 trustees present. So I will go ahead and call the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees for Tuesday, November 24th to order. And do we have any agenda additions or changes tonight? Trustees, any additions or changes? Then no need to approve the agenda, which will move us on to public to be heard. This is a portion of tonight's meeting where if somebody wished to speak to the board about or the board about something that is not on the agenda, now is the time to do so. And the way this will work is I will take a brief pause to allow people to catch up, as there can be a delay for those who are using the phone. If you are using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature that you would like to speak. And that will help to notify me that you would like to speak. If you are calling in, I ask you just to hang on a few moments so we can get through to those who are here using Teams. And I see that Russell Mills, you have your hand up. If you'd like to unmute yourself and go ahead and go ahead and speak. Can you hear me? I'm not sure whether I'm muted. We can hear you, yes. Thank you. My name is Russell Mills, and thank you for letting me speak this evening. It's difficult for me to speak about the subject that I'm about to bring up, because it may cause me to be attacked or harassed, but this is a serious concern for me and several of me to bring. Russell, I don't want to interrupt you, but I'm having a very hard time hearing you. It sounds like your phone may be cutting in and out a little bit. I'm not sure if you're calling on a cell phone. No, I'm speaking into the microphone of a laptop computer through the internet, perhaps I have a bad connection. The last sentence came through very well, so whatever you were just doing, maybe just if you change your position, stay like that. All right, I'll try this. It's difficult for me to speak about the subject I'm about to bring up because it may cause me to be attacked or harassed, but this is a serious concern for me and for several of my neighbors. For the past few years, the neighbors and I have been trying to communicate with the most authorities about violations of those ordinances by a person living in our neighborhood. In the past, we did receive some communications regarding steps that were supposedly being taken. For example, we were told in early March that the matter had been referred to the village attorney and was going through the court. More than eight months later, on November 12th, one of my neighbors inquired whether there were any developments related to this situation. He has received no response. Independently, I had written to a village trustee on October 14th asking about several continuing violations of those ordinances. I did receive a reply on October 30th saying that this was going to be brought up with staff, but since then, I've heard nothing. I can understand that the village staff and trustees are tired of hearing about this situation. Believe me, I'm much more tired of this than they are. I have to live with this intolerable situation every day. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that individual residents should be able to tell the village staff and the police department how they should respond to particular situations. And if there are confidential legal proceedings underway, I'm not suggesting that the details of those proceedings should be shared. But at a minimum, it seems to me that village officials should at least respond to end theories even if all they're going to say is that they can't provide any further information. The Essex police have responded to my concerns by telling me in one certain terms that they refused to protect me from harassment by this make. While I'm not entirely happy with this response, at least it is a response. If the village authority is important to do nothing about this situation, at least they should tell us, rather than ignoring our attempts at communication. In a more fundamental sense, I also wonder why we have large ordinances if there are no mechanisms for enforcement besides voluntary compliance. As it stands, it appears that the ordinances are advisory only and that those who refuse to follow them can do so with impunity. Andrew, I certainly can address this very quickly since I was on the phone today with the village's attorney about this matter. Please go ahead. Mr. Wills, this is Evan Teach. I'm very sorry I have not gotten back to you yet. But I'll give you a quick update, which was going to be part of an email. I know that the village has attempted to serve the tenant of that structure with a notice of violation, which is a legal document for him to address in court. I know that the owner of the property has been served with a notice of violation and is awaiting a court date. I am also told, as of today, the tenant has been served with an eviction notice from the owner. However, the court is not open right now for evictions. So that is not moving forward until the time the court opens. As for your comment about the police, they do care about your situation. When there's a violation of the law, they have stated they need to be called and they will come if there's a violation of the law and something that they can do with. And so the village has and is working on what we call a notice of violation, not only to the tenant but the current owner of the property. And we are at a standstill because the court is not open for these cases. So that's the only update I have for you at the moment. It is not for a lack of attention. And your comment about whether our ordinances are, I've already missed the word, we do rely on the courts to adjudicate violations. We do not have the authority to compel people to do the things that they're in violation of. That's the court's responsibility. And we can only serve notice that there's a violation and then work through the court to get that remediation done. And sometimes the court sees it our way and sometimes they don't, but either way, it generally takes a long time to get there. And that's where we are with this particular instance. That's all I have to say for the board and for Mr. Mills at this time. And Mr. Mills, I'll be happy to talk to you offline. And I'll send you an email tomorrow to start that conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Evan. George, I see your hand is up. Is it in response to what was just being discussed? Yeah, I don't have a response, but I think it might, maybe just for me, but maybe for the other board members, it might be good if I could request that, Evan, if you could just, when you get a chance, write a summary of what, sort of write a summary of what this is about and make it available to the other trustees. I'm aware of it, but I can't say that I'm completely up to date on it. So it sounds like, so that would be, I think it would be good. And I would like to just get some more information when you get a chance. Thank you. I'll do. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, George. And Betsy Dunn, I see your hand is up. You can go ahead and unmute yourself. Betsy, you can go ahead and unmute yourself if you'd like to speak to the board. Betsy Dunn, if you can hear this, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. I'll give you a few more moments and then otherwise we'll move on to other individuals. Okay. Well, Betsy's trying to figure that portion out. Is there any other members of the public who wish to speak to the board about something that is not on the agenda? If so, now is the time to do so. And I'll take a brief pause to allow for individuals to recognize themselves that they'd like to speak. All right. Nobody else has identified that they would like to speak. Betsy, I'll give you another try here. If you can go ahead and unmute yourself, go ahead and speak to the board. Otherwise, we're going to move on to our business item. Okay. We are going to go ahead and move on to business item 5A and update on the fire from Denzemore Drive. And I believe we have our fire chief, Chris Gaborio here with us tonight. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you. Yeah. Chief, this is Evan. Obviously, we don't have that many active fires like the one you guys encountered the other night. So I was hoping you can maybe go through your synopsis and maybe give us a little update on the incident. Sure. Basically, we were dispatched about four o'clock in the morning to a fully involved car fire on seven Denzemore Drive. So again, that dispatch and you could tell by the tone of the voice of the dispatcher that we actually had a live fire, but it was dispatched as a fully involved car fire, which again sets us up as nothing we haven't seen before. So when I left the house going down Main Street, looked over at Denzemore, could definitely see the glow from the fire, but then arrived on scene to find, you know, and as I was arriving on the scene, dispatch was just coming back on the radio to advise us that we had two cars that were fully involved. And when I pulled on scene, it was more like 11 cars that were fully involved. So there was a significant amount of fire. Basically, what had happened is one car had caught fire and all the smoke that collects at the very top of that carport, and then there was enough heat build up so that that whole carport basically went up at one time. Some of the timelines that we received from residents said that they saw a fully involved car 402 and by 404 in the morning that the whole carport was engulfed. We arrived on scene about nine minutes after dispatch. And the first truck on scene, again we had five individuals, operator, four firefighters, and they did a phenomenal job at basically pulling every attack line off that engine. And we were pumping water pretty close to the truck's capacity. We figured we're moving with all lines out. We're moving about 1400 gallons of water a minute. Lucky for us, we had a hydrant right there at the end of the carport. Essex Fire was dispatched with us automatically. Again, a big time saver because Essex Fire was on the road as fast as we were. So our first engine took the, I gotta think about it, the west side of the fire and we assigned Essex Fire to the east side of the fire. The wind was coming in kind of an easterly, westerly direction. So it was the units that were on the west side that were, all the units were compromised by the heat, but the units on our side were definitely, you could see the steam coming off the building. The roofs were steaming. So we were very close to losing the structure on the east side, same on the south side. But again, we pulled lines quickly. We had a great water supply. They went right to attacking the fire and prevented the fires from spreading to the adjacent buildings. So unfortunately, the carport, all the cars that were in the carport were lost with the exception of those probably people were moving their cars out onto the street. I don't know. I'm guessing six, seven, eight cars that might have been on the street when we pulled up. But that was all that was, that was all that could move. So basically all the cars in the carport were a complete loss and all of the vehicles that were parked in, in the parking spaces in front of the units were all damaged by heat. So it was a significant, you know, I'm estimating probably about a million dollar loss there. And it easily, very easily could have been multiple buildings that caught fire. We, as we did cool the buildings and they did spray the buildings to cool them down. Some of the windows had cracked. If you were to go by that location today, you'll see that the windows have been boarded up. Some of them had cracked from the heat. So we were extremely lucky. They worked very, very efficiently. And we had some great results. Chief Caborio, I really appreciate you being here and also writing up this, this memo for us to help explain it. I know living where, where we do, as my wife is up that early, she had been able to see that, that fire glow from our back deck and from our bedroom window. And after things had settled down and walking by for the first time, it honestly looks like something that I would have seen from a, from Middle Eastern war picture with the, the carport structure with the, the cars themselves being down to the burnt metal frames. And even some of the fronts of the vehicles that are parked in their parking lots, how some of the vehicle grills had melted and lights kind of looked like, had been described by some people as candy that was melting just from the, from the heat. Really appreciate you all, your members, your, your fortitude and your, your desire, your passion for, for this work where you really helped to make sure that the buildings themselves, the residential units themselves were completely spared from any, any significant damage beyond the windows as you had mentioned in some of the, the shutters that I see or have melted off. You really have made it. So as far as I know, no residents have been displaced, which I think that in and of itself is a significant feat considering just how big of a fire that ended up being for anybody who hasn't seen it. I know there are pictures on, on the Essex Facebook group that has some firefighters have taken as well as some residents had taken to try to see the scale of this. And I, I also understand that some of your firefighters had some secondary burns as well. Yes. Do you, do you mind describing that a little bit? I mean the first engine that pulled up in park, you know, and probably that, that was the worst thing we did was park that, that first vehicle as close as it was. So as, as firefighters were exiting the vehicle, you were faced with immediate heat. The driver was faced with heat on that side of the vehicle and the firefighters were faced with heat as they were stretching out those, those first lines before the water started flowing. So everybody, everybody's face was kind of a first degree burn just from, just from the, from the fire itself. And a couple of individuals had them on the, on their hands because they just didn't, didn't have their gloves on immediately. And, but we had really one individual with significant second degree burns that was treated unseen. But everything turned out to be, everything turned out to be okay. I do hope that, that member is able to continue to be, to serve the community in their capacity and then whatever they do in their, the rest of their life. I hope that hasn't had any impact on them in that capacity. No, I think they were pretty much superficial. He's, he's doing well. I went, I went into the station on Sunday and I walked in the door and I could hear a hair dryer. He was actually drying his boots. So he borrowed his wife's hair dryer and he was, he was in the station drying his boots, which I thought was kind of funny, but yeah, well, it worked out really well. And within the memo, the portion that's up right now, how I talked about the last fire, this intensity was about 10 or so years ago for many members of our community. They, they hadn't lived in the community at that point in time and may not quite be able to, to recognize that. And for many members of our community, they never have experienced a fire of a significance, let alone our, our firefighter members. So again, I really do appreciate the efforts from all of you to make sure that this didn't turn into a horrific incident while it is a horrific incident in many ways. It didn't turn into a loss of life. Didn't turn into a loss of residence. So it could have certainly been much, much worse. Greatly thankful for, for your efforts. Not a problem. Thank you for having us. Again, you know, the, the group really, really works hard. They train hard and the results that, that we achieved were just that. It's great training. We had a good turnout, quick response. Again, everything, you know, mutual aid right away. We didn't have to request that. That could have easily been missed. If it was just a car fire, I would not have thought twice about having mutual aid. That's certainly something we could easily handle with, with one engine company. But to have them dispatched, we certainly didn't cancel them and put everybody to work and everybody, you know, again, got the job done and, and we had some really great results. And while certainly appreciating the Essex Fire Department, certainly can't forget, as you're saying, the Essex Fire Department. And additionally, I understand Colchester helped to, to staff the station in case there was any other. Yeah, with both departments pretty much committed to the fire, we brought in Colchester to, you know, have an engine in our station to basically take care of Essex if, if another call happened to come in. Really do appreciate that, the power of, of mutual aid. Well, that's enough of my voice for now. I see Amber, your hand goes up first and then Evan. Chief, that was a tremendous job. And thank you to you and the rest of the members. I'm glad to hear that everybody is safe. I think in your memo, you had wrote something about there might been some damage to some of the trucks. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah. So our first engine actually pulled into the driveway. They actually made the turn. So there was, there was enough heat on that end of that side of the vehicle. And before we could get water flowing, that we actually melted some of the lenses on some of the lights, you know, we have red lights on the side of the front bumper, the bar light at the top. We have about four lenses that, that suffered a little bit of damage. So, you know, we're in the process of talking to the manufacturer and getting those lenses replaced. But all in all, at the end of the day, when they turned in, it was like we just did, we didn't have any time to be able to, to try and remove that truck. We just needed to pull hose and get water flowing immediately. So, you know, I'll take that. I'll take some, some lenses that we have to replace in lieu of losing that building. Again, thanks. Appreciate it. The pictures were out of this world. It's out of this world. It's somebody who actually lived on in the units next door when I was growing up. It's, it's amazing. It really is. Thanks again. You're welcome. Chief, Mrs. Rogers, are there any indication of what started that fire? We don't, I mean, we know it started in the fire. There was a car in the car port at the resident and number seven. That's what originally was called in. The only thing that I know is that the owner of that car had parked that vehicle at like three o'clock in the afternoon on Friday afternoon. So there would be no reason for anything to ignite in that car. So we considered that to be suspicious. Essex Police was investigating and then we called in the state, the fire marshal's office came in as well as a state fire investigator. So after that, it's really up to them to investigate. Sure. Well, amazing. And just with all that, all those flammable materials and all those cars, it's remarkable that it wasn't worse and nobody was hurt more than they were. So just thanks for everything. You're welcome. George and Evan. Chief, I just want to just convey our, I think all our thanks to the whole crew going in there like that and really putting themselves at risk. It's just remarkable and I've seen the pictures. Andrew was right. It looked like a war zone. I was a little concerned about the toxic smoke. Was there a lot of toxic steam and smoke coming out of that building that they inhaled? Anything like that happened? No. I mean, we get out of the vehicle and everybody has airpacks. Nobody would don them because there was enough of a breeze and enough heat. When there's that much heat, most of your smoke is going directly up above. Okay. We were out in the air, so nobody had to. We're really done airpacks, which just allows us to, it's a little easier for us to communicate and for people to move around easier. So no, that smoke was never a problem. Well, well, convey our best thanks and deepest appreciation to everybody. That was just remarkable and that going into that disaster and controlling it and containing it, just so thankful and grateful to have you here. Thank you. We'll pass that along. Chief, I'm also told that a lot of the neighbors from those buildings were waking other neighbors up to get them up and about. I think that's, you probably saw them getting them out of the building. I think that's great. I mean, while that fire was going, they were knocking on doors. So they too, whoever was up at four in the morning and I'm told that the fire was so loud. But I wonder, is that normal that people normally go door to door? Well, a lot of that was initiated by Essex Police. So they had two officers on scene when I arrived on scene and they were going door to door, making sure that people were awake and getting them out of the building, which allowed, again, which allowed us not to have to allocate resources to get that done. Again, just taking firefighters, literally each firefighter pulling a line to attack the fire because we had one, two, three, four, five. We had a total of six lines that were operating off that first engine. So again, having the police department there going door to door, neighbor helping neighbor, making sure that people were out of the out of the condo away from the building. Again, just something else we didn't have to concern ourselves with. We could focus on the fire. Thanks. And again, thank you for your service and your people. Luckily, and I would say, fortunately, if a fire like this is once a decade, that's enough. Yeah, that's exactly. Well, thank you again, trustees. Any other any other questions for Chief Cabrario? No, I'm good. But I really appreciate all the information. It's great. Really great. I mean, tragic story, but great outcome. Again, thank you. Thank you for your support because it's the support that you provide the department allows us to have the equipment we have, which allows us to recruit some great, great individuals. And that's the kind of result we get at fire. So it's everybody helping everybody here. Thank you, Chief. We really do appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't know if that's he done. If you want to try to go back? We can. Sure. We have finished business item 5a. I'll tell you what, let's hold on a moment. We have the consent agenda. So why don't we get through that? And then after that, we'll go back to public comment. I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda. I'll second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, George. Any discussion on the consent agenda or on the motion? Hearing done. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Pass unanimously. And so as was mentioned, Betsy Dunn, you had tried earlier to speak during public to be heard. Didn't seem like you were able to unmute yourself at the time if you'd like to now. And if you're, I believe still with us, and it looks like you haven't muted yourself. Why don't you go ahead and say what you wanted to say before? Can you hear me now? Yeah, hear you now. Good. I signed out and came back in. Thank you. This was a question I had about the taxes that when we merge. And I know you've made so it's like 12 years that we're going to be working on that kind of thing. I'm wondering though, if we just painted the first year took the two budgets that from the trustees and the and the town from the select board and put them together and Sarah got the number of people that we have that are going to pay taxes and divided it. What would we pay that first year? I know it will be a hit, but there is a significant difference in what we would pay throughout that 12 years because if we continue the growth rate that we have as a point five for the for the village and 2% for the town, that's going to get larger. And so I'm wondering what it would be for the cost if we just paid that off for the first year? Do you know the answer to that? I can tell you that as of right now. No, I don't know the answer to that. I don't have that information in front of me, so I'm not going to be able to provide you with that answer. I did see there was an email that came through that I think sounds very similar to the types of requests as to what you're asking for. And so that was addressed to the select board. And so I would assume that's our municipal manager who's listening to this very intently has heard that and would likely be addressed unless anybody else happens to have information with them. Well, I thought Sarah was there. That's why Sarah does. While Sarah and while our staff are here, that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody has 100% access to all of our files, all of our paper files and all of our all of our computers. So just while we're physically here, it doesn't mean we have everything at our fingertips. But I see various hands up. I don't know who came first. Sarah, we haven't heard from you with your hand up. If you want to speak first, go ahead. Yeah, I wanted to just jump in your right, Andrew. So I bet I don't know if you're here earlier. I'm actually in my car in the parking lot while my son attends karate class. But I can tell you all of the I know it's modern technology allows us to do it. The earlier the presentation that I made about 14 months ago in September of 2019 that talked about what it would cost to merge did have that overall amount. It's about 320 or $330 all at once for your average home valued at $280,000. And then if you take that and divide it over the 12 years, that's where you get the 25 or $26 figure. I do just want to be really clear, though, because we're taking a set dollar amount and dividing it into a growing grand list over time, the effective tax rate impact of that is going to naturally decrease over time, which is something that I know George has talked about a number of times in these meetings. But we're also going to have over that same time, you know, other other factors at play as well. So all of the numbers we've talked about so far have tried really hard to strip out really just a cost, a cost that we could wrap our heads around without mudding the waters, all those variables. So those are just two pieces of information I do have offhand. And I hope that that helps you now and helps answer this evening. Thank you for that question. Thank you, Sarah. And Evan, then Amber, then George. No, Sarah answered your question. My hand was a legacy. Great. Amber, then George. My hand was also a legacy. All right, now George. Okay. I don't have specific numbers. And I think Sarah answered the question well. I know that the idea of the growth and the steady growth in the grand list of the town works to the benefit of town taxpayers because it will it will stretching it out will mitigate it even more and reduce that cost even more. But I don't know that I'm not sure we could even give you that exact number Betsy. But but it really I mean we what we tried to do was work it out so that it has the lowest possible impact on town tax, you know, outside the village taxpayers. And, you know, I think maybe I saw the email as well. And maybe we can work on that a little bit and try to get some more accurate numbers for you. But yeah. Thank you. All right, Evan, this time I saw that pop up. So that's a new one. I have not seen the email. And I am very I don't know what exactly I have had people ask questions. We are not we're very concerned with the time it takes to do these and the gymnastics that it takes to do them to make them what they are we are in the middle of budget season. So I have not seen the email. So I have not responded to it. Obviously, since I haven't seen it. But I will have to see it and look at some of the requests. But we are currently not wanting to do new numbers because every time we do these things, they're not simple, they're they're complicated and people get confused by what numbers we're saying. So I'd have to look at the email and the request. But we submitted numbers of what separation would cost. We did numbers of what merger would cost. Those numbers have not changed other than the fiscal year changing. So I'll have to look at it. Thank you, Evan. So that has brought us now to the reading file and board member comments. Is there anything that board members wanted to address tonight? No, I'm good. I would I would recommend everybody if you haven't already read the reading file to make sure to check out that memo from Robin Pierce about the Village Center and continued development. Interesting as always and things are are moving along steadily. Right. So unless there is anything else, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. I will make a motion to adjourn. Second. Thank you, George. Thank you, Rog. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, everybody. Thank you. Have a good night. Have a great Thanksgiving. If I don't speak with you before. Please be safe.