 Yep, I see that we have a quorum of trustees. The select board. So I'll call the select board meeting for Monday, January 25th to order. And I will do the same for the trustees. Do we have... Go ahead. No, you go ahead. Do we have any agenda additions or changes tonight? Sorry, working on a staff last second staff issue. Accidentally left 6B off of the agenda we were working on. The select board has seen this. It was in their reading file. You can decide what you want to do with it. I know the village board meets tomorrow. Travis would be available, if necessary, either tonight or tomorrow. So I just want to put that out there. Personally with 6B for the trustees, if we haven't seen it yet, I'd prefer to just wait until tomorrow so we have an opportunity to read it before approving a policy. And you don't necessarily have to approve it tonight, but you could at least look at it. This is dealing with COVID and how we want to address because the federal government didn't extend the two weeks in their federal legislation. But we can also handle it from the village point of view tomorrow, I believe. For me personally, I prefer to have this be on the reading file for the trustee side. So that way we again have that opportunity to read it before just blindly approving something. So do you mean putting it on the reading file tonight or is that tomorrow? Put on consent agenda tomorrow, but tonight just for the trustee's sake, putting it on the reading file, but select board please, if you want that within the consent agenda to approve it tonight, feel free. The select board has a meeting on Thursday this week too. That's right. Okay. Would you prefer to, oh, so Evan, we could put it on tonight's consent agenda for the select board only, or we could move it to Thursday evening where it's not a joint meeting. That would work as well. I think actually that might be a little bit easier for all of us. Select board, is that something that you would prefer to do to move this item to Thursday's meeting? Okay. I see at least one, God. I just have a quick question. Like not approving this isn't gonna like hurt anybody or like not get a benefit out there to someone. Well. Question. If it's not the policy of the boards potentially, but we've been winging a few things in the interim. So I don't think three days is going to change much. I do see Travis has his hand up. Yeah, then, so if you look at my memo, I'm hopeful that the boards will ultimately adopt this retroactively. The family's first coronavirus response actually did expire on 1231, although we were hopeful they would extend it. So anyone who has been forced to use time during this duration, I'm hopeful that we can correct that retroactively. So then it sounds like we should be just removing this from not not including it on today's agenda and instead putting it in the packets for the trustees tomorrow and the select board on Thursday. That's what I'm hearing as well. I think that would work. And it is, and thank you God, Andy. I'd like to pull out the meeting minutes for January 11th to make a correction, please. Trustees, any other additions or changes? No. Select board, do you have any other agenda additions or changes? Andy, is your hand still up or is this new? My apologies. Thank you. No, it sounds like we're good. So then would someone like to make the motion to amend the agenda as recommended by select board member Andy Watts? Trustees. Yeah, so moved. Thank you, George. So much to second that. Second. Thank you, Amber Beach, on that one. So all those in favor of amending the agenda, say aye. Aye. Aye. But anyone oppose? Would anyone from the select board like to make a motion to approve the agenda as amended? So moved. Oh, second it. I think I heard Vince move and Pat second. I heard Vince and Pat at the same time. So I'll go with Vince and Pat. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you. All right, and so this will move us into the public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting where somebody has any comments that you would like to make to the board about something that is not on the agenda. Then we are entering that portion of the meeting. I have to remind everybody this, the intention of this is to inform us of concerns. It is not to have a lengthy debate. It is not to have a back and forth really to inform us of any concerns that you have, which we can then have staff investigates do some research into. So seeing as I believe there are some members on the phone, we'll start off with people in Microsoft Teams. So if you are using Teams, please go ahead, raise your hand or type into the chat that you would like to speak and I'll go ahead and call on you. I'll go ahead and we'll designate two minutes for this per person at this point. I will give you a 30 seconds notice when the, or we have a notice when you have 30 seconds left. And I see that. Kensinger Revo, you have your hand up. So go right ahead. I do, I do. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Excellent. I'll be very brief. I just wanted to reiterate the challenge that I made in Front Porch Forum, the Rural Front Porch Forum. Irene Renner and I can signorello hereby challenge any public officials, elect board or trustee to a public debate on merger, moderated by a member of the news media with debate rules proposed to and agreed to by all parties. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Was there anybody else from the public using Microsoft Teams who wish to speak to the board about something that is not on the agenda? Again, you can raise your hand or you can type into the chat feature. To see what Irene Renner, go ahead. Thank you. For people who are in the room on the call, on the staff and the select board, I wonder, how would you feel if a municipality like Burlington decided all Essex residents should help pay for their entire city budget? Let me play the role for a moment of a Burlington resident. Essex residents like yourselves, especially before COVID, have to use Burlington roads, our flutter free library, our battery park, our leddie park, our ice rink. It's not fair of us to support your use of our amenities. We're paying for them and you're not. Let me step back in my role as an Essex resident. If that sounds completely unrealistic, it's not. People who live outside the village of Essex Junction are being asked to pay the budget of the village. No one here has to be an expert in merger to understand how unfair that scenario of Burlington forcing its will on Essex would be. Not only did Essex have no one at the table when the city council meetings were held to talk about that and to warn the vote, but a lot of Burlington residents we could assume have been encouraged by a marketing campaign to feel justified in demanding that kind of payment from Essex residents. It is wholly inappropriate for anyone here to be supporting merger when it's only at this point involves putting village expenses on those who've never voted for them and rarely use them. Thank you. Thank you. Betsy Dunn. Go ahead. Hi, I just had to thank you, Andrew. I just had to unmute. I'm kind of disappointed in the fact that Essex and Essex village have not the trustees in the select board have not done any consideration to the marijuana issue. You saw where Burlington has and because of that, they are gonna get the retail shops out there before we will if we're gonna have them and they're gonna get the money that we could be getting in this town and it's gonna be money. And I hope that this comes up in your next meetings because I think it's really important. Thank you. Thank you, Betsy. And is there anybody else using Microsoft Teams? I'm not seeing any hands up. I'm not seeing any requests in the chats. And at the same time, I'm not seeing anybody who has just called in. So we're not gonna, unless anybody sees something that I'm not, doesn't appear as if we need to go to the phones. So with that, we will go ahead and move off of the public to be heard and jump into business item 5A with the Essex Chips annual updates and executive director, David Bowles. David, I think I saw that you were here. I'm trying to. While you're getting settled, I'll just go ahead and remind everybody, if you are not speaking, please go ahead and mute yourself so we don't get unnecessary background noise. And David, are you with us? He was here, but his screen froze. Did somebody give him Andy's old computer? Possibly. David, are you with us? We are waiting for David. I don't know how long that's going to take. Looking at the other agenda items, I think they all may be fairly, they could be lengthy. Would we like to jump to the consent agenda to at least move things along or the minutes? Would you want to move to that item? Fine with me. That sounds like a good idea, Andrew. Andy, would you like to jump to the edits you want to make? Yes, yes, sure. Lines 201 and 203. It says he was also concerned about the wording of the sidewalk district and the charter because some of the plowing, like that at the library seemed to be beyond its scope. Those, that wording should be changed. I was talking about the capital district in that sentence. So I'd like it to say he was also concerned about the wording of the capital district in the charter because some projects, like paving the library parking lot, would be hard to justify as benefiting only residents of the village. So I did send a hard copy of that to town staff. I don't know if it could get to the recording secretary. Thank you, Andy. I got that. Okay, great. Appreciate it. That's my only change. That was it, Andy? Yep. Select Board, do any of you have any other edits to these minutes? Right, seeing, I don't see any hands on that. So we'll go ahead and vote on it. Or actually no, Andrew want to have your board see if you have changes? You don't? No, this is a yes. Select Board only items. Select Board. Of course, my apologies. All right then. So will anybody like to make a motion to approve the minutes of January 11th? Yeah, I'll make the motion. I move that the Select Board approved the meeting minutes from January 11, 2021 with Select Board member corrections. Second. Second good. Can I get a Select Board member to second that? Second. Thank you, Dawn. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, the minutes are approved. Shall we see if David Bogel is ready to present? Yes. David, are you back? David, are you on the call? If you are and you're talking, you are muted and we can't hear you. I don't see him listed anywhere anymore. Is David ID guest? Is that the person? Yeah, that was him. It's video froze and I have not seen it move since. So I think it's a computer issue or. I think the connection might fall or something. Maybe. Does somebody have his cell phone number? Maybe give him a call. Otherwise, if we move on to the agenda item, he's gonna be waiting a little while. Andrew, I might, I'm looking. I have his email. I sent him an email about 20 seconds ago. I do know. Well, I. I can move on to another item and. Do we think that's 5D will take long? Should we give it a shot? See how that one goes? That one's probably shorter. Why don't we try that? Let's give it a shot. All right. Let's jump to business item 5D. Consider approval of mainly ballots for town and village annual meetings. In the package, I know the state took action this a couple of a couple of days ago. This is not public outreach. This is 5D, which is about mail out. Yeah, yeah. So according to Susan, the boards need to take action to give direction as to who they want to mail ballots out. I think the recommendation is because normally there would be about 3,500 ballots sent out. This is actually going to be, if you send it to all active voters, it's going to be in the 14 to 15,000 people that are on our list, which is fine, but we do need a recommendation from the board and a vote. Thank you, Evan. And just one clarification. When you're saying all registered voters, the legislation allows for the mailing to all active registered municipal voters and just that key distinction. I apologize, active voters. From my personal perspective, we did this in April for our annual meeting when the pandemic was really just beginning, at least as far as we knew. We also did that with the school budgets at the same time, it went resoundingly well. We saw it in November, went resoundingly well. As far as I'm concerned, let's do it again. Agreed. Left board members, you have any questions? Not a question, but how are we going to do it without Dawn? Because she's on the ballot, so we're going to have to work extra hard to substitute in for all those envelopes that need to get stuff. Legally, I can still stuff them and I can put them in alphabetical order. I just can't be there when they're fed into the machine. I followed up on it, so we're 75% on the grid. Somebody will have to cover the other 25%. Awesome. Any other questions from the select board? I don't see any hands, so if there aren't any. Dawn has a hand up. Thank you. I don't have a question. I just think it's a wonderful idea to send them to all the active eligible voters because then you have a bigger participation and less exposure to public disease. Absolutely. Anybody else, board members? Before we take a vote, I do see a hand in the audience, so board members with your permission, we'll open that up before we vote. Go ahead, Tracy. Yes. I just question whether that 14,000 number came from the clerk. The last list I saw was over 18,000, so I just want to make sure that we have the numbers correct cost-wise. I believe the last communication I saw from the clerk on this number, it was around 14 to 15, so I guess, Evan, we might need to ask for a clarification on that. I think there's a difference between the active voter list and the total voter list. That's all, yeah. Just, I don't have the exact number of the actives, but she said somewhere in the 14 to 15,000-dollar range. Plus, there's a change in the postage just went into effect, I believe either this week or next week, so the dollars are going to change a little bit because it's a couple cents more to send out and to mail back in. But we can confirm the number of active versus the number of total. And actually, I'm sorry, Elaine, I do need to apologize. I did just check that list again. It was just over 15,000. Just must be very tired today. Thank you, I'm sorry. No need to apologize. No problem at all. Okay, so coming back to the select board for, I'll accept a motion from someone to approve mailing ballots. So moved. Thank you, Kat. Is there a second? Thank you, Andy. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, thank you. Trustees, would one of you like to make a similar motion? So moved. I have no idea who said that. You both spoke at the same time. George did. All right, George made the motion. I'll second. And Raj seconded that. Thank you for clarifying. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, pass it in. All right, third time's a charm. See if David's with us now. I suggest they try the phone. I don't see his name in the Teams chat. Oh, someone's waiting to come in. And David Vogel, are you with us? Can you hear me? You're a little choppy. Sorry about that. Much better. We're getting there, why don't you go ahead and start giving us, or start speaking to us about Essex Chips and all the wonderful activities and accomplishments. And if we have any audio troubles or anything, I'll jump in. Okay, well, I'm not gonna move my phone because I don't wanna disrupt anything, but I'm a little disappointed. I didn't get to show the sport jacket I'm wearing. I haven't been able to put one on for any reason for nine months. And I do have one on tonight, but so be it. Usually when I join you folks, I start off with something along the lines of that it's been a great year. Well, obviously it hasn't been a great year for too many folks. However, Chips is still here. We're still thriving actually, despite the challenges of the year. The team in tween center has only had about four months of in-person services this year because of COVID. But despite having to go remote twice now, we have a pretty engaging slate of activities, including group discussions, hula hooping, dungeons and dragon, arts and crafts, a chef's club, photo contests, scavenger hunts, guest speakers, one-on-one chats with youth workers and games. The teen center also this past year became a founding member of the Vermont Youth Center Alliance, and we're an active member of that group, which is an association of youth centers across the state. We continue our substance use prevention work, actively hosting the Essex Healthy Youth Coalition, member of the Chittin Prevention Network. We're still operating the tobacco use prevention program, as a technical assistance hub for 20 school districts around the state. We have been working with the One Heart Club at the high school in support of LGBTQ plus youth and we're actually working with the middle school group now as well. We have supported the development of something called the Essex Youth Empowerment, I, at the middle school, which is a middle school group focused on prevention of substance use. We continue to offer the Youth Mental Health First Aid trainings, which we have one coming up in March. I believe there are still openings for that. I think over the last three years, over a hundred residents have been trained and certified in Youth Mental Health First Aid. And our Quality Youth Development Initiative is actually thriving despite COVID. Turns out it's a project that's essentially a community organizing project that can be done virtually. It does not have to involve in-person activities. So in addition to Middlebury and Essex becoming certified several months ago, Brattleboro is about to be certified as a QID community. We believe Fairfax is going to jump in the fray very soon. We have some grassroots activity going on in Barrie and also in Heinsberg. So there's still a lot going on with the QID project that we're pretty excited about. We're actually expecting to be presenting at a national conference in March, in which we'll have an opportunity to profile both Essex Chips and to give a national, establish a national profile for QID and Essex Chips. The mentoring program had to make some major adjustments this year. We have become a community-based program because of the challenges of the school district not being able to have volunteers come into the schools this year, meant we needed a different way to provide services for Essex Youth for Mentoring. So it is now a community-based program that we are still building. We're actively recruiting mentors and would welcome any, as many of you who would like to be mentors, we can sign you up and continue moving forward on that. My last update on the program side and then I'm happy to answer questions is the Teen Line Information Referral Service and Warm Line, which is particularly relevant in an era when youth are isolated, feeling anxious, lonely or in distress because of the constraints of COVID. That is now going statewide. And as of early February, we will be serving not only the Essex area but youth from all over the state. So we're excited about that. That's my update. I know I was told seven minutes or so. I don't quite know how long that was, but I'm happy to answer any questions if there's any time left. David, one thing I'm curious on, you mentioned the Teen Line. The timing I'm making an assumption couldn't be much better in terms of some of the mental health effects that we're experiencing or witnessing within due to COVID. Have you seen an intake or an uptake of calls? We've spent the last few months doing a total revamp of the program. Oops, can you still hear me? Okay. Yes, we can hear you. So we've done a total revamp of the program including moving all of our data onto a new software system. So we actually, it's only as of early February that we expect that we're going to start having a lot of activity, but we've sort of been offline for the last few months while we are getting ready for this new launch. I would just say personally then, if you hear of things that's maybe systemic or structural in ways that you need some assistance with or you need some governmental assistance with, I would be all ears and curious as to what's going on. Well, we would really, we have to talk. Other questions? Amber, is that your hand? It is my hand. Go ahead. I'm very intrigued by this hula hooping via Zoom. Very intrigued by this. And I think that, and I'm probably going to be the only one saying this, I think it'd be great to get the trustees and the slack board and the team tweens involved in a hula hooping Zoom contest. I'm there. See, Raj, come on, you do it too, Elaine, yep. Well, that's intriguing. I can pass it along to the director of the team center and put the word out to you then that may generate our biggest activity yet. It's kind of interesting because we had one where AmeriCorps members make the hoops. She, these are all, I think it was about a dozen hoops that are very sturdy, very cool looking and she made them and have made them available to youth. So whenever we have an activity that involves materials, we arrange for a pickup, a distance to pick up downstairs at our space and people come in and they pick up the hula hoops or if we're doing arts and crafts, they come in and pick up the materials we have for them. We've also done that for the cooking classes. So it's been, we've adapted to the circumstances. That's awesome. In all seriousness, thank you for doing what you guys do and appreciate it. And I am serious about an actual contest. That'd be awesome. I think that we need to include Evan on that. Like I think that as the town manager, he should represent the town government there. It's vitally important. Well, I'm definitely gonna tell Nancy, our team's gonna be director and she'll be in touch. We'll get something set up and who knows? Maybe we'll go big time. Maybe the evening news will wanna come and see what's going on, who knows? I know they're really gonna regret that. You don't need the news there. Evan, why don't you go ahead? Your hand is up. Oh, Vince, always willing to debase myself for the community. David, two things. One, if you pan down a little bit, we could see your suit and then you could write it all off. Everybody. Thank you for classing up the meeting. I mean, I was so enthused about this meeting because I figured I got to dress up for once, but no. There you go. We appreciate it. Second, we're looking into being able to help seniors make appointments for vaccinations. Any chance we might be able to work together on that initiative? There, seniors seem to be having a lot of trouble getting through all the mechanics of it's almost, if I'm not mistaken, 99% online. And our senior center is working, trying to get authorization through the department on aging and the health department to be able to help seniors get appointments for vaccinations. So I'm just wondering if maybe the teen center or somebody, we could give you a call. Absolutely. I think our AmeriCorps team in particular has a charge to help out where they can with COVID situation. So there are days in which some of our AmeriCorps members are helping out with the 211 system and trying to help with the backlog of calls coming in about COVID there. So I'm confident that we can offer their support for them if you get in touch with me about it. We'll give you a call this week. Okay, thank you. And by the way, you guys do great stuff and we really appreciate your efforts in the community and being a very quiet tenant, sometimes upstairs. Oh, well, right now we are going to be quiet. Yeah, very quiet now. I mean, you're going to be staying out here. Sometimes, lately, yes. Yeah. Thanks. Okay. Dawn, do you have a question for David? I don't have a question. I just wanted to say thank you for all this hard work. I can't imagine being a teenager during these COVID times. It's hard enough being a senior citizen, but I want to thank him and the staff, so thank you. Okay, I will pass it on to everyone. Yeah. Thank you. David, can I ask you a question in the services that you are able to offer right now? What is the morale of kids that use your services? How are they feeling in general? I'm hearing from teachers that it's rough. And so I'd be curious to know what your perspective is for them. There is a malay that's out there that youth are struggling and it's been difficult sustaining the mentoring relationships, for example, that some youth have just dropped out of. Even though we're trying to do the mentoring remotely, the kids aren't finding that as engaging as being with someone. And they spend so much time, I mean, we're also competing with all of the screen time that they're having with school. So by the end of the day, it's challenging for youth to get enthused about coming online one more time to do something with the teen center. So there's, I mean, there's youth depression out there and I think that's a concern. And that's something, so we're trying to find unique ways to try to get youth engaged and get their minds off of the current situation. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Select board, any other questions for David? If I could just take a moment to also just express my appreciation on behalf of our child for the services that the tween center is providing. I know that he's certainly enjoyed quite a few of these, the services, quite a few of the events. And in particular, that scavenger hunt that occurred a little while ago, that was a great time. We really enjoyed getting a different view of parts of the, parts of our community, which we appreciate. So thank you. So, and just today, Nancy, the director of the teen center was thinking that of planning essentially a hike, but basically kids with their phones and cameras going in different parts of the community and sharing that and having a group hiking session but on different, in different parts of the community at one time, which we're also trying to figure out whether we just pull them, pull together a bunch of youth and do it in a properly socially distanced way as well. The problem, if it's online at this point, it's more inclusive than, because there is so much difficult for all the kids we serve to get into us when they are part of the school day, then it was easier for them to come here right after school, but it's a different situation internally, you know. Great, well, I appreciate you folks letting me come on again and next year is gonna be better, so I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for everything you do, David. Okay, bye-bye. There's a hand up from the public. Don't leave yet, Dave. Oh, don't leave yet, David. Okay. Thank you very much. I participated in the Speech and Forensics competition that was held this weekend that Justin puts together, and I think that you folks are helping to organize. Yes. Yeah, I just wanted to let you know that it was a really great event, and I can really see how it benefits the kids. Right, so the speech, I don't know who knows this, but for a speech and debate is one of the viewers of the only winter sports, so-called sports, and the high school clubs right now, is that correct? Probably. Our team, we have a couple of fantastic youth who are nailing it tournament after tournament, and I expect that we're gonna be in the nationals again this year. Last year, we had a young woman, Bhatma Khan, who is in the nationals, and I suspect she'll be there again this year. Yeah, I had her in one of my rooms as well, and I mean, she's great. Thanks again, keep the good work up. Okay, thank you. Thank you again, David, we appreciate it. All right, thank you both, bye-bye. All right, and so that will bring us to our next agenda item, which is the merger cost update. Sarah Macy, are you with us? I am, you're hearing and seeing me. Nice to see you again. Good to see you. I'm gonna take, oh, perfect. Gonna take over the screen from Tammy. This is the one I wanna share. Let me get y'all's faces back up on my other screen. There you go, so I can see you. So, all right, merger cost update. I wanted to put this together when I had a chance, which, believe it or not, was just recently, to update some of the numbers that we've been talking about along the way. So, as you guys may or may not remember, in September of 2019, right around the time that I was also hosting the New England Government Finance Officers Association Regional Conference in Stowe stands out to me. We talked about the cost of merger and I brought some water in and we were all together there was no math. And we talked about using, we were at that time, the most recent data we had with the FY20 voter approved budget and the FY20 grant list information. And we talked about how in order to move these two budgets into one, because of the mechanics of the village grant list being part of the town wide grand list, that there was gonna be a point of convergence somewhere at a midpoint between where the town taxes are now and where the village taxes are now. And we did that using FY20 data. In that presentation and in the data we've used since then, I think I was very clear of the outset and I'll just reiterate it here. I stripped out all variables. I wanted to get to the simplest possible number so that we had something that we could talk about and understand without getting all the complicated details in but something that was still meaningful and something that provided a meaningful basis for conversation and discussion. And for the average property of $280,000, that figure was approximately a $330 increase to the annual taxes in the town outside the village. And then when we started to pull together transitional period of 12 years, that's an average of about $25 a year increase every year over that 12 year period. And that's again, FY20 data, using a zero growth assumption in the grand list and not looking at any other projected expenditure increases, but literally just the cost of phasing in what's currently raised by the village tax levy over 12 years. Something that I've been curious about and I know that you have all been curious about and others as well is what does that look like now that it's January of 2021? And we have some new, we have newer budgets, we have new grand lists. And so I put together some information to look at that. And I've also been asked and I've heard criticism of my decision not to project any grand list growth. And that's fine. I think I was clear about my reasons for doing that, but I'm also curious what that looks like. And so I re-upped my model. I actually approached it in a simpler fashion. I confirmed that my original numbers were still accurate to make sure that I was still doing it the right way, just looking at it from a different angle. And then I was able to layer in what some grand list growth would do to those numbers. And so at this point, I wanna update you with what would happen if we used the FY22 budget data. I wanna tell you that that's not voter approved yet. It's actually not even adopted by the boards yet, but it is really the most current data that we're working with. And I have the FY21 actual grand list information. In my memo, which I hope you had an opportunity to read, I have put in the three models and I do wanna pull up my spreadsheet in a minute. But I was able to think, since we've talked about this so much now, about a high range, a mid range and a low range. And so the high range is, again, that zero growth model, right? So like if the grand list doesn't grow at all, there's nothing else to offset the impact of the taxes being phased in over the 12 years. So looking at the FY22 budget, so which I said are not final yet, and then the FY21 final grand list, that change that goes from about, from $330 baseline increase in your annual taxes outside the village to 372, and it bumps that average annual cost if I average it out over the actually 13 years, right? Because those districts go away and you're 13 is $29 a year. When I started to play with grand list growth, I pulled in the three year average of the town of one and a quarter percent that's lower than the seven year average, but that is the average of the last three years. And I left those districts closing out in year 13 to cause that bump. And that was what I looked at as the mid range. So what would the impact of some grand list growth be to offset this? And when we look at that middle range, we really come right back to those, similar to those figures that we've been talking about all along with an increase in the baseline of the annual taxes of about $309 and that average over those 13 years is $24 a year. You know, recently we started talking about what might the future boards do with those districts in 12 years from now when they're approaching the end of their life? Are they gonna go away? Are those dollars just gonna automatically come into the full budget? And that's a conversation that the future board would have to have with future community members and decide what the best option is then. And so I wanted to show like a really a low end range here. Like what if those dollars go away and what if the grand list grows and that pulls it down even further? I do think that so much is unknown in all of this, but I hope that this gives you a sense of where things could fall and also helps you feel reassured in the figures that we've been talking about all along. I do want to, and then I've also done that for the decreases on the village side as well. And so they sort of track the same way. The impact is more of a decrease as the grand list grows. And if those districts go away at the end and less of a decrease assuming there's no grand list growth and everything closes in at the end of the transitional period. I don't know how this is gonna show on the screen. But I want to, I do wanna just take a minute to have my calculations shown. I added them into the packet to see how the high range, mid range and low range were calculated and to show the annual change over time. The year over year basis. Before I, so that's my update. I also have, I wanna talk about another thing while I have your attention. I wanna talk about this idea that has come up recently in conversation that there's a $2,000 increase over the 12 year transitional period for a town outside the village. And I just wanna, you know, I just wanna be clear. This is math. I'm here to talk to you about the math. I think the takeaway for everyone is to come out and vote, right? And, but I wanna make sure that you can see these numbers and you can see, you can see that $2,000. You can see what taxes might have been, how do we not merge, what taxes might be. We did it all at once, what taxes would be in the village and outside the village. So I'm sharing my screen. I hope you can all see it, okay? If it's too small, somebody let me know, okay? So usually what Evan does. But what I have in this box and the top half of the box is for a town outside the village home of $280,000. This year, FY 21, if that's the value of your home, the municipal taxes that you're paying are $1,511.72. Let's say that's $1,500 so that we can just round and use some simple numbers. If you live in the village, a house valued at the same amount is gonna pay $2,433.48 in municipal taxes. That's the combination of the town taxes and the village taxes, $2,400. The difference between these two, the 1,500 and the 2,400 is what we've talked about along the way. I don't know if you remember the graph I've shown where there's the high line, there's the low line and they continue along their merry way. If nothing changes and over the 12-year transitional period toward merger, they approach a midpoint that converges somewhere between the two at a point that happens to be $330, approximately higher than the low line. So there's that difference right there between those two lines, about $900. If we look at, and that's year zero right now, so if we look at this 12-year transitional phase, so I have years one through 12 across the top, I have year 13 in here because I wanna assume the worst because that's like part of accounting 101. And that would be if all those districts went away and they were folded in in the final year. If I look here and I say, okay, what if grand list never grows, expenses never change and we don't merge, we don't do anything about the financial issue we have right now with how taxes are raised between the town and the village. A town property over that timeframe would pay $19,500. A village property over that same time range is gonna pay $31,200. Now, if we step in and the voters come out and they say, yes, let's merge and they agree, let's do this 12-year transitional period and there's no grand list growth and those districts collapse in year 13 all into the total budget. What we're gonna have is we're gonna have town outside the village property stepping up gradually approximately $26 a year here. So here's the $1,526 and then $1,550, $1575 give or take. If you add those up over that same time period, that property is gonna pay $21,874 in taxes. And that's where this $2,000 comes from. I do wanna point out here that this is a 12% differential. So 21,800 minus 19,500 is this 2375 number and that's a 12% difference. And yes, over that same time period in a village if this is the 12-year transitional period that property would pay almost $3,000 less because remember, we're coming down to a point of convergence and now we're adding up everything along that way. Also wanna show just to see, I know we're not talking anymore about merging these dollars all at once because that's just not, that's unacceptable. If it's approximately $330 all at once, that's a 25% increase on the property taxes outside the village. And really, when I think about budgets and municipal finance, mostly when I think about like water and sewer rates, but I think the supplies of taxes too, we really wanna talk about predictable, incremental changes over time and not sudden ups and downs. If we were to merge all at once as opposed to going through the transitional period, I've recalculated these numbers using that scenario just so that you can see it. That would be almost $5,000 or there's that 25% change, which is $330 increase on $1,500. That's about 20 to 25%. If you're just looking at one year and then of course that percentage tracks if you look at the whole time because math and it's a larger decrease in the village because again, we're coming down to that point of convergence but we come to it suddenly and then we stay there as opposed to coming to it gradually over time. This is another, it's not the way that I look at taxes but I do think that it illustrates for us the impact of the 12 year transitional period has and the impact that it has, is it that change, which is an increase outside the village and it makes it more predictable and gradual over time. I think I have it locked in so we could look at grand list growth but I in here this is a zero growth model we're looking at right now but I'm not sure for sure that I do. So yeah, I feel like it was important for me to walk through those numbers. I do wanna point out that this right here stands out to me that if nothing changes, merge, separate, anything, there's a big difference here between a village property in town outside the village property value at the same. So I'd be happy to answer any questions that the board has. I hope you find this information helpful, useful and informative for members. Thank you, Sarah. I personally do find it very informative, very interesting as a bit of a number data geek. I really appreciated being able to dive into that over the weekend. So thank you. I honestly don't have questions. I thought it worked well for me but I see that Vince has his hand up. Go ahead, Vince. Yeah, so I've just heard a few things rolling around the community that based on the latest based on the latest budget that we've passed or that we're going to pass that the actual increase to TOE residents is going to be $27 rather than like 25, 26. I was just wondering what, if you could comment on that or if that was any, I'm just kind of trying to get a handle on where those numbers came from. Sure, so I don't know if you noticed in my memo and I can pull it up again if you'd like that based on the FY22 budgets which haven't been passed yet and then also assuming zero growth so no future grand list growth so no future grand list growth and then also that those districts collapse into the whole budget so that there's a spike in year 13 that average number is $29. I think from the get go we've all agreed that zero grand list growth is not realistic. It's just a model in which we have discussion. So as you start to phase in if you start to look at some grand list growth if you looked at an average of one and a quarter percent over that timeframe then that average annual cost drops to $24 which is less than the 25, 26 that we've been talking about. Does that answer your question? I don't know if these numbers and I'm kind of spitballing on this Sarah and I'm sorry but I don't know that these numbers had any relation to like grand list versus non like grand list growth versus non grand list growth. I think it was calculated based on like the proposed budget. So I was just kind of curious as to if those numbers would have changed because of a budget because we passed a different budget or because we passed a or because we've proposed a the budget that's gonna be passed depending. I'm not sure if I'm gonna answer the question you just asked me but the calculation of what it costs to merge what it would cost to merge really it doesn't matter what the town budget is that cost is calculated by taking the village tax levy subtracting out the special districts which is debt that amount is certain which is the capital amount and the sidewalk district amount and then that residual gets divided over 12 years and an additional one 12th of that gets moved from a village only tax rate into a town wide tax rate over the next 12 years and at the end of that we've got to decide what to do with those districts. I've tried to include those because I think that is a conservative estimate I think it's kind of like a worst case those districts collapse all at once and then we have a sudden spike knowing that the future board is gonna have to address that. So yes, so every time so if the village tax levy increases then that increases the dollar amount that then has to be spread over that 12 years but in calculating a tax rate grand list gets factored in so you take a dollar amount to be raised you divide it over the grand list and then you get a tax rate and it's in your tax rate that you're able to determine is everyone paying the same tax rate? We know not everyone's paying the same dollar amount in taxes because tax rate times property assessment equals tax burden but it's in that tax rate that that then gets applied across the board. Am I getting closer to answering your question? Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I think what you're saying is that like it's the question is you're decoupling the like the answer that you're asking is decoupled from like what I'm asking or the answer that you're providing for the, yeah, okay. Gotcha. I think so. Yeah, I hope that I was, I've been clear about my methods and I've shown you my work so that, so that that is real, I don't have, that's math folks. I wish like we pulled on my Essex High School math teachers over. You know, but that's the math. And then the outcome, right? What I think if you guys remember on September 28th, 2020 I talked about like what do you want your town to be? And that's what you need to go out and vote. That's not for me to tell anybody. This is, these are the numbers. The numerator divided by the denominator is going to equal the tax rate. You have to decide what you want for your future. I appreciate the education. Thank you. You're welcome. I hope it was helpful. Thank you, Sarah. Go ahead, George. You know, I'll ask you, Andrew and Elaine. I wanted, I didn't know if this is the appropriate place for me to sort of add on some, a little bit to what Sarah's present, Sarah's very good presentation. Or if we wanted to wait until the next because the, but what I'm about to, I'd like to just talk a little bit about the special taxing districts because I listened to your board, your select board meeting last week, I think. And it seemed to be confusion and uncertainty about the special taxing districts. And I think there was significant information that was kind of left out. And I'd like to just sort of go over it as the person who worked with Sarah and staff and our legal counsel and put a lot of time into this on the special districts. I probably could add a little bit more and probably simplify things, but I don't know if this is the appropriate time or if you'd like me to save that for the next discussion. Thoughts? Could I just ask a spreadsheet question before we get to that, George? Sure. Yes. I know, Sarah's like out of her chair. I have been waiting for this for months. It's not that great a question. I'm sorry, it's going to disappoint. A lot of pressure. I just want to make sure I was understanding the second portion of that when you were discussing the impact of phasing in versus an all at once shift of all at once merger where the village budget is put in on approval into the town budget. And it seems that we're learning that with grand list growth, the estimate looks a little bit better than when we leave it alone. And it also seems that there's a very significant positive impact for town outside the village taxpayers by phasing it in for 12 years. I just want to make sure I was reading that right. That we not to phase it in, it looked like a 25% taxes paid increase over those 12 years versus what looked like a 12% increase in taxes for the average 280,000 dollar home over the 12 year phase in assuming that year 13 everything was rolled in. I just want to make sure it's two things. It's the time period over which you want to evaluate different levels of taxation. As I like to look at one year at a time. So yes, if we slice out transitional period years one through 13 versus that and talk about a transitional, like a gradual phase in over that time period if we merge 280,000 dollar property outside the village will pay about 21,000 in taxes as opposed to the about 19,000 if nothing changes and no grand list growth and all that other stuff. That's 12%, $2,000 divided by $19,000 is 12%. We're talking about stepping that in gradually over that time frame about a one to one half percent per year in the budget is going to be eaten up by this transitional period. And looking forward, looking ahead to future budgets I already know that as we start to planning how are we going to deal with other rising costs? If taxes were all moved together in day one that $330 increase give or take that's the FY20 number that we're still talking about that increase would happen all at once. $330 divided by $1,500 about 25%. And then that tracks over that same 12 year period. And so therefore you get that 25% percentage at the end of that time. Now, if you wanted to look at 20 years or 50 years, right? I mean, we're getting a little far out there but the longer the timeframe that changes things a shorter timeframe changes things. And so did I answer? I think I answered your question but I also feel like looking at the whole timeframe is not the approach that I want to take when I evaluate this from a finance one. Understood, thanks. You're welcome. I have no problem with George asking or talking about the districts if you don't Andrew. Fine by me. I'll be. Is it on the agenda though? I mean, is it the topics that are on the agenda are not? No, it's what I see on the agenda is the merger cost update which Sarah just went through. And then the other is discussion about how we're gonna do public outreach. It's not the content of the public outreach, is it? Or is it? Or am I just not reading it right? I'm sorry, I believe it up to the board. I was just gonna fill in some information that I think is being left out about since Sarah referred to the special districts and they have a big impact on how the tax rates are phased in over 12 years. I thought I would like to give it a little bit. I'm not trying to give propaganda but I keep hearing something that's being left out. And I would like to add on to that, but it's fine. I'm happy to keep silent. And so for the last two select board meetings, I wasn't allowed to talk about these. So I'm a little frustrated about it. I'm sorry, I'll shut up. I don't care. George, I'd say go ahead if you're, if we're talking about the districts which Sarah has talked about in year 13 and it seems like the districts have the significant cost driver to this conversation, I personally find it important to understand that people understand what the districts are. So as far as I'm concerned, go ahead. Let me just, I'll take it, I'll be as brief as I can because what keeps being left out of this is that when we started this discussion between the two boards, we had several things that we agreed on in consensus. One of those things was that would be no significant disruptions of municipal services. So your experience of municipal services regardless of where you lived in the village in the town would stay the same. And then one of the other assumptions was, as Sarah just said, we wouldn't, we didn't wanna have, we wanted to have incremental predictable change in a tax rate. It's algorithmic. You cannot integrate the two budgets, maintain existing service levels and not have a sudden unpredictable jump or leap in the tax rate in the town outside the village. So the special taxing districts, the point was not simply to save the town outside the village a few dollars because if you look at it just for that reason, it's a relatively small amount of money. It's three or four, depending on what happens, it's three or four dollars. But it was also to give the elected board a kind of a safety valve and a kind of a mechanism for integrating the two budgets over a period of more than a decade, but maintaining what we had all agreed on at the beginning of maintaining a municipal services at more or less their present levels, but winding up with a consolidated budget at the end of a decade. And I'll just add one more thing. There's absolutely no way that listening to this previous conversation, you can know 12 years out exactly what the dollars are gonna be. We have an economic development fund in the village. We call it the penny on the tax rate fund. We add a penny to whatever the village tax rate is, 0.01. And we apply that for economic development in the village center. Do we know how much it's gonna generate every year? No, we know approximately how much it's gonna generate. Do we know how much we're gonna spend every year? No, has there ever been the slightest bit of confusion on the board or a staff about how this works or what it's about? No, has it worked really well for the last three years? Yes, you cannot predict municipal budgets and municipal tax rates out five or 10 years. I'll stop there. Thank you. Andy, is it your hand or your hand was up and now it's not up? I remember explicitly the discussion about maintaining levels of service and we amended that to be maintaining the quality of service, not the levels of service. I have reminded these boards of that many, many times. With regard to the sidewalk district, my main objection is the fact that we'll have a district that's defined by charter, they get special services that they pay for, but then we have neighborhoods outside of the village that are also walking school neighborhoods. My neighborhood is K2, right? Going to the over to Essex Elementary School. You've got a district that's defined by charter that's being taxed to provide a service that yes, they've been getting and they wanna continue to get, but the way I see it is having that for 12 years locks out the possibility of my neighborhood with kindergartners through second grade walking to school, ever getting the sidewalk plowed before school starts because if you're doing it in the village and you're charging a tax for it, you're not gonna do it outside the village and not also charge a tax for it. I've been told going through the merger or the budget process here, sorry, wrong word, to the budget process that it's even impossible to determine how much it would cost to plow those two neighborhoods that are walking districts, the one near the Essex Elementary School and one near the other schools. It's the cost is so large, you can't even calculate it. And we would have to set up a second sidewalk district for those two neighborhoods and they'd be paying $500 each just to get their sidewalk plowed. Some crazy number like that. And so that's my concern about the sidewalk district is it excludes providing similar service to other walking districts in the town because you just couldn't physically do it in the same way. You can't charge a tax for a service in one part of town and provide the same service in another part without charging a tax to them also. That's my concern with that one. For the capital district, I can't even remember his name. The lawyer there, Richardson. Has said that he has concerns about the constitutionality of having a district where you're tax people to put in capital projects that everybody can use. And so I don't agree with it, but anyway, those are my concerns with those. I'm not objecting to the timeframe other than for the sidewalk thing, it really excludes the possibility of treating everybody the same. And can you remind us, we talked about the future select board's ability to alter the sidewalk districts. Can you remind us what that conversation was about? Because I seem to recall it was about giving the select boards the ability to expand or contract the districts outside of the charter or within an ordinance. I see Andy has his hand up. I'll see if he wants to address that first. What I, the way I understand that is it's in the charter. The boundaries of the sidewalk district are in the charter. Right. So you could establish another sidewalk district, but then you'd have to treat it the same as the other sidewalk district and tax it at cost, which as I've been said, is huge. It would be for those two neighborhoods. Dan Richardson said, absolutely, as select board has the authority to establish the sidewalk district, if it's not in the charter, you could put the district wherever you want and handle it however you want, as long as the voters approved the budget to go along with it. But I think if you wanted to add and Dan went through this pretty rigorously the last time he was in the meeting that you can't do things outside of the district that's defined in the charter because it's defined in the charter. That's the way I understand it. I could be wrong. Well, Andy, I appreciate your sharing with us again, your concerns and appreciate your granting the opportunity for George to also talk about it. And it's not our intention to prevent any members from pressing their concerns. Was Evan going to address that point as well? I'm going to have to talk with Dan about his comments or what he thinks because that's not maybe necessarily how I understood it, but some of it makes sense that you established the district by a charter. I was talking with him about then creating it. The charter says you can establish the district and then you establish its boundaries by ordinance. So I want to just double check to him the mechanisms that he envisions. Because the boundaries are in the charter already. The boundaries are already in the charter. I checked that yesterday. I'm not going to argue with you, Andy. That's how I was looking at it. If the boundaries are already in the charter, then I'll ask him what his opinion is about. Should it ever be able to be expanded and how one would do that? And if it's by charter change, it would be by charter change. But I don't know that off the top of my head tonight. Thank you, Evan, that would be appreciated. Forever twerp, I do seem to recall a conversation with Dan at a joint meeting where we had talked about this exact point. And the point that I recall is that a charter change is all that would need to happen to expand, change, modify, do anything with either the districts in terms of adding or modifying the districts. Yes, a charter change is a more difficult process in the sense that it requires going out to voters and having their approval of that charter change. Then as we all know, having it go to the legislature for their ultimate approval, but there is a mechanism for changing. And that one of the things that I'm, and Andy, please don't take this as me trying to pick a fight. I'm curious, what I feel like I heard you say is you're hearing that it's unknown how much it would cost, but then you're being told that it's going to be an exorbitant cost. There's going to be an exorbitant cost of about $500, which sounds like a cost is known. So it sounds like there is a cost. I made that $500 number up. I made that number up. I made this complete fiction. Okay, thank you for that. I appreciate that. So I see that we have members of the public who wish to address this. Board members, are there other comments, questions? Pat had his hand up a little while ago. Pat, do you still have a question? Yeah, I mean, not a question, just I think to note in this presentation with the 12 years, in what year does the entirety of the town start voting on the budget? What year does the entirety of the town start voting? Yeah, on the whole approval of the budget. Immediately. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Yeah, I know the answer to that question. Okay. I'm just, it's been- Did I answer the right time? That was my understanding. Yes, it's just the indication has been that for a lot of this, that people are going to be paying for services that they do not get to vote on, when in fact, starting immediately, the entirety of the town gets to approve the vote of the entirety of the budget. So board members, are there any other questions about service presentation before we turn this over for a public comment? Okay. So I'm just going to call on people in the order that I see your hands on my screen. I don't know if these were the orders in which they were raised. So if you've been waiting for a while, I apologize, but sorry, I just have to figure out a way to do it. So the first person on my list is Ken Zingarello. Ken, go ahead. Thank you. Sarah had brought up a spreadsheet, which I'm trying for the life of me to find in the packet. It was very informative. I included some printouts of the spreadsheet in the packet. And then this morning I added some more information to it. And I displayed it on the screen. So what you displayed on the screen is not in the packet. The two boxes where we looked at the total cost over the 13 years? That's the part that was missing. That's the part that's not in the packet now. All right, so that's just that column on the right. Year 13, after year 13, I see. Great. Do you think you could bring that spreadsheet up? Sure. Select some numbers in the row because you can't do that on the PDF, unfortunately. So in the first scenario, Just give me a minute, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Guest over here. Yeah, show the cumulative increase. Down here. Yeah, that was, you know, above where you have the cumulative increases there, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wasn't there a scenario where it was 27 or so? Maybe not. If we look at, are you looking, let's see. So here's what was in the packet. And I'm saying that the high range here is this average of about 26 across the board and then 64 in year 13, that sum. So just select that row from the cumulative numbers all the way across to get the total for the 13 year. Yeah, that one. That's the number I've been focusing on and I just want to see what that comes to into this scenario. It comes right here to 2374, which ties right down here to what I was just talking about. Thank you very much. Yes. And so really the tax amount, $1,500, is kind of irrelevant in that analysis. That's what you're showing there is the increase amount total over the 13 years. Do we agree? I think I was clear about that. Do you have? Great, great. Other questions? Patrick mentioned that, yes, year one, we will all be voting on the budget and this is to counter the idea that folks did not get to vote on the taxes that they'll be paying. And I just wanted to make sure he understands that what I've been referring to anyway has been the budget from before the merger. The village budget as it currently stands, nobody outside the village voted on. Yes, certainly year one, everybody will be voting on it. And that's gonna be an interesting time because the village budget will now be subject to the vote of the entire town. That's gonna be an interesting time. That's it. Sarah, thank you very much. Great job. This is part of the question and the answer to the questions that the 40 citizens that wrote into you to the board asked for. And I appreciate seeing some response to it. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I appreciate everyone's patience. There are a lot of day-to-day tasks that also have to get done in my department this time of year. Glad you got to it. Thank you so much. Thank you for the question. And before we go into others, I just wanna quickly say, if anybody has questions that's going to involve getting into spreadsheet lands and getting into specific analyses, that may be something that's better suited to happen outside of our meeting tonight and to happen in a private conversation with Sarah or with other staff after the meeting. Just so that that way, we are able to get to other business that we have tonight. The next person on this list looks to be Annie Cooper. Go right ahead. Hi, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. First of all, I would like to say that I'm uncomfortable with the fact that we are constantly asking members of the public, inclusive of myself to not use the chat. I feel like I'm in a preschool class with toddlers that don't know how to listen and I'm feeling really frustrated. So I'm just really frustrated and I wanna express that publicly. Second, I think if nothing else, if nothing else, a modicum of respect is due at this time for all the things that we are doing, there's a lot going on. I think you're all behaving so graciously in the face of a lot of things flying towards your boards as at a table, you're not being treated well and I am feeling very, I'm sorry, now I'm like expressing my frustration toward you and I'm just feeling, sorry, I should be on camera. I just really am grateful to all of you for your ability to stay even keeled, gracious, responsible, respectful with one another, with the public, to the public, to one another in the face of all that is flying at you. And I don't want you to feel alone because there are people that are aware that there's just so much being thrown at you. So thank you all for all of your hard work through all of this and for always remembering that you're on the same team. So thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Annie. Next up, Betsy Dunn, go right ahead. Thank you, Andrew. So happenstance that you've brought up this whole thing about the districts. And in that conversation, you kind of have made one of my fears come forward again. I was told that those tax districts could not change. And here we are saying, yes, they could change. It just takes a charter change, which I've always thought was true. But the tax district can change. And so it makes me very uncertain about this because that's a problem. And I was told that that could not happen. So I'm very upset about that. Thank you. Thank you, Betsy. Tracy Delphia, you're up. Hi, folks. I would just like to say a huge thank you to Sarah for the very clear and concise explanation of the numbers from multiple perspectives and scenarios. I think this is what residents have been wanting to clarify what the numbers actually mean in a very matter of fact way. It helps to see the estimated change to the tax bill from start to end, as well as the cumulative amount paid over the 12 years in the town as well as the village, including the difference between the 12 year phase in and a big bang, so to speak. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being so amazingly helpful and good at your job. All right, I see no other hands up. So, or did someone just raise a hand? It's me and if I just want to hang on George, just I see that Irene has her hand up. We'll then close the public comment portion and come back to the boards. Irene, go ahead. Thanks very much. I'd like to speak to a couple of things. One of which was Andy wants his comment about the special taxing districts. And I wonder why you don't want to get a right the first time. Why on earth would you set up something when you know that a charter change would have to change it down the road? I would really like to see this merger plan be the best it can be before people vote on it. Next, I'm really grateful to Sarah to that you put all those numbers together. And I wonder if the spreadsheets that have been added since the packet went out could also be put in the packet retroactively so that the public can view them. I heard the chair say just a few moments ago that it's not our intention to prevent any select board members from voicing their concerns. I wonder were all select board members given a chance to voice their concerns if they had any about the memo she sent out on letterhead last week called serious misinformation. And finally, that very memo that went out on letterhead to all points that I can see says that it's absolutely not correct to total up the cumulative merger cost which at the time were estimated of using the FY20 budget that we've gotten from Sarah to be $2,062. And now according to what Sarah just showed, I believe they were $2,376. So Sarah, do you agree that it's indeed good information to put out a cumulative tax increase due to merger for town outside the village folks of $2,376. Thank you. No disrespect, but I would have to ask you to ask your questions of the chairs, please. I'm doing the best I can to present the numbers from my professional perspective. And I'm also trying very hard to stay out of what is the full the full thing. So I mean, no disrespect by that. Thanks, I appreciate that. So I'll direct my question to Elaine. Elaine, are you willing to pull back the memo that says that cumulative merger tax increases are serious misinformation given what we've just heard from our finance director? Thanks. I am certainly willing to say that it was incorrect to put in the memo that the cumulative cost was absolutely false as was written in the memo. And I apologize for that. It was a group effort on that letter. More than one board member wrote it on more than one board with staff assistance. And so we overlooked the compounding example that was provided while accurate in terms of numbers. And I agree entirely with all of the math that Sarah provided for us. I'm very grateful for all of that. But the effect of that information was to make a lot of residents who are not necessarily going to look deeply into the analysis of the numbers the way we are right now and the way some residents will look leads them to believe that the cost of merger is going to be $2,000 upfront. And that is a really serious detriment to the public's ability to understand what's going on. So yeah, I will say that the compounding example that was given was accurate. But I also wanna say that as just what Sarah was explaining, we have no way of knowing when five years from now, four years from now, seven years from now, whether we are going to bond for, perhaps maybe replacing Sandhill Pool or perhaps building a new fire station, we might pass a local options tax. There might be a severe weather event that provides a major infrastructure breakdown that we're gonna have to spend a lot of money to repair. We cannot possibly predict that at the end of 12 years, there's going to be an X dollar amount increase. But what we can definitely predict as a result of merger is that everyone will be at the same tax rate and that everyone will be paying the same taxes towards the same expenses altogether. And that is something we are aspiring towards with merger, along with all of the other really good things that we're going to come from merger that we hope voters will consider alongside the cost. Thank you, Elaine. Thank you, Irene. And I see Sarah Stoltz the same stuff. Your turn, go ahead. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Great. So I wanna thank Elaine first off for putting that out on Frontpunch Forum to make a more accurate representation of the figures. Indeed, misinformation is out there. And that needs to be dealt with. Is it true, if I, from the numbers that Sarah was talking about, am I to understand that a house that is valued at the $280,000 in the village pays, you said, $2,400 a year and that same value in the town, a resident would only pay $1,500? Did I get that correct? Based on, so FY21 tax rates, $280,000 property. Oh, two hundred, yeah. Town outside the village is 1,511. The village property is 2,433. Okay, so that's about a $900 difference. So if I calculate, let's say over the years, I've paid maybe $500 to $900 extra a year since 1994, because I've been a resident here. I can definitely say I've paid way, way, way, way more than $2,000 total, cumulative. So I would really appreciate it if people who are complaining about that cumulative money recognize that that's over 12 years, much more than me. And many of the village residents have paid in 12 years and you're only paying it for that 12 years and then it's done, one and done. So maybe they need to start thinking about it that way because that's what we have been going through. And that's far worse than this situation. So just saying, thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Betsy, while I see your hand up and Annie, while I see your hand up as well, I just wanna say that we've had public comments and this is not meant to be that constant back and forth where now residents start debating each other. So I'm limiting this to one comment apiece. I'm sorry I didn't say that in advance, but if you disagree or feel anger towards me, please let me know another point in time. Be happy to call and apologize to you at another point in time. So are there members of the public who would like to speak who have not already done so? Margaret, I see that your hand is up, go ahead. Okay, sorry, took a second, unmute. Can you remind me what year IBM stopped paying taxes to the village? They pay, well, that's a difficult question. I global foundries now, they pay property taxes as an owner of land and they will for as long as they own land, IBM has paid taxes for as long as they've owned land in the village and in the town. So they've paid taxes to both the town and the village for as long as they've owned land. Am I- Wasn't there- She talked about machinery and equipment tax, maybe is what she's referring to. That was, that was candid, did away with that and that was phased out, Margaret, was phased out over, I believe an 18 year period or 15 year period. And when did that end? Oh gosh, I think it was early 2000s. I can give you exact numbers if you'd like. I don't want to jump in, but I was in the room when they negotiated this and I can give you the exact numbers. Go ahead. Can I help? The village taxes have been going up as the IBM machinery taxes have been going down. Is that true? Can I- Go ahead, George. The village and the town in the year 1999 negotiated with the IBM to phase out the machinery and equipment tax for the town and the village. The town got slightly more than the village. So that was phased out, that was a 12 year phase out that went from 2000 to 2012 and at the same time, around 2007 the IBM property was devalued significantly. And so both the town and the village received less money from IBM. And then as Dan just said, in 2014 when IBM sold its property to global foundries, basically global foundries took over, paid, started paying the same property tax to the town and the village that IBM had been paying. I don't know if that helps. And just one last piece, the machinery and equipment tax, IBM had also been paying that to the village school district, the town school district and the high school district, but under Act 60 in 1995, it prohibited machinery and equipment taxes from being paid as a source of remunerative to school districts. And so shortly after that is when IBM decided, came to the village and the town, it's very clear, very important to understand that it was paying to the town as well and said we are also gonna phase out machinery and equipment tax for our municipal tax levy. Thanks. So somewhere along the way, I got the impression that a lot more of that tax money from IBM was going to the junction than the town outside the village. But anyway, just wondering if that's true. Hi, George. I can clarify, the machinery and equipment tax that was paid by IBM, IBM paid from, I don't know, the early 70s forward, machinery and equipment taxes to the village school district, the town school district, the Essex town government and the Essex junction government. But the amount of money it paid to the village, the Essex junction school district, was significantly higher than what it paid to the Essex town school district. I was here but I wasn't paying attention at the time but I don't know why IBM decided to, did things that way, you'd have to get a historian or someone to explain it to you. And I believe that that's been, that was the source of resentment and a source of the sort of the lingering resentment between the village and the town over this. But I think it's always been misunderstood. And all this information is in our annual reports and school district annual reports. You can validate what I'm saying. But it was IBM was paying to the village school district and the town school district machinery and equipment taxes. But that was phased out in 1995 but they paid the village school district much, much more. I think it was like something on the order of three and a half million dollars a year compared to something like $800,000 a year to the town school district. And it was a source of resentment but the amount IBM paid to the municipal governments, Essex junction municipal government, Essex town municipal government was the same. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I see no other new hands up from residents who have not already spoken. So we will go ahead and bring this back to the board. Andy, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I kind of want to, this ties into something that Sarah was saying and also what Margaret was saying. I found this document on the website. And I don't know if I can get it in focus. I can't. The Essex community residential tax rate history going back to 1951. And I guess to address Sarah's comment that she's been paying taxes since 1994, the village tax rate was actually lower in 1994 if you include the school tax than it was outside the village. And that was the case all the way back to 1951 which is where I have data. And it was in 1999, which is the, I think the date that George was referring to where things kind of shifted around and the school tax has changed. And that's the point where taxes inside the village became higher than the taxes outside the village. So the document that I've got says for 50 years prior to 1999, I don't know how much further back it might go that the tax rate was lower in the village. And since for the 25 years or 20 some years since 1999, they've been higher inside the village. And it's due to the school tax change. And again, I'm talking about the entire tax rate, including the municipal and school. So as I said, back in 1994, when Sarah moved in the taxes were lower overall in the village. So they've shifted, just wanted to make that point. Andy, if I could just ask a quick question or a clarification on that, you're saying though that's total tax rate where the villages was lower. But what about with the municipal tax rate since that's what people were talking about? Yeah, the municipal tax rate's always been higher because you got to pay to both municipalities. But the point I'm, yeah, I know, and that's what we're talking about here. But if you're looking at your overall out-of-pocket costs and the thing that really matters how much tax you actually pay, the total tax that was paid inside the village was lower prior to 1999 for 50 years. If I look at reading this chart. Again, including the school district, and I know we have no say in that, but just to be clear that the taxes were lower in the village prior to 1999 for residential unless this chart is wrong. This is why I got this off of the Essex website. The chart may be very, very right. All I just wanna clarify though is we can talk about things that we don't have control over until we're blue in the face. We could throw in the federal government and we could throw in a whole bunch of other stuff. But it kind of takes away in my opinion, the fact that we're really talking about things that we have control over, which is a municipal budget, municipal merger, not at all the school stuff. I know. It just adds another layer of difficulty to this. I know that, but when I look at the check that I write, I'm not, yeah, okay, I get it. Patrick, your hand is up. Yeah, in 1994, I was 14 years old, which I think is probably a really good and relevant point too. We are trying to equalize the tax rates now and make it so that whatever has happened in the past are going to be relatively the same for the community and our total community going forward. All appreciation to everyone who has been here for quite some time and has paid different tax rates over the years up and down. The whole point of this is that we are trying to get to a point where we are not going to have this differential anymore. So, again, with all respect, I think going over the specifics of the tax rate that happened when I was not even old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes, I'm not sure if that's relevant to the conversation. So, I just wanna go ahead and try to rein us in for a moment. I think we are digressing significantly. Our original point of this discussion was about Sarah's presentation about tax impacts of merger for our municipal government and how that has changed with new information and updated budgets. So, with that frame, do our board members have any other questions in relation to what the topic is? And Dan, if yours is in relation to the topic, then please go ahead. It does relate to the topic. What I wanna talk about is basically the variables that we're looking at here with the tax rate. As Sarah brought up, the different scenarios looking at it from doomsday scenario of no grand list increase. You don't know what the grand list increase is gonna be. One thing, since 1954, the grand list value for the town outside the village has increased quite a bit. The village probably was significantly more compared to the town outside the village back in the earlier days. But subsequently, over time, that has changed. So, that plays into it. When we're talking about the sidewalk districts and plowing and such, we don't know how much snow we're gonna get. We never know how much we're gonna need for plowing. So, all the services that we're gonna get. So, it's a really draw conclusion that come through exact dollar figure if you can't do it. You just kinda ballpark it and see what happens, who knows. But that's basically it. Hopefully things will improve in the future here. Thank you, Dan. And on that note, this was information only. Sarah, thank you. You again have shown us how amazing you are, how great you've been able to present this information. So, I thank you wholeheartedly. Thank you for helping out in the discussion. We appreciate everything you've done. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Sarah. And that will bring us into five C, discussion on public outreach for merger votes. We had this on the select board agenda. You know, over the period of time, you guys have had conversations about what type of outreach you might wanna do. Obviously COVID has eliminated, if not all, pretty much all, any in-person contact. So, just thought maybe this was your opportunity board to board to talk about any other outreach efforts you might want to schedule or do so that we could help in any way from a staff perspective or that you guys wanna talk about between the two boards. So, Andrew and trustees, at the last select board meeting I believe may have been the one before. We briefly talked about this and I suggested that we set up a date poll for board members to indicate times they'd be available and willing to hold community conversations virtually on the topic. So, perhaps, Evan, if staff could put together a date poll and send to all of us that we could indicate that we're one or two members of each body or one from each body or individual boards, whatever, make themselves available to be online and residents can drop in and ask questions. We can do a presentation, we can just do Q&A, but that might be one option. We won't be able to go to basketball games this year to talk about anything. I'd like to host a virtual Dungeons & Dragons session with Pat, where we talk about merger. We frame the whole D&D session about merger. Can we tell it in a narrative way? Yeah, no, Pat, I mean, you can be the DM. I'll be like your plant in the group. Keep everybody on track, keep everybody going. I love that idea so much. I'll admit, I never played it. I wouldn't be of any help. No, me either. We can teach you. It might reach a totally different audience, though, than we're usually reaching. I'm going to find out. If I have to hula hoop, you have to record that. Although, I mean, it does bring up a good point. Like, I'm willing to be inventive, you know, like that if we think that we're going to get younger members of the community by hosting a D&D session or by just doing, you know, some sort of like online, you know, gaming, chat, hangout, or what have you, you know? I mean, there are 20 to 30-somethings in our community where that's where they go. They're not going to turn into these meetings at 6.30 on a Tuesday, but they may very well think it's interesting that select board members are willing to, you know, come to where they are. So... It works for AOC. It does. That's kind of what I think where, I mean, certainly where I'm pulling the inspiration from. I think that's a great idea. If you guys are willing to do something like that, go for it with coordination among the staff. That would be a great thing. Certainly different for us. I'm going to make this happen. All right. You can't do it. We'll talk. Yeah, we'll talk. The final boss can be the 13th year. Andy? I guess my question is who's going to put together the material that'll be presented. I know we, the discussion we had about the big document that's going out is that, yes, indeed, it's biased. KSV advised us based on their read of our political situation, that everything we put out should be unbiased and factual and clean. Just wondering, you know, I have some concerns about some of the content, you know, but there's a, my concern is that some of the things that are used to promote merger are also things that would prompt my, some people are saying are prompting them to vote against the budget. And so, you know, there's the whole discussion about the village residents feeling that they don't get anything for their town tax dollar. I think we need to have some clarity around that as to what exactly village residents do get for their town tax dollar rather than, you know, because it's, there's, you know, I know Ken and Irene tried to put some numbers around that and they made some assumptions that, you know, who knows where they came from, right? But it seems to me that we ought to put some clarity around that question. There's probably others that I'm not thinking of right now because I just haven't thought about that much. But I'm concerned that we're gonna, you know, trying to talk people into merger, we're talking them out of voting for the budget and it just makes me concerned. Again, KSV told us that based on their read of talking to people that we should be unbiased and anyway, I just, who's gonna put together the material? I haven't, I mean, they've been kind of put together in the background and shown to us we've been told there's not time to fix them or the other document that went out last week, we didn't even see until it was essentially already published. What's the plan there? There's a lot in there, Andy. I know that staff has reached out to me this evening asking about the usual handouts that we give at town meeting, which we won't be physically handing out the FAQ about the budget and the FAQ about merger. And we have already, you know, the packet, the information booklet that we put together as far as I know is on its way to the printer. And we had lots of conversation about it at the last meeting and very aware of your dissatisfaction with the contents of that packet, but the majority of the board did prove it and it is what we have on our website now and so residents aren't able to read it now. And yes, I remember KSV talking about the essential need for factual information and that is in there. And I will say again, what I said at the last meeting, which was our boards together have worked hard for almost three years to put this plan together and we believe it's the best way forward for the community. So now that both boards have approved it and in fact, half of the population of the town has already voted to approve some form of it, it's our responsibility to advocate for it because it's the thing we believe in. And so I don't feel the level of discomfort with the materials and I respect entirely your desire to have as neutral a position as possible. But at the time we're in now where we're close to the vote, I'd strongly believe that because both boards have moved it forward, it's appropriate for us to advocate for it. So I just wanna state that we disagree on that and I respect your opinion entirely, but as far as materials for any kinds of conversations with the public, we would rely on what we have. Evan, does that short conversation give you enough to answer the question? Board members, do you feel like we've discussed the topic enough, George? I only have one question and maybe this has been covered. I looked at this quickly and maybe I'm not getting it, but I just wanna check on the timing of all this. When are ballots going to be going out and when will informational materials be available? Obviously you wanna coordinate those and you're scrolling back through it now and I'm sorry, I looked at it earlier by 219. Okay, so everyone's really cognizant of that because that's probably essentially, you don't want people voting and not saying, well, what's this about? And I haven't heard anything about it and not being able to find anything about it. You wanna make sure you get all your ducts lined up and so you don't have a lot of time. Just wanted to point that out. Right, the booklet is already online and the plan appears to be that it will be mailed out on or around the same time as the ballots so that they arise in resident mailboxes. Okay, okay. Elmasing. I find that. Raj, did you have your hand up? I changed my mind, thanks. It appears that board members have nothing else to add. Andrew, I'm not sure if you do. I don't, this all seems straightforward and all looks good to me. If we're looking for public comment on this, we can go to that. Do you want me to take that, Elaine? Okay, so it appears Betsy Dunn, you're first. Thank you, Andrew. So I have an issue with the steps to be taken, bullet point three. And that bullet point says that banners are being printed for three, possibly four locations, Lincoln Hall, 81 street office and the recreation office on Maple Street and possibly the Essex Free Library. Well, you've covered the village very well with getting the banners out, but there's nothing here in the town. How many people actually go to the town offices and the Essex Free Library is really closed unless you have an appointment, you don't just go in. So the traffic there is very light as well. I think if you're gonna put up the banners, you need to use Max, which is one of your grocery stores in the village and Hanifords and the price chopper. Those people are there every day. If you wanna let them know about this meeting, are these meetings, I think that's really important. And the other thing I wanna say is that given the misinformation that we've already talked about, I'm gonna say that I was at the school board meeting, the same as several of the people here from the boards. And you all left. And when Martha Heath brought up the idea of having the vote for the budget the same time that you vote for town meeting, we all vote for town meeting for the budget, she was against the idea and other board members were as well because, and their stated reason was that the state legislature doesn't have their information for them at that point. And they actually think sometimes April or May is better than March. So it is not a done deal that they are going to do the budget at the same time that we do ours unless we move the town budget to their date. Thank you very much. Thank you, Betsy. Two things I wanna clarify. You talked about putting banners in the town. I just wanna remind you the village is in the town. I think what you mean is town outside the village and at that point to your other one about putting banners at Haniford, Max, et cetera. Those are private property. That's not public property. And so my assumption and staff, please correct me if I'm wrong here, those locations were made because those are places that the town and our village own the land. And so we can put banners up there because we own it. If that is incorrect, staff, please go ahead and correct me. Well, Andrew, I'm gonna answer you though because you can ask the grocery stores and they will allow it. Thank you, Betsy. Kevin, I think you were going to say something. Yeah, these are outdoor banners. Just telling people that there's a vote on the date. I believe it's March 2nd. That's what those are. If people are suggesting that we put in paper flyers at those locations, Betsy, we're happy to ask those locations if we could put things on their clipboard, on their cork boards. It's a good suggestion. What we are just trying to do is make sure people understand that there's a vote, both for budget and for merger on that date. Well, I read it as the banners will announce the date of the informational meetings. Right, those two, because that's the day before. And we'll do the first and the 16th. Yeah, that's the day before. It would do the informational meeting and then the vote the next day. We're going to try to do a twofer. I appreciate your efficiency. Yeah. So that next would be Annie Cooper. Hi, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Great, thank you. Three things. One is that we, as a town, as a select board, I don't know how to say that. This select board put out the subcommittee to create the charter, right? So the two boards came together to intentionally create a charter for merger. It is not biased to then present a charter for merger to our community because that was the intention to put forth a charter for merger. That's what the work has been of both boards coming together for more than two years. So it is not a bias to put forth something and then say what it is. It's just, anyway. And then I lost my other two points. I'm sorry, because I don't think I made that point as clearly as I meant to. But I think, oh, I know. I appreciate that we are talking about where to go get information because the information put forth by Ken and Irene is misleading and obviously they have a very deep agenda. And so I really appreciate that there is somewhere to go and find the charter and find the facts. And I appreciate that we're talking about this out loud. Thank you very much. Thank you, Annie. Irene, your name is next. Thanks, Annie. I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about the information that Ken and I put out. None of it is misleading. Thank you. Based on Sarah's separation report that was put out on September 28th. I'm going to have you see directly. Thank you. Are there comments, Irene, that you want to make to the board? Absolutely. Okay, so please make it to the board. If you want to have a conversation with a resident outside of here, please do it outside of the meeting. Thanks so much for the reminder. Speaking of misinformation, what I just heard Betsy say, I'll direct to the chair. It looks like not only is number one of your memo about serious misinformation misleading, but so is number four. So again, I would ask you to put out a corrective memo, letting people know that indeed it was your fault, not ours that you put out misinformation. Second, I would suggest the town common and perhaps Memorial Hall as public outside venues to which banners could be attached to announce that there's a merger vote coming. And finally, I so appreciate because I was on the select board back when we started this latest merger round that a lot of work went into it. I often put a lot of work into making a meal for my family. Sometimes I leave out an ingredient. Sometimes I put the wrong thing in. Sometimes it doesn't turn out. I don't try to sell them what I just made. I might say to them, excuse me, I need to start over. I need to feed you something else tonight and we'll try that recipe again. That's all we're asking out of this merger plan is that people go in with their eyes wide open and see what's really there. And no matter how much time or energy or money has been spent on it, that you see it for what it is and that it's not a big advertising campaign, it's just very transparent about this is this, this is that, these are the cumulative costs and let people decide for themselves. They don't need a 52 page booklet. Oh, speaking of which, I guess I would like to ask the chair what are the additional pages? Because a week ago it was a 42, it was a 46 page booklet. So would you be able to explain to the rest of us what got added in the interim? Thanks. I'd be happy to answer that question. The front cover and the back cover. Those were the four pages that were added. Thank you. So before we keep going, Dawn, I think I owe you an apology. I believe on your or on my list, you show up as a guest and I think I saw your hand up originally and I've completely skipped over you. So I'm, Dawn, is that true? It's fine, Andrew. I committed as a guest. It's okay, don't worry about it. It was just, and Irene mentioned it, putting it on the town green up in the TOV would be a better place than the library. That was all for your banner. So Dawn, if I ever do that again, shout at me. I don't know how to do that virtually, but just do something to get my attention. I'm so sorry. So, Kim Signorello. Thank you. Thank you. Great suggestions for the banner. It'd be nice to see some put outside the village like a memorial hall. It's great. That was the first thing that came to my mind. Just a point of clarification. The chair suggested that both boards have approved this plan of merger. They have both approved a plan of merger, just not the same plan of merger. And I just wanted to make that clarification. Thank you. And Marcus Serta, you're up. Thank you. Recognizing how a board meeting works, staying on topic, I will simply say that I agree that some of these banner placements should be put in the town outside the village, just so we have some equal distribution around the whole town. Outside of that, that's my only comment on this topic. Thank you. Thank you, Marcus. Tracy Delphia. Thank you, Andrew. I just have one quick question in looking through the memorandum and the methods or modes, if you will, of connecting with voters. I see that there's essentially one way communication happening. Booklets and postcards being mailed to residents. I was wondering if there's been conversation around the potential for in-person, socially distanced chairs, six to 10 feet apart, in case people do have questions and they don't have an internet connection so that it gives them that space so they can come in and ask questions and have those conversations. Or if the reason that's not happening is because of the current COVID guidelines or if there's some way that we could allow that space for residents to ask their questions. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy. I can go to an assumption, one in that with the pandemic, my understanding is that as I just saw, UVF sports have been canceled for the rest of the season. The indoor gatherings have been limited to a significant degree and that it's not healthy for us to get together. Many of us are working remotely because we shouldn't be in one place for an extended period of time. So that's my assumption. Again, Elaine's staff, if I am assuming incorrectly, please jump in and correct me. I think you have it right, Andrew. Yeah, that's been our goal is to not have people in our buildings not congregate. I agree with Tracy. I would love to do it. I would love to have people space six to 10 feet apart but we have been telling everybody to try to not do those things. So in fact, I was looking to try to try to do some in-person ability at the town informational meeting and the state has really suggested that not happen as well as the school district had some concerns. So we're just not gonna be able to do things like that this year. So not for a lack of want. Understandable, thank you for the response. Thank you, thank you. So I see no other residents with hands up and so going back to the board. Wow, Amber, you haven't spoken in a while, why don't you go first? I was just gonna mention that if there were concerns about internet or connectivity in general and not being able to access the trustees and select board members, I know that most folks have a landline or a cell phone and they can reach out to any of us happy to take calls and answer questions via the phone. Thank you, Amber, that's a very good point. All of us that I know on the trustee side on our website, we have our phone numbers listed. So can I always give us a call? Going down the list, Pat? Thanks, Andrew, just a friendly clarification about the moving of the school budget vote as a relatively recent school board member and on the planning team for that board, there is absolutely a desire to move the school budget vote onto the same day. There is not a chance to do that this year, which I believe is the conversation or that may have taken place because it's almost February and they have a schedule in place. The difficulty that they have mentioned about the legislature is not a hard and fast barrier. It simply requires a different schedule for the school district's budget planning. EWSD for many reasons, while they hold their vote in April is extremely unusual in the state. Most school districts in fact hold their budget vote on town meeting day. I think it's over 90% of them in fact. So it's not reinventing the wheel to have the school district move it. And just to seek clarification, we did reach out to both Martha and Kim who confirmed very specifically with us after that last meeting that they are indeed interested in moving the school budget vote to town meeting day to align in case of a possible merger. Thank you, Pat. Raj. I was just gonna, Amber kind of said what I was gonna say. Happy to schedule a couple of times to or a time to take phone calls. Not as Tracy said, it'd be difficult for people to connect with Zoomer teams. If, you know, they could also email, if there's an email that we can provide for people, even if they're not able to connect to Zoomer teams, emailing may still be a simpler possibility and much more approachable, so many are used to. And maybe there's a way for us to divvy up questions that we can try to answer and get back to people. So happy to do some of that. So just, you know, just to try to improve access and get people the answers that need. Thank you, Raj. Evan, go ahead. Just wanted to clarify. So the banners that we're trying to do is again to tell people that there's an informational meeting and then the vote the next day. I've had some, heard some suggestions. I wanted to clarify. So S6 Free Library is at the, basically the intersection of 15, right there, I believe it's 128, it's a very populated intersection. My question I guess for some of it is how well traveled is the Chapin that goes past Memorial Hall and the difference between the two? And does any of you have a problem if we add a couple more banners to the four or five locations we were thinking of? And then, again, our goal was because there's really, we just want to let people know that they get the vote. So if the board would give me direction on some of the suggestions of where you would like to see these banners, that would be great. Elaine, do you want to take that? And I'll add one more Sand Hill Park frontage. Sand Hill could be a well-traveled road. Yeah, Evan, Evan, the more, the better. And another region that you want to consider putting a banner up is the Fort. Okay. And perhaps the Suzy Wilson Road Corridor. I mean, we are not dealing with normal times right now. So, and it's a very important vote. It's always an important vote. So maybe these banners could be reusable. And every time we have a budget vote, they can all go up in all those different places to maintain good participation. So. Okay. Anybody else from the town or village boards? I like it. Sounds good. Okay. Good. I have a meeting tomorrow. So we'll finalize that tomorrow. Just also understand the ground frozen. So everywhere we have to put up a banner, we have to drill. But that's okay. I'm sure the guys will love to pull out power tools. If you need an extra one, mine's been collecting dust for a few months. Thank you. Thank you. I think we've got the direction we need. Seems that way. And I was just going to say, it appears we have now reached the end of our business items. The consent agenda was a select board only. And that has already been approved. So going on to the reading file and board member comments. Are there board members who should kick stuff off? Elaine? How about it? I just want to point out the memo from Sarah regarding the COVID related grant initiative recap and give another well-deserved round of credit and applause to the staff for the memo talks about around $400,000 in funding from various sources to reimburse the town for expenses related to COVID and to help the town be more nimble in response. That's not even including the remote learning hubs funding that we received to reimburse the town for that effort. So Evan hats off to everybody in your team who did all that extra work to get those grants. That was a huge lift and a big deal. So well done to all of them. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. They really deserve all the credit. They were creative, nimble. Sarah made multiple phone calls to state agencies to see if our ideas were in their wheelhouse. And also the pavilion at Brunel is a very nice addition. In fact, one of the things they have done is boosted their Wi-Fi that now goes up to the pavilion. And if I'm not mistaken, also reaches the bus stop. It just got quiet. Do you guys hear? Okay. That sounds great. If I can, the other thing. You know, I mentioned just a little bit earlier with David Vogel. We are reaching out to the state to see if we can get our senior center as a vaccination center for seniors because they know the facility, et cetera, et cetera. So we haven't gotten an answer yet, but we certainly will use the senior vans when they are available and up and running to be able to take seniors to vaccination sites. We've also, you know, again, we're trying to help them register for vaccinations. We're told that a majority of it is basically online and it has been cumbersome at best. So we're looking to be a service for them. And if we get good at that, maybe we'll be able to help others after them. But that's kind of what's been going on in that regard. So, and I know CVE is a local site, but the last I heard their first appointment was good somewhere around the 8th or 9th of February. They are book solid up until then. So, and then I can answer any questions of other about activities or what we're up to. Any questions for Ivan? I just wanted to say thank you, Evan. Oh. The amount of work you put in and the amount of work you direct your staff to put in doesn't go unnoticed. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Evan. And board members, are there other questions or are there other comments you'd like to make tonight? Seeing no hands up, it seems as if somebody wanted to make a motion to adjourn for the trustees, and I would like to make a motion to adjourn for the trustees, and that would be an appropriate time. I'll make a motion to adjourn for the trustees. Thank you, George. Thank you, Dan. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. That passed unanimously. I'll hear a similar motion for the select board. Motion to the select board adjourns. Thank you, Vince. Is there a second? Second. Yeah. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Evan. Thank you, Sarah. Tammy, everybody who was here, thank you for being here and have a good evening. You as well. Thank you, select board. Bye, everybody. Good night. Good night.