 I think so. There's just for 5B, there are some updated documents that I will, I can share at that time when we get there, but that's it. The agenda item is still the same. So go ahead, Amber. I'm going to ask to remove items 6B from the consent agenda to have it returned to a meeting when we have the documents. Okay. Yeah. I saw your email. I'll ask Robin about that too when he gets back. He told me he hadn't seen the easement. Oh, okay. Yes. Yes, he has. And I sent it on to Rick Hamlin. Well, Evan, if you could send it to us, that would be great. Regardless. Now I'd have to find it because I sent it on to Rick Hamlin. So, but okay. From what I read, it doesn't seem as if it's something we need to take an action on today and it can wait 2 weeks. Right. So, yes, we could have that removed. Just a quick clarification, I suppose. Evan, if you could have somebody send out an executive session link, that would be fantastic. Because I know speaking for myself, I don't have one. It didn't sound like Amber did either. Do that. Great. So are there any other additions or changes? No. None that I have. All right. If someone wants to make a motion to amend the agenda. A little second. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Raj. Is there any further discussion? Reminder sound. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Great. Pass unanimously. Oh, you can't hear us. Can you hear me now? Dan or to Lincoln in general. George. I have a question for you. This is Kathy. I was just wondering if all of the. Trustees are present. I can't see everybody. Yes. Okay. Thank you. We've heard them. Okay. Thank you. Yes. We just have yet to physically or to see them. Can't verify where they are. Right behind you. That's the clock. The trustees are in the house. All right. Well, while we're been angling this, let's go into the midst part of the agenda, which is the public to be heard. So now this is the portion of tonight's meeting where there is something that any member of the public wishes to bring to the board's attention. Now was a time to do so. We will do this in order of those in the room and then those in the room. We will do this in order of those in the room and then those on Microsoft teams. So if you're using Microsoft teams, please go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature. For those of you in the room, I'm going to need to rely on George or Dan. If you could please tell me if anyone in the room is raising their hand and wishes to speak, that would be greatly appreciated. No members of the public here other than the cameraman and the three of us. Great. Well, thank you for that. So now we will go to Microsoft teams. I am not seeing any hands up. So as a last call, if there's anybody using Microsoft teams who wishes to bring something to the attention of the trustees, please raise your hand in Microsoft teams or type into the chat feature. I am not seeing any hands going up. So we will go ahead and move off of public to be heard and go into business item five a discussion on next steps for the independence initiative. Hello, Brad. Hey, Andrew, how are you? Fantastic. How are you? Good. So yeah, there's there's no memo or any action items here just an open discussion on anything that the trustees would like to see as a next step for the independence initiative. As I'm sure everybody is aware, the vote passed one week ago today with 88% approval. Higher number of votes that were cast either in favor or against in the last three votes. It's the highest number. So certainly participation was high and approval was high. And it's a great, a great start. So congrats on that. Thanks. Thank you, Brad. And I just wanted to echo that, you know, having a turnout as high as it was and having such a decisive point in terms of the direction of the community. Really is quite a clear statement as to where the village of Essex Junction desires to be. And that's clear to the city of Essex Junction. The one thing I want to make sure just to name public that I did not during any of any of the comments I made is I also want to appreciate you, Brad, for the work that you did to get us to where we are. You, you were our staff point person for this, this efforts. And I personally greatly appreciate your efforts getting us to this point. Coordinating so many documents, helping to ensure that documents were followed up on, making sure that we had the things that we needed. So I really appreciate that and your dedication to this. So thank you. Thank you, my pleasure. I have to second that. Thanks, Brad. Yep. Really excellent work. And just for the, on the technical side of things, those of you in to Lincoln, can you hear us? Okay. Yes, yes. You're fine. Yeah. Great. And we can hear you still can't see you, but we can at least hear you. We have some items coming up in the next agenda item in terms of MOUs. Other than that, I personally don't have any other questions, comments, concerns for the, the initiative. Hey, there's two Lincoln. Nice to see you all. Should we do the wave? Yeah. Yes. No. All right. The only other thing that I didn't want to mention in terms of where the initiative is going. At this point, really things are largely out of the hands of those of us on the screen and in this meeting. At this point in time, this is really in the legislature's hands. Those of us on the board of trustees, the community, we have done our part. We have voted. The results by now should be at the Secretary of State's office and on their way to the legislative or to the legislature. If they have not yet already been there, but until there is a bill and until the legislature comes into session, there's really nothing else to be done except for continuing the work of the MOUs to help with a smooth transition from being a, a village that's a part of a town to an independent city. So with that recap, did anybody have anything else? Or do we want to move on to the next item? No, Andrew, it's George. I'd like to just discuss this a little bit more. Have we discussed this with, with Lori and Karen, our representatives, because I was under the impression that one of the things we might, we would need to be doing is to be creating an information packet that will go down to the Government Operations Committee that would highlight how we got here. Executive summary stuff, really, but you could include more substantive information. But I think we, in my opinion, I'd, I'd say we want to summarize our, our finances, summarize how we got here. Probably highlight the ongoing agreements we have with Essex Town. Those ones that are, and I'm just not talking, I'm not talking just about the contracts we're negotiating, but things like the, the Tritown Committee and so forth. I just, I, I'm just curious, I mean, I, I just don't know. I mean, if they're saying don't, don't send any other information down to the legislature, all you need is a bill and that's it. But when I've been in legislative committees usually and someone is proposing something or trying to get a committee to make a decision, usually it's accompanied by a kind of a lot of information, a PowerPoint, some, some data, financial data or whatever. So are you saying we're not going to do anything like that or what did you have in mind? Everything that you're saying is going to need to be a part of a presentation to the various committees. Okay. When this bill gets into the committees. So yes, all of that will need to be a part of it. We will, there will likely be a village contingent, if you will, who will be at the legislature to present on this. And likely they may want to hear from some members of the select board and or other account individuals on this issue as well, in terms of a hearing on the bill, but until that is there, in terms of an action step, there isn't much that the community is doing, which we need from the community, which was the intention of my comments. Yes, those of us as a trustees, we will need to have the presentation taken care of, similar George with the Crescent Connector presentation that we did. Right. We'll need to do something similar to that. But yes, in answer to your question, Raj and I have had a few conversations with Karen and Lori as well about this process. Right. You know, the thing is, I just want to just make everyone cognizant, just keep an, and I'm glad to hear you. I'm reassured to hear you say that. I just want to keep us cognizant of time because here we are middle November and the legislative session is going to be on us very quickly. And we don't, once, as you said, once we bring, once the bill gets down there, you don't, it could be, it could be delayed a couple of months. It could go right into the committee. We don't have control over it. So I'm only going to suggest that whatever presentation you are anticipating or we're anticipating, we probably want to start putting that together fairly soon. And so I, yeah. Yeah, I had started doing that based on some of my own assumptions and some of my own thoughts. With that said, what I'm wondering is in terms of our process, I, is that something that the four of you are anticipating that the five of us do altogether during our meetings, or would you be willing to have there be a, a group of two of us to see it forward? Yeah, I don't, I don't personally have a process in mind, but I just want to make sure that however it gets done, and I'd certainly defer, I'd help in any way or stay out of the way. And I think that's what Dan is saying too, but I just want to make sure that we're doing something. That's all. And if I can, if you can contribute in any way, however, I'll leave it up to the board leadership to make those decisions. We are all leaders on the board in our own way. This is not a dictatorship. Oh, okay. I think, I think it'd be good to, I think it'd be good to, to have everyone share what they think should be involved and included. And, and really kind of talk that through and, and try to come up with the best package we can come up with, you know, with the most relevant, relevant information that they think. And, you know, we can reach out to Lori and Karen and, and, and ask them as well, you know, like what, what, what do you think? Yeah. The relevant, you know, relevant items will be so that we're not wasting our time in their time. And certainly we'll have to have a section on the agreements that are completed. And maybe unfortunately the agreements that are still yet to be worked out. But I think, you know, like you're saying, I think we need to stress the fact that we're still working together, that the boards are working towards the same goal. You know, I think the select boards working with us. Right. So to see the communities get, get this done. Right. Yeah. Okay. Good. I think those are good suggestions. Yeah. And I, and I, and I'd like to agree with you Raj that probably more than anything, hearing from Lori and Karen, what, what do state, what, what do state representatives want to see, which might be very different than the kinds of things that we think are important. So I think that's a good, something important to keep in mind. I don't know. Do we, Andrew, do we, you know, if we have ideas on what's in there, should we, what should be in there? Should we just email you without circulating amongst the group just kind of send suggestions to you or. Yes. I think if you were all to send suggestions to me, that would be greatly appreciated. I'm also happy to work with Karen and Lori in terms of how to ensure that the five of us are informed of how this is going. The community is informed of how this is going as well. But with that, that presentation, just to make sure that their thoughts are, are helping to lead that effort. Did anybody have anything else? No, I guess, I guess I'll, I'll just, you know, you're, I'll just thank again all of the community volunteers that came together to, to really put out what I consider to be sort of an unprecedented effort at outreach and connection. The community prior to this to make sure people knew what was coming, that they had factual information and that they were informed of what was going on. I'm still blown away at how many points of contact there were over the past couple of months and really appreciated of the volunteer efforts of everyone that came together with our village, our voices to get that done. Certainly showed in the result. So much appreciated. And Raj, they'll be on the agenda for the 23rd to give you kind of a recap of all those numbers and all the activities. So we'll hear from them in a couple of weeks. Great. Thanks. All right. So if that's it from the board, I see we have a hand up. The listing is Essex Disorder. So I'm not sure who this is. I can't call on you by name. If you would not mind imbueding yourself and letting us know who you are in your comments, I'd be appreciated. Hi, Andrew. This is Mike Sullivan. Hey, Mike. Okay. Just want to say that I really like the idea of putting the presentation together. I would also kind of urge or I would love to be able to be have that, you know, have a scene or have a visit. Or have a presentation to the public and or OVOV. For, you know, what's going to be seen, just maybe some, maybe before it's come, becomes finalized and such. So just, just my thoughts. Thank you for that, Mike. All right. So with that, we will go ahead and move on to agenda item. Five B. We have a discussion and edit agreements and MOU with the town of Essex in relation to independence. And we got some updated MOUs as you will see coming on the screen now. I appreciate, I believe it was Kristen who had taken the diversions from the town's attorney as well as from our own attorney and combined them into one document. So Kristen, I really appreciate you doing that. And I guess from a process from here, as you can see on the screen, why don't we just start off in that order of we'll go from MOU police and IT agreement and delinquent tax agreement. Ideally, I hope from here the processes we can make, we can accept and or make other changes as desired, but hopefully we're nearing the end of reviewing these, these agreements. So I'm making an assumption as we look at these MOUs that as you scroll down, if we don't see anything highlighted, then what was then what is there is acceptable to both boards at this point. What would be helpful is for me, what would be helpful is if we had any of the intent and or desire as to why some of these changes are there that may be helpful. Amber, your hand is up. I was just going to comment that I think we're back to the same place we were several weeks ago regarding the condition precedents. You know, I think Kristen and Claudine had added some language, which I was okay with, but the language that was added by Bill is again back to all of these have to be done. Period. Unless I'm reading this incorrectly. I'm happy to jump in here if you'd like. Please do. Yeah, that's Amber. That's exactly what we sought to is I think at the last meeting you had voiced that or the trustee's advice that they did not want the condition precedent. So Claudine and I have changed it to prior to the execution, the parties in good working good faith shall attempt to reach agreement. So this is us changing their most recent, you know, they came back with basically what they'd said previously, but they did not want the condition precedent. So I think that was a good faith, which didn't really get to what you had asked for. The trustees had asked for last time. So we took this stab at it. So what I would. I'm sorry. I like the, I like your version, Kristen. I think the only concern question that I had was how to define, you know, what point do we say we've attempted. And I think that's the only unanswered question that I had in regards to that. But I, but I do like the change. Okay. Go ahead, Rog. I guess I'll, you know, a slight tangent to this is, you know, we, we keep going around and around of it on this point, but we have yet to talk about anything. It's in that list. So maybe we set aside the term and we dive into trying to figure out what's in that list and make it a moot point. You know, because now we've, it feels like we've done the last two or three joint meetings going around and round on this. Maybe it's just two, but it feels like a long time that we've gone back and forth on, you know, whether we want to make these, you know, a condition or not. And I feel like we're so close on the really difficult ones that we can probably get this list done and then we won't have to worry about it. I mean, it's, I know we're trying not to do too many in one meeting. I'm hearing staff and both boards saying they don't want to, you know, tackle five or six a night anymore. But I don't need, I'm not even aware of any proposals that have gone back and forth, if any. So I don't know what other people think of that, but I feel like if we go back to the select board, like you're alluding to Amber and just say, no, this is, you know, we're stuck. So just a thought. I hear you, Raj. Where I, what I come to on this one is I think if we, I think what we should do is go back with, we said that we're not okay with it, with it being a condition of precedent. And as such, this is our version. It sounds like we're at an impasse on it. So let's just not talk about that right now. And to your point, Raj, let's finish the agreements. Let's see if we can finish them and then it doesn't matter. If it's, if this is the sword they want to die on, then they can express that. And we can express that if it's truly our position that we don't want that statement in there, then that's our stance and we try to move on. Amber, go ahead. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't think we're, I don't think we're going to move past and be able to finalize this MOU and it's kind of pointless to keep going back and forth on one paragraph of an MOU. When, I mean, they've identified that they've got issues with these wanting to fix these or finalize these other agreements. Obviously we've seen a right of first refusal. We've seen the storm water, but to Raj's point, these are these are other items that they've expressed concern in and yet we've heard nothing about their proposal. So I think it's time that we hear something from them about these as opposed to just putting it in an MOU and saying we need an agreement on this. And to the end to that end, Amber, you know, we can, we can, you know, we don't have to write in a whole, a whole agreement tonight, but we could, we could transmit something from our meeting tonight to them and say, you know, this is what we're thinking on Indian brook and EGRP. Here's the high level items we're thinking about. What do you, how do you feel so that when we come together next time, we have something to talk about that might get us there. You know, we, in other words, let's not send over a fully fledged agreement on this stuff. Maybe we just send over, you know, here's what, here's what we suggest. Get it going. What are your thoughts on this? And then, you know, our attorneys can, can get into finishing it out, flushing it out once it's done. Otherwise, I think we're just going to keep going into January or February at this point. I can appreciate that comment, but I really feel like the ball should be in the select board's position on this one because these days are, these are agreements that they said that they feel are important. So I want to, I want to see what their first pass is as to what their proposal is for us. We took, we took most of these off the table months ago. Yes. So in some of these, like the shared boards just just appeared two weeks ago. So I, my position and I'm willing to speak for myself is that I would like to see the first balling of the select board. Okay. Can I just weigh in? I just, just as I understand it, stormwater, I think we pretty much have a stormwater agreement. Is that correct? Okay. Indian Brook EJRP program. I don't know about that. How about senior center? I think we initially had, why don't we continue to share the cost of the senior center and bus stuff on a grand list basis? I think that's a reasonable suggestion. Um, I don't think I'm from my last, our last discussion with the select board, I don't think they even know they still had questions about the tree farm building and maintenance. So that seems like, I don't know, I don't know that we can make a proposal because I'm not sure kind of what you're saying, Amber, I'm not sure what's even remotely being proposed there. I don't understand what the underlying, well, we're trying to achieve with having an agreement there. So in a sense, I think it really just comes down to Indian Brook and EJRP. Is there some tradeoff there? I think this can be kind of probably could, to go back to Raj's earlier comment, we could probably dispose of this fairly quickly, but we would need to get a little bit more clarity from the select board. And I think we already did propose the senior center proposal that you mentioned. So that's my point again is like, we've already talked about this. And then we did talk about Indian Brook. We didn't like their proposal. They didn't like our, you know, so now it's just kind of again, what are you guys thinking? If you didn't like that and you still are saying that it's something that is important to you. Give us, give us some thoughts. Okay. Go ahead, Raj. You're muted, Raj. First time. I don't feel like I can speak for the select board or any necessarily, but my recollection is he, his opinion on, on tree farm buildings was we are all co-owners. So, you know, are we going to walk away from my sense is they feel like we still have a responsibility to that property and they don't want to be left with the sole responsibility for maintaining buildings. It's unclear to me, however, whether we had any responsibility in the first place, but I think Evan might have corrected me on a few meetings ago saying that, you know, something about there being myth to the tree farm agreement and reality and that, so I guess maybe Evan, if you can, you know, in a one minute summary, very brief summary, you know, with your priority of the tree farm agreement, what, what our responsibility in this case be, do you think? Yeah. In your interpretation. There is something in the agreement that says the town would maintain the buildings. I believe, but the spirit of that is because the town encompassed the village that the entirety would take care of it, but you guys can argue that there, the original agreement says the town will take care of the buildings. I see Margarita's your hand up. Yeah. Yes. Sorry. I didn't know. I have the, I have the file in my office back at 81 Maine. I could get, I can get that out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of you and copy it. You could all read it. Mostly I just wanted to say at the joint board meeting, we will be having a presentation on this because this also deals with the lease that is up for the tree farm management group. So that will be coming on the 22nd. So I, you know, you are right. Like there's not much. I don't think that you can even kind of see what's going on there. So I think that we did talk about that this week. And we're meeting again about it on Friday. So we'll be getting something out there for that. FYI. Okay. So what I'm hearing so far from this is we already have an agreement for stormwater. Indian Brook. Indian Brook was something that I believe we as a trustee said that we wanted to talk about and that we wanted to try and work with a select board on. So we had a proposal from the board of directors. The board of directors was definitely from the select board's end. We have not seen a proposal from them at all. The senior center in the bus, we did propose to them a proposal. Where the services would be provided by the town. We have the space. There would be some funds that would change hands because of that. We can go back to that. If that is still the will of the board of directors. We can go back to that. We can go back to that. We can go back to that. And then as far as the administration transition. Personally, it seems as if that's going to work itself out within the next few months regardless. So the amount of time it would take us to come to an agreement would probably just be a waste of time. In my opinion, unless there's something I'm missing. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's going to work. I think it's going to be one that we should take on frankly because given how we have to get to see anything from the select board in terms of a proposal on any of these, we could continue to wait and ask them to do it or we could just put something out there as a starting point. So unless I'm misunderstanding anything, I'm happy to email the senior center and senior bus. But I think we would need to go with the proposal for Indian Brook, which in my minds, if we look at 42% of how much the current Indian Brook maintenance is. There's a proposal right there. So you're saying what elements of that capital and Andrew. When you say 42% of the current budget for that, I mean, obviously that's going to be changing. It's not fixed here. You're not standing by a fixed figure or a dollar per year. I assume you're proposing there would be a 42% you know, as far as cost, compensation, whatever it goes and how it fluctuates. It has been approximately 15 to 20 or so thousand every year for quite a few years of maintenance to Indian Brook for the dam and the millfoil. A couple of years it was higher than that, a couple of years it was lower than that, but on average that was approximately what it was. So I would say if we would just use that previous 10 or so year indicator of an average, we could just say that is 42% of that average. I think it was something like 17.5. So 42% of 17.5. Maybe I'm wrong. Something like that. I have it in a spreadsheet. You're a ballpark. I had the previous 10 years in a spreadsheet just on a different device. And so what would the ERP side of that be? I'd say let's have them propose something. I propose something to Andy and haven't had anything formal come back. My proposal to Andy was if as residents we receive a resident fee because we pay for the administration of ERP and if they wanted to pay an equitable share of ERP's administration just like village slash city residents would be doing, then they would be welcome to be considered residents and have resident access or resident fees. It was something around $180,000 a year or so. I may have approximately that to have that access. And what would that access include? On licensed care? On licensed child care it did not include the licensed child care program. I don't recall top of my head whether included pools. I think it may have. Cool. Got it. And the intention of why it didn't include the licensed child care is that's an enterprise fund. So yes, it's a board is okay with it. I'm happy to communicate that. Back to the select board chair. Sure. Given that just also thinking of expectations given that on the 22nd we're going to be talking about the tree farm again. I'm not going to hold out much hope that we're going to make much agreement or much much progress on any of these agreements in that meeting. So I'm assuming we're probably going to need to communicate from one meeting to the next meeting one of our individual meetings to their meeting. Have them respond that way. Or we have more joint meetings which I don't think anyone is really looking forward to at this point. Is it possible to put we've heard feedback that we don't want to do too much of this in one night anyway. Is it possible to look at some of the ones that we feel like we're there on and put that at the beginning of that meeting so that we can put a stamp of joint approval on and put them to bed. You know I'm thinking of police services and possibly a couple others that we still have yet to talk about but it feels like we're so close on a couple of these that we could literally take them off the list without delaying that meeting too far and at least get somewhat get something concrete done and you know I'm thinking about you know all of the 20 minutes or half an hour at the beginning of that meeting. That sounds good. I just feel like we need to start ticking stuff off the list. I mean we need to you know otherwise they're just going to keep going back and forth. Not them. The agreements will keep floating back and forth. Right. Yep. Andrew I'll add one last piece. I'm agreeing with everything you're proposing. I would only last one make one last point. In terms of the senior center the select board had mentioned that they might want to open their own senior center in the town. And so obviously it's going to be if they're if they haven't come to a decision about that then there's not much we can do in terms of negotiating with the current senior center arrangement. So that would need to be something they have to work out. We can't help them with that part. If they they have to make a determination on their own whether they want to continue to work with us on the existing senior center. So that's a potential black hole that may not get resolved and it might not be resolvable because for anything that we've done. I agree. Thank you for that George. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. And in that note you know that well two things really I mean if we're if we're our own we should be because it's our facility if we're going to keep it in the same location the operation of it really should should not continue with EPR if it's going to be and we're a separate entity at that point completely then I would imagine they're agreeing to work with us if that's being run by a city entity and the second part of that I guess would be you know as far as condition precedent goes condition precedent on this one maybe we don't agree and that can't hold everything else up. So there has to be a way for some of these to be taken off the list if it just simply can't can't be done or as George pointed out they're not ready to do it. Thank you for that Raj and that's what I like about Chris's addition here of shall attempt to reach agreements in this MOU is that if we don't come to an agreement on any of these that that should not stop the the progress we had already made on any of the other agreements and that was that was what I was trying to get to in my earlier comment at our our joint meeting about how you know if we can't come to an agreement on the senior center does that mean the police services agreement truly should be null and void at that time because that just doesn't make sense. Right and in this case the senior center if they're just not ready to make a decision on that then that's okay it's nobody's fault you know it's not like the rest of this should be thrown out the window so. Are we ready to move off of paragraph 2? Actually I've got I just wanted to make sure that you all had noticed this because it was a different change in paragraph 2 in the last sentence by entering into this MOU the time does not waive the opportunity to pose separation or ask for certain conditions and we removed the pose separation or Claudine and I had been looking at that for a little while and wondering about it and then we checked in with Brad too and we felt like you know we can wanted to see what you all thought of that but it feels like especially at this point with the overwhelming vote the idea of the town now posing separation it just seemed like it was appropriate to pull that. I would certainly be okay with it I'm anticipating that they would say no put it back in and I guess the question will have to ask ourselves is it is it that important for us to keep it out for this agreement. I think for now for today's purposes why don't we keep that out and if we in the meantime I guess each trustee I would think about how important that is in terms of this MOU as we revisit that thank you for calling that out Kristen. Now we can ask chapter in section two. And if there are others like that please do feel free to jump in and make sure that those are pointed out to us. That's good. Kristen was there anything else that the town's attorney had added in here or had any concerns with as our legal counsel? We were really okay with it. You'll see I think it's in section three we had just removed the reference to condition precedent again but that's the same issue everything else seemed fine. Trustees was there anything else in the MOU that stuck out to you as a concern or are we good to go ahead Amber. Kristen I'm just going to mention this here because this is where it started but there was a change to change the notice to the town of the select board and then the trustees respectively and remove the manager and I'm fine with that I think it makes sense but I just think we should be consistent throughout all of the documents and have them all reflect that it goes to the town select board and city. Yes that makes sense. Thanks. Thank you. I think we are good with the MOU now similar with the police services yeah we can just get down to those edits. Let's tell me if I'm going to passage. So with these two in my recollection that's what we talked about I think it's a time frame we had discussed I'm good with it. So I'll just stop you here in section four we just tried to clarify this because we were realizing that you know if the town vote failed but the village was already paying for these services but then was not going to get them because the town vote failed the village or sorry the city should get some kind of reimbursement for that or reduction in what they need to pay if the police services were being cut back because of a town vote failing. That sounds logical. I think we're good with that portion. Okay we're down to 11 is the next change and this is this was as you'll see and see we added this back in with some changes it felt like their concern was that the city would spring on the town that all of a sudden they had a police department and wanted to cancel you know two weeks later something like that so we added this back in but required that the city provide the town a minimum of two years advance notice of any new police department. That also sounds reasonable I mean it's not as if the city I can't imagine the city all of a sudden building one having the funds to do it building it turning around within that time period so yeah I think that makes sense. Amber and I see your hand is up. Sorry it is up but that was I'm not really sure what's going on it doesn't seem like it wants to go down I just want to wave at you the entire time I don't know. That's fine I want to say it just say it no clue what's happening. Someone's playing hand ghost with you alright so I yeah I think that makes sense on the two-year piece. That's everything so I think this is very this one's very close. Wow that's exciting. Yeah fingers crossed. And so this one with the IT it may also be helpful Brad if you are still here I don't know if you are yes there you are if you wanted to just update the board as well on this. Yes so I met with Rob and Evan and Marguerite and Greg to discuss the next steps for IT and Rob the IT director is working on a list of all of the hardware and software and contracts and everything that would be necessary for a contractor for the village. All the information they would need to be able to begin to put a plan together for and work with Rob to start that migration process. Rob was very open to it and happy to put together the material happy to review a plan and work with the IT contractors he's worked with too that we've gotten quotes from so far. Rob was very clear that this would not take a lot of time at all on the IT department's part on the town IT department he thought it would take a lot of time on our contractors part to get things set up but in terms of him extracting and migrating data he's very open to it he doesn't think it will take any time it will be negligible is actually the word he used the quote I wrote down was not taking a whole lot of time sucked from our department really don't see it being a lot so he is prepared and able to do that work and he has reviewed this MOU he has not reviewed I believe the changes since we met but it was my task to write those pieces in so he'll have the opportunity to review them. Thank you for that Brad. There was one other thing Brad we did talk about it being a whole lot easier if the new city was running a lot of the same software that the town is running so that data could just he could hand you the data but it would be a whole lot easier if it was going into the same software programs without having to translate it someone would then have to make the data fit but if you're running the same stuff the town is or mostly it'll run a whole lot easier and certainly that comment was not so much about Rob's work his work will be the same either way he'll just literally provide the information it was more of a cautionary tale for us on the other on the receiving end. Thank you for that context so with that Kristen if you want to take it. Sure. The first whereas clause that you can see here on the screen Bill had some or the select board had some changes that we were fine with the second whereas clause the new one is actually Brad's addition that is showing up as mine so sorry about that this one is a little mishmash of mine and Brad's but the way you know with me making the changes today they're all showing up as me then down in number two it looks like the town is trying to address the concerns about the town needing to approve the plan prior to the migration and this really has changed it to acceptance of the plan which we we felt like you know we're okay with if you all are so I'll address the first changes in here and then I will turn it over to Brad because the majority of those are his we were trying to pull that indemnification language in a way that they may or may not accept but you know we wanted to include that the city won't violate any sorry and I realize I missed part of the change here it should read the city shall not violate any state or federal regulations concerning protected data so we're basically saying the city will accept responsibility for damage and won't won't violate these state and federal regs but didn't want to include the indemnification language so we'll see you know what what they say about that I guess but felt like we're trying to meet them halfway there and then unless you have any questions about that I can turn it over to Brad for the other changes in that section the next bit is this concern that came up in conversation last time about if there are existing contracts IT related contracts and what to do with them Rob felt like most of them could be transferred over to the city but what this language says here is that if the contracts have expiration dates after the last fiscal year in which the city residents pay town taxes that cannot be transferred to the city without penalty or be cancelled if the city were no longer part of then the town and the city will just maintain the contract and the town will be able to city until the contract expires and in the future the city and town can consider extending renewing or creating new IT contracts if they so desire but aren't obligated to thank you for that go ahead Amber that is a real hand this time so it sounds like Rob has looked at some of these contracts and I'm just wondering at what point are we going to get copies of those contracts or at least some form of identification as to what that paragraph means for us and whether that is going to be an implication for us I think Rob is planning to have all of the list of software hardware and contracts for joint meeting on the 22nd and so you'll be able to get a sneak peek kind of at that I don't think it will be the contracts themselves but you'll be able to see which ones are relevant to the village and when their expiration date is and so at that point I think it might be prudent to then if you want the actual contracts we can produce those for you I think the only comment that I have I mean I'm generally okay with this knowing what we're going into the only other comment I'd say is the portion about paying the if the town invoices provides us with a copy of the invoice that we're paying the city portion again just trying to make sure that that ties with is there a clear distinction as to you know it's a hundred dollars and so we're splitting it 50-50 and we really are getting 50-50 out of it we've spent a lot of time talking about back and forth on direct versus direct and I just don't want to I don't want to just agree to pay half of an invoice if it's really not half of our invoice Yes I think it's a good point and we should just keep an eye on it you know the big concern last time seemed to be the Fiber contracts it's just wastewater and EJRP that are on Fiber and we're on our own five-year contracts each individually and they're not tied to each other and they're not involved with the town so the only question is is who that contract I don't even know the language on the contract is it the town of Essex Village of Essex Junction or EJRP and so we need to figure that out and if it needs to be you know in the charter it says they all transfer if it is the village it says the town we need to ask them to transfer it Rob was confident and knows that Comcast will transfer all of their contracts but again we're talking about you know one two or three years left for EJRP to stay on Fiber or wastewater to stay on Fiber so it's a very specific bill. Thank you Brad I'm not hearing any other comments on that so I think we're good to continue on just in five and six you'll see just a continuation of the conversation that there's no anticipated need to compensate the town for costs related to migration anything beyond budgeted they're just they're not expected to happen and that's what happens both in five and six Kristin you could talk about the last part of six. So we just tried to narrow this down some because the original language was that the city would compensate the town for all migration related costs incurred by the town prior to termination of the agreement which isn't really accurate because the village is only paying pursuant to section 10 I mean section 5 the reasonable hourly rate after the end of the last fiscal year in which citizens city residents pay town taxes so we just tried to marry those up and just keep it consistent without really changing the meaning at all as far as you know what the town's looking for so I don't I don't imagine they'll have an issue with that. Appreciate that. Thank you. This is where it gets fun. So this one we have I've got the city charter here but we've got language in the city charter stating that or the proposed city charter stating that the city will collect the taxes and then turn over the town's portion to them. We can't change the charter at this point it can be changed by the legislature but it is what it is as far as what's being proposed now so we just don't really have the option to do what they're asking for here which is really the answer and I'm not sure you know they may they may be pushing this point but you could also say that you won't oppose that if they ask that for that change at the legislature but at this point we can't we can't do it. The deadline for changes long past now so. Yep. I personally don't understand the harm in us collecting the taxes and giving that to them it's what they're doing for the school district and it would just be us doing it with them. I would hope the trust would be there that we're not looking to to harm anyone. We are still neighbors so I'm not personally understanding the concern. I'm continuing the way the charter's written and I'm just having the agreements aligned with that. While this looks like a lot of changes that's really it so just trying to get it back to that point I don't think there were other really other issues. Thank you Kristen go ahead rush. I just add that it seems likely that our finance departments are going to be working if not closely perhaps even side by side during that time period so you know while this may not be comfortable for them on paper I don't see a functional issue or why they would be worried about that hopefully they'll be able to get past it. I think if Andrew can I speak can you hear me? I could be wrong but I believe that the the issue here was I think Andy was questioning if we can truly become an independent city if village citizens still owe money to the town of Essex in other words if money is still owed from the village to the town then he wasn't clear if that didn't mean then that the village until the village pays its bills to the town or village citizens pay their bills to the town that we can't become a city. I didn't follow his reasoning I think he was just sort of speculating but I think that's what he was getting at here that in his mind it meant that the town would still have the right to send tax bills to the village because if the village owed the town money then it was still part of the town so I think again that's something that is kind of something that they need to clear up for themselves I don't think we can really clear that up for them. We I think you're right and not only would they need trust us in handing over but I think there'd be audits and public accounting that would verify all the taxes collected and whether the town was adequately compensated. I don't think even if we wanted to which we absolutely wouldn't I don't think we'd be able to try to cheat the town out of its money. Yeah thank you George I would agree with you that at the end of the day the town knows how much they should be expecting they would likely get put into an accounts receivable they would be looking for that bill or they'd be looking for that money and if it was different for any reason the system would likely tell them hey you're missing money here. Right. So I can't imagine that being missed. Doesn't worry me that much. Go ahead Rush. I think this is a situation where I think I think the legislature is looking for us to provide them a plan with solutions. They're not so much worried I'm just projecting. I believe that if we present the legislature a plan that we agree to that has been well thought out and covered the basis. Does the tax get collected? Is it paid to? Do you agree that the process will work and I think they'll be fine. You know this is a fine amount of time a very fine and brief amount of time that this is happening and I think that's something we need to focus on and help them focus on like let's just present a plan that we've agreed to and discussed and will work and the legislature will go along with that. Maybe that's overly optimistic but I think you're on the right track there Rush. Go ahead Brad. I just wanted to remind you that there are two issues that are kind of getting bullied in here. One is who's going to collect the taxes in the first year and what we've written into the charter is that the city will collect those and just pay the town in full or they won't experience any delinquencies and that the city will own any delinquencies that are to the city or the town. But the second piece that's in here is that the tax delinquencies until the city is formed will continue to be held by the town and they will collect any property tax delinquencies from village properties who owed village or town taxes. They've already paid the village in full and I just want to remind you that the finance director is the one who has recommended that. That is the best approach for the finance department that teasing out that information about how much somebody's delinquency is now. How much of it is due to the town and how much of it is due to the village slash city is extremely tedious work and unnecessary. You have to figure out an amortization schedule based on when the delinquency occurred. Somebody would spend more time and effort and money ultimately trying to decide those things than it would be worth to split them up. It's a great piece to remember about property tax delinquency. It sounds bad like we're handing they have to hold our delinquencies. Property taxes almost always almost 100 percent get collected and get collected with interest. In fact those notes that they're holding on village properties and village taxes they will recover that money eventually and they will get interest on it. It's not a bad deal for anybody to do that. I think it would be helpful and Brad or Evan I think it would be helpful if the select board were to hear that from the finance director and that this is the process that was proposed and agreed upon by her. We can say it until we're blue in the face and I want to say I did say at our joint meeting but I've got the impression that unless they hear it from her it's not going to mean the same. So that would be appreciated if those staff who have reviewed this were to say such within a memo to the boards that we have reviewed this we think this is the best way forward that help us to get past some of these points. I'd be happy to do that. I have one other suggestion and it's maybe more to Kristen I've been trying to follow the logic of this I'm pretty sure pretty standard stuff we just have one last thing this is where my head is there's one debt that I'm aware of and that's the police department building and Andrew maybe you could the only debt that the new city would still be obligated for is the police department building debt is that correct? That's the that's the only bond that the town has outstanding that the village voted for you are correct and so the only other thing I can think of that probably should be is that the village will continue to levy that amount for the debt based upon whatever that's supposed to be in the year it's supposed to be out of your tax levy until such time as that debt is paid and remitted to the town that's the only the other thing that I could think of that could possibly be involved in this other than that Brad is correct and there should be some trust between the two parties that the Texas will get collected appropriately remitted appropriately and promptly per state statutes and then we'll deal with it I don't think anybody's going to hide money under a mattress or something for a week or whatever it's going to be it's not something you would do no and sorry go ahead and then it's the only part of that bond which you both agree is a responsibility of all of the taxpayers until it's paid off I was just going to agree with Evan that if this were if the charter weren't already in place we would be fine with the town collecting for the city it doesn't really matter one way or the other but given that we've got the charter in place that's the only other thing I would say is you do have to go down to the state legislature and if you're going hand in hand I would ask that you guys or the town attorney and the village attorney just write up something that says we're in agreement we just need you to do X please do not do Y just do X and in the police agreement it does in number 10 under the bond say I'll continue to make payments on the bond there's some more details in there but it talks specifically about the city making that payment and maybe then this agreement could reference that section no need to rewrite it good idea sorry Chris I don't need your legal agreements for you no it's good I think we're good to this section so that's the agreements right that's the end of them that's what we've got so far. Well so that's the end of the agreements we made some edits we have no motion at this point I'm assuming just to name it I'm assuming that the edits that were made will now be passed on to the select board for them to consider at their next meeting and hopefully then on the 22nd but we can have our finalized agreements for formalized motions that would be ideal and yes I'm still going to follow up with the select board chair about the other portion we talked about earlier. So they meet again on the 15th is it realistic to think that they'll have a chance to review these with their attorney prior to the 22nd hard to know Evan Marguerite I think it's hard to know I would say but we can get into them I just can't yeah I don't know how fast but there's a chance I guess I'd reiterate what I was saying earlier and that you know it looked like police was was pretty much done it would be a great shot in the arm if we could at least get them to the point where we could be together on the 22nd and say one of these was functionally finished and and sort of move from there otherwise I just fear that they'll stagnate but that's just my just a boy can hope let's see what they're the earlier it gets to them the better I'll get with Greg tomorrow for sure it's appreciated thank you thank you Kristen so if there's I'm here thank you would you like me to stick around no I think we're good from here Kristen thank you for your help and enjoy the rest of your evening thank you you too bye bye thank you and so that will bring us to business item 5c discussion and potential action on recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday I am taking this one it is what it says recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday this last year both the village and the town celebrated Juneteenth right here at the Bernal library parcel with its first celebration we have been working on equity inclusion and diversity and one of the recommendations now that the federal government made Juneteenth a federal holiday is to add it into our list of approved holidays of the village I think it was a week or so ago the town did approve 50 to put it in as a town benefit to its employees and I will add not requiring them to bargain for it just adding it so I'm here to answer any questions are there any questions I agree with Evan if there are no other questions comments or concerns the recommendations on the screen I'll make a motion I move the trustees adopt Juneteenth as a village recognized holiday and authorized unified manager to update the village personnel rules and regulations to add Juneteenth as a recognized holiday and to execute a memorandum of understanding with the village employee association to add Juneteenth as a paid holiday to their bargaining agreement second thank you Raj thank you Dan is there any further discussion on that motion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye pass 5-0 thank you all thank you ladies and gentlemen I think that that was a very good and proper move and it will mean a lot to the community and next up is the management decision on ending the MOU regarding the unified manager thank you Parker for going back and forth like that you're going a little faster than I was thank you as the memo says the announcement has already been made this is that formal process similar to before someone would like to make a motion the recommendation is on the screen I'll make a motion that the trustees take action on the unified manager MOU staff I guess it says staff recommends following the motion I moved it to trustees and the memorandum of understanding regarding the unified manager when the MOU expires after February 26th 2022 thank you Dan is there a second thank you Amber any further discussion yes I would like to just make a very quick statement if you don't mind Andrew just since this regards the unified manager I want to just state publicly for the record how deeply deeply grateful I am to Evan for the amazing excellent job he has done in a very difficult situation over the last few years I think both boards join with me in extending our appreciation and gratitude for him it's not without a lot of sadness that I see this and personal regret that I see this MOU coming to an end but I think that's where we are but I want to at least for myself publicly state that I am just so deeply grateful for the effort and professionalism that Evan brought to this job thank you George you beat me to it you can add your own words the only thing I'm going to add to that is to definitely echo the appreciation for Evan and that this action is not at all a reflection on Evan or his skills or our lack or displeasure of the work that he has done nothing could be farther from the truth frankly this is just a recognition of where we are as a town and a village potentially becoming a city and moving in two different directions where having separate management makes more sense so again not at all a reflection on Evan or his skills so Evan thank you it's been great trying to get you two together I don't know what else to say I didn't know you were going to say that so that's okay we know you love surprises Evan thank you very much for everything Evan we appreciate all the hard work and just I can't even imagine how many hours you put into this very much appreciated so we have the motion second we have the discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed unanimously 5-0 thank you all Evan thank you again okay and business item 5e a discussion and potential action regarding personnel we have this as a executive session item or a potential executive session item we also have an MMO that's a confidential one for the trustees and Evan does that have to be done in executive session the confidential portion or can we talk about that publicly you caught me off guard because I didn't look at it yeah Marguerite yeah I think because it's already sort of when we put this together it hadn't been mentioned yet in public you know sort of but now we've discussed it at the budget you know day and such and since then so I think it is your call but it doesn't need to be I don't think at this point it was something where we hadn't had any discussions of anyone of you yet and now we've done that you know so that's sort of what kept it that way first and and so I would say we have two portions we have that memo and then we also have the future needs and now with that most recent decision the management needs from February and onward so we have those two those two portions to talk about personally I'm okay with all of this being in open session trustees are any of you concerned about continuing both of those conversations right now in public I'm not hearing anybody say no I'm not seeing any thumbs down so I would say let's go ahead and if anyone starts to feel uncomfortable and or believes that we might be crossing a line into something that should be an executive session please just interrupt whoever's talking that sound good sounds good okay why don't we start off with the the memo that would be appreciated let me get it sorry I wasn't prepared for the confidential I'll grab it and I'll put it up in a second no worries I'm just throwing everybody off today while we're waiting could Bargary also email or Evan could you email that memo to me somebody email that memo to me so that I can see it while I'm writing the minutes sure thank you very much thank you Kathy so what's the plan for Evan Marguerite one of you to take this or did you want me just to take the discussion from here either way I was multitasking just to email Kathy so Evan if you want to jump in while I email that would be great or Andrew you can take it away too I'd rather you take it I have not been in the previous executive sessions the only thing I would say is that I would like if there is resolution on this issue tonight which I hope there is I can forward that over to Greg for tomorrow I am out of the office tomorrow through Monday and I want to make sure this gets communicated so whatever the village decides to ask the town for I want to make sure that gets moved over quickly appreciate that yeah so essentially as you can see here sorry Andrew I do want to take a finished emailing so I can focus now keep going you got this okay yeah so essentially talking about you know what the new management needs might be for the city and looking at those costs and expenses and again trying to do things in a mutual fashion and eating each other and doing this and because of the end of the unified management you can see here there are requests potentially for the city village to request money and funding for some of their future management so for example the manager position because unified management will be over there will be a need for a manager and so that request for funding from the town and then also because the finance department has also made some recent announcements as the changes in structure there and with Sarah may see leaving her post as it is there is some need as well for the village city to potentially move forward with hiring a finance manager director of their own and so that's what this is trying to look ahead and cover anticipating some of those costs and need for the village as they are to come at the end of February. Andrew you're muted. I just realized that thank you so much Kathy trustee you're just going to let me flounder on that one. I can't see you you're about this big because the document is showing so I couldn't even tell your lips. It's all good. So trustees as is already in the memo and was just discussed we have already talked about this fair amount or at least that top amount in the memo of a little over $97,000 we've talked about this previously in executive session that portion of $60,000 that's new for all of us. It's not something that we have discussed until now. I think that personally both of these would help to set us up so that way we can fill these positions now otherwise I don't believe that we would have the finances to be able to do this. So from my perspective I am happy to move forward with both of these as presented. Andrew can you just let's speak to the little bit of complexity we're talking about a three year finance agreement with the town where as I understood it it was going to be the town finance director was going to be a town employee and we were basically going to continue to essentially contract for those services that is that changing what just sort of nuance this out a little bit for me I'm not quite how does this change the landscape? Sure, so we're going to need to revisit that MOU or that agreement one of the things that was within the agreement is that should the current finance director leave then that agreement would become void for lack of the accurate language and so what this would do is this would mean that the village slash city would have our own finance director working or finance manager working alongside the towns and so there would be two teams doing the finances and so it's a relation to the finance agreement is that we're pretty much going to have to start that portion over again okay hope that helps to answer the question yeah it's what I was thinking and understanding I just wanted to sort of provide that information for the public to make sure that we're all on the same page thank you so if there are no other questions, comments or concerns if Marguerite if you want to scroll down to the recommended motions I can do that I can do it for Andrew I guess thank you Raj I move that the trustees request up to $97,000 $3.85 from the town of Essex to recruit and hire a village mint sorry village manager and fiscal year 2022 due to the upcoming end of shared management may I ask a friendly amendments could instead of up to could it just say request I would welcome that friendly amendment so that would read that I move that the trustees request $97,000 $3.85 yes great someone like to second that motion thank you Dan any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye anybody opposed unanimously and if you want to make the second one with that same request I move that the trustees request $60,000 from the town of Essex to recruit and hire a village finance director and fiscal year 2022 thank you again Raj and Dan any further discussion on those motions hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye proposed unanimously thank you so we're not done with this agenda item yet the other part of the conversation we wanted to have is with our own village management needs one of the things that we need to start doing or one of the things that we need to come to agreement on is what it is we're looking for in terms of a municipal management structure in the interim phase I'm of the belief that with these funds we will now have the capability of hiring somebody in the short term personally I'm of a belief that we want to hire an interim manager we don't want to go through the process of hiring a full-time permanent manager until we have the legislative approval from the legislature with regards to separation and so with that I talk a little bit about this during the budget day I think that what we really want to try and look for is approximately a 30 hour a week on average contract for a professional manager who would be able to help guide us with our management needs who would be the legally defined manager for our community to help make the decisions that a manager needs to make a decision on to help us as a board with our meetings help to ensure that the community continues to flow and function as strong as it has been and will continue to do so that's how I would see this playing out I would not see this person shepherding the separation process I would say that Brad has been doing that really well thus far there's no need to take that away from him but rather to help provide the overall day-to-day management for our community and so if the the board is okay with it I would be I've sent a talk to a couple of peers or a couple of of individuals about doing some outreach to potential managers who may be interested in a 30 or so hour week contractual relationship if the boards are okay I would love to be able to talk about how to see that process forward I'm okay with it so what I would like to see from this is if our board I think that we would hopefully have multiple candidates or multiple people to be able to interview with this I would like to see there be still an interview process I think that one of the things I've said before is one of the biggest responsibilities those of us as trustees have is hiring and evaluating the manager and I don't want to take that away from anybody so I would like to see the board be able to participate in a few interviews and at the same time I would also like to invite some department heads in that to help provide some feedback from a cultural standpoint to help make sure that we don't rock the vote any more than has already been rocked Raj, why don't you go ahead and the only thing I'd add to that is realizing we are discussing an interim management position and the timing we're dealing with but it might be helpful to also brainstorm while we may not be able to engage in a full public process on this in terms of meet and greets and input and participation in interviewing, it might be beneficial to identify some stakeholders in the community that might be able to assist us with the interview process in a limited fashion and by limited I mean just that when we do do a final search for the city there will be a much different process than this much more community input a much wider net being cast will probably engage the community with what we're hoping for in new management what kind of vision we're looking for but this is a much different thing but I still think we should try to figure out are there a set of stakeholders in the community that can help us through the interim selection because I think that public participation it's still a critical time for us to get to shepherd this through so I don't want to leave that aspect of it out but again I say that understanding that this is a much quicker, shorter more abbreviated process and interim Thank you for that Raj and I do want to be very clear that the process we went through as a town select for the trustees we went through in having Evan Teach be hired I would see us doing something somewhat similar to that possibly even similar to what Winooski did hopefully more successful in trying to find a permanent manager after the interim phase and at that point in time yes absolutely I would want there to be significantly more public inputs I remember there were multiple interview groups I think that's the process we would want to go down in the short term with this contract with the management MOU ending at the end of February and given the holidays that we're coming into now I think realistically we're not going to be able to find anybody until the beginning of the calendar year and it would be nice for there to be some level of overlap with Evan and also it would be nice to have just dedicated village management so I'd like to get this process started sooner rather than later certainly not opposed to having some stakeholder representation on an interview panel just also want to prevent there being 15-20 people in a room to do interviews Andrew can I jump in Yes George please do I am a little concerned about making since this is going to be an interim position and there's a possibility you could be we could be considering someone who for a variety of reasons is going to be going back to a different job or may not to make a long story short there may be reasons why candidates that we like and our think would fit the bill may not want to go through some lengthy public interview kind of process so I'm a little concerned about setting that as a condition that I until you've narrowed the field down I'm just concerned that you don't do too broad a process because there could be some reason why some folks don't want to have their name out there I guess until a decision is made I don't know if that's a consideration but I just wanted to raise that as a potential issue to be a good example of the process that we're here Yes absolutely and I would see there being frankly one interview and it being an interview with those bodies not seeing it be that 3-4 interview process where I think Evan spent like 3 days here 2 or 3 days here for that process I'm not looking to recreate that I think if it had been a good weather we put him at the Champlain Valley Fair and we would have had a crowd of 5,000 interviewing him, I don't think it's not too late that's I'm I'm in agreement with the both of you. I don't want this to be dragged out. I just think that, um, you know, we, yeah. I think he's vacuuming. No, my kid decided to run a lot of laundry so it's on spin cycle. I thought it was a washing machine. I was gonna say washing machine dryer. That's what it sort of it sounded like. Yeah. Nice. So I'm happy to continue reaching out, try to have some more conversations to develop a candidate pool and work with the trustees on getting that schedule lined up. In terms of getting department head input and feedback on this, do we want to just identify some people now? Do we want to reach out to the department heads and ask them who would like to be involved? What would the pleasure of the board be? I mean, how many people I just I just think fewer is better than trying to get the more chefs or the more people in the process, the more drawn out it is. So I mean, whatever, maybe we pick a number and we say that not we're not gonna bring every board every department head or every, you know, a huge panel together, but streamline the process. If I can make a suggestion, these two, you go to the department heads and ask them to elect two persons from their midst to represent the department heads. That's a good idea. Don't do all those volunteering take one step. Just ask them to nominate two people from their midst or I'll do it for you. Hmm. Appreciate that, Evan. As always, whichever you want. No, I think that it would be good if they were to to pick two because I could tell you and everybody who's watching, we have used department heads in our interview process. All of them bring skills and knowledge to that process. Sometimes they hear things or feel things that others, you know, maybe didn't see or feel. So it's a great, they're a great asset. And so and I'm sure they will give of their time to be on that on that search committee. So can't go wrong. Great. Is there anything else in relation to an interim management process structure? What have you that you all wanted to talk about? I have. I now have my questions answered. Great. I'm just going to say one last thing. Again, I think that you need to approach this with a great deal of flexibility. Yes, we have the money, but the the working conditions, the the person we get who we ultimately think is a good candidate, we have to be flexible. And I think we have to impress on the village staff that they need to be flexible, that we're in a transitional, we're in an unusual situation here. I don't think I think it goes without saying, but sometimes that you have to repeat these things. Absolutely. Raj, I think you're going to say something. Oh, it's it's also possible, right, that this person will never mind. I'm good. Forget it. That also reminded me. Travis had sent me job descriptions that we'll I'll take a pass at send around to everybody. I don't think we'd be violating open meeting law if you were to send me individually your edits, or your thoughts, your concerns. But inevitably, this this person's going to need to be in a contract or something. And having a job description wouldn't be a great starting point for that. As long as you accept the job, the final job description together. That would be great. Right. Yes, ultimately, that would need to be approved of and yep. Absolutely. Great. Except nothing else. Kathy, your hand is still up. I assume that's the whole order. It is. Thank you. Thank you. Brings us to the consent agenda. I move we accept the consent agenda. Without the be without as amended. I'll second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, George. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Everybody opposed. Pass unanimously. And that will bring us into the reading file with board member comments. I already made my comments regarding the votes and I had nothing else. Dan. Just to let the rest of the board trustees know, I received a correspondence from Jeff Carr. He was the rep for the town. He was a select board member for years. He was the rep for the town of Essex and the Regional Planning Commission and the MPO. He is going to be moving out of the area. He and his wife and anyhow, so he won't be able to fulfill a role as a backup for our board or my for my position there on the Regional Planning Commission, but Elaine Haney is already. So we're all set there. I told him I'd mention it to you or the board in our next meeting. I wish him well. He's really contributed a lot to the community as a whole over the years. And we're indebted to him, you know, for all that service. The other thing is I've got something here from the seniors news page here, a pie sale, I guess coming up. Pre order your pies by November 17th, Essex Area Senior Center. So I don't know if the camera will pick up on it there, but it's a little flyer from the senior Essex senior news monthly page here. What kind of pies? Nice shameless promotion. Yeah, that time of year. Dan, what kind of pie are they offering? Well, it looks like they have a apple with some lattice pie crust, like a lattice work on the pie crust here and it's got a pumpkin on it says Strawberry Ruber. Yeah, Apple Strawberry Ruber pumpkin and a mincemeat. And we're looking at roughly $15 for the Apple pumpkin or Strawberry Ruber of an $18 for mincemeat pie or homemade delicious flavors. Does anybody know if this information is online? Yeah, let's see. I think you could probably find it. Let's see. Don't have it on here. It doesn't actually say it's on cable. It's on cable now. Yes, yeah. Kind of the point, Evan. I'm assuming it is on the senior center web page. If it's not, I will see if it could be up on the senior center web page. Assuming they have one. That'd be great for those of us who are looking at Dan holding up the flyer and we're not able to read the papers. Dan's buying everybody pie because he didn't make any other board member comments. I'll put it in the chat. It is online. Thank you, Marguerite, buy a pie. Any staff member comments that don't relate to pie? Oh, not related to pie? No. All right. Well, we have reached the end of our agenda. If somebody wanted to make a motion to adjourn. I move adjourned. Second. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Raj. You guys are fast. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Pass unanimously. Thank you all. Have a good night. Thank you.