 And I'll go ahead and call the village of Essex Junction, born of trustees for Tuesday, June 15th order. And I will call the town of Essex select changes from staff. Nothing from staff. The board members want to make changes. Don, I see your hand up. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to pull the minutes of June 5th out of the consent agenda to make a correction. Okay, any other board member changes suggested? Not seen any hands. Okay, so could I have a motion to approve the amended agenda from the select board? Motion to approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? A motion passes 4-0. Would trustee like to make a similar motion? So moved. I think Amber Beach of Two with George, do you want to second it? Sure, I'll second it. Thank you, Amber. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Passed 4-0. Okay, thank you, Andrew. Moving on to public to be heard, this is a time for the public to speak to the boards about items that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak, please direct your remarks to either myself as chair of the select board or Andrew as the president of the village. Please expect to only speak once. Also, it's not necessarily an intent to get into discussion here, so this is us hearing your comments. We may choose to or not to respond. Please keep your comments civil, although you are free to comment about your government and your elected officials, please refrain from discussing other members of the public. So is there anyone like to speak during? I see Lorraine Saloon's hand up. Go ahead, Lorraine. I like the way you say that, Andy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know I sent y'all a letter earlier today, and I don't know if this is more relevant to the equity update, but I wasn't sure how the trustees would feel about this. I was wondering if you might consider a joint letter sent to our school board in support of the equity planned as laid out. Thank you. Thank you, Lorraine. We do have an update from the equity group this evening, so that certainly could be something that's discussed. Any other members of the public wishing to speak during public to be heard? I am not seeing any. Has anybody else seen any hands? Check it and make sure that I'm not missing anything. All right, okay. We'll move on to business item 5A. Take it away, Andrew. Take it away, Greg. So take it away. I got this one, and if Pat Murray wants to jump in, that'd be great too. So equity and Lorraine, thank you for the great lead-in. Before I forget, the top thing I wanna mention is the town and the village are hosting a Juneteenth celebration this Saturday, 11 to one, basically in the new covered pavilion at Brownnell Library. That is being put on by Oviso Makuku from the town community development department in collaboration with the task force. So there'll be some food, there'll be some strawberry lemonade, there'll be some recidings. It will not be nearly as big as Burlington is putting on, but it will be very Essex centric for that. So I wanted to thank the committee that's putting that on and all of the people that have donated to the event. Once again, Saturday the 19th from 11 to one. So several months ago, a task force was created. It was appointed by me. The members were people that had some affinity for this work. They have been meeting every couple of weeks. We have a consultant that is helping us get through this work. You may have heard this before, we did a survey asking people what their concerns were and we're still working our way through this. They have now moved into three subgroups to tackle the results of the survey and the work that they feel is important for the community to work on. Couple of things that have already happened, both the village board and the select board have both put in monies in their current July one budgets for stipends for people who are on our boards and commissions. One of the reasons for that is people feel it's a barrier to serving if you cannot afford a babysitter or a pizza or something for your kids. So we listened and we put that in the last year's budget process. The committee that I'm on is working on governance and things like how to get representative governance. And when I say representative, I mean representative of the citizenry that make up other community, whether black, Hispanic, Asian, white, woman, man, gender, all those socioeconomic, how do we get people interested in serving on our boards and commissions and how do we do that outreach as a process with an equity lens? So that's one of the things we're working on. There's a communications committee and Patrick, your committee, correct? Yep, mine as well. Although I see Chief Hogue is on, if it's possible for him to speak. We actually met yesterday, our most recent group, but I am incredibly sick right now. So I wasn't able to attend that one, but I can certainly give you a summary of the group. And then if the chief wants to jump in if he's here, he was at that meeting yesterday. But by and large, the group itself has been concerned with the aspects of policing and its impact on the different populations that we have here in Essex. We had a survey that was done that was very well responded to. There were pretty significant differences that we saw between the interactions that people of color had with police officers and those individuals who were white. And it's not always necessarily in the specific actions, but it's in how they feel, how they feel they may get approached, whether or not they feel, I believe the word we use was safe in the community or not. There was, I think, a 20, 25% gap between individuals who were responded and identified as white versus those who responded. They were part of a BIPOC community. So there's a gap there that's identifiable. And really the key part is working, I think both on outreach within the police department itself, how the training that they receive, which the chief has been amazing at detailing out the steps that they've gone through over the last year. And I think to another extent as well, it's about how we're making sure that the feedback and what people want to see from the Essex Police Department is really representative of the community. I've spoken certainly about it before. We have a relatively smaller group, but it is very well represented with people of color. And there's a good representation from the police department, our elected officials with myself there. And then people who are just members of the community. But we wanna make sure that this is something that goes beyond just that kind of core group of eight or nine people who are looking at the police department budget, hearing some things that we hear at the trustees and select board level have heard about before. There's a mental health crisis as well, that there's a lot that the police have to respond to that over the years has kind of been put onto their plate for lack of other services. So it's not really just about as well, how police interact within our community, but I think this group wants to look at, what's the best way to spend the money that we invest in the police department as well. And all the things that we can do to make our police department's lives and our officers' lives easier and safer that also coincide with what we know we need more of here in the community, which obviously can be mental health, but as well as the discussions that we're having that are really upfront and forward about diversity, equity and inclusion, which I think is a pretty strong value of both of our boards. So that's kind of the broad view. And again, I'm not sure if he's here or not, but if he is, he could certainly talk about last night's meeting. I apologize, I was ready to go there and give a feedback, but right now I've got enough dayquilling me to kill a small horse. That's okay, Patrick, we picked you up, don't worry. Thank you, I appreciate it. Not a problem. So yeah, we did have another meeting last night. It was really informal, held at a residence and not in a meeting room or online. It was our first one that we did in person. And so it was really good. And Lorraine was there, so she can probably chime into this as well, but I think the meeting, it was a lot about working through some things as far as questionings. One of the things that we have found so far with the police department, especially, is that we're doing a lot of answering questions because folks just don't know the inner workings of what law enforcement is and in the Essex Police Department in particular. So a couple of weeks ago, I did a budget presentation for the group and explained how our budget is put together. Patrick did a great job talking about budget day and how the select board goes through each budget and determines how that's going to be done. And they have the final say in that. I think that was very educational for everyone. And then last night, I think was more about working towards a goal or identifying a goal. And I think the overarching theme of the meeting was basically what does public safety mean, not just necessarily the police department because public safety is a large component that involves a lot more than just the police department and it involves the select board, it involves the trustees, it involves mental health professionals, it involves the fire departments, any agency that provides any type of safety service or provides for those services is involved in that. So that's one of the things we're talking about right now is what does public safety mean to folks here in Essex and what would they like to see in the future for the police department in particular, but what should we be doing that we're not doing or what should we be continuing to do that what we're doing now? And Patrick is right. I mean, over the last 25 years, I mean, law enforcement has been given many, many, many jobs and it's very easy to do that because we're there. We're the folks that answer the phone at two in the morning when you need help, we're there. So we have to work through some of those things and I think we're making some progress with that and I'll let Lorraine jump in there if she would like to. I think she might be listening to the school board meeting at the same time. Okay. Okay, anyway, she was there and we did have a good meeting. Yeah. I read the recap of those notes and you got most of it. So from at least a month and a half then. We worked our way through a lot of different things last night. We certainly did so. Yeah. Yeah, the group is always great about doing that. And I think it's maybe, sorry, Evan, I didn't mean to talk over you. I think it's going to be really important not to put the carp before the horse, but we're talking about some things later tonight that are going to be impacting departments that we have police amongst them. And it's going to be really important for us to remember that there's a group of interested, concerned, dedicated citizens that are also working with Ron to say what does our police department look like in the modern age? Like he said, it's easy to put stuff on the police department, but I mean, really what I think we have an opportunity to do here with this group as well is maybe untangle some of that, let them work on the stuff that they're supposed to be working on and if we can come up with a way, or if we have citizen input that says, we really want a police department to be supported and the best way we can do it is mental health officials or equity training or whatever it is that happens to come out of these discussions. I think that now is a perfect time for us to really not just show up here next year and say, yeah, the police department sure does get a lot of stuff put on its plate. We can take steps, I think, right now with this group. So it's important, I think, to hear what they come up with as they work through these discussions. And just to maybe put a bow on the report and take some questions, then one of the things that we learn is that it's not clear what people know about what our response is and what we provide as part of our government. We have a contract with Howard Mental Health. We're in a consortium of seven communities that share Howard Mental Health resources to be on call. So while we do ask our police to go to many calls and up until recently a lot of mental health calls, they sometimes do not actually go. They go, but they're there in a supportive role with an actual mental health practitioner. So one of the things is that we do a lot, they're not coordinated and they're not necessarily focused. And so one of the other things that I would mention is we don't have a diversity, equity, and inclusion budget. There's nowhere in the village budget or the town budget will you see a budget title, diversity, equity, and inclusion? That's because it never started out as a focus. There's monies in different budgets for different activities, but you'd have to look through the entire budget to see what we spend and what we do in that field. I think ultimately we're gonna work with this group and others to try to figure out how people wanna know what we're doing, give us feedback on things they think we should do more of, things we should do less of, and become a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable community for all that live here and work here. So with that, Ron or Pat or someone, anybody from the community, if you don't have anything else, I think we open it up to the board, for some questions and or public. I have one thing to add just from the communication subcommittee is just that our newsletter for this week just went out today, and so those who have signed up to receive it might not have gotten it quite yet, but they'll get it this week if you signed up automatically on that, and I'll put the link in the chat as well, just so that people have it there, but that one is up for May, June. And we now have three people on that part of the subcommittee, and each one will also be focusing on one of the other task force groups as well, to help bring that information out and try and just be very transparent and get as much out as close to when things happen as possible. So yeah, that's all I have to add. Thanks, Mark. Andy, Andrew, I don't know how you wanna do this. Members of the board, any, or boards that, sorry, any questions, comments? I know I appreciated getting an update as this is, I just recently signed up for those email updates or news alerts, so I'm playing a little bit of a catch-up in trying to stay informed as to what's going on, and I appreciate the opportunity to hear it directly from those of you who've been a part of the work thus far. Oh, and I forgot one other thing. You know, we're not exactly the only governmental group in Essex or Essex Junction. That would be Essex Westford School District, and our brothers and sisters in the district have been working on equity and inclusion. And from one leader to another, and from one board to another, we are support, well, our group is supportive of their work. I'm pretty sure you all are. We want our citizens, whether they're in grade school or high school, or a senior citizen, to feel safe, welcome, and included in our community. And I think that's what the school district has been on that path. They are having their policy meeting tonight. That's probably why we have a little bit less of an audience right now, but we support what they're doing, and we have members on some of our teams from the school district, and we really appreciate a lot of their input and guidance. We work really well with the school district as our police do, and administration to administration. So in that vein, and kind of in response to Lorraine's comments earlier, should we discuss or consider how to provide some sort of formal support for that, a memo of support? So something that the boards want to do, can we actually have that discussion now, or does it need to be warned for a future meeting to have that discussion? I don't think we'd be able to approve of a formal memo or of a document since we have it. But we can at least philosophically say that we support the efforts and or we support at our next joint meeting having a formal memo granted that's not gonna be for a little while and maybe later than what would be helpful. Would you like staff to create a joint resolution of support? I would be in support of that. I don't know if other members have comments. Patrick, your hand. Yeah, I mean, I absolutely would be in support of that as well. And Andrew, I would say that even if it's later, support, no matter when it comes is good. I think it's gonna be a longer discussion, diversity and equity aren't anything that's going anywhere. So while they may be passing their policy tonight, I have no doubt that it's an issue that will come up again. So if we get that response to them in a month, I think it's gonna be equally well received and just as important to send as it would be if we got it tonight. Yeah, I'm not proposing we try to edit a document tonight. So yeah, I guess I would be in favor unless there's anybody who has any, raises any strong objections to asking staff to put together a proposal that we could review and look at for our next meeting. I think that'd be a great thing to do. And I would suggest any chance you have to support your school board members, let them know. They sure could use some people in their corner. That's our report. Thank you. Shall we turn this over for, I mean, we're not making a decision right now. Do we need to do public comment on this? That's up to the board, just. Andy, do you? I would say that if there's anybody wants to comment on the report that was given. Sure. And I guess you could also comment on whether, if people have comments on the proposal to have a joint resolution and support. We can certainly hear that too. So members of the public, go ahead using Microsoft Teams and raise your hands. We'll make sure to give you the opportunity to speak. When it is your turn, please make sure to address your comments, questions, concerns to either Andy or I. Please be prepared to only speak once. And I don't see anybody on the phone. So we don't have to worry about that. So go ahead, raise your hand or type in the chat. I'm not seeing any hands up. Looks like we are all set on public comment on that with no public comments, no motion. That would conclude this agenda item and go ahead, Andy. Okay, next business item is discussion about June 5th, 2021 strategic planning meeting. Any staff comments to kick this off? It was really, thank you. We held the strategic planning session between the Village Board and the Town Select Board on June 5th. It was about a half a day. It's held at 75 Maple. Thank you very much for all of you who attended and participated. This is really just for you guys to recap. If there was anything you wanted to add, highlight from that day. We did set some priorities. And it was appreciated of what needs to occur over the next six months or more. Believe it or not, there are things that are not merger slash separation related that do have to get done as a government. We do have things like the cannabis opt in or opt out that needs to be addressed at some point soon. Budget season is just around the corner, as well as some other activities. So with that, I don't know, Greg or Marguerite, do you have anything to add in? No, nothing for me, just a chance for the boards to debrief and share any thoughts that they might have. Okay. So board members, any comments? Either board George, go ahead. Yeah, more for staff. We had, there was some indecision about how the disposable of the ARPA funding because I believe last Saturday, we weren't sure how it was going to be distributed and installments and which municipalities and so forth. But now you've gotten some clarity on that. Evan, Greg, does that put us in a slightly different place? Did you want to speak to that for a moment? Sure, I could do that. For the people watching, we are getting federal funds from the ARPA program. This is the federal government sending money to municipalities directly. There is one catch. They're doing it by population. I think they did it by 2019 figures. I will give you the figures that we're getting. And then there is a pot of $121 million and some change that is supposed to go to county government. And the federal government treasury, the federal treasury believes the state of Vermont has county government. And therefore they will not distribute the $121 million to the municipalities and they are now in negotiations with the state as to how that money is going to get distributed. And guess who's not at the table? The municipalities. That would have been your first guess. But we are told that our ARM VLCT is trying to weigh in on that. So basically the village is going to get $1,136,071. You will receive that in two installments, $568,036 each, one half this year, one half next year. The town will get $1,155,543. Split into two payments. We have applied for the government to get that. They have received our request. So the first hurdle is done to submit and get a record with the federal government. That means once we have all the proper signings and things from Sarah, myself and any others that they require, they will transfer funds. The village and the town have three years to spend these funds. I didn't want to go into too big of a thing because I'm not completely sure on all of the details of this program. But in general, they will want the money spent on water, sewer, broadband, the impacts of climate change and potentially the impacts of COVID on our community. That's the one that needs a lot more definition and a lot more definitive stuff from VLCT and others as to what that actually means and what's included in those. So we are in the early stages of this and we will be reporting back as soon as we get a little bit more clarity from our government groups as to what exactly we can spend these on and then discuss with the boards how they wish to do a process for the use of these funds. Thanks, George. Thank you. But I will caution everybody. These are federal funds and federal funds comes with lots of oversight and strings attached and audits. So if they have a rule, you don't bend it, you don't skirt it and you better have a lot of paperwork to back it up because you will be audited. So that's my experience. But we're hoping that a big chunk of the 121 million will also be distributed to the villages and towns of the state because there really isn't any county government. There are county functions like the sheriff's office and the court systems but there's really no other county. There's no county health system. There's no county mental health agencies. There are counties, we're in Chinden County but there is no formal Chinden County government. Evan, I'm gonna guess that the CCRPC, the Regional Planning Commission would is rubbing their hands right now thinking, oh boy, what a windfall. I'm not sure, they may disagree with you on that. Well, there are probably little pockets of county governments all over and they're looking at a big, big payday. So they might dispute you with them. If you might be right, George but if they get as much as we get, I, Robert and Pierce, Weesome and Cucco will be on their door every day. Yeah, well, they need a place to spend it. That's the problem, so where else do they get to spend it? And they should spend it on us. They're clients. Okay, any other comments from board members or questions about the strategic planning session? It's quiet tonight. I just want to say that I think it went well. I think Jen did an excellent job of thinking on her feet and adjusting what she needed to do based on where we were and what we were, how the discussion was going. I think she did an excellent job. Thank you staff for arranging this and also please, if anything, that any of the outcomes from that need clarification, don't hesitate and also if you have any priority questions come up, don't wait to talk to us about them. Yeah. Okay, any other board member comments? Does it make sense to have a public comment at this point? Okay, any members of the public wishing to speak, please raise your hand using the raise your hand function and teams or comment in the chat that you would like to make a comment. Irene Renner, go ahead, Irene. We can't hear you, Irene. Irene, we can't hear what you're saying. Yeah, you're just a little quiet. Very, very soft. Okay, how's that? Is that better? That is, yes. Thank you for letting me know. I just wanted to double check. I heard Evan say that the money could be spent on water, sewer and something before the impacts of climate change. Broadband. Broadband, okay, thank you. That was the one I was missing. And could I just check the numbers? I heard the village would get 1,136 in change. The town would get 1,155 in change. Did I get that correct? Yes. Finally, can you give us any indication as to why the differences, I thought the populations were about the same. Are they based on population or something else like Grand List? They are not based on Grand List. Do we know what they're based on? I would have to go back to the document as to what all the factors are. Okay, but we don't have that in the packet, right? It's on the VLCT website. Thanks, I'll look there, thank you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everybody. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns. Sorry to use the acronym. Thanks. Thanks, Irene. Any other comments from the public? Irene, if you could put your hand down, it would be helpful. Okay, not seeing any other hands. There's no one on the phone. So again, no action. So let's move on. Andrew. Thank you, Andy. So that brings us to 5C update on the Village by 6 Junction Independence Initiative. I'll spare you all, select board mostly, I'll spare you all the three and a half hour long meeting that we had last week, all those details. It really does get distilled down into what we have in the memo, where if staff could put that up for those who, members of the public who may not have been able to read the memo in advance, it'd be helpful. So really what we've come down to is as a village, we are looking for the long-term to share police services and recreation and parks. In a transitional period, if it's necessary, the cleric and treasurer finance and IT functions, though with the long-term goal of those being separated and the village having our own, and then all other municipal departments being separate. So what we are looking for is really to know how our two boards should discuss this or how we should negotiate, if you will, these shared services. For one, the obvious question is, is the town interested in exploring, sharing those with the village in a separated model? And if so, how do we want to have those conversations? There are some models that I could foresee having where the 10 of us could all do what we normally do, such as tonight and hash out the details here. There could be a subgroup of our boards who would be empowered to create, or would be empowered to make these decisions and or empowered to get it first draft. Or we could look into having a mediator or facilitator to help guide us through these conversations. But regardless, it would be really helpful for us in the village to know how we can have these conversations with you so that way we don't make things up on our own. So that is the formal request from the trustee to the select board. And I should also note, one of the things that we were clear on in terms of the departments to share, we had said that this was a consensus from our boards, though that may change in the future, but should we receive any additional information that we didn't have at our earlier meeting? Just wanted to make sure to get that caveat. So the trustees are a little good ahead of us on this because we have not had discussions about these, the possibility of sharing and or what to share. And so I see you have, this is a request, but I think the board needs to go back and have its own discussion. The select board needs to go back and have its own discussion potentially with our legal counsel in the room and have it just decide how we want to proceed. I don't know if other select board members have other thoughts on this. Patrick, go ahead. Thanks, Andy. I do agree with Andy that I think that as a group, the select board is probably going to want to have a discussion about this, just amongst ourselves first rather than openly with both of the groups. But that doesn't, I do have some questions that I'd like to ask if you don't mind. That way I can just get some clarity around some of the decisions. They may like please to me seems pretty obvious. There's a lot of advantages in the sharing of that and there is the facility itself that's tied to the bond that both populations are paying off. But I'm curious about some of the others, Andrew, I don't know if you'd mind maybe given like a cliff notes version. Like why recreation and park shared? Why clerk, treasurer and finance only for a transitional period? I don't know. I'm sure that you guys had extensive conversations so it probably won't be easy to boil it down into like a 30 or 45 second snippet for each department. But I just kind of looking at this, like some of it makes real sense to me and others of it jumped out as I would consider a little unusual. So I guess that's, I'll wrap it up and let you talk there. Sure, I'd be happy to answer your questions there, Pat. So really, yes, it took us three and a half hours. So I will do my best to, window it's down to a cliff notes version. So when we looked at what our vision was, our vision is an independent city of S-Extruction with the services to support itself with the autonomy to make decisions on behalf of the village as the board that is elected to do so. So when it came to that vision, we really were looking to separate as much as possible. When it came to the clerk, treasurer, finance and IT, we made an assumption that a transition period may be necessary before we are able to be fully separate given how intertwined they are. We don't know that level of detail and that's gonna need to be ironed out frankly with staff to help figure out how long if any transition period is necessary. With police, yep, that was a part of the non-binding resolution that a community had voted on. Given the resources for a police department for the village to have our own doesn't make much sense. The amount of resources the village has already put into the existing police station, both staff and physical infrastructure makes sense to maintain that for recreation and parks. This was one where the board, I would say, wasn't unanimous on, but the majority was in favor of this as something that would best serve all of Essex as a combined and shared entity as compared to a separated entity. Awesome, thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for. Yeah, board members, any other, oh, sorry, go ahead, Eddie. Oh, no, my hand's not up, go ahead, George. George and Muta though. Sorry, I just wanted to add one little piece. I think the discussion around, the lengthy discussion around recreation and parks, it was generally the idea was that the larger the area, the more diversity of programs you can offer. And so that was, I think, I could be mistaken, but I think that was the essential reasoning that the more inclusive we are, the larger we are, we include both communities there, the larger kinds of programs, a lot of programs that some people might like, one community on its own might not be able to offer, but the two communities together could provide it. Thank you for that, George, that's great clarification. So the request was to the select board, which I think what I've heard so far is that the select board would like to have a separate meeting among yourselves to discuss this first. If that is what the select board decides, my only request on behalf of the trustees would be if you could have that discussion at your next meeting so that we could move this forward in as timely a fashion as possible, as what I would hate to see happen is a delay in this process where one board has to go and meet, then the other board has to go and meet, then to get the answer to the other board and we start getting into such a back and forth where we find ourselves in August, September, before we've really even had a chance to discuss anything together. So it would be my only humble request is if you could have this at your, ideally your next joint, your next select board meeting. Oh, we're putting that agenda together now. So we'll see if we can fit it in, Vince, get a comment. Yeah, would it make sense to define the way we want to work together today? Because like rather than the content, or do you want to have that discussion as a board? Like as a, like an individual board? My preference would be to have our own discussion first, but I don't know if I'm just one vote out of five, but there are other others who on the select board who would prefer to have a discussion now. Patrick, go ahead. Yeah, I tend to agree with Andy with certainly all the respect for the time crunch that I know you guys are under. You know, since this is our first meeting, kind of seeing this, you know, or at least kind of getting a formal request where we could actually sit and talk about it and it's not really even us talking as a board yet. So I would absolutely be amenable to getting it on to our next meeting agenda. Taking a look at it, but I'm not sure tonight if I would be super comfortable trying to hash it out with everyone that we've got at the table about how we should work it out, whether it should be a subcommittee or everything until we've talked amongst the select board first, then we'll try to go as quickly as possible after. Yeah, our next meeting is just coming Monday, so. That timeline would work well if you were able to come to a decision as us trustees, we then meet the subsequent Tuesday. So that would be helpful. But then we only have one meeting in July. So yeah, it's right. I understand the request. Any other select board member comments? So Andrew, I'm sure you're the one that's running this. I was just gonna ask if there were any other trustees who had any questions on this or comments in case I forgot something before we turned over to public comment. Or members of staff, is there anything that you were hoping we would discuss on this subject that we have not yet discussed? I guess I would, this is Evan, I guess I would say that since I attended the meeting, the transition period is not defined, which you can't because you don't know exactly what it's entailed with that. But as you guys discuss those departments it may be beneficial to know what minimums or maximums you're kind of looking at. And maybe which ones you would prioritize that in what order you think that they would transition to the village. That's all I have. Thank you, Evan. Anyone else from staff? Or are you all set? And we can turn it over to public comment. Also, George, your hands up. Andrew, just for clarity, I think if I could be wrong, but I think in our discussion when we were looking at transition periods, we were talking about a year or years after post-separation. It wasn't like in the merger charter where there would be a transitional year. We were, I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, or other trustees, but it was really an indeterminate amount of time probably measured in years, one, two, three, four years, something like that. But it was a fairly indeterminate time. And maybe I'm wrong about that, but I wanted to throw that out there for clarification if anyone else has something to say about it. No, you're spot on, George. I mean, we talked about how the vote would happen this November. Best case scenario, it gets approved by the legislature and the governor in May to June of 2022. By that point in time, we would have already had a budget for fiscal year 23, which then that would bring us into fiscal year 24 before we're actually able to be a separate S-exjunction. So when we talk about a transition timeframe, we have that bit of time there, let alone if there's any delay in the legislative approval process. So yes, we are talking about a period of a year, two, three, we don't know. Somewhere in that timeframe. Thank you. So I think all the board members have said what we needed to say. We'll turn this over for public comments. So members of the public, if you're using, or everybody's using Microsoft Teams, so go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature if you'd like to speak. Please expect to only speak once and please address your questions to the chairs. And Betsy, you have been waiting patiently. Go ahead. Thank you. So I have a proposal for our... Is Betsy cutting out for anybody else, or is that just me? No, she's now frozen. Yep. Betsy, you were frozen solid. Betsy's frozen. I can't hear her. No, I can't hear anything either. And I'm not seeing other members of the public who wish to speak. So we can't just turn it to somebody else right now. Betsy, I don't know if you wanna try turning off your camera. That may help to preserve some bandwidth. I've seen you mute and unmute, but we still can't hear you. I wonder if Betsy's going to need to sign off and sign back on. Maybe while we wait, the pose at the board is okay. Given the message that our power came out, we'll come back, how about we wait 20 or so seconds? Oh, here we go, another hand up. Patty, go ahead. I'm sorry, I just barely got on the meeting and I'm really sorry to ask. Just in one sentence or less, however, Andy, if you could just tell me what you're talking about. That's all I, that's my question. I just wanna know what you're discussing. Thanks. Go ahead, Andy. Okay, we're talking about the village trustees have made a proposal for sharing some services and the select board has responded saying that we'd like to have our own discussion in our own meeting before responding or before developing a methodology for moving forward with either discussing or negotiating the proposal. Excellent idea, thank you very much. That's a great answer, thank you. All right, Betsy, looks like you're back. Give me another shot. Hi, yes, I'm back. I'm sorry, I must have had a power outage. I don't know what happened. So I have a proposal for the select board in that all the things that you've been saying are very interesting, but you're positing that it is a done deal, that it passes. Separation vote may go down and this may not be what we think it's going to be. And so planning now for those departments to be shared or separated or whatever we're going to do might be putting the apple in the cart ahead of the horse. I think that the select board, this is my view, my opinion is that I think that the select board, let's assume that the separation will go through, then a charter has to be passed because you can't vote on the charter at the same time as the separation because again, we don't know that the separation is going to pass. We assume that, but we don't know that. So we should have our charter for the town of Essex to be ready for March. And I would think that it would be a good idea to have an ad hoc committee and have that committee have members from the community to look at the new charter to save our board the time and have those people who want to be on that committee put in resumes or requests to be on so that you can pick the people you would like to have on that ad hoc committee. And I think that having the transition period that we've just talked about is ideal because I don't think we should be talking about negotiating any changes until we have a board that is all town outside of the village and working with the board that is all village people. I think that's ideal because I think we need to know who we are negotiating with. And these things that they want to settle, as they just said, are going to wait until the 2024 anyway. So it's not like it has to happen today and it doesn't have to happen next Monday either. So I would take the pressure off of that and look at doing the other. And I think that there's a lot of good ideas about sharing possibly that we could do, but I think that those things need to be good negotiated with the actual board that will be the town board and the board that is the village, the city and the village board. That's my opinion. Thank you. Thank you Betsy. Andy, that seemed more of a comment for the select board than the trustees. Is there anything you want to respond on that with or are you all set? I think I understand what Betsy's suggesting, although the town does not need to generate a new charter for separation to occur. So... But we need a new charter once they separate. No, we don't. There's nothing in our charter that defines where our border exists or anything. So nothing needs to change in the next time charter. We're going to have a difference in representation. We can have districts. We can actually have districts in the town. Mr. Chair, there's not a dialogue to... Yeah, Betsy, we don't need a new charter, but there are things certainly that could be changed in the charter independent of separation. Thank you, Andy. So I do see, Greg, while your hand is up, if you don't mind, I want to just make sure I'm clear as to the process that the village is going through, because I didn't cover that already. So we are going forward with a charter change, because according to our attorney, the way that the House or the way that government operations in the House and the Senate works is that you have to have a charter to be a... You have to go through a charter change process in order for separation to happen. That is a process that Newport and Rutland and Winooski had gone through. And by the legislature and then the governor approving of the charter change for an independent city, which was then a village, that approval process is what created the city. So that is why we are going forward with a new charter for the community to vote on, and that will be the separation vote. It will not be two separate votes, one on separation and one on a charter, but rather there'll be one vote for the charter of the city of Essex Junction. That vote is being planned for this upcoming November. And so that is the impetus and the timeframe that we are working towards. So with that, Greg, go ahead. Thank you, Andrew. Mr. Chair, I was hoping to get some clarification from Betsy. I agree with you that we do not need a charter change. The town of Essex does not need a charter change. Ms. Dunn also said that she wanted the select board to be all town outside the village before negotiations take place. So I was trying to understand if she was proposing that the town create its own new town of Essex with a new charter where all members would be outside of the village. I'm just trying to make sure I understand correctly. That would be true because we wouldn't have anyone from the village in the town any longer. But the town, Mr. Chair, my understanding is that the town of Essex would still exist if the village were to separate and all select board members would be elected from the town of Essex. Right, right. So at that transition point, if there's a member of the select board that does not live in the town as its borders are defined, then I believe they would be expected to resign. I don't think they would be qualified. Not qualified. Can I just answer? We'd have to get some legal opinion as to whether we could appoint somebody or have to hold a new election or how that would work. So the current select board represents the entity, the corporate entity of the town of Essex as it exists today and as it may exist in the future. And so all five of us today represent the potential future borders, the future corporate entity of the town of Essex regardless of where its borders lie. And yeah, that's the way it works. Greg, I'm sorry, I got you off a couple of times. No, no, I keep getting you off. So I just wanted to clarify, all members of the select board right now, regardless of where they are from, represent the entire corporate entity of the town of Essex. And until there is a different model of the town of Essex, that is what the situation that we have. That would be the new chart. This whole representation of who does the town select board represent, this has been discussed at NAZI, no offense, a dozen or so times at joint board meetings, at individual select board meetings, I think we can move off from that topic at this point. Other members of the public who wish to speak to this agenda item? Andrew, I'd like to speak but not to the agenda item. I'm getting feedback from somebody's TV or radio or something. So if people aren't speaking, please mute. Thank you for that, Don. It's always a good reminder. So I am not seeing any other hands up for this agenda item. I feel that we, trustees, I feel that the direction is known for me as to what the select board is gonna do. And look forward to hearing from you as to how you like to proceed. If you would like me or any of us at that meeting or to have a subsequent follow-up, just Andy, let me know. Okay, thank you. And I believe the next one is yours. Oh, I thought it was yours. That's okay. Next up is possible action resulting from the evaluation of unified manager. So Andrew, I thought you were gonna cover this one since you really did all the work. You're right. Sorry about that, Andy. So this is the memo that you have in front of you is to formalize what we had discussed in executive session on May 24th. Last time when we went through this process, we neglected to do this, the public side of approving of Evan's raise. And so for tonight, we would need a motion to do so. Is there any debate on this? Although not really, because we've already made the decision. And since we've made the decision, Andy, are you okay if we just go into voting? Yes, I am. Okay, trustees, would someone like to make a motion? I will make a motion that the select board, that the trustee suggests I'm only moving, I can only make a motion for the trustees, right? That the trustees authorize a raise for the unified manager, Evan Teach, in the amount of 2% of his salary with an effective date of February 26th, 2021. Any raise authorized as of this date would be paid retroactively back to the effective date. Second. Thank you, George. Thank you, Amber. Trustees, any discussion on that? Here and now, in all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Rate that pass 5-0. Thank you all. Hey, anyone on the select board want to make a similar motion? I make the motion that the select board authorize a raise for the unified manager, Evan Teach, in the amount of 2% of his salary with an effective date of February 26th, 2021. Any raise authorized as of this date would be paid retroactively back to the effective date. Okay, thank you, Don. Do I have a second? Thank you, Vince. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Before we go on to the next agenda item, I do just want to offer the sincerest appreciation to Evan and thanks to Evan, as well as my personal sincerest apology that, as you can see in the dates, this is nearly four months late. That is really unfair for you, frankly, in having to wait four months for this well-deserved raise. So, sorry, and thank you. Then, now, Andy, I don't know. Are you taking the next one or am I? Doesn't matter. I want you to take it. Okay, so the next one is discussion on possible action on future joint meeting schedule. We had previously, at least through much of last year, had a pre-scheduled joint meetings. We tried to do them in parallel with other meetings or prior to other meetings to consolidate meeting nights, and it became frustrating for many folks because meetings were very, very long. So, in this particular meeting was kind of put together on an ad hoc basis with a doodle poll, and it got shifted by a couple of weeks, depending because of people's availability, even then. And so I guess the question here is whether we want to have or continue on with an ad hoc basis of scheduling as needed, or whether we want to have a regular cadence to these joint meetings. So, Don, I see your hand up. I just, until we meet to discuss what they need for separation, I'm not really sure there's much we need to meet jointly about until we know what we're gonna do. Well, there was all those things we talked about during our strategic planning that are not necessarily related to separation or merger. We still need to make progress on. And it's to some degree frustrating to staff to present the same thing at two different meetings on alternate weeks and trying to keep us in sync. And so, Andrew. I for one, appreciate these meetings where it's dedicated to just our joint efforts as compared to piggybacking off of an already existing trustee or select board meeting, especially if one of us has something that goes long and then we find ourselves not starting that joint meeting until eight, 39 o'clock or so at night, those of us turning to pumpkins at 10 tend to struggle with that. Whereas these, when we start at 6.30, we're able to, I think, keep a reasonable hour and as well as the public is able to keep a reasonable time to be expected to be with us. So personally, I would appreciate a dedicated joint meeting, possibly once a month. Patrick. The first question I would have is, what is within staff's ability to handle? I don't wanna have us sit here and plan. We need two joint meetings a month and really realistically just not have staff able to provide that. I kind of like the idea of one dedicated and maybe if we need others as emergencies or something critical pop up, but is that within staff's ability to do get us an extra joint meeting per month? I would say one a month is doable. Extras will have to figure out schedules and priorities. Okay. One of the things that we look at is, when we try to pull the boards, obviously we'd like 10 of you there, but I think we've come to a consensus that eight is good enough to do things. If we start getting less than eight, then it's not really representative of the two boards. And we've talked about if there is a quorum of the boards and we really need to meet, then sometimes that just has to suffice. But ideally at least four from each board. And just so that you all know, we are still planning on having hybrid meetings going out into the future where we will have members of the board being able to attend virtually and members of the citizenry being able to attend electronically. So even though the governor and Andrew, I know you were gonna mention this, the governor's emergency orders end at midnight tonight or tomorrow night, I can't remember. It's time. Tonight and date, states, they're all the same. And so this meeting was being able to be held the way we warned it, future meetings after tonight and midnight. Have to go back to have an in-person component. So, but we do wanna be able to do hybrid. And so this Thursday, Town TV is coming to 81 Main to install some equipment. We hope it's a one and done visit. With that, this building will be able to do those hybrids into the future to Lincoln. I have a meeting tomorrow to find out when that is being scheduled. So we're gonna have to work out a bunch of things. But ultimately, if you can't attend in person, maybe you can attend virtually and we'll try to get as much attendance as we can. And then we'll move forward. But one a month is certainly doable. If we are pressed for certain deadlines, obviously, depending upon what the deadline is, the state does not wait on us. If it's a state deadline, we have to be there. And if it's something else, you guys could negotiate. Okay, thanks, Evan. Raj, I see your hand up. Yeah, I was just curious. I just wanna make sure I understood what Andrew was saying. That these would be, we would not do it the way we have done it in the past, where one board starts out, does their business. The joint boards get together at around seven, 30 or eight or 10 and carry on. So really, except for what looked to be July and September, have one meeting for each board is currently scheduled. I don't know if that's intended to stay that way. But in most months, we'll be talking about three meetings then a month, possibly four as we get hot and heavy with whatever discussions we're gonna have to have. So we're talking about essentially weekly meetings for most months. We'd be talking three for each of the boards, five for staff. And that preference is still not to do them, not to piggyback. Is that staff's preference or is that? I think it's everybody's preference. Staff proposed that, I don't know, year or two ago thinking it might work out and it actually ended up being difficult on staff too. We were basically putting together three meetings at a time in those weeks. Yeah, okay, thanks. Any other board member comments? So how do we pick a date? How about I'll throw out the third Tuesday of the month? That's what the day is. I'm trying to remember, if I may, I'm trying to remember what we did because there was a point of time, I think where we were doing a fifth board meeting, well, for staff, a fifth meeting a month and it was the fourth Tuesday, no, fourth Monday. Sorry, I'm just trying to think aloud and the more we can avoid having two meetings in a week to put together, it's helpful for staff, although I guess there's only four and a half weeks in a month, so maybe that doesn't work. Yeah, it's hard to do. I know, yeah, because last year, we did these Mondays, so the trustees often had back-to-back meetings and I had actually, at one point, commented earlier this year, whether this year we should do it on a pick a Tuesday instead, so there's the select board doing back-to-back meetings. So I'll swap it over to give the trustees a break, but I know also that Tuesdays are school board meetings often, right? So I don't know if that constrains anybody. Yeah, school board is first and third Tuesday. If this is one a month, how about Wednesdays? Does that interfere with the equity task force? Not if we picked the right Wednesday. I mean, this is totally selfish. I missed out twice a month on a Tuesday group, so through merger and now through this process, it's been a couple of years of dealing with that and I would just love to pick a different night, but I don't want to, none of it's perfect as Andy just explained. The open nights are Wednesdays and Thursdays. Either board doesn't normally have board meetings. You just need to give us direction. The town's planning commission knows Thursdays and the village is Thursdays, right? Regional planning is Wednesdays. Third Wednesday every month is regional planning. You can ignore my previous comment. I think we're gonna have to do a few meetings in one week and probably a Monday or Tuesday. It's the nights that you already have reserved for board meetings, so maybe we should do the poll. For what it's worth Wednesday, Thursday, that's fine for me. Mr. Chair, Mr. President, how about we just send out a doodle poll? If we could get that for the next four or five months or so, or the rest of the calendar year, that'd be great. Okay, shall do. Okay, all right. Okay, any other comments on that? I think that resolves that. Let's move forward. Don, you had asked that we move the minutes up to business. Yeah. Online news, 30 and 39. It says Ms. Renner mentioned a 2018 joint board meeting expressing a need for representation for both towns. That should re-expressing representation for the TOV. Sorry, which lines? 39, 38 and 39. Ah, there it is, okay. She asked for representation for the TOV, not both towns. Gotcha. What if I wrote, thanks. Okay, any other board member comments on changes? Okay, can I have a motion from the select board to approve the amended minutes? I'll move to approve the minutes as amended. Sorry, amended agenda. I'm having issues with that tonight. Amended minutes. Second. Okay, thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, minutes past five, zero. And can I get a similar motion from the trustees? So moved. So moved. Thank you, Raj. George, that was George. That was George, all right. Yeah, I'll second it. All right, I'll second it, fine. All right. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Everybody vote? Five, zero. Thank you all. Okay, next business item is a executive session, which we'll go into later. There are no items in consent anymore. So moving on to the reading file. Only comment I wanted to make there, I think it was alluded to earlier that the state of emergency ends tonight. And so the next select board meeting on Monday will be at 81 main. Hopefully we'll have the equipment in place, as Evan said, to allow remote participation. I'm planning to be in the room. So Evan, question though, do we need to wear masks? Currently, currently our building requires masks. So it's not gonna go well for TV or for audio. So one of the things we're thinking of doing is the board will have to be six, I would like you to be six feet apart. And so we'll open some windows depending upon the traffic and the noise quality, but in general, we will also try to have limited audience participation and have them five or six feet apart as well. That's what we're gonna discuss tomorrow at our staff meeting, but that's what it's looking like. But we would ask that you probably bring your mask, wear them into the building and until you're seated. And if you get up and do whatever, please put them back on. Because our buildings are still masked. We're gonna be talking with our departments about what we're gonna do now that the orders is taken down. As many of you know, we have very different or operations in different buildings and varying levels of public contact. Libraries being the ones that have a lot of public contact with children who are not vaccinated and other people. So we're gonna be working that out over in the next week or two, but a very good question, Andy. Yeah, thanks, Evan. George, you had your hand up, did you wanna? No, I didn't have a link for the executive session, but I see that Rick just sent one out to everybody. So I didn't wanna depart before I had that. Any other board member comments about the reading file? Excuse me, Jordan, did you say they were sending out the executive connection? Yeah, Rick just sent a link to everybody. And email to everyone if you don't have it, go on. Thanks. Any other board member comments? I would like to make a motion. I don't know, I'll approve the reading file, but I'd also like to... We don't approve the reading file. I would like to thank Colonel Chef Jr. for his letter. Yes, it's a good letter. Yep, yep. Okay, I don't see any other comments. So I guess we could go to executive session or the motions for executive session. Evan, did you wanna preface this with anything before we make those motions? Are we expecting to come back? We're not expecting to come back. Okay, so members of the public, when we exit to go to executive session, we will adjourn from there. So anyone from the select board wanna make a motion to the move to executive session? Or I've got it up, I can do it. I can do it. I moved at the select board to enter into executive session to discuss. Do I have a second? Second. I got three seconds. I think I heard Tracy first. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. George, you wanna make this one? I don't have it in front of me, hang on a second. Hang on a second. I got it. I moved that the trustees enter into executive session to discuss the negotiating or securing real estate purchase or lease option in accordance with one VSA section 313 to include the trustees, unified manager, select board, assistant manager Essex Parks and Recreation Director Essex Junction Recreation and Parks Director and Deputy Manager. Second. Thank you, George, for the motion. Dan, thank you for the second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Leave a pose. All right, 5-0. Thank you all. Thank you. See you in the other side. You're welcome.