 all set good evening I'd like to call the first town of Berlin first public hearing to order for the charter changes addition to changes to the agenda no sir public comment would you read us the article one local options tab I will so on page two of the town charter it's an addition of the paragraphs as follows paragraph D that reads upon resolution of the select board or receipt of a petition signed by 5% of the registered boarders of the town an annual or special meeting were warned for the purpose the voters of the town may vote by a majority of those present voting to assess any or all of the following one a 1% sales tax to a 1% rooms tax and 3 a 1% meals and alcohol beverage tax it goes on to paragraph D to be added a tax imposed under the authority of this section shall be collected and administered by the Department of Taxes in accordance with 22 BSA section 138 and then paragraph D three revenues received through the imposition of a tax imposed under this section shall be designated for capital projects within the town and that's the that's the article one local options tax portion of the charter change okay any comments on this yes why did you decide to do that well we're having a lot of capital projects coming up and we were worried about was that if we didn't impose this local option tax what would happen is your tax rates would go up of course because we still have to be the projects at least with the local options tax we are having people from out of town help fund them because the most of the sales tax we collect from the shopping mall and commercial enterprises on the very Montpelier Road if the people there if the people coming into town using our services are paying that one percent then we get a benefit from it there's stores going out of business all the time restaurants are closing I mean yeah I can't see how it would be improvements well the thing there would be well some of it does but then the money that goes back to the state funds the funds the pilot program which is the payment in lieu of taxes for the state garage and those types of programs the state hospital on and on so we do get even though we lose some of it we get it back to and the with what we have coming up just the Richardson Road project will be over what I would say three million and that's gonna have to be funded somehow and this is just one of the tools we would like to be able to use to do it I was just gonna say Vince has done the math the twenty twenty nineteen dollars let me go to the latest twenty twenty one pilot program that we referred to we get up to thirty percent for the payment lieu of taxes we get it we would get we got a hundred thirty four thousand seven hundred dollars for the pilot program that same year for if we had the local options tax in place we would have gotten just a little bit over half a million dollars in local options tax for that so again I assume if everything stays in business you'll get the money yeah well this was this was based on twenty twenty one dollars so it was in business at that right you know last year twenty nineteen for example again that's another covert year the pilot money was a hundred and three thousand eight hundred and seventy seven dollars that we did get and the exact was roughly four hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars just a little under half a million dollars for twenty nineteen that's what it would have been based on those dollars and you bring up a valid point about businesses going out but our hope is that additional businesses will come in and that will also help the growth of the town as well as well as this to help fund the capital project what one of the one of the down downfalls in prior years was that very Montpelier did not have the local options tax now they do so it's not like oh yeah very just implemented it for twenty twenty two it's effective starts October this year but all that would all that would do is just it's not going to take and put Berlin businesses at disadvantage Joe you had something oh I was just going to mention that both very Montpelier are taking are doing this as well it is as well as you go to Burlington the sake Christmas shopping and right Burlington in Colchester you listen to your king not a salesman's there are many towns throughout Vermont that have implemented it in one way I'm not sure what they I'm not sure what they have right now I don't very very with the adoption that they just did very has the full all three in place now Montpelier has two of the three in place right now we just adopted that one and we believe by implementing all three if it were to pass in such a way that it would benefit the town you know greatly overall and especially for the capital project and to help keep taxes down for residents you know if we didn't though this group I guess I would just like to say you know I I think it would be a great way to benefit from you know the people that are coming into our town that are not town residents some rough numbers there just so you know our resident population is around 2,900 residents but during the day we have over 12,000 people in town and that's your employment and so four times the amount and I also think it's it's what it's really good to you know implement the you know the commercial purchases not just rooms and meals and alcohol because you know of of those numbers and you know I feel like we we have you know more commercial stores then either barrier Montpelier quite honestly well rooms meals I mean look at rooms meals part of it what's the you have the numbers there Vince I don't for rooms and meals but not for most part we don't have that much we don't have that much restaurant business here and we don't have that much motel business here actually I take that back meals rooms and alcohol I do have a combined number for that if you like it for 2019 that would have been a hundred and thirty eight thousand eight hundred and sixty eight dollars if we had a place in 2019 for 2018 it would have been a significant jump 2018 and 19 66,238 dollars and 2017 it would have been 59,782 for meals and rooms meals rooms and alcohol combined of course the one percent of meals and alcohol you're basically taxing the convenience stores for beer wine and then we don't have any real buyers left in Berlin we have the motel no not even motel we have Applebee's and the Chinese place but there's not that what's that the bowling on what's the name or there's not that many like I said the rooms tax we just don't have motels like we used to but that's been a trend for a long time long before code that trend is continuing we do we do have one percent sales tax which the town is working with the mall to try to take and develop a a new model for them to thrive in the coming years that's the town's center plan that's pretty much where we're at right now any questions yet or speaking up what's that what sort of planning time you see you're in something special planning well that's the new town center we're partnering partnering with the mall to help basically redevelop it so that it can they can have a sustainable business model why do we have to get involved in private industry we're not really getting involved in private industry what we're getting involved in is helping the mall with the permitting they're the ones doing the doing all the work so to say so it's we're doing it to bring some knowledge to the grand list with the development of the housing units over there as well they're they're kind of breaking up their their wall property into lots working with them on the subdivision of that to bring in more housing as well like my fox run my chestnut place it's a it's another development that's going in for housing units that's three story at the mall I want to say 30 yeah I think it's like 32 34 units in that in that range some one some two and a couple three bedroom apartments and I've recently been in chestnut place and it's beautiful I heard it's very nice the staff the the community just the whole facility is beautiful as well as the rooms Fox Park Fox Run should be breaking ground in the very near future and then there is Starbucks has shown some interest over there to be in a restaurant or a coffee shop I should say no not yet that'll have to be brought up to standard yes yes yes there is some changes on the in on the road the access coming into it by Walmart it's one of the things they are doing is they're squaring up some of the corners so that slow down traffic so it won't be as rapid coming in I believe if you want Tom Badowski or Vince can get you the some of the play in some of the drawings that they have should be a fair amount of it online there's something that you're looking for that's not there just give us a call and for folks who haven't seen it we have a new website to now and that's highly recommended to check that out as well door I think you mr. chair Toran Austin Point Ridge Road at the last hearing issues raised regarding the language the wording of the warning that as written sounds like it would require two town votes the initial charter change and then a subsequent town vote at a special regular special time meeting has that been clarified at all it will be there will be a revision to the language coming out I'm working on that now I looked at it's recommended take a look at what very city use for their language for a little more clarity I'm also looking at what the leagues of cities and towns that have recommended which were closer to that we are at very city so there will be a revision to the language coming out to make it so the warning will not be so the warning is not accurate as it is right now but there'll be a revision process that we have to go through for the public hearings afterwards that it will come out through that revision process as part of any other revisions that that may come about based on the public hearings correct it could yes again the revision will be presented and then if the board approves that language then it will be changed against what's there but right now what's there stands until till that point in time and we're still looking at a number yes vote on this yes so I mean time is running out to get that completely so let me just refresh my memory so that you mentioned that the 1% sales tax would bring a little over 500,000 correct and the meals and rooms combined bringing them just under 140,000 correct based on the prior previous yep that's correct and then I guess Mr. Sheriff you'd go into a little bit more detail what the capital projects are what is the five-year plan for instance for the time you've heard me say that several times five-year plan for capital projects well I mean what what you know specifically are we are you looking to use the money for well right now we have of course the big one from my point of view is Richardson Road the Colbert there is failing just the way the one on Fisher Road failed the I'm assuming the cost is going to be about the same which is somewhere around three million a little more it's not quite the Colbert that they're putting in there at Fisher right now we're they're doing the studies on it the engineering for it we still have to get a hold of the state I'm not sure I'm assuming that because Fisher Road had to be an open bottom that they will have Richardson Road open bottom to an arch instead of coal those projects there is what is envisioned for them to use the capital budget for there's also going to be some equipment coming right up the loader out here in the yard is getting how old is that one Vince that's six six or seven years old right now yeah I think it's older than that might be but I mean that's starting getting ready because it's the same loader when you were here so it's been a long time since you've been here okay okay but I mean that's getting where the cab is rotting off of course it's running salt then of course we can take and use it we can use the capital budget also to fund expected expenditures on trucks and cruisers that that sort of thing so that we don't take and have hits to the hits to the budget and along with the expected there's always the unexpected and prices are not going down and they're most likely not going to go down in the near future so things are getting more and more expensive and the longer we put off doing some of the things we truly want to do like Richardson road it will get more that's probably to mention one other thing too if I may that I discovered when I was doing some research on this and in recent state legislation and you can go online and probably find out more and I haven't done that in the past couple months I don't know where it stands today but they're discussing a plan to put in place from the state level an increase of 1% to eliminate the local options tax that the towns that don't have it in place do yet and kind of do a and manage it to distribute it to municipalities so it'd be kind of like everybody's pooling their money and the state's going to decide how much gets distributed unless you have this program already in place if you have it in place you get to maintain and keep that program for yourself so again I don't know where it stands but there's some risk there that down the road that's what we don't know the state would have basically apply the lot and then distribute it however they determined to at this point so we could get more we could get less but we don't know that yet and I haven't seen any any updates on that to know if that's changed but so there's a bit of risk there they may not pass it at all or they may but it's another reason we have it in place right now what presented do we get to keep for our capital project we get we get 70% 70 70% is what we get I didn't 30% goes to that pilot program that the chair was speaking of and then that 30% gets pooled and divided amongst the municipalities for four state properties that they have in their towns Vince would you also explain because you've said it before in another meeting back when how the state manages it where it won't fall on the shoulders of say anyone here staff wise right it's managed through the state manages and then the money comes in and they just they mail us the they mail us that 70% that we're due based on the dollars so it wouldn't be burdensome to staff from an admin perspective there's little to no admin for us for that thank you but again with the with the local options what would be happening is the money going to the capital improvement basically you would no longer you would have a breather of about five hundred thousand on your taxes other words if reaches a road comes in and I'm assuming it's going to be at least three million but that will no longer show up on your on increasing your taxes to fund that project you'll be the be the sales tax basically that will fund that project and I don't know I can't remember we got a couple other culverts we've got two out here on crosstown and we've got the ones down there between the state police barracks and those two there and those so far we've had them inspected they said they were fine but then again they said that Fisher Road is fine to get it took a couple years for that to change so again if you want just as far as some information in town I think you know we have seven bridges that we have to maintain and we have 518 culverts different sizes and conditions throughout town that's all that's all part of it knows that you're saying a part of those 518 but those will be the big big money was those culverts anything else sure but as I understand it you said five hundred thousand income from the option tax that is previously we would we would have done hundred thirty four so the 500 is inclusive of that hundred thirty four no the two different numbers for just the sales portion it was it's a little over five hundred thousand dollars for the meals rooms and alcohol yeah it would have been a hundred and thirty eight thousand eight hundred sixty eight in 2019 right so okay so it was anything that the five hundred wasn't actually a game of three hundred sixty six because we didn't need to sit and I understand that the meals is separate in my mind I know the 1% sales alone would give us a little over half a million dollars yeah correct any other questions or comments on this the only other comment that I was going to add is under D2 when Vince was reading it he meant to say 24 BSA and you just said 22 but you did mean 24 I just wanted to make that clear so it's in the notes as well no worries no it happens thank you if nothing else on this we'll close the hearing on the local options tax and then you read to us the next one yep that would be article 2 it would be elected to appointed clerk and under sub chapter 4 of the Charter section 4.2 4-2 elected officers item 2 town clerk would be we would remove of a town clerk for a term of three years and under sub chapter 4 section 4-4 appointed officers we would add section B addition of item 5 town clerk any questions or comments on this what's item 5 item 5 would be the addition of town clerk under the appointed section okay well why is that necessary well we've actually had several people mention it to us that we should that we should look into it we as a board are not real sure just what the public's feelings are and it just seems that the easiest way to come out with a with a finite answer is to take and put it on the ballot we will know so you're not you're just just changing the charter well it'll be if we'll take and run it through as a charter change if it passes in November then if it passes in November then we can appoint if it doesn't pass in November we'll go through they'll be elected won't change any for me no but it'll take and change the probably in January when the legislature gets back in the session because even the legislature has to prove all the charter changes so I guess I guess I like the way things were I guess I had no problem I mean like what problem did you have with it you said people said stuff to you and what what was there was several comments about from about the computer or the records were not computerized they people instead of being able to send their computer and get to the records and they had to come up here and go through the vault one of the things that we did notice was if it had been computerized before and we've had the program four years five years for it to be done they had been done then these COVID wouldn't have affected the you wouldn't have had to worry about COVID in the vault you could they could have done it from their computer at home and most of the people that were complaining about that of course were lawyers because they do a lot of the title searches right other than that we haven't really heard too much we were kind of disappointed that the program wasn't implemented back when we purchased it and the program was not cheap it's that's been one of the one of the major problems we've been hearing about and there was there were other problems with it involves accessibility there was problems with being closed on Friday being closed on Friday wouldn't have affected the computer system at all those are pretty much the big ones and even though they access them through their home computer they are billed for so we still get the revenue from the search well this time being closed on Friday I look I mean there's a lot of time per time open some of them are open three days a week yeah but they don't do the volume we do here it's a very good question we don't have an exact answer in terms of why it wasn't done it could have been a combination of those items you just mentioned but it didn't get implemented and like Brad said it was an expensive program it was something that was intended to be implemented and we're hoping with these changes that it'll be beneficial going forward you know rather than look at what didn't go according to plan there were many things that did go very well in the past and we just think that by implementing this it will help going forward in a favorable way for the town already five years old well the software is never and the whole program is old but it's what the state uses and it is still a viable program and they made updates to it as well and our staff is familiar with it and using it and they speak highly of it but they understand it it's working well for them that's good to what's that I was speaking about Diane Diane is about she spoke into us about numeric and she knows it in my opinion inside and out she's very good with it and she needed an assistant was that Diane yeah well yes because the person we hired is actually assistant to Diane and events in the administrator and one of the problems were heavy Diane was having a she didn't have enough time to take and start digitizing all her records and the person we hired is going to start has started to digitize the records that everything will be in the computer which will speed up searches and everything else as far as access goes we could have hired I suppose you could have hired a company to do it but we figured if we took and had an employee here they could do it and also help Diane during tax season and take over some of the billing for the water sewer that's one of the things that drags Diane down is having to do the billing door thank you so is it safe to assume that you don't have any type of a draft position description in mind at this point as far as what you want to see from the town clerk's office well the town clerk the actual job description is in statute but as far as I mean the duties are but as far as like the hours the you know computerizing you know the I guess the logistics type of thing versus the actual day-to-day duties yeah one of the one of the things is state statute requires we have an assistant town clerk assistant yeah it's in it's in statute we have to have an assistant town clerk and with of course that is appointed by the town clerk she has since then since being appointed as town clerk she is appointed an assistant and that'd be one of the projects that taking keep her busy is to take and do the digitization of all the records in the ball to get it loaded but any changes like the office on orders or anything like that well the thing there is we expect we when we hired the town clerk we did it we told her we expected five five days a week how she and her assistant did it that's up to her with the only expectation we had and we can't really have too much a say in it until she if unless she becomes appointed with this much I guess that's my question is what am I being asked to approve as a voter what you know what with this new I don't say position but you know the new operations look like in the future or what do you envision it to look like in the future what what are you hoping to get out of this I'm hoping to see the town clerk's office opens five days a week eight to five eight to four with not necessarily both of them there at the same time but at least have somebody there for to have the ball to open in for access you'd mention the assistant town clerk why don't you go ahead and add the appointment of the assistant town clerk to this charge change as well because it's even if we appoint the town clerk it's her job to appoint the assistant but you through the charter change could put it on the select board to point the town clerk that's what the whole chart changes it would change things other than the but the state statute early allows yeah so make that step now because half the problem I think is that you know who one of the previous appointed town clerks wanted to point is a assistant town clerk without getting into that home mess again I mean I think that's kind of what is driving all this I think people got their feelings hurt and doing it this way really doesn't solve that problem well at the same time though to her you have to for that office you you have to have two people I can get along and I would rather have the the an employee a town clerk appoint her assistant than to have the board you just went through that with the treasurer though that doesn't mean well the treasurer is no longer a voted position that's all right but but but the select board pointed the assistant treasurer not the trade because that's not and currently there's not an issue of them getting along so I don't know why I'm not saying the top clerk shouldn't have input into the process but well Diane didn't have the authority to there's no nothing in statute says you have to have a assistant treasurer correct Diane is getting ready to retire in three years is it don't say that we got to have somebody in there that's up to speed and be able to take over and one of the troubles that was worrying me was if something should happen to Diane before we hired an assistant where would the town be you know if Diane had an accident whatever where would the town be with no treasure well I'm sure you remember you know the process for moving from the elected to appointed treasurer was not an easy process no we had a lot of I don't say sleepless nights over that but a lot of tears shed over that process so I don't think this is gonna be any different easier no difference hopefully you mean the chair you don't want people crying and handing the resignation letters out in the parking lot so it's one other question I'll shut up why not also make the move at this time to a town manager we did we discussed that a little bit I'm all I personally would agree with that but at the time the board was there was we were talking about it they they decided not to they didn't see anything wrong with the administrative part of it so and that's not to say that we won't make that change in the future but at that time at that current board and the discussion Vince was just barely coming on board he hadn't been here that long he's really you know come on board and truly proving himself he's been invaluable to all of us and there could come the time that we make that decision but at that juncture we chose not to so Tom is the assistant yeah that's going to change sometime along here we'll take and have Cali Street become the assistant administrator she is Diane's assistant now when we hired her it was to be Diane and Vince's assistant both so Diane had more pressing issues than Vince did right Vince that's correct and and so we just had Diane train Cali to take and get the assistant treasurer position now then as soon as that's done and she gets into doing the putting the records in the computer then Vince will start having her do some work in the off in his office and that's beneficial in terms of cross training and adaptability of staff and just having more people be able to help each other as opposed to having things just very narrowed down to what someone can do that'll be beneficial as well exactly succession a lot of times activities now are focused on zoning and water and sewer so he gets pulled in varying directions it'll be extra help for sure and with the assistant to Vince one of the problems is Vince has said some very rude things and that he's going to retire sometime along what that's what I said but that's the that's the whole that's the whole thrust of this is to get some succession some ability to taken not have to worry if somebody gets sick or gets hurt there's someone to take up take and cover all of it any other questions and that's a very good question you know for certain and that's something that passports and even the current board I would say I for one look very closely at where we can save and you know adjust make those adjustments to keep the taxes down and we're very proud that that has been the case over the last several years on that point one of the things that I have been thinking of is that with the current rate of inflation you are going to see a spike in insurance and all our other fixed costs how to take and keep our taxes down the only way to do is spread it out to somebody who's not in town and that's the local options tax and the numbers we were presented tonight looking back at like 2019 and pre-covid etc as we all know prices are going up astronomically and that's there's nothing we can do it's going to happen and this is a way to help the town to take some pressure off residents we're all everyone who shops here etc or any of these if it passes it will affect but in such a way that all those who are coming into our town like you said with the numbers of how many come throughout the day from other towns etc or out of state that will benefit us and I'm sure we will have more businesses coming in as time you're sure I'm certain of it there's no doubt in my mind build it and they will say you have to figure the from from the town resident you know 2900 people you have quadruple that number coming into this town during the day yes Berlin is the hub on a daily people travel through well I mean in recent times you look at Applebee's that's starting to come back I mean when I was eating out working and I would take them by my lunch I do you go to use on the very Montpellier Road all those restaurants fast-food and sit down we're all busy it's coming back I noticed last week Kentucky fried chicken the line was all the way out people had their blinkers on and I hadn't seen that in a long time and that excited me in that it shows that some of the businesses whatever they're doing to draw the people in it's working you know it could be an ad on the internet you try to go to Maple Woods at that time that's the unfortunate thing right now for sure and that is affecting everyone I'm seeing it all over for sure thank you folks for coming out tonight any other questions on this if there's nothing else I'll close the hearing for the chatter change on the elected to appointed town clerk and open the hearing on article 3 Vince would you read that sure article 3 is the addition of personal property slash inventory taxation waiver so under some chapter 7 section 7-3 it read with the addition of penalty for delinquent installments add the following and personal property inventory taxation and then go on to add paragraph C it's defines it a little bit more when the total assessed value of personal property or inventory taxation is equal to or less than $1,650 the town treasurer may after approval of the select board waive the personal property inventory taxation if it's under 16 6 1,650 or less of taxable inventory not dollars and taxes correct personal property yes be what store fixtures personal property right yeah no no it's section 7 is sub chapters section 7-3 only related to businesses is that the point yes so it's personal property but it's within a business we currently have a personal property inventory tax on businesses what this will do I'm sorry to go ahead is exempt these extremely small amounts from that tax which ginger like I think that 1650 is like five dollars taxes it costs I am and cost correct and she's been very diligent and she brings the list to us and we review it and then you know if deem necessary we wave it approve the waiver it's just it's not adding a new tax and it's not expanding correct action actually I'll take the point and I'll see if I can work with the lcp or find a better definition to maybe further define that yeah that's excellent and then again we'll make it part of the revision of the language thank you to her for helping to explain that I appreciate it still good for something you always are anything else on this hearing none I'll take and close the hearing motion to adjourn I make the motion to adjourn tonight's meeting second all those in favor I motion carries thank you everybody thank you