 All right, let's call the select board meeting to order first up is organization of the board. This is a election of officers So we'll start out with a chair Second that Motion in the second all those in favor Now we are looking for a vice chair Vice chair and people should understand maybe why Larry can't participate But he has not yet been sworn in and he is out of town All those in favor Not able to nominate And now we're looking for a Secretary clerk Yeah, I'll nominate Tom for that Motion in the second those in favor Motion carries and we are organized next up is public comment. This is comment on anything not on the agenda Anybody anybody on the screen not seeing anything great approval of the agenda All those in favor Consent calendar, this is approval of meeting minutes and warrants And just so you know the warrants come in an email We approve them so the checks can go out and keep flowing and then at the board meeting we ratify that That's what warrants means We'll try to block you through it and not Movie approval of the well of the consent agenda Do we want to do both a and b? Yep, that's what I thought. So I'll move the I'll move the approval of the consent agenda of the meeting minutes of 227 and the warrants All those in favor Motion carries Next up is the business agenda and first up is town meeting review and discussion of next steps Those are set over the primary order of business There were a couple of other business items at the end of the warning We don't really have to do too much with any of them at any point certainly soon There was the tax exemption for the senior center Those are you have an initial term of 10 years to be qualified and then each successive term is five years in length So they're into the five year cycle so voters proved that was in there And then there's been an article about if we have any kind of surplus funds at the end of the year That's the same article has appeared for a few years in a row now. Excuse me Let's get dumped into the paving reserve and the got gravel road reserve Whoo, I give very emotional talking about surplus And so that one's been pretty standard We don't know that until the audited, you know the year has ended and the audits been completed And we know sort of hopefully which side of good we ended on And those are going across and there's a percentage assigned to those those but many of the special appropriations But that was really it. We didn't have any bonds or any sort of other resolutions So brings us back around to the one article that didn't pass which was a budget article related to the police district And so it's kind of a conceptual Where do you want to go? What could some next steps be type of conversation on that? We did include in the package just kind of a rough timeline for what happens when a budget vote doesn't pass And that's comes from state statute And it's pretty similar to what we do in terms of warning town meeting in the process for it There's a couple of different tweaks in there with timelines But really it's about same 30 to 40 day window Still have to have an informational meeting There's still a vote at the end and then some other warning pieces in terms of when things appear in papers when things Get posted those types of things Once we figure out some days if that's the direction we'll add those in work backwards from there being mindful of some other things They don't show up in calendar such as we need so many days to have absentee ballots available Folks will work with Emory in his office on those pieces, but for now it just sort of shows you If you start at step one and need to go to the end What does statute say you have to do to get from from here or there? They've said today a couple times in a hallway with a number of doors It's not let's make a deal Which door we have which doors would you like to choose instead of here's we've got two issues here Even if you follow front-page form there's all kinds of reasons people voted no It's we know it's not the simple one of what's the budget or what one issue is there was a lot of them but we We've got a couple themes there One is whether the what the police district looks like with it is of the entire town is that a part of the town How does it get paid for? We're not gonna crack that nut in a couple days. There's just it's too big So I think that we have two questions ones the short-term solution What do we do to get through while we? Look at the bigger issue of what does policing look like and you know There's a lot of conversation that went forward Even while we're doing this before you guys were part but you know is the answer regional even it's you know It's quite possible the solution here isn't even just Randolph. It's a variety of towns and I think that's Sort of the area that was gaining the most steam as Trevor and I were doing the road show looking for somebody to to provide service so I Would always think that the approach we need to look at is what's our short-term solution here? And what's our long-term solution and how do we gear up to define what those two? solutions look like and and How we go about you know going after what those are Trini for the benefit of some of us who are newer to Randolph or who have been here a long time but may not be aware of Sort of the underpinnings of the merger of the town and the village some 40 years ago or more Can you explain? Maybe Trevor you could do this what the process is for? Expanding the police district or dissolving it and creating a new one or my understanding is that? the village residents the police district residents and the town residents would have separate ballot initiatives relative to those decisions is that accurate? Initial Read on the articles of merger, right? Yeah, if you look at the articles of merger, there's a very defined Paragraph about the police district and you talk to the people that were part of it And you look at the history of it There was a lot of pushback from the townside on the merger because they didn't want to pay For police services and if you look at what Randolph's makeup was at the time It was mostly agriculture outside of the village area So you had a lot of farms that had large parcels of land that were paying sizable amounts of property taxes That didn't want to absorb the cost of a police department to cover Farmland basically And if you follow some of the back and forth that took place There was a whole lot of distrust from both sides and whatnot. So you have this You have it spelled out in the articles of merger the police district And then there's another paragraph later on that talks about these special districts and what has to happen to expand them Or remove them So I think you're right that the only way to change the boundaries of the police district if you will is for those That are going to become part of that district to vote to join it So I don't think it even has to be the whole town, you know, like Fish Hill and Heather Hill could decide they want to join and Petition the select board to join the police district and then those residents would vote whether to join or not And then the police district votes whether to allow them to join or not so the simple solution of just Expanding the police district to the full town or even to a portion of the rest of the town Isn't as cut and dry as people have suggested it Okay, I didn't think so. No, nothing could be that easy It sounds to me my understanding is that if indeed we did want to have a town-wide police department Having a department would would really just be a town-wide police department would be just another line in our general budget Just like the rec department or any other part of our municipal government. So That actually would be the simplest way To do it. We wouldn't have to touch the police district. We would just Add a department to our general budget and have the whole town vote on it I think you can get away with it that easy Larry It's pretty spelled out in here and police services are pretty well-defined I don't think you can take the intent of that murder and just say well, we're gonna push it aside We're gonna call it something else put it in the budget and pass it to go town-wide. I think that's a lawsuit waiting to happen Like so I just I would like to learn more about that just because it the articles of of Merger are are pretty Which lends itself to a short-term solution and a long-term solution You know if we decide if we say that the vote that happened met nobody wants police service in the village Then we're done with the topic If we decide that it means there were some challenges with what was proposed and they want us to put together something else and come back and then Anything we put back together to keep some level of service has to be done so that the service continues on July 1 And there's no way you're gonna get through all the legal Issues of the merger document and what that looks like and how that plays out and votes and all that for a July 1 start date you know my interpretation of the of the police district vote and This is just my interpretation based upon what I saw and what I've what I've heard from folks So it's not a scientific sample, but is that the predominant issue was that People felt as though it's just it's that it's unfair for the police district to be shouldering the cost of police and that You know basically any police budget we that we would come up with that would you know not spread out the burden Would not be acceptable We could we could try putting up a different police budget, but that's my interpretation of what we saw happen So you think we go with nothing and so we have a long-term solution That might be our only option here I I mean it we could try putting a much smaller budget in front of the voters But if the real reason why people didn't want them didn't want to pass that budget is because of the perceived Unfairness of it. I don't see how that would help. I think you're gonna end up with I just don't see a short-term solution that My allows that my concern is how we tee us up for an interim solution. That leads to a long-term solution I articulated that feeling at town meeting and I'll reiterate it again tonight. I believe that the long-term Solution here may rest in a regional I do too Regional police force whether it's brain tree Brookfield Bethel and us or whatever that might look like Williamstown Whatever that might look like, but we can't get there over night And we have to deal with the reality of our situation today and in the coming weeks and months beyond July 1st And that's what we should be focusing on Can you just for careful clarification reiterate what services are available you have this July 1st cutoff so what What cuts off in July on July 1st. It's no money. There's no money. So who what do we have currently right now? Do we have? Scott and the administrative assistant. Do we have no? Randall because I know previously we discussed hiring one and one and admin and you know the sheriff So are they actually hired but not anymore after July 1st or? or And so there's Right now There's money in the budget that was passed because we had funds to contract with the Orange County Sheriff for a level of service Yeah, so we were contracting. I believe it was 120 hours a week was what was used at a budgeted number The thing that people could understand is if you have an event that happens that requires more service You're gonna be over that 120 But your goal was not to go below it So, you know when you look at budgets and and volatility police budgets are probably more volatile than a lot of others that you have When the Orange County Sheriff said we don't have any staff. We can't do this anymore There's still a budget remaining there And so that would allow some level of service between now and June 30th So the budget that we're talking about is what happens July 1 to get us through the next fiscal year while we try to figure out And I don't believe we're gonna get there in one year I don't I don't see us getting through the whole you know what we're talking about and what some of the neighboring towns have expressed interest in is creating Something similar to how we do solid waste districts and how we do ambulance services and whatnot where You all agree on kind of what it looks like and how you allocate those costs between the the towns that are benefiting from the service And I guess we have anyone paying in there's talk of asking like Claire Martin or the school or give her to pitch in any money Towards that name that happening Well, no, that's part of so you some of what I don't know if folks understand like If we look at the timeline for how this all came down There was there was conversation taking place because Orange County Sheriff provided our dispatch service and The side judges said hey we're not going to provide eight hours of coverage overnight and We don't have very much luck scheduling fires and incidents right so we got to have 24-hour coverage That started the conversation with dispatch services of you know who can do what how do we got to have this? There's no we didn't have any choice as that was taken place the election took place Contoyce was elected His you know if you his Discussion coming up through was all about contracted services not doing them what he was going to do There was some conversation with him after he was elected What he told me was I'm headed to Arizona I'll be back for February one to get sworn in I'll talk to you after that That's not a good place to be to begin with then you hear that they're all resigning You know the guy worked there for 20 years the sheriffs are all resigning you don't get a warm and fuzzy there either It's irresponsible just to sit back and say we'll see what happens February one So that's when the conversation started with while we were signing the documents with very city I'm like they said well is there anything else we can help you with I'm like yeah You want to provide some police service? Trevor threw in we have a building with some charm But they've got the same challenges, you know that we talked to the state police the staffing is the big issue Like they didn't nobody had the capacity to provide what we were looking for what we felt was needed And that was at the level of service. We were already getting so that's kind of what led us to this February 1 happens February 3rd February 2nd 36 hours in a good cause has he been unstaffed this whole time by the way And we don't have for sufficient staffing to cancel the contract. We can't even provide you the third day notice. It's in writing So all this kind of fits in that sign saying continue That one we're talking about this village this budget. What do you need to provide 120 hours of police service? That's a number that came out of the 2018 era conversation How do we fix the short-term solution and then embedded or included on top of that spent a lot of time talking about July 1 But as of functionally February 1st, we were without a level of coverage that we were expecting state police have tried to step into the extent They can there's two folks here who can provide some insight on what they've been able to do What are some of the things they've been sort of facing for call bun? What are the actual calls that are coming in and what we can expect for them in the long term as well? Which is going to be pretty minimal Based on some of their staffing and other needs and so we're also trying to figure out what do services look like in the short term We have started to hire up We went to get something called an ORI Reactivated that's essentially our access to all of the criminal information systems It's a key piece to be able to get up and running and provide police services again. We were just notified We were reactivated at the federal level on March 6th, maybe And then with the budget vote and the media coverage of it We were then notified that we've been put on hold again So we're not even able at this point even though that our eyes reactivated even though Scott's a fully certified law enforcement officer We're not able to do anything Until that piece is resolved as well and some of that piece is tied into what are we doing in the short term? And so one of the things we're gonna have to talk to about this is really at the state level is we have a budget We have money approved through June 30 Can that at least change the equation for the fiscal year we're in? While we figure out what it looks like after July 1 and so there are those sort of competing pressures of what do we look like? super short term sort of near short term mid term and then long term and if you're talking about regional policing I think you'd be thinking at least a couple a year out years out This is something that doesn't have a precedent really Some of the regional efforts have been smaller focused on dispatching and they either haven't come to fruition or in the central Vermont example They just were dissolved We voted in Montpelier whether or not to pull the city out And to approve the dissolution of the public safety authority there But it does seem like when you think about everything that's happening across public safety sectors And we were going to probably see it at some point with like tax assessment services At some point we may have to band together In order to try to provide these things, but that's a couple of years You've got to find an equitable what measure to pay something that everybody agrees to give voter buy-in So we think long term. There's at least two years. I might even be a little optimistic I was telling some folks I worked for about five years in Essex long before they split when they were still trying to figure out if it was together or apart And to fix a 40-year building problem related to the police department we took two years to pick a site that everybody could agree on So these things Take the time to take and that's just to try to put a realistic frame on it wouldn't be we're going regional We need a couple of months and we're gonna be jamming just out the labor If you look at that that's rooted in the Village town dynamic What you're describing in Essex that's a building had to go on ability to yeah one side of the line or the other To move forward. Yeah, Judicial site is rooted in that We're talking regional we're talking some other solution That needs to break down some kind of historic Stuff or to really change in order of events that kind of takes some time I would have guessed that the funding side of this is going to be the bigger discussion Right, then the towns like Brookfield that don't have a large business community and in those type of things there Their desire to pay is going to be lower than hours or lower than Wayne's towns. They're going to have similar Dynamics there to what the town has here in terms of right. We're just going to multiply it because we think it's so much fun right now Would it be appropriate to hear from our state police representatives that this would be a good time for that So I'm here to more answer questions and necessarily give a presentation on but I can give you some numbers Tracks from crime in responses to calls in town I don't have it broken between the village and the town because our system doesn't work that way I'd have to go through all seven thousand calls over class here and pick them out one row one address So this morning. I just I ran some numbers and these are rough numbers so The shares department from the first of from January 1st of 2022 to current Took 2300 calls of service for the town of Randolph So I'd say those are a high percentage of those were in the village because we're at their contracting with you in that same time frame We took roughly a thousand So us as the state police in Whirlton we cover 18 towns We took 7200 calls in that period of time Entirety and a thousand of those were to your town You're talking about 18 towns So your percentage of calls in your town and that's just for us. So you're talking about 33 3400 calls in the town of Randolph Total and this is removing so we don't cover Hartford and which I remove those out of the equation So these are calls that we have full coverage as police agencies and then Royalton that we're covering. So that's a lot You guys have a lot of calls and those aren't those aren't car stops. Those aren't officers doing, you know Effectively being there was what people see them. This is actual calls for service That your town has it's a very high for this region Our ability to take on 2300 calls. We don't have that ability So the thousand calls we cover over the past year, you know us as an agency with our staffing levels Our troopers take about 600 calls a year 650 calls a year that's up from 350 calls a year about four or five years ago Because this this is more things occurring We're seeing it more stuff's falling into the state more crime More of these bigger things because a lot of that becomes a problem with because our proactivity lessens Right, so you're not you don't have somebody sitting on the street a police car or police officer Walking around people see that that tears crime So it's not just that response for calls Can you just explain so people understand we decided to disband the police department and have no department What does that do to response times and the types of events you can respond to we can just respond to emergency calls So things like I have a bad check You know these things that are not life safety issues. We do not have the capability to come in to those That's what you get from a police department Property disputes things like that that we just don't have the capacity to take on Are things that we're not we just we can't we have three people working to cover 18 towns Most of the time is three troopers on at a time We just don't have the capacity to handle all those things that you're getting You know good service so of those thousand Over and above what the sheriff Serves the staff handled in the past since the beginning of 2022. Are you able to differentiate the levels of I don't know how else to put this the levels of severity of those So I broke it out a little bit in in types of calls So for us we took about 30 domestics. So it's like a domestic assault time call family fight 39 1 1 calls six assault calls 15 mental health calls Eighty-seven suspicious calls that can vary that can range from somebody's out from a house to I saw something It can be a criminal call or sometimes it's not 42 saps 45 welfare or suicide checks those calls can be very Entailed it can take a long time to deal with For juvenile problems three citizens view and then you know, we you know, there's a list of 50 things we come to But those are kind of the heavy hitters and most people Most people see I don't have the arrest numbers And I can provide like a more detailed thing for the select board that I can give you More of a breakdown things that you can see locations More overall more details of that's things that you needed Would you be able to provide ones to the school system the hospital and that kind of stuff? Maybe So this depends on the ad like sometimes those places have multiple editors. It would take some time I could probably get that information, but it would take me a while Does your system that tracks all this is it able to can we download that? data into GIS to create a map It might be interesting to just sort of see a map of kind of where where this is So a lot of like pull into an Excel spreadsheet. That's how we do it Yep, and then I can categorize and dice them so if it's that's you can go from that I can take that I got somebody that can take that Anybody else What's going to be What do people think the path forward is here? What is the short term? What do you want to do? Do we want to give some? I think I'm coming at it from a place of Positivity rather than just assuming that every town is going to go going to vote no and every person is going to be Not willing to provide especially with the statistics that we're going to have coming in I think Being overly transparent. We're in a weird cultural environment right now, you know our school systems are at risk You know hospitals are you know overburdened with mental health and all that kind of stuff I think if we come at it from a place of What can we do as a community to make sure that you know we? Proactively like he said Provide these services in a way in the future to make sure that they all come together cohesively Whether it takes two years or not having those stepping stones available and not just saying well Brookfield doesn't have this so we're not even you know We want to at least provide them the opportunity to Show them that we want them to be a part of it and you know their kids come to our school here in Orange County So we want to make sure you know that everybody is covered and everybody not necessarily Gets to have their opinion right but has a solution oriented mindset So, you know, we've seen a lot on front porch forum that everybody has these issues that they want Said and hopefully they'll start coming to the select board meetings And you know being a part of the information output as well as the input and that's you know The two-way communication that I'd really like to start seeing in order to get the short term to turn into a long term again the place of positivity and really reaching out to see who Possibly would be interested and so just assuming that nobody wants to be interested. Oh I think there's a lot of people interested. Yeah, I think you're gonna have to If we're gonna move something forward on the long-term solution that's going to take creating a working group Yeah, and reaching out to these municipalities of you know, do you want to send them a person in an alternate or like how? Because you also don't want a 75 person team trying to create a solution Oh, absolutely, you know you wanted but I think the more direction we need to figure out tonight is What's the short term look like do we go with nothing? For a few years or do we go with a scaled-down version, you know We got to give Trevor some direction on what to create, you know, what that looks like First up is organization of the board. This is election of officers Or So we'll start out with a chair Motion in the second all those in favor I posed Now we are looking for a vice chair Sakowitz Chair and people should understand maybe why Larry can't But he has not yet been sworn in and he is out of town Larry All those in favor Now we're looking for a secretary clerk I'll nominate Tom for that I Motion in the second those in favor Motion carries and we are organized next up is public comment. This is comment on anything not on the agenda Anybody on the screen not seen anything great approval of the agenda No, we're I'll second that all those in favor Opposed that one sales through consent calendar. This is approval of meeting minutes and warrants Which is so you know the warrants come in an email We approve them so the checks can go out and keep flowing and then at the board meeting we have ratified that That's what warrants means We'll try to walk you through it and not maybe like Movie approval of the well of the consent agenda Do we want to do both A and B? Yep, that's what I thought so I'll move the I'll move the approval of the consent agenda the meeting minutes of 227 and the warrants All those in favor Motion carries Next up is the business agenda and first up is town meeting review and discussion of next steps District budget on the other budgets and articles passed so Those are set over the primary order of business There are a couple of other business items at the end of the warning We don't really have to do too much with any of them at any point certainly soon There was the tax exemption for the senior center Those are you have an initial term of 10 years to be qualified and then each successive term is five years in length So they're into the five-year cycle so voters proved that I was in there and then there's been an article About if we have any kind of surplus funds at the end of the year That's the same article has appeared for a few years in a row now excuse me Let's get dumped into the paving reserve and the got gravel road reserve Whoo, just I get very emotional talking about surplus And so that one's been pretty standard We don't know that until the audited you know the year has ended and the audits been completed And then we know sort of hopefully which side of good we ended on And those are going across and there's a percentage assigned to those those but many of the special appropriations But that was really it. We didn't have any bonds or any sort of other resolutions So brings us back around to the one article that didn't pass which was a budget article related to the police district And so it's kind of a conceptual. Where do you want to go? What could some next steps be type of conversation on that? We didn't include in the package just kind of a rough timeline for what happens when a budget vote doesn't pass And that's comes from state statute and it's pretty similar to what we do in terms of warning town meeting in the process for There's a couple of different tweaks in there with timelines But really it's about same 30 to 40 day window Still have to have an informational meeting There's still a vote at the end and then some other warning pieces in terms of when things appear in papers when things get Posted those types of things Once we figure out some dates if that's the direction we'll add those in work backwards from there being mindful of some Other things that don't show up in calendar such as we need so many days to have absentee ballots available Folks will work with Emory in his office on those pieces, but for now it just sort of shows you If you start at step one and need to go to the end What does statute say you have to do to get from from here or there? They've said today a couple times in a hallway with a number of doors Which door we have which doors would you like to choose? Instead of here's we've got two issues here If you follow front page for them is all kinds of reasons people voted no It's we know it's not the simple one of what's the budget or what one issue is there was a lot of them but we We've got a couple themes there One is whether the what the police district looks like with it is that the entire town is that a part of the town? How does it get paid for we're not going to crack that nut in a couple days? There's just it's too big So I think we have two questions one's the short-term solution. What do we do to get through while we? Look at the bigger issue of what does policing look like and you know There's a lot of conversation that went forward Even while we're doing this before you guys were part, but you know is the answer regional even it's you know It's quite possible the solution here isn't even just Randolph. It's a variety of towns and I think that's Sort of the area that was gaining the most steam as Trevor and I were doing the road show looking for somebody to provide service so I Would always think that the approach we need to look at is what's our short-term solution here? And what's our long-term solution and how do we gear up to define what those two? solutions look like and and How we go about? You know going after what those are Trini for the benefit of some of us who are newer to Randolph or who have been here a long time that may not be aware of The underpinnings of the merger of the town and the village some 40 years ago or more Can you explain? Maybe Trevor you could do this what the process is for Expanding the police district or dissolving it and creating a new one or my understanding is that? The village residents the police district residents and the town residents would have separate Valid initiatives relative to those decisions. Is that accurate? Initial Read on the articles of merger, right? Yeah, if you look at the articles of merger, there's a very defined Paragraph about the police district and if you talk to the people that were part of it And you look at the history of it There was a lot of pushback from the town side on the merger because they didn't want to pay For police services and if you look at what Randolph's makeup was at the time It was mostly agriculture outside of the village area So you had a lot of farms that had large parcels of land that were paying sizable amounts of property taxes That didn't want to absorb the cost of a police department to cover farmland basically And if you follow some of the back and forth that took place There was a whole lot of distrust from both sides and whatnot. So you have this You have it spelled out in the articles of merger the police district And then there's another paragraph later on that talks about these special districts And what has to happen to expand them or remove them? So I think you're right that the only way to change the boundaries of the police district If you will is for those that are going to become part of that district to vote to join it So I don't think it even has to be the whole town, you know, like Fish Hill and Heather Hill could decide they want to join and Petition the select board to join the police district and then those residents would vote whether to join or not And then the police district votes whether to allow them to join or not So the simple solution of Expanding the police district to the full town or even to a portion of the rest of the town Isn't as cut and dry as people that suggested it Okay Nothing could be that easy Government so that actually would be the simplest way To do it. We wouldn't have to touch the police district. We would just Add department to our general budget and have the whole town go on it I don't think you can get away with it that easy Larry It's pretty spelled out in there and police services are pretty well defined I don't think you can take the intent of that merger and just say well, we're going to push it aside We're going to call it something else put it in the budget and pass it to go townwide I think that's a lawsuit waiting to happen The pretty murky mass Documents and how they would be how they would be interpreted Which lends itself to a short-term solution and a long-term solution You know if we decide if we say that the vote that happened met Nobody wants police service in the village then we're done with the topic If we decide that it means there were some challenges with what was proposed and they want us to put together Something else and come back then Anything we put back together to keep some level of service has to be done So that the service continues on July 1 and there's no way you're going to get through all the legal Issues of the merger document and what that looks like and how that plays out and votes and all that for a July 1 start date Scientific sample So predominant issue is that People felt as though it's just it's that it's unfair for the police district to be short on the cost of police and that You know basically any police budget we that we would come up with that way You know not spread out the burden would not be acceptable We could we could try putting up a different police budget, but that's my interpretation of what we saw happen So you think we go with nothing until we have a long-term solution I think you're gonna end up with I just don't see a short-term solution that Allows that my concern is how we tee us up for an interim solution that leads to a long-term solution I articulated that feeling at town meeting and I'll reiterate it again tonight. I believe that the long-term Solution here may rest in a regional I do too Regional police force whether it's brain tree Brookfield Bethel and us or whatever that might look like Williamstown Whatever that might look like, but we can't get there over night And we have to deal with the reality of our situation today and in the coming weeks and months beyond July 1st And that's what we should be focusing on Can you just for careful clarification reiterate what services are available you have this July 1st cutoff so what What cuts off in July on July 1st. It's no money. There's no money. So who what do we have currently right now do we have? Scott and the administrative assistant. Do we have no? Randall because I know previously we're discussed hiring one and one and admin and you know the sheriff So are they actually hired but not anymore after July 1st or? I mean please share And so there's Right now There's money in the budget that was passed because we had funds to contract with the Orange County Sheriff for a level of service Yeah, so we were contracting. I believe it was 120 hours a week was what was used at a budgeted number The thing that people got to understand is if you have an event that happens that requires more service You're going to be over that 120 But your goal was not to go below it, okay? So, you know when you look at budgets and and volatility police budgets are probably more volatile than a lot of others that you have When the Orange County Sheriff said we don't have any staff. We can't do this anymore There's still a budget remaining there And so that would allow some level of service between now and June 30th So the budget that we're talking about is what happens July 1 to get us through the next fiscal year while we try to figure out and I don't believe we're going to get there in one year I don't I don't see us getting through the whole you know what we're talking about and what some of the neighboring towns have expressed interest in is creating something similar to how we do solid waste districts and how we do Ambulance services and whatnot where you all agree on kind of what it looks like and how you allocate those costs Between the the towns that are benefiting from the service Well, no, that's part of so you some of what I don't know if folks understand like If we look at the timeline for how this all came down There was a there was conversation taking place because Orange County Sheriff provided our dispatch service and the side judges said hey we're not going to provide eight hours of coverage overnight and We don't have very much luck scheduling fires and incidents right so we got to have 24-hour coverage That started the conversation with dispatch services of you know who can do what how do we got to have this There's no we didn't have any choice as that was taken place the election took place Contoyce was elected his you know if he didn't his Discussion coming up through was all about contracted services not doing them what he was going to do There was some conversation with him after he was elected What he told me was I'm headed to Arizona. I'll be back for February one to get sworn in I'll talk to you after that That's not a good place to be to begin with then you hear that they're all resigning You know the guy worked there for 20 years the sheriffs are all resigning. You don't get a warm and fuzzy there either It's irresponsible just to sit back and say we'll see what happens February one So that's when the conversation started with while we were signing the documents with very city I'm like they said well is there anything else we can help you with I'm like. Yeah, you want to provide some police service? Trevor threw in we have a building with some charm But they've got the same challenges, you know, we talked with the state police the staffing is the big issue Like they didn't nobody had the capacity to provide what we were looking for or what we felt was needed And that was at the level of service. We were already getting so that's kind of what led us to this February one happens February third February second 36 hours in a good cause has he been unstaffed this whole time by the way And we don't have for sufficient staffing to cancel the contract. We can't even provide you the third day notice it's in writing So all this kind of fits in that sense and continue that one we're talking about this for like this budget What do you need to provide 120 hours of police service? That's a number that came out of the 2018 era conversation How do we fix the short-term solution and then embedded or included on top of that spent a lot of time talking about July one But as of functionally February 1st We were without a level of coverage that we were expecting the state police have tried to step into the extent they can There's two folks here who can provide some insight on what they've been able to do What are some of the things they've been sort of facing for call going? What are the actual calls that are coming in and what we can expect for them in the long term as well? Which is going to be pretty minimal based on some of their staffing and other needs And so we're also trying to figure out what do services look like in the short term We have started to hire up We went to get something called an ORI reactivated. That's essentially our access to all of the criminal information systems It's a key piece to be able to get up and running and provide police services again We were just notified we were reactivated at the federal level on March 6th, maybe And then with a budget vote and the media coverage of it We were then notified that we've been put on hold again So we're not even able at this point even though that our eyes reactivated even though scots a fully certified law enforcement officer We're not able to do anything Until that piece is resolved as well and some of that piece is tied into what are we doing the short term? And so one of the things we're going to have to talk to about this is really at the state level is we have a budget We have money approved through June 30 Can that at least change the equation for the fiscal year we're in? While we figure out what it looks like after July 1 and so there are those sort of competing pressures of what do we look like? super short term sort of near short term mid term and then long term and if you're talking about regional policing I think you'd be thinking at least a couple a year out years out This is something that doesn't have a precedent really some of the regional efforts have been smaller focused on dispatching and They either haven't come to fruition or in the central Vermont example. They just were dissolved We voted in Montpelier whether or not to pull the city out And to approve the dissolution of the public safety authority there But it does seem like when you think about everything that's happening across public safety sectors And we're gonna probably see it at some point with like tax assessment services Some point we may have to band together in order to try to provide these things But that's a couple of years. You've got to find an equitable measure to pay something that everybody agrees to give voter buy-in So we think long term. There's at least two years. That might even be a little optimistic. I was telling some folks I Worked for about five years in Essex long before they split when they were still trying to figure out if it was together or apart And to fix a 40-year building problem related to the police department. We took two years to pick a site Everybody could agree on So these things take the time to take and that's just to try to put a realistic frame on it wouldn't be we're going regional We need a couple of months and we're going to be jamming just That's rooted in the Village town dynamic What you're describing in Essex that's a building had to go in ability to one side of the line or the other move forward Yeah, judicious Is rooted in that what it takes time to talk through these pieces. It's kind of whether we're talking regional we're talking some other solution That needs to break down some kind of historic Stuff or to really change in order of events that kind of takes some time I would have guessed that the funding side of this is going to be the bigger discussion Right, then the towns like Brookfield that don't have a large business community and those type of things they're Their desire to pay is going to be lower than hours or lower than Wayne's towns. They're going to have similar Dynamic there to what the town has right here in terms of right We're just going to multiply it because we think it's so much fun right now, right Would it be appropriate to hear from our state police representatives that if this would be a good time for that Would like that I'm here to more answer questions That's necessarily give a presentation on but I can give you some numbers Which are real things right out of our system that tracks from crime in response is to calls in town I don't have it broken between the village and the town because our system doesn't work that way I'd have to go through all seven thousand calls over the past year and pick them out one row of what address So this morning, I just I ran some numbers and these are rough numbers so The Sheriff's Department from the first of from January 1st of 2022 to current took 2,300 calls of service for the town of Randolph So I'd say those are a high percentage of those were in the village because right there contracting with you In that same time frame. We took roughly a thousand So us as the state police in world and we cover 18 towns We took 7,200 calls in that period of time Entirety and a thousand of those would were to your town You're talking about 18 towns So your percentage of calls in your town and that's just for us. So you're talking about 33 3400 calls in the town of Randolph Total and this is removing so we don't cover Hartford and which I remove those out of the equation So these are calls that we have full coverage as police agencies and then Royalton that we were covering. So That's a lot You guys have a lot of calls and those aren't those aren't car stops. Those aren't officers doing, you know Effectively being there so people see them. This is actual calls for service That your town has it's a very high for this region Our ability to take on 2,300 calls. We don't have that ability So the thousand calls we cover over the past year, you know us as an agency with our staffing levels Our troopers take about 600 calls a year 650 calls a year that's up from 350 calls a year about four or five years Because this is this is more things occurring We're seeing it more stuff's flowing into the state more crime More of these bigger things because a lot of that becomes a problem with because our proactivity lessons All right, so you're not you don't have somebody sitting on the street a police car or police officer Walking around people see that that deters crime So it's not just that response for calls Questions Can you just explain so people understand we decide to disband a police department and have no department What does that do to response times and the types of events you can respond to we can respond to emergency calls So things like I have a bad check You know these things that are not life safety issues. We do not have the capability to come That's what you get from a police department Property disputes things like that that we just don't have the capacity to take on Are things that we're not we just we can't we have three people working to cover 18 towns Most of the time is three troopers on at a time We just don't have the capacity to handle all those things that you're getting And you know good service so of those thousand Over and above what the sheriff Serves the staff handled in the past since the beginning of 2022. Are you able to differentiate the levels of I Don't know how else to put this the levels of severity of those so I broke it out a little bit in in types of calls So for us we took about 30 domestics. So it's like a domestic assault time call 39 1 1 calls 6 assault calls 15 mental health calls 87 suspicious calls that can we're very I can range from somebody's out from my house to I saw something It can be a criminal call or sometimes it's not 42 saps 45 welfare or suicide checks those calls can be very entailed it can take a long time to deal with For juvenile problems three citizens view and then you know, we you know, there's a list of 50 things we come to But those are kind of the heavy hitters and most people Most people see I don't have the arrest numbers And I can provide like a more detailed thing for the select board that I can give you More of a breakdown things that you can see Locations and things like that give you a more overall more details of that's things that you needed Would you be able to provide ones to the school system the hospital and that kind of stuff? Maybe So this depends on the ad like sometimes those places have multiple address It would take some time I could probably get that information, but it would take me a while Does your system that tracks all this is it able to can we download that data into GIS to create a map? That I don't know but I can get an answer if you need to leave an email on what that is or have he can reach out to me we can It might be interesting to just sort of see a map of kind of where where this is So a lot of like pull into an Excel spreadsheet. That's how we do it. Yeah, and then I can categories and dice them So if it's that's you can go from there. I can take that. I got something I can take that Okay anybody else Do we want on What's going to be What do people think the path forward is here? What is the short term? What do you want to do? Do we want to give some underbrush to clear? Positivity rather than just assuming that every town is going to go going to vote no and every person is going to be Not willing to provide especially with the statistics that we're going to have coming in I think Being overly transparent we're in a weird cultural environment right now, you know our school systems are at risk You know hospitals are you know overburdened with mental health and all that kind of stuff I think if we come at it from a place of What can we do as a community to make sure that you know we? Proactively like he said Provide these services in a way in the future to make sure that they all come together cohesively Whether it takes two years or not having those stepping stones available and not just saying well Brookfield doesn't have this so we're not even you know, we want to at least provide them the opportunity to Show them that we want them to be a part of it and you know their kids come to our school here in Orange County So we want to make sure you know that everybody is covered and everybody not necessarily Gets to have their opinion right but has a solution oriented mindset So, you know, we've seen a lot on-front porch forum that everybody has these issues that they want Said and hopefully they'll start coming to the select board meetings And you know being a part of the information output as well as the input And that's you know the two-way communication that I'd really like to start seeing in order to get the short term to turn into a long term again, the place of positivity and really reaching out to see who Possibly would be interested instead of just assuming that nobody wants to be interested. Oh I think there's a lot of people interested. Yeah, I think you're gonna have to If we're gonna move something forward on the long-term solution that's going to take creating a working group Yeah, and reaching out to these municipalities of you know, do you want to send a Person of an alternate or like how you because you also don't want a 75 person team trying to create a solution Oh, absolutely. So you you know you wanted but I think the more direction we need to figure out tonight is What's the short-term look like do we go with nothing? For a few years or do we go with a scaled-down version, you know We got to give Trevor some direction on what to create you know what that looks like I think some of the issue that happened was Not having data. There was no crime data. And so it's really easy for people to say I've never experienced crime So crime doesn't exist. I've heard that a lot and it's I think it comes from a place of privilege and Erogance of not knowing what's really happening in our town and that's swayed a lot of people think well I just don't my taxes to go up and there's no crime and And that the select board hasn't been transparent and the reason why it wasn't transparent because I have it fast So it didn't have a lot of time for there to be a public discussion It wasn't anyone's fault. It just was the timing of it And I'm wondering how many of those people would now say like oh like look at these numbers of things that are actually happening in our town Understanding the reality that there is no other option To so either we do something now or we have nothing for maybe even two years And kind of getting that information out there in front of the gossip and That sort of thing that kind of happened I think And we really it doesn't seem like we could do much outside of taxing the village For this is that correct? Don't see it I think it's One of the things we need to do so back to those articles merger kind of a standard operating procedure the next step would be Let's consult our municipal attorney said what did he say? What do you think so that they can dig in and say? Case law statute combine all of these things and provide us with some little here's what we think you are and what it would take To change these boundaries to eliminate them to do all of those pieces Very quick man or in order to get something. I'm gonna be quick exactly a legal opinion on this Is not gonna come quick because it's not very clear It's the terminology of the special service district is in the articles of merger isn't Necessarily the framing for some of the other special districts. There are Union municipal districts or fire districts some of these other things that have been around for a while Have that taxing authority might see those there's some clear lines around those So it's also do we consider this one of those to follow that kind of protocol? Is it something different? Realistically if we were to move down the path of Exploring a vote by the residents of the village and the residents of the town around the boundaries of Or the very existence of the police district. How long might that take? I mean, I'm asking you know, I know I'm asking you how to left field question I'm just you have a sense of how I'll complicate I think it'll depend a little bit on what that guidance is coming back. So sort of Because that'll lay out what that process is But but then it also assumes that we enter that with some sort of unanimity around what? Whatever that direction looks like and so if you're gonna go from the footprint we have to a townwide You're not talking about taking the model that went out and just Blow on the boundaries out and suddenly that's going to cover everything There was we found a report in doing some of this taking from around 2003 to 2004 that somebody internally did I looked at do you need to expand your level of resource if you expand your level of coverage? so whether or not we're adding bodies cruisers any of these things in order to Cover all that ground in that kind of cohesive manner as opposed to trying to expand coverage almost in a contract manner With some of the money that's in general. So it's also part of it is Are we unified in sort of what that direction is can build a budget build a framework around that? And know what it is. So it There's a little bit of that piece that'll have to go over the two in terms of what's the process But it's also what's the product? I? Just feel if we're going to build if this is hypothetical, but if we're going to build that case Then we need allies out in the community including those who have as a consequence In the lead up to the vote on on Tuesday We're saying we think it's unfair for the village to have to foot the whole fray They're going to have to make they're going to have to join us if we're going to make that case They're going to have to join us in making that case and reaching out to their friends and colleagues in the rest of the town To make that case based on statistical data Based on the same argument that you just echoed a little bit Erica that you know People all over this town all over this region make use of Gifford. They send their kids to our high school a shop It shows they have as much of a vested interest in And I'm politicizing this a little bit now, but this is My argument they have as much of a vested interest in the safety of this community and all its levels as Those of us who live in the village, and I live in the village You know I get that argument that it's an undue burden on us But I also think and I feel very strongly that our short-term pathway ought to be At the very least some kind of full town-wide Policing model what that looks like Is open to discussion, but if the GPS that I were to show, you know, we're not the agrarian Farming community we were in the in the 1980s anymore Nor is the population of the rest of the town the same population it was in the 1980s Nor is the population of the village and our policing needs are Very different from 40 years ago, and we've heard from our state police tonight that They can't meet the needs that that are at a lower level than the emergent so you know This isn't a discussion we have three or four or five years to let unfold We have to deal with the immediacy of now and then figure out what five years from now looks like on a gradual basis Really really hard-pressed to do To get through so say it is something similar to like you need to store even a dual-volt model that we've talked about To go from where we are with the district to a town-wide thing To create a budget for that to figure out the level of surfs and have all of that ready to flick the lights on on July 1 I Don't think we've got those kinds of rabbits in the hat honestly. I really don't And so that's some of the the push-pull there too is because Longer we sit we're at I mean we're in limbo right now. We're floating out in space hoping somebody and all of that Infinite area stops by and picks us up So at a certain point we've got to figure out a direction and head there So these things might be the right answer long term It might be that it's a more local town There's still might be a longer regional one at some point. There's got to be an apparatus That can go out there and do the job Because that's the piece we don't have is there Funding again first day first day on the job here. Is there funding? when we had contracted with you know Orange County originally is there a The baseline budget for that going into the next fiscal year that we could utilize I'm gonna call it a skeleton crew, but that we could utilize them higher or have available Minimal I hate to say like one officer. Yeah, sorry That's the direction we got to give Trevor so what do you want? Can that be a short-term model if it's already at the baseline budget where Not necessarily anything's gonna go up Or down. It's just what we've utilized as a monetary Amount in the past to have a baseline for the next year while we Create this new committee to Make a whole new Whether it's town or regional I Think there's a continuum of service to think about with that. And so does it move us away from our space float? Yeah Does it actually get us to solid ground somewhere because now you're talking about you got one guy one guy one cruiser 40 hours a week because we're not have that he's the only one on You got nothing when he needs a holiday when he has holidays or when he has leave time You have a big incident. He's got no back up. Yeah And the backup is the Sort of the over just already at their stressed point right state police with regards to resources, so it's better than floating but How much farther and at say three hundred and fifty thousand dollars? You're not able to have kind of the capacity I mean most of those police costs are on and it's a pizza people I'm all of what we do is a people. Yeah, we buy dump trucks when we buy materials, but You don't put the people in there. You don't have anything to make any of it go They're also our most expensive piece So at those numbers You're limited and with each sort of figure out fifty to a hundred thousand dollar committee step out You add a little bit more capability to move along that continuum of service. So really it's about Where do you want to sit between? You know hey ground control major Tom Here's where we're at I'm also really curious about what else the sheriff's department has done for us So there's talk of like helping out Gifford with veggie van go and the drug deposits And different things like that. And so I think that's also kind of missing piece of If we had nothing what are those other support systems that will then be gone like Claire Martin won't have a support system If they have an emergency What about Gifford? What about the high school? What about other things that allow, you know, things like veggie van go to support our more vulnerable populations and all those like positive sides of it, not just the crime and I think that a lot of them are forgetting that those things exist with what we had with the sheriff's department and the PD before that That's other operational things that have already kind of we've made it through the winter a little bit And it hasn't always been pretty we have just had to plow around When you think of our winter parking bands and things like that that has historically been enforced with the great assistance of whatever law enforcement And we have Well if those calls come in at two and then who's going to take those at whatever time in the morning and coordinate the towing Or try to calls for trying to out, you know reach out to the individual in the car We don't have access to those information systems if it's Kim and I right And so now we've got Different obstacles to work with those can become safety obstacles pretty quickly And it's not to say that we get it right every time even with police, but it's Those are the pieces that come in there. There are other ordinances that might be impacted There are the times that agency need or want assistance on a welfare check or a mental health call That's a common one that may not be showing up as much and that we wouldn't have any other capacity So there is a whole suite of services beyond like the real crime stuff that We're either trying to find a really different model for we're just Most of those insurance vouchers that you have for those things require safety and security and so Maybe you can contact with some security, but maybe not And so like for the July parade for example, which everyone loves Where would that land? And so it's really like taking it's not even just like if we have crime or not and if police are deterrent or not in that conversation It's also allowing the mental health to be there and then medical response from an ambulance for example So, you know before the ambulance getting it there police officer can do a lot of things too if they are closer, you know So I think there's a lot more things at risk and We're leaving our our community pretty vulnerable without having anything I don't know if we can take comments. I'm new here I think it brings you back to that Question Larry was just gonna chime in go ahead Larry Okay, thanks So, yeah, I wanted just to jump in before it sounds like I'm gonna be opening up to some some questions from the So I just want to kind of bring us back to it Not so much what the what the need of policing is and what kind of services we get And I think that's important I'm I think we really need to focus on right now like what what what are we gonna do right now? It seems to me that You know in terms of the short term meaning like what happens on on July 1st We have a really not that many options right we can Well, yeah, I guess we could put the same budget or very similar budget in front of the voters like to me that seems like Even if folks feel a little more awareness around what we might be losing by By defeating such a vote such a budget. I think the voters are really clear in this In this budget in this on in this vote people did not like that budget So we could try putting a much smaller budget in front of the voters One that would give us a very minimal police presence as Perhaps temporary measure, but perhaps not it's right now hard to say but we do need to figure out Like I said, what will happen on July 1st, and so that seems like that's an option We have heard that You know some sort of a town-wide option May or may not be possible. I'm still not really clear as to what our Promoters are I think before we make a decision as to what we're going to put in front of the voters in the short term Against meeting starting July 1. I think we need some more information from our legal counsel in terms of You know what they really think, you know our various options are in terms of how The articles of merger Lay out a path what what possible paths the articles of merger lay out in front of us I'd really like to get that information before we make a decision and And I know that we'll take some time, but perhaps that's something which could be accomplished before our next regularly scheduled meeting next month and then we have And if we could get some of that information even before we met all of us would have a chance to Digest it before we even have a chance to discuss it together again And and then my other thought and which I'm just gonna kind of go on here because it's a little hard for me to jump in Is that in the general budget we did approve money for the police district My understanding is that we can use that money starting July 1st So even if it does take us a little bit of time to decide what's gonna happen during the next fiscal year Even if we can't get all the pieces in place Before July 1 doesn't mean that all our funding for For police services will suddenly try out Not sure if I agree with that Larry that money was put in to cover services outside of the district So if you don't have a police department, you don't have anybody to provide the services outside the district You know come July 1 if you have no budget you have no police department So you have no department the only way we can make that money available to help offset part of the budget is a basically a contract between the village and the police department and the town Area so that's a purchase of service by the rest of the town So to give the history so you're like what? The town is always contracted with Orange County Sheriff for the park outside of the district for a certain amount of patrols And it was like 8,000 and jumped up to 10 or 15 and the last number was 25,000 and That jump was when the drug houses came to be the couple of them that required a lot more coverage outside of the village managers drive being one of them and silhouette road being the other but the The Challenge there was how you pay for it Now because the Orange County Sheriff's not providing service So the money was put in there because we could use the police department to provide that service still And they would basically be providing a service outside of the district So the money had to be there to pay for that How are the services that were provided outside of the district by the Sheriff's Department under that contract distinct from what the state police Do can somebody explain Yeah, how that breakdown works or is it overlap or they provided a lot of like the routine patrol They were in the neighborhoods. They were driving through We got a lot more than what we paid for because when they got the contract to do the village They had to go drive to Chelsea Right they got drive to courthouse to get drive to check in and we got free patrol as they drove through town, but that service they did do some calls, but the The calls used to come in and I believe People would call directly to Orange County Sheriff to get that service and a lot of those of us that don't live in the village knew If you want the service quickly you called Orange County's dispatch and And you got it How Yeah, I'm not sure you do I think that the articles emerged or talk about the police district and having a special fund that pays for it And it I think you're getting into that murky where you need a lawyer to tell you whether you do or don't but I My read of that is that you had to have a special fund. It's a special budget That has to be approved. That's why they vote on it separate And that's a separate funding source for that police district and the way we got around to provide some level of funding noting that There's a lot of calls that they respond to like Investigations for things sometimes don't lead them just within the village, right? The the folks are outside of the village. Sometimes they're committing things in the schools or in the village area But to help cover that would give us a way of funding the efforts they were going to undertake outside of there So also think about what a hundred thousand dollars Just if you looked at sort of that proposed budget, which was a hundred twenty hours before officers in admin Took that divided out. We'd be able to fund that operation for a month and a half So we've made it from July 1 to the auger to Bennington Battle Day Actually don't get that one So we only have a hundred thousand dollars in the general well And then if we went with some sort of reason we don't sort of do anything we sit on that continuum of service down here It obviously stretches farther, but we're doing a heck of a lot less and then embedded in all of this is that if you want to do The community wants some level of law enforcement service to build up from where we are where it's just Scott Rose right now That's a tough sell for us to hire someone to say we don't know what's going to happen July 1 right now We don't know how we're gonna pay you. We don't know whether or not anybody else is gonna help We don't know how sort of long-term. This is we don't know these are all the things we don't know We can pay now we can employ now Come on and join And it's really I mean that's where we sort of get caught in We can't move too far from where we're at until some of these questions start And so the longer we push that out The more that uncertainty list and the harder it's gonna get to be to move off Of that and just to find those bodies because right now we think we can pull some from some of the existing poles that are out there That's kind of vanished sooner or later cops are a hot commodity because there aren't enough of them How maybe spots the best position to answer this how does the ORI? Factor into this too because we got it on the six and then it got dialed back As a consequence of the vote on On Tuesday, which was one of my fears all along How does that play into what the next six weeks to two months three months look like? Well, it needs to be you know kind of a decision on what direction this board is gonna go in regards to are we gonna have a PD or not? If you're gonna have a PD that or I can be Push forward and go and we'll have access only but it's just on a pause button to figure out what is going to happen As soon as they you guys decide that we're gonna have a PD it could be just me you could be two officers It could be whatever We can start rocking and rolling If the decision is not to have a PD that or rise can be non-existent go right back to a square one before we try to resurrect it That's the thing. It'd be harder to try to get a regional something or other put together if we have nothing There has to be some structure for a regional to take I mean they just does and when we're talking about the potential partners that are out there for better or worse We're the entity with a population That has some history having a department So we're gonna be if not at the center of that we're gonna be pretty integral to it. So it did Well, you think about that as a long-term option Come to the table with us to get a department and they have the experience. They're sick of running their own They're looking to go to a much bigger model There are potential partners, but you do need structure somebody's got to kind of be the center of it So we can't I feel like if we let everything dissolve July 1st basically then you're You're not gonna be able to build there would be no foundation essentially and so we won't be able to build anything up when we have nothing I think we need to do something Let's clear what we bring into the table for sure right regional conversations. We really want to We really want to be We had some folks in the Milo beach Sure, I'm my little cutler. I'm the animal control officer for Randolph And in terms of other services that probably you know, they don't make the paper that a lot of people don't realize is There are times when I need a police assist because I'm I have a complaint that comes in and I know that the dog owner That the house I'm going to is a known drug house But there are individuals with weapons and I can certainly speak to the last 20 years that When I first started this job, I never thought twice about going to somebody's house to knock on their door to talk to them about the dog and Now I have to do research I have to know where I'm going who I'm going to I need to know if it's in the village whether to call The local PD, you know, then Orange County Sheriff if it's outside the village It would either be Orange County Sheriff or state police and now we know we don't have Orange County Sheriff able to provide that and We're state police haven't passed now. They're short staffed and so Then it becomes a question of you know Telling a complaint and yes, I'd like to go to that call but I'm gonna have to wait till I can get a police assistant I don't know when that's gonna be but I've certainly Been to places where there are firearms visible where there are known drug houses and it's You know, it's not like it's not like it used to be as much as we wish it was I'm sure there's a list of the PCF that aren't here in this room that also provide a meeting services to vulnerable populations That also need the system. I'm sure there's plenty of other options Things out there that we're not Here in the room Just a piece of information for me to understand as here when we did the merger and Was involved in some of it and as a recall there is no Proceed path or we did it because it wasn't designed to be dissolved but the bigger point that I'm questioning is Does the police district as a tax? Authority exists any longer. I think when the PD went away and it was dissolved in the original. Oh, I was given up I think the district It's reason for being was gone. Therefore it went but now clearly with a vote That says we're not gonna have a PD We're not gonna put up any money But the district itself just doesn't exist and Larry's correct You guys have the authority just say that's it. We're done. It's now time line Just like you would for any other line item. I can't believe that anybody's gonna sue you for it If they do they can stand in line because they're not gonna win I think you've got the solution The town council about I mean this feels like it should be top of the agenda of our legal counsel to to Rule on exactly what Thomas alleging or what Larry's alleging We need that clarity before we can So a difference between this and say say a watery conversation As you don't have those sort of formal entities that are easily recognizable in statute for whom there are already processes There's not an incorporated village anymore It's this other special service district that doesn't sort of neatly fit into some of these other ones So we're gonna need them to be able to go through that And sort of advise on what is the right process is an option a which is to vote option B Which is something different option C which something we haven't even considered Joking with somebody read those sections three times came up with four different interpretations of it So I think that's where we're gonna really want that and how fast that happens depends on How clearly this fits into recognized structures? How much local history any of the things that are in the gray area for us right now are easily discernible for the individual Who don't go serve does the research can find it? And does those pieces So he will ask for as soon as possible It's complicated Special service district what exactly does that mean? That's the terminology the merger document Yeah, and so the problem is you got they define they have special service district And they give and how you vote to get in and how you vote to get out But then they have what they call police district and then they have water and then they have sewer But they don't say water sewer police special district. They just say district So, you know when you get a lawyer involved, they're going to be like What's every little word mean and how it's used in mud order and whatnot? So that's when we say it's not clean It's murky, you know, you probably could give this to two lawyers and get two different opinions And the water wastewater districts when you think about how it fits in larger statutes and those other things Those are much clearer enterprise fund type entities. So questions around those are More easily resolved just because of the nature of what they are and how more easily down there I mean, it's functionally a special taxing district that was created through the articles and merger As opposed to a taxing authority that was created through some other action of voters and so There's a little bit of a distinction this and say a Fire district or a union municipal district, which is what the solid waste compacts generally are and so That could be where the complicated and it may be that they look at it and there is something that we don't know about Case law and you know unfolds I've seen small things take a really long time. I've seen big things not take as long as you think Yeah, okay. Hang on. You got one behind them on you So I'm gonna be Up front and say I'm not for the I'm from outside the district and I'm not for the expansion So I want to just kind of be clear on from that And open with it. I think evidence evidence for discovery is that you have a district now I think further evidence for discovery is that it was once voted Down by Shaw's to expand that district down by Shaw's and that boat lost So there's precedence there that said that That there was a boat held for an area of town to join the district And that separately in that area not the whole town on it, but that area Got to vote in that and they and they said no, no, that's not the direction we want to go So with that, I think like you said in discoveries against the court The discovery is there to say that you have a you have an article merger and that You would lose the you would lose the case of just staying the whole town to do it. So to me though I I very much support my police department and one of the officers here knows the blue lake my house every day That that goes on the dusk every night and stays on till morning that has been Since probably the march through town and they face the police department down there So I want I want you to understand that I it's not that I don't support police in our town I really do but I think what has to happen Is to understanding your revenue sources of how you're paying for it and the revenue sources might not just be from A local tax or expanding that tax to other areas of the town Those revenue sources can come in the form of a local options tax, which we see in about 15 towns in brumont Burlington will ascend one 1% local option tax I think that that I think that that number alone can actually be told to you by the state of brumont Because they see all the taxes that are paid in by the businesses And then and what happens is if you say you want a 1% local local tax They take they take what you have from those businesses is historic nature And then then they can bring that revenue forward and say because when you do a local options tax 50 50 percent Of that money that they would take goes to the state and 50 percent comes to the town So they can give you a pretty accurate figure over the last couple years of exactly where that revenue piece comes from I further more think that what drives and I think the evidence from the state police here may be able to may be able to disclose Is is it businesses that are being broken into and under those pieces there? And it's it's actually it's not anti-business because i'm pro-business i'm very pro-development of pro-business And and and I look at it and say Is someone going to drive to leaven and enhancer to get a carton of eggs if they have to pay a penny more Not to be taxed fool, but you know i'm saying of those commodities that are taxed No one's going to do that not at three dollars and fifty cents again and soon to be four dollars and fifty cents again If mr. Sackowitz has this what that said I just I just think that you have to look at the revenue sources that may be available to you But also you have to take the thought of the people of what they want in their area that they live in And statistically there's many folks that live in the district here tonight that are for expanding That district for the simple reason Of paying for it That's that's that's a real that's a real simple reason for it because it i'll be honest with you It's not going to make me on my road any safer just one more one more statistic That's all by the time they get there by the time you get to east randolph Your recording is someone broken to your house You know and your statistic And do we want to pay for that statistic? So I think those are a lot of questions I would like to offer that I would like to be on that committee informed And not not not to abut people but to come together and to say hey You know Can we look at all these revenue sources the state police said they do they do a fantastic job And and that said but there's how many fds short 25 fds short Right 25 full did they budget for that 25 fds? Is that a revenue source that the state police can't call that Someone has to go up someone else has to go there because that's what it was was thought of with the merger state police would cover here Town police would cover would cover that district. So if you're 25 after you're short and you can't make it Is that 25 yet you're still in your budget? Is that a revenue source? So a lot of stuff a lot of stuff to think about Thank you The taxes are a 70 30 split so 70 30 percent state state uses the 30 to basically pay its property taxes So then Money raised from that comes back to us in the form. So sorry, that's that's changed then because the last time I remember it was 50 50 So I just ran something from 2022 I was I was on the select board a lot longer than that So I'm showing my age. Yeah, that's okay. And then out of the 70 percent the municipality also pays an administrative or sort of other fee to the state you can sort of Estimate that based on what you think the percentage of whoever files are because you don't till you dig into that That is some folks file annually some file monthly some file quarterly. It's basically splitting to thirds Depending on how much is raised in that's another few thousand dollars that comes off the top of the 70 percent So in terms of what that revenue is and then it depends what you get in depends on how broadly you do it The thing I was trying to find really quickly is they can provide some of that sales data So you can look into those categories But whether what it doesn't go down into a sort of that granular level of inside a district outside of a district I don't know if we'd be able to get that kind of data to sort of say What would it be in these boundaries versus those I just would have to dig into it the last time We went I went through this was out in the Medard River Valley when the three towns out there looked at it This was a couple of years ago And so and then you also have the if you have too few businesses for privacy reasons that you don't have any data at all So just we could dig into it. It's just Running that calculation as a revenue source and I don't know based on what we have here I mean that was a tourist destination with quite a few restaurants some lodging establishments You had a few other things that we may not have in the district or even yet townwide. So When a mute expectations for a bunch of revenue might be there, it's certainly some it's not property taxes So not sort of suggesting that but it Because in that model in wadesfield, for example, whether all of that tourist based activity you were talking somewhere in the four to six hundred thousand dollar range a few years ago In terms of what was actually back in after you calculated out for all the other stuff If you don't mind me saying that I don't think it's a hard exercise I think you can be figured out fairly Fairly quickly. It's just a numbers game. I'm sorry. I do a lot of numbers in a day and so to me That's I think that's I think that's a fairly quick numbers game You guys want me to do this? I will use my own sheet from before to do these numbers Are we quarter? It seems the biggest drawback to us forming a townwide police department is the fact that we have a police district And tom's saying well, we're not really functional right now. So are we a police district? I had a conversation years ago because this problem's been going on for Many many many years I had a conversation with steve webster and I said, couldn't we just vote out the police district and I think that's what waterbury did. Were you mentioning that there trevor? That was part of the they got rid of most of their village infrastructure and kept the utility districts And at that point went from a police to I think they I don't know if they landed right with the state police contract after that I believe there was a vote in waterbury to disband the police district and I was talking to steve webster about this He says yes, you can we can vote to disband the police district But we don't have the authority to end those articles of merger. He says that has to go to the legislature to do that So that's something that you are New on the board here may not know that that and I would personally say Let's get started with that process And because I think the voters in the village have basically said We're looking to see this be a town-wide police department I think you got to go outside the village though still and get that vote From the rest of the town that they want that to be the town. I think it will be a town-wide vote and not a village vote Do you have the village has to can't you know and the and the and the district The legislature then has to actually finalize that act And then you can form A proposal that's a town-wide vote So it's essentially like a charter change Yeah, which is what the merger document was that went in and had a I'm not sure if uh, I could be recognized Yeah, just the what you're trying to That people do identify themselves when they speak for purpose. We don't necessarily know all know one another. Yep We all know If you have another can No, you're good. Okay. Yep. Go ahead Kelly Hi, how are you? Um, I I just wanted to say that um, I I did spend a A significant amount of time talking to um police district voters in advance of this vote My reason for voting no was simply that The budget was just too much. It was just going to raise my tax bill too high So when we used to have a police department, I was paying about 800 dollars a year for police services And I I I do not want to go back to that I I personally didn't see it as a Like it's unfair. You know, I For me, it was just an absolute thing of like Um, and and a lot of people I spoke to in the police district just thought Um Hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year for policing In a very small area was just far too There just aren't enough people um to support five new municipal employees um And and to pay them what they deserve to be paid um, so You know I hope that uh, I hope that you do reform the committee. I was on the committee the last time Um and That you can generate some ideas. I hope that you're talking to the Windsor county sheriff about perhaps Contracting in the interim Um, or long term. There's lots of possibilities here um But I just wanted to say One possibility is to float a new number to the to the district flat fund it, um And start there I know that if the if the if the budget had been flat funded, I wouldn't I wouldn't have I probably would have supported it But thank you. Kelly, did you get the impression from all the people you were talking to that that was the case if it was level Funded they would have supported it supported it No, I actually didn't think I didn't have that specific conversation with everyone But but many many people like To really just thought it was just too much of a tax increase And and what they a lot of people didn't realize is that they were paying that years ago, right? Like when we had a police farm before my like I said my taxes were eight I was spending eight hundred dollars a month that I just felt like that was breathtaking Um a breathtaking amount of money for me to pay for policing in this village But Yeah, I'm sorry a year a year a year. I was like what a year Just to help you with one part Kelly We did have a conversation with the Windsor county sheriff and he said no no no not ready Don't have the staff don't have the infrastructure can't do anything so He's uh, and we checked with him today too. So That is also that's the sheriff's department in transition as well. Yep going the opposite direction Yeah Ryan Ryan stands ready to build it up But you know in that case it was a 42 year sheriff Instead of a 16 year sheriff and and and that transition has gone a lot more smoothly But he's got his work cut out for him And I know this because I cover the sheriff's department for the Largest newspaper in Windsor county So He said that he does he's not ready The same thing right. Yeah, they need staffing. They need infrastructure. They need equipment They need you know all the the same place everybody else is Maybe in a few years Not today Unfortunately Do we have anybody else online? I just wanted to get some clarity on the level funding question Kelly you're referencing what we budgeted this past year for the sheriff's services. You're calling that level funding right to 400 There's about 350 in the district. Yeah Just wanted to be clear on what we meant by level funding And and I was getting cranky as it was and isn't she not right but not enough to not enough to stick the vote All right, do we have anybody else online? That wanted to talk Not seeing any little microphones light up Okay Hang on Joe. We got one more in the front now Um, I'm Dave Hurwitz. I live on Randolph aventown I also work on western street at the far end of western street. I have a wood shop down there I've worked down there for the past 20 years. I've seen a lot of different things during that time um, and the point I'd like to make is that Um, while some people feel very safe up in the hospital hill area where maybe they're not seeing a lot of activity I've definitely observed more going on in these other parts of town um And there's been a string of break-ins on western street in the past two years Both in my building there was attempted break-in Um, and then the building across the street Many years ago there was a there was a very blatant break-in where a ton of stuff was stolen out of that building Um, and that was when we had a Randolph police department with I think six or more officers at the time Um, and then with this other string of break-ins there was a house that was broken in too. Um, there were Some tools stolen out of a garage. So there's been definitely stuff going on um, but the thing I would like to just Point out for you to keep in mind as you try to figure out. I know this is really complex. I appreciate Everything that you're weighing out here But the thing to keep in mind is that when we had orange county Sheriff coverage and when we had a town police department, there was not 24 hour coverage Their shifts ended at night and that's when that a lot of these break-ins happen I mean people are breaking in at three in the morning. So um, I don't know How you deal with that, especially if people are concerned about the size of a budget, but That is an important consideration And you know some businesses have done things to on their own, you know, like I put in security cameras I put in alarm systems. There's there's things people can do To try to you know help that deterrence factor and I think that can help Um, but anyway, that's just another aspect to to keep in mind as you figure things out Thanks. Well, it's interesting for me as a business center in downtown My business probably pays close to $5,000 worth of taxes A year on our building people are building overalls $9,000 a year And none of us doing businesses inside that building have any vote on it And so a lot of the businesses That are downtown are paying a sizable amount of the taxes and have no say into any of this I I'm glad you made that point because I've heard exactly that same thing from other business owners within the police district that They make use of the services. I I bowl in the the Men's bowling league or it's a co-ed league, but whatever At at village at value bowl every wednesday night And I get an earful from the staff and my fellow bowlers about hey What happens if somebody comes in and robs this bowling alley when I'm here Wayne Werner has absolutely no say over Well, we've heard the taxation without representation. I've heard that a few times I'd like to add To what Mr. Horwich just said is, um, you know, there's an old adage that a conservative is a A liberal who's been mugged And I I just like to suggest that the first time someone who Contends they don't need the police Level of police services that that we think they do or at least we're proposing that they have the first time their home's broken into They might be whistling a different song I think we need to take that I think we need to take that into consideration as well just because it hasn't happened yet Doesn't mean the potential is and we heard the data earlier Suggesting how much Randall puts demand on the police We need to be a little bit realistic about what century we're living in. I also think it's important to remember that Even though I have been a victim of the crime like other people that are in my community are at risk And so we have domestic violence or like dcf issues or anything like that I want those people to be taken care of too And that's kind of the issue of like it hasn't happened to me or these things and being community And the the drug houses that we heard about earlier The kinds of calls that my love has to go on where there are animal cruel Allegations of the land animal cruelty that are tied to they're not happening in the village. Oh, yeah, they are Well They're happening outside the village as well They're happening everywhere. Yes. Yeah, and so you know We're not made by rfd anymore. I said this at a previous You know, this isn't the ending rift. This is 2023 and I I I'm a village taxpayer and I feel the pain of Those taxes and I understand what Kelly's talking about But there's a happy medium somewhere and that's what we challenge with finding Yep We had another hand I haven't figured out how to raise my hand Hang on Marty. I'll come back to you Okay I just want to make sure that everybody knows that I am absolutely for a police some sort of police protection within the town Within the whole town I think it's figuring out as joe said, how do we pay for it because if I've got a 2000 acre farm, I shouldn't be taxed on 2000 acres So it's it's it's a tax concern But I think we need to be realistic about police protection because I'm very involved in a laundromat in town And as you may remember, we were broken in either two or three times the second time they took the safe Which was bolted to the floor. We had it on video The state police were involved in it the orange county sheriff was involved in it And even with having video of the person who did it We couldn't do anything about it. So having a police department is not going to make the crime go away and make Make them go someplace else But it's still going to be there and they're going to come out to your house if you're broken into and say Yep, you were broken into but there's not much that they can do about it So there is a limitation To what the police can do and my heart goes out to them. It's a very frustrating job And if you do form a committee, I'm I'll volunteer to be involved in it Go ahead Marty well, um, I just wanted to say that I I've taken a A close look at the merger agreement and um at the statutes that govern the creation of police departments and the merger of municipalities And I think the select board has a lot more discretion than has been suggested by the comments in front porch forum So But I don't think that is what really matters because what really matters is whether We can build a consensus within this town As a single community For the kind of police service that we need And I don't know what the answer to that is But I I don't think that the current system with the police district that is called upon One way or another to provide services outside of the district And we have to quarrel over who pays for that That doesn't make sense. There has to be some unified Harmonious system of policing that's fair to everyone statewide or county townwide And that means that we have to Establish a process by which we reach a consensus and it ultimately it means that the people who are outside the current police district are going to have to be in the leadership To decide what's the right system for harmonizing services because the idea that we gotta We're not going to continue to just draw on the services that are provided within the police district for Problems outside of the police district. It's just not fair and it's not reasonable and it can't be sustained Thank you Any other comments? I just have one last comment And that one last comment is years ago We also had At the school system We had a resource officer Tina Farner Was the resource officer that we got actually a I think it was a federal grant for that that that paid for it And then when that federal grant ran out after two three five years, whatever happened The school said no, there's the grant has ended. So we're not going to pay for this I've heard uh It's like my word to talk about the safety of the children in the school or that kind of thing like that And when you look at the school budgets and I I follow the budgets quite closely I mean you look at the school budgets and look what uh was actually put in front porch forum with Lane milling tenant and what he was going to do with this million dollars over here that they had extra and they had What they're going to do with that million dollars over there that they have extra and this is going to go to this fund here And that fund there and if you look at the history of its year after year after year It keeps talking a different amount of money could of that nature into other funds And I think as an interim measure that you're talking about With all of these extra funds Is there the opportunity To actually pay for that school resource officer on its own because we just seem to have millions of dollars extra in the school budget every year And so that piece of it is something that again, I talk about a revenue source And there's a revenue source right there that can that help pay that it can help pay for that And all of the kids go there from all of the towns around here Not just not not just from Randolph not just from Randolph center not just from east Randolph north Randolph south Randolph or the village All of it Yeah, we we we look at those budgets there And we we every year we vote To say what are we going to we're going to take it and stick it in this fund stick it in that fund So I think that again another piece that that need the puzzle and it's a big puzzle It's a very big puzzle But another another piece of that puzzle to look at That's all they have. Thanks Okay So my concern I just sat here and kind of sketched out the timeline You if we wait for a legal opinion I think I mean that unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat I don't think this is a four week or three week Piece for them to get you know, we're we're having trouble getting all the documents even ourselves to figure out the history of it and how it came to be Um, but okay, let's assume if we wait until that april deadline, we're not going to make the july one For two reasons right first by the time we back it up and we do the You know, we wait until april to get the opinion And then we start deciding what we're going to do and then you got to develop it And you got to do the public meetings on it and have all that conversation And then you got to go through the warning and and whatnot to get a vote you're into july By the time you're even voting on this And it's the structure of the votes. Do you have a vote at a special meeting Regarding the district boundaries and then do you need to come back for a different vote in the budget For that new entity or with a budget based on whatever happened And that all depends on the legal opinion and where you go and so it's another 30 days from there But it's ready to go But it sounded like from what kelly had experienced level funding May have gotten the votes through it was the increase to going to your own department from a contracted department so I don't think we can afford to do this in a linear timeline I think we got to go on a parallel timeline and I think you I think our Approach that is coming through to me is making the most sense is developing a budget that's level funded And a service model. What does that look like at the same time? We're getting this legal opinion Because even if the legal opinion comes in and says the select board can just choose to do it There's no way that vote's going through if we aren't doing outreach and having conversations and and getting You know going through the process of that And that's probably another full year I think I think it is at least realistically that might be the conversation We need to have a year from now Or in the budgeting side getting ready for the town meeting I think you know, what does that look like and where are we going? I think we're I think you know the approach that listening to everybody tonight seems to be Clearer as we come in with a level funded budget What does that look like if we? you know have If we have the impact on the police district the same as it is today Right because it's not going to be level funded. We put a hundred thousand in the general fund budget We're just 75,000 more than it's been so It's not going to be level funded But if we have a budget that's prepared that doesn't change the amount that's raised out of the police district for that So how much money would that be out of the police district if we level funded it? Three something It's like 343 we're gonna lose some one-time surplus funds from the transition before And then we have a hundred thousand dollars in the general fund So we have 543 if that were to pass right 343 and 100 was 443 And I went to Randall's school The only concern I have is about level funding is we've all heard what the extraordinary Rate of inflation has been in the last year And the figure that gets kicked around a lot in is seven percent I believe what about if we proposed adding seven percent to the previous So another level fund plus seven percent And as the trevor and scott to work with that and come back with a proposal that we can put forward Some change and then you have the hundred you're at 473 I mean, I think that's I don't see how else we're going to get to a point where first off We're moving forward and we can do something as far as getting the override back off the Shelf so we can start getting some level of Of service that's not continuing to stress the state police But at the same time giving us that time that it's going to be needed to figure out what our direction is and how we get to that point And so the budget for the police operating For the town was like 445 or something or that that's what they're voting on So it wasn't the 773 right because that was equipment from arpa and some different things So we checked that arpa one time funds out of that with this model right The other 200,000 was for fit up so that stuff that we've either already bought would need anyway We'll plan to buy so the vehicles Computer terminals Everything down to the usb Little thumb drives to get cases back and forth from the state's attorneys So that's already separate and underway and obligated and being spent So really you're talking about figuring out what the amount to be raised by taxes It's a good 373 If we're not adding any other revenue sources in on what we've had traditionally So we're not taking the high utilization payments. We're not taking any of the arpa one time funds We're not taking sort of any Because at this level of funding, we're not going to have the bodies to take on any contracts either So it's probably scaling all of those non tax or non property tax revenues back down toward Maybe some event fees a few other things some traffic and speeding fines $15,000 maybe so we're probably trying to raise somewhere around 355 to 360 So there'd be a little bit of an increase in there We'd have to model it out and see what but I don't think you want to put like the arpa or anything like that because it inflates the budget Then you're going to have an extra officer that You might or might not be able to do I guess I'm just spending like I guess bottom line The four officers in the admin. What was the cost for that? For just the people pieces the insurance everything that was 631 We're probably talking about Scott an officer Maybe some part-time capacity in the administrative assistant who does more than just sort of sit there and read people There's an awful lot of work that person does to make sure things are reported correctly timely Cases can be built cases will hold up in addition to they might provide some dispatching And that's before we get into whether or not we loop them in pay for the amount of other funds To some of our own resilience you need so that person does more than just Randolph PD. How can we help you? I mean there's a lot that goes on there So on the enforcement side, it sounds like you're saying Two and a half FTEs including scott plus possible part-time supplemental Yes, and I think it's two FTEs in terms of the officer stuff including scott So scott is a patrol officer and chief in this model another officer Maybe two part-timers depending on how many hours we're able to squeeze in there plus the admin You're not talking about 120 hours a week I don't know what the number is with that. We'd have to talk that through but you're talking about a number less than that And so that will have its impacts so I just want everyone to Right all of these things where that we went all in or we come all out everything has got some level of impact So wherever we push the chips Well, I think that's what we got to do like and that's that was some that's something we would need to know Even if we said we're going back out with close to what we went out with to begin with right So if we level fund, this is your level of service. This is what this looks like And this is what we won't be able to provide You know Do you give directions so that if you have limited hours? They're not providing certain services on the side like we're not going to provide Traffic control for veggie van go or you know those type of things you're going to have to have somebody that you send through You know will give you access to it. Here's your flag or training Here's your orange vest like you're going to have to help control traffic at your own event like It may come to that like while we're working through this interim period, you know Certain events that we have in town. You're going to have to go higher Here's a few companies that will provide you traffic control for the bike race That may be part of what that equation looks like Yeah, I expect core services and even then We're pulling rabbits out of hats in some cases probably But that would also give us You know a way forward for bigger and better things, right? Well, that's that potentially we may have pitched some kind of ride space, yeah I don't know overriding on the right Do we need a motion to no, I think it was just a discussion to kind of give some direction It's not fair to say to trevor bring us another proposal Right like what do you want? What do you want it to look like kind of one of the parameters? and I think we've kind of given you that at this point and We'll solve for x and show you what it means in terms of level of service and from here to there kind of a thing Yeah, and then you know Looking at the timeline I would say when that's ready and comes out and people have had a chance to digest it if it comes out In the next, you know a few weeks and we want to squeeze in another meeting to talk about it We could probably do that To just keep it moving forward Because we wait until april and we meet once a month You're Yeah, you're too late I think based on the way our templates are set up for some of this if you wanted to come back and say two weeks We'd have a product for you I thought it was an old phone there I'm gonna be in portugal from the 13th to the 28th, so I'm gonna have to figure out the time They've got internet there Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be actually in the middle of the Atlantic. I'm gonna be a source, but I'll just have to figure out What? Yeah, it would be the we're looking at coming back on the 23rd And I have a lot of time so I just might be it might be uh You know 10 o'clock at night when it's 3 o'clock 5 o'clock So do we want to schedule the 23rd at 5 30? While everybody's here they can check the calendars So that again the 23rd at 5 30 is that after happy hour do we want to I think it's probably about a three hour time difference Ahead of us are behind us It'll be 8 30 there So you'll already be in Yeah, yeah, we'll get to it in just a minute. Um, all right So that does that give you enough direction? As much as you're looking at All right, you had another comment Marty Well, I just had a clarifying question The does the direction you're talking about now Say anything about the use of police district resources to provide police services outside of the police district Well, there's a hundred thousand dollars in the budget to do just that And it allows you so you're proposing to put that in you're proposing to put that in this budget that you're I realize you're still thinking about it, but You're proposing to put that in this budget that you're discussing now It passed on Tuesday that part of it passed. So there is a hundred thousand dollars out there for general fund outside of the district Some mechanism by which Is that out there to draw money in for that Under the merger agreement. Is that legal? You can contract with somebody to provide services So the the setup is basically the village police department is contracting with the town to provide those services But half of the cost of that service to for People outside of the police district is paid for paid for by people inside the police district Yep There's no way for us to tax just those outside of the boundaries So I think that raises a legal question Yeah I mean you can't in both ways you can't have it both ways If people outside the police district don't want services But they won't pay for them all themselves When they do want them, so I mean, you know, it's it's it's it's a cat's meow. It can't have both ways So the money I've said I've said is I you've been giving me a lot of time. I appreciate that. Thank you So we had a dollar value in the budget for years and we contracted with orange county sheriff to provide that service outside The thought was that if we put that number up To kind of cover a much more realistic department any more than understood. Let me finish the answer, please So we if we put a dollar value that was much more realistic to what the call volumes were Having which we know were created by just a few places um It not only allowed the fair way of paying for that service, but it allowed a funding source And orange county sheriff can't provide the service So I guess the town could go out and contract with somebody to still provide that service But then you've lost the revenue source that will help cover the cost of the police district While we find a long-term solution. So I'm not sure I'm not sure what the Okay great So we've given direction at this point to trevor and I think we beat this one pretty good tonight We have a path forward anybody who wants to Come and talk about the budget and whatever we'll be back here in two weeks Same time same place Feel free to come join us It's going to be a hoopla what we'll be going over at that one is A level funded budget What that looks like what the service level looks like is it realistic? You know, are we painting ourselves into a risk? And if we have it which I don't don't get your hopes up I really seriously doubt we'll have a legal opinion in two weeks on this but That's Pretty much the extent of what the agenda will be in two weeks and we'll see where it takes us But thanks for all for coming The only time we usually get a crowd like this is when we got something that not everybody agrees on Or when we advertise it incorrectly and get people fired up. So I'm glad we advertised it correctly and We just had different opinions. Thanks for being civil my love In the meantime, do we just have state police? Correct Yep, although there will be some calls made tomorrow to see if we can Unstick the decision that was made today by the state police's boss So Great, thanks everybody We're gonna roll on and talk about an allocation request for 41 central street Function at the end of the day got a water wastewater advisory board They work with the water wastewater superintendent that review these requests. Hey Harvey. Can you take that upstairs? Harvey We're still meeting if you could take that out there that'd be wonderful. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you guys. Awesome Okay, so 41 central street wants to connect They want to connect these are the habitat for community houses that are being built right there The water wastewater committee has recommended that We have plenty of capacity for those. We are actually pretty blessed with both our wastewater plant and our water facilities that Capacity is not an issue So if you approve those they'll be able to connect that those fees indicated Anybody have any questions on that? Not well entertain a motion to approve Um, it already moved we're waiting for a second All those in favor When it gets laid out just right you'll hear so moved That's what he did. So he wouldn't have to read the formal one or anything. Just yep. We agree So, uh, next up we have two grant applications for the library Amy's on if you have any questions about them, but another part of our process with grants is folks will come to us and seek authorization to apply They can go forward do we usually hit them ahead of time sometimes the timeline. It's more of a retro actor of approval But it's part of an ingrained process and you can see any of your questions about these two particular grants And as it happens, there's a third that we just learned about and that application is due at the end of the month So can we throw a third in as well? You're gonna tell us what it is Sure, it's a 500 dollar non competitive non matching grant It's from the winnie bell learnage um fund which the vermont public library foundation manages And it supports early childhood education I'm gonna get back on the soapbox because I haven't I was good last year. I didn't These little grants that we get what does it cost us to get them and do the admin and and whatnot and we Had any conversation about when Like some of these are like $200 and we probably spend three four hundred dollars to get them in the ministry room Well, I think that's that's perhaps some hyperbole, but the I mean, I would be delighted if the select board changed the policy that requires me to come to you for permission to apply for a 200 300 500 dollar grant um at this point I You know, I do the reporting I do the applications. They're usually about a 10 minute Um investment of time So these small grants they don't they don't take a big lift, but they do provide Um some opportunities for a studio program that we can't otherwise Do they have to be invoice board Amy does somebody have to invoice them? For these now we'll we'll just get a check We'll get a check for these. Yeah Yeah, the report will not for the hundred thousand dollars. I wish I could say that that would be lovely, but The 300 dollar and the 500 dollar grant they just they send us the money You don't have to report what you did with it. Oh, yeah, but it's like a one page web form that you fell out so The larger grants are much more. I know but in terms of reporting Isn't wasn't there a series of grants that are small that are all with the state libraries? Doesn't that they give out a bunch of them they do them all individual It just seems like they could do once a year like here's these six grants. Here's one agreement forum One process, you know what I mean, like nice But you got we've got a librarian spending time doing that part They've got a staff person spending time doing you know deciding who gets what and putting all these agreements together. It's like This is ridiculous. Everybody's just chasing each other around. Unfortunately. I don't think that's in abysse Well, no, but we could give some feedback to the state librarian of like get your act together. Let's consolidate these things I think that the what you're running into is the rules that are handed down by the federal agency that Distributes federal monies to the state libraries. So that would have to go to the institute for museum and library services I think even the state. I mean the state library doesn't want to administer these tiny Amounts either but they have to follow the rules that they are handed from the federal level Where we feel pain organization grants of all sides across categories are with the larger one Usually when you climb up in dollar value and the reimbursement based And then we have to fight about the reimbursement with the granting agency about whether or not something's eligible Even if we check it ahead of time, we'll find this a lot on the revolving fund programs for water and wastewater So then you're tied up whatever that local cash is you want to be really good about Those reimbursement cycles the other place we get wackadoodle quite a bit lately are on pass through grants So when there's some sort of federal estate requirement the money comes through the municipality goes to somebody else our acdc um We got one that's in the mix with any people or some Basically some water quality stuff. They're responsible for And any of these other ideas gmedc these come through us We are on the hook because we're the grantee so we get two years out and it's time to do our quarterly reporting And we don't have anything but we don't administer whatever it is So we don't know how to fill in how many people participate because it's not our thing But we're getting kind of the nasty grants from the state over and over and now you're 30 days So you're 60 days Then we've got to spend that time going out and chase them around chase them around here And so even when we insulate the reimbursement piece in terms of requiring money out front or not putting town cash on the table We still have sort of these long-term tails That really have become prevalent with some of these passers used to be I mean not when I was in Back in the estics example, we did a couple of passers with cathedral square for senior housing Worked pretty seamlessly. This is 2010 2011 We did it get some reporting. We held some hearings. We closed it out And once everything was done, we had to go in once a year and just say yep, it's still there basically And now that's not necessary all you have to do some of the reports aren't complicated But then we get caught in the cyclone and we just spent 700 dollars to get back in compliance and staff time between me Our and finance for example, well, that's not any of these that you her grants don't tend to to have those kinds of Technicals, yeah, but some of the bigger ones good So I'll I'll be honest with you that As I continue to look for funding to make sure that we can Preserve the building envelope here by sealing up the cupola that's leaking into our attic I've already secured two grants one of which is federal money And if you have never dealt with reporting on a federal grant, that's a treat And I'm not going for three more So I'm going to be administering five grants Hopefully I'll be administering five grants For that restoration project. So these $200 $300 grant they they don't faze me at all The cupola restoration that's going to be a heavy lift All right, so we have three Kimball grants And the request is to these are all for application approval Yeah, right you haven't received any of them Oh, he got you The chief things moving along here I would like to move motion I would like to motion to approve the grant applications Look at that all those in favor I Thanks, Stephanie. I appreciate it. You always remember your first, right? Good night, everybody Move on to Here we go So this the list that we have today were the ones we do this area we go through So there are two pieces tonight one is you have an applicant directly for the conservation commission So that's Jeff there. You've got his materials here. There is a slot available. He comes to us through the conservation commission channels everyone else you see on the list there are Number of advisory committees that are out there the terms are almost always one year in nature Tom's got an update on arts and culture We've tried to take out any of the ones that have disbanded such as economic development And then you can kind of see in there We generally will reach out to the chairs and or to the members which I figure out who wants to be reappointed And we've tried to highlight some of those in one kind. I don't know if you guys have the other copy too No, unfortunately, I'm sorry All right, let's uh, we'll just start working down through this and see which ones we can move tonight and This usually takes us two or three meetings to get through so don't Don't get too freaked out Because some of them confirm some don't it's like it's quite a process So um on the first page the only ones that we have So we have certain committees that have us like board member on them And so the first one up is the budget committee and last year's member was larry You like that you're muted larry We'll let you decide which committee you want to be on or you can mute and we'll just appoint you to a bunch Um as with with some of the various some resignations my my committee lowers it has expanded dramatically and I'd like to very much Share the that that those wonderful responsibilities. So um What what what my my personal preference? Would be for me to remain on the water wastewater committee We're we're in the middle of ordinance updates And and some other work which I would like to see through And and I was recently Started working with the planning commission um When uh when peri left and I would very much like to uh to continue with that since I just got started with it The budget committee I've kind of been on and off for the last few years on pat was doing that um It would be great if if somebody else would like to be um the liaison to the to the budget committee and um and the rec committee I've I've been the the liaison for um for quite a long time now but um I I would be okay with letting that one go And I'm I'm pretty sure um We actually have a member who is already on that committee. So that might be uh an appropriate uh Place for that once the land I might have asked to take that place if that would be okay Well, we're not to that one yet. Let's go these on order so we don't get lost So budget committee we need a select board member on the budget committee Any takers? I will take the budget committee All right, so now um Animal control officer my low has left but has done it for years. I assume she still Is wanting that one Nobody else Well, we need to go through them and make sure we're going to leave those people on there some of these they're not going to stay Um Have on the sheet that you have have we gotten anybody to confirm on this page? They want to be reappointed Uh, the appointments. Yeah, you know like the ec fiber folks have they say they want to stay? Isn't there a form we got to do for them? Yeah, now we're in the very early phases of I'm so uh animal control. I think we're good on um emergency management those three have confirmed Fire warden Should we get anybody banging down the door to take over that one right help officers I think they usually let me know to when they're not but it's still a good idea to confirm you should they are And the help others are a little different technically you're making recommendations to the park to the commissioner Who's talking about the point of so there's a form that I want to get For whoever wants that they're going to be appointed or for something new Yeah, and they haven't said they don't want to Fairly sure they're coming back. Yeah, they'd be surprised Okay, so uh, so far it's the ec fiber folks that we need to confirm Right And uh, I think uh, Mike held the brand and Matt Fordham are still in for the lepc Yeah, I'm checking in those No, I think they are I was working with them on the emergency management stuff. Okay. They didn't want to do that too Which tells me they like it Not sure we have uh, I have any of the others on here confirmed or those are still up in the air The rest of those will just need to confirm the next month I can do that Um, arts council any uh, do you want to still play on that one? I will speak to that the on the arts and culture committee has Determined unanimously that wants to dissolve And um, it has functioned largely in an advisory capacity having been On board at its formation and involved in its formation Its major accomplishment over the course of the last three years has been the mural project On on main street, which went up last year The feeling among all the current members all of whom are representatives of a major arts organization in the town Whether it be the arts bus or The grass center or the underground studio. They all feel that they they Can be more effective as that as an independent ad hoc committee organizing And and that They're not inhibited or hindered in any way by being an official entity of the town that they just feel It's similar to what we did with the economic. Yeah, they can be just as effective as as a volunteer entity and so I've talked this over with with jenny albert from the arts buses the current chair the committee and i'm always supportive of that I think it makes a lot of sense If there are projects moving down the line that require The fiduciary role like we had on the mural project I think we can take we can talk about that on a case by case basis so All right, um conservation commission That's where we have a Those are all confirmed Replacing They're asking was there a request from them to expand the size of it I I've asked jessman today and she I said is he replacing somebody and she said no, he's making it nine Uh, I Are that where they formed as a nine? I count eight. So if there is that vacancy I don't know most of them are seven to nine seven or nine. We always have an odd number She said it makes them a nine That's what she told me makes them nine because I asked Right, I think questions. Are they a nine normally? Yeah, I don't know. Are they expanding the nine given that there's eight It would stand a reason there's not Either that or we're going to remove one if it's seven or change the number to nine and add one We might still make it a nine and add the person Yeah That one does not have a Board member on it, but I don't know that it needs one either That's been an optional anybody's into The town forest and things like that We haven't always had somebody on that committee but um But I think some of that's because brendan's been very good about coming in and telling us what's going on at it Which works Thank you, Larry um, so d r the Design review advisory commission. This is the smaller group that looks at Just the interchange and some of the Randolph center area And gerry will roll me back and say he would like to continue on it. It doesn't know about harry or john So I don't know And we have we actually ran into a little bit of an issue with the number of members and their ability to pull together Quorum and needing to run through that process and having to kind of run it just straight through the drp rather than plug through Pretty recently I think it was more in an advisory capacity so far So it wasn't I have to double check the full Well, this is just advisory Yeah And it was created. It's not mandatory so If we've only got one person on it, it may be we've always had trouble getting people on it It may be time to just be in that one too The question with that one would be if they're referencing land use plans that could be where they could be Could they just be pulled back as you did just yeah, we have to go about through them Probably just say drp where they were in and just make that as an amendment I mean, that'd be that's just the thing to check. I don't actually know Amend the plan to just give it It would be zoning. Yeah be amending the zoning documents. I don't think it's in the plan It came out of It came out of the when they wanted their own design control district up there That's interesting I know it was the opposite of what you would expect the background And then the compromise was they would have an advisory role to the drp and it was very well staffed The first term right and then nobody showed up. Nobody's what we've never had a full palette on this one. So It wouldn't be surprising if it was time for that to go So drb we have Two up for renewal John Hart and bill mcgrath Have we heard from them? Yeah matt wrote back to me today or he confirmed today when I talked to him that everybody was wants to Everybody that needs to be well it wants to be and um So the I think what we we have some of these that are Their different lengths of time So we'll be extending them It's like a two or a three-year span Just so everybody understands like if you have a problem with one of these Appointments that are want to ask some questions. Just bring it up. Otherwise, we're probably cruising And then with appointments generally when we get into this if yes, I might you want to hold on something There is a mechanism Executive session because there is sort of you can talk about the appointment or evaluation of the official If you want to take any action, we come back out in the open session and Very rarely comes up, but It is a tool Okay. Thank you. Um, we have no alternates on that Tom was on their ex officio, but we don't have to have somebody on there. It's up to you I actually is in an area of interest to me. So I'm happy. You're good I think I stepped up All right East valley community group. We have new term dates on that And the members have been updated. This one has a ex officio on it if anybody wants that I'll take that one Trust me trees time for this town and what I do a committee is I'd love to just have one committee All right energy advisory committee So I heard from gerry ward today and he said that Derek cypher was appointed to the energy advisory committee. Do you guys remember? I couldn't find it anywhere in minutes Not that I'm aware of and trevor didn't remember. He never That doesn't ring up. No so So I wrote back to gerry and I said, I don't think that that happened. I don't recall it. I looked I looked through the minutes. I searched for it. I couldn't find his name and so I said See if there's interest there. He should just express it. Yeah We can find him and look at that But we don't have a functioning committee there right now. So we ought to be advertising that We got one member Susan mills is off Right Should we just ask Eric to submit a letter of interest that I've always I'll see if I can I can butch up your gerry. Okay Is it we're gerry's not part of that committee if he does helping us find staff. No, I think he meets with them periodically He's not on it, but he participates. Yeah We don't you know, uh, there's a fishery out there, right? Uh, well it was pat I just for some reason I didn't write it on there. We go back and forth Yeah, if somebody has an interest and wants to be an ex officio, they can if they don't All right planning commission Uh, Larry is going to stay on we're looking for members. Yeah, um a chair and vice chair both resigned Wow, well they they made Camden the chair when he wasn't at the meeting and then he said no The general Sherman wasn't he the one who said if no, no, no, no, no, no, sir Yep. Yeah, all right. So I think that one's good. We'll be advertising Yeah, yeah Recreation So there's three people Or that you're You want to be the ex officio on that one instead of the I just want to be a part of the board But I'm slow at writing letters even though I'm here. So do you want to be the Oh Sorry, I'm sorry. That's great conflict. I know we've got a race. Yeah, well, Larry said that he was willing to step Yeah, and Stephanie jumped up. Stephanie wants it. Oh So there you want to be you can still be a member of it. Okay. I'm just gonna you just got to remember that's it You can't have another board member there. You got to have No, we don't want to I just want to put up Christmas lights in the bitter colds Probably when it's snowing and waiting all right, so Uh any Concern with the other two members are the other two wannabe members. That's probably not a nice thing to say I know Erin does She just has to write her letter. They both sent their letters in Yeah, or is it pending letter? Is that they haven't sent the letter in yet? Or the letter's here for us to decide Pending letter means they're writing a letter event. They want to that's what uh, I a page wrote me today and said I copied a page to this out of her emails. So this is shiboy again. We're trying that's from shiboy, okay If they get them in we can actually act on those But Erica doesn't need to send a letter in she's a known She's a known Who doesn't me Erica? I get to be honored. You can be honored as a member without a letter. Do you want to take a picture? Water, wastewater Larry all these people all the members willing to go another round On the water wastewater. Yeah, yep Yes Okay Uh fire operations review committee ad hoc We probably ought to leave that on the table, but I haven't done anything with it for a year because I might have had my plate full so I don't know doing what That was good anybody have any Other ones they want to talk about on there Entertain a motion to appoint those that we just said we were gonna So moved that's when you use this All those in favor I opposed motionaries Other business How about the manager's report? How much happened Now I think we are We're still working toward full staffing the finance director's position is the one that remains open We've paused that search just with all the stuff going on Even if we brought in somebody new I'm probably one doing all the math for the stuff anyway But we've added some excess capacity up in that department to help us out from now until december with Anne the throat's going to move over from the treasurer's office to help out in there We have our consultant from Nemrick still two days a week with Cynthia that'll free her up to do some other kind of higher level Accounting-based stuff Plus Caleb who's Take on everything we've thrown out or from september until now so we'll have more resources in there than we've had So we should be better able to handle all of the stuff When those numbers get low in there, that's the things that we found were kind of hard to keep up with in particular Like the accounts receivable stuff The things that didn't run on the regular cycles to keep the lights on the way that the accounts payable payable So then they'll have to be some change in there that fits into some Land dates for retirement. We'll likely have some news in the coming weeks about some additional just one other retirement On the highway end of things and we've hired somebody as kind of seasonal part-time ideas is a little bit on the job training and We'll slide right through that continuum of service and so for the newer members to have only have that many positions to talk about in a staffing update is a really nice compact place to be Compared to say august or last but it was easier to talk about who was employed But I think we'll have an update on on some of the paving stuff that's happened We've been constantly talking with the contractor. They did not provide us a product that matter specifications. We did not accept the work We have not paid them They have been in conversations about how they're going to make that right. So once we have schedules in a better idea for the spring It sounds like we are going to see that happen But at no additional footprint in terms of the cost of us So I know that once come up is something that we haven't maybe done It's just that we haven't been talking about it because it's a contract issue and now we're at the point where we're probably going to start to schedule work So that is a piece that's out there The brand new Jeter that you guys authorized that was very exciting that was out in about today. If you saw something on a trailer Yeah, and so they use that's basically high pressure Water-based system that they used to clean. I don't know what they were doing Clean and water wastewater stuff was excited about it. They all looked really happy He was in Trevor's office and he was like, oh look At one point in the window, I was having puppies, there was Kim There was John Shangra the highway super and there was Chris and they were all looking out the window watching the guys use the jet around Trying to think what else has been happening. We're just still trying to play catch up There's been enough going on in the prep to the town meeting The policing stuff was its own intense Because people that don't understand we stood up a police department in five and a half weeks Like completely unheard of And it took a lot of people and a lot of hours to do it so Even at the state level they are like you won't do this for at least three four months. You're not indeed back there Are you looking for jobs? But it was not only town employees There might have been an additional helper that Did a pretty heavy lift too that and it might be because she didn't want her husband home No, you need I might be forgetting something but It could be that important It's so weird All right, well we have no reason for executive session tonight, right? So just to confirm the 23rd At 5 30 correct for correct. Yep for another round So does anybody have a coin? I checked it. It'll be 9 30. Anybody have a coin? I think we need to flip a coin to decide which one of the newbies gets the first adjournment Rock paper scissors I have my quiet cup today All right, so I moved to close the meeting Adjourn I moved to adjourn the meeting All those in favor Aye Opposed We should carry