 While we're waiting, I volunteered for a COVID vaccination clinic today. First item will be the minutes and we just need three of us to enjoy on Gordon. We'll be abstaining because they weren't here for that meeting, so we now have a quorum and just waiting for Gordon, but perhaps we can go ahead and get the meeting started and get the minutes taken care of. Move that we approve the meeting's minutes for the meeting held on February 2nd subject to modification. Second. There's a second. Okay. Page one and page two. Terry, one thing on page two under item number six, comfort dog program update. If one of the things I'm recollecting is the amount of donations that have come in and support of the program exceed their expenses. Yes. And I just wonder if it's worth mentioning, which is pretty impressive. It's worth mentioning that in the minutes. That's probably true because it was shown on the screen. So probably a good idea. Okay. Good. Thank you. I had a couple of minor things too. Under the number seven, the policy on animal trapping on town land in the middle of the paragraph. It says there was also testimony and trapping being legal in the state. So the town cannot enact the policy and it should read prohibiting trapping on private land rather than prohibited. Oh, yeah. And then the next one on the number eight, the second bullet, it's the fire trucks. We had two of them, two of them purchased with the bond. And under number nine, other business, it should be talking about the House Government Operations Committee. On age 140, the charter changes. If there's nothing else on page two or three, then they call those. Well, I see the only thing I had on page three is I noticed that at the end, the select board entered executive session at 830 p.m. and then it says, my cage closed executive session. Yeah, I did. That's the sounds like sounds like a like a Marine drill sergeant calling you out. You like to insert chair on that? Yeah, perhaps. All those in favor of approving the minutes of February, February 2, 2021, signify by raising their hands. One, two, three and joy of standing. Yes. Okay. So we're on to public comment. And is your Eric, is there anyone indicated that they wish to speak at this time? Not that's been identified. Terry, one person would like to speak later on in the meeting on another agenda item and I advised her when that was going to be be up. So I don't see anyone else like to speak on another topic at this time. Okay. Then we'll move on to the Willis-Key Valley Park District report. And if Nick Warner is ready to present, we're ready for him. Yep, I see Nick, I'm going to connect you, Nick. And let's see, our representative, John is also on it and Lauren from your office. So I'll check with you once you get connected, if I should connect other folks here too. Nick, you'll just have to enable your camera and audio as it's promulgated to a panelist here. I got to write the first time. How often does that happen? And Lauren has some documents that you'd like to put up on the screen as we present. Perfect, I'll connect Lauren and John as well. Yes, please do. John and Lauren, I'm going to check both of you right now as well. So welcome everybody and to the select board meeting and we're ready for your presentation. Thank you, folks. I really appreciate it. And Lauren is going to put some stuff up on the screen. We put together, there's one document you didn't get from us yet, which is so we just did a very current update document, which we'll also email to you, but we just, you know, this is like up to the minute stuff. And first of all, I just wanted, as always, thank the town of Williston for their continuing support over the years. And we've had a great journey together. COVID has certainly thrown us some curveballs, but as I'm sure is the case with Parks and Williston, we have been in a good way overrun by users. You know, at the beginning of COVID, it was all about making decisions on whether we should be opening parks back when there was a real lack of information on what transmission issues were. And then pretty much on day one of the stay at home order, our parking lots started filling up. And we really became focused on, OK, we want to be the best damn host we can possibly be. And our whole focus this year, not our entire focus, but especially in the beginning is how can we create a situation where people feel welcomed and also safe at the same time. And it's, I got to say that writ large, our park users have been fantastic. With the exception of some trash dumping when Solid Waste District was closed down, we've found people to be incredibly respectful of the parks. And the usership, I at times like this, I wish I had some way to automatically count them. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's at least doubled, maybe tripled in some parks day and night, even though you're not supposed to go to parks at night. People go across country skiing at night. And the whole the whole system has been, you know, taxed in a really good way. So I just we're thrilled about that. We see that even after COVID, you know, a large percentage of these folks have created new habits and we think it may be a new era for outdoor recreation. I don't know if you're seeing the same thing, but certainly the other towns I've talked to are seeing the same impact on their parks. Specific to our work in Williston, we were thrilled and this this is in this write up that we that we did for you. We're thrilled that by the end of the season, even though we did not hire seasonal workers this year because of our concerns around what might happen with funding. That Tim and Remy were able to both maintain our parks and do some work under contract with Melinda for the town of Williston. And that's what in this document, he laid out the work that was that had gotten done. That's that's a model that's really worked well for both of our organizations in that, you know, it keeps us connected on a relationship basis. It brings in some income to the park district. And it gives you guys, frankly, some good cheap professional labor to get your work done. So that relationship has been great. And, you know, we are making progress with Jacob property again. I have stayed connected with Pastor Randy Boardman over at the church, who's from day one has been welcoming the concept of hosting a parking lot and trailhead at the church as as being a huge positive, both for his organization and the community generally. And the right now Melinda is I think she's trying to find the original documentation of a right of way that goes along the edge of the Global Foundry's property, which will connect with the with the church parcel to complete that pathway. And once we get that in place, we have a verbal agreement from the church and we want to get legal the legal agreements. written up before we finalize any formal request for transfer from the town to us to do the park because if that access is not secured, we feel the park is a lot less viable and it would be concerning. It would put a lot of pressure on the area neighborhoods to have cars parking up and down the road and using informal accesses so anyway it's it's we've lurched forward again on on on that process. I haven't connected with Linda will lend over the last two weeks, so I meant to call her today, but I forgot before the meeting because I had a trustee meeting also today, but that process is going forward and the church has just been a tremendous partner and they're very enthusiastic about the access. So what that would mean is there'd be a shared parking lot that can hold about 10 or 15 cars in a trailhead, they would maintain the trail going up to the edge of their property and then we pick up the maintenance, and we have to build a bridge across that stream to pick up the right away along the edge of the global foundry's property, which goes directly into the Eastern money, most extent of the property which I know a few members about a 29 acre parcel. So we're thrilled about that my board is psyched about it. And we are, once we get that legal piece put together. We'll be coming back to the conservation board and presumably you guys to discuss if there's any other issues that the town has and what they'd like to see in any kind of transfer agreement if that is still on the table which we certainly hope it is. And it's been a good year for us in that I think it's, you know, you're the last of the presentations I'm doing with select boards. I gotta tell you we're getting a lot of support this year. We went in very conservatively concerned with the initial data that there might be up to a 30 or 35% dip in revenues at the municipal level. I did a round of communications with various time managers, including Eric to sort of get their opinion on how we should proceed. So we, we tried to mimic our towns in terms of being very conservative of their expenditures as I said we did not hire our seasonals which put a lot of pressure pressure on our, our crew but frankly we all pitched in. And we still are. And the parks are looking great. And, but it looks like the revenue hit is not as major as it could be but we're still holding our breath until we get past town meeting day to see how fiscal year 22 looks. You can see from the budget we submitted. It is still a very modest budget relative to the services we provide I feel like it's even lower than what we, the staff initially presented to our board. So let's head it back to us and say, make it smaller. So anyway, it's been a great process, but it's also very realistic and grounded and experienced over the last few years that we're going to be able to accomplish what we need to. Once again the model is, we try to hang on to our capital reserves we about 200,000 capital reserves that we try to keep at that level. In any projects we try to use grant funds or donations, or in kind services to support so that model remains we carry no debt. And we, you know our trustees are meeting monthly John that lures your representative you're very well represented. There's just quite a few things going on we finished off the, the, our newest park which is the doorway code park at the mouth mouth of the new ski river. Utilizing VHCB and VCF funding. We completed a, there was a donation of 10 acres that added on to Colchester pond. We completed that donation. That's going to allow us to create a new access at some point in the future. And also allows an access for new housing developments was a kind of a win win situation. And there is some very strong possibility of getting some major funding to do capital upgrades across our park system. We, a lot of our assets, you know we own. Several buildings, historic buildings over there all in good shape and they're all functioning but from day one in this job it felt like we need an injection so we're going after some, some funds, which I can't tell you much about now but I will be able to in a couple of months. If we're successful. So we're hoping to do some major capital upgrades this year. We made a philosophical decision before coven, which was to, even though we had great success with our numbers with our soul camp program and a brought in a lot of revenue, it was really stretching our staff pretty thin. And we felt like we need to focus on what our main mission is which is acquisition and maintenance of high quality conservation areas and the incremental growth growth of our of our system. We feel great about how that's working out. We expanded the footprint of the forest preschool which is one of our tenants which means more money in our pocket which means more services to kids. There was a period of time when we're everyone, everything was shut down and we were able to get a small grant the consultant who assisted us and getting funding for the preschool and for the museum so they didn't have to close their doors and they were able to pay their staff and they reopened. You know, knock on wood they've been able to function without any COVID issues. We did like everyone we did the installation of air filters we upgraded our age back we did electrical systems. And so it's been quite a challenging year but we've really leaned into it and been really energized by the increased use of our parks and all the new. People have never been to parks before who call us up and, you know, ask us, you know, tell us how much they love in the questions they have about different parts. And our, you know, we asked for modest increase in our budget. The overall budget is is lower but we're asking for slightly more from the towns and that seems counterintuitive but that's a result of the intentional cutting of our programs which meant that, you know, there's a $16,000, I believe it's $16,000 of income that we decided to forego but that's starting to get back filled by the lease that we're the lease income that we're getting from the forest preschool because we just renegotiated lease with them. And we also once COVID backs down a little bit more be able to ramp up our contracted work with you guys in the city of South Burlington, and when new ski, at least so far, we'd like to expand that that service. So we're feeling pretty good right now, you know was going you know last March and April we're touching go for everybody. But our park usage and the, the behavior of people in our parks and the support that we've gotten politically has been tremendous. And so we're, we're in a good spot now we're a better spot than we thought we might be a few months ago. And I welcome any questions about the numbers you see in front of you and our operations. Thank you for the award. How many questions regarding the budget. Nick, I'll start if that's okay. Sure Jeff. How are you. I'm doing well it's good to see you. Good seeing you. So I'm on page two of the in our packet. And it mentions. Un broker the Michael Lane access. And I didn't understand that was offset due to and it says folding. It's supposed to be flooding flooding. I can tell you that's what it was. Okay. It makes sense. I should have picked up on the F word that was meant. Oh, wait, that didn't come out right. You know what I mean. Yes. Yes. Okay. Moving on. I'm on the letter that was actually sent to Eric in October 9th. And what I'm picking up on is the request is for 37,204 dollars. But I went back and checked my notes about our budget, and I believe we budgeted slightly less than that, 35060 for Winooski Valley Park District. Interesting. So, well, the first question I guess actually is for Eric or Shirley is, did I get that number correct? Or did I make an error? That's a possibility. No, I don't think so. If I went through what you presented. I think that number that we included in our budget and that's been set, I mean, hasn't been voted on yet, but it's been set in terms of sending to the voters. I think we based it on last year's amount for some reason. And I'm sure there's a reason. So, well, if Eric or Shirley may not be able to get to be able to respond tonight. I'm moving to the budget itself, and I just want to make sure I understand. So, this budget has already been voted on. It's already been decided. It is the budget for fiscal year 2022. Yes, the trustees have approved it. Okay. I just want to make sure that's what that meant. Absolutely. I picked up on the municipal support is going up slightly while the budget is going down, but correct. And it seems to me to be the big reason is the you called it intentional cutting of programs. Correct. Where last year you had almost 40,000 in that line item as a source of revenue. So, my question becomes as maybe I'm being way too optimistic, but my hope is with the vaccination COVID, some of the restrictions will start to be lifted. I don't expect we'll ever go back to the world as we once knew it. But hopefully we can progress in terms of what feels normal. And I guess my question is, I should say, I guess my question is, is it possible that the district will be able to run programs this summer? Or is that no longer possible because of the decision the board made? Oh, it's just the model has changed. We what we want to do is work with other organizations to provide programming. So that's okay. I read that in your introductory letter. Okay. All right. Yeah. And I get it. So the answer and but the direct answer to your question is maybe. Yeah. We actually have talked about this. We have a picnic shelter. That's been a five year process to ramp up to that level. So they are very solid tenant. I think it was very solid. But we did give up the interior space for the camp. But we still have a picnic shelter. So we would like to see where we're going to approach Burlington parks and recreation initially to see if they want to do some kind of pilot camp program. But we're unsure what COVID is going to be. We're unsure what the restrictions are going to be. So we still have some concerns about it. But it is part of our mission to provide environmental education. Right now it's being provided to preschoolers through a tenant. But we haven't given up on Lawrence on the call. She hasn't given up. She has morphed into our operations manager. But her background the last couple of years has been developing these fantastic programs. It's just the problem is it just took too much of a toll on the rest of our operation. There's only four of us. I see no reason for us to increase our staffing except for seasonally. And it became clear that other organizations are interested and able to provide programming. We started those conversations before COVID hit. And then we just had to drop the ball for a number of months. As we just there were too many unknowns. Okay. And then my last question or maybe it's more of a comment is in the past Willis-Sin has I'm trying to think of what the best commented on. Maybe it's the best way to put it on the formula that's used to determine the municipal participation. And as I understand it the board was willing to take a look at that. Is there anything you can provide about has the board looked at it? Is there a possibility that that formula will change in the future? It goes in cycles. We certainly have not even talked about it for the last year in all honesty. We've had very intense looks at it. We've done a lot of number runs using poverty levels using acreage so on and so forth. And I think my board keeps coming back to feeling that it's the simplest most progressive way that we can divvy up the pie. If it goes to acreage then you know the whole concept of us being a regional organization really becomes a different. It's a different approach and I'm not sure it would be politically viable. So we haven't we've not avoided the issue but every time we go into we look deeply. We look at the numbers and then we come back to feeling as if the system we have in place is actually potentially the most progressive one that we can do. That's simple enough for people to understand. I was putting together algorithms and you know people just had to stop me at some point because I am interested in poverty levels. I'm interested in impacts on municipalities based on you know people's real ability to pay. It just gets so complicated that people can't understand what it is we're coming up with and then it becomes the more mysterious it is the more difficult it is to get people to buy into it. But I'm more than happy to go back to my board. If you guys have a specific if you want us to take another look at it with a especially with a specific angle where my board would be happy to do that. We meet monthly they're very engaged. It's a conversation we're very willing to have. Okay good we and we may get back to you. Okay good yeah yep. All right that's it for me. Thank you Jeff a couple of minutes left before the public information hearing. Does John have any comments he wishes to make before we sign off? Not really. It's been a good I guess it's almost two years now since I've been on the board. And I find the organization to be very vibrant and active considering that they only have four people. They seem to be very responsible and responsive to needs. And the first thing I did when I joined the group was go out and walk all the parks. I've been doing a lot of walking this year because there's not much else to do. And so I can contest that the parks are very active and giving a lot of recipients and users so it's been good. Thank you John. Thank you for your service to the town on this particular board. So I appreciate it very much and thank you Nick and Lauren. Thank you for your presentation tonight and thank you again. And we'll perhaps be in touch with something about the funding. Happy to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. So it is 730 and time for the public information hearing on town meeting 2021. Eric Wells and Shirley Goodell Lackey will do the presentation tonight on that and take it away Shirley and Eric. Thanks Terry. I'm getting Shirley connected here and for folks watching at home I've got a presentation will be going over for about 15 minutes or so and then there'll be an opportunity for any questions for staff on the on town meeting 2020. So I'll get the presentation on the screen here. Hi Shirley. Hello. Jeff and to answer your question you're right we missed the increase in their fees. I look back at the budget and I will look back at the letter from October and it does say 37,204. Well stealthy way to decrease it slightly. All right I think I'll say can everyone see the presentation okay? Yes. Okay so I'll be doing a couple of things at once here. I've got notes on the side and presentation on the screen and Zoom going on too. So for folks at home I'll be doing a couple things at once here but good evening everyone. Thanks for tuning in this evening to our virtual public information hearing on town meeting 2021. We'll also be having a second public information hearing as required the day before town meeting and this we're doing it this evening as well to give folks an opportunity to learn about the articles on the ballots a little earlier as I know early voting's been going on right now so folks can be informed before they cast their ballot. So town meetings can be a little bit different this year with COVID going on. And I'll just start off by reviewing some key dates. So as I mentioned we have our first public information hearing tonight. There'll also be a second opportunity March 1st using Zoom as well and this will be instead of the in-person meeting at Wilson Central School as is usually held the night before town meeting day. Voting by Australian ballot will take place on Tuesday March 2nd from 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening at the Armory and again absentee and early voting is available now. There's a number of ways to request your ballots I'll get through at the end of the presentation but for the board as well I checked with town clerk Sarah Mason today and we have just about 600 absentee requests received so far and Sarah told me in a normal year we usually get about 500 and last year with the presidential primary we were around 600 as well so we expect some more requests to come in in the next two weeks. So as folks review the town meeting warning and ballot this year you'll see the general fund budget proposal is the main article under consideration or a couple of articles I'll address later in the meet in the presentation. Before we jump into the fine details a bit it's fine it's good to take a step back and look at what a budget is. So a budget's a plan it includes the services that were provided the cost of those services and the revenue to pay for those services. The budget is the best revenue and spending model with the information available and as staff worked through the budget proposal last fall on the slack board reviewed it in December and January COVID-19 certainly add another layer to the review process this year for for the budget and as we look at some of the bottom line numbers the proposed operating budget is just over five eleven and a half million dollars and this represents a reduction of just under a hundred thousand dollars from the FY 21 budget or a point eight six percent reduction in operating expenses. With this proposed budget the projected property tax rate is level at point two seven five zero cents. As a reminder the final rate will be set in July by the slack board after the grand list is finalized this spring by by the town listers and through the assessor's office and I'll address this further in the presentation but the grand list is flat in this budget projection per town assessor Bill Hinman as we looked at revenue projections moving ahead. So I'm going to toss it over to Shirley now to take a take a closer look at some of the numbers on the expense side of the budget. Thank you Eric. So Eric has highlighted the major changes by expense classification so wages we're looking at a three point two percent increase that is primarily we have a one point four cost of living increase built into the budget and a two percent merit increase. There are some reductions and wages in there as well in positions I should say that offset that three point four percent if you do the math debt service increase looks big but we have the three projects that are in the budget. First of all is the one point four million that we're going to talk about later tonight with the bond documents but that was the debt service approved by the voters in March of 2019 for the two new fire trucks that are being built and to be delivered in early April. The other new debt in there is our share of the muddy brook that's the the bridge between South Burlington and Williston that's 900,000 and last is the fire station roof the asphalt shingles did not hold up quite as long as we hoped so we're looking at 100,000 of debt short term debt probably like five years and and replacing the asphalt roof with a metal roof that is projected to last 50 years. In regards to the programs it looks like we have a decrease of 20 percent but that's not really true it's really we in relation to the library budget we used to split out the general library services and IT and programs and program wages would become program expense all of the library wages now sit in the wage budget so that's that really that number just moved from programs to wages so if unless there are questions we can go to the next one Eric. Good but I think we'll probably go through surely and then we can look if there's questions from the public. Okay here's the here's the graphic. I have a cat nudging my leg here. So this is a graph of the the apartments and how much of the budget each of them makes up so what I'm going to talk about in here is something that you don't see so I'm looking at a chart which you don't see that shows this year FY 21 versus FY 22 budget and just wanted to talk about a couple of the the larger increases larger increases but still not huge dollars but we'll look at the town clerk budget first clerk elections there's actually a 22 percent decrease in that budget which is only a two percent but one one full time position was eliminated from the town clerks and that is replaced with full time with benefits and that's been replaced with a very part time position and also all of the treasurer's wages have been reallocated to administration to sort of finance because finance the treasurer really reports within finance now. The other planning and zoning is only four percent of the budget but they did have a seven point one percent decrease year over year and that is primarily the decrease and their consulting fees their miscellaneous planning studies which has to do with the implementation of the form-based code because part of that was started in the FY 21 budget expected to be finished in the FY 22 budget. Perks and Rex four percent of the budget but they do have a 14 percent decline in their budget and that is primarily again related to the pandemic we were hoping to hire actually was this year's budget as well another full time recreation person to help with additional programming but with COVID we have put that off in the FY 22 budget not to begin until May prior to the start of all the summer programs and camps and contracted programs and contracted camps so fingers crossed that the pandemic and the status of vaccination will let us get back to a little bit more normal programming for the community. Outside services five percent of the budget but there was a seven point six percent increase and that is primarily our contribution to the Chittenden County Public Service Authority it's a 34,000 investment and that is the regional dispatch that we are looking at and unless you have questions those were the largest changes year over year and budgets so we'll we can and actually I think at this point Eric it gets tossed back to you to talk about revenue. Thanks Shirley. Talk about the other side of the budget here is the revenue side of how services are paid for and I've got a graphic on the screen that lists our main revenue sources among them property taxes, local option taxes and a number of fees that are collected for town services. In developing the FY 22 budget a primary area of focus was the revenue side of the budget. COVID-19 has affected a number of revenue streams for the town and as we look at kind of our big three areas of revenue as property tax, local option tax and town fees and other other income sources so in any year and impact on one of these three major areas would would cause a close examination in the budget process and in this year we had impacts in all three areas to consider as we as we prepare this budget and we're hopeful positive news will continue with with COVID moving ahead but this budget takes a conservative approach to predicting revenue so I'm just going to briefly touch on each of these three areas and and how it's been impacted in FY 22. The local option tax we use information to help predict what those income receipts will be each year and based on our modeling we're predicting a $25,000 reduction that was put in the FY 22 budget. We use data from March to December of last year to see what the COVID impact was on our local option taxes collected. We typically budget these using a three-year rolling average so as we look to address that average in this budget the last year was certainly affected by COVID to not make it a usual year and as we looked at this our sales revenue over the last year for those receipts was expected and this is the vast majority the greatest amount of local option tax collected from a percentage standpoint and this was a little rarer than we had budgeted in our current fiscal year FY 21 and FY 21 we were looking at this rooms and meals tax on the other hand was much lower and our financial model continues to scale back that income from rooms and meals and gradually decreases that impact over the year as we as we hope COVID's impact has has diminished over FY 22. Next when we look at user fees investments and other income there's a $93,000 reduction in that revenue stream a couple items of note there previous years the town clerk's office has been able to offer passport services currently not sure when that may be able to occur if it will be able to be a service that's offered coming moving forward and also the investment income for the town has been decreased by about $64,000 in the budget this is based on the economy and how well the town's funds are receiving returns that are in certificate deposit and money market accounts we've predicted based on the current interest rate trends there and this is offset a bit by an increase of about $75,000 in recording of legal documents predicted to the current real estate market primarily and finally the property taxes in the grand list that as I mentioned the town assessor advises to budget using a flat grand list due to the current economic climate and this is a big shift Wilson's grand list has grown one to 2% most years for the last 20 years and the final grand list will be set in the spring and we're taking a conservative approach based on the assessor's recommendation at this time so I share an awful lot right now and we look how do we how do we address these revenue stream changes in the budget proposal the use of fund balance for property tax relief has increased about $76,000 in this budget and as I mentioned the expenditure lines are decreased about $100,000 to offset these revenue decrease so with a visual of this when you look at the pie chart of how the town collects its revenue typically think of these three buckets property tax is about 50% local option tax is about 25% then everything else the last 25% that that makes up the revenue streams for the town and truly I'm going to toss it back to you for a brief discussion on property taxes here then I will have some time for some questions or tax rate rather so with with all the unknowns while we were developing this budget because of COVID you know nobody having their little crystal ball and like how long will the pandemic affect us how will it affect our taxpayers our businesses you know what happens when the government funding stops that's like we're made a decision to keep the tax rate flat to reduce any impact on our taxpayers and trying to manage you know their own budget with with the current economic environment so as Eric already said our tax rate remains flat the taxes reflected here 275 thousand 275 dollars is based on a hundred thousand dollar grand list value if you want to slide ahead so this is reflecting Williston's tax rate history over 13 years so over 13 years our tax rate has increased 0.075 percent a pretty amazing and I think some awful good financial management of the town and we got in you know regards to looking at revenues and expenses and and minimizing the burden to the taxpayer we have another chart which we don't have in here but it shows the last five years and if you were look at the last five years of taxes on a hundred thousand dollar house the taxes would have increased $12 that's pretty amazing considering all other costs would not have gone up by just $12 over five years I just think we've done a good job we meaning the people who work for the town and this life board to maintain and improve services while you know minimizing the financial burden on the residents of the town of Williston and then the last chart I think it's pretty impressive too for several years Williston has been had the second lowest tax rate in the county with Sherlock being the lowest tax rate so again kudos to folks prior to me and the select board for working hard to keep keep the financial burden at a minimum while providing services to the taxpayers and I'm back to you Eric thank you Shirley just a a couple of other items to to mention before we wrap up so there are some other articles on the ballot that voters will see article one and as you mentioned these are typically voted from the floor at town meeting and since we can't have the regular in-person town meeting this year we we've put these on the ballot for approval so article one set is to set the dates and for tax payments and article two is to accept the annual report and as I mentioned there's a number of ways to request an earlier absentee ballot you can contact town clerk Sarah Mason by giving her a call or an email you can visit the state website portal to request an absentee ballot the ballots have arrived and they're being mailed out as requests come in as quickly as the town clerk's office can process them and then if you do request an absentee early or early ballot you can return it in the postal mail they'll be prepaid envelope provided for any ballots requested we also have our drop box behind town hall the drive-up drop box that was installed last summer or you can drop off your ballot at the armory on march 2nd between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and it will be opened for in-person voting if you prefer to vote in person that day as well and if you're interested in learning more we have the complete operating and capital budgets for review on the town website and reports have arrived i'll have it on the website tomorrow we have a few hard copies available if anyone would like to request one of those please contact us in the town hall of another public information here and come into march 1st and always questions are welcome to encourage to myself and town staff please reach out to me with a phone call or email and we'll make sure your question is answered so that's the end of the slide show let's see stop because if anyone's you know stopping at the library eric i did deliver a big stack of the town report as you go in to pick up your your books or craft kits or whatever's been supplied right between the library doors there's a big stack of town reports there so they're available there self-service i'm charlotte and terry that's the end of our report for this evening good thank you um so is there anyone in the audience that wishes to ask a question or a comment anyone who'd like to um ask a question or comment if you could type in the chat or raise your hand um we'll get to you to answer your question let's see if a question in the chat just ask some total dwelling units and that's not something i have um readily available i can certainly follow up on on your question david any other questions before we close the meeting i don't see any additional questions right now terry so folks will have an additional time to ask questions perhaps they'll develop those over the next couple of weeks when we have our next informational meeting on march 1st so at this time then i did a motion to close the public information hearing i've moved to close the town meeting 2021 public information hearing second second is your discussion on the motion if not all those uh in favor raise your hands in two three four five all right the meeting is officially closed in and we'll move on then to a couple of items before we get to eight o'clock on the black lives matter um and that is number six the highway mileage certificate and eric got just a brief explanation of this since we took action in this two weeks ago sure um yeah i'll keep you here for a minute charlie um yep so this is the annual um certificate of highway mileage for v trans um but each town's asked to approve um the state requires all towns to certify the quantity of highway mileage on an annual basis and this requires um the calculation for the local highway aid at the state level for all class two and class three highways so the board made recall last week approved a 1.96 miles um and added um class three highway and finney crossing at hand with development and this um certificate reflects that addition to the town's overall highway mileage so uh to approve a motion would be in order um this so would anyone wish to make the motion they moved to approve the 2021 certificate of highway mileage second is there any discussion on the motion see none all those in favor of the motion raise your hand one two three four five so you may miss vote again on this one and move on then to the temporary easement a route to a path project and i guess eric you're on this one as well sure yep i'll take care of this um so the board has in its pack in the state of vermont's preparing to construct a multi-use path on route to a projected construction timeline of 2023 the state's requesting a temporary construction easement for use of the town right away on hurricane lane during this project um the town would be compensated $500 for this temporary easement public works has no object objections to granting this easement and the select board has the authority to grant these easements so it's uh before the select board tonight for concern requests no i'm just very glad to see this project is moving forward yeah that's what we talked about for years i've been looking for a motion i've moved to grant a temporary easement to the vermont agency of transportation for the route to a multi-use path project and authorize the town manager to sign any required documentation second we have a second one ten is there any discussion on motion if not all those in favor of the motion raise your hand one two three four five if unanimous unanimous vote um be sure we go on to item number eight i think we can at least do one more and that's the dcdp sub grant agreement in the old north end community center and eric you're talking about that yep so the board may recall we recently had a public hearing to close out this this grants and there's been a number of items to work through to get the sub grant agreement together for the town to pass through the $100,000 for this project um so i've been working on this um number parties involved with the town's attorney sampling housings attorney and the state of vermont and the agreement is just about finalized i have the the town attorney taking a final look at it so this is required to be in place before the town can fulfill its obligation as the pass through entity for this project so i'd request for the board tonight um a suggested motion to authorize entering into this agreement once the town attorney is satisfied with the language and recommends a signature by the town before the motion was there any questions for eric regarding eric i just want to be sure that there's nothing in that you know uh the agreement that we should be concerned about i mean i assume the answer is no you would have told us but i just feel like i want to double check on that sure no concerns on my end jeff okay the nature of these projects sometimes it's uh can be complicated funding mechanisms um to to work it all out and just have some unique circumstances nothing concerned on the towns that here it was really between chc and the state to satisfy their requirements okay i don't have any objection or the town attorney doesn't either at this time and hopefully um just a brief comment you know i appreciate you know the previous town manager ricks and now your willingness to do this uh you know for other communities i think that's um you know i don't know what i'll say that's great thank you thanks jeff i was just going to add to that eric you know or to answer your question jeff you know most of the burden after this ongoing burden while this grant is in place it's really just gathering and looking at their financial statements if they have a single audit and making sure they keep uh insurance on the property so there are some steps that we do annually but they're not all that time intensive after this process is done yeah but it it still adds something to your i assume quite full plate so you know again thank you for your willingness to do that we're working on that and i should i should share as well that the um cht will reimburse the town for the legal cost required for the review of the sub grant agreement okay good so no i'd be looking for a motion i'd move to authorize the town manager to enter into a sub grant agreement with the champlain housing trust for the old north end community center project after the agreement has been approved by the town attorney there's zero second second sorry discussion on the motion hearing that allows in favor of the motion raise your hand one two three four five again once again thank you and then we have a couple minutes perhaps we can do the vc dp grant closeout realizing resource eric sure so this um you may recall along the same lines the town was also awarded as a pass through entity a pass grant of $150,000 for realizing resource project which enabled resource a local non-profit to purchase the building on harvest lane that that it calls home we're also preparing to close out this grant and we need to schedule a public hearing as required to close out this one as well we're looking at march 16th as a date for this and i'll just ask the board to consider scheduling this public hearing this evening in the comments or questions for eric hearing none i'll be looking for a motion on this as well i'd move to schedule a public hearing required to close the vc dp grant project entitled realizing resource second sorry discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor of the motion please raise your hand one two three four five we've taken care of that um i think we'll wait on the other item of business until after we deal with the black lives matter message installation request and at this time i'd ask eric to give us a brief introduction to the the subject matter after that we'll open for a limited number of questions from the audience since we've had 146 comments written comments um and we've had well a goodly number since then on emails if you've already commented i'd ask you please to hold back your comments if you have something brand new to give us then we'd be more than happy to hear that so eric your introduction thanks terry the select board received a request from a group of residents in october of 2020 us in town to consider the installation of a black lives matter message after additional discussion december the select board provided a public comment period on the request through january 15th this year um comments were submitted through the town manager's office and the community justice center um as terry mentioned the comments have been compiled and provided to the select board prior to this meeting and we received over 140 written comments through emails and phone calls during this comment period the board has this request this evening to follow in the comment period for further discussion on its agenda thank you eric so we'd be looking for people who wish to speak briefly uh on the matter using civil discourse so that if we find that there is our unsavory comments the uh i'd ask the town manager to be prepared to mute people who do not follow those rules so we'd be looking for at least i have two people i know that or maybe three now that would wish to speak and eric if you could uh share the most people in yep uh first i have uh cindy provost to contact me earlier today cindy i see you logged in i'm gonna uh connect you to allow to speak at this time just a moment welcome cindy hi hey terry how you doing hi everyone um oh i'm sorry yeah go ahead i have sent an email in already with comments so if there's other people but i really really think it's important to ask a lot of questions on why what it would accomplish how people would feel about it and how it would so questions that i had that i felt would be what do you think approving this request would really do for the people as a whole in our town how would it divide our town more or less would it really improve how people act or think do you really see any great problem that it would solve um the town has very strict criteria in the historic village why i don't know how to present that um i feel like to add anything other than our state flag and the flag that we all hold dear as what represents our country and what the freedoms it offers would deface our town um and the historic district that you really strive to have everyone that lives in that historic district and all the criteria you make them follow would then be would then be affected um it i think that like i said the questions i just pose how is this going to change anything how are people going to feel driving through our town i hope that we aren't making any decisions based on just what other people are doing and thinking in other towns i really think this is a serious matter that really will affect how people think in our town and i personally feel it's going to be more of a um something it's going to divide the town more versus bring it together i feel like our town's always been there hasn't been any issues i know when my kids were in school there's never been any issues everyone was treated the same i feel like we're all very respectful of other people i don't feel like we have to have a banner that's politically motivated to make people think that we're all going to include everybody in our town i think it's really the wrong message to send um but um i that's kind of what i'm thinking um and i won't take up any more of the time it i have more to say but but i'll let other people say it based on an experience i had with graduation last year and my child had graduated and the message that sent and how our young people are going to take these messages if they really knew and understood what these things depict and stand for and how divisive they can be with how messages are sent and and taken by everybody so that i'll stop there thank you for your time appreciate it thank you one second here let's see um i'm just checking the list so next i have a request from brian a wheel in the chat brian i'm going to connect you uh just a moment sure i can hear me over brian hello um thank you for letting me speak um i guess i i just have an issue with this um you know i have many issues with this but the the real issue with the town you know putting this forward for me has to do with it it's not a race organization that's not what it's based on it's a political organization and if you read the letter that that you know we're looking at here with the request from september 10th you can see the other political agenda items that are on there i mean why would we ever fly a political message at all because we know that politics itself is divisive and and i don't see any need to have that in the town um you know we're we're all americans we're we're all vermoners and those flags are there because we sit underneath that organization we don't sit underneath the blm organization and and i don't want to see that that message is purported forward i just don't believe that that's uh you know that's a direction that we need to take and i again i don't think it's really a race issue um it just don't um you know there's a lot of roots to that organization that uh have communists and marxist roots and that's directly from the individuals who started the organization i mean it's their speech i'm getting that from so you know i i just i want to refer back to our town charter where it says that a public official should always demonstrate respect for others and for other positions and by allowing this i feel that our town charters being violated because you're not adhering to other positions as it's a political thing not not a race or or inclusive thing um that's just my opinion and the last piece that i'd like to add is i kind of take offense at this last uh piece it says we can move forward towards making williston a just and caring community willson's a great community like i i take offense to that that wording at the end i i just have an issue with it so i mean with that you guys can have it back and and do what you need to do with it but i i oppose it personally for those reasons thank you for now i'm excited a hand raised from jerry jerry i'm going to connect you at this time hi i'm jerry greenfield thank you for the opportunity to speak uh i am strongly in favor of having a black lives matter flag uh you know somebody brought up the question how would you feel when you're driving through town if you saw a black lives matter sign and as a williston resident it would make me feel incredibly proud that williston was willing to use its voice to talk about having a more just and equitable society recognizing that this country has a history of enslaving people and that it has not been equal and that as many people say it's not a matter of being racist you can be not racist but to address the inequities in our history you have to be anti-racist you have to be willing to speak out about things that are not right and uh i appreciate the opportunity to speak thank you thank you jerry and the last request i have is from sherry um sherry and we're going to connect you to speak uh sherry you're connected hi thank you i submitted written comments but i want to um both echo the last commenter about um feeling pride to see a black lives matter sign um in or symbol in town a flag another symbol um the purpose in my perspective of stating black lives matter is to recognize that we have a system that has not always recognized that black lives matter and has not continues um to show in so many ways that our um systems of justice in this country are not equally applied um i saw in the paper um uh the williston observer a comment i think it was i guess an op-ed about that stated that it would be a divisive symbol or sign and the first person commented on this said she had a lot of questions my question would be if people find it to be divisive to say that members of our community or members of our country or members of um our state matter then i think that what would be equally important would be to have a forum where we could offer more anti-racist conversation and action and education so that we can not only have a symbol showing that we believe um our town to be a welcoming and wonderful place but also a community that's invested in moving forward together and growing together um um i think it would be important to hear um more people's perspectives i heard commentary here that people are all treated the same and i know how i've treated and i'm treated great so far as i can tell um i don't know that everyone has the same experience and i don't know that we've heard everyone's experience and i know in this country and in the state um there's documentation that people have not been treated the same um the reports about um the um people who've been pulled over by the police and in in vermont reports on how vermont state representatives have been treated in the local legislature um show that we we do have problems with treating people of all races equally in the state of vermont not saying that necessarily applies in williston but i don't know the answer to that and i think that um this isn't just about a symbol but it's about a conversation and about learning and growing together and any opportunities within our town to connect with each other and do better by each other no matter who we are and what our perspective i think would be um a great step forward to thank you thank you terry i've got one person that um commented me earlier that they would like to speak this evening and i have at least another five or six folks who have raised their hand i'm checking in how many more comments you would be would like to take this evening i'd like to cut the the questions off at about 20 after eight so that uh if people could be brief that would be very helpful okay um but i've got folks who've raised their hand so i'll go there and then see uh what time it is but next i've got brand tonight i believe you're under marcie's um sign in so brand i'm gonna connect you at this point in time here we go okay can everybody hear me we can yes i want to thank the uh the board and eric for this opportunity to speak and i'm uh gonna try to uh stick to my two minutes i appreciate it i'm part of the citizens racial justice group that has requested a black lives matter message displayed on town property but i represent myself here um some say that displaying a black lives matter message willston would be wrong because a small group has made this request but this small group is not alone in wanting to take a stand for racial justice our wilson school cbu and the federated church and many surrounding towns have already honored this request the unspoken argument among some is we don't have to deal with these racial issues because after all wilson is 97 white that's an issue other communities where there's a greater number of minorities needs to sort through such an argument is wrong it's important for all people to come forward including whites silence perpetuates racism modeling human decency in every community is important and it needs to come first from our leaders like our select board the power of leadership's influence on public opinion can't be overestimated a frightening negative example of this comes from our own former president the creation of a racial equities partnership committee to step in the right direction but if the select board is going to use the school as a substitute for their own voices it would be a step in the wrong direction now is the time for the select board to follow the lead of our chief of police in schools and make an any rate rate statement i ask each individual individual board member because this is a public request where do you stand on the issue of displaying a black lives matter message on wilson town property thank you thank you all right next i have c d friend sesquo i'm um apologize if i mispronounced your your last name i'm gonna connect you to speak thank you very much can you hear me yes we can okay my name is carolyn d francesco i'm almost 70 years old and for my entire life i have benefited from not being a person of color um i believe that the that the goal of erecting a blm flag is not to change anyone's mind only you can change your mind and it's not to make you feel something to feel ashamed or to feel any one particular way but it is simply to let the community know as a whole that there are people among the community members who notice who are aware of the advantages intrinsic in being a member of the white community and i think it's important to our sisters and brothers of color to extend that community to everyone of every race and it's very difficult to lead by example if we don't have an example to look to as we drive into our town and we see a black lives matter flag i notice this on my own street i am proud every time i see that and i think here is a here is part of a community that notices i'm gonna make my comments bring my comments to an end but to iterate my support for a blm flag erection in the community thank you thank you let's see next i'll connect to amy brewer amy just a moment hi can you all hear me we can hi thanks so much for doing this tonight i i've spoken and i've written and i just wanted to reiterate how important i think the flag is as much as a symbol of of what this let board can do to make our community amazing for all and i think it says boldly that it's important it says boldly that you can start to look through our policies and the things under this the the town's purview to make sure that we are being anti-racist and inclusive so that you know the folks who've spoken today about never experiencing it so that all the residents can say that in the future so i don't have anything more to add i just wanted to say thank you for continuing to hear our feedback and for continuing to look at this issue thank you so it's about 20 accurate and i'd like to close comments at this point and go to consideration by the board of the issue so joy terry man may be allowed to make a brief comment of course i still don't believe that we as a select board should be having this as an agenda item and i think that it goes against what our purpose is which is town governance i made that statement in october when this topic was first brought up and had been labeled a racist and white privileged i've been the recipient of hate mail and it had a constituent say to me perhaps would be best just to go along i stand by my statement that as a select board this is not what our function is and it's now as an agenda item i'd like to offer the following i won't be billied intimidated threatened or shamed into making a decision that i found wrong and not representative of the majority of our constituents this is a very difficult and divisive issue and given that we as elected officials have not been given a clear direction we shouldn't be voting on anything BLM is not about racism it's a political organization with a very clear message and mission i would ask how many of us have thoroughly read that mission statement there are ways to combat racism but the raising of the BLM flag is certainly not it this board was given a number of comments on this issue and it's a fairly split community it's interesting to read and know that the fours are based mostly on emotion and the against are based more on political facts the depth of the against comments weigh heavily on BLM as a political organization and many comments were factually supported if this passes then other organizations will decry the same right to fly their flags this isn't about the phrase that black lives matter this is about raising a flag of a well-organized political organization that is a very set defined written radical agenda i would refer you to that list of demands on their website and please think long and hard before making a decision to fly their flag i would respectfully ask you my fellow select board members to focus on what we are actually charged to do and not get us embroiled in a political sensation that i feel sets a bad precedent going forward thank you thanks join so this is a time for the board to deliberate if somebody would like to make a motion we can devote it up or down and i'd like to have a positive motion so that we know that we're voting but yes vote means yes no vote means no well terry i'd like to um do that but i'm wondering if well i i'm gonna i'll make a motion and then i we'll see if it gets seconded and then we'll have comment on it um oh i said gordon yeah terry could i just make a quick comment before ted decides to make his motion sure um you know this is a very critical issue i know for the town and uh you know i know where i stand because i have lived in town my whole life i've considered myself a person that respects anyone and would help anyone at any time uh and i certainly value uh the movement to make uh social and uh you know equality for all but i also feel that five of us on a select board uh that that's a heavy load to lift to make a decision on whether to present a message or not a message and i'm not trying to be a fan straddle or in any way but uh i would really like to get input from all the town residents because i feel this is this is something that's really close to everybody's heart uh and i i just feel like the folks that have come forward tonight i respect your opinions whether you're on one side or the other but we're only getting a small image of the whole town and i really want to get a pulse on what the entire town feels before we decide to move forward or not move forward with a message thanks what's your thought on that gordon how do we how do we accomplish what you were talking about uh you know i don't i don't know if it's getting a survey terry or putting it out to a vote or how that would work i'm you know certainly still an infantile member to the to the board here uh but i certainly value our board and all of our our thoughts and opinions but i just feel like this is a huge matter for our whole town and i just want to make sure that all representatives have have a say thanks jess you got a comment sure um i guess i'll start it by saying i am ready to vote um i would like to vote tonight um i i think um i don't know if it's possible to get more input from the community i mean since october i think we have been seeking input and we've gotten um i think it's 142 plus or minus comments um rarely do we in fact i'm not even sure i remember an issue other than when we vote on let's say a ballot item that we receive this much comment about something before the select board um so i feel i'm ready um i did i hope it's okay and stop me if it's if it's not i did want to pick up on a couple things i heard tonight and also read in as many of the comments as i could i could get through and one is this association with a black lives matter flag with the black lives matter organization i don't believe that's the case i believe they are different things um i've got the black lives matter organizations website up in front of me there are certainly things in there that i could see where people would find divisive there might be things i find divisive in it that's not what i'm supporting when i would support a black lives matter flag and then the other piece of it um is um somebody mentioned you know the concept of raising a black lives matter flag or message and helping to make williston a just in caring community i believe we are adjusting and in caring community but it doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist to some level and willis then and we need to do better and that to me is is the message we need to get out is that we recognize that um and to me that's the easy first step the hard next step is going to be putting that into action actually making willis then a more just and more caring community that's the hard long-term part but we need to take that first step and it takes some courage it takes some strength to admit that racism does exist in our community and we want to address that thank you thank you jeff mcgordon yep just just one more briefly terry i uh you know folks know that uh i am an educator we have worked in our local schools my school to promote social equality and i firmly believe that is the way to go uh i think my suggestion is uh i just want to make sure i know we get feedback and this has been a very hot topic with the response we've got but we have a lot of voters in town and i just want to make sure that before we decide to do something that we have a lot more input than just 142 um because i i know where my heart is i certainly want to move this forward that's where my school is at that's where i'm at but i just i want to make sure we get the whole pulse of the town thanks thanks so we um we live in a representative democracy and um this board has the ability to make a decision uh one way or the other and it could be done tonight it could be in some other time but we've been deliberating on this now for several months and um in my own mind i'd like to uh have this decided quickly that we're not appease everybody as far as whether whether we will yes or whether we know there'll be people who are not happy with the decision that we make no matter what we do yeah so terry if i could say a couple things sure um i i um also looked into the um black lives matter platform um i there's a lot of it i just don't agree with as um i'm a moderate and i don't agree with a lot of stuff that is uh too far one way or the other um but i've never really associated with the phrase black lives matter with uh the organization i know a lot of people here tonight have said that is wrong and that that's the only way to interpret it uh or the predominant way to interpret at least um i i did do a little bit of research on it and i did find that the columbia journalism review um said that the media should refer to it as is two separate things a movement and an organization and that they're different um i i also started thinking and and bear with me because this is a little um uh it probably a little uh shows my my nerd side and maybe and this is only by way of example for the words not anything to do with anything but um i i noticed that in church in my in my church um we use the phrase that we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church and then i went to that's the roman catholic church then i went to an episcopal church with my wife which was found out that they say the same thing one holy catholic an apostolic church i went to a lutheran church one holy catholic an apostolic church the the word catholic is used over and over again and it doesn't take too long perhaps even right away to say wait a minute words words have different meanings um that that that word doesn't mean roman catholic it means universal um uh so when it comes to you know the phrase i i hear what people are saying but i'm not i'm not too hung up on it um i i am going to be supporting some kind of uh uh or the flag going up for some period of time and and i'll be making a motion in a minute i just it is an exception for me um i don't generally uh like the town to get involved with issues that are not nuts and bolts town governance things um but that being said i i you know i'm very sensitive in my own life uh that to racial issues and hate crimes have gone up um the Associated Press reported a couple of months ago that they've gone up uh in the lat more in the last decade than they've gone up for 10 months for 10 years um so i i don't have uh an issue with having the town do something about this now that being said um i want to be clear i i don't um believe that if people don't agree with that position that they are racist um and for that matter i don't think that if you're in favor of that flag going up you're a marxist i i'm not i guess you'll just have to take my word for it um but uh i i know only you know call out joy you got um hate emails and stuff that wasn't fair that wasn't right you're not a racist i know you're not you are a good woman and i will defend you all the way down on that um so you know this idea that you know we cleave one way or the other on this um that being said for me though one of the issues that comes down is that i said i'm going to be in favor of something uh but i do agree that this is the historic district um and so i don't want this to be something that goes on and on uh for you know forever um i you know there have been movements and slogans um and uh powerful slogans that have outlived their time um i don't think this one is going to do that for a while um but i do think that it does uh you know hopefully one day it will um but that being said i i'm not in favor of it going on forever so with that i would i would make a motion i wrote it wrote it down um i'd move that the town of williston display the black lives matters flag for a period to begin march 1 2021 until monday june 21st 2021 so the flag would be flying on saturday june 19th 2021 a date known as june 10th that is that is my motion thank you zero second to the motion i'll second it to initiate discussion so we have a motion made as seconded and now there is discussion on the motion so so terry i i noticed in the chat uh a question uh and i think this person hit the nail on the head i mean i definitely could see this as a a ballot question because i i just feel uh this is not just five people's choice uh even though i'm in favor of moving this forward i just want to make sure we have everybody's everybody's voice and i don't know if that's possible but i just need well that would require a special a special election or put off until but it's uh it just feels like this is a very very powerful thing uh that needs needs attention and i just i don't want to dismiss anybody that might be on the other side of the aisle thank you so we have a motion made as seconded um and for discussion on the motion ten um i'm curious about your your thoughts about wanting to put a definitive end date on on the flag yeah well a couple things um and i again i want to use these examples i don't want them to be taken out of context okay um i i am a unofficial student of history um i read a lot of military history books and i am in uh i'm very much regret that i never served in the military and um so i don't say anything negative about this but there there are sometimes there are p o w m i a flags that are still up from the vietnam war now some couldn't say well that's for the you know the current wars but there really aren't that many missing in action p o w's in the wars that we've had since then but those flags you know i was in washington a year and a half a year ago uh for for my daughter's soccer game um go figure that and um there were those flags were still up okay you know the my my older brothers are in their late 60s and they did not serve but they're the age they would have and i just um it doesn't uh you know i just think there has to be an end time the other thing is it is in the historical and um i i do think there is some merit to that i mean if if there if there isn't an end date on it then we're really changing what is and is not allowed in the historic district in an issue that a lot of people have strong feelings about and you know i i i hear that you know again i i really think that in this issue of people who have strong feelings about it are going to disagree with whatever we do anyway if i say it should be up forever people will some people say okay finally um and again it's the idea that if you you know if you disagree with something then then you're not you're not strongly in against racism or something and i just like oh come on um i but that's that's the idea of it is that you know that's it doesn't mean it couldn't possibly go back up um but it's it'll be there for a you know significant amount of time we voted on it during black history month and it'll be up during june okay would there would it be possible for the select board before that end of the day to have a discussion about whether to keep it up for an extended period in other words just because we initially say a certain time frame doesn't mean we can extend that down the road sure absolutely i mean that we don't you know as under select board rules i mean it could be brought up and asked to be put on the agenda under new business someday it doesn't even have to be part of the official agenda you know we so yeah the legislature uses this all the time as a sunset provision and if someone wishes to raise the issue again uh before the expiration date it can be done joy i think y'all know how i feel about this but now i'm going to go back to gordon's comment and going why does it feel like folks and jeff and i'm not meaning this in any other than the direct manner it's meant but you're putting your particular thoughts on something that you want going in in perpetuity and i still don't feel that we have anywhere near a representation of the community that we are supposed to represent before making this kind of a decision whether it's for 30 days 60 days or forever i i just i don't i think we're way overstepping our bounds again please don't take that as disrespectful it's just a direct comment yeah i i'm not and the other question i have is if i remember correct your motion that's currently on the table that i seconded is a black lives matter flag okay i want to make sure i got the flag piece correct one of the things i like and i've been reading in some of the comments boy they've been coming so quick i can't keep up with them is uh the concept of of maybe using some group to design a flag i mean the black lives matter has to be part of it if that's part of the motion so i guess i'm i'm wondering is that something that needs to be addressed as part of the motion or our role is to it could be you know and actually one of the other possibilities and again i think we get in trouble uh wish any any way we turn on this um because that's why it's fun to be on the select board okay uh but i um you know it one wonders if if black lives matters so uh polarizing because there is an organization that has taken that name um maybe something that says you know no racism or the word racism would that no you turn thing through it or something like that i mean i don't know it that it's a little it's a little less on point but it's not it's but it's still still is a the right message there are other communities who had contests about designing flags and there's no reason why we couldn't ask the the staff to start thinking about the process okay well i mean today is the 16th so we have even two weeks you're thinking about doing it between now and February 1st March 1st yes March 1st yeah we were we are not going to be meeting it again until March 6th so as i understand the motion uh it's a black lives matter flag with the word which would to me mean it has to include the words black lives matter you know to do a racism with a you know the no you turn a loud symbol on top of it i don't think would necessarily substitute my opinion any further discussion on the motion hearing none i'm going to call the rules on this rather than have a show of hands so the question before you is should we adopt the motion as presented by ted or not so yes vote is for accepting the motion a no vote is against and would you mind reading the motion just before we vote that'd be helpful to me thank you move that the town of williston display a black lives matter flag for a period to begin march 1 2021 until monday june 21 2021 so that the flag will be flying on saturday june 19 2021 a date known as june 10th thank you so if there is no more discussion i will call the roll ted hi jeff hi gordon you're muted nay joy nay entry votes yes the motion passes three to two and we will ask the staff to get the appropriate flag and and display it on the flag pole at town hall starting on march 1 so thank you all i will need to move on then to terry one quick question yes could i request at this point that the select board meeting before was it june 21 that we have an agenda item to discuss the flag yes great thank you so let's move on then to the bond closing documents for the purchase of fire trucks and i think eric and shirley will be talking about this i'm gonna defer most of this to shirley and get her reconnected here to go into the fine details of a bond closing documents here for board so i'll get shirley reconnected here so um as you probably all of you know from previous bonds these are all the required um documents that need to be signed by a variety of eric the treasurer and the select board um in order for us to participate in the bond closing that i believe is marked second don't quote me for our 1.4 million dollars for the purchase of the fire trucks these the funds from the closing will actually go into a bank with the trustee and we will get reimbursed so the town will be paying first and then we will process a document to get reimbursed for those fine for those funds expenditures these there's so i read through the documents there's nothing unless you have questions there is nothing in these documents that are different or unusual the certificate and resolution is what allows us to participate in the bond closing there is a loan agreement and that's just like any loan that um if you take out a mortgage right it's the loan agreement that sets up the terms and conditions for the borrowing and specifies the repayment schedule and i know that you've all seen this and a lot of the example that you have is blank because until the bond closes we can't fill in a lot of the documents the tax certificate is so these bonds are tax exempts so anyone who purchases the bonds the interest is exempt from federal taxation and the tax exempt certificate is what we sign and agree to to say that at the time of the closing and going forward there are certain things that we will or will not do to continue the taxes of nature of the bonds um and that again um my first closing um through the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank but previously worked with the Vermont Health Education Finance Agency in the language is pretty much all the same um with the one big difference being that the bond bank actually takes care of all the tax exempt post tax exempt work we have to just do a certificate annually um and they have to take care of all the arbitrage calculations annually for the bonds um i am just skimming down through um there will be the repayment schedule i'm trying to see if there's any the municipal tax certificate again um goes back to making sure that the bonds are that we maintain the tax exempt status of the bonds so that we essentially follow everything in these agreements um and i there's i don't have a lot more unless people have specific questions about these documents you will see them again in their final version Jeff looks like he's got something sorry about that um so i i tried to skim through these um it's worse than when i closed on our house um but the one thing i couldn't find was the interest rate the the interest rate isn't known until the bonds are actually closed on so that they go to market and it's the rate that is determined on the date that they go to market which i said um i should have written this date down i believe it's march second they are scheduled to go to closing so when that bond deal closes because it's not just cars it's you know lot whatever municipalities are borrowing that all comes together is one closing so these are our little portion of the bond documents the bond documents are probably three or four inches thick to include everybody in that closing so the the repayment schedule will not be known until we know what the interest rate is which will not be known until it closes march fourth oh march fourth okay yeah what does your crystal ball suggest the interest rate might be i think um well i was looking at something the other day jeff and they were they want to say it closed at 1.74 percent so i'm i think we have four percent in the budget but i feel like it's probably it's definitely going to be less than that i mean the the rates are are very very low right now and tax exempt rates tend to be lower so if i had to guess jeff i'm thinking we're around three percent plus or minus okay that would be wonderful great for the budget for sure okay good all right thank you any further questions for surely well i'm looking for a motion i'll move to approve the bond closing documents for a 1.4 million capital equipment bond sale through the vermont municipal bond bank to finance the purchase of two fire trucks approved by the voters at town meeting 2019 zero second thank you sorry discussion now on the motion hearing nothing all those in payroll the motion raise your hand one two three four five so we've unanimously approved that thank you surely appreciate you're signing of these does this need to be a signature in person or electronic it does need to be in person so eric will coordinate that with you and leaving documents sorry eric i'm passing the buck there but that's okay leaving documents on the counter to sign but we'll have these along with the highway mileage certificate i'll get those prepared for the board tomorrow morning and leave them out for signature this week good thank you um managers report all right i've got a number of items to address this evening i think we'll start with a finance report oh well we have surely connected um i just reviewed surely's report earlier today to the board for the december financials and i believe surely reading of a brief update on the f y 20 audit as well sure i don't i didn't write anything up for the f y 20 on it but but we're getting there um so i have um you've all seen the audit and how many pages it is and it's definitely um you know with some public accounting for my first five years in the world and then um many places after that these are definitely the most complicated financial statements i have ever seen um but i have worked my way through them with the help of the auditors and i have um all of the tables um and the numbers part and i'm working on the notes to the financial statements so i will have all the numbers parts to the auditors tomorrow and i've gotten probably halfway through the notes um so i'm hoping by the end of the week i'm i'm wrapped up and and it's in their plate and they probably will have questions back for me and then i have the management discussion and analysis so and i'm hoping by next week we might have a draft um like um the person i've been working with we have actually gone through a lot of the numbers together as i can't quite figure out how things work together but i will say i have a much better understanding of the financials than i've ever had so i'm even though it's been on the weekends for me really working on these i feel like i really understand them now so thanks for your patience but i um if i own them i have to understand them and i feel like i have a much better grasp on them now so that's the status of the financial statement audit all i can add is better you than me well i have to say i'm i'm you know we've had a lot of discussions and you've heard me talk about them before and praised them um but i'm looking forward to their management letter i mean even if they don't have things in that letter you know we had a lot of discussion and a lot of you know just accounting changes and we have so many funds that i can close and bank accounts we can combine which has been on my list it's just sort of pressuring me to get there um so just we've had a lot of um discussion about how to make things easier so you know hopefully after the next month or so i'll be able to start working on some of the things we've talked about so now i'm unless somebody has questions on that i'm going to go into just a quick review of the december financials um so i'm going to start off with some really good news so today so in your report i actually said the um local options tax would be out any day well we got it today and the good news is it is seventy six thousand six hundred dollars um more than our first quarter report so and that was all in the area of the sales tax the the rooms and meals tax came in almost identical to the first quarter so that was a piece of good news and um as eric and i were discussing today once i have the financials completed my next step will be to do another um projection of our financials and where we'll think we're gonna end f y 21 to see if there are any other cost cutting measures we need to make and you know a couple of decisions that eric and i have been talking about um so that'll be the thing you see um for march 16th meeting we'll have that um production or analysis ready for you of where we think we're gonna end f y 21 um so one of the i'm just gonna talk about property taxes for a moment so property taxes as they appear on your financial statements um are not quite at budget but um what happens is when our system bills property taxes um we of course are collecting right for the state as well so when it bills everything gets charged to property taxes so we get um a preliminary cash flow statement from the state and says okay this is how much is going to be due to the state and this is how much is going to be due to cv u so i move that out of revenue when i put it over an liability account and we pay out of that account at the end of the year this those initial estimates are always too high so i do expect that come the end of the year when i have the final cash flow from the state in um may that our our um budgeted taxes will probably be a little higher um or right at budget and there's one other change um in that cash flow or in our in our um property taxes in the past we've always reflected this administrative fee that the state gives us for doing all the billing and all the collecting of the taxes we will now reflect that in a different line item in the financials because that is really a a fee for our service it's not property tax um so it's in the property tax budget in fri-21 and fri-22 we've corrected that so if we have a little variance that's about 70 000 dollars um i'm just going to look at some of the big things we talked about local option tax already we've talked about public safety um being you know under under budget and that's going to continue that way for the rest of the year there's no doubt about that since most of the things in those fees we we don't are affected by covid so we can't do services we were doing previously um highway revenue is is significantly over budget right now looks really really good but um part of that is our stormwater billing um so that's the highway performing services for the stormwater utility that is actually above budget right now they did a lot of projects this summer um so that alone is 118 percent of the um fri-21 budget um but they do have the quarter so this quarter in the winter of course it tends to be quieter and and um when the snow melts they'll start doing some projects again and also um in the highway um dollars is about 40 000 dollars that we received from FEMA finally we booked that when it's received based on the halloween storm of 2019 so that's also affecting the positive flow there um and expenditures highway um is that 52 percent of budget but really they're doing really even though we're halfway through the year in December it should be 50 percent but really their retreatment budget is 480 000 and they've spent 475 of that which says in many other lines there's lots of small say savings in there so even at 52 percent of the budget um that's retreatment budget um almost all spent for the year so they're doing really well and um we'll still see cost for salt and some of that still come in through the end of the year um fire has a they're only at 39 percent of budget um the big share of that is just with the call staff as it has been for a few years they just they don't have the numbers and therefore they don't have the salary and we did in the f-22 budget bring that down a little bit um and the other there is a savings and salary because we hadn't filled the deputy chief position until january so the deputy chief position has been filled in january by tim jerry which eric has already announced and um and um we just filled the captain's position again and made a movement um and eric will tell you about that um let's see i'm just looking some for some big things because i don't need to read this all to you um some of the variants like in um regional social services health um um and transportation those look like wow they're really big compared to budget but many of those all bill on an annual basis and we pay them up front um green mountain transit um we pay uh two times a year so we have one payment left there so that's a little upside it as well um i'm trying to think if there's anything else really big in there that pops um no so i'm gonna so for the that's the general fund budget so i think the um as we look at the water storm water budgets you know those continue to to look the same they did for the last few years because we we um the revenue is is high especially in the area of the other revenue and allocation fees and again those are fees for the big projects i've sort of outlined what those were for water and sewer they had hook on fees for um northridge cottonwood crossing community bank and those are large fees paid up front um so that's um generating that favorable budget variants um and let's see the state we um so through covid the state revolving loan funds some of our um sewer and water debt the interest was forgiven during covid so that has made a favorable impact on some of our interest expense but also the interest expense um from essics for the plant capacity their interest was forgiven so directly we see the result of that as well in a favorable variance um so yeah it is very nice so it'll be interesting to see what happens with the next so unless you have questions those are the big things i wanted to point out you know when eric and i are keeping an eye on the legislation that's coming down because municipalities are particularly being um mentioned in in the funding that's coming so we'll keep our fingers crossed we'll provide us a copy of the local options tax document you got sure any other questions for surely no good job thank you thank you you're welcome all right thank you and uh i'll pass on the board that local option tax report tomorrow i hope to have a little more time to review it today but uh time got away from me this afternoon but then so we'll we'll take a closer look at at that analysis uh moving ahead here yeah so i've got a number of things in my written report a couple other items to briefly share the board this evening um the the fire union has um submitted a letter for the january deadline i received to um negotiate a new contract theirs is up for um expires on june 30th so i've had an initial meeting with our management negotiating team and we're working with the union to to set up what that process will look like in the in the next uh next few months i surely mentioned i did receive word from congress and welch's office last week regarding federal aid to local governments it's in a committee in the house in congress i've seen some initial projections i i don't want to share the numbers quite yet they are promising but i know there's there's a ways to go so you know i'm hopeful to have some local direct aid to the town um from the federal government through next um discussions here then if it wouldn't we get to that point um we could take a further look from a staff standpoint and bring that to the select board to think about um use of those funds uh if they uh if they're allotted to the town moving ahead and as as surely mentioned um please pass on the board today that senior firefighter prescott may do has been promoted to the rank of captain he will assume that promotion coming up next week on the 22nd i believe so a big congratulations to prescott on his promotion he's been with the town over over 10 years now so i was pleased to accept chief colette's recommendation last week for that that promotion ranked to prescott and then i i also wanted to update the board this evening that the racial equity partnership group has continued to meet and this was a group i organized last fall we were kind of calling ourselves a looking at a possible coalition at first but i think we've settled on the racial equity partnership right now with uh a few folks from the community um we've been meeting every um couple weeks so our next step and we're going to be launching information the community this week is looking for additional individuals to join what we're calling the steering committee and this group is going to really work towards establishing and solidifying this partnership's mission vision and strategic plan moving ahead so we'll have information in the observer and number of other outreach vehicles for folks who are interested to um submit a brief application in a number of ways and then this group will will work and plan how to um have folks join the steering committee and that's just kind of the first step here um when forming um a group is always a a large task to undertake so kind of looking at what that that will involve and then kind of thinking about next step on a community scale but i we've had a number of good conversations and additional folks who have joined our meetings so far so we're looking forward to the work ahead with that group and and kind of growing that and then bring it to the broader community as as we move forward here um and then another piece i have it in my written report as well what i'm looking to do it's uh been in the manager role just just over six months now and i've been looking at our operations and i've left the position that i previously held open during that time um partially for budgetary reasons and and also for me to evaluate the needs of the administration moving ahead i am looking to to fill that role um i'm going to take a closer look at it still but my initial thoughts are looking at the assistant to the manager role but by expanding its human resources functions for the position um the job description does call for human resources work but i um in speaking with staff i'd like to take a closer look at that job description to bring in more human resources direct operational tasks for the role to in our recruitment for someone with a with background and skill set and that as well so i'll be taking a look at that the next uh over the next month and if there are some some changes i'll be bringing those to the select board if it if it changes the role significantly but i'll keep the board updated on on my on my thinking and and the plans there but to to go along with that is in looking to bring someone new into the office is our physical space in the town hall and we've uh i know if you've stopped by we've done a couple changes downstairs um out front we have a kind of one open desk area now and you may remember a few years ago we had about four people sitting out front near each other and we moved the town treasurer into the office i'd formally occupied um and thinking moving ahead having another person potentially join the town staff is looking for another office space for nature of position and trying to maintain our social distancing um now and after the pandemic so we don't have folks working right on top of each other so i'm looking at the storage room upstairs of the town hall um if you picture the office i'm sitting in right now directly above me in the corner um opposite of where Lynn Keefe sits on the other side of the building um it's so it was possible we can transition that space to an office but the first task at hand is where do we put all the files that are in that room so staff is reviewing there's some things we can um pass their life that we can dispose of them others we can store in the brick church but then there's other documents that will lead to keep in the building so we're thinking about um in the meeting room itself in the back wall potentially looking at some cabinets we could put in for some document storage where we're running out of space in the town hall as as we look at some of these things we're getting a couple estimates and ideas what that may cost this week but considering it may be a change to the room space upstairs i just wanted to bring that forward to the select board tonight before we took any any additional progress there as we're in the exploring stage right now so just a couple quick things if you don't mind Eric um no objections to building those cabinets if they're in the um the meeting room with the caveat that they have to be of a material and design that they can support the food served at the legislative breakfast hopefully we'll have next year yeah um the other thing is is and i'm sure you know about this look at digitalizing you know the records as much possible but i do want to talk about the new position and i i hope this is a simple yes or no question is um when were you thinking about possibly hiring into that position and really my main question is is it in the budget to fund that position yep it's remained in the f y 21 budget and it's in the f y 22 budget as built my timeline is you know ideally we we look to recruit that position this spring but all things considered too it's kind of getting idea when's the right time to to recruit for something like that and for folks who might be looking for a new position at this time i've had a couple briefing queries with other towns who have looked uh looked to hire recently just to get an idea what what the market's uh been like for uh professionals looking to to make a shift but um yeah i've met with staff a little bit on this and um i'll keep the board updated for for a timeline but um certainly we um identify that we we've got some some needs to fill here to help with our administrative capacity and would hopefully be sooner rather than later okay all right good thank you any other questions for eric i speak of the the new the new position or refilling the older position um i'm not sure when eric has time to sleep because he is so busy with doing things that uh need to be done and uh news we need to have that position filled at some point in time in a combination of position to help fill the hr role would be well deserved okay thanks eric and manager's report no i think that concludes my report for this evening it's uh it's a busy time here in the town hall but the staffs all are working very hard and as we get for town meeting and doing our day-to-day operations here so um all's good on this front thank you the last item on the agenda is the other business and just a few things on that on thursday evening that gordon and i are going to be on town meeting tv formally channel 17 at 645 as uh candidates for select board and uh our next meeting that we would need to have the the select board at is the um march first um informational session before town meeting all of us should be there uh to participate and answer questions if needed and uh the next select board meeting is on a month from today at the 16th of march and so we get a little bit of a reprieve but don't take it too seriously and last on my list is thank you all so much for your um work tonight this is an unpleasant meeting to say the least uh very um very difficult for all of us and uh thank you for your comments and um we'll we'll work forward to uh to work through this um is there any other business that we need to take care of tonight just a quick question ted joy do you want to get together and think of some really hard questions we can get an alias to call in and ask during the select board good idea it was a calling show so yes and that's for this other business i will sort of tarry the uh inter-report has arrived um we've got some hard copies all i'll find this the ones for the select board with sarah tomorrow leave those in your mailboxes when you stop by this week can we pick up extras for people that we know that want them to yeah i'll i'll check with sarah um yeah i can certainly leave those uh on the mailboxes as well okay good if there's no other business this is your chance then we'll be adjourned all right good night everyone thank you everybody