 I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Barbara Select Board on Tuesday, the 5th of September. This is exceptional meeting because Monday is a holiday, so we decided to meet on this Tuesday. And the first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Do I have a motion? I'll second. All right, moved and seconded. Any discussion? We just noted that real estate acquisition will also be part of the executive session and that the Amst Art Gallery has a time occasion permit for 9.15 also as part of consent. Okay. Board members are comfortable with that. So we have an amendment to the motion. Any further discussion on the amendment? All in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That passes. Now we'll be voting on the amended agenda. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, we have an approved amended agenda. Next is the consent agenda items, including the one that was just added by virtue of the amendment. Do I have a motion? Move to approve consent agenda items. So, okay, moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Consent items have been approved. Now we have the public session. Anyone wishing to address any items not on the warned agenda can please come forward and I request that you keep your items to three minutes. If it requires further discussion, we'll put it on the agenda for the next meeting. Mike. Just real quickly, I would encourage any of the board members, the Vermont League of Cities and Town Fair is happening the 26th and the 27th. I have attended numerous times, both as a vendor as well as as a participant. It's well worth attending. I would encourage anyone from on the board to attend. I know I'm already paid. I know we're past the early bird, but I'm sure it's not that much more if any of the board members, any of the public also is welcome to attend if they wanna know about different civic matters. Just look up the agenda on the Vermont League of Cities and Town, you know, their website. Thank you. Just as a matter of public record, are we, is the town gonna flip the bill for board members? Yes. Beware, Mike. And others that would like to attend. I went and attended last year's event where we honored Bill Shepluck. That's quite festive. Anything else from the public? All right, let's move forward. Next item, right to purchase agreement for the Stanley Wasson Hall property. This concerns a 2.5 acre plot of land that has been offered us by the state. Tom, do you wanna give us any further detail about this? Sure, the bill that snaked its way through the legislature continued provision that the land had to be used for housing. Interestingly enough, the final version did not, although I believe that's still the intent of the board. At this point, all we have to do is provide the state with our intent to purchase. We have until June of next year to actually provide a written offer. We can discuss pricing later and negotiate with them. So it's the first step. Once we get to the second step, my hope is that the state would entertain an option agreement where we don't have to make a payment on the property or a substantial payment on the property till we have some form of development executed. So we know the fate and we can decide that on our own. I've talked with a number of people in the housing development world, but private sector, nonprofit sector, and they all tell me the same thing, and that's that developing multi-family housing, whether it's market rate or affordable housing, is a challenge. I wouldn't have automatically assumed that given what people are paying in rent right now and given what the housing market is. It's a challenge for a number of reasons. Part of it is that the market for single-family homes is so good that developers can make such a high market. Do you think I can agree with that? Because I mean financing that the town could potentially receive to make the development process faster. The other challenge is whether it's, if it's affordable housing, senior housing, all those entities, cathedral schools, champion housing trust, or you're all competing for the same amount of funds. So it's not a project that's going to happen overnight. It's going to take some years to bring to fruition, but I tend to think that the site could pretty reasonably accommodate a very large number of housing units. Without changing the town zoning, without asking for any sort of a variance, as of today, it could qualify for 75 units. That doesn't incorporate any of the new Act 250 changes, which essentially allow for one story prior. So it could be a pretty big development, could be a pretty big addition to our grant list. Just going to take some time to get to the finish line. And were we not to use it for housing, would there be any other reason that the town should acquire this property in your estimation? No. Just ask. Like, it's hard to me, but my experience in the housing world kind of comes into play. I'm surprised why the state is not saying, making things, this is where we're at, and then we come back with a number that we may think, that's how it's usually done. You don't go buy a house, say I'll give you $300,000, you know, and they say, why, I was only going to ask 250. So that's why I'm really a little skeptical. I would like to get a number from the state as to what they think the market value is. And I think it can be used, I think housing would be a huge addition. And the way in this state housing works is by housing tax credits. If they don't get housing tax credits, unless they're doing a market rate project, it's probably not going to happen. And what a lot of the affordable housing developers like to have either mixed kind of projects or totally low and moderate income projects. So I think, yes, I think it's worthwhile pursuing, but I would like to get a number. And again, depending upon what that is, if it's small enough, I think we could sit on that for a while until a developer can put their act together and develop the project. Because yes, you're looking at, I've been involved in a number of low-income housing projects in this town, and usually they're gonna take two or three years before they get developed. Right, and I think that's what Tom was saying. And if you look at the article that they're asking us to sign, it just says the town select board here by affirms the town's interest in purchasing or acquiring the property and directs municipal manager to prepare written offer. So that doesn't commute us to any particular price or any financial commitment at this point when I understand it. The other possibility is that we could use if it's not for housing as some sort of a business incubator space. I think that would really work well. That's a good point. In Waterbury, we sometimes, I know housing is a tantamount interest, but developing business and having new creative entities come into our town could be a really plus two. How would zoning affect that, do you know, Alyssa? My initial reaction is it depends on what's happening. I would note that there's organizations like Waterbury Maker Sphere that's already doing quite a lot of that work, so notwithstanding our desire to support and enhance their work. I personally feel that housing is an important priority, but there is also potential for a combination. But I think per what went through the legislature with an interest in housing, I worry about complicating this particular transaction and think a focus on housing feels appropriate there not to say there might be other worthwhile conversations. In terms of zoning, they did in some cases want industrial. Actually, one of their locations is in more town for that reason, just to give them more flexibility for welding and like. Creative Q8000, for sure. Okay, Chris. In lieu of the housing dilemma, what are the ramifications or drawbacks that are there at the end of the state level if you were to seek that property as being visited to the town? Or is that not an option? I mean, obviously, land acquisition is one of the biggest dilemmas in affordable housing. Whether or not, I mean, they say they're trying to help solve the problem. Well, what are the drawbacks? Would they, is there a reason that they might not consider handing it over? As I understand the state statute, we're supposed to pay the appraised value, but Tom, what's your answer? So the, I don't know if it's statute, but I know the history is that the state's position is, you know, they acquired that property, they maintained it for some years, the taxpayers paid for it, they have an obligation to get a fair return to all the taxpayers of the state and not to give to any one town. That being said, I think the state 100% recognizes everything you've said about housing, and so I'm not sure that we need to start with a high offer for this property. All right. We do not yet have a motion on the table about approving and signing off on this intent. Anyone care to make it, Melissa? I move to approve the town of Waterbury select board resolution in support of acquiring property from the state of Vermont, and with significant apologies to our manager, Tom Lights, who sent this to me ahead of time, it's February 27th. I'm so sorry, because I... We can make that edit. But otherwise, which is non-substantive, who did send it to me ahead of time, so I'm very sorry. All right, moving seconded with the typo corrected. Any further discussion, Danny? One quick question. Would we have the opportunity to review whatever offer you put in before it goes forward? Yes, I actually don't have the legal authority of my property without your approval. That's our question, you know. Say no, I'll have. All right. Don't be going out and pull the fast one. And just... All right, moved and seconded. Any further discussion? I would just say out loud that the final pause is the select board hereby affirms the town's interest in, quote, purchasing or requiring the property, just as per the discussion that was just had here. Noted. Got that? Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, I will start by signing this agreement. No, should I wait for the typo? I know, I'm so sorry. I checked the minutes. Great, thank you. I thought I did too. Next on the agenda is the letter of attestation for a downtown organization to receive funds, which is revitalizing Waterbury. Since I believe the first time that the state has decided to commit for funding to downtown, designated downtown organizations, what's your pleasure? Sorry, if you want to discuss this further. Anyone have comments? Talk this over with Karen. Her intent is to spend some of the money on marketing promotion and some of it on employee benefits. And she's talked about that with me at some length in the past, the challenge of keeping employees at the salary benefit package she can offer, so this will help a bit with that. I think it's money well spent in the state's part, and I think it helps us all out. And do you know if this is a one-time thing or if this is supposed to be an annual allocation? Any indication? I don't know if anything formal, but I think there's a fighting chance it's gonna be an annual allocation. Great, any discussion? Anyone wish to make a motion? Sure. You're on a roll. I move to approve the municipal letter of attestation for the downtown vibrancy fund for revitalizing Waterbury. Second. Okay, moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, we have just approved $25,000 grant from the state to revitalizing Waterbury, our designated downtown organization. Recreation, presentation, and staffing. Catarina, come forward. Welcome to the 50,000 foot, can you get into some detail as needed? I don't know if you want to bring Bill or any other members of the recreation. Nope, yeah, I'll be back there, Bill. Starting higher level and zeroing in, I believe the plan for two years now has been to have two full-time recreation employees. We've never been able to execute that, so I'm hoping we can now. I took our actuals for this year and did some forecasting and the reality for this year is when summer is over, much of the budget revenues and expenditures are out. And this year, on page three in line 120, the forecast is that the budget was for recreation in total to cost town taxpayers 314,000 dollars and we think we're gonna be pretty well under that, which is nice. Some things can still happen. Some of that depends on how much we want to transfer to the capital fund, but the projects we're looking at in recreation in the future, I don't think require us to build the capital fund. I think if we're looking at some major pool work, it's gonna be well in the seven figures. And so having 20 or $30,000 to put down is not really what we're saving for. It's not like we're buying a truck, we might save for three or four years. The long and short of it is that pool and camper, both the challenge this year was to have turnover. We kind of got through it all. We learned a lot of lessons and I think we're gonna be a lot better next year. Pool was especially a challenge because the weather was absolutely terrible. No kidding. So the pool was a special challenge because the weather was terrible. So the long and short of what we're projecting is that, if you authorize us filling the second position, recreation will cost the town about $10,000 more next year on a net basis. So about 3%, we pledged into the plan, we assume that the full-time employee took family healthcare, which is the most expensive, so we might see a bit of a savings there. The other piece we budgeted in years in the capital fund, we tend to have $20,000 for Hope, Davey, and then for the recreation pass, the accessibility. So that would be matching grant funds. Caterpina's gonna go out with Bell Woodruff tomorrow and they're gonna get some estimating for how much the pass would actually cost. But my thinking is 20 is a hefty down payment and if we had to do the project and 20 plus the grant was enough, we could make it a multi-year project. But I tend to think, by my estimation, it's perhaps a half mile of five-foot-wide black top. It's not gonna cost a million bucks. So that's my 50,000-foot Caterpina can drill down as much as she wants. That's a great start. I have nothing to add right now, but I'm not good at showing any of these things. What would be the major duties of this new position that you'd be creating? Yeah, so it would be a program coordinator role. We run an after-school program and summer programming and this person would be leading that after-school programming and the summer programming, sort of the day-to-day, what happens at camp, what happens at after-school so that those programs can exist without me, the recreation director, being there every day. Currently, I'm running an after-school program. Would they be supervising staff? Yes, they would be. And I think the biggest lesson I learned from the summer is that we just need more adults, supervising programs. So this gives us one more full-time permanent adult. So the person is, I don't think of them as necessarily a runner who will oversees all camps. It's sort of a presence out of main camp every day. Bill Shubbler. It's not really a new position. I mean, three years ago, when Nick was the recreation director, he was in the budget, different things. There were two positions in this year's budget. So I think they're just hopeful that they can find the people that will stick in the positions and do the job. So it's really not a new position. It's in the budget. And I guess the other big lesson I'll say I learned is when I was at St. Albans, the city had, I think, one of the premier rec departments in the state and I'm sure they had their challenges, but we never heard about it at City Hall. I heard about a lot of our challenges this year, not because of Catarina. Turnover issues, whether everything related to that. But I came to realize how difficult running the summer program especially is and how we, I think we really need this position. And I also think that we rely so much on the camp counselors and they work a lot of hours and I don't think that's a great model. I hate the idea of high school kids working 50, 60 hours a week in the summer. I'd like to have double the staff next year who work half the hours. I think fresher, better staff with this mattering of some older folks. Tom Freik has been here a lot. I've told Tom Freik he has enough choice. He's gonna work for us next time. He might give us a day a week, but we'll take it. Okay. So is the ask to fill this position that we now know exists the whole time? And then on top of that, 10 and 20 grand for hope that we... That's our budget board. It's already in the draft. It's to approve the position, understanding that we are gonna ask for in that rough amount and that increase from the taxpayers for recreation next year to help support it. Ken, what happens now when you're sick on a certain day or you have a meeting or something that... I don't schedule meetings for one after school first. So I'm there. If I am sick, we do have staff there to cover. And honestly, Tom has been helpful. I've asked other municipal employees to help out when we do need an extra hand. So this role would be a dedicated person to not hold from something else happening up. Makes sense to me. Any other comments or questions from the board? Anyone care to make a motion? I'll make a motion to add to next year's budget a second position of recreation coordinator. Second. Ken, moving seconded. Does that cover? I think it's okay if we seek to fill it before that's here. He wants to fill it right now. Okay. But we don't have a candidate, but we'd advertise. We want to post it. We'll start it tomorrow. So do we need to amend the motion? I think we might, yeah, before we start. Mike, Bill? Just to comment and reiterate, so when I heard about adding a new position I was pretty excited to hear that that would be a new position. We have had and have needed a director and a program coordinator. And I think the program is growing and positions will be needed. And I thought maybe that's what we were anticipating. It'd be interesting to hear how many people were part of the rec department that Tom referred to that was so excellent. So just to reiterate, this is a position we've already always had and we're doing without and needs to be filled as quickly as possible. I thought the motion was about the spending for Pope Davey, maintaining the position or whatever. A little two separate things, just to reiterate that that's not a new position on the last. Is anything changing in the budget right now? Or what is changing right now? Nothing would change right now. The forecast we have for this year still shows a surplus. So then our motion is to, and it doesn't need to be a motion, or if it does, our motion then is to endorse the plan of advertising and filling the position as soon as possible. Amended? Friendly investment. Okay. Let's first vote on the friendly amendment. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all of theirs aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the amendment has been accepted. Now we're voting on Mike's motion to approve the plan with the friendly amendment. Any further discussion? All of theirs aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, we have our endorsements. Thank you so much. Thank you. One clarification just because it really got me going. I was like, we definitely budgeted way more than 3,000 to capital fund and I just want to say that was the park's maintenance to capital fund line, not the overall, there's like with 60,000 budget. I just was like, I know where you put more than that so I just had to say that because it was giving me a lot more. All right. Next we have a police presentation and public safety by Lieutenant Charles Wynne. Lieutenant Wynne? I was ready for you. That's all right. You're excited, it's excellent. Shopping there. As you come forward, I'd like to personally thank you and your team for a row, a number of weeks ago we had a resident from Waterbury Center come forward expressing extreme concern about public safety, about a resident who was acting strangely and threatening public safety in the neighborhood and within the next couple of days, you and your team posted six officers to that site who were there for six hours until they had authority to go in and take the person in under arrest and so I want to just thank you for your responsiveness to that particular issue and everything else you did. Yes, sir. Oh, we'll get over to you, sir. Right there. All right. All right. Yeah, I need an extra lunch, man. No, I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Thank you for your help. Sorry. I'm a big troublemaker because it's a 40 pound belt of a foot. So I guess you guys had some questions for me? Yeah, if you wanted to just start and tell us your observations of how the contract's been working with the town. I know that this is somewhat unusual to have two officers dedicated to a municipality, but it's one that has been going for a number of years and we wanted to get your assessment of how that's going and then we can open it up to further questions. So obviously you guys know I took over Blue Ton of White at the end of February and I haven't really been up to speed on all this stuff yet, so I'm just getting there, but I appreciate you guys for reaching out to me and having to come to the meeting and stuff. It's good for me to do this stuff because it makes me uncomfortable. Or easy. Yeah, that's good, well, a lot of people aren't. Obviously you guys know about the incident that we dealt with with the mental health incident. That basically, my whole bearish pretty much out of Stan School, that was everyone that I have. It was tied up with that for hours. So you see the system that we're working in is not the greatest. So I think when it works well, it's good, but I think it needs adjustments on a lot of levels. I know some people are not happy about some of the narcotics activity in town. I will say that we have done five search warrants here locally, the people have been charged, you know what I mean, it's like a revolving door that they're right back out there doing the same thing. So you guys obviously know what to regular, he's like made it his goal, I think, in life to get narcotics on the water, he's doing a really good job. You guys are aware of the search warrant we just did the other day. I know. Can I talk about that? There was a press release, was the establishment that was up? Yeah, it was basically an unlicensed state care. So, yeah, in town and I don't know, I guess I'll just, you guys know cats out of the bag now, right? I'm gonna get in trouble, I'm sure my phone will start ringing directly, but yeah, it was a unlicensed state care, outbound trooper, we were getting some information. I don't know, I believe they were doing narcotics out of the residents for a short while. Well, I'm not sure how long they were, but from the time he got the tip to the time he was able to get a warrant, it was like three days. We did need the rest of that, but it's not a significant amount of narcotics or anything, a lot of paraphernalia and stuff, but still, it's an unlicensed state care. Yeah, a great concern. Yeah, it's a problem. So we had that, a lot of juvenile problems, that takes up a lot of the Waterbury troopers' times here, when obviously Regler wants to be doing that stuff. I'm not familiar yet, or we have like a loader in ordinance or anything like that here, or public cameras or anything like that. Some of these, I don't know if that's something we wanna think about, some of these incidents are raising to, we've had a shooting and a stabbing involving juveniles, and the stabbing, why the court didn't charge out as attempted murderers beyond me, should charge it with me? Was it because it was the minor? I, she, no, okay, all right. But I mean, you know, maybe one day you could see the pictures of the injuries and stuff, it's minor or not, that it was a serious incident. Sure. Yeah, that's not my phone probably going off, some of you. Oh, yeah. So I bet you were getting more attendees. Yeah, so I think that these are things that will help us, I think, maybe better enforcings. It's hard, right? Like we're not parents, you know what I mean to these kids and stuff, but you know, it's hard to wire your 14, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds run around at 11, 12, one clock in the morning out here and it's part of the process of doing whatever that they're doing, it's good to be a problem. And on the camera issue, there was, I guess what I can best describe as a known truck house and I explored with Trukel Riegler at the time and the state's attorney, if we could put a camera in a public right of way and we couldn't record the house per say, where you get traffic going in and out of the area and I was told that it's just not weekly advice, but do that. So there are things, when I was in narcotics, like if we had a narcotics target, we were interested and yes, we'd have to get search warrants to put up what we call pole cameras or something like surveillance on a residence. I'm talking about like just in parking lots and things like public spaces where nobody has an expectation of privacy, not on a specific residence. Like in these public spaces, because the shooting and the staffing, we're almost at the train station. What was at the train station? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if that's just something that we could think about. I'm sure we could finally ask businesses. Well, the train station is owned by, I don't know. Yeah, a film shop, like we're going to work out, a number of years ago and continuing into just recently, there's been a lot of criminal activity in the parking lot and I can't remember how long ago, but I approached the AOT and asked them, they would put up a camera there and they told me, and maybe their policies have changed, but they said, no, we don't allow cameras in our parking lot. So it's one agency of the state saying we could use them in public spaces, but that's a place, you know, they were stealing catalog converters there, they were, there's all kinds of drug activity there and having a camera on one of those poles seems like an obvious thing to do. But AOT said, no, so just for your information. Okay. Yeah, and that's a line we have to always walk, right, it's like the homeless encampments that are popping up along route two in a more common in the water barrier and stuff. So what do we do, right? Yeah. Is it the state, it's not really criminal, right? What they're doing, but there's a bunch of civil ordinances and stuff like that against it, but the state created this problem. We had these people in the hotels and then we cut the money off and kicked them out of the hotels. They gave us a pass. You know what I mean, so where are they supposed to go and where are they supposed to do and then what am I supposed to do about it? And if I move them, where are they gonna move to? You know, so. I understand what you're saying is that one of the things is that it's very frustrating. And I can get quotes for cameras. There's a local technician who installs them. My recollection is it's something approaching $10,000 for a camera and then they have built in systems where they essentially give you a month's worth of data and then record over, but if you've got an incident in an area a month is a pretty good amount of time to go back and preserve it. Cause just recently there's been a whole bunch of things on the news about, you know, privacy concerns by Americans, like a lot of police departments are now starting to use drones. And I think it's a pretty effective way. And I know most law-abiding people would probably say I would give up some of my privacy rights to, you know, feel safe. And first of all, thank you for your service. I always thank everyone who's in law enforcement and military. But I think that's something we have to rattle with what is the privacy issues because I think that's, and have two different state agencies kind of, one says one thing, one says another thing. That to me is problematic that we can't issue in a public space, you know, public spaces are just that, you know, and anyone, I could be with myself and take a camera, you know. So, well, it's a state police, you know, I rent my, I pay rent to the state of my building, state building. So, all right. Exactly. That's how weird that works. Yeah. What's something like a law-adoring, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Denny. You mentioned like a law-adoring, or I don't know that we've ever had one. But is that helpful to you? So I think it is, right? Because so say you call them and they'll thank you. Like, yeah, all these kids are in a park and they don't want to upload. I'll say it's right, because that seems annoying to some people. And it's up, right? So is it illegal? No, it's just annoying, right? So if you call me and tell me that, like, yeah, you know, if I'm not doing anything, I'm right there. I might go in there and be able to pull in a topic. It's gonna be like, hey, you're upsetting everybody, like maybe cut it out or whatever, or skateboard. If they tell me no, what can I do about it? But if some ordinance was like a criminal aspect or offense, and not that, you know, I need to be out of your charge and every little kid that's out out in the dark. You know what I'm saying? But it gives me authority to act. It's like, I bring back the thing about the homes you can't set up, right? It's not criminal. So what can I really do? You know, people are very upset about it, that the state police isn't doing anything, but it's, again, awful. We do have a no camping ordinance. Yeah. So in that instance, if we suspected something criminal like drug activity in that whatever area, you could come on a loitering call and then do something because there's criminal activity there. Yeah, and you make a good point with we have a camping ordinance, but is the ordinance a civil town ordinance or is it a criminal ordinance? See what I'm saying? So that's what we need to address. Just to give a little teeth that I can actually go in there without them. Kids know if I go in, they're like, what are you gonna do? You're not gonna do anything. And next thing you know, I'm on YouTube. So I just want to be sure that we're doing the right thing and also being able to help anybody out. So if we were to invest in the camera, would the train station be a prime location? So I think we need to get together and figure out where our high crime areas are. You know, and again, like I said, in a public space, not targeting a specific residence and just in public spaces and then if we're gonna spend the money, $10,000 is not chump change. So like they're targeting high crime areas and you know, I mean, where there are a lot of incidents not someplace where nothing ever happens. And then there's also the reviewing of the data. Yeah, yeah. So we have, I think, you know, if that's something we're gonna do and move forward on, I think we'd definitely get together and cross those numbers and look at that. Chris has hand up and then came, Chris. Lieutenant, you mentioned earlier here that people like just the revolving door here, these criminals, you arrest them, they go in, judges let them back out. They're back doing the same thing. What's the solution? Is it change in policy? Is it, you know, I was on the board when we voted to hire the two state police officers. And I'd seen, I just had a cousin of mine die a year and a half, almost two years now, a year and a half ago, fentanyl cooking over to us up here in Waterbury Center. I'm very concerned about the growing problem throughout the country and we are not immune to it. And we can spend all the money we want in camera surveillance and putting you guys out on the streets if it doesn't make any difference to spend all that money if they're just gonna keep letting them out. So I'm wondering, is it legislative policy? Is it what's controlling the ability for the judge's, where's the judge's mindset these days? I wish I could answer that question. I mean, is there a different approach than throwing more money that gets us the same results? Is there pressure that needs to be put on some of our elected officials? Is it money within government that's, you know, it's another business? So with that, believe me, I share your frustration because there's a lot of things. I do major crashes for the state police, right? And a few years ago, we had a girl that was taxing a drive and she killed two people. I think the Chippin County State's termy like didn't charge her, permanently gave her like a $200 civil traffic ticket for killing two people. You know what I'm saying? Like, okay, so what message does that send, right? And granted, do I think a 17-year-old kid needs to go to jail for the rest of her life for making a mistake? Absolutely not. But a $200 ticket or whatever it was for killing two people, you know what I'm saying? So yes, I think people need to vote. You definitely need to put pressure on elected officials, I think, to, you know, we often talk about like qualified immunity and things like that with the state police, like removing qualified immunity from state police, but judges and lawyers have qualified immunity and one of the senators at the time said, well, judges and lawyers do nothing wrong. That's why they get the qualified immunity, but police, you know what I mean? Like, it's not a perfect world, but you see where I'm like the thought process and like who holds judges accountable? I don't know. Yeah, so I was going to tell you something. I'll tell you the same thing that I've told many officers, in fact, Lieutenant White, when he was going to tell them and I had a two-hour conversation with another police officer here not too long ago and I've told several officers this thing and these people probably not want to hear it, but in my opinion, if I were you guys, I'd all get together and go up to the state Capitol, lay your badge on the table and say, do you guys change your rules? Sorry, helping us, we're not going to help you anymore. Yeah. It's because, you know, that's just the way I would be if it were me and your shoes. It is very much true. But to get everybody on board to do that, because what's the legislative party going to do? We have, all right. There's not a whole bunch of you guys waiting to know how to take your place. You've got to do that anyway. Okay, thanks for your time. Oh, I appreciate it. What I was going to say was, while we were sitting here considering cameras, drones and talking about making civil ordinances criminal charges, and just before that we were talking about camping because it was used as an example of the civil ordinance that we have, right? And then we immediately transitioned to, well, what if we made this criminal? I would suggest that the board steer clear of mentioning those two things in the same paragraph where it would paint this in a light as we see homelessness as a criminal activity because it is not. The city plan is a criminal activity? Camping, homelessness, yeah. Homelessness, that's what I'm saying. It's not criminal, like why should I? You do have to be so hopeful. These are folks who are put in a position where they have to camp, right? Or they have to camp somewhere else. They're camping regardless of wherever they are. So that is a crackdown on something like that has proven time and time again in cities across America to be absolutely fruitless. So if we're talking about putting up surveillance in areas of high crime, I think we need to determine where in our tiny little town designated district the high crime exists before we go into discussions about surveillance. Right, and that's what I think you were suggesting, Danny. Well, I'm hesitant to take more time but it just feels important to say it loud. Similarly, you know, Chris, we share the concern and remembering that there's not one answer, right? Like Lieutenant talked about some things we can do in terms of the justice system enforcing things like the young woman you talked about but also remembering things that are perpetually not working when people go to prison for things like drugs and they're not necessarily rehabilitated or given mental or physical health services and then put back out into the world with no resources. They turned to doing what they were doing before in a lot of percentage of the cases. So just remembering that the cycle, the system itself needs work, what we're offering folks need work and it is such a huge problem that we're not gonna solve here but I think we're all on the same page of working to make water very safe for our healthier and better for literally everyone including the folks we're talking about who are going to need help. Yeah, yeah. So it just felt like to wrap up that piece, you know, keeping that in mind. So thank you. I'll forgive you my frustration. I'm done. No, I share it. Do you believe, but just looking at the whole picture is important. Lieutenant Wayne, you've became indicating that you've got staffing. So yes, there's some restrictions on staffing issues and I figured you guys would get to that eventually. So yeah. So obviously I have two troopers that are signed from Waterbury. Right now, Trooper Regler is in Waterbury. Trooper Rancourt was pulled from Waterbury to be an active patrol commander in Berlin because I don't have enough sergeants. I moved another trooper in here. His wife just had a baby. So he's out. So right now it's Trooper Regler on the 10th. Well, I don't even know what today is the 15th. So on the 10th, I am having a trooper assigned currently to Berlin and she will be the new Waterbury trooper. So that'll be where she'll be. So I'll have two full time again. The Trooper Regler and Trooper May Murdoch. May Murdoch? Yes, sir. Well, Trooper Regler's stand-in should. What's that? Well, Trooper Regler's stand-in. Yes, I believe that's where he wants to stay. So she'll be here on the 10th and then I think she'll start maybe the 11th or the 12th. I don't have the schedule in front of me, as soon as she gets here, give her the data, so she'll be assigned here. Yeah, okay. This question could either be for you, Lieutenant Tom. So we have a day shift, it's Trooper Regler. Is Murdoch with her name? Assuming night shift? Yes, correct. That's great. You've had quite a slew of complaints from Waterbury Center about things going on at night. Yeah. I have a question. I know all these issues with drug issues, homelessness, probably are to a higher issue, but we hear a lot about the more mundane kind of issues, like speeding. Speeding's become such a polarized issue on a lot of our roads. And I don't know what the solution is. We've talked about getting the Sheriff's Department involved, maybe doing a speed review of any possible suggestions. I know you're fighting with staffing resources. We totally understand that, but any suggestions for us to help the speeding problems? So I think we could do a better job with traffic enforcement stuff. Again, you guys tell me, I doubt they want to remember you were sitting there just hammering a lot for your tickets, but I think just being more visible, stopping a few more cars. Just showing them a few ponds, giving a few tickets. Yeah. I mean, the ticket's a warning, whatever it does. I'm looking at some of the numbers from September 1st last year to this September 1st this year. I think they made 295 traffic stops in Waterbury between two people. I know even last, there's a couple other places up here and so you go out there, it's like a racetrack, it's like Thunder River, so. And so I have ideas of what I would like to do to get out of here and slow some people down and do some DUI enforcement and stuff like that, but it's just the troopers available. And then when I do have troopers, it's call after call after call in Williamtown and other areas. So it's difficult to get guys in one spot to go and be highly visible with stuff for an extended period of time, except for when we dealt with a friend up at East Hill. Well, I know my 17-year-old son got the speeding ticket on Stowe Street and that was very effective. That really got his attention. He's still carrying a couple of points on his license. It cost us a couple of dollars, but I thought there's nothing really wrong with that. He was in the wrong, he understands it, he goes slower now. I think there's a certain amount of that as well as the visibility thing. You'll see a cop car, they slow down. Yeah, I'd love to be more visible. It's just besides the library trooper, it's hard to get guys to come up here and be visible when they, you know, it's pretty much call after call after call. Sure, we understand, right, so I'll stand up. Another question, I mean, you've remarked on a number of issues with kids. I'm just wondering, do you have any interaction with students at schools? You've got Officer Murdoch, what's going on? Would it be feasible for her and Officer Regler to come in and just have a meet the cops day at school? That's the kind of stuff that I'd like to, like personally, you know, not that I need to be or they need to be like people's personal trooper. You know what I'm saying? But I think that being visible in schools and communities is important. Like for me, just because I think it's a good thing to do for kids and stuff, so I like baseball for kids. I don't hire baseball. And, you know, it's like being a trooper. Everybody yells it in Haitian stuff. That's what we're talking about. There's no question as to who's in charge. Yeah, I don't know much kids here, she's up, you know. But, you know, when I worked in St. Jay, that was the thing that I did as a patrol commander in St. Jay. I had an issue with the sponsored T-ball team. We closed T-ball and we were out there and just a good way to get guys in the community and if people see us and the kids, they say these guys aren't bad guys. But I'd like to get into like the driver's side and stuff like that, but lots of presentations. It's just fine at the time with people to come in. Yeah, I understand staffing issues are tough, but again, we would be glad to help facilitate any of that that we can. Yeah, so maybe we can get offline or something to figure something out with getting them. But yes, I can certainly flex our schedules and make it where it may be coming directly or whatever and do some stuff with any of the schools. I think that's important. Okay, one more question for you. When it came to dealing with juveniles and then you mentioned the two violent crimes, is it mostly just the nuisance with the juveniles? Yes, so it's just, you know, it's nuisance stuff, but sometimes they finalize things. You know, it's kids being kids a lot of times. And again, like, do I need to go down there and get like, where are their parents? One, and two, like, you know, is it illegal for the kid to be out at 11 o'clock at night, right? It's like, why is that police issue, right? And when I say, like, consider making it criminal, like, I don't want to make anything criminal. You don't want to mean to get somebody in trouble like that. And like, if we're going to do something, we need to do something where the state police actually has teeth to act, not just like a, hey, you know, I'm more than happy to go talk to you. But I can't, if you tell me, you know, kick rocks, there's nothing I can do. And so that's what I mean when I say that we should consider, you know, I certainly, I got in enough trouble as a kid. I joined right when that's just your name. That's what I mean when I say that I don't want to think that, you know, we need to make all these crazy things and be fine parents and stuff like that. No, I don't think that. What's your opinion on neighborhood watches? I know a lot of our years ago, we had a neighborhood watch and that kind of sort of went away. Do you think they're effective or? I don't really know. Cause that's never been my, my lane, so to speak. Like that. I've always just been keeping it on the road or in my car. So I never, you know what I mean? Like this is a blue ton of things in the middle of me. So I don't have any of the data on that. I guess, you know, if a community comes together and they're vested in that, I think they maybe it could be effective because that is something like, right, that see, see something, say something thing. Right. You know, a lot of times somebody will say, yeah, I saw Mr. Cain cutting Cadillac converters off cars. Three weeks ago. Perfect. Why didn't you call when you saw it? And so that, that is important. Like if you see something happen when I call, you're not wasting my time. I get a change to take these calls. So you're not wasting any waste of time. If you see something happen to call, obviously, but it's just dependent on hopefully somebody's there and we can deal with it. But that's, I think one of the, one of the huge issues I think is very frustrating to people in the community as well as us, is that people know they see these things happening and they'll call us a day later or 24 hours later or two weeks later or a set of anonymous type of month later and which okay, that's great. You know what I mean? But the evidence is most likely gone and it's tough. So it's, it makes it very difficult. So I don't really know about the neighborhood but I do think, does that make sense guys? Yeah, well your predecessor, Lieutenant White came in a year ago and said exactly the same thing. I said, you know, what can we do to help? And he said, if you see something, let us know. I mean, that goes for everybody who's listening now. You know, just feel free to pick up the phone and let people know that there's something suspicious happening. Believe me, you are not, I mean, yes, you might get a frustrated trooper on a phone or something, but you're not bothering us. That's literally what we're here for. So listen to what you have to say. So yeah, if you see something, say something. Let us know, go ahead. We don't have any questions. Yeah, I got a couple. Yeah, go ahead. So on the issue of Juveniles, I know this is a restorative justice program based at Barry, but do you know if they're active in Waterbury? I'm sorry, you're a restorative justice? I know there's a restorative justice program, I think run out of Barry. Do you know if they're active in Waterbury? I don't know, did they? I think so. You've had Waterbury cases. You know, well, I know the Waterbury case, but the Waterbury itself doesn't have a restorative justice program. No, no. No, no. The Waterbury case has happened in a number of years. Is that something you think we should look into as somehow expanding for the town, getting a more direct role in that? I mean, I think I would have to sit down with a restorative justice to see how it works. You know what I mean? Because even though they're in Berlin, they probably are a restorative justice for Waterbury. I don't know to have somebody up here or maybe a satellite office or a branch or something. Yeah, it might be a factor. And generally what they do is they'll bring the victim of the crime and the perpetrator of the crime or the perpetrator together, perhaps with some other community members and they just facilitate a conversation and try to make things right between the two of them and then get, integrate the kid as a, usually it's a kid who is the perpetrator, integrated back into the community. And I knew you had, you went to mental health counts were embedded. Yes. We still have that, that's all fully staff still. I'm sorry? That position is still staffed. Yes. Keep it. He's awesome too. So he stays around for a while. And he's just one person, correct? Yes, we have one that's fully, he's with us, yes. Assume for a minute, the town's contract expires in June. Do you think one is enough to think we benefit from having another person or part-time person there pay full of town funds? So it's Nick, is our embedded worker currently. And if Nick's not available or he needs help like Washington County, he works for Washington County but he's with us, right? That's, it's kind of weird. Like he doesn't work for the state police. He's just works with me. And like he's out of office, he goes on these calls. So when he is either off or he's tied up on something that Washington County does backfill that. So I don't, I don't know that, I mean, I would love more, I think it's good. No, workers are great. I don't know that you guys need to spend money on that because you don't want to mean like that they're already there, I guess. You know what I'm saying? Like Nick knows who to call and that's their job. So I mean, would it be nice for me to have another one? Absolutely, I think I should have six more. One for the trooper, for us to talk to us. And then is there, is there any sunshine on the horizon at all for the overall staffing challenges that the state police are having? I'd like to think there is. So we just had a class, I don't know. I think there may be three started at, believe it was 19, I think we're down to 16. I am supposed to be getting two of this class. It'll be the first two new troopers that I've had probably three or four years in Berlin. So that'll be a big help. We're hitting May Murdoch, that'll be a big help. And then I have a couple of kids from, I see kids, they're just younger than I am. There's a couple troopers from different barracks that have requested transfers to Berlin. It's just being able to backfill them from their barracks just so they can get here. So I mean, yes, there is sunshine on the horizon. It's just, one's a good kid here. Give us a break a little bit of work. And there are, yes, because there are some people who have said to me that the town should be thinking about today that we might want to have a third trooper. We wouldn't be your response to the third trooper. You know, it's like, well, I mean, you guys had a PD here for, I don't know, years. And I'm not sure how many officers or staff there full-time or whatever it was. Yeah, I mean, you know, perfect world, a full department, so we put three, four troopers in here. Yeah, I love you. I just, currently right now, I don't know three would fly. I think you, yeah, that would be a tough one. The problem that we're running into now is that these ships are so short that guys are being ordered in. You know what I mean? Like guys are working doubles. It's happened so much now that it's, for so long it's been happening. Guys are getting burned out now. These ships are open and people are like, oh, look. My wife, you know what I'm saying? You want to talk to them? Yeah. How is your staffing levels at the Berlin maps compared to all the barracks around the state? Are you doing it well? Nah, we're about the same. I don't know, it's funny math. Like, you know, I'm looking at the vagancies I have, and to me I have six vagancies, but the headquarters says we go for it. Right, because you see like burling things, I don't know, it's like a huge mouth. Yeah, they get troopers out of every class. I think they've had that out of Wilson. Like I said, I haven't had any in a few years. But again, that depends on a lot of different factors. The way of level of my level, it's like tracking, calling, calling. Trying to figure out where do they need to be. And I've been jumping up and down for a while and I don't know if they need to be here. So, but they need to be, I'm sure every station can manage to do that. Good, any further questions? Yes. I just have a comment for the board on the idea of a bordering criminal offense. I would urge the board to consider the role of personal bias in loitering and how that's enforced. Historically, whether or not somebody gets charged with loitering or arrested for loitering can vary, depending on the officer involved or the person phoning it in. So, I would just urge the board to put a lot of consideration into whether or not something like a loitering criminal offense be introduced, especially considering loitering is effectively criminalizing the act of existing in public, making it a way that's annoying to some and how that can be applied in an unjust way. So, I just want to urge that consideration to the board. She does make a very good point about that. You know what I mean? Like it's not illegal to exist and that's why, like I was saying when we were talking about that, like more than happy to talk to you about it, what are you doing, you're bothering people and stuff, but I think I do agree that we should be very careful with what we made criminal because you might get like a black life trooper. You know what I mean? It's like part of the law, you're breaking it, here's your citation. So, we do need to be very careful with stuff like that. I'm just saying right there, to make teeth, I don't, you know what I mean, so yeah. All right, well, I don't know for a position to make any decisions on this right now, but certainly put it in the parking lot and hopefully get more information as to what has been effective. You could find some time to give us a little bit more information about particular criminal locations or criminal activity that is repetitive or a concern to you, maybe that'll help inform our judgment going forward. Yeah, perfect, okay. Yeah, if you guys have any questions, John I'll get a hold of me. Yeah, all right, I don't know if you guys have any, you know I'm solving my cell phone and I'm not, are you guys welcome at the Bearers Hangout when you solve the world's problems? That sounds like an excellent idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you guys have anything else for me? I don't think so, we'll tell you what, thank you so much for coming. Yeah, we appreciate you guys. Thank you. My name is Chuck. Chuck. Chuck, we kind of just, okay, we'll go with Chuck. Going forward. I appreciate you guys, thank you for having me. Thanks, Chuck. Natural disaster preparedness committee. You're listening because you printed it out. Yeah. It's okay. Okito. Last meeting you asked me to define the committee. So I did a rough outline by a member committee that includes the select board liaison. Yeah. I proposed, and this outline I propose a once monthly meeting until such time as the committee feels that they can meet quarterly. So they, when they feel confident that they don't need to meet every month, they don't. Their roles would be to create a handbook specifically for responding to natural disasters. This does not mean to rewrite the emergency planning handbook. I did receive that question twice. Create a system for volunteers for responding to a natural disaster. And I heard from Danny about this, and I've heard from Lish Slegel about this, who would be happy to walk me through creating a system. Walk the committee through creating a system. And I think I was repetitive on these notes here, so I'll just skip to the next one. Create and manage a stockpile of supplies needed for natural disaster cleanup. And then finally work closely with Public Works to better understand the roles of the committee versus the role of the town. And our emergency management. And our emergency management work, yes. Yeah. Yes. Questions? Yeah, I'm sorry, can you just repeat what you just said? All of us. The stockpile of supplies, as well as the finals of which three entities? So the committee would work closely with Public Works and with emergency. I recommend that it came at like the emergency management director to be like an ex-officio member of that committee. That way it doesn't have to necessarily end all the meetings, but it should be, you know, the information coordinated with them. Yeah, or at least communication. Yep. So that all roles are understanding the role of the committee versus the role of the town. So as though, I feel like you said three things, but then Town and Public Works sounds redundant. So it's really just defining the role of the town. Yes, I was, so it just says work closely with Public Works to better understand roles. I was just breaking that down. So I think with this outline, we have enough to go on for recruitment. Candidate, did you decide, or think about the terms? I know we talked about it and I can't remember what we decided, committee terms, like three, one year, two years. Yep. So for five with the select board, so there's two, or so there's four roles that we need to recruit for, I would say probably two years and two one years. Makes the most sense to me. And you think this is, I'm sorry, I have questions, which sounds like a lot for me. You feel like this is going to go on long enough that it requires those sort of revolving terms. It's not like the housing task force. It's just a, you know. Like you don't have terms on your housing task force. You just have 10 members that are working together towards a common goal and then it ends. Right. So my initial idea for this committee was to get us to and keep us prepared for the future natural disaster. So as someone who cannot predict the future, I cannot tell you when their job would be over. Right, of course, okay. But it sounds, it's a committee in perpetuity. Yes, right, yep, all right. Okay, so, yeah, Bill. When you said, you know, to differentiate the role of the committee from that and the town, the committee will be part of the town. So maybe you should say differentiate the role of the committee from municipal staff. Yeah, that's what I meant. The role of the committee versus municipal staff is, oh yes, smarter way I should have put that. And if I understand you're looking, this would be essentially a handbook on how to coordinate volunteer support in the case of a natural disaster. Yes. Gene. One of the things that I think the board, as well as anybody that's gonna be involved in that, really needs to understand structure. Because I suspect there's not many people sitting on the board that have had even the basic incident command training. There's a four hour executive training, there's incident command, there's IS 100, there's incident command 100, 200, 300, which you would not need 200 and 300. But those are all different levels. And I suspect that many of you haven't had any of those and don't understand, and I'm not being too critical, I'm just saying you don't understand how emergencies really should be working. As opposed to, we got one select board saying, well we need to do this and contacting the public works director saying we need this or contacting me saying hey, we need to shut this road down. You really need to understand your role as a select board member. And any committee that you create that's gonna be involved in that needs to understand that role as well. So, maybe, I just found this better. This committee is for post, not during. So, during cleanup, it is a specific design for volunteer response post disaster. Sure. I doubt again. But the board is involved during. Right. I'm just suggesting that maybe you need to take some training, a lot of it is online. Sure. Thank you. We should. Yeah, we should. You did? Send me some links. Okay. It's very simple. Yeah. It's not difficult to get the links. They're good, they used to do them in person but then when COVID hit, everything, I don't know, they're coming, you know, you know, you're electronic. So, I think they're keeping two of the electronic. I think some people like the electronic, other people like the new person. But I think they may go to. You can more have in person training as a national instructor. You do get more in person training. That doesn't mean you can't do the online thing and still do, you know, a Sunday morning brunch of bagels and do a training for your board and get more out of it and get more hands-on. And Chief Board, what do you think about being an ex-officio member of this? I certainly don't have any issue with that at all. I think it's important. And it's important to understand how these evolve. And then, as Cain is talking about, the aftermath, because the aftermath isn't the emergency, right? And that can be handled certainly outside of the emergency realm. I think Waterbury did a great job after Irene and certainly after this last play. It's being prepared for the next event. Well, there is a lot of prepared things that you can do, but a lot of it is having all the supplies. We had to reacquire all these supplies. I'm not sure how long the Armory Garage behind the school's gonna last, but there's room to create organized space up there or getting a roll-off pod and just having all that stuff on there. Some things you're not gonna want to let set, dehumidifiers, if you let them set for a few years, they're not gonna work. But there's a lot of stuff that isn't gonna go to waste. I believe that some of the equipment would be under your purview in terms of maintenance. Would that be, how do you like that? Yeah. Well, I don't know about the equipment that you're referring, but the equipment that you have. Could you tell us about the fireworks? Could you tell us what? We've had some of the pumps in general there, so it would make sense for those to be managed by the fire department. They've got the volunteers to service them and exercise them every so often. So there's a prop, we can work on processes and where they're gonna be stored. We don't have a huge amount of fire stations, but that doesn't mean if the town wanted to incorporate that into some sort of, the lack of a better phrase, catered night where people could go start these things up and check them. Pumps, you're really looking at not a fire pump, but a dump pump that isn't gonna get destroyed when you have the chunks of stuff going through it. But then if they're not used, you have gaskets and stuff that are gonna dry out. So that's the flip side. There's gonna be a maintenance cost. And we don't have a mechanic to work on right now. So. Equipment's not cheap. No. A so-called dump pump is significantly cheaper than a fire department pump, I can tell you that. Well, I would just like to reiterate that the point of this committee is to flesh all of this out. To make sure that we are fleshed out and prepared. And it is not supposed to rival the emergency management. It is supposed to be after emergency management has done what it needs to do. Natural disaster response volunteers have what they need to clean the town up. And as I understand it, we wanted to get this up and running while this is still relatively fresh memories. So do we have a motion to open up nominations for the four positions? I make a motion to open up nominations for the natural resource, natural disaster for care in this committee. Second. Okay, moved and seconded. Further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, we can move forward. And you'll work with Collin and Karen on this. We had talked about a staff person for the committee. I'm not sure you need to decide that today. You know it's a committee yet, but you may want to think about that pretty carefully and make a decision there in the next couple of meetings. Yeah, you're actually the municipal manager. Do you have any recommendations? I think it'd be useful to have someone who could drop everything in the event of something like a flood and manage the volunteers, which was done so well by Alyssa and Danny and others. And it was hugely beneficial because the rest of town government didn't have to do that, which freed us up to do other productive things. I have a vision of a staff person part-time who go to these committee meetings, so it would be that position in life where they could, in theory, drop everything. So I could write a new job description for that and try to figure that out for the next meeting if that's the board's pleasure. Okay, Alyssa? I guess the two pieces with appreciating came for doing this, and I didn't have time to get back on this. I think this is great. I'm glad we're moving forward with it and advertising. I think the two other pieces to me that feel outstanding is some of what Chief Dillon talked about is we've talked about an after-action report, and then Danny has done some drafting on that and we plan to revisit that at the next meeting. So I will say I've been open to moving forward on this, but it does feel like I recognize that might be a particular staff or specific to the purview of this particular committee, but I just want to also hold for all of us we have this question of long-term recovery. I had someone today introduce themselves as the chair of WaterGrey's Long-Term Recovery, which is phenomenal, and okay, what's the scope of that group? Who picks up that membership? We have revitalizing WaterGrey working on the Community Relief Fund, which is incredible, but just want to like, to me, staffing personally, I would love to see what the full picture is in terms of this particular committee. If there is a long-term recovery committee, recognizing the expertise of our local leaders, and to me, I would love to, I love that this group is starting to work out what is a municipal staff function, what is a needed municipal staff function that we don't have yet that's beyond capacity, but I guess I would personally would want that information before recommending hiring for someone. Just, right, and we said that at the next meeting, you know, we're not there yet, but just making sure, yes, there's this longer-term piece, but with those other considerations. Did you say you have an after-action report to share at the next meeting? Maybe we could put it in the parking lot, the idea of having a paid staff member told me to kind of flesh out, maybe get the committee going and see what, you know, different ideas are, and you know, then figure out if a paid staff member makes sense. Well, I don't think we need to put it in the parking lot. I think if we're gonna go that route and the committee feels like it would be beneficial to the town to have a paid staff member for that, then I would bring it to the select board and say the committee thinks that we need a paid staff member. I'll take the parking, I just need to be placed there and told the committee to stop it up and run it. If nothing else, committees, volunteer committees gain a lot by being able to point to someone under the room and say, figure this out for us before the next meeting. Right, yeah, I love that. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. All right, unless there's any more discussion on this, we can move on to charter and meeting schedule. To address this at last meeting, and since then we've changed the proposed text of the charter. Do you want to address that? Since there was compensation rather than slow the train down here, which I think is headed in the right direction, let's just delete that sentence. Okay. That's my recommendation. Karen worked out a schedule. I'm sorry. Which sentence? Strike? The sentence. Oh, it's no longer. That's what that's like. It's been a stringent. Setting the salaries. Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, it seems as though he already, Tom already has that authority. So we thought that maybe it didn't need to be in there. Yeah. Karen worked out schedules based on the law. There is an error. You're in time. Okay. At least two. Can you just run? Sure. I see you've done the dates. I just can't read them. So here you have the proposed date of the vote. 12. So we're working back and I'm just saying my margin. I lost it a little. So it's 12-5. Yeah. Thank you. And then the first public hearing would take place on 11-3. Thank you. And the second public hearing would take place on 11-13. Down at the bottom. Right. So 12-5. So that's the one that seems to work the best, frankly, with Tom's schedule. I mean, okay. So now he's disclosed each other. 12, I must have scratched that off my calendar by mistake. But that we'd have to have our first public hearing on the 13th the day after leaves if we wanted to bump it up to November 14th. Got it. But I guess that is an option. So which one's your recommendation? Well, I mean, I walked in, you were thinking you wasn't here on the telltale, so there was one that would work. So now he's either the November 14th or December 5th would work. The only buying, excuse me, the only buying that puts me in is that I have to post it quickly, but I have a week. So there's still time. November 5th gives us a little bit of extra time. Sorry, I may have to be ready. You'd like to have the election. The 14th is the traditional federal election day, but there's no election. Right. 14th is election day? I think it would be this Saturday. Sorry. Yeah. The first Tuesday. Yeah. Which is, I mean, it's there. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. I think it's a very compact little step, regardless of the schedule seems reasonable. But have you gotten any input, free input from like revitalizing Waterbury and the business community in regards to the 1%? Yeah. Some, and I keep telling everyone, that's what the public hearings are for. Okay. That's where it's going to be, where the needs are over. It's going to be discussed. I think what I got has, it's generally been either supportive or agnostic. You know, I don't think in, given how prevalent these taxes are, and I don't remember what I paid when I went to Boston and got a hotel room, but it's more than 1% on the bill. It's not a plausible argument to make that 1% is going to deter people from shopping here. I'm not sure it ever was. It's not been a plausible argument to make when you're the first to do this, but all of our competitors have this tendency. And there were a few communities that we probably wouldn't term now. It's probably, I think, most municipalities surrounding us all have these taxes. And I didn't have any data points at the last meeting, but the one data point I now have is, RW did a marketing study. So they surveyed 11 businesses, so not every business in town, but it's one data point. Now, those 11 businesses, they did an analysis, and 60% of their customers were not from Waterbury. So it's the only data point we have, but if that's the case, there's, in essence, five cents in your tax rate that's paid for people who don't live here. So, yeah, Alyssa. Just to Mike's point, I'm on the RW business newsletter list, which you can sign up for too, and they sent a special thing about our information on the 21st. I do see that. So, Justice, I think we are actively trying to make sure folks at least know what is happening. And I agree with Tom. That's what the public process is for. It's for those folks who do have issues for it, and those grievances. And so just to be clear, what we need tonight is to approve the revised language on the proposed charter and to set the dates for the first public hearing and then the town. You set the date for the special town meeting. That's right. And then nine responsibles. Oh, okay. All right. Well, let's see. That's why I asked for clarification. Alyssa. This is for candidates who is 12-5. It looks like it's a Tuesday. Is that correct? Is that because of time to count back? Because you need to warn it? Yes. I was just thinking if we generally meet on Mondays and so I was curious why it was there. It's Tuesdays. There was a whole Tuesdays traditionally been a voting day. I didn't know who was more. Maybe it all started with a Tuesday and it just kept rolling. 113 is a Friday, so I think you might need to get it in on a business day. So that you're ahead of however many days you need. That was 30 days before. Maybe not 31 days. Did you determine if we need to have an open public meeting or can be done by an Australian? I did speak to an attorney at the LCT who confirmed that the public meeting is just the day you vote. Because you're voting by Australian ballot and it's the only article on the warning, there's no, we don't have to amass a public meeting. So you need to vote on my, I'm sorry? Charters have to be voted on by Australian ballot. Right, right. Yeah, but there was a question as to whether we also need to have a public meeting and get moderator killed or involved. The town meeting, right? It's a special town meeting to talk about nothing. So we resolved that one. There was one question. So that would be done here, Karen? I think I would, I haven't talked to Liz, but from my point of view I would do it here. All right, go ahead. You want to say something else? Oh, there was a question on this about the second public hearing no later than 10 days after the first, if the charter proposal was made by petitioner. Which this is not. So I had emailed asking for clarification on that. Made by petition and I have not heard back. Just disappointing, I used that info. It'd be able to see what you said. Our assumption is. Our assumption is it's the same, but I did see some clarification. But I didn't hear that. What were you asking me, Alyssa? No, I was, 11th of June is a Friday for the first public hearing, which was, it seemed odd, but I'm recognizing now you have to do the second one within 10 days, and that's for 11th and 13th. So I understand you. You got, it took me a little while. Yeah, perfect. Sometimes try to get to acceptable dates. So it looks as though we're looking at Tuesday, December 5th, that there doesn't seem to be any further discussion of the language of the proposed charter. So do I have a motion? I move to accept the charter, the charter language has changed for this meeting. Is that all I'm doing? Or am I doing the date too? What would you do all at once? All right. And to schedule a vote on the charter last year on the ballot for Tuesday, December 5th, 2023. There we go. All right. We have a motion moved and seconded for the discussion. Very none. All members say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. It is set for December 5th with the proposed language. And we move one. And then we'll just be kept in the loop on the public hearing. Yeah. That was our time of course. Thank you. I mean, these are the ones I propose. Unless somebody tells me different. My question is timing. I think 4 p.m. or later hearing on a Friday, it is like not actively, but in practice, negating public engagement. Not that I anticipate we're going to have a huge amount, but I would propose if we're going to do it on the 3rd, we'd do it at noon or something like that. A daytime one? No. Especially if we do have another evening one than having a day. I mean, that's my, I have reservations with a Friday and I recognize that we're juggling multiple scheduling constraints, but I just think it's not, and it's hard because it's the first. And it says at least 30 days. You can do it on the 2nd if you want. You don't have to do it on the 3rd. Oh, you could back it up more. You can't say exact name. Because it's the 10th at the top. Because it's the 10th at the top. Okay. So you can, you can. And I wasn't reading. I was just trusting Karen's writing on the side. And then they did it on the 1st. But not on that date. But whatever day you have the first one you have to have the second one 10 days later. Right. So that's the problem. So we can't do the 13th, which is our, it's not in our regular day. It's a planning commission. It's a second one. You don't have to do it here. You could do it at St. Leo's. You could do it at the fire station. Yeah. Again, I say in my, like I said, I'm just speaking as a very enthusiastic local government attendee. I'm not coming through here at 4 p.m. on a Friday. So. Disappointed. You have to draw on somewhere. So, just an observation. It seems to me that this is, this is really to get local option tax, right? I mean, it's called a charter. I haven't read it at all. So I don't know what it is, but a charter typically talks about how you're going to govern your community. The local option tax is, seems to be from what I'm hearing, that is a big rush. I read the article in last week's roundabout. And I'm assuming that you just try to get this in so the legislature can act on it early next year. That is a concern. I'm a little concerned that, you know, are we looking to have community buy-in to this? I mean, a vote on December 5th, in and off, I mean, if it was the election year, and you were voting for president and everything else, have a charter election on November 7th or whatever the date is, that would be wonderful, but there's no election. So I just want to warn you, if this passes, you know, I don't know, are you going to get 100 people to come out and vote on a Tuesday in December? So if it passes, then you have to wait 30 days. And if somebody turns into petition 30 days after in January to rescind this, then you have to warn another town meeting for 30 days. Now you're into February. So I'm not sure why I'm just not doing this on town meeting. It just seems this is a big rush. I read what Tom and Theresa said and I know that there's concern about local option tax. Some legislators don't like it. Maybe this is going to disappear. And if this is our only chance to get it, maybe we should do it. But it just seems like there's a big rush here and we're rushing to get something that very few people are going to vote on. And I'm not upset about it. I mean, I'll go and vote. And I'll probably vote for it. I think the local option tax is a good thing. But I think community buying is a good thing too. And I'm just concerned that this is really being rushed. Well, just an answer. We have been, this has been on our agenda for two months now. Probably five or six months. Yeah, maybe more than that. So I don't know that in my estimation, that's a huge rush. Anyone paying any sort of attention will have seen it. And we have been reaching out to RW, which does include most of our merchants who are going to be impacted by this. In fact, the whole town will be impacted by this. But I think in my estimation, it is a positive way. I'm just still talking for some reason. So I don't see that we're actually rushing into this and certainly you're entitled to your opinion. But yes, we are trying to get this in line so that it can get passed by the legislature because that is a significant hurdle. And if we miss that opportunity, we'll be out a year and we may be out forever because our two representatives indicated that the mood of the legislature is to shut down this opportunity to miss municipalities. And that is a window that we don't want to avoid when we're closed out of. Chris. I'll jump on that a little bit there. Bill just kind of went through the process of how it would work with the 30-day wait for the appeal or whatever. That is the process. That's how it works. Right. To your point, which you were just talking about, the legislative body possibly doing away with the ability for local options tax. I remember Tom stating that he said eventually the state will raise rules of meals anyway. Well, we won't get 70% of it if they do it. This way, if we get the local options tax in time and it passes, we'll get 70% of what we collect, not 30% because I suspect if the legislature does away with the ability for local options tax and then they turn around and raise the tax themselves, they're going to get the majority of them. So that would be my reasoning if you were wanting to jump on it as soon as we could. And don't forget it takes the state. Once this is signed all over the government, two full quarters to actually implement the tax on the ground. So the other piece is there was a petition for a theological revote at town meeting day. Alyssa? I guess the other piece I would say is we did intentionally choose to only have these two articles because we felt it so they were the most clear and straightforward. So I would say in our discussion process, we felt like this was as has been stated, an option and pretty straightforward municipal manager hiring authority and candidly, we had some impassioned residents at our last meeting asking about more comprehensive updates with EFUD and the town and this is your opportunity and just to say at that meeting and I'll say again, we stated that we felt like given that we do recognize, I'm not saying rush, but given that it is a more compressed timeline due to the legislature, we felt it was important to give it to these more straightforward items recognizing more storied or potentially more likely to be petitioned if other items were to be included. This is a typical case of where we, it's very difficult to provide everyone with information and we've had several meetings, select board meetings have dealt with this charter issue. We're gonna have a public meeting process. There are still gonna be people who are gonna be asleep at the switch. There's probably not gonna be a huge groundswell of voting unless it's gonna come like when we had our town merger where it went backwards and forwards and we rescinded where people would say, oh, this is a really bad thing. But I think as what Tom said, I used to be against an options tax because of the effect, but I have come to, when I looked at and researched the towns that have option taxes, there are so many towns that have it already, it's not gonna really affect our merchants. The only thing that's probably gonna affect them a little bit is having, changing their cash registers to add the options tax. That's probably gonna be the biggest effect to merchants. And just to be clear, I'm not against the local options tax. I'm concerned about going to the legislature with a charter and it's an 80 to 20 vote. That's what I'm concerned about in the town of 5,000. Right. If you've already thought about that. I think we've given people a chance to comment. We're gonna have further comment and then when people, ultimately, you make a decision and you go forward. We have easily more than 100 people in the fire station when the issue of 51 South Main came up attracting a lot of interest. I don't know what your capacity is up there, but it was full. It was unfair. People want to count. I was wondering about that too. I had to count. Tom, I wanted to correct your timeline. The first day I sat at this table, we were discussing the charter. It's not like it's a new thing. And I would say the point for us is, I think it is a point while taken to say that making no comments as to who does or doesn't read or follow select board agendas, we do still have an opportunity in that it's very early September for rather extensive public engagement, even more than we have to make sure folks are aware of the November times for comment, but also just that it's coming down the pipe in December once we finalize the date. Before you move on, we don't have to get terribly deep in the weeds, but if you don't like the Friday the 3rd, or if you prefer after one held in the afternoon or one in the evening, if you can tell me that now, but do remember that they have to be within 10 days, no later than 10 days after the first day. So if you move the one on the 3rd, by default you move the one on the 13th. So we have a recommendation. What do you want to just... I kind of like the idea if it is uncertain of having it at noon, think about, you know, restaurant workers or people would it make an evening meeting if we only have to? So I'm not sure what other day, but if those dates line up well, I would be in favor and available for the daytime. So one, maybe that's enough for me then just to know have one of them during the day, during business hours, and have the second one in the evening. Yeah, I mean I only want an opinion, but I would say... That sounds reasonable to me. I have the 3rd as a Tuesday, is that right? No, November 3rd. November 3rd. Yes, on Friday. Yeah. Okay, so you're talking about doing Friday at noon done? It sounds like it. Okay, Friday at noon. Don't want to get into that crucial time period towards the end of the day that Alyssa was talking about. Wait, why is it your time at home? Friday night is just not going to have... People aren't going to want to come after work to Friday night public hearing meeting. Are we going to pizza and do it up? I'm not going to pose. Chances are to the point of wanting to maximize engagement that's going to historically be low engagement time period. It doesn't mean no one will come. It's just likely that fewer people will come. Okay. Yeah, T.G.? Tom Glower. I'm the A.K.A. It's like we're junkie here. Karen, welcome back. Yeah. A very restful vacation. And again, I appreciate your return. The question about the public outreach, again, for the record, I think I said last time, I think the local option tax is good. I'm not adverse to that. But I think Mr. Shepulok had a great point. Is there going to be another article in front page form or something of that nature that explains what not just the local option tax, but what kind of categories are being discussed in terms of what that revenue would be used for for the town? Yeah, that would be something that we would take up in advance of the first public meeting. But is that going to be what I'm getting at is it would be good, probably, or I would recommend to have something like that advertised because you're going to make the announcements. That's all kosher. It's going to be along the right timelines. But you would get more participation, I think, if you would simply kind of lay out the categories that are being discussed or something. Again, I'm just recommending it because not everybody is going to probably pay attention to that. How have that announced me? The announcement is going to be about the town charter, right? Is it going to also talk about local option tax, the actual announcement that the... Yes. Yeah, that would be the idea. We would explain the whole thing and what the implications are so that we would get more participation. The warning has to go on the paper, too. The warning will go on the paper as well, but I think your idea of putting it on the front porch form is a good one. Or again, something of that nature, right? I just think it's an opportunity here, right? If you're trying to drive a timeline, I might not use all the assets that you're exposure or exposed to that people read. Yeah. No, I agree. I'll try to figure out how to put my hand down. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Tom. And so then the other one would be in the evening. Which day is that again? Sorry. Probably the 13th. Which is a Monday. No. Not the Monday that will be in session, but a Monday. The three Mondays in a row then. Well, I don't want to be... I mean, I'm just seeing this, so I'm not trying to undermine Karen's, like can you do 11-6, which is a normal Monday meeting, and then the 14th. And then since we're having a special meeting on a Tuesday every day, I vote on a Thursday instead. I'm not trying to backseat. No, I agree. I don't care and work this out. To me, I haven't experienced a public meeting on a Friday in Waterbury, so I think it seems a little odd. We usually try and coincide more. We can have 10 public meetings. We just have to have two of them that comply with that. Okay, so then never mind. Right? So we can have 10 of them if we want, but two of them have to meet those criteria. We can have every select person from now until the vote. You can have it as an agenda item and then take a vote. I will let you all satisfy statute and we can do other... I would put it as the first item on the agenda but there has to be 10 days' parts. Well, if we have to satisfy that statute, we can talk about it at every meeting between now and December 5th. So we'll plan these two, but then still have it on the agenda if somebody wants to. All right, so any change then to the recommended public meeting schedule of the 3rd and the 13th? I'll look at the dates again and see if I can propose something different but leave the vote on the 5th. Okay. You've decided and that gives us the most time to play with the other dates. And we already voted that one, so there's nothing else on the agenda there other than what we're going to talk about in the next meeting. We're going to talk about the... Oh, well played. We have discussed and I had talked over with Dr. Schlegel tentatively planning before the next meeting, 6.30 at the Bateman hearing. Oh, yeah. At 3rd North Manor, I believe. Thank you. Is she okay with that? I believe so. I think so. We exchanged a very brief email and she acknowledged that date and time, so I think so. And you expected them to only take 30 minutes so we just start our regular meeting. I hope so. So the applicant, I have spoken to the applicant. I've sent him an email explaining to him some of his responsibilities, things he should bring to you and the anticipation of questions and things of that nature. I know that another local resident, Sheena Chadwick, is helping him. So I think she'll work to get him organized. And you don't need to make a decision at that meeting. We're on reconvene. Yeah. And do you think a half an hour is half quick? I think we should leave it to a half an hour. Okay. Right? I think that's plenty of time to hear. So our select board meeting would meet at 7 or as soon thereafter as possible. And we have the thing that Daddy... After action report? Yes. After action report on the flood. Is it recovery or...? Yeah, response versus recovery. Okay. Anything else? I don't know if you have anything. I don't have a dramatic agenda for that. Blank slate at this point. So we've got charter, after action, response. And do you want to take a look at the parking lot? Let's see what's there. What I'm seeing off is the appraisal. And Tom, did you think Dan Sweet was going to be ready to report back on Lister's and potential flood impacts or not? Do they need longer than this? Let me check with them. Their first conversation was complicated. It's not a simple issue for anyone, I think. Yeah. Ann is asking to speak, Roger. Ann. Yeah. Hi. I'm your agendas. This parking lot. Has remained the same. It seems for the past couple of years, though. The noise ordinance was something I requested. Early last summer. The parking ordinance has been on this forever. Road salt use. Either address those issues or take them off the parking lot. That's, I mean, it just seems silly to keep putting that there. And yes, I know you have issues that come up. That need immediate attention. But I think somehow you should be able to get. Some of those things in along the line. I think we probably thought that they were in the long term parking lot. You make a good point. Yeah. It's like at the airport. Since we have what looks like a fairly light agenda for the next meeting, we can actually move one of those. Okay. I was going to say we have lightly visited both the noise and parking ordinances and ordinances in general. And our discussions have ended in we don't have enforcement for those ordinances. So it would seem a little premature for us to decide on those ordinances or rules rather without anyone to enforce them. Lieutenant went here just the other just an hour ago. We did this schedule a few years ago. All right. And it's trying to say something. Go ahead. Sorry. If you can't enforce them. Take them off the parking lot. And to explain, as Roger kind of joked about extended parking lot, I think he's being serious. There are issues that matter to citizens like you and we care about those issues. And just because we can't come up to a clear on concise decision or action right now doesn't mean we don't want to continue thinking about them mulling them over or as new opportunities arise, taking those avenues. And I think we need to come back to that. And in addition, if more folks come forward with concerns about those issues, we'll note that they're there and kind of put another tick like, okay, maybe we need to come back to these. So I personally would like to leave them there knowing that they were important enough to come up and we just don't have a clear solution yet. And I understand it might be confusing because they're all in the same pot. And so I appreciate you asking for clarification. And hopefully that helps clarify why they stay there. And we don't just sweep them under the rug. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. My neighbor and I brought it up. That's, it's kind of late in the season to address noise ordinance. It was mostly concerning summers. Because it got. We'll have another summer. It turns out. Next. I hope. All right. Road salt use. I did talk over. We're talking about bringing it up before the snow flies. Next time we could bring it up. Would you be ready to talk about road salt use? We've talked about it a number of times. Yeah, we've got some, we've got a little bit of data from friends of the most key that I've looked at with the Woodruff a little bit. You know, in, in conversations with the illiterate bulls down to. Insuring certain roads or even a road for a pilot program. Probably not for our show. You know, something I've learned is you drive around the state and you go through places and you see signs that say low road salt. And in practicality, I think that's a sign. But not actually low road salt. It depends on the operator following that rule. So I think. We could choose a section. We could choose a road or a section of road and make it no solid. And that's easy enough to. Ever after that. That'd be pretty obvious for the public to see. But the low salt doesn't seem to. Result in anything meaningful. And folks that talk. All right. I'm adjacent to parking. We could do a more competent than my last. Five to 10 minute planning commission update. I'm just recognizing that October 5th. They're doing a walking tour of the downtown village. As a first opportunity for input. For updated zoning regulations. So. In the spirit of having that transparently on our agenda. I would propose that for the next. Okay. I'm sorry for September. Yes. So for our September, whatever number we're at. Because I think it's going to be the next time we meet. September 19th. Yeah. It's not a. There's is not a hearing. It's an information thing. But that way we can talk about it. Or I guess we could the second. But we'll get people advanced on this. Let's start at 10 minute. I'm zoning update. 10 minutes. Update. They can't meet. They're at their meeting. I did go to their last meeting last Monday. So. You don't need to invite anywhere from the. Okay. They can't make it. That was my. Work out. We will put on road salt use. Is it. Is it. Premature of me to just suggest that maybe it is time. To visit the schedule of fees. That was sarcasm. Yeah. No. No. Right now. This is a big shake up in the bargain lot. But. Let's do it. Which fees. We did already amend room. This room. Room use fee. Right. So it's zoning. Speaking much. I have to say. But a wreck. I saw. Yeah. Is this the rate does this feel right. Or should that be done with the budget. Yeah. But some fees. The fields I believe were historically set by the select. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I didn't mean to. I'm. I should have made that clear. Okay. Yeah. I think that'd be timely to talk about that. So it's. I don't know. But I guess that was my question. I wasn't. I anticipated. Somebody had asked along the way for zoning. Fees to be looked at. I think he anticipates that question coming. But would he be available to address that. But I'm sure you can give us a recommendation. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He could give us a recommendation. All right. So I think that fills up our schedule reasonably well. The emergency management training. Is that what. I don't know. I guess that was my question. I wasn't. Thank you. You anticipated. Somebody had asked along the way for zoning fees to be. With that. I think that's. I don't know. I think that's what. I was referring to. And it's so. You send us the links to that. That's already in my notes. Perfect. And then. It might be. It might be able to go on the agenda. I'm thinking about. Just thinking of more of a comprehensive plan. If we all do it individually online. Great. But maybe a longer term plan of like every three years. We do it in person. But then every new select. Remember does it online or something? So. It could be, I think a quick conversation. And Mike, I have done the emergency management director training. I think I did incident training. They're actually really good. One of them actually, because it was crazy during COVID, I took the class and they were kind of a little screwy and actually the emergency management director gave me a personal kind of like in-person Zoom class. It was good because again, you get some of the things that are just kind of in writing. It just doesn't give you that flavor. Some of that stuff could be a little dry. I wish they had more kind of these things in person. I think it would be helpful. I think it would keep people's attention a lot more. If you knew me, you'd be ready to let me go. Yeah. All right, we'll throw that one in too. Well, that goes on there too? Yeah, it'll be shortly. You could put 10 minutes about with them on. Thank you. Yeah, just if you go into the state of emergency management and it's like they have the whole list of different courses and stuff like that and they give pretty good descriptions of what they are. Okay. Any further discussion on the next meeting? I will now entertain a motion to move into executive session to move to the next meeting. Oh, yeah, I can't do it that way either. I'm not going to elicit for this, but this is going to help. You know, first of all, he caught him, but he met us in real estate, so it's... Oh, it was the expert doctor. Oh, God. Motion to find that premature public knowledge of pending real estate matters would clearly put the ton of water break at a substantial disadvantage. Second. All right, moved and seconded. All those who ever say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right.