 Okay. Like to call the select board meeting for Monday, January 3rd, 2022 to order. Happy new year and welcome. First thing on the agenda is agenda addition search changes. Are there any changes from staff? None from staff. Any changes from board members? No? Okay, let's move on then. Public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time for opportunity to address the board on topics that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, you can either raise your hand in the raise your hand feature in the teams meeting or raise your hand in the room. If you'd like to speak to the board, please be brief, please be civil, please refrain from using inappropriate language. Please address your remarks to me as a select board chair. Please do not attack other members of the public or town staff. And if you are attending remotely, please leave your camera off and your microphone muted unless you have been recognized to have the floor to avoid distraction. Okay, so then having said that, is there anyone who would like to speak during public to be heard in the room? I don't see any hands in the room. Anybody online? Raise your hand in the, or if you're on the phone, I don't see any phone. Okay, Lorraine Zaloum. Hi and happy new year. I'm just quick question. Do you know if we can expect cannabis to be warned and voted on in March? So it is, it's our expectation that there's a petition that's been signed that will likely be presented to the, to the town clerk shortly, which will compel the select board to put it on to the, the ballot. So it is, it is a highly likely that it will be on the ballot. We won't, we, And what's the date? What's the deadline for that? January 20 something, I think it's the date is in our packet that we have to warn the meeting. I think it's the 24th or something like that 24th. Okay, thank you. Yep. Thanks for the question. Rachel is that Sorry about that. Happy new year everyone. I have something to say. I, and I wrote it because it's a little easier for me to just get it out there. And I've been told that I stir the pot recently, but I believe that this needs to be said. So here it is. I'd like to start by saying that the town finance director presented figures at the select board meeting back in September of 2020, laying out what would happen to the town outside the village taxes in the event of separation. A political action committee called no merger now produce signs and literature implying that a no vote on the merger would be voting against higher taxes. Leading up to merger, Mr. Chair, you decided to write lengthy front porch forum posts about minute details of the merger plan that you took issue with. My sense is that you didn't feel heard and decided to write them. And maybe you didn't foresee this as a problem, but your posts were used to justify a no vote. So while they were written as a private citizen entitled to opinions, they also had the damaging effect of something penned by select board member. When forecasting, the staff finance committee or finance staff explained why they use the figures that they used. Could everything be a moving target in calculations for taxes? Sure. But there has to be a point in time where you use what you have to make informed and logical conclusions. Will it be perfect? Probably not, but the overall gist was there. During the revote, this select board discussed sending information about what the effect of separation would be in the town outside the village and the chair declined. In fact, a memo from Sarah Macy was altered to remove information about the effects separation. These actions paired with the general silence of this board and inability to take a position has put the town outside the village in a very challenging situation. My question is what now this town deserves answers? Great. Thank you for your comments. Betsy Dunn. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. And happy New York. On the note of what Lorraine was talking about with cannabis, don't if you don't, if it gets on the ballot because there's a petition, does that difference of them doing it relieve the select board of having any worn meanings about the pros and cons so that people know what they're voting for when they opt in and opt out? Because I don't understand. I know that there's a lot of people in the town who have voiced it and I know you've heard it before. Why can't the select board just decide, yes, we're going to put this on the vote and go ahead and we'll have warning two meetings before the 30th of, for the 24th of January and inform people so that they can make an intelligent vote when they go do so. Which is the two, what is the reason not to go ahead and do that and create the need for a petition? I think there's a, I don't think there's a, I don't know. Good question. We can have that discussion. When? There's a cannabis working on this question. Do we have any, I don't know what they've been looking at, whether they're going to share with us or? The clock is ticking for the, for the warning time of the opt-in opt-out question because you have to have that within 30 days of March 1st and that's the end of January. The vote will be on March 1st and there'll be time to talk about, to share any information that we have with regard to the pros and cons. You have to warn it though. And you have to warn it by the end of January to have that 30 days prior to the vote warning of a meeting and how would you warn it and not tell people about it? Go ahead, Greg. Hi Betsy, we have some information on our website cannabis which is, we can use to update that as more information becomes available. We have a committee looking into cannabis. They held a informational forum back in December. I think there's another plan to hold another one soon. I see Don nodding. She's on the committee. So we are trying to get information out there and try to let, get people informed about the vote that we do expect to have a petition. So we expect to have it on the ballot. Yeah, because I was at that other meeting and there were very few people who were from the public there, either person or online. I don't think people knew about what what it was. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Thanks, Betsy. Irene Renner. Thank you. My comment has to do with a severance that is going to be paid to the unified manager. I understand that every employee deserves adequate notice and a small stipend when a job of theirs is no longer going to be theirs. I think it's only fair to do to people. And in fact, I was once let go by a computer company. It was a reduction in force. And this was not in Essex and it was not IBM and it was not Global Foundries. I got a few weeks severance pay and, you know, two weeks notice. And that was not great. But to think that essentially half of the unified manager salary will be paid to him as a penalty because the select board and trustees did not give him six months notice that he would not be rehired this coming February. To me seems a little excessive. Um, I would understand if someone were absolutely caught by surprise that they would really like to have more notice than less notice. But I think anyone paying attention last March and April would be perfectly clear on the notion that once merger failed twice, the town manager, the unified manager had 10 months notice to go find himself a new job. Therefore, I am not happy to think that he would accept that penalty payment. I understand that by the letter of the law, he may have earned it. He may need to be offered it. I read it. But I was yes. Yes. Irene, please don't disparage our staff. Not disparaging staff terms were the contract the terms of the severance were part of the contract, which was public knowledge. Understood. My point is, however, that although it may be due to the person in that position, they're accepting it is completely voluntary. Is that true? They do not have to accept that money. And to quote a person who I respect very greatly. Irene, there's no there's the situation is not that has not been completely resolved. It's not that we have no signed deal yet with regard to that severance. But the offer was made by the select board at its last meeting, I believe they agreed that the select board would pay half. Is that true? Yes. Thank you. My point is that people as I believe my Angelou said, and I'm paraphrasing, people will remember what you say and do, but they will never forget may not remember what you say or do, but they will remember how you made them feel. And if this does transpire, I will never forget how I feel about this amount of money and who's taking it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Irene. Annie Cooper. Sorry, I'm trying here. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Great. Oh, goodness. And can you see me, which is what we're going for too? Yes, we can see you too. Thank you. Andy, I really appreciate and applaud your earlier statement about not berating or disparaging staff. And absolutely, if one is due money, they should accept it graciously and our community will support that. I'd like to speak along the lines of the select board and positioning and all. But Andy, I feel that you know, I feel that in your heart, you've been keeping up with how people in particular feel. And I know that your moral conscience is something you really study. And I appreciate and value that about you. It's confusing to me to be a that half the residents of our town have worked so hard to support merger first, and then merger again, and then merger again, and then merger again. And now has really taking a strong stand towards, you know, growth and moving on. And I encourage the select board to do right by the entirety of the town and own own. I know, Andy, that you've got a lot of choices to own, especially ones where stands don't get taken. And Annie, we are talking later on the agenda about a position. Is this is related to? Well, yeah. Okay, I can't find in here. If you would allow me to speak again later, if I'm worse to sink, that would be great. I'm a little embarrassed right now. But will you give me a shorter opportunity later to be more clear? Absolutely. Sorry. And thank you for giving me. Okay. No, no problem. No problem. Anyone else during public to be heard? See any hands in the room? No more hands up online. Okay, thank you. Let's move on to the public hearing for the second public hearing and the proposed 2022 2023 municipal budget for the town of Essex. Mr. Chairman, I move that we open the public hearing. Thank you, Don. For a second. Thank you, Tracy. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, we have our public hearing open. Like we have Courtney today. Welcome. Good evening, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. So this is the second public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2023 town general fund budget, which covers July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2023. The select board established several goals during the initiative stages of budget development, including equity initiatives and mental health support, addressing climate change within our programs, minimizing financial impact of separation, working towards tax equity between the village and the town. While the departments and management were creating their budgets, these goals were considered and incorporated into the plan spending for FY23 as follows. We incorporated $30,000 appropriation to the equity committee, as well along with continued funding for the board's stipend stipends and a creation of the Community Affairs liaison in the police department and increased funding for the community justice center. Also in the police department, we're incorporating hybrid or electric vehicles for the police fleet. And then we're also continuing to accumulate funds for energy efficiency projects in the capital fund. As far as minimizing the financial impacts of separation, later on in the agenda today, there's tonight's consideration for local option tax, as well as community development fee structure has been reevaluated and updated, and we'll have another year of actuals before we can get a better sense of how that revenue and those adjustments come in. But that's to hit on that goal. And then there are no new tax-moving efforts in this budget as far as shifting the town and the village costs for those. Do we have that up on the screen? Greg, as I've been talking. Greg stepped out. Okay. I don't have a screen. So if you can use yours. Share. I apologize. I just jumped right in without checking in on the visuals. So those are the select board goals that I just discussed. There are some highlights that I'd like to point out or significant changes from the where we are in the FY22 budget that we're currently operating under. The first item that I'd like to touch on is the use of fund balance in the amount of $431,000. This is being used to offset the general tax rate and then specifically in the finance department towards separation-related personnel or consulting costs related to that. And in the police department where there is normally two vehicles purchased in a fifth school year, there's a proposed third vehicle being purchased. Staffing changes are another highlight that I'd like to point out. As mentioned in the select board goals, the community affairs liaison has been created. This is replacing up with current patrol position. So that's a shift. There's also been some management changes as far as eliminating one management position and adding administrative support for management. In the fire department, there's two 40-hour daytime per diem fire positions that have been added based on discussions with the board. And economic development has a part-time position that was established in FY22 mid-year. This is the first full year in FY23 for that part-time position. And lastly for staffing changes to highlight is the full-time parks and maintenance tech. That will be shared between the parks and recs and the public works departments. The county and regional and health and human services costing centers have roughly a $229,000 increase proposed. Colleen Nesta with Essex Rescue had presented at the December 6 board meeting regarding the increase to their appropriation which accounts for roughly $165,000 over the FY22 request. GMT is also requesting an increase of $35,000 over what we had originally seen in the FY23 request. So that has been updated from previous presentations and it's a total of $46,000 over the FY22 amount that was appropriated for them. And then lastly in the highlights is these police specific insurance costs. Those are being shifted from the finance costing center into the police costing center to help with any sort of future costing of those services between the town and the village. Where that leaves us is a $749,000 increase on the overall budget or a 4.7 percent change. The effect on the tax levy is an additional 5.1 percent and then the tax rate would increase 4 percent. What this means for the average property assessed in the town at $280,000 is slightly under $60 annually. And the explanation of why these are different from each other as far as the total budget tax levy and change in the tax rate as far as percentages go is because there's non-tax revenue sources that are being decreased. So the income coming from the village that we're no longer expecting in FY23 for manager of finance and HR director. And then also we estimate 1 percent in grand list growth when we're calculating the tax rate. With that, are there any questions? Questions for board members? First. I know there was one of the questions that had come up was the what was behind the increase in GMT's assessment. Then we got a response that it was largely due to the ADA component of the their assessment. Is it increased because of the oh somebody here from the top? John and Paul are both here. Come on up we'll let you answer that question. Introduce yourselves. So good evening. I'm John Moore and the general manager at Green Mountain Transit. I'm representing from Essex and a treasure for Green Mountain Transit. So we did have a significant increase in our ADA program costs. That part of the assessment is actually based on actual usage from the last completed fiscal year. So there is a memo I think that was distributed to the select board. If you look at really two factors in terms of how that assessment is calculated. Number one is the cost growth in that program. Due to many factors the ADA portion of our contractor's business has taken over the majority of their service hours and so what that does the ADA program is paying for a much larger percentage of the overhead cost than it typically does. So they also operate the Medicaid non-emergency medical transportation program which is a statewide program. As you can imagine with COVID the demand for that service has dropped dramatically. The ADA program initially in the early stages of COVID also dropped but we're essentially back to normal levels. So proportionally that program is much higher you know of their business so it's taken on more of the overhead costs. And then when you look at the actual usage in the town of Essex the share of ridership was about 11% for the assessment last year. That jumped to 14% and it's about a $1.5 million program so a 3% increase is about $40,000 right there. So you know we understand that's a big number. It was across the board it wasn't just Essex that was impacted by the ADA program. We are looking at multiple ways of containing costs in that program including a current study to consolidate some of the functions between GMT and SSTA who provides that program. So we're hoping that this is kind of a one-time blip COVID related but those are the reasons for the increase in that ADA program. We typically our board typically approves about a 4% 3 to 4% historically on the fixed route assessment. This year it was a 4% but that's kind of the typical amount that we see in that program. All right thank you question. So I don't know if this is a question for you or for staff but the decrease in ridership that is attributed to COVID so is that something that we can use ARPA funding for? So yes that ARPA funding or COVID relief funding would certainly be an eligible expense for the for the Federal Transit Administration. GMT did receive some direct COVID relief funds. We have spent all but about two million of those and those two million dollars are already programmed in our FY23 budget just to sustain current service levels. So the answer is yes but GMT does not have any COVID relief funds to use to offset some of these costs increase. I think there's a distinction. Are you talking about CARES Act funds or ARPA funds? Everything. So when I say COVID relief that's the CRISA the CARES and the ARPA from GMT's perspective anyway. Okay so but we could you're you don't have to comment on us but you're you're saying that other communities are going could possibly also use ARPA funds for GMT purposes. So we send the assessment invoice we care about getting payment at that point we don't care what flavor of funds those are. Okay I think I think we need more info from our the people that we have to file for them of whether we can or cannot do that. If it was CARES Act yeah probably but we would have had to know that before we had applied back to the state for funding. I just have a quick question oh did you have another one? All right I just have one more question just for clarification. In your memo and I'm not meaning that you know this shouldn't be in our budget but I just want to make sure that I understand the statutory language correctly that essentially we have to pay what we are assessed. So per our state charter GMT does have the power of assessment in Chittenden County for our member municipalities the the finance committee which Paul is a chair of and the board goes through an annual budgeting exercise and so when they approve the assessment amounts those yes by law GMT has the ability to invoice the member municipalities for those amounts. Okay thank you. Just a quick question on the the 11% the 14% figure that you're identifying as an increase in the share ridership does that correspond to an actual increase in ridership or is it just that the the full pie shrunk and our piece got bigger? So a little bit of both so we based the FY23 assessment amount on FY21 which was the last completed fiscal year so the ridership was up from FY20 but it was down from pre-pandemic levels so the ridership numbers I do have we're not significantly different but that 14% that higher percentage of the share is then applied to the projected program budget for FY23 so it's not a one-to-one ratio. Does that answer your question I hope? Kind of yeah. One thing I might add here we've had this discussion with the board in the past but you have the senior vans and I know that your senior center at least at some point did the scheduling for that and they were doing a really good job with trying to consolidate rides and the more you do that you will have a direct impact on the cost of your ADA so if there's something more you can do to be more efficient using those vans add more rides then that's in your next year that's going to come home to be very helpful to keeping those costs down. All right I know we did have some trouble with drivers getting drivers at some for a time period. Welcome to the club. We also had to furloughed some of our drivers for a few weeks during the height of COVID too trying to keep people safe them and others. And the senior van mostly goes Essex to Essex for destinations and you need to go to like Tilly Drive or whatever I think you need to think SSTA I don't know. I think they're a little bit into Williston for Essex residents they'll take some doctor's visits into Williston and maybe a few others just outside the borders but it's primarily just within Essex so there's that component too that you have to deal with. For us we try to keep the senior vans very close to our borders because just like GMT when you start elongating a route or elongating a transport or whatever you're doing you can't get enough riders you are having people wait or do whatever so we have tried very hard to make it make the vans go within our borders and only slightly outside because the longer the ride the less people were able to serve. And just to quickly follow up so the ADA I think everyone knows what that is but you know we did provide about 4,500 rides in FY 21 just for Essex residents and those trips are longer they're much more expensive than the normal fixed route you know Essex junction number two bus you see but that's getting people the doctor's appointments grocery shopping trips I mean that's really very critical service so it is very important that that service is provided so we want to do everything we can to provide that service at the lowest possible price we do think that this was hopefully a one-year blip due to COVID and like I said we have some cost containment strategies that we'll be implementing but it really is critical service and legally mandated by the ADA Act but for what that's worth it really is critical transportation services that we're providing. Okay any other board questions for GMT folks? So since this is a public hearing I'd like to give unless you'd like to stay for a while because we're not yet we haven't yet opened up the public comment or question I guess I don't know do you have a preference should I open it to public right now for questions specifically around GMT's budget or do you want to? I'd be fine with that whatever I actually don't think we have anything we don't have any other questions I don't know do we have any board have any other questions about the the budget? There was the health inspector questions that were answered. It was also yeah we've got another question that we wanted to work through before we open to the public I don't know if you would prefer to go to public now about your topic or or lurk about a little bit until we're ready to go to the public. If you can go to the public now that would be appreciated. Okay so see who's out there. Okay so are there any questions from the public about the GMT's uh the increase in the budget? We've already had a discussion with GMT about their general services and about their their their budgeting but if you have any questions specific about the increase in their budget please raise your hand. Desi I see your hand up is that uh um yeah but it was on the I just had one question about the general fund highlights that we just had prior to this one. Okay we're not ready to go to public fund in general yet that I was we wanted to be very specific so I'll I'll come back to you. Oh okay thank you. Okay um so I don't see any questions so I think you're I think you're set so we'll move on to our next uh thank you very much okay thank you thank you for thank you for coming and and you can you can stay as long as you want. I'll touch base anytime you'd like me to come. All right thanks thanks so much. So then the other question that the board had about the budget was the health officer. Any comments Greg? Yeah I tried to provide some more information in the packet about what the health officers do, how their responsibilities are assigned, the justification for the pay increase. My recommendation is what I proposed a couple weeks ago was that Sharon Kelly the deputy health officer be brought up in her pay now to better match the health officer they do very similar functions um and then to budget for the rest of the increase to start of January 1st in 2024 um in fact my year is 2023 sorry 2023 which would give some more time the next year to to see if this influx of workload is it staying is it significant um was it a flip for for six months or is it going to be consistent and letting the manager have the discretion to decide whether or not to um provide that pay increase or some portion of it. So that's the overview happy to try to answer any questions about the specifics that are in the packet. Thanks Greg. Any any additional questions board members? Sue go ahead. The the chart that shows the years so I mean the anomaly of 2020 is that COVID or is it something else like 2019 shows a total of eight 2021 shows a total of six 2020 shows a total of 235 oh so those are the number of um units that have been permitted oh okay sorry yep um and that's a lot of times it's um it's somewhat consistent but you know 2019 and 2021 um we're probably off years it could have been tied in 2021 to the costs of of construction I don't know that for sure a lot of times stuff will be in the works but um it takes a long time to go through especially for these bigger projects to go through the permitting phase and to get the approvals to make the changes um and so I would just say it's uh probably a uh slow year but probably followed up by a faster year the next year or two that's not a scientific analysis yeah yeah any other questions on that topic board or any other questions about the budget or comments okay then I will uh open up the public since this is a public hearing um uh Betsy Don you had your hand up did you want to comment now yeah thank you very much Andy thank you um I just it was just a I'm hung up on a phrase and it was the one under the general highlights the um general fund highlights um and it stated that the 240 hour a week positions needed to be added right yes two 240 hour per week per day per week daytime but the per diem and I thought 40 hours is a full time position one FTE and how can you call that if it's a position that's required be per diem is that a contradiction in terms I don't understand that that's that's paid on call I'll let the staff members to comment I guess but they're 40 hour they work 40 hours a week though thank you for your question Betsy they're not necessarily the same person the hours are there for people of the fire department if it was one person yes they would have to get benefits and other things but it is a per diem not to exceed 40 hours for the week in two different positions so there'll be there'll be people available at the town fire department for 80 hours during the work week or let's just say seven days and those hours will get split up by the roster of the people of the Essex fire department so they're doing overtime no ma'am no these these now think about it this way the chief says I need somebody on Mondays from eight in the morning till noon who wants to sign up somebody signs up he says I need somebody from one o'clock to five o'clock who else not the same person wants to sign up and he assigns hours yes but wouldn't those be overtime for those individuals who are picking up the hours there are they also not full people Betsy they're not employees of the town they are paid on call volunteers of that sort so they are not subject to those rules got it just got it I didn't know that piece thank you very much that's your stuff I'm good all right thanks Betsy hey there's someone named max I don't know don't see a last name could identify yourself please yeah hi Andy this is max leaving hey max yeah sorry I should have had my full name listed there I actually have two questions the first one is about the fund balance of 431 that's a seems like a huge amount I know that in the past we've done about a hundred thousand or so to help offset but 431 seems excessive because of the whole it will dig next year and did you consider putting at least you know a portion of that towards future designated capital expenses so max in a in a prior meeting we did go through the allocations for and it was on the order of 550,000 was was was pushed over to capital because of because of COVID and a lot of the reimbursements from state and federal sources there was a actually a fair amount of and and less expenses in some cases there was a fair amount of fund balance available and so yes we did put a substantial amount of capital we also we also set aside a very large amount for smoothing the transition as you know the potential transition as we as the if the village separates there'll be a you know the smooth out the ramp and the tax rate if that's where we end up going okay go ahead Greg yeah this is also max this is kind of a stepping down or catching up from fiscal year 21 which is when we had no tax increase out of COVID it was kind of a COVID relief measured to the community we used a lot of fund balance to to make that possible so this is partly catching up to that and and moving out of that and it's also looking at the tax increase that's there we know it's not insignificant so this is the way to to keep it at a level that hopefully the community can accept and live with in the coming year okay because if the separation goes through which I presume it will the the tax rate for that particular year when we no longer have the income from the village I I worry that there'll be budget cuts going on to offset that in capital spending that would put us behind the maintenance but I understand you put a bunch towards capital so that that's good my second question Andy is about Essex rescue years ago we the town used to give I think just about seven thousand dollars per year to Essex rescue then they went to a per capita um calculation and it went up to seventy something thousand and they allowed us to do that that step up over a number of years but yet in this budget I'm seeing 165 or so whatever is uh increase in in one year and I was wondering if they if you talk to them about being able to step that up gradually like we we had in the past yeah we we we did max and in fact this is the first step of a step up over the next four years so it's going to be the increases are going to be on close to this order every year for the next couple years well I they do provide a vital service that's a huge increase and I didn't participate in those conversations so you don't have to go into the details about why but okay that's good to know that you're stepping them up but I didn't realize the steps were that high yeah yeah I think it was the number six meeting so if you want if I want to look at yeah okay my my other questions relate to capital local options tax but that's on the agenda so I presume I'll need to wait is that true yes okay for that yep okay that's all I had then thank you Andy hey thanks max Harlan Smith yeah good evening and happy new year to everybody um getting back into the the fund balance four hundred and thirty one dollars uh it was stated that it's being used to reduce the amount of um taxpayer dollars required to meet the budget and to purchase police vehicles um and the line item for police vehicle purchasing does a change of 74 thousand but I think it's a total of 156 thousand um do we know how much of that uh that fund balance was transferred to the vehicles is it the 74 or is it covering the full 156 it's a 74 one vehicle yeah it's a 74 difference so 74 out of that 431 is coming out the rest of it was used to keep the tax rate at a four percent I guess increase uh we we we targeted one time expenses um so yes and and yes just keep the I mean we the original the original uh request was a six was over a six percent tax rate increase so we've been trying to work work that down this is where we got okay because somewhere's I don't know if it's in the packet but it basically says that an 80 thousand dollar increase um equates to one percent is that that's what I remember reading to you so basically did you have a yeah that's going to be that's going to be in regards to the um uh the town budget uh after separation right not the current budget right that's not part of the current budget discussion correct so the 80 thousand doesn't equate to one percent in the current budget does not uh it does not I just don't know offhand what that number would be okay because I was just trying to figure it out I mean that would be I don't know about 350 I think 350 thousand um to reduce taxes and if you did the 80 percent we'd be looking at four and a half percent something like that that we would have been looking so I was I was just trying to figure that out um you guys know that I sent you an email um on the per diem and I had a lot of questions in there that I thought that should be asked and I was curious if if any of that got figured out which would be um if there were two staff because it basically it's 80 hours a week so technically there's going to be two full-time staff I know it's not full-time I understand their per diem and the on-call um there'll be two additional additional staff five days a week technically uh within there and there were questions that I had that were does that mean that they're going to be able to respond to to emergency medical calls uh at the same time or would both those people go all nodding his head here in the audience and he'd be able to answer some of these and then I know industry standard is uh four people to roll a truck to a fire um so I'm curious if that allows him to roll a truck to a fire uh having those two people in the station so some of the questions that I asked and I was curious if if you before you added them to the budget if you would ask those questions and were satisfied with the answers the other question I had is if they're running to an emergency medical do they have a vehicle that's equipped for that that's cheaper to roll or they roll on a full-size fire truck to these emergency medical requests so the select board doesn't set procedure for the fire department we we're approving a budget that was requested so um well I I understand that but I would think that you would want to know how those dollars are being spent I think that's I think that's a fair question and I think my questions are are asking that if it actually because the other question that you could ask is okay so 82 is it 82 or 84 thousand 82 thousand if we're only serving emergency medical responses would that money be better used if it was given to Essex rescue versus Essex fire so just looking so he'd be happy to answer these questions can you want to comment charlie mr chair i'm happy to answer any questions you have thank you for that uh so uh as I as I've said this the select board's job is to decide what your budget is and if we're relying on your expertise to and and I I I don't have the ability to ask the questions that uh that harlan's posing here in an intelligent way so I I'm fine with relying on your expertise with regard to how to run the fire department thank you I'm not questioning that at all uh if I can chief the money that you've asked for in in the budget what do you feel are the the need to haves and best to have for the responses that you're responsible for as the department as we discussed in the original budget hearings when we were presenting the budget to staff is we had asked for the need for four people to guarantee that a full engine company could respond to any emergency whether it be an ems call or a fire call so that does not do that to excuse me get to that oops I please start to gradually get to that point and minimize the direct impact in a single year the request was made for 80 per dm hours we do not have any full-time staff we do not currently have any staff on duty the staff only responds if they are available when the call comes in I know there are people online tonight that don't understand that based on the questions they've asked but I want to reiterate we are a paid on call volunteer service so there are calls that come in where no one responds to those fortunately have only been ems calls where we know at least a transport ambulance service is still coming whether that be sx rescue or one of their mutual aid partners if they're already out on a call but still there is a delay especially if sx rescues on another call you heard them tonight there was two ambulances back to back during this meeting we had two simultaneous calls in sx about two minutes apart during the meeting tonight so we know that another ambulance came in from somewhere else that's why it's important to have first responders that are here in town that can go to those calls and initiate that care while we're waiting for those other ambulances to get into town so how they respond we do have a variety of vehicles in our station they are equipped with advanced life support equipment by the ems rules and some of them are fire trucks some of them are not fire trucks we have a old tahoe that's about 10 years old and we have an old pickup truck that's about 11 years old um either of those vehicles depending on the day would be available and suitable to respond to the call depending on what it is okay those vehicles that you just mentioned are not rated for transport correct correct they are just there to respond correct and we are not licensed in order to be a transport service we have to be licensed through the state of remand and we're not licensed at that level we're only licensed at the first responder level to provide advanced life support system service and chief i feel like you know you're at a deposition so you're you're required to be truthful oh good what are the major issues facing paid on call these days we're required to maintain the same level of training as a any career department would do in preparation for tonight's meeting if this is not physical year this is calendar year so s6 rescue responded to over 2700 calls in 2021 over that we don't have an exact count but somewhere in the neighborhood of about 980 of those calls were to the town of s6 outside of the village our people only responded to 504 of those ems calls so there's 476 first response calls that we weren't able to go to because we had no one available okay that's why we're asking for some podium people so that we can cover the hours a day and ensure that we have people that are going to answer the call when it comes in our worst fear is that one day a fire call comes in and no one shows up we we respond to a neighboring community that that has happened where we are the primary response and we end up handling the call and it is what it is in in the rural communities where we can't afford to have career paid staff all the time my last question sir this recent set of events where people are asking to reinstate mutual aid with the junction for any tone out why why is that not a good idea currently in the compliment great question so there is a mutual aid agreement that is in place with s6 challenge and that is for serious calls whether it be a car accident with known or suspected entrapment any fire any condition of smoke and hazardous materials releases the questions that the board has received about the mutual aid agreement about reinstating it deals with the calls for automatic fire alarms we have a lot of high occupancy commercial rated buildings so the number of fire alarms have increased we went to about 150 of them ourselves last year most of those calls end up being just that a mechanical failure or someone pulled an alarm when they didn't mean to like a child going through lows pulls the pole station there's no smoke there's no fire that does not require two sets of volunteers to respond code three in their personal cars lights and sirens putting people at risk when you drive code three because you're asking for the right of way on the road right that increases risk when we put multiple large trucks on the road driving code three that increases the risk so what is the outcome what why do we need to do that when we know that the alarm is just an automatic alarm most of the time if it's not an automatic alarm our dispatchers do a tremendous job at triaging the calls on the phone they get as much information as they can and when there's any doubt they have been trained to send out both departments and they do that and it works well chief kaborio and i have had conversations we review it um we review it with the supervisor of the sx police dispatch when we have questions about calls and we make sure that we are doing everything to the best that we can and it works all right thanks charlie thank you thank you for everything you do may i ask may i offer one comment myself out of turn you talked about a salary increase for the health officers we rely on the health officers so i know in your due diligence if the health officers market rate needs to be adjusted up it's well deserved most of the time when we call them it's never monday through friday it's the last minute because we come across the situation where something is very unsafe and we either have nearby residents or children or something like that that are in jeopardy and so we call sharon and jerry and they respond immediately and do a great job for us so we they are partners of ours and they will continue to be thank you great thanks chief andy since this this is still harlan and i appreciate you allowing chief coal to speak um i am not against the fire department in any way shape or form i'm definitely one of the taxpayers that if the fire department needs it i want to write them the check and make sure that they have it i just wanted an explanation so i appreciate that and i also wanted to make a comment about the health officers um i took a look at you know i i did the math on their their calls versus what they're being paid and so on and so forth and and uh they're still making very little money per hour even with the increase that they're asking for um and i i support that so thank you all right thanks harlan uh lorraine zulum hi uh thank you for that uh last call to harlan and um chief call for the explanations um and i'm which then begs the question was going to ask if there are false alarms and our fire departments are going are there any um compensations for those false alarms from the companies for repeat offenses if that's going to cost us and cause problems um but my other question was really about the health officer um because i also did the math it looked like it's about 18 and a half dollars an hour for um jerry's and i didn't do sharins but i was curious how it works given that uh the deputy officer works full time so does she make calls during her work hours or i'm wondering if that's something that should be maybe rolled into one position instead because if she's responding to calls while she's working as a zoning administration administrator it's that's kind of awkward so i was wondering if that had ever been examined or thought about thanks it's two separate positions the rain um that it happens that our zoning administrator uh in the case of sharon is also the deputy health officer um both positions are well the the zoning administrator position is a salary so it's not an hourly pay she's getting paid to to get the job done she often works um additional hours on the weekends uh outside of normal work hours for for health officer and um as has been said the sorry for the zoning administrator um and as has been said about the health officer it's really a 24-7 job so if she gets a call at um 10 o'clock on a monday for health issue she'll she'll work on that and respond to that um and she'll finish up the zoning administrator duties afterwards um as she can so hopefully that answers that question explains how that role functions right so but greg if it does happen during office hours it's a little odd right i imagine you can't control when the calls come in certainly so that's what i was wanting to have been re-examined in terms of maybe changing a job description and folding in because there certainly are crossover things and then i saw that the it doubled the hours doubled and so is that impact if she's working extra hours how is that impact her workload too in terms of maybe potentially needing to have a full-time officer as opposed to two part times i'm just wondering if that's something we're looking at plus i looked at the uh huge increase in our rentals which uh in that um description by jerry looks like a lot of it has to do with the increase in rentals in terms of their workload if that we continue on that pace are we planning for the future for more calls are we building that into uh the developers cost as well in terms of impacting our budget um so i i just wonder how often we examine these positions um as staff and administrators good questions and this is this is part of um the look that we're doing at a look that we're taking into those positions and um that's part of the recommendation to start the increase and uh on january first as opposed to july first to have some additional time to to take a look and do some of that analysis as for rolling the two positions into one i would recommend against that having the two right now they can support each other they can back each other up if one of them is on vacation the other one can fill in so it's useful to have that the backups and support that that the two positions to provide there are also discussions at the state level that that may impact the future of health officers as well um there's some discussion about the state taking over that responsibility i don't know if that will work it will ever happen but uh there's there's discussions there that we need to keep an eye on too and and we have had very preliminary conversations about the need to have more conversations about impact fees whether it's um health rescue fire and then starting that conversation and taking a deeper look at that and the actual costs that are being driven by the some of the development and the osla rain sorry sorry that was it i'm muted sorry thanks guys thanks great great all right thanks tharn um i don't see any other hands up online anybody you want to comment in there i could she also asked for chief coal did they get any like repeat offenders that are you know i am assuming and i'm probably going to get shot down for this but like a lot of the senior centers they get confused so they pull the alarm and you you know have to go multiple times to the the centers did is there any reimbursement to you there is a there is a very dated ordinance which is something that we want to look at in the coming months to renew that and also seek opportunity of how we can work with the residents of those facilities because you're right we do get the children at lows that are pulling on but and it's not just lows but commercial places where kids pull the alarm but there's also some of our senior living where they pull the alarm and recently we've got a building where we've got a mental health patient that's pulling the alarm and things so yes there's an ordinance that could say false public alarm the police could do a case and whether you get any reimbursement on it is slim to none but be that as it may we we tend to try to work with the managers of those buildings okay and see if we can do something like have them install tamper covers which make a screeching sound some of the schools have them to try to deter that person from going and actually triggering the alarm we're open to all suggestions um but that's that's what we have thank you okay i don't see any hands up i don't see anybody who's attending um maybe i need to see more she'll be attending by phone that would need to have an opportunity to speak um any hands up in the room if you want to comment okay so i think we've had our public comment um a motion to end i make the motion we close public hearing on the budget thank you don and do i have a second thank you sue any further discussion was in favor please say aye hi hi hi okay public hearing is closed let's move it on to our first business item uh which is to consider adoption of the fiscal year 2022 2023 municipal budget so i guess the uh question in hand is whether we want to approve the budget we just heard comment on is it a proof or adopt what is the right word adopt adopt yeah and actually i raised my hand to ask a question at the same time the motion was made but oh my apology and i had asked a question via email gregg i saw your response come in just before the meeting lorraine also touched on this a little bit in her comments um but i had a question about whether our impact fees were sufficient um and whether we should expand and potentially increase the impact fees that we currently have um so i didn't know if i didn't know if you had responded so i just wanted to touch on that quickly sure um i'll try to remember your your questions tracy specifically to your email um first point is the only impact fees we collect right now are recreation impact fees and public works also has some um more more smaller area specific traffic impact fees road impact fees um based on the calculations they have for certain intersections or certain roads they're going to be affected by truck traffic but townwide it's just recreation impact fees as i mentioned we've started we're recognizing the need for as additional equipment is needed as more calls come in uh possible need as to rescue the possible need for additional impact fees we are seeing a lot of calls whether it's rescue fire um are being driven and in many cases by the larger apartment buildings the multi-unit buildings um just denser clusters of people in those in those buildings are more complex than your single family home so they result in more calls so we're starting with comm dev with uh the fire department starting to think about do we need to have a bigger conversation about impact fees and what that looks like um it's a complicated process i i've been involved with them in the past around the town's looking at sidewalk impact fees uh which is um a different story but the point being you have to create this baseline level of service that that you already have that you want to maintain then you can provide fees calculate fees based on what you want that service to make to stay at as it as growth happens um do you want the the impact fees to cover the whole cost of that increase in service is it to offset some of the tax increase that's more of a political question but you do have to do a whole analysis about where you're at we're trying to go and what's the right range fees within there so um that is something that we we do want to continue and and we'll look at it it's not going to affect the budget at this point obviously if revenue is coming in and we have more revenue that's great and we can adjust in future years but it's not something that we can figure out in the next couple weeks before this budget's adopted yeah and my my question was more um i guess it didn't really belong in the budget it was more about how to mitigate the sort of hidden tax on services um taxing of those services um based on increased and more dense development um so just to be clear it just it triggered it in my mind so i asked it as part of the budget but thanks for the explanation i would just add that over the years you have seen growth both in the village and the town in fact i think i've seen somewhere we're probably the top growing community in the state of vermont probably five out of the last six seven years if not every year that growth comes at a cost of service uh i believe you know for the people who can't see it in our audience there's about seven or eight people from our fire service that get on average six seven calls a day if you want to go out that far um some are real and some are false alarms but either way the bell rings the tone goes out the dispatch goes someone has to go and make sure it's not if it's real it's real and if it's not it still has to be addressed that's the cost of growth an impact fee will cover some of the infrastructure but it is now these buildings that have been allowed because of zoning and because of some of the things we wanted in our community there is an ongoing cost to that if you want to keep aged people in your community and have a continuum that they get to stay in and around their community for the families the price is emergency calls um and um sometimes you get a good quiet year and sometimes you don't um and and as anybody who's driven through this community we have a significant amount of traffic and a significant and a change of elevation it's great to hear your voice again um and one of the things that i've observed is it could be raining here in the village and snowing like the dickens up in the upper elevations of the town so it lots of things happen um but one of the things i would say is that from a staff's standpoint we are starting to look at what are those needs where is the best bang for the buck in the dollar and i was going to go back to apartments we have seen a lot of apartments come online just in the last three or four years and some landlords are really good landlords and they are on top of their units and then there are others and the ones that are others we go to a lot um and that's just the nature of the beast um and i don't even go into some i don't even go into the units that these gentlemen and our officials have to go into and it could range from um fire extinguishers fire doors being open uh panels being left open uh over over use of circuits and blowing of circuits it could go through the whole gamut um and they have to address it as well as our our inspectors and then they have to go back and back to make sure it's in compliance thanks all right thanks any other board questions or comments to be clear are we and this is a big question for Courtney are we looking at 16,675,241 yes okay somebody want to make a motion we'll do it i recommend that the select board adopt the proposed fiscal year 23 general fund budget in the amount of 16,675,241 dollars okay thank you sue have a second second thank you tracy just one clarification you said you said recommend i think i wanted to say you make the motion oh sorry that's the way it's written in the memo yeah i accept that friendly amendment all right thank you uh any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes five zero move on to the next uh business item which is interview and potential appointment erin de vries conservation and trails committee did i pronounce the name right yes you did okay thank you good come on forward thank you enter you know to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself um explain why you'd like to be part of the the committee and uh thank you my name is erin de vries i'm gonna pull my mask down so you can see my face hello nice to meet you um i have applied to be on the conservation trails committee i'm a watershed ecologist i have been working in the water resources field for nearly 20 years most of those years in the state of vermont a few in michigan uh i am as i said a watershed ecologist i work for vermont river conservancy as their conservation stewardship program manager so i help um the the organization helped them to acquire lands along rivers so working with landowners farmers private citizens that want to protect the lands along our rivers for flooding purposes for recreational purposes we have a number of swimming holes so i work on acquiring those lands as well as stewarding those lands on annual basis with some volunteers i also work as a program manager for an organization called the association of marina industries where i have developed a national clean and resilient marina professional training and certification program so we're working with over 10 000 marinas to have professionals that work with those marinas to be trained to implement clean and resilient best management practices across the country so i just recently developed that um in 2021 i i developed that program with that um organization um i am a recreational enthusiast i have lived in essix now going on um two years um prior to that i lived in cochester and then in the mad river valley where i recreated walked the entire watershed quite often because i'm a big hiker and also like to get out onto um our riverways in vermont and um uh what else i brought my resume i could tell you all about myself and what i've done since i graduated from college in new hampshire and went to grad school at the university vermont to study natural resource planning and management uh did you have some questions sir i don't thank you erin uh any any board board member questions go ahead sue i have a question so i think in your letter you said one of your priorities was enhancing our trails and recreational areas yeah and i'm curious what ideas or suggestions you have sure how we can do that yeah so i attended the december cto i'm trying to get my acronyms correct the conservation trails committee meeting and um found out like their well saw their work plan and they were talking about their their work plan um and so i think i also have been an educator um in the past and so kind of a informal or non-formal educator so i think one of the ideas i've had is to like i've seen i live by sandhill park and i go there frequently with my kids and my dog and my friends um and using those trails to maybe highlight some of the cool features that are part of those trails the natural communities that exist um within that trail or the other trails that we have indian brook reservoir is another place that i frequent mainly in the summer in the in the fall um but i think we could be um putting some just you know a couple of signs um just to talk about those natural environments um that we have and then i also thought um it'd be really cool to have and i noticed at the sandhill park um there have been some Boy Scout troops that have been making the um they're not kiosk but they're like these stands that say these trails have been mapped and um um designed maybe not designed but they have been mapped out by the Boy Scouts and they're putting up some of those signs just getting more volunteers out there to do the maintenance of the trails um and and having trail crews a volunteer trail crews um that sort of thing i haven't i to be honest with you i haven't given that much thought about it because i've i looked at their work plan i was i was like oh wow these these are like the different um projects i guess i'd be interested in like learning more about and like working with the the rest of the committee to figure out how we could implement those projects um but i will give an example when i went to the committee um meeting they were talking about the need for um support to help do some mapping of those trails um and they said there was someone here at the town but that that person was really busy and they were kind of looking for some some extra help and so i had recently been in touch with someone at the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab and they have people there that are looking for projects um students that are well versed in GIS mapping much better than i myself am or the people on the committee said i don't know anything about this and i so i put um i sent an email during the the meeting to Darren and to um Alan sharing just that information that there are people that are actually looking to do this type of work um as part of their education so um that was just one way that i think i could contribute to the committee is by you know i have i have a lot of contacts and i also have a lot of ideas i'm kind of like an idea generator i'd like to call myself um and i really enjoy working with people on a committee or our team um to to find solutions to problems or to just really celebrate hey we have this really cool trail here we need some work done on it who can we get to help us with it or who how can we get more people out there to experience these recreational areas thank you all right uh see patrick's hand up hi thanks for coming out tonight um i i think it's clear with your impressive resume where your passion is um do you mind if i ask what's prompting you to kind of go into volunteerism and you're in public service i mean obviously you know maybe you've done it in the past and gotten experience i'd have just kind of uh questioning because honestly any question i think with your background you're probably going to nail sure well thanks for that um so i have volunteered um for most of my life um but more recently um and i'll just say i grew up quaker and so um we just um always were helping out our community um in pennsylvania where i lived and so um it was just like yeah you just volunteered yourself um or my mom would volunteer me i should say um when i was younger so um i i just like to do that i've always liked to do that but um i recently was part in when when my family i lived in an arbor michigan um i um attended a meeting where they were really looking for people to help citizens to help with a climate action plan and for the um for the county and so um they needed someone who wanted to obviously they need to volunteer and they wanted someone that had a water resources background so i was like whoa i was at this meeting i was like well i could do that and i just kind of raised my hand and they were like okay you're on the committee um and so um i was like okay what are we doing with this so um i've just always kind of been like sure i'll help out um especially if it's something that i'm passionate and interested in about and it also benefits if i have experience in that it's like it makes it just a better um fit for me and i think for the committee that i'm on i also just helped to uh i just finished my term with um the association the american association adaptation professionals and so i helped as a co-leader um bring people that were looking for opportunities in climate adaptation to our meetings and put together several meetings around um how to network how to volunteer yourself for um or with organizations with committees um how you kind of get yourself out there um get yourself experienced in the field of climate adaptation and i actually don't have a ton of experience in climate adaptation but i have experience in um helping people to network themselves um in the environmental field so that might have been a long-winded way of saying i just really enjoy volunteering than i have thank you very much yeah you're welcome you need to learn to sit on your hands and i don't get so much volunteering my question is do you have any grant writing experience because having looked at their um proposals and their plans yep they're gonna have to have some more income from somewhere and they were looking at doing grants and i knew they were looking for somebody that could do grant writing yeah they talked about that at the committee meeting and i do um when i worked for uh uvm lake champagne sea grant i wrote several uh noah grants and worked with the echo center to put together educational uh grants some we got some we didn't get um and then when i worked for a michigan sea grant um so there's a theme it's a it's a water theme in my life um when i worked for michigan sea grant i put together as the kind of um project manager for a grant that we submitted to the great lakes protection fund for about 800 000 and we got the grant it was a four-year grant um so i'm very proud of that i did that within the first year and a half that um i was at michigan sea grant so i do have grant experience from small to that last large one yep anything tracy good so sue asked you about trails the other the other part of the committee is conservation do you have any any thoughts about where you might contribute there or focus our uh yeah i i guess well my back room is in conservation um environmental science and conservation biology um conservation is so it's like conservation is very important piece of a larger i guess um i don't know plan um if you will i'm trying to think of a better word but like there's protection there's conservation there's mitigation there's adaptation there's restoration of our lands and waters um and so i think i would need to kind of dive deeper into the the larger like sx community and what um natural areas you know are here that we might want to conserve um you know i'm not anti um development or anything like that but i i um am pro um consideration of conservation of land surrounding development um because i think that's important for the people that are going to be living in that newly developed area as well as for um the residents living outside of that um that development for lands in the town so i'm kind of like babbling and not making much sense here but um i don't have like i believe in conservation i don't i don't know i can't tell you andy if it's like oh i think this piece of property over here um should be conserved but i you know speaking from um a watershed ecologist's point of view i think we should have more lands along the browns river and other places heading up towards westford especially you know should be um and this is like speaking more from my job i'm hoping to you know talk to some people about conserving some of their lands along our waterways um and if the town was interested in supporting those efforts you know i'd love to have a conversation but that's more for my for my job sort of thing but um yeah i don't know how to quite answer that question any any better right thank you thank you any other comments or questions um thank you for um stepping forward we will uh go into executive session at the end of the meeting and have a discussion about what we want to do and uh if we come into a decision you'll be notified tomorrow by town staff oh tomorrow great so or you can uh lurk about to the end of the meeting and see if we make a motion okay okay just go to sleep first and then this is this is uh our agenda's kind of long tonight so okay thank you all right thanks so uh next we have uh steven dowd um good evening good evening uh with that before i uh um i had previously talked to you about um my experience in essics i i've been a teacher and coach in essics for over 40 years serving there um i actually organized the effort to first clean up indian brook before it was ever indian brook uh owned by the as a park um i've lived for over 35 years on india brook road so i certainly know indian brook uh well and i you know as a longtime resident of the of the town i care about what happens here and i've i've acted on that so the real question is you know having interviewed with you before is so of what value am i to you um and to the conservation and trails committee and and the fact of the matter is i have a lifelong record of actually getting things done i've been to those committee meetings i know the initiatives that they're talking about um after a while you really need someone to actual raise their hand and say i will take ownership for what's happening in that in that project i mean i i've witnessed that even in that committee um and i am that person uh most immediately with regard to the committee i i was there i uh worked hard at the indian brook cleanup i actually worked with a gentleman who was uh a husband of one of the committee members we were uh well into it into mud you know clearing out uh streams i also organized a group of high school volunteers to actually get things done and and with my experience you know uh i have a skill level of being able to do that i can do that in a kind but efficient manner and all the things that are involved with this committee they're they're gonna take people you have a lot of people with ideas but you know who's actually gonna do this and get it done and organize the effort uh right away actually with that committee they haven't adopted the tree initiative and uh i can help them with that i told them i i you know i volunteered actions that i could take to actually move that thing forward uh and they were responsive to that they heard that uh as i mentioned i'm i'm very good at organizing people um i work working with other people for other people uh i have to say that i'm honored to have been selected to the Vermont principal's um athletic hall of fame and the st michael's athletic hall of fame and the only reason that i mention those things is that i can work with people to actually produce results and to produce excellence that's that is my forte um i uh as a department head for sx high school for 15 years i was actually voted by my department to be that department head because i was able to support them uh in their efforts to to teach um they knew that i support them and they and they appreciated what i did for them so you know 15 years of that sense yep i i can work with a lot of different people uh i um uh and working with people i'm on the meat director of the largest track and field meat in Vermont and i've been that meat director for over a decade so i can work with people who are highly knowledgeable um get them to bond together in a team uh i have been surrounded by i i know that there's intellect on that committee i've seen that and you've selected people to to be on that committee for that reason um and i've worked with those people my my whole life um but as i i've studied some of these principles through the natural resources program um but i'm also a person who's going to pick up that shovel or that chainsaw and actually volunteer and get it done this committee needs that it needs people who are going to be active i think some of the people who were on that committee who are not were just that kind of person this is not a stepping stone position for me um and i have no interest in ever directing this committee uh yet i am the guy who's going to roll up his sleeves and dig in and get it done uh i problems off i organize others when i'm needed so good ideas uh uh need active participants to get things done i'm the guy who's going to bring those participants to this committee that's who i am all right thank you any uh word number questions don go ahead if you did you actually teach the natural resources program or you i work with those teachers for yeah i mean i i i certainly know them and and have been in that in that program and in that classroom for years so no i am not i'm an english teacher first but i work actively with the center for technology out of choice um it's a it's a good opportunity to work with students which i'm good at and also to continue to learn my second question is to say in the last year and do you have grant writing experience no but i'll tell you um not only uh you know if you're talking about representing that committee sometime uh i'm a i'm a skilled writer and i'm a speaker um do i have i have i written grant no um do i have the ability yes thank you all right thanks any other questions too go ahead yeah i'm curious since you're like i get in there and take charge and get her done kind of guy what what are uh the top one or two things that you see that that committee should be rolling up their sleeves to do i i know that indian brook it's park itself well i've i've also you know i i've hiked all over essex and and between saxon hill and and indian brook that indian brook itself that requires constant maintenance and in fact recently it required consummates and to keep that going there are a lot of people i live on indian brook road that that one park is the gem for essex and you know thousands of people i know that sounds you know like an extension it's true i mean that place is packed it's packed in the summertime but it's packed in the wintertime um so so keeping those trails well maintained um i i think you actually after they do a good job with um with people who are who are at the gate and serving at the gate but that's that's kind of an important issue with indian brook park and the and the usership there you have camping areas you have you have a lot of things you have a lot of uh um downed uh trees especially on the on the backside that's going to have to be taken care of that that is an accident waiting to happen and it's going to take a lot of work but it's so packed and it's so cluttered um i i hate to think of what that spells out that's those trees have been down for a long time and they're packed in um i i think that that uh as essex continues to grow the usage and all the parks continue to grow so and i and i i think it's a very positive thing uh saxon hill is is primarily set up for mountain biking i think that there's a great potential to set up trails there that are hiking primarily hiking trails if you hike the biking trail you're you're hiking a biking trail you're going around in circles so i think there's i think there's more potential there to actually have hiking trails in that area thank you yeah hey patrick did you have your hand on it it actually was but compliments to sue because that was an excellent question and also mine all right all right anything else okay steven thanks for your return i appreciate it for your your uh your obvious dedication there by coming back so we'll we'll we'll uh go in as i said before we'll go in an executive session and let you and let you know thanks great thanks uh ken signarillo come on up hello again been here before yep happy new year happy new year to you all uh you all know me already from the last time i interviewed and i'm going over too many details i'm not much of a cheerleader for myself so i apologize that again the too much details please ask questions if you have any um you know my educational background i have a bachelor's degree in forest management and i did four years of graduate work here at uvm that's what brought me to vermont in fact that graduate work was focused on forest biometry that has to do with forest measurements inventorying statistical analysis sampling that sort of thing various attributes not just trees um it was mostly focused on that and mapping so that was the basis for my um my graduate work and um it turned out that i started a business which ended up started off being forest management related to business but morphed into more database and information systems and i put that aside i moved to sx uh some 16 years ago and now lived here that long we have a property that has a forest on it we're enrolled in the state's current use program so i'm quite familiar with forest management on an active basis i harvest my own firewood i have a tiny sugar bush so even in just that little area of my own i see we have a big problem with invasive species and that was what i spoke about last time that's a big concern for me we have quite a few invasive species that um it's one of these slow moving disasters you know that creeps up on you and before you know it you're invaded by too much to deal with that's my background um this committee is an interesting committee i took a look at the mission statement recently and i noticed that there's actually seven things that the committee is supposed to be inventorying and studying one of them is natural resources of course we talk about a lot but also historic educational cultural scientific archi architectural and archaeological resources would kind of surprise me so one of the things i have encountered before is a situation like this and i realized that the committee itself even the staff that's dedicated to it simply doesn't have the resources to be able to accomplish the mission really well and in fact i looked at the work plan there's 17 items on the work plan all of them deal with one of those seven items so there's a lot that needs to be done that's not getting done and i want to try in addition to applying my experience and knowledge to the stuff that's already there i'd like to try to maybe move into some of these other areas a little bit the only way to accomplish that is going to get public involvement the committee doesn't have enough resources the bodies aren't there staff certainly doesn't so public outreach is going to be the answer to those things so i'd like to try to work on some projects that relate to some of these other six items that are not being handled questions all right thanks ken any questions same one do you have any experience writing grants interesting question way back when i was living in berlington i participated in something called the sale city challenge this was a nationwide competition for 10 cities to apply for a nationwide regatta and it was quite a daunting process it was all funded by a telephone company and i applied berlington and we were one of the 10 cities chosen it's too good unless patrick i wanted to give patrick a chance to say i don't see his hands so i think in your letter you specifically reference rural based projects and i'm curious if there's anything specifically that you're thinking of yep there's a lot going on now in the urban side you know that the emerald tree of the emerald ash borer project obviously we have other invasive species like gypsy moth for example i was just looking around the town recently i noticed that it's not very consistent where the infestation currently is and you can see the infestation right now there are little brown egg masses on trees each of which contain about 500 to a thousand eggs they will hatch come march and april they climb up the trees eat the leaves two years on a rose very very bad for trees there's a heavy infestation in the area between indian brook up brigham hill road and brigham hill lane that sort of triangle very heavy infestation um way up on brigham hill lane trees were naked lap this year you walked in the woods and you would think it was early spring or fall no leaves so there are areas that really need to be identified and um and focused on and the state needs to be communicated with they may spray depending upon the situation come march so that is a kind of rural project i have in mind i want some of the other nasty invasive species that we have probably seen these big clumps of like a viney kind of thing that's japanese knotweed that can be remedied if people know that it's an invasive species so a lot of public outreach and education on the rural side i think is very very important as well as the urban projects as well right thanks ken any other questions new mask it's kind of muffled does it sound too muffled fine i upgraded the mask a bit no we can you be fine you'll be fine yeah i went to the negative i got a much tighter seal now too so i was a little worried about that myself um okay ken thanks again for coming back for a second round here and i'm thrilled to see so many qualified candidates and excited as well great thanks we'll uh we'll let you know after uh this later this evening or you'll find out tomorrow actually unless you hang around okay we'll move on to the next business item um 60 discussion about proposed fiscal year 2023 capital budget and five-year plan uh denis earlier do we have somebody else there he is here any can you hear me yes we can hear you great uh i almost i almost went to panic mode as i started to click on my screen went blank but it's back up thank goodness um the last meeting we went through and kind of described for the board and for people in the audience and and those who were listening what's in the capital plan how it's organized i'm not going to go through that again um i think that most of time and this is a long meeting with a lot of items on it and i think it's important to answer any questions that either the public or the board has with respect to the plan um i am going to make a couple quick comments that are repeats just so again it gives kind of an original answer one question that came up the last time uh or correct one item in the in the capital plan it's interesting if you look at the actual funding for the capital plan you know we often think of it in terms of the two cents on um the tax bill but that only generates about five hundred and thirty five thousand dollars and i say only um our capital plan this year has a total expenditure of about two point eight million dollars and so the the two cents contributes about nineteen percent of the funding um operating fund transfers contribute another nineteen percent um but at least this year the largest proportion of expenditure in the capital plan is some grants and developers funds that's sixty one percent um and that's important to remember when we start to think about where the money is coming from and where it's going um i do want to mention the question that came up at the last meeting an individual was here from the players at the meeting uh about memorial hall and there was an error in the written document as i said earlier we had copied um all the materials from the previous year which were in a spreadsheet form or in microsoft into questica is a budgeting document which is great but we didn't correct all the errors and there is an error in there where we indicated that some of the needs of memorial hall one of which was to address the safety of the front entrance um that's been completed it's not a future need it's done we also talking there about the hvac system in the future that's accurate but right now there is nothing wrong with the hvac system it is an albatross system it's hard to get repair parts it's functioning and it will continue to function as long as we can continue to get repair repair parts and maintenance and probably at some future date but it's it's probably longer down the road than three or four years we probably are going to have to look at replacing that system but that's not over the short term so that comment's still valid but the the comment about the front entrance is no longer applicable and i thought i had cleared that up right off the bat and with that i guess i'll toss it back to you to ask any questions and between Courtney and i will try to answer them all right thanks Dennis word member questions i guess i am going to ask go i asked it in my email too Dennis why are you recommending investing in the water tower um i'm an engineer but i'm also a historic buff and it really doesn't have anything to do with my specific concern but it is an important historical element of Essex um the whole fort area has a unique history we own a substantial portion of it the a good part of the parade field is in Essex a lot of the buildings are in Essex a lot are in Colchester but it's an important part of our history that we should not forget and the staff the board has contributed sums every year small amounts um the historic society has gone out and done fundraisers but we cannot get to that end goal of essentially keeping that tower intact and i view it as if we were to lose that that's an important part of history there are not there's only another one that i know of in the northeast which i visited in southern Sackett's harbor that one also has no public access but they did restore it a number of years ago this you know the tower was built in the 1890s it was a water tower but it's it's a historic part of the community and the roofing the shingles on the roof the roof some of the roof framing the windows allowing pigeons in we need to fix that i think that we've gotten to the point where we're getting closer and closer but every year costs go up and every year we're short by a small what i consider to be in the overall budget a relatively small amount of money and at some point we're going to lose that historic structure if we don't fix it and i've got a concern for all our buildings in that way we've got i think the count that we indicated in a lot of the documents is more than 27 buildings the town owns not all are worth saving um and i can give us some examples i'll give you the building at the tree farm as an example that in my opinion as an engineer is not worth saving the property is valuable the property has multiple future uses which can be a great benefit to the community but the building is a mess and the building we tried for four or five years to think of creative uses for that building and i know i'm jumping around but i can't come up with anything it's a creative use for that structure in the shape it's in the support beams don't even rest on this on the foundation in the basement there's no plumbing the building is sagged structurally structurally you'd have to rebuild almost tear it down to rebuild it and if you're going to do that utilize the property and put something there that is a useful purpose that's the opposite of the tower the tower i think is still salvageable i know it's still salvageable it's a beautiful tower i'm hoping at some point in time perhaps some of the buildings around that building change use or the land changes use and i think that tower would be you know it's what i would call the from the lake champlain entrance to the town you can't drive on 15 without noticing that tower and to allow that to fall apart to me is just a mistake it's a shame and for for this year when we've been able to get additional funds arpa funds and other types of funds we're able to have some significant fund balances the amount that we want to put into that to at least restore restore it so it will stand up for another 50 years is worth that investment and that's my pitch for doing work on the tower and i think this is that if we're not going to do it this year and my view and i hate to be crude we almost have to kiss off the tower because i don't see with the the future issues and separation and costs for the town i don't see those funds being available in future years and if we don't do it we're missing an opportunity when we do have the funds to fix something that needs to fix it that's my pitch right greg's got some comments too go ahead greg yeah i denis said all that much more eloquently than i can but by dawn i just i did want to echo it and and highlight the points about it it's a historical feature um i know i'm my response to you i've mentioned that if we don't do it now that the cost is only going to get greater in the future um and i didn't i kind of glossed over all the stuff that denis said which is it's always much more important that it is a unique feature it's a unique aspect of esics it's part of the history um there's not there's hardly anything else like it in the northeast it gets more feedback from the historical society as well that um same comments same same message that that denis is making it's what is does does the community want to value its history and and what's been here um before the present and this is something that there's nothing else like it and how much is the community willing to to invest in that to make it um protect it and make it be able to be something in the future um that's why denis is more eloquent than i am and i do understand that but as denis explained like the buildings at the tree farm have no useful purpose what is the useful purpose of that water tower there used to be um i used to be school tours kids could go up there and and be in it see in it it's part of the history of the um uh the army up there the military and and part of esics is history so it's the value of of the history of the community i i i don't like what it's it's our history of this community i don't know if many people understand that there was a military base here in the late 1800s early 1900s that is part of why there's a lot of things here as well there used to be a streetcar it would have been great to have preserved one of those um for someone who's actually been up in the water tower scared out of my mind by the way um going up that tower and only because denis gave permission i think he wasn't happy with me at the moment and he let me go up there and the view from there is spectacular but the fort was something to behold back in the early 1900s and i think that as we are stewards of the ecology we should also be stewards of our own history and one day if we do put enough money in there we can get kids and other people to go up there in a safe manner not like i had to go up there um and and maybe we get the pigeons a different home but it's it's a structure that i think is worth saving in this community and if not then what's worth saving i i also like to mention the other thing too is if you look at at the fort and it does it's got a unique history with regard to um um the soldiers who fought there um it has a racial history in terms of the black soldiers who who fought were brought in from the west and were there and i think what we're missing on some of that and there's some things that that i would love to see to enhance the history that's so important to the community i would love to see a grant obtained so that we could put you know the the states just finish that beautiful path or will this this summer along route 15 that a lot of people are going to take and use and we ought to enhance that we ought to enhance that with historic visits to the tower and there is historic museum in the fort which has a great history of the fort and the whole area around it um that's kind of ignored i'd love to see plaques outside put there and i i know one particular grant that we go after and probably get it um through the Lake Champlain Basin program where they do want plaques put up at historic sites where you can you know people can be directed to that i also would love to see some form of recognition of the history of that fort in terms of a statue or something along that path that would recognize the fact that um the the regiments that fought in the west who were black soldiers spent time there and contributed to the history of this area what a wonderful thing that would be and i think you can enhance that area it's it you finish some of the things that were already started look at all the buildings in the fort that could have been torn down but are can being converted or were converted into condominiums look at the parade ground the gazebo in the parade ground we've kept all that that i mean i i can't think of any other building in the town of Essex it's historical like that that you can point to and say we have a history in this community that's more than superficial it goes pretty deep and it helped create this community and i just think that it's you know i think in the budget the number we're looking at is about 45 000 and then a capital budget of the amount we're talking about why not i wasn't sure if your hand or patrick's was up patrick go ahead thanks andy uh and thanks dentists for all of that um i i agree completely um you have walked my dog over almost every inch of this town i have to say and uh i've certainly that includes back in the four area um and i don't know if anyone has had a chance to look at the renovation that vpr did in their building back there but they kept the history of that building intact to the point where you can go in and still see the horse hitches that the officers used to use for the stabling that's just up there on the wall you know in front of various modern style offices um i think it's great i think there is a huge opportunity there and not to doom and gloom it but dentists touched on it i think that it does become a lot more difficult to get these funds after this year i think one separation i mean we know that's unknown unknown we know it's coming and no one knows what's going to happen to it um you know if we have this opportunity strike now and do it because it's going to be so much harder to do in two years so yeah thanks um dentists the 45 000 that is in the plan for fiscal year 23 that is to shore up the roof and the windows at the top or so what specifically will will get accomplished okay we'll we've actually we actually have about 95 thousand dollars saved through the combination of other funds so it's a 95 plus the 45 it would probably be less expensive to fix if we could use the existing stairwell but that's what's the concern if you've been over there if you've had the door open and look you don't want to use that that's a future that's a future project it is but that can wait years um so what happens is and we a few years ago um we actually had a friend um of another party in public works flies a drone up there and actually got a little bit of trouble in that because i think it's something about f a a airspace or something but he took some great pictures and and those pictures showed that some of the slate it's a conical roof up top and we looked underneath the supports underneath by themselves looking up if you go up in that area the wood is still well supported but what's happened is the outside framing around that upper cupial some of this the the um tile slate has come off there's one or two that have come off the rest of them are in pretty good shape but the wood trim around that is rotting and has rotted and that's supporting that upper dome so if that goes that allows the water to get in and then you're in you know you're up the creek at that point the windows themselves the frames have to be taken out cut out put back in and our intent would be to either screen them or put something up there so pigeons don't have access i mean we've cleaned it up a couple times but you go up there it's pretty nasty so it would have to be worked at from the outside and we've come up with a couple plans about to do that in terms of because there's a concrete floor on the upper level that you can stand on so you can provide if you get up with either a crane or get up there with um a you know very large trade picker but probably a crane you can set up the system so that you can work on that from the upper level and you don't have to go down very you know you're up at that top level so you'd be replacing the slate in the cupule making sure that underneath the wood is still solid the frame we know is solid and fixing all that trim around the outside doing the windows but you're also doing it from a hundred and some feet up in the air you know a couple hundred feet up in the air so you're you know the it's a little more expensive project than if you had it sitting on the ground it could just take it apart piece by piece so that's why it's a little bit more expensive but that's what we do and we found um at least one contractor who we've had good experience with who has given us some price quotes of where we think are reasonable and we'd probably want to get a couple others but we think we're in the right price range to do those repairs so that at least the structure itself is stage waterproof and water's not leaking into it to affect some of the cement and joints on the inside of the building and some of the other the stairwell that's still there that's you know old cast iron and everything else so we can keep the water out and that's the main thing fix that cupule fix the windows screen it in and then um sign it do other things um you know I would not have a I think we need to clean up around the outside you know plant some shrubbery around it to make it look nice put some plaques up and we can make it available to people you can open the door you can go in you can see the inside you can see the beautiful old um water tank that's inside that's riveted it's kind of an unusual water tank you can see the beautiful stairwork going up you're just not going to go up it so it's it would be a great opportunity and I think a great opportunity for educating our kids about some of the history of Essex um it's a it's a great site with a lot of potential that we just can't use at all now and I just want to preserve the site for the future and back when there was a significant discussion about this the last time there was a significant discussion about this the select board was invited to go to the top of the tower we weren't allowed to go together of course so I know Sue and I have both been up there and are well aware of the condition of the I still have nightmares yeah the the the staircase going up there and the in the view is spectacular from up there oh yeah it was beautiful up on top it was the getting up and down that was yeah yeah and it was uh it was it's an interesting and yeah I I agree that's probably the right time to to do it because it's gonna be much more difficult in the next couple years and we don't want to lose the lose it completely yeah uh and I know we so is also uh in the audience yep if we can go to her because she would like to make a comment about redevelopment of the area and having that as a focal point yep we so do my we so no I just wanted to underscore what Dennis was saying about it being an iconic building I mean it's such an I it's such a landmark that's particular to Essex and I wanted to underscore also that the economic value and enhanced sense of place and restored historic districts have really proven themselves to be huge assets to many many communities in the United States around the world and around the world it seems like it would be a missed opportunity not to support this and thanks so this one item my uh my wife still talks about the time that the library put Rapunzel hair down from the from the the windows up there I remember that there must have been a long long time ago that that happened but yeah if we could that that certainly is a very visible very visible building it's it's interestingly interesting how it's where it's placed but it is okay um any other comments about capital plan Tracy go ahead I noticed the Indian brothers dam repairs FOI 22 there was $10,000 FOI 23 is zero I'm just wondering if that's waiting for coordination or discussion with the dam safety department and identification of potential grants yes um you're right on both counts um we are waiting to have that you know I have that study done so we can get a better understanding of what needs to be done to the dam it also may be one of those projects that fits into some of the federal reconstruction money where again if it if there's a way to ensure that that dam is safe which we believe it to be but you know to go through whatever needs to be done to enhance that aspect of it and also to build the feature into it so you can in fact lower the water level in the dam which means changing the valve out and some other stuff um that may be you know again that's another asset we don't want to lose it in the community so my thought process in doing and working or our thought process in doing the plan this year was that project if if the dam is going to require work there may be other grants for the dam as well and we wanted to put the money in those items where we knew at least this year we knew had a we knew had a defined need and some kind of a defined cost associated with it this one is is we know that it's going to be expensive we don't get grants but we don't know what our match would be and so that's why we need that study done so we can kind of identify what is the real cost so this may be an item in a future year that you see you know higher costs go into so we can afford the local share and grants at this point we don't have a good number for that and it's so rather than put money in there that's just going to sit without that number we decided to put money in the other council where they was actually going to have a use for the funds this year great thank you we're not going to forget about it it's just not we just didn't fund it this year here right thanks tracy any other questions i've got a couple there's a records preservation expendant f y 23 for two lincoln hall and it says it's part of a three-year plan just looking for clarity what what that is and and is it town records is village rikers i'm not i'm not trying to object in any way i'm just looking for clarity to understand you know what what that is i'm gonna have to defer on that one because i know that we've gotten the funds through the secretary of state's office that's available for that and i know that that's an issue i do not know the specifics on which records those are maybe greg or evan does i i do not i do not either i've reached out to the clerk to try to get that i didn't get to those emails until the end of the day so i have not yeah going to answer you okay okay all right all right but we'll try to get an answer for you though for the next meeting so that you know the next public hearing so we've got you know better information on that all right thanks Dennis thanks great the other the other question is there's a 25k expend for fire department building expansion study this is above and beyond the space study that was done previously and is this is related to the fact that we want to prioritize possibly a potential replacement is that what we're looking at there you've got the fire chief um in the audience but i'll kick it off charlie and tell me if i'm wrong or jump in but um yes it's separate from the the space need study that that's been done that's been in the works um it's taking place as as the pairs have been made to the fire station they've made it functional they haven't made it um up to what it could be or necessarily needs to be as far as uh there's no equipment's coming in as um additional repairs are need going to be needed um it's an opportunity public works could could read repurpose that building as a public works building if it's ever if fire ever goes somewhere else um so it's kind of taking a look at that comprehensive view of what is needed in a fire station and is not the right spot for it um and fire chief is here if there's anything else to elaborate greg pretty much summed it up yes um i think we've all agreed though that on our side that the co-locate or relocating us in that same spot is not probably financially feasible given the size needs that we will have to grow in the future and denis elaborated at the last meeting about the capital plan of um of his idea of repurposing the building for a maintenance facility and locating the fire station somewhere else so this is a small step to get us in that direction of getting um taking a look at it what iso ratings what our call volumes are where our growth centers are where we might be able to source land there is not a lot of land available um so that's going to be probably significant hurdle right now as to where we should be building and then what's available there and if not what else can we do right thanks thanks thank you and then the other question i had was about the there's a uh a line item for new space for uh sx park and recreation i understand that yeah this building is pretty cramped right now um is this is this a new building expand in f y 23 um there's two questions i guess here's there's shows a prior balance of 145 790 and looking at last year's binder i don't see where that money i don't know where that money came from just trying to figure out that's a subtotal for buildings i'm looking at this i read that i read the read the thing wrong i think yeah there's there's a dash for for the sandtel park and then then there's a line to subtotal buildings 145 790 if any to uh reframe like reframe like maybe look look look back at this again so indy i think that i can answer the question i think that what we wanted to try to do in this year's budget which we have not done in previous years is identify like i said we've got buildings number of town buildings but a lot of those town buildings um are inadequate for what we need for our services um we're at a point now there's no no money actually allocated to that project this year but it's we put it into the project list because what's going to happen with if separation goes through what happens if separation doesn't go through what happens space at 81 main and at some point the the plan that ellie has has come up with and that tom yendo or a building person has kind of done some sketches for they're in the plan would be to essentially concentrate um those services for recreation at the sandtel park area the pool is going to need work in the future and if we're going to do this let's put those facilities where you know the administrative offices where the the demand is and so we've identified you know what that might be um but all it is is an identification with no cost being spent this year that's we've got to wait this out a little bit to see what does the town going to look like before we start talking about what are our buildings going to look like yeah sues correct the way the the way the page is formatted there's a box around the the the box that includes the uh the epr space proposal also includes the subtotal for the entire section so i was looking at the subtotal numbers thinking that they were part of the the uh i didn't i didn't see that it was the the bottom line of that box is the subtotal not not the so yeah it's easier to see that with numbers for i withdraw my question okay all right great aren't i was getting excited that we're going to build a new building this but uh don't go ahead i do have a question dana is there any health concerns over the heating and ventilation issues at the police station we want to fix them the mold that's around those windows and we want to do that um i we have not had any health concerns with respect to that it's not like a um the the problems that have been have been identified by the police chief and by tom and the architects and engineers who worked on that is pretty well concentrated around the will of the windows it needs to be fixed or it could be lead could lead to a bigger problem but at the current time we've not had any health issues with regard to any employees any that have been reported and the sooner we get that fixed the sooner that problem will go away and and that's it's more uh let's fix the problem before we have a problem then wait for those other issues to develop thank you okay any other board member questions all right uh i see a couple hands up online and um thank you um uh i i just want to compliment denisey he's always very clear and um i like to plead for the fire the water tower and i just wondered if anybody besides me remembers that a few years back there was a an event where there was a display in a building near the fire tower which had a huge number of photographs of historic nature there were photographs of the parade ground with all the soldiers and and i don't remember it was just a really impressive display i don't know where that display went and and it it should become part of town archives somehow but it was a really important display so i don't know who else besides me got to see it and i think i remember going in and sticking my head in the door of the fire tower which is all you were allowed water tower which is all you were allowed to do anyway thank you all right thanks Margaret andy yeah andy i can answer the question um it is a private collection um but the person is very proud of the fort of the museum there and and we'll show people the contents um you know like by appointment one of my thoughts was that we again for what it's worth just ideas i've been to a lot of historical places where they've taken photographs and essentially put them on copper plates for example and you could take a couple of you know clean up around the when we if we fix the tower clean up around it make the shrubbery look nice you know take some of the copper plates and put them out there with photographs of what it was with descriptions again for educational purposes so it becomes a draw for people to go look at and if you can't get into the historical museum you can at least see some of those pictures and if they're on some kind of a plate mounted on a single platform with verbiage underneath it it would at least be better than it is now which is oh what's that and provides some of the history that would go along with the structure and the other buildings that are out there hey thanks Dennis I see that hi hi thank you randy two two things one real quickly um that the indian book project you were talking about Dennis and you were talking about work on the dam if in the monies that you're going to get for that i've had a lot of people mentioned to me that it's hard for the handicap to get into the water if when they were working on the dam could they do a like ramp that would go into the water to facilitate that entry for people it's it's just a thought i didn't know because anywhere else it's hard to get in so it's just keep that in the back of your mind second thing i wanted to say you know all we're talking about with the water tower and the things with the interviews that we've just recently had tonight um the conservation committee the conservation and trails committee has a mission and the mission one of the mission statements is make and maintain an inventory of lands within the municipality which have historic educational cultural scientific architectural or archaeological values in which the public has an interest and in the conservation projects there can have working landscapes that encourage people to use it so i think this is something that the trails committee that the conservation and trails committee could also work on i think that would be kind of nice to do giving us something of that nature and the other thing it's attached but i'm going to say it anyway the um the committee is a small committee for the for the mission that we have we have three excellent candidates i heard tonight see but i wish you could give all three a position that's something to say goodbye smack that one in all right lorraine that was very clever um thank you for the presentation that is i um i am an idiot i was born right here i grew up in the village it was up in the town now and i always refer to that building as the lookout tower i didn't even know it was water tower cool today like how stupid is that so if i didn't know that i bet a lot of people don't even realize what we're talking about um having you know been here for years um so i i also see it as the as opportunity for an economic tension as well bring tourism into town and certainly with a either under park or under the the conservation committee i would love to see signage added into this throughout the whole town to make like a short trail or something and also i saw it then if it looked like that there was supposed to be work schedules where i think about 50k on the stairs in 2014 or 2012 um there's an article that quoted you so it sounds like the stairs didn't get done so i'm not sure why um and then also it said that we leased that out to the shantlain water district which i found odd that was an article 2017 i didn't know what that leasing was about but we're gonna get back to the elaboration and also it looks like they were seeking um national status for a water landmark uh a federal uh water landmark i think was referred to and it looked like they had applied in 2017 i was wondering if they had um maybe any risk in those of that because certainly it sounds to me like that a grant opportunity being handed to us they'll put more money into it because your assessment value's just completed then in 2017 it looks like that's 225 000 which maybe what 300 400 000 nowadays is to make it complete um if that that is a valuable opportunity i think you can see repungal as a fundraiser with a hair going down the time you get a certain mark for fundraising opportunities right and i also had a question about that the salt shed is what we'll plan as we talked about that last time um it seems to come up with about 500 000 right and i was wondering given some of the separation things that we're talking about moving um and consolidating and putting things in one place was that kind of work on the exact same type of salt thing yet now or did you look at other structures like those big metal structures that sit on the pin foundation because it's also the new triangle building sites nowadays and the money what has been did it out and why and it's starting to make them all be india can you answer a couple of the questions um if i can remember them all but there the the the tower had an interesting history because the town owned it when the uh military left and then it got turned over the whole area there got turned over to HUD and eventually got turned over to the town and Champlain Water District i'm one of the commissioners from south borough and even though i'm the public work structure in Essex and and the the um manager of the Champlain Water District back in those years uh person of Ed Blake lived in the town of Essex and convinced the board at that time i was not on the board to essentially take over that tower and to use it to essentially get national status as a historic site for some reason in the in the process uh not so for some reason he retired left the area and the project essentially didn't go anywhere until one of the new managers came to the town and said we'd like to give it back to you because for us it doesn't have a useful purpose for Champlain Water District and the town accepted it back so it's it's ours again um but there was that whole interim history in between where it did look like the the water district wanted to preserve it in that area so that was some interesting history there that that goes with it um i just i've got a mind blank as to the last question that was asked and i had an answer for it but i can't think what the sultry the sultry one of the issues and charlie kind of alluded to it from the the fire department point of view if you've been up to that site that site is extremely tight it's really tight when there's a fire alarm that's called and the firemen have to come in get out of their cars and get into the vehicles i mean it's it restricts the use of the site because there's a great meeting room there that you know if we have meetings and it's we generally have people park on some of the side roads or elsewhere and walk because we need that space for that kind of traffic coming in and out so this and the site's restricted we have some supplies up there that we keep on the back side of the site the western side for uh doing the gravel roads in case there's a flood and there's piping back there um our winter sand is back there and there's not a lot of room but what you can do with those sheds is we would not extend the site farther in terms of the neighbors we'd keep all the protection that's there but we would essentially replace that with something similar to what the village has they built a number of years ago a three bay concrete shed which is fairly tall taller than what we've got but it's concrete almost all the way up ours is concrete up about oh maybe eight feet and then it's wood beyond that and that wood is pretty much deteriorating and the concrete is cracking so i think you you know there's lots of different alternatives for salt sheds but the site dimensions limit which which you can put there and so it would you know we'd actually use up some of our truck turning space in the yard to provide that storage so we'd have that salt storage purchased a year ahead and not be subject to whatever the vendors decide the availability of salt is in a given year if we have it all stored away in in June for the following winter we don't really care what happens during the winter as far as whether they can get a salt or not and that's the way the state runs their program and they store it in sheds for the following year and that's ideally the situation and we've looked at the capacity it could be done on site but we would have to take the two sheds that we've got tear them down and replace them with probably a three bay slightly taller concrete base system with a roof over it but um so does that mean um we did look at some of the like the new sites i know you're saying you have a limited space so does that mean you could be looking at some of the metal roof ones or some of the other alternatives that are out nowadays with with different materials from back when we built that first time and then the other comment that i uh again thank you for all your history too on the the tower i did not realize also the water tower was the very first building that was completed in the fort and i don't know if people realize that and it apparently has watered about 8500 soldiers as well as 1800 forts over there but it is a significant structure certainly i just want to talk that right thanks there okay uh hand in the room Lorraine you're you're kind of hard to understand but i think you're asking if there's if we've if we intend to look at other types of structures then place in what was there for the salt ship yes the answer is yes the answer is yes thank you guys all right thank you Lorraine uh ken go ahead come on thank you ken signor alone how are you um i was just up at the fort took some photos recently of the water tower actually and then this is spot on it's at the tipping point i happened to zoom in afterwards to the roof and i could see in great detail that it's very very close to we're losing it for sure i just want to remind you i heard a slight mention of it you've heard of buffalo soldiers buffalo soldiers were a african-american regiment formed after the civil war the 10th cavalry stationed at 40th and allen at the time there were about 100 people of color in the whole area of burlington when those folks came it increased the number to over a thousand it was a cultural shock we have to preserve this history it's very important to do it these people contributed so much to our country we can't lose it it's there it needs to be not just preserved it needs to be underlined and shouted i hope you'll um not only get the water tower in shape but look at the other buildings as well there's a lot there and not just the men there were horses many of those buildings were stables there were a lot of horses that trained there and contributed to the war effort we need to preserve that thanks thanks ken uh yeah yeah sure jay sharon town resident um i just wanted to bulge to i'm not i'm in the capacity of of a taxpayer not a member of the fire department or my employer the state of vermont my question is about the fire station um i want to see if there's a do we have a timeline of when we think because again as chief coal mentioned and as i know just by being a resident we don't have a lot of land that's available and it's going fast so i'm wondering if we have a timeline of when we're going to have you know these steps to where we're going to start looking into i'm assuming this 25 thousand is it if it's correct is that for a consultant consultant to look into these things in addition to what we've already done um or what are the steps that we're taking to see when we're going to possibly have a new fire station that can take us into the next 50 years um me personally i think having a new facility is going to probably take care of some other issues that we have uh for our fire department um build it and they will come this kind of what i'm looking at um so i just was curious if there was any discussion on that i haven't had any conversations to be enlightened on that so i didn't hope you guys knew if there's any timeline five years eight years in my mind is just way too long just to have a building constructed i think we need to have something at least at least done by you know three to four years if we can find the land i think at least be looking for the land now is vital and if we have any money that we can set aside to even have to purchase it first thing i'd love to see it stay right where it's at um but i know that the you know the public works has to have their you know their facilities too so if we get if the fire station has to move out i just think it's critical that we get moving on finding where that look that location is because i hate that to kick somebody out of their land just so we can put a fire station so just didn't know yeah so what i've heard is three to five years but i don't know if there's a other two to five years to what i don't know that when we start having architectural plans that when we start purchasing land that's what i'm my question is is where we are on the stage and we have a we have any we're the the very first step to the twenty five thousand dollars is to start taking a look at what is the need and where might it be and yes it's very consultant to bring somebody in to take a look and do some of that analysis and get a sense of what could be pursued and what it might cost okay thank you all right thanks thanks for the question Irene thank you i'm here in person not shivering in my car asking you this question first of all a couple of notes on the water tower i also was one of the people had the privilege of right heading up there in 2016 and i took the liberty of publishing one of the photos i took in the sx retorder on page three of the november issue this past year so anybody wants to get a glimpse of what you might see out one of the windows it's there earlier a plaque was mentioned a plaque was erected in 2006 it's right where ethan alonav meets route 15 and honors the buffalo soldiers at fort ethan alon back in 2009 there was a hundred year celebration which i attended and helped plan so that may be what margaret's referring to there's a museum at the base of the water tower run by will parkinson he's very willing to let people in by appointment to see all the treasures he's collected for anyone here who's eager to donate to help save the tower um they need lots of money can't think of a better use for $83,000 thank you thanks Irene okay any other comments or questions uh any cooper frustrated with iran's poke at staff again so uh please criticize other members of the public in the public here you can do that we're other outside of this meeting if you'd like let's let's all look after that though please thanks okay uh any other comments let's bring it back to the board any other questions or comments from the board i guess the then the the next step here is to want a public hearing all right you too i can resurrect myself here um i will make the motion that the select board authorize staff to warn a public hearing for january 18th 2022 for the fiscal year 2023 capital budget and five-year plan okay thank you sue do i have a second second any further discussion okay hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye closed okay motion passes five zero we'll uh see you again on the 18th danis thank you very much thank you thank you um thank you gentlemen okay moving on to uh business item 6g discussion about estimated budgetary and property tax impacts of the esic i didn't bring my water bottle tank sorry discussion about the estimated budgetary and property tax impacts impacts of village of esic junction separation from the town of esics who's got this that's going to be me um so this is a chance uh finances um pulled together and taken a look at at the impacts financial impacts of separation to um what would be the remaining part of the town wanted to share it with the select board so you can start thinking about how to react to that how to respond to that um it ties in a little bit to some extent to the discussion about local option tax um ties in a bit to capital tax um capital budget discussions um and uh just starting to plan for the future and what balance the community and the select board um might be looking at in terms of service cuts tax increases new sources of revenue um I just wanted to start having that conversation because it's going to be a big one in the next year or so um so finance has gone through its estimates um sarah started with the uh current year budget that's the last approved budget um she went through and and took a look at what would change um it didn't go necessarily line by line by line by line but took the each departmental budget and and made really good estimates and and um educated estimates about what's going to change uh if the village obtains its independence and the town loses that tax base um and then she took a look also at the proposed budget for fiscal year 23 at this point um long story short not much of a difference you know things change budget year to budget year but the overall overall impact of separation will be pretty similar between the two the two budget years um for the average home in Essex which is assessed at $280,000 um looking at a basically 19 to 22 percent uh tax increase um the higher end of that is if the town wants to replace the capital revenue that would be lost um through separation as well since it's a two-cent capital tax you're losing 42 percent of that if separation happens um if that's to be replaced that that adds in the extra money in the um estimated increase that 19 to 22 percent correlates to about a 300 to 340 dollar increase in the tax bill for the average home um in one year it's a lot obviously um to give a sense of what that we're looking at about this is where that $80,000 number that was mentioned earlier that's where that this comes into play every $80,000 um in the budget would increase that percentage uh number by one by one percentage point so there were it's up or down if you add or decrease to $80,000 um again this is the the time to start thinking about how you want to react to that respond to that prepare for that um there's only so many tools and options that town has available to it uh you could increase property taxes um the local option tax or some portion of it is an option um could be an increase of fees we talked about uh impact fees or earlier that's that's a portion of this that might play into that there's also recreation fees um community development fees uh which would generate some level of revenue probably not a huge deal breaker or um game changer but it's something um also there's depending on on how you want to do things um you could increase the capital tax you could lower the the transfers from operating to capital um doesn't have a huge impact if any on the bottom line but it it's just a different way of presenting the budget and maybe that's more palatable than seeing capital increase versus an operating increase um or there's a reduction of services uh beyond that um willing to answer questions try to generate ideas um but really it's it's starting to like I said take a look at what is the right mix of all those options of taxes fees and service reductions and then getting to specifics once we have that about where where might those be and which are which are more desirable or palatable than others all right thanks Greg any board member questions comments go ahead to have a comment just uh under the um potential tools I also think and we've talked about this that there may be some services and skills that are within the town of Essex that maybe could be leveraged for other municipalities could you be no more specific dispatch comes up right um oh you so you're asking it's things that we could share services with others right okay yeah okay it's not you know I I don't know I think it's a research item but it's a potential revenue source right yep yep you thought either I guess I have a question under the um this is under impact too where she did the Institute of Local Options Tax including the village is there so the numbers you're showing here that includes if the village instituted it also so the the number that we have from the state for the local option tax if Essex was to implement a local option tax that includes all of Essex so the village as well that is estimated to generate about one and a half billion dollars um the state doesn't have the breakdown of what's inside the village or outside the village because the state does its estimates based on zip code at this point it's all well it's all one zip code um can probably we think figure out if if the town wants to pursue it figure out a way to better divvy that up geographically and figure out what that like look like but for now all we have is that one and a half million dollars um just as a rough estimate cut that in half um it's it's based on point of sale so whether it's population deliveries um businesses without knowing more specifically how it splits up between inside and outside the village uh just the conservative estimate of a 50 50 so so out of that 750 000 dollars that the town would be estimated to have retail sales would generate about 600 000 of that um meals and alcohol would be about 150 000 dollars and then rooms would be about 25 000 dollars and that might actually be closer to the 50 000 since the Essex the end of Essex is the lodging in town um but for the sake of estimate and discussion yeah the town has a this would be looking at about 750 000 dollars uh is you Patrick's hand thanks Andy um trying to think of the best way to phrase this but honestly there's no easy way um have you guys started looking at which departments town serves that are scaled for 20 000 people versus what would be scaled for 10 000 and you know identifying those specific departments and frankly again as much as I hate to say it the employees that are in them um you know I think we can look at these numbers a lot of different ways but it's clear that the bulk of it is going to come by either employee elimination or by a substantial increase in the taxation of a residence um so while I'm loathe to mention it I feel like it's also something that clearly is going to need to be looked at um if we haven't started to do those identifications yet I think it's probably something that should start happening pretty soon all right thanks Pat um yeah Pat the the the short tough answer is that the the remaining town is basically sized for 10 000 people yeah I thought that was pretty close to the answer I think that it's going to be pretty small all the numbers if we're looking at it but yeah the the manager's office um there's a position being eliminated in the budget um so that gets the manager's office sized probably more appropriately for the for 10 000 people versus 20 000 people in the size of the organization um otherwise police to serve is sized for 20 000 as a tentative agreement in place to share share the police with the village going forward if they separate um but the public works department is sized for the town outside the village roads no sidewalk water sewer infrastructure um the library is is staffed to to serve um sx free library which is the town you know townwide uh the function department but it primarily serves the 10 000 people um the community development department has been sized for 10 000 people and has taken on more responsibility and roles in the past few years to to do more of the 20 000 but that that staffing has not really increased for that 20 000 um IT has been sized for um the town organization and they're another one that has taken on responsibility in the past few years but this was the size that it is before it started doing consolidated work um finance is another one that uh could be sized down and it's it already is planned to happen um through the separation and through breaking up the shared services um recreation again is sized for you know depending how you thought of what they do is maintaining the parks that the town has that are going to stay in place um some of the programs which are you know complimentary to EJRP and and you could argue serves the 10 000 people and uh that's off the top of my head I could probably keep going if I had a list but really the the organization is pretty well sized for a 10 000 person 11 000 person community okay all right thanks Greg now although although IT is on this list because of just the servers or whatever that they're that they're I mean there's a 23 000 this yeah pennies yeah you know yeah I'll add you know we have a clerk's office that you know is is the clerk for 21 000 people but there's only three full-time employees in the entire department so a lot of things that you look at is there one is there something is there timing those are all on the table for us but in general except for the police department let's say I can go I can go on as much as Greg our assessor's office is one and a half full-time employees that if you eliminate the half which also isn't eligible for health and insurance and other benefits you are really nibbling around the edges instead of getting to the heart of the matter so um we talk about these things all the time and that's one of the reasons why when the village wanted to go for separation we talked to all of you and them about shared services um that's the reason okay and sorry to to beat it but just to put it in simple terms um if you're limiting staff you're not talking about right sizing you're talking about service reduction um one of the things Dennis has told us many times we have I think something like 23 miles of unpaved roads again nothing to do with the village in the town outside the village 23 miles of unpaved gravel roads or dirt or things that we maintain we're sized to do those things and over the years we the town outside the village has increased sidewalks paths um trails um we have all kinds of of different buildings as in varying forms of decay and and in vital in revitalization this last year last two years we have put probably close to 200 000 into the Essex free library just to deal with water that has been entering the building um through no fault of the building itself but just the way certain things are happening there and and so these are the things but most of our departments are sized for the services that they're currently delivering to the population of the town outside the village and some within the village and we have tried to make those inroads when we were doing shared services but with the recent discussions about what will be shared what is not going to be shared etc I would say you are you sure you will find some openings and some vacancies and maybe some targeted incentives maybe for people to retire early and then not fill the position but you're going to be it's going to be around the edges I want to continue if I can along that path then because I've heard what I'm hearing what you're saying now I've heard it for a number of years obviously you know because I think that we are exactly if not exactly we need to be I think that honestly we probably run pretty lean as a municipal agency you know we definitely I think could probably bulk up in some areas of real importance to us um but that doesn't leave us with an answer to the question that's anything but raise taxes to a massive degree so if that's the case and the select board is looking for options going forward then I think also again hard questions need to be asked what do service level reductions look like do they mean pulling back all of the sidewalks that used to that we have tried to expand plowing on so that that no longer can happen so we can pull someone out of public works you know as a budget item doesn't mean shutting down the sx free library for a reduction of service hours because we need to eliminate those people I know that we've honestly I think that you know it's clearly been a long time coming and starting to ask these questions but I think that the select board needs to get a feel for what's going to be more palatable to the public because I don't know that I have the answer to that yet but if they're being presented with a 20 percent budget increase or we reduce no plow and we reduce library and we reduce other you know parts of parks and rec all of the non-critical systems what does that look like and what sort of monetary and budgetary impacts those have and I think the select board needs to be seriously ready to look at those things as an option not because we want to but because that may simply be the reality I don't know that a 20 percent tax levy raise excuse me tax rate increase gets passed just don't thanks Pat okay that's the end yeah right so yeah I have two comments other than just connecting with Greg again about the impact fees and the potential to sort of recoup some of that drain on services that comes with more dense development the local option tax amounts does that 750 000 roughly half let's make math easy does that reflect the 30 percent that the state would keep for administrative costs or is that indicative of what would flow into the the town I am pretty sure that the one and a half million is what would flow into the town after that the state takes its cut I do want to get confirmation but I'm 90 confident that's that is what the revenue that the town would get okay and I'm a little hesitant on this next one just because you know it but it does have financial implications but curious as far as whether thought has been given not only to how much or what we're doing but how things are being done so looking at it from a process improvement or a lean perspective to see if there are efficiencies that can be leveraged waste that can be reduced extra steps that you know can be combined to just make things more efficient and in essence hopefully result in some some further cross savings those were my all right thanks Tracy I guess a couple comments I'd like to make one is I think I think Patrick you misspoke when you said a 20 percent budget increase because this is going to be a budget decrease or a tax levy decrease anyway uh you're right I did if I look at the FY 23 without operating fund additional operating fund transfer we're we're taking almost five million out of the tax levy we're taking about we're taking about actually about 32 percent out of the tax levy so I think there is some there is some something that at least can be shared to say that you know we've we not just the board but staff and you know everyone involved in this has done what we can to to take uh you know to reduce that tax levy so it's it and yes it's getting spread over a smaller grand list so that the rate goes up like I I understand that but I think it's important to say that we're taking almost $500 we're collecting almost $500 less and not $500 thousand five million less in taxes as we do this transition another another thing to to consider is the the reassessment will increase I know it's it's it it steps back and then steps forward the the two cent capital tax will will then automatically collect more as your house is worth more a two cent tax will is assessed at a higher value the two cent tax will will increase so there's there's some additional funds that will come from the two cent capital tax that we're not we're not projecting because we don't you know there's there's there's really no way to know when exactly that assessment's going to be complete and we'll start collecting taxes based on it and there's no way to know what that increase might be um you know it could be on the order of 25 percent more it could be on the order of three percent more I have no idea how the assessment's going to go um the reassessment right because the the the last time the ironically the last time the capital tax was increased from a penny to two pennies was in 2007 which was the year that we did the last the assessment so there were actually two bumps in the capital tax that year one came from the the increase in the capital tax the other came from the assessment they I don't think I'm not sure they happen in the same uh they they both say 2007 on them but I don't know which fiscal year that each of those fell into but it it's a it has happened before you get additional revenue from the assessment because it's a two cent tax it doesn't it's not in our regular tax rate right we it should be revenue neutral essentially that you'd lower the tax rate based on the assessments you're not collecting more but in the two cent capital tax you don't do that it just stays two cents so there is more more funds from that um I think I think and but again I don't know really how to uh account for that on a projection going forward um but maybe it'll come clear as we know what the schedule of the reassessment might be um the other thing that I'd be interested in understanding better is um and I know I could probably go find it I did go look at the the memo for the the agenda item where we made our decisions about fund balance um we moved 666 000 into smoothing future smoothing um uh there you know we we certainly could you know reduce that 20 impact in the first year um by by you know how we you know use of that that fund balance I'd like to understand what I don't understand it's not clear to me what was used in these assumptions for FY 22 and FY 23 whether it was because it was 400 000 I think in 20 FY 22 and then it's 431 or whatever was another number was we just talked about earlier uh for FY 23 um I guess it'd be helpful to understand clearly what we have left to use for that smoothing right because there was there was 90 666 left over for merger money which we talked about also using for um transition to um but I don't know how and I transition to the the separation using it for separation expenses rather than merger expenses um but it's not clear to me what of this we've already spent I mean do we have what what's actually there for us to play is the wrong word but to to make adjustments so that we can so if I can maybe help translate what I'm hearing you're looking for a use of reserve funds for smoothing of taxation uh on separation and what years how much and what's it look like well if maybe in chart form if if you'd like to make a proposal for how we can do that to smooth it out yeah that'd be that'd be that'd be good I'd like to know what the amount is that we that that's there to fish you know spread around over the next after fiscal year 23 how much money is available for and fund right and I understand that it's totally unknown what the future fund balances will be and it also is conflated with the fact that we put in this contra expense that's that's potentially going to reduce our fund balance because we're we're taking out some of that although we're fully funding all the positions we're taking some of it out or that that funky thing that the sheriff tried to explain to us yeah right yeah and and then also we're we're essentially uh you know the the um vacancies in the police department are probably our major source of fund balance and half of that's going to go back to the city uh after separation so we we we're losing losing we're appropriately apportioning half of our typical fund balance source to another correct and and that we don't we don't budget to get the fund balance that it is something that has happened because it's really hard to fill police officer positions and every time somebody leaves we have to play catch up with filling that position plus the one that's been budgeted so yep in an ideal world we wouldn't have fund balance from from the police so it's not something we should rely on going forward I understand that not this way yeah yeah I would pay for anybody I'm not asking you and we are actively pursuing filling those vacancies including this year in the budget we are taking one of those vacancies from a being a police officer to community service type person in the police department so one of those is already being reallocated for outreach and other services that the police historically have been doing but uh Howard center and other other agencies are doing so we can help coordinate so that our officers are not going to calls that they're not well suited to go to but your your point is well taken and and at some point those surpluses that you have seen are going to dwindle yep I am and the money that you use from your fund balances you all know has to be bought back in taxes so it's a momentary moving of the impact but eventually it comes due right and so this this year we're asking for a four a four percent tax increase which is pretty unprecedented in recent eight times we we've tried to keep it to three or three and a half and this is a four percent one and a lot of it is due to changes that have occurred because of separation on our doorstep so that actually gets us part of the way there we're losing some of the revenues that we we had been getting that we're that we're you know paying for some of this services we were providing to the village and then and so but yeah four four percent right so if you and I don't know Patrick's right we gotta figure out what's what's gonna what's tolerable I mean I've heard plenty of people say I don't care what it cost me let's get it done but I've also heard people say this is gonna hurt like hell and and so yeah we know we didn't know where the balance was and if we can if we can get to something where we say well well we're gonna do 12 percent next year and the next year's probably gonna this year but next year it's probably gonna be nine percent but beyond that then it's just goes back to normal I mean this isn't an every year thing it's just this transition that's the painful part uh well it's it's it's it's it's it's a no all of it's all of is painful yeah it will be there forever yes but but after that potentially one or two year or whatever phase in plan and service level reduction to get you to that right level of service after you're at that right level of service then it's probably going to be back to that normal well I'm gonna contradict that but but you know I know capital may may may throw this whole thing and it works and then I'm only gonna contradict it in that as you've heard tonight there are services that are increasing in expenditure that have I won't say nothing to do with the town they are the need of the town our s6 rescue contract and our services they're not making up these calls right they're dispatched to these calls they're real and they go we have nothing to say really other than what is that value to the community and this year and every year for the next four years they're asking for a hundred and sixty five thousand dollar increase that's going to have to then get built into now you're covering it for the entire community including the village currently if they separate ish 50 percent is going to go to the new city but that still leaves you with the other 50 percent you are still seeing a lot of fire department calls it's not they go up and down up and down but you have a bad year you're gonna have issues um so I with that trying to figure out where you're gonna be in in four years is is hard but we know where you're going to be in the first year if the separation is say um FY 24 it's it's somewhat in a range you start pushing that out it starts getting a little fuzzy but it's still in that same painful range and I can't tell you who's going to be employed here in 24 or 25 hope you know maybe some starters a line or something you have some vacancies um you have had maybe you get some time to decide what's a priority um your comment Tracy is very well taken I would also look at some things that are not core services that you may decide you know I I have been known to be thought of as anti pool I'm not anti pool I just say you have a 40 year old structure that is needing a lot of capital to revitalize it and you're gonna have to make a decision at some point are you going to invest in the pool or do you say at this point maybe we don't do anything with the pool but shut it down for a season and evaluate it or something to that effect because that's also costing money into the general fund that should be an enterprise fund that's self sustaining and it's it needs it needs some attention so I can't tell you exactly where you're going to be in in two years but I can give you the range and then it's a matter of what you value and what services and what levels you all want I can tell you that if if you maybe through attrition um eliminate a vacant public works position if that person does plowing it's going to take the remaining people a little bit more time to complete all the routes will it get done yes it will get done it's a matter of service level and response time if that person is in the utilities we have a water main break same thing we'll get it done it might take longer than it might not so what are you looking for us for this agenda item what are we looking for I think we've got some of it um you know I didn't expect to get a no go do this plan and great we have it in place but I think it's just really starting to think about what is coming and potentially coming and and how to handle it and um how to get input from the community how to get in amongst yourselves of what you want to pursue um we do we do have uh the discussion about local option tax later on we'll get there in a few minutes but um starting to think about is that something and you'll see the results of the survey but is that something that the select board wants to push and pursue this year and and some of it in some form in all form um you want to wait into the year but how do you want to that's one of the tools that that you might be able to use in the near future um you want to you want to pull it out of the toolbox right now beyond that it's yeah just starting to think about what what are those services that this levels of the community wants and will pay for but I'd like to also if you don't mind say it I'd also like to be positive what why do people want to live here and what do they value I would imagine to say that you know everything when I was doing research people love living here they they feel safe they enjoy the culture they enjoy their nature I think then be mindful that it can't just be the tax rate it has to be about the why you live and work here and started a business here and you're going to have to balance all that and Andy to your to your point of if if the community doesn't want to want to keep it services and what it loves about Essex then the answer and to some extent is the large tax increase one year and maybe that's maybe that's the thing to do maybe that's what's right and that's what will get us to where we need to be and want to be and want to stay but that's that's the conversation to continue and beyond just two things oh at one point Courtney had her hand raised I don't see it anymore but I didn't know she had something to jump in just Courtney did you have a comment I was just going to say that you know fund balance is something that you want to stagger and not use up all in one year we we know that we've been doing that that's been our practice so it's not going to be enough there's something there it's not going to be enough but we definitely will you know intend to use it to help with any of this you know large increase but those percentages it's it's going to be a help but it won't be enough and I think that to reiterate what Greg has been saying you know we're just looking at our options you know whether we use our you know ARPA funds to promote growth in our grand list so you're spreading that expense over more people so you talked about reappraisal you know that's changing the value of your current residents you also kind of want to expand your grand list and not just increase your grand list for your current residents so I'm just you know when we're think when we talk about ARPA when we have more information on ARPA maybe that's something that the board wants to pursue or the community wants to pursue to help alleviate is that give potential for that grand list growth because you're seeing a number of factors that contribute to the tax rate right grand list total budget and then tax levy and so we talk about those non tax revenues increasing those to reduce the tax levy so it's a combination of a number of things that are going to kind of tip the scale one way or another whether to help out that tax rate in the end that was kind of just my comment and thanks for the second thing is that one of the questions that I asked and got information back on was how these estimated proposed rates tax rates would compare to other area municipality tax rates and there was a caveat that was provided to not focus on the tax rates as much as the tax levy and and to you know kind of think of it as one piece of the puzzle but it also I thought was a little eye-opening to see that you know they're all over the place right there I mean the lowest being Williston for all the reasons that we know and then but they they go above above one right when new skis way up there so it not to say it makes it right or wrong but it puts it in a little bit of perspective and I thought that that would be valuable information to include yeah it it is all over place and it's to highlight some of the caveats that they touched that you mentioned Sue is it depends on the assessed value of the home it depends on what are the sorts of revenues some of these communities have so Williston has I think three million dollars or so of local option tax revenue so that helps keep their tax levy lower than and some other communities it's all kinds of things yeah it was just with me in it oh back to assessment I just want to be clear so there's a state requirement that if your cl a goes eighty five percent or below you're mandated to do it now there's a backlog of mandate right there's a lot of communities that have been mandated to do it you still have to go through a rep a process to get an appraiser and a process we are like point zeros whatever it is we're within less than one percent of eighty five the town could decide for itself we're so close let's authorize the management to work with the assessor to do the RFP and probably maybe not FY 23 but FY 24 have it whatever timeframe it could get done to do it because it's inevitable it's coming it may have an interesting value to do it sooner rather than later and we can all keep our fingers crossed not to say much disparaging about Burlington but I wouldn't want to live through what Burlington went through with their reassessment I would want to take our time I would want to make sure that we have the right people doing the right assessing their assessment is very difficult with some of their properties I don't think ours would nearly be as complicated but that's something you're not required to do it by the state but certainly by next year after this year they you'll be in that 85 or below and I think that's an appropriate besides the fact that the property values have skyrocketed and the longer you wait the higher the impact will be to the average home I don't think you're going to be able to use 280 as your average home anymore I don't know what the right number is but it's not going to be 280 you'll have to have a cat you'll have to have an asterisk any other comments questions I do want to say that I think this is a great piece of work here I really like the fact that we now have we've had this list and maybe this was available before in other formats I've probably seen this before but it's I think it's good to have in our hands a list of what's changing as as a result of this you know separation what you know what the revenue differences are will be our expectations are what the some of our cost changes are going to be I think it's good to have that I think it's good to see that the tax levy is going to go down by you know four to five million so we can point to that as you know this is this is this is what it is this is what the difference is we have done things to try to mitigate it you know mitigate the increase so thank you for the work thank you for you know it was originally only done with f by 22 the f by 23 was added in after the fact thank you for doing that it's interesting that it came to about the same answer happy to pass that on and thanks to all of you and pat for for staying up at the worst level on this one and considering the concepts obviously as we get closer we'll be going through with the fine-tooth comb for the budget and you know I'm sure we'll find a hundred dollars and five hundred dollars and two thousand dollars that's going to add up a little bit but it's a big number and I appreciate you staying up here and giving that feedback so thank you okay I see some hands up I went online last time so I'll go in the room Irene thank you Irene Renner back again I'm looking at page 61 Sarah makes his memo that has the summary percentages and I see that if we take the highest number f y 2023 number with additional capital to backfill the loss of capital tax revenue the tax impact on a 280 home is 347 dollars thank you Scott less than a year ago Sarah Macy presented us cost for a 280k home of merger per year would be 372 dollars so by separating if the village does do that the town outside the village residents will be according to both of Sarah's estimates here a year apart 25 savings not to mention the bonus of actually controlling what's ours right now we have no controls the town outside the village we have no exclusive or that represents us so for all the people complaining that merger didn't blah blah blah the cost to separate is actually less than the cost to merge with the town outside the village now of course we were sold merger with the idea that it would be we're not talking about merger here so there was a step process just as there was potentially a step process for separation correct but with the finance director changes we don't have a step process now but there was no guarantee for steps with merger either we were told so again savings and control win-win for all of us with separation thank you Mr. Chair yeah I believe if I have this correct this is 347 dollars in one year not over the 12 years that the original plan was I may be wrong so so so you don't want to get into conversation with me right here do you know I asked you so 12 years is 12 years and if it steps up 347 in the first year it stays there for the next 12 years so it's there's 12 years is still 12 years of payments so it is I'm not gonna you know at the end of the 12 years yeah you know that you take the 372 that was there you divide that by 12 and it steps up one of those times each time is that the argument you want to get no I'm not going to get into the argument no sir I would draw okay thank you thank you all any other comments in the room okay uh then I will go online Megan Humphries good evening everybody this is um really helpful information and I want to talk about that a little bit um you know we're headed toward a situation you know from this conversation where we're headed for a reduction of service and community assets depending on where those decisions are made and a maybe double the debt tax increase that is not the position that I think anyone within the town outside the village voting on merger or not voting against merger expected us to be um and we keep putting our electorate in positions where we have to vote or weigh in on in surveys issues related to scenarios without all the available and known information you know when we voted on merger the separation scenario was ignored um that's you know put aside played down to not cause panic and the tax implications for the town were not adequately understood at the time by the electorate the tax conversation was around the taxation that would result from merger um I don't think it was being discussed honestly and it certainly wasn't part of the public discourse I think the argument that separation is not as expensive as merger is an interesting way to think about that but a double digit tax increase and reduced services is not a situation where I certainly didn't vote on that or vote with those facts in mind um we also just filled out a survey for um the local options tax right so the answer provided in that survey survey I believe could be different with the information that we've been just given tonight and um have an impact on whether people agree with a local option tax as a way to offset the revenues the survey data said that that was the number one use for that tax on the way that people would want it spent I believe if if and I would ask the select board to consider um a quick update on that survey I know that would cost a little time and money I appreciate that as well but I think the answers would be different knowing that this is where you know this is the tax situation we're in today and that people need to be given this information to make well-informed decisions um about about these questions so if if you all would reconsider that that would be great and um I appreciate the time and the work for this thank you thanks Megan uh Nate O'Connor yep I just wanted to um I'll be very very brief uh happy new year and thank you all for your service it's uh new folks do a wonderful job you know I also hope everyone stays safe I just learned that most of my New York family has COVID in some unfortunate you know I so I hope everyone stays safe but also um I hope we can stay together as a community um and I love the the reasonable headedness of the what I hear tonight um and I I can't say how much I appreciate that as well as um the only other plug I got to put in is um the um you know the holidays are ending but uh food insecurity doesn't please support our local food shelves please please please we've got a lot of good ones from ant dots to Williston food shelf to all over the joint uh if you got any extra give it that's all thank you thanks Nate uh Sharon Zukowski hi there happy new year um I just want to correct an assumption that I'm worried about that I always hear with um you know when we have budget issues is which Courtney mentioned that we can reduce costs by enlarging the grand list and that is the worst possible technique because uh services to new housing and businesses always exceeds tax revenue which is why right now we need an extra police car 80 more hours per jam for the fire department um more staff you know we're really stretched thin because of all this housing we've added I mean it just that's why our taxes go up because we're adding new housing and businesses it's always a net loss it's everybody seems to see the revenue side of a budget versus the losses and I'm also wondering when you do these calculations on how much our taxes go up that uh is that based on the loss of revenue or you're including the services that we don't get uh we don't have to provide which is a really tough and complicated calculation so I'm thinking that like the first two years it's going to be a horrible you know tax increase but after that we're going to find uh ways to have economies we might not need as much staff we won't have as much maintenance not as many police calls so I don't think it's as dire as we think but if we start adding tons more housing it will be so that's about it and I'm doting and I'm doting into the food shelf also so I agree with that has nothing to do with the but people really need the food so just put your bottle just donate your uh your returnables to the dots deposits even that helps thanks Sharon have a good year you too thanks uh Patty Davis uh yes hi um thanks for taking my call I just was listening to this whole thing and I'm just curious have we looked at I'm trying to imagine us as only 10,000 or 11,000 people because the last speaker I I feel hopeful like the last speaker um that just spoke about in a couple of years things are going to level out because we'll you know we're gonna and I wondered to to ease our pain or to ease our transition if we should look at what Waterbury or Shelburne or uh some towns that have between seven and 10 and 11,000 people or 10 or 11,000 people what they did for any type of transition and when they had a village in town and what they did just kind of because their population is similar and they value to recreation and they value you know their parks and nature and they don't want to have a thousand million houses added to their community because they want to keep the open spaces the reason I say that is that's where that's why people are moving here is because of the nature and the clean air why don't we charge or are we charging for Indian Brook for other towns I don't know what the story is with Indian Brook I tend to only go to Saxon Hill but are we charging when we just become our own town in two years a higher fee for everybody else that comes to Indian Brook because we want to maintain the beauty of Indian Brook and not have it trashed I don't I'm just asking because I don't know what the status is and what you decided to do with the village regarding Indian Brook or are they gonna be still part of it and are they gonna have pay the same rate that we do but pay for the costs of maintaining the dam because I know Dennis Lutz is you know it's we're not even budgeting this year for putting money towards that dam but if we want to continue sharing that service with the village are they gonna pay for is the village gonna pay half of the maintenance of our beautiful park just curious thanks thanks Patty okay I don't see any other hands online scroll down I don't see anybody on the phone that might want to talk bring it back to the board any other comments questions thanks for doing it yeah this is this is a very good piece of work and I think it's important information that we we're gonna need to have as we step forward here um nice to have it all in one consolidated document thank you anything else from you guys all set thank you all right so move on to the oh where are we next agenda item 6h consider approval of statement of position in regard to village of s extension separation from town of sx how's that you yeah let me actually see if I can pull this up on the screen so at your last meeting um this idea was brought to you in in terms of having something a statement some talking points um if and when you go down to the legislature um just in general for the the town select board to take a position on separation and have some comments the last meeting proposed some bullet points things that you might want to touch on um some of you gave feedback thank you for that so tried to flesh it out a bit um basically just talking points bullet points in in your packet now um sue and tracy I know you had a few other additional comments having since seen this stuff written out um but chance to the select board to take a look at the statements and um adding additional feedback or comments I can read through them um I don't know if the clerk wants to do that or if you just want to discuss what's in the packet and I do have it up on the screen which I can share for people at home to I will confess that I did not put a lot of thought into this this weekend um so fortunately I'm behind on that any any board comments questions that I had um were the potential tangible impacts I mean just as taxes um it may be worth actually it's not necessarily putting in a percent although I mean we have that percent estimate but rather than just call out taxes but they the impact two taxes based on losing 42 percent of our tax base um just the word taxes I don't think that that really um obviously there's going to be an impact of taxes but what is that impact I think it's it's good to identify that um and the other intangible that I I had but it's it it could possibly be tangible is the impact to fixed and lower income households uh and the result potentially being a transition of families out of our community I'm not sure that we want to be that wordy um but I see that as a real possibility I'm sorry Tracy where are you with the low income one she was adding it to the list of oh okay I'm sorry okay the second I don't do you call those sub bullets okay I got okay all right I don't see that okay got it this is your recommendation okay uh Patrick I see your hand up thanks Andy I don't have anything that add obviously I wasn't able to attend last meeting because of a work emergency um I honestly I don't think I'm going to weigh in on this I I have to I don't think that it should be the position of the select board to take a formal position um I don't think that we did it when uh petition was brought to us for the initial village vote we decided not to take a petition because it wasn't something that we initiated that was in April this board voted on that ban of mostly the same makeup although Vince has since left um I struggle to then connect why we should make a state take a formal position here I recognize that it's going to have a large impact on the community but so did the previous vote for something where I don't think that we are initiating it or bringing it forward I'm I'm struggling to close that gap between why we would make take a formal position before or try to choose not to take a formal position before and now choose to take one I think that the work is done by the village they're taking it down and vote wise our community is really roughly split on the whole separation not separation thing it's just it's I I would prefer that we stay as neutral as possible to continue to work for all of the citizens no matter how the separation occurs one way or the other and I don't think taking a position helps us at all with that so so Patrick I think the the intent here is to be prepared to speak to the legislature I think that you can do that without taking a formal position well yeah and and um right it comes down to the definition of position right I suppose so but you can see where my struggle to yeah yeah yeah I look at that is so I agree you know we we all I could go I could go back a little bit further and look at three plus three where I was adamant that we not take a position but was forced to by the rest of the board so we've gone both ways on petitions that have come to us and or other you know things out of our control so it has happened both way that is true I will mention the three plus three I thought had legal implications that I did not think made it applicable to be placed on the ballot at all okay um and I'm not sure whose hand was up first Tracy go ahead um and I mean I don't see this as I think the the phrasing of this being a position is a misnomer yeah um this is basically just a this is what happened this is where we're at this is what we're doing and these are the potential impacts um I don't see this as a yes we're for it no we're not for it um I see this as this is preparation for us to agree on where we're currently at what the current state is based on where we've been and where we see us going so that when Andy I assume will be going to the legislature and is asked about some things he he has not the will of the select board but he has this information which the select board has said yes this is what happened yes this is where we're at yes this is what we're doing no we're not going to stand in the way but yes we are working with the trustees to make this transition as smooth as possible yeah I don't I don't think it's appropriate for any of us to go down there and try to wing it with regard to a response to any any questions from the legislature about this and that's that's I think what we're working not to go ahead yeah and I was just gonna throw in that in in the past there were situations where the select board did not talk through these type of things and come together on what our statement is whatever it's not I don't really I agree it's not really position it's a it's a statement of facts from our perspective right um and in the past there were situations where the select board's statement was represented without everyone having a chance to weigh in on that and I think that that is not a healthy situation so I I think it's valuable for us to be able to to do this and for Andy to be if it is Andy that needs to go down and represent that he's got some input that is coming from the entire board and thanks so the other edit that I have made um is to bullet number two and um I don't know the best way to I submitted it in writing um but basically to to instead of just representing the the two votes or those votes I referenced them as the most recent votes and and also that it wasn't just you know in favor of merger or against merger but in favor of the merger as it was proposed for this particular vote so it was just some further enhancement of the way that was written to to and I can read the whole thing if it's helpful or just I'm hesitant I guess to bring in bring merger into this discussion I don't know it's already it's already here though it's in bullet number two it references that right right well I guess I guess from the standpoint of the oh what am I trying to say so I guess I guess then maybe it is appropriate is to say what what other words you'd like to add there okay so so bullet number two I it starts out there has not been a townwide vote about the village's separation from the town those though the select board acknowledges that the village's separation vote came after and in here it says two townwide votes and I said after the most recent townwide votes to merge the town and village did not pass in March and April of 2021 and then it says in those votes and I just changed those to these most recent votes to merge the majority of voters in the village voted in favor of the merger proposal while the majority of voters in the rest of the town voted against the merger as proposed okay okay sorry I thought Suzanne some stuff in over the weekend I did right right right and I thought you had responded that you're okay with it I can't remember now yes yeah yeah yeah sorry yeah stuff you just read right but I just didn't get shared with everybody so yep yep yep yep yep all right all right yep thank you see yeah right I was off somewhere else I think that's right um all right um so we don't know yet what the calendar looks like with regard to when we need to have something prepared right I don't know I see Andrew Brown is on Andrew do you have any any inkling as to when you might be discussing this with the legislature or let's I would be prepared to speak earlier in the session then later and I only say that because I know that the legislature and in particular government operations in the house has a lot to do with very early on especially with reapportionment intentions so getting it being prepared sooner rather than later would be advisable so I'm not sure I don't know do we feel like we're ready to group language here do we want to see some more tweaks to it do we join it a little more so what are you going to call it though sorry what you're just using this as your presentations of the state what are we calling this document you could call it a um select board statement about separation instead of a select board position about separation I like that better I think it's actually what it says in the recommendation statement in regards to the separation yep that's what it says right so you can do that with the edits because that's what she's she is sorry so it was so suggested and Tracy Tracy's too yeah we have not opened up the public comment um maybe we should do that first and then we can bring it back to the board any public comment uh I'm trying to remember did I go in the room first I think I went in the room first last time right yeah so Lorraine hi thank you um and not the that board because I see it is um and I didn't see Lorraine we can't we it's really hard to understand you echoing that's better yes um I didn't I'm sorry I didn't see those statements in the packet were those in the agenda packet for us to review what you guys are doing right now I'm six h age 70 71 okay sorry I just missed it um that one of the things that I struggle with is the tie-in on one line that between the merger and separation vote there's no one in the town that the vote including people who live in the village on separation and for me who wanted to merge I did not vote for this particular version from there many different reasons and I did not that does not it implies I voted for separation in a way and that's my big struggle I don't like that at all so without surveying the reasons of why people even vote for that merger that particular murder it's a merger I would like it very clear um that it's not related for many in terms of why it didn't happen but that's my objection okay any other comments any cooper I know you had raised your hand earlier go ahead any sorry my computer's either sluggish or I'm hitting the buttons wrong um hi we can hear you thank you I'm I'm trying to be succinct and effective so I'm just slowing my roll for a second thank you um currently there are five seated members of this left board who represent us at large I know I'm saying the same thing I always say I'm just I would like to make a point please um people who live in the village portion of the town have been fairly easygoing completely never really have we had an issue as village residents of the town when the select board is made up of those who live external to the to the village it was never anything that was a thing before um and until the discussion of three plus three at the moment there are four seated members of the town outside the village on our select board one of whom donated to no merger now which was trying to keep status quo which is a challenge for me it's a challenge for me to feel safe to to feel that I as a town resident who lives in the village is going to be cared for and looked after for my future when the bullet points on that on that form are confusing to me um Andy I'm trying to be really polite by you stating that you didn't give this much thought this weekend was a challenge to hear um this is very important and um it is my hope that that the select board supports and um and remembers how we got here and and and is clear and frank and honest and authentic about that and I would just appreciate um that I'm not doing a good job I'm gonna bail you get the gist and I'm gonna bail because I don't want to be overly direct thank you for your time okay thanks Danny uh Harlan Smith yeah hi Andrew uh Andy I'm sorry my mother calls me Andrew you can call me Andrew okay I was gonna say I actually have a lot of Andrews in my life and some go by Andy and others Andrew um in regards to to some of the previous comments and um merger separation the wording um what they meant what they didn't mean uh I I I would really love it if the board would take a look at bullet two again um and find it and and really ask yourself as you continue to read through it is is it even necessary to be in there any of it um I feel like I don't know I kind of stirs up emotions about the whole thing that we've all gone through as you can see from the um not the most previous comment but the one previous to that um I almost feel like bullet two shouldn't even be part of the document um so maybe to to look at that real closely and continue to read through it and and see if if it really does belong there or if there's a good justification for that particular bullet thank you and thanks Harlan uh Andrew Brown thank you Andy and ironically enough my immediate family are the only people who can get away with calling me Andy otherwise I'm Andrew just find that little part interesting between us um I guess I would start this all off by asking what is the hope for the select board uh in terms of your overall goals with separation and I say that in you state in this uh I guess statement that you don't want to stand in the way if you don't want to stand in the way of separation I really want you to take another look at the second half of the fourth bullet where you have a statement that says though we will do what we can to limit the impact to the remaining town if what that means is when you go to the legislature you're going to ask for something that differs in what is in the charter that is 100 percent standing in the way of separation that will put one board against another one community against another and we are reliving 1999 again we don't want to go there so if you don't want to stand in the way of separation don't put that in there the other thing I would say is you know this was brought up how this was a select board statement then it was mentioned that these were facts if this is meant to be facts then when do you call a fact a fact it what's not included in there are that villagers overwhelmingly voted more favorably for separation than merger Rachel's comments at the beginning of the meeting in public to be heard talked about how previous select board in previous select board meetings there were decisions to not include separation data in mailings about the merger those are facts should those be included or not be included how do you determine which ones should or shouldn't really what these seem like is these are talking points so that's what these are and I would call them talking points the other thing I would ask for is including of resident input and an analysis of the resident input that you have received from the meetings that I've watched and I've attended I have yet to hear any kind of pushback from the residents outside the village on separation I'm overwhelmingly seeing and hearing support and so again if what is the position of the select board and what I'm hearing from residents who live outside the village is a support separation then I question the overwhelming majority of what's in those statements or what is in these talking points you already have a lot of a lot of statements already made by the agreements we have worked on so hard by coming to so many agreements by how many joint meetings we've had how many times you talked about these issues that's your position those are your statements just submitting those that would not be standing in the way and I'll end it there hey thanks Andrew one thing that would that would really help us Andrew is to see what you intend to present so that I mean we certainly for one do not want to contradict anything you're saying and if you know I don't know I actually have no idea what how you're preparing or if you're preparing to go yeah I'm if you'd like me to answer that I'm happy to answer that yeah so yes I am planning on going I would not trying to call you out I sent you an email about three weeks ago saying let's get together at the beginning of the new year so we can talk about this I would say I'll go and look for that I don't recall it but I'll go look for it I'm sorry if I missed it I would prefer that you and I are on the same page first yep but wholeheartedly agree that yes let's let's be on the same page yep okay oh I'm my apologies if I missed that email I'll go look for it happy to get together probably one of the rest of spam ones we're having trouble with yeah we have had right we have had issues with things going to the spam folder I'll go look I'm sorry my again my apologies I see Lorraine has her hand up but she's already spoken right on this topic did you speak on this topic over there Lorraine I did but you know given what Andrew said I just wanted out can we send a vote on this I just put it to dad and everyone's a vote so you'll have to say you all know we're on same page I'm not understanding you Lorraine um so I let's just put it on the ballot advisor Lee is something that everyone would know we're on the same page so I fear that if we put the such a vote on our ballot it would be seen as a a malicious act and trying to intentionally disrupt the process so I that's just my opinion we can certainly have maybe have that discussion if we get there uh petty Davis uh yes um I'm going to give you my take on if I were you going to the legislature I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes I think by just speaking from representing the whole town I think what you all have done and the fact that we do have a lot of people on our select board from the town outside the village makes me feel that personally I feel I have representation and I'm very proud of all of you about it what I would say or what I would if I were you I'm trying to put myself in your position I would say exactly what Sue was saying these are statements and statements are facts and our vote I think by her stating which when she stated that the the most present vote that we had you know um you know as it turns out this is what happened you're stating the facts there's no emotion involved but if they if if you feel that you really have to say you know listen I'm gonna say tell them I I want to work closely with Andrew um with uh with our trustees we work collaboratively and if we did we can agree to disagree even something as simple as like Indian Brook I mean I'm just using that as an example you can want to be together but you each pay your half you can have differences but my point is when you're speaking to them I would say keep it factual because the way I look at it is we voted twice we we yes some of us want to merge some of us didn't but the votes count it's like nationally you know look look what's going on nationally repression of voting writes we voted our votes count and they mean something so you shouldn't even have to explain yourself you just say the statements these are the facts that's it and you're doing a fine job and please don't change number two absolutely not our votes we are not going to be repressed we are a voice we're still one town but very soon we're going to be separate and we want our voice town outside the village voice thank you thanks patty Irene did you have this reminds me of something in politics political science called the landscape memo you're just I think laying out for the government operations committee how things work in Essex and that's why I think it's important that we have something in there about how the town outside the village does not have exclusive representation just so that they have a roadmap to thinking about what's been passed and by whom and by who has not had any voice in this decision and yeah I think it would be kind of fun to see how people thought about this in March if it ended up on a ballot but I'm not carrying a petition to do it thank you thanks Irene hey any any other board member comments or questions um at this time I think we should put it away to you and Andrew meet thank you for that suggestion that was where I was going to go to I'm sorry that I haven't uh I mean let's let's say the third third of the month we haven't gotten together yet so I will uh I will uh I will do that um okay with staff okay all right thanks thank you thank you for putting this together though Greg yeah yeah Bill thanks for your feedback can't can you provide Andy with edited the version edited with Tracy and Christ yes edits yes all right thank you thank you oh boy okay uh next item is uh discussion about possibility of putting local option tax on town meeting ballot I haven't been involved in any of the discussions on this I don't think because previously I used after to recuse myself and I missed the last joint meeting where it was discussed we've touched on this a couple times already tonight um basically the the timeliness of this is that if the select board wants to put this on the ballot for town meeting you'll have to decide by January 24th or so by by the end of the month to get it on the ballot um as we've mentioned before it's one of the few ways the town has to raise additional revenue based on state estimates it would uh local option tax if you implemented all of them would generate about one and a half million dollars uh townwide um most of that comes from the retail sales uh there's a smaller portion from um meals and alcohol than a very small portion from from rooms um so those are the three breakdowns uh there's a survey out for much of December to get input from the community about just generally how do they feel about a local options tax um how might it be used if it was implemented um had about 600 responses which is pretty good for for what we get usually for surveys um about 40 let's see um about 40 percent of respondents said that they were very or somewhat likely to support the local options tax on retail sales and meals and alcohol uh about half the respondents said they were not likely to either either unlikely or very unlikely to do so um so about 10 percent were undecided um that was a little bit different from the rooms where there was uh about 50 percent in support of the rooms tax about 40 percent not in favor and about 10 percent I'm sure um there's a few different ideas that were in the survey about how to use a local options tax there's also an open-ended uh response to that the overwhelming responses or the top two priorities were either to fund capital or to reduce property taxes those can go hand in hand if you eliminate transfers from the operating budget into the capital um you could use the local options tax to fund that it also reduces the the property tax burden in that case and it can be used in other ways as well so happy to try to provide any more input or insight to the survey um but at this point it was a chance to continue the conversation get you some impact input from the community and give you some direction going forward also in light of the discussion about the um budgetary financial impacts of separation to the town and considering this in light of that as well thanks Greg any comments or questions go ahead Sue so I I didn't read through there was a lot a lot of pages of comments and it was a lot of uh similar the theme that I pulled was there was a desire by many people that took the survey to hold off on this until after like the dust has settled on separation um and I would I wasn't you know there wasn't a lot of space so it wasn't like you got a lot of input so I was did anyone decipher what what the root of that was is is that um and that's more speculating but you know I I just was curious um you know if we were to hold off until after the dust sells on separation how does that how does that really change things drastically because it might you know if the if the town votes on this and then the village separates the village can then also vote on it and vote differently or the same thing the town can also vote on it as a village while they're already still part of the town right um but I don't think they're planning to do that or are they I don't know I'm not aware of any plans for them to take it up as just a village right so so if if we put it on the ballot Andrew uh Andrew Brown answer that get an answer yeah um if you don't approve of it uh to go on the March ballot I do plan to bring it up to the trustees about putting it on the April ballot okay so it's an odd situation where if we warn it and it gets voted in or voted down either way it applies to the entire town including the village and the select board has jurisdiction over all the taxes that are collected and so then and we haven't had any discussions about there's no there's no none of our agreements address this right so um there would be that whole you know we back into that whole discussion of how to how to well it's it's my understanding that the way that the taxes taxes are collected to begin with is just reported by the retailers and so presumably a retailer knows whether they're in the village or the town or we could tell them whether they're in the village or the town and so anything that's collected locally probably gets attributed to the appropriate municipality if we agree to have that happen again it's the select board's jurisdiction if it's a town light vote um but it's online sales where every one of us legally has an S extension mailing address unless you have a post office box out in the center and so the online sales it's really difficult for the retailer of L bean amazon to know whether you live in the town or the village and so who knows where it's going to go I think given that all of our legal mailing addresses are S extension and the zip code is tied to S extension a lot of it will go to S it would go to S extension and so that doesn't get resolved by waiting but the question of who has jurisdiction does there's also the possibility that if we go for a vote a town light vote and the the the village has done a had a couple years ago had a straw poll during their annual meeting and it was overwhelmingly supported to to go forward for local option tax it could be an awkward situation if we have a town light vote and the village supports it and town outside the village doesn't and it passes I think that's what people want to avoid by asking the wait till separation closes like that's Tracy is there any research or numbers available on the threshold you would need to reach given that 30 percent goes to the state how much sales you would have to have from outside the town in order to make local option tax worthwhile instead of just adding it to the budget and and to the you know because it just seems like it where's the tipping point exactly because it seems like it's without those sort of numbers I can't really tell people this makes financial sense for us and our situation especially given sales I should say I mean meals rooms alcohol those are more discretionary spending you make that choice and I don't think that you know spending $50 at a restaurant an extra 50 cents on your bill is going to make a difference because you chose to go out and spend that money but if you're paying your electric bill if you're you know paying your phone bill that you don't have a choice in that and those are also constant so it's every single month every time you pay that bill it's not oh I'm going to buy a house in Essex and I know what that property tax rate is I know what that property tax bill is it's sort of a cost that's underneath and it just seems more transparent to do it in the budget in the property taxes unless we know what that tipping point is am I I understand the question okay I struggled with how to say that in an email over the weekend I think I understand the question I don't know if I can figure out how to mathematically make that I think we have some smart people with math that can probably figure out what what ratio you need I don't know if we're going to be able to find what that ratio is but I do have maybe a question for you I have to think about this but the tax itself isn't confined to the residents of the town it could be it could be borne by anybody who comes into our community and spends money at a retail establishment or a food and beverage or a hotel so it's really not just confined to the 21,000 there is some money being spent in our community take loaves for example they didn't build loaves just for this will be heresy they didn't build it just for Essex or Essex Junction I can assure you of that they did it for area and they need people from Westford and and Colchester to stop by their store but I don't know how to vector any of that in because I I don't have the data from where people are spending from like now this isn't a side I know a company that does credit card data that can absolutely tell you where money is being spent and for what they're spending it on but I don't want to spend that kind of money to find out yet but Evan and given what you just said wouldn't it be better for you to attract more people with less tax if Lowe's wants people to come from other towns to do business here okay it would make more sense to have less taxes for those people to pay you would attract more business and I could say yet Lowe's has a property in South Burlington that has the local options tax Home Depot is in Williston that has the local options tax there are communities whose sales tax are 10% and yet people keep buying from them because it's either convenient or whatnot the other thing is in what is I think Annie mentioned is if you buy something online you are still subject to the tax no matter where you live and sooner or later somebody whether it's the state or somebody wants some piece of that I don't know I think the question back to this is some people feel that is fine just put it on the property tax and some people say well it's whatever it is and if it helps reduce the property tax I prefer that I think one of the things you guys have to grapple with is what level of services do you want to provide or the citizens want how are we all going to pay for that and what are your tools in your toolbox Patrick's got his hand up I almost got through a whole night without talking over my mute button um so I support this tax completely 100% what I'm going to question though is whether or not in the current time that we're in those the select board and the staff that might put this together do we have the capacity to get out and turn that 10% number in the survey that says that they would likely not support it around I'm and I'm not sure the answer that is yes I guess what I'm saying is that if we put it on the ballot I'm not convinced that the select board has the ability to go out and try to sell this plan of the local option tax of explaining it you know to our populace of holding the meetings a number of things that I think need to happen to convince the population that this is a good idea which again I 100% do believe that but I just I don't know that I could put on a ballot confidently and I don't feel like I have the capacity and I'm not sure if the rest of the select board members do maybe staff could help with the lift but it feels like we would need to go out into the community over the next two months we would need to realistically explain this if we wanted to pass in a vote so if we're thinking about putting it on the ballot for March we also need to be thinking of whether or not we can take what the survey says 60% of people would either most likely or most definitely would vote against it and turn that around so that 60% of people are supporting it that's kind of a big lift and I don't know that we would have the ability to do that so I guess just thoughts because I would like to see it pass but I just you know I'm just thinking of the timetable that we have in front of us what we have to deal with and whether or not in a time when you know more and more things are locking down because of virus transmission if we realistically could put you know multiple sessions together where we're explaining why the local option tax is something our voters should support or just stop. Thanks for that. Go ahead I'll wait. No you don't go. I'm waiting. Sorry did I step on you I'm sorry. You're fine Patrick I just wanted to come out and I'm going to say it now as a person it was there years ago and we voted on this at standing room only in town meeting and it was definitely defeated I don't think this is the right time to bring it I really would like to see the death settle on separation first and then revisit this for the town. Thanks Dan. So if one of the we're talking about cannabis and whether cannabis retailers would be taxed and whether this could excuse me fit into one of the existing categories or be a new category I don't know that we've gotten any answers on that. It's in this general sales tax. It's the general sales tax not the not the same as alcohol. There's no unique cannabis sales tax. Thank you. Anything else? Look for a public comment. Okay I went online first last time any comments in the room? Ken come on up. So I happen to have a way to assess the question somebody asked who's paying the local option tax inside or outside? Casey, thank you. But the tipping point was well one way to look at it without knowing the actual detail of the actual sales and who's buying what to look at the local option tax collected per resident in the town and when I did do that quite a range as you would imagine Williston has half our population a quite a bit of local option tax $307 collected per head Burlington 150 South Burlington 187 when you skate interestingly enough 48. Colchester is probably the best town to compare us to and they're collecting about 86 per head. So if you're getting a lot from outside of your town you should be getting at least $100 per head and if you're not it's your residents who are paying. That's the way I read this data. Thanks. Interesting. Thanks Ken. Maybe before we go to more public comment we get about 10 minutes before we have a vote whether to extend the meeting. I make the motion we extend the meeting to 11 30 p.m. or you make 11 45. We've got still exactly the session so always extend later if we need to. Always extend later when you go 11 30. Second. So sorry when you ended up. I make the motion we extend this meeting to 11 30. 11 30 and seconded by Tracy. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. I didn't hear you. I'm voting nay. Okay so I guess we're not extending past 11 o'clock because it has to be unanimous. So we may not get to executive session tonight. So we'll have to let the we don't go there we'll have to let the candidates know that we decide until next meeting about conservation and trails. So okay then let's try to get through a public comment we've got about 10 minutes and then we will probably need to adjourn and then when we will we will need to adjourn so Patty Davis. No I'm all set. Okay Sharon Zukowski. Try to make it as short as possible so you guys can go to bed and so can I um I was just thinking about I forgot who commented about people shop there anyway with Lowe's and Depot. I renovated about five apartments and I would go to Lowe's and have them deliver all the appliances to the Essex Lowe's so I didn't have to pay that one percent and then I was thinking that the survey says 50 percent of the people that answered the survey wouldn't vote for the tax and a large percentage I think you said were unsure or that they would or wouldn't so I don't I don't think that unless there's a lot more education that the tax would go through I'm vehemently against it and that's all good night thanks. Yep thanks Sharon Andrew Brown. Try to be quick someone mentioned what would happen about waiting the impact of waiting just means that there's more time that that money is left on the table. One of the other things and maybe this could be answered another time but my understanding that a local options tax for sales is not all or nothing and that you can specify what's to and not to include so for example I'm under the understanding that you can exempt utilities such as gas, phone, etc so those do not need to be included and the last thing really is when talking about the local options tax and you mentioned that village meeting I ran that part and really the reason why it was so overwhelming is because the question came down to for the town's perspective let's just use Susie Wilson Road. Who do you want to pay to repave Susie Wilson Road when that comes due? Do you want it to be a hundred percent on the town property taxpayers to pay for the repaving or do you want to tap into the money from people who shop at Lowe's, Vermont Tent, Metro Rock and Starbucks to help pay their portion for the roads that they are driving on but yet they likely live outside of Essex and that is awesome. Thanks Andrew. John DeMarrett. Hi how are you? Can you hear me? Yeah I can hear you. Yeah I'm opposed to this local option tax and I guess one of the main reasons is you can't differentiate by zip code where that money would ideally go and I'm not sure that I'm comfortable paying a sales tax that only benefits the junction upon separation and I think that voting on that is very premature. I agree with Don that it should be held off on thanks. All right thanks John. Chris B. Hey good evening everybody can you hear me? Yes we can. All right perfect. I just was curious how Mr. Signorillo might have been able to find that kind of 100% tipping point because that would be my you know I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning wanted to pay more taxes you know don't tax me don't tax you tax that fellow behind the tree kind of thing but so I'd love to see kind of where the data would come in that at least a plurality of people are paying that are outside the town and outside the village paying the tax which I think you would probably see in like a Williston where there's a lot of those big box retailers more so than assets we do have a lows but you know they have Home Depot and Christmas tree shops and you know the list goes on and on on what they have for retail shops and where they can earn that that revenue and draw that crowd from outside just Williston. So Chris are you okay I could forward your email to Ken and he could connect you with whatever information he's got on that? Yeah that would be great. Okay I'll do that for you. All right thank you. Yep okay I don't see any other comments on there so I guess what is what is the what are you looking for from us tonight? I can try to get I have a list of questions to get from the state I can bring that back to you at your next meeting and for a decision then unless if you want to have more conversation about it but at this point my thought would be to put it on your next agenda and provide whatever other information I can gather. Okay we got one at one four I want to pose, Sue or Tracy do you want to take any kind of position or do you want to have more discussion? I'm I don't think now is the right time I'm like Patrick said this is going to be a left I don't think we have time for that left yeah I mean I mean whether we have more information or not than all the other factors. I'm not sure that the community members have time to really absorb it at this time either. So one question that might be that I'd like to understand is when it would be implemented is it a right if we vote in in March do we get to pick a date or is it a does it need to be the other statute about it I don't even know that that's one of the questions I have yeah please do. The thing that Andrew brought up about making about exemptions I'd never heard that before either so I just looked at the statue and it says nothing about being able to opt specifically. Yeah I'm I was shocked when I heard that so that doesn't that that's I never heard that before so no I either don't have enough information or yeah I'll have that list as well I mean I think what it comes down to at this point sorry Andy I think what it comes down to at this point is that there are more questions than answers and we just it's one more thing and it's not something that we absolutely have to do right now. So it sounds like the consensus is to defer this to some other time we have votes in April and November can revisit if it's appropriate but also in parallel to get some answers to some of the questions yeah yeah if we can get answers beforehand you know as they come good to have so all right we still got a few minutes. Mr. Chair given that we're running out of time can we table item and business item J and we can't have an executive session. So we got three minutes right so we're not going to have an executive session right so would that eliminate so I think I think we just don't we don't vote to go into executive session and we don't go there so consensus agenda. Yeah I'm just going to ask because there's what the um can I just ask a question yeah you can ask a question so the item on the caring for canopies grant because the grant for the resilient urban farce was not we were not selected which I was very sad to read it says you need select boards authorization to apply and that that has to be sent in is it this week or next week so can we give them consent so we have approved so if we approve it in the consent agenda then that gives them that authorization great I make the motion we approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you Don. Have a second. Second. Thank you Sue. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay motion passes five zero for the consent agenda any uh I have something for the reading file can I please say something for the reading? Yes you may I was just going to ask. I truly want to thank Troy Austin for all he has done for this community not only the toy drive but those wonderful parades of light it's so much the spirit of this community. Thank you. Thank you Don. That seemed to come from deep within. It did I don't know why that just happened. Yes I'm sorry about that. Thank you for that thank you for the that demonstration it's really powerful. I also want to say that public works both in the town and the village did a great job on Christmas day when everything was so slick. They did yeah thank you thank you thank you. The other thing that really surprised me this morning at 5 a.m. there was orange lights flashing in my bedroom in the bedroom window the snow plow the sidewalk plow went by at 5 a.m. today. Never seen that before unprecedented so thank you for that. I told them to be there at 4 a.m. to try to wake you up but they did the most they could. So great great job all around there any other board member comments Patrick. Thank you for the kind comments our people at public works gave up a lot of holiday time with their families. It was nice though they rotated shifts so that people got to spend some time with their family came in and did their work and it was it wasn't pretty it was very slick that morning. All right so we're out of time make the motion we adjourn. Thank you Don thank you soon non-debatable all those in favor please say aye. Hi Patrick we miss you. I know it's