 Okay, I will call the March 18, 2019 select board meeting to order and invite you to rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I'd like to welcome everyone to tonight's select board meeting and just remind you to please put your phones on silence. That would be much appreciated. So we're going to go on to agenda additions and changes. And Greg, I think we have some things to add. Yes, one thing to add to the agenda would fall under item 5A. It's a outside consumption permit for a first class liquor license application. It's a Lang family LLC doing business as barns at Lang Farm. Their liquor license had been approved. This is just an outside consumption permit. So hopefully they can process that. Okay. A couple items from Green Mountain Transit to go with item 5C. Those are at your place and would look to strike under the consent items, check warrants. That's item 6E, March 11, 2019 that was listed but not actually included in the packet. So we can strike that and include it in the future. April 1 packet. Okay, great. What's the board's pleasure? Any? I thought there were like three sets of minutes that we're attempting to add also. Are we going to not do those? We sent them out but since they weren't listed on the agenda, I feel like that's a larger thing for you to process. We could put them on April 1st. Okay, so what's the board's pleasure to add these items? Mike? I move we add the aforementioned items to the agenda. Okay, which was the item from 5A and 2 items from 5C and eliminate the 311 check warrants. Thank you, Mike. By the second. I heard it laying. Second. Thank you. Okay. Further discussion? Isn't there a 5G that's also being added with language around the... Inter-executive section. That was sent out. It's part of the agenda. We can call attention to it if you want as the memo but... It wasn't included in our packet. It was on the agenda but not in our packet. I guess that's not an agenda change. It wouldn't hurt to add it if you wanted to. If. It's okay with that. Mike? Elaine, you good? It's a materials change as opposed to an agenda change but that's fine. So is the right... The other additional content we got from... Yeah, that's all just additional. Right. I'm fine with the friendly amendment. Okay. So all those in favor of the agenda additions, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I just wanted to introduce myself and say I look forward to joining you next month. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else? Walter? And the first was, there's 40-something pages of written material here, and not a single word in there that says that you're raising my taxes. I know you were raising my taxes. You did raise my taxes, but there's not a word in here, which is the report that would suggest to people that you need to understand that we're raising your taxes. But that was rather unusual that you wouldn't have said something about that in the town report. The second item that I found unusual was that the town is purportedly going to finish the year with a surplus of about three-quarters of a million dollars. And that despite the fact that we are going to finish with a surplus, you decided that you would take $126,000 more out of the fund balance, bringing the total surplus to 800 and almost $890,000. And again, no reference in here about what you're planning to do with the money or suggesting that you might want to use 300,000 of it to defray our purported tax increase for this year, which seemed rather unusual. So obviously you have some planned for this $880,000, which you didn't want to share with anybody because it's not the engineer. The other thing I wanted, two other things I wanted to mention because I thought it was appropriate was that last year at the town meeting there was a discussion about what a police officer would cost for the half a year. So I took the information that's here for this year, did the math and found out that including two new officers and accounting for half an officer for each of the administrative folk, the average police officer costs the town $145,000 plus $17,600 for debt repayment or a total of $162,800 apiece for the year, not $45,000. But that got me thinking, so I decided I'd go look and see what the rest of the people in the town of the Essex cost. And it turns out that the average other employee in the town of Essex is $185,900. $144 apiece for each one of them. That's, just take the total expenditures and divide by the number, not counting about anybody's individual salary, just that's the total amount of money each one of those people on average is spending. So I was a little surprised. I'm not sure that I can listen to how you're going to spend this $882,000 because I'm not sure that I would understand what you told me after you told me what it was. So, but I thought I would bring those things up and make sure that they got on the record so that everybody was clear that the town has done a pretty good job this year of reducing our expenditures, but that wasn't enough to make sure that I didn't have to pay more taxes. So, with that, I'm done. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming in and sharing your thoughts with us. Anybody else wishing to speak, you're in public to be heard. Normally I would wait until the reading file where it's select board comments, but I think this is a kind of an important thing. We have two long serving select men with an institutional knowledge of almost two decades plus lots of years of service doing other work, even before they were on the select board. And myself being a member of the select board, I understand how much time and effort goes into this. And it's not just at these meetings. We go to many other meetings that are related to the work we do. And they do it for very little pay. So I wanted to just acknowledge their commitment to our community, their dedication to our community and thank them bottom of my heart for all the work that you put in for our community. So I'd like to be run on the floor. Okay, thank you. We're gonna go on to our business. Oh, Andy. So as long as we're doing that now rather than later, I do wanna say that if it weren't for Irene, I wouldn't be sitting here. She was the first person to suggest. Actually, you weren't. It was my neighbor that, but she said that Irene said that she should ask, that my neighbor should ask me to run. So, yeah, I wouldn't, as I said, I wouldn't be here if Irene had encouraged somebody to suggest that I run. And she also gave me a lot of pointers on how to run a campaign, those kind of things. So there was, and I also wanna say that your work is an inspiration and I appreciate it. And there are some aspects of it that I will carry on. Thank you, Andy. I appreciate that. Okay, we're gonna go on to our business items then. And the first item of business is first class liquor licenses. So there are three of them, plus the new one that we added for the outdoor consumption. And what I'd like to do before making a motion on these is as we've done before, is just to see if you have any corrections or comments on any of those. Just a couple of notes. Mac pointed out to me that it was Cafe Mediterrano was missing an email on their application and the Walgreens at 75 Pearl Street, there's some inconsistency between the date that they listed for their seminar of enforcement and the certificate that was shown there, they're both valid. So I've reached out to both companies to figure out the correct information. We will update that before it goes to the state. The email address is on their consumption profile. Oh, and I missed it, though. For Cafe Mediterrano, I didn't see it, but if it is, I will double check. It's not on their liquor license, but it's on their. It should be transcribed if you can. Okay, yep. Thanks, nice catch. Okay. So I asked this question over the weekend. Double E has tables outside. Was there any response from them, whether they want an outdoor consumption? That's MedCal, that's double E. This is double E in front of the building. We reached out to them, they're unsure. We're unsure at the moment, but we're gonna, we'll figure that out, and if they need an outdoor consumption permit, we'll have to come back. Okay, okay. Anything else? Okay, what's the board's pleasure on these first class liquor license renewals? Andy? I move that the select board approve first class liquor license renewals for Essex Country Club LLC, doing business as Essex Country Club LLC with outside consumption permit. Santa Enterprises LLC doing business as Cafe Mediterano with outside consumption permit, and T-Rex Productions doing business as double E, and outside consumption permit for Lang Family LLC doing business as Barnes at Lang Farm. I'll second that. All right, Andy, for the discussion about approving these liquor license and outdoor consumption permits. Okay, hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes unanimously, and I know we have one gentleman from Essex Country Club here, so I will take advantage of that and just read the usual admonition, which is the select board takes the issuance of liquor licenses very seriously, as should the area establishments who serve alcohol. We expect you to not serve minors, nor anyone who's obviously inebriated, and we do thank you for doing business in our town, and wish you a great year coming up. And if there's, again, no violations, as has been the case with you, you don't need to come in, but we're always happy to see you, so. Okay, thank you. So we're gonna move on to business item 5B, and that's the second class liquor license renewals. Again, any additional errors or corrections you have on those or concerns? We talked about Walgreens on 75 Pearl Street, where the date of the liquor seminar was a little different than what was on their license versus what's on their certificate, and that's being addressed. So is there anything else? Okay, hearing none, Eddie? I move the select board approved second class liquor license renewals for Walgreens Eastern Company Incorporated doing business as right aid number 48279 Suzy Wilson Road. Walgreens Eastern Company Incorporated doing business as right aid number 1032375 Pearl Street. Westcoe Incorporated doing business as Champlain Farms Essex 56 Pearl Street. Westcoe Incorporated doing business as Champlain Farms Essex 25 Jericho Road. Thank you, Randy. Do I have a second? Thank you, Irene. Any further discussion about approving these second class liquor licenses, renewals? Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye, opposed. Okay, passes unanimously. Thank you all. Okay, we're gonna move on to our next item of business, which is 5C, and that's, tonight we have a presentation from Green Mountain Transit. There's some route changes that are in store. And do we have, John? What do you want to start with, John? Yeah, could you come here up to the front there and have the mic? So we had you in a few weeks ago, talk about the budget, and now we wanna hear about what route changes what the specifics are. And in the packet we received, it said what the changes went to, but it wasn't clear where they were. And I know that you sent some information out recently that kind of shows that, so maybe you could talk to that. Sure, absolutely. Or so help us understand these changes. Do you wanna key this up, Marty? Yeah, I just wanted to. We have Marty. Marty Powers, and I'm the alternate on GMT's board. And actually I'm here for Paul Boney, who is basking in the sun in Florida. And so that's, I just wanted to let you know that that was why Paul is not here tonight. Okay, and John Moore, what's your position at GMT? I'm the director of transportation at Green Mountain Transit. So, so I apologize. We sent kind of a overview of some of the route changes. We're looking at making, there were some very good questions asked through email. So I also forwarded a more in-depth packet of information that we presented to Essex Town staff back in late February. So yeah, I guess to start, we are wrapping up the study, comprehensive service analysis of our five county service area. We operate up in St. Albans all the way down to Montpelier and the Bay Area in Washington County. We hired a third party consultant, Nelson Nygaard. They do this all over the country, come into transit properties and do in-depth analysis. Essentially looking at what's working, what's not working, what can we do better. Our goal through this plan was to take a cost-neutral outlook at this and essentially try to use our resources as efficiently as possible in return the public investment in transit in terms of ridership, maximize that the best as we could. The town of Essex contributes about $250,000 a year. So it's a sizable investment. We wanna make sure as an agency that we're doing our part to make sure that we're serving the communities as well as we can. As you folks received the presentation of about a month ago, I believe, from our general manager, we are facing some budgetary challenges for the next fiscal year. So what we've done is taken this next-gen plan as an opportunity and what we are doing is with some other cost-saving measures, taking this cost-neutral plan and scaling it back a little bit. Through some efficiencies that we've achieved through our driver scheduling, a large portion of our cost structure is from our labor costs which drives directly from how we schedule our drivers. We've been able to, generally speaking, increase revenue hours over what we provide right now system-wide while decreasing what we pay for those hours. And there's a few different ways we've been able to achieve that. Essentially, it's more of an efficient service structure which will certainly provide better service to the public but also allow us to contain costs and run as an efficient service model as we can. So in terms of Essex, right now there's three routes that operate within Essex. One of the attachments I sent today, and again, I apologize for the late delivery of that. There's a slide with two maps. One map is the current. Yep, and I apologize, it's a little small. I bid it as large as possible to keep it on one page. But one map is the current service structure and then the other side of the sheet is what we're proposing. Essentially in Essex town and through the village, we operate three different bus routes. We operate the number two Essex Junction Route which travels from downtown Burlington out to the Amtrak station via Route 15 stopping at the UVM Medical Center in Fort Ethan Allen. That is by far, in a way, our number one highest ridership route. We do about 450,000 annual boardings on that. That equates to about 1,900 boardings on an average. We also operate the Essex Center Route in the number 10 Williston Essex Route currently. The number four route and the number 10 route are two of our lowest ridership routes but still provide important connections within Essex and Williston. The Essex Center travels from Amtrak up Route 15 to the Essex outlets, continues down Sand Hill Road and loops back to Amtrak via River Road. And then the number 10 route is the Essex Williston. That provides service between Amtrak and Tafts Corners via Route 2A. So those three routes are what we operate currently within Essex. We are in one way or another proposing to maintain most of that service. As I mentioned, this service proposal that we have is cost-neutral or actually a little bit less than cost-neutral. So anytime you're looking at making cost-neutral changes, there's trade-offs involved. And so what we did through our consultant was look at areas where maybe we're providing service that the densities and the ridership and the populations don't support that service and trying to shift those resources into mostly the main corridor routes that serve Chittenden County, one of those being Route 15 through Essex. So I'll go quickly through kind of route-by-route and describe some of the changes we're proposing. And then I'd love to open it up for any comments, questions that you guys have. And I'll end with next step. So while we're looking for a June 17th implementation of these, we're now just kind of starting that outreach process. So there is still time to take feedback in any suggested changes to what we're proposing. So I'll start with the number two route. And I believe you folks also have a kind of overview memo. Again, I apologize. This was directed to the village trustees. We did a similar presentation last week and reused that same information. So for the Essex Junction Route, I'll hit the kind of the key improvements we're looking at making. Number one, we want to operate that bus every 20 minutes from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. We feel that is a better passenger experience. It makes the schedules simpler, easier to understand. We get a lot of feedback from our onboard surveys and our phone surveys that a barrier to ridership is folks can't understand the schedule. If you open up a schedule and you don't know where to stand and when to be there, you're not going to take the bus. So that was something that was identified by our consultant. Probably the first thing that they identified was making our service as easy to use as possible as passenger and customer friendly as possible. So the 20 minutes, what was it before? So right now it operates every 15 minutes during rush hour and then every 30 minutes during the base period, which is between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. And now it'd be every 20. Every 20. So we are sacrificing some peak hour service to spread that out throughout the course of the day. We did a load analysis, essentially looking at each trip that we operate and what's the average ridership or at any given time what's the most people on that bus. Traditionally in transit, the peak period rush hours, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and then 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. What we found through our ridership analysis, especially Burlington being a college town that our peaks are kind of skewed towards more the middle of the day. So we feel that the 20 minute service, number one, we confirm that there won't be any capacity issues. And then number two, we feel by spreading that service out. Number one, there's driver scheduling efficiencies like I talked about. But number two, it provides more service when there's more people taking the bus from our ridership studies. The other big benefit, we'd be operating this bus until 11 30 p.m. out to Amtrak Monday through Saturday. Currently the last bus that leaves downtown Burlington is 9 40 p.m. So that's a big improvement for folks that are working kind of retail shifts, the non-traditional shifts or folks want to go down and grab a bite to eat or come out to Essex, El Gato and some of the great restaurants out here that can get back into Burlington. So we're excited about that. The other improvement is increasing our Sunday service. We started Sunday service on the number two route two or three years ago. We've seen a good return on investment again in terms of ridership. So right now that bus operates every 75 minutes for folks wanting to go to work or to recreational activities not very convenient to have a bus every 75 minutes. So we're proposing to decrease that so there would be a bus every 45 minutes. We feel that's gonna attract more folks to the service. The other big thing we're looking at doing is interlining the four major corridors into Burlington. Essentially what that means is combining four routes into two routes. And that does a few things. Number one again, a key thing we're looking to achieve is efficiency, helps with the driver's scheduling. And number two, it also reduces the number of transfers. So under this proposal, every time a bus leaves Amtrak it will travel down to our transit center in downtown Burlington and each one of those buses will then continue out to Shelburne Road. So for anyone that lives in Essex and wants to travel to Shelburne, you'll still travel through downtown Burlington but you'll stay on the same bus. There's no fear of missing a transfer. So we think that's a really big benefit from a passenger perspective. There's a few other trade-offs again that we need to make to afford these changes. The first one from a routing perspective, right now, the number two bus when it travels eastbound coming down Pearl Street, we take a right on the south summit and then hit south and west streets before we loop around to Park Street. Under this proposal, we are going to travel directly to Amtrak via the five corners. We did a ridership analysis about three, I think it was actually about 2.5% of the routes ridership boards in that section that we're eliminating and that does include global foundries. So global foundry service would be eliminated on the number two route. So folks traveling to global foundries would actually take the number two route, two Amtrak, they would then transfer to the number 10 bus which would take them to global foundries. Global foundries to put it into perspective is about 15 passengers per day and that's again about 1,900 daily boardings on that route. So you're saying that's pretty small? In the grand scheme of things, yep. And it is a fairly large detour especially for folks. Amtrak serves as a mini hub for us. So for folks wanting to transfer to the number four, the number 10 route, you gotta go five to 10 minutes out of your way and there are some connectivity issues with that. So I guess before I move on to the other two routes, is there any specific questions on these proposals for the number two route? Did you get input from global? We have reached out to them about some other items. They're aware of the changes. We're trying to set up a meeting with their HR department. Okay, because I know that ridership fluctuates spending on the price of gas. Sure, yep. 15 is maybe what they are today but it could be, you know, the demand could be much higher when prices go up, which I'm sure they will. We do have some historical data we can go back and look at but it's typically right around that 15 to 20 is what we've seen for that bus stop. Any other questions? I'm just curious what the wait time is if they jump off at the Amtrak station, how long till a bus would tend to pick them up and take them to the number 10? So it would be a time transfer meaning you would get off at number two bus and the number 10 would be waiting. We would schedule that so it's no more than five minutes. Okay, great. So even transfers, you know, do add to the inconvenience of transits. We want to be cautious of that but we will make it as convenient as possible with that transfer, so. So moving on to the number four and the number 10 routes. So this is a little bit of a larger scale change, I guess from a routing perspective. So as I mentioned, the number four route, you know, travel some Amtrak up to the outlets and then it continues on to Santel Road and then loops by a river road. The first thing we're proposing is to actually combine the number four and the number 10 routes. And then the other big change would be the number four route would actually end its service at the outlets. So the outlets would be the Eastern Terminus essentially of our system in Chittenden County. So the service on Santel and river roads would be eliminated. One note I will make on that, we partnered with the Essex Westward School District this school year. So the high school and middle school students ride that bus and our other routes, fare free and then we build the school district locally. The ridership is up 60%, that's 60% on the number four route. When we started this study two years ago that ridership was not there. So we are taking that into consideration having talks with the school district, trying to get creative and maintaining as much of that service on Santel and river road as possible. Again, with our budgetary challenges, we're not sure that can happen but we certainly find it counterproductive to eliminate a route that is seeing such a large ridership increase. So we're hoping to do everything we can to maintain as much of that service. And again, some of that will be dictated by some conversations with the school district. Ricky Verde started though, right? Yes, so they're interested. So the other part of this is the service hours, that's our direct kind of cost structure. The other thing that we have challenges with is our rolling stock, so the number of buses we have. So we're currently going through right now and we don't wanna over promise and under deliver in terms of adding service to the town and the village. So we wanna be cautious that we have the buses available to operate some of the service that the school district is interested in right now. Yep. While we're on Santel Road, from an economic development perspective, some of the prime land for commercial development is out on Saxon Hill. There are more and more and more people working there, more development happening every day. I'm very concerned that you're considering eliminating that route. Sure, and I will say that Evan and Greg convened a meeting with Katma. This was maybe a few months ago, but with some of the commercial property in the businesses on Saxon Hill and Santel Road. So there was at least a general interest in those companies maintaining transit service. So there may be an opportunity for some financial partnership up there as well. So again, we'll get as creative as we can to maintain as much service as we can in that area. As I get the same feedback from those businesses when I'm up there, that they really are looking for more service. Sure, yep. The number five map that you gave us shows a leg going out to Essex Center. Is that not correct? You said it stops at the outlets. Yes, that, and I'm sorry I'm not, I don't have the map in front of me, but is that the proposed? The proposed one, yeah, it says it goes out as far as Essex Center. Just trying to figure out. So the closest bus stop to my house is at the outlets. So yeah, that bus would terminate at the Essex outlets. I have two neighbors that I know take the bus every day to their work. And this is adding over a mile to their walk to the nearest bus stop. Sure. So there's just two people, but. Well, and again, that route is up 60%. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be great if you could continue that, yeah. A few other things I'll just point out for that route combination. Right now, the number four operates every 30 minutes. It takes 30 minutes to leave the Amtrak and get back to Amtrak. Under this scenario, that combined route from the outlets to top corners and back would operate every hour. So there would be a decrease in frequency on the Essex Center portion of the route. But the tradeoff there is we would provide all day service up to the outlets. Right now there's about a three hour gap in the middle of the day where we don't provide any service. And we would also add a new Saturday service up to the outlets. One thing our consultant and we've kind of known as an agency for a while, based on the development of the outlets and some of the future plans, especially some of the demographics that are out there with some senior housing complexes, Wheel Prime area, any other questions on the 410 structure? So a few other things we just want to mention is a possible fare increase. So again, with some of these budgetary challenges, we want to make sure that our revenue stream is sustainable going into the future. So right now the base cash fare is $1.25. We are proposing through this process to increase that to $1.50. Our last cash fare increase was back in 2005. So obviously some inflation in the last 14 years. So we think it's an appropriate time to propose this fare increase. One note on the increase. We do currently offer unlimited monthly passes which currently cost $50. One of the proposals will be that while we will increase the cash fare, we would actually decrease the monthly pass from $50 to $40 to try to persuade folks to get onto that unlimited monthly pass and try to mitigate some of those impacts from that increased cash fare. There'd be some pretty large financial benefits to folks there as well. It seems like looking at it every 14 years may be a bit of a stretch. It seems like you might want to look at that a little bit more freely. Yeah, we did a pass increase back in 2013. So we did increase our pass fare as well as we did in the past. Certainly based on our budgetary challenges, I think 14 years is probably a little bit of a long time to go without a fare increase. So, and we did a peer analysis, looked at about 15 other agencies, similar size, similar demographics, and $1.50 is appropriate based on what the other agencies are charging. So in terms of next steps, again, we're hoping to make these changes on June 17th, which is our summer schedule. We always do our summer schedule when school gets out. We have many public meetings scheduled in the next four weeks, including one on April 8th here in Essex Junction. We're also doing key stakeholder meetings with CAPMA and others, the CCRPC, over presenting their Wednesday night, the Chamber of Commerce, some other key stakeholders in the region. We'll take all the public comments and stakeholder comments that we receive. We'll bring modified proposals to our board at the April 16th board meeting, and then they will either approve the changes or not. And assuming they do, again, these changes would take effect on June 17th. Any questions or comments? I'm just curious, if you don't mind my asking, Marty, have you been following this all winter or is this just recently that you're back in as the... I'm kind of just recently back. Normally, Paul has been following, but because of, and I just fill in when he's not here, so I know about it and I know generally what it is, but he probably has much more detail than I do, for sure. But since you're sitting through these sessions, yes, at the trustee in here and then with RBC, will you stay with this piece until these fairs go up? Because I'm just concerned about having consistent representation at the table, or maybe having both of you at the meeting, just so we have the same eyes and ears hearing us now and then hearing us and speaking for us then. And I think that that's a really good point and I would be glad, more than happy to do that. And I'm sure Paul will not have a problem with that. So what is your expectation in terms of your fair increases and how much that's going to increase your revenue? So that's a great question. So that scenario, raising the cash fare to $1.50 and decreasing the pass fare from $50 to $40, was going to net roughly $160,000 was our estimate. That's a conservative estimate because that is based on no increase in ridership, but we are hoping that through some of these service improvements system-wide that we'll see an increase in ridership. If we kept the pass fares at $50, I think it was closer to $200,000, with an estimated increase in fare revenue. So actually $267,000 if we were to keep the pass fare at $50. And are you anticipating any additional revenue coming in? Are you considering asking the municipalities to increase their contributions? So we typically ask for a 3% increase on annual basis. In FY20, these assessment letters have gone out. We have asked all communities for a 4% increase. So it's an additional 1%. So we did that for FY20. And I would say we'll see how FY20 shakes out and determine if FY21 is going to be at that percentage or lower or higher. But yeah, that's all a board decision. Staff does, we present a budget and there are some options. And our board is very cautious of trying to select the least impactful option. So will these revenue increases, they're helping to offset your current ongoing operating costs, but what about the long term? I understand that you have little to no reserve and then earlier you said you were having issues with rolling stock. What are we to expect in terms of the quality of the buses and frankly the financial security of the system? What's going, what's being done to bolster that? Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the large cost savers for this project is the efficiency and driver scheduling. It also greatly helps with our bus fleet. So right now, when we operate our peak morning service it takes 51 buses to operate that service. Through this structure and some of it is taking that 15 minute service and spreading it out to 20 minute service, we are anticipating we could operate that service with 44 buses. So that does a few things. Number one, it gives us some extra buses for reliability purposes, but number two, it's going to allow us potentially to retire some buses. The FTA, the federal government says you have to keep a transit bus for 12 years. We have buses that are 20 years old still in the road which obviously costs more to operate. But by reducing our peak fleet requirements we'll be able to retire some vehicles and save some capital funds out there as well. And do you have current funds available to purchase new buses or are you basically repairing and rotating out buses? So luckily we did order and receive 12 new buses December of 2018, excuse me, 17. We have three new buses in order. They'll become July one and we have two electric buses actually that was a separate funding grant program from our regular replacement schedule. So those buses will be on site in September or October. So the short-term outlook for the buses looks good. One of the biggest things I'm hoping to do from a maintenance perspective is get on a sustainable replacement schedule where if we can get four to five buses a year instead of 12 buses every five or six years there's a lot of operating maintenance cost savings. So we're very aware of that and trying to reduce our cost per mile on the maintenance side. That all sounds great. And just to get back to the other half of my question about your reserve, what are your plans for building your reserve backup? So I guess the first thing we need to do is get back on level footing. And then once we're able to achieve that, again efficiency is kind of the only way that we're going to build back up a surplus. Our federal and state grants are essentially flat right now and it looks like they will be for the foreseeable future. But the more efficient we can be and the more cost containment measures we can put into place, we think that we can build slowly but build up a reserve. The other area we can kind of control that is through our capital expenditures. So again, a transit bus is about $500,000. That's $50,000 is the 10% local share. So if we can save or reduce our bus fleet by four or five buses, that's a good chunk of change right there that we can put back into reserves. And your board is going to review this periodically to make sure that that plan's being met. Definitely. It's a top priority with the board obviously right now and they're looking at all different ways that maybe they can reduce expenditures and they're looking at both urban and rural. They're definitely very tuned with that and very concerned about that. Whether ongoing we're having, every board meeting is taken up pretty much. And VTRIAN is fully aware of some of our challenges. They've been a great partner through this. Yeah, they are. Mike. Are the buses purchased or leased? We purchased them. Okay. Is there a funding mechanism that allows them to be leased? Is that a road that you've gone down? Not that I know of. I've been with the agency for 10 years. We have not leased the bus in my 10 years. There's been some talk of going with the used bus purchase, buying a bus from the south or out west. We did a quick analysis of that. We thought it would actually end up costing us more money in the long run. The leasing we have not looked into, something that we can certainly can. So I don't have a lot of information on that, but it's a good idea. Well, what I know about the financing, you can fit on the head of a pen. I just wondered if it was more advantageous to go that route. That's an interesting thought. Yeah, right. I know that our public works department accelerated their transfers of new stock and because they found that trying to get an extra year or two out of them wound up where maintenance costs on those last two years were just driving them right out of the park. Absolutely. You can even look at least at home, right? Which is what we're doing, I think at least on more of our trucks. Yeah, we'll have to see what the FTA restrictions are. Something that we have not thought of. I think it's a great idea to at least investigate. Sure, thank you. I just want to get a sense for the magnitude of change. If I do the math right on the number two bus going from four times an hour to three times an hour all day long, you get the same number of trips on that route is what it looks like to me if I do the math right. So in the packet that was attached today, there is a comparison of trips. So essentially, you're absolutely right. Currently in the winter months, we operate 46 trips on a weekday. That's because on Friday nights, we actually operate two additional buses only to 40th and Allen. And then under next-gen, we'll operate 46 buses a day all the way out to Amtrak. So we're actually adding two trips out to Essex with the next-gen. And then the number four bus goes away completely or becomes part of the number 10 route, I guess, or it's renumbered number five, I guess. The question I have is the assessment that we were given a couple months ago uses the words fixed route formula assessment. Can you explain what that formula, what goes into that formula? Not easily. So what our goal is, as an agency, is to recover about 20% of our operating revenue through local assessments. Essentially, the federal government formula funding provides 50% of our revenue. The state of Vermont has an, I guess, unofficial policy that they'll provide roughly 30%, so that leaves 20% for a local match. Back in the late 1990s when GMT was CCTA, the agency moved from a mileage-based formula to a service-hours-based formula. That mileage-based formula was calculated in a way that was roughly 20% of the operating costs. So what happened was when that formula moved from a mileage-based to a service-hours-based, the assessments were frozen at that time, and then any new service that was added was added at that 20% local match level. So it doesn't hold true exactly, but generally speaking, our assessment is structured in a way that it provides 20% of the service within your town. So with a service within our town being reduced, you don't go the other way, though. You only add. You don't subtract. So in our charter, our municipal charter, there is an appendix amendment that essentially says, and this is to protect towns for not overpaying or underpaying for service, that if there is a change, a major service change, which is defined by 10 or more service hours in a week, so if there's an increase or decrease by 10 or more hours, that there would be an assessment impact to the town, so either more funding required or essentially less funding needed. One of the things that we're working through the board with is the ability to freeze that assessment impact for FY20. There was a precedent that was done back in FY 2007 when the link services started, and the reason we're hoping to do that is so that we can make some regional and system-wide service improvements. That 10-hour rule certainly protects the communities, and we certainly value that, but it also makes the Essex Junction Route that serves through different communities. It really cuts the improvements at the town boundary. We're really looking at this more regionally and system-wide, so we're hoping to freeze those assessments at the FY20 levels. And then what our board has discussed would be then in FY21, look at rebalancing the assessments based on actual service provided or demographics or some other kind of equitable ways to make sure that folks in terms of communities are paying their fair share into the system. So your charter also says that you can't change the formula without approval of the legislative bodies of at least three quarters of your member municipalities. So before you change the formula, you need to come back to us and get our permission to change it. It's my understanding from your charter. Yeah, so we did get some legal advice on that, and they were comfortable that the board would act in that capacity. If there's concerns with that, I think we'll sort of want to run that through our board. And I guess technically, I think part of the reasoning for that determination was that we're not actually changing the way we're making the assessments or just temporarily freezing it. Now, if you buy that argument, I can certainly understand if you don't, but that I think definitely played in into that determination. So if there's concerns over that assessment impacts, I think that's something that we're definitely going to want to get out in front of sooner than later. So any thoughts you have on that? We'd love to. I have concerns about it, because it specifically says concurrence of the legislative bodies. And I, you know, whether that means our appointed individual is sufficient to represent our thoughts on that, I guess is part of the argument. Right, that's a very valid point. Thank you. I just think the body seems pretty clear to me. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. No more questions. That's it. So you do, you provide paratransit service too, right? We subcontract that out to SSTA, so we're required by the federal government to provide that, but we do contract out the operations. And I know that service is needed, and it's very expensive. Now Essex is pretty special in that it has, one of the things that makes it special, is that it has a senior bus service that is paid for through the residents by taxes. And it would be good if there was communication between your company and our staff here, if there's somebody using SSTA, they may not know that there's a senior bus available for free, you know, essentially free, because again, it's paid for by taxes. So somehow I'd like to see if we can get that communication to happen. Anytime there's an SSTA, you know, a new person on that, if there's a way to let staff know, maybe they can reach out to them and see if the senior bus would be sufficient, if they're just staying local. Sure, absolutely. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. And I know that can be very volatile. The amount of charge we get for paratransit, if just a couple new riders, it swings it either way pretty drastically. So that communication would be great if we could do that. Anything else? Sorry, can I just ask one more? You mentioned the 10 hour thing. Is the Essex service impacted by 10 hours or no? Yes, I think it was roughly 25 hours a week. So, you know, from our perspective, it's a little skewed because we are offering the same number of trips on the number two route, especially adding some Saturday service and some Sunday service. But on paper, if you were to take the revenue hours, I think it was about 24 hours a week of actually decreasing the average hours in the 10 of Essex. So we can get you that number for sure, but 26.4 hours being decreased in the 10 of Essex, weekly. So I'm concerned if you have a rule that says that at 10 hours, you consider changing the assessment and we're at 26 and you've chosen not to. And again, the thought process, and you can agree or disagree, but the thought process was looking at this study and this implementation as a system-wide regional improvement and not stopping at town boundaries. But obviously, if you're in a town that is losing service, you may have a different feeling than a town that's gaining service, not being chargeable for it. Right, and we only get one vote as opposed to all the other communities, except Burlington, which gets two, right? So other communities can certainly vote us a tax increase. Yes, at the GMC board level. Anything else for John or Marty? Elaine? This probably is overstating the obvious, but whatever you can do to ensure that the Sanfield River Road Room continues because we are really struggling with busing our students and it was really worrisome to find out that that might not continue to happen. So whatever you can possibly do, we'll be greatly patient to keep that in mind. And if you could get back when you find out about that charter question that Andy had, that would be great. And if that communication about the paratransit ridership, if that communication can be bridged, if you just send it to staff. Yeah, sure. And we actually, you guys actually technically at least those vehicles from us. So there's communication for the maintenance record. So there's that existing communication line. So we just need to close that gap. Okay, great. Just we need to close that gap. Perfect. Okay, then I'd like to thank you for coming in and talking with us tonight and sharing the changes. Hopefully I'm sure that you heard our concerns. Absolutely, we did. And we'll communicate updates through Greg and Evan and get you out of information. Okay, before you go, I just want to see if it looks like there's a hand up. Patrick? The trustee's meeting. And I'm actually coming on this board in two weeks. So I'll continue to mention it. And Elaine actually stressed what I was going to point out. I was on, I'm on the Essex Westford School Board and I was part of the transportation committee that rewrote the policy this year. Part of that policy now officially puts into place a rule that basically creates it so that we are going to begin district-wide transporting the younger students first and then raising that up. So in all likelihood, knowing what I know about the difficulties that we have been having with getting transportation drivers and getting them to come on board and stay employed, there is a very strong likelihood that there are going to be more high school students in this upcoming fall year that are not going to have access to busing transportation that they do currently have now. So that Sand Hill route, as you mentioned, it has been stressed is just by dint of the policy that the EWSD board adopted in December is going to become extremely critical in my opinion. It's just that is going to impact many, many students who are not impacted by it this year because I'm certain that as we go into the new year we're not going to have the bus driving capacity to provide full service to the high school for either the town or the junction. So the more that we can keep a light on keeping that four route active to go up through Sand Hill or River Road, the better off we're going to be. Another exclamation point there on your score, the EWSD board. So thank you again. So thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good night. We're going to move on to next business item, which is 5D and that's an update about school resource officer. And we have Chief Gary with us tonight. Welcome, Chief. Thank you. Good evening. So we know we had one resource officer, Kurt McGlinnis. Correct. So we talked a little bit at this about at the budget meeting talking about looking to the future. And as you know, Officer McGlinnis recently retired from us after 36, 37 years. So in the last year, we've been looking at our school resource officers, what they do and attending a lot of state meetings about what we should be doing in the future. The analysis we've come to at this point is we believe we need three long term. And we basically think that we need one at the high school and we need one at each of the graded schools. And that's looking at statistics about where these events are occurring, how fast they are happening. And a lot of it talks about having the resources that are available there. So we've been thinking about a plan about how to make that work as Kurt got done. We haven't backfilled that position yet. We approached the school district to talk about how we move that forward in the future. The taxpayers have actually been paying for it through the police department budget, school resource officer for almost those 28 years. What we did is we went and we actually asked the school, the union to start helping to fund, which is a model that's used in many areas. Some of those resource officers, the proposal we made is maybe they could fund one and then the last one, if we needed three, we could split the funding on and something to that idea. I'm happy to say we got support from them actually in their budget proposed this year. I believe approximately one third of a resource officer is included in that. What we're looking to do is hopefully move that a little bit more towards, as they move on, a little bit more to pick up it. But I think we can cover potentially what we may need for that other two thirds if that got voted through. Refocusing about where they are, and that's what I want to talk to you tonight is, we're going to allocate some resources and you're going to potentially hear from some of your constituents, because I know it's tough when you have people in there. In talking with the schools, we think where the resource officer where we need to put them first is actually at the high school. Not at the graded schools where they've historically been. When you look at the statistics about where these events are happening, who the people are involved, we need to put our resources where the biggest probability of issues can be. So the school, the high school has requested, or the district has requested that when we replace the resource officer that we move that first one to the high school, which we agree with. So we will be going ahead and moving forward with that. But our intent is, again, as we backfill these, which should potential is possibly if the school's budget passes, beginning the school year, we'll be able to probably put that second one on. And then we would put them at one of the graded schools, we'd split them like we do now. Typically they're in the town schools for one half and then they're down in the village schools. What they're doing is going to change a little bit. Historically they've taught a lot of classes, which requires them to be fixed in the classroom. And one of the problems we have is if they're scheduled to do that, we can't reuse them or move them if we're having problems somewhere. And a lot of what we're hearing from a lot of different areas, I can tell you, like South Bronx, and it has four or five school resource officers, is they're kind of flexible about where they move and what they do. It's a little less teaching, kind of more security, interaction, juvenile issues, some teaching, but not locked into a schedule. What that allows me to do is, if they're doing that and I have a problem at a different school, I can move that officer, school resource officer, to a different school and not have to pull an officer off the road that's dealing with an accident or something else. And that would, as we get more school resource officers, that will allow us to flex if we've got an issue. Again, if I need two officers, I can move them to a school without impacting the local resources. So that was going to be our plan. I wanted to give you heads up because I know we're probably going to hear from the parents that are used to seeing the school resource officers at the graded school. I think we're headed that direction. I think we just need to repoint our resources where we potentially see the biggest threat for issues and slowly get there. But I wanted to make sure I met with the trustees a week ago to let them know I wanted to meet with you before we made any announcements. So that as you hear from your constituents that we are not going to abandon them, our plan is to continue to do that. In fact, we think we need more. We just need to refocus about where we're best using those resources. I appreciate you being forward-looking and going to these seminars and these places where you learn about what's next and trying to be proactive there. So thank you for that. So happy, this was just an information that'll let you know that we're actually the 25th. We've backfilled, we hired another officer that's full-time certified. It'll be coming on on the 25th. And so with that person who already has been to the academy that we don't have to send, that person will immediately be able to backfill the resource officer and so we would be starting them with their training on the 25th. But I wanted to give you a heads up before we went ahead and did that to let you know there's going to be a little change in the business that we're doing. But we have a plan. We've got data to support that, so. Data to support it and again, eventually we do want the officers back in the schools. It's in the graded schools. It's just that we think that our primary focus needs to be where it is at the moment. Questions for Chief? Don't change your breakfast routine. You're on a roll. Don't be changing anything. Okay. Any questions for the Chief? It sounds like, yeah. I think it's fully understand what you're doing and we appreciate you sharing that with us. Thanks for your time. It's informed. All right. Okay, oh, there's an audience member. Yes, Patrick. I am popular tonight, I guess, but the topics segue pretty nicely. The school budget also has recently very, in the last meeting, we had a very recent addition to, that is going to put social emotional leaders in every school in the district. Right now we have three that are assigned between the 10 schools, Westford included. And the idea behind these is that these SEL leaders, as we're calling them, are the ones who are going to hopefully identify and target sort of behaviors that a school resource officer would, obviously have to be called in for after the fact. But these are going to be dedicated individuals within each school that are going to specifically be there to hopefully curtail that sort of behavior before it gets to the point that, obviously an officer would need to be called in. If you mentioned the idea of constituents asking questions, if they do, it might be a really good idea to point out that the school district, at least, is in addition to helping with the funding on this, is also looking to address this topic before it gets to the point of needing police involvement. And we've done that hopefully next year, assuming the budget passes. Good information to have. Thank you for sharing that. Actually it makes me think about a couple of things. So we have our outreach program, our community outreach folks. So the school district, in part of talking about the resource officer, one of the things we're looking at is actually an MOU, which we've never had before, but a lot of communities have. So it will help clearly define what the resource officer's job is there, what they're doing in the community, the school's expectations of what the officer's doing. But part of that was resources is also that outreach worker. The other piece of that is, the school's very involved in what you're talking about is, we want to push more cases that are related to children back to restorative justice processes. We'd like to see less going down to court and more over to the CJC. And part of that is exactly what you're talking about is involving the school resource officers, building those relationships, using community outreach folks when we can do that, and then you're using restorative justice to try to keep that internal to us. So we've been working very well with the superintendents. I think we've got a pretty good plan. And again, this will be new for us having the officer over at the high school. Kind of the interesting point of that is actually, there's actually two ex-police officers that already worked there. The head of security over there is an ex-Berlington officer and actually Diana Moranowitz that used to be an officer for us actually is working there part-time. So we actually have quite a bit of resources that are already over there that would be available to us. So we're trying to find a right plan, but I think we do need more officers in the schools. I think this gets us the right people in the right place immediately and then a plan for the future. Appreciate you being so forward-looking on that. And thanks for sharing that. Thank you. Have a good night. Okay, we're going to move on to business sign 5E and looking to accept the Joint Safety Committee Policy. So Travis, how you doing? So why don't you tell us about what's going on there? Sure. So I wanted to give you guys a little background first. The Village of Essex Junction did have an established safety committee for quite a few years. They've done some really good work. The town committee had however been dormant. For at least the last three to four years, and they had not met. So one of my goals was to a sort of check out what the village committee was doing. I attended some of their meetings, reviewed their policies, and I also had a goal to try and reform the town safety committee. So late 2018, we did do that. We reformed the town committee, and I also had sort of a thought of forming a joint safety committee. So I floated that idea to both town and village staff. Both were relatively receptive. So we moved forward. January 2nd, 2019 was the first, excuse me, first meeting of the joint committee. As part of forming that committee, I thought it would be helpful to have a revised policy. So I took parts of both the village safety committee policy as well as some VLCT model policies, informed the policy that was in your packets. I thought it would be really beneficial to both the committee and the staff as a whole to sort of lay out the functions of a committee, what the expectations are, as well as what our mission is. So I certainly take pride in, and I think our staff take pride in, having a safe, productive workplace. I think having the committee being transparent with the committee, we've started producing minutes, sharing minutes with staff, and now also sharing this policy would sort of lay out for staff. What we're working on, what we see, it creates a level of accountability. As you can see, and you know the responsibilities and tasks here, between scheduling trainings, setting policies, working with departments to set procedures, things like site visits. Even if we do a site visit of say the public works garage, if we don't find anything, it's most likely because they knew we were coming and so they cleaned everything. Which we saw a good example of that in service when we had a town and village in service at the highway garage. They made sure it was nice and clean for us. But just sort of creating that level of accountability and also giving staff an outlet to present issues. Obviously they can go to their department head, but they can also go to the committee. We had a great example at the last committee as well. We had an employee injury. It was a result of not following procedures and not wearing proper personal protective equipment. When you point some of that out into a group, it really does create that level of accountability. They're gonna say, oh yeah, I've done that, look what could happen. They're gonna take that back to their respective departments as well. Some other stuff I've put in here, as far as membership, I don't think necessarily we need a member from each department. I do think we need a member from each major location. So you can see I tried to get a recreation staff member, library staff members, and we do currently have both an Essex Free and a Braille Now library staff member, to Lincoln 81 Main, both public works departments as they are, really high risk areas when it comes to safety, when it comes to work related injuries, wastewater, town, village, fire, police. So trying to get a good representative there as well. The policy also indicates that we will meet once every three months. We have right now been meeting the first Friday of every month. I do see that potentially pairing back a little bit, which is why I left it at once every three months. It might become once every other month. It might become once every third month. But as we try and really get things ramped up and running here, we are meeting monthly. And then just to give you guys a heads up, the major topics we've been working on right now is Chelsea Mandigo, Maddie Berry from Wastewater and myself have worked on rolling out the new safety data sheet system. So that's been a very successful project and they've been phenomenal over there in getting that up and running as well. We're gonna be doing a site visit of the town public works garage at our next meeting in April. And we also, the last village meeting I attended prior to forming this joint committee was a tour of Essex Junction and Wrexham Park, which was a great tour as well. We've started doing some claims analysis, without giving out employee names or confidential info, reviewing claims data, accidents, what happened, what caused them, what the preventions could be. We've started talking about exposure control procedures as well, sort of aligning how we handle exposures between the town and the village. The PD, for example, has a certified individual in exposure control, in training and exposure control. We've done other joint trainings as well, general safety OSHA trainings for the Green Mountain Safety Consulting. We've started inviting both the town and village staff to all of those, and I've branched it out beyond just public works to include WREC, to include the senior van drivers for defensive driving, to try and include all staff it might pertain to. I think that's all I really had right now. Do you guys have any questions, comments on the policy? I see Elaine's hand first, so we'll go over. This is awesome. Thank you. Thank you. This took a lot of hard work. Thanks. Elaine, you are starting to go through the different departments and look at if they have their own particular safety policies and protocols. Are you looking at both departments side by side? I'm sorry. Side by side. Close right of the mic. Oh, so sorry. Are you looking at the department's policies side by side? And what I want to find out is the extent to which the entire department is responsible for creating its own new policy and that both departments are represented. Absolutely. We do currently have a very up-to-date town safety manual. It was actually reviewed and revised by Green Mountain Safety Consulting for us. The village I think currently has more departmental policies and some overall policies. Definitely one of my goals as well with this committee, with the joint committee that includes both town and village staff is going to be not necessarily to adopt one or the other, but to make sure we do have compliant policies that are relevant to each department. You know, acknowledging wastewater, for example, is going to be very different than anywhere else. Town and village, as far as OSHA, OSHA standards are probably going to be similar, but they're not necessarily going to be the same with the work they're doing, the equipment they're running. As long as each department knows what's coming ahead of time and feels like they've had a chance to. Yeah, absolutely. Update things. Absolutely. And can I ask you to please update my name on the signature page? Yes. Sorry, I copied it from the purchasing policy. That's fine, thank you. Yep. Irene? I had the pleasure of reading the town safety manual last year. And it is amazing. It's very in-depth. It is so detailed and I have a whole new respect for what can happen and why it's important to have a non-dormant safety committee. So thank you for all the work you've did to revive the town committee. Thank you for the work you've done to make them a joint committee and I wish you a lot of luck. Thank you. Thanks, Irene. Other comments or questions for Travis? So Travis, all the chemicals need their own material data sheet, right? I do. So the general gist of what I've got and then I got a good explanation from Holly Leclerc who's our consultant with Green Mountain Safety Consulting is really any chemical that's either above a household quantity or that's being used for a use that is not its intended household use requires a safety data sheet. A good example of that second one would be the highway garage, for example, may have a bottle of Don dish soap, a household quantity, but they're using it to run in a gas line to see if we have a leak, to see if it bubbles. They're not using it to wash dishes. So it's being used for something other than its intended purpose. We would then need a safety data sheet for it. I think we've definitely been a little more cautious when setting up the new system. We've probably included some things we don't need to. It's not a bad thing, but they are certainly a very helpful resource. We've been working on our tier two reporting as well, which is sort of extremely hazardous chemicals over certain quantities like the gas tanks we have over at Public Works, for example, would need to be part of a tier two report that goes to the state. But the safety data sheets themselves are very helpful for both precautionary. So those sort of lay out what potential hazards are there. For example, can this chemical be absorbed by my skin? It's gonna lay out that you should really wear rubber gloves when handling this chemical. It's also gonna lay out the other extreme of what to do if you have a reaction to a chemical. If I splash something in my eye, the SDS is gonna lay out how they handle that. It's also a really big VOSHA-OSHA issue as well. Really all staff members need to be able to pull an SDS for a qualifying chemical if a VOSHA or OSHA inspector was to come in here. That's probably not it, yeah. So we've got now this online web base. It is not password protected. We have our own unique URL. We're working with IT to get that easily accessible to all town and village staff. They have a mobile app as well, so all of the Public Works guys can put it on the tablets and their trucks. The police officers can put it on the tablets and the patrol cars. So it really should be accessible by all staff at all times. And then Chelsea, Mattie and myself and Dan Roebert from Town Public Works are currently of the administrators for the system. So we've put some forms and some procedures in place for staff to notify us when either a sheet needs to be archived and taken out of the system if it's an inactive chemical or if they've ordered a new chemical that would require a new SDS. And we've also put a big emphasis on not necessarily bulk purchasing but buying similar chemicals. We might save a little bit of money buying generic Windex but if we have an SDS for Windex already, all the other facilities have Windex, it might not really be a cost savings. So actually, I mean, you can use the system as a purchasing mechanism. You can go in there and see what the system for toilet bowl cleaner or for Windex or whatever it might be. So trying to get people to think about that as well. So to try to reduce the amount of paperwork, if the Public Works garage is buying Dawn, they shouldn't also buy Ajax, right? Correct. Even if it's a little bit more expensive. They could potentially be a savings. Okay. Supposed to have a variety of them and in the sheet for each, if they're basically all doing the same thing, buying which one is best and kind of stick with it maybe. Okay, Mike. Can you tell me Travis or tell us does the implementation of this safety committee on the town side, is that going to help us at all with liability or more importantly workman's comp premium by having that policy in place? It absolutely should. And that's a big reason why, I mean, between the trainings on proper safety mechanisms, I mean, things like lockout, tag out, things like personal protective equipment, slips, trips and falls trainings. We just did all of those trainings last week actually with Green Mountain Safety Consulting. Also reviewing the claims data. The one I pointed out, we're looking at a $20,000, $30,000 claim because somebody wasn't wearing the proper footwear or didn't follow the proper procedure. So those sorts of things, the more you see them, the more you talk about them, you get them to the committee, the committee's taking them back to their departments. Hopefully that will resonate with staff as well. So beyond proper procedures. I mean, we came up with another one earlier. We had some public works employees. As we're talking about this claim, we had an employee who came out and said, well, I don't get reimbursed until and out of my six months for safety equipment. I didn't know that. We're not gonna do that. Go buy a pair of steel-toed shoes so you don't break your toe. So like things like that are coming up that we weren't necessarily aware of just because we're talking about it. So there are all sorts of benefits that have already come up in the community that I think are gonna really reduce workers' complaints. Right. That's fantastic. Just an editorial comment. We've done, our company used to do a lot of work with Green Mountain Safety Consultants and Travis is actually kind of planted on the download. They are nothing less than spectacular. They are awesome. In terms of the training programs that they have and their attention to detail. They are an incredible resource. Because now, as we've utilized them, we've utilized VLCT as well. Jeff Fees, our senior loss control consultant has been at all the safety committee meetings as well. So he's provided some valuable input as well and can provide us with the claims data and he's been a very useful resource as well. Super. Okay. Anything else? Good deal. Do you have a question? I would. I would go to the Select Board accept the safety policy for adoption of a future meeting. I think there are any. Second. I have a discussion about adopting the safety policy. I said you can meet each policy. I'll add that. Accepting the policy. Yes. Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay, pass unanimously. Great job. Well done. Thanks, Travis. Nice to meet you. And just for the future meetings, we're looking at the April 6th meeting with the, excuse me, April 9th meeting. I think it is with the trustees. The joint meeting is coming up. Okay. All right. Good. So we're going to move on to item 5F and that's adoption of the FYE 2020 budget. Greg, did you want to kick that one off? Yep. So the budget that was presented at town meeting by the select board was $14.7 million. Residents at town meeting added $100,000 in there. They requested that it go towards paving. The select board has the final say on where to allocate that money, but staff recommends that it go towards paving as the residents asked. Once we started talking about it after town meeting, I got a little bit into discussion that the town paving budget is typically the town outside the village. The vote came from residents. We looked at some options to allocate that money for presenting three options with you for you tonight. Sarah and Dennis did a lot of work putting us together and reviewing the options. First option is to just put all of that, well, excuse me, I can back up for a second. 1% of that goes towards human services funding. So it's attracting out almost $1,000. There's about $99,000 left for the paving. Ask a question right there. So I know in your memo it says that when the general fund goes up, that we have to take 1% of it, but is that the will of the voters? I know that we're not constrained by saying, they can't say you have to do this with this much money, but I think they're expecting exactly $100,000. I'm just wondering about this. But the policy that they voted in at town meeting in 84, whatever it was, said they want, whatever the final budget numbers, they want 1% going there. So we're honoring that. I want to make sure we're doing the letter of the intent. That's a good question. It happened last year with the money that was added in for the police officer. We did the same thing. I suppose the board could put the $100,000 towards paving and find $1,000 from somewhere else, but then you're taking it from somewhere else to put it towards human services and keep that 1%. I just want to make sure. Yeah, that's what it was thought about. So with that 1% out of the way of $99,000 approximately left for paving, it could be all allocated to the town highway budget. That's option number one. Option two is to allocate it between the town budget for paving and the village is putting into the village highway budget, which is now incorporated into the town budget. Option two is to do that breakdown based on grand list, which would be about 42% towards the village and 58% towards the town outside the village. And the final option, which is staff recommendation is to allocate it based on the amount of paved class two and class three roads. Doing it that way, there's 64% of those paved roads serving the town outside the village and 36% are within the village. Doing it that way, there'd be $2,200 going towards the town outside the village summer construction purchase services line and about $35,800 going towards the village highway expense. Thanks for that summary. I'm not a fan of one, but I'm not sure in my own mind why three might be better than two. So could you maybe just enlighten me as to why you chose that as your preferred option? It's one of those broad discussions of when we're sharing costs and services, how do we allocate them? Grand list in a lot of times, I think is the appropriate way to do it. But in this case, it's specifically for paving. Taking a look at the paved roads that just breaks out the gravel roads, those aren't included in that calculation. So it's really just trying to find the expense and allocate it as best as possible as equitably as possible for the reason that it's being spent. Other questions about this? Any of the different options? I would move that the select board adopt the attached budget as proposed in the total amount of $14,830,649 with the $100,000 increased improved at town meaning being allocated as detailed in option three. Thank you, Irene. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mike. Any for the discussion? Andy. I would like to move an amendment to the motion to use the remaining $18,721 of fund balance that has been identified for future tax reduction to offset the partially offset the $100,000 increase. Is there a second on that? Can we get a walkthrough of specific? I think I'm clear at what you're asking, but. So if we go to discussion, does that mean it's been seconded? I think she was asking for clarification. I was asking for clarification. So there's $18,721 of fund balance that was previously designated to be used for reduction of future tax increases. And so there was, before we did the budget thing, there was 118,721 and we chose to use 100 of it against the budget this year. We've already had that discussion. So there's a remaining $18,721. So in, and so that's what I'm, without going into discussion about it, that's the, what's where the $18,721 is coming from? Is that your, answer your question? It is a second for the purpose of discussing further. So I just want to clarify that didn't the voters approve this particular budget? So then are we able to reduce it again after it's all been voted? We're not reducing the budget. We're just, we're just adding revenue to a, we have a line item that says revenue that says $100,000 of fund balance. It would increase the revenue line item to 118,721. So it doesn't change the budget amount. It just changes the revenue sources. We had this discussion during the budget thing. And Andy was looking to add this additional 18 towards the revenue from fund balance and the rest of the board decided not to do that. So he's taking this opportunity to ask it once again, which he can do. So, I'm not sure we can do that, Mr. Chairman. I'm not comfortable doing it. I mean, putting the philosophy of it aside, which I disagree with anyway, I'm not sure that taking care of this particular piece of business that was taken care of a town meeting impacts that I'm not sure we can expand to that point. Yeah. And we had town meeting and that was all taken care of. So I won't support it, but it doesn't mean it can't be discussed and voted on. So there any other further discussion on Andy's amendment to add the 18,000 and change from take it from as a revenue from fund balance and add it to the 100,000, right? So everybody clear on what we're gonna vote on? The amendment. Only on the amendment and saying I means you're in favor of Andy's amendment of using additional money from the fund balance and they says, leave it out. So all those in favor of the motion to add, use 18,000 and change as revenue towards the 100,000 that was approved the town meeting. Signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Okay. Motion fails. All right, so now we're back to the original motion, which was Irene's motion to go with option three that was proposed by staff. So any further discussion on that motion? Okay, hearing none. All those in favor of the motion of total amount of 14,830,649 with a $100,000 increase approved to town meeting being allocated as detailed in option three, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay, then that takes us to 5G and that's, we will need to have an executive session at the end towards the end of the meeting to evaluate a public employee. We're gonna move on to business item 5H and that's approval of the minutes of February 21, 2019. I would move approval of them, select board minutes. Yes? Just trying to find them in my packet. Not in there, that's a new packet. They were sent out afterwards. Got it, hold on. Let me just open them. Oh, there they are, okay. The packet was, yeah, modified. But they're also in the packet that's on your. Yeah, but they were put in there today. Right, right, so. I have not looked at them. What's the board's pleasure? What do you want to do with these minutes? You can, we can approve them? Or we can table them to a future meeting? I thought this question came up earlier when I asked about minutes. There were two other sets of minutes. Two other? We're included? I said three. Oh, I'm sorry, I missed what I was. Hearing at least. So I assume that we weren't gonna be doing this tonight. I would propose that we, I don't know, just need to be in motion. Is the motion change? But it could be, you could table these for a future meeting. Did we have a motion to approve these? I think she got it wrong. I didn't get a second, so. Okay, so there's no motion. You did second? No, nobody's second. Okay, so if people don't feel prepared to approve these minutes, we can move them to a future meeting. Or we can proceed as is now that we have them. I'll move the table over. First, we can add that. Does anybody want to second that motion to table? I'll second. Any further discussion about the table? So I'm concerned because I will not be at the table for the next meeting when they're approved. Can I amend my motion? I'll move that we table the approval of the minutes along with select board member comments to next meeting. Is that appropriate so that we get your comments in? Would that work? How about, yeah, we say that if you have comments today that you can send us down, that we can make sure that they're included Is everybody okay with it? I'm fine with that. Okay, so Elaine voted to table, Mike seconded it. We had the discussion saying we're gonna take Irene's input and include that when we discuss it on the first. So another discussion point, I have gone through all three sets of minutes that should have been on today's agenda, but weren't. So could I extend that motion to those three sets of minutes that we by right should be modifying tonight and correcting and approving? It's fine with me, what's the rest of the board? Okay, so can we amend that to say, what, could you just read the dates? I know it's February 6th, February 21st and March 4th. Thank you. So it's three sets of minutes that we'll roll to the April 1st to include the discussion. Okay, everybody got that? So all in favor of that tabling the minutes with the addition of Irene's comments for the next meeting signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, passes unanimously. And I apologize for that confusion, sorry for that. What if Mike has comments? You can use them. I said select board member. Okay, okay, I just heard you say Irene. Well, sorry, Mike, we'll take yours too if you have. Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna go on to consent agenda. Do I have a motion for consent? It's so much. Elaine? Sorry, sorry. Well, we needed to move it. Can I make a motion to pull item D out? Because I just would like some explanation, some verbal discussion about what item D is. So not pulling out to approve it separately, but rather just to discuss it because I just wanna hear what the deal is with that. Well, once we get a motion to approve, we're gonna have a discussion. And at that discussion, those questions can be asked. And if you don't like the answer, you can vote in the negative when it comes down to approval, okay? I just would like to hear its staff's assessment of the situation. Okay, so I'm confused now. Did Irene, did you make the motion? I'm waiting for you. I don't have a second. I'll second. Thank you, Irene and Elaine. So comments or questions on consent items. Anybody else? I was just wondering if Greg wouldn't mind walking us through the Jackson Street memo, please. So there's a property in one Jackson Street that is looking to sell and as part of the preparations for that sale, one of the attorneys involved in the land acquisition. And sale noticed that basically there's a driveway that accesses one Jackson Street and it's a private driveway. And the attorneys recognize that it's a private drive it's not deeded access to one Jackson Street. It's been in use for as long as I'm aware of years, decades, even basically have access by right. But the attorneys are looking to clear that up and make that clear through deeds. It's in the village, it's in the village of Essex Junction. And so the village attorney looked at it, the village is signing off on it, they may have on it and it'll be a warranty deed, I believe in the village, but it has staff support and the attorney support to do so. The village attorney also asked that the town sign off on it and the reason for that is because it used to be town property, at some point it became village property and going through the land record it's unclear if the town formally officially transferred the access rights to the village. Way back in the day. Way back in the early 1900s. So the town attorney reviewed it, he is fine with it. His only preference was that it be a quick claim deed as opposed to a warranty deed. And my understanding of the legal differences are that a quick claim deed just says the town is not gonna pursue any rights to it. We're not saying that the town owns the property, we're just saying that the town is fine with somebody else going over it. A warranty deed, I guess insinuates some type of ownership and since it's unclear if the town actually owns it, now that it's in the village, that's why the town attorney has recommended the quick claim deed. That was the squishy part I was not sure about. So, thank you. Long story short, it's giving access to a business in town or commercial property in town that adds rights to for many, many years. Thank you. Sure. So any other comments or questions about the items in the consent agenda? Okay, hearing none, then all those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you all. And we'll go on to the reading file. Start with select four comments. Anything? I have some comments about Mr. Plagueman. Oh, coming to retirement. And I know I didn't add these to the agenda, but I will pass them out so you understand what I'm saying. I wrote a limerick because I've done that over the years on special occasions. Another once was a Plagueman named Mike, whose baby grand Claire was well liked. She was such a cutie, he felt that his duty to tell the board he was taking a hike. His term mate was left in a stupor. Must you resign to see more of that booper? Well, out on that romp, who will ask about workers comp and who else will apply for building super? For now, let us celebrate your wins, Mike. From six years of late night sessions, one new police station, one town hall renovation, and a host of policy decisions. Fresh Pastors await Plague and Wren. She's got some ideas plus her pen. He's got a new hip. Can now walk, run, or skip, almost. But our select board years were a blast, Essex. Thanks again. Thank you very much. Enjoy. I'm not just blaming Claire, but I know you're not either. So who can beat that, anyway? Yeah, any other comments about the reading plan? OK. Oh, sorry. Survey from Tammy about the board website. Is that on here somewhere? Yes. Can you hand those into you, Greg? I can take them. Thank you. Yes, and those are due in a week, a week from today? Next Monday. Next Monday. OK, everybody clear on that? There's, I think, not many questions, four questions. No, it's hopefully pretty quick and easy, and hopefully it won't take you too much time, but just looking for some feedback on, as we revamp the website, what you would like to see, what works well currently, what should be improved, any features that we have, do you want to keep, or that we don't have and should have. So definitely looking for some feedback from the boards on that. The trustees have been given a similar question, or the same questionnaire. Also looking for feedback, and it has been sent out in Word. If you want to do it electronically, we can also take hard copies, whatever is easiest for you. That's what you're taking tonight. OK, Ari? I see an RPC newsletter in this reading file, and I will be representing us on the alternate for the RPC. If you have any feedback on anything, including more GMT thoughts that come up before Wednesday, I'd be glad to bring them forward when I hear that presentation for the third time. I'll see what changes. Thank you, Ari. OK, anything else? Why don't we go to Andy and we'll come back to you. So I put in the summary of the surveys that we collected after town meeting. We did get, I guess there were 16 responses when that came after the fact came later. I fully intended to bring them back so that I could give them to you so I don't have to hang on to them, because I assume they're a public record. My apologies for forgetting to bring them back. But some people liked the presentation. One person didn't, but I guess we'll have to think about what the value of the feedback is. One thing that I did hear from a couple people actually as they were leaving and there was one person who wrote the comment that they couldn't hear. I don't know if we need to do some sort of sound check or something next year to make sure that we have good acoustics or whatever, good sound. I think the choir did an excellent job. That was fantastic. Having them do both, I don't know if they, we were aware that they were going to do the state anthem also. That was amazing that they included that. And the young ladies who did the flag ceremony also want to commend them for their poise. You coordinated that, right? Yeah, I got it. So if that's it, I don't know if anybody has any questions about any of the comments I put in there, let me know. But again, I'll give Greg the stack so he can preserve them. So the library had a survey and they brought some cake. Yeah, they got 68 responses. Because my wife was handing out a survey with every piece of cake. That's the message. And they were outside. And they were before the meeting, yeah. So people could fill them out while they were eating. I think that's a lesson learned right there. Because 16 is good. And we ought to, you know. Last year we got one. Hey, that's a big improvement. It's a big improvement. The first year we did it, we got 33 or 34, maybe 35 in the 30 range. Then following year we forgot to collect them so we don't know how many we got. Then last year we got one, we got 16 this year. So we can sort of collate those, right? I mean, add them up. Oh, true. We could certainly add up the prior ones and these ones to see if there's any trends. Do you have the data going back years or where would we get them? I'm pretty sure I had to maintain that. I wrote the email so I've got the email with the prior summary. And also I think Greg, you scanned them all in. At least some of them have been scanned and I should be able to track those down. So, yeah, we'll find it. Okay, maybe the two of you could work it out. And add the two samples. Yeah, we'll just add those together. Because the same questions, yeah. Check and adjust accordingly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. Okay, Irene. So Mike had his moment at the town meeting so I'd love to just say a little thank you if I may. I would like to read the following into the record. It has been a tremendous honor and privilege to serve my town as a volunteer for nearly 14 years. I learned a great deal. Met some amazing people and believed I made a difference. Of course, one cannot make a difference without being a little bit different. The mere act of a younger woman running for office added diversity to the select board back in 2007. As I gained knowledge and experience, I was elected chair of this board in 2009. As one of the first Essex women in this leadership position, I continued to ask the kinds of questions that my constituents want answers to. However, not everyone is a fan of transparency in local government. When some disturbing facts came to light about a proposal for a special tax district in 2016, I chose to communicate them widely. Then I was forewarned. If I fought against the plan for a fourth municipality in Essex, I would likely lose my seat on this board. Nevertheless, I pushed back over the course of five months and asked instead for a merger of rec departments within town government, the way the other consolidations were happening. I recall an exchange on Facebook that summer in which I suggested that we could do better than creating another taxing entity. I was reprimanded by fans of the plan and I was called chicken little by an EJRP associate who happened to be here this evening. That wasn't the first ad hominem attack that I faced, but it was the start of a smear campaign that would help ensure the prediction from 2016 would come to pass. Our community often talks about coming together as one, but that sentiment is undermined by those who don't welcome diverse viewpoints. I look forward to the day when we all can thoughtfully incorporate alternative views rather than dismiss them. Knocking on thousands of doors has taught me there are lots of great ideas out there that our select board would do well to genuinely listen to and to more fully represent. I wish everyone the best as we begin a new chapter running for first. Thank you. Are there questions or comments about the rebound? Okay, then we do need an executive session and I think we'll hold it upstairs. So, Elaine. I know that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public official in accordance with one BSA section 313A3 and to include the human resource director. Elaine, do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mark. Well, Alison, are there any further discussion about entering executive session? Okay, very nice.