they're… they will come back to us, I believe, in December.

606
01:48:34.090 --> 01:48:53.529
Town of Plainfield: On the timetable on that. So, we do have that money to pay for, as well. And we don't know if we have to borrow for that yet. We're hoping that the amount of money coming back from Federal Highways and FEMA on monies that we outlaid by our road crew

607
01:48:53.530 --> 01:49:09.580
Town of Plainfield: with our dollars, when those monies come back, they are basically our general fund monies. We are hoping that that's enough to cover the 10% match on that, but we don't know that yet. but anyway, so those are moving ahead.

608
01:49:09.900 --> 01:49:16.369
Town of Plainfield: Peter. Peter, can you talk about how the buyouts affect the schedule of those bridges?

609
01:49:18.460 --> 01:49:31.600
Town of Plainfield: there was, the question was, how will the buyouts, affect those bridges? The buyouts are FEMA, and they are personal… individual assistance, as opposed to public assistance.

610
01:49:31.750 --> 01:49:37.799
Town of Plainfield: The bridges are federal highways, and this was an interesting issue because,

611
01:49:37.800 --> 01:49:55.600
Town of Plainfield: those bridges abut buyout properties. And that's significant because, when you do these bridge projects, you, often have to have, temporary right-of-way access just to stage the equipment to do the construction.

612
01:49:55.640 --> 01:50:10.039
Town of Plainfield: Right now, those have been re-looked at, to redesign so that there is only temporary access, right-of-way access, as opposed to permanent, and that is something that FEMA is likely to approve.

613
01:50:10.130 --> 01:50:26.210
Town of Plainfield: But FEMA has to approve that. And right now, as we know, FEMA is shut down. And so, we have one party sitting there, waiting for an answer from the other party, which isn't picking up the phone at the moment.

614
01:50:26.460 --> 01:50:33.910
Town of Plainfield: We are seeing some movement at the federal level on that, but this has been the subject of a number of

615
01:50:33.910 --> 01:50:55.600
Town of Plainfield: conference calls with Vermont Emergency Management, Regional Planning, Federal Highways, FEMA, our sewage system, because there's water and sewer lines that go across one of the bridges that have to be addressed. And so, there's been a lot of negotiation between those parties to move it along to a place where they can proceed, so…

616
01:50:56.050 --> 01:50:57.860
Town of Plainfield: Yep.

617
01:50:58.810 --> 01:50:59.760
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, she won't

618
01:51:05.220 --> 01:51:21.930
Town of Plainfield: Okay, so, as I mentioned, there is an online survey. If you have any additional comments, things you think of, in the, the next month, get those, sent in to the town, and then they'll make it back to us.

619
01:51:22.080 --> 01:51:25.219
Town of Plainfield: But, we're gonna continue on, looking at what

620
01:51:25.220 --> 01:51:42.219
Town of Plainfield: I talked about earlier, and then we'll be back, and we'll talk about this project again, and share with you what we found, and we'll have a lot more information next time, a lot more detailed information than we have tonight, but I appreciate everyone coming out and providing us your comments.

621
01:51:42.270 --> 01:51:56.310
Town of Plainfield: I think, if you have any, questions in the meantime, you can contact the, manager for the town, Pat Travers over there at GPI. I think, can you bring up the slide again? We had Pat's contact information.

622
01:51:57.190 --> 01:51:59.560
Town of Plainfield: Very beginning.

623
01:52:03.090 --> 01:52:06.630
Town of Plainfield: Yeah, probably at the next slide… Thereabouts.

624
01:52:06.770 --> 01:52:23.249
Town of Plainfield: Pat Travers, Municipal Project Manager, and it's ptravers at gpi.net. GPinet.com. Oh, GPN, yeah, sorry. GPinet.com.

625
01:52:26.480 --> 01:52:31.820
Town of Plainfield: No, it's patrons at GBI net.com.

626
01:52:31.960 --> 01:52:37.680
Town of Plainfield: Thank you. Okay. Thanks, everyone.

627
01:52:40.850 --> 01:52:55.399
Town of Plainfield: There we go.