 bed-buck treatment not being handled properly. So that was pretty common too. That's common. Mm-hmm. Okay. And not specific to low-income housing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I wasn't implying anything. No, no, no. I didn't mean that you were. It's just, you know, taking a moment of education. They're crafty little hitchhikers. Yeah. They've been around a long time. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. Dan, Raj, Amber, good. I guess I don't have a question. I'm just excited that you seem to, you do have a vast experience dealing with a wide range of the population. It appears in the work. So I'm, I'm grateful you stuck forward to do this. Confident you'll be based on your experience. Challenged, but successful. And I want to make sure you heard there was a rat thing recently. Yeah. I just want to make sure you're aware I could come back. I don't want to hit you with a blindside with a mask. Yeah. I think that was mentioned in an informal conversation and then within maybe five minutes of my interview. And I realized, I guess, this position is, you know, as Regina mentioned when she introduced you, this is, we're still trying to figure out what this is long term. For this position in my mind, I see it, you know, sort of had a mini exit interview with Jerry. You know, one of his frustrations was spending, not having enough time to spend on what, the way he used to do, maybe proactive wellness, interacting with residents, being proactive with neighborhoods, issues with the schools and school district, but I don't know. I'm not necessarily saying that's what we need you to do, but I'm wondering if you have any ideas around what you could do based on your schedule. And I want to acknowledge that I really think we need to reimagine this because this position, the way we have it structured and funded it really kind of fit someone that was sort of retired. Do you know what I'm saying? Because you can't, you're not making a living off this, but the hours are, you have to be very flexible. I think we're owning the fact that we have to reimagine this. So with all that in mind, do you have any ideas in that realm of what you can do a little more proactively with the community? And it's okay to say, no, this is going to be hourly as needed. You know, we all get what the setup is. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't, honestly, that's an interesting question and I think prevention or being proactive is worth a pound of fuel, right? And so if you can get ahead of any kind of issues, that's always ideal. I would rather do that in any one of my jobs, anticipate the problem, get there and head off, because otherwise just going to take up so much more time, hopefully. I'm not really sure what being proactive in this position would really look like. Just, you know, I've certainly looked over the DHO materials and, you know, the things that are available on the Department of Health's website and have a sense of what I'm signing up for. But that being said, I don't know the extent of the issues that are in the community and, you know, the willingness of folks to be involved in those proactive pieces, but I do like to think creatively and outside the box and try to, you know, like I said, cut off problems. Great. I was a weird question with how this position set up, I understand. Right. I do too want to mention that I currently work Monday through Friday, like eight to five. Yeah, a 30 to five. And so I'd have to do things outside of those hours, but I'm completely available on the weekends. I just do want to be transparent about that. Do we, we can talk about that later. Any other questions? Nope. Do you have any questions for us? It sounds like I think Andrew was filling in for Jerry, I believe. Well, in the interim, do you have a sense of how many calls you get or how much time was or should have been applied to things that were coming through? In the 25 days since I have filled this, there was only one thing that would have come under the purview of the health officer. Okay. So in that, in that one 25 day time period, that's the only thing I can really offer. One thing that would be very helpful to us moving forward is having a good tracking system to better understand that and to understand the amount of time, the types of issues and just having a good feedback loop from the health officer and this board, especially since from the, my understanding of statute is our board and the health officer would operate as the town's board of health if I have that rates. So that could be another thing down the road. I kind of assumed there would be some sort of reporting or tracking of, you know, call that came in documentation around what the outcome was or the resolution and some sort of paper trail. Yeah, that would be great. And this is full transparency as a independent city now for the first time of our existence. It's the first time we've had our own health officer, which historically has had been underneath the town. So they just dealt with it and our board had never dealt with these issues. So for us, we're also learning this as we go. Full transparency. We've had some traffic changes recently, so that's understandable. Regina, is the setup sort of backing up the town and the town backing us up still in place? Yeah, that's still the idea. And we probably want to, and I think the select board has suggested that we just memorialize that in some way in MOU. But yeah, both. So the town health officer would essentially act as the city's deputy health officer and our health officer would act as the town's deputy health officer. So you understand that you're okay with that? Okay. We should probably get you together with Sharon. I heard, I mean, also full disclosure, when I was talking to Jerry and Sharon about this too, I heard it was much more frequent. So you got lucky. Yeah. I mean, it'll be fine. It'll be absolutely fine. You know, just knowing the cycle of humans and especially things are going to be quieter in the winter. And once spring comes and things warm up and people come outside and there are all kinds of smells and new experiences that things will probably impact that point too. Yeah. Well, thank you for, thank you for applying to the council. Do you all want to talk about this in executive session or are you feeling comfortable just making a decision now? I'm feeling making a decision now. Then I would entertain a commission to approve of faith fully as the city's health officer. So moved. Second. Any further discussion? Only that we thank her very much for stepping forward. Yes, very much. You're here from the person who did it for a month. I still have five days, six days. All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. They're supposed to be saying nay. Great. So pass it on. Thank you, faith. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I've never had so many eyes. Well, we'll be in touch. Thanks. All right. Next on our list, we have a discussion with Green Mountain Transit or about Green Mountain Transit service changes. And we have Paul here with us, the current treasurer for the Green Mountain Transit's board of commissioners and past general manager, past board chair, past vice chair. Not quite accurate all the way through it. I'm used to that. I was never bored. Okay. My own interim general manager. I retired in 2014. I was invited to apply for an interim general manager, which I did for about six months. Gotcha. Gotcha. And you are appointed by the town of Essex to be the town's representative. Which that's been a position that you've had for how long? You know, I'm not really sure about five years. Okay. For a while, I was the alternate and then the alternate and power that can't learn our first name. Anyway, we switched. She came. I became representative. Gotcha. Gotcha. So in general, this is just an opportunity. We'd love to hear more about the changes that were proposed, why they were proposed. Especially given our understanding as to its, the impact we just really want to try to understand. Sure. No, that's, that's very fair. There is a board member. It's painful when you have to go against your mission and actually cut service. You know, what we'd like to do is answer that when you look at the finances from time to time, there are things you can do. And things you can't do and one of the things that we, we couldn't, we couldn't reduce staff. But the only thing we could really do will be reduce some service. So we did that prior to the, to COVID settling in. And made that that was a temporary decision. And then the hearing which you all were recently, that was to discuss whether or not to make those changes permanent. And at this point, that's, that's exactly what happened. I know I talked to Raj on the phone and I have read, read all the emails and the comments from the hearing. And one of the, one of the more important things besides fairs was cutting the ability to add service to Essex from essentially from the medical center. And I have talked to operations managers, which is John Moore and the main director was Jamie Smith. And they are in the process now of looking into what could be done to add some service from the medical center. And I think the, but they look at a huge employer and the chances are that we can work it out. That might result in quite a few more writers, which is, which the ball will always have the complication for making a change like this. There's a, there's one is there's a time issue. The, the map and guide come out periodically through the year. The next time this one come out would be June. So if it changed to rebate, it would be in time to get that in the map and guide or for June. So that's one issue. The other issue obviously is looking at, can you supply the service? Can you supply a bus? Can you supply a driver? Can you switch some of the timing of when the bus would be, would be going to the medical center and better aligned with, with the, with the, when the staff, staff changes occur. So those are all things that planning is looking at now. I have no idea how to come out. I would hope that we could find some new writers. But all those things have to, to align up pretty quickly. I think there was at the hearing, there was, it was stated that to put those services all back in as they were is over $300,000 in costs. I'll also mention that the, besides dollars, which is, is always an issue with, with Green Mountain Transit is staff. Right now we're short about six drivers. And so what's happens when that, when that occurs as you just add another bus, almost impossible because you don't have a driver to staff it. Right now, there was a lot of forced overtime. So what happens when you, when you're short staff, you, you, you have to keep the, the lines going. And so when one driver finishes their route, if there's volunteers have not volunteered to fill in for a route that's not staffed, then drivers are forced to go ahead and take that overtime. So that's, that's bad in at least two ways. One is this extensive about 30% of our, of our costs for employees now is 30% is an overtime. That's a huge number. And when I was in Chauvin, my goal was 12% I used to think that was getting a little high, but imagine 30% costs for. That's one issue. The other issue is morale. When people are driving there, they're full 40 hours in the fourth to drive X number or more hours. That's difficult on the drivers and it's okay for occasional, but when it's almost every single day, then that, that starts hurt morale. So that's another other main issue. The only thing I promise you is like staff will take a really good hard look at it. And it'd be really nice whether if we could get to get that service and get more drive more riders from the hospital on the bus. So just a quick question, I guess. You're sending adding back service back in, but the cuts to service after a certain time or temporary. So this isn't really adding back in. This is restoring service that existed before. Because it was 30 minute service. So it would have been, it would have met that shift change. The way it was prior to cobit or a little bit before. Yeah, no, I'll take your point, Ron. Has there been any effort to the driver thing seems untenable. So I, and, and like I said in the fall, I'm not going to even pretend to suggest changes. I've definitely heard from people that have asked for feedback. Well, why don't they do this, this and this for the roots. There's no way of going there. So just want to say that a lot, like, I don't know how complex it is for your root development. But was there any discussion on the board about going back to communities. And saying, you know, this is the situation. This is the choice for facing. What would you want to do? Do you want to pitch in 3 or 4 or 5 more percent. To keep your, because, you know, as you know, obviously more than we do, probably it's not just as extension. That's affected by the most that comes through here. It's Barlington, Winnowsky, Colchester. Essex, Essex town, Williston, because it connects up into the, up into the hinterland. So. You know, I just, was there any talk about coming back to the communities and saying, you know, for a little while, we need to raise your contribution. You know, that, that issue is raised almost every budget season. As you know, there was a 5% increase in the cost of the communities this year and potentially it's 5% almost every year. And now do you have the, that cost of that regular service, but then you have your ADA costs, Medicaid costs on top of that. So it's fairly expensive. So the discussion is pretty short lived because we're not really willing to go back to communities and ask for more money. One of the things we've dealt with over the years is that the cost of Trent of public transportation is born a lot by the property tax. And that's not necessarily a good way to raise the amount of money we have to raise. There was a study done by regional planning commission about establish some sort of a broad based tax or fee statewide, not just for for our five county region, but the new star state, because we're not the only ones that are hurting financially. It's the same all over the state. So hopefully legislature will get serious about that. The other aspect of legislator is that we intend to establish, reestablish fairs starting July 1. Last year, the legislature came through 1.2 million dollars, which offset a great deal. I think we're not about 1.94 million, I believe. It's what comes in from there. So we'll see whether legislature steps up again. We go fair free. So I think majority of work like to go fair free. But you just can't give up that kind of money. Other questions for Paul. Do you know when they might have an answer on on that one? Because I think as we discussed, it's not so much restore all the. All the changes, it's we get it. We understand. Can you get one more? One more pick up, which is not so simple. I get it. We talked about that. It's that 730. Instead of stopping at 7 and going hourly, that's 730 pickup for return Essex. Well, I don't know what the timetable is something they said they would begin to investigate because they've got to talk with. Obviously folks at at the at the hospital. Katma, which is another of some people that we work with. So the discussions with them. So it'll take a bit before they can get all that information put together to see what's possible. Or they can tweak the schedule. I doubt they can add or add something. I mean, I could be wrong about that. But I doubt that'll happen. But you tweak it one way and then you've affected something on the other end. I think I mentioned to your rise that round trips about 60 minutes. You can see if you tip it a little bit a half an hour, whatever, when everything is changed and you have to look and see what impacts that'll have as well. But I think all you can tell you as soon as we find something out, let you know, it certainly will be sometime by the May because you have to get the information into the printers for the for the mapping guide that comes out in June. So it'll have to happen before that. I don't think it's going to happen quickly, but somewhere within that time frame. Keep going. And I guess the last question is when. When are these changes proposed for us at Windsor is the end of your beginning of your next fiscal year that the changes will. I mean, the service is the way it is now the way it is now is the way it'll stay right. So if they make a decision to change it, that would probably be on the fiscal year or would it be. When you look at the map and bus map and guide comes out. And that's prior to just prior to the joy one beginning of the fiscal year so that will all coincide. At that point at that point in time they're also asked will likely honestly has to be like will be another public hearing. Because when you make a change like that, you're going to find out who else is impacted and give them an opportunity to be heard. And they might impact them. All right, I lied one more thing. I do this. So long term, as I mentioned on the phone or an email, our comprehensive plan our whole plan for this community relies on public transportation and we're adding like crazy. So the next decision I imagine will expect probably I'll call it improved service. Into that timeframe, which isn't that late at night. I mean, you know, it's six or seven isn't to go hourly is something for for this community, I think, and frankly for the fort. The hospital, you know, it's it's one of the it is second busiest route. So, how do we have a conversation around getting more service. More frequent service here. How do we keep that conversation going with gnt? Well, certainly your representative should should be. Right. Center on that particular spaces as a board. We want to provide more so we're always looking for opportunities for more service. We did a study about four or five years ago, and it had a whole number of items in mind to provide more service. But then financially, you look at it and say, well, we don't have the dollars. We don't have drivers. So we couldn't expand so we ended up cutting a little bit of service. That's a driver issue as well as a driver issue. Yeah. You know, if you I agree with your, because if you start from the hospital and come this way, how many apartment buildings have been built in the last five years and more going up. So, I mean, that's ideal for bus transportation. So hopefully that that'll come to pass. But I think I've explained to you how what the interaction is between the finances and and driving drivers like equipment, we should have buses. I don't think that's an issue. But drivers and dollars key, very key more ridership. If we have, if we have fairs, that's more dollars. If we can get a broad base tax or fee system, then that'll become less of an issue. I think I think just one thing to just add to it. What might be for the future, I think it would be interesting to have a conversation with the board of board, our board here around if the contribution to Green Mountain transit were to increase by X percent. Then that would allow for a B or C. And so for us to be able to have that conversation, we may have been okay with a smaller modest increase to help support the increased. The increased service that is that went away before the pandemic or during the pandemic. So in the future, I think that would be a great conversation to to have or even just try to see how it goes. Now, I think you're right, Andy, and they will be costing this out. So we will have much better ideas of what it would cost for X, Y, and Z. I can recall an earlier discussion with the Westford district school board. And there was one group that was going to be cut, which was out through Essex through the Joshua Park and around. A lot of high school students and some teachers were using that. And so let that go, that's going to hurt a lot of a lot of people, even though it was going to cost money for the Green Mountain transit to run it. But that was cost it out. So we knew I can't remember the numbers now. But we knew exactly what was going to cost us to keep that route on. So there are certain stages where maybe a small amount of money might, might help. Great. Any other questions for Paul? Great. Just as far as representatives mean put on the table, what I understand going on right right now looks like you're the representative from the city. Right. And based on our conversation, you are from the town up to the end of this fiscal year. So up until June 30. And then after June 30, that's when your current term of the town would be up. Right. Right. Yep. And I did, I did talk to. Yeah. And by the way, our charter allows representation from other than the town that you're representing. So there's nothing, nothing, you know, illegal about that. So I told him, if you want me to stay on, stay on to the end of June. So I didn't hear otherwise so far. I think you're there until June. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so we would revisit representation at that point in time. Very good. Right. Don't hesitate to, to holler. At some point in time when you want more detail on operations and cost and so on, you know, I know. I don't know. John, or I'm sure Clayton Clark will know that over time. So they'd be glad to also come to a trustee meeting and, and you know, trustee counseling. We're okay. We'll do it. Get called a lot of things. They'd be glad. They'd be glad to attend the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so the next on our agenda, we have a discussion and consideration of a wastewater capital plan modification with Chelsea back to join us. Hello, Chelsea. So soon. But. It's been weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But. It's been weeks. That's okay. Yeah. Two weeks. Yeah. So tonight I'm here to talk to you about amendment. We're looking to get to our capital plan. We have a co-generation system, which we use to produce heat and power for the facility from our gas produced through our solids management. And we have the company come out and inspect everything and that was what their findings were. The company is out of Germany. So with the supply chain issues, it took quite a while for that replacement generator to get here. Almost nine months. And that was installed in November of this past year. So we had the technician, sorry, 2022 and it ran for 24 hours. And then we kept getting an alarm that we couldn't get resolved. So we had the technician because we were so gun shy with this generator portion failing. The company is like, well, don't force starting it up. We want to come inspect it. And they asked us to take it while sample and send it out. And we found, unfortunately, that the engine also failed at some point in time. It's unclear when, whether it was just from sitting. These, these units are not made to sit for unused for a long period of time. And it was. So seal failed and glycol gotten at the engine and it's not meant to have glycol. And so significant damage occurred. So now we're looking to replace, since we've already invested in the generator and that nothing happened to that brand new, it's run for, like I said, 24 hours. We're looking to replace the engine so that we can get this back up and running. There is a lead time on the engine about, so if I had ordered right for the holidays, it would get here in April. So we're looking to replace the engine. So we're looking to replace the engine. So probably I'm thinking June timeframe, but I have a meeting with a company tomorrow to discuss that. So the request for tonight is to modify our capital plan. To accommodate this project, not to exceed $150,000. And we do have sufficient funds in our plan. Great. Thank you, Chelsea. And then we'll move on to the agenda. The portion in here about the cost benefit and that it should pay for itself. Yeah, within a couple of years. That's great to see in here because it felt like as if every year or so, something was happening with this portion of the facility. I mean, that is not, that is a true statement. And if I had known the engine had, if it was, if we had could figured out when the engine failed and if it was back when the generator failed, we would definitely researched another company and really dived into what's going on here. Except last time this failed in 2019 was an electrical issue. And this time it's been determined it's not electrical. So, but beyond that, it's not, we would have to send pay for it to be diagnosed, like send it to a factory and I'd rather save those costs at this point in time to get the unit actually up and running to get us the cost savings back. Great. Yeah. George. Yeah, I, Chelsea, thanks for coming in. And I think I'm going to tell you about the bat. I support doing this, but can I just question you a little bit about this does and I just tell me where I'm wrong. So this is a, this is where we take a certain portion of sludge that's, that's comes into the, the water treatment plant and it's basically it's sterilized and dried and then this burns the sludge and generates electricity. Do I have that correct? Yeah. Yeah, it's our, it's our anaerobic digester. So all of our sludge is pumped, you know, settled out of the process, pumped to this unit that is sealed from the environment. And it's heated to 98 degrees Fahrenheit where it accelerates decomposition. And that process is when methane, which is what runs this generator is produced. Right. And carbon dioxide. So it's a, it's a accelerated composition is how I like to describe it. So it just captures the methane and uses the methane, it's fueled to run the generator. So my, I guess, I'm sorry, I'm digressing a lot, but I'm trying to get to the point of when you talk about the, the cost, how do you factor in the amount of a sludge this, or this, this burns off? Is that, is that a good, that's a, that's a, that's a benefit for this thing. And do you factor that into the cost? The only way for us to get biosolids is to have an anaerobic digester. So this is a necessary part of our process. This cogen system is a bonus in which is, you know, part of our energy conservation goals that Jim was really focused on. Yes. And that's what we're trying to be focused on. And so this is just a way to capture that excess methane rather than to just burn it through a flare to the environment is to capture it. Cause it's a beneficial reuse of a resource, right? And produce electricity with that. Okay. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to confess something to, you know, I just, I just grilled you on all this so that people in our audience can understand what it does. So that's totally fine. And Chelsea, just when you, when you sit about burning off the methane, traveling into Burlington on Riverside, you can see their wastewater treatment plant on Riverside. And occasionally in the past I've seen where they have a flame burning off. And that's just waste, just sending it into the, in the space. I mean, actually down in Montpelier, Middlesex has be driving the industry. They're burning off. And it's just, it seems like a waste of energy just burning in, you know, Out the outside. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Any other questions? No. Hearing none. We have a recommendation in the. I'll move that the city council amend the wastewater capital plan to allocate funds not to exceed 150,000. For the emergency replacement of the code generation engine. Second. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed to say nay. Great. So that passed unanimously again. Thank you all. Thank you, Chelsea. Thank you very much. Good evening. I think she's up for this. Oh, maybe. Oh, hang on. Yes. True. So it's just going to be just. Yeah. Move to the next agenda item discussion of. Enterprise. Yeah. Last meeting. So just here can explain changes between last time and now. Yep. All right. Regina, do you want me to share my screen or do you have it? I can go ahead and share my screen. Okay. So just to summarize from our last presentation, Chelsea and I presented this at the last meeting and promise that we would come back and take a look through. The wastewater budget, especially to see if we could identify some. Revenue increases or expenditure reductions. So we did that exercise last week. We were, we did make some changes, but they ultimately resulted in basically a net zero change on the expenditures around the overall budget. But there was one thing I realized. I think there was a lot of changes. But there was one thing I realized. Doing like recalculating the rates. The preliminary rate changes that we calculated for last meeting. We're incorrect because there were formula errors in some of the. The files that we used to calculate the rates. So the rates ended up. In the last meeting. Dropping from what we presented to you last time, but it was in no, no part due to the changes in any. Expenditure proposals. So. The rates right now, the combined rates are resulting in an 8.47% increase, which amounts to. And then the administrative fees stayed the same. The water rates. You can see on the, the first two tables here. We had originally projected an 11 and a half percent increase. We're now down to just under an 11% increase there again. The. The increase here is. In the last meeting, we were looking at. Mostly an increase in the admin fees and then also the CWD rate increase that they're proposing. In the wastewater fund. This is where the biggest change happened because of the. Formula errors that existed in the file. So we were originally presenting an 11.35% increase. We are now down to a 5.64% increase. So that's much better than it was last time. Yep. And then lastly, the sanitation fund. There was no change to this. And again, the increase here is primarily the admin fees. Before we move off of this, can I ask a quick question? Sure. I was talking earlier with Regina today and we were talking about the RFP for IT services. In this admin. Charge, are we assessing a portion of the IT services, especially with the wastewater treatment facility? As I understand it, they have some pretty specific needs. Yep. Yes. So what we did and, and we'll have to come up with a more specific question. I don't know if we have the more solid number moving forward, but the FY 22 mock budget that was presented previously did include $14,000. Coming from wastewater to the general fund. To support the IT contracted services. So that is in there. And the. The tri-town, I think there was a follow-up question to that about and the answer is yes, because the wastewater fund or the wastewater budget, sorry, basically gets shared proportionately to all tri-town members. So it's sort of passing through that. That fee as well. Great. We take that. Just because this, these big changes revolve around the administrator administrative fee. Do you have a very brief way to explain for people listening? And why that is and how it's, how it's accounted for here. Like why we do it this way. Sure. So, and I. It looks like I forgot to include this in the packet. So my apologies, it was in there last time. But the admin fees. Let me just pull up my cheat sheet here because I want to get the percentages correct. So the admin fees are essentially. Calculated. Based on the administrative costs for salaries and wages, as well as finance. So that would be. City manager, HR director and communications director time, as well as the city manager. So that would be, that would be, you know, overhead expenditures related to Lincoln Hall, since that's where all of these administrative staff are housed. So that, that total. Is allocated based on a formula that's been used. Historically. As far as I can tell for at least five or six years now. Where 40% of that total goes. 40% paid by the sanitation fund and 20% paid by the wastewater fund. And again, that's another, that's another. Formula or calculation that we'll be looking at going forward. There just wasn't capacity this year to really dive into that. But it's essentially meant to cover the time of those staff who are involved in kind of the management of the, the. You know, the budget and the staff and the personnel that are associated with all three of those funds. Great. Thank you. Yep. So in essence, it's essentially, these are part of the cost of doing business and it's trying to just fully account for those costs. Exactly. Yep. Any other questions on those. No, I just, I, one, one, one aspect of this whole thing is costs. It's kind of double-edged sword just as the state is looking at the planning commission meeting the last week. We were talking about how to generate revenue to offset costs for maintaining highways and the fuel tax. Well, with the use of water, the fees, as we're aware, water lines and sewer lines break over the years. And as usage decreases, that income from the sale of water is lost, but the infrastructure needed to maintain doesn't go away. So you're losing, you're losing revenue when your cost or potential cost for breakage still exists in, in grows exponentially over years. So that's just another aspect that the public should be aware of. Absolutely. If we all reduced our water usage, those pipes still need to be there. Absolutely. Good point. Are we ready to move on to the EGRP program fund? Yes. Yep. Okay. And just in terms of the order of the package and so you know, the senior center fund is in there now. So that's just the costing center from the town. And that's, that's essentially where that work lives. I don't know if we need to, need to go through it, but that just comes up next in the packet, but we can go to EGRP. Yeah, no, whatever is easier from our Virginia, I don't think that's, we don't have too much more to say about the senior center fund, right? Jess, or do you want to speak to it in any way? No, I think we've, we've talked to that one pretty well. Essentially the budget that they provide us is kind of the operating expenses to keep the, the center open. Yep. And it is funded by, their membership fees. And so in essence, what is in this budget is to maintain that. Correct. Yep. Great. So for anybody watching concerned about the future of the senior center, it would be status quo. Yes. Great. Ready to move on. Next. So I think we've got Brad on here. And I can. Screen share for you. Great. Thanks. Hi. You know, as the memo says, what you see here is the, the, the different. Or keys that are within the program fund for EJRP and basically staff who are in charge of these different areas come up with programs that they anticipate running. And the number of participants they expect the expenses they expect and the revenues they plan to charge. And that's where we end up and we do that in all of these different buckets. And, you know, this is an enterprise fund. So it's all funded by user fees. As I, as I discussed in the memo, 17 of our 23 full-time employees are paid for out of this program fund. And are not paid for by the general fund or taxpayers. And overall the EJRP budget. At this point is 4.6 million. And 30% of our employees are paid by the general fund or tax payers. 4.6 million. And 30% of that is paid for by the general fund and taxes. And 70% is paid for out of this enterprise fund. My only question is when I look at the, the EJRP program summary spreadsheet that has the revenues and expenses by the, the budget categories. I just noticed a 20, 24 budget looks like the plan is to spend 16,000 more than what is going to be received. Though I also know that's less than one half of 1% of the overall budget. And so I assume what that means is you'd figure it out. Yeah, it is. Andrew, good observation. And, you know, my original calculations, I typically work work on increasing revenues or decreasing expenses so that it is budgeted to at least net zero. So there may have been some changes. I think probably from finance and probably some personnel or insurance things, the numbers that I didn't have access to. So, but it typically does work itself out. As you can see historically, most of the time we end up in the positive. So, Andrew, I can speak to that increase if you want. Sure. Okay. So we did receive estimates from BLCT for our workers comp insurance, which came in quite a bit higher on the EJRP side than on the general fund side, the program side. So again, these are estimates. We'll know when we get the actual bill. What that increases, but right now we're projecting that line of loan for workers comp insurance is a 23% increase over last year. So that's where the differences. Great. I appreciate that. And as I mentioned, it's less than one half of 1%. As Brad had said, and is quite evident in this spreadsheet and other places, there's been an excess of $100,000 or more. In terms of revenue over expenses anyway. So honestly, I'm not worried about it. It was just, I wanted to name what I said. Any other questions for Brad or Jess? I'm good. I didn't want to have any. No. Great. I appreciate what this all does for our community. Thank you. Thank you. So that would. End the enterprise budget conversation and shift us now into. We moved this discussion of the FY 24 general fund budgets. And the consideration of warning the public hearing. Right. Yes. So this memo essentially summarizes the process thus far. So you had your budget day on the 6th. We had another. Meeting budget at your last meeting on July 11th. And talked about. A number of changes that were addressed from the budget day at the last meeting. And then we had some. Other issues that we just were touching based on last week. And so all of that is now incorporated. Here in. The general fund budget. And essentially what that. What that does is result, what it would result in, if this moves forward is a 1.6% tax rate increase. On what folks are paying in FY 23. Versus what they would pay in FY 24. And that's roughly $42. For a. $280,000 home. The memo also includes. Just in terms of the summary of. New expenditures. In comparison to what was contemplated in that FY 22. Mock city budget. So you've got a building board nation role and how that adjusts. Some of the roles at EJRP. You've got a full time adult program director half year only. There's a full time code enforcement officer community development that would. Be the full year also a planner position full year. An admin assistant in the administration office. Full time. Then we've got the other increases that we've talked about kind of along. Along the way. Then what we also included in here is. The general fund. We've talked about this a couple of times now. Just some of those one time expenses that it folks remember at the. Budget day version. Those were incorporated into the general fund and we. Hold those out for the local option tax fund. So that's what you've got. Here. Then again, we've talked about this a few times now, but it includes that 160,000 administrative allocation from the enterprise funds. And again, that being. A larger increase than what happened last year, but really thinking that that's the right amount that that's supposed to be. And hopeful that we can keep that there this year. So. If you're ready. The decision for you tonight is whether you're okay with this as your preliminary budget and want to set the public hearings. This memo talks about February 8th as a public hearing. We've talked a little bit internally that you could also have February 22nd as a public hearing to kind of give a little bit more time for actual. Input if you want to adjust this or change it before we finalize it for the ballot. Appreciate that and for context. By agreeing to move this process forward and warning the. The public hearings, it does not prevent any additional changes to the budget. This is. At this point in time is purely a somewhat statutory, but then also just process standpoint of moving that to the next stage. As a get having those public hearings is to have comments and can have an impact on the budget. Yeah, great. And it should be noted that is the only opportunity. Public will have to make input and make changes because that does not happen at annual meeting anymore. Correct. So waiting for annual meeting will be too late because the budget will be set. So for impact for comments for changes. The public hearings for talking about those are the places to. Yeah. So February 8th and potentially February 22nd folks on the on zoom or in the room, if you'd like to have an impact on the budget. Come to that meeting or meetings, talk to us. Otherwise, what you're going to get on the ballot is going to be a yes or no. Right. Well, so that that is a choice they can vote down the budget when you have to. Sure. Right. Yeah. And just, I don't know if Raj, you want to talk about your. Make a motion. I was going to ask. Yeah, I'd like to have a minute. I shared. And I don't know if you want to put it on the screen because the public hasn't seen this. I shared with the Regina and the council. An idea of embedding around and talking to a bunch of people around about in the public. Part of this stems from the fact, well, this has been something on a lot of people's minds for a long time. Part of this stems from the fact that we have a couple of openings with the retirement of our. To esteem colleagues. There's some of us trying to go out and drum up. Candidates to fill your seats. A few people have already expressed interest. There have been a number of people I've talked to. And I've talked to in the past about other committee work, DRB planning, other city council runs. That have identified significant barriers. I think you probably all read the memo I sent out. And, you know, I struggle with this request. It's significant. It's a big change. It's a big change in thinking. Of how we traditionally think about. Serving on a city council and elected board for municipality. I think we have a history of expecting people to give their time. As volunteers. And the payback for that is the respect and appreciation of the community. I think we profess a desire for diverse voices, but we don't acknowledge the reality. That it may be harder for those from traditionally underrepresented or marginalized communities to. And these are our neighbors to show up for what essentially is. You know, free time, even with the stipends we currently offer. They're token. So I think, you know, we're telling ourselves as we're professing to be one thing as a community where we have this story we tell. Being an inclusive or wanting to be or aspiring to be an inclusive. Welcoming community that values the voices of everyone in the community. But when it comes to having those voices at decision tables committees commissions this table. We aren't recognizing that it isn't a $500. Issue from last year or $1,000 issue this year or $1,500 issue. For what we plan for FY 25 for. You really can't necessarily put a number on it. You know that it's not the way I think about it. I think a lot of people are starting to think about this. It's. You're not going to go out and ask a thousand people and have them all tell you that money is the primary barrier necessarily what you're going to hear is. I work second shift. I'd have to take a night off or a few hours off in the evening. I have children to look after I have you're going to hear a lot of barriers. I think when you propose to pay people. More what you're saying is we recognize that these barriers are significant. They're real. They disproportionately impact. People that don't. Feel welcome here that don't have the opportunities and the expectation that we can be here. That we belong here. They don't work a schedule like we do. They don't may not look like us. By raising that money and raising that stipend, we're recognizing that. Maybe the money isn't the primary reason that they show up. But it goes to reducing the barriers that there exists that exist that keep them from being here. You know, childcare, adult care. Take out for their kids. In this memo, I've got a calculation. I went back over. A couple of years. I looked at the time we spent now. I grant you the last couple of years have been very busy city council trustee years. I accounted for that. If you look at meeting prep meeting time. The fact that we're now BCA and we're sort of expected to show up for at least a few hours at the polls. I've got the table in there. The average is about 21 hours a month. I personally have been 31 this month because I'm, like I said, trying to drum up. I've got things that people have asked me to do, but I'm trying to drum up interest on this board. So if you baseline into 21 hours. That is a tremendous ask of someone who. You know, we profess to want to hear from. And value. They may work second, third ship. They may work three jobs. They may work two jobs. They may be a single parent. They may be from a full family household. But still can't afford to do this. So, so I think we. I threw a number out there based on on the information that's if you scroll down a little bit. Different sources and I tried to be. Thoughtful about where I found. Numbers to base this on. I don't know. I propose 6500 a year. I don't profess to have the right answer. The middle line there for my legislative pay, you know, the state, the legislature has to figure this out too. This is, this is an issue that they have to figure out, you know, especially. As they continue to diversify and welcome more. Working people working people with young families women. There are some significant issues about affordability and service in the legislature. This number I'm proposing is higher than what they get. The joint fiscal office for the legislature put out a report 2 years ago. Saying that. The documented living, the wage averages 2573 here in this extension. That's sort of where I went. It was sort of the median for this table. And I looked at more sources than that. So I had to start somewhere. I'm hoping this begins a conversation and get it gets us thinking about how serious we are. When we say we want to hear from everybody in the community. And, you know, as we talked about earlier with Paul, we're. The way we're building out the infill were we're planning and that's coming. It's just going to make a much more demographically diverse community. It's going to make a much more diverse community by age income. Race, you know, we're. I could go through those 13% of our residents are foreign born 15% speak another language in the home. 21% are under 18. Only 59% on their own home. The median rent is $1400. That's the median. Most people who are not married have to live with a roommate in this community to. Take the 21 hours or more or less, but roughly 21 hours a month to serve the community. You know, we're starting to we're relying on this whole concept of no bless oblige. You know, like it's it's only a certain class of people here. That will look after the community for everybody else. It doesn't mean that anybody in this room has done anything wrong whatsoever. Or that any service that anyone is given to date or will give in the future. There's nothing wrong with the way with with anything we've done. So it's not a comment on any one or two or four anybody. It's, I really think we need to really start thinking about how we, how we accomplish what we say we want to accomplish. And I think the community really needs to talk about that I do honestly feel we have this story we tell. And it came up a lot in the merger separation, you know, the city does it to differ the village the village way we do it a different way. You know, our median income is one of the lower ones in Chittin County, especially compared to the town. And yeah, so I'm curious to hear what what you all have to say about it. I think there's a few people online that want to say a few words, but I'm really curious to see what the board is thinking about that. I know it was shocking it's last minute, but that's part of being part of having a lot to do. I'll start. I'm opposed to this. I read what you put out and there are many reasons. I saw the thing you said something about one member being BIPOC of our board. The percentage of BIPOC people within our community, I believe is less than 10%. Okay, and one member of our board would be would represent well five right this five so 20% of our board. 20% of our community is not BIPOC. I think as far as money. It's an elected process. It's an election process. There's no guarantee all the money in the world. You can make it $100 million a year stipend and you got to get people elected. This is just money. It doesn't get a board necessarily that whatever you envision it to be diverse, including BIPOC or what have you in the community. I'm not opposed to having a more diverse board, but I'm opposed to to to manipulating it or trying to change the system. Almost like gerrymandering, which I'm opposed to to to create something that is aesthetically pleasing for whatever reason to a board member or people in the community. I think it should be a process that's there to everybody. Did you just say that getting a more diverse board would be an aesthetic process just to look good. I just want to be clear that that's what you said. What I'm saying, Raj, is you're saying a BIPOC aesthetic isn't the proper word. What I'm saying is you want something you want to I hear a lot of times throughout my time that volunteering in different boards in this community. People like to see things happen organically from the bottom up. This comes across to me as the opposite of organic. This comes across as more of a contrived board trying to create something that that we that people feel this is how it has to look. Okay. I don't want to see something that's changed just because we have to we've got to give this appearance of that we're inclusive. We are inclusive to accept whatever to show me we're not inclusive. And I hear what you're saying. But where are we not inclusive where we we ask people to show up for the meetings as we were saying for the budget. They get until February to where they can vote. And it's almost like trying pulling teeth. We have a difficult enough time trying to get people to come just to talk to us. And I just feel like putting more money at it is not going to solve the problem. I think just going out talking to people. And when I came on this board, my daughter, I saw you said something about only one of us has a child 16 under 16. When I came on this, when I got involved in politics or the planning commission, I think my daughter was eight or nine years old. And I was seeing as a single parent and working nights weekends and holidays and not making a ton of money. But managing to work it out. And it's I'm sorry it doesn't work for everyone. But to think that we can come up with something that's going to work for everyone get representation. I remember with the sit with the select board, they had a member who worked at global foundries or IBM or what have you couldn't get out of work. Well, there are many reasons it doesn't work for a lot of people for many reasons, Raj. I just think there's no easy answer for how you're going to create this board that includes people that aren't on the board right now that you said don't look like us. So what when you say about appearance, what do you mean don't look like us looking is appearance. I believe isn't that what you're referring to the parents. I'm referring to all the things I mentioned. Well, you said the word aesthetic. Well, aesthetic meaning appearance. Because you said appearance don't look like us. I think that they're very well I just I just I know I just I'm expressing how I feel about this. And I'm going to be off the board in another couple months and what happens. I'd love to see a very more diverse board. We have mostly males on the board. We don't have any. We have one female member of the board in the past. We've had other female members of the board. We had a past present was chair of the board, you know, that billy do. I mean, it changes over time. And but I think you can find different opinions from many different people in the community because I've talked to people in the community. We just increased our stipend from 500 to 1500. And now we're talking about going to 6500. It just seems and then we talk about the cost people can't afford to be on the board. Well, those same people can't afford when we start increasing the stipend. And that's money that's taxpayers going to pay. We increase stipends. We we increase our expenses and whatever that's the reason we're talking about. Now we're talking with the general fund. I think we got to look at this big picture. And that's my opinion. Go ahead. Actually, the regional planning commission, which I attended last week, they said in Chittenden County, I think the BIPOC community represents roughly 10%. I believe Charlie brought it up the chair. And that 10% of Chittenden County. I think representation in other boards around our community. Have pretty good representation represent and I read your thing. It says, we don't, we don't represent our community. And I wonder what you mean by we don't represent me. I heard you say people that don't look like us. So that when I say, I shouldn't use the term, maybe I said, but what do you mean by don't look like us? I mean, people in our community look at this board and say they don't, they're not, that's not a place that belong. But I don't, I don't feel like I don't want. That's work you have to do, I think to learn that I'm not going to train you on this. No, well, I think I can't what you're saying, but I'm just saying there's people. Let me get, let me put it this way. There's people that can't make the time because they can't afford to take it. We, we all, most of us showed up, if we could, for a budget day, eight hours, seven and a half hours, right? We had to take a day off. That was a cash donation by me, by the way, to the city. And I was lucky enough to do it, to be able to do it. That's a vacation day. Who here went to the diversity, equity and inclusion training a couple of years ago that the community paid for? Why didn't you all go? I can tell you, Raj, but you're, you know, if I can just cut in here. No, I just, no, no, I got this. This is sort of, no, no, I asked a question. And I'm going to answer your question. You said you, who didn't go, but the implication is if I didn't go, then I have some, I have some. No, I'm wondering if it was a scheduling issue. I may have had a completely legitimate timing or schedule or something going on in my personal life that prevented me from going. And that's what I'm trying. Was it a scheduling issue or was it because you couldn't get out of work? Well, there are all kinds of reasons we have and there are all kinds of meetings that I should be going to that I don't always get to. But there's obviously this particular issue, there's a whole bunch of cultural and political stuff that doesn't aura to it. And that, that it makes it very, very difficult for public discussion. Sure. But if I could, can I, can I just add? I just want to finish that thought for a second though. If it were scheduling, which it probably was for some of us, right? It's a perfect example. Right. If you, if, if something was held that you wanted to, you could have the community paid for you to be there. And that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about representation as a, as a, as the top community leader in your, in your community is to go through the training that the community said it wanted you to take and paid for, not you personally, not anybody personally, but you couldn't do it because there was a work issue. That is exactly the example I'm talking about. We're not accommodating the needs of the community in terms of representation accurately. I don't mean when I say we don't represent our community in the, in the sense that. We don't go out and talk to them. We don't have their thoughts in mind. We don't have their, we don't care about them. All of us care about our community. I can't even begin to list what the two of you, for instance, have done as you retire. And I had one of our past trustees kind of telling me some of it. You know, I didn't know anything about your early career. I'm not trying to suck up. I'm just saying, I think this, I think nobody questions the care for community. We don't reflect our current community. I don't think we do. And in some of the ways I put in the, in the memo. And all I'm saying is things have developed in a way that we don't have any control. That prevent people whose input we need that are we're asking to live in this community from being here to help us make those decisions. And again, it's not a personal comment on anybody. I'm not, I don't, I don't have any ill, ill, ill thoughts about anybody. It's not, it's not racist thing at all. And it's not just BIPOC people. It's economic. It's, it's work situation. It's family makeup. It's, it's all of those things. You know, you're not going to get everybody. Raj, I would, the thing I would say to you, it's kind of like we do the whole thing with how do we reach the community the best when it, when it was the Essex reported Barron to a free press, the local government TV and we got town meeting TV here. We're doing all these things and you can leave the horse water. You can't necessarily always make them drink. And it's just that there are people are more people are getting involved in ever before. As we just said house 42, whatever the bill was just signed to continue this, this change in the way that we, you know, have our meetings and vote and people can get involved with this whole thing with web access. When I came on the board initially, and you remember George, we'd get the binder Patty would go around and drop off a big three ring binder at our house with paper in it. We got the computers. Now we're doing remote stuff. More people are getting involved than ever before. So I would disagree. So I understand what you're saying some extent. Sure. There are people that are in our community that for whatever reason don't feel comfortable. Maybe it's a language barrier. There's a lot of things that can can play into this whole thing. We can look at it from many different aspects. But I'm just saying that I disagree with the money aspect and thinking that we're going to be able to create this better representation by putting more money to our stipend. And it's an election process. People, whatever, you know, if they see more money, maybe the run for election, but doesn't guarantee they're going to get elected. So it won't, it's a move point. It's just, see what I'm saying though or no. No, I agree with a lot of what you said. I mean, you know, we, there have been some amazing changes to bring people into the process. And I think that can't be discovered. Yeah. I do think to go back to something that was said before about how there's no easy answer. There is no, there is, there is no easy answer. There's no answer that's going to say, if we do this thing, that is going to make sure that this board can be inclusive of every type of demographic that exists. That possibility doesn't exist. And what I think I hear you saying is, here's a possible solution to try and alleviate some of the barriers or a barrier to this process. Instead of, let's just keep doing this status quo and hope that something else changes. Right. And it kind of comes back to what you said earlier, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him do it. But if you're not able to access the water or be, or you're not allowed or able to access the water because it's out of reach through no fault of us for, I'm not, I'm not putting in anybody because of a lot of the barriers that I mentioned. Then this points, whether they get a letter or not, you know, like, if you can't, if you can't access it in the first place. Well, that this isn't the only thing, by the way, you know, yes, can I, can I get, let me, if I don't, if I don't want to cut anybody here, my two cents. I actually think you're, you're, it's a pretty big discussion because you're crossing a threshold. And I think it would not recognize it, but I think it's a significant threshold. And we go from saying, I want to run for city council or select board because I am, I'm interested in how stuff works. I'm interested in who fills the potholes. I mean, that's what we do. That's what we do here. We're not really into broad based cultural change where we fill potholes, we repair the machines at the wastewater treatment plant and so forth. And I think you're crossing a threshold when someone says, I'm interested in understanding how these things work. I want to support that work versus now we're going to pay someone to do that. We're going to pay for you to be interested. I'm interested in out of my own volition because of ulterior motives. I don't have a financial interest. I don't have a personal interest in it. I'm doing it for the good of the community, but now suddenly I'm doing it for the money. And under the circumstances, it's, you know, maybe what you're proposing by putting more money into it, maybe you get the results you want on the one hand. But I think that's a slim possibility. You could also wind up getting people who get onto this board, who phone it in, they're padding their income. All they have to do is show up at a Zoom meeting once or twice a month. They don't have to be, they don't have to do the homework. They don't have to do the hard work at this board. Someone can just get onto this board and phone it in and collect a $500 check every month. And we're not going to be, and then they're here for three years and you can't, they're taking up a spot. And you may not get, there's no guarantee that you're going to get the result that you're looking for. And if I don't, if I could just add one other thing. I think there's a concern here of a little bit of a defamatory thing where you're saying that people that aren't of this group, that people in the BIPLOP community and others, they have to be paid. The rest of us, we have the community's interest at heart, but we have to pay those people. Come onto the board. I know that's not what you're saying. No, it is absolutely not. But I know that, but that could be an implication that we have to come up with money in order to bribe people to come onto the board. See, I would say that that's the perfect example, almost, of the current system keeping and fighting tooth and nail to keep the current system and the current people that are at the table, at the table, so that nobody else is at the table. And I think the board needs to, we don't have to decide this, we don't have to do anything that's necessary. And I think what people do need to do is start thinking about that, because you're not wrong in a way. But if you think that there's people out there that the only thing keeping them who are also equally allowed to be interested in potholes and wastewater treatment plants, but the only thing keeping them from that is $6,000 a year. I think that's moderately condescending and I don't think that's how you mend it, but that's how it's received. It doesn't matter about your intent, George. Intent doesn't matter. If you think the only thing keeping, you know, that all of a sudden I'm just going to say, ooh, $6,000. Like people working two jobs with a kid in daycare that they're just going to say, ooh, let me add one more incredibly complex thing and go through an election because I want $6,000 or $3,000 or $1,500. I mean, we did raise it from 500 to 1,500, but that wasn't easy. That was a conversation we had. And not because anybody's a bad person. But what you're saying, though, is that... No, Roger, I'm not saying that. Let me cut back in. No, I'm talking about... You say the board doesn't reflect the community. Well, it depends on what criteria you're using. You probably, if this board was going to... I could make an argument that this board was going to accurately reflect this community. There should be probably two or three retired people on this board. If it's going to adequately reflect this community if you look at age. And I'm thinking, yeah, there's probably lots of people out there. Guys my age who wouldn't mind running for this board and you could have two or three older white guys like me collecting $500 a month. That's not going to help you, but they may say that's pretty good. I get my name on the ballot and I run. I get my friends to vote for me and I'm on the city council and I can collect money. I mean, you may not know who you're going to get. This is aspirational and I admire the aspiration, but I'm saying by putting more money into this, you don't know what the result is. And you could get a result that is completely the opposite of what you intended. I think that this is a fantastic first conversation. It's important for us to have, and I don't think it approaches you had said early on, it needs to be resolved right now. But to at least be able to hear where everybody's at. One thing to note, my internet keeps coming into now. So if there are people on Zoom who have been trying to talk, Amber has her hand up, I can't see a thing. Okay. Yeah, I'm cutting that too. So just so that that's known for anybody out in Zoom land who is watching or listening. So we, we do have one comment from Bridget. Happy to read that. I support the incremental stipend increase for city counselors. I think it might entice younger people to run and serve. We need to be proactive about this. I'm appreciative of the conversation you're having. And Pat Murray has his hand raised. Great. Before we get to other public comments. Amber, I, again, I can't see if your hand is raised. Is there anything you want to add. It's not raised Andrew. I'm all set on the topic for now. Thanks. Okay. Why don't we turn it over and go to Patrick. Hi, Andrew. Thank you. Let me lower my hand here. You guys hear me. Okay. Yep. Okay, perfect. I'd like to, in fact, I would love to voice complete and total support for this proposal. I've listened to the conversation. I, I want to jump back if I can. I don't want to single out George in particular, but there is something I heard in there that I have to call into question. I think the number of maybe older white people that would put in the effort to run for city council to get the signatures and all of that, who would then just show up to make a buck versus the number of people in this community who are in a very real way prevented from being part of the leadership of the community that they live in, because they can't make it work financially with the hours that a city counselor or even some of the other boards demand. And I think there is honestly no better time to address this than now at the start and the formation of our new city. It's important to address now because if we're getting off on the right foot, I feel like it grows us in the right direction as a community going on. And I do feel that that inclusivity for us in our community, maybe it's not always a skin color issue, but there's definitely a financial divide in this community. And if this goes a long way towards helping bridge that gap, people who can afford to be on a city council versus those who can't. I think it's, I wouldn't say it's an experiment. I would say it's something that we should enthusiastically try. I think that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. If there are other individuals attending from zoom who do want to contribute to this conversation, please feel free to raise your hand and be happy to call on you. Just so you know, the chat is not something that does get entered into the public record. So if you would like something to be a part of the public record, you would need to raise your hand and speak to the issue. Is there anybody else who has their hand up Regina? Yes, it simply says struthers. Go ahead. The floor is yours. Yeah, I just wanted to say that if you wanted to increase the participation across the board, you could use stipend money to fund campaigns of those wishing to run for city council up to $500 and that would help any individual that wants to participate. Thank you for that. One more hand that I can see. Go ahead, any. Hi, I agree with, I agree with Roger's concept of the value of the amount. And the stipend. I'm very put off. By the professionalism rise showed to his fellow board members in this conversation. Most importantly, because this conversation seems to be proceeding. And a previously important conversation about inclusion and diversity. And it feels to me a great deal, like a little bit of showmanship to remove energy from that. But anyway, regardless, the idea is a good one. The idea is sound. I agree that economically, when I sat on the select board, when we plan the budget meeting, I raised my hand and I said, I already have a swim session plan that I've taken in money for. And I was dismissed and disregarded and told at the table that everybody misses work, but me missing what if I'm not standing in water I don't make income. So I agree with the concept. I agree with the fact that having the position closer to a paid position, while $6,500 is not going to pay your years long worth of rent or whatever it does look at many different levels of inclusivity and equity that can be impactful for single employees. And so I said, for people with more than one job for, and I, it's certainly not simply about BIPOC or anything that it occurs a great range. So I agree with the theory, and I do wish there had been more professionalism in the presentation. Thank you for your time. Is there anybody else who has their hand up. I don't see any. I would like to propose is for now, if we table the conversation, wait until our next meeting, which will be our first public hearing on this issue, and we revisit at that time. In the meantime, just continue to think about it. We would need to make a final decision within that or the next meeting. Yeah, I heard as one more comment was to use the language of up to which would allow, I think that's what Brattleboro does. Andrew brought that up. It was just, it would allow that choice to be made. If there were counselors that felt they didn't need it or desire it or whatever, then it wouldn't be foisted on them. That sort of thing. Appreciate that and you're, you're right. Brattleboro's is an up to amount. Part of the discussion that their representative town meeting was also around. If you have an up to then does that further perpetuate in us versus them as there is there and then shaming around somebody accepting the amount versus somebody not accepting the amount. I think it goes right back to there is no easy answer and that every answer has ramifications that we might not have intended. This came up in the stipends last time I'll say this came up in the stipend conversation from a couple of years ago, there was. There was a person in the community that was. Asking that they wanted to be able to get records of who accepted stipends. And that was felt by many to be intimidation in the sense that while it is a public record, the check, check registers are in the packet. But the implication was they wanted to publicize. And that's sort of where the up to choice kind of thing becomes a little weird. If someone can really stigmatize somebody with that, which sort of defeats the purpose, but it's not a writer. I'm not saying there's one way right where the other it's just one of those things that these things are public. You know, so that's just one thing. I'll just finish up my comments by saying I think that too much of the discussion has centered on on on money and and equity and having the board reflect and not I think there needs to be more of a discussion about why exactly do people have people for many, many years throughout the state. Volunteered basically volunteered to be on these boards and are we are we in jeopardy of transitioning out of something that has worked into the past. When we start putting a monetary value on something I would like to see a broader if we're going to discuss this in the future I'd like to see a broader discussion of that. There are times in people's lives when they can they feel they can be on a board and there are times in people's lives when they they are busy with other things. And I think the most important thing that anyone can bring to this board is not their their gender or race or economic background or even their education level but it's their genuine enthusiasm and interest in understanding how local government works. And if if if we're trying to assign a monetary value to that then it that gets really tricky. We have though we have that that's available. We've chosen. We have it in the charter. It's in the charter. What's in the charter $1,500 we've assigned a value to it. Yeah, but that's a stipend it but at a certain point my point is is that suddenly you go from a stipend to an income. And when do you cross over that line. And that's the problem when when does the motivation become my motivation for being here because I'm genuinely interested in it versus I'm doing it for the money and we I would like to have some discussion about that and I would love for you to. That's perfectly fine comment I'd love for you to reflect between now and then over the next two weeks. About the implication of that statement, the difference of $5,000 being someone's wholehearted. Come to nirvana moment about why all of a sudden now they suddenly care about their community. And whether $5,000 is an income over 12 months, 21 hours a month. Absolutely think about that. Or whether it's a stipend that people who are traditionally not represented, not at the table need to participate. Adult care also, and I think we focused a lot you're right on BIPOC and things like that but this is as I pointed out in the memo this is way wider than that this is all kinds of socioeconomic, social political social You can add all kinds of things to this. It has, it doesn't have to be about someone's race, ethnicity. That's an aspect of it. It's a, it's a piece of it, but it's not all of it. And, you know, making an equitable boardroom does not mean we, we do a percentage percentage look at the census of the village and try to match that. It has nothing to do with, with saying, well, we checked the box. We've got 22% of us are identify as a person of color. So we've done the job. That's just not, that's not the point. You know, so I, yeah, please do think about it and ask questions and reach out to people to see what they think. I think part of the difficulty is going to be with this conversation is it's one of those intangibles where the, the end goal may not be shared by everybody, nor necessarily defined broadly by everybody. As well as getting to that philosophical stance around in philosophical positions that for some of us aren't changed, which doesn't make it any easier for sure. Change is hard. So moving off from that one. The only other comment that I wanted to make on the budget. The, the addition for staff salaries in relation to inflation. We had a conversation with a community member who had asked why are we asking that this go to a base in for an increase of staff's base salary compared to a one time payment in recognition of the higher inflation and the higher cost of living. I couldn't answer why and I think that in some ways that would prefer that it be instead of a permanent increase to a base that it would be a one time payment. If we're talking about inflation, that can change. We can't have gas prices that go down. Housing prices can go down. Costs of living can go back down in during a recession typically do go back down. And so personally we prefer that while the budget, I don't believe would change in that number. I don't believe would change, but rather just how it's implemented. So it's the extra 1.25% that we're talking about because the rest is all spelled out the contract, how we, how we apply that, but the 1.25% we could totally do it as a one time bonus, not adjust the base salary of that. And certainly roll it out. Anybody have any adverse reactions thoughts concerns. No. So then we have in our packet a request for a motion to warn the public hearings are currently to warn a public hearing and whether or not to add a second one for February 22nd. Personally, I'm, I'm okay with adding the second one. I think that as we try to get more people to talk if they can't make or to help impact the budget conversation, if they can't make the eighth, then hopefully they can make 22nd. We just said in the prior conversation, trying to open it up, get more input and obviously this plays into that. I would second your idea on second meeting. So entertain the motion or a motion to city council warrant a public hearing for the fiscal year 2024 proposed budgets and capital program for the city of Essex junction to be held. Oh, did we want Tuesday. This is Tuesday, February 8. We don't want it in 2022 either. Oh. It is, it is Wednesday, February 8 2023, and then Wednesday, February 22 2023. Yes. So those dates were packet 635. So moved. Thanks. Second. Second. Thank you. Thank you. Raj. Any further discussion. No. Hearing none on favorably signify by saying aye. Aye. Does the post please say nay. Great. So that pass unanimously. I'm here, George. Okay. I didn't hear you say I or nay. I said I. All right. Sorry. I'm not loud. All right. And that will bring us into business item. What was five. And now my G. On charter changes. I think we've got the right. Consideration of moving. Oh, sorry, 5E. Yeah. So I have to. Find this one in the packet and then I can share my screen. So why shouldn't change the agenda. Never. All right. So this is PDF page 25 for people who are. Working through their own packets. Okay. So. The issue is that. The start of annual meeting April 5th. Is the first night of Passover. And so the issue that we're talking about is whether to move that date. So a couple of things to think about here. This date is set by the voters last year during annual meeting. And so you've got the article there that was passed. Which essentially sets the annual meeting on April 5th and then. Reconvenes for the voting day on April 11th. Today, the governor passed this bill that is referenced here in the memo. Which has essentially the purpose of the bill was to extend some of the COVID flexibility in hosting of meetings and open meeting law. To allow for folks to be able to move to Australian ballot and not have town meeting and all of that kind of stuff. So this bill essentially extends those same kinds of things. Now through. I don't want to forget the end date for it, but basically. This bill is not necessarily intended to change an annual meeting. In our situation, but it allows us to change an annual meeting in our situation. And it allows us to push that date back. It can't, we can't move it forward. So. We do have the ability to move the date from the night. Of the 5th. To, in my mind, you would have the option of moving it to two other dates. Thursday, the 6th, but that happens to be the second night of Passover. Or Monday, the 10th. And I looked through some other holidays in the memo described there. So the other things to kind of think about in this is. Whether the high school would be available. For the night of the 10th. And it is and today I actually have more information for this conversation because I talked with Brian Donahue at the school. So that is the schools. Information meeting night. And that in and of itself does not necessarily mean it's a total conflict and we can't do this. It could potentially open up the opportunity to collaborate that night. It is. It's more logistics. It's more thinking through whether that makes sense. They are going to be hosting residents from three towns. We would only be hosting residents from the city. They do have still floor vote things that they will consider. We don't. They will not be presenting their budget that night because they actually do it a full week before. And, you know, it's certainly something to keep in mind because if one of the main purposes of this night is to present your budget. Even the week before is late these days because people already have their ballots long before. So some of this is just the reality of state statute and how we're trying to do these things. And they're not really logical anymore, but we have to still function in this system. So my, so my recommendation for you is that we could move it to April 10. My other recommendation for you is that you don't necessarily need to make this decision tonight. It's helpful to have these days set so we can just go forth and organize, but it's not necessary that you make this decision tonight because it could open the opportunity for Andrew to talk with the school board chair and see if there is any logic or benefit or coordination that could happen and having this night collectively on the 10th. Yes, so I am supposed to be talking with her on the 10th. I'm sorry. I'm supposed to be talking with her on set, barring anything being being rescheduled. I would like to at this point, I think just get a sense of the board as to our openness to change it and wait until we can try to figure out some of these logistics to make sure that it can still happen. And as a part of that, one of the things that I was hoping to be able to do this meeting is try to get some of the, the pomp and circumstance that we used to have back where could we have the annual dinner again? Could we have the hallway of the school lined up with our committees to be able to help with recruitment to help showcase what they do? I was sort of part of my hope. I'd love to be able to see again. But now we're also talking about doing at the same point in time with the school district is going to be there for Westford and the town and the city. Does all of that make sense at this point in time? With the further understanding, a little bit of a personal editorial here, state statute requires that we have a informational meeting 10 days at no more than 10 days before a ballot vote. So we can't do this sooner or we can't have done this in March when it would have made much more sense. And so now we're stuck at this point in time of there is no good answer again. So I thought on that though. What if we made the February public hearing what you're talking about? And just kind of did a zoom thing on the 10th. I mean, we're still conflicting with the school, but the logistics around that would be we'll go at six, seven. Same residents can go. So we could do what you're saying, which is the community thing off schedule, weird schedule. I get it. We're trying to fix a big oops and not turn to discount it. It's just a thought like if we're not trying to get under, because it will be complex to empty the gym and then redo. And the school has to go through their voter checklist to get it. That's almost two out of the box. So we do like some kind of, I don't know, February 24th is available. Dinner and everything on the 24th. We would do and then we would do like for us, then it's a regular meeting. So we would do this dinner thing and then we would just keep our business light and do it after. So basically it's, I can't think of a better way to say a super powered public hearing where instead of the, and making sure that we're talking about a public hearing. So that way we're not in violation with state statue. And so this public hearing, which is then a point in time where the community can impact budget. Instead of an informational meeting. It's way too late. Right. Right. So this kind of brings us back to what we used to sort of do. I mean, you know, it wouldn't be like, I moved to change the budget, right? It would be public comment. And then we'd, right, but just to be clear for those at home, it wouldn't be a town meeting format, but it would be, you know, we'd set up somewhere bigger. And we'd still have the dinner and we'd still have the committees and we'd still do it hybrid. We'd have to be able to do it hybrid, I guess, but it solves our issue around scheduling it inappropriately. Right. So I know it's just, I'm just throwing that out there. We don't, if you're going to talk to Aaron, we don't have to necessarily decide, but I'm all for moving it to fix the issue. I was going to talk to Aaron anyway about how to try and get, have them do an informational presentation to the, you're talking about in the gym possibly? Is that what you're saying? Sorry, go ahead. I was talking about like we could still use the cafeteria for the food and then everybody go to the tour. All right. Cause I'm thinking that the AD, the audio video, and, you know, as far as doing it, you know, virtual kind of a hybrid meeting, you know, having a screen large enough, audio systems, if you could hear the, there's a lot of logistics goes into this. They may not be able to do that. It's huge, you know. Can I ask a question? How long is the school, how long is the school board meeting, their public meeting anticipated to be, because I've been to them in the past and they are really not big. They don't really go along. They usually no offense to the school district, but they usually don't get a great big crowd and they usually go pretty quickly. I mean, that's something to consider. It is a possibility. You could have, you could piggyback them. And that's actually what happened, used to happen in the distant past from time to time. So you could do that. If it's, if they anticipate like a 45 minute meeting and that might, if they're saying it's no, it's a three hour extravaganza, then yeah, no, but if it's a 45 minute meeting, then you're already set up and then you could also snag a lot of people that might be going to the school board meeting to come to your public thing. And I'm good with either. Yeah, whatever. Fine. Interesting. Should we both have this now and then we can decide later, just kick that can right down the road a little bit. I just want to make sure for folks listening at home, we did not intend for this to happen. We intend to make it right and for it not to happen again. So I just wanted to make sure everybody's clear that that's the sentiment. The details have to be worked out, but the intent is to fix this. Now, I'm also just realizing then at a subsequent meeting, we may need to change the motion that we just made about warning the public hearing because a part of that motion was to warn at 14 Lincoln Street. So you might have to figure that part out. So boy, logistics are fun. To advance too. Yeah. So it sounds like there's a general sentiment of the board to be flexible. Everybody's open for whatever will work. And as long as we can make it work for as many people as possible. Yep. Great. I think that's good and helpful for tonight. Technically when it's moved, there does need to be an official decision to do that, but I don't think we take that decision tonight. Let's make a note about here. All right. I think we're now at the Charter changes memo. Yes. Yeah. So just a note from the zoom world for folks to speak into their microphones a little bit better. For us to? Yes. Gotcha. So yes, going into the next agenda item around Charter changes and the Charter changes memo. Basically, I'm proposing four Charter changes and at this point in time, what I'm looking for is just a general yes, okay, moving forward with the process for anyone and or all of these either as a written or or with future changes. The first one is as we just heard about the health officer. Currently I am our health officer because by state statute or by the by statute, every community needs to have one. And this process is overseen by the Department of Health, the Department of Health. If we do not appoint one, then the chair of the municipal board then automatically becomes a health officer in our Charter. We prohibit the any of us from being able to be employed and according to our attorney being the health officer is a form of employment. So we're kind of conflicting with state statute and the intention of this is to allow for that to happen and for us to better align with state statute by adding the words unless allowed by state statute. This would not prevent us or this would not allow for us to say be Regina's assistant and be a city council. That would not be allowed but this would rather allow for there to be the opportunity for if the chair wanted to and I don't to be the health officer that that person could and if there are other things that we then are running a fowl of in this process with state statute that that could fix. I should also know I haven't run any of this by Claudine. I wanted to get the sense of all of you first before asking our attorney for legal opinions on the verbiage. Any questions on this first one? No. The second one I could have organized this a lot better because I am now needing to go back and forth with way too many pages. The second one is to remove the section that basically prevents us from being able to hold any type of compensated municipal office including employment for one year until after our term has expired. So as an example Dan George your terms are going to be up if there were some opportunity to become the next administrative assistance for Essex Junction. You can't until one year after your term would have expired so that would prevent the city potentially from tapping into people for employment. When I did a review of municipal charters in our state this is something that is not mentioned in any other municipalities that I was able to find and I'm just recommending that we get rid of it. Any questions, comments, concerns? And Amber again I can't see Zoom so if you have any questions, comments, concerns just yell. She just flew in there. That was great. Did you drag her across the screen at that same time? That was perfect. Sure, that would be great. In the corner would be awesome. I kind of like to float in though. Amber can you see what's happening to you right now? No. I cannot and it's probably a good thing. Watch an hour two on channel 17 tomorrow. All right. The third one and this I think would require another discussion later on but potentially to remove the role of moderator. In reality we don't have an annual meeting. We have an informational meeting. In talking and having a brief email exchange with Steve Eustis he has some merit around keeping the role in the sense of again if we're trying to elevate this informational meeting and trying to elevate the way that it feels the aura that sort of pop in circumstance then keeping a moderator may be beneficial to have some type of a neutral party but instead of having it be somebody who's elected it'd be an appointed position so we would then just appoint the person instead of asking a potential moderator to go out and get the 30 signatures to be elected. Just a thought one moderator some verbiage to address potentially they're ill, they're unavailable what have you what we that chair or the board the president of the board or whoever could appoint someone like you said appointed position is supposed to be elected I agree with you in that sense I agree with you the board running it it does keep it separates that individual from the rest of the board so you have somebody basically maintaining some semblance of decorum in order in the meeting this is what the school district does and I know that because I've been in the school district monitor show up the meeting and they were like so and it is something that I realized after I did this in Berry City, Montpelier, in St. Alvin City in Rutland City and in Winooski all of them do not have a moderator instead it falls to their mayor which I didn't realize in the process that I was only reviewing charters for those that have mayors slightly different than us so we have asked Steve to come to a future meeting about that if you all are okay with this concept does the moderator that's it for what they do there's no other special meeting we would ever have okay it's a show up for one day and do your thing for one day and the fourth one is about holding the date for the annual meeting generally speaking I know in my professional worlds I have never really scheduled the meeting a year in advance it's always felt weird to do it and it's also another one of those things that we are fairly unique of reviewing various charters overwhelmingly the communities in Vermont do them on Town Meeting Day and that is written into their charter I don't think that we should move our meeting date to Town Meeting Day I would love for us to continue to vote with the school district so the intent of this is to be able to continue to have our meeting with the school districts so that way the community comes out and votes by ballot once but instead of asking the community a year in advance to set that date allowing the city council to make that decision which could then also help us be a little agile where say in instance like this or if we wanted to work with the school district on changing things we don't need to plan two years in advance totally in favor of this this is what I wanted to write I wanted our charter to say this original totally in favor of that let's do it that's the introduction so February 8th would be a so on the 25th we would need to have these introduced to February 8th we would need to warn the public hearings we need to have the public hearings on the 22nd and again on the 8th of March and then they would just need to be voted upon on the 11th there would still be time to potentially change the language at the 22nd meeting but not after that if I recall the statutes correctly process question please so we all had fun with charters for a while George had a lot of fun with charters this probably wouldn't make this legislative session it would be next January with this review or do you think this would get down to I don't think it being voted on in April 11th I don't believe it would so this is more of a next year so this none of this would actually impact our next annual meeting correct and it wouldn't go into effect likely until July 1st at the earliest of 2024 well or when the legislature proves excuse me prior to May let's say May 24th the latest right adjourn okay and I assume we would need to have similar to our existing charter some type of transitional provision that would specify when this would take effect right yeah so on the ballot this year we will still have a question of when we set the annual meeting date for next year yes we're gonna have to look at some calendars talk to some religious leaders figure out yeah okay yep this is why that phrase a pace of government is the way that it is one of the reasons alright so we are now at business item h right discussion of dog ordinance and rules of procedure this edf page 107 let me share it so the issue here is now that we've experienced our first dog bite hearing is just brought forward a number of different questions that I would categorize both in the category of rules of procedure and also in the policy category and this is not on here for action tonight this is again another discussion of item to see what what you folks want to do going forward but so the memo describes some of the procedural questions that came forward this is just real summarized feedback that we've received so far on those questions BLCT has a model rules of procedure and we could certainly have that prepared for the council if you want to take that approach and I would recommend that we do this certainly at some point whether we make policy changes and how we manage this or not bigger issue is the policy level question and so essentially what you've got now in the city is your ordinance chapter 5 that's pretty simple ordinance and so for this particular issue we rely on state statute which allows for dog biting a person not dog biting a dog the town has an ordinance a dog ordinance that is much more extensive than ordinance that we have and it essentially identifies this concept of a potentially vicious dog and allows the town to have a vicious dog bite hearing when a dog bites a dog if it meets that definition of a potentially vicious dog and it allows the town to basically put in an order that's really quite broad up to so not including euthanizing a dog so just pros and cons it's always I would say well not always but reacting to one situation is hard if a situation happens and we feel inadequate certainly there's a reason to think about it and look at it but just probably speaking generally if there's one particular issue it doesn't necessarily mean a policy change needs to happen and in this particular case I think it was certainly vicious and it was unprovoked and so it's a tough position to be in but I think one potential con is a dog biting a dog is we could definitely open up to a lot of issues coming forward on that front and that's not to say they wouldn't be important but you folks got a lot of government business on your plate another pro on the list is just again with all of our ordinances and our shared police department it is certainly helpful to have our ordinances online as best as we can so that those folks can know what rules they're following in which place so that's about it for this memo it's got a little bit more of the detail of what's in that town ordinance and again no specific action needed tonight just thoughts and discussion around whether you want to think about rules of procedure and whether you want to think about an ordinance change yeah do you want to go Raj? I'm just curious with the the way things stand now without this change to a potentially vicious dog we could have the same dog biting another dog over and over again for instance there's really nothing we can do about it or we can do this and identify and try to address a problem not that these are frequent the second question the town's had this for over a year probably a year or two ago have they seen an increase because I'm curious if the select board is overwhelmed so I think my opinion is yes I want to see some procedural changes I don't know that we need to we need the level of testimony that we had one way or the other right I also don't know that these need to be part of our regular meeting and that change to procedure and policy combined with this would help keep this efficient and also say that people spend an awful lot of money on their dogs and I know the state likes to consider them property right so if we're considering them property and someone someone's dog damages your speaking in terms of property I don't agree with this description someone damages your $4,000 item and your only recourse is to get a vet bill paid and the dog there's no recourse on the owner or anything else there's a little bit of a problem with that but it's just a weird I don't like thinking of living things as property in the first place but that's how we have to think about it some ways and I think this gives us an alternative to to address a repeat issues and you know just because the dog didn't happen to bite the human if the dog has got a repeat problem it was probably just sheer luck that someone wasn't holding the leash and turned around and got bit too so it's so unpredictable that I think having a more option of this is probably better I agree with what Raj said and I have been to several besides the one of our own that we just had the other two or three that I've been to in the town were exactly a similar situation where someone was walking their dog and another dog came out of a property, escaped from a property and attacked the dog that was on a leash under control and in the course of the very human reaction of the dog owner trying to break it up the dog owner was bit and I go one step further I think that I don't care if it's the attacking dog or the dog that's being attacked even if it's the dog that's being attacked that winds up that's just trying to defend itself and bites the owner I don't care as far as I'm concerned it was the attacking dog that's at fault and I would like to make first of all I don't want to complicate it I think we should be aligned with Essex town I don't think they're overwhelmed I don't get the sense that they're overwhelmed and I think it makes it better for the police to have a more consistent way in a more consistent way of proceeding can I just add one other thing I'd like to throw in here though when we got home when I got home and was thinking about this and with the incident we had they were talking about the electric fence and we had some issues about electric fence so I googled electric fence are they effective what's the most effective one when I got when I eliminated the one the electric fence retailers or people when you actually got to vets and dog specialists they all said the kind of thing that we said that if it's a big dog and if it's willing to put up with some pain it will go over that fence if it's motivated enough it's an effective barrier so and again not to revisit the whole thing but in terms of the scope of what we can impose on one of these incidents I would like to see some logic to it I would like to see some and who do we turn to if we say well you need to take that dog to a dog trainer will a certified dog trainer what does that mean is there some certification that's acceptable and some that's not is there some remedy so I would like to basically like sentencing guidelines in a jury I would like to see us have a range and have some kind of a logical way of approaching this if a pit bull attacks another dog and rips its throat out versus if someone's toy poodle goes and nips another dog on the butt we don't euthanize everybody we have to have some logic in there and I would like to have some logic and rationale to wholeheartedly agree with everything that you just said and for one yes these need to be their own meeting we can't have this as a part of our regular item having some kinds of procedures would be very beneficial as well as I think the five of us are generally concerned community members who want nothing but the best for our community but I don't think we are animal control experts and I don't think we are experts in how to control or train an animal but yet we are going to be put in the position of trying to assign to these situations what will best control an animal and prevent something from happening we're also not animal behavior experts and so being able to get into the mind of an animal and say yes this is why that happened is going to be very difficult for us so I think those are all some things that we're going to need to contend with into the degree possible that we're able to get some experts guidance on that whether that's the sentencing guidelines that you mentioned or something similar there too would be very beneficial also the other thing I'm curious on is given that we have the dog park in our community there isn't one in the town of Essex Indianbro kind of is functioning as that but it's a different story so I'm assuming we're going to get more requests or more of these types of hearings and I'm wondering is there some kind of a threshold that we could have the animal control officer play where that there's at least some evidence of this there's at least some kind of of something so that that way it's not necessarily just a my dog did this no my dog did not do this and we're here was trying to figure out okay two people saying the exact opposite things how are we going to move this forward it was very beneficial to have the home video that we had at this last hearing which from my understanding that is the rare exception and so if there's some kind of threshold we can have personally I think that would be helpful to make sure that we can make an informed non rash non emotional based decision but one that would have some level of fact to a degree possible Dan or Amber I concur with the comments Raj George yours I mean it's it's not an easy matter to handle and like Raj says it got quite lengthy with the comments from other people to do that in combination with the regular meeting it just extends it gets too much I would have to be separate I think the best way I agree everything said so far in that it is going to be difficult to determine when you've got he said she said who said this person says this and dogs but if there can be evidence of a dog by pictures whatever medical facts that are presented obviously are important to see and it's it's no easy answer but as I recall Rick Gary was here and when he said we should be looking at the town ordinance I agree with Regina if we can have some consistency across both communities so that the police aren't looking and saying wait this doesn't work here Amber was there anything you had yeah I agree with everything that everybody's already said the only other piece I'd add is if VLCT or other folks have trainings specific for us to engage in then and its staff and to see those that would be great if you could pass it along as we try to navigate these new territories like cannabis committee liquor control and stuff for things that we're just getting thrown into that we have no idea really what the process is thank you Amber and George didn't you attend I did I did attend and it was helpful but I can tell you it just sort of looked at state statutes it looked at the process I have to say I don't really think it got into the kind of substantive questions that we are that we were faced with it didn't get into that but they did advertise that they have their whole municipal law center an acronym for it but to go there and then there was some discussion about your dog officer but since we have the Essex police that are handling it for us but a lot of towns don't I mean there was a lot of discussion about that aspect if you because most towns in Vermont don't have a police department and so what do you do for a dog officer so it was very a lot of it was focused on that but it was worthwhile and I took some notes and I'll try to remember them and bring them in if they're relevant thank you I see there's two people and I didn't know if you were gonna I was gonna ask if the individuals who were here for the last part had anything that they wanted to make sure that we hear from your perspective having gone through the unfortunate circumstance that you did I appreciate everything that you've all said already and we hope that and we would just like to encourage the adults about this how it works right thank you and if I could just add I'm gonna say a lot of what Paul was probably said by some of you just now Raj, should I echo you a lot of what you just said though this could happen again tomorrow if she lives right next door with the dogs the two of them are with the dogs next in two seconds this could happen again tomorrow so I'll plead with you don't delay and do this as fast as you can save your dog this that's it's importance and then figure out all the details later it's working in essence and like I said the last time I was here this is not a dog bite this is a dog bite dog bite dog dog bite dog bite dog bite this was a vicious dog attack I don't think you'll see the dog potentially that it's all around the world from these kind of attacks that are going people like us coming to try to have some resolutions and if you adopt this you just have no flexibility to go through the discussions and flexible discussions based on the circumstances so I would just actually not delay it adopt this as soon as you can appreciate it thank you both there is a hand okay thank you Regina and there's also a comment for Annie I'll just say is there no longer space for public comment after agenda items I don't know if she raised her hand at some point but if she did I missed it if there is a hand raised who says it Elise Serda pronounced it correctly Elise go ahead the floor is yours oh great thank you so registered dog owner here and foster parent to over 13 dogs by this point so this is really of interest to me to manage the council to really look into the pivotal point that I've heard in other communities is animal control right the animal control officer if we do have one or access to one should be sort of that focal point for any kind of animal interactions especially with dogs but there are also other avenues for and to Raj's point I love dogs so I don't look at them as property but small claims court we also have other communities that have bite levels so and I know that's mostly involved with human beings but if it's a level one bite, if it's a level two bite it's a level three bite to George's point it kind of dictates how it gets handled but it usually gets handled through animal control and I will say this having a dog park which we go to every day dogs are biting each other all the time not to the level of the vicious behavior ripping a throw it out but dogs bite each other they bite in play, they bite out of frustration they bite out of anger and even great dogs well trained dogs do that sometimes so I do have a worry as a resident and a dog owner that you will this is dog biting other dogs is going to be a lot more frequent than them biting human beings and that is this the appropriate is the council the appropriate place to bring those type of complaints as opposed to you know another method in animal control person or you know even if it does escalate to the point that there is a very large vet bill or some concern about behavior small claims so I just do wonder is how are other communities handling this and not putting the council in the position of having to be judge and jury when it is not necessarily your expertise so that's the I'd love to see more conversation and more research about this before we sort of move forward and say this sits in your camp thank you thank you and we adopt the town ordinance and work on on that question or those questions you know what I'm saying like it sounds like we want both like we want to extend what the town has but we can then take the time to finesse it we can what it means is we live with the ordinance and then the other things we just need to figure out as we go okay I don't disagree with what Elise said I don't see any other hands okay thank you Regina so I think we are done with that agenda item and it will come back at a very soon meeting to help move the ordinance process forward and I think I said it in the memo but just to be clear because essentially we're thinking about just looking at the draft ordinance that's already in place and can have Claudine look at that pretty quickly we have talked previously about other ordinance changes that are bigger items and staff just doesn't have the resources to move those right now but this I would put in a different bucket because it's pretty much good to go it is helpful to have one that's already in existence being tested it makes that process a lot easier and faster yep thank you so that is the end of our business items and we move into the consent I'll move that we approve the consent agenda I'll second that any further discussion hearing none I'll favor please signify by saying aye those opposed say nay next we have the reading file and board member comments and George I know you have something I do have something I don't want to take up to my perhaps a little self-indulgent I don't want to take up the board's time if we want to delay it for some other night take me about five minutes I got it you've got five minutes let me give you the cell here first and do you have this ready to go up as I as we have our swan song coming off the board Dan and I we used to have and every members we used to have a kind of a blue sky session at the beginning of each new trustee term where we talked about things short term goals and long term goals and Dan's long term goals way back when was to have an indoor recreation facility and so people who think they've been thinking about indoor recreation facilities my colleague Dan Karen has you beat by many many years okay it's something we've always wanted to have and one of the problems we had was where do you put it and then one of the other problems I've had over the years is I would like to have seen something better have I would like to see something happen with Stevens Park where we respect what the park is which is a beautiful wooded area in the middle of the city but also has some other kind of use anyway long story short I just want to throw out the idea to plan in people's minds as we go forward in planning the community and doing strategic planning and all that stuff and I hope I can come to those planning sessions next summer or whenever they're going to take place but I'd like to plant this in this seed in a few people's minds what I did was I took basically the the Miller building at CVE which houses Nordic Soccer and I transported it and dropped it in the middle of Stevens Park and I did that to see how big a fit it would be now the Miller building is probably about three times the size of the facility that we would need let me just as a scale if you see it right there in the middle of Stevens Park it probably Nordic Soccer indoor facility takes up about maybe a quarter of that building and what I wanted to see when I did this and unfortunately this satellite shot of Stevens Park was taken in the fall so you don't really see the fully leafed out park there but the whole point was if you put a building this size in the middle of the park you would still have a massive boundary of wooded area all around the periphery of the park so the people who live on the boundary of the park and who live around the park would not see any diminishment from a street view or from the backyards or from their houses they would not see any loss of the wooded area and again we just to orient everyone the arrow on the lower left hand corner right below that arrow is the Essex Westford School District Administration Building that parking lot behind it holds so you could imagine that that little piece of parking lot going right next to the building so you could have a pretty significant facility right in the middle of the downtown with plenty of parking that would not in any way impact the neighborhood it would impact it positively I think it would also give you an opportunity to perhaps groom the woods a little bit put in a nice walking trail around the boundary and if I just go to the next one and I'm going to be real fast here folks and why is this a good idea because there are lots of places you could put this facility you could put it on the outskirts of the city but then you are privileging it by having it just be accessible by people who can drive there or by kids whose parents can drive them there you put it in the downtown in Stevens Park and I just wanted to show how completely accessible and walkable it is for everybody certainly for Indian acres in the entire South Street West Street area people could walk there kids can walk there from school kids can walk there from ADL from the high school certainly even elementary school it would work as a if you can kind of see in this picture Maple Street Park way over on the right hand side it would seem to be a kind of an alternative place I know that Maple Street Park has a lot of after school programs is a huge demand on their space and they are needing more space so again if we put in a building like this at Stevens Park you could have some of it used for after school programs you could even potentially put a senior center there long term and I really do believe in the core of the city you would bring people into the downtown which is something that we want to continue to do it brings those community connections together I just wanted to throw it out long term project but when we are planning for the future doing strategic planning I think this is something we should definitely have in mind and again let me emphasize I think the biggest problem you are going to have in doing something like this obviously the funding is that the people who live on the boundary of the park are not going to want to lose their wooded area I have been around long enough and no matter where you are in the city people who live on the boundary of some beautiful wooded area never want to lose that wooded area but I think we have to have a respectful conversation if we decided to go in this path that we would have a minimum impact and it would actually be an improvement and by the way the park is a public space it is owned by the city and it really should be utilized by the whole city I will finish by saying I know one time there was a playground in that park and the park the use of the park is actually declined over the last 30 years and I don't think it ever really get off the ground it has just been lying fallow and I think that you could finally find a use for this park that would be a win for everybody so what a planet everyone's mind when you start thinking about big picture stuff maybe this will continue so you are going to run this project just live right down the street no everything George said I agree but the park is underutilized when my daughter was very little we used to go there and there was a slide and there were some bouncy metal animal things on springs and I remember getting stung when there was a beehive in one of them but anyhow the park itself has problems with water drainage, water pooling and the trees in a way it's double edged sword I guess you can look at it it's beautiful but it also prevents people from being seen some nefarious deeds are done there I'm not going to go into details but police officers here in our community over the years and they concur with that so by clearing out some of those trees letting some sunlight in there and dry it out more eyes on it people would not be so bold to do things when they are being watched by other people maybe it can be seen I know when I first saw this the first thing that popped into my mind is you can essentially replicate much of what the YMCA does in Burlington but have that right here it's a massive junction so many people could walk, bike indoor pool maybe even an indoor hot set let's not go crazy here but there's a helipad on the roof no we don't want to go too crazy here but I think it is something to definitely think about it's interesting and that's a massive building you need a building maybe a third or a quarter of that I think that the lot I think the park is 8.2 really amazing isn't it it's a great big idea I just wanted to see what would fit there it fits perfectly Elise I think I see your hands up talk about like minds George Tyler there is a community group that's gotten together and been talking about Stevens Park to a grant opportunity that's available and the idea that came up I live in the neighborhood too I'm right down the street so I have to say that talking about bringing more arts to the community so I'd encourage I understand and get that Rec might need more room but I'd really like to see how we could bring more arts into the community and then also the walkability I think is key here the concern is a neighbor would be parking and the traffic West gets pretty busy anyway and if we're looking where people coming in but I love the idea of utilizing that park we walk past it all the time and it's just not used for anything and Dan is right we do have issues with crime in that area you don't walk through that area so I think putting something in that space that draws people into it would be fantastic and I would love if people could walk to theater there like a theater in the park that would be awesome you know somebody from Essex players who might be interested in finding a home so I just want to say I love this idea and I think we could really get community members on board to help with this I just think it's an amazing opportunity so I'm all for it George let's come up with something good and Lisa I didn't pay you to say all this right amazingly enough no George but you should probably give me $600 to $500 if I could just one other thing I had meant to the bottom blue arrow if you go back or you don't even have to go back to the thing but the Essex Westford school district administration building is right there and they have another building up in the town and that's because neither building is the right size and I think I'm going to make a long term prediction but I think within the decade that building is going to be available I think eventually the school district is going to want to consolidate and I'm going to guess boy you play musical chairs with buildings but the town is already talking about building a new administrative office building I've always felt that 81 Main Street a consolidated school administration building it's right next to the high school it's got a great big meeting room and it would be perfect for them so if all that happens and you have some constructive visionary conversations about these buildings that little building right there we used to call the Discovery Museum that could also be a senior center an art center and you could combine it with whatever you're going to do in the park so I think I'd like to get people thinking at least about this as a real opportunity to win all the way around really improve the area and really help revitalize our downtown and accessibility for everybody and not just for people with cars another option to this whole thing the park itself on Southview Road if you enter Southview Road from South Street the road itself is extremely wide as you turn on off to Southview that was intentional for parking for students' park and as well when you round the corner from Park Street on to South Street there's a white house on the corner and there's a patch an opening that's part of the park that would allow I guess I don't know if you could put a curb cut there but even further up where the signage is across from Southview Road possibly for a curb cut there to enter the park or what have you so there's many ways or like George said where the Essex Retro School District uses that building was the Discovery Museum that there's a path that walks through the back there but as Elise was saying it's risky for many people to walk back oh yeah sorry very much so the school district they don't like to be there after dark to go out to their parks that's what they built only comment I wanted to make changing topics the in our reading file we have the permit application and events that are planned from Champlain Valley Expo so for those who are wondering when those events are going to be or if you are in the community wondering what type of events are going to be happening at the Expo this year you can see the dates of which event is happening when for your own planning and Regina in the past this is something that has been put at a some try to be put somewhere that can be easily accessible by the community and so if that could be put onto the websites that would be greatly appreciated well do it's too bad they haven't identified who's in concert it's like a lot of higher ground on here who's going to be and other questions comments great I would entertain a motion to adjourn wait what do I do there is a hand Annie Cooper Annie go ahead remove the motion earlier I tried to I guess I'm just out of sync with how the public comment is working I don't seem to be I understood it should happen after each agenda whatever my comment is about the Stevens proc idea and stuff and these are great ideas that I've long been a fan of I can't applaud all of this enough it is very clear to me we are seven years late for having a reconvisory committee Elise just alluded to a meeting that happened last night that has community discussion about these things you've got community engagement about these things we were able to create in a very short amount of time a committee for our village our voices the rec department as a matter of fact created that committee we were then able to create two committees for the hiring of the lovely and one sort of lovelies I didn't mean to be wonderful of Regina Mahoney if we were able to create three committees in a really short amount of time and we're seven years overdue for a reconvisory committee for a rec department that brings has a budget of 4.6 million we really can't have these discussions until we put that reconvisory committee in place thank you that's a good point thank you any very good Dan very good point I'm going to adjourn rush second great any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye great so pass unanimously thank you all thank you have a good night