 First 2021 select board meeting to order. And then on Greg are there any agenda additions or changes. Nothing from staff. Pardon me. I'll make that an open mic. Yeah. If you're not a board member or a staff member could you please turn off your microphone and your camera. That would be much appreciated so that the board can see the participants of the meeting who are acting right now. Thank you. Need a few people here. Thanks very much. It's just really helpful to have that. OK, I have an agenda addition of a invocation of civility that I'd like to add as item. I guess we call it 3A after we approve the agenda that our clerk will read aloud. Are there any other additions to the agenda? Hearing none. I will entertain a motion from a board member to approve the agenda as amended. I make the motion we approve the agenda as amended. Thank you Don. Is there a second? Seconded. Thank you Vince. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? OK, I am going to share my screen and I'm going to put up the words. And then Vince, our clerk, is going to read them. OK, go ahead Vince. Alrighty, we are gathered today or we are gathered together in civil assembly. We gather as a community in the oldest sense of the word. We gather to come together and try to make decisions about what is right about what is wrong. Let us advocate for our positions, but not at the expense of others. Let us remember that the that there is an immense gap between saying I am right and saying I believe I am right. And that our neighbors with whom we might disagree are good people with hopes and dreams is true and high as ours. And let us always remember that in the end, caring for each other in this community is of far greater importance than any difference we may have. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you, Vince. And tonight's agenda is predominantly public hearing. So in order to make sure that our process goes smoothly this evening, I'm going to put a few guidelines for public to be heard up on the screen and I'll review them pretty quickly and then we'll move on to public to be heard. So once again, I'm going to share my screen. So each for public to be heard this evening and during our hearings, each resident may have no more than two minutes to speak. Each resident will have a turn to speak once. Residents may not see their time to other residents. And please have your camera and mic off until it's your turn to speak. And then after you speak, please turn off your mic. And also don't forget to say your name when you begin speaking. Please address the chair and not engage in a dialogue between board members or the audience and yourself. And please refrain from using the chat as a place to put comments. Simply use the chat to indicate that you wish to speak in case your hand raising function is not working. So thank you for that. Whoops. Hang on. I've lost my screen. There we go. Make sure I stop sharing. OK. So now we will turn to the part of the agenda public to be heard where residents who wish to speak to the board on items that are not on the agenda can do so at this time. If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand or indicate in the chat that you'd like to speak. And please remember the rules I've just reviewed. I'm going to pick you in the order that I see you on my screen. First Annie Cooper and then Margaret Smith. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I would like to graciously extend my support as always for all five select board members for select board member Flourish for select board member Watts for select board member Murray for select board member Franco and for a select board member and chair Haney for leaving out the other titles. I'm grateful that you are morally sound ethical human beings and I know you are and I'm really, really grateful for your work and I just want to keep keep saying that because as we go forward through these discussions, I want to make sure that you five know, at least for me, that I trust you and I'm grateful that you are here and thank you for being the morally sound people that you are. Thank you so much. Thank you. Margaret and then Scott Moore. Can you hear me? Sure can. Okay. This is definitely not related to the agenda. It's related to the website and getting into the meetings. It's it's like navigating a maze to find the link to the meetings and it just finally dawned on me that when I click the join Microsoft's meet teams meeting on the you have to download the agenda. You have to find the agenda. You have to download the agenda. And then when I click on the Microsoft Teams meeting link, the agenda disappears. I'm not sure why. So I have to download the agenda twice to in order to still be able to see it. So, you know, I don't know if there's anything that can be done about that, but if somebody new wanted to get into the meeting, they would have a heck of a time trying to figure out how to do it. I have a hard enough time and I've been doing it for a while. Thank you. Thank you, Margaret. I'm sorry you're still having continued issues of accessing the meetings. We'll see what we can do to make things more accessible. Scott Moore and then PD. I want to make sure you can hear me. Did I press all the right buttons? You can and we can see you too. Okay, good. Good evening, my name is Scott Moore. For those of you that don't know me, I live over on Dunbar Drive. I just want to say that I am in favor of the merger. And I know that sometimes there's lots of discussion as to for and against, and I won't list a lot of reasons and stuff. I accept Scott, apologies. Sorry, Pat. The merger is one of the agenda items tonight. Again, my apologies. I will be quiet. I wanted to just make sure I express my approval for the merger. I'll talk later. No problem. I read quickly and missed that part. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it. Thanks, Pat. PD, please state your name because we can't tell who you are from your initials. Okay, Patty Davis, I just wanted, I saw a glimpse of Dennis Lutz for a second on the screen. And I just wanted to think that we have, I thank everybody that we have Dennis. I personally do get on a lot of these meetings and I've been lucky. I've been able to with my little tablet, but I like the planning commission meetings. I love the planning that we're doing in Essex. And I think that Dennis, you know, he works really hard and he's like trying to juggle all these balls in the air. And I just want to give him a lot of credit for how he answers my questions during meetings and he elaborates. And I really appreciate it. I thank you very much. Thank you for taking the time to call out one of our staff members. And I agree Dennis Lutz is a rock star. So we're super happy to have him amongst us and we thank him for his hard work. Anyone else want to speak on anything that is not on the agenda? Okay. Seeing none, we are going to bring it back to the board. And the first item on the agenda is a public hearing for the fiscal year 2022-2026 capital budget and five year plan. I will open the hearing. Evan or Greg or Dennis, I'm not sure if there's any discussion that needs to happen first or we should just go straight to public participation in the hearing. Our plan was to let Dennis do his presentation and then take questions. Terrific. After he dazzles everyone. Dawn. Are we gonna, it was worn for 645. Are we gonna be in trouble because we're a little ahead of schedule? I have a question that it was worn for 635. Okay. The merger hearing is 635. So if I can explain it. We're good. Yeah, but I'm gonna, can I explain that for a second? We actually don't expect Dennis to only do 10 minutes because he's never been able to do that before. Love you buddy. But we put a time in because by law we can't start the next hearing unless it's that time or afterwards. So Dennis, you have the time you need to present the capital plan. Thanks, Evan. You're welcome. Thank you. I guess I'm a little bit embarrassed but I appreciate the kind words. Capital plan for this year is pretty straightforward. We have, as everyone knows, and I'm gonna try to beat the 10 minutes, Evan, believe it or not. We have about $538,580 collected from the two cents and we've allocated that across a broad range of projects from everything from buildings to equipment to everything else. But that's only a portion of the money that comes into the kitty. We're actually gonna be spending this year $1,479,856. And thank you, Sarah, I'm stealing your numbers with those of the numbers in the capital plan. So that difference in funding basically comes from a number of sources. In our operating budget, almost every department has equipment purchases of some kind, fire department, police department, public works. And so we transfer operating funds into the capital fund in such a way that we try to keep the operating fund equipment kind of level each year or as close to that as we can do as far as an expenditure. But every year, pieces of equipment cost all over the place from a street sweeper that might be $300,000 down to a pickup that might be $30,000. And if we left those in the operating budget, every year you'd see huge changes in what we need for equipment. So we save money from the operating budget every year. We put it into the funds in the capital fund and then we spend out of that capital fund to basically purchase that equipment as we need it. So that's one source of funds. Another very large source of funds and we've been successful across the board in a lot of departments and obtaining grants. Most of our stormwater projects and that we do have anywhere from one to two grants on them. We probably have eight or 10 stormwater projects going right now, every one of which is funded by some form of state or federal grant either through VTRANS or the agency of natural resources generally in the order of about 80%. So we're really trying to leverage the town's money but one of the largest items in that $538,000 that we collected in two cents is for stormwater and that's about $150,000. Another large one is capital spending for paving. We pay some projects out of the operating fund and we pay some projects out of the capital fund. If we're gonna do larger projects we'd like to do an old stage road, we'll go after grants and those will tend to come out of the capital fund. Smaller paving projects, overlays on smaller streets tend to come out of the operating fund. We have a lot of projects in the, a lot of kitties so to speak in the capital fund where we put funds, some of which we use right away and some it takes us a number of years. I'll give you one other example just as an example we're gonna improve the safety and the site distance at the intersection of Allen Martin Drive in Vermont 15. We've collected developer impact fees for years. I forgot that's another source we collect. We've collected developer impact fees and that is gonna be paid entirely through those impact fees. So that project we built this year but it will not come out of the two cents. So we try to basically leverage as much money as we can. One of the larger projects we did last year was we improved the traffic signals at Susie Wilson and Kellogg. It's a complicated intersection with a bunch of signals working together. Three in fact, one of which is the states and two of which are ours. And we did a lot of, it's basically state-of-the-art telemetry and state-of-the-art signal infrastructure that was put in there in the last year. Good portion of that was paid through developer impact fees very small portions from the town. That's improved the traffic flow for the intersection. It's not perfect, it's not great but it's about as good as we can get because that intersection is close to capacity. But I don't want to go too far off stream but that's the source of our funds. If people have questions about projects, if they want to suggest projects, we're always open for the next year in terms of what we go after. We have a lot of requests for capital projects that we honestly can't fund because there's not enough funds in the fund to fund everything in a given year. So sometimes we'll collect funds over a number of years and then once those funds are available to us we'll go out and do the project. Another good example of that is we're fixing the roof on Memorial Hall, a slate roof that's fairly expensive. That we took four years to save up for. The roof is still sound but we're trying to get that rehabbed before it essentially has problems. So that's kind of how we use the capital plan and with that I will be quiet. And if anybody has any questions about a type of project that's on it, either equipment, buildings, roadwork they plan to do, stormwater projects, parks and rec projects, IT projects, they're all in the capital plan and I'll take a shot at trying to answer questions you might have. And I guess in closing, if people have suggestions for projects for a future year look through the capital plan. If it isn't there, suggest it and we'll see what we can do with it. And with that, I'll give it back to the board for however you want to handle. Dennis, thank you. So this is a public hearing and it's an opportunity for the public to ask questions specific to the capital budget. So I will open the floor to anyone who wishes to ask a question or make a comment on the budget. Please raise your hand or indicate in the chat that you'd like to speak. I'm not seeing any additional hands but I'll give you another minute in case you're struggling to get your hand up. Okay, go ahead Patty. Yeah, I just wanted to say, Dennis you answered all my questions at the planning commission meeting but you go ahead and say for our area of town you know what I like. Thank you, take your time. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak or ask a question about the capital budget? Evan, I'm just gonna hold off for two seconds to see if there's any other members of the public. That's fine. Okay, go ahead Evan. Dennis, I don't have a question per se but maybe you can talk for just a moment on like state and federal regulations that we are required to address that are coming up like phosphorus removal and other issues that are driving some of our projects. Yeah, that's a good point Evan. A lot of what we do is driven by federal requirements and one of the areas that's primed to that is what Evan mentioned, it's an area of stormwater. We started in on permits from the state municipal permits when they started to get very serious about this back around 2001, two, three somewhere in that timeframe. And we've had a number of iterations of permits since then and those permits are called emisphoral multi-sector permits and paired watersheds, you name it. And we've had, I think we're on our fifth version of it. If I go back to the fourth version, the fourth version basically required that we look at two of our impaired waterways which was Indian Brook and Sunderland Brook and look at trying to reduce the amount of water going in so that we wouldn't create sediment that would essentially reach the like or in fact disturb the biota in those streams. We lucked out, we met the standard on Sunderland Brook. They had done tests other parts of the state and compared streams and according to their model we were great there. We weren't so great in Indian Brook. So we had four projects that we identified that if we could build, we would meet about 200% of their minimum requirement and it's hard to build a half a project. So you kind of have to go with it. So far we've completed three of those, two of those in the village and one in the town. Two of them got one of them completed two years ago, two of them got completed this past summer. We have one major project you have to go which is up in the area of Essex Way and Sydney Drive. That's a major one, it's a big project. It's very expensive and we don't anticipate that one for two years, but that was called the flow restoration plan and part of the permit and we had to meet that requirement. So we went after grants. We've got some great people working for us in the area of stormwater and Costandi and Chelsea Mandigo, one in the town and one in the village and they're really aggressive. So on a couple of those projects we got multiple grants, which is rare an original grant and then a subsequent grant to keep our costs down. Those projects, I'm trying to remember off the top of my head we're probably in the order of $400,000 to $500,000 and they're costing us $100,000 or less as far as taxpayers go. So that's what I mean about leveraging the money but you're right, that was a permit requirement. Next one coming down the door at us is the phosphorus requirement and that involves a whole range of things from having to improve our gravel roads so that they don't erode and create sediment load that goes into the lake. It may involve work at the wastewater treatment plant to reduce the phosphorus load from that although that's not a big contributor and it's probably gonna involve retrofitting some of our older stormwater systems. We have a plan right now that we're waiting a consultant to finish, which we anticipate in the next month, which will identify for us not only what projects we have to build to meet the standard, but what it's gonna cost. And it's hit all the towns and Chittin County pretty hard. That's kind of the next phase. Now we've got 20 years to do that one but we're gonna have to figure out what's the low hanging cost effective projects we can build to meet that permit requirement. That's kind of one area. Other things that come to us and the village has a project right now that was related to a storm. We had a year ago October and we applied for FEMA money. The village is working on that culvert and project now. We've worked on eight or nine portions of that same flood damage. Here it was October of 2019. And we're still trying to wrap up the final cost so we can get repaid from the federal government for that. Each one of those is project almost by itself to justify where did we get the material from to get to fix the road? Was it in our stockpile or did we buy it? Who worked on the project? Where's the time sheets for that person who worked on that project? All these things take time but if we're gonna get back the money we sunk into all that work, which again was close to $100,000 and we'd like to get that most of that back. You have to go through the federal hoops to basically file the paperwork and get to the end game. So those are kind of things that just go on. Every time we turn around there seems to be another requirement that's laid on us that has to be met. And so part of staff's job across the board is to look at those and come back with solutions that will accomplish the permit requirement but also keep the cost as low as we can to the community. And that's what we've tried to do. That's kind of our mantra. And I think that between the village and the town, and it's not me, and I appreciate Patty's comment but it's not me, it's the staff we have in both communities that really work very hard to try and reduce the cost to taxpayers but still meet our federal and state requirements that are imposed on us. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Dennis. Are there any other questions or comments from the public on the capital budget? Dennis, I'm gonna ask a question that I've received a text about which is we normally don't encourage audience members to text board members but this person can't get through. So last time you presented the budget there was a question about Memorial Hall and some structural issues and they're wondering if you've had a chance to look at those and any assessment of that? We have not. We've had situations over the last three weeks as you probably know from the paper with COVID in the department. And unfortunately when that hits, people have to quarantine and if they've come in contact with other employees or other people. And unfortunately one of our prime people who would be doing that found himself in quarantine. And so we've not been able to take a look at that. Our plan is to, we have a couple of good sources of places we can go. It's a little hard this time of year to get in there because if it's a structural foundation problem we've got to get back underneath the building and it's a crawl space underneath there that right now is covered up with mental grading to keep the cats out. So at some point we're gonna have to take the grading off, crawl under and look at that after we've looked at the structure itself. So no, we've not looked at the structure. We're gonna look at that. We'll look at what level it's at and we probably will contact, and not probably our tent is to contact one of our one or two structural engineering consultants that we use regularly and have them pop out and take a look at it and see what their thought is, whether it's something that is minor or something that we need to, like I say, maybe find a small volunteer to go underneath the building because the spaces aren't that large to get in there and take a look at it once the weather improves. It's not something we're gonna do now. We're gonna wait until the weather gets a little better. It's too bloody cold out there to do that kind of stuff now. Okay. Thanks Dennis. Yep. Are there any other questions from the public regarding the capital budget? I am not seeing any other hands. A few more seconds. Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands. So I will hear a motion from the board to close the public hearing on the capital budget. Let me make the motion. We close the public hearing on the capital budget. Thank you, Dawn. Is there a second? Second. Thanks Pat. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, so that ends the hearing on the capital budget and we will take it back up as a business item after the next hearing. So the next hearing is the first of two public hearings to consider the plan of merger of the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction dated January 11th, 2021 and the proposed charter for the merged communities. So what we'd like to do in a similar way that Dennis presented the capital plan, we're going to do a presentation on merger for the audience so that we have all the information out there. Before we begin, Pat, I see you have a question. Not a question, just a quick note. Mr. Andrew Snyder, just not to call you out specifically but we did request cameras be off unless you're speaking for the public tonight. And I do see yours on. I just wanna make sure that we're being fair about applying the rule to everybody. And we're gonna do a presentation first and then we'll take questions. So I see your hand is up to Mr. Snyder. So we'd like to go through the presentation and then we'll start taking questions and comments from the audience, okay? All right, so I am going to share my screen. I'll drive on the slideshow and folks can just tell me to advance the slides when they're ready. So hang on, I just gotta get to my slideshow. Some current slide, there we go. Okay, so this is a public hearing on the plan of merger for the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction and this is a presentation to just describe a broad overview of what is contained in the new charter and in the plan for taxation and the plan for special districts. We'll take questions after the presentation. We're gonna start by talking about what we've done so far. Over the last many years since around 2013, 2012, the select board and the trustees have worked together on a variety of initiatives to consolidate services of the village and the town in order to accomplish some elimination of duplication and to streamline efficiencies and improve effectiveness of the government. So we had a shared services report prepared around 2014 and that outlined some suggestions for our future consolidations. Around 2015, the town manager became the unified municipal manager when the town, the select board and the trustees jointly hired existing town manager, Pat Scheidel, to manage both the village and the town. Following that, we had public works integration where the budget for the public works department of the village was transferred into the public works budget for the town and that spread the cost of public work services across the entire community evenly. We also, at the time, consolidated our finance and town and village clerks due to people stepping down and putting together positions that were vacant. We also hired a new municipal unified municipal manager when Pat Scheidel retired. The village trustees and the select board jointly hired Evan Teach, who is our current manager, who we love, we don't want you to go anywhere, Evan. And select board and the trustees appointed a governance subcommittee to explore new ways and additional ways to consolidate. The subcommittee came back to the boards with a recommendation of a couple different models and the subcommittee was tasked at that time by the boards to work on a merger charter. And now we are here today. The merger charter work has been completed and we are putting it before the voters. And so now I'm gonna turn it over to Pat Murray to talk about some of the reasons why we're looking at merger. Thank you, Elaine. If I could, I think the slide presentation has frozen. I'm not seeing it progress forward. What's going on, Pat? Plan of merger for the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction. It's still there, huh? Yeah. Elaine, maybe you're sharing the wrong window. Yep, I'm sure I am. Let me try that again. My apologies. How's that? Is that moving? There we go. Good. Okay, I'm so sorry. Go ahead. No, no problem at all. So why are we considering merger? There's a lot of obvious benefits to merger itself. One government right now as it stands, the town of Essex has a select board that oversees the entirety of the town, sets the budget. In addition, the village of Essex Junction has the trustees who set the budget and create ordinances for the village in and of itself. We believe that this will create more transparency. As I just mentioned, the one set of ordinances that can then be applied throughout the entirety of the town rather than two different sets, something that our police department has struggled with in the past. There will be Australian ballot voting, which was confirmed and voted on by our voters in November previous to this. So something that we will continue to have as we go forward. The merger will contain an informational town meeting rather than the typical format of town meeting that we have usually had. What this allows is for the aforementioned Australian ballot budget voting to occur so that we can have the entirety of the community weighing in on the budget. It would allow us to adopt one land development code rather than two separate ones for two municipalities, which also ideally leads to more organized and consistent planning for the various urban, rural and suburban areas of the town itself. If you could do the next slide, please. So why are we considering merger? Creates one single unified community with what we hope is a common vision. Unified communities setting its course together on a number of issues that we have addressed in the recent past. One community that can ensure racial justice, equity and safety without necessarily needing to address this in the form of two boards having potentially two separate conversations. Allow us to become a more hopefully welcome and welcoming and inclusive community. Create housing that meets the needs of our entire community once again without needing to double up on meetings to have the trustees needing to address an issue and the select board addressing the same issue. Someone's interested in that feeling like they need to attend both. Community and economic development. Hope to be able to address the preservation of open space and continue stewardship of the environment. Hope to continue with the creating and the maintenance of our first class recreational facilities while building resiliency and sustainability for the future. And next, we'll have my colleague Vince if you would continue. Thank you, Pat. Here are some of the benefits village residents will see from merger. Tax equity. The goal is after 12 years for everyone in our community to pay the same tax rate for all services provided by the town. Predictable representation. An even numbered board of six members assures that for the first time both the town outside the village and village will have an equal number of representatives on the select board. Initially it removes the extra vote needed for the village budget and election of village trust and the election of village trustees. These are some of the benefits town outside the village residents will see from merger. Again, like village residents, town outside the village residents gain predictable representation with an equal numbered board. Equal access to services and programs once offered by the S extension rec department with no village priority and no additional fees for town resident for town outside the village residents. Town outside the village residents will have more say in spending, planning and development in all parts of the town. Recently the town ended its contract with the YMCA began receiving childcare services from EJRP which offers five star childcare that the YMCA did not. And which also is served at a lower cost to the residents or to the residents that use that service. This change will be made permanent with merger. Next slide please. All right. So our plan honors the high quality of service that both the village and town currently provide. And we are committed to continuing that high quality of service. It also honors our two community identities. One by keeping the name the town of Essex. It also includes an unincorporated village of Essex Junction. All right, thank you. And I think Pat's up next again. All right, thanks Vince. We're doing well with these transitions, I think. Practice. I'm gonna at least say remember to unmute my microphone this time. Much better. So obviously no project this large comes without its challenges. In particular, we've identified for particular, or excuse me, for specific challenges in the merger itself. One of which is integrating the 3.5 million Essex Junction tax levy into the $15 million town of Essex budget. We need to make sure that as we're doing that, that we are maintaining the high quality of municipal services that all of our residents both expect and pay for. We want to achieve eventual tax equity throughout the entirety of the community. And ultimately to preserve the identities of the town and the village. We know that many of our residents love being members of Essex Junction and that those individuals who live closer to the town center love being residents of Essex. We have no plans to or desire to make anyone feel like they are forced to lose that. Next slide please. So this is our gradual timeline. Now, as it is the town of Essex levies taxes on all town properties, which includes nested within it the village. The village of Essex Junction levies taxes, excuse me, levies taxes on village properties only, however, as a result of this, the average village property owner pays an additional $925 a year in taxes. Now, if we were to merge the town and the village budgets all at once, this would result in a single annual increase of $330 for town outside the village properties, relatively, I think you can agree, large amount. And all at once increase could also result in the desire for significant cost cutting, which would negatively affect municipal services. And that undermines one of our primary goals of merger, which is that we want to make sure that we're maintaining the current quality of service that we have here in Essex. Next slide please. So this gradual approach was adopted to help keep tax increases for the town outside the village, reasonable, affordable, and predictable. 12 year time period happens to coincide with the end of the village's bonded debt and is the length of time preferred by most town residents who responded to a 2019 survey that we conducted on merger. Next, we're gonna go over some of the financials. Elaine will handle the first part of that and then I'll take it back up at the end. Thank you, Pat. So we are talking about a 12 year transitional period. And what does that look like? Starting with the first merged year, the separate town and village budgets would become one budget. The piece of that budget that was formerly funded by village only taxes would be frozen and phased in gradually over a 12 year transitional period. This will cause taxes outside the village to increase about $26 a year for the average property assessed at $280,000. Village taxes would decrease about $35 a year. After 12 years, the rates would be equal and the merger related increases and decreases would end. In addition to any grand list growth, special taxing districts have been included in the plan of merger to help offset the tax impacts outside of the village. One of those is a debt district to ensure that village debt remains with village taxpayers until it's retired in 2035. This slide is a summary of the total cost of merger if the two entities were to merge all at once without any districts. These numbers are calculated based on voter approved FY20 budgets and the final FY20 grand list have been calculated assuming no future growth in the grand list and in an effort to clearly isolate the impact of merger. Tax rates are calculated by dividing the budgeted tax levy by the grand list. Therefore, any increase in the grand list results in a decrease to the tax rate. When we first started this initiative, these were the most current figures and while we now have updated budgets for FY21 and have just finished the process of budgeting for FY22, the mechanics are the same. You can see that if the two budgets were combined all at once, the impact would be large which drove us to explore a longer timeline and the inclusion of special tax districts. The two primary benefits of spreading the tax change out over the 12 year transitional period are to lessen the annual impact to taxpayers and to leverage the growing grand list which will also serve to lessen the impact over time. This table shows the annual change in taxes when the tax change is spread out over the 12 year transitional period and the village is designated as a special taxing district for debt, sidewalks and capital during that time. At the end of the 12 years, these districts would go away. In calculating these numbers, we assume that the dollars raised by the capital and sidewalk districts would then be included in the overall budget causing one final increase in year 13. However, it will be up to the future governing body as to how they wish to handle this. We chose to make this assumption to get a conservative estimate of the cost but it's equally as possible that the future governing body could eliminate these funds entirely which would eliminate the year 13 column in this chart and change the averages. You may be asking yourself at this point how were these numbers calculated? With many moving parts, including the challenge of projecting future years, dealing with new budgets during this process and the complex interconnectedness of the two budgets, it was no simple task. In calculating the total impact of merging the two budgets, we started with FY20 numbers. We assumed the first merged year would be FY23 and projected out any known changes such as eliminating expenditures that are in both budgets and accounting for decreasing debt in the town. In determining the annual change over the transitional period, we used the same method and factored in the known changes in debt. We attempted to eliminate any variables that were guesses in order to provide a simple conservative estimate. The most significant consequence of this will be that grand list growth over the time will decrease these numbers. The town has experienced average grand list growth of 1.6% a year for the past seven years. This slide shows how the convergence would happen. When looking at this graph, the top line is the FY20 annual tax bill for an average property in the village. The bottom line is the same for a property outside the village. You can see over time, these two lines remain stable with the village being about $925 more per year. The middle two lines show how the taxes for that same average property would decrease gradually over time in the village and increase gradually over time outside the village to meet at a midpoint at the end of the 12 years. Now, this graph is a very simple example and does not factor in any anticipated grand list growth. Its purpose is to give the viewer an illustration of the impact of the 12 year transitional period. Now I'm going to hand it over to Pat to continue. So, as we've heard talked about earlier in the presentation, special taxing districts that are supposed to be included in the 12 year transitional period and we want to take a minute to just list them out. The first is a debt repayment district. This district is established in order to pay off the village's bond to debt and it ensures that the taxpayers who voted for the debt are paying those payments. This would align with the term of the village's outstanding debt and would be accomplished by establishing a debt service fund and calculating the specific tax rate each year by dividing that year's debt payment by the grand list. The amount of the debt decreases annually and will be retired in fiscal year 2035. This district cannot be renewed once the debt itself is retired. The second district is a tax reconciliation district. This is what allows the town to assess different tax rates to the village in order to phase in the village's tax levy over that 12 year transitional period we've talked about instead of all at once. This district too cannot be renewed once the transitional period is over. Next slide please Elaine. Now the first two districts that I talked about are required by the state. The next two are ones that have been decided with the work of the joint boards and the governance subcommittees over the last several years when we've been designing the plans for merger. Third district is the sidewalk district. The village itself has a completely interconnected sidewalk network which is very aggressive about excuse me which it has been very aggressive about maintaining throughout the year to promote public health and safety. Declaring the village itself sidewalk district will help maintain this policy. The cost of these activities is estimated to be about $125,000 a year. That amount would be accounted for through a sidewalk fund which would be budgeted each year and a separate tax rate just charged to village residents would be established in a way similar to the debt district. At the end of the 12 year transitional period this fund would come to an end. So the elected board and the community at that time could seek to continue or expand the district which would at that point require a charter change. It also this point is one point that we heard a request for helping to reduce the amount of payments or excuse me the amount of the tax increase for town outside the village residents. This is one way to help bring that cost down year to year. Next slide please. Fourth, the village will be designated as a capital improvement district that will keep a portion of its capital infrastructure expenditures separate from the town budget to help decrease the financial impact of merger on taxpayers outside the village. This would be accomplished by taking the budgeted capital contribution in the final year before merger and annually funding that dollar amount each year of the 12 year transitional period. At the end of the 12 year transitional period costs of all capital projects would then be paid by all taxpayers. But again, this is yet another mechanism for helping to reduce the amount of taxes that would go up year to year for those residents who live in the town outside the village. It's the entire purpose or excuse me not the entire purpose but as one functional purpose of both the sidewalk and the capital districts. Current figures are calculated assuming the funds raised by the sidewalk and the capital districts would be absorbed into the full budget at the end of that period. However, the future board could decide to do something different such as eliminate the funds which would make the final year increase go away. This board would at that time be made up of the select board of the merged town of Essex community. The last district is the downtown improvement district which does not have any specific tax implications as part of the merger but it would remain in place to maintain the village's downtown designation. At the end of the 12 year transitional period this district would end. Now Vince, I believe you're up next to continue. All right, thank you, Pat. After, so we're going to talk about representation, voting and governance in the proposed plan of merger. After the legislature approves of the merger the then current town select board and then current village board of trustees will merge into a single interim governing body for a limited time until elections for the new permanent select board are held. The proposed plan of merger outlines the creation of two new voting wards. Ward one includes all areas outside the boundaries of the unincorporated village. Ward two includes all areas inside the boundaries of the unincorporated village. In the proposed plan of merger the new permanent select board would have six members with three seats elected by Ward one and three seats elected by Ward two. This governance structure differs slightly from the merger charter passed by the village. More on this in the following slide. Next slide please. Thank you. And even numbered board honors the proposed three plus three charter change that was approved by a town-wide vote in March of 2020. Three seats for each ward assures residents of both newly created wards would be equitably and predictably represented. Ward boundary lines can be adjusted in the future to address variations in population growth between the wards. In November of 2020 village voters approved a merger charter that included an odd numbered board with three seats for Ward one three seats for Ward two and an additional seat to be elected by all residents of the new merged community. We will work with the state legislatures to reconcile the differences in the two merger charters. Back to Pat for some additional information. Thank you Vince. So as Vince has mentioned the name of the new community itself would simply be the town of Essex. The incorporated village of Essex Junction would then become the unincorporated village of Essex Junction. This is very similar to several existing towns and villages within the state. I think perhaps the most prominent would be White River Junction which is an unincorporated village within the larger town of Hartford. A voter approved Australian ballot which was done in November of last year for voting on the town municipal budget with one informational annual meeting in March which we'll have going forward. Allow us to reorganize the town and village departments to reduce duplicative services and building codes municipal plans ordinances policies etc many of which we have two of right now. Current town and village water and sewer rates however will not be affected by merger. All water and sewer costs including repairs are paid by water and sewer bills not property taxes. So the new town of Essex however will own the Essex Junction wastewater treatment facility as well as all assets currently owned separately by the town and the village itself. And Elaine if you want to finish off the presentation. Thank you Pat and thank you Vince. So we have talked about the benefits of merger earlier in this presentation but we must also acknowledge the challenges that merger will present. Challenges for residents of the town outside the village hire merger related taxes over 12 years. The municipal property taxes for the average town outside the village resident with a house valued at $280,000 would see an annual temporary increase of approximately $26 a year. By temporary I mean merger related. I'm not saying that there aren't any other increases that would be occurring like the natural growth of the town budget. And this would be on top of regular annual increases based on community need. After the 12 years the merger related tax increase would end and only regular annual increases would occur as needed. After 12 years town outside the village residents would be paying the same tax rate as village residents. Shared responsibility for all capital projects. After the 12th year of merger town outside the village residents will share with village residents the full cost and responsibility for all capital expenditures townwide. What are the challenges for village residents of merger? They will be dissolving their government. Under merger the village board of trustees and the village planning commission would be dissolved. They would be giving up priority for certain services. Once merged there would not be any committees that only village residents get to serve on or services that only village residents get to use. Village residents would no longer have first pick of EJRP programming and town outside the village residents would be eligible to become elected board members of the Brown L Library Board. And village residents would have less autonomy because the village budget would no longer exist as something that only village residents could vote on. There would only be one single town budget covering expenses for the entire town including the village that all town residents would vote on. All ballot initiatives including the budget would be townwide votes. And village residents would no longer vote twice on any ballot items. And finally there's a consideration for everybody potentially longer wait times for infrastructure projects. Town outside the village and village infrastructure projects would be merged into a single capital projects list and reprioritized possibly resulting in longer project wait times and timelines. So those are all considerations that voters should think about regarding what they're deciding to do when they vote. So what are our next steps. Today is our first public hearing. We have a second public hearing on Tuesday February 16th where we will present this slideshow again and take comments from the public. Ballots will be mailed to all active voters in the town in early February and there will be an information booklet about merger mailed to all households in early February as well. Town meeting itself will be an informational meeting on Monday March 1st. And this slide says both online and in person that's actually not accurate anymore. It's going to be only online because we could not figure out a way to get around the state's COVID restrictions to allow for a gathering at the high school. So the town informational meeting will be Monday March 1st online only. We will be voting on the budget and the merger plan also via Australian ballot also in person on March 2nd. So you can either get your ballot in the mail and fill it out and mail it back in or drop it off at the town offices or you can come to the polls on March 2nd as six high school for village residents as six middle school for town outside the village residents. If merger passes the charter and the charter that the village passed in November will go to the legislature for them to consider reconciling and approving. We will need to work with the legislature to deal with any questions that they have and to work with them on reconciling the differences between the two charters. Finally, for information about merger including this slideshow and the merger information booklet and other information, you can find that at our website, sxbt.org, the village website, sxjunction.org, greater sx2020.org and please do not hesitate to reach out to any board members with questions or comments or concerns. That's what we're here for and we would love to hear from you. So thank you very much for your time while we explained this merger process to you and I'm gonna take the slideshow down now and we will open the floor to residents for the public hearing. Is the slideshow down? Can someone give me a heads up? Thank you. It is down, yep. Thank you. Okay, so you know the drill, everybody gets two minutes, raise your hand or indicate in the chat that you wanna speak and I will call on you as your name appears on my list. So the first person who wishes to speak is Gabrielle Smith. Thanks Colleen. Thanks everyone. I just wanna thank all of you on the select board and all of our staff. The challenges that you all described tonight are really huge. Yeah, you could all see past those and see the long-term benefits for our town. I know you've all worked really hard on behalf of your neighbors to find a compromise that you're ready to bring to the voters. I'll vote yes and no vote to merger keeps us in a situation that's unresolved and what really matters and I think about this is that we just keep coming back to it. We're really stuck here and we keep reboting. We're stuck as a community looking backwards at what we used to have, why we think we're here explaining and justifying how we're taxed and who pays for what. I think we're gonna get unstuck through merger or separation because too many of us were no longer live with the status quo, it's being stuck and holds us all back as a community. As much as some residents may want it to be, the status quo is not an option for very much longer. The more we talk about this issue, the more divided we get, that doesn't mean the answer is not to talk about it. The answer is not to keep the things the same. Let this be the last vote on merger. I believe our community will have a brighter future when we're equally taxed and equally served within a single municipality. While separation is preferable to the status quo for a growing number of villagers, it's not the ideal for many of us. One S6 is, what do we get from merger? Moving on, moving past this issue and focusing our time, energy and resources on our future. They're proposed for all of us. So I hope we can put our energy into moving forward and working through the challenges and opportunities together and thank you all for your time. Thank you. Andrew Snyder. Thank you, Elaine. Thank you, Patrick, for teaching me how to use my camera. Elaine had mentioned that there were a couple of people who had their cameras on and I saw this little green light and I thought, that's me. And then when you called me out specifically, I said, it must be me, so thank you. I don't know how to work my microphone half the time, so you're in good company. No, listen, let's solve this gadgetry, right? So first of all, I wanna follow up with what was said just before in terms of the work you folks do and the job you have and the job you have ahead of you. I wouldn't ask for the job. You couldn't pay me for the job, okay? And in that regard, I started listening to some of your meetings and I heard the kudos given to Sarah recently regarding finding out where the bodies are buried to go and get this grant money. And I just heard Dennis allude to the grant money as well. So there's some confusion in my mind regarding whether or not grant monies will be lost, okay? Because right now, as I understand it, the village of Essex Junction and the town of Essex Junction kind of are allowed to apply for the same grants, okay? So once post-merger, will that be lost? A, B, what's the financial cost of losing that other component, all right? So that's one of my questions. I know, excuse me if I wrote my questions down, but just give me a minute. So I'm just giving a second here and I only have two minutes. I've got about 30 seconds left for you, sir. 30 seconds. Well, you guys keep time really well. Okay, my other question is, recently there's been some contention on Facebook mark and on a Facebook marketplace on Front Porch Forum. And some things were said on Front Porch Forum regarding the merger and then there were some things that were said. Gee whiz, I mean, I've been living this time since 1971. This is the first time I've really spoken, all right? It's like, could I have a latitude here? I need to give everybody the same amount of time because residents are very sensitive about that. Ask your question and then I need to move on. Okay, so the question I have is there was a debate challenge rendered from people who are opposed to the merger and who raised some issues. My question is what would be wrong with a healthy debate? Okay, televised as this is to kind of air these differences once and for all. Okay. Because maybe there's a lot of people like myself who aren't aware of all this stuff that's going on. Okay, we got the gist of your question. Thank you, Mr. Snyder. What I think I'd like to do is I'm writing down these questions and in the interest of giving everybody an opportunity to speak, let's hear everybody and then we'll go to the questions, okay? Next person is Tracy Delphia. Tracy Delphia, I'm gonna do this as quickly as I possibly can. Since this is a public hearing, I came into this hearing with the understanding that I would have time in keeping with past public hearings. I feel as though this limits the ability of many, many of the new names I see in the participant list to give their full input in a public forum meant for the sole purpose of hearing from residents. And this is a very important topic. I completely agree with a call for civility, but a topic of this magnitude requires residents to fully speak and fully be heard. I spent a lot of time performing a final review of the merger documents as I really wanna get this to be the best document possible for the voters who will make the ultimate decision. So I'm gonna split this between tonight and the next meeting. Here's my first comment. In a meeting last week, I was asked how residents who don't have accessible internet can follow up with questions. It was stated that residents can reach out to trustees or select board members via phone. It's important to offer that two-way communication since the pro-con document is likely to be the document that will arrive in the mail before people return their ballots. I'm thinking specifically about people like my 86-year-old neighbors who don't even own a computer, let alone have internet. And I just ask you to please advertise numbers for the people who do have questions and who don't have a way to give that in a virtual forum in a way that doesn't rely that I'm going to a website to find those phone numbers. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next hand, Margaret Smith. Can you hear me? Yes. I'm just wondering. Last week, Sarah gave a lovely presentation. She always does fabulous work using the FY22 numbers for the budget. And in your presentation, you use the FY20 numbers and there's some difference in there. So I just wanted to point that out. Also, is it okay by Robert's rules of order to limit public comments for people that really haven't had a chance to make comments? So I second what Tracy said, that cutting people off after two minutes just really stifles public discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Next person is Annie Cooper. Hi, thank you. I usually would like to remind the board and others that the gun and shooting range conversation that took place at Essex High School two times was such a sensitive, difficult, challenging topic for all of us. And we as the board limited to two minutes in order to be capable of hearing from the volume of people that wanted to speak. And also it was a very clear understanding that those communications were limited and it worked very, very well. So it's possible that some people here who are asking for longer than two minutes are newer to understanding that that has happened before, but maybe those of us that know that this is the way it goes when it gets crowded in here would be well advised to prepare for their two minutes in future. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Patty. Yeah, I just have a question. And maybe because I've only lived in the town just under five years outside the village, but I've learned a lot about the capital plan and some of the infrastructure stuff on the townside. And what I've learned and it's only been a few years that we really save our money for these capital expenses and it's not just Dennis and his staff and their magical and very intelligent way of getting grants and all that. But I think as a town, I'm worried that if we're to merge to be one community, just like you're in a marriage, say your spouse is not a good saver and you are a good saver, there's gonna be conflict. You know, and I'm just, I just feel that part of the underlying not resentment but more of, hey, the town, a lot of these older residents that are my neighbors that don't work on computers, they lived here at least 35 years, tell me that Essex town has always been a good saver for their capital projects and their failing pipes and this, that and the other thing. And I haven't heard of a really good reputation of the junction when it comes to saving for capital projects, you know, for things in the future. I mean, this is what I'm hearing from my neighbors that have all lived here 35 years. I'm not trying to take sides, I'm just telling you where the town is coming from. Thanks. Thank you. Chen Signorello. Thank you. I appreciate that's time. You took down the slide show. Would you mind putting it up? I have a question about two of the slides or maybe it's one of the slides. If you go to the slide that shows the annual merger related taxation changes, is that possible? Hang on a second, Evan, are you also timing? I am. Okay. No, I'm gonna stop timing and you go ahead and keep going. What slide, Ken? The one that shows the annual related, you know, the one that shows the year one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Got it. Hang on. Let me just get there. Just so you know, I paused the timer. Oh, you're so kind. Thank you. Thanks, Evan. There you go. This one. And the one just before it. Up one, please. That one? The one, it hasn't moved yet. Oh, you have to, you're sharing the wrong screen, I think, again. All right, hang on, hang on. Oh, there it is. There it is. I believe it there. All right, great, thank you. So I did a little bit of math and I added up the tax savings and the tax costs from the chart below. And I do get $327 for the town outside the village total increase. But when I do the savings for the village, I only get 471, not 487. I assume the difference between 429 and 427 is rounding but between 471 and 487 does not seem to be rounding. So I'm having a little concern about the math that was done here. Go back to the slide down one and I'll just point out, yeah, I basically taken the numbers on the bottom row, 20, 35, 34 and adding those up and I get 471. And I just wanted to point that out. You might want to check that. A little concern that if that's the level of care that went into this very public presentation what else there might be, that might be a bit off. And that's it for my comments, thank you. Thank you. Next hand I see is Brian Sheldon. Can y'all hear me? Yes. Hi, just my name's Brian Sheldon. I wanted to express to the board and to the Essex community at large my support for the merger trigger is written. I don't want to be labor any points that have already been made. It's a compromise document. Is it a perfect compromise? Of course not, no plan in a democracy is. So my concern is a town inside the village resident is that the political will for separation in the village is growing and have the votes. So the compromise from the perspective of taxes of having my taxes go up slowly over 12 years is much preferable to me than going up in one fell swoop. So I hope that the board will continue with pushing for merger and that so will and that everyone will vote for it. Join me in voting for it on Mark's second. Thank you very much. Thank you. It appears that one of our guests is having trouble getting his hand up. Harlan Smith. Hi, can you hear me? Yes we can, sorry about that. I did not see your hand Harlan. That's right, I've been waving like crazy but now I'm kidding. So one of the concerns that I've heard throughout the conversations on Facebook is that the new board could basically cancel all of the districts which you alluded to. And but my concern is the debt repayment district. Could they really cancel that one and just roll the debt into the town? So that would be my question on that. On the limiting of two minutes, my suggestion would be to add that to any notifications going out about the meetings that public input would be limited to two minutes so that people could plan for that. And other than that, I just want to thank you all for the hard work that you're doing. I know that there's some differences between you but I feel like you're all trying to work it out and that you've all worked very hard a lot of years. And you've taken a lot of questions and a lot of comments from the community and you've taken them well. So I just want to extend my appreciation for what you've all done. Thank you. Thank you. Next hand I see is, oh hang on, Keelman Allen. Hey folks, thanks so much for having us here and giving us an opportunity to speak and thanks for all the work you've done on this. I'm going to make it brief. I just going to say I look forward to moving on basically and becoming one community. If not for the economy of some consolidated services then for the purpose of really just kind of beginning the first day of the rest of our lives as a unified town. Getting rid of the opportunity that this ongoing debate leaves for just more conflict and derision and we've been discussing this for the last 21 years that I've lived in this community. 17 of which were in the village and now four years in the town. And I'll tell you, I mean, I for one, I'm not looking forward to my taxes going up but I've looked at the math and I feel that Select Board has done a really good job of building what I think is a much less painful transition for people in the town to a position of equity and fairness that I feel has frankly been long overdue. So thank you. Thank you. Betsy Dunn. Thank you. So my concern and it isn't addressed in the slides at all is that in the first year after the merger, if we vote yes, those ordinances that are out there that are in conflict with one another are going to be decided upon by the transition board. And that transition board is made up of 10 people, not something that is required under law to have the 10 people that we have having the two boards put together. But it is going to mean that you have instead of a three in three, you're going to have a seven in three, seven people from the village and three people from the town. And I don't think that that's right. I think that we could have done the three that we have with the town and the two that we have for the village and asked the chair of the person from the trustees to be on that team so that you could look at it fairly. There are a lot of things that are going to happen that first year that it concerns me. Thank you. Thank you. There was somebody from the beginning of the meeting who wanted to speak and we let them know that it would be later in the meeting. I think that was Scott. Yep, there you are. Go ahead, Scott. I believe. Did you hear me? Awesome. So I apologize for speaking at a turn earlier. I did want to say I was in favor of the merger and I had a quick question, which was the $330 increase has an average of the $280,000 average household. What is that as a percentage? Does anybody know off top their head? I don't know off the top of my head. It's 25%, I thought. It's, I thought it's, if you did it all in one jump, I've actually got it, thought I had it figured out here. Yeah, so $350. Yeah, the municipal tax on the so-called average, $280,000 house is $15,1172. So it's 330, it's 20 some percent, yeah. So 330 divided by 280,000 is actually 0.12%. So it's less than a percentage increase. And I just want to make that point looking at things mathematically. Okay, thank you, Scott. And thank you very much. I appreciate all the stuff that you guys do for us all. You're welcome. Are there any other residents who want to speak on the merger plan during this public hearing? Irene. I'm sorry I jumped in on that last question. We should have waited to answer later, I'm sorry. That's okay, I'm keeping a list. Go ahead, Irene. Thank you, Elaine. Regarding the numbers that were just used, the 330 number, it has been updated to 372. And so when I do a quick calculation, I get 32% increase. But again, I'm open to correction there. I would however like to see that PowerPoint updated before our next public hearing so that people are receiving the most up to date numbers we have. I understand everyone's been very busy, but I don't think there's a reason not to produce the most accurate information that we can possibly put out there. I've been told by some people on Facebook, it's just a little increase every year. Well, maybe it is if you can afford it, but if you can't afford that extra, it can seem like a whole lot. If it really is just a little bit, I'm not sure why the village isn't willing to keep paying it. And also, I'm reminded of a public servant that I knew when I was on the select board who would remind board members very often that if you're not willing to invest in yourselves, no one else will, will want to. I would urge village residents to invest in themselves. I've seen a lot of park benches and bike racks purchased by village trustees in recent months, but I haven't seen a lot of infrastructure repairs. So I'm seriously concerned about what else is going to be in the merger cost bucket that we will be surprised with if we vote for merger and then all of a sudden the 372 per year becomes something much greater. So I thought I would vote for a lot more transparency between now and the second public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. Gabrielle Smith had her hand up because her husband wanted to speak. Is that still the case? Yes. Go ahead, Mike Smith. Yes, hi, this is Michael Smith. You know, I take a look at voting kind of binary. In one that's perfunctory, you're just, you know, you're voting to approve the consent agenda or it's just, you know, you don't have an opinion. So you go along with what seems to be the majority, you know, consensus. But then there's also the votes that are personal and the vote for merger is definitely gonna be personal for me and probably likely other people. We moved here in 2006. We voted to merge. It passed and then it didn't pass. And so since then, you know, I've been paying a penalty for us not merging. Now I am in favor of merging. I want us to be one Essex and no longer be us and then. So I just, I want other people to consider that. I know that there's the dollar amounts and all that stuff. I mean, that's the personal piece of this. So I just wanted to remind people that, you know, as we're voting, it's something that we all take personally. That's what I wanted to say. Thanks. Thank you. Sarah Stoltz. Hi. So I wanted to say that I agree with Allen and Brian and Michael and I'm really looking forward to being one community. And I also wanna appreciate the concerns that are being raised by Patty, by Betsy because that energy is gonna be very needed. And those concerns are gonna have to be continued to be raised as we all as one community have a voice in how all the money is going to get spent. And that's gonna be really important. That's what we're all gonna do as we move forward. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else who wishes to speak during the public hearing on the merger plan? Not seeing any hands. I don't see anyone on the phone. Okay. The one wants. Okay. I'm not seeing any other hands. So I will accept a motion from the board to close the public hearing on- I make. Thank you, Dawn. Sorry. I make the motion we closed the public hearing on merger. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Vince. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say, Elaine. Aye. Aye. So while thank you everyone for all of your questions and comments, we truly appreciate it. I took notes on everybody and I have the questions here. Evan, I'm assuming I'm hoping that you did as well. I tried. Okay. I was also doing timing. So between the two of us or the rest of the board, we can kind of, you wanna, are you gonna try to go in order then? Well, I was wondering if we should probably go in order but I want you to jump in on the ones that you wish to answer or that if Sarah is here, if Sarah can answer, okay? Does that work for you? I'll take first crack. Sure. Okay. So Mr. Snyder asked about grant money. Can you talk about how applying for grants would work under a merged community? Sure. Grants are not a solid thing. They ebb and flow from year to year. Yes, sometimes the village and the town are able to apply for the same grant and sometimes one gets one and one doesn't and sometimes they both get them. But in general, it is hard to put a annual dollar number in that category. There is one particular category that the state does do. It's about class two paving grants and we're not exactly sure how the state is going to address us once we merge. Okay. And Mr. Snyder had a second question about whether or not any of our public officials were going to be accepting an invitation to debate merger and speaking only for myself, no. We are spending all this time explaining and the staff is explaining and we're putting out enormous amounts of information for the community. I know that a lot of people disagree or interpret the information we're sharing differently than us. We are simply doing the job of delivering the information about what we want to move the community forward with and that is up to the voters to read that information and talk amongst themselves and do their own understanding. We've worked very hard to share our version of this and there is a debate already going on in the community. So I'm just speaking for myself. I will not be responding to that. Next question. I love the idea of advertising phone numbers for the town staff and the select board for residents who can't access anything electronically. Thank you Tracy Delphia for that suggestion and Tracy and a couple of other folks talked about the time limits and I will just let folks know like when we have a large public debate about things we do put time limits on it. We did it for the multiple meetings we had on firearms discharge ordinance. We have done it at other meetings and trying to think of other topics we've had conversations on but we have absolutely used that for these large kinds of discussions. So I realize how it's frustrating but it's also a great idea someone else said to put that in the warning or the information about the meeting so people know that ahead of time. So absolutely we can do that. Margaret Smith asked about Sarah's FY22 presentation and then Irene asked about updating the slideshow with those numbers. Evan, do you want to talk about what those numbers reflected and whether we can make those updates in time for next week or what do you want to do? It's a really good question because we really are looking for consistency. Right. When we started this the numbers we had were FY20. So I think we could certainly do that for the next one and I don't have the slide in front of me that has the new number based upon the new things but one of the things that one of the present one of the members of the residents said was the new number was 372. That's the upper end of the limit. If you have grantless growth it could be lower I believe to somewhere in the 327 range don't quote me because I have all these numbers flowing in my head but there's a range of what merger could cost over the years. And one thing that I want to and again one of the things that Sarah did she's not able to be here right now because we had a scheduling conflict with this meeting is we were trying to really isolate the cost of merger. The cost of merger itself and taking out things like grand list growth, taking out things like changes in revenue, grant monies that change from year to year, changes of policy that come from year to year by boards. This board is here this year. The only thing in general you control is this year's budget. There could be a completely different board five years from now, seven years from now, 12 years from now. And those decisions of those boards will also be cumulative over the years. So that's why the isolation and with that maybe by the end of the meeting I'll have that number. If not, we'll have it for the next hearing. Okay, thanks Evan. Looking through the comments, the next question I find is can we cancel districts? Can we cancel the debt district? Evan, do you want to address that? Sure, when we were doing this preparation we hired an attorney that was not the village attorney and was not the town attorney. We hired a different attorney that would be neutral, Switzerland if you will. And we went to, there's themes in a merger that he wanted to be specific with and we talked with the state. And there's a principle of issuance of debt. In the state of Vermont, those who voted for the debt, in this case only the village residents voted. That debt is an obligation of the village and those persons, the properties that owned it until that debt is paid off. By creating the debt district, we're honoring that debt obligation of those property owners at the time. And so I believe it cannot and should not be canceled out. The other thing is we looked into, we actually looked into it early on of whether that debt could be repaid early, which would save money if you had the money. Because it was borrowed from the Vermont debt bank, it comes with restrictions that you cannot pay it early either. The Vermont Municipal Bond Bank? That's it, thank you. What did I say, debt bank? Debt bank. Sorry. However, the one thing that we do want to do is we want to look at the village does have some funds that we would look to use as the last payment. Okay, the next question I see that came out was from Betsy regarding aligning the ordinances by the interim governing board. And her concern that by putting together the two boards, the village board and the town board, that there would be a preponderance of the village residents and that is true, they would be, but that's the nature of the interim governing board. We would be working towards having an election to elect a permanent new select board within months of the, assuming the legislature approved the merger, we would be setting up a permanent election board, election of a permanent board, the following town meetings. So ideally, if the timeline is that the legislature approves the charter, let's say at the end of May, then the following town meeting, we would elect a new select board and that interim governing board would only exist from the approval of the charter until that new town meeting day election. And Evan, do you want to review one more time what the thoughts are about aligning ordinances in that period of time? Well, again, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. It won't even be done completely by the interim board likely. There's just so much work and the plan of merger kind of just calls out a five year period to work on the departments, work on ordinances, work on those issues. So some work will get done by the Intergovernmental Board. I see them more doing high end disagreements of what to do with funds, making rules of the boards and doing a strategic plan session for the community and things of that and where there will be ordinance changes, they will be to align the village in the town and get the, I should say, the village district, the town district and the two ordinances to try to reconcile where they may have a vast difference, which is usually, I don't know if there is or isn't some other things, but the new town should go through those ordinances and update them. I did wanna mention something about the number of the board. There is going to be at least this next election, which is March and likely potentially or likely another election in March before maybe even the state takes action if this were to pass. So I don't know what the compliment of the select board will be. Plus you have the charter change. And if the select, if the state takes action on the three plus three charter change, that goes into effect as well. So I'm not exactly sure what the compliment of the village board and the select board will be at the time the state approves the merger should they do that and should the vote be that way. Thanks, Emma. And I'm open to be corrected, but that's the way I understand it. Andy, you had wanted to address a question from Scott Moore regarding the percentage of the increase for town outside the village. Did you wanna pick that back up? Yeah, sorry, sorry, I jumped in there. That's okay. That was inappropriate of me. He did actually, Scott sent me an email explaining what his question was. I was answering it. I was not answering the question he was asking. He was pointing out that the $300 and some dollar change relative to the value of your home is a very small percentage. The tax increase associated with it is 20 something percent relative to what the tax is. But his point was that it's a very small percentage of the value of your home. Well, thank you for clarifying that. It is very hard to do math on the fly. The last question that I wanna address actually also goes back to a question I accidentally overlooked in the previous list regarding village capital projects. Evan, can you just give us a overview of how the village plans for their capital projects? So the village goes through a process not only from village staff, but also the residents to put together their capital plan. They raise taxes. So in the town, the town has a two cent tax plus the general fund to fund capital. The village does only taxes. So inside the tax of the village, there's a transfer on an annual basis to the capital fund to do projects. They show that work to the capital committee and the capital committee ranks their projects in order of priority. Unfortunately, very similar to the town, sometimes your priority project is so expensive that it can't be done in any one year, so you save up for it. And something else gets done while you're waiting. Very similar to what Dennis just explained. Sometimes you could do a $40,000 project within your budget, but a $400,000 project may have to wait and save some money in two years or three years to be able to fit in all your projects. So that's how the village does it. There was a comment that the village is not keeping up with its infrastructure. I'm their town manager, they're doing the best they can with the money that they tax themselves for. Streets are very expensive, buildings are very expensive, but they are putting about $400,000 away. Maybe Sarah has the exact number, it's more this year, but it's about somewhere between $350,000 and $400,000 a year away for capital. Okay. Thanks, Evan. You're welcome. I think we've covered all of the questions that came out during the public hearing. So again, everyone thank you, everyone's doing their homework and that's really encouraging. So please continue to do your homework and you will have information in your mailboxes soon. And thank you again for participating and sharing your thoughts and concerns. Pat, I see your hand up. Yeah, actually I just wanted to tag on to the capital discussion that Evan had just mentioned because I did hear it mentioned earlier from one of our residents who seemed to have a question. The capital for the town outside the village, I think there was some specifics about how the town outside the village saves for their projects. The capital for the town outside the village, I mean, that's not really a thing. The capital projects for anything that Dennis, for example, displayed tonight is collected from everybody within the community itself, including the residents of Essex. So it's not a only the TOV gets charged, you know, the capital for only TOV projects like that. There's no, I guess, just to clarify it. So Patty can hopefully explain to our neighbors who has a question, you know, village residents put into that pot as well. It's uniform across our entire town. Thanks, Pat. Andy. I would like to comment, I guess, a little bit on the question of the debate, although I don't wanna add more meetings. My concern is that the minority positions of the select board aren't being represented anywhere. And I'm told that the other meetings, the two-person meetings that we're setting up for informational stuff, we're supposed to use the approved information. And so I don't, it's just feeling that we're not sharing all of the information we have. Andy, when I replied to that question, I spoke only for myself. You are welcome to participate in any conversations that you want to. And we do have updated information that, you know, we've been asked to update the slideshow. We have updated the slideshow in some respects without update information. And as Evan said, we'll try to do that in time for the next hearing. And yes, we are trying to schedule some public online meetings similar to this, but just talking about merger that would be with up to two board members. And we will use as much information as we have from the town. And that's, I think, the best I can offer. I know that you have some different interpretations about it, and I certainly don't want to prevent those from being shared with the community. Yeah, but there's never been any discussion of those interpretations. That's my problem. That's a big part of the problem. Okay, you know, at this point in time because we've approved the charter and we've approved them warning, I understand where your frustration is coming from. I also feel that we've talked about this at the table for well over a year with the trust that we spoke about. So I'm really sorry that you feel like you're still not being heard. I want to give you every opportunity to share what you're thinking. So yeah, sorry, Elaine, I didn't intend to start a conversation. This was the comment based on the request for a debate. And I think if, depending on the format of it, right, there could be more potentially freedom for minority opinions to be, or concerns, minority concerns maybe, or different interpretations of some things discussed in that format. But it doesn't sound like we're going to go in that direction anyway. You're welcome to, if that's what you wish to do. Any other questions or comments from the board before we move on to the business item of approving the capital budget? Evan, go ahead. Thank you. I had one last question that I, I beg the indulgence. Did I hear the question that someone believes that the select board could vote to abolish the districts? Did someone hear that question? That was a question. And so just, I guess as an answer, and Andy has done a lot of research and others have done things, this is a plan of merger and in effect, it creates a charter for the community. Those districts are charter of the village for the period that they are. There would need to be a charter change for those to be done. That charter change has to go through the same procedure, I shouldn't say the same, a very similar procedure to what we're doing now. The entirety of the community would vote on that issue. Let's say the question is, shall the community dissolve district X? That the entirety of the community votes on that. Second, if it's in the affirmative, it goes through the state legislature and through the government ops process. Again, they might, if it was me, they would go back to the fact that this was a merger issue and decide whether they wanted to support it or not at the state legislature and may ask the community, was this a community led process or was this something else? So it is not up to just the select board at the time to make a decision on some type of three, three vote or six people on the board. It would have to be a charter change and it would go out as a referendum to the community. Maybe I'm not ahead of whatever, do I got that right? No, you do. Is your understanding of that type of process? Yeah, I think you do, Evan. And that was actually two questions from the same person and you addressed the one about the debt district. But thank you for adding on that part. Thank you, because I've heard that before and being new to the state, I don't always catch some things, but that is something I have been listening to and I did talk to Dan Richardson about that. And again, even though some people can ask for it, there are people at the state that would be very not inclined to disregard what a merger vote put in place. Okay. All right, well, thank you again, everyone. Let's move on to item six A, consider approval of fiscal year 2022, 2026 capital budget and five year plan. So we have heard the presentation and public comment. Dawn, go ahead, your hand is up. I'm just gonna make the motion now that I'm raising my hand properly that we accept the capital plan 2022 to FY 2026. I don't have the thing in front of me, the five year plan. Yes. What it was. Yes. We have a motion. Is there a second? I will second and then say that we should adopt, not accept. Thank you. Okay. So you'll second that motion as amended? Yes. Okay. Any further discussion? My screen is doing something weird. Hang on, I'm just trying to... Sorry. Okay, I don't think I have my hand up. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, the capital budget has passed. Now we move on to preparation for town annual meeting, which is a topic we started discussing last meeting. Is Tammy here, Evan, or are you winging it tonight? Sorry, Pat. I hope she's here. Tammy's here. Hi everyone. I hope everybody understands. I do not run the town and the village by myself. It would be in shambles. Tammy and Greg and Sarah and all the department heads, they are wonderful. So I'm happy to give them plenty of airtime. Tammy, you'd have to unmute. Can you hear me? Yes, we can now. Oh, okay. Sorry. I think there's a couple of the microphone still open, though. Yeah, if you're not speaking, please turn off your mic. Tammy, are you covering this presentation? Sorry, I was having some technical difficulties. Okay, I think you're with me now, but I'm in the dark and I apologize. Just get a light on here. You're making me motion sick. Are you? Are you motion sick yet? Yeah. Are you running away from somebody? Somebody, I don't know if somebody is steering the car here. I don't actually have the, I can put the folder up. So just so everybody knows, this is our first, right? This is our, this is our first year. This is our first year. All right, there's a, there's a. There. Is this where we're at? Yes, yes. Okay, sorry about that. So this is basically, this is something that everybody goes through. You all go through each year, you or have been historically to prepare for town meeting normally in a year when we're not dealing with COVID, you would have some materials that you would go through and we would print those off for you. And you would all sign up to either go to basketball games or other places to be able to present some materials. Because of where we're at and what we're doing, that's gonna be a little bit different. We're gonna try to get, if board members are interested signed up for two member teams meetings where you can do, we can advertise and do an outreach that way. And I have that, I have sent that link out to all of you. So with that, I have some materials that are attached to this memo, which are the typical materials that you've been, that you've had in the past. There's a Q and A on the budget. There's the merger booklet, the actual town meeting morning that you approved last Thursday, that's in there. But in addition to that, I created a draft informational hearing agenda, only because this is different. And since it's not going to be in-person at the auditorium at the school, you'll be doing something online. I think it was, I think it was, Andy had mentioned something about, we might wanna put together an agenda for this meeting. So this was a stab at trying to do that, outlining the principal reasons for having the meeting, which is to discuss the articles being voted on on March 2nd. This is basically a template that VLCT has put out for towns to be using this year because of the special circumstances. So it's your agenda though, you can certainly change it, edit, do whatever you wish to do with that. I would suggest on that agenda, when it would look like your normal agenda doesn't have the connection information up at the top and then down at the bottom, you could have a reminder about annual meeting and where people can go to actually bring their ballots in. I think we should also put on there that we could note on there as well too that we have the box, which we just learned about last Thursday that's going to be, I think Dawn was telling us about the box that's outside of the office that everybody can use to drop off their ballots in person if they wish. So we could put that in there. So yeah, I think that's about all I have in here. So the rest of this is basically what you would like to have. I did, I think I mentioned in here as well that we do the coral director at Essex High School is going to see if she can have one of her students record the national anthem for us. So we'll try to, we haven't had success with that in the past, but I think we're more experienced with teams now. I think we can probably pull that off and we can have that in there. So the rest is pretty much up to the board members to decide what they would like to have for materials, what they would like to edit out of any of that. This is basically just for your discussion. Tammy, this looks great. Thank you for preparing this. Thank you. Yeah. Board members, questions or comments? Questions or comments? Andy, go ahead. Have we reached out to our moderator? Yeah, yes. Tammy, can you get your mic when we're not speaking? I think that's where the echo is coming. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Andy. We had a meeting with Steve Justus, who is the town moderator online and he was joined by Evan and me and was Rob Palubo there too, Evan. I think we talked about the tech side of how to handle all the stuff. So yeah, Steve is on board and we'll probably touch base with him again. Yeah, we're gonna do a run through at least a week before. Okay, great, thanks. And then whatever we do works the next week. Yeah. Yeah, my son recently defended his master's thesis and he had set up a meeting for everybody, for the whole family to watch and my wife just couldn't get in. And I was like, oh, we should have done a dress rehearsal of this. We are planning just for us, the people that are gonna be doing the presentations. I think we're gonna do it at 81 Main. Rob will be there. And I think that's where Channel 17 will be able to plug in the best for us. Another option is us to do it at the high school. But it would just, again, because of COVID, we really don't want the public in the building, et cetera. We're doing it all virtual. I had tried to try to do some in-person, like maybe for those who don't have internet or are elderly and the logistics and the state and others, it's just they don't want you to do it. Right. They told you you could move your town meeting to later in the year, but that's about the grace that they were gonna give you. Can I ask a question, Evan? I'm curious about why at 81 Main, if we're not doing the hybrid thing where the public is coming, then really it's just a remote meeting like we're doing now and town meeting television just plugs in. Yeah. Again, we're just trying to, if anybody needs any technical assistance, then I have Rob, who's our IT director, that can help. If you are somewhere else and it's on your end, we can't help you. Can't help us. Got it. Well, if we drove over to your house, but I don't know what everybody else would be doing while we're doing that. Right. Board members. Just start with that. Andy, go ahead. Yeah, sorry. Just one other thing, Tammy, you mentioned adding a comment about the collection box that will be outside 81 Main. We should probably find out from Susan what dates it will be there. Because people need to know that they can't show up there on March 2nd to put it in. It won't be there that day. They have to go to the polls, I think, that I would imagine. Just want to make sure it's clear and so nobody's trying to figure out where to put their ballot. Good suggestion. Yep, thank you, Andy. I'll check with her. I think the ballots, that ballot box will be out the day that ballots are available. But I will double check with Susan. And just so- Yeah, we didn't know the last day that it's going to be there, too. Yeah. Thank you. And then just so everybody knows, the new ballot box that the town bought that sits outside of 81 Main is chained to the ground and it is on camera. So if anybody tampers with that box, they are going to be caught on several cameras leading up to the box. And so we're hopeful that since we had nothing wrong during the presidential election, a local election should be a little bit easier. But please, put your ballots in the ballot box, not the town drop box. Sometimes that can get very crumpled. Dawn, I thought I saw you waving your hand or something. Do you want to talk about anything that the, do you need volunteers? What, is there anything the BCA needs? Well, I was going to wait until later on, I can do it now. We're going to be doing ballots on the ninth and the 10th, between nine and four 81 Main Street. And I, the BCA is being invited to help. But if anybody on the select board or the trustees would also like to step up and help, we would appreciate it. We're looking for 12 people for each day. We're going to split it between the upper room and the downstairs room. So there will be plenty of social distancing. Thank you. So that would mean the box would be there on the 11th. Thank you for the social distancing comment. Ann, wear your mask. I'll be checking on you. All right, awesome. We're barreling right along to our first Australian ballot meeting and with COVID. So Dawn, you and all of your volunteers and the village voting volunteers, just thank you so much. It's a huge lift. Okay. So there was nothing left to vote on on this topic. And Tammy, do you have all the information you need from us? I do. I guess the, so I think the only ad, if I'm understanding that is to just, to verify, first of all, when the box is available at 81 Main and to include that on that draft agenda. And if that's it, I guess the only other thing would be is I would encourage you all to sign up for slots. If you do plan on doing any outreach, we'll set up meetings. If not, I can get you any of these materials. I can get you links. I know everything is difficult because we're not, we aren't printing materials. So whatever you need, just let me know. Thank you, Tammy. And Andy, you had some comments on the budget document, the info. The voting Q and A, or the Q and A, yeah. Q and A, did you want to talk about any of those? Or are you? I think most of them were responded to. Okay. And it's just that I think, you know, we've only got one more meeting before town meeting, right? One more select board meeting. There's also a joint meeting, but. I assume that we'll see it again before it, or will we? I don't know. I don't know when that Q and A is getting published. Well, it's, we're not printing it. So it's just something that we're putting together as an online document at this point. And I think a lot of the things that we, that you had questions on is something we are gonna have Sarah look at. Her and I both edited it together. So yeah, we'll revise, we'll change whatever we need to do with that document for you. So, and I can include it in the next merger meeting because that's another, you have another hearing. So. Yeah, okay. Great, thank you. That was helpful, yeah. Thank you, team. Yep. Before we leave this business item, I see two hands in the audience. So board members, if you're okay with that, I will call on them. Harlan and then Annie. Hi, can you hear me? Yep. So I think I know the answer to this question, but I'm concerned that there's probably, or I have not seen a lot of information out there on it, the informational meeting, informational town meeting. Not only not on the budget, but there will be, there'll be public input, but there will be no amendments, no adjusting anything, everything's locked in. It's just, and like I said, I have not seen a lot of information out there. I keep hearing it called an informational meeting, which is great, but I'm not sure for all of us people that have been coming to town meeting for years and raising our hand and say, hey, I want you to change the budget today. I'm not, I don't know if that message is getting out there. And if it hasn't, maybe we should try to look at some way of getting that out there to let everybody know that tuned in informational, no amendments, you can't change anything, we're locked in, we're moving forward. Harlan, thank you. And normally everyone gets a copy of the annual report where they picked up a copy at the town office or they pick it up at the meeting. So perhaps Tammy, we can be very clear where the budget is available for people to look at, which I think I saw links on the Q and A and I think I saw links on the warning, I'm not sure. But yeah, we absolutely need to make it very clear that informational only this time we will not be voting from the floor. Thank you, Harlan. Annie. Hi, thank you. While Tammy was, first of all, a magician, she sprinted down a hall, flung open a computer and threw up a chair, that was amazing. I would like to just shout Tammy out for her consistent dedication to customer relations and all that she does. I received in my inbox this morning an email that I think it came because I signed up for the email list on Greater Essex2020.org and I received this beautiful email that Tammy must have created, I think, that had a very simple link for me to click on and when Margaret was speaking earlier, I meant to raise my hand about that, but anyway. Tammy, I also noticed that Tammy has created on the calendar on the homepage of Essex.org. You can just go to the calendar, click on that and get a link in without having to go to the agenda. And I just wanted to take a moment to thank Tammy for all the clear communications that she does and every time someone says something, she holds it in her mind and then she fixes it the next time. I just need extraordinary changes in communication happening by the day from Tammy and I just wanted to really shout Tammy out because I don't know how we got this lucky that we have her, so thank you. Thank you, Annie, I couldn't agree with you more, Tammy, we're very grateful for all your hard work. Okay, next is the consent agenda. Would anyone like to move that? I'll motion approval of the consent agenda. Thank you, Pat. Any second? I will second that. Thank you, Vince. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Good night, Eris. Okay, reading file. Board member comments, board members, anything to share? Pat? Well, Eris said good night, Pat, everyone. But actually, I saw an article yesterday that I thought I'd share because it's really relevant to taxes, particularly the Education Fund. Earlier, rather I should say late in 2020, there was expected to be about $58 million shortfall in the Ed Fund, so there had been an estimated, they thought it was going to be a 9% increase in school taxes. Again, they give rough estimates for this sort of thing. However, due to a lot of different factors, there is in fact an $18 million surplus. So that means that they've revised their estimates down to only a potentially 3% rise in educational spending for this upcoming year. So I know that a lot of us, me in particular, I think we're really concerned about the upcoming year and the sort of jump that we might see in education taxes, but it doesn't look like it came true at all. They contributed it, at least according to the article I saw, a big chunk of it to increase spending, particularly online sales due to partially stimulus money, but what we lost in a lot of the room and meals taxes that typically go into the Ed Fund were made up for, and then some by the addition of online sales and a few other sources. So again, just an FYI for those of us who are kind of keyed into how much your taxes are going up every year, but it looks like we're in much, much better shape than we were even a month ago. You're muted in the room. That's great to hear. Thank you, Pat. Evan, go ahead. Couple of quick things I mentioned way right before we were getting going. The public town, public works status is yellow. We have a green, yellow, red status due to COVID, so we are gonna be short a couple of drivers tonight and tomorrow this week. Thanks to the village, they're going to help cover the Kellogg, Suzy Wilson Corridor as best as they can in their routes. So service levels today, tomorrow are gonna be a little catches catch can, again, due to COVID. Tomorrow, tonight's storm, tomorrow, I think it starts somewhere overnight. I don't expect too many people, hopefully to be out at 3 a.m. today, but please, this is gonna be several inches, a couple of things. If you don't need to drive, don't. Listen, I understand you're gonna need to keep up with the storm. Do it in small doses. Shoveling can kill. Please, please be careful when shoveling snow. The last snow, we've had a couple of incidents and we lost a couple of residents in the heavy snow. So please be careful. And then I wanna give a shout out to the town recreation department and the senior center. This week, they have established a senior vaccination hotline for our seniors to call, to help them get through the process of doing the electronics to get their vaccination set up. Hearing how difficult it can be and the frustrations and stuff, our recreation department is looking to help in that situation. So look for the phone number. I know it's posted in a couple of different places and we'll try to help you get that vaccination. And for everybody, if you're offered a vaccination, please, not only for your sake, but that of others, take the vaccination and get vaccinated. That's the way we're gonna get out of this. So that's my statement for the night. Thanks, Evan. The rec department helping the seniors register for vaccinations is a brilliant idea. Thank you so much. And please pass our thanks on to the staff. And one other thing, I have approved that the senior van take people to vaccinations outside of our normal area. So if they do get something in Williston or in Burlington, we will take them. It is going to be problematic and it will have its issues because it's out of our range and it takes a lot of time, but I have authorized it to happen. They will just have to be patient in going and coming. Okay. But I wanted to make sure that everybody who was eligible and a senior to get a vaccination had a ride to get there. That is great. Thank you so much. Anything else, board members? We do not have an executive session this evening. So I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Dawn. And I heard Vince second there. So I'll do you as the second, Vince. How's that? That's acceptable. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you all for a good meeting and we'll see you soon. Thank you.