The first regular meeting of the new year for the Brattleboro Selectboard…. and I’m not really sure what happened beyond the first few minutes. Gophers were nibbling on the internet tubes or something.
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Preliminaries
Will they start on time in 2025? Nope. Not this meeting… : ) Close! 6:16p.m.
Chair Daniel Quipp – no remarks.
Town Manager John Potter – happy 2025. The Sec of State will have a civic health event at Brooks Memorial Library – learn about the report and give feedback. Dog License renewals are available…. candidate petitions, too. Town meeting Members who have expiring terms should have received a letter of intent in the mail. Get them back to the Town Clerk.
Elizabeth McCloughlin – happy birthday to Peter Case.
Peter Case – we are not going to sing.
Franz Reichsman – a couple people in town are concerned … (the feed is dropping out on me)… (Now zoom quit and restarted itself. : ) )
Public Participation..
David L – you may recall that I sent a message with a proposed method of reporting EMS billing and collections such that the collection data is synced with the quarterly bills. When will the FD make its next presentation, and will the data be included?
Potter – the first meeting in February. We can take a look at the way he suggested.
Oscar H. – this is generally about the budget … I’ll wait.
(freezes again)
Dick Degray – do you have any idea of what revenue has come in for EMS billing and I’ve been looking for the audit and wondering when that will be ready and third, what Franz said – I’m concerned about where our town is for the last few years – an undercurrent, and in the last month and the heat has turned up. I see this divisiveness, and people trying to recruit people for RTM like it is them vs us. That’s not healthy for our town. I encourage people to run. What is not a good process is when we go out and recruit people to run. … start working together. facebook is not your friend. It is probably the worst invention to hit society ever. I see people going after one another.. that’s not who we want to be as a community. We need to start finding middle ground on issues facing us.
Potter – (EMS figure?) I asked Kim and she said we were at 64%. Audit is getting close, not quite yet.
Lissa W – We are putting together something that should… in 2026 and we are having a meeting at the American Legion Hall on January 16th and we are inviting people from all sectors to share ideas about how to celebrate the 250th. We want to have spaces for these dialogues and we hope groups will express themselves around this anniversary – so it will be all over the place. It is next week, January 16th. We want to look at who we are and who we want to be. We’ve been having discussions about the Declaration of Independence with Meg Mott. Come out and be part of something that can bring us together.
(I don’t know if it is the wind or what but this feed keeps pausing and dropping out every few minutes. Zoom just restarted itself.)
Jill ST – will the town get a vote on that? I asked the question and was told it was not something the state would consider asking the towns…
(and again)
Daniel – what it allows for and doesn’t allow for. Unless my fellow board members want to see this, we’d want to see some language in writing.
Jill ST – this would be about safe injection sites in town, the town should vote before any open – Bob Fisher approved the language – let the people speak. I know it was discussed. Do the town voters get an opinion.
Daniel – put something in writing to us and we can consider it.
Consent Agenda
Ratify 2024 Holiday Season Free Parking
consented!
request for clarification
I recall the glee that the two weekends of free parking brought to the wretched masses.
What exactly was ratified after the fact?
Chapter 15 (Downtown Improvement District) Ordinance Change – Second Reading
Daniel – this is an ordinance change second reading. Sue?
Sue Fillion, Planning Director – I am on the DBA board, too. Non voting. Proposed changes to the DID regulations. The first reading was Dec 3 and I went over the changes – a clean-up to define the boundaries, to change …
(zoom restart)
is to uh… renew.
(zoom restart)
Every five years you can…
(zoom restart – this is not going well…)
Among partners to…
(let’s switch to the BCTV livestream)
Degray – there isn’t going to be any control here really. This kind of removes the selectboard. Not many remember how that started and went…
(and the livestream goes down.)
I think I’m going to have to bow out for this meeting. The internet is not being cooperative. It is now up to you, fellow citizens, to cover this meeting.
Sorry!
That will be my favorite quote of the week.... " …
That will be my favorite quote of the week….
” … start working together. facebook is not your friend. It is probably the worst invention to hit society ever. I see people going after one another.. that’s not who we want to be as a community. We need to start finding middle ground on issues facing us….”
Thank you
I'm doin' it
I heard they want to tax cats, so… I’m spending the morning typing up the meeting by watching the replay.
Stay tuned for the full coverage, just a bit late.