 is Wednesday, December 21st, 2022. I would like to call to order this scheduled public hearing of the Chittenden Solid Waste District for review of the preliminary proposed fiscal year 24 preliminary budget of the Chittenden Solid Waste District. First item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Are there any additions or changes requested to the agenda? I'm seeing none. I'm hearing none. The agenda then will be accepted as presented. Second item on the agenda is a public comment period on the proposed preliminary budget that was presented in the packet. Are there any members of the public attending either in person or remotely via Zoom or telephone who wish to address the Board of Commissioners concerning the proposed preliminary budget? There are no members of the public. I am seeing none. I'm hearing none. I will therefore close the public comment period. Next item is the public hearing itself of the budget. Sarah, would you like to make any preliminary comments? Just to remind the Board and the public that this is a requirement for our charter that we must have a public hearing on the preliminary slash proposed budget for the fiscal year no later than January 31st proceeding to fiscal year for that particular budget. Due to the diligence of my management team and finance team, we were able to present the preliminary budget to the Board last month and have been able to expedite this process, which means that we can start our full budgeting process with the finance committee next month, a full month to six weeks ahead of our normal standard time, which is excellent. So I would just like to commend my team for doing a lot of hard work and making that happen. Thank you, Sarah. I would also note that the preliminary budget does show a surplus and I think the most important message to extend to the public and to the select boards within the district that there is no anticipated assessment for property taxes as part of this budget. So it was important to get that in the record should people come and look at this information after this meeting. Are there any other comments or discussion to be had on the proposed 2024 preliminary budget? I'm hearing none. I can't see if any commissioners hands are raised via Zoom. I will presume that's not the case. At this point to entertain a motion to adjourn this public hearing. So move desicc second south Burlington. It's been moved and seconded to adjourn this public hearing. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The public hearing is now adjourned. We're ready to move on then to the regularly scheduled meeting of the Chittenden Solid Waste District Board of Commissioners. Before we begin, I just want to take a moment to introduce the new alternate from South Burlington, Allison Lazarz. She is here present in the meeting room tonight. It's a, we're delighted to have the team from South Burlington rounded out. There is a learning curve involved. I've encouraged Allison to speak up whenever she has a question. She's got a great tutor and Paul Stabler here, but it's great to have this addition to the Board of Commissioners. So welcome, Allison. With that first item on the agenda this meeting is the agenda itself. Are there any changes or additions requested to the agenda? Sarah, your hand is up. Thank you. Yes, I had to update in my executive director's report, which I don't think needs to actually be removed. So if you would like Paul, I can simply update in either other business, or if you want to pull the, can we go and get there? And then for item number five, the administrative office, I would like to remove that item from consideration. I decided that we should put that part of the project out to bid. So we will not be asking for authorization on that item and instead we'll be putting that onto bid this week or next week. So you're asking to remove item five in its entirety from the agenda? In its entirety. In its entirety. And then you have a, just to be clear, a little additional information on the executive director update, which you say you can handle in other business? In other business or if, I don't think that it warrants pulling, it really is just an updating of a date. So it's up to you if you want to. Why don't you go ahead then if you, well, no, we haven't gotten to the consent agenda. I'll ask that at that time. Okay. Any other changes to the agenda? So just to be clear again, item number five, the administrative office will be removed from the agenda. If there are no other requested changes or additions, then the agenda will be followed as amended with the removal of item number five. Next item on the agenda is the public comment period. Are there any members of the public present via Zoom or the telephone or in person who wish to address the board of commissioners? There are not. I am seeing none here. I am hearing none via Zoom or telephone. Therefore close the public comment period. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Are there any requests to remove an item from the consent agenda? At this point, Sarah, I would invite you to just update us on your executive director update. Thank you. So the item about the EPA grant, I just wanted to update the due date. So the EPA has extended that timeline to February 15th. So we have, everyone has an additional month to work on the grant. Thank you. With that update, are there any requests to remove an item from the consent agenda? Hearing none here in the room and seeing none on Zoom, the consent agenda then is accepted as presented with that one additional bit of information. We'll move on then to item number four, listed as other businesses, really as old business. This was something that the commissioner from Milton, Henry Banges had asked to be put on the agenda last month due to the lateness of the hour at that meeting. It was, we postponed the presentation of this item until this meeting. And so now, Henry, I'll turn it over to you to share your thoughts and concerns on the item of furniture deconstruction, I believe. Yes, thank you, Paul. Yes, I joined the board here four or five months ago, I forget, and one thing that many of us see in the landfills is concerned as far as furniture. And that particularly was adventurous to me because my wife does upholstery and I build things. So I'm quite familiar with how much of that furniture is actually reusable or recyclable. And then on top of that, just came across the New York Times article, headline is fast furniture is cheap and Americans are throwing it in the trash. And it says during the pandemic from 2019 to 21, the amount of desk chairs, patio equipment jumped by four billion. It didn't have with the base value and it would have jumped by four billion. And most of the furniture designed by Ikea and Wayfarer is only designed to last about five years, okay? So we're looking at, those numbers should be clear, okay, vastly increased amount of furniture going into the landfills. And so just offered to the board and Sarah and the team has something to consider. How can we get ahead of this, okay? And instead of reacting to it and the furniture deconstruction was just my thought as far as a solution to it with the idea of, Sarah said maybe that's use for the old Murph facility. I'll call it the old Murph now. I think that's okay to do, but I, and possibly in, but with that I was just suggesting a pilot program to see how effective it is. The furniture comes in there and of course the metal recyclable but a lot of people may not be aware but those foam cushions are also reusable. If not, besides also being recyclable but they could also be reusable and actually worth quite a bit of money because they're nothing but oil. It's just process oil. So that's my concern. You know, suggest some type of deconstruction look be looked into unless somebody's got a better idea. And with that a pilot program before the old Murph becomes available for an alternate use, which will still be some time a pilot program to evaluate it. And then if we did something with the old Murph as Sarah seemed to like, well, we'd already understand the impact it could have some logistics figured out. So thanks for the time, Paul. That's my nickels worth all yours. Thank you. Sarah, did you have anything would you wouldn't want to add at this moment before I just open it up to commissioners for questions or comments? I'm interested in what other commissioners may have to add. Audio is not great for me here but nothing to add. Other commissioners at this point wish to offer any comments. Leslie. Sarah or anyone else on the staff here. Are you aware of any other facilities across the country that are doing furniture deconstruction? I think it's a really interesting idea. Not as a municipality or none of the districts I believe, Jen, you may have a better sense but I don't believe any of the other districts are doing deconstruction. When Henry and I discussed it, part of the concern that I had would be just the space needed for storage until deconstruction could occur. Most of the deconstruction that I'm aware of is around mattresses and there may be some smaller programs that are kind of like the ARC programs that are job training around a certain particular trade but nothing along the lines of a municipal activity. And so, as I mentioned to Henry, we haven't decided what we may want to do with what will eventually become the old Murph building. So really, a lot of options can be explored. So it's good to talk about some of these things and see if there's a possibility and what benefit there may be. But no, I'm not aware of any formal programs from a municipal school. I wasn't so much thinking about a municipality but about firms that might be doing it. In other words, is there a market from what materials and is this something that could be contracted out if there's no market for materials then it becomes perhaps an issue? Yeah, so the model that I look to is the current mattress recycling model. And I know that that industry where they do choose to deconstruct, so there are kind of two pathways. One is deconstruction and the other is shredding. And where they do deconstruction, they very much are reliant upon the markets, particularly in scrap metal markets and the textile markets. And several years ago, more than that now, probably a decade ago, you could move a lot of the fabric components out of mattresses, both the fabric and the shoddy. That right now is very difficult to move. The scrap metal goes up and down and then the other component in furniture could be, as Henry mentioned, it is foam and then wood. So there could be some value in the foam if you could collect enough of it, perhaps densify it, sell it as a fuel starter, kind of a product of the fuel pack and wood, there's not much market for that. So it would be marginal at best. Thank you. And Henry, you had your hand up. Yes, when you deconstruct it's basically four items. This may be obvious, okay, but there's the fabric or leather or faux leather, whatever the covering is. And there's of course the metal, obviously recyclable. Then there's a wood, which is depending how it's treated is either trash or it could be burned, okay, along with the other scrap wood. But then the biggest one, volume-wise, is the foam. And a lot of the foam could actually be re-sold and not even one market to explore because, again, my wife buys a lot of it, okay, to do a poultry and so that can actually be reused, but would have to find a market for it. Then beyond that, I haven't looked into processing the foam into recycling it, that would take a little bit of research. But it really comes down to those four materials. The one being the covering can be multiple materials. So it's really pretty simple. And again, what we're just, if we, now's the time to be researching it. So yeah, good to have some questions there and what can be done. And so I haven't researched myself, probably, should have as far as what companies are out there that do deconstruction, that would be something that should be done. Thank you. I have a question really for staff. Do we have a sense that you could share with us how much material, furniture material is disposed of throughout the district? There is a volume or percentage of material that we have to deal with. I think that would be an important question to nail down. I don't have a number right off the top of my head. I know that we do receive couches, chairs, different types of chairs. We've got categories for different types of furniture and we do collect those in bunkers at our larger sites off the top of my head. I don't want to give a number that's not accurate, but I could definitely look into that and get back to you guys. It's not a larger volume than the bags that we bring in. It could be a data point in the state's waste composition study, I think it is. So you could look that up and extrapolate for Chittenden County. I think that would be a good number to have and my bias would be, and I think Leslie was kind of intimating it'd be, it's a great idea, but encouraging a private enterprise just along the same lines as the mattress company that just got going. Having that kind of market information for Chittenden County might be an encouraging signal to a private company that this is something that they could get into and perhaps do it profitably. So Paul, we have Lee and then Rick and then Henry. Thank you. So yeah, I don't know, obviously City of Burlington deals a lot with furniture left on, within the right of way, and we haul it to Cassella and just thinking, I'm wondering on the invoices because I know there are certain charges for different materials. If I can kind of extrapolate something out of that, but I know it's a fair amount that we pick up every year, especially, the city does a good job with student move out, but there's inevitably still furniture, unfortunately, as Henry pointed out, the wood in certain instances is recyclable, but if it's painted or stained, we can't bring it down to McNeil, as you know, and unfortunately that goes into the landfill. But maybe I can do some poking around what I have for invoices and paid invoices and find some information on that. Thank you. Yeah, sir, I'm gonna rely on you. We can't see the hand raised, or at least I can't too well, who's got hands raised, but Rick, I think, you're up next. Rick is next, yes. Yes, this isn't directly about the furniture, but it is about the reuse of the mirf. It's interesting to think about what we might use that for and I was thinking that sort of discussion was wildly premature at this stage, but I'm wondering if maybe we should schedule alternative uses for the mirf for some time maybe in the spring, mostly because if there are ideas that call for data collection such as exactly how much furniture is disposed of, we would have time to actually conduct that kind of study. Agreed, I think it's a great idea. Add it to the agenda and Paul will talk to you about March or April, and so we can kind of start that conversation. I now have the ability to see hands raised on Zoom, but I believe you had said, I know Henry, you had mentioned, Sarah, is there somebody else before Henry? And Henry put his hand down, so that may have been a leftover hand. All right, any other questions or comments? Thank you, Henry, for bringing this to our attention, and I think we've got some good questions to ask and move this process forward and seeing if it's something that we can actually address in a substantive way. We'll move on then. Next item on the agenda is executive session for the purpose of discussing Flint Avenue and the Materials Recovery Facility or Mirf contract. We will require a motion to enter into executive session. So Moose up Erlington. Thank you. Thank you, Musford. Thank you, it's been moved and seconded that we enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing Flint Avenue and the Mirf contract. All those in favor of entering executive session, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. We will enter executive session. As usual, there are some commissioners who will need to recuse themselves. I think we'll make that decision once we're in executive session as to which topic we address first. Let's do that. So we'll see everybody over in executive session. Present Amy. Yes, we do. And we are back, Paul. Thank you very much. Do we have a motion to exit executive session? So Moose, Jericho. Thank you, Jericho. Do we have a second? So we're in South Burlington. Thank you, South Burlington. It's been moved and seconded that we exit executive session. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, Seine. We have exited executive session. We're now back in public session. Next item on the agenda is for action on a memorandum of understanding with the city of Burlington. Sarah, do you have language to read into the record? Yes. The commissioners authorizes the executive director to extend the memorandum of understanding with the city of Burlington to June 30, 2023, and following the provision in summary terms as presented by the Department of Public Works Director, Chief and Spencer, in his memo to the Burlington City Council dated December 5th, 2022. So Moose, South Burlington. Seconded, Mara Essex. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to extend the memorandum of understanding with the city of Burlington to June 30th, 2022. Is there any discussion on the motion? 23. 23, excuse me. June 30th, 2023. It's gonna take some time. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, seeing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, Seine. Any abstentions? The motion leads. I'm sorry, Lee? Lee. Lee has abstained. Thank you. The motion carries. Do we have a motion to, well is there any other business that commissioners like to bring forward tonight? We've already had other business. Move we adjourn. Thank you, it's been moved. Seconded. All those in favor of adjourning, please say aye. Aye. Aye. It's adjourned. Everybody have a great holiday.