 Welcome everybody to the Essex Junction trustee meeting, please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And if you haven't signed in, please do so. Thank you. We are having a bit of a technical difficulty, but I think we're just going to have to do it the old fashioned way and do stuff face to face with paper and small screens and things. So, first order of business. Evan, do we have any agenda additions or changes? So we'll just go with the agenda as it is. So, first order of business, guests, anyone from the audience who has something to discuss or question or statement to make, that's something that's not on the agenda tonight. Ann. First to bring up tonight, pretty concise. I did just want to express my opinion or my frustration with the protocol that is or isn't in place right now as far as when projects are brought to the Planning Commission that involve significant impacts to the roads. And the way it seems from how I follow the project through a few projects is that the developer brings the plans to the Planning Commission, it gets permitted, there's agendas, everybody gets together and there's discussion and then ultimately waivers are issued or not and then it gets approved and then the plan goes forward. When, I'm not sure what the procedure should be, but it seems like when there are developments that impact the roads, are the trustees involved pre-planning approval? Because it seems like once the approval is given and waivers have been given that in our situation, Park Terrace, we're left to deal with the reality of what was approved. If we go back to the Planning Commission to express our dissatisfaction or to give them an update or to even just explain the reality that we're dealing with now that we probably talked about and warned about back in the planning meeting, we're met with, well, it's too late, the roads belong to the trustees and there you go. So it would be nice to know that when there's impacts on the roads, where the trustees are involved, what the protocol is and how you guys deal with that. I can give you, I mean, what happens when someone comes in with an application is that it goes to multiple departments. It goes through the other, it goes through all the village departments that, for example, the fire department, it goes through wastewater. You just look at stormwater. So they're looking at traffic impacts and other impacts ahead of time before they sign off on it and then move the application forward to the Planning Commission. That's the process. The Board of Trustees doesn't get involved. We're not supposed to get involved in the application review process. But aren't you the ones that are supposed to sign off on changes like curb cuts and impacts to the usage of the road, impacts to the infrastructure? Well, I mean, just Park Terrace has been severely impacted after the building of Four Park. And that will come up later on the agenda. And the thing is, once it's been approved and once everybody has signed off on it, it doesn't feel like there's any recourse in it. And I was wondering, at what point did you guys actually see those plans? At what point did you actually sign off or do you sign off? On an application? Yeah, but it impacts the road. We don't. We're not allowed to. There's sort of a policy of keeping that separate. I'm having the Planning Commission handle all that and the Development Department handle that. It doesn't go through the trustees. That seems like a really big problem. Yes. I think I'm trying to understand. Right. First there's the application process. But then there's also the what do the residents do after the building has been built and there's issues. So George is correct. We can't get involved in the application process. We've been prevented from doing that and we do not sign off on the plans. But we appoint Planning Commissioners to do that work for us and we trust that they're going to do it with our intentions in mind and with the help of Village staff. So after the fact, when there's impacts to your neighborhood, I think the recourse that I would recommend and I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to is you have an issue you're going to go to Village staff. And you're going to say either to the Village manager or the development department, you know, we're having these issues and that staff would deal with it. If it rose to the level of being the trustees involvement they would bring it to us. Highly unsatisfactory. So can you be more specific about what are the problems that you're facing that you're not satisfied with? Sure, sure. One example, Planning Commission issued a waiver for the loading dock for four park. There's not all the commercial spaces are filled so I can only anticipate that there will be more trucks making delivery. But the beer, the gas, the restaurant supply companies that make deliveries to McGillichite's are sometimes very big. There's no way they can get into the parking lot. There is no loading dock. Park Terrace is getting used as a loading dock when their landscapers come and I have pictures that I can send you. They've got two big trailers that are parked on Park Terrace so they can bring in and, you know, yeah, you need to mow the lawn and you need, well, there's not much lawn is there. But they need to remove snow and they need to do maintenance and upkeep and things like that. But what are you going to do? You can't manufacture a loading dock now. The waiver was already granted. We spoke up vehemently about it. We were told, I was told that whoever the tenants were going to be would be able to just call their deliveries, tell them what size truck they needed, and no problem. They would, you know, get their deliveries with smaller trucks, which is ridiculous. We said that at the time. And guess what? It's ridiculous. You can't, if you need deliveries of beer or food or restaurant supplies, you can't call Farrell and tell him, you know, send me a little truck, not when they need to deliver 15 kegs. So it's just, it's a problem that we anticipated. It's one of many. And like I say, we can get into more detail about the Park Terrace things, but it's one of those things where when we talked about the impact that not having a loading dock in the parking lot, not having sufficient parking was going to do to the street in our neighborhood, it got approved anyway. And there's really nothing that maintenance can do. I mean, we did get our no parking signs reinstalled, but that was, you know, they should have been reinstalled sooner anyway. But you can't, you can't change what the Planning Commission did. And that's, it's, it's frustrating. It's really frustrating. And I think, I think I would feel better if I knew you guys were involved or we could come to you and say, look here, there's a development that is going to potentially impact our street even more. You need to be a part of the decision because what can you do? You can't do anything for, for some of these things now. It's too late. Okay. So that's the first, that's the first thing I wanted to say. And I'm just throwing that out there. It does directly lead into another, another situation where I don't know where you, I guess I kind of do, but, you know, where you get involved in the process and how projects impact our street. Mr. Handy's next development. I've got the plans that show where he plans to build the other building where Fodang is and the other building next to it. Okay. So there's, you're aware of that. You're also aware that there is now a temporary parking lot that is using what was formerly a single curb cut for a duplex as now a two lane driveway to a temporary? Well, is it temporary or not? Okay. So the lots there, the use of the road driveway has been changed and the impact on traffic is even more. Okay. And cars coming and going on the street that still doesn't have a sidewalk there. His future building incorporates two roads in that spot going in and out on Park Terrace there. One goes in and it goes underground into the underground parking in the building that will be where Fodang is. And then the other road will go straight in and that was, it seemed like it was meant to hook up to the senior house, senior housing. So I'm saying is we've got this other proposed building that potentially has a huge impact again, changing the use of the driveway, impacting the street. And number one, is it fair to the developer to let him go through the planning process? If in fact that is going to be a problem. Number two, is it in fact going to be a problem? I would suggest that it's going to be. And it's one of those situations. Is it the chicken or is it the egg? You know what I mean? I don't want, I really don't want in a year from now to have been told when we are here complaining about the situation. And how much worse Park Terrace is to have you guys tell me, well you should have been here. You should have said something. You should have gotten us involved in the process. I don't want that to happen. And I don't want there to be a situation where we didn't know. We didn't know what could we do and now it's too late. So just on the record, I don't know how you maneuver that. Like I say to the developer, if his plans hinge on having that access, it'd be nice if they knew that this was a potential problem. And you've got to incorporate the neighbors and the people that use the street and the whole village. I mean the whole village drives in and out of that street. So that's my second one. The third one I wanted to bring up, which has nothing to do with Park Terrace, was I was looking at the schematics for the Crescent connector. That's a road. You guys had jurisdiction over that? Yes. Okay. So the Crescent connector plans, as they're presented on the website, show a road that is designed to move traffic. And it's two lanes. There wasn't any parking. There was maybe a sidewalk, maybe a bike lane on one side. And it's designed to move traffic more efficiently through and past five corners, correct? Yes. Okay. That, I'm not sure how deep exactly a road needs to be digged, Doug. But it's not tremendously deep. I don't think you have to go like 20 feet to put in a road. Whatever. But maybe. That site is filled with hazardous waste. That site is very close to a lot of hazardous sites. There's a lot of problems with digging and site management there. So number one, looking on the website, I'm wondering, is there a site management plan? Can I, I do want to, I don't want to be, I might be able to save you some time. It's not that I'm trying to cut you off. But they, before that project was approved, they did extensive environmental studies. And so they're aware, the contractors are aware of it. Right. That there might be some, and I don't know, I can't write off the top of my head. I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen. But they are aware that there are some environmental issues over there. And they have to handle them in a very specified, standardized way. Exactly. So because that's a village road, or village state or federal project, I would assume there's a certain amount of responsibility that the village is taking on to mitigate and make sure that's done in a positive manner. Okay. That's fine. We now have plans for proposed development in, on the land that is going to be accessible now once the Crescent connector goes in. You've got a developer proposing four buildings with underground parking, apartments and commercial and insufficient parking, which they're going to ask for a waiver for. The design of the Crescent connector on their drawings is dramatically different. It is the same street. However, now you've got ankle parking on both sides, as a traffic mover, if you can imagine cars going in and backing out, that does impede the flow of traffic. The schematic also indicates a five foot bike lane in the road behind the angle parking. Now, I'm not a traffic engineer, but if I was on a bike and somebody was backing out of a parking space, that seems to me to be very problematic. Once again, it's a project like many that doesn't have sufficient parking. So whether or not that parking is meant to make up the slap for what the developer is not willing or doesn't want to put in, is it winter parking? Is it overnight parking? You've got now that road, that Crescent connector, which was meant to move traffic. You've got angle parking. You've got a bike lane. You've got an entrance that's going to be using, used to service four buildings. People making right lane, right and left turns. You'll have people making a left turn that are going to back up traffic while they wait to get onto the Crescent connector. You'll have pedestrians needing to cross the street to access the angle parking. So we would install another pedestrian crossing light. All of a sudden, the plans for the Crescent connector, that seems fairly straightforward. All of a sudden, it doesn't seem like it's going to be a road that's going to be a smooth bypass for traffic. It starts to sound a lot like Park Terrace. Just saying. With cars and pedestrians and bikes and a lot of interruptions to what should be the smooth flow of traffic, regardless of whether the trains are coming through or backing stuff up anyway. You can't get rid of the trains. So I'm saying, this is the agenda item. This has nothing to do with Park Terrace. I'm also concerned though, because the digging that will happen for those buildings is obviously going to be a lot deeper. There is all that hazardous material. So one would assume that their plans would also involve... They must. They have to. They have to take care of that hazardous waste as well. If it's helpful in our comprehensive plan in the back, there are multiple maps. One of the maps lists all the brownfield sites in the village. So you can consult that map and find out for sure whether there's areas that need to be mitigated where we're having construction. Well, I don't think there's a question about that. I think the environmental assessment made it pretty clear that there was going to be those heavy metals and there's definitely... And I think it's important for you to understand that we have taken every possible step that we can to make sure we're following the rules and keeping the community safe as this construction project starts. Absolutely. But that's when it was just a pressing connector now, when you've got more excavation for the forest. I'm just saying... They are the very, very beginning of their plans. They are nowhere near the thorough level that it needs to be for those plans to be approved. They're going to have to go through Act 250. They're going to have to go through all sorts of stuff. I mean, really, they're going to go through a thorough vetting process to make sure those brownfields are addressed. Absolutely. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But it is concerning. And I think other than my issues with Park Terrace, which would be addressed later on, those are the things I just wanted to bring up that didn't really... I appreciate it. I think we can't... This is kind of really for public to make comments. We can't really get into too much of a dialogue with you about it. You've raised some very interesting points. Good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anyone else? Public to be heard? All good? Okay. So we are going to move along and get to guests and presentations. And our first presentation, I believe, is the Essex Energy Committee presentation on net metering. And David Scopin? We're ready to get that... If you could join us up here, that would be great. Great. We're going to bring a guest here. Fantastic. And... I also want to print it up. Great. And if they have questions, that would be great. You know, basically, actually our committee is one of the primary goals is to follow the governor's lead and try to get to 90% renewable by 2050. And it would happen that Green Lantern came, I was probably about six months now, and made a proposal. And basically what they wanted to use was a site or the Sand Hill gravel pit. And I was asked to look into that. So I went ahead and I, using their list of references, I went ahead and started speaking to references. The first individual I spoke to was the town manager in Williston, who was very favorable. And from there I went to the town of Waterbury and the manager, town manager at Chester. And the list goes on. I talked with at least six individuals to get an idea of what their experience was and found that they were very pleased with the outcome for their towns and villages. And next I arranged a meeting with management people of Essex town. And Randy had a meeting with Randy the Air Assessor, Greg, et cetera, Lauren. And we looked through the proposal that Green Lantern had come up with. And after that was done, you know, Lauren and Greg certainly looked into some of the details because the last thing I wanted to do was encourage us to sign on to something if we didn't find that it would actually be suited for us. Exactly. And since then, at the last meeting where we had James, Water Quality Supervisor, Evan, and Greg and Lauren and myself, there may have been someone else, but those are the ones I remember. It sounded as though we were all in agreement that all of our ducks were in a row and that would be to the town's advantage to sign up on that. Essex is going to take some of the net metering credits and we're hoping that US ex-junction would take some and then we're also working on getting some for the school system. So it's, from my point of view, a very win-win situation. We keep a Vermont business thriving, hopefully, and we end up being another community that is really bought into green energy and it's local. So what I'm hoping is that we could vote on that tonight if that's possible or certainly any questions. We'd be delighted to try to answer them for you. Yeah, and to add where Dave's going, I can introduce myself on the project and give you guys some detail on the project and where we're at. It's a 500kw net metered solar array. We're fully permitted. We went through the CPG process last year. We just received a certificate of public good, which is issued from the Public Utilities Commission, and that allows us to own and operate. We have an audience and stuff. Yeah, and I don't mind answering that question, too. Not everybody understands acronyms. Yeah, I won't go too deep into the acronyms. So we've received the permit. We're organizing our construction schedule now, and we're going to be prepared to break ground really within the month, and the project will be complete in about nine to 12 weeks. And as David said, we're working actively with the town of Essex to supply them with a majority of the net meter credits. We would also like to offer on the same basis with the same discount to the village to round out your available load, because you are previously in net meter agreements, but you also have additional meters that could benefit in net metering the additional load. So what I've done working with Lauren is I've gone through and done an energy study of what you have available to calculate what your potential savings could be. And the numbers that I've come up with, which are fairly accurate right now, is that we would be able to supply about 300 and 81,000 kilowatt hours of net meter credits to the village, which would equate to roughly $7,700 a year savings on your electrical spending. The agreement that's used is the same exact agreement that we would be using with the town. If you find the proposal acceptable, I would recommend sharing some of the legal review expense if that's possible. We're also covering that reasonable legal expense so that it's truly a no out of pocket offer to both the town and the village. That's how we've always operated. When the project's finished, it was a really good project for us to permit. It's out of sight, out of mind. It's on the top plain of the chemo incorporated inks land, which used to be a sand and gravel extraction site. That pretty much rounds out the presentation on the project. I printed out what we would normally do on a quick PowerPoint presentation with just some of the details. It should be noted that three things are going to be produced from the solar facility. Electricity, which gets fed back into the grid. Under the new program, the renewable energy credits are retired to the utility so that this project can actually be considered 100% renewable and count towards the renewable goals for not only the town but the region and the state. That's important. The older net meter projects didn't retire the renewable energy credits. The other thing that will be produced is the net meter credits, which is what we're offering to the town and the village. Again, you'll always be getting your electricity reliably from Green Mountain Power. We're not supplying electricity. The other benefits like David was touching on are the renewable aspects, the job aspects. This is going to create about a job and a half. Then we're going to be adding to the tax base for the town. We are a local company based out of Waterbury. My brother and I who developed this project from the ground up are local as well. We live right down the road in Jericho and we have our offices here in Essex. We're very happy to be potentially doing business with the village as well. Evan, did you have something? The board know that the town and village staff have been working on this project along with the energy commission. We did have a meeting a little while ago and did get a draft of their contract for which staff did a review, had some comments that will need to be addressed before moving forward. But through Lauren's hard work and some work with the committee, the town is moving forward and looking at this as well. There was some extra left over and a need in the village side, not all of our accounts and all of our load was being taken by some other projects. So we brought the energy commission before you. If you are so inclined, the next step would be to say yes, you're interested and have staff complete that legal review and bring back a proposal for your review and discussion. Trustees, any questions? Can you be more specific about exactly where this array is located? Yeah, it's at the, it's an 86 acre parcel. If you go up 251 River Road, you go to the end of the road, you come to a gate, you go to the end of that road, and the property is bisected by the Senegal property to the north, and we're on an open part of the sand pit to the west on about 4.5 acres. And can you, thank you, can you just really simple terms? Clarify for me that, so this is an array located in the town. Yes. The net meter and credits that are going to be generated exceed what the town needs, and that is why those credits will also be shared with the village? Correct. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Yep. Thank you. Another question. Clarifying question. So for the point of this right now is just basically to give, either to this back, the go ahead or not the go ahead to continue with the contracting process, but not to formally approve tonight. No, correct. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any numbers on there. We don't, it's not, it has to move off. This is the first time you're hearing this. Right. It has to move off the presentation into an old business section. Great. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. It is likely to move quickly and maybe before you either in two weeks or the first meeting in May. Has the select one already seen it? They have seen a draft, I believe, of some form of it. They've also done one of, you guys have done one of these projects. We've done several days. We've done a lot of it. We've had, I don't want to say a ton of experience, but we've had several projects like this. Well, we've had the farm and then we also had the wastewater. And if I understand correctly, your construction is not moving forward yet until such time as you have. Well, there's a process to ramp up, but we started the process. So we wouldn't be breaking ground completely until we have all the other agreements in place. There's no rush or pressure. And this is the idea is to introduce it and then take the next step. And then answer questions that you may have while I'm available. Well, the good news is that we have one administrative team working for both the village and the town so that expedites a lot of the questions. And they've already got a head start on it, it sounds like. So, any other questions? Yeah, one quick question. I mean, going through your handout here, you've got down cumulative savings over a 20-year period of 148,000 based on, I assume, today's cost of energy. I mean, that's ambiguous and it's standing right there based on what? It doesn't really say anything. It's a very specific number. All net metered projects get the retail rate statewide average as the incentive credit. So, a full-size system on a preferred site gets the statewide average, which is 16919 cents per kilowatt hour produced. So, when you multiply 381,000 by that number, there's a pro forma that draws out, gives you your total cash value and then we break that in two parts. One is the percentage that you keep as an effective savings and the other is the percentage that we keep as the system owner, which cash flow is the system, no different than how the residential is financed or converted. I'm just looking at it, 20 years out, I can perceive energy sources and things changing dramatically in the next 20 years. I mean, just as much as if we all go back 20 years ago to 1998, it was probably quite a bit different, I'm sure. Even in our pro forma, we adjust as the PUC adjust rates and they adjust the rates every two years. Any other questions? Everyone good? I think what I'm sensing, I'm going to say this and trustee, you tell me I think that we want to signal our interest in moving ahead with this, particularly to administration and I anticipate that most likely we'll be trying to collaborate in some way with the select board in terms of, you know, it'd be great if we could even jointly approve this at the same meeting, but that might, the timing might not be possible for that, but I think we'll at least signal to the administration to staff to continue that we're interested in this. Okay? We don't actually need to vote, but I think that's good enough. Gentlemen, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Good evening. Thanks to the energy committee for doing this work. Oh, our pleasure. Our pleasure. Okay, we are on to old business and disposition of Essex Junction, Rec and Park fund balance. Lauren. Yeah, so last year when we were bringing in EJRP, they were told that they would have some money that would come in with them and we just recently found out how much money that would be to fund balance that they're bringing in 179,613 dollars and seven cents. And we were told by the business manager over there that 3,144 dollars of it came from their capital fund. They had some kind of a small special revenue fund that was showing a loss and then the rest, the 180,000 came from their fund, which isn't exactly, it's a program fund, but it was part of their general fund then. And Brad has, well, and then we budgeted to 60,000 dollars of that money because of the high impact of bringing EJRP in against our tax rate. So we would like to have 60,000 of that go into our general fund, 3,114 dollars and 54 cents go into the capital fund, the EJRP capital fund, and the rest of it to go into the EJRP program fund for them to use as they, programs to develop new things. I think the number, you said 3,114, I think it was, I think misprinted, but I think it's 3,144.54, because twice in the memo that I received, just for clarification for the record, I think it's 3,144.54. And did I do it wrong twice? No, I did it wrong once, I did it right. Yeah, you did it right twice. And Brad has agreed to that and thinks that's a good use of the money, so we just have to agree that's where we should put it. Okay, any questions? I have a question. Well, if I'm understanding this right, there was $180,000 that's at the school that's now over into the village, so when we just did the budget, we weren't anticipating getting this $180,000 check. So I'm sounding like this is $180,000 of new money that's coming in. Well, we had planned on 60,000 of it to use on our fund balance. We didn't know, we didn't have any idea what the rest of it was going to be until we got the check a couple of weeks ago. So the extra $117,000 that will then be used for the program's enterprise fund, is that to reduce how much the kids and families have to pay to go to the programs? I think it's just to have a balance in the fund so that they can try new things, develop new programs. But this would then be $116,000 of new money. But it was generated by the budget. It was theirs to begin with. We have money to begin with. But we have since replaced that, correct? No. So have they been writing checks from this previously? No. The current budget that we have now is based on their income for this year and their expenses for this year. We don't know exactly how that's going to come out. They may be running a deficit. They may be getting a surplus, like all enterprise funds do. And this is their fund balance that they had built up over the years that they can use for new programs or new things that they want to do. I guess what I wanted to make sure of is that this isn't $116,000 of new revenue coming into the village that's... Yeah. I think the thing, you know, we're used to... We designate a specific amount for a department and that's where the department spends and boom. Direct has like a two and a half million dollar budget. We designate $600,000 for them but they generate much more income than that from programs but they can't calculate from year to year. So they have these fund balances that they carry over and I think that's really the source of this. Okay. Any other questions? Do I hear a motion? I'll move that the trustees approve allotting or allocating $60,000 of the fund balance to the general fund. $3,100.4.54 to the EGRP capital reserve and $116,468.53 to the EGRP programs and prize fund. Second. Any further discussion? Everyone good? I just want to... I didn't mean to end the conversation a bit. Clear on this. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you, Lauren. Okay, we are on to new business, Essex Energy Committee request for funds. Evan. I saw Abby here. You've rescinded that request, correct? Yeah. So that item has been rescinded. So did you... But I recall that we just... You just wanted us to... It was the collaboration but that's... Yeah, we just wanted your approval of going forward with merging the two municipalities just within the dashboard. Okay. The website, yeah. Okay. Do we have a motion for that? Do we need one? Do we need one, yes. It's not our website. Yeah, I mean, I don't know... If you want to just give them your general consent, that's fine. Okay. I think I... Is everyone going to give up? I'd think we all... Yeah. Signal our consent for going ahead with that. Yep. Thank you. Okay, we are on to Park Terrace parking update. Well, I wanted to give the village board trustees and some people in the audience, I guess, now the update of what we've done since the last meeting. We've gotten several complaints from the Park Terrace residents over there and the chief is here as well tonight and Rick Jones from staff. We met out on site with Robin, took a psych tour and because I wanted to familiarize myself with the problem of what was going on. And so we went out there. We did see that there was a need for those no parking signs to get up immediately. We had originally put out some road horses that had no parking and then public works came in right behind that and installed those signs. We have looked at some of the traffic flow issues and the use of the gravel lot that's next door and including talking to the owner of the property for Pearl and talking to them about some of the issues that are occurring on and around the site including where trucks are parking and delivering, having to talk to their delivery people about where they're allowed to go and where they're not allowed to go and then the use of some of those parking spaces that are just off of Park Street on Park Terrace. And so we kind of toured the whole site and how to deal with some of those things. We even talked about parking enforcement and with the police department about how we would address parking infringement over there and especially during special events if you want to call the NCAA tournament a special event. It certainly had quite a full attraction there but these issues were also, you know, we have some issues not as much with across the street at 4 through 12 Lincoln and we also have gotten use of a parking lot between Maine and Maple that is owned by someone else but the village gets use of it. We've put up signs and we have started to try to market, if you will, the availability of those spaces so instead of people parking all over the neighborhoods instead of driving around and around and around just go over there, there's 30 plus spaces there. Whether their employees use them, they use them or not, it opens up 30 spaces in and around the businesses of the downtown. Chief, I hate to put you on the spot. Did I miss anything? And so, you know, we understand the concerns of the neighbors. We have also started to discuss whether, you know, in the future as these developments come in what would be our fallback about whether traffic will be two-way or one-way. It is used as a cut-through as most of the streets around five corners are used. School Street, Lincoln Terrace, all those streets are used to avoid the signal but the hope is that as the Crescent connector gets up to speed and brought in and five corners actually is four intersections, not five. The traffic flow will be such do I think people are going to stop doing the cut-through? No, but their need to consistently do it may get lessened and the one hopeful, another benefit we hope is that people will feel more safe pedestrian crossing the streets and I think that's one of the impediments we're seeing to people parking and across the street or maybe I have a block down or a block if they have to cross one or two of the legs of five corners. So I just wanted to bring it to your attention. I didn't ignore it, we went out there. I had Robin before he went out on his vacation and we were discussing the whole thing including what's going on with the gravel lot next door and how those lots interact or are supposed to interact in the future but we're only in basically phase one of what's happening down Park Avenue. I'll take... I wonder just along the lines of what some of the questions that Ann was asking and I think we've talked about this. We have land development code that says it pretty much lays everything out in black and white, more or less, it's a little bit of gray area and when you build it out you have the land development code and you execute it but then in reality it turns out that the land development code wasn't a good predictor of how things are actually going to turn out and yet you can't do on the spot revision of the land development code but on the other hand if it's clearly there are some things going on that are permitted by the code but are not working for you there must be some recourse in there to make revision and I'd like to... this probably isn't the appropriate moment to explore that but I think it's a thing that we need to do It's not the appropriate time but it is appropriate to bring up from time to time what those things may be so that staff has some direction to go look at it I think I understand what you're saying I will take the comment of Miss White if we have a code that says you need a loading dot bay it's there for a particular purpose it's there so it's not blocking traffic it's not doing this, it's not doing things that are in nature and then in this case it sounds like it got waved but the part where they said that they would get a hold of their delivery people that's not happening and so we now have to do some enforcement we will be doing that enforcement and things in nature but the parking standards is something you may want to consider and a communication to the plan commission not an edict but a communication let's be careful what waivers are being given and what promises are being made that take one or two phases because usually by the end you may find out something is not working and you've waited and waited I agree and those types of communications to staff and to the plan commission zoning board and others is very appropriate you may not be ready for it tonight I think that we wanted to have we talked about before having a meeting with the planning commission but I know Robin is away until a week after so I think that what we should do is try to have a meeting with the planning commission as we said and put this topic on the agenda of that area because we know there are conceptual plans we know that there is an approved application and so now is the time to work with waivers and developers to try to get it right so we don't leave something I'd be careful not to have specific projects in mind but more in generality what do you want your code to achieve what are you concerned with and let the plan commission know your concerns so that when they do hear these cases and they are the body that is required to do this by your charter and state law that they understand your concerns I'd just like to add in that we are not required to wait that period of time I think it's five years between updating we can do updates we can do updates whenever we want six to nine month process but if we find something that is truly not working when we discuss it with the planning commission my point is that there have already been conceptual plans approved by the planning commission over there now that's different as you know it's different from an actual application which is a fleshed out so we have to you can't come in at the end we all know now we're going to not we have to work with what's been conceptually approved but we still have quite a bit of slack we have slack and if we determine that a certain type of whatever is a problem whatever has been conceptualized and applied for up until a certain point we'd have to remain in existence under the current code but with a date certain that from this day forward that's not going to happen it's not going to be constructed or approved can I ask a different question chief has enforcement been a problem over there is it a big issue well now that we've had the signs we're enforcing it but since we put the signs up we haven't had any major issues if I can just add I think we've heard that the police are stretched then and I would be or planning commission continues to approve things that we know are an issue that the only way to rectify it is by enforcement of a police force that's already stretched relates in so I hope that message will deliver that to the planning commission as well we can't grant waivers assuming the police force is going to be there to enforce something we know may be an issue because we've already experienced it well maybe but let's not rely on our police to do our enforce the enforcement something that could have been dealt with in the planning approval phase we're hoping that some of these conditions are special but some are and some are not so special that should be looked at I do have some things that thank you I'm very relieved my name is Linda I live at 9 school streets about this issue thank you for your words I didn't know your point of view since you've come on this issue so we have one, due to another board meeting I was not able to come to town meeting last year is there plan is there money set aside in the capital fund for the reconstruction of Park Terrace not this year Park Terrace in front of because there are 16 and 18 wheelers going up and down Park Terrace every day the street in front of my driveway is dropped 3 inches we also have a problem with cars exiting the underground garage there is no stop sign that I can find I've nearly been broadsided many times since that's my only access to my house up on the corner I haven't seen I also understand that the police force has many more they're stretched in and they have life threatening issues to deal with I have not seen any enforcement of the wrong way traffic on Park Terrace except for the warning sign I got when I couldn't get up because it was blocked and I went around and I was warned by the police but I haven't seen any others you're absolutely right we knew these were going to happen we were informed and pleaded sat through a nine month process of a land development called rewrite two years ago it didn't help we don't know where to go and who to speak to so thank you I still have real issues with Park Terrace that seem like they're getting worse with the proposed development and the cars coming up there is not adequate turn radius to get up Park Terrace with the parking that's there I don't know where to go do you want me to go to you directly you're welcome to be a good start you've been well at it you're welcome to make an appointment see me sit down with as many of you as want to come or individually thank you very much Park Terrace what's not working that's an interesting conversation about it's not working 100% law coverage I don't believe works it's too congested it's not people friendly there's no place for people we have many more pedestrians I've met some really lovely people who are now living in the apartments at 4 Park and a lot of new neighbors walking in the street because we have no sidewalk walking their dogs and using our yards as toilets most folks pick up after their dogs it only takes one bad apple and those aren't apples it's a pleasure to see the new faces it's a pleasure to meet the dogs but the situation with Park Terrace hasn't changed it's still a very narrow street it's still a very dangerous street to be a pedestrian and all winter long when there's snow banks on either side it's that much worse there's no escape route I can't go to a lawn to get away from a car so that's what's not working on Park Terrace the sporting event traffic is really huge and I know there had been a promise of a traffic study after 4 Park was a certain percentage occupied and or a certain time limit and I'm not aware that that traffic study has ever been done if it hasn't been done it should be done and if it does get done like it's supposed to I would like to see that the hours that are commercial businesses are open be included as part of the traffic study because certainly it's not an 8-5 building people are coming and going all the time and there's a lot of impact beyond 5 o'clock in the evening and so a traffic study needs to encompass that I talked about the driveway and the curb cut the gravel parking lot that's also not helping the traffic situation at all Park Terrace is disintegrating it is caving in and I had some ideas for things that you could do before you reconstruct the street that I don't think are very expensive could you paint a bike lane on one side of the street that doesn't seem like it would be very expensive and it would certainly make a signal to motorists that there is a place where they're not supposed to be obviously it is a one-way street from School Street going down so a painted bike lane and or on the other side of the street a painted pedestrian lane obviously that's not going to impede any plow for the price of paint perhaps that will encourage the cars driving correctly up Park Terrace to be in the middle which if somebody is considering going the wrong way down they're going to encounter a car that's going on their regular side of the road but they're going to encounter somebody that's being funneled up the middle of the street it's paint we talked about this last year the traffic lines went up so you could count the cars and then it was November and we can't paint and we'll have a meeting and nothing happened so I would encourage you to maybe explore some options that don't require a lot of investment that would work very well we need to have traffic lines painted at the bottom where Park Terrace and Park Street intersect right now when cars exit because it's such a narrow street lots of times cars that are exiting Park Terrace are in the middle of the road and when you are on Park Street trying to pull into Park Terrace you can't because the car waiting to exit maybe take a left so at the very least there is room even if it's a big pickup or something if they're all the way on the side where they're supposed to be there is room for you to pull in of course if there's a pedestrian there then they don't have a place to be and obviously that gets more complicated but if we could get painted traffic lines at the bottom of the street that would be really helpful too enforcement and making phone calls it's a challenge I'm not out there with my phone I don't live to patrol the street but when you do see something very egregious it's always you always wonder what the protocol is I don't want to be the cranky old lady calling somebody going the wrong way or whatever but we see consistent people doing it that are obviously living or going into the underground parking they do it fast they know they're going the wrong way you can't get the license plate but it happens and it would be nice to see some enforcement I very rarely call it has to be really bad before I call the first thing I would say is this is not an emergency hang up on me whatever it is it's not an emergency but if it's really really bad I want to feel like I can call but I also want to feel like something happens and that was what nudged me to get very proactive about getting the parking signs installed the officer was very apologetic and said I can't give anybody a ticket because there's no parking signs but they were before so getting the signs in was huge and that was of the moment and couldn't wait we also need let's see school street also because I live more on school street and you can't really discuss park terrace without discussing school street very quickly I think it's on the street now to delineate the parking spaces on school street there's parking legally on one side of the street up to a certain point I think it's 25 feet up to an intersection we need those spaces to be drawn in what's happening now is there's no lines and when folks who are parking on school street all day long from 8 to 5 they will park in such a way that it's very difficult to get in and out of my driveway and are right up to my driveway line and when they're parked there I have to be on the other side of the street and school street is two-way it makes it quite a challenge to get in and out of my driveway so at the very least we have parking lines then and I'm not sure if you get like 2 feet back from a driveway I don't know if you've got rules on that but it would be really helpful to have those lines let's see let's see enforcement okay yeah something to indicate that there's not parking near the intersection would be helpful because cars do park and then you're forced into the other lane when you want to exit school street and once again I think it might just be a simple thing we don't need more signs I don't think but certainly something yeah just to keep from parking but usually when they're parking there they're parked illegally anyway and I had many calls to the police department about one particular parker they would park there and leave their car there for days at a time and they never moved and that was very frustrating they were parked on the wrong side of the street way close to the 25 foot that was frustrating when you do rebuild park terrace because it is going to have to happen you can install a sidewalk you don't have to take land from the homeowners if it is in fact a one-way street which it has to be for safety issues and I can describe to you what it was like 30 years ago 30 years ago it was so bad that we fought for years to get that made into a one-way street I can't imagine it would be any better now but there's room for a snowplow there's room for a sidewalk to be built in the street and you could still have a very wide single lane that a snowplow could navigate and that would be so much safer if you are truly sincere about getting awards for being a walk-friendly village you can't abandon park terrace like this you've got to put a sidewalk in there is room there okay the other idea is a bump out there's one on the other side of school street there's room for a plow on the other side of school street on the side it doesn't seem to be an issue with safety or navigation a bump out on the top of park terrace where it meets school street could certainly give drivers intending to go the wrong way the idea that it's not what they should be doing can't be that expensive and if in when park terrace gets rebuilt could you consider doing that that would be helpful we also need to have repainted lines for don't block the intersection when we do exit school street the painted lines are all they're very faded and that's a seasonal thing but we do get blocked in and it's difficult to get out when cars are blocking it's impossible to get out when they're blocking the final issue you guys love me right we need clarity we need to have an understanding about oversized trucks that make deliveries on park terrace using school street where it's prohibited to be over 16,000 pounds to exit they don't fit, they're going up on the curb one of them is going to take the hydrant out one of these days or Linda's fence when there's cars parked which there will be now more often now that winter parking van is not in effect sometimes they make it sometimes they're up on the curb sometimes they have to back down the street if a vehicle is not making a delivery on school street it has no business being on school street many times those big trucks drive up park terrace on to school street and they make a right now you can't tell me they couldn't have gone back out that way it's ridiculous they don't belong, they don't fit there's no waiver for exiting on another street with a weight limit because your truck doesn't fit on the original street where you made the delivery you're allowed to make a delivery and you should have to exit on the same street the heavy trucks they just don't belong and it's a real problem they go both ways right way and wrong way down the street and they don't belong either way and my very last things thank you for the past spring life I think it's a it's a help it's definitely safer crossing the street you do have to be very mindful and I'm glad I don't have little kids right now because not all cars will respect it and because there's three lanes you still have to wait and be very careful to make sure everybody is on board and has come to a stop but other than that it's been a huge help it's a great safety feature I don't think any convenienceist drivers that much so thank you thank you Anne any comments? questions? Brett? I would like to just make a couple comments with the board I think it's been few people on the board have alluded to this this evening this is you the village has a plan in place and there's been a lot of discussion about that plan and that plan has been put in place over time we've been vetted many many years and I think the goals of the plan are correct and what it is is to bring density to the five corners to help support the businesses to make the area more lively and ultimately it ends up being less car-oriented if you have people actually living here so with that goal in mind yes there is a there's a lot of the village and there was a comment up here about phase one because that's what this is this is phase one whether it be just this building specifically there's been a lot of talk about other phases and gate handy as well as the Innsdale property those that are recently being approved and moving forward in the approval process what needs to ultimately happen here is you know the plan actually looks at this as a global view but unfortunately the village is not owned by one person if it was it would make things like a lot easier and so I think whether it be the planning commission or the trustees there needs to be a more concerted effort to support the general the individual landowners to develop their properties in the vision that you guys have created here there's been a lot of talk about parking obviously and unfortunately there is a conception in this area and it will change over time but there was talk about the pedestrian nature of the five corners it's not very pedestrian friendly that's what he's going to argue in that fact so how do you change that because there is and Robin has done a lot of studies there's a lot of parking here there really is it's just a matter of how do you promote that parking how do you get people to realize if you go downtown Burlington you want to go to dinner on church street you realize you're going to have to park and walk so that everybody understands here and we deal with this right across the street and people expect to park five feet from the door that's the perception you know whereas you have 60 spaces right here behind the fire station it's a little shorter walk to walk across the street from the fire station parking lot right across to McGillicuddy's at the restaurant but it's just not you know I can see right now the parking lot is both full behind the building McGillicuddy's is doing very well this parking lot is empty so that's something that I think that McGillicuddy really needs to focus on to try to promote the areas that are already here the parking is already here if that means that yes, signs are great but I think it's more than just signs it's actually making the addition of sidewalks the addition of additional curves that will help people realize that hey if I park here there's a well-defined lighted, lineated area that I can walk maybe only 50 yards but it needs to be a focus and it needs to be something that is very easily recognizable I think you know to some extent and I have no problems with this as a developer if there was some sort of because ultimately you know to some extent because of the situation that we have here and I don't believe in this is that land owners become extremely territorial you can't park in my lot okay but I have somebody from my lot in my business it's going to walk across the street and support your business and if we sit here and we're arguing back and forth about I'm going to tow your car if I don't recognize that you're having a beer in my facility that's a problem and so what can the village do what can the trustees do to help incentivize individual property owners that when they're developing their properties then there are ways to create more parking than what is necessary there are lots of ways to do it unfortunately it's very expensive or it can be expensive and you know is it a way there is incentives in the code there are you know in other towns whether it be Winooski or South Burlington is looking at it there's tips it's a great way to do it basically that's a way that it's going to impact space and then your but that money is going to go towards helping build parking structures or bigger parking lots or items of that nature and I think that's a really really important thing that the village should really consider and look at very seriously and ultimately it's just going to help all the businesses that are in here because we're running into that problem now I mean we have as you see across the street we're working with some other people we have a lot of business users for some of the vacant commercial space but we have a lot of users that come in and they just there's no place to park there's lots of places to park but like I said they wanted 5 feet from the door and until they see that they don't want to spend money here and that's a problem for everybody you know because certainly what we've done here in replacing the old bank that was there I think we've increased the tax 7 times you know that's a huge jump and you're going to see it go down the road you have the Hinsdale property that building that's proposed that's a $6 million project unto itself a lot in between what Hantys is building the 55 and older building that they're doing and as well as the other buildings that are in between you're going to see an increase in tax base just in this small block alone from a value that's arguably hardly worth anything to in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 million just sitting in this corner alone it's a huge benefit to the town yeah there are potential there's growing pains that go along with it but I think collectively publicly and privately there's certainly ways to deal with that that's kind of my 2 cents I greatly appreciate it Brett thank you let me just as a side history very quickly the whole thought process behind the Crescent connector that was started we were trying to think how can we reduce Park Street from 4 lanes to 3 lanes at the intersection how can we get some traffic off Park Street so we can push the sidewalk out and make it less onerous to walk across 5 corners we put a road in that somehow to convince the 5 corners and get some of the traffic off and that was the origin of the Crescent connector but I think you're right we put these plans in place we do this in my view we have to be involved in this we can't just make plans and then watch property owners fight amongst themselves or have these problems we have to be engaged to the greatest extent possible to what the law allows to try to resolve some of these things and to work with everybody and make it work for everybody including neighbors so I appreciate your comments very much really what I would really like to see and this is a perfect example of this block here alone you potentially could be looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of there's 51 units in Fort Pearl Gabe is producing another 40 units in his building the Hinsdale property is 28 units the potential for the lot in between could be another 40 units so if you add all that up you're looking at the neighborhood of 150 units that are all within 50 yards walking distance that includes even the people up on School Street and if Park Terrace is reconfigured so that it is more pedestrian friendly then that is it's going to meet the goals of the village which is people will come here they will park but then they don't have to leave again and then they can basically walk walk the area and then once that happens then businesses will come because they won't be concerned about where all the cars have to park because they realize they got 150 people 150 people 50 yards to the front door and there's no reason for those cars to be there they have enough business just within a stone's throw so it will happen I mean unfortunately if you look at whether you like Wanooski or not that's been a what 15 year project I would argue it's actually finally just reaching a critical mass where you have enough people there and businesses are starting to come and it's starting to really it's starting to jump but it doesn't happen overnight and so I reiterate back to the phase one comment and that's really what we're looking at and I think yes we are dealing with some inconveniences along the way but I think I don't think we can lose track of the ultimate goal here and there was comments about the gravel parking lot and stuff and these are all things that we've spent money on to try to mitigate some of these issues but that gravel parking lot will be replaced by something more substantial maybe it's a parking deck that's hidden behind the buildings that will provide more parking not just for that lot but all the lots and all the units that are going to be created in that area I appreciate it thank you very much thank you for everyone's comments I really appreciate it Evan, we're going to move on to the all state parade and the request to close the park streets and unless anyone else has anything else to add of it I'm sorry we are having technical problems here technical difficulties in the home of IVM we're cool with that thank you for the opportunity to speak with you my name is Stefan Parker I've been involved in the Allstate Music Festival as an organizer for more than 30 years and this is my 25th year as a festive director I'm here with Heather who is the band director in Essex High School and one of the co-hosts can everybody hear me back there alright, thank you one of the co-hosts of the festival we're here to look for your approval and support for our annual Allstate Parade which is attached to our festival and has been for all 90 years this is the 91st Allstate Music Festival since 1927 when it was organized by Burlington High School's Adrian Holmes the band director or orchestra director there they've had it in Burlington I had a nice slide presentation with some old pictures including one from all of the bands in front of the old Burlington High School in 1947 that I had yet to find my mother and aunt in they were in the drum corps of the Burlington High School band back then we've marched in every community that we've been in since leaving Burlington in 1979 we've been to 13 different communities around the state and hand this festival hosted there we've been to Essex this will be the fourth time in Essex 88, 98, and 09 and after our discussions with the chief who's been very supportive it was pretty clear that the traditional marching route here in Essex was not going to be available for us to use this year so we put our heads together and contacted some people and you I believe have a copy of the long term proposal and I just saw a map go out that were proposing a different route that is not going to involve five corners and a significant amount of personnel to manage traffic but we'll give our marching groups and we hope to have about 25 numbering somewhere around 1200 students this year come to Essex that they would have the opportunity to not only march to a fairly dense residential section but also have the opportunity to march in front of their supporters that come in from out of town to be one of the challenges the parades go through residential areas and it's tough for the moms and dads that came from Brownboro and Newport and Danville to find a place to park there's the parking issue again and find a place to set their lawn chair up without being on somebody's lawn so this year our parade is going to use the break facilities at Essex High School and have those visitors be able to sit in the grand stand and see all of the bands march by them the presentation included some of the historical aspects of the Allstate Music Festival about how long the parade has been and how big the festival is it's a four day event the Wednesday of the parade includes jazz rehearsals the rest of the students the other 400 that are participating come in Thursday for chorus band and orchestra rehearsals we have concerts on Thursday night Friday night for our jazz and then Saturday afternoon we'll have the large ensemble concerts where we expect about a thousand moms and dads to come support their young people we're the oldest honor festival the oldest Allstate in the country the oldest longest continuing operating one as well we have a great tradition here in Vermont one of the nicest things about ours we're the only state that has our students housed in local homes which keeps the cost down the festival this year costs just 70 dollars for the students a comparable one in our friends in Massachusetts Connecticut costs 500 you can't imagine stuff enough coming up with 70 bucks for one of those kids so we're looking for your pool for our plan here we have the support of the chief he's been wonderful and also the public works department so you're the last pin in the process we'll let me see you trustees I think it's outstanding I think this group right here it looks like a great group that allows for a lot of moving from the people coming from other parts as well the people here in our town village to there as well so that's great I've seen it a few times over the years a parade with bands and no politicians that'll be a good one, right? so I have a question in regards to the notification of the residents it says door to door but who will be doing that when will it be done we have a volunteer group we're going to start contacting people through standard media but on the weekend prior to the parade we're going to go door to door with volunteers that will hand them a letter explaining that whole thing we're going to have moving traffic control, right? so we're not going to we're not going to stop traffic on the whole parade group until the parade actually gets to where we're going so the groups will be open as we travel around the only area that we have a large group of people that will be impacted would be autumn ponds and my understanding is that there's an alternate access route that we can have is it legally not true? legally not true we have a legal agreement that says we can't allow normal traffic through and that was negotiated I'm sorry to interrupt but I can't let you say that I think we just want to get through this one okay but I just we have a legal issue that we have to bring up we'll march quickly past their entrance I didn't mean to we'll get to that in a moment so we've spent a great deal of time using all the mental resources we have the chief and Barbara Reardon principal at Essex High School with people that manage the three farms and of course the athletic department at Essex High School and all of those involved in the parade Heather and her colleagues at Essex High School and our parade chairs and we feel Karen noted that this is a great route without the aspects of blocking traffic out here in five corners if I can just follow up I just I want to be sure that enough notifications provided to people that live on those streets they understand you have a rolling closure but that's dinner hour it's coming home from work I just want to make sure that they're given ample time to realize that they may not have access to them well we felt that if we went out we were soon prepared to do that door to door sooner than that we were concerned that too soon as I know sometimes you give somebody a notice and they get it and go okay and then forget it later we have access to that there's a large group of parents involved in the program at Essex that have all stepped up to help us make those contacts as well through as many media appropriate media as possible given the length of this and the number of residents that are there I'll also just frankly recommend you send a letter to the residents I realize there's a cost to that I think we should do some due diligence as well I think the petitioner are you asking for the village to do that or the petitioner the petitioner should be I think it might be harder it might be harder for them to do it let's the door to door also requires someone's there well I didn't think that we were going to leave a flyer right we're going to leave something at the door we are we can certainly provide them with the addresses with in particular with Aung Pawns oh wait I'm sorry that's not where the but it's still blocking it it's blocking the entrance are you going toward Aung Pawns as well yes ma'am we've already contacted the superintendent of the buildings and so they will help you she's all for it and she's got multiple ways to contact your residents and she's willing to help us do that we went there first I thought that was blocking down yeah so that was she's prepared to help us with all the contacts that we meet over there I mean it's not we have a Memorial Day parade that goes for three hours I'm not sure that lots of streets get blocked off and so it's not something that's never happened no no no but it's a new event it's a new dinner hour yeah it's but let me before I know you've got a comment but let me Evan did you want to say something about the opening of the street the issue that I understand about Athens Drive and Aung Pawn Way it's a legal agreement and in the event of if there's ever a fire or an emergency it gives Essex Fire Department down from the town if they need to back up village services instead of having them to go all the way through five corners and basically go then all the way at Old Colchester Road it gives them an alternative way to get in and it also provides them an alternative way to stack up the trucks in the event it will obviously never happen we hope but if there was some kind of an emergency at Aung Pawn it's an alternative roadway in there it's not normally used but I understand that Athens Drive is a public road I understand so do you want to explain what this is about well I'm going to actually talk about it just briefly we looked at this as a public safety issue as well we don't want to close Main Street at 6 o'clock on a midday we understand Memorial Day it's been a tradition most people around here understand that Main Street at that time the Chief and Rick Jones and the high school worked on this and the use of this connector is only for the ability to get people we can either do it a couple of different ways we can close it off do some rolling closures where they can then have to wait a period of time to get in Aung Pawn or if there was an emergency we need to be able to get into other areas by the fire department and or police department at the time of this thing we were not aware of any agreement it just came to my attention today so I don't know what this gentleman is going to speak of I spoke to somebody on the phone earlier today and I got a copy of it so that's what came up today I'd be happy to hear their comment when you guys are ready for hearing that I think it went to the Planning Commission but I'm not aware of the agreement okay sir thank you I'm Jeff Rubin I'm the owner of Aung Pawn and we haven't been contacting we've negotiated with the Villains for three and a half years to try to protect the land's drive from a through street and we actually had one development which we cancelled because you guys insisted on a through street it took us three and a half years of negotiation to get to a legal agreement in which we protected that street from being ever a through street and that was clearly stated in this room a hundred times by the Planning Commission that will never be a through street and only then did we were able to get into a legal agreement stating that fact which I'm held to where only it can be used for emergency access not public safety but emergency access and that's it otherwise it can't be used and if you guys want to open up for anything else I have to do some legal action to try to protect myself and protect them because I can't do it I can't allow it to happen these guys really want to protect their privacy and their road it was three and a half years of work and we came to this conclusion only after the village came to the guarantee that we never would have to face the issue of an open road and now you're opening the road you're opening a road once that doesn't mean you're not going to open it twice, three, four, five times and this is not what we guarantee these people let me intervene here for a second let me just get a question then so if we don't open this the chain is a chain going across you keep the chain there padlocked and we just notify everybody at autumn pond that their entrance from Old Colchester Road is going to be blocked for about two hours is that an alternative is that a preferable alternative for these people you're from autumn pond so you would prefer that I would prefer not to open up this road, that's for sure whether it's safe to allow two hours closing in and out of the can I ask another, can I ask the residents of Athens tribe we said the only way we could hold this all state parade with all these kids coming from all over the state to play music here in Essex High School for the weekend all these families coming here the only way we could do that would be to open this road for two hours you'd say no, you would shut this down can I say something please okay my wife and Deb Richardson spend the better part of the last three days knocking on the doors of everybody on Athens tribe to find out what their views are and 23 out of the 27 homes said they do not want the gate opened except for what's written in here for emergencies that's the block let me just read this to you so everybody knows that we're on the same playing field it says the access shall be used for emergency access only and only by fire, police and emergency medical providers provided however that the village of Essex Junction and the Declarence may make use thereof in connection with ordinary maintenance, repair and replacement Declarence shall not permit the general public or the occupancy yes of the project site to use the access as access to or from the project site through Athens tribe we're all supporting the parade I mean it brings money into Essex Junction, the kids they're going to have a fantastic experience but we don't want to say a precedent you open it up for this and it can be opened at any time then say the residents of the apartments say hey it worked out well this time we think that if it worked out well now you can open it up you prove that it worked what grounds does anybody have other than this to stand by also I have a friend who is a real estate attorney and I showed it to him and what he said was if it is opened up Dr. Rubin and our autumn pond can be sued for breach of the agreement because he has allowed people to enter or exit we don't want him penalizing anybody on the block who feels disturbed has the right to do it all they have to do is take a picture of one car coming through there my guess is that if he sued he could probably sue the village for forcing him to do something he is not allowed to do based on this agreement is there any way that this could be moved to the fairgrounds they can march around there and then go into the grand stand and have a couple thousand people I think the only question that I see before us is are we going to because I think the work has been done I think the only question is is that do we say the folks who are out on the pond can't get in and out of there that road for two hours they would have to be in case it was an emergency someone standing by they would let them out the other way so they would be told they're in case of an emergency but it would just be an inconvenience but as I've said we've had grades before people are inconvenienced it happens so I does that make sense to you we're fine so does it start here it starts at the tree farm it starts at the high school so how long is it going to take everyone to walk from there past autumn pond depending on the number of bands less than 45 minutes and then autumn pond can be opened from one direction from the yeah that's all it is I don't think we're talking about a big deal so if that is the board's wish I believe staff can make that happen as well and now that we are aware of the condition we will make sure that no use of that connector is done even if it's to get out of Athens drive as well it needs to be closed before emergency it was opened in the fall when we had the windstorm a number of trees fell with power lines and the people at the far side could not get out heading towards 15 so it was opened up then to let the five or six houses but that's an emergency oh well no no no that wasn't an emergency that was a convenience that was an emergency if people had to get to the doctors that's an emergency we will honor your agreement and if it is an emergency that will open it that is done at the public safety's discretion if they believe it needs to be open they will certainly do so it is not this gentleman here we have to do it as I heard that read we have to do it he can't be sued for something if you have to do it but a parade is not something that has to be there's a policeman fireman we're green you're covered we're not disagreeing we're just trying to get the measure of everything here we'll take care of it as only an emergency is done by public safety the fire chief that's not a problem with that thank you very much I think the second choice of having to close for like 45 minutes we surely can adjust if we can have the predicted time so we can let all our tenants know so they can plan I think that would be a great compromise thank you so I have one more question which has nothing to do with Adam Pond I unfortunately have never seen this parade what about the noise levels walking down these residential streets I mean is it is it loud I mean you have how many marching bands these are marching bands that perform on the street so it's the sound of just like they're a band that would march in your memorial they break so I would just like to make sure that that's clear also in what you hand out because there are young babies we're very proud of the fact that all bands from 4th graders all the way up to high school right and I'm sure you are my concern is for the people who live here and understanding exactly what is going to be marching by their house if you take requests they take requests Laurie would you like to have a sound I would agree with Laurie on that just so that the residents are well aware of that loud marching band it's not a joke for some of our residents it's not okay so we're approving on this we're going to look at we're probably going to have to have figure out if we need someone there to open the gate in the event of an emergency but otherwise it will be closed although I will add I think we should have our attorney look into this at some point to understand what this agreement actually says and so and under the circumstances where we can open it and close it I think unless unless you're going to have we're trying to just get the thing wrapped up do you go ahead what this agreement actually says there's an additional act 250 land use permit that says shall not be used under any circumstances as a public thoroughfare so it's not just that Athens yes I just want to add one thing to if you're concerned about public safety Athens Drive goes in a cul-de-sac but share a driveway and when you're going out that is above the cul-de-sac when you're going out my driveway or their driveway you cannot see you have to be very careful there's 300 apartments there with people who have two cars each if they're like zooming up Athens Drive there's no stop sign there to make people stop I mean we're aware because we live there but it's dangerous we're not going to open it so I just want to get are we in agreement on this we're going to proceed with allowing the parade to go with this route we're just going to warn folks at autumn on or whether or not 45 minutes or so that they won't have access is that we on agreement there now we have a parade now we have a what a parade and let me say I from personal experience think it is a wonderful event I can tell you that my son was in it and I think the best people although the kids and the parents are great I think the dedication of the music teacher and staff is on every year throughout the state is to be greatly commended so thank you very much appreciate your time and thank you for your comments we'll be there we'll enjoy it thank you for your comments and thank you for your thank you for listening democracy in action okay okay so we are do we have anything else I think we have a lot of folks still in the audience that I'm not clear okay do we need to move the can I can we move the senior center parking issue up it's all of us in our reading file it's really not an agenda item what is there something that we need to know about this that was is there anybody in the audience about seeing oh yes so I was contacted by Luan about being able to put up no parking I should say parking science for senior center participants from the CERC 10 I believe till 4pm and she said she had come before this board before I thought she said 4 signs but apparently she said 7 when she sent an email I sent it on to Rick Jones Rick put up 7 signs and I'm like whoa we really have pretty quick too didn't we so you press it as soon as you got back from vacation so not that I'm saying I'm just saying yes his people put it right back and I happened to be here the next day and I looked up and I went did I approve that many signs that's going to be a problem with all the parking problems we have in and around like you just heard any given day if the library is going on village staff is here people are coming in to pay the bills it is a very congested place and people do circle around and around so I had them remove 3 I thought 4 would at least be a good start and see how that played I was met today ma'am and I forgot your first name Connie sorry I remembered your last name Ms. Marshall came and met with me and she had stated that at some point earlier she or someone else had come to this board and asked for 7 designated spots it was not I that came to this board it was stated by the trustees that they would allow 7 spaces for senior parking during the week I remember the conversation I don't remember how many we said but I think we generally agree that there should be reserved senior parking but I don't recall talking about signs that's a lot for like you said I think the whole row there are many I'm sorry there are many of us that myself a friend that are on walkers there's many many seniors in the area I'm at the senior center almost every day if not every day and we had a seated tight sheet class this afternoon and one of the members had a circle round and round and she also is a little bit limited in motion she had a park way behind the library and she was late for the class because she couldn't find a parking space and I was under the impression that the trustees had voted for 7 spaces I know we had to go back to our minutes and find this let's up things are is there some action we're taking right now actually I was one of the people that as soon as those 7 signs went up I wrote an appreciation note I was so happy to see those signs go up and then the next day after mailing the note I come and a brand of signs we just wanted to know and see Connie you wrote it too quickly I guess I did because I wouldn't have written it would you like your letter back out no don't take it back yet we're not taking it back yet so here's what obviously we keep the 4 spaces up unbeknownst to the fire chief we were meeting today and he has asked if he can have the senior van parking space moved with the senior van being parked there and other things so maybe a suggestion we keep the 4 we add 1 for the senior van we move the senior van up against the same wall as these spaces we take a wait and see attitude for a little bit and see how this plays because I have to see I have the library I have chips we have the village hall we have fire and we have the building right next door to us this white building that's part of their parking as well dedicating 7 is we're going to be up at words of 5 but 7 maybe something we could look at and see how it's playing and or give us time to talk with the library about and all these entities hours of operation because I've had complaints that people come to pay their bills at the village and they can't get a parking spot I'm sorry I would just caution George I would just caution against moving in the sense of it's already there now so that way when the senior bus parks people can get off quickly have access to an ADA sidewalk moving it somewhere where they might have quick access to the ADA sidewalk there is an active project about how to do that better can I say something I'm going to senior van the only problem is if I need to lift which a lot of the users of the senior van use to get on and off the lift you can't have cars parked beside them because you need to get the lift down so you need a clearance but does the van need to be parked there or drop off there generally speaking it's only there delivering and picking up people but today at bingo there was seven people with all sorts of walking abilities it takes a while to load them up you need a space where there is no parking no zero parking but you know you can go there two things there is also a business a lot here and often one of the other side of the lot often times doesn't have space for their tenants so just keep that in mind we talked about putting up signs but we don't want to because we know there is a problem traffic flow but if signs start going up please keep that in mind that we may have to do that as well and go ahead Evan jump in I've talked to Robin he's talked to the bank about certain usage of their lots etc but I'm not going to expect the seniors to cross but we want to be able to find some solutions of where certain opportunities are available I do agree and I've seen it just recently because I parked that business over there and I can only imagine in the summer it's going to get a lot worse but if I can just one more comment that's probably going to hate me for this but can we have the village and the library stuff park in Handys lot so are they parked in this parking lot too during the day? most of them parked in the back by the library it's a thought not a lot of how about I hear what Lori is saying I agree Berkabalski was speaking earlier it would have been nice if we had mentioned that to him I know Dave Nelson who runs McGillicuddy's and I checked them to see if their staff could move and park further away I'm not sure where they park but the other issue spanning all the parking issues in this village is enforcement we don't have meter maids, we don't have meter room parking and just as much as Ann White brought up the issue with somebody parking and leaving their vehicle out there other than the winter time from 12 at night till 6 in the morning there's no parking van in this village and that's an issue there's a real estate guy that parks his van over on Railroad Street we lose it there for days on end and until we do something about metering you can put up signs to say 5 minutes out here in front of Brownhill 5 minutes, that's not enforceable really it's, you know to think somebody is going to be standing there watching wait this has been clicked, the metric clock is going it's going to be a tough tough sell or tough thing to deal with across the board for everything yeah it is but Evan you want to have where we keep 5 5 well I thought I was going to move the senior van there but I'm trying to find a happy medium can I just instead of us trying to legislate something for you why don't you see what works I appreciate it is that okay guys and Lauren you help out too and Brick too right so I'm just going to be juggling some parking and stuff and I will look at staff moving over now that it's summer we can get some of our steps in and there are going to be I don't know if we're going to be 7 but there's going to be some designated senior sign spots out there well there are 4 now but there was supposedly originally from my understanding there was supposed to be 7 we're going to go back over and make sure what we said we sometimes forget so we're going to and thankfully we write it down somewhere why are you a senior so I sometimes forget and no one else helps so we're going to have to go back and find out where it is okay if you would look in your minutes we'll do that that would be greatly appreciated okay thank you appreciate that so where are we on to next trustee manager's report wow we've gone over a lot of things tonight just a couple of things reminder the farmers market is coming to said parking lot that is in between Maine and Maple is going to be on Wednesdays from 4 p.m. to 7 30 starting May 30 later in the season there are hours due change we'll keep that in mind steamfest is in September I know you're all probably working this Friday I'm having my first coffee with the manager it's kind of just an attempt to realize a lot of people other than tonight excuse me, don't come to public meetings in general tonight notwithstanding seems like we hit all the high notes that was a year's worth that was a year's worth and so understanding that people probably don't want to come to public meetings to be honest with you I don't want to come to public meetings this is what I do for a living so I do it and I'm used to it but maybe we I go out into the public and the other ideas I would have guests come with me whether it's the village president or the town chairman or the police chief who left the police chief or some staff members and we just kind of just go out into the public and do it out in the town do it in the village and present plans as we have them available and have them up on easels and just listen and do sort of a listening tour that's the idea and so the first one will be Friday at the nest from 9 to 10 and then I'll be looking for sites to also do out in the town sounds good nice re-copy no actually thank you for asking but one of the things in my notes is buy something and tip your waiters and waitresses anyone else if I put up those spaces they're better be alive any other I was looking at the trustee comments over there are we on to trustee comments Evan are you done with manager maybe if I sorry other than that I've spent a lot of time meeting a lot of people I have one trustee left so I'm trying I was not going to say your name I'm trying we've rescheduled I believe it was twice and it's okay you were at the state you were at the state you had things to do so I have one left to do I've met several business people I've met a lot of committee members I have a lot of committee yet to go to I've been dealing with parking problems dealing with some good police issues I told you guys all that we have found an officer that didn't have to go to the academy so those are just the things and one thing I can tell you in my first six weeks here is you have a lot of really good staff you really do the lady to my left does a lot along with her staff really on the ball I don't want to name all names because I'll leave somebody out but you really do have a good staff and they're willing to work hard and self-problem so hands off to all of you and to former administrators thank you so other trustee comments one I appreciate you're doing in regards to our communications with the community that is so important and I saw the memo that you put in the file so one of my questions is we can maybe talk about it offline too but there's always been this tug of war almost with facebook and so I saw that you or someone here has been posting a lot of village items on the Design 5 Corners page obviously those postings were also or only they were on Design 5 Corners they were on the downtown sx junction facebook page and the sxvt facebook page and it seemed like that stopped and everything started on Design 5 Corners so I would love to at some point and again I don't know if this is something for all of us or just an internal conversation talk about your philosophy on using facebook and ensure that we're using the right pages if we're going to use them to get village and town news out sure and I'm not prepared to answer all of that tonight but I think that part of what I heard on the 24th the meaning is that we need a communication strategy and we need someone in charge of that that director coming forth with a proposal to do something in that vein based upon Patty's retirement later this year and a position that was that's available now and maybe a refocus but in general I'll be happy to do that I just think that in today's day and age more so than even you know the last 20 years the participation rate doesn't really fluctuate very much your voting rate stays about the same your participation rate stays about the same and yet people want to be connected to themselves into their village into their town and their schools and all that stuff I will put that together the one thing that I so I think we need to keep putting that information out there what I'm always concerned with is that it's not a dialogue and that whenever we do speak to the public we speak with the proper authority and with the facts as we know them and make sure that people have read it first before it goes out to make sure those types of things that are outward appearance but it's not a dialogue per se that we're not going to have a chat room or do something out and when we see a lot of comments that we've seen that we do answer it but we answer it with policy and where we are so I'll be happy to do that in the coming weeks I have a comment can we talk about iPads and PCs and tablets and electronics just briefly because I don't have an online here are you online? I'm wondering and also since the select board now has they got I'm wondering if we don't want to have a seamless technology across the board here and I would also say I mean I don't want it if it would really cause a hardship to go from the Apple and Mac environment to a PC environment but usually going one way is more difficult than the other way I mean if we had PCs right now we could just be casting to that we wouldn't need all the complicated fancy cables over there it seems like we should this should not be as complicated as it always is for us to have pads you know what I'm saying just turning this thing on and sometimes it works and we don't know why but since we've had these pads they don't have a keyboard and to stand there and peck away on a screen it's just not I don't really care for that it's it's not type friendly you can get a keyboard but then that's another piece you've got to connect to that I like this thing here or something similar to that where it has a keyboard you can type you can do stuff it's what it's worth the iPad to get a surface that's my required use I think it's a good deal I much prefer an iPad do you prefer the iPad? absolutely I think the surface has its own set of technical difficulties but nothing's perfect your thoughts? I like the iPad but I agree if I didn't have a keyboard I wouldn't use it I don't care what device it is as long as it works it connects to the internet when I need it to we've had a change in technology over here in the last couple weeks and that's what this is about it didn't quite get there so I assume that the next time we meet it will be better or some people are going to in this particular case as a matter of fact we were somewhat shocked because we were over here yesterday we were here for hours yesterday trying to get it to work and it worked what I don't get it's like we get it working it's fine there's some other entity that comes in here and does it all who is doing this? the grandmother in the middle of the night but do they have iPads and PCs? why would they just make shoes and stuff? why does this get undone all the time? that's what I can't figure out well now that we have the town of the village have passed our budgets which will have a new IT position maybe one of the things that this new person can do is fix this stuff and that's what happened Lauren was here fixing it but Lauren was here we were trying to get it to work it seems like there's just an enormous amount of brain power that goes into this over and over again so Rob is on vacation so Martin was here and it was working at some point apparently there is some little gremlin or something so we will be in here tomorrow figuring that out but I apologize it's the first time ever it is the first time we haven't had it so I actually had to get out to get it but when you guys have IT issues not just in this room if you have any needs like a keyboard or something like that just ask I'll get it we're a multi-million dollar budget this is ancient the iPad out here is older than that one maybe you guys should get a new one maybe my start bought all the new ones I know you and I got an old one it was a minor well I think what we could do is we could get they have bluetooth covers for these things that they float out and then it has a keyboard I had one like that mine fell apart because that's how old it was it became obsolete the ones that we had those are bought those are bought the ones we got another George as much as I'm critical of PC products doing it on a single platform save staff time because we're doing Dropbox and I annotate here and in the village town they're doing Google Docs and I use Google Docs on my personal stuff so it would be consistent across the work procedure wise as well if everyone had the same device that's what I'm saying since we're having some issues now do we have to give these back? because they're so old and have no resale value maybe come up with some recommendations we have to talk to the boss here what he said I was going to say maybe similar to the parking issue that we talked about maybe a sort of us legislating have them figure out why don't we have them figured out we've got some aging iPads we've got I think I heard disjointed technology that's the key it's not the technology okay I thought that it would be nice to start a new tradition and I would like to report to all of you some of the work that the select board did last week next week when I come to the select board I will report to them what we did tonight so just the few minor things small mention that the select board passed a new tax sale policy after some considerable conversation about the threshold for when we should hold a tax sale and that kind of thing we haven't had one since 2012 and so that was an important policy that they proved I learned that the town has a safety manual that Travis has been in the process of updating after I asked we don't have a safety manual and so talking to Evan about it we're going to have a safety manual for village employees and the town is talking about their water rates right now and Dennis let's talk about issues regarding billing and having just twice a year billing is a bit of a burden on residents so they're going to start talking about switching to quarterly bills village doesn't yeah it's complicated but from a tax burden perspective it's a good thing and one of the other items with that is that the village really needs to get going on its meters and updating its meters yes whether we do them in-house I did mine or whether we hire a service we really do need to get those meters installed do we have to make a decision to hire a service to do that or I just need to get a couple minutes with Rick and others to see to be able to bring up proposals yeah so the other thing that I would like to know would be useful to you is whether having select board minutes in your packets would be useful yes I think it would be very useful because I have to admit I don't search them out so and I would also like to ask that trustee minutes be added to the select board packets sure I know Patty e-mails stuff to us all the time but having them in the packet is really helpful thank you that was it anything else? yeah thank you so today I spent a little bit of time over at the high school just to have fun wasn't a special day for everyone you won I wouldn't know if I won but while I was there it was quite apparent that I haven't been at the high school in a while the parking is terrible surprise surprise one of the things I remember when it's been almost 20 years when I was at the high school those grass parking lots used to be open that are over by the train track if you're on Old Colchester Road where Old Colchester and Education and Drive Interstate there was grass lots yeah I was talking with Diane Clemens and what she let me know is that when the Essex Westford School District was going through the property inventory they are under the impression that's our property and that we put the chains up because of residents in the area complaining about kids blowing donuts and doing things that high school kids do at the same time they have the high school has a terrible parking problem if it'd be possible to have staff talk with Supervisory Union or the school district about just opening that up it could have a little bit of good will to go along the way and also might help to make it a little safer because a number of times where I would see some kids literally just high school students some parents flying through trying to find a parking spot at speeds that are terribly unsafe at the same time people are trying to cross the street who don't always pay attention might help to alleviate some of those concerns as well just curious as to when I went to the high school to vote today I assume you're talking about are you talking about the facts that are used for the rugby and such that's where you're talking behind the visitor stands right there but you know what the football field is and the visitor stands behind there you're talking about those I'm talking about, so you've got old Colchester road you've just got educational draft there are those grass fields over there that have those big films right this is like a budget and that when you go out when you go out the high school onto old Colchester road and you take a right if you don't go and tell the village to take a right as soon as you go up there there's a grant on the left-hand side that's where they play that is where the rugby field today when I came into the high school today that is where these kids were playing an organized game of rugby or whatever in practice fields I've seen it, they do so they're on Village Prophet School I don't know who would just be safe to be playing in the high school but that's where they were I'll look into it look into it, thank you but we need to actually discuss the consent agenda at length here, so now I'm just kidding I'll move you to the agenda any further discussion? all in favor? second any further discussion? okay we are adjourned, thank you thanks guys so about the and we were on the credit special