 19th, 2020 Town of Essex Select Board meeting to order. Are there any agenda additions or changes? Greg or Evan? Nothing from staff. Okay. Any board members wish to remove anything from the consent agenda? So we don't need to do item three, approve. And now item four, public to be heard. This is the part of the meeting where the public can speak to the board on items that are not on the agenda. If you wish to speak, you can raise your hand using the toolbar in your upper right or in the center of your screen, or you can indicate that you wish to speak in the chat. I will pause for about 30 seconds to see if anybody wants to speak. All right, I'm not seeing any hands or chat notices. So we'll move on. Business item five, a discussion about draft charter for potential merger of Town of Essex and Village of Essex Junction. Greg, I wonder if it would be best to just start off with a quick review based on the memo that you provided us? Sure, let me pull that up. Thank you. So Evan and I met with Dan Richardson after the last Select Board meeting and I got some feedback from him on questions and comments and sections that the Select Board have. They're all listed here. Section 102, Dan reworded the language around the transition period. Section 112, the Select Board had added some language saying that the rates of the two water sewer districts might be equal at some point. Dan was okay with that language, said it was fine. Section 114 was around the transition of sitting board members and joining the, joining the transitionary board. Dan helped with providing some clarification around the timing of that. Section 403 was a new section. Just added that to specify that the town clerk and the treasurer would be appointed and not elected. Sub chapter six was with the ordinances. Dan confirmed that that was okay. Section 702 was adding some language and clarifying which positions are appointed. And section 704 was just some revisions to simplify what happens when there's a vacancy in the manager's office. Then I can run through and if anybody has specific questions, pull those up. Although my form looks blank, so I'm gonna open up a new file as you chat. Thank you, Greg. So board members, did you have a chance to look over these final edits and did you have any final questions or comments? Yeah, the section 103 talks about the first annual town meeting occurring. Let's see, the first, right, the first town, the first new town annual meeting will be on town meeting day following approval of the charter. And it's just a little confusing that if the approval happens before town meeting in a given calendar year, that there's not enough time to actually warn the meeting. I'm just, I know that just the chances of the legislature actually taking up our charter change in January or February is probably pretty slim, but it's possible. And I'm just trying to figure out from a timeline perspective whether that timing's gonna be an issue or a potential issue. If I recall from the memo that Greg just referred to, or I'm not sure where I saw this, but Dan Richardson did a timeline and didn't have an issue with that. Am I remembering that correctly, Greg? I am not positive. Dan was supposed to have somebody from his office review the whole thing and confirm, still waiting to hear back from that, but he didn't have anything specifically about that comment yet, or that section yet, but we can call it out for him, specifically to take a closer look at. So I'll throw some in. And so, and for the people who are watching this, this is like watching sausage be made, so I apologize. And Andy, you're probably correct. The ability of, and the willingness of the state to approve it in a proper timeline for everybody would be great, but it's probably not. But well before January, without any approval from the state, the village will still have to put together a village budget and the town a town budget, and warn those meetings. And even if the state, let's say late January approved it, we actually don't even want it to be effective until July because we have to cojoin the budgets. So it's actually somewhat cleaner if we make the first new town meeting day, the following March, that way the transition board has been in, the budgets are gonna be put together, we're gonna put together a budget, assuming Australian ballot is the ballot, the way we're gonna do it, we're gonna do an informational meeting. If Australian ballot does not pass, then we go back to the way we've previously done it, and that's just how this gets done in not knowing what the issues of the state will be through GovOps or anybody else and the timing. And then just to make it more fun, you have people who are running for election, whose I believe deadline is usually mid-January, third week of January. And so that's why we put this language in and Dan felt that that was appropriate. But it doesn't say the following year, it says it'll be on the next town meeting day, which if... Yeah, and unfortunately, we don't know which January or February. Yeah, but I think I know people don't really want me to continue to bring up issues, but I think the simple solution here is to add in a short phrase that says the following calendar year. We can run that through Dan. Because that way, if they approve in April, the next town meeting is still in the next calendar year, but if they approve it in January, the following calendar year is the following year, it's not the most, within a couple of months of actual approval. Okay. Andy, is this where you're looking, the first line of February? Yes, please, yep, yep, exactly, perfect. That is what I would suggest, this is my suggestion. Thank you, Greg. And thank you, Andy. Are there any other questions and comments? Yeah, I almost hate to bring it up, but 104, we kind of changed the intent. I'm fine with it, but it's just, we removed the extending the terms until June, which I thought was, it doesn't matter. I don't care about that one. I actually prefer it the way it is, so I'll keep my mouth shut there. I actually just lost my screen, so I can't pull it up, sorry. Which section, Andy? 104, which fixed the issue that I had with it, but it changed the meaning, which again, I'm okay with. I prefer it the way it is, but I just don't know if others want to comment on the fact that the meaning of it changed. Andy, which section of 104? Sorry, what? Which section of 104, A, B, C, D? Oh, I'm sorry, I can't, I don't have it. Let me go find it, I can go find it. I was, I was, okay, sorry, it's right here now. I'm talking about the wrong section. I'm sorry, it's 114, not 104. I'm sorry. So here we, I'd raised the question before about extending the terms and it seemed in conflict with elections that it just happened or it could cause confusion if it spanned multiple years, but this has removed that whole thing that George was kind of insistent on of keeping the provisional board or the temporary board, I forget the right word for it, in place until June 30th, so that the prior budget would be administered by the existing boards and the new budget would be administered by the newly elected board. That's been removed. It's, you know, I'm just saying I'm okay with this. I actually prefer it this way, but it is a change to the meaning of the paragraph. And if nobody else objects, then I'm fine, just leave it alone. Perfect. These were changes you were concerned about. So I think Dan has addressed them satisfactorily. Yeah, I know, okay. Yeah, just, this is why we're doing this. So I'm glad you're happy with that. You sound irritated though, so I'm sorry, but section 703, section 703, I'm just questioning the use of the word hire versus a point. And I think there was a response that said that the intent was, that was done intentionally. I just. Yes, we wanted to make a distinction between what is appointed and is probably an unpaid position and what is likely to be someone who is either hired by the town through the manager or as a consultant or some type of thing. So they are paid to be in that position. Preferably someone with qualifications. Okay, thank you. I'm done. You're welcome. Vince or Dawn or Pat, any thoughts or questions about Dan's edits or the charter in general? No questions. I think Dan did a great job. Appreciate all the feedback. I think over the weeks, Andy especially has caught more than a few things that it was good to have Dan's feedback on, but now that we're all done, it looks, in my opinion, it looks really polished. So I appreciate all the work put into it. I'm pretty happy with how this is looking. Great. Dawn or Vince, anything? Dawn, can you just say something so I know that you're here? And I don't see you and I can't hear you. So I just wanna make sure your tech is okay. I got no, I didn't hear anything. Yeah, her mic turned off. Now it's back on or now it's off again. I'm gonna, Dawn, I'm gonna try to open your mic myself and see if, oh, that does, I can't do it. Greg, are you able to check and see if Dawn can open, oh, I see an open mic. Dawn, I'm afraid we can't hear you if you're speaking. Dawn, are you able to type in the chat? Okay. Dawn can see and hear. Excellent. Definitely, Dawn, raise your hand using the system if you can't speak up and be heard because I'm not able to see or hear you. And I'm not sure if other board members can either. I don't think so. Bummer, all right. Okay, so we have completed our review of the charter and I wanna thank all the board members for their continued hard work on this document. I am very grateful to all of you for being willing to continue pursuing it because we had the option to jump onto the November ballot, but we opted not to so that we could do this kind of work. And I really think it's paid off. So I thank all of you for that. And I really especially appreciate Evan and Greg's help with this and bringing in Dan Richardson who always has a real gift of concisely stating exactly what it is the board needs to hear and see in that charter. So thank you everyone for an enormous amount of hard work on this charter. So next steps, tomorrow evening we have our joint meeting with the trustees and the planning commissions and the zoning board of authority to talk about this charter, the sections that regard planning. And I just wanna find out from any of you if you have any questions or concerns about that meeting tomorrow. My expectations is that we will talk about the sections of planning in the charter and talk to the PCs about the potential of having a single planning commission and a single development review board and to talk a lot about bringing all these entities together into a potentially new community with a new process for planning and what's changing, what's staying the same and what our cultures are and how we can bring them together in a way that continues to benefit the community. Is that your understanding of our plan for tomorrow? Does anyone have any specific questions they're hoping that will be answered tomorrow? Well, I'll take that as status quo. We will have that discussion tomorrow. So the next thing I would like to ask of you is the consensus. We had the primary reason we decided as a board to not do the November ballot was so that we could have time to hear from our residents about this draft charter. And so I would like to propose to you that in November, I believe we have two meetings on the calendar that we take a portion of both of those meetings to be listening sessions so that we can hear questions and concerns from residents about the charter. Although we've been working on it for, feels like two straight years and we've really, I think we've dotted every I and crossed every T, but I wanna hear from the residents what they're thinking and answer any questions or confusion that they may have so that by our first meeting in December, we can move forward with a vote to put this charter on the ballot for town meeting. So how does everyone feel board members about using our two meetings in November, partially for a listening session, for two listening sessions about the draft charter? I see Pat nodding. I think I see Andy nodding. Yep, I'm totally fine with that. Vince is good with it. Andy, go ahead. Yeah, I really think we do. Yes, we absolutely need to figure out or get input from the public. My one question though is November 2nd, which is our first meeting is the night before we get election results from the village. I'm just, I know it's not necessarily relevant to any of the discussion. It might actually be a good opportunity for folks who in the village weren't decided yet to come talk to us or hear what we have to say. I don't know if folks are planning on voting in person. So I guess if, yeah, if we put this on the town meeting ballot, what's the warning date that we need to hit? I wanna say January 31st is, no that January 31st is when we need to get the final document to the clerk. Greg or Evan, what are, are you aware of the deadlines? Greg, do you have that written down handy here? I wanna say it's 30 to 40 days before town meeting and that I think January 31st is around that timeframe. That might be the 30 days. We can check with the town clerk on that. I think we were interested in pursuing the December meeting to accomplish that because we would be also doing our budget and also the holidays. So we wanted to give the clerk ample time to do what she needed to do. And, and if we decide to do any edits, give us time for that too. It doesn't give us too much time. I'm sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you. You know, I, I, I, I agree. And I know the expectation is that we're not gonna do any, you know, major rip ups of anything, right? But we do, you know, I just wanna make sure we have time for discussion. So I, I, I agree with the two dates. I'm a little, a little torn over the, you know, getting election result or vote results the next day after the, the second. But again, I did to some degree that may or may not be a reason to delay. So. So Greg and Evan, I'm not sure what the pipeline holds for November, those two meetings, but let's put on the agenda listening session for draft charter on both meetings, if you wouldn't mind. Thank you. Okay. Great. So this is one of those rare moments when we don't have a ton of additional business, our next business item is an executive session discussion about tax stabilization. So what we usually do is move those to the end of the agenda. So we have the consent agenda next. Would anyone like to move the approval of the consent agenda? I move approval of the consent agenda. Thank you, Vince. And is there any further discussion? Excuse me, I need a second. Second. Okay. Any further discussion about the consent agenda? All right. Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Don, are we able to... I think I'm back here now. Yes. I switched to my own laptop, so. Thank you, Don. Okay. And my apologies. Once again, I jumped the gun. Let's open the floor to a public comment for the discussion about the charter. If that's all right with the board. Thank you. My apologies. So if you wish to speak, please either raise your hand or indicate in the chat and I will call on you. Irene. Thank you. My question has to do with what happens in year 13. I wish that would be spelled out in the charter, but I would hope that public of meetings, some guidance would be provided to folks as to what they can expect. Do the sidewalks in the village just roll up and go away? Who is paying for the plowing in year 13? Same thing with the downtown improvement district. I just think that's a glaring omission to not put that in the charter so that people feel confident that we know what's going to happen because we know a fast time flies. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. I'm not seeing any hands and I'm not seeing anything in the chat. We will move on. And again, thank you for your patience. Didn't mean to skip over that. Now item seven, reading file and board member comments. Andy. The memo for seven B, it's the memo about the winter operations plan says that there's a joint meeting on the 27th in a previous iteration of our meeting schedule that we had a meeting scheduled on the 27th. So I don't know if that's where that date may have come from originally, but we don't have a meeting on the 27th. So that's just wanted to. And I went and checked. This memo is posted on the town website also or a version of it is. And it also says that there's a meeting on the 27th. So I think, I think if possible that should be corrected so that folks aren't trying to, who are concerned about the winter operations plan and plowing and sidewalks and so forth. Don't try to come to a meeting on the 27th. That doesn't exist. Greg. That should have been the 26th. That's a typo and we'll get it corrected on the website as well. Thank you, Andy. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Pat, you're muted, Pat. Even short meetings, I'll still do it at least once. Evan, this one's probably for you, but I've received several complaints from concerned citizens, including one in writing that the bell at town hall is non-functional much of the time. I'm sorry, say that again. The front doorbell at town hall. At 81 main. Yeah, 81 main is non-functional a lot of the time. So when people try to use it, it's a crapshoot as to whether or not anyone in the building hears them or not. So I was asked by a handful of people to relay their concerns. And I'm doing my duty. It was mostly tongue-in-cheek, in fairness, Evan, but. No, no, I think we tried the $20 version. We may have to try a better version. Okay. It says something that people want to get in to see us so badly that they're willing to complain about it. They shouldn't have to. It works sometimes. It's funny because staff's like, it doesn't work. And just as they're telling me that it rings. It may be it's finicky or you shouldn't have to, we'll figure it out. Awesome, thank you. I will make sure I pass that along. Thanks. Thanks, Pat. I would like to give a very big thank you to all of the staff who put together and the volunteers who put together out and about this past weekend. It was fabulous. We had residents walking all through the community. We gave out $15,000 in vouchers to spend with local businesses. And I can't wait to get the reporting back from the businesses to see what kind of additional spending was generated. Evan, I just want to thank you and Tammy and Linda and Robin and Oviso and Allie and the public work staff and Annie Cooper who volunteered and set up all the music. It was a fabulous event. It was a great weekend to support local businesses. And thank you very, very much. Well done. Thank you for the kind words, but really the staff knocked it out of the park. I mean, for those who don't know, I mean, we had done a version of this a couple of months earlier, but when the state gave us grant money to give out to residents, we had to kick it into high gear and which meant there were just some things that we had to live with while we're trying to do it, including having it in the middle of October, which is dicey to say the least. But thank goodness, it rained on Friday, but not Saturday and Sunday, so, and great team effort. And it was really nice that the town and the village worked so well together. No territories, just get it, do it right. And hopefully we learned a lot from it and can look at doing it next year again. It was fabulous. Well done. Thanks for your kind. And thank you to board members, Vince, and Dawn, we ended up canceling Dawn's shift because the vouchers had run out. So thank you, Vince, for being a board member who came to the table and talked to folks and handed out materials. Thank you, everybody. Not everybody could do it, and that's totally fine. It was a really great weekend and a great thing for our businesses and our residents. We heard, anecdotally, we don't have information, but a couple of businesses has said there are numbers this weekend rival Christmas time. Wow, that's fabulous. That is really nice to hear. When you have the reporting, it would be wonderful to put that in the board's packet so we can see it when it's ready. Thank you. Any other board member comments? Okay, then let us prepare to move to executive session. We have two motions. Andy, would you like to be our motion maker? Yeah, I got them ready here. I move that the select board make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the town's position concerning the proposed contract discussion would place the town at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you. Dawn, are you the second? I will second it, but I need to make sure Gregor Stemme sends me a connection so I can get on on my home computer. Okay. I will second it. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, go ahead, Andy. I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss potential contracts pursuant to 1VSA 313A1A to include the unified manager, deputy manager and community development director. Second. Thank you, Dawn. Any further discussion? Yeah, I just wanna say that I know one of the principles that's involved in this discussion. It's, there's no real connection. I used to work at the same place. Just wanna put that out there. I do not believe there's any conflict so I will not recuse myself, but I wanted to disclose that. Board members, do you have any issue with this disclosure? No. No. I don't see a conflict. Okay, thank you, Andy. We have a motion and a second on the table. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, so we are going to depart into a new link for executive session and Evan, I believe we will also adjourn out of executive session with no further business. I believe that's true, Greg. There's a small chance you might have some business afterwards, it'll depend how the discussion goes. Okay, so then we will leave this meeting open. I'd say so. Okay. All right, we'll see you in the other link.