 Item on the agenda is the minutes from June 6th. We're looking for a motion and a current meeting. Move to approve the minutes of June 6th, 2023, with any necessary changes. For a second. Page one. There is a, not a space after the comment following Shirley Goodell Lackey's name, but he did catch. Anything else on page one? Again, I feel like I'm picking up terrible things. Page two. For that one, let it all those in favor of the minutes. All right. Next public comment. The moment when anybody can make a comment on the board, it does not have to be something that is on the agenda, but there does not appear to be anybody in the room that wants to make a comment. Is there anybody else? No. Just staff. Okay, next. Local cannabis control board. Matt, you're going to be presenting on that. Sure. Thanks for having me tonight. The item of the discussion for this letter is whether to establish itself as a local cannabis control commission or to establish a local cannabis control commission. Most municipalities that have done this simply make the select board or to be counseled at commission for purposes in administering local review and licensure of cannabis establishments. The information that was provided to you in your reading packet comes from the state control board. And the pertinent information about local control commissions is on page six of that item. And I think the insight I can provide to you is simply that if Williston took on the role of local cannabis commission, this select board or nominated body would issue licenses to cannabis establishments. Cannabis establishments doesn't mean just retail, which Williston has not voted to opt into, but also growers, processors, testing labs, folks who make other products out of cannabis, et cetera. And there's very limited authority for that commission to do very much. But there's an important authority, I think, competitive is that I'd like the select board to consider. Which is that the select board may require that cannabis establishments be otherwise in compliance with zoning. And there's some parallels to this process in the way that the Department of Motor Vehicles regulates inspection stages. So folks who are in the business of fixing cars, if they want to have the ability to issue inspection stickers, one of the things they need to do is come to the tower office and sign off from the zoning administrator that says they are establishing this otherwise in compliance with zoning. And usually we're able to just sign those, sometimes there might be a conversation about something like outdoor storage or signage or something else that's not currently in compliance on the site. And it gives the tower a little extra opportunity to try to gain that compliance because we have something that that person wants and needs. So the other thing about having, it's essentially a state permit cycle through the local municipality is we then know what's going on. So currently not everybody who establishes some sort of cannabis business in the town necessarily comes and talks to us about whether that will be in compliance with zoning or not. Most do, and I can, you know, answer some questions about the kinds of established establishments that we've addressed in now and all the way. But not all do, and if they are doing one of the tiers of license that does not require local zoning approval, right now it doesn't really matter if there's a glaring zoning violation on the property, we don't have any authority to hold up that cannabis license in exchange for asking for zoning compliance. So there's a glaring zoning violation? Because they don't need a permit. So there's a number of types of cannabis establishments, most of the growing operations that happen predominantly out of the forest that are no longer subject to any zoning authority at all. So if they don't need a permit via zoning to do that operation, they can go seek their licensure from the state right now. The state is not going to look at their local zoning compliance, they wouldn't know necessarily whether something was in compliance or not. And that license would be issued by the state. So when a municipality takes on a local licensure report, my understanding is that those state license requests would be circulated through the zoning administrator's office. We have a standing state in Arizona by law that we don't have any property that's in compliance with the property's where a violation is present, unless the permit is the thing that's in compliance with the violation. So it gives the town a little bit of an extra book there. With the establishment of any business in town, there's often an opportunity to have a conversation with the property owner or applicant about the zoning compliance with the area that they might relate to consulting with the fire department to talk about fire safety or information that they might want to know about hazardous materials or consulting with public works about wastewater capacity and things like that. So when one of the applicants does come to us and says, I'm starting a cannabis processing facility in Wilmuston, is it allowed in the district I want to do anything with wastewater? We certainly answer those questions. We help those folks achieve compliance with all the town rules. But we don't have that additional check, like I do with the inspection stations where someone has to come in and get that sign off. Similarly, as a liquor control board, when someone applies for a license related to your function, does that board, Eric usually comes over to my office or emails and says, are there any issues of this property? Same like the episode. It's a check-in and it's a way for the select board to be informed as to what cannabis establishments are operating or asking about. Can you refresh my recollection? Zoning can regulate the placement of retail cannabis. Right? Yes. And we've adopted bylaws already for where retail cannabis can and cannot be in the town of Williston if the vote ever does come and passes. Yes. Is the same truth for all these other kinds of licenses? Cultivator license? Manufacturer license? Does zoning control those as well? It can. At least some have not all of the cultivators and state law has changed at the end of this last session to actually expand some of the agricultural exemptions for particularly retail cannabis. There's a statement you'll see that runs kind of through the CCB guidance which says you can regulate cannabis establishments with zoning, but only to the extent that you can regulate other things under zoning. Signage and public innocence and things like that. Right. So the intent of that law I think is to not single out cannabis uses in any particular way, whether the words of the law say are you can't regulate this any way that you can't regulate anything else in zoning. So if Williston only ever had retail as an allowed or prohibited use in zoning districts and then established cannabis as its own special thing that might come into question. Williston actually has more than probably half a dozen kinds of retail that it regulates differently so the fuel retail is different from grocery retail, etc. So we do that a little bit. Manufacturing is manufacturing. Testing labs are testing labs. Indoor growing is really a little bit of a question. It's not exempt agriculture but it might be construed as agriculture under some of our definitions where we allow agriculture in zones that are otherwise resident. So let me ask a silly question to clarify for me. If somebody wants to have a cannabis grow cultivation business and they want to do it in Southridge in Williston right down by the swimming pool you can't have a farm there under current zoning. It's my understanding tell me if that's not true but would current zoning allow that somebody is saying I'm going to have an indoor grow well my criminal defense background comes in. An indoor grow operation is what I used to defend people but is that would absent state law would our zoning allow that use of land down by a plan unit development swimming pool and tennis courts and stuff? It could. Again most indoor it's not clearly defined in our every other thing that you grow indoors in the wild. I came here expecting to start with the conversation of being a local licensure board but knowing that a lot of the questions you might have is what do we do currently in our zoning and what more could we do and what you've identified is one of the friction points we've started to line up against and someone calls me and says can they grow cannabis outdoors in a field that used to be a corn field the answer is yes if that corn field was exempt to agriculture I cannot require you to be in a permit for that if someone says can I build a very large steel building in the ag world and grow indoors my answer is well at some point my zoning administrators had on I'm going to say that looks more like industry than agriculture but I think there would be a question on where I decided to go. So if we had a local cannabis control board under those examples would that be somebody that would have to come in and say in order for the town local cannabis control commission to grant you this permit you have to be in compliance with zoning and we don't think that your steel building it would be in zoning in compliance with zoning because it's more manufacturing than it is agriculture. Correct, so if that was a type of building or a type of site development that wasn't allowed in the zoning district I think for a fully indoor grove you would be able to lead on non-compliance in zoning but then short of that even with a local cannabis control commission would be things like signage and whether it's a public nuisance. Yeah, the signage and public nuisance language is reflected in the enabling legislation for zoning as well or in our own zoning by all we get into the sign chapter we say we have zoning authority under 4414 et cetera but we also have some authority over signs in 1991 it's the statute that creates travel information council bands billboards and the cannabis enabling rules sort of mirror what we do in zoning you can use either of these directly particularly signage or obnoxious advertising and then I'm sorry I'm going to get more but the last question I had was there are other current situations now where people have created something that would require a cannabis license from the state testing laboratory, retail integrated license wholesale but they did not have to come to the town because the only thing we would be able to regulate on that is zoning and they don't have to get a little cannabis permit from us because we don't have a local cannabis control commission Yeah, the only one I'm aware of is an outdoor growing operation that somebody asked about all of the other ones that I know about came and spoke to us so we've had two or three testing labs slash manufacturer uses we've had one or two growing with someone farm processing questions at former farm properties we have one home business producer of cannabis admiral precursor to cannabis admiral that we built in my issue is the zoning for that is currently under appeal on a theory of it not being approvable under zoning we also had a request from somebody who lived I believe in a multi-family building in tapped corners who wanted to grow cannabis for sale as a home operation in their apartment I don't think they need to necessarily follow through with that but my closest thing to do with that point is to pull out the home business rules of appendix G and see if I can make sense of it and other municipalities that are dealing with these issues at the local level a lot of what they're dealing with are either odor or just intensity of use of the property or intensity of lighting that might be used so there's been in the news some news about a couple of things going on in Charlotte one of them is a grower that it's an outdoor operation I think you use a greenhouse for part of the cycle they fixed some conditional approval relating to how much they could have some lights on at one point in the neighborhood they exceeded that and just it gets a little messy it's been very easy all these years to just say farming is farming so it doesn't touch it that's not quite the world we're in in some of these things I dominated the question did you have more presentation than anyone else not particularly I wanted to limit this to the control conversation I'm obviously paying attention to anything about what more might the town think about doing in itself as well board members my support setting up the commission I have a concern that we or a global put on the commission will find themselves in a position where they have to approve something very unpopular or just because they don't have anyone else to say no so it feels I don't know be very excited about having to approve atoms or the glacial property becoming a global station and I have to say yes because I have absolutely no tools to say no so that would be my concern with setting up a basically a two sense form I'll be doing this putting up a check in there for staff to be able to have conversation I mean if they're violating zoning you shut it down we don't have this check if they put something in that's violating or something you can shut down we can pursue zoning enforcement but I always caution everybody that that is not immediate permanent or very satisfying zoning enforcement is a really challenging process like they said you come and talk to the committee you know they put it in anyway but yeah it seems like a really difficult situation to put a warrant into that position to have to say yes to zoning that the whole community would say no to what you said I understand what you said what is your recommendation well I like the idea of the local commission because any enforcement I need to do happens either before there's a problem or it happens because there's a land use that somebody wants to undertake that they need to address some other issue of the property so I do find more people inspection stations to a lesser extent are liquor licensees for this board to say to somebody well we ran this by the zoning administrator and you have an appliance issue on your property that you need to address it's a great way to get compliance because now rather than somebody just getting violation letters in the mail and often ignoring them they've got something they want to get done I think it brings the authority of the state commission down to the local levels this is one of the only tools that now has to have much influence over this new stuff at all the last part I'll leave you with is I've had a similar model on it for its select for CBD products and when medical marijuana came around as well as when the dispensary zoning question came around which is when something is new a lot of folks look to get into business doing it for CBD as well as medical dispensaries and you just sort of deal with some applicants who could use some extra guidance sometimes and it helps to say no you won't get your state permit if you don't fix your erosion issue your wastewater issue correct the illegal and permanent signage out front of your building you can't have people sleeping at this operation which is the thing that has come up with the cannabis operation it's like my workers are staying at the bar how should we address that it's a lot easier when you can say well I'm just going to help my local commission figure out my compliance and that's the one note that the state will uphold due to your point your sentiments about being a board that really doesn't have a lot of chances to say no that's exactly what folks on the board are saying this where and it is frustrating as a municipality to have a process but the only condition you really get to apply is to say well you need to comply with the town so much with this commission are you recommending that you meet us or that it would be a separate commission if it's a separate commission does it also meet people or are you able to commission people if it was not the select board it would just be that commission making a decision but I would recommend the select board these are infrequent enough that I don't think it would be a lot more work to do it what happens if somebody has a permit under this kind of thing or for that matter tobacco and then they were in compliance but now we know they are not any longer in compliance trying to think if we had that as the liquor control where we revoke somebody's license we have occasionally one or two where they had maybe a warning from the state some of these last round renewals some first warning letter and we asked them to set a letter in explaining the violation what they did to cure it in the future as I recall about six years that was last these ones the last year the first time I've seen it and I'm sure there are some times before in town we're proud that she's come up there we've had before the board for the renewal of their license and they had to ask them to come in specifically to address that but I always felt like we should walk behind with a balance action I'm getting a commission for the you know the barrages instead that seems a lot less controversial so we walk us through the steps so say we do establish the commission it's a select board we're still not there's still not been the vote on town meeting so that still has to happen before this would even be relevant you would see licenses there's a bunch of things that are all those things I talk about address to zoning permits someone would apply for their state CCD license the select board as a local commission would be informed likely would come to the manager's office and then the question would circulate to me you know is this site is this applicant in compliance with zoning and then it would come to the decision and so we get essentially that like redacted happily redacted form with just like that pertinent information that we needed and that would be the extent of it I think most likely but we've had some back and forth with the state yeah I mean in most cases as so many administrators I need to know where something is compliance with their own zoning so it would be very difficult if a permit is required for someone to say well I'm not telling you where it is and I understand there's concerns about security and confidentiality related to this use but we issue permits to hazardous materials processors, bags you know people who have all kinds of stuff and the address is there we haven't left out on the agenda for discussion for the board tonight if the board wanted to consider action at a future meeting I could I think there's a draft resolution I could prepare for a future agenda but I'll take direction from the board if there's consensus to consider action at future meetings I mean although I do you know I find it problematic that there is so little agency over it town-wide this it sounds like establishing a commission is our only real avenue of having any kind of agency over it so I mean I think you know I think it makes sense and knowing that it can often sometimes be hard to find volunteers for things anyway I think it makes sense that it would be just like does this mean that we opt in you know opting in is only for retail and it has to be a town-wide vote so where we are today is there's been a couple of sort of infrequent requests that the select work place in opting vote on a town meeting ballot select work as far as often not to put it with the questions of people nor has the petition to put that on the ballot that received an appropriate number of signatures to do it that way so still has to have a town-wide vote on retail if it did the zoning that has two zoning that's allowed and requires a review of sort of what the DRB for retail would come to play I'm still really against it but I understand if we're going to come back and have a little discussion on it I would just ask you Matt is there any other way that you can do the wastewater is there any other way you can get to get the access to the plans ahead of the state approval just give us a five I don't it kind of seems to me to put this in place because we don't have any ability to enforce our zoning that doesn't seem like like a good reason to put a commission in place so I don't have to do the same stuff is there any other way that we can do this without anyone thinking this is the best way to manage the situation without putting me in a position to have to approve a pianist role so it might happen so I think we're hearing next item on the June permit fee and schedules that's also going to be you to some degree yes who wants to leave now I can just put a few numbers on the board too it's the term of the fiscal year July 1st so part of the board's duties is to set all the town's fees for the coming fiscal year we typically do that at this meeting in June so we kind of chunk fees into batches the first is our planning and zoning fee schedule that Matt prepares and then I'll call it everything else but it's essentially public works and the fire ambulance fees for the most part so suggestions for to consider for some changes in the new fiscal year Matt wants to watch this one so every every few years as a staff we take a look at our fees and recommend changes that we think might either help things work better or almost as importantly capture the relative level of effort time that goes into reviewing various types of applications in the town so that's when we prepare for use tonight a little overuse of the changes the orders are very mental on the sheet and please stop me for any of that if you have any questions so the first part is a recommendation that the administrative permit fee cap be raised until a few years ago we didn't have a cap on the administrative permit fee so you pay your administrative permit fee as a percentage of your estimated project cost and without a cap we occasionally would see a very very expensive project oftentimes one that actually didn't take all that much work to review and it would be a really big project, really big change in the town not a lot of more staff work maybe even went into reviewing something at half the cost and it would only happen as time or two a year but most really big fees just did not feel like they were reasonably related to the application that was being made so we recommended and the select board approved a couple years ago a fee cap of $20,000 so at $5 for every $1,000 of estimated cost that meant projects paid a graduated fee up to an estimated project cost of $4,000,000 which paid $20,000 no matter how expensive the project was so we're recommending raising the cap for $30,000 that means projects would pay a graduated fee up to an estimated project cost $6,000,000 and after that it would pay a flat $30,000 fee there's a lot of $4,000,000 projects from two years ago that are basically $6,000,000 projects now so this is as much about just kind of keeping base with the kind of what we see on our applications is anything so we still think a cap is a good idea but we think it should be raised balance that we're proposing not doing the percentage of project cost at all for what we call all residential improvement projects so if you've ever had to come get a permit from our office you don't do any data pool or a shed or a fence it doesn't matter how much those things cost you pay a base permit fee of $30 this proposal would add some other projects to that and this to flat fee projects residential additions, interior reconfigurations for larger accessory structures like garages often times for a homeowner this might be a really expensive project but when we're reviewing it you know we might be looking at a garage and saying okay does the garage meet the front and side yard setback is it too tall great I have to check for us to review them and what we most want is to encourage people to come in and get those permits before they do their work what takes a lot of work is when they don't get their permit and then they go to sell or refinance their house the realtor discovers there's no realtor structure and three of us are out at the front and we're trying to help some people get a permit done so we think the investment in flat fee those things will pay off we are recommending the addition of a four-mage scope for a limited review fee for those of you who are here for the adoption of the four-mage scope you may recall it's an administrative process and what that means is someone who's building often a very large very expensive project pretty much needs to submit everything including that large $5 for a thousand feet all at once and the experience we have with that is the applicant submits a plan set a complete enough plan set for review but we take it through that 80-page application review checklist we have a bunch of changes we need to see the review actually takes a couple of months and it may although it's an administrative review be a review that takes six to eight months to complete so it's a lot of money for the applicant to tie up when really we just want them to give us their first draft and we're recommending a $350 fee which is similar to a DRB filing fee so we can put the day or half days work of staff review into it give them back their comments and then send them off to respond to those over the next couple months they can pay the big fee when they file the plans that are within a month or two of being ready to be approved that's the recommendation on the preliminary review fee I think that will just help us also have a more productive review process under that new code we are recommending that we eliminate the fee for an extension of time all administrative permits in Willison are good for two years and can be automatically extended for a third year on request of the applicant it takes us longer to take the money in than it does for me to say yes for a third year on that permit thanks for letting us know that you're running a little bit behind and again we would rather people make the request and not have the fee be a barrier lastly we're recommending adopting or sorry not last I've got a whole other page next we're recommending adopting a graduated discretionary permit review fee so discretionary permit is the kind of application that goes to the development review board we charge a higher fee because more staff time goes into these but we do have two categories of projects that go in front of the development review board we have major projects and minor projects major projects also require pre-application hearing they require that because they're more complicated there's more moving parts they take more staff time to review a good example of a minor project might be a small addition to a commercial building something over a thousand square feet which is not a lot it might be on the side of a hundred and twenty thousand square foot warehouse that's a minor DRB review it's important that that be reviewed by the DRB and be looked at for all of its implications on the site plan but contrast that to a 50 unit residential subdivision on a hundred acres somewhere where staff is going to put quite a bit more time into that so the minor projects at two hundred and fifty a higher fee for the major projects at five hundred where before everything paid three hundred and fifty do you define minor than major or is that a fee so this fee decision would define it but what has to go to pre-application versus what does not is clearly defined in the bylaw so there are building size and or land area thresholds that come into play for that the next item isn't so much a fee amount as it is an acknowledgement that legal review and other professional services that are needed to review an application should be paid for by the applicant there's a strong parallel between this recommended statement and what's currently done in the public works specifications where applicants are required to pay for independent engineering review of facilities that will be connected to town infrastructure et cetera we are finding that as particularly in planned unit developments and subdivisions as they get more complicated that legal review is getting more extensive so affordable housing covenants homeowners association documents to ensure the maintenance of common elements that are required for compliance with the bylaw knowing that if there's a private storm water pond that it's going to be maintained going forward that comes down to the HOA documents we've been over the last many years relatively light on legal review for these things and we're now administering some projects where we wish we had taken a harder look at the at the beginning so we would recommend this statement be placed in the fee sheet and also that if a project is going to require really extensive legal review that the zoning administrator be able to require the applicant to put some money essentially in escrow or deposited with the town to cover those costs again this is something that's public works does for engineering fees that's in bolt out of that work though somebody comes in with a project and you say okay you know this obviously we know enough that this is going to need legal review and more than just some cursory thing how do you get this bill and then send it over to the applicant do you wait to see how many hours the lawyer put in and then give it to the applicant and say okay here's part of the fee there's reverses for this or you would have them lodge money with the town and then draw that fund down as those bills came in so in the case of public works they might ask somebody to put $5,000 in engineering fees into an account the public works director keeps an eye on that as that independent review happens if the applicant if the money the applicant has deposited starts to run low and the director knows there's more review to come I'll sometimes go upstairs to Bruce and say are we ready to move on to the next stage of the such and such project and he'll say no they need to get current on their engineering fees before we move forward so there is some accounting that has to happen but it's similar to what's being done in public works right now it's also very similar to how we hold money to guarantee the creation of improvements in projects so we hold money for landscaping sidewalks and things like that that we administer through the planning office as well great the next one is a recommendation that we increase the remote file research and records conversion fee I think I've emphasized it quite a bit in the memo this is something that happens very very infrequently most research in our office happens when someone comes in in person on behalf of a client goes through the file gets photo copies of what they need pays for their photo copies and goes on their way but over the last year we had someone call us up and say well I'd like a scan of the maple tree place file so we don't have to convert a file under public records law we have to provide people with the ability to make a copy or a physical copy but that's what they really want and if somebody really wants us to take a staff person out for a day or two to run the photocopier you know we think 25 dollars an hour isn't enough for that and it's more like 40 at this stage in the life of the planning office most of our staff are at one to two or more evening or early morning meetings outside of normal working hours putting somebody on a task like this takes them off of something else likely generates them over time so we're recommending an increase to 40 dollars and I'll just say one more time this happens really infrequently once or twice a year we mostly need this amount in the fee so we can quote the price that's reasonable back to the person say if you really want us to do this here's what it's going to cost are you sure you don't want to just send a local paralegal in who also might know what they're looking for because that's the other part as most of our file research would take that replace drawer and they're looking for three sheets of paper in there and they know what it looks like and what they're looking for someone who says I don't know my boss just said get everything let's talk about what everything is and what it would cost to do that and the recommendation that we increase and phase the specific plan fee this is currently a flat fee of $1,000 paid at the time that the specific plan application is submitted and this is similar to the DRB major project minor project review not all specific plans are alike some are going to be submitted and the planning commission right away is going to vote not to move forward with it at all some of them will move through the stages of the process which is really important for the town to engage in but very very time consuming for staff just kind of guiding the applicant through the often months long process of that so the total fee for a successful specific plan under this would be $2,000 but it would not all have to be paid up front this also lowers the barrier for someone to come have that actual application conversation with the planning commission for not $1,000 and then decide if they want to move forward with something more refined going forward so that's the graduated or phased specific plan fee and that is all the key changes Questions for Matt? I think your staff time is worth more than $4,000 for photocopying for sure I mean any related major impacts budget, things like that for many of these changes we think this would be relatively revenue neutral to positive one large project that comes in somewhere between $4,000,000 and $6,000,000 would get us a couple thousand dollars extra in this change that would probably offset the free added bedroom permits that we'd be flat feeing for residents I'm sure we'll be looking for I'll move to adapt the permit fee schedule for fiscal year 2024 as presented Thank you You're welcome Thank you for that Let's follow up to the board's discussion last meeting the water budget on June 6 there was discussion and consensus to use net position of the water fund in order to have a water rate per 1,000 gallons of $5.80 we calculated that in order to occur for the budget it would be $54,710 on the funds net position to then have the rate at that number there's a motion suggested from the board to assign that net position of the water fund for fiscal year 2024 Is there a second? Second All those in favor signify this Aye Water Water and Syracudation That's you as well You have this follow up on the report before we see that last meeting as well on the mileage and heliots look at our water funding those use their phones to the budget so the board approved on June 6 you considered and saw that report the last meeting suggesting for the record that the board probably accept that report so there's a motion suggested too I'll follow up on the questions for you We got that last week maybe it's not in this week's That's the next one Yeah These all impact that Is there a second? Second All those in favor say aye Aye All those opposed nay This will be the rest of the town's fees here and you'll recognize the number of fees from the utility that you considered at the last meeting to talk about the fees as those budgets were adopted There's also a number of fire ambulance fees. You'll see what I do in the proposed fees or any changes that are suggested to be considered in FY24 There's a memo from Public Works Director Bruce Moore that speaks to these fees We noticed this afternoon for the sewer base charge residential and commercial that was dropped as 1750 It's a reality 1715 that was what was in the budget that was a 3.5% coal increase to that So I passed out an update and she got her back to the place So we also have the Fire Chief Collet is on Zoom if there's any questions related to fire ambulance fees I will say there was a follow up question on the reduction for affordable housing for the connection fees for the water ordinance and sewer ordinance and those ordinance state fees shall be 50% of the connection fees approved by the select board Should the board So the connection fees for affordable housing in this schedule are reflective of the 50% based on the connection fees that were identified before which are higher than previous years Should the board wish to set these connection fees for affordable housing using a different methodology for example the board want to keep the fees flat required amendment to the ordinance so it's certainly an option before the board to consider but in terms of this rate schedule referencing our ordinances whatever the connection fee is set to the affordable housing you could always if you wanted to look at this during the year recommend the board set our utility rates but if there's fees there I appreciate that very well done before and I'm hoping you have these additional points there's the answer very well done Jeanne we're wondering if you're going to pick up on the $17.15 versus $17.50 ok so if there are no questions we'll be looking for an option I move to adapt the user fee and charges schedule for a fiscal year 2024 as presented is there a second for the discussion of the motion this is the are you passing the signature I can take one because it matters a lot as possible if I have two original items the agenda item today is whether we move to warn a public hearing this is a follow up on the discussion at the last meeting this is a discussion of proposed amendments to the temporary event board minutes we're going to receive some public comments that evening in response to the proposal and the board tasks staff with responding to the comments so I've prepared up for your materials this evening I kind of go through each public comment and just the staff's response to that public comment and also the board tasks that draft amendments also includes language to require review of all of that series by the select board so we've included that in the updated red line version of your materials and I consulted with planning director Matt Alange language that would include a temporary event for being associated with a home business so I just wanted to share kind of stepping back and looking at this ordinance adopted last year it's an intent to establish a system for events to be permitted where they wouldn't make sense to go through zoning they replaced the festivals ordinance the town had this ordinance was put in place by the town in the early 70s as a reaction to Woodstock I believe so it was little dated talked about just really really large music festival type of type of event so we endeavor just to bring to the board a piece of the ordinance to help regulate some events and right-sized events throughout the town our intent to do that was to have this system to review events with a lens of public safety to occur and where the town staff or select board could put conditions of approval for those events mainly its effect on public infrastructure for example parking in the right way to make sure that we didn't plan a place so diversity vehicles acts as a positive effect our goals for health events are in a safer and smaller manner in regard to how they interact with the surrounding area we've had other iterations of special event regulation for the years but what we've seen this was catering permits for a local permit we asked applicants to share how many people were going to attend we'd say for references and noise ordinance to be aware of we found by bringing forward this is a little more sophistication to the review we've seen other municipalities have similar regulations in place we like any regulation in town we strive as education as our first goal there's mechanisms in there for let me find that they're appropriate for us short life of this ordinance we see opportunities to educate people with discretion there so I've updated mainly those two changes you might saw at your last meeting that's the chair said the question in the board this meeting is whether to consider warning and public hearing these proposed changes or if the board has any changes do the changes we're like a past staff with any additional work for consideration all of your directions questions or comments from the board this is probably just as I mentioned again under 3A a proposal was introduced on behalf of the board or in any zoning district in Williston excluding or residential what is it just the growth center or is there another williston excluding right that essentially encompasses everything except the town if we get a chance after lunch to have them hearing I don't know other things because if we keep mentioning garage sales but then I don't actually see garage sales in here should it be at least if there's a separate ordinance around garage sales maybe at least a reference to that I checked with Matt and our zoning doesn't currently address yard sales in it at any frequency it may have a not to the point I was simply caught off for that 2 a year yeah we're going to see that in our I'm not really clear yet on what those to the slide board just or there's a few different levers as it is right now there's always a discretion of the manager but it's more larger I think we settled on over 200 people if it's a series of events those were some of the main pieces or if it's this event those meet those thresholds but I'm looking at it instead of this one because I also have a question that I didn't meet those maybe more as I said garage sales garage sales I think what I guess my comment is that I still think 12 is too many but perhaps during public hearing maybe someone else will have a different opinion it seems like 12 having money around garage sales but okay so maybe it's part of public hearing but a garage sale wouldn't apply for necessarily a temporary event a permit right? yeah a garage sale wouldn't apply for something like that for the 10th sale though that tends to like a business 10th sale because it doesn't apply to businesses so this is a non-business 10th sale it sounds like a garage sale the whole business it would be like a thumb in their door yard but it wouldn't apply to a whole business what? a temporary event one of the examples was to host more than two weddings in a year I just that sounds like you know assuming you want the most 12 weddings in a year I'm kind of mad about this and it's someone had a home in town that wanted to potentially host a wedding or something like that we had the cap of 12 but each one is independently reviewed and goes through the process so it allows that potential for that use for that and you were two days it opens up a can of worms as long as it doesn't come back and bite us in a couple of years I'm pretty sure it says you could have a garage sale at your house every Saturday or in my toilet and everything else why wouldn't that I'm really definitely just a temporary event a temporary event yeah temporary event is one that takes place in any zone duration not to exceed 8 hours so it's less than 8 hours plus it means if it happens once for 7 hours it still needs temporary event so doesn't that make it more no I understand it's a garage sale at your house every Saturday I just hope you have a temporary event there would be no reason to say no you don't have to get a temporary event permit for a garage sale that's not in the business there's a tensile right here it's referring to businesses doing a tensile no it's a temporary event so you do what are you doing I just read that differently I read tensile is like like Eric said Lenny's wants to do a sale out in their parking lot and is erecting a large tent and doing a tensile business is what we would change businesses still need a temporary event permit this permit doesn't apply to businesses as well does this preclude me from having at every Saturday garage sale I guess Matt just to come back I just want to make sure you get the right answer I talked about this earlier in Mike Ken for his letter he mentioned some citation that says you can't have more than two if I haven't looked at that citation yeah and that was we didn't see that in our current zoning he's on his way back over so the businesses and home events need to apply for temporary events this process isn't just for home events I don't look at that but so all of those categories are applicable to everything but a garage sale again as it stands currently wouldn't be applying for a temporary event that's what they were saying there used to be a limit too but now there's no language around it they couldn't find a language around it right so now if you're advertising you should get a temporary event well yeah but it's not just not in that language currently right and if I wanted to have an every Saturday the town would say yes well no because you have a limit of 12 for a year yeah that's a sign right so Matt I'm trying to recall a garage sale some questions about public abilities in temporary events so I'm going to open this by admitting that I'm running a search through the bylaw right now to be sure that I give you some a fairly complete answer here but Willisons zoning bylaw has a chapter related to what can happen in accessory to a residential use you know somebody's home and that is chapter 20 yard sale discussion with us so we have a discussion actually sorry it's in the residential zoning district chapter 39 about outdoor sales and storage which is generally discussed as a use in each of our zoning districts you know whether it's allowed or not and in the residential zoning district we say other than the occasional sale of household goods, garage or yard sales outdoor sales are not permitted in the RZD outdoor storage may be permitted C chapter 20 of this bylaw on both topics and I know for outdoor storage chapter 20 has a very generous setback exemption for woodpiles it it must have come up at some point in Willisons history but if I go into there I think you're looking in the unified development bylaws correct so I'm in Willisons unified development bylaw I'm in the zoning bylaw chapter 20 is specifically about what can happen along with a residential use so this is where we talk about homes we talked about accessory dwelling units we talked about accessory structures we talked about the standards for building an addition this is where we talk about a home business and what kind of permit is needed for home business and what kind of restrictions apply expatios driveways at home child care residential group homes fences kennels livestock outdoor lighting I'm just looking to see if there's anything more specific we talked about outdoor storage and as I mentioned I would use pool's portable structures RV's repair and maintenance activities sale of household goods no we do have a twice a year frequency in here for the household goods may be offered for sale no more than twice a year no more than 72 hours you can use your yard sign and you are responsible for any traffic hazard you create so that's the answer permit and I'm sorry the zoning permit is not required so I think that was the the main temporary depending on how the applicable language shakes out yes with the four year more open to the public and advertise outside the community to invite more than 40 people seems that would be applicable separately in zoning just with those thresholds under the zoning so we would want to specifically add the language yard seller for our show whatever you have a carnival 12 times but you won't have a crossing twice basic question I'm a little a little over tired so there are such things as stupid questions in article 3 the definition of temporary temporary event temporary event is one that takes place any zoning district for a duration not to exceed 8 hours and not more than 12 times per calendar a year so is it a temporary event if it is for 7 hours it doesn't exceed 8 hours yes 9 hours so we had two ways we looked at short duration temporary events that were basically happening for a single work day and those could happen more frequently under the temporary event ordinance longer duration events this is sort of the rug sale under attend at home depot that couldn't happen that frequently but could happen for a longer duration I think we landed on 30 days for those so you're either one or the other under the language of the ordinance you're either doing something basically just for a day or you're doing something for up to 60 days I don't see how we can be comparing a tent sale at home depot or residential neighborhood well there's a big difference in your ordinance in that the tent sale can only happen twice a year whereas the things that happen in the residential neighborhood well for the tent sale can happen for 60 days in a row the tent can go up and be up for 2 months the shorter duration events that happen more frequently you cannot do that I think we should be more concerned in differentiating between business and residential I think it's a fine line that would cross as I understand the way the ordinance is written the real threshold is when you invite the general public to an event so if you say everybody come to my yard sale you've done that and you could also decide that this yard sale question is not what you intended to regulate under temporary event and just site chapter 20 and say yard sales is defined in the zoning by law temporary events but are covered by zoning a lot of what we try to do in helping draft the temporary event ordinance was to really divide out what is it that gets a zoning permit and what doesn't so that might be a way to do it I asked Matt to arrange a zoning because we were going to be granted this a law before we had this in place it doesn't need a permit or it's for these other types of event uses it's a regulation to help define the process more so if it lives in zoning or those that live discussion of all these possibilities that come up this is the time to do it and I think it's just very complicated to make sure see that dividing that out then dividing out by zone then dividing out by what makes sense for a people that doesn't really make sense for a presidential neighborhood and then once you say what it means to be a business to do something full time to year that's not part of a business and then you get they apply for the permit and then some of the other concerns would be is there safety around the parking and the ambulance is beginning going through the street those kinds of concerns that people dressed like you did a really nice job and your memo about dressing each of those pieces that's why we have the review process for the department because the fire staff needs to go through and say what do we see public works does the police do and I think if some of those those concerns are triggered then they will go back and say these are concerns you can address that for if you don't get the permit so I think that's part of this I think it's important to protect the residential area the other question I saw several places people were specifically concerned about graduation parties and I suspect that is because of the time of year we are in right now but a lot of people were concerned that they wouldn't be able to if they wanted to in their own home post-graduation party for their child it's a one time thing it's just their family and friends but there was going to be 50 people there do they need to get a temporary about the permit for that I think we talk about the threshold of afforded people given we do our best with these if there's a lot of graduation parties going around town our main concern is to make sure we don't have the streets clogged up technically under the ordinance there's more than 40 people there we'll talk about the permit more so too where these larger events are on a given day if we know for our public safety for example there might be 100 people gathered here they can just have it on the radar for the day that they incur I think with everything here graduation season we're not going to have everybody apply for these permits but at least if we had an idea we can help us that's the best answer yep in the residential zone making more sense here I'm out with Adams Farm for like the trucking Tuesdays event that's technically the residential zone that is in the residential zoning district we do have some properties in the residential zoning district we do have residential properties we do have a handful of commercial uses that are allowed in the residential zoning district the other big one is child day care and so when we were drafting this we did see that there were some properties either by their size or their regular use that might want to have something and Adams was certainly the example at the time where we were going to have a short duration but many times per year event and it didn't make sense to try to move the zoning boundary around Adams Farm that generally makes sense where it is but rather to be flexible in the ordinance the other thing I will raise about the 12 is 12 units per year is not by right it's a limit and one of the things that a lot in terms of having something like an ordinance is that there's a lot of discretion on the granting body if there starts to be a history of somebody holding an event and it goes beyond its conditions of approval or it's subsequently unpermitted that the board would be able to say we could issue 12 event permits per year on this property but we're not going to we're going to issue one for the next one because you see how it goes and that's a really fundamental difference between permitting under the ordinance and permitting under zoning when I give somebody a zoning permit I don't get to take it back and if they build the thing or start the use that I've given them the permit for they get to do that forever even if I change the zoning they get to keep doing it it's a legal non-conformity as opposed to this event that you want to do next week and here are the conditions and then if the person comes back and says well I'd like to do another one of those say well wait a minute we had some challenges with compliance last time let's think this through so there's a lot more discretion on the behalf of the select board to sort of dribble those permits out as the applications come in as opposed to zoning which is much more of a one time thing folks here who wish to weigh in on this so the question before us is are we at a place where we would warn this is a public hearing I mean Eric if you could correct me if I'm wrong but if we'd schedule this as a public hearing and then we decide at the public hearing not to adopt it but to make changes then obviously we have the ability to do that but then all that would really do is like push it out we're going to have to re-worn a public hearing you would then well there's substantive changes as a result of the public hearing that you published hearing on those changes prior to the wording as the initial hearing if there was something the board wanted to change in what the red lines read right now we could make those changes then more in the hearing accordingly where we could if the board had further direction this evening we could make those changes and bring it back to the board for a final vote before we consider it more in the hearing and we're just probably on that down to article 3B as we make it clear we're just talking about what's the district or whatever rather than excluding everyone trying to figure out which is a little independent that you find a way to make that clear and some guidance says for ourselves we're covered under someplace else and it says 10 sales like a community and we're okay with just so the one thing that would come to this look worse than this they added the language last time about a series you have it's 10 section B frequency of events so do we want to wait if we're going to make the changes about adding language to to note where the garage sales item is and that should we wait for in the public hearing to you have a special meeting next Wednesday for the tax rate potentially staff could just take a pass to make these edits and bring the second version back to you to consider action Wednesday if you'd like next week's meeting even more so thank you my apologies Eric for leading you astray on the two I need to get back over here on the garage I can tell you in 15 years the garage sale limit has never come up thank you you sponsored lead off on that but Erin she I can just cover overview but Erin's online there's any questions she's on her own stat more common this is a follow up to the sponsorship policy Erin led this discussion while I was out that meeting so her memo has a summary of the changes after the board's discussion and then we have a new red line version of this evening there's language added that insurer policy does not like the sponsor policy for events held on non-town properties with a new language on page two and new language on page two to clarify sponsorships and religious organizations those things explicitly mention religious establishes a clear separation between church and state with the intention I think it's important thank you for the updates Erin this was very interesting I just have a question the motion of the resolution is essentially that we evangelize a political stance but not a religion is that I know it's where we want to land on this and I appreciate the clarification from the bulletin of the blog it's just that I don't think it's legal include everything that you're explaining so I don't know so you're saying it's illegal to exclude religion specifically well I don't know I think like churches sponsor our events but I think it's do you agree I mean maybe it's not clear I don't know but it's rather than prohibiting like a church from sponsoring an event it's prohibiting like that specific belief using verbiage that would promote a specific belief system that was the intent I just know we get regular trouble like the school bill but you can't say Sunday schools you don't have to say nobody uses the bill so this is kind of saying I think it kind of goes with the line above it which says no rhetorical nature I don't know I don't believe it up to smarter people than we are at the bulletin we run it by the time we're pinning the time cards I suspect it's actually okay but I think that we are allowed to say you can advertise, you can sponsor an event but there are certain things that because this is in some ways the town is speaking kind of the town isn't going to be a forum for certain kinds of things but it's okay for me to promote neo-nazism but not religion that's the trick you need to get into with these things maybe even as a if it's part of the bulletin it might be one of the other things you can't do all of these points to that point that would not be allowed under other statutes or other bullet points but yeah I think having the lawyer review it is not a harmful a harmful undertaking this doesn't have any relation to like chicken eye supper at the July 4th period with it who sponsors that? well then I'm going to do chicken eye supper on July 4th they do a barbecue or an ice cream social it's kind of where we had the conversation last time is that it's okay for them to sponsor it as long as they're not evangelizing but that would be different I think that's the something Eric was trying to do here just when it popped out excluding religion specifically sorry Erin I think John will connect you to add to the discussion can you hear us Eric? can you hear me? yep we can hear you now I have to confess I did not hear anything that Gina said I am Jean can you turn the button it's on now thank you we have to start the whole meeting over thank you we were just having a discussion about the points added for religious evangelism component there I think we're going to run by the town attorney if you had anything else to add yeah I didn't see similar language and other policies I had a similar reservation for that so I had some model language and that is language that I found but obviously it never hurts to run by the attorney but I do think it is within our purview to be able to put that in there so we could we could move to adopt this as a policy with a caveat that it's contingent on by the town attorney or we can wait for the board's pleasure I'm okay with pending approval now if the attorney says that doesn't work you have to change, you know, put a comma here or something we would have to come back or just be able to be a material it would essentially be the attorney's discretion what we're trying to capture here if we need to change the word I don't think as long as the intent is captured yeah I think we all understand the intent I would share the board because it is a policy it's not an importance we can just do it we don't need to have to so with that I had moved to adopt the town sponsors policy subject to subject to review by termite town attorney is there a second? for the discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed nay the ayes have it while we have Erin on the line I just want to say what a great job she did while you were un-turned you know, since this is something she kind of spearheaded as well she closed her shoes yes thank you okay housing committee charge is Melinda good evening Melinda good evening so I've been here a few times discussing how we might further the town's housing goals and there was I think strong interest and consensus in moving forward and establishing the housing committee so Erin's provided a memo that I would have draft charge for this committee and the select board has some flexibility around the size of the committee and the number of members we are recommending that the committee have as diverse membership as possible particularly seeking membership from underserved populations in town people who rent people who have direct experience with housing issues developers of housing organization affordable housing organizations if that's to the degree that's possible seeking a diverse membership I think will be a really good idea for this committee I can have five to seven members but the idea is really to try and not only to administer the housing trust fund but also to to serve an advisory function concerning housing policies assist in periodic housing assessments implement community engagement and outreach related to housing and try working to develop partnerships with developers non-profit state agencies and social services organizations to advance the community's housing goals so if you have questions about the charge I'm happy to address those I think tonight the idea was just to give you some time to ask questions and look for any feedback on the board on the draft and so I have one question whether the membership I agree with the makeup of the committee we do say that the committee shall include diversity of members but what happens if we can't get someone who we list on here so I'm thinking should we say that shall as possible include diversity I'm wondering if it's enough to represent true diversity in all honesty like if not seven to nine might be more appropriate because if we're having somebody from a local agency and having a possible landlord having a developer it feels like there just may not be enough represented voices with only five people on the committee so that was my only taking point and the other thing is less of a concern about the charge but one of the things that's been struggled to get folks who are from a diverse background is things like child care and so forth so if you all seek alternative methods maybe have it at the library so that children could be there or something because I know that's been a real struggle getting folks to want to participate other questions or comments agenda says feedback so that was some feedback great so are we all set? it sounds like we're in favor of it but with just some modifications so for the membership the more we want to look at the seven to nine range seven to nine great okay I saw yeah yeah this is a cabinet there's a force management being planted this fall cabinet community force management committee is recommended a kind of force race in the capital as well to contract for this work Ethan would oversee it by the contractor talking contractor was timber revenue is not a project goal but the town would receive some revenue from the timber to reinvest in the forest the committee is included in agenda this approach has been recommended by the community force commission the board should proceed to contract with this recommendation with Brian Logging to oversee that project the motion suggested to have a final legal contract as well general give you a little in-depth view into the project so I guess the final acquisition was in 2019 I believe at which time we had this big committee and we wrote this management plan for the community forest and then as an addendum to that within the context of that management plan I drafted a force management plan which was approved by the select board in 2020 I believe we were all over zoom and in that there was a bunch of different things that were prescribed and one of them was to engage in this project that's what we're talking about right now it's called adaptive civil culture for climate change so it's in a nationwide network of these forests which are being researched to study how we can manage them in light of a changing climate to protect biodiversity ecological integrity and to face the many different challenges that we're facing in our forest ecosystems working with Tony DiMotto Dr. Tony DiMotto who actually has written the book on climate resilience how we manage forests for climate resilience and also adaptability he's the head of the forestry department working with the Wilson resident working with some other Wilson residents like Dr. Gary Holley Dr. Kim Coleman and others and the goal of the project or I guess what my goal for the project is is to manage the forest that catamount really well and to also demonstrate what responsible forest management looks like because it's really unintuitive it can be when we do the really good forest management for all of these different things for biodiversity, ecological integrity a big goal of this project is also managing a relatively young section of forest to be more like an old growth forest and there are all these really cool attributes that come with that when you do that it's very unintuitive to people and so for me the outreach and the education is a big part of it but also having it be part of a nationwide project where we'll actually be generating research where we can better understand how to manage forests and to change the climate is also really really important so from the science aspect you know there's all kinds of different research that's been done we're doing bird habitat monitoring there'll be some under planting of some climate adapters that we see like like a Blythe tolerant American chestnut we'll be studying all different types of stuff it's gonna be really interesting and there'll be a replication on the adjacent UVM-owned talcott woods which is just south of catamount which is full of control within catamount and as far as the outreach goes we're engaged in a multi-year really really extensive outreach process so this is the smallest forest management project on any of the dozen town forests that I manage in the county by area this is the smallest project I've ever done and it's probably used double the time of any other project that I've ever done but it hasn't started yet and it's we've been doing this for three years and it's probably gonna take a week and a half and the reason for this is because it's in a high visibility area it's in a high use area the benefit to me is having a lot of people be able to look at it and engage with this education and outreach that we do which is a real benefit because then they'll be able to take it home and use it to better understand how to manage their own woods or how to understand the management that's happening elsewhere and the stuff that we gotta do to protect our forest in a changing climate so we have done multiple educational events we've been on TV we've done press releases two articles one written by the staff of the Williston Observer and another written by me we have done four educational events so far this year and we have another eight that are planned for this summer we have a link tree so it's a single link where everybody can access all the articles the videos there's a playlist on my youtube channel with videos just about this project webinars that we've done about the project story maps and RTS we've done yeah so I've marked all the trees that'll be cut a year ago and I put up educational signage that has QR code links to different resources where people can learn more about what it means and a sign that says what all the different markings mean and also a self-guided tour where people can use a QR code to download an app and they can navigate on the app throughout the harvest area to each one of those educational signs and it'll tell them what all the different markings mean and we put up permanent aluminum signage at eight different places that are highlighting different aspects of the things that we're trying to manage for what we're doing it just keeps on going one of the things that I try to do is to make these like to really over outreach to people because we actually want people to engage and we don't just want to have an outreach process that we can say that we did we actually want to like do it and just I'll just add that I think even though I'm not in this role anymore I think this is just like a really cool project and it's the kind of project that like in working for the acquisition of the property at least I had envisioned exactly this kind of project just kind of a demonstration of a project that really engages the community so it's a great project it's exciting, yeah it's been a neat scene especially with the birding community at Catamount seeing Catamount become like a demonstration for us so there's signs up all over the place now you know the work that we're doing or that I should say the Catamount Community Forest Committee is doing with bobbling with wood ducks with other birding programs stuff like that and then the last thing I would say is that of these events one of the things that we really want to demonstrate is partnership the fact that we work with all these different conservation organizations we're all on the same page about this is how we want to approach this issue and so we'll be doing events partnered with the Vermont Land Trust we've already done a couple events partnered with Green Mountain Audubon Society and Audubon Vermont I always do events with City Market Co-op which is always really fun with a group of people Vermont Coverts which is another really interesting land owner organization and the University of Vermont and Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and I'll actually be doing an Instagram takeover of my department the Department of Forest Parks and Recreations Instagram for a week where each day we're going to be posting about this project and we'll be doing a collaborative post so it's posted by two different accounts at the same time with each of those organizations to demonstrate that partnership so it's an exciting project and there's a lot that's gone into it and there will be a lot more opportunities for people to learn more as the summer goes on we expected to start September 1st and that logger, Lofo Logging who we're working with, he's an award winning logger he won logger of the year in Vermont I can't remember 2020 or 2021 that year he also won New England logger of the year very highly recommended and they have specialized equipment which we're using to protect the trails we have special provisions in the contract because we recognize that the trails are a really really important and irreplaceable resource great, thank you questions it's an amazing place Ethan you presented it at Rotary once about a year ago I remember you, that's where I learned that the forms are not good for forests that's the case good for fires wow I wouldn't have known that I can't tell how that's going to come in handy in my life to know that definitely a new priority people love it when I do stuff like that I would say if you like something I know that this is a part of we have a project I don't know if there are any outside sponsors it's not being funded it's not being funded it doesn't cost anything it's generating a lot of money to be reinvested what's the time frame we expect it to start in September 1st part of the contract it could take as little as a week and a half what the defendants say I don't know what we know is a successful experiment I mean it's not going to take a long time we will generate information about it and some of the the ways that we'll be following it we'll be following it for a day or more are there any other questions for Ethan okay sir you wanted to make a presentation is it a relatively brief okay sure you guys can I have a slide in there use the mic oh maybe so if you could stage it my name is Brian Farris I'm the resident of Wilkins I'd like to just read this piece response to Ethan Tapper's piece the latest branch out broadest newsletter about forest carbon I believe that while Ethan's piece made consistent with forestry science the long term viability of our forest to store carbon this is the point of the climate crisis according to the IPCC report in 2018 we have until 2030 to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and 100% by 2050 that leaves us 7 years to do this first part the other part of the climate crisis fight is due to this request for the excess CO2 in our atmosphere highest concentration of CO2 consistent with life as we know it is 350 feet apart per million right now we are at 421 a level we've not seen for 3 million years long before man appeared on earth we now reduce 7 years to cut the amount of CO2 in half the trees are our best method to reduce that level Ethan Tapper says in his article in the branch out broadest research suggests a managed forest more carbon than managed forest managed ones the short term as now the short term we have faced with just 7 years cutting down trees that are our biggest, best and cost free carbon sequestration devices makes no sense in the time frame we have even for science experiments especially ones that have a 40 to 100 year time span to get results we're running out of time in this kind of forestry experiment with relative 50 years ago that ship has sailed we now need our foresters to focus their work in carbon sequestration in the short term how can we preserve all our forests in their unmanaged state it's a quest for the most CO2 in the short term this crisis is not a drill we have one chance to fix this we need all the tools we have and trees are our best tool to take CO2 out of our atmosphere cooler planet I think that we tend to get lost in our silos and I think this project is an example of a silo of thinking and that it's an exciting project from a lot of different aspects when you, but these are irrelevant if we don't have a planet to enjoy those the fruits of those experiments so I suggest that that this site board I don't think there are any climate deniers we all know that we have a crisis even though we're not experiencing crisis this year we can't forget the third of Australia was burned down a couple of years ago we lost towns west coast of the fires that devastated the forests out there and they're still devastating we're subjected to smoke from fires in Canada we know that the climate crisis is on us I think this is a folly of a science experiment that should have been done 50 to 100 years ago and that we need to focus our attention on the planet and not cutting down trees it's going in the wrong direction thank you thank you okay Ethan how big is the area we're doing the experiment in? it's 25 acres so in Canada it's 393 acres I actually did do carbon accounting for this project I estimated that in the short term we'll probably be using a fowl so this in this is I can tell you exactly how you're not there with the wood that we'll be shipping out we'll be losing about 80 metric tons of carbon from that area it's about a thousand of the carbon that's at Canada and it's equivalent to about the carbon footprint of five people for one year or about a third of an individual plant trees that are cutting down are doubly big hurt are hurting our climate one they're not continuing to suppress their carbon and two they're not going to be used it could be burnt they're all testing this is one of the cool things about it is that all of the wood is going to be shipped to actually leaving smaller trees and lower grade trees on the ground which is this really important thing for soil building also for building the carbon stock in our soil which is about 60% of all the carbon is we're only removing the trees that actually have the ability to become durable with products so the amazing thing about that is that they're going five miles down the road to LaMelle Lumber in Essex they're going to get sold into wars and they could get stored in someone's house for 100 years 200 years which is a really really important part of the carbon accounting that's often lost as well as the global human rights and biodiversity benefits of producing local and local resources which is something that we also really want to celebrate we need to clarify what we mean by renewable we just attended a hearing at the McNeil plant in Burlington on Tuesday which they claim the same thing that it's renewable and so it falls into each stuff really good as opposed to fossil fuels which are bad but renewables is a trojan horse which allows things like renewable and natural gas to be pumped into our pipelines at 10% and be called the whole thing is to be called renewable and qualifies renewable that forests take a long time to regenerate forests take 50 to 100 years to regenerate themselves and and this projects tend to take down our biggest trees which store the most carbon because smaller trees have a lot less leaves they squist a whole lot less carbon so we're doing double duty taking down our best carbon sequestration devices and leaving the smaller ones so we're really hurting ourselves doubling I think this is a misguided project I think it was a great project for 50 years ago I don't think it's a great project now we have a climate crisis in front of us we need to address that first wall once we get past that we can talk about other terms like this one thank you thank you everybody for your input so we do have to keep moving on the agenda so the chair will be looking for a motion and then if there is discussion on motion may I just clarify one other thing just that the other two contracts there's the contract with the full logging and there's the contract with me I'm just required to have a contract for my licensure as a forester with any client that I have so this is a weird one because you're not paying me any money I'm just doing it but I have to have a contract with you so that had no cost to the town you weren't having a contract so I moved to authorize the town manager to enter into contracts with county forester Ethan Taver and Brian LaFaux logging and LLC to conduct forest management at the catamount community forest after final contract review while the town attorney motion is made and seconded is there discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed nay the ayes have it thank you please come out to some of these events we're having one on Thursday all about birds Thursday evening 6-8 well I haven't found your videos yet but I think any opportunity you have to address Mr. Forrest absolutely his concern would be probably a very of interest to many people about your numbers thank you next item health officer appointment and deputy so moved I didn't see my name on your name I remember before I read the little thing I was like oh gosh taking volunteers we've been trying to find a permanent health officer for a couple of years now and stepped down to the goal Terry's built as deputy health officer and then in the absence of an appointed individual and now select board chair Terry's going to be appointed as the health officer clarifying the suggested motion in terms of clarification the board does not appoint these roles but recommends to the Vermont Health Commissioner the appointment so I can just give you a little bit of background I've been either deputy health officer or health officer since 1988 so in 1990 I in 88 and through 90 I was deputy health officer fellow by the name of Ray Maggio who worked for AERS laboratories when they existed here in 1990 I began health officer until 2017 27 years and in 2017 to 2022 something thirsty and we traded jobs and she was deputy health officer and so we traded so I became deputy health officer at that time when she resigned after the health of the select board by statute the chair becomes health officer so I served in that role until the new chair was elected in March and I still maintain the deputy health officer until June 31st June 30th this year so a little experience so I'd be willing to take it on a little bit longer we've had this out see if anyone wants to be come since this is on town meeting TV it'll be what kinds of things does that health officer do for people who might be interested in this role it's not a glamorous job but we do take care of animal bites, cat dogs, wild animals rarely we get a wild animal bite so rabies control certainly probably the worst part of the job is dealing with rental housing complaints we only do that on a complaint basis and if you know of rental housing there's probably at least three sides to every story and so I was trying to make everybody unhappy I guess in that role occasionally it's required to write a health order or merge the health order I think that only happened twice in my long career writing health orders but generally we end up getting good cooperation from everybody involved on this those are the major things that we deal with there are training courses available through the health department through the legal studies in towns to prepare people for the various things that you get involved with we also can test drinking water for those who are not on visible systems and have a problem there the kids are available through the health department and we get free testing for those things once in a while we used to get calls on surfacing sewage and we may be dealing with one of those soon but the role of the health officer in that case is to prevent a public health hazard that's currently existing the ultimate solution to making the system correct would be through zoning and through the department of environmental conservation and the officers environmental officers that come through at our request to take a look at things like that so it's a challenge you have at time but it doesn't take an awful lot of time so there is a stipend of $800 per year well it sounds like there's a lot of support for the position on a lot of health learning the role so there is some support to the health department as well yeah so have I been serving as town health officer yes you have I get a pro-ration of that so we don't need to move to a point that we need to move to recommend to this to the Vermont Health Commission she would recommend me as health advisor to the commissioner of health for an unexpired three-year term through December 31st 2024 second discussion on the motion okay so I'm going to move to recommend Terry McKay as health officer to the Vermont commissioner of health for an unexpired three-year term through December 31st 2024 discussion on the motion all those in favor say aye aye all those in favor say aye one abstention so I'll move to recommend Ted Kenny as deputy health officer to the Vermont commissioner of health for a three-year term second discussion on the motion all those in favor say aye aye all those in favor say aye all those in favor say yes all those in favor say aye aye okay okay thank you both Terry thank you financial management questionnaire Eric and Shirley the annual exercise for the town that is leading for the seasons and towns Shirley's finance director The motion to consider is there's not to be accepted, but we've done this to acknowledge receipts and this questionnaire from the non-staff. Surely there's here any questions on any of these items. How come yours is only one page and the school's is two pages? No, I mean, seriously, the only one I kind of bumped over was I haven't had any financial training. So. Didn't I see something in the room for you? That was like the one-on-one thing. I don't think they talked finances at all. What board is it, too? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. I wish that you guys had done this at that point. I'm just thinking about coming here at 8 p.m. and stuff like that. I don't think the count could afford to give me financial training. Yeah. No, I just, I was just curious because we have the same problem with the school board. What does financial training is? 15 minutes on how to read the financial management report for something more. Further questions or comments? Well, in hand. So the chair would look for a motion. I move to acknowledge receipt of the financial management questionnaire for fiscal year 2023. Is there a second? Second. Is there a discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed nay. The ayes have it. Annual employee wage adjustments. This is another item we typically put to the board in June. We built in the FY24 budget at 3.5% cost of living increase for all of our non-UNI staff for the fiscal year 2024. We do this based on a 24-month period using the consumer price index for the Northeast region. The actual increase was just over 7% over that 24-month period in the board document budget that was set up in a town where we had voters. We built that 3.5% number. We used that because that was the ceiling identified in our active police union contracts. We used that as a basis for our other staff members. Sort of the board's approved, formally approved that cost of living increase as approved in the budget at that June meeting. There's a motion in this case. Questions for Eric? Chair would look for a motion. Move to approve a cost of living adjustment for all non-UNI employees of 3.5% in fiscal year 2024. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, oh, discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, an A, the ayes have it. Manager to report. Blend to see Dana for the finance report from the month of March and through the materials. But be sure to have a really good experience I like your sort of the questions from the board and Shirley and Mary are wrapping up April and May right now too as well as working through the New Year celebration and the happy and town hall. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Okay. A couple of items. I'll have this reminder at your special meeting scheduled for next Wednesday at 6 p.m. earlier start time for the setting of tax rate. A P, grant list appeals are this Friday for the town assessor, the listeners. So after those wrap up, we'll have a finalized grand list house on Friday and we'll get the calculation and that to show out. Yeah, I probably will. You'll be surprised. This is the first time I myself through this. The first time I'm going through it, I might actually have some questions or I could just ask you offline if I get it ahead of time. So yeah. Yeah, we've got a, we have a sheet we fill out. I don't know. Great. That would be helpful for me. It always is a projection initially when we put the budget together ask the assessor, what do you think the growth is going to be by indication right now. I think we budgeted like a quarter percent about five million in Greece. I'm hearing good news that we might be more than 25 or 30 million range on the base of where some things landed. So as that works out, we're anticipating a tax rate increase that is not as much as we projected last one year by 24%. Finalized the numbers here, I think we got around this. Our new ambulance was delivered last week. Ordered it in August of 2021. So it's been a little time coming here. So I actually haven't had a chance to check it out. Just yet someone tried to stop them tomorrow and I'm planning to get some time for the board to just have some visits to some of our town buildings here. We haven't done that for a couple years of the pandemic. So we stationed fire station, waste water treatment planned over in Essex too would be a good one to get over to as soon as possible. I think that's a good highlight though, too, for the central use of any ARPA funds if we do make big capital purchases, potential lead time for ordering things and actually having to have them delivered and paid for. If we're looking at two years for something that we'd be right putting up against our potential, the date we have to spend the ARPA funds, so. Just update on our community center scoping and library assessment. We're doing the second wave of the survey right now and as of this afternoon, we're upwards to 370 surveys completed. So I'm just looking at this occasion so far. We've got a hundred that came up. And then finally, it's not my report. Just an update on the temporary shelter discussion we had at the last meeting. I've been in conversations with the state. I've sent a couple of emails trying to see who will be able to facilitate a conversation between the state and a private property and understand a temporary shelter in town, town to service kind of a connective tissue for that. Haven't received any response from the state yet. I've gone through a couple of their programs. Contacts are recommended to me to see about some of the money they're releasing. My hunch is with the veto session this week, I know that the topic of a political voucher program is up on the budget discussion. So I don't have more guidance from the state on potential for this after that. So I'll keep the board posted. I did connect with a property owner at Maple Tap Corners around Maple Tree Place to potentially stand up a community resource hub. So we're in some of the discussions there to see if we can get that started. Not there, a couple other potential locations in that area. So I'm hoping that's something we can move forward very quickly this summer to just have, talk to Steph the other day about it, even if we need to put a tent up other than overhang. If we have a spot just for people to go and talk to people and try to get assistance from services, we'll work to make that happen. So that's where, those things are in the evening. Business, anything? No permits. Okay. And then item last of any final thoughts on agenda items for follow up or further discussion? Two, one is, there was a comment we brushed over on the rate user fee for affordable housing. I mean, I think I would, I'd be comfortable with if perhaps our new housing, the part of the thinking of that the new housing commission goes into is how we could restructure the rates rather than just saying, let's just change the ordinance. So I'd be okay with that. I know I brought that up last time, but that might be something to put in a package of how do we encourage affordable housing? Part of it could be cover that. So I'm okay with leaving that with them. Possibly something that would go into the housing committee's church. Or just in their thinking. Micro. One of their first agenda items there, I think we might be more of a direction for a product. Yeah, okay. Okay. Right. And it wouldn't just be a specific, but any other fees that we, and the other one is just on the whole cannabis thing. I know that Matt wasn't really prepared to discuss the whole document he sent us, but I had a lot of questions and I, I don't think that the town does have a lot we can do, but I would hate to be stuck with something we don't want because we missed a zoning possibility. So I don't know how we wrap back around there sounds like Matt's just wrapping his head around the whole thing too. So a future agenda item at the appropriate time. I think that's not, that's not quite as specific as the cannabis board or the general. Yeah. The state statute does not give towns much leeway. No. But if there was a way to, I don't know. I'm not the expert. You guys have been around the block a lot more and I have on zoning, but do we have anything that we might regret? Yep. Okay. Anything else? All right. Hearing nothing, we are adjourned.