 Are we ready to roll? Okay, welcome to the S-Extension Trustees Meeting. Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome everybody. And tonight we have, besides our regular trustee meeting, we have a joint meeting with the Essex Town Select Board and they'll be joining us at 7 o'clock in about a half an hour. So, first and foremost, Pat, do we have any agenda additions and changes? Yes, we do. We have one. It's a memo from you to the trustees and the Select Board should be in addition for the joint meeting. Right. So it should be introduced to this meeting. So that's it. Back to your motion. I move that we accept the agenda as amended. Second. All in favor? Aye. And I should mention that I think Trustee Elaine Sopcich is at Channel 17, that there's studio in Burlington. And she should be joining us shortly. And Trustee Lori Houghton, I believe, may not be joining us tonight. But we'll hold down the forum. Okay. So on to the next piece, which is audience to be heard. Guess anyone in the audience have a question or comment? Besides, yes? No? Are we good? No, I'm good. Okay, good. So first order of business then is on to old business, which is to adopt the FY19 proposed budgets and capital program. Pat, Lauren, do you want to join us really quick or are we good? Do we just want to move quickly and do that or? There has been no change since last. We made the changes that were agreed to last time. And those are the new numbers that you have there. Okay. I'm going to, I'd like to read just a quick, I'm going to try to find a quick summary so I can read that just for that. You have a lot of fun. You just want to do the discussion portion with it and read that off the numbers? Yeah, well, do you want to? Yeah, I mean the discussion on, you know, memorandum is basically a few changes to the budget were discussed and approved at the trustees meeting on January 23, 2018. Those changes were a reduction to the shared employee expense, wine item in the administration budget and reductions to salary, social security and workers compensation, wine items in the fire department budget. The reduction of the administration budget had the effect of reducing the water, wastewater treatment and sanitation budgets, also because those budgets pay a portion of the administration budget. The approved changes are incorporated into the proposed FYE 2019 Village Operating Budgets amounts listed below. The proposed FYE 2019 Village Operating Budgets are as follows, general fund $4,954,687, water fund $3,866,360, wastewater treatment fund $1,949,836, sanitation fund $489,925. The administration programs $1,711,748, the amounts of the proposed FYE 19 Capital Funds Budgets are as follows, general fund capital reserve is $2,931, rolling stock fund $265,677, and the water capital reserve of $187,663, wastewater treatment facility capital reserve is $7,957, sanitation fund capital reserve is $351,522, recreation capital reserve is $110,700. The cost of tax rate to support the general fund budget is 0.3106 cents. This is an increase of 3.67% from FYE 18 rate. The utility rates to support the enterprise funds budgets are estimated to increase by 7%. And I recommend that the trustees adopt the various FYE 19 budgets in the amounts listed above that I just read. Okay, so I'll make the motion. I'll make the motion that the trustees adopt the various FYE 19 budgets in the amounts listed above. I'll second it. Before we vote, understanding that we just had a fairly significant water main break, do we want to look at adding a little extra money into the capital budget to help with what will likely be some significant costs? So we are increasing the water fund capital reserve quite a lot this year. I don't know if you want to look at that. I think it's by $50,000 each year for the next few years, so. And is that going to be enough to cover that and the planned capital expenses already? The water break itself is about $36,000 I think which will come right out of the water fund operating budget. Then we need to rebuild the road, right? That amount is $28,000 and it will be charged to the water fund because it's a water break. And so there's no concerns about tapping into the existing amounts and leaving us shortly or on the road? I hear you. You're making a very good point, Andrew, and I think it's something that's a very good point. I had just to elaborate a little bit more. I was kind of thinking, you know, I think Densmore has some issues. The full length of Densmore has some issues and I was kind of thinking maybe it's time to look at a total rebuild but then you're really talking about moving a significant project. So I remember when we had a brief discussion with Rick about it and he said he thought it was in the vicinity of $20,000 to fix the road that upper ends and put it back in really good shape for it. Yeah, and the Densmore culverts, they are already within the capital projects within the list. I don't remember exactly where that lands but the entire road itself which driving on a fairly regular basis is not that great. I'm definitely in need of some work. Yes. But needless to say I think that if staff are saying there's more than enough to cover the break and to repair the break then... This particular break. We have a bunch more. It's not going to be good but like I said we're increasing the capital reserve contribution by $50,000 in planning to do that pretty regularly after this in order to pump up the capital reserve for water. Great. Yeah. Lou, do you want to do that? Yeah. Go ahead. Thanks, Pat. Thanks, Andrew. So Pat was going to mention just for the camera for Channel 17 and we'll probably do this a few more times. The total is on the budget. Do you want to go ahead? Yeah. In adding up the General Fund, Water Fund, Wastewater Treatment Fund, Sanitation Fund and Rep Programs which are basically our operating budgets for the next year. It's $12,972,556. In looking at the capital funds and the budgets breakdown within the capital funds have the $2,825,450. So that's what we're, that's what we'll be looking to spend next year and hopefully we will finish in the black as we do most years. Yep. Okay. So any further discussion? Dan, are you good? Andrew? We'll talk some more about the water break in a little while. And I think one of the other things we said is we would try to put a summary of this on Front Porch Forum and get it, try to distribute it around as well. So we have a motion on the table to approve all this to go forward with this FY19 budget. So all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Good. So it's unanimous. Thank you. So we are on to new business and item number one is a bike repair station in the village right away. Raj, from the bike walk committee, come on up and talk to us about this. Sounds good. We should all have a picture of this, I hope. I thought I brought one with me, but I didn't and it's perfectly aligned with the wrong aspect ratio, but you get the idea. So this, oh, look at that. There we go. Some experts here. So this is the, it's showing Main Street in front of Nest Coffee Shop. So this is what we're proposing is a self-service bike repair station. The owner of Nest is like enthusiast, pretty passionate about it. He also owns Firebird. He's been discussing this with us and it's something that we've wanted to do to put somewhere in the village core for some time. And maybe pepper different bike facilities around the community. So we think this will encourage people to come downtown, bike downtown. He's going to, the owner's going to, my understanding is have a couple of very interesting bike racks created. Nice. To put out, you can't see the area, but on his property, he owns the building just to the left. They're all, my understanding is to be a lot more creative than the average generic bike rack. So that'll be kind of interesting. We spoke with Rick Jones. He's fine with the, with the site. Seem pretty interested in the project and he doesn't anticipate any issues with snow removal and access. The funding is coming from a Govermont grant and matching the trustees and the remaining 300, maybe a little over. We'll come from the owner of Nest. I love this idea. I love this concept. So I think we all like it. So it's great. Great that you had the enthusiasm and the energy on the committee to pursue this. So it's terrific. Great. Can you describe what kind of adjustments you can make of this? I don't, I don't. Excuse me. I don't remember the tool list, but pretty much everything. You should be able to do everything from a derailleur adjustment to, you know, taking wheels on and off, taking off pedals. Pumping up tires. The bike pump we're going to do as an attachment. We're getting a slightly beefier one. We're anticipating. Manual pump. Yes. Yeah. No compressor out there. No compressor noise. And it's, you know, it's, it's built for, for an environment where parts might need to be ordered and changed. So it's pretty easy to maintain. So the center portion, you can see about six or eight tools hanging from very long cables. The idea is you hang your bike from the post in the middle, if need be, and use those. So we'll see how much use it gets. I think, I think as a statement, it's a pretty inexpensive way to say that, you know, we're a bike friendly community. And we want people to come down and use, you know, alternate ways to go there. Great. It'll also be very handy if you've forgotten, if I've forgotten a few quarters and need to fill up my tire. There you go. Yeah. I don't, you know, that's a good point. I don't know if the pump we're getting is a high pressure pump. Ah. It could, it could have a car. Oh, no, no, no. You drive, yeah, I know. Do you drive up on the curb? Yeah, yeah. Euro style. Yeah. You're right up. Right. Any questions? Okay. Okay. Um, I will make a motion that we authorize staff to purchase a Darrow fix it bicycle repair tower and install it in the village right at work. On the corner of Main Street and Railroad Avenue. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Jim, you're on. And, uh, I had, uh, in fact, I'm going to be going to introduce you. Go ahead, Jim. You take it away and, uh, we've got a number of items here for the wastewater treatment plant. Yes. Thank you for having me tonight and I'll be brief. The first request of the trustees is to allow us to act as general contractor for an alcohol entity construction project that we've had planned for a period of time. It was originally presented as a subcontractor or a contractor general contractor type project and this is a change to how we have presented it before. So we're asking permission to proceed. The engineer involved in the design says that at the value of the project, we're going to have an extremely difficult time getting anybody to bid. Just the work environment is such as that and we have the capability to do it in-house. Okay. Um, anyone have any questions for Jim? Everyone good with this? I didn't honestly understand what the $95,000 was going to cover. The entire project. Oh, so that's, at first I thought that was for the project management, but if I... No, that's the entire project. And that's the thing. It's a small project. It's not a multi-million dollar. So mobilization runs into the challenge. Makes sense. Myself. Yeah. So they've been just having a temporary situation. You need to take it. You need to transition from that. Okay. Um, so I will make a motion that we allow wastewater facility staff to act as the general contractor in coordinating the installation of the alkalinity improvement project. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I didn't... One second. I didn't know if you had a... Okay. And so next piece is... Go ahead. Take it away. It's the protein matrix pilot test. We have been approached to do some testing on something that's a problem for wastewater facilities all throughout the country. Fats, oils, and grease. Yeah. So wastewater breaks it down into a more manageable way to handle. And rather than it recongealing down the road, it actually makes it available better for anaerobic digestion because of our combined heat and power system that we have been running for the past 12 plus years as well as the anaerobic digester that we have. Right. We're identified as a key facility to test the viability of this for that process. Okay. And we're requesting permission to proceed as it involves other parties who are not village employees doing this pilot with us on site. It's an interesting... I'll be interesting to see how this works out for you. We're looking forward to it as well. And thanks for the picture, by the way. It was very helpful to see. I had talked about the FAT vertical last time I was in. The FAT is a problem that this is a picture of a recent thing that made national press and worldwide press about a blockage in London. Oh yes, that's right. There's a combination of grease and other things. Yeah. So this is what my artery looks like. Tell me, Jim. Exactly what it looks like. The hole. Okay. So I'll move it. We allow the wastewater facility to proceed with a protein matrix pilot project. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Andrew. You got it. Thank you very much. All right. The final item I have before you is a request for a purchasing policy waiver for a de-chlorination monitoring instrument. We've been researching this for a number of years. We are required to chlorinate and disinfect affluent, but then they have to wastewater facility, but then remove the chlorine prior to discharge to the environment. Right. And the other things that are typically used, we're basically wasting an awful lot of chemical and not controlling the discharge as well as we would like to. This piece of equipment is one that's very specific to this type of monitoring. Okay. In a straightforward analysis, there's one other piece of equipment out there, but our evaluation and that of the engineer is that the item we've requested the waiver for would be the best to pilot and test. We're asking for approval to purchase, but we would proceed with a pilot test and at least buy the lease of this item until we determine that it works. If it works, we buy it. If not, we can return it. That sounds good. Yeah. All right. Okay. I appreciate the explanation and the brief explanation. Thank you very much, Jim. I will make a motion that we waive the purchasing policy bid provision and allow the wastewater facility staff to proceed with direct purchase of a chem scan mini sulfite monitoring unit. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jim. Thank you. Okay. Make sure we've got through everything. And now we have a, Pat, we've got a 2018 certificate of highway mileage. Right. We get one every year. We're at class one, class two, and class three roads and the state highway. We have not increased nor have we decreased our total mileage. It's 35.419. And we have a class one lane, 1.289 miles. Okay. So since there's no change in mileage, all we need to do is to have you be authorized to actually all of you vote to sign the mileage certificate. Okay. Sounds good. Do I hear a motion? I move that we approve the certificate highway mileage year ending February 10, 2018. I'll second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Okay. I'll get us in a second. Thank you. Okay. So we are on to trustee comments, concerns, and the reading file. And I am going to, I wanted to make a few comments about the water main break on Main Street because there are quite a few issues surrounding it. Andrew touched on a few of them. But I thought I'd wait until the beginning of the select board meeting, the joint meeting with the select board. I'll just do a quick couple of minutes. I think it might be useful for them to hear what happened to, and since this affected the village, it affected the village, but people in the town thought it also affected them. So it might be useful for us to take advantage of the situation and broadcast the information all at once. So I will do that in a few minutes when the select board gets to start the meeting. So trustee, other trustee comments, concerns? Everyone good? Pat, do we need to discuss anything in terms of schedules or I think we're all set? No, I think the trustee meeting schedule is down on the item seven. Okay. So part of the reading file. Okay. I have no meetings, so I'm going to be attending on that schedule. In a sense, yeah, perhaps. You can always come to our meeting. Okay. So will any, Dan? No comments. Any comments? Everyone good? Okay. So we're going to move on to the consent agenda. And I had two pieces that I want to actually discuss with the consent agenda. This maybe was going to be, maybe I should have to amend the consent agenda, but I'll take a chance and put it by you now. Maybe Pat, you can tell me I'm wrong. Not at all. There's one thing with the, in one item in the consent agenda, which was authorized manager to sign the CCRPC local match for the agreement to incorporate design five corners into the CCRPC work plan. We pledged that we would make a $8,000 match. It's a $40,000. We're getting $32,000 from the federal government for that. We'd make the match. And I just wanted to point out that that contract that we haven't signed now. So that document needs to actually be signed by you and sent to the RPC. I just wanted to make a note of that and not just approve it. So we have that in the minutes. And then the other thing I wanted to mention was the tree advisory committee logo. I was a little concerned about this only because the tree advisory committee is a village committee. It's funded by the village. It's an advisory committee for the planning commission, really. And I know that they had someone from the high school help them design the logo. But I'm a little concerned with the precedent of just us approving a village committee getting having a logo that we approve in the consent agenda without having them come here and explain why they need their own logo. I'm a little concerned about setting a precedent. Otherwise, the planning commission could ask for their own logo, and the bike walk committee could get their own logo, and you could get your own logo. We could all start getting our own logos. And we want to maybe not set that precedent. If a committee wants their own logo, I think we want to say, yeah, you need to come in and explain why and why this is necessary and what you have in mind in having this. A question, sir. Is it a letterhead or is it a logo? It's a logo. It's a little graphic that they will be putting on their letterhead. That's the worst one. And I have no objection to it, mind you. I would like us to talk about this. And I don't want to make a big deal of something that's extremely well-intentioned. But I think it warrants a little bit of a discussion. That's all. That's my opinion. So you want it set for the next meeting? Well, I would make it my opinion. Well, comment? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, well, I agree with you. The logo itself doesn't offend me. I don't think anyone would find offense looking at that logo. But the idea that representing the community, just as we have here, you know, we talked about letterhead, the village, the S extension of the logo, which is the train station of the Ferris wheel or something from the Ferris winds of the background. It's the standard logo to go off of that and develop their own logo. It could be confusing to somebody. When you see a document with that logo on it, my question would be, well, is this an actual S extension? If I was a resident of the community, I wasn't aware, but if I was a resident of the actual village of S extension committee letterhead, was this something else? Because that's not the standard letterhead. That's confusion, I think. There's potential for people to be confused if that's actual. Nowadays, you never know when you're getting e-mail or getting a letter or something, whether it's something, some kind of fraudulent thing, or it's actually that. And just to keep things consistent, there's something to recognize that. Any thoughts about this? I don't have any concerns about them having a logo. I also don't think having communication with the committee would hurt in any way, just to make sure that we're all on the same page about the intent. Maybe what we can do, I don't know what it's, you know, procedurally, I don't know if it's appropriate just for us to approve the consent agenda and then ask the tree committee to come in here to some future meeting and explain why they need this. And then we can, is that probably the best? No, you could probably table that particular item. So if you table item eight. Okay, I will move that we, I will move for the sake of brevity, I will move that we table item G, acceptance of tree advisory committee logo in from, for now. So we're amending the consent agenda. I will move that we amend the consent agenda by tabling the acceptance of the tree advisory committee logo. I'll make that motion. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. And so now I will make a motion that we approve the consent agenda. Second. As amended. As amended. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Okay, great. Just one last question. Yes. Putting it on a table means it can come off the table anytime you want. Do you want to try to have it for the next regular discussion? Yeah, it's, it's yes. Okay. It doesn't have to, it's not an emergency. So it could wait, but when I would say that they're convenient. Okay. Okay. And so I will make a motion that we take a five minute recess to welcome the Essex Select Board in anticipation of our joint meeting. Thanks. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Good. So we're recessed for five minutes. Thank you. Good. Yep. So I'll call the February 13th, 2018 Select Board meeting to order. And I will reopen the Essex Notion trustee meeting. So I want you, since this is your meeting and you have, we've done public to be heard, why don't you do your public to be heard. Okay. It has parts of the meetings on there again. Well, we, we did that already. You could, we're happy to do it again. Yeah. It's not like you're human, Mr. President. You can, you can play with them. That's fine. How about we do it when we're done? Okay. Okay. Have it all rise and then we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So let's see. Under agenda additions and changes, we had some of the other place, right? Under additions, agenda additions and changes, we had something in place. We did. It was added at the last meeting, but the trustees, it's a memo from George to the select board and the trustees on some topics to generate discussion. Yeah. It's from George and Max. I'm sorry. And Max. I forgot you, Max. You got me. And it's for a business item 5e, right? Which is when we get to discuss agenda. Facilitator for March 24th joint meeting. Correct. Okay. And that's it then, right? That's it. Yes, sir. So can I get a motion to amend the agenda to include this memo from myself and George for item 5, business item 5e? So moved. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Any further discussion? No, those in favor of remaining in the agenda. Accordingly, you see the 5e saying hi. Hi. Thank you. And I just note that we've amended it. We accepted it on our agenda already. Okay. Great. Then next up is public to be heard. Thank you, Mr. General. I'm not sure. Okay. Is anyone in the audience here to comment in the for the Essex Town select board meeting public to be heard? Is there none on the agenda? Okay. I'm going to just I'm actually going to claim to be heard here is a member of the public. I want to take a very moment. I was going to do with the trustee meeting, but I thought it would be more appropriate when when you folks are here. I just want to briefly review what happened with the waterline break on Main Street. Two weeks ago, or last week, two weeks ago on Thursday, Village Public Works Department got a call around three o'clock in the morning. That there was a massive flood. They got over there. There was literally a man made lake at the end of Densmore Drive. The there was a it was a major waterline break. Rick Jones, Public Works Superintendent said it was the worst break he's ever seen. It was somewhere in the order of two to three million gallons of water broke out of the water main, washed out the road underneath part of Main Street and most of Densmore Drive. Densmore Drive collapsed. The Village crew had to get there. They had to funnel off the water. They had to the valves to shut off the waterline were encased in ice. They had to cut through the ice, chisel through the ice to shut off the water. And then this was all in the freezing cold and dark. Then they had to chisel down down through Main Street. The waterline was about 10 to 12 feet underground. So it wasn't a freeze. It looked like it had erupted from within. So they managed to get that under control. All by around 7.730 in the morning was remarkable that they were able to do this. There was some concern at first about should we issue a boil water warning. And we made a decision to go ahead and do that. Anytime you lose pressure in a large water main like that, the recommendation is there's a remote possibility of some contamination getting into the waterline from soil. Not from sewage, but just from soil. And then backing through the waterline. The Champlain Water District tested the water, but it took a sample, but it takes 24 hours to test to make sure there's no contamination in the water. So in the meantime, we had to issue a water boil warning for the Village of Essex Junction. We couldn't really say exactly where we would lose pressure. The water lines are just too complicated. So we issued it for Essex Junction. Interesting note, even though we issued it for Essex Junction and we wrote a press release making very clear that it was for Essex Junction, we had people from Essex Town who were on well water calling us asking if it was safe to drink their water. We had folks from other communities calling us asking if it was safe to drink their water. And I think this was pretty normal. I think anytime you do a major announcement that there might be some contamination, a lot of people want to speak to someone in authority, but the Village office, I don't know if they probably got something on the order of 1,000 phone calls the next day, which they were not surprisingly prepared to handle. So there's a lot of lessons to be learned from all this, but the bottom line is that there was no contamination. The test came back clean. The water line is under control. Dentmore Drive is going to be rebuilt and all is well, but it was a pretty exciting time and a very wet and cold time for some people for about 24 hours. George, can I ask you a question? Yeah. Is there a policy on how the public is to be informed when something like this happens and if there is, and maybe that's something we... Yeah, if there is, I don't think so. It's very deep and somewhere in the village papers, there's digital files, I don't know where it is. I believe when you issue an order for boiling water, I believe the police dispatchers have a blast list to the news media and they put it out and that would be town-wide. I don't know if we have anything that would be specific for the village only or our neighborhood only. That could reduce the number of calls because if it only has an impact of just one neighborhood or two neighborhoods, everybody else would be worried about their water unnecessarily. We could look into fine-tuning that. It warrants its own discussion at some point in the future because we learned a lot of things like this. There wasn't an old pipe either. No, this was a new pipe. I watched them while they were digging the south and this was not an old water line. It didn't break because of this fall in the process. It was a new water line. It looked like a massive gush of pressure just went through the pipe and just exploded from it. That's like completely unexpert opinion. It's a very good opinion because I spoke with Jim Faye during that and he said the same thing that Rick Jones said about it's probably the worst event in his 41 years. It was close to the 3 million gallons of water. As an interesting aside, it happened at the old brickyard and a lot of old red bricks were flushed up onto a main street in the parking lot. It's a little archeological point. Something in the jewelry background. That's that spot. We'll talk more about this at some other point, but I wanted to thank you for that. Anyone else who would like to be here? I have a much shorter one. Over the years, he's given us lots of good advice. One of the things that he has held up as an example of what we should do is always keep our select board hat on. I have a presentation for him. That is the book that he always recommends. It's the second book that Dr. Seuss ever wrote. It's called The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Covenson. It reminds us all that once you put on your select board hat, you can never take it off. Thank you, everybody. Congratulations, everybody. Well, thank you for this. So this is for your last joint meeting. This is the last joint meeting, yes. I'm sure you'd be all very happy to see the new person come here for your next joint meeting, but I've been very blessed, if you will, that we've had this opportunity to have the joint meetings. When I first came to work for the community, that was a pretty remote concept to fathom. So you all deserve the credit for that. So thank you all for doing that. You played a major role in it, Pat. You absolutely did. I don't think it would have been happened if you hadn't been here. Honestly. I don't want to be billed, but you know, I just... You're going to read that in front of us now? No. Anybody else in for public to be here? Okay, thank you. Next, I will let you take the first agenda item. Okay. So business item 5A, it's the termination of employment subcontracting agreement. And that was an agreement that we had with Pat, and it went through... It was going to be through April. Yes. And because you're retiring on officially the 28th, we need to terminate that subcontracting agreement so that we can then do the next piece, which is to put a new one out there. So everyone had a chance to look at that. It's pretty simple. It says the underside parties agree to and hereby do terminate the employment subcontracting agreement entered into 5M on June 9th, 2015, as amended, effective as of February 28th, 2018. All parties waive any further notice of the termination. And... The lawyer is up there. Pardon? The lawyer is up there. Okay, yeah. And it's been vetted by the attorney. And we're looking for, on the select board side, you to allow the chair to sign this on the select board's behalf. Any questions? Pretty straightforward. We're good? Okay. I have a motion to allow the chair to sign this. I move that we allow the chair of the select board, Max Levy, to sign the termination of employment subcontracting agreement dated June 9th, 2015, on behalf of the select board. Thank you, Mike. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you very much. Any further discussion on that one? Hearing none, all those in favor, second. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Okay. Passes 5-0. Thank you. Okay. And I'll make a... I can actually do Andrew or Dan, do I hear a motion to allow me to sign the termination of employment subcontracting agreement? So moved. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Okay. Passed. We'll sign this when we get to it. So that's our final meeting. Thank you. Yes, sir. I am. I want to speak with the chairman. I would like to speak with him. I want to speak to the chairman of business is by the and that's the updated memorandum of understanding regarding the unified manager. Yeah. And we, we met with the town and village attorney, Dave Barra and Bill Ellis on this. They recommended that we update this. They reminded us that this is a working document. When we signed the new MOU, it's not as if we're signing something that can't be unsigned or amended further on. But they looked at the new contract coming in, and they wanted us, they made some recommended changes. And I'm assuming that everyone's read it. Do you want us to go over it, or do you want to have some discussion about it? I think we're obviously going to discuss it, but that's where we are in these recommendations. And Max and I made them as well, and so. And I don't know if I can, do I need to go over them, or anyone have some questions about this? It's set up to be reviewed on a yearly basis. Yes, yeah. And one of the key things was because, I think one of the points that I thought would be interesting for this joint meeting to discuss, and we don't have to work it out right now, but they recommended that we really set up a schedule of meeting every other month jointly, that we firmly set that off, if for no other reason, than to ask them to make sure we're all on the same page with the manager. Because we say we're going to be evaluating the manager moving forward, we want to make sure that that evaluation is being done jointly. The manager isn't being evaluated one way by one board in another way by the different board, or is pleasing one board and displeasing another. So they recommended that we make sure we set up among ourselves between the two boards a fixed schedule by monthly meetings. And that's part of the SEMO year. And I think the rest of it is self-explanatory. Right, and so those meetings may be able to be all in open session, but if it's going to be the evaluation piece of an official, then likely those would be in the executive session. Okay, I don't think we need, actually we do need a motion, we need a motion to sign this. Before you guys, yes, yes. Oh yeah, please, yeah, we never need this question. I only just noticed one quick thing, and that's there's two section fours. So if we're going to sign this tonight, I don't know how much weight that carries, or how much that is. Oh my goodness. Right, section four and section, there should be section five. Brum, a new one, five. We've got two Brum, a new one, 12 changes can be made without having to come back with a new one. Okay, straight. It's not on the page we're signing, unfortunately. Okay, so I have some comments and questions, I guess. So under section three, the annual review, I found it kind of weak in terms of setting some sort of structure, especially the reference to, from time to time, versus there being some sort of a actual, you know, my suggestion was prior to the start of the performance period that you establish the goals and objectives so that it's clear going into the performance period, and then. That's section two, right? Section three, annual review. But section two, the process of developing this, didn't it? Yes, I was okay with section two. What I'm referencing is section three, talking about the annual review. Okay. All it says in section two is that that they be reduced to writing, but it doesn't talk about a timeframe. So you wanna, how would you recommend we amend the language? Yeah, and the other comment I would make is around, so starting at the top. The town and the village shall annually review and evaluate the unified managers, not just accomplishments of the goals and objectives, but the performance of how and what they did in support of those goals and objectives. So if you're just focusing on accomplishments, you're not looking at how they accomplished what they did, which I think is a key part of it. And then, this review and evaluation shall be in accordance with specific criteria. There's kind of a standard to use smart goals to make sure that something is measurable and attainable and all that kind of stuff. So, specific is one piece of it. I don't know if that makes it very clear like that you're establishing the right kind of goals. So specific and measurable? It's specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and there's a time constraint is what a smart goal is. If I can read Sue maybe, so what we would say is the town and the village shall annually review and evaluate with unified managers, accomplishment of the goals and objectives established pursuant to section two above, and the managers performance in achieving those goals and objectives, period. Sure, yeah, that sounds fair. Okay, this review and evaluation shall be in accordance with specific, measurable and achievable criteria. That sounds good. Develop jointly from time to time by the town and village and the unified manager. Develop jointly prior to the start of the performance period, would have been. Instead of time to time. Time to time sounds very vague. Okay. Very wishy-washy to be technical about it. Yeah, let's take a look. Wishy-washy is really good, I like it. So are you okay with that? Should I move on? Should I keep going? Section. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned time constraint is the last change that we made covering the time constraint nature of those criteria. It's not, I mean my suggestion would be to just reference smart goals, but if that's not something that you feel is translatable then. Can we add the word time constraint after achievable? Sure. Okay. So that we do encompass all those? Thank you, sorry to interrupt. Okay, I'm a little, so how would you read that Irene? So it would be, shall be in accordance with specific measurable achievable and time constrained criteria. Time constrained? Mm-hmm. Okay. Develop jointly. Well, smart goal, that's sort of a definition of smart goals as well. Yeah, it's an SMART, smart. Is that true, Mark? That's something. It's like, it might be easier to use the acronym smart instead of trying to define smart. That's, that's, that's, What we put parentheses, S, M, A, R, T, and then we'll spell it out. That's absolutely fine, I just didn't want to assume that it was understandable. I've never heard of it. Never heard of it before. That's a very common. Thank you. Yeah. Measure. And then the next, just to be clear, then the next sentence is this review and evaluation shall be in accordance with specific criteria, parentheses. What a second, let me see, I'm losing this. Prior, parentheses, smart goals. I'm sorry. Specific, measurable, and achievable, and time constrained parentheses, smart. Develop jointly. I said prior to the start of the performance period by the town in village and the unified manager. Exactly. Okay. Yes. Is there an R in smart that we're missing? It is, it's a relevant one. Oh, relevant? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, boss, we just don't do those. So does that mean that these, does that mean that these have to be defined prior to July one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would make the most sense that way that. Because that's what he started. Yeah. Or that's what he started. That's what he's being measured against, right? Yeah. It's a requirement, I would say. Is it okay if I keep going? Okay. Sure. Okay. You're on the books. No, kind of. Section four, the first section four. The only comment I had here was, there is a reference to discussing any issues or concerns and evaluations are also really helpful in highlighting what's being done well so that you reinforce that behavior. So I would put that positive in there, too, that it's not just. Do you have a recommendation for what's the wording should be? Let's see. For the express purpose of discussing any issues or concerns or to reinforce good performance. You see something that's being done well, you want to make sure. Right. They know that. To continue doing that. Sure. And sooner than later, right? And then under the second section four, I just had a question. There's a reference to the town select board and village trustees acknowledge and affirm that they will not interfere in town or village operations, including interacting with staff without the unified manager's specific approval. And I didn't know, does that same guideline apply to the general public? No, it applies to, it's in our charters. And both our charters say, you know, they don't specifically spell it out. And we thought it would be good coming in with Evan coming in new that he gets, we all remind ourselves of this. And it just says the manager runs the day-to-day operation and we run the manager, but we don't attempt to run the village or the town ourselves. We don't go around the manager. I don't know. Yeah, I'm sorry. In answer to Sue's question about, does it apply to the general public? If you were to go up to the highway garage, you would see employees only sign. That's for the safety of the general public. So they wouldn't be able to interact either with the people doing the work there or the machine or anything like that. So where those signs would be would be the only time that the public would not be encouraged to do that. Correct. I don't know if I'm answering your question. Are we answering your question? Are we not getting at the point you're trying to make? I guess the point I was trying to make is there a constraint on the elected officials that is not on the general public and it sounds like that is a valid thing that because it's in the charter. That's good. That's where we got it. Good feedback. Thank you, Sue. Other comments? Really? So, I can regroup this with these. As amended. Can we regroup them as amended? Yeah. Okay. Anyone want that? Anyone want it as amended? Okay. Entertain the motion then. I think we're gonna do some more. I move the select board approve the memorandum of understanding regarding the unified manager as amended on 13th of February 2018. Thank you, Mike. Do I have a second on it? Second. Thank you, Sue. Any further discussion of giving this the motion as amended? You're not all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes by zero. Thank you again. Okay. And trustees, do I hear a motion that we approve the memorandum of understanding for the unified manager as amended? So moved. Second. Any further discussion? Sue, I think just one thing. Before we all leave, if you and I could sit with Marianna, make sure we got all the wording of the changes exactly right. I think we all agreed on it, but I just want to make sure. Absolutely. So all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Good. Thank you. Okay. Then moving right along on the select board five, what is it? C, thank you. Is approval of resolution and appreciation of Patrick C. Scheidel. So where are you going? Lock the door. Who would like to read this? Who feels like reading this? Elaine, do you want to read this? I need to light it as well. You want to read this? We've got it on fancy. I want Pat to be here. Well, I know. Why didn't you go online? He's shy. What I would like to propose is at town meeting article one, which is the report of the officers. In there is a letter from the select board that references his retirement. So that would make it germane, I think, to be able to have somebody and I don't know who the right person would be to read it at town meeting, but take a couple of minutes to present it to him at that point. I just have tonight be the time to be able to improve it for that. Is that reasonable? I would propose that Susan, her term is ending and she is the select board clerk that she gets to read at town meeting. Well, yes, but if it were just this like, yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Is that okay? Is everybody okay with that? Oh, God, yeah. It's not a frost to say, but yes. Sounds like a good idea. Okay, that's our practice for whoever the clerk is and Sue was our clerk to read this. But it's a joint resolution, that's why I wasn't sure. So we don't need to read it tonight, in other words, we just look at the language, we don't need to read it loud or what, I'm not okay. It's in a public record. We normally read it at our meetings, but it's a pretty long one. It is a pretty long one. Yeah, so it's okay if we just approve the question and we'll do that at town meeting, we'll just take a couple of minutes to do it, like. Is this where we can weigh in with the suggestion? So the very last whereas, I'd like to add in that Pat has unerrally served his country as a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam conflict. Oh, okay. Okay, but how are we going to, we'll be able to sign it tonight then because we don't have any original, if we have that. Can we sign it on town meeting day? Or to stop by before. Or to stop by before. Or to stop by before. Because we'd probably like to get it put in one frame. Yeah, we also have a meeting next Monday, so we'd have it there to sign as well. Okay, for us. Okay, so. Okay, that's it. If we want to add that piece of mic. I think that's a good idea. That's a good idea. I think that does, yeah. 26, we have a meeting. Oh, that's not nice. Okay. Okay, so we'll amend it with adding that piece of mic. Any other comments? Okay. So could I have a motion from the select board to approve the resolution of appreciation of Patrick C. Scheidel as amended? Somewhat. Thank you, soon. We'll have a second. Okay. Very in all of us in favor of the resolution with as amended, signify to say aye. Aye. Aye. Post. Thank you. Okay, and I will make ask for the same motion from the trustees. So may we approve the resolution for Patrick C. Scheidel as amended? Okay, any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Fantastic. Okay. So good, next. All right. So, I'm sorry, just a procedural question, nothing to do with language or anything else. Do we want Greg to have the corrected copy of this and we go into the office sometime between now and Monday to sign it? Yeah, we have a meeting. Oh, it's two weeks. It's the 26th. Yeah, if you're going to be going, I guess, sign it in advance to make sure we can get it signed and put it in a great, okay, and anyone that's missed, we can do it in two weeks. So, by the way, we rescinded the resolution. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Okay, so now we're on to item five, at least on the slack board again, that item five is on our agenda too, but it's not 5D. Okay. And that's the memo from Greg Duggan and Travis regarding the welcoming of the new municipal manager, Evan Teach. So, in our packet, we have that memo and the slack board had seen this in the consent agenda last week, right? It's slightly modified. Okay. So, the idea was just to make sure that we have sort of a complete plan, at least for the very beginning days of having Evan here so that he can be introduced to the right folks and the right documents sent in advance that he can read and so on. Yeah, I thought one of the ideas that we had in just going over this, I mean, we can talk about the rest of this, but I wanted to make a note of saying one of the best ways to introduce Evan to us, we've all met him, but when he comes here and sort of introduce him to the process, is he is coming on the 23rd and the following week, we have both a select board and a trustee meeting. Pat is still going to be manager. We thought it would be really helpful if Evan came and just observed. He went to a select board meeting, observed Pat in action and how Pat interacts and runs the select board, not runs, but manages the select board meeting. And same thing for the trustees so that he can get a sense of what it, what the expectations are, what the process is, the interpersonal dynamics and everything like that. And we also thought at the beginning of those two meetings, we could maybe take about 15 minutes at the start of the meeting to just have it be open. Public would be welcome to come in, say hi to Evan, have some just general discussion and then each board at its meeting, at a subsequent meeting would begin their meeting and have a normal business meeting. And that would be, cover the introduction still like the officials. Right. That's reasonable. I find it really awkward that we have the new manager and the retirement manager in the same room. I would like to see Evan come in and do whatever he does and not be constrained or really have expectations of how things are done now. I'd really prefer that he, if he wants to see what it looks like on TV but to have it in the room, I don't know. But having him watch and observe doesn't mean that's what he will have to replicate but he can at least see what it was and that he could, with that perhaps even make better ideas as to what changes he thinks might be appropriate. You've been in that position before. Well, no, frankly I haven't. No. The old guys that have been around when I showed up and did these jobs, I would maybe, maybe ask Evan what he would prefer. It's fine. And I would be more than happy to do whatever to make the new manager feel comfortable is the whole goal. So, I certainly wouldn't want to be the one that would make him uncomfortable. I don't think I would, but, you know. I personally prefer to not start off his first day or first week in his new role as municipal manager to not come to the meeting that he's unexpected to come to. I'm not remembering 100% if it says in our charter that the manager required to be here but I think that that's the general practice at least. Yes. That's right. And so having the manager physically being on the job but then not being here doesn't feel good. At first I prefer that he actually be here even if it is just a sitting observe. Let me interject here before we go. Evan is going to be here on the 20th. He's traveling here. He's traveling here. He's going to be physically be present for the final week of Pat's tenure. So, you know, I guess he could go out on Monday into his day and do something else but I mean it's just it's an opportunity for him to come and see be in our live meeting. That was really what we were thinking. Yeah, but he doesn't have to. We don't say you. But then again the public is welcome to come to our meeting so we can't really stop him from coming. I'm going to bring that up. I don't think we can ban him from coming to our meeting. Can we just assume that he would be there and would sort of say acknowledge him and take some time to welcome him to our meeting. I kind of embellished the rest of it. I'm sorry. I would almost submit that he's not going to be sizing he's not going to be sizing Pat up as much as he's going to be sizing up the ten of us. Yeah, that's right. To be honest with you. So for that reason alone I think he should be able to be there. I can't say that I didn't have my initial reaction wasn't the same as Irene's that it should be solo but the more I think about it I think it's an opportunity for him to size. I'll do respect to Patrick he's not going to care of the way Patrick he's the number one. We weren't recommending that he run the meeting. No, no, no. I understand that. I understand that. But send this manager's chair and be the manager at the meeting. Well, he wouldn't come and run the meeting and he's not going to be the manager meeting. I'm just going to come to but we were saying we're going to make time on the agenda to welcome him, acknowledge his presence and say and introduce him to Channel 17 and the rest of us and so forth but it wasn't to ask him to actually run the meeting. So clarification just as Pat was saying so Evan will not be seated at the table with a nameplate. He'll be seated in the audience. I assume are you saying with a manager nameplate there or no? You're the manager. He's the manager but we would put him at the table. He doesn't have to be at the table. It's fine. I mean he could be at the table wherever. Obviously anybody from the public can be our meeting and to recognize him at the meeting if you want him to sit at the table somewhere at the end with whoever to have a nameplate says manager a kind of manager I think that would be a little awkward. But he is. But it is. Yeah but he's not he's not sworn in at that point. No he's he's not the manager or the person for his match right. So it's kind of a lean duck type here. I've been I've been that for quite a while and it's okay to be my dog. I've got the walk down and everything. And he can just observe and see and then he'll have his own style I'm sure and not necessarily the influence at all by the way we've been doing it because the way you've been doing it is probably better ways to do things. I mean that's one of the exciting things that we know is coming. It probably doesn't need to be so but maybe it's just worthwhile to just say to him that we expect him to come with a clean slate and make it his own and whatever. Did the model running? No I didn't mean to imply that we watch Pat we want you to do exactly what he does. That was the impression that was the impression. Okay I'm sorry I did not I should have and forgive me I think I that's my fault so I'm sorry that I triggered all this inappropriate language. The origin of my comment is something that was at a couple of meetings ago and I asked if other towns managers often overlap and I recall the response being no. So because this is an unusual situation I'm just feeling my way wondering what is appropriate given that most towns don't have an overlap. That's all. I just want to explain more of that carefully. And I think that we would make it clear to Evan that he if he feels if he for some reason is busy he doesn't start after those days so if he really had other business to do but in lining up the agenda you know what we can think about this let's process this since each of us will be Max and the rest of you will be formulating your select board agenda and we'll be doing the same for the trustees maybe we'll do two different things but that was the idea and if you don't we don't do it then we'll have to come up with some other way of introducing ourselves as a group but I mean Evan we've already all met Evan so it's not really that big a deal certainly getting to know but it would allow also the public then to be able to meet him as well so the other thing that we had in mind was that on the morning of the 26th at 81 Main Street there would just be a period of where as it says right here staff could come in have bagels and coffee with Evan and say hi that's one opportunity we're trying to probably create a number of opportunities committees in terms of all the village and town committees I think that for some to organize some event where all of the committees I think we'll probably be talking about a hundred people and to assume that Evan's going to that's going to be helpful to him I don't think it would be helpful to him I think it would be confusing to him so I would recommend that what we do is provide a list of committees and their agenda we've already done that we send them list of village committees and a schedule and as they meet in the course of his time here his first few months here he goes to committee meetings he could pick and choose which one planning commission meetings et cetera and meet those people but I think that to try to bring all the committee members together and have him understand everything I think it would be overwhelming I think the priority here would be to get to see staff first there was what was the we talked about meeting managers from other other communities we were going to do that with him and organize Pat you said that there is a this is standard monthly meeting for lunch the county managers and I was talking with Don Francis not too long ago about meeting having a quick lunch just with the bordering community managers Williston South Burlington these are the folks that you can see and the stones throw anytime you want the other folks are more outlying and then of course is to buy annual meeting for all the state managers but that's not the case you'll have plenty of people to meet right and then I don't want to you know what why don't you talk about coming to your town meetings so that's the next big event right during town meeting we have the community dinner at 6.30 that would be a good time to have an introduction of Evan to the folks who are at that dinner and then allow that to be meet and greet and he can wander around table to table and actually talk to opportunity to meet a lot of people for a lot of people to meet him during the during that part of the town meeting because you know I will not be at that dinner right you won't be there so he'll be really focused on the dinner as a meet and greet forever for the new guy coming in and then you know at town meeting when we do our business we'll introduce you know we'll do the official introductions and obviously we'll say a few words about pass retirement at that point so we'll keep those two things separate is that reasonable to have that community dinner be the meet and greet great the timing is right instead of having a public event and then we kind of thought in terms of actually meeting I mean he's met some department heads and staff already but I think it would be valuable for him to meet department heads in their setting to go to the SX Free Library and meet the people up there go to the wastewater plant and meet Jim and the staff down there police department et cetera and so what we were kind of thinking is we could do this would obviously have to take place during the day so we will work out Max and I and maybe Greg and Lauren I'm not sure depending on your availability we would have like a maybe a little delegation set up a schedule don't have to do it all once we could spread it out over a couple of days and bring him around and introduce him to the various department and department heads give us some time for Evan to interact with them and talk about stuff and see what they do is that does that sound reasonable good are you okay and we we may we'll probably start doing that since he's here on the 23rd before he actually takes on try to maybe do some of it during the week the following week some happen one day yeah I think that's smart yeah again you know there are a number of you know folks here who he probably needs to meet at some point for example Global Foundries we would like Evan to get over Global Foundries and do the tour and meet the folks over there sorry and he has a sense of what they're about same thing with the Fairgrounds we talked about several other community partners and again I think what I could do and Max could do is we could try to set that up and go with him on those on those tours and we I would keep the trustees informed and Max would keep the select board informed and you'd be welcome to join us on those I don't think they would constitute meetings I think they would just be opportunities for us to if three or more in the community needs to be warned and if someone thinks you know if you're going to be there you might run into me in the hallway no we'll just go like this stay in the bathroom I can't participate in the tour we won't pretend we don't know you we'll keep you out of trouble and if anyone thinks of someone that we should be introducing introducing him to that we are not introducing him to then let us know or let him know we'll try to communicate that to you sooner or later we'll do all sorts of that okay so I think that's all the introduction sorry did we miss any anyone are you going to show a list of the people of the companies that you were thinking of bringing him around to yeah that's what George is saying that we're going to be keeping you informed of that and so yeah that would need to be in consent I mean it's if you think of any Mike just let let us know what your thoughts are I'm right now to me the big two are because the village does so much has so much interaction with the fairgrounds we need to bring them over there to have a meet Tim Shea and same thing for global families so those are the those are the two that I have in mind right now beyond that any number of them I'd add Bledget Bledget yeah bottom heart yeah the Economic Relief Commission has a great list of businesses and they're actually by number of employees you probably have the bigger ones as a priority first and then you know I'm sure you would be happy to help with those introduction you know what my memory is failing me so forgive me because when we were talking about this we I think we actually decided it might not be bad for the Economic Development Essex for the EDC to get involved in this and they could probably orchestrate a lot of these meetings with him great opportunity to have him here and also members of the board and trustees who interact with boards, committees or commissions can tell having an energy committee meeting and the chance of a team meeting meeting is with regional planning meetings those kind of things that you can get the information directed from you okay thank you so we talked about site visits too and then it's not an exhausted list of documents we don't want to certainly overwhelm what we wanted to at least identify ones that we thought might be the most appropriate to send to him in advance do you agree with this list or do you think there's some that should come off that we added for open to feedback soon I thought the town and those charters should be part of the list already yeah we we live out of sync because I recommended we send having some documents because we don't want them just sitting out there in the Midwest doing nothing so we we send them our stuff okay we didn't send them the charter we figured the charter is pretty obvious online so he could see that full pointer then maybe not the actual document yeah we also talked about the LDC and our audiences yeah I mean those are big they're big but they live online yeah I mean we sent him the the budget that we just approved tonight the employee association contract the Design Five Corners thing a list of our upcoming capital projects to the year I ventured about that he's reviewed every one of these documents already but I'm not going to say that for sure but I'd say it's a fair bet probably before he even met with us in front of the interview sure he's on the budget and the audit Greg if I can put you on the spot have any of these gone to him yet through the drop box? not yet okay how about the Jeff and Mary document that talks about consolidation plans? hmm so that's the vision out there for him right the car more of course okay good I thought the TGIA report should go ahead absolutely okay and then the other one actually for you Greg we used to in our select board and the consent there used to be a list of activities that were pending and some status and I think that would be helpful for him to have as well like what the parking lot is for him okay yeah I don't know if that's being maintained or pending at the end that'd be great great good suggestion trustees well good with this wherever with this okay he's going to be okay drink it from the fire hose there okay so I think we're ready to move on without if no one has any other further comments or suggestions for additions for heaven coming and we'll move on to the next agenda item yeah so first order of business we we wanted to let me first of all say last time we had a joint meeting about a facilitator for the meeting in March that we're going to be having and we all agreed that we wanted a facilitator and we weren't really sure what kind of facilitator who we were going to hire etc we we haven't picked anybody out and I think if we jointly wanted to come up with the list and then discuss the pros and the cons of individuals we would probably need to do that in the executive session because it might get into personalities or characteristics or whatever financials and so we really were kind of at a loss about how to approach this because I didn't we didn't want to like generate a list and then I'll go into executive session to talk about this and discuss possible contracts one suggestion that we had was to to put put the put the decision on hold until we discuss a few other things about what we're going to be doing at this meeting to get a sense of what kind of a facilitator we would like and then at the end of it see if everyone is okay with Max and Greg and I coming up with a couple of different names and contacting a couple of different people and seeing if one of those people is available and is that what we based on the attributes that we based on the attributes that we need for the March meeting so before we get that far yes I want to make sure that these boards know our goals for that meeting right and in looking at this memo I think we might need to have some additional conversation before we decide upon a facilitator right can I just take a minute or two just to ask some questions about this memo the conversation started yes go ahead okay so the first the first part where it says is there agreement that our general goal is to propose changes to the town and village charters that's a big assumption and I think our that's not the goal it could be an outcome of the conversation but I don't want any of us on these boards to be accused of creating a solution in search of a problem and I want us to make sure that we are asking the right questions and I think the goal really is to begin exploring potential changes in governance that could be effective in helping us achieve consolidation goals it's part of a bigger conversation and I'm wondering if instead of talking about charter changes right away we identify the questions we have what are the issues that a potential change in governance could solve what are the benefits that a potential change in governance could provide and without going into a presumed or an assumption of a particular kind of change of governance we talk a lot about having one board and we think we might be getting there we really need to have a more comprehensive conversation about it before we actually start planning for that we haven't talked about it at all we haven't talked about whether that's exactly what we need to do so I guess what I'm saying is perhaps we should back up the littlest bit and have a conversation I think a facilitator isn't a good idea to help us put a fence around the pasture of what we're trying to talk about okay, let me so that was the that's exactly the point that you're defining exactly what what we were struggling with which is that we want we want a facilitator it seems like this was our thought and Greg helped us with this too just sort of teasing us out we want a facilitator that can help us sort of generalize and focus and decide what our priorities are yes okay, we don't as opposed to a facilitator who has a lot of expertise in some specific piece of government or law or finance right so we want a kind of a generalist who can facilitate kind of a general conversation about goals and process and help us focus those at the meeting so that we know what we're doing going forward does that make sense yes so I thought we were even one step back from that and I thought the intent of the session is it the twenty third March was to have it be a learning experience where we have different knowledge sources to help expand our understandings of what the opportunities and options are we did talk about that too it seems like that might be actually after we come up with kind of great the first piece to say really what is it we're thinking the the goals are and then part of that would be what learning then do we need in order to achieve that I think that's where those pieces might come in I don't disagree with any of the points that have been made around the subject what I'm really concerned about though is that we've got an awful lot of work to do and not a lot of time to get it done I'm I'm wondering if March the twenty third after hearing the ideas that are coming forward here tonight I'm wondering if the twenty third of March is doable based on the kind of conversations we have to have ahead of time just throwing that out there even even if we got our stuff together in two weeks I'm just going to arbitrarily pick a timeframe two or three weeks that doesn't preclude that we're going to be able to get the person that we think is best suited to help lead us through this with that short a timeframe so I'm I'm not sure I've got a great solution for that other than to say if we're going to if we're going to have this meeting ahead of time or a series of meetings ahead of time we best get after it I think that I think what we if we look at item number two okay what are our priorities for continuing our discussion of governance what do we hope to achieve with a consolidated government and we don't even have to say that what do we hope to achieve so if we just said that's the that's the agenda for the March 23rd meeting it's very wide open we're not saying we're we're going to spend March 23rd forming the new government or we're not even sure that's where we're headed we're just going to I thought it would be we would the ten of us would each sort of say here's what I go around I think we should be talking about here's what I think we should be doing and see where the parts of overlap are see what the commonality is and then start to go forward from there and the facilitator would help to us to get to that list of what the answers to these at least begin to answer these questions then I might have misunderstood this series of events then if you're if we're all talking about if we're remembering what we brought up earlier meetings as potential bullet items for this meeting on the 23rd then I retract what I said okay earlier can I just make a point of order I would I was I was kind of thinking that the way this was going that we were going to have that series of that meeting or series of meetings before we chose the facilitator but if I'm mistaken then I'm mistaken sorry there's been an awful lot of mention of the 23rd I believe you chose the 24th let me let me let me check the data I didn't even try to guess I just it's Saturday the Saturday the 24th and we've rented we've rented Essex High School from 10 to 2 we're going to have coffee and refreshments for people coming in we don't know how many members of the public will be there but we are anticipating some and we're also having lunch so we we're trying to make it as possible and I totally hear you Mike but Mike we've got to start somewhere and and we're we're talking about what we're going to talk about and at some point I think we just have to mic the bullet and just start talking about it I retract my earlier statement it sounds to me like we're kind of developing that first meeting agenda and that's not the feeling I got when we first got started so Irene you had your hand up you wanted to say I just want to make sure we look back at history and some of the stumbling blocks to figure out where we need to go next because we've had some hurdles we've had some walls that we've hit to go around them and say well we really have to work on this you know the trust issue has been a big issue I think we need to deal with that head on I agree yeah and those to be great the great things to be able to identify jointly and at the 24 can I just point out on like the third item on the memo I would not want to set any dates at all this is an open end conversation we have no idea where it's going to go and I don't want anybody to be accused of pushing the community towards the decision that they're not ready to make okay I just want to make it I just want to I hear you Elaine I just want to make it clear that these were ideas that we might bring up at that meeting sure and as an aside the only reason we put down the charter is that if we think of the Essex governance group and they made a recommendation for changing how we do town meeting they did and we've also talked about possibly changing our charters to have some accommodation for the consolidations that we've already made and so we if all of you recall we've kind of said we've got a whole bunch of small charter changes that we want to talk about but we're going to put those on all that on hold until we have the discussion about governance so now that we're doing this do we see that eventually we're going to come back around and start talking about you know eventually address those charter changes as well and if we if we think we are it doesn't have to say specifically what we're going to do but we may want to mention that at the beginning so within after whatever amount of time is spent we get to a certain point where we feel we've reached some agreement we want to put interested from the beginning that we were kind of moving toward a charter change it was just that kind of it might be very worthwhile to provide a little history how we got to this conversation what we've already done so far what we may need to do that's a good idea and then bring everybody up to where you are but I'm hopeful that we'll have a decent turnout from the public because this is an opportunity for them to talk about some continuing issues that they want to see us sell what's that? good food will do it good food will do it oh yeah, free food Saturday so what about facilitator attributes that Irene had in the has it I'm just curious we just got resumes from facilitators for a firearms discussion can any of those be added to the mix there are conflict resolution experts in some cases actually we talked very good about that that would be that would be a great tool to use at the end absolutely and we're going to be interviewing some of them going up soon well to go back to that though we do we probably want to hire or line up a facilitator for the meeting and so and we probably need to get some guidance from from all the ten of us need to give guidance on how to proceed with that on how to choose a facilitator on how to choose a facilitator so I maybe should go back and talk about that that's okay but what should we do how do we do this would everyone be comfortable with Max and I working with Greg to get a generalist kind of facilitator for this one for this one we make it clear this is just for one meeting this is not we're going to have a we're forming this is not like TGIA or or the the recreation thing where we're seeing a series of meetings we want a facilitator that's going to be there every three we haven't decided there's no schedule there's no fix on this one event that's going to come all right I'm okay with that okay especially since you already have we'll start choosing from and I would say I'll venture to say if you've got recommendations send them to Greg is that okay Greg? it is if anyone has recommendations for for facilitators that we know and love send them to Greg and we'll we'll proceed from there I would say just somebody that we don't know and love I think it's good to have a fresh voice and a fresh perspective and someone who doesn't already know the industry yes I know so I would just be my business don't know yes but we want to get to know them okay let's try to think of a process that we don't when we arrive when if we announce some facilitator people don't go away in a second not that person how do we get around that how what's the process we can use you're trying to appease everyone and I don't think you can I think well pick somebody who's qualified I trust you, Max and Greg to select somebody as you said this is just a first form of this type it's it's we're not you know structuring the whole consolidation process in this one meeting it's not that big of a deal I don't think we need to really get really worried if one person has a problem with it well I'm sorry okay I don't think anyone almost got a problem no I'm just saying just get the process moving like Mike says even though you know it's not that big of a deal but just to keep the process moving I mean democracy moves when you know you're like 100% whenever we're going to get it's done but we'll take all that and put what pools of candidates we have and from that pool we'll see if we can sift out the right one for that one meeting and if you like that person maybe we can use them again because we're going to be there's not going to be just a one and two time discussion okay so I was I think it's there's pretty basic criteria right it's somebody that actually is an active qualified person yeah that's willing to willing to do it it's available in a day yeah that could be that's the problem we may say this is the perfect person and they're not available so it is for one shot so I think the only question would be if somebody was selected with had never been a facilitator yeah we're not going to do that I'd pick a day it'd be scheduled call them both to see if they're available and then the broader conversation does anyone have more to add discuss talk about well at one point when we first had this conversation we talked about what were our individual questions and we should be thinking about them and compiling them and information we want to have in hand before we get started we now would be the time to start getting that information to you so that you can say the facilitators here's some of the questions that we're going to think about tackling so yeah there are a couple of documents that have already been created that have that information it'd be nice to I guess I could go find it again but if if somebody knows where it is we could share it around or we could individually look for it but I don't know do we have those documents available easily the documents from denotes there were minutes from specific meetings and I I don't have the one hand I think it would be helpful for all of us to not get them that day and be good to have them ahead of time and as I said I've probably got them somewhere but if could someone send a link with these the report of the Essex Governance Group would be good for all of us to refresh our memories with I'll make a note of that Andy so what we would have is a very broad agenda for this meeting would be a just a a very brief broad history of recent consolidation what got us to this point where are we something like that what's been consolidated where are we consolidated manager consolidated finance we're looking at consolidated public works etc and then part two is what are our priorities for continuing our discussion of governance what do we hope to achieve what are our concerns that good you have to you have to list the failures too that's a list you have to list the failures not just the consolidations that happened but the ones that didn't happen past failures past failures okay okay there's still a link on our on the town website I think this is merger information right yeah does that go to the the old merger information I think that's I think that's the part of the information you're talking about as well right it's not just not just recent efforts it's also what's the history there's lots of live websites about failures there's still not to that'd be part of the background it's good I would just add to any gaps in knowledge so we know what kind of education piece we need to bring in right I don't think when we talk about past merger efforts we want to get into an analysis of why they failed because then we're venturing into into the political debates right we just want factual statements we don't want to say well the reason this one failed because I think that could lead us off into a very complicated direction if you don't revisit history repeat it so I don't know but it can't be a blame test and it can't be a we should have done it this way well I know it needs to be really factual visit the history remember it so say that since I've started to build that since I started being the unified manager one of the things I've mentioned was our past and one of the great things that has always been a problem is the identity issue and if you recall I said that as we go forward with consolidating departments like the fire department or the highway department we wouldn't even change the logos on the machine on the machine is nothing because identity because that's the number one reason why things like this fail so I think I don't know if you were thinking about that Irene but that certainly is a lesson that if you did any kind of research outside of that extension that's pretty much well I would say if we say if we're going to say what are our priorities as an agenda what are our priorities for discussion of governance what do we hope to achieve what are our concerns I think that wouldn't be contained in that in that case yes can I point out clarification just yeah so in general this is a meeting for the ten of us yes and open to the public yes now when we're talking about what our questions were our concerns what worked what didn't work that conversation is for the ten of us for the audience to listen to or for us to engage with the audience I could see that lessons were going too far down that road I think you know what maybe maybe what I could because I think I get wrong I don't want to assume anything here but what I understand we would do is that the discussion is among the ten of us it's not going to just be a big open rambling kind of forum I didn't think that's what we had in mind I thought we had I mean ten of us is pretty rambling it would be good to engage them at that point have our discussion you remember what they added in the beginning and then make sure that we leave enough time at the end to get additional feedback from whoever the public is there after they heard our discussion so that we can then in our next meeting that can also get folded and we're going to need to find ways to bring in way more than just the people that come to see to those meetings and that will be part of that discussion too but I think it's really important that people bother to come and take the effort to do that that we are at least here from them but allow ourselves to do the discussion as we said but then also hear from them after they heard our discussion you know to to have that interaction with the public that does attend we've done it at the meetings village meeting town meeting do questionnaires have something so they they take something away they bring they can fill something out submit it based on what they've heard this is what I've heard because there's no way everyone's going to make a comment at the meeting and that might be a good thing you're trying to put this together we just don't know how many people you know if we scheduled a half an hour for public comment what if just three people that's why so we don't really know right so we're starting to move forward but I think you're right we can do that we're going to start at the meeting we have the room from 10 till 2 again I was kind of just sketching out a possible actual schedule we are going to have refreshments there in the morning and then we're going to break for lunch I think you can rely on your facilitator to help you do that the facilitator would ask you both what your goal is and then they would tell you how a good way would shoot it okay so you don't want you don't think we should do our schedule now you don't want to go over to schedule now I mean aside from having lunch I think we should have the facilitator present or at least that should be the conversation that you have with the facilitator well we had some discussion about how many about allowing time for public comment and I would argue that that's something that we I'm going to guest the facilitator is going to ask well how much time do you want to allow for public comment and so how much time do we want to allow for public comment and when do we want public comment I think it depends on the order of the topics we discuss and I'm really I don't know what we're going to talk about that's why I'm saying you need your facilitator to have this conversation okay that's what I'm trying to say alright okay I would also suggest some flexibility with the public engagement based on how many people show up if you have five people that are willing to commit four hours of their time to be a part of what's going on I think you could probably work with them the facilitator probably work with them into maybe a little bit more than just at the start and the end if you have 50 people obviously that's going to be more challenging yes I would suggest a little bit of flexibility okay okay so we'll just we'll just see what the facilitator is yes I'm willing to hear your proposal first oh it really was very very loose I was just going to say do we want to start exactly at 10 or do we want to have like a 15 minute mingle period that was we're going to have coffee and bagels there or donuts or something oh boom 10 o'clock okay everyone sit down or do we want to have a 15 minute period and then at the end we have it until 2 do we want to end probably a 2 or do we want to have like a 15 20 minute break period before we we actually have to leave the building that was kind of what we were talking about we are going to be they're going to be serving lunch at noon again how long do we want to take we want to go a half an hour maybe 15 minutes I mean that was really kind of very very general that's what I was trying to figure out so we were trying to figure out so I would say something like I think four hours is going to feel very tight I think we're going to have way more conversation than four hours is going to accommodate and so I would be in favor of having the coffee and whatever available 20 minutes beforehand if we can do that and start at 10 o'clock and then everybody go grab a sandwich and sit down and let's continue our discussions I think we're going to be packed so we want to start probably at 10 probably at 10 okay mingle the head no mingle mingle on your own time I think at the end maybe just allow like 10 or 15 minutes to wrap up okay and talk about next actions next steps and have that be the closing versus having mingle time at the end okay and 15 minute lunch I mean we can eat but what we're talking about working lunch working lunch I'm not good at this stuff one of the other things I thought just in talking what we could do in terms of the history and where we are we can kind of write it up draft it up send it to everybody we can't have an online meeting but if all of you could co-gently you know add your comments your suggestions and I will we'll try to maybe work with Patty and Greg and Travis and create a working document that we that everyone is more or less happy with that we we've been there for just a description of things that have happened in the past where we are consolidation efforts in the past why they failed not get into too much of an analysis and everyone can make a comment about that good and then if I we've left something out that would be the time to bring it up how much notice what we have because when I get something like this at a meeting it's not real helpful for me to try to read it on the fly so if you go well ahead of time well ahead of time yeah okay in advance well in advance okay before you know it excellent is that good everybody everyone more or less happy or you know you can use okay no problem no problem I think that's it so no for executive session required they entertain a motion to adjourn second second thank you Sue all those in favor of adjourn signify with a aye okay trustees will we adjourn second okay for the discussion all in favor aye aye very good now everybody we've got some documents I think today just you and I sign yeah the termination of the memorandum we can sign the other one needs to be rewritten no okay yeah okay okay okay okay I know I'm using a I know okay alright okay okay okay okay okay okay