 So as a school teacher, this is nothing new for me. Everyone decides to sit back there. But we'll go ahead and get started so that we're somewhat on time. Right? I want to. So, welcome to the public meeting for the town plan here with the Planning Commission. 2024 is a year to rewrite a town plan. So we wanted to make sure that we reached out to our neighbors and that we got as much input as we possibly could. I will be the overlord for today if that's a proper term. My name is Jared Weiss. A lot of you probably don't know me. I'm new here. I moved here in August. I bought the yellow farmhouse on East Calus just south of the village, the old farmhouse cafe, the big old yellow house there. So that's where I live. But so we're here to get your input, your thoughts about what we should be including in the town plan. So we have some things here just to tell you about what a town plan is and the Planning Commission. And so I'll let some of the other esteemed members of the Planning Commission take over for just a second. My name is Gary Root. I've lived here for 40, 42 years. And I live on Route 14 in East Calus, about three quarters of a mile south of his house. A town plan. Is this the time for me to talk about a town plan where everybody can introduce themselves? Do a quick introduction and then we'll come back. Okay. I'm Vicki Arthur. I've also only lived here maybe a year and a half. I've got a house on Adamant Road close to Adamant and I have a background with floodplain management. I'm a contractor for the NFIP. I don't know how you feel about them these days, but I mostly work on developing the maps. I have a cartography GIS background. And I saw that they needed help when I guess the flood resiliency section of the town plan. So I volunteered and then eventually I joined the Planning Commission. Hi everybody, I'm Melanie Keene. We're really psyched to have Vicki and other new members, Jared to Planning Commission. I think we have an empty seat actually, just saying. And two empty seats, right, that's our Chair who insists on retirement from Planning Commission. I've been here since 1999 in the Adamant area on Martin Road since 2009 and on Planning Commission for a few years. And it's great work just saying if anybody wants to join us. Thanks for coming everybody. John, do you want to take over? John McCullough on Planning Commission. I'm also an administrator. Been here since 73. Is it? And I'm Jan Olson and I've been the Chair for the last five years I think. And I do appreciate all of you coming here this afternoon. And really sharing your thoughts, opening your minds, sharing the food, you know, eat while you're up while we get you going. And with that, I think Gary was going to tell us what the town plan was about. The Planning Commission is primarily responsible for drafting two town documents. One is the zoning that controls how it controls land use and development in the town. And the other is the town plan which is an aspirational document primarily. As an aspirational document, a town plan really is supposed to list and develop what the town really wants for its growth and future. A town plan is an eight year document drafted by the Planning Commission and approved by the Select Board. And it's a valuable plan as an aspirational document. It's valuable just as a statement of who we are. I have an acquaintance that moved to Calis because he and his wife were looking at a number of different towns and so they read the town plan from each of the towns and they moved here because of our town plan. Yeah, you know, an engineer working on each other. Yeah, I've read the town plan. And a town plan is also, along with the zoning bylaws for the town, the town plan is a document that controls certain aspects of development. So the zoning administrator goes almost entirely off the zoning bylaws, but the Development Review Board, which is the second tier of authority in terms of zoning approval, they are experts not just in implementing what's in the zoning bylaws but also in the town plan. And then if you take another step up, if you go outside of the town, as far as the state agencies that have authority over development issues within the town, the town plan is the thing that they look at. Well, they might look at zoning, but they might not, but they always look at the town plan to make decisions on where certain things can happen and where they shouldn't happen and what things the town aspires to and what things the town really doesn't want to have happen in town. So the town plan is a very important document from that standpoint. The town plan is also the primary authority for the aspirations of the town in terms of getting grants. So if we write grants for things, those people are looking at the town plan to see that the will of the town supports the intent of the grant. Yeah, so we are glad you're here. Someone just came a month early. I'm so excited to be here. But the question we have is where do you see callus in eight years, right? So a town plan is in effect for eight years. So you're kind of looking out to the future and trying to figure out where is it that we want to be. And these are some of the things that Derry was talking about, right? It's to put the power back in local decision making. Influence the state when it comes to regulatory proceedings allows us to get grants, right? It allows us to have a plan so that we could say, and with that plan we need these grants, right? And other funds for community development and housing. So that's kind of what the plan is for. And that's why we're here, to get what you guys, what you think, what our neighbors think, what the community thinks about this next eight years. And where we should be in the next eight years. So these are the sections of the town plan. Now, I hope you all did your homework. We are going through each section before us late and taking forever on it. So hopefully that's why there's brownies. Now what we're really going to do is you can see we've put some post-its around it. And we're going to go through here in a second and just give you a quick rundown of the sections. And then we're going to ask you your thoughts on the different sections. So, and we want to give you some visuals. Visuals always help, right? Make you think of some things. So we've got some of the different sections here that we were going to go through. So, let's see. History and demographics. I don't know if you guys want to change our history or demographics. Go ahead and throw that up on one of the other issues if you'd like. But that is, that is the, I think the first part of the town plan, right? Just kind of going through the history. Usually the history and demographics. The last one was 2010 that we did. 2020. And then John, what is it, the American Community Survey? I'm going to draw from that as much as possible. But the 2020 decennial is going to be the world of stuff. Alright, so next we have Land Use Development. If anyone want to talk about that slide real quick. So, Land Use Development. This is interestingly a map of our town of Calis. Kind of centered in the red area is the historic Overland District. Anything, Orange is Village District. Yellow is Rural Residential. Green is Conserved. I can't remember what the pink was. I think that's River Quarter. Oh, the Town of Forest. And probably the pink is Malone's Resource Recreational. There's the other pink of Shoreland. Yeah, the other green on the other side there. This green up here is Malone's Property, which is Resource Recreational. So what happens is this is land development. Do we want to change any villages? Do we want to change any rural residential? What are the things you might want to change? Housing. Anybody know that this is a big issue statewide, nationwide. And so how we want to go forward with housing and how we do it smart and what we need to do when it comes to housing. I can't see it on there, but also like Airbnb's and those short-term rentals and those kind of things. So those issues. Anybody, feel free to jump in. Okay. And you're going to see that some of these topics interrelate with each other. Basically, we have three commercial areas in our town. That's where the three stores are. And so the planning powers that we want us to look, is there any of that availability of growth or development? I personally like the word sustainability, but anyway, they go with economic development. So if you wanted to develop a new commercial center in the town, where would you put it? One of the big issues at the last major rewrite of the town plan for economic development was the development of access to the internet. And we've made tremendous strides in that regard, but there are still areas of town that are where the internet is not easily accessible. Next slide. So agriculture. This could also be economic development, because your agriculture of Pooley Flats and the schoolhouse farm are an economics resource to us. If you decide how we want to do a plan, do you want to have more of these kinds of farms for future sustainability? If there were an economic downturn, how would Calis-5? Could I ask a quick question there? No, you can ask. Pete's Greens, the former Ligares, is a huge farm. Is that a positive impact on our town in terms of the economy? I don't know. I can't answer that because of the way, but you're right, I forgot about that. They no longer call that land Pete's Greens. What do they call it? John SUNY, something or another? I don't know the name of it now. Ligare Farm. What? Ligare Farm. And see, it used to be that they sold the vegetables there. Now it's built, I think, basically for raising carrots. I mean, and things like that, which it goes to Pete's Greens, which, yeah, it diversifies out by the state, but I don't think we as a town get anything for that, other than what he pays in property tax. Calis people do however keep asking about corn and strawberries. No. Flood resilience. I can say that Calis has a great flood plain ordinance. It is up to snuff. I've looked it over. So I think we also, you know, we have river corridors, everything. I'd say like in terms of regulations, we're good, but we all know there's a lot, you know, when it floods, there's a lot of damages to the roads. I know Curtis pond, the dam there is a hot topic that probably could fill up an entire town plan on its own. So, you know, there's all things that I think about in the future. And I think we had thought about putting the emergency management, the new emergency management under the flood resilience possibly. I don't know if it gets to me. Okay, next one. Natural resources and conservation. Very important for our town. How will we preserve the natural resources that we have and working with conservation? Where do we conserve? And there's a natural, I don't want to call it conflict, but there's a natural, where do you develop and conserve? And we have so much land that is there and we really have very little developable land. So it's really an interesting, I don't know, it's about dilemma, I guess, anyway. There we go. Our historic sites. If you've seen the new Memorial Hall, this is an older picture, right? It was the last spring, maybe. I'm trying to think of this. Anyway, there are historic sites, Old West Church. What do you want to do to keep this? And how do you want to keep it? What do we want to do with municipal services? We've already heard that the town office is small. Are you going to rebuild it? What are we going to do with the garage? Is there any way that we get back to using the town hall? I mean, the picture on the left is where the script of Old Town was being played that day. And the group was meeting there and upstairs and you could look out and see. So it would be nice to have certain nice things there. Energy is a big one. So I made a lot of these slides and I had help making them look pretty for my partner, but I will say, don't worry, that is a stock image of solar panels in the Goodwill. I don't know where it is. It's not in Dallas. Probably not even in Vermont. It's just supposed to, you know, get you thinking and kind of vile you up and get your creative juices flowing while before we start that. And actually what we have in the current town plan states that basically our solar has to be within the confines of the house that you're at or the property that you're at. We don't have a lot of big overextended solar fields. What you want to do with electrical vehicles and all of that, that's education for updating your house if you have energy efficiency and how do you want to go about doing that. That's part of all of energy. So transportation is the same thing with municipal services, right? Yeah, same thing. And they kind of tie in. We don't really have public transportation. One time, just sharing, we had an energy, start of an energy committee and we were looking at where to put a parking ride and we couldn't find a place for a parking ride. So the rural transportation RTC bus goes, does it still stop at the post office? I'm not sure if it does. It does. I think they might have changed it. They probably changed it because they only had one trip in and one trip back into Marsville. So if you want to have affordable housing, I mean I'm just putting this out as you just think about it, if you want to have affordable housing, people have to work somewhere and they have to drive. And I think in the last demographics we saw that almost every house or every property owner has at least two cars. So if you build affordable housing and you put up eight houses, are you going to have to put 16 parking lots or spaces for 16 cars? How do you want to not do that? Transportation. I mean these are all the interrelated issues to think about. Kari, you can talk to it. So Kari Bradley, I'm not on the commission but I have volunteered to help out with the education chapter as a longtime school board member. And the district of course is a separate municipality at this point. But we happen to be doing a strategic planning process right now. In the final stages we have some draft goals and action steps. And we're obviously at a crossroads with education. How are we going to maintain a sustainable educational system throughout the community is a big question. And the other thing I mentioned is that also required in this part is early childhood childcare. So that's something that we should talk about as well. Yeah, so there's a lot of things in a community when it comes to recreation arts. The trails and all the different things that we have and that's available to us. So how do we want to continue to promote that? How do we want to continue to sustain it and help it grow in not just recreation but in the arts in all of those fields because we have great things to begin with. So how do we continue to support it? And in what ways does the town really support recreation in the arts? We can actually go all the way back to the one that just lists everything. So this is when we wanted to give you some time to talk to each other, grab some post-it notes, something to write with, and we've put the major sections of the town plan on the wall. We want to hear what you think. So what ideas do you have? What questions even do you have, right? So we wanted to just give you some time to talk to one another, put those things up, and then we'll come back and we'll kind of go through that and we'll talk about it and we'll see what questions you do have. We're here to listen. We're not here to give the ideas. We want to hear your ideas. And so we want to give you some time. We want to take a post-it note and a pencil to go around. What things do you think of? What do you want to see in recreations in arts and transportation? Economic development. What do you want to see? What should we be doing as we write a plan? What kind of things should we be doing? And what you might want to think of, eight years from now, what do you want Calis to look like? And then for people on Zoom, you can just shoot those in the chat if you want, and I'm monitoring it. So I can even write it on a sticky note if you want and then put it up on the board for you. That could be fun for me. It's like you're here. It's like you're in the room. So we'll just give you a few minutes. I'm wondering if we know what Calis demographics are. Are we, in fact, how old are we? Are we mostly old people? Yes. Like over 50% over the age of 65. Over 50% over the age of 65. Over 50%. So we've got a lot of big houses for all those old people. And all of us decide to have poor or help all of a sudden at the same time. Is there a place here in town where we might want some kind of co-generational house? Yeah. And if there's something that doesn't look like it fits or feel like it fits me, we can put the other one. We want to hear it. Quick question. When Jan was preparing for this and asking for these supplies, she asked for specifically different color sticky notes. Is there a meaning to the color of the sticky notes? I think we've gone away from that. Just put them where you want. What's going to happen is wherever the most post-it notes go, might tell us what the priority should be. If no one puts anything under transportation, it's not that it's not something we're not going to talk about, but it's not a top huge priority. So this will help us to just visually, we can see it. If there's one or a little lonely post-it note on transportation, we know that it's not necessarily a priority. It's still something we're going to talk about, but not necessarily one of our top priorities. But yeah, we're getting by with it. Couldn't it just be something you wanted questions about? It could be. Did you say about it? It could just be that people haven't thought about it. We're going to go around and we'll go back again. And see if there's questions. You can even put it in as a question. Yeah, if you have a question about one of the sections, go ahead and throw it on a post-it note. If you have a question that you want to remain anonymous, then you can just put it up there. You're also encouraged and you're encouraged to ask questions so that everybody can be stimulated by that. So I tried to inhale the town plan from 2016. Wow. 175 pages. Anyway, I blasted two of the last 75. One statistic that stuck out to me, in contrast to what was just said, it said as of 2010, the median age was 46, but 88% of the population of Calis was under 65. And somebody just said we're 50. I'm pretty sure it's 50. At least 50% over 60. Not much different. When I looked at it, that's why, I don't know, that's what I saw. I'm curious how Vermont is an aging state, but I thought that that was interesting that 88% was under 65 in 2010. Well, how many people in this room have turned 65 since then? You know, 14. That's why I'm so curious. I feel over 50% are over 65 now. That's a fair question. Because demographics too, I mean, these guys all know, we can build a plan, though, that makes it different. I have four kids under the age of 12. Yay! That's what Kat Fair said too. She said something to me. She goes, you look like a tax base. But that brings a push-pull as well, right? You've got the services and the things needed for an aging population, while at the same time you've got a whole other section. You know, I look at it, I don't want my kids to play basketball. You know what I mean? So they're totally different things. So it does have a push-pull aspect to it. It's sort of along the same lines. I have a question about what this meeting kind of role it plays in, what happens after here when I look around the room and I think about who's represented here in the room, and are we, we are clearly not a great cross-section of the town here. I mean, everyone was invited. But the question is, are we making, are we the only people who are going to weigh in? I know that people will be invited to call you or write to you or whatever, but how aggressive must we be as a whole community across all of our cultural divides to make sure that we're getting what we want? That we're all getting what we want? We have, as the Planning Commission has really four primary sources of guidance for what goes into the town planning. Obviously it's our own opinion and as, you know, we all live here and we all look around and we're, and we particularly are intent on reflecting all of those different things. You know, we have to look at economic development. We can't just say, oh, we want to conserve everything. So that's a big piece of it. What goes on with the town committees is a big piece of, we will solicit information and gather opinions and needs from all of the town commissions and committees. You guys, you know, this is really, you're absolutely right. People who are silent all the time, they don't weigh in with as much authority as people who participate. And this is one very important piece of participation and we also are directed by the state. A lot of the elements in the town plan are things that are mandated. So, you know, that's how we form our guidance. Well, one question I have, too, is that there is, and this is maybe lots of water under the bridge and I certainly wasn't knowing this until last week, but there's grant money for sort of a facilitated process to get more, to recruit people from all parts of our town to come together and weigh in. If that's a very hard process to get people to come to a meeting. It's also a hard process to get the grants. I mean, it's somewhat difficult because you have to, I did ask the World Development and I still have to get a comment back. And because I wanted a real development to do a vote. They do three town meetings and Plainfield had it, Marshall had it. There's some other groups who do facilitating, but we had to get started. If you were to have asked for a grant, then it would have taken time to get the money applied and then to do it and they would have been spending all of this year doing that and we have to have the town plan done by the end of the year. I think in terms of process we've talked about having other town meetings or other just interested party meetings or surveys. Yeah, we've talked about doing surveys. We've talked about going to some of the groups, friends of Calis some of the different things and getting their input. So yeah, I mean, you're right. We need to try and get as much of the input as possible because you're right. Sometimes it's always the same people that will show up to stuff. This is literally the same people. Yeah. The usual suspects. Right. And so we do need to do that and we've had conversations. I think our idea was to have one to see where we were and then to go from there and go, okay, now we need to now we need to do acts. We've debated even back and forth do we have it in the different the different handlets in the different places, right? Do we do them all here? Like we've talked about that but we wanted to have one to Jan's point to get the process started. I knew to it too. Like I know I'm supposed to write parts that I haven't done any of it because I wanted to wait until I hear things. Right? And so I think that's what we're doing but your point is not lost. We do need to make sure that we get and if you wanted to be a survey taker for the planning commission we would love to. I mean, I was actually thinking more like, you know, pie breakfast at the school or spaghetti at food. Food. Food. Free food. Free food and conversation. Yeah, planning commission is going to be working on this for the next six months and we eat twice a month and there's food. There always is food. Yeah, Gary always drinks this thing. And there is, by the way, food over there so stand up and start talking. Yeah, so take some time grab some post-it notes talk to each other and let's see what we can get. We'll give you some time to just think about it and give us your thoughts. I'm distracted by the fact that there are brothers. I'm hoping you're allowed to have another. Stop talking. They're brothers. Yes. Okay. Yes. I just had an audience to talk about it. I looked at this in the state. I thought it was a double-edged but it's a double-edged. Yes. Well, no. Okay. According to the Maritime Community Survey it says 20% 20.1% is 65 years older but I remember when I looked at the 2010 census I joined all the tables for a size of 20 census. Okay. But I will I don't know if I'll be able to join all the tables in this class. Wow. Absolutely. Yeah. No. I thought it was it was like 50% with the negative size. So, oh my God. Oh my God. So, yeah. So, you're right there. Yep. Yeah. You're right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I were the The group Be there Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I just Yeah. This is my 11th year. Right now the only comment is from Scott about how the Planning Commission formed 50 years ago. If you scroll up on that little chat you'll see it. It says what I'm writing down here. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really you would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm writing down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and this one, is it going to be fun or is it going to be nice? Just give me the solution in my pocket. All right. And I can run it for me. I think it's still going to be nice. You're good at that. All right. Sorry, I took your pass. No, that's fine. It's right down here. I'll put it up here. Good. It's making me so much more comfortable. I love it. I just feel much better. We will follow my interests. Yeah, all right. Okay. I'll get it. I'm going to put it in the basket. Okay. Okay. Oh. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to get it done. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to get it done. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I was hoping it would be over before I left, but I was hoping that I didn't. I was hoping it would be over before I left, but I was hoping that I didn't. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left, but I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left, but I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left. I was hoping it would be over before I left.