 to the Bill of Jevessics Junction trustee's meeting for Tuesday, October 8th. Please stand and join me for the meeting. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Manager, are there any agenda additions or changes? There are none. Changes? So that will bring us to the public to be heard. Now is the point in time of the meeting where if there is something that somebody would like to speak to that is not on the agenda, now is the time to do that. If you're unsure, you can ask me and I can tell you when is the appropriate time. If it is the two of you who are here for a planning commission appointment or interview, then hang on a few moments and we'll get right to that. Let's see, is there some ideas in the audience? Move on. Okay. So going on to business items. 5A, interview for planning commission with Philip Battalion. Did I say that correctly? Yeah, awesome, great. If you want to come on up, I have a seat up at the table here. I'd love to have you join us. Maybe more. Welcome and thank you for having me. Hello everyone. Hey Philip. Hi there. So do you prefer Philip, Phil? Feels good. Feels good. Yeah. So we have your letter if you would like to elaborate a little bit as to why you're interested and what you hope to bring to the planning commission. As I said in my letter, I am eager to just be involved in the community, involved in the local government. I wrote that I feel like honored that in Vermont you can be a part of local government. It's pretty easy with the amount of population that we have. I'm originally from New Jersey, right outside New York City. So that's not really the case down there. So honestly, I'm just eager to learn. I'm eager to be involved and I don't have any other prior commission experience or local government experience. But mainly I saw the, I saw it come up on Front Porch Forum and I said, oh that sounds really interesting. And I saw the opportunity and I thought, why not, why not go for it? Along the lines of planning commission, what do you think of the things that are going on around here? So in a couple meetings with Robin, he did go over some of the stuff that's going on. And I've looked on the website and I think it's great. I think it's important to plan for the future and coming from Pleasant Street and driving through five corners every day. I understand the trouble with the traffic. I was always one of the ones trying to go around it all. So I think it's important to mitigate that. But also, it is the center of the village. So making sure that it stays in place that people want to come to and not just drive around. And I think Robin's plans show that. And I think that's important for the village to continue to grow and be a place where people want to come to. Other trustees? Phil, one of the things that I've asked this before, sometimes the planning commission has controversial applications in Front Porch Forum that are gonna have an impact on the neighborhood. If it conforms to all the regulations and policies and everything, yet nevertheless some people, you're dealing with the public. You're not dealing, it's not a business. So anyone can walk in here and criticize you. Feelings about that, even any experience about that. Of course, I just want to buffer it by saying you'll be on a board with a bunch of other people that are not gonna come right at you. But your feelings about that? I got pretty fixed in. I'm not worried about the, I don't take things personally. My understanding too about the commission is that, if it fits all the standards and if it's the policies, that's kind of where we lay our boat. We're not the people that are deciding that. That's for the policies and the plan to decide. So no, I have no fears of that or being singled out. Do you generally, do you like sort of technical? Again, we've got two former planning commissioners here. So I don't want to misspeak, but looking at plans, building plans, technical design, you like that kind of stuff. Yeah, I do enjoy that stuff. I'm always the person that friends go to read contracts or legalese or stuff like that. They have a very logical thought process and it just clicks with me. So I can understand those types of things and work with that sort of technical language. I kind of understand that. I'll keep going unless someone else wants to jump in here. Hey George. Go ahead. Okay, I just want to get another sense. As you look around, just give me your thoughts about, and this is not, there's no specific answer, but kind of what we're going for here in terms of building design and the Village Center, you can, I mean, this is one of the most controversial thing on the corner, the building on the corner, because that's probably one of the most controversial things. I think most of us really like it, but some people didn't think it was good. But it's got a specific design. It's got a certain taste to it. So what we're going for here is sort of old New England brick mortar kind of thing. We can't necessarily oppose that, but that's kind of a look and feel. You're getting your thoughts on that. Any thoughts about architecture, what you'd like to see, kinds of thinking about this? I mean, of course I'm a huge fan of the New England architecture and kind of that style. I understand though that today it's very hard to get that done affordably. I mean, you can't, you don't have people like artisans that can make sculptures and do woodwork and stuff like that, but I think it's important to kind of keep that feel where you can, whether it's like brick face or I'm keeping that with some of the other, keeping that look with some of the other older buildings in the junction. And I think, I mean, some places do it really bad. I don't see that as being a design failure or anything like that. I think it looks great. And I think it's also about, my feeling is that we, Essex has such a higher density population, it can be construed as a sort of urban, more urban environment. And I think, especially in Vermont where you have the concentrations of the people, creating more of that urban environment, especially for younger people that are looking to have a more city-like life, I think it's important to also address that. And like, personally, I know myself and other people my age, that we want to have a downtown where we can go and we can go get coffee or we can go to a bar or we can go to the cafe now, Firebird Cafe, and we want to, that was the main reason why my wife and I moved to the villages. We knew that, we previously lived in Burlington and we knew we wanted to, one, we couldn't afford Burlington and we wanted to get out, but we knew we wanted to be within walking distance of a village, we wanted to still have that community feel, we wanted to have a place to walk and go downtown and have that atmosphere. And I think that's important to have. And I think, I think planning for the future for 20 years down the line, 40 years down the line, that's gonna be important for people to want to stick around as well. So you mentioned that, I appreciate that, you mentioned the creating or nurturing a downtown where people feel like they can walk and to different activities. We're a commuter, pass through community through 15, 11th, this intersection, we'll let it for words to go through it for, Jericho, underheld a lot of those areas. How do you, I don't know what my question is now. It's the cold. Yeah, it's the cold. How do you balance those pressures with trying to nurture the village through a walkable, welcoming downtown with the traffic pressures that we experience here? Yeah, we've talked to Robinson everywhere that they wanna put this five corner plan for rolling forward. The crescent connector. Yeah, I mean, I think that's key. I think being able to route the traffic around the downtown area seems to be important. But I think not, it's tough because you hear about so many places where they put in like a highway or some sort of connector that not nobody comes downtown. And so it's important to, I think, and it seems like that is the plan is to make that connector also part of the downtown area and have places where people are going and you have parking off of that. And so making that still feel like this is downtown and the village. And so, yeah, I understand that that balance and it's tough and, but if it means that people from Jericho and underheld can come through and they can stop and they can get a breakfast sandwich or they can get a coffee on their way in and not sit in traffic for 15 minutes because they did it, then that's a huge plus too, right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Just curious, I know you're new to the village and you want to get involved. We have two openings, but four people. And I'm just curious if you're not selected, would you be interested in another position? Oh, absolutely. Is there anything in particular you, I mean, are there areas that you would just... Honestly, I'd be interested in any opening there is. I think just the front porch forum posting just caught my eye and that got me, I felt like I wanted to be involved and I felt after two years I was like, yeah, that's... One other fault, have you been involved with any other groups? I mean, like in my former job, I was with the state police and I was on their state police bargaining team and union rep and did things involved, you know, have you been involved in any organizations or boards that, you know? I haven't been involved in any organizations or boards per se, I am heavily involved in a summer camp that I used to work at in Sharon, Vermont. And just, it's camped down or I don't know, I heard about it and so I just, I helped them out as much as possible, volunteer time to help and do that. Thanks. Amber, that's my question. So I'm sure Robin probably told you that the standard is a first and third, I think it is, so twice a month that they need. Does that pose any issues for you? It does not. I actually work from home on Thursdays, so I can just... So you can do two or three boards. What else do we have? Why have a hall on Thursdays? All the ones on Thursdays in the background. Just a little, I don't want to be intrusive, but anything relevant that you'd like us to know in terms of your background? Sure, I grew up in New Jersey, like I said. Background, educational background, I went to school in Boston at Emerson College. I have a degree in marketing communications and media production from them. I went through a lot of different changes in what I wanted to do. I moved out to Colorado in 2006 with my wife, my current wife, not wife at the time, and thought I wanted to be a park ranger. Went to school for that and did a community college program and then worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a park ranger and went back to school undergraduate at CU for biology. I completed all of the biology coursework with them. When I came out here in 2010, that's when we moved back here, my wife is from Montenegro originally, from N.E.K. and Walden, and when we moved back here in 2010, I worked for the VYCC as a community crew leader out of Burlington, lived at home, but had my crew all over Chittenden County and we built bridges, six different bridges that season. And that summer, that winter, sorry, when I needed something between the seasons because obviously that kind of work is all seasonal, my friend who started the current company that I work for was looking for work and I reached out to him, I said, hey, can you give me something until April or something? And I've been there eight years now. So when I started working for my current company, it's called Network Creates Technologies. We were in Basin, Burlington. Now we moved to Williston this summer, but we're an IT hardware reseller. And so when I started working for them, we had four people and we were about $3 million company. And now we have 20 in operations which is here in Vermont. And now we're about $30 million company. So I've seen everything in operations from the bottom up. It's been so much fun and I love the people I work with and I love the job I do. I'm the operations coordinator now. So every day is just putting out fires. And figuring out why things are going wrong and trying to make them right. But I love it and that's why I wouldn't be there for eight years. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Great, nice. Fantastic, thank you. That's quite a history. I bounced around a bunch of things. That's a great history. Paths are always great. Does everybody have any more questions? All right, well, Phil, we thank you for your time. Thank you. I just see the process, or the way the process will work. There are four individuals who are looking for two seats. We're finishing the interviews today. Whether we make a decision today, I'm unsure of, it may take another few weeks. But we will certainly be in touch in between that regardless of what happens. Okay, sounds great. Thank you. Nice to meet you. You too. And I'm nice to be able to get back. Thanks again. Yep, thank you. Thank you. And next we have Patrick Scheld. It's right, Scheld, not Shield, right? Shield, yeah. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Appreciate that. Well, thank you for coming today. As I had said so with the seat open, two seats that are open for the planning commission would love to have you start off with a little bit as to who you are, why you're interested and what you hope to get out of the opportunity. Sure, absolutely. Well, first off, thanks for inviting me on in. Name's Patrick Scheld. You know, my motivation, I suppose, comes from, well, to some respect, kind of do this a little bit with the state of Vermont. I work for the Agency of Commerce and Community Development within the Department of Housing and Community Development, and more specifically, the Vermont Community Development Program. And we administer the state CDBG program, the Community Development Block Rents from HUD. So a lot of what I do is going around to municipalities throughout the state, sitting down with them when they have community development projects, anything from affordable housing to infrastructure projects, community centers, childcare centers. We do some with businesses for job creation. But basically, you know, when they, when the town sees a piece of their municipal plan that they want to enact and implement, they will seek funding from our program. So I'll sit down and help them kind of corral some of their funding sources, discuss the project with them, figure out if it is the best location and how it's all gonna work, but ultimately leave it up to the town to make their decision and that they apply for our funding. And so I saw this opportunity pop up on Frontport Forum probably sometime in August, piqued my interest, but kind of shelved it a little bit, thinking that, you know, it's kind of what I do to an extent around the state, working with different municipalities and thought maybe somebody else in the village might step up and give somebody else the opportunity. And so I pop up again in September and thought, well, maybe I should throw my hat in the ring and see how things kind of transpire. So that's kind of what I did and that's what leads me here, sitting in front of you guys today. And so what is it you would hope to get out of the opportunity if you were appointed to the Planning Commission? To see the village kind of progress forward basically. You know, it's been five corners for, well, for as long as I've lived here and it looks tired. Some of the buildings are old for sure. And, you know, I see a lot of other towns throughout the state taking steps forward and taking those advancements. I mean, just here in Chittenden County, we have the new city center that's going in in South Burlington. Colchester has their severance corners that's been going for a while that they're trying to acquire funding for. And, you know, Willis doing everything they have going on. Of course, Manuski with all the developments they've had the past few years. And, you know, it's the village's turn. You know, it's our turn to kind of lack a better phrase, keep up with the Joneses to an extent because if there isn't much progress and development moving forward, it's going to be kind of forgotten to an extent and people will kind of bypass the village altogether and look for other places to live. You know, I've seen and read through the municipal or the five corners plan to kind of redevelop and love the idea and would love to see it implemented. I think it's something, a great facelift that would be awesome for this little area. The one thing that I do question with it is the little corner, the bypass, as you will, that would create two back-to-back stoplights on 117, heading down Maple Street, that I could see potentially being an issue. But if you're going to eventually turn Main Street there into a pedestrian way, you have to figure out a way to kind of get around it. And that seems to be from the little bit that I've read and looked into. Probably the best solution at the moment. But yeah, other than that, I think that's great. You know, one thing we try and stress at the Department of Housing and Community Development is infill development and really trying to concentrate building and development in and around the village centers to kind of in some ways prevent sprawl from happening, which, you know, the village were kind of difficult. There's not very many other places, I feel like, that could be built because we're kind of contained on all sides. But seeing the plan to have all that infill development and create all that housing, it's, you know, I think it's really going to revitalize the village and everything that goes on here and then in turn, through an eventual merger with the town, it's only going to be an asset to the town as well. So my last question is if you had your crystal ball, what would all the village look like to you? Ultimately, it would be a place where my wife and I wouldn't leave. You know, we, you know, on weekends, you know, you get tired of cooking at home, so you decide to go out to a restaurant and go grab a drink or something. We'll walk in and grab a drink and some tacos at El Gato occasionally, because my wife has a good friend that bartends there. But other than that, I mean, we look to Winooski, we go to Williston, we go other places and I would love to just stay here, leave my car in my driveway, walk into town and spend my money here in the village. I mean, that would be my crystal ball, is to see kind of, you know, I think Winooski's done a really good job at developing their, what you would call it, their circular, it's not really a rotary, it's not, but they've done a pretty good job in creating housing in and around that area, which has really revitalized a lot of Winooski and that whole downtown corridor. And that's kind of where I see the start of it all, is you gotta bring people in, you gotta get them to live here, you gotta create housing, and businesses will follow, I think. Yeah. Who wants the next? Brush. So, we met back on the bike walk committee, we couldn't fucking do that. Yeah, I do apologize for that. No, it's okay. Couple conflicts with meetings and I felt bad walking in a couple months after. Totally fine. I'm excited to see your application for this. I am, and this is just me wondering, I guess, do you see any conflict of interest issues? If you were, this is the work you're doing during the day, you're coming to the village, making decisions on projects that maybe you've worked on. I'm just wondering how that could play out tonight. I mean, where I really see the only true conflict of interest is if the village decided to apply for funding from my program, I would have to recuse myself from that. I mean, I'd have to probably talk to our department lawyer, our legal counsel, and see how far I can go along in that process, and if I decide to stick with the planning, with the village, then I'd have to recuse myself maybe from my decisions at my job, which is fine, we have a small staff and somebody else could take up that application, or it would just have to be recusing myself from conversations regarding that application. Outside of that, I work closely with the Division of Historic Preservation, they sit right next to me in the department, closely with the Division of Community Planning and Revitalization, CPNR, so in some ways, not that I could necessarily lobby to get things brought in, but I could at least, I have their ear and I can talk kind of off the books a little bit and kind of get a sense for different ideas and funding situations that they might have, and I know one big thing that CPNR, Community Planning and Revitalization, pushes for is placemaking and infill development, so it's really figuring out what it is that creates the identity of where you live and what it is, in some ways, I think here in the village, it's five corners, and by turning it into four corners, you might kind of step away from that a little bit, but I think there are ways in which you can still use that five corners, that history, maybe kind of mark it in some way, put up some signage, and you would still have that corridor of Main Street that would be a pedestrian way that you could say, historically this was a driving area where cars went down, and that's where we get our name five corners, so you can still kind of, I think, hold on to that identity. Um, Pat, what do you, as you look around, what are we doing right? Do you see anything that really strikes you as good example, you know, good things, smart ideas, anything, you know, probably no right answer, but I'm just curious if you see anything that strikes you. So, just, I mean, in some respects, just the construction, I mean, seeing the McGillicuddy's building go in, I mean, Robin explained a little bit why some of those store fronts are vacant from his point of view, and it kind of made sense that the owner of the building is, it's all leased up for housing, and McGillicuddy's has a long lease, and so he's not really in a big rush to fill the other businesses until he refinances, and so I get it, he's kind of playing the game a little bit, and it's set up as such for him to be able to do so, which is for better or for worse. But the senior housing that's going in, and I think the, you know, the plan that has been out there for a few years now, that's gone through a couple of probably iterations, and through plenty of public comment. I think that's where it all kind of comes down to, it's that public process, and putting it out there, and let people say their piece on it, and making changes where needed, and but having that clear vision and knowing what we're moving towards, I think that's something that a lot of other towns kind of struggle with, things of that kind. We used to have a, our planning, our development code used to, I have a lot of six-story buildings in a village center's home, and just in maybe a bit of a political overreaction on our part, because of the pushback we got on this building, we reduced it to four stories. Thoughts about that? Should we now push it back up, or any thoughts about that? My personal feeling, push it back up on people, you know, you're always gonna have the nimblies not in my backyard. Now it's gonna be true no matter what. And to some extent, you gotta push past them a little bit, obviously listen to what they have to say, because they do have a voice. Yes, and they have concerns. But at the same time, if we listen to every single NIMBY, we'd all be living in wooden chest still, when we wouldn't be progressing forward. So definitely a time and place to have those conversations and to listen to people's concerns and try and work with them and compromise with them. But having a six-story building, I don't think it was the end of the world. I mean, it creates, it brings people in, it creates more housing, and what you need is density in housing. There's a follow up to that. If all of the comments you hear those that they don't want six-story buildings, would you still feel like that's still something they need to get used to, or is that something you're willing to listen to? I'm always willing to listen. I will always have my opinion, and that's why we have a whole commission to make votes. And I may vote against some of my commission members saying that I want six-stories, but that's why there's seven of us on the commission. Amber. Oh, that's the same question that I just asked the other day. So the planning commission typically needs twice a month for a couple hours that works out with your schedule. You don't have any issues being fucking with time a month. I think it's usually the first and the third Saturdays a day. It's a couple of months a day. So state hours end at 4.30, so work beyond that, and they kind of look at you like you're an overachiever. But, I mean, my office is down in Montpelier, it takes me 45 minutes to get back, so it's not that bad. I'm usually home by 5.30, six o'clock most days. My job really doesn't entail many community visits after hours. Most of my visits are during the day. I do have one community visit coming up next Thursday evening, which I actually, I think, looked at is a planning commission meeting, but that's a rarity, heading up to the town of Richford to help them figure out their next steps forward. Basically, we're going up as a department and there's a handful of us that are going to sit down with them and listen to what they think they're, what their needs are and explain to them what our programs can offer. Yeah. As you know, there's four applicants, two positions. If you weren't selected, is there another, would you be interested in any other positions or any? Yeah, I think I would. I mean, as Raj said, I did try and come out for the bike and PED commission, but unfortunately the scheduling just didn't work out there a couple. I think you guys meet once a month or something and I came to one and then had to miss the next two and do that vacation scheduling complex and it just felt like it wasn't appropriate to necessarily come back, but. Have you been involved with any other boards or commissions in the past? I mean, like I said prior, prior person here that my occupation prior, you know, was I was a state trooper for 26 years. I was on our bargaining team or something involved with the union, all the two associations, you know, done a little other things here in the village, but just curious, you know, if you have any. Just nonprofit boards. I attempted to start my own nonprofit years ago. We did end up starting, but never found any funding so I kind of dissolved and assisted a few friends of mine. So I volunteered in Haiti at one point a few number of years back and made a couple of good Haitian friends who had started a nonprofit in Haiti and we're looking for assist development assistance. So I sat on that at the very beginning for about six or seven months, helped them kind of get going. But other than that, that's my only experience. Thank you. Anybody have any other questions? I don't like that. Only the one I would have asked was asked up to the other candidate as well. At these meetings, not everybody is in favor of what you're doing. How are you in terms of giving bad news, going against what others may say, not just in terms of you have a room full of people, or are you gonna say no? But having people sit in an audience dare to tell you what you're doing is dumb. I think that you're a terrible person for doing this. Please don't do it. Maybe in some way. That was an inspiration. You know, in some way. I wouldn't care, I'm trying to find out. So our grant program, Vermont Community Development Program, and the CPLG grants, I mean, it's a very competitive program and not everybody gets funded every round and part of my job is to call those grantees who don't get funding and give them the difficult news that they didn't work out this time around. And also to sit and go into a community and tell them that they put this great idea forward like I suppose up in the, it's all public anyway. Town of Alberg applied for a childcare center and they were looking for implementation money to build the center. And it just, I mean, it was like a half-baked idea. I mean, the need was clearly stated, the impact it would have on the community was clearly stated, but the feasibility of carrying the project out wasn't there. So we had to basically walk back their application and just tell them not now, not the time, but we will help you with planning the feasibility and when we get through that, we'll go to the next steps. But yeah, I mean, I think there's a fair amount of that when I go around the state to different towns and let them know that the project team can go back to the drawing board a little bit and figure this aspect out and figure this aspect out and then we can get back together and talk. So that's it. We appreciate you coming out. Yeah, thank you actually for the opportunity. We appreciate it. This is the way that this will work is you are the last of the interviews. We're gonna be talking a little bit later on tonight. We may or may not make a decision tonight and regardless, we'll let you know in terms of what a final decision is. So if you don't hear from us for a little while, please know that we haven't forgotten about you, but we just haven't made a decision yet. Sounds good to me. Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you, we'll meet you. So that will bring us on to agenda item 5C about revising the Adopted Ordnance Revision for No Parking on Lincoln Street to North Prospect Street. And our manager just walked out of the room. I see him slowly walking back into the room. I'll continue to install a little bit so he gets comfortable with the rest of the topic. Aaron. Parking. Okay, self-explanatory. I'm glad we waited for you. Thanks. There was a review of the street corner of Prospect and Lincoln to A. We were getting complaints that when people were pulling out of Prospect, which is one way, you can either turn right or turn left, because of the three parking spots where they were located, people who were pulling out to turn left basically had to go much further than the park cars to be able to see. Hamlin Engineering did a review. They recommended that we eliminate the first three parking spaces. Staff also did a site visit, talked with Ricky Jones, Public Works, and with the police department, they said, yes, that would be very effective. It would also require, we would end up moving one of the signs further up the street, which is no parking from here to the corner, which also will help that visibility. And the police were recommended to do some more speed enforcement, which one of the comments was, yes, that's every corner that we have wants more speed enforcement, but yes, we understand. We'd love to get our speed enforcement officer back on the street. We're currently short an officer or two, so he's on shift and not able to absolutely do those things. So staff recommends for the cost of striping out those spaces, moving the existing signs. This is an appropriate activity. This had been here before, but this is the ordinance process. So as you had mentioned, that there are two portions of this or two recommendations that were within the report. And with just the site distance, those three spaces that equates to the 150 feet is necessary to increase the distance. Yep. They don't start exactly from the corner, the spaces, so there's a space in between, but they would be the three spaces closest to the corner of Prospect and Lincoln. We also, one other thing we did, just to let you know, we also looked at those spaces, that there's rarely cars there, but when they are there, that's when the site is blocked. The other trustees have other questions, concerns? No, I'm sorry. Before we do the other thing, I just want to make the plug in for, is that first recommendation that the engineers make about the target speed enforcement? If I'm understanding it correctly, that 85% of those going through, the 85% speed was 34 miles per hour. Is that saying that 85% of the vehicles going through were traveling 34 miles per hour? Is that how that reads? Or is that 85% of the maximum speed? That street is right there as opposed to I believe at 25 miles per hour. So I would say that it is very likely that there are people speeding through there. There are no stops between basically 289 and five corners. That doesn't mean, that doesn't mean they're not supposed to stop. There's just no stop signs. There's no traffic signals. So it's a wide open stretch until they come to a screeching hall about a block from here. When the light is red, traffic will back up to about a little bit past central. But most of the time, there's nothing to stop traffic between here and 289. I think that's a good point. When there's nothing, when you're coming in, because further out two ways, pretty high speed, and then they've got a long stretch coming in. It slowly comes down. Where there's no stop sign, no traffic light. It is 30 miles an hour a little further up near CV. So just trying to just make that plug again when the resources are available, having that target is being forced, it would be greatly appreciated. Roch. I mean, I emailed you before. Be great to hear what's been done in the past or what's been looked at in the past. Do we need, with that, I don't know the street names off the side. It's at North, coming into 2A at the train tracks. The intersection? Yeah, North and Roe. Oh yeah, North and Roe. That crazy railroad intersection there. Oh yeah. Is there something that needs to be done there that can be done there? We can look into it, but part of the issue with North Street is that it comes in at an angle and it's very short between Lincoln. After you cross the tracks. Once you come in over the tracks, there's a very short distance between the stop sign. And so there's a lot of traffic movements that are going on there, including buses, but I will talk with the engineering department and the police as to what's going on through there. But I do know that at Prospect, they previously did a few of the bump out stuff to narrow that distance. But I would say that that particular intersection getting through Prospect is very difficult and sometimes in the day, especially if you are the second or third car waiting. And then by the time you do get up there, you have lost your vision. Yeah, and I was just thinking about the speed coming off, coming two way up, if that North and natural intersection think about some kind of mitigation, whether it's a light maybe, but you're right, beyond the tracks. But the other interesting thing is if you are going up to a, we are not having that problem. Out of the village? Leaving the corners, the speeds are not the same. I think, Raj, we've gone through this before. I think that as much as you might want to, I mean one may want to, you can't just put a, it has to have certain, I know what you mean, saying like, could you put a stop sign there? But I don't think you can. I think you can't just put a stop sign because you feel like it. You know what I mean? You have to have a reason to do it. I'm not sure. Well, that's what I'm curious about. Like what are the criteria for that intersection in particular? You'd have to ask the camp one. It would have to pass standards before you. And I have a meeting, I have a meeting to be scheduled with him when I'll bring that up. Dan? I brought all this up back when Gabe Andy was going to put the development in right there, but I hope the Holy Family Cemetery right there is, and what you're saying was a concern back then how many years ago it was. And I suggest that. But it's all stuff that would have to go through the state of Vermont through transportation, but it's a difficult intersection as five corners. Anything with the trains tracks, as the interviewee said, we're kind of held in and it's difficult. No, but as we all know, it's also a major state of thoroughfare. You know, Rick's got design plans for two different kinds of student crossings there that never got implemented, and also one that's crossing over the train tracks so the students don't do it the way they're currently doing it. And there's all kinds of stuff that he's got in the books that we've talked about at Bike Walk just for lack of energy to push them through that long process. Yeah, no. But you know, it's only going to get busier. So I'm just curious what's possible or what the criteria are. We had UVM students, engineering students come and work with Rick Hamlin and they came up with a concept with which I applaud. They brought to us of a rotary. As you come in off of Main Street, you come to a rotary to keep the traffic flowing there better and get that through. I mean, everything nice just takes money, that's all. Now, I mean, those capstone projects to be, usually they've got a nugget in them, but often they're a capstone project. There's the show off and they're just good. The one I love is through A&R with the giant bridge. Over the state of Vermont? Over the stream, where they could have just kind of walked around the driveway. But they're just as cool. Yeah, but that's it. Roger, we're going to make a motion. Unless anybody else wants to see. Great. Move that the trustees adopt revisions to chapter eight, section 802 of the Village Municipal Code prohibit parking within the public right away on the side of the street, so designated on Lincoln Street on the west side from Prospect Street to a point northerly for a distance of 150 feet. Is there a second? I'll second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. There be opposed. Thank you so much. Going on to the next item of the budget schedule. Budget. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. You guys, come out a little. That's right, spreadsheets. Come out a little sum for Sarah. So, look. All right, so. Thank you. Tough crowd. Yeah, tough crowd. So last night, the select board decided to move to a budget day. Wow. Oh. So we should go in three minutes. I guess. No, that's. Not necessarily, I mean. Yeah. Just half an hour, it's on. Yeah. Budget week. As long as it's eight to four, I mean, I don't want to do it as long as you want. So Andrew had requested, when we first rolled out the tentative budget schedule for the year, that we have a more involved discussion about what works best for this group in its current form. That's the question. We historically have done it since I've been on the board. George Dan will always be for either of you, but for my tenure, this is how we had always done it. There's been a day from 8.30 to 3.30 or so. Staff come in, present a budget and talk, then go about our merry way, comes back to a later public meeting as we're, again, presenting the budget in other two or so times, I believe, in public meetings. But in terms of that budget development, that's really when the meat of things happen. And so do we want to continue the way that we've always done things, or try something a little different? So I just wanted to have a conversation. I'll give you one piece of color. I've been on the board the longest. Dan's next. And when I came on to the board, they had always been doing it that way. This couldn't stretch back to the 1950s for a while. I had no idea. I mean, it was just the long-standing tradition. I don't know if that means keeping it, but I just wanted to add that. As a new member who hasn't done this before, the only concern I would have just knowing myself is being able to absorb it and then provide logical feedback in the same day. I understand. So I'm just curious, those other two meetings, how much work is done on that? This is just mostly seeking input? Is it tweaks? I can tell you, the thing is that each department comes in and gives about a half an hour or 45-minute presentation. And you get to ask questions. I'm going to bias everything by saying, it's also their time to be on stage with us. And so it's a nice interaction that way. I don't feel it's ever been that demanding. We normally, we do most of the deliberation ahead of time, afterwards in terms of our stuff. And I think manager and staff and department had usually interact. So it's not like they come in and they're proposing a $5 million, some wacky thing. I mean, it's usually pretty close to what we're doing now. So, sir, maybe you can give them the budget document and then the timing of the budget day. I think I understand what you're asking me to do. And I also want to give you some pros and cons from my perspective as well. So here's the schedule as it stands now. Everybody has their, not everybody, all general fund departments have their budget template now. And they have until Monday, October 28th, which is after audit fieldwork to fill that out, put in their notes. What are they up to this year? What are their high-level goals and initiatives? What did they accomplish last year? And they've been instructed to other than personnel costs, keep it to a 2.5% range, unless they have some other big initiative that they talk to us about. So those will all come back to me on October 28th, and I'll spend that week compiling a town-wide budget and a village-wide budget general fund. And then over the next few weeks, Evan and Greg and I will meet individually with each of them, and we'll go over those, what are their initiatives? What are their goals? What are their priorities? How are the lines in this spreadsheet going to fund and support those goals and priorities? And what did they do last year? And then we'll put our heads together and come up with a final product that will then be delivered to you guys and the town on to the select board in advance of these either budget day or multiple budget work sessions, when, at which the department has come back and do the same thing again, but in the final format. That we were after? OK, what's going on? But you get down behind the scenes. You get your book. You get your budget book several days in advance. Make any promises for me. It's not like the day before, here, take this big book. But it also doesn't. I really think that you get the book. And if you want to scour it in advance, great. I think that it really comes to life when everyone gets to come in and talk about it. Some of, on the pro side of things, I think that the budget day format, when I was in St. Albans, the board had a finance subcommittee that would meet over lunch and get the whole budget run down maybe once or twice. And then they would recommend it to the board. And being able to get the whole picture in one sitting, it's a lot, but you get it all at once instead of, you know, maybe I'm hungry on this night, and I get some of it, and I'm tired the next, and I'm happy. So it helps to give you a more complete picture at once. That being said, dragging it out over a number of meetings maybe allows for a more in-depth look at each of the departments. Although, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, I think that we're trying to get away from that a little bit and more focus on the high level goals and priorities of the departments and how they support the goals and priorities of the entire organization. We tend to do all the blocking and tackling. If a line doesn't make sense to us, and we scrub it, and we're like, wait a second, you know, let's say you have $10,000 in a line activity, and for two or three straight years, you've not spent anything close to it, you're not getting $10,000 in that line. We don't like parking money. And if it's something that may happen in the future, then we want to put it somewhere else and then say we'll adjust. Those are the types of things. When we tell people we do not want this and your budget has that, it has to go through me, Sarah and others first. If there's a policy question of that, then we're open for these. So we take a very good pride of scrubbing and then having the people tell you, the departments, what they're gonna do with their money this year, what are their goals, what's going on, and then take your questions. The other thing is Jim and I have been talking about, is this the right time to also do the Enterprise Fund budgets? In other municipalities, those are done later in the year, which allows more focus to be on the General Fund budget this time. The Village Charter says that all budgets will be presented to the trustees prior to December 1st, but what Jim and I have tentatively landed on is that the draft water, sewer and sanitation expense budgets will be included in that, and then we will likely not go into a lot of detail. What we're thinking is we won't go in a lot of detail on those on budget day to allow us to really focus in on the General Fund, and then we'll come back with those at a regularly scheduled meeting. So I do think that we can get through all of it in a day. It was a little bit tiring last year. It was my first budget day ever, and I think lifting that out allows us to divide and conquer in a way that really plays to the strengths of what we've got. Budget day is a long day. It is a tiring day, and as George said, the best part is frankly that interaction with the departments. We don't, I haven't, I don't want to speak for everybody, but we don't typically go through line by line and say, what is this one for? What is that one for? What is this one for? And to nitpick why the increase is 2% here and a half a percent there, it doesn't get to that point. And usually, please don't make my wrong, there have been in the last seven or so years, two, maybe three things that in what was recommended, we've changed to some capacity. So what gets presented largely is what goes through to a final vote by the community barring some things we may want to see differently. Yeah, I agree with you, Sadie Andrew. And I also think, Sarah, I can think of any of the budgets that we look at usually Jim's budget in terms of the technical stuff that's happening. We don't really get in there and do, oh no, no, that's way too much for that, we don't usually mess around with that. So I don't think, I think as long as we get the general trend of where it's going, I think that's fine. That would be the one, I think the whole enterprise fund usually is something that we don't open up the hood and mess with the engine on that. Other than where the electronic meter thing's going, the electronic water meter reading is more than that one question. But those are the fun questions that we have. Those are the few things that we actually can ask stuff about. And a lot of what we focus on early on is our cost drivers, which is personnel. It's health insurance, it's- Salt, sand, bathing. Yeah, those are the things, and if you tell me what the cost of the salt is, I'll tell you whether all that works is gonna be on budget this year. And you told me how many days it's gonna snow. Yeah, yeah, there's so many variables in the whole society. You've gotta plan, not go overboard and buy megatons of it, but what's reasonable, looking at a 10 year, 20 year bracket and play it. And so we do a lot of that. We do a lot of what's driving our costs, whether we have a particular building project that's gonna be the capital driver or whatever it is, or how much is the town contributing in this particular, so the public works budget goes over to the town. If it's in the right realm, they just accept it. We dust off the magic eight ball? Yeah. And so what, but one of the- No, I was just gonna say, you were saying, and then all of you go out the window, when you have a water main break over on 117, and your expenditures go right through the units. You can't. Yeah, when the manager's phone rings at two or three in the morning, it's not a good, it's not like, hey buddy, how's your sleep? It's not, you're not sleeping and we've got a problem. We don't have a homework policy for this bill to this exemption, so we can't- But a lot of it, but again, for the board, we try to keep you guys in the policy realm and not how many shovels we're buying, because by the time it gets to you, we've asked a lot of those questions, right? So, those are the options, or well, so there's, where are you at? I was just going to keep the conversation moving. Keep going, keep- So, I originally was on the fence of thinking, I didn't want to necessarily take a day off from work, I just started a new job, kind of a deal, but I think my best thinking is done during the daytime hour. Yeah, that's the other thing. And so, I am changing it up and saying, I'm kind of buying all in favor of a day. Great. I agree with that, I just have to confirm I can get it, great. So, I'll have to do that first. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good tradition and I think I don't see the big reason to change it. And I am an ampermator, excellent point. My best thinking is not at nine o'clock at night, yeah. Plus, we'll keep the, you know, the fewer times we ask staff to come in, right? Yeah. Yeah, we'll put everything else coming on. We will feed you. Oh, yeah. That's a good piece. And the lunch part is the best part, yeah. I'm glad you're interested in your job there. Thank you. Yeah. No, it's all good and it's the whole thing, like the whole thing we have in the sand about not weighing in on every shovel that's spot. I'm a big proponent of not micromanaging, you know? And that's what we pick our staff or we have manager and the manager picks his staff and he works and it's all, you know, that's the way it works for us all. The only thing that if staff will please just tell us where we're getting lunch, so we don't have to have the, I want to say, George, Dan, what was it, four years ago it took us about 45 minutes to figure out where we're getting lunch. That's usually the biggest, most controversial part. We just tell us where we're going. We actually did that in advance. Yes. I believe, we'll do it all the time. We'll probably, I think we did it all the time. Just as long as it's in the village, don't say, don't ask what it called just to re-wrap. I'll tell you now, it's gonna be hard to find. Thank you. Okay. That's why they're just gonna tell us where we're headed. Yeah. Yeah, we can bring our own sandwiches in if we want to. All right, Dan, all right, Dan, Dan. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's right. That's right. So it sounds like we're good on that. Yeah. We're gonna imagine the item. Oh, great. That will move up. The one last thing I say is not about the process, per se, thank you for having me on budget day. We set a really difficult, confident, we're going to work hard, but it's health insurance. Is this one not the year for me to say two and a half percent. But we, health insurance is going to be a significant bump, but we're looking at some options, but this is gonna be a heavy lift. We're gonna try and we'll see. I have not seen any of the numbers from any of the departments yet, but it's a heavy lift. So, but if we had said three, we might see a little higher. If we say two and a half, we might see, you know, something. Can I get a comment? I'd rather, if some department has a cost that's really, they really need to meet, and it's gonna push them over that, I'd rather know about it in December than find out about it in June or July, okay? I'd rather have us wrestle with it and have them bring it in here. If the fire department has something that they really need, but obviously don't suppress it just in order to meet some arbitrary number. No, thank you. All right, so there's no, don't need for a vote or a motion on that. So thank you for the conversation. So going on to the consent agenda. Will we approve the consent agenda? Second. And all, any further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Great, that passed unanimously because we also died. Going into the reading file, first one being Board Member Comments. Does anybody have anything they want to talk about? Amber. I had two comments. One, I would ask as it was kind of moot at this point, but we have the decibel readings and reports that the folks do, the engineers on the engineer does for CVE. I'd ask that those are included in our reading file. When they are done. So they can also make its way to the website for folks to be able to see those as well. My second comment is related to the staff reports. I don't know what the, I'm a newbie here. I don't know what their, whether this is something that Bronel does on their own or if it's asked for. I really enjoy them, but I would like to have the reports done monthly or when they are done because it seems like we are getting at least three reports every time we get them and so they become zero for the ages of reading. So instead of getting the July one in October? In October if we could get it in, I don't know, August, September, somewhere in there would be. Something a little closer? Yeah. And then you could react to things to look at it's culture and time versus now. I don't know what it's possible or not, but just to kind of, it's good, it's a good comment because of the way their boards meet. It might be the lie that's stretched out that I would find out. Thank you. Anybody else? Sorry sheepish, but by cracks for the front of the Firebird Cafe, where are we? They're gonna arrive before winter, I'm guessing, right? I just saw an invoice that is waiting for my approval. So they've been ordered. Does it say, excellent looking bike racks? It's a Sarah, what a family bird. Nice. There is a design that was picked out. There is a insert with a design in it. I believe that, did we agree or did not agree to that? I'm happy. I'm trying to, I'm just trying to stay out of it. I think Robin thought that the, I don't think he's trying to, I think he's still trying to research, but those were, they're basically looking. There's racks coming. Yes, okay. Thank you, so it's good. Something will forward it. It's good, it's good. Just didn't want the traffic cones to be out there all the time. But they're so great. Any other board members or anything else? Two things I wanted to just say. I noticed the line striping that was done looks very nice and very apparent. Can't miss it. Appreciate seeing them. And then along the lines with the library reports, one of the things that I found myself wondering is, why do they count everything? I understand that counting things is important, but to know how many is it? Why can't you read? Because it's like data and organize and you have a little hole. But are they doing it because they want to or has there been a history from the board to say, tell us exactly how many people attended every single program? Good to know, but if it's a burden to them, I don't want it to come from us. It may come from that, no more. Yeah, I can only say, I don't know. The library does a five year plan, and a lot of the time they look back through five years of data that helps them make decisions about where to go. More computers, more programs, more books or something like that. It might be for their own benefit as well as ours. Great. As long as I'm kind of grant the justification long term, that's what I think whenever it is. As long as it's not interesting to me, but I just wonder if they have to keep track for some time. My concern is as long as it wasn't coming from this entity or me on this entity. Okay, and so does it seem to catalog the data as you get it? Mm-hmm. And also George, the bifurcs are expected to ship on October 24th. Awesome. Mm-hmm. Great. Yeah. Tom Berger. Just in time for this now. He has had standard, he has had some things welded for the front between the counts. He has made some stuff too. Oh yeah, the signs up there that say no. Nothing. No. But it's wonderful how busy, how busy that is. And I've heard from so many people, I can't even count, that just feel like the last two years with two little additions to the block, what an incredible difference that's made. And it just, I can really speak for myself, just makes it very exciting with what we're thinking. I mean, if those two additions have made that many more people come and spend time downtown, I think. And to see the parking lot, the public parking lot behind it be full. It's actually used. It's actually used. Yes. It wasn't for a period of time. It's very cool. It's like it dropped out of the sky. Except it's been there for two years. Was there anything else from staff? Our budget season, as you heard tonight, basically is well under way now. Busy, the town adopted its gun discharge ordinance change last night. Then they have to go through the next phase. But that went through last night. Survey that's out. I don't want to take too much. But I think we're somewhere near 680, 690 responses. We have tried, maybe I'm throwing out. We're not getting that many more responses. So it is coming towards its original destination of ending that it will then do their analysis. Just busy stuff, busy days, and you are in audit, correct? That's right. So Laura has been back on Thursdays for five hours a week. You can almost come see her. So ask James O'Sarra very gingerly. Just don't. Or not, just don't. I have no filter questions for the next few weeks. But we're, you know, we have a great team. And I think we're ready. I think we're just a little bit nervous to do it, you know, according to me. And, you know, no Lauren, no Doug, like the safety net is gone. So I'm just excited to make that clear. So that will move us to the reading file. And then going for executive session. So at this point, I will move its trustees entering to the executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointments and of course with one PSA section 31383 and to include unified manager and the assistant manager. So if there's any further discussion on the motion. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye.