Latest / Aired Out / Mark Rosalbo - CONNECTING COMMUNITY in Randolph and beyond

Transcript

Mark Rosalbo - CONNECTING COMMUNITY in Randolph and beyond · Aired Out

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: All right, it's Tuesday.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: We've got Sweethearts and Heroes Day. Tomorrow Patfish is gonna
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: be in here for the aired Out Podcast. I think
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: this will be his second time, and I'm so excited.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I can't can't wait. Can be wearing my free hug shirt.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be fun. Flying the Wall Productions bringing you
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: the aired Out Podcast this morning on the web at
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: aired out vt dot com and you can find it
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: of course everywhere you get your podcasts. Listen while you're
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: on the go. Man, we got some some clouds, maybe
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: some range, well not maybe it's one hundred percent. The
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: rain comes in tonight. We'll get down around forty degrees
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: fifty today for the high with the clouds in the sun.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And then tomorrow is it looks like the rain for
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the most part, is gonna be moving out Tomorrow it'll
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: remain cloudy, fifty degrees and then Turkey Day on Thursday,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: upper thirties, clouds and sun. So there you have it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I gotta say happy birthday to a few people this morning.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: There was some name in there that that I reckon.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Cody Copeland. There's a big dog right there, pat Riley,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: another one, Joey Buttendorf, Great Gray Lady Glenn Wright. We
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: have Maggie Dexter faith Hall. Happy birthday to each of you.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: The president and the board of directors at the Chandler
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: for the Center of Arts, and the Economic Development director
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: for the town of Randolph. Mark and I am I
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: saying this, rosalbo Am, I getting it right.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: You are.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: That's not often that I get that stuff right. Man. Welcome.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to meet you. I think i've met you before.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I think at some point somewhere we may have cross paths.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I think you're a very, very busy guy. I was
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: reading the article that the World published on you and
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: everything that you've just taken on more and more things here.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I get in trouble with my wife sometimes.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sure. Tell me a little bit about what's going
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: on in in Randolph and what you do. I mean, you're,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: as I said, you're you're wearing a couple of different hats.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Well, we're small town. You know where we've been. We've
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: been just under that five thousand resident number for a
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: long time. Although I think we're gonna like we're finally
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: gonna bust up through it, probably in the next year.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: So yeah. Uh, we we have uh we have a
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: standard uh select board, five members. We have a town manager.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: About five years ago, uh, we had an organization that
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: got together and decided.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: That Randolph needed an economic development director.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: So uh they hired As a matter of fact, they
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: hired Joshua Jerome.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: Josh was like, what an amazing guy. Yeah, he's awesome.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: You guys are really.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Lucky to have him.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: Josh took the reins uh and you know, he started
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: twenty nineteen maybe two thousand, just before, just before the pandemic.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: The way they structured the job back then was kind
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: of a shit show. You know, they didn't have enough
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: money per se to do it on its own, so
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: so they ended up they they they did a combination
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: of zoning and economic development work. So it was a
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: good start, but uh, it was a lot of It
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: was a lot of work for for Josh to do both.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: And it was uh it.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: I think everybody knew that it wasn't wouldn't work in
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: the long term, but Josh did it, and he did
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: a great job and so uh so, Yeah, so Josh
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: did it for a few years, did it through the pandemic. Uh,
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: he he moved on to different pastors. The position was
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: open for a while, and uh I I jumped in Wow,
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: and I uh, I've got a long history in Randolph.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I've got five kids.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: I uh yeah, they've all went through the school system
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: in Randolph. They went to Chandler. They did various things
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: in Chandler over the years. I studied acting in college.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say, you've you've been up on stage plenty.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I studied.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: I went to the American Academy of Stomatic Arts out
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: in La I. So I love performing arts, you know,
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: I love it, and so you know, it just made
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: sense to to take on the role, to see what
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: I could do to help make a difference.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And yeah, you still get up on stage at the
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Chandler I do.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: I do just in the in the spring, we did
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: Our Town, Yeah, and I played the newspaper man in
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: our Town and we had such.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: A ball with a long coat there.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had such a good time. And
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: as a matter of fact, I think you might have
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: heard of Noah Khan. Yes, he the director was able
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: to sort of finagle a few to sing a few
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: of his songs for the show, and at the last
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: show he showed up, He showed up, he watched the show,
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: came backstage afterwards, and the whole casket to meet him.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: And I was reading that in the paper.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: It was absolutely fantastic. We had super you know, on
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: the board, we knew we wanted to build more community theater.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: Back over the years, there's been beautiful theater or yeah,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: it's well known for its summer musical the programs that
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: they've had, but the summer camps, yeah, but the community
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: theater program sort of it has been fits and starts.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: So right now we're on some really good momentum. We
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: had close to I think we sold over two thousand
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: tickets for for the for the for the show over
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: two weekends, and so yeah, I mean it was it
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: was awesome.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: The community loved it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: And and the web for that to see the complete schedule.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: What's coming to the.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: Chandler Just Chandler chann for the arts. Yeah, just pull
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: up Chandler. You should find it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we've got a pretty good website. It's constantly changing.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: Beautiful theater, man, it is it. It's it is a
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: lot of work. It goes back over one hundred years,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: it's twenty twenty two thousand square feet.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the town.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: It's a partnership with the town. Actually probably the town's
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: biggest asset. That so the town owns it and Chandler
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: is its tenant and the only Yeah, so it goes,
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: it goes back many many years. The town has its
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: uh annual meeting every year at Chandler, and so the
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: town can use it for as much as you know,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: it's it's really an open space for the community to
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: use as much.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Talking to Rest yesterday and he was telling me off
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: the air, He's like, man, I love the Chandler. I
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: love to go in there. You don't need a microphone
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: at all. Yeah, I mean, the acoustics are just fantastic.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: It's uh we have are.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: When the the classical composers or the musicians come, they
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: all comment on how insanely beautiful the acoustics are. And
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: of course someone like Rusty could he could perform anywhere.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: He's got such a powerful voice. He but but when
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: he's there he does fill it up. Like yeah, yeah,
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: Noody's business. Yet people love you know, we're blue collar town,
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: you know, so people like Rusty, Uh, you know, people love.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: To and I think you guys have had some tribute
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: acts in there too, didn't you. Yeah, isn't there an.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: We've had?
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: You know, I feel like we need to do it more. Yeah,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: you guys have the Uh. You guys do a good
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: job here with tribute acts. Down south of us, they
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: do a good good job with tribute acts. Uh So
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: we yeah, we need to we need to do a
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: little bit more. People love them.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Tell me, uh, what what a typical day is like
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: for you? And then I want to I want to
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: kind of shine the spotlight a little bit on Randow.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: But what's typical day when you get up?
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: Man, Yeah, well I still have We have one kid
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: left at home, so make sure his his asses out
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: of bed about seven thirty. Uh and he's he's an
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: amazing young man. He's his name is George. Uh so, yeah,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: we make sure he's up.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: My wife, uh she works at Dartmouth, so we uh,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: we were both pretty busy. So we uh you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: we get up, we make breakfast, we have coffee.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: We bond uh. Guy.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we maybe we spend an hour before we before
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: we get ready for the day. Sometimes we go for
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: a walk, not as often as we should and so
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: we get ourselves ready, we get you know, George out
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: the door.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: She heads down to Dartmouth and I, uh, she's a
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: little bit she's she's a little bit jealous in my commute.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, sure, yeah.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: I I open the door, head out and it's about,
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: you know, about a five minute walk to the town hall.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's like not even a tenth of
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: a mile. It is amazing. I mean, I'm incredibly lucky.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: I usually I head down. Oftentimes I'll see people. I
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: head to the bagel shop. Uh, or I'll go to
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: to Wit and Grit. We've got a number of local
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: businesses that are open for breakfast, so you know, I
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: often frequent them as much as I can.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, go in there. You brought I did, I did
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: give a plug?
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah so so uh wee bird bagel there. They've been
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: around for probably three three years now, fantastic bagels. It's
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: owned by Chelsea.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Her name is Chelsea.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: She her partner does Bent Hill Brewery. Just amazing entrepreneurs,
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: great folks. And the bagels are sick.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: They open at seven thirty in the morning. Usually by
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: now the bagels are sold out.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Really yeah, they know what you're doing.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they do so.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll go in there cats and bagels and meander
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: my way over to the town hall and try to
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: try to start my day in a healthy way, like
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: not looking at emails. Yeah, reaching out to people. Uh,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: we have a lot of interest in our community, a
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: lot of phone calls, a lot of people asking what's
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: up with Randolph.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: It's it's on the radar.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a I think I think people are interested
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: in Central for mom because it's that it's that high
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: brown notion.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Of living a better life.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: You've got, uh, our history with agriculture, the farming community,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: but you also have uh, you know, you've got this
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: really fun downtown. Yeah, we've got this this beautiful hospital
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: that's been around for one hundred years. It's the largest
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: I know you asked me about me, but let's focus
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: on the town a little bit. It's the largest employer
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: in Orange County. Yeah, they've got five hundred and fifty
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: or six hundred people there that work for Gifford and
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: these are really good quality jobs. We've got VTSU Randolph,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: which is the second largest employer in in in Central
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: in Orange County.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: So we've got you know, we've got these amazing organizations.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: I'm constantly trying to uh to build collaborative relationships with them.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Our relationship with Gifford is incredibly important.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: The town.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: The town wants to support the institution anyway we can.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: The town wants to support Chandler anyway we can. The VTSU,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: They're all going through their own morphing, through their own
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: kind of growing challenges between the broken healthcare system in Vermont.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Fuck, it is a shit show.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: And you know, we've got a new Michael Costa's just
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: let's talk about Gifford for a minute. You know Michael
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: Costa is is He's absolutely amazing. The outgoing CEO, Dan Bennett,
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: he came in to Gifford when it just had become
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: a furtherly qualified health center and hadn't been operationalized yet,
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: so he had all this work to kind of operationalize
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: that aspect and bring all this The technology had been dated,
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: so he had some really big jobs to do. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: don't think he was fully aware of some of the
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: challenges that he was facing. And then the pandemic and
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: then the money started going out the door. I mean
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Gifford had I mean, if you look at Gifford on paper,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: it's not a healthy story, but there's so much more
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: to it than just the numbers. Over the last ten years,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: I think they've lost money eight out of ten years.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: But Dan had Dan did some really amazing work, and
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: when he left, they had to figure out who to
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: who to get in that could actually kind of help
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: navigate through the broken system in Montpellier. And and and
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: so he's doing it. He's doing an amazing job. The
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Oliver Wyman report you probably heard that, Yeah, that came out,
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: and it was a it was a huge blow to
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: to Vermont in the system. And we have fourteen hospitals
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: and four of them were basically I mean one could
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: say on the chopping block and uh and Gifford was
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: one of those.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: And he took that ye he he that rattled the
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: cage around Jesus.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: It was huge and we h he just it was
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: like his first week when the Wyman report came out.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: He hadn't even started yet. And talk about a test,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: you know, you you uh uh, anyone can do a
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: good job in a company or something that's running really well,
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: you know, for someone to actually come in and do
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: a good job where there's huge amount of challenge and
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: disarray and quicksand everywhere.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Like he came in and totally picked up the ball
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: in a.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Place where it was just a shit show, and he
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: used it as an opportunity to start start implementing change
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: and making some big shifts. And he was very thoughtful
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: about it, and so he he got ahead.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Of the curb.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I think a while other institutions were still kind of
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: contemplating what do we do and.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: How do we know?
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: What is the stake going to do and what are
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: our partners Like he just said, no, we are moving
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: and he started making big shifts and he started cutting
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: the fat. He started making changes where the organization didn't
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: need to be anymore. He started partnering with other hospitals,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: working with Dartmouth, and you know, the number of beds
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: that was empty at Gifford when he started it was crazy,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: like you know, they have I think twenty five or
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: thirty beds and it was like seventy percent empty and
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: now it's like almost that capacity. Yeah, Like he's like
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: people are coming back. When when when people are looking
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: for primary care physicians, they're going you know, they're going
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: to they're going to Gifford, and there's no way to
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: find new primary care physicians. And I mean, don't get
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: me wrong, there's still challenges, but but he has it
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: was a listing ship and he has uh you know,
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's come up right and it's moving. And
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: he got a huge settlement on an ARPA pending some
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: litigation or something for eight million dollars.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: You know, that just goes right into the reserves.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So that hospital is not going anywhere.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: There's no way, no way. He made it crystal clear.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: I interviewed him U a couple of months ago, and
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: he's to folks that are worried that Gifferd's going to
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: go somewhere, He's like, don't it's not going anywhere. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: he was crystal clear about it. And and that's what's awesome.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: Like he's controlled, He controls the narrative, you know, he's
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: he he the hospital is out in front of it
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: and uh and and I think that's how it's going
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: to stay.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful campus. It's not all you know, big skyline stuff.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's just nice. It's cozy. You
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: don't even realize here, you can't believe here come out
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of this quaint little town and you're in this incredible
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: hospital like that.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Right, like you get like the pediatrics hospital is in
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: a house that's connected. Like you walk in, it's a house,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: it's you can see like you could see where there
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: was a kitchen one day, you know, and and uh
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: and yeah, so it's it is. It's very Vermont. It's
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: quintessential Vermont. And uh, yeah, man, we're pretty lucky.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Mark Grosalbo is the Economic Development director for the Tone
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: of Randoff and the president of the Board of Directors
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: for the Chandler Center of the Arts. We you know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: we were saying off the air just before we went live. Man,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: it's like that exit for either way, either direction you go. Uh,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: there's so much history, there's so much heritage. But that's
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: a it's a long run, uh, to get down into Randolph,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: like off the beaten path, a little bit for for Pope,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: for for people.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look that's a really good point. So so it's
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: really not. It's about two miles, yes, a couple of miles.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: And but it can seem like that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Because when you're driving on on on on the highway
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: and you see exit four, there's nothing around, but I know,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: it's just it's Wales agriculture, the whales tilS. Jim sardonas
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: is whales tails. Uh, you know Jim Is. He's a
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: very active person in her town. He's you could always
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: see him at the coffee shops, you know, you walk
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: in and there's.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: I've always wanted to have him on the air.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sure you can. He's awesome.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: He's he's very open. He's uh. And the whales, Yeah,
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: he did the whaltales and Randolph did the whales tales
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: up here and procted.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I gotta talk to him.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: He just had a huge exhibit at Chandler a few
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: months ago. Hundreds of people came and uh, it was
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: what do you call it when it's a over the
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: course of your life. Uh, there's a name for that,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: when you do a show and it's like with the
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: workover a span of multi decades. Anyway, I can't think
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: of it. Haven't enough coffee yet.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: But he did it.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: People came every from everywhere and uh to see him.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: And but but it's only a couple of miles down downtown. However,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: you have seen in many cases in towns where a
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: highway has come through that's that's killed the downtown, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: it hasn't been the case for Randolph And and we
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: have a new hospit I mean a new hotel. I
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: don't know if you've heard of that. So we have
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: a sixty four room hotel that is just off the
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: highway heading up towards Randolph's Center and it was completed.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: It just opened a year ago September, and it's been
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: a it's a huge success. They have partnerships with the
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: academic institutions, the manufacturing sector, the hospital, and it's we
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: were so in desperate need of it. And imagine that
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: in redoff a sixty four room hotel.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I had no idea.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and it was it wasn't easy for the
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: investors to do it. It was a twelve or thirteen
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: million dollar project. It started again, started before the pandemic,
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: and then the shit hit the fan with the pandemic
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: and then the cop Then everything reopened at the same time,
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: and you had this just temporary inflation that just blew
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: up prices, so everyone had to go back to the
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: table and figure out costs and a lot of these
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: projects got destroyed. We had so many projects in the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: works during the pandemic. We had a thirteen million dollar
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: hotel project, we had a nine million dollar childcare project,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: we had a fifteen million dollar housing project downtown. Yeah,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: it's going to open in January. It's an amazing story.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: You're going to hear more about it. That was that
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: was actually Josh was a part of that when Josh
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: was at the when when Josh was working for Randolph,
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: he was working with GMBDC Erica Hoffman Kais and figuring
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: out how to make that work. Originally it was going
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: to be a little bit smaller, and then they did
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: a deal with the college to buy a property and
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: it'll open in January and eventually they'll have I think
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: eighty five children are going to be looked after there.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: And it's a huge win for us.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: And somebody just walked by and gave us the finger
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: just kind of you get a lot of that here.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: I don't think he was like looking at us.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: He just happened to you. Yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: So it's it's gonna be the huge need. The biggest
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: challenge is that we face not unlike here is childcare,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: housing and quality jobs. And we have the facility, the facility.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Up on it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: So it's on Route sixty six, just as you're heading
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: down into town. That will that's gonna totally support the
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: need for childcare. We've got another one that opened just
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: a year prior that was for eighteen kids, and we
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: have another one opening that's going to serve forty. So
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: that issue, I think we're going to we've satisfied the
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: demand at least in the short term. But housing is
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: still the challenge. It's a shit show. And our downtown
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: housing Authority render very Communit Development Corporation has been working
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: on two big projects and they've come up with some snags.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: They you know, they they they promised the community fifty
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: new housing units and it looks like we're getting twelve.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: And so it's I'm not going to say it's their fault.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: It's just it's a hard business the whole. I'll talk
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: about a healthcare system that's broken, like the the housing,
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: the way housing is built in Vermont. I was I
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: had breakfast or lunch yesterday with the Josh Hanford. So
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Josh Hanford has been around for a long time. He's
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: he's very politically involved and like he he he had
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: his commentary was, it's just a system that is you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: the it. We can't build these, we can't build houses,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: and we can't focus only on on on low income
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: houses without focusing on the middle market of housing. We
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: can't do this without having some of the private sector
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: involved and have some sort of incentive for them to
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: be able to make a little money in the process.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: You know, this project cost nine million dollars and we
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: have twelve rental units that are that that we're that
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: we're that we're getting to the public and it's been
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: you know, that is not enough.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: You know, it's unacceptable. And but so many it's.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: A ship show. So that the childcare stuff we're doing good.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: The housing we're still we're still in trouble. We have
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: a lot of work to do there. But the quality
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: jobs we have with.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Workforce development seems like it's generally okay.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really good. We've got probably we have the
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: largest uh again, if you're tired of talking to Randolph.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: You just say so now you're here, man, Yeah, all right, good.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: So we have we have the largest engineering firm in
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: the state housed in Randolph. D. Bois and King fantastic company.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: They employ one hundred and fifty people and these are
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: really good jobs. These are smart engineers.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: They they recruit wisely, very uh smart upper management in
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: the C suite, always thinking about ways to keep their
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: employees happy. You know, they'll get people that come in
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: and they're in Randolph for a while and they're young,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: and they'll be like, ah, you know, I need more,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: and they'll they'll move them that relocate them up in
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Burlington for a while. But it's great because they can
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: hire people and offer lifestyle choices that they're looking for.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: And if they're in Randolph, they want to have that
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: high brow notion again of living a better life, a
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: quiet life where there's little agriculture. You get some land,
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: you can build a garden and have some privacy. You
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: can live downtown. I mean we are truly a fifteen
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: minute community. And that that I mean you live. You
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: can walk to the grocery store, you can walk to
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: the schools, you can walk to culture. And that is
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: like there are very few towns in Vermont that are
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: truly a fifteen minute community. And so I lost my
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: train of thought.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: But that's.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: It's so quaint.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Oh d NK and the businesses sorry, I mean no, no,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: go ahead.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So before I forget. The manufacturing sector is very,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: very hearty.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: We've got New England.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Precision is probably one of the more successful machine uh
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: fabricating companies in the state. They make tens of millions.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Of parts over the course of a year.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: You know, those the little metal component and when you
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: flyss you floss your your your teeth, that little thing
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: where you break the floss inside. They're all made there,
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: like tens of millions of them right there. Yeah, and
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: they ship them out to Jay and j and all
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: these other places. But they make they make components for
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: the health industry, they make components for the fire industry,
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: uh fire fire suppression stuff, and probably sixty percent of
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: their business comes from there. But you know, the company
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: makes tens of millions of dollars a year and the
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: town is also a big partner with them to make
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: sure that they have what they need to be able
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: to do there, because it's kind of a dirty job.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: You know, after they make all the stuff, they have
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: to wash the parts and the components before that.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: So we uh.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: When I first started, as a matter of fact, just
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: as Josh Jerome was leaving the ARP fund, there were
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: a lot of ARP of funds available, and we did
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: a deal to secure a lot of money for them
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: to reduce the overall copper and lead content that was
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: going into the wastewater system because every town has sort
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: of a limited amount. If you have a system, a
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: wastewater system, you have a limited amount that you can
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: put in and we h that's probably kind of boring stuff,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: but we so they were hitting our capacity that business alone,
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: and we figured out a way to lower what they're
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: bringing into our wastewater system by ninety percent. So now
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: we can have they can grow and their capacity can
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: go up enormously over the next few years, and we
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: can invite other manufacturers to come in. So yeah, we've
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: got we've got a handful of great manufacturers. And you know,
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: all these jobs are really good. You don't have to
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: You can work at the fabrication at a New England
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Precision and not be you know, you don't have to
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: you know, you don't have to go to school for
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: twenty years to do it. You can start, you can
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: start slow, and you know, within a few years you're
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: making a fantastic living. And you know these are you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: they're it may not be for everybody, but they're good jobs.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: And we've got.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: We talked a lot about Gifford about the actual hospital.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I mean there's another big hitter, if not yeah, the
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: big hitter for randof But but you got the colleges too,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: right there. You got the tech center.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Yep, Yeah, the Vet School yep. Yeah.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: The tech center is is really important. I think we
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: need to focus more on that in the coming years.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: It's right and connected right to the high school.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I don't even fully understand how the academic institutions are
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: going to sort of fall into place in the coming years.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: But I'm hoping that given the way Randolph is situated
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: that we are going to we'll be able to support
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: the communities that will perhaps be coming into into Randolph
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: to educate their kids. As this, you know, something has
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: to give the micro schools and all the stuff that
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: the smaller towns that you know, it's very difficult when
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: the cost of education is going this way and the
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: enrollment is going this way. And I've been here for
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: twenty years and those lines.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Have not changed. Yeah, you know, cost keeps going up.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: And the enrollment is just it's stable and it's falling
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: and or so it's falling and you know, that's not
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: a winning scenario.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: So it's hard.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: You know, it's very complicated, but the school system that
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: the tech program is is very important. The more and
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: more people are identifying with that kind of work as
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: being meaningful. You know, when we were kids, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: if you were you know, you don't know what to
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: do with yourself. You got into the trades, you know,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: if you had parents that were paying attention, you're like, oh,
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: you're going to go to college, You're going to go
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: do this. But that's not how it is anymore. People
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: recognize these are good jobs.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a good jobs. They're meaningful.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: You get up in the morning, you go out, you
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: bust your ass all day, you feel good. You can
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: quantify the result, and it's a good life.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Boy, what a concept.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: My son, my older son, he's a he's a sophomore
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: at UVM and he's a business major. But he works
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: for Chimney Savers. During the summer, he's out busting his ass.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: He's out building chimneys. He loves it. He absolutely loves it.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: He wakes up in the morning, he goes, he's outside,
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: he comes home, he's tired, but he just feels good.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: He loves the work.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: And you know what, the guy's at Chimney Savers. They
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: can make eighty ninety grand a year. Yeah right, that
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: is crazy, right, eighty ninety grand a year for working hard.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: But still forty hours a week, you're you're not out.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: Maybe fifty if you've got a big job, you know
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: you're working.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: But but well, once you once you have that skill set,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: once you've learned that, you can work for somebody else,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: but you can also start your own business. Yeah, start
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: your plumbing business.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, plumbing whatever.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: The guys that own Chimney Savers have shared stories with me,
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: just what you're saying. Guys will go in, they'll work
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: there for five, ten years, and they go off, they
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: break out on their own. You know there's enough work
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: that they can do that. Oh yeah, it's because it's hard.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: Not everybody wants to get up on a on a
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: roof and repair a chimney or so these jobs are
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: always going to be in demand.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So yeah, always, you're absolutely right. I love the fact
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: that Randolph It's got that little quaint movie theater at
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: the pizza shop right next door. What's the Village Pizza
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I think?
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so absolutely fantastic. The Playhouse Theater is the
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: oldest theater in the state.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Uh, I didn't know that.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the oldest continuously running theaters, open early eighteen
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: hundreds and it Yeah, it's got a great story. The
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: two owners or these two guys that are just super
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: dedicated to bringing good movies and to town.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I think of the Savoy too.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: That's it's just like the Savoy.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Savoy has these two great theaters they got
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: they've got great independent films.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: They also have other stuff.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean a town of five thousand people,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: we've got we've got a movie theater, We've got a
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: bowling alley.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, we've got Chandler. Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: So in that little that little market there right around
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: the corner from Half Village.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Pizza there, Chef's Market.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, pretty cool.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: It is awesome.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: It's uh that so so we architecture. Oh it's We've
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: had a lot of good investment in in town over
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: the years. And that was Sam Samas.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: So.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Sam is the guy who owned three Stallion back in
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: the day.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: And uh, you.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: Know, Sam invested a lot of money in our town
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: and he was a believer and he he.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Took the depot.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: He had a chef at at three Stallion who he
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: really liked and believed and he wanted to open up
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: a downtown shop and that he did. He probably he
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: probably dropped eight nine hundred thousand dollars in that building.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: And wow.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's uh so what it is today is
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: a lot of the depots you see in small towns
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: have been run down. You know, this costs a lot
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: of money. He yeah, the timing was right like that.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: That is a huge asset in our community.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Absolute one of a kind. Yeah, I love it. Yeah.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And and Bent Hill, which I I don't think I've
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: actually been to the brewery, but yeah, I forgot actually
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: that it was there. And that's I'm glad you've reminded
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: me because I'd love to go check it out.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's a sister town just over the border. Uheh.
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: You you gotta you gotta head out the dirt roads,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: you gotta kind of head up into the woods. But yeah,
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: it's an absolutely beautiful experience.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: You go up. They've like they make their own beer.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: Sure it's all vegetarian food, but you never know it,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: Like if you're not a vegetarian. You can still go
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: there and have like the most amazing food. That's so
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: cool overlooking these mountains and these beautiful fields, and you know,
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: they bring entertainment up there. That's another thing in Randolph
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: we have is a very vibrant artistic scene, not just
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: with Chandler, but the ancillary stuff. We have five galleries,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of performing artists that uh that
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: write music.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: We have we have the Underground Recording Studio, which.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I didn't know about that.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So so Vincent is his name, and he won,
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: you know, the seven Daisies he won, He won the
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: best Small Recording Studio in the State seven Daisies Award.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: Really yeah, in Randolph.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: So uh yeah, wow, I'm trying to keep track of
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: all this. It's so cool.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: And what was the other thing I was? I was
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: just gonna ask you, like, what opportunities right now do
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: we have in Randolph for somebody who wants to start
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: a biz, A small a small bass.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Have you got some store front?
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah we do, Yeah, we we have. We have one
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: main which was our Anchor restaurant right on the corner
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: of Main Street and Merchant's Row. Closed and so that
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: that space is available. So we also have we have
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: almost three thousand square feet of space on Merchant's Row
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: that is unbuilt, undeveloped, and we also lost our one
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: of our drug stores right aid, so that space is available.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we have we have.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Some space for small business and for some bigger endeavors.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: What's the summer like in Randolph. Summer summertime in Randolf, Well.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: It's brief, like like like like summers in Vermont, It's
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: pretty brief.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: But yeah, we uh it, you know, it's a it's insane.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: It's beautiful. There's we have a very vibrant biking and
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: hiking scene. We we have, we've invested. When I first started,
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: we had a we had a grant with Again this
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: goes back to Joshua Jerome.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Joshua was working with Department of Marketing.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: And Tourism, I think it was doing the work program.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: So we've had two Warick grants. One was the most
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: recent one we did was actually to help build the
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Velamont Trail, a ten mile stretch of the Velamont Trail
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: which eventually Randolf will connect to.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: That's the long trail that runs through the state.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: But Prior to that, we did a we did a
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: trek up near the college where you can go up
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: and have like this this biking experience up there and
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: tons of different trails. So in the summertime we have
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: a very active lifestyle. We have a lot of people
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: that do a lot of biking, a lot of running,
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: and all these trails come. Welch was in our town
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: cut like about a year ago, and he's he made
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: a joke. He's like, sooner or later all the roads
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: end up in Randolph. He says, yeah, yeah, Like, well
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: it's not just the roads, it's the bike trails too,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: and and uh so people love it because you can
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: you can you can sort of stay downtown, you can
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: connect to other towns, but you can also head out
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: into the woods.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: You could.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: We've got tons of trails that are actually if you
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: have a mountain bike and you want just a little
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: piece of of what it's like to be out in
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: the woods on a trail, you.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Have that cross country ski trails.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: Ski trails. We've got an eighteen hole golf course which.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: In the winter time people love to snowshoe out there,
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: and so people golf people, don't you guys.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Have a a farmer's market in the summer.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we do, uh, we have a farmer's market. It's
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: again Gifford plays a very strong role in our community
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: and they have they've had their farmers market up on
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: their campus for a long time.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: And yeah, what what shows should we highlight that are
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: coming up? I think you alluded to a few of
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: them earlier, but at the at the Chandler.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Like, oh god, Well, what I would recommend is you
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: go to the website and you look and see what
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: see what they've got going, and you decide what you want.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: We'll be coming out with a.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: New program for for twenty twenty six soon, so you'll
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: get a chance to see what's going on. But yeah,
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: check out the website. See there's generally a wide variety
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: of things that you can see there.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: There's we were talking before about the opera that was
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: just there.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: How often can you see a full opera in Romans,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: you know, so this was this was just amazing. It
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: was we have opera, we have the ballet comes the
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: key of Keiev Ballet will be there doing Nutcracker freely soon.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: That's always a popular one that will sell out. So
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: you go on the website, take a look and see, uh,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: you know, see what what interests you.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: You guys have met the Nutcracker there frequently?
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Yea?
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Is it every year?
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a popular one. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty popular
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: to your listeners. We actually were looking for five new
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: board members in the next six months. We have a
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: number of board members at Chandler that have been there
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: for most decades that are retiring, and so if you
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: go onto the website, you can if you know anybody
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: that you think would be a good fit to be
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: on the board of Chandler, you can nominate them. You
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: can also nominate yourself if you want, and I'll reach
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: out to them. We'll sit down, we'll talk a little bit,
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: and we want to we want to fill those five
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: seats by.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: February if we can.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: So.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if you know anybody that's interested in participating, we'd
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: love to.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Good to know, it's good to know. I want to
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: go back to summertime for Randolph, because don't we have
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: like one of the few remaining drive in movie theaters
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and in Randolph.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: We have a drive in.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I should go more often. Yeah, it's pretty well.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: They've got the technology.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: They just did it.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: They just figured out a way to come up with
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: the technology to keep it current or whoever.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my kids love it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: You know, they go up.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: But in the summer, the summer, it doesn't get darks
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: on nine o'clock. You go up see it, you see yeah,
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: you see two movies. You know, you pack out at
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: one o'clock in the morning. Yeah, it's got one of
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: these old buses in the back.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: You know, you can go get snacks and popcorns and yeah,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: it's pretty cool.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: That's so nostalgic from hot right. Yeah, yeah, and then
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: and there, you know, there's not many the fairly drive in. Uh.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: We had to close it out last last hour.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: So that's too bad.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: You know, that's it. I think it's it's Randolph and
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I think it's Colchester. If I'm not mistaken for driving movie.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's too bad, because it is.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's one of the things that especially as parents,
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: we love that because that's something.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: We did the kid.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it also it also gets kids away from
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: their phones. Sure, like yeah, they're they're they're spending time
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: with their friends.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, you know, they're just yeah, we need to
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: get away from that.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I understand. Believe me. I have an eleven year old
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: girl and what she loved that tablet constant struggle all
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: the time. Yeah, but yeah, get the kids out of
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: the house and and get them to to see some
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: great entertainment, some art. Uh, get into the Chandler. It
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter if you're in Randolph, the White River, wherever,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: the heck Saint Chay, run down and check out the Chandler. Yeah,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: you guys have so much happening and anything else from
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: from economic development that we want to wrap up with.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: For Randolph, I mean, it's it's a town that's growing.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is growing. It looks great, Yeah, it's there.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: The the development is it's it's slow, but it's growing.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: The the folks that do the census work, uh often
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: stop into our office and and talk with us, and
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: they said, of all the towns that we look at
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: in terms of the zoning activity, they said that Randolph
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: has is the most consistent grower of housing of projects.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: And they said it's not you know, it's not like
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: ten percent a year or anything, but it's you know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: there's constantly projects that are going. So I guess what
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: I would say about Randolph is if you're looking for.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: If you're looking for a place to live to have
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: some interesting yuh an interesting life, it's worth considering. And
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: you know, there isn't anyone there isn't any one big
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: project that's gigantic, but there's there's uh. One of the
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: things Michael Costa said recently and when I was talking
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: to him, was you know, the community has to show up, right,
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: You have to take responsibility for your part in a community.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: And I think that what what what I see in
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: our town is we have so many people that are
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: so deeply connected and want to see Randolph thrive. And
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: so that is like it's hard to quantify that, but
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: when you come into our town and you start to
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: you start to get to know people.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: That is the draw. That's the draw in.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: Our community and or and and that's a you know,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: that's an authentic, organic thing that you can't take away.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Folks that want to maybe chat with you or or
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: email you, get in touch with you, maybe they want
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: to meet with you, and they have some ideas or
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: some interest in Randolph. What's the best way.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Well, probably email just Mark at randolphet dot org. That's
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: the easiest way to reach me. And then I'll get
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: back to you, back to them as soon as I can.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great chatting with you, man, it was. It was
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: fun having Rusty in here yesterday and uh.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: Pretty big chef. Yeah yeah, I'm a little more boring.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Than Russ Is. Is an interesting, interesting dude. But he
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: loves the Chandler. He loves coming to random.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah man, he he He cut his teeth in Randolph.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: He cut his teeth. He worked, He worked with way back,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: he worked with.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: Mc meekan and the folks there like he he there's
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: some of the some of his live shows that he like.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: He made a lot of money selling CDs.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: Back in the day. Lckbuster. There's some good stuff, man, everyone.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: So I'll listen to them because he's just it's just
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: fun to listen to. But he he taped one of
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: those that Chandler in fact, yea and yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: he taped it there man, and he you know, he
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: was on fire and yeah. So we're very lucky to
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, sometimes people take for granted some
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: of the old folks that have been around for a
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: long time.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: You know. I think Rusty, like Rusty Rusty is.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: A perfect example of an artist who learned how to
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: totally create a business for himself. And you know, he
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: goes back to the days with bud Bill, David bud
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: Bill and working with Judevin, you know, developing that character.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: And you know what he said to me once, he says,
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: he said bud Bill was a writer, and I said,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: I can be a writer.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: He's like David just David would sit down and write
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: shit down and he said I could sit down and
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: write ship and then he started to yeah, and then
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: he's like you and David knew how to market himself.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: Bud Bill like he knew how to tell his story.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a gift. He said.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Another thing he said to me said people artists don't
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: care about They think it's beneath them to promote themselves.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm an artist.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: He's like, if you don't, if people don't see your work,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: what do you have?
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: And Rusty like he's I.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Know, man, Best O'Brien and Jay Craven. I mean, this
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: is this is the powerhouse, yea of what what can
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: come creatively out of the hills of Vermont.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: For sure, absolutely great stuff.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Listen, anything you've got going on in Randolph that you
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: want some some push on get in touch with me,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: regardless of what it is, especially channel stuff. I'll be
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: paying more attention to what's coming. But great chatting with
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: you man, and and getting to know you Mark Uh.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Real pleasure. I read, as I said, I read the
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: story about you Uh in the the world and I
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: was like, that's an interesting guy right there, should be
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: aired out. Thanks for coming in here today, man, Thank you,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: pleasure to meet you. Mark Risolbo. I am saying that correctly, right,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: you got it. And he's the executive director over at
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: the Chandler.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: And actually that's Chloe Chloe Power, president of the board.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: You're president of the board of director, yes, that's right,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: and Economic Development director for the ton of Randolph. Great
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: having you in here. Thanks and come back soon.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I will for sure,