 I definitely recommend. Are you guys all set? Yeah. OK. Welcome, everybody, to the Essex Junction Trustees Meeting. Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome, everybody, and I have just two announcements. If you haven't signed in, please try to do so before you leave. And our normal minute taker, the person who takes our minutes, is not going to be here tonight, but she is going to be working from the video recording. So I would like to ask everybody when you speak, if you speak, to please speak up. Can you hear me? Yes. OK. So please speak up if you have something to say. Thank you. Evan, first order of business. Do we have any agenda additions or changes? We do have one addition, an executive session for the last item of the night, right before adjournment. OK. Do I hear a motion? And that is to discuss a legal matter. I move we approve the agenda as amended. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. OK. So we will put this on as an executive session. So first order of business after that is public to be heard. And I'm wondering if I could just take a quick poll. How many folks in the audience are here to talk about have something to say about the senior center discussion? Can I see a show of hands? OK. So why don't I say I will make a, when we get to the senior center item on the agenda, I'll ask everybody who wants to say something about it at that point to speak up at that time. OK. And so anyone else who has something to talk about that's not on the agenda tonight, now is the time to ask a question or if you have a comment about something. You're welcome to make your comment or say something right now. Good? Can we talk about something that's on the agenda when that comes up? Yes. Yeah. I think that's probably what we'll try to do. Yeah, exactly. What part were you interested in? The multi-use path. The multi-use path. Great. I'll make sure I call on you. Thank you. OK, so our next order of business is an interview for the zoning board. And we are here. We're here from Robert Mount. Mr. Robert Mount, are you in the audience? I am. Robert, come on up. Have a seat. And welcome. Thank you. And so I'm trying to, Robert, maybe we'll go around and introduce ourselves. Lane, do you want to start? Hi, Lane is up. Check. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Laurie Houghton. Andrew Brown. George Tyler. Dan Karen. Evan Teach. Lauren Morrison. You all have chief chiefs in front of you, so I'm going to introduce you. Right. We all have chief chiefs right here. Right here. And so, and welcome in. And I appreciate you stepping forward and having an interest in the zoning board. So why don't you, we've all read your bio, but I think it might be good to have you just give us a little bit of background on why you're interested in joining the zoning board. Sure. So my main reasoning is I just moved back to the S6 Junction community after being gone for about 10 years when I was living in St. Almond's. But prior to that, I've been in S6 Junction for about five years. And when I moved to St. Almond's, I got involved in the community stuff. They're doing some volunteering on the Little League, for the Little League, helping them coach. And eventually I joined the board of directors. And it just gave me more of a sense of involvement with the community. It was a way of connecting with people. I was working in Burlington. So I was on the road most of the time. I'd come home, eat, sleep, and then go back to work. And I never really was getting involved in anything in St. Almond. So that was a way of getting involved. And I felt like I wanted to do the same thing when I moved back to S6 Junction. And that's why I, when I saw the opening on front page four, I said, hey, this sounds right on my alley. Serve the community a little bit and get involved in some of this interesting thing. Well, they don't have a lot of meetings, our zoning board. Because we're zoned out and our zones are pretty well established. But they do have some. And they can't occasionally be controversial. So I would like to get a sense of that, of how you prepare to have a room full of people and half of them want you to do one thing and the other half want you to do another. Yeah, you up for that sort of thing? Yeah, I deal with that kind of thing on a day-to-day. I work in IT. Well, you work baseball, too. Yeah, I was a baseball coach, too. Sure. So dealing with umpires and errands, you wanted things one way or another. And I was very good at coming up with compromises. I felt you could ask them how they felt. But I always felt like I was in the best interest of the kids, in this case of a coach. Or in the best case of a business when I'm working for the business. And I feel like I can do the same thing here. Other trustee questions? Trustees? Why does only board? Or do you have an interest in community development? It was just, there was an opening for it. And I said, I have a friend who lives in the town. And he said he's on the planning commission, I think. And he relayed some of his experiences there. And said it was very interesting to see how things were developing. And he'd drive by an empty lot with construction on sale. I know exactly what that's all about. And I said, hey, that's kind of neat. And so I've been keeping my eye out for openings. And I saw the opening and jumped in. All right. Dan? Anyone now, Lori? I would just say if you find that they're not meeting enough and you see another opening, feel free to come back. That's good to know. Yeah, you can definitely. You can be on more than one board, other than the trustee, I think. Any other questions? Let me ask you, what do you think there is? So you lived in Essex Junction a while back. Didn't even up to St. Albans, which is, for us, a very interesting place, because they went through a big revitalization in their center. But now you're back here. So what do you think of the changes? Do you think we're kind of heading in the right direction? Or the wrong direction? I am. My company is doing a fitness challenge. And I've been trying to lose some weight, getting better shape. My doctor will be happy with me. Lower my blood pressure a little bit, so I've been walking a lot. That's why I've seen you. Yeah, so I work in South Burlington. And we have a loop around the building. So I'll do a couple of loops around the building in the morning. But in the afternoon, it gets so hot right now that I'll take my evening walk right around 9.30. And I come and walk all the way over to the fairgrounds. The back's down a mile, near and back. And I was really impressed with all the new street lights. Everything's really well lit. Side walks were already done. Really impressed with the way that they formatted and modeled the street lights after the old school street lights, which is really, really kind of cool. Instead of just having these big things that are shining down on you, which is, everybody's got those. There's no character involved. So I'm really enjoying what's been going on here. A lot of people like to throw stones at the place across the street. But I think they're doing a good job trying to bring more people in, get some more walking, more walkers in here doing stuff in. I can leave my house and walk to four or five restaurants in less than half a mile. And I think that's fantastic compared to where I was in St. Albans. If I wanted to get on the milk, I had to drive 10 minutes. It's great. Definitely changing. Do you have any questions for us about the zoning board or how this all works or anything else? Not too much. I did do some zoning when I first moved in and I needed to go to Shatton. So I called the town clerk a couple of times and asked some questions and got what I needed. And basically it was just, here's our zoning regulations read through them. Make sure you follow them. And it seemed pretty straightforward to me. I didn't know if there was any gotchas. I mean, the variances is when people say, hey, this zoning thing doesn't really apply to my situation. Can you hear me now about why and make it soon on it and that? Yeah. The variances are sometimes very, they can be tough and they can be challenging. Some of the issues we've had are where some zones butt up against other zones and even though something's permitted in one zone, it's not permitted in the other. But what's happening in the first zone is affecting the houses or development on the other zone. That can be tough. But generally speaking, and I think you'd, if we select you, the great people that are on there already had some good experience and they didn't really help you. Good. The variances. Well, good. Okay, thank you. So I think we're gonna make a decision momentarily. So you're welcome to stick around. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I keep my hand by my, Andrew, do you want to take over from me? Sure. So next item is appointment to the zoning board of adjustment. So considering what we just heard, is there a motion to approve Rob Mount for the zoning board of adjustment? I will make a motion that the trustees approve Rob Mount for the zoning board of adjustment opening. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, unanimous. When we're gonna get my first paycheck. I didn't hold your breath. I would check your mailbox every day. Okay, Andrew, I'm gonna, once again, I am stymied. So going on to new business, first one approval of request for proposals for the bidding needs analysis from Greg and Dennis. Please state your name and for the record. Correct, Dennis. Dennis Lux. We're gonna talk about the needs now. So as you might remember, part of the budget for the current fiscal year and the town capital budget, there's $40,000 for a building space needs analysis. 10,000 of that is from the village. The idea is to take a look at the public works and how many departments that are in the progress of consolidating, mostly looking at the town fire department and the town recreation department. Works correct. Dennis has put together a good RFP to get this out and start looking for architects or engineers to start to do this analysis. And take a look at what we need now in 30 years out, whether some buildings should be combined. It's not getting into where things are gonna be, it's just looking at what is the space that's needed for equipment, facilities, staff, those types of things. Dennis broke it out in here about facilities, administration, pool, in terms of Parks and Rec, program space, Parks and Rec vehicles. Part of what's in here is an agenda, looking at also expanding it to include the village fire department and EJRP. The money is not set aside for that at this point. So depending on the cost, and we've talked a little bit, think internally, externally, it's probably the preferred approach to kind of depend on cost and what that comes back with. If we can do it, find a good work financially, rather study everything all at once. This is still a draft form, it's pretty close to final draft, but in order to keep things moving and going along, we wanted to bring it to the boards that Select Board saw last week. Wanted to bring it to you tonight, get some feedback, if any, so we can take that and get it out and get the needs analysis rolling. Dennis, can I add anything that I missed? Greg, covered, I think that the key thing is that we didn't want to be specific to any one site because it could be a combination of things. And at this particular point, I know that as the trustees and the Select Board work closer and more towards consolidation, the issue comes up, will come up with regard to facilities. Are the facilities we have adequate? What do we need and what do we need long-term if we were to stay separate, if we were to join? So that's what is a structure, is to give those kind of answers. Looking for a layout that's a conceptual layout of the different buildings that might take place, cost estimates, which are important. My only concern is as I started to put this together, I looked at our numbers for funding it, and to be honest, I think even the money we have in the bank is probably a little shy. I'm more, we're more used to doing projects where it's brick and mortar, where we know what paving costs, we know what fencing costs, and those are easy to estimate once you've done it all the time. This is a little harder. So I think that the approaches will put it out if the two boards approve it, and we'll see what happens and if costs come in higher to get it done. I'll come back to Evan and with Greg and we'll go to the boards and see what we go from there. Dennis, why is it so expensive? What is it, and I'm not questioning your judgment, I'm just saying what makes this so costly? I think that if you're gonna do a complete job, there's things that a good firm would do, and that is to really sit down and meet, go through our facilities, go through the village, public works garage, what's there, what's needed there, but also look at, from a conceptual point of view, how much room do you need to do certain things? And we've tried to define in here, I think, some of the parameters, but that takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of effort to dig that out so that when you come back, you have a reasonable plan, if I were doing the consulting work on the other side, I'd wanna come back with a reasonable plan that was accurate, that wasn't subject to question as to why did you add an additional office space for this, and those answers need to be there, and it takes time to get that, we'll provide that, I think each one of the staff members who are involved in this will be glad to sit down and work with them, but that just takes one-on-one time, and that's money. And to add to that, then you throw in 30 years into the future, I think if you had asked somebody five years ago what the town space was gonna look like at 81 Maine, I'm not sure anybody would have been right, as to how many people would have been there, where they would have parked, et cetera, et cetera, so when you ask somebody to look that far out, they're gonna ask a lot of questions, and presume a lot of things. What will the town and the votes look like in 30 years in terms of roads we have to cover, or sidewalks we have to build? What if five more miles of road are paved up in the hills, or any of our class fours, or we now are plowing every sidewalk? The town department would look vastly different if he had to do more plowing even next year than it would this year. So that's just my concern. I mean, and we may be wrong, we may find when we get all done with this, if it's approved, a firm that's a quality firm that does good work and can afford to do it within the price, that's great. I just have not, this type of proposal is a little different than we would put together, so I have a little bit of angst that the cost estimate would match what we're asking them to do, I guess. I had, to let you rest, the rest of you know, I had, I went to the select board meeting where they talked about this last week, right? And the only thing I said was that I would like to make the recommendation that when they're looking at village facilities that they don't just talk to the department heads and staff that they may wanna come by us and the manager, because we might just give a little bit different perspective. I don't know, I'm not insisting that they do that, but I'm recommending that they do that because we might have a different understanding or take on what, and be able to provide some insight and background that their consultant that the department head doesn't have. So I, and maybe I spoke inappropriately on our behalf, but I thought that just sort of made sense to me. You know, the vision that the department head has for what's gonna happen might conflict with some other plan or some other idea that we have. Any other hand over? I really think that to do it right, the first time, we need to include EJRPE and the village fire. Because if we're really truly looking at 30 years in the future, how are we leaving out two vital village departments in this process? So if that means we need to find more money to do that, I would like us to have that conversation. Okay, well, that's a possibility that it would be included in the price that that. The way it's set up, we're asking them to give us a price to do that. You are. So that we would get the answer, and there's a basic cost, it's probably a little convoluted, but there's a basic cost to do was originally proposed in the capital plan, which is both public works departments. We'll look at the town parks and rec, I'm gonna look at the town fire department. Those last two are, and I know I was here, but are probably less complex than the public works departments are. But we decided to add in the RFP, a second phase that says, when you put your proposal in, you want that basic scope of services, cost it out, as well as the two additional village departments included so that there's like A and B. And when that comes back, we'll then have an accurate cost to do if we didn't include them, or if we did include them. And then the choice would be at that point. If we include them, what's the cost? Can we afford it? Where does the money come from? Could we do the extra work? Or could we locked into one in the beginning and cost out each several one? And Greg and I had discussions about whether this is a little too convoluted or we just lump it all into one study and say, give us the costs for A, B, and C and don't have a basic in an ad. And you can do it either way. So if I can just- We'll go ahead. Just real quick. I guess my concern is the way I read it, and I have to admit I was confused a bit by the RFP, that those two are considered an addendum study. If you use those words, I'm concerned that it's not considered to be as important as the other ones. And I will have to admit, I don't think I would vote ultimately to approve this if those two aren't included. So I would like to see them included from the outset as part of the overall study. I just really think we're being short-sighted if we don't include them. Okay. That's mine. Thank you. I agree with Lori. But on top of that, just a question. Denny, how long is this study gonna be? I mean, it's kind of like going out for anything. You go for an RFP and you get the recommendations and you get the information you're seeking. Does this get shelled and then five years out where like, up, now we gotta do a new study to get, it's valuable only for a certain amount of time. I mean, you can't tell me that they're gonna do a study today and then 10 or 15 years, we don't get certain things done. It's gonna be that we can apply the information that we obtained from a study back in 2018 or 2019 to a project we're doing in 2029 or 2030, you know? You're right. My thought process would be that this would evolve with the study. You would then get the results. The select board and the trustees would sit down and talk about those results. And at that point decide, is this something that whether it involves fire departments or whether it involves public works or parks and rec, is this something we wanna pursue? And it'll be a price tag. And it won't be a small price tag, it'll be a price tag. So then the question becomes, probably the second question is if this were to proceed, where could you put it? Or put them? Or how do you, if public works in the town were to move and you had that space available, would you expand that for an expanded fire department so the fire department wouldn't have to move? There's a whole bunch of moving parts to this. But you then go to the next stage to say, okay, if we were gonna do a part of this or all of this, where would we put it? And then I think you have to look around to say, what's available? And you might start down that road. You might wanna tie up land so you have the land available to build something when the time comes, you wanna build it. You might say that it's time. But bond for these and let's go after fixing our facilities today rather than 20 years. If you postpone it long enough, you're absolutely right, study becomes less worth its merit. But if you don't have those, in the discussion of consolidation, if you don't have those answers early, it's kind of like where are we heading? Okay, I hear what you're saying now with this entity or this research group or whatever. When they come in, you expect them to provide also analysis of the growth and the community itself and say, this is where you should locate this. This would be the optimal location, seeing how things are developing with the town center, with the village. What's going on here? Your best scenario is to have something in this location here, have two instead of maintain two garages or two firehouses. To what extent do they do stuff? That's not that really, it's more just. We just put that into it because I think that- It's more of the specific building itself and the function of the building. That stage is almost at a point where you get the bright minds in the community to take a look and say, if we needed eight acres for a site that does these kinds of things, where can you find eight acres in the town and the village that would serve that purpose? And you're probably narrowed down to a half a dozen sites, maybe. I don't know, I'm guessing. And then you start to work through the pros and cons of that with the zoning and the planning boards and the staffs to work through to say, and at that point, it's also a public discussion. And that's kind of a whole second stage of a study. I think the first piece needs to be how big, how much is it gonna cost, what makes sense to combine, and quite honestly, in some cases, what are the needs? Are we, and I know this has come up in our consolidation discussions, are we duplicating things? That if we were to combine, we would not duplicate because we have a facility to do it. I'll be simplistic, but the Village Store saw, we store saw, two different locations. If you had one location, maybe the operational buildings are two locations, but if you had one location that was centrally located, is that a better solution than having it in two different locations? I don't have the answer to that, but I think once you identify how big, and you've gotta do some homework along those lines in terms of setback zones that would be able to take these facilities, so there's a little bit of that that's into it. But I think if you go too far into that, you're kind of jumping to an implementation stage that you haven't gotten to the point of discussing whether it's a good thing to do or not yet. Is this study strictly taking into account buildings and needs for new things, or are they gonna work at deferred maintenance nights and perhaps make recommendations of just refurbishing existing buildings versus building new stuff? At this point, it's more of a size what needs to be included, what's not included. I'll give you another example of what I'm thinking about. In the village, and we had a tour recently between the village and the town. In the village public works department, you cannot raise the bed of the truck to do maintenance. You have no lifts because it's not a taller building. Now, if the site was right, you could tear it down and build a building that's the right size. But is that site large enough to accommodate the village's needs for the next 30 years? I don't know that answer. I'd rather have somebody who's experienced with that come back to say, yeah, that would work. We could use that site. But I think if the, in my view, this is my personal view, the village would be not making the correct decision to say, we're gonna continue to use that present garage as it exists for the next 30 years. Because it's not set up for maintenance, it's old. Our building is starting to, it was put for a lot of money in addition to our building because the column's starting to rust out. I was built in 77. So there's certain, the sites could be used, but I'm not sure the buildings in their present condition meet what your needs are. But you won't know that when somebody comes back and says, your present garage is X thousand square feet. Given what you're doing, even today, you need Y square feet. So I understand that. And what I wanna know is, will the financial considerations of building new versus taking care of deferred maintenance and restoring what exists, because there may be some areas that are right-sized. And we may not need to do a thing to certain things. So will they take that into account? Will they make recommendations and say, that's fine. You might be in a roof on that one. Yeah, that part of it, yes. I would want them to have some sort of spectrum of investment. Here's your minimum investment to achieve your goals and here's like the sky's the limit. Because I don't think the public, when we go to them and say, we need to bond for three new buildings and here's why, I know the public's gonna come back and say, did you really look at what we already have and how we can best use what we've already have? And I wanna be able to answer that question with that report. And that is not entirely gonna be this report. Correct me if you can contribute to me, but part of it is, again, it's the spacers. And we're gonna figure out how much spacers we have. And then once that, how much space we need, once we have that report, that's when the better minds in town, that then essentially can take a step back and say, okay, here's what we have, here's what we need. Does it make sense to refurbish a roof or does it make sense to look at an acre site to put everything over it? And then that's when the, more of the financial analysis will come in in terms of refurbish first building. Thank you. So you're asking for us to approve this with the potential of future changes in your crystal ball, do you have an idea of what type of future changes you're thinking of might be in there? The select board also talked about we're referring to do the entire study all at once, including the Village Fire and Village Parks and Recs. So I'm thinking of, yeah, rewarding it to maybe get rid of the Addendum Board. I still think it's useful to have the cost of the four versus the six departments just to have it out there and take a look at that. But we can look at wrapping it into one entire study with two components as opposed to one study plus an addendum. It's a huge change, but it's a semantic something. It's probably short in that actually because a lot of it's repetitive and we can pull out that addendum piece and just say under the basic part, you're gonna do this in one, you're gonna do that in addition to look at these two additional things. So yeah, it's easy to do. See on that, just some clean up stuff, some grammatical things, nothing huge. Okay, so more semantic at this point. This says that you guys would be using the town's purchasing policy. I don't know what that is. So how would you solicit the proposals? Is there a pre-qualified pool? Is it gonna be open to whoever wants to? Or are you gonna go out and try and solicit specific vendors? I will be about talking about it a little bit today. It will still have to hash out exactly what we do, but it'll be most of the public will be on the town building websites. Then probably sent out to select firms that we know in the area that have done work that we've been comfortable with, but putting out there and seeing what we come back and then being able to choose somebody based on a different criteria of the purchasing policy. Okay, I would also echo what Laura had said, and I think everyone else has also agreed upon or mentioned about the need to include the Village Fire Department and the Village Recreation Department, especially as we are looking for consolidation. And when we're thinking about 30 years into the future, I can't see it without that. And then the only other thing is, I noticed a couple of times there were mentions of, this is more semantic again, town of Essex, but no mention of Village, as again, we're trying to consolidate analysis. Okay, yeah, we appreciate it. Are we ready for this? Yep, well, I don't know, any other discussion? Well, no, I just, the only thing I was gonna say is I really like this idea of proceeding like this, just in the sense that I think to have an outside agency or firm do the analysis rather than, we're trying to consolidate services in the community and we're very passionate about our community. And it's sometimes your passion to, compared to the old, you can't see the force of the trees, you're so passionate about something, you don't see the bigger picture sometimes because you're so focused. And I think if somebody that doesn't have that connection to the community, they can see it without, with clear eyes and not let their motions or historical presence change their opinion on something. So we're getting a really good information. I like that. I would make a comment too, that in response to how we're gonna ship it out, it is a public process. And so we'll make sure that that public process is followed. So while we do like do some direct mailings because we've had experience with some firms, we've had also website, newspaper, we've put it out so people who have the skills and that's when Tom's time to evaluate that process coming back in. Obviously firms or companies that have done similar studies along these lines, probably have a higher foot in the door, if you will, the company that has not done any of this type of work. You need the expertise to be able to look at this and look at it fairly and say, this is a good solution. Can I ask one question before we make the motion? When it comes time for the final decision to be made on whether or not we move forward with this study, will that be a decision by both trustees and select board? That's a good question, I would assume. If not, can I put it in the motion? I think because it's a joint study, I think it's probably best to be had at a joint meeting. Because we are allocating Village Dollar so we would have to say yes or no on every board. Yeah, we're the only ones that can say yes to Village Dollar. Okay, so I make a motion that the trustees authorize the staff to finalize an issue of request for proposals for building needs analysis with the change of moving the addendum study to the body of the proposal and have it be listed as you made it. Two phases or two sections. Do I hear a second? Second. Lane's seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Three. Great. Thank you guys. By the way, as you can imagine, a lot of work on Dennis's part and his staff and Greg and others to put together this and get it rolling. So, and that's just the beginning. Yeah, thank you for that. What's going on? And we also, and with due credit, we also checked with Parks and Rec, we checked with the fire department, we checked with the village, with Ricky. So we tried to include, before you guys saw it, at least is this kind of what you thought you want to cover in terms of where we're headed? So we tried to do a full circle. Thank you. Thanks for that. And some tours of some local buildings and other communities of what they're doing. Here you go. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Okay, we are on now to the resolution for Stephen Dunning. I'll let you take it, Evan. In your packets is a resolution for officer Stephen Dunning. Can you pull that up, please? Thanks for what you're doing. We did this at the town a couple of weeks ago. Mr. Dunning has been with us, oh, I think since he was 16 somewhere in there, he was working summers, I think he started, or eight, 17, 18, he started doing biking, bike officer and stuff, as you'll see in here. Exemplary officer, he won awards, he was the rad instructor, police medical officer, town exposure control officer, amongst other duties. He also earned a matter of value from the departments. It is the department's highest honor for risking his life to pull a citizen from a burning building. He did conclude his career at nine years, only because he had to move to another state for, I believe, was it girlfriend or wife? Whichever one, they're probably not watching, so I don't wanna make any trouble for him. And so he's in Pennsylvania, I got a job as a police officer there, but he would have spent a lot more time here. So with that, we are looking for the village board to acknowledge that in this resolution. Any other questions, comments? I think this is an honor and a privilege to be able to sign this resolution. I've forgot the Chief has since walked in. Do you have anything to add, Chief? Do you have anything to add, Chief? Because, okay, thank you. I think I certainly will, I'm very pleased in honor to sign this, and I'm very happy that he had his career here. Other comments? Do I hear a motion? I'll move that the trustees approve the resolution and appreciation of Stephen Dunning. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Fantastic, I will pass this around. Thank you. Okay, and now, while we're talking about dedications, Evan, we have a 2018 annual report dedication. Yes, well, unfortunately, Mr. George Dunbar Jr. passed away this past January. I know that all of you are more familiar with Mr. Dunbar than I am or others, but they were contacted for a picture to potentially put in as the 2018 annual report dedication and it just seemed appropriate, but we do need to ask and seek your approval. Boy, I worked with George and knew George really well. He's a terrific guy, excellent trustee, loved S-Extension. Served in the Navy. Served in the Navy, longest English career, and I had never known it. I went to George's funeral, and I realized he was a native of Vermont. Terrific guy, terrific guy, and again, a great honor to have the annual report dedicated to him. Other comments, questions? I think it's very appropriate. Do I hear a motion? I move the trustees approve the draft 2018 annual report dedication. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Fantastic. Thank you. We will let his family know. Yes, and thanks for gathering all that information together. Thanks to Patty. Okay, so we will now move on to discuss issues with the multi-use safety path, and I know do we have a couple of people, one person, and do you want to speak now, or do you want to listen to us talk a little bit and I can give you an opportunity to comment or whatever. I'm happy to speak now, and then just. Fanta, why don't you go ahead? You want to share? Just introduce yourself, please. Joe Cutterly. Yeah, have a seat, yeah. Joe Cutterly, I live right on Grove Street, right in the junction. Can you spell it? Oh, K-U-D-R-L-E. My wife and I, we've lived here for 11 years now, actually just about 11 years. And we've seen the village, I mean, obviously change and cosmetically for the better, I think. But I kind of say cosmetically, and I think back to the previous report where they talked about the rusted out columns they needed to fix. I think some of that idea has spread to the path and how it was constructed. It really just put a cosmetic fix on the issues that were going on back there. I mean, I've now called the police countless, not countless, probably about five or six times for folks drinking back there, people playing on the retaining wall, which is located directly behind where my house is. I've found probably about four or five needles over the past two years back there. And the same issues are continuing. And I mean, God bless the police, they do a wonderful job. But I hate having to call them out for these little things that I think if the village and kind of more people started working together could be fixed. It was sad when I had one of the police officers out there and I was talking about a gentleman that I could set my watch to that drinks on our retaining wall. And he said, oh, that's so-and-so, gave the name. He just likes to drink, he's harmless. And I understand it's a small town, people grow up together, but it's kind of a Mayberry kind of feel to it. And I think that just really kind of sends a bad message to the kids that are back there and kind of everything that's going on. And these problems aren't gonna get fixed. And even last night, my wife and I were walking down an ivy lane, it spread down to ivy lane, it to me looked like a fish show or a Grateful Dead show. There was some people kind of living out of a van and had set up a little encampment and we're drinking and just hanging out. And it worries me, I mean, I could go on and on. And I mean, the least that can be done, I know this can't be fixed. I mean, putting up some trash cans, we've asked for those along the path, maybe some signs along the retaining wall. I talk to kids all the time, you can't ride your bikes on the retaining wall. It's not something to play on. I mean, God forbid somebody falls off that cracks their head open, the village is gonna have a lawsuit. And as I said, maybe some signs back there for no loitering. I know there's discussion of maybe putting some sort of cameras back there. Although I've now read that there's a potentially a mural gonna be put up back there. That's crossed the tracks. Crossed the tracks of the heaven. Nice view as they sit and drink beer. The girls are not gonna change anything I don't think about this. But I mean, I don't wanna be a nimby, but it is, I mean, it is in my backyard. And I'm one of the two owner-occupied houses that is directly about the path. So it's frustrating. Yeah, okay. What, you mentioned some solutions. So what would you think are, I mean, and don't be shy. It's not that we're gonna do the necessary things. Oh, well, I mean. We're probably so pleased to see that. I think starting small, but even just putting trash cans back there, I can't tell you how depressing it was. I know the school brought down a good number of kids and some faculty, they cleaned up all the cigarette butts and trash all on the path. And a group of us went out during green up day and did along the tracks. Two months later, it's back to what it was. And it's sad to see that. And as I said, maybe some signs that just say, you know, no loitering or potentially you're under kind of watch, I don't wanna get too big brothery, but it's open season back. I mean, the retaining wall is basically put almost a lazy boy for the people to congregate and just hang out instead of being back in the woods like they used to be more away from my property. Now they're right up against my property and we're getting trash thrown in our backyard, cigarette butts. We've got our fence vandalized and it bothers me that if I say something to them over the fence and you know, hey, I don't want you drinking back here. What are they gonna do to retaliate? So it makes me not want to do anything. I don't wanna live in fear of people doing things to my property. Any questions? No, I have a lot of comments too, but I'll wait. Yes, and poor Lori's had that get dozen of emails from me and as Darby and I think Evan probably was linked in on some in the school and I've talked to the principal and the superintendent. I've walked by there many times so I'm familiar with the area. I know that public works goes out there every week and they mow and they do some things. I know that being the new guy, the village through a grant, we spent a lot of money making that situation prettier. But there are still some limitations to what we can do or are able to do, but there are some suggestions. And I know the chief of police is here as well and he can add in his staffing issues of being able to get over there as often as he'd like as well. Well, why don't we just have trustee discussion right now and then we can maybe open it up again. Let's do that, okay? Lori, you said you had some suggestions. Yeah, I'm gonna reiterate a little bit of what Joe said, but... Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. So you all know I walk and I try to walk an hour a day in the community and almost every day I'm on that path and it is the only place in the community that I will hesitate walking up. And if I start down the path and I usually start down at the other end, not the central beverage end, if I can see someone hanging on the retaining wall, which I often do, I hesitate because one, no one can see anything unless you're right on the path. And I know what people are doing when they're hanging there. So I will say I think it's a safety issue. There are three lights out right at the retaining wall, damaged, I'm sure it was rocks thrown at them, I'm sure it's intentional. And I would like to go a step further in some of the suggestions and I just for the other trustees benefit, I did send them to Evan and George already, but I would like us to see us physically do something with the retaining wall because you don't see people hanging anywhere else. So I threw out a couple ideas. I have absolutely no idea if they're able to do, but one would be simply take the fencing we already have there and put it in front of the retaining wall so no one can get on it. So you just fence it off and put signs up. Or can we physically take off the concrete top of the retaining wall that I don't think is a fixed and do some type of plantains or vines or something that basically you're never gonna be able to get on it. I mean, again, I don't know. And I think there was one other way throughout there. So I just think we've talked about this now for a couple of years. It is better for our community, I think that we have the pass in. I think it's cut down on some of what was going on there, it's still going on. And now it truly is a safety hazard because we're saying to people, please walk on our path, but there's some stuff going on. And the trustees? The only other thing that I would add is now that our son is confident on a bike, we've gone through that area quite a bit, at least six or seven times and the overwhelming majority of the time, there is somebody there and twice our son has gone, he's seen somebody say, can we stop? Can we go around? And so he at eight doesn't wanna go through that far when he sees what has gone on there. Yeah, I would only suggest that probably we could ask community development, we could ask Robin to research what could happen. He might be able to more easily come up with some ideas about how to seal it off and prevent. I think we, I personally think that's what should happen. It does invite people to sit on it. It's a perfect height. And it's just where it folds in so you can't see. Where you can't take them either end. And I'm also wondering if we can't do something with just those particular lights that you put, replace the glass with flexibility, you do something that makes them look proof. There probably are a whole bunch of fixes that we could, and with a range of costs that we could probably have him look into. That'd be great. I think it's time. Yeah, but I don't know that that's necessarily gonna fix everything in terms of the physical, physically changing it. Are there other things that we can do? I don't have good suggestions other than locking it up at the dark. Right, but it's not even after dark. Right, yeah. That's a thing. I mean sadly, it's in the middle of the day. I don't lock there at dark. Yeah. I don't know if we've talked about, I know people have brought up putting garbage cans there. Yeah. And Evan, you're saying that public works is there weekly doing some kind of maintenance each day, each week? Can we put some garbage cans in there? Yeah, that's okay. Something to look at, it is difficult because there's bollards that are in the way of getting a vehicle on the path. Yeah. And it is a couple blocks, depending on where you're putting garbage cans. I can tell you that if it's not exactly where somebody wants it, they'll just litter next to it or wherever they are. But we can certainly look at some of those suggestions and ideas. The chief and I have had a couple brief conversations about getting the bike patrol there more often, but obviously the winter, the fall and winter, we are probably days away from having the students use it much more in the coming weeks. So we'll have to get our heads around some other issues of that nature. And we've always been talking about staffing and trying to get the police department up to the staffing levels. We need them so they can get back to, instead of going call to call, doing patrol and getting to areas that need attention. The other thing I'd be concerned with is, depending upon who and what, changing that area may only serve to move the problem somewhere else. And so one of the things we wanna talk about is Howard Center and who's over there and is there any. If it's a homeless thing, if it's a mental illness thing, if it's a drug addiction thing, we have the resources at the right place at the right time. So you're just not moving them to IV or moving them to railroad or moving them to somewhere else that then we'll just deal with it there or move it again. So a two question, actually going to chief and then I'll point to that. I agree with you. I mean, this is a broader issue than just, we have people hanging out on a multi-use safety path, but we have people hanging out on a walking path, doing things that are illegal. And so if they move, I at least wanna keep that path safe for the people who are walking on it and live near it. Chief, I have a question. Am I? Yeah, great. If we put up no ordering signs, would that help with anything? No, because you don't have a ordering order. Ordinance. And of course, there's not a violation of state law or law that's now. I can tell you, we're working on, we had the incident a couple of year ago over at the fairgrounds, working on some vagrancy language. And I'm hoping within a couple of months, we'll have something for the select board and you to look at. Of course, it's a very touchy subject. If they're drinking over there, we can go over and tell them they have to leave. I can't tell them if they can't hang out. So I think making it physically, not an area that they can sit on, I think it's gonna go a long ways. Because if they can't sit to drink, they're not, typically not gonna stand there and they're gonna move on. So I think that's a great idea. I think having garbage cans and a little servicing on this top, I think is a good idea. Yes, we'll have community outreach folks. If we have someone down there that's dealing with alcohol or drug issues, we'd have a great success with that. You know, noise, basically the standard is screaming and yelling. So if it's someone down there, fortunately it's sitting on the wall, having a conversation with someone else, they're not in violation of the ordinance. We can't, and then our big brother tell them, hey, hit the road. So we gotta, again, we can look at some new language in reference to vagrancy and that type of stuff. But right now, basically give us a call if we got a violation. I think making it not a place that people wanna hang out is the right answer. I think we like the fact that people use the pass to walk and bike and do whatever, maybe not just the congregating part and probably not the congregating under your window. Why don't we ask Robin to research options to either reconfigure, maybe give us a bunch of options, several reconfiguration of the retaining walls to a camp he sat upon, or fencing it off, or X. We don't know one, but he might have some suggestions, I'm sure, in the catalog of community development, urban area stuff, there's probably all kinds of things, ideas. He has a landscape architect. Yeah, so he can figure something out. He'll tell you that. And then you're gonna need, you'll need garbage cans that can't be moved. They'll have to be somehow around the changing place. Well, the base, yeah, the base will have to be, and you also have to understand, if I understand it correctly, it is, well, I know it is adjacent to the railroad. You do not want anything that is movable, possible onto those tracks, so whatever is put there is gonna have to be extremely heavy and or bolted down. Yeah, yeah, sure. So I know that there, it sounds like there's not a lawyer ordinance, but if the retaining couple walls is a structure that's meant to retain and it's not a structure that's meant to be used as furniture, could a sign go up that says, this is not a place to sit and you should not use it for that. I mean, in a sense, it's kind of putting up a similar sign to no loitering, but it's staying within the frame of the law, I would think, that this is forbidden to sit on, because it's a load bearing structure or something that I'm not quite sure about. We can, you mean to put a sign up now before we do something, that's an idea. Yeah, just. I would say the sign might temporarily hold them off, but I think it probably long run, we wanna make up. Oh, no, I was reading, yeah. Joe, you can put up a sign, but you can't enforce it. So that, a sign for a sign sake, I think, I think we'd like to look at several solutions and maybe try some things. Sign pollution is not exactly, it's a pretty path, it's, from all accounts, much better than it had been. Let's let our, It was a pen. Let me, well, let's let the staff work with some ideas and we'll come back. What I know of limestone caps is usually they're not structural, they are decorative, it depends on how it was affixed to that wall, and so we can look at certain things. And I'll be able to get this with staff this week with Rick Jones of Public Works, with Robin, with the chief here and others and see what we can come up with. And I'm sure we can, and then we can go back to the light manufacturer and see if there is different lenses type things that can be put onto the heads of those lights. Thank you everyone, I think that's, let's, we'll take this on to our next meeting and within, I wanna say our next meeting will probably have, but it may not be, it may be the meeting after that, but within the next two meetings we'll have some solutions and so just keep your, and you certainly welcome to come and make additional comments in any way at that point. Everyone go do this. I don't think we need to vote on this. Any other comments about this? All good. Elaine, would it be okay if we do the old switcheroo and I would like to make a motion that we switch item F, senior center discussion with item E discussed applying for animating infrastructure grant. Absolutely. So I will make that motion. I'll second. You'll second. Any further discussion? All in favor? All right. So we can now have the discussion about the senior center now, because I think we have some folks in the audience who have been waiting a while. And so let me introduce the subject. So we're going to talk about the senior center right now. And I want to make it clear. We're not making any kinds of decisions about doing something with the senior center. We would like to later on in September or October have a discussion as we approach next year's, writing next year's budget. Have with among ourselves a discussion about where what we see is the future growth of the senior center. How big do we want to see it get? What kind of membership does it presently have? How big do we want to see the membership grow? What kind of programs are currently being offered? What kinds of programs we might want to change? We've talked about integrating it with maybe other programs around the village and the town. But we wanted to take a moment when before we have that discussion to identify what kinds of data do we want to collect? What kinds of things do we want to know before we have that talk? And so that's really what this is about. But I think what I would like to do maybe is for us to have a little bit of a discussion among the trustees and then we'll take a break and I'll ask for a show of hands for any of you folks to comment. Unless someone has a comment right now that you really want to get out. But would it be okay if we just proceed as we had planned to talk a little bit about this? Yes, yes, ma'am. My husband and I have written up a little speech about the senior center. We've been members of the senior center now for close to five years. Oh, well why don't you give it? You could just state your name and I'm very happy to hear you talk. I'm Colleen Giancola. I've lived in Essex now for close to 28 years. We moved here from Colchester and we joined the senior center about five years ago. And so this is what my husband and I have put together to for you the board of trustees to think about and how it's gonna affect what decisions you make about the senior center, how it's gonna affect the seniors in the Essex area. Yes. The center has grown tremendously since Mike and I have joined. And we have seen many members leave, I mean have passed away. We've seen many seniors that need the extra care that they want somebody to talk to. They want to be with somebody. They don't want to be in their homes by themselves and have to live in four walls without having any interaction with other seniors. So this is what, this is a little blurb that my husband and I have put together and I'll read it for you. The senior center is a vital and integral part of our community. For many seniors living alone, it is a wonderful opportunity to socialize and interact with other seniors by taking part in many various activities. Some as simple as a card game and some definitely more involved but more stimulating and enjoyable. Such as a bus trip to Lake Winnipesaki in the Hancher to see a live performance of a one-time Broadway show. Also in-state trips sponsored by the senior center. As a resident of Essex, we have been immensely fortunate to have the facilities we have and are extremely grateful to the town and village for the use of these facilities, especially to have access to two senior vans which transport many seniors on a daily basis to vital doctor appointments, shop for groceries and transportation to the senior center for seniors who either do not have their own car or are unable to drive. Many would be isolated in their own homes with no interaction with other seniors. I honestly don't know what my fellow seniors would do without access to these vans. The daily operation of our senior center is made possible by a lot of hard dedicated work by our present activities coordinator and many, many hours of senior volunteers. It is our hope that the trustees will continue to support our senior center and they have done it in the past and will always consider it a vital part of our community. We thank the Board of Trustees for allowing us to express the feelings of many members of our senior community. And as you all know, the senior population in Vermont, our state is one of the states with the highest senior population. And this is a big concern of our senior center that our senior center continues to grow and be prosperous for the seniors in our community and in the area. Thank you so much. Do you have a copy of that? Yes, I do. If you could, could you give us a copy and you can maybe include it in the reading file for the meeting here. Thank you and that was very eloquent and I appreciate that. Thank you. That was a very good input. Thank you. Anyone else have something to talk about right now? Okay, so what I wanted to do and I think this touched upon some of the many of the things and I think it's a good stimulus. I think one of the concerns we wanted to discuss was the senior vans. Do we have enough vans? How many trips? So why don't I go around them? I'll sort of catalog my thoughts but then let's go around the table. So some of the things that I was thinking of, what do we want to know? How many trips are vans making now? Do we need more vans? That sort of thing. So that might be one of the questions. What exactly is the operation and the cost and how busy are the vans? So we can get a sense of what we want to increase that or not. I would like to add that one of the thoughts I had is and this is a bit of a piece of work for staff but I would like to have staff look into what other communities are doing for senior centers. I certainly know that most of the smaller communities are not doing anything. That we are fortunate that we have the resources to be able to offer this but some of the other communities in Chittenden County certainly are offering have senior centers. So I know it might be interesting for us to see what they do just to get a sense of how we might do things differently or if there's something that we want to do differently. I would like to know membership. How is membership growing? So we get a sense of the need. How do we anticipate how big is this going to get? In the coming years, the next five years, 10 years and then how many more seniors? What kind of talking about space? So those are a few of the things but I'll throw it open to more discussion now. Just real quick, I agree with your comments, George. I think as much as we discuss the topic of evaluating the services with Denny and Greg earlier and doing that at a joint meeting, I think we can talk about it here but I think this is also something that we should be talking about with the select board as both entities because it's something that the community as a whole is having to face. As the woman said, there's a large population of seniors in our state relative to the total population and I don't foresee that big decline in that. I don't think anything's going to continue to grow so I think that's something to look at and what is the future for it right now? We had our last meeting at the fire station. We're going to close off that access from Pearl Street through the fire station, a senior bus to get over there and how they're getting out of that facility, something to address and like you said, the use would be nice to get the sense of where these people are. It's one thing to have a number of people using it. I'd like to know where they're coming from specifically as opposed to just the number itself, okay? In relation to the number of members, I'd love to know, not just now but I'd love to know last year, 2016, ideally going back to 2015, so you can see how the directory has gone along those lines of where the residents are. Where are the members' residents? Additionally, the American Community Survey does break out the population by town of Essex and village of Essex Junction, so being able to see those changes as well to see how is the population growing among the potential age pool and so we can try to get some kind of an idea as to where this is going. And then along the lines of cost, just the change in services as well, what has been initiated, what has been canceled, and then compared to other communities as well. So the trip to Lake Winnipesaki, are those the kinds of things that other communities are doing as well? Is there something unique to Essex? I mean, all this said, there's also a significant amount of research out there around the brain and how engaging in both social and mentally stimulating activities can help to prevent things like Alzheimer's and other types of health risks that we don't want more members of our community facing. Can you go back one? No. I know that you said what has been canceled, something... Or discontinued. What? Programs or services. Programs or services that have been canceled. Right, if out-of-state trips had been canceled at one point in time and then started again to see if that happened in 2016 and 2017, they started up again and now there's more membership. Those kinds of things, are there certain services that are attracting more people, more members, or is there potentially just a growth happening because the growth of our community? And the growth of this age population? I don't know, I've even heard comments, people have moved to the community because of the seniors. And if there has ever been any kind of a satisfaction survey or any kind of membership survey to see how the members feel about the services, there's any data on that that'd be great to have as well. Just to keep going. I would add, everything is great. I would add to what other senior centers offer, I would like to put a plug in that we look at Montpelier specifically. I would also like to wherever we look, we also ask them as much as they're able to provide their financials. So is there a membership? What is the municipality put in? How are the financials managed? Look at, and Robin might have something on this, but what are we expecting for housing growth for seniors in the community? I know we're putting a building in down there, but what are the expectations around that? I'd like to, with your idea of any satisfaction data, I'd like to do a survey of the seniors prior to this next conversation we have and get their input of what they think a senior center could offer. That should be pretty simple. And then I'd like to set up a time that this board or both boards together however we want to do it talks to the activities director and gets her input on what she's seeing and would like to see. Okay. Let me just interrupt Elaine, I'm gonna get into it next. Allie, do you want to join us up here? Would you like to join us here by any? I don't want to put you on the spot, but. Well, you did. Oh. He can say no. It's okay. Because you might, I'm gonna guess, you might have some ideas of your own. Elaine? So a couple of other data points I would want to learn about is a dues history, how much it has cost over time to be a member of the center. Some population projections for 55 and up for the village and town and Bridgetman County. I'd be curious to know what the long distance driving needs are of the center versus local doctor's appointments, renting a big bus to go on a tour versus using a senior bus to go for doctor's appointments and grocery shopping. I'd like to also assess in the community the meals options. We have the Essex Eats Out, we have Meals on Wheels, we have lunches at the EJRP. I'd like to have some kind of idea of what the nutritional and meal options are for seniors in the community currently. I think that is all. Okay. Yes, thank you. One other thing that just occurred to me to add in here is current staffing. We have, Allie is sort of the director overall overseer and then we have Luanne who's the coordinator but does Luanne need more help? Does she need some other additional part-time help or something? Not necessarily going to do it. Right, but with that to understand what the volunteer hours are, we can document what the volunteer hours are that we used. And if I can add one, can we also get a review for everyone's sake, the structure. So village department according to a town employee resolution versus contract. Just kind of the structure of the department itself so we're all starting with the same basic knowledge. Okay, the organizational structure. Yes, yes, sorry. Thought you meant the building. No, okay, no. We'll go on the topic of discussion. Allie, do you have anything to add to this? Any of your thoughts? Any, because we're looking at it from outside in but you might have some suggestions about what other things we might want to think about. Pretty much everything on your combined list of items has started being talked about, has had moments of discussion and resolution and has kind of had a stop sign in front of it because of resources or where we are or the path we're trying to go down as we all try to align and be one eventually, possibly. We're all happy to get the information and the facts for both boards to review. A big recent discussion was that I had with Luanne along with some other people was really trying to see, do some better planning going into the new budget season. As some members of the public chimed in, there's a lot happening over there and there's a ton of volunteer hours and a couple volunteers who are Luanne's right-hand helpers have had things in their personal life come up which puts more on Luanne as the activities coordinator of really making sure everything operates smoothly and we're all stretched a little thin but it's this great opportunity with the growth that's happening with the center and the van needs and I mean just yesterday was, no, today was senior day at the fair and thankfully we had a mini van recently repaired that I was able to pull one of our staff members, our drivers from Indian Brookgate House for a couple hours to then drive for groceries just because it happened to be a really busy day on a two van day with two vans in our fleet and the shorter day doing the full day so we had two vans full day plus a van doing about two hours of grocery shopping so that was those sort of things come up on a whim that happened yesterday so that we wouldn't necessarily have to say no to people who need to get food in the fridge or have fun at the fair and I think there was an event happening at the fair in addition to senior day today. There was a luncheon. There was a luncheon and we don't always, not all of us know ahead of time all the extra things added to one day makes a lot of sense but we may not always have the resources available and if I couldn't get a driver for today, something would have had, people would have had to be told no. That's just one example so things like that come up and between the phone volunteers who are scheduling these crazy days of appointments to the programs and the trips and everything happening there is this need of a variety for different interests and activity levels with the membership and a lot of this was done just with volunteers only a couple years ago and the agreement was that this paid person come in part time and in a short amount of time that staff member, paid staff member has become full time and she is working hard in a lot of hours and HR, the HR side of it, Travis and others are making sure that we're doing things properly too. So we also have sometimes saying no so that we as a municipality are getting in trouble on the labor side of things as well. But I think that's kind of what prompted this some of this discussion. It was like, wow, we saw it as a part, we saw the land's position as part time and the senior center had a relatively, and I wanna say small, it was smaller and boom, it just sort of expanded much faster and so that signals to us that there's a great need, great success and great opportunity but also do we need to kind of say, let's take a time out and re-evaluate where this is all going and do we need more help? Do we need more part time help? Again, to go back to your point about volunteers, I know from, we know from experience on this board, volunteers are fabulous but they're volunteers and they can one week decide, you know what, I can't come into work anymore, I gotta go do something else. So when you start to depend on them and all of a sudden they're not there, so do we need to be thinking a little bit more about an additional part time staff person, something like that? And I wanted to do this in anticipation of the upcoming budget season. So in case we wanna start putting more resources towards the senior center, now is the time to start thinking about it so that we can see that happen in the budgets. Sure, and you know, in relation to the space needs assessment happening, from my perspective, you know, it's not just about the youth programs and the adult fitness programs and those sort of space needs are the fact that we're crammed into, you know, a small space or could be co-locating in a space that still won't fit all of us. Sort of thing, you know, there's been thoughts out there and you know, expressed that the parking here has always, you know, I've been to a couple of these meetings and now that box open and yeah, we're trying. We're talking about the senior van with the closure of that one wing and how it's gonna work out and Ricky and I have been talking about working that out but then other space opportunities coming up, you know, we may not have really a lot going on for programs on the non-senior aged aspect, but if we had a building that we weren't paying rent for, how can one building even be utilized in two different ways when the senior center is empty right now but we could have Zumba happening or a parents night out happening on a Friday night where parents are going out and we're watching the kids. But during the day, so it's a multi-use sort of building but it's one building and that space needs sort of things so that's been brought up. And again, how is parking happening? People always come to me saying, it'd be great to have a park here. It's like, well, that's great but there's no parking for a park and if you can't get to it besides a park, you need to plan for that. So it's, you know, this process and it's definitely on our brains and we're trying to make things, you know, come to fruition at least look like we're gonna really do something that the information could need to get but we don't have sky's limit to keep saying yes. But it's all great and it's a great problem, right? No, it's a good problem to have. It's not a bad, it's a good, we have a handout here. Yes. I'd like to make one point that we need to be aware of. Sure, your name please. Senior center. Could you mention, say your name for the customer? My name is Ann Marie Dennis. I've been a member of the senior center long before the bank came on board. Yeah. The senior center has its own operating budget. We raise the money. It's not a department money and how you spend it. The programs we have, we fund ourselves. All the trips we do, we fund ourselves. We pay for the bus drivers ourselves. It is not something that's paid for by anyone else. And it's our money and I feel very insulted that someone's gonna say what programs we're gonna have. We have a program committee, we make those decisions. I don't wanna be kept out of the loop. This is our livelihood now. Right. This is our life and it's our money. So don't automatically assume because we're a department. Yeah, we're a department. Yes, you pay for our housing. Yes, you pay for our staff person. You're in charge of our staff person, not our operations. This is ours. Okay. I don't want that taken away from us. Oh, we weren't gonna take it away from you. We're fine to see if we can help you out. You're talking about programs all that, well, wait a minute. You need to be included. Okay, sure. Yep. Elaine, did you have, I cut you out. I just wanted to make an observation or just confirm what I'm thinking is the, we've asked for a lot of data here. Yes. Yeah, I know. That's what I know. You've asked for basically a very long study. Well, right, so exactly that. So what I'm wondering is what is our intention here because we could have a conversation that might temporarily address a pinch in capacity or we could have a conversation that talks about strategic planning for senior services in the village and the town for the next five to 10 years. What are we doing? I think the latter. Okay. Don't you? I think that would be a great thing to do but I think this is more than asking Ali and Brad to go get us some statistics. I'm wondering if we should have a more serious conversation with the select board and say, can we allocate some money to bring someone in to do this for us so that we have an objective opinion who, someone who may be an expert in assessing these kinds of programs and it may not be that expensive. I have no idea. But this feels bigger than we initially thought. Yeah, it's bigger. But let's just quickly go back through it and see if we can't see. I understand what you're saying. At a certain point, here's a couple of hours of phone and computer internet work to put together some numbers. All of a sudden it becomes, no, here's a week's worth and you've pushed it beyond over the limit. So I think if we, but we can go back over the list and see what we think. But I do think that the idea was eventually to have a discussion with the select board because it's like a shared resource. And I think that probably what I would anticipate is short-term and long-term. What do we wanna do right now? What do we see, what changes if any that we wanna see help or additional bus, something like that, that we wanna see now and also, but long-term as well. Laurie? I'm glad you brought that up. Because I think that's a really valid point. And in my mind, it is not for short-term, it is not just the pinch for in, maybe with staffing or senior vans or resources. But to the point of the last speaker, it is the structure. So when we signed a resolution with the senior center to have a become a village department and then poor Allie was the only, I mean, it made sense to put it into town recs and parks. It all happened fast. And I don't think with any conversation about structure or policy, who's paying for the programs, who's determining the programs, who's paying this Allie, who sets the policy? And so I would like to see that come into the short-term along with resources. And then this is the second phase. But I think the structure of what we're dealing with is really, really important to the success of this program. Okay. It was center, I should say. Okay, I get it. Dan? Dan. Long lines what Laurie and Allie brought up. What the woman in the back brought up about their programs, their paying for their programs, we're providing the facility and the administrator, the director of the program. It's also a matter of means. What are the means of the individuals? I mean, some seniors that are utilizing the programs may have barely enough money to pay for the programs she says that they're paying for. Others may have, you know, be able to go and do whatever they want. It's nothing to them from the cost. So it's, you gotta look at that. What could they do if they had more money? You know, sure, they can be their own programs and they're paying for them, but for somebody to pay $20 for a trip, that may be a big burden. You know, the thing that they can't afford to do. They're limited. They have fixed budgets, fixed income, they've been off just a social security check. So that's something to look at right there is what are the monetary means that these people have for them to afford? In that program fund, so to speak, is how the senior centers operate and similar to how separately the Parks and Rec Department's program fund is also operated. Those who participate and pay into the programs sustain the programs and pay it. So it's taking that burden off taxpayers, right? So that was done eight, nine years ago on the hour done. It's very similar on this side with the center and how that's done. But in all aspects of programming, you have this balance of wanting to provide affordable programming or free programming to satisfy kind of general activity. And then, yes, have these other aspects. But we shouldn't be losing any money on that either. So going, I'm just saying it as an example, going to Lake Winnipesaki, you know, Luan budgets. Okay, the bus cost me this much, the tickets cost me this much, the meal is on their own, but we're gonna stop at this place. This is how much I need to charge and she needs to fill it, you know? If we're one or two people short of filling the premiere bus, it's still gonna go, you know? It's why cancel for 35 people when you're missing two more to fill the bus? Whatever the number is. But we're not gonna really be losing any because then she's gonna be depleting her fund of what she's budgeting for for everything else because the ones that are making the money are helping pay for all the ones that aren't making money or free or the creamer and stuff in the fridge and, you know, the supplies of the center. But that being said, the program fund is still approved by the select board and the program fund of the senior center is still approved by the trustees. So it is participant money, but it is part of the program, it is part of the budget approval process. I don't understand why. That's not. So it is, the budget that Luanne does put together is presented and is approved by the trustees. You may approve it, we raise the money, it's our money, and we determine what programs we're gonna have. I mean, you may approve it, but you haven't talked to us about it either. I mean, yes, all this is new and we're all thrown into it, but we were told we're gonna be in department of our own. And now all of a sudden we're thrown under another department, we're told we can't do what we want with our own budget, we're told we can't do what we want with our staff. I mean, what's going on here? This excited, I'm so pissed right now, this is not right, this almost feels like a dictatorship that someone's tried to tell me what to do. Well, I'm sorry, we don't mean to make you feel that way. And we're not, I don't think we're trying to tell you, if I could just give you an example, can I give you an example? The village and the town both have recreation departments. Right. And we give each recreation department out of village funds, the village recreation department, we give them quite a bit of money to run so that they know they have this much money to operate with the coming year. Right. To pay their staff, to pay benefits, but they know that they're going to have all these programs that they're gonna, how much money. So that's separate, but when we approve their budget, we have to do an estimate overall of how much, generally speaking, how much money they're gonna be taking in and how much money they're gonna be sending out. Because it's just the way local government works, but we don't dictate to them, we don't tell the recreation department, here's how many tennis lessons you can offer, here's how many swimming. They make those decisions independently, but just for the sake of bureaucracy, so to speak, they have to come to us with the budget that we look at and we approve. And that's kind of what we're talking about. What is the baseline funding that we need to supply to the senior center? For example, Luann's salary, resources for just the, keeping the lights on in the center, operating the buses, those sorts of things. What is that basic funding? And then we understand that a lot of the programs, the seniors are gonna be paying for themselves and they're gonna be making those decisions themselves. We're not really talking about getting involved in that, but we're saying we wanna have a baseline funding support for the center to make sure that it continues to operate and whether programs increase or decrease how they change what members pay for, those are kind of independent decisions that are being made ongoing in the center, but not controlled by us. Do you understand what I mean? I understand, okay. This is how it's supposed to work. In actuality, it's not happening that way because some other department is in control of our staff who does not know understand senior needs and sets restrictions based upon what there are other staff people do. It's not working, I'm saying. It's not working. We need some other solution. It's just not working trying to tell us we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this, because every other staff person in the municipality does it that way. That doesn't fit how we run. It doesn't fit what our needs are and it hasn't been working. I think that's why we're here today talking about this. We're gonna try to solve this problem, but we do have to apply some common standards and boundaries around what all of our staff do. There are HR regulations, there are labor regulations, there are capacity issues. So we don't want you to feel like the things that hinder us administratively are also hindering your program. We're gonna try to work out how to make sure that we can follow the law and satisfy the needs of the senior service. That's why we're here today. So please don't feel like you're not being heard because this is a sticky problem and it's gonna take some time to resolve it, but we are starting that process right now. Thank you. Where does the budget, Jeanine Cody, where does the budget come from for the senior vanity, driving for seniors? It comes from Essex Town. It comes from the Essex Town budget, to which it's a little bit. Is it not coming from a grant? No, no, ma'am. But where does that grant money go to that was given to us for senior busing? The grant, I'm not sure which grant money you're talking about. There might be some additional grant money you get. I thought there was one that was set up for senior busing. Yeah, for the senior vans. For the senior vans. So the seniors could have from eight to four, five days a week for their needs. So it's an agreement between CC, it's currently from Ron, an agreement between CCTA or whatever they call themselves now and the town of Essex that outlines the parameters of the use of the senior vans, correct? Okay, so in other words, the senior van is not really senior vans only use. It's whoever the town wants to use them for. It's whatever's outlined in that agreement. So in the lease agreement, it is under the idea was to transport individuals 60 plus. And it was our parameter of what we wanted to make that as a priority. And this started 25, 30 years ago. And there have been changes along the way because the village operated one and the town operated one. And at one point the village, the blue van went to the town. And so our department operates the two vans and it's GMT, Green Mountain Transit, is the one that submits an annual request for vehicles, whether it's for our municipality, SSTA, I think they do the cider ones and they could be vans, they could be regular four-wheeled vehicles. But the agreement does state that because we have the vans and we do pay a lease to have those vans, that they can be used for other things besides just seniors because we have them. And to keep them, I mean, they do run a lot of miles every day. But if we need them for something else, that's going to be cost saving, then we can utilize them for that. And for example, so I know where you're probably going with this and I want to make sure that the information is clear. So for example, we hosted the Champlain Valley Swim League this summer at San Antonio Pool and that brought in over 600 swimmers plus their family members. San Antonio Pool does not have parking for that many. And so the van was used for shuttling spectators and swimmers from Essex Middle School to San Antonio Pool Day. There was a time and this worked out last year. And so we were thinking it would work again this year is that there were a couple of kids who needed to be picked up and brought to a one drop location and possibly a back and forth. And it was within the community because for the most part besides the five or so out of Essex community locations, the van stayed within our community. And this was going from Essex Middle School to a fitness location where we were 15 and maybe back. And it worked last year. And so we thought it would work again this year. And you don't know what you don't know. So things have come up and we've already discussed how to reevaluate, how to do that difference next year. But there's nothing specific in the lease agreement that says only for this and nothing else. They have GMT appreciates that we go outside of Essex because that lessens the burden on their larger buses for a higher population here that needs to go to those locations. They have some parameters on the age requirement for the primary use of those vans unless those individuals with the similar needs cannot transport themselves for physical or cognitive disorders or disabilities. So 12 year old children are allowed to ride in a bus on a senior day. There's nothing saying they can't. But seniors cannot ride on the bus with the children. Our purpose was never to say no to the priority of the seniors. And I specifically communicated that if it was going to stop a senior from going somewhere, then we needed to find an alternative transportation route, which we did. And we worked with this extension recreation who had a van and a driver available from Nable Street to help us to have the three days requested with those transport rates. You know, I think that if I can intervene, I think that really what we're trying to say here is that we look at what we wanna do is get a good snapshot of what the van is, how the vans are used right now, who controls them, how they're funded and do we need more. And for example, the Essex Junction Recreation Department has vans as well. They're not, they could not be used for transporting seniors. That's something that could potentially change. That doesn't necessarily have to stay that way. We haven't discussed it with Brad Luck. I don't have you had it. But again, there's no reason why if there is a growing need for more transportation for the senior center, that we can't find it somehow in the community. We just haven't, we just didn't, it's just not set up currently to suit that. It was set up to suit the way the senior center was operating back several years ago. It's expanded, it's grown and so do we need to start looking at other ways of doing it or additional, you know, other changes that we need to make. So there's no intention here to take something away. Let me make that very clear. We're not trying to, we're not, there's no intention at all to try to limit something or take something away or stop something from happening. Really, what we're talking about is how is this grown? What are the needs right now? How is it organized? What's the structure like and what can we do to implement it and make things smoother for both the village and the town? Okay. All right, so in other words, have the seniors gonna be involved in this or are we just gonna be told? Well, I think what right now is that we wanna, I wanna come up with a relatively short list of information that we wanna hand off to staff and then we wanna have another meeting when we get these numbers together. We'll have another meeting. I don't know if we will have it just with the trustees or with the trustees and the select board later this fall and we would make sure that the seniors are there. You don't all have to be there, but you'll be welcome to come. Why not? You can if you want. I don't know how 300 of you will not be sure we're gonna have that hold together. Our voice is a voice, our vote is a vote to it. Whether it's the seniors or the public or the trustees. I think we would go a lot of our way to make sure that we heard from you. Let me put it that way. There's no, again, there is no desire on anyone's part to cut you out of the conversation. I hope not, because if we do not exist, you aren't gonna have a place to go when you become us. Sooner than I think, I'm thinking I guess, yeah. Much quicker than you think it's going to happen, unfortunately. Thank you. So Evan, do you have some words of wisdom inside right now? Yeah, words of wisdom. Just a couple of quick things. I mean, that was correct. I won't say we work on this every day. That's not true, but we do work on issues as they pop up there. We have employment issues in terms of union rules. We have federal rules of labor and transportation. We have our lease agreement with CC... Chantee. Chantee. Green Mountain Transit. Green Mountain Transit, as a matter of fact, those vans, while it is the people in this room can attest, they're used all the time. And they're in the shop all the time. And so much so that the police department was, had a six-passenger van for whatever reason, I know the reason, they were using it as a auxiliary vehicle. They were going to take it off and auction it. And staff said, aha, six passengers? What condition is it in? And we asked the town to take a look at it. And they said, hey, with some new tires, new windshield, new brakes, struts, it'll be road-worthy. And sure enough, it is. And it is used as the backup, backup vehicle, at least once a week. So it just came back. Last week, registered, insured, all the good stuff, road-ready, fixed. And we needed it the next morning, last week. And we needed it this morning. So it's a couple of thousand dollars in repair is a huge benefit to those, oh, my gosh, moments. And so we're lucky to have it. So we do these things. And we need to talk, I think this is an appropriate time to talk about the types of metrics you guys need, as well as the select board, to start making decisions. Not so much about the programming and stuff, but we just talked about space needs. If the senior center grows at the rate it's growing now, we can potentially continue to house them for that long in this type of building with these types of parking spaces, unless they're going to come here via another transportation source or carpooling. We don't have the parking to be able to grow exponentially at this location. Ellie and I and others have talked about, okay, for the people in the audience, not today and not tomorrow, but what do you do if the center grows? What do you do if chips grows? They're tenant in this building. What lands do we have available? What needs do we have? We have 100 acres over at the tree farm, some of which is owned by the town, which is not fields. Do you look out there for space and parking, et cetera? Those are just the things we kick around, but all that takes time, money, effort, and thought, but we need to know what we're thinking about and what metrics we're using. Mount Pilger may have a great program when we can learn from them. We also want to know what's going on here and what is driving this growth. It's great. The success of the activities may be a part of it. I like the idea of doing a survey. You're not going to get a survey done by your next meeting or the next two meetings. You're going to need time to develop it, send it out, get it back, but I think this should be done in a very thoughtful manner like we do all the other planning that we do with the input of the seniors, with the input of the staff, with the input of the boards. Maybe I could just try to wrap things up a little bit here. So we talked about, we probably want to have long-term things like nutritional resources, maybe we can, but let's talk about just some numbers and things that staff can probably put together for us in a relatively short time and get this information. What I have from all the discussion is what's the current organizational operational structure, just an overview. Where's the money coming from? Well, let me go through the list. Number two would be growth and membership over the last three years. Number three would be funding and resources from the town, from the village, and from members. Which of the total money that flows in and out for everything, what portion is the town putting in, what portion is the village putting in, what portion is coming from members. Next one would be the senior bus schedule. How is it organized, anticipated growth and needs right now? What are the conflicts? So what, just again, an overview of the transportation. Next one would be current volunteer hours and anticipated staffing needs in the coming few years. Is staffing, not volunteer staffing, because we can't control that, but is staffing that we have there adequate, right? And, but we're including volunteers to be able to determine if we need to add staff. Yeah, we would get from the previous one, we'd get a sense of what the volunteers are contributing, but what do we want, what are we thinking of? And then I would like to, listening to all this, I would like to say, what are, from the staff, from Ali and Evan and maybe Luanne, and I don't know how you put this together, but what are current conflicts with things like transportation, liability, HR regulations, what are they required to do versus where are they bumping into things like HR regulations, town and village policies, transportation needs and so forth. What are the, you know, outlying the four or five really significant conflicts that you think we, the boards can help you resolve right now. Okay, does that sound good? And I would like to keep it short. I mean, I can, we can put in another one, but I've got the rest of the stuff here and we can put this, maybe assign this to a longer study and a more comprehensive study, but I would like to just say if we could get that, those numbers and figures and overviews and then we have another meeting later on this fall and I don't know if we would do it with the select board or we have it ourselves and then with the select board exactly how we would do it. I don't know if you're open to suggestion. Great. Okay. Good. Does that make sense? And I can give you this list. Okay. Great. Thank you everybody for coming and you're very welcome to stay. But we are going to talk right now about an application for an animating infrastructure grant, Elaine. So, last several years you might remember I brought up a wish to have a mural project done on the wall of the McCore building that abuts the recreation path for walking. And it was always just something I kind of talked to people about and I actually talked to one of the managers or owners of the McCore building and they thought it was a wonderful idea. That was many months ago and I just haven't had a chance to pursue it. This grant is done by the Vermont Arts Council annually and it's yielded across to Vermont some really wonderful, really wonderful programs, excuse me, installations across the state. You might know the silo murals over in Jeffersonville at the rotary there and really beautiful. So it's an opportunity for community to put art in a public space to engage the public. And before we talk about whether we want to pursue it or not I would like to find out from Evan when he returns. This is gonna involve some staff time. Probably Darby would be the perfect person for this but I just want to make sure that that's okay. A letter of intent is due in December and so it's a pretty generous timeline. There's time to do this. We sort of need to talk about how much it might cost and how we would do a call for artists and how we would involve the public so that we could apply for the grant because they're gonna want to know those things. So I'm wondering if the board and Evan are okay with asking Darby to help with this to get that, to start fleshing out the body of the project and confirm with the McClure that they're still okay with us putting something up on their building and before we actually dive in and apply for it. Do you have a sense of the time for the grant? To apply for the grant? Oh, I can't imagine more than like, I don't know, 10 hours. I mean it's not gonna be, there's some research, there's some writing. I'm happy to help with it but I need someone in the village or the town to help me do this and Darby has proven to be very, very good at getting grants and writing grant applications. So I think it's a perfect project for her, I hope you don't mind my saying. But it's, this is the part- Always because it's true. This is the first time I've come across funding for a project of this nature and we had talked about using economic development funding for it. It would be great to pair that, we could match it, we could, but we need to know how much it's gonna cost and the grant is for one to $15,000. And I can also imagine Kristen, Humberger, would be another good resource as soon as she gets done with SteamFest. I'm gonna ask her right now. Next, shameless plug for SteamFest, September 21st and 22nd here in downtown in the Sixth Junction, I'd be happy to lend Darby to this project and others as we can. It's exciting, it's interesting and I think it would take a structure that needs some jazz and an area. So sure, give it a shot. There's a public participation component to the grant that would be really nice because and I know there's artists in this community that would love a big blank canvas. Well, it takes a special kind of artist so we would have to be care, not careful, but we would have to put out a call for artists and we would probably receive bids from some usual suspects whose work you'll see in other towns in the state. But I know that Tina Logan over at ADL School is very interested in possibly doing something involved in this project so. Well, the trustee, let's go. I don't know if we need a vote or a discussion questions for a minute. It sounds great, yeah. I think it's great, I'm all for it. I've seen the mural that she's talking about on, it's right by the railroad tracks up in Jeffersonville, right, the junction of Route 15 and Route 108. And it's beautiful, there's stuff down Burlington we talked about on Cherry Street and on Main Street and actually doing one right now on Cherry Street, right there where out here you're going to stream and it's beautiful. I think it's awesome. Okay, I will make a motion that we authorize staff to move forward with applying for an animating infrastructure grant. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Thank you. So. Now we are on to the manager's report. It's been so long I forgot what I was going to do. Just FYI, village and town staff met with the school district staff this week to talk about many topics but usually as anyone could imagine the first one was busing and its impacts not only on the school district but that of the village and the town. So we are continuing that discussion we are also swapping some data and some mapping so that we can both understand where their bus stops are supposed are now going to be versus where we plow and where we don't normally plow in the town and any changes in the village what their parking ideas are going to be. And I will mention their comment is the first two weeks of school are always chaotic. They're going to be chaotic for the school they're going to be chaotic for the parking there's going to be overflow into the neighborhoods for parking it always is a mess the first two weeks. Let's not just assume that all of this is about busing most 16 year olds or 17 year olds have no idea how to park or where to park and they show up at the last minute so what do you do? So they've asked us to just be mindful of the first two weeks they are working on it they do have some bus drivers in training they can't guarantee if all of them are going to pass and or take the job but they are working on it and we are trying to coordinate not only short term but longer term the ramifications and things of planning of that. So with that said that's pretty much the manager report and we'll deal with the other item in executive session. Trustee comments and concerns? I'm going to just briefly mention that I think all of you received an email and I won't go into the specifics but it was alerting us to a deteriorating and potentially dangerous situation at a large apartment building in S extension. And I think we'll figure out how we're going to put that on the next agenda. I don't know how legally how we approach this but I definitely needs to be something if anyone saw the pictures that accompanied that it's something that we need to take action on I think at least think about what we can do about it. So I want to let you know that we haven't forgotten that. Okay anything else other? Good, okay so we're on to the reading file we're going to do with the reading file and consent agenda. I'll move the consent agenda. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great. So I will make a motion that the trustees enter into executive session to discuss a legal matter in accordance with one VSA section 313 and to include the manager and assistant manager and the village attorney in the executive session. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. We'll take a short break to clear the board. Thank you. Good night Mike.