 Page two And page three Always in favor of approving the minutes of January 9th 2018 say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Move on into public comment Here wishes to make any public comment tonight See you know what are here to do that we'll move on to the audit report Jennifer Cannelly Finest director is here to give us the lowdown on the audit report First of all, I just want to apologize for the last minute like presentation of this The audit is scheduled for three weeks earlier next year So hopefully we'll get this in the middle of the budget process instead of the final night of the budget Just wanted to take a minute to walk through the different pieces of the audit and highlight a few items in each document The first is the governance letter so really this piece of This document is presented specifically to the select board and so what this shares with you is if Just that all significant transactions of the town have been recorded and if there are any misstatements They're listed in here and any disagreements with management. So it's really your communication directly from the auditors This year we did have a few misstatements that we passed on The largest of those was the final lease payment of the ambulance was actually recorded in 2016 it should have been recorded in the beginning of 2017 We found it immaterial Because of the dollar amount and because at the end of 2017 that lease was paid in full So if we had moved it it wouldn't have changed anything significantly Any questions on the next piece? I'm sure you read for the fine But really again, I just want to highlight a few areas in here of First is the auditors report. So what they do on page one is they give you their opinion of the audit and Their opinion is that these financial statements that you're looking at have been presented fairly Really what you're looking for in that document The next section of the audit is the manager's discussion and analysis analysis. So this is actually like An overview of the town from a layman's perspective. It doesn't have all the financial documents, it's really giving you the position of the town at this time and any Stories behind any of the numbers. So really it talks about increases in revenue items things like that And any financial highlights we had over the year You'll see in here that The increase to the fund balance The fund balance has been increased to 3.1 million and that's what we've been talking about through this budget process We've been talking about that fund balance and how that is out of compliance with our policy The town's policy with the fund balance is between 10 and 20 percent of the following year's budget We're at about 28 percent So on page 8 of that we do have some revenue highlights The first of those is is the sales and rooms tax revenue That was over budget by a hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars. So you'll see later on in the night when we talk about How to get to that Increased tax rate of two percent one of the things that we are recommending is that we budget a little bit higher on that item And then this is one of the reasons why We're doing that any questions on that section my manager's discussion Great, the next section did this just come out today It was here on Friday, but it was like last minute on Friday Just wondered if you expected us to read this and are you gonna quiz us at the end of it We're not in again. That's why I'm Really hopeful next time that we'll have you'll be able to get this a couple weeks ahead of time and be able to Present to you tonight It was kind of a less Driving them in from Montpelier on Friday afternoon. Is this a requirement to have for the budget? The audit for the budget approval I don't know that it's actually a requirement, but it provides good information for you Especially, you know verifying where we're at with the fund balance. I'm looking at how the next section of the financial statements that I wanted to talk about was That exhibit F which shows how we did to each line of the but Budget last year. So that just provides some good information of areas where we may be budgeting Too heavy or budgeting too light the notes to the financial statements are really Stories behind the numbers is how I like to describe notes Note one really just tells you all the accounting practices that we use here at the town It also talks about any significant commitments that the town has and also it Debt that the town has supplementary information The only piece of that that is required is in exhibit seven which is the retirement piece That is the final page. So schedule seven is the final page the net pension liability This is required to share in our audit the other Schedules are there just for reference. So you can see how those different funds are I Know one of the funds that we're talking about using Some of its balance is the public works building fund. So if you flip back to page 59 You can see that there is a fund balance there of 653,000 We've budgeted to use 400 of that for the fire truck that'll happen this year, but we're also Suggesting to use 125 of that for the solar project. If that's something And to note the the difference the additional amount is planned to use to buy the solar panels They're on top of the highway garage in six years So that'll draw down pretty much the whole project at that point I'm always open to any questions that you have if you're reading through This isn't your last shot at this you have to read it first. Yeah The final document is I referred to that in my Report as a single audit and they actually called it federal compliance. So this is our grants that we receive from the federal government If we receive over 750,000 dollars in federal funds, we need to have a single audit This is the second year in a row that we've had a single audit Because we've reached that level Main piece that you should be looking at from a select board perspective is on the final page There's really just their summary of results and this will tell you if there are any findings if there's any internal control weaknesses or Material differences they'll be noted in here One item that you'll note in Section a number eight is the town of Williston was determined not to be a low-risk oddity which You have to qualify to be low-risk and there's five requirements We meet all of them except for the first one is that you've had a single audit for three years in a row Since we've only had it to or automatically high-risk Everything else we've met we have an unmodified opinion We have no deficiencies in our internal control and there's no doubt of us continuing as a municipality I think we're all on that page And in the past two audits there have been no material weaknesses So we have met all the requirements if we do a single audit next year we will Be a low-risk oddity Yes, and then I am required to file this on single audit with the federal government by March 31st Some point do we approve approve this or for the record as it's just basically Information yeah, we have questions certainly any time It's fair game to ask Jennifer so the only significant finding in this report was the already mentioned Ambulance payments that that was a misstatement of the audit or the miss it's a misstatement of the financials and that is It's not significant, which is why we could pass on it And so there were four of those Let's see So a small adjustment if it's on page two of the governance report Ambulance receivables The way the auditors did their calculations were different than mine by $1,272 the Prepaid expenses that was the loan payment for the ambulance how it was recorded in June of 2016 deferred grant receivables Per our policy. We're not supposed to claim something Put something in as revenue unless we've received it within four months of the end of the fiscal year we hadn't received $9,774 we have received that by this time But we hadn't received it by October 31st and Then the sewer receivable is different None of those are materially Material change to the financial picture of the town So The bulk of the work is done by our own staff to give the auditors all the information they need to do this kind of report So it's a work of a lot of work for Jennifer, especially I Have to be honest this is Imagine here. This is kind of gobbledygook to me But it says so so my question is or maybe it's more to Rick is It sounds like the town is getting If we were to get a letter grade or number grade it would be excellent. It would be an a plus Yeah, I would say so and this is Jennifer deserves a lot of credit for this, but it's like she said it's a team effort So you also have to have cooperation from every department head and making sure they provide the information That is required during the course of the year Purchase orders making sure all the contracts are in place Jennifer's continued the great work that we've had from Susan lamb who preceded her in this position and so Yeah, I think you don't get much better than this as far as the the quality of the work and the completeness I guess I would add to that from a select board perspective You don't get much better than this in terms of our confidence in town staff around financial issues Thank you Any other comments Thank you very much We're a little bit ahead of schedule. We can't do the public hearing yet but perhaps We can start discussion on the capital budget and program and Resist that if we are not through with that by 730 So Rick and Jennifer I presume we're gonna talk about this Right Jennifer back up my There was well, it's kind of related to Operating budget to because there were I think there was a change to this or a couple changes based on our efforts to try to come in with a little bit lower tax rate and so We can explain some of the details as it relates to the capital budget anyway Yes, so we did provide an updated schedule of the capital Little different than the one that you received in your packet or your books when you first started talking about capital budget One change that we made on this was the highway replacement truck savings I spoke about this last week that we Received more in trade for our highway truck last year So we reduced the amount that we need from fund balance for the highway truck So we're still keeping the 101 190 from the host town fund and moved our fund balance requests down to $8,810 for a total of hundred and ten thousand dollars. What was it before? Yeah, it was 33,000 810 yeah from the fund balance Yes, so our request was 135,000 for the highway truck replacement this year we're asking to Only for a hundred and ten thousand because we received a higher than expected trade last year and we're going to continue to do that each year as we Get the trade from the prior year of making sure that we're adjusting our request accordingly For the trade that we receive And the other difference is that I actually took the solar panels off the highway equipment request and Because that is a separate request it was originally on this form when you received it There was the three hundred and forty thousand for the solar plans that has been moved off So we are still requesting to use 367,500 dollars from the host town fund Impact fees of ninety five thousand seven hundred and ten dollars From the fund balance we are planning to use two hundred eighty nine thousand eight hundred and ten dollars and from grants and other revenue eighty thousand for a capital project balance of eight hundred thirty three thousand twenty dollars so we had a lot of Numerous weeks to discuss the capital budget and program. Are there any questions for us for a motion? I guess the only question I have is If we vote on the capital budget before the operating budget Does that is there an issue with that because we've already voted for this? Oh Worst case if you the board wants to change its mind as it gets into the discussion operating budget you can revisit the capital budget It's kind of chicken and egg which one yes, I get it on first and so The way I view it the capital budget is a Component of the operating budget because there's a specific line item relating back to this right so you kind of have to adopt this one There's no further questions on the capital budget and program the motion is in order I've moved to adopt the capital budget and program for fiscal years 2019 through 2024 as amended by the budget adjustment summary In favor of the motion say aye. I may oppose the abstentions. Good. We're taking care of that I want to start discussion on the general fund budget as well Sorry about that three documents from you one right on this so We're on the operating budget already The the goal was to As we understood it was to get the estimated tax increase down to about a half a cent and It could and I emphasize it's an estimate because last year at this time. We were also estimating a half a cent We ended up with zero increase That's that was unusual So and I don't expect it would happen again, but it's certainly it's possible. It might be less than half a cent But right now we're estimating half a cent And in order to do that We've given you a list of possible budget changes on the document stated January 18th and the recommended column shows the changes that we're proposing and That results in a A net decrease on the expenditure side of just about 49,000 we also recommend on the Second page some revenue changes Including a little bit more from local options tax and interesting come and a little bit less use of fund balance than we originally talked about and We did increase the ambulance service fees because the board had talked about that your last meeting about the interest in Adding three positions And so with that those three positions comes some additional revenue So on the expenditure side, you'll see those three positions showing up as 63,580 additional and then additional $25,000 in revenue and then there's a couple other little changes here and there We did take out the custodian the full-time custodian position That was an increase in hours more than adding a new position It was just changing the part-time into a full-time, but we're taking that out Of our request and we've I'm stealing all Jennifer's thunder We've reduced property and casually by 10,000 because the latest numbers we have show that we can do that still cover our costs and I think I've covered most the items here The one big one that you didn't touch on was Debt service ambulance lease that is a large decrease of 38,000 We're actually recommending in order to meet this goal to delay the lease replacement ambulance for one year Chief Morton has reached out to other Municipalities and other towns to see if that's realistic to say can we push our ambulance one more year? And he feels comfortable with that so what they would do instead of it was supposed to go into They're actually starting the bid process right now to get a lease that would take effect next year and We're gonna delay that to have that we start in 2020 Because it's a lease and their annual payments we aren't I Don't like the concept if we can avoid it of just pushing an expense to a further year, but this is isn't really doing that this is It's keeping the equipment one year longer keeping equipment So getting bet for lack of better words getting more value out of the existing equipment is the way I should look at this Okay, and also You know we we had that conversation to are we just moving money that we should be spending this year? Into next year and we actually think that there will be some room in the budget next year We do have a few requests this year that are unique that we haven't had in years past 25,000 for the church 15,000 to start the housing trust fund those items We're not in the budget last year. And so those those are items we Probably won't see a request from an outside source for 25,000 next year housing trust fund is probably something we'll Work to accommodate in the budget for next year. Okay Further questions comments regarding the Well, she said this is more an observation than it is a question as I went through this as as As best as I understand it this really is not except for the custodian position Which is a reduction in services, but it's actually internal to the town versus necessarily what the Residents will feel This really Doesn't affect the level of services the town will be providing So you did a very good job if you will of sharpening the pencil and I I Think you're making appropriate adjustment. I guess what I'm really getting to is is I can support what you're proposing. I Can I will support what you're proposing? Your comments or questions for don't mind just one question Rick you mentioned it's going to reduce the tax rate Increased to about did you say a half a cent? I believe that's correct You in the first sentence of your memo To Rick you say in order to meet the select board's preferred tax rate increase of two percent I just want to make sure that those two correspond to each other Yeah, the the actual numbers or at least the estimates are on the second page of revenue page if you look at the Current and I'm looking at the bottom block of numbers The property tax rate current it says 26 56 Manager budget was 27 27 and recommended which includes all the different adjustments on both the revenue and expenditure side is 2694 and so the difference between 2694 and 26 56 is roughly about half cent Which equates to about two percent Okay Yes, so so there were three things that and I didn't get a chance to talk to him when I came in was the housing trust fund Not sure we've done enough. I mean I certainly support affordable housing strongly, but I guess I don't afford I don't Necessarily think the first path would be to tax homeowners for affordable housing I'd like to see us push for inclusionary zoning The second one is this environmental reserve fund and I know we're not but we're putting I Mean when we first talked about catamount we talked about Having a grant to cover those funds so And it popped up in the budget kind of a surprise to me the last one is the church steeple It may not be popular, but I'm not sure the town should be funding that either so Any discussion on that sure Let's start with Let's start with the church steeple because maybe it's it's easier. I Hear your arguments, yeah I don't know if they're arguments more how I feel I Think it's interesting that the town clock is housed in a church steeple But it is can't do much about that and My feeling is and there's a little bit facetious But I think it gets the point across if if the town were not to participate in the rebuilding of the church steeple the church would probably Has the right to put the clock in a box and bring it to the next luck board meeting and say here's your clock Which I don't think is something we want. It's an odd situation. I will grant that but because of that mixing of church and state, but This is about this is about keeping that this is about keeping the clock in the air so people can see it In more of like a historical perspective often church is subbed as meeting places town meeting places Oh, that was the tallest spot to put the clock, so And and I don't know if you guys saw the email I sent I'm fascinating by this clock the fact that it's powered by a box of rocks just I mean I think that's you know, I guess the point I'm making is is the town. I didn't even know we had this resource I didn't really is quite the resource and Yeah, so I get maybe I'm getting a little passionate here. I apologize for that, but I You know if it was housed in the steeple up above here, we wouldn't hesitate for a second that not has saved you didn't get Because it's the town hall. It's the town building. Yeah, I wouldn't want our steeple Yeah, yeah coming right through here That's my feeling just add my chemist at the The church evil really is the face of wallaston if you look at the number of people that pass through all of them Stop and take pictures of it and just the ambiance that it has for the town. That's why I think we should support Kind of an historical feature of the town Okay, and I've read I have to say since I've made the comment before I've read up on it and Many towns have chose to do that. So I wanted to hear what Other people had to say I'm not so worried about the separation of church and state as I am Just spending the money. So I wanted to hear any other any other comments or I'm in favor of it That my main concern was a separation of church and state. Yeah But I read I've read specifically about that and it seems like every case that has come up on that has been well Yeah, I mean if I had if I had turned down or a time machine and make it so the town clock is not in a church steeple I'd probably do it or yeah, or Strongly advocate that a mosque be built and that perhaps it be put in a mosque or a temple or something just to have one in each Yeah, or you know Atheist meeting place perhaps, but it's kind of an accident of history. So I'm in favor of Of the money. Okay. All right. The next one is the housing trust fund and I don't anybody want to comment on that I think we're not sure we're gonna get the grant for that, but we're also depleted This is money. We're actually putting money into the budget Bigger pardon. No talking about the wrong thing on the housing trust fund. I hear what you're saying I think though ultimately You know whether whether the money comes from property taxes or the 1% tax sales tax that we get from you know the businesses and tax corners is still going to be Government still going to be taxpayer money at some point And so I wasn't suggesting it come from there either Well, but if it comes from a grant, it's going to be coming from somebody's taxpayer Well, I didn't mention grant. I'm sorry. I don't know where that came. I think Terry mentioned grant But oh, you're saying that's not inclusionary zoning. So if we let somebody build Hundreds upon hundreds of houses in Williston should they be required to build some proportion of those in in an affordable manner right in a more Reasonable manner because saving $15,000 a year It really isn't going to do a lot to create affordable housing plus We're taxing people who may be marginally able to live here in the first place. So I'm not a big I'm not a huge fan of Taxing until we try inclusionary and I I saw the arguments because I'm pretty passionate about the subject So when when Deb was on the board and I read some of her reports from the board Or I don't know who's I think actually Rick might have chaired it as well. I don't remember who chaired the board Task force the task force. Thank you. It was um, it was chaired by Debbie Ingram I was merely staffed the the biggest reason for not doing inclusionary zoning at the time was that Burlington, Vermont had tried it and They had failed it wasn't as successful, but Burlington is a I figure what they call it. It's a it's a it's an older community. So to do Affordable housing in that kind of community you have to do redevelopment which is tear down and that's a more expensive process And what I've read and again, I'm no expert. It's just what I've read in the what I could find Inclusionary zoning works better in places redo new development like Williston Rather than old neighborhoods where you have to redevelop. So it seems like it's worth a try You know the 15,000 it's not a huge amount of money. I think it's just one of those It doesn't make a lot of sense to me too. We have an affordable affordability problem to start taxing the people who are living here to So I Guess that was That was my Two cents on two comments or thoughts that I have on the inclusionary zoning. I believe I I'm in supportive inclusionary zoning at least in theory. I Can remember back to when Mary Peterson and Ginny Lyons were on the select board and I don't remember how and Terry would have been too I just don't remember how long ago that was and we had every not been on the select board. I Could make a joke out of that about when the clock was installed, but yeah, I'll stay away from that Oh The point may inclusionary zoning has been discussed for quite a many years in Williston And and whether I agree or not it's gone through quite a bit of a vetting and the town has chosen Not to through the town comprehensive planning process and our adoption of the zoning bylaws So it wasn't just that being grown. I mean this has been a long has long history to it I may disagree with or not. I may not agree with that But that's neither here nor there the other thing is I look at the two as separate inclusionary zoning is is Different from whether the town should be supporting an affordable housing trust fund And I look at this is as a I mean $15,000 is not a small amount of money But it's also particularly with our budget. It's not a large amount of money either and it's a seed It's to get something started. I truly hope that we through the development process we can build this into a Fund that is large enough to accomplish real things The only way to do that is to start with the seed and that's kind of what I look at as part of our responsibility here of doing So I'm in support of it Yes It should not be on the backs That matters, you know, my only point is and again, we we're not going to solve it here Obviously tonight, and I don't want to keep people here to 10 o'clock, but it seems like We should at least try inclusionary zoning Development has gone at a rapid pace and will listen to the success to the great success of all the builders Who build here? I mean there there are the builders that build in Willis and there's a couple of them that have built An enormous number of units. Yes, and we have the least affordable town. I think we've heard in the county or Well affordable from a tax rate standpoint, but well affordable from a living cost of living Right? Yeah, and we have a large number of people who live here or work here who can't afford to live here. It's just It's $15,000, you know, I'm not sure I would Decline to support the budget for 15,000, but I feel pretty passionate. It's the it's the wrong thing to do and Then I was hoping to get a little discussion again. Sorry. I wasn't here last week It was but the 220 thousand dollar For the environmental reserve will take that out of our fund balance That's where that comes from or is it part of the tax burden? I know it comes from the capital budget 200,000 of that is from fund balance 20,000 is from the operating budget. Is that yeah, okay comes from so it's kind of money We already have You know, I guess we'll get a chance so it's kind of a we're not increasing the tax burden as a result 20,000 and We get a chance to vote on it later based on what we see from In put from the group the study group When you say later you talk about the actual decision to purchase or not. Yes. Yes, that's correct Clarification question on this at one time I thought the amount that was going to go into the that was proposed to go into the environmental reserve fund was 200 from the fund balance and then 60,000 that's that's correct what we're talking about the 20,000 we're talking about is In addition to the 40,000 that's budgeted for the current fiscal year. Okay, yeah you recall I mean this at one point the town's contribution to the environmental reserve fund used to be about a penny and Of course the penny has grown faster than our contributions to the reserve fund and At one point it was as high as 80 or 90,000 and then when we had the great recession the select board Contributed no money for a couple years and then gradually we've been kind of trying to play catch up To the point where you know if we do this one purchase now, we will be zeroing it out Potentially Depending on what happens with that grant that we're talking about So any other discussion on the housing trust fund do we have any other? I I support the minimal amount that we put in this year and was determined what we want to do next year only you couldn't ask the Planning Commission to start looking at inclusionary zoning as well That's not for tonight, but no, of course not So the thing that's hard, you know, this is my first time through the process, I'm sorry and and it's a it's a huge number Some of these things are fairly small and a 10 11 million dollar budget So, you know, I wish I had a line I'm veto But I guess I don't so I guess I'm looking for guidance on Well, when we get through a motion you can certainly amend make attempt to amend the motion by Excluding that if you wish But I understand we don't have support for excluding things because we've talked about it. So I understand that so In general Do we do we decline to support the budget if we Declined to support a single item. Is that typical you may choose not to to sign right? I just understood understand the typical Maybe this helps give you my thinking or philosophy not philosophy Way too strong of a word there my thinking on this is last meeting we I Evaluated All of us I think have items in the budget that we may not fully support for various reasons But what I I am going to support this budget and the reason is is at the last meeting We discussed what we thought would be an acceptable or reasonable increase in in the tax rate or What people paid in taxes the percent increase and This budget does that It does cutting some You know significant items My I guess my point about that is again overall I can support the budget even though there are light items in this that I don't want to say I would gladly cut I don't mean it like that But I could I could agree to cut but the budget does what I think it needs to do And I can support it because of that and I should actually I should revise that look this is this is a good budget and I can support it Look at it Like there's stuff on my dinner plate that I don't generally eat but since it's it comes as a package It's I ordered I ordered column A on the menu and that's what it comes us So yeah, I like most of the stuff Good enough. No, and I agree. I think the town does a good job Obviously, I mean we have a good income to to the town So I think we benefit from that dramatically if that income wasn't there We might be in less good time. So Okay, that's all There's no more discussion and or questions or comments the motion would be in order I'd move to a job the general fund budget for fiscal year 2019 in the none of 11 million 111 thousand thirty five dollars It's your discussion on the motion We iterate I think it's a good budget You know, I feel strongly that we need to look at removing the You know looking at other ways to fund a housing trust fund. It's a pretty immaterial size I'm not going to make a motion to to take it out. So There's no further discussion Motion has been made and seconded all in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed any abstentions? All right, we have passed that we'll go back to Yes, thank you very much indeed So we'll move backwards then to the public hearing on the community development grant application and I'll just read quickly the Public notice ton of Wilson is considering making an application to the state of Vermont for a VC DP implementation Grant 2018 under the remote community development program the public hearing will be held on January 23 2018 at 7 30 p.m. At the Wilson Town Hall to obtain the views of citizens on community development Differnished information concerning the amount of funds available in the range of community development activities that may be undertaken under this program The impact to any historic and archaeological resources that may be affected by the proposed project and to get Effective citizens the opportunity to examine the proposed statement of projected use of these funds Reposalists to apply for $600,000 in VC DP funds, which will be used to accomplish the following activities, which will be described By probably Amy Dometra Dometra weeks Before is yours I'm Amy Dometra. It's I'm with the Champlain Housing Trust and I just want to again Thank you all for a graciously considering sponsoring this application to the state for VC DP funds for a project that is not actually located in your town But that does have a regional impact, and that's why we're asking for your support here As you may or may not know the city of Burlington gets its own allocation of CDBG funds And therefore they are not eligible to apply for the same federal funds that the state gets They have allocated a hundred thousand dollars of their CDBG funds to this project, and they are considering another hundred thousand dollar allocation They can't go to the state for further VC DP Applications, and it's only municipalities that can apply for that funding So really appreciate the town's willingness to consider this application the project is the Old North End Community Center and it's Located in the former st. Joseph school at 20 Allen Street in Burlington The st. Joseph school is a beautiful old historic brick school house three stories beautiful hardwood floors pressed tin ceilings the classrooms with a slate chalkboards and a big gymnasium with a stage it's a it's a beautiful beautiful building and Since the time that the school closed the diocese has rented the space out Three regional nonprofits including the robins nest daycare. They've actually been there for over 30 years They provide daycare to people throughout the region the Janet munt family Family room which provides parent education for people again throughout the region they do some great programming there in terms of child education and and parent education and The Association of Africans living in Vermont a ALV Has been there as well for about 10 years and they provide a number of different social services to recent new Americans in the community again very much regionally in in the Chittin County area so Those three programs that had been housed there for quite some time were at risk of being displaced When the diocese was deciding that they may need to sell the property so they approached us to see if CHT would be able to secure the property for them so that they could stay in place and It was an exciting project and we were very very much eager to take it on It was also the building is not was not entirely occupied And so we saw it as room to really expand a community center It also one of the reasons it wasn't fully occupied was because it didn't have an elevator We were able to negotiate with the diocese and we've actually installed an elevator at this point So the whole building is completely occupied The program that has been added is the Burlington parks and rec has rented the second floor And they have subleased to a number of different tenants including very merry theater a youth center for the Old North End the senior center Hindu temple they have it the building is just a really exciting combination of all sorts of folks Coming in for just a myriad of programs from you know a new American families coming in and Greco has they make car seats and they they have a car seat day And they they're installing free car seats in people's vehicles that they can be safe It's a really exciting building with an amazing number of uses and activities going on at all times However the building it's a great building, but it really is in need of a lot of upgrades And that's what this program this this grant application is really for it hasn't really been renovated since the 60s or 70s You know for example There's one thermometer a one thermostat in the entire building in the principal's office So that controls the heat for all three floors of this 52,000 square foot building So the those sorts of systems need to be upgraded. There's one electrical outlet per classroom I guess for the projector so the teacher could show some slides We need to upgrade the electrical system the heating we need to add air conditioning because if now it's a full year use We need to install a sprinkler system We have installed the elevator and we've put in a commercial kitchen for Uses including training folks in the food service industry We are One of the issues with the VCDP grant is that you need to Document beneficiaries for that reason we're going to target the grant towards a ALV because they're already Collecting income data and demographic data for their participants So it's sort of administratively it will be the easiest way to document the benefits So I want to tell you a little bit about what a ALV does It's called the Association of Africans living in Vermont because when it was founded a little over ten years ago It was really more of a social group of folks from afro recently here from Africa to get together and talk about their Experiences being new to America Since then they've really developed into a social service agency and they now serve Refugees and immigrants from everywhere Wherever folks are coming from they're welcome at a ALV They've even start stopped using association of Africans living in Vermont. They just are called a ALV now they provide job training as I said they have a Licensed nurse nurses aid programs. They're training folks into that they they assist folks in starting farms and Provide having the ability to grow food and sell food to create income for their families They have teen programs and mentoring programs. They provide mental health services. They do a lot of health education That's culturally appropriate. So they may do some sex Targeted they do domestic violence education There they've got a myriad of programs and through those programs. They are collecting a lot of client Income and demographic information So it'll make that reporting for the VCDP program easier if we target it to that one program The total so we're asking for this application to be for $600,000 in VCDP funds. Those are federal funds The total project cost is 7.8 million including the acquisition of the building all the renovations and all of the other legal expenses The the other sources of funding we're working with this Program called the new market tax credit program We are Undertaking a capital campaign that's being led by Peter Clavel to raise funds from donors and philanthropists And that's moving right along. We're also reaching out to social impact investors So people who are interested in and making an investment in the building Mostly to see the social impact that their investments can have and to get a small monetary return And then we are planning to make many energy Efficiency upgrades to the building. So we'll be looking for some grants to help support those efforts The VCDP funds would come to the town of Williston and then we would be looking for those funds to be granted directly to CHT CHT would then grant those funds into the new market tax credit structure so that it would be used in that that financing structure We would be taking on as much of the administrative burden related to that grant as possible I'm going to write the grant. We're going to do all of the reporting and an ongoing monitoring We're going to obviously be Managing the construction and so forth We will need to rely on town staff to deal mostly with the finances first the town staff has to review the grant and and push those buttons that says yes, you know, yes We want to do this. It's on behalf of the town and then Managing the the record making sure to have the financial records of when funds have been dispersed So we try as much as possible to minimize that impact the project can pay for the legal Expenses that the town incurs for taking on the grant and also if the town needs to do a single audit We can cover that expense as well So there will be some staff time, but we don't expect there to be any sort of other financial burden to the town and The process from here is you have a resolution to consider Tonight the application is due on February 6th, then I'm working away at that and I'll I would be Looking to wreck to to press It's all online and then there's a VCDP board meeting that's held on April 12th where they will consider all of the applications Thank you appears that there's no one else here For public comment on the public hearing, so I'd entertain a motion to close the public hearing Follows in favor of the motion to close the public hearings a I It will go on to actually considering the Resolution but before you disappear, so okay, I Had the opportunity to tour the facility yesterday Both because of the hearing public hearing tonight and also because of a probable request to the legislature and the capital budget For some funding there, which was has not occurred yet, but it's a fantastic business building I met the gentleman who is in charge of the refugee program there very Good fellow and a whole bunch of people that are there Taking part in the programs that were there when I was there. It's a it's an old-school structurally sound But needs a fair amount of work So are the questions or comments regarding the application went kind of fast so remind me cht Okay, that's okay and The name of the organization that runs this is this the school or the the facility Okay Oh As part of that new market tax credit We will be selling the property into a new partnership that will be able to take advantage of that new market tax credit Investor in those tax credits So there will be a new entity that will get created as part of that so the 7.8 million dollars you've already Collected or saved Capital campaign is ongoing. That's the one that's chaired by Peter Clavel We we don't have all of the funds committed yet through that process, but we're working on it and we are Hoping that we're going to be able to close on that new financing structure and have all of the funds committed by September and At that point we'll be able to you know make that transfer to the new partnership and begin the renovation Thank you Your questions or talents. Well, my next question is I guess to Rick and or the staff or maybe Jennifer Does this impact asking for this grant for? The Burlington Community Center does this affect our ability in the town at all or is this? well it is Amy mentioned there is some staff time required particularly Jennifer's time The our biggest concern going into this was the cost of the Single audit and you you had remember Jennifer said we had to a row. Well, this would probably make free in a row and But the you know Amy is committed to Covering that cost for the town So with that understanding we don't have any objections This This is for the grant a state or federal Okay, all right great Believe this is the third type of third such grant application that we've dealt with here This is this is that strange Technicality that the town of Williston is applying for this basically because there are technicalities that prevent other people who are more directly involved from doing it It doesn't really hurt us so work for me. I didn't really understand all that when she spoke of it, but Seems like a good idea just being a really The only question or actually two questions Actually the question I thought you were going to ask Terry was Will our applying for this grant for all the good reasons for doing it in any way limit? Grants that we could apply for for projects in Williston That wasn't I thought the question asked, but I thought I heard I didn't answer that question, but To my knowledge I'm trying to think I'm not sure we've ever applied for a community development grant partly because We don't have the population that would score well We're competing for the grant monies and Amy is more knowledgeable about that process and I am but Is typically a town can't have two applications going in the same round But you can always you know the next round or you know a year from now It won't have any impact on your future ability to apply in other words the links. There's no like three years We couldn't know it's just you would never put two applications in the very same at the very same time And you don't have another one going in so yeah, we don't have any plans Okay, so so the risk of this inhibiting us in some ways is very very low And then my other question had to do with actually the single audit again, but I'm going to ask the question in a slightly different way This year we had to we had to do a single audit Would we let's just say you didn't come to us for this for us to apply for this grant We still likely go through the single audit have to go through a single audit Actually the timing I was maybe spoke a little too quickly on the timing because we're we we talking about This fiscal year is different than next fiscal or in this money. I think would be received next fiscal year Not this fiscal year, so I I don't know How we stand in terms of grants for this fiscal year Okay Same year as this project, so there is a good chance that we will have a single audit that year What is your fiscal year on July 1st? Yeah, we would be expecting So it sounds like we may not need a single out this year, so we won't make our three years One-year break, but I expect it, you know, we'll never get to a low risk Okay, really questions or comments Motion is in order. Oh, I'm sorry one other one the I'm sorry the single the I Guess the application form that's in front of us that we're supposed to sign It does not mention the grant amount. Is that a concern? Yes. Oh, I guess it's the resolution And you're authorizing me to review the application, okay, then that's that answers that question, okay? So motion is order move to adopt the resolution for the Vermont community development program grant in support of proposed renovations to the former St. Joseph's school in Burlington second Answer a discussion on the motion none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye opposed and no abstentions I'll be circulating the resolution for signature Thank you Support us when we want to put our senior center So that just a side question just associate with that we have no because of the income distribution of Williston We have a harder time getting these kinds of grants So for instance like I'm actually being serious on this whole idea of a senior center Many many years ago One of my jobs was writing grants and I remember seniors were assumed to be low to moderate income. Has that changed? Thank you, do we so let's move on to the water fund budget, but we have Amy's name somewhere and The person who just presented it's Amy. I mean that's what it's water fund budget So Rick and Jennifer I don't know. There's the board didn't have any comments on this really Have any substance when we went with the first time through so I don't know and it and the Changes to any of the utility budget Any questions or comments regarding the water fund budget if not emotion is an order. I mean, it's very similar to previous year budgets I mean, I'm not happy it's going up, but It's similar to previous year budgets, you know cost of living type things not cost of living This budget and the sewer budget are driven in large part For the other species that we pay in this case will be the water district and in the other sewer budget It's the a six junction treatment plant the motion is in order I'd move to adopt the water budget for fiscal year 2019 in the amount of 1,000,000 229,200 It's very discussion on the motion Not always in favor of the motion say aye I Almost tensions sewer fund budget I would indeed move to adopt the sewer budget for fiscal year 2019 in the amount of 1,000,000 $782.50 what's one million seven hundred eighty two thousand five hundred eighty five Second sort of discussion on the motion If not all those in the favor of the motion say aye Any opposed no stations. All right, I would say that I this sounds Stupid, but I'm actually being serious The tour of the sewer treatment plan that's extension was rather entertaining and enjoyable and educational And if we could arrange for another thing like that, I'd go Summer weather perhaps warmer weather'd be great. Did you just do that? Just no no a number years years years ago They would I think we were negotiating with Essex or that before after the major renovations before Okay Yeah, you can arrange that You will get blackboard field trip You will get a first-hand view of one of the key effort to improve the water quality in Lake Champlain I Still tell my daughters and they're too old to really care about this being 13 and 15, but when we're driving by us, you know, that's That's that's where our sewage goes Why do you why do you try to educate us to this kind of stuff? Because I'm a nerd I couldn't even tell you where it is. Where is it? It's on the other side It's on to a Cascade Street Bridge from Welliston into Essex Near IBM well near As these are off the trees you can see it from route two as you're driving across The other place we should visit some point is the water treatment place. That's the one I'd like to see Which is another Fascinating all of the scares around the country for water quality would be good to see Yeah First-class plan, so yes You'll arrange those tours all right? Yeah, we're motor fun budget The chair entertain a motion I will move to adopt the stormwater budget for fiscal year 2019 in the amount of 744,000 This maiden seconded to your discussion on the ocean. I had one quick question The budget assumes not assumes is built around or there will be no increase in the stormwater fee Different than the other two budgets, that's just we just approved Okay for discussion for those in favor of the motion say aye aye and the opposed all stations That's over energy plan petition here we do have just everybody congratulations you know quite an effort yes we are not meeting next week right we are not meeting this week the marathon is over so yeah well we can't all meet can we for beer can't do that can we sorry never again as long as we don't talk about comprehensive so a few weeks ago we had people in who are interested in having this petition that they intended to have signed but we discussed the process with them and they have would appreciate us putting it on the warning for the discussion at the town meeting night rather than being on the Australian ballot and you saw in here they're the short number that they had on this one particular prediction I think I had 247 people sign on the roughly 450 or so that they needed but we knew that they were probably not going to get the number of signatures and had more or less on a straw vote agreed that we would put this on the warning so anything further Rick no I I think I mentioned in my report that I had prepared some draft language because this using this whole resolution in the warning for town meeting was a little cumbersome so I boiled it down to one sentence and I had reviewed it with people who proposed this petition and they came back with two sentences and then I had that legal counsel review it and legal counsel like my version better with one minor change and so I included that minor change and that's what you have in the draft warning and and I shared that information with the proposers and I didn't have any negative feedback from that questions for Rick or comments these kinds of resolutions to something to refresh my recollection what do we have a policy ordinance on what is and is not allowed for a resolution at town meeting you do not have an ordinance and we don't have a written policy you do have a little bit of a past practice Eric's done a fair amount of research on this so he can fill you in in the bath both past practice and what the requirements are as relates to this state statute specifies that the petition comes before the board certain instances where the number of 5% of registered voters signatures the board would need to have that on the warning this is something that doesn't fall under those circumstances so is that the discussion on the board to consider whether to put some warning or not if it did have the 5% of signatures so it's a case-by-case basis for some if it does get 5% of the signatures then we have no choice but to put it on it depends if it's dictated state statute as something else would be required to put on for example to adopt the town manager form of government okay but this is something town energy use not something a state statute requires that the board be compelled to put on the board at that point so it's at your discretion in the town and I we had done some research on past years where the board has included various articles well the one one I can think of is the actually this is a petition that did have sufficient signatures but the board wasn't required to put it on that was an advisory vote on the roundabout down the intersection down the street here there was more than the required signatures but it wasn't an issue the state law actually clearly put the select board in charge of that decision and the select board decided to allow that petition to be part of the actually it was an Australian ballot vote as I recall and there there have been other issues too citizens united was one so my my problem with this was it was so poorly articulated and I am afraid that if you allow this at town meeting it is going to be free for all that takes up a ginormous amount of time that nobody's going to structure I really wish that you had been here Ted because I would have appreciated your commentary but I just feel that while the discussion may be important which is what Teresa is bringing up I don't want to see a town meeting going for two days because they can't articulate the point and nobody's going to get it down they were very disorganized they couldn't even they they couldn't yeah they could not articulate what it was they wanted and I also had a problem with they didn't want to get the signatures because they didn't want to go get the signatures well we're all out there getting petition signatures at this point and nasty whether it's what you got to do I know it's not warranted for this but I think those two things kind of bothered me there's my two cents I am concerned that I have with these kinds of resolutions and advisory type things is that if we open the door and I want to be clear I actually I support what they're trying to say I agree with the environmental issue that they're talking about 100% I am passionate about it but I'm not inclined to put this on for town meeting because it's not directly related the roundabout was this isn't and we've had other examples in the state going back to the 80s with you know funding of the contras in Nicaragua with partial birth abortion gay marriage this kind of thing and one of the things that I've always enjoyed about the town of Williston is that with the town government it's nuts and bolts now there are you know it's about property taxes and plowing and you know keeping our tax rate low enough so the school can have some of the tax rate to have things like that I you know I would be you know my heart is inclined to put this on but I don't think that I'm comfortable doing that because you know the fact that I agree with this issue doesn't mean that it should be something that we should have municipal meeting taking a position on and that's that's this concern that I have is it because the year after this somebody comes can come in and say well you know I'm going to be a little fissious I suppose but you know well Exxon Mobil did a study and they said there's no such thing as global warming and I want that on the budget and I do have 5% you know okay where are we going to draw the line that's Mike for me right now is I'm very much in the same boat I support the concept of this but I absolutely get the is that our role is to put this on the warning you know particularly given when when if we say yes to this doesn't that mean down the road next year we would have to say yes to something that we disagree with if it was as for lack of better words you know by inoculus I mean not that this won't have impact I mean it's it's it's not doing anything negative well having a discussion about whether Exxon is right that they're fissiously Exxon is correct that there is no global warming is inoculus also but I wouldn't support that one and so that concept of playing God for lack of better words you know I'd look at it is that I have trouble with that. I have to agree with it take that I think we should be taking a narrow per view of what our job is supposed to be and not broadening it too far because of all the reasons everybody just brought up. So my question has is is probably for the attorneys and may probably for Rick and Eric from a town adopting this resolution has no binding effect right this is basically I look at this and and maybe I mean I certainly support the issue whether it's the biggest issue we have right now or not and that's very debatable it's probably not the biggest issue we immediately have but you know it's an issue that I personally would like to hear what the people who want to talk about it have to say and I look at the town meeting is one of these these institutions that allow residents to speak up or groups of residents to speak up and to me it it's a way to get an indication of how the town residents feel and what effect you know in the coming year how I would think about you know voting on various conservation actions so from that perspective again it's non-minding so they I feel like people should be allowed to have their say it seems like they put in a pretty good effort they didn't get all the votes they put in how many votes did they get 270 yeah in the minus something weather at the time that they were supposed to be picking them up so I feel for them a little bit they should have started earlier they were very disorganized but I still feel that's kind of the purpose for town meeting is is to you know maybe hear hear the residents again it's non-binding it's not like we're voting to tie our hands which would be a problem is there not a point in time during that meeting that there is a public comment somebody can bring something like that up versus us making this a part yeah there's a new business or something else so there is their opportunity to bring that up without us making that a part of the formal agenda well you're right and they did it before too didn't they they did it with the taxes for Donald Trump right that resolution they've actually forced a vote by overturning the what is it the moderator yes but there is a way that the moderator could say yes this is appropriate to bring forward or not as he did last year and their town has the right to overrule the moderator to bring it forward so yeah can I ask another question just on I understand Ted's concern and enjoys concern about them being disorganized and having this run on does the moderator have the ability to kind of bring in the topic rather than keeping it yes you know can he allocate a certain amount of time for it or can we as a group say we I guess I'm saying I would like to hear feedback but I don't want to hear two hours of it I think we should hear clear feedback get a sense from the town plus if we get a lot of people coming out you kind of know that it's a topic people want to talk about rather than if there's five people like the three or four we had here show up then we know it's a topic that maybe isn't on the forefront of the residents lines it just that's the moderator does control the meeting to some extent and hopefully the moderator would limit debate but I'm not sure that we can limit the amount of time that is devoted to it can somebody in the audience call the question absolutely sure if there's a motion made yes sure so the one thing I am struggling with I just want to express this is when we had the question back when the three of them came and presented this idea they asked if we would if they got the number of signatures whether we could put this on the ballot or not and I remember thinking yes even though we're not required that made total sense to me because they met this threshold and so what I'm struggling with right now is they didn't meet this threshold that five percent but they got a significant number of people I mean maybe even more that will be then at the meeting does that count for something I thought we also agreed at the time that we agreed that we would I did not agree to that no I mean I think we have a majority did a majority did three or more agreed that we would allow them on the ballot if they didn't even go out and get signatures so I'm struggling with they did I mean so the point I guess I'm making is five percent seem like a significant number that it would cause me to say yeah makes sense to do it I guess part of what I'm saying is they got a significant number it may not be five percent but still a significant number ought not we take that into consideration and I'm asking that as a question you can hear that I'm I'm you know waffling I and I don't I wish I had a clear sense and I don't so I'm looking for any thoughts on this I think it's I think it's a big enough issue that in it affects are the way we spend money you know in terms of changing the way the town expense dollars I want to know what the residents think I mean I I feel like we're just represent representatives of the residents right we're supposed to be so in each in there's so few people who show up for this meeting good or bad that I mean the stock board meeting on this no this meeting I mean on a weekly I mean look for the budget we just approved the budget and I don't think we had any audience when we finalize the budget so so I'm looking for I guess you know in this forum the town meeting direction from tell me what you want so that's why I'd like to see or hear topics and the fact that somebody came in and wanted to do it and collect the signatures to me says gosh it's the only one of the one is it and would you I'm just going to explore a little bit would you feel the same way if you didn't agree with the petition that was being asked to put on the the warning I think we have some responsibility not to do silly or trivial things right I think that's part of the yeah our role I don't feel it it affects the way we spend money so it affects the way the residents feel so I think it's a valid topic if it was silly or trivial I'd say you know should Donald duck whatever be president right yeah or should we require Donald to provide whatever whatever those things are but things we have a legitimate issue but you disagreed with it you would still feel the same I want to hear you know I I I've offered to go to meetings where I'm not in agreement with the people because I want to hear what the town people say right even if they're not of the same yeah you know background or philosophy exactly so I have offered to do that so I'm a happy participant because I want to hear you know what people have to say and I think I can learn you know from anybody so and I would support putting this on the the warning for Tommy night I think we gave the indication to the individuals who are here that we would do so I think it's worth discussing in a limited amount the town does have a comprehensive energy plan and this while Lista talks about the state plan I think it's worth talking about as I said it's not a bonding resolution but it's I believe it's worth talking about so with that if there's perhaps we could have a motion a positive motion and we can see where it goes I move to include the an article for discussion and vote at the annual town meeting in support of the state implementing their comprehensive energy plan and in addition encouraging the town to continue efforts to implement energy efficiency measures and preserve town lands is there a second I'll second answer discussion then on the motion if not I'm going to vote against it but I'm very much in favor of what the resolution would the tenor of the resolution is it's the it's the procedure that I'm voting against voting against so there's no further discussion all those in favor of the motion say aye aye those opposed nay nay so the motion passes three to two then we can move on to the solar panels purchase Jennifer and perhaps Jeff forward perhaps are going to talk about this sure please good evening again it's good to see you once again it's a very progressive town thanks Richmond does too so I assume that the select board got a copy of my memo did they get a copy of my memo I was charged with doing was was to evaluate it and and see in the original contract so I guess you know what I came up with was it it appears to be reasonable to me and I'd be happy to answer any questions you had as to how I came about to that conclusion based on my memo questions could you just kind of do a high-level overview of the way you did that sure so what what I evaluated was what the production has been over the last four years actually after I wrote the memo I was able to get five years worth of data which only changes the outcome slightly and then I projected out what the revenue stream would be for for the project I also and I included in that that projection I included operation and maintenance costs planned replacements of like the inverters and inflation for both general inflation and for electric rates I I also researched what it would cost to install a system such as this now under today's today's costs and approximated what I felt was probably the install costs back at the time that you did this solar that the cost of solar panels have gone down quite a bit since since you installed this it just went back up again yesterday because of the governments trade policies but what I have my own solar project on my own farm and I've tried to develop similar projects to this and what I felt was a fair arrangement for any project that I developed would be to at the time of transition is to offer the the cost of the the installation at about 50% the the tax credits and the depreciation reduces the install costs by about 50% there's a 30% federal tax credit that I'm sure this project you know used and when you depreciate the equipment off your your income tax it results it depends on how much what how much you pay an income tax and what your tax rate is but I estimate it's probably around 20% so the the to me a fair price is about half the cost of what it costs you to install it you know that kind of the net cost of what it costs the developer to install it all these numbers line up about the same that the for the amount that they were suggesting in their contract roughly as best I could determine about half the cost what the install cost was at the time and the the revenue from the project over its life looks like it's a pretty good rate of return I think Jennifer estimated around 10% per year I think that's about right and that seems like a reasonable deal the the life of the panels the panels have a typically have a 25 year warranty which manufacturer warranty which if the manufacturer is willing to warranty it for 25 years it'll probably last a good deal longer the inverters have a life of warranty of about 10 years I think common practice at least certainly the way that I've done my analysis is to expect replacement around year 15 you know some some will last longer some will last shorter but I think an average of 15 seems reasonable and so I projected that out in in in my analysis as well I inflated all of those costs annually by two and a half percent to give a relative dollar amount I didn't use a discount rate for municipalities it seems to me that the discount rate is about the same cost as as as what your cost of borrowing money would be and it kind of washes it's it kind of you know works one way or the other to kind of net it out and so these dollars are in in today's dollars over the life of the project just really simply I mean that was probably more than that's more than you wanted I'm sorry more than I wanted to hear in what's the net effect on the taxpayers of the town so we pay for energy to run things this removes some of that cost and you know into that you have to factor the maintenance as you said replacement of parts and pieces and have we verified that the warranties do exist on the panels and the inverters that they are 25 years and 10 years I talked to all earth renewables who supply the equipment and and that's what they told me yes okay okay so what is the net effect on the citizens you know what's the do we spend less every year as a result of this throughout the life and throughout the I should say throughout the time that we'd be paying for the panels let me answer that and then I'll let Jennifer speak right now what you have the deal that you have right now with Green Lantern is the company that you have your contract with is for every kilowatt hour that's produced by the system it's applied against your electric bill and then you pay them 95% of the value of that so there's a 5% discount on the electricity that's produced so that's your your gain right now if you were to buy the system for $345,000 you would get 100% of that could be applied against your bill not that percentage so so you get the benefit of that and that's what this the the revenue stream in my spreadsheet is about it's the revenue from the electricity production what is that revenue just it's actually offsetting your electric bill so it reduces your cost I don't know I understand but what is the what's the five-year average it was it was about $32,000 plus there is Green Mountain Power the state really has a a program that provides an adder for solar electricity you get a four cent adder to for every kilowatt hour that's produced so and that for the for the next four years it only lasts for 10 years for the next four years that's another $9,000 so your the revenues is a little over $40,000 for the first four years that's the right sticks on my head from so that it's actually it isn't revenue it's reducing your electric bill by about that much what are we spending what would we be spending per year to purchase these or do we purchase them just outright right and so that's what I looked at and I said if we're going to do this solar purchase we should look at it as we look at any capital project so first of all what is the purpose of this and does this meet with the town plan so I looked at the town plan we do actually have something in our town plan that says the town when the opportunity arises should be a leader and solar in energy savings projects so that was the first thing I looked at the second thing is how would we fund this so one of our recommendations for funding is to have this come out of the fund balance so money that is currently in our fund balance so we wouldn't have to take on additional debt for this what we're asking for is for $200,000 to come from the general fund balance $125,000 to come from the public works building so that's money that we've already taken on in debt and we're paying interest on that anyways and then $20,691 from operational savings the first year is how we would expect to pay for that and so just the simple payback of this project has changed a little bit based on the numbers that Jeff gave us earlier today but it's about 11 years for simple to payback that $345 to get that back into our fund balance $26,91 is that because it's just a half year? yes, exactly, yep because we're assuming that we have to make this purchase by December 31st of 2018 that's what I was putting in there and so really these are funds that we have in our fund balance right now and we can get a 10% return on that for the first 20 years of the project saying at the end of this the asset is still worth? so after 20 years the net value it's changed a little bit from the memo that I created about $341,000 so the first 11 years to pay back our fund balance so it's not debt that we'd be paying back, it's paying back our fund balance and then after that it's just operational savings for the time theoretically the panels would last? theoretically and it certainly would have some salvage value at that time anyways I mean there's aluminum in it and there are other parts that might have value it would seem to me that even used panels would have some value but I know what I'm going to do with mine is I'll keep running it for as long as I can a lot of the cost of these projects is the permitting putting the electric service to it the labor of installing it replacing panels or replacing inverters is relatively simple presumably it could go on indefinitely further questions? first of all hey Jeff my question I guess really focused more on Jennifer's memo and I think the first question I had I wanted to make sure but you answered already this would be purchased during fiscal year 19 and specifically by December 31st yes so this is the decision we pretty much have to make tonight we have to make the decision whether or not to put it on the morning because I believe the decision has already been made that we would put this as part of the Australian ballot if the select board wanted to that they wouldn't include it it's not included in our budget right now so my biggest question is is the 10% return approximately 11 year payback again sorry I'm an engineer I'm not a financial person for municipality how should I look at those numbers are those good numbers is that a reasonable payback is that something I should I'm looking for advice to how to evaluate those two numbers so right now that $325,000 that we have sitting in the bank in our fund balance is gaining about 1% so instead we would be investing in the solar panel project and instead of paying Green Lantern solar for the rental of those each month we would actually be receiving the full utility credits so I could repeat what I heard back I'm going to be a little bit facetious but what I heard is you basically saying what idiot would I didn't hear you say that I didn't hear you say that I said I was being facetious would look at a return a return of 1% compared to a return of 10% if we had other things that we were going to be using our fund balance for that's something you would want to wait okay I didn't mean to put words in your mouth that way just put add some dramatic or emphasis yes one of the things that's different about a municipality than say a private business is that you really don't it's one of the reasons I don't do a discount rate is that you don't have an opportunity to invest in Bitcoin or the stock market to be facetious but you don't have the opportunity to invest in adventures like that you can't invest public funds in investment vehicles this one you're allowed to do it's a capital investment that has a return there's so many expenses that a municipality or school district have that have no return but you still have to do them like parking lots and bruise and all kinds of stuff this one energy projects are unique in that energy efficiency and renewable energy projects whether they be solar or biomass or efficiency they have a return they return on different line items in your budget so the money goes out one place and it offsets a cost in another place but the bottom line is you're getting something for the money that you put in and it's a rare opportunity that a municipality or house had opportunity are there comments or questions from the board if the question I guess I have and why is it is this typical that these companies that install these want to sell them off after a certain amount of time and why if it's a money generator for them because why isn't it still a good investment for that I forget the name of the company so typically the way the incentive is counterintuitive the incentives for particularly solar projects are tax incentives right their tax credits and their depreciation the tax the tax credits can be you can use them immediately if you have that tax appetite the depreciation is actually accelerated depreciation under a federal at least the former federal tax law and you're able to accelerate it over five years once the the tax is fully monetized it's not unusual for the developer to try to flip it and to try to get the capital back and do it again you know there'll be an interesting market you know one thing that would be an interesting thing to do is is to have a secondary market of buying these projects after the first tax is monetized because you can read depreciate it but you know the tax incentives are irrelevant for a municipality as far as your contract the way that I read your contract and I'm not a lawyer and I'm not an accountant so I do want to stress that but the way I read your contract is that you have an either or choice either you continue with the contract or you negotiate at the time of buyout in years six ten and fifteen so this is where you have a point in opportunity and the way I read the contract is that you have to have it voted on and I think that the date is actually six years from the inception date which is September 28th I believe so it's probably before the end of the year I think this is probably your opportunity to put in front of the voters we structured the contract we structured it knowing that we'd probably have to have a vote so we had to have the appraisal done in December so we could vote on it in March and it was specifically set up that way to give us the opportunity to have a discussion and vote I have to think about the investment in the return because it's not quite the same kind of investment or return I would expect from an investment vehicle but it's investing in solar so renewable energy and if it's actually still valuable at the end of the time that we're finished paying for it that's when we really get big payback so plus I like the idea of putting it in front of the voters so that we get an idea of what the voters think about investing in renewable energy like the last topic we talked about Jeff you mentioned a critical word for me is to negotiate the price and I guess that what does that mean or let me ask maybe differently I should ask a question has that price already been negotiated it's not up to me to negotiate it where I came down on this it seemed to me that this was about right they actually did a very similar analysis to what I did and I came down with a slightly lower number it's 338,000 I think it was in there was it in the contract or I think it was in the contract that they came up with a number of 338,000 I think it was an addendum on the contract and then the contract calls for an independent appraisal so they hired an appraiser these are difficult to appraise because there aren't comps there's no comparables to this this is relatively new territory you guys were early adopters so there are few out there and they're not necessarily public record of how much they get sold for so the appraiser tried to apply common appraisal methodologies to come up with a price tried three different ways two of them he couldn't determine and the third way was a complicated discount value they came out with a slightly different number of 345,000 to me it's about the same it's not a huge difference and I think it's debatable what seemed most important would be to make a decision now rather than try to then miss the opportunity to put in front of the voters I don't think you'd get a whole lot different answer you may be able to knock a few thousand dollars off but I doubt it or just that we want to do it we have to decide on the amount that we're going to ask the taxpayers for so from a negotiation perspective we play our we basically the contract said that the price would be determined by an appraisal I think Rick is right that I use a term negotiation and everything is negotiable both in theory but I'm not a lawyer and this contract is fairly specific the two numbers that have been thrown out is I think 338 is in the appendices of the original contract and 345 is what the appraisal came up with and the contract says either this number or that number whichever is higher I remember distinctly that language when you negotiated because I said but it was in discussions with the legal counsel and other people in the business Jeff was involved in at that point they said this is very common language the other point of reference that you might have is you just did the a very similar contract with PAC Electric for your public works that's when I was here last and this is essentially the same deal it was at that time I think we negotiated the buyout price in year 6 or 7 I can't remember what at about 50% of the install cost so the numbers all seem to line up fairly similarly the only difference in that contract is that there is either or whichever is higher there's a specific number in that contract our option would be if Jeff did his analysis and said actually that system is worth about 200,000 you'd be overpaying for this then we'd be recommending to the select board that we just stay in our current agreement and not buy an asset for more than it's worth and then if our next opportunity to purchase this would be at year 10 and that is after the solar adder which Jeff shared that it's about $9,000 a year that we get for the next four years which helps where I get stuck is this term fair market value fair market value what is fair market value is what a willing buyer is willing to pay a willing seller and the IRS is fairly specific about this is that you cannot sell it for less than fair market value I haven't quite figured out the rationale for that at the time all of the contracts were written the same way this this number or fair market value whichever is higher which is really counterintuitive but you know it's tax dollars so that's they won't let you sell it for a dollar because the IRS frankly what the sales price is but this seems to me reasonably reasonable you know it's not it's not out of the realm to be reasonable to me Jennifer's exactly right if I come up with a number much lower than this I would have told you if you came up with a lower number it would be based on having a lower revenue stream yes exactly so your value is based on the revenue stream which gets us a kind of a return value if you will assuming you have the money at the end I guess well that's the good news about solar solar is eminently predictable if the sun doesn't shine we got a lot of problems other questions or comments from the board just to explore this issue hopefully just a short bit more is the 345 691 fair market value we should be we're fairly confident that will be the selling price well that's definitely the selling price that was the price that's what they're offering right now that's what they're offering that is okay alright so there is a commitment from them to sell it at that price what I was getting at is this is all about risk how much risk are we taking if we move ahead with the numbers that presented us only to have green lantern capital please excuse my language it's late I can't come up with something quicker but in fact this way our lawyers are saying we can interpret it this way in the real amount is 500,000 there's very little risk of that type of a scenario because they've already agreed to this price they understand that this is something that has to go in front of the voters and the voters will approve what we can purchase it for I just want to make sure they understand this is what they're selling it for and I'm hearing yes it is then I think I'm good to weigh in on this share entertain a motion I've moved to place an article on the town meeting warning for a vote by Australian ballot for the purchase of solar panels presently located on the town owned property located behind the town there's no discussion no all those in favour of the motion say aye aye any opposed very good we'll move on to the regional dispatch resolution I actually don't have a whole lot more to add to what we've talked about in other meetings if you'll recall we've had several PowerPoint presentations a number of discussions about the documents that if the vote is held in town and it's favourable that the town will be signing the first is an agreement to create a regional authority that agreement does not include a requirement that town actually receive and pay for the services it just gives us a seat at the table the second agreement is a memorandum understanding and that is a select board decision that would come after and assuming there is a favourable vote and forming the authority how many years do we have you know I don't recall the you only get a certain number of years at the table correct I think it's is it three years yeah I think three but I it's something like that in my last memo to the select board though I looked at the various scenarios and in my estimation we don't have a whole lot of information about the authority we already part of our dispatch right now is handled by police and we can continue that if we join this authority part of our another part of our police dispatching is actually done by the state police that's a separate issue and the state police at different points have said they may want to shed that so they're still offering that service and that wouldn't be changed this necessarily then the third piece is our fire and ambulance which is currently dispatched by the town of Shelburne so one scenario is the town of Shelburne decides not to join the authority so then we have a choice do we have it continue to be dispatched by the town of Shelburne let's say the town of Shelburne does decide to join the authority and they vote that way then we will be moving with them but presumably we be paying less if we're a member than if we're a non-member because I'm expecting the fee schedules haven't been set but I'm expecting that the services will be offered to municipalities that are not part of the budget but we would still likely pay more because we would be adding would we be adding the police on top of that or could we split our services we could split and I asked this question of the and of course they didn't really have the authority to respond but the question I posed was well do we retain our full membership in fire and ambulance dispatched and you know there wasn't a clear answer but I think they would prefer to have Williston part of this even if it's just ambulance and fire and not part of it and so that's as close an answer as I can get to that issue at this point so my expectation although again I do expect that once we switch over the fire and ambulance dispatch will not cost any more than it currently costs I do expect though that if we move police into that it will cost more understanding that we'll have savings because we'll have less staff but we won't necessarily have 100% less staff because some of our dispatchers or some of the dispatch work they do records that's a different pay grade of work so but there's still that work that has to get done and we'd have to pay someone to do it we don't pay the state police and that's correct that's the biggest piece of this we don't currently pay the state police for that service and that's a significant chunk of the total time that our police are actually dispatched so then of course there's also the risk that at some point the state may pull the plug on providing that service and you know we'll be in a position to easily move police into this organization so for all those reasons I think it makes sense for the town to at least take this first step in agreeing to form the regional authority questions or comments to this the resolution including the rather extensive list of where as is I know I objected to that but this exact resolution has been adopted by every single town and also the wording that's being proposed for the town meeting warning is also the exact same wording being adopted by every single town which every motion is in order I move to adopt the resolution for the formation of a union municipal district and to place an article on the warning for town meeting for a vote by Australian ballot that if approved permits the town to enter into an agreement for the formation of a union municipal district for the purpose of providing regional emergency dispatch services. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. I opposed. Good. Move on to the motion along for signatures. Move on to the town meeting warning. Oh you know what I'm going to send another copy around to this. Copy of that or is it was it soft copy? No. It's not soft copy. It's about most of through various motions the board has taken the warning. There's one issue that I highlighted in my manager's report that that board is actually already voted on. This is in January 2017 but there's been a lot of discussion and so I wanted to take a look at this. The board voted in January 2017 January 24th 2017 to be exact to put to a town vote by Australian ballot March 2018 the proposal withdraw as a member of the Park District. If the district does not take affirmative action to change the member funding allocation formula. The board has had a number of meetings over the course of the year including some fair amount of discussion on this topic but they have not taken any action to change the formula and for that reason well the issue is still in front of us and I know that they have worked to try to address some of the other concerns we've had including that were initially raised by the conservation commission and the district has made some progress in those areas and with the acquisition of the property that we just recently acquired the district is hoping to be able to take that property and develop it and create access to it and manage that property for the town and so there would certainly be value however in my mind even if we have that property being managed by the district we're still overpaying our share. The amount that we pay is based on a formula that was developed long ago 1987 when the town initially voted to join the authority and it's 50% based on population and 50% based on grand list and the rationale at the time is that grand list is an approximation of ability to pay the problem with that is that the money that was the value of our grand list largely helped pay for education the state changed the rules basically when they took over education funding and so that value that the town had was taken away from us so that money that we had that was value that put us in a position of being richer than the other communities it's already been taken away and redistributed already that money is already going to places like In fact if you look at their school tax rates and so for all those reasons and the board's already voted this I would say recommended that the board take no further action and include this on the warning for town meeting and it would have to be by Australian ballot if we chose not to put this on the ballot we would need to have a motion to rescind our action that we had a year ago and but before we do anything on that score we'll ask the conservation commission to weigh in on their recommendation and the letter that we had from Melinda Scott thank you just like that for yourself my name is Carl Runch I'm a member of the conservation commission and we are here to address article number three issues out the conservation commission through Melinda Scott has sent Rick a memo that provides our strong endorsement of continuing membership in the Winoosa valley park district we do not want to see Williston withdraw from the park district and we're here to kind of just read my own statement about this if you will indulge me I've been a member of the conservation commission for the past 28 years and have been during which time we have worked with the Winoosa valley park district most of that time the relationship between the town and the park district has had its ups and downs over the years but in the past several years since Nick Warner has been the director the relationship has greatly improved the main sticking point in addition to the formula and Rick's perceived inequity in that regard and I'm not going to really address that but the main sticking point is that the park district has had no parks in Williston through most of the time thus our membership has primarily supported its mission of acquiring and managing public parks in other towns and the reason for this has to do with Williston's environmental reserve fund which was as a farsighted and generous town program that started in 1989 to acquire and manage parks and conservation properties in Williston since 1989 the town has allocated $1.9 million to the ERF this money has purchased by PDR or fee simple 1830 acres over the years for $1.795 million this land has been valued at 3.57 million indicating that the town has leveraged as much as it's spent to acquire the land the problem currently and probably the main reason that we want to continue is that the town's purchase of the catamount property is going to deplete the ERF furthermore the labor resources of the town provided by the planning office and our summer interns are at their limit for managing the land that we already have pretty well tapped out in terms of what we can and what we can manage at this point so the time is really right for the Wenuski Valley Park to step into both acquire and manage new properties and we have a current golden opportunity for this was Rick explained with the Jacobs property on the Wenuski Riverfront I don't think we're at the point where we were fortunate to acquire that property without cost but I don't think we have the money or the labor to manage that property and develop that property so we strongly recommend to the district and our opinion to discontinue now would be penny wise and pound foolish and as an aside I just want to comment on what to do about that if you were to agree with this viewpoint what to do with Article 7 could you I mean as Rick pointed out this was passed that the reason it's there is because it was passed could you rescind that or if you decided you couldn't rescind it could you put that article in a more positive light in other words put it that despite the fact that the funding formula hasn't changed that the town that the vote would be that the town continues as a member of the Wenuski Valley Park District and we say this because okay they didn't change and frankly I don't know how they could have without changing it for every other town but they did step up to take on the acquisition and management of New Parks and Wilson which is what we wanted all along so we're kind of at the we're on the verge of getting what we've always wanted from the Wenuski Valley Park District and I think it would be a shame to stop our membership in it at this point yeah I'm Eric Howe also a member of the town conservation commission and so I'm speaking on also on behalf of the conservation commission and my informed viewpoint says the resident of the town tonight you know a lot of what I'm going to say I'm going to echo what Carl said but I just wanted to also provide a little bit more historical context not quite as far back as Carl goes I've been on the commission for nine years maybe but I'm going to go back to 2013 and I believe Terry and Jeff were on the select board so we have some new folks now so in 2013 Harry and I were here in front of this group almost the same time of year talking about the conservation commission's viewpoints on the Wenuski Valley Park District and I know that because I looked through the minutes before I came here and we talked with the group about how the conservation commission should not or did not support continued membership with the park district for the reasons some of the reasons that Carl outlined they did not have in my opinion they did not have a very strong leadership at that point they were they did not have lands within the town that they were managing the conservation commission that was $10,000 on the order of $60,000 to $65,000 and there was also proposed cuts to other elements of the conservation commission budget like trails and management and other parts so in our viewpoint at that point that's why we were recommending that the town considered $30,000 or less the same message encourage you to consider it again that was when you discovered that it had to go to the town by Australian ballot no action as far as I know there was a conversation about that in 2014 would never really went anywhere in 2014 later in 2014 they had turnover Nick Warner came in he's been there for four years now and what I consider and Carl also said it's very strong leadership in that district and that program and he has worked with us rather than working against us he's worked with us to find ways to find common ground for the town and the park district within our goals for managing town parks and we are now we reversed our opinion we think as Carl said that the town should continue its support for the Wunewski Valley Park District and we feel that that is a good use of town funds now again under strong leadership he has a strong vision he's finding ways to augment their budget that they receive he's finding ways to augment their funding with on top of the membership dues that receive from their towns Carl mentioned the Jacobs parcel you guys are familiar with that I presume that opportunity that we have here and as Carl mentioned the town is essentially at capacity for managing the town parcels that we have now the town parks and trail network and that's why it's I think it's more important now than ever that we actually maintain the Wunewski Valley Park District rather than opt out of it because they have those resources that they can bring to the table and develop this new parcel give the folks who live on that part of 2A the northern part of 2A access to a new park and the river and enjoy that resource that's right in their backyard that they really can't do right now without trespassing in private land yeah I guess that's about all that's all I had to say I just encourage you also like what Carl was saying I encourage you to look at the wording that you're using