 following the meeting to order at 6.30 if you could please stop talking we have the first item on the agenda is the are the minutes of December 7th 2021 is there a motion? I move to approve the minutes for December 7th 2021 any amendments? Is there a second? Second. And page one and page two and page three hearing no directions all those in the favor of approving the minutes of December 7th 2021 say aye. Aye. So you're taking care of that. The next item is a public comment and this is your opportunity to speak on any subject that you wish to tonight and because of the time commitment we had today I would appreciate your promise to be brief no more than two minutes and we'll have people I think on zoom wish to speak as well so those of you who wish to speak raise your hands and come to the to the table yes if I please identify yourself oh I'm Kim Horning Marcy resident of Williston and we have asked all our speakers to just keep to two minutes or less and I'd like to defer to Jim McCullough if he's ready and online first is Jim online ready a lot of folks listening and tonight just yep hi Jim I'm going to connect you to talk just a moment I am here yes welcome Jim okay you got me I got you all righty thank you select board thank you Eric thank you staff first my ask please save the taxpayers of Williston money and hire our energy coordinator now for my rationale growing a greening up our municipal buildings saves money every day every year for Williston taxpayers Williston has a responsibility for more affordable and green housing the expected ARPA dollars will be significant additions to our town budgets but they must be skillfully managed my legislative climate caucus had a statewide town hall meeting with over 235 people in attendance and they there plus our energy leadership and legislature understand that the towns need assistance and paying for energy coordinators that was a major theme we also understand that a ship without a rudder is a drift without direction the key word here was assistance legislature can't assist an energy coordinator salary if there is no energy coordinator dear select board I ask you to consider this how about attempting to run your job running the town without Eric as your rudder not likely a good scene dear select board please save our taxpayers money every year and hire the energy coordinator preferably for the upcoming fiscal year thank you very much all right so first I'm going to ask everyone in the room who's here supporting adding a full time energy coordinator to the FY 2023 budget to raise their hand and we have a larger contingent on zoom so I'm asking those who are supporting this and are on zoom to select all participants in the chat box and write I am here to support full time energy coordinator FY 23 budget and then please write the names of everyone in your household because often just one computer is engaged but many you know households have four to five people supporting this and our final speaker will read all the names of the online supporters and you would find that we would be standing room only and out into the hallway so as Jim mentioned the full time energy coordinator will save us more money than their salary costs they will get grants be on top of state incentives and rebate programs and do money saving projects with expertise we sincerely hope that all our municipal buildings will get modern insulation solar and heat pumps and once installed these save money in your budget every year for the next 30 years so it is our contention that adding the full time energy coordinator actually helps you in hiring the other staff that you want to hire because they save you so much money every year and because this four-year period but only now we have once in a generation state and Williston ARPA money and you have other funds that give you the ability to fund these initiatives without affecting budgets the predecessor to sustainable Williston Williston green initiatives did an energy audit of our library building in 2009 and found severe issues with sealing and insulation in the newly constructed part of the building they gave the report to the town the town did not address the issues which resulted in pipe freezing bursting and flooding the new section and I believe all of this was finally repaired this year the expense of repairs replacement and heat loss could have been avoided if one we'd had an energy coordinator supervising the kind of insulation and construction or two an energy consultant had a coordinator had worked to resolve the issues found in the energy audit immediately we can't fix past mistakes but we can learn from them it is penny wise and pound foolish not to follow the excellent energy plan you approved and add the full-time energy coordinator to the f 2023 budget thank you and I'm going to give you my bullet points thank you you anyone else you should speak yes sir please identify your subject and demask is all right if I leave it on that's all right as long as we speak loudly I'm shaping Canaan a resident I'm also a plant commissioner but I'm speaking as a resident or actually a little as both I would like to quote Bert Mott but some of you may have been around long enough to remember him as town manager in the 90s um he used to say quote there should be a philosophy behind every budget and I interpret his word philosophy to mean guiding principle our recent philosophy has been to keep the tax rate low if I were to frankly characterize the way we budget that's led to viewing the local option tax as an example as a way to keep our tax rate down rather than to cover the cost of entry services we need to offer those who work and shop in Williston as we decide whether we're ready to add firefighters police and an energy coordinator to the staffing of this town our decision should be about what is the best thing to do for our citizens anything that costs money will result in pushback so you have to be clear on your reasoning on your philosophy to describe the imperative behind the moves you are making this may be hard to do you cannot then hide behind being the second lowest tax rate in the county you were elected to meet the needs of the community you serve to the best of your ability and regarding the energy coordinator I expect that position to pay dividends to Williston residents for years to come so not doing what your energy plan calls for is short changing your constituents consider this example because this is not just about direct benefit efficiency Vermont has provided loans low or no cost weatherization programs rebates on efficient appliances etc for 20 years we could complain that there's a charge on our energy bills on our on our electric bill or we could add up the utility bill savings of Vermonters as a result of those programs which is estimated to be 2.8 billion dollars and we realize that we have received a bargain for our community and often one that is more just than the town tax rate and I say that parenthetically because people who get their homes um tightened weatherized often are people who have less money because they bought a home that maybe was older or less whether tight to begin with as a planning commissioner reviewing the capital budget later this evening I can say that good effort has been made to recognize electrification of vehicles those pathways in the capital budget explanations and this is a very positive step however where is the capital budget for pathways that are not electric vehicles one small one is present some chargers at the town parks but who is applying for the potential grant monies to offset the cost of those chargers proposed in the capital plan we need to take advantage of opportunities coming our way from existing programs remark and from the climate action plan and other initiatives our residents will benefit long term in both lower tax bills from more efficient town buildings and vehicles but also in specific programs directed to help our residents similar to those of efficiency vermont so please don't slow walk or underfund the energy coordinator the need is overdue do the right thing for wilson residents by enabling wilson to take advantage of state and federal programs and dollars in short do the right thing for the people of wilson for the town of wilson and for the planet by fully funding the energy coordinator at a salary that will draw competent candidates there will be pushback on the tax impact but know what your philosophy is thank you thank you mm-hmm yes please just identify yourself my name is ryan al that doesn't amplify it to record your on the tv oh i was born here in wilson then lucky enough being a counselor well it's been for seven years i've needed a lot of help on my life i pass these calendars every time i hear a name i didn't feel i got to be really lucky to see that everyone has an intrinsic value but our world doesn't see that it's it's hard hard to see the world that it is we're not kind don't listen to the people who really want to help us we don't listen to these kind and tell them people we call us ryan the folks we kill people in the street we kill human beings in the streets today from the college we kill them in their homes no justice being wilson too because death packet gave us so much i didn't know about that she gave us a lot but to me the united states of america is that we know the four countries the blunder environment we need to live our united states soldiers are armed force military and it's hard when people who should be taken care of some of the who make the hardest backfiring in our world are not taken care of and then we see actions like burlington case against sears waiting waiting up people who are at homes and can't get done not once twice using character tactics on them to push them out hard i'm with hope because i know i deserve for my alice and people who look to me is there hope and it's one from iron loser k that talks about love and well i don't think it's all in this context but i think of love it's something strong that organizes itself into powerful direct action this is what i have tried to teach in struggle without that we are not engaged in the struggle that means we sit down and do nothing there's a great deal of difference between non-resistance to evil and non-violent resistance thank you thank you everybody on zoom at this point who wishes to speak i think i've got two folks here terry okay let's go to them and i uh jerald davis i saw you in the chat earlier i'm gonna leave you right now just a moment there we go can you hear me now yes sure my name is jerry davis i've lived in williston for uh what's approaching 40 years at about another month and um i'd like to speak in in favor of the energy coordinator i think this is a position that's going to really pay off in terms of uh developing new revenue new resources and particularly saving money both for individual citizens and for the town and the town buildings and uh i think that uh this is a very worthwhile investment that will pay for itself uh both in the short term and particularly in the long term so i encourage you all to vote in favor of hiring an energy coordinator uh in the upcoming budget thank you right then i think uh last hand i have is kailyn mccamp online kailyn i'll connect you right now hi there thanks everybody i wanted to quickly verbalize the names of the folks who have been participating in the chat to show their support because i know it's hard for you all to see how many people are virtually present with us tonight so here are the folks who have written in the chat scott mccamp mary joe childs laura steward and kate meyer matthew reshford dr ted marcy lori neal and drew camp julietta reshford santiago tony and joneshaw deborah mccuchio lori fisher wendy brahner christalie mxweeney matt wood elizabeth richie beth whitlock matthew reshford devin gray and miles penny samantha lash cheryl dorschner steve meese dew wild hannily mxweeney lindsay lozal jasper wood ben rose barb giardi lin brent alec and adan blevins gary holly evan rachel and bonan morrison storm reshford margaret and philip lachlan so i just wanted you to get a a feel for all the folks out here and as you might have noticed from me not being smooth with it with a lot of those names these are really unfamiliar to me a lot of these folks so just um underlining this is not just sustainable williston in support of the energy coordinator there's broad community support and we really hope that you move to include the energy coordinator funding in the budget for this upcoming fiscal year thanks so much thank you anyone else in the room or who wishes to speak tonight before we move on see nobody then thank you all for attending this is not on our agenda tonight but it will be after we take public input a comment on the january fourth and we'll start talk about what we'd like to add to the budget and what we want to subtract from the budget so we'll move on then thank you very much for coming moving on to the face covering rule amendment or possibility of it and eric you have a memo on this yep give a moment for folks to find so this is a request the the board had received and the manager's office also received a couple inquiries regarding this piece um with the face covering rule that the board adopted earlier this month um the request is for the board to consider if it wants to have any amendment to regarding gym spaces in the community um prepared a brief memo in your packet of looking at communities that have enacted a similar rule with a population over 5000 like ours um what i could find was burlington esics uh wenuski browboro montpelier for examples here wenuski browboro montpelier don't have an exemption um burlington has language in in their rule um requiring masks in portions of theater gym or athletic arena where the individual is performing exercises exercising or playing having vaccinated in their space physical barrier or ventilation system that separates them from the general public or audience and esics offers um its interpretation of of its rule that gyms are private spaces outside the front counter with membership fees required for use as as their broad interpretation um i think there may be one or two people that want to speak on this terry and i know one person online is is available for that right now so there's just one person on that wants to speak yep i'm Devin penny i'm gonna connect you just a moment i think you're under the the sangha studio account hello um i was not planning to speak tonight so i'm a little caught up guard oh thank you for i was hoping if you don't want to speak that's fine i'm just i'm just curious to hear what the board has to share about um you know the previous ruling the previous decision and how that might be able to shift for businesses that are in two different towns and so our policies have to shift based on where we're located um yeah so i'm just looking for a little bit more information there but thank you for the forum thank you good thanks i guess the first question is is are there a majority of the board who wishes to amend motion in some way so a show of hands of those who wish to amend the um through relative to gyms pardon me relative to gyms and workout places and things like that well the proposal would be for gyms anybody else looks like we don't have the majority of the folks who wish to amend the rule so we can pass over this and go to the next item the next item then is the racial equity partnership update was chrysaline my sweetie uh that who is going to be talking to us remotely yep and chrysaline i'm connecting you right now you'll be able to share your video and audio in just a moment is it okay to start i got kicked off for a second i apologize that's like you can see thank you so thanks everyone for allowing me to share a little update from the willis and racial equity partnership um select board members i did put together um a couple page memo for you just highlighting a lot of the work that the the racial equity partnership has been busy doing over the past year but just to share some some kind of the major highlights we have seven really solid committed members who who have been engaged since the very beginning and we meet on a monthly basis and talk about how how can we change the kind of the makeup of what williston looks like in regards to how we respond to racism and that work has been really plentiful as i'm sure all of you can imagine our schedules fill up pretty quickly many people from the town and even outside of the town have contacted us to share information about what we're doing how we're doing that um looking for feedback on a lot of town town projects that are happening meetings that are taking place wanting the partnership to share some views about what equity can look like and how various town boards committees meetings can can really elevate um the the anti-racism work and some of the things that we have been doing our meeting weekly um to have discussions with the williston federated church um about how we respond to racism we've we've attended multiple if not most of those meetings i have spoken from the lens of restorative justice and talking about how how restorative justice really kind of fits into a lot of the work that we are we're hoping to do and are currently doing in the community around addressing racial injustices we're working in conjunction currently with the chin and regional planning commission and looking at the issue of housing and how can we make housing more equitable across the the county but also what are some steps that we can take great care locally in williston we also have been working with the williston rotary club um around some issues that came up around how we can um acknowledge certain celebrations in our community and use a restorative process and had many members from the partnership attend that process doing some work with the with the chitin the chitin unit on racial equity um and seeing where we can become greater partners many of us have attended many hours of trainings over the past year looking at how do we identify bias and judgment and white fragility how do we how do we call out and call in um when we when we see injustices and how can we how can we really live up to to our values of really becoming a true anti-racist community it's not easy work um oftentimes it it can be more challenging than i think people realize but we're we're committed to doing that we also were invited to assist um the the school district in looking at how to resolve some of the the issues around the dei work um and challenges that came up um over the past year and in addition to that as they said we many of us have attended multiple trainings i myself in total over the course of the year have been um participated in 140 hours of training through various places daniel and consulting did a two-day training with race forward also have done some trainings through the the department of justice and then working with um the the peace and justice center and we will be offering an upcoming training to town employees um in march working through their agency as well um i think it's you know it's really exciting and hard work we were committed to continuing to to make things equitable to really dig in and kind of peel away the layers if you will um and looking at what some of those upcoming events are that the partnership will be taking on as i said we'll be doing an intensive training and that town town staff will be invited to participate in we're hopeful that the town will in the partnership will be able to work with creative discourse really looking at how can we really build a more solid strategic plan um you know looking forward towards the future and we've been invited to participate in the discussions of how we can make our july fourth celebration more diverse which we're really looking forward to teaming up with the willisden rachel or willisden richman rotary club um to participate in a martin luther king day celebration and observance working on equity revisiting the black lives matter discussion continuation with the activities with um the willisden police department and looking towards how we can become better partners and addressing racism and hopefully bringing on more more community partners um who want to who want to engage and do this work with us so i think as you can see by looking over this document we have put in what i would say is an astronomical amount of effort and work um and really are excited to continue to do this work and hope that more people in our community will will show interest in joining our efforts so i open it up to questions comments i think less than a year's time so remarkable questions or comments for christalie just thank you um that is a huge amount of work and uh it sounds it sounds like your sounds like substantive stuff so thank you for everything you're doing and please thank everybody you work with on rbf well thank you other comments so christalie uh jeff ferris here um you know i agree this looks like a lot of work my question is and i don't even really know exactly how to ask the question so i may i may not get it right in the first time um the question has to do with how can how can your efforts the work of this group and others within town how can those efforts become more visible more up in front in front of people um might might be a way to express that you know i read through this and go wow that's a big list that's a lot going on especially when there's seven eight people who are the core group but i don't feel it out you know i don't feel it you know in terms of what i read daily or see on front porch forum or i don't even know you know what other mechanisms might be where i might hear about that and and that there may be no good answer and that's a fine answer um but i just kind of curious your thoughts your thoughts on that yeah i think thank you for raising raising that question and concern and if you look at what's up in the coming one of the things that we that we listed was website development with monthly updates and including a calendar of events um so that's something that you know again we we want to have more kind of more public eye right we want more more ability to have transparency and so thinking in terms of what's the best way to do that right is that through a website right that that's already kind of under like under that that developmental idea if you will um perhaps there's there's a way and this is kind of the stuff that we have to still kind of look at right but is there a way that we can do a monthly update that we could put out to the the resonance of of williston and is that is that means of doing it through front porch forum as as one means right and what are the the other ways for information to become more accessible and that's one of the goals of of the next bunch of work that we want to do is how do we how do we make more people aware right of this lengthy list of work that we're doing and make it so that more people can can join and participate so i'm hopeful Jeff that in the next couple of months we will get that that that out more to the public i'm even considering right it takes time and effort above and beyond right the work that we're doing so i think that we we just have to look at you know time and availability as well and and try to figure that out but i it is a priority that we have and we're willing to make that commitment to make making sure that the the residents of williston are well informed and so i i think that that will become a very very big priority within the next month or two to make that more visible my next question is is equally hard to ask and it it it has to do with i have this vision of williston in where we are in terms of social racial whatever equity but i doubt it's the it's it's the actual accurate um story or view of what really is happening in williston and so my question is along the lines of what what what are you learning about the types of racial color based race based gender based uh socioeconomic based um uh inequities or or stories that you're hearing that demonstrate how how our town our community may not be as um far along if you will as as we could be should be or need to strive to be i don't know if that question came out i'll try and answer to the best of my ability jeff what i will say is i believe that it's a bigger problem than most people realize or are willing to admit we hear lots of stories and certainly we see we see a lot of the injustices and inequities come through the community justice center we have a large increase of cases involving you know what i would consider to be racial harm um in ways of you know just public disturbance and ways of hate crimes um businesses that are being targeted um who have people of color who who work for them we certainly are hearing about that in the housing right and in the housing crisis that that we're experiencing and where where equity really sits there um so i would say in all honesty and transparency that racism does exist on every plane in our community and it's it's about how do we how do we peel away those layers so that we can really get to the core of what what is truly happening and i think what's fair to say is that a lot of what people are are sharing and experiences that we're having seem to to get swept under the rug or seem to not become something that people want to acknowledge and that's the work that we're trying to do is to peel that away to bring those truths to the surface so that we can have these hard conversations and we can say here are the areas in our community that we must do better we must acknowledge the harm we must acknowledge the hate at the same time of acknowledging the hard work that people in our community are putting in the efforts that are being put in to combat that so i think that as as much as i would like to say that williston is you know following following this this picture of of what our our true values are i think that in terms of the racial equity work we have we have a long ways to go any other questions or comments i just want to say thank you to to the racial equity partnership for for the work you're doing for the continuing to educate yourselves to continuing to educate our community i think it's invaluable and i think it's an ongoing process and i really look forward to the the work you will will be able to do once we have our energy committee an energy plan up and running the partnerships you'll be able to formulate i think that that obviously the two are the intersection between the two is is great and also the work you know that will be done in affordable housing in town as well and that partnership as well so i'm looking forward to to things to come as well great job please any other questions or comments just one quick one hey another one that i'm going to try to ask i'm not sure how others are going to take this this question is what should the select board be doing i think that the select board should be supporting the work of the partnership i think that the select board should also engage in community training and doing some of the hard work and digging in as leaders in our community i think that it's it's a responsibility of all select board members to to be challenged in the same way to really look at the beliefs the stories the judgments the biases that each of of you carry because we all right if we're honest with ourselves we all carry some of that and so doing that work together i think will show true partnership and true leadership in our community okay your first point about support the efforts is there something specific that we ought to know about that we aren't doing that you know in terms of the support and you know the things that are easy financial um but maybe some of the more difficult other aspects about what that support should be whether it be policy or i don't even know what else yeah you know it's it's again i think it's a great question and a hard question because i think if we looked at every aspect of town government we might be able to find one two maybe even three things right that folks could be doing i would say in terms of support right obviously if we had funding right to do this work and do more of this work that would be amazing i also think having having a strong commitment to to really looking at town policy town governance how we how we address issues of racism in those grievances is super important and i think really looking at the issues of housing and looking at the issues of employment looking at the issues of what you know the areas where we're really focused on where equity has not been really well thought of right up until this point that's what i would say that the biggest ask is and i would say you know along that same continuum is really being not only being a supporter but being an advocate for this work in our community i think it's really what we're hoping for okay and i think this will be my last question is when we had the discussion the initial discussions about the you know black wise matter flag and whether the town should raise it or not one of the benefits of that no matter which side you sat on is it it caused us to discuss it it made it front and center we couldn't escape it what else should we do that might cause us to have that same types of discussion yeah i i i think those i think those discussions are super important right and i think what it does is it forces us to be bigger thinkers it forces all of us to think about how who do we who do we want to represent and how do we best show up um for our community whether it be the black lives matter flag whether it be having these difficult conversations educating ourselves looking at housing look at equity looking at repair right all of that paints this picture of of what community is is is dealing with right and this isn't unique to willis then this this is a truth across the nation so i i encourage us to to continue those hard dialogues to continue to challenge ourselves in one another so that we truly can be be the picture right of the best willis then that we can be inclusive of of the values and the efforts that so many of us are hoping to bring forward thank you any other questions or comments we'll certainly be having some more discussions that will be difficult and but thank you all very much for all of your work christalie so we'll move on then to uh the town meeting tv annual update and um megan will work the channel director for town meeting tv will be i can do it remotely yep and megan i see lauren glen logged in i believe that's you so i'm gonna i'm gonna connect that screen name we are hi there we go hello welcome yes indeed my i i can't rename myself when i'm still in the webinar i will change my name i believe that you have welcome thank you so much for having me here and allowing me to theme in remotely and feel excited to be able to do that of course can you hear me okay we can yep fantastic um i um i appreciate you welcoming this request reviewing i think you all have a pretty blank theme memo which i'll summarize as being our f y 21 year in review our f y 22 projected and approved by our trustee's budget jenny lions is still our trustee although i think she may be looking for a replacement at this point so there may be a seat available if you have someone who is looking to be involved in a in a low commitment introduction to the community volunteer position we welcome some suggestions of names and um our ask from your f y 23 budget i think some highlights that i just want to cover as of course you all were early um willing participants in our experiments with setting up hybrid meetings and you've been patient and forthcoming um we've really appreciated the engineering mind of emily from your d r b giving us really um hopeful suggestions about how to make this system better this is we think a three-year tech project right now with the way that technology is changing so we have invested some of our own capital money willis didn't opt in not to purchase that here but we will probably in another three years looking at you looking to upgrade and you know based on new technologies really can perfect the hybrid meeting system i i can't say enough good praise for the field staff and the technical staff the folks you know we have a we have a small but mighty um team that is um persistent and creative and um and hardworking and they have done a lot to help move to this new hybrid model the election programming so on top of that 111 percent you see there which is the meetings that we recorded for willis din according to the allotment we of course had election programming and other community programming media internships and one of the biggest things on this list is the legislative work that we have been doing along with the vermont access network the 25 access centers around the state that represent a number of peg what we call public educational and government access channels that um the big ask this year in the legislature is a nine hundred thousand dollar allotment um to be divided among those 25 access centers so if you understand or um are connected with the legislature in some way which i know some of you are that will be something that you see coming across um the your desk um and that is really to make up for cable revenue decline which funds all of this work for the most part you see there 86 percent of our budget is funded by cable subscriber revenue um which comes to the ask which is the municipal contribution that's the 12,600 and that helps to offset or operating revenue the decline in cable contributions that we are projecting over the next five years and into the future so i'll pause there so that i don't go too far over my allotted time and i welcome any questions i know there are some new folks on the board so you know no question is too new or too little or too obscure and i will do my best the staff that are here at our meetings uh scott's been here for many years so we appreciate uh him very much um tell a little bit more about what the role of the um the trustee position is that you're thinking about uh jenny relinquishing that yeah so the trustees meet monthly it's about an hour long meeting we've been meeting on zoom um we'll probably go back to in-person meetings when we can um but so it's an it you know an hour long commitment it's mainly uh financial management so looking at you know we do financial reports on a monthly basis and the trustees review those to make sure that we are meeting our financial obligations um to the community and that we are managing um the trust literally the money that comes in from those cable companies in a way that is relates to the contract that those trustees establish other questions or comments this is uh uh jeff one of the select board members i want to second um terry's comments about the value of the hybrid um meetings that you are providing um it's to the point where i hear of people who talk about uh go to such and such a place view the minute view the meeting at minute you know down to the second so that they can hone in on exactly what they want um so that is huge i mean the whole point of of local government is is the democracy participation and this is helping so thank you i do want to go to your budget narrative great thank you and and we are in our budget season right now and if i was in your shoes and i want you to correct me where i'm reading this wrong i would find your budget to be scary um yeah uh yeah and tell me tell me more about that tell me more about what you're seeing that's scary because i'm waiting for this yes well the second paragraph um uh you know uh revenue estimated at 658 k uh expenses or 699 k and you're going to use 41 k from reserves yeah correct and then you go to read the down below where it talks about your largest source of revenue being cable revenue and the the projection is anything but rosy yeah yeah so that's why we are that's why we are coming to municipalities and we will be coming to you and that number is going to increase in in the years as we you know so there's there's doing less make less services there's finding more revenue and there is um that's also why we're going to the legislature because the legislature and this has come out even more strongly over the last two to three years has you know seen the value of community access as an essential service and um is working we believe pretty strongly and pretty favorably to help offset some of that revenue now that wouldn't mean a huge that wouldn't mean a lot for our budget um so we are working on various ways of diversifying the projects so when you think of town meaning tv as a project with the cable revenue funding most of that cctv is the sort of mothership that manages that project and cctv does fundraising cctv also runs an organization and you won't see that this is just the town meeting tv budget i'm happy to share more information about that with you but cctv has um cctv productions those productions so if for example the town of williston wanted to buy more production service that would actually come from cctv productions that money that we offsets the work of town meeting tv it offsets the mission we have a shared mission cctv has just um brought in a new project called the vermont language justice project that work helps bolster the mission but will also in some way um help us offset some of the costs so we're sharing a space now with the vermont language justice project and that office space that we share helps offset some of the burden on the trustees for the town meeting tv project does that make some sense theft i think so okay but you're right it is a scary it is a it is a it is a um concerning it is a concerning future that we have been working on for a number of years and we're you know chipping away at piecemeal as we go thank you other questions or comments thank you very much for coming tonight and for all the services you provide to us and to others for that matter right thank you very much thank you and i hope that this is clear and if there's any further questions we're i'm happy to communicate with eric or anybody else um so send them i send send them send them send them our way okay all right thank you we will do that all right take care so moving on to sidewalk winter maintenance requests and eric you are just lead off and go to root for all the glory details i'll uh i'll just have a brief introduction with what i shared in my manager's report so for folks watching at home too the town's winter maintenance policy states that each december the select board will will consider um add or remove sidewalks from our winter maintenance list um in our policy and if approved the changes would take place the following winter this is part of the budget process if any additional materials or equipment would need to be planned for there um public works takes the criteria listed in the town's policy and evaluates it and makes recommendations for the board consider it as part of this process each year this year there's requests on the hamlet um and chelsea commons hoa these have been submitted in prior years there are new requests for a small section of route 2a and for the entirety of a Blair park and um you might recall a couple years ago a public works says um bruce can speak more of this feeling at capacity to provide sidewalk plowing with our single plow fleet and maintaining our current level of service this with some numbers we're reviewing this week the town plows about 15 and a half miles of sidewalk multi-use paths just about 10 miles of those are plowed with our um sidewalk plow and our pickup truck can handle the rest of the wider the wider paths i thought it might be helpful i printed out in front of you are our network to show you what's plowed by which um it's it says 2019 2020 at the top but we haven't made any changes since then so that's our most most accurate visual there for the board so take a look at here um it takes a member of our staff about four hours to plow the sidewalks um in the machine after we received three to five inches of snow um no two storms are alike and bruce can speak to this that we typically have them go out um storm by a lot of times go out during the storm as well um one thing for the board to consider you hear from bruce about the second potential plow to consider and then the trade-off of the board wants to look at adding additional sections of sidewalk now would be a different level of service to provide we've we've got about four hours for the loop with the amount we have now so if more sidewalks are added it's it's going to take a little bit longer so it's policy decision for the board to the balance and all of this as well of the silver all picture there's no questions for me up front i can toss over the bruce to to walk through his memo in bruce you can demask if you wish to but oh they're not speak loudly okay well there's as harrigor he said there's been four requests uh two of which have been made in the past that's the hamlet and chelsea commons uh there's a verbal request for the very small new section that's goes from morgan parkway toward the powerhouse dam on that side of the route 2a that really doesn't go anywhere uh then there's the uh fourth request of doing all Blair park sidewalks just so you if you don't know or as a refresher we've completed the loop in Blair park this summer so there's sidewalk around the whole loop now in the Blair park area we only do uh a very small section right now which is down paul street and turn right go down in front of the falcon manner those buildings down there turn around come back um so out of the four requests you'll see at the very bottom of my memo that i'm only recommending excuse me if we're going to talk about doing anything it would be the Blair park section there i've already said uh well i'll just read what i have at this point at time public works recommends that the Blair park section be added to next year's plowing so however it is important to remember that this can only be accomplished with the addition of a second sidewalk plow an employee eric's being good or nice and saying that you know you guys can decide but i'll tell you right now i went back today and look to see what other towns do sidewalk wise and what their what their equipment is and the amount of miles they do and they all are about 10 miles for per machine 10 miles for one machine right now four hours you know eric's already said there's no there's no such thing as two storms that are alike could be our policy is two inches or more two inches of snow put on the v plow go plow the sidewalks no problem five inches of snow put on the v plow get to go around once depends when he started into five inches whether he ends up going around a second time or not so you need to keep that in mind that we're not really just talking about four hours we could be talking six hours eight hours in a minute we go away from plows and go to the blower we're talking days because it's just the nature of the beast we're working on it goes so fast can handle a lot of snow can move a lot of snow but once again you're only going so fast with it so for that 10 miles it'd probably take us two eight hour days if we were strictly using blowers the other five almost six miles that are done are done by pickup truck and that's on the asphalt hats over eight feet wide so once again that's the recommendation Blair Park probably should be getting done but right now we can't do it because of not having any other thing to remember is we've been getting by for a long time since I've been here and before I got here I've been getting by with one piece of equipment truck breaks down take it off the road and send somebody else with another truck this machine breaks down there's nobody else and just last week as a matter of fact you have a straight plow on this machine and I said put the v-plow on went over to give them a hand we couldn't get the machine to go forward we're only going reverse even when putting it in forward so we took the plow off it put it neutral pool to add a garage so we can have a little more room to mess around with it and when we did that we broke something free and now it's going in forward but who knows what's really going wrong with it so just something to keep in mind that right now we're doing what we can with what we have and and doing doing it okay but it we're it's at its limit we're adding any more sidewalk and I Eric's right I've been saying that for years it's been in the budget for years for a second machine and we keep pushing it out so that's we're literally and I hope you all know me well enough to know that I don't come in here very often and say we can't do something I'm not saying we can't now I'm just telling you that we're there as far as what this machine is able to do in a decent reasonable amount of time. Well the new Blair Park sidewalks are concrete. Yes, they would need machine or they'd be done with the plow truck. No, it's all machine. All right. It's all the sidewalk machine for lack of a better term. The plow and the truck is seven to eight feet wide. We could do it if you want to. The bus machine is preparing the sidewalk because it's going to cost us a lot. The bus machine is surprisingly what? Well the machine is designed for sidewalks so it is my feet. How much would it cost to buy one? Oh to buy one? Well when we bought that one it was the one we had now which I think it's probably five years, four years, $120,000. At today's price, $135,000. Without a trade into tarry we'd be buying it straight out, which we get some benefit when we trade but you know to start new we wouldn't have that obviously and then it's a person as well. And would there be enough work for the person to do full time? Oh it'll always take another person. No I mean it really would. You know Eric and I have talked about developing more of a true buildings component to public works so yeah there's no lack of where another body could go. So what's the life expectancy on the existing sidewalk plow? Most of our equipment is seven years but we keep the plows like this 10 years only because when these machines first came around we used them for mowing as well. We ran year-round basically. Now since mowing is mostly done with zero turn mowers and newer type of things, the only thing we use this plow for well actually now we do use for something else. The only way we use this machine for it most of the time is sidewalk plowing but we also now use it for since we're in the last bore we have a grinder that goes on the front of it the grind stumps so it's getting a little bit more used that way. Question for Eric I should have checked this before before the meeting so I apologize for this. Is either the new plow a new plow an employee included in the budget that you presented to us? It's not in the ground. So if we were to consider adding Blair Park what Bruce is arguing is that we need to also consider the new plow and the new employee. I just want to make sure that. The other trade-off is a change in service overall to the network and I know Bruce isn't in favor of that that's the other reality that that's out there. Bigger storm slower response that type of thing. Yeah I will mention on the machine we looked at this at town meeting a couple years ago and surely correct me if I'm wrong but a lease purchase option for a financing something like this is is likely another option out there besides just just paying cash for it up front but I know we looked at those numbers a couple years ago so we'd have to dust those off. And then it's not a question it's um it's a comment. This is never my favorite subject and particularly when I get reminded that some of these folks have been in you know more than once before asking to be added and the comment is is I personally believe we should consider a different way to decide what sidewalks are plowed maybe it's a zone in town or you know as opposed to people feeling like they got to come in every year and see if they can try maybe this will be the year that we cross that magic threshold. I don't know for some reason that just doesn't feel good or right to me. We've had that discussion before. Other questions comments? I forget Terry I do have a resident in Chelsea Commons Don who'd like to speak if you would like to take any public comments. I've got someone else. Don I see you on there we're going to connect you just a moment. Don let's see it's going to make you a panelist because you've been older version of the Zoom so just bear with me a second here. Don you just need to unmute. Is that working? Yep we can hear you. Oh good. Okay I was just looking through the checklist for Chelsea Commons and I have a couple things on that one. The only thing they say that we qualify on is connecting to Finney neighborhood. We actually are a pathway if you want to get to the bus stop from Finney or from us that's not on there but our biggest problem actually comes under the safety concerns and our road is just it literally is not safe to walk on there. When I first moved here there was a horse farm at the end so we were at a cul-de-sac and it was you could probably camp out in the road without any problems but now we get people that come up they come up night lane and turn left to get into Finney or they turn right to go to the apartments over the Finney apartments that way they both avoid the traffic light at Zephyr Road in Route 2A. I'm sure some of those people continue right on through to get to Route 2 without and then avoid the five the taff corners. Most of them aren't bothering to stop at any of the stop signs and they do go through here definitely faster than they should be. I actually almost got hit the other day because someone decided to blow through the stop sign at the end of night lane while I was out walking the dog. We have actually requested that the police try to patrol here a little bit more especially during rush hours and stuff to at least maybe get it in people's mind that there might be someone here to stop them but I'm guessing they're just too busy that time of day to come here. We do have an aging population I said I've lived here for 20 years so I'm aging. People across the street one of them has to use a walker and they can't do that in the road it's just not safe so right now they're just not. I think that's pretty much all I had I mean it's really it's a safety and traffic issue we have a ton of people that come through here to get somewhere else and you know we have 72 units here so that's that's pretty much it. Unless there's action at the ward which is to take tonight so there's no action required. It's a comment I think we all understand this but I still think it's worth saying is Chelsea Commons or I'm sorry Blair Park maybe the straw that broke the camel's back I'm needing a new plow and another employee but we shouldn't say that they were the cause of needing a new plow or a new plow. I don't hear any motions tonight so we can revisit this during the budget discussion as I bring it up for us if we wish to. Okay good. Let's move on then to the Stuttgart on the budget review. We'll be looking to hear from the town bans and Charlie McGill and I'm not sure who the other gentleman is but I recognize Charlie with a mask. Amazing what we recognize even with masks. And for the board you've got a copy of the count ban request in front of you a paper clip to the budget changes. We have been very appreciative of the support that the town has given us in so many ways with with COVID our whole schedule last last season was was in doubt and the school came through and and let us use their tents in the school auditorium. Greg Marino arranged that and then the when the concert season started we I counted at one point that we had 35 musicians in the in the bandstand playing for a concert because of the the federated church providing ice cream for the the concerts we seem to get a better crowd than we've had for several years. Last year we reduced our budget as dramatically as we could in anticipation of of lack of income to the town from COVID. This year we've added in the the need to buy a drum set so that our our the budget looks like it's up and I think that's a one year event that the the one thing that we need to buy. Anyone have any questions? Just tell me what the price of the drum set is. I don't see it. It's in the line under new equipment and the number that's in there is 1,300. Yeah that that's other new equipment plus the drum set. Questions for Charlie? What's a band hat? We have green hats that have a music staff on them and say Williston Town Band. We have white shirts that have a crest that say Williston Town Band. If you come to our concert you'll see another brand. I won't see these new ones yet. Sorry Jeff. First the fire department comes in and now we're looking at the band hat. We always appreciate the town band. Certainly on the 4th of July probably Wednesday nights that you do. Yeah the thing that has happened in the past is that the band has split into two and the people who were too old to march I have always said they have to be older than me to be too old to march but there are some people who don't march and play and they were the Williston Weasers and their wagon broke down. So this year we've borrowed a hay wagon from Chapin's Orchards and we had half the the people sitting on the wagon playing and half the people marching alongside. It was a little different spread that we needed to make up for that. Thank you Charlie. Thank you. Moving on to Country Park Melinda, this is Melinda. Meeting by remote. Okay Melinda Scott we'll be talking about the thing that I messed up on last week. You're just connecting right now Melinda. And well Melinda's connecting this will be in your capital budget binder and we'll get the sheets under the parks section and it's page 7 in that section that's right towards the last couple of sheets. It starts on Albrook intro trail boardwalk. Hi Melinda just have to unmute we've got you connected here. You're just you're muted Melinda. Okay. Hi everyone. Welcome. Yeah thank you. So yeah I just I'll go over the budget request for the Country Parks capital. First of all I just wanted to let you all know that the addition of the part time trail steward has been a huge help and has allowed a lot of the more sort of minor trail improvements to get done over the last season which was great. A lot of new signage has been installed and a lot of minor repairs done and stuff like that. So that's just been a big a big help. As far as the requests for funding of future projects what we anticipate doing over the next several years this year the Allenbrook nature trail boardwalk is proposed to be completely replaced. We're hoping that that will take place over the winter it may not happen until the spring but after that happens we would like to do some improvements to the entrance on both end to that boardwalk. Just improve the tread and the drainage that structure and the trail gets a lot of use. So that and so it's in it needs some work at the beginning of the trail. Other things that we're planning that are high priorities for the next couple of years include the Schmoker the what we call the Schmoker trail is a trail that goes from Oak Hill Road up to Sunset Hill Road largely following the Vast trail but there's a section at the very beginning of it where there's a about 350 feet of boardwalk that was originally constructed by volunteers by the Richmond Williston Rotary Club who they are the adopters of that segment of trail and they originally built the boardwalk they also built a small little some box steps up from the boardwalk to the road but that boardwalk is was constructed with materials that are not very durable so it really needs to be rebuilt after several years of use. So we'll be looking to try to do that in 2022 or 2023 as well as as improving a section of that trail right after the boardwalk. Another high priority is doing some improvements on the west side of the mud pond conservation area. That trail has also gotten a lot of use over the over the past year especially with COVID so we really should build some additional punch in and and do some improvements to the to a couple of bridges there. It might be nice to also install a guardrail on the 800 foot boardwalk but that's that's not that's that's not a hugely high priority in my opinion. Anyway so those are those are the few of the high priority projects that we have in mind with the budget of proposed budget of $20,000 per year for that and as far as the Catamount Community Forest goes I am am I understanding you want me to talk about that as well? Okay yeah so for Catamount there are a number of projects that are proposed over the next several years. In the license agreement that the town has with the Catamount Outdoor Family Center the town has committed to upgrading five stream crossing you know bike pedestrian bridges that crossover these drainages and we would like to do that either in 2022 or 2023 and there's let's see the development of a new access trail from the parking lot to the parcel of land that's south of Governor Chittenden Road. Right now the access to that parcel is over the former landowners the McCullis driveway and while they're perfectly happy for now to have that be the access we do need to construct a permanent access trail and the Catamount Outdoor Center is looking at a project to improve their trail wayfinding signage that's actually going to be their responsibility and the town is not planning on contributing any funding towards that project and there there is an old sheep barn on the property that is considered a historic structure so the committee has been having discussions about potential uses of that structure and will continue to have those discussions you know what it ends up being used for will largely determine the amount of money and resources that go into any restoration of that structure right now it is used to house the outdoor center's equipment and it's needed for that and in the license agreement the responsibility is on the outdoor center to to keep it up to the degree that that they can still use it to house their equipment but but any like large-scale restoration of the structure would be up to the town if it chooses to do that and finally there's plans to do active forest management we did some last year we have some planned for now actually planned for the summer of 2023 that may require some resurfacing of trails after that's done we're not sure the extent of that that will be needed so that's that's what i've got to say and and if anybody has any questions be happy to answer them yeah thank you any questions for malinda on the projects that she don't mind hey malinda jeff here um my question has to do with we had an evaluation done on our primitive trails uh it was yeah forget who did it and what i remember from that was being shocked at the amount of money they felt we need to be uh planning for to spend to properly maintain the trails some question is is is that cost built into this budget um so it was a shockingly high um estimate i agree with you and i think um um there there is a big range of um you know of uh of costs depending on um the materials used um i guess i guess you know you you could probably um you know that there's a big range of how to address you know the degree to which you address trail improvements and yeah you know um i think 20 000 a year is a lot more than we've had in the past which is great um and i think um to answer your question is it enough um i think i think that that's i guess that's that's we don't know yet and um i think you know there are things that we can do that'll make um the the costs of trail improvements less expensive um there's a balance between you know making them less expensive and making the improvements that you do durable uh so but i do think i mean i think um our approach is going to be to try and tackle the high priority areas meaning the areas that are real safety concerns um and the areas that get the most heavy use and um to that end we've been um you know making improvements to the suckerbrook trail for example uh working with the vermont youth conservation corps and i think that's really paid off and um we're you know addressing i think the the answer is to try to address the highest priority areas first and to just you know to use the money that that's in the budget that we've been budgeted um as best we can to try to address those areas um slowly over time and and to be smart about it and that choosing materials that are going to be the most durable materials um we can and the most durable um design thank you other questions i could just add on on that point from well linda we as we look at our recreation impact fee potentially um looking to update that i thought a minus look at the country parks component of that for a future impact fee as a potential other way to levy some revenue towards towards attacking off that that capital list here and you'll also see in in the proposed budget we're looking at arpa funds for these projects in fy 23 as a way to offset the general funds impact and um this would be the bucket of arpa that isn't the lost revenue bucket um our read of the regulations as if it's doing some maintenance or replacement in in park settings in the community similar to um when todd was here that this would be arpa eligible so considering the board's discretion on the revenue side but we saw as as a potential opportunity to offset the general fund impact a little bit and just one quick question linda in terms of trail use do you do you believe or see that use is increasing decreasing remaining about the same um it is increasing without a doubt um and uh i i observed anecdotally or or you know would observe lots of cars parked on sunset hill road um during uh you know 2020 and into 2021 um and to begin to try and track you know more closely track usage through um trail cameras and through um efforts uh getting volunteers or students to do actual trail surveys where they actually count people over a two hour period um i think we're we're learning a lot we're getting a lot of information from those monitoring efforts but but yeah i can tell you it's definitely increased and and it's some trails see very high usage okay thank you other questions just not thank you very much but i definitely appreciate it you're welcome thank you moving on to public works uh bruce your backup for operating first okay first i figured i'm moving up into world because i'm not last anyway um operating as for usual i plan on just going through um the major line item changes uh in the budget just uh did give you a letter transmittal um that's mostly speaks for itself um before we get into it too much you know we'll just talk if i can i'd like to just talk a little bit about uh covid and tell you that i'm actually more concerned this year than i was last year only because of the uh this new variant that's supposed to be so much more contagious uh but we have made some contingencies in case something happens one highway crew in chitin county is already down four out of eight employees because of it so uh i just put that out there for you all because i know your phones can ring too so if we have something happen certainly we'll do the best we can do and we'll put it out in any kind of social media that we can but things could come could take quite a while for us to get around because we start to lose trucks once again like i said i have we do have a contingency we've got a retired gentleman where for colchester is a town resident is willing to come in and plow for us one of our own retired employees uh yours truly i can take one from the water and sewer uh so we do have some backup but without using our regular our own crews even if we can put the same amount of trucks on the road things are going to slow down because they just can't go as fast as people that know their routes so anyway we just thought i'd take advantage of being here and i certainly talked with eric about all this so he knows everything too that's going on and has been very supportive of um what's what's happening so the operating budget for highway the biggest uh line item changes uh that shouldn't be too big a surprise to you all uh the first ones are in in uh salaries and that's because of the increase that you all allow us to make uh across the board so that we can attract and keep uh employees so that's the biggest uh one of the biggest changes there and certainly when it goes to um salaries that also then goes to um other things like overtime and benefits so those are some big bigger line item changes in our budget as far as in our operating side of the house um you know the biggest change and this is a decrease in change is in um our equipment rental is what we call it but that's the plowing that we did with private roads and we use a contractor to help out uh doing some of our roads to entice him that to do the private roads well this year we sent a letter out with all the um contracts that went out for private road plowing telling them that this is the last year the town of wiliston is going to be involved in anything to do with the plowing of those private roads and just so everybody knows since i'm on tv or whatever here we don't plow private roads this was just acting like a property manager kind of thing for those people that had private roads and wanted us to do that but uh we are not doing that we're not continuing that practice after this year they all have they've all received letters uh and i've not heard a word from any of them so that's why you'll see a deduction in that line item and the equipment rental it was 78,330 and i was going to be down to 48,330 that's because we still do plan on uh using a private contractor to help with some of our own roads the other big item is road maintenance is up um $10,000 and that's you know just because of increases that are happening and are going to be happening everybody's lives in the world knows right now things are costing more money um re-treatment a year ago you guys have been generous enough that every year we've been getting $10,000 to put in re-treatment to try to keep up on that budget and re-treatment it's a paving uh item last year we only asked for $5,000 because of COVID not knowing what was going on this year i'm asking for that 15 back the five from last year and 10 for this year to get us back on track um so that's a big line item change and that's really it for the public works budget as far as any major changes are concerned line item wise certainly willing to answer any questions or questions on the operating budget not really how's the liquid i'm looking at your transmittal that are fourth bullet the liquid i assume means liquid chloride we don't use chloride jeff we use a product called ice face be gone okay um you know a lot of people are using a brine taking salt and turning it into a brine we haven't gone that way um one reason is it does help reduce salt usage it tears up cars regardless of what the state may have tried to say while they were doing their experiment i think i said before that all our hydrants when wilson road all the bottom bolts had to be replaced and that was the only thing we could figure that was different was the brine going down plus uh i haven't come in and asked for a four-year $50,000 like a budget item to buy a brine maker because that's what we would have to do if we were using brine so we use a product called ice me gone or ice band there's a lot of different names it's a um some people say molasses some say it's a beer waste it's with mad chloride added to it the the uh it actually gives a lower working temperature than um yeah brine does the backside of that is you have to be very careful when you apply it to the roads if you apply it to a road and instead of the temperature dropping it goes the other way you can turn it into a skating rink so so far this year we haven't really even been using the liquid itself directly we do use liquid on the trucks and apply it on the salt at the spinner as it hits the road and that helps make the salt wet which is what makes salt work is the water liquid getting on it plus that way when it hits the pavement it doesn't bounce and scatter keeps more of it on the road so other questions on operating let's go to the capital help guide the pages here great do you want to start in buildings terry oh sure okay um bruce we go in buildings um i don't know what order you have it in but the fourth page from the end starts with the fire protection old brick church yeah if that makes sense and so um yeah now that's the way i haven't okay the only reason i didn't i don't have paid numbers online so but it should be in any order anyway but anyway i the first one i have is the fire protection the old brick church generally and i'll do it anyway you want me to eric if it's not something we're asking for money in this year we don't spend a lot of time on it page seven page seven fire book fire protection the old brick church is actually under next year 2024 it's uh there's no money in that item for this year in the capital plan the next one i would imagine then i don't know whether it's page eight or not is the old brick church chimney yes um once again that money there's no money in the capital for this year for that but we are looking at 2024 for that next one i have that way is the old schoolhouse or the schoolhouse yes okay uh once again no money in next year but money in 2024 we did do a half of that project this year uh but in you know discussing the budget with eric and surely uh it was asked if we could defer that for one more year the other half and i don't see that that's a problem it would be nice to do the next half next year but it's not going to be end of the world if it waits one more year now we get the one we actually have money in that whole parking lot is my next one and then that one is just what it says it's for doing a lot out back uh we've had a design for a few years now the money though that we're asking for in 2023 is to finalize that design get permitting get some construction documents to increase the size of the parking lot which would also add lighting and certainly be looking at putting in electrical charging stations for electrical vehicles electric vehicles this price would be inclusive of the charging stations no that would be in the construction side of it this is just for design and okay but even plans and that kind of stuff what i meant was the total price of 179 that's in the capital budget that's inclusive of the charging stations i don't know if we built that we don't think i don't think that those are actually in there jeff that would be my guess too yeah no but we were kind of hoping we'd get that through some kind of grants or funding yeah there there should be some more opportunities for that okay and we identified arpa loss revenue for this project as well the next item i have is the building contingency fund page 13 thanks terry i apologize but i i just didn't have the page numbers on so um the $15,000 in there which is uh what we've been when we started this to build up so that we have some money for one unexpected expenses come up uh jane sit behind me and you can tell you about some money of hers we spent this year the bathrooms in the library took quite a bit of work and expense and that was mostly because we had actually jackhammer up concrete floor to replace some piping so uh so $15,000 in there for 2023 how many how many buildings does the town have seven seven larger size buildings okay going through roads i guess road simul forage is narrative is in here um once again it just goes over some projects that have happened as we all know uh the moneybrook project is all but complete it's complete enough that it's open people can use it it'll be paved popped in the spring and the path along the edge will be finished in the spring but for all intensive purposes is what is considered substantially complete it means it's to a point where you can use it and people are using it so i don't think i've driven over since it's been opened but i can assure you people are using it because we've noticed it on uh williston road and industrial lab intersection as soon as it was started it was open i had to drive over it i'm sorry as soon as i heard it was open i actually went home that way it's like what are you doing i have to drive over the new bridge there you go well i i drove over before it was on i wasn't the first one no either believe me but anyway uh it was a really good project went well the Blair park sidewalk project we already talked about uh we you know we finished up the emerald ash borer uh is is ongoing as far as tree removal was concerned we did apply for grant got a grant for next year to help continue that removal um the next place is the mover actually into the neighborhoods now um so we'll have to do a little bit more thinking about how that's going to happen and see and then going back into uh what's going on in capital for that is equipment equipment funds i'm sorry equipment fund is that next minor transportation yeah let's see yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna go away okay that's uh asking for 30 thousand dollars in that capital to continue that and that's so uh we get money keep money together for doing things like the rapid flash beacons that we've done the temporary speed humps we've had it's currently through some of that money all kinds of different items but that's what that's that capital is for building contingency fund we just did so the next one i have is in a into the equipment uh but i have large highway truck rotation with my memory it's on page one but that's about halfway through the packet on uh equipment so this is for uh our large highway truck rotation uh that's the seven-year program to keep our pow trucks rotating uh just another update uh for you uh to let you know that covid's affecting us and the equipment that we're getting as well uh the truck that we've ordered for this fiscal year we usually get around october september sometimes if we're lucky we're told early on nope you're gonna see it in january now we're told june so um hopefully we'll get put in fiscal years over but uh that's that's what's happening in that industry as well but that's what this hundred and ten thousand dollars is for to uh allow us to keep having that rotation happen how many of these uh trucks does town or have need we have eight okay right now the next one is large highway equipment first before i'm sorry you move off that it's okay i remember last year it finally it dawned on me why having i've always wondered why we need some that one of the concepts that came up last year was it it's it's a safety issue in terms of the drivers out there plowing roads so that you don't have a driver out there in a truck for a longer period than they should be how does the eight trucks work in terms of the safety when we have we're plowing roads we have 75 miles of road right now so you can do the math fully enough uh doesn't mean that each truck is only doing eight and a half miles of road or whatever some are actually doing a little bit longer some are doing shorter we try to keep that same kind of ideas we were talking about the sidewalk machines earlier that they get to get around their route one entire time in four hours because by the time they get around at the end of four hours if it's still snowing and been snowing hard believe me we get phone calls that we haven't been there yet and we already have been there and i don't disagree with people it just looks like we haven't been there have we missed a road yeah i'm embarrassing we have actually missed roads but um not that often so that is the idea so that is the idea so that they try to get through their route within four to five hours because they may have to just go right back around again as you don't know if you don't know our drivers cdl licensed drivers that work for municipality have no time restrictions unlike drivers that drive for private contractors or over the road kind of people that have to keep logs and can only drive for so many hours our drivers can drive and drive and drive and drive and drive in theory we always try to not and this is going to sound like a lot anyway we always try not to go more than 15 or 16 hours that's a lot and that only happens when we have a big enough storm we just don't have any choice if we get to 15 hours they're going to bed regardless of whether it's still snowing out or not in that case once again yours truly ends up getting in a truck and maybe get one of the water and sewer guys in another truck and we'll drive around for three or four hours just keeping the main roads open while they get a break and then put them back in their trucks but by law we don't have they we could keep we and we've had storms in my career I've had storms of 32 hours never had anybody in truck 32 hours straight just not not safe and not smart but so yeah I won't sit here and tell you that we haven't had people drive for 15 hours we certainly have there's only so much you can do the state of Vermont can rotate people out they got the people to do it so anyway that's the reason for the eight trucks um real quick question um we asked it of fire and police as well but where are you all on on hybrid and electric technology for your vehicles well where we will look at uh for our smaller trucks pick up trucks and stuff like that certainly we're going to look at electric as it as it becomes uh comes out and becomes more viable and uh cost effective the thing that it's always hard to let people know is what we pay for a pickup truck you couldn't go buy one for so if they come out with electric vehicles and they say they're going to be $50,000 and there's not going to be any incentives to municipalities and we're buying that same truck and gas for 17 there's a big difference there um but we're certainly going to be looking at that as far as the bigger vehicles are concerned it depends who you listen to what you listen to I've read a few articles in APWA uh the technology's just not there yet for the plow kind of trucks the bigger dump trucks and stuff but certainly as it becomes available we'll we'll look at it for sure I mean there's no reason not so we're we're keeping I guess you're gonna say if we're keep we're keeping an eye on it and certainly we'll go that way it becomes viable and makes sense to the next one is large highway equipment and that answers your question right there uh about how old our sidewalk machine is because I have it on this schedule 2026 so at 10 years we bought it 2016 so yeah I went off five years so but that's that's what that's for to keep us our our larger equipment being changed around and most of that stuff is on a 10-year schedule the next one I have is highway pickup replacement I've been for $15,000 once again the schedule's right there on replacements and it's just to keep that money there so as we those replacements come do we have single replacements is the next one that I have that is uh $20,000 that is um we had a a survey done a few years ago on our signals all on Marshall App which is where all of our signals are that we own and it came out with recommendations for things we need to do to either upgrade them or to keep them upgraded at this point so that's what this capital weight on this floor the next one I have is for buildings and facilities mower replacement pretty self-explanatory it's to replace our mowers $2,900 once again it's just dividing it up so that we have the money when the time comes and these mowers are different than the mowers that parks has is that correct yes yeah okay Todd would shoot me if I used my but so yes although we use we used to do that but Todd's absolutely right that it makes you don't want to take what we're using on the road sides and put up in parks okay cross-contamination you know lots of different things okay our blades get beat up a lot more than what's happening in the parks so the next one I have is winter parking ban it's just a placeholder for the most part um 2024 we haven't put any money in that one yet at all and then there's the uh the next one I have is the second sidewalk plow and it's not in anything for 2023 um we are looking at 2024 and right now obviously I have that in there for $130,000 so the next one that I have is for asset management program that we're putting asking for $10,000 for we have an asset management program if you will now that you know we have all these pieces and stuff all over the place what I'm hoping to do I'm letting the cab bag a little bit is when we come in for the utility budget so I want to put $10,000 in hot and water $10,000 in sewer $10,000 in storm water in this $10,000 to get $40,000 all together to get somebody to help us build a real robust asset management program that we use and keep up to date the Bruce this this 10k here is is for just I didn't quite understand this 10k is just highway's portion of the $40,000 I'm going to try and put together okay and Eric has this actually under the ARPA funding right now and the next one is variable message boards and the last one variable message boards if you don't know we own two now well we own one and a half because one only works about half the time they're they're just invaluable to have when you when you need them a lot of places don't have them and not one would we actually haven't had to use it for quite a while but anybody that's been around long enough knows that every once in a while we have to close north wiliston road because the road floods and not on our side it's on the Essex side we still got it I want to make sure that's clear but we still have to close our side of the road so that board actually helps a lot to get that message out and we do use them for other things I mean that's not the only thing we always find different land plate this summer we used them over there to try to get people notice of what was going on so that they're nice to have and that's what this $25,000 is in here for and that's it I couldn't produce regarding the chapel all right thank you very much thank you and just like to tell you all thanks for all your support again if anything we're we're here thank you hopefully we won't hear from you moving on to the library for the operating budget then we'll have eric talk a little bit about capital and then we'll go to the annual update um by uh be curtain you get in front of you a copy of the jane's preparatory presentation so hard copy in front of you want to start with that or the if you and you want to your operating first then we can go to the capital piece so we have the library director and the president of the trustees the board of trustees with us tonight to give us the the lowdown on the the library this is my favorite my favorite subject because it's always so good thank you i'm just connecting eric oh i can drive it jane i don't know you're gonna drive it okay so let me get a little bit not move are you gonna jump right into this day we're doing that that's the update right yeah yeah so we'll do budget first okay well thank you for having us and certainly a number of the board members are here and others um online watching and um said my job here is the hype man for jane but i think you all know that uh williston residents really value their library use it extensively uh and even during the pandemic in very uh different ways and creative ways and the library has responded to that um and our usage of the library um and how you measure that in many different metrics really has not decreased um over uh over this time so uh our budget is fairly straightforward um jane can go into some of the the finer points of it um but no huge changes for this year thanks steve um so for the operating budget outside of the salary and benefits which um the annual increase the rest of it as steve said is pretty flat there were a few differences um department salary we increased uh we're requesting a one dollar per hour increase for our subs to stay competitive with the area libraries that draw from the same substitute pool on the books line um we're asking for one percent increase to partially cover the costs of increased usage of electronic resources so the uh we will be getting access to an additional collection from the vermont department of libraries in f y 23 so we were able to keep that increase down to one percent on the computer applications line so this line was previously computer system and equipment it's now called computer applications so that was for accounting reasons and the line is now broken into computer applications computer equipment service contracts and small equipment purchases um the computer system is so it makes it a little hard for you to compare and jump around so just to summarize for you the computer and system equipment in f y 22 was budgeted at fourteen thousand eight hundred the f y 23 budget request for the equivalent lines is for fifteen four forty which is a four percent increase so looking uh more closely at that computer applications line the wi-fi office software and website portion of that line was budgeted at thirty six hundred in f y 22 and that included a one-time twenty five hundred dollar request for our website refresh which is currently underway uh the remat amount requested for f y 23 is 31 30 so it's uh stayed up there and that's to cover the software costs associated with offering virtual and remote services and other online services so on computer equipment um last year was budgeted at five thousand we're asking for an increase to seven thousand to move to a four-year replacement plan on all of our patron and staff computers so we're finding that the five-year current five-year replacement plan is causing issues with maintenance and productivity as the computers slow down program presenter and materials so in f y 20 you approved adding um they're taking a single part time position and splitting it into program services and outreach services uh we did fill that position in f y 22 and um just to support that person and enable them to do more programming and asking for an increase on that line as well um town custodial in the letter of transmittal there's actually an error that shouldn't be in there that was the savings that was realized in f y 22 so it actually went up by 900 or will be in f y 23 so um and finally maintenance and repair that's bruce's favorite line the increases on this line for fire lift inspection and unforeseen repairs it was offset by the completion of the h-fact duct cleaning which we won't need to do for a couple of years um as bruce said the plumbing issues in the front of the bathroom the the front of the library are almost complete the the bathrooms are functional we're back in back in business so that's the operating budget any questions on operating budget from anyone okay eric you're going to do capital now or yeah we can do it now if you'd like terry you can speak to kind of both sides of this project so i'm going to be in the building section right near the end scope study for exploring community center and library space and i've asked uh jaymond steed to speak on on this with me here i can get off i alluded to this earlier in the budget process but for a number of years the town has looked at the concept of a community center space um there's a study done maybe about 12 years ago or so um we've had it as a place solo in the capital plan for two a couple years so in the proposed budget looking at again arpa lost revenue funds is a potential way to fund this project and what it would be is looking at a scoping study to evaluate both potential space needs and and determine for the community center and for the library what if any overlap could occur um if the town really before with with any type of new facility um looking at the community center space needs and potential needs the library um and i'll speak just a little bit more but the the library space in the study would be examined looking at um expansion the current space a new library space a combined space the community center or in a branch within a community center or another location so we would look to see what components the community would be looking at in in such a community center then determining different cost structures and inclusive of building footprint required for these elements and ultimately should the town decide that before with with any type of facility um having a preferred alternative would be the the endpoint here and it's a many step process and for the community i know it's a multiple year process to look at something like this but i met with the trustees a few months ago and and kind of broached this this topic with them and thinking about their needs the community center needs there's potential for overlap so it seemed to to be a makes sense to potentially look at exploring all these needs for facilities and seeing whether my piece of potential overlap for space and that might not be the right pathway either but it seemed like a good a good option to endeavor if we if we move forward with with this um potential expiration here and if the board decides to fund this um one i have a the cost estimate i spoke with a an architectural consultant that's designed our fire station years ago as to help get a number on what something like this may cost and they've taken some other towns down down this road but the board might decide you want to stand up a small steering committee to help guide that consultant's work and find stakeholders from a number of groups that be part of a governance discussion later this spring if if you want to include this in your budget um i'll leave the groundwork for this concept there and i can i can turn it over to the library if you want to hear kind of their their take on this as well sure listen could i have some question but let's hear your take sure we're very excited actually when eric brought this to us it's it's been in um two successive library strategic plans um the uh 2008-2013 which was actually promulgated in 2007 um had a study for expansion of the library included in it obviously that did not happen and our current strategic plan which is a 2019 to 2023 also um part of that plan urges us to study expansion of the library and so um we are we are very interested in this we think this is a very important uh topic to look into the last time the library was expanded was in 1998 and the town's population has increased 50 percent since 1998 and jane actually gave me the usage or patron visits so we're going to ignore the past two years just because of what's been going on these past two years understanding that we will get back to a point where we can all visit the library anytime we want so in 1998 about 32 000 people visited the library during during that year in 2019 it was about 61 000 people so specifically that's a 92 percent increase in visits to that library you know for round terms we could say it was in effect doubled um yet the space has not changed the library staff and board has been very creative in moving things around and working with furniture consultants to make the space usable um but that's really a lot of people and our our community will have been as the 14th largest community um in vermont yet our building size compared to other communities with with libraries is 22nd um so there's a bit of a mismatch there um it sounds a little close but if you look at the data there's kind of a cliff um within that data set um so it's small and when you have a small physical space not only does that mean crowding people but it also means we can't have as many collections um for wilson residents to borrow and use because we just don't have the space to keep those and it means our librarians have to work um quite uh to weed the collections a lot of older pieces are constantly pulled out um in making way for new pieces um which is sometimes frustrating for folks um and then just i've got pages of information here but um the the last piece that i think is is telling us is accessibility as we try to cram more people and more collections into the space that we have it makes the the building um not as accessible for our community members and that means narrower the spaces more furniture to get around you know when it's full of full of kids which is awesome um after school it's very hard to move around that space and use it um and then uh because of the lack of space uh collections have to be housed and shelved high and low um and that becomes an accessibility issue and sometimes a danger issue if patrons are trying to pull things off of really high shelves or get down onto really low shelves so these are all issues i'm sure you're all well aware of those but why we uh are very much in favor of um going forward with the scoping study and and study i know when i presented last year i said look for this i wasn't sure it was going to come up right next year but eric brought the opportunity forward um and i know jeff had asked well how much more space do you need um and we don't know exactly we know more and the scoping study will help us understand more and a path forward so you want to add jane no i think you uh you're covered steve the only thing i would say is it does feel like it's time um you know we're feeling the daily pressures of of the lack of space and having a single room as a community space to present programs and for the public to use is um you know it's very hard to offer what we want to offer i would say in many ways the library is your community center right now and in thinking about expanding those opportunities is important questions um i'm not sure who to ask this of certainly when you brought up the point last time the library was expanded was in 98 way back when doubling of the um visitations um and um so that speaks to why what i'm trying to grasp is a community center has been talked about in williston in you know spits and spurts for years and is is this a library expansion we're talking here primarily or is it a community center because some people envision community center to include let's say maybe an indoor pool i'm not trying to say whether i support or don't support that it's just that's one vision i'm not so sure i see that type of a community center integrating with the library i mean maybe you could maybe i i just don't know so i'm trying to get a grasp of this combining the need to expand the need for there to be additional space at the library with a vision for a community center in willis then what does that mean should they be together should they be separate will the study look at all of that or will it focus just on the library property we were sorry those are the same questions we were asking jeff and we exactly our vision for that study was to kind of look at all these all these potential needs and spaces and think is there a an avenue where this makes sense where where there's you know a lot of community gathering spaces that the library has for folks would also be the same type of spaces we'd want in a community center i envision does that make sense to have that type of structure it may make a lot of sense it may not make any sense but we felt if we're taking a look at both of these elements there's certainly a potential overlap there and if it makes sense to look at a a new facility in town what what type of overlap would that be and it could be i think it could go a lot of different ways but i think we'd have to look at and get the board's direction on what options you really want to look at here um and have the consultant think into those okay would it i'm sorry this is just a clarification question for me is is it possible that this this study that's being envisioned could come up with a conclusion of here's what should happen at the library but somewhere separate from the library here's here's what should happen there that might be community center orientated also but maybe be more provide other functions some functions would be with the library piece of it some functions would be with this separate building in a separate location yeah i think that's all all possible i think this could be direction from the board input from the community really understanding what type of spaces the community's looking for them ultimately what the town can afford and what the town wants to wants to fund but it be a multiple year endeavor i think this is the first step to kind of understand the the what and the why piece of it yeah and then the board's going to decide after that kind of where the town would go at that point and certainly with the library component working with the trustees to answer those those questions as well okay other questions okay then we'll look for your annual update presentation you want the capital budget do you have anything more on the capital budget why did you take the book cap but it's fine under buildings or that's the end of the equipment yeah it's the last thing i think book reveal planned replacement we're catching up i think it was right after person oh i missed that yeah oh yeah okay book we'll right last page in the whole yeah so yeah the request is for 8700 towards the book reveal planned replacement in 2028 the book reveal hit the road in 2016 so we're now halfway through its life so the reason why it's more this year last year we did not put money in the capital budget for the book reveal because the budget constraints so it's gone from 7500 annually to 8700 annually i can't believe us that long since i know i had to look it up it was uh yeah it has been that long any questions on that okay and we can do the presentation that you have okay it's for us here and in front of us as well okay so you're driving era yep so um well thank you for all your support through this crazy year it's been i just wanted to highlight some of the trends and challenges we faced at the library the last year and to share some of the feedback that we've gotten from patrons this year so how we worked we were closed for in-person browsing for half the year so we had to adapt how we were sharing our collections the picture here is of our curbside pickup which is also called porch pickup and that's how we kept circulating while patrons couldn't come in we adapted our programs to outdoors to virtual programs and to passive programs like craft kits and we changed the way we we did outreach so that we could you know still get out into the community no matter what the conditions were so by june 2021 circulation had returned to 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels which was fy 19 so we were really encouraged by that and over the summer it continued to increase patron visits of course were down by half more than half actually because patrons couldn't come in for a lot of repair and as steve had mentioned we serve the 14th largest community in the state and we held our place as seventh in the state for circulation so that's the vermont department of libraries annual public library survey statistics that we look at to to benchmark ourselves so that you can the first comment here from Amanda Carr mentions that wanting to get actual books that her children can put their hands on so she's echoing many parents who want their children to have physical books rather than looking at any you know screen and we are actually fourth in the state for circulation of youth materials so and that that's obvious if you come into the library people leave with stacks of picture books and other books having said that we continue to see a trend before the pandemic during the pandemic and likely after of increased electronic resource use there was a 15 percent increase from fy 20 to fy 21 so and that trend will likely continue no matter what happens our passive programming was something that was very popular with adults during the pandemic the craft kits and that's something that will persist after the pandemic if the adults liked it programs like you'll see the mystery date with the book who have pictured here became very popular so this is in June 2021 that was the the return of our first in-person adult program on the green it was very very popular and during the summer and throughout the fall we continued to turn the library inside out we use the library patio like we've never used before and the town green and it was it was wonderful to be able to do that and we held our place at seventh in the state for attendance at virtual and in-person programming post pandemic the trend to flexibility in programming will likely continue that means you know in-person programming of course we can't wait to get back to that completely but some of the virtual programming will continue seniors who are homebound were really really felt connected and really latched on to zoom and some hybrid programming as well so the youth programs the youth want to be in person they want to be in the library so that's been you know a real challenge to to have virtual programs and getting teens into the library is a real challenge anyway so this is an example of a youth a successful youth program where they they had a kit that they could grow their own pizza ingredients and the Bueller family very kindly sent us a photo of the pizza that they made with the kit that they had grown themselves and looking at outreach as I mentioned we're now fully stocked with the filling of the program services and outreach services position and this allowed us to expand outreach during the pandemic we went to senior centers preschools and homebound when we could adapting as we had to during the pandemic bookmobile service also expanded we were able to put to add stops we went to the farmer's market allenbrook school in the summertime we visited the camps which we don't normally do and we extended service into the fall so yeah thank you very much for your support through the year and this was the winning spine poetry contest entry by Heidi Willoughby and I think her spine poem kind of caught the emotions of the year thank you so much that took me a second to get now I did you get it yeah question is regarding the your face just just one question I'm curious how the use or participation in the bookmobile has changed through the COVID we had a few different models through the year one the library was closed for browsing we had the bookmobile go to the schools to the community park after school and kids would come on one by one you know with masks and we had we tried we parked it outside the library for a while during the summer we you know required masks on board so yeah it was pretty you know and then for a short period we actually on our summer stops brought crates of books out down the steps for the kids to browse through when you know the early in the pandemic it didn't feel safe to be in any space yes yeah okay thank you other questions what one comment I would just like to make to the board so in my day job I work in the same building as the Vermont Department of Libraries and I hear very regularly the Dorothy Allen Memorial Library mentioned as a model institution and the staff regularly help up as a as a model of professionalism in the in the state and so that hearing that is wonderful and then you know knowing that you know we all have a part in that and then being able to convey it to you so I want to leave you with that it's great to hear certainly thanks the staff they are a great staff and the library trustees do a wonderful job for us so thank you very much thank you I'll turn it over to Eric now for the revenue budget and the Shirley will join in him as well you know I love Shirley kind of lead the board through through this section where we're just about at the end here it's a lot of very many layers of the town's budget each year um so I handed out this evening an updated possible budget changes worksheet and I think we alluded to last week with the COLA increase based on our formula we had budgeted 3.3 but it's turned out to be 3.5 percent after we got the data from the month of November to remind the board the union contracts look at that calculation number for for fire then police we had fixed the COLA at this number that ended up falling at anyway this year um you have discretion for non-unionized staff or where to set the COLA um traditionally the board has looked to have that call the same throughout the organization but you in your board policy you do have discretion there to decide if you did not want that COLA for for non-unionized staff to get that level and then Shirley also identified as we're doing open enrollments some some changes in the the CJC just with elections of benefits and we budget those based on the actual plan enrolled in or if an opt out was no longer taken other departments we do an average rate to smooth it throughout the organization but we can't do that for for these employees as this is an exact expense tied to the grants so those are those are two additions and then a small addition we got the final county tax bill was thirty five hundred dollars higher so the the cumulative worksheet right now as we've we get these things that come up um in December each year is about forty thousand dollars and we're looking at but i do surely think somewhere perfect okay so so the good news is yeah go ahead before we move off um sure i'm trying to figure out i'm on the uh fifth and sixth line and i'm looking at the discrepancy between um the adjustment due to COLA for wages pr tax retirement all those different things and then with a community justice center um you know coming in at nineteen versus the one above all coming in at eighteen so um my missing they don't seem to correlate each other well should say so what that number is is in the police department budget so um the community justice center grant is only four hundred and fifteen thousand so first of all that number represents anything over the hundred and fifteen thousand dollar budget okay um the first calculation of that budget made assumptions about people's um elections for health care those elections were changed to participate and participating is a lot more cost to the town than when they choose opio so um it's a change of benefits for personnel that the driver there okay and in the grant how much is that again with hundred and fifteen thousand we've we've made a request to uh our corrections um if they were willing to increase that grants probably unlikely that we received some funding but we we may be asked anyway we received a little funding last year we tried well the good news is that this is the last budget information you're going to have to hear before the end of the year how's that so what we're on and I'm only going to talk about revenues in the major changes so I'm under your tab called revenues and I'm just looking at the summary there so um but then I'm going to ask you if you turn um that summary page and you get to the very next page of where we have a little blocks the very first thing is property taxes um so in this budget we're using um a grand list value of the two billion eighty two million and um we worked with bill to get an increase from last year and he had us go with three quarters of a percent of an increase um from the twenty one grand list and this also right now does assume a tax rate of point three two percent and in this number so that's where the six million seven one two comes from payments and lieu of taxes didn't go up a lot but it's really um looking at FY 21 actual and where I expect FY 22 to come in but payment and lieu of taxes is the payments that we get from the state for the land and the current use um it's the buildings that they have in the town of Williston and also the lake Iroquois access um the other piece of that is we do a calculation through an agreement with the chip and solid waste district and so they pay payments and lieu of they don't pay property taxes because they're a nonprofit and there's a couple of churches who um do provide a payment in lieu of taxes and that's what's wrapped up in that hundred and forty five thousand sales rooms meals um and alcohol tax um quite a big jump from the FY 22 budget but um Eric and I looked at this a few ways and typically this is budgeted using the so we do it by quarter for each of these sales and use and rooms and meals we do it by quarter usually a three-year average but we um sort of left out in that average the effect of COVID and you can see when you look at those quarters like if you look at 19 it's up here and you look at 20 and it drops and you look at 21 and it's back up here and if we have the first payment for 22 it's really high so we average those a little bit differently we looked at our FY 22 budget forecasts as well so you know it's all about what shoppers do and how they go out so this is our best guess of where you know our estimate I should say of where we think that number is going to land but not a number that I'm that I feel is a stretch in any way and you know we'll have more comfort with that as we get the second local option tax payment and we've only got one year to date any questions yet okay so now I'm going to go down to the town clerk revenues and Sarah didn't chat about that there's two big line items in there the first is the recording of the legal documents and Sarah and I talked about that one a lot because if you look at the history on that line it certainly took a jump from 19 to 20 21 was COVID and we don't expect that volume but through 1130 we had 66,000 of actual recording fees at that point so you know in discussion with Sarah we said oh we should bring it back in line with 2020 you know in the spring activity we'll pick up again but we feel like that's a more reasonable number um to work with than maybe even the 422 budget but again until the spring comes in it's hard to know where that will land um the other number that we've increased but still not very much is the passport revenue 21,000 we had 5,000 in the FY 22 budget but right now it's still only by appointment and there's not a lot of interest so we didn't want to like jump it and make it a bigger number so we Sarah you know working with Sarah she felt like that was a reasonable number the other numbers really haven't changed much from what they have and in the past and they're much smaller so planning revenue and last year questions I wasn't going to talk about that because Matt went through that when he gave his budget presentation so ambulance revenue if you flip in your books and I'm sorry I don't have one with page numbers either but if you flip past police revenue you're going to see a page that says buyer EMS in the top left hand side and just so working with Aaron he um I'm sorry I think it's RMS system but he's looking at his calls and looking at his actual calls to date so this is a increase from what he anticipates so I'm looking at this whole chart that looks like this and it has like um BLS non-emergency BLS calls everyone good there okay so um you know Aaron pulled this data together by the type of call and it's a large block when you get there thank you okay so Aaron put these together by the number of calls and I confirmed his number of transport so calls represents every time they go out transports represents when they actually take someone to the hospital so the only things that we can bill for are those calls where they end up transporting the patient so out of all the calls 62 percent of the people are transported um and then different rates for each thing but if you look at the collection rate it's 50 percent a large majority of our calls are Medicare and Medicaid patients and doesn't matter what we charge the rate is the rate is the rate so that's why that collection rate at 50 looks low but the majority is is Medicare and Medicaid so you know and I reviewed this budget a few times with Aaron so he he and I both feel comfortable that 384,000 is probably a good place to be based on looks just starting with their call volume and they're in their current rates um police revenue numbers are pretty consistent not anything big there and we don't expect any wild increases there odd spoke about the recreation revenue so unless you have a question I was going to pass by on that one and now I'm just going to the back page um so highway revenue state aid we didn't change that from the FY 22 budget because we haven't heard any information about they're going to change the rates um that for their class two and class three roads so we left it the same for now um there might be a possibility even in this year we've gotten a couple of I'll say less than 10,000 supplemental payments that are coming to us that are coming from their COVID funds um let's say rental of highway property that is um the water sewer and storm water um utilities are paying 8% of the debt service on the public works building and that's what that number represents um miscellaneous highway revenue and quarry fees so I split those out because the this year because the auditors asked me to split them out in the financial statements and like the information to be able to tie between the budget and the financial statements so they used to be all in one and that's why the numbers looked a little bit different but for the quarry fees we did use a three-year average I had those numbers for Bruce and he was comfortable with the three-year average and that's mostly all coming now from the sd Ireland quarry um on uh south brown ale stormwater project revenue is just the charge back to the stormwater fund for the highway time and equipment use let's see library revenue and that's not big but just to remind you what it is it's just we get a fee from the town of st george for them to use our library and that's what that is um jack covered the cemetery revenue so I'll go by that um post town fees so we have a schedule that is maintained for many years but we decreased that not much but a little bit because um the actuals have been going down and they actually kind of go like this so I used the three-year average of those to come up with a number that's realistic that we will obtain in the budget um compost fees and more fees we didn't change those much because the the activity has been pretty flat in those categories interest earned on investments we decreased more because that's what we're realizing in our cd rates are very low although maybe those um there is discussion that in 22 that the fed will increase the rate so um maybe we'll go above budget and that would all be good and just on that one surely but the board looks back at the actuals for 19 and 20 when our cd rates are really high we we had over a hundred thousand dollars in interest revenue in 19 almost 93 and 20 and we're predicting about 25 000 yeah so we were just looking just um um we do a letter of credit um so all of the town's money um either has a letter of credit or collateral agreement or fdic insurance um so we were renewing our um letter of credit with uh union bank and so we asked them because we have some money in some of the transportation fees so we asked union people's community bank and td bank which is the banks that we work with and um union bank came back with 0.35 percent which is down from the 0.5 percent when we passed renew so not getting better right now but anyways um and then um you know here's the real variable piece that you know this is the suggestion that we have but i know that you will look at this and think about this but the next big number in here is from reserves for tax reduction so that was after putting all of the budget together trying to figure out you know a tax rate increase that felt like we could swallow it without being too high but again that number as we come up with changes in the budgets and the select board decides where they want to go that number is um not set in stone um at this point it helped us to balance the budget um same thing that cap uh from reserves for capital projects that's a little bit higher and again trying to minimize the increase in the tax rate um the transfers and that is fairly fairly new um but it's not so previously they used to take so the sidewalk fund provides a percentage of the sidewalk loan payment to the general fund and that used to be netted against the debt service expense and you really can't net you have to gross things in the financial so that's just the transfer coming in from the sidewalk bond fund of 45 thousand and um and then we the when you look at the debt service side those numbers are gross as well gross principle and gross interest so just a different way of reflecting it to show things gross instead of net um and the education tax that is um a few years ago that used to be just included in our property tax revenue but um it's actually the the admin fee we got from the state of Vermont to um send out all the tax bills collect all the money and then remit it to the district or back to the state so the other piece that I wanted to come back to and and Eric talked about it when he did his overall men um memo about the budget but so I am in Eric's town of Williston under your summary tab it's the proposed general fund operating budget and this is really just a food for thought and Eric had what you want to hear but I'm on the page that talks about fund balance again we don't have eighth page in the script thank you Eric um so I'm not going to go through each of these numbers but this is our best projection right now of the roll forward of the fund balance through FY 22 and then um I'm the next of the last number the 779,459 that is just the sum of the from reserves for tax reduction and from reserves for capital projects so um with that number in the estimated end of the year FY 23 fund balance would come in just below 2.2 million which is 16 point 16.7 percent um of our expenses which is right between in our policy we have a floor of 10 percent and a ceiling of 20 percent of the next year's budget so that leaves us just a little you know above the median of that goal and yes Jeff by next year we will have a new fund balance policy it is and in the beginning of a process but um to see if that's reasonable but um Eric reached out to Sarah Mason at Essex who now works for the league and um and she'll be another financial resource for us at the league and Sarah um did comment that she had done some work on this and that's not a bad place to be in terms of our fund balance you know in that range is not a bad place to be so I'm just reviewing that because um in the bigger conversation of the budget and in January that we're just keeping an eye on that and that you know we're we're using a large number from our fund balance but that won't always be there we'll always have that dollar magnitude to be able to rely on it to reduce taxes yeah for my recall typically budget about half a million dollars to reduce taxes from the fund balance and for a number of years we brought in more revenue we didn't need to touch that amount of money we're projecting we're going to need to use some of that in FY 22 this year and then looking at the board decides to balance the budget and understanding where you want to fall on the fund balance policy um certainly looking at the amount of the increase this year um driven by some personnel discussions here when you when you raise the overall operating budget the percentage of the fund balance is going to move with it so that that's why we've been over 20 percent for a number of years but you know what what we put in this draft budget is on the upper upper tier of the acceptable range but we we've made our best estimate based on a number of these factors and the other piece is the local option tax um we make our best prediction where that might fall it's certainly harder to predict with covid we've taken a lot of different looks at that but if we didn't bring in the local option tax we're anticipating the fund balance typically would have to pick that up um in combination with if other lines were under spent if we get other revenue unanticipated it kind of comes to the comes of the combination here so part of the direction from the board is where you feel comfortable in the fund balance arrangement in balancing taxes you you raise and and this reserve fund so I just make sure the board's comfortable with all that pieces on the policy so you've got to make some some decisions on here the next one following that with a question you you used you um you said the fund balance that would you're projecting to be at the end of fiscal year 23 would be 2.174 million and and that would be 16.7 percent is that 16.7 percent of the fiscal 23 budget okay yeah that that's in your proposal right right yeah okay so okay I just want to make sure it changes that ratio right I was just getting to that point is that's our operating budget goes up so does if we're trying to stay at let's say 15 percent the amount we need to have to stay at 15 percent also goes up right um okay and the 779 is about 50 percent more than we've used in other years for tax reduction yeah we yeah we put about 500,000 we put about 560 last year looking previous years we've also used fund balance for capital projects a lot you know we found a lot at the time too it's it's a nice revenue source town has a lot of times the local option tax coming in higher than we could just use that which was fund balance towards capital but as you're seeing our capital needs are increasing our potential to use this fund balance is is look trending up a bit and this isn't always going to be there for taxes so it's board's decision of how you want to look for our revenue streams moving ahead here and want to keep a difference or on hand too knowing that things can happen so do you mind me asking last year when we went through this where did we anticipate the fund balance would be on a percentage basis would you remember and if you don't that's totally okay I don't remember Jeff because this feels like a pretty significant change yeah we've we've we have maintained a little above the 20 percent since I've been here with actual numbers at the end of the day that's going to say if you look up that chart a little bit you'll see for FY 22 for reserves we had 576,000 budgeted but right now because of some revenue and expense changes we you know the latest FY 22 forecast is to use the 395 for taxes but we've already used the 34,000 for our FY 22 funding to the CCPSA and for the capital piece we've we've used that as well we've said that funding off to the equipment one of the tricky parts here too is our number of open positions police and public work still as longer those positions are open the longer we're we're saving some expenses there which would involve this at some point so we've I think surely you budgeted this for about through January or so understanding where we are with those those positions no they're are going to be open for a little a little while longer we don't have any additional police candidates right now we've had a couple interviews that weren't successful but it's kind of a it's a moving line here as we anticipate our cash flow and our revenue receipts and sorry Shirley can we go back to the ambulance revenue real quickly there's the comment in there that says added new pricing tiers and I'm just my question is is are the rates shown in the the box are those the current rates or the projected rates that is a good question might have to look Jeff okay sorry yeah no I should have looked at that because Erin put those together and I we never discussed increasing the rates so and I don't have the f22 budget with me but I can run in grad okay it's it's not a big deal that matches the current rates there there were some changes for this year that the chief probably we can certainly confirm that yeah it's not a big deal I just was more curious yeah other questions are revenue well one is um when we were talking last week uh and we I thought we said we would talk about the energy coordinator position this week but then when the public comment period ended I thought I heard well we'll talk about it during the budget so I guess I'm asking the question of is the select board interested in talking about the position tonight well I think the time to do that is after we have the public hearing uh on the budget and then we can get into a full discussion of um what we would like to add and what that would do to the finances um that we would ask staff to analyze and also if we have some requests for deletion something as well okay I guess the answer to my question is no you got it right yeah okay I guess the the only thing I'll bring up is obviously we're in a difficult position with with this budget the budget is great it's not the budget it's the tax increase um if if we were this is more of a comment than it is a question if we were to decide that that tax rate increase was I'm going to use the word unacceptable I may not be the best word it's late unpalatable um I guess my point is what I would look for us to do is instead of nickel and diming everybody um you know death by a thousand cuts we should consider what it is Williston should no longer provide as a service I don't have a good answer for that question if that's a question but it's just to me that's a way to think about um kind of move ahead with our final review and eventually presenting actually coming up with a budget that we do we approve it before we send it to the voters we okay it will be it will be the select board's budget yeah okay so what we've done in the past rather than say we know the end all is to say do staff give us a budget that is reduced by whatever and how would you accomplish that yet and then we can say what that means to us uh and whether we wish to do that um so think about that this we got a couple weeks now so uh before we have to um get into that but I think we need also to take a look at um so we know that the the current the current proposal is to raise the the tax rate by about five cents roughly uh and that translates to uh 18 percent which sounds very scary but that but we're not really raising the taxes on let's say a three hundred thousand dollar home by 18 percent as I recall it we'd be raising it by something less a lot less than 18 percent uh my recollection was seen like 160 bucks that yeah that's right so how do we get this as a a talking point that people can understand yeah it's having a it's having a big PR issue right now on on front porch forum that 18 percent right yeah that's yeah that's not this isn't the first time yeah and then we've confronted this issue though where the local media has gone for a rather impressive headline that I don't think is it's it's true but it's not accurate because you can you can do both um uh but I do I do think that we have you know we do have time and the means to get the the lesson out there or the message out there as to how much this actually will mean and and not only that but you know if we went with this budget as it's coming in what we get um you know I mean that's it's not I saw one thing on front porch forum somebody said something about um give me a break first first they have a mask mandate and now they I'm not gonna I'm not gonna agree to uh a tax tax increase after they've done the mask mandate and I kept thinking of like yeah like the non sequiturs you know it's like you know being being an immigrant uh so and so was a great newspaper man yeah what the heck does that have to do with each other um but anyway um feel it's or that's who that's like feel it's um yeah it's it's there's there's some faulty logic out there but it's also you know it's not the first time that this is the other piece that's always hard is the municipal budget is dwarfed by the school budget yeah and so an 18 percent let's say that number is accurate and true if it works um is going to be it's going to be so buried and what your actual tax rate will be when you combine the municipal and the school together that um it um it's of less consequence than for instance if the school budget were to go up by that 18 percent then I'm not suggesting it is yeah you know I actually just this last thing I'm going to say on the whole thing tonight anyway is it I don't really begrudge people for being confused and and not yeah following this stuff I mean I'll tell you before I was on the select floor I uh I wasn't I wasn't up on the nuts and bolts of municipal government now you know I admit that freely and I'm not embarrassed by it but perhaps I should be but you know the reason that people have a select board is because they said look I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do the details on this stuff you guys do it and then present it to us so I mean the the details are not I don't expect I don't expect most people to follow the details the way that we do well Ted if I was perfectly honest I would admit that um despite my years on the select board I still feel like oh yeah it's it's a learning project I appreciate it I think was Chapin who was who's mentioning you know the philosophy behind the budget and I feel like that that this year especially given the massive increase we're proposing and you know fire personnel um you know we're trying to hire you know a digital police officer just to get to the the level we've had budgeted but also even you know hiring you know public works staff and paying them more possibly an energy coordinator you know you know the value added I think is is the full you know it should be the basis kind of for the philosophy for this and how to you know really get people to focus on that this is the safety this is a you know a town town needs and you know that some of this is overdue I think Rick McGuire used to he used to harp on this and I think it's an excellent point the vast majority of the services the town provides are safety related sure and um you know which is something we should be investing and I can just offer the board a couple numbers I was looking at this week um you know the this proposed budget has a 12.8 increase on the expense side um if we break it out it's 5.8 percent for the budget as it is right now and 7 percent towards the fire personnel of that 12.8 to looking where where other towns are landing in their proposed budgets online um I think Winooski South Burlington they're around six percent right now and not looking at that level of personnel increase so shows me you know with inflation and everything kind of where our status quo operations are where we're landing about where other places are but we're looking to address potentially some some personnel operational items here I also looked at our tax tax rate if if it did end up around 32 cents right now at 20.2721 we're second lowest in the county the town right above us as St. George is currently at 32 cents before any other movement I think it's trying to get the message to the value that the local options tax has had for the town it's it's really offsetting about 15 cents on the tax rate right now on an annual basis let's and um one cent on the tax rate is about $210,000 of revenue so if the board thinks about from a policy standpoint and a potential rate structure um if you think about that removing a half cent removing a cent you have to find that balance and expenses or added revenue to to offset that on on the right side so those help me and surely rationalize it would kind of the big the big budget chunks and really where your levers are here to think about the the big picture so no I'll be here to uh whatever budget you settle on a staff will work to get that message out to the community here and leading up to town meeting I just asked that when we were having the fund balance discussion the nice thing about having a healthy fund balance is we've been able to do things like pay for the muddy brook project overage and possibly the additions to the fire staff for this year but then we have you know those unknown things that always come up like there's the discussion about you know whether the vsp is going to dispatch for us at all and what that might mean and we don't even know that yet so that's we're having a little bit healthier fund balance helps us not to increase anything else and be able to rely on that when something totally unforeseen comes up like even adding our third dispatcher so we have the ability to dispatch so I thought the um the message that went out regarding the mass mandate was was effective you know people may not have agreed with it but it was very effective should we consider a similar type message about the budget the tax increase we used to do a mailing right but that that would that would always be after we decided on the budget and we were explaining the town meeting and this would be different this would be this would be I mean this is not the word I'm really looking for it's the one that comes to mind is confronting that in kind of the argument that 18 percent is the only way to look at the tax rate increase yeah and the answer may be no this is really something we need to step back and just let the discussion happen but if there are misconceptions about about that probably now is not a bad idea to if it's possible to try to correct the record for lack of other words I thought about that as well but it can't be a full page document because nobody's going to read it that is true needs to be bite size types of things over a period of time it addresses certain things any of your videos address like the the minutiae of like how that that works I can't I've watched most of them but I can't remember if any of them addressed that it's one a couple years ago just like a power point on how the the grand list interacts with with the tax rates so we can I think those are all all good ideas from you know going to get somebody's attention you've got to do it in a creative way and people aren't going to pay attention for more than 30 to 60 seconds really if with all all the things going on in the world right now I think from I'll take any direction the board wants for staff on this you know part of it is you've got to set the bottom line first too so if that's going to be moving you know the the message numbers could be moving in a couple weeks here so you know if you want me to lay just some general principles and some messaging we can certainly do that too or or wait to get into the specifics once you have that that warning finalized it helps budget for tonight if not we'll go to manager report be short and sweet again thanks for everyone's patience and going through the stock and I said it's a big lift it's the biggest public policy document support has to have to work through every year for however things connected in town here so a couple quick things Ron Gomer at the resigns of the planning commission last week so beginning that position advertised we've got a lot of folks in the queue to fill some open positions here we just had a had a lot of other items to go through right now for the energy committee we now have eight applicants that filled the last three seats so Terry and I have spoken we're going to split those in two groups and work with the other items on the on the agenda coming up so plan is to have that full committee stood up end of january and start meeting later that month and I've got staff working on on how they're going to support that to get started here and we'll be we'll be closed coming up here on this friday and the following friday for the holidays happy happy holiday on behalf of all the towns in there and what brings us to other businesses or any other business that we should talk about tonight if not this is the last meeting of this year in the calendar year and to the board the staff and to all people who are watching Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and we're adjourned