 Call the April 19th, 2021 select board meeting to order. First item on the agenda. Are there any additions or changes? Agenda additions or changes? Nothing from staff. Although, um, Tracy said she might want to take the minutes out of consent, but staff has nothing to add. Yeah, I'd like to pull the minutes out. Um, and I'd also like to pull out the local emergency management plan update. Um, and the rationale is just to ensure that the motion includes authorizing staff to make changes or updates as necessary. Okay. So we'll move the, the April 5th minutes up to item five G. And for the emergency management update, do we need to have discussion of that in executive session? Or is this only for purposes of having the, uh, Only purposes of having a standalone motion. I don't have any discussion. Okay. So Greg or Evan, is it okay to just pull it into. Yeah, I think so. Okay. As long as it's going to be a standalone motion. And are you going to, and then, uh, Okay, that's fine. So there's no, no, no discussion of the content of the emergency management plans that we want to make sure that the, the motion that's approved affords staff the ability to make updates. Okay. All right. So we'll move that to, uh, Uh, five H. Okay. Any other additions or changes? Okay. Hearing none. Any, so would someone like to make a motion? I'm going to make the motion that we approve the agenda as amended. Do I have a second? Thank you. Don and Tracy. I'm meeting further discussion. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes. We've approved the amended agenda. And then, uh, onto public to be heard. Um, this is the time when, um, attendees of the meeting can speak about items that are not on the agenda. Um, So let's see. Yes. I think it looks like Patrick wants to be first here. So go ahead, Patrick. Thank you, Andy. Um, so. I wanted to take some time because I think as all of us now certainly on the board, um, but many in the audience as well, this is a good time for it. Uh, wanted to apologize for my role in texting during a recent meeting. Um, I'm going to honestly kind of, if I think drop all pretenses of being a political or politician and just be this upfront and truthful, uh, because as I am, because, you know, for those of us who watch these meetings, you know, we say here and we're pretty calm faced and impassive and generally, you know, just let things go by as they're going to go by. Um, but, you know, the reality is that I'm probably nothing like the person that I present during these meetings. Um, I'm, and apologies for the language, but you know, people know me. I'm sometimes a douchebag. And, uh, you know, I make mistakes, especially about putting my foot in my mouth and the fact that there was a conversation that went on that involved members of the public. Um, is something that I deeply regret. Um, it's very unfortunate that it, for me personally that I think that it would discourage anyone from speaking at any of these public meetings. Um, that's certainly something I have to work on. Um, I do want to be clear that I am not going to be resigning from the board or from my position as vice chair. Um, you know, I'm going to continue working on the select board. Um, we'll talk about this obviously later in the meeting, but given the separation vote that's coming up in November in this being my last term as a select person, there's I think a very good likelihood that I would not be eligible to run again in March. So, you know, that's I think where things stand. Um, I do also want to talk about very briefly and I'm sure that the public will have comments as well. I encourage them that what I did not apologize for that I feel people are talking about, um, and need some clarification about is that I insulted a member of the public who was speaking. Um, that in particular obviously is unacceptable, but I also was very angry at the time. And I will say that anger comes because this particular individual was at the time insulting our town staff. Um, the work of one of our staffers and this is not the first time that it's happened during that meeting. It's not the second or third or fourth. It's happened consistently over the last two years. It's been repeated attacks against our town staff, their competency, their ability to do their job. They're been repeated attacks against our former board chair against myself simply for living in the village. Um, and for the most part, 99% of the time, I just let those comments go because I don't feel it's really conducive to conducting a meeting and having a back and forth argument in public about it. But since we're dropping the political pretense, or at least I am, those comments hurt. They are frustrating to hear. They are painful to hear. Um, so while it is certainly not an excuse, I think that it was part of the reason why at last meeting, I was so very specific about when we're speaking at these meetings that we are being careful to watch our tone and the civility that comes with them. I certainly did not practice it myself, but over the last two years, that civility has by and large in Essex, in my opinion is vanishing. It's vanishing very quickly. Um, we have individuals who will capture moments on screen of our board chair in tears and use them as the headers of articles that they write. Uh, it's unacceptable. Um, just as my behavior was so too is that behavior unacceptable on the part of the public towards our staff and towards those public servants who give so much of their time. So I want to just wrap up by saying, if anyone has any further comments, please absolutely always feel free to email me. You CC Andy as well as the chair. If you don't feel comfortable emailing just me directly, um, and we have the rest of this public to be heard session. Um, I encourage you to speak your mind. Absolutely. Um, you know, just to be clear that it is not going to change my decision about remaining on the board or remaining as vice chair. Um, nor does it have any impact on the fact I'm deeply regretful of the comments that were made and the manner in which they came out. But, uh, that is what it is. So other than that, Andy, um, you want to take comment, uh, turn it back to you. But Vince has his hand up as well. Vince hands his hand up also Vince. Go ahead. Yeah, I just I have to echo what Pat said. I, um, I was also involved in texting the former board chair during a meeting and that's inappropriate in this context. And I regret my actions. And I'm sorry that I, if what I said hurt any member of the community, um, you know, I was, it was stupid. I was blowing off steam with a friend and it was deeply inappropriate. During to do during a meeting. Okay. He said Vince said it all good. Okay. Any other, I guess if we've, now that we've, we've had a couple of board members comment, any other board members want to comment? Tracy or Don? Sounds like a lot. Everyone makes mistakes and we need to be forgiving and we need to listen. And that's my thoughts. Okay. Thank you, Don. Any comments Tracy? You don't have to. None for me. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Move on to public comment. Then I see, uh, Ethan Lawrence. You have your hand up. Go ahead, Ethan. Oh, how's it going? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, you can. All right. So I just wanted to get to my, uh, my first point here tonight was, uh, totally not the topic, but, um, I was good hill road here in Essex is a wonderful road of dirt. And it's very peaceful and many family members and neighbors and, you know, we all like to enjoy walking the road and having peace and not being passed at 50 miles an hour. Um, and I should have had more time to reach out to some different channels, but I figured this would be the quickest and easiest way. But I'd like to either do a speed study or, um, you know, present it to a vote to remove the speed limit from 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour. Um, you know, just about every one of my neighbors is in an agreeance. We all love to go for walks. Um, I, I did do some, a little bit of research just in my daily travels, but there's a section of Brigham Hill Road that is 30 miles an hour. The majority of the road in the very bottom towards the Milton side is 25. And I did my, my history on that and wearing that a fellow member of our community spoke up and that's how it was changed. That's a big thing that I'm concerned about. And the second point that I wanted to make, um, I do, you know, appreciate the public apology from, from the officials. But I just need some clarity. I didn't think I saw any messages from, from Vince Franco. I don't think any of that was made public. I wasn't sure if there was a way I could see that or reach out to that, or how I would see that. So it has not been made public by the town. I know that, uh, I believe Pat Murray posted self-disclosed what his comments were on Facebook. Yeah. I'm not sure if, uh, if Vince's comments are public anymore. I don't know. Um, I have not made those comments public on, uh, on Facebook or any other public forum. But, um, Ethan, if you'd like, I can send those to you. Yeah, I just wasn't sure if that was part of the, uh, the public record request for, or whatever, while that's a time. Yeah, so the way. Go ahead, Vince. Yeah. So the way public records request usually work is it's not that the, if, if the record is requested, it's not that the record's made public. It's whoever is requesting the record. Yeah. Gets that record. So I'll, I'll provide that to anybody who wants that, if they'd like to see that. Um, I just don't, I don't feel it's like, I personally don't feel it's appropriate to post in a public forum. Um, but if anybody else, you know, involved has anything they want to say, or if they want to bring those comments to the public now. Um, you know, by all means, I'm just doing what I feel is right. But you know, I'm more than willing to let you know what happened. No, I'm not trying to single you out either. I just, you know, No, no, no. I don't, I don't feel that. Be serious. Serious. What I had seen and not seen. So thank you. That's all I got. All right. Thanks Ethan. We will, uh, we'll have some internal discussion about the, uh, your speed limit question. Okay. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, this is Evan. You have members of the audience. If you are not speaking, please turn your cameras off. Also, if you are not, uh, recognized by the chair, could you please mute yourself? Because sometimes we get a lot of feedback. So if you're not speaking to the board through the chair, please turn your camera off and also please mute yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks, Evan. Okay. Since I didn't see these come on in a chronological order, I'm going to go in the order that I see them. So, uh, Elise Serta. Yes. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. And I wanted to acknowledge, uh, Vince and Patrick for their honesty and coming forward. And Patrick, I mean, it took a lot of courage for you to come forward publicly in the way you did. And that takes a lot of guts. And my support of Patrick and Vince is not condoning the behavior, but I will say that how they handle these kind of missteps means a great deal about their character. And for that, I like having those types of people represent me. I would also like to say that for the entire select board, even though I have disagreed with some of you on certain issues, it takes a lot of courage to be a public official, especially in this day and age. And the merger of vote, um, was especially nasty, um, between public, uh, public members and select board members. And you took all of you took a lot of heat and a lot of you took a stand. And that is so appreciated. Um, but what I do want to say is that not only does, does this kind of environment, uh, between the public and the select board cause concern for the public about speaking up, but it also causes concern about people running for public office. I've been asked to run for public office for select board or trustees. And there's a part of me that wonders if I want to take that kind of abuse and it is abusive. Um, so I'm not surprised that any one of the select board members might have something to say behind the scenes, whether it's appropriate or not, it's not surprising to me. So I would like to encourage everyone moving forward. Mergers done. We don't have to worry about it at this point. We're all kind of moving past it. So maybe we can get back to being neighbors and caring about each other and being kind to each other. I would really love to see that. And, you know, in that vein, I am moving forward and signing up for every public opportunity to participate. I'm not going to let any of this, you know, discourage me. And I really encourage other members of the public to feel that way too and make your voice known and get out there and put yourself in. Um, but thank you so much every, everyone for doing that. And I totally support Patrick's decision to stay on the select board. This is not the totality of the work that you have done for Essex and Essex Junction. And I say the same for events. So thank you so much for the two of you for your integrity and coming forward and being honest. And I hope we can move past it. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Elise. Next, I see Bill Silverstrom. Yeah, just turn the mic on. Is that good? Yep. We can hear you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. First, the gentleman who spoke about Osgood Hill Road, I just thought my brother lives off Catella. And I would agree with him. So I'll just, I'll give that on that. And then I have a statement in regards to what happened with these messages here that I'd like to read. And I'm going to submit this for the upcoming meeting since I missed this one because it was a busy, busy past week for me here. The actions taken by several members of the Essex Select Board, which were recently broadcast on social media, are an embarrassment. They're a disgrace to the entire town from what I've seen. For something like this to happen privately would be one thing, but to happen in the midst of caring about out there, select board duties, great smack in the middle of a meeting, and an extremely important one at that, is just not acceptable to me in any way, shape or form. Doing something like this in the private sector, well that almost immediately cost one their job, and at the very least creates a giant HR issue for a company. I work for a Fortune 100 company and I know this. It most certainly does not go without consequences to the individuals involved. Should it in our local government? Any other political official would resign the second, something like this came out, if they truly cared about the people that they serve. I'm here by calling on those individuals involved tonight to immediately resign. They obviously do not take their position as seriously as they should, and don't care about the constituents who take the time out of their evening to show up at these meetings, as they weren't even listening to the people who were speaking as they were texting. Their comments were also directed at a former town representative to our state legislature. Someone who actually held public office and was a public servant as well, who served the people of Essex. With what was said in those texts, no one acting in such a way should hold public office, period. It's not about having the courage to be in public office. It's the fact that if you're going to go into public office, maybe just being a decent human being would be a start. This is why we have so many problems in government at all levels. Yes, the merger, yes, it was nasty. Was there anger there? Sure there was. I was angry. I was angry when I heard about all the people who were on Front Porch Forum that were creating fake accounts as Essex town outside village residents promoting pro-merger that got thrown off the forum. Did we do anything about it? Did we say anything about it? We couldn't. I mean, if the request of the voters, in this case the constituents, full on deaf ears, it just goes to show you that you guys aren't listening to us still. I mean, the pre-apology was pretty much a moot point in theater. I mean, you're giving an apology to minimize damage and head off people asking for resignations. It's not really acceptable. If the members involved in that text chain were truly sorry and apologetic, I would also request they personally pay back their select board compensation for the past year, maybe till the end of their term even this time, because it's clear they weren't working in the interest of our entire community that they were elected to serve. I mean, does this simply mean that if we do something like this and offer a pre-apology, we can act in any way we want moving forward as long as you're not caught? And when you're caught, this is what you do. I mean, if that's the overall character of the members on this board, I'm not sure what the heck is going on at the town level. You know, you don't install the member of the public, you know, who is out there speaking and not even listen to them. So many times has this even happened in the past. So here's what I'm proposing. At the very least, there should be an immediate vote by the select board to publicly censure the actions of these individuals, even the member who no longer holds their position. And none of them should be able to be a chair or vice chair on the board now or in the future. I mean, I think that is reasonable. I don't think cell phones should be permitted to be utilized by any member of the select board or town officials during these meetings moving forward. And I think that the select board should be the ones requesting the cell phone text messages over the meeting times per the last year. So we can see if this was a pattern, if this happened multiple times, or if this was the only occurrence. If it was the only occurrence, can it be, you know, forgiven perhaps? You know, perhaps people come around. If it shows to be a pattern, then we have a bigger problem here that we need to look into. And then I'll just finish with one thing, and this is to all the select board members. You should all recognize this. You solemnly swear that you will faithfully execute the office of the select board of Essex to the best of your judgment and abilities according to law, so help you God. Do you think God was impressed at what he saw? Okay. Thank you, Bill. Next, I see Mary Post. Hi. Thank you. I'm not going to have that much to say because Bill pretty much said it all. I want to say that I was very disappointed in your apology because I felt like you were still blaming others and just trying to, you know, deflect a lot of stuff off yourself. You were, you mostly, I feel like both of you mostly apologized for texting and not for what happened during those texts. And you are elected officials and you should know better. You should be able to, you know, control yourself better. And I also agree that, you know, that Patrick should not be able to retain his chair, you know, vice chairmanship. I agree about what Bill said about the oath. I thought it was pretty ironic that during that conversation, Vince was asked if he was ready to give the oath. Does it have any meaning, you know, the oath for conduct during a meeting? I also noticed that there were three members of the select board on those, on those texts, which constitutes a quorum. So it was a meeting within a meeting. Now, should we think about making that part of the public record? That's a possibility. And let's see. I think, you know, and I guess I was mostly disappointed that I'm counting on, on people to represent us. And I don't feel like we had that. I think that it was obvious from the texting that you had preplans for how you are going to really support the junction. And I know you have to support the junction also, but this was about merger. And so when the, when we have talks coming up now about what Essex is going to do about separation and everything, I am very uncomfortable with having Vince and Patrick be part of those negotiations on behalf of the select board because they have shown very clearly to me anyway, that they are completely in, you know, on the side of the junction. And the whole thing just kind of makes me sick. I'm sorry it happened because I want all this nastiness to stop too. But anyway, that's all I have to say. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mary. Okay. Yeah, Ken signer low. Testing out my new AirPods. How's that sound? We can hear you fine. Excellent. Thank you. I thought I had made this point clear on the meeting of the 25th. Apparently I did not. Maybe there was a distraction. So I'll try again under no, in no way, shape or form was I when comparing the separation numbers presented at that meeting versus the separation numbers from September or November, whatever it was. Try to make light of it as not being good work by our staff. What I said was, if the September numbers were called by another public official back of the napkins calculations, not me, another person, then the ones that were being presented on that night were left because they were much simpler and left out a lot more stuff. Maybe if somebody wasn't texting, they might have heard me make that clarification. That was the point. I hope it's clear now. I did not mean to make light of any staff's work. Didn't even try to it was a maybe in elegant or needing more detail explanation as to the comparison old back of the napkins, someone else said it knew not so much less. That's it. I'm done. Thank you. Thanks, Ken. Lorraine Zaloon. Hi, Andy. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes, yes, we can. So. Processing everything that's happened, right? I don't know who Bill is, but I appreciate him speaking because he really touched on all the points that I feel. I have worked. In many businesses for a number of years, I have seen it said on Facebook that this is normal. And all my years of management, I have never once texted during a meeting ever. I'm a nerd. I expect the same certainly of my officials. I can't imagine that Mr. Watts text during meetings. Nor other people that are there. So I think it was particular to the subgroup. So the other part that upsets me is that it was a chair that was texting. And it created this little group that pushes out the other team members. So how can you build consensus? If on the select board itself. You can even work to have consensus or a team feeling. To what you're doing. I would assume that the other board members that were not in on these texts. So I think that we're quite aware that there was some giggling and other things going on. So what happens to me as a public member who is already shy about speaking out. I makes me wonder if Pat thinks I'm. He wants to tell me to f off when I speak up. And so going forward, I don't know how to eliminate that feeling. So I at the very least would like. And certainly Pat to. Step down from the vice chair because I don't feel represented. I don't know how I can trust someone who. Was doing that during a meeting. And not taking the office seriously. To. To feel like he's really listening to me because. It's clear to me. He wasn't listening to me and bills point to. It makes me wonder how far back was he doing this. And in the lane as well as Vince or whoever else. Because when I asked a long time ago, because we're under a lot of stress, not only from merger, but also from COVID. We have a lot of things to discuss and work on. And so when I asked a number of times about unemployment numbers and what's going on and how is our community doing. I felt shut down and felt pushed off when I worked on. Asking about policing and racial equity. I felt not listened to and pushed off. And it felt like the full agenda was all about merge, merge, merge, merge. And that was it. And when you do that and you start timing us and you start putting us down, we get really frustrated and upset and angry. And to Pat's point, I understand it hurts. It does hurt. But I'm not a public official. And that you couldn't even wait. You couldn't even wait till the meeting was over. And the other thing when I see a chair. Speaking in. Insulting ways like that. And even to a rep. Who is always respectful to you guys. When you don't stand up to someone who's bullying you. That says you agree because it's your job and your duty to stand up to that. And I didn't see any of you guys standing up to that. So at the very, I wish you would resign Pat. Because I don't feel represented Vince. I appreciate that you're a freshman. So to me, your leadership, the leaders were poisonous in a way. So I can certainly forgive that. And I do appreciate your apology because you didn't have a button there like Pat did. Because in counseling, they always teach you if you really are. Are sorry and asking for. And if you're apologizing. It is a number one rule that you never put the word button there. And that's what you did Pat. And so it doesn't feel like a full apology or taking full responsibility for your actions. So going forward in, and clearly the village of moving forward with separation. I don't want separation. I knew you didn't want separation Pat. Many of us were pro merger. I'm a pro merger person. And to see that kind of toxicity coming from within leads me to believe that. That's a large reason. That merger didn't pass as well. So I appreciate your comments. I appreciate your courage Pat, but not far enough for me. And thank you, Andy. Appreciate your time. Thanks. Patty Davis. Hi. Thanks for listening. You guys are great. You don't know how therapeutic this is for all of us. I just want you to know that, you know, moving here and not really knowing anyone and running into Vince on a sidewalk on Sa, in Saxon Hollow, just to have somebody from Essex town, I even gave you a book. And I'd like that back at some point, Vince, but I, I just, you know, trust. I trust people too easily. I just trust. And I feel like my trust has been slashed. And really hurtful. And I just want you to know Vince that my friend, my first friend I made in Essex who is 71, but she's like a 50 year old. She's really fit. Walk twice around Alderbrook, you know, two different times and was almost hit by a garbage truck one time and another truck another time because the roads are not plowed. Okay. In this, in the wintertime, the roads are not plowed. And as you know, I always bitch about it, but I'm not heard by everyone because well, everybody explained why. Now we know. And I trusted you Vince. I, I promoted you. I wanted you to win. I wanted you to be on our board because I wanted as many voices from the town outside the village who reside in the town outside the village to, to, to, to advocate for us, to advocate for our voices because it is a fact. And you can, you can check with the economic, not economic development, the economists of the state of remarks that we have a large population of elderly people in the town outside the village. When I say elderly 70s, the young new young 50, because my girlfriend Georgie is spry enough to jump into the snow bank to get out of the way of the garbage truck. So whether we've merged or not, we just, we don't want to be better than anybody else. We just want to be treated equally. So my issue is personally, I don't know how to regain that trust. I, I, I'm being honest. I don't know how to trust you. I trusted you initially. I had faith in you. I voted you. I gave you a book. I, you know, I mean, I feel like this is a personal betrayal. And you just made fun of me on, on your personal text being like, oh, Patty's talking about some old fart, bunch of old farts, you know, you know, having to get out of the road. We only can walk in the road. So we are, whether we have to put on road races or whatever, we have to have fun runs. We're going to, we're going to raise some money. So we get a freaking, freaking sidewalks. We have an elderly population. Number one. Number two. I want somehow a proposal to be made that we have an ethics committee for the town of Essex, like Sheldon has. We can afford it. We can advertise and run for it. And we need an ethics committee. That's the only way I'm going to trust you again. I think that's it. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. Megan Humphries. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Bye. Nice to see your faces. I'm new to these meetings, but not new to the town of Essex. I moved here about seven years ago from Westford. And my husband and I live at the end of Clover drive in a third grader at Founders Memorial. And I wanted to introduce myself and just note that I've been an observer and an active voter, and I have become educated on all of the issues plaguing Essex right now. And it's clear to me that there's so much pain, so much pain. Pain from the 10 years, pain from the merger, pain from now thinking about separation. And I was pro-merger. I thought whatever issues we had with the plan could have been overcome with time and working together and engaged public. I felt like we are better and stronger together and I still feel that way. I, you know, there's so much pain and we're hurting ourselves. We're, we're cannibalizing each other. We're, we're going down this path where our town, people who live here have said, I've had it. I want to move. People who are looking to move here are like, whoa, it's a lot of drama going on in Essex. I don't know if I want to live there. It doesn't seem like the governments work very well. I think we are, we are doing ourselves long-term damage with the direction that we're going. And I care enough about this town and all of my neighbors to get involved. And so that's why I'm speaking today. Pat and Vince, you know, I talked about pain. It seems like this has all been going on for such a long time. People make mistakes. We are all human. No one is exempt from this life without making mistakes or screwing up. Leaders fall down. What counts is how they get back up. And are they sorry? Are they clear? Are they transparent? Are they, you know, genuinely available to the voters to talk through any issues? And I've heard that here tonight from Patrick, from Vince. I've seen it on Facebook and on the forums. And I really, really appreciate that. I believe that everybody on the select board has worked really hard for a very long time to get to this point. And it's not satisfying, right? It's a lot of hurt and a lot of pain. And whatever we can do to move forward together and to try to find both our humanity in the wreckage of the vote, as well as a path forward that keeps our village and town strong, I really hope that's the case for all of us. I think that, you know, I tend to be a little bit idealistic, even though I lived in Washington DC for 10 years, I still kept my idealism. And I think we can make this town, you know, the best in the state if it's not already. I think we are on a path to destroying and dismantling what is good. And I, you know, we really need to stop this. We need to put away our knives, put away our cell phones and heal and come together. I hope Patrick and Vince stay on the select board. And I really, I just want us to heal. I want us to move forward. And whatever role I can play in helping make that happen, I'm happy to. Thanks for the time, Handys. Thanks, Megan. Adam Newhart. Hey, can you hear me all right? Yes. Awesome. Thank you. So I did also want to echo some of Megan's comments and also just, you know, express some gratitude to Patrick and Vince. I mean, Vince's information wasn't really even posted to Facebook and he came out and apologized for that. I appreciate greatly that you both acknowledged that you broke a rule around texting. And, you know, Pat, as to the content of your messages, you know, I know that you're not proud of it. You guys are both taking accountability for what you've done. You apologize for it. I also can't necessarily blame you, at least for feeling the way you do. I honestly wouldn't blame any select board member for feeling that way. You guys are at the end of, gosh, you're a constant punching bag to a small group of people in this town. And I appreciate that you called out some of the challenges that you face. I'm sure other members of the select board face that are currently on the board. And I'm sure many that have been on the board in the past. And I think if you don't call out that kind of bullying or that kind of talk or those kinds of personal attacks, you're condoning the way you're being treated. And it's not good for anyone in the town. I think we've all lived here for quite a long time or a lot of different places. And I can certainly say from my perspective, the way the select board is treated and the way that on a daily basis, whether it's online or offline is not normal. And it's, Megan said, people are not going to want to move here. People are going to want to leave. And I think that's really unfortunate, unless we start identifying what the real root of the problems are, so that we can move forward. Thank you. Thanks, Adam. Margaret Smith. Oh, hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I was actually pro merger, except when it got to the point where the village put forth their own charter, which did not include the three plus three representation that the town voted for, which is still languishing at the state level. And it just felt like we were being pressured to accept their plan. And I'm really for equal representation, which didn't feel like it was happening. And as far as not being heard, when I spoke about the dog issue with Indian Brook and the response to me was, well, we'll just wait and see what happens. The guy who used to go with all the dogs isn't a town resident, so he won't be going anywhere. We'll just wait and see. It's fine if people have whole bunches of dogs that are running loose. And I really felt brushed off. And my sympathies are with a lot of what other people have said. So thank you. Thank you, Margaret. I don't see any other hands up the public. I don't see anybody on the phone. Any other public comments? This is public to be heard. This item is not on the agenda. Irene Renner. Thank you. I echo the comments of folks like Bill Silverstrom, Mary Post, and others who have talked about just how disappointing this is. You may feel like a constant punching bag, but I've been a constant punching bag for longer. If you need tips on how to handle that, why don't you get in touch? I can give you some. I sat on your select board for 12 years. I never texted or wrote anybody to cope with the stress. If there was something that bothered me, I took a pencil in my hand and wrote it down for later. There are ways to do that. They don't involve mocking the public. The people who elected you, the people who really hope this is your last term, both of you, and I'm really sorry to say that, but you have as much as I can forgive you and will forgive you for this, you have disgraced yourself and you have shown your true colors to us. And you cannot, as a public official, at some point move beyond that, especially with apologies in which you blamed someone like Ken Signorello, whom you, Patrick, called an ass for anyone who didn't see the text messages. Ken Signorello started showing up in meetings in July of 2019. He had some fresh ideas because he hadn't been steeped in this stuff as long as the rest of us. He presented something a couple weeks later called separate and share, which, as ironic as it is, you may end up doing someday as a village. And we might as a town outside the village. He later showed up with pictures of the survey results because Darnit, as much as KSV was honest about how those merger surveys turned out, people like George Tyler kept insisting that, no, no, no, a hybrid model was the one that people wanted. Ken held up a chart and pointed to it. 67% of the people wanted district representation. So we still have people like Patrick who every chance he gets says things like, can't go for it. I personally can't go for it. Your personal opinion, I'm sorry, doesn't matter when you're representing the public. It's really time for people who represent the public to revisit their oath and understand what they're really here for. And your ability to not hear someone like Ken who shows up in the audience, first he's a newbie, so you discount him. Oops, now he's speaking truth to power. So you got to discount him for that reason. Oh, now he's an activist with a petition. Well, certainly got to ignore him now because he might just go away if you ignore him long enough. Oh, maybe if you called him names, he'll go away. He was never disparaging of you. He never said anything like you're putting on him now as an excuse for the text you wrote to the former chair of the select board. So I think you should be ashamed of blaming Ken for being an active citizen because that puts a chill on anyone else who wants to come to you with a fresh idea and heaven knows we need some fresh ideas around this town. So I will forgive you in time, but please don't think that that allows you to get away with this. Then that either of you should be on this board for another term another minute. Thank you. Okay, thank you Irene. Gabrielle Smith. Hi, I just want to echo so much of what I heard Megan say. And I have a question for you, Andy. I don't know if you can answer it. Was the public records request to all select board members or to some of the select board members regarding the texting during a meeting? This select board, I'm trying to think I'd have to go look back at the email. I was copied on the original request. Andy, I can clarify it was specific to Elaine actually. I don't believe it included anyone else. It was explicit to Elaine. Okay, so I'm not sure what to make of that. I find that I don't know who made the request. I find that really curious to select. I could understand why in the age of being virtual like this, you certainly can't. It's much more difficult to text in a public meeting when we're in person. And I can understand why to, I guess, being not so trustworthy of not feeling a lot of trust, wanting to know if the five people on the board at the time were, in fact, doing any texting during the meeting. I find it concerning that the person or people or whomever made the public records request single data, single person. We certainly don't know what anyone else was doing at this meeting time. And I don't think I'm not really making any beliefs. I don't have any beliefs that anyone else was doing was texting, but I just find that nature of that request concerning. And I think it is part of sort of reflecting back so much of where we're at in this community. And I think it is a really difficult time to serve on this board. I certainly know it's a difficult time to be a resident and to be participating, particularly on this, I would say, here in the select board. And I am grateful to all of you for serving in this way. And I do not define any one of you by your actions in one, in the course of one meeting. And so I don't find it a question of me having to forgive or not forgive anyone's behavior. It's a question of whether or not you are on the holes for me as a resident, feeling that you're serving me and serving this community. And I certainly do feel that way. And I'm really grateful that Patrick and Vince and Tracy and Andy and Don are on this group. So thank you all. And I appreciate the chance to speak. Thank you, Gabrielle. Marcus Serta. Thank you. As a resident, I would just like to echo what Gabrielle just said. But that's not why I'm speaking at the moment. I'd like to ask a question as the president of the board for the Essex Community Players. I'm curious about the status of Memorial Hall, what work, if any, is being done there? And what are the plans about potentially reopening that for rental? I don't. Yeah, go ahead, Evan. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, Evan. So staff was brought, it was brought to our attention that one of the walls, I think near the front entrance to the interior main space looked like it was sagging. So staff was looking and having people look at the structural integrity. We also have recently done some roof repairs. So that's pretty much what's going on at the building. We're just watching. Right now we're documenting the wall that goes into it to see if it in fact is sagging or if it is continuing to sag. I think they also went underneath in the crawl space to see what that status is. So that's it. The building is safe. And now that we have done some slate roof repairs, we're pretty confident it will not be leaky. As for when the building might open, right now we are currently still under my orders that our buildings are closed to the public. We are some of our buildings are done by appointment. Memorial, one of the things we are looking at at the end of May, early June is whether we are going to open our buildings to the public with proper safety protocols. So that has not been decided 100% yet, but we are certainly not going to be opening within the next couple of weeks. That's basically my call. And one of the things that the governor is stating is open Vermont is there are some requirements to keep the building safe. And you have to do some other things like cleaning and bathroom use. And we don't have anybody at that building that's from staff. So that's there all the time. So somebody or several people use the washroom you're supposed to clean it. So that's one of the buildings that we need to discuss how we would reopen it. Thank you. It did. If I can follow up real quick. Obviously, I think you understand our usage of Memorial Hall and how often we've used it in the past. We have been working on our own strategy for cleaning protocols and other protocols in order to manage audiences if and when we get the opportunity to re-enter Memorial Hall. So I would love to be able to, again, engage with you or anyone at the Parks and Rec in order to, again, work this through, talk this through to help work with the town to make sure that space is usable. We would be happy to help in any way we can. Sure. Mr. Chair, I'll just have Mr. Serta contact Allie Vile at Town Rec and please set up a time in a virtual meeting and we'll be happy to meet with you. It'd be nice to have you guys back. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Okay. Thanks, Marcus. I see Harlan Smith. Hi. Yeah. I just wanted to speak to the entire select board that unfortunately in a lot of these meetings I hear that people are not feeling represented and I just want you to know that all five of you, including you, Tracy, I've had some conversations with you. I feel represented by all of you. I was obviously on the pro merger end of things. Andy and Don and I don't agree on that. But I feel like they were still representing me and if we take a look at the vote, the way that the vote fell down, it was a 50-50 vote. And I think you were all doing the best that you possibly could. I think Vince and Pat's conversation with Elaine was unfortunate. And I continue to hear that these are select board members and we hold them to a higher standard, which we do. But the last time I checked you were all human. And the fact that I feel like even though your stances were in line with me and not in line with other people who are asking for your resignation, I feel like your history of what you've done has proven that you're doing what you believe is the best for the community as a whole. And obviously you're dealing with a community that is split 50-50 on a particular thing. So somewhere along the lines, you've got to fall on one side of that line or the other. So I just want to let you know that I appreciate all of you stepping up and being in the positions that you're in. It's not easy. Hopefully we can minimize the mistakes that you guys make. But I do appreciate everything you guys are doing for us. And I wanted to thank you. Okay. Thank you, Harlan. Let's see. I see Annie Cooper's hand up. Hi. Thank you, Andy. Can y'all hear me? Yes, as we can. I would like to echo Harlan. Harlan keeps me on an even keel when I get frustrated. And he's been a great resource for me during these last few weeks. And so I just simply want to echo everything he said. I appreciate and value Don's comments about mistakes and humanity. And I appreciate the five of you and staff are all working so hard towards community all the time. I have two things. Andy, will you remind, well not remind me because I know the answer, but can you help me in letting the public know how we timed public to be heard during the gun shooting target ordinances? Can you remind me of what the limit was back that many years ago when we had those conversations? I don't remember what the time limit was. But there was a time limit. We asked how many people planned to speak and then we divided the time that was by the number of people that we wanted to spend by the number of people. And that's how we worked through it. It was two minutes. So anyway, I was just wanting to point out that it's not unheard of that we had put a time limit when there were more voices in the room. I just wanted to make sure that the public was aware that that wasn't something brand new that was done with any intention for any management of certain people or certain outcome. So I was hopeful that you would be on board with me in that. I have one other piece about the communications policy. And that is that I was helping my mom be in a meeting the other day and she didn't understand how to use Zoom. And so I had my headphones on to talk to her on the phone while she was on her iPad and I was on my computer. And so I guess if you can please add into your communications policy just so that we're going to cover ground, let's cover all of it, that you know, part of your sign off is that you will absolutely not be in phone conversation with somebody while you're in a meeting if we can just be thorough. That's all. I appreciate that. Thank you. That was added during our last meeting. Tracy suggested that updates, no texting, no phone calls during meetings. So that would include someone being on a phone line to an earphone communication? We weren't specific as to which exactly ways people could talk on phones, but it's- It covers that. I would assume so, yes. I don't remember the exact words. I can go find- Tracy might want to comment because she was the one that suggested the language. Go ahead, Tracy. Actually, and I had my hand up for another comment as well, but there was already language in the rules and regs for orderly conductive meetings that prohibit cell phone use by select board members during the meeting. That was already there. Well, I had added with a prohibition against using social media ironically. I'm sorry, I can't hear you very well. Yeah, there was somebody on the phone who was speaking. Sorry. The prohibition against cell phone use was already existed in the rules and regs for orderly conductive meetings. What I had added was a prohibition against using social media during meetings. And, Annie, there is already also a prohibition to having side conversations, which covers any mode of having a conversation. What Tracy had was the specificity of social media. Great. Thank you all so much for your time. I feel confident in my piece. Thank you very much. Yep. Okay. Let's see. I'm just looking to see if there's any more members of the public. Marcus, your hand is still up. Is that a new hand? My apologies. I'll take it down. Okay. And Patty Davis, your hand is also up. Did you have an additional comment? Real quick. Real quick. Real short. I just wanted to say something positive. I have live plants in my house that are overrunning my house. I've been planting all winter because I'm so excited about the ETC Next Plan, and I've been talking with a WISO. And anyway, I've got some connections, and I have some volunteers. And if everything stays alive in the next two weeks, I would like everyone from everywhere, even Jericho and all the people who come to Saxon Hill and Run every day from Jericho, and if you come from all over, to please walk around and enjoy the 30 pots that I am donating to the Essex experience. Again, with everything living, permitting in the next two weeks, everything's still alive. I just have to keep everything alive until, for sure, Memorial Day. Probably the week before Memorial Day, the 30 pots will be distributed throughout the Essex experience from my volunteers and I, and also Jules on the Green, that corner where Mimos is and that pet store. I always buy all my corgi things. I forget what it's called. So I just wanted you to know that keep your eyes open, because I've already spoken to some of the owners. I don't want these pots to get stolen. I was very lucky to get them $11 a piece. They're really nice pots. Now they're $73 a piece. So if they get stolen, this is the last year I'm contributing. But this is my donation to help us heal and everybody loves flowers. So I hope you like them. Thank you. Thank you, Patty. Lorraine, I see your Lorraine's allume. I see your hand up again. Thank you, Andy. I forgot to mention, too, just one concern. I was at a Black Lives Matter vigil yesterday and toward the end of it, and Andy can attest to this as well, there was a gentleman who drove by with his window down spewing some pretty foul things at us. That felt very scary, actually. So given that the Floyd verdict may happen this week, and there may be more vigils this week, I was wondering if the slack board is or Evan or maybe even the police chief might want to be alerted to that or if there's any thought about that. Thank you. Thank you, Lorraine. Hi, Andy. I see your hands up again. Go ahead. You're muted. You're muted. In our lives, if only we could mute me, right? Lorraine, thank you. Was it Lorraine that brought that up? Yes. Thank you, Lorraine, because I was standing there in tears because it was aimed with or without intention directly at two children who were there with their mom who were plausibly, I don't know, Lorraine, can you help me use the right language? I'm afraid I will say the wrong language in my description, but of all people to, it was just horrible. And I agree that if we could have a, did you ask for a police presence or something, because I really wanted to take off after the car and the mom of the children was so gracious to her children. And she said to her children, sometimes you'll get that. And it just made my legs stop moving. And I stood in and respected her explanation to her children. And I stood in grace with them. But if we could have, if there could be some form of visible strength, I agree with Lorraine. Lorraine, thanks for bringing that up. I didn't, I wouldn't have known how to bring that up. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Yeah, this stuff sounds like something should be taken into consideration. Tracy, I'm sorry, I've made you wait a long time here. I wanted to make sure we got through the public comments. Go ahead. That's okay. I appreciate the focus on the public. Given that this is only my second meeting, I thought it would be pertinent to explain sort of my style. My silence on this topic does not indicate that I condone any of these actions. However, I feel that it's incredibly important that leaders give feedback or criticism in private and directly and open a dialogue to do otherwise tends to give pause to people who want to speak up. I don't think that select board members should ever be in the habit of coming across as scolding one another in a public meeting. So I want to be very conscious of that. But I just wanted to explain that I tend to give my feedback and criticism personally and in private because I feel that that's more productive. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy. Okay, we've been talking for a while. We've been listening for a while. I don't see any other hands up. But there is there are a couple of folks on the phone. Anybody have any other comments? I did want to respond to a couple of things that were said. Well, there is no provision in Vermont statute for recall of an elected official. So there is no elected officials are solely bound to their voters. And as such, even the select board cannot force any elected official to take on what's considered an agreeable position on anything on any topic. And so although, you know, we were we were asked to have a vote of censure, that's not actually something that a board, the select board can do. We're in an attempt to modify the behavior of another member, individual members can say whatever they choose as a board. There's there's it's it's there's no there's no there's just explicit prohibition from trying to coerce other elected officials to follow any particular position. So I guess those are the only couple of comments I wanted to make. All right. Moving on the searcher. Yeah, go ahead. Answer one quick question. Comment about public protests and and support at five corners. We are well known for it is very interesting and hardening to see many people at five corners. Most of the time they get support people honking, you know, in support. And then, unfortunately, other times people are not that supportive and actually are abusive. We do not normally schedule. We don't sometimes know that people are going to be there, nor do we tend to schedule police to be there. Unless we are expecting something negative to happen. And if it's only if we are able to schedule someone. And so that's just how we tend to handle five corners. With the Derek Chauvin case, the chief and I have had a couple of conversations about that. And you know, it's very difficult because we do not know one, when the verdict will come down to what the verdict might be. Three, how people may take the verdict. I believe there's three charges and may get convicted on all three convicted on none of them or somewhere in between or how people take that. So it is very difficult, but we are very concerned for a public reaction for that. And we are consulting amongst ourselves and some others what other communities are planning to do. But we are also very concerned what may happen in a neighboring community could be any one of them and their request for police help from another community that may not be experiencing it. And so it's just what's coming our way, whether it's two days from now or a week from now, we don't know. But we hope the public just please, we want to hear you. There is a lot of anger, grief, the feeling that this is not right or just. But we would hope that that does not include any type of property damage or physical harm to others. And so I know that we will try to be here for the public when the time comes. Thank you, Aaron. You're welcome. All right. And also wanted to thank I sort of just abruptly moving on. I should have thanked everyone who spoke today on this during public to be heard. There was a comment made about limiting people to a specific amount of time. I really didn't want to do that today, especially since I assumed that there would be understood the possibility that there may be some criticism leveled to elected officials. And the Constitution provides very strong protections for such criticism. So I didn't want to limit anybody's ability to to say their peace. So thank you for all of the comments and for all the time that folks have waited as we got through this. Okay, now I'm moving on to business item five a interview and potential appointment. It's Michael think in the audience. There he is Michael. So we have Michael is interested in an open seat on the energy committee. There are there are two seats open. These seats have been advertised since since July of this year. So there's there and so here we are with Michael. Please introduce yourself and make any comments you like about your suit your your why you want to be on the energy committee. Sure. Thank you very much for having me. My wife and I moved here almost five years ago now and I work in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy. I had made a fairly drastic career change to work in the field of energy and I saw there are a couple of vacancies on the the energy board. So I thought I'd like to apply to it and see if I could help. Okay, great. Okay, now we'll move to board members. Anybody have any comments or questions for Michael? Patrick? Hi Michael. Thanks for joining us tonight. I read your submission. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the work that you've done in the past like what exactly is an energy data analyst. Just so I have some clarification about like what that is. You spoke about carbon capture and honestly I'm really excited about that sort of thing. It's you know something that you know certainly you've been pushing around budget season. I'm sure everyone on the board will remember you know comments about you know vehicle fleet and stuff. So I'm just kind of wondering both your background and then maybe if you could talk a little bit about you know what you want to encourage going forward. Thank you Patrick. So my background is actually my education is in chemistry but now I actually spend most of my days writing computer code with the aim of finding efficiencies and evaluating whether improvements might might are financially justifiable or evaluating carbon emissions from proposals and things like that. Is that sort of getting at what you're looking for? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, any other board members? So Michael I'll ask a question. Have you had an opportunity to attend any of the Energy Committee meetings yet? Have you met the group? And I guess the other the other piece sorry is do you have anything unique that you think you're bringing to the table? I've not attended an Energy Committee meeting yet regretfully. So I genuinely don't know if I bring any unique skills to the committee. I hope that through my experience as an analyst I can bring some analysis skills to find the lowest-hanging fruit to help help my fellow and my neighbors stay a little warmer in the winter for a little less money and hopefully with lower carbon emissions. Okay, great. Thank you. Vince? Yeah, I was looking at the FEACH project. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly. So is this like a single home that has like all these like energy metrics being cataloged like what your net in versus net out energy is? I'm just I'm trying to get some context around like what this is you don't mind explaining. Sure, so the website that you were referring to that I wrote is called the Fista project which is just a actually reference to my daughter's middle name but it's it's just a project I did on the side for fun to to see if I could sort of an exercise to see if I could figure out all the things in my house that we're using electricity at a given moment in time and what carbon emissions I'm responsible if I were taking that energy off of the New England grid. So I was trying to it was a more of an exercise that's because most of us in Essex are Green Mountain Power customers and and their energy is actually quite a bit cleaner that they buy than the New England grid but the New England grid has the benefit of for free you can see exactly what their production is at any moment from all the different fuel sources and so I thought as a fun exercise you know house on the New England grid and see what what my carbon emissions would be based on my production from the solar ray on my roof that what I'm using it within my house and then what I'm returning to the grid so that's that's what that website aims to to achieve. Thank you that's really cool one last little tiny question what is CCHP? Oh that's a that's a cold climate heat pump sorry I should have written that out but that's no no that's okay sure that's that's becoming a very popular way in Vermont to especially during the shoulder seasons when it's temperatures are moderately cold to it's a kind of a way to an efficient way to heat your house with electricity much more efficient than resistive heating elements that we sometimes have on baseboards and you can cool in the summertime yes efficiently more efficiently than a window unit so it's another use of them there's actually one behind me right up there in the walls. All right well thank you so much Mike I really appreciate it and I love that amateur project like that's really cool really cool thank you Vince okay I see Will Dodges hand up chair of the energy committee Will. Thank you Mr. Chair all I wanted to say is that we are delighted that Mike has volunteered to do this he is absolutely qualified and probably more qualified than anybody on our current board to delve into some of these issues and specifically the issue of energy efficiency data so we have a meeting coming up this Wednesday and I want to make sure that I ultimately get Mike's email address so that we can get him on that by zoom the only other thing that I would add and this is with I'm not going to say with all due respect because we know that doesn't really mean what it sounds like but what we as an energy committee want to do is not just to see what Mike brings to our table but what the select board and the trustees are bringing to the table of energy as well we've you guys have whatever else you may disagree or people disagree on between village and town the energy plan from 2019 was adopted in both the town and the village and understandably there's been a lot of focus on merger but now that that's done we need to refocus on the energy plan so we're really looking forward to having Mike on board and we'll look to find a time to appear before the select board with when there's more time to focus about both what we're doing and what we think needs to happen for our committee to be successful in both the town and the village. Okay thanks Will. So I see Irene has her hand up I know she's a member also a member of the energy committee we don't don't often have public speaking during these kind of interviews is the board okay with allowing Irene to comment? Thank you I do not know Will is going to be here I'm fine with everything he said I just wanted to make sure there was a meeting notice okay invitation thank you okay all right all right thanks okay any other comments or questions from board members so Mike what we we sometimes do is go into executive session and have a discussion about whether to appoint you but we can also do that appointment just right now it is how would just the board feel about doing this in open session see a couple of nods a couple hands up yeah I'm happy to call the question I had the motion the select board appoint Michael think to the energy committee for the term ending June 30th 2023. One second that. Okay thank you Patrick thank you Don any further discussion all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed welcome Michael thank you for stepping forward. Thank you very much. I'm excited thank you very much. Sounds like there's a meeting this week. Great can't wait thanks again good good thanks. Okay moving on to business item 5B consider approval of first and third class liquor license renewal uh Greg. Hello um laying farm barge at laying farm has applied for a first and third class liquor license um the police actually had not had a chance to review it before your meeting but because uh the deadline for these liquor license renewals is April 30th and this was the last opportunity to get it before the board wanted to bring it to you tonight and have it approval contingent on police review we have since received the last piece of information that we were waiting for for the applications of the clerk's office and police are ready to do that review um assuming the board is ready to give the approval tonight. Okay um so just to be clear this is a renewal not a new one. Correct okay and you are still asking us to include the clause in the motion pending about pending approval from the police department. Correct. Okay all right so anybody uh any board members have any questions looks like not somebody like to make a motion. I move that the select board approves the first and third class liquor license renewal for laying farm llc dba uh barns at laying farm or doing business sorry uh barns at laying farm uh pending approval from the police department. We'll have a second. Second. Thank you Vince and Patrick any other any further discussion all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay motion passes five zero. Thank you. Moving on to business item five c presentation and discussion about fiscal year 2022 sx parks and recreation program fund budget. Allie vile good to see you. Hi everyone um I was wondering if I needed to share my screen if you wanted to go over that or if you if someone else is going to share their screen or if we're not sharing at all. May Greg do it. Do you well Allie this is Evan do you want uh we can give you rights or Greg could do it and you could just tell them what you need. Um well I'm going to be looking at mine at the same time so Greg if you could do that that would be great. Sure just tell me when to skip ahead and toggle back and forth. Um so the just a quick review um the program budget also known as an enterprise budget is the self-sustaining um budget on all of our programs and everything funded for it um in addition to our extended school program budget so they look similar one's a little bit bigger than the other um and I did have some memo details Greg you can keep that up I'm just going to toggle to my information here um so as we all know uh on this hamster wheel of COVID-19 it hit our department pretty hard um programming has been um you know delayed so to speak and then uh restricted in other sort of ways as we tried to bring programs back and we continue to do so and so it's heading in the right direction um last spring our large programs that we typically um are able to run didn't happen um and then as things got started in the fall our space for programs was pretty limited so again headed in the right right direction um this some this upcoming summer our explorers day camp that we have typically had as a large portion of this budget um in school vacation camps those are now handled through the licensed child care department in EJRP um and so we will focus on our specialty camp offerings with contracted instructors or seasonal part-time employees um bringing things back to typical capacities and and balancing things out um we um along with EJRP we're doing this large cost recovery project right now so after we finish that up momentarily um you know we'll be implementing new practices pricing platforms and all that so doesn't mean that things will necessarily be more expensive but more balanced to be more fiscally responsible when it comes to programming um for our communities in all sort of areas of access so that is my little recap on our general program fund budget I don't know if you have questions about that now or if you want me to just quickly move on to the extended school program one but do you have any questions go ahead Allie okay great um and then similar to oh I gotta get to the right spot um to our extended school program one um this is for additional activities after the school day um when that are just enrichment they're either typically held on site at the schools um Essex Elementary and Founders Memorial primarily um this year we've been a lot more creative in how to utilize space and how to get kids to programming um so again we're headed in the right direction for to end this school year with some good programs going on and then uh in turn you know have a have a solid year next year with things being um a bit more normal um um but they're they're pretty similar in explanation um you know we have seven lacrosse teams for that are signed up and practicing and ready to go this spring so that feels really good to have everybody out there um our swim team is going to be it's not directly related to this but it's another one of those minimalized programs last year that we're looking to get back uh to more normal capacities um so we've just been creative and coming up with new ideas which is good and refreshing um just keep doing what we're doing that's all I got okay thanks all right um anybody have any uh questions for Allie? I do how are you doing with staffing Allie given this this COVID pandemic and are you finding enough help or are you being stretched to the limit help-wise um it's been there have been times where it's been tricky and other times where the hybrid school schedule um with like our older high school staff that have been helpful it does work out um usually it's a pretty tight schedule when we need someone to get a ride or drive themselves or get the bus from the high school to Essex Elementary um so those sort of time constraints haven't quite been the same this year um the school has school districts been really helpful and helping us be creative with space and how we can do some things in school space um but again now we're and that was the trickiest um during the winter months but now we're able to offer some other things and staffing is pretty good um I would say that some specialty camp instructors you know there's still some hesitation in a way with how many kids are signed up for programs and and how we're going to comply with all of the guidelines as they continue to change and change but I think if we made it through last year's uh crazy summer we can we can do it this year for sure thank you for all your hard work thanks Don okay Pat see your hand up thank you Andy hi Allie hi um so uh I've got a question that I'm not sure if you'll have the answer to but I think that it's certainly worth talking about you mentioned the licensed child care through EJRP um about how many kids are in that portion of the program and then kind of as a follow up um I mean you know there's no longer an elephant in the room um you know who the village is seeking merger or excuse me seeking separation in November um if that happens uh and EJRP is no longer able to provide the licensed portion of that child care um you guys have a backup plan I know that the Y used to do some stuff um with you but I don't know that that I know it's not in place anymore but I don't know how easily it would be to recover from that I just you know where I'm thinking that you know we may very quickly find ourselves in a situation where you know in November we may need to decide by March or April what happens if all of these programs are suddenly forcefully split apart and what happens to the kids who are in those programs hard question I know yeah but you know I'd rather us be thinking about it a year ahead of time rather than sitting here in January and being like why weren't we thinking about it right and for us um in general with rec our summer planning conversations start in November um so and typically think licensed child care for the summer is advertised in late January early February so it'll definitely be something um to dive a lot deeper into um you know if this is kind of on the fly thinking but if eJRP licensed child care no longer provides in the schools on the outside of the village side of the district um you know EPR our department does not currently have that that silo department in existence and so off the cuff it would be really easy for someone right now who already has a license and already has everything implemented to provide the license aspect of child care in those buildings um if eJRP took their licenses out of there um we haven't all discussed this at 75 maple um so this is really just off the cuff thinking you know I assume it would be and that's yeah completely fine uh off the cuff it's really just what i'm looking for at the moment yeah and prior to you know last summer was our last summer of providing day camp but for over 15 years um we've been providing summer camp care opportunities um but it doesn't have it's not under all the same licensor regulations and um you know if we went back to it without it being licensed we would have to make changes anyway to how we used to do it um so a lot of potential changes and lots of conversations thanks ali you're welcome thanks pat have a nice hear hands up so this is not scripted so sorry ali so maybe you can explain the importance and the function of the program fund say versus so for all of us we we know what the general fund is but the audience may not know the difference of the general fund to the program fund so maybe you can uh give us a little bit on the audience a little bit of how we use or you use the program fund sure so generally speaking all of this is uh supported by revenue brought in from programming so this fund pays for the brochures and all that goes into brochure planning and program planning and our large programs like fall soccer and youth lacrosse and the bolton after school program um along with like everything else that we do um if you take a list of what we do versus what ejrp does all of that is supported by the program fund it also supports um 60 percent of a full-time person um plus the seasonal staff for the extended school program and um um you know any kind of youth preschool programming that we do in higher seasonal or part time staff same with summertime with specialty staff specialty camp staff um so it it supports all of that on its own without um anything from your tax bill so a lot of our programs um are self supportive yes programs that are based out of sandhill pool are not in this program fund because those um the money coming in from those programs support and offset the pool facility but aside from those main aquatic programs all other programming is um supported out of this budget on its own from residents and non-residents who participate thanks okay i only i've got a question um the i've been i've been attending the bi-weekly vermont league of cities and towns advocacy meetings that um and one of the things they've been talking about every other week is the federal rescue plan funds that are coming and there's going to be supposedly a bucket of money made available to for municipalities to potentially access that's based on uh lost revenues due to covid um is this something that we're chasing after to to um you know make up for the any losses that we've had over the past year yeah i mean we um our program director adrian martin she um basically submitted for the grant last summer um kind of the end of august with lost revenues from summer day camp and summer programs and we received all of the funding that we requested with that requested with that um worked alongside with sarah and the finance department to make sure that we weren't double dipping on something that we had already bought that she was counting in for that so you know if there's this other opportunity coming we would definitely look into that for sure you know our fitness classes and and think like our amount of programming we've offered just hasn't been what we normally do at the same time we've also provided and been creative in other ways to provide things that we normally haven't either so um you know it's definitely a different year and if with that opportunity if that's possible for us to qualify in certain brackets then we would do that okay right thanks and i would i would add andy um actually i met with sarah macy the finance director today top of list is you know we also still don't exact we don't know what these rules are going to be right but top of list is lost revenue from things that we know of that we can document and survive an audit uh and and if anybody's ever been through a federal audit this is not something you want a discrepancy of any kind um they they do want documentation they do have people that are very thorough and so you wouldn't want to get money and then have to give it back uh about two years from now when you think you already think so it's it's a process so we we have lost revenue at the top uh things in recreation things in water and sewer things in taxation um but we're still waiting for vl of vermont league of cities and towns uh vlct uh to help get us the guidance uh from the state and from the federal government um which i am told is still in progress um and so we're doing that and then staff is going to be meeting as soon as that guidance comes out working with the departments these are our priority looks these are secondary looks what do you got what's interesting um and what's community building and then we would also look to the select board and village board depending upon how the rules go for input and then also the citizens uh in some areas so um we're andy you were on the on the call i think it's about a week or two out still yeah yeah um which probably means three right and and for the people at home i'm sorry our federal government works in weird and mysterious ways they created a bill in washington that had billions of dollars for state and local governments and while they thought it was a great idea and it is a great idea they haven't written the rules yet and they want the money to go out quickly they want the money to be spent quickly but it puts us in a jeopardy of making sure we don't do something that doesn't fit in their rules and take a chance though that it's not a permitted use of those funds the other thing we are going to be very careful of is creating anything that has a recurring expense that then has to be budgeted for so just to keep that in mind okay thanks Evan um like Sally welcome so the the memo says that you're presenting it uh this week and then at the next meeting you'd like us to approve it this is what we're what we're looking at here was the the process i just thought it was i'm pretty sure you got it like a week ago and then this was the approval was my understanding yeah i started to jump in you guys hey it's sara um we were trying to align the enterprise fund budgets on the same schedule so that's the water and sewer fund that you're going to hear from denise lots about next and the epr program budget um i actually thought y'all'd have more questions than you did so um probably in hindsight we could have you know approved tonight as well but the plan is for you to hear this presentation this evening um you'll hear from denise next and then at your next meeting you'll hold a public hearing on water and sewer rates and then be asked to approve the water and sewer budget and also at that time it'll be asked to approve this budget so that the two are just on the same schedule okay okay thanks sara um i do see one hand up from the public so if the board's okay go to the public for comment uh okay ken signorello thank you i was looking at the budget page i don't great can bring that up just a question about it it's something odd on there i didn't fully understand i can see that uh the column with 2021 actual isn't there but the change is and that's fine i can do that math um i can see that revenue is down 125 200 down 39 i see expenses are down 141939 that's down 42 percent the net as a result is actually up the change is 16 739 but it's displayed as as a percentage of negative so it's just confusing to me is net revenue down or up i think it's up i'm not sure of 116 percent is right that part i'm not talking just the negative part of it just seems backwards to me that's all maybe somebody can clarify thanks if anything it's just a formula that was run all the way down on this spreadsheet so that's what's showing at the bottom no so net revenue is in fact up 16 739 um greg can you scroll up on the screen just a little bit at the bottom it's at the bottom yeah we can see the head the head the head oh right it's so $193,000 of revenue is budgeted greg can you scroll down again please 190,000 so we're actually budgeting for a small surplus of $2,000 which is a change a net change of 16,000 from last year when we had a a budgeted small budgeted deficit one of the things that looks a little wonky in this fund is that this page that we're looking at now is the program section and then the next couple pages are the um past the narrative are the enrichment programs and then all netted together they make the program fund so the two of them have been closer to a net zero but you are seeing a net change in that first section of $16,000 from a budgeted deficit last year to a budgeted surplus this year I hope does that answer your question Ken really just go back up to that table again so the change column the second one from the right is the change from what to what that's what I need to know it's the change from the negative 14 that nope scroll back down sorry greg just which negative 14,395 to a positive 2344 and the delta between those two is 16,730 thank you thank you thank you that takes care of it thank you very much yeah because one of them is a negative number the answer comes out negative right gel set can oh yeah sorry I just turned the bike yes out okay all right thanks Ken all right so I guess this will come back for approval at our next meeting great thanks Ali all right thanks okay moving on to business item 5d presentation and discussion about fiscal year 2022 water and sewer budget and rates Dennis good evening everybody um before we get into the actual documentation there's a couple of things that I just wanted to make a general comments or everybody's on the same same page so to speak um all the material that you received is also on the web page so if anyone from the public wants to get into the details they can go to the town of Essex web page public works scroll down you'll find water sewer budget you can get in there we try to make the documentation pretty clear so that you can understand how we got to the rates in that memo hopefully we can explain it tonight but if you still have questions you can either call us email us or better yet go to the web page and and kind of fight your way through the pages that are there but it's all there um the other thing that's important is to remind everyone that this also is an enterprise fund and this enterprise fund for water and sewer serves the residents of the town outside the village only it does not serve these two budgets does not serve any portion of the village costs for running their water or sewer department so it's totally independent I have to add that we also have a part of our legacy system which is the 040th and Allen where there are some of the properties in the town of Colchester which were dated to the town when the military got out of the fort and those properties are served by our water sewer system they pay the same rates they pay everything the same but they're included in our system so it's that it's such an enterprise fund our water comes from the Champlain Water District we're a member community with other communities in Chittenden County almost everyone except the city of Burlington I happen to be a commissioner on the board believe it or not elected from South Burlington Erin who I work with Erin Martin and you know is our elected commissioner from Essex so in one office we have I think a third of the vote of the CWD commission which is kind of strange on water excuse me on sewer our wastewater is treated by the village of Essex Junction when they built and upgraded the plant in the early 80s there was a three-party agreement between the town of Essex the town of Williston a town of Essex essentially outside the village the town of Williston and Essex Junction and so Essex Junction owns and operates the wastewater treatment plant they provide the wholesale rates to the three communities and then we build that into our rate structure so that's the setting for how our system operates the we have two storage tanks in the town those storage tanks are owned and operated by Champlain Water District we deeded them to them many years ago the pump stations that pump the water through Essex are owned and operated by Champlain Water District they own the main transmission lines we own all the other lines separate from their transmission lines in addition we have about 16 pump stations in the town for sewage that all wind up putting that sewage into the votes of Essex Junction and those again are all town pump stations so kind of a broad background last year we realized COVID was on us and when we went to the board initially and I'm not sure if the board actually saw the budget or it was developed and we decided to go to the board with a specific budget but when we started the budget last year um we were for FY 21 there was a 3.7 percent increase in charges from Champlain Water District a 1.9 percent increase from the wastewater plant in the village and a 3 percent increase in labor rates and we realized with COVID that people were going to have trouble paying their water bills or potentially could have trouble and so what was finally adopted was a 1 percent increase in the budget that means our system had to absorb those costs most of our costs are either water plus labor the water we buy from Champlain Water District and labor or the cost of treating the sewage in the village plus labor and so we we haven't finished this year so quite honestly we don't know how we're going to end up at the end of FY 21 but we did not budget to meet expenses be quite honest we budgeted for COVID you cannot do that over the long run systems would be unviable if you tried to maintain a water and sewer system at less than what your expenses are but we did it we did it for a year and we'll accept however that comes out when we close out the year in June 30th we're trying to keep costs down so we can do that I don't know if we'll make it or not we'll find out I don't know if Greg is there if he can put up on the screen I'd like to I'm not going to bore you this is a long document I'm going to try to whip through it quickly but I do think it's important to cover some of the highlights that first paragraph covers what I just told you about last year's cost if you want to go down to discussion let's talk about water rates first that's the water rate history over the past few years you'll see that there's a budget that we've proposed which is a 3.5 percent increase in budget but only a 2.8 percent increase in rates and the reason is there's flow calculations built into that which help to alleviate some of that budget increase over time we've tried to keep our rates low as low as we can and if you look at the the history the general history from 2012 and I won't go back for how long I've been here because you don't want to know that and I don't want to show it but it's gone down and we're trying to keep that as a low rate as we can as a member of the water district for shampoo and water district we're trying to keep our annual rates at around three percent going forward and sometimes that's hard to do given what happens with weather dry summer wet summer you name but anyway let's keep going there is a small increase that we proposed in the what we call the initiation fee and we I'll explain that a little bit later but to try to keep the the rate and that initiation fee rate at least at the same level we haven't changed the minimum water rate charge again we've kind of done that because there is going to be some carryover from COVID and we feel that this is not the year to change that minimum water rate so we've left that as it is in the sewer our budget was a three point seven percent increase in line item costs but a three percent increase in rates and again if you take a look at those numbers you see that our sewer rates have dropped pretty significantly over time those high rates back in 12 13 14 15 we raised those rates at that point in time because of the anticipated increase in costs for upgrading the village wastewater treatment plant and we took those increased costs and put them into new meters for the community and so because the meters are also used to measure the sewer flow so we did that we use that money for a specific purpose and we did it so that in one year there would not be a real you know a 20 jump due to higher rates coming from the village when the plant was upgraded so that was over time we're back down into what I consider to be our normal operating range for costs this item to continue to impact the budget let's keep going Greg if you can we need to continue to maintain our system stabilization fund we try to keep that so that that's somewhat close to what the estimated costs are per year to replace our entire system over the whole length of the time frame which is essentially in most cases a 50 year timeframe this will allow us to make system improvements without having to go to the voters for bond votes doesn't mean we won't but it means that we're trying to do what we can to stabilize the system we're almost done with our meter replacement program it's 97 percent complete we're down to the hardcore where some of the meters are perhaps in someone's basement behind a finished wall um a little hard to get at I don't think anybody's gotten out of in years so some of those are going to be the most difficult but we're going to try to get at those and figure out a way so and get more accurate measurements on people's water use and also to provide them the information if there's we detect a billing time leakage we can go in and try and identify maybe um where they're what that is as a problem we're also trying to reduce our unaccounted for water and wastewater I don't call it a loss it's really unaccounted for and I'll talk to a little bit about that if you want to keep going if you go back to 2011 you can see our stabilization account was at $50,000 it should have been at $139,000 if you wanted to replace the system over the life of the system which is what accountants basically want us to do if you'll notice now in 2021 or last year um we're now at a point where our budgeted amount is actually pretty close to what the actual cost is to stabilize the fund and it's been that way for about the last four or five years um let's keep going um I'll stop at a point to ask questions but one of the things that I think we're proud about keep going um if you want to go up back up a little bit Greg uh where are we here right there whoa um as you can see um back in the 2010 11 and 12 we had to borrow money to make our um expenses because we were not keeping up with collections we're not keeping lots of collections but um with the differential and rates we have not had to borrow any money against your account since 2015 and I'm pretty proud of that I'm sure Sarah does too because it means we're doing a good job at managing the system and what and it's still making getting the service out to the community you want to keep going um I've talked about the meter replacement program um I won't talk any more about that here um we do have um there's a difference between what we built to our customers and what we buy water for or what we built for our customers for sewage and what we send to the wastewater treatment plant and it's unaccounted unaccounted for flow in some cases it's actually leaks in the system and one of the things that champagne water district did this last year is they contracted with a company um we paid all the members decided if they wanted to join in um to basically use satellites to take a look at the soils in the area where our water lines were and to determine if there was any possibility for leaks in certain areas we've identified a number of areas in the town where we think that's possible when the company name is uterus it's very interesting if you want to look them up in the internet um we actually got all the data a number of the other communities have too and it was surprising to us that we found um this fall we had a water break exactly in one of the general locations that uterus predicted we might have a problem um it actually went from a leak to a break so we're working with the state of vermont they have a program that we have requested to come in and help us on the ground to look at these 15 or 20 different sites some of which are remote and crossing you know open land where there aren't houses nearby where uh you may have a hard time determining a leak to see if we can in fact plug things up even more um by looking at each one of these areas um other communities have found some of the data works some of the data doesn't show that there's a problem so we're going after that to try to reduce um our loss rate or unaccounted uh water and sewer usage so if you want to go keep going um that's right now our our unaccounted water is about 17 percent um we'd like to see that in general systems are recognized uh do you want to be around 15 percent it's varied back and forth but we'd like to get it down even lower than that we think using the uterus program that will help us immensely to get that that unaccounted for water down that unaccounted for water also does for things if the fire department has a fire and they're using the hydrants that's unaccounted for water um so there's a lot of places that unaccounted water comes from or we don't get revenue from um so some of that uh it's not necessarily like I say a loss in the system meaning that there's waters leaking out of pipes in place sewer um we're doing a little better on if you want to scroll down craig we're at about 10 percent um that stayed kind of in that general range it's going up and down um sewage is much harder to measure um because when you're measuring in a pipe water meters are pretty accurate because the water is clean sewage is pretty dirty stuff gets in the way and you don't always get as accurate a measurement as you'd like and we do measure uh through a couple different methods for the sewage that goes into the village and then we compare that against our actual what we're building our customers so that's in an appropriate range um at this particular point in time if you look down into the earlier years um 040506 at the bottom of the chart it was it was way too high so we've been able to bring that down that's something else I think we're proud of in terms of working to make a better system for the community. Let's keep going um okay um let's stop right there uh anybody have any questions so far before I get too carried away because sometimes it's hard for me to shut up I do I want to know I understand the unaccounted water but how do you get unaccounted sewage it's it's it could be leakage in pipes but it's also due to the measurement I mean you're trying to measure really dirty water and with a water meter it's going through a vein so it's really easy is that vein turns it's telling you how much water is you're using and it's clean right and sewage you're trying to measure what's going through a pipe and it's very hard to do because the measurement isn't as accurate and you can't make it as accurate and a 10 percent is considered to be pretty good accuracy and sewage so what you build your customers for wastewater and what we actually measure going into the village is always going to be is always going to vary what we build our customers also doesn't account for the infiltration that's in the system so the pipes that are in the street are never expected to be a hundred percent watertight in fact when you design a system you design in a certain percentage for infiltration because the nature of the beast is even with all the the joints and all the new technology they are not tight and so there's a going to be always be a difference between what you're actually and the billing for the customer is through their water meter so you're always going to have a difference between building that clean water versus building that dirty water and that's and it's unaccounted for I mean it's just they don't have they don't equal but there's got to be a way to measure and build your customers and the only way that there's a number of ways to do it but the the fairest way is through their their water meter the water is coming in the house it's going out we have in some cases of people that have a large garden or wanted to put irrigation meters in we require that they pay for that they set up their plumbing but they there are some people in town that have dual meters so that we will subtract the flow that's going to their garden from flow that's coming into the house and the truth of the matter is that they have a very large water use it pays off in about three years if they have a small garden the small water use quite honestly they'll never pay back the cost of that second meter thank you Dennis yeah and then I would just add there's one last thing if you have a some pump in your basement you're not supposed to discharge it into the sewer system you're supposed to discharge it onto the ground outside but some people may have illegal connections and that's one way to get unaccounted for sewer it's water that's going into the sewer system that's not necessarily matching the water that's going into the building so but we the guys do a great job and sometimes you get as Dennis mentioned in his report you have a lot of water mains and things that go through a lot of territory there aren't homes so if it's leaking even a little bit you may never see it so okay Dennis I got I got a question the two tables on page five show the history of both water and sewer flow and looking at it they're both trending downward is that as expected based on development trends or is this efficiency improvements what's what do we know what's what's driving the you know less water is used it's it's not uncommon throughout almost all the communities that that I'm aware of and even though we're growing and we're adding businesses and adding houses there are also some that leave especially if a major business leaves or shuts their doors for some reason that water use obviously goes away and sewer use goes away so part of it's that part of it is also efficiencies because if you go back 10 20 years ago we didn't have the fixtures in the houses that are efficient as they are today a little flow shower heads all those kind of things so there's a benefit and there's also a detriment to having that the benefit is the water use tends to go down with those with that efficiency so most people would say gee that's great and it might reduce their bill it might make them feel better but the downside of it from the wastewater perspective is that the salmon organics are going to the treatment plant so while the flow may be decreasing or staying the same at the treatment plant the level of organics at the treatment plant actually increase and that's part of the state's process of looking at permitting and everything else we have to look at both flow and organic load because organic load it goes into the Winooski River it goes into the lake it's less cognizant of a difference in flow but very cognizant of a difference in organic matter and so one of the concerns that Jim Jutres has at the treatment plant is over time we have seen an increase in the organic load which makes it harder to treat the wastewater so if you've got a higher organic load and you have permitted limits coming out that say you've got to stay within certain standards you've got to be very careful that your flow may be going down your organic load goes up and if you bounce up against the permit on your organic load it's just as bad as if you bounce up against the permit on the flow that's required from it it's a dual-edge short one side's good one side's not so good okay thanks Dennis okay um let's go to the next page if we can right there um the in terms of the budget itself um the water is really for example the the difference between the 511 and the 516 is really our costs internally when I say that that's our internal labor cost for running the system that's all the stuff we do within the system um Sarah has warned me and I made I've never corrected this it's really not depreciation um that's not the word we want to use um it goes back to trying to set aside enough money for the future um and it's a system stabilization not depreciation but think of that word as system stabilization and not as it's written um you'll see that in the both the water sewer department cwd purchase you can see that if you and their rate only went up about three or so percent but the costs went up and the costs went up because in the calculations we have to also include how much flow we think we're going to purchase from cwd so that's a combination of their rate plus their flow so the the budget itself um and this is a budget driven went up 3.5 percent in the sewer um the same thing in the beginning that's our internal costs um for running the sewer system and a lot of that is to deal with the 16 pump stations especially two new ones for electricity uh communications all the other stuff that goes on so that when something goes wrong we can get out there and get it fixed before it backs up or or overfalls uh system stabilization is the same amount and the other costs or those costs that we've got to pay off old bonds either in connection with the treatment plant or with improvements we've made over time to the system uh I think one of them was a pump station on Susie Wilson Road um and then the treatment plant actually had two bonds one um at 581 and another one that was done at the same time at 263 so the combination of those leads you to that 3.7 percent increase um if you go down and I won't bear on this page because we'll come back to it that's where the proposed rates would go but let me go on we'll come back to this one it's summarized later on so how do we calculate the rates um it's a little bit of magic but not a lot um we divide the the cost into three basic portions of the system shared sewer and water costs um these are the kind of things where if we're operating a truck and that truck is running between fixing hydrants and fixing sewers it's a shared cost our employees are basically a shared cost water only costs are are really specific to the water system such as our purchase of water from sampling water district um if there's training specific for water licensing it would come under that and there's some other things that if you go into the budget you'll see what they are sewer only costs are the same things sewer only costs are the cost of the electricity for the pump station um and things that are specific only to the sewer system so we've got those three bags if you will of costs and eventually they combine to come up with the total cost through our system and what we've done from year to year is try to balance the system so that near the water their sewer system goes totally out of whack in terms of increased rates for the customer and also to look uh and we've done that over time by essentially looking at how we share up how we split that shared cost and you can see it's varied in 2003 it was a 60 water 40 sewer now it's a 55 water 45 sewer last year it's 57 43 so we've tried to use this tool to try to get to a point where we didn't have either of the rates going significantly higher than the other and also to kind of gauge where our costs are for example like in 2022 we've got two new pump stations that we're going to have to manage going from 14 to 16 that's part of the reasons why that sewer is a 45 percent the labor is included in the shared cost which is how these shared costs are used but that's that's how that's derived and looks so this year we've settled for the shared cost on a 55 water 45 sewer um let's keep going okay how do we develop the rate there's the water budget and I won't take you back to the earlier page but trust me that $1,372,278 is what will cost to run the water system we don't have direct debt but we do have direct debt that we pay through CWD for improvements to the west end storage tank in Colchester so it's not a debt to the town it's a debt incurred by Champlain Water District but which in which the town participates we use this to look at what our build water usage is and you can see that over time go down to the next page let's go to the more recent years there um if you look go up a little bit we haven't finished 2021 yet we thought with COVID the flow would go down a little it really hasn't and that's the interesting thing Essex is to a great degree a bedroom community people are working at home kids are still going to school we don't have a university that's out of that's not in session we don't have a significant number of restaurants or hotels we have some but not a significant number um so we estimated last year that our flow would go down a little surprisingly it really hasn't some communities it has um and those are the ones that were impacted by a significant amount of retail or a significant amount of business um and they have had some drop in their water use so um I bumped this is an estimate on my part I bumped it up to the 650,000 that we were in 2020 um the rates calculated by our total cost the 1 million 372 278 divided by 365 times the 650,000 gallons per day you change any of those numbers you change what the rate is the current rates 562 the new rate would go to 578 and that's a 2 increase let's let's go down um we did not change the minimum rates we had used 100 gallons for the minimum rate weight in the past that's about half of what we expect for a household of 200 gallons a day we've not changed that we've changed we've left it at 180 if we were to base it on 100 gallons per day that minimum charge would go to 211 so it's a little bit out of whack but given with COVID given I think we're still going to be playing with this for a little longer this was not the year to in my view do anything with the minimum water building we left it where it was let's do quick the sewer operating it's calculated exactly the same way our costs up there are estimated flow you can scroll down Greg if you would there's our total cost 365 days amount of gallons a rate the increase in rate which is a 3 increase again change either the 433 or change the 1569 your rate changes if you look down below this is the effect of the rate change on the users it's about a $32 a year increase across the board you have to go and that's probably more than we've had in a couple years not a lot more but it's a little bit more but that's also partially because last year's rate was at 1% if it were if last year's rate was closer to probably what we needed to meet expenses this rate would probably be a little bit less this year I'm guessing maybe in the $20 range but it is what it is that equates to a 2.9 total increase in residential charge monthly basis the water cost is $35.16 and monthly basis for an average house for sewers $60.41 I can almost guarantee you there's no utility that you pay phone internet electrical natural gas that comes anything close to these low rates you're getting clean water and you're getting rid of your waste and to me it's a good deal it's a great deal Vermont is some of the lowest rates in the country for water and we have probably the clean the best water in the country through Champlain Water District that we drink so we're getting the both the best worlds keep going if you would that's just a quick comparison of where we compare and this is a little bit misleading because most of those rates most of communities haven't set their rates yet so those are almost like last year's rates um you can see where we'd sit if you throw in this year's rate which is in red um but almost every community is those rates will go up so I don't think our where we stand with respect to average rates and rest of the areas around us um is going to change very much um it's people may ask well why does this junction have such a low rate part of their water costs are subsidized by global foundry um that's a known fact um it was agreed to an agreement many years ago um so some of that is artificially low because the water goes directly to global foundry but as extension reaps somewhat of a benefit from that this is not a negative comment it's just it's it's what it is and and that's fine but that's why their rates are 100 is why their rates are low um you can see the cwd wholesale rate there so that difference between the cwd rate there that's what they're charging us for water um our rate is what we have to charge our customers for for the system to operate and in sewage um we will I do know that both showbren colchester have gone up I do not know what the numbers are yet um I know that I've talked to their public works directors their recommendations are they're going to be going up um we're a little higher there but we're not off the chart either as far as what the other communities have as far as wastewater rates one of things that drives us up significantly is that we do have it's very expensive to run those 16 pump stations um there's no way around it and um most of the developments that are proposed now um and some of the smaller ones we're putting those pump stations back in the hands of the association or not back but keeping them in their hands but most of the pump stations we have we really have to maintain because there's enough of a user base that um you can't afford to have a system become non-maintained and eventually have to take it over it's much more expensive to keep it and maintain it as a public entity but there are a few of these very small ones that may only serve you know a few houses we're we've kind of changed our methodology that we're not doing that anymore I don't think we've ever done the real small houses but those smaller ones are going to are going to be handled by the association and they're going to have to manage their own pump stations um we're only taking those they're over there are significant um probably taking more time than I should have but I'll go down quick summary um we've now gone we're going to be going to three buildings a year shortly um I haven't checked with Sira but I believe that the large users were building quarterly still um that helps us for cash flow am I right Sira or am I wrong um we moved everybody to three times a year and we just launched that so everybody just received their first bill that was for four months instead of six months in the town so we we did some public outreach in just in advance of that and so far it's been a smooth rollout good um and someone may have this question and I do not do not want to get into the discussion of merger non-merger separation but the utilities are essentially totally isolated from in my view from any decision that occurs in that direction unless you would emerge and decided that you wanted to combine the systems in one shape or form um they operate independently um they can operate as they are today forever they could operate in a separate mode kind of forever the only change would come if you decided you at some point the town and the village got together and decided they wanted to merge then you'd have to decide at that point whether you wanted to somehow merge these systems or keep them as separate entities so from up from a management point of view right now we're in a position where at least over the short term we don't see any changes to either the charges for the system or the management of the system um we still want to look in the future at alternative billing systems there may be some other ways to bill this there's a lot of different ways to do billings and how you charge customers uh variable rates um flat fees with a portion which are maybe covered just the shared costs because those tend not to vary um with a variable cost above that um we've kind of put that on hold given everything that's been discussed over the last two years in the communities and where they're going um that is something that down the road um depending on how things shake out that the the board at that point in time might want to consider as to whether we change how the rate is actually structured right now it's a fair rate it's in accordance state law but there's a lot of ways to do it that um it could be um work and and tickered with to maybe make it even a better system um we've looked at it we just have not brought anything forward as a as a potential option um and the last is just the recommendation to basically go through these series of hearings get the a public hearing that we've got proposed for May 3rd and then adoption of the budget later in in May um I do want to mention one thing that Evan brought up because I think it is important we do not know yet or have a feel for where funds are going to come into the community as a result of the federal relief packages that are being talked about um public works has put together um what I consider to be shovel ready projects that could be built in the next one to two years infrastructure improvements which we feel are needed both well not just both in the water department the sewer department for buildings for highway and for storm water some of them are very expensive and unattainable some of those are relatively inexpensive and would um really help the community so I think when the money flows the public works department is prepared to sit down with the public with the board with Evan with Sarah and try to come up with those projects that we think might be viable from an infrastructure point of view that would help the community greatly but also perhaps help reduce the future need for costs to having to build some of these on our own without that kind of assistance and then what what projects could be built using grants and maybe some of the federal money is matching money again without knowing what the criteria is we're at a loss to figure out where we go but at least we have the projects identified and some costs estimates made up that's it questions okay thanks Dennis any questions from board members Dennis thank you as always you put on a great presentation every time very very thoughtful and you really always you're always increasing my understanding of our public works department thank you thanks Vince we try all we can do we do a great job thanks okay no other no other questions from board members so Evan and Greg the process here is when we will have a the next agenda item is to warn a public hearing and so we'll take comment from the public then yes correct and Dennis's memo said someone has an echo there yeah Dennis's memo said that we can put it on the agenda for later on in May the second meeting in May for approval but if the board's comfortable with it we can certainly put it on for consideration approval after the public hearing at the May 3rd meeting yeah we often have done that in the past yeah so we'll plan on that and if the board decides on May 3rd to kick it out for another two weeks that's fine too okay we'll get it warned in the meantime all right so we will move on to agenda item 5e considering warning public hearing for fiscal year 2022 water and sewer budget rates anybody willing to make a motion andy i'll go ahead and move with the select board hold the public hearing on the water sewer proposed rates and budget for may 3rd 2021 okay do i have a second second uh Greg do we need to specify the time on that because of the the recommended the language in the uh if you go back up a little bit there the recommended recommendation for the language for the warning includes a specific time do we need to i think you're fine if you want to mention the time that's fine but it has it in the draft warning okay okay all right all right okay any other discussion tracy's your hand back up that's a leftover sorry okay all right any other discussion if not all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes 5-0 we will bring this back on May 3rd for the public hearing okay any the next agenda item 5f discuss results of merger vote village of s junctions exploration of plan of separation and potential next steps for town uh Greg or Evan any comments to kick this off i don't have much it's um just an opportunity for the board this is the first time you've met since the since the merger vote um and the village's advisory vote on separation so wanted to give the board a chance to discuss it tonight um Evan i'm not sure if you have anything to add yeah on that no um really it's it's exactly that you know uh some of us were not expecting exactly what happened at the village board meeting this past week and so this is your first opportunity um obviously earlier tonight you heard some public comment about you know where some of the people are and um i think this is an opportunity for all of you to talk about some next steps i don't want to go against what the village board said but if mergers hard think you know separation is not easy either um either in process or uh at the state legislature so i think there's i think there's a a perception that if you take a vote that's how things are going to end up and it happens almost immediately um i think for the people who are on elected boards know we are in a dylan's rule state which is a fancy term for saying that the legislature has all the power in the authority and you only have what that which they give to you so any charter change of a village or a town including merger separation etc goes to the government operations committee of the house for adjudication then on to the entire legislature then on to the governor so they only meet um a couple months out of the year and considering what they generally have on their docket from year to year um um they try to get to all their bills and they try to get to all their charters sometimes they don't so even when you take a vote it's not immediate that's really the bottom line of that so thought this would be an opportunity for the board to discuss how they felt the vote went areas to work with the village and where you want to go and give staff direction okay thanks craig thanks Evan um so board members any if you want to kick this off any impressions of or any comments you want to make about your impressions of the result of the vote or um we were all asked to watch end of some attended the uh the trustees meeting last week um any comments on that as well vince um so i just kind of wanted to like you know start chatting about what we're going to what we want to do as a board do we want to do we want to work on do we want to work on separation numbers like as a town you know if this goes through like you know are we you know should we start doing some of like the pre-work that sarah's already started and like have her flesh out those numbers and go deeper into what separation means for the town and all of its voters and residents really and it's kind of a weird area because like there's you know i i don't know it's like you know i just basically want to make sure that like the that the impact of separation is known to everyone in the town and not just like the village working on it by themselves and we and then the people of the tov don't understand or don't know like the like the financials of what separation means uh going forward does that make any sense to anybody but i'd also like to get staff's opinion on that as well um i would like you to clarify what you mean by staff's opinion on that so the process of going forward to sorry evan uh the process of going forward to like build out those financials like is that a good use of staff's time you know is that productive um from your point of view like where would we start if we were to start um that kind of stuff sure and then to answer you vince i'm sorry mr chair if you want to go ahead kind of is uh we would need to have more information as to direction but yes once we have some ideas of some direction we can start to put some pen to paper but as with merger you can put it in big quotes it depends what fiscal year you know we can go into a lot of things but please just understand it's not always just a solid you can take it to the bank number like dennis does in his water in sewer we have 20 years of history of water and sewer we know who's here who's coming who's going in general when you start doing some of these things there's a fudge factor just it it just has to be there so we will be happy to do things when we have some ideas of of some direction so like would it be helpful if we start to work on a list of assumptions like base assumptions to make in separation yeah i mean i'll be honest with you i don't i can't speak for the village board but i can i'm pretty sure if the village were to separate legally from the town they would still need police services they've worked we you've had the same police department one unified police department for 40 41 years um they're obligated for the debt on the building so why leave while you're still paying off a building that you now not going to use that doesn't seem to make sense so you might want to assume they're going to use the police but the other assumptions about how much they would pay you might want to look at a couple of different models of a couple of different potentials to get yourself a range if that helps all right thanks Evan Greg you want to add something to that uh yes thank you um i don't want to put words in Evan's mouth but i think to build off of what he was getting at and been too mentioned it are as far as the ideas what ideas you want us looking at um you know helpful for staff is to have the trustees and the select board working together what assumptions are we making to Evan's point what if police are going to be shared to what extent to what to what level based on what formula um quickly for staff we if we're working on this we would like to work on one of these um yeah yeah yeah not not two sets of assumptions that that have to be rectified somewhere along the line um so Evan i hope i hope that's what you're getting at vince yeah those are just my two cents to it and i'll elaborate if you guys and women and those men and women sit down at the table and start talking about what are some of those options what's the village thinking what are you doing you you know a lot a lot of it is fiscal it's it's monetary it's numbers and sarah's the best at it but without any specifics it's going to end up being a range and so those are the types of specifics if you can get there and that's not even to say that at the end of whatever period it passes whether it's electorally or at the state so i think it's really just being prepared for it it should it happen and then what service levels do you want but you know just on the on the next side of the ledger let's say in the eventuality the village does separate and you are left with yourself and the village and whatever services they're doing what service levels do you want and can afford so it's a lot of ifs yeah um i don't want to like go in front of anybody if they have some other stuff to talk about on this but i have a thought your hands still up so go ahead oh okay um maybe we should talk to the the board of trustees about either moving up our session to you know like our working retreat session day if possible or at least start working with them in this limited capacity before that meeting happens um you know i just i would like to get on this as fast as possible so that we can you know go through the process as smoothly and we're not getting you know blindsided in late june early july about like you know what the village wants versus what we want out of separation and what services we would share and that way we can start to try to build in all those assumptions for staff um as soon as possible and then we can i my vision of this would be that we we kind of like come to an agreement with the trustees as to what we would want to share going forward and then um and then go into like what levels of service the town would like and then so like basically say like this is this is where separation financials land from the services that we're going to share and then we go back to our budget and say you know these are this this is what we either have to cut or what we have a surplus of or whatever and this is how we're either going to give money back to the taxpayers or um this is what we're going to have to go to the taxpayers and say like hey you know we're we're down like a couple hundred thousand dollars this is going to be the tax rate to keep the same level of service or we can go to the taxpayers with you know separate with a couple items that might be like well this is what we can cut or this is what we can reduce service level wise but i think doing that before we have uh like a good solid assumption of what we're going to share is it's going to make the process it's going to make that process harder for us down the road if we don't um if we don't like kind of lay out what we're going to have where what we're going to what we're still going to be sharing in us in a scenario where we separate all right thanks Vince um so Don's hand next given that we were elected to represent all the voters and part of our constituents voted to separate we should be providing any assistance that they may need it'll be my proposal to appoint two select board members to work with the trustees or their committee that they appointed to investigate separation and then bring back the information to the full board as well as letting the employees know what the trustees need for separation thanks Don Patrick thanks Andy uh I mean this is obviously not an easy conversation um I think in particular quite frankly we need to figure out what 41 percent of the town of Essex budget is and I know that uh you know as Evan mentioned there were no guarantees but you know I listened to those meetings and I'm the only individual on the select board who lives in the village um there is a massive push for separation amongst all of my neighbors everyone that I have spoken to who lives within the village and not a short or excuse me not a long term but a quick turnaround because the village wants answers um you know this vote was a no on merger twice uh the timeline of the trustees is to get a charter and to vote in November which means that this can go before the legislature in January which means that while it may take more time than that we could also be looking at next fiscal year separation that means one year 12 months to figure out how the town of Essex is looking at figuring out what to do with 41 percent of its lost revenue and a more serious question one that I think you know those of us who have been on the board for a while really need to tackle is the fact that we on the select board have kind of overseen the police department for some time but the police department is currently in the village and the original agreement between the village and the town is missing no one can find it we don't know what that looks like so if there's going to be any sort of contentiousness who's to say that the village is not going to claim the police department or want it and then ask the town of Essex to contract services from them uh right now unless we can find that document I don't think that there is any reasonable way that we can say that they can't do that because it's only been just inertia as far as I can tell I've seen no documentation and our staff has looked for it and I've looked asked outside sources as well and quite simply that original legal documentation seems to be missing so I think there are two really solid questions I need answers one is what does the budget look like for the town of Essex without the village and without the village's taxpayer income and we absolutely need to figure out who controls the police department and find that documentation and if it can't be found then there needs to be probably a negotiation between the select board and the trustees as to who retains control over that because I don't think it's as cut and dry as we're making it out to be unless we can find the actual agreement and you know right now it I mean you know we've been there we we don't know no one knows where it is um and this could happen in 12 months so I don't think that anything is going to slow it down I really don't I think that the charter is probably going to be written and it's going to be voted on in November it will go to the legislature and with two solid no votes on merger I really have a difficult time seeing the legislature turn down a request for separation if the vote is anything close to the advisory vote totals which was 75 in favor give or take um you know it's we need to be realistic and ask the hard questions now um I agree that we need to meet with the trustees to see kind of to what extent they may be willing to share services but the vote was pretty specific about only sharing police there are some that we know we can't accommodate like the water agreement between three towns um but other than that I don't expect us to share anything because I don't think the citizens of the village of Essex Junction are really all excited about sharing the merger vote was turned down they want complete separation Winooski does not send its plow trucks up to Colchester um you know they they don't share staff like we do right now so we deface a reality of what happens do we have the people to cover in public works the fact that while we may lose the village no roads are disappearing all of public works is still going to be necessary and we no longer would have the ability to rely on the village to help in instances where you know there's an emergency or we need some additional coverage um you know it's it's a lot to look at I've realized that and I understand that but I think being unprepared is going to be substantially worse than us kind of hoping it's going to not be as bad or maybe might take longer than you know we anticipate you know two three years I don't know that it's going to take that long I don't know that people want to wait that long we're going to be voting on this um certainly maybe I'm wrong but listening to the trustees meeting uh that was not the impression that I got the impression I got was that they wanted to happen quickly so we need to start looking now hey Tracy yeah in my world if you're failing to plan you're planning to fail and this is not an option we cannot not plan for this and still be doing our due diligence to the full town it does not make sense to have staff present information in two different venues Pennywise-Ponsulish I think that there do need to be continued conversations with everybody at the table to discuss the the details of how this happens what it looks like we need to put together a plan and we just need to get down to it okay thanks Tracy um I guess a couple comments I want to make uh we still have to carry on the business of the town um and we've we've been told for the last two years that everything's consumed with um merger discussion and we've deferred a lot of work that needs to happen we've got racial equity things coming up we've got uh many many other things um I my feeling is that just because the village voted to vote in November I don't understand that I don't believe that we need to step to that same schedule if if it interferes with us getting our other business done um so um I I disagree that that we should be doing you know jumping into this and focusing completely on this for the next seven months I mean because you you're going to have to warn this in October if you want to vote it in November um and I you know it it's one thing to write a charter but you also have to have a separation agreement um it's not a single document that that goes to the uh the legislature um and I I personally don't I mean I think we're more entwined than many people understand and uh I think it it's gonna be a massive struggle to uh to get a uh a workable reasonable separation agreement um in six months it is that doesn't it doesn't seem possible um other things I guess the uh it was brought up in the trustees meeting that um all of the disentanglement needs to make economic sense I thought there was some uh comment toward the potential for uh additional sharing other than than the police department that's that's at least what what what I had heard the another thing is I I guess the it's not totally clear to me how the trustees are moving forward whether they're forming a separate committee whether no I think that's the right they backed off from that and I think they're going to dedicate the first hour and a half or something other each of their meetings to to separation um which I guess then means that there's potentially some expectation that we participate in many or all of those meetings uh in some form or other um that hasn't been really I'm not sure we've explicitly been asked to do that it's my understanding that Brad Luck is going off and going to come back with a proposal for how to uh how to get these things started I know Brad's on here and maybe he'll comment later um so um I'm I'm you know part of part of me uh thinks that we should also consider potential compromised positions um this this uh separation is going to be very expensive on both sides um and and and in challenging you know can you even hire the people that you need to to run the village in the time frame that you want to do it in um so I I'm I'm I don't know I'm not I'm not on board I guess with but I'm only one vote remember I'm not on board with with jumping in full steam avoiding or or not avoiding but uh continuing to defer the town's business to to jump to a schedule that someone else has set um for one thing and then the other is if there are practical ways to get to a point that's acceptable and um economically viable for both of us the complete separation I'm not I'm not convinced is is absolutely necessary I know that uh there's a lot of healing that needs to take place and I understand right now that that that that may be hard for for folks just to want to step forward and do um I was I was very disheartened that heart and soul disbanded I thought they might be able to play a mediating role in this somehow um and so I don't know um um is from I guess we we can go around for more more comments I saw Tracy your hand was up yeah I don't want my comments to be construed as is me not be willing to have conversations jointly uh in a space that's comfortable for the select board and the trustees and residents of the town and those who are also residents of the village um however using the marriage analogy again um we're in a situation where our fiance instead of walking to the altar has said that they want to move out um and I don't think that it is particularly helpful given emotions right now to say oh no wait but come back come back come back we need to be asking the question of what do both parties need what do both parties want but also be planning for every scenario that could come about because of this um so I just want to make that very clear I am accessible I am willing to have conversations I'm willing to put in the work regardless of how it goes down but we need to be prepared for any and all outcomes Patrick um yeah I mean I absolutely hear what you're saying Andy um you know there is a ton of work that we have deferred um to this but uh speaking of what Tracy just mentioned I don't believe we have any control over this we don't have a seat at the table any longer that seat at the table as far as the select board was concerned was the merger discussions leading up to this point and it failed twice so now it is a village responsibility and they're going to move on their own timeline and I honestly I don't think that they really I can again like I see George Tyler on this call I don't know if he's listening um I certainly don't want to pin anything you know as far as uh having him speak for the entire trustees but I don't think that they're terribly interested in having us at the table um I think Don's suggestion was a good one about you know how can we have people there as you know speaking with them as you know to see if there's some way we could smooth the process but they haven't invited us and there's no guarantee that they're going to want any of us sitting around that table to assist them with this process um they may just move on their own they may move quickly and I think that Tracy's right we have to kind of anticipate that this is happening without us no matter what we decide even if we would prefer to keep it slow or prefer to you know have discussions about where we can share services and where we can I think that it's the trustees who are now driving this train and it's it's really going to be up to them how involved we are not the only thing we can prepare for is what we do if that separation vote is successful and if the legislature approves it we we need to be prepared for that eventuality even if it does bump into things that we have been putting off okay any other board member comments okay we okay with opening up to the public at this point okay Erin Dickinson I see your hand up sorry um just a couple well a comment and then a question a procedural question a comment is I'm really glad to hear people pushing on planning towards being prepared for this I attended the village meeting and I agree the sentiment and um just overall energy they're actually excited to move forward with separation and they already have their attorney attending the meetings and you know I really think that it's important for the town to be seriously planning or at least contingency planning and the procedural question and Patrick I hate to say this on throw this question out there but for any voting about like finances or separation or what have you what position does that put you in as a select board member who is a village resident are you going to have to recuse yourself from certain votes or what does that look like um this again strictly procedural I feel empathy for you in the seat that you're in right now having to talk about separation in this condition so anyhow that's just a procedural question so Patrick was elected to represent the entire town so any recusals completely his own decision to make no one can force a position of of conflict of interest upon him so um he's again it's it's completely his decision whether to vote on anything thanks for that yep okay patty davis questions um one number one question is I I believe we need to be proactive on what Essex wants and what the town outside the village wants and we need to go for it like Andy I agree with you 50% and Tracy I agree with you 50% and Vince you too a little bit because with for for Andy the proactive thing to do is to deal with our own issues that we want okay and like that guy that spoke about I don't know it was um Catella road or way out there they want the speed limit less there's things that we've wanted talked about it talked about and it's time to address them and we need to just live our own lives but I do believe that there's any money anywhere in our budget we need to hire an attorney to have an attorney because for defensive purposes that we let the village do its thing and it's it's their life we can't control other people we can only control what we do but this way we'll have an attorney set up so that whatever happens with the village we'll have an attorney I think the attorney could then work with Sarah Macy over this you know like like what Don said have a have an attorney have Sarah Macy and maybe one person from the select board need a little group that just slowly on the side works on and watches Sarah Macy unravel the DNA strand of the finances we have together over this over a year because I think it's going to take at least a year for anything to happen with separation with the village it's not going to be overnight that's my piece of thank you thanks petty uh Ethan Lawrence yeah I just wanted to make a a couple points um my first one that really struck out to me was the uh the police department so about the the lack of contract there I just wanted to make a a big point that half of the police department and forgive me if I'm not up to date with numbers this year's been a world hectic compared to last year but my calculations that's about two and a half million dollars give or take should be more this year I think it's like five point four million for the police budget and I also want to add that there is like I think it's one point seven and one point nine million dollars this year allotted to the village budget so that's almost almost five million dollars going directly to services that you know whether we separate or the train drives by someone's house and they got their microphone Evan I think that's you Evan I think that's you with the train but you know my my point is I don't want people to be back into a corner thinking that you know they're going to take the police department from us and they're going to take this and they're going to take that because 41 percent of the tax base is that's the grand list that's not that's not the money incorporated into our budget I mean you take one point nine million right off the top that goes directly back to the village then you take the police department then we're not talking unified manager you know they're going to hire their own manager they're broken numbers down several times on different budgets different scenarios and I know everybody else has too but you know we're both looking at a budget realistically of about 10 million dollars to split the town in half and right now it costs like 22 million dollars so both sides of the party are going to have to make cuts they're going to have to look at you know is this we want this or do we want that but in the same sense you know I want to I want to bring back to the point that you had made Andy um you know being rushed to the table to make a decision is the worst thing to do because you know starting anything whether it's a business or a project or a building or anything you know you have to have all your all your ducks in a row before you're going to have a solid plan and I was never solely a dense merger I was a dense merger because of the lack there of detail in combining the two communities with a solid plan that both communities agreed on and I believe as we all know with the three plus three boat with you know the governor and ox committee them bringing separation to the table it's not going to happen overnight we all know that we've been waiting a year and a half to be heard and and we've been pushed off due to you know being busy and then now covid so the reality of them doing separation I'd be surprised if it happened in two two and a half years and you know I just wanted to share my beliefs on it and other people to really think about the facts that are based on this you know a lot of it is assumptions and that's the hard part but we have to look at everything and take everybody's ideas and realize that no matter what there is a path forward but we have to make sure that we're really thinking about the path that we all want and what we're willing to pay for those are those are my words I'd like to say thank you Andy. Thanks Ethan. Mary Post. Thank you first of all I would like to say that I really believe with all my heart and soul that Patrick needs to recuse himself to me he's clearly on the side of the junction I mean he even started off some of his comments now by repeating everything that former chairwoman Elaine said at the trustee meeting one thing you can do is go to the select board and ask them about the 41,000 or whatever it is so I have no faith that he's going to do anything to help you know to serve my interests so I ask you Patrick that you please recuse yourself Vince I think that you should also using the analogy of a marriage that Tracy brought up if this is like the junction wanting a divorce then I think we have to figure out who's going to pay for all this I mean is are we helping to pay for the attorney that's been going to the trustee meetings or is it or is the junction paying for this themselves I don't know that but then what about what about staff who is the staff serving is that staff going to be serving the town or they may be serving the junction what about Evan are we going to cut him in half he can't serve two masters this is a royal royal mess and I think that people are going to be extremely upset about it and I agree with you Andy we shouldn't go this fast if the junction wants to go that fast it's totally in keeping with the way they've operated through this whole thing they had to go and have their own chart charter they've just tried to run everything and it's left a lot of bad feelings and this is only going to muck things up even worse and so those are my comments thank you thank you Mary Rachel Lizotte hello I wanted to say thank you for the to the slack board for sticking out in these meetings like this is only one of two that I have attended in full and it's long and my comments about this I just want to let the select board know that we my family were town residents and we are deeply disappointed in the merger outcome I'm just shocked that the level of propaganda and misinformation that was put out I'm also shocked by the way that the division was sewn between the village and the town merger was a path forward sure maybe it wasn't perfect but it preserved for families services that we rely on like affordable after-school care a cohesive school district beautiful parks and a robust recreation department offerings merger only merger also only dulled the increase and not only dulled the increase in taxes but it kept services level I spoke a few weeks ago for the first time and I spoke too late the voices of pro-merger town residents have been bullied to stay quiet directly and indirectly I regret not coming to these meetings sooner and that's on me however what I would ask from the slack board is to find a path forward that does not involve cutting valuable services okay thank you Rachel uh Elba Marty yes uh Andy thank you for your time for the time I did want to say just a few comments I'll keep it pretty brief I did watch the trustee's meeting it's very disappointing the vote was a real surprise but the the thing that I think bothered me the most was the interaction and the fact that during the major during the merger discussions prior to the vote there was very little opportunity or TOV residents to really get into the issues and I'm not understanding exactly why the two boards were meeting together all the time but it sort of was I had the feeling that it was intimidating and that it wasn't worth the time to try and speak because uh you weren't going to be given an answer anyways that was my impression the second thing I wanted to mention was for the trustee's meeting almost every village trustee to person supported separation I think that was one of the most one of the largest surprises uh the second point was the identification and the appointment of red luck as a point person for separation at that meeting at that time uh usually we have warnings about appointments and letting the public you know at least talk and give feedback on those sorts of things and I didn't see any but I was surprised I know it's not my community but I would hope we would do something different than that there's been a lot of discussion and one of the interesting things I think it came from the economic developer was the local option tax and that the village was still pursuing that and of course very late in the just prior to the vote that might have created another wedge was this whole west thing uh now I haven't been following things and I'm not on social media very much uh gone through a lot of of health issues here over the last couple of years and it just didn't feel right it felt like a threat coming our way and that's how it impacted me personally so I would have some suggestions Andy and and here they are first we need to validate the trustee intentions and there needs to be an action date where those intentions are in writing and there is a date otherwise you have to proceed I think uh that's reasonable and it it should be understood at least talk to the trustees establish a date uh and a plan going forward second thing had to do with you know it is possible we could be involved here in legal threats it's not only an economic threat but a legal threat so we need to have protection the the town needs to consider that uh the municipal attorney if we're going to go for a charter someone that's independent outside the community and maybe an accounting firm but in any case I think a point person possibly a new manager and the most important thing are the public updates and public input I mean I I just the time for people to have that opportunity at the beginning of the agendas at specific times to try to engage the community uh in in their thoughts and and for both communities so uh that's just a few thoughts you know I I heard I was very disappointed in the fact that the board uh the trustees want to vote on this on November if that's the case then the town needs to have a vote in November so that's my thought and I appreciate the time Andy okay thank you thanks Al um I do see also see Raj Chala has his hands up go ahead Raj I'm just um joining as a resident here not a trustee tonight um I just wanted to express my appreciation for um what must feel like an impossible situation you were all in um I appreciate that it sounds like a majority of the board is at least in favor of you know finding a way through this quickly um I I really like Dawn's suggestion um and you know as a town resident I'd expect um I'd expect that um it sounds like there are a lot of folks out there that they're nervous and confused and and as a town resident I am too um I think this is unfortunate where we find ourselves um but I'm I'm trusting that the board as a whole will represent the entire town um not just a non-municipal entity of the TOV any attorneys that are hired any moves that are made by this board really need to include all Essex residents and their needs and their concerns and I really trust that this board is prepared to take down on and I just wanted to thank you and and express my um appreciation for the position you all find your end and find yourselves in and um just my disappointment that we're we're at this place thanks and thanks rash uh Megan Humphries hi again everyone um thanks for the opportunity again to talk I just wanted to um talk a little bit about something I touched on earlier which you know I listened to the select board uh the trustees meeting um that was recorded um after the merger vote and it between this meeting and that meeting it just feels like we're dismantling our our town and dismantling everything that has made us strong and good and cohesive for a long time and while I know people have been at this for the better part of 10 years um and I know the town outside village voted overwhelmingly for no merger for that plan uh but the vote only failed 19 votes one time and 26 votes the next to me that is not a you know resounding um uh statement I think there was a lot of people who believe that we are stronger together but didn't like the plan and and some ignorant like I was some three weeks ago four weeks ago that okay we'll just get another plan um completely underestimating the time and energy that it took all the people all the trustees all the select board members to get to where we were um on the precipice of of continuing that path forward and merger um I I know we are at a place that is very emotional I know that we are at a place that is very raw and we need time to heal but I don't think there's any scenario that is beneficial either litigiously or economically that doesn't include the two entities trying to find a way through this and trying to find a way to either you know to just move through it and and not hurt each other even more in the process and I really hope that the select board works with all the due diligence and intention with the trustees if if you are invited and as you are invited to make this as painless as possible for the town and the village separately and um I I hope no more damage is done because like I said before I think I think there are things that are going to this is no doubt going to cost us more money this is no doubt going to make our town less attractive for and I mean all of Essex less attractive for people to want to move to and be in and god forbid if we start this with our school district we're going to be in a big trouble so my fervent hope is that we do not do this and we start to build bridges instead of tearing them down thank you thank you Megan at least certain um thank you uh Tracy you are so right divorce or marriage it feels like that and I haven't been through one so I'm only guessing but um one thing that I heard at the trustees meeting and this was brand new to me so I just wanted to throw this out for the select board and maybe it's something that's discussed at a later time where Andy you are right on the money there's a lot that we don't know yet till we move forward but the discussion of annexation came up that they were um there were a number of parts of communities or and I don't even know numbers or anything but that have been talking about petitioning the trustees to be uh a next into the village and I don't know how that actually even works in a process but um I'm not sure how or if the select board takes on an investigation of that but um it seems like even when the village's conversations about moving forward with their portion there are a lot of TOV residents that are trying to get to be part of that conversation in the terms of annexation so um I just wanted to add that to the conversation thanks yeah thanks Elise for bringing that up yeah annexation is a process where a village can right add additional territory the select board is not involved other than potentially to participate in in in hearings about it uh there if a group petitions to join a I'm paraphrasing this I mean I get all the details exactly right but if the if a group of residents petitioners to join a village a judge and it is appointed there's a three-member team of independent individuals that then assess whether or not it's in the best interest of all parties to for them to be annexed and I believe that's probably the part of the discussion that the select board would likely or potentially be involved with and then the both the village and the residents of the territory that's to be annexed vote there's two votes there the village votes whether to accept them and then the residents of the annexed area would would vote whether to join and the the town has no say in that the select board has no say on that vote thank you Andy that was really helpful yeah there's there's very specific statute about it if you if you want I can send you certainly send you the the explicit reference in statute that would be great thank you okay I'll send that to you um I know Brian Sheldon is on the phone Brian hi can you hear me chair Andy or what I can hear you you're a little awful but I can hear you yeah I have a mess on about in public I apologize I just I had a question and I had a I had a suggestion number one chair watch you said that the cost would be would be expensive for both sides I did not think that that was the the conclusion of the fund instructor and if you had a source for that then you could share with us afterwards I would appreciate it and then secondly I hear a lot of people speaking in this meeting about the time frame being uncomfortable and I agree it is uncomfortable however it is there is not much we can do about that there was a vote by village residents to um to have the to and one of the the elements of that 70% vote was to have a separation vote by November of this year and that behooves us as a as a town to plan for that eventuality on that time frame I don't think um to to quote um to quote select member um Delphia um we have we have to plan we we have to plan for that eventuality because that is unfortunately the reality that uh that the town voted for so I would hope that um I would open the town to the select board producer thank you okay thanks Brian and you're correct I I likely misspoke by saying it's a generalization to say it's going to be more expensive it's more expensive relative to something right um and so without anything to back that up it was probably inappropriate for me to to uh make that generalization thank you for that comment um I see George Tyler's hand is up George yeah thank you Andy I wasn't going to speak to not but uh I got kind of called up by Pat Murray so I'll I'll respond to you Pat first of all uh it's not the intention of the trustees to take anything away from the town or harm the town in any way um that's not there's no emotion there whatsoever um I I would say also speaking just for myself um but I think I probably am catching the sentiment of the trustees we're assuming that we will continue to have good relations with the select board and have an open dialogue uh and continue to discuss uh what's going on with the village uh the worst thing that we could do uh under these circumstances would be to stop talking to each other uh so I for one will certainly uh push uh to continue having open uh and substantive dialogue with the select board uh I'll push to certainly want to advocate for that on the trustees but I don't think I'm going to have to advocate that hard I think that's generally the sentiment on the trustees we do want to continue to work with you thanks thanks George any other comments George's hand is the only one it's up and I think that's her leftover uh Ken Cigarillo thank you very much I'll just say uh very briefly um I haven't heard anybody say at this point how did we get here why is it that the plan of merger didn't succeed nobody's asking that question or doing a post mortem to try to figure out what went wrong a tremendous amount of effort and resources went into it why did it fail I do remember that um many voices at the beginning of the process urged that the town outside the village as an entity even though it doesn't exist as a municipality it's people do um have a representative and a seat at the table so I humbly suggest that possibly that could be part of the problem and half of the town wasn't heard and found something that was objectionable in the merger plan and that could have been avoided if maybe those folks were at the table from the beginning I urge you not to make the same mistake as we go through the separation negotiations that's it thank you thanks Ken okay I see Annie Cooper the look on my face is not one of enjoyment at the space we're in as you all know I was very very very strong and advocate for merger it is a challenge for me to hear the last number of the public wonder allowed why merger failed thank you thanks Annie uh Patty Davis um I'm just going to ask this and you can ponder it I really really strong I feel strongly that we should hire or look into hiring an attorney even if we're not a municipality Patty did you already cover this Patty did you already cover this that's it yep thank you okay every girl Smith yeah everybody wow 10 o'clock all right I'll keep it short um I want to really uh call out through you I guess Annie but dawn thank you for stepping into that space and recognizing what half of your constituents tried our best to make clear to all of you including our neighbors who live in in the town outside of the village that's why we did the revoke we've tried every which way we can to make it clear to you that we needed to move forward with merger because we've done this over and over again and I've said this before in public meetings one of the reasons I am not feeling emotional I'm feeling really ready and excited for separation is because merger feels clearly futile to me this is what happens after these votes I we talk about what could have been different what could have been different is we all could pet faith in each other and faith in our community and voted for merger but that's not what we're doing so I hope we can all move forward try to do what's best for each other as we move I hope into separation and move forward in this community have closure on this issue and have a thriving town of Essex and a thriving whatever we call ourselves in village in our meanest pality I do have one note when it comes to expenditures in your in the town of Essex's process with the village to prepare yourselves for that eventuality I'm going to name what what I'm sure you're all aware of which is 41 percent of what you have comes from the village voter and the village resident and you're putting us in a bit of a tricky situation I understand you'll need legal representation but it's pretty weird to ask us to pay for that so I don't know what that can look like but there is as far as I know no town outside the village budget so I don't know how that can happen I don't know but I want us to all be mindful as we move forward into this space that I certainly want to be reasonable as a town as a town resident and as a village resident but I also want all of you to just be very mindful of all that's going to come as we move forward into this new path forward so I appreciate all of you and I understand this is a lot of change coming at all of us so I hope that we all can try to do this in a way that's good for our communities as we come out of that on the other hand thank you all thanks Gabriel Mike Smith or Mike Sullivan I'm sorry Andy thank you appreciate your time and reply to Ken Signorello um please direct your comments to me not to other members or members of the public if other members of the public have to ask the question of why the why the village voted to separate uh you'll never have you'll if you have to ask the question you'll never understand the answer thank you hey thanks Mike uh Ethan you already spoke you got something quick very quick and just like you to clarify to uh all the members of the public tonight that 41 percent of the grand list uh 41 percent of that money paid by the village does not go strictly to services not received by the village and I just want to make sure that is very clear thank you thanks Ethan Irene Renner thank you I'm thinking of the town highway tax that was paid for over a hundred years by the town outside the village only I think it would be very appropriate for the town outside the village to be levied some sort of fee so that they have their own attorney in these negotiations that whom they can trust that is not double dealing and they can speak for their interests because just as I as a select board member back on December 12th of 2017 said at the start of the conversations about the future of Essex I see five select board members here at the table who represent a town-wide perspective and I see five trustees who represent the village only perspective but there are five missing people who would represent the town outside the village exclusively and that has not changed throughout all of the merger conversations that we've had recently and that I proposed is the problem that merger failed there was nothing in it for the TOV except taxation without representation please don't make that mistake and separate without representation from the TOV thanks so that's an interesting concept I thank you I think somebody else commented on it from the other side and but to establish a TOV special tax district to pay for yeah it's hard to do we've already approved our budget so I don't think we can do it so we'll we'll consider it we'll figure out see what we can figure out okay Sarah Michelle Stilts so Andy I'm not quite sure I understand that last comment could you explain it a little further to me so there was a proposal someone had commented earlier about the fact that we're going to be asking the village to pay for our legal services to help us through this process because they pay 41 percent of of our taxes of our tax revenues and then Irene was was suggesting if I'm understanding her correctly this that we try to establish a town outside the village district that could that that would only pay for that would pay for our legal representation to get us to a point where the the area of the town that is remaining after separation is represented and so that the the cost of that effort is only paid by them okay so the mere fact that um town outside the village residents are talking about representation tells me that they really don't care about the financial piece to it because that's that's more important to them that they pay for a lawyer and that's it's sort of in disguise of saying oh gee we're going to do that so that we can get our own representation and yet also say oh that way you village residents don't have to pay for it so I think it's I think that's a little bit backhanded and yeah I don't want to I don't want to pay for two lawyers no thank you so let's just make that that's clear and that's why we wanted to merge and end all of this and that's why we wanted to and also voted to separate because as you know people are not being logical great thank you very much thank you so much um looking to see if there's anybody whose hand is up who has not spoken yet so Irene runner thank you um please don't get into a conversation with with sarah michelle not at all um okay thank you thanks for the reminder there are so many creative ways and the longer I think you spend in town government the more ways you see that the select board has to do things um because they can make the rules and they can look at history and understand what's been done over time so for example we've got a fund balance and provided it has been spent down to nothing why wouldn't the select board consider owning the tov on paper some amount of money to pay for their attorney that they will recoup when separation is done all right there are ways to do this and I hope that we will all put on our thinking caps because there's never a no way to do that it's just what we limit ourselves to thinking the only reason the town outside the village didn't have five representatives at the table for the merger discussions for three years was because we were told we couldn't have one we didn't exist and yet the merger plan made sure that tov existed when it came time to pay in the bills for the merger tax so please let's put on our thinking caps and be creative because we can do this we can find a way thank you thank you Irene um Annie Cooper I see your hand up again thanks um Andy will you please confirm um first of all that there would have to be a vote from the entirety of the town which includes the village if there were to be a separate tax district so Annie I have no idea how it could possibly happen I it's just something to consider and explore if if if it's going to cause more trouble than it's worth it's certainly not something we would want to choose to do I mean it's it's it's we don't know anything about it it so when you when you as our chair speak um curiously and like in a curious and engaged fashion about this um it makes me wonder how that would work um to use fund budget or to create a special tax district as I understand it so currently myself I'm standing in my home as you know but maybe everyone doesn't I'm standing in the town of Essex and Andy while you stand in your home while you assume you're in your home I'm sorry that may be rude you're also standing in the town of Essex thank you Tracy for laughing I appreciate that greatly so right now all of us in our homes are inside the town of Essex strangely I am also inside the village of Essex Junction and I pay taxes to both of those when I pay my taxes to the town of Essex I am paying equally to you Andy we are equally residents right so to have a conversation which describes some of the fund balance that you and I and I I'm sorry to be it's easier to talk about you and I so that I'm not being rude to someone else when you and I Andy equally put our money into the tax pot sorry I got super amused about the cannabis discussion when I said that but when we put our money into the tax bowl thank you Tracy again when we put our money into the tax bowl I mean if we're not laughing what are we doing right when we put our money into the tax bowl Andy you and I are equally sharing that and for you to even suggest that that might then be utilized in some other way it makes me a little nervous and I don't want to feel nervous right now especially while we're in good humor right here so thank you very much okay I'm not going to respond any further to that because it's a complete unknown it's speculation and yes I'm sorry and and if I respond enthusiastically you're inquiringly about anything I'm only one member of the select board and I have no power without the support of a quorum you are chair you are chair and our leader Andy you are a chair that's that's extra that's an extra dose there please respect it I appreciate it okay let's see I see Harlan Smith's hands up again Harlan actually this is the first time for me on this subject I think oh okay I'm sorry go ahead go ahead I'm sorry I unfortunately I hate the way this conversation is going but and man you guys are in a tough spot I'm gonna like this next comment but you need to ignore the terms of excuse me excuse me Harlan Irene I can hear you typing can you mute yourself please I apologize I'm sorry go ahead Harlan I would encourage you to ignore the the terms village and TOV I voted for every one of you every one of you that's sitting on the board right now I voted for every one of you and you represent the town as the whole all 22,000 people I was a little discouraged Andy and unfortunately I think you were the only one on the board that was a little discouraging about having the conversations about this because half of your constituents have made a choice to go in a different direction half of the town is decided we want to be a new town we're going to leave because we don't like the way that this is going on so I just you know I probably don't need to remind you I'm just listening to all our comments and there's a lot of people telling you that you need to do this first section of the town and you need to remember that you're you're representing the whole town you shouldn't consider the word TOV you were representing all of us so when it comes to hiring lawyers and and and the rest of the stuff please remember it's all of us I'm in the village I voted for every one of you sitting on the board right now so you're representing 22,000 people called the town listening to all of this stuff that's going on I just I just want to put that reminder out there that as of today right now we're here and that's who you're representing every one of us thanks yeah thanks Harlan for that reminder and I want to make something clear that that I didn't earlier the the I'm my intent is to represent the best interest of the town and its residence so the town is an entity separate from its residence and I don't I need I still need to get to a space where I can feel comfortable that it's in the best interest of the entity the town to lose part of itself I understand that yes there are a lot of people that live in that entity and live in different circumstances and and yes and when I say town somebody is reminding me in a text in the chat there when I say town I mean the entire town I'm not I'm not saying town outside the village I'm saying town as an entity as a thing as a corporate existence and so my reluctance is in that regard I fully understand that there's a lot of desire by the people that live in that entity to separate but if there's a way to save the town as an entity I would like us to explore it I appreciate the response thanks Harlan okay there's one more hand up Patty Davis you have something new well it's just an idea and I I hear what you're saying that when you talk about the town the whole town I'm only saying this as a defense or to prepare without putting all our energy into preparing so that we can focus on what we want to do in the town outside the village but in response to what the village is planning on doing all I'm saying about an attorney is if we use the 59 percent of you know they pay 42 percent we pay 59 let's not even just to be a team player not touch the 42 percent and say that the 59 percent we need to have representation as an for an attorney just for the response or whatever the village is going to do in November if they don't want to separate great if they want to just separate and share great then we're willing to you know we I'm willing to negotiate but we need to protect ourselves period for the TLV thanks Patty um we're starting to get into a back and forth here um I guess I allowed Patty I can allow you to any go ahead thank you um and I'm sorry to do this one more time but I just feel like it might work and Andy the only reason I was pressing for you to please say that the town includes the villages because many people say the town and they mean the TLV and then sometimes people say the town and they mean the whole town like you're talking about so I feel like if we don't say the town which also includes the village frequently enough people won't understand the difference and that's my that's where I push that um and so while I respect people who are asking for what the last speaker just spoke about I understand it the thing is that the village is a legal separate entity that pays taxes to its municipality hence the conundrum the conundrum exists because you and I Andy are equal residents of the town but because I also pay taxes to the village you Andy are not also paying taxes to the TLV as a separate space and so that's where um yes I am yes I am the TLV highway tax is still in place until yes yes yes I am you telling me that you and I pay separate taxes from each other yes I pay it I pay a highway tax to the TLV the town outside the village that you do not pay that is correct until July 1st when it goes away because the new budget takes away so so for the last hundred for the last hundred years right how much at least the town outside the village has paid a tax to itself what's that difference on a $250,000 home I do not know and and and I'm just I'm not talking about the dollar amount I'm just saying but it's not it's clear it's not I'm sorry it's a tiny amount I understand it's a tiny thank you I appreciate the tiny amount I appreciate that you want to stick to the point but it's not a fact of a whole municipality let's stay away from argumentative talk yeah okay thank you I appreciate that Evan thank you Andy too okay then let me just make this point the village is a separate municipality that exists within the town municipality that you and I are equal residents of and therein lies the conundrum of why the village can decide to hire a lawyer but the TLV is not something that can function without the rest of us because we're one town and that's the deck like literally that's the that's the thing we're wrestling with thank you and I I appreciate Evan I appreciate you Andy and all the things we've been through together thank you for your time okay thanks Andy sorry for my outburst no you was not an outburst I think we were I appreciate it thanks okay uh Betty Pullen good evening and thanks a lot of different things that have been tossed around tonight I mean like many people I'm disappointed that we're in the place that we're in but the reality is that the village has had their their advisory vote they are moving forward with with separation and as such we do need to be prepared for that early on I think Vince had said well can we have staff um cost some things out um I think we have to remember that this is um this will be a negotiation and I think Evan also said um early on that if there are some services that the village is still interested in sharing there will be different ways of how those services can be shared and paid for um so the village is clearly well organized on it they are um even engaging legal counsel to it um as we look at the community and the select board who I I do believe I I know they're they've been elected to represent the the great community and all its residents will um make sure that the residents that are not part of the organized village proposal for separation are um heard and that their interests are my interests are being protected so um I think I guess my my biggest point is that whatever the village brings forward is there is room on all of it for negotiation and um I want to make sure we don't forget that that there's not just one party coming to the table with this is how it's going to be and I would hope that there would be some opportunity for those that will remain once the village separates to be able to voice their interests and concerns to make sure that they are well represented in in those negotiations thank you thank you Betty okay I don't see any other hands up is there anyone on the phone who wants to speak has not yet spoken okay then I will bring it back to the board any additional comments anyone wants to thank Vince I just want to say I know this is all tense and you know my you know personally I supported merger and and I supported it because I thought it was the best thing for the entirety of the town um but I've always said from day one that it was the people's vote and I just think it does break my heart that were that were in the place that we're in and I you know I've done a lot of soul searching since the motor the first merger vote failed and since the second merger vote failed and I do I do think I do think that separation is not the best thing for anyone but I understand the desire for it and I understand why a large portion of the electorate that I represent wants it and I I believe that now we're kind of in a situation where we need to make the best of things and regardless of what I say you know what I've done I do really believe that I try to do the best thing for Essex whenever I come to these meetings and I fall and I make bad decisions and I'm human but I really try and I think everybody else on this board does the same and so when we all talk to each other can we please just keep that in mind that we are all good people that we are all trying to do the best that we can Andy's trying to do the best that he can you know he's got a new gig as chair this is hard for Andy you know this is hard this is a bad situation for Pat you know he's having to come up against a separation discussion of a municipality like of a with a municipality that he is a resident of and this isn't I'm sure this isn't easy for Don or Tracy either you know we're all a team here on this board and we're all here for you and we're all just trying to do the best that we can thanks Vince Pat thanks for those words Vince and thanks Andy I guess since we've circled back around we've talked a lot we've heard a lot but what's the plan sounds like we need to either reach out to the trustees and put a joint meeting on the books sooner rather than later or do we want to do as Don suggested maybe have two select board members meet with two trustees do we want to do chairs and vice chair president vice president and just have an initial discussion to see where the boards want to go how do we want to approach this I just want to make sure that before we kind of wrap things up tonight that even though we've talked a lot that we have a clear plan not just for us going forward but also we've talked about a lot of stuff at staff honestly listening to all of this if I was a staff member I don't know what exactly I'm working on yet so at the very least you know maybe we should you know determine even if we're not setting a specific task to staff quite yet we need to at least get something scheduled so we know what the next step is yep that's exactly where I was going next right is what are the next steps I just wanted to let folks have another additional opportunity to comment about what we said anything else any other comments Don or Tracy and then I guess I wanted to ask right Evan and Greg what do you need from us we need to figure out what next steps are right next steps first let's just say let's just do you want to sit down with the village board I hate to be blunt do you want to sit down I mean yeah I think we have yeah we pretty much have to yeah yeah yes we do we do want to I'm sorry that's that's yeah that's that's a sounding making it sound like I'm reluctant I'm sorry absolutely we must yes now do you want to do it select board entirety to village board entirety or do you want to have a small group two by two so you don't have to have a public meeting and an agenda and all that stuff do you want to just start with two members of the board talking with the two members of the village board or do you want it board to board and by the way I'm making this up as we're going so I don't have a yeah then she's gonna comment I would be in favor of the first meeting being board to board where we kind of like just state what we'd both like I think you know as part of the healing process that our community does need to go through I think it should be board to board first and then we can as two boards decide how we want to proceed from there that way you know the trustees the trustees have a stake in in the decision that we're making together as two municipal boards um and just figure it out with them like just we'll start from we'll start from ground zero and just figure it out but that's that's my opinion on that I do like the I do like the two by two like commission that Don suggested I really think it's a great idea I just want to make sure that you know that we're taking into account everyone's both board's feelings and that we all have a chance to discuss it as both boards anybody else have any comments or proceed I'm with Vince I agree we should meet as two boards um initially uh move up our timetable for doing that so at least we get some answers and we can start preparing you know they the trustees know what they're doing um you know they're going to be moving forward they have a plan it's it's already in place and and the wheels are in motion so we just need some clarification before we can really start doing the same Mr. Chair can I make a suggestion then yep yeah well well I I'm not sure everyone's had an opportunity to comment on that we've heard from two right I'll wait yeah Tracy go ahead I was just going to say from a procedural perspective it makes sense to have both boards there because then we can act we don't have to delegate authority everyone has a say um and members of the public are there should they choose to weigh in um but I'm I'm all in favor for uh having a both boards coming together and having the the flexibility to make decisions at that point in time on on how and when to move forward in general Don any comments whatever the majority wants I'm okay I just think and I guess I'm going to say it when we work as a board of 10 we don't seem to accomplish much as when we work in a smaller group that's all yeah I was going to go that same direction too Don that that when we are all 10 in the room especially with also with with the public we can talk in circles for quite a long time um and and I you know I don't I I don't know um we kind of I and I unfortunately fell right into it had some back and forth here that that may or may not have been productive um and I don't know that I don't know that having for the initial meeting having all 10 of us together is is appropriate I don't think that there needs to be any decisions made in that first meeting I think um I think much of what we are going to want to talk about we may want to talk about an executive session because this is a it's going to be a negotiation on some and many of the points that we talk about I mean the the trustees are already having executive session discussions um and so um I'm I'm I would be you know I have only one vote but uh I would be more in favor of having a smaller group get together to get things started um the concern with that then is who would that be um which runs into a different sticky wicked because nominally it should be the chair and vice chair I would think but then there are many who will there are some who would potentially object to to that makeup um so I guess I'm talking myself back into the whole group and uh trying to stumble through uh a meeting and make progress rather than go down that other rat hole I don't know any reaction to that from anybody let's go ahead and Patrick sorry I had a mouth full of chocolate so I had my camera on apologies but um uh I I thought the same thing and they um yeah I thought about it for a little bit but the argument has been when the government subcommittee you know got together to start doing the charter that TOV was not represented even though it was two TOV plus two village members on that board doing the vast majority of the talking and the discussing and the writing of the charter and even tonight be here TOV was not represented so I think that we would have a really difficult time just selecting two individuals um it's just I don't know if it was that people didn't know that they could attend the government subcommittee meetings if they if there was just you know objection to the individuals who sat on it for the makeup um you know I don't I'm not even gonna attempt to guess but I think to avoid that trap this time we should really meet as boards for the first time at least and then if we think we have more productive discussions and smaller groups we can address it after that first meeting thanks you're muted so uh sorry Pat took the words out of my mouth I mean I I just think at least that first meeting um does need to be board to board whatever happens after that that's that's you know that's up for us to decide in that meeting um you know and I I truly am in favor of a smaller group uh working on this if that's what you know we all want and it seems like from my perspective it seems like everyone on this board seems to think that that's a good idea that dawn brought up um and so I think that that that's kind of where we should shoot for as a board um you know uh yeah that's but I I do I do think there is an importance to the first meeting being full board and and this discussion piece being the only agenda item of how do we go forward okay so Evan sounds like consensus is uh full board uh the last comment by Vince is the one that just unfortunately threw me for a little bit of a loop I was going to suggest that the village board has a meeting it's on the 27th versus trying to schedule a special meeting or another extra night meeting my I was going to suggest maybe uh the town select board chair contact the village president and ask uh and you know I don't I'd have to look to see if George is still here or anybody else but the procedure would probably be to suggest that um the boards have an agenda item on the village board agenda to talk board to board and uh after that you guys can discuss but at least that is about a week from now so next question it gives both sides time to prepare yeah sorry Evan I wasn't clear on that I meant that the joint the joint portion of our meeting that would be the only agenda okay like there wouldn't be any other any other business that we that we do as a joint board for the joint board meeting thank you Vince so if if we if we uh if we if we intend to to take any action we have to warn it as a select board meeting also but if we go in saying we're not going to take any action we can just be on their agenda and attend the meeting without having to warn a separate select board meeting right yeah I don't know what action you would actually be taking you're just talking right to board to board right so I guess that's a question for the board is there any anticipation or Greg I think you just want to add something Greg yeah I not sure I completely agree with that interpretation I think if the boards are discussing business it needs to yeah no no you can no no that's that's that's there's a this was this came up uh at the when we were invited to attend the school board meeting and uh it was clarified for me by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns I I made the explicit question of if the select board attends warned meeting of another body it has discussion that is not action okay I retract my statement yep yep it was that was clarified for me that that I could I get the I could send you the statute but uh it's uh it's it's it's as long as we don't uh have any votes don't vote anything in that meeting then we can we can attend their meeting without warning it is a select board meeting which relieves you of the responsibility of having a separate set of minutes separate set of warnings so you know all that stuff so um looks like uh Tracy and Don both have promised us so go ahead Tracy uh my only concern about that would be if we wanted if the select board chose to vote on forming a subcommittee at that joint meeting in order to to move you know faster than taking it up at our next meeting that's the only action I can see that we might want to take but I don't want to I don't want to belabor the point but I also don't want to have to have the select board need to wait until their next scheduled meeting to form a subcommittee if they so choose yeah it's just six days later but yeah yep yeah Don that's exactly what I was gonna say yeah so what is what is the what of other board members feel it's it's it's paperwork on staff's it's workload for staff and so maybe Evan maybe it's not a big deal and I should just drop it and we just warn it if it's only six days yeah well part of me says warning just in case and then you've got your belts and suspenders yeah okay but first you got to get you got to get the you got to get the agreement that we can be on it to say to do that yep I will reach out to Andrew immediately after this meeting I would then suggest or I could text him now no I'm kidding ouch ouch that was uh so the other thing is um a lot of comment tonight on the attorney expense whatever I think you should direct staff to look into that subject and come up with some opera some options please do okay we will unless unless others object I'm just one member and is there a consensus that we should ask the town staff to look into the question of how to pay for an attorney um by not you know not asking and I understand this is a completely sensitive question um see I see general nods around so looks like there's consensus thanks Evan so let's not have a a town of 21,000 giving you know their opinions of the idea about to do it but I'm open to suggestions but we'll we're pretty good at what we do yep yep um okay so the only action is for me to reach out to Andrews who asked to be on the agenda for their next meeting to have a topic that where we can join them and have this discussion and then I would we'll see where on the agenda we can put it hopefully early so we can not not I think I I guess I understand that their their intent is to dedicate the first portion of their meeting to separation generally going forward anyway that that's what I heard from Andrew but sorry hit the right but yes that is what they said but this would be their first test so but they didn't know you were going to ask so yeah I'm assuming at some point you know I I don't know who from the select a village board is still on the meeting I'm kind of searching that they may have their meetings are usually over by now so just usually by an hour uh but I'm sure tomorrow will work and then I think maybe over the next couple of days the individual members could send to me some of their thoughts of what they really want to get out of those meetings and some direction yeah okay and I will tell you what I've told other people there are certain things that villages and towns do that where that skill set is not widely available um I'll give for instance uh the town assessor right assessing is something it's it's almost like village manager or town manager nobody goes up and in eighth grade says ooh I want to be a town manager they've never heard of it it's something you acquire later uh it is very hard to acquire someone to do that who's very good and personable so I just throw that out there there's there's something you just try not to reinvent so there there's that and those are the types of services and things that that both boards should be thinking about service and service levels and maybe maybe you share it for three to five years to get in that that that zone of each side not wanting to hurt each other but do want to you know once that wants to be separate but you don't want to hurt each other how do you do that and what's the time frame and then you know after you know whether it's three years or five years you say ah it's kind of still working can we keep that going and you find out but at least you have time uh to work it up together so don't sell us false hope Evan um my optimist sir look you know again if you take people at their word that they're not there to hurt you but they do want action then work with it I work for both of you I will broker the best deals you guys can both muster together um and we'll see what we can do but I'll be I've always been honest with both sides I told you all I thought merger was the better together I still believe that but when the people vote that's up to you guys to decide of what you want to do I will administer along with my staff what you all decide and we will do it as even Steven as we can that's what we do all right thanks anything else on this topic I see any Cooper has her hand up do we want to go to public any objections we're approaching our 11 o'clock hour I love Annie I do um but we are getting close to 11 o'clock and we have to all unanimously agree past that and we still have more agenda items so if we're going to the public you know we could have multiple people asking to speak um we may want to limit it Andy to if there's going to be comment it you know should only be or I guess needs to be quick any something quick yes as a village resident when I left my last trustee meeting the other day I did not expect that I would be coming to a joint meeting of the select board and the trustees nor do I think the trustees had planned that so I do find it quite surprising to hear that there's now an assumption made by this left board that they will be attending our village trustee meeting and I ask that that that you temper your language so that you are understanding that you're asking that you're trying to see if you can be invited or that you're inviting because right now it doesn't sound or feel like that otherwise I wouldn't have put my hand up so quite frankly when I remember the police discussion and what happened to the trustees I personally as a village resident don't feel respected right now by all of the people having this conversation in front of me it doesn't feel at all as though you are respecting the space that the village is in thank you for the time to speak I appreciate it to respond to that any the the action item that came out of this discussion was for me to go to to contact to kind of connect with Andrew Brown to ask that we be headed to the agenda where there's no guarantee I I'm sorry if there was ever an impression that we thought we could just walk in and invite ourselves that is under understanding completely that is not the case I understood exactly the action item but it was the general conversation of hey let's put two of our select board members on their committee let's that's a lot no no no we never said that no no no right right that needs to be discussed I'm sorry yeah yeah you're right you're right that was a proposal that that needs to be discussed right there's no assumption there to be a clear understanding that these are requests that you will make of the trustees and and I understood as a person that you were that the only action item was you Andy reaching out to Andrew as a person I understood that but as a collective conversation it didn't feel that way and so I'm just asking for that understanding that's all okay we need to move on thank you thank you any okay we did move the minutes up to the the minutes up to the business item so what I would like so that we can limit conversation is for someone to make a motion to approve the amendment minutes with select board member corrections and then we can have an internal discussion among ourselves and then approve it so we don't have to open to the public so moved oh and doesn't like that I'll accept that tonight I'm sorry he said just be in it along I will I will accept that tonight yes second at this hour thank you Don and Patrick so Tracy you said you had some concerns with the minutes yeah the wording online 165 I had initially included the cell phone or other electronic handheld devices but that's already in the rules and regs so just wanted to be sure that the the addition in number 10 should start with members of the body shall not post yada yada yada and Greg did verify that that is with what made it into the rules and regs that that went around for signature so that's it okay so you're asking for consistency between the minutes and what we put in what was put into the policy okay great thanks any other changes or comments okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay minutes are approved and then we wanted to also move the 2021 or item 6d up to business uh consider adoption of 2021 local emergency management plan update Tracy you had yes um I'd like to make the motion that we approve the 2021 local emergency management plan update however we authorized staff to make make changes to staffing program and providers as needed seconded okay I heard Don first on that one so thank you Tracy and Don any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay motion passes okay can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda to make the motion the approve the consent agenda sorry I'm trying to get thank you Don thank you Vince any discussion on the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay consent agenda is approved moving on to the reading file any board member comments I would like to thank Annie Cooper for her service on the economic development committee thank you Don I'd love to echo that yeah Annie you'll be missed I appreciate that you guys all put me on there thank you for your time okay any other any other comments I extend our thanks to Ramona Shepard as well for for serving on the uh town meeting tv board yes my understanding that they uh appreciated her service and any other comments okay hearing none we got one more motion and it's non debatable move to adjourn thank you Tracy do I have a second second thank Patrick all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed okay we're adjourned we didn't have to do the unanimous thing thank you for all the public that attended yes thank you yeah absolutely there was a lot of good comment had a good discussion um I certainly we'll take everything said to heart yep okay thank you staff for putting up with us you're welcome good night everybody good night all