e e e e e e e e e e e e who e e e hello Steve hi Gail how are you pretty good have your house guests left yet they have Janet and I have come up with a new term of um postp party depression oh totally I know exactly what you're talking about yeah and it wasn't the party either yeah but yeah we're pretty tired after yeah yep yep I I feel I feel that way every time after I have a big family visit um either like you know I go I go out to the Midwest to visit them or they come here and then it's just like so much fun and action and then nothing and you're really tired too ah well well we are being recorded so I don't want to gush but thank you so much for that potluck last that that was just so sweet and I enjoyed it thoroughly and it's so generous of you to have everyone over and share your friends with all of us well glad you were there it's good to see you so I assume we're expecting others we are Graham is out tonight um he has uh grandparent duties but um I am expecting Jim and I don't know about Craig um I did although I saw Craig on Saturday at a um a memorial service for a professor at UMass and he said see you on Wednesday so I assume he's coming I sat and alarm to remind me of the meeting just you know little afternoon oh I've got a meeting hope I remember so that I'll so it just it jingled at 455 so I and welcome Jim well hi Jim my apologies old age you know I was trying to figure out how to fix my tractor and uh that and I was running back and forth looking stuff up online and I lost completely lost track of time I'm sorry that is that is okay apology accepted we are glad we are glad to have you we needed you tonight because of Korum because Graham is off doing grandfather duties yes he told me yesterday I saw me so anyway um glad to glad to see both of you happy spring um and um yeah we don't have a a huge agenda um today so we'll get started so I will read my little Spiel um let's see welcome to the May 15th meeting of the MLP board and Broadband committee I am Gail Huntress MLP manager facilitate the meeting this meeting is fully remote participating also remotely we have MLP board members Jim Hemingway and Steve Graham sepon is absent tonight as is uh Broadband Committee Member Craig Martin but we do have Quorum with two MLP members uh so we will go ahead first order of business is to approve uh previous meeting minutes from April 17th as submitted and amended by Jim so moved all right Jim can you give me a second yes second thank you all right uh all in favor of approving the April 17th minutes I all excellent all right um so first I'm going to start with a Graham section of our Hutch report um so last time we were talking a lot about how we can protect our our Mini Splits or HVAC units um and all of our electronics are effectively buffered by the UPS but the mini splits of course have uh a lot less protection um because they they don't run off the UPS so we had talked about installing a surge protector um for for them um and uh I did get a quote and uh and Pioneer Valley um environmental came out to to look at this so so the quote to do that is $1,623 H to in do Soup To Nuts plus um repair the Louver that happened so so just take take care take care of everything um their project guy the project manager person has been taking a lot of vacation this month so I was hoping to report that all that is done but it we're still in progress I checked on it yesterday um they haven't forgotten about us it's just slow moving because this is not a not an emergency um and GR uh looked through documentation and talked to uh pic about doing a delay on the ATS that automatic transfer switch and to take care of those power dips um uh and the the to recap the reason why that's a problem is that sometime those dips start the generator running unnecessarily but even worse if it drops for more than a couple of SEC or or for more than a couple seconds um the the load transfers even when the power comes on so we can create these like fake surges so um Tim boric said he can uh adjust the delay settings um uh for uh 10 seconds but he can also delay the actual transfer of power for two to five minutes so so he could he has two things to play with when the generator starts and when the power gets transferred um so he he uh thought that that would probably be a really good idea um for for us to do to help protect um the HV facts um and also the the rest of the Hut uh to protect it from Just inconsistent power um so um the cost is $300 for for the programming of this the reason it costs so much is because he has to make a full separate trip to shoot Sperry to do the do what he needs to do to program the computer um and [Music] um he said we could have it done now and pay for it or he would do it free as part of the annual service because he has to be up there anyway you know you know dealing with this so um the question is do we just have him come up and do this now or just wait till October with annual service so October so June July August five months so this is essentially the the charge is essentially for service call but um yeah essentially it just it just occurred to me another way we could do this is say just come three months early to do the annual maintenance and do this part so that that's a way we could get it done although he he could push back because he usually makes a make a uh a trip to do the um uh something else at the Town Hall I think is that maybe the town hall generator also yeah yeah yeah probably so you so this three mon so you think of like splitting the kind of splitting the difference there not not doing it immediately but yeah I mean little sooner than the than the regular uh annual maintenance I I kind of think that's un reasonable I mean we have lived with the the way it is for quite some time um you know for number of years now so yeah my only my only concern is it it kind of the the push to get it done is summer thunderstorms of you know I would hate to blow out another one of our HVAC units um um I think you know the other the other thing that's that's a play here is like how how soon is is PVE going to come and and and put in that surge protector like if the surge protector was there I'd feel less yeah worried about this so how about this why don't why don't I sit on this the the PVE folks uh said that they would get back to me by Monday with like okay we have the part or we don't have the part or how long it's going to be and if they can just come and do it we're going to have to pay for that anyway and I'll just say come as soon as possible do that install the surge protector then it'll be protected and then in in um October we'll have Tim do the do the transfer delays if PV is is says oh no it's a you know Supply issue and and we can't get there for another month um I will see if Tim can come up uh and just do the annual maintenance early how does that sound that sounds good okay and I'm thinking when you know this is reprogrammed the the uh the ATS is is reprogrammed for these two uh new parameters we need to be this this needs to be documented so that going forward when you know we're off doing other things um that somebody taking this over learns knows just how this is set up because it may not be a standard uh you it doesn't sound it certainly does not sound like the default which is just kick that thing in immediately um you know add it to our uh our MLP manual yep I think we should do two things that would documented in our in our uh manual and asked him to put actually put a note in the generator um I can imagine for safety reasons also this is helpful because it's like the nothing's happening with the generator and I don't know a technician's like what's going on he starts poking around and all of a sudden it lights up you know that's probably not a good situation I'm sure they have things to protect against that but I would like to know if it's a delay so I'll do I'll do make a note of both of those things oh and also also Graham said we need to put a motion light hooked up to the UPS because if there's a technician in there and there's a power problem he'll be completely in the dark and have to feel his way out right because the lights won't work the if if a technician and there's a delay until the delay right right um I mean they'd only be in the dark shortly but that would be disconcerting because there is no you know there's only like minor little lights in there and I've I've um you know accidentally closed the door behind me and it's it's really dark yeah could you tell me about this so-call surge protector for the Mini Splits what exactly that is um I can send you the part uh yes I can send you the part for it um like the part description from the uh the quote that they sent um I don't have any information like right here but if you give me a minute I can find it okay so this is something that is new and being added to the existing units this surge protection is not something that they originally came with yes this yes it's a it's a it's a brand new part it's a brand new part H okay that might mean that they are that because you know these Mini Splits were blowing all over town during that during that time um about a year and a half ago and and it was clear that the engineering behind them wasn't too solid and I was spent time today or yesterday actually looking up surge protections for those units two you know line volt in the terms of what are called AC line conditioners which would take out all surges and everything else but this sounds like this part whatever it is is would would duplicate that particular possibility um so um well let's just go with that I guess that's what I'm trying to say got it yeah yeah it's it's it's a part specifically made for these so I think it's it's a that's that's what they recommended they being PVE to to protect these and I'm a little mythed that when you know Jam jamrog installed these they didn't say hey this is a nice idea to have a surge protector on your uh you know your mini splits um but we didn't get that so um yeah we we'll do it now after market hello Craig sorry for jumping in late no worries at all we got we got a little bit of a late start today so um you just missed a a a little discussion about protecting those HVAC units with surge protectors and and Generator delays okay yeah I'm thinking about the uh surch about the whole thing with these Mini Splits these are being installed by plumbing and heating people that have been installing traditional boilers and heating systems and other plumbing work for years and this is now a whole new technology for them and so you know it maybe understandable that a lot of these um people installing these are not familiar with all the uh um ramifications of of operating one of them to so the fact that somebody you know an installer didn't recommend this may not be anything they were really that familiar with it might also be that they are less attuned to to real Mission critical sort of things like this I don't know yeah although you know I compressors have been around forever right yeah but they maybe haven't been installed by H by hbac people lot of whom are you know have a plumbing background oh I see I see I see yeah could be so and I mean home heating is Mission critical also which is what they're being used for well we often lose I'm on electric heat and I we lose power for 78 hours and that's you know the way it is yeah fortunately our house is well insulated so unfortunately we have a wood stove so and we now have that kind of thing also yes so we're gonna Gail so we're going to wait until October for pic to make those make those adjustments right as long as PVE can get that surge protector installed in the next in in the next month if there's if there's like some kind of supply chain issue and they're like no it's going to be months um I think I'm going to have pachora come early I I I'm just worried about these summer thunderstorm of you know it was so much money to get those that HVAC unit repaired um we don't want to go through that again well fortunately you know the three-phase Line is now up and running and stable and you know I can say from personal experience that the power feeding me right here on on lockon road is much better than than in other parts of town I mean you know it's it's much more reliable now than it ever was so that's oh that's that yeah that's that's a good point yeah we have better power distribution now than than we used to even over a year ago Jim would you say it's actually a we say a higher quality power feed you're getting now I mean if you put like a sculp on it it would well I I I don't think that has changed it's just the reliability of the power and um as long as you're connected directly to that three-phase line which would be anyone on Wendell road and lockspot road and of course the lever shury Road um so it's it's um it's it's far more stable than it ever has been I mean there were there we never lost I I never lost power this winter and and and others all over town did yes and that's striking the unusual compared to the past we had the worst winter outages I think we've ever had so yeah well you're some distance away from the three-phase feed yeah and yeah there were just trees coming down yeah place on West pum road yeah West pum road is loaded with with naughty trees so to speak all right let's see other news um so uh this week for or this month rather for case tickets it was pretty slow um only 36 normally we average around 45 um and about 13 of them relate to real or possible service problems the rest are all like you know billing and voicemail password problems so slow nice slow month um Jim I can't remember I told you um he took care of the um your poll request at at your address but okay but they have to finish re locating the drop to take care of the top of it they've done that oh they to they took care of the whole thing well it was h i was the other day a couple days ago I noticed that you know the lines were tight and the slack that was there before uh was gone and um and there were clamps put in the appropriate places so it looks like they took care of it just a short time ago I oh is is the old pole still there yeah the old pole is still there because because um um Verizon hasn't transferred their stuff over to the new polls yet for from from from from the beginning of lock Pond Road down to the lake so they have they you know just Verizon is way behind schedule I guess or something like that but in my case everything is okay now it's been fixed okay all right um the technician said that he there's he still needs to do something with the top with recoating the drop um because there's a guywire from the old pole that's still in the way um that could be I I okay yeah all right but from you it's all secure from your end though like the bottom it's not it's not hanging it's not flopping okay good that's that's the important part okay um let's see um this this week the uh extension on uh going to 585 wendle Road um was was worked on so that project is moving forward um I did get a call from the police chief um because the subcontractor CeX did all that work without getting police details and they you know on that really kind of like twisty part of Wendel Road um so she was none too happy about that um and um so anyway I I had a I had a chat with her um I think you know I think what's happening is that the technicians don't want to be delayed by having to wait for police details and call them in and also from prior work um they do try to get away with not using police details whenever possible in this case it doesn't cost them anything more because it's on us it's a pass through like it doesn't but just from the way that they have always done their work my guess is that's at play too um so um I'm working with Chief Burgess to get a map of the roads in town that where police details really should happen and we should just expect to have them there luckily this is unusual we almost never do Mainline work right like this is just not it's not going to be a major expense but but going forward uh we do need to keep the police happy we need to keep the public safe um so um uh we will we will figure that part out and make sure that sheld and subcontractors understand that they need to call for police details on on certain roads um I do have an email out to Kirsten asking like what do you want an emergency situations of we just have to get there we can't we can't wait we can't get a flagger um so um that is is is happening now but um yeah she seemed she seemed willing you know to compromise and and and work on stuff so um yeah um speaking of pole transfers on on Verizon so um today um I went into uh engin a national joint utility system notification and um am working on marking the 189 poles as next to go and complete um they they finished the work the work about a week and a half ago but I just haven't had a chance to go in so the Reas reason I haven't moved any of those polls Verizon it's 9 is it's it's on us we haven't told them yet but I was waiting for the whole project to be done because there's smattering of polls in between that weren't done so they couldn't come and do the work anyway until um just a a week and a half ago um and uh yeah it's it's manually clicking uh three or four clicks 189 times because of the state a good time oh jez um just just think a little bit more about the wendle road situation uh Becky sent out a uh notice on her uh the townwide notification that the dirt section of wendle road was going to be closed on a certain afternoon last Friday afternoon or something I just assume that the highway department is probably grading the road and that road like that if there were got their grader in there's no way you're going to get a car through as well but I'm curious was that actually the uh the fiber construction that that was about I don't know I don't know if they if they were working on on Friday or the the call came in on Monday from the chief and she you know like at midm morning she's like guys what are you like she was doing a patrol and she found them there working with no police D what are you doing and they they said well our schedule changed and we just decided to do this work today um so um I probably not connected then well it's no well it's possible that they were also working on Friday and didn't Bey to send out this notification that the road is closed that means that well somebody know somebody told her to out yeah so I I I don't know and and I'm thinking about this so is the the issue that you got a road like the dirt section window Road there very narrow steep curved um there's just no way you can have big trucks working in there and safely get cars even get cars around them at all or certainly safely get cars around them and that is what what the issue is that why a detail police detail is really seen as really needed say that yes I and I don't I I don't think the road was closed and maybe that was part of the problem is that this big truck was blocking most of the road there was no one flagging and directing traffic and they were you know working on the line extension for those seven poles so um yeah in in in situations like that they really where most of the road is blocked there should there should be a flag or or on any of the higher speed roads but of course the paved higher speed roads are wide enough that um it's less less of an issue L an issue but but the chief still wants to see see flaggers whenever there's any Mainline Road main lines getting getting done on any on any of the main roads or twisty roads like that you know like Wendell um um and so yeah we'll we'll need to do that um this is a unusual year for how much we've had to lean on that though kale what was the name of the um the poll Authority that those letters could you give me that again sure engines NJ NS National joint utility notification system got it so um I hope to finish my click Fest tonight so that all of those uh polls will be marked and then within the next I'm going to say one to six months we should see Verizon coming through and moving those lines and pulling the Old Poles to make Town look a little spier um but knowing Verizon you we who knows how long it's going to take but but our Point our part will be done good all right I'm going to share my screen here uh for the financial report um so um our debt and interest payment got taken out in April as it does every April so we had a this close to$ 100, 999,000 uh taken um from our our earnings this year um it is a good thing that we voted in January to move our retained earnings into an emergency Reserve fund because I think we are we're going to we're really going to need it um I just don't know how much yet um so if you look here um this is the total um uh uh amount that we have including retained earnings including the amount that we voted in January so this is like this is how much is left in the coffers including that emergency Reserve um and uh this is this is without that so if you just look at kind of like our normal budget with no emergency Reserve um we're we're we're cutting it a little bit close we still have one more MLP fee payment that'll come through before the end of the fiscal year so those those are average about 29,500 um so the bills the big bills still left for this year are um our insurance bill so um uh about 12,000 the Wendell Road Extension we were just talking about um so putting fiber up on those four poles and a new MST I I expect that's going to be around 15,000 um for that part and then the final set of poll moves uh we've already gotten one bill for about 65,000 and I'm expecting one more uh between 40 and 50,000 they said it would it would hover around a 100,000 total for the project um so if you take those three big expenses the total of that is about 7780 ,000 um so we're still in a healthy Place financially we're not going to run out of money we're still going to have money left to kick forward into our um retained earnings but it's a it's a lean year because of these unexpected pull moves as we knew it would be uh but we're we're still fine um let's see another news uh we're still working on the digital Equity survey with furog uh we had that stakeholder meeting last week um about it it's uh uh the survey is a bit long um longer than I want but we are trying to collect a lot of good information for it so I'm hoping that people will you know understand its importance I'll I'll really try to Market it well helping people um understand that doing the survey and it's completion means that shsb will get money um uh Mast the uh organization that is connected or I I'm unsure if they're the parent organization or a subsidiary of MBI I'm not sure if that relationship is um but they have reserved uh $56,000 for us um so that is at this point um as long as we follow all the steps a guarantee and it could increase to $100,000 at a prior meeting they said it was 70,000 um but that has been reduced a bit um and it doesn't it doesn't mean we won't get more but we will get at least uh 56,000 for that according to them so what was set aside for us again it was 165,000 is that what you said no uh 56,000 oh 56,000 has been set aside yeah 56 but depending on the digital Equity plan that is a result of our survey it could go up to $100,000 so at least 56 as much as 100 grand all right and the last thing I have on my agenda tonight is um uh vote to reappoint me as MLP manager we have to do this every year assuming you want me to continue I move we reappoint Gail Huntress as MLP manager for additional year second thank you um uh uh Steve vat I Jim I and Craig Just for kicks hi there we go all right thanks guys um so that's all I have on my agenda does anybody have anything else no I don't have anything all right well that was a record fast meeting um faster for me so um let's see so our next meeting is in June that'll be our last uh our last meeting before the end of our fiscal year so uh expect it to be Finance heavy it'll be on June 19th okay um and um I will try to send kind of like a well is that I was going to say can I send around a final balance sheet I think I I think I'll be able to do that because I'll at least know all of the the final bills that are that are coming in so before that meeting I will I will make a note to email all of you kind of like our our final end ofe balance sheet um so that you have a chance to sit with it and and and we can go over any questions um all right I think that is it motion to adjourn second there we go sorry I'm typing oh it's hard with only two of you you have to go back and forth um all right guys well thank you so much as always and I will talk to you next month okay all right bye bye bye bye