 Anybody else? Ethan? I've just had a curiosity question for the terms of like the Let me get back to it here So under time frame for some of the actions there to be taken Is there any words that defines the terms of short term medium term long term? Yeah, so right right before you jump into that section Short term as I was one to two years medium is three to five and then long is I Didn't have a chance to go into the original plan and find that key word. Yeah. Yeah It's like a my quick question for you, but I should note as far as public comment goes I did get a comment from Sharon Zuckowski and this was I think right after the meeting on the fourth and so she had a A change that she recommended So on page 11 It's an economic development section I can pull it helpful probably helpful for everyone I have access to sure Should have asked that before I was trying to pull it up on my own So this uh as we're waiting here, um, you try it now. Got it. Yep. Thanks During the planning commission's public hearing Sharon attended that and she had a So the concerning word is Promote so it says promote infill development within existing industrial and commercial zoning districts and before at the planning commission level it says infill development within existing industrial and commercial zoning districts shall be promoted And the discussion was promote like we're not necessarily trying to promote development It's the where we're wanting it to locate is what we're trying to promote So switching it to promote at the beginning Was helping that Sharon thinks that it might be better to use a different word than promote What if you didn't encourage that? Yeah, so Sharon's Sharon's idea was Assure that new commercial and industrial are probably To match this ensure that new industrial and commercial development occurs within existing industrial and commercial zoning districts So we're getting at the point of making sure that this development is happening in the existing zoning So we're not expanding it. We're not encouraging it outside. So your word encourage I think is Um That could work so but that this is a shore that it takes place another idea that I had was New industrial and commercial development shall occur within existing industrial and commercial districts So I think either of those would work and I think that's in line with what the planning commission intended Uh, because we had that discussion about That word promote and what it really meant Is that saying infill though Catherine? Well, it's saying it's within existing So You know in my mind it is Yeah, and the idea is we we don't want to expand those districts So what's the what's the next step on that? You're you're asking us for the okay to do that or you just can you're gonna make that change and then it becomes part of it Well, so my thought would be um So after after this public hearing we'll need to close the public hearing And then decide what changes if any changes you want to make and accept So the changes that were presented to you based on your last meeting as well as this So, you know, if you want my recommendation of which one I would Say would be better. I can do that. I'm happy to have you mull that over yourselves Um, I think the planning commission would be fine with either of those Is that effect? Well, you don't have to have another public hearing now other than the one we already have scheduled If we change anything No, keep the same. Yeah, keep the same public hearing Yeah, the only reason you needed a new one is if it would be a substantial change to the meaning of the text And this would not be doing that. Okay All right. I see that actually the Sharon Zuckowski is eyes on the the called Sharon did you want I do I just can't can you hear me? I just can't figure out my new microphone Yes, uh That new wording sounds good and it also I always forget the initials. It's was supposed to be made to comply with Catherine. Is it the eos plan? Is that the name of it? Oh ecos? Yeah, ecos. Thank you. And that's what Initially it was supposed to comply with that but to make sure that industrial and commercial areas weren't expanded into Other areas So if that helps the approval of that slight change, that would be great All right, thank you. I like your wording Catherine. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you Um action 5.1 says appoint and fund an energy coordinator position Um, I'm wondering if it would be better to say consider The appointment and funding of an energy coordinator position I would agree with that thoughts on that I know that the Anything that's in the the plan is not binding. It doesn't require a select board to to take action. That's explicit, you know, that's in there, but We have had discussions previously about this position and have not come to an agreement But I feel more comfortable having to say consider rather than explicitly to appoint. I don't know I said one head nodding over here What others think flexibility another head nodding I just don't want to get lost in transit somewhere because that's what happens when we make these changes and say we'll revisit it And then it doesn't always come back because I strongly encourage us to have an energy director I can work with it as long as Like I said, it doesn't get lost somewhere. Right. Right. I mean it is in here as an action item I think it's just Opens up a much larger conversation with energy coordinator Especially one that's that's paid for by the town because is it for just the town? Is it something that's going to be larger in the community as it moves forward? As far as building codes and things like that and then You know, that's a whole other book that gets open. So The energy committee is to serve the town But if it's to be more than that then I feel like that's a larger discussion that has other implications along with it For a future I have a committee now to make recommendations to the town for the town business I feel like that step would be outside of the scope of the town individually more towards like building codes and energy efficiencies and new builds and all that as far as What other communities around us have with building inspections and things like that? They have paid energy coordinators. I don't I mean the the legislature authorizes towns to appoint a And an energy coordinator. I'm not sure. I don't know for sure. Maybe somebody from the energy committee knows Whether there's explicit duties of that individual that would be Do we know? I mean, sorry, sorry. Yeah. Yeah Introduce yourself. So thank you. Will Dodge chair of the energy committee Is these are good questions The statute provides some guidance, but a lot of it is still left to the municipalities But in terms of zoning enforcement in other words like enforcement of a specific, let's say energy code That is that could be done. But right now there's There are changes taking place at the legislative level and partially through The efforts of John Alden who lives in Essex Junction But I think you guys all probably know or have seen him to try to actually create a statewide enforcement mechanism for that specific issue So at least as we discussed it within the energy committee and envision it the coordinator is Much less about like enforcement and much more about coordination And I guess what we would say is if the if the select board is uncomfortable with the appoint and fund I guess I'm envisioning speaking for the committee that we're a little less comfortable that with consider Because it's so easy to just yep considered done. Nope So maybe if we could put something a little more active like an investigate Or something where it's under active consideration. I think we'd probably feel more comfortable with that change Thank you. Yeah. End of a fair compromise. Yeah, sorry. I'd say that's a fair compromise. Yeah, okay So investigate So investigate the appointment and funding of an energy coordinator or Yes, I think that's the the suggested language At this point And yeah, I knew that the energy committee was going to be here. So I thought this would be a good time to bring it up Right Any other Comments about the town plan Okay, so I don't see any hands online I would just note that on line 35 65 Where it says you have increased the capital tax the three cents which will better allow the town to keep the town's infrastructure We all know that that is not adequate And could we find a little bit of wording that maybe talks to that a bit more? Could we know us too well Just just a thought Can you put that up on the table? Yes Because as you said if it's not in the town plan, it's not on the town plan So this this isn't in the action section, right? Right This is more a history of where we are. Is that sorry like the the fiscal Section of the town plan, I mean, I'm not looking to change the line. I'm just looking to put a word in that's Better than better Oh, is that that word better is actually read and underlined it means it's new is that the yeah, okay. Yeah, so, you know, I don't have the Previous page to Previous spread which which will allow the town They added in the better You change it to hopefully because you know it doesn't work But hopefully still gives you hope that it might hopefully allow the town to keep the town True I'm okay with better. Does anybody else want to change that word? It's all relative, right? Yeah, better than what it was but three is better than two That's true. Yeah, where it should be better is good Better is there. There you go. Thank you I see that All right Can I think I see your hand up? Thanks kinsen. You're all again so, um The conservation and trails committee approved two action which I do see in the plan And then these two paragraphs that you had suggested that we did approve, but I don't see them Are they like interleaved or they're in chapter three section eight So that is Starting on I'm right there page 83. What line number is that roughly? Um, 29 38 Are they red line? Yeah So which one are you looking at the one that's in the packet? So there are two different documents in the packet one is the Unedited version and then there is a second version that just has it's a 25 pager that has the edits So I mean this is This is it. All right. Well, that's that's that's fine. The um the action items were redlined in this version though Which I thought was Kind of curious So they're not in here, but they are in another version which is part of the packet as well. Yeah, I'm missing it It's up on the it's up on the screen if you want to scroll up to 29 38 Up and it'll be helpful That looks like it. I think yep. Thank you so much All accounted for all right. All right. Okay. Thanks Ken All right, anyone else Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands We need a motion to end Close close close the public hearing Thank you, Ethan. Do I have a second? Second second. Thanks tracy Any further discussion about closing the public hearing All is in favor of closing public hearing. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay Any motion passes 5-0. We're out of the public hearing. Thank you. Do we You had mentioned that we I think it would be good for you to Agree to the changes that were made Including the two new additions tonight. So the one about the energy coordinator And then Sharon Zukowski's recommendation And so what you would be looking at at your next public hearing is A new draft with these changes incorporated I'll make the motion and we accept the changes as proposed this evening Thank you down to have a second. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion about approving the amendments All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay Any motion passes 5-0. Thank you so much Catherine. All right, you know, I forgot I do have one other thing if we don't need to discuss it, but I wanted you to see What the town plan will Look like. So we have a graphic designer that's helping us just like happened in the last one. So this is just a sample of some pages It should be Pretty in order. I think for your next public hearing. So the whole version I think will look like this That's the plan All right, now, great. Thank you Don't ask me if it was an Essex, uh, so that's an Essex junction there That picture is actually coming out good Okay, let's Our first business item which is interview impossible appointment of Chittenden county communications union district representative for Essex Yubi Norton come on up. So we we did interview Yubi. I think it was in june or july And appointed him to this position and Yubi let us know that it runs on the calendar year And it's a it's a one-year assignment, right? So To say there's a little confusion about the appointment process is an understatement Excuse me, uh, again, I'm Yubi Norton and currently on the ccud ccud The operating procedures that were set up by the ccud Said the call for an annual meeting in may The intent was to have the annual meeting in january and then have the appointment aligned With january and go for a year term at a time so that with correspondence And janna and and my read and there's been a lot of Discussion back and forth and I think we just need to straighten out a couple things with operating procedures to sync it up with the statute and and whatever and so Anyway, my my term actually could probably go until july But the thought was that We're probably will change operating procedures to make them go from january january to january calendar year Uh, so I guess that's uh at the pleasure of the board whether Whether I reappoint be reappointed now for another year At this point or wait until july I guess so The uh, that was that was where this this kind of came to so And at this point I was going to plan to just give you a quickie overview of where the ccud is at at this point If you'd like to hear that Um Yeah, for the for the last 12 months while andy was uh there Prior to when I was in operating procedures set up The uh was foreign the ccud ccud chitenden county communication unified district was set up And registered with the secretary state's office the bylaws are set up purchasing policy Conflict of interest policy set up all this administrative stuff Uh, there was a high level business plan and strategy was completed by A consultant uh goal to pursue a public private partnership with one or more internet service providers and this is uh Maybe a little bit different than some of the other cud's where they're actually Maybe want to be part of uh ownership, but but this ccud There's no intent to be have any ownership in any of the uh Uh infrastructure it would be partnering with potential providers There was a $300,000 Preconstruction grant was applied for and approved and this allows for the Operating procedure of the ccud As a part of that Hired a consultant did an rfp to hire a consultant to set up a business plan That was done Mission broadband was hired as a consultant. They're an outfit out of Maine Happens that one of the the lead people there used to work In vermont for verizon. I used to know him. He lived in under hill, so he's very familiar with this area So that's a little bit of a plus town of shelburn actually threw in $50,000 of their arper funds That it was it was not asked for but they just said well, here's 50 great so Um It was the the fiscal year 24 budget was developed the public hearing was held final budget was adopted and mission broadband Did an analysis of the current status of the broadband coverage And finalized an rfp For internet service providers and that was put up and released on december 8th just recently So that's out there Hopefully we're going to be getting Providers to review that rfp and give us some proposals it's it's Fashioned a little bit different than some of these other areas because This just in the county cud has pretty good coverage in general So that there's it's not something some of these more rural areas of vermont, you know, they're just They need a lot of work as it is the The targets are what are called Unserved and underserved areas meaning that people Either do not have access or have Access that is does not meet the the criteria of the of the board of 100 megabits. That's that's the ultimate goal And currently in Essex there are like 150 Locations that are either considered unserved or underserved Most of those are in the sleepy hollow area as you probably know And some Up to tell a road something there's there. There's just some pockets here there so the expectation that We'll get the feedback Hopefully we get good responses from the on the rfp So on the first part of generalized january we finalize a contract With one or more of the internet service providers To provide those services to meet those unserved or underserved areas Uh, there's about there's a total of about 700 locations in all of the chitney Well, remember all of the towns in chitney county are not part of the ccud But the but the towns that are there are about 700 locations and as I said about 150 of them are in Essex and then Mission broadband Once we once we get response for providers. They will develop an application to the vermont Communications broadband board for two two point one million bucks in order to Initiate the construction grant in order to get this work completed. So Things are moving along and yeah at this point. We're just waiting to get responses on the rfp Any questions it's uh, we have meetings about once a month Uh, excuse me twice a month every other week Anybody have any questions for you answer what my question was I want to know what was going on Anybody have any concerns with reappointing yubi we didn't go out and advertise this So this is a small exception to our our process Concerns about that It was six months ago or so we Or less that we appointed them Can we um extend his appointment versus reappoint him? Just a question. I don't know if there's a difference Well, then it's covered under what we did back in july to get applicants If you just extend his appointment Oh You can you could argue you could do that anytime I guess So the go ahead go ahead I The other but the term is one year kendo So I don't think you can extend it because then it goes beyond the one year He'd have to come back again in june or july if he did that way He did that way instead of yeah, so you couldn't just extend his appointment for to an 18 month appointment No, because it was advertised as a one-year position I think yeah So I'm from july to july But we're in december, but we didn't what we didn't know it was gonna be Yeah, yeah our all of our appointments sat in june 30th, right? We didn't know the difference But we appointed him for a year on july first I don't know how explicit we weren't I'd have to check the language of the motion He was appointed to represent the town um to on the cud ccud I would say that given we advertised for so long before we found anybody to even step up I wouldn't have a problem just saying Yeah The other flying the ointment is whether you're willing to Appoint me as the alternate also Because I'm in the same but would be in the same boat Yeah, see I think some of the confused well Like because of different municipalities involved they may have different procedures or for when they make their appointments Now you said so that was why the With the discussion that has gone on with these emails that was that prompted was prompted by this action that The expectation is the the operating procedures Will the of the ccud will change to say January 1st will be the requirement time that will be for all of the ccud members So that would be set up one point for all of them and not necessarily have confusion About whether you have somebody that's that are they appointed or not appointed and whatever so that was So and I believe the way the statutes were read reads is that it said that there shall be an annual appointment on or before um May or april or something like that so it said so so by having it January 1st will meet the statute The operating procedures get changed and that will set up the ccud process. So That was where this confusion rose. So I guess I would just Wait and appoint it do an advertisement in july for an 18 month appointment to get to the schedule that they Determined after we made the one year That would be following our rules for appointments Otherwise you really need to advertise what others think I got a motion Yeah, I think this is more I mean we advertised it Six months ago A little more than six months ago. We appointed you less than six months ago This was before we fully understood the operating procedures and the what the term actually was I'm Given that I'm I'm fine with like not being strict on Advertising again And and I guess with that I'll Make the motion to appoint Hume Norton as the Essex representative to the Chittenden county communications union district for one year With a term ending december 31 2024 Well, I'm I also had a question about that because Andy wasn't warned in here. So Do we have to hold on that? I think he should it wasn't actually warned we can put on the next agenda item for january 8th. Okay, thank you I'll second that Okay, we got a Thank you for the second. We got a motion and a second any further discussion Okay, all those in favor of the appointment please say aye Aye opposed say nay nay. Okay motion passes for one and Keep up the good work. Thank you. Any questions give me holler and we can bring you up to date as we move along Alrighty, great. Thank you so much Okay, now we will move on to a discussion with the energy committee as Our agenda was amended so come on up So we've uh, we've started inviting all our committees and commissions to come talk to us We're in the midst of putting together partly because we're in the midst of putting together our budget for next year for FY 25 also To give you an opportunity to You know share your thoughts about how things are going, you know ask for any help you need or Going any really really new direction in flight. Well, great. Well, thank you very much. Um I should just first kind of introduce everybody. So I'm will dodge. I'm the chair of the energy committee. I have tom yandow who Uh has been on the energy committee now in an official capacity. I think it started this year. Yes. Yes Um david scoping who uh came on in 2017 at about the same time that that I did And same with natalie brawn Um, so so we're kind of the the core group. We have one other Member who's not here tonight. That's doddie burgandall She's away and she actually lives in um in sx junction, but we try to keep that Keep quiet about that, but she's a wonderful member and uh has a lot of zeal and energy and we're fortunate to have her So, uh, we still have some vacancies. We really at this point we have two vacancies. So and we've we've um We've been struggling to fill those now. I would say for the past Let's see one was more recent so But at least the open position has been about Seven months now. Yes about that. Yeah, so what is working well on the committee? So I think our principal accomplishments from 2023 Uh, maybe the biggest thing that we spent most of our time working on was an effort to have an info table, uh and um Focused on weatherization and especially focusing on on low income uh energy, um Getting out of energy information at the champlain valley fair and what we did was we had Um, one of our former members daniel parkens was on the chitenden county Energy subcommittee for the regional plan We organized with other energy committees who are on that to basically staff Half of the time at the champlain valley fair to Be at the at the booth and it was inside the main exposition room where they had everything you had You know hot tub vendors, uh, but you also had like the vermont abandoned property office FEMA just sort of a hodgepodge of things. But what was great was um We had we we ultimately kept track of how many people we spoke with and whether that was giving them information Um, you know engaging them more than just like they're taking candy out of the bowl Um, and we got up to it was 400 440 participants total that we either Either the sx energy committee or the other energy committees that we work with engaged with It was a great uh success from our perspective too because we found out what some of those other representatives who we were sitting at the table With from willistan and so forth. We're all doing or not doing Um, we worked with efficiency vermont on that sometimes that we had an interesting response because people thought that we were efficiency vermont and we had to dispel them of that notion and I would say many times they did not have the best impression of efficiency vermont But we tried to rehabilitate them a little bit But it was it was a great event and i'm um, and i'm thinking that it was our most effective button-up like Event that we that we've done at least since i've been on the on the energy committee by far beyond that We worked on a lot of those town plan updates. We've discussed at least one of them But we we also spent a lot of time Um, I think I organized two of the like listening sessions and then we worked as a committee Um, you know either attending those other sessions or sort of garnering what we learned from that to ultimately propose language for the town Plan updates and I would say most of our works either in the energy section or the transportation section I'll get back to that We did other button-up events at the explore asics which was mostly rained out But we had a lot of people coming through and we had an info table at the town meeting last year where we You know got a lot of takers Our one of our former members did a project with an asics high school student To try to calculate and it was very rough justice But it um tried to figure out what is the ghg output of asics and he looked at transportation Heating all kinds of different factors that presentation is up on the website under the the energy committee website So, um, it's not perfect But it was an attempt and I think it um, it certainly made us start to think about A lot of um what we have going on in the town a little differently We did some research on the on energy grants, especially to try to get some money for the police station That was tom's good idea the police station was a building that That that had the the right idea But ultimately had a lot of problems in the sort of the implom implementation and the retro commissioning work What was really important? We also Met with renewable energy vermont to discuss their sort of overall legislative strategies for promoting more Sort of vermont based renewable energy and that was helpful And that was kind of interspersed with a lot of other following what was going on in the legislature Seeing how it would affect us and we also did some exploration of potential parcels around town where the town could install solar So we talked about the landfill. That's kind of a perpetual thing But we also looked at some other properties and we're not ready to present that our sort of conclusions on that to the select board But we do think that there's some potential for You know utility scale solar that would both produce a lot of energy, but also would produce some revenue for the town In terms of what we'd like to accomplish in 2024 It's not we did not do as good a job as the conservation and trails committee and Building a beautiful spreadsheet and that's in part is that's because we've not had a full Meeting in the cycle to talk through it But some of the things that we've been thinking about Are making sure that the new municipal building now that the now that's been closed on the sale Is kind of as as green as can be right that we we we want something that I think does not have the problems that the police station Had and that ultimately is something that people are proud of in the town and that saves money in terms of Everything from electricity to heating and so forth We are thinking about a second enhanced version of that same Button-up like event at Champlain Valley Fair and several of the people we partnered with are interested in in working on that with us We are continuing to look at something like a revolving loan fund or a community fund that we could draw Money from or that could really perpetuate making energy improvements in town buildings and on roads We have thought a lot about a charter change because the The sx energy committee charter that was written in 2008 and is on the website is very much focused appropriately. I think on conservation Efficiency and conversion to renewable sustainable sources of energy It's not very much focused on things like ghg reduction And I think that was a product of the thinking at the time But we feel at this stage For volunteer time and energy to go in and not be thinking about ghgs more concretely Doesn't make a lot of sense And moreover we think that maybe with changes to the charter plus a little rebranding that might help us with bring more people onto the board We I think we were talking about what's called the investigation of an energy Energy coordinator position consistent with the statute and obviously following what's going on kind of at the macro level with with the state um, and we were looking to Find some better ways of encouraging more charging stations as well as just electrical usage for vehicles Generally, so that that's kind of an overview. I know that there were specific things you wanted to to talk about with the stipends We could probably get through that pretty easily, which is we like the stipends. We appreciate it It's not the driving reason that any of us are doing this nor would it be But it it's helpful and I think that in particular um, you know, it's a recognition that that volunteer time is Could be used for something that generates revenue for each of us, but we um, but we you know, we're happy to be volunteers But we think it's a nice it's a nice gesture. I think tom was wondering at one point Does it make sense to like cut a check more like quarterly as opposed to monthly? I think we're fine either way In terms of budget requests for a fiscal year 2025 um We talked about this Greg and I had had some exchanges about the energy coordinator position I guess from our perspective, you know, that's something that probably makes sense to investigate But what we we do think makes a lot of sense is looking at something like either a revolving loan fund Where we take savings that tom in particular from his good work has achieved Over let's say the past three years and using that as kind of a principle to get started to then build upon that And maybe that's combined with a community fund like the trails and conservation Uh committee has where it's it's sort of like you can donate Almost like a 501 c3 to help with those types of efforts again I think that would be much more effective if the focus was in part on ghg reductions generally and not Solely limited to renewable energy per se um I think what could be improved for us to be more effective Will the charter changes i've talked about What we've also talked about and this was in this particularly came up with our work on the um, the transportation portions Of the town plan is it feels like we need a A committee of some kind whether it's us or maybe we're working with another committee That's focused on things like the combination of more bikes sidewalks Evie charging potentially a trolley. That's something that we talked about a little bit All forms of transportation that are designed to both make Essex You know, uh a destination That people want to go to that alleviate some of the traffic because that came up Again and again and again in all of our discussions uh, and that ideally Makes us look like a conscientious futuristic place that people want to move to in part because we're trying to tackle The um, you know the ghg That comes from transportation So got anything you guys want to add I say it's quite inclusive That's impressive Any of the nature based strategies as well, you know, I'm always sitting at the meetings thinking about you know Holding on to all the trees letting the grass grow higher that those sorts of things Protecting the waterways. Yeah And we put some of that into the energy sections of the town plan that At least a partial strategy is do exactly what the conservation and trails committee is talking about when it comes to replanting and preserving Trees so that so like you say Natalie and the other thing about that I know you know a lot of this is in what we recommended with the town plan But even things like the equipment that the town picks out like it's time if we can To go electric as much as possible for whether it be a blower or you know, a big truck today I was crossing the street in burlington where my office is and uh, Luckily it stopped but I saw this giant truck coming toward me and I realized it was the burlington electric department's fully electric utility Cherry picker basically that's run. It's that's completely electric running on on energy It certainly seemed like You know that it was no different from any other truck except for that fact that obviously it's You know, it's it's not burning anything And so I got to believe if they can build that and they can get that into burlington Well, do we start to think about snow plows and uh, you know other big equipment? I'm not saying it has to happen overnight But it should at least be taken into consideration when those types of new vehicle decisions and equipment decisions are made So we've probably said enough and thank you. Anybody happy to have a question talk Go ahead Dan. So other than I'm assuming you've been doing a lot of engagement with the planning committee because you had your Input into the town plan. Are you engaging with any other committees? constantly regularly Certainly constantly and regularly I would say no I would say on a sporadic basis in part because of the work that we were doing as The planning commission created subcommittees and staffed those subcommittees for the town plan with a combination of You know energy committee trails Economic development we had interaction that way and that was very positive that was mostly at the beginning of the year and so It probably died out like by about june But no beyond that we're not regularly communicating with the other committees We did have that nice breakfast that I think we were invited to where we got to meet Some of the members of the other or at least the chairs of the other committees and that was helpful And we did a little brainstorming in that session and so that was good Okay, any other questions Kendall I just wondered if there was any opportunity for the committee to work with the town on street light project Which is a project online That I see a potential for significant savings there switching over to the new street lights versus old street lights And I just wondered if there was any way that the committee committee could grease the wheels with the town to help that helped on So but just to make sure that I understand by street lights Do you mean the the overhead ones that they're shining? Yes, okay So that was something that I know the energy committee worked on Years ago, but when it was when I think maybe mr. Towner your direction in part and with iran renner But what we are understanding from that was always that there were several so in other words the gmp owned Light poles those got switched out and you can see them as you walk around the ones that look like they're leds But there's a numbers or there's some subset of town owned Poles not gmp that I think I don't know if those have been switched out They don't they're on a process um Obviously when the light goes out they're switched to leds And as we see fit with different neighborhoods we go in and ask gmp To make the retrofit And bring the lights up up up the par some of the other things that That has recently happened is that I did a meter assessment of all of our buildings And found that on some of the street lights Different street lights the same model number they gmp was charging us different amounts And so I was able to get with gmp. And so we're all now charged the same amount for the same model number um So that that's happened within the last three four months But um, yeah, it's an it's an ongoing process. Okay That's a great point and certainly it's something that we've we've thought about You know going back to and it's just a question of what's the you know Where's the best place to for the energy committee to put its energy? Yeah, but that that's helpful to hear that It's just that leds make such a significant difference That sometimes it's worth it instead of waiting until it fails to actually change it added. Yeah, it's a change over now Thank you Is it is it something that we By way of I guess an action item or Is that you make sure to get in touch with us again and say by the way about those street lights Okay, okay. I will just because otherwise I I I fear it's like the um The consider versus Hi Or well, okay invest that would be yeah, that'd be good. So if we could count on you to do that that would be lovely Okay, thank you Ethan you have a question. Yeah, I was just excuse me. I was just curious. Um, you know, I mentioned funding Um request and things like that, but I was just curious on the state level. Is there any, um, grant opportunities or state funding that You guys are familiar with or or that process and I think this is the expert at this point The only state funding that is really is out there is is if there's a zebra month and you have to Apply to them with your project of what you would like to do And then they answer you back whether it's project worthy or not So no, right basically. Well, there isn't there is. I mean there is but it's not a huge one But yes, I mean the the only one that the current one that that is out there is the merp Um energy grants that are out there that municipalities are the state Department dps is is A municipality could get up to $500,000 to upgrade Your your buildings, but a lot of it is being focused towards communities that Um, I guess we've learned that they put together a list. There's some communities. They're still heating their buildings with coal So, you know, some of those lower committee Communities are that's where some of the money is really going to be funneled towards more towards Essex But we're trying So in other words on the grade scale, you know, the the Whichever town it was that has the coal they get like a nine in terms of their eligibility for funding Essex is likely to get about a one So but what we what we have found it was it was actually one of the people who used to work in the town Who first set up the revolving loan fund for Montpelier? Right who was kind of in a similar boat in terms of where they would get graded And it really works because what you can use some of that fund for is precisely To then get a consultant or somebody, you know, somebody an expert Who will say this is the project that makes the most sense and then from there to tom's point You can then put that project before efficiency vermont and say this is this is something you guys should fund So that that's part of our impetus for thinking it's kind of not chicken and egg But it's like, you know, how do you get from a to b if you can only get halfway, right? And so the revolving loan fund would help with that The only stupid question is the one not asked Tom the town does check with efficiency vermont on every project that they do now pretty much like pump station upgrades or electrical Any of that? Oh, yeah, I figured you did. Oh, yeah Yeah, that's a good question. We pay we pay to efficiency vermont all the time. So You know, if we keep paying I want it back Perfect. Thank you So question question I had I see you be I've been seeing your hand go up. You're coming on the Well, yeah To follow on don's question about coordinating have you coordinated with the school system? Probably one of the biggest users of buildings buses cars and so on As far as ghg is concerned So among the things that we've tried to do we've I I would say that our interactions with es Wd have been mixed, right because they are very much their own entity and they are as you probably know separate In a sense administratively from the town we We tried to get them help get them the grant for the electric school buses We lost out to forget if it was Rutland or Chester another town. Anyway, that didn't happen we have Spoken with some of the high school students including the one who wrote an amazing article for vt digger I think this was in 2022 About all the exploration that the school district had done on solar for their buildings And then I think there was another student who'd written all about the school buses There were about three or four students It was a journalism project and it was our our intern from the the the high school who did this, right? But we have not that's right. So if you have that's Yeah But I would say in terms of like getting into the real nitty-gritty of what the school district is doing We've not we've not gone there Or what they could do or what they could do. Yeah It ranges from food, you know food waste issues because that's a massive You know, we didn't even bring up food waste This covers a big massive, you know source of methane and this sort of thing But so we have some of the contact information for Some of the key players at least although mine's probably two years old now, but that's a very fair question Sighting of solar on the buildings. I mean, I know we we talked about that Yeah So the town of Essex entered into an agreement with the solar farm over here several years ago Do we have any feel for how much of our Energy we actually get from that, you know, how far along are we on this hope this? Path of reducing our greenhouse gases or are you know, our renewable portfolio or whatever I mean, that's the closest that we so the two The biggest renewable energy production that we have in the town is of course the one that's been there forever, which is Which is the dam, but I believe That that the energy from there now goes if I'm not mistaken is allocated from a From the from the point of view of how it's measured of like which municipality it's coming from I believe is going to Essex Junction We part of the reason that we put into the town plan that we want to do an energy and What's called an enhanced energy plan under act 176 is because if you remember That at that time the energy committee was covering both the village and the town And we treated the sort of that output as all coming to Essex as in all of us I think in part of doing a new enhanced energy plan is that we'll have a much better sense of can Can some of that be allocated Toward, you know Essex the town of Essex's renewable energy goal The three the the three megawatt system though that was built in um in sand hill It's definitely like helps alongside the other one that's The other major facility that's over at It's one of the farms of wickham farm that Together that like we are much closer to the goal than we were when we were covering both As ex Junction and the town because of course the downside to what as ex Junction has now Is that that facility that you know the the global foundries Is considered to be you know a consumer for just that town So as though as ex Junction will never be able to meet the 100 percent or a 90 percent renewable goal But I think the the maybe the better answer for you is that it's helped but There's there's a lot of potential to be producing more solar energy whether it be you know the small things like carports Or potentially a utility scale solar installation So the the process of developing the enhanced energy plan will go through all of those Sources of power that we're using and give us a better feel an accurate picture And really a lot of that work is done. It's not I don't think it's and you know Catherine should weigh in but my sense from last time is it's not a huge Burden on municipal staff. It's really more something that the regional planning commission Takes the first stab at and does like 80 percent of the work And then the rest is probably us with Catherine, you know working through the rest of it What about the the field the solar field on carl page is that that's I think that's the one That might be the one that i'm thinking of too. Yeah, I was always curious about that for production versus I want to say land use it should have brought my slides with them But I think it's like 2.2 megawatts something like that. It's pretty big Which is great, you know now could we have like a a truly massive, you know utility solar Or is your utility scale solar could be anywhere from like five to 30? I don't know if we have if if it could get that big There's a couple of places that we've looked at and we've have been sort of talking Very generally with a few different developers, but we haven't I don't think we want to go any further on that exploration until we actually know whether a landowner Would be would be willing to actually, you know open that up to a to a developer All right, any other questions? Thank you so much for taking the time to come talk to us. Yeah, didn't have another comment We do have two people Thinking about the two openings on the energy committee there I I and I didn't even mention the second because I didn't know about the second opening, but two people have expressed interest So it'll be great if they join We'll have four people on the energy committee all from a kindwood neighborhood I don't know if that's good or not, but there because that's where I one of the places I put it out So, you know, we might have we might have folks coming question about grant writing so Other than tom or or us, you know, um engaging in that Fascinating activity. Is there anyone else on on the staff? who Is it is um Kind of charged with that or would cheerfully help with that with grant writing they they vary all the way from a couple of You know google doc pages to these massive things Is there I'm just curious is it I should probably be looking at you greg when I There's anyone on We have people who do that. We don't have a dedicated grant writer. That's not something we have um public works Excuse me, um Aaron martin the director andi castandi The water quality director are both really good at grant writing. I think tom's written quite a few as well I'm just thinking helping The community development department um writes a fair number of grants. It's it's but it's kind of the department that's going after that grant They're usually responsible for trying to get that grant written and submitted and applied Right, we try to help out as we can but it's all often depending on just capacity and who's working on what yeah What if it's a committee not a department that's going after the grant like a volunteer committee? Yep, I would look to your staff rep um to tom to to get that ball started and I'm just thinking they can be a lot. It can be a massive undertaking. But boy, there's money there. Okay, great All right, again, thank you so much for taking the time Thank you and do let us know if there's other things that you would like us to look into to work on or Communicate by all means let us know hoping this isn't just a one time discussion Yeah, I wanted to thank you all for showing an interest and working with us. Yeah, that's Thanks for accommodating us. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to our Next discussion with conservation and trails I'm Betsy Dunn and I am on the conservation and trails committee along with eight other members and Our committee chair is Ken Suginrello. Our vice chair is Shannon Jackson and Our clerk is Morgan Kirk our support staff is Kent Johnson. He's very good at what he does. We really appreciate him The first item that you have us asking questions about is the work plan I've got that out to you so that you could see the work plan When we were developing the work plan We were throwing out things that we wanted to work on and then gave them a priority and So that anything that was a 10 that ended up as a 10 priority was obviously something We were going to work on this year and we went down. I think as far as eight and we had one seven that we did because we thought they were important and then we One of our people at Aaron DeVries realized that we had We could mix these into Certain groupings which we did there's five groupings there for funding management conservation recreation and ctc goals And that really worked out really well because then we could see we had a balance Of what we wanted to work on for this year and for the next two years with the people who have just come on and so we have we have a leader for each one And they're allowed to have three people Who will work with them because any more than that four group becomes a meeting and you have to have You know warned and everything else keeping it at only four people We don't have to do that and they can work as a subgroup and that really works You know people are enjoying it. It does take time And there's time outside of the committee time that you're doing all of this Um, and then I guess I would go do you have questions about the work one? I'm going to go to more into some of those things as we go along Do you have any questions? We haven't had a lot of time to look at it. Okay, so I'll I'll go through what I've gotten and it might spur some questions from you So stipends and attendance that was the big thing you really wanted to know about and we did a poll one of those google things that you filled in your answers and everything and it Turns out that people think they're a great incentive We do have two people who have got kids who are using it when they come to the meetings and The people thought that the stipend also showed A sense of value to what we do because there is a lot of work outside of the committee that we're involved in And we're on multiples of those work plans so The the stipend has helped in the sense that of our seven meetings so far this year We have an 80 attendance Which just means one person wasn't at one of those meetings And then we have an 88 percent that people who come to the meetings So we people really don't use the Remote as much as maybe some other committees do and and that's really nice because you Working together is a whole different feel to it sometimes than a part It's just something disconnected, but it works for people. So that's good to have it and uh That I think are all of the child care. Yep And um budget requests we we do we will have budget requests possibly this year We need money for the tree city usa We need more signs and um because there's multiple areas that you come into the town and to Highlight that what we're doing is really important with the tree city usa um and funding for the The tree farm project that we have that we want because we're going to be taking down up to 207 trees 207 trees And we need to replace most of those some of them are in places where you can't really do it because of uh utilities now but that's a lot of trees and they cost a bit of money and Growing our own is probably the best thing and we've got a tree farm Whoa pretty cool, huh? that used to really be a tree farm and um they do have two plots that we see that we could use and there is uh sand pipe I think that's where I want the sand pipe that's across the street that we can bring it in and we use the water for that and um Steve doubt on the committee has um touch base with the Tech center and they are working on the tree farm already doing things for us. So It's a it's a really good thing for us to um to fund for The tree nursery project And then the other funding that we want is we we want to we have easements That have been left out of deeds that we used to have that have created a problem with people being able to map The forests because there's a section that's 75 feet long that they won't allow people to walk on So there's no real easy way to get around. So we want to um use the conservation fund For those kind of things and see if we can get an easement from these people and and have that and we need to watch to be sure when Anything that has an easement that we that the town has For trails when that is being sold the deed has the easement in it So that we don't lose those things on a repetitive time and um The trails we want the trails to be able to be mapped and be up on the website the town website and on our website because you're not sure where a person is going to go to find where are the trails and Essex and um So that's the other thing we need to be able to have the money to get the gis The gis so that we can get all the mapping and have them up on the website But that is part the easement thing. There's a couple people we know one in my neighborhood and Mr. Senegal that has a big easement that he's Kind of reluctant to do it, but I think he wants something for it So we'll see we we have to have a sit down with him We may require more funding for the conservation of land to conserve the land like the Matthew farm That's one of the things we're looking at the land there that we might want to do that Benches are needed in all of the in all on all the trails that we have for people who are Walking they might be aged and they get tired They should be able to sit down on a bench some places or walking and there are really obvious places where you could have it Where it's flat you don't have to have it on a steep angle But I think it's important to do that and just to be able to commune with nature to have Benches it would be a very healthy thing to do Um, and then we're in the process of getting a grant from the vorac Vorec, which is the vermont outdoor recreation economic uh economic collaborative and That is um something that Just came to my attention this year. Um, I didn't realize that was out there And so we're working on a grant right now in that grant I'll talk about in our our work plan that we're going to do um, we uh And it came to my attention when I looked at the budget this year That we're not getting as much put into our conservation fund as we used to get into the conservation fund at a time When now we're going to start wanting to use it So we may need to ask for more funds based on that as well and um There I know that there's a fund balance that has a little bit of excess Volume of money in it that maybe we can pull from that For those needs. I don't know where it would come from otherwise So and what did we accomplish this year? We accomplished a lot of good things. We at the Educational level we had an arbor day. We did two tree plantings this year one at sx elementary and one at Bounders and the kids enjoyed it the teachers were thrilled about the educational piece that um chuck vile did who's our tree warden and um, they the kids just had a great time with it And the teachers really appreciated what we did um and uh We did two cleanup days at the indian brook and this is years the first year We got to apply the herbicide so we could get rid of the buckthorn and the honeysuckle And so the fall will be doing those kind of things with the when we do the cleanups because that's when the the sap is not going up It's coming down and so spring isn't the right time to apply a herbicide for that and um the spring time is where we clean the trails and look at the culverts and make sure there's no Blockages and everything for it and that really went well spring. I think we had more people I think we had 20 people at the spring volunteers that were not part of the committee And in the fall, I think we only had 15 But I think that was because we had a change in dates because of the rain The rain kind of messed up everybody But it was very successful in getting the buckthorn I'm a confidence we developed a working relationship with the planning commission on the development review board When we're when we're looking at the Things that have come up for review We're they actively look for what we want now and what we're looking for And we look forward to working with the drb because that's going to be exciting when we change over to a drb And in conjunction with the planning commission We worked on the act 171 and that we were looking at conservation areas that we could do how we could conserve Parts of our forest prevent fragmentation as well as the connectivity for wildlife and make sure we're not putting in Developments that interfere with their movements because we know where they go along So that's really important And we achieved the designation of us The Tree City USA this year and we were really pleased about that But that takes a lot of work because you have to spend some money to be able to get that designation And one of our top grant writings that we do we work with the vermont Urban community forests. That's where a lot of our our grant money comes from and usually that's a one-to-one Pay they if it's 10,000 we have to do 10,000 But that can be in man hours and the work that we do as well um And what we're our top plans for this year is working with the town staff to identify lands that require easements as I was saying And make sure that we can get the maps on our website We're looking for the wanuski river access for our People who have got kayaks and whatnot and they want to get down on the water Steve dowd was working on that and he looked at a couple places, but they're just hard to get into and But we're we're working on that and so That's a big that's a big piece for us Be the change be the chain is working on the pollinator garden and the person we were originally working with patrick kitchen He has gone elsewhere And um, Mike Kiernan is the person who we're working with now And he looked at the site that my kid that patrick had put and he said this isn't a great spot And he he and one of the recreation staff went around and looked and they found right off of prairie fields Coming down from the middle school There's an area there that they could use and um So that'll be nice and the seventh grade teachers there in science said oh, that's great We can teach the kids about pollinators and see what's going on So that's going to be the springtime push and we're first on his list for this this year, which is great um, and um, and the bow rec um, we want to have more easy access for the bike uh laying the bike Paz and connecting them throughout essyx as well as walking trails And that's the grant that we're going after from row rec And so um, we're excited about that with that and the fellowship of the wheel is working with us on that as well So we have a lot of a lot of big lift for that and that's that's exciting um Let's see and then um Oh, yeah, and we want to ensure that all of our forests have got a management plan And that we have the money because I know I don't know the cost for these things But how you're how you have to fund the execution of that? Uh Forest management plan, but we do need to do that We can't just get a plan like we did for sacks and hill in 19 and still not be doing the work of what that was And the invasions that he identified at that time are worse now because they go crazy And that that detracts from the forest force and we really need to pay attention to that Because people come to Essex to use those trails up in sacks and hill, you know, and it's Well, we want them right and we want to Maintain our designation And we're also looking forward to we just realize that um, Allison alley vial Has put in for a part-time person to work on trails And that that's gonna be exciting I would we would like to work hand in hand with that and what could be improved and more effective for us So it comes that That extra part-time person folds into that What we're looking what we want to think about is and kent brought this up Maybe we need to move From a conservation and trails committee to a conservation commission And a trails committee and the trails committee would work directly with the Recreation department doing all the work that we would have to do on the trails But the conservation committee would work on all the areas of conservation that we need and we do have a lot and there is Vermont coverts that has a program For teaching you how to be a person who understands forest management And it's basically free. It's three weeks of seminars that you go to And you pay a hundred dollars for it at the end of it. You can get your hundred dollars back If that just makes it so that people will come if they sign up for it And then they don't have empty slots that they do that Um, but I think that's really an important thing and it's something for us all to consider Um changing that to the commission and with that would mean we would add another person to the committee and break us from the 10 to 5 and 5 working on the trails committee and the conservation commission And so Working as the trails group we would work with Vermont core of the youth core of engineers as well as Boy Scouts and Any other group that Likes to work within the forest Uh Updating the trails because many of the trails are in danger Of just going away in the Matthew forest the runoff that comes off of Fernholler road is taking out a lot of the trails right there We have to recreate some trails that are higher up away because the trail is literally Two and a half feet wide and you're right on a precipice walking along it and that's not safe And we we're having people in town our Our people and residents from the town walking on those trails. We need to make sure they're safe That would be the first logical thing to do and um That's what we think Any questions I just had one question out where you've got funding Under each one of your goal categories. Does that mean the funding for the goal above it or this is just Um If you've got funding in here at least so funding is the the category So that funding for the development of grants and Kent and steve are going to be working on that so but for land management or what does that funding go to? I guess is my For just for development grants the items are any of the development grants. Oh, so that's a separate Okay, yeah, and those are those those are colored. Those are the ones those five categories that we had that's what those were Okay, yep Anybody else questions or comments? I very much appreciate your work plan. Thank you Yeah It was it was it was a good chore, you know, it was a very good chore But really important because it it just you know Made it so you understood why you were going to work on that one over someone one of the other ones and That's good. Yeah, I was just going to mention that the big tree program is one of probably the most public Very public um things that you see from conservation and stuff I mean you see it on the news people are always very interested in Where the big trees are in the town? Yeah, I see it's number three You'll get to it eventually We will um the the thing about, you know, the big trees in vermont, you know, we had 100 years ago everything was like Washed out, you know, and they cut down and we don't have a lot of old forest here, but you are Ethan tapper our county Forester is who we work with when we do our forest management plans And he is very much working on legacy trees looking for legacy trees And he has he writes a big L on it and goes so the legacy trees are not supposed to be taken down He's looking he's always looking for those Thank you. You're welcome quite a few of those legacy trees up on Brigham Hill and Osgood and and especially big speed. Uh-huh all that It's a it's about an hour hike to get to him, but it's worth it You only find those when you help first roll in the middle of November. Yeah, you come across this tree and you're like, holy Yeah, nobody knows this tree exists Leave it alone Any other comments or questions Thank you Betsy and thank you so much for the work that your committee does. Oh, this is pretty spectacular. Thank you Thank you very much Thank you for sharing it with us Uh-oh what bad town blues voice, okay, let's move on to uh economic development Hi, there you go Can you hear me? Okay? Yes, we can Okay, great. Um I'm here representing the economic development commission and my name is Rebecca Robinson I've been on the EDC for about 18 months now and I've been the chair for the last six months We have five members. We currently have three town members and we have two junction members We do have the two junction members their terms are up in june and we plan on beginning to post those Availability seats to ensure that we can read through it and have a real transition this summer um We now have our action plan and our priorities for 2024 beyond and we're in the process of delineating across commission members Who's going to lead which projects? So you've all seen the action plans. We're actually working on a spreadsheet and Kind of like a do it grid if you've um heard of that who's going to be responsible Who will help work across the different committees and commissions who will Be partnering with us on some of the different projects and we'll be sharing that out in the next month or so The questions that you asked what's working well We started a business outreach in the last three to four months where we have a second meeting The it's about the third Thursday of every month where we are We basically have reached out to different businesses. They host out for our meeting. So we go to their location And we give them about 20 minutes to go through What is their business? What is it like doing business in ethics? Are there things that we can learn from them in in having a big part of a listening tour as well? And then what's been really cool is that as we're having those conversations We're also learning a lot about where we can help not just into the edc, but is the town And so as we're in about our third or fourth month of it I think you know, there's a lot of these learning opportunities actions that we can actually bring back Across the board and then one of the pieces that we're looking to expand is a communications plan To one make sure that we can get more public engaged in some of these meetings to really highlight some of the businesses in our community And then also to really leverage the website and other, you know, social and digital channels to Engage the community. We're talking to Tammy about what are all the different ways that we can share out? Basically creating like a bio for the businesses that we're meeting with every month So that's one highlight that we have also heard a lot of positive Positive reinforcement back from the businesses as well as the edc members And then one of the other things that's going really well And we've heard feedback from both the public as well as from when we discussed these questions in edc Is that hybrid so we've kept our meeting hybrid? Even when we're going to the business outreach, we're keeping it so that there's an availability for people to call in on zoom And we've heard that that's really appreciated for people to be able to whether they can engage in person or not Still be able to join and participate Um, and I think the other piece that we've talked about as an edc of what's going well We're beginning to really try to re-engage across other committees and members for how we can support each other Interconnectively how to make sure to that when there's initiatives going on that is an edc If there's a memo of support for grant writing or other pieces that could really support the town holistically That we're starting to make those better connections and really support across Everybody who's working on projects in the town. So those were the big highlights of what's going well areas that we need to improve on is And this is a small one, but the java never worked in the Room that you're all sitting in and so we haven't figured out sometimes how to work on the audio and Unfortunately, I have a java with me, but as we're working with gene I think it would be awesome if we could figure out is there a way to make sure that People can hear that we have the right speaker system in that room um One of the other pieces that we've talked about is does it make sense at some point to actually move from five members to seven members to ensure that there's more voices to be heard one of the um Additional areas that we talked about improving is communications to our community. So how do we communicate? In in better ways, whether it is email or it is on the website What we're going to be discussing how to make sure that when we do have the third meeting every month for business outreach That more community and other business owners know that that's happening so they can participate in the meetings So that's a big piece that we're talking about is communication And then how do we How do we make sure? You know, we've talked about hyping business outreach or you know making sure that we're learning about things but also communicating of What is it like to to have a business in ethics and how do we actually make the pathway a little bit easier? So as we're talking about the website and other areas, how do we make sure it's easier to engage on how to be a business in ethics? um Those are the big pieces there one of the other questions was around stipend And when we had the discussion the I think somebody said it earlier from another commission Stephens are important because one it shows that there's value for time when people are engaging For some folks they talked about how it actually helps them with the adjustment So whether it's childcare or you know, adjusting their work hours that it's a really great way for people to Be able to do that and there's some people who have joined and it has been a big benefit to join And and be a part of it where otherwise they feel like it would have been a tough decision to join the commission Um, and so in in general there's a lot of great support and appreciation to the town for having the stipends for commission and committee members And then lastly there was a question on budget We've just started having discussions of where and how we would want a budget for the next year There's uh at the top range it would be around 30 to 40 thousand dollars We're starting to dig in on what some of the Different buckets could be so there's three areas one is we've talked about road signs and some of the areas where we don't currently have them Now whether that would sit within the edc or if we would just need to work with another commission We can talk about that Another one that we came up with is an idea of What we would like to see potentially in the next year is running a workshop for a day or two Which would probably be around $5,000 and then We have our typical $2,000 for edc members, whether it's to health join conferences locally, etc From an from an economic development lens So in total it would be 30 to 40 thousand max There are some areas that we'll need to dig into to give you estimates To see if that's ever been feasible I was just gonna make a comment about the signs because every time I drive up sand hill and I see those Saxon hill business district signs one of them is patched together with a new district and the rest of the signs falling apart around it I often think to myself if I was a business owner on that road, I would be For one donating to fix those signs, but for two who owns those signs And I know it's the town and why are we doing anything with them? So thank you for thinking of that as a business for the edc. I think that's that's important for outsiders as how they portray our economical Features For two years now, we've heard about improving communication And I I guess I'm concerned that it's taking this long to improve the communication between your committee and area businesses I think there's a lot to it there well I think it depends on what what we talked about when we were talking about communication So it that's why it's an action plan and we want to make sure that this is actually Occuring and not just being talked about and the business outreach has been one start of that But even as we've done that and it's starting to get better Um, there's a lot that we need to do so gene can speak to us She's worked this fund in the last year to clean up and make sure we actually have like a solid distribution list for all of our Businesses that we can reach out with initiative. We can send some email blasts, etc I think it's going beyond that. So it's getting really clear on what do we want to communicate when we want to communicate And how are we communicating it? And so that's what we're working on and we'll have really solid In the next one to two months So that we can continue improving that because agree. I think that all of us agree We've done a lot of work, especially gene Um, but there's a lot of opportunity for us to just get really sharp as an edc on how or when are we communicating Thank you Yeah, don if I could add to that. Um, I think when Rebecca's talking about improving communication It's not that it hasn't happened already. I think it's going above and beyond what has been done And Rebecca just hit on a lot of it But I think there's been vast improvements in the past couple years since gene has started with the edc others just in terms of Maintaining building those relationships with a lot of the businesses in town whether that's The sx experience a lot of the sacks and hill areas When the local options tax is rolled out and sx junction and a lot of the businesses in town We're charging it. We had a lot of outreach gene to edc Tammy doing a lot of communication to those to a lot of our businesses. So it's there. It's happening. It's building Can I get better? Yes? But don't take that to mean that nothing's happened or that they're happening improvements because it's just been a lot We never hear this Until they come and do a presentation that we're improving communication. But as a board we don't hear it And I think that's important for them to keep that line of communication open, especially if they're going to start asking for more money I think it's totally fair and I think the other pieces that there's different Stakeholder groups that we're communicating with right we're communicating to businesses, which is one piece of it We also want to really get the public more engaged in understanding about the businesses and understanding about some of the programs in again gene and Tammy and A lot of the town staff have done an amazing job in some areas over the last years But it's about how do we better support that as a full edc and how do we make sure if we are running some of these programs or We do want more engagement across like engaging or understanding what the edc does etc Like that's our responsibility As a committee to make sure we're doing that list anywhere of all the businesses And the services that they provide in Essex Easily accessible on either our website or your website Just curious Yes, there is we've got As we're talking we've discussed for actually the past year With Tammy about when do we when we redo the website? We'll then publish the list. It's the list is of almost a living breathing entity in as much as It's not perfect It's getting it but it's getting very close And it has we have personal information on it That probably wouldn't be published and and we would have The public information as into the you know the company. What do they do? How many employees do they have? Contact the personal contact of the ceo or something like that. We wouldn't do We're also developing for the police department a side list of emergency contacts For like if you've got a business they may have your home number But you may have someone on site who if there's a break and they really want to contact So we're sort of working our way through that so And then when we do get it up on the website We'd like to put it a place where you can if your business is not listed To put the information in there so we can get it and I can circle back and get you listed Or if there's some and if it's incorrect or if there's anything else they want to put in We can do that for them the other part. So there's that that kind of communication facilitates getting notices like the local options tax out to businesses the other part of the communication is Communicating both state say state law changes particularly around child care because act 76 is a moving target with calendar dates And it would be we would like to develop a sense with the business community That we the town is a source of information for them and a conduit to all the various state agencies that handle it And that's the part that more formal and more The defined kind of communication is what what rebecca's talking about is we're going into so that Our communication both through the media that we have in the town with facebook and Posting and also with our our fake our actual website and then with regular communications with the businesses Visibly whatever their special interests are So that's a very long answer for a yes, and I apologize for the length Thank you Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you, rebecca. Thank you And uh, let's keep talking Definitely. Thank you Okay, now let's move on to our next business item, which is this work session Continuing continued on the fiscal year 2025 budget And so the memo in the packet shows that we're now I think the current proposal with all the Pluses and minuses has is down to a 3.8 percent Did I create an increase? Yes, that's correct. Yeah And so one of the one of the questions is do we want to leave it there? Do you want to uh add more to the budget to make The next year's increase less. Is that the Yeah, I mean, we're kind of at a point where 3.8, you know kind of meets your original goal of trying to be under five You know, we've been fortunate with some of the changes in the past couple weeks as numbers have crystallized especially with the vlct's insurance number We do offer a few possibilities kind of in the middle of the second page for um, you know highway items or Items that have been discussed before in terms of part-time half-year people as possibilities, but at this point we're Pretty happy with where it's at and kind of look to you for You know your considerations about These possibilities of further items You're agreeing to that Emily? Yeah, just a little bit. So um, the next three this item in the next two on the agenda Work session on the fiscal year 25 budget The the capital budget and five-year plan and the fund balance item all kind of roll in together So happy to talk about all three of these together We put them as separate items on the agenda just because if you take any action You do that separately, but just wanted to these all blend together Just to reiterate what Dan said we're down to that 3.8 percent tax rate increase now A lot of that when we originally presented the budget We were just hair under a five percent projected increase A lot of the changes that have happened that have brought us down there Have been nothing particularly that we've done to to make cuts. It's been more the insurance has come in lower than expected We hadn't budgeted for fuel costs for the police and getting some of that revenue shared from sx junction so some of these things that You know we're reflecting changes that have been made, but it's not as if we've made major adjustments to service levels or Fund balance assignments or capital spending so Had we known some of these things before and we're targeting a five percent increase We we might have proposed and presented the budget a little bit differently whether that's fund balance capital transfers staffing changes and adjustments looking at that five percent again with the the idea of Helping services maintaining service levels improving services in fiscal year 25 and setting us up for future years There's a chart in here that that we've included that shows some basic projections of what the tax rate might look like in the coming years Based on some assumptions about interest revenue producing the use of fund balance Average budget increase and stuff like that So that kind of gives you a sense of where we're going just based on historical averages So I wanted you to be able to see that Have that in mind as you make some decisions and But with that I'll turn it back to Dan margarite any of you and kind of get a sense of where you're going and what your reactions are so Right we asked for five percent or less. We're at 3.8 So there's a couple ways to look at that one is yee-ha. Let's go with 3.8 Another way to look at it is say, maybe there's a little headroom to add stuff more stuff in if we'd like to have those discussions Um To get back up closer to the five percent that we asked for I don't know think how anybody thinks about Any thoughts about that there's a couple suggestions in here the memo about what might be added back in there's a highway construction services of 14,000 for next 475. Is that am I reading this correctly? Is that that's what's being suggested as possible? Yeah, that is one of the possibilities. Um, kind of early on in the process, you know, we had asked Aaron Um in public works, you know, where could you maybe take a little trimming because we were trying to get a little more under the 5% number at that time So just keeping those couple things in mind now that we've Kind of snapped a little further below that 5% number. Maybe a reconsideration of whether That could that line item could be fully funded again And then there was a storm sewer maintenance similar situation, I assume for 63 50s. Yep. Um, there are the two half year part-time positions that were added. I've actually During this discussion commented about Or asked about the impact of making those full year part-time positions. That's just a I'm not I'm not Things to consider The other another possibility might be to increase operating transfers to capital. Um, if we think that's appropriate, um, or Whether or not the 325 a fund balance that we have proposed is is appropriate So any thoughts anybody want to make any changes? Are we happy with the 3.8? Want to go with it as it is Kendall go ahead Trying to stay out of the weeds The big suggestion I would make is that your projection shows going up to a 6.5 percent Next year and that you could trim that By increasing this budget up more So personally, I'd rather go to 5% this year if we could go to 5% next year versus six and a half percent Just looking at it as a Evening it out. There's no sense in saving a little bit of money this year if we got a more than double it next year This is the way I'm kind of looking at it Anybody else? I'd like to see one one through four And if if we can't come to an agreement on three and four I would definitely like to see one and two added into the budget to say to add back in the 14 475 for summer construction 6350 for storm sewer maintenance, yep, and then Possibly the the two positions. So if we added all four of those Where would that put us? Yeah, so I note this down below in the memo Adding those four items is a little over $49,000 which would cause us to go from 3.8 to four and a quarter percent tax rate increase year over year So we're still well below well well below the the 5% that we asked for so you could add those in without going back over Yeah, we could definitely do that just one of the thought that I I don't think we included in here but coming to mind now probably the biggest unknown at this point and To Dan Marguerite to correct me if I if I misspeak here is we're getting ready to go into negotiations with AFSCME We budgeted a certain salary projection in there. We think it's a Conservative estimate that will give us some some room with negotiations Just based on the market and what we're seeing and hearing That said until we have that contract negotiated, it's probably going to be coming in after the budget's approved That might affect salaries and benefits in the coming year as well. It could go either way, but just just wanted to point that out and I think that's the last probably big piece of uncertainty as far as the budget goes And I don't think it's huge. I just We don't have it yet. It's the final number That's why why I say put the money back into public works and also one of the conversations we had earlier in the budget year was At these positions that we're going to be funded as a half a year Are projected to be funded for a full year the following year So the candles point with those four We would we would be Enlarging the budget this year to lessen the enlargement next year. Yeah It's gonna be a smaller increase because it's on a based on a bigger Yeah picture Smaller percentage increase please because it's got a bigger baseline bigger baseline. Yes Don or Tracy any thoughts? Like it's part one and two, but not the rest of not three and four Kind of you just made a general increase not not a specific to any particular No, but I um, I would support one through four. I can see the writing on the wall They're going to go to full time. So he may as well increase him to full time and up the budget It's it's not full time. It's full year. Right, but I mean they're going to go to the full but yeah next year And then I would leave five and six out of this conversation And I would push really hard based on the information that dan has provided That we asked to go from three cents to four cents on our capital tax And he said to tie it all in on one. Yeah. Yeah, so I think yeah I think we can we should we should have the all the discussion before we make any motions in case they they change our Thoughts on any of these things and so the sense I have is that there's a willingness to support the four There's a consensus to support not a unanimous consent Anonymous position to support the adding the four back in which adds in the 49,351 81 Um changing the proposed tax rate increase from 3.8 to 4.25 So, you know, we can set that aside for now then yet we can certainly talk about capital as well. Um, there is a request Right to go to the uh At the extra half penny that we declined to uh for last year Kendall is proposed actually making it a full penny additional full penny One months ago, um There is combined with obviously the proposal for fund balance Assignments that includes Relative to what we talked about at our last meeting Um, the capital funding there's the capital funding for fyi 25 the three cent capital tax generates 486,838 We've got 470,000 of um operating budget transfers And then um, there's an additional 770,983 of fund balance transfers into Um proposed into, um, which we would have to approve um Into various capital funds for a total of 1.7 um 1,727,821 Requested capital funding within these You know three agenda items here the between The capital tax as it is at three three cents The budget transfers and then fund balance transfers um half a penny on the Capital tax would increase would would add another 81,140 so I guess there's a couple questions here one is do we are we okay with the fund the the proposal for the the 770,000 Fund balance transfer and do we want to ask for more capital tax this year? You know where I said, yeah um I'm just trying to find the equipment, but I don't see it Oh major equipment I thought we were gonna make Change If you're looking at public works major equipments right on the on the first page of fiscal first page It's got the the second red highlight on the first page. Yeah, it's in the it's in the red. It's it's overspent already, right? Yeah, that's why I was what I had brought up last time was Um, I can't remember which hundred thousand dollars We were we were going we were talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars that weren't actually put in the year before so we were going to use the hundred thousand dollars for the municipal building Instead of municipal building towards public works Because I wasn't voted on or approved by voters Well, we have equipment that's trucks that are costing us money because they're passed um, um They're warranties That was that was what I had suggested the last week or two weeks ago Was a hundred thousand dollars from the new town municipal complex to be transferred to public works major equipment No So this is your dad. Here's your hundred here All right, but here's your hundred thousand dollars Right I'm taking that out and they're putting it. They move it. Oh, that's staying there and this Right. Am I reading that around? That's right Right. So yeah, there's a there's a table in there on the you know, this is this is this is hard harder I got confused in the packet on the computer It's hard to right work through the package because I was like looking back and forth from one to the other And I don't know as well. I'll just ask him on one day So so I guess the question I have is the the table that's in the memo in the In the fund balance fund balance transfers is that reflected in so yeah, yes, it is so If we're going to make a comparison between the proposed capital transfers in the fund balance assignments It is going to be and I've within the fiscal year 25 Um page Of the capital budget The darker green shaded items are representing those items So like there's the hundred thousand dollar municipal complex one hundred thousand dollar salt shed 200 000 dollars road reconstruction 170 k plus for public works 200 000 for fire department vehicles. So those are those five items there So it's in that fourth green column fiscal year 25 additions transfers between projects budgeted So that's that that's the correlation there And just to kind of keep working along A fiscal year 25 capital project. So there's The capital tax of 486 000 which andy spoke to The four hundred seventy thousand dollars Of operating transfers The third column there includes Grant revenue interest income as well. The interest income is the 95 000 dollar number at the bottom Or on the second page of that piece And then that fourth column is 855 983 because there's also a It's the uh clerk's records preservation piece of about 85 000 that's on top of the 770 k within the fund balance assignments Yeah, I just I just wanted to jump to the last page real quick and just say that out of out of almost all of these um items Between road construction and public works major equipment There's there's there's six years shown on the last page And the only two that are negative for three and four of those six years Is public works and major equipment? Which has been proven in All these attachments on the cost if we simply took the cost of repairs and rentals on a simple piece of equipment such as The the the back all over You could break that payment down for 12 months And it would pay for itself in it in the first year If you took that same method with the with the pow truck, you know the truck that has he's come to us and said this pow truck is Three years outside of you know, we realize they can't keep them for 10 years. We need to keep them for seven years those costs Under this plan to the replacement plan that we have here in front of us Are not going to go away because the replacement schedule is not changing because there's simply no funding to replace that equipment That cost is going to incur every year and every year you incur that cost You're losing that money forever when it could be paying a payment for a brand new piece of equipment And save that entire cost Of the repair or rental So one or subcontract fee to have that service provided to the town So one of the one of the Fund balance transfers were that's being proposed is 170 983 To public works major equipment, which will erase that negative number until next year your negative 15 648 dollars future year 26 you're negative again right off the bat It puts you in the positive for one year So so so we're going to go through this discussion every year and so yeah, we can add more next year too So we don't have to solve all year's problems this year All right, but we're not going to get ahead of our our failing equipment if we don't we if we continue to level fund it Who said nobody has said we're going to continue level funding our capital No, we won't increase it right, but The increase is not enough to cover the cost Right, if I know my mortgage is a hundred thousand dollars for the year And i'm budgeting for two years and i'm only going to budget 180 thousand saying no, hopefully i'll come up with another 20 000 dollars next year That's not a very good plan yeah, so um When when reassessment completes everybody's home bank is going to go up our Capital tax revenue is going to go up proportionately We don't know what that number is yet So I guess I guess my question to the board would be is everybody else in agreement of setting aside a hundred thousand dollars for For a municipal complex Yep, because that's money we won't have to ask for later Everybody's in agreement with that You know after all the the public feedback about Spending all that money without having them vote on it. I guess that's out of the question, but just uh Really look at those repair bills and the equipment replacement plan because the the drawings on the wall Until we move those dates and use the recommendation from our public works director About equipment replacement, then we're never going to get ahead of those bills Yeah, and just to reiterate reiterate and kind of get into that schedule a little bit of the pw major equipment You know our estimate is to set aside 320 thousand dollars annually and that's With vehicles being more on like nine and ten year plans rather than the warranties that you're speaking of too So, you know kind of stretching out those values if you will um those time frames I Mean do we have an updated equipment replacement schedule to consider and know the Funding ramifications of that and the impact on the repair and maintenance schedules Well, so as part of this packet there is an equipment replacement schedule on the back end of this The two areas that I've highlighted are the fire department vehicles and the public works major equipment I mean those two capital line items are very much Populated by several things, you know, especially public works as many vehicles So they act a little differently than the other line items in the capital projects list where you can say oh Salt shed we're going to spend this much and we're going to get grand river over three years and A plus b gets you to see but in these two other cases. It's a lot more complicated because we have 10 vehicles or 20 vehicles per schedule and We're trying to estimate what a replacement cost in a year would be and Trying to figure out what the savings would need to be to catch up to those points And the the capital plan looks out five years the vehicle replacement schedules that that stands referencing the fire department vehicle schedule goes out to 20 36 the Public works vehicles plan goes out to 20 32 So we're looking, you know 10 14 years out trying to get at the total cost and then okay each year We need to set aside x number of dollars to fund that 10 12 year schedule So it's it's a little bit Yeah, and then trying to reflect that into the five-year plan So you may not see that spending in the five-year plan But if you look at the attached vehicle replacement schedules, that's where you're going to see that spending See that see that the amount we think we should save each year And as dan and ethan alluded to that even that's a You know 10 10 year schedule opposed to a warranty. There's there's a hundred hundred thousand three hundred and seventeen dollars and 31 cents and shown in the packet And and To keep poking at it, but There's a fifteen thousand dollar back going there that costs us seventy six hundred and seventy five dollars That's a payment for a year on a brand new piece of equipment that wouldn't you wouldn't need You know that you go into the subcontracting there's subcontracting in there for Or oh, and that's not the repairs on the back of doesn't include the rentals I had it Added up there. So that's another thirty four hundred in another No, that's excuse me. That's twenty two Fifty three hundred and seventy two dollars So you're you're thirteen thousand dollars And then you've got subcontracting bills in there In total thirteen thousand dollars. So you're you're twenty six thousand dollars on one piece of equipment So what's your proposal? What do you want us to do? Somehow put more money into the public works so they can replace some of this equipment sooner than 10 years Because it's costing us between rentals maintenance and subcontracting Without getting a complete breakdown on every single job that they did it's in tune of a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars just in public works not including Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec is a lot harder to look at when it comes to mowing equipment things like that But there's you know, fifteen thousand dollars in Equipment breakdowns there so I mean as somebody that owns equipment at a certain point in time if you Take if it costs ten thousand dollars to operate a piece of equipment every year Just to operate it and then you have another twenty five thousand dollars in breakdowns But you can own a brand new piece of equipment for Twenty thousand dollars a year that's ten thousand dollars savings Every single year Right, so so are you Are you suggesting that we throw all this away and come back with a new no plan that I'm just trying to I just don't know how I mean I'm suggesting we put a hundred thousand dollars in public works Instead of into a Future buildings instead of into a future building and if you want to keep the future building then I don't know where that hundred thousand dollars comes from because the shelf shed Is is the next in line to your place? So let's ask the question was the consensus about about setting aside a hundred thousand dollars for future municipal buildings anybody I think it's essential personally I haven't hit the question. I'm sorry. Are you are you okay with setting aside a hundred thousand dollars for a future municipal complex? I was Yeah, so I also see the need for the I mean what Ethan's talking. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's there's a little yeah There's more more capital discussion needs to be had I I totally I totally agree with that So you've got A couple of questions here In front of us one is We've got we've got this fund balance money that we could put towards some of that And we need to decide whether we're okay with what's proposed there whether we want to propose something else The other the other question is do we want to ask for additional? Capital tax this year. That's the recommendation from staff Last year we chose not to do that because of this reassessment thing That we don't know what the impact of it is going to be and then once we know that then maybe we can Have you know So the question is you right? Do you want to ask for that extra penny this year or some other time? You know, yeah, we're going to have to ask for more money at some point The question of how do you want to do it? We could also increase our our operating budget transfers So there's there's multiple ways we can get there. We could also consider a local option tax The question is we want to do all do any of those stiff moving pieces this year I guess I'm not I'm trying to struggle struggling a little bit with where to where to start on that And I could ask the question do we want to you know ask for an extra half a penny or more? Capital tax this year do we want to wait Continue our strategy that we had last year waiting until reassessment is done and then relook at the question And set it based on what we need rather than without knowing what the denominator is going to be or is it the numerator or whatever Well, I might suggest that we originally looked for a five percent increase to the budget and with those four items added You're at a four point two percent increase. So you you're below that goal the The benefit I see of asking for a four cent capital tax versus about three and a half cent right now Is that that will give us more money in a short term And it will also put us closer to where we need to be based on all the information that we have And even after the grand list we know that that's not going to be enough potentially But maybe at that point we don't need four and a half cents Versus having to go up. So I'm just looking to get us there quicker Your other option is go for the half a cent that they asked for and put more of the fund balance directly into the capital budget To make up that difference. The other thing you can look at with the capital tax Is that ultimately we want to get to where we fund our capital through the tax So as you increase your capital tax, you can also reduce some of the operating budget transfers that you have Just to go like a direct line so that you could show your taxpayers that look we increased it by A hundred thousand but we pulled a hundred thousand out of the operating budget. So it's a net balance Just just just talk Yeah, I I I kind of look at that as a step function thing that we have to we have to watch as we go because inflation will Will probably be increasing operating transfers to a point that that triggers us to ask for more capital tax and then I think it may have to ride that way because there's I don't believe that we'll expand our grand list fast enough to keep up with our capital needs But if you only have if you only have The the capital tax from the capital um Or or or you go to local option tax and say you can use that for capital or for buildings or whatever I mean, what what is the process of asking about a local option tax? I mean the last vote was pretty conclusive. They didn't want one, right? The the last time it was voted on for the town was at a town meeting If we went to ballot, I have no idea how it would go And Asics is we don't have to do a charter change. We're included in whatever the statute was that that Allows sx to go to to ask for a local option tax without tax without first Updating our charter to give us the authority to do so. So we we could The fire was choose to warn question of local option tax At this coming town meeting. Yeah, I mean At the risk of getting castigated it's really hard to ignore All the benefits that that has provided to the places that have it I mean every year you read that they got x thousands of dollars from their Tats so we didn't we didn't warn that we were going to have a local option tax discussion today I'm just saying that that's an option. But yeah Something would be like pretty significant. So I may I May be missing something. It's been a week and yes, I understand it's only monday So if we're paying In maintenance costs repair costs rental costs More than what it would cost To buy something new I'm with the piece that I'm missing is why we would add more money to that equation why that wouldn't just be handled through process Stop paying the maintenance stop paying the repair and just go out and buy a new piece of equipment Yeah, I'm not close enough to that individual decision within the departments to do it I mean, obviously that we've had times where You know fire has gone out to bid for certain things and different departments would go out to bid for certain things so I'm not you know, I'm just not in the right place to say What's that decision point? You know this machine's costing us too much to Rehabilitate constantly or you know do something with so what's the point where we do turn around and just say oh, let's let's just Turn into the next generation Of that piece of equipment. So it does happen on a some Based, you know some time frame that where we do get those requests from public works or the fire station They'll come in and say hey this vehicle isn't due But it has these issues And we want to make an exception and go for the go with go forward with our capital purchase now So the those decisions are made. They don't stay. It's not an ironclad policy we often Not often We have it happens a handful of times. Yeah 10 years on the on the board And to that point the the previous grader before the last grader was bought was kept for Going to be quoted wrong here was either 26 or 28 years Right It was it was said to me by old people who lived here for a long time and watched the budget long before I did in What's earned 2018 that that grader in the last 15 years Paid for the new grader in repair costs before it was finally replaced So that's the answer that I think crazy was looking for is that nine to 10 year plan Is the problem? especially when a lot of the costs that was was You know our budget day session was said to be That the trucks aren't lasting nine to 10 years. Yeah, so so easy. We get we get the point I get the point and it's it's yeah The question was asked. Yeah, wait a little bit. It's been his history of Essex continues to happen. It will continue to happen until it's all So it comes down to revenue. Yeah, you burned a hundred thousand dollars. We'll burn another hundred next year. No problem Yep, we as I said as I said we need it we we either very soon, you know either now or Very soon need to start ask start raising more money to put against capital That's a question. Do we want to go forward with an additional half a penny? We are doing a very large Transfer into capital with from from fund balance, which you could say which I I would say covers us For the next for the coming year so that we are Another year ahead that we maybe will know more about the appraisal reappraisal and can then make a decision on where to set the tax rate rather than Going to an arbitrary. I consider it an arbitrary three and a half percent, but extra pennies, but What do other people think? My concern in asking for any kind of increase is that you have to look at that 18.5 percent Education there's that too. Yeah, people are going to look at you know One tax increase one another tax increase and you're going to get It's gonna be no all the way across so people will say you just asked for an extra penny last year Why are you asking again? Exactly? I mean, I do understand It's fun and I understand what Kendall's trying to do is a hundred thousand dollars there for municipal complex That we won't have to ask for later. It's been a long time explaining it. I'll say I tried to tell him All right. So my question is then why are we setting a hundred thousand dollars aside for the municipal complex? What is that going to get for us? Are we gonna Sure, you know, he's concerned about the money and let's find out what I would say it's a drop in the bucket and we have we have in here You know very early preliminary projections for a new municipal facility town offices and it's you know, including community space rec space programming space Auditorium plus a fire station is roughly 40 million dollars. Yeah, very early projections. Um, we've talked Roads and infrastructure on that site probably going to be another 1.5 1.6 million dollars But we don't know and and um, I think I sent you an email We're looking to put something on the january 8th agenda to start to talk about timeframe for that municipal complex how we want to consider options for funding what we can do how we can do it We don't know we haven't heard much from the public yet as far as what they're looking for is timeline What what's important what buildings they want to do? We could be talking 10 years out. We could be talking 20 years out. We could be talking three years We don't know so it's to start the hundred thousand dollars is to start moving in that direction Um, maybe it goes towards the infrastructure. You prep the site and it's 100,000 towards that 1.5 1.6 um, maybe it's it accumulates over the next few years and it it's That much more that much money you that much more money that you don't have to bond for Which helps in interest rates and long-term spending and saving as well. So Uh Short answer. We don't know exactly what it's for a long answer. It would be used for something on that site There's a right point nothing should be done on that site until there's a public moment For what for funding to do anything on that site? And if you invested this money back into community you'd have a chance to save the money that would in turn give this community more money But that's all I gotta say So we do need to move forward here um Should we should we discuss? Uh fund balance transfers. I guess this that is part of that discussion the 100,000 uh for Can can I ask a clarifying question? So We've already added 170,983 dollars to public works major equipment, right? That's 170,000 is one of the items as a proposed capital transfer. Yes from fund balance Okay Yeah I wouldn't say so So I guess this the It's anybody have any concerns with the proposal for what to do with the the fund balance proposal I didn't the one concern I've heard is the 100,000 Set aside for future Minutes of the municipal buildings or we okay with all the rest of it I'm not hearing any objections. So I'm going to assume. Yes that we're gonna that we would we would Support this do we want do we want to have more discussion about this 100,000 for the new municipal complex? Do we want to point it somewhere else keep it in our pocket as Just as a future tax relief. Do we want to what do we want to do? And that $100,000 could be spent for community outreach surveys Sessions for prioritizing what where funds be spent could that be? Yeah, it'd be going towards capital as well as proposed now I think if you want to to be more operating outreach engagement I would recommend that it be set aside towards that specific thing right now It's directed towards capital, which is more restrictive, right? So so site prep work Counts as capital, but I think communications with the public Okay, there's not got to be an operating expense. Thank you So we could designate that $100,000 for operating expenses associated with Yeah, and at first blush that that would be a very high number for as far as doing outreach and engagement I don't know who would need that much So thoughts on that we want to move that 100,000 to something else or we okay with where it is I'm okay with where it is I am too Anybody else okay with it? I'm good All right. So we have we have a consensus to that we can we can Agree on the proposed Fund balance the fund balance transfers as proposed in the memo Now the the other question that we've been asked is whether to Ask for another half penny of capital tax this year I've heard don say she's not in favor I'm not in favor. No Can we make that up with a fund balance transfer? So it is it is the 700 the additional 700 the 770,800 983 that were capital transfers is Quite a bit more than half a penny. Half a penny is 81,000 So this is Nine times that yeah Half a penny is only 81,000. Yeah half a penny is 81,000 And and I fully totally understand and support the fact that we need to revisit the capital question In the next the next you know the next one or two years Unfortunately, we won't we won't know the reappraisal until the following year next year We're going to be in the exact same position we are in today and not knowing what the reassessment I thought it had to be done by july Then the june 2024 25 You'll be You'll be looking out of public's work, but negative 15,648 for capital future year 26 I'm not in favor of the capital tax if we're going to transfer the money Okay, so I think I think we have Three questions we need to answer We need to do Appropriate motions So where do you want to start? So so I have to say I've got a I'm in a bit disadvantage today because for some reason when I'm in the same room with margaret My mouse controls her cursors I So the the See the question here we've we've gotten through that we've done more we've written the work session we need to Do Adopt the municipal budget and we want the public hearing yes, and that's not until that's down after the So you want us to do the other ones first you could approve the capital budget in five-year plan and more in a public hearing You could approve the fund balance assignments And you could adopt the fiscal 25 municipal budget and more in the public hearing So we'll have public hearings on January 29th for capital and Operating budgets the fund balance. You don't have a public hearing for that. That's just a decision Right tonight, but you approve you give your approval to those budgets before you won the public hearing that you That you give final adoption after the public hearing Okay, is there a right? Well, I was going to ask one more question about the budget from staff Is that is there any other item in there that you would recommend? That would get us closer To a smaller increase next year that you know is coming I would say those six areas that we identified are Are the areas where You'll have to make up less of a gap next year So that's those those are the areas where the most the biggest leap would be I think pretty much more. I think that's yeah reasonable to say to you know having Just to investigate these and you know knowing that they were a couple of them were already on the table to begin with And then you know the consideration of the half-year part time Yeah Thank you You want a motion? Yes, please I move that the select board approve the fy 25 29 capital plan and schedule the public hearing as proposed by staff is that For january 29th 2024 of a second Second thank you don't Is there any motion Satisfy our needs Further discussion about So was it approved that you said approved is the right language to use Yes, then we adopt sometimes we okay adopting as later against the approve Just just making sure It's good enough. Yeah, we're all kosher and good any further discussion about approving the capital plan and warning Yeah, those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye opposed say nay. No. Okay motion passes for one Okay, and now we need a motion to For the fund balance assignments actually before I do that We didn't open up the that we will have a public hearing on the capital plan So I'm not but on this one we won't so anybody have any comments from the public about Fund balance assignments. I've not seen any hands. So let's go forward and motion Um, I think I found one that will work I moved that this select board assign the FY 23 general fund balance as recommended In the packet Thank you. Tracy. Is there a second? Should there be an amount in there There is an amount overall that's in the amount. Um, there's there's a Yeah, the grand total that is Shown here is six million three eighty three seven forty two Which was my estimate before receiving the audit draft And then on on page three. I've listed out the numbers Um independently by that the categories as was requested earlier Dude, do you want me to read the I'm just curious if if this is going to the public if they need to know the amount of fund balance you're transferring So it's it's documented in the memo that's in the in the packet Okay, I didn't know if I had to be It's broken out. Typically done it that way. Okay, so we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second that then any further discussion about approving Yeah, about approving the fund balance assignments That leaves 15 percent in the fund balance Assigned Emergency phone Which we can then Assign you can't assign we can let's choose to assign it if we want to yes Okay, all those in favor of approving the fund balance assignments. Please say I I oppose say nay. Okay. Motion passes for one And then um on the budget we also need to is it approved or adopt? Adopt that one says adopt And uh, also need to reference the additions that we talked about this I make the motion that the select board adopt the FY 25 budget Adding in 14,475 to Highway summer construction services 6,350 dollars to Highway storm sewer maintenance and increasing the Um the part-time Admin assistant and part-time parks and facilities trail coordinator Positions extending them to full year the motion Yeah, and and also to schedule a public hearing for January January 29th Is there a second? No second. Thank you count all any further discussion about adopting the budget and warning public hearing Do we need a total amount for the I don't know you added any additions, but for the paper we have Yeah, we will bring it to the 4.209 Yeah, if you have one 49 81 It would be um 16,057,069 plus Yeah, so I get to a total of 16 106 421 16 106 421 In the amount of 16 million 106 No 106 16 million 106 thousand 421 421 421 dollars And kentland you're okay with the second for that change of adding in the explicit amount Okay, any other discussion? All those in favor of adopting the budget warning the public hearing. Please say aye Aye Opposed say nay So I didn't You said aye. Okay, so motion passes 4-1. I think that's it for those agenda items. So where are we? Business item is uh consider approval of resolution and appreciation of robert witton So moved Do it that way No, thank you don and there's a second second. Thank you. Kendall. Do we want to read the resolution into the record? I'll read it His proper pronunciation is witton. Yes Thank you Uh resolution and appreciation of robert witton Whereas robert witton was hired as highway crew member for the town of esic public works department on october 17 1983 and Whereas robert witton will be retiring on december 29 2023 And whereas robert witton has been an integral part of the public works department supporting both the community and his fellow employees And whereas robert witton has played a leading role in the operation and maintenance of the water and sewer systems throughout the town of esics And whereas robert witton has been an indispensable team member for the water and sewer department throughout his tenure And whereas robert witton has been a dedicated loyal and dependable employee of the town of esics now therefore be it resolved That on the occasion of robert's retirement that the esics select board on behalf of the staff and citizens of the town of esics Hereby extend our most sincere appreciation to robert witton for over 40 years of service In making esics a better community in which to live and work Adopted this 18th day of december 2023 by the town of esics select board Thank you. Kendall any further discussion? Thank you for your service Yeah, bob has been a tremendous resource tremendous employee for the town of esics. He will be sorely missed He's been running our water sewer systems for for 40 years. He's been great. So wish him well in retirement. It's well learned As erin tried to work his magic like he did with denis I think he's tried. I'm not sure if it's going to work in this case. You never know All right any further discussion all those in favor of Proving the resolution. Please say aye Aye both say nay Okay, motion passes five zero Next business item is discussion and protection potential action about evaluation of town manager The question here is whether we want to make any changes to how we did this last year Are we okay with the survey that we sent out? Are we going to get a hard copy of that survey? Two of them like last year we can do that. Yes Hard copy can be provided and we'll we'll figure out a date that they will be due by to back to travis And then we'll we'll also have Esk staff department heads to To complete as well Anybody have any concerns or questions or want to change any of the questions that are on that It look good and thank travis or his extra work on it Okay, so do we need to do anything to Start that I don't think so. It sounds like you're ready to move ahead. I don't think we need a motion So I'll work with travis and get the ball rolling on that I think the goal would still be to Have it done by the end of march Just because the five of you are the ones who have to work just over the past year So in case there's any changes on the board just looking back for the past year. So we'll probably Get into this Early middle of next month try to wrap it up at least have the evaluation forms done by Hopefully your second meeting in february. So you have some time to discuss and review for the end of march And we will start that and with no no motion necessary. So all right great any other comments? Ethan like you were about since no my All right, so then this All right, and then Hig k l that's an l Discussion potential action about town managers employment contract the question here is whether The way this has been done has hat has taken place in the past is the Select board has generally authorized the chair to negotiate Contract terms with the manager, um, of course subject to review of the Our select board we can certainly talk about the The anything that's that's posed either requested by greg or what we want to counter or whatever we can do that Um an executive session During meetings if you're at you know, if you want to or you can authorize the Either me or me and tracy I want to do this. I want to proceed negotiating contract or getting a contract together because craig's contract's up Into june. I would like to see two people involved in it work as a team You mean able I am amenable to that arrangement story So we can have a Motion to authorize the the uh, the uh, chair and vice chair to To negotiate the managers contract. Yep Make the motion that we appoint the chair and vice chair of the s6 town select board to negotiate the s6 town managers contract Thank you done. Is there a second? Okay. Thank you. Ethan any further discussion? You can see maniquette, uh, do you want to just negotiate or negotiate and execute you want to bring it back to the board once We've negotiated. I think I would just question negotiate come back to the board and then execute Okay, so this is this is to negotiate. Okay. Yep. All right any further discussion? I Was in favor, please say hi Hi, I oppose say nay The motion passes five zero and again the intent here is to Yeah, was there a second in that? I second. Okay. Ethan. Thanks. Ethan second. I missed that. Okay. All right. So uh consent agenda I didn't make the motion. We accept the consent agenda as presented Thank you, Don. Is there a second second? Thank you, Ethan any further discussion about consent? It is confused about the stars for the consider approval extension of deadline Uh, it was just a contract thing. So it was we put it on there just in case you wanted to pull that off and go into executive session You don't have to by any means. It's just um the options there if you wanted to discuss a contract It's all set, right? We're just gonna extend it. Yeah Thank you All those in favor of proving consent please say aye. Aye. I oppose say nay. Okay. Motion passes five zero reading file. Any board member comments? Go ahead. How you go for it. Don, I saw your hand for it. I wanted to wish everybody a merry christmas Happy new year and thank you all for your hard work this year. All town employees. Thank you Thank you, Don. Second Hi Any other I had a couple questions. Um one about the town's overweight permits It appeared to me that an overweight permit should be given to somebody that needs it for a specific purpose for a period of time Versus a blanket Here you go. Just use it on all of our roads whenever you want Is that a mistaken impression or I can get back to you with specifics. My impression was that it's uh, it's Good for one year and it does give them the ability to ride on drive on those roads for that year A lot in a lot of cases. It's our businesses in town that are driving on those roads Day after day, but I can confirm that and get back to you. Okay. I just wondered because um, it is a valid concern that when you put I'll use an example of a septic truck Usually they'll have an overweight permit and they can go on dirt roads in the spring because it's an essential service And that's the only time that they can go versus versus you might not let dump trucks go on that road unless it's a pressing concern You wouldn't give somebody an overweight permit to use The road unless there was a reason for it So it just seems like a conflict to me that For five or ten dollars You can give a company or an individual business Whatever a permit that lets them go on roads that aren't rated for what they're carrying all year long It definitely seems like a money loss I was just that was a question that I had I also had the same Thought with that and I'd be curious whether Like what the What the true cost is On the wear and tear on our roads the maintenance things like that I mean if you can pay ten dollars to have an entire fleet The overweight, um, it doesn't seem like that really we're we're we're spending money Instead of having the the business or the fleet actually be paying for that maintenance. Yeah But do we get to set that fee or is that Can I answer what I know because I researched this because I was curious It's set by the DMV We don't have any real saying other than we can issue the permit and collect the money and all the all the The year term is set by the state and They don't grant any exceptions See that just it's just the the point that I've always had was that if somebody was building a house and they needed to move Big trucks you would say, okay, you can get an overweight permit to build it in February The roads are posted, but you can go for that purpose And it just seems like to give All I don't know how many overweight permits there are but there must quite be quite a few to use Some of the roads that aren't rated for that way And ten dollars. I mean that doesn't pay for any of them. Yeah, it's the state's that's that's that fee I don't know if our charter change around fees allows us to change that probably no So And I just the final thing was I wanted to really thank public works for their projects update. There was a lot of information in it That was that was great. Yep And I actually probably wish them the best of luck after all this flooding Yeah, they've been out all day watching monitoring and taking care of the roads and the culverts and trying to Keep our stuff open as best as we can. Yeah Thank you You so Excuse me um I was in a conversation with my neighbor the other day and She was asking me some questions about the about the land and my question is is I understand that A lot of the material that was discussed before the board made decision Was under executive session, but there's been no public release of information on site details or the mlu Hasn't been put in a packet. There was simply a press release and I was asked about these questions. I said Here's some of my reasons why because now that it's doesn't affect the The acquiring of the land My opinion it should be a public record Um, so I'm just curious when and if The town's planning on making any of that available, especially the mlu They're all available. I've released uh, I had one records request where I provided the Closing documents and the memorandum of understanding for the access We did put out the press release acknowledging it that those documents are public so anybody can ask for them Happy to turn them over. Um, as I mentioned earlier looking to have a business item on january 8th so your next meeting to sort of Put put out timeline information I can make a note to include the mlu and an imposing document as part of that Certainly, if you have other things you want to discuss or talk about at that meeting Please let me know ahead of time. We're going to be trying to gather information of Timeline to where we get to to how we are and where we are and thoughts on how to move forward from there So, um, yeah, certainly Yeah, one of one of my Would request would be now would be You know the vhb study because that was paid for by the town And I believe that we should just be transparent and Make that available in that packet Yep, that should be fine. Yeah But I just she had asked me and I looked for her and I said I'll ask Anything else All right, so we do need a Executive session That's the one about um public officer or employee Yes, okay I move that the select board make the specific findings that general public knowledge of contracts would place the town at a substantial disadvantage We don't need that part. Oh, okay. Thank you. I move I move the select board entering to executive session to discuss contracts in the appointment or Employment or an evaluation of a public officer or employee Pursuing a one vsa 3 1 3 a 1 a and one vsa 3 1 3 a 3 to include the town manager and Assistant town manager deputy deputy town manager because that wasn't on here. So that's why I'm out We don't need the contract. There's a couple in there. We don't need the contracts. It's just the um, just the uh, discussion about uh, employment employment evaluation of public officer Okay All right, thank you. Done. Is there a second second? Thank you, Ethan for the discussion All in favor of swing and do the executive session please say aye Aye Opposed say nay Okay, motion passes five zero. We will um, thank you everybody for for coming and um, I don't think we'll be We'll be coming back for any more motions and uh, Have a good night everyone