 So welcome to the Essex Junction Trustees Meeting. Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And so, Evan, I understand we have a couple of additions to the agenda for tonight. Yes, I have an addition to business item. It's the fireworks display permit for the village of Essex Junction's Recreation and Parks Department. I'd like to make that 5D. And then at your places. I don't know if it was one meeting ago or two meetings ago. There was a mini discussion on landscaping around the Firebird Cafes new building. We have a use agreement with the owner of the parking lot behind it. So there's a showing of where landscaping is going to occur and a path that Public Works is installing between our use of the parking lot behind it to Firebird. Thank you. Do I hear a motion? Move. We approve the agenda as amended. Second? All right. And for seconds? Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. So the amendment is amended. Okay. The agenda is amended. Not the amendment is amended. What do you mean? You do it. All right. Two for one. Okay. So I think that's it. So public to be heard comments, questions, comments from the public. None. Okay. So we're on to our very first business item, which is presentation of proposed amendments to the Village of Essex Junctions comprehensive plan. And is this Robin? I want to take it away. I want to make sure it's presentation just a discussion really. Yep. We, myself and the Planning Commission have been referring to this as a municipal plan of light. The idea of doing this is so that we have enough time and we overlap with the Tons Municipal Plan. So if the parts that be decided want to merge them, right, that can happen. So really the changes we made were changes that were mandated by the state or by the Regional Planning Commission. I'll go through a quick list. And I will send there will be an email with this. We haven't received it before. We just updated the data and the maps to make them the most current ones that are available from the state. The energy section, which is section 4.1, it references the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan, which was written in collaboration with the TON and the CCRPC. The CCRPC really did the major work on it. And it's included in the Municipal Plan. The Planning Commission wanted it in the Municipal Plan, not separate. Right. Their experience had been, if you go somewhere and you get a plan from a municipality, you go home and you realize that you needed another section. Right. So they'd rather have it all in the ones that are in a way of one-stop shopping for people. Gotcha. So they wanted it all to be in there. Okay. Section 4.4, there was modifications to the Open Space Recreation and Public Health. It was expanded and included discussion of public health. Can I ask a question about that? Sure. Is it industry standard to leave that separate or shouldn't? Why? I've gone through a kind of scheme of that. Are you talking about the energy? No, just the overall plan and probably having health and public health being separate. Is there a reason why those considerations wouldn't be considered in every section? Well, they are considered in every section. It's just, this is specific to that. I mean, there's a lot of these things that flow over into different sections. But they still have their own place. Okay. Somebody's opening up the capital and they want to find something to take over. You want to do it? Yeah. On that, I'll draw through the other thing. Okay. Section 4.5, the natural environmental resources, we revised it to align with state forestry requirements. That was really the change there. And the plan was also brought in full compliance with state flood facilities requirements, which is important for FEMA. That's section 4.6. The education and child section 4.7 is completely revised to reflect the Essex Western School District. Previously, it obviously hadn't been that bad. The utilities and facilitation section 4.8 was revised to state that Essex Junctions, stormwater management permit, wastewater collection system, and zoning regulations align with the implementation sections of the Winozki River and Lake Shumkin type of basin plan. Well, if we're aligning everything with the surrounding communities with the state and what the region want. The housing section, which is 4.9 summarizes the tone of Essex and village of Essex Junction. Housing needs assessment and action plan. The village did sponsor VHFA to update what they have on their website. And I think mostly Darren from the time took it and put it into something that would read better in the municipal plan. Dubois and King's five corners design was threaded throughout the plan. The plan references all relevant documents in the 2015 tone of Essex and village of Essex Junction Biscuit Pedestrian Plan, Raj. The draft 2019 parking study and the Greenland Transit's next generation plan. So we really pulled a lot of things together that have happened since the last time we've done the plan. The planning commission needs a meeting between the Trustee July 23rd and your August 13th meeting if the trustees decide to suggest some changes. If you do, that meeting will be August 1st. Planning commission are hoping that you'll find that this meets the standard that we started with, which is municipal light just to satisfy the powers that be if you like. So if we apply for grants or anything to the state and the region, we can get to this. So this is just accepted. This meeting is just to accept the plan you're not expected to have reviewed it. I believe you all got it by email. Probably drop box. And if you have any comments that should come to us by July 12th. Maybe just a month away. Which will allow time to review and then if the planning commission needs another meeting, they'll have an August 1st. And your public hearing will be set in 23. And then there'll be one more public hearing. So you have two public hearings on tonight's meeting. And your last meeting to be your second and last meeting to accept it and adopt it is August 13th. So there's quite a ways to go. And as I said, the changes are, and I will send this to you if you haven't got it. It's really section four. So most of the changes. Any questions? No, I'm just going to make a comment that the comprehensive plan is what kind of informs a lot of other development. It's sort of the overarching plan. It's the umbrella underneath which it is. And for anyone out there in the viewing audience who's interested in Village Center Development or why things happen the way they happen and so forth. And when should the public get involved? And make comments, this is the time when you want to, if someone has a comment, they might want to come to one of these public hearings. Absolutely. Okay. And the changes here will be reflected in the next 1st of the line development code. Which is the Bible by which the planning commission will position on applications. What is that, sir? Probably another two years. Jerry, they're not in sync with each other, which is good, actually. Because they can be updated more often. And if something happens on the line development code, it's in the supply. You can refer to that as well. And maybe be more flexible when we're trying to. And, you know, we do have time to go over this and read it more carefully and ask questions at this. And I will send this. So I have a, any questions, any other questions? They were good. So I have a, the idea here, Robin, is that the trustees will warn a public hearing for the 23rd. Is that correct? Yes. And then we'll take it from there as in the sequence you said. So. And hopefully, if there are any suggested changes, we get those before that. We get this July 12th. Okay. So we have the time to change it for the second public. All right. So I'll make a, you know, one other, one last thing. I noticed you've got some pictures here. Are these, these are not, these are just development pictures. Do you want to show these to us while you're still on stage or is this coming up on another night? Why not? Huh? Why not? Yeah. Before I make my motion, why don't you, I think some of us might be interested in seeing these. And, you know, you might, maybe you could bring them up here, Robin, or, or should we all come there or what, what works best? I'll put them on the windows behind you. Okay. What, what, but in particular, anything of note that you wanted us to see? Well, this is, you know, an aerial view. So this was presented by Black Rock Construction. The Planet Mission made two weeks ago. Okay. It shows the proposed connector road, which opens up all of this property for development. And also, as you can see, it will open this property for development. At the moment, this is a driveway, which goes down here. So you can see the road to its advantage, a consistent curve cut in the driveway. And this is actually quite beneficial for this property owner because what they have to maintain at the moment will become a public road and we will maintain it. So they show on your building here, this is where the sewing machine building is. First one is that's retire. And that building is hiding out here. It's a nice building, but it's, this was already approved by the plane. This is part of phase one of what you see there. I'll show you a phase two in a second. It's a nice building, but in some ways it could be built in the 50s or the 60s. So it's not really reflective in my mind of today. So there's some others that really speak, I think, to the history of the village. And also the village going forward. Here it is. The center of the village is really connected to the railway. It got along with the syrup in. It dealt with wood products and so on. So the buildings are on the flat road, metal portions in them. So I think this building, it parks to the past and also speaks to the future. This is the building that is along the connector road. And I think there's a roadway through here that gets you to the parking underneath the building. I think it's very nice when you walk through a time and there's an opening. You can see through what's behind. So behind this, this will be retail commercial. You can see all these buildings have public spaces around them, which really ties into the missile plan past and present. But it really opens up the street. Can you say where on the connector is that? It's on the face of the connector left behind the Flanders building. So it would be here. You drive in here and another building behind it. And then this would be phase two. This building shown here would be phase two. And there's another building that's on this plan. I'll find another plan that would go here where the laundromat is. It would also be phase two. The plan with this building is, as it's built out to back park, would be a parking garage. And that's going to be pretty close to the current Lincoln Inn, right? Well, this is the Lincoln Inn. Yeah, it's relatively close. But it's a parking garage, which could be three or four stories high. But it won't be seen from the street. It's a wrap building in some ways. So the residential and the commercial wrap around the building. And the parking for this is underneath the building. It's not underground. And so they utilize this parking too. But once this goes in, they'll have more parking than the code or some of the urban planning directories would recommend. So they'll decide whether they want two stories, three stories, but to have that flexibility. Is that the planter's building going to stay? The planter's building's building is just going to get resided because there's income from it. So when the new buildings start bringing in income, then they'll take a second look at the planter's building. But it's needed to be the property owner just to generate some cash money, which is why the laundromat's staying too. But this is 116 apartments. It has to have retail commercial on the entry level because it's the least centered district. And we're starting to get to the point where the number of people living here will justify the small businesses investing in space. It's nice. I didn't expect to do this, but it's very good. I mean, the potential for the development of this property here and this one here. You know, in some ways, if you look at the truck roads coming into the village, you could say that Park Street needs the most help. So it's interesting that it's one that's getting attention first. I think next will probably be Pearl Street from what used to be the bicycle store. It's now a nail store. Going past Post Office Square on Essex Junction, Chopin Center. Because if you think about all the other streets coming in, you think about Main Street, Lincoln Street, and Maple, they're predominantly residential. But they're two streets, so really the commercial retail streets. And the village center is behind them. It starts to work really well. And of course, the Connector Road does get pipelines. And a sidewalk only on one side because the other side's along the railway tracks. Any questions? Thank you, Rob. Okay. Okay, so to wrap things up, I will make a motion that the trustees warn a public hearing for Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 6.30 p.m. at Lincoln Street, Essex Junction, to hear comments on the proposed amendments to and re-adoption of the Village of Essex Junction's comprehensive plan and the proposed Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Can I ask just a quick question? Yes. George, about that. So I guess we're going to have on our agenda a little bit of time to talk about our comments before that July is well-dated. My question is, given my involvement in doing this, should I be commenting? That's a good question. I mean, if you're asking for a legal opinion, I could give you one. And I'm not going to try to pull one by. I guess maybe somebody could look into it. I don't see a conflict in it, because there's no benefit to you personal gain. It's not like you have a vested interest in this personally to gain anything, nor a friend. So it's not, it's just community-wide. One thing, it pertains to something that you were doing, a business you had, or something connected with somebody. I don't see any way that it could be construed as being a conflict of interest. And I would add that you, because of your work with it, you know more about it than the rest of us. And so your comments and insight would be welcome. Yeah, I would appreciate it. I have good answers to, you know, no more than much could find conflict and interest on boarding on a bike path or anything like that. But I would say if you feel, if your opinion is that you think you want to, then I would suggest you contact Evan and contact Claudine and get her opinion. Thanks. Okay, anything else? So we'll move on. So we are going to warn another public hearing to hear, come on, on the, oh wait a second, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Warned public hearing for the FY 2020 water sewer budget and rates. That's a slight misnomer. It's just the rates. Yeah. Do you want to, does someone, does staff want to take the lead on this? Do you want me to go through it? Yes, no, I will. Take it away, ma'am. I'm almost excited as I usually am. But I do want you all to know that Lauren came in and spent the afternoon with us. Yep. Just to go through the process because it's a lot more involved than just taking the budget and dividing it out amongst the users. So I'm going to do my best to give you an overview of what we did and how we got to the numbers and then I hope you can give me some questions and then we'll hear it again at a public hearing. Your next meeting and then the village trustees have a policy that for setting the large user water rates, we will hold two public hearings. So there will be another opportunity to talk about this. It looks like last year we just went straight for a public hearing one and I missed that timeline a little bit so you're getting an introduction and then two public hearings. Better have more than less. Okay. So earlier in the year, so at Budget Day, we went through the water and the sewer and the sanitation budgets as part of the whole general fund budget and those have already been approved by the trustees for the budget process. The water budget overall was a $170,000 or 4.4% increase. That was an 8% increase on the village section of that budget. Percentages get higher as the overall numbers get lower and the global foundries contribution in this water budget takes up a lot of that overall expenditure number. So I know this is probably new for Amber and Raj and I can send you the budget documents. I didn't think to do that. The factors increasing the water budget was a $50,000 increase to the amount contributed to capital which is a very good way to, this is good financial management. We need to keep going that way because when anything breaks in these systems it's very expensive. There was an increase to the cost of health insurance and other benefits as a result of a plan level change in the enterprise funds. And one of the things that Lauren and I discovered recently was that there was a decrease in the amount that we're expecting to get from the large users. And I think that this happens, or this is an adjustment that happens most years when we do the final reconciliation in the beginning of June to say what did we expect global foundries to use over the last 12 months and what did they actually use. And then we also take that percentage and divide it into our unaccounted for water which is very close to zero, which is great news, except that brings down the amount that they're contributing to the budget. The expenditure budget doesn't change so if one revenue source goes down other revenue sources have to go up. That's why I got for water, a water budget overview. The sanitation budget and the sewer budget and the wastewater treatment facility budget are not cool. Oh, questions. Sorry. Large users, and I apologize if these are stupid questions because it's the first time that I've seen any of this stuff. Large users, you say large users, but do we have anybody else besides global or is globally only? It's just global, but there's a policy defining a large user as somebody who uses 2.5 million gallons per day. No, it's about three. It's more closer to three, two, 3.5. Yes, and you don't mind me interjecting. No, please do. The global foundry uses more water than the entire rest of Chittenden County combined, including the city of Burlington. Yes, they use 3.4 million a day. Our policy is anyone who uses more than 2.5 is considered a large user. There you go. So if you want to be a large user, there you go. Thank you. Turn the clock off. You get a reduced rate. I think it's included in my condo. I want to say it's not a reduced rate. It's a wholesale rate. In other words, the village acts as a pass-through. The Champlain Water District sends us water at whatever rate per gallon, and that's what we charge global foundry. There's not a single penny out on it. And that is a concern of all of Chittenden County that as global uses less water, everybody else rates have to rise because the cost of water is the same, regardless of whether they are using it or not, because they're getting a wholesale rate. Have we seen a shift in that in their downturn? Yes. I mean, it came up last week. There was a question that the representative of the Champlain Water District, because they were looking at the last three decades of water usage. And the entire network, sorry to be sound like I know it all, but I set the water rates one summer and sat on a water rate committee and learned all this stuff. And some of it was informative. The entire water distribution network for the Champlain Water District was set up for IBM. It was set up to deliver 10 million gallons of data to IBM. And they never reached that max. I think the max they ever got to was up around 8 million in the late 80s, early 90s. But they had to bond and take out lots of money to build this entire network. They were still paying that off. And when IBM started really losing capacity and shifting business, they saw a real drop in the end of the 90s. And every residential rate started going up in order to compensate. But really the entire network was built for IBM. Now global focus. Do they have their own wastewater treatment plan? Yes. Do they pay for that themselves or do they operate that? No. They do operate it themselves and they pay for it themselves. And they have a sting license. And they have the only industrial wastewater permit in the state. It's a special class permit. So the only way they had our budget is just to pass through? Yes. Yes. And that's a one for one what we buy on their behalf and then what they buy from us. And then there's that large user of me on top of that. 100,000 dollars a year. Just shy of that. Sanitation budget and the wastewater treatment facility budgets are a little bit more straightforward because they don't have the global foundry's impact that the water does. The sanitation budget, the expense side is up $50,000 which is over 10% because it's only a budget of about $500,000 and that is driven entirely by salaries and health benefits. In this budget we raise a little bit or slightly more in revenue than the expenses in order to contribute to the wastewater treatment facility. I only under, I'm like in the pond of understanding all of this I'm in the chat with. But it's a water analogy which is really good. Yes. It's a wastewater pond. It's a clean water. It's a clean water. It's a water. And then the wastewater budget is up $124,000 which is a 6% increase. Again, there's an increase in the transfer to capital there, big bucks, an increase in the cost of chemicals and maintenance fees and then, it looks like maybe it was a, okay. So back to rate setting. A number of years ago, not too many, I think 2014, the village had a water and sewer rate study done which is awesome to have. That was awesome. What? It was awesome. Yeah, not really. It was painful. It was very awesome though. It was painful to do but it is good financing. It is and it's great to have that. It was a good thing to do. So each of the three funds have a combination of fixed rates at different percentages. And the percentages are delineated in this study. So in the water fund, the rates are divided out 50-50. So 50% of the revenue in the water fund is raised by fixed rates and 50% is raised by variable rates. That coupled with the new number of equivalent units which we just updated last week which was a 2% increase. It's a 2% increase in new accounts or an upward shift in commercial accounts whose equivalent units are reallocated every year at the end of the year based on their actual usage. And an increase of 1.65% increase in projected consumption led us to... Oh, that's the combined sheet. Here's the water sheet. It was a 7.4% increase in the rates. In the water fund, we're talking about 0.0188 cents per cubic foot for usage and then a $26.86 flat fee per quarter. A $217 a year cost. The cover memo has them side-by-side with the current rates. And I noted in the PowerPoint presentation some of the reasons for the increase that I also just talked about. In the wastewater treatment facility, the split between fixed and variable rates is 65% fixed, 35% variable. Can I start with a second? Yeah. Do you guys understand fixed versus variable? No, I was actually going to ask that question. Yeah, okay. Fixed is the ability to bring water to here and distribute it. The cost doesn't change by whether you use it or not. It's the cost of the system to bring it from Lake Champlain, regulate it, get it here, and distribute it, plus water meters, plus all that stuff. That's a fixed cost and plus our personnel. And then the variable side is mainly usage and any water loss or anything like in that side of the equation. Good, right? Good. Do you understand? Mm-hmm. Because we use this jar and we live in it every day. So when people say, why is my water bill so high? I only use, say, 1,000 gallons a month or 2,000, let's say. That may very well be true, but we have to get it pumped from Lake Champlain. We have pipes that have to be maintained, water meters, et cetera, hydrants that provide you fire suppression capability. That's part of the fixed asset portion of the deal. So you're going to have a fixed, and then if you don't use any water, you're good. You get your fixed rate, and if you use water, then you get your usage on top of it, right? That's right. If they capture it for gallon, and don't use much, they're going to be bumped. But if they use a lot, and do it that calculation, then they're going to get hit for their usage and then a fixed. But we always need the fixed, no matter what. Right, exactly. Right. If that one turns. As a matter of fact, interestingly, our water usage is up a tad. Yeah, 1.6%. Which is fine. In a lot of places, water usage is actually declining. Interesting. Now, it might be as a result of the 100 new equivalent units. Yes. Yes. We have new customers. Right. It might be a relationship there. But basically what it comes down to, too, is with the efficiencies in cutting that water usage, it's kind of got to double, it's a double-edged sword, because then you have the fixed cost, the fixed cost don't go away, the maintenance and all that. So you're reducing your revenue. So it's a catch-22. They're kind of stepped fixed costs, but with big, long steps. So at a certain point, some of them would go away, but I think we'd have to go way far back. And then at a certain point with more and more users and more and more usage, they're going to go up another big step. So, that was water. Wastewater is a 10% increase in the rate. That is a combination of 6.4% increase in the operating budget and increase in the percentage of flow to the wastewater treatment facility that is attributable to the village. So the wastewater treatment facility serves the village of S.C.E. Junction, the town of Essex, and the town of Williston. And that somehow gets factored into the amount that's raised by the rates. I have that here on Lauren's spreadsheet. Maybe she'll have to come to the public. There's a tri-community agreement, and it's also based upon how much capacity each community bought to start the tri-level and how much is being used, plus capital, plus maintenance, plus EPA and Vermont regulations. Yes. So you take the estimated percentage of flows based on the last year's average of the three communities, and then you divide up the operating budget by those three percentages, and then each of those communities has to make up that amount. So the town of Williston and the town of Essex, they just get a monthly bill for a flat amount throughout the year. There's a reconciliation again at the end of the year. The tri-town committee has, over the past number of years, I think since maybe 2012, decided to keep any residual and the Ways More Treatment Fund for possibly future rate fluctuations to stabilize any future rate fluctuations that might arise with the capital purposes, because at the end of the year, sometimes the village is paid more than it should have, and Williston is paid more than it should have based on the actual flows. So there was a 1.5% increase in the village percentage of flow, and there was a 10% decrease in the anticipated setpage revenue, where the dollars come in and dump their waste directly. And so, expense budget stays the same, some of the revenue items go down, others have to go up. That's the effectiveness. Just for you and other people, we're not terribly unhappy that we are getting less septic because of its strength load. It becomes very concentrated versus otherwise. It takes a lot more chemicals to deal with that. And so that's one thing we're not terrible because there's an expense side. There's an expense driven from septic. Second, as Sarah just mentioned, one of our cost drivers is chemicals. It takes chemicals to treat wastewater. And mostly, we're dechlorinating, we have to remove phosphorus, and once you get all of that, you end up with a sludge. And we haul our sludge to a farm, local farm, we have a land application. What you really have to do before you get that sludge moved is dewater it, and it takes chemicals to dewater and do things and then make it bond. So there's chemicals involved, it's all EPA approved, it's all Vermont approved, but it's a process. So we're always battling what's coming into the plant, how it's being processed and how much chemicals and energy it takes to process it, and then it has to get land applied. The clean water, which is basically drinkable from the time it leaves the plant, goes into the Winooski River and on into Lake Champlain. It's a heavily regulated industry, and when they talk about cleaning up Lake Champlain, we are a faucet into that ecosystem, so we are heavily regulated, especially for phosphorus. I do pay attention at these meetings. That's good to know. So the water system, then there's the waste water treatment facility, and then the sanitation budget is really the collection of the wastewater to go forward the facility. And because of the Triton arrangement, that's why we have three separate budgets here, as opposed to some other communities that may have it all along to one, or ones who are in one water, we have this unique arrangement, and therefore we have the third pot. Sanitation budget is 75% fixed and 25% variable. There's a split there. Similar to the others, there's the increase in the operating budget. There's also a slight increase in the amount that the sanitation budget is paying toward the wastewater treatment facility. Upgrade debt that's been happening year over year as that ramps up. I know we talked about the water, and so the increase in this budget is 7.2%. So equivalent units and customers. In the water fund, total equivalent units is up 102%, which is 2.2%, and use projected consumption was up just shy of 500,000 cubic feet on the year, which is a 1.65% increase. In wastewater and sanitation, our total customers or equivalent units would only up 75%, so you don't have to have both water and sewer. You can just have water. Is that your problem? There aren't too many septic systems in the village. Most villages that have basically a complete system, you may have some outliers, like there could be a farm that is on a septic field that started in the 1870s, and we as a community have not extended the sewer to there. There's probably a handful of properties. But you know the PC doesn't allow the date. If someone comes in with an application and says they'd like to put a septic out back, they'll know you've opened it. There'll be no ones. So the consumption side on wastewater and sanitation is only up half a percent, about 126,000 cubic feet on the year, as opposed to almost the full 500,000. So the other variables in those two funds didn't increase quite as much. So before I jump into the large user rate, those three slides that I just talked about are going to contribute to a combined overall increase in the rate for residential customers of 8.8%. So we're looking at the average annual cost of $512 a year. This is... It's an increase of $41 per year on a village resident using 120 gallons per day. How does that compare to the past 10 years? What kind of increases have we seen year over year? That might be a question that I could answer. I'm just curious. We'd have to go back through that. I don't have that. Be good to know. Did you say 10 years? 5 years? I'd be curious about 10. I think it does tend to go up every year, but I don't know if this... I don't know if this is a big jump or not. It's always creeping up a little bit because all these costs are attached to labor costs, health care, and it's just general inflation, but this seems like it might be a little bit bigger. It's just a big number. We talked about property taxes, but this is another big number. We talked about consolidation and the variance between village and town property taxes, which is significant. I think it's something like 350 or 375 or something like that for an average home. But if you turn that around, the town water rates are substantially higher than ours, so I don't know how it all washes out. It would be interesting to see how that all works out. How much is it going up in the town this year? If ours are going up, I'm assuming the town is going up. The town is going up. I don't remember the numbers. They face all the same problems, except they have one other larger problem than one larger issue. A lot of their sanitation has to be pumped up hill to get to a place where it could then go downhill through gravity. They operate a lot more lift stations than the village does. They have an operating cost above and beyond what you all have. You're at the lower end and you're next to the plant, so most of your stuff is coming in by gravity. They are experiencing some growth similar to you. They have large scale projects that need to be upgraded to get more flow. We can get those numbers, but in general, if I remember correctly, the village and the town are a little bit higher on the sanitation side and lower on the water side than other communities. The village being mostly built out, for instance, is there a way to sell capacity to like a Williston? Hold on, George. Hold on, George. It's not related to this guy. In the past, I believe the village has sold capacity to Williston. One of the things that we would have to look at in a study is, what is the total needs of the village and the town and then who you would have to have two customers, assuming you don't merge with the town, you'd have two customers of which you could sell capacity to and which one would you go with, and once you sell it, once you sell it, you're not likely to get it back. I have some comparison figures. I have Dennis's memo. The town rates currently, so it's about twice as much. It's funny, this just came up earlier. Their average user in this memo is 200 gallons a day and ours is 120 gallons, which came up in an email I answered earlier today, but that is $1,100 a year in the town versus our 511, so it shifted a little bit because of usage. It's roughly the same, though. No. If they're 200 and something for 1,000, we're 120 for 500. 500 for 120. Fixed and variable. Right, so ours would change, but this is apples and oranges, so this might not be great, but I can definitely pull this together, but it's a 1% increase, or $27 a year increase on the thing, on the annual average user. Is that really, is that true, is their average user interested more than us? Well, and so if you want to think about it, over an average, let's say you have an acre plus of land and you want to water your lawn versus whatever we own in the village or somebody owns in the village, which is like a postage stamp. If you water each of them for 10 minutes, you're using five times more water than you are in the village. If you have a two-bedroom home, and let's say you have mother, father, one child in the village, or two children and one child in the village, and you have two or three children in a three-bedroom, four-bedroom in the town, you're going to use more water. It's just, but I would say that one of the things that, and I've talked to Dennis and others about this and Ricky, is I'd like to, one of these days, go back and look at those metrics and decide if those numbers are still holding true to how many gallons per water people are using. I've been in the water business for 30 years now. Since 2000-ish, we have seen water usage going down household. As the price rises, the usage declines. Every hotel that is of new vintage has water-saving properties. They will pay you not to use the towels. They beg you not to use the towels. Some even incentivize it to do certain things. I came from a village that had 1,100 hotel rooms. A lot of places are not putting in pools anymore because of the total water usage and those costs. It's interesting to see the village's growth, but we know where that growth is coming from. You just put 300 units and you're downtown. You're going to get water growth. It's probably masking a decline overall. Sorry to be long-winded. That's okay. I have some really good questions to take back and to review and bring some answers back and maybe more and come back with me as well. She loves late meetings. The risk of getting hit. So if we put in 100-150 new apartments over the next 10 years, how's that going to... I can probably figure this out on my own, but is that what you have plans for? Or six or seven? We don't have to talk about that. I've been on the Triton Commission. I know a little bit about this. In terms of what Williston is getting from us, it is divided literally 33-33 between the three communities. The village was lowest down. I don't remember the actual percentages. We sell our additional capacity to Williston every year, but it's a yearly contract. It's not like this is yours forever. It's understood. Williston is growing faster than anybody right now. They're growing way faster than the town and they're probably faster than the village in terms of residential units. So eventually, as we keep growing, we're going to have to take the capacity back from them. And the tricky piece is the state probably... it's questionable whether the state would allow... Williston right now, would be absolutely willing to build their own wastewater treatment plant if the state would allow. I don't think the state... I think the issue is the state won't give another permit. There are so many permits on the Mnuski River. And again, it gets higher. It's like the EPA standards say you can only have so many entities discharging into a river this big in this situation and no more. And I think we're pretty much at that max when you count all the wastewater treatment plants that are onto a Mnuski starting with global foundries and going all the way into Burlington. And I don't think they'll... My understanding when we had discussions about this was that the state probably would not allow another plant to be... So it's to be permitted just for Williston. So it's going to be a crunch if all three of us keep developing. From a cost for village, if we put more units in, that increases the fixed cost. Not so much. The fixed costs are already... At a certain point, it will. But depending on where we are along that long fixed cost step. So if you think about it on the water side, you have an 8-inch water main, and the 8-inch water main serves all of what we have. If you don't have to increase the size of the water main, the next user is not as big a cost to us. You are then spreading the cost. In the future, when we have to replace a sewer main or something like that, that's when the cost... So right now you're spreading that cost over all the users. Ultimately, as the age of the infrastructure comes, that's what you got. So we can talk more about this. We're going to have some more public hearings. We're going to have another public hearing on the 25th, correct? That's correct, yes. And then we will have to have another one in July as well. The last two rates are the large water user rate, which is actually a decrease from the prior year as a result of the decrease... There's a decrease in the proportionate share of the cost of unaccounted for water that global foundries will have to pick up. So we look at overall water usage, and we divide that out between what they're using versus what the village is using. And their proportionate share of that went down from like 67 and change percent to 66 percent this year. We also had a big decrease in our unaccounted for water. So water that doesn't go through meters and then get billed. What causes this? Fire-hydrant usage for hydrant flushing or an actual fire, any major water main brace a year or two ago. We had the big one by... We had like a million gallons of unaccounted for water. Okay. Yes. A lot. It was like being at the edge of the pond like you were saying. Yes. It was like, that's going to be a good analogy. And so we actually... or the other thing, fire training. So the only things that we had this fiscal year because water... Hydrant flushing happened last March but it didn't happen in or last May but it didn't happen until June this year. So this period missed hydrant flushing. So we have a very low amount of unaccounted for water plus a lower proportion of that that global foundries is going to pick up. They also pick up 13 percent of the operating fund budget. And then that all gets divided into their estimated usage which is 3.4 million gallons per day and to get their large user rate and that has gone down slightly. It was 0.079 last year. It's 0.075 this year. And all those spreadsheets were developed as part of the rate study. These people are hardly involved. And then the wholesale wastewater treatment rate is also a slight increase. 5.7 percent is related just to the increase in the operating budget and this is the rate charged to the town of Essex, the town of Willison, and to any septic collars. So any other questions that I can research and bring back the answers to? And it can only get better from this presentation. I'm accustomed to being much more confident about the things I'm talking about. Don't let Lauren psych you out. She's been doing this for years and years. She knows it like the back of her hand. She's got all those algorithms. She's got all these words that I'm not familiar with yet. You did great. Thanks. I will come back with a 10-year history. I will share the budget documents with Raj and Amber so you have those. And I will get comparative figures from surrounding communities using the same base of 120 gallons per day, which I do have somewhere. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. And so I'll wrap it up by saying that I would recommend that the trustees warn a public hearing on the FY20 village utility rates for Tuesday, June 25th, 2019. That's our public hearing for this. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Range. Okay, so we are on to reappointment, appointment of boards, committees, and commissions. And Evan, do you want to go over that or do you want us just, what's your pleasure here? I guess you have the memo inside the packet if there's any questions or thoughts on it. I need to pull it up. It's after all of this stuff about water rates. Yeah. I think we just, as I get it, it was just for the Tree Committee. Yeah, yeah, the Village Tree Advisory Committee. Do you want to motion? Yes, please. I'll move that the Village Tree Advisory Committee and say the Village Trustees approve the reappointment of Rich Boyers and Tim Kemmerer. Sorry, I'm pronouncing that wrong. Two three-year terms to begin July 1, 2019. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. And the next piece is, this is, I recommend that the Trustees have the Village of Ascension participate. So do you want to explain this a little bit, give some background on this? Yeah. Sure. So the U.S. Census Bureau is part of, I believe, the Department of Commerce. And one of the changes that they're making this year is they want additional information based on construction progress. It's in progress between after March 1, 2018 for completion at around April 1, 2020. Census Day is in April 2020. And they want to do as complete a count as they can. So they want information from the municipalities as to what properties may be occupiable finished by that day. So they'd like us to participate in the 2020 new construction program. As a community, I think it's a wise thing to do, to do whatever we can to help the Census Bureau get a complete count. Probably nothing the state does is going to get to a second congressman, congresswoman, that will take over 720,000 residents. However, federal funding is based upon population. It is based on a lot of factors. And in meeting with the Area Census Bureau chief, the state could gain upwards of $14 million a year every year for the next 10 years if it gets its complete count up. They are currently estimating that Essex and Essex Junction could be as high as 14% undercounted to start. So anything that we can do to get people to answer the census, people to understand what they're answering and why would be to the benefit of ourselves, Jindon County and the state of Vermont. Do I hear a motion? Sure. I'll move that the trustees of the village of Essex Junction participate in the 2020 Census New Construction Program designed for Jindon County Regional Planning Commission and Essex Junction's 2020 Census New Construction Program. Second. Any further discussion, questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes. So we are on to approval of the minutes. I have a comment on that before we do that. The last meeting I was on May 28th, I was nowhere near Essex Junction, Vermont. So it says I'm in attendance. But I was not. I was here in spirit. Travel across the ocean. So that's a slight amendment. And I just want to add one thing. I did specifically and I don't necessarily have to amend the minutes to reflect this, but I did ask the question of why the community development office, could we figure out why the community development office is in charge of fire work monitoring? I was baffled by that logic. And it doesn't, I don't need it to, but as long as staff understands it, we have noise to noise. Yeah. Why is it because you have the fire department in charge of handing out the permits and then the community development office deals with the noise, the repercussions. So I mean, could we just get understanding what the logic here is? That's all. But I don't need to be amended, but I just want to make sure we get that in. So anyway, any other discussion, any amendments to the minutes? So we're going to move. I'll make a motion that we move, that we amend the minutes to reflect that Dan Karen was indeed not present at the meeting. Do we hear a second? Oh, second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. And can I take you back to 5D? Yeah, I'm going to do that. Hang on, I'm going to grab that in a second. So I'll then I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes as amended. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. And so I think we need to go back to, all the way back to 5D, because I mistake I forgot to add we had a fireworks display permit. And so Evan, do you want to just quickly review this? Yes, we are, annually we do the villages 4th of July fireworks display for all those at home. It is always on July 4th. So if your pets do not like loud noises, please make sure they understand that it is going to be on the 4th, that it will be in the dark, probably starting around 9.30. And they will be at Maple Street Park. We go through our display permit process. Chief Caborio is first. He makes sure they have a license. You in your particular handout, you don't see Chief Gary signature. His email today was as long as Chief Caborio on this particular one is good. I'm good. We do plan for the safety of the site and the crowds. And then once the village board approves, then I sign it as approved. So this came through just today, or yesterday, and instead of waiting two more weeks to make sure that it got an agenda, I was hopeful you guys would let me bring it tonight. Good idea. All right. I'll move that the trustees approve the fireworks display permit for the Essex Junction Recreation and Parks 4th of July fireworks display on July 4th, 2019 at approximately 9.30 p.m. Here a second. Raj seconds. Any further discussion? Any questions about this? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. So we'll move on to Did you? No? Okay. We're going to move on to we need to approve the warrants. I will make a motion that we approve the warrants as presented. The check warrants. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. So we're on to the reading file and this is board member Comance. I'll start off by making one comment. So we have the governance subcommittee but we're just already having a really difficult time finding just getting four of us in the room together. Just scheduling. I think it will ease up once the marketing company we hired sort of gets everything on track and gets things set up the way we think they, you know, we have a complete agreement and they'll go forward. But in anticipating this, it looks like there could be occasions over the next few months where, you know, they need to have something corrected or they need to check in with the two boards and so we have to, they have to call a meeting and these meetings have to be warned two days ahead of time and so I'm going to propose, I won't propose it now. I think we do this at our, had to do this at our joint meeting when both the boards are together but I'm just going to put it out there that I think we probably need to have alternate members to the subcommittee. I'm sorry and I don't anticipate that you'd necessarily be drafted but like we sure could have used one this week and the select board sure could use one this week. You need three members to do it. So I'm going to say, so just keep it in mind I'm going to ask the path that's put on the agenda so that, and I would say we have alternate one, alternate two, alternate three so that means you and you and Andrew would be, you'd have to figure out which ones you want to do but that doesn't work. Oh it does. It does. So, but I just, just keep it on your mind. Andrew out of electric is not here. We could make Andrew, okay, maybe we should do it now. I'm going to nominate Andrew. I second. Done. It's not on the agenda. It's not on the agenda but I just wanted to mention that so the work is progressing but it's it's at a point where they, they, they, you know, we're really backed up. We really want to get they need altogether approximately 16 weeks so to get the scope of work that we gave to them done so every week that we delay on this end because we can't get people together is a week on the back end. Less time that we have to process all the information they're going to produce and turn it into sort of a consolidation concept. So anyway, talk about it next week. Other comments? Just trustee, comments. I know I emailed you about this. I don't know if it's appropriate for board comments but I'm wondering I never went back. I'm wondering about the super exciting issue of lane and crossroads. We're going to start to see the public works folks out there fixing crosswalks and striping streets. I know I will double check tomorrow but I know that I believe they are just getting started. That's great. I know it's still kind of early based on the season we had but they're all in, as everybody knows, terrible, terrible shape and it would be great to have done a certain one here I guess but yeah. Did you see crosswalks and striping usually it's the crosswalks and hatchings? Okay. I will also mention that I had mentioned a while back that did we want to because the landlord across the street or the owner of the property across the street has generously allowed public parking on his property and we put a path in to the back to the main street that we might want to landscape in there but it looks like what I'm getting from this and I understand what Robin said was that Firebird is going to be landscaping at themselves. Great. Is that what you were talking about? Yeah. I wasn't sure if it was that area or if you were talking about kind of in here. No, I was talking about this generally maybe a little bit different orientation but it looks great from you know whatever this is 10,000 feet when you're right over there it's pretty nasty just to see what they do and then see what they put in and then kind of bring it back if we need to. That's why I asked Robin to do an aerial in a drawing some people understood what was what. I'll take it off the charts for right now and we'll see what happens over there. Other comments? Just to let you all know that you know we are working on the Crescent Connector and we're going to have a public hearing it should be no shock that the two property owners that we haven't obtained needs is when one has sent us an objection and I can you know we're working through the legal process with them but we did get a letter of objection with questions and comments so it shouldn't be that surprising but they've hired an attorney and our village attorney will work through the process with them as well and we're still scheduled to have that hearing. Raj do you want to just quickly mention your email from the Bike Walk Committee? Oh yeah so we because of there's a few changes we have a new committee, Michael Hagan Kathy Shearer is the Vice Chair I have stepped down of the committee at the end of the month I can't do that in the subcommittee I'm still going to stay pretty involved with them they've got some interesting stuff coming, suggestions coming up they were looking at mid-road crosswalk markers for some of our busiest crosswalks our visibility is an issue just based on the traffic we have those aren't intended to be for a season you've seen them the kind of freestanding weighted footboards that's what Rick Jones to understand we do not mean for them to be in the winter separate email making sure that was clear for him they're hoping to do that they're really working on the Evan has asked for a master rapid reflective beacon plan before we ask for any more of those and they're working pretty hard they did a community bike they rode the whole community Sunday morning at like 7am they made a list and did a bunch of so they're getting that data together I'm trying to put something together for them again getting more than two people together at any one time we were looking and I was looking for a prioritization so that when we go for grant monies we are going after our number one priorities not just because somebody thinks a crosswalk is a great place or is be able these are looked at by our committee and said A, B, C and they're also looking at other options because those are expensive so if there's another solution to that particular spot they're going to try to offer options the other thing that came up in that last meeting was mentioned here a few months a month ago was looking into expanding there's now a couple of things again looking into maybe working with the truck select board and mixing this up so and I know on a drive by I had with Darren when you guys were out looking at that property you know maybe it makes sense to start talking about more working more closely with the trails committee and then having the conservation committee working more with the tree trying to figure out how we can leverage the entire community because it's not just bullish residents that come through here walking and vacuuming I'd love to have that conversation as a set of boards and see I mean they're not see if there's interest in that they're not charter based they might too would just leverage more volunteers or reduce the need for as many volunteers that came up everybody on the bike walk committee was interested in that almost everybody we've talked to that's approached the committee to see if they can serve on it in the last two years it's sort of interesting that's it okay thank you anything else? okay we're good last thing would be the upcoming meeting schedule Evan do you want to go over that anything particularly you need to point out no that's generally what we put on her maybe one quick note you can see that it is color coded so because of village meeting town select board meeting and joint meeting three colors should also inform you as to potentially what building that meeting is in sometimes we show up at the wrong building every day but that's what we did that's the update schedule as we know it thank goodness for Tammy she puts this together and so that's it we have a lot of meetings it is incredibly hard to merge two communities legally can we do it at least there's an option here there's another way there is no other option I don't like the motion okay we have a lot of committees running around I move we adjourn any further discussion all in favor? we're adjourned thank you