 Oh, train. Oh, train rides. Board ready. All right, so I'm ready to, are we on? All right, so I like to call the Town of Essex slipboard meeting for Monday, August 1st, 2022 to order. You're echoing. I am echoing. All right, am I? Okay, we're ready at the beginning. Okay, so any agenda additions or changes from staff? None from staff. Any board member requests for changes? You good? Did we lose candle? No, there he is. You okay candle? I assume so. Okay, so no agenda changes. Then we'll move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is the time in the agenda where attendees can address the board on items that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, you can raise your hand here in the room or use the raise your hand feature in the in the zoom application, which is if you float your cursor down at the bottom where it says, you'll see a button that says reactions. If you click on that, it opens up the option to raise your hand. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, please be civil, please be brief, please refrain from using inappropriate language and wait to be recognized. Also like to ask that anyone who's attending remotely to keep their microphones muted and their cameras off to avoid distraction while others are speaking, of course you can unmute yourself and turn on your camera if you are recognized by the chair. Okay, so having said all that, any anybody who wants to speak during public to be heard? I don't see any hands in the room. I don't see any hands up online. So let's move on to the first business item, which is interviews and possible appointment of volunteers for the charter review committee. Do you want to have any kind of introduction first of what the charter review committee is going to do? Sure. Oh, and I forgot to mention just for realizing now, Bruce Post could go first. He had requested that. I think he has another amendment. I'm sorry, just popped into my head. So the charter review committee is a new committee that is the select board created at the last meeting, and it was based in to some extent to requests from residents to take a look at charter and make updates. And the charter is the governing document for the town. It's its laws created and approved by the state legislature and it basically sets out the type of government the town has responsibilities and authority of the select board, the manager, different criteria of how the town operates on a daily annual basis. And it has not been updated for a long time. So the select board agreed to create a charter review committee, which would take a look at the charter, ideally looking at other charters in the area as well to perhaps generate some ideas. Are there any ideas from from residents, staff, and you propose some changes that would go back to the select board and potentially be brought. The goal is to be brought any changes to town meeting next March. Okay. Thanks Greg. So in keeping with Bruce's request to go first, Bruce, you're up. Go ahead and unmute yourself. Turn on your camera if you choose to introduce yourself. Let us know your interest in the position and any other information that you'd like to share that you think the select board might find helpful in its decision making. Go ahead, Bruce. Good. Morgen aus Deutschland. I'm in Germany. That's why I wanted to go first and my commitment is sleep soon. It's 1230 a.m. here. I'm visiting our daughter and daughter son-in-law and our two grandchildren. The most recent one is now seven weeks old. And in addition to being up at 1230 in the morning, it's been exhausting helping these two kids. So I hope if I'm on the charter committee, it'll be something less exhausting. And I certainly look forward to your questions. I just want to say that my name is Bruce Post. I live at one Cindy Lane. I've lived in Essex since 1993. I have been pretty involved in civic life in the town of Essex, having been on the select board 2009-2012. I also, I think I remember now I didn't put it in my application. I think I chaired a charter committee for the Essex K-8 school district to change their charter on revoting of votes that would go down. So many of you know me. I don't think I have to spend much time talking about my background. I would like to say we've been through charter debates for quite a long time now. They've been sometimes by trooperative. But I think this is an important time to imagine a future for a new town of Essex. And our voices weren't necessarily heard in the discussion about separation by the legislature, which I regretted. So I appreciate this opportunity now to put my name forward to serve on this particular and important charter committee. Thanks, Bruce. Any questions from board members? Go ahead, Ethan. Is there anything in particular on your radar that the Charter is in need of? Well, obviously we did it. The select board, you approved a new charter in January I think of last year and you've made some proposed changes that didn't go through because it wasn't accepted by the legislature. I think we have to look at representation. There are issues that I felt important during my tenure on the select board. The creation of a development review board is one thing I'm interested in. And I was also on the Essex governance group where we studied all sorts of things regarding the future of the town of Essex. Representation and neighborhood assemblies were part of that. But the most important thing, Ethan, is not necessarily what I'm interested in. It's what are the people of Essex interested in. And I think it's very important that we do sufficient outreach and explaining of things so we can solicit their opinions and have a conversation, a positive conversation about the future. So that's what concerns me the most is not my personal agenda or personal feelings about something, but sort of a community spirited hope that we can start off this new era with a healthy and formative discussion about how we should formulate our government going forward. Thanks. Thank you. If you're appointed to this committee and your voice is a minority, how would you handle the decision-making process? Well, I'd vote first of all. And if I'm in the minority, I'm in the minority. I did get in trouble on the select board though because there were times when I said why I voted against something. And at a time we're looking at the basic rights of individual citizens. I don't want to give up my right to talk about why I voted a certain way. So there you go. Thank you. Who else? Are you seeing any questions? Bruce, can you tell me about a time you changed your mind on an issue? Yes. What about the change and what was the issue? Well, I don't know if you know, I'm an environmental historian. And there was something in this state called the Green Mountain Parkway. It was a national park road in the 30s that was very hotly debated and then defeated. It could have met a million acre national park in Vermont. I thought it was a stupid idea, dumb as a matter of fact, until I read a letter from George Akin to a minister where George Akin, who was then lieutenant governor, said he would probably be against it because he had heard from so many citizens in Wyndham County who had moved here from the Catskills in New York to buy up second homes. And he felt that they came here to get away from the type of people who might come to Vermont if we built the parkway. Well, you know who those people were? They were Jews. And I backed away from that. I changed my entire point of view about the parkway on that one piece of information. It made an enormous difference in my life and affected my research going forward. So I think my view today is the most important step any person could take in whether it's in a relationship in your household or family or in civic life or in business. Take a step back and listen again and try to look at your own point of view to see how you might think differently. So that's, you asked me, not have been related to local decision, but it was related to my life and it was very important. Thank you. Kendall, any questions? I think I'm going to push Ethan's question a little bit more. I do appreciate you wanting to hear from the public a great deal. But I am interested if there is anything in particular that you personally feel that should be amended or improved in the term. Well, Kendall, one of the things that we spent a lot of time on the Essex Governance Group, which was six or seven years ago now, was on this question of trying to improve public participation in the town of Essex. I don't know if you looked around. Turnouts not necessarily good on a lot of things, even on big issues. And I found when I was on the select board, I had a neighbor. I didn't know very well. I live in the Tanglewood, Birchwood area. There were over 150 homes. It's very treat. I didn't know this neighbor except at a party. And she came to me because some people on the street behind them were burning trunks of treats. Now this is a suburban neighborhood and smoking them out of their house that summer. And this is, you know, someone close to me. I felt a particular ownership of that issue as a select board member and as a neighbor. And I saw the value of having select board members maybe be from districts or wards and not at large. And this was an important issue during the past merger debate. One of the primary goals of people outside the village were to have representative districts and essentially they were ignored. And that's why I say we have to listen to people. But from my own personal experience, I felt having a connection with the people of my area would be very important on the select board. And we just had, for instance, a series of hearings over the past year or so with public works with Dennis and others, Regional Planning Commission, I think, about a project on Tanglewood Drive. And we had 25 or 30 people participate online. It was important to them in this area. And I thought that showed the value of at least considering this. So there you go. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Bruce. Do you have any questions for us? Well, I'd just like to know what kind of support the committee is going to get in terms of legal assistance from the town attorney, for instance, if necessary. I would also like to know what a town might be willing to put into outreach efforts ahead of time before the committee makes a decision on anything. I've never liked the idea that the outreach will occur after the select board or the trustees make a decision, and it's too late to change their minds. So I'd like to know about those kinds of resources. And whether or not we might be able to bring in a consultant who could help us with some of these issues. I know you've done that before in other matters. So those are some of my questions. So then you can respond to Greg. Yeah, I will do my best to respond to that. Legal assistance, I think, is going to be necessary, Bruce. You can talk once the committee gets formed and starts to look at its scope, at what point that comes in. Definitely at the end before any final amendments are proposed would definitely want to have an attorney reviewing that. Might be helpful to have a check-in or two along the way. Here's my first thought on that. As far as outreach, it's going to be an official committee, so open meeting laws will apply. We'll make sure we post the notices and agendas on our website at our public locations. Beyond that, I'd have to give it some more thought. We have a lot going on and only so much staff time and staff resources. So we'll definitely keep that in mind, but it is going to have to stay within some realm of reason. That's always the challenge of about reach and engagement is that it's important and it takes a lot of time. So trying to find out the right balance and what else work might not get done if we, depending on how much outreach is done. As far as a consultant, we had not planned on that at this point. I'd have to take a look at the budget and see what money might be available and what might be there before committing to that. So probably not as clear answers as you're looking for, but those are my first impressions. Well, I think support raised the questions now as we're getting started down the road and might reframe those later. I'm a member of the committee and we see what's happening, but this is the start of a process. And I think it's best to ask questions up front, even though there might not be answers at the time. Good question, so thank you. You're welcome. All right. Thanks, Bruce. Questions? Board members? All right. So we'll move on to our next interview. Thank you. You can either hang out and listen and see if we make a decision later or you can feel free to go get some sleep. I'm gonna get some sleep. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Okay, so then we'll move on to, and I'm sorry, Alexis, I'm not sure I know how to pronounce your last name, Alexis. Hi, my name is Alexis Dubief. Okay, so Alexis, thank you for stepping forward and expressing your interest in this committee. Please introduce yourself, share any information you'd like to give the select board with regard to why you'd like to participate in this committee and any other information that you think might be helpful for us with regard to making a decision. Sure. So unlike Bruce, I do not have a history of local governance. My community involvement with Essex over the last 16 years has been largely focused on kid-related things. So I founded Four Winds in Essex Elementary seven, eight years ago, and I'm still a volunteer there. I coach soccer. I coach track. My husband and I coach high school Nordic skiing. So I feel like I'm very, and I just was elected as the Justice of the Peace, and I was also just elected as the chair of the Essex Democrats. So I do have a long and broad history of community service, and I do feel very deeply that it is part of our obligation as citizens to contribute back. And I try really hard to make sure that that is very much centered in how we approach being a president here. I think through my efforts, I have a really good connection across a broad swath of people of various lifestyles and income levels and different personalities. And my thought in applying here was not so much that I am a government governance expert. I am not. But I do feel like I understand the perspectives and the concerns of a broad swath of people. And I do just wanted to make sure that the things that people are asking about and talking about in the community are reflected in this process. I have read our current charter. I don't have like, I don't have like a big red list of things that I'm like, this is a hugely problematic document that must be blown up and rewritten. You know, the things that I've been thinking about in terms of like what I would like to see would be to make sure that there are components of equity that are built into this document. I know we are headed for some financial cliffs. And it's really important to me personally that that we are having the lens of equity and access to resources as we make certain decisions, hard decisions in the future. I do have a master's of finance in an MBA. I am a successful solo entrepreneur in Essex. And certainly I think have a lot of financial understanding to bring to bear, not that that's specifically relevant to the charter, but that is my background in my professional history. Hey, thank you. Any questions from board members? Would like to go for a hand? I have to rethink mine because she gave it an introduction. Well, it's part of the challenge of this. People get to hear the, or listening to the prior. I will say I don't, again, I've read at this point five town charters. I'm not an expert. I am a researcher at heart. And I think the idea of looking around at other people's documents and seeing if there's things that we can leverage that would help make us a stronger organization and a stronger community is probably the approach I would take. All right. So Alexis, if you look through these charters and there's something you find that you would like to change, but the rest of the board doesn't agree, how would you handle it? Well, I will say, I think over over the years, I'm pretty good at convincing people of things. But if if I made my best effort and no one was swayed, then I would have to accept that there was just not interest in pursuing what I had hoped to pursue. Thank you. Sure. Alexis, hi. Tell us about a time you changed your mind on an issue. What was the issue and how did you go about the change? Oh, goodness. Well, I changed my mind a lot. And one of the things I've really in my professional life is I've really committed to is following the data and going where the data leads, even if it's somewhere I don't like. And sometimes that means as science evolves going, oh, what we thought was true is no longer true. We now have to adapt to what the new reality is. So as an example, I am sort of a semi-famous babysleep author. And I put out the first edition of my book. It was enormously successful, sold hundreds of thousands of copies. And then after three years, a new study came out that changed the baby's safe sleep requirements. And my book no longer reflected what was the current standard, even though I felt deeply that what I had put out was good quality and I felt very proud of it. I had to put in basically 12 months and thousands of dollars to rewrite it and reissue it because it was very, very much important to me that I follow the data and I follow the science even though it had changed from what I had believed when I wrote the book. That was a very, very painful and expensive process, but one that I felt committed to because that was my values, which was to make sure that we were reflecting the best information available. It was unpleasant, but I'm glad we did it. Great, thank you. Kendall, any questions? Yes. With your financial background, was there any one particular spot in our current charter that you found that could use some improvement that you picked up right off? No. Again, I won't say anything jumped out at me. I will say again, as a layperson, I think I am highly educated and I think I certainly have a good reading comprehension skills. I do think the document is intimidating and I do think something that might serve our community in the future, even if the full-town charter remains a longer, more complex, legalese document as is, to have a more simplified, accessible version, maybe one to pages that people could really digest more easily for the average person who maybe doesn't have the time or the interest to try to turn through a long document and understand the legal terms and the things they're in. That's not so much about the charter itself, but maybe an artifact for the future that would just be more helpful to improve the accessibility for people to understand their local government. Okay, thank you. All right. Alexis, do you have any questions for us, the select board? I wasn't clear just in terms of scope and timeframe, sort of how long you would imagine this process to take if there is a deadline, what kind of the general time commitment you would imagine this involving would be? So the objective is to have something to present to voters at a town meeting, which is the first Tuesday of March. So the backing up from that, from a calendar standpoint of when you have to do warning, we have to, you know, warnings have to be made. It's the early January, right, that we would have to do a make, have a warning. So the intent would be, I think, twice monthly, is that what we're thinking twice monthly, you know, warned meetings for the committee to work through whatever changes they'd like to propose. There's also, you know, possibility of, you know, having side work, of course, you know, each, you know, each member or smaller groups than a quorum could be assigned to go look at things in between meetings. Okay, so about five months, maybe? Yeah. Like 10, 12 meetings. Right, it's the first of August now, if we appoint everybody tonight, then yeah, it's pretty tight. Not looking for a wholesale rewrite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would just be like some addendums or modifications of wording, that kind of thing. Yeah, and, you know, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns hired an intern many years ago to go through all of the charters, and there's reportedly a list somewhere of all of the unique things that any municipality has asked for on a charter that could certainly be reviewed, so you don't have to personally read all. Yeah, great. However many charters there are out there, I used to know the number. So no, not every town has a charter. If you don't have a charter statute applies, so yeah. Okay, thanks, Alexis. Thank you, Alex. Any other questions or members or comments? Okay, thank you. We will discuss later whether to go into executive session to have a discussion about this, or we may use to appoint an open meeting, but you're welcome to either listen through the rest of the meeting, or if a decision is made tonight, someone from the manager's office will contact you tomorrow. Okay, much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, Alexis. Okay, let's move on to Lauren Layman. Hi, Lauren Layman. It's nice to meet you all. Nice to meet you, and thank you for stepping forward to express your interest in this committee. This is your opportunity to introduce yourself, to share information that you have regarding why you'd like to participate in this committee and any other relevant information that the select board might use to help make a decision. Go ahead, Lauren. Thank you. So my name is Lauren Layman. I have lived in Essex since 2015, but I grew up in Fairfax. So my metropolitan dream was always to live in Essex, the much more suburban, populated area. I am a self-avowed nerd. I am an administrative law nerd, no less. I'm a lawyer for the state, and I work in professional regulation. So I work with professional boards in licensing professions. The mission of my office is to regulate only when there's public harm and to do so with the lightest touch possible to protect the public. And I take that mission to heart because I think that draws the perfect line in what regulation and governance should be. My hope is to bring that knowledge, experience, and policy to this charter and to this town. So there are many values that I think that our citizens, our town, want to have embodied in our fundamental document. My hope is to gather feedback from all the valuable stakeholders, as Bruce acknowledged, as Alexa stated, to get their insight and what they think are the most important changes to our charter that will impact us most in the coming years and to try to evaluate that and have public comment, but also looking to what other towns have done in Vermont nationwide, best practices, the data, and incorporate that in a very holistic, comprehensive manner and to our document. I have reviewed it. As Alexa said, my volunteer experience, I'm a parent of three young kids as well, T-ball. I am a coach extraordinaire of four and five year olds and I volunteer with four wins in the school. So that's my limited volunteer experience with the town, though I do follow the politics closely, and you know, view meetings when I have the opportunity, I could affect and participate and just listening. So my hope is not to drive with my own values completely, but to really hear the voice of the community and incorporate that into our document as best as possible. I'll open the questions. Thanks, La. Questions? What are some ideas you have about outreach and getting more involvement from the community if you were on this committee? Absolutely. So I do this a lot with my work, both on broad policy initiatives as well as profession specific initiatives. And we've used front porch forum, we've used targeted outreach to certain groups. I think if we were looking at the police, there's certain obviously public record law requirements for notice. But neighbor to neighbor outreach, targeted email has been really helpful for us. Last year, we started regulating massage therapists and we had not previously regulated massage therapists in the state of Vermont and we had to somehow communicate to all the massage therapists in the state of Vermont that they needed to get licensed. We worked with the corporate database, we worked from the Secretary of State's office, we worked through Google, just down and dirty Google massage therapist. In a smaller town like this, I think pamphleting works to some extent, talking with your neighbors, going to uncommon coffee, reaching out to colleagues that more one to one helps a lot. And perhaps I bring a bit of naivete in that one to one as well because I have not a select board member, I have not done town local politics, I've worked more on the state broader level. But I hope bringing my experience from that stakeholder engagement and that kind of rallying the troops will translate into this environment as well. Thank you. If you decide you would like to see a change in your voices in the minority, how would you handle that situation? I would march to my troops, I'd bring out my best argument, I would, you know, my arguments would be based, and my opinion is often based on what others have done, what I think my values hold. Of course, I would express what my position would be, but I'd also acknowledge, you know, here is, here's the best argument, here's the legal argument, here's this what the stakeholders want, here's what other towns have done. And then at the end of the day, if you disagree or we're going to be, you know, that rogue element, then let's do it. Let's do it the best and then we'll figure out the best way to do it. That'd be my response. Thank you. Gracie. Hello. Can you tell us about a time you recently changed your mind? What was the issue and what brought about the change? Sure. So I changed my mind pretty much daily at work. I start as an attorney as a general counsel for the office. I'll start with kind of a basic opinion, but then I need to inform that opinion. I'm trying to think most recently, I started off thinking, you know, just having what had happened was the way it was reviewing something was based on historical evidence, and I had not was not aware that there had been updates. And so once I was able to look at the more modern data on it to look at the way things have changed, I was able to be more accommodating to a licensee who needed a waiver. And so I was able to look at the updates to the law, the intent of the legislators, the need, the policy need, the threat to the public, and all those overwhelming policy concerns, weigh them together and move forward in a way that I went from no, we don't waive that to sure, okay, this makes sense here. Here's the foundation for it. But I do need solid evidence and solid research or at least some toehold to hang on to before I change my mind when I do like to know I do need to be persuaded. Great, thanks. Kendall. Oh, I'm willing to bet that you have looked at our charter in great detail with your attorney's eye. So I would be curious to see what you might consider the most pressing need for change. Thank you. Thank you, Kendall. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm in a similar boat to Alexis. I've read other charters. I've read our charter. I don't see anything that jumps out at me as outrageous or egregious. But I haven't really spoken to the town. And I haven't really spoken to the public about what or to you really why this has come up, why have we decided is it simply because of the separation that we're looking at this again, are there other pertinent and pressing issues that you want to address? And so I really am open to and hoping to incorporate the thoughts of folks around to see a need for change and revision. Thank you. Okay, Lauren, do you have any questions for us? I think you just asked one. Why is this coming up again? Yeah, not a question for me, yeah. So it kind of got triggered when a member of the public asked about recall provision, because there's no recall provision in general Vermont statute. But there are several towns that do have recall of elected officials in their charters. And so that was what started us thinking down the path of, well, the individual who brought this up was discussing the possibility of coming back with a petition with language for a charter change, which would give the petitioner control of the language. So we were thinking that we would try to address it from the other side and also look to see if there's anything else that would that should or could be addressed in parallel. That was the... That's very helpful. And I, yes, I'm aware you want to, as a town, especially you want the broadest public input possible, you don't want one person writing your charter. And it really into Bruce's question, you know, I'd be happy not to, I cannot advise the board or the committee on how to act legally, but I can provide a legal insight into what other towns are doing and incorporating feedback on that. So as a pitch for myself, I think it's right up my alley to kind of collect what other towns are doing, put it out there for public comment, what best practices are, what we're seeing elsewhere, and is that something we want to incorporate through that process. Great. Great. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you. As I've said to others, we'll, after we've complete the interviews, we'll have a discussion about whether to go into executive session or we may appoint an open meeting. We'll see where that goes. But again, thank you for stepping forward and for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you. I appreciate it. Take care. And again, you're welcome to stay for the meeting or you can... I'm going to hang till next time. I've got 7.30s bedtime, so I'll be here till then. Thanks all. Okay, moving on. Margaret Smith. So something I meant to say at the beginning of the meeting, if you come up to speak at the microphone, don't touch the microphone. I'm just saying that. I meant to say that earlier because we sometimes have... No, I didn't say it. People grab the mic and move it around a lot. Go ahead, Margaret. So, Margaret, introduce yourself. Tell us why you'd like to be participate in this. My name is Margaret Smith. I live on Alder Lane. I've lived there since 1984, but I've lived in Essex Town since 1974 when I started teaching in the Essex Town schools, which I did for 32 years. I raised two children who went through the Essex Town schools and now one of them lives in Jericho with my two granddaughters who are six and eight, so I get to spend time with them, which is a lot of fun. And I've been following select board meetings for a number of years. I'm trying to remember how long it's been, seven or eight years. If you go back and you look at the minutes back before Elaine was on the board and the people who were in the audience, they'll be four or five, maybe, and my name is on the list pretty regularly. So I've watched a lot. I've watched the town grow and Dawn will remember, I'm sure, there was a time when there was no stoplight at five corners. There was a blinker. There was nothing at Essex experience. There was nothing at Lang Farm. The town has grown a lot, so which is good in some ways and not so good in some ways, so I have issues with some things. Anyway, I don't know what else I can tell you. Thanks, Margaret. Any questions? Ethan? I'm excited for this question for you. Uh-oh. What do you have in mind, not necessarily things that are your, you know, personal opinion, but what have you found in the charter as things that have stood out or changed? Well, true confessions. I read the charter very carefully this morning and made notes and left it home on the kitchen table. So there are some things I would like to see added to the charter. I don't know if that's the appropriate place, like Planning Commission has no oversight. We could use, I think, the Development Board of Review to kind of keep an eye on the Planning Commission because they've granted an awful lot of waivers recently that I'm not so sure we're in the best interests of the town. You mentioned the recall provision and on top of no recall provision, there's, I understand the town moderator has recently resigned due to the fact that he no longer lives in the town of Essex and there's nothing in the charter that talks about how to deal with that situation. You know, how do we appoint a new moderator? Does the manager pick one? Does the select board pick one? It's not there. And, you know, I remember there were some minor tweaks, the things that I had looked at in reading the charter, but I have to go home and look at the charter again. I have not read five charters like some of the other folks who are applying. And I don't have Bruce's great depth of experience and governmental issues. But I did spend a lot of time sitting at school board meetings and faculty meetings and dealing with budgets. So, you know, I've been to a lot of meetings in my life. And so, could I answer that question? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. If your voice or something you want to see put into the charter is in the minority, how would you handle that situation? You know, my style is to listen to other people's opinions and think about it and consider and go ahead and take in as much information as I can. And if I still didn't agree with the majority, I would not hesitate to vote. No, ma'am. Tell us about a time you recently changed your mind on an issue. What was the issue and what changed your mind? I don't know how recently this is, but I was thinking about that question. And one of the things that I actually changed my mind on was merger, the whole merger issue, because at first I thought, well, you know, it's silly for them to be two separate school districts and it's silly to have two separate towns. And so I think the first couple of times, have there been four merger votes? At least maybe more. Yeah. And the first couple of times I voted for merger because I thought that made a lot of sense. We're basically really close in a lot of ways. And then as I watched select board meetings and I watched people involved and I was in favor of the three plus three charter change provision which got brushed aside due to COVID and the legislature is just being too busy to do anything. So it didn't happen. And the junction folks trying to push through a select board that would be three plus three plus one and the one could be from anywhere. And I said, they're going to make darn sure that one person is from the junction. So they'll have control over the board and I'm going, you know, they should have let us have the three plus three and then it would have worked. So I changed my mind on merger. Great, thanks. Kendall, any questions? I'm trying to think of one. Can you remember anything that you wrote down on your list that you were going to bring to the meeting that was mentioned? Well, this is maybe an answer to another question that I'm maybe going to get, but I was thinking in terms of outreach and I was remembering a documentary on public television where the people went house to house and did house parties. I called them house parties, they're not really parties but small gatherings at people's houses to communicate information of musicians call them house parties and they come and play and people gather. And because I have some old copies of the Essex reporter and there were really some excellent in depth articles and we're not getting that kind of coverage of town events. So the house parties would, I keep calling them that, would be a way for people to get together in small groups and talk about what is, what's on their minds. Perfect, that's exactly the question I was going to ask. Thank you. Okay. But I think we should try and bring back the Essex reporter. I don't know how, how that would be possible, but I have my old copies and I like, oh yeah, this was a really good article. Sorry, I'm babbling on. Okay. So Margaret, do you have any questions for us for the select board or for staff? Well, I think last person, Lauren, said, you know, time commitments and a couple meetings a week, hopefully to get done by. A couple meetings a month. Pardon? A couple meetings a month. A month. Sorry, not a week. No, no, no. A month with a deadline of December, maybe. So that would have been my question. Okay. All right. Thank you, Margaret. Okay. All right. So, okay, moving on to our last candidate, Charles Tobon. Yeah. Come on, introduce yourself. Let us know why you'd like to participate in this. Okay. Any other information you have that might want to share? My name is Charles Tobon. I live on Foster Road. We moved into Essex about 14 months ago, so I haven't been here that long to know all the inner workings of things. We're still trying to settle in. My son lives in Milton with my granddaughter, so that's kind of the motivation that, you know, to have us move from where we were. When I saw the ad in Facebook for this, I was like, well, this is what I do all day long, is reorganize, restructure and clean up documents. And it was funny that Greg said in the beginning how this hadn't been updated in a long time. And that's what my first take on this, when I read the document like this, doesn't get updated that often, and it needs to be cleaned up. And I'm very good at organizing and restructuring data. I have excellent computer skills, because this is really what I do all day, is just reorganize and restructure and create documents. And I thought that, you know, that I could be a big, big help with that. And now that my kids are older, and not having to sit with them all the time, and I have more time to maybe put into the community. We love Essex, and I would hate to see anything happen to it. All right, thank you. Any questions from board members? Ethan, we'll let you go first again. I was going to ask you the question, I asked everybody else, but I haven't been here very long. But my other question I was thinking of was, how are you working in groups? And can you give me an example of something that you put together in a group setting? Yeah, I'm excellent working in groups. I mean, it's like just today I was in a meeting that I was originally called into the meeting, into the committee, because of my PowerPoint skills. And all of a sudden, now I'm like one of the key players in this committee at work. I feel a little awkward talking about work subjects publicly. But because of the way I can listen to people and see other people's points of views, and draw all that data together, that makes me very useful on committees in that regard. Thank you. Good questions. Have you read the charter? I've read most of the charter. I downloaded it, put it into a Word document, reformatted it so I could go through it. That's my first question. And my second question is what I've asked everybody else. If your decision is in the minority, how would you handle that? Basically, this happens, it happens often. Everybody gets together to do something. And I'm very good at I'm very blunt with expressing myself, not in a rude way. But I'm going to say to things, if I think it's on somebody's mind and it's on my mind, I'm going to say it. And then if it's not the popular opinion, then we move, then we vote on it and we move on. That's all of us too. This is Essex's charter, it's not Charles Tobone's charter. And that's what that's the important thing to remember is that we're bringing people with different skill sets together to create this document and revise it. And in the end, it's the document that matters. Thank you. Great question. I guess I'm up. Tell us about a time you changed your mind on an issue. What was the issue and what changed your mind? Okay, well, this morning, well, I had this afternoon, I changed my mind on an issue. I mean, these aren't all huge issues all the time when we changed our mind. But I was putting together a document for a senior manager. And I presented it to him. I called him up, we started discussing it. And during the discussion, I realized that what I put together wasn't really proper format for what he was trying to do. Maybe I hadn't understood him properly and got enough information from him initially. So basically, I just read this afternoon, we did the whole document, we pushed it through and everything went great. And it's really not a big deal. I'm almost an artist. So, you know, you work for the client. So you have to try to keep in mind, you know, toys, what does the client want? What are they looking for? And you have to, you know, be open to listen to that and understand that they're not always going to like what you do the first time. And that you have to try and, you know, find that medium of what's proper and then what do they need? Right. Kendall, any questions? When you went through and reformatted the document, you probably made it more readable and easy to present. I'm curious to see if you found anything that really stuck out as far as a way that you could make it more accessible to the average person to read it? Well, I think the document could be two or three pages shorter than it is now. I didn't go through it with that eye. But initially, I went through it. And like I said, I've only been here 14 months. So maybe I'm misunderstanding some of the terms, but I assume that wherever the word village of Essex Junction appeared, we probably have to take that out and reword that. And also, there's a lot of references to other documents. And since a document like this doesn't get updated too often, I think we need to go and check, do these other documents actually exist? Were they redacted? Were they changed? We could be referencing a document on trees. And that document now may have nothing to do with trees, so to speak. Thank you. Thanks, Charles. Do you have any questions for us or for staff? Nope. Thank you for your time there, you guys. I really appreciate the way that you explained everything. Even in the online Facebook, it made it very clear what you were looking for. So that was really helpful. So thank you very much and hopefully we could be working together. Okay. Thank you. All right. So we'll move the discussion back to the board. We have, I guess there's two options here when we could go into executive session later and have a discussion about this, or we could point now. So if anybody has a, would rather do anybody who wants to be in the executive session. I was having to follow this long and I haven't already talked to Greg because we were originally looking for three, but I really wanted to see five. And we have five really good candidates. I would rather we appoint them now because they've expressed interest. They've showed up and they've interviewed. So if we decide right now, they'll know when they can get started. Anybody? Yeah, the second. Go ahead, Ethan. That was my comment was exactly what Don just said, but I was concerned originally that there was only three also and five members seems to make the most sense and these are all qualified candidates in my opinion. And they met the deadline and they're in no shortage of time here. We have very little. So I agree with Don on this topic. You're good. Okay. Kendall, you okay? Yep. I support that. I don't, it's like somebody concocted the perfect committee as far as I'm concerned. So did we say a three-member? It was it. No, at least three. At least three. At least three. Okay. Motion statement. At least three. And I was not knowing what we were going to get, hoping we'd get at least three. Yeah. I think you have five good candidates. All right. Well, we're going to entertain a motion. Go ahead, Theresa. I will make the motion to appoint Alex Dubief, Lauren Lehman, Bruce Post, Margaret Smith, and Charles Tobone to the Charter Review Committee. Second. Thank you, Don. Tracy, thank you, Don. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Great. Congratulations, folks. Thank you all. Those who are not still here, you'll contact tomorrow. Yep. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you. We beat our 730 deadline to get their kids. Winning. Thank you all. Moving on to the next business item interviewed to serve on the Economic Development Commission, Rebecca Robinson. Yeah. Come on down or come up to the table here. Introduce yourself. Thanks. Let us know why you're interested and any other information you think we would help us. Definitely. Hi. I'm Rebecca Robinson. I've lived in Essex for four years, but we're here for the long haul. Our kids are in school at Essex Elementary and Founders. And the reason that I'm so interested in the EDC is I have a really big passion for business for the local economy. And it's not only my day-to-day job, but I do a lot pro bono consulting for non-profits, small businesses, and just fun trying to see them grow and thrive. And so a lot of my skills and experience and everything that I would bring, I think, could be beneficial for our community. And over the last four years, I've been engaging and seeing everything that's been going on across different committees and commissions to see where I could fit in. And I think it's really important to be engaged in helping our community. And so I love it here in Essex. And I think that this is a spot where I could potentially add some value. Thank you. Any questions from board members? I'll go. All right, Ethan. I was actually in a couple conversations the other day and looking back through the town center or the town plan, town center plan. And one of the things that I stumbled upon was about the brand of Essex, you know, developing a brand for Essex. I was reading through all your experience and everything. And I was just wondering now, hearing that you've had four years to enjoy Essex and probably many years before. But do you have like a general idea and it doesn't have to be just your idea, but like of a brand that would be fitting for the business development in Essex? Yeah, I think there's a lot we could do because so I've talked to some of the current commission members just to see what their thoughts are on what are they looking for? What's the vision that they have? And I know that there's been a few different programs that they've tried throughout the years. And it looks like they're starting to potentially rebrand like out and about in some of the other pieces for our community and our businesses. I love again, like local businesses. So I go all the time to a lot of them and I've been talking to some of the owners just on my own for fun. And so I think that there's probably like two full things that we could do. But I would want to see more around what are the current plans, a little bit more details on them. And what I would want to see is like one, how are we bringing our business community together more? And then how do we bring that to people who are local consumers or people who would want to go to those businesses? So it kind of like a consumer facing for the business front. But then also a lot of businesses, especially with COVID, there's a lot of struggles with the cost of living, the high increased costs, labor shortages that we're dealing with and finding ways also for some of these businesses to help support them as they're looking at how do I fill labor spots where I still have issues? How do I deal with the high cost of living? So it's almost like one front for the people who live in Essex and bringing people in to enjoy our businesses. And a second front, which would be about how do we make sure that we're attracting the right labor, we're attracting people into Essex to continue to support that business too. But doing it in a really sustainable manner, because there's a lot of things that can be done in the short term, but might not be the best for our community long term. And so I think balancing that is also really important. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, she kind of answered what I was going to ask her. I'll ask my usual question anyway. If there's a conflict on the board and you're in the minority with your answer, how would you resolve it? So the way that I approach it, and I'm in these situations all the time at work, is I look at the situation. What's the problem we're facing or the issue potentially? Where is everybody coming from? So understanding where all the opinions are, really listening to everybody. And then taking an approach that is both data driven, it's non-emotional, it has to be calmer in understanding everything. And then looking at, what are the insights? What's the data? What are decisions that we've looked at before that could potentially help this? And then how do we go from there? And if we can't come to a general understanding, then there's also a time where you say, okay, we've made them the best decision we can as a group. And if there's an opportunity on the road to revisit, then we would go and revisit it in the future. Thank you. I'm going to switch it up a little bit. Since you did mention that this is sort of an intersection of your professional life as well, just curious about how you handle conflicts of interest? So part of the reason that I'm really excited about the EDC is because my job is outside of Essex. And all of the things that I've actually done both from a pro bono consulting for small businesses and nonprofits is outside of Essex. So there's really not a conflict of interest. And I always am like, very aware of making sure I'm not going into a situation to where there is a conflict of interest. Or if it is, then what I would do is I would make sure everybody knew exactly about it. And I would either withdraw myself from the issue at hand or make sure that I then wasn't like a decision maker, etc. So even when that's happened in like the workplace where maybe I had been asked to be on an interviewing committee, but one of the people has actually worked for me, I'll make sure that I actually let people know right up front, like I'm going to withdraw myself from this one because there could potentially be a conflict of interest. Great. Thank you. Kendall, any questions? If you were appointed today and you had one month to come up with a hot button topic, if you felt was the most important issue to address, what would that topic be? So I think one of the big ones is one of the big ones right now is the labor piece that we need to help solve with our businesses because of everything that we've dealt with within COVID within the business community. I think that helping make sure that staffing is there. And then people also have like a really good environment that they can work in is a really important one. And I know there's a lot of businesses in our community that are dealing with that. So that would be one I'd love to understand. But then also like the fun side of how do we like drive awareness of all the amazing businesses and stuff that we have in Essex, that would be the other piece that I would want to dig into more of like how can we help support them. So one more serious I think that is really impacting businesses and making it really tough. And then one that would be like more of the fun and how do we really engage people with our community? Thank you. Hey thanks Rebecca. Do you have any questions for us or for staff? I don't at this time. Thank you so much for interviewing me. Okay we have four candidates that we're considering for two positions. So I think we're likely going to go into executive session later to discuss and if we come to a decision someone from staff will let you know. Okay sounds great. We will actually we'll probably let you know either way if we don't make a decision because we've been this decision for this particular committee's been commission's been taking us some time to work through. Okay sounds good. Thank you. Yeah so if you don't hear it doesn't mean you're not being still being considered. Okay great. Thanks. All right thank you. Okay moving on to the next agenda item I'm going to hand the gavel over to Tracy since my name is on there. You ready? Yeah. Just weird to have you sitting here. You want me to sit over there? In fact if you asked me to go sit over there I was going to reach up and almost grab them. Come right out of your seat. Our next interview and possible appointment is for the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission Board of Directors. With us this evening is Mr. Andy Watts. Are there any questions? I'm always first. You used to have no question, Randy. I was just finishing up my notes from the moment you got. You don't have to answer. Why do you hope to accomplish by joining this? I guess it's to bring the needs of Essex to the regional entity that does the planning. I mean I've lived in Vermont almost 40 years and I remember being amazed when I moved here that there was really no such thing as county government and that's really kind of what a big piece of what the Regional Planning Commission does is it's an entity of the state that essentially does county-wide governance and so that's what I'm looking to try to be that voice for Essex to put our needs forward to and also look at the bigger community. Front porch forum, Darren puts out those development thing happening here in neighborhood kind of thing. I read all of them and people are always amazed. How did you know that was going on? I don't know. Why don't you know what's going on? I really enjoy seeing that bigger picture. I like to contribute to it. I like to take again take Essex's needs into that. Thank you. I got mine. I had it written down in my notes. So I'm going to take not your guys' question but I used it in my own structure was as a now largely rural town in a very developed county. How do you expect to be able to work with the parts of our town that are very rural and the parts of our town that are developing and keep the beauty of Essex that a lot of other towns don't have in the county setting? That makes any sense. Yeah. So I don't think we're the only rural section of the county. First, I would look to town staff to say these are the things that we really want to keep. I've told the town staff many times that really like to bury all the power lines on route 15 so that we have a nice view of Mount Mansfield as we're driving east from here in our scenic corridor since we call it a scenic corridor we might as well make it scenic. But I think I would certainly take input from town staff very seriously around that from the community development folks as well from community members. And also, there was another place I was going and I lost it but other communities that have similar areas that we have, there are two. So it's a very diverse county. Kendall, any questions? Oh, I think the chair should be on the Regional Planning Commission. I think that will be a boom to Essex. Thank you. Well, I was going to ask what your understanding of the role is but you already articulated that. Is the board feel it necessary to go into executive session or would someone like to make a motion? Madam Vice Chair, I would like to make the motion that we point Andrew Watts to the board. So good. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? Yeah, just one comment. I'm going to go ahead and vote because I can't just let you know, right? Fine, yeah. Do you have a question for yourself? No, no, no, no. The other interesting thing here is that the representative from Williston is also Andrew Watts. I was thinking about that the other day. So it's going to be a very interesting situation but there's two Andrew Wattses and potentially two Andrew Wattses on that. Andrew Watts E and Andrew Watts. Yes, I might have to go by Andy. I'm the Essex Andy. Okay. Hearing no other discussion. All those in favor, please signify aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Congratulations. And with that, I will hand the gavel back over to you. Okay. Business item 5-D, discussion and potential action about creation of a cannabis control commission just in time. I was watching the proceedings from home so I came over just as you guys were getting going on Andy's interview. Don't touch the microphone. Also, I want to say thank you, Andy, for stepping up to Thurmond's UCRPCs board and town staff or community development staff would be absolutely happy to chat with you about what's going on with that and what you'd like to see happen for Essex and the region. So thanks for having me to talk about this cannabis control commission idea. I gave you a memo in the packet. I'm happy to either walk through it or start by answering questions but I suspect for the public you'd like a bit of an overview. Is that correct? Great. So going back to the very beginning in 2020, the legislature passed a law legalizing recreational cannabis, marijuana, pot, whatever. The technical term is cannabis and through that it was basically setting up this entire industry in Vermont which is regulated very closely by the state. One of the elements that they set up was the ability for municipalities to vote, to opt in for retail sales as well as to create a local cannabis control commission which would be very similar to a board of liquor control whereas liquor control boards are required in every town. Cannabis control boards are not required to be set up. It's an option and they have a fairly limited purpose and authority which is to issue local licenses strictly in accordance with criteria relating to local regulations. So not any of the state cannabis control boards rules but only things like municipal zoning and municipal nuisance laws and signage laws. So that is sort of the decision before you is to decide whether to set one of those up in Essex and I'm happy to walk through some of the details of how that would work if you're interested but I will say that staff's recommendation is not to set up a local cannabis control commission because the state does has a fairly extensive amount of regulation on cannabis establishments whether it's retail sales or cultivation or manufacturing and processing. They've also very specifically limited municipal authority in this matter so it seems more like a rubber stamp process and the only potential benefit would be that the town could act possibly a little more quickly to shut down an establishment that was in violation of local rules but we already have processes set up in our zoning ordinance in our town ordinances to deal with violations of those so it seems like an extra layer of bureaucracy that doesn't necessarily benefit the community in any way. That said, happy to answer questions and happy to discuss what that would look like in Essex. Thank you. I saw Tracy saying first. So question not having a cannabis control board does not prohibit the planning commission from still implementing zoning that would encompass cannabis is that correct? Absolutely correct so the planning commission can and the select board as well has control over zoning ordinances that apply to all types of businesses and the state has been very clear that any type of municipal regulation has to be equal and fair to cannabis as it does to any other type of business so absolutely any local rules apply to cannabis just like any other business. So zoning has actually come up with the rules as far as where it can go and the distances and all that we have I haven't seen it I don't know that's my fault because I didn't look in the right place or it hasn't come to the board or what. Yeah and I think to make sure we're on the same page there can't be a separate use for cannabis retail establishment right it just falls under the retail establishment? Correct we could potentially define cannabis establishment just sort of clarify that we're talking about something specific but it would have to be treated the same as any other retail establishment so for instance we have you know a couple of different use types that essentially are lumped into you know one category but we call it out because people come and say well I want to do RV sales versus car sales and ultimately it's all vehicle sales so maybe I want to do cannabis sales or you know I want to sell toys and it's still retail. That's my concern Naren and we heard in various hearings was the zoning around the school so the libraries or you know the distance distance where the actual shops get set up right and and we haven't seen any of that as to what was decided here for Essex it was left up to zoning. Right and so the fact is that we really don't have much of an ability to regulate cannabis specifically other than to say retail is allowed in this general area and not in this area so we haven't had any sort of you know analysis public hearing new ordinance around cannabis because it falls under our existing zoning. We did have a conversation with the planning commission back in March I believe where we talked about you know what would cannabis regulation look like and basically it would fall under existing development review if it's requires a site plan review by the planning commission for a new building and that would go through that it would then require a zoning permit once they actually go to due construction if it was you know for instance in a there's a couple of zoning districts where retail is a conditional use like industrial districts so that would go to the zoning board but they'd purely be looking at does a retail use cannabis or not fit within this industrial zoning district so in terms of schools libraries etc the only real regulation of that is a state law I don't have the reference right in front of you I want to say it's 18 AVSA I can't remember the exact number I believe it's in your packet it basically says that you can't sell a regulated drug at the federal level within 500 feet of a school property we did staff to go through and look at what does that mean for Essex there's a map on the cannabis web page of the town website that shows what that means which properties as applies to and how it overlays with our retail zoning districts where cannabis sales would be allowed and essentially the only area of overlap is part of the center district so near the east side of price chopper actually east of that it's a couple of properties just west of Memorial Hall because of the Green Mountain Montessori school and a little bit Essex Elementary and then there's a two roads academy on Pearl Street that leases excuse me leases a building and that technically goes into our mixed use zoning district off of Joshua Way but there's no actual building within that 500 foot buffer and I don't think anything is planned for that so doesn't seem to affect retail and as far as school safety and marketing to children and all those concerns the state has a lot of regulation in their rules about how cannabis can be marketed and how it can be packaged and how it can be sort of presented and they have a lot of attention making sure that it doesn't get into hands of kids my other question was is that you're going to allow the state to issue the license I'll have them reviewed here is there any control us to the number that will be issued so the town could theoretically set up a maximum number of retail establishments of potentially a certain type within a certain zoning district but I'm not sure that we could specifically call out cannabis again it might have to be a certain number of retail stores period and those types of regulations are generally not very popular and hard to administer they don't necessarily accomplish a lot of good planning goals but that is a possibility if there was a concern about that ultimately the sort of planning perspective is that this is a new market everyone is trying to get in on it there's going to be a lot of startups and a lot of them are going to fail unfortunately the town wants you know businesses to succeed but there's probably only going to be so much appetite for cannabis in general so our approach for any type of business is let the you know the market sort of sort itself out if there is demand for it then that's what people are looking for so I mean that was my only concern is that 10 or 15 people get licenses and as not having a board we don't have any control or over it understanding right they'd have to be we couldn't control the number of licenses unless you'd go through Darren said but there'd be um otherwise the control is based on where can you have retail they'd have the same signage requirements that any other business would have uh we have regulations about uh colors of signage size of signage by zoning district but the state would really have the authority as far as enforcement and compliance with state regs but as far as limiting the number of establishments uh staying where they could go it would just be normal zoning regulations and that wouldn't change with the cannabis control board because the town wouldn't have the authority to specifically limit the number of licenses for cannabis it would have to be a zoning regulation that passes muster in the normal wet manner okay thank you any other questions um try and read this right away but and excuse me if I say this wrong but is there any and it's not and to discredit is there any reason for this solely other than to stay on top of the information ahead of anyone else because there's going to be nobody really paying attention to it on the town level um so I want to make sure I understand the intent for the for the Essex's cannabis control board I mean other than if we had this board and people on this board looking at you know you know regulations new things that are coming up you know things that are being approved for proposed at state level um I guess we wouldn't really have anybody other than who's been paying attention and maybe it sounds like zoning and planning yep yeah so the town does get notified of every cannabis establishment that is issued a license in Essex we've already had I think two um those are both cultivation indoor cultivation I think uh so we will know when these establishment establishments are coming in and um zoning staff can keep an eye on the state rules as they change at this point there's a lot in motion but once things sort of settle out um there probably will be minor things that don't necessarily have a bearing on Essex and um what's going on here but if there were an issue that came up we'd definitely hear about it through zoning we get inquiries all the time from residents about you know this business is doing something we're not sure if they're allowed to do that or oh what's going on and you know that location you know I see some construction happening so um we would definitely bring to you any issue that comes up that needs your attention it would probably go to planning commission first as a issue that we've seen and needs to get sorted out in terms of enforcement um the state cannabis control board retains pretty much again all the authority for enforcing their own rules they may involve local law enforcement if there is an issue particularly if it's a non-cannabis rule but they see a law being violated they might say hey by the way we noticed this but it's really up to them what they decide to do and it seems like they're going to be pretty parts close to the chest tight-lipped about anything um that has to do with cannabis establishments upfront but that said um through normal you know zoning and state permits uh all cannabis establishments have to follow fire and life safety codes they have to follow zoning and health ordinances um the state has their own rules about indoor air quality and energy efficiency and a lot of other specific things that we don't actually even regulate for other types of businesses that answer your question and I'm gonna I'm gonna follow up with with a couple simple words because I just I'm just having a hard time understanding like not what you're explaining me you're doing a really good job just about the whole the whole I don't want to say the point but is there any benefit to having this from from staff's perspective there really isn't we see potential cost of having to administer a local cannabis control commission which is similar to liquor licenses and we don't see that that has any benefit of us being able to enforce our rules more effectively than we already can through zoning and police um so that's really what and I know what's in front of you and my last question kind of to the board as well but what difference I guess in the way that this was written in the law but what difference does this have where we don't have the approval to grant a liquor license in Essex like to an establishment they'll serve so so the state issues the licenses right so we could only use our zoning regulations to deny something that's the only reason that we could deny something yeah right or any other town ordinance or or yeah or any other town hours yeah but so we we so it comes to the board we just say does anybody have anything against that we know about the rubber stamp the rubber stamp is it okay does my like a couple clarifying questions go through you know also like get my legal glasses on the good questions and it's it's a very confusing intricate issue and right to distill it down because it comes down to simply you know rubber stamp and are you getting any questions no I'm all set I don't believe we should do a commission thank you I'll take staff recommendation I think crazy I don't have anything else okay all right uh probably should take a comment from the public um anybody in the room want to speak or ask any questions or make comments I'm not seeing any hands in the room anybody online okay I'm not seeing any hands raised so anybody want to make a motion make the motion that we accept the recommendation of staff and not establish a local cannabis control commissioner for the town event thank you Don thank you Ethan any further discussion those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes 5-0 we have actually you phrased it in the negative and we voted in favor of it to accept the recommendation accept the recommendation okay there we go all right I do want to make one clarification that um as I said this is a very new set of rules and a new industry so things could probably things will probably change um and it's possible that the ability for towns to regulate this may change so if that does happen uh and we see a benefit to having a local cannabis control commission we will bring that to your attention um all right I'll put that out there that this isn't necessarily uh forever yeah all right great thanks Darren thank you thank you for all your hours of watching all the the moving target but it's good stuff to know thank you thanks okay we'll move on to business item 5e discussion and protection potential action to approve language and place the creation of chitin county communications union district on the November general election ballot is that you margarine it's me um yes so as the memo states um as the memo states um here they basically this is really just about the wording for this probably for the ballot to get it on the general um ballot for november um Jericho has already their boards already approved it for them so they are also going to do it south Burlington, Williston, and Shelburne are all discussing uh like tonight is one of them maybe it was last week is the other one so they're all trying to finalize but so far it looks like everyone's gonna of those three are also going to be putting it on and having the wording to be considered to put it on there um so if you you can see the wording we've decided to just call it to the chitin county communications union districts keep it simple keep it straightforward nothing too fancy and um at the bottom is the wording that came up from you know Rob Fish who was here with us last time and Regina Mahoney from CCRPC and that is the same wording that all of us will be putting on there um in order to get it on the ballot for November so tonight it's just about approving that we are also meeting next week to then talk about if that is approved and um for certain communities how to then do the sort of education campaign around that for voters so that they know we're going to share resources as much as possible to make it as you know light a load and a light lift um for everyone but so that we all have the same information and so that people can really be informed about what this is and you know costs and that that those kinds of questions that come up so try to preempt that as well all right thanks my great any questions from board members handle you good any questions i'm good any questions from the public i'm seeing hands in the room i'm seeing hands online mr chairman i'd like to make the motion that the select would approve the placement of the following language for the creation of the chitin county communications union district on the november general election ballot to read so the town of Essex enter into communications union district to be known as chitin county communications union district under the provisions of 30 vsa chapter 82 for the purpose of improving access to broadband service thank you don have a second second thank you tracy any further discussion all those in favor please say aye hi hi opposed hey motion passes five zero thank you for all your work on it all right now let's see that was margarita margarita whatever you want to pick her up draw the name okay moving on to business item 5 f consider approval of fiscal year fiscal year 2023 tax rates who's got this one i will do that um basically it's all laid out in the memo we have a approved budget uh we know what the tax levy needs to be and we have a grand list number so with all of that we can now set the tax rate portney lays out some of the more more the details and specifics within the memo the total tax rate includes the town's general tax rate the local agreement rate which covers the veteran exemptions and um farm and farm and open lands contracts and also the capital tax that comes out to a total town tax rate of 0.57340 that's 4.12 increase over last year it's a little bit higher than we had um estimated with the budget and the result that that is because the grand list growth was not as high as we um typically have seen in the past uh we trended budget conservatively and plan conservatively with the grand list growth but it actually came in even lower than um projected this year so that is why the tax rates a little bit higher than we had predicted back in march um the numbers are here and bills are going out tomorrow so hopefully we can get this approved tonight no pressure is i'm sorry can i ask a question is it legal for me to ask what the and maybe we can does the grand list value has been adjusted for the tax stabilization agreement for 42 allen martin drive and 131 red pine drive what was the adjustment or or why was there i'm uh the town has entered tax stabilization agreements for logic and level of the two okay i and that's part of that i forgot what it's called tax i know so they don't pay it the tax is it increases they're saying okay each each one's a little bit different but basically yes okay tax you know up over time them even i have a question so going back to march um you know there was uh the presentation um you know there was the surplus that we had and the budget was sold on a on a one percent increase with the with the surplus that was going to be used towards the budget uh it appears that that surplus has disappeared and now we're seeing the full four percent sorry which was the one percent there there was a the budget presentation when it was presented it was told this is the x-man dollars i have to pull up the presentation and recording um there was you know it was it was like four hundred thousand dollars total i think it was almost three hundred thousand dollars that was going to be given back from the town to the town and the budget was sold to the voters on a one percent that in physical money coming from the tax rate i'm just curious if that money was still in there or how it got to four four percent again um the tax rate was projected at four percent the there there was i think it was four hundred thousand i'll take your word for that um in the in the tax in the um fund uh god i'm losing my words um fund balance was going to take four hundred thousand dollars of that use that to offset the tax levy increase to keep that number that four percent from being higher than that i think it was going to be closer to five percent without that four hundred thousand dollars that was approved um to use from fund balance uh so it's always been we we projected the four percent tax rate increase it's up a tiny bit because the grand list growth was not as expected is there any numbers on there as to like what we prepare to be as every year and then what it came in as like what are we expected our growth to be every year the grand list um i think it's in here but we we typically have been no it's not in here sorry um we typically have been in the one and a quarter one and a half percent range of grand list growth we usually budget one percent one and a quarter again trying to be coming a little bit below that this was a slow year uh i want to say the town itself that outside of the village was probably right about one percent the village was about 0.75 percent so with that it came in just under that one percent any other questions from board members hey any uh any comments from the public seeing hands in the room don't see any hands raised um online is there anybody left in the meeting yeah yeah there's plenty of people over here i'm just going to see all on the other screen i'll just say i don't see anybody on the screen so uh what do i do okay there we are okay uh entertain a motion at this point all right as much as this breaks my hair make the motion that's a select board set the tax rate for the physical year ending June 30th 2023 as follows the town general fund tax rate to be sorry 0.5513 local agreement rate will be 0.0021 town capital tax will be 0.0200 total municipal rate paid by all town taxpayers will be 0.5734 thank you don to have a second second thank you tracy uh any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye i didn't hear i didn't hear kendo aye nobody's in favor of the tax and vote against it uh opposed no okay motion passes uh four one can send out the bills to me thank you oh you can wait okay so just a point of clarification since we do have a virtual member do we have to do roll call oh right good point we have to do roll call um so don hi ethan yeah gracy hi andy is um i kendo hi all right okay thank you for that reminder okay moving on to business item 5g consider approval of resolution and appreciation of denise lutz so there is a resolution in the packet uh we we um typically we'll have the clerk read that into the record oh no so i brought my drinks i'd have a bat throat for these okay so result we'll mess it right up from the beginning resolution appreciation of denise e lutz whereas denise lutz uh p was hired as public works director for the town of essix in september 1984 and whereas denise retired on july 15 2022 including 38 years of dedicated service and leadership to the entire essix community and whereas prior to joining essix denise worked for the state of vermont as an environmental engineering supervisor and for donald l hamlin consulting engineers as a project manager and whereas denise also served in the military for 37 years beginning on active duty as an engineer company commander in vietnam and later as a construction site engineer in oregon for the corpse of engineers and following active duty became a member of the vermont national guard ultimately spending the last five years of his military career as the assistant adju... pardon my poor grammar adjunct general for the vermont national guard and whereas denise's major military awards include the legion of merit free army meritus service medals the army commendation medal the vietnam service campaign medals and the silver order of the de florey medal by the army engineer association and whereas when denise began work as the town of essix public works director he had six employees and five trucks he has since doubled the department's resources and expanded the services that the department provides to make the town of essix a sustainable and desirable place to live work and visit and whereas denise created and updated the town's public works specifications comprehensive road management plan and winter operations planned and whereas denise took great steps to improve water quality and essix in the surrounding area by adhering to the town's national pollutant discharge elimination system npdes phase two small municipal separate storm sewer system ms4 general permit creating a chloride monitoring program reducing salt application recommending the creation of and then serving on the joint storm water coordinating committee between the town of essix and the village of essix junction and hiring the town's storm water coordinators and whereas when working at donald l hamlin consulting engineers denise designed it constructed the town of essix wastewater system then as the public director public works director managed the system and served on the tri town sewer committee thereby reducing sprawl and ensuring safe treatment of waste and whereas denise developed the current capital planning and budgeting process for the town it has been the key individual coordinating large projects from all town departments the select board and the community identifying needs and developing projects based on cost estimates and priorities and whereas denise sought and obtained numerous grants to minimize the cost to the town to pave streets upgrade water and sewer lines make improvements to storm water systems expand the sidewalk network and more and whereas denise has always treated residents business owners customers and co-workers with respect and honesty and whereas denise has supported community events such as a green up day and touch a truck and whereas denise has mentored many employees interns and students and whereas denise is a lifetime member of the american society of civil engineers and has remained active in numerous professional associations including the american public works association american waterworks association and new england waterworks association and whereas denise is an elected champaign water district commissioner from the city of south brolington and whereas denise was appointed by the governor as a commissioner on the new england interstate water pollution control commission and whereas denise was denise was denise has been named the public's work director of the year by the remount the remount highway association and whereas denise has received the american public works association extinguished service award now therefore be it resolved that the select board on behalf of the staff and citizens of the town of esx hereby extend our most sincere appreciation to denise for his 38 years of dedicated service to esx the state of remount in the united states you well done yeah i'm not sure i've seen ever seen a resolution quite so long any anybody have any i'm gonna say one of me kind of a no-brainer not to accept it any comments just a plug there's a dedication ceremony for denise um renaming the public works facility after him um which is the select board's decision and and um honor uh that you're distilling upon denise uh that is happening on wednesday at three p.m. hope you can attend so open to the public we'll have some refreshments so it's at the public works right with the signs covered up yeah starting to leak through it yeah we'll pull it off on wednesday yeah all right um any um public comments any hands in the room go ahead i will move that the select board approve the resolution and appreciation of denise lutz second thank you tracy thank you don any further discussion well deserved yeah you're here um okay all those uh in favor please say aye hi opposed okay motion passes five zero moving on to the next business item get your whistle wet again consider approval resolution and appreciation of christine stoddard i saved all my drink for the first one because i know it's easy resolution and appreciation of christine stoddard whereas christine christ stoddard was hired as administrative assistant for the town of asex public works department in april of 1998 and whereas chris will be retiring on august 5th 2022 and whereas chris has been an integral part of the public's work department supporting both the community and staff and whereas chris has been an indispensable team member for all administrative support of the public works personnel throughout her dinner and whereas chris has been a dedicated oil and dependable employee of the town of asex now therefore be it resolved that on the occasion of chris's retirement at the asex select board on behalf of the staff and citizens of the town of asex hereby extend our most sincere appreciation to chris stoddard for 24 years of service and making asex a better community in which to live and work thank you ethan any comments from anybody great the good resolution and it's short and it's sweet and it was well read i just want to give a thanks to chris i know she doesn't necessarily get the the accolades and the publicity that the dentist does and probably don't hear her name nearly as often but she is just as integral into the running of that department and she has been an absolute asset out of asex for the time that she's been here and she will be missed i just want to give her that shout out because i know she doesn't doesn't always get the recognition that probably doesn't actually want but she's always about meeting no matter what crisis that's coming along thanks greg any other comments ethan oh uh comments oh no any public comments folks are quiet tonight i make the motion that we accept this resolution as presented ethan was kind of doing it i'm sorry go ahead watch that he was tired from reading i make the motion that the select board approve a resolution and appreciation of christine's daughter thank you ethan how's that thank you don any further discussion well deserved once again yes okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay motion passes five zero thank you very much um next two business items are uh executive session topic that we will circle back to so moving on to consent agenda i make the motion we accept the consent agenda sorry indy thank you don second thank you teracy any further discussion i have just one question i didn't get an answer to the question i sent to you about warrant to who to me okay i think i wrote back but it was at the very end of the day so you maybe know i'd have seen it but let me find it my i can make it in public my question was the rental fee for parking yeah um 81 main and i didn't know what that was we pay the lease annually it's um the stripple in behind the building here belongs to the condos over there the fence is is far enough over then we usually rent that space for um employee parking during the day so they mount the warrant that's once a year then yes okay thank you you got a question yeah yeah i'm just gonna throw it out there because it was a question that i had with this and i and i gave it to greg it was like two minutes to not even have time to even think about it but i just thrown them both one of them i didn't even ask but my only question was about the the price of the kilowatts from the sandhill solar and then my second question was and this is just an educational question for myself so i'm sure you guys have the answer for me but when we see a bill like champion water district storage tank come through and it's and it's come out of the out of the jacks check warrants right that coming out of its own account from okay i figured but i was like that hurt that spirit so that was my only like my only other two things i'd written down was about leasing a skid steer and roadside mowing for future budget talks yep um in the the sand hill solar if it i want to confirm this and double check it but if it is what i think it is town entered a contract about three four years ago when we get a large amount of our energy from i'm pretty sure it's sand hill solar the contract is that we get it at about 88 percent of the market rate um they they're net meter they get credits they sell the credits to us we get by those credits at a reduced rate um skid steer you're not the only one who had the question so answered anyways basically we take on a case by case basis all of our equipment whether we lease whether we purchase whether we lease to purchase it's kind of the whole big algorithm of you know how how how heavily used is that equipment what's the wear and tear on it um what are our expectations of ongoing maintenance doesn't make more sense to wrap that into a lease agreement where the the firm that we're buying or leasing from does the maintenance versus us on staff sometimes we can lease for a while then own it outright and have it for a few more years so skid steers is one that we have decided to lease um and tell you specifically exactly why or when the decision was made but that was the decision as part of that um whole calculus as to that landed on lease this piece of equipment and yes it's part of the budget discussion and every time we have a new piece of equipment that's getting towards the end of its life we have that discussion i got i got one last question i know you probably have an answer to was i i'm just looking at the rest of my notes but the uh as extension cemetery association is that is that the now a city organization is are we in so still in our it's still in our got this final transition year okay that it's there'll still be that funding will still come from the town but beyond and in FY 24 that that line it won't be there anymore i knew you guys had the answers so i brought them up i'm sure other people were reading stuff too yeah no all right so we have a motion that's been seconded we've had a bunch of discussion any further discussion i get Kendall's face back up here okay all those in favor of proving the consent agenda please say aye aye aye opposed any motion passes five zero um reading file any board member comments about anything um i want folks to take note of the memo from greg talking about uh f y 24 budget goals i know we we also need to tie in the discussions about uh that were you know the community discussions that we're having with regard to you know our financial future um there's another one of those Thursday Thursday Thursday at 11 30 to one year or here and it's uh online as well let me assume so either either option that's the link that we use for the psych board meetings is also going to be used for that meeting dawn i think you said you're planning to participate in as anybody else planning to be there if it rains i'll be there you have golfing plans oh it's it's uh it's uh you know with with uh big camera mom and my little my little part-time job hard to find time to spend time with my wife so so uh the other thing i wanted to mention and i actually got a postcard about this today and it was an email that the Vermont league of cities and towns town fair registration has opened it is there's a there's a early bird rate if you sign up before august 31st it's in killington it's a two-day thing we do we do have the opportunity to appoint a representative to the annual meeting um and so i think at our next meeting we need to make that appointment also and i don't know what from a budget standpoint whether we whether we'd want to sub we'd want to send or whether we want to support sending i have an interest in going um i just assumed it was going to be you anyway so that's fine so we can we can we can talk about that next time anything else national night out is tomorrow national night out tomorrow right thank you for that reminder again i'd like to offer congratulations to our state champion teams it doesn't happen all the time that was a heck of a game yep little league little league oh 10 to 12 year olds are going to Rhode Island yeah well i think it's the minus covid it's the third stretch in a row that they made it in last year they're one game short from being on the tv been the big tv in the national no so i was a washer's two years ago before all right so we have three different executive session topics okay my move is it to select board enter into executive sessions to discuss the proposed public official appointments in accordance with one vsa section 13a and three include the town manager and the deputy manager thank you don do i have a second second thank you tracy any further discussion those in favor please say aye aye closed okay much faster is five zero i move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public officer in accordance with one vsa section 313 a and three to include the town manager and deputy manager thank you don thank you ethan any further discussion those in favor please say aye aye opposed any motion passes five zero one more i think i move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of an employee in accordance with one vsa section 313 a three to include the town manager and deputy manager thank you don second thank you ethan any further discussion yes the only thing is if we choose to make additional appointments this evening we will come back but if you don't then we won't so actually i don't know i don't think the agenda has appointments no um for the edc it was just interview just interview okay you can discuss it but okay on the agenda okay oh i thought we we told the candidate yeah i guess i uh i missed that i could be in touch with her and let her know yep okay okay question all right that's a good thank you for for catching that so all right we will have those discussions we won't be coming we won't be coming then we won't be coming back into open sessions so scott no reason to hang around and we will close the online meeting except for the fact that we need to have a breakout to include right kind of yep so all right thank you everyone we will uh adjourn to upstairs