 Do we want to get started or wait another minute? What do you think? I'd say seven o'clock. All right. It's your show, sir. Right, so first Tammy, you can start the recording. And then I'd like to welcome everybody to the Village of Essex Junction annual meeting. And I'm Steve Eustis, moderator for the evening. And we're gonna get started first by saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance, the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. And then, Tammy, you were gonna go do the national anthem. Who say can you see by the dawn's early light? What's so proud that one stripes and bright stars through? So at this point, I'd like to introduce Village President Andrew Brown to make the other introductions for the evening. Thank you, Steve. And thank you for moderating tonight's meeting. First, I would like to go ahead and introduce the Village staff who I believe are in attendance tonight. First, we have our unified manager, Evan Teach, assistant manager, Marguerite Lab, Village Public Work Superintendent, Ricky Jones, assistant manager, Greg Duggan. Tonight's executive producer and assistant to the manager, Tammy Getchell, administrative assistant, Linda Mans, finance director, Sarah Macy, the communities assessor, Karen Lemna, our community development director, Robin Pierce. We have a recording secretary, Kathy Ainsworth, our wastewater or our water quality superintendent, Jim Jutris. We have a Brown L library director, Wendy Hisco, and I believe we have the Essex Junction Recreation and Parks director, Brad Luck. As far as board members, we have vice president, George Tyler, we have trustee, Dan Karen, trustee, Amber Tebow, and trustee, Raj Traula. In addition to that, I believe I see some other distinguished guests in the audience tonight. We have Village representatives, Karen Dolan, and Lori Houghton. And I believe we also have a few select board members who have joined us tonight as well. I believe I saw a new select board chair, Andy Watts. Congratulations, Andy. And as I'm scrolling through the list, I believe that may be all. All right, thank you, Andrew. I'd like to read the instructions for tonight's meeting before we get into the agenda of the articles. This is an informational hearing to discuss the articles being voted on by Australian Ballot for the 2021 Village Meeting. As such, tonight there will be no motions, amendments, or voting at this meeting. Permanent information on this meeting are on the Village website. All attendees must remain on mute, except when recognized by me. Attendees can get in line to make remarks by using the raise hand tool or by using the chat to type that they want to speak. People will be queued in order of request. We'll also check the phone calls. Only residents of the Village of Essex Junction are allowed to speak. All remarks, questions, and discussion should be addressed to me. Please wait to be recognized before unmuting and speaking, and then give your name and street address and speak in a loud voice so that your comments may be heard by everyone. In order to have a reasonable length meeting, discussion on Article 6 will be limited to 60 minutes. The trustee presentation at the beginning of Article 6 does not count towards the discussion limit. As in our usual Village meeting, each person should plan to limit their time to two to three minutes so that more people have a chance to speak. As in past years, I will not specifically time people, but will encourage people to wrap up if you're speaking too long. My role as moderator is to help you ask your question or make your point. If you need help, please let me know. Above all, please be civil and respectful of your neighbor's opinions. Lastly, the chat window is only to be used to ask to speak. Type your first and last name and that you'd like to speak. No comments, questions or conversations are allowed in the chat. So hopefully there's no questions. This should be similar to how we ran the town meeting a month ago. And with that, we can move on to the articles and we'll start with Article 1. Shale the voters approve an annual general fund budget in the amount of $5,641,278 for fiscal year July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, $3,745,866, of which is to be levied in taxes against the Village Grand List. Like to start out discussion on Article 1 by the trustees making a quick presentation, which I believe is going to be done by Andrew. Thank you again, Steve. And I neglected to recognize our community's clerk and all around master of democracy, Susan McNamara Hill. Susan, I apologize for that. So with the Article 1 of the budget, one of the ways that I like to introduce this really is that this is a status quo budget. And when I say that what I mean is we are not proposing new services. We are really proposing a continuation of the villages functioning that we have all enjoyed for the years that we have lived here. So if you can go on to the next slide. Overall highlights, as you can see, where the biggest change is the highway and the rolling stock capital transfers have been moved into department budgets. And what that means is that the rolling stock fund which is what pays for our vehicles, those instead of being paid for out of a capital fund are being moved to, instead of being paid out of the rolling stock fund are moved into the individual departments. And with that highway rolling stock transfer, it would be funded by the town, which as of now has been approved by the town of Essex. So that parents that are called no longer applies. We are adding $25,000 in transfer to be transferred to the building maintenance fund to address priority building projects. Otherwise staffing remains stable, no new positions, no decrease in positions. And that the budget benefits are relatively stable from prior year as that previous year's budget increase did not end up materializing. And go ahead to the next slide. As you can see from the high level summary here, the overall budget that we are proposing for fiscal year 22 has a percent change of 5.1%. And the most contributing factors to that budget are typically salaries and benefits. We have good staff who we want to ensure are paid a livable and competitive wage to retain our staff as well as the employee benefits that are offered. That capital transfer, you will notice is the largest increase that we're proposing for the budget. This is a planned increase that we have been doing for the past few years to help ensure that we are maintaining the community's infrastructure as well as our buildings. Board stipends, this is a new piece in that we are proposing for the planning commission and the zoning board as well as for the trustees to increase those stipends, which have not been increased in at least 18 or so years, as well as more importantly, to try and help retain and recruit additional community members to our boards, we are offering to provide a stipend to all board members for all volunteers. That stipend is a $50 per meeting stipend. And the way that that would work is it is an opt out instead of an opt in process. So for those board members who do not want to receive that stipend, they can choose not to, but it is an offered stipend that we were proposing for all board members in one way to thank them for their time, but more importantly, for those who may need to hire a babysitter for childcare purposes, or as well as to be able to provide food for their children and families while they are away for the meeting. This is a way to help cover that cost to ensure that finances are not a factor in participating, as well as to try and increase the diversity of our boards, as it's been one of the pieces of feedback we have received is that offering this would be a great way to help incentivize the previously marginalized members of our community to participate in the board or on our committees. The professional services is being increased by $15,000 due to a required land development code updates. Another required piece is a salary study that we do every other year, and that increases in paving and sell costs. Can go on to the next slide, please. So while the general fund budget is going up 5%, the amount to be raised by tax dollars, we are proposing to go up 2.1%. And the tax rate, so what the rate that is then applied to your assessed value of your home would go up by 0.97, so less than 1%. This estimated tax increase to the average village property that is assessed at $280,000 would see just under a $9 per year increase. And when I say $280,000 assessed value, I want to be very clear that does not mean the market rate value, as we have seen in our community home prices and real estate prices have increased significantly during the pandemic, and that is not the same thing as the assessed value. If you go into the grand list, which is available on the town's website, you can see what your property is valued at, as well as looking at your tax bill, should you still have that. You can see what your home or your property is valued at, and you can use that $280,000 a benchmark. One of the reasons why the tax increase is less than the budget in part are because of the ways that we have funding in the town of Essex, as well as other sources. And this funding helps to offset the increases that we are experiencing as that acts as a revenue to offset that. And then we also have a small increase in the grand list of $480,000. And when we say that, what we mean is just continued development within the community helps to lower the increase of taxes on the rest of us. So you can go ahead to the next slide. And as you can see from the pie chart here as to where your tax bill dollars go. So starting off with that lowest chunk on the left corner, the Village of Essex Junction, from the fiscal year we are currently in or fiscal year 21, the average tax bill in the community of $6,994, 14% of that goes to the Village of Essex Junction. And that is the budget we are talking about tonight. It's just that 14% there. 21% of your tax bill goes to the town of Essex and 65% of that tax bill goes to the Essex Westbrook School District. Go ahead to the next slide please. We wanted to make sure to make sure to show the community what capital projects we are looking to complete this year or at least get started. First and foremost is a Densmore Drive Colbert replacements and the reconstruction of part of that road. Densmore Drive is over by Essex Pediatrics. It is a road that has been closed since Halloween of 2019, I believe, during a significant rainfall event that we ended up having for a few days and the Colbert failed and the road washed out. The road has been closed since then and so that road will now be able to be replaced. The Colbert will be replaced and the road will be opened up again to traffic on both sides. You will also see how in the rolling stock funds as well as in some other funds, the Vactor Truck is going to be replaced. For those of you who are unsure what the Vactor Truck is, that is what we commonly and lovingly refer to as the Super Sucker 5000. It's what helps to clean out storm drains, stormwater drains and really is just a giant vacuum that's attached to a really fun-looking vehicle. Within the Essex Junction Recreation Park's capital funds, new playground equipment will be replaced. For those who have not seen it, please check out the Essex Junction Recreation Park's website. If you're on Facebook or social media, it is on the Village of Social Media page as well as a Recreation Social Media page. That new playground equipment looks to be a lot of fun. I know personally I'm excited to bring our child there and then some of the other things you can see on the screen as well of debts, the manhole repair and some energy conservation measures. So in total, you can see where that $1.6 million is going to be going. And if you can go on to the next slide, that is the end of the budget presentation. And so Steve, I will turn it back to you. All right, thank you. Is there any members of the community that would like to ask any questions on the budget? You can either type your name in the chat say you'd like to ask a question or you can raise your hand with the Zoom function. Okay, give it another moment here. Okay, someone's fumbling to type their name in. I always wondered what that truck was called that worked on the storm drains. I know you can hear it from a distance. All right, hearing no discussion, I'm going to move on to article two. Article two, shall the village authorize a transfer of the remaining balance of the Land Acquisition Fund, estimated balance to be approximately $82,700 to the Economic Development Fund to be used for downtown development. And then I believe that George is going to start off article two discussion with the presentation. Right, thank you, Steve. So the Land Acquisition Fund, can everyone hear me okay? I can. Okay, the Land Acquisition Fund was a fund that was started by the trustees back in the early 2000s. And the idea was they made contributions to it from the general fund when they could from the year of the year. And the idea was to accumulate enough money to buy property, potentially buy property anywhere in the village, but preferably in the village center with an eye towards improving the village downtown and redeveloping and revitalizing the village downtown. And I think what the history of this is that they never actually purchased property with it. I think it got up to about just under $400,000. And then in the late 2000s, the trustees used it for some capital expenditures and other expenses about 300,000 or a little over 300,000 of it with the remainder just sort of sat in the fund and was just left there and has been accumulating interest. And so I think with the change over in finance and the manager's office, we just sort of put this on hold and really didn't think about it. But now Sarah Macy had brought it to our attention that this was still there. And so what we thought was, we would ask the voters, the original fund was set up so that the trustees had to get voter permission to spend the money. And we thought what we would like to do is transfer the remaining funds into what we call the economic development fund or the penny on the tax rate fund that we set up more recently for specific downtown redevelopment and improvement projects and I'll be discussing that in a moment. But that's the idea. And we thought the intent of the land acquisition fund is pretty close to the intent of the economic development fund. So we thought it was an appropriate way to transfer and use that remaining money. Thank you. Thank you, George. Any members of the audience have any questions about article two? Fairly straightforward, honestly. Thank you for that explanation, George. Okay, we'll give it another moment here. All right, hearing none, we'll move on to article three. Shall the voters approve extending the one cent capital improvement tax, also known as the economic development tax, as established in 2016 to be reconsidered again at annual meeting in 2024. And again, George is going to give the presentation now for article three. Right, thanks, Steve. And I think if you could just dial it down, that's good. And let me first of all explain what you're seeing there. It's probably a little surprising. This is an artist rendering of the potential use of the land acquisition fund and some of the economic development funds for the area that we're designating as a potential green space and park in front of Firebird at five corners. And we purchased the property in front of Firebird back two years ago with the economic development fund. And we also have made some other downtown purchases with an eye towards improving and revitalizing the Village Center. And one of the potential uses that we would make you, that we would think of doing this year or potentially next year would be to use some of the funds to proceed with the actual finishing of the park. If there are any tree advisory people, committee members in the audience, please don't have a heart attack looking at the trees. This is just what the artist just sketched in, some trees there. I don't know what species they are there. I couldn't tell you, and that's not exactly what the finished trees or a space would look like, but we just wanted to get some concept of what that space would look like as a finished park. So to get back to the economic development fund, this was set up several years ago. It's what we call a penny on the tax rate, whatever the prevailing tax rate from year to year, it charges an additional penny on the tax rate. Typically it's been generating about $120,000 a year. And some of the most recent purchases we had, as I said, we bought the space in front of Firebird to create a potential park. We tapped into the fund this past summer to help bring about the open and outside event. One of the other uses, we've used it for other events in the Village Center. We've used it to make other small improvements in the Village Center. One of the big potential projects that we are anticipating is we purchased 33 spaces in a parking garage that's being built as part of the project on Park Street. They would be permanent spaces for anyone to use for the Village Center. And the idea is that we would extend, when we set this up, it was for three years, it generates about 120,000 a year. And the idea is that this would, we would just continue doing this. We said it would have to sunset in three years and we would have to come back to the voters to ask permission, ask voter approval to continue this fund. And that's what this is about. And I'm gonna wrap up here. I just recently read a story about St. Albans and their revitalization project. And it was a great quote. They recently, they set up some funds and they also have a downtown revitalization effort. And they used some money, taxpayer dollars, much more than we're anticipating using. They used a half a million dollars worth of taxpayer dollars to purchase a property that was then torn down and replaced by a, which they used to attract developers to build a multi-use apartment building, the kind of building that we're seeing going in in the Village Center. But the city of St. Albans really kicked in, big time to make that happen. But they had a great quote. The planner and the manager, I'm not sure which one of them, they had a great quote. I said, if you don't invest in your downtown, don't expect other people to invest in it. And so I think that's sort of the attitude that we've had with this penny on the tax rate fund. And I'll wrap it up there. Thanks. All right. Thank you, George. Anybody have any questions from the audience? Thank you for explaining that in a very straightforward way, George. Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to article four. Shall the annual stipend for the position of a trustee of the village board of trustees be raised from $500 to $1,000? And it looks like Amber is going to be the trustee to speak to this article. Thanks, Steve. Andrew actually covered a lot of this in the budget presentation, but this article is a proposal to increase the annual stipend that the trustees receive. And it's part of a whole plan to diversify, hopefully the candidates that we receive for all of the boards in the village. So the proposal is to increase from $500 to $1,000. I guess for as long as, I mean, I've only got on the board a couple of years, but my understanding is it's been set at $500 for a long time, at least 15 years plus. Next slide. So if you look at last year's meetings schedule, we had either trustee meetings solely or joint meetings with the select board. We had about 54 meetings. That means that at the current rate, that's $9 a meeting that the trustees are receiving. So the increase would put it at $18 a meeting. Next slide. And how does that compare to other communities? So the town of Essex and the town of Colchester both pay their select board members $1,500 a year. City of Burlington city counselors receive $5,000 a year. Next slide. So as I mentioned, it is part of this potential, hopefully get some new folks involved diversify the groups that we have. So we are proposing as part of the budget that you guys are also voting on is an increase in stipends to the zoning board of adjustment. The planning commission will go from 300 to $600 a year and all committees including the bike walk or trade advisory will now receive a $50 a meeting stipend that was not there before. It isn't opt out as Andrew said. So everybody will get it and you can opt to not receive it but you will automatically get it. And we recognize that folks potentially need to pay for daycare so that they can attend evening meetings and hope that this helps get some more folks involved. That's all I got, Steve. All right, thank you. And just a neutral fact when I was on the board when I got on the board in 1998 I believe the pay was $500. So it's been a long time. So who knows before that anyway. Any questions from the audience? Getting all these nice straightforward articles out of the way. Oh, we've got a hand raised. Looks like Karen, Rep Karen Dolan would like to make a comment. Go ahead, Karen. You can unmute yourself. Thank you. Not a question, just a note of appreciation for the trustees for putting this out there. I will share as a new representative I understand how this can be a tricky thing to ask for in some ways is maybe fair reasonable compensation for the work and the need to have that there in order to increase diversity and bring new voices to the table. But I really appreciate you doing that because I think it does really make a difference. And I'll share with the view project that we have which is voices for inclusion in Essex and Westford we provide stipends for folks to come to the meeting and it makes a big difference for attendance. So just wanna say appreciation for making this happen. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Hearing none, we'll move on to article five. Shall the voters approve holding the 2022 annual meeting on Wednesday, April 6th, 2022 to act upon any articles not involving voting by Australian ballot and to reconvene on Tuesday, April 12th, 2022 to vote for village officers and transact any business involving voting by Australian ballot. And I'm not sure if there's any presentation on that one. No, there is not. So obviously fairly straightforward and it's on there every single year. Charter requires to be asked to set the date for voting. Any questions from the audience? Only the jets are making the noise. All right. So you picked a great night for the night training. All right. Hearing none, we'll move on to article six. By a non-binding resolution, shall the Essex Junction Board of Trustees be advised to draft a charter to create the independent city of Essex Junction for consideration by the village of Essex Junction voters no later than November, 2021 should effort seeking a vote for reconsideration on the issue of merger fail. We advise that the charters shall not include any union municipal districts, interlocal contracts, special tax districts or other relationships within the town of Essex for the provision of village government services. The only exception may be for the consideration of police services. So for this article, anticipating a little bit more discussion, we had set a 60 minute limit. We might not need that, but that's what we agreed on ahead of time. And I'm noting that it's 733 here, although that's right, the trustees, I think we're going to say something first, which I said was not going to count. Was there anything that needed to be said, Andrew, by any member of the board? Hi Dan, was this where you were going to say something? I'm sorry, I don't remember. I would like to clarify that this article six is being presented today because at least 5% of the village registered voters signed a petition, a resident that community brought up this petition to address the issue of merger. And obviously it's been brought up many times over the years. I think since 1958, this issue of merger has been presented in some form and it seems to have failed every time. And rather than continue doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, I think a lot of the people here in the village are frustrated and would like to see some form of change. And one option would be to come a, or to develop a charter to create a new city for the state would be the first, I think maybe 80 years or 100 years. To separate from the town and in order to do that, we're a bill and rule state, I don't wanna get too deep into this, but as a bill and rule state to make changes to a charter, it has to be approved by the legislature. We can't just enact changes to our charter and have it established accepted by the state without approval by the state legislature. So this petition is some more taking serious and we respect the opinion of our constituents. And to that end, as Andrew has brought up in previous meetings, we're looking at developing a advisory board for the trustees to get information on options should merger fail. And obviously this is one option. And I just wanna say that personally, I feel merger is the best route for both the village in the town outside the village to come together. I think we're stronger together than we are apart. But if that does not come to be, I also feel that we're gonna be fine. If we were to separate, it's not gonna be the end of the world. I know some people have been very concerned about that. Both communities will survive and I'm sure you find a way to move forward amicably. So that's it for now. And if anybody's had questions, feel free to ask them. I gladly answer anything I can or other trustees can weigh in as well. Sure, thank you, Dean. So, all right, so it's 736. And just a reminder to either raise your hand, type in the chat and keep your remarks to a couple minutes either to ask a question, make a point, et cetera. And everyone will get to speak once before anybody else, before you can get to speak a second time. So, I'll open it up to see if anybody in the audience would like to make a comment or a question. What's the crickets tonight? Any questions for the trustees on article six? All right, I think we're gonna have a short, oh, we've got here. Rep Lori Houghton, you may speak. I don't have a question. I just wanna thank the trustees. I know this petition came up fast and I attended the meeting where it was presented and the conversation that was had after and that your leadership is really wonderful around this situation. It's not an easy decision. And as Dan said, I think we're better together and I do hope merger passes, but I also think all of you and Rep Dolan and I need to listen to the committee members as well. And this is a good step in that direction. So thank you for your leadership. All right, thank you. Lori. Any other questions or comments? Dave. Yep. Link Sullivan. Okay. I don't see a raise my hand. Okay, that's fine, but go ahead, Mike. I also wanna thank the trustees for all their work and all their hard work on this whole situation. This is not easy. What we're about to do and we're hopefully gonna get finally to the point of finishing this. I wanna thank everybody in our community who has very worked very, very hard in forward for this merger. And I just wanna add my two cents that thanks everybody. Okay. Thank you, Mike, for speaking up. Appreciate that. Anybody else? And I forget where the raise hand button is, but if, again, it's fairly quiet tonight, so if no one else is in line, feel free like Mike did, or again, type in the chat. That's typing in the chat obviously is a safe way to go. I do have one more thing, Steve, I'm sorry. You may go ahead, Mike. Besides Sarah Macy, if separation comes by, we wanna even teach too. Thank you. All right, thank you. Anybody else like to make a statement or question? All right. One last chance. I think it's apparently everything has been explained extremely clearly on all these articles, since there hasn't been too many questions. I think there's somebody in the chat right now. What's that? Including in the chat, JD. Oh, Jeff, Dave, do you have, would you like to speak, Jeff? Yes, sorry, I'm also looking for the, I'm gonna have to play with the functions to find the hand-raising, but can you clarify what would be the benefit of becoming a city that is remaining as the village if the merger doesn't happen? And I would also kind of venture that I do think that Essex has covered this topic pretty far as by the silence, but I'm a newer member to the community, but that would be a helpful thing to understand. Could you repeat that? I didn't hear what, I only heard a question. No, I can repeat that. He would, Jeff would like to understand what the difference is for being an independent city versus remaining as the village? Like what is, you know, the pro or con to consider? Sorry, excuse me, Jeff, could you give me your full name please for the record as well? Yes, sorry. Yes, I'm sorry, Deloria. Thank you so much, excuse me. So, I mean, depending on, there's a lot of things to be answered, Jeff, to answer your question. It's not really a clear cut thing that you can define because there's different forms of the city style, you know, whether it's a mayor or, you know, manager, the city of South Burlington didn't have a mayor. The city of Burlington has a mayor, an elected official, just like a trustee or a select board member. The manager is appointed. And anyhow, one benefit would be, if you wanna look at it from right now, the taxing for our village residents as members of the town of Essex, we receive a tax bill for the town, we receive a tax bill for the village. There's obviously two fire departments. We pay for two fire departments, two libraries, two public works departments, two, you know, two of everything almost. When we first split back in the late 1800s, the town outside the village didn't have those services. They didn't really want the services that the village was seeking because the village was growing at the time and needed wanted a water department, wanted a fire department. So it made sense at the time to separate and not put that burden upon the more rural town outside the village at that time. Over the past 100, some odd years, 130 years, a lot has changed. Obviously development and businesses come to the community as a whole. The village in the town outside the village has grown and the needs of the town outside the village have changed. Initially, the police department when it was first established was in the village of Essex Junction. And subsequently in 1980, the state police, as I was a member, prior to my coming on the state police in Vermont, the state police patrolled the town outside the village. The village police department or whatever patrolled the village. In 1980, that changed. The village gave up the police department services that the town took them over and the town in that period since 1892 or 1890, it's somewhere in the 1890, I think it was around 1892, 93 when we separated. The town has also created rec department as created a fire department. And now have the exact dates of all these different services that came to be in the village or the town outside the village. But it's a cost to the community as a whole. And for a long time, Essex Junction, we had IBM paying a machinery equipment tax that kind of subsidized the taxes for the residents of the community here. That machinery equipment tax went away. The burden for that tax base fell upon the property owners in the village. So the village property owners started to feel that tax burden. And I think that's when a lot of the push started coming for merger or change because it comes down to taxes. And so that's one benefit. If we were to separate, we'd be, we'd have autonomy. We'd be an autonomous community just a city of Essex Junction and not subject to a tax for services outside of the village. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Okay. All right. Anybody else like to make a comment? Okay. And I think there's been some discussion on how you get to the raise your hand under participants. It's under participants, yes. Yes. We'll have it figured out by the end of the day. All right. Any other questions? I see Mike has his hand raised. Again, if you could state your name, full name and your street, that would be great. Go ahead, Mike. Hi, yeah. This is Mike Sapoky, Beach Street. I just had a question as far as the tax that we pay Essex Town. What is it that we actually, what services do we pay for that make up the tax that we pay the town? Okay. Which trustee would like to address that question? So what we pay for in the town goes to the town fire department, goes to the town recreation department, administration. So part of the salary, finance, the clerk, it funds everything that happens in the town government as we are town residents. What it also does is it funds some duplicative departments that we also fulfill. So again, in fire, and in so forth, library. Library, thank you. Okay. Mike, does that answer your questions? Yeah. I guess I'm just, I mean, I guess I'm curious if the junction and the town each have separate fire and parks and recs. I guess I'm not putting the pieces together, I guess is the question. If we have our own separate municipal departments, I guess why are we paying double? I guess is my question. Well, Mike, maybe I can help you, Mike. So as I said before, when the village separated from the town back in the late 1890s or late 1800s, we established services that the town outside the village didn't need or want. And as I was saying before, the town outside the village grew in that 130 year period and developed the need for some of those services like the library that they have, the rec services that they have because they were paying, they wanted their own service closer to where their residents outside the village live. So they don't have to come all the way into the villages. So they like to use the library down here and they're not a resident of the village. So they'd have to pay a fee. They pay out-of-town fees to use our pool over on Maple Street. They're not a resident of the community. They pay a slightly higher fee for the services to utilize them here in the village. Anyways, they created their own rec department, their own library, their own fire department. And since we're a member of that town, we're in the corporate municipality in the town of Essex. So we're part of the town. That's why we can vote on town issues and village issues. And so that's why we have it. We've pretty much had all these services much longer than the town or longer than the town has, but as they grew, we took on that responsibility to help with the cost of that because we're residents of the town. Had we not been residents of the town, had we split and become a city back in the 1800s, that burden for those services would have fallen upon the residents of the town outside the village, not the village. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. George, did you wanna add something in? I saw you raised your hand. I didn't know if you wanted to add in. Yeah, I just wanna, and that was a great explanation, Dan. I just wanna add, because I have just spent a lot of time looking at municipal charters around the state. Under state statute, an incorporated village, and we are an incorporated village, has to exist inside a town. And under state statute, the incorporated village, we may, has to continue to pay taxes to help the town provide services. But conversely, the town government is not required to contribute to village services. The town can extend town services into the village, and that's what we see with the police department, the Essex Town Police Department, is formally technically owned and operated by the town of Essex. And we all pay into it as town residents and the police operate in the village and the town. But the town of Essex is not required to contribute to the village fire department, the village library, village planning and zoning, that sort of thing. However, village residents are required to contribute to those things in the town. It's just the way state statutes were set up back in the 19th century, and it's a peculiarity of how the whole thing has come about. And each town village community in the state has sort of found their own solution, their own sort of status quo way of dealing with this, except for Essex and Essex Junction, I think because we both grew to become fairly large communities at about the same time, there just hasn't been a good status quo solution that's come up and this merger effort was the latest iteration and we'll see what happens. But I hope, I don't know if that helps explain it, but it's the way state statutes are set up. Villages are required to support their host town, but the town is not required to provide financial support to the village. All right, thank you, George. Other questions or comments? Some good ones so far. All right, oh, we've got a hand. Mike, follow up question. No, sorry, I just have another question. What's going to, what could happen if the merger passes? Does the town have the right to do a petition and basically have another revote? Is that a possibility? Go ahead, Andrew. Short answer is no. You can only reconsider one article per year. So no, this question on merger that was just voted upon in March, this is that one time that we were voting upon again here. So it cannot be, it cannot happen again this year. Okay, thank you for that. Nice, quick, easy answer. All right, anybody else? Okay, class chance. All right, I'm going to move on then to article seven. And it's a 754 and 18 minutes, so pretty good. Article seven, to elect village officers required by law, including the moderator, two village trustees for two, three year terms and one library trustee for a five year term. And as a reminder, the voting is next Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Essex High School, the Community Education Center. And you can also, you know, vote by mail, make sure you give yourself plenty of time or drop your ballot off at the town office. There's a ballot. And is there also a collection at the village office or is it just at the town office? That's a question. Just at the town office. Just at the town office, okay, thank you. So three ways to get your ballot in and everything has to be received by next Tuesday if you're dropping off or mailing. Is there anything that else needs to be said on article seven? I know Susan, if I missed anything regarding the voting. Yeah, I just wanted to add that if you don't bring your ballot to the town office by April 12th, on April 13th, you'll have to take it directly to the polling place. We can't accept them at the town office anymore. Okay, perfect. So you have to complete the drop off and mail receipt by the 12th and then on the 13th, take it to the polling area. Perfect. And as also noted, there's also the town question on there. Besides these seven articles, there's the reconsideration of the merger article on the town side. I believe just as the jets are ramping up outside my window, I don't know if anybody else has any other, Andrew, any parting comments? I think Mike Sullivan has his hand raised. Mike, did you have a question on article seven and voting? No, I do not have a question, but I would urge you to at this point, consider mailing as a iffy situation. If you want your vote to count, take it to the town offices or come next Tuesday. Okay, thank you, Mike. Steve, this is Evan. I don't know if you can see me. I can, I was going to call on you next. Mike, thank you for that comment. We have heard from people, I know that Essex and the town of Essex has two post offices. And I think people think that if they mail it here in town, it should get there in a day or two. That is not the case. Most ballots go to a different mail center in the state and then come back. I can't explain it, but that's exactly what happens. Susan put it very succinctly. If you want your ballot to be delivered on time, you can drop it off in the ballot box at 81 Maine up until the 12th. If it is the 13th, you need to go to your polling place and drop it off. But please do not assume the U.S. mail is going to be quick or a day or two. We're not in charge of the U.S. mail and it could be several days. Okay, thank you, Evan and Susan. Did you have a follow on comment? Yeah, I just want to give a shout out to the employees of the United States Postal Service in Essex. They constantly ring our doorbell at the town office up until 6.30 at night on election day, bringing us ballots that they have collected. So they do their best. You can't, I mean, nothing's guaranteed, but you can't get better service than that. And they're also not in charge of which center it goes to first before they get it. It's just the way the system works here in Vermont. Yes, okay, thank you. And then I see Rep Karen Dolan has her hand up. Yes, just another note of appreciation to trustees and also to town staff because it was a year ago that the village really led the way in doing mail-in ballots for everybody and who knew that we would get so much experience with mail-in ballots over the past year, but we did lead the way and appreciation for that, hoping that we get a robust turnout like we did last year and this huge appreciation to the staff that make this all happen. We've certainly got our fair share of experience with this. So thank you. All right, thank you, Karen. All right. Oh, George, go right ahead. I don't, thanks, Steve. I don't, this is sort of off topic. I don't know, are we about to adjourn? Well, I've just noticing because I'm just going straight down the articles and we've got public to be heard. Okay. Yep, I totally apologize but I was going down the meeting warning and not paying attention. So we have a chance to talk about a couple other items, anything municipal related. And I know a couple of the trustees had a couple of comments to make on a variety of items that I have here. So I totally apologize for that. So have a good morning. Are we there yet or should I hold on? We are, we are. Let's move on from article seven to the public to be heard. I just want to say, I'm in a peculiar position of having to apologize for something I didn't do but I feel I need to anyway. It just came to my attention that there's a flyer being circulated that says that I am the sole author or I was the author for the merger charter that's being voted on in the town. This was a breathtaking discovery on my part. And I just wanted to apologize for to all of my fellow trustees and select board members and staff and Janda and Dan Richardson and all of the many people who actually did write the charter. I'm sorry. I didn't, I don't claim sole authorship of the charter. I don't know why someone would even remotely consider that I was, I'm kind of flattered, but it wasn't me. And I'm hoping that people who, if people think that I was making that claim, please know that it wasn't, it didn't generate for me. And I'm apologizing on behalf of whoever it was that made that statement. Thanks. All right. Thank you, George. And so I believe Andrew, President Andrew said there were three topics that wanted to bring up. The one was Raj was going to make a presentation. Yes, Raj was going to make a presentation. Comments or presentation. Raj was going to go, then I was going to go and then that was going to be it. Okay, perfect. So go ahead, Raj. I think there's some slides. There we go. So this is just going to do some three or four slides just to kind of give an overview of Act 164, which creates a tax and regulated cannabis market as well as a cannabis control board for the purpose of regulating cannabis production in Salem, Vermont. Participation in the legal cannabis market will require licensing by the, excuse me, by the board. Communities can opt out of retail sales, but they can't opt out of cultivation production and testing facilities in the community. There's six types of licenses that'll be available, cultivator, wholesaler, product manufacturer, testing laboratory, retailer and integrated licensee. And that last one is someone who's licensed for all of the aforementioned activities. Regulation of the medical cannabis program will move from the Department of Public Safety to the Cannabis Control Board in March of 2022 and public sales of cannabis are expected to begin in 2022. Let me go to the next slide. These timelines are a little in flux. Things are a little behind, although I understand the Cannabis Control Board has been set. Things are moving through the legislature a little differently this year. Key dates on a before May 1st of next year, licenses will begin to be issued for small cultivators and integrated licensees and testing labs and integrated licensees may begin selling cannabis and cannabis products to the public. In October of 2022, licenses will begin to be issued for cannabis retailers and sale may begin then. Next slide. Some basics on this, retail sales will only be allowed in communities that vote to opt in. And I understand that in the legislature right now, they're tweaking that a little bit, but nothing's been decided. Cultivation, testing, warehousing and distribution are not subject to any municipal opt in. And while municipalities cannot issue blanket prohibitions of cannabis establishments via ordinance or zoning, they do have some control over where they cite operations in their communities by enacting or changing zoning laws. Cannabis can't be regulated as farming and cultivated cannabis shall not be considered an agricultural product or ag crop under relevant state laws. Meeting municipalities will have the power to regulate cultivation through zoning, unlike traditional agricultural practices. And for those who are concerned, sorry, next slide. For those who are concerned about where these establishments locate in their communities, they can, as I mentioned before, use zoning codes to address those needs. This slide kind of talks about some of the work that can be done and some of the reasons why a community may wanna do it. Some of those concerns may include citing in areas frequented by youth or in proximity to schools or walking routes to schools and so on. I will put in a plug for the Village Planning Commission, which is currently meeting regularly to review and modify land development codes. So for those of you that are interested in this topic and wanna make your voice heard, please visit the Village website to figure out the next time that the Village Planning Commission is meeting and choose to join one of those meetings and share your thoughts. You can also join a trustee meeting at any time, but I should point out generally speaking, this is a town matter aside from zoning in the village. So a local commission would be a town select board operation in terms of licensing local retailers. Towns have that power, villages don't. We can participate though in terms of zoning. And a last note on that should merger fail and separation prevail, the new city of Essex Junction would then have the ability to regulate that within its city. That's all I have for that. All right, thank you, Rush. Andrew, did you want to entertain discussion on this first and then go to your comments or kind of get all the comments first? I think it makes sense to just stick with one topic. Okay, that's what I was thinking as well. Anyone from the audience have any questions on this topic? And as Raj noted, we'll have to keep an eye on any of the legislative adjustments from this year that may come in. I have a quick question and maybe Evan or someone can update us on what the select board has been up to or what the town is up to currently related to cannabis and retail and other operations in the town. Like what steps have they taken so far and what's the plan for the near future? Yeah, Evan, would you like to take that? Now with the election of officers over, it is on the work list to start a discussion on that topic and in an upcoming strategic plan where it sits in priority. But in general, we are tasking the village community development director and the town community development director to do outreach on the subject to bring that to the town select board. Select. Craig? Thank you, Evan. And the other question. A little bit to that, if I may. Yeah, go right ahead, Greg. Everything Evan said is accurate just to expound upon that. The select board appointed one of their members, Vince Franco, to help the community development directors with that outreach and research. The trustees will have a similar opportunity at their meeting next week to appoint one of their board members and hoping to also gather a member from the Economic Development Commission, someone from the police department and just have a good, well-represented group to look into this topic and make some recommendations. Thank you, Greg. Any other comments or questions? Kate, why don't you go ahead, Andrew? Thank you. And so if you can go to the next slide, please. Just wanted to give an update on the Crescent connector. So the Crescent connector, for those of you who do not know, has been something that has been in the planning works for quite some time. And when we're talking about it, I wanted to give a brief highlight of the intersection that we're referring to. So please keep the five corners in mind. And in particular, if you notice Main Street on Route 15, Maple Street 117 and Park Street on 2A and the railroad track that you see transversing all of those intersections or all those aforementioned streets, I want you to keep those in mind as we now go into the next slide. So this beautiful piece of architecture engineering genius that you see here is a new road that will be coming in the next year. We have finally secured all of the right of ways necessary to make this happen. The funding has been set aside for this through the federal funds of the Circumferential Highway Alternatives Project. So for those of you who have been around long enough to remember the CERC and that whole project that was going to connect I-89 and loop around through Williston Essex into Colchester, back into I-89 again, when Governor Shumlin said, nope, that's not happening, he had set aside a requirement that those communities who were impacted by that decision to come up with alternatives. And for the Village of Essex Junction, this is the alternative. It is this crescent connector that will connect those roads that I had mentioned before. So again, Main Street, Maple Street and Park Street and it will allow us where if we are heading either to or from Williston in those directions or from those streets, it will allow us to bypass some of the train traffic. So for those who may have to get to the St. Mike's area, get into Burlington or get to the highway and you all of a sudden see the chip train coming through the wood chip train that goes to or from the McNeil plant in Burlington, no longer would you have to wait for all of the traffic to or for the train to get all the way around. You can bypass that and get to Williston again without having to wait for the train to slow things down. Additionally, as you will notice you'll see some new parking spaces that will be coming along with this project. So we'll have increased parking, increased public parking. In addition, you may notice the property that is in between Maple Street and Park Street, that new road that's there will help to allow the that property to be developed should the owners choose to do so. Currently they have a driveway that they have to maintain and instead this new road will help to provide them with better access. In addition to those of us in the community being able to get around a lot easier both through vehicle traffic as well as through non-motorized traffic. So the bike lanes that will be a part of this, sidewalks that will be a part of this will allow for continued connectivity within the community. And in addition will help us to divert traffic away from five corners to help bring that village back into the village of Essex Junction. So that way we can more safely get around. There will also be new street lights to help match what we already have throughout the five corner area. And in addition, if we go into the next slide you'll notice these red circles. These red circles are identifying where the railroad crossings are. Those of us who drive this on a regular basis may know the potholes word that we have to do as these rail crossings are in desperate need of replacement. And so with the Crescent connector it will be happening in two phases. The first phase which will be happening this construction year so that means this summer will be a replacement of all of these circled intersections. So once this is done no longer should we have to swerve around the potholes within the railroad crossings. Instead, if you think of the railroad crossing that is at the intersection of North Street, Grove Street over by the high school. How would you drive over that one? It's a nice smooth experience. That is what the rest of these rail crossings would be like. In addition, there will be the rail arm guards that would be coming down instead of just the lights to again help to ensure that the traffic is safely going through our community and to help prevent and reduce any train reverse car or train versus any other object incidents. And if you go to the next slide I think there might be one more on this. Nope, I love it. So that's all that we have on the Crescent connector in terms of an update just that finally this is happening. So again, it will be happening in two phases. First phase being the rail crossings and the second phase next year being the actual installation and construction of the road itself. Okay, thank you, Andrew. In the one picture, not this one. It was interesting to see the buildings around five corners. You can see how long it's been since they made that picture. So a lot of change in the village since that time. And it's bank building even so. And Steve, not to interrupt but as George I know was instrumental in a lot of this before my time on the board and as the former village president, I'm sure he has some comments he wanted to make as well. Yeah, thanks Andrew, I do. My first comment is to a real sincere thanks to the village attorney and the village engineer and the village community development director who hung steadfast through this very long period of the last two years of getting all of the docks lined up to make this happen. It's a major major rebuild for the village. As Andrew just pointed out, there's a great presentation Andrew, thank you. Not only in terms of transportation, but connectivity, if we think of the multi-use path and then coming down railroad street, railroad Ave, and then just a little piece is missing but now you've got connectivity going right from there, right around this crescent and over to Park Street. People will be able to walk, ride bikes and so forth. So, and also a major safety improvement. Now all of the railroad crossings in the village will have safety arms, they're all getting upgraded. It's a major investment by New England Central Railroad. So it's a really significant facelift for the whole village center. And thanks to everybody who helped make it happen. All right, thank you, George. Looks like Mike Sullivan has his hand raised. Go ahead, Mike. I guess I can't just shut up tonight, Steve. I have a question back probably for Andrew, since he addressed most of it. The gate crossings and the crossings of all the railroads. Any chance of pushing that one step beyond to the point of making them quiet crossings where the horns are not blown? If we're looking for mixed usage, village housing, I think that would go a long way to making a significant improvement to the village if we could make them quiet crossings where they do not blow their horns. Basically they're traveling five miles an hour. I hear them coming, going back forth. So that would be a wish of mine beyond belief. Yeah. I think you have everybody in attendance nodding in agreement. Nodding their heads, yes. In terms of making that happen, Mike, I'm not going to pretend to know the answer, frankly. Instead, if you don't mind, I think we may need staff to do a little research on this unless Evan can come in with the answer. And Evan does have his hand raised. Yeah. Mike, thank you for your comment. I'm going to assume New England Central Railroad is not watching this presentation. We hear you. We don't want to conflate this project with say a future project that hasn't been discussed about a quiet zone, which is a federal rail administration program where you have to meet some criteria with your crossings and the railroads that operate upon those rails, et cetera. It has crossed our minds. We have to tackle this first. We had New England Central Railroad's operation on this project and it was key. And it was known to us early that they were not interested in that right now. And so that's why it is not part of this, but maybe sometime in the future when the ribbon is cut and people are enjoying it, we can review that federal rail administration guidelines and policy. But right now, let's just bask in the fact that this multimillion dollar federal, state, and local project is finally coming to fruition. I do understand how tough it is. The railroad has an amazing bully platform to deal from. So... Not amazing. Ironclad from the 1800s in federal government law. It's astounding. It's astounding. So thank you all for hearing that point and knowing that you guys are interested as well. Thanks. Oh yes, oh yes. We all hear the train. You can't live in a six junction and not hear it. All right, any other questions on our points on the crossing connector? Okay. So those were the two prepared topics from the trustees. Anyone in the audience can bring up any S6 junction municipal issue of their choice if there's any burning questions out there or comments. Nope, we've got a hand because Mike can't help himself. Go ahead, Mike. You're exactly right. I can't help myself. This is probably much more for the police chief but the village and I know sometimes even outside the village into the town we've had, last summer we had some amazing people on high speed motorbikes at two in the morning. And I'm hoping that something that the village can do about that might be putting cameras on telephone poles for, you know, just for, only if they were open during, you know, from one in the morning to three in the morning that probably would satisfy the situation. But you're right, Steve, I can't help myself. Thanks. Nothing wrong. That's why we have this opportunity for people to bring up issues. So there's nothing wrong with bringing it up, Mike. And I'm just having a little fun. All right, anybody else wanna bring anything up? All right, last chance. All right, I wanna thank everybody for a very civil meeting and I'll get to you in a second, Andrew. Had a good chance for discussion here, questions and nice and orderly. So I thank all the participants in the meeting for that. Go ahead, Andrew. I just wanna take a few moments really too to thank the community. This year has been probably the longest year I think any of us have experienced to date. It's been a challenging year. For some of us, we've gone through some very personal things and it's been difficult to have the same level of experiences during the pandemic. And the ways that I've seen our community come together to do what is best for one another has truly just blown me away, whether it be the community who have the community members who have come together to create masks when we didn't have them to help feed a neighbor who didn't have enough food who helped to rake a lawn or mow a neighbor's lawn after a front porch forum request or a Facebook request or just seeing it out of going by your neighbor. The amount of acts of kindness I've seen in this community I have not seen in previous years. And I just really wanted to take a moment to thank you all as a community for being the village that I love so much and taking care of each other. So thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Any other last questions before I adjourn the meeting? Okay. Thank you, everybody. Have a great evening. And don't forget to vote between now and the 13th. Have a good evening. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Steve. Bye, everyone.