 We will begin. Okay. Carlos should run the meeting until you would like the chairperson. Oh, I thought that came after the approval of the agenda. Okay. It's a different order. It's an organizational meeting. All right. So, let's see if you're better. Can I? I needed to take a minute and make a statement. Well, is that okay or do we... I think you... Carlos needs to call the meeting to order. All right. And then she can get the agenda approved. Okay. That's not till after... Oh. All right. So, I will call the meeting of the select board to order on March 19th at 7 p.m. The first order of business is to approve the agenda. I will make the motion to approve the agenda. So, under consent agenda items, it's actually the minutes of the February 23rd meeting that need approval. Okay. So, are we doing the entire consent... No. Just approving the agenda right now. Okay. I'll second then with the change. So, are we approving this agenda? Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. Unless you have something you wish to... I do. Charlie O'Brien brought me down his force fire warden free up sheet and need signatures by the board. And like to add that to the list. Okay. Anything else? So, all those in favor of the agenda as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right. Next. Order of business is select board organization. First order of business being to elect a chair. And you can... If you want to speak, you can speak. Okay. All right. I appreciate that. So, before we get any further into this, I'd like to make a couple of statements. A year ago, you people elected me as chair. I worked hard to try to represent you. The best that I could be in first time around. This last town meeting, however, I feel like I kind of tossed that all in the, in the dumper. I made the insinuation that, or statement that Jane was from Mars during that meeting, the beginning of the meeting. And I wanted to informally apologize to her. It was an attempt at light humor, but it's obvious I'm no George ordered. So for that, I wanted to apologize and I can assure you that from now on I will stick to the platform and save my jokes for when I'm with my friends. I wanted to apologize to the board and any other staff that was up on stage if they felt uncomfortable at the time. I apologize for that. And moving forward, if tonight you don't reappoint me as chair, I would totally understand that and be okay with it. So with that, I'd move on. So I'll take nominations for chair on the select board for the ensuing year. I'll nominate Mark Bataire. I'll second. I'm afraid I will have to respectfully decline that my schedule just really doesn't afford that. I would certainly be interested in the vice chair position if that were to your liking, but I would have to defer on the chair position. I'll nominate Chris Viennes for chair. I'll second that. Are there any other nominations? I'd nominate Jane Brown, but I, yeah. So if there's multiple nominations, then you'll have to, it'll have to be seconded, and then you can write who you choose on a piece of paper and Carla will look at them. So you can nominate more than one person before you vote. So there's been a motion and a second to nominate Chris. There's been a motion to nominate Jane. There hasn't been a second yet, so that's not an official nomination yet. Do I hear a second? I will second that. Do I hear any other nominations? If there are being none, we will have a vote. Yeah. You can bring me such a paper. You write one name on it. Make sure is it ready to get the paper? Yeah. I already have one. Oh, okay. And then hand it to Carla. The votes are three to two in favor of Chris Viennes. Yep. Can I say something? Sure. I'd just like to say, I guess it's tit for tat. Don't you know if it matters from Mars and women are from Venus? Yeah. As I said, I'm no Georgian. I learned that. Okay. I got that weight off my shoulders. We can move forward. So the agenda's been approved and the next thing on the list is conflict of interest. No. Oh, I'm sorry. Take nominations. Join us separate here. So we'll elect a vice chair then. Is there any nominations? I'll nominate Mark Mater. I'll second. Heather, nominations. Hearing none. All those in favor of having Mark Mater vice chair for the ensuing year, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Next is secretary. Is there any nominations for secretary? I'll nominate Carla Lawrence. I can't do that. It has to be a board member. Oh, a board member. But you don't have to do anything. I'll nominate Jane Brown and secretary. I'll second. What does the secretary do? Take notes. I was secretary last year and I think and I didn't do anything. Is there any other nominations? Seeing none. All those in favor of having Jane Brown and secretary for the ensuing year, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Now we can move forward. Consider conflict of interest policy, Bill. So the conflict of interest policy has been forwarded to you last week in your packet. I think it's playing on its face what it is. The state does ask towns to have conflict of interest policies. Most often we are asked about them and to show them when we're being audited for a grant that we may have taken with federal or state money. But it's a it's a best practice. This is based on a model policy that the Vermont League of Cities and Towns has drafted. Most municipalities adopt something just like this or very close to just like this. This is the same policy that the board has adopted for the last couple of years. I believe it hasn't changed, right? So I would recommend that the board adopt the conflict of interest policy. Clearly, I hope you've read it. If you have questions about it, this is the time to talk about it. But it's it's your policy. It's not staff's policy. It's your policy in it. Each board in the community adopts this type of policy. So the trustees adopted the water sewer commissioners just adopted it this afternoon at their meeting. So is there a motion to adopt the conflict of interest policy that Bill has presented tonight? So moved. I'll second that. Motion been made and seconded. Any other discussions? None. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Next is consider rules of procedure. That's what the staff decided. So you've got a silence. You can continue but just pass that along and sign it. You want to explain the rules of procedure? So I also forwarded to you in your packet on Friday the select board rules of procedure. Hopefully you've glanced at it. This is the same. These are the same rules that have been in effect for several years. And basically show you how to conduct your meeting. So if everybody's read the rules of procedure, somebody would like to make a motion to adopt those. I will move that we adopt the rules of procedure as currently presented. I'll second that. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further questions? Seeing none. All those in favor please say aye. So next is discuss procedure for signing the warrants. For Nat this is new information for the rest of you. It's the same information that we've passed along every year now for probably 10 years now at least. There are warrant orders that have to be signed by the select board in order for bills to be paid. So when vendors send bills or contractors send bills to us, staff prepares for the bookkeeper and expense code, directs which line item in the budget is charged for that expense. And then the bookkeeper processes those bills. And at the same time produces a warrant, a listing of all the checks and to whom they are written and in what amount. Until the legislature passed the current law, which is probably more than 10 years ago now, it required a majority of the legislative body to sign those warrants. So the weeks that we pay our bills and we pay payroll weekly right now have for as long as we've been paying bills. And it used to be that at the nights that we had select board meetings or trustees meetings for the village or water department meetings, the warrant order would be brought to the meeting and the select board would pass it around and sign it. It really should have in those days taken a motion. It was kind of just understood that it would be reviewed and signed. On the weeks there was no meeting, we'd have to have three select board members at least come in and sign it. And again, it should have been a meeting, but it kind of was okay, we're just going to come in and as long as three people signed it, it's okay. And that procedure was happening widely across the state where select board legislative bodies were not really always holding a meeting when they considered the warrant orders. So the legislature with encouragement from the Vermont legal cities and towns passed a law that said rather than require a meeting for the warrant orders to be signed, the select board could make a motion and authorize any or all of its members to sign for the full board. As long as that law has been in existence, the Waterbury boards have passed a motion to allow one of their members to sign. And I think the first year that we did it, the board designated a couple of different people. Then of course if somebody goes on vacation and somebody gets sick, that doesn't work. So of late the board has been nominating all of its members to do it. And then once a week someone comes in and Mark can explain the process because he's been one of the faithful ones. He and Doug Schneider used to do it alternately. So anyway, a motion should be made if you want to take advantage of this provision of the law that allows one of you to sign. You need to make a motion to authorize that to happen. Okay. So then you look for a motion to authorize any one of the select board members to sign warrants when needed throughout the year. So moved. Second. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further questions? I would like to make the statement that my wife has, now that she has retired, I am up for grabs to participate in that warrant signing. All I ask is that if I'm going to do it, if we could do it before my busy season, which is in the month or so. What Don and I had worked out was basically a month-to-month rotation. So one of us would take it for a month and one for another month. So whatever works out best for your schedule, we can put that in. And Nat, I don't know what you're available to live in, but I'm happy to hold the bicycle upright while you work on that. Sounds good. Sounds good. So motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Appointments and committees. Looks like newspaper choices up. How do you want to? You don't have to. This is your choice. So the law requires some municipality to designate a newspaper record. Even though we are well into the digital age, we are required to put notices in a newspaper that circulates regularly in the community. We have found that for the purposes of what we need to do, a weekly paper works, and the advertising rates in the Waterbury Record are far more favorable than some of the daily papers. So staff's recommendation would be to designate the Waterbury Record as the newspaper record. And then if you do that, we'll have a suggestion for an alternate as well. I'll make a motion to designate the Waterbury Record as the newspaper record. I'll second that. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. It's helpful, though, to have a daily as an alternate. The Times Argus for years was our paper of record before there was such a thing as the Waterbury Record. Very rarely nowadays, but there are times when something comes up. It's a little bit of, I won't say a surprise, but maybe a grant application comes to the attention of staff and we need to get some information into the paper about that. So we've recommended that the Times Argus be the alternate paper of record, which would allow us, if necessary, to very quickly get the notice into a paper that circulates, well, it's five days a week now that paper circulates. And we would, staff would recommend that you designate the Times Argus as an alternate. I'll make a motion for the very times Argus to the alternate. I'll second that. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. Consent agenda item, though? Missing one? I think we've got more on the committees. Right. So between now and the end of April, we'll be looking for volunteers for all of our volunteer committees, like the Planning Commission and ERB and Recreation Committee and that sort of thing. So we will be advertising for those positions. And typically, I think there may be openings on just about all of them. So typically I notify the current committee members if their term is up. And then we also, to see if they have interest in re-upping and also be advertising them probably in the front porch forum and the library record on our website. So I'll just let you know that that will be in process and we'll be making appointments towards the end of April. You will be making appointments towards the end of April. Yeah, a number of years ago the board moved and the committee appointments basically take effect. They made for us and served until April. And it gives us time to advertise. Back in the day we used to try to, at this meeting, appoint everybody to the committees and it just was a little bit difficult to do given everything else that we have to do. The other thing that you should just understand is that there is currently a vacancy on the library commission. There was a resignation from the board last year. There were two positions up, one full five-year term that someone ran for. So the full five-year term there was a candidate and that person was elected at town meeting. But there is an unexpired term that needs to be filled. So the library directors are in process now of seeking someone to fill that position but at the state law requires that the legislative body of the town make appointments to vacancies on any elected board. So even though it's an elected library commission they're going to beat the bushes, try to find somebody but there will be a recommendation to the select board to make that appointment. And it's up to the board, the select board to do that. If you don't agree with their recommendation you can say no, that hardly ever happens. I won't say it never happened, but hardly ever happens. So do we need a motion? No. All right. Where did you want to squeeze in the thing for Charlie? His reappointment form. Oh, now it's fine. Okay. We're under appointments. So Charlie O'Brien is the force fire warden here in town and his reappointment is up for the ensuing here and he dropped this off at my place tonight. First signatures from the select board if somebody wants to make a motion to approve his reappointment form. Chris, is there a term on there? Yeah, I'm looking for that. July 1st, 2018 to June 30th, 2023. Yeah. Five years. Five years to June 30th. June 30th, 2023. Excellent. And what was the start date? July 1st. July 1st, 2018. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve Charlie O'Brien to continue as the town fire warden with the dates that are on the application. I'll second. Motion has been made and seconded to approve Charlie O'Brien for force fire warden for the next five years. Any further questions? All those in favor, say hi. Hi. Consent agenda items. Looks like the first one is minutes of February 12th meeting and March 6th meeting. And then liquor licenses for Village Market, Cabot, the reservoir, Champlain Farms, Fast Stop, Old Stagecoach Inn, Blue Stone, Stow Street Cafe, Jimmy's Pizza, Zenburn, Blood Steal Country Club. Chris, it's the minutes of the February 23rd meeting. What's that? It's the minutes from February 23rd. Oh, I got the February 12th. Okay. Excuse me. Type O. Type O. All right. And then the last thing on the consent agenda items is approve the E911 private road name for Lasseter's Lane. Yep. That's right above the old Heimey Meyers Farm there just as you're crossing the bridge on Loomis Hill around the corner, the lower side of the road. There's a stretch that's been, a new road that's been put out there that services four lots, I believe. At least three in the fourth being the remaining 16 acres and I believe the existing barn. These don't have to be signed. So if somebody would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items? I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda items. I'll second that. So just, excuse me, just before you vote again for Matt's benefit, the select board acts as the liquor control board for the town. That's by state law. And this is the time of year where liquor licenses get renewed by April 30th. April 30th, right first. So they come in, they'll probably be more down the line. There's information on here that the applicants are required to submit. It's generally a pro forma signing. We passed them around, but I do want you to know that there's things that you should look at here. And if you pass the consent agenda now, that's indicating that you're all going to sign it. So you have two choices. You can leave it on the consent agenda and you're basically saying there's no issues with this or you take it off the consent agenda, let it circulate, let people look at it, and if there's questions, you can ask them and you can make a motion to sign it independently. Back when we kind of changed the format to come up with a consent agenda item list, it was my understanding that it was items that were of much of a deal, big deal. Are you advising us that we should be looking at these? No. All I'm saying is you put it on the consent agenda, that's normally where this has been. I didn't think about it until just now that's a new person and I just want him to understand and the rest of the board that if you approve the consent agenda, there's no ability to not approve these. The Department of Worker Control is the ultimate permit issuer and the board is simply recommending. So I'm just letting you know if you want to take it off the consent agenda, you can do that, we can pass it around. So I guess, Chris, to your point, if we had thought about it a little harder, we probably wouldn't have put it on the consent agenda. Okay, so with that being said, is there any reason that the board would like to pull those from the consent agenda for the time being to have time to review them or are you comfortable with the fact that they're... Well, from my perspective, these were the existing licenses anyway. These are renewals and again with the oversight of the liquor control board itself, I think we're in good shape with handling these on the consent agenda item tonight. My sense is that when we have new applicants or if there's one that has had a history of problematic behaviors that we would want to take that separately. Okay. I feel like I ask this every year, but do I need to pull myself out of this or do I just not sign mine, but can I still approve the consent agenda items? Just not. Or do I need to just recuse myself? You're not on... Oh, yes, you are on the last one. I would completely recuse myself if I were... I'll recuse myself. All right. Are there any other questions? Okay. Well, if everybody wants to... The motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda items, please say aye. Aye. Thanks. So these need to be signed by the board. For some reason tonight it seems to be a delayed meeting, but we're finally getting to the public. Does the public wish to say anything? Melissa, come on up. Start with Mark. Oh, no, he recused himself. Tom. I'll be quick. With the upcoming public informational meeting for the Route 100 Rehabilitation Project, Barb and Laura Pratt and myself and Karen. Anyway, we're doing public outreach. I've distributed like 35 of these today to the businesses on Route 100. I wanted to make sure you all staff, anyone else who wanted them. This is your waterbrainworks.com orange construction stress cone. For the next couple of years, the website is live. Go check it out. There's contact us. I'm on there. If there's issues, let me know. But I'll get the stress cone. And check it out. That was all. Happy to answer this one. I know you're happy. You can go too. Don't just go. Now to follow up on that a bit. I was given instructions to offer the reminder that the informational meeting is, what, the Wednesday night in Stowe. 6 p.m. post Stowe Public Safety Bill. Is that it? Yeah. That was all. I just wanted to make sure you all have the type of process. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Where's the bill that? Stowe. Anybody else at the Bush to speak this time? Seeing none, we can move on. Discuss and identify board priorities for the coming year. So this, this is on the agenda just to, to let you all know that you have to do this. You don't necessarily have to identify everything that you want to do tonight. Maybe there's nothing that you want to talk about tonight to put on this list. But, you know, we've been through town meeting. We have the budget and staff now will take that budget and try to execute it and do the things that you folks or the prior board decided to put into the, into the budget and that the voters approved. So we as staff have our marching orders in terms of what we need to do to effectively execute what the town has directed us to do. So our highway programs, our recreation programs, those things are things that we'll be working on. But there are other things, more policy related. I'm going to talk about a couple of the ones that we have been working on when we get to the managers items in a little bit. But, you know, this is a time for you as board members, as individual select board members, to offer to your colleagues. I think we should begin to look at this or, you know, we've got a capital improvement plan. I'd like to know more about it. I'd like to flesh out a little bit more direct staff to do things like that. So this is really meant as an opportunity for you as a board right now to just have a brief discussion or long discussion. But staff won't be coming with any initiatives really at this point, at least that I can, that I'm already on the list here. So if there's things that you want staff to do to prepare for next town meeting, at some point you need to let us know preferably before, you know, two weeks before you ask us to do that. February 12th, yeah. Right. Well, I'd just like to stay focused on paving, culvert improvements, transportation, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, taking advantage of grants as we've been doing for Colbyville. Even that is very expensive when you look what it's going to cost over five or six construction seasons. But I think it's important not to let that go to stay focused on pedestrian improvements as well. We did a lot of talking during the budget process this year about paving and we put aside that bridge construction for a few years because it seemed like there was some life left in that bridge. And I think that was the right decision to make. So we have a lot of paving needs and I don't know, I think that we need to also consider the feasibility someday of revising our charter if we need to look at the local options tax. I don't think we're ready to do that yet, but I'm just concerned that we may have no choice. I'd like to follow up on that a little bit. I think the question regarding development of a charter for the town, the village is operated under a charter for a number of years and now with the current revision to establish the utility district, I think it's probably something of interest not only with community members but of interest for us as a governing body to look at some of the advantages of having a charter. That being said, my understanding is it's a fairly lengthy process and it's certainly a process that we're going to want to engage the public with. So if we do decide to explore that we'll probably be looking at establishing a committee of one sort or another gathering information and then being able to share information much in the same format as we used with the police question last year. The local option tax piece, again that is something that we discussed last year. It had been discussed in prior years. There appears to be a level of interest there. Certainly something worth bringing before the community for a larger discussion. A number of communities around the state have taken advantage of it to various degrees. There are different variations of that that could be implemented, but again that ties in with getting valuable feedback from the community in any effort that we want to move forward on. The other two items that I just wanted to throw out for discussion and consideration are more business related and although they can be tied in with the charter my understanding from conversation with Bill is that it doesn't necessarily require a charter. Language is the prospect of adopting a fiscal year that runs in alignment with the state fiscal year. My interest in that is that it gives us the opportunity to vote on our budget before we actually get into expending our budget. The way we work now, we go from January into March before the voters have had the opportunity to even consider or approve the budget. By transitioning to the fiscal year we have that vote and discussion in March and then when we hit the start of the fiscal year we've got the budget already discussed and approved. Another feature that I was looking at kind of related to that was looking at how we collect our tax payments, the tax installments. A number of communities have gone to quarterly installments that does a couple of different things. One is that it levels out the income flow for the town government so we're not in a position of having to borrow in advance of tax receipts but it also, from my line of thought, lessens the burden someone on the taxpayers instead of having to come up with those two sizable payments in relatively quick succession at the end of the year we're able to spread that out over the course of the year through quarters. It's something that I've heard some measure of discussion on but again those sort of things may well dovetail with a community discussion of the charter just to get the feedback from the larger community and to help guide us in decision making. Bill? Yeah, so just to clarify for the board the charter is something that really if you want to consider the local option tax having a charter is really the way to accomplish that. There's been some discussion that you could petition the legislature directly for that. I think that's a much heavier lift than having a charter that says it. The fact that you put it in the charter doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have it. There are communities that have passed a charter that enables them to enact the local option tax but then the local option tax is actually triggered if the legislative body has a vote and then the town votes to do it. So it can be a two-step process where you get it in the charter that the legislature has given you the permission to do it but it only happens if there's a vote. So that's getting down the pike a little bit too far on that and I'm not advocating for or against a local option tax. I'm just saying that if you want to consider that it's better to do it through the charter process. The second part that Mark talked about and I explained this to him the other day when he talked to me about this. Municipalities already are enabled to move to a July 1st fiscal year through the general laws of the state. It would require a meeting article at a town meeting or a special town meeting and the town would have to vote to do that but you don't need a charter to move your fiscal year. The state law already says the select board can want a town meeting to ask the voters that question or the voters could petition for a town meeting but that would be the same process as I described about Australian ballot for full public questions. You already have that right in state law to vote by Australian ballot. It simply takes a vote at town meeting to say beginning the next town meeting we're going to do that. So you don't need a charter for the second thing that Mark talked about which is changing the fiscal year. You really do need to have a changed fiscal year if you're going to try to have quarterly tax payments. The law is clear right now that you cannot send tax payments until you have an approved budget. We don't have an approved budget until April. We get the Green List Lodge to us by our listers in June. We set a tax rate in July. So the earliest right now that we can collect taxes is about when we're doing it in the middle to end of August as early as we can do it. You could have ten payments between August and December if you wanted to but that's a little impractical. But if you did want to go to quarterly or even there are I think there's one town that may actually bill monthly for taxes I think that's a little bit overbearing because we don't need that. But you would have to change the fiscal year if you want to affect anything other than what we do now for tax collection. So can you touch a little bit on the process in which changing from fiscal or changing to fiscal is there a double overlap in taxation? So there's a couple ways to do it. Most towns when they vote to change their fiscal year to a July fiscal year. So let's say at town meeting this year we voted to do that. We would have voted a budget that would carry us from to the end of December just like we always do. But at next town meeting we would prepare either an 18 month budget that would take us from January 1st, 2019 through June 30th, 2020. Or we would prepare two budgets, a six month budget and a 12 month budget. Most towns that move to a July first fiscal year adopt an 18 month budget. And just like it is now, that first budget that you would adopt would you'd be adopting it, you know, seven weeks, ten weeks, whatever, into the year you'd have until June, I mean, April 7th or whatever it is to petition for an overturn. But that first 18 month budget would be adopted within the budget year just like we do now for our 12 month budget. And then it would run until June 30th of the following year. And then at the next town meeting, your year wouldn't be ended yet. Your annual report would show the last budget that was adopted, the last year that ended, the current year that you're in now wouldn't show it all. There might be a projection column. Most towns don't show projections anymore because you're projecting something that could really be off by the end of the year and it confuses people. So you'd move to a situation where you'd be preparing your budget, you know, we'd start preparing our budget in December, which is, you know, five months after the year just started, you'd be using projected numbers to say, okay, it looks like we're going to be here and you'd put together a budget that's going to start in July. So most towns, I shouldn't say most, most of the bigger communities in the state have definitely moved to this July fiscal year. A lot of the small towns have done so too. Duxbury did a couple of years ago. They moved to July 1st year. From the perspective of staff, it's six of one half dozen of the other. There's the way that I do the budget now because I've been around so long and have a good feel for it. I enjoy the fact that I have the year-end numbers and I know, except for those post-bacs that I talked to you about, I know what we spent last year and, you know, you're in the year, you're developing a budget for the year that you're in and you only have to project out until 12 months later. So I think you can be more exact than you can be when you're doing a budget on a fiscal year basis. There's a lot more projecting both of the year-end numbers and then you've got to, you know, you're preparing a budget in December and January of this year that's not going to end for 18 months from the time that you're preparing the budget. So the budgets are not as exact, but we're not really in a time period any longer where we're ending up with fund balances that we're trying to have close to zero. We still do that with our operating budgets. I try to budget to a zero fund balance, but we got a million dollars in reserve funds that we can worry about or not worry about that we can fall back on if we need it. So it's not as urgent as it used to be when I first started my career to have exact numbers. It's very confusing to a lot of people, especially people who come from other places who don't understand, what do you mean? You know, we're adopting a budget today and you're telling me that we can't eliminate this budget completely, no you can't because we've already spent two months worth of it before the meeting even started. You've got to at least appropriate what we've spent already. So I think for that reason, it's a little clear to everyone that you're passing a budget that you want to put in place as opposed to that you're already spending and have restricted choices. Well maybe just on that particular issue alone we could have either a good portion of a meeting or a meeting depending on how long it takes to go through the pros and cons of both. I got some concerns on the fiscal aspect of trying to predict out that far ahead and whether or not there's going to be any issues of complications financially of what are the odds of making bigger mistakes budgeting out that far in what benefits we have now based on the current system. So just to jump back real quick, going from calendar to fiscal the first budget would be basically instead of going from calendar to calendar like we do now we'd be going from fiscal to fiscal but in order to phase into that we would basically be going from calendar, beginning of the calendar to the end of the following fiscal. So that first year that pretty typically now when towns move to a July 1st year they adopt an 18 month budget at their town meeting which is the last one that they'll be adopting anything already in their budget cycle. And as far as the local options tax certainly can have that conversation now you may be able to shed some light on as to how that conversation would go at some point I would think the public would want to be in on that. Yeah I think all of these things you're going to need the public because you're either going to need the public on the fiscal year change you're either going to need the public to approve that at a town meeting or you're going to need the public to approve the charter that you write that has that in it. And then as far as local option tax is when you get to the point or if you ever get to the point where you decide that you want to do it you're going to need voter approval. So I think there are two different things the changing of the fiscal year certainly can wait until you can charge the if you're going to appoint a committee to study the pros and cons of having a charter or if you want to appoint a committee and tell them we want you to write a charter because we think we should have it you can allow the charter committee to address the fiscal year issue and have that come to fruition at the end of the charter process or if it's something that the charter process I'm going to say at the it's already the last part of March and if you started the charter process right away you might be ready to vote on a charter next town meeting but that would be a pretty big lift I think it can be done I'm not saying that it can't but if you don't put the committee together until say July you won't, I don't think you'll have the ability to have a charter to vote on next town meeting so if you want the fiscal year stuff to happen faster well the fastest way you could do that is to call a special town meeting and ask the voters to approve taking advantage of Title 24 whatever the section is that allows you to have a July 1st fiscal year and then at next town meeting we would vote on that 18 month budget but you have to have the one before the other you can't just show up at town meeting next year and present an 18 month budget you'll have to have the voters tell you they want to change the fiscal year to authorize you to do that and then you would come with the budget so either way you need the public to approve this process part of the motivation for bringing this up is that these discussions have gone on for a couple of years now and we're still probably two years out from being able to realize anything if in fact we do go down this path so for us to continue to have the conversation about oh that'd be interesting to look at and then not make any progress on it so I think I would certainly be interested in starting to get the ball rolling on it and whether or not we split out the fiscal year question from the rest of it but I think the informational outreach we may be able to combine the two as far as some preliminary education goes and then try to move one of the questions ahead of the other because it seems like the charter is more complicated from the standpoint that it not only has to be approved by our voters it has to be approved by the legislature so we're talking about timing and sequence then and there's a lot of examples of charters out there there are towns that have very complex charters and there are other towns that have we operate under the state the general laws of the state of Vermont except for and they have a couple of exceptions well it used to be you had to have a charter if you wanted to appoint your town clerk as opposed to electing the town clerk like the state law says the legislature a couple of years ago has made that enabling legislation in the Green Book so towns now can just put that on the ballot shell the town authorize the select board to appoint the clerk and they can do that if they want it used to take a charter to do that so the legislature has we've tried to encourage the legislature when I say we the Vermont legal cities and towns have tried to encourage the legislature to say if you've passed a charter for any municipality to do anything extraneous of the general law you should enable any town to do that why should they have to go through the charter process if you've held hearings and everything else and say it's okay for Stowe to do this, this, and this why couldn't Waterbury simply take advantage of that they haven't quite got there yet they have their government operations committee and they need something to do so I think that the other thing that you need to I think acknowledge if you go down the charter route and I'm not opposed to it I mean we voted on a charter I think it's six times since I've been here and it's every one of the merger documents that was voted upon was actually if it had been approved would have been the charter of the town of Waterbury so we have had chartered votes in the past kind of disguised as merger votes only but those were all charters that the town would have had so there's information in the building about what the community has looked at for charters but if you go down the charter route the other thing I think you need to acknowledge will happen is there will be people that will use the charter as a means to advocate for Australian ballot and again you don't need a charter to go the Australian ballot route you can somebody can put a petition in now you'd have to call a special town meeting and if they voted to decide public questions by Australian ballot that's what we do you don't need a charter to do that but I think if you do have a charter discussion that will be something that comes up so the way I understand it now Jane, can you wish to say something or are you passed out? No, I had a question thank you for asking I guess in a way I favored if we were to explore the charter option the one that you mentioned Bill where you could make a change in the charter make a charter so that it could happen to have a local option to act I don't think we're I think it's a lightning rod issue and I don't think we're quite ready we're quite there yet it just seemed to me that it may it may be a good idea to get a charter so that you could make it happen later so you're closer I think that two-step process adopting the charter to enable it and then voting to enact it I think that really has been a result of some of the discussions the legislature has had with communities where people say look I'm in favor of having a charter I like all these provisions of the charter I like what we're trying to do to govern ourselves I'm not really sure I favor the local option tax and I'm kind of being forced to vote no on the whole charter if I don't want the local option tax so in response to that kind of criticism towns have written charters where they say we have the ability to have a local option tax if the voters approve it at a separate and independent vote and the legislature has encouraged that I had a question too you mentioned the Australian ballot so do I understand that if you go to Australian ballot you don't have any town meeting you only vote you don't have both mostly yes but so the municipalities that have voted to vote their public questions or their budgets by Australian ballot are required to have a public information meeting around the time of the budget vote or the election so the unified school district the night before town meeting when we all voted on the school budget they held their their information meeting and at that meeting there were about 15 people that attended which is bigger than has been in the recent past I've been the only person there a number of times but this time there were about 15 people there and the 15 people there voted on certain things that were not related to the budget so they voted on appointing a clerk to the board they voted on directing the school directors to hire a CPA to audit the books those kind of things were administrative and then there was discussion about the budget so I had some questions about the budget I asked the questions the board and the business manager answered the questions and I said thank you very much but I didn't get to vote on the budget until the next day at Australian ballot so you have to have a public information meeting the challenge is that people typically don't come out to those public information meetings because they really can't do anything of importance they might be able to ask a question about the budget and they might have a comment that the board thinks is particularly interesting but the board has already adopted the budget that's going to be set before the voters so that question that gets asked at that open public information meeting might be the best question they've ever heard but it's too late to do anything about it you've got to vote the next day and you can only vote yes or no you can't write X but please cut $20,000 out it's just an up or down vote so if you read the I there were a lot of questions on front porch form about this and I wrote something and it's posted on our website and what I said was that moving to Australian ballot really requires people to attend select board meetings a lot more frequently than they typically do and they typically don't in that case so I think we lose a lot and it's just my personal opinion I like town meeting I've always felt that I try to educate myself to the point where I'm comfortable answering any question that everybody asks they might not like the answer but I'll have an answer for them and the board will have an answer for them but you know we amended our budget the other day and we did that a few years ago with the recreation director you know add money to make a full-time recreation director and you can't do that through Australian ballot so were you able to did you catch his letter that he wrote there's a link on the website you should really take the time that it was very informational very helpful yeah and I think that a lot of your questions thank you I tried to encourage you you're still working on that any other comments Mark? yeah I mean just getting back to other board priorities I would like to have a discussion on understanding on how the water and sewer system is going to be governed and a better understanding of how we can work with that group because I feel like in the past some maybe development opportunities are just a feeling that there was this fight for annexation to the village before properties could be considered for water sewer and just understanding how that will be working moving forward and just making sure that there are ways that we can work with that board to continue the growth of that system I think that's an important thing moving forward and I felt like the two governing bodies really made it difficult for that to grow so I'm just interested in understanding that I also I think we've talked about in the past and I'm kind of blanking on it a little bit but just the TIF districts and what options we might have on that I know in the like right in the fourth quarter last year we talked a couple times about maybe making moves on different properties for parking and other questions on how we would pay for things like that or sewer system expansion or other things and wanting to know if that is an option and then again as a charter need to be in place for something like that so just an understanding of that so briefly on the TIF districts that stands for tax increment finance district and there is a provision in the state law that allows municipalities to to to create a TIF district and the development the new development that happens in that district the statewide education tax on that new development is deferred the state doesn't take that into the education fund and the money is I'm not sure if it's all the money but the municipality gets the full tax base of the new property and typically the revenue that comes from that TIF district to the municipality is used by the municipality to pay for the infrastructure that they may have had to invest in so if they had to build a road or if they had to build a waterline into a new place to allow that development the you don't need a charter to have a TIF district you do have to vote to have a TIF district the legislature has put a cap on the number of TIF districts so it's very difficult to get to get in there a year ago there was a lawyer who was sending you know email broadcasts to many if not all municipalities asking for them to help lobby for broadening the number of districts available from all the cities and towns have been very active in trying to get the legislature again to say you know if a TIF district is good let more communities do it of course the downside from the legislature's perspective is if everybody created a TIF district and all this new development was excluded from the education fund how would we fund education so there's this push-pull what's the period of time it's not forever right? no it's not forever and I don't know the other thing is that the fact that the village is in the process of dissolving is an opportunity perhaps that the TIF district could be looked at again back Sue Minter was still in the legislature at the time but there was some discussion by her and others in the community about the TIF district and whether it was something Waterbury should consider and we were still waiting for Main Street reconstruction at that point we're still waiting now but the complicating factor was the village the water and the sewer in particular is in the village who was going to get to use the tax base was it the village or the town the village would be the one with the water and sewer system investing there so it was very complicated when we looked at it initially now that the village is on its way to becoming the utility district the village will still have the authority to collect at the lower property taxes but they won't have any budget to support that property taxes will need to support so they will not be collecting taxes the only reason why their authority to collect taxes is being left in their charter is that in case they don't collect enough revenue to pay their water and sewer bonds they tax the grand list of the utility district to make that payment but it's a very unlikely scenario so the fact that the village won't be collecting taxes any longer makes it a little bit easier to deal with the TIFT district but it's a heavy lift and right now the legislature is they haven't I don't think they approved any new TIFT districts last year Bennington was wasn't there one where Bennington there was a big who-ho over there is there a period of time that that expires because I know Montpelier got and I know they're planning on doing so that's pretty big out there I think it's like 10 years it may be a little bit more or less than that but last year at the league's select board orientation they had a presenter and they showed that over a span of years that sacrifice to the education fund is more than made up for by the grand list increase that comes along afterwards so their selling point was it pinches the education fund a little bit now but ultimately once you get beyond that period of the TIFT designation you've got the next hundred years of increased grand list that's going to be working to your advantage so that was their sales pitch on that when I went to the Capital Plaza they talked about it was an economic development seminar and TIFT was talked about to some extent a formula basically consists of municipalities borrowing money to improve infrastructure in a designated area but the component that makes TIFT work is that you have to have everything from soup to nuts in place really before they emphasize that you have all that in place before you attempt to move forward to something like that they gave an example of one municipality who attempted such a venture and halfway through the project after the town it invested substantial amounts of money the economy went south and the developers and whoever the investors were supposed to follow suit afterwards didn't and they were left hanging with a pretty substantial bill to pay it other than reaching into the taxpayers pocket so they suggested that the whole process be in place and solid before you move forward with something like that because there's a fairly high level of risk involved Is there incentive from a developer in any way for TIFT like what's the incentive from a developer other than maybe new infrastructure is there anything, there's nothing on that basically I think the end property taxpayer ends up paying the same tax that they would have otherwise just directing the tax to a different place you know I think sometimes what's in it for the developer is that in some communities the only entry into getting this infrastructure work done is if you finance it through the TIFT because they're wanting the new developers to be the ones paying for that project as opposed to the existing users so I think for I don't know if there's a lot of opposition to TIFTS by developers because as I said they're going to pay the same tax that they would have paid otherwise but sometimes I think it may open an opportunity in a particular community for them that would otherwise be reluctant to make the infrastructure investment necessary to allow that development to happen so so I haven't heard from that yet if he has anything are you all set? I think we shouldn't forget the police moving forward and making sure that we're remembering that this was only a three-year contract that we're looking at doing and I know we've put together the committee but just starting to get things in order more for the Waterbury based police force I think it's something that I think we know we're starting to go towards and I think it's important to not forget that and get ahead of it and start making those plans yet First and foremost I'm going to focus on absorbing all of what I'm hearing but the things that are most important to me going forward here are keeping our eyeball on keeping our eyeball on affordability in this town and we've got a lot of roads that mean a lot of work so I agree with Jane that paving is a huge thing that we need to keep focused on and I'm also interested in seeing this this police venture work for us because I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us and going forward a few of the things that I was just a reoccurring theme in a lot of different DRB meetings was parking and this is going to become even more of a huge issue especially when downtown starts getting ripped up I'm very very interested in seeing what kind of solutions we can come up with to you know back when I came to this town 20 years ago downtown really wasn't a very nice looking place you know there were a lot of empty stores and you know what it is today completely built out vibrant shops full of customers we've got a lot of great businesses downtown it's a hop in place we've got some issues we've got to keep our eye on the ball here so those are the things that hot button issues for me I guess okay you all set Mr. Meteor? I want to add one more thing too I think recreation is something that I want to keep on the front of our minds too I know we're starting to put together a committee to look at the future of the pool and just how recreation could look in more of a maybe the idea of a community center but I just think that recreation is such an important part of the community that's here and I think we've done we've made vast improvements by getting a full-time recreation person on board but I just want to continue to look at different options that can keep the locals excited about being here and then also ways that you know Stowe has that recreation path and I think we have an amazing mountain bike trail system here in town and I just think that there's potentially more we could be doing there that you know I want to make sure that we continue to support I agree thanks for bringing that up Hi Robert I don't need to go to the mic if you want me to I think Ann would prefer you did yeah thank you to buy some green is it back several months ago I haven't heard anything tonight on it chain mentioned the paving but something that should be prioritized in my opinion an opinion of people on Manuski Street and other areas of the community have plans for improving replacing repairing many of the sidewalks maybe by sections of certain blocks or whatever but as I mentioned that night and Bill and I did naturally agree his comment was there's no money for it and I'm interested in how much money was put in for sidewalks for this coming summer I heard from one of the town highway employees the day that they had John Manuski Street was going to be cut back because they had John Manuski Street I hope that's good but I think it's something we shouldn't forget some of us do get a little older each year and there are sidewalks not just on Manuski Street but other places as well it definitely needs some attention so no disrespect to Jane she mentioned paving I should sidewalks my hearing aid one anyway that's my concern and how it gets addressed I think Everett there is there is talk about doing some sidewalk work on Manuski Street if I'm correct do our best I'll have the last word in this I guess sounds like list items here we got our fairly substantial there's a way that we can put them down on paper and maybe gel them down to a bottom line list of priorities and start with the leading priority and schedule some time and whatever other information is needed to address each one of those issues throughout the year and maybe Bill you can take the lead on that because as far as scheduling is concerned you probably have a better grasp on what's coming first I appreciate your comment about prioritization we started this discussion off by me saying that staff has this year's budget to execute we've got our work plan we're going to be doing these kinds of things in the CIP budget there's $35,000 sidewalks there's probably a little more money in the town highway budget itself the operating budget it's not anymore than was budgeted last year in the CIP I hope to spend it all this year we spent not quite $25,000 out of the $35,000 last year we spent less because we adjusted the job that we did we didn't spend as much on the sidewalk down at the North Main Street area than we thought we would we are looking at Winooski Street one of the things that I've talked about with the Public Works staff haven't really shared it with the select board completely yet but excuse me do all of our sidewalks need to be five foot wide concrete sidewalks to me there's many sidewalks certainly on Main Street we're going to want that to be a concrete sidewalk but if we pulled the sidewalk blocks and I'm not saying that we're going to do this but if we pulled the sidewalk blocks with Winooski Street and prepared that and made it five feet wide and then paved it with asphalt the $35,000 that we have goes a lot further than if you have to pull the concrete sidewalk in so we're trying to be creative with how we address these issues not every solution meets every application out there so it's something that we'll be talking with the board as we go forward but we heard your concerns and take them seriously nobody wants bad sidewalks but we also know that took a long time for the sidewalks to get in the condition they're in now and they're not all going to be fixed immediately either we just don't have that kind of money so I hope that helps but that's where we are right now I guess I look at it as well it's important then we're in as much about the right trail we need a little room that's an opinion I don't necessarily disagree and that's what the beauty of my job is is trying to take all these interests that people have and figure out with the board's help and Chris will tell you I've had a number of conversations with him saying sometimes maybe the solution or part of the solution to the problem is something that somebody wants we say no to and we just take it off the table as opposed to funding it 15% of the way and that's a philosophical discussion that we have to have because the pie can grow in a lot of different ways you can keep adding slices to the pie and trying to do more things and if you don't want to spend any more money all the slices get a little smaller or you have to say we can't do everything that everybody wants and that's a great idea but we're not going to do that so I think that's part of what Chris was just talking about with regard to prioritization so Carla has done a good job I think of taking down all of the information all of the things that you've put out on the table they'll be in the minutes I think probably a next best step maybe not next meeting but for a meeting in the not too distant future is to say okay there's 12 things on this list which ones and how many can we tackle in a year so so I can finish up here so having listened to what he just said I'll be quite honest with you as a board member I'm going to be pretty hard-nosed when it comes to talking about these issues I'm going to want to see definitive information in front of me that proves that we can afford any of these things going forward because if we can't afford them I'm not about to ask the taxpayers for more money this I'm tired of living in a state that is overtaxed and has been overtaxed you know there was a day back when I was younger where we lived within our means and or just plain did without and this issue of continuing to want more and more and more we can't even maintain what we've got it's just simply ridiculous so that's why I would like to see step by step go down through this priority list get the information needed to make good judgment calls and continue to look ahead forward as to what issues that we're definitely going to be stuck with that we can't avoid and it's going to cost us tax dollars and then we'll just have to make the calls as to how we want to prioritize our tax dollars and just see what we can do with it next hot button issue considering the gun control resolution I think that's Friar did you yeah I put it on the list to the continuation from the town meeting I didn't bring the resolution with me I got one here I was wondering if we could read it and have a discussion I think we owe it to the person that requested the resolution to discuss it and I'm glad we started to have a conversation I think it's important as a community that we address what's happening in the country and yeah I just happened to print one off brought it with me I'll read it aloud and we can go from there so David David Luce up Waterbury Center put this referendum together for us to consider and it starts by saying whereas it is the duty of government to protect its citizens and whereas it has become clear that schools public facilities and victims of random domestic abuse are at risk of attack by known unknown known and unknown persons possessing legal or illegal firearms in ammunition and whereas it is essential to protect the school community at large from such threats and whereas Phil Scott Governor of Vermont and the Vermont legislative legislature are currently in negotiations to change the gun control laws of Vermont now therefore we the select board for the town of Waterbury at our meeting on March 19th 2018 hereby resolved to request the governor and legislature to seek common ground with the intent result of strengthening the current gun control laws of Vermont so as to best protect all Vermont citizens from legal gun violence doesn't say legal just says from gun violence oh I'm sorry, yeah I don't know where I got that legal from gun violence comments? I support the letter I think it's not asking for specific changes to the gun laws but I think it is important that we review where we're requesting the state to continue to review the current gun laws in Vermont to be honest with you I have a huge fear that we're a community just like any other community that could see violence like this and it's scary to think that it could happen here and I think that there are weapons that the general public can purchase that I don't believe they should be able to just like I can't own a tank I don't think that there's certain weapons that are necessarily used to protect as much as to assault so I just think that I'm in support of and I'm not asking I don't think this letter is asking for the removal of assault weapons or anything like that I think it's just a request of pushing the government at the state level to take guns seriously and look at ways to protect our citizens and I'm in full support of that I also am in support of it I I think that it's a good letter it's not prescriptive but it's just showing support for taking action I think we've been very fortunate in Vermont to have no gun violence in terms of in mass incidents there's certainly as David pointed in his email today to the select board there is gun violence occurring but not we've been fortunate to have any mass shootings I think we should not be complacent and think that it can't happen here I think that the governor has shown some integrity I think and taking seriously what was potentially a dangerous situation in Fairhaven unfortunately it's it's unfortunate to hear about these incidents and to know that somebody who is so troubled who would intend to harm others that they know in a school setting so I think that we need to support the governor going out on a limb and being willing to take this seriously and I think it's important for towns to let him know I think we heard a lot at the town meeting that was also respectful and supporting this measure so I'm in support of it Do you want to weigh in? I'm in agreement with Mark and Jane with respect to this it's not pretending to be an answer it's a an emphasis by the town that we want the legislature and the governor to work together to reach reasonable conclusions on this issue some of the proposals that have been offered deal with long-standing issues within the community that need to have some changes I thought the proposal was done in a thoughtful manner the discussion that we had at town meeting I would like to thank the moderator for encouraging the discussion that did take place he allowed for everyone to have their say on the matter unfortunately it was not found to be in proper order for any sort of resolution at that point the bounds of this board to speak to that issue and I'm glad it's before us now I too am in favor of it I think we're foolish to think this can't reach our community speak into the microphone a little more I do am in favor of it I think we're foolish to think that this won't reach our community and I don't think that this can control a thing is a is a one-step thing there are so many there are so many issues with obtaining these weapons that aren't that can't be handled with with one bill you know you can buy an assault rifle in a parking lot private sale from somebody who doesn't even need to give you their identity or you can buy it at a shop down the street that's just one of the things so I don't know what the answer is but I know that we're foolish to not raise our voices and get the people who can make some decisions to keep our schools safe you know let their voices be heard and we should be in support of anything that can help I got one other thing to say it seems at the federal level this issue is not getting any traction I think it seems clear it's up to the states too by default to have to take some initiative and I think that's why it's important also to speak up as a community and let the legislature know that we value some kind of movement on this issue and take it seriously well Jane you kind of hit the point on the head you got for our community obviously from town meeting you probably understand that I'm staunch gun advocate I'm an advocate for second amendment I do understand everybody's concern my problem was that this referendum was kind of pulled out of the back pocket of Mr. Luce late in the game we didn't have substantial time for feedback from a large amount of the taxpayers in this town and it says clearly here now therefore we the select board for the town of Waterbury I'm not quite sure how you people can make a judgment call on a referendum like this when you quite honestly probably haven't heard from the people of the town there was a few people at town meeting that the organization of that subject was kind of little convoluted because I think we were all over misunderstanding which was up for conversation here that the moderators call on the call on the request out of order or was it the fact that we should or shouldn't have gun control I have four grandchildren one of which is in school and I have concerns about what's going on out there in society today I actually brought with me a copy of an email that was sent to me from a guy that pertains to psychotropic drugs used that connected all the mass shootings the shooters with some use of psychotropic drugs way back to the Columbine incident and throughout I read through the article and then I read all the comments that preceded the article and I have this information a few people I'd like to look at it it's quite disturbing quite interesting you know to me proves that there's more to this problem than just the guns you know my grandson came into my shop the other day and looked to me and he said hey grandpa he said go huntin' boots just like you and he said when I get older bigger he said I want to go huntin' and I want to have a gun and go huntin' with you and I looked down at him and I said to myself maybe we'll see this is a big issue you're right there is no good answer at this point in time I don't know how the board members feel about whether or not you really think you should have more input from the members of the community or if you're willing to just go ahead and sign this petition or this referendum without that information go ahead Mark I completely disagree that we don't have the voice of the community we sit here on this board representing our community with every decision we're voted by the community to take these positions and voice our support or our not supporting specific issues I think this is a great example of we're in the town meeting I do agree that it came up out of turn that's why I kind of did not speak during that point because I did feel like it wasn't necessarily appropriate for that part of the meeting but now that it was warned I think that if anyone feels like we did disjustice I feel like people need to get the community needs to be more involved in meetings and be more involved in the town government I feel I don't sit here and say that this is just my own opinion I also regularly interact with people in this community and I listen and I have thoughtful discussion so I feel like some of the comments that were made are saying that I don't and I that's upsetting to me because I am not just one voice I try to represent my community when I sit here in this seat and I think that's important for other board members to understand and know and yeah that's where I leave it but when I say that I support this letter I'm not just speaking for myself I understand the decision that I make when I do that as I'm trying to represent my community as best as possible I'd say that at the town meeting most of the comments were in support of this resolution or in support of some some action people seem to be very concerned about gun violence I don't think that by so I take that well I think people didn't vote necessarily to sustain or overrule so that the the statement could be sent and endorsed at the town meeting I still felt like the what I heard was pretty clearly that a lot of people were very concerned and would like some sort of statement sent so I don't think this has anything to do with hunting hunting in our state is a tradition and well respected it's just part of our part of living here and I don't think this has anything to do with that I'd also like to say that I support the second amendment and I support hunting in the state just for a point of information the Karla Lindhoven just told me that when Mark asked for this to be on the agenda tonight of course the wording that was presented at town meeting talked about the town and this talks about the select board so Karla had to wordsmith a little bit and where it says now therefore we the select board for the town of Waterbury it could just as easily say of the town of Waterbury so if there's I'm not speaking for or against whether you want to do anything but if it's not worded exactly right you can change that as well but Karla just did try to capture the essence of what Mr. Luce had presented and amended it for the select board's consideration so we just thought you could go back so Mark I'm not denying the fact that you talk to people in the town but let's face it we all have our certain groups of people that we tend to either hang out with or see so to get a broad perspective of how the community feels as a whole I think just on an everyday occurrence is pretty tough to do especially with something like this the fact that our legislative body up at the state house is entertaining a fair amount of discussion pertaining to this issue as well as the governor has commented on it to with such short notice expect without any special public meeting to hear from the our constituents I don't know it just it makes it tough for me to understand how anybody sitting on this board can have a good feel for how their community feels about it obviously anybody anybody in their right mind would want this type of crime to stop absolutely but nobody seems to have the good answer so I followed this fairly closely the discussions that are taking place at the state house regarding this issue is the standard legislative process there are a lot of ideas that go in there's a lot of discussion that takes place and whether or not they'll actually achieve any sort of consensus is still anyone's guess the my reading of this resolution is that it's really asking the governor and our legislators to work together to reach a reasonable conclusion and with that in mind I guess I would offer a motion that we as a board approve this resolution and forward it to the governor and the legislature I'll second your motion has been made and seconded Chris yes sir I've talked to people recently since town meeting I wasn't there at the end of the town meeting because I certainly had something to say I do believe in the second amendment and the hundred for over 60 years as you are you've got situations in schools unfortunately whether the mental health issues are not being addressed as well as they should be I'm not pointing to bigger than any people's school but that's the case thank God that the fair human situation did get to the public I believe it had been in Maine and a place for mental health help sorry about that I should have gone up to the mic backing up a little bit just to support Chris's philosophy we all want our communities to be safe I think it was a manipulation on the part of the presenter to do it at the end of the meeting I wish I had been there but due to family circumstances I was not able to be there but I would strongly encourage more input from people in our town yes Mark you are right to some degree you represent the people you talk to people I do as well Billing mobile and so forth this is a conversation for various people but I would hope that you would give it more serious thought before you prove this motion tonight and either do something on the website with a poll of people's opinion some manner of getting to as many people as possible in that community before you as a select board send this forward I just don't think it's the right thing to do having served as a trustee for 20 years difficult sometimes to satisfy everybody with no question but I would encourage you to really take a hand on approving this tonight I think it's too quick and not enough input has been put into it from the community and you only had about 40 or 50 people at town meeting at that time so it's a very low percentage of all the people that were there I would encourage you to vote down the motion and do some form of community input before you actually forward this to the Governor and I know he is working on it very sincerely and concerned I know that personally thank you so motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion yes, Alec I was calling it seems like now is the time to encourage legislation to delve into this more which I think they obviously are now I actually believe we're not coming from a family of hunting guides so I'm kind of used to family members actually having guns but for them it's about access and I think that's what they're also discussing at the state level I think anything we can do to encourage the state legislators simply to look into the items I think that would be the way to go now is the time if we keep on putting it off they're not going to get that encouragement from us that's my two bits thanks I would agree and I think I don't know the other were 50 people, 60, 70 people at the end of the town meeting but certainly seemed to me the prevalent voice in the room was to support an amendment like this not oppose it and I don't think this has to do with hunting with all due respect the second amendment in my opinion is about arming a militia that goes back to that time in our country when the states were just becoming organized after being ruled by England so without going down that path I disagree on that I just I support signing the amendment and I think the time is right to do it so it seemed that this referendum came forward kind of on the 11th hour it's everybody's right to call their state legislators and voice their opinion on how they feel about this bill or this issue that's going through the state house and I'll be quite honest with you for Dave Luce to bring this to the town meeting like he did when you've got a state legislative body already up to their neck in weeds on this thing to me didn't have the potential to do nothing more than drive a wedge between our legislative body and the way the community members feel or could feel on either side about this issue so the way I'm looking at it the board hasn't had ample time to bring it to its community to get a reaction from them and you said you heard what you felt was a majority there was no indication that there was a majority for or against this thing there was no vote there was no most of the comments that I heard were in favor of this resolution people were seemed to be on the fence about whether you should overall moderate forward that way in my opinion in favor of this okay until we have a defined vote that states that I don't know how anybody can sit up on this board and say yes we're representing our community members well with all due respect I think the way that this is written is our call so I'm in favor of passing and I disagree with what you're saying okay so motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion from anybody take a vote all those in favor of passing this referendum and signing it and sending it to the State House please say aye those opposed nay nay this is the original one here I guess could you see to it that the minutes reflect the reason I voted no on this was because I felt like the community didn't have time enough to have ample input so pass 810 but we'll go on to managers items thank you I won't take very long tonight even though there's four items here the first item is the annual certificate of highway mileage that we have to file with the agency of transportation for the year ending February 10th so again here's another annual thing with an arbitrary date February 10th, 2018 we have to sign this and what you're certifying is that the town will comply with the state statute that says municipalities must spend a sum of at least $300 per mile for our highways we have about 50 miles of highway and we spend $1.6 million on it it's about $28,000 miles so the requirements of the law we have to file this annual financial plan the only time the state really ever uses it is when there's a disaster it doesn't have to be an Irene level disaster but a declared disaster where FEMA gets involved and if you've certified that you have spent at least $300 per mile and explain how you spend your money they'll make sure that you're eligible for grant funding so it's pretty self-explanatory there's a sign I would appreciate if you would make a motion to approve and sign the certificate of highway mileage and the annual financial plan for town highways I'll second that the motion has been made to move and second it to approve the certificate of highway mileage and annual financial plan the town highway favorably say hi hi there's two places to sign I think the second page of the one that's stapled and the bottom of the page that's in your right hand and then the bottom of that other page looks like it's got three spots you can squeeze in sign them all while you're signing that I can continue on Chris so letters B and C are items on my list of things that the board needs to get done the traffic ordinance we back last fall I presented a draft traffic ordinance to the board Mark pointed out that it looked like it was in good shape except it did not list where all the where all the stop signs are outside of the village so that I've been around the roads I've identified where all the stop signs are and in the process of incorporating them that list is going to be very long now but it's all there we want to have the traffic ordinance adopted by the select board probably one of its meetings in April for your information the process of adopting an ordinance requires that the board puts the fact that they're going to consider an ordinance on their agenda does not require public hearing the board can adopt the ordinance and once the ordinance is adopted it's effective on the 61st day after adoption unless a petition is circulated to have a town meeting to overturn the desires of the select board so Mark and I are meeting tomorrow with folks from the state police to begin talking about the contract for the service contract that we approved the town meeting in January that contract is supposed to go into effect on July 1st we want to have this traffic ordinance in place by at least July 1st the village ordinance which is still in effect now and the state police they have been out enforcing speed limits and the like but we want to make sure that the town's ordinance is in place on July 1st so we'll I'm not sure I'll have it on the April 2nd meeting but certainly by the 2nd meeting in April it will be set to present that and if it gets adopted I presume it won't be petitioned and it will be effective for the 1st of July the personnel policy some of the board members have been around long enough with this policy with the trustees had some assistance from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns incorporating the new Family Leave Act requirements in particular into the ordinance and making sure it's up to date with current state law and it's almost ready to go there's a little bit of tweaking that needs to be done with regard to how we're going to talk about leave policy we don't need to get into that tonight a conscious decision was made last fall because the village was getting ready to go out of existence and getting ready to disband its police department as of the 1st of the year the trustees felt it was probably better just to continue living with the personnel policy that was in place again that for your benefit I manage the town and the village there's five elected boards that I staff and report to while there's no requirement that the village's personnel policy be exactly the same as the town's personnel policy it's something that staff has recommended I try to to encourage well I direct my staff from me down to we try to consider ourselves one organization that's just trying to provide the public services that the community is asked for gets paid for out of different pockets and there's a different board that ultimately is in control but we have had since the early 80s a unified personnel policy and I want to continue that the village won't have any employees well the village doesn't have any employees right now except for water and sewer employees and once the new utility district comes into play on July 1st the village won't exist anymore it will simply be the utility district so the personnel policy I recommend will I hope will be adopted by the select board for the town and the utility district commissioners for the utility district so we'll probably have some joint meetings the utility district won't be formed until July 1st it's possible I suppose we could adopt the ordinance and have the village trustees and the water sewer commissioners adopt it ultimately I think it will be better for the utility district itself to adopt it so I'll be bringing this to the board for discussion and it will probably be in joint session with whichever other board is there so yeah we'd really like to get it maybe out there and discussed so we can maybe review the sections that are being fine-tuned and make sure the boards don't have any concerns or problems with it and then right after the first of the year I mean the first of July I think it'd like it to be adopted if at all possible any questions about that okay and then the board orientation again Nat I think you told me that you're not able to attend the VLCT select board institute okay that's fine they run it every year and I would encourage you if you can to attend there are numerous trainings throughout the year that VLCT does provide even that select board institute I've never been to it I think it's mostly geared to towns where there are no town managers the town manager form of government shifts the authority for many of the provisions and state statute that enable the select board to do certain things it gives that authority to the town manager I know Mark and Chris have been in the past they probably touch on town manager a little bit in that institute it's a pretty good shotgun of select board duties that what was helpful for me last time was they had segments on quasi judicial proceedings and everything and we were rolling into the main street project so it was good familiarity with something that I hadn't had any exposure to but they do a pretty good job with that there are a number of different segments that you can go to so even though you're not able to go to that training that's going to be sometime soon there is money in the budget for training if there's anything that comes across your email from VLCT and you're interested in just let me know we'll sign you up we pay for you to go and then during the course of the year and probably starting with the next several meetings I'll try to put one or two items on the agenda just to kind of bring you up to speed with certain things that we have here some things you probably have some familiarity with I'll probably usually once a year I talk about the town's investment policies we have a lot of money now in various funds that were invested in and if there's anything else that you want to know about let me know and I'll try to get it on an agenda and do a little bit of refresher coursework for the rest of the board so that's it I'll make a motion to adjourn I'll second that did you vote on that yet? we'll get a motion and second they're further discussion so one thing that has happened and this is relatively new development we have our books audited every year and for as long as I've been here Billy Eccaboni CPA who hangs out his own shingle has been doing our audit work both for the town and the village he's a very good auditor and he has done a lot of good work with us he's also very reasonable in his prices and we budgeted this year for the town not too much money we budgeted $10,000 for the commercial audit this year we spent $8,500 last year for it Mr. Eccaboni has informed me that he will not be able to do audits going forward for the town it has to do with peer review requirements and continuing education Bill used to do a lot of governmental audit work he had a number of town and school clients over the past half dozen years or so he has been downsizing that practice and the long and short of it is is that in order to do our audit he would have to do a whole section of continuing education for government auditing and we're his only client now and he can't justify the amount of money that it would cost him in the time that will take him because he has other continuing ed requirements for his license I asked him I said, can't we just one last one it would be nice for him to close out the village you know and I saw him last week and he said that he looked at the rules every way he could and with good conscience and honesty he can't do it so I will be probably putting this out to bid probably solicit bids from three or four auditing firms that I'm aware of the downside to that is any time that somebody new comes into audit they've got to do some work with the old audit reports and do some baseline investigation it's going to cost more than the $10,000 we have budgeted we're not required to do the audit I wouldn't recommend not doing it but our last audit was of our 2016 year our 2017 year just ended typically Yakovone has done our field work in July and gets an audit report out in September there's not a law that requires us to have an audit it is a good best practice however if we received more than $750,000 of federal grant money we are required to do what's called a single audit we did not receive anywhere close to that amount of money last year in the town or village the last year that we did was on the random out project and then some of the projects that involved this building but I think we should do the audit so I'll be putting out some requests for proposals and I'll be bringing those back to you and then we'll make the decision but I just want to let you know that Mr. Yakovone isn't going to be able to do it and that was news to me right around the time the budget was going to print Bill did you have any sense of what it might cause us in the future I'm not going to speculate yet I didn't know if you found something I haven't I have a suspicion but I don't want to officially say I don't want to tell it to us this late at night okay motion has been made to adjourn and seconded all those favor's a.i.