 here so I'm going to call the Monday December 7th 2020 meeting of the town of Essex Select Board to order. Are there any agenda additions or changes. Nothing from staff. Thank you Greg. Board members are there. Dawn go ahead. 1116 out for corrections. 1116 got it. Move them up to item number five. You're welcome. Thank you. Anybody else with agenda? If you are listening and your microphone is on please turn your mic off so that we can reduce the echo and just use your mic when you're speaking okay. That would be really helpful. Thank you. If there are no further issues to be changed on the agenda then I'll accept a motion to approve the agenda as amended. I move we approve the agenda as amended. Thank you Vince. Is there a second? Second. Thanks Dawn. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay our agenda has been amended. Just making some notes here. Okay Next on the agenda is public to be heard. This is the part of the meeting when folks who are in the audience who wish to speak to the select board about items that are not on the agenda can do so. So if you have a question or comment for the board on items that are not on the agenda you can indicate your need to speak by raising your hand in your upper right toolbar or by mentioning in the chat that you wish to speak. Okay I see one hand Patty Davis go ahead. Really signed on am I unmuted? You are fine I can hear you. Oh great. Okay bear with me. Everybody's making noise. Vermont's tax commissioner has predicted a nine percent increase in education property taxes. As you know Essex being a golden town will see an even greater increase than the rest of Vermont. Now is not the time to be saddling half of your constituents meaning us TOV with an additional nine or ten percent tax increase or whatever the merger tax would be if it were levied all at once. And that's a likely scenario if the traditional board remains dominated by village residents which I feel will even happen in the transitional period because they have to finish their 10-year or their two-year or three-year whatever they have and they could vote to reduce the 12-year timeline this spring. So that's a concern at least for TOV. Do you want me to tell you my other question? I have one more or do you want me to save it for later? If it's not related to anything on the agenda then you should save it now. Okay we have wrestled with the merge or not merge question for 70 years. 70 years. I realize that you want to merge but I personally feel it's just for financial reasons and maybe that's why you're rushing to warn a merger plan without incorporating the public's input specifically those in the town outside the village but some village residents that want to separate. We have not never discussed separation and I would really like to see those numbers unfortunately whenever I ask this Sarah Macy is never at the meeting when I bring this up. So thank you. Thank you. I see Lorraine Zaloum's hand up. Yes thanks Elaine. I'm just curious if anyone has an update on how we're doing unemployment wise how the businesses are doing COVID. I understand that the food shelves are seeing more and more customers so I'm just wondering where we are and if that could be a regular agenda item. I don't have the unemployment figure for November at the moment Evan do you happen to know if that's been released yet? I don't think it has. I do not but the other question about the unemployment number certainly I'm not sure which ones we use but it doesn't count the underemployed so I'm just wondering what the best metric measuring the health of our economy or our businesses is. So you're right the underemployed are not recorded. We use the figures that come from the Vermont Department of Labor and so they update them on a regular basis and I think that's a neat idea to have that as something that we can discuss on a regular schedule so that we are we're kept up to date. I do know that it peaked around 13% in April and it has fallen considerably since then. Evan I don't know if you have any additional data. I'm just prepared for the question. Right. So Lorraine can we can we bring you this information at the next meeting and if you want it sooner we can email you with the data as well as a link to where you can look that up as on your own as well. Yeah do you know well I was hoping that as a town we had because you had mentioned I think it was Jim last time and the Economic Development Board. It sounded like the data that he was using from what I understood him saying like it wasn't complete yet for our town or it wasn't quite understanding what he meant so it would just like I guess next meeting or maybe an agenda item where it could be explained to us how it works what the metrics are how are we checking in with the health of our people here and how can we help if they're needing help how are we reaching people that aren't included that are underemployed just that kind of assessment because I to me that's really part of our job is in terms of governance and helping people out. I think what you're referring to Lorraine if I remember correctly Jim was talking about the EDC undertaking a census of businesses in Essex and that's what's not complete right now. The EDC does not do any particular metrics regarding unemployment we rely on the state for that but I know that the EDC will continue pursuing the kind of information so that we have a really healthy picture of our businesses in the community and you know I'm sure we've gotten some anecdotal information from from businesses about how they're managing during the pandemic but we don't have anything formal in terms of a data set that we can share. So we don't we don't because I also thought we used the Vermont Business Association data bank too for the EDC so I just wanted so we just don't have a regular survey under COVID right now then for the health of our businesses. No we do not have a regular survey going that goes out for businesses that is one thing we would really over you know have liked to have established but we have a wide selection and depth of employers so. We do yeah for sure we do but it just I just am worried because and the food shelf is getting bad it's getting bad so and I expect it may get worse and I would just like to know that we're being proactive and focused and prioritizing our economy here locally. I think we're doing the best we can to do that considering the constraints we're dealing with and we're going to continue trying to help our businesses by accessing grant programs through the state that were provided to us through the federal CARES Act funding and there's going to be hopefully another round of financial support that we'll be able to tap into if once Congress approves the next recovery package so we're trying to keep abreast of that and share that information with our businesses. I see that Brian Sheldon who is a member of the EDC has his hands up Brian do you want to share anything else that might help fill that picture in a little better? You're muted Brian. Hi Lorraine and thank you for giving me a chance to speak Madam President. Yeah Lorraine I think what Jim was referring to is that Sam Anderson who is a member of the the CCRP will often will often reiterate the state's unemployment numbers to us and he was repeating that to you so I think Elaine's strategy of giving that information from the Department of Labor would be would be less kind of a game of telephones because that's like four steps away so and she often tells us that she has the state data and sometimes the county data rarely sounds specific. Okay thanks Lorraine. Thank you. Sorry my screen just did something weird hang on. Okay thank you Brian and Pat I'm sorry you had your hand up and I just wanted to get to the audience members before we went back to the board so go ahead please. Yeah absolutely. Just one response I think to a number that Patty mentioned that is worth bringing up. Certainly the nine percent number is of concern but Essex being a golden district I think is doesn't really represent what our school district or the school board does. In fact Essex for multiple years now has always come in multiple percentages below what the state estimates the average rise of percentage is going to be. In fact Essex or NDWSD is managed to for again multiple years manage to come in so low that because of the size of our district that we drag that percentage number down for the rest of the state when it comes to averages. So using that nine percent number while you know certainly viable does not really represent the history of Essex and the educational system and it's really important I think to do that because we know how important education is in EWSD and the budget especially in these difficult times is extremely important and really matters a lot to me at least so why just make that notation. Thanks Pat. I would also want to correct that the select board is currently made up of two members who live in the village and three members who live in the town so it is not dominated by village members. Okay so thank you all and let's move on to the first business item. Well I have my hand up a leg. Oh I'm sorry Betsy I didn't see that at all please go right ahead. Okay thank you I have two requests we're going to start working on the budget in a couple of a week or so and as a member of the BCA and you are a member of the BCA and there are other people on the board when we are having a presentation a person who is requesting to have their fees or their penalties waived because of various reasons we are shackled by the fact that in your budget you have traditionally taken the money that we typically get in a year and appropriate that money into the budget in some way or form and I would ask you don't do that at all because what is the sense of us in having these meetings when people say well you know if we do that then it's going to affect our budget we've already applied that money that we would be getting for these things I don't think it should be there at all because we should be able to let those fees or the penalties go they'll pay the money and they'll figure it out but the fees and the penalties should be able to be waived and it's being we are being shackled by the by the way that budget is built if that money is incorporated into it. The second thing I would ask is that the informational meetings when we do have them for the merger I would like to see us have a presentation of the pros by the select board and a presentation of the cons as well by one of the people on the group that we have that has got issues with what is happening. I think that it's only fair that the public hears both sides of the story at each of those meetings that's what I would ask. Thank you. Thank you Betsy if I could just point out the I understand your your frustration with the BCA process and as a member of that board I share your deep worry because it's really hard to be on that board and face your neighbors and have to tell them they still have to pay their taxes in spite of hardship but it's not the budget that limits us in those decisions it's the very strict requirements of statute regarding how we're allowed to alleviate debt and if well I'm sorry if you disagree with that that's not what's said at the meetings at the meetings Pat Murray sat there and said we have already had these monies are gone so what's going to happen we're going to be in the hole and so I'm not talking about the taxes themselves I'm talking about penalties and fees and I think that we should be relying on penalty or fees to be in the budget that's wrong what's the point of doing it I appreciate that Betsy so thank you for clarifying that for me okay Patty go ahead I'm sorry I have to the tail end of what I was saying I was trying to be short is I researched August 27 2019 results from the KSV the consultants that you hired but even though we didn't have a vote to go to you did not give us a vote to say go ahead and have a starter discussion of merger again like you did in January 2005 I'll overlook that because there's nothing legally we can do about it I want to say that many people and I've quoted I even have the page numbers if you like I'm very good at research that the KCV recommendations when you started talking about this whole mess included options that were suggested by groups but not listed in the material for evaluation people that wanted to talk about separation three wards between town and village mostly town outside of village residents KCV says stated concern that consolidation has happened without public input or vote I'm sorry one person said from 8 3 but they merged a lot of things without our voting input I'm very concerned about that it seems very sketchy to me says this resident at this other resident said expressed concern about their representation and the startup of these new merger talks and my favorite my absolute favorite resident says it in a nutshell it's their quote from 8 3 where is the drive to keep merging after we all voted no it's like watching a bunch of kids that are told that they can't eat a cookie and the cookie sits on the table and they grab a little bite we said no don't eat the cookie but they grab a little piece and they grab another little piece and sooner or later that whole cookie is going to be gone and they're going to say well you let us have the cookie and we did not let you we've been fighting since you started discussing and you don't listen I'm sorry but that's my that's my piece thank you patty okay we are going to move on to business item 5a interview and potential hang on I think Irene has her hand up also oh why am I not seeing anyone's hands I'm really sorry my system is not showing me that go ahead Irene thank you I have a couple things first of all I just heard a select board member in the recent moments mentioned that two members of the board live in the village and three live in the town last I knew all five of you lived in the town and we're supposed to be representing all of us yes so if your mind said is that you live in the village but not in the town we need a little course correction please I'm concerned about a downtown s extension Facebook page that has existed for years but municipal staff took it over in recent memory now it says that it's the official page for the town and village which I don't think is appropriate the town is much bigger than its downtown so if there needs to be an official Facebook page would you please change the name the public did not give permission for the municipal staff to take a village page and expand its reach to an entire town while still calling it a downtown page and finally I'd like to speak to something on the reading file is this the appropriate time or do I need to wait till later if it's on the reading file you're going to need to wait till the reading file comes up on the agenda thanks we'll do okay let's move on to business item five a uh interview and potential appointment uh any cooper economic development commission any are you present I am can you see me can you hear me I can hear you but I can't see you yet but I'm sure you'll pop up on my screen eventually um so any you are applying to be a member of the Essex Economic Development Commission and Greg if I'm correct there are two openings at the moment that is correct um we also just got an email uh today from Jeff Benjamin who's one of the current members um he would have been appointed to an interim seat Jeff is interested in uh becoming a more permanent member so you'll see that in your near future um but yes there are two seats open right now okay okay well Annie thank you for stepping forward as a volunteer for this position and um board members do any of you have questions for Annie and if I'm not calling on you jump in because I don't know why I'm having trouble seeing hands oh I'll just go um hey Annie as a as a business owner how do you think that your business owner experience is going to help you with the economic development committee oh thank you Vince uh for your question um I think that as a business owner I have a good sense of what I feel like I have a good sense of what it feels from all sides of the business as a business owner as a resident as a consumer of other Essex businesses and I feel confident in my reach to um to the people who who come to swim with me my business is swim with Annie and I also feel that um my ability to grow my business in the past um I don't know 11.5 years has been a really great ride and I have been very very fortunate that the relationships that I that I make and retain have uh have spared me very well I've never really had to market my business it's been word of mouth and um I feel like my understanding of how to grow that here in this region um has given me some confidence and some insight into what can be successful what that looks like what that feels like and how to um have conversations on multiple levels with businesses and residents and consumers thank you Annie I appreciate that thank you for the question any other board members with questions I do and good to see you um could you tell me a little bit more about uh your experience with the most recent events that we've had um the business because I've heard honestly you know some pretty rave reviews from people about how helpful you were during that process I'm wondering if that had some impact on you wanted to apply to EDC um if you'd like to share a little bit about your experience with that I'd love to hear it uh I really appreciate that that because that's exactly what I was hoping to speak to actually so it's we did not plan is there anything but a great question um so I was so fortunate to be involved in the out and about in Essex um situation that stemmed from uh Robin Beers' original idea of uh open and outside in in August and and being part of both of those things literally saved my soul during the pandemic like I can't I can't speak enough to what it felt like to go to go out and see fellow residents and businesses it was just such a really heartwarming experience and um staff was so kind to me and so Tammy Getchell built an extraordinary um piece into uh Civic Plus that allowed for businesses to enroll in the program in the out and about program so Tammy put a great deal of thought and energy into her current concept of what out and about should be and then she kind of came with this master plan and organized this this enrollment process and then we were trying to find a list right uh of businesses and it was it was it was a little frustrating to to find a list but also it's hard because we have a lot of businesses that are not visible to the eye and they're hard to get to and it's hard to understand who all our businesses were so because of Tammy's genius idea of how she did it I became wildly diligent in how we got that communication because I wanted to make sure that if we ever needed a list again we would have it and so I was like a maniac I was like putting all the information into the into the spreadsheet that Bradluck had created in for the out and about and that spreadsheet was like a mother alone and that spreadsheet has got such beautiful information and so my ability to understand how Tammy was using Civic Plus and my work with Aviso and Jim and Robin was just so um uh beautiful I'm at the other departments that were working in with Linda Manson and and Evan and and and Allie and Brad and and Rick and everybody was just amazing I skipped the public works uh Rick Rick no Rick and Dennis Dennis and they were also great and so my my understanding of what we need to have as a as a master document to contact the businesses that's what Jim was speaking to and that's the document that Jim was speaking of um at the last meeting and that that conversation made me look at the economic um uh development commission and think oh I want to be in on that and I saw there was a seat and so that night during the meeting I I started to fill out the application and the out and about and Essex um experience really helped me understand the human is the human pieces of our Essex businesses our residents our musicians our consumers and all the things that Lorraine was speaking to before it's the most exciting stuff I can imagine how to help Essex thrive inside itself I mean it's just amazing right because if we thrive inside of ourselves then we draw other people toward us you know and I have this like vision of like imagine if we use the tourism department you know I mean I'm being silly but like the idea of helping Essex thrive from inside itself and having the ability to contact all the businesses and reach out and do the kind of things that Lorraine is talking about and the ideas that Robin and Oviso had and and Jim had and and the format that Tammy developed and the work that Linda and Tammy and Evan and Allie and Brad and everyone was doing it was just a beautiful experience and I want very much to be a part of something so exciting I'm sorry I talked so much now don't apologize that's what we're looking for Andy go ahead yeah we we often will allow the candidate to speak before we ask questions I just was wondering if there's more that any wanted to say that wasn't already covered by one of the questions if I could hug you right now I would that was exactly true I do have one more thing I want to say thank you for that invitation um so the mission of the commission is to serve as an advisory resource to relevant staff departments town commissions and committees and to the governing board of the Essex community concerning an understanding of the state of the existing business this community and its contribution to the vitality and future of Essex an appreciation for the impact of emerging issues trends and state or municipal policies on both current and prospective business development and the importance of nurturing proactive programs policies and procedures that position Essex as a preferred municipality in the state of Vermont in which to do business I can't read you any more exciting words like I'm just down for this I first moved here in 1996 and I had a two month old who was premature by nine weeks who weighed like I don't even know seven pounds when we got here we moved from New Mexico and I had an 18 month old and I knew nobody and so the first people I started to meet were business owners and we didn't have much money so at Cavals member of Cavals coffee over there in the uh in the every day I would go in there and get one muffin to split with myself and my oldest son one muffin they let me come in every day and eat one muffin and they made me like their family the Cavals and so the Cavals are my first friend and so that business helped me become comfortable in my community then I would go to mcdonalds sometimes if I had enough money to get a diet coke you know it's like a thing and then Emmy over at mcdonalds that they drive through became my second friend and then the staff at hannahford became my next friends and then uh as Essex cinemas got built they became my next friends and and so my my relevance to Essex my ability to be a person here to be seen began with businesses because the people that own them and run them and work with them welcomed me and to be alone and have two small children that was a really big impact and so for me that's where my passion for Essex began and as it grew and I met people and I know people and and all those things reach out I still have that connectivity and that to me that's like a full circle and I'm so grateful so that's all that's the things I wanted to say and thank you Andy for that opportunity. I have a question for you can you tell me or tell all of us what's what are some ideas you have that you would bring to the EDC that you might want to see happen? Uh thank you Aline for that the first thing I would like to do is get that list I want to I want to beef up that uh that contact list I want to find all the businesses and reach out to all of them communicate to all of them I want to be thorough um my perfectionism is at its best in this regard I want I want us to know who all the businesses are so then we when we have an event our master list is so thorough that we we we get everyone and then I want us to have those relationships that Uiso and Jim and and Robin start to have and also already have those those relationships are so um beautiful like when Robin goes to talk to somebody at a business where he's comfortable and confident Uiso does the same like those relationships are so valuable to us that we can have a back and forth relationship and so I want that contact list first and foremost done and I will I will do that 100 miles an hour because I just really want that complete um and then uh I think that the commission's already doing such great work on the things that they are working on that I would like to join in into that stuff and and and the I think that really the most important thing right now is similar to what Lorena is speaking of how do we help the businesses thrive and I have a lot of really uh uh exciting thoughts about that that I would like to share with the commission and I know Jeff and I know Brian um and I met uh uh but but where am I saying I don't know if I'm saying I met him briefly at the Out and About uh in Essex uh uh thing and it was really fun to meet him and and I I know Greg and so I feel confident and comfortable with the the people that um already within the commission and I think that we can I think that I think that my own my own understanding of our Essex businesses and my own understanding of our Essex residents and my only understanding of the how that connectivity already works is going to bring a kind of a a a rhythm and a flow to the EDC that can push outward and I would like to really have the EDC push these things even more than they already do I am a huge fan of being a catalyst I don't I'm not really answering you Elaine I feel like I'm talking in circles I'm not being clear but I'm excited about it no that that's totally fine Annie uh board members do you have any other questions can I do Andy did you put your hand back up I don't see my hand up on my hand wow okay Don's hand is up though Don's hand is up okay go ahead Don given Annie that you're such a vocal supporter of businesses and development in the village do you feel if you're appointed to this board you can be equally enthusiastic about businesses that want to develop within the town um center that's a great question Don and yes I do I already work uh very harmoniously with all the businesses uh up in the not all but the businesses up outside of the village in the town I'm um I work with Peter Edelman a lot I work with Ron Hunt up at Essex Experience I'm um in a relationship with not in a relationship I'm in a friendly conversation relationship with Phoenix books I don't think you can be in a relationship with the bookstore but some of us try right oh it's totally possible Essex cinemas and I have got a long-standing relationship uh Hogi's and I have a huge passion for one another uh I really don't feel confident that um that I'm a that I'm a unlimited uh relationship maker in all of Essex and that it's not focused in the in the junction but I appreciate the question I hope I answered enough thank you for asking it anybody else board members okay I have a request from Betsy who has a question about the position itself if your permission I'll go ahead and have Betsy ask that question thank you go ahead so I when I was looking at the memorandum today about this position about the coup positions um it says that it hasn't been yet advertised and now I am not opposed to Ann Cooper uh having a position but I am opposed to having a position taken today when there has been no advertisement that there may be other people who would be interested in one of these two positions um so I'm just saying that that's all I'm not opposed to any I just I just am concerned that we would possibly close off any opportunity for new people to get involved in this process that's all I appreciate that Betsy I do know that the the position has been posted on the town website for a little while um so and Greg would you like to elaborate sure Betsy the the memo um has it's referring to the two seats that are open on the on the economic development commission one of them has been advertised since June the other one just opened up recently and that one has not yet been advertised so so the one Betsy I don't mean to be so bold but Betsy the one that I um applied for is because during the last meeting that you and I were both attendees at the last legboard meeting I saw on the website for the EDC that the position was available and that's how I knew about it just by looking well during the meeting but great thank you thanks Greg um okay so we often have the opportunity to oh sorry Evan go ahead just so that you know we have a uh select board policy that we leave open positions for committees up 30 days this has been open for well over 30 days for the one open position so we do have a policy that we keep positions open they have to be we advertise them we post them and this has been up there as Greg said for many for many weeks thanks so yeah so um we generally sometimes we have the option to um a point right after an interview sometimes we did go into executive session to do this I think for this particular one we're going to go into executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss so Annie thank you for answering our questions um is there anything else you want to add before we move on uh no I trust you all and I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak tonight thank you so much thanks for volunteering okay so thank you Annie I'm sorry oh I just wanted to thank Annie as I said we will take care of um an executive session later on in this meeting and also uh I wanted to let Lorraine know that I popped into the department of labor's website a few minutes ago the Essex October unemployment rate is 2.0 percent and the state of Vermont October it was 3.2 percent November's numbers aren't posted yet so that's just an update okay next item business item 5b presentation from Winooski Valley Park District who will be our guest from the Winooski Valley Park District tonight uh Nick Warner and we're also joined by uh Lauren Chikodi who is our operations manager and by Jeffrey Tice who is our new trustee from the town of Essex so we're thrilled to have Jeff on board hello Nick and uh Lauren and Jeff welcome all of you thank you for being here tonight thank you um I appreciate it and I will I will keep it short because I know you have a lot on your agenda um and uh so for those uh less familiar with us uh we are a hybrid non-profit municipal corporation serving seven member towns in Chittin County and we have about uh 1750 acres under management 19 properties all of our properties are managed for conservation and all of them have some kind of permanent protection on them uh so that it's properties we take on are our properties are going to stay stay wild forever and we manage them for ecological health and recreation um and we've been around since 1970 and Essex has been a great partner for us for many years and I'm just going to give you a if it's okay just a quick summary of how our year went um and just make sure everyone's got the documents that sent along because I gave you a lot of detail uh you you should have documents on our our current and past budget and what we're asking from the town and so forth so we can we can morph into that but I just thought I'd give you a quick update which is what I typically like to do every year is that is that okay all right absolutely and and uh Jeff and Lauren please jump in at any time okay uh so as you know this has been a different year for all of us uh when actually immediately pre-covid we were in the midst of doing some reorganizing around our priorities in that we felt that even though we had run a successful camp program for five years fully subscribed with the waiting list that we were finding ourselves kind of overwhelmed in terms of staffing it and and uh the wear and tear and the facilities and so forth and we started to move to a different model um and then COVID hit and so we find ourselves all of a sudden like I'm sure you experienced in your parks that day one of the stay-at-home order we were inundated with people just you know 100 cars at Colchester Pond Woodside was jammed Ethan Allen Homestead was jammed so we we figured out pretty quickly a couple things first of all that we needed to behave like a municipality we did not hire our seasonal workers because we're unsure about what the future was going to bring financially so our park superintendent Tim Larnan and his assistant Remi Kretzel basically have done all the maintenance and mowing this year which is astonishing we also realized that we needed to be an excellent host and that we really needed to be on top of all the protocols around Colchester just like everyone else uh so and you know adjusting to the circumstances uh staying in close touch with the towns to see what uh what might be coming down the down the pike and being supportive of our partners uh we are we have a close partnership with the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum they're actually a tenant of ours uh the Forest Preschool leases from us uh the Association of Africans Living in Vermont to have a large farming program we also have a number of programs in community gardening so there were a number I just this whole thing has been a series of small decisions made on a daily basis so the big decisions were we wanted to be a better host we wanted to really focus on our assets and safety under COVID and to do a good job of keeping our parks going for the summer uh and uh we feel we're it's been a really good year from that aspect a bunch of things happened we the Forest Preschool has expanded in our facility which means more income we're able to bring in a number of grants to uh to support Colchester Museum and Forest Preschool during the shutdown that's six week period of time when everyone was pretty much shut down we have never really shut down we just kept going uh although I worked remotely Tim works at the office Lauren works at home and Remy works out of his house but he does maintenance mostly so we've we figured it out as we've as we've done along and all while this is happening we are developing a new park uh we just actually put the final touches on it uh doorway cove at the mouth of Winniski River we just want to work on that and that'll be fully open in the spring time we are working with the town of Williston on a parcel called the Jacob parcel which we may take ownership of sometime this spring so that's been a two or three year process putting that together uh we've got an extra 10 acres donated to us to add on to Colchester ponds and in which in return we got an enhanced access road we may be able to put in a second entrance of Colchester Pond off East Road at some point uh so all those things have still gone on we've had we've had some great support from BHCB to hire a consultant to help us uh navigate this period of time uh and I think I said this at every meeting but just really an unanticipated positive of this is is all the relationships and you know statewide joining of effort that has gone on over the last six months in terms of irregular contact with people uh trying to share their practices and to make sure everyone knows about funding sources and everything uh so that's been a our in many ways our world has has gotten bigger on this uh we have been able to conduct some contracted work which has become an important part of our income uh we weren't sure at the beginning of the summer if we're going to have the time this is work that is done on parks that we don't own and we're able to give a pretty good bargain to towns that want us to do additional work and it's out of Williston had us do some work this year we posted some properties replaced a bridge um specifically the Essex down at Woodside uh we worked with the Champlain Water District on replacing a bridge down there uh then just did tons of maintenance because of the heavy use of that area I think something to look out for in a positive way is the work that St. Michael's has been doing on their the adjacent they have the 300 acre property that is adjacent that is both in Colchester and Essex which they are really converting into a natural area so we've been working with St. Michael's on and off and that's that's something that's going to be interesting we're also curious about what's going to happen with Woodside as everyone is what's going to happen with that building in the grounds and whether we could work with the state to establish an additional parking and making the entrance work better in the future and then our board the person that we have Jeff on the board after Tom Malinowski left for Florida and uh so he's he's been getting up to speed and specifically he's going to help us work on a number of things including uh an effort called the Alno Bayoui which is a joining of the four uh Abnaki major tribes in Vermont they're developing a cultural center at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum so that's been a whole new element of thing of things which has been hugely positive um and our board has been very proactive we've been trying to anticipate things with COVID uh I think you'll see that our budget for fiscal year 22 is pretty conservative that's we're trying to be responsive I've been in touch with the various uh town managers assistant managers a couple times over the summer to find out you know what the appropriate thing for us to do was and the two things where I heard was you know be conservative for next fiscal year and sort of mimic what's going on with our member towns in terms of holding off and hiring the seasonals we'd like to hire them back next year because it's not a sustainable model but it worked for us this year um I think you'll notice in our numbers and this is the question I've gotten in every meeting is we're asking you for a little more money not a heck of a lot more about $2,000 more for your annual fees in 2022 but overall our budget has gone down four percent the reason for that is that we have taken the program income out of the operating because we're no longer running the eight week booked solid summer camp that we were running the flip side of that is already the new model that we are working with which is focused more on having our existing staff such as Lauren who has been our programs director is now operations manager she's taken over bookkeeping she's doing a lot more with grant writing we are shifting into much more of a traditional park agency model in terms of how we're operating we're focusing on doing two or three three things really well although I got to say the camp was great it just was too much for us to uh to maintain over time and that space to be clear has been filled by forest preschool that is now paying us uh newly renegotiated lease so that the model uh ironically COVID actually kind of accelerated the model that we were already putting into place uh so we find ourselves actually in pretty darn good shape relative to what our concerns were when this whole thing hit um the new park usage I think is forever I think we have an astonishing increase of use of the outdoors that hopefully knock on wood is going to continue um and especially I think this winter we're going to see a lot of people out the words we're going to make sure that we're we're ready for that um and we totally recognize the you know importance of the assets that we are managing right now what it means to people during the COVID crisis um so I'll stop there I could go on and on but I just want to give you a quick overview of the year and and field any questions or concerns you guys might have thank you nick yeah uh board members do you have any questions for nick okay well nick I have a couple questions can you describe oh I'm sorry andy go ahead andy's got to stand up I get to see that now go ahead hi andy good to see you I'm gonna ask you the same question I asked you last year and you gave a pretty adequate response last year I'm hoping you do again but the uh I was actually actually stopped over to woodside today yep and I wandered down to what's called your canoe access um my my concern with that is it's a quarter mile hike from the parking lot to the to the canoe access and it's it's a pretty narrow and steep entryway into the water there just wondering if if there's an end um I brought this this concern up to town staff as well as that we've our entire southern border is the minouski river but we have no access to it um and so just wondering if you have any any plans or any hopes to put in a either uh either to improve the woodside canoe access there or look somewhere else I know you were you're focusing last year on underway cove and it's an accident I've I've been by there and it's it's beautiful um yes so that was my answer last year yeah yeah so I I'm not gonna be cute about I mean I bringing cars into that part would be a massive shift um I'm not I would it would take a couple things I would need to you know the land was transferred to us through some kind of federal program with it's actually a relic of camp johnson um and so I don't know what our stipulations are in terms of management whether we're allowed to make that kind of change you know sometimes we have a conservation easement you know for instance nature conservancy down in doorway cove uh like shampoam land trust would have some something to say about it that'll be the first step the second thing would be um I would just be concerned about parking and and maintenance and security isn't to say they can't be done we were in constant change in our park assets so that I guess I didn't really focus enough on the fact that you really have no access within the town except for that location so is that the only opportunity well I I believe there might be another one near global foundries I'm not sure who owns or maintains that and there's there's a portage that goes around the power dam supposedly but again I don't know who maintains that and um I've never seen it posted in any of our park information so I don't believe it's a town or village park but so well you have me intrigued so I'd like to kind of follow up on this and see what um and you and I can follow up directly on that because I I'm intrigued to see what the possibilities are you and I really remember what it used to be like before we owned it and you could pretty much run anything you wanted down there uh back when it was 68 acres so it's I think maybe that initially the town was probably grateful that we pulled cars away from the river's edge right um but now things have changed and maybe it's something it could be effectively managed um I'm also I didn't mean to you know what happens with the Woodside facility is has a huge impact uh back when Ken Schatz was commissioner he's someone I worked with before and I approached him on and said you know if you guys do a rebuild can we have some expert parties oh yes absolutely so uh and a real goal for me initially is to do a much better job in managing the entrance of that park because it's just kind of horrible right now you park on a hill and if you're lucky and with st michael's developing a trail right next door all of a sudden the demand on that area is going to increase but um I I would like to follow up with you directly on that I'm glad you brought that point again I'm going to pull the files and see what we're allowed to do to start with see if there's any kind of easement or directive which since it's a federal transfer is probably less restrictive than others so I'd be happy to look at that the road is there already right it's the transition from the road into the the river's a little bit of a challenge but the road is there already so I will follow up on that thank you great thank you dick yeah any other questions from board members nick I was wondering if you could give some examples of what your pay your fee for service options are the that other towns have taken you talked about a bridge in williston sure um so our crew this is led by tim larnan who's our parks superintendent it's a very simple model we charge we take our hourly wages in fika and we do a 50 addition on top of that it's just a black extra fee and we don't do markups on any materials and we charge miles and we're able to do work for the towns pretty quickly on a turnaround basis because they don't have to go up to bed because we're a fellow municipality so it's a it's you know from a business standpoint first of all we're not really competing with anyone when we do it and second of all there's a lot of flexibility in how it works we have a standard contract we've so far we've done it for the city of woosky and for the town of williston and it it works great for all of us and initially this was with south burlington that that was our first contract I didn't use this summer just because they had such a massive upheaval in their park system with COVID and their staffing and it just wasn't the year for us to do it but last year we did quite a bit at wheeler park in a red rocks actually over the last couple of years um it's it's a great model for all of us because we're able to bring expertise of liability issues we have the same insurance carrier it's the paperwork is simple we it's best for discrete projects it's less good for regular trail maintenance it's better for us to build a bridge or punch in or to do some kind of repair work that's a more finite period of time which tim can get his hands around we have talked about doing more of a maintenance role but that really pulls him off all he needs is a couple trees that are blown down and you know that's his day is gone so he needs flexibility so it's it's a balance between how much time he and remmy have to work on it and uh and what what the workload is that's great I didn't know you did that and that's a really useful uh option for towns yes it's been great I give a lot of credit to both kevin gordon and tom harvard to help me come up with it it was really a brainstorm between us that first came up with the contract and we're hoping to increase it substantially this year again okay and nick do you have any particular grant plans for f y 22 yes we're we're looking at uh a potential vhcb grant well first of all let me back up a little bit we have a couple that are current we have one the election hand plane basin program and education grant which we were actually reprogramming because everything we're planning to do was not really coven compliant so we're reprogramming reprogramming now we've got a small grant from rei we also got a small grant from the outdoor gear exchange which we're using to rebuild the bridge at the front of euthan island park and uh we've gotten grants through the paycheck protection program and through the state child care support for our tenants and there's been a couple of other grants under the carers program smaller pieces that we've also gotten we've done the whole bit with indoor air purification with upgrades to our system I mean not the whole bit but we've done quite a bit to make things more cove compliant we had there's a piece of property in colchester that we may or may not be able to purchase to add on to mccray park um and if we do that we would ask vhcb for for funds we had thought about doing lwcf but it was just the timing wasn't right and it's it's just we weren't ready to go after that money um then there's a whole separate piece which is the euthan island homestead museum and colchester pond farmhouse and barn where we have a capital goal that is a lot larger um and we are talking with the congressional delegation and with a philanthropist about that that looks like a separate project that's like a very project specific fundraising component um and then all the there's tons of it's an interesting time right now because there's actually a lot of generosity out there uh and in places you may not expect to find it there's a lot of there's a lot more um you know wiggle room and scopes will work and so forth so we're keeping our eye out for um for grants uh you know we try to we we jealously protect our cash reserves you know we have a couple hundred thousand dollars that we just try to keep as it is also when we do capital projects we typically do with other people's money so with grants or philanthropy or partnering so yep thank you yeah and my my last question is for jeff um anything you'd like to share with us about your experience on the board or any questions for us regarding your representation of Essex and also thank you for stepping forward and being our representative jeff well you're welcome it's been uh it's been my pleasure you know it hasn't been very long so the uh the the i'm very much in the learning curve but um as you know i had some familiarity with the parks district uh and it's and that those positive impressions have just really been confirmed it's uh i'm really impressed with what nick and such his very small uh staff i've been very impressed with the scope of what they are able to do and some of the uh as you might imagine in our role as board members we uh we had a long discussion about the budgeting and the budget process uh many different points of view represented there and knowing what we could reasonably want to ask the various municipalities and and being realistic which again nick and lauren were already completely attuned to that so they didn't necessarily need a lot of a lot of board input on that but um yeah it's gonna be interesting to see you know the sustainability we don't need to get into it now but even within the board like nick was talking about the fee for service structure and i again i'm really impressed with what that's staff of two have been able to do and i wonder in the long term how sustainable that is particularly with the absence of the seasonal staff um again i have an hr background and i you know i know a lot of familiarity with staffing and i and seasonal work and i know what an impact that has um and questions about its sustainability but no again i've just it's been a pleasure it's it's a it's a great great organization well jeff thank you our representative and nick and lauren thank you for your work on our behalf and unless there aren't any other questions from the board um i want to thank you for presenting to us tonight and for stewarding our funds towards making sure we have excellent parks thanks for your support really appreciate it you're very welcome all right thank you take care okay so our next business item is five c discussion of draft merger charter relating to appointing versus electing a moderator and gregg can i ask you to just summarize what this particular decision is absolutely uh so the merger charter the select board had discussed quite a bit as you all know and had gotten pretty close to um i think finalizing it although i'll leave that decision to you uh sounded like the one last remaining item was whether or not to appoint or elect a moderator particularly as we are moving to a informational town meeting and so the recommendation from uh dan richardson from staff is to have the moderator be appointed that's what is in the charter right now a few sections sections 103 402 and 501 b that reference the moderator and the select board appointing the moderator that's that's basically it obviously the the board can discuss other things merger as much as merger charter if they want but the the question about moderator was the last outstanding one that staff was aware of at this point okay got it thank you so board members do you have any questions or comments on this particular decision sounds like we might need to remove someone from the meeting there gregg that's what i'm doing all done thank you andy um i guess just to make sure we're clear here can you hear me my video seems to be frozen but uh we can hear you but you are i am not moving okay uh shocked look on your face you look like there's a spider on your computer um i guess just to be to be clear we we this this would would be for uh meeting in the future where after the charter has been approved and so we i'm not i'm not asking a question i'm just making making sure there's we have this clear that we have currently already elected a moderator for this coming town meeting and at the town meeting this this year there's this coming year we will have to elect another moderator potentially for the following meeting and then we have to have the discussion whether or not that election stands if the charter gets approved you know at that at that point is that maybe i am asking a question no i think you're right andy and i think the moderator would also be if we elect another moderator this coming town meeting for 2022 and then merger passes then that person would still be the moderator for the first new town meeting and then the selector would appoint going forward after that that's actually i'm trying to pull it up and i'm having a little bit of trouble um getting it on the screen uh but section 103 let me try one more time so i can show everyone as i read it section 103 which is in the transitional phase talks about the first annual town meeting will be jointly warned by the interim governing body and the interim governing body shall appoint the moderator to run the informational meeting so i think andy's correct that we'll we'll still have a moderator collection at this coming town meeting my recommendation would be if the the interim governing body if the merger passes appoint the person who was elected for that year right okay thank you thank you for that clarification that's that's what i assumed tonight and i i agree that it would probably be appropriate her to to appoint whoever gets elected to that position for that first meeting all right great thank you and so i guess just to be clear you've already changed the language the language has already been changed in here to go to being appointed it was in there i can't remember it quite at what iteration the appoint the appointed moderator was decided but that's what the language is for right now and okay all right great thank you fins or dawn or pat any questions or comments i have no questions or comments about this thanks okay dawn is shaking her head pat's shaking his head okay so i squashed the spider so i don't look so scared anymore okay so we have consensus on that one greg so we can move on to um five d decision to place the plan of merger for the town of s6 and village of s6 junction on the march second 2021 town meeting ballot so this is basically just to authorize the staff to move forward and prepare the ballot for march second 2021 uh any questions or comments on this regarding uh from the board about this andy um i know nobody's going to want to hear this but i still have questions about the district um uh kind of accentuated by the document that's in the reading file in response to the request for additional financials i'm very confused about and i think there are others even on staff that are confused about how the sidewalk district is going to be funded the response the document that's in the reading file says that it's going to be a flat number for 12 years divided just and um you know there was a proposal i know it was originally proposed that there was going to be 120 or 120 thousand dollars which is about approximately what what it takes to to to do sidewalk plowing and maintenance today and it was just going to be remain flat through the for the 12 years um it's my understanding that dan richerson advises that it would need to be done at cost at actual cost not at a not at a fixed rate um the other thing that concerns me is the additional email response that i got later in the day today uh said that the um the uh the funds for to support that were for uh one fte and capital the capital transfer but the a charter specifically says that it does not include include capital and so it's it seems to be very confused as to how that's going to be funded um the responses i've gotten you know they've gotten three different responses from staff just today um one saying that it's going to be a flat rate one saying that it can't be a flat rate the other saying that it's going to have capital included when the charter says it explicitly says it does not so i think we need to have more discussion about how we're funding um and make sure we understand what we're doing because um it's not clear to me so evan i believe that you had sent a response um regarding andy's questions um today and so i think might it might be most helpful if you could address that concern so if we're talking about the sidewalk district um as i understand it the sidewalk district can just covers the cost of the service uh in the village for doing that service above and beyond uh it's roughly 120 125 thousand dollars um we can over a 12-year period that cost will go up slightly by the cost of the employees doing the work and their contract um other than that there are no changes in cost so i would have to confer with dan richardson what his legal interpretation is but he has had no problem with this as it's been written since the day it was put in the document that i'm aware of the document doesn't say how it's funded though and why you why you cost the time why you do that when we had the when we had the discussion with him he said it had to be at cost that's that's what i remember i we'd have to go look i'd have to have to go look to see if it's actually documented anywhere whether you said that or not and my other my other concern is we have another agenda item that talks about village capital and for including village capital in the in the uh transitional sidewalk district as well we either got to change the language to take that reference out or we got to change the next topic we're going to talk about because some of that capital will have been moved to a that potentially move to that district so i'm it just seems like we're not clean on what we're doing it seems pretty clear that um the charter says that it'll be for um costs not including capital and that dan has reviewed that and he's okay with that and so i'm sure that the um formula that we do that we calculate my apologies to everyone who's listening we have a bomber who's a zoom bomber who is interrupting our meeting that's what that weird noise is and thank you greg for staying on top of it and booting them out whenever they show up sorry we have to deal with that so we are um sorry they threw me off the sidewalk district as i said not for capital repairs it's for snow removal and routine maintenance and so and dan has that's been in there since the beginning and dan is okay with that and i'm sure what we need to do is just confirm amongst the staff that that is what we're going to be doing um edin you look like you're going to say something yeah so you established the district in the year one you established for said district and then if the law requires that you do it by actual cost then you would probably look at what the cost is changed from year one to year two for the employees and the materials to do that work um the average increase is somewhere in labor about three percent and benefits so since that part of the budget is about half you'd be looking at about eighteen hundred to two thousand dollars a year we'll we can work it out um through through legal as to what the the mechanism is this is all so and then yes andy the fact that the next business item does address the village highway budget and wouldn't address that it would change the numbers the slightest bit so we would just have to update our figures for merger once we make our decisions regarding the budget apologies that this is pat i'm just cutting in reg i've set the chat so that attendees cannot unmute themselves that's just a temporary thing that we can do but it will stop any the people who keep coming in from being able to interrupt i mean we'll have to manually unmute people when they want to speak who are not attendees and it does not impact the presenters but just wanted to give a heads up to what i did so that you were confused thank you baton we'll go back to setting up a waiting room in the future um hadn't had this issue until tonight and recently with the planning commission so we will adjust sorry for the problems so i i still i'll go to another point that i i have made it in a separate in a different email uh end of last week was i don't think the troubles worth the two dollars it saves um i mean it makes a difference that the sidewalk district makes a difference of two dollars to a two hundred eighty thousand dollar average house and their taxes and the second the the final last email i got on this topic from staff said that if it's not a flat line it's too much trouble so um i i'm you know given given all the concern we've had about all the world about workload um i'm no longer there that that these districts are are worth the aggravation of putting them in place and i and i think i think i still don't think we understand what's going in them or how they're gonna be founded pat you have your hand up go ahead um yeah i think i was going to speak maybe more generally on just putting this on the ballot itself i don't have as much concern um with the specifics um you know the districts themselves are part of a larger i think concern that was brought up about trying to reduce the amount of uh you know tax increase for tov residents um you know which went parceled together it was just part of a conversation over a period of time a number of years i think where i'd kind of like want to focus a little bit more today it's about things that i've you know certainly heard at these meetings about us doing this or as a board proceeding with merger you know even though individuals or you know members of the town say that they voted against it you know very philosophically i can say that when i ran for a seat on the select board i was very vocal when i said that i was pro merger and that i would seek out the merger of the town and the village itself and that's i think the point of elections themselves i think that we you know the select board and represents the voting populace who puts them there so when you know people come and they say you know we have told you time and again that we don't want this to go through i mean we as board members are here because at least depending on the results of this vote tonight you know i think it's a very good thing for sx i think it's a very important thing for sx this merger it will help heal some divisions that are there and i want us to move forward with this so representative wise i think that the town has repeatedly voted individuals to the select board who are pro merger or are at least willing to explore that possibility to the point where we've gotten where we are tonight we were considering putting out on the ballot in march um just i think it's an important point and one that maybe quite often gets missed when we're you know hearing people come and talking about the concerns that they have that the voting populace has put select board members in place who very likely are pro merger and that's why this topic comes up and that's why we are where we are tonight i think thank you pat anybody vincer don yeah i just kind of like to echo part of what pat said and you know that i came into this with this process ongoing and it's not it's not for any of us at this juncture to decide whether merger and when i say us the select board to decide whether merger or merger shouldn't go on the ballot although we do have to vote on it i feel that you know this is the road we've started down we've put a lot of work into this and it's time that we all that we all saw the fruit of that labor bad or good so that it goes in front of the voters and they have their choice it's not really about our choice this is about the voters choice the people of sx and yeah that's that's what i have to say about that thank you vince don did you have anything you wanted to say please go ahead you're muted still muted yeah it says you don't have a microphone yeah hang on i think that's that's fix i'm just trying to thank you patrick shut me off not intentionally i know that's all right um i have to say that up until this weekend i wasn't gonna speak against putting this on the ballot i've had objections all along and i've made no secret of it i'm opposed to these separate tax districts it's not a complete merger but i wasn't going to oppose putting it on the ballot until this weekend they heard from over 30 people between emails and phone calls they're asking us not to do this until covid goes away i just wanted to share that with you thanks don pat sorry that's a left over hand oh okay okay so i can completely understand that and i've gotten one or two emails from residents with that concern and um i will say that you know we we had the we were requested by the trustees to put this on the ballot in november which meant that we would have had to have had it done by like the end of september and or august and we weren't ready we weren't there and so we took the risk and we waited so that we could do more research we could have more public input and at that time covid happened it was in process and we were dealing with it and we're still dealing with it and it's going to be happening long into the spring even if we do get vaccinated so while i completely respect the um worry that some folks have that covid is a concern and it's a distraction and it's making all of us um look at tighten our belts and be concerned for our health and for our our local economy i get that i understand completely we have been at this particular process for well over two years now and covid was happening when we started talking about putting it on the ballot and covid is still happening now so uh with respect i just think we need to continue moving forward this is what we've pledged to do and we need to do it and i really appreciate vince's opinion regarding um this is technically not our decision about merger it's the voters decision and so we need to put the process in place to get it to the voters we have done everything we possibly can we have not um been able to make a perfect charter we will never be able to make a perfect charter and i really am um not in favor of making the perfect the enemy of the good i think we have an excellent charter we've done more work on this charter than any of the previous select boards have tried on any previous merger or separation whatever happened in the past 60 or 70 years this process has had more thought and more expertise and more public input into it than any other attempt at any other initiative in this town's history and i think everyone deserves a lot of credit for that and i'd like to put it to the voters and have our staff move forward andy so i can can we clarify what question we're trying to answer here because the recommended language for the motion doesn't say that we're warning it right i'm just i'm just can we clarify what what we're i think what our question the question we need to answer is um and the motion is in the bottom of the the memo that um the select board commit to including the question on the march ballot which would just say yes we want this to be on the ballot um and staff please go ahead and start taking the steps necessary to make that happen thank you great for putting that up there so board members any other questions or comments there's a lot of people in the public but their hands up i don't know if we should hear from them or not i'm perfectly fine with doing that before we have a motion on the table but i want to make sure that the board members have had a full chance to speak their minds vince are you getting ready to speak nope okay all right well with board members permission i'll move it open to the public okay so again raise your hand if you wish to speak and with my apologies if i don't see you because my microsoft teams has some lag time but i see um hubert norton and then betsey done with their hands up go ahead hubert my microphone okay see where they go my microphone is disabled can you hear me now we can okay again my name is hubert and i'll put my pretty face up there if you want to see it we see you okay and now we don't okay let me click again here okay okay camera's on there you go and this is regarding your decision uh discussion of the place of the plan of merging the ballot uh and it's not even mentioned but given the cover 19 situation of the ability to have a meaningful town meeting in march of 2021 where people could gather have an open to discussion ask questions present in here pros and cons i do not believe it is wise or reasonable to have the merger proposal put on the march ballot virtual meetings and presentations of the sort we're having now and we're getting some good examples of the bombing and so on do not provide anywhere near the kind of dynamics that are needed to appropriately discuss and debate the complex and undermine complex issues surrounding any proposed merger vote we've already heard questions from members of the select bird about how the thing is fashioned technological arrangements currently being used for governmental processes are not easily available to all voters hopefully many have all been able to participate in the electronic media mainly they're very diverse most impacted by any final municipal configuration lack of printed news media that can try to provide an even-handed information and is primary so so many is severely lacking if not existent in today's climate consequently voters who depend on independent printed media are effectively shut out from meaningful dialogue on municipal activities informational meeting that might be scheduled between now and march will contend with any restrictions and apprehensions about covert 19 situation that will likely limit participation waiting another year to put the merger proposal to a vote will allow some honesty to emerge within the community and subsequently provide more opportunity for the issues to be evenly dispersed and confidently discussed with a knowledgeable citizenry that is more ready to provide an informed decision with their vote I encourage you to not put the plan for merger on the march 21st any questions for me no I have a question so correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the wouldn't the vote on merger happen before town meeting no it would be the next day or the next day okay all right there we go but very purpose the very hey I'm I'm new you got to give it to me come on now okay well you know we've kind of gutted the town meeting a little bit here but it's still going to be an informational meeting which has been talked about it's an informational meeting opportunity for people to discuss and debate this question and it's not going to be the kind of town meeting expect this covert thing is still going to be here come march no question about it even with the vaccine it takes a time for it become effective people are still going to be apprehensive I don't I feel it's a disservice to the voters but to bring this up at this march town meeting thanks for your statement hubie we appreciate that and if I could remind members of the audience that with public participation your remarks need to be addressed to me as the chair and it is not a conversation make your statement and then we can go on okay next speaker will be Betsy I think the question is directed to me one of your select board members asked me a question you're absolutely right and I appreciate your forbearance with us Betsy and then Bob okay very good um so um I would agree with hubie listening to him and also the fact that as Pat says you know we've got this ready and it's you know basically there well it isn't basic and you don't know how to fund something and you don't understand where the funding is all of um uh number 104 c about the district the sidewalk districts and it doesn't say anything about capital and it doesn't say anything about an fte it doesn't say anything about a flat rate so where would I find that information out if I was one of the public who are relying on this document to tell me what the merger is about plus the fact that at 12 years the 13th year they're going to fall into the town getting the sidewalks done how did that happen and what is the difference in the funding there and we asked I know I asked that Sarah give us a current look at what the taxes are for if we just decided okay let's get this thing over with because year 12 year five if you have 100 people who move into Essex in the village and they say I wasn't a part of this why am I paying this fee for the things that we're doing in this special tax district and so they go to you guys and say well we want this on and then it goes what happens then there's nothing that is static about this and your grand list we're growing in the town outside of the village and then the village you're not growing as much as us you have a smaller tax base and so your taxes are going up so we're supposed to take over what are the benefits to the people in the town outside of the village I get the benefits that the village has got but what is the benefits that I and my neighbors and the people in the center are going to get from doing this merger I don't see it I want to see it because I want a merger I am for it but not if it's not spelling things out clearly it just doesn't make sense to do that that's by say thank you and that's a good opportunity to remind everybody that we have been working all along on a draft charter and now that we're done with that we will be able to put together lots of outreach materials and educational materials to share with the community for the next several months until it's time to vote so that's a good opportunity to remind people of that thank you Betsy go ahead Bob wait wait wait you're going to put out educational information are you also going to put out the pros and the cons yes we will you are you're going to talk to Ken and get the information he has Betsy thank you for your feedback and your questions we're going to move on to Bob now thank you Bob Bob Bates are you available I'm on can you hear me yes hi okay thank thank you Elaine very much I would just echo the sentiments of the first speaker in terms of timing this whole COVID thing has thrown everything into a ray um you know the analogy I've heard the governor use and Dr. Levine is that we've sort of been building the airplane while we're flying it we don't really know what kind of burden taxpayers may face over the next year or two the legislature when it convenes is facing a deficit of between a hundred million and two hundred million dollars the economists for the Department of Education estimates that school tax rates can go up as much as nine percent I realize we're talking about a town budget but all of this affects overall tax rates for people property taxes so I think I'd rather see us wait until the airplane is built so to speak before we decide you know do we do we fly with this now or do we wait until we have a landing gear and I for one would like to wait until we've landed and we really know what we're facing I appreciate all the work the board has done in the past couple of years to put this program together on the face of it Berger may be a great idea I would like some harder facts and I'd like to know how it's going to affect not just my tax rate but those of all of us down the road we really don't know how much of the after state cuts is going to fall back on the town's they have to pick up particularly you know as as we have more and more people that are facing unemployment or facing evictions or facing what we don't know what the feds are doing there's all this stuff that's up in the air and again I'd like to see and wait until the airplane is completely built and landed before we vote on this this merger thank you very much thank you Bob I don't see any other hands up so um there are plenty pardon me Vince there there are plenty of hands I think a lot of good okay Lorraine Greg can I ask you to do the order because something's not working for me sure I about George Tyler's up there also Patty Lorraine Margaret Annie Al and Ken okay say the list again I'm writing it down and I'll go through it George George Tyler uh-huh Patty Davis mm-hmm Lorraine Zulum mm-hmm Margaret Smith okay Annie Cooper mm-hmm Al Bombardier got it Ken Signorello mm-hmm Irene Renner mm-hmm Brian Sheldon uh Sharon Tchaikovsky wait who came after Brian Sharon Tchaikovsky got it and that is it for now okay so Greg keep an eye out and let me know if anyone is added to the list after Sharon okay we'll do thank you and folks I'm going to ask you to limit your comments to two minutes at the most and make sure you're directing them at the board chair thank you I just uh raised his hand too pardon me Raj Chala got it okay okay let's start with George go ahead George Tyler George you're muted good can you hear me yes thank you okay Elaine I'll direct my comments to you and I am just speaking as as the as the former chair of the governance subcommittee which was the for people who aren't familiar which was the committee appointed by the select board and the trustees to basically put together the merger charter for and in 2019 we put together the entire framework for the special districts not just the sidewalk district but the other districts they were reviewed by the governance subcommittee and by both boards and then on behalf of the two boards I detailed all of this information and sent it to the government operations committee at the legislature it was reviewed by them and by the legislative council and Dan Richardson also brought them to the Vermont tax department these were essentially the exactly the same taxing districts that are in the village charter which was the village charter that which was recently approved and then in February if you all recall we invited all of the Essex representatives as well as all the Chittenden County State senators to a meeting at Essex High School where again I laid out all of these this entire special district framework and many other aspects of the charter in an open meeting it was it was discussed openly so it's all of this stuff has had extensive review and then it was reviewed one more time by Dan Richardson before we put it into the village charter and then as I remind everybody the village charter was overwhelmingly approved in the village containing all the special districts that are in the same version of the as the town charter one other issue I want to raise is the why did we put them in yeah it the the special districts to varying degrees save taxpayers in the town outside the village money and that's part of the issue but the other part of the reasoning was at the very beginning in 2018 when we first started reviewing and looking at government possible governance changes we drew up the list the select board the trustees and the governance subcommittee drew up a list of assessment criteria by which and for which we would rank various types of forms of government and three of those criteria were to maintain current levels of high levels of municipal services to maintain village and town identity and eventually eventual tax equity and so part of the reasoning for the special districts was to save town outside the village taxpayers some money as we were moving over the period of a decade the villages expenditures into the town general fund but it was also to give the new board some flexibility some tools by which they could raise just special taxes just inside the village to pay for service that available just inside the village which we thought would be a good thing but would also go a long way towards maintaining assuring that current service levels wouldn't become contentious and that village and town identities would be maintained. Two last points I don't want to I know you've got a lot of people advocating and criticizing but two last points a couple of things I just heard first of all putting the these conditions these special districts into the charter is about the most permanent way we can do this you know a policy can be changed year and a year out and a funding and department can be changed by putting them into a municipal charter that means that in order to change the nature or the character of a district it would have to be first put on the ballot by the select board then approved by the voters and then would have to go down to the legislature and approved by the legislature so that means that these these special districts which save the town money that's the whole reason we're putting them in there they would be really really hard to take out nothing in in you know in the universe is permanent as we know but these are about as well structured as you can make it um and uh I I think I'll stop there but a one last piece in terms of the the growing grand list the village's grand list is part of the town's grand list it's not separate so if the village's grand list grows at one percent and the town's grand list grows at one percent or two percent the village's growth is added to the town's grand list it's not separate from it so any growth in the village's grand list is again a benefit for the town outside the village I wanted to raise that point um but I I'm going to reiterate one last time I'll stop talking this charter was the work of the select board and the trustees hundreds of hours thousands of dollars over a course of nearly three years it was just recently overwhelmingly approved by the village which is as far as I know half the population of the town so I hope the select board keeps that in mind moving forward thank you thank you George okay Patty Davis everybody when I I need to give you permission to unmute um which I'm doing after Elaine calls on you and then once I do that I think you need to unmute yourself Patty are you able to unmute yourself at this point Patty okay Patty we're gonna let Lorraine go next and then we'll try you again go ahead Lorraine Lorraine can you unmute yourself she's saying that unmute is not available Greg is it possible to just not do the overall muting and just keep an eye on that random collar yeah we'll try so I'm doing I'm building the airplane as I'm flying it imagine that let me try to try to take this somebody suggested making presenters I'm gonna try that nope no that that one work Greg oh it did okay yeah whatever you did I don't know if you want to try patty again thanks Lorraine patty can you can you unmute excellent go ahead you're there we can hear you okay I'll be quick sorry I'm pounding the button knocking my tablet over um okay in response to George Tyler and I guess Roger is going to speak um back in uh uh I'm just gonna say you know I just research things and write down dates I'm just a data hound so just don't mind me but these are quotes from uh trustee meeting July 2020 and the discussion I might I just have a few notes here it says that uh they really want they were discussing trying to um extend a transition period so that the village is trying to figure out if they can delay combining the budgets further into the transition period with economic triggers uh these economic triggers you know that basically it's just like um us having our own you know budgets but then by the time the merger happens it'll all work out so benefit the village but let me be more specific um number one uh I think this was said by roge uh in this meeting maintaining my the goals of the village number one maintaining adequate level of service for village residents number two tax relief for village residents number three preservation of village downtown as the downtown for the new town of Essex well I'm a TOV member and I my heart and soul has been in the Essex experience for two years on the planning commission I'm not a member but I'm an activist on that planning commission I take offense to that and I will be voting no to the merger how dare you say that you involve the town outside the village for three years you did not this has been your goal from day one that's it thank you okay the rain all right thank you um a couple of things one I with I think his name was Hugh Hughby the first guy who spoke um there are a lot of problems with trying to educate or even speak with the public during COVID um clearly this meeting highlights the number of the problems with technology and trying to communicate or engage the public in a meaningful way um so I would appreciate really uh holding off until we could have at least the vaccine started I know this will be with us as you said Elaine forever but that doesn't mean we can't have meetings again in the future I think that we can that February meeting certainly was a good example of being able to have the public well heard or meeting and it was a start I do appreciate all the work that you guys have done you've done an incredible amount of work but I do take issue with hearing you say that this is the most that anyone's ever done um haven't grown up here find that um kind of insulting almost um and also did George get to speak way over two minutes or was that my imagination um and then three fourth um when George says that the vote overwhelming one I understand there was about a quarter of the vote people that didn't vote and the number of people who didn't vote for it so I don't know that you would necessarily say overwhelmingly um I used to work in PR and I know how to spin so thank you for your time thank you uh Margaret Smith I can't I can't unmute well you can hear you Margaret you're good oh you just needed your go ahead okay all right thank you um the joys of technology woohoo um first of all I just want a second again or third Hubey Norton's whole speech I think that um this is really not the time to be pushing this because people who would love to have input aren't being able to do it and second well I wanted to say I haven't read the whole revised charter draft but I was pleased to see that in the beginning you um put in three plus three three uh for the new select board but there were several places where the numbers were very um ambiguous um page 28 um section 105a it's it's not clear um how many people would be you know it says three former select board members that could be three people who are village residents um so there are a number of places here where they really need to clean up how they're going to be represented page 30 um section 108b is another one where it it just isn't clear what um where the people are are going to be from at the management you know so I think that going forward you really need to go back and look at these um and the the village charter I think said three plus three plus one are you guys planning to change this one to align it with that um and and I I still resent the fact that village people get to vote twice so they get to vote on theirs and they get to vote on this one as well and I know yes there's technically residents of the town but I've never been a resident of the village so seconds Margaret thank you okay thank you um Annie Cooper yes Margaret I would love for you and I to be able to vote together the same way as each other and for me not to have that other vote because that would also remove my second set of taxes so a solution to the fact that you would also like to be able to be harmonious with those of us in the village I agree with you completely and I would love to see a merger happen so that we could be harmonious like that um you are hearing from a very uh small crowd of people it feels like a lot of people right now with this luck board but you're hearing from a small crowd and I remember that the conversation 30 people is not a lot of people there's a lot of people to receive emails from over one weekend but it's not a lot of people uh a lot of people is um almost 4 000 people voting for merger from the village which is almost half of our town and yes while I agree that that's not every resident that's a pretty high turnout for a vote um we are at an extraordinary time in our lives where we have access to more people through uh the gift of the internet and so while we can't have a regular meeting we can reach more people in this way than we ever have been able to before so all of the the statements that were being made speak to and apologies in our kayak system where our town meeting only gets how many people come to town meeting can someone give me a number I can't remember right now 2.3 percent of registered voters 2.3 percent so that's a very low turnout that's a very low volume so yes I agree completely that that engaged discussion in that auditorium is beautiful and that's the way I want to have that discussion too we're not going to fit 22 000 people in there and we're not going to get more than one or two hundred anyway so to me 15 seconds Annie thank you to me this is the time to do this we're going to lose momentum on this and this was what the select board set out to do for the past year or two that's what the the government subcommittee was doing we were putting merger on the ballot and I am sorry for my step down I would have helped us move forward thank you for your time thank you um Alvin Bardier okay can you hear me yes we can okay great uh just a few thoughts um I I don't know I just can't support this proposal I just wanted to share you know it's one thing to go through all these meetings and I've heard a lot of comments from different people about this but I think the communications to the community the whole community is really important uh we have we have very large refugees here communities as well I mean it's translations are it's one thing to put it in context as the advantage disadvantage but how do you explain it to the whole community it may not even speak there's there are issues and I think the process of the trustees and the select board without a balanced number of members representing each of the two halves of the two communities in the village and outside that at least um indicates a certain level of a conflict of interest and I I've thought about this and you know it can't be based upon we lose you know and and yet so much of this conversation has been shifting liabilities and taxes from the village to the town that is in fact unrecorded and that's been a lot of the discussion so I I you can say it's the you know the voters but uh I don't know uh I don't see a 50 percent or at least half of the representation from TOV no matter how you cut it and the last point I would make 10 seconds now you think your taxes are high now we put a million dollars into substitute teachers at the high school at the school it's going to be I think we're looking at 14 plus this year okay thank you Al uh Ken Signorello and there we go I hope yes excellent thank you madam chair um three three quick things I um I study the northfield merger this is the most recent success merger in Vermont after a failure very similar to our 2007 failure they used a three-step process step one should we step two here's a plan what do you think should we vote on it and based on that step three was put it on the ballot I think we're at step two so I suggest that you do put a question on the ballot in March an advisory question asking the voters should we consider putting the merger plan as currently conceived on the next ballot mark November or March finally the grand list issue that George brought up madam chair the ratio of the grand list in the village and outside the village is important because it's used to calculate the tax shift amounts what's not clear to me is as that grand list ratio changes does the calculation of the tax shift change or is it locked in at the very beginning and no matter what happened to the grand list after that it stays the same this is not clear to me and I would like it to be and that's part of the um the questions that we asked in that letter thank you madam chair thank you uh Irene Irene can you unmute then I got muted by somebody I think you're all set go ahead I'll set thank you um this is directed to all the individual select board members um when I choose people to serve in public office to represent me I vote you for you to think I don't vote for you to listen to the spin and listen to the pressures that are put on you by your peers or by anybody else I ask you to look at the information you receive hear from your representatives and make an independent decision and tonight is one of those decisions and your feet will be held to the fire for the way you vote on this by everybody in town I wish you would look around into the context of this whether or not merger is a good idea whether or not we should even be voting on merger or spending money on merger after the last no vote we are in the middle of a pandemic crisis and if you are not sensitive to that and aware enough to put this off I believe that speaks volumes about how I will consider you the next time you run for office nothing personal but you need to be a statesman when you're in a position like this you need to think bigger than yourself and bigger than the pressures that you personally may be put under this is a big picture process and I would urge you to please not put this on the ballot it is not the time George Tyler said in the five or 10 minutes that he just spoke although I'm sure I'll be cut off way before then that we spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on this no George Tyler did George Tyler took a draft that the last government subcommittee put together and he monkeyed with it and completely rewrote it 15 or three months you didn't meet and then everybody had to scramble and spend a lot of hours looking at charter that made no sense to most of us so that's also unacceptable okay maybe let's revert to the other charter we had but not this one thank you thank you uh Brian Sheldon can you hear me up yes we can thank you madam chair I would uh like to respectfully disagree with some of the previous speakers who argued that COVID-19 is a reason to delay a vote on merger I'm counting this right there are 33 folks here on this meeting tonight that's a pretty high number in my experience I've been to select board meetings for the only members of the public in attendance for my for myself and to others I would argue that the electronic mechanisms the board has provided during this emergency have increased not decreased participation I personally have participated in select board meetings in the past year from New Hampshire from Chicago from the village and from T.O.B. heck I even listened to one meeting while I took care of an Essex lawn that desperately needed mowing I would bet that the level of participation this process would actually go down not up if we wait until the emergency is over we've all worked very hard to get a plan that is fair to both sides of the village line thank you madam chair and in the board for your hard work and thank you all of Essex especially those of you who are here tonight for your participation over the last two years I suspect that this high level of participation will continue until the vote COVID-19 or no um madam chair you took the words out of my mouth let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good it's time to vote as mr. Murray pointed out some of you ran for election on a desire for merger so please put please put merger on on the March ballot thank you thank you oh Sharon Zuckowski can you hear me yes we can um I just have a quick question I attended a planning commission meeting on the town plan which I think they've been working on for a couple of years and um they finalized their draft how does that mesh or not mesh with um the merger because they said they're they're going to present it to you uh for approval so I'm just wondering how that works in the whole merger scenario so Sharon do you have any other questions because we're trying to make this just statements to the board and I can answer that after everyone's had their chance to speak I could turn it into a statement I just want to make sure no so how about that as a question left up in the air that maybe someone can answer at some point because I am confused that this is that the town plan is still going forward and I get why they are because who knows a merger may just fail and we do need a town plan got it okay okay thank you was there anything else Sharon that's it okay okay um next is Raj Chalba hi thanks for taking my comments I'm commenting as a resident of the village and I'm as a trustee tonight and I just um wanted to mention that um well a lot of the points were already made by other colors um just didn't get a chance to lower my hand I guess um but we we do have uh an increase in participation we've seen across the board over the last little while um during COVID um and I just remind the select board I guess um that the village I almost three to one I don't have the exact figures in front of me voted for merger they are I know you're aware they are your um constituents and uh you know the point that this is a unpredictable and very tough time financially for a lot of people for half the community it's also a tough time not knowing if they're going to get any kind of tax relief uh down the pike so I would say please give us some thought I don't think putting merger on the on the ballot is going to have a major negative impact to our community quite the opposite I think it'll will come out stronger in the end um I think it's a good plan I think the differences will be worked out between the village charter and the town charter that you're working on by the DevOps subcommittee um and that's really all I had to say in addition to the other comments thanks very much thank you okay Greg did anyone else raise their hand after Raj yes I see Andrew Brown iris banks sarah steltz and harlan smith okay go ahead Andrew that's my delay I need to make him a participant can you hear me now yes awesome thank you so we've heard a few times already about how we are in the middle of a covid pandemic which is absolutely fact we have been in this pandemic since march and yet this past november we had a national election state election and various local special elections which were able to carry on without problem I'm very personally thankful to our our volunteers board of civil authority members and clerk who was able to make this happen during one of those local elections that we just have that we just held this uh this past march or this past november 3453 town residents voted for a merger let me say that again 3453 residents of the town voted for a merger during that village special vote put that into context there were just over 4 000 people who voted in that election nearly three people to one voted for for a merger during the village special election that happened I would urge a select board to please put this on the ballot and allow the community to decide this as you're hearing there are various concerns all of which can be alleviated and or at least addressed through the effort that I am very confident select board will have in terms of mailing in terms of public information yes things will need to be different that's covid that's our new normal right now and as we just experienced both nationally and throughout our communities an election in a vote like this is perfectly capable to happen during covid thank you thank you andrew um okay iris um yes we can okay well I'm discouraged about this plan I mean I we've said no in the past the town has to a merger I want to echo what u b norton and similar folks with similar opinions have said I agree um I feel that a lot of people have difficulty with this technology you know as was said there have been problems complications tonight but also people struggle that are not very facile with these kind of meetings I'm concerned that the information isn't going to get out uh as it would as it might if covid wasn't uh with us so I strongly I'm asking and recommending that this uh this vote not be taken or this not be on the ballot that's all thank you uh sarah stoltz hi lane hi everybody um I I want to say that I agree with all the points from Raj Brian Annie and Andrew um a while ago when I was on a meeting with you all and there was a lot of talk about representation I made a comment at how about years ago in 2006 2007 um the town outside the village wanted to merge slowly and so we did that and then our representation became the issue and so we've given it all of that time all of a sudden now it's covid so hmm talk about a lack of transparency from some of these people I think maybe you guys don't have an opportunity to do something that you want to do so I don't appreciate that second um the nasty threats in the comments that needs to stop because you do not have any evidence so if you want to say something I want to see some evidence about your comments about other people on this forum unacceptable third as a village resident I have waited long enough way too long for something to be done and some of you on this forum or some of them of these people on this forum Elaine have been here maybe in this whole process three to five years well I've been the resident for many years wanting to know what's going to happen so that the village residents can decide what they want to do so it is time to get this on the ballot we have waited long enough you might be new to this whole process for five years or so but I've been in this for a long time and I'm tired of it so it needs to happen thank you very much thank you Harlan hi can you hear me yes we can I just wanted to throw my head into the ring of asking you to please put this on the ballot in March you've given it years of dedication and built it the best that you can I do find it a little ironic that some of the people that built three plus three when some problems were identified by the state said that it's not a big deal we can work this out as we move along some of these small details are not an issue but for some reason the merger piece has to be exactly perfect to their specifications I believe that we are seeing more participation in these meetings and I've ever seen before I've sat in the other meetings you're lucky to get three four people to show up to those these meetings that I come into when I'm able to I'm seeing 30 people sitting in here I think getting the information out last I knew the US mail service hadn't stopped email still works communication is still available for those people that truly want to be involved and get their their message out there are routes available to everybody so again I would encourage you to move forward to ask the staff to continue to work forward to put this on the March ballot thanks thank you Greg has anyone put their hand up since Harlan that's he done his hand is back up and okay is there anyone else who hasn't spoken yet who wants to speak before we open the floor to people to Betsy who has already spoken once no one Greg no okay so Betsy and then we're going to bring it back to the board oh thank you very much I find it ironic and kind of weird that it was brought up that the villagers voted and they voted and they showed what they wanted and we should do it well the voters in the town not the village as a separate vote but the town on the whole we voted for the three by three and we got pushed back on that why is it okay for the villagers because they voted that that means we have to do it but because it was three by three and the villagers didn't get a vote mine your town didn't get a vote in this merger question that they had either but I think it's kind of ironic that you would use that as an example I just don't get it I agree that if there was little details that have to be filled in Harlan that we would do this I'm sorry I mentioned his name and as one other participant said but when it comes to funding something I would like to know where we're funding it that doesn't seem like a little detail and not at all and when we talk about taxes that's not a little detail it's a big detail and the fact that you are required by law to have two meetings for everyone to be able to attend to hear about the merger before the merger vote not by mail that's always been there you have to have two meetings and as we said that is going to be you have to have them in January and February in order to meet the deadlines so how do you do that in the midst of when that is supposed to be the biggest wave we're going to have after Christmas when people you know are going to go and be with their families and friends 15 seconds I'm done thank you thank you okay Greg anybody else just quick there are several hands raised but I think they're all leftovers I guess if any of you have who have your hand raised who have put it up a second time if you could just say it's a second time quick whoever just said quick go ahead and I think and that's patty okay patty then I just have an idea I have a quick idea for all of us so we don't bicker I have a friend who's a municipal attorney in Massachusetts and another lawyer friend of mine in Burlington state law governs it's an idea for all of us state law governs mergers but it will be but it will help to speak with a local public agency attorney to decide what steps we in town outside the village should take I think it'd be at our best interest etc putting this on the ballot to I would be willing to look into an attorney for you you can give me that assignment for the town outside the village if you like if you in the town outside the village would like an objective local municipal attorney to hear what we have to say in town outside the village to help you Elaine decide you know whether or not we should put this on the ballot or not and it'd be be more of a professional objective source so that's my idea thank you you're welcome Annie and then we're going to close it up for the board hi thank you to two quick things number one I'm uncomfortable with the fact that our select word might think that I personally whether you agree or disagree with me as a person is not why I would vote for you I would vote for you to be trustworthy and thoughtful and so yes while I certainly have desires for how we should do things I trust the greater good of a vote so regardless of your choice here this evening personally you're not at any risk for whether I will or will not vote for you in the future because your kindness and trustworthiness is what people vote for so don't let that you know bother you at least from me and secondarily um I think it's a little awkward that there's a lot of feeling like as though everyone's doing your job with you there's this sudden switch gears where we're all the select board with you don't forget that you're the select board we voted you there thank you thank you okay we're going to bring it back to the board I truly appreciate everybody's comments and your passion and the research that everyone's done and the concerns um we are in extraordinary times and this that does not make this work any easier um so board members let's have one more round of whether you have any questions or comments and then we were going to aren't going to go to a vote we are done with the public portion of this we need to move on so um Andy Vince Dawn Pat do you have any other questions or comments that you'd like to make before we vote Andy so George made a comment that uh we all agreed to have the same level of service I that's that's incorrect because I remember when we had this discussion I was adamant to bring up the question of whether we meant same level or same quality of service um and uh it was everyone agreed in that meeting if you go back and read the minutes it will tell you that it was we agreed to the same quality of service not the same level of service just wanted to clarify that um another thing that I want to bring up is that uh for the vote in March we the legislature has not yet given municipalities the ability to have either remote meetings or to automatically mail out ballots um so at this point the way the way things stand is you the the choice you can make is to go to a strand ballot which we we already are going to do because of the vote um other than that there's currently no legislation that allows us to do anything different than what we always do which is a in-person meeting which I think is probably not going to be allowed so there's at this point no no way to have that meeting but uh so that's still an open question um I I I still have I I just have concerns about the fact that we don't know how we're funding these the districts I believe that there are uh liabilities associated with the fact that that we're taxing one part of the town to provide a service which is also available outside of that district without an additional um tax uh sidewalk in front of my house gets plowed I don't pay an extra tax for it I'm not part of the district but my sidewalk gets plowed I'm not being I'm not being charged an extra tax for that so I believe we're we're subject to a lawsuit associated with that also from the capital district a 12-year capital district makes no sense to me given that there's only a five-year capital plan in the village at this point and I also think it's hard hard to say that if you use village only capital to pave a parking lot in the village and then I go to the library and park on it I go to the brownout library and I park on that I'm getting the benefit of that capital so I I am very concerned that the you know people have been pretty vocal about wanting in the village to want not to pay duplicate things uh we have a two cent capital tax that we charge across the town that the village residents will pay and they'll be paying their own capital and I'll get to use what they build with it um so I'm I'm very concerned that we're it only takes one person to uh regardless of how many people voted for the merger plan that includes those districts only takes one person to launch a lawsuit for either of those two two issues the other thing is it's a two or five dollar it's it's on the order of two to five dollars that this these districts are uh the differences it's making in in the tax outside the village so I don't understand the reason for putting them in um you know if we were you know George said it's just to save tax increases outside the village it's two to five dollars um unless unless I'm doing the math wrong and nobody's told me I I I haven't arrived I'm not but uh so I'm I'm I'm not saying that I won't vote to warn this on what I'm saying is I don't think it's ready and I'm not comfortable with the fact that we're totally ambiguous and how we're gonna actually implement the uh the districts thank you Andy Vince or Don or Pat can you hear me go ahead Vince yeah I mean um so I Andy I just wanted to ask Andy a real quick question the my audio cut out after you said ambiguous what was the rest of your sentence uh I said that that I don't know what did I say I said you know in the future I mean the the date that we have to to vote to warn this is sometime in the future and I'm not sure what exactly that date is I'm not going to commit today to vote in favor of warning until I I'm much more comfortable with how we're implementing the districts so um so I've been giving this a lot of thought and I understand there's a lot of fear around all this it's a lot of fear of change like I'm no stranger to change and the fear that comes with it um but I support warning this I do I do want to take into consideration Andy's comments on the tax districts but I believe that that those decisions were made long before those decisions shouldn't be revisited today I want to understand the problems that Andy's talking about but I think you know the time to actually change this was in the process of building this charter and I think we're kind of all here at the 11th hour screaming about like little details before a test and I I really really feel that putting this this vote off another year will be doing a disservice to the town and to the people that want it or don't want it I'm I'm just kind of and I'm kind of upset with a lot of the public comments around this because where were you folks where were you folks when all this was being built I mean I understand that you're here now that you you want to have your say but where were you in the process of building this I'm not saying you don't have a voice or that you don't have the right to input but like come on people like be there at the beginning be there when we needed you Vince with all due respect I do have to say that many of the people in the audience today have been there from day one and I realize what you're saying because it's frustrating to hear people tell us you're not taking into account the things that we're worried about when we know we have but it's the nature of our service that that's what people can say and in their estimation perhaps we haven't but I would I need to tell you that it's not necessarily fair to say that these folks have not been there since the beginning because many of them and I totally understand that and the people who are the people who I'm talking to understand who they are you know if if you've had input in this process I'm not speaking to you but I also find and I'm I'm on a roll here so I'm going to keep going and please excuse my emotionality you know the people that want to have Ken and Irene to explain the pros and the cons they they both had two chances to explain the pros and the cons of their ideas around merger Max Levy left the select board and resigned they had they both had a chance to run for that seat I ran for that seat Annie Cooper resigned from the select board they both had a chance to be selected for that seat neither one of them or any of their cadre tried they didn't try to do it the normal way the the way that the process is supposed to happen they've tried to circumvent then delay the process at every single step Vince I need you to take a step back okay I totally understand the passion you're speaking with right now and it's incredibly frustrating but it's not appropriate for us to talk like that at the board level I'm really sorry to say that but I understand where you're coming from deeply Don or Pat yeah I can't I can't see you I'm so sorry so just speak up no no problem um I I think I want to talk uh just a little bit about um I mean a point certainly uh Andy that you mentioned not to pick on you at all um but you know as you mentioned you know specifics of concerns about people paying for something um you know that uh the rest of town may already get I mean I think that we certainly as a select board are in difficult positions where we're sort of constantly warring with that aren't where we know that there's half of our populace right now who do pay for services that they don't get and that is a present reality um you know the merger goes a long way towards solving that um you know is this perfect I mean obviously not we never I don't think anyone expected that it was going to be perfect and you're right in that it only takes one lawsuit and I've been concerned about that for years that someone in s extension may levy a lawsuit against the town that says hey why am I paying taxes for a planning commission that does not serve me when I pay for you know a village at the you know group that does the same very you know I mean I could choose examples um you know I I think that those examples are significantly larger and have been in place for much longer than the districts that you're concerned with Andy um so for me I think the movement this merger itself the plan and the charter that we have created is the best way to equalize out a longstanding inequity and this is the easiest the fairest way to do it and we as select board members though even earlier tonight I admittedly said you know we were voted in on the platforms that we put forward to the people you know I was definitely pro merger but I'm not the ultimate decider what we are deciding tonight is do we place this on the ballot for the public to decide and I think that that is a very good thing for us to do I think that's absolutely something that we can do during COVID the technology absolutely is not perfect but by the same extension so would any meetings that we have held at 8 o'clock at night or 7 o'clock at night for individuals who work and can't make those one or two meetings you know I mean we are in a tough position where we are always going to be excluding a percentage of the populace but I do think that during COVID we need to keep moving forward with the work that we've done and the work that we still have left to do on our plates so obviously I'm going to be voting yes to place us on the ballot and I think that ultimately it's good for us to remember that us voting to place this on the ballot is not us saying merger is happening it's us saying let's give our town residents the chance to vote on it and then that's who decides and I think that's all I have to say thank you Pat um I just want to address one thing that that Andy brought up we um the the chair of senate senate government ops today contacted vermont clerks to share information about a bill that's being drafted that's been drafted to allow towns multiple things to do at town meetings so there will be a the bill will be for mail-in ballot the ability to change the date of the town meeting if they wanted to and a couple other options and so and the governor also announced today that he supports that legislation so I expect that by the time January second week of January gets here we will have a solid answer about being able to conduct town meeting electronically and that we will also be able to do mail-in ballots and there is also talk about providing grant funding to towns to help them afford mail-in ballots because it's not the normal thing that they do for town meeting so there that just happened today this afternoon um so we need to wrap this up and I'm not speaking about because it's 859 I'm saying this because we have been doing this for the latter part of two to three years the questions that have been raised about districts have we have discussed them more than I can remember at this point and it the opportunity to make these comments and to make these adjustments is frankly past the issues that were raised today Andy you received lots of answers from staff and while they may be confusing I am confident that they are on the right track and I am also 100% confident that the attorneys at the tax department the legislative council and the senators and the representatives and the house government operations committees that we have run this document by multiple times have not raised flags about the districts so if someone's going to sue us we'll be ready to meet them in court because we have done the due diligence necessary to make this a legal document I also want to say that we have really taken every single effort we could and every opportunity we could to satisfy the many questions and concerns you've had Andy and I really want to express my thanks to you for being so attentive to the details of the charter but I also need to repeat what I said earlier we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good and at every meeting there is a new objection and at every meeting there is a new question and we just need to keep moving and we have a close to perfect charter the voters will be the final deciders upon it and I can see by your facial expressions and the things you're doing that you disagree and disrespect what I'm saying but I'm afraid that's the way it is and we really do need to vote now so your hand is up I don't want to cut you off from your comments please make them but then we need to we need to move along I just want to get back to the question I asked earlier this is not a vote to warn no this is just a vote to say whether we're ready to warn at some future date to prepare to ask the staff to prepare the warning to be voted on in January so I will repeat what I said earlier I have not said and I will not say I have not said that I won't at some future date vote in favor of warning this but today I'm going to say we're not ready that's fine so and that's enough okay would anyone like to make a motion I will I'm getting the verbiage up I move that the select board commit to including a question on the March 2021 ballot asking voters if the town of Essex shall adopt the plan of merger of the town and s excuse me of the town of Essex and village of Essex Junction and the proposed charter for the merge community thank you Pat is there a second second thank you Vince any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed nay no and we'll need to do a roll call to confirm that Pat aye Vince aye andy nay dawn nay elaine aye the motion passes thank you all we're going to move on to item 5e now discussion and possible action on the following FY 22 budget items this is something that we're going to need to discuss in three parts because there are basically two decisions for the select board to make but three aspects to it so I would like to ask staff to walk us through set the topic up for us and give us a description of what's going on and then we'll discuss if you wouldn't mind sounds like a good plan good evening everybody hi Sarah so two years ago one of the final projects that Lauren Morris so undertook before she retired was to evaluate a way to eliminate the town aside the village highway tax which has been a stated goal of this left board in all the budget years that I've been here so far including this upcoming one and this change in the way rolling stock capital is funded in both the village and the town would do a couple things and one of those is to eliminate the town outside the village highway tax it would also so and it would do it in such a way to have a small impact on tax rates across the board it involves a few moving parts I I'm hopeful that on September 28th and we talked at length about where the money comes from and how it flows between the entities that was helpful in setting the stage for some of you things I'm about to tell you tonight so in the town budget there is a small piece that's funded by a tax levy just on taxpayers outside of the village that's currently 1.1 cents and it raises a dollar amount annually that approximates the transfer from the town operating budget to the town capital budget for public works or highway rolling stock or equipment that literally rolls trucks snow plows vehicles in the village budget there is also a transfer to the village rolling stock fund for highway equipment with wheels this transfer in the village budget happens outside of the highway segment of that budget because if you remember per the public works MOU between the town and the village the highway segment of the village budget is set by the trustees and then it is funded through the town budget which means that highway operations townwide so town outside the village and village are funded equitably by all taxpayers what I mean by that is all taxpayers pay the same effective tax rate for highway operations but they do not pay the same effective tax rate for the annual contribution to capital for highway rolling stock the proposed change would move the first piece is taking the highway rolling stock contribution in the village budget and moving it into that highway operating budget which is then covered by the public works MOU those amounts would then be funded through the town budget which as we all remember is funded by the entire grand list in conjunction with that so that we then don't have an imbalance on the town side the town outside the village highway tax would be eliminated making it so that the town contribution to capital for town rolling stock is then also funded by the entire town grand list because we're taking similar dollar amounts the town outside the village highway taxes raises more than the village annual contribution to capital but as we've seen the town outside the village grand list is larger than the village grand list because we're taking dollar amounts that are raised on two subsets of the grand list the hands are important and raising them now across the whole grand list we end up with this equalizing effect that has a cost to the average taxpayer of no more than three doll no more than two dollars so it's a reduction of three dollars two dollars and eighty cents to the cost of an average village taxpayer an increase of a dollar sixty eight in the town it also meets the goal of a the stated goal of eliminating the town outside the village highway tax i think it helps to simplify the tax rate structure which we could definitely use more of and it meets the goals in the from the public works study and in the public works mou so this because we are eyeballs deep in budget season and moving forward with village budget day on wednesday and then presenting town budgets to the select board for a review before christmas in anticipation of town budget day this piece i'm here tonight to ask for a decision one way or the other i can go forward either way but i do need a decision so that we can move forward so the process would be threefold the select board would have to approve an increase greater than a one-time increase greater than six percent in the village highway budget because we're moving that capital transfer in for the first time that's per the public works mou and then the select board would also have i would ask the select board to make a motion to eliminate the highway tax so that we were all very clear that we were going to do that in conjunction with all of this and then the trustees would have to approve the structural change in their budget tomorrow night if the first two pieces happen and then wednesday is budget day so at this point i'd be happy to answer any questions the board happens about all those words sarah thank you for just everything actually just thank you for everything um this is something that that we've discussed that many times and i appreciate your the staff's ability to get this back to us and i know andy has asked for this for several years now and and i'm really glad we're able to talk about it in a way that hopefully we can actually have make it happen this year so thank you um i actually don't have questions um but i would love to have board members uh have their questions answered then sir don i can't see you um i don't have any questions okay don i do great go ahead so if we take over the villages because this is new it means that rolling stock then we have control of that on those vehicles or they still have control of their vehicles the village still has control over it so similar to the way the highway operating budget is funded through the town but it's under the control of the village this would be another component of that thank you you're welcome andy i gotta turn my camera back on so you can see my facial expression so i'm not trying to hide here it was actually frozen on on a yeah yeah i sat down for a while while it was frozen it was kind of a nice break um so uh sarah this was proposed two years ago also this exact same proposal and it was withdrawn any comments as to why it was withdrawn before what were the concerns that caused it because it was never actually presented to the select board i don't it was removed from the select board's agenda two years ago i i did not go back and do that research andy so i my recollection was that it was presented to the select board um and the trustees because lauren and i made budgets with this change and then we had to scramble and make them without the change um but i think that there were concerns about ownership of equipment and that was the first um thing that came up then and then also let's i i can't remember the other any of the other concerns but i mean we could go we could dig it back up i uh i did just update lauren's memo so i we could uh go pull up the old minutes and see what the discussion was yeah i recall that it was it was included in the package but then it was at the meeting it was we were told it wasn't going to be discussed so i guess i guess it was my sense that the trustees backed away from it so i was just wondering if those concerns were still there but the trustees aren't here to speak for it so i i guess maybe it's an appropriate task i seem to recall that there were there were other funding things that they needed to the trustees needed to address regarding a increased transfer to their capital budget at the time that made them decide not to go forward with right right yeah yeah okay i'm just jarring some memories that there was there were other what they considered more important things in their uh whatever whatever was needed outside of this question okay yeah i remember that now you're right okay thank you pat anything i don't think so i mean i think initially last year um i wasn't really thrilled about the idea of eliminating the town highway tax um but in you know conjunction with everything else it seems like this is a much more sort of equitable solution maybe just kind of a random question but if the town maybe should say to be highway tax is eliminated would that be the last the to be gets exclusively levied against them if i think that's correct the only outstanding item correct so that's correct that's the only tax rate that's levied only on the town outside the village so i think there's a lot to like about this just from a the perspective of sort of bringing everything in line um you know and obviously simplifying it from your end so um i'm all for it okay and sarah just to sort of very simplistically repeat it the transfer is is basically a press we've already had this precedent because we transferred the village's public works budget into the town budget a couple years ago that has gone smoothly and if the village needs to the select board will have the ability to reject it if it goes over a certain percentage the increase in the budget when the village sets it on their annual basis correct okay correct well per the public works mo you if it's going to be more than a six percent increase it has to come to this left board for approval right and so the public works mo you is the document that we jointly reviewed two summers ago i believe and moving doing this move that we're talking about today was a recommendation of that review of the mo you so this is just a continuation of an existing agreement that we have with the town in the village and it's not necessarily something significant and new that we have to like do a whole bunch of additional work on this is like ready to go and we can take care of it and eliminate the tov highway tax at the same time correct okay well um and so in order to accomplish this sarah you need us to do two things you need us to approve the elimination of the highway tax in one motion and then you need a second motion for us to approve the village's highway budget increase above six percent correct i have no problem with them being the same motion but i do just want it on record that we are we are committing now to doing the six percent and the elimination of the highway tax because this only has that that's that's minimal impact if we do both things right and then the third aspect of it is the trustees have to agree to do their end right i tomorrow night i'll ask the trustees if they're okay with this and then wednesday's village budget day so here we go andy thank you for waiting for me to finish my questions go ahead um this is a budget question so i have reservations about committing to this without seeing the entire budget i'm i'm i'm fully in support of doing this don't get me wrong um as you said i've been asking for this to get rid of this highway tax for for quite a while and i and i i agree this is a uh clean and slick way to do it but i i um without approving it in the context of the entire f y 22 budget i'm you know i'm i'm i'm fine with giving you a consensus that yeah we're happy with it but i don't know that i'm i don't think that we should commit to it without seeing the entire budget that's that's a i can understand that i think that's you know i can understand where you come from coming from um i'm gonna be maybe a little more frank than i normally am if you're if you're not okay with with the concept outside of the budget then this isn't the year to do it i think i think we we just have you have one of me a lot of moving parts um and and i direction either way is really what i need in order to move forward wednesday the village is going to look at their budget and then it's it's time to compile the town budget i'll have that for you before christmas i'm hoping to also have you know fund balance from the auditors but i have a list of a couple dozen things that they're asking me for as well and and other looming deadlines like i just it's it's hard to make all the timing line up with the with the moving pieces and sarah the village needs us to act as well you know so that they can know that if they do it for their but they'll they need to know this from us for their budget day which is this week right right their budget day is wednesday now they ultimately vote on their budget after the town votes on their budget so we could go back in and change it in january after town budget day you know there are a lot of special requests of me and this would just be another one of them that would have to be prioritized and then and i would say for those in sarah close your ears for a minute uh there are dozens of decisions to be made in the budget that if you want to hold off on some of those they may have a little more uh flexibility and elasticity than this this is kind of a decision you make and it sets a framework for the budget and some other things and then there's the department budgets that if we nipped and tucked a bit here and there we could get to a place where um you're more comfortable but you won't know that until you go through it but this is kind of the first big domino that needs to be toppled to get to the end um and i wanted to remind people just just it's been a long night please remember we did a zero rate increase this fiscal year knowing that it was covid knowing that it was going to be hard times we are also going to be digging back out of a zero rate increase so there there's there's some gymnastics that go on with this and sarah's bending and twisting as best as she can thank you but this is the first domino because it sets some direction not only for the town but for the village budget i will say it is a lot easier with the new program because i have multiple scenarios set up than with all the spreadsheets but it is still i would still ask for direction one way or the other and in and i don't whatever way it is i'm fine and as we've mentioned before i mean i've been here almost three years this has been on your goals um for well before that i believe this tax was upwards of almost eight cents seven seven does that sound right it was it was fully eight it was fully eight it's fully eight we are down to point one uh one this this would this is something that's been on the wish list we're this close um so all right um if there aren't any other uh board questions or andy yeah i just i'm just going to say we do plenty of things based on select board consensus and uh again i mean last year's increase was over seven percent so it's been if this is be two years in a row where we've had a bigger than six percent increase and and i'm not saying that that's a problem i just want to i just want to look at the entire budget sure um and i i'd i'd i'd like to go forward with just consensus and not make a commitment here because again i haven't we we don't have the context of the entire budget what definitely i'm comfortable with that i will yell at ebbon if it all gets changed at the last minute and he already knows that wait wait wait wait wait why is don smiling at that why are you smiling that she's going to yell at me you gotta figure out how to make your camera for you so she can't i'm sorry i forgot to get the camera off for i did that put the cat back you put the cat back on your screen okay so andy you're requesting that this is not an actual vote but rather a consensus that would be my vast preference given that i don't have the context the entire budget correct our board members okay with that i am fine with that i'm fine with that um there's also public with their hands up a lane right right i just want to double check and make sure as long as it is sufficient for sarah to do the work that she needs to do and as long as it is sufficient for to allow for decision making at the villages level because they have it's dependent upon that then consensus works for me as well okay so before we move on from this business item are there members of the public who wish to talk about this particular item greg i don't know if you can like clear all the hands or i'm i i can't even make sense of how many hands are up right now and whether they're left over or not i'm sure if i can i this is seven i see ken and ireen and that's he done has her hand up that she done can we confirm those before we start and then also that's all i see and tracy delphi okay ken saying yes okay so ken ireen betsy uh betsy tracy harlan okay go ahead ken thank you thank you madam chair just a little bit of trivia for you on the highway tax was actually a whole dollar from 1959 through 1966 those years prior to that it was on point 75 and then point five since 1972 when our charter passed we've gathered up a whole 20 million dollars in highway tax and dollars at that time not a corrected for inflation i'd like to suggest that this is another um we lost you ken we don't have your audio ken okay let's let's move on to ireen and then we'll try ken again ireen are you able to speak she's muted at least on my screen greg you with us i'm here i don't have an option to unmute ireen though i seem to have an option myself if that helps anyone ireen if you i think you can unmute yourself maybe ken are you back hi there up there's ireen go ahead ireen they're just to refresh people's memory um i was on the select board two years ago three years ago when um the village first thought about transferring its rolling stock and the issue that was the stacking point was that if the town was going to pay for it the labels on the trucks would have to change and that was where the trustees at that joint meeting drew the line and said you know what we'll find that 200 000 dollars ourselves thanks okay ken can you try again we're gonna drop down to betsey i'll aim my net go ahead betsey you're muted i'm unmuted i can hear you now go ahead my hand is down i don't have it up i'm looking at my screen on my hand set up oh okay okay never mind carry on uh tracy oh go ahead wait i'm sorry ken is back can give it a shot uh yes the wonders of technology there we go so where was i um i'm a little bit uncomfortable with the whole mou concept because it ends up that part of the town ends up contributing to another municipalities operating expenses and now capital without gaining any control over that budgetary item i can't vote on a village budget yet i'm going to be effectively paying part of their operating and capital expenditures so i know that i sometimes come up with somewhat radical ideas that um that very entertaining such as the zip code concept so here's a more radical idea for you let's get it over with let's do with public works what we've done with police let's roll up the village public works department into a town public works department that takes care of the whole town to make life simple for everybody village won't have to have a budgetary sequence for public works they'll come to it doesn't sound so good huh so the village would come to the but the the town budgetary meeting and lobby for expenditures that they would like we would get that those economies of scale i keep on hearing that we're going to be getting but don't ever seem to see and i think that would be a better approach so just to underline i'm just a little bit uncomfortable with this concept of part of the town paying for another municipalities expenditures without having a vote on it that's it for me thank you thanks ken um tracy she's trying i think there we go there she is uh this is what we in the it field like to call job security um so sort of along uh ken's line of thinking my my immediate thought when i read the packet was is this a precursor to merging departments okay i mean i think you know along now those same lines both the town inside the village of the town outside the village obviously we all have a need for public works we all have a need for rolling stock if we can leverage those savings by only having one i think that's something that we should do or at least look into after merger if it goes through we're going to have to do that anyway so this would kind of give us a leg up on that my other question is in the packet the recommendations number three talks about village highway transfer to rolling stock into the f y 22 village highway budget but the table um the second to last row talks about the effect of adding village highway rolling stock to town budget um so is which one is correct i guess both of them are tracy so one of the challenges with things that are so complicated is that they can see you know is is that we have all we have all of these moving pieces and so in the village budget what has to happen is that there are different segments of each of the municipalities budget and in the village they have a segment just for transfers and miscellaneous and that's currently where this transfer exists and this is where it's budgeted year over year and that segment is raised entirely on village only tax levy and then there's the village highway operating budget which is a different segment in the budget just like finance or administration manager it would be in the town budget for example so the in that segment of the budget when we look at it in this entirety is then moved the net the sum total of the expenditures are moved into the town budget as a single line which then gets funded through the town budget so the trustees have to approve the change to the structure of their budget which moves that transfer into the town into I'm sorry which moves from the transfer segment into the village highway operating budget so that we don't have pieces that are funded differently in different places so that kind of meet ends up tidies up the village budget and then that all gets funded through the town budget does that help answer your question it does thank you um and just one last comment that I have in dealing with MOUs when I put my professional hat on I get nervous whenever you know if a binding boat is taken to oh let's agree to increase it without a maximum so I would just echo Andy's line of thinking as far as waiting to see what those actual numbers are so that you can put you know a maximum number on that if that makes sense and thank you thank you okay I think I see so I have Harlan to go still and now I see Lorraine and Greg am I missing anyone else that is all that I see right now okay thank you go ahead Harlan hi can you hear me yes we can actually I did not have my hand up but since you called on me and there's been a conversation going on um to simplify or at least simplify it in my head Sarah um basically the village used to pay for all of their capital on the rolling stock and the town through the highway tax used to pay for their capital on the rolling stock and now we're just going to combine them all together and everybody's going to pay for everybody's rolling stock sad short and simple and correct you're muted Sarah no I am I'm just trying to uh think about where where this the super simple version might miss something and I don't think that it has so it it just like all taxpayers pay the same effective rate for highway operating now all taxpayers are going to pay the also pay the same effective tax rate for um all highway that's funded through transfers to capital out of the operating budget so yes does that then I just say what you just said we're all paying for all of the equipment that services both the TID and the TOV on the capital end of things that's basically what we're doing is balancing it out so that all of the taxpayers are paying for all of the equipment right that's yes for all the highway rolling stock so this does not include like this doesn't move into fire right yep no no totally get it totally understand that piece this is all we're all talking highway here yeah okay um thanks for the opportunity I didn't have my hand raised but as the conversation went on it was like wait a minute so I'm good thanks thank you okay Lorraine and then we're going to bring it back to the board hi thanks Elaine um Sarah I I can watch you all night long I wish I had you in college or my calculus classes so it's just I know um but I uh one of the questions is because I too like Ken I would love just to see the whole budget merged and into like the police and just make it one and I think that would make it easier for you as well in the staff member in terms of chewing up labor too um but with that said and now that I'm living outside the village and no longer in the village um if we because the village in a way because they're part of the town they are currently paying for a rolling stock on top of that or does that village uh I mean that highway tax cover the whole rolling stock for the TOV area so it without pulling up the town capital budget which is funded through the two cent capital tax that's levied on all taxpayers the amount of funds that are raised by the town outside the village highway tax annually approximate the operating transfer to capital out of the town highway budget which funds so that transfer then gets transferred into the capital fund and then it funds the town rolling highway rolling stock plan over time so like some years we spend more some years we spend a lot every year we put an equal amount in that's the same way that the village does things um if there is on the town side if there is not enough money in that fund from the operating transfer it live it exists as part of the larger capital fund and there's the two cent capital tax that can be that can be leaned on and that would happen during the budget process if that were the case the last few years that I'm familiar most familiar with since I've been here we have not needed to do that but I wouldn't go as far to say that it's it's never going to happen or has right because you can't predict that right or maybe you can so so do that um and then does the the rolling stock for the town does that service both the village and the town well generally no however the town and the village highway departments work together often to support each other and if the town has a piece of equipment that's down that the village has they'll they'll share and and they work their open lines of communication they're often you know because of the public works mo you because of the way that the public works departments have been working together more and more we have more of this blending so strictly you know I think that the village equipment primarily services the village the town outside the village equipment primarily services the town outside the village but just like we have a town engineer who provides services back and forth and you know this there's collaboration oh that's yeah there's a lot of collaboration between the two departments that starts to blend that line so shared services basically so that the village rolling stock also at times has serviced the town as well and so because Dennis serviced both the village and the town um in a way even though we don't have control as to veers for the village rolling stock in a way you kind of do ish because because of the because he serves both the village in the town outside the village am I getting that right I'm just trying to understand this yeah I think so also well because the thing that concern me was legally is just it's weird to then pay for something that you don't own you know like in terms of not having the representation and not be able to vote on whether you add that rolling stock or not and whether that eventually increases my taxes without being able to vote on it so that that's where I get concerned so I just want to make sure I'm understanding this right it would be awesome if this could all be one budget and all so simple and one vote and one rate I wish I would be offered just doing one town I mean really in terms of merging stuff I it seems to work for the police I echo what Ken says I would rather just see it one department so but thank you for your time so would we awesome we're all on the same page I think one more person has a question Brian Sheldon and then we need to bring it back up okay never mind he's withdrawn his question okay so back to the board we have a consensus that we are okay with the elimination of the town highway tax and the highway budget increase above the village highway budget increase above six percent but we do still will need to vote to approve that I'm assuming however we could do that as part of the overall approval of the budget that is correct I've got to think about the timing yes yes because when you guys the select board approve the town budget to be warned then there is still enough time for me to make any final changes to the village budget for it to be warned the challenge becomes if there are changes made to the town budget on the floor that affect the village budget there's not enough time to then get them into the village budget before village budget day so yes so sorry to answer your question Elaine yes there's no floor changes to the budget this year right right because it's going to be australian ballot yep well Sarah all of that said if there's anything you need from us that you need official decisions on don't hesitate to ask all right and mad madam chair if I can just one quick thing since I'm the manager of both the village and the town and the rolling stock budget has to come through me before the board see it and our goal of alignment and consolidation of service we are trying very hard and being successful not purchasing duplicate equipment we are trying to make sure that we have just enough equipment we need so yeah we try not to buy two end loaders if we don't need two end loaders we try not to buy two you know so one time the town will buy one type of piece of equipment and share it with the village and the village buys another piece of equipment and shares it with the town so we're not both buying very expensive equipment that sits in the shop for three days waiting for somebody to use it they're being used a lot so there you have it thanks seven okay so thank you everyone for the discussion and the questions and Sarah thank you as always for the really clear explanations you really help us make some complicated stuff understandable and I hope that we are doing just a little bit to make your job slightly less complicated all right business item five f which is what we moved from the consent agenda earlier in the evening the minutes of November 16th don you had some edits you'd like to make I do aligned 150 to 152 should say that Mr. Signorello said that he developed a chart going back to 1950 and village residents held the majority of the select board seats for 20 years the way it should read that's what I wrote anyway okay and I'm line 158 where it says the other six six should be replaced with five Kathy do you have that confirmed oh no that's not Kathy Kathy can you just confirm that you've gotten that change okay she's got it great thank you Kathy no that was Tracy I was just telling you that Kathy can't unmute because she's an attendee right now I understand she also said that she got it so thank you um okay so then we need to approve those minutes separately as amended would anyone like to move that don't move don't move thank you dawn is there a second to approve the amended fence any further discussion all those in favor of approving the minutes of November 16th please say aye aye opposed okay thank you now we do have some executive session items but we're going to skip down to the consent agenda first before we handle those would anyone like to move the consent agenda I'll move the consent agenda thank you Vince is there a second thank you dawn all any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay and now we are at the reading file um board members do you have any questions or comments regarding the reading file or anything else at this time okay I do really quickly very fast I know we're late but kudos to our police department for the recent updates and the apprehension of the vehicle fires we've had sort of a rash I would say in the community of you know some break-ins and the vehicle fires recently so I'm very pleased to see that we're getting resolution on those cases um big thanks to Jim Berniger who has stepped down as a chair of the EDC over this last week he did quite a lot of work in that role and just wanted to express my thanks to him for serving as long as he did I think uh one last thing just to note that I think there was a mention earlier in the evening in regards to the merger financials since that is in the reading file there was some talk that we never got any information about separation financials that was part of Sarah's presentation back in September so people are curious about that it's just something that they can go and look at and we'd be happy to find the links if someone wants to get that to us okay thanks Pat any other board members with comments on the reading file okay and we had Irene at the beginning of the meeting asking if she could make a comment on the reading file go ahead Irene thank you I'd like to comment on the staff response to the 45 residents requesting more robust and up-to-date financial numbers about merger I appreciate that Sarah gave us an immediate response to that memo and I would hope she'll take the time needed to generate complete answers to our questions also the staff memo uh refers to 37 insiders and that should be updated to 45 thank you thank you okay um if and I'd also like to echo Pat's um thanks to Jim Berniger serving on the EDC he was an excellent member and we're going to miss him and wish him the best okay we have two executive sessions that we need to adjourn into so we have a couple different motions to make and I do believe that we will be exiting this meeting and entering a separate meeting for the executive session and do you need us to come back Greg for any other business if we're going to point somebody we do yeah we might have to have you come back we'll see how the discussions go and like you said for the appointment thank you Greg I appreciate that if there's an appointment so we'll leave this meeting open we're going to hang out in the other room do our executive session and come back if we need to okay so um Andy would you like to make the motions to enter into executive session please I certainly will I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointments in accordance with one VSA section 313 a3 and to include the unified manager and deputy manager is there a second second thank you Vince all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi next Andy okay I move that the select board make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the town's position concerning the proposed contract discussion would place the town at a substantial disadvantage is there a second second thanks Pat all those in favor hi hi hi host thank you next Andy I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss potential contracts pursuant to one VSA 313 a1 a to include the unified manager deputy manager and community development director thanks is there a second second thanks Pat all those in favor hi hi the post that was just three right Andy yep okay thank you so we're entering executive session at 952 and we'll be back if we need to do any business afterwards we'll just wait for Don to arrive and we can finish okay I think Don's here I just want to confirm that Don can connect I see her but I don't hear her Greg can you unmute Don please okay try that that's better perfect thank you okay would anybody like to make a motion I make the motion that we appoint Annie Cooper to a term on the economic development committee thank you is there a second I'll second that thank you Vince any further discussion just to be clear it's economic development commission sorry thank you all those in favor please say hi hi hi host all right congratulations Andy welcome to the EPC congratulations I am so grateful and I really appreciate the respect and honestly I take this very seriously and I appreciate it more than I can really articulate and I will serve you well and wise and graciously from all angles I promise thank you for the trust we know you will I am really quite moved actually to be honest with you I I'm so grateful thank you thank you okay that concludes our business for the evening would anyone like to adjourn vote to make a motion that we adjourn is there a second second thank you Vince all those in favor hi hi host all right thank you all very much and have a good evening