 I see all the trustees here, I see our staff. So I will go ahead and call the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees meeting for Tuesday, May 11th to order. And I will ask staff, do we have any agenda additions or changes? Just the one change that the Chittenden's Allways District will present after. So they'll become C, I guess in the sense, they'll come on around eight or as close as they can to that. But just an ordering change, that's it. Perfect, so then that would make the work session the first business of 5A, the formal acknowledgement, 5B, and then Chittenden's Allways at 5C. Trustees, any agenda additions or changes for today? Would someone like to make a motion to approve of the agenda changes we had just discussed? I move we approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, Dan. I'll second. Thank you, George. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? We now have the agenda, which will bring us into public to be heard. And this is a portion of the meeting in which if there is somebody from the public who wished to bring something up to our attention that is not on the agenda, then now is the time to do so. For those of you using Microsoft Teams, please make sure to raise your hand or type into the chat feature. And while we wait for you to do that, I know we have a caller, Frank and Judy Nath, who have asked you to speak. So I will turn the floor over to you. Thank you. This is Judy. Really hard to know what this is. Can you hear me okay first? Yes, we can hear you, but as you're coming in, I want to remind everybody else who is attending the meeting to please mute yourself if you are not talking to the board, because otherwise we can hear you and that can get quite distracting. Sorry, please continue, Judy. Okay, I'm just having a hard time knowing what to say because last time at the meeting, I opened up my heart to you and told you what was going on. And nothing has been done to change. In fact, if anything, it's worse because the construction next door has already figured out that the cops aren't gonna come when I call anyway if they start before seven. So they've been starting again at 6.30, 6.40. Their machines are running, the beep is going, the yelling is going and we're awake and we're both sick. And even if we were healthy as horses, it's not fair. It's too early, it's not fair. Nobody checks on them, nobody finds them. I don't know what to say to you guys. I mean, I opened up my heart to you last time and told you that my glasses smashed. This week it was a bowl that flew out of my closet because that vibrating machine was on at 7 a.m. And it went flying out. I mean, if things smash and break, I don't know what to do. I have to stand there and hold my glass where. I've got it on video. I mean, I did it the best I could because I wanted proof that this was happening, but trust me, it is happening. I don't know what to do. If I call the police at 20 of 7, they're gonna get there at nine o'clock and say, okay, it's legal now. Nobody gets fined. Yesterday there was a huge tractor trailer truck in front of my house and they were delivering something so that that little blue machine that goes beep, beep, beep kept loading, going right there and blocking my driveway, loading what he had in his truck and staying there until they were loaded up. Nobody could get into my driveway and then he'd beep, beep, beep all the way down until he was unloaded and then he'd come back again. This happened for hours. And it started at the crack of dawn. I mean, this is ridiculous that we have to live like this, that we're taxpayers and we have to have this kind of noise waking us up before 7 a.m. in the morning. I mean, this is just ridiculous. It makes me literally feel sick to my stomach. I wanna throw up every morning when I wake up. I really feel that way. I'm not saying that to be dramatic. That is really how I feel. I feel sick to my stomach. My husband is not well either. He's sleeping. The noise wakes him up. I mean, this is just, we're taxpayers for God's sakes. This has been going on since the Chittenden Bank was knocked down. How many years ago was that? It was over 10 years now, right? I don't remember, but there's been one thing after another and then the building behind us before this one beside us, the senior building, that was like, what, was it three years? Or we went through hell with them and now we're going through the same hell with these guys. They are loud. They, the machines, they let them start up before 7 a.m. I mean, all the things that they were supposed to be fined for, nobody ever goes and checks on them. I've talked to the chief of police. I've talked to the next in rank. I've talked to so many people. I've talked to Robin. I've talked to everybody and nobody does anything. So I don't even know what to do anymore. I mean, I'm so, you can tell the frustration in my voice, I'm sure. Please tell me what I should be doing, who I should be calling, what I should be doing and why this is happening. Frank, do you have any, Frank is having, not feeling very well tonight. So he's having trouble with his voice, but he's going to try to say something. Do you want to say anything? You shut it off. I guess I said most of it. Do you guys have any questions for me? I don't have any questions for you. Thank you for bringing this back to our attention. Evan, can you have the police department look into this preferably before seven o'clock in the morning and then come back to, come back to the board with what's been done? Before the end of the night, I will get ahold of the chief and have patrol go over their first thing before seven tomorrow morning. And I know Robin is on this call. I will also talk to Robin about talking to the owner of the property again and setting that up. May I say one more thing? Go ahead. When the vibrating machine was going on, which was a couple of months ago, well, it wasn't way more than it was in the, it was in the, like the spring or summer last year. Frank went out with his mask on and he said to the owner, how long is this going to go on? We have glasses smashing down to the ground. I mean, this is ridiculous. This is really hurting our house pictures are falling and breaking and smashing off the wall off our tables. And he said, oh, this is the last. Judy, I think we lost you. Oh, there we go. Okay, can you hear me okay? I know that that was. I said that things are pictures fall and have been falling for months. That day it did not stop that he kind of lied to us to humor us. Brett, the owner, he told Frank that it was gonna be, this was the last day with that vibrating machine and that was so not true because I have taped it, recorded it many times after and we have witnesses and my glasses of, I mean, when we're embedded before seven or seven o'clock in the morning, I'm not out there holding my glasses so they don't go falling. I hear them when I come out early in the morning, I hear them clink, clink, clink, smash. This week it was a bullet flow out of my cabinet, smashed to the ground. I mean, I've had champagne glasses broken. I've had wine glasses, pictures smashed and the glass smashed. They just, because that machine has continued to come early in the morning and all day and random times, you never know what time it's gonna happen. Can be totally quiet, but start at 7 a.m. and then at 10 they go for their break and it's quiet. People come and check on it and say, it's quiet here, what are you talking about? Well, trust me, I'm not making this up. And they seem to do all the loud things right away, first thing in the morning. I don't understand it, I am frustrated, I don't know where to turn, I don't know what to do, but I am so fed up and sick of this and we've been here for a long time. Our daughter who was in her 40s now was in first grade when we moved here, she was six years old. That's a long time. Thank you, Judy. So Evan, will you also follow up with Frank and Judy? She'll do. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and I hope you're able to have a good night's sleep, both of you. Thank you. Are there other members of the public who wish to address the board about something that is not on the agenda tonight? And for those of you who joined late, we did rearrange the schedule so that that way the work session on Essex Junction Independence will be happening first, just so you know. So for those of you using Teams, if you'd like to address the board about something not on the agenda, please raise your hand or type into the chat feature. Seeing none, I will go ahead and close that portion. Andrew, did you see Diane Clemens hand up? Snuck right in there, Diane. Go ahead. I did, I did it when you said anybody else. So this is Diane Clemens and I missed the sound ordinance discussion, but I would like to let you know that it isn't just other areas of the village, but also living over in the Williams Street, which is behind 159 Pearl and behind Harley-Davidson and about a block from the fairgrounds. And I will hear the fairgrounds every time they have large trash trucks come in and do the dumping. And this is not just because my windows are open. This is in the wintertime too. And 159, when you talk about 200 feet, it might be 200 feet down the hill into the ravine, but that trash truck comes in at 430 in the morning. Now, why would I know it's 430? Cause it wakes me up. So, and this is all year round. This isn't just summertime. This is all year round that that trash truck comes in. So, I know that there's supposed to be a buffer. I know that according to our sound regulations, it's supposed to be seven o'clock. And I'm sure there are others that are hearing this. It isn't just me. But at this point in time, when you say how long has this been going on? Well, let's see. How old are you, Andrew? Okay, that's how long it's been going on. It's just that sometimes it's worse than others. Okay, that's how long I've lived here. And how long am I complained about it? Well, periodically, okay, over that period of time. So, this is nothing new, but let's see if we can get it fixed. And to reiterate that, so I would really like to see that ordinance reinforce the sound regulations that are in the land development code. And that we do need to be sensitive to the residential commercial buffers that we have. It what's makes the village livable, but we need to be good neighbors. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. So, I do not see any other hands up. So, with that, we will go ahead and move from public to be heard and into our new business item 5a, work session on SxJunction Independence. Can we ask one more question, or are we too late? We have already moved away. Is it related to what you had talked about before, or is there something new? No, related to that. Why are they not fined? I mean, there is a fine for noise, dollar fine. Why is that never enforced? So, we don't have an ordinance on refuse. We have an ordinance on sound. And so, to be able to determine whether somebody has violated a sound ordinance, we need to measure the level of sound. So, Evan, please correct me if I'm wrong. We don't have somebody out in the community measuring sound. And until, frankly, that happens, we're not going to have an enforcement mechanism for that. Would that be an accurate statement, Evan? It'd be very, very accurate. Okay, so that's the biggest reason why. I will touch base with Chief. We have a device to measure noise. So, Frank, that was just to quickly answer your question. That's why. Okay. I will circle back with Chief Hoyg and Robin Pierce tomorrow. Thank you, Evan. All right, Brad, take it away. Great. So, we're on page 59 of the packet. For anybody who's there, is the memo that we're going to be walking through, hopefully over the course of the next hour. Okay. And let me see if I can bring that up quickly. You have to see your privilege is there. Great. Are we there? Looks good. Okay. So, here's the memo tonight. Just a reminder of the goals and kind of operating norms of our plan moving forward. You know, the title of this project is Essex Junction Independence. And we, the goal that was established and agreed to us, I must create an independent Essex Junction, ensuring that it has a foundation that provides for economic and political stability, reflects the village character, has opportunity for growth and looks towards the future. And so tonight, there are kind of five primary items that we're going to walk through. The first is a timeline leading to the November 2nd, vote, again, that's within assumption that that's when you would like that vote to occur. And so there's flexibility there. The, we're going to discuss the charter legislative process with representatives Houghton and Nolan. We're going to look at some charter items. There are 52 sections in the charter that was written for the merged charter that failed. And so we're going to kind of use that as our baseline and then discuss how the trustees would like to proceed with writing the charter. And then lastly, talk about some outreach and engagement strategies. Are there any questions on that stuff from the trustees? Sounds good, Brad. Great. So do you want to go ahead and take feedback now, Andrew, from the public? Yes, thank you for that reminder. So when we had started this process, we had agreed that while this is a work session and we are not making decisions that the best way to take public input would be with these being the topics. If anyone from the public has comments about this or questions about it, now would be the time to let us know. When we close the comment period for this, we will then dive into the work session as trustees and we will not be taking additional public comment on that agenda item. So now is the time for comments, questions from the community. And Diane, I see your hand is up. Is that a holdover or is that a new one? I'll go with it for new. So I guess my question is about the timeline with the November 2nd vote. And this is only going to be the village doing this vote? Correct. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions, comments? Okay, I am not seeing any other hands. I don't see anything in the chat. So we will. Andrew, I put my hand up. I think I'm getting a delay then. Did you say that was dead? Oh, there it is. Go ahead, Deb. Okay, hi. I just really want to hear when we do the legislative piece of this, I would like to know how village residents can support the influence of the vote in Montpelier to approve what we're trying to do. Like how do you want us to advocate? Thank you. We'll make sure that is raised. Great. So I don't think there's anybody that has a hand up. Other trustees, can you confirm that? Irene Ritter does. How am I not seeing this? Are we doing village? Go ahead, Irene. The last trustee meeting that transparent. We cannot hear you. You're very faint. Maybe if I project, can you hear me now? A little bit better. Okay, I'll project. Thanks for letting me know. At the last trustee meeting, I was made aware that transparency was one of the values that were important to Brad and the rest of the folks working on separation. And I've heard from some village friends that they're just made that their comments, if they're not all positive and they're afraid of putting those forth with their name on them are not being included in the public record. Thanks. I would be appreciative to hear that from the village residents who have those concerns. Does anybody else have any other questions or comments? Don't think there are new hands up, but again, I haven't seen any of the hands until somebody else has told me that the hands are up. All right, so Brad, let's jump back into it. Great, and can you still see my screen? Yes. Great. So, I mean, you've all seen this in advance. I don't think I need to read it to you, but this is a draft or proposed timeline to get us from now to a November 2nd vote. At some point, if you all agree, it should be reviewed by legal counsel. And you'll see all of these basically reflect regular trustees meetings, utilizing the first hour-ish of each one as a work session. And then anything that's additional that's not currently on your calendar is highlighted in yellow. So a suggested full day work session for the trustees. There's, you know, you were scheduled to take the July 27th date off. And so we added that an added day on August 31st, suggested village summit on September 11th and an added public hearing on September 28th. But otherwise you'll see, I believe this mostly includes everything that's required in statute in terms of public hearings and warnings and turning in, filing the charter with the clerk, as well as some other suggested activities to try and help get us there and engage the community. Prad, with that June day long session, could we get that scheduled sooner rather than later? I'd like to get maybe a day in a backup day, if necessary. Sure, I was mostly curious if you all wanted to explore weekdays or weekend days and what time I'm happy to put a doodle out tomorrow. I think during that time, it may be easier of speaking for myself for a weekday as weekends are kind of getting filled up as we're getting a little more comfortable going out to the community again. Okay. That is just- This is Raj, I would have trouble doing a weekday from work at this point. So I, you can do it. I won't be able to be there on a weekday and I'm skeptical that I could be there in the entire month of June on a weekend. So I, you guys can, I can do some homework and provide my input, but I'm not in a position where I can sort of donate a vacation day at this point and my June weekends are, I mean, if we can do a couple of weeknights here and there, I could probably totally make that starting at four. But if you want to do a doodle poll with some creativity, I'm all in, more creative the better. I don't know how other people are doing with that, but. Yeah, that's good feedback. Do other people have other feedback? Full day was just a suggestion that I think we need a good chunk of time, but we could have several chunks. Yeah, I mean, I get, I get the idea and I know we have a ton of work, so. Go ahead, Dan. I agree with Raj. During a weekday, it would be difficult. Weekday evenings, I could do maybe a weekend. So weekends, pretty much open weekday evenings for me. Raj suggested, I'm sorry, Raj suggested the earliest start would be a possible four. Do others have, can any, can others start it like a four o'clock or 4.30 or five? Four o'clock's good for Dan. Yeah, I can start four. With enough notice, I can make this about anything more. I can try to make that work. So I'll put out a doodle with some four o'clock starts on some weekdays and see where we get. Thank you, Brad. Sure. Thank you. Do other folks have questions or comments on the draft timeline at this point? I mean, this is a document that we can continue to change as we go through. This is at least something on paper. I think it was important to get before you to make sure to see, A, there is a path forward to get there, B, as you've all acknowledged, it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna require some investment of time, but it's certainly doable, and see mostly to see if anything is missing if you're feeling like we're missing some major component that needs to be added in. I don't. Roger, see your hand is up. Nevermind. Yeah, this is George. Okay. Hi, George. Yeah. We have a joint board meeting on the 5th of June. Is that correct? I have that on my schedule. We do currently have that joint summit. Just, I, you might, even though it's got nothing to do with this, it kind of does, and it might be, it might be good when you're making up a schedule just to make a note in there because obviously that's one day we are not gonna schedule for ourselves because that's already been taken, but it might be good to have some dialogue if there's gonna be any discussion with the select board at that meeting about what we're doing, even though that's not a matter of a big topic, it's bound to come up. So I just thought it might be interesting or it might be a good idea to just make a note of it in there somehow. Sure. Thank you, George. Go ahead, Roche. Thank you, Amber, beat me to it. Go ahead, it's fine, Roche. Well, I was just trying to pour through the, I know we usually have our schedule at the end of this. I was just trying to see how this lined up with joint meeting, or joint meeting schedule and the second thing in terms of what George reminded me of in terms of the June 5th, was that, Evan, was that supposed to be a half day or is that a full day? Because if... That's a half day in the morning until the early afternoon, like 1.130 and it's strategic planning. So if I know the impact on staff in mind that we're already doing something that day, that could, we could just continue for a half day after or for a period of time after, as far as I'm concerned, if having already gotten together. So that's just to throw that out there. It'd be a long day, but you know. Thanks, Roche. Go ahead, Amber. And to both the board members, I'm not sure why, but it seems as if there is quite a delay from when someone raises their hands to when I see it on my screen. So please accept my apologies if my ordering of calling on people is off. Problem. I think the only comment that I had was along the same lines that everybody else is mentioning. I thought we had a joint meeting with this Blackboard in two weeks on Monday, which was without this topic. Am I incorrect in that? It is, the agenda is still being worked on. Okay. But we do have a meeting on the 24th. Great. Some trustees, is that it for questions on that? Yeah. So kind of the last piece if this is, you know, the general structure where it were willing to adopt. You know, I know the select board, I think was inquiring about meeting with the board of trustees. And based on this timeline, you know, I think it's important that you have some continued conversation about the charter and the future organization. And then would be likely available to meet with them starting in mid to late June to begin the process of working with them to try and figure out, you know, a future plan. So I just was wondering if the trustees want to go ahead and communicate that to them, that, you know, just to acknowledge that you are interested in planning to meet with them, but you just need to kind of get a few ducks in a row before you can do that. I would be okay with that, with doing that, sending a letter to Andy as the chair of the select board to ask him to send that to the rest of the members. Is that timeframe in mind if that works for the rest of the board members? Sure. Great. So next on the agenda, sorry, Andrew, would you like to say next to me is the charter legislative process with representatives Houghton and Dolan, I believe they're both here. And Lori, should I turn it over to you? Yep, that'd be great. Great, thanks. Hi, everyone. Good to be here tonight. Karen is somewhere as well. We talked earlier, I'm gonna kick off and walk through the process and then we'll both be available for any questions that you have. So the details of amending a charter are pretty clearly outlined in statute for anyone who wants to look it up. It's 17 VSA 2645 and it does review timelines, requirements for public hearings, what's needed. And I know the trustees are well aware of that actual procedural process. What happens down in Montpelier? So once the vote is taken in the village, the clerk will send the various documents to the secretary of state. The secretary of state goes through a process to make sure everything is there that's needed to be there. And then that information is all sent to the legislature. At that point, nothing happens unless a bill is drafted. So at that point, Karen and I would work together with the legislative council and have a bill drafted and it would be assigned to House government ops, which is where everything starts in regards to charter changes. House government ops, if they choose to take it up, would hold a hearing with testimony and could pass it out as is, could come back to us and say it needs work or could pass it out with their own changes to it. At that point, because this particular charter also has tax revenue associated with it due to the separation from the town, it would actually go to the House Ways and Means committee as well. That's not standard. Usually charters don't have that tax implication. The same process would start there. They could choose to take the version sent to them from government ops and pass it as is, amend it or kick it back to us and say, we don't accept it and this is why. At that point, if it comes out of House Ways and Means, it comes to the House floor where the whole body votes on it. And then if it passes there, the same process starts all over again in the Senate. In the Senate, the committees, it would go to our Senate government operations and then potentially Senate finance. They don't have a House Ways and Means, their finance department deals with tax revenue. And then if it passes out of those two committees, again, anything could be changed at the will of the committees. They would take testimony as well. It would go to the Senate floor. And if, when it is where it gets a little tricky, if it goes from the House to the Senate and the Senate passes it out with no changes, at that point, it goes to the governor for signature. If the Senate makes changes, it comes back to the House and the House gets to go through the process again. And then, I think, I forget the number of times it's allowed to go back and forth, but that doesn't usually happen with charters. So that's the process. And like I said, the statute is very clear on the fact that it can only be, or it should only be a village vote. We can vote for our own destiny and then it outlines the process of the charter. And the other key thing for us is going to be the transition plan. So you'll have the charter, which will go into statute, but then you have the transition plan that has to come with it. And that's going to be what they're really looking at. We have a charter that's a lot of cross in the T's and dotting the I's, but how we're going to transition to our own municipal, to our own separate municipality is going to be key. So Karen, I don't know if you had anything to add and then we can open it up to questions. Nope, I think you've covered it. And again, as this is my first time in the legislature, I will say that is the process that I've seen unfold with legislation. So I think Lori got a spot on. And I'll just, I know Deb asked a question, if you want me to cover that now, and then we can bring it over to the trustees. So how village residents can advocate for it? Really it's going to be a matter of, I would say writing a letter to all the committee members that are in house government ops and then eventually house ways and means and eventually in the Senate. You don't need to send letters to the whole body. It's really only the committees of jurisdiction and that's going to be the key. It's probably letting them know how much you want this to happen and why you want it to happen. Can I add on to that, please? Go ahead, Karen. Okay, thanks. Because I was thinking of that when Deb asked that question as well. I think another big way that you can support it is by being really involved in the process now so that we can show that there was strong community engagement from the start. And then obviously with the vote, a better turnout, the better for the process. Thank you, Karen. That is probably the best way you can engage. So Lori, just to piggyback on the resident engagement side of things, the timeline as to when residents should do that likely is not until after the session gets back in January, assuming it passes, assuming that separation passes. Correct, right. Doing it now, quite frankly, would not help at all because everyone, especially in those committees, are very busy right now. So the engagement needs to happen within the community. We need to show that there was a lot of engagement. We need to show a very strong vote, as Karen said. And then once the bill is drafted and introduced, then I would say the letter, people can start writing letters. And who knows where we're gonna be next year? We don't know yet if we're still gonna be legislating on Zoom or at the State House, obviously either way, you're able to participate either on Zoom by watching it or in the State House itself. So as this is clearly a little different than the last charter we were working on, do you all have any tips, any recommendations for us to keep in mind as we go through this? So I think the biggest, for me there's two big things that I think legislators will look for. And that is, again, the engagement and do voters know what they're voting on. So the fact that you might send a booklet like we did last time or a newsletter or something is really important. Ensuring that you're holding those public hearings. In fact, if you don't hold the required public hearings, they'll probably kick it out. So really that education level, people understand what they're voting on and they support it by voting when the vote happens. And then the second thing, and I think Karen can probably talk a little bit more about this too, but we're separating, but we're not moving. I guess it's a good way to put it. We are neighbors to the town and we have to remember that. And it's going to be a process to get disengaged. And I think we need to ensure there's civility and there's transparency in this entire process. And Karen, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that. Yeah, I think those are the two key areas. One is just having it be an intentional process, which I think how it's unfolding now is set in that direction. But that is the thing the committees are gonna be looking for and asking questions about. Was this just a reaction or response to something? Or did all those steps happen? Was it thoughtful? Were all the stakeholders a part of the process? And again, I think the voter turnout piece is key. Like it's very easy as I'll say as a new legislature and when I'm hearing on the House floor, charter change come up, like those are the things that I'm looking for. Cause I don't know anything necessarily about the community. But if I know that there was great voter turnout that stakeholders were addressed, they heard all the different issues, that's gonna tune me into, okay, that makes a difference. And I think with that of knowing that it's not just Laurie and I that are going to be the ones to vote on it. It's the whole entire house and then potentially the Senate that's going to vote on it is they're looking out for the whole, the state as a whole. And so I think it is important for us to just understand and acknowledge what is the impact of whatever charter change we make here in our neighbors and our communities and make sure that we have those questions and we understand it and that we feel comfortable as a community putting out there and defending what we want this charter change to be. So again, not to say it will be any different, but just to make sure those questions have been answered and considered. Thank you for that, trustees. Any other questions? I see George's hand. I don't know why I don't. George, go ahead. George, floor is yours. Gotta unmute myself first and I'll even let you look into my office here. Laurie and Karen, thank you, that was very helpful. I have two questions. First of all, we actually had a correspondence with the GovOps committee, as you know, last year and it was on the verge and they were saying how much they were looking forward to working with us. And do they, I'm assuming they unofficially know what's going on and what happened, but would it be helpful at all for us to write them a letter and explain what happened? Number one, that's one question. The other question I have is, I know that sometimes the legislature went faced with really complicated questions, which I think in issues, which I think this is going to be. Sometimes they appoint a subcommittee, a fact-finding commission, because what's going to happen if our charter vote is successful, it arrives on, you take it down and it arrives on their doorstep, but we have to assume this is going to be contentious. It's either going to be officially contentious by the town or unofficially contentious, I believe. And there's going to be, as we know from past experience, there's going to be a lot of alternative facts coming their way, a lot of other information coming their way, the unauthorized information, we can anticipate that. And how are they going to sort through it all? And I'm just wondering, is it, would it make any sense to try to appeal to them? Could they have a couple of people that they trust come and actually look at the numbers, look at the facts, look at the budget, look at these things, so that they can have a group or a couple of individuals that they trust who can vouch for some of the things we say and provide some sort of a truth commission, so to speak. Because I'm just trying to anticipate if the budget vote is successful what it's going to look like next January, February, if I'm on the GovOps committee and I'm from outside of Chittenden County and I'm anticipating what's going to be coming at those folks. So those are my two questions. Yeah, New George, really good questions. I will say yes, they are well aware of what's happening in Essex. So on Thursday, I put this in an update earlier this week but for everyone who doesn't know, on Thursday, GovOps is taking testimony on the three plus three charter change from the town of Essex. And so Andrew Brown and Gabrielle Smith are testifying on behalf of the village at that committee hearing and Andrew I think is prepared to give them an update on where things stand in the village but we also have given them an update because if everyone remembers last year during COVID when there really just was not the available time to take up a three plus three charter change during the middle of a pandemic, actually the start of a pandemic, they did write a letter and indicate that they wanted to see what happened with the merger vote. So we had a conversation with them immediately following both merger votes. So yes, they're well aware of what's happening. What they have done with charter changes in the past is created a subcommittee to review it and then testimony is amongst the whole committee. I did talk to House Ways and Means to let them know also that, well to confirm actually that they would want to see this charter as well. And I will say, they also understand it could be contentious. So everyone understands, I don't know if it's appropriate that they would actually do anything prior to receiving the charter change bill. In fact, I know they won't but once it's assigned to them, we can have a discussion with them about how best they want to proceed. Okay, thank you. Other trustees, I'm not going to see your hand. So if you have something to say, just go ahead and ask the question. I don't see any, but I want to add one other bit. I guess I want to be clear to everyone that the process sounds very easy but that getting it passed is not necessarily very easy. You know, we've alluded to the fact that it's going to be contentious. It is a long running issue within the state house. I think in 1999 or 2000, there were two bills in, one for separation and one for merger and neither got taken up. I do believe that the village has a very good case. And I think our best effort, our best outcome is going to be that we methodically and transparently work through the process, have great voter turnout and then present our case when the time comes. But it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be easy for the trustees either. I mean, you have a full load of work ahead of you. So I appreciate all that you're doing and Karen and I are definitely here to help at any step along the way. George. So yes, since none of the other trustees are asking questions, I'll steal their airtime. So Lori, just as just a little blue sky, in addition to all the things that you said, I'm curious and wondering if in addition to all the documents, official documents they receive, if it might be a good idea if they received some kind of an executive summary of that has the history, it has budget, has all the stuff that's going on in the village, that's sort of an easy to read with a lot of graphics. I just sort of had this in my mind as something that might really be helpful to, again, we understand the issue so well because we're so intimately acquainted with it, but I'm thinking of all the folks on the GovOps committee who are coming from a completely different place. So is that something that's helpful or is it too TMI, too much information? What are your thoughts on that? I think that would be very helpful. Any information, any factual information that we can provide laid out in an easy to understand document would be extremely helpful. I will say the legislative council who is the lawyer for the legislature and there's one for each committee, as well as some of the members of the committee read the town of Essex booklet that went out on the plan of merger. And I know they did deep dives on both websites with the village and the town. So they did their own exercise and learning, but anything we can provide them would be extremely helpful. Okay, thank you. It's good to know the committee isn't just sitting back waiting for this to arrive on their doorstep. Well, they are now, but they weren't during plan of merger. Right now they're doing other business. There are other things going on besides this. Can you believe it? Yeah, we passed a great voting bill today. So that's exciting. That has, that's nice. Yeah. To one, do you want to just go ahead and cover the high level of that, the vote by mail? Yeah, Karen, do you want to do it? Sure, sure. I can give the highlights of it. So it is universal mail-in voting. It's for general elections. Only is what is going to be automatic, but then towns have the opportunity to make that happen for any election. And they're going to make the drop boxes universal across the state. I know it was another one. There are ways to cure ballots now. I think like we saw that in the primary last year, how for some folks, if they didn't return all of their ballots, it wasn't counted. And so there are things like that that helped to fix it. So when folks mail in their ballot, it's easier for them to actually have it counted. And I just want to add, Karen and I were talking about the voting bill and listening to representatives from other towns. And we just want to say again, a huge thank you to Susan Macamera Hill and the BCA, Diane Clemens who runs the polling places. I think it's John and the town who runs the polling places. I mean, our community has done an amazing job with our voting. And so we just wanted to say thank you again for that. Thanks for that update. I know if I remember correctly, Essex Junction was the first in the state to take advantage of universal mail in voting. And it was a huge success then. It was a huge success since. And I look forward to continuing that. So thank you. Definitely. So if there are no other questions, Karen, Laurie, thank you. I appreciate all that you are already doing and the information you provide us today. Yeah, and please, please keep us in the loop and let us know how we can help and how we can answer questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. All right, Brad, why don't you take it away? Great. So the next item on the agenda is the charter items. And so we're just gonna briefly kind of look at the, so the trustees had a survey to look at the 52 sections that were in the charter that you all passed and sent to the village voters back in November. I just wanna show folks where we're looking. So there is a new section on the website. It's Essex Junction independence. And then there's a variety of information here that Tammy very graciously spent today putting up. But the document we're actually looking at is this charter for merged municipality that failed. It's the Essex Junction version. And so if anybody wants to follow along as we discuss different sections, the sections we're looking at, start with 101, 102. Hey, Brad, it may just be me, but I'm seeing the key takeaway from trustee meeting. This one here. No. We're just gonna make a second word online. All right. Let me see if I can switch that over. And while we're here, I will go ahead and make some vacuuming. Somebody's vacuuming, I guess. I'm gonna unmute. Hold on. Thank you, Evan. There you go. So as a reminder, if you could please make sure you are muted, if you are not actually trying to speak during the meeting, that would be greatly appreciated as the feedback we get can be quite distracting. All right, Brad. Now I see trustee charter survey results. Brad, can you share? There you go. Great. So sorry, that screen was, if that screen was incorrect before, if anybody wanted to follow, we're at EssexJunction.org and on the independence page. And then we're looking at the merged charter that was passed by the trustees and passed by the voters back in November. We're kind of using that as our starting point since it's the most recently reviewed information and updated. So just to explain the method to the madness, there are 52 sections in the charter excluding the first sub-chapter. We did not look at the transitional provisions because those are risks really unique and we'll develop those after we do the charter and organization. Basically, the trustees were answering these questions, how much discussion or engagement is needed as we've talked about and has written in here. There's a lots that goes into a charter that is just required by statute and is not all that interesting. And then there are some things that are very interesting that I think we want to discuss as a board and also engage with the community in. So these were the different levels. So needs robust board discussion and or community input needs some board discussion but shouldn't take too long. Very boilerplate, little discussion needed and the section will not be necessary. So I assigned point values based on the responses from the trustees and we will post the survey results to the website hopefully tomorrow. So here's the 52 sections, right? Seven of them scored five or higher, which means they need some board discussion or robust board discussion and community input. Those are highlighted in green here, those top seven kind of sections. As somebody, one of the trustees, I think noted all of these parameters that have to do with the manager are all sections, seven, one, two, three and four and they all really are dependent on the form of government. The remainder of the sections, here's the 29 that scored below five. I just started labeling some of them because they were in the fours. I did label and note because there was a question by one of the trustees, section 501, which talks about town of Essex, of course, would be city of Essex Junction meetings and elections as to whether or not you wanted to keep that on town meeting day or align with EWSD. That was a question raised by one of the trustees. So then obviously you get down to the bottom and all of these sections were deemed pretty boiler plates things that we might need to change in the name or something or date or time or location, but otherwise standard stuff that needs to go into a charter. So these are the biggies, the form of government. Are we doing a mayor council form of government and then is it a strong or weak mayor or are we doing, actually I'm gonna bring these up if I can. Are folks seeing this Word document now? Not yet. No, no. I love teams. Do you want? Here, I'll just, I just need to reshare, I think, with this different document. There we go. So these are kind of the six items that stood out as food for thought, as to whether or not these are items that you want engagement with the community in. So obviously the form of government, the election officials and how that's done, if it's at large or through wards or districts or some combination, how many people are on the governing body, what their terms of office are, which could be all the same or could be different, could be different for the mayor versus the council if you chose the mayor council system. If there is a mayor, for example, in Montpelier, the Montpelier mayor only votes if it's a tie, to settle a tie and the mayor does have veto power. And then I think this question about the meetings and elections for the city of Essex Junction, will they take place on town meeting day or align with EWSD? So I think the questions for the trustees right now in terms of these items and I shared this information with you. So if there are other items we want to add to this list or remove from this list, that's welcomed. For now I just wanted to see what people were thinking about in terms of engagement. Later we're going to talk about what kind of engagement we want to do. So for now we're just seeing if these are the most important components of the charter that we want community engagement on. I think that those are very important things to engage the community on with all of them except for maybe five that seems like one of those that we could just, I think would be fine as just a foreign conversation and not something that we really need to have in-depth community conversations about. Great. I'm open to other thoughts. Can I, I don't know if I, yeah. Yeah, I don't know, I don't want to jump in. I agree, I think these are the important ones. I think I had put a note Brad, you might have seen it. When I said in terms of in a council, in a strict council manager form of government, it seems to me that the powers of the manager are pretty well established. But I can't, it seems if you throw a mayor in there, even if you have a weak or a strong mayor, then it's not really clear. It seems, I'm not sure if there are statutes that say exactly what the powers of the manager are versus the powers of a mayor in a strong mayor, weak mayor system and so forth. So, and the reason I'm getting into all this is because I think before you may want to look into that or we may want to look into this and really know our stuff before we get into engagement because when we, one of the things that I remember from the KSV survey, people have a very, there tends to be a very, very strong fixed understanding of what a mayor is, which is not really aligning with the reality of what a mayor is in Vermont. But people have the idea of a mayor being someone who has a lot of authority and is highly political. These were just the questions we got from the KSV survey. So before you get into or we get into engagement or with the public on anything, we want to make sure we have all of that information about just what exactly, what a mayor can be, how a mayor might, may or may not interact with the manager and so forth. I just wanted to raise that point. Yeah, I appreciate that, George. And we haven't even talked tonight about anybody who is listening, what those forms of government are, they're confusing. We're in the weeds, right? Right, no, I know. This is deep stuff, but it's also stuff that we do want input on. And George, I don't know if it was your comments also, but one of the members also commented on number two, the election of officials and whether or not it's at large or in wards or districts. And I think the point that somebody made was the system we currently have is at large. It works, writing a charter can always be revised and rewritten. And we may want to keep things simple for this first charter that goes before the people. I did say that because I think that, I know just from our work with the government subcommittee, this sucked up a huge amount of time because there are just so many different ways you can go with this. And I know that everybody has a strong feelings about it, but I just threw a note in there saying, keep your timeline in mind because if you've only got three or four months realistically to get this together, you may not be able to devote the amount of time to number two that it needs because it really is a pretty big discussion. And that's always something you can do after. You can always amend your charter to, because not only you have to say how you're gonna divide up, but you're gonna have to have population data, you're gonna have to say how you're gonna adjust the boundaries and so forth. So it can be a pretty big discussion. But I think it's something we need to have obviously since we're just starting this out, but I just sort of threw that in there as a note of caution. I'm gonna jump in because nobody can probably see my hand. I do agree with George that that took up a lot of bandwidth in the GOF subcommittee. It is something that I think the community is probably most interested in right now. And I also question whether we have time to really dive into it to the level that I think people want, but I wanna make sure that we figure out a way to ensure that that conversation happens within a very short period of time. We talked about that at length in the other merger charter where we'd have a period of time where some kind of reapportionment would be explored and it went back and forth and back and forth. So I'd like us to keep in mind that while we may not be able to get there, we should try, but if we can't because we've got essentially three or four months, we should be very open and intentional about making sure that timeline exists somehow in the charter so that that exploration and change happens within a period of time, two to four years, something like that, because I think it's very important. I think it's probably chief among what villagers are gonna wanna see. Some kind of neighborhood assembly, some kind of war district, and we may have to lay some kind of foundation for it so we don't have to change it again and because we're gonna go through one, two and three year terms, most likely forever is elected and then we have to unwind that. So I know it's a lot in the weeds right now, but I mean, I just, I think that's gonna take up a lot of time. Don't disagree, agree. Roger, thank you for jumping in with that. And I think one of the things that it says to me is the importance to make sure that we're setting the foundation and that as you mentioned with the transition time period, we can agree to things in the future, such as a redistricting or reapportionment study or committee, what have you, so that that way we can have something ready to then start this conversation or start the independence process. And it's similar to my, I think I had a note in there in the survey about trying to not be too rigid and trying to be more open. I think of, I saw the seven days article about communities having more say in their own charter changes. And the Winooski city manager was quoted saying something to the effect of needing to have a charter change to change their human resources manager to a human resources director because it's what was in their charter. And I'd hate to see us hamstring ourselves because of some, some verbiage like that where we need to go and have a charter change because we said managers are director. So I think that the more we can set ourselves up for the future and be open now, the better we'll be in the end. Yes. That also reminded me. One other thing with the KSV survey, I wanted to make sure that from the, I think it has some good information in there, but something we need to keep in mind is that that survey was about a merged community in a merged town of Essex, which that is not what we're talking about. And so some of those results I don't think apply and that the perspectives that someone may answer to the same question today for a city of Essex Junction may be different than how they would have answered in that original survey. And I'm done. Okay. So obviously we can always revisit this, but this is at least a starting point for, and I think it's great that it's a relatively short list, and I agree with both of you, George and Raj. I think let's start, I really like both points. Let's look at this election of officials and let's see where the conversation goes. And maybe we get to a conclusion by the time we finalize this charter or maybe not. Maybe we've just done some homework and we still have more to do and we make a commitment, take pass a board resolution that we were committed to in the next three years doing X, Y, or Z. Right. Right. All right. That's a good idea. Do we know when the next census, when the actual apportionment census figures are released, it's like August, right? Too late is what I'm thinking. Yeah. That was my other point, Raj, is that we're not gonna have accurate population data. Right. You know? Yep. No, I just wanted to try to put that out there that we'll be in our deadline when we finally get finer numbers for the recent census. All right. May I say something? I'm sorry if I'm not allowed to, you can just say no. Laurie, I think you're allowed to. Okay, Laurie. I don't know how these work online anymore. So just real quick, the reapportionment is going to be really key for government operations. So, and the last I've heard is we won't really have anything until September. So I think that should factor into your decisions of what you plan to do around this. All right. Thank you for that, Laurie. Great. So if we're good, the next discussion is about the charter writing process. So we kind of have that merger charter plan that we can build off from. We have this data about how the trustees feel on these different items. And so it's, I think what we want to do for next time is have a draft charter that's been marked up a bit and taken some of this feedback into consideration for us to start to talk about and kind of check things off as we feel good about things, knowing that we have these items that we want robust citizen engagement in. So I'm wondering if anybody has a suggestion for how to get from here to 525 with something for everybody to review. I think that there should be a couple of us who take a pass. At doing this and I'm not going to nominate anyone in particular. Raj is saying he wants to. No, universal shot. No, I'm kidding. No, no, I intentionally think that both Raj, both you and George have been well immersed in this for the previous few years. And that frankly, I think that you two doing it may set us up better because you've done it for so long already. But at the same time, you've been doing this for a while and you might want to break. So I would defer to you as to if you want to break, that's A, OK. I'm happy to step up. I'm happy to help you. I think, I mean, I'm not sure how much we have those booklets, George, from. I know that we have these. Hold on. I know he's going to go get his, his, his giant, his, I know. Darn blur. You can't see this beautiful binder. I know, but I know if we can get you just chocolate goodness. Yes, if we can get I mean, a whole one or two sections are past or the charters from all of them. I'm just wondering how much of that needs to be resurgitated or. Well, I mean, what, what, what did you have in mind? Andrew and Brad, are you thinking, for example, I mean, what popped into my mind is. We take the the the charter that was passed that we wrote for the merger and then we would cross out and substitute various words, you know, whatever Essex Junction and change the board numbers and maybe have a, you know, have a bunch of different choices that we could look at. Is that what you have in mind? Something like that to sort of lock up a rough, you know, you know, sets. You know, I picture Amber being someone who could really pitch in with that, but I'm happy to do it too. Boy, I'm not happy to do it. But wait, what happened? I think she's went silent, right? I'm not sure she's around anymore. I was not happy. I'm happy to try it. I'm happy to do it. Raj looks like he's enthusiastic about it. Dan, if he wanted to give it a shot, I'm happy to do it, but I'm also very happy if someone else wants to jump in and do it. Amber, do we really need to limit it to just two people or is it that we can all kind of contribute? I mean, I think everyone probably could bring something to the table that would be valuable in the process. So if we have more, if we have three or more people doing it, then we need to either do it all at a meeting or we need to divide up the sections and we each take individual sections. It's just we can't work on the same thing at the same time as a form of the board. I think if we're trying to combine more than one document, splitting it up into sections is going to get complex because you're going to have mismatched sections and things are going to be all over. So Amber, I know you're trying to jump in. So if you really want to, I'll let you, but you know. Is this my pick on Amber Knight or something? No, it's like my birthday. Mr. President, this is Evan. Yeah, Evan. Can I add, if you're talking about taking the merger charter as your base, minus whatever you're going to do with the manager and form of governance, government, you could have the trustees review that document and submit to say George their comments to a section, 501B. I don't like the word and I'd prefer but or whatever. And then go through that. And again, there were so many boilerplate things in the merger charter that I don't know if you're going to change much of it. It wasn't that extraordinary in many areas. I think I'm happy. I can do it. You know, I think since we're pressed for time and we even now, I'm happy to be the repository of all this. And that's a great suggestion. Evan, that's a good idea. People can just send me thoughts of what you like and don't like. Each of you go through the existing charter. The way Brad just did and go back, asked you to think of each one but not get specific comments about things you'd like to see or don't like or something like that. I don't think if you each send them to me individually, I don't think that qualifies as a meeting. And I just take them all and just slice them all in. And I can put your initials after each one or something like that. There would be no legislative action taken by George. Everything then comes back to the board to be reviewed. And then months from now, I will be accused of writing the entire charter myself in my spare time. But that's OK. I'm ready for that. Yes. So I like all that. So George, is your intention that you would take that document and track changes so people could see? Yes. I'll do track changes. Right. I'll do track changes. I think I'd suggest maybe that we let George do that. And then George, if you could get that to us, like on the Thursday or Friday before the next meeting, I think I would do the same at send out George's revised suggested revisions and send out a survey with opportunity for feedback so we could just collect all that in one place. I don't think it's worth everybody reviewing the existing charter. I think I'd rather see George's first stab at edits and then review those and comment on that if that works. So OK. Yeah, so you want me to, let's just get this straight just to make sure we don't make a little misunderstanding turn into a giant one. You would like me to make some proposed changes on the existing document, send those out to everybody. Individually, they give me their feedback and then I incorporate all those possible changes with track changes that we would then review for our next meeting. Is that what you're saying, Brad? That works for me. OK. That makes sense. I just have a quick question. If we've got this great Vermont City summary that was provided for forms of government, it's fairly top level, high level. We've identified that that topic is pretty much of greatest concern right now for working through the charter. I am not as up on my I would love some links. If anybody has them, I'm going to be doing my own research. But if there's, for instance, you provided that chapter. I think it was you, Brad, a couple of meetings ago with some history. And if anybody, I'm not trying to task anybody with going and doing everybody else's research, but if people find a good link or two to some good explanations on some of these various forms of government in use in Vermont, and especially how and why, please don't hesitate to share because, and I'll do the same. I mean, we can, yeah, that's all because if that's the kind of feedback we're trying to provide, I feel behind the vehicle a little bit. And for now, we didn't dive into a lot of that with the merger process. I mean, we kept it pretty similar to what we're doing. So yeah. And I'm hoping, George, that basically you'll be able to highlight the sections that we want community engagement and not make any changes right now and just say that that's a bigger conversation. Just let's get the low hanging fruit. Let's get all the town of Essex's changed to city of Essex Junctions. Let's get any other things we need. I mean, if we can knock off 42 of the 52 sections relatively quickly and then just focus on those others, that would just take a big chunk out of the work. Okay, that sounds good. I think it's doable. I think I can do it. So from a timeline perspective, again, so George, you're gonna make those edits or those proposals, get those to us. We're going to get our feedback to you and then at our next meeting in two weeks, we're then going to review that final feedback. Yeah, overall document, yes. So in all reality, that final packet needs to be, that final document needs to be ready by the 20th, so that by the 21st, so staff can get it to us for the weekend beforehand. So you need to get us feedback or your initial draft like as soon as possible. I'm trying to think of a realistic timeframe for that, George. And are you capable of turning that around in like two, three days? Oh yeah. Yeah, I do, I- That's doubtful. This is- You're a superhero. I know, it sounds very, but actually it's not, I do this stuff all the time, so it's not that big a deal. And I know the charter, that charter so well now, I don't think it's that big a deal. I don't think it's gonna, what we just saw what Brad just produced, you'll see, is it's really not a, there's really not a whole lot. It's just gonna be a lot of little minor word changes for a lot of the sections. I don't think it's that big a deal. If it is, I'll scream, but I think it'll be all right. All right, I'm getting you a cape. No, you don't need to do that. You get me something else other than an item of clothing, no, I can't, but I'll suggest it offline. All right, yeah. So our, great. Our last topic for the work session is to just talk outreach strategies. We kind of have to, I want us to focus on two things. One is just general outreach about the overall initiative of S-Extension Independence to make sure that we're connecting and offering the community opportunities to learn, contribute. And then also more specifically, as we look at the charter and we don't need to make these decisions tonight, I think we can look more closely next week, but just to be thoughtful of what is it that how do we wanna engage people in the charter? Because exactly what you all have alluded to that it's some more heavy lifting and Raj, the links and information you talked about, I think are important things to help educate the community as well as they try and weigh in on some of these things. And so I think finding that research will be important. So let's just walk through this quickly. So we'll distribute a work session summary tomorrow on Front Porch Forum, the website and social media. It's also being emailed to all village and town staff, which was a suggestion from you all. We'll continue to update and add materials to the website. The next item is called place speak. This was used several years ago when the firearms ordinance was being discussed in the town. It is an online engagement forum that has geo fencing which allows you to make sure that you're getting input from your actual citizens. It has lots of capabilities. As it says here, polls, surveys, discussions, notice boards, interactive maps, events and resources. It looks like it would really fit the bill for us in terms of how we wanna engage with the community in this process. So I'll just open that up. Well, I'll open that up in just a sec. I just wanna roll through these other three items and then we'll open it up for discussion. Direct mail, as you know, not everybody is online or engaging in social media. There's not a regularly distributed local newspaper that we used to rely on like the Essex Reporter, let's put, you know, something in there. So this is a possibility, you know, the suggestion here to consider is maybe do a postcard right now this month and just let people know the initiative that's taking place and where they can find information and when the meetings are just to make sure that the community is informed. We could consider another one if we proceed with the summit and then obviously the booklet that we've talked about in late September. Coffee chats and they could just be called chats. They don't have to be called coffee chats, but, you know, Evan has been doing these successfully for quite some time. Lori and Karen do these quite successfully. It may be something that the trustees wanna take on for the next six months and, you know, offer a few days times, locations and engage with the community in that way. And then lastly, you know, consider holding some community forums, whether they're in person or online and, you know, providing some education when people are there and then allowing them to weigh in and have discussion about some various options and then to aggregate that information as you all make a final charter document at the end of the summer. So those are kind of four strategies that were outlined. I'm just gonna show you play speak real quick and then we'll have a conversation. Okay. Okay. Is everybody seeing play speak? Yes, we are. Great. So this is a draft of what our site could look like if this is the tool that the trustees wanna use. You can't access this right now unless you're logged in. So that's why I can't share the link. I could take screenshots and send it to you all if that would be helpful. And obviously all the information and content is very much draft. I just tried to get something out there. So obviously the label of the project, you know, talks about what the project is and we've put in your goals here and path forward. Why should you participate? This is your chance to provide feedback and meaningful impact on shaping the future of Essex Junction. Why we are consulting the trustees wanna hear the voices of the village. Who's listening? Obviously you all. So here are some different options they have to engage the community. You can have discussion boards. So I've, again, I just tried to get some information here but we could put some more resources here. There are two forms of government. Which form do you think will best serve the city of Essex Junction and why? So that could be a discussion board. There's resources place here. And so we just have a work sessions folder right now in terms of the resources but can continue to add to that. There's an event section which right now I just have all of the work sessions in here so people can find the dates and times of those. I didn't do anything with this place at tool but it's something that the community conversations group may want to utilize if this platform is selected. You can do polls. And so again, what type of government will best serve the city of Essex Junction? These are just examples. That's a one question poll so you can't have multiple questions on polls. Surveys is where you could have multiple questions. And so you can allow comments or not which form of government would best serve us. How many, you know, how many counselors, kind of the questions that we just, we already walked through that we know we're gonna want input on. So that's the general gist. And the way this works is you can see this is our geographic region that's been identified and people actually have to go in and create an account. And so that, you know, there are pros and cons to everything that the potential con here is that people do need to create an account. They are asked information so that it can be determined that they indeed are a resident and live here. There's multi verification step process. However, once they're logged in and create their account, we, the village of Essex Junction, cannot, they can choose to be anonymous in there. And we, so we don't have, we don't get to see their profile and who's created profiles and all of that information. So it is, there is still some privacy. They are creating an account with play speak, not with the village of Essex Junction. So I just thought that was important to know. That there are some outstanding questions that we, I don't have the answers to. For example, if we create this survey, do people have to log in to play speak in order to do it? Or can we put it out there for others? I think everything has to happen within this platform. And so if we choose to do it, we can still have other surveys and things out there, but I don't think they would automatically link into these surveys and discussion boards. Questions, comments on play speak? I think that if we want to ensure we're getting feedback from village residents and only from village residents, then this is a, seems like a great way to do that. I seem to recall this working really well during the fire ordinance process. And if it's, if it all fits within the budget and we have the funds for it, then it sounds great. So, I think, I see your hand, Ross, go ahead. Woo. So Brad, all of those things, so we can verify that they're village residents in that set up account setup process. So there's two options. One is you can allow them to register and they have to put in information. There's right now, there's two step verification. So they have to put in their home address, their name. I think they have to put in a phone number and an email address and their, all the stuff they have in the background then helps them determine if that person should get an account and be deemed a resident. The other strategy you can use is you can have, you can make it by invite only. And so people could, you could put a link on the website saying if you would like to participate, please, we can have a Google form, please fill out this form, the email goes to me and we verify that that is indeed a resident and indeed lives here and then we could add them to the link. So that would be the other option. Yeah, I mean, just as you probably know, if we're gonna pay for this, I just wanna make sure we're getting as accurate. Otherwise, we can just use Google. So if it's not a too big an invasion of privacy, if we're gonna pay for this, I would lean on the side of making sure we're getting a village sample and that people are creating real accounts. Does this have a mobile app as well, do you know? I'm not sure, good question. I can look it up myself. Looks interesting. I remember people were pretty happy with it during the gun ordinance discussions. Brad, this has been two people who used it extensively, could be a good resources for you. Jen Nauer, who is our facilitator and Darren from Community Development, they were the two most active in the use of PlaySpeak. So you may wanna run some of those questions by them. Sure. Because we were very keen not to hear from people from Canada or California or New Mexico about gun discharge. We only wanted people from Essex. And it seemed to be very good at being able to do that. So, thanks. It's an interesting tool. I think the other opportunity is for us to utilize this if it sounds like people are interested for the next six months and decide maybe it's a tool that the city of Essex Junction wants to regularly engage in in the future. And because once you create an account, you can find different initiatives that are going on and tune into them. So it could be a strategy long-term for to figure out how we can successfully engage with our citizens. That's exactly what I was thinking as you were going through this, Brad. I was thinking about as we go through the budget process, there are time for we've said, this would be a great question to ask the community. And wouldn't it be great to ask this question outside of a meeting and to be able to get feedback outside of these weeknight meetings? So yeah, I think it's a great, it could be a great tool going forward. Are there any other questions that folks would like an answer from PlaySpeak? Because I obviously need to circle back. I have your questions written down, Raj. Does anybody have any concerns? Okay, I will get some more information, but I think I'll try and make this go live. And at some point between this meeting and next, start to promote this within the community and get people to sign up and start to engage with it. So the last conversation then is just to circle back to those outreach strategies, the four listed, and to see if there's anything that people is standing out to people as important and good concepts that we want to proceed with. I think, frankly, they're all good concepts in and of themselves. It comes down to, as with everything else, the resources we have, time and money, if we have the finances to do all of them, then great. If something needs to get cut though, I think that I would look on to you to help really figure that out. I think that's one of the things we decided early on is we weren't necessarily going to have our finger in all of this. And so again, I think we've set that, we've kind of set that budget at this point. I think the coffee chats could be helpful, forums maybe. I know we've, the one that we had for Merger back at the middle school, that was reasonably well attended. At the same time, we have more people here now than we did, I believe. I was looking, trying to scroll down to find that number. We have just about the same number of people here now as we did at that forum we held at the middle school. And we've consistently had this many people during the pandemic. So I'm not sure as to whether the forums would be as fruitful. And we could do those online too, Andrew. I mean, we could have public forums with breakout groups and ask questions and provide educational materials just as easily as in person. Dan, go ahead. Yeah, I know there are people in the community who have really helped out with getting information out, pre-Merger vote and Annie Cooper had done a lot. And as far as getting the message out there, as long as we're utilizing everyone that we can potentially get to get the message out and it's a consistent message, I'm open to reaching out in more ways than just what we've discussed, but the trouble is making sure that they don't stray from the message and present something incorrect to a group of the community and confuse the issue. Can I ask a potentially dumb question? I never shy away from that. Where are the community conversations in all of this? Yeah, I know that's, I was, you know, built on what Dan just said. So the community conversations group is, is off doing their own work, which is I think separate from the business of the board. You know, that group is, I think you have a lot of champions out there informally who, if we launch some of these things, we'll help promote them. If, you know, if you were to put out there you're gonna do a coffee chat or we're gonna have a public forum, online forum. I think the, those people would, you know, help spread the word and advocate and sign up and tell their neighbors. I think it's really gonna be incumbent upon the board to direct how the community engages in the business of the board, which is writing a charter. So I guess, Raj, I see those two bodies of work as parallel but different. You know, I think what they're gonna be talking about and working on and we can have Elaine come next time and kind of outline the strategies they're using and what their goals are. So I think when it comes to charter stuff, I think we just need to focus on that. I think that'd be great. And I think if Elaine were to do that, I don't know if she's here tonight, but if she would, that would be a great update to have. And I'm gonna be candid in one of my concerns, not necessarily with anybody in particular at all, but one of my concerns is, you know, it's gonna be, we have to, we kind of have to manage expectations. We have to manage our relationship with a select board. And I think, you know, I think we have to differentiate speaking as a board versus speaking as folks that are trying to get the word out for us. And sometimes those messages may not align and I'm a little bit worried about that. We saw some examples of it. I've seen some examples of it in the past six or eight months. So I just, I don't know how that would work, but the more we can take on some of these things so that, you know, it's not so much to control the message. It's just to make sure that the intention is what the board, you know, the message getting out is what the board intended it and sends to do. Not, you know, so if we're gonna, if our reason for doing something is X and someone, you know, says, oh, that's not as important as doing, you know, I'm just a little concerned that the board's message and the reasons why the board is acting the way it is are accurately reflected. And I don't know, I would rather do a little bit more of this to make sure that happens, whether it be some of the forums or coffee chats here and there, you know, as they come up. And I think we're gonna find topics where we might find one or two sticking points where we'll need to do more on something and the rest of it's gonna be pretty straightforward. Dan? Can I just say one thing? I think there's a lot to be said. I like this being able to get, like you said, Andrew, we've got 30 plus people attending this online meeting, but there's nothing that can replace in person, you know, like Brad saying, maybe sit down somewhere where you can meet them somewhere, socially distanced in a park or something in summer. I don't know, I just think there's a lot to gain by the phase one on one. And I think people are more engaged or willing to speak up when they see somebody right there in front of them instead of a computer monitor. Yeah. So I think we have more to figure out on the charter and more to do before we start having chats or forums about that. And so let's advance with the PlaySpeak work. Let's continue to update the website and get work session summaries. I guess I'd like you to weigh in on whether or not you wanna do a direct mail postcard to all residents about the work that you're doing. And if so, I could bring back a draft copy of that to 525 and we could get it in the mail or get it processed the next day with your edits. Linda Von's from the Village Office does some really great graphic design work. What do people feel like on that? I don't think it can hurt. Again, if it's within the budget that I see it as helpful as we just heard from Lori and Karen about the need to ensure that residents are informed in this process, I think it helps with that. I think many residents are already aware of what's going on. I think this could hopefully be a good way to get those who are not engaged in the process currently to reengage in this and to also just make sure that they understand what's going on. Can I comment? Go ahead, Dan. Yeah, I agree with you, Andrew. I just don't wanna inundate people with a message and all of a sudden, next meeting, two weeks down the road, oh, that mailing we put out, we got to retract what we said. As we noticed with the mailings for merger information, prior to the merger vote, there were some inaccuracies that had to be retracted that it's difficult to come back and erase that out of somebody's memory. I think it wouldn't look good. I'd rather have something that's more solid before we go and put a lot into mailing and doing multiple mailings. I'd rather have fewer mailings, but have more in the product. I think that's fair, Dan. Why don't we draft something for 525 and then make that determination? Is there not enough there? Should we wait a few more weeks or have a few more meetings? Have a couple of half-day retreats and then do we have something more substantive to offer mid-June or late-June? So let's get something drafted and then you guys can evaluate next time. Sounds good. Okay. That is all that was on the work session. If you jump to, hopefully folks stop, you get through the rest. There is just some summary data on the Vermont cities, the nine existing Vermont cities. So people can read a little bit into those. If you go through and find in this chart that something is not exactly accurate, that's possible. If anybody's done any exploration on municipal websites, it's not always easy to understand. So hopefully it is close enough to accurate that it gives you just a glimmer into some of the different options that are out there. That they're different, definitely are different ways to skin the cat when it comes to city government and some interesting things, some surprising things. So that's there as a baseline for some data. Otherwise, that's it for me. Thank you, Brett. I really appreciate this and thank you for keeping us on track as we go through this process. No problem. So that brings us to our next agenda item, what is now five C and the formal acknowledgement of the pursuit of independence. Brad, did you want to introduce this or did you want me to? But why don't you go ahead? So we had so far, everything we have done has been in the work session model where we haven't made a formal decision. As such, I think it's important for us to make a decision that the S extension independence and separation is a high or as a top priority for our community moving forward. It would be helpful to make sure the community understands this as well as our staff understands that this is where we're going and that we have the resources necessary to dedicate towards this efforts. So you see the motion, there are the recommended motion. My only potential addition to that is about adding the target date of November 2nd into this motion somewhere. So it could be something like as extension independence as our top priority, we adopt the goals and operating principles from our April 27th work session and provide November 2nd, 2021 as a target date to vote on separation because that will also help to define our end goal as well. So trustees, any questions, comments, concerns, et cetera? Andrew, would you make comments, concerns on discussing the motion or adding something to the motion? I'm not sure what you meant. Both. Well, I don't think I'm, I would be surprising anyone by saying that I, having been so intimately involved with the merger effort that, it's hard for me to just do a complete 180 degree turn here. And it's not in my nature to generally just embrace anything, jump on board. I'm always trying to be the skeptic and I'm always a little reluctant, but the one thing I, and so I make no bones about the fact that I have some reluctance about this, but the one thing I don't have reluctance about is supporting the four of you. And also I don't have any reluctance that we need to or as a board either need to acknowledge and pursue the resolution that was put to us, even though it was a non-binding resolution, nevertheless. So if I can't commit myself to that wholeheartedly and commit myself to the rest of the board wholeheartedly, then I shouldn't be on the board. And I want to be on the board for a little while longer. So I just wanted to make that statement, but I will say I have had some people call me. I've had some people talk to me on the street, you know, out of concern. One of the major concerns is with the financial information, can the village afford to go forward on its own? I think a lot of that, normally when I talk to these people, I say yes, but again, it's a lot of misunderstanding about the village's financial situation or relationship with the town. And so I think it's very, very important early on to get that information out there because people don't understand when they see it's the Essex town police, it's the Essex town assessor, it's the Essex town health officer. They really truly don't understand that we pay for 45 to 50% of the cost of those things. There's really a sense of the town being this sort of overarching protective shell. And they don't really understand that we're actually providing half the cost of that protective shell. So with that being said, I will support this motion. Thank you, George. And I do want to make sure it's clear for, I don't, not necessarily you, I guess for everybody else listening, with this motion, the intent isn't to say that we are voting on separation today as a board, that we are saying to the community that yes, we absolutely are separating. That hasn't happened yet. We're still moving forward with the process to put the charter together to explore and understand. So this, this isn't the formal, the big formal vote if you will, just in setting us up for that point. Nope. So if there aren't any other questions, comments, concerns from board members, and again, I'm sorry that I don't, I can't always tell when these hands are up. If someone else wants to make a motion or I can try and restate what I did before. Oh my God. You don't want to make any public comments? We certainly can take public comment on that. So yeah, if you're using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand, type into the chat feature. And I will do my best to hopefully see your hands, although so far history has shown tonight that I'm not seeing them quickly. Andrew, this is Evan. I'll be happy to let you know if I see any hands. I was seeing them before. I appreciate that, Evan. Thank you. I see no hands yet. Almost feels like the can you hear me now situation? I'll give it another five seconds, Evan, if you don't see any, let me know. Mike Sullivan. Go ahead, Mike. Mike, you have to unmute. Andrew, please ask, please restate what you're exactly asking input on. This motion in front of us about the Board of Trustees adopting the S-exjunction independence as our top priority. I highly and emphatically endorse it. Thank you, Mike. No other hands. All right, I think that has been adequate time. Go ahead and come back to the board. Dan, did I hear you say you were gonna make a motion? Sure. I move that the trustees recognize S-exjunctions independence as our top priority and we adopt the goals in operating principles from our April 27th work session for a charter to be presented to the voters of our community on target date of November 2nd, 2021. Thank you, Dan. Second. Thank you, Raj. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Hearing none that passed unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Brad. As always, you're welcome to stick around. And that now brings us to Business Item 5C, the Chittin and Solid Waste District Fiscal Year 2022 budget presentation, and Sarah Reeves, I believe I saw earlier. Hello, Sarah. So appreciative of you joining us and your flexibility in that last-minute scheduling change. Appreciate it. So thank you for being here. Why don't you take it away? Thank you very much, and I appreciate your time as always. As you mentioned, my name is Sarah Reeves. I'm the executive director for the Chittin and Solid Waste District, and for folks who may be new to CSWD or to Chittenden County, we are a municipality. We were created in 1987 to oversee and manage the solid waste generated in Chittenden County, and we are governed by a volunteer board of commissioners, each of our 18 cities and towns, appoints a representative, and we are thrilled to have Alan Amber be representing your community. Alan's been a stalwart and a real important part of a lot of the great work that we've done over the years, so we're thrilled to have him involved, still involved. Our mission is to reduce and manage the waste generated within Chittenden County in an environmentally sound, efficient, effective, and economical manner. And because I'm here to talk about the budget, one of the things that I always like to remind our communities about not only is how we are funded, but how we are not funded, and we do not receive any tax dollars from our cities and towns. We don't send you a bill. We do not assess any per capita fees, so our revenue comes from three main sources not associated with those taxes. One is from user fees or tipping fees, and those are the fees that we charge our customers to bring us materials that need to be managed, disposed, or recycled. We charge a solid waste management fee, which is a per ton fee that we charge to haulers on material that they bring directly to the Coventry Landfill. And then the third main pot is the revenue that we receive from materials that we either produce or compost products, for example, and local color paint, or on the materials that we sort through the materials recovery facility and sell on the open commodities market. So for the fiscal 22 budget, we are anticipating revenues in the amount of 12,954,793 dollars, and we are expecting that to be a conservative estimate, and I'll explain a little bit more about that in a moment. We are anticipating expenditures in the amount of 12,323,072 dollars. The delta between the two will be divided amongst three reserve funds, our solid waste management fee reserve, our biosolids reserve, and an operating reserve. So this year, as I mentioned, we're expecting fairly conservative revenues in that 12 million, 12,9, and in part that is because we are experiencing and anticipating and continuing a good year on the sale of both the recyclables coming through the MRF and on compost products. The only fees that are being increased this year are at the Green Mountain Compost. We're raising those fees slightly on the inbound from 60 dollars a ton to 65 dollars a ton. Also, there are some small fees that are being raised on the biosolids, so that does affect Essex, and that is because of usage. So those are strict pass-through fees, so as more materials generated, additional fees are generated as well. So that's straight pass-through. So in the material sales, the past couple of years I've talked to you all about how fairly doom and gloom the recycling markets had been and the work that we were doing to mitigate that. COVID changed that pretty dramatically. There was a lot of need and demand for cardboard and for products made from recycled paper like paper towels and toilet paper and wipes. So that really boosted the demand for cardboard and paper products, which is great because that is 80% of what goes through our MRF. So very strong year last year for that product. As well, that is continuing this year and we're anticipating those strong revenues for those products through this fiscal year into probably calendar 23, another large source of revenue was, as you can imagine, also COVID related was compost products. We had a banner year last year in the sale of compost products that is continuing this spring and we're anticipating also continuing into next spring. So two very good years, which is why we're saying we're anticipating a conservative revenue. I think that we will exceed that amount. We are anticipating having a very heavy capital infrastructure investment year. Continuing the work from last year, COVID did not stop the investments that we were making in particularly our compost program. We needed to make sure that we could accept the, we were expecting to be an increase in tonnage into the compost facility, which did occur even again, was shut down through COVID. We saw the food scraps grow. So we're continuing the investments being made in compost. We are also anticipating doing some repairs and necessary upgrades to three, two, maybe three of our drop-off centers in this fiscal year. We're doing some work in Essex this fiscal year, which may continue into the next into fiscal 22, also making improvements in Milton and Richmond. We are also anticipating beginning work on permitting and design work for a new materials recovery facility. I will be bringing that proposal to my board for their approval in the next month or so by the end of the fiscal year, so that we can receive the official approval from the board to move forward with the new morph. If that approval is given, then I will come back out to all of our cities and towns and we'll be doing a lot more engagement with the local communities on that project. That project, there's a brief one page, one pager in your packet. It is a very large infrastructure program project in the tune of about $20 million. We do not have that in the bank. So we may be looking to come to our communities in November of 2022, asking for a municipal bond. I am pursuing actively pursuing the airmarks avenue that has just been announced by our federal delegation. So that will be our first line as far as being able to receive some federal dollars for the infrastructure investment. If we are not awarded that, might then we will be coming to the cities and towns with a bond vote. Again, much more information all along the way regarding that. And with that, I know you're a press for time. Those are the main highlights. I do wanna open up for questions and comments that you may have. Thank you, Sarah. One question that I had is with a new Murph, does that allow for the expansion of additional recyclable products? Cause I can think of things like those, what I think of as paper milk cartons that have the plastic liner that I can't recycle. Yes. And so the way we sort things at the Murph now is all by hand. So we have very limited ability as humans just to see differentiation in between plastics and different products. So yes, that is the hope. By bringing in 21st century technology, we'll be able to actually make it a much more efficient and effective facility. We will be able to actually make the job better because we will continue to retain the employees that will just transition into quality control. And that will allow us because the machines can see different things much better than the human eye to expand the amount of types of materials that we can collect. Cartons is one item that we could be looking at. Other items are certain types of black plastic that just could not be sorted. Another item could be to be able to better sort things like we take yogurt containers and things like that now, but we could be able to better sort those into its own particular load and then that commands a higher value. There are different kinds of take out to go containers that are the same material as a water bottle, but we can't grab that really well now. A machine could do that. So yes, so that is one of the things that we're very excited about is to be able to pull more materials out of the landfill boundary stream and get it into the recycling stream, yes. That's great. And it's great to hear about the term in paper as I remember in previous presentations that was a giant concern, especially when China stopped paying for it. Huge, huge. And that is the direct result, again, of COVID and demand, but also of investment in this country in mills. So additionally, new technology at the MIRV could help us to even more, to better sort that paper products to be able to meet domestic mill requirements. So that is also a goal of that facility. Sounds great. George, I actually see a hand, so go ahead. Yes, thanks Sarah. Sarah, two questions. Number one, I just wanted to get an update on the food waste disposal regulation that you have in place. I personally had a lot of doubts about it, but it seems like it's going smoothly. Second of all, probably really dumb question, but again, that's something we're here to do. So frequently when I set off for the landfill, I also have a big bucket of cans that I'm bringing to the local beverage store to recycle. Why don't you take those? I'd be happy to let you take the money. I'll just bring them to you and you can sort them and you can keep the profits. Any thought, is some of you don't want to do or you're not allowed to do? Great questions, not dumb at all. So as far as redeemables, we used to have a container at our drop-off centers that we would take the returnables. And when we were reconfiguring things for COVID, I think that was one of the containers that came out, but I will talk to our drop-off center managers and see if that's something that we can bring back. If you do want to leave them with us, they will get recycled. So they'll just go right to our materials recovery facility and they'll be billed with the other bottles and cans. And so that's not an issue, but we did used to have a separate one for the deposits. Yeah, so. Okay, I didn't realize that. Yeah, no, so we, but that, but you're not missing it because it was removed. So, but I will ask about that and see if that's something we want to bring back in. We would make about $6,000 a year. So, you know, not nothing. So I will ask about that for sure. Can I ask you a clarifying question about the food waste disposal question? Can you give me a little more? I mean, the food, the vegetable no longer being allowed to put, you know, apples, peels, so forth in the household garbage. Okay, so yeah, so that is actually the state's law. So that's Act 148. That's the last bit of that piece where all food scraps generated by all generators need to be kept out of the trash. Okay. They don't need to be composted necessarily, but they do need to be kept out of the trash. So we have, at all of our drop-off centers, we have containers for food scraps. You can bring them there. If you happen to be one of our trash customers as well, there's no additional charge for those food scraps. So if you bring a bag of trash, bring your food scraps, you can take care of it all at the same time. Same thing with recycling. If you're bringing your trash and your recycling and your food scraps, you're only paying for the bag of trash. So that is available. Some folks also do, they may, if you have a subscribe for a hauler, haulers are offering those services. There's been a lot more smaller haulers, but that's all they do. And that business has grown dramatically in Chittenden County. So you have some options there for sure. And going back most again. Yeah, good questions. Thank you. Go ahead, Dan. Yes, it's the same question I ask every year. I haul my own trash over to the transfer station and for payment purposes, are you gonna get to a point pretty soon where point of sale or debit card could be utilized? Yes. Alison, you said no. Yes, Alan, we are. It's, Essex has its, Essex is the one drop-off center that presents the most difficult situation with connectivity. We are working very, very hard on that. We are taking credit cards at some of our other locations. So Essex is for some reason, and I have to double check with our IT director about why. I know it's very, very close. And we will be accepting credit cards at all of our locations. Again, Essex may be last just because of that connectivity within the next month or two. So we've been taking them at Heinsberg since we put in the new facility down there. Willistan, I believe, is online. And then the rest are coming on online very shortly. So yes. Thank you. Trustees, any other questions? Alan Amber, anything else that we should know? Issue is just coming to the community for due to put it on the ballot, but it's very much like the water district bond vote. It doesn't become an item on your tax bill. That's correct. Yeah, so that's right. So for when we, again, if we are not successful with an earmark and we do come to the community for a bond, we are not asking you to pay the bill, right? So we're just asking you to allow us to access that bond the only way that you would ever need to pay anything is if for some reason we defaulted. So we will be coming to you, explaining to you how that is not going to happen. We have multiple sources of revenue to cover our bond payments. We're building that into our price structure for the MIRV. So we have the user fee that is going to be structured to cover that bond payment. If for some reason that that doesn't cover it, we have the material sales revenue to cover it. If for some reason those two don't cover it, we have this always management fee revenue to cover it. So there are three sources of revenue to pay that bond, that bond down. So again, there would have to be something truly catastrophic for our communities to need to be assessed to pay a bond payment and it would be per capita, but it would be, again, there would have to be some real major problem. At those other three sources of revenue did not cover a 25 year bond payment. Thank you, Alan, that was a good point to make, thank you. Great, well, with no other questions, really appreciate you being here, really appreciate the information and looking forward to either an earmark or just that vote. Great, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. I would add, I think you guys are doing a fantastic job. When someone is working off and everything is going smoothly and you don't, doesn't make a lot of noise and yet everything is working fine. You know that someone is really dedicated and working hard and doing a great job. And Al, we really appreciate you representing us too. Thank you. Thank you, George, I appreciate that. Yep. Great, Sarah, Alan, thank you so much. Thank you, take care. You too. Okay, and that will now bring us into the consent agenda. I move we accept the consent agenda. Thank you, Amber. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none of those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Reading file, board member comments. If I, can I jump in here, Andrew, this is this is borderline reading, reading file material, but I thought I would bring it to your attention and I was mentioning it to Andrew and Evan at the beginning of the meeting. Robin and Rick Hamlin and I met with the Amtrak people about the major upgrade that's about to happen to the train, the Amtrak station platform. It is a one year work schedule. It's going to be starting supposedly in about two to three weeks. It's going to be two phases. The first phase is going to be, they're going to rebuild the interior of the station. They're not going to touch the switching of the electronic part, but the interior of the Amtrak station and then the entire apron around the Amtrak station and they're going to do some of the demolition and get ready for phase two, which is a new platform that runs the entire, almost from Central Street to Main Street. And the reason I'm mentioning it is because it is going to be significantly disruptive to the entire railroad area. They have asked for, they're going to need a lot of parking. They're going to need to put a construction trailer there. They're going to need a place. They've already figured out a place to store waste as they bring stuff up. They have to test it before they can move it off site. So that's it. So I just wanted to let everyone know that they're going to be sending us materials and that we're going to be ultimately needing to agree to, but they have their eye on taking up much of, if not all of Ivy Lane for their parking. I did note to them that it's unfortunate that one branch of the federal government doesn't talk to the other branch because the Fish and Wildlife Building would make a great spot for them to store a lot of stuff. But we all just said that's probably not gonna, that would probably take several years to have that conversation. So that's probably not going to happen. But I did want to bring it to your attention because it might require a little bit of discussion at the board level seeing what, how much space they actually want for parking and how we're going to notify the businesses on Railroad Avenue. So I just wanted to mention now that's coming real soon. Appreciate it, George. Yeah, I really appreciate the update and appreciate you being a part of it. Thank you. Just got a quick thing. I participated or listened it into the last Economic Development Commission meeting. It's probably a couple of weeks ago. Robin gave a very detailed update on a lot of what's going on in the community from development, from the village point of view. A lot of it was new to me. So just reiterating a call for just quick bulleted updates like that for us, maybe once a month would be great or more. Maybe once a meeting and I know he's a busy guy, but if it can be delivered to the EDC, maybe he can write one thing up and give it to both so that we know what's up. That's it. Along those lines, one of the things that I've asked for in the past, I'd like to see us receive again is when village committees met, we used to receive in our packet the minutes from those meetings. I'd love for that to happen again. It's a great way for us to ensure that we are informed as to what's going on within the committees. And so I'd love for that to be included within our packets again. Other trustees, other questions, comments? One comment. George mentioned the meeting with the railroad and just curious on the upgrades that are occurring or are going to occur at all the rail crossings here in the Village Center. Will that make a difference as far as the train, the form signaling or whatever? Not that I want it to totally go away, but I think a lot of people would be happy for some reason that they were to upgrade the intersections. The answer is no. That is a quiet zone, federal rail administration and all trains are required to blow their horns as they approach a crossing unless they are in a quiet zone that is federally approved. Thank you. Can I, Andrew, can I go back to one thing about the minutes? And I think it's a great idea that we get the minutes of the meetings, but considering the complexity of putting all these packets together for two different elected boards, maybe we could put out to the committees that we appoint that whoever is assigned on that committee to be taking minutes, it's part of their job to get their minutes into the assistant manager at a certain point. Just to avoid having staff having to chase those people down since they, I don't think it would be that big of an imposition for them and might be something that would be a little bit helpful. Instead of Margarita or Evan or Greg having to say, hey, get us your minutes, it becomes a committee's responsibility to get those minutes into the appropriate authority, whoever it is in the administration wants them at a certain point. Well, our committees, as committees appointed by us as a legislative body are required to do so already because of open meeting law. So they already have to go to staff, which then have to be published. So are they getting their minutes, but are they getting them to you on time? Is that what's happening or is there a problem with you collecting them? I assume that's a question to staff. I can answer, we get their minutes, not necessarily in a timely manner, but they're posted on the Village website. Okay, all right. I don't know. Yeah, go ahead Evan. So what you're asking us to do is a duplication of the work. We get them when we put them on the website. If you want them in your packet, we then have to collect them and put them in the packet. What happened to the method of those? I mean, there was an email that went out to anybody that subscribed that had them. There wasn't just board members. Maybe that left with Darby, but I could probably find a bunch of them from my black days, but there were minutes were just, hey, there's a new set of minutes, there's a new document and it would come to your village email or your whatever email you subscribed to the village with. That seems to have disappeared. When I think about it, it probably disappeared around when Darby did. She just managed. Yeah, I don't know. She's still, I don't know. The two website question, we can ask about that for sure, because I do know that maybe someone of them. Because there are probably other people, not just board members who are subscribed to those and were wondering like me. Maybe the easiest thing to do is that when they're minute takers for these committees, email you, Margarine and Evan, they just include the trustees on the email to just do a group board and we get them in our email and then that makes everything simple. If I understand maybe the request is also that if it's in the board packet, then people can go online and see it as part of the board's packet. They don't know, but I'm not really involved in the collection of minutes. So I'd have to talk to Margarine and to Tammy and Linda in the office as to how they come in. And so the request just to be clear, I don't care if they come to us in the meeting packet. Frankly, it was a great service to have and it was one where the system as it is now requires us to take the initiative to do it. Whereas the other one is more of a proactive nature in that it's in our email and we have to actively then delete the email or read it. And frankly, I enjoyed reading the minutes. It's a little easier on us that way. Okay, we'll certainly take a look and see how they're coming in because some of the committees meet regularly and some very infrequently. When you guys, if you're done, if you want, I have one quick update on the building's opening process. Please. I don't necessarily want to say COVID is over. I don't have a crystal ball as to whether it's just gonna completely continue to dissipate and never resurface. But starting next week, I'm having meetings with all the department heads of the village about how we're going to open up the buildings to the public in early June. We are looking at June, it's June 2nd, whichever is the day after Memorial Day. We're looking to try to do some soft openings where the library is probably gonna go back to doing some appointments versus just back door, call in and pick up. Two Lincoln's been open, but by appointment and some other buildings, including the police department and some other activities like 75 Maple. So we're trying to figure out our best ways to keep our employees safe, our public safe and come into our buildings. We appreciate the state has addressed several of the concerns we had, which is, we don't normally, we don't have somebody on staff who's gonna clean a washroom every time somebody uses it. We're just not equipped to do that. They kind of taken that away. We are gonna keep up our sneeze guards and our plexiglass at our point of contact with people, but we are looking to bring staff back into the buildings in early June. Just wanted to let you know that. And hopefully people get vaccinated. When you do come into our buildings, we are gonna have a mask requirement when you're in the building. If you're outside the building, you could take your mask off, but inside the building, we'd like you to wear your mask at least for the next month or so until CDC guidance or state guidance addresses that. And so I just wanted to keep the board updated on that. And we will be coming out with a little bit more information after I get more details from the department heads of how they feel they can do a safe, soft opening of their departments. And I can answer any questions. Thank you, Evan. Really do appreciate that. And also appreciate what you've been able to do so far to help keep staff in the community safe. It's been a very large team effort, but thank you. And I appreciate the patience of the public. I mean, yes, we've had a couple of complaints. And yes, you know, we would have liked to have done everything perfectly, but through these extraordinary times, I think we've kept the village services up to a high standard. We are current, by the way, we're currently working on Densmore to work on that big, large project. And for those who will keep asking, those large cylinders are the bypass stormwater tubes. Yes, it is going to be in concrete and like we promised, but they do have to get a large volume of water around a work area that's the size of about 70, 70 feet long by about 20 feet wide. And if you can imagine the amount of water that goes through there in just a simple, quarter inch, half inch rain, it's a quarter inch or a half inch rain falling over several miles of a floodplain. So it just comes rushing right through there. But that's what we've been doing and thank you for your kind words. But yeah, we're hoping that as the numbers have fallen dramatically, restaurants are start opening, the restrictions of outdoor dining indoors as well as outdoors are really opening up. And so I wanna thank the people who live in this area for getting vaccinated and our numbers really coming down. So that's what we're working on as well as many other things, but that's the top one. Thank you, Evan. Okay. Hey, one more quick, quick, quick thing. You might have seen on the Facebook, Burlington Telecom is exploring, expanding into Essex or portions of the village. Very exciting, excellent service, very portable. If you haven't tell all your friends, go to BurlingtonTelecom.com, contact us and there's a form. Let's get some good service around here, maybe. It's a good thing, it's a good thing. That's all. So to that end, I did ask Andrew earlier today if he thought it might be helpful to have a presentation from Burlington Telecom. As most folks know, I did work for them for 10 years and they are still applying of mine. So I have that in the works, but I'm not sure that they're ready to do that right this minute. Okay. Do we also get a friends and family discount from that 10 years after all of our residents? Of course. It's a good thing I just signed a two-year contract with Comcast. I'm sure they'll let you out of that. Yeah. Sorry to hear that, Evan. They're right behind you, Amber. They're right behind you. All right. Any other comments? If not, just again, make sure to check out the reading file if you have not yet, but we don't have an executive session and as such, if somebody wanted to make a motion to adjourn. I move adjourned. Thank you, Raj. You're welcome. Nice job, Dan. Any further questions, comments on that? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, have a good night, everybody. Thank you for sticking with us. Thanks, Margaret and Evan. Good night. Good night.