 I will call the meeting to order. And first item on the agenda are the minutes from May 4th, 2021, before they do that. Welcome to Gretta, officially as part of the select board and part of going through the minutes is when our tradition is when people have not been present for the meeting, they would abstain from the vote. But we do have the quorum tonight that we're here or present at the May 4th meeting. So is there a motion to approve? Move, we approve subject modification. Second. And second. Page one, and page two, and page three. Hearing no corrections, then all those in favor of approving the minutes of May 4th, 2021, raise their hand. One, two, three. And those who are standing raise their hand. And that's Gretta. So we have done that. Next is public comment. Eric, anyone wishing to make public comment? This is the appropriate time. No, Tara, just the staff and our guest from Salt Waste is for a few in the meeting right now. So no public comment tonight. Okay, we'll move on then to item number four, which are the proclamations. We have two, one for National Public Works Week and the EMS Week proclamations. And Eric, I wanna say a little bit about both of those. Sure, thanks, Terry. So this week's National Public Works and National Emergency Medical Services Week. And as Terry mentioned, the board has proclamations to consider with your agenda this evening. So I just wanted to take a brief moment to recognize and thank our dedicated public work staff working in town administration, the highway, water sewer and stormwater divisions on a job well done. It's been a challenging last year with a pandemic especially and the staff dedication has kept their town infrastructure functioning at a very high level throughout. And likewise, I also wanna thank our emergency medical service providers on town staff. This includes our firefighters, police officers and dispatchers, their work, especially over the past year again, is commendable and to answer the call from our community safe. So I just wanna wish them a great thank you this evening. I think we do, all of us appreciate the hard work that goes into all of the jobs that you mentioned. So I'd be looking for probably two motions. So there's one that is in the town manager's recordings but if we could do two separate ones, that would be helpful. Move to adopt the national public works week 2021 proclamation as presented. Zero second. Second. So any discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor of adopting the motion raise your hand, one, two, three, four. So we've done that one. And now the second one is for EMS week. I'll move to adopt the EMS week for 2021 proclamation as presented. Mr. Second. Second. There's a discussion on the motion. If you're done, all those in favor of the motion raise your hand, one, two, three, four. So we have unanimity on those two. So we're moving on then to the Chittin Solid Waste District project updates. Waiting in the wings is Sarah Reeves, a general manager and I think the gentleman with her Chiefs of Operations, I believe. Yep, we got Sarah and Josh getting connected right now. Thank you. Thank you very much. We do have Josh Tyler here as well and we'd really appreciate the opportunity to update the select board on some of the projects that we have going on over the next few years. We will have a very heavy capital infrastructure investment period throughout the district. But as many of our solid waste facilities are located in Williston, it's going to be, Redmond Road is going to look quite different. So we'll be coming back to you in a couple of weeks to discuss the particulars of the budget but this is a highlight just on the capital projects that we want to provide to the select board. So Eric, if it's okay, Josh, if you are, are you able to share? Did the PowerPoint come up for you? I did. On your laptop? Okay. Technology is such. If we are able to share the screen, Eric, Josh has a PowerPoint he can walk us through. It should be enabled, Josh. All right. Share. Okay. Can you guys see that? Yes, we can. Yes. All right. Let's see if I can go to, can you see that as well? Is that in presentation mode? Yes. Yes. So Josh and I will check. I'm doing something wrong. I can't see it. Can anybody give me technical? I think this is my issue. I showed it over a Zoom meeting this morning and it took a second to load. So I don't know if that, no. Okay. Let's keep going. Can you change your viewing options, Ted? So that it's side by side for a gallery in the upper right-hand corner, it says view. That may help. Yeah. No, that's what I have. That's okay. I have it now. Sorry. No, that's great. All right. Thank you for letting us know. And Josh and I will kind of tag team a little bit back and forth. So Josh, you kick it off and then I'll add as needed. Sounds good. All right. So I'll just be walking you guys through some of our major capital projects, all of them specific to Williston. So we'll be walking through kind of what we've done to date at our Organics Diversion Facility or ODF, what our plans are moving forward there. And then we'll step into the Williston drop-off center, our materials recovery facility, potential new administration building, and also our plans to bring Champlain Water District down Redmond Road to our Organics Diversion Facility for a municipal line extension. And stop me at any point if you have any questions. So here's the basics of Redmond Road. I pulled this off of the Chittenden County, one of the site maps. And this is just kind of a basic layout of everything and property boundaries down Redmond Road toward Tilly End. This is where Organics Diversion Facility is right here. It does take up a good chunk of space. That's a better view of it from Google Earth. On the bottom right, you'll see kind of some structures and some piles. That's where we receive leaf and yard waste. That's where our material that comes in is food scraps from haulers comes in. We process it as a phase one and a phase two process it at process. And then we bring it to the left, upper left, which was our wind rowing area. We needed a bigger wind rowing area and we also needed a sales area. And the idea behind the sales area was to pull commercial vehicles out that were purchasing product from where the residents were dropping off their leaf and yard waste. It was a safety precaution. So that's the area that we developed most recently. This took place through last year and finished in the early spring. This is just a rendition of it. On the right side is our wind rowing area. It's all gravel. We just flat and graded it and put in a pretty robust stormwater system. And then on the left is our sales area. So separated that out and we're only doing commercial sales at this point. Our next steps at our compost facility are phase two and phase three. Right now we recognize in for phase two that our approach into our site is not ideal for larger vehicles coming in to drop off material. Also our scale is I think from 1992. So we need a new one. So we're gonna redevelop that area. We're gonna, if you look to the bottom right you'll see kind of a Jeep trail that goes up to the phase three circle. And that is where we're proposing to put a leaf and we're gonna call it a wood waste depot but that's where we wanna collect leaf and yard waste and we wanna collect wood waste and we wanna collect organics. And the idea behind that concept is that we'll improve the approach into the site we'll separate out residential drop off for organics from commercial drop off of organics and from commercial pickup of organics to kind of keep it just clean efficient. So James. Yep. Let's just make sure that we're being clear the phase three area if that we're able to develop that is residential only. Yes. So that will keep the small vehicles completely separated from the larger haulers and that is a significant safety concern that we have right now in our very constrained area. And by doing that, that improves both efficiency, improves the customer experience the residential customer experience and the commercial customer experience and just makes it much more efficient and again just safe. So I just wanna make sure that we were really distinguishing that that's the goal with that last phase is for residential use. Exactly. Yes, correct. And you nailed it exactly. And we're still in the investigatory stage of phase three because there are wetlands up there. So we may not be able to develop as much there but a preliminary drawing and I apologize for how light this is, but on the left side you can kind of see that developed road is our approach. We're gonna utilize the property on 860 Redmond Road which is a rental property that we've had for years and we're gonna turn that into a scale house. That little Jeep trail that you can kind of see on the Google Earth picture on the right, it's faint when it goes up to that green patch and that's about 1.4 acres. So we do want the experience for the customer to be smooth and efficient. So we want a good chunk of land up there. So when people bring their leaf and yard waste or their wood waste or their organics it's an easy way to get in and out. So that is kind of our full buildup concept of our compost facility. So at this point are the questions about the compost operation before we dive into the others. Do we, blanking on the agreement between the solid waste district and the town but that we have, this is be covered by under that agreement, wouldn't it? It is and we very specifically designed the redesign of the facility to make sure that we're not going over our allowable limits of material. And I know that's been a concern for Jeff is to make sure that we are not overexpanding and we didn't want to do that either. We wanted to reset our sites on a maximum amount of food scraps that we feel that we can comfortably manage on the site and produce a quantity of compost products that we know we can sell. That was the other thing we didn't want to be taking in 10,000, 15,000 tons of food scraps and then not be able to sell the material. So everything that we are scaling to now is that reduced number between five and 6,000 tons of material and is geared towards safety and efficiency and flow. So we are nowhere near the upper limits of what we are allowed and we are making sure that we never get there. So we never want to approach those limits. We always want to be well below. Thank you. Thank you. All right, here are no more questions. I'll move on. And we can always come back as well. Exactly. And I put the Wilson drop off center kind of specifically next. This is where it is. It's at the end of Redmond Road. It's next to the BATS transfer station. This is what it looks like on Google Earth. We have centralized a lot of our district materials management to this facility because it's the biggest footprint that we have. We've also realized that, you know, our throughput, we've got lines that are developing. So we're working towards making the experience and throughput process at this facility more efficient. So one of the things we're doing is we're developing a new organics collection. So instead of having to wait in line to get into the facility to drop off organics, if you only have organics, you can drop it off over here in this area. It's owned right now. I know that we've got a plan to paint it and that's going into zoning, just to show that, you know, we're making a site change. But that's been working pretty well for people who bring in organics only. The other thing that we really are excited about is this is about 0.4 acres, this circle here. And this is where we currently collect our leaf and yard waste and wood waste down at the end of the road as well. The idea of moving or developing a wood waste depot that we talked about at our compost facility is that we can kind of pull all the traffic that comes down here out of this facility, kind of separated early up at our compost facility, which is where we utilize the material anyway. And then it opens up space down here for potential added material management. And those are things, you know, once we kind of figure out where that wood depot is going to wind up and what we can get out of it, then we'll start really putting our brains on what else we can do down here and how we can make the throughput and efficiency at this site more effective. And that's something that we've learned a lot of lessons through COVID and material flow has been a huge lesson that we have learned and continue to learn. And we are constantly trying to improve again, the customer experience, but also safety throughout each of our facilities and just making sure that we can flow people through. And when we had reduced down the services to each of the facilities, one of the things that people remarked on was how easy and quick it was to get through and that it was actually pretty pleasant. They were frustrated, they couldn't bring all of their materials to each of their drop-off centers, but they really liked being able to move through quickly and safely. So everything that we're doing, all of the improvements to each of the drop-off centers have that lesson learned in mind and at the forefront. So when Josh says, we're looking at what are the additional materials we can add? It's not just what are the materials we can add, but how can we do that to continue to ensure proper flow? So Josh, Sarah, this is either for one of you. So when that, if I'm understanding this correctly, would be moved for the organic material. What other, would there just be an expansion of added materials? Like what do you foresee that space looking like? There's two things I'm playing with in my brain that we've got our operations group working on. We might have just a duplicate of services over that area so that people, as the lines get longer, we can get them through more efficiently. Or we might look at other materials that we might be able to easily, or with the added space be able to manage. One of the things that comes to mind is mattresses, actually tearing the mattresses down and trying to recycle them. That's a material that we manage that has been identified as something we need to do more with. It's troublesome to get it to a landfill, take some space in a landfill. And if we can recycle it, we want to. It's just very labor-intensive and you need space for it. So those are the two thoughts I have currently. And I've been working with Sarah on what we can do, again, to make the place as safe as possible and efficient as possible. And it manages as many materials as possible to keep as much as we can out of the landfill. And that will continue to evolve. So Josh, do you have a sense for the timeframe for that? Yeah, so we are, June is when we're having kind of our secondary walkthrough for wetlands for the wood waste depot. And that's going to dictate everything. If we can't get more than an acre up there, then we're going to probably rethink where we put the wood waste depot. It will be most likely on Redmond Road, we have other areas that we can put it on. I like the idea of where we want to put it now because it's so close to our compost facility and ultimately that's where all that material winds up. With that said, if we can fit it where we want it, then we could potentially be looking at what to do at our Williston Drop-off Center by next spring. I would imagine that we could probably construct the wood waste depot by the end of this calendar year. Again, it's a relatively aggressive schedule and it hinges on a lot of trigger points. Once we get through wetlands, we got to do stormwater, a lot of things that we got to make sure that we're checking the boxes on. Okay, so the best case scenario would be a year from now. A more conservative scenario would be 18 months to two years from now. Exactly. Okay, thank you. I'm glad to hear, because Mattress has popped into my head, I'm glad you said that, but there's also other materials that are just, they're hard to either recycle or dispose of. I'm curious to where that conversation could go for those other materials that are difficult to get rid of. Another one I'm thinking of is film. A lot of businesses generate a lot of film that comes on, wrap, we've got businesses that are willing to participate in a program, they just need a place to take it. And we've done a little research on that. There's a high potential we could have a film recycling here as well, which would be a great commodity to get out of the landfill. There's a couple of other things I've thought about. We have a bunch of appliances that we receive down here and a lot of them have freon in it. And we pay for a company to come up from Boston to pump the freon. We do have an environmental depot, something we can investigate as pumping it ourselves, because the freon is actually a commodity once you get it out. So those are the kind of the things that we're thinking about. This is all very, very preliminary, nothing set in stone, but we just kind of wanna identify the materials that we've historically seen as things that need more room or kind of a little more thought to really manage well. So that's what we're gonna look at over the next, like Sarah said, 12 to 24 months. Okay, you're on my thought process. Thank you. All right, I will move off of the Wilson Drop-off Center. And this is kind of closer towards Mountain View, called the Velco Field. That's who you previously owned it. There's two good-sized fields here. We are looking to site our materials recovery facility or a MRF from Avenue C in Williston, off of Industrial Lab, over to Redmond Road. Our facility is older and needs upgrades, and we just need more space. So we did a pretty comprehensive search for property and turns out that Redmond Road on the property that we own made the most sense. It's a whole slew of parameters. So there's two potential sites in that area that was circled. I'm calling it kind of site A, potential and site B. This site has a good amount of space on it. And I apologize, this is definitely like a preliminary concept. So there's a lot going on in here. But on the far bottom right, that's where we would bring cars, we would bring inbound traffic that would have recycling. And again, this is a large scale facility, like the one that we have on Avenue C. The idea is, which is hard to see is we bring the inbound traffic behind the facility and we'll use the natural contour to reduce any kind of noise coming in. We really like this idea. But if you look at the front of the facility, that little maroon piece there that has been identified as a wetland, we have the potential to impact it. We don't necessarily want to impact it. And we're going down our wetlands review for that particular area with one potential layout that we've developed over the last year. The other spot called site B is right next to it. It's another great field, good open area. This is even more conceptual than the last one. What the idea was is that we would bring people in and it would be nestled up against the road that goes to the Velco laydown space. And again, we would use contours to our advantage as well. Those are two potential areas that we want to set our new recycling center at. Are there questions so far about the site again? This is preliminary and our board has not yet approved this project. We'll be bringing that to them in the next month or so. So this is all, as Josh said, still preliminary and design and scope. So as you know, we have some CEO problems at the other facility. And looking at trying to do some waivers on the noise ordinance that we have to discourage the seagulls from setting up shop there. But we have the same problem here. Well, the recycling is certainly different from food, right? So the seagulls are coming after the organics, whether it's at the de-packaging facility of Casellas or whether it's compost. And so that's another reason that we are really focusing on keeping the amount of organics that we manage at the compost facility down. With the MRF, the materials are deposited inside the building and there is the ability to shut the door, literally to close the door. So there's much less likelihood of gull issues with the MRF than there is with the compost facility. So I think you're seeing increased activity at the Casellas facility just because of that new de-packager. Thank you. So we are also investigating building a new administrative building, which would free up the one we're in currently. We have 25 staff members and at this point the raised ranch is getting a little tight, especially after we went through COVID and the need for her to move through an office, we just don't have that ability. So we are looking at a spot still on Redmond Road. This is even more preliminary because I don't even have anything drawn on it. I just have a box on a map. But it's on the other side of the road that goes into the Velco laydown case. And we're investigating, we're in the cost analysis phase right now. And even to see if civil side design makes sense. So this is a potential site for a new administrative building. Again, we like this location, putting it right in the middle of our two potential large operations, right? So ease of staff to be able to move back and forth between the operations, ease of tour groups to come into tour the MRF and then to just right down the road to work at the compost facility. So a lot of really good educational opportunities for our kids. And then again, just to be able to have that, the ease of going back and forth is very appealing. And as Josh said, to have a new modern efficient, energy efficient, healthy building is really important for us. And one of the other things that I didn't mention it, we're really taking a hard look at the sight lines as you come in and off of Redmond Road. Right now our administrative building is right around a corner. So there are some hairy moments. So when we developed our compost facilities new approach and we were looking at our recycling facilities kind of access on the Redmond Road, we're really taking a hard look at, when you pull out, you can see a good distance in both directions. And then last but not least, this, we are looking to extend the municipal waterline down Redmond Road. As you turn down Redmond Road off of Mountain View, as you head towards the end of the road, you'll see an access road that gets you into the global foundries. That's right about there is where municipal water starts, which is where we plan on picking it up. And we're gonna run it down the road to our compost facility at that 860 Redmond Road property. We'll feed water to that property. We'll also feed water to our compost facility because we've had, we just compost requires water, a good amount of water in the summer, when it gets dry and gets hot to purchase it. And it just makes sense to bring this down. This will also, it supports our recycling center and our admin building. We'll have outlets for those two as well. And Velco showed interest and potentially wanting water to come up to their laid out space. So that's one of the projects we're also looking at right now, moving forward. We've been talking about this one for at least a day. It's about time we decided to go for it. We're not bringing it any farther down the road because the administrative office has a really, really good well for that site. It's specific to that site. It's about six gallons a minute. And then the property next to the rental property also has a well in it. So as far as water needs down the road, we don't really have a ton. So we're stopping it right at that point. Josh, I think that's good. Okay, great. So we can release control back too. And one of the things that we didn't mention about the buildings too is that we are looking at significantly reducing our carbon footprint and incorporating solar and all of the new projects, looking to get lead certification for as much as we can. So wherever we can implement energy savings, emissions savings, that's what we wanna do. So we wanna make each of these, anything that we build from here on forward. We did this in Heinsberg when we rebuilt the drop off center there. We put in a small solar array. So whatever we can implement those best practices, that is also one of our goals. What questions do you have for us? Third question was I have one that in the past year, there's been a lot of bad publicity about the ground blast dumping at the facility. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came about and resolution? So the resolution was through consent order. As you may have read in the papers and we disagreed with the state's allegations. But we do understand that the past decisions caused confusion and concern and mistrust in how CSWDs manage the glass through the Murph. But we are committed to moving forward with, with our plans that had been underway for years, which was working to make the glass that comes into the Murph into a new product. Normally we don't make any products at the Murph except for this, we turn into a process glass aggregate. But the real goal for us is to create, go even further and to create a replacement for sand borough. So that is what we're working with UVM and with VTrans on creating the testing and the specifications for that product. Because that would then replace an increasingly scarce natural resource in Vermont and not just in Vermont, but in throughout the Northeast. So we're really excited about, continuing to work with the age of season and with the school, they're really excited about it. UVM is seeing this as a project that could have not just regional ramifications but national, they're looking at it as a research opportunity that could really kind of put them on the map with this particular issue, which is really exciting. So we're definitely trying to make the best of a difficult situation where our glass goes now. We are still producing process glass aggregate for use in a number of different applications. What can Corey is still accepting that material for blending when there's a material that we produce that does not meet that specification. So we send that on to other recyclers, whether it's in Massachusetts or when we have access to Quebec markets, we'll send it on to Quebec. So that's where we are now. Thank you. Sarah, I don't want to harp on it too much but that ground glass issue was my understanding of it was that there was something along the lines of 15,000 tons of ground glass. It was like dumped over a bank on Redmond Road. And then the state was told that that was actually that that glass had gone somewhere else. So I know that you entity doesn't agree with the resolution or entered in the resolution but you did so as a tactical and strategic thing. I get that. But I'm just wondering was there a management issue? Was there a change in administrative policies to make sure that something like that doesn't happen again? Well, there's a different approach. Josh, when he took over the Murph, when I asked him to do that, he made glass a priority and making sure that we are advancing onto the San Buro because that really is, I feel in my professional capacity I've been solid waste for almost 20 years. That is the best outcome for Murph glass. So it is a different, a management approach. I think you've seen that from me over the past few years that I have a different take on things. And we are trying to move forward in using best industry practices, using new technology whenever we can and making sure that we're doing everything that we're doing is being done in an environmentally sound and in an economic manner. So having said that, I will also say, we were participating in this process in good faith and we were respecting the process and there were certain parties that were not directly involved. So did not have all of the information and were making speculations and those speculations are what took hold in the public. And the uses that we employed were allowed according to A&R's guidance at the time. And so this is why I say that we disagreed with the state's allegations and our uses were in line with the state's approved uses. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Sarah or Josh? Seeing none, we'll see you in a couple of weeks to talk about budget. Yeah, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate the opportunity. Take care. So we'll shift gears to the fiscal 21 revenue forecast update with Eric and Shirley and if you could plug Shirley back in on your shoes right now and then take it away. Thanks, Terry. I'll just kind of leave things off here then I'll have Shirley do most of the update here. So we've been providing the board with a revenue forecast update. We've termed it throughout this fiscal year with COVID. Especially getting going last fall, we really didn't know where our revenue was gonna fall this year with a lot of unknowns. As you recall, we made a lot of adjustments on the expense side of the budget to try to remedy what we anticipate as a large revenue shortfall. So we're here tonight to share good news with the board and the community that this forecast will show the towns in a stable position, say whether the fiscal challenges brought on by COVID-19 to date by our approaches of scaling back expenses. Well, our revenue outlook was uncertain. So I'll turn over to Shirley to do a walkthrough for the board now and have a couple other items to just think about as we go through it. Great. Hello. Hi. So first I just wanna point out some of the bigger changes between the last forecast that you saw in February and the April forecast. So the decrease in the budgeted revenues in February was round numbers, 252,000 and the current projection reflects 180,000. So we improved the revenue forecast by 73,000. The bulk of that or half of that is coming from the fact that we have the final cash flows from the state of Vermont and we will be able to move some revenue back over to the income statement where we were holding it in a liability thinking we were gonna have to pay it to the state. So that's about $30,000 of the increase in the revenue picture. Reviewing the budget of actuals between the two when we looked at permit fee revenue it's doing better than we projected so we increased that by 15,000. And this last one was we increased revenue by the 15,710, but that's really has an offset to it and expenses. That's the amount that we get from that as part of the budget process we get from the impact fees to offset the sidewalk bond debt. So we used to just post that against the bond debt and reduce our expenses. So now all we're doing is we're showing our expenses gross and our income gross. So, and that's in line with some of the suggestions that came through from the audit. So I just thought I'd reflect it here as well. In terms of the forecasted expenses at February we had decreased expenses by 569,000 and now we're at a decrease of 749,000. So we decreased our expenses by another 181,000. So one of the big items was police wages. There were a lot of changes going on there and so as I looked at it again, police wages are really just right on budget. So I just removed all of the forecast. One was a deficit, one, you know, we were expecting some savings from some open positions but right now year to date, they're exactly where they should be. So that was actually a $116,000 decrease. So when you remove that it increased our revenue. We had 28,000 of interest expense for our fire trip bond debt, but that the first payment won't be until FY 22. So that essentially is a savings. Talked about the sidewalk bond revenue already. Our workbench comp is going to be, you know, we have our final numbers from VLCT and it's going to be less than we originally projected for the budget. And the last thing we've known and I think I just forgot to include it in the prior versions was the form-based code. We had 55,000 in the budget, thinking that project was going to be done, but it's not, it's going to roll over to FY 22. So we expect to spend about 25,000 and have a 30,000 favorable variance to budget. So those are the biggies between the 4th of February and this current forecast, but I thought it would be helpful to go back to where we started and review some of the big items. So when we did our first forecast back in September and there was a lot more unknowns then, we had a revenue forecast that was 560,000 less than our budget. So you can see we've come quite a ways to now be 180,000 less than our budget. And our expense savings was 474,000 when we did our first round and now we're at 750,000. So one of the big items, the biggest item in this change is our initial forecast for the sales tax revenue. We had projected that we might be up to 231,000 under budget. Now we are estimating 15,000 under budget. So that was a $216,000 swing. And really it's the online sales that just took off during COVID that have helped. And that's at the state, they have the same issue. They have excess revenue from what they expected. And who knows, we'll probably see some of the rooms and meals tax come back a little bit as more people begin dining out again. So I expect maybe we'll even see the last quarter closer to the budget. State aid for highway payments, the quarterly projection we used for the budget was a little less than we actually received. Plus we received the one-time supplemental payment. So that was $50,000. The October 2019 Halloween storm disaster, of course we didn't budget it cause you never know when you're getting money from FEMA, but we did receive $40,000 that wasn't in the budget. So that was helpful. We talked about the 30,000 increase in property tax revenue, miscellaneous highway income, almost $28,000. And really that's coming from SDR and Lens Quarry and we get a tonnage fee and they've been very busy over there. So the rec program, I mean, they're a huge part, their revenue and their expense. So program wages, I should say program wages and expenses. Let's see. So the decrease in the program wages was about 198,000 and then that increased to 247,000. And primarily that was the, initially we hoped to be able to hire the assistant to Todd who would be full-time but as COVID kept going along, we said, oh, we're not gonna fill that position at all and FY 21. So that was really 50,000, that additional increase or I should say decrease in spending was because that position is still on hold until things change. Fire, another big one is fire department call staff that had a budget of 75. We're expecting to use 35, so a 40,000 budget variance. And the budget was probably high to begin with because call fire staffing has been hard and decreasing over the years. So that has been pared down in the FY 22 budget. And the town managers staffing in that department and when we did the budget, none of us expected Rick would retire, but he did. And so that's the savings between not filling the Eric's position as Eric moved on, that is open for the whole year. And there's some salary difference between Eric and Rick. So that was that. We also eliminated a position in the town and the clerk's office, the clerk's staff because that position was primarily there to wait on customers of which we don't have anymore. And a lot of the work was doing passports, which we aren't doing right now. So there really was not work for the position. So effective the last day of December, we eliminated the position altogether when it was a full-time position. Form-based code we already just talked about, discretionary wage budget. We had 30,000 in there for potential contract issues when we did the police contract and we didn't need that. So that became a savings. And we talked about the fire truck bond interest. I just, I wanna point out that when you look at the current projection, we still have the 500,000 in this projection as revenue we would use. So we clearly aren't gonna need all of that money and we won't know exactly to the end of the year when we see everything shake out. But I highly doubt we're gonna touch a fraction of that money. We had said we were gonna use from reserves to help keep the tax rate down. But right now, just so you know, it still is in this forecast, but I doubt if we use a quarter of it, I'd be surprised based on our current numbers. So did you wanna follow that up here? Or questions, maybe first? I'll pause the board. Is there any questions for you, Shirley? Yeah. So Shirley, this sounds like really good news from what we were possibly anticipating for a shortfall. It sure is. Yeah, okay, thanks. So if we're not using as much of the fund balance, which is good, if we're still way over the amount that we set as the amount to have in that fund balance, right? Yeah, but you're going to be doing something, looking at the fund balance sometime in the near future, I think I heard that before. You did, it's on my project list. Okay. Yes. One item, as we take a closer look at this, and this $500,000 to offset tax increase, spend the town budget for a number of years now, and we always seem to find a way that we don't need to tap into those funds to offset at the end of the year. As we take a closer look at this and know we're the next month, one thing staff may bring back to the board and consider is, we ever call an FY20, we deferred funding and environmental reserve fund based on where we were with COVID-19 at that time. So the board could consider assigning a portion of the fund balance, the transfer into the ERF to make up for that shortfall from FY20 and potentially some additional funds as we take a closer look at it here. Well, I expected it maybe necessarily know this, but what is the environmental reserve fund at right now? I believe, hold on, I will tell you, 230. Okay, well, that's... I'm just waiting for Excel to sort of pop up here for me. Well, if you're not gonna say million, I think I know what the... Oh no, I'm not gonna say million. It's 200 and almost 204,000. Thanks. Charlie, does that include the FY21 transfer in? It does. Okay. So it's down considerably from where we used to be. And if we have any great opportunities, they would go wanting it by a forest. Yeah. Yeah, the other items, as I want to mention briefly on this, a lot of these savings, we were able to mindfully cut back some expenses, but some of these were also, as a result of COVID operationally in the budget to lead us where we are. So given this, there's been some additional staff funding requests for the close of the fiscal year. I've been taking a look at to authorize, understand where we're within our budget right now and within their department budget. So we've got a little bit of additional spending, but nothing to absorb it before the close of the fiscal year here. And Shirley, Bruce and I sat in on the ARPA funds webinar of the LCT offer today. It was a good overview of the federal aid package for COVID. We're sifting through that guidance still. It's quite a lot too. It's, we hope to bring to the board in the near future and overview of the ARPA funding and discuss an approach the board would like to take to the town to look at how to utilize those funds. We did find out today that by December of 2024, the funds need to be designated for something, but they don't necessarily, they'll need to all be spent until December 31st of 2026, which was some new information. So we'll continue to dig into that and provide the board a first overview here, hopefully, June. So I'm going to correct myself. That it's $274,000. I did the actual bank transfer, but hadn't updated my schedule. So that 70,000 is now in my schedule. So 274 is what we're looking at. Thank you. Any other questions for Shirley and Eric? Okay, let's move on to the line on them transfers. Again, Erica, Shirley. Cheryl, I'll have you take this off. You can just kind of set up for the board why we've done this in the past and kind of what we look at moving ahead. Sure. So in the budget, we have always created a discretionary account where we have merit in there, where we've had like the contract wages and the merit pay, so our 2% merit. We've dumped it in there because merit isn't actually something that everyone's entitled to necessarily. So then once that merit pay is approved or distributed to the employees, then we have done this line item transfer to move it out of this discretionary jail account into each of the departments. That was another recommendation of the auditors never to use a discretionary account. So this FY22 will be the last time you'll see this line item transfer for the general fund. And this will be the last year you see it for any of the utilities because we've already, when you see the utility budgets, we just put longevity, merit, and salary all in the wage account. So there will be no line item transfer for them next year. So, Erica, do you want to talk about your menu or your memo? Memo, sure. So, you know, given everything this year has been a little bit different with COVID, normally the board would consider these in the fall. Decision last June and July was for these, these are employees who are non-unionized. The decision was to do a 1% merit increase at that time instead of the 2%. Knowing a lot of the budget was uncertain, this was one area to potentially defer to find some short-term savings. Given where the town's position is tonight, staff is confident that we could offer this 2% increase for non-represented staff this fiscal year. My recommendation for the board to consider is these line item transfers would reflect the full 2% and what staff would do is apply that extra 1% as a one-time lump sum payment for employees who are non-unionized, who are employed by the town as of last July 1st. Thinking is there that this is employees who would have been employed, who would have received an increase in their base wage over the whole year and this would pay that 1% in a one-time lump sum this June. You may recall for the FY22 budget, we budgeted a 2% merit increase. So if we were to apply the merit increase as a base wage increase, the cascading effect in FY22 wouldn't be budgeted at that point. So as soon as a middle ground way to provide these employees with the merit pay and within our FY22 budget planning at this point. Thank you. Questions or you're sure, surely you're Eric. If not, we do have a motion to pose to do essentially what the memo says to do. I'd move to approve the fiscal year 2021 line item transfers as presented. Seconded by sort of discussion on the motion. Very none. All those in favor of the motion, raise your hand. You're in animus again, four votes. So let's go on to the bond documents for the lamp light water line replacement. And it's a lot of material to look at, but I think a brief summary of that would be helpful. Yeah, I'll surely give the brief summary. She had a discussion with Bob Fletcher yesterday just to boil this down as there's a lot there. So the town attorney has prepared these documents for the lamp light water line replacement project. Builders approved a $2 million bond to question last November for this project. And the town is going to receive up to $1 million in loan forgiveness from the state drinking water revolving fund. There's three documents prepared by the town attorney and each will require a separate motion by the board per town attorney's counsel. And then surely I'll just turn over you for a brief overview about what each of these documents is essentially doing. Okay, she's Terry after a comment, I was going to give you a little quiz and see if you read them all. So the first, the general bond resolution. So the water system revenue general bond resolution. So, and I'm going to admit, these are all new for me too. The bonding that I'm used to is much different than this in my past history. So it was really nice to chat with Bob yesterday. So how he explained it was the general bond resolution is can be done at any time. It is set up to talk about, it's our agreement between the town and the bondholders. So we don't actually even have to be ready to have a project for which we're going to bond. We can create these documents up front and then we have them all set. And then as a project comes along, then we can have those supplemental resolutions. So, you know, this just defines the project. I'm going to cheat and look at my notes here. Talks about how we'll maintain the system, how we'll set rates to meet our operating and our debt service. It describes the authorization and the issuance of the bonds in general. And then it refers to these supplemental resolutions. So that's the, it's called resolution and certificate. No, I'm sorry, it's called the Water System Revenue Bonds Series 2021 A Resolution. So this is the document that would be created each time we want to reference the general bond resolution. So this is for a specific project. It details that specific project and includes what the interest rate would be, the term or maturity, the denomination of the bonds, the who the paying agent is and includes the amortization schedule. And the most important thing for you to know right now is that you're looking at a document that is not going to be able to be completed entirely until the project is done. So we know that we have $2 million that was approved and we can't exceed the $2 million, but the way the funding works through the drinking revolving loan fund is that they're going to match, our subsidy is going to be the 75% and the 25%, but it's based on the actual cost of the project. So if the project is less than $2 million, then these documents will be written for the exact amount we need. So you will be signing the last page. All of you will sign the last page. And then what will happen is this document will stay with the attorney's stitial fletcher and page. They keep them in trust. And then when this process is done, they will just really insert the correct information and insert those pages and the last page has signatures. So they're just going to insert the new pages and then we'll provide copies of those final documents back to the town. And then the loan agreement, this is the contract between the town and the bond bank. So again, this just details the, when the payments are due, the interest rates, the administrative fee, the maturity information, how the town can request reimbursement of our project cost. It also includes, you know, compliance steps that we need to make sure that we follow and has a project description. And this documentary will only be signed by the chair of the board. So unless you have questions, that's all I had prepared. Thank you for that good brief introduction. Questions from the board. If not, there are three, then three different motions to make tonight. Individually probably would be best. I'll give it a shot, Terry. I'll move to adopt the town's water system revenue and general bond resolution as presented. Sir, a second to that. Second. And go to seconds. It's a discussion of that motion. If that all those in favor of the motion, raise your hand. We have all four guesses. Next motion. I'll also move to adopt the town's water system revenue bond series, 2021 a resolution as presented. Where's your second to that? Second. And go to does. Is there any discussion on that motion? If not, then all those in favor of the motion, raise your hand again, four votes. Yes. And the last motion. And I'll move to adopt the authorizing resolution and certificate for the town's water system, revenue bond as presented. There's your second to that. I'll second that. Very good. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, raise your hand. And again, we have four votes. Yes. So thank you very much. And now we'll move on off of the all the bond stuff to the stormwater, the water, the sewer from budgets. So let's start with the stormwater. Eric, I think you're going to leave off. I believe Christine is good to be on to talk about this. Yep. I'm getting Christine connected here and Bruce connected as well. Okay. And I'll have a public work staff really walk through the budget and Shirley and I are here for questions as we go. And I think surely may try to share the screen here as well. And before I forget for these bond documents, there is the one that requires the full board's signature and I'll leave it on the mailbox that's here in the town hall for the board to sign when we have a chance. Now Eric, I'm going to go ahead and share with them. Do you want to share the screen, Eric? Welcome to Bruce and Christine. So Christine will be walking us through the stormwater fund budget. I'm just here for support for that one. Yes. And thank you, Bruce. Good evening, Christine Doherty, stormwater coordinator with public works department. Happy to be here with you this evening. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So we are, you know, happy to say to start off with that we are not going to be looking for any increases in the stormwater fee this year. So that's, you know, I think really a positive start through to the budget discussion around this program. We're looking at a small but steady increase in our stormwater user receipt, which is reflecting of the growth that we're seeing here in the community. And so positive growth, we're looking at approximately $800,000 for our operating budget this year. Well, we're not anticipating any planned or significant changes and in the budget this year from last year. But you will see some increases, such as in the consultant in our consulting services. We're asking for additional funding there for the Blue Williston pilot program, or I'm sorry, the Blue Williston program that we piloted in 2020. So we're asking to place that money into the consulting, under the consulting category. The Blue Williston program really helps to support our program meeting our MS4 obligations. We feel like that'd be a good place for that. We also, you know, continue to do some planning with the phosphorus control plan. That's gonna be a requirement, is the requirement of the new MS4 program. I'm sorry, Shirley, I see yours here. Yeah, trying to get there, here we go. Nope, sorry. Yeah, so you can see here, you know, where we have the expenses that are associated with the phosphorus control plan that came with the MS4 permit. We've committed a plan for review by the state for that. Recently here with the April 1st filing. And then, you know, the three acre permit has also been implemented. And so while the town has the MS4 permit that we have obligations to meet requirements for, we also are co-permit used on operational permits. So, you know, when we look to renew some of our permits, there may be additional requirements to the stormwater infrastructure that will be requiring, you know, updates and maintenance in the near future. These are the things that we're looking at in the near horizon. And then just wanted to provide a quick update as well with some of the expired stormwater permit identified in our flow restoration plan. Those can continue to be returned to compliance and reprimitted. So happy to see the progress continued on that. The Allen flow, Allen Brook flow restoration plan is one of the capital improvement online items. And, you know, we'll continue to need to make our efforts towards meeting those compliance with that program. So I think we've made a lot of progress over the last couple of years, but we still have some more words to do. Can I take any questions? Question on the Blue Williston project. We think we, how much did we put in the last year and how much we put in this year? So last year we requested $10,000 to do the pilot and we're requesting the same amount this year. We found that to be, it was very effective. Other questions for Christina Roos? If there's not, then there is a motion suggested. I'll move to approve the stormwater fund operating budget for fiscal year 2022 in the amount of $802,678 and capital program for fiscal years 2022 through 2027 as presented. Is there a second? Second. Sorry, discussion on the motion. All those in favor of the motion raise your hands. I see on my screen, I can only see two, but I presume that we have all four voting yes, that's correct, everybody. Yep. Okay. Yes. Good, thank you. So we've approved the stormwater budget. So thank you very much, Christine. Thank you. And we'll move on to the water fund budget. And Bruce, you're doing that. I am, thanks Christine. I'm gonna get it backwards in my packet, so take me just a second to get to the water fund balance Water fund balance and water balance, water. Okay, water department. Sorry, Bruce, can you see the water budget up on the screen now? Oh yeah. Okay. So the water budget for this year, my letter of transmittal explains a little bit about it. We're seeing a 3.42% increase in the wholesale rate from the Champlain Water District. And I just point that out to let you know where some of the increase comes to for our budget as we increase the retail rate. The good news is that FY21, the wholesale rate increase, but we were able to keep our rate increase flat. We didn't ask for a rate increase last year because COVID was coming along. I'm not really anywhere on the sheet right now. I'm just talking about my letter of transmittal, trying to explain a little bit about those things. But for FY22, we are looking at a increase of 1.39% in the retail rate, still a fairly low increase. But when you have one year where you don't do any increase, it's gonna start catching up to you a little bit. And I don't have the memo with me, but I have a memo ready to go to Eric. Once this is approved, if it's approved, that'll show that over the past 10 years in both water and sewer, we've had years, two or three years where we've had 0% increases. And that's all well and good, but what that means is eventually your increases go up a little bit more because things do start to catch up to you. So anyway, even at a 1.39% rate to increase the retail rate, we still will be able to make a little bit of contribution to the water fund balance of $40,485. So the rate increase water department. More than the boxes, Shirley? Want me to go to the boxes? Yeah, please. Yep. I wanna go right to where the rate increases for the go down, not any of these, basic use, no, not basic use of charge. Yeah, the user receipts right there. I'll show you that we're going from 503 per 1,000 gallons to 510 per 1,000 gallons in water. So it's a 7 cent increase is what 1.39% equates to. That is the biggest change, obviously, in the water budget. So if there's anything in particular, anybody would like me to talk about, I'm certainly willing to do it. But that's our proposed rate for fiscal year 22 for water. Any questions for Bruce on this? That's a very modest increase. So that's always good. There is a motion suggested for this as well. Move to approve the water fund operating budget for fiscal year 2022 in the amount of $1,309,245 in capital program for fiscal year 2022 through 2027 has presented. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor, I think we'll do a voice vote. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I heard four aye's. So I think we're in shape with that. So thank you very much. And lastly, Bruce, the sewer fund budget. Okay, sewer fund budget. We're only seeing a very slight increase in our wholesale rate to the plant this year, 0.93%. So the retail rate though, we were not able to hold quite as well. The sewer fund, I was getting ready to go off. So excuse me a minute if he starts barking. Sorry. Been a couple of meetings since we've heard that dog. Yeah, of course he has a cat. Sorry about that. Cat's laying on the floor. But anyway, let's see. So yeah, we're looking at a fiscal year 22. The retail rate increase is going from 712 to 749 per thousand gallons. It's a 5.20 increase. And that's even with suggesting that we're taking money out of the sewer fund balance to keep the rate at only a 5.2% increase. Part of that has to do with the fact that we own more, for lack of a better term, we own more of the treatment plant now. We've been buying that 100,000 gallons now. About 10,000 gallons a year. Anyway, for the last five years, I think we actually went through two rotations of that. So anyway, we have a higher percentage of the plant at this point. And we've had a few years where we haven't raised sewer rates at all either. And I'm going to bring that up to suggest it. You know, I'm a rate payer myself for different things and it's nice to try to keep things as well as we can. But I really think that every year we need to look at some kind of rate increase just so we don't get to these points. We've had years where we've had 25% rate increases. And some of that's just because, you know, we try to keep the rate as low as we can, which is all well and good. But if it's not paying for what we have to do to keep our services going, then, you know, in the long run, we're actually going back and taking money back now. The fund balance, we actually haven't been taken, even though every year we've been saying we're going to take some money out of that to offset the, keep the rates down. We actually haven't had to make some of those transfers, but we never know that to the end of the year until we see what happens at the budget. So once again, that's our biggest increase and that's what the rate increase is going to be. What we're suggesting anyway. So questions for Bruce. If there's no questions then a motion is again, that's suggested. Move to approve the sewer fund operating budget for fiscal year 2022 in the amount of $1,882,732 in the capital program for fiscal year 2020, fiscal years 2022 through 2027 as presented. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion on the motion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. I hear three. Aye. I hear four. So good. Thank you very much and you can... I could real quick, Terry, please. Yes. First, just to tell you all, thanks for your support once again, but also thank you for recognizing the National Public Works Week with the proclamation. We actually today for the first time in a year and a half had everybody together and took a picture and even asked Eric to come out and be in the picture with us and truly took the picture for us. So anyway, even just for myself as an apartment head, it was really quite nice to finally have everybody back together. I mean, it's been a long year we're not over this thing totally yet, but I'm really proud of the crew and the work that they all did during this COVID and with the support of the town, obviously, you know, but anyway, so I just wanted to tell you, thank you all from Public Works. And we thank everybody in the Public Works Department as part of that resolution for the hard work they've done under tough circumstances certain for a year now. I didn't know Christine was still a loner. I wouldn't have said all that now. No. No. So thank you again. And we'll move on to complete our business here. Will the managers report? Thanks, Terry. And so I have a couple of items from my written report this evening. Just to pull out my notes here. I think I mentioned earlier where we're starting a review of the ARPA funds that webinar earlier today. We hope to have an update for the board here moving ahead. It is about 150 page document with the treasury guidance here. So VLCT did a good job in helping to boil it down a bit for us and they've got some good strategies for us as a community to think about that they're able to provide guidance on. And VLCTs received some funding to hire a position the next few years to directly help towns and working to set up these aid programs and answer questions. So there'll be a good help available from our partners there. And then I want to provide update on Independence Day celebration this year. So I'm pleased to announce that tentatively we're planning to do some activities for Independence Day this year. This is certainly welcomed by the community after needing to cancel last year due to the pandemic. So what staff is working on is be on July 3rd, Saturday, we'll be having the parade at 10 a.m. traditional route from the Johnson's farm down the old stage road. One difference so we likely won't have judging this year but we encourage a lot of people to participate in the parade as usual. There'll be information on the REC department website I believe this Friday for signing up for folks to get their names in ahead of time and I know we have flexibility leading up to the parade as well but encourage folks to register early to help Todd out who organizes all of that. And then we are going to plan on the fireworks display this year around 9 30 or so at dusk and we are gonna have a change. We're gonna move the location of the fireworks to the Wilson Community Park behind Wilson Central School this year had a staff team with our public safety leadership and Todd and myself take a look at this and we found this location provide a lot more open green space for seating some more means for biking, walking additional parking available for folks and talking about this with the town made them fireworks so long ago with that location so we're hopeful this may be a good permanent change in the future we'll be able to have some other events utilize the space for further activities maybe additional food vendors moving forward but we'll look to see how it goes this year we've got a good plan with the vendor and so we'll be looking to offer that on July 3rd for the community. Some of the other events that the town has traditionally done on the green we're just gonna scale those back a bit this year with the pandemic and other community groups that have sponsored events would be encouraged to still hold those events and on the town green or at other times so for example the band concert historical society, open house, ice cream social and the town will help coordinate that and market the events and we just ask those groups will organize those and make sure they follow the current pandemic safety guidance that's out there so we're hopeful we can proceed as planned things are looking good right now but certainly if we need to make a change for public health reasons we would need to do so up to the day of the event so we'll don't wanna be pessimistic wanna be optimistic so I'm glad we're in this position and welcome a community to take part in our Independence Day celebration coming up in July. That's all I have for my managers report this evening Terry. Any questions for Eric before we go on to open the business? All right, other business so we have a catering permit I'm cool. It's been a long time. Yeah, for the first time in a long time we have a catering permit it is for a wedding reception at the Isham family barn on June 26th. The caterer is Gemini Incorporated doing business as the poor house. This is an approved wedding venue location that there's a staff recommends the board offers a motion for approval approval this weekend. Any questions for Eric on this one? The motion would be in order then to approve it. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Discussion of the motion. All those in favor of the motion say aye. I raise your hand. Four are good, we've done that as well. Eric mentioned two weeks ago that the charter change was approved in the house with just the one issue going forward the Senate did likewise and approved it and sent it to the governor and what intensified the governor would sign this for the next couple of weeks. So that'll be a done deal for this particular year. Any other business that we need to take care of tonight before we go into the second session? All right, then I would need to suggest the two motions that we have before us and to include besides Eric to include Rusour as the director of public works to join us, so is there are other motions? I'd move to find, I'm sorry, I'd move that we go into executive session finding that a premature general public knowledge or proposed terms of the contract would clearly place a select board at a substantial disadvantage and further move that we enter into executive session to discuss the proposed terms. Under the provisions of title one, section 31318 or A1A of my statutes annotated and invite town manager Eric Wells and Rusour to join us. So second. Second. Any discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor raise your hand. One, two, three, four. So we'll be in the executive session and I'll join you as soon as somebody can do that for me. Shirley, thank you very much. I'll be right up, Terry. And for town meeting TVs, let you know if there is action out of the executive session, I'll send a motion out to everyone to capture that action. So Eric, I don't know that I had the link.