 This is the town of Essex in from town meeting informational hearing, Steve used to share moderator for the evening. And I'm going to start by introducing the chair of the select board, Andy Watts. Thank you, Mr. moderator. And welcome everyone like to introduce the first the other members of the select board. Pat Murray is our vice chair. And the chair of the select board is the select board clerk. Don Hill flurry and sue cook are the other members. Also, I'd like to recognize some other guests that are here. We have a couple of the village trustees. The list keeps jumping around I see Amber Tebow, from the trustees, and just scrolling down to see if I see others. I don't at this point. Also like to introduce staff. Greg Duggan is our new town manager. New this weekend to the position. Congratulations Greg. Also we have Courtney bushy who's our new finance director. And Sue McNamara Hill, who's the town clerk. Ellie vile, director of Essex Parks and Rec. I see Charlie Cole, who's the Essex town fire chief. Have I missed any other staff members. Dennis Lutz is on. Who's that Dennis Lutz is on Dennis Lutz is on yes Dennis I see Aaron Martin. From our public works. There's also the police. Is here. Whilst we. I also saw that. Linda Myers has joined for representative from from Essex. We have a couple of our current representatives Tonya by Hovsky and Ray Garrafano are are attending as well. And let's see. I don't see. Trying to see there's anybody else I missed. Margaret lad has joined she is the deputy manager. I see Alyssa black has joined welcome Melissa. Thank you good to be here. Thanks Andy. I thought you might be attending. Westford. Welcome. Westford is actually not having their meeting tonight. Okay. Okay. Okay, so I think. I think that's all the introductions. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Next up. We're going to have the reading of civility. For the meeting to help set the tone before I get the instructions. For the meeting. And Mr. Chair, who's going to read that. Don Hill flurry has volunteered to do that. All right. Okay. He's going to do as clerk that was her job to do. Oh, okay. It's been handed back. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We gather as a community in the oldest sense of the word. We gather to come together and try to make decisions about what is right about what is wrong. Let us advocate for our positions, but not at the expense of others. Let us remember that there is an immense gap between saying I am right and saying, I believe I am right. And that our neighbors with whom we might disagree are good people with hopes and dreams as true and high as ours. And I think that's a good point. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here at the end. Caring for each other in this community is a far greater importance than any difference we may have. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you, Tracy. All right. So I'll read out the instructions for the meeting. So as I mentioned earlier, this is an informational hearing to discuss the articles being voted on by Australian ballot. The 2022 town meeting. All attendees must remain on mute, except when recognized by me. Attendees can get in line to make remarks by using the raise the hand tool. We're using the chat type that they want to speak. People will be queued in order of request. And I'll also check the phone lines every once in a while to ensure there's no one on the phone waiting to talk. All remarks, questions and discussion should be addressed to me. Please wait to be recognized before muting and speaking and your name, speaking a loud voice so that your comments may be heard by everyone. In order to have a reasonable length meeting, discussions on articles one and two might be limited to an hour each in public to be heard to 30 minutes. The select word presentation at the beginning of each article does not count towards any discussion in it. As in our usual town meeting, each person should plan to limit their time to two to three minutes so that more people have a chance to speak. As in past years, I will not be specifically timing people, but we'll encourage people to wrap up if they're speaking too long. My role as moderators to help you ask the questions. Help you ask your question or make your point. If you need help, please let me know. Above all, as we just heard, please be civil and respectful of your neighbor's opinions. Lastly, as I remember his chat window is only be used. To speak. To be asked to speak. Type your last name or first name is like to speak and no comments, questions or conversations are allowed in the chat. So that's how we'll govern the meeting tonight. And what we have first. Is. Article one. Which I'm going to state article one here. And then I know the select board has a presentation on it. So they'll. Go over that. And then we'll have discussion. So article one. Shall the town adopt a budget for fiscal year July 1, 2022. To June 30, 2023. As recommended by the select board in the amount of 16,000,000. $675,241. So with that reading. Andy, were you going to do the presentation? Yes. Yes, I am. So great. Can you share, please? And I can see that. Okay. All right. So as. The introduction. Yeah, we'll be talking about the budget for the fiscal year. 2023, which starts. July 1st of 2022. And this is our proposed operating budget. Go ahead, Greg. To the next slide. Okay. So before we started putting before the budget was put together, the select board was asked for, if there were any budget goals for, for this year, the four initiatives that the select board. Asked for were to. Continue the funding for equity initiatives and mental health support. In doing so, the, this budget does include $30,000 appropriation to the equity committee. That's an internal. Committee. Who will make recommendations on how to spend those funds. We're, we also are continuing the funding of board stipends, meaning that starting at the beginning of this calendar year, we started offering the opportunity for. Committee members to be. Paid a small stipend for attending. Committee meetings. That's extending into next year. We've. Added additional funding to the community justice center. And then we created a new position within the police department of the community affairs liaison. I'll talk more about that later in the, in the rest of the budget discussion. Next thing was you wanted to consider how to address climate change in our programs and initiatives. What's happening here is there's three police. Vehicles will be purchased this year. All of them will be either hybrid or hybrid or fully electric. That's. The. Activity that's happening this year's budget that will, that falls into that category. Next, next topic was to minimize the financial impact of separation through tightening spending, deferring anything possible or diverse, diversifying revenue. We have removed one management position. We no longer have a shared manager with the village. And so there's, there's instead of a three management positions, there will only be two going forward in this budget. The last topic was to address the impact of separation, but continue to work toward tax equity. Although there's no new initiatives there. Because of the possibility of separation. But some of the exist in some of the existing consolidated. Activities will occur during the first transition year. But those will, will resolve themselves by the end of the first year and you know, examples of those of the clerk, clerk's office and village highway, both of those will, will be funded. At least the clerk's office at least partially and the, the village highway fully in the, in this year's budget. Okay, next slide. So general highlights, we are using 431,000 of fund balance. This is leftover funds from prior years to offset the, offset the tax rate. This is some big port, significant portions of this are being used to pay for one time expenses. There are some expenses in the finance department that are related to separation that will be coming out of that 431,000. And also this is an unusual year. I mentioned that we're purchasing three police vehicles. Typically we only purchase two. There's every so often we the, the life cycle of our police vehicles. We end up having to buy three. So we're buying the third vehicle out of this, this fund as well. So it's not an on, wouldn't be an ongoing. It's not included in the, it won't be included in the taxing that we do. It's being paid with, with prior leftover funds from prior years. There's been a variety of staffing changes. Again, I mentioned we repurposed one of the, we're taking a vacant patrol position in the, in the police department and converting it into a community Ferris liaison. This is someone who will be able to interface with the community from a communication standpoint, from also talking about you and services and, you know, potentially hopefully your partner to address. You know, non-police activities, non-policing activities. That are in the responsibility of the police department. We've limited, as I mentioned, we eliminated one management position, but we did add an administrative, our assistant to the manager previously, the assistant to the manager has been paid by the paid for by the village. So we're having, we are adding, there were actually two people in that position. We're gonna be going forward in the town. And I think one of the village also. So that's that. The next thing we're doing is we, in order to improve our safety response, our emergency response, we've added to 40 hour per week, daytime, per DM firefighter positions. These are not full time positions for anybody. They are, it's 40, it's 40 hours equivalence of multiple people's time. So that we can share that we have staff on hand during the week, daytime to address emergency response needs. This is also the first full year of an economic development position. This, in the current year's budget, we budgeted for a half year. So we're extending it to the full year to, to continue that position that person, that individual has been hired. And I don't recall her name. Greg. Geno Sullivan. Geno Sullivan, right. Okay. So we focus again on economic development and that, that position is as I said, is being extended to a full, a full year. So it's the first full year of that. We're also adding a full time parks and maintenance tech that will be shared with public works. And then we're going to, we're going to have to, to help with winter plowing and summer parking maintenance. The County and regional health and human services. Have a fairly large increase this year of 228,000. There's some, I'll have some more discussion about that. That's largely, yeah, I'll talk, I'll touch on that more. When we talk about emergency services. That's a good point. I think that's a good point. Another change to the, to the budget is there is the insurance costs for the police department are being moved into the police department costing center. They previously, I believe been in the finance costing center. They've, they're being moved over to the police costing center because. If separation occurs, we wanted to have all of the police costs in the police budget. We wanted to have all of the, we wanted to have all of the, we wanted to have all of the police costs with the village that the, the accounting is much simpler because all of the expenses will be in one category. And then there's a number of changes throughout the budget tied to potential separation as things become disentangled. And some of the services are starting to. I think that's a good point. And then there's a number of changes associated with that. So those are included in there as well. Right. Greg, next slide. So from a standpoint of consolidated services and where we have alignment, the police. Is a, the, is a, is a town department where services, the entire community that will, that will continue. Senior bus and senior programs. Those will continue through the. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that our discussion is about what happens after that. Clerk elections and records will all still be. In the same department. Though again, they will, they will. Not again, but they will separate. At the end of the. The transition year. The assessor will, will remain a common until the upcoming likely reassessment is complete. The next series of services. Will actively start unraveling or will completely separate at the beginning of the, of this. Of the transition year of the, if the. Separation occurs. It's information technology, storm water services, highway, public works, administration and paving and tax billing and collecting. All of these things are paid for. In the town budget, but they're going to start separating their property. And then there are other services that are shared the wastewater, wastewater treatment. The wastewater treatment plant is, is shared that is a, the wastewater treatment plan is owned by the village, but there's a separate agreement that's called a tri town agreement between the village of Essex Junction, the town of Essex and the town of Williston. That's completely separate from separation. Won't be impacted by separation. And only those that use the. In the town of Williston are connected to. Municipal sewer. Pay for that. So if you're, if you've got a septic system, you're not, you're not contributing into that. Essex rescue ambulance services are an independent nonprofit. But they do. Give us an assessment to. Of a certain amount of funds to support them. And I think there's another slide that goes in more detail on that. Green Mountain transit services. Again, those that's an independent, that's a regional entity that provides bus service. Within and within Essex and beyond. That is again, as an independent of the, and the town is currently paying for that for both the town and the village. And it will continue to through the coming year, but then we'll separate slater. So that's a good point. And we're going to have a, we're going to have a similar with the chicken and count County regional. Planning services. Okay. Next slide, Greg. Um, services that will no longer be shared the, We no longer have a unified. Town and village manager. There are. Two separate management chains now. Finance and administrative services or being separated. resource director at this point. Fire department alignment will be less of a priority. Pay and training will be determined by each department. They're already within this coming years budget, starting to go slightly different, different directions. The, I forget what the, what the phrase is. The agreement that we each back each other up with this still in place. And then recreation department alignment has also a discontinued co-location has ended the six recreation and parks has moved back into 81 main. But at least through the coming year, village residents says we'll still have access to those offerings because they'll still be paying taxes to support those. It's not yet determined. We're still negotiating discussion about what happens after separation or after the transition year. Okay, so new and enhanced programs. I mentioned the, I was going to talk more about Essex rescue. Essex rescue has added a, I believe the second daytime ambulance. Because of population and demographic changes within Essex. This is actually the first of a four year plan to increase this fairly substantially. This, this number 164,746 will be paid by the town in FY 23 and FY 24. It gets divided between the town and the city. So those, those numbers will change in the future, but at this point it's a, it's a fairly substantial portion of the public safety increase for this year. Along with the, the two per diem firefighters that we've, we've added that I mentioned earlier, that's just under 90,000 for that. We're continuing to fund the justice equity, diversity and inclusion work. And by adding the community affairs liaison to the police department. Some of this is redundant the first full year of economic development coordinator and then the parks and maintenance planning person were added. So the budget itself, the proposed total budget is 16.68 million. The increase over the current year is just under $750,000. It's a 4.7% budget increase with a 5.1% tax levy, but the individual tax rate that taxpayers will see is, is a 4% increase, which is higher than what we, the select board typically agrees to. We've been in the three to three and a half range. So we believe in this year with getting ready for separation. Some of the things that we've had to do are driving this to be a little bit higher, plus the, the unexpected increase in as express you was another big piece that is driving that. Okay. And then the majority increases. I mentioned the biggest increases appropriations. These are, these are appropriations that come to us from the outside that we don't have a lot of control over. That's the biggest piece than the personnel costs are just under a hundred thousand increase with payroll and benefits. Highway and storm village highway and stormwater increased to 74,000 that's within the, the 6% limit of the, that's in the, the MOU that, that governs the village highway and stormwater expenditures. Vehicle purchases are higher again because we're, we're purchasing a third police car this year, which we don't typically do. Stormwater maintenance has increased largely because of state mandates, our insurance rates are up. Again, that's something we can't really control. And then the justice equity, diversity inclusion work and the volunteer stipends that I mentioned the 30,000 that was provided for the equity committee. The additional 14 697 there would be the, the stipends for volunteers. Professional services is up 27,000 election expenses are up almost 26,000. That's largely due to the mailing of ballots. We've seen a dramatic increase in participation in elections with mail ballots. So I think that may, that's likely to be an ongoing expense that we, that we will see transfers to capital. There are some shortcomings in how much capital we've been. There's, there's some expenses coming up that we're going to need to deal with. So we've increased the transfers to capital by 22,000 this year. And then the net of everything else was 61 488, which gives a total of total increase for the year of dementia was just under 750,000. So 749 113. Okay, Greg, anything else? Okay. Then the estimated tax impact. We've off and referenced the $280,000 home. And so the FY 22 tax rate is 5.5285. What we're estimating the rate will be for to support this. The FY 23 budget is 0.5497, which is the 4% change in the. The dollar amount again for the typical or the, the example value of 280,000 would be a $59 and 36 cent change for the year on your municipal tax. This assumes that the grand list grows by 1%, which is a little bit lower than what we've seen. And this also uses, as I mentioned at the start, 431,000 from fund balance. The tricky thing with fund balance is that next year, we have to make that up in the, in the regular budget. Unless we have additional funds to continue doing those kind of offsets, but it's unlike, it's not, it's not a, there's no guarantee that that will happen. Okay. And Greg, was that the last slide? Nope. Okay. Then we got the, here's the pie chart that shows where each of the, you know, all of the dollars go. The police department is the largest chunk of that followed by public works. And then a general government, which is the select board, the manager, the management staff for all of our departments. And then beyond that it goes to culture and recreation, which is the library and parks and rec and then into much smaller chunks after that. This shows where each of the, you know, all of the, the estimated total tax for a $280,000 house would be 15, 1,595 and this shows where each of those dollars goes within the budget. And then Greg, I think that's, is that the last slide? Yes. Thank you. Right. All right. Thank you, Andy. With that, you will open it up for questions or comments on the budget on this article. So people can raise their hands and I'll recognize people in order of raising their hand. And I see the first person is up here. Thank you very much. So Andy, Suntop, if you can unmute yourself and go ahead and make your comment or question. And you have a multiple part question. Are we getting any funds from the federal government as part of the COVID relief? So what is that being used for? And if it's not being used for something that could reduce our taxes, why not? Cause it just seems like taxes are going up a heck of a lot more this year. If you could address that, please. Thank you, Andy. Andy would, other Andy, would you? Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think this, I think it's more appropriate for Greg or Margarita comment on that the select board has not yet. You know, addressed or dealt with the, any of those federal funds. And actually, I guess I should, I'll step back a second. So a lot of the, the. So I'm not sure, Andy, whether you're asking about ARPA money, which is, which is, or if you're asking about COVID relief money. And so some, some of the COVID relief money we certainly have gotten. That we're using to offset the tax. I think that's where a lot of that came from. There were a lot of expenses that we had this year that were reimbursable using that, that, that mechanism related to, you know, you know, expenses that we had surrounding or revenue losses that we had associated with COVID. And because of that, there were a lot of situations where we had expenses that we were reimbursed for. And so that's where we ended up with a, you know, a fairly substantial surplus this year and a fairly substantial portion of that is being given back to the taxpayers. That's where the 431,000 came from. Thank you. Thank you, Andy and Andy. Anybody else have questions or comments on this article? Looks like Sharon Irene has her hand up. Go ahead, Sharon, and ask your question. Sharon, Sharon, I don't know why my Zoom says Sharon Irene. I have a quick question about the, assuming the 1% increase in the grand list being a plus because it's my understanding that when the grand list increases, that means more people or more businesses and more taxes, the services to those new grand list people or businesses always exceeds the tax revenue. And I always hear this and I think an increase in the tax, the grand list really means more taxes for the town and across the board. Okay. Thank you, Sharon. Andy, would you like to answer that? Sure, I can respond. The, the reason it's mentioned is that it gives you a larger base for the, the taxes that need to be raised to be spread over. And, and, and, you know, to be, to, to be completely honest, Sharon, yeah, the reason that the Essex rescue had to add to the other ambulance is because of increases in population and changes in demographic. So, so yeah, there are, there are impacts associated with grand list increases, but it's mentioned here, the context with which it's mentioned here is that it's, it gives a larger base for the taxes that are being asked for in this budget to be spread to. Right. And probably that's something we should maybe think of down the road when we're encouraging more people, more businesses, more housing that every year, our budget goes up because of our increase in population. There, yeah, there have been discussions. There are, there will be discussions. I mean, we've had some very small, minor discussions, early discussions about impact fees and so forth that, but yeah, I understand too that if an impact fee isn't a one-time thing and taxes and service support are ongoing. And that's a different discussion. So I'll be quiet. Thank you. Yep. Thanks, Sharon. Thank you, Sharon. All right. It looks like a Zachary force here. This is the end up. Go ahead, Zachary. Hi guys. This is just a little like, a little off topic comment here, but I just wanted to point out when we're talking about increases in the size of the budget and the grand list that, you know, we do live in a system where our money is inflationary and this is again a very broad picture of thing, but I just want to commend the select board and everyone who works on this budget because 1% is in real rate, a smaller budget than it was previously in terms of its actual purchasing power, considering we've had, you know, 7.5% inflation of our goods. So I just, I just want to throw that out there because I know that the, the number is often scary when things go up, but the reality is, is wages also probably outpaced that in this area and, you know, All right. Thank you Zachary. Who else would like to speak? Any other questions or discussion? Okay. Is there any, do we have anyone on the phone tonight? It looks like it's a, from what I can see from the participant list. It looks like all people online. I don't see any phones. Last chance on article one. Anybody would like to speak. Okay. So I'm going to end the discussion on article one. Time check. It's 803. All right. So that will take us to article two, which is written on the ballot as. Shall the town of Essex authorize cannabis retailers and retail portions of integrated license. Licensee establishments in town pursuant to seven. So we can go straight to questions and commentary. From the, from the voters. Who would like to be the first person. Who would like to be the first person to speak to this? Please raise your hand. Anybody have any questions? Or comments on the article two about cannabis. Okay. Looks like Zachary force here has his hand up. Go ahead, Zachary. Sure. So obviously cannabis is kind of a new, a new legal thing for a lot of states in the country. And it's kind of something that people are dealing with differently in terms of regulation. And I, I am pro recreational cannabis, but I was wondering if there was going to be any increasing regulations in terms of, do we have any methods of, you know, testing people for, for THC when they're driving or any, anything like that. And additionally, I know that some, some businesses, especially a business that I work at is working to make restaurant menus, which in turn, either CBD or THC products. And I was wondering to what extent the, the recreational use would be for businesses like that? Like, would there be like a licensing system? Or so yeah, those are my questions. All right. Thank you, Zachary. Andy, would you like to answer that? Yeah, I can, I can comment on some of this. Zach, I think the, the, from the standpoint of. Testing individuals who might be, you know, potentially driving impaired. I think that's, that's largely, there are trained officers who through observation of individuals will make that assessment. And I think this isn't really something that the town has any, any say in. It's really the state level. Discussion about, you know, enforcement. Around that. And then to, to go on to your discussion about. Consumables. It's my understanding that there's no on premise. On premises consumption. It's only retail for use at home or. I don't know what those, you know, if there's restrictions on where you can actually consume it. I don't think you can. It's, it's. I'm pretty sure you can't do it in your car. I haven't looked at those, those, those regulations, but the, from the standpoint of adding. THC products to. Edibles in a restaurant. I don't think that's allowed. It's only takeout or only retail. Yeah. Sure. I appreciate that. That definitely makes a lot of sense. And it clears up some of those questions. And I definitely think that that makes sense that the state level and the police officers would be working to do things like that. I guess I must have a, I don't know, I don't know. I don't think that that makes sense that the state level and the police officers would be working to do things like that. I guess I must have a, a very, a liberal business owner that I'm thinking of in mind here, because he, he was, he was already preparing some, some specialty dishes himself because he's, he's obviously advocating for it to become something more like beer, where it's kind of, you know, a common place and, you know, consumed in different forms in different places. But yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Zachary. And I've got a credit, a question queued from Patricia, but I wanted a rep. Tanya. Did you have something you wanted to add to Zachary's question or before we go to the next one. Okay, go right ahead. So I'm on the house government operations committee and we are sort of actively in the process of working with the cannabis control board to really look at how we regulate and what that is going to look like. And then we're going to go to the next one. And we are talking about it. But at this point, you know, we're still sort of figuring it out. As you pointed out, it is really new and we do have a really great group of people on the cannabis control board, really informing us and guiding us. So could it be that down the road, that might be something that is possible? Maybe. I don't know. But at this point, chair Watts is correct. There is no availability for on-site consumption. So I think we have heard there's a, the cannabis control board came before us just last week, and we'll be back before us next week to talk more about sort of fine-tuning those regulations. And those will sort of continue to be fine-tuned as this is new and we're learning as we go. So I'm, Zachary, I'm happy to chat with you more. And I'm also happy to sort of send you the hearings and keep you informed as, as we move down that road. Sure. Yeah, I definitely appreciate that a lot. And I'm happy to be on it. And definitely, I mean, I'm not the most informed person on issues like this, but I definitely think part of it is probably technological and just in terms of testing people quickly because with something like obviously alcohol, it's pretty easy to just breathalyze someone and then figure out whether or not they're at a safe level. So, but yeah, I definitely appreciate that clarity. And I definitely would love to get more information going forward. So. I will pop my contact information in the chat so that you and I sort of offline at this point, scientifically, we don't have a great test for the cannabis stays in the system so much longer than alcohol. So there really isn't a really easy way to test for active intoxication, but we're certainly looking at that, but I will throw my email in the chat so you and I can talk more. Sure. Thank you very much. I definitely appreciate that. All right. Thank you, Tonya, for adding that in. So we've had some questions on raising hand on the bottom of your zoom screen. You should see something that says reactions and under reactions. There's a raise hand button that you can push in order to raise your hand and Patricia cracker. I saw your comment in the chat that you wanted to talk and so that works as well. So I'm going to give the floor now to Patricia cracker to ask your question or make a comment. Yeah, I realize that there are going to be. Age restrictions on this, obviously. But if this were to occur. Just the kind of availability will be a little bit. More so than before. And I'm wondering if there are any if they're planning. Any funding on public education. You know, specifically in our schools, because we're well aware that cannabis use and, and youth before the age of 26 can. Severely, you know, like a. Have heavy use can severely impair. An adolescent brain. And I'm just wondering how. We counteract that. Through education, parent education, community. And, and is there, is there any funding for that in this plan? Yeah, that's my question. Okay. Thank you, Patricia. Andy, I'm guessing that's more a comment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So there is funding set aside in the cannabis revenue stream. That is specifically meant to go towards education and prevention. That is one of the things when we looked towards tax and regulate, that we very intentionally earmarked funding. For exactly what you're talking about that, that kind of education and prevention. And Patty, to address your, your specific question about ages 21 is the. Is the. Legal age. For purchasing. Thank you very much. All right. Next up on the questions was our WD. If you could give your full name. And ask your question or comment, make your comment. Good evening. Roger Drury story. I wasn't able to fix that before I logged on. My question is, Mr. Moderator and to the select board is. It's my understanding that cannabis and marijuana. Remain on the federal schedule. A meaning that they're still federally legal. What protections does. Our town or. Even our state offer against federal prosecution. If someone is. Found guilty on a federal level. Can you take that, Andy? Roger, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. I don't know. If you are. Or somebody from town staff. Oh, go ahead. No, I'm certainly happy to weigh in. I mean, in other states that have legalized largely the federal government has stayed out of it, but. Realistically, if the federal government chooses to step in, it does have precedent over state law. So how can we responsibly. Declare it legal within the boundaries of our town. When it is illegal within the boundaries of the federal. Of the nation. Just one clarifying comment here. From the article being discussed. The select board isn't making it legal or not legal. We're saying. Can people sell it? The discussion is whether you can sell it in a retail establishment. No. So just to be 100% clear on that. The state of Vermont has already legalized. That's right. That's right. So that's not a town question. I guess it's my. So how does the town. Justify. Authorizing people to sell it. Then in that case, what protections does the town and the state. Offer our citizens. If they are selling it. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. So we don't, we don't offer protection to any business that does business in our town. It's up to the business owner to understand. You know, the regulations under which they're operating. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Right. The next person to speak. Thank you, Roger. Is Meredith. Ma'am. Hi there. I just wanted to add as a cannabis business owner. That it is as of right now. Federally illegal. And it is a responsibility that we as a business owner. Are taking. And I also just wanted to respond to a previous question about children and. Let people know that the cannabis control board has. Stated that there needs to be a guard at the front door. And then an ID check at the register as well. And that as a responsible business owner, we intend to work with public safety officials. If it does pass. To make sure that. Children don't have access and people understand the safety aspects of cannabis. Thank you. Thank you, Meredith. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. I see Patricia and Roger still have their hands up. I believe from before. And just as a general rule, I mentioned it in the beginning. We like to have, give everyone. In case there have a round two question. We'll try to give everybody that hasn't. Already asked question. The first opportunity. So before, so Patricia's clarified that she does have a new question. Does anybody have a. Question that hasn't spoken yet. That wants to. Go in ahead of Patricia asking her second question. Steve, I believe someone named Kendra has asked to speak in the chat. Oh, okay. I missed that. All right. So then I agree. Then we should go to Kendra. Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. Sorry, it's actually Adam Goodrow here. Okay. So I guess wanted to ask the question, whether or not there's any. Financial. Potential financial liability on the town's part, given that it is still federally illegal. I don't think so. I, I believe that all responsibility for. Following regulation falls on the business owner. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So I now see. Hubert Norton is a first time speaker. So I'm going to go with Hubert. Go ahead. Just. I was trying to clap my hands before rather than raise them. But anyway. It is too bad this whole COVID situation. We have to go to this. It's unfortunate that people attend these meetings. And don't turn on the video. I think it's important for people to. Be face to face. And. And speak to peace. That is the beauty of town. I think it's important for people to. Be face to face. And speak to peace. That is the beauty of town. I think it's important for people to. Be face to face. And speak to peace. That is the beauty of town meetings. And I do understand. The rationale for what we're doing here now. But anyway, I'd like to get that out. I do have a question. The article states. And retail portions of integrated licensee. Licensee establishments. Because someone described to me. That is a. An integrated lacy. Establishments and give me an example. Of what a retail portion of that. Licensee establishment might be. That's a new term to me. Thank you. Thank you. Can you answer that, Andy? Yes, I can. Integrated license. Involves. A growing processing packaging. And retail. So it's. Soup to nuts operation where the same businesses. Is doing. All are multiple pieces of a. Of the operation. And a retail establishment is simply retail. They purchase it from someone else and are selling it. And so the way. The way the, the state law works is the town can only regulate retail. Growth. Processing. Packaging all the, any, any processing that needs to happen to the product before it's sold. Is. Is, is dealt with through your zoning laws. And you, we can't restrict. Any of those operations other than with our own, with our standard zoning. And I'm, I'm curious as to what is the planning commission's. Position as far as making any adjustments to current zoning regulations. That might. Define. Where. Growers may. Do their business. And I'm curious as to what is the planning commission's. Position as far as making any adjustments to current zoning regulations. That might. Define. Where. Growers may. Do their business. Because indeed. If a, if a grower is allowed to operate in a certain area. And they are also if this passes and we are, and they are allowed to do retail, retail sales. I would think that would come into the, into the competition. What's the status of the, of the planning commission's actions here. If they're allowed to do retail sales, they're allowed to do retail sales. They have to have a license that allows them to do that. That license costs quite a bit more than just the, the retail license, but I guess I would, I would defer to. Perhaps Greg Duggan to address planning. The planning commission part of that question. Or if there's someone else from planning commission. Go ahead, Greg. The planning commission has started to have conversations about. How to do zoning with, with the retail cannabis. And that's really the, the primary way that. The town or any municipality would regulate cannabis in the community is through zoning, the retail portion of it. I don't think they've gotten too far too deep into those discussions yet. There are some regulations around at the state level. Retail cannabis operations have to be at least 500 feet from a school. So that's pretty much everything except for the retail portion is going to be regulated at the state level and, and establishments will have to adhere to state rules for a lot of that portion of it. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Greg. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Greg. And I think that. Ends that question. All right. So I don't see other, other new people coming to ask. And so I am going to go to Patricia Crocker's second round. Go ahead, Patricia. Yeah, my questions related along the lines of a couple other folks who, who asked about liability. My question is whether like the town has consulted with, with like their lawyers. I'm guessing that the town has some kind of insurance and whether that insurance. And I'm guessing not, not knowing for sure, but any kind of municipality I would guess has some kind of insurance and whether rates would go up if, if, if it was, if Essex allowed retail. Places for cannabis within the town. You mentioned that only the retail place would have liability, but what if somebody, for example, was in a car accident and was injured and the person had been, had purchased cannabis from a retail place. And for some reason that the insurance didn't cover that. Could the town be sued? Yeah. I'm still questioning. You seem a little uncertain. And I'm just wondering what kind of legal. Um, advisement was given around this. Thank you for your concern, Patricia. And just a reminder to only use the chat for asking to speak or where's like rep. Tanya gave her email address because she said needed it written down for people, which is, I consider official. So, and raise your hand if you want to speak. So anyway, so let's let Andy answer Patricia's question. I don't have the answer to that question. I don't know, Greg. I suspect that it falls in a similar category as alcohol sales with regard to the, the business owner that, you know, it's more difficult than this situation because there's no onsite consumption. So it's, you know, for example, if you went to Essex Discount Beverage and, you know, bottle handle of vodka and drank it at home and then drove your car, the Essex Discount Beverage has no liability there. It was your choice to do that. And so I think it's a similar situation for cannabis. Since there's no onsite consumption, there's no control over how people consume it or where they choose to do it. It's a personal liability and decision. I don't know, Greg, if there's anything else to say to that. No, but Patricia, good questions. Good concerns. We really have been looking to the state for guidance on this issue. And as far as I can tell, this hasn't been a concern for the state. As a municipality, we also looked to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns for a lot of guidance. That's a nonprofit group that provides assistance to cities and towns within Vermont. Again, as far as I'm aware, they have not raised concerns about this issue. So I just don't think it's something that really the state or towns have really raised as a problem or something that we need to be aware of. And I think Andy's right in speaking that it would probably be treated similar to an alcohol driving somebody driving on intoxicated with alcohol. I realize, you know, insurance, insurances are actuaries. So the more risks that you have, the higher your rate. So my question is regarding whether that's something that, you know, the town has insurance. And this, if this is a factor that could potentially raise the rate because of actuaries, I realize there's, there's alcohol being sold right now, but it's been like that for a while. But if you have an insurance policy and, and there's more risks, they usually raise the cost. So I would just like to know that that was looked into and planned for. We do, we get insurance through passive is the name of the, the firm. It's through the Vermont league of cities and towns passive is the insurance arm of the LCT. They are in good communication with us and our finance department and our manager's office about issues that might be coming up and our rates. This is not something that they have raised as a, as a potential concern or potential increase of rates. So I think that's a good question. All right. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Patricia. All right. The next person to speak is Ron Lawrence. Go ahead, Ron. Hi, this is Ron Lawrence. My only question is whether our. Police department or our police chief has. So yeah, it's my understanding that, that. There are some concerns that the police department has. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if Ron is actually on, on the call here. Perhaps he can comment, but the, you know, again, it's a, it's a, the state is making it legal. The only question here is whether it's right to allow it to be sold within it, within Essex. There are. Is it 20 or is it 40 communities that are voting tomorrow. On this question as well. So there'll be quite a few places that it's likely to be. It will be purchased, but. I don't know, Ron, did you want to comment on your, your specific concerns, you know, if there are specific concerns specific to, to Essex. No, my concerns aren't specific to Essex. I mean, I think I laid these out, you know, recently in the, in the guidance that was posted on the, on the town's website. And it's just the same concerns that we've had from the federal government. Of course, the federal government is also anticipating, you know, continuing black market. You know, obviously folks driving impaired is a, is probably number one on that list. Those are those are just some of the concerns that the police department of law enforcement still has over all of this. Thanks, Ron. Any other. Rep Tony, it looked like you wanted to say something. Are you good? All right. Right. So I think, I think we're good with. And at the moment, I don't see any hands raised. We have any other questions or comments? People a moment in case they're fumbling for the button. All right. So I'm going to move on. And it's now 831. So I'm going to move on from article two. And the other two parts of the agenda just so people understand. I'm going to talk briefly about article three. And then there's a public to be heard on other general topics. So article three. Is the election of the following. A moderator. Where there's one vacancy for a one year term. And the select board where we have three vacancies. We have two three year terms in one one year term. And we also have the Champlain water district commissioner. And we also have the Champlain water district commissioner. With one vacancy. For a three year term. And the voting people should have already received their ballots to. You know, turn in in person at this point, you can't, it's too late to mail or going to the polls, which are open at the middle school in Essex. For people outside the village and for the high school for people outside the village. So that's article three. And I hope everyone has either sent in their ballot or we'll be doing so tomorrow. In person. Or, or. In the drop box at the town office. And. Clerk Susan. Did I get all of that correct in case there's anything else technical? Yeah, just the only thing is the ballot box will be available overnight. It will come in in the morning after seven o'clock tomorrow morning voters, if they have their ballots, they'll have to take them directly to their polling place. Okay. Thank you for that addition. All right. So moving on to the next topic is. Public to be heard. So this is your chance to bring up general questions. Related to the town of Essex on, on any topic. Municipal related. And ask the select board. Comment or question. So we'll use the same procedure that we've been using to raise your hand. If you have comments that you'd like to make. We've got more, more questions. All right. We've got a hand. Select. We're member dawn. I don't have a question, Mr. moderator, but I do have a thank you for both Patrick Murray and soup cook. As this is their last town meeting for a year or so. And I'd like to thank them both for their service. Thank you very much. That's nice. Thank you. Perfect to share. We all appreciate your service and. Anybody else like to comment. It's like Charles co. Go ahead, Charles. Mr. moderator, following that same line, I would also like to recognize Dennis Lutz for his decades. Of service to the town of Essex. Dennis is an engineer and has always had the town of Essex. In his best interest in every decision he's made. And he has demonstrated what's best for the town. From our capital equipment plan to all of our roads and all of the strategic planning that he's done. He's paved the way for Aaron to take over a well established program. And I just want to thank him for his. Again, decades of service that he's given us. Yes. Thank you, Dennis. And I did like that just to add in briefly in the annual report. I just wanted to add in briefly in the annual report. What it was like when Dennis started in the town on. What was different? I found that very interesting. Good mark. Good marking in the passage of time. Stop your pencil. All right. Anybody else like to comment or question. Okay. Any last chance to. Make a comment. All right. Seeing none. And I guess we can't have motions, but I'd say I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. But it sounds like we can. So we need to adjourn. We need to adjourn until tomorrow. Right. That's right. Steve, you do. Sorry, I missed it. Thank you, Sue. Go ahead, Patty. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm going to miss Dennis too. We've only been here like six years, but I really enjoyed picking his brain and I've learned so much about Essex town because of him. I hope you're not a stranger, Dennis. I want you to still be around because if we see you around, I still want to pick your brain. Thank you, Patty. Anybody else. With that, we'll adjourn to the balloting tomorrow. And again, I thank you all for attending and having a very civil meeting with some good discussion and questions. Have a great evening, everyone.