 All right, welcome everybody to the House Committee on Government Operating Military Affairs. We're here this afternoon to hear an introduction and walkthrough and a testimony on Waterbury's Charter Change Bill. So I wanted to see if our distinguished members from Waterbury, we have Representative Stevens, is on Zoom and Representative Wood is here in person. If you want to join us at the table, please, Representative Wood. When I'm here, you're just not going to see me. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So tell us about your Charter Change Bill. Well, it's not even a chart. First off, Representative Teresa Wood from Waterbury for the record. It's not even a change. It's an establishment of a charter. Waterbury's been one of those communities that's never had a charter. And as you can see from the bill, we are proposing a relatively limited charter and doing that on purpose and you'll hear from our town manager in a few moments about that. But this has been through the voting process that's required and all the public notifications and all of that kind of stuff. And Representative Stevens and I definitely appreciate you very much taking this up and doing it so early in the session. It's one of these things that sort of can get lost in the shuffle and we appreciate your attention to this. So it's a pretty uncomplicated bill from my perspective, at least from what we see and what you see in other bills. But I can answer any questions that you might have. So I'm seeing that there's a local option tax. And that you've got sales, meals and alcoholic beverages and rooms. So I think that's the. We decided to go for the whole bag. Yeah. You're going to do it. You might still do it as sort of our motto. And then it makes some changes to the sort of, I guess, what I would call personnel supervisory structure and hiring process for some key positions within the town that are set out in statute unless a town has a charter that states differently. That's what our charter is doing. I see representative Stevens wants to weigh in. Go ahead representative Stevens. Thank you. Thanks everybody for taking this up. As a former Waterbury Village resident and now a resident of the Edward for our utility district. I just want to point out this is again, the first time that the town has requested to have a charter. The village used to have a charter subject of many merger conversations over the last 20 years or more. And, and we did create with the existing government operations committee at the time the Edward for our utility district. That's a separate issue. This is a town issue. And I think from my perspective, you know, Teresa has represented what has done. Done the introductory best and would leave it to Tom, our municipal manager. Tom lights to fill us in on this, but this is something that support that was supported greatly by the town in the vote last December. And we're just going to ask for your support. Yeah, I guess one framing question before we bring up your. Tom Minister if you, what was the kind of conversation like around the local option tax? Was it a pretty robust debate or was it something where there was kind of a consensus? You know, a lot of towns have had really contentious local option tax. And others like when we did it in Salem and city people are like, yeah, of course we want access to local money takes pressure on property tax and trying to get a sense of the flavor of what the discussion was. Well, I will say when the issue has been brought up in the past. It has not gotten a great deal of support. And I think that sort of time has changed town government and leadership in town government has changed for waterberry. You'll you'll hear from our municipal manager about the aspects of that but in the public meeting that I went to it was kind of like, yeah, we should be doing this. This is, you know, the towns around us. You know, we were showing the comparative passage of other such local option taxes and, and other communities around the state and, you know, what a great is really sort of transformed itself over the last 15 years or so, particularly since after tropical storm Irene and it really has become a destination point for folks in the tourism industry. We have a big, big foodie kind of mecca in waterberry and that's continuing to grow. And we did after tropical storm Irene, our downtown organization conducted a survey of the community businesses where they kept track of the zip codes of the customers. And we learned through that process that a very high percentage of people who would actually be paying this tax or people from out of state out of region. And it would not be at, you know, as detrimental to the local individuals as what might have what people might have thought and I think that also previously. You know, some of the previous restaurant establishments. There's been some change in ownership and then there's been some more acceptance of it as it has become more the norm for communities that have a high tourism base. And so it really met with a very little opposition that what there wasn't. There wasn't anything like a merger vote as representatives referred to previously. So it was, you know, our, our municipal manager and the select board did a good job of explaining that what the benefits were for the community. And people saw it as, you know, a win-win for our community. And frankly, I want to do it before something else changed in this building that didn't allow it. We really wanted to do it before the fully clips. I know. So, I think that's, that's all I have, unless you have other questions for me, but I think mostly our municipal manager will be able to answer some of the specifics if you have other stuff. Any other questions. I'm sorry, taking over your role, Mike. Because like once you get used to running the committee. So always nice to have two chairs and to have the opportunity to say, but I think. Yes. In all of state and municipal government. But any questions from the committee. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Stevens, you're welcome to stick around if you want to hear the testimony inside the Zoom room. I will. Thank you. Excellent. So, Tom, come on up. It's great to see Tom. I'm a little bit mad at Waterbury. I mean, stealing Tom. He used to be our finance guru in the city of St. St. St. Thank you for the record. It's been a small manager for Waterbury. I can answer any questions. So ours. Do you tell, do you know how many. Registered voters there on Waterbury and how many voted for and against this. I don't know the number of registered voters. We have the court on the appointed court. So I'm not so in that. The charter vote was. Roughly two to one for the local option tax and then the vote pertaining to the manager's authority was was roughly 80% in favor. So I'm more popular than a tax. She's not. It was pretty overwhelming. Thank you. And when was the vote? It was very recent, right? It was just in December 5, 2023. Yes. I've been there about a year. And I very first meeting the charter was discussed. I was talked about as a party by the sweatboard after Tom meeting day when a select board member changed, it was even more of a priority. So we, we essentially spent the spring and summer working on it at the pause button for a few months because there was a flood. And then kicked it into year and finalize everything for a full vote with the hope that if it was passed. We would see the revenue in 2025 until the tax department that if it's passed signed by the governor, it's two full quarters to an active. So we were hoping that our 2025 budget we'd see the actual revenue. That was the intent of getting it done in 2023. Yeah, so I think the only question that that brings to mind is just with the off election. It wasn't a huge vote turnout. So the percentages were pretty overwhelming, but it was not a, not. I mean, I don't know what the usual vote turnout is by percentage and waterbury, but it wasn't a bad turnout. It was certainly a busy day, but sure it was all cycle special election. But again, we talked about time meeting day, and we thought that we essentially miss a year. Right. So other communities have gone through the same. Okay. The other books of other questions will Tucker up to walk us through the words on the page. Representative Stevens. Go ahead. It just, I wear over 3000 registered voters, I think closer to 3300. I don't have a definite number, but it is again, you know, relatively busy day at the polls for a December election, certainly. And as Tom mentioned, it was really quite overwhelming. The lack of opposition was, and not not even so much a lack of opposition, but the lack of the amount of support at the public hearing was really quite pleasantly different than than these policies have been in the past, but I recognize that, especially with the tone manager position that we needed to modernize. I can say that. And I am going to take off. I need to take off. So thanks so much for considering this will will be in touch. And say that the public hearings, we did not have a single business and water very opposed tax at a public care were proposed. Correct. Any other questions for Mr. Leitz. And if you've got time to stick around through the walkthrough, I don't know, other questions may come up. It seems pretty straightforward, but you never know. I'm going to stay here. Why don't you switch spots with our legislative council for now. We'll invite you back up if we need you. Thank you so much. Every time I say Mr. Anderson, I kind of feel like we're in the matrix. Yeah. Good afternoon. You talk for Anderson Legislative Council. I had a law school professor who was obsessed with the matrix. And the very first day, very first class for Penn State Law School started with the professor saying, Mr. Anderson, and then proceeding to grill me with the Socratic method for about 10 minutes. So I curse Neo and that experience. Sorry to rephrase your 1L days. All right. You have in front of you, H801, which approves the adoption of the charter, the town of Waterbury, section one, which are used to approve the adoption of the charter as it was passed by the voters December 5th. 2023, section two adds the new chapter 159 to title 24 appendix. There are two sections of the charter. The first allows the imposition, the 1% tax on sales, meals, alcoholic beverages by the town select board. This may be something for ways and means depending on how the policy has changed. But in the past house ways and means would always add a clause that says that it will be collected and administered according to 24 VSA section 138. And that is to ensure, for example, that the tax department can interpret this in a way where they're going to force the local option tax the same for the town as it's enforced for all of the municipalities have a local option tax, including, I believe, that 90 days notice must be provided to the Department of Taxes and following that 90 days notice the first day of the next quarter is when the local option option tax will be adopted. Just noting that again, that was what ways and means did in the past when they bet it all those charters. Section two as was brought up deals with the authority of the municipal manager. It states that the manager shall have authority to hire a point discipline and remove all town employees subject to the personnel rules that are adopted by the select board of the town. So the manager, the authority to authorize a department head to hire a point discipline or remove any employee subject to the manager's discretion and supervision so delegating some of that hiring and removal authority down to the heads of various departments in the town. In that section, the manager is allowed. It states the municipal manager's appointment of a department head shall be approved by the select board. Section three to bulk of the bill is actually some ledge council housekeeping. As so many charters have been added to title 24 appendix over here we started running out of numbers, and then we started combining numbers and letters. And now with the addition of waterberry it was getting to the point where it was going to be out of alphabetical order because there were no more number and letter combinations left. So I had to redesignate everything after chapter 155 a to ensure that it would stay an alphabetical order. That takes effect on passage. Thank you for your source. Okay, so I guess the council has been recently to confirm that the local option tax language is just conforming. So unless there's an objection from Mr. Lates, I think we should probably have the language conform before we pass the bill out of here just so that means doesn't have to do an amendment member for efficiency sake. So this is the language that was adopted by the voters right. Correct. So, unless there's an objection from the committee, like an aspect of the council to just go ahead and do that in an amendment. So, right, and then on the municipal manager authority is, is that a model that exists in a lot of other times I had to get really seeing the confirmation come up in any of the charters that I've worked on recently but I don't recall if this is used in other municipal charters the model itself of giving the municipal manager manager kind of hiring and firing authority over all of the departments of the town is somewhat common. It's the confirmation that's a little bit unusual. Yes, for purposes just of the heads of departments within the town. I'm going to hit all three clauses. So the hiring authority really stems from the planning and zoning positions in town government which are. This is an awkward process those positions are recommended for by the planning commission confirmed or not confirmed by the select or the planning commission. The select board did not want to be involved in that process. They've gone through and several times in the past year. They simply want the manager to hire planning and zoning positions. The second part about the manager's authority and hiring and firing came about we adopted the new employee handbook this year. The old handbook was dated 1991. The old handbook had the manager hiring every position and something our council pointed out was that if the manager hires a cloud driver and that drivers fired his lateral appeals to the select board. If the manager is the authority for the public works director to hire a car driver the lateral appeals to the manager. So the select board did not want to be in that chain of command. They remain in it. If the manager has to hire fire discipline department. And then in regards to hiring department heads. That is language and other chargers most commonly associated with police chase and public works directors. In our case our public works director is shared by the side. And there's also been since I've been here and I'm going to talk about one day having a police department. So in the end our conversation essentially said that this boils down to the manager select board relationship. And I had no concerns about bringing a permanent to them for confirmation. We intentionally made it one sentence we did not mention in the charter the force approval. So it could simply be for a select board and says to have any problem with this position and it's informal and it could be that it's a more formal process. And so the manager and select board at the time. But we felt that it's reasonable to get the select board some oversight of that. I'm going to talk to you. There's something magical about 155 15. It's not there yet. I couldn't hear you exist. Yes. So 155 is not in the list because there's no 155 at the moment. And that is because in the past. We've always leave a little bit of room noting when communities might be added to the charter list. So that alphabetical order could be maintained but perhaps her estimates didn't account for the addition of water very at some point. And my question on section three is due to chapter redesignations. I imagine there aren't a lot of cross references to charters but are there any cross references to these charters that would also have to be changed. I did do a specific Boolean search and the Vermont statutes annotated Lexis Nexus database to see if there were cross references to these chapters and there were not. Wow. So if one is found, I can blame the machine. That is. You're thoroughly deeply appreciate your good work. That is really intense. Okay. Any other questions about any parts of this charter bill. Okay, so I think that what we will do as a representative Byron and I this afternoon will be trying to finalize an agenda for our work next week that we'll try to add this on early in the week. I'll give the Ways and Means Committee chair heads up that there's another local option tax bill. Likely to come her way. Do you think is doing this on Wednesday or something like that? I have enough time to get the amendment to forming. Alright, so we'll kind of shoot for Wednesday. I'll put it up for a possible market to vote but I don't think I don't see any problems at all unless the committee has any flags on that. Pretty straightforward. I mean, you know, if anybody's dying to report the bill, let me know by next week. I'll take it to a great. I appreciate that representative morning. No, we're just going to try to people. Thank you very much. So, I don't think we have anything else on our agenda for today. We're at 3 o'clock. I am. So, a few folks have different bill assignments. So, I was wondering to represent Nugent if you would reach out to our contacts, the deputy secretary on each 140 and just see when we might expect some response on that for planning purposes. So, if you get any responses on those, please contact me and represented by around is we're going to try and spend a little bit of this time mapping out next week. But unless anybody needs anything else. Are you responding to some questions from Ledge Council about that government accountability and then I think once we're going to figure this out right now and that should be good. So, I'm hoping that next week we're seeing. You know, new draft language recommendations. Kind of getting final questions on a couple of these bills. I think we might. I wanted to have a conversation with some of our colleagues about 794 to Vermont veterans home, but that seems relatively straightforward to me and that we could probably move that next week unless I'm. Get surprised by feedback we get from. So, those are some of the things we didn't talk about earlier that I didn't want to surprise anybody. As we're putting the agenda together, but folks have other thoughts on find us. I think. One of the hardest things here is to sort of figure out when are things going to be ready to move. And so. Appreciate you all taking up different pieces. All right, well with that, we'll adjourn and go off live. We'll see y'all at the fort three.