 Monday, May 24th, 2021 Town of Essex Select Board meeting to order. And I will do the same for the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees to order. Okay, moving on to the first agenda item. Are there any additions or changes from staff, Evan? Nothing from staff. No. Okay. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Evan. Anything from board members? Anything from trustees? Make sure. Okay. Sounds like no. So, we don't need to approve any changes. Andrew, you want to take the next? Yeah. Thank you for that, Andy. And as you'll see from this next moment, tomorrow will be one year for the anniversary of George Floyd's murder. And so, I will ask everybody in this moment to please have a collective moment of silence and we'll pause for a few moments to allow for that. And during this time, please make sure that you mute yourself so we can fully respect and reflect on this moment. Thank you all. All right. Thanks, Andrew. Moving on to the next agenda item, public to be heard. This is a time for the public to speak to the boards about any topics that are not on tonight's agenda. If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand or otherwise indicate in the chat if you're on the phone, we'll give you an opportunity at some point to jump in. So, I see Mike Sullivan. Andy, I think Mike was just being admitted. I think Ken Signorello has his hand up. Sorry. Yeah. Let me scroll down to the appropriate place so I can see hands. I don't see Ken's hand up. It is up. Yeah. It is up? Okay. I'm going to start with Andrew Provence from last week. Dear. Go ahead, Ken. Good evening. Thank you very much for giving me the time to speak for you for a moment. At the last elect board meeting, I believe a citizen asked that the names and salaries of all town employees be published in the annual report. I'm not sure if the annual report is specified, but I lived in Burlington for 24 years and that was done in Burlington. That was a very nice feature to be able to find that out and be aware of it when voting on the budget. Considering that the budget is primarily the major portion of it isn't tax salaries. I also noticed when researching town and city tax rates that Rutland City not only publishes the employees, they also publish all their vendors that they pay additional $300 to. Not excessive, but maybe those who get $10.99 would make sense in their annual report. I think that would be a great addition to transparency. It would allow folks to know, for example, how much was paid for front porch forum, the Essex reporter, Tarant Giles Richardson, the merger law firm, without having to ask. Having to ask for that information, it's not comfortable and it would be nice if it was simply there in transparent in the annual report. I echo that request and emphasize the details. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Ken. Any other, anybody else have any comments? Again, I might need help here and I didn't see Ken's hand this morning. I don't see anyone else. Andy. Lorraine just popped her hand up. Go ahead, Lorraine. Thank you, Andrew. It's funny that I just popped my hand up. Thank you for the acknowledgement on George Floyd's murder too. Really appreciate that. Andy, do you think at any point, because I always get nervous before talking to you guys, would you ever consider doing like, you know, like those chats that the police chief is doing now or that our legislative members do in the future or put it on the agenda during the upcoming summit? Yeah, we have had some discussions about that. In fact, Tracy was suggesting in a specific application that we could use to do that. We have not had a complete discussion about whether to go there or how to use that and how to deploy it. But yeah, it's definitely something that I think I could support. And again, it, I don't know if you're asking me specifically, if you're asking for in general to have select board members do this on their, you know, as they choose. Well, I was just thinking that maybe because what I find in terms of even Chief Hogue's and the legislative ones, it's held monthly that there's probably enough people on the board that one or two of you could rotate. I just think it would make you guys more accessible and it would build better relationships. And I mean, you could talk to those guys and see if they feel it's successful. But it's kind of, you know, it's nerve wracking for us to raise our hands before something that's more formal. And I think it might break some of that down in terms of being able to problem-solve and build consensus. Just a suggestion. Yep. Yep. Thank you, Larry. Thanks. Anyone else? Bruce posted his hand up as well. Go ahead, Bruce. Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. Hang on. Mary. Mary and I are sharing. So Mary has something to say. Okay. I have a couple of things to say. Number one, I'm just wondering about this whole. Thing that I heard about where there's some kind of an agreement. You're going to be working on with the junction. That's on the agenda. My question is why are we even working on it? I think at some point we should have a chance to raise a question about why you're even going with it. Yeah, that's on the agenda. And you can certainly ask that question. So the next thing I'll say then, and I'm sorry because we just got the agenda. That was our fault. The other thing is, is that I'm still very upset that absolutely nothing has been said or done about Patrick's behavior. And including Vincent's nothing. And when, when the select board can't even make a comment that we're sorry it happened or whatever, then you're condoning it. You're saying it's okay. And this is going to become the new normal. And not a word has been said by anybody. And all I could say is shame on all of you because this was disgusting. And then you went ahead and you elected a self proclaimed douchebag. To be the vice chair. A self proclaimed douchebag who has made it clear that he hopes that we feel a lot of pain in our town. And now he's one of the negotiators. Of course that's sorry that's on the agenda. And I'd like to know, Evan, you're supposed to be a manager. You said nothing about any of this. And I'd like to know why that is. And I'd also like to know, Evan, how you can possibly work for two masters. I know you said you're going to try your best. I don't have a problem with you, Evan, except I don't think you can do that job for two sides because you've made it pretty clear, including when you bought the t-shirts for that, let's get married party. That you're on the junction side. And I just think this whole thing is disgusting. And I want to tell you that if you think it's going to go away, it's not. This is not going away. And I am very disappointed in our select board, all of you. Thank you. So, Mary, if I can respond a little bit there, we do have a computer use policy and it does have, require us to have such discussions about violations in executive session. We have had at least a brief discussion about that. The policy also requires two violations in order to have a public censure of a select board member. So there could be some discussion about whether or not there's been one or whether there's been multiple transgressions there. And it's the use of equipment, not the content used. And then another thing, the allegations you're referring to or the evidence that you're referring to with regard to the conversations that were happening during a meeting came out after the officers were elected by the select board. So we were not aware of that situation before the officers were elected. Well, I would think that if Patrick had any decency, he would recuse himself from this and he would actually step down as vice chair if he were a decent and ethical person in my opinion. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. Any other comments from the public? My hand is up, Andy, because I do feel the need to respond. Yeah, go ahead, Patrick. Yeah. So, Mary, I know you've said comments very similar to that before. I have apologized. And if you choose not to accept that apology, then so be it. I can't do any more than that. At least I don't feel I can do any more than that. I did say I'm not going to step down and I have no intention to. I didn't violate any laws. I didn't embezzle money from the town. I said something that was uncouth, but I've apologized for it. And if I think it's incredibly unfair to put the onus of my burden and my mistakes on the other members of the select board, it's not up to them to chastise anyone for behavior, especially my behavior. They did not have a choice in that. And it's wildly unfair to call them out for that. Certainly feel free to call me out. You can do it every meeting if you choose to. But I believe very strongly that if I have apologized and choose to move on, if you don't want to, then that's absolutely your prerogative. But that's the point of the issue. And that's really all I'm going to say about it. Andy. Andy, could I make one more comment? If it's brief. Yeah. I just wanted to say that in my opinion, the apology that was given was about the fact that, that they were using devices during a meeting. I don't believe there was probably anything said about what was said and how it was said in the crudeness. So that's one of the reasons this is not going to go away for me. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Anyone else? Sarah Michelle Stoltz has her hand up. Sarah Michelle. Hi. So my blood is boiling a little bit. I'd like to go back months ago. When the Essex retorter became a thing in the community. And that's where I think the problem began. Because a lot of hate. A lot of anger. And a lot of accusations came out and started happening. And that has created a huge risk. If, if, if, and I believe that that is. The beginning of the biggest problem in our community. Um, so I want to say to people who support that. Newspaper quote unquote, that you started this. And you get what you get. And that's why all I'm hearing is that hatred in that anger. And I think that you need to look at yourself. And CG, maybe I'm not treating other people correctly. And maybe that's why all of this anger has come out. So again, you get what you give. Um, secondly, um, I oppose the idea. Of listing, um, employees, um, salaries. I think that is super disrespectful. And I think it's a really bad idea. And I think it's going to cause more issues than anything. And I do wonder before you even consider that idea. Looking into just how employees in Burlington feel about that. So please take that into consideration. Um, I think it's a really bad idea. Also, if you look back at many, um, chats. During meetings when Elaine Haney was chair, there was disgusting and disrespectful, um, conversations happening. That again was the beginning. Of all the disrespectful behavior. That was going around. And in my opinion. People have probably been saying these things behind their backs. And I don't hear anything positive. So maybe those people culminating in public hearing need to start looking at things more positively. They might find a lot less stress in their lives. And they might also. Create less stress in other people's lives. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. This is Bruce. Can I. Change the subject. Yes, go ahead, Bruce. Okay, thanks. Uh, first of all, uh, regarding chat. I chair the state library board and we had a hearing last December with 70 people online. Chat was activated. Found it very distracting. And so did the board because messages would pop up. If you're chairing an in person meeting. And people are making noise in the audience. Um, you'll ask them to take their conversations into the hall. So it's not distracting to the meeting. Uh, and if people want to speak, you ask them to raise their hand. And that's what goes on in this meeting. So I, I would not support chat in these meetings. I think it's distraction. Um, on salaries, it's public information. Um, it should be disclosed. When I was on the select board. I asked for it. I got a Xerox sheet of paper. That mentioned no one's names. Just position patrolman $35,000. Secretary $40,000. Um, they deprived the select board member of that information. Let's get it out there. There's nothing secretive about it. It is public information. And, uh, we could request it and, um, publish it ourselves. I think that should be policy of the town. Thank you very much. Thanks for any other comments from the public. Andy, I'm not sure if you see Vince's hand up. I do not see Vince's hand up. Go ahead, Vince. Oh, I just, I just wanted to circle back to the, the like. Incivility thing. Like we, we all have different points of view. We're all very passionate about our points of view. And we all have blind spots. Like, let's just try to be nice to each other. I mean, there's a lot of things that. That one person on one side of an issue does that the other side thinks is disgusting and vice versa. Like it's part of being human. It's part of, it's part of taking different sides on an issue. Um, let's, let's keep it to the issues. Let's discuss the issues and debate the issues. That's all I wanted to say about that. Thanks, Vince. And either know what their hands up. Okay, good. Cause I'm not seeing any. Cause I've never seen any tonight. All right. And scrolling down, I don't see any, anybody that's on the phone. Um, no comments in the chat of anybody saying they want to speak. Well, there is one person on the phone. And is there any, uh, if you're on the phone, you want to speak, go ahead and jump in. Okay. Sounds like no comments there. So then let's, uh, move on to the first business item, Andrew. Thank you, Andy. So that will bring us to, um, an update on the racial equity work that is being done. Um, that we have a one board member from each of our boards is a part of the racial equity group. Um, so Raj Chowla and Patrick Murray, I believe our, our representatives on that group and would love to have a, an update as to what's been going on. So unfortunately we haven't had a chance to rehearse. So, but I think that Marguerite volunteered to start off. And once she sets the table for us, Raj, then I think we can follow up with our individual, uh, comments for the, uh, subgroups that we're in. I think we may have a task force member that wants to, um, offer some information as well. So Marguerite, are you here? I am. Yes. Thank goodness. Um, yeah. And luckily I've been practicing in front of the mirror all day. So this should be perfect. Just kidding. Um, yeah. So essentially the task force, um, most recently, um, I'm just going to do the update sort of from April till now. Um, and, um, they've been meeting since about mid-April and it will continue every other Wednesday until, um, the beginning of June. That's just the schedule for the moment. And really in that time, um, with the wonderful leadership of, uh, Sue McCormick and Tabitha Moore from Creative Discourse, um, really organizing the task force around a vision and priorities and working to pull, um, the group together so that we could hear from them and get that worked out. Um, and so there was a bunch in the beginning, um, of these, this set of meetings anyway around visioning and creating a vision and a set of priorities for the group. And from there, um, we got a nice, at least sort of start to all of that. And we were able to then decide on some priorities, subcommittees and groups where we could, um, at least focus some work because there is so much, um, that people feel they want to do and, um, work on. So this way at least it will create some focus there. And, um, those are the subgroups that were just mentioned here, that Pat and Raj, and I think Lorraine is going to speak to in just a moment here. Um, and, um, essentially in that sense, we, we, um, we're supposed to end those meetings, um, with the work with creative discourse, but we've actually decided with the task force that we want to keep them on for a few more, um, meetings and we don't know quite what that looks like yet, but we know that we are going to continue working with them at least for the next part to make sure that the task force, um, really gets set up in a way that it can continue this work, um, you know, on into the future and have leaders in there that want to do that. Um, and they put forward a few ideas around that. Some of the steering committee depends still on what that looks like. Um, the task force will decide that. Um, and so we're very excited anyway, at least to have, well, thankfully, Tabitha and Susan, yes, they would continue their work. So, um, I think everyone was was relieved to hear that, um, as well because their facilitation has really been key into actually getting, um, Getting us all together into relationship with one another and those, those voices, um, to, to be heard. So, um, with that said, um, I will kind of go on to the three groups that have been sort of formed out of this, which Raj is in one and I will let him speak to that and Patrick as well. And then Lorraine, I'm not sure which one of you wants to go first. I can pick if you want, that's easiest. Raj, if you want, I just thought you'd go off mute. So you just, I'll jump in. I was gonna volunteer Lorraine, but that's just me. So there's three sort of subgroups that we're dealing with right now. I volunteered to participate in one of them looking at municipal investments in equity and represented the leadership. And it's primarily concerned with exploring, you know, our municipal government makeup and our representation on boards and committees, how our municipal government makes decisions that's budget priorities as it all relates to equity and inclusion. It's been some very interesting conversations. I think it's a little premature to get into a lot of what we've been talking about at this point because we've just started to dive into it. But some of the key ideas are really exploring how do we recruit and welcome more members of our community to feel comfortable and able to serve on our elected boards, appointed boards as employees of the community. How do we retain those people? How do we reach various populations or a more complete form of our community? How do we reach out to those people and let them and offer them some access and ownership over their community? And so that's a large part of what that subgroup is spending time discussing and brainstorming around and I'll just leave it there. Like I said, I don't want to get too deep into some of the things we're talking about right now because they're all a little on the beginning. We've also been talking about candidly about what we feel are some of the barriers to participation and representative leadership and how to overcome them. The most recent meeting we had last Wednesday, our subgroup listened to a presentation about, I think it was from Evan, about mapping our municipal budgets to these topics. Where does this work appear in our budgeting and how can we identify areas and perhaps measure success or discover areas for improvement? So that conversation began last weekend. And out of respect for Lorraine, I'll ask Pat to go next. Thank you so much, Raj. So I've been on the policing subcommittee. The policing subcommittee was really kind of formed and dedicated around both the structure of the police department and what we as a community want to see from our police department itself. As part of the beginning work that the larger group did was sort of examining the feelings of our BIPOC community and their interactions with the police and the fairly significant difference that they felt as BIPOC individuals interacting with the police. There was a significant gap in the level of safety that they felt versus those who were surveyed amongst our white community members. So we kind of take that information and are doing a deeper dive into that data as part of this subcommittee itself, which is made up of Chief Hogue, who has been in every respect, I would say, amazing at the job that he's done. He's been very supportive of all the work that we're doing. Most recently, we took a look at the police department budget and the focus and long-term sort of hope or goal of the group is to sort of examine that and then make recommendations with obviously Ron's input as well. So if there are stakeholders that are part of the municipal government, stakeholders who are part of the police department, stakeholders who are community members who can all sort of weigh in and determine priorities around the money of the police department, where do we wanna see investments in the policing system and the structure that we have in Essex. There was some small talk about the desire of citizen oversight of policing, but that's very, very early days. There was nothing really specific covered on that yet. We're really still setting up the structure of this sort of policing subcommittee. So right now we know that Ron is going to be kind of our municipal lead for that. And then we are also going to have a member of the general public, not a municipal employee who is going to be sort of the secondary leader. So when we come together as a group, we're going to have Ron and whoever the second volunteer is working to sort of be co-facilitators of the conversations that we have around the structure of policing, how we can make sure that all members of our community feel safe and welcome in Essex and specifically have what the police department can do to make those outreaches if that's what we wanna do. If they feel or if we feel that maybe there needs to be a larger commitment towards what we're doing is regarding mental health in our community. That might be something that will come up and get recommended as far as a budgetary priority. So there's lots of different avenues that the subgroup is kind of exploring. I don't think anything is kind of getting ruled off the table yet, but a large part of what we've been doing as a smaller group is deciding how do we approach these conversations? How do we make people feel comfortable in having them and how do we get buy-in from the community, make sure it doesn't seem like this is a token effort. We don't want this to seem like, hey, the police chief and some 40-year-old white dude got together and they ran this committee and they recommended no changes. It needs to have community involvement. It needs to have voices of the entire representation of Essex in it. So that's where we've gone so far with the subcommittee group itself. It's a lot of numbers examining. I'm sure it's going to be more going forward as well, but really looking forward to as we do move forward sort of figuring out the priority issues for tackling this amongst the group members themselves. And then Lorraine, I believe you're up to speak to the last subcommittee. Thank you, Patrick. I'm laughing because you guys did my job, actually. I'm on the communications subcommittee and Marguerite serves with me as well as Kathy. So there's only three of us and what we're working on really crosses over what Patrick and Raj both said is how to engage the community and how to get the word out in terms of what we're doing. We've heard from different people in the community that they don't feel informed and some people who want to get more involved. So we want to create avenues that will allow for that and create more engagement. I also would like to encourage people when Chief Hogue has the coffee chats to please, please attend if you can. I believe he had committed to doing at least one in the evening at some point. I don't know when the next one is coming up and I'll see if we can find out if there is sign-up sheets for those at some point. Marguerite and others have done a great job in terms of creating a landing page for their work on equity and on that equity page there is a form to sign up if you want to receive email notifications. So I would love it if people are listening in tonight to please go to EssexBremont.org and just search equity. It'll come bring you to the landing page and you'll see a sign-up for an email address and as we kind of get our feet on the ground in terms of what we're gonna call things and really digging into the work we would like to send regular updates. And we also invite anyone out there who is interested in becoming more engaged to please sign up as well so that we can touch base with you and get you more involved because we're also concerned about sustainability in the long run because there's a lot of work to be done and it's going to take some time. So I appreciate everyone's help tonight and look forward to doing more work. Thanks guys. Just to piggyback off of that and thank you Raj, thank you Patrick and thank you Lorraine as well for the details. Marguerite, if you can share the screen but you wanna just walk through that process in terms of how to sign up for those 24 attendees. Yeah, so I did put the link there in the chat just in case you wanna ever explore on your own and then let me, here we go. So yeah, so if you come to this page here it's just this green button right here. And so then you'll click on that and basically just enter your email address and hit submit and then you'll be good to go. And I assume there was another reason why you had your hand up besides that? It was just to make sure that in the chat there I did put the URL in case someone wanted to click on it. So that was it. But thank you. Thank you Marguerite. I'm quite encouraged to hear about these, the subgroups, the work that has been done today and moving forward, I'm looking forward to hearing more. In the meantime, are there certain recommendations or certain requests that either the entire group and or the subcommittees have of either of our boards? I would say go ahead Pat. I mean, we certainly don't as of yet but we're really just starting to kind of dig into this. I think that as certainly as budget season starts to roll around later this year we may want to consider coming back to do maybe more of an in-depth presentation of the work that we'll be doing from here to September just to get a better feel. I know speaking just from my own subcommittee that we just looked at the police department budget during our last Wednesday meeting. So members of the group still kind of have to digest that and then really they had to get back to Ron with some questions that they might have about what does spending this amount of money mean? What do we really need X amount on new radios or would that be better or more appropriate or being put towards an additional like mental health worker who does ride along? So I'm literally pulling that example from midair. Radios are also incredibly important but I think right now supporting the work is really the most important thing that we can ask. We've had of the people who have attended I think that it's been a very committed group of people. They're willing to stay the whole time through some very, very difficult and sometimes incredibly awkward conversations. It's not easy discussing this but to the credit of almost everyone, no one shies away. We don't have a lot of people who have attended and then just thrown up their hands and bailed even though it's sometimes easier to do that. So the more support that we can get, not just here at the board level but all the people who wanna be involved in that the better. Go ahead Evan. Sure, thank you. And so thank you for your question. And so one of the things that I think that the boards can start thinking about which you've already done some very nice things. When we talk about diversification and representations on the boards and the committees you've already started with one piece which was a stipend system because many people in the community just don't have the wherewithal financially or otherwise to participate for many of their own reasons that one couldn't think of for themselves. Other things that we've been talking about is thinking through a lens, a different lens of how do our decisions get made? We have two budgets, the village and the town budget. There's money in those budgets but how is that decision made of how we prioritize? We have lots of activities that are buried in layers under that budget and how do we hire? How do we recruit? How do we rate? How do we retain? Are we an inclusive organization or do we just go through the motions? We put out an advertisement in seven days and in some professional websites or do we try to reach out and go the extra mile and mine who's here in our community or around our community and get some diversity? So when you ask what you can do is just be patient, let the community do its work, be supportive. And when the time comes and there is going to be pushback, there is going to be pushback. The school district is experiencing it now. Be mindful that it's coming but do what you feel is right for the direction of the community. And that's just one thing. And I'll just say that the committee is doing excellent work and tonight is an example. We did a moment of silence for Mr. Floyd and his family. I can't think of maybe a year ago or more that if that tragedy had happened, we would have been prepared for this. And the work that we're doing is making us mindful that this moment and those moments really matter. So hats off to the committee. I'm really pleased to be a part of it and helping in any way I can. I'll just briefly echo or thank Evan for what he said. It echoes a lot of what I wanted to say. I mean from the subcommittee that I'm on and after the discussions we've had and conversations we've had as a board in the past and all the extra effort we went into the housing commission finding members for that. Tonight and tomorrow we've got four positions that were just simply consent agenda reappointing people to committees. And I think we're very lucky to have all those people and I'm very thankful that they're serving. But that's one big example of kind of what we're talking about. It's sort of a de facto reappointment. And while it's great to have their service and they've been great, all of them have been great additions to those committees. It doesn't really open the door or put the board effort out there to find new people and get new voices and serve different aspects of the community. So that's just an example and that conversation is coming and it's going to take from every single one of us board members, it's going to take a lot of work to go out because the only people that are going to do the engaging are really us at this point. It's going to be up to us to go out and find those people and then be willing to step aside if good candidates come forward. So that's part of the conversation and it's really, it's been interesting. For the trustees, Rod you mentioned tomorrow's meeting. Tomorrow we are going to talk about that exact topic during our agenda additions or changes. So thanks for that primer. Other board members questions, comments, not seeing any. Evan, I assume the hand is the continuation. Just put it down. Great. So before we move on to the next agenda item, comments, questions from members of the community. Ken, why don't you go ahead and kick it off? Thanks. I think this must be for the municipal investment and equity and representation issues. That's Raj. I've noticed two things, Raj. I want you to be sure that you've noticed it as well. When we had a vacancy on the select board, 10 people applied. We just had a vacancy on the school board. 10 people applied. So clearly there's not a problem with people who want to serve. There must be something about running that is a barrier. I want to encourage your group to focus on that and try to figure out what that barrier is so that it makes sense to address it. The stipend clearly is not the issue, at least for school board and select board. 10 people lined up to apply. So I'd encourage you to think about that. The committee problem that you mentioned, that's a real problem. So here's a suggestion that I'd like to offer you in a number of professional associations. And what they have is a committee the nominating committee, whose sole purpose is to identify people that should serve on committees and they make it their job to make sure there's at least two candidates in each spot. That might be a nice idea to put together a nominating committee to help identify folks that might want to serve, that might not just step up and you could just say, hey, you should serve. That's it. Thanks. Ken, if I could address a couple of those things. You're absolutely right. Ken, I don't know how many are up for the school board position in the village, but I do recall the select board seat. And I guess what I'm looking for is not number, but who? So I would disagree that just simply having 10 people from our community show up for a seat that doesn't require a race, I would take issue with that meaning that the stipends aren't an issue. I don't think that we can have cause and effect there. Running for a seat is difficult. It takes a lot of time. It's very intimidating. But even considering for some populations, even considering that they belong in a committee, much less an elected board in a committee, excuse me, a community that's made up demographically the way this one is. I don't think you can overstate the intimidation that that brings to the table. So I appreciate your suggestions and I will definitely bring them back to the subcommittee. Are there any other members from the public who wish to address this item? Bruce Post. Yeah, just quickly point of information. Brattleboro has a representative town meeting. The only kind of its type in the state. This last town meeting, they raised the select board salaries to $8,000 a year and the chair gets 10,000. I'm not saying we should do that, but I was very surprised to see it, but yeah, yeah, I could see that. But there's one community that did that. And so there you go. That's all I want to say. Thank you, Bruce. And I'm not seeing other hands at this point. So Andy, if you wanted to take it away for the next agenda item. Okay. And again, I'm going to be challenged by my inability to see hands this evening. Is this going to be interesting? Oh, we'll get through it. So the next agenda item is consider approval of joint resolution between the town of Essex Select Board and the Village of Essex Junction Trustees to investigate amicable separation. And I want to point out that the word investigate there is very intentional. This is not a commitment. This is not a plan for separation. It's just the intent is to investigate. With a lot of the rhetoric that's been flying around a lot of the comments that have been made by many, many people. This is an attempt to bring the temperature down a little perhaps to start some healing, hopefully to start some healing of the community and the relationship between the two boards. And so there's no, nothing in the resolution should be construed as a concession or a commitment regarding any specifics related to separation. We were very careful not to put any specifics into the agreement so that there's no presupposition of any particular outcomes. It's only an attempt to get to set a civil tone if and when discussion or negotiation is needed. Again, there's no commitment here. We did not, we have not, the town has not conceded anything. And this is just to get us ready to both sit down around the table together. So I guess with that, I know some of the board members didn't see this until, or many of the board members didn't see this until it came out in the packet on Friday. I guess I'd like to open up to, I guess Andrew, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, you'll meet other things that I really wanted to add or we were also clear in this that there's nothing saying we have to agree on everything. There is nothing saying that's either one side or the other is prevented from having a disagreement. This is not a unilateral resolution saying that one side says the other must agree with. And that is not at all the intent of this. I also wanted to make sure just to stress that we as our boards really can help to set the tone of the community conversation. We can't direct the community to do anything. We can't tell the community not to do anything, but the way we conduct ourselves at these meetings as well as outside of our meetings can help to set the tone. And I would also look to us as board members to hold each other accountable, including ourselves. And so my thought of this is also an open invitation to the trustees and select board. We're moving forward. If there's something that I do or I say that may in your opinion go against what I would agree to as this document currently lays out, I would look for you to please call me out on it. And I give you full permission, please do so. That's the only way that we're going to be able to really move forward if we can have that kind of an open conversation and open dialogue. Sorry. The other thing I'd like to add is that this is a draft and again, because we didn't, it's difficult to edit a document with 10 people in an open public meeting. So we put together a proposal here. If either board wants to work on it further, that's absolutely fine. We may not choose to do it in this meeting tonight. If there are boards with specific issues, we could break out to our own boards at some other meeting and then come back at later date to agree with this. We are meeting jointly on the fifth for a half day long strategy session. So if we don't resolve, close this tonight, perhaps we can address it there. So anyway, with that, I guess any board member comments, questions, concerns, compliments. And again, I cannot see hands. So far there are no board members. George has his hand up. Go ahead, George. It's okay. Yeah, I think this is fine. The only thing I have, I have a bug, I've always had a problem with the use of the word duplication in regard to the village and the town. We don't really have duplication. If my neighbor has a heating system and I have a heating system, we don't have duplicate heating systems. We each have our own heating system and I can't get rid of my heating system because the neighbor has one in her house. The village and the town public works departments are not, neither one is set up to serve the entire community. One serves one part of the community, other serves the other. And it's not a big deal. I'm not trying to say there's something fundamentally wrong with this, but I think that sometimes when we use the word duplication, it sounds like there's some extra. There's some wastage going on. There's something that can be gotten rid of. And I kind of like, always like to avoid using that term. What we actually have are separate services. I don't want to attempt to even wordsmith this document tonight, but I would just like to point that out. And if that doesn't get changed, I'd still be fine with it, but it's just a little bit of a, it's a bit of a little bit of a misleading thing because it sounds like there's two with the same thing and there really aren't. That's it. Okay. Thanks, George. Any other board member comments? Again, I cannot see anything. Go ahead, Tracy. Thanks, Andrew. I was just going to jump in anyway. Just a really quick point after the two bullets. I would prefer to see another bullet that gives us the opportunity to discuss things that aren't mutually beneficial agreements or existing MOUs. So, you know, something along the lines of, you know, anything else else, the board mutually agree that would fall under these disagreements. As far as the next statement, the select board and trustees agree to allocate staffing resources necessary. That's a little bit too vague for me. We haven't discussed this topic at all jointly. We don't know what the level of effort is. We don't know the time involved. We don't know the scope. So I would very much prefer not to talk about staffing resources at this point in time until those conversations happen. Additionally, I think it's worth discussing the select board and trustees agree to allocate staffing resources. Does that mean that the trustees would open up staffing resources from the village to be accessible by the select board and vice versa? I think a little more clarity is needed there. And I would also highly recommend that the last point, a majority from each board agree to amend rescind or suspend. How I read that is a majority of both boards have to agree to amend rescind or suspend. I would offer up a suggestion that a majority from each board need to agree to amend. However, a majority of either board is needed to rescind or suspend. And I'm just I guess since we haven't had those discussions I'm not really sure that we're there yet. Not that I disagree with amicability. I'm totally on board with that. But my concerns are what I stated. That's a good point. Maybe you should say a majority from either board. Right. Well, yeah, you're right. There's some if one board doesn't agree that it binds the other one the way this is written. It doesn't. One doesn't say that. And the visual board can withdraw it independent of the other. Andy, from my opinion, that last one, I would be perfectly fine with that. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. If one board wants to rescind it. And or suspend the resolution. That's fine. Just like any other agreement you can't. You can't amend an agreement without both sides agreeing. Right, right, right. Greg, you're awesome. You're welcome. Yeah, thanks. Any other board member comments? So given given George's earlier comment, we want to go back to his change in the resolution. You probably need to change more than now. Give it a shot to what you can run with, but it just it doesn't quite capture the situation correctly. I think it. Yeah. And we sort of edited tonight if that's inappropriate. I mean, you could just you could just say something to the something simple again, whereas the populations of both the village of Essex in the town have increased. I think we need something. Both both governments have. This has caused both governments to have some separate services. Something like that. Separate services. Yeah. There you go. Thank you. Any other board member comments? And thanks, Mrs. Don. I think I think that. I think we need to move on to some of Tracy's suggestions. And this is nothing we should work on on the fifth. Because there's a couple of other bullet items that I'd like to see on there, but I'd like to discuss them first. Okay. Greg. Sorry, Greg does. I do. I think it's good. The board is talking about when to meet together. I think that's later on in the agenda tonight. The meeting for the fifth is pretty packed already. It's going to be a tight timeline. But I think we need to. Not try to pack this in the fifth as well, but to try to find another time. If the boards want to meet on it jointly. Andy, if I may. Go ahead, Andrew. The only thing I would also add to that is after this, we don't have much else to talk about tonight. I personally don't see why we can't see how far we can get. And when people no longer feel the desire to continue talking about it, then we could choose to end it and go on to another agenda item. So that's why we're looking at this, so what's the select board to be able to have a discussion? In our own meeting. I'm willing to say. My two concerns. If you want me to say them right now. Right? Go ahead. Given that the whole town hasn't voted on separation. I think the whole town needs to be given an opportunity. Before we even go ahead with a plan for separation. And also under those bullets, I'd like to see that there could be no annexation of of properties owned by the town outside the village. There you go. Those are my concerns. So we were intentionally trying to avoid putting in anything specific so that we don't have any presupposed outcomes. And I guess I will go ahead and comment about the annexation thing is I don't, I'm not comfortable as a select board member preventing any resident from petitioning to join the village. It's not something that I can say that individual members of the community are not allowed to do. So to put that into a document, to exclude the opportunity for people to join the village if they would like to, I think is inappropriate. Not in favor of that. I mean, I'm not crazy about the annexation thing as it's been circulating around, but I don't think that it's the select board's place to tell people that they can't do it. So Andrew, I saw your hand up. Yeah, I'll directly address the annexation piece. At our last trustee meeting, we voted to make separation our top priority and to set November as a target date for the vote on separation. And as such, with the process for annexation, there's absolutely no way in my humble opinion that we would be able to pull off a vote of our board to move forward with having the Vermont Supreme Court move forward with forming a subcommittee to then look into the issue of annexation, to then have that geographic area determined to then have that geographic area vote on the issue, to then have the entire village vote on the issue. There's no way in reality that that could ever be done before November. So from that perspective, in all honesty, that that's not gonna happen. Additionally, we've talked about this and that's not a desire. We're moving forward with separation as a village. And I think I caused a couple of trustees to want to chime in. Do you have George's hand up and then Dan? Yeah, I'll like just comment. No, I don't have any idea about separate annexation, but I believe it's guided by state statutes. I don't think we can put something in an MOU between two boards that overrules a state statute. So we can say anything we want about what we're gonna do, but if it contradicts a state statute, then it wouldn't have any weight. And I don't mean that to be, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, Don. I just don't think, I think there's a very clear statutory process. I'm not familiar with it. We don't, as Andrew said, we don't have to play on the annex anybody, but I don't think it would behoove us to put something like that in. Well, you can, I don't wanna argue, but if it's a statutory process, we can't just eliminate it from state law because we put it in an agreement between ourselves. Dan? Dan, you're muted. Right there, thank you. Yeah, as you're gonna say, the same thing George brought up that it's state statute addresses the annexation issue, but also another issue I wanted to bring up regarding this document. There is no end date right now. As it exists, this goes on in perpetuity because it doesn't specify an end date to this. So that Andrew said by November, Don is correct. If this agreement or this document is to continue on for years, as long as we pursue this matter, then it's something that could be addressed. So whatever, I don't wanna cause an argument anyways, or to get this debating this forever, but that's just my opinion. So Don, we talked about annexation. What was your other point? I missed, I neglected to write it down. I'm not sure if everyone, I mean, everyone had their say on mergers, so should the whole town have their say on separation? My concern, that's all. We don't know what the legislature is gonna require. All that we have, again, Andy, if I may jump in. Yeah, go ahead, Andrew. All that we have are the examples that have been set forward by previous villages separating from their towns. I think the select board saw that article from the Secretary of State's office. If you haven't, I'm happy to email that to you and to have that be included into a packet. In essence, Winooski and Newport are examples of two communities where the town did not vote on that issue, but rather the, at the time, villages were the only ones to vote, both of which were approved by the state's legislature. So the president has been set on that. Yeah, and there's no statute around separation. And so the sitting legislature can do essentially whatever they want. They can either, they can choose to follow president or they could do something else. So, but I guess Don, to get your point, we could also have an advisory vote just like the village did. But I don't know, again, that that's something that we necessarily put into this agreement because it's not, that would be our choice, that would be a select board choice. It's not a joint decision. Thank you. And Tracy, you had made some comments. Now that we started editing, do you want to propose some words for the section about staffing or do you think that we need to have a more in-depth conversation beyond this meeting? I think it requires a much more in-depth conversation around scope, around level of effort, equating that into dollars. And also around, does that mean that all staff resources are essentially up for grabs by either party? I mean, at this point, I would prefer in the absence of those details that that sentence be completely taken out, especially if we have the ability to amend this agreement going forward. But I guess I would prefer to hold off on this agreement until we have those conversations around scope and exactly what's involved and what it's gonna take to get there. Yeah, that's true. I've not had yet had a discussion about the separation process or what, and I think, yeah, or right, what's involved. We even had a joint meeting with the trustees on the topic of separation. Today's topic is only the resolution. It's not the separation discussion itself. So Greg, if you scroll up a little bit, I think what Tracy is suggesting is that right that one right there be deleted. And I don't know what Andrew, what your thoughts are on that? What I would say is I just wanted to, I don't recall if this was a part of the introduction, sorry. But when we talked about this, we really talked about it being a, as you said, Andy, I know you said a non-specific resolution, but also a philosophical one, and one in which at a high level, can we agree to some of these high level items? When it comes to separation, yeah, we can absolutely get into the nitty-gritty details, which we will uncover as we go through the process. And so we can then try to have an agreement that we'll end up taking months to come to, which by that point in time, we're already in the process. So this is kind of like that's early on to use from my understanding of project management, to your executive sponsors, you wanna have their philosophical agreement to move forward with a project. And you have to have some faith in moving into the project that some things are going to get uncovered and some things are going to work out as you go. So as a part of that discovery process is really where we are. And it's not, the desire for this is in the design is to not wait until we are, if we're at the end of May, to not wait until July or August when in the village, we're already planning to be at the timeframe of having a final charter and preparing our warning language. So by that point in time, it's too late in the process. Well, and if I may- It's a trace, it's a trace, go ahead. I don't think that if this is governing how we treat each other and keeping things amicable and high level, once you start talking about staffing resources and dollars, I don't, I think that that falls outside of the scope of this agreement. So my preference would still be to take it out and deal with the details as we deal with the details as a matter of course of business because we can allocate staffing resources at any time whether the resolution exists or not. I guess for me where it is, is if I think of dedicating staffing resources in a way which if they don't impact the progress of other need and municipal projects and that means there's no negative effects to any one entity, either the village or the town. And if there would be any impacts on either entity, then that would go directly against this. So if Evan were directed to spend an entire month on separation, then I'm sure the town would be harmed in some way and that would go completely against this. And so that's the type of thing that this is intended for. Does that at all help with what you're saying, Tracy? Not really because it again ties into Don's comment that we have no idea how the town as a whole feels about this topic. So agreeing to allocate resources without a detailed specific plan, I'm not comfortable doing. Maybe I'll back up and this isn't even directly Tracy to what you're saying at this point. For me, I guess I wanna remind the way that we as the trustees are operating with this is we're using that model of Winooski where the village has decided to move forward with separation. We want to do this amicably with the town and please don't take that statement to be an ultimatum. But this isn't the village, this is the village looking to separate from the town. That's the process that we are going through, which yes, there is an impact to the town, but the process is the village is separating from the town, not the town deciding whether to separate altogether. But I guess from that higher philosophical sense, there's a little bit of a distinction there. And Andy, you can't see it, but Dan's hand is up. Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead, Dan. Yeah, to speak through what Tracy said about this resolution and having the public weigh in on it. This is a resolution. The state legislature passes resolutions all the time. It's not a binding agreement to anything, it's a resolution. We've done resolutions throughout my term or through my time on the board, not numerous times, but probably a half dozen or so times. So I don't think people should be reading more into this than it is. I think it's just a friendly gesture between two boards, seeing that we're gonna work through this issue amicably, as far as dedicating staff time to it. I hear what you're saying about that, how that could be construed to be maybe misuse of public tax funds for another municipality or whatever you wanna look at that issue. But so I do agree with you there on that, Tracy, but as far as the resolution aspect of it, I think that boards, I know the Slack board has passed resolutions and they haven't reached out to the public for the resolutions. So if this is the practice that we're gonna start going down this road that resolutions have to get public weigh in, we'll never get anything done. Thank you. So Tracy, you're asking that, you're asking for those language to be removed. It sounds like Andrew would really like us to stay in there. Does it help to consider that, you've asked, you've said that there's no plan to size the effort against. The intent here is to find out what that plan is. So in order to get to a point where there is a plan that can be, there else, but it's, I guess it's, I don't know, is that any different in your view or no? It's not, in the Slack board, we haven't even talked amongst ourselves about allocating staffing resources. So I don't, if the overarching goal is to be high level and how we work together and the underlying tone being, for me, common sense, we respect each other, we speak to each other like adults, we don't get into the mud, we take care of business in a responsible and an amicable staff then. I don't think that putting something in a resolution that has that, maybe wrong, but I call it a feel good tone. I don't think that agreeing to allocate staffing resources without at least having the conversation amongst ourselves with the trustees and identifying what that looks like. I don't think that the money issue, the staffing resource issue, I don't think it belongs. Okay, okay, yeah. Yeah, we have not yet had that initial discussion about separation between two boards or even necessarily as a Slack board by ourselves. All right, thanks, Tracy. Andy, I have my hand up, it's George. Yeah, go ahead, George. If I was on the Slack board, I would not want that particular sentence in this resolution either because it, and I'm just trying to be very objective here because it sounds like the Slack board is agreeing to allocate resources to allow the village to figure out how to separate. And since the Slack board has, from the Slack board's perspective, and I'm imagining myself being on your board, you haven't figured out where the community is, you haven't figured out where the town outside the village is in terms of separation. So you'd be allocating resources to something that you have a lot of questions about. So I totally get it from Tracy's perspective. I wouldn't be really comfortable with putting this, this particular piece in this resolution right now. Thanks, George. I see Patrick's hand up. I figured out a trick that if I leave the participant view and come back to it, I can see whose hands are up at the moment that I open the view. I actually took it down. So what I was gonna say was covered. So I'm sorry to disappoint you, Andy, but you were correct and that absolutely was up. I had it figured out. Do you see Vince's hand up? I do not. He almost had it. His hand is up though. Go ahead, Vince. Can we just reword this slightly to allocate staffing resources to assist the boards in scoping the investigation of amicable separation? So we're basically putting something in this document saying that we're giving whatever we're deciding or however we're directing staff. Like that's what we're asking for. So we're asking for the staff to do the work of the boards in assisting us to scope this rather than like kind of like this more general language. Because we're gonna need staff to help scope this anyway. I don't think any, I don't know that any of us have the required depth of knowledge in all the departments to really like fully understand how to scope things. Like usually in my line of work, like what you normally would do when you scope a project is you bring like project managers, managers, engineers into a room and then you kind of go over the details with the high level people, like the management staff, the project managers and they're asking questions of the lower level people that deal with the day to day of like, oh, well, how long is it gonna take to set up this storage array or whatever and integrate it into what you currently have? So like kind of maybe narrowing a language down to like board assistive rather than like kind of a blanket like carte blanche investigate separation. I don't know how to differentiate. Staff time is staff time. Greg's hand is up. Go ahead, Greg's debating whether or not to wait in but I'll toss myself into it. Why not just take it out all staff reports to Evan? I think if you keep the philosophical approach that you're working together amicably, you're working through Evan and staff is working for Evan. I don't think you lose a whole lot by just removing that sentence. I am more and more on board with that. Andrew, are you okay with it? I'm not gonna make it the mountain of Diane. Sorry, what's that? It's fine by me. Okay. So Greg sounds like we're gonna, we're, we are, well, I guess maybe I should make sure. I know I think Patrick, you agreed to take it out. Patrick, did you? Yeah, I'm okay with taking it out. I mean, honestly, I think getting too deeply into the weeds of us saying anything about how staff is, you know, staff time is allocated is more Evan's job than ours anyway. So, you know, I'm happy if that's not in this resolution. Okay, Don, any comments? I'm okay with taking it out given the staff is overworked already. Vince, I know you offered an alternative but you okay with pulling it out? You know, I'm fine with it not being there. Okay. So Andrew sounds like, go ahead. Oh, I just, I think the rest of the document kind of captures the spirit of what we're trying to do. All right. So Andrew, the select board's in agreement to take that out. I don't know if you wanna pull your members. Roch, how you doing with that? I guess I'm fine with that. I mean, both boards, you know, as has been said, excuse me, you know, staff report to Evan, both boards work with Evan and in that respect, it is the same thing. So I think the spirit of this document is to make sure that we are all on board with continuing respectful dialogue and working together where we can. So that doesn't change by removing this. George, I assume with your comment, you'd be okay with it? Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, I think taking it out doesn't mean that we can't allocate resources eventually if we want to or if necessary or something like that. I just think this is a kind of a sticky, complicated sentence to put in for the select board to agree on at this point. So I can understand why they would be not really comfortable having it in there. So I think you should take it out. Amber? I'm okay with taking it out. Dan? I'm perfectly fine with taking it out. I agree with Tracy. You know, it could be construed to be something that is misused in the functions for another municipality, so it's up the clock. Okay, so the five trustees are on board. All right, thanks for the delete there, Greg. Any other board member comments? And this next question is, do we want to take public comment on this or is this because it's a resolution between the two boards? It's just up to us and to be clear that we're only talking about the resolution. We're not talking about separation itself. This is by no means an approval of separation. Separation, but anyway. So any comments about whether to open to the public? Any thoughts? Should we or should we not? You did tell Mary Post it was an item to be discussed. Oh, I did. And that's the hand that went up first. Well, it says Bruce Post. I'm making an assumption. It's okay. Either Bruce or Mary Post. It's Bruce. First of all, I just want to say Dan Caron said two of the most frightening words I've heard lately when he said this agreement would be in perpetuity. Just sonnish, chill at my spine, in perpetuities. Into so beyond the future, then I'm just trying to make a little joke. Secondly, the two bullets. Sandy, you said you were trying not to get anything specific, but the two bullets do talk about the possibility of modifying or terminating MOUs and agreements as necessary, and then develop other agreements. So that's sort of specific action oriented stuff. And then on this Winozki precedent, which is part of the philosophical approach. On March, March 1999, the village voted 1,790 to 916, a margin I think of 263 to separate it re-voted on May 26, 1999. The margin was 39 votes affirmative of separating. So why is the village not separated? What happened? What stopped it? Why wasn't the Winozki precedent used? Because the village voted. You voted twice to separate in 1999, and it didn't happen. I think the legislature stepped in and said, figure it out back in Essex. I think that's what happened. So I don't think the Winozki precedent is guaranteed to stand. So I just wanted to bring up that historical fact. Thank you. My understanding of the story there, the other piece of the story was that the select board posed a merger agreement that was also voted on in 1999. So both of them went in parallel to the legislature and because they had two conflicting, one to separate, one to merge. That was the, we sent back to, with mediation recommended. That's my recollection of the story. What year we have now, 2021? Okay, thank you. Thanks Bruce. Brian Sheldon, and please recognize we're talking about the agreement, not about separation in general, or the resolution here, I mean. We'll do, can you hear me, Mr. Chair? Yes, I can. Thank you, Mr. Chair, select persons for this opportunity to speak. I'm troubled by some of the comments that my select board representatives have been made about this agreement today. I agree with President Brown that all precedent indicates that the village can separate without a single vote from those of us in the town after separation. That fact and the finance director's number from April 1st make it clear that the village doesn't need it. So, so Brian, are you commenting on the resolution? Yes, I'm, I, it's, what I was going to say is it's time to move forward. Not everything requires a plebiscite. Vermont, Vermont, we, we need the five of you to lead. Please go forward with humility, make a plan for the inevitable, possibly unilateral separation from the, of the, of the village from the town. Thank you. All right, thanks, Brian. I am not seeing any other hands, but that may not be, that may be my problem. I have Mary Lou Hurley's hand up. Some others just popped up. You have Ken and Mary Lou as. Okay, yes. And right now I see Ken and Signorella, yep, as next. Go ahead, Ken. Just a point of information. I happen to have studied though, and used to be separation a bit. And possibly one of the reasons why there was not a kind of vote then is because 60% of the population was in the village at the time. The town's population dropped by 60% after the separation. So possibly a town-wide vote would have been moved. Sorry, Ken, we're, there's some other background noise trying to figure out who's used to go on mute. Did you have more to say, Ken? No, that was it. Thank you. That's it. Okay, okay, thanks. Mary Lou Hurley. Thank you. Well, I kind of, I agree with Tracy. I'm a little puzzled how this investigation was brought about. It would seem to me that the select board should have discussed these things together before this was initiated. And also I'm confused because I don't think the village has actually voted to separate yet. So wouldn't that, isn't this premature? So in order to go forward with the separation vote, they have to have a separation plan. So you have to do the work ahead of time. So that's the work that the village, that's the work that the village has initiated. You're right. But part of what they need to figure out is whether any services need to be shared. The police department is one big one that might be in discussion and there may be others. We have not had a discussion about that and I'm not gonna presuppose that any other services will be needed. But those are the discussions we're talking about having. And to respond to your first question about how this came about, it's difficult as you can see to edit a document in a large group with 10 people contributing to it all at once. So Andrew and I initiated this together. And then I asked to have Patrick involved because of his participation in the equity group. I wanted to make sure that we didn't have anything that we were building in that was inadvertently inappropriate with regard to equity. And so that was why I asked that Patrick be involved and then Raj was invited in as well because he's vice president of the village. So this came in as a proposal. It's not a mandate. As you see, we accepted edits from both sides of the table. Okay, thank you. Yep, okay. Thanks, Mary Lou. Thanks for your question. Annie Cooper has her hand up. Annie Cooper. Hi, Andy, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Great. I came in this evening very excited. Andy, I'm so grateful that you took the time to sit with Andrew and then invited Patrick and Raj to the conversation. I think this is a great look at civility, at moving forward amicably. And I think that it's a really good look at what we can accomplish as gracious and confident people. Within that, I have two remarks to make and I want to do so with gracious kindness. During your earlier remarks, Andy, I think it was when you were presenting this agenda item, but I can't be certain. I think so. During your earlier remarks, you spoke about the town, but I believe maybe you intended to speak of only the TOV area. I'm not sure your words and I'm quoting where the town has not conceded anything. I believe you meant the town outside the village, but I'm not clear because as a town resident myself, I'm not sure that I would be conceding to myself and so it's a little confusing for me. And anyway, it just flew for thought. Actually, it's not good for thought. For me, I think from this moment forward, I ask respectfully that we all understand that we mean the town in its entirety and in whatever way we can articulate that so that I feel included when you say the town would be great. So somehow we have to master the art of this language to say when we say the town, we mean all of us. And that leads to my next point, please, which is that the town is 22,000 people. Right, Ish? Never does the select board represent only TOV residents. Only and always does the select board represent all of us. Your at-large representation and you represent every single one of us here in the village. Even when you want to disagree with the village trustees, even they are residents of our town and they also happen to represent those of us who live in the village. It's a wild ride, that's why we're on it. That's the problem, right? That's the, we're stuck in this, all of us. And that was what the merger discussion was about and that's what this separation discussion is about. To Tracy's discussion points, here's the thing. All 10 of you, and I'm just saying the same thing again, sorry, all 10 of you represent the village in its entirety. The select board represents all 22,000 of us in our entirety as a town. I hope that just made sense if I didn't, I can restate. At no time can or should the select board represent only those town residents living external to the village. A side note to all of our residents who happened to be here this evening, no matter how fair or not fair, this seems or sounds to any of us or anyone who lives in the TOV area, it is still a fact that you can't remove even if you don't like it, it's a legal fact. So the legal fact is those of us who live in the village pay taxes equally as town residents as all of those of you who live in the town outside the village. We also pay taxes to the village of S-Extinction. Those who live in the town outside the village do not pay taxes to a TOV and they're not an entity, it's not a thing. And so it's not that simple. So when this piece of the document that is up for discussion was that for discussion that confused me that we don't keep it in. And I appreciate how unanimously all came to that. I really applaud the teamwork involved but my concerns are as a resident of both the town and the village that now the staff that I pay taxes for are not as free to help with the work of separation and the work of separation is about the entirety of the town even though it's in the village's hands. And so I respectfully ask that you reevaluate that although I recognize I'm asking 10 people to reevaluate that who all said no's are probably not gonna get far with that but in the spirit of my original intro to this long comment that I'm making and thank you for all this time in the spirit of that I think that this really does belong in there and the things brought up such as Tracy did I think so trust is a good idea. The select board can't do battle on behalf of a portion of the town against another portion of the town when you represent all of us. I think some trust that there's good and kind motives in the separation and no one's looking to, we just wanna grow and move on. Thank you for all this time. I really appreciate your kindness. Thank you. Thanks, Annie. I do wanna clarify when I said the town I do mean the town and its entirety and I would say that I do not represent the village as an entity. I represented the residents of the village as town residents. I do not represent the village. I represent the residents of the town who live in the village. Yes. And I represent the town. So when I say I'm representing the town I always mean that I'm representing the entire town and I will say that I do not represent the village. I represent the residents of the town who live in the village as town residents. Sure, did I say that wrong, Andy? No, you didn't. You did not. You did not. I'm just trying to clarify that the village is an entity that has its own representation. But also, all of those residents- But everybody who lives there is a town resident who I represent. And you are correct. I cannot solely represent the region of the town that is outside the village. Right. You are correct. So then if I may, sorry, did I interrupt you? No, go ahead. If I may, when you earlier said that the town was not conceding anything I guess I'm still unclear because how could- So the town is an entity. Right. The town is an entity. The town as an entity has not conceded anything. Of course not. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Sarah and Michelle. Well, I thought I knew what I was gonna say but now I'm a little confused. Now, I do know what I need to say. Andy, and this is please not coming from any anger or disrespect but I was listening to Brian's comments and you interrupted in a way that I couldn't hear what he fully wanted to say. And I know you were trying to keep things on task but then Ken spoke not to the agreement and he was allowed to make a statement as if he knows for a fact. And so I don't think that was appropriate. So I just wanna be sure that the next time Brian speaks that he gets to speak fully, okay? I would appreciate that. Thank you very much. And I agree with- Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. And Brian, I'm very sorry. I did not intentionally think that you were on my, if I hope it didn't come across that way. No worries, your the chair. Okay. I hold their hands up. I'm gonna see, I do not see any other hands. Just scrolling down and see if there's anybody on the phone. Okay. So bring it back to the board. The board's- Your hand is up. Oh, Irene, runner. Irene, go ahead. Cannot hear you, Irene. Cannot hear you now. I'm not getting anything. Yeah. Is anybody else? Very, very faint. And here I am leaning closer to my computer to try to hear better. Doesn't work, doesn't help. Squeeze them. Are you able to hear me now? Yes. Thank you. I just heard Annie Cooper remind us that the select board represents everyone. Therefore, I would ask that the same thing I asked for in December of 2017, before we launched into the latest merger conversation, please assure that the town outside the village has representation in any conversations going forward. The town outside the village is still a special taxing district and it needs its unique voice heard. I noticed that in the sixth whereas in this resolution, it talks about the town of Essex is bound to look out for the interests of the town as a whole and recognizing that the needs and desires of the residents of different areas of the town are different. The village trustees will certainly speak up on behalf of folks in the village, but as Annie reminded us, people on the select board absolutely cannot speak up for the town outside the village residents. So if you're going to sign off on this sixth clause acknowledging the differences, I would ask that you also add a high-level aspirational clause pledging to have an equal number of town outside the village representation as you do for village representation. When you meet, whether four of you meet to talk about future resolutions or anything else, whether without advance notice or whether the joint boards meet talking about separation. Another point I have. Andrew Brown said at the start of this conversation, board members should hold each other accountable. I don't know how you hold each other accountable when Pat Murray spoke earlier in the meeting telling us that his behavior was his business and it was not up to his peers to chastise him. Which is it, please? Are you allowed to reign in your board members? Does it sit beside you figuratively? Board of Order. This does nothing to do with the resolution at hand. It does. This is related to Andrew's comment holding each other accountable and that's what this resolution's about. And I wanna clarify how you're gonna hold each other accountable if you're not allowed to according to what Pat Murray said. Board of Order. Also, the select board. I agree because I ring runner as well. This is my next point. My next point is the select board is allowed to sign. So excuse me, excuse me, Raj, what's your concern? Go ahead. I think she's diverting and you stopped Brian earlier from diverting way sooner than this. Not comparing the two necessarily, but this is a pretty large diversion from what we're trying to accomplish here in this form of the resolution. She's commenting on comments that were made about the resolution and discussion about the intent of the resolution. So I will. She's commenting on that. And she's also commenting on something that I gave as my personal opinion and then applying them to Andrew's personal opinion. Andrew and I may not necessarily have the same opinion and we're allowed to do that. That's simply just how we see things, period. And also whatever we've said about policy violations and executive session is not open to the public, not open to public knowledge. And most of how we hold each other accountable as a board is an executive session. And I'm not sure why you're signing a resolution if you're gonna hold each other accountable behind the scenes, but I have other points to make if I may. Yeah, go ahead Irene if they're related to the resolution. The select board is being asked to sign a resolution without the voter's permission just as the select board proceeded to discuss merger without the voter's permission three years ago. It looks like one town outside the village resident and three town inside the village residents drafted this resolution, even after all the pushback on merger in which there were ratios as lopsided as two outside the village and eight outside the village people at the table because the populations of those two halves of town are equivalent. I think you've gotta have equal representation in every interaction that you have. I would also suggest you have some gender balance on this team, again, whether it's a mini team of four or however you decide to meet if you decide to add two outside the village folks and make it six. I think gender balance is also important. I heard Andy Watt say that Pat Murray was chosen because he was involved in the equity work but I thought Raj was also involved in equity work. Am I wrong? Yeah, I didn't speak for how, why Andrew invited him but I assume it's because he was vice president of the village. Okay, but you didn't choose your partner because of his vice chair status. You said that you chose him because of his equity work? Is that, I just wanna make sure I got clear. Mr. Chair, can we just get to the point? Yeah, Mr. Chair, I think you're allowing the citizen to badger you and this is ridiculous. Let's move on. I have other points. The town voted not to merge twice. The village voted to consider separation. So how was that, how was merger relative to this related to this? What the town voted for, because we did not have a chance to vote in separation to me means that there should be a companion agreement from the village talking about how it's going to help the town not to merge, which is what we voted on. If indeed we're going to go forward helping the village separate. We're not talking about the specifics of how the merger process is going to move forward. We're only talking about the resolution here. We're not gonna include any specifics into this resolution. So if your comments are about adding specifics to this resolution then. It's about having a companion resolution because if you're gonna have a resolution about helping the village separate, I'd like to see a resolution of the village helping the town to stay whole. The resolution is not helping, is not an agreement to help them separate. It's an agreement to amicably have discussions about it. Then I would rephrase my question to say, can we have a resolution to help the town amicably stay whole? Because that's what all the town. We can certainly consider that. That would be great. I heard earlier, I believe it was Dan say that resolutions are usually benign. The resolutions I've seen are not usually. So if you're talking about the general concept of resolutions that's not to talk about here tonight, we, you know. Well, it was Dan's comment. Thanks. I think that that should do it for now. And I thank you for hearing me. Okay, thanks, Irene. Okay, let me see if anybody else got their hand up. Annie has her hand up again. Annie, you've spoken already. If it's quick and it's not in response to other people who have spoken. It's brief, I guess you can determine whether it's in response or not. I'll say one sentence. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It's about, yeah, I'm not sure, Indy. I don't know how to know for sure if I'm speaking in response or to a point. I guess I'll let it go just in case. Thanks, Annie. Harlan Smith also has his hand up. I'm sorry. Oh, Harlan. Go ahead, Harlan. Hi, can you guys hear me? Yes. I would just like to chime in and thank both boards for trying to put this resolution together and trying to move forward politely and respectfully to each other. So to all 10 of you, thank you for trying to put this together and to make it happen as a resident. I appreciate the effort that you guys are trying to accomplish here. So just to thank you. Yep, thanks, Harlan. I appreciate it. Okay, let me see if I can find any other hands. Mike Sullivan. Mike Sullivan, go ahead. Thank you, Andy. I also wanna echo Harlan's message. You guys have done a great job tonight. The listening to the resolution and your decisions about the wording of it was I think an example in cooperation and well-appreciated by people who like democracy. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. All right, do another quick check. I don't know if it's a holdover. I see Irene's hand is still up. Sorry. Okay, let's see one more quick check here. I keep refreshing the... Okay, at least I don't know other hands are up. So I'm gonna bring it back to the board. So we ready to, do we wanna approve this tonight? I'm okay with this. Seems like it. Actually a lot of nodding heads and thumbs up. So anybody on the select board wanna make a good motion? If not, I guess I'll do it. I move that the select board approve the joint resolution between the town of Essex Select Board and village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees to investigate an amicable separation as amended. Seconded. Thanks for the second, Vince. Any further discussion? I'd just like to thank the trustees for their part on this and my fellow board members. Thanks, Vince. Any other comments from select board members? Okay, all those in favor please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Okay, motion passes 5-0. Trustees, can I get a similar motion? I can do it. I move the trustees approve the joint resolution between the town of Essex Select Board and village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees to investigate an amicable separation as amended. Second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, Dan, for the second. Is there any further discussion from the trustees? I'll just say to echo Vince's sentiments, thank you to the select board for taking this step. Truly it's appreciated and I think she was a great step from our two boards to do this together. So thank you. All those in favor of the resolution, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, signify by saying nay. I'll also pass 5-0. Thank you all. All right, hand it back to you, Andrew. All right, so the next item is to schedule the next joint board meeting. As you can see in the packet, we don't have one set up other than June 5th. Based on some thoughts, we could talk about things such as debriefing from June 5th. We just had an update from the racial equity workgroup. We could have an update from the housing commission, another joint commission we haven't heard from in a little bit. We may have a topic from the village about something related to separation. So I think we may have some things that we could talk about. The question would be, do we want to try and schedule a date right now or do we want to have staff send out a doodle and figure out a time to meet again? I would support the doodle later. The doodle? Just a point of what to say. Pat, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with a doodle. And if I could also maybe not recommend, but get an idea of where the cannabis commission is or if they've done any work since the clock is kind of ticking a little bit on that. And just wondering, again, I'm not even sure if there's been any specific meetings on that, but an update if they have met would be good because we need to know if it's going to be a timeline for a vote when it might be. And that is a time sensitive issue. Yes, sorry, that is the other thing. Board members, if you have other thoughts as to things that we should talk about, please also feel free to chime in with those. Yeah, just to address Pat real quick, I don't think we've met. Is there like a way we can, does staff normally schedule that or is that something that the commission schedules amongst themselves? Take it away, Greg. So Robin and Iwiso, we're heading that up. I believe they're pretty close to finalizing who's going to be on that committee and you can expect scheduling soon and I will make a note to put an update on the next joint meeting. All right, thank you, Greg. Looks like we may have just taken care of one of those items. Andy, go ahead. Yes, I was just going to say with summer vacations coming up, I guess a doodle's probably the better way to do it than to pick a periodic date because it may not work for a lot of us depending on what we're doing in the summer. And maybe it would be worth doing trying to find two or so dates. Yeah, yeah, it'd probably be good. Yep. Dawn, did your hand go up? I did, I went down, but maybe we should see how much work we still need to do, Andrew, so we can know how many meetings we need to schedule. I'm just, you know, so on the 5th, when we work together, maybe we can pile this then. Yeah, I know Greg said the agenda is full but I think we can figure out a way whether there are some takeaways from that to add on to the list. Yeah, maybe get the doodle out there and then just kind of agree on the 5th as to what our dates are looking like. Yeah, quick turn around will be good. Anything else from board members? All right, I think guys, without any other hands up, I think the path to move forward is there. Thanks, Andrew. Next business item is executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss evaluation of public officials. So we'll circle back to that at the end of the meeting. And then am I taking the next one, Andy? I'm sorry. You are. All right, next one's meeting consent agenda. Because you know what to do. I move we approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Raj. Second. I'd like to also thank Deb McAdoo for being willing to serve after her first short year in the housing commission. And thank you, Amber, for the second. So from the trustees, any further discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Pass five, zero. Thank you. Okay. Motion from the select board. I make the motion. We accept the consent agenda. I would also like to thank Deb McAdoo. Thank you, Don. Have a second. Seconded. Thanks, Vince. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes five, zero. And then moving on to the reading file. I did want to make comments about the three plus three charter change. There was a hearing at the GovVox committee that I testified at my written testimony is in the reading file. There's also a front porch forum post in there from Mary Beth Redmond with some good links in it that you can go and actually watch the discussion that GovVox had after the hearing on this topic. Also says that they're not gonna take it up this session, because one of the sessions ended now. I didn't also follow up with Mary Beth. She would like to have a meeting with the select board on this topic so that the legislators that are have sponsored the three plus three charter change can have a discussion with us so we can help fill out more information if they need it and just to see what direction we wanna go in. So that'll be on a future select board agenda that we'll invite our legislative team to have a discussion about that. Andy, if I may, Derby has a hand up. Thank you. I just wanted to see who seconded from the trustees. I didn't catch that one. Who was Amber? That was who, I'm sorry? Amber. Okay, perfect, thank you. Any other board member comments about the reading file? I'll just, if I can go ahead and jump in because I can't see any hands. No, the only thing I was going to add is just to make sure to check out the agenda in the memo about June 5th. Also for those of you board members who are not planning to be in person, make sure to let that be known to staff, sooner rather than later. The other thing about June 5th, just so board members are aware is Andrew and I are gonna put together a proposal for how to resolve conflicts. It's just gonna be a proposal. You can certainly have an opportunity to throw darts at it or revise it on the fifth, but and so just to let you know that we're working on that, also to let the public know we're working on that because I got a number of emails this weekend about that question or a similar question. Any other board member comments? Go ahead and have them go ahead. Just so all of you know, we are trying to put strategic plans session together for the fifth. We are going to, it's going to be at 75 Maple. It's gonna be in that back room. Right now the governor's regulations are one person for every 50 square feet. The room is big enough for say 15, 20-ish people, but if the public wants to attend, we are gonna ask that they attend virtually if at all possible so that we do not violate that regulation. But we feel that strategic planning is best when you're all in the same room, not just virtually. So that's what we're trying to do. We may get some different guidance in the next week or two from the governor, but we feel in terms of safety and spacing and being indoors as we will be, we're gonna try to space it out as best we can. And if the public does come, we are gonna have to space them as well in the room. So, bear with us. Thank you. All right, any other board member comments? Again, just jump in because I can't see hands. Okay, then if not, I guess we can move on to our executive session. Did you send? I did not. This is George. I don't have a link for, and maybe I just- Oh, right. There is no meeting and notice yet for the, I was gonna point that out at the beginning of the meeting and completely forgot. I won't send it to you all right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting an email during a meeting. Can you please include Travis on that? Yes, we'll do. Thank you. Andy, it should show up right in teams. Yeah, it'll be in your calendar and teams so you don't actually have to check an email during the meeting. Oh, true, true, true. It's about every calendar. True, true. Well, actually we'll, anyway, I won't tell you what I'm gonna do between the two meetings. We could take five. So- Are we gonna connect to this one? Sorry, we're coming, I have some questions I was gonna ask, yeah. We don't, do we need to come back? I know, I don't believe we're making any decisions but I'm making any votes. Okay, okay. All right, so anybody on the select board wanna make the appropriate motion? I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointments. No, you're on the wrong one. According to one VSA. Sorry, Vince, you're on the wrong one. You get the wrong one. This is item 16. All right, sorry, my bad. That's the one above it, right? Vince, I have it right here if you want me to. Go for it, Tracy. I moved that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public official in accordance with one VSA section 313A3 to include the select board, trustees, and HR director. Do we have a second? Second. Thanks, Pat. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. Go ahead, Andrew. All right, trustees, I'll just go ahead and I move that the trustees enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public official in accordance with one VSA section 313A3 to include the select board and the HR director. Second. I'll second. I think, yeah, Rosh had that one. Any further discussion on that? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, passing unanimously. Okay, so we're not gonna come back to this meeting, right? No, so we... Okay. All right. Thank you public, see you another day. We'll see y'all in a few minutes.