 19 VSA section seven of nine in order to receive evidence and commence hearings on whether to discontinue or designate as a trail a portion of the class force section of town highway seven. Any persons wishing to testify or present documents, we're gonna square in. I'm Mark Mahaly, I'm the vice chair of our chairs and visits today. I wanna just lay out what we wanna do today. This isn't like most of the hearings or matters that come before the select board. In that this is what's called a quasi-judicial hearing. It's almost like a court trial. And what that means really is that we the select board are allowed to consider only things that are on the record. So one of the things that's most important is that we build a record, have a record. And things that are on the record are then available to everybody. So what that means is today, we're gonna go through the documents that we've got so far. Mark, wait a minute, I mean turn your hand. You have a tick on there. Where? What the record reflect mark has a tick on his neck. Good job. Uninvited guest. You mean he's gonna check me? I need you to check me too. I need to check you too. Okay. What that means is that the only evidence that we can consider is written evidence or oral testimony. And I really urge people, if you haven't already, to submit your evidence in writing. It really helps if you write it down. And you can do that if some of you've already done it. Some of you can do it by giving it to us in a hearing and we're gonna continue the hearing today to another date. So today isn't the main hearing, we're gonna have another hearing. And you can testify orally, but you can also do it in writing and it's best when it's in writing. So what we're gonna do is go through that. Here, we're gonna go through the written stuff. Anybody here who either has submitted, if you're here and you have submitted something in writing, or you think you will, or you think you're gonna testify, I'm gonna swear you in, okay? And so that you're promising to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, okay? What this means is one thing and I'm gonna use myself as an example. We, normally with a select board, like you can lobby us, you see us in the street, you can grab us and talk to us about a matter that's before us. We can't do that with this. Because that's called ex parte, it's outside the hearing, so we can't do that. It's really disfavorable. So don't call us or- Email us. Email us or call us. So for example, and if something does happen, we have to reveal it. So for myself, for example, Tim Maker called me and wanted to tell me that what some of the commissions have done. So I'm revealing that right now, see I'm revealing that. I also got an email from Charles Flower. I got an email from him. What I think I'm gonna do is just enter it in the record so that it'll be part of the record. And that's longer chat, right? Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. You don't receive an email from the Pennsylvania Commission too. Well, yeah, I've got their testimony. Right, yeah. So don't, it's kind of unusual. It's like a trial, we're like the judges. So what we'll do is we'll, today is kind of housekeeping and we'll square people in and we'll make a list of all the evidence that we've got and enter it into the record and then we'll continue the hearing to another time when we will, we'll have everybody on the board there and we'll take testimony. So, what do you want to add? So, does this Joe McLean or Lord? My name is Joe McLean. I would just say for any other select board members that might have disclosures of ex parte communications or any conflicts that you think you might have, you should disclose those now. Yeah. I've spoken with Stephanie Kaplan, Chair of the Conservation Commission. I've also spoken with Reed Charrington. I've had an email conversation with Tom Blashley, the chair of the trails committee and sent Tom the file that we have on town highway seven, some weeks ago. Thank you. Well, and people from like Reed and things like that are from select board meetings and made comments with that. But that was in a, I don't know the meaning. Right, that's not the meaning. That was in the minutes. I don't think I have anything. But I, could I just reinforce that there's a sign-in sheet going around so that we can keep track of making sure everybody has information when we reschedule. Not that it won't be posted publicly anyways, but we'll make sure you'll get a copy of the notice if we have your email. And I would just say, and we'll go ahead. For myself, I represent the town. The select board is effectively my client. But for some of you who were on the site, this might mean you may have heard my, it's from a small place. My father worked for the Agency of Natural Resources for about 40 years and was friends and colleagues with Gary Schultz. And I know Matt Josh in the past. And so I just want that to be out there and transparent. So ultimately, when we have, what'll happen is we'll have another hearing. We'll close the hearing when everybody's had a chance to submit testimony. And then we deliver it like a port. We deliver it in executive session, right? In executive session, not publicly. We deliberate, we make a decision, we write it up, and we issue it, right? It's almost like a judge. It's, and just to be the lawyer, technically it's deliberations, not an executive session though, but it's related, but not identical. And what will happen is you will conduct the hearing, take evidence, close the hearing, and then deliberate and render a written decision. And I think that the idea here is again, for transparency, everything that's written, everything that's submitted as an exhibit is gonna be put online, so it's available for everyone to see. And that will be the record that forms the basis or part of the basis for whatever decision the select board makes. And can we just have people in the audience not chatting so, because the acoustics in here are really terrible. So when we have, in terms of when it's all over, we have three options. We can keep the right of way as a class four road. We can discontinue the road. We can reclassify the road the right of way as a legal trail. Those are the three options that we have. And the standard we have to act, our decision has to reflect the quote, public good necessity and convenience. That's the legal standard. So what I'd like to do is ask anybody who either has submitted testimony. Oh, Stephanie, yeah. I have some procedural questions. Yes, go ahead. Yeah. The first one is, is you're talking about the record that will consist of all the written stuff. What about oral testimony? No, all the oral testimony, too. I'm sorry. It won't be transcribed, but it won't be transcribed, but it will be recorded. Orca is recording and they'll get every, they'll get it up on their website at some point. I usually take some of it. And it'll be the record. And I mean, it will, if this were to, hopefully not, but if this were ever to go to court, it would have to be transcribed. But it will. I have a question about if this has to do with peels. Yeah. I understand that peels will go to superior court. I don't know if you'll be able to answer this, but is there an issue of, I mean, how would it be determined who would have standing to appeal? And would it go to superior court? How would this be? That talks about persons interested in one of the things I was about to say in order to make a clean record. So if we have to make a transcript in the event of an appeal, we want to know who's talking. And so it will be, if there's going to be verbal testimony, it will be very important for people to identify themselves, say where they live, and then just very briefly say, like, what their interest in this is, and why, when I say interest, I mean, like, how is this related to their property? Is that, are they callous residents? Do they have some connection to this roadway? Just some brief statement so that down the road we can evaluate whether or not those people have standing. You know, we're probably not going to be making any standing decisions in this hearing. What I'd like to do now is ask everyone who either has submitted testimony or are written will submit testimony that's written for plans on giving oral testimony. Could you please stand now? I'm going to square it for you. Raise your right hand. Evidence you are going to give will be the truth, the whole truth is nothing but the truth. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Here's one. Now you're all there. Okay, the next thing we're going to do, I'm going to turn this over to Denise. We're going to just do some housekeeping. It's worth your listening. Track it for the official exhibit list that will be used by the board when we're reviewing materials and making our decision. We'll send it to your own, your own. You have my callus select for either one. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll make sure that- Or you can hand it to us today or you can hand it to us at the hearing. We'll turn it into the clerk's office and it will get to us. Right. Oh, I know. Oh, the sign-in sheet, please make sure you sign in. And I just, I guess I had a question for you and I can't remember what it was. Do you want to go through and make sure that we've entered everything? Well, what I have right now- Yeah, let's list that. Okay, so what I have right now is a letter from Reed Charrington that came in with an attachment to an email. And I have a letter from the Conservation Commission and one from Jim Olson. I have, and this, I guess this is what my question was for you, Joe, back in April, Weiss Bartz sent an email. That I'll make sure it gets posted. Do we take emails like this? Yes. As testimony? Okay. So I have two emails from Weiss Bartz. One from June, one from April. I have one from Jamie Morby from April. Forest Parks and Recreation, April, Cushman and Wakefield, that's Lumberjack. And that was from, we received it April 11th. And then- I think that's a consultant to Lumberjack. Lumberjack. Yeah, yeah. And then this email from Charles Flower. Which was just to me, so that's why we're putting it on the record. Yeah. Now, Mr., did any of you folks write something to us? Not, well, write something to us, that she did not list? Yeah. Yeah, Tom Landman from the Trails Committee. I did submit an email, I didn't know to send it to you and to Denise, so I sent it to Sharon, because she's chairman of the Select Board. Which just, I'll resubmit it to both of you, but it just is a report on what the Trails Committee has decided to do. So that would be my recommendation. Yeah, I made a note you're gonna send it to us. I will do that. Okay, okay. Anybody else? Anybody? Yes. Denise, I sent you and John as email sent to the Select Board. I don't have a copy of it with me, but it was a. It was a while ago, but that made one thing. No, this one pretty much, it was a, what I tried to do, we just set up the argument. Right, that's exactly what we need to have as evidence for the rest of it. So, we've got to resend it. She would resend it. Yeah. We resend it, because I don't have to add it to the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that sent through Jill's email, or are you emailing Jill's? Jill's. Jill's, as you only email there is one. Okay. Jan? I think we sent something kind of as a result of a planning commission meeting, and we also sent a recommendation relative to a policy for Class IV roads. I don't know if it would be effective with this, for this hearing or not, but it was a result. We had an open meeting with the Solz's and Charles attended, and we reported on it, and we may want to put in the record the April 5th minutes from the planning commission on that meeting. Okay, so I'll make sure I get the April 5th minutes. Yeah. I think it would be worthwhile for anything that was submitted outside this hearing that's not on Denise's list, resubmit it in this hearing, including if anything from town boards, commissions, committees. There are, this process is almost entirely statutory, but there are two ways in which the discontinuance proceedings can be commenced. One is by a petition signed by 5% of the voters, and the other is by action of the select board itself, and just so everyone's clear, this was commenced by action of the select board itself. The Solz's made a request, it wasn't a formal petition, and the select board took it up and decided to warn a hearing. It is possible that the board may put maps, other documents that are part of the business records of the town into evidence in this proceeding as well just to kind of fill out the record to ensure that they have everything that they need, but if there's, again, just to re-emphasize what Mark said, if there's anything that you want in the record, you want to make sure that the select board sees, you want to submit that as part of your evidence in this hearing, now that we're technically in the hearing. And written testimony is... It's better. It's better. It's better because... So we don't have to go back and try to find it on a video. Correct, I mean, if we have to make a transcript, we're hoping to have the ability to do that, but our preference is to have a written document that's labeled as an exhibit that's stored electronically so that we can easily find things as we're going through what I anticipate may be a number of different documents. That's great. That's good enough. They have the ability to create a transcription from them. It's pretty good. Okay. So, by the way, I forgot to say a special welcome to people here who are under 12, our future select board and commissioners. We're recruiting now. Training in progress, right? So I'm glad you're here, guys. At this point, I mean, I'm prepared to, yeah, read. I found myself working on this issue, collecting quite a few interesting maps, particularly town highway maps over the years. Yeah, and I, last night, before I read your post in front porch forum, I put together a little binder for each of the select board members, but I'm not supposed to communicate to the select board members individually. And when I discovered that, I changed the front of the thing to taking your names off and just said assembled by Reed-Cherrington, copy number one of five and so on. Now, it might be convenient for you to have five copies. Well, and do you have an extra one for us? Do you need to find a chance? Well, we need to scan it. Yeah, it's a little scary. We'll scan it. We'll scan it. Just give those to us now and we will enter them right now. So just so you know, it's gonna take us a few days. Maybe hopefully by the end of the next week, okay? To try to get us, what I wanna do is have a button on the front page of the website. Yes. That you can click, it says town highway seven, and it will link you to documents. So it might take a few days to get everything. So in other words, this is rather a little legalistic and a little slow. And I apologize for that, but it's really important when you do these kinds of hearings, you do them right. So we're gonna do it right. Now, at this point, let me just ask the board, I'm prepared to continue this hearing to a date certain, but I think we need to figure the date out. Yes. And are we gonna try to do that at like six o'clock or five o'clock on a regularly scheduled select board meeting? Yeah, I think so. That makes a really long, long day, really long evening, and by the time we get done with the special meeting. Right, and that's why, you know, by the time you get done with this, we might like be, oh no, now we gotta do a select board meeting. Okay, so we could do a special meeting on an alternate Monday. Right, so we are scheduled to meet, there's the 20th when we're not doing a regular select board meeting, but I don't know that that's too soon. That would be like next, a week from Monday, the 20th. And then our regular meeting is the 27th. Our next regular select board meeting is the 11th and the 25th, so off of July. So, well, we probably don't wanna do this on July 4th, right, unless somebody has to buy one. Probably not. So we could do it on the 18th of July. July 18th, that'd be fine. Does that work? Yeah. And what time do you wanna do? I think, is it convenient for people if we do it at six o'clock? Is that bad? What would you, six p.m., or is it? Six p.m. because then. Is it better for people if we do it at seven, so people have to eat first? People have kids and they get home, and all that might wanna start at six. What do you think? Okay? Okay. So on the 18th, that's six. Okay, so July 18th, is that a Monday? Yes. I'm moving, so I am moving, yeah, Stephanie. I'm sorry, I have another question. Yeah. It's procedural. It has to do with the psychosis. Some of us, we're all on a psychosis. We all observe things. Is that going to be put in the record and if so, how's it gonna be put in the record? That's a great question. Great. Do I answer it or not? You're a lawyer, I'm a recovered lawyer, so. The answer is that the site visit is required by statute. But what, but the site visit is primarily just to allow the select board members to sort of get the, literally get the lay of the land. It's not evidence. What they saw is in evidence. So if there's anything from the site visit that you wanna make sure is in the record, you need to either write it or say it at the hearing. As I said, the site visit, we just sort of try to treat the select board members like they're a video camera and point them in the direction of things you want them to see, but everything needs to ultimately be done at the hearing. So like for example, I'm gonna give it a concrete example. Supposing one of you feels, and I happen to know that at least one of you feels this way, that part of the road is impassable. Well, whether or not we saw it, that doesn't put it in the record. You have to say it, and then it's in the record, okay? Got it. I'm sorry that this is so kind of rule-bound and formal. I apologize, and I apologize in advance for the fact that you all came down here, and we're not gonna do testimony today. We're doing just this. But you're sworn, which is good. So I guess I move that we continue this hearing to July 18th. Oh, look, I never, I forgot to ask. Lisa, would you be available on July 18th at 6? Do, okay, before we move forward. Yeah. Do, it would be inappropriate since we just did a sidewalk. For people to actually comment on what we saw, it's fresh, you're right there. I'll put that, you tell me, I'm not sure about this procedure. Well, I mean, it would be taking testimony. Yeah, I think you might want to wait. Let's wait. Yeah, let's wait. You can certainly, if you want to make some notes from today's site visit to your job, I'm sure you don't forget anything, you can do that. I think people know Dan Willis out there, yes, right. I think that, is everybody, so I've made this motion to continue it to 6 p.m., on the Monday, July 18th, here, right here. And, One a second. Do I have a second? Yep. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. So, is there any other, do people feel like you understand how this weird thing goes and how we're gonna do it? Do you have any questions? How's the time? If you have questions about how we're gonna do it. Yeah. You mentioned the three criteria. Yeah. Three options, yeah. Three options, what were they again? They were, keep the road as a classical road, discontinue the road, or make the road a trail. I'm gonna say trail, I mean legal trail, which is, means it preserved a public right of way, but subject to regulation by the select board. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. I don't know if I'm gonna have any more of this part. And so what the, the distinction, a distinction between the trail and a say class four road is that, if it were possible, which we saw at the site, someone say it's not, but if it were possible, the select board couldn't prohibit motor vehicles from using a class four highway. Whereas a select board has a choice, whether or not to allow motor vehicles on a trail, and they could buy ordinance prohibit, you know, ATVs, motorcycles, other car passenger cars from traveling on a trail. We're not, we're really not advocating any one of these options or another at this point. But if we were to designate it as a trail, we would have to have a separate proceeding to do the ordinance. It would not be part of this, correct? Correct. We'd have to then have a discussion about what gets allowed on the trail. Whereas if it stays a class four road, we don't have control over that, it's a class four road. Any other questions before we adjourn? What's the preference for keeping a town road that doesn't go anywhere? In terms of, in terms of accessing something. I mean, that's a factor that if it isn't evidence that the road, if it's entered into evidence that the road is problematic in terms of its use, that's a factor that we can take into consideration when we make our decision. I mean, it would definitely be relevant. But remember, someone has to say it or write it or put it in the record, okay? It's not enough that we happen to see it. And just to be clear, the question that the select court, the ultimate question that they have to answer is does the public good necessity and convenience support the requested action to discontinue the road? And they can take all of these factors into account in trying to make that determination. Sure. Kind of on the point, a little bit barren from that, but also the point about redesignating this road, the class four road as a trail, or discontinuing it. Joe, can you explain what the rights, like parenting rights I guess, are that remain with the landowners that the road goes through or to be downgraded to a trail or discontinued, for instance, lumberjacks, what rights would remain in terms of their level of use of the road and access? The answer is no. I can't explain that in an open meeting. Or I think that if part of the understanding this is that I am here to advise the select board and to have certain professional obligations to the town and the board. There are a number of legal questions that might come up during the course of this hearing. And I am trying to be a little bit careful about not providing general legal advice. I would encourage anyone who has a question that is legal in nature to feel free to consult with an attorney or to do whatever they think is necessary to answer that question. But there are certain things that I probably can't answer in an open meeting. But if somebody puts it in as testimony. Well, then it's on the record. Then it's on the record. Of course, even my general comments tonight, I don't want anyone to feel as though that this is the end of the legal discussion on this. Of course, anyone's free to consult with an attorney and obtain any opinions that they might obtain. So in sum, we look forward to, we've got a lot of written testimony. Reed, we have your maps. Anybody else who wants? Is this getting entered as an exhibit? Yes, it's an exhibit. They're like it. Yeah. Anybody who has any written testimony, anything you want to add, there's plenty of time to do it. Do it. I have a question. And the kitchen sink is better than not. Yes. What is the protocol or what are the rules interacting directly with the attorney that's going to be evaluating this price? He's not evaluating it. Right. We're evaluating it. This is surprising us on the rules of the game as we go. And when we get to the point when we heard all the evidence, he'll be, and we are meeting in the liberty session, which means by ourselves. If he thinks we're doing something stupid, he's going to have to tell us. These are not following the law. That's what I mean by the constitution. If we're not following the law, he has to tell us. But generally speaking, outside of the kind of procedural questions that Stephanie was asking, he can't be a leader. He can't be your advisor. He's ours. No, I'm not. I'm talking about under other individuals, I'm talking about the process privately. Oh yeah, yeah, you can talk to anybody you want. And if you- But not the board. Not the board, no, but if you have, if you want to hire a lawyer, not that I'm advocating, but if you want to hire a lawyer, you can to advise you or to talk. Anybody can talk to us on this. Or write us. In the hearings. In the hearings. Yes, you're right, in the hearings. Okay? And if you send comments, written comments, just know that they're going to get posted so everybody can read them. Yeah, everybody can read them, so stay civil. I think we're done. And we're, by continuing, yes? Excuse me, I have one, these are procedural questions. Yes. Between now and the 18th of July, which is when this hearing would recommence, are the materials that have been submitted and are, I guess, now a record, are they available? Yes. Yeah, that's what I just said, and we're posting them on the website. On the website, I hope that's all right with you. We have a webmaster now, and we're going to try to create a link that is obvious. Yeah, I don't know. So you don't have to go way down into the fallow to the left side. We'll put it on the front page, and you'll click on it, and it'll probably, it'll take you to another place on the website, but it'll be right on the front page. This is available physically. We'll see, I'm just curious, and both will want to add to it or submit things in this interview. Will you put them on? Yeah, that's not a good question, it's as soon as they're submitted at the hearing, they will be adding. But what if it's between now and the 18th, and we get stuck, do I add that? I think, do you want to put it, you can put it up there, but it won't actually be admitted as part of the record until the select board actually accepts it at the hearing formally, but you can put a list of, what is on Denise's list today is part of the record. These are all in the record. If there are things that are submitted during the interim period, we can put them online and make it clear somehow that not yet admitted, but they're available. I'll make sure the exhibit list gets posted. Yes. I'll make sure we type it up, and then we can say yes, and then the ones that are submitted, but haven't been actually admitted, we can just leave it, then it's been admitted blank. Very good. Can I ask you a question? Yes, okay. Any other questions? Yes. At the hearing, will anybody be able to ask questions of anybody, of any of the witnesses, or will they be able to ask questions about somebody who submits something in writing? Will they be able to question the person at the hearing about it? I think would be most useful questions came through the board and then the board chair can redirect the question rather than having members of the audience cross-examining each other. Yeah, we don't want that. That gets chaotic. But if, let's say you see something, Stephanie, in writing and you have a question about it, submit the question, and you can do it in the hearing through the chair, which is not me, Sharon, and then the chair has the discretion to ask the witness what about this? But we don't want, it's just gonna be chaotic if we have everybody else. Yeah, we don't want neighbors cross-examining neighbors. That doesn't work well. Right, as in, how could you think that you, that gets correct. Anything else? We're adjourned. We, by continuing you've actually adjourned, is that correct? So we're adjourned. Thank you, by the way, everybody, for coming down. Kiddles, can I have a dynamic drink?