 All right, I'll call the Town of Essex Select Board meeting for Tuesday, February 21st, 2023 to order. I got to apologize, I've had COVID for the last two weeks and although I'm testing negative, my voice has not yet recovered and I'm wearing a mask and so maybe some challenges for hearing me and I'll do my best to avoid any problems. So first item on the agenda, are there any agenda additions or changes from staff? None from staff. Any requested from board members? Okay, then we will move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time on the agenda where folks attending can speak to the select board on town business that's not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, please raise your hand either in the room or use the raise your hand feature in the Zoom application to get to the raise your hand button, float your cursor down at the bottom of your screen and you'll see a reactions button open up. If you click on that, it'll give you the opportunity to raise your hand. Is there anybody who would like to speak during public to be heard? I don't see any hands in the room. I don't see any hands online. So let's move on to our first business item which is a presentation from Green Mountain Transit Fiscal Year 2024 budget and beyond. Come on up guys. So I thought you were going to be known as the guy with the cowboy hat but you've taken it off. Out of respect to the select board, I take it off and I'm testifying but if you prefer I can put it back on. My name is Clayton Clark and I'm the new general manager at Green Mountain Transit and I have with me, Paul, if you'd like to introduce yourself. I'm your representative on Green Mountain Transit. Marty Powers was represented before me I think six years ago. She was chair of the finance committee that became vice chair. We switched from I was an alternate. She became an alternate. I became the rep and I've been a rep about six years now. And I can tell you I very much appreciate Paul. Paul was part of the or chaired the search committee to fill the general manager position and he's also our finance committee chair person. So he's really an integral part of GMT and I'm certainly happy to have him helping me in my new role. And so coming to Essex Town, I'm excited to be here because this is my hometown. And so I live in Pariso off Pinecrest on Pariso Street right by the park and love being a member of the Essex community. And I've been here for I think five years and I want to start off a little bit with some information about how things are going in Essex before talking about our bigger budgetary challenges and some things that are going to be happening with fares. And so I'm happy that our assessment for Essex has gone down 6.3 percent over the previous year. Hopefully that means that my reception is a little more welcome, that we're not asking for more. One of the things that I want to mention when you look at the assessment that we've provided and thank you Greg for I think distributing that in advance, I saw, is that a big thing that fluctuates from year to year is the paratransit assessment. And so that certainly is a large driver for municipalities and unfortunately the way the structure is set up, it can be a bit more volatile than the other portions. And so happy that that had gone down some from where it was in the past. Even though the number two bus that we have doesn't go into Essex Town, it's the number two bus that connects Essex Junction Center to downtown and then through Shelburne is our number two most ridden bus. And so one of the things that we're really happy about is that ridership there is within one percent of what it was before the pandemic. So we've really seen a rebound there. And with the bus that connects Walmart to Amtrak to the Essex experience, we've seen a 56 percent increase in usage over the past two years. We're not back to the pre-pandemic level but we're happy to see that that has come back in use. And we hope that Essex citizens are finding that to be helpful for them. And thinking about the bigger picture for GMT, one of the things that is very clear when I talk with our board of commissioners is that we really value the concept of having fair free operations. It is something that really supports the concept that public transportation is a public good that doesn't have a financial barrier for people to use. But the financial reality of our situation is that we needed to consider returning to fair service this year because the COVID relief funds that helped fund our operation just like in a lot of municipalities and states, you know, those are coming to an end. And we are really faced with some of the significant labor scarcity issues that I think just about everybody is facing. And so one of the things that I like to let people know is that when you see one of our buses in Chittenden County, there's a one in three chance that the driver doing that route is on overtime. And that just gives you an idea of how difficult we have with staffing. And it also shows that just meeting our current workload is perhaps unsustainable from a labor perspective. And that's certainly going to be driving costs in the future. And that's why even though the board is very committed to the concept of zero fare, we're not going to have the luxury of not collecting fares in the future. So we had an original intent to start collecting fares again on July 1st. I could tell you that as is often the case, once you start looking into the logistics of restarting that system, we found some problems that would make for inconsistent fare collection. One of the fare box systems that we use, when we brought it offline in 2020, since then it's stopped being supported by the manufacturer. And so now we have to replace that in about half of our buses. And so we're going through the procurement process of getting replacements. The good news is that by having a single unified, more modern fare box system, when we do get back to collecting fares, we expect that people will be able to have some of the pay conveniences that you would think of in today's day and age of paying with their phone, paying with an app on the phone, paying with a credit card. But we'll also still be collecting cash for folks who prefer paying cash. So I can tell you that we're unlikely to be collecting fares come July 1st. But when we will start is really kind of when our procurement process will allow us to start. And that guesstimate at this point in time is anywhere between September and January. And so that was, I kind of wanted to give you all an opportunity to ask questions, just to give you a brief overview of the big things that GMT is looking at. And this is my sixth week on the job. And so I would love to answer your questions, although I'll be honest with you. I may have to get back to you for a lot of them. And I am happy that I have the phone of friend, but the friend is sitting right next to me. If it's something that Paul may know about. I just wanted to comment on the pair of chances because I think those who have been on the board for a while have seen those ups and downs. It only takes a couple of people moving to your community that use the service on a regular basis to make that go up very quickly. One of the things we're looking at is some methodology to spread that out, to even it out, take the hills out and bring the valleys up. So we'll try to get some smoothness to it. And the finance committee is meeting on that in March. And hopefully we'll have a suggestion at that point to take to the board to implement that. And whether we implement it in July or not, I'm not sure. But something I think that will be helpful to all the municipalities just to see that leveled out. Also to mention, you probably all know that, but the van you have here really helps you if your scheduler can make that van available to folks that are using paratransit services rather than SSTA, that saves you money. So in the past, that has happened. You've done a good job of trying to get people on your van. So hopefully that will continue. Thank you, Paul. All right, thanks. Any questions? Kind of looks like you're going to hand up. Yeah, I was going to ask about the fluctuation in that. Are you sure that you will be covered? Should it all of a sudden peak up again since we are coming out of the pandemic? Well, that's the aim is we've got a consultant been working on this for a while and we've seen a preview and it looks like that we can find some happy medium so that we can flatten that curve out. So you're not going to pay any less over time, but it'll take out spending 30,000 one year and 50,000 the next year. It'll take that take that away. So we'll find a way to keep that keep those dollars flowing in a more even even fashion. Thank you. Do you anticipate any change to your bus routes due to driver shortage? At this time, we do not. But the reality is is that if we are unable to bring in new folks, that's something that we're going to have to look at. And so when I when I talk to people, I tell them the finances are scary, but the labor scarcity is actually the scarier thing. We have a workforce. There's kind of two main populations in our driver workforce. We have folks that have been drivers for quite a long time who are approaching retirement age. And then we have a lot of folks that are that are new drivers, especially new new Americans. And so when we look at our projected departures, we're going to have to be a lot more successful at bringing people on than we have been in order to maintain our level of service. But at this time, we are not looking at making any reductions. I will mention that there was news that was brought up when the budget was passed because there was some temporary reductions in service that have not been operating for the past almost three years that became permanent. But it's no change to what we've been providing for the past two years. Thank you, Ethan. I was just curious if you guys had an estimate or a prediction of what the fair rates were going to be when they returned. A great question. And so we're going to return them to the same levels that they were before. And so that would be $1.50 for our standard service. And that includes if you have to make a transfer. So say you come to the downtown transit center and get onto a different bus. We'll also have reduced rates for folks who are either end of the age spectrum. So younger folks and older folks as well as folks that may be on Medicaid or others. There's they pay a half off rate. So $0.75. Thank you. I have two questions. I believe there was also a half rate offering for ADA folks as well. Is that still the case? Yes. So there's a broader group of folks that can get discounts. And so I didn't mean my list to be fully inclusive. Understood. I also see that and forgive me if I'm just not remembering from last year. I see the overall decrease is roughly 6.3 percent over last year. Is that was the now city or were they covering their own last year as well as this year? Or do you know that? This is basically the paratransit. I just see the overall decrease in your membership assessment. Yeah. I think the actual membership assessment was obviously it was townwide. And so how that was split up. I don't have the knowledge of how that happened. But certainly your assessment was turned out to be lower than the towns. But also mentioned the ADA, that's just a factor of who's happened to be living in the community at the time that are using those services. So to clarify that the answer there, I think that the town paid the entire bill in the past. In fact, and even in the current year, the town as that's part of the town budget where you're proposing what's being proposed here is the town's share after the separation. FY 23. For the next year, right? And so the city will be paying, and I think the 6.3 percent reduction is a net for the combination of both of those, not for us individually. It's a significantly bigger decrease. I mean, it was 200 or 300,000, something like that. It was around 300, I think. Yeah, I was just expecting that to be lower, but that makes sense. Yeah, so this 6.3 percent number is relative to the entirety of what used to be Essex, because it's just too difficult to calculate it. My understanding of it. And so I find that just like in school, homework is how I learn. And so let me go back and see if I can provide those exact numbers and I'll educate myself and get that to Greg for distribution. And I fully expect that that's probably going to be more easily understandable going forward after the first fiscal year or so. We'll mention that there was an across-the-board 5 percent increase in the assessment to all municipalities during the current year and projected for next year as well. Thank you. You guys asked a quick question about that. So that 5 percent is more of what you were talking about for the protection of the ups and downs? No, that's just we have an assessment that every municipality is charged and so we look at the numbers to make our budget. It's like you're raising your taxes, so we're raising your fees by that 5 percent. And Paul, I believe that that's in the fixed route to operating assessments side. So when you see the letter that breaks out our charges, that's where the 5 percent happened there. Some of you may or may not know, but Green Mountain Transit is actually a municipality just like you. And so we don't have broad-tasking authority like you do, but we do have the assessment authority. Right. And as members, we pass your assessment along to our taxpayer as a line item in our budget. Thank you for doing that. Well, it's in the thing that formed in your charter. In the charter. It formed you. So since we signed that, we have to do that. Any other questions? Board members, any questions from the public? Andy, before we go, I'd just like to mention, as I said earlier, I am your representative. I do live in the city of S6 Junction. Technically, you don't have to be in the town that you represent. And I'm not sure how it's going to shake out between the city and the town as to who wants to represent either, but I'll just let you know that I'm very willing and I would love to continue representing S6. And if you have any issues at all, you're just holler and Greg can get a hold of me. I'd be glad to try to dig up whatever mission you might need. Right. My understanding is your term goes through the end of June of this year. We have been advertising for an alternate for many, many months. And nobody has stepped forward to do that. So yeah, so it may be. We'd love to have that. We'll have to have a discussion about what we want to do. Since Marty already moved to Burlington, we have not had an alternate. All right. I don't see any questions from the public. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. And also appreciate having us on early. And so thank you. Good luck with the rest of your meetings. And it was very nice to be here. Mr. Greg Dilling. All right. Marguerite too. Marguerite also. Okay. Let's move on to Business Item 5B, Discussion and Possible Approval of the Essex Best Proposal for the Formation of a Community Advisory Board with Essex Police Department. So come on up, introduce yourselves and introduce your topic. Good evening. My name is Satanisha Radhita. And I am one of the co-chairs of Essex Best, which stands for Building Equality, Solidarity and Trust. And I have Jody Payman. And she's the other co-chair. And we're here to present, she's here to present with me. So we will be taking a few minutes tonight to go over how we got to recommend the establishment of the Community Advisory Board. What it is and answer any questions about next steps. Our hope is that both the select board and the trustees will approve and support formation of the CAHB. We have three documents on this. The first, the first is a memo from the Chief, Police Chief Ryan. The second is a description document titled Community Advisory Board to the Essex Police Department. And the third is a question and answer document. As we present to you, what is really important for you to know is that getting to where we are tonight has been a partnership hand in hand between community members and members of the EPD. In particular, Police Chief Ryan and Rob the Lieutenant, as well as more recently Anthony the Community Affairs Liaison. What began with the community survey continued with two years of work. Further defined the needs, interviewing different community service organizations and CAHBS around Vermont and researching national models. The partnership with Essex Best over the past two plus years has only confirmed that this is the most appropriate path forward to achieve our state's goal. So essentially what the mission of the Community Advisory Board would be is to represent the diverse community of the town of Essex and the city of Essex Junction to further facilitate a positive trusting and effective relationship with the Essex Police Department. More specifically, the Community Advisory Board representatives would advocate for the systemically marginalized disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community and would be able to help provide honest and open feedback and serve as a conduit between both law enforcement and the community to support the Essex Police Department to continuously meet the highest standards of engagement, professional service, and protection. And it really was born out of the vision that we really envision a safe environment where both residents and visitors experience a strong positive trusting relationship between community and law enforcement. And so as Tatanisha said, two years ago, and I'm not going to go into all the specifics, but there were a number of community surveys that were done with several hundred respondents and there were also a number of focus groups that were done. And at the time, part of what was revealed is that not everybody did feel safe and not everybody did feel that they had a trusting relationship. And I think that's where our work and in particular the work of the Essex Police Department has done to continue to kind of look at how do we continue to build it? And this is one piece of that, one piece of that effort. So our goals are simple. First, to break down barriers, build trust, improve understanding and communication between Essex law enforcement and the communities of the town and the city. Second, to ensure robust participation in this process from diverse groups. By diverse groups, we mean diversity of race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or creed, and economic status. The third goal is to support optional policing by understanding the issues and systematically marginalize members of the town and the city. The fourth goal is to ensure the applicant application of equal protection under the law. And so just for further description that the Community Advisory Board would operate as an independent board made up of diverse community representatives with three members from the town, three members from the city. And it would be establishing collaboration with the Chief of Police and the Essex Police Department. And essentially it would work to foster two-way communication. So receiving communication from the Essex Police Department to better understand their policies and other related efforts, their practices, being able to look at data quarterly, those types of activities to be able to then help not only provide feedback, but also help ensure that the community understands and knows about that information and knows more about the police business than they would necessarily have otherwise. And then it's also an opportunity for the community to have representation from the CAB to be able to voice concerns and raise issues that come up for them. And so that's where that's the idea again behind the two-way communication. And we plan to do this through in partnership with the Essex Police Department through the review of relevant policies, procedures, practice updates, as well as quarterly and annual summaries of statistics and data, and be able to just walk through that. And then I think the last piece I would say about it, and I think this is particularly important when we think about the independence of the board, it's that we're really intended to be an expression of the community's viewpoints. And so when police incident, police-related incidents occur, the CAB will continue to serve as an independent voice for the community in response to such incidents. The Essex Police Department will partner with the CAB to the extent that they're able to be able to provide some sufficient information surrounding police-related incidents to help facilitate and allow for community feedback. Am I missing anything? No, I don't think you need it. Um, structure. So in the Q&A document, we offer beginning elements for defining eligibility to serve on the CAB, the recruitment process and beginning structure. We have intentionality left it open on greater detail for how the CAB will operate so that those who are appointed can help to define this further. We have asked that one member of Essex Best serve on the CAB in its first year to help ensure that evolves into a manner of consistent with the original description included in your packet. So at this point we're certainly open to questions, comments. I just, I just want to kind of close by just thanking both police chief Ron and Anthony Jackson Miller who are here because they have been just step-by-step with us in terms of building trust and being willing to kind of lean in and have some tough conversations and also be transparent. And I think that that has been great and that we've also had municipal leadership that has participated in Essex Best, Don and others, Marguerite, as well as members from the city. And I think that it's just for me as a community member and a resident of Essex for closing on 20 years now, it's it's felt like a really collaborative community effort, so that's felt great. I'm happy to try to answer questions. All right, great. Thank you. Any questions? Board members? Comments? I would just ask, I was looking through your data with some of the comments for there. Will there be some specific benchmarks that you would be able to produce as a committee to show a success improvement, so to say? Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I think part of what we're looking at is we were careful about how much we defined the initial structure because our hope is that as the board comes together with the initial members that they can help work with the police chief and with Anthony Jackson Miller around setting those up. Thank you. Ethan, go ahead. The only question I had was about the even the attending about the 80 percent. I'm trying to think of the right word, isn't it? I just can't find it. But how, like, what is your plan for maintaining attendance and how do you plan on, I guess, replacing them? When you decide that, you know what I mean? Like, if somebody isn't... Yeah, if they're not... Well, so we've talked a lot about just running to really create... Want to answer that, do you want me to? You can answer. I think we were talking about adding, like, one in members and then, like, three. Oh, you're talking about the staggered terms? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of the conversations we had in terms of ensuring regular attendance was trying to really have a low threshold barrier to allow people to attend. So, you know, you have your dual kind of mode of in-person as well as on Zoom and wanting to try to ensure that being able to attend is as accessible as possible. So I think we would start there. And, you know, our model, at least with Essex Best, is that when members are struggling to make it or have dropped off, we really tried to do outreach and engagement to try to see what's going on. How can we, you know, how can we make this work? And I think we take the same approach. I don't have a more formal answer beyond that. I was reading through everything else and everything was amazing. And I loved it. And I was like, I was thinking more towards, like, the select board and the charter, how we have a, you know, a written thing where it's like, this is what you have to follow. And I was like, well, we want, we want the involvement. I was just thinking, you know, for you guys, how you promote the involvement and also, you know, have somebody that may not be able to make a lot of the meetings, but also have somebody that, you know, wants to be more involved or, you know, I don't know the answer. That's why I was just curious if you guys had a plan on how to keep your group full. That way, you don't have a seat that you may be missing, you know, from somebody else or something like that. Yes. And then when we figure the secret out, no, it's a really important question. And we've definitely had some conversations, just even with the Essex best group. And I, you know, but I imagine that's the other piece about just keeping the group a little bit smaller, the whole idea behind six members and other components related to that. Well, we deal with a lot of people that do zoom a lot. So they're busy, but they'll jump on. So that's important. And that does spark the other part of my question that I've forgotten, just remembered, but is there is it going to be like a monthly? That's again, where we left it intentionally because again, wanting to make it be no, no, it's important. It's important wanting to have it be a low threshold. And so if you have too many meetings, our members are not going to be able to come. But what's the right balance to have it feel like they're able to be meaningfully engaged with the Essex Police Department. So those are questions that we intentionally thought that that initial startup group would be able to help navigate. And I live in the town, I volunteered to be the member that would serve for that year of transition. So it also depends on what issues come to your board. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what's happened with Essex Best. We've fluctuated between having meetings every two weeks for several months to going to having quarterly meetings to going to having monthly. And it really has depended on what are the issues? What's the timeline within which we need to have them addressed? Where's that? Where's people's availability and just kind of navigating it in that way, which so far it's worked fairly well. Yeah, it has. Because we'll ask when is everybody available? We'll do what is it? I forgot what we do. Oh, the doodle poll. Yeah. Yeah. So we just sent out a lot of emails and everybody lets us know and then we'll set up something. That's how we've been doing. It's worked. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Just thanks for the work, Essex Best. Thanks to the police department. Totally on board. I just have a housekeeping question around if this will be like a committee of the police department enrolled into the police budget or whether it will be a select board city council, like our own, you know, separate entities that form this joint committee. So the plan, and this is where Don and Ron and everyone can back me up if I say this incorrectly, is that the plan is that it would not be subsumed under the police department, that it would be an independent board and that there would be the three members from the town and so that would fall under working with the town to help recruit and appoint those members and then there'd be the three members of the city in same process and we're actually presenting to the city, I think, late March. In order to do the stipends, Tracy would have to be a town function under the select board, I believe, because the police department doesn't do the stipend part of it. Yeah. And that's sort of where I was leading toward is if we have members of the appointed by the members of the city council, like who owns the stipends? Three. The city council is also putting in their budget for stipends for their three members. Okay. That was I talked to one of the trustees and they let me know that. Awesome. Yeah. So question I have is if you become a select board appointed committee or group, you're then subject to open meeting law. That's okay. I'm sure you understood that and that right and I'm wondering, does that have a potential chilling effect to your ability to make progress? I'm just wondering if it hurts you to be an appointed board. Can I come up? Yeah. Yeah, sure. I have a thought on it, but yeah. I think the discussions that we've had is that these would be no different than any other public meeting. And in fact, that would help us build transparency which is one of the tenets that we're trying to promote. So having these be public meetings where the public could come and voice opinions or something like that, similar to what they do here at any of the other boards would be beneficial to what we're trying to do. And it would help us be transparent. The one thing that I don't want this to become is that it's a police run board and that it's not transparent. It's something that we're just doing as a show or something like that. There's been a lot of work that's going on over the last couple of years with these folks and we want to make sure that this is a meaningful effort. I did want to say thank you to both of you for everything that you've contributed the last couple of years and Don and everyone else who's come to this and this started out as an Evan Teach effort and it's come a long ways in the last two and a half years. I can't believe we're going on three years. And certainly it's in my opinion, it's been a much more thoughtful and much more productive effort than I've seen some other towns take and I certainly think we have come to a much better place. I will tell you that there is some doubt and some concerns in the police department from some of the people at work there about this effort and there's always these mistrusts that happen. I support what we're doing here with the advisory effort. I would not support anything further than that as far as oversight or a change of disciplinary procedures. I think we're very well covered in that respect. But I do really look forward to this effort that we're trying to do because I think that it will definitely build our transparency and our legitimacy with citizens that we serve. So on that note, given applicability to open meeting law, transparency, however, if you thought about protections that you may be able to in place for victims of crime, assault survivors, members who may not feel safe speaking in public to hear their voices and ensure that they feel safe. Yeah, so one of the things we've talked internally within our group about is that if we're a conduit, then we have an opportunity to be able to help represent people's voices and we want to create as safe a space as possible for people to feel comfortable that they can share their own but in the event that they feel they would like their thoughts, their wishes, their concerns brought forward, the expectation would be that the members of the CAB would be responsible for helping to facilitate and do that. So someone can give feedback and not be named in a public forum. Okay, thank you. Okay, any other board questions? We open up to the public here in a second. Okay, any comments or questions from the public? I kind of think you raised your hand there. Come up closer to a microphone. So on the structure section, it says the Essex CAB will be a committee with equal representation from the town and city trustees. I think that's the city, right? It says trustee. Okay, that's probably just me not knowing the formal process. Well, because the next section says members must be resident of Essex CAB and city of Essex. So I assume the membership has to be resident and trustees have nothing to do with it. Right, any other questions or comments from the public? I see Lorraine Zaloum, your hand is up. Hi, Lorraine. Hi guys. Hi, I just want to thank you two, especially for all the work that you guys did and for taking a hit for the team and giving the presentation. That's greatly appreciated, Ron. I just want to acknowledge all the work that he did. Anthony Jackson Miller really appreciated his presence as well, because I think in terms of how this will work, that Anthony's position is key in terms of building the trust with the public and also helping us create a board that is representative of people who are marginalized and don't feel safe. And then also Don, I want to acknowledge and Mark Reit as well as Jill. Jill was very instrumental as well in terms of her input and working for so long. So just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been a long road and your work is much appreciated. Thanks. And we should probably mention Pat Murray was the a member of the board. I just wanted to clarify one more thing and I noticed that reading this for about the fifth time over the last two weeks, I think I wanted to make sure that there wasn't the impression that was given in there that this would be turned over to Anthony from now on and that this would be his job to come to the meetings. This is something that I'm going to be fully engaged in as the chief and I will be there at every meeting. Hey, any other comments? Lorraine, is your hand still up or is that a new hand? Yeah, I miss Robbie. Lieutenant Rob also was very instrumental. It's fantastic to have two members of the police department and regular attendants. I think that one of the struggles really was to balance the trust of the public and the trust of the police department as part of this work is also to help the police. So I just want to acknowledge Rob as well. All right, thanks Lorraine. Any other comments? I don't see any of their hands up. Actually something that you pointed out as I was reviewing this and you asked about who would create the committee, whether it's the city of the town combination there of, that got me digging into the police services agreement which talks about an advisory board and equity board, probably nuances that most people don't care about, but it's something that the select board would create and there would be some representation set aside for the city. I think the recommendation to have a three in three or equal representation makes sense, but just the logistical standpoint of the select board would probably be the one creating the board. I'm sure that the city council will have good feedback and be happy to hear about it as well. Yeah. So just to be clear that it would be a select board formed committee with which we are inviting the city to name representatives. Correct. That brings a question that I have been thinking about too, but so I know you mentioned that you wanted to be on for the transition year as a member from Essex best and I was reading in here also that says six to eight. So my only question was for clarification, would you like three additional members to serve on the community advisory board? And then when you step down that there's not two or do you plan to, I mean, I guess that's the way we envisioned it and this may be getting into too far. No, no, no, just tell me if it's too much. Is that in that first year, there would be a one year term, a two year term and a three year term. I would be the one year. Okay. And so then I'd rotate off and then the next person would come on for the three or whatnot so that it would alternate after that so that you didn't have the amount of turnover every year. You didn't lose more than one number. You think that was the ideal. Can I ask a quick question about that? So you said a one year, a two year and a three year? Yeah. Just no, just just for the first three being the one year. Yeah. First year for the first year. For the first group. Yeah, because we were one. And then everybody's term would be three years after that. Yeah. Three years after that. Because they would have been staggered. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. I'm just asking kind of throwing this out there, but do you think that three years going to deter people from wanting to serve? Well, I don't know. I will tell you in doing this work, I feel like- Looking for opinions from folks that serve those terms. Yeah. Three years is scary. I'm on the housing. So that's three years. And I'm also on EDC. That's three years. It wasn't scary for me. If it's the work, it's not about the time. It's the work, period. And I would also advocate that I think because this is a group that will need to be able to hold a safe space and need to be able to facilitate tough conversations and have those relationships, I think one year is too short. And I think just from our work on Essex Best, I think two to three is a nice spot. But we're almost at three years. Two plus. So with regard to membership, are you looking to us to recruit people or is it how- You know, we didn't pick you, right? That was done. I think what we kind of envisioned is that each board would advertise for their own members to fill both positions similar as we do with the other board. So yeah. And then unfortunately, I have to ask you all to do some interviews in a point. You would ask, you would sit down and be here at present? Yes. The only logistical question that I have to that side of it is that as a board under the select board, it's going to have to have, you know, I understand that it's a mission statement, but it's going to have to have terms, you know, all the guidelines that we have for all of our rules of conduct or whatever will apply to any board that we establish. Pretty much Essex Best has been following that anyway. But if there was anything in there that wanted to be changed or tweaked, you know, we would just have to make sure when we pass it that we bring all of that forward, then, you know, that would be the operating guideline for the select board. But they would come up with that after they have their initial meeting anyway, just like the rest of us. Are you ready now, can I? So sorry, one other question I guess is, I guess we would want to form this as soon as we could. So we would be, as soon as we decide we want to do this, do we start advertising or is this a next year thing in the next fiscal year that I wouldn't think we won't, I would think we would not want to wait. I think you're fine to do it now if you're ready to. All right. I like to make the motion that the select board create, sorry, create a community advisory board, the partner with the Essex Police Department and instruct staff to create qualifications, advertise for members, and facilitate the effort. Second. Thank you, Don. I heard Tracy with a second. Any further discussion? I just have one quick question for Greg, but I just want to make sure that if this forms quickly and before July that everything's okay with stipends to be fast forwarded. Yep, yep, we can do that. Getting approved tonight, we can start advertising this week and start to hear. We usually keep positions open, their seats open for at least a month. So we have a chance for people to apply and put their name out there and then we'll start to schedule interviews. So you'll probably see that by late March, early April, hopefully we'll have some good candidates. Can I add something, please, to that? I'm not sure if this matters and certainly you folks would be the experts on this, but I'm, should we wait until the city gets a chance to weigh in on whether they're going to participate or not before we start advertising? I'm just asking that question, whether that matters or not. I think you can advertise, this is just my thinking a lot. I think you can advertise if the city decides not to participate. We could restructure and have, you know, five seats instead of three for the town. I mean, I'm pretty hopeful that I'm pretty sure that they're going to do that. They were asking pretty adamantly for it. We were negotiating that. Yeah, absolutely. They may not be able to meet until everyone's had a chance to advertise and interview and appoint and all that, but I'd say the sooner we can start advertising, the better. Is there any issue with it being an even numbered board or do we have other even numbers? So there's really no votes that they're going to take. That was my question. So it's an advisory board, so they really no votes. I think the expectation is you won't take a position on some, I don't know, as their, the way it was explained to me when I asked that question from Marguerite, said this is an advisory board and there's no decision making. Couple in our last two meetings, we had even numbers on the board and we did just fine. Yeah, and even in a three to three vote as of now. No, I'm not, I'm not worried. I just know you have most have five or seven. Yeah. I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's probably has a lot to do with equal representation because we're paying about the same for the police department between the town and the city. This is just the under experience question for you, but with open meeting laws, is there going to have to be a quorum for them to meet? Uh, yes. And that would be four. That'd be four. Okay. Yeah. Okay, any other discussion? We have a motion on the floor to us to establish CAB and then direct staff to put together qualifications and start advertising. Any other discussion? Hey, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those say nay. Okay, motion passes five zero. Thank you so much for your work. It, it looks like, I mean, it's obvious that you've put a little amount of effort and thought into this and thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. They're an awesome group to work with, by the way. Yep. Thank you all. Thanks for coming. Thanks for everything. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to business item five C, consider approval of a assignment of opioid settle on the opioid settlement funds for opioid abatement services in fiscal year 2023. That's going to be Marguerite. Marguerite. Hi. Hi. Um, it's a mouthful. Oh, let me see if I can, which is not up here. There it is. Um, yes. So, um, this is the funding that we've been getting through the settlement funds that have come down, um, through the nationally through the settlements for the opioid, um, abuse and, um, sort of, um, abatement looking forward at ways to abate and make up for those kinds of abuse that has been happening. Um, so nationwide, this, we came forward actually when Evan was unified manager, we signed on to be a subdivision of these, um, settlements at the time. It was two settlements, which is the distributor settlement and the Janssen settlement there that are in, in your memo. There's, um, could be more, um, coming. All of this has kind of been moving and the amount of money that we were supposed to get originally, um, was a little bit up in the air, even at that point, because it was dependent on how many subdivisions signed up, you know, nationally, but then also within our state. And so, um, that kind of moved and shifted a little bit. And then of course, once the settlement finally, uh, went through there, there was the incentive clause, um, which incentivized Janssen to pay the first five years, which we thought we would get over a slow, um, you know, one, two, three, four, five installments all this year. So basically all of the payments came through in November, um, to us, obviously they were with the state ahead of that. And, um, and so that's how they decided, you know, our percentage and all that, which is what we signed on to begin with, um, about, I think it was a year and a half ago now. So, um, that's originally, we were thinking it would be, um, you know, about $22,000 less than what you're seeing there. Um, and so, um, it was, uh, it was actually Ron, I think he would talk to some others. Well, um, you know, while I was on maternity leave, but even ahead of that, we were thinking originally that this might be a good use for, uh, community outreach. And it still is a good use for that. And now with more money, it just will hopefully help cover that cost in the budget as it is and help with that kind of funding, um, you know, moving forward. If we still get more, we can talk about that and all of how that works out. But, um, right now the recommendation, um, and Ron is there, but he, you know, knows about this, um, is to put that toward that work with a community outreach, because a lot of what they do, um, is opioid abatement. I have talked to some other communities around the city is also, um, putting their money toward community outreach. And there are several others who are considering it. They have not finalized where they're placing their money. When you see in Colchester, um, and if South Burlington has so much more money, that they have a whole list, but, but, um, it is definitely on their list as well. Those communities to be putting it toward this, um, kind of abatement method, which for us is just a really direct route. You know, we don't have a hospital in Essex. We don't have those types of things that other people might be putting this toward who are bigger and getting more money. So yeah, to have questions. All right. Thanks, Marguerite. Oh, I'm sorry. That's what we said. So the community outreach part of Ron's budget? Yes. That's right. Okay. But just as Marguerite, could you explain in case anyone's, um, listening is, is not familiar with community outreach, just what they are, they're, who they're through, what they do for the town just briefly? Yes. Sorry about that. Good point. Yes. So they work with the police department. Obviously, Ron, you can fill in anything I miss or however you feel, but, um, they work with the police department and, um, they, you know, do all kinds of opioid substance abuse, you know, mitigation efforts, but abatement efforts that can be, you know, they show up to certain calls where there's, you know, perhaps mental health calls or anything that has to do with that kind of substance abuse that can be helping folks get into centers to help with that after a call, that can be, um, you know, even, it can do with getting Narcanon into hands where it, you know, needs to be to help that kind of addiction and then process that and help move forward with, again, recovery services or what that might be for that person specifically. So they really are our path anyway with working with folks in the community and with the police department, um, to go that next level, you know, not just the call that we get, but what's that next level of working with, um, folks who might need help with substance abuse and opioid abatement, um, moving forward. So this would be like, we have Howard Mental Health. This is what they do. This is would go. Community outreach is a, is a section of Howard Mental Health. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Got it now. Kendall. If we, um, go with staff recommendation and give this to the police budget like this, will there be a way to track, uh, what the funds are used for, the extra funds? Because I would like to see the funds used for something in the police department, as opposed to going to the fund balance at the end of the year, maybe unspent or so. I would just like, um, this to be used for this purpose. Just a general question. Uh, Marguerite, I'm looking for that one. Okay. Great. Um, yes. Yeah. That is correct. They have to be used for opioid abatement. That's, we don't have a ton of guidelines, but that's the big one. Um, and so we definitely need to make sure that that's exactly what you're saying, Kendall. So hopefully, you know, maybe though we can, you know, report on that down the line or, but you'll be able to see that those, you know, I'll work with Dan so that we can see and follow that, you know, that's where those go into that kind of bucket. Which is the community outreach line for the police department. Yeah. I just think that's good PR. It's good PR to show that you've got the funds and use them for that. Absolutely. And it's, and it's absolutely the best place for it. Thank you. Any other questions? Comments? Ethan? I just have a question about, um, in the memo. When it says the first half of the, of future year 23, is that like January one to July one? Yes, I believe so. And then the second half would be July one to, obviously that hasn't happened yet. In 24. Yes. In 24. Well, yeah. Yeah. So that was last year. That was 2022. The number it referred to. I'm not sure. This is Mark Reed's memo. What do you mean? Which number? Sorry. Um, I was just, I was trying to follow the the first five years of future year 23, where, you know, talk about 11 individuals and then the second half of future year 23. And to me, I was having a hard time following. So the first half of FY 23 is, is July 1st of last year to December 31st of 2022. So we're in the second half of fiscal year 23, which ends June 30th. Right. Yeah. So there's been 137 calls in two months. Wait, Reed's. Oh, you mean the memo, the sort of note from community outreach? As using the future year, like the budget instead of like the year that it happened. I just, I was having a hard time following the information. That's a good quote. I mean, that came from community outreach. So I can follow up on that if you want, Ethan. But yes. Curious as to like, you know. Right. Where it fell. Yeah. But I just curious as to like patterns in the year, if we know that there's certain times. Right, right. That it just didn't make any sense reading. Wrong. Yeah. When did this happen? I think if you're asking about patterns, I think in their numbers, I think they're consistent throughout the year, no matter why. Yeah. Okay. Because the way it reads is just said that there was only 11 individuals in one half of the year. And then 137 in the, you know, one secondary measures were applied. I was kind of just trying to understand better as to. Yeah. Like I said, like Marguerite said, those numbers came from community outreach. I'm not sure where they got those or how those work. Thank you. I'm going to shoot you an email to Marguerite to put that better word. Yeah. Totally. I can check with them if you have it follow up. Yeah. Let me know. Any other board or comments or questions? Anything from the public? Any comments, questions from the public? I don't see any hands in the room. Tracy, did you? I'd like to make a motion. Ah, let's go. Go for it. I move that the select board assign $37,954.02 received from the opioid settlement funds to fiscal year 23 to be put toward the already budgeted community outreach contract. Second. Thank you. Tracy and thank you, Don. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. The motion passes 5-0. Thank you, Chief. Thank you for agreeing. Thank you. We'll move on to the next item on the budget. To the next item on the agenda. I'm budget brain. Sorry. Where are we? Oh, discussion about appointment or employment evaluation of public officer and play this executive session topic as is the next one about real estate that will circle back to those consent agenda. I make the motion to accept the consent agenda. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Ethan. Any discussion or comments? Yes, I will make the comment that whoever named the new street should definitely be recruited for Essex logo, because that is a great street name. And the three that they picked, that's fantastic. So that's my comment. Thank you. I got a comment to congratulate the Chief with this grant. Oh, on the grant? Yes. Yes, that was a minor grant, so we'll be able to replace the grant. Every little bit helps. Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you for all you do, Chief. Thank you all. Have a good night. Good night. One comment I wanted to make is it wasn't worth pulling the minutes out to correct this, but in the February 6th minutes for item 5C, it said that the motion passed 5-0 and there's only four of us at the meeting, so it's just a minor correction. No need to pull that out. Maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned it. Double minutes at the next meeting? We'll get it corrected. All right. Any other comments? All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to say nay. Motion passes 5-0. Reading file. Any board member comments? I'd like to thank Patty Davis for her service to the Planning Commission. Thank you, Don. Anything else? Yes, I'm curious with the salt shed, it looks like it's going to be about five years or so. Do we have the funds in the capital budget to replace that in that timeline? We've been putting money aside. I don't remember offhand exactly how much is there, but I'll have to get back to you on that one. Okay. Yeah, so I hope there's a way to get a grant, right? So we would need the matching dollars. I don't want to bet a good amount of it. I think it was, I thought it was like 85% if I remembered right from my... I think if we get this stormwater grant that Public Works is looking at, it would cover a big chunk of it. Yeah, I thought I could totally be misspeaking, but I was, I won't say anymore, but I thought I remembered 85 when I had to come up with 15 if we got the grant. So we wanted to be planning for, maybe it was 30. I'll have to look into that and throw that out there. I do remember they brought it up and it was a significant amount of money though, and that was one of the things that Aaron was talking about, was that he was working with Nelson and Greg to make sure that if they could get the grant that they had the amount to cover the other portion of the build, as I remember. Yeah, it's a grant through VTrans for stormwater mitigation, which has been covering salt sheds, and it's a 20% match for the town with the maximum award being $500,000. Right, depending on the intersection of 20% and $500,000, we may have to pay more than 20%. I might just respectfully suggest that you shoot for a three-year time frame versus the five to have the match for that being conservative. A couple of things I guess I wanted to bring up is there's a line item in there about the transition of the Essex Junction Finance Department out of 81 Main Street. That's in there because there's a stipulation in the agreement that says that that will be presented to the boards, and so when that happens, it's not a complete severance of the two departments, but it's just a move out from the building, so this is more informational than an actual once the two finance directors agree that they each have the ability to operate independently, then they'll look at a more formal notification of that, so that's coming. Upcoming meeting schedule, we only have scheduled through the first meeting in April because that's the meeting at which the select board establishes the meeting schedule for the coming year, and so just be prepared, our next meeting is town meeting, and so we do have a lame duck meeting after that. But since I guess seats are uncontested, we'll all be here possibly. Sorry, I just wanted to remind people to bring your calendars or start looking at your calendars and start thinking about dates in the future, but I guess we don't really need to worry about that at the first meeting in April. The Q&A sheets about town meeting are in the packet, and we've been passing them out at town events, hopefully getting the word out. One thing I wanted to ask about is, I know somebody said that many people didn't even realize that town meeting was coming up, should we be putting something out on to whatever our, I assume it was in the newsletter it went out. Do we say things like it's at the movie theater, at the T-Rex, there's going to be popcorn, it'd be in big letters, there's no dinner, there's no way to participate remotely. If you want to vote, you have to come to the meeting, although I think it will be live streamed. That is correct. It will be live streamed, but people won't have the opportunity to call in, make comment, or vote. It's a one-way communication, so that's a difference, a change from the last couple of years. The other thing is, I'm not sure we've said, maybe we have that ballots aren't being mailed to everybody automatically. Should we do, should we... Yeah, I'll talk to Tammy in the clerk's office. The annual report is getting mailed out, that should be hitting mailboxes pretty soon. That'll have all that information in there we can do from Forge Forum, Facebook, the town website, our standard go-tos for communication. The newsletter went out, but yeah, we can keep putting the word out there. Hopefully the meetings are the efforts that you're all doing at the community events have been helping and will continue to help too. If I know that you may have limitations about the number of postings you can do in a month, if you need to use select board member slots to get more out... You can have all of mine. I don't have to use them. We'd be willing to do that. I know how to do it. I don't know. If you need more slots to put things out, because select board members can do two a month. I've already done the one about the coffee on Friday. I could do another one before the end of the month. I need it. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Probably talking way too much. I got one more comment. You sparked an idea in my head, but so I was at the hockey game Friday. Maybe not, maybe not. I'll forget what day. Yeah, I think it was Friday. Was it Friday or Saturday? Yeah, that's a word. But anyway, I handed out all 29 packets that I had and out of the 29 people, I think I talked to a ton. Luckily there was like five hockey games and a basketball thing going on next door. But there was a lot of people who thanked me and said they already know what's going on. I was surprised by that. So that's good. But then there was also a lot of people that were thankful and a lot of people who said not this year. So they knew that they were in a different city this year. But it was good. I got a lot of public positive feedback and I think there's more people paying attention than it seems. I'm hopeful of that. All right. Any other comments? I just have a question about the Resignation. Will the Charter Amendment affect refilling that slot in the future at all? Or that will be something that takes place after the town meeting? So the Planning Commission seat that's open right now, it's my understanding that there's another person who's indicated that they're planning to resign. And so I think we just handle it. Will we advertise it? If we haven't already, starting last year, you might remember we started advertising any terms that were ending. We're planning to do that again this year. Town meeting put in a plug for the informational booths at town meeting. A lot of our volunteer boards and committees have tables set up. That's kind of a showcase. We did the step-in event last year. I think we probably won't do that this year. We'll kind of use this town meeting showcase to highlight. A lot of our boards and committees get people to start thinking about if they want to volunteer what might be in their wheelhouse or in their line of their interest. So we'll be advertising other positions. The Charter Change of Past, it's probably going to take a year, 18 months to get to that point of transitioning to a DRB. So I think filling open seats now and we can talk about, as we get to that point, are the certain Planning Commissioners who want to go towards development review, stay on the Planning Commission, same thing with the Zoning Board. So I think it's in the best interest to fill seats now. And okay, you have people who can come on board and get up to speed and then figure out where they want to be down the road. And for any seats that we fill between now and the transition, we make it clear to the candidates that this is a shortish or short term, then it's not a full four-year term that you would get. Okay. Because of the transition. But then we haven't talked about how we transition people into new seats. Yeah. I just wondered because that came up, if it did go to only January 2025, that's only partway through a regular term. So I just was curious. But the Planning Commission stays with the DRB at Zoning this year, so it would not impact anybody interviewing for your planning. I think that's part of the transition stage we have to figure out. And does everyone on planning want to stay there? Do they want to shift? But I'm saying the Planning Commission doesn't go away with DRB if it passes. I think that's what you thought it was going to be. Yeah. It's zoning that goes away. Planning with the DRB, I think their work is more defined. I move that the Select Board enter into executive session to discuss the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee in accordance with one VSA section 313A3 to include the town manager and deputy manager. Okay. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to say nay. Passes 5-0. I move that the Select Board enter executive session to discuss the negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with one VSA section 313A2 and to include the town manager and deputy manager. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Tracy, for any further discussion. So there's no reason to come back after that. So, Scott, you can pack up and go. We'll go upstairs. We'll adjourn from upstairs. We won't be making any motions when we come back. We'll adjourn from where we... We'll put it on adjourn from upstairs. Any other comments? Do you want to vote on that last motion? Yeah, I'm just giving... Having this discussion before we have the vote. Sorry. I lost what was... Sorry, just... I try to do that before we have the final vote. Let me just start packing up. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any motion passes 5-0. We don't need... That's the last motion, right? That's it. Okay. All right.