 And I was thinking the, the gavel makes a terrible sound for the speaker of the house when we were calling the session virtually, she's using a rubber hammer. So they've just been switched to that. Anyway, the first thing on the agenda are the minutes of October 6, 2020. Is there a motion to approve? I move to approve the minutes of October 6, 2020 as presented. Your second. I'll second. Page one, page two, and page three. There are no corrections. All those in favor of approving the minutes of October 6, 2020. Raise your hand. 123 and that takes care of us tonight for the minutes. We'll listen to the audience. We're missing two people. For various reasons that we have some. So we do have a call. Then we'll move on to the public public comment. If anyone has any comments, any issue they wish to discuss tonight. This is your opportunity. Okay, Terry, I have a one person at least right now, Scott Whitaker. Scott, I'm going to allow you to talk by me. You'll be connected in just a moment here. Okay, can you folks hear me? Very good. Thank you gentlemen for letting me speak. I had reached out to Eric earlier today about status of trick or treating in. I know it's not really under your pervy too much, but it kind of is. There are a lot of parents who are questioning about what's the town and what's the state's position on trick or treating I after speaking with Eric or at least and be in contact with Eric I did see something that came from the state on October 15 about that participation was going to be allowed. Nothing heard from the town I wanted to assume good, no news is good news. But I was wondering if there was going to be just for some clarity amongst the parents and towns folks if there was going to be something coming from the town that Yes, we are going to allow with it allow allow for it to happen with social distancing whatever unless of course if there was to be some sort of spread or some sort of a cluster that developed within Wilson or within the school between now and Halloween. And secondly, I know distancing social distancing is the key part. I've been from what Eric told me there have really been no quote hours of trick or treating. We're fortunate in this 2020 year of COVID that Halloween is falling on a Saturday. So one option I thought of whether the town wanted to take upon it or not is given it is a Saturday and usually trick or treating would be like from 530 to eight. If your parents got home and stuff and you really had, you know, hundreds of kids in a cluster of only two hours. Would there be a suggestion by the town or whatever maybe opening up to like from three to eight or something like that therefore your, your density is less because it's over a longer period. And also just really the comments I had and wanted to get your perspective on this. I think Scott will have a discussion I think at the end of other business. We have a lot of stuff to take up between now and then as to whether we have any options to do things for the trick or treaters. My own personal thought is that on a Saturday, it opens up the possibility for more adult parties and perhaps kid parties as well because there's no school and people have more time. So I've, in my experience in town we've never I've never seen kids out before five o'clock on any day, any Halloween day whether it's the week they are the weekend but that's my own personal experience. Years ago, when I first moved to town and 66 developments were being built, and kids were being brought in by the wagon loads to for trick or treat or treating in Wilson that doesn't happen. Any more so that's a good thing. We won't have to worry about that I don't believe that anyway we'll, we'll have a discussion later on about what the options are. Yeah, I have a message from Carolina Carolina I'm going to connect you now for for public comment just one moment. Hi, can you all hear me now. Great. Hi everybody, I'm Caroline Aubrey I live on Oakville Road, been a resident of Williston for two years now. This is actually my first select board meeting and I'm really excited to be here. Hope to attend more. I just wanted to say that I've been following your budget projections read an article in the Williston observer and just wanted to make some comments on that. We can be in the loop and hear more things going forward. I just want to say that I hear you want to level fund the police, which is and we're facing a big deficit and I understand you have to find places to cut and everything but I hear you want to level fund the police, which from my research I've noticed is one of the departments with already one of the largest and beefiest budgets. So if you want to cut budget funding from the parks and recreations department in the library. According to this article, and as an avid community gardener as an outdoor enthusiasts and a reader. I find so much value in those. I just want to say thank you to all of our community and I just think that their staples and really remiss to hear that they're being potentially cut from when I think we have an opportunity to really look at other places and departments. We know full well, want to acknowledge movements going on around the country as well. So I just want to make sure that we're focused in to think about where we're putting our priorities. If we're putting our priorities into the law enforcement not into residents and their overall well being. I would love to challenge you all to maybe consider that and think about shifting priorities to reflect everything that's going around around the nation in Vermont and how Williston can be a part of a larger push for change and really reevaluate our values and where we're putting them. That's all I have to say and thank you so much for listening. Thank you, and you'll have a type of opportunity to listen more to select board meetings will be every Tuesday night and December with the exception of the Christmas week will be meeting to talk about budget. We're going to continue into January so that we'll see everything right now is up in a year because we're not sure of our income for the current year and we're certainly not sure of income for the following year so we'll be interested in everybody's comments on that. Great thank you so much Terry. Thanks. For the public. Nope I don't see anyone else there. Welcome to the interviews and appointments. We do have three applicants for the planning commission tonight and hopefully there. You can put them in the loop. Eric. I'll connect all three now I asked him. Folks should be reconnecting just a moment if you could unmute and if you're willing to share your video you can do that now as well. Happy to. Thank you to just like board meeting. It's a little bit difficult doing this by zoom but we'll do as best we can. So, first of all, I would like to have all of you introduce yourselves one at a time, give us a brief summary of your background and why you're interested in being on the planning commission. And then we'll go into questions from members of the board and and then we'll go from there and our, our policy is only have more than one candidate for a position to hold off on making a determination until later on in the meeting. The appointments are always public meetings you're certainly welcome to tune in later on or keep keep tuned in at during the whole meeting if you wish to, but we'll be discussing the appointments towards the, the end of the, the evening which we project that being somewhere over 30 and never sure about time but. So, I'm going to ask in my, I'll probably get your names really messed up but let's try near a valentic first. Hi, can you guys hear me okay. Yes. Thank you for having me my name is native a lentic. And I'm really excited for the opportunity just to be here and the opportunity to be part of the planning commission. A little bit about my background is for the past five years I've been working for the state of Vermont, and I've been working in healthcare policy business and technology. In that role, I was a business manager so I worked a lot with understanding policy and rules in order to operationalize them. I also worked as a product owner to lead a team so we can build a roadmap to essentially strive towards our vision of making it easier for Vermonters to apply for healthcare programs and other benefits. I did begin working at the medical center as an epic principal trainer for electronic health record. And the reason I'm applying, you know, for this position on the planning commission is because I'm really excited about taking some of my skill sets and being able to help proactively plan so that we can continue to strive toward meeting the town's future vision and goals for planning and development. And I get very excited about rules and policies. Even if I don't have a large background specifically in urban planning, able to do my research ahead of time, really prepare for discussions, actively listen and just contribute towards, you know, collaborative team work and atmosphere. And just being able to offer up those skill sets and be a part of the planning commission and get more involved in the town and how we interact in the town with when it comes to planning and development are some of the main reasons that I'm applying. So I'm really looking forward to answering any questions you have later on in the open panel. And again, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Yeah, hi. Can you guys hear me okay. Yes, yeah. Yeah, so good evening, everyone. My name is Ruben Astropiso and thank you for this chance to be able to be here. And a little bit about myself. I'm with the University of Vermont, so I'm coming from the academia side of things. And so I'm a professor there. And I also am a healthcare provider with the University of Vermont Medical Center. So, not a whole lot of background, I guess in terms of urban planning but I think that the skill set that I think I could bring in would be the looking at the vision of the town and how that relates to the core values that the town is wanting to achieve and have and want to make sure that the current plan that we have is actually representing those values of the town. I'm looking, I'm going to be looking at it from a methodical standpoint, academia style, and making sure that all sides are being considered. Every policy in my in my mind is always open to interpretation. And that's why no matter how the policy was crafted, it's I mean that's the whole reason why we have different bodies that look into the interpretation of the policies. So that's where they're here and now really, but looking at forward, I think it's more of the long term thing for me, especially looking at the sustainability of the plan for for Wilson in terms of of its development so and based on the travels that I've made I travel a lot for business so I think looking at internationally and nationally looking at sustainable communities around the country and the world. And what are those things that we can model upon us as as this town of Wilson. Thank you. And Alex daily. I'll do the same sound check everybody hear me okay. Yes, we can. Great. It's a familiar sound. So thanks for having me everybody. So I'm a homeowner here in Wilson live over on the south side of 89. I've been in town for about four years now. Long time, Vermont or short time willa stone in professionally I'm actually the president of an e commerce company and the chief marketing officer of a multi billion dollar asset management company so I come to you from the private sector side. So, you know senior executive I imagine you guys can can guess what skill sets I bring to the table. I won't I won't belabor that point. I'm not a not a developer. Right, I am a homeowner in town I have no conflicts no sort of axe to grind I don't come to the table with a viewpoint on public planning. I'm here as a homeowner thinking to myself is a wonderful town and attracted me my family lives here I have three kids in the school system here I love this town. And I want to see that the plan works for me for other residents of the town. I'm really interested to start getting more involved in the town and local politics. Since I've come here I've been sort of longtime listener first time caller here. I work with the select board and hear what the residents think is working about the current plan and the current zoning that's come off of that plan. Understand what isn't working and what people want to see addressed and just help make that happen. I'm used to working with big long term decisions, budgets, etc. So, I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have but that's me. Thank you. Thanks, all of you. And so I'll open up to the board for questions. Jeff. Sure, I'll go. I'll go first then ask a question the same as as everyone and I was glad to hear two of you mentioned the town comprehensive plan. And so my question is, is, have you had the chance to either read or peruse or go and set the town comprehensive plan. And if yes, if no that's not a showstop or anything like that but if yes, what are your thoughts, what are we doing right, and where might we make improvements. Go ahead. Perhaps I can go in reverse order and go with Alex first, Ruben second and you're a third. Sure. Happy to. So I read the document as recently as about 20 minutes ago. And a few times before that to Eric and I have actually been in correspondence about joining the board for a little while now. Like I said, I don't come with a sort of a particular policy plan in mind right like I'm not walking in here and saying like hey, I think the town needs more of this and less of this except that what I've seen myself and what so far my limited survey of friends and town think is working for them. I'm interested in this what the select board is hearing from all of our constituents you talk to a lot more of them than I do and far more often than I do. So my initial observation is, we could probably use a little bit more of sort of prescriptive or descriptive zoning regulations. I think everybody is sort of, you know, looking at what's happened since that plan came out with tasks corners and the area around any crossing etc and saying hey this looks pretty good, except, and I'm sure everybody knows what the exceptions are right I don't think anybody expected a four story hotel to pop up on a little wedge of land show between a ups store and another spot right. I think that there are things that are, if you will unexpected to come out of any plan like this, each time you make a revision you have to think very carefully about how is this going to get interpreted five years from now 10 years from now what is this going to allow and so I'm really interested in gathering that feedback so overall for me, what I like about the plan is it takes an eye both towards development is going to happen, and that we should be mindful of where it happens we should try to have different types of development different parts of the town not just sort of a libertarian ish mindset of anybody build whatever you want anywhere, which I think helps create a town that feels like it has some central thought to it right it feels organized and pleasant to visit pleasant to live in. And I think that's great having the defined zoning, all that. I think, you know, on the other side of the plan, you know, I think I touched on what doesn't work in the plan which is, you know, just the structure of some of the buildings and developments that have been proposed or are in progress right now that maybe there's been a lot of negative feedback on so I'm interested in just trying to figure out how to take that feedback and turn it into a plan that the town really feels bought in. Thank you. Thank you. Ruben. You're muted. You're muted. Sorry about that. Yeah. Okay. And since there's three of us, I'm always going to be number two, in whichever order you go right. No, no. So I did, I skim through it, and I did not read it to be honest with you at sentence per sentence. But I think based on my attendance with the previous meetings of this and planning commission as well. I think what what I gathered from that is it is a comprehensive plan. It does address the different facets of community building and planning. All towards you know, improving quality of life for for a little town of Wilson but it's also a balancing act it the plan has this balancing act between the recognition of progress. But at the same time, trying to respect what the town really wants to be based on its core values. And the only one thing general comment that I would like to make is that I think that and this is piggybacking a little bit on what Alex said, is that you know, sure every line can be interpreted in multiple ways. And one way by which we could minimize that is to make sure that we prevent ambiguity of terms where it's not open to any interpretation like for example the open space for example, open space and how do we define an open space. So I think there's certain languages language or terminologies within the plan that could benefit from not only a review, but making them clear and as less interpretation as possible. Yeah. Hey. So the original question. I'm just I want to make sure I answer it. Could you just repeat it because it was basically looking at what we like about the town plan. If we've seen you know, read it and what we can improve upon within the time town plan. I just want to make sure that was original. Yes, that's that's a good summary of my question. Okay. I can tell me if there's more but to start, I did go through the town plan and I was really just trying to get kind of a comprehensive overview of what the town plan encompassed. And what I really liked about the town plan is that we are thinking towards more of sustainable future and what our development is going to look like with the world in the place that it is right now environmentally. So I really like that a lot. I think we could do more from the environmental aspect about how we're going to ensure that as we're developing that we are keeping in mind, you know, how we're spending energy and how we're using renewable energy. I think the other piece that I think would be beneficial that we included in the town plan was also how we're engaging community feedback. So I know a plan is only as good and planning is only as good as the feedback we get from our community members. So I would love to within our top and also understand how we're proactively kind of identifying issues that community members are seeing or areas where there are gaps that they want filled, and kind of taking that feedback processing and then proactively trying to update the town plan so that is taking into consideration. That feedback, you know, before it becomes an issue. So really about that proactive planning and that kind of community engagement about getting buying from our community members on what they think from all different perspectives and all different parts of the town. I think, yeah, I think that hit all the parts but Jeff, follow up. Sure. All three of you I think to a degree have brought up tax corners the tax corners areas and you know my what I hear about tax corners is either tends to be either negative or neutral. Really do I hear somebody say hey I really love tax corners. And so I guess my question is along the lines of and again this. Well, not again but I realize this is a difficult question but it's along the lines of what can or should will list and do about tax corners. I'm going to throw into that we are taking a pretty bold and active step by moving towards form based code. So if you want to work with that a little bit in your answer, feel free. Does that question first will make sense. Am I rambling too much. Again, we'll find out. Find out okay good answer. Moving we'll put you on first. Oh, thanks Terry. Hang on, I'm trying to think about, you know. So Jeff, if I could just rephrase the question, you're, you're asking if what are thoughts in terms of how do we address that issue of say, and given that given tax corners as an example. I'm not trying to confine you too much. I guess a way to think of it is some people look at tax corners and and look at it as kind of a failure for lack of better words were doomed to tax corners, you know, for, you know, maybe ever other people are going to look at and say hey it still is an opportunity out there. So it's kind of along those lines that I'm, if that helps at all. Yeah, yeah, it does. And certainly it is a struggle that finding that balance and I think I've alluded to it earlier on to find the balance between stress and environment and quality of life is certainly going to be an eternal battle for sure because it's part of human evolution is part of, you know, how we evolved as as as a community. I came from a big city, so I have seen the big urban and I lived in New York City. And, and I, and you can see that New York City is an extreme example, compared to to Wilson but I think that I, I see it as an opportunity to be able to engage the community in determining what happens to their community what happens to their town, and it's finding that balance and goodness is very hard to find the balance between you know you want convenience of the place for example because it's a place where you can eat and socialize and shop, but at the same time and it's a designated zone for that, but at the same time you have to have this residential high quality of life feel that it should be part of the town. So I think the bottom line for me is that to be able to address this fine balance is a difficult difficult task. And I think I'm going to go back to what you said, you're saying something about engaging the community to to then participate and be an active participant to to the decision making that's affecting their town. But I'm sorry to say that I just that finally the balance would be very very unless we're looking at specific metrics of urban development. I'm not an urban developer by any means so but I'm, I'm sort of just guessing here what I think is is is is the challenge more than anything. Thank you. Alex. Sure. So, Jeff, you know, to address the latter part of the question head on I think it's a great move that you guys are moving towards the forms based. You know, I would be interested to know what negative comments you're hearing about fast corners. Right. I think I was probably the most neutral on the call about it in mentioning it. Yeah, it is an opportunity right there are some great things about it. It provides us with a walkable zone. It provides us with some more affordable housing which can be difficult as you know a community sort of we you know to some extent Wilson has developed a bit of a bedroom community mentality around Burlington houses are getting more expensive, you know, you can see house prices anywhere from Brennan Woods and Southridge and the other side of the highway moving up and up and up. So test corners has some real value to Wilson in terms of, you know, a commercial space, you know, as, as Ruben mentioned, it has value in terms of providing a center, if you will, of that type of development. And so that it doesn't sprawl across the town and we don't just become sort of one giant strip all right which is always a risk when dealing with rural communities I grew up in New Jersey in a very rural community and you know it is one giant strip mall of this one after another after another so I've seen it at failure I've lived in Seattle I've lived in LA I've lived in New York I've lived at San Juan, Puerto Rico I've lived a lot of places and and you know none of them have quite the beauty and character that Vermont has and and I think that's the thing that people lament I think they look at past corner and they're like this doesn't you know could feel like you pick it up and you drop it down in Connecticut and nobody would know the difference you want to know it was from Vermont. And I think that's where it gets really interesting right you know what we're trying to do is strike a plan I think Ruben used a really good word and balance. I don't think it's just between sort of quality of life is if I think it's about maintaining something that is uniquely Vermont and maintaining something that is uniquely Williston we're not trying to become the next street right we're not going to try to replicate that experience here in Williston, because that's church streets already church right and we don't want the problems that come along with that and everybody's been on church street and seen the Howard Center clientele wander in the streets and felt that way right. So, you know, is it great to have a walkable town center absolutely is it great to have affordable housing absolutely in fact we need a little bit more of that. All right, it's good to have a variety of population because of that diversity. All that's excellent I do think if we had been better about the prescriptive guidance types and designs of buildings, heights of buildings the setback requirements distance between etc there was an opportunity to shape something that I think could have achieved all of those goals and possibly been still uniquely Williston and still sort of captured the beauty of Vermont not felt maybe as congested I think is probably one of the things I hear about it the traffic and, you know, cars everywhere and it just doesn't feel like Vermont but I am interested in what are you hearing Jeff what are you hearing Charlie what are your constituents telling you they don't like about task force. Maybe we should let the answer go first and then we feel like we have time, but I'd be happy or offline. Talk to you about that. Thank you. I think there is a great deal of opportunity with half corners and family crossing. I myself run my loop through family crossing very frequently. And I think there's a great opportunity and providing various types of housing to people so that it's a mix. You know, offering different types of housing I think there's a great opportunity and how we set up for things to be pedestrian friendly and biking friendly. And I think we are still able to manage traffic and congestion and can still move towards the vision of we want to thrive in community we want to bring business in, but we also want to keep that rustic feel of Williston and preserve conservation as well as the history and character of Williston. So, well, a lot has happened I think there's just more opportunity with planning to continue to strive towards the vision and values that we have in the town. So, great. Thank you. Further Jeff. Well let's first find out if either you were Gordon then I'll ask that final question that I get to ask. garden. Yeah, this questions for all three of you and if you could just keep it, I guess brief and and to the point. You've gone garden we can't hurry up. You're frozen up garden. You're frozen up. Try again. Where's when it's my turn the internet is unstable you know how that. We planned it that way Gordon. It's for all three of you. All of you clearly have an individual leadership skill set in your current professions. We've lost you again. Maybe you could type it. Yeah, chat. Yeah. This wouldn't happen in tax corners by the way. I live in the rural part and I love it. Did you get any of it? No. One more time and I can type the question in a minute if it doesn't go through the third time. I'm looking you all have clearly good individual leadership skill sets in your current profession. What qualities do you possess that would make you a team player on the planning commission? Start with Nero. But really brief. I think we're going to hear a lot of opinions and the most important thing is of all the opinions we hear. I want everyone to feel heard and respected. So I think those would be the two things that I would bring to the table out of all my leadership skills. Thanks, Alex. Sure. You know leadership is important in a role like mine. But so is listening right at the end of the day. I have to keep a lot of employees constituents got hundreds of thousands of customers do hundreds of millions of dollars a year and revenue. We have to keep them happy. Right. You learn to listen a lot in a role like that. And that's best I could say. So from my side I work with people from different backgrounds and diverse professional backgrounds in the college. So I am in a healthcare team that I had to also work with other healthcare providers other than myself to better patient outcomes. And I think that having having those sort of scales in a in a much less great scale, I guess, would would be helpful in terms of just being able to listen and respect every where everyone's coming from different perspectives but at the end of the day. I think everyone has the same common goal. And that's, that's what is it's all about. Thank you. I have just one question for all three as well long go back to Jeff. And that is, have any, have any of you met with staff either in person or on the phone, the planning and the planning division. And secondly, do you have the time to put into the position if you were selected. So start with Alex. I nominated myself yesterday so unfortunately haven't been able to schedule that time yet. I just saw that the vacancy was open again after a couple years ago and corresponding on the last one with Eric. But I definitely plan to I think I mentioned to him an email about an hour ago that I'd like to get that set up regardless of what happens here. But I definitely do think I have the time I, you know, I'm relatively privileged to have the time to commit to volunteering to this kind of stuff. I'm on the board of the American Red Cross here in Vermont as well. So, you know, I've got a lot of free time. How much I'm not worried about. Nira. Yes, I think one of the biggest things that's important to me and considering applying for this position was the amount of time it would take to review packets from staff do the research, ask questions and preparation of discussions. I certainly have the time to prepare for the meetings as well as attend the meetings, and I haven't met with any of the stuff I certainly thought about trying to schedule some time between Friday and today but wanted to be respectful of everyone's time on a short notice. And I did go through several of the planning commission agendas meetings and reviewed the upcoming projects for the year. Thank you and Ruben. Yeah, so to answer your your second question Terry so yes to the time question. And then just quickly, I have not specifically for this particular purpose. I've had interactions with the different folks over in the town office for whether it be related to planning commission or any other development board meetings. Thanks, Jeff your question. Yeah, so this is a question that for some reason has over time fallen on my shoulders, don't mind asking it. And we ask it of all applicants for all positions on commissions and it's a conflict of interest question. And the question is, is how would you recognize or if there is a conflict of interest and what would you do about it. There was a conflict of interest. I would immediately speak up and notify the entire committee and staff that I have a conflict of interest, and not only personally but also if anyone wanted to speak about anything we would be discussing at the upcoming planning commission meetings outside of those meetings I would just respectfully tell them I can't discuss this at this time but I am more than happy to discuss it at the planning commission meeting when we're all together in a public space. Thank you. Short answer, I will declare them I will need to declare them and recuse myself from from any conversations that would influence the decision at the end. And Alex. I mean similar to Ruben obviously anything that smells, even slightly like a conflict of interest you declare immediately right that's transparency I think is key immediately any recuse yourself. I just want to ask a question I don't think everybody answered Jeff which is that how do you know when you have a conflict of interest and I try to go by the smell testers what we sometimes call the New York Times test right you just put this in five or six words with the headline of a paper. How bad would it sound, if it can sound at all bad, don't do it. Okay, I had not heard of that standard but I kind of like it. Thank you all three of you for being here for the interviews and, as I said, will be addressing the possibility of appointing somebody later on tonight will soon as a wealth of talent as scenes here tonight with all three of you. It's going to be a difficult decision for us but that's why we get the big bucks. Yeah, I would just add that I agree. It's, I don't like having to make these decisions. It's probably my least favorite part of being on the select board. I would be happy to appoint all three of you. We just can't keep in mind though, because two of you will not be appointed. Is there something else that comes along in the town that you wish to do by all means apply for it. So thanks again. We currently have an open opening for the Regional Planning Commission with which deals with a county wide planning work. I'm just serving in that scene in the interim here so certainly if that's an interest to anyone who is not appointed please follow up with me we can chat more. Thank you very much. Thank you again. Thank you all. Let's move on is Melinda on the list. Connected here. So the townwide trail assessment update and Melinda has written a memo to us and given us some things to look at as well as far as a sort of a slide presentation. So, when you're ready, we are just need I think you're connecting Melinda if you can just share your video and not you here. There she is. You can see Melinda. There you go. Hi. Is it possible for me to share my screen. Yeah, okay. I think I clicked that. Alright, so thanks for allowing me to take up some of your time here. I just wanted to tell you about a trail assessment that we had done this summer. So as, as you know that the town has an extensive network of trails. 12 miles or so that the town maintains. And or actually rather, nine or 10 that the town maintains and 20 now maintained by the catamount outdoor family center 20 miles. And an additional like two and a half miles maintained by the fellowship of the wheel at mud pond country park. The commission is charged with the planning development and maintenance of the trail system, and they take that responsibility very seriously. The town plan has stated goals related to the maintenance and the expansion of trails and country parks. And the trail network has been gradually expanding over the years. A lot of interest expressed by citizens and local advocacy groups to develop new trails. At the same time the town's experiencing some growing pains related to the maintenance of its trails. And standards have changed somewhat from 20 years ago and expectations are higher, I would say, in terms of main trail maintenance. So all that being said, it seemed wise to take a look at what the town has. And assess the condition of the network, figure out how much it costs to maintain the existing trail system before any further expansion happens. So, so this year has been unusual to say the least. What has come to light during the pandemic is how important the trails and parks are. In fact, walking in a natural area is one of the few relatively safe activities that people can do during a pandemic. And it also has the effect of just keeping people grounded and centered. And it's so it's beneficial for both physical and mental well being. So as a result, you know, people have been flocking to trails, lots of new people have been getting outdoors. And most importantly, people have been are placing a much greater value on access to parks, recreation and the outdoors. So on April 6 of this year, I took this picture at the five tree hill parking lot, just showing cars all up and down the road, and the parking lots full. So that just gives you an idea statewide, the trail usage is is up considerably and also here in Williston. I have noticed that. Someone hired a consulting firm called SE group to conduct a trail assessment and develop a capital improvement plan. We developed an application. I worked with the with the SE group staff to develop an application that can be used on a phone. As you walk the trail to digitally collect information about the trails. And it's a very efficient way to collect information you can take photos, you can, you can geolocate all the information. So we took a lot of some general trail information. So we took a lot of information about the trail heads parking and signage more detailed information about the trail tread conditions like whether there were steep sections, whether there were tread issues like muddy spots, erosion, etc. So we took a lot of information of the corridor whether there were blowdowns, whether there was mowing that needs to happen. And also documented every single structure along every, every trail that we surveyed including bridges, punch in stone steps water bars, signage, etc. To really create a very detailed picture of the current state of the trail. And the conditions of every single structure. So what resulted was this database of a detailed matrix that includes every single structure that the structures condition. Comments, as well as any issues like tread issues or anything that needed to be addressed. And also resulted in a trail assessment log for each trail with information about all of that stuff, including photographs. And also an ability to map all these points which is really important if you're going to have people going out to do these repairs. It's the most efficient for them to carry a map and know where they're going to go. And this is just a general maintenance schedule just more information about when monitoring needs to happen. You know just kind of this is what you should do every year, when you should monitor and when you should, you know what you what you should inspect and when. And then, finally, for each trail, a summary of the number of each structures by structure type and their condition and whether they need to be replaced in the short term, the medium term or the long term, and most importantly how much it's going to cost. For each trail, we had a summary table like that. And then this table just gives you information on how costs were arrived at. And you know there's a low and high cost for each type of structure. So finally, just a summary of information that was collected, the total mileage that was assessed was a little over seven. The total number of structures 111 structures, including punching drainage structures boardwalks bridges, benches, etc. And then this gives you the breakdown of structures by trail. And then there's total of 38 signs throughout the network. And then finally, there is a summary of costs for each trail. And if we're, you know, if we want to maintain a top notch trail system and do everything that is recommended in this trail assessment, it would cost in total a little over a million dollars. And if we were to do this over 20 year horizon, it would take about $50,000 a year. So, so what I, so what I would recommend, I mean, this is just to give you something to consider as we approach budgeting season because I am going to recommend a few capital improvement projects based on this information from the assessment. But knowing that we're going to be short on funds. We won't have enough money to do everything we want to do here. This timeline could be stretched out. And, you know, we could probably leverage volunteers for some of the work, but this just kind of gives you an idea of how much it costs to maintain a trail system like this. And, you know, as maintenance gets the longer you defer maintenance, the more, you know, the costs keep adding up. So, yeah, so I think that's, that's all I want to say and and I guess, you know, I think we know we understand that there is value in this trail system that it's important and there is value in it. So it would probably be a good idea to get a better idea and a better understanding of usage. And so it might, you know, I'd recommend either, you know, getting putting trail counters out and getting some information about usage that way or, or using or getting people to do manual trail user surveys. And get a better sense of, of, of the level of usage. Anyway, I think now that's all I have so anybody has questions. Thank you. Yes, the leading question is what's a punch in. Yeah, I wish I had a picture but it's, it's, it's basically a type of wooden structure that you walk on over a wet area, which also leads to the other point of, you know, this is a lot of money you see here and, and, and one of the reasons why this network is so expensive to maintain is, I think, you know, back in the day, people weren't as concerned about sustainability of trails and, and you wanted to build a trail in a wetland or around wetland, you know, great. And so that's why we do that. So there's a, there's a large portion of the trail network going right around mud pond and most of its boardwalk so boardwalk is very expensive boardwalk and or punch in very expensive to maintain over time. So it might, that's going to be something to consider moving forward and, you know, developing feature trails. I wonder, do you know of any grants that might be available over the course of years that we're considering doing this. So, unfortunately, the grants that are available, don't, don't whatever are not used for maintenance projects. But awarded for trail, new trail development and not for maintenance that may change. I have heard that there may be grants available for maintaining trails. But thanks. Yeah, thank you. Other questions from the board members. Hey, hey Melinda Jeff here. First, I just wanted to, I was very impressed with the study and the level of detail that went into it. And I guess upon hearing more from your, your description how we now have this app. I didn't realize that aspect of it that that we can use that's very impressive, very cool. There's no else to put it so I'll be blunt. I'm in a little bit of sticker shock. When it came to the investment that it's suggesting we make in our trails. On the other hand, so, so there's the sticker shock piece of it. But on the other hand when we break it down into, well, what does that mean in terms of what we ought to be putting in per year. And looking at 7050 to 70 K, you know, that's a little bit more manageable. So I guess my coming a long way around my question is, is right now, do you have a sense of how much we build into our budget for trail maintenance. It's kind of a different way to play a phrase it would be how much do we need to increase it to get to the 50 or 70 K level. Yeah. So, we have been putting much less into trail maintenance, which is probably one reason why we have a lot of deferred maintenance about right now it's about 12,000 a year. And that's in the operating budget. And there, there has been in the last couple of years, I've put something in the capital improvement budget the replacement of the Allen Brook boardwalk bridge, which is going to be about about 65 to $80,000. So that's a big ticket item. But that's just really the only capital improvement project that's related to trail maintenance, I believe that's that's ever been proposed as capital improvement. So yeah, I mean, I guess I would, I would recommend trying to tackle just trying to tackle some of some of these large maintenance projects as capital improvement items. As the town is able to to spend funding on it. And, you know, realizing that you're, you know, we're most likely going to be pretty, pretty short of funds. But that's kind of what every town is dealing with. So it's, it's nothing new. Yeah, okay. Is the concept, or I should say is the concept would, would you, I think I know the answer to this but I'm still going to ask it as a question. Is it best to for the town to make this annual contribution, let's say, you know, somewhere between 1570 K a year, and just build that into how we, we, we do the budget every year. I mean, we do this for certain things like vehicle, you know, purchasing, you know, these bigger ticket long term type type issues. Not at all suggesting I'm, I'm yet in favor, not in favor of it. I was trying to figure out what's, if we were to get to this fund fully funding the million dollar plus over, let's say a 20 year horizon. You know, is that the best way to have sufficient funds to do that with minimal realizing there is an impact but with the least impact on the tax rate. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Certainly, just approach it like, like you would any capital project and just try to budget for it over the long term. Um, yeah. Okay. Those are my questions or comments. Any further questions or comments. Just one question about the Commons trail. Is that go just through the development called the Commons or is that because that no further. So that goes from from tower lane down through Pinecrest village. Yeah, so, you know, again, that that's a, that's a trail that basically serves. Development and so, you know, it might be, I don't know, it's something to think about, like, is that really kind of worth the town maintaining a trail through there. Thanks. Yeah. Other questions or comments. If not, and we'll look forward to seeing you at budget time. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Melinda. So next on our agenda is the housing trust fund. And we do have several people who are going to be joining us for discussion. Thank you, Brian. Michael Monty and Matt Bollinger. Yep. I'm getting them all connected here Terry and I can kick this off here. I'm really, really thankful to have our guests this evening. Michael Montes, the chief operating officer of the Champlain Housing Trust and Brian Pine is Burlington's former housing director. He helped create and administer Burlington's housing trust fund over over a number of years. This has been a policy that we've had on our on our list to tackle here for for a bit. Or may recall back in 2013, the affordable housing tax force final report, one of the recommendations was looking at establishing a housing trust fund in Williston. The town has allocated funds and recent budget years and some seed money is about $15,000 there at the present time. And I thought this evening for the board with our guests this evening to kind of learn more about what a housing trust fund is how it can function some governance elements administrative programmatic and revenue. So it'll kind of walk you walk you through these kind of high level policy items and then I'll come up for director from the board as as we move ahead here with some other options in this. Michael and Brian, thanks a lot for joining us this evening. Thank you very much and I think I got the initial limitation from Eric and I immediately he asked me if I could come and speak to you about the housing trust fund. And I immediately thought sure I can but I think there's probably somebody better who could do it and that's Brian pine. Brian has been the administrator for the trust fund for 19 plus years or something 817 plus years. And knows the intricacies of how Burlington's housing trust was work. I've worked for the city of Burlington for about 19 years and probably slightly different than Brian. I am a recipient of the housing trust funds, a bit more than he has been for the last 12 years as chief operating officer of the champion housing trust I could tell you how, if you were to establish a housing trust fund how we would use your money. And, and to do good works in the town. But I, again, it's been a valuable, I think a valuable fund and resource for the city of Burlington I know that Brian can probably talk to the hundreds of units that have been created in Burlington as a result of its use, the leverage that is brought about and all of that. And I'll let Brian this kick it off and give you a little bit more detail in history Brian said a bit. Sure. Yep. I'm often on the other end of this type of zoom meeting because I serve on the Burlington City Council but you all can hear just fine. We can. Great. Excellent. So, the housing trust fund came about due to a essentially a citizen driven process in the late 1980s it was 1989. It was a vote of the people of Burlington and the election of 1989 March of 1989 that decided that a penny for affordable housing was an investment worth making. And I think it's, it's, it's worth noting that that vote really came after a bit of a heyday in terms of investments in affordable housing, both in the bricks and mortar. And also in the organization sort of the delivery system, if you will, that was built up during the early days of the city's community and economic development office. And so it was sort of a natural progression to then go to the voters and essentially say, we believe this is a cause worthy of your support. Would you agree to tax yourselves in order to fund it. So, as much as, as, as I know as a local elected official and you all know, asking people to raise their own property taxes is something that you, you try to find other ways to raise revenues other than that method. So that's what we decided that it was worth going to the voters and the posters that circulated around the city had a literally had a picture of Abe Lincoln and a penny, essentially saying, isn't it worth a penny on the tax rate to support affordable homes for working people in our community, so it didn't win overwhelmingly was actually quite a quite a close margin that it was victorious but we want it. At the same time, the value of that penny has unfortunately eroded substantially because of what you all may be familiar with the revenue neutrality requirement that certain certain funds over time. Remain relatively neutral even as the grand list grows in value. So our charter requires that you essentially adjust down the, the, the rate on different designated funds, rather than see it grow over time so that that is something that has led to the trust fund not keeping up with inflation. So we attempted we did fix that in this past March election, but due to coven, we have not enacted that change because we tried to minimize tax increases at the local level. So that was sort of a, I guess you could call it almost an austerity measure at the local level to not go forward with it this year, but at its height the trust fund. The year 2018 and 2020 was generating about 300 and was about $360,000 was the annual allocation. And that was a combination of both that penny, the dedicated penny but also even with its eroded value, but also the essentially the mayor and the and the council deciding that we would augment that that penny to bring it up or that funding to this funding level. I think this year we're going to see it no closer to about 230 or 240,000 so it's it's taking quite a hit due to Kobe, but that's the reality that that we're facing because of, you know, decreased revenues in other areas. But broadly speaking though the trust fund in Burlington was established, really to provide a local source of dollars to organizations primarily to nonprofit organizations and the reason why is because the premise of the trust fund is that we're going to invest scarce public dollars we ought to invest in permanently affordable homes and apartments, not provide incentives to private developers because those inherently have pressure to then convert those back to market rate down the road and so that scarce public dollar isn't isn't preserved and isn't conserved over time and in fact we lose the value of that dollar over time so the whole premise that was advocated when the trust was created. It's written right into the to the ordinance. And our code of ordinances is that perpetual affordability is the is the priority of for funding and it always has been under under all the mayors that have served. The trust fund has not changed that focus so that is a bedrock principle of at least this housing trust fund in Burlington. We have actually created rules and regulations based on the ordinance that was developed and in doing so set up an allocation process which I can describe really in kind of high level is 50% of the annual allocation, no less than 50% it can be less than 50% must go to the bricks and mortar creation of affordable housing or preservation of existence. So it does have to go into actual, you know, project costs 15. 35% no more than fit 35%. So that's a maximum on that can go to what we call capacity grants to support sort of the operating costs of the organizations that the city believes need our support shopping housing trust has been a recipient. Home share Vermont at different times Cathedral Square, the committee on temporary shelter receives some support from that source, and so on. So that is what we call capacity funding and again that's limited to 5% and then there's an admin fee of 15% no more than 15% is used to actually administer the housing trust fund so that goes to the staff person or essentially to cover the course of the staff person's time in the community and economic development office. So that's essentially at a high level. Some of the accomplishments that I just highlight for a minute is that when it was last evaluated the trust funds leverage ratio was I think $11 to every $1 that was invested from the trust fund was leveraged in other dollars so it's a it's a pretty significant return on investment so it's an ROI that any public program would be, you know, proud to be talking about. And I think the, I should mention that the governance the allocation is handled by a very small, very lean committee of three people and the committee consists of the director of the Community and Economic Development Committee by by resolution of the Council when this was established. So the director gets a automatically gets a seat, the chair of the city's community city Council Community Development Committee, which I happen to serve in that capacity because it's been many other people over the years of the trust history, and the mayor appoints an additional person which is often either a city attorney or a member of the mayor of staff gets appointed to fill that third seat. And that allows for pretty, you know responsive nimble process it's it is we we try to be a funnel and not a filter. So, that was one of my models is make it easy for them because they have all this other money from the state and federal government that has gazillions of hoops and strings attached and we ought to offer something that is not so cumbersome and bureaucratic it ought to be much more user friendly and so that was our focus. Another piece I just want to mention is, often the amount that is granted is quite small. So it may be $10,000 but that 10,000 would allow an organization to essentially purchase an option or enter into a purchase and sale agreement on a much bigger transaction, but without the demand of risk capital, that is risk capital. The project would never have gone forward so think of the trust fund is that little piece that is often essential to making a project feasible, especially in the early stages, when no funder is willing to take any risks. That's the way we've primarily viewed the trust fund as a, it's a very small but a very significant contribution to an affordable housing project in terms of the funding and financing that's put in place and we don't recapture the dollars because we've again addressed that by allocating it to the organizations that are in the business of providing affordable housing means that you don't have to then monitor carefully everything that is done after the fact and and go about recapturing dollars for projects which are converted to market rate housing rather than affordable housing. So that's another advantage of taking that perpetual affordable approach. I'm going to put my list on another screen here just to make sure I hit everything. And I think I'll just stop there and let you all ask us questions. I can give you one real quick example of how we use it that I thought it was a shining example of it we owned a property of an archer ball street and down in Burlington in the old north end and there was a street enjoying that which was called bright street which was very large plots but properties which are really in bad shape and really we really wanted to develop that last those last two pieces. And so what we did is we bought the two properties and then buying those two properties we could afford to do it and the rents could cover it, some of it but couldn't really cover it all of it. So it was a three year redevelopment opportunity to sort of take down a couple of those properties and then build essentially 40 units 40 apartments there. So it was, I think, I think the trust fund covered some interest costs on the borrowing, because we could borrow the money to buy the properties but it really wasn't really wasn't going to work, unless we can get the interest cost covered. The trust basically helped us with the interest costs for the three year period while we redevelop the parcels. I think it was like $40 or $50,000 or something like that. And but that leverage of $12 million brand new, beautiful redeveloped apartments and just really cleaned up that whole area in terms of its redevelopment that's just a good example of how I think in this in these cases, where a town may want to do something that it can be just bring a little bit of cash a little bit of money. It's not usually money at the end. Sometimes it could be, but often enough it's money at the beginning to sort of get the get the get the water boil it shall we say, I'm a real good opportunity. So, we thank you. Yeah. Matt, things. Talk a little bit about the Wilson where we are right now and where we might be. Sure. So just a couple things about Williston's current approach to affordable housing which generally amounts to some regulatory incentives in our zoning, and some regulatory relief from fees related to permitting, including things like our impact fees. What I what I'd like to highlight though is some of the limitations we have. Mr pine mentioned the issue of trying to make sure that perpetually affordable housing stays perpetually affordable. That is something Williston continues to struggle with. We incentivize in our zoning and through our growth management system the creation of perpetually affordable housing. I think that we've lost any of those perpetually affordable units off the roles, but as we've gained a few more of them over the years, managing the enforcement side of that has certainly become a challenge. And by way of example, we had a unit constructed some years ago constructed for the purpose of renting with outside monitoring of the rental price by housing Vermont. The owner of that property decided to convert it to a for sale property and you know worked with me to create a deed restriction that would ensure a perpetually affordable sale price on that property. But you know that did trigger a letter to the town from housing Vermont saying we you know as per our agreement with the town we are now exercising our option to exit from the enforcement responsibility over the affordability of that unit. And we're doing it as an element of zoning enforcement, which is a pretty tough way to actually do this stuff are more recent examples are related to the nine units that will be created as part of the Northridge subdivision. Those units are for sale they will be perpetually affordable price restricted as perpetually affordable for someone at the 100% median income level. And that's going to happen by way of a deed restriction which will require an audit and certificate of compliance issued by me the zoning administrator. Whenever those properties change hand and the affordability calculation is built right into the deed restriction. That's okay when there's maybe nine of those in town but if we're, if we're achieving our goals and building lots and lots of affordable housing in town that gets much, much trickier. If you were looking at some of the examples that Eric provided charlotte in particular, and some others, you'll note that most of them also when they're looking at affordable housing they're looking at an income qualification for the person who's purchasing or renting that housing. That is not something Williston does in its current incentive system and frankly it's it's beyond our capacity to do that via zoning administration. As the developer told me about the affordable units in Northridge, Bill Gates could buy this house. And that's absolutely true. The price at which Bill Gates buys this house and the price at which he resells it someday are what's restricted under our current incentive system, but not the income that Bill Gates makes. And so, you know, for Williston, I think there are all of the possibilities of leveraging more creation of affordable housing with some money via the establishment of a local trust fund and board to monitor that, but also some to handle some of the enforcement indeed restriction work that is right now, a little bit or likely to become a little bit more challenging to do through zoning. That's that's my really brief comment on that. If you would like I don't know if you want me to jump in I can sort of give you a comment on that it's up to you guys about. Just so we have 300 3000 various units of different kind to say we know both apartments and shared equity home ownership. And we have more than a few people who just do compliance, frankly that's all they do is comply with laws and rules and regulations, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it but that's what we have, because we are highly highly regulated as as a, as a business. We are complying with, you know, not only just typical bank compliance rules, you know, but also just all the sources that we have included especially low income housing tax credits. We're actually written in the ordinance in Hinesburg where when a developer wants to go ahead and do something different they have to actually come to us and we, we consult with the town of Hinesburg and tell them whether they in fact meet the role where I'm not going to, I'm not going to urge you necessarily throw us into your ordinance and put it put it in the ordinance button. I would say is that both different for different towns, but also for different developers. We provide kind of compliance services. When, when Eric Farrell and South Burlington needs to go ahead and re re re re rent or to resell anything. We got rules with him and we got agreements with him to essentially do that we charge a small fee. Our compliance is like six or eight pages long we get it down to a page or so long because from a town perspective it's usually a little simpler. There's not a little federal and state tax, state tax codes, it's just a straightforward doesn't meet the rule of the zoning rule and we just basically review the basic information that we get on a signature from both the renter or the owner of the property and do that compliance work so that in part, some of the work when when the city of Brownton calls us up because we get a capacity grant and ask us would you help us develop a housing program. We say yes, we don't say yes sir but we say yes. That's in part they give us they give us capacity funds to be able to sort of help with growing those programs and I think certainly we could do that for Wilson and certainly we could certainly do this from zoning administration point of view if you wanted to actually do something like that. We sell and buy 40 or 50 homes every year. And so there's a you know we it's a constant fairly constant fairly turn I can tell you that we actually sold more than last month and a half. For some reason, then we did the previous than all last year, a lot of activity. So we, you know, we sort of do this we do this with we do this with the restrictions, as well as for letters to also land leases. And most of our stuff is now the restrictions because it's condominiums. We have quite a few of those. So we can certainly do something like that and just listening to what you're saying this is, I guess, tied to the housing trust fund because if you want to really get us involved and make it robust and we'd like to get paid a little bit. But even on a even on a short term to small time basis, you know, we could work with a developer. And, you know, developers typically will have a fee that gets charged every time they have a turnover anyway and they could do that and add it to the to you or to us to assist us doing that. That's, that's great. Follow up just by saying that oftentimes when we inform would be developers that we incentivize the creation of affordable housing and we really we really try to incentivize it where the affordability will be managed by a third party. They'll, they'll sort of go forth from that conversation and come back and say, well I looked into that and it's it's not economically feasible for me to do that. Or my project is too small for housing, Vermont or CHT to be interested in. So the feedback we get and we would certainly like what the town establishes to smooth, smooth that and make that workable for people. I think the other thing that's coming in Williston as the select board's aware because I won't stop talking about it is our land use regulation in the growth center transitioning over hopefully to a form based code that may allow for some density and some flexibility on projects that may, may mean that some buildings and some developments that are that are of a compelling enough size and density to have a bigger partnership going will be will be feasible within the development code. So that's coming as well and I'll just close by saying I think it's, it's an opportune time for the town to, to move forward with thinking about how it's going to use this trust fund and put it to work. Thank you. So any questions from the board. Yeah, I don't know if this is for Mike or Brian. I'd like to hear a little bit more, you made the comment that you don't work with private developers or primarily you don't work with private developers because of the perpetually affordable aspect of that. I guess Matt, you had mentioned we have done that in Williston to a degree. But you see issues with it. I don't know how to exactly ask this question. I guess part of it is, is the answer you don't work with private developers that you only work with, you know, nonprofits whose mission is affordable housing perpetually or, you know, I guess I need, I could use some help trying to figure out that piece of it. So for the trust fund, because the funding is, it's typical to get three times the dollars requested over the dollars that are actually available. So when you have a competitive funding process, and you have a private developer who says, I can do this initial 10 year for affordability, but beyond that, I don't know that I can, I'm not willing to lock in for this small amount of assistants you're providing. And then you have a nonprofit that says, Well, we're going to create 50 units and we're going to go to all the other sources that you have to lock in on affordability anyway so we have no problem with that. So I think that's the, it's the priority of the dollars going to projects that guarantee probability so that we're not putting a public resource up for essentially creation and then losing it down the road. So that's really what happens. Okay. So it almost kind of is what is she. I'm just ranking, you know, the dollars were to put them the privates are and the private sectors ending up at the bottom if you for lack of better words. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Matt, I'm sorry, Mike. Yeah, the only thing I would say is is that I think that's corrected but in our context we are constantly we are constantly working with the private sector in terms of co development co an opportunity I can't. I think that Snyder is doing a lot of build out right now in the middle of Wilson. Yeah. We've got like I'm pretty remarkable really. Frankly, we've done three, three buildings with Snyder now. We're doing a fourth probably and one is key. And you know we do it with we do a private sector developers all the time where we're sort of doing a partnership. We get into something where somebody saying well they got this need to procreate this affordable housing covenant they want to increase their density. They don't want to mess around with it. And like you said Matt I think some of the private guys said we don't want to talk to CHT because it's, we'll mess it's too small for them. I don't know if that's always the case. I don't remember getting those phone calls. Maybe depends upon maybe the frame that they gave it to us on you know, but I could tell you that. I only think I work with private sector guys most of the time, in terms of doing development and I would. So I would, I would say that the trust fund itself. And in fact be a friend and a leverage for private sector folks we could look at Cambrian rise as an example where we went in, which was a requirement for 25% of it being affordable. When we came in and we did that we'd lever some trust fund monies we lever some other funds in the city and other resources and that's a mate that's a 700 800 homes. There's going to be built a which we're part of that and I think we do that quite often so I hate to get the notion that that's not a when not when not private sector engaged. Today we just bought out we just bought a Snyder built building based upon an agreement that we established we established the agreement we established a framework we actually did the development agree with the city of St. Albans. So in downtown St. Albans we just we just essentially bought out of turnkey operation from Snyder. And they built it under our supervision now rules our, our, our, our needs. And I think if you asked him, and as others, they work, we work all the time together. So just want to put that out there just so you all. And my next question has to do with the 15% admin aspect of brilliant. And why, you know, the city, let's say would want to do that. My question is along the lines of how detrimental is that in terms of not having money that you can use either for capacity or bricks and mortar. So I think it's probably appreciated by the organizations that receive the capacity and project funding, knowing that they have adequate staff capacity within the city to manage and administer the funding so I think there's a, there's a pretty good trade off there. And it's also actually it's a great question though because there's a number of other provisions in the city code of ordinances that dovetail into the housing trust fund so that the time spent working with developers who are required to provide affordable units and they get a density bonus through the inclusionary housing program. There's a piece of that that is covered by this 15% housing trust fund because it feeds into the ordinance feeds into the housing trust fund is related very much to the inclusionary housing ordinance. So the staff person has paid for the housing trust fund basically provides the expertise to the planning, the DRB around their requirements of the zoning around affordable housing so it's sort of the zoning administrator zoning staff need to know that they go to this, the housing trust fund staff and say, doesn't meet the rule. And as Matt said earlier the affordability, the price is one thing that's affordable to in order to ensure the occupied by someone who meets this income level you need someone to do that. That's what that 15% also pays for. Any further questions from the ward. Any other if you don't mind is the one cent on the property tax the only source of revenue for the for the cities. It has been the majority of the funding has been from that but then there's some occasionally there's a couple of ways. Similarly, we have a thing called the condominium conversion ordinance, and there were some condominiums that converted rental housing. The condominiums and the city decided in the 1980s that that was a threat that was going to displace low income people and so rather than just allow it to happen. There was a housing conversion fee basically that was the first reference in city ordinance was in 1987 to take this condo fee and put it into this housing to the housing trust fund before we even had established a housing trust fund. It was already mentioned in another ordinance elsewhere so that was the first way. And then if there's a housing conversion or demolition or replacement that occurs or some entity buys a building and knocks it down and turns it into a parking lot house to a an office in Burlington you actually have to pay a housing replacement fee. Those dollars go to the housing trust fund that's a small amount but it's some years it's as much as 40 or 50,000 come from that. And then lastly we've had a few instances and there will be more I think because we changed the inclusionary housing ordinance that a developer that has a small enough project will be able to rather than create the affordable units on site. They will be able to contribute to the housing trust fund as a payment in lieu basically and that is another source that we expect that has not really begun to kick in due to COVID but we think it will, it will have some effect. Okay, does Burlington have inclusionary zoning. We do and it was adopted in 1990 so we're the, we're the first community in Vermont that adopted that. Thank you. So I think we're at the point where we're trying to learn how to walk before we can run in the subject and sound like I believe is interesting on the board we're a little short handed tonight with two people absent I believe they'll be interested in on the board to proceed. And cautiously and slowly on this but thank you very much for coming to our meeting tonight and sharing your information. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. It was very helpful. Thanks both of you. You bet. Have a good night. Thank you. So, Matt, you're gonna stay with us and we're talking about retail cannabis marketplace legislation that's passed and is Wilson going to pop. You have given us a memo and some information from VLCT and perhaps you could take us from there. Sure. So what we're what we're now. Sorry, I'm in my wrong. I didn't my housing memo still hold on. Can talk to you about accessory dwelling units and affordable housing that way. But that's that's for perhaps. Another time. What we what we have in front of us is a act now not just a bill approving the creation of a retail cannabis marketplace in Vermont and the select board I think faced with a little bit of possibly a challenge related to this and in very short summary of the memo I wrote. The first part to understand is that for there to be retail sale allowed in your town, there would need to be a vote by Australian ballot held at a regular or special town meeting. Like you can correct me if if I'm leaving out some details here but as I understand it the two ways in which that Australian ballot would happen would either be that the select board would put the ballot item on the warrant, or it would happen by petition of 5% of the registered voters in town. Yeah, I was looking at that 5% question matting get an answer on that quite yet. But it's something we're not on our radar here and I can, I can look the board once we have a definitive answer. Right and and the possibility is as a COVID response the rules might might be actually relaxed on the 5% threshold for the March town meeting as I understand is that right. Yes still something definitive there. So some number of citizens. Right so some some number of citizens might might end up getting this on the ballot regardless of the interest of the select board one way or the other. In terms of local revenue that would happen from retail cannabis it's it's just limited to the usual 1% sales tax, like anything else so there's there's no big revenue picture for towns who choose to opt in versus those who don't. And the enabling legislation for this. First off, provides towns with with no ability to have a say over the placement of growing or processing or warehousing packaging manufacturing facilities in town does require the opt in vote for the retailing. And then goes on to say that retailing will may may not be regulated by any sort of town ordinance would be licensed by a local cannabis control board very similar to when the select board convenience itself as a liquor control board. And that retailing could be regulated for its compliance with zoning. I've given us version of this speech before probably a year and a half ago to the select board in our current zoning retail is retail it can happen anywhere that retail happens absent any particular additional zoning standards that are unique to retail cannabis being adopted into the bylaw. So that's something I think for the select board members to think about but don't take too long to think about it if you would like the town to start imagining any sort of enhanced zoning rules around retail cannabis now is the time to start thinking about that, and that bylaw amendment and what it might look like. I provided a link in my memo to a CCRPC document talking about some ways that municipalities can address tobacco retailing and use through zoning I think there's quite a bit of parallels there. There are some things in the public health world that tend to have an impact when you're talking about the sale of controlled substances, regulations on outlet density or spacing so rules that say you can have a retailer but you can't have a retailer within a thousand or 2000 feet of another retailer or the boundary of a school or childcare center or place where young people congregate things like that so those are generally thought of as pretty reasonable tools and zoning they're not ones that we use very broadly in Williston's scheme right now. They probably are ones that if adopted into zoning would hold up. But I do have to put a really big asterisk on that right now because a lot is going to change once the state establishes its cannabis control board and advisory committee and engages in the rulemaking process. And as we know from some of our experiences where we're zoning touches for example on state waste water rules and septic systems. A little quite quite a bit of that that fine edge between what towns can do and what the state says towns cannot do will actually probably be established in the rulemaking. And you know at the end of the day that's a that's a three member committee that will be that will be deciding those things along with a staff attorney and a staff secretary so a couple of question marks there but it's a good time to start thinking about if there is a desire to say that cannabis retailers would be regulated in a way differently from other types of retailers in town under zoning now is the time to start thinking about that I can sort of stand by to answer some more detailed questions about it. And I would say that, you know, with most things like this as a select board you might be saying well we won't we don't have to worry about the we decide whether we want this or not, but that may not be the case for this one. You may find yourselves. You know with it with an affirmative vote is as soon as March and and then not a lot of time to alter those bylaws. So Matt, could I rephrase what I just heard to make sure I understood it correctly. You it may be lukewarm but you are. I think you're recommending that we proactively deal with the question of if cannabis retail sale of cannabis is allowed in Williston for whatever reason for whatever reason it gets here. We ought to have zoning in place regulating where that those retail establishments can be located. If you would like to restrict those locations more than you do the retailing of socks. Or pick your pick your consumer good. You know in the case of when this came before the board in the case of dispensaries the decision was made to sort of shove dispensaries off to the edge of town and only allow them in the industrial district. If if there was interest from the select board on addressing similar use or geographic restrictions for retail cannabis I'd actually recommend something opposite for this I would. I would recommend that it be allowed in the retail core of town, rather than pushing it off to a part of town that is that is quite you know depopulated in the evenings. You know where sometimes road frontage and visibility is high and rent is cheap and you know having recently been on a drive through Maine as their retail market kicks up and as their medical market has kind of exploded. You sort of see these things pop up on the edge of town in these semi abandoned industrial buildings that are kind of at the end of their lifespan. I actually think from a land use perspective it's better to say you know put it put it right in the middle of the town where where it's integrated with other things and where there's eyes on the street and, you know where it's not likely to become a street full of sort of folks who all want to try to get in on this on the cheap. Okay, you know, might think about which of the districts that allow retailing, would you, would you see this working better or worse, and then also like I said things like outlet density do you want to avoid having a, you know, a large concentration of the same sort of thing in one place. From what I read of your memo, I mean it sounds like we have quite a bit of latitude of deciding which, which areas retail cannabis sale cannabis would be allowed. I, I think so I think that's pretty clear that you know choosing which zoning districts at least if not establishing an overlay would be seen as acceptable. Yeah. I, I mean, I'm, I like the idea of being proactive. A we don't know what, you know, we don't know if there's going to be a vote we don't know how the vote would go. I, you know, to be honest with you. I'm not I may not be as apprehensive about the sale of cannabis as others might be just to sort of for warn you about where I might be coming from. I would note we sell plenty of dangerous substance already in Williston. Hard alcohol, tobacco as mentioned, we have plenty of pharmacies that sells, you know, highly regulated. And we don't have concerns about those. If cannabis is appropriately regulated, I guess either by the town to a minimal degree but by the state. Those concerns can be dissipated from my standpoint. So that just lets you know at where I stand at the moment. This isn't evolving. I'm still on the learning curve here. Yes, I would, I would say drawing, not so much chemically speaking but land use speaking drawing a parallel to the CBD market. We don't have a lot of built environment around this but one thing we experienced in the office is there was a wave about a year ago when it just seemed like everybody was ready to make their their millions as some sort of a CBD products manufacturer and retailer. And we had a lot of first time under capitalized would be CBD retailers shopping around for the sort of high visibility inexpensive spots in Williston places where there's not a lot of foot traffic but there's a lot of vehicle traffic properties that you might rather see just go ahead and redevelop at this point rather than, you know, continue to be leased up for something. There are places where that retailer would really end up being kind of out on their own and we also got a lot of kind of oddball proposals where somebody would say well really I'm a warehouse everything behind my counter is a warehouse I sell most of this stuff online but I sure do want that big neon sign out front and the parking lot. And rather than deal with that or deal with folks who are trying to get creative around the idea of accessory sales or yeah sure I'll call myself a warehouse if you'll let me locate here. I think there's a lot to be said for if you are going to take on applicants who want to do this they're ones who are capable of doing it in that sort of you know careful controlled way. You know, and I do think that at least your alcohol retailers in town tend to be folks like that. You know, that's a mature market the fly by night stuff all got sorted out back in 1919. But it's going to be an interesting variable and somewhat unpredictable road for the first couple of years on something like this I think. And so I my my comments are mostly related to land use although I do acknowledge also that you know certainly public health safety and welfare is a legitimate purpose of zoning and you know worth we're thinking about as well. Yeah, and the vote that could happen anytime the vote doesn't have to happen in, you know, let's say 2020 or 2021 it could happen in 2025. In fact, it could happen anytime from I theoretically from now until whenever. Yeah, okay. Okay. And a vote can go both, you know, you can have you can vote to opt in. You can vote later to opt out the provision is if somebody is is operating at that point they they are not forbidden from continuing to operate by a future opt out vote, sort of a grandfathered clause there. Okay. Any further questions. Sounds like we have our work cut out for us will need to talk about this in the near future as to what we want the planning commission to take a look at, and so lots of things happening in the next couple of months. Hopefully we can deal with this as well. Great. So thank you. Yeah, thank you Matt. Thank you. So, something similar, I think the VCDP grant flows out for the. There are just a few minutes to tell us a little background about this and what we need to do. Sure. The board may recall it approved a pass through community development grant to assist in the redevelopment of the old north and community center. So what we're looking at the projects nearing completion right now, and as part of the grant conditions. Have a final public hearing basically share the project to take any public comment on it and then can move forward at that point so with our process here I just asked the board for a motion to discuss that public hearing and I'll work with with folks involved to find a suitable date for that. So we've done this in the past and usually the public hearing takes a very short period of time to do and because the project is already done. So, these are the questions for Eric before I ask for a motion. If not, then a motion would be an order we have one suggested. Can you hear me. And now, okay. I moved to schedule a public hearing for the Vermont Community Development Program grant close out for the old north and community centered project. I'll second. Just one thing that this is the, I think the old San Jose of school in the old north. They completed the project and they've invited me as the chair of select board to come to an open house in April last April. Of course that didn't happen because of the pandemic. But I anticipate that we'll be invited sometime in the next couple of months to maybe a virtual tour of it. Okay, cool. So there's no further discussion on those in favor of the motion raise your hand. 123. So you pass that. Now we're back to the commission and the appointment of a person for the planning commission. I'm up for discussion for the three candidates. Oh boy. Well, as, as, as we said, all of them, I think, as maybe not we but all three, I would, you know, gladly appoint tonight. I, I never liked being doing this but I'll start discussion with with Alex. And I just felt that he, he just, he really had his pulse, I guess he more than the other two from what I could tell he really had his pulse on the issues. And, and had a sort of plan for and had thought out, kind of how to move forward I'm trying to look at my notes quickly here. And so by a narrow mortgage and he, he has risen to the top of my list. Gordon. Yeah, so I'll chime in as well. You know, I think all three candidates have definitely clear attributes that they would be serving the commission fine with. And he was also leaning towards Alex just because of a little bit more of diverseness in his background. And me being a lifelong resident here. Definitely looked at, you know, the bigger picture of where, where we are and where we've come from, and kind of some ideas on how to improve upon some of the things that I think people are concerned about primarily around the tap corners area because I hear your Jeff earlier tonight that when I get feedback as well. It's not completely one sided but it feels more that it's, you know, towards the well what's, what's not gone well, and what it looks like, why it looks the way that it does. So I would. I mean, again, they're, they're all credible. But I would, I would lean towards Alex. And I think a point that I hadn't really ever thought about that is, you know, I made note of it and it's kind of interesting about how that concept of, I think, part of what people object to about tasks corners they don't feel like it's Vermont. And, and it may or may not be, I mean, I could see where that's definitely true. But it that raises so many, that's really causing me to think, you know, does it have to be like Vermont or, you know, yes, it isn't like Vermont. But Vermont accessible to tax corners. It certainly that feeling may not be so that feeling may be more prevalent to those of us who live in Williston and of course that's key, those who live in Wilson. But I'm suspect to those who visit tax corners that that feeling is just a lot less prevalent because they're just in Williston for a short time. You know, whether to go shopping or spend the day at work and then head back home. So he, I mean, that just to me showed a probing aspect of Alex that I don't know, I, I picked up on. I guess I also appreciated the, the candidness and the uniqueness of his answer around the conflict of interest question we I know Jeff you always seem to compare that to ask that question but you know I think if something doesn't feel right or as he put it smell right, you know, probably, you shouldn't step there. Yeah, and I just appreciated that. That was one of the better answers I've gotten in quite a while. My assessment of the three were the same that I would put Alex at the top of the list, although all three are certainly qualified thinking about to have corners the old, the old saying that Chittenden County is great because Yep. And, but I think we have a significant part of Vermont here in the historic district will soon as well as the outline only outline areas as well. It's a completely different town than I think you see in in a large town in Chittenden County. Anyway, I'd be looking for emotion. Hang on, let me find I'd move to a point. Alex daily to the planning Commission for an unexpired for your term through June 30 2023. This for a second. All second. Any discussion on the motion. Thank you to all three candidates. Absolutely. Thank you for the discussion all those in favor of the motion raise your hand. One, two, three. So it's been done congratulations Alex I see you're still listening in so and simply used to the other two candidates but don't forget there will be other opportunities in the town. Moving on to the managers report. Thank you, Terry. A couple things I want to touch on in my written report then I have something else to update the board on that I just talked this afternoon. A couple reminders on schedule will be having our select board retreat this coming Monday the 26 at 530. And that will be a deeper dive into form based code that we've spoken about a couple of couple of different times tonight so Matt will be joining us for that for a more detailed walkthrough for the board. Then at seven o'clock we have our public information hearing on the lamp light on water line, but that is required. So we'll have that will have an opportunity for the public to ask any questions of staff or for the board on that on that item. And then kind of interesting statistic today I was speaking with town clerk Sarah Mason and our early voting. We have about 47 probably closer to 50% of registered voters have returned their ballots in Wilson to date, 4000 or so. And the state of Vermont has ranked municipalities on the percentage they've received so far and currently Wilson is number one. So that was a nice piece of information to hear today and I know the drop box out back has been going very well. Sarah, she's at multiple times a day and she's just done a great job with this election. And then I'll shift here to a brief update here on regional dispatch. I was ahead of meeting yesterday morning with a chat. And county public safety authority. And then I got this policy got this member off kind of later this afternoon. So you'll have this in writing a little more detail but just want to flag for the board. Some discussion forthcoming on the public safety authority where we're looking with that question of capital funding to stand up the organization. You might recall it's a municipality that that was formed from the ground up here with five communities and looking to build that capacity to deliver dispatch services and part to be able to offer those services for towns to contract with is to build up the physical infrastructure to actually offer those services with space information technology and then ultimately a public service. And ultimately a personnel for that. And we have a location the authorities looked at a space above the south point of police station which had a lease agreement on which is actually being get gifted to the city. Coming up here. What we discussed Monday morning was was looking at initial capital investment of municipalities are part of the authority towards this upfitting cost for that's for that space to offer these services. The authorities meeting again on November 9 is looking for some feedback from each member on providing a contribution towards this cost. It's estimated $350,000 Wilson's assessment would be about $34,000. All of more more details on this by our next meeting in November. I just want to flag it for the board tonight. I'll be discussing with both our chiefs and finance director this and more details tomorrow morning as well. But potentially this is something for us to look at including in the capital budget for FY 22. I want to remind the board that we contract right now for fire which shall burn, and then police we share in house dispatch and state police and we've got a look back and forth with state police the last month. Looking for when that assessment may take place and it's currently on hold now, as the legislature has passed piece of legislation at the end of the session to take a closer look at this next spring. We've known from the start here that the police and dispatching with the free services from the state is always a variable for us to weigh in the regional question. I think I still think regionals a good model for us to explore and to make a decision here but certainly we're, we've got a little more discussion on this with the part of municipalities and will continue this in the coming months. Do you have any thoughts about when the authority would be looking for towns to commit to the capital costs to uplift the building in South Burlington? Yeah, and from our meeting on Monday and I didn't want to commit anything at that point because we need to discuss this more internally that they're really trying to think forward into the coming fiscal year here so trying to see whatever towns are willing to make that commitment here in the in the short term to shore up that piece but beyond the building upfit there's a number of other capital costs. I'll share with the board the full consultants budget on this but it's around $2 million to all the technology included as well. Okay. You try to think how to cost share that and explore grants explore other vehicles. The authority is a municipality so it potentially could look at least purchasing bonding but we were kind of throwing out those conceptually on Monday. Yeah. So, and I guess it kind of the concept of it and let's just focus on the upfit cost of 350,000 of which 34 would be realistic and share. That's kind of a go no go type thing, meaning that if we're going to commit $34,000 to upfit the facility. Isn't aren't we essentially also making a decision that we're buying into regional dispatch, because why else would we spend $34,000. Does that does that kind of make sense I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Yeah, it's just a good point Jeff and something I've been thinking about the last couple of days the the town has invested about $10,000 so far in the authority, mainly to help from the consultant study. Some concepts I am thinking about is that that 34 includes the assessment for fire and police and as this group is working to raise enough funds. You know if we were just to pay an assessment based on our fire calls it's about $8,000 about 2% of overall and then the question for the authority is okay, where do they make up that additional funding and if Wilson were to consider using police dispatch at some point, when you do the upfitting you want to have capacity for anyone who may potentially be a recipient of the service when it's offered. But it's one of those unique situations here where you know we're not committing to the service but we're putting some sort of financial skin in the game here for the cost. Yeah, some other things I'm kicking around is, you know if we were to make this investment and then we decide for whatever reason we do something different with police dispatch long term that's our long term decision. There's a little legal mechanism in where we could essentially, we have this capacity with the authority be open to then purchasing it back and selling it to another municipality that wants to get our capacity. I kicked that around a little bit with some colleagues the other day. I think it's a concept we could explore more, but it would at least kind of hedge that investment of run right now with a backup concept. Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. And I think that was everything on my written report I'll have one more thing. Other under other under business, kidding me. Move on to other business and why don't you present. This is the letter of intent to participate in this world's transcend aid program. This is a quick item I usually I would just assign a document like this, but it's having from is a letter of intent to participate in a municipal roads grants and aid program and the Regional Planning Commission and the environment and administration are offering these to implement best management practices for the municipal roads general permit Wilson has an opportunities to submit this and get about $21,000 in funding with a 20% local cash or in kind match and aid. And then doing this our stormwater program and certainly use these funds to implement these funds as as required. I paused and reached out because what we're this other intent is authorized by the legislative body. Just to be sure that we're following the rules correctly on this one I would just ask the board for a motion to approve a letter of intent to participate in the roads grant aid program. Okay, I need to raise and I may have a conflict of interest, because the folks who work on or offer that grant program work in the same department, some may work in the same division as I do. So I just I need to point that out. Just because they just because they work in the same division with the proposal. That is true. I just, I feel it's important to point out. It's a potential conflict of interest. I don't feel I feel I can be unbiased in this case. I mean, it to me it's a no brainer. The time frame of this is we have to do it before the next select board meeting and we need three votes. Okay. Yep. So I, I'm ready to make the motion, please. Whatever it is. It is a Jeff it kind of it came up over the last day or so here. The motion to approve the letter of intent to participate in the municipal roads rates and aid program. So moved. Is there a second. All second. Certainly discussion. Close in favor of the motion and raise your hand. One, two, three, so we're done. Okay. Under other business. Eric mentioned the number of ballots that have been received as of last Friday. We had about 3,300 and the board of civil authority we about five of us met last Friday noon and processed 2022 machine. I guess as we'll be meeting again this Friday to do probably about the same number. So we keep up with what's coming in. And they'll have one last shot at it on the last Friday before election day. Okay. Thank you. Thank you to those who are doing that. And then the last item nine. We talked a little bit earlier on the public comment with Scott what are your about his concerns about the holiday. I know that Eric has some plans to put things out to educate the Wilson residents regarding CDC recommendations and the Department of Health recommendations. I'm hoping that people in Wilson use common sense user heads that we don't have huge parties without social distancing without masks. I would presume that the kids are doing trick or treating early some of them are. And my guess is that they won't be out very early. They'll be out on a day. Looking at my own region of the town. Usually kids are up between five and six and then they're done by a. They're there. They can come along with at least one parent except for the teenagers and occasionally they might be a little later but no later than nine. And the other have people have concerns with with the event. Well, my thoughts are, I'm a little hesitant to get involved in setting or recommending hours. We never have in the past and I understand the covid issue. You know whether it's increasing the hours decreasing the hours putting limits on the hours. I do like the idea of trying to get out good information about how to safely trick or treat. And that should be our rule, our, you know, our role. I would agree. Anything you need else. Nope, I'll be set. You know, I appreciate the feedback we get from I had a call today on it as well for folks just want to want to make sure and I think just a message I send out on the town's behalf will be reassuring folks. And you know kudos to Scott for bringing it up, you know really appreciate that we probably wouldn't have had this discussion if it weren't for for Scott and so thank you to him. Before we adjourn. See none. All right, or adjourn until November 4. All right. Thank you everyone. Have a good night buddy. October 26. Don't forget. Yes. It's on my calendar. That'll be a board select board meeting. So yes. Yeah, some information out. Thanks everybody.