 of you to know this. Eight. All right. So welcome. We did call the meeting to order. We did go into executive session. We're now out and we're continuing on with our meeting. And the first thing we have on our agenda after that are the minutes of September 21st, 2021. Is there a motion? And move we accept the minutes subject to modification. Mr. Second. Second. Page one. Kim Horning. It says Kim Horning, Mercy. It should be Hor-Nung with H-O-R-N-U-N-G. And then the last part is Marcy, M-A-R-C-Y. And Mr. I think we have one other one, Marcy Cass. Oh, yes. I, sorry, yes. And also Marcy Cass, yeah. Anything else on page one? Page two. Item number eight, it says from the fund balance, I wasn't sure if it should be from the general fund balance. It's a fund balance reserve. So I think that covers it. Okay. I believe. Terry, one thing on number six, it doesn't mention that it mentions the use of screamers. It doesn't mention that the use of bangers was taken off the request. And I'm wondering if it should, does that make sense? I didn't quite catch that, Jeff. Okay, under number six, it discusses the use of the screamers. But I thought one of the key points for me was the willingness of the folks requesting the variance was to take the bangers, the other pyrotechnic device off the request. And I just wondered if the, Oh, you're right. I wonder if that should be mentioned here. Yes. It was important to my, how I voted. Yeah, that was taken off the request by USDA, by Jake. Okay. So I just wonder if the minute should reflect that. Yes, you should. Okay, good. Thank you. And page three. Item number 12, it should be Williston Central School. Yes. Yes. And under number 13, where it talks about Williston police action said department for children and families. Hearing no other corrections, all those in favor of approving the minutes of September 21, 2021, as amended, say aye. Aye. Aye. You have all four eyes. So I don't have done that. We're at public comment now. Anyone in the audience and anyone at home. But I see one hand from a member of the audience if you'd come on up and probably take your mask off so we can hear you. There are, my name is Brian Forrest I'm a town energy coordinator. I'm going to a stand with Williston also. And what I passed out are pathways in the energy plan that are no cost pathways. What they require are either ordinances or changes to bylaws. So I like the board. This is part of this is a memo that Eric sent the board on January 5th of this year. And the top page are some other pathways in the energy plan which is not reflected in that memo. So like you, if you would on your own time to just review these and see if any of these things are pathways that you'd like to pursue. I think that there are several like burning and burning trash and burning anything nowadays really makes no sense when we're trying to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere. There are alternatives to burning. I think they should well be pursued and an ordinance revised to reflect that. There's also disposal of organic matter on construction sites. It's a little hard to watch that grove of trees go down on Williston Road for the storage facility and the other undefined project. And all those trees are carbon sinks. They have, every year they take more carbon dioxide atmosphere and they're all being cut down and I don't know how they were disposed of, but more than likely there's a lot of burning involved. So I think we should revisit what we, how we dispose of organic matter on construction sites so it doesn't contribute to our problem. It's either either contributing to the problem where you're trying to alleviate the problem. There are also other pathways in here that you can take a look at. Just requested to do so and give some consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone on the internet? Nope, Terry, no additional comments. Eric, Jeff here. Could you put a copy of the handout that Brian just provided in my box? Yep, we'll do Jeff. Great, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So next then is the liquor license application and Eric are gonna leave this off and then we have a representative from Felinos. Yep, Felinos is applying for a first class and outdoor consumption permit. I had a tight bow on the agenda, not a third class. We have Seth here from Felinos who can let the board answer any questions from the board. Staff has no objection to the slicker license being approved. Send the representative from Felinos. Yeah. Why don't you come up and introduce yourself and tell us what your plan is. My name's Seth Theroshers. I'm the general manager of Felinos and we are building a pizza shop in Wilson next to the new healthy living and we're applying for a first class liquor license just to sell can, beer, can, wine. Pretty simple. So any idea when you're gonna open? We're thinking in November sometime. Come down to staffing at this point, so. And obviously, there's our conditions that the liquor department has for training people and how are you planning to handle that? We're just gonna abide by whatever they put forth, have all of our employees trained, make sure they're up to date and all the managers that are gonna be working there will be trained as well, so. Have you been involved in other establishments that serve liquor or alcohol? I have before. Yeah, I worked at a Asiana house for about 10 years. They had a third class license. But then I was with Felinos for the past six and we've always been BYOB, so we wanna try to sell some beer and pizza. I'll pass the time questions. How many seats are you anticipating indoors and outdoors? I think indoor is gonna be around 50 and probably the same outside. Okay. Yeah. And what are your hours of operation? Are you hoping? We're thinking probably 12 to nine. That's what both of their stores are. And that's seven days a week. Seven days a week, yeah. Okay. Other questions from board members? Jeff here, sorry, could somebody remind me the difference between the first and the third class? I can never remember this. And you, Felis? First class is just beer and wine and third class is like spirits, hard alcohol. Okay. All right, thank you. On premise, on premise is only, yeah. Yeah, okay. And you plan on doing only bottled or canned or bottled wine or beer, not what's it called, draft beer. Yeah, I don't think we're gonna get some draft systems. I think you could get draft systems with the first class license, but just for simplicity. Okay. I'm just trying to understand. My biggest concern will be, you said you're gonna have a large outdoor seating area, which outdoors because it's not indoors, not as confined, might have some additional areas of concern in terms of either underage drinking or folks who maybe have had too much to consume. So do you plan on doing any, what do you plan on doing to increase your surveillance of the outdoor seating area if you are planning to do that at all? Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, we usually have pizza runners and a manager that walks around. Everything, you won't be able to buy any beer wine outside, so you would have to come inside to buy it. Okay. So you would be able to easily keep track of how many drinks you're having. Right, and who's purchasing it, okay. And will the outdoor area, will it be somehow confined or is it gonna be sort of totally open? I believe if you are serving alcohol, you have to have some sort of restrictions on where it is that they will be drinking. So we'll probably have some sort of rope or velvet around the actual seating area and like one entrance from the building to that area. Okay, okay, all right, thank you. Yep. Any further questions? All right, and the motion would be in order. Move to approve a first class liquor license and outdoor consumption permit for FIG hospitality, LLC doing businesses full in-house through April 30, 2022. This is your second. I'll second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. All right. I hear four ayes, I believe. And so that's done, so congratulations. Look forward to seeing you in business. Thank you very much. Thanks, I appreciate it. Thank you. We'll get this submitted tomorrow. Awesome, thank you. Appreciate it. So that brings us to the Green Mountain Transit Annual Update. John Moore, General Manager, is here, I believe. We're going to be here. He's gonna join our line, Terry. I don't see my line just yet. I expect him any time now, but. And I think it, Amy here? Oh yeah, I think Amy was here. And I'm not sure when Chapin was going to come out. Is Chapin going to join remotely also? Okay. Oh, oh, there he is. Oh, I see John. John's under a different name. That's what threw me off. So, John, I'll get you connected right now. I saw a different name here. John, I can see you. You just need to share your video and unmute here. Here we go. There we go. Can you hear me now? Yep. We just can't see you, John. Welcome. Okay. Sorry about that. Hi. And let me share my screen. I apologize for the name confusion. I am John Moore. I'm the general manager from Green Mountain Transit. I believe that Chapin Caner and Amy Brewer are in the room with you folks. Chapin is our commissioner representing Williston and Amy is the alternate commissioner from Williston. So let me share my screen. Can you guys see that? Yeah. Yep. Okay, great. Just wanna present our annual overview of Green Mountain Transit and then get into some specifics of the service we provide in Williston, some of the financial contributions you folks provide to the authority and then answer any questions you may have. So to get started, just a quick history of GMT, we actually started back in 1973 as the Chittenden County Transportation Authority. We were and still are the only transit authority within the state of Vermont. In 2016, CCTA in the Green Mountain Transit Agency which provided service at the time in Washington, Memorial, Franklin and Grand Isle Counties, we actually combined and became one organization renamed the Green Mountain Transit Authority and then we go by GMT for our public facing branding. So today we provide public transportation service in six counties in Vermont. So we're by far the largest transit provider in the state of Vermont. We're directed by a 13 member board of commissioners and overall we have about 180 full time equivalent employees, 160 revenue vehicles which range from sedans to 45 foot over the road coach buses and almost 1,000 bus stops total throughout our six county service area. So I won't read our mission but what we do is provide safe, convenient and accessible and innovative mobility solutions to the public. And what we're trying to achieve is to reduce congestion and pollution, promote smart growth along transit lines where possible and really at the end of the day enhance the quality of life for all. So that includes our passengers that take the bus but also the public that don't take the bus by providing high quality services. There's economic development, there's reduced congestion for everybody on the roadways. So even people that don't utilize transit services there's still a huge benefit created for them. And that's the message that we try to promote as much as we can. So just a quick snapshot on our financial information. So our overall operating budget in fiscal year 21 was about 21 million, roughly two thirds of that was in our urban operating area which is essentially Chittenden County. And you can see a quick breakdown of our revenue sources. I will say that FY21 is a little skewed. So our federal funding at 61% is higher than it typically is. And that's due to some direct COVID relief funds that we received to help us through the pandemic. And partly due to those federal funds that we received we were able to operate all of our services fair free in this current year. So typically we get about 15% of our operating revenue from the fare box what people actually pay per ride. We are again not operating, we're not charging a fare on our services right now. So we're paying for that difference with our federal funds. So that number is probably higher than it typically is. And then we get about 15% of our revenue from the state of Vermont, about 22% from our local municipalities which Williston is one of. And then about 2% from other revenue which is primarily onboard advertising revenue. So that's very important to our budget. And we do provide a varied mix of different types of services. Again, we view ourselves as a mobility provider and we're trying to right size service for the demand that may exist. So we operate fixed route service which is the typical city bus service that you think of anywhere between a 30 to a 40 foot big blue bus operating on set schedules. We also operate a decent amount of commuter service. So from our downtown Burlington location we serve Montpelier, St. Albans, Jeffersonville, Milton and also Hinesburg. We also operate demand response service and these are services for folks that may not be able to access our normally scheduled buses for a variety of reasons. So there's the Americans with Disability Act service, the ADA. In Chinden County, we actually contract that with SSTA. You've probably seen their white vehicles running around town. So that service provides a complimentary service in a three-quarters of a mile buffer around all of our fixed route services. So if somebody for a mobility reason cannot access one of our bus stops, we provide door-to-door service for folks that qualify and are eligible for that service. Another similar program is the Elders and Disabled program that essentially mirrors the ADA program but the geography's expanded. So for folks that live in Willis and Woods, for example, they're more than three-quarters of a mile from our fixed route service but they do qualify for this Elders and Disabled program. And that service can bring people to dialysis, cancer treatment, but also grocery shopping, social outings, haircuts. So it's really critical for their day-to-day lives and having that mobility option. We also provide the non-emergency medical transportation service. That's essentially the Medicaid transportation contract in our service area. In Chinon County, that is also provided by SSTA but for folks that qualify for that program, it again provides that transportation to those medical appointments and other qualifying trips that are critical for many reasons. We also operate weekly grocery shopping trips. So these are services that brings folks from primarily senior living complexes to local grocery stores. Just makes it a easier trip than taking our normal services. We do operate seasonal mountain service. So we're gearing up for that, both at the town of Stowe and in the Sugarbush area of the Madover Valley. We operate seasonal service, kind of geared to the tourism industry. And lastly, we've started a pilot project down in Montpelier, which I'll speak a little bit more about called Microtransit, which we're excited for to try to increase the convenience of public transit and try to increase the usage of transit and the benefits that that creates. So this is a snapshot of our fiscal year 21 ridership. So system-wide we did 1.42 million rides. The pandemic has certainly hit our ridership pretty hard. So we're down 35% from FY20 and almost 50% from FY19, which of course was the last full fiscal year without any COVID-19 impacts. So the majority of that ridership is in Chittenden County as you would probably guess, so about 86%. You can see that the Paratransit in Chittenden County is a much lower number at about 3%. But again, those rides are critical. Those are for folks that have some mobility challenges and need to get to medical care and social appointments. So we always point that out because those trips are much more expensive to operate than our fixed route service on a per boarding basis, but really lifeline type trips and really critical that those services are offered for people's mobility needs. So in terms of Williston specifically, we are in the process of developing our FY23 budget. We will hopefully have some numbers to share with Eric after our November board meeting. There's a few things that play number one COVID-19. Obviously there's still impacts lingering for that from a financial perspective. We're also in the midst of negotiating three of our labor contracts. We hope to have one signed tomorrow and approved. That's our largest contract. So that will give us some more clarity on our FY23 budget, but we will also have two additional outstanding labor contracts to finalize. So there's really two parts of the assessment that GMT bills Williston. That first part is for the fixed route assessment. So we operate two fixed routes within Williston. I'll go over the details in a minute, but that amount in FY22 was $206,000. We are, as I said, by December, hopefully by November, we'll have the assessment amounts for FY23. And typically that's a three to 4% increase over the previous fiscal year. So we'll get Eric updated on that as soon as we can. The other kind of curveball that's at play right now is back in 2018 before the pandemic. We implemented some service changes through a next-gen plan, which we presented to you folks three years ago or so. After that service plan took place, we experienced some financial challenges. So unfortunately, we had to scale back some service. Some communities actually saw an increase, others saw a decrease. It was kind of a net neutral in terms of overall service provided, but the way our charter reads, anytime there's more than 10 hours of service added or deleted from a given community in a week, there could be assessment impacts. So we're trying to unravel that. And then of course COVID came along and that through a wrench in our service planning as well. But there may be some other impacts for FY23 and if not in FY24 based on the actual service now provided after this service planning exercise was implemented. The second piece of the assessment is for that ADA paratransit service I just mentioned. So in FY22, that was about $24,000 for the town of Williston and that assessment amount is based on actual usage. So the way it works is that we develop a total program budget projection. So in FY22, that was 1.34 million. Our charter says that member municipalities get a 50% discount off of that. So the total 50% value of that ADA budget was about 700,000. And then we allocate the assessments based on actual ridership. So in FY21, which was the last completed year that we used to apply these assessments, Williston had about 1,000 total rides that started in Williston with residents. That represented about 3.5% of the total ADA rides, 3.5% of that 700,000 is the 24,000 for the ADA assessment. The tricky thing with the ADA assessment because it's based on actual usage, that can fluctuate fairly significantly on a year-to-year basis. If one or two individuals move into town and they have daily medical appointments, that could increase the percentage of the overall usage, which increases the assessment amount. We are looking with the board at a more stable approach to that, which it would end up being more like the fixed-route assessment, looking at it more as a regional service and then applying an overall increase to everybody, but at least from a budgetary standpoint, the town would have a better sense of what the baseline would be year-to-year. The last thing I'll mention on that, as we develop our FY23 ADA budget, SSTA, who's our contractor of that service, they have seen some cost pressures, COVID-related. So the ridership has bounced back, but in some of their other programs, it's still lacking. So essentially what happens is there's less overall hours to spread their fixed cost over. So there could be some rate impacts which is applied then to our program. So we're hoping to keep that number, that assessment as close as possible, but there could be some impacts both based on actual usage and then also the rate impacts with SSTA. I will say that in FY21, is the year we'll use to apply the actual usage. That was actually a lower percentage of the overall ridership than it was in FY20, not a direct correlation to the overall assessment, but it bodes well that the share of actual rides went down for Williston. So again, we'll have all of this information to Eric by December at the latest, but we hope our goal was to have it to you guys in November for your budgetary timeline. The other service that you folks provide typically is the elders and disabled local match. In this current year, there was no local match through the state of Vermont and their COVID relief funds, they're providing 100% funding for that service. So in FY23, those funds will likely be exhausted and we'll be looking for that 20% match, which is in the ballpark of $10,000 annually. And that provided in FY21 about 1,200 Williston rides. So again, a very important program. So just a quick overview of our fixed route service that we operate in Williston. So our number one Williston route provides service from downtown Burlington out to task corners with stops at the University Mall. Our busiest route in FY21, almost 300,000 boardings. It provides our highest level of service, operates seven days a week, 20 minute rush hour service. So there's a bus every 20 minutes during the rush hour. We're actually operating 20 minutes all day long with some of our COVID service changes. And then we do operate service until about 1140 Monday through Saturday PM, which is critical for folks that work those non-traditional hours and use the bus for commuting. The other route in town is our Williston Essex number 10 route. So that provides service between task corners, the five corners in Essex Junction. And we've extended that and combined it with our Essex Center route. So now it also travels up to the Essex outlets and provide service on Sand Hill Road in Essex. So a much lower ridership, about 20,000 boardings in FY21 and with the lower ridership, a lower level of service. So we provide service six days a week, there's no Sunday service and there's a bus that runs every 75 minutes. Now, one of the things that we'll look at going forward, based on ridership and other factors is maybe cutting that frequency in half. So instead of a bus every 75 minutes, we'd like to get one every 35 or 40 minutes. And again, that's kind of tied back into some of our assessments and local match with our planning process. So just a quick overview of some other initiatives that we're currently undertaking or planning on undertaking FY23. For Williston, in addition to that number 10 frequency looking at that, we know there's some plans for the exit 12 parking ride. So looking at ways to serve that, that would be effective and efficient. The frequency improvements that I mentioned, pre-pandemic, we've implemented some technology upgrades to try to make our service as convenient as possible. So when we were charging a fare, we get a lot of feedback that it's $1.50 to take the trip. And sometimes it's not the cost of the ride, it's the inconvenience factor of actually having cash on hand. So we've partnered with a software company and we've implemented a mobile ticketing app. So if and when we go back to charging fares, people can actually load money onto their smartphone and they just show the driver a pass on their phone. So it removes the need to have cash on hand to take the bus. So we're excited about that. We've also implemented a real time bus tracking software. So you can go on your phone or your computer. And if you wanna take a bus at four o'clock and you wanna make sure it's on time, you can see real time on a map where that bus is and what the projected arrival time is. So if it's January and 10 degrees, you're not waiting out at the bus stop. If the bus is 10 minutes delayed, you can wait inside and plan your trip to the bus stop around actual arrival information. The microtransit project is something that we're excited about. This is a pilot project down in Montpelier. We have ongoing right now. And essentially what this is is operating public transit services kind of in the Uber lift model where it's purely on demand with the app based technology. So it's a direct consumer to vehicle communication. Folks can say, I'd like to request a ride at this time at this location going to this destination and through the software and a call center option. We do our best to meet that travel demand as closely as possible. We do think there's some potential of that also being applied in Chinon County and it may not replace full bus routes like we've done in Montpelier, but it could provide a first mile, last mile solution and some low density applications such as Willowson Village where we did up to a few years ago operate transit service with 40 foot buses in the demand just wasn't there. We weren't able to go up into the neighborhoods off route two but we think there is demand. It just wasn't met with that service model. So microtransit type service may be appropriate for that application. We're also working on a transit strategic plan for the organization including strategic goals and also some forward thinking planning for the next 10, 15 years for both service development but also capital planning and making sure that we're using our public funds as efficiently as possible. The CCRPC, the Chinon County Regional Planning Commission is currently doing a study on transit financing. We think this is a critical study. It's looking at ways to fund transit other than the property tax. The local match is always the most challenging piece of financing transit. We look at it as again, a regional service. We're very much funded locally which does create some challenges with how we plan our services. So we think that's a great study. It's also looking at ways to fund fare free into the future but making sure transit has a sustainable and reliable funding model. So it's been studied multiple times in the past without any actionable items but we're hoping with the Climate Council and some other exciting things at the state level we can gain some traction this time around. We're also prioritizing new bus deliveries. We have a relatively old bus fleet. We went many, many years without any new bus purchases. That impacts our maintenance costs so we're trying to get on a more sustainable bus replacement schedule. It's essentially the newer, the bus fleet, the lower year operating costs and there's some advantages from a budgetary perspective with a capital replacement. So we have eight new buses either delivered. We had three delivered today actually from California and then we'll have five more delivered sometime before June. So we're excited for that provides a better passenger experience as well. As a newer bus, not as much shaking and rattling. We've also recently started operating two electric buses, two 40-foot electric buses in Chittenden County. We're looking at some facility master planning to accommodate more buses in the future working with our funding partners to try to continue the development of our bus electrification plan. So hopefully more to come on that. We've also started a Jedi program, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Our board has prioritized that. Staff's very excited about that becoming a more inclusive workplace and making sure all our passengers feel welcome and safe on board our buses. So we've put a lot of resource into that. And then lastly, we've spent a lot of time the last 18 months obviously with COVID response making sure our employees and passengers are as safe as possible. Face masks are required on board all of our vehicles. That's a federal PSA mandate. And again, that zero fare. We started that to try to protect our passengers, our drivers to create social distancing. Both of the passenger and the drivers allows us to use our rear door for boardings. It actually speeds up travel times. So again, we'll be looking at potentially continuing that past FY 22. So a long list of exciting things, but we're excited for what the future brings. And that's my presentation, my contact information. Happy to answer any questions now, or if you want to reach out to me if you think of anything later, please do so. Well, thank you. Not sure if Chapman has joined us remotely or not yet. Yep, he has. So if Chapman and Amy would have anything to add to the report, that would be helpful. I'd like to let Amy go first, if I may, and also just to comment that that is Jonathan Moore, not Jamie Smith. You can ignore the name on that Zoom box. Amy, do you want to go first? Sure. So John covered quite a bit. And I've spent the past few years as the alternate listening and trying to learn as much from folks like John and Chapman as I can. I'll add that we've talked a lot about electrification. We've talked about ways to make the service easier and more accessible for folks. It's exciting to see some of the development opportunities happening along Route 2A with the conversion of the hotel to housing, which is along the bus route, which means it's more accessible to folks. So there's a lot of exciting opportunities happening that I'm really very excited, as well as how this fits with the mobility project that I'm also involved with here in Boston. It's nice to see how it all connects. And Chapman, I'll let you add. I know you've got some wonderful priorities that you want to share. Sure. The most important thing I have to add is that I think it's time for Amy to become our commissioner. She has put in four years, and she's been active on the finance committee. And she's very good. And I think it's time for me to step aside and have her do that. And so I've requested, through Eric, if you would be willing, since we both have terms to end in next June, if we could swap our roles for that time. And I would be a supportive alternate. And Amy would be your representative. So that's the first thing I have to say. You don't have to decide that tonight. I was delaying this decision partly to make sure we made it through the current labor negotiations. I'm expecting tomorrow morning we will have a contract with our largest union that's an important milestone. In terms of service, I did want to point out that the white cap you may have seen on the list that John had up, that white cap is being serviced. That's on Industrial Avenue. And because we have no sidewalks on Industrial Avenue and we do have demand there, we responded this year to request to provide service just on a couple of runs a day so that people who work there can use the bus to get to work safely. I also wanted to say that John mentioned maybe getting more frequency on the number 10 that goes to Essex and the Lang Farm Shopping Center. And to me, that is very important. And also in part because we are seeing the conversion of the hotel on Zephyr Road to affordable living apartments. And some of those people may rely on that transit for their travel. And so I would really love to see the number 10 have the increased service and also to extend past the time that the M-track arrives in Essex Junction. The next thing is that microtransit, the experiment we're doing, I think, is a very good model that Williston is likely to want to follow either through GMT or even potentially on a municipal level for that last mile, as John was talking about. And it's as easy as taking an Uber. And John went by this fast. But we do allow people to call the call center and get a ride that way. They don't have to have an app on their phone. And finally, I wanted to say that the next gen study made a lot of recommendations for changes to service. And we implemented them right as COVID was hitting us, or actually six months ahead of that. And as a commissioner, I'm bound to vote for things that are in the best interest of Green Mountain Transit. I represent Williston in terms of information. But there was a hard decision there, which is that we lost the village root at that time. And we had a decrease in service. And I still supported the plan because I thought it would make us fiscally more stable into the future. Also, the thing that John mentioned where our assessment is supposed to be altered if more than 10 hours a week of service is changed. And we all felt that was premature to do that based on the changes for the next gen implementation because we were likely to be fine tuning it. And so we thought we should wait a year and then assess where things were. And at that point, make changes in our assessments as needed. Then COVID hit. And our schedules have gone all over the place to try to make sure, because we are a service that is necessary service for people getting to appointments, medical appointments, jobs, et cetera. So we have had to maintain service, but we've had to make adjustments. So finally, we are just now in the process of looking at what our service levels are. And we will be making an adjustment, if not for this assessment, then for the next one to make sure that we are fairly assessing towns. As you know, because I've said it over and over, having towns support regional transit doesn't make sense. All you have to think of what would happen if South Burlington dropped out and said they're not going to be part of Green Mountain Transit, what would happen to us. So it's a regional service and it should have regional funding. And I'm glad the CCRPC is taking another look at it. And also I'm a strong advocate for electrification and for fair free. And I do want to mention on the fair free, we've done it as a COVID response so that passengers can enter and exit through the rear door, which makes it safer for the operators. But also in general, if people don't need to have exact change and if the operator doesn't have to argue with someone who thinks they should get a reduced fare, et cetera, et cetera. It actually speeds up the service which then makes it more advantageous. And so I support fair free for a variety of reasons. And as you may have seen in the pie chart, although it's significant, our fair revenue is not the driving force behind us. And so we were having a whole lot of problems financially before COVID hit, the CARES funds made it so we were fine continuing through and the other funding that's coming is helpful. But we do need to be looking at a regional funding mechanism that's strong because this kind of transit is a vital part of meeting the state's energy goals. We need to reduce the number of CARES car trips. And we can only do that if we provide good, reliable, frequent service that people take advantage of. So I really think it's an important service for the long run. Thank you. Thanks, Shaven. Thanks to both you and Amy for your incredible amount of time you spend on this during the course of your term. So we appreciate that. Any questions for John or Chapin or Amy from the board? I have a question that's not exactly from the presentation but are there, is there an overall plan to have the buses become electric or more environmentally friendly? There's an informal plan. So we've spent a lot of time recently on our two electric buses. The technology is still in its infancy. So one consideration is that we get a product that's reliable enough to meet our service needs. The other consideration is that electric bus costs about double the price of a diesel bus. There's some federal programs in place to help alleviate that issue. But we really wanna make sure that the technology meets our service obligation needs. And then through our capital planning we'll start developing some more long term replacement plans. Any further questions? Jeff here, if it's okay, Terry, for me to go? Yes. Okay, great. First, thanks Chapin for bringing up the question or issue of the fixed route assessment for Williston. And I just wanna chime in that that's really, I think I view that as really important that that assessment be as fair as possible. I'm not complaining. I understand, but CCTA or I'm sorry, Green Mountain Transit is a big cost ticket item for us. And it's helpful to be able to defend that cost, which I'm happy to do if I know that it's fairly assessed. So that's all I'll say there. Glad to hear about the bus tracking system. I am an X and hopefully will be a future again once this whole COVID issue resolves itself, whatever that means to use the Green Mountain Transit bus from the Richmond Park and Ride to Montpelier. And one of the most frustrating things is to be standing there at National Life on a cold winter night looking at an app that was telling us the bus was already there when 20 minutes later it might have shown up. So I hope the new software works better. And last but not least a question, regional financing. Could you just, is there a quick explanation of what that might look like? Well, I can give you a quick list of options of what it may look like. Good enough. Yes. Increase to the gas tax, regional local option tax, registration fee increases. So there's a lot of revenue generation ideas. The question is, will they generate the revenue needed to replace the property tax reliance and will they be politically feasible to implement? So there's many past studies by the CCRPC that identify potential revenue options. The tricky part will be implementing one. And so it might take a statutory change to be able to enact that. If I could add just that we have not had the political will in Montpelier or elsewhere to take that on, but with trying to meet the carbon goals, I think that there's more at the climate action there's gonna be more attention to this. And I think more sources of funding that may become more political will to fund it some other way. Some areas and other parts of the countries have taxes on energy of all types, whether it's electricity or whatever, any energy coming into the county has a tax on it. And it's not called a tax because it's at the source. I can't remember what it's called, but it means that it's completely hidden from the consumer. And that seems to be more palatable, but so far no option has been politically, had political legs. Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you all for being here tonight virtually and in person and we'll consider the realignment of our volunteers in the near future. So thank you. Thanks for your work. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, John. Here. Moving on to the water main extension request from CSWD and Eric, I think you're gonna start off and then we can introduce representatives from CSWD and perhaps Du Bois and King. Yep. And I'm meeting the three of them connected here. I'll try to multitask. Or maybe I can multitask. Some brief introduction. This is a request from Champlain, Chittendon Solid Waste District for a water main extension on Redmond Road. We'll have Josh Tyler, Tim Shea from CSWD and Matt Mears from Du Bois and King joining us this evening, along with Public Works Director Bruce Horus here in the room. The board may recall of the newly adopted policy to help guide the decision making when requests like this come before the board. The board could consider action tonight or at a future meeting. And I believe Terry wanted a group making a request to provide an overview first then staff can walk through its memo here. And I can see Josh and then yep, we're getting all connected here. Here we go. I'll start off. Thank you for having us. Just a general overview that was kind of laid out in the memo we sent through. Actually, let me back up. My name is Josh Tyler. I'm with the Chittendon Solid Waste District I'm the Director of Operations. I'm joined by Tim Shea of CSWD. He's our project manager and Matt Mears. He is the Consulting Engineer from Du Bois and King who has been working on the technical specifications for this water line extension. So basically down Redmond Road where the bulk of our facilities are, we're looking to extend the water line from right about where the Global Foundry's entry is off of Redmond Road about 2,500 feet down to meet the needs of our compost facility. We've been slowly building out our compost facility to get it as efficient as possible. And we're in our final stages of completing that. And so part of that is to bring water down the road to supply it in the summer when things get really dry. Cause historically we truck it in from that hydrant we're pulling from and bring it down when we really need it. So that's the basic overview. Tim will be overseeing the project as our project manager and Matt will be working all the technical angles as well. Anything else for your presentation, Josh, is Tim or? No, no, this was just a general overview. We included some maps in with the, I apologize. Yeah, I didn't plan a present. Just wanted to give a review of the project and the plan itself should have been in your select board packet. And I'll be available to answer any questions. If there are any, anything that's project based on Tim and anything that's technical based, I'll refer to Matt. So the question probably for you, CSWD is going to assume all the cost of extending the lines, including the fire hydrants. That is correct. Other questions before we move on to Bruce? Bruce. Sorry, Terry, I was trying to unmute myself. One quick question. Is there any issue about whether this extension is or needs to be within a water service district within Williston? There is no defined water service district in the town of Williston. We've always used the sewer service area as the default, but there is no basic water sewer or water service area defined. Okay. Okay. So if the answer is we want one that's a whole different subject for a different night. That's correct. Yep, okay. Bruce, anything you want to add as far as the old server? No, I mean, I have my memo, which looked at this extension through the new policy that was set up. And my answer is under that policy. I believe it meets all three of the criteria. Not a reason to not allow it. Certainly, you know, the memo and tonight isn't meant as any approval of any plans or permits or anything else that they have to come in the door with. And I know you asked the question, Terry, but certainly we would treat this like any developer going to do a project and they would, the bill's on them. So. So presumably, Lawrence would have to be done to make sure that line can go with the way that they want it to. That would be on them too. Yeah, right. I don't necessarily know that they'd have to do warings for Monk Gas has run their line all the way up through there. But it certainly would, they stuck with the line and they run in the ledge and they got to get rid of it. That'll be on them. So, not a bad idea, but certainly I would let their engineer propose that kind of stuff. We would look at it from whether it meets all our standards, we'd make sure, you know, the hydrants are going into our standards, the amount of hydrants, the connections for the lots as they go by. The one thing to remember is that all but one property as far as I know, for this extension is all CSWD land anyway. Yeah, we did, we did look at it from a, what it would do as far as our water supply and we're able to supply the water. I see a Champlain Water District confirm that as well. It does, we end up with 200,000 gallons per day left before we get to our 50% for fire protection kind of storage, which is under water supply rules, which is quite a bit, we're okay there. So, what else, any real issues with us? And right now they're actually using water now and just tracking it, so we wouldn't expect, we probably wouldn't expect much more usage then. They don't just take, they don't, right now the water just doesn't come from us. They do bring water from other towns sometimes. Oh, really? Yeah. I suspect, I suspect the majority of it is from us, but there has been water brought from, other, Jeff? Real quick, first just a recognition that the five hydrants is a benefit to the town, but it also leads to my question of, will there be other folks, property owners, who will be able to tap into this line? No, once again, CSWD owns mostly all the property, the only property I know of is the one property that's owned by global that up butts the road. The rest of it is all under CSWD control, as far as I know. Okay, but that could always change too. I mean, CSWD could decide they don't need a piece of property and sell it and, you know, residential goes in and if that residential goes in, they could tap into this line. They should, sure. Yep, okay. Question for the audience, who will own the line? I would suggest that unless somebody else taps onto that line, that from where the whole extension they're gonna put in, it's gonna be their line. They'll be responsible for it. It will be technically the town of Williston's line. It can't be anybody else's line, because it's gonna be underneath our permit. But just like anything else, I mean, since it's just serving them exclusively to start with, I don't see why we would take any, why we would want ownership of it. We will have ownership of it, but through an agreement, they will be responsible for whatever happens from the point of connection out to there. Until, like Jeff says, with another property, if they sell some property and somebody else wants to connect onto it, then that would change that. But at this point, it's serving one business and one business only. So nuts and bolts, how would that agreement come into existence? Yeah, yeah, good. It would be when the permit. What's that? Good question. How would an agreement that says they're gonna have to do maintenance, repair, et cetera, come into existence? Would that be? We're doing that now through the permitting process. Through the permitting process. As they come into us, they'll get a letter from us just like cottonwood or any of those private developments that say exactly that, that the lines technically belong to the town of Williston because otherwise they'd have to have their own permit to operate and that's not gonna happen. So there's been hours, but we threw that agreement with a letter that we have that goes into file of everything. They're responsible for the hydrants for if any of the line breaks, repairs, those kinds of things. We're gonna be responsible for the water quality still. It's our water going through our line. They're a customer. But it's just like it's leading our property and going on private property. In this case, it's still gonna be in our range of way, but it's only serving one business at this point. Okay, great, thank you. Is there questions from the board? If there is no other request for information, might there is a motion suggested if we're ready to take action on that? I'd move to approve a water main extension request from the Chittenden Solid Waste District on Redmond Road in accordance with the town's water main extension policy. Is there a second? I'll second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Very none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. I think I hear all four ayes. So we have taken care of that. Thank you, Bruce. We'll move on then to the market factor wage scale adjustment. Eric and Bruce, you're both on the deck for this one. Yep, I can start things off. The board's got a memo in your agenda packet. I'll try to just recap some of the main points of this evening and we're ready to answer any questions. The town like many employers right now is facing challenges recruiting and retaining positions in the labor market. We have two positions open in the highway division of public works and one in the water sewer division. These positions are attracting limited candidates with the winter operations season quickly approaching. Staffings starting to become more of a concern. We've been working with Hickok and Boardman to review our pay scales and it's been a little over five years since the partial review was last completed for us. The benchmark you look at for public nonprofit sectors, the 25th percentile of the market for positions. We found the town for the most part is on track where it should be for our starting wage and we're finding that based on this industry benchmark from our consultants. We're running into these DBW positions but we're not having success in recruiting and Bruce must be this more retention of some staff at these positions. The next approach that consultants suggested is for the town to consider increasing the minimum starting wage for some select positions, moving further towards the 50th percentile with the market. The change for the select board to consider is increasing the starting wage for these positions and reviewing options for the board. Staff can suggest considering $21 per hour from the current 1849. This represents a 13 and a half increase, percent increase. So push the wages towards the 40th percentile of the market and I've come back and forth our consultants on this trying to advise where a number to think about for the board and really where the sweet spot is from our consultants, they responded to me. It depends on the factors which continue to shift right now. You can see it everywhere. Availability of qualified applicants, other organizations, what they're doing for adjusting pay ranges and benefits and what happens in the local and regional economy now. The board sets the amount of the market adjustment should consider action. And then the other piece of this to make this adjustment for these select positions. Recommendations would involve the same percentage increase for current staff as outlined in the memo. And a little history I looked up in November 2018 that the town implemented a market adjustment of about 5%. Another option for the board to consider the consultants raised with me was to consider one-time bonus retention payments. Could view this, could work in a shorter term but it could present some of the same challenges with ongoing retention with a one-time payment. Staff seats direction from the select board and any action to take, any additional information that the board might need to think about this. And Bruce is here and he can speak to his experience in trying to recruit and fill positions if the board is entrusted. Bruce. Well, right now, as you can see in this memo, how many times we've advertised for positions 25 total times since 2018. Not for 25 different positions, but for positions we're not able to get filled and it's very hard to get somebody to come to work for 18 something an hour and expect them to live within 25 miles, which basically puts them in Chittenden County, $21 an hour, just 40, what, $42,000 a year, not an unreasonable salary to pay somebody that we want to have a CDL license and have some responsibility, have a lot of responsibility throughout the course of the day, but especially during the wintertime when they're out there by themselves, even though there's seven out on the road with them, they're in that truck by themselves, making decisions as they're going along. Everybody that we have lost besides retirement, we have lost for higher pay. The towns around us are just as hungry as we are for people and they're paying more money. So I had one gentleman in two weeks ago, very nice guy, interviewed really well, didn't have a plowman experience, but had a lot of truck experience, mechanical experience. He was going from here to go talk to Colchester, Essex and Shel, or in Milton. So when he walked out the door, I knew I wasn't gonna see him again. And I actually did email him the other day, thank me for my time. We've been in a slot at eight positions in highway for quite a few years now. We've only filled that eighth position for about six months since we've had it available. Last winter we had it filled for a while, a young man came to work for us, started out in a truck that didn't need a CDL, got his CDL and as soon as he got his CDL, he left for other employment. More money. Gentlemen, right now that's actually the foreman for the town of Moncton, was a young man that worked for us. Great guy. Left here, went to Moncton for three more dollars an hour and now is the foreman of their four person highway crew. I honestly believe that if we can get people in the door with the right money that we can keep them here. It's a good place to work. We try to make the job exciting, fun. It's one of the things I tell people all the time, is I want you to get up in the morning, I want to come to work and I want you to go home at the end of the day and I want you to have some fun in between while you're here. Who wants to go to work, it'd be miserable all day long. But right now we're down to six in highway. Water and sewer were even a bigger jam. Even though what Eric just said is absolutely correct. Right now we're down to two people in water and sewer because one of them, one of the three that we have is actually out with a health issue and probably won't be back. I just found out tonight before I walked into this meeting until probably February. So that puts us down to two people in water and sewer for a four man crew. We lost the third, we had that position. So we had that all full, but we lost the third one then. Once again, gentlemen, it was here for six months. Got a better offer than took it. So we need to get these salaries to a point where people can make a decent wage and then they still look at all the other benefits they have. I mean, if you look at the construction field, some of these guys are making better money but they might be driving the Brattleboro to go to work tomorrow. I mean, one of the things that's nice about these jobs and one of the reasons I'm in this kind of work is I like the work, I like what I do, but I also know that I'm not gonna be traveling all over the world. I did that for 10 years full time and 10 years part time already. So yeah, I really applaud Eric for working with us to try to present this to you all in a manner that makes sense and hopefully shows where we're at and this is something that really needs to happen for us to be able to keep. If you guys approve this, believe me, you're gonna see an ad in the paper. I stopped advertising right now because every time I do, the minute we talk about money, it's gone. A guy called me the other day, works for another town, told me this is what I need an hour and I said, well, you may as well stay there. I would have told you that anyway, even if we had to change because this will give us some more leeway to get some people in the door that might even have a little bit of experience and keep the guys that we have that are under this rate right now from jumping ship and going elsewhere. Questions from the board for Bruce. So you mentioned that obviously that other towns are offering more competitive rates. Are other towns also struggling to fill these positions or are there lots of vacancies in neighboring towns? Right now in neighboring towns, right around us, I don't think that it's quite as bad, but the answer is yes, everybody's advertising all the time. I talked to Essex today and their big thing was it sounded to me like they were looking for some part-time winter help which they haven't been able to get. But Essex, Colchester both offer more money than they've both been offering incentives for people to come on board. Every time I've sent it to Eric, Coyabidi probably gets tired of seeing it from the Vermont local roads, put it out advertisements. And anytime I see one in there that actually puts a starting salary in it, that's $21 or $22 or $23 an hour, I send it to Eric and say, this is what we're competing against. And some of these aren't even in shittin' and countin'. So, it's tough everywhere, for everybody to find work right now, but for us to be able to get people that have some qualifications and stuff, we've got to at least be to a level where we can be competitive wage-wise to even think about getting people in the door. This winter, if we go in the winter the way we are right now, there's no guarantee that if you guys accept this, that this'll get us people here anyway. If we go in the winter the way we are right now, sidewalks are not going to get done until well after storms. Because I'm gonna be taking that person, he doesn't know it yet, I'm gonna be taking him out of the sidewalk machine, putting him in a truck that he's never driven before yet either. And then when we get a chance, we'll go on the sidewalks after that. Other questions? Of course, Jeff here. I mean, you pretty much got me convinced. And this is a story we're hearing across multiple sectors, employment sectors. My question is, I don't know if you remember this, but my preference is when I learn something about an initiative like this, is not to vote on it the night that we first get introduced to it. Do you need an answer tonight or can it wait a week or two? I knew you were gonna say that, Jeff. No, I would say we need the answer. Certainly if you wanna wait a week or two, we'll live with it, but we're getting closer and closer to winter and we've got to get these ads out. I mean, as you know, it's not a put an ad out, somebody walks in the door and I hire them. Right. So I would ask you all to try to make that decision this evening. Let me ask Erica question. Have a select board retreat next week? Could this be part of the agenda of that public meeting? Public select board meeting? It certainly could at the board's purview if the board didn't wanna consider action this evening, we could have that on the agenda as well. That would be my preference, but I'm one of four tonight. I don't see the need to delay. I don't know any information we're gonna get between now and next week. I would add or subtract from what we have. I'm also in favor of it. And I think that the quicker we can get this in the works, the better it will be because every, I know from trying to hire in my job, it seems like every week that goes by without posting a position adds three weeks on to getting enough good applicants in or longer. Ed, I'm 100% in agreement with you. The one thing that's missing is the ability for the public to provide any input. Positive, negative, agree, disagree on this. And that's the piece that's missing for me. Other questions? There is a motion to get it. If anybody wishes to present that. I'd move to authorize a town manager to make a market factor wage scale adjustment for public works department positions in grades three and grade four of the town wage and compensation schedule for non-represented staff as outlined in the memo dated October 5th, 2020. Was there a second? I second. Is there a discussion on the motion? Well, the only discussion I have is, again, my preference would be not to vote tonight. I'd prefer to abstain simply because I don't feel like I have what could be a critical piece of information, i.e. the public input, probably not, but it could be, you can never say. So, Mike, I'm just, I guess what I'll do is I'll wait and see how the vote goes because I don't want this to be defeated because of a lack of a quorum on it. But on the other hand, I would prefer to wait a week if that all makes sense. There's pretty further discussion on the motion. Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Is there any opposed? And any abstentions? One abstentions. So we have three to one and the motion, three, zero, one, and the motion passes. We'll move on then to the... Thank you, and on behalf of my employees, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Chris, yeah. Move on then to the talent energy committee discussion and again, tonight we're only discussing the energy committee and Eric has presented us some information regarding the draft charge for the committee, which we had two weeks ago and some other information that he has gathered in response to some of the comments from a couple of weeks ago. So, Eric. Sure. Yeah, just to echo that, Terry, I've included a couple of documents after the discussion at the last board meeting. I've left the draft charge as it was for the board to discuss further this evening. And I've also taken, I looked at a number of other energy committees and commissions throughout the state and communities similar size and structure of Williston and included that in a memo to give the board an idea what their charges and tasks look like from those other communities how they've approached this question. And I've also included a number of our boards, our committees and commissions to show how those have been structured for other committees and commissions in the past. And should the board consider action, I was reviewing the town charter and the board would need to adopt a resolution to establish a new committee and by finding in the resolution reasoning to do so. So there's a draft resolution included in your materials as well. Should you wish to consider any actions this evening? Thank you. So at the logic due for this is to open the floor up for discussion from the board, first of all, and then go to comments from the public. So any questions from the board regarding the proposed draft for the charge? My only comment is a positive one. I read it. I think it's in line with what everybody was thinking. I think the resolution establishes it appropriately and I plan on voting for it. Other questions or comments from board? Certainly in favor of getting the energy committee off the ground and running as soon as possible. I just want to reiterate though that I do support an energy coordinator for our town as well. And I do think that is an integral piece of this plan of the energy plan. So. Other comments, questions? This is Jeff here. What I'm observing is, and I think this is the role of a committee is it's primarily advisory. And so my specific question is, is if the committee is not getting the results it wants or prefers, what are its alternatives? I guess it's always under the select board's purview to amend the charge of the committee, but I think there would need to be some benchmarks established and that may be the, one of the committee's first tasks to establish some goals and benchmarks. So may have a conversation with the board about and then evaluate how things are going. Because for instance, as I remember years ago, I was on the conservation commission. And there were times we disagreed and it's what is the avenue that's there. Okay. And then my other comment is I'm looking at the resolution and I'm looking at the fourth whereas and the word I'm having some difficulty with is, or the term is perceived need. And I would prefer the word perceived was deleted and it just read a new committee in response to a need. And part of that is maybe it's diction, but I don't like to do things because they're perceived. I like to do things because I believe they're very real or it's the right thing to do. And that's how I feel here. So that would be my preference with the wording there is to strike perceived. Sure. And just for the context on that, that was the language selected in the town charter to. Oh, that's from the town charter. Yeah. Okay. It's illegal. It's a legal word. I mean, we can take it out, but I don't think it was meant to be like, well, that's your perception. I think that. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't think it means that, but we can take it. Okay. I mean, to me the issue of climate change and the town's role and let's say in that, I'm not choosing my words there is very real. So I have difficulty with the word perceived. Others may say it's perceived, but I don't. In looking at the document provided about the roles of different towns, committees and commissions and since I wasn't here, you know, in this role, obviously, when the energy plan was adopted, just some clarification, why was it determined that it would be an energy committee over an energy commission? Yeah. I can't recall the exact discussion. I think as most communities have labeled a committee, as I recall discussions when I was tasking, tasking or staffing rather the task force committee was the structure identified. And I think there's in the plan, as a guide mark for the board, the board has the purview to decide what type of configuration we most appropriate at that point. But I believe most towns call them established an energy committee. So I believe that that's how it came about. Thank you. That's like. Greta, that is a very, I mean, that's an excellent point. I mean, I don't remember what the energy plan says, but I was reading a quote today from Mark Twain when he talks about the difference between a lightning bug and lightning and the difference between a committee and a commission is significant. Just think our commission, it's like the planning commission. So it's not a small detail. It's a very real and important distinction whether we go with committee or commission. So I think of it. Actually, I went back to the task force report, which does in numerous places mention an energy committee and all through the document. And I think that the energy plan that we adopted also calls for an energy committee. But, you know, it's not important. I don't think as to what the name of it is. It's what they're going to do. That's really the important part. Any other questions before we move to comments from the audience? Well, but if it were a commission like the planning commission, the energy, if it were a commission, the energy commission could come directly to the Slack board with ordinance changes, as opposed to being advisory to the planning commission, who would hopefully concur with their request for, let's say, a new ordinance or revisions to an ordinance. And that to me is a piece of the difference here, a big piece. Well, I don't know that I want to delay action on this. I mean, that's- It's a good point, yeah. We weren't asked about a commission. This is like coming out at the last second. The plan is for a committee, let's get it done. And if it's not working, we'll change it. But yeah. I can live with that. I just was sort of pointing out Greta raised something and it's just like, yeah, she's right. And yeah, I agree. If we find the committee is not able to achieve what it is for whatever reason, their fault or not, what we want to achieve, then we can re-look at it. Well, the people in town who want the energy committee are obviously very shy and they don't let their voices be heard very well. So we might not ever know. Okay. Fair enough. I'll have to take that risk. Any further comments from the board before we go to the audience? And is there anybody on chat that wishes to speak as well? I see some, I see one hand raised on the chat, Terry, do you want to go there first? Let's go to the people in the room. First of all, it's anyone you wish to speak on the energy committee draft charge. Just please introduce yourself. Before I begin, oh, first of all, thank you, Eric, or continue. I know that Chapin sent you some talking points tonight. He requested we read those into the record. Were you going to do that? Or I can talk to you as well. If you have them available. I haven't checked my email. And I had some points to make myself, I think Chapin's points were pretty much sum up what I was going to say. And I am no Chapin, but I'll do my best here. Dear Eric and select board members, I, Chapin, must be at the planning commission hearing this evening when the agenda items likely to come up and I would like to share a few thoughts. The overlap with what I said at the prior meeting, they overlap with what I said at the prior meeting so they will be brief. Please remember that the energy plan task force is already put in more than a year of work. And the planning commission almost another year, both with support and guidance from town and CCRPC staff. So the energy committee is supposed to aid in the implementation of the plan, not the planning. As we move forward, there will be new pathways. They will consider much as the planning commission works on changes in the town plan. But for now our play is full with work waiting to be undertaken. Two, the plan specifies there being energy coordinator to implement the plan with guidance and assistance from the energy committee. Without that position, the energy committee is not anchored. Eric's charge has the committee reporting to the planning commission, but the planning commission does not have the authority to act on pathways other than those already assigned to it. Point three, since you have decided to consider the energy committee first, please be aware that you are not implementing the plan as written. However, this can work out if you hire an energy coordinator soon and at that time revise the charge, the energy committee. What I would not do is spend time finding a way for the energy committee to have some authority, for example, be a commission rather than a committee, given where we move ahead and bring the rules into alignment as soon as we can. As a reminder, below is the exact wording in the energy plan about those rules. And I will read the quote from the plan. General pathways quote, local objectives one through 14. This is a vast plan over many years and to execute the pathways recommended, the town will require sufficient funding and human resources. Pathway 1.1, hire an energy coordinator on a full-time basis and additional staff as required to implement the energy plan and the time frames established in the plan. The energy coordinator will ensure that the goals defined in renewable energy generation target table 12 are met. Lead entity, select board, timeframe, short term. And then pathway 1.2, establish a permanent volunteer staffed energy committee to assist the energy coordinator with implementing the measures contained in the energy plan. The committee will monitor the energy plan pathways to assess progress made against the plan's stated benchmarks and make recommendations to alter the pathways to assure that the town will reach its energy goals. The energy committee will be appointed by in a report to the select board and contain five to seven members, including the town energy coordinator. The energy committee will serve as the liaison to the community. Subcommittee volunteers may be added as needed. Lead entity, select board, timeframe, short term. Point four, Williston is missing opportunities the longer we delay full implementation of the energy plan. Implementation will benefit residents in the town itself with significant savings and grants to be had if we do our homework. Point five, I urge you to start a climate action fund as I, again, Chapin, wrote in May and published in The Observer a penny for the planet so that we can take advantage of grants and programs requiring matching funds. We don't need to wait for an energy coordinator to start building such a fund. As Chapin said at the last meeting, implementing Williston's energy plan will save residents money, save the town money, help us reach the goals in our energy plan, help us meet the goals in Vermont's comprehensive energy plan, and help us reduce our carbon footprint as we do our part in the school response. You, the select board, have invested years of work in our energy plan. Let's focus now on implementation. As we do so, we can and should be careful about spending, but we shouldn't delay the working on the implementation. As Eric laid out, the select board retains policy oversight and the town manager has administrative oversight, but we can't expect the whole of town government to do all that the plan calls for in addition to their existing responsibilities. We need an energy coordinator and a committee to assist and guide his or her work. Thanks for listening, Chapin Keener. Thank you. My personal thoughts, first of all, again, I appreciate the work that this committee and Eric, you have done. I appreciate, especially Jeff's point, and I believe both Ted and Greta as well, that we can iterate on this once we get things moving. One of the concerning things I found in the charge is that it is narrowly scoped to policy as part of the planning commission. Policy is an important part of the energy plan, but there are five components to the plan, including transportation and land use, building energy usage, recycling three, recycling and consumption, four, renewable energy generation, and five, agriculture. Restricting the energy committee two, land use policy off the bat ignores these other aspects and probably ironically, those other aspects of the townspeople and the town itself can probably actually realize some financial gain. We know that there is significant benefit to some of the electrification options we have on the table. We've seen other towns across the country adopting especially electric vehicles and saving money in doing so. Police departments especially have been doing this to good effect. So not having this off the bat limits our ability to realize some of the financial benefit. Obviously you all have an important role in wise in spending the town's money and I certainly appreciate that as a taxpayer. I also appreciate the fact that there may be decisions we take now that have the long-term benefits for the town and taking them now is the way to start realizing those benefits in the future. The town's already done this in the past. We have the solar arrays that I believe are now generating roughly $30,000 a year for the town and I, if my numbers are correct, are going to be paid off in the next two to three years at which point that money will be able to be used for other things. Many of the things we could be doing is outlined in the plan fall in similar categories and we'll have net financial benefit to the town but it does require action to get started. And that's it, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Just a point of clarification that I think Eric will back me up that in the energy plan task force in drafting this energy plan, there was not a large discussion if there was any at all about whether it should be a commission versus a energy committee. So I would leave it to your wise judgment as which would be the most effective group. Thank you. Also, on the audience, we'll just speak. Yeah, if not, I'll be looking for a motion. Sorry, Terry, the online person. Deborah, I'm going to connect you right now just a moment. Hi there, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, great, thank you. I'm Deborah Mewchew and I'm a resident of Williston. For over 20 years, I worked in Williston. I volunteered in Williston and my kids have gone to Williston schools their whole lives. Yesterday, I heard on the news that 50,000 students in Louisiana have not yet returned to schools and may not for months because of the hurricane. And there's no money to fix the schools. So I'm not sure when those kids will be educated. We've probably heard of the oil leak off of the coast of California. And of course, I don't need to list all the recent disasters because there's too many. And surely you're informed of the efforts, the effects of climate change that will only worsen. And with yearly droughts and extreme heat here in Vermont that we're seeing every summer, it's not crazy to think that there may be wildfires in the continental forest soon. That's gonna be expensive. So we need leadership and we need action at every level. An energy committee will be nice and helpful and useful, but it's not enough. We need a funded energy coordinator position with expertise and the power to put the energy plan into action. Tonight my son who spoke to you last month will ask me, what are the adults doing about this crisis? We are running out of time, six years to be exact, as he reminds me on a continuous basis. So my question to you is, when will the energy coordinator position be on the select board meeting agenda? Thank you. Thank you. And we agreed that we would be taking this up so that we would be looking at funding for the current fiscal year. So I would anticipate that we would, right now we don't even have a job description for an energy coordinator, but that will be coming forth soon as the town manager can get to do that. So I would think that we'll be doing this relatively soon. Okay, we've, yeah. A date would be helpful as we've been hearing that response for quite a few meetings now. And it just sounds like it's kicking it down the road. And tell me what I'm supposed to tell my son. Thank you for your comments. Is there a date that you can provide for when this will be on the meeting agenda? I can't tell you that tonight. It'll be on agenda in the near future. Does that include this year or 2022 next month, the month after? It'll be on our agenda in the near future as to whether or not it gets funded in this current year. It'll be up to the select board to determine at that time. All right, unsatisfying answer. Thank you. Anyone else on the line that needs, would like to talk? Nope, no more comments, sir. At this time then, I think the board has asked there are questions we've heard from the audience. And I'd be looking for a motion. Move to adopt the resolution as presented to create the town of Williston Energy Committee and further move to adopt the charge of the committee as presented. Did we want to remove that one word? As modified. As modified. By removing that word perceived? Yes, that's. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Is there any discussion on the motion? I'm going to vote in favor of it because I think it is a good first step. I also, I agree with Jeff. I think it is a good first step and again, would like to reiterate my support of an energy coordinator and the potential future expansion of the charge as needed. Any other discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. I think I heard four wrongs. So thank you all for your attendance and we appreciate your input. So thanks very much. I can't hear you with your mask on. Well, the committee will be advertised for those who are interested in being on the committee. Depends on how many people apply for it as to what the process will be after that. It'll be an interview process, obviously. There may be, it depends again on how many people apply as to whether or not we have written questions to ask them in advance like we did for the select board position. So that will be the, since we now have a committee as of tonight, that should be advertised soon. Moving on to the easement for the airport noise monitoring device, Eric. This is, I think we spoke about this maybe over a year ago, but the Burlington airport's installing noise monitoring devices in looking to stall one in Williston and there's one in Winooski in South Burlington that are about ready to come online. And the location where these could be located is defined by a noise control map provided by the airport. So we've got a certain area in town we can consider. We've been looking for a suitable location and staff has worked with the airport to find what we think is a good location to confirm by all parties involved. It's the small piece of the former road bare property that the town acquired a couple of years ago at 4964 Williston Road. It's across the street from the new U-Haul facility. It's about a 68 by 83 foot parcel. The footprint for the device is small. There'll be some minor clearing of brush required. Data from these devices will not impact noise contour mapping for the airport. That's a regulated and defined process, but its goal is to be transparent with the public about noise observed. There'll be a web portal for anyone to log in and observe as I understand it. Staff's reviewed an easement just to back up the select board need to grant an easement to place this device on the property. Staff's reviewed it. City of Burlington's reviewed it with their attorney. We had one change they accepted. We just asked if we need to move this at some point for any need that we have on the property that we could, that they'd move in. They had no objection to that. So the question for the board tonight is should the board accept this easement to grant the manager to sign it? And I believe the airport would hopefully look to move quickly to install this if they have time at the end of this construction season. Next questions regarding this. You said it's small, just like, what's the general size of it? What does small mean? Yes, I had a diagram that I meant to pull up tonight. Probably a base of maybe five feet or so and it's kind of, if you think of just kind of a large, essentially a microphone sticking in the air. Probably the footprint would be something like 10 by 10, maybe something like that. I can share an image with the board as well. And it will be set back from the road, like it's not gonna be on the road, worry about, I mean, obviously they've done this before, but noise, traffic noise and things like that. Yeah, I'm not sure the exact location, but I know they've looked at it and their consultants have looked at it and they felt it's a suitable location to collect the data that they need. Okay, Eric, just quickly, I assume it's a no cost easement, which is fine. And then I think you addressed my other question of what is the term, particularly if the town has a need to use the land, but it sounds like that will be addressed in the easement. Yeah, that's what we looked to address, Jeff, a no cost easement and basically, as long as the town doesn't have another use for the property and it's getting in the way that it can remain as long as they're gonna continue that program. But who knows, some day we may need another pump station and that may be the spot to put it and we don't want the location, the noise monitor to impede that need. Yeah, exactly. I was thinking of a satellite fire station, but pump station works too. That was a joke about the fire station, don't worry. Maybe a room for one truck. Yes. Any other questions for Eric? The motion has been suggested. Oh, sorry. I was waiting for you to make the energy committee motion. I moved to approve an easement with the city of Burlington for a noise monitoring device on the town's parcel located at 4964 Williston Road and to authorize the town manager to sign the easement on the town's behalf. Second. All right, discussion on the motion. So I read the easement and I was really happy that basically we can get out of it if we need to use the land. So that's, it's an at will easement, essentially. For as long as we wanna let them use it. So, yeah. Glad to hear the legal interpretation of that. Free of charge. Any other discussion on the motion? And if not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. And there's no opponent. So we're moving on to the manager's report. Mr. Terry, and yeah, I've had Shirley's put together a finance report versus couple of months of the year. There's a little lag with this one as they were to close the end of the fiscal week adjust for this budget year. Shirley, did you wanna walk through any brief highlights if the board is interested this evening? A little to you if you have already read it. I don't wanna repeat what you've already read. We just got it tonight. So if you just put out the highlights would be fine. Sure. So the Big E property tax revenue is right in line with budget at this point. And actually I'm gonna step back for a minute and explain why we don't issue July reports. There are lots of transactions that have to happen to move activity from July and August back to the last fiscal year. So most of those, there might be some little things I haven't found yet because I'm working on your end between the budget and other projects. But so the one thing that we have to wait for is the preliminary cash flow that comes from the state of Vermont. And that tells us what portion of the property taxes need to go to the school district and back to the state of Vermont. And that was just received last Thursday. So when property taxes are posted it...