Move to accept the Minutes from August. Have a motion and a second with no discussion. Approval with all ayes.

Move to accept the Minutes from September. Have a motion and a second with no discussion. Approval with all ayes.

There was no report in the packet, so passed around copies of final report. Gave a brief overview. Last couple of meetings people talked of merger. So, they tried to steer away from that. Wanted to know what feelings were about Merger. This report does not mention the "M" word.

The new Public Safety building opened up possibility of coordination of efforts. Have combined training to protect community and two departments. Found that there was cooperation of efforts. Survey being coordinated on calls. This is a perfect opportunity for City to open up to Town and for Town to participate in Survey. Some discussion on whether Insurance rates will be reduced by an all-volunteer community fire department. Cost benefit analysis needs to be done on purchases and maintaining certain services.

Originally backed away from Merger. Want to take it out of Barry’s draft. If as a group we feel there should be merger then we should say that. But don’t need to use the M word. If the individual councils want to do it then fine. Cooperation and merging are two different things. While we recognize merger is a scary word for governing bodies that doesn’t mean it could work for merging services. There are two distinct Fire Departments. Barre City/Barre Town merges into one department with two satellite stations and one chief. Barre City ambulance service should join regional services. A study should be done before new facility. Should meet two times per year, work out purchases before go to budgets.

Dan Bellavance looked at what was best for the community. That there is some friction in some of the Departments. That there is a lack of focus. One head is better than four. How can we convince the community what is best for them. The best thing would be one head. Comes down to one question "Do you care what decal is on the vehicle?" If your house is burning or your kid is bleeding on the floor.

Depending on what the group wants should change "merger" to "consolidation". Paul Simonetta motioned to change all mention of "merger" to consolidation. The motion was seconded. There was some discussion. Dawna brought up the fact that the warning that the voters approved in November of 2000 had the word Merger and therefore we cannot change the wording of the Warning and as a result we should use the word merger where we want. Also, the Executive Summary to the Selectboard and Councilman should also state the Warning as voted on.

4 The motion failed: 5 for (Wayne Pelkey, Paul Simonetta, Charles Fantoni, Gordon Booth and Dan Bellavance)

and 9 against.

Deb Sartelle didn’t vote for the motion because of what Dawna said. Paul Simonetta and Wayne Pelkey changed their vote. So that it failed 3 to 11. Then there was some discussion to remove the motion. Determined that we can’t.

No report here. But the biggest recommendation is number 3. Develop a plan for the graveyard shift. Talking about taking 1 guy away and only rely on 2. We want to stay away from that. Mark Reeves is suppose to be writing it up.