The Brattleboro Selectboard approves union and non-union pay raises and contracts for town employees at Tuesday’s meeting, they will talk finances and financial software, and they will approve enterprise fund budgets and a rate decrease for those who use water.
I’ll skip that stuff and give you a kitten update, then join the board for their discussion of EMS after 7 pm.
When we left off, five of the six kittens were caught and brought to WCHS for shots and basic socialization. Mom got fixed and was returned to the yard. We brought three home for fostering, and two others went to another foster home.
Mom met up with Six, the 6th kitten who has remained in the wild. I just saw it today joining mom for a snack at the food bowl. We are leaving them alone for now.
In our bathroom are two amazing 9.5 week old kittens. The light grey one with stripes and one of the brown tabbies (with gorgeous tiger stripes and leopard spots.)
We had another, but tragedy struck. The little black runt of the litter was very friendly but also sick. He didn’t make it and WCHS diagnosed him with panleukopenia, which if you know cat diseases is one of the worst possible things to happen. It is a highly contagious virus that can attack the blood cells and marrow. The kittens can shed it and become immune, but they need to survive first. And that requires weeks of careful attention.
WCHS sent me home with special foods, injections, fluids, and lab-quality cleaning supplies. They also gave both remaining kittens a second vaccine dose and some antibiotics.
The symptoms to watch out for related to the digestive track for the most part – were they eating, drinking, pooping, and keeping food down? Were they active and alert?
Day one they were a bit sleepy from the vaccines, but they soon perked up. each hour was traumatic for me. They are so tiny and so vulnerable and might drop dead at any moment, so sayeth the literature.
So far, so good. Everything that could be going well is going well. They are eating well and acting like you’d expect kittens to act – totally crazy. In a matter of seconds the two of them can run around the room twice, jump on and/or climb me, play with three or four toys along the way, and pounce on one another.
We’re not out of the woods, though. All the cat disease sites say kittens are most vulnerable. The situation could change for the worse. Or they might continue to improve.
They’ve done great for week one, and now we start week two.
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I’ll be back for the EMS discussion around 7 or 7:30….
Finance
They are in the financial report section of the show right now, but EMS is up soon. I’ll use this as an opportunity to get up to speed, typo-wise. Ha!
….
Franz – I didn’t know what that was when I saw the label but it is the difference between revenues and expenses. I want to ask about that number. It represent potential extra funds available in the coming year(s). What do you expect in the final month? Will we collect funds into the summer for the FY23 budget? How do we close out the year?
Kim – we might have some. We recognize revenues when we bill them, so if it trickles in it won’t be material. WE do have another month, but right now it looks like we will have money left over. Do I have a percentage? I can’t speak to exact dollars and cents.
Franz – most money comes in as taxes 4 times a year. Do we anticipate another million in revenue?
Kim – we will get sales and use tax, any day now. That will be a couple hundred thousand we get quarterly. We don’t back the revenues quarterly – we do it once a year when we bill it, not when we collect it. We will get the local option tax…
Liz – total expenses exceed revenues in utility and parking funds?
Kim – each is different. Utility fund is billed quarterly and we are waiting for the last quarter. Parking Fund, we have most of the revenues. Permits are on a different cycle, but not a huge chunk .
Ian – later the board will consider financial software. This report is helpful and I hope that continues. Will the new software give us better reports using that software.
Kim – yea, 100%.
Ian – great. we can talk about it more.
Dick Degray – follow up on Franz’s question. On page 84, when I look at total revenue projected in, it is 20 million, and we are at 19 million. Given we are getting another check of rooms and meals taxes, could be $80-100. Sales tax could be $1.2 million. We will be $600k short in revenue. Given that the police hasn’t expended their budget in the last few years due to staffing, you still think we’ll exceed revenue expectations?
Kim – I do feel confined. 100%
Dick – I agree we will get more in for the 1% tax, the issue that concerns me is we are trying to make up one million and those two won’t do it, and we don’t have another tax collection, so that’s a huge concern. I follow the Rooms and Meal closely. I see where we are with that, so I do have a concern. I hope I am wrong, but we could have a potential deficit. I hope you are right.
Kim – I think I am.
Ian – ok, we should have had a motion on this.
Franz – to accept the financial report as presented. 5-0
EMS Update
Ian – we have the monthly report as usual from the Chief and AC Kier and we’ll have a medical oversight presentation from Dr. Storn.
Ian – this is our 12th month
Chief Howard and AC Kier
Kier – this is the 11th month. In May – 348 calls. 281 were requiring an ambulance call. May was pretty equal to other months, but greater number of acuity and accidents, drownings. High acuity. No special reason. I was asked about response time and where that comes from, it is the national fire protection association standards. They talk about time of receiving tone, and getting to scene. Time to put on gear vs time to arrive, broken down in seconds, and the arrival time standard is 5 minutes. Our time is 6 min and 9 seconds. That’s not 5 minutes, but it accounts for topical and geographic data. (Reads memo stats….) That concludes the monthly report.
Chief Howard – just to add to it. There is a list of certifications our staff does have in the monthly report in the packet. One thing i want to mention – what is invoiced vs what is received. Wow had a meeting about EMS billing, it will take months to collect all the.. when June 30th comes, they will still be trying to collect 6 months form now, so you can’t get nervous about them only collecting so much. It is common. I want people to understand that.
ian – we will see in the proposed startup expenses there will be some discussion of that. Let’s take questions then hear from Dr Storn.
Daniel – I know that in the list of people on staff…
Chief – some are waiting for results, and testing, plus we have three in paramedic school.
Ian – this document is the monthly fire dept report, separate from the EMS report. It is the month fire report. It is in the backup materials.
Daniel – there is a section for correspondence. In the list of staff, we have 2 at paramedic status and 3 in school, so that would be 5. On staff we have 4 AEMT. Plus 3 additional. Plus everyone on staff has EMT training. That’s helpful information to know. If we go the municipal route, people will be interested in this.
Franz – I have questions about the second paragraph of the EMS report. What do you do about false alarms… 25 in the month of May. You respond… what happens.
Chief – if it happens 3 fall alarms we can bill for the 4th. Typically a fire alarm system has an issue with the smoke detector. We go there and tell them, and then we go again and tell them again…. usually that time it sinks in. We had to give bills a few times.
Franz – not pranks?
Chief – sometimes a child pulls an alarm, but we sit and talk to them and show them the trucks and tell them what they are for.
Franz – good, not deliberate. You have goo intent calls, service calls?
Chief – good intent is if I didn’t get a burn permit, but start a fire and it gets checked out and we explain the permit process and why it is important – people had good reasons to call, but not needing us. A service call is if you basement is flooded and we e set up a pump and show you how it works.
Franz – didn’t know you did that…
Ian – the higher level of high acuity calls are they being responded in the 90th percentile. (Yes) WE are in the 12th month. I can figure out calendars in my head. Anything else to consider with he change in type of calls.
AC – it is a blip, but we don’t take any to be a blip, we take it seriously and we look to see what each intervention was, was there work to be done, was it the right intervention. The nature of the calls was it was a bad month. Those happens. We’ll have slower months. We don’t down play it. We learn from each call.
Franz – some people may not know that acuity means how sick someone was… sicker people than average. No reason to draw a long term conclusion. You might get low acuity calls if people use EMS as a taxi service. It’s just one month.
Judy Davidson – thanks for continuing this monthly report. I appreciate Franz’s questions about types of calls. I have 3 questions. The first is about the 281 calls that required an ambulance. If we look to 1922 when Rescue started, would the FD respond with a fire truck… and didn’t need an ambulance. In 1922, when they responded, did they need an ambulance. Or just bring a fire truck.
Fish – 2022?
Judy – yes 2022, and in high acuity cases, is it necessary for a paramedic to be there, and did these high acuity cases need to go somewhere other than BMH?
Ian – thanks.
Chief Howard – in 2022 – when we responded we’d go to life threatening calls and when we went … transport. DR. Storn about paramedic ? It is tough to say if you need an advanced EMT. 4-5% required a paramedic when we looked at calls. An advanced EMT can do a lot. Golden Cross gives us two paramedics most days.
Dr Storn – you can’t answer it off that information. What constitutes a high acuity call is very broad. With just those parameters, you’d want a paramedic to respond. To have one available they are more effective if on scene right away if needed.
Franz – a paramedic has specific skills but higher level of training and can assess what’s going on. You’d definitely want one on high acuity calls. You’d want one, I’d think.
Chief – as far as transport, we drop at BMH we don’t find pout if they moved on after we dropped them off.
Ian – Rescue handles that contract…
Dr Stron – Brattleboro is a community access hospital They can admit many things, but not everything. EMS in VT is built for high acuity patients – the time window for transporting directly is an hour, so within that they usually go to Brattleboro. Some get transferred elsewhere.
Dick – I have a huge concern about billing and collection. there was an article by VT Digger. It gives me pause. I had asked the board if they could get results for July – Sept of the collection rate of 2022. That would give us a good indication of what we’ll get, unless yo send people to collections. What you do with nonpayment remains to be seen?
Chief – it could take 5-6 months before you get a full year of collections.
Dick – you’ll make a decision in Sept?
Disco – so we won’t have all the financial data we will need. This isn’t about quality of care. These guys are great. I’m really concerned about the financial impact, if collection rate is 61%. Our billing rate will be higher. Private insurance is at 12%. That’s a huge concern I have, then I have a question about your projections of revenue. Be mindful of how we traverse the collection issue, if we stay at 61%. Wasn’t the goal 75%?
Chief – won’t debate your numbers… but GC said it was closer to 70%.
ian – he has many years of collection. Totally hear you. We’ll look out for that, and we’ll have these updates every month. It’s one of the many elements we need to consider.
Daniel – what Patrick presented a month ago is pretty different that this. The methodology is sound. The number of calls was looking right, the transports are about right, we know the rates, and so what we have presented is a projection. What we have here is based on different billing policies and rates. None of this is set in stone… we won’t have the same dollar amount as what Golden Cross collects. It’s not the same.
Ian – the revenue projections were for being fully operational, not with a startup delay. No, we’ll continue to have this conversion thought the summer and into the fall.
Dr Storn update
Dr Storn – John David Storn. Emergency physician and medical direction for VT District 13. Some broader comments. Some context. There are 13 EMS districts. We are 13, mostly centered around Brattleboro… up the connecticut river and all agencies in the southeastern district. We’re overburdened and health care i s stressed and so is EMS – people aren’t available to make transfers. There is limited and declining staffing and reimbursement across the board.
Looking back over the last year… about 2800 EMS calls, about 8 calls per day, and when you break down there were concurrent calls – about 54 times we got into needing a 3rd ambulance – 3 calls at a time. And 1 time with a 4th. One out of 2800 is not unreasonable. You break down call types, and get a big pie chart. The vast majority are general illness… a nonspecific complaint. 15% are false. 9% are mental health. About 1-5% have serious conditions. We do monthly training sessions. I look at all his acuity calls in district 13, and we look for learning points, do additional trainings about aggressive airway management, motorcycle crashes, and helicopter transport.
LIz – thank you. Every time you come it is so important to hear your perspective.
Franz – I have confidence in Dr Storn and BMH and Cheshire in Keene. Great organization Levels of care are excellent. On of the training sessions was really interesting.
Ian – good to know 100% of high acuity calls are being reviewed in the district and for Brattleboro. Interesting that we’ve done this a year – the actual numbers are interesting. When we started we didn’t know these numbers. Helpful to hear it is handling it.
Dr – I get reports from the state using filter…. I made my own cut points. I can’t review 3000.
daniel – we trust your judgement.
ian – is your broader than how we define it?
Dr – narrower – 17-30 pages of calls.
Ian – thanks.. let’s take a 10 minute break.
I. Fire–EMS Transition Project– June Update (7:45 PM)
(i) Public Engagement Update
(ii) Contracted EMS Update
(iii) Municipal EMS – Start–up Expenses
Ian – All right selectboard! I asked for the air conditioning to be put on. Okay everybody. So, we’ll move on to 8i. So, uh, this is a multipart item and is keeping with he plan that the board approved with the multitrack municipal EMS track and 3rd party contract track. This is mostly municipal, but a bit on 3rd party. To remind people, no decisions tonight. One element of many presentations, some we’ve had and some we will have. I encourage us that we are hear to ask questions and learn information.
John Potter – Yeah, thanks. We are continuing with the tasks you approved in Mya. This is the 3rd major opportunity for public input. I’ll update you one a couple of things and Patrick will discuss startup costs. Public engagement – we value public feedback on what might be best for Brattleboro. The project website has been getting a good deal of traffic and we’re getting more feedback on the email address. I’ve included an attachment showing how we process questions that come in to the email. Any questions?
Daniel – I feel like is going well. On the EMS webpage it would be nice to have documents in many formats – excel, but also PDFs would be nice so people can see what’s on it. Patrick said it will be done.
Ian – is this the photo FAQ in attachment 1?
John – this is about all the questions you get. There is also a FAQ.
Ian – for each update if the board keeps getting this it would be helpful, it would be helpful for me.
Franz – I chastise the public for the paltry number of comments. Ask some questions! Get this ball of wax rolling! We set up the means, so jump right in. Summit your comments!
Peter – I won’t chastise anyone. The lack of commentary – I encourage people to step forward and let us know how you feel.
Dora Bouboulis – I wanted to say, a followup. It is summer, and the timeline you set up is in the summer. They pay less attention. That means you need to get as much word out and solicit as many people yourselves to make comments.
Bob Oeser – I hope you can hear me. I guess not. Well. Maybe I’m not muted. I see the microphone is lighting up.
Kate O’connor – I take issue with what you’ve just said. Lots of public are interested. This all stared with no allowance for public participation. People wonder why to get involved if they weren’t listed to .
Ian – no back and forth!
Peter – my intent is to engage the community. I think that is what Franz was saying.
Ian – back to Bob…
Bob – how does that work? Still can’t hear me?
Ian – hopefully we can get your audio working….
Daniel – just call in, no video…
Ian – I don’t see any other hands.. Dick?
Dick – couple of questions –
Ian – just on public engagement. Ok. Now we’ll move on to the contract update.
John – this is the contracted track. We took your feedback from May and revised our request for information. It was published. It is to gauge a level of interest and also to help inform the subsequent RFP. We sent that to a long list of EMS providers and journals, posting on social media and elsewhere. The RFI has had a few views and we’ve had one response.
Ian – questions? Bob, I have you in mind when you figure it out.
Bob – we’ll see if this works. Can you hear me?
Russ – it is cranked up to 9….
Ian – sorry we can’t hear you. Try calling in. The number is on the agenda.
Ian – we’ll move on the the 3rd part of the agenda items – start up expenses presentation.
Bob – I’m in the meeting but they can’t hear me.
Ian – wait til Patrick is done before questions.
Patrick Moreland – (a powerpoint presentation) I am about to present work to date on staff’s best guess on startup costs. Me, John Kim, Sally, The FD, … we’ll look at start up costs. We start with a need for additional staffing. We have 3 platoons of 8. Ideal formation would be 3 platoons of 10 plus an EMS supervisor. $85k for 8 months of the EMS supervisor and they’d help build the program and hire others ; We’d hire additional AEMT fire personnel… $155k for 21 months of staff. $240k for start up staffing.
Moreland – the next expense is quarterly revenue. You send out bills and won’t get revenue for a while. Staff suggests front ending the revenue of $250k. That’s $490k total so far.
Moreland – We’ll need billing software to manage it… $20k for a start up consultant (AP Triton) to set policies and procedures.
Moreland – we need to add 3 mobile ambulances and 7 portable radios. Now up to $618k. Plus uniforms… $674k. The decision then turn to ambulances.
Moreland – we propose three ambulances – $400k for a cab-on truck model. There is a van model for $200k. The cab on truck requires a 24 month lead time. It would take 2 years to arrive. The vans are available. There are 4 options…
1. we could do 3 cab on trucks, and to lease some while we wait – that totals $1.9 million
2. we could do 2 cab on truck and one van, a lower lease – $1.7 million
3. we could do one can one truck and 2 vans, and lower lease more – $1.5 million
4. we could do 3 vans – $1.3 million.
$1.3 to 1.9 milion. We could pay for this with ARPA funding. We could order equipment in September, hire people in winter, get policies and procedures and start the following FY. If we use ARPA and option 4…. we ‘d have some left. We could use bond proceeds – frees up ARP for other purposes. Downside is the borrowing needs to be authorized. We’d have to redo the budget. The calendar would be shifted. later. The borrowing would add $175k for the next 10 years… taxpayers would pay interest and could impact other debt projects in waiting, like the swimming pool. This debt would crowd other project like that. Should the vote on the bond be no, we’d be in a predicament.
Ian – questions, board?
Liz – thanks – it was very clear and important information for us all to ponder.
Franz – I agree. Good job.
Daniel – I have a few – option 1 for ambulances – so listed the price of ambulances… what equipment is included in that cost?
Patrick – fully equipped. The Chief can give you the specifics.
Daniel – do we need other equipment?
Chief – so the $400k included – you have to buy a cot. It has a suction unit. We have 4 cardiac monitors so we’d use them, and the overall budget is $30k for supplies, to stock the ambulances. The big items are included.
Ian – where did you get the ambulance numbers?
Chief – I spoke with three places. You could spend way more. This is what needed, not just what we want. This is what we need to operate.
Daniel – the other point… we set $1.7 of ARPA funds, so option 1 may not be a viable option. On slide 13, the recap: we are getting well versed.. but what kind are in use?
Chief – 2 vans and one cab on truck. Truck has more working room, but vans are meeting needs.
Daniel – VT Digger said there was a 3 year lead time for ambulance?
Chief – it changes every day – trucks are waiting for parts. By the time we get around, it could be that long.
Daniel – so we’ll lease with Golden Cross until then… a mate’;s rate. A price you give your friend. Last question – the pros and cons of using a bond. We have RTM in March – we could have a special RTM at another time of year. We could potentially have a different timeline… the second paragraph is about interest. $175k over 10 year..??
Patrick – I ran this through a loan spreadsheet sort of thing. If you borrowed… this was option 4. For 10 years at 5.5%. variables could vary. There would be annual payments would include the $445k in interest spread over 10 years.
Franz – this is ancillary but if we decided to have a municipal EMS system and wanted to buy the ambulances and used ARPA money, RTM could decide that ARPA should be for other stuff, so they could vote to bond the aARPA funds to the original, and RTM could choose the bond option retrospectively if they disagreed with the use of ARPA funds.
Daniel – we make the warning for RTM. You’d need to know they intended to do that
Liz – or petitioned for the opportunity
Franz – don’t want to make a big deal out of it.
Liz – out of what would eb a big deal.
Ian – so, the question of options and ambulances and bonds or ARPA funds, we’ll consider them in September. So, keeping that in mind now and knowing the options. I’d like to know what other similar communities with dedicated service what the makeup of their ambulances are… a community of 12,500.. how many are type 1, type 2, and type 3 ambulances…
Liz – it seems too contrived.
Pete – not terrible information to have. if another town needs all class 1 for some reason?
Daniel – how many other VT towns…
Peter – it can be any town
Ian – we can get more info on each part of each track and have additional research done.
peter – as people give us info, last minute questions will be able to be answered.
Franz – “dedicated” – we’re not saying the EMT really care about people. We mean that ti is an ambulance service which … not the FD providing first responders. It is that one entity performs both functions. That’s the meaning we’ve got for that word.
Ian – the reason I say dedicated is because a regional system would have more ambulances. so that’s why I ask about a town our size.
daniel – what we currently have is three, dedicate ambulances. What we had before is a system that was part of a regionals system.
Franz – you are saying the ambulances are dedicated to one town, but that is different than if the FD shows up to be first responders. Our system is not a dedicated system
ian – we are conflating the term.
Franz – when people hear it they should pay attention to how it is being used.
Daniel – ask us a question about it if you are confused.
Judy Davidson – can you hear me…
Ian – there is problem on our side… I’ll pause you for a minute…
Judy – yeah… can you hear me?
Daniel – it is very faint. I could hear Bob Oeser.
Ian – someone in the room first….
Dora – I have something from Bob…he has a lot of questions. The newest is Ian’s point about speaking to other towns. Would you speak to towns in the VT Digger – Barre, South Burlington…
Ian – thank you Dora…
Chief Howard – I’ve interacted with all the departments mentioned in the article and will continue. I talk to all those fire chiefs.
Ian – haven’t fixed the audio, so…
Dick Degray – interesting listening about the b9nd vote. If voted down, would you take it as a rebuke and revisit? Something to think about. The question I was going to ask, the upfront $250k, given what I have ebeen following and tali abut, and billing, is the $250k an adequate number. I don’t believe it is. You are 9 months in and have $500k of revenue. The Chief says he has more info than I do, but I have a concern about that. Billing software is $30k? Are we doing the billing? Would that require additional staff? Given the amount of calls billed out, I don’t think the finance department (spellcheck just said fiancé depot) staff can pick this up. I’m not looking for this to be a profit, but I don’t want a loss leader. If we break even, good. I don’t think $250k is enough.
Patrick – it is a high end estimate. I think it is good. About a quarter year’s worth. We think it is a reasonable number, and prepares us for a solid successful year.
Ian – do we need staff for billing?
Patrick – the assumption is we’d do billing in-house. There are services that can be contracted. We think it can be done in-house. This is within our wheelhouse and capabilities. there has been some transition in the finance depth and offloading of responsibilities and shifting. We’re hopeful they can take it on within existing staff levels. There will be some changes, some retirements… as we reposition we can take it on.
Ian – the change is not EMS related
John – or startup costs.
Ian – would we pay back ARPA?
Patrick – no one sees this as a cash cow. We don’t make a profit. EMS services are expensive. We read about that today and not unfamiliar to us. This isn’t a cash cow.
Daniel – Dick asked if a no vote was a rebuke? I don’t think you can. Unless they stand up and say it. I don’t think you could say that’s the case. I’m fairly ok to… if we go down this road is ok… I’m not so sure of spending so much ARPA funds.. I could vote against the bond to do it with ARPA and not be against the whole thing.
Judy – (gave up)
Bob Oeser – (not yet)
Patrick – that’s frustrating. let’s double check.. David can you hear us?
David – I have a question – wondering for a while. What is the lifespan of an ambulance? The observation , since Goodnow likes it bonded together – whatever the replacement it means reworking the 20 year capital expenses replacement plan, which will make things very lumpy. That was a smooth plan for capital expenses.
Patrick – a reasonable point… I’ll leave it at point… the purpose was to keep things smooth. One way we did it with the FD is to have a fire truck replacement plan. Bringing on 3 vehicles… we could include the ambulances in the fire truck replacement fund, so we’d set aside a bit each year. Current thinking is the ambulances on 7-10 year rotation.
Daniel – we won’t use the three equally. WE can rotate vehicles and save some miles.
Chief – if we did this, I’d suggest the 3rd ambulance not be new, for that reason. I don’t want to prolong the conversion but there are other options – refurbished ambulances, refurbished parts… we didn’t want that in the mix now, but there are more options out there. Bob?
Bob Oeser – we’ll try… can you hear me.. this is Bob. I’m on voice? OK! As David said I have lots of questions. I have one, and a suggestion. Go to VLCT page for ARPA. There are a number of questions… go through them methodically for use of ARPA funds… are we creating future budget deficits? Are we leveraging federal funding sources? Are we coordinating with other community partners? Are we reinventing the wheel? We need to ask those questions. And thanks for taking my comment.
ian – I apologize for the technical issues preventing your participation.
Kate O’Connor – one comment – I appreciate that the Chief are talking to other towns… can we get them in here? If not, can we hear about the successes and challenges others are having. We’re learning it through media reports. It would be helpful to hear the conversations people are having in other places – the challenges and successes. What’s the real life experience? If the people can’t get here, let’s hear a summary. Clarifying – Nov 2023 to Jun 2024 is startup? Chief said $30k for supplies…is that in there tonight? And we need to add three cots?
Ian – the dates – that’s correct.
patrick – if the board decided in Sept and we have the finances, we’d follow that timeline.
Ian – $30k of expenses in the presentation?
Chief – we have money in the FY 25 budget. We have supplies in our stockroom. We can resupply them.
Ian – so it will be in operating costs. Cots? The ambulance would include cots? (Yes, says Chief…) It captures everything we’d need.
daniel – what kind of cot?
Chief – there are three types – a manual cot, a power cot, an a power load (which we have now,… the wheel come up off a battery and it slides in with one finger. That’s the type we are encouraging and is in the cost.
Dora – You as a board identified a goal as addressing housing, homelessness, affordability in the community… how is this affecting the tax rate. I’m not in favor of using ARPA funds, but even with them, it is a significant increase in taxes over time, so the question is, what effect does that have on taxes. Landlords will pass that expense along to tenants. We have many seniors who we want to age in place, but it could get expensive. If people can’t afford it, then there is homelessness issues and other support services that are already maxed out. These need to be taken into consideration and whether the town vcan afford it.
Ian – you are right. The one thing I’d correct… we’ve looked at revenue and expenses. Next is operating costs. That’s a critical element that we haven’t gotten to yet. When you say it will have a tax impact, we don’t know that yet. We haven’t looked at that number. But that is an important consideration.
Daniel – I agree with everything you said.
Ian – final questions or comments on this presentation?
Franz – very productive time. hearing it again is useful. Excellent presentation and really good support from fire department chief and town staff in general. Very useful way to spend out time.
Ian – what’s next, John?
John – At the 2nd meeting in July – public engagement, contracted EMS RFI results plus a draft RFP. Municipal track will look at staffing models and how we’d staff – and operating costs. All in the project plan on the project website.
Daniel – we are not meeting July 4th. WE do meet July 11th… not on the 18th… but on the 25th.
Ian – now we move on to the next agenda item…
Selectboard bungling harms homeless people.
At their meeting February 21 Ms. McLoughlin flatly denied that there was a homeless crisis. And last night there were several complaints about the selectboard’s work or lack of work on it . I’m told Bruce Clauson spoke eloquently. Here are his comments.
I’m Bruce Clauson. I live in Brattleboro. I’m a director of Brattleboro Common Sense.
You have made some terrible mistakes. I spoke to you — that is the board –not Mr. Case or Mr. Reichsman– about our emergency homeless shelter last November and again with Kade in January. I told you myself about the advantages of decentralized camping. Other people from BCS had previously contacted you, and you all said nothing. That was irresponsible. That was a mistake. In February the town health inspector submitted a report that implies that homeless people are content to live covered in feces. He said it was safer to sleep in the snow than in our shelter. Now the people who stayed in our shelter are still happy and healthy. They would be dead if they took the inspector’s advice. But at the hearing you listened to him all night and refused to read our defense statement. That was a mistake. So you convicted us and want to destroy us in a legal way.
Now the news says that you are proposing –quote — “dispersed camping” for homeless shelters. Isn’t that the same as decentralized homeless shelter in RVs. Are you actually going to prosecute us while you imitate what we are doing ? Homeless people need our project. They don’t need the board to approve official reports that smear them with feces, or contractors that imply they are cockroaches. And they don’t need you to sit and say nothing while they are abused and defrauded by the local hotel managers. We are asking for your compassion and cooperation . Please help us help them.
RIP D.D.
It’s so sad to lose them so young. Sorry for your loss. I’m vibing that his sibs be healthy and fine.
Thanks!
Yes… very hard. They are so innocent. Not their fault.
The two girls continue to do great. I am now an officially-sanctioned and approved cat climbing post.
Fingers remain crossed….