 intimidating, and I find it antithetical to the democratic process when we should be welcoming people of all opinions and not castigating them if they disagree. Thank you. Fancy. Well, Elaine, thank you. And not surprisingly, I was sent this by a person who, when I was a representative, talked to me frequently and was asked, what does he mean? And all I could think of was that we, as Bruce just said, we do attend the meetings because we are interested and you are castigating us for our interest, even though it doesn't align with your interests. It's sort of like, why wouldn't you want them to hear when we're having a conversation our point of view? It's like a doctor who doesn't want to give you a referral to another doctor. Why? Having both sides of the understanding, understanding both positions on the merger is really a good thing. There's nothing wrong with that. And none of us are really intimidating. I'm like really surprised how that happens. And I think that this is so out of place by the head of our select board to have in here and to have say, well, I can meet with you personally and give you my perspective, but you won't really, your negatives are going to be your negatives. They're not necessarily our negatives. And hearing all the story is critical to, as Bruce said, the democratic way. I am appalled by what you did. This is not what I thought you would ever do. I'm really sorry about it. It bothers me. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the public? No. I'm sorry. I hear that. Okay. Somebody, Mary Post. Yeah. I just want to agree with Bruce and Betsy. And I just feel that because of the way things have been handled, including watching bullying of your own select board members, which is very difficult to watch, I just feel that this whole thing has been bad from the start. And I feel that there's a lot of increased animosity and ugliness in this, in our town and the village because of the way this has been handled. And I blame the select board. I blame, especially the you. And I think that there are people that are working hard, but I think the whole thing is just so negative that now everybody's, there's so many people that are fighting with other people. It should not be done. And when there are shots being taken and things written like today, it makes it even worse. It's like, you mean I can't be in opposition to something without being considered a bad person because I don't agree with you? Number one, with public to be heard, we haven't even been able to have a robust discussion. You know, and so then we're left out of that to begin with. And then if we do our own, have our own meetings, which everyone is invited to and they are open to anyone, then we're considered problems. And the only way we can get information is through what we can lean from the meetings that we have or people that we talk to outside of these meetings. And yet then it seems like it seems like we're considered that we're doing something, you know, on the sly behind closed doors, which is totally not what it is. So I'm just disappointed in the whole process. And I feel quite bad about it. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak? I'm not seeing any other hands. So before we move on, I would like to address these comments. Thank you, first of all, for sharing your comments. And I appreciate your honesty. And I appreciate your willingness to call me out when you feel that I haven't behaved the way you expect. However, I really have to disagree with your characterization of the situation. Elected officials are subject to an enormous amount of scrutiny and a constant stream of criticism, regardless of actions or words, it's just always there. But we're elected officials and we sign up for that. We understand that that is the thing that's going to happen when we take positions that are unpopular. But regular folks who just want to attend our meetings and share their opinions about things, they shouldn't have to deal with that. And they don't want to be attacked or face free prizes for their disagreements. And they also don't want to witness other people experiencing that either. And while I am entirely grateful to all of you who attend these meetings on a regular basis, you give up your dinner times, you spend all these hours watching our work and very few people. The thing is, this dedicated audience of people that is here tonight, you are here at every single meeting. We hear your thoughts every single meeting. And it's information we hear over and over again and we appreciate your opinion, but we're not getting opinions from many other people. And so my post on Facebook, which was not inappropriate in any way, was offering the fact that the board is looking for feedback on the charter. The board is holding listening sessions about the charter. The board, I put all of our emails up there so that everybody could contact us that way. And I also offered and acknowledged the fact that there is discomfort with some people, many people who don't like coming to these meetings because they don't want to express their opinion publicly because of the negativity and because of the reprisals that happen offline even in the neighborhoods. And I'm acknowledging that because people are unhappy about it. I am hearing about it. Other board members are hearing about it. I've seen lots of chatter on Facebook, some significant negativity, and people don't like it so they don't stick their necks out. So kudos to all of you for being willing to stick your necks out on a regular basis and to share your opinions, which are generally counter to what the select board is talking about. We get it, we understand it, and it's entirely your right to speak about these things. But you must also understand that intent is not the same as impact. And your intention is to share with us your thoughts about what we're doing and the fact that you disagree with what we're doing and the fact that you feel we are taking the town in the wrong direction. But you people who are here all the time are not the only residents of Essex. We need to hear from other people who have different opinions from yours. And you may not intend to make people feel like there's negativity happening, but I can assure you that is the impact. And I am equally as guilty because we all get very heated around this conversation. And it's important that we do that, but we have to maintain respect. Today I was accused of being a Russian spy. I was accused of avoiding quorum. I was accused of trying to schedule individual private meetings and all sorts of shenanigans that are simply not the case. I am providing an additional way for residents to communicate with select board members who don't want to talk publicly. That is all that was. There is nothing inappropriate about it. I am entitled to talk to constituents and they are entitled to talk to me in whatever way they feel comfortable doing. And the same is true for every board member. However they want to communicate with the community, some board members like myself and Pat Murray are willing to do video chats. Some village trustees like Raj Chalwa and Andrew Brown are willing to do video chats. Others are not and would prefer to just do voice email or private conversations at Hanna-Fords or whatever. The point is there is negativity going around about this merger. There is misinformation. There is conspiracy theories. There is all sorts of nonsense happening. And we are all way better than that. So let's pledge all of us together right now going forward to stop attacking each other. I am trying to get communications from other residents whom I have not heard from. That is not something that is inappropriate for a select board chair or a select board member to do. So I appreciate you're always holding us accountable for what we're doing. But you have to also let us do our jobs. Thank you. All right. Let's move on to business item 5A. Oh, Dawn, please go ahead. Madam Chair, could you ask everybody to mute their mics? There's an awful lot of feedback. I can hear people talking and people chewing and people breathing. Oh, dear. Absolutely. If you're not online, please mute your mic. Thanks, everybody. Sorry about that, Dawn. Okay. Business item 5A. Listening session with public about draft charter for merger of town of Essex and village of Essex Junction. So this is exactly what it is. We would love to hear from all of you your thoughts on the charter. It was in the packet for today's meeting. And we are just interested in hearing what you're thinking, your questions, what's confusing, how can we answer those questions? Greg, please go ahead. Whenever you're done, Elaine, I just wanted to chime in. But as soon as you're whenever you're done speaking. No, I'm done. Okay. If the board will indulge me, Evan and I had a chance to chat with Dan Richardson this afternoon and ask him a few questions about the comments and edits that he made to the charter. That's the version that's in the packet. If it's possible, if I can just take a few minutes and just run through our conversation with Dan to fill people in. That would be great. And Evan, jump in whenever you feel like it. Section 103, let me pull up the charter so everybody can see it, first of all. Section 103, Dan is going to get us a little bit some slightly reworded language. Just clarifying that town meeting that there's an informational, that the goal is to have an informational town meeting on the Monday night and the vote's happening on town meeting day, the Tuesday. So that section will be slightly reworded, most likely in the next coming days. 104B, we talked a bit about this last sentence here, operational budget at a consistent rate for each of those 12 years. Dan took another look at it and speaking to Evan and I and suggested a slight change that the town operational budget, let me just start at the beginning of the sentence here, for a transitional period of 12 consecutive years commencing from the July 1st effective date of the charter, the unincorporated village of Essex Junction shall be designated as a tax reconciliation district for the purpose of transferring the cost of the village's municipal operations into the town's operational budget. Here's the change at a rate for each of those 12 years consistent with this purpose. So just a slightly reworded there, but hopefully captures the intent a bit better. And then I can answer any questions you have about why that wording is when we get there. Section 105, Dan was going to take another knock at just trying to clarify exactly what the interim governing board will be and the transition phase and the timing there. So again, you might see some slight changes after tonight to that section. Section 301B, Andy had had some questions about the May being changed to shawl in terms of the creating the wards for the voting wards. Dan recommended that we stick with shawl on the select board. She'll make the changes based on an ordinance. He said that the legislature's going to want to know how and how wards are passed or how wards are changed and saying the select board shall do it through an ordinance will define and clarify that for the legislature. Section 403, this is another one that Andy caught speaking about the town treasurer and town clerk. In section 403 it had said appointed. Further on down in section, I think it's 702, it speaks about those two positions being hired. Recommend changing the word to hired here just for consistency sake. And the last section in the select board might want to discuss this when we get to it or whenever you desire tonight. Sections 803 and 804, the planning commission and the development review board. The select board had originally left it open in terms of the number of members on the board and the commission and the length of their term. Everything would have to be beholden to statute, which is the planning commission. It's sections 24 VSA 4322 and 4323. For the development review board, it's 24 VSA 4460. Dan recommended putting in, he suggested two-year terms for the planning commission and three-year terms for the development review board. Anything within the term length allowed by statute is acceptable, but Dan recommended that the term length be put into statute. Sorry, put into the charter. Just to provide some consistency, let's people know what they're signing up for, let's the select board know what their expectations are for these board members. And the number of members can be set by policy or couldn't be in the charter. And for planning commission, it's anywhere from three to nine members. For development review boards, anywhere from five to nine members. And if the board wants to have alternates, which I believe was the direction the board wanted after meeting with the planning commissions and zoning boards, those alternates should be called out in charter. So that was it. As Evan said, happy to provide some clarification, but just wanted to run through those changes so everybody is aware of them as we get started. And Greg, if you could go back up to the 12 consecutive years, I believe it, right? Is that 103? Hard to scroll through a 24-page document when the thing you want is up at the top and you're at the bottom. Okay. So there has been comments before about the 12-year period and that the, so the mechanism. So if you think about it sort of structurally on a given budget year, you want to move the entire village budget into the town budget over a 12-year period. You generally would want to do it consistently every year. Okay. So let's just say if you took a sum number of 24 and divided by 12 consecutive years, you would come out with two per year. The issue with that is, is that that may be your intent, but from year to year, you're going off of the growth of the grand list. And from year to year, you might have a reason to either make it two and a half or one and a half. But the intent is still the same that at the end of the 12 years, the entire village budget is inside the town budget. And you are trying to get to a unified tax rate for a home, except for anything else that is a special district or a bond that only some people paid for. But in general, this is the wording that Dan felt more comfortable with that again over this 12-year period, consecutive 12 years. That's the one that doesn't change. The village budget would be consumed by the entire town into a tax rate that after the 12th year would be the same whether you're in the town outside the village or the village district, whichever one, that's what it would be. So I didn't want somebody to believe or say that you promised that you would keep this at same rate every year. It might end up being that way. It may be slightly different. But at the end, it should be an equalized tax rate. Thanks, Evan. Board members, do you have any questions or comments regarding Dan Richardson's feedback on this? Andy, I know you had a number of questions. Why don't you go ahead and then Dawn? Section 103, as long as we're here, we had at our last meeting talked about the possibility of the charter being approved before town meeting in a given calendar year. And we had added the following calendar year, oh, meeting day following approval. We added that in and then I got removed again by Dan. I'm just wondering if in your discussion with Dan, you explained to him why we had added that. Because if it's approved by the legislature in January or February, you have a real hard time warning the first town meeting. Right. And that's why we generally have asked that if they do that, the effective date would be a July 1 of the new charter. Then maybe I can suggest that this needs to say following the effective date of the charter rather than approval of the charter because approval to me tells me that's when the legislature approves it, not when the charter becomes effective. So that's where maybe that's the fix that's needed. And then most of the other questions I had were answered with what Greg just went through. But I did have a question about 301, the setting the wards by ordinance. Is that saying that any changes to the charter sets the initial wards and then any changes to it need to be done by ordinance? Is that what that section is saying? That is correct. Okay. So we don't need to enact an ordinance to establish the first wards. Greg, I believe he said we do have to establish that ordinance. Yeah, I think he did say that. Yes. We are going to establish that first ordinance. It says that we're going to do it. We will. Basically what we would do and is because they're the exact boundaries, but we have to do it in map form. So in that transition period, that would be one of the ordinances we should pass. So this is not in the transition section. Do we need to something in the transition section that defines that we're going to define those wards by ordinance? This is in the permanent section. So that's why I'm... He did not feel that was necessary, only that we know it needs to get done. Okay. Okay. And we are probably easier said than done, but because of GIS, I hope we're going to... We should be able to do it quite well, but it is going to take us to make sure that when we do it, the boundaries are delineated. Right. And the address strings are put together. Andy, was that all your questions? And the other one, and I don't know if it's a different discussion is that Dan had put in term lengths for the DRB and the planning commission, which we had just decided to take out. In fact, the village took at least the planning commission ones out of theirs as well. So I just... No, they didn't. They have term... They do have the term still in there, but I think they have four years instead of three, but I don't know. Anyway, I don't know if this is something we need to have a discussion on. I guess I don't care how long the terms are, but I thought we intentionally taken them out so we could define it by policy. One of his comments was where there is... If you want to use the term conflict, where they are not in agreement... Let's try that. Where they are not in agreement, that is where they will probably ask the two parties to come to some agreement, and that's when you can do it. So if you're at two and they're at four, they'll either ask the parties, do you want to be one or the other, or meet in the middle? I understand that, but I don't understand why they've gone back in after we had the discussion about intentionally taking the term lengths out. He mentioned in today's meeting that the state would prefer to see something of that nature. Is it something specific to these two boards that requires that? Because none of our other boards have defined term lengths. We mentioned the library in here, we mentioned other... He also mentioned that the state doesn't necessarily require that you put it in your charter at all. You can do it. It's just that when you have a plan commission, the state statute is what it is. You can have anywhere from, I believe, Greg, three to nine members, but the select board sets their terms and can do so. So that's what this comment was. I think the term lengths... I have to double check statute, but I think it's one to four years. The town has four year planning commission terms, and the village has three. Dan put in two. Not sure exactly why he said two, but he did say it's provide some clarity to the board, to planning commissioners. If you're going to keep the term lengths, I would just recommend doing what the village charter proposed merger charter says, which I believe was four year terms for the planning commission. So if you want to change it to four, I don't think that's going to be a problem. And if you want to take it out, that would be, I think, that's acceptable too, as long as there's a policy of defining how long they are. The term lengths need to be set by a vote, though, don't they? Or do they, in this case, for the am I wrong? This select board would create a policy. The new select board would create a policy commission as terms of three years, four years, whatever the decision is. Yeah, I'm a little at a loss here because the planning commission role changes in this model as well. So I don't know the benefits of a two year versus a four year term. So I struggle a little bit with making that decision arbitrarily here. Can I add in? I agree with Andy's observation. This is something that the board specifically said, we didn't want terms in here. And I'm hearing from you, Greg, that it's up to us to have them in or not. We've already decided not to have them in. And I'd rather empower the new board to make that decision as to what term lengths they should be after their own considered conversation. Go ahead, Evan. So why don't we just strike for the sentence in the part for two year terms? Yes. And then just that. And do you want to define a seven member board? That was what we've had all along. It's fine. Dan says it falls within the required minimum and maximum. So seven seems to be fine. Elaine, if you don't mind me mentioning the request we got from the planning commission when we met was that they wanted to try to keep as much institutional knowledge as they could. If we're only able to have two alternate members, we may want to consider making the commissions as large as possible to incorporate bringing both boards together. Just a thought before we move on because if we set it to seven, then we're definitely going to be losing people from the commissions. Pat, I'm sorry, your words dropped right at an important moment when you were speaking. So, Greg, you're making changes. You're adding alternate members, I see. Pat was saying he was wondering if there's a limit to the number of alternate members. Should the commission and the board be larger to keep the institutional knowledge that's on there now? And speaking to Dan, you don't have to, he put two as the number of alternates, but there's no limit on the number of alternates. Statute refers to the size of the planning commission. So the board can discuss whether two is enough alternates if you want to increase that. Okay. I would say that I remember what the planning commissioners said and that's an excellent point. I'm wondering also do we need to set an actual number here or can we say a sufficient number of alternate members or something like that or and allow the future board to set that number as policy? I think you could probably put and shall appoint alternate members as necessary. Okay. Does that seem to satisfy the different concerns we had with this section? I see a thumbs up from Pat. Yes, thank you. Awesome. Okay. Thank you, Andy. Okay. Andy, do you have more or can we go to Dawn? That's all my questions. All my comments. Thanks. The others were addressed. All right. Dawn, thanks for your patience. That's okay. There was some awesome discussion from Dan about the role of a moderator at our town meeting and I'm sorry I don't know the section, Greg, but I think it's important that we keep a moderator in place because we also act on reports of officers at our town meeting and we need somebody to moderate any kind of presentation that may occur. Jumping in our conversation today. So in this form you can have a moderator. His comment about it could be that you can either in general, because you're doing Australian ballot, you don't necessarily have to elect a moderator. You can appoint one. So that is maybe a question of whether you want to have the town select board appoint a moderator or versus electing one because there's again it's by Australian ballot and the role of the moderator in the informational meeting would just be to run that meeting. So I don't know if you guys want to consider appointment appointing. One of the questions about this that Andy had last time was that report of the manager report of the officers, you know, is that even something that we'll be doing if the budget is being voted on by Australian ballot by that time? You know, if we're having an informational only meeting then why would we be voting on things at the informational meeting? You will not be working on things at the informational meeting. Which is why you're suggesting appointing a moderator not electing one. Okay. Now his comment was some communities prefer keeping the moderator because they know how to run the meeting. Right. They know the rules and procedures. We have a great and efficient moderator in Mr. Eustis. I have, you know, you guys have been here a lot longer. I don't know how long he's been doing it but he runs a pretty efficient meeting. I would keep for myself if it was up to the manager, I'd keep appointing him as long as he wanted to do it. Well, as it's an elected office at the moment and has been, the voters have chosen Steve Eustis many years in a row. So I have no problem with keeping it as an elected position. I'm happy to defer to other board members. Dawn, what are your thoughts? As we're giving up traditional town meeting as we've known it for the last 200 years, I really would prefer to keep it as an elected position. Okay. Andy? I guess my only question is whether there's added expense associated with that. I mean, there's a budget, there's a ballot going out anyway because we're electing, we're always electing select board members and we'll then potentially be also voting on the ballot. So I guess there's no additional costs to having it be an elected position. I don't think so. Yeah. I'm fine with it either way. Okay. Okay. All right. Board members, are you good to go with the comments from Dan Richardson? Okay. So apologies to those of you in the audience who have been waiting to talk about the charter. Last minute changes as you see, but if anyone would like to talk to us about the charter, share some information, some questions, some concerns, we would love to hear from you. So please indicate either by raising your hand or letting us know in the chat that you'd like to speak. I see Hubert Norton. Go ahead. I am here. Can you hear me? Yes. First of all, just to add another comment regarding the moderator. Introduced on town meeting we are acting on the reports of the officers. And will that require a ballot item in order to vote to approve the officers reports? I would expect that there will be discussion about the officers reports at the town meeting. And although we might not be voting on them there, I would assume that you would have to have an approval summary, but expect that it would be on the ballot. Is that affirmative? Evan, is that so my understanding from the conversation we just had was that at an informational meeting we would not be voting on the officers reports. However, we would certainly be presenting the auditor's report in the booklet that you get in our annual report. And Greg, correct me if I'm wrong. In our discussion today he said there is no vote at the informational meeting. There is no vote. So when you vote for the budget, you're voting for the approval. On the budget, yes. And trying to remember, I don't think we spoke about the reports of the officers when we talked to Dan today. We can get clarification. I have a memory that we may not need to approve those if it's part of the new charter that we don't. I think it's been a tradition in Essex, but I don't know that other towns do it, but we can try to get confirmation from Dan as to whether or not that's needed and what the process would be for approving the reports of the officers. Okay. Well, I have a couple of other things. This is Huber and Orton again. And by the way, there were a couple times there when Greg was providing the feedback that a couple different people spoke, but it wasn't clear who they were. For us that don't necessarily recognize voices, it would be good if people had identified themselves before they spoke. Anyway, the moderator question aside, realizing this is not necessarily a budget discussion, there are obviously provisions in the proposed charter that will directly impact any final budgets developed under emerged municipality. Aside from our little special districts that are proposed within the village that will have their own budget controversies, believe me. I'd like to ask about a specific special district included that I propose that there should be in the charter. And also I'll talk about one that is not proposed that maybe should be concluded. First, the special district that is included. Why does the proposed charter perpetuate the Brown Owl Library trust and how can any strategies and economy skills be developed between the two libraries if it's overshadowed by the Brown Owl Library trust? Currently, the village budget includes $750,850 or a massive 14% of the total village budget for the Brown Owl Library. And it has increased approximately 10% since 2019. Meanwhile, the true library is budgeted at $359 which improves $15,000 for the Brown Owl Library. And it is still 3% of the total town budget which is only about 8% from 2019. So why does the proposed charter have this nice special little paragraph about the Brown Owl Library? Why aren't we taking that truck? I'll take a stab at it, Evan. So one of your questions was will there be any synergies between the two libraries? And the answer is yes. And they're currently already are. Staff are shared between the two libraries in many instances. And the library's hours are coordinated to be one's open when the other one isn't. And the library directors work very closely together currently. And the plan is for them to continue doing so. As for the special paragraph about the Brown Owl in the charter, section 401, that chapter is about all the other offices in the town that are elected besides the select board. And the Brown Owl Trust indicates that five of the Brown Owl board members are to be elected. And so that's why the Brown Owl appears in that section of the charter. The Brown Owl Trust is not something we can break up unless we want to do some significant legal battling. And that is not what we're looking to do. What we're trying to do is maintain the status quo with our libraries so that our residents are served at their expectation. And there has definitely been a historical disagreement as to the dollar amount of the budget items for both libraries. But it's also important to understand that they are very, very different libraries that see very, very different levels of patronage and perform very different services in many cases. So I know that's not specifically addressing what you're asking, which is what, you know, what cuts are going to be made to make the budgets more affordable for the libraries. That's not the plan. We are maintaining the service level that our residents expect. And we are not intending to break the Brown Owl Library Trust. Second point of a special district that is not included, which should be considered to be included, is the portions of the village water and sewer infrastructure that is approaching 100 years old. And we'll probably be expecting some replacement costs. And they're not too distant future. And why was the significant difference in infrastructure age between the village and town outside of the not considered or a special district within the village? Not to ask Evan to answer that because I think we do address it. But Evan, I'd like you to take that one. We do address it. The water systems of the village in the town are generally distinct and the costs to operate those systems are going to stay within those systems. So, for instance, a water main that serves the village and only the village customers, if it needs to be repaired, that cost is then, stays with that district. So, if the village's system is aging and it needs repairs, that cost will be reflected in the rates to those system users, not to the entirety of the entire system. That's how they were addressed. So, it's not a special district, Evan, it's just the way the entire water sewer system is going to work as laid out in the charter. Correct. For any bonding that might be required in order to finance any reconstruction, that bonding cost would only be the burden of their users within that particular district. Correct. And if there was any overlap into the other district, then that only that portion of the work would be shared. So, sometimes we have things like transmission mains that go from one to the other or there's a benefit to the other system. Only that portion of benefit would go to the other system as a charge. That's how we are keeping the systems and their costs separate for legacy. So, one last question, more comment than a question. I thought you were talking about the meeting, the Zoom meeting, which by the way, I'm not a great planner, but this is where we are. Regarding the BRB Planning Commission's proposal in the new charter. And I go back to the meetings that were held five or six years ago when it was recommended that there be one planning commission and two DRBs. And although that was talked about with a kind of a status quo consideration, there was this hint that, yeah, this is moving toward a merged situation. And I believe that because there are two, and I think quite distinct, different zoning regulations within the village and the town, out of the village, that having one DRB, you're essentially going to have that one DRB working as two independent DRBs. Each time something comes up within a particular ward, because the regulations are different. And I don't see how those two existing regulations can be amalgamated within one year so that one DRB could act on them recently. So anyway, I still would prefer to see a DRB within each ward for some interim time frame until the regulations, the zoning regulations, the best words are, as I say, amalgamated, made into one. And then one DRB might be appropriate. Anyway, that's comment. That's all I have for the moment. Thank you. You're welcome. Those are some excellent comments and questions, Ubert. And I suggest also, if you can, stick around for the remainder of the meeting, because Charlie Baker, who is the director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, will be joining us in a little while. And he might be able to speak specifically to how CCRPC is going to help us bring the two zoning codes together after merger. Greg? Yeah, a couple of follow-up comments to Ubert. Section 112 is the section that Evan was speaking to where it talks about the costs that are specific to each system. We'll stay with that system for the water sewer districts. And I just wanted to call out, too, that Fort Ethan Allen is in the town water system. Some of those pipes are 100 years old. So there's just certainly costs on both systems that repairs and infrastructure that they're going to have to be dealt with at some point. And as far as the development review board and the planning commissions, the plan is that not to incorporate everything together into one year. The section 109 of the transitional phase speaks to bringing those codes and systems together over several years. So just want to make sure everyone is aware of that, too. It's not an expectation that's going to happen in year one. There'll be five years, I believe, to transition and bring those sets of regulations together. And I will add back into the water and sewer comment. Good point about Fort Ethan Allen. There are also a significant amount of lift stations that the town uses to get sewerage to the treatment plant more than the village, and those are also aging as well. So there's lots of costs to go around between our water systems and our sewer system. So the trick is how to make sure that you're keeping on top of those issues so that your costs effectively repairing and replacing them in a timely manner. So thanks. Happy to hear more comments. Thank you. So Sharon Zucowski has her hand up, and then Lorraine Zulum is on the phone. So go ahead, Sharon, and then Lorraine. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. This isn't specific about the merger, but it's about the wording. And I noticed that the word shall appears about 280 times. And the problem sometimes with shall is that it can mean will, may, or must. And it's probably the most litigated word in the English language. So if you really want something to happen and not for it not to be litigated, you use the word must. And if you if you inserted that in there, you would see like something must happen. But shall can mean in the future it can be mostly courts, like if it went to appeals or the Supreme Court, they say that any statute or law that has the word shall will be interpreted as may, which means that it might not happen. Because may isn't specifically an illegal obligation. It's we might do this. So when you shall 280 times, it opens yourself to a massive amount of litigation because you're not saying must. Must. And it used to be taught in legal school to use shall. But any attorney like under the age of 45 no longer uses shall, they always use must. Unless they want to be sneaky and put in shall because they know they won't have to do it. It's a game. Just a thought. Okay. I'll take this interesting. I can send you a link on the Supreme Court decision that says any statute that is litigated up to I mean, obviously the murder is not going to go to the Supreme Court of the United States, I hope. But that would be interesting. But the Supreme Court does when it gets air say that if you said shall, it means may in any law. I would be happy to see the link. Also happy to talk with not only the merger attorney, but also the town attorney. He's over 45 though. Both of them are probably right around there. But they do like a good article. Yeah, I used to have this argument with an attorney I worked with all the time and he did start using must instead of shall because he did get into litigation in a trust over the word shall. Like you shall pay this. And the argument was shall doesn't mean I must pay you. It could mean any of these three and I interpret as may. Well, thank you. And we had our conversations and our interpretation of shall is you must. But I will certainly bring it up with the attorney. And I bet your town attorney will think that too because he's definitely way over 45. Hold on now. I'm 63. I'm not being an agent. I'm like, I'm almost dead. I have to protect Bill. He's not here to defend himself. I know. And I'm just teasing. I mean, I'm 63. I'm not being a just but it is when he was going to law school shall was must it no longer is. Okay, I'll share it with him. Thank you. I'm sure he'll love it. Don't tell him it was for me. I have a nice day. Thanks, Sharon. Lorraine's alum, you're on the phone. Yes. Can you? I'm not sure if you can hear me. We sure can go ahead. Oh, excellent. Thanks, Elaine. Lorraine's alum. Just that that was a very interesting comment. That was very good. We're all a bit older and 25. So just a clarification on the transitional member board. I was curious if is it clear in the charter proposal if a slack board member censors two seats that are up for election and this might go on for up for a vote in March if those two seats are not reelected, would they if if it gets passed through the legislature before their term is up, even though they weren't reelected, would they be able to still serve on that transitional board? I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question. So there's two seats up for election in March of 2021. So whoever wins those seats would be seated in the fall of that April. And according to section 105, those existing members of the select board and the existing members of the trustees would form the interim governing body and that would include whoever is officially seated at that in each board. Right. So to me there's this weird point between the election, which is in March, and the end of the term, which I believe is in April, are the terms up in April? Yes. So if the person wasn't reelected in March but the term isn't up until April and the merger gets passed before their seat is up, would that person, since their term wasn't up, and the charter proposal is now, I guess, enacted when it goes through legislation, if that happens before the select board member's term is up, would they then still serve on the transitional board? I think I see what you're saying and it doesn't sound like the language is that clear about it to me because of that kind of interim? Sure. I mean, it's unlikely that the legislature is going to approve the new charter before the first Monday in April after the election. But in the event that it could, but in the event that it did, I mean, if the person who loses a seat in March, they need to step down from the select board by the first meeting of April. So the new person would take their seat and they would go into the new board. I don't see this as a loophole to perpetuate those two seats that are up for reelection in March, if that's what you're saying. Yeah, that's what I just wanted clarification on. So also, in terms of that board being the transitional board being an equal number board for that first year, does that, in a way, in terms of what you were saying about statute, that the boards have to be either three or five? Does that set a precedent for an equal number board despite being transitional? I think we had this conversation before. Andy had pointed. It sets a precedent, but I didn't clarify if that precedent then also covers just being select board, since it is a select board, regardless of being transitional or not. And the other question I had was if Dan, in terms of what the Essex town charter proposal is, includes a three plus three and equal number board model, I assume that means Dan said you don't have to take that out. The transitional governing body is different from a select board and we have to be very clear on that delineation. And so, yes, the two boards would come together to form the interim governing body and yes, it would be an even numbered board for that temporary period between the approval of the charter and the election of the permanent select board. And then depending upon what the legislature rules, if the select board is to be three plus three, then that is what it would be. If the select, if the legislature decides that is not what they want, then the permanent select board would follow whatever it is the legislature recommends. But Dan, did Dan say you had to take it out? Because I would assume as a lawyer, as a town lawyer, he would say you'd have to take it out if it's not meeting state statute. So I'll answer this. The select board has inserted it into the document. Dan Richardson is our attorney. He does not feel that he does, he believes the state is going to have a problem with three plus three. However, it was the select board's requirement that it be in the charter. It would go down to the government ops of the house and they will take it up. So in other words, it could be legal. It's going to be up to the legislation. Correct. Yes. In terms of their interpretation of that statute. Yes. Okay, cool. Thanks guys. You're welcome. Okay, you're welcome. Pat, Marie go ahead and then Ken. Like speaking to Lorraine, what you mentioned, I think very specifically the fact that any transition board is by its very nature temporary is what gives Dan, or at least you know why he doesn't feel like that's any conflict with what the state is typically recommending. And I just want to be clear, Lorraine, when you mentioned, I think you mentioned statute a couple of times, I'm not aware of any explicit statute. The recommendation that we've gotten is that the legislature generally does not generally does not approve even number boards for a number of reasons. The likelihood of ties certainly is amongst them. But I don't believe that there's any explicit statute that having a transition board is going against. I think that is more a procedure based sort of thing to avoid potential conflicts that come up in running business with an even number board. Thanks, Pat. Okay, go. Andy, go ahead. Do you want to weigh in on this topic? Yeah, I just wanted to comment that every merger agreement between any two municipalities includes one of these transitional boards, which end up being an even number board. And the fact that the charter gets approved, that charter becomes statute. And so that's the statute that authorizes that temporary even number board is the approved charter, which includes the transitional piece of it. And so that's, I think, where that comes from. And you know that because you investigated a lot of charters when we got started with this process. I read them all. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Ken and then Betsy. Good evening. I want to bring your attention to section 101. Thank you. So section 101 has two subsections. Part A talks about the transfer of all assets, obligations and debts, including bonded debts without any further act deed or instrument being necessary. Part B talks about contracts and agreements and trusts being transferred. I find it odd that the exception that is part of the special tax district for the debt is an exception in part B, starting from pursuant to 104. By the way, that should be 104A. I believe that that sentence starting from pursuant in part B should be at the end of part A. If it isn't, and I was of a litigous nature and or I was a lawyer representing my client, I might make the following claim. Part A says all debts transfer. There is a special tax district for debt remediation. I would make the claim that while all debts are transferred. So the debt referred to in that section is zero. So simple solution to the problem. It's a little ambiguous, a little contradictory. I don't think there's any legal trickery going on here. Just move the sentence pursuant to 104A. The Incorporated Village shall become a debt assessment district should be at the end of part A of 101. We can certainly talk with Dan about that. I'm sure we're just an oversight. No, it's not an oversight. No, it's not an oversight. It's maybe a matter of legal preference. But there is also a state statute that the people who voted on debt, that's where it stays. So you can have a legal challenge, but you're not going to get past that statute either. If the voters approve this, a person a lawyer might say, well, yes, there's legal statute, but the voters are approving it. So that's where you may look into an argument. We will certainly have a look at them. Let's stay out of the Supreme Court. I appreciate it. Well, maybe stay Supreme Court. Thank you. Okay. Ken, was that everything? Yes, that's it for me. Thank you. Okay. Betsy, and then I see that Lorraine would like to make another comment, but I want to wait until everyone who hasn't spoken has a chance to say something first. Okay, Lorraine. So Betsy and then Tracy. Okay. I believe Sarah Macy gave us a report late September, might have been October, I'm not sure, on her assumptions for the estimate cost of the merger. And she used a really low number, I remember, was zero percent increase. And I just don't think that that's really a reality. And I'm wondering if we can ask her to redo that with a little bit more of a growth factor there and a little bit more of an increase in expenses, because I don't think it's going to be zero. Do you? No, I think that was a model that Sarah provided for us, and she removed all as many of the moving parts as possible to give us an accurate picture of a baseline. But there is going to be increases in expenses, and there is going to be increases in the grand list. And so those numbers will change, but I think the overall assessment is that the numbers will not change dramatically. But Evan, would you want to be a little bit more specific about that? I don't know that Sarah is present tonight. I don't think so. Okay, nope. So, I think going back about a month and a half ago, her charge was what is the cost of separation? And she had to keep certain things constant. And while this may make headlines, I'm not sure what stays constant in government and taxation and expenses. So, I would not say that zero is an extreme possibility. So, if you want to talk offline, we could talk about that presentation and maybe come to some understanding of what is meant by it. But it was an exercise in separation, not in merger. Okay. I have one follow-up question. Can I ask? Absolutely. Okay, great. And this is about Evan's position about the town manager. It has worried me to death about when we do our negotiations for the town, the total town, and the town of the village. But I think it's just really the town of Essex, the whole being, that we do the negotiations for their contracts for the union employees before we even do a budget. I'm wondering how that really works, because if Evan says, okay, you're going to get a 3% raise the first year and the next two, you're going to get two and two or reverse whichever. But we haven't even passed the budget yet. And we pass a budget that does not agree with that cost, but that we did. Should that negotiation be happening after we pass a budget? And the Part B of that question is, and I believe, and maybe I'm wrong, that there's a me too in that contract for the non-unionized workers, that they would get the same raises that do the union workers get. And Evan, this point is I know I'm sorry, is that include your position? So I could answer the last one first. Okay. No. It does not include my position. The board sets does my evaluation and any increase on an annual basis. Okay. Thank you very much. Second, our contracts usually are three-year contracts, so you cannot set them every year on the budget. In fact, our budget is generally based mostly on what those contracts are, because roughly 70% of our cost is personnel. The boards approve those contracts though. So whatever is negotiated by the manager in the negotiations is approved by the select board and or the village board and is usually set for up to three years. There's no, this year we have a one-year agreement with our association of the village and the town asked me, but the police contract is three years. Well, I'm not trying to deny anyone a raise. I'm just trying to figure out as it happens. Once every three years, you're negotiating a new contract. Right. And so does that occur before or after the budget because having negotiated the contract for anything nine contracts at the hospital for the unionized nurses that they knew exactly how much they had to have for a raise and they were holding us to that. And so I'm just wondering how it works here in kind of a thing. And I know that's probably too much in the weeds here, but it's just a question and maybe you can get back to me about that. It's a good question Betsy. And so Evan's job, if I may Evan, Evan's job in relation to the agreement and to the select board is that he is aware of the select board of the but he's aware of the town budget and he's aware of the select board's wishes in terms of what we feel the budget needs to be. And so he works out with the union what the agreement is going to be and then the select board is responsible to approve that. So if the select board, if the manager brings the select board a draft contract that the select board does not want to approve the select board will not approve it. That said, the negotiations are done in good faith and up until now we have not had a significant issue with the unions asking for some astronomical increase and the select board saying you get nothing. I mean there's always been compromise and it's reflected in the budget. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Okay. Tracy Delphia. Yeah. Hi, thanks Elaine. I just have a maybe two quick questions. So the numbers for the planning commission and the DRB are set by statute. I believe for the planning commission the max was nine. If we're incorporating alternates into the mix and the charter indicates seven members for the planning commission, does that limit us for alternates to two for a max of nine members? No. Because they are alternates Dan believes you can have more alternates but only those members present. So let's say you have seven. You can only have seven members present at that meeting voting. Okay and just for a little bit of background because I don't know the answer to this question. I know the the ZBA for the town does not have alternates. Where did the the what is the purpose of an alternate? Where did that come from? It's it's something I'm not familiar with. Well the planning commission both I can speak specifically for the village. I believe they do have alternates as well but as long as I can remember there's just been there's been alternates who would have a seat in the event that a board member could not be there, a commissioner could not be there for the review of an application. Recently the town's planning commission asked for a village planning commissioner to be a an alternate so that they could attend meetings and be involved in conversation in an effort to bridge the two planning commissions more closely together and foster some familiarity with both land development codes but I couldn't tell you the the origin of it though Tracy. Yeah and I think that makes sense. This is my general comment. I think that makes sense from an interim standpoint to keep that institutional knowledge. Previously as you know I came from a town of 18,000 people. We had a seven thousand or a seven member planning commission and a seven member DRB so those I'm definitely familiar with and I've I've never seen the need for an alternate in those situations. You know we had our set meetings we knew when they were the members made the time in effort to be present and to to set aside that time twice a month for those meetings. So I just I question the use of alternates as sort of a fallback position to having a quorum present and ready to act especially if we're combining these two bodies from you know the the two bodies that currently exist by essence we're going to have a larger pool of folks that are familiar and that are ready to act in that capacity. So I just I've personally I've never seen the need arise to basically activate an alternate just just for personal knowledge from a neighboring community. Oh I totally understand that thank you. I can say that this past year on the town select board excuse me the town planning commission one of their members took a foreign assignment for his job but he really wanted and it was in the middle of his term and he really wanted to remain a member and so an alternate took his seat for the whole year. I mean that's the only example I have of actually using an alternate but that is something that we did this past year. Okay that's helpful thank you. Any other questions comments thoughts about the draft merger charter we will be doing this again on November 16th which is our next select board meeting. Dawn go ahead. You said you had Lorraine on the phone again. Thank you thank you. Lorraine please go ahead. I didn't want to interrupt Elaine. I'm sorry that's all right I just wanted to address Pat's comment and thank you for responding to what I was saying about the statute. The only place I got that that it was against state statute was from Elaine when she went on the radio and said it was against state statute so that was Elaine's interpretation it was not my interpretation so that's why I brought it up again because of Dan said it's not against state statute but it's not something that the state would love that's a whole different thing than being against state statute so I just wanted to comment on that and thanks Pat. Right I referred to the statute about three members and five members and that was in regards to the permanent board but not in regard to the interim governing body so yeah. Right but I believe Pat's comment was to the permanent select board not the transitional board. Okay all right. Thank you. Yep thank you. Irene go ahead. Thank you. Just a couple of comments before I make my question if I may. The select board when I was on it maybe 10 years ago turned down a request for an alternate it was a memorable meeting because we held it over at the Williston Town Hall so if anyone needs to search on the minutes to find it that's where the decision was made the chair of the planning commission at the time who still is the chair of the town planning commission begged for an alternate and was turned down by the select board for what that's worth so it's not a long-term tradition here to have one although I fully understand why Tom wanted one last year and I'm glad that he got one. As to Betsy's comments on September 9th of 2019 at the select board meeting Sarah Macy produced a number of charts and indicated that the average increase to the average home would be $329 for town outside the village using FY20 numbers and then on December 12th of 2019 she produced a PowerPoint also using those zero numbers as her assumption and while I understand that it's much easier to keep everything constant I think it provides a false picture of what will happen here the grand list usually goes up about 1% in the town outside the village expenses definitely go up 3% every year often more and I think to be fair the people voting on a tax increase for themselves they should know a more accurate estimate of what those expenses will be so to follow on what Betsy asked for I will emphatically ask that Sarah Macy redo her calculations with more precise numbers as to what might realistically be the increases for folks outside the village as well as the decreases for folks inside the village I think I have two questions one of which is something I've said before the sidewalks don't roll up and disappear in year number 13 why are all of the special taxing districts expiring after 12 years I would ask that you please rethink and redo section 104 parts C D and E obviously parts A the debt assessment district and B the tax reconciliation district can and should sunset after 12 years but I would respectfully request that the other three districts remain in force for as long as that charter is in force okay and finally I'd ask that you would remove section 106 D which says that within three years after the first election of the sixth member new board the select board shall appoint a commission to study the composition of voting boards I don't believe there's any reason for a special commission on whose appointment there are no constraints so they could all be friends of the chair could be set up three years after a merge select board gets voted into office the voters selected that three plus three model and I think the voter should decide whether or not it works for them not a handpicked a group of people just three years in when that board is just starting to find its groove I think that that section needs to come out as a good faith effort to say that that board structure is going to be giving a fair chance to succeed and work rather than just knowing that three years later it's going to disappear thanks okay thank you are there any other comments or questions about the charter and if not we will move on but we will do this again on November 6th and I'd like to thank everybody the comments and questions oh Tracy hang on just a quick second just making sure there isn't anybody else that hasn't already spoken looks like not so go ahead Tracy yeah I just I haven't looked at that section before one of 60 I'm just wondering whether that should be delegated to the board of civil authority since it deals to the composition of voting wards it seems like that would be within their realm of responsibility okay okay thanks Tracy uh Andy go ahead yeah I just wanted to comment on that section this this was put in there by the governance subcommittee somebody's got some really wooden noise going on there their phone oh there it goes there we go okay so this section was put in when when the original proposal was to go with a two two plus two plus three model because it was it was seen as a compromise between at large and ward representation and and so that's that's why this section is in here it was to to force a review of that model um within a few years to make sure because it was a total you know the the governance subcommittee you viewed it as a totally experimental thing that may not work um and then when things changed to the three plus three uh this section didn't come out so that's that's why it's in there and actually I read this as a view of the governance uh model not just the uh because we have another section that says that you would look at the the specific wards uh every 10 years based on census and so this is really is an an evaluation of the the governance model and not just looking at the wards and that's what it was intent it's its intent was and then for better or worse it stayed in when things changed thanks for that Andy okay so I'm not seeing any other raised hands and I'd like to thank everybody these questions were excellent and really um called attention to some parts of the charter that we haven't talked about with the public before so thank you for your close reading and please come back next time with questions um and in the meantime please please feel free to reach out to board members with questions or comments you can email us you can zoom with us you can text us whatever you want to do and um we will do this again on November 16th so thank you everyone for those really thoughtful questions um okay next item up is 5b presentation of the ccrpc annual report and we have our guests Charlie Baker and Jeff Carr the board's uh representative to the ccrpc come on down thank you very much uh and uh just I'm assuming you got our report in your packet actually I am 100 company you did because I know Andy got a chance to review it in advance uh Greg that was gonna be my question Greg are you gonna pull it up there thank you just um let me know what I can I'm happy to flip through for you yeah so um as I try to do every year we try to do a just a customer service check-in with the select board ask for feedback about how we're doing in terms of the services we're providing to the board for those of you not familiar with the regional planning commission we are a state enabled body created by the legislature to provide services to the municipalities in Chittenden County and so this is our annual report I'm not gonna read the whole thing you can thank me later but I will skim it quickly and touch on a few points the first page gives you some of that background about the RPC we have a 29 member board you get a little sense of that and then our financials we get dues from the town and we have about 11 to 1 return on investment so for your dues we bring in a lot more state and federal funds into the region and then an apologies Elaine we are a year out of date here with regard to the alternate I apologize for that but but thank you for sending Jeff our way as your primary representative this last number of years we won't count them Jeff unless you want to and also thank you to your staff that participates in our committees Dennis and Darren and Annie they are very knowledgeable and valued participants in those various committees and going on to the next page we get into a specific things that we worked with the town on last year I'm not going to cover each one of those in details but a lot of water quality work has been going on in the town in the last few years we also did quite a bit of energy work thank you for I really I think pulling us along to do a really successful button-up event last fall last November it was a huge event and efficiency Vermont thought it was great and it was well just thank you for that so teamwork at work and then emergency management GIS traffic counts kind of typical stuff we help with every year and then a little bit of technical assistance that we provided also any feedback for me on on those specific projects that we worked on with you last year that you want to offer or and Jeff I don't know if you want to add anything at this point you're doing fine turn okay yeah any feedback for me on those I think Charlie that the breadth the sheer breadth of projects that you are working on for us is kind of hard to wrap our heads around there is so much here that we couldn't possibly do on our own and I think that's really a testament to you and your staff and the wise way you're using state funds and managing to bring them down to Essex and to Chittenden County no thank you and and and it really is I think part of it's a philosophy of you know us really being a supplement to the municipal staff you know we're not dictating things to you all but really trying to help the town you know all of our towns really achieve what they would like to achieve so you know much more of a support role that we're trying to play the next page and thanks Greg you start to see projects that are in our transportation improvement program projects need to be in our tip to allow for the flow of federal funds through v-trans to these various projects so we tried to list out what's not just in our tip but also in v-trans's capital transfer I'm sorry transportation capital program and so you can see these I will not claim to be an expert in all these projects but your list is about the longest lists that I've seen so that's I don't know if that's good or bad if you have a lot of things have been promised that are still coming or but I think it really is a credit to the town and your staff that have been working hard with some of these with v-trans to get projects delivered but a lot of them you've been working on on your own maybe with us at the beginning but then taking them on so credit credit to the town and I don't know if there were any questions on any of those that I could follow up on select board members will recognize on the project list for the metropolitan planning organization which everybody I think understands that there are really two organizations that are merged into one and the metropolitan planning organization is the one that focuses on the transportation project so you'll notice that a lot of our projects that go through the rpc right now are what we call they have circ alt next to them and that was when the circumferential highway the segments that weren't built a b and then the parts out the colchester beyond what we have in the town now these are some of the projects that came about as a result of the mitigation issues that were brought about by the termination of the circ conventional highway so these are long-standing projects that have been on the on the list for a long time and are going to take a while to continue to complete well we just finished the circ alternatives process about two or three years ago so they've been out there for about two to three years and there's three classes of them we're going through phase one now and we're starting on phase two and then there'll be phase three which actually phase three will benefit one of our neighboring municipalities willston which will help make our circ alternative projects even more effective than they would be before we dealt with the willston issues yeah and if you look at that list you'll see yeah as jeff just mentioned a lot of you know references the circ alternatives so those projects are yeah you know they may have taken some time to go through the planning and design and permitting stage but they're you can they're really queuing up you have a lot of you know 20 21 22 years in there and you have some phase three projects actually that are you know now scheduled for construction so things have been moving along and you know credit to the whole partnership between the town and us and v-trans for getting these things moving along so no questions or comments there i move on to the last section which is a fairly long list of regional activities that we you know taken on over the last year and most of them are continuing into this year and probably for a number of years going forward i'm not going to review all these there's a wide range of topics here uh two of them i want to just touch on um just to scroll down a little bit further greg the the building homes together campaign um we're uh just kind of reported out on our fourth year of the building homes together campaign um we have we wanted to build 3,500 new homes in chidney county in five years so 700 a year we're at about 32 or 3,300 homes now um and so we're like about 90 of the way in terms of the housing production you know in in four years so that's that's a head of pace on the downside is you know we i think we were somewhat hopeful if we built that many homes that quickly that we would have positive impact on the housing market uh if a news flash we don't have the healthiest housing market in the world um so our vacant one of the ways we measure that is a vacancy rate and really the vacancy rate has not gone up that that significantly a healthy one is between maybe three or closer to five percent uh we for a long time have been under two we're it looks like we're just inching above two percent now um so we're not there yet um that's a long way to say uh don't stop building and permitting new housing units we still need more housing units and the second thing to call attention to is that we're also had a target of getting to 20 percent of those being permanently affordable uh we got to 13 percent actually 2019 was actually a very strong year for affordable housing production because of that affordable housing bond that the legislature and governor passed um I think that was after his first year so that was four years but it you know takes a couple years for it to actually hit the ground um so we did pretty well last year but going forward we're not even getting to get you know we won't we'll be going down from 13 percent I expect going forward um so just to kind of highlight both there needs to be more housing units and we need to do more work on making them affordable um I don't know if anybody wants to follow up on that before I jump to the next topic. Charlie can I ask you a quick question about the um the CARES Act funding that was recently authorized for landlords to repair dilapidated housing and bring it back online are you familiar with how much of that's happening in Chittenden County and whether that's going to impact our affordable housing? I have not heard anything specific on that okay yeah and then I you know the other the flip side is there was also CARES Act money you know for people to make rent payments and things like that so I think and there was also a forestalling of any you know eviction notices and things so mostly from the housing community so the the folks that work on affordable housing I'm hearing concerns that there could be an increase in evictions and um the concerns like that um so I don't know I don't know what to expect in the COVID world with all these moving dynamics. Andy you have a question? Yeah um Charlie thanks for coming I always enjoy hearing you talk um on the the the homes thing uh we hear a lot about single occupancy vehicles driving around but we don't hear much about single occupancy housing I read recently I think that the the single occupancy housing rate is like 18% and that that the part of the problem we have is empty bedrooms is there is there effort um that you're involved with or aware of to fill those empty bedrooms no unique you know housing alternatives or whatever yeah um we're not specifically involved but there is a program called Homeshare Vermont right right which I think you know specifically works to try to help people yeah particularly you know let's say you're retired and single and you know having a challenge maintaining your home or or affording it um that you know maybe the thing to do is to rent a room or you know a part of your house to keep that affordable so that that program exists we're not directly involved with that um you know and I think that's no surprise that issue right we know household size has been decreasing family size has been decreasing uh people are also living longer and so we're we're getting to more single person households um and I'm sure we have a lot more two person households than we used to you know 30 40 years ago um and that is part of what's fueling the need for more housing units um the and we are also growing um at a pretty moderate percentage Jeff probably has these numbers off the top of his head better than I do but um yeah we're we're less than half a percent population growth um and you know so we still need some places although I think I saw a number for the last year that was saying we had flat population growth um even though we built you know 700 or 758 new homes so um which is an interesting dynamic Andy because it tells us like we also had a lot more people move out at the same time we had people come in if you believe those numbers and Jeff probably wants to comment yeah Charlie I think one of the things that the effort has done is it's drawn attention Andy to the forgotten middle because a lot of times the reason that we have empty bedrooms is because there's not an opportunity for empty nest or single person households to downsize because our inventory is contracted by about 65 percent over the last two and a half years um and you know I'm I'm a little nervous about the population numbers Charlie because we're about as far away from the last actual data point as we can get over 10 and a half years now and so when the 2020 census data comes out hopefully it'll be more accurate and we'll get it here in the next four or five months maybe we can take a look and see how our actual population uh fared in the state and then obviously we can also see how it fared among the counties but Andy one of the secrets to this is not just building affordable housing but it's also having affordably or mid-range priced housing that people can downsize to which then will free up four bedroom houses which only have one or two people in it my house is a perfect example we're in the nest household we tried to downsize 18 months ago but I get the thrill of paying about $50,000 more for my house and I can't get a house that's less than a thousand square feet larger than the one I live in right and that's and that's the real issue um in terms of in terms of housing and so you know we will it's a multifaceted approach and what a lot of people don't understand is if you've got a problem with empty bedrooms or with affordable housing sometimes it's giving people the opportunity to move up who are in affordably priced housing that can also afford more housing on their incomes but they don't have anywhere to go I mean I could sell my house the good news is I could sell my house and get a premium price the bad news is I'd have to live in a tent somewhere in somebody's front yard right so on a personal note that is a decision I made this summer to sell our big four bedroom house because my wife and I had more space than we needed and I'm now renting and I'm looking for Jeff's tent to buy somewhere so if you know if you're aware of a nice one in Essex please let me know um sorry that was an aside and not part of my official report but um the next topic um is uh and sorry Greg I don't know if you want to still display but uh racial justice the racial equity conversation is right above that and I don't have a lot to really report on this topic at this time other than to say it is something that uh you know I think we are interested in I am personally interested in making some progress on this um it was an issue that really kind of really smacked me in the face when we did the first Ecos plan and in 2011-2012 just to see the disparities we had in our community it was pretty disheartening um it is pretty disheartening um and so I'm I think I'm hopeful we can make some progress on these issues both as an organization internally but also maybe start to address some of the policy issues that kind of support the systemic racism um and so if there's I think I want to bring this up really to ask uh you and your community members if there's anything that you can you think that we could do as a regional planning commission that would help support any conversations or efforts that you're looking at in the town please let us know I think we're we're much more in the listening mode at the moment but I'm hoping 21 is a period of more action on our part we did just put out an RFQ on Friday to get a consultant partner to help us because we're we're not experts in this work and so we're looking to bring in some expertise in this area but any any initial thoughts about what would be helpful to the town in this area? Well Charlie this is Evan um I don't know if you guys have studied density you know zoning density as a predictor uh you know every I'm sorry let me go back density tends to be a function of land price sometimes you know how much does the person want for the land that determines what you can try to get how many houses etc versus actually intentionally wanting to allow say these two bedroom homes versus three and four bedroom homes to create that middle market again um sometimes these four bedroom homes really maybe started as two or three bedroom homes and with the addition they are now four bedroom homes but the actual um review of density and the type of home structure the market really needs and explaining that to the host community um that it's not a bad thing to actually build a 1200 square foot home versus 3000 yeah yeah I think get the results you're looking for yeah and and there's no doubt um that you know homes and I think even I think um well the number that's stuck in my head is from Burlington but you know nationally and Essex is probably pretty similar home ownership rate is you know 65 70 percent um for the black residents of Burlington it's 4 percent and so yeah that that really struck me and even uh household income uh yeah if that was a little bit of a surrogate for wealth um you know is is half uh the if you're I think you just see average household in uh Tindy County compared to a black household the black household is half the household income so I think there are some conversations going on about you know how do we measure the outcomes of uh you know racial inequity and then we'll get to the strategies but definitely you know zoning and density and and uh encouraging you know home ownership amongst those populations is going to be a significant part of it um you know how to how do families gain wealth a lot of it's through their home right you buy a home in your 30s and you know you have it when you're ready to retire uh makes a big difference in your life if you rent your whole life it's uh hard to retire right um so anyway but so Evan you know I think this question about uh housing density and it does play into that cootie conversation for sure um and it's a it's one of the areas I think we probably uh maybe could be helpful digging into deeper um and and bringing that information back to towns of what would be helpful which also brings me to the point you know maybe you can help since we rely on you and ccrpc for being the voice of the regional approach um you know you you you help all of our communities throughout county with a regional approach and of course housing is not just local to our municipality it feeds off of the products that all of us have and the needs so maybe you could touch a little bit of how it interplays and your role um in that in terms of the housing conversations or the read just a broad regional approach yeah whether it's just equity or housing or services yeah um yeah and I'll I'll stay on the housing point because I think this is an area you know where yes we did the building homes together campaign along with Champlain Housing Trust and Housing Vermont but you know we were also hosting some housing convenings as I think is what we ended up calling him not the best label but that's what that's what we ended up calling him but really just for the folks you know your planners and some of the managers administrators some housing a lot of the towns have housing committees to get those folks most interested to share in the county and bring best practices to them and you know I think over the last few years that has helped to some extent and there's still more work to do there I think the racial equity conversation is going to be somewhat similar you know can we you know host conversations learn together work on best practices together um yeah and hopefully we can support yeah it is a multi it's more than one town for sure Evan I mean for I'll just give one it for us it's nice and we don't always keep abreast of what someone else is doing you know we may never know I mean we may know what Williston is doing because they're in our backyard but Shelburne albeit you know maybe 10 miles away sometimes feels a lot farther or or someone else you're just not aware and you help bring those ideas back to the groups yeah thanks yeah we do we do try thank you Charlie yeah I was wondering if specifically around racial equity have you had any success or maybe you could share some success around specifically the title public engagement I think you know we've had a facilitator come in with Tabitha Moore you know we've had conversations in our community um but I think that we found certainly before that and I suspect what we'll find after that engagement is done is that having finding you know the BIPOC you know people of color to get involved in municipal government and you know attending meetings um you know that sort of thing is something that we struggle with um have you had any success or do you have maybe more of a network that taps into you know something you know locally whether it be with you know new American populations anything like that or are you running across the same sort of issues we are where it's just kind of difficult to sometimes make those inroads yeah no I think definitely the issue is there but it doesn't mean we stop trying so I think the couple places and projects where we've had some more success with that have been in Winooski in the old north end of Burlington where there's communities more concentrated and maybe there's actually a little bit of infrastructure around those groups or organizations in Winooski actually when we were working on some planning with them we actually contracted with some residents and they kind of created a little network of high school students to really get into a lot of different cultural groups that we don't have contacts with directly and you know and that was effective in that episode you know we we got some feedback at that time as part of that effort and use it also we use it a couple different ways in Winooski but it's it's not I don't think we've actually established those relationships that and they're not ongoing right so the engagement so I'm gonna say we took a step but we need to do more so work in progress okay great hey Patrick this is Jeff I think we can always do more but I think Charlie is still in short the extraordinary efforts that the RPC has made through its public outreach for things like the ECOS plan we were doing the ECOS plan and and we have a I think a I mean it needs updating but we have a pretty innovative public involvement plan that we operate under as a RPC and I'm a firm believer in municipal government and public sector to steal every good idea that's out there and not reinvent the wheel yeah so I'm thinking Charlie that it might be good to have Patrick and anybody else on the board who wants to see see to see our public involvement plan that's being updated now okay and also to look at the outreach that we did on ECOS which included things like providing daycare services for people who had kids in in a minority population so they could come and participate in our public involvement and feedback that we got on the ECOS plan and those types of things I mean at the time we were all a little bit taken aback by you know like paying people to come and tell us what they thought about our plans and things like that but in the end I think it was a really good approach and we got feedback on the ECOS plan that we wouldn't have gotten had we not done that and so since I wasn't involved in designing it I was only involved in reviewing it as a board member I'm gonna sing the praises of the RPC because at the time we were doing it it was a very innovative and untried approach and we stuck our necks out a little bit and actually it worked out pretty well so it pays to sometimes be creative and to do things that ordinarily would have rubbed people the wrong way I mean the first time somebody told me we were going to pay people to show up and participate in a forum to react to our ECOS plan my reaction was huh right and but that was really one way that we were able to even though it still is an optimum and we can do more we made inroads at reaching populations that had never reacted to our work at least in the first 19 years 18 years that I was on the RPC MPO board yeah thanks Jeff for reminding me of the things we've done and you know what was key about that though Patrick to get back to your point is that we found a partner who had a lot of those relationships and so I kind of grabbed all of her and held her very tightly in a very appropriate way professionally and sorry I realized I was digging a hole there but but she was really instrumental in making those connections and you know helping get people to meetings and really they she had relationships that people trusted and so we got a lot of input that we would I would never have gotten on my own unfortunately she moved out of town so hence we're you know now looking for another partner at this at this point in time as we look at updating the ECOS plan but thanks Jeff that was a good point and the reason is we're all of persuasion that is in the majority and we don't know what it's like to be in the minority in many respects and many things that we do so if you don't go out and actively solicit and reach out and reach out in innovative ways you will never get that perspective yep and so and to follow up on just point we did do our public participation plan Burlington when they did theirs borrowed liberally from ours so there's there may be you know an iteration improved upon ours and I think even V-trans also borrowed ours and did an iteration of improvement so those might be two areas to look at if you wanted to look at a public engagement plans both those organizations have moved maybe a little bit beyond us I hope and I'm hoping as Jeff said as we update in the next year or two we'll we'll get we'll get back in front again on this conversation yeah well when you finish it definitely pass it along because I would love to see it and I'll absolutely take a look at Burlington and I'm sorry was it GMTs you said V-trans V-trans sorry yeah so um so anyway sorry that was really the end of my report I know Andy may have some questions about energy issues and I did want to address one thing Andy I saw you mentioned that some of the links aren't working there's something and this happened last year too about when I send a PDF to the town and the town posts it into your packet that breaks some of the links I apologize for that I'm not sure how to fix that but if and Greg I think I shared a couple direct links to your town and village reports on our website where the links all do work so if it's Greg I don't know if you can share those later but that would be appreciated because I'm I'm sorry you had that issue Andy it's hard to look at a resource when the link doesn't work well I'll know better next time you look for it directly on your website rather than trying to follow the link because yeah I remember it did happen last year as well yeah so can I go with my question absolutely please yeah so um I drive a plug-in hybrid because uh uh you know a car that goes 200 miles on battery it's just too expensive um and if you if you run out of juice you're calling a flatbed you know there's you can't you just come with a gas can and fill it up and so the the question I guess I have is whether there's I know I I did find you a report about putting uh car chargers and multi unit developments um if I'm getting the term right but I'm wondering if there's any any path to incenting employers to put in charging stations so that if you have a you know a 30 mile commute you can you feel comfortable driving your electric car to work and and plugging it in and then being able to drive home um the other the other thing that might be interesting is having a an ability to reserve a slot for charging if you know you're going to go someplace and there's a charging charger available I don't know if those are things that that you know you're involved with at all yeah we're we're not in charge of those things but we do try to help make those good things happen um and um and for those of you maybe uh watching from home uh I think Andy's referring to some of our energy work there's a lot of other different topics that are listed in the end of this report um energy being one of them um and the report that you saw about multi unit properties was just what we did last fiscal year if you go back to previous fiscal years you'll find recommendations or reports that we worked with VEC on to support yeah at employers charging at employers um also what towns can do you know as they're reviewing new development so a number of towns have included that in their development requirements you know maybe with some criteria set out um and then also you know just even looking working with the state on mapping out you know where are charging public charging stations where where are their gaps where do they need to be more so I think we over the last number of years tried to do quite a bit to support that charging infrastructure um they there's still a lot more to do as the you know that industry transitions I mean and you can hear the car companies I mean they're they're working actively on transitioning um and so I'm sure I'm confident that the infrastructure that that's going to require is going to transition right along with it um but it's it's coming you know I think it's probably the thing no no news to you Andy yeah yeah okay my other question was about I think there's some a reference in here about a regional emergency management plan and Mike um yeah um we we work with all the towns on their uh the their local emergency management plans okay so there's no regional and and we do a regional um all hazard mitigation plan okay okay which is um which you know is the document and I can't remember if your question it might get to pandemics or anything else but um yeah the question is right it is whether with the potential of a second wave coming whether whether municipalities should be reviewing their plans or if there was a regional plan whether there should be a a review of those to see what's what is and isn't working and then also the fact that we're going into uh colder weather and snow and potentially staffing issues around snow plows yeah um is there any anything coordinated there to to deal with you know snow removal if uh if a town gets hit pretty hard with COVID and they lose their staff yeah we um not in a deep way Andy or maybe I shouldn't say maybe I should say not in a very specific way you know I think the the thing about uh you know emergency response that all the towns have done a very good job working on our those mutual aid agreements right and you know if there's a big fire in one community you know and the fire companies closer from the next door like like they come and help right like there's no questions asked um I I fully expect that same circumstance would would play out um you know if somebody had a crisis and you know didn't have staff to support it that neighboring towns would help just as you would help a neighboring town you know when they needed help um but it the the interesting thing about these um you know the emergency management plans or or the incident command system is it it doesn't like drill all the way down to every detail it sets up more of a process and a system so that that can flex and respond to whatever situation presents itself um and so you know those things work we definitely need to do more work you know we never have talked about pandemics as a big threat in Chittenden County before um you know we talked about some things related to uh you know climate change you know and and heat and weather events and things like that um but this is definitely something that um over the next next year we'll be updating the hazard mitigation plan for Chittenden County so um I'll I'll just say heads up on that you know sometime we'll probably now maybe 12 months 14 15 months from now um there will be a plan in front of in front of you guys for action uh to approve your part of that plan every town has an annex about what they're going to do and so we'll have an opportunity to address the pandemic in more detail okay and then my my last question is you got a section about transportation demand management which doesn't mention telecommuting I don't know if that's a mitigating factor that you consider um you know broadband access that's kind of you know yeah always um and again I want to reiterate like this is you know specific things that we did last fiscal year um you know the uh telecommuting is definitely right uh something that everybody's doing now yeah mid-march a lot more um and it's been interesting because you know most of our efforts had been focused on alternative transportation um and it's been right it was a very fast transition for most of us to be working from home um and uh but we have not had any specific things that I can think of maybe Jeff can think of things going further back um really focused on telecommuting uh yeah we have been you know trying to help with broadband issues and things like that but it's clearly a major part of what's going to be in our future um it's and you know transportation patterns are changing as a result of it um so I think we'll be supporting that I mean it's it's it's good for you know energy use it's good for transportation congestion you know there's lots of benefits that are coming with it um even though we may also as a society be kind of tired of it and and schooling kids at home you know there are some some things I think we'll be wrestling with to try to keep the good parts and and maybe um go go back to some ways about um you know that are more normal in terms of how we interact as society but I'll leave that at that there's more to do there Andy I've been asking the same question on things like the I-89 for a 50-year quarter study that we're doing and those kinds of things and so I know that's something that's in the front a lobe of the staff because they are you know concerned about that from the standpoint of you know making these substantial investments in the future without knowing whether or not the demand line is going to change in trajectory and then and the complicated thing right now is is that this is still unfolding in terms of where telecommuting might actually end up in terms of a structural change or a long-term change in the scheme of things I mean the concern and the threat to telecommuting telecommuting still is that we get an effective therapy or an effective vaccine which will encourage to this COVID-19 virus which will encourage people to to a larger extent revert back to the old traditional office setups I think there's been some kind of a shift though and I think that the staff at the RPC agrees in that at least the stigma of telecommuting in terms of advancing your career seems to have changed yeah for the positive but the degree in which telecommuting could could grow in Vermont is going to be a function of how the pandemic changes things in a long term whether or not we've got the infrastructure that we need that allows more people to telecommute outside of certain parts of the state which have the high speed and the and the ability to connect um and so obviously that's something for Chittenden County but you know there's some pretty rural areas in our in our county um in the scheme of things so I know that the staff is struggling with how to make sure that it's fully considered without making too much of a leap that it's going to get wider acceptance and broader use than it could end up within the planning horizons that we have for some of these studies and so if we would if operation work speed does give us a therapy and or an effective vaccine that'll sugar off faster than if we're in a situation where like with the hiv virus we still don't have a vaccine yeah and it's 30 years in the making and the degree in which this virus mutates from back in my microbiology scientific days is the thing that's going to determine how effective we are short of um some of the other public policy alternatives which aren't the best result in terms of the degree of expense associated with the uh with the illnesses associated with the virus and some of the long-term issues including unnecessary deaths so that's really still developing in the scheme of things and it's something that I've talked to Elaney Churchill at length over and also if you look at some of the tapes we've had this discussion before we went virtual in actual rpc meetings yeah and I'll I'll I'll I'll think I'll end on the note that um in the coming weeks you'll I well probably mostly the staff will get a request for uh any projects they'd like us to consider in our work program for FY 22 um and so you know if if uh Aztec thought we should like dig into the telecommuting phenomenon more um or how to make that work better or I don't know whatever about that or or uh zoning uh assistance you know please be aware and I think you're probably pretty used to January timeframe voting on what you're going to ask us to help with and you know we do try to help with whatever we can so just encourage you if you if you have some policy issues or maybe it's public engagement um if you have some issues that you like us to uh work on to help support the town that's uh you're gonna have a chance to ask in the next couple months charlie that's a very important point and I don't know if you were listening earlier on in the meeting when one of our residents was asking about how will we address the different land development codes and zoning bylaws of the village and the town should we merge and we will lean on you heavily for support as we do that all right I will look forward to that maybe maybe as long as you don't make it too hard on us like don't give us an impossible task you have never let us down before no pressure you okay perfect perfect now thank you we really enjoy working with you all so thank you thank you charlie and thank you jeff for being an excellent representative and for letting me tag along as alternate now you're a quick study link don't thank you all have a good night thank you okay it's always a pleasure to hear from charlie so the next item of business is a um discussion of employment of a public employee which will need to be done in executive session so let's skip down to the consent agenda so that we can um do the executive session at the end of the meeting would anyone like to move and second the consent agenda so that we can discuss it go ahead don I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented thank you is there a second I'll second that thank you vince and any discussion of the consent agenda all right sounds like it's all on the up and up we have motion and a second on the table all those in favor of approving the consent agenda please say aye aye opposed okay the consent agenda is approved item seven reading file board member comments and other information any board members okay then um oh pat I see your hand um just wanted to uh make a note uh memo from chief uh hoge in there about the uh body cameras um I know that these have been coming for a while um it's been shared that they were waiting for the uh the new cameras with the extended battery life so we know that those have been on their way for a bit but I really think that it uh you know goes to show how responsive our police department is about you know making sure that they're you know going to be uh able to uh you know display you know exactly what goes on in every traffic stop every you know reporting that goes on just uh a great thing to see in uh excellent investment so kudos to them thanks pat anyone else okay um then all we have left now is to go to our executive session so Andy would you like to put forth the motions to do that sure there's only one motion I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the employment of a public employee in accordance with one vsa section 313 a3 and to include the unified manager deputy manager police chief and human resources director thank you is there a second second thank you dawn any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed so greg has sent us all an invitation to a separate executive session greg do you wish us to return to this link after I don't believe so Evan travis or no do we need to come back I believe we are not playing on coming back so you can let everybody know we will not be coming back and we will adjourn from executive session what he said okay thank you everyone for a good meeting and we'll see you in the other link