 Set. All right. All set. All set. All right. So call the select board meeting for Monday, April 18, 2022 to order. First item on the agenda is agenda additions or changes, any changes from staff? Nothing from staff. Any changes from board members? Kendall, any changes? All good. Thank you. All right. Great. Okay. Then we'll move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is pointing the agenda where folks can comment, make comments to the select board on topics that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, I'm going to turn on participants so I can see. Raise either raise your hand in the. The zoom application or if you're in the room, raise your hand in the room. And please be brief. Please be civil. Please refrain from using an appropriate language address your marks, any remarks to me as like board chair. If you are attending remotely, please keep your microphone and your camera off unless you recognize speaker to avoid distraction. And so. Except for Kendall, if he could turn his on so he can participate. Oh yeah, Kendall. Can you turn your camera on so the folks can see you? Absolutely. I was kind of curious what the etiquette for that was. Yeah. Folks like to like to see us. Okay. So I see Mary post your hand is up. Hi, thank you very much. I'm glad that nobody wants to see me. What I want to talk about is Saxon Hill. And I'm just want to bring this up because I want to plant the seed, because I'll probably talk about it a lot. And that is that I really hope, I mean, I don't believe we should have hunting ever in Saxon Hill. In the recreation area anywhere there. And I've heard this to be true, but I don't know if it's true personally. I've heard that a lot of hunters come from Jericho because they're not allowed to hunt in Mills River Park. So they come to Essex and I don't think we should have hunting anywhere in where we have neighborhoods. So I'm hoping that the select board and whomever else has to work on this will please consider banning hunting. And I also would like it if dogs would have to be leashed in Saxon Hill Park. Also, there are a lot of people that are compromised with their health. Like if they're on a lot of blood thinners, they get hit by a dog act, you know, by a friendly dog. That could be really difficult for them. I know other people have spoken before about being afraid to be out in the public, but certainly I don't think there should be any kind of hunting being allowed in an area. Let people recreate there. Let people that don't have big pickup trucks where they can be anywhere to hunt. Those that need can only walk anymore because they're not driving the elderly. I would like that just to become a really nice walkable park. Thank you so much. All right, thanks, Mary. Any other public to be heard any hands in the room? See any hands in the room? I don't see any other hands any other hands online. So let's move to the first, excuse me, item of business, which is consider approval of first and third class liquor license. We're talking about Bramble, which is a new establishment that's either opening soon or already open. And I like to invite the folks involved with that to come up to the table and introduce yourselves and your business and tell us what it's all about and opportunity for you to showcase your efforts. Right now. Good evening, Peter Edelman, and I'm the owner of the Essex experience and Bramble is a wonderful new addition to what continues to develop and evolve out there. And very excited to have and introduce to you, Sean and Colleen, Sean Hire, Colleen Hunt, having had a lot of ties to Vermont. And we recruited them out of California. We got them to come back here to follow their dream and our dream and open up something that we're very proud of. And I believe you, you will too. So thank you for considering. Great. Wow. If you'd like to, if you'd like to introduce your business in yourselves. Yes. Hello, Sean Hire as Peter just spoke to myself and my lovely wife Colleen. Well, we are, you know, as Peter said, our ties to Vermont run deep. Colleen who grew up here and we've worked here and all of our family is here and we've called it home for years, no matter where we were. So we're very excited to come back and, and contribute and be part of this community and the community growth and coalition that's going on out of the Essex experience has been really. Exciting is, is, is not the right word. It's, it's just, I mean, it's, it's pretty, yeah, it's pretty amazing. So we're super excited to, yeah, so we've got a farm to table restaurants working with a lot of small farmers and producers, you know, we've distilled it down to, you know, we are micro seasonal. So we're involved from the seed up. So we're working hand in hand with, you know, some third and fourth generation farmers, whether it's Adams poultry farm or dandelion farms, growing stuff specifically for us. And then, you know, as fresh and local as possible, most things kissed by wood fire or smoke. We've got this really beautiful custom built wood fired oven as a centerpiece of the restaurant. Yeah, so, you know, again, we're super excited about everything that's going on out at the experience between, you know, black flannel and salt and bubbles and the events and the stages. And so, you know, we're just really grateful and lucky to be a part of it. Great. And I'm Colleen Hunt and the follow up on our space. We have a kind of an open-ish kitchen in the front, part of it's in the front and part of it's in the back to really kind of showcase and teach some of the things that we're cooking and be a part of the dining room instead of just being closed off in the back. So having, and hopefully to maybe start another culinary education program in the neighborhood because since Neckie has left, I think that's, that was a big draw for talented hospitality staff to, you know, around here and Burlington area, you know, that really brought in a lot of interesting people and folks and laborer and, you know, being people here. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, really we're, you know, really focused on developing a culture in our restaurant. Well, we want to take care of the guests and we want to be part of the community and we want a successful restaurant. One of the reasons we continue to do what we do is because we want to share what we've been so lucky to learn. And we have been graced with such a nice young, eager staff that again, we just feel super grateful to be able to share our talents and cultivate a culture that's positive and one where people can embrace that opportunity in front of them. Great, thank you. Any questions from... Can you explain your outdoor seating plan? Sure, so eventually we'd really like, if you know the space, correct? So eventually we'd really like to activate that backyard area right through there. So directly behind, we're on the corner unit. So a little grassy area back there. Eventually that's what we would like to do. But initially we think what we're going to be able to capitalize on is just a little sidewalk bistro type seating. So tables along both of our two walls of windows. And that's our stage one. But stage two, we would really like to move that bistro seating into the backyard and create something that's a little bit more corralled and a little bit more controlled. We have two-door access both into the front of the house and access from the kitchen out to that area. Yeah, we don't expect it to be huge, but we expect it to be a big draw. Everybody wants to get outside and in Vermont, I mean a day like today, I'd be sitting outside for sure. Did that answer your question? Any other questions? That was the only question I had a little bit of. In the reading, it says 60 seats along the windows of the dining room. That's outdoors, 60 seats. Those seats are outdoors, correct? And then on the very bottom, it says, or not very bottom, it's the next sentence. It says it'll be clearly defined the service level area. So I was just wondering if that's going to be like a nice rope or something fancy. I'm sure you're not going to rope some caution tape, right? Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I hope it's not caution tape. We know we would like to stanchion that off, right? So stanchion that off. The sidewalk is plenty large enough for us to share. We've got a large overhang as well. We just replanted a whole line of bushes as well to kind of keep us away from or separated from traffic and from the noise to make sure that not only the guests feel like they're in a bistro and not in a parking lot, but also to ensure that, you know, we lay that distinction between what's our dining and what's the pass through. And really, if you have an overhang and you have to push it at the sidewalk, separates from the sidewalk. Can I ask one more? Yeah, go ahead. What are your hours of operation? I think it's... Yeah. This says consumption time is 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. That is... I just thought consumption time at 10 a.m. to a little early. That was my... You thought what? Consumption time for 10 a.m. is a little early. Well, we do plan on eventually serving brunch. So, we would like to do that Sunday brunch. You know, we like that. And, you know, I can't speak for everybody, but I do know that there are several people that like mimosas at 10 a.m. Okay. Sorry. Any questions, Kanda? I'm just thinking that my wife likes the mimosas that people would catch. I've had a blade marry once. I was actually over there the other day looking for shoes for my mom next door. And I peeked in your windows and it's gorgeous in there. I mean, every table was set. It's a beautiful space. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to getting in there and some which leads to the next question is, are you open yet or when are you opening? We have done a little kind of soft openings. It's been very controlled. So, you know, we didn't shot from the rooftops or wave any flags. We didn't do any media blitz. We haven't done any advertising, you know, hence the questions on our hours. We don't even have them posted on the windows. We wanted to be able to open up just a little bit to kind of one, get our own legs underneath us and figure out, you know, figure out what the flow is, work out all of our kinks and try to minimize the people that we disappoint. So, you know, it's been really fun and we've been, you know, incredibly welcomed and so far so good. Everybody seems to have had a really great time. We will open in stages right now. Our plan is Thursday through Sunday evenings from hours of operation are about five to 10. We're taking reservations through 8 30 hour, but we haven't had anybody in there after 9 30. And then from there, we want to look at our Sunday brunch expansion and then from there, you know, as long as lunch and then from there, we want to open for lunch, open for lunch on Saturdays, try and, you know, help foster a little more daily traffic down through there. So I know our retail partners in the community would be very excited for that as are we. Great. So we typically put liquor license approvals in our consent agenda, but when it's a new license, we invite the proprietors to come and, you know, talk about their business. It's always exciting to have a new business join us. Do we need to do it? And so I do need to recite for you the admonition and I don't have it in front of me. I'll have to do it from memory. Something along the lines of the select board takes the issuance issuance of liquor licenses seriously. We expect you to operate under the laws of the state of Vermont and not to ask you not to serve underage individuals or people are obviously that had more than they should or ought to. I remember what else was in there. Thank you for bringing your business to Essex. So let's tell you that. And good luck. And I think I covered I'll go through it from memory. The heart and soul came through. And so it's a little little our agenda is set up a little funny because we have we're approving the rest of the liquor licenses and the consent agenda because there's a longer list of them. But I think we have the same motion for both. But so it doesn't matter. But does anybody have the motion? Read it. Anything for Stan? The police have reviewed the application. No issues and as Andy said, the first time applicants. So that's why you're here tonight and chance to introduce yourselves and welcome me to the community. Yeah, we tried to be as proactive as we possibly can and inviting all of the any bureaucratic association that has to kind of help us through and we've been asking questions all the way. Met with Jen Norton today as well. Yeah. So, you know, we just we want to do what's right. We just want to make sure that everybody's safe and, you know, help, you know, be a positive member of the community. Great. Great. Yeah. I make the motion that the select board approve the liquor license application for we're doing just this one, right? For Ramble. As listed in the April 14th, 2022. Mender and memorandum from police chief Hogue. Thank you. Thank you. You can do it. Second. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? I would just add that I am going to ask for this on most of you forward that you are current on water and sewer and tax bin. So thank you. All right. Thanks, Kendall. You know, further discussion, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Closed. Okay. Motion passes four zero. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Looking forward to thank you very much for stopping in and sampling your menu. Yeah, we look forward to having you. Yeah. Great. All right. Moving on to the next agenda item discussion of proposed water sewer budget rates and capital plan. Believe that's Dennis said that you today. Yep. Take care. More paper than I know what to do with. Yeah, Aaron couldn't be here tonight. You're stuck with me. I'll take it. The, I don't know how much you want me to go through. We've talked about it somewhat last week. So I don't want to go through line by line and try to explain the budget again. I do want to hit the high points just in case somebody maybe who's listening tonight wasn't listening last week, but I'm not going to get into a whole lot of detail. There are a couple of interesting things that I just quickly calculated that I want to talk about just in the sense of what we're going to be looking at just in terms of our rates going forward and just some alternate ideas that we want to throw around for the future and maybe have a particular consultant that we've used before take a look at that rate structure. I know the village did this a couple of years ago and just provided some alternate means of rates for the village and for the, well, not for the village anymore, but for the town just so you can look at them and see what the impact would be. And I'll give you an idea of one of the things that just came out tonight when I looked at it quickly. Let's deal with water first and the rate we're looking at for an increase is a 2.1% increase. I mentioned this last week, even though the budget went up 5.6% and that was mostly because of a water rate increase from Champlain Water District, their rate increase was 4.6%. And that's when we get into the budget, there are about half of our total costs for the water that we built to our customers. Why could we do that? Why were we able to lower the rates? We took a careful look at what our actual revenue figures were to back into that because if you look at what your and revenue in terms of user rates can equate back to flow. And we're trying to build that user number or that flow number from individual accounts and there's a much easier way to do it, which is you take your total income for the year and divide by your user rate and you get a pretty good idea of the equivalent users you have in your system. And by doing that, we actually found that we were kind of under accounting for our water flow was actually higher than we thought it was and that has an impact on where the rate is going to be set. It's a denominator in the equation. So it doesn't and we've tried to more accurately predict that. We want to see how this goes again next year. I think it's a good number but we'll test that and see where it goes. Sewer in the same way, there was a 7.6% increase in the budget line items and a 3.4% increase in rates. Again, most of that, the largest portion of that was a 10.38% increase in sewage treatment costs from the village. And that's caused by a number of factors. One is as a member of the Tritown, we are trying to set aside more funds for reserve, a little bit more each year. So that's up. Chemicals are up significantly this year and a third component of that and there may be some others that you can get into the details on but the third component of that is the separation with the change in village government and the change in positions and the change in how you allocate for those costs between their utilities and their other funds more got dumped into the water treatment plant. I mean, that's essentially it. It's not an unfair situation, it's just that's reality. And so this was another reason why we looked at what are the flows and can we use that to essentially influence the rate and get a lower rate increase but still meet all expenses and put away the right funds we have to put away and that resulted in that 3.4% increase. Sewer and Water Fund is on a pretty solid financial basis. We haven't had, if you go back into the 2010-2013 timeframe we were borrowing money to meet expenses. We haven't borrowed money since 2015. We've been able to meet all our expenses which tells me that it's solvent and we're paying our bills and we're meeting all our expenses and still putting aside money for capital improvements. So we've had no deficits in terms of our accounts. We're continuing to work on the water meters trying to get more of those put in, the new ones. There's not many left but as I said last week there's a lot of them that are problems that we have to deal with. We did do a significant effort this past year with an outside, we tried two different mechanisms. One we tried with Champlain Water District which quite honestly didn't work very well and that was to use satellites to identify where we might find leaks in our system. We chased that down and they found some areas. Some communities found a few leaks. I think maybe they found one but it wasn't really accurate enough. We chased probably a couple dozen sites down to find yes they were wet but the water system was not leaking in those areas and we actually hired a company to check. We then subsequently hired another company or the same company through the state to go through and do basically line by line checks by listening, putting remote devices on the system and trying to identify where there might be leaks. We found a fair number that way. A lot of them were household links between that main and the house meter and a lot of people are not aware of it. If they're in very sandy soil and they've got a slow leak in their incoming pipe you may not see it until all of a sudden frost goes deep and then the ground the water starts to spread out of the ground and you realize we have a leak. So we found some of those. Aaron's not here. He handled that but I think we did about a third of the town. We're going to continue that to summer, pick up another third and about every three years just rotate that to go back through to see if we can pick up any of the losses that we can actually account for and then get revenue back for. So that's important. Right now our water rate, water loss rate, I shouldn't say that loss. It's not always a loss. It's unaccounted for water is about 10% and sewer is about 8.2% which are really within the range of fairly good system compared to national averages. On page six of the budget analysis we kind of go through the budget comparisons and this is kind of the sheet that I just want to talk to you a little bit about and that is... Dennis could you hold on a minute, ours aren't numbered. Yours aren't numbered. Okay, it's the budget analysis sheet on the budget, the narrative portion where it shows the water costs for 2022 FY22 and FY 2023 water split into three accounts three categories. The way I've split it up is all but Champlain Water District. So that's basically the cost to run our system. There's not a lot of costs in that water cost that aren't fixed costs. There may be a few but it's labor. It's equipment. It's the normal stuff that whether you take a drop of water out of the system or not you've got to run the water system. Depreciation, again that's a fixed cost. We're trying to put away that into a sinking fund. The CWD water purchase is directly related to how much water we buy or conversely we use. So if you look at those numbers the budget came out to be for water $1,449,000. About half of that is CWD. So that's $745,000. So without trying to do any fancy math quickly running that back the other half about $740,000 would be considered fixed costs. So if you have fixed costs in your system and you spread that equally among all the users and let's say we have 3,300 users again it's plus or minus just rough numbers that I did in the pad. That's a base fee of about $224. So when we talked about the minimum and charging $190,000 that $224,000 would be a base. And under a lot of systems the way they charge now they'll charge that base to all the customers and then charge a cost for what you're using. Now the cost for what you're using would go down. From right now the proposal is $5.90 per gallon. Because you're taking half of those costs out figure half that cost roughly in terms of a rate. Half that cost if somebody's using a minimum single family single person 75 gallons a day that amounts to about another $75. So if you're really talking a minimum based upon just our fixed costs that we have to pay and a rate charge it would go to a very minimum water use you're talking in the order of $300. Our minimum we're charging is $190. So that's why I think it's time to have a look at our system because in some respects that $190 is getting a great deal and in fact in some of the cases the larger water users may be helping to subsidize that lower cost. You know is that fair? I don't know I mean I'm not trying to say one is fair not fair but it's worth looking at to at least say let's look at some alternate rate structures. There's a lot of ways to do it. That's kind of the two extremes. There's a lot of ways to do it. But at least for today's work and for this year's budget that minimum rate charge to me is more than a fair charge for that fixed cost that takes us to run the water system. That's an envelope calculation while sitting here but I thought of that and I said I wanted to share that with you so that's that calculation. Sewer is similar. We've got about $550,000 in costs then you get depreciation, bond payments a village bond payment and again we've got about a $1.6 million total budget and of that those treatments about $667,000 but then you have to add electricity for our pump stations and a lot of other miscellaneous so that number would go up but probably that's the fixed cost there are probably more than 50% to run the sewer system. That involves us cleaning the sewer lines in the summer fixing breaks, you know, whatever whatever the case may be. So again it's something just maybe to put in the back of your mind that we ought to at least look at that and come back to the board and say here's some alternate rate structures what do you think? If you're happy with the one we have we go with it if you next year if you want to do another option there's some other options you might be able to look at we do that before it came to this time of year we do that or Aaron would do that to do a report up and show you what's out there. The methodology for the rates is similar as we've done in the past we take the total water budget which in this case is $1,449,120 divide that by our anticipated flow and that flow is up in the couple years we've based it on other numbers this year we're basing it on 600 user selling approximately 672,000 gallons worth of water and that works out to $5.90 per thousand gallons obviously if you had a lower flow number on the denominator higher rate so by essentially accounting for a more accurate picture of what we've actually been selling we've been able to keep that rate down lower this year and it's exactly the same thing in sewer we did ask for a minimum rate increase we did ask for a small increase to the connection fees if we're going to be charging an additional to rate payers the connection fees kind of ought to go up somewhat in comparison to that so there's a balance there for the annual user it is water and sewer is a relatively inexpensive utility and I say relative when you compare it to your cable your cable bill electric bill gas bill none of them even come close and yet for us it's still a lot of dollars and the sewer bill if you were on both sewer and water an average single family household would be charged about $1180 which is a yearly increase for this year of about $33 so it's not insignificant but if you divide that number by $12 you're roughly $100 a month give or take some and there aren't many utilities they're going to even come close I mean I'm always shocked what my cable bill is for what we get but that's a separate issue that I can't deal with but we also what we provide to is I think excellent service we respond to when there's water breaks some of the best in the country and so those are all things that add up to essentially a good water system and solid financing if you have any questions I can go through and answer them but that's about it on the budget I have a question on the electricity bill for the sewer I understand it's the pump stations anything that can be done with solar that could cut down those costs not all the buildings that we have well there's one building but it's very small it's down on River Road I suppose we could put solar in the building but it's not going to do much I mean that's a huge pump station pumping a lot of flow and a lot of head in the overall budget you wouldn't hardly see it I would imagine at this point the payback that might be in the order of 20 years or more and the other pump stations are all in-ground pump stations on very small parcels of land it's not like they're sitting on a parcel that's 100 acres you could say let's put a solar panel field behind it and get it to pay for itself I was just curious because the cost was so much the costs are very expensive that's one of the reasons why we would very much like to look at later in the capital plan redirecting some of our wastewater so that it goes by gravity into the village from essentially the town center area or a lot of it as opposed to pumping through the Lang Farm pump station the names we give them Heritage pump station Alder Lane pump station all the way down to River Road Alder Brook pump station all the way up to the village when the town center area if we can get the village to agree and the board to agree with SRF money put another pump station and direct a lot of that flow in a different direction so that we don't have to improve those we're not pumping it through that entire system you don't have to improve those other pump stations we can basically save that future electrical cost instead of swirling it just goes straight down the drain just goes straight down so it makes a lot of sense to do that we're at that point where the town center plan pointed that out that was the sewer study we did for that but also Lang Farm is approaching capacity so if we're going to make that let that area grow we've got to put that additional waste someplace and our hope is we can get it through at least less costly expensive proposal any other questions I got a quick question about something I was reading down through the other night I made a note for sewer treatment underlying item 151 151.30 412 or something and in there there's part one and part two what's with the water sewer and there's a there's an agreement in there I don't know if it's an agreement it says it's a provision and it says the agreement goes back to the early 1980s but it's about cost sharing with the village on certain sewer infrastructure now is that infrastructure only the infrastructure that our sewage is blowing through or is that the whole system and most of it is on the west side of town Susie Wilson the Susie Wilson old pump station is at the corner of Susie and 15 kind of hidden you go around the corner and it's there if you look for it that pump station serves about 8 or 10 houses in the village or buildings it serves all of Susie Wilson road for us it serves our Fort Ethan Allen pump station which all goes through that pump station so we actually pay a majority share of the cost of running that pump station because it's mostly our flow that then goes on to the west street pump station and then the west street pump station gets it into the village so we pay for a portion of the lines we're using the portion of the flow that goes through it's also in the same on the other side where we tie most of the lines coming from the east side down by River Road that large force vein and the lines that cut into the village really only go through a short distance of lines in the village but again it's partially our cost and their cost so we figured out the proportional flow between village and town and that payment gets made to the village every year in addition to our cost to treat Wilson because they're part of the tri town is different because their flow comes from the pump station across the river right to the treatment plant so there's no shared lines for Wilson there is for the so when we set up the agreements way way back the agreement the two agreements one to treat and one to share costs on lines that are shared and that's what that extra cost is that you see in there it just it just re sparked my memory when you were talking about swirling it and sending it straight down through here you know just like it'd be an easy sell to hey we already pay you know I know you have to prove it through the board but to the consumer or the payer just say you know we're already sharing cost on all of our lines that we share so it's you know what's the savings going to be on the pump station compared to what do you know if you're going to save $20,000 in electric and it's only going to cost you $10,000 to use this line you know it could be some huge saving but there could be a saving there yeah yeah just thinking about it when you there isn't a lot of choice there isn't a lot of roots now because most of the area along the roots of the sewer line are fully developed so if we were to you know for example put in our own pump station and bypass the village system I don't think I think we'd run the numbers and find that it wasn't cost effective it'd just be too bloody expensive today right and yet any other board member questions can we get anything yeah I just have a comment that I think that the town is being very conservative with their rates it's kind of weird because I work in a town where the rates are quite a bit higher than Essex and Essex is very very fortunate the average bill that Venice talks about is actually double what they use in Richmond I mean so when I look at the minimum of like $518 I think it was both water and wastewater minimum that's pretty inexpensive but I'm also sensitive going forward that I think conservation and conserving and reasons to conserve is going to be very important and the rates the way they are now I don't see a huge incentive because all those people that use less than that they really can't do anything to affect their water if they want to bill so there's really any incentive there and I would think that maybe there would be something that we could do to shift some of the costs there was more of a conservation ethic if you would plus a lot of those minimum folks I'm sensitive the fact that they're out to be our most disadvantaged population they really can't really do too much and they have fixed incomes that money is very very tight and it would be nice to see if that's my comment thank you Mr. Chair I do I had one of the things back to your question electrical technology is amazing today we're talking and Tom just texted me a message and he was talking to Aaron and if Aaron was here he would know also but there are some things you can do with the pump stations and Tom are looking at that and one of the things you can do you don't want to have wastewater sit in your pump stations very long I mean obviously if it sits there a long time it's pretty septic by the time or can be and pretty odorous by the time it gets to the plant you don't want that but at the same point and maybe not septic but essentially in a position where it's taking a lot of oxygen that you don't want to get out of the system so but there are some we each one of our pump stations has storage tanks adjacent to them so it may be that what you can do is use some of the more modern batteries if you would to store some of the energy so you're not pumping necessarily during the peak hour of costs but that you have to get really clever with doing that and have some pretty good skater controls on it so that you don't let wastewater sit in your farthest pump station for six or eight hours because you're trying to save a dollar on electricity you've got to make that balance that says well maybe we can do some of that and then pump in the peak off peak hours maybe using some other maybe some of the battery power or other things that you might be able to utilize to just help overall look at those costs and maybe you do save some and maybe it's not a lot but if it's 5 or 10% it's worth looking at so there are some things that are going on that we didn't know about but the people work for me know about and that's what's important so thank you great thanks any comments or questions from the public question put your hand up yeah zoom out so what is it we're asking for I'd like to make the motion that we warn a public hearing for the fiscal year 2023 regards to our budget and rates and capital plan for a 6.35pm on May 2nd, 2022 thank you Don do I have a second okay so did we do we need to prove before we get how does what's the sequence of events here No, we'll be warning the public hearing and then after that after the public hearing is when you approve and then approve this. I don't believe we'd ever do that. No, no. And again, we really don't have to go through the in process. We're just doing that really because we think it's good to do and keeps the public involved and allows them in a formal process to be able to provide input. Legally, you could come in and look at this tonight and say, approve the budget and we're off and running. But that's not how we've done it probably for the last 10 years, so. Okay, any other discussion? Okay, so this is a vote to warn the public hearing. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And unless I saw your mouth move, didn't hear you. Aye. Okay, motion passes 4-0. Okay. Great. And then we'll move on to the so does that cover E and C? Does. The only thing I didn't cover in that is the capital plan, so I didn't know if you wanted me to just talk about that for a few minutes because that's again, the capital plan is something that doesn't have to go through the budget that whole entire budget process. But we do have funds to be able to do that. And I think I know Courtney, if Courtney is on, I think she is. I know she wants to talk a little bit about that just because of the way we've accounted for those funds and how what we believe the board should do in terms of how those funds are designated. We have a significant amount of capital funds set aside, but not designated. And that's, we'll get to that in a minute. But we're counting on those funds to essentially do some of our capital projects. And some of these you're really familiar with, I'm sure. One is the, and I'm just going to run through them. Town center water line, you know about that, it's up by the town center. The Sand Hill water line, that's the one that we talked about at the intersection of Route 15 because of the state project. One of the things that we want to look at and at least do a preliminary study and maybe talk about is one of the longest lines that we have in town that's a dead end line is going down Tanglewood Drive. And there's a lot of residents down that drive. We had a problem about two years ago with a water break out on Sand Hill where people were out of water for quite a long period of time and notification is difficult. It would not be out of the range of what we could afford to put a separate service line off of Sand Hill Road, come through Sand Hill Park and attach to one of the lines in Tanglewood, which would provide us a dual feed to that development so that you have the capability that if there's a break or a problem, you'd at least be able to get water to some of the residents. It could also come off the line that comes off of Foster Road down by the school, down into the gully if you will, and back up a little harder to construct. But that's possible to do also. And then you can feed it at both ends of the system. The one off of the school is I think better because it comes at the tail end and you've got it being fed from two directions then. It improves the water quality. It's not so long in the pipes. But the biggest thing is if there's a break, you've got a way to keep people in water. So that's worth looking at. We want to continue with the leak detection survey. We want to take a look at the hydrants, not just the ones that need to be fixed. And we're doing that actually now and replaced. But do we need to take a look at all our hydrants and take a look at the older ones and maybe start a replacement program for those, or at least to pull the guts out and replace the guts of them so that that's working. Forty Ethan Allen. Forty Ethan Allen is an old water system, as you know, that goes back to the early 1900s. Most of the pipes are cast iron and they're in pretty good shape. But they also are what we call tubercular inside. Cast iron pipes will have, essentially have a growth that grows inside them. And what you lose is you lose the efficiency of those pipes. So it might start out as an eight inch pipe, might be giving you a four inch flow. And a four inch flow might be giving you a two inch flow. And that affects the pressure in the entire system. It also provides the interior of those pipes to collect stuff. So when you're flushing them, you know, you just, it's not as an ideal as you'd like. We have done a lot of work in there, replace some water lines. We need to look at which lines need to be replaced. There's another piece of that. I don't know if we've done that as a separate, no, it's tied to that mostly. One of the things that we have to do, there's a new rule that's come out, lead copper rule from EPA. And by October of 2024, I'm not sure if it's the 16th or 24th. But anyway, by that date, everyone across the country has got to investigate their water service lines, looking for lead. We have been lucky in the sense that CWD adds material to the water system to essentially provide those pipes from being corrosive so that you don't get any leaching off the pipes. But what they want us to do in this first period is to identify where you might find those pipes. And so there's a period of time when copper, the soldering was no longer lead. Developments were built after that time are considered safe. People just weren't using lead solder. So they're fine. And a good part of the town is fine. Let's go back to the fort, 1900. What was constructed there? Some of those lines we envision are probably galvanized service lines, which would fall into that category of you've got to identify them as a potential source. That doesn't mean they are. It just means you've got to identify them. That's a lot of fieldwork to be done. In fact, you have to do that thing. We have to look at all the water hook-ons in the entire town and identify where those potential service lines might be an issue. Ultimately, it's going to be up to community to replace those lines. So we need to look not just at the main lines in the fort, which ones are deficient, but also look at the service lines. And so that's one of the things we want to get going on right away because we have a permit requirement that says by that date, you've got to complete your investigation. And it doesn't say you have to fix them by that date, but you've got to identify what needs to be fixed. And once we identify what needs to be fixed, we have to assign a cost to it. That's one of the things under the federal funding that they just provided for water systems that they're providing a significant amount of money for to essentially go in and do that. But again, everybody across the state has to do the same thing. And everybody is going to be looking for the same dollars to essentially fix problems. It's not, we've gone on record so far that we don't believe we have problems at the fort. And I honestly believe that from the times we've excavated and dug. But with that older system, you have to do the checks. So that's one of the reasons why we want to recall that 40th and Allen asset replacement. So it may be some lines over time. We wouldn't do them all at once main lines, and it may be some service lines. It's interesting that they're more understood in the service lines than the main lines. So the main lines for us are more of a flow problem. The lead and copper is more of a service connected problem. So we got to look at both those. They're two separate issues. The service lines run directly into the houses, right? Yes. That's right. Yeah. And you can learn a lot. We're going to have to go and inspect. You can learn a lot by just going to the basement of the house or the facility and look at what's there and you can determine what type of material it is. And that kind of gives an indication, okay, that's one we may have to replace. One of the things we are doing, and Aaron's taking a lead on this with Colchester is Colchester is looking to redo a lot of those buildings in the fort. And one of the conditions that we've provided to Colchester is that any structure over there that's rebuilt or rehabilitated as part of their plan to invigorate the fort has to have new water service lines installed. So we're trying to anticipate that that's the developer's cost. If they're going to move in and take it over and take an empty building and make it usable, that's great. But at the same time, new service lines. And Colchester has agreed to do that. So that's just a follow-through. So some of that problem may be taken care of just by what occurs in the development side of things. Sewers, communications upgrade we're working on. That's one, pump station controls upgrade. Painesville Gravity Sewer Project. That's a sewer project that goes back a very long time. And some of those lots over there are very small and they're unseptic. And we've not had sewage flowing across the ground. But it's an issue. And we've tried, I think, on at least three different occasions to get that funded. And unsuccessfully because the user costs were too high. We do have a set of design plans for a portion of that neighborhood with the smallest lots. We're going to upgrade those plans and see if it's possible to get SRF funding for that project and figure out what that cost might be. It might be a one in a lifetime opportunity to get SRF funds, spend the local dollars, and essentially fix those potential problem areas as far as future septic tank failures. There's not much room in those lots to put them if they fail. So far we've been lucky, but you've got to anticipate what might happen and go after it. So that's an important project. There's a web-based payment portal that we've looked at. I think it's called Smart Water. I know Courtney was involved with Sarah. We were going to get into it a more Sarah left. I know Courtney's been busy and we want to talk more about that as well and provide more information to the board. But it's a user-based system where customers can get a look at their system, look at their meter, look at what the water they're using. And with that, essentially provide information to us in terms of what's going on within their system. Some people maybe don't like that in terms of electronics and big brothers, so to speak. But it's a system that would essentially help users. It also would help us on the other end if people are willing to give their contacts, if we had a water break, it would be easy to send messages out to those people to identify there's a water break in your neighborhood. Here's what's going on here when you're going to be expected to be back in line. So there's some real advantages to it. We want to look at it more closely. It's not a very expensive program to buy, to purchase, but it takes a lot of work to put it in place. So that's something again we want to look at with this. We're going to look at the Fort has never been a part of the sewer allocation for the town and yet it's a part of our system. We have capacity in this system, we think to include that. We've always treated the Fort as what was there before we were going to replace. If a unit had the equivalent of 10 apartments in it and somebody comes in and wants to put in six apartments, it's fine. If they want to put in 12 apartments, it's fine. If they want to put in 100 apartments, we have an issue because there's not enough capacity in the system. So over time buildings have been vacated, buildings have been changed, daycares have come in, whatever. We've kept track of that, but we want to set up part of a town's allocation system to include the Fort so that we can provide that information to the town of Colchester, to their planners to say you have this allocation in the Fort. We're not going to be looking at what you're doing to allocate. We want the numbers, but it's your business to allocate that flow among that body of users. So when you do your planning for new development, we're not on the phone every other day talking about the capacity and, you know, they can manage that, but they have to know what number to manage. So that's part of it. The other one is the Langfarm Pump Station, and that's about it. I don't know if Courtney wants to speak up now, but there is about a million two that we've got designated for future capital expenses, and then there's over three million in unrestricted capital funds, and that's that three million is the item that Courtney wants to, and I agree on that we want to have at least a portion of designated. Yes. So if we go back to the presentation of the FY 21 financials, we had the net position for the water and sewer fund coming in at just under 8.7 million. Of that 4.3 million is net investment in capital assets. So that's assets that we already own, less any debt that's outstanding for those assets. And then we have about one million or so that was designated for capital assets. And how we come up with that number is we add any excess revenue from the hook on fees. So the developer fees that Dennis had spoken about in the previous meeting. And then we reduced that amount by the capital that has been expended during that fiscal year. And so that's where we derive the designated for cap future capital. However, that also leaves us with about three point little less than 3.4 million in unrestricted. And so similar to our general fund balance policy, we would like to designate any excess of 15% of the current operating budget to designate that for capital. And so that moment will likely be coming in the next meeting. But just to give you a heads up of, you know, it's just a little bit of a housekeeping item to just make sure that we have those funds designated for future capital because as Dennis has explained, there's plenty of projects out there that could use the funding in addition to what we already are doing when calculating the designation for future capital. So that would mean that we would designate an additional three million, so 2,947,000, leaving about 441,000 in unrestricted. So again, it's just very close to mirroring the general fund balance policy, but just making sure that those funds are classified appropriately in the net position and we'll likely continue to do that going forward when we get those final numbers from the audit. So just kind of an overview of what you can expect for a request in the next meeting as far as getting those funds actually designated. So they're in the net position, but we just like to move them over so that way it's clear that they're for future capital. Would you need to use those funds as matches for your grants? Yes. Yes, and especially as we, I mean, the initial work that's probably done in the next year is going to be mostly planning, designing, getting better costs, all those kind of things with these projects. But at some point, we do want to go after SRF funds to build some of these projects. And to do that, we will, you know, that amount of matching funds will build, get a lot of this infrastructure done. And so it's important to have that available, and not just for now, but for the future, because, you know, this is today's list. And lead and copper, like I said, is high on EPA's list. I can't tell you what it's going to be next year. I don't think anyone knows, but history has been that, you know, if it isn't this, it might be PFOAs or it might be other things that they're going to go after that at some point in time, we're going to have to figure out ways to fix our system. All right. Any other questions? Excuse me. I would just speak up and say that there are significant funds available for village wastewater initiatives right now. And I kind of made the offer to make a motion with the last meeting and Jess, but I do really think it's important that if Dennis wants to start moving on this, that we should let him move on it as soon as possible, because there's a ton of projects coming up in a shortage. And I think the state's going to be looking for places to put that money. So I would just throw that out there as an option. Thanks, Kendall. The only correction I'll make is it'll probably be Aaron. All right. So let's see. Any comments from the public on the capital discussion? Don't see any hands up. All right. So Patty Davis. Patty Davis, go ahead. Hey, Dennis, you're awesome. I just think that the townhouse, you guys have always, you've always really cared about our capital plan in this town, even before we moved here. That's, you've just been so organized. And I think we do have to jump on all of this because of the SRF funds that you were talking about at the last meeting, because I researched that a little bit. And like Kendall just said, and of course he works on the water systems over in Richmond that, yeah, go for it. I think we should go for it. Just decide and say, move that money into capital and do it. I think it's great. You really care about the environment and the town of Essex at following the EPA rules. And we just have to get the developers coming into our town, even in the town center, to go a little green. So thanks a lot, Dennis. All right. Thanks, Patty. So, Don, the motion that you made before, you included both, did you include the capital plan in here? Let me see what it says. Because you read what it said, right? It says, yep, silver budget rates and capital plan. Okay. So we did a little bit out of order, but I think that's fine. Yep. Because it's just discussion. So, okay. All right. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you. Then let's move on to the next agenda item, which is consider approval of the American Rescue Act election of standard allowance. Thank you, Marguerite. It broke it. That's right. All right. It broke it. Okay. I think this is, we'll come up with this one now. Right. Right. We're there. Here we are. Okay. So, yeah. So, we are going to talk about ARPA funding in Essex, which is very exciting. But the first thing I will say here, and it's also in my last slide, is so tonight we're not going to talk about how we're spending, which is the like really exciting part. We're just going to talk about how to get the money and the funding mechanism, which is important, but maybe a little less cool. So, just, yeah, just so like everyone knows, we're going to, we are going to have those discussions. I thought it was kind of cool. I'll try to be as entertaining as possible. Some of it's a little dry, but we'll, we'll get through it. So, the focus, again, is just sort of treasury and how, you know, it works through the state and through then to local municipalities and how that funding is going to happen. So, yeah. So, just first for a little background, I hear no print. Okay. So, on January 6, 2022, the U.S. Department of Treasury released the final rule for state and local fiscal recovery funds, which is that SLFRF that you see out there, that acronym enacted as part of the American Rescue Plan. So, that's the ARP of the ARPA that you see, which delivers 350 billion in pandemic related aid for state and local government. Vermont is receiving more than 1.25 billion of those funds. While the state legislature and governor get to decide how to spend more than a billion of those, of that funding, 200 million of it is going directly to Vermont cities, towns, and villages. So, that is where we come in. The town of Essex is a non-entitlement unit of government and EU, which is the acronym you'll see for that. Often in non-entitlement units of local government, defined in section 603, G5, Social Security Act. And if you want more on that, you can contact me, but we don't mean to go through all that now, but that is how basically any EUs include cities, villages, towns, townships, or other types of local government. So, that's kind of the verbiage that we want from that that's the most important. Let's go over a little bit of the local ARPA totals. So, the town of Essex, and that's just the town of Essex that this does not include any village funding here, received about 1.6 million in August 2021. And it will receive its second portion of that total, just about 3.3 million in August of this year, 2022. And then over here, just sort of some of the other totals that are around at one point and in other states, lots of one states that have a lot of county government, their counties also got a bunch of money, but that was just in case folks are wondering that has been distributed into our local municipalities here in Vermont due to the way that our county government is not quite not structured the same as many other states the way that federal government thought. So, that does that's a question that comes up in that money that we have received includes includes that original lot. So, the final rule. So, the final it was ARPA is implemented through the final rule, which was issued by Treasury on January 6 2022, which is replacing the interim final rule, which is what we were working with. And basically, it lays out a lot more detail they took in a bunch of comments during the interim and they actually listened and made some changes and cleared some things up and then also laid out the timeline for how and also when funds need to be allocated and spent. So, that's what this timeline is here. And so you'll see every year, even regardless of if we spent any money, which we've not spent any as of yet, but we still owe a report in on April 30 of this year and all the way through till 2027. However, all of the funds need to be obligated by December 31, 2024, and then spent by December 31, 2026. So, that's why the last report is in 2027 of April. Yes. So, and I'm sorry, this isn't more legible. I tried to look for a good image, but so I laid them out here in a little bit bigger font here. So, these are the seven categories that the final rule gives us. And if you want to see kind of way more of the details, you can go to this PDF here, basically this link. So that can you can look into all the nitty gritty details, but it gives you all the sub categories there. And you can kind of explore a little bit of what those are. And so the seven categories overall, public health, negative economic impact services to disproportionately impacted communities, premium pay, infrastructure, revenue replacement, and administrative. Those are the seven main categories. The category that we want to focus on is category six, and that is revenue replacement, specifically category 6.1, which is revenue replacement for provision of government services. So essentially that was something that was one of the biggest changes that came through with the final rule is that Treasury is now permitting recipients to determine the amount of revenue lost due to the pandemic, either according to a formula or by claiming a standard allowance of up to 10 mil for the entire performance period. Therefore recipients are now permitted to use that amount to fund government services. So before during the interim rule, we had a nifty little formula and calculator with that, which actually I think, you know, VTGFOA and VLCT worked on to help pounds figure out how to use. And I think Sarah helped with that at some point, Stephen, and it was a bit cumbersome and it definitely for Essex was not going to come close to our 3.3 million, basically for that if we were to use that calculator. But now essentially with this new provision here, if as long as your award is 10 million or less, you can use it all for this 6.1, which is the provision of government services. And so that's the biggest difference. Essentially, you need to, you just have to claim it, which is what I'll get to in a minute, but essentially whereas before we would have had to, you know, really go through and figure out where we could use these funds, which categories they would lie in, make sure that we could just as sort of Dennis was talking about as well, like that we could line up all the projects to make sure they were spent, et cetera, et cetera. Now you can claim it. If you make this a revocable election and just make sure that that's how you use all of your funds, which allows you to have all of this flexibility to use it. However, you know, within the grant is allowed, however that that would fit for the town. So that's why we can wait to have those cumbersome spend it as well. It's because if we make this one time election, it really just gives you that flexibility in the time you need to sort of figure out also to let the state figure out what it's doing with its budget and how it's going to feed those funds as well. So basically, in order to do this, as I've said, this is what we're recommending tonight. And this is what's on your memo. So it's the that all any use, including the town of Essex must make this one time a revocable election to either utilize the revenue loss formula or the standard allowance by April 30th, 2022. So that's the part that is kind of new. And it came through when they came out with the reporting guidelines and regulations in the beginning of April. So essentially, it was, we didn't know that it was going to have to be done that this election was going to need to be made this year, even though we hadn't spent any funds yet. So that's, and you have to do it this year, in order to make sure that you get all those funds and be are able to use them under the 6.1 that category of provision provision of governmental services. So that's why we're here tonight a little earlier than we thought we would be for the next meeting, but we'll be back to talk about all of that soon, the spending part of this. And essentially, this is for getting ahead of myself. But essentially, this is the recommendation of VLCT. This is the recommendation of VTGFOA as well. You know, it's really what they're telling every town, municipality, village to do because it does give you that flexibility. You know, if you wanted to spend in categories A, B, C, or D, you now have basically an E bullet that says all of the above. And that's the one we want to check tonight. And in order to do that, we need to make this election. It's not legal that we need the select board to do it. But again, sort of as Dennis says, our best practice here is that we allow that it's transparent. And we would love for that and for that to be kind of the way we go. I guess just a little bit, as I've said, this is not affect how we spend it. I just want to reiterate that. We're going to have conversations about that to come where we will be talking about those things and sort of discussing them and making sure there's public input and those types of things. But it will allow us to not have to spend any, you know, all of that time on the cumbersome reporting. And it will give us that flexibility and time to figure out what will be best and how to spend our money the best way that would work for Essex. Yeah, I think that that's pretty much my spiel for this evening. Well, I like the idea, I agree that it would be less paperwork and time for Courtney and her staff. Yes, exactly. I mean, it cut more than cut that in half. It looked like the difference in the reports. Yes. Are there other questions? Courtney, would you like to speak? I see two thumbs up from Courtney. Are there other questions or Courtney? Yeah, what did I miss? Do you want to add anything? No, that was just a great overview. I mean, it doesn't diminish any opportunity. It just lessens the restrictions and then bonus on the lesser reporting as well. So there's really no downside to making this election. And that's been kind of reiterated to us as staff to outside parties that are presenting on this topic is that for town that's receiving under 10 million, you know, there's no there's no reason not to make this election in, you know, the recommendations that we received. Yeah. Any board member questions? I'm good. I went to the same training. Yeah, I was there too with the VLCT training. And I remember them saying that they suppressed their head and said, is this really what they mean? And it is really is what they mean. We can have total flexibility or quite a bit of flexibility on how the money is spent if you categorize it this way. Okay, then seeing no board member comments or questions, any comments or questions from the public? It seems like a pretty quiet meeting, not a lot of not a lot of attendance as much as we've seen. Oh, I make a motion. Yeah, yeah, sure. I make the motion that the town of Essex Blackboard make the one time irrevocable decision to the to elect the standard allowance approach for ARPA award in the amount of three million two hundred nine nine thousand nine hundred and fifty one dollars and forty six cents to spend on the provision of government services throughout the period of performance of the grant. Okay. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes four zero. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Let's see. And then the next business item is consider adoption of the Essex Tree Care Policy. I suspect that Darren. It is. Darren, are you there? I say I am. Thank you. I think it's turned on here. Thank you all for letting me and Ken be in front of you tonight. Ken, are you here in the audience? He's in the room for this. Yep. Okay, great. Yeah. Excellent. So, Ken, I'm going to let you take it to start, but I will be happy to answer any questions. So, Alan, the chairperson couldn't make it tonight, so he asked me to front this proposal. Basically, the tree policy is the last thing we need to do in order to qualify and obtain Tree City, USA recognition. It's pretty basic. It accomplishes a few specific things, establishes, defines an authority for responsibility over public trees. I'll be a Tree Warden, which you'll appoint. That's designated in statutes now. Defines a process for managing trees. A few very simple things. Rather than go through all these details, maybe save time if you've looked it over already. If there are questions, I could cut the chase. Any questions from the board? Do we have a Tree Warden? We do not have one yet. So, this, do you provide for one? Oh, there's everything inside. Okay. Sorry, we do have one. It's Chuck Vile. He's been our Tree Warden for longer than anyone can remember, and he does a great job. He actually was honored by the Vermont Urban Community Forestry Program last year with a Hamilton Award. Thank you, Darren. And then my other question is, how does this impact Darren, the study or whatever you're doing with all these invasive species? Is this Elp or Hinder? This mostly codifies our existing practice and new some new state laws. The parts about invasives and pest management have been in statute for a while, so basically empowers the town through the Tree Warden to control infestations. And the way we're doing that is through provided removal of the ash trees and treatment of some select trees. We're not going to be trying to eradicate PAB in private property, so we're not really going at the full length that statute allows for us in that regard. For spongy moth, formerly known as gypsy moth, again, we're kind of doing a wait-and-see approach, although Ken is doing a great job doing outreach to HOAs and residents to make them aware of what they could do. We do get some access to some resources. The Vermont Urban Community Forestry who organizes the On the Tree City program says that, just looking over the benefits, is some access, some training and some resources, which I would hope would include invasive species. Okay, great. Thank you. Kendall? Yeah, Kendall, go ahead. I just had two comments. One, with the impending separation that appears, it's going to be 100%, but I don't think the policy should reference the village of Richmond, village of Essex Junction and all. It should be just the town of Essex Policy. And then I would further request that my name spelled correct. That's it. Thank you. There's also, at the very end of the policy, I was looking it over, the clerk is incorrectly identified. Yeah, we're just going to say that. I had one quick question and I'm trying to find it because I read through this on Friday night and there was something in here about, I think I read it in this, I'm in right now, about a crab apple tree at one of the elementary schools. Oh, it's, I can't find it now. The tree is going to be planted for Arbor Day. That was part of the plan, right? There's a, no, I think that's in the separate grant that we got, which is the Arbor Day celebration thing. Totally separate thing. I've read about it, so. But it's kind of in line. It fits in with the program. I was just curious to where it was, but bye-bye. Thank you. The village is already a tree city. They are, and our policy is modeled after theirs. All the town departments were checked with, town planning, public works, Essex Police. So I think probably the most important thing to consider maybe is that it's a policy versus an ordinance. So that means that the tree warden will basically be the officiating officer. You won't have to go to police, for example, if there's some issue with a tree. So it makes it a little simpler to administer. I do want to make a quick comment to end all number one and purpose. It says that the applicability of this is for the town outside the village of Essex Junction, only stating that the village has, yeah, the village of Essex Junction maintains a separate tree policy. I don't know if there was wording somewhere else. I thought we just care of all the references to the village. We did an edit. That was so that you know that this is a little bit new to me. My first meeting, this wasn't even discussed in the second meeting. We adopted it. So this is sort of the second time I'm seeing it. And we did draft this originally before separation was even getting started. So again, I thought we corrected those references and I thought we corrected the titles for the select board as well, but I think there must have been a something wrong with different versions. So apologies for that and apologies for dispelling your name. We'll get that fixed. I would also just note that some of the most interesting and vocal and intense meetings I've experienced have been over trees. So be aware of that. Yes, we have had some experience with that as some trees have been coming down folks who are disappointed but most understand why we're doing it thankfully because there's been some good outreach. And the other items that we had to do was we had to form what we have a committee already. That was one of the other items for the U.S.A. maintain at least a certain expenditure level or claim Arbor Day. This is the last item. Okay. Any comments from the public? Patty Davis. Um, I listened to part of the trustee meeting and I'm glad we're going to have our own, you know, we have our own Arborist and we have our own tree person and I listened to the Village Arborist and he went over how there's a new designation in the state of Vermont that for certain trees along the public right away and in the aprons along our streets that they're going to be called street trees. And I'm just wondering if, you know, you guys in the conservation, well, Darren, Darren Skrimmler is really good at explaining I'm sure to residents, you know, why their trees have to be removed and you're definitely so good at explaining that stuff, Darren. But I just wondered if you guys heard of that, you know, I'm sure maybe, is it vile, the last name vile, Gregory vile or something? He's our Chuck Vile. He probably knows about this, but I thought it was really interesting and it was at the last trustee meeting that and the reason I'm mentioning the street trees is when we do ETC next and we're really into public realm and right of ways and all that trees are going to be so important street trees all along our new ETC next. So Darren, I'm putting a bug in your ear for that. Thank you. Thank you, Patty. Yes, the state has recently changed its law on street trees and specifically calls them shade trees now to specify that it's not just any tree growing along the road. It's one that's designated by the town or the municipality. So we have included that in this policy and get a shade trees for the town are designated in the street tree management plan in the survey that we did. So thank you. All right. Thanks, Patty. Thanks, Darren. Any other comments, discussion? So let's see, are we looking for a motion? To make the motion that we, I'll see. Where am I going? At the Essex town select board adopt the Essex tree care policy. I had a question on that before we moved. It has to be seconded before we discuss. Tom and Tom made the motion. Want to second it so we can discuss it? Sure. I'll make a second for discussion. Thank you, Ethan. I just wanted to make sure that the adopting the policy was pending the corrections in the policy itself. So I don't know if we want to add that into the motion. Yeah, explicitly which corrections do we want to make? I had it written up. Hold on. Okay. Let me correct. Amend my motion then. I make the motion that we, I'm sorry, make the motion at the Essex town select board adopt the Essex tree care policy with, I mean with changes suggested, with the suggested changes. How's that? I'll second that. Okay. I can, and to just be clear that the changes that we're talking about are to correct the clerk and the, and the clerk and the spelling of Kendall's name. Spelling of Kendall's name and, and removal of references to the village where appropriate. I didn't see any references. I didn't see any village outside the village. Okay. That's fine. I have no problem with that, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Is that okay with staff? It works. All right. Darren, you're good. Works for me. I got those. All right. Any, any further board discussion on that? Seeing none. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Closed. Okay. Motion passes 4-0. You can. Thank you, Darren. And then we're moving on to consent agenda. Oh, Greg. Yes. I can make one quick comment before you make a motion item 6C, the approval of the settlement agreement for the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System says that the motion recommended was that the select board sign the settlement agreement. It should actually be that the select board authorized the town attorney to sign the settlement agreement. So if you're comfortable with that, if you make the motion to approve consent agenda, that will go to the town attorney. All right. Thanks, Greg. And let's see. I will go ahead and make the motion. I move approval of the consent agenda with the modification for item 6C, the motion state to authorize the town attorney to sign the settlement agreement rather than the select board. Second. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion on the consent agenda? I would just ask for a point of clarification as when the appropriate time to question anything about the consent agenda is. So, okay, so, yeah, that's a good point. Maybe we didn't clarify that with our new members. If there's something that you think that we need to pull out of consent to have a larger discussion on that request to be made during agenda additions or changes, but I would say that since we didn't make that clear, potentially possibly just make that clear to our newer members that if you'd like to ask for a clarifying question, you certainly can about any of the items. I don't have any. I just wanted to know what the proper procedure was. Yeah. So, for instance, if you wanted to make a correction to the minutes, you could ask at the beginning of the meeting during agenda additions or changes to pull that out to a business item, and then we could discuss it individually with those changes. In this case, because of the minor change to 6C, to change who's going to sign the agreement, we just did it this way. Mr. Chair, I may have one more. On the emergency management plan, if there were wrong names on it, we're still accepting it and expecting them to change the names. You want to reach out to me and let me know which names should be corrected. We can update that. I believe the founder's principle is different than what we are given. Okay. All right. No, good catch. Thanks. All right. Anything else? The only other question I had was, I don't know where, how, maybe I'm not looking at the right way, but in the minutes, where would the signature be found before it's approved or is it not approved? Is it, are we approving? We're approving it tonight. And then after it's approved, and you go sign after. After it's approved, then you sign it, you're the final. Right. The clerk is the final signature after it's approved by the select board. Right. You certify that it's approved. Okay. My only question was, these minutes are from the 28th and the, and the ones that they've been on the last meeting, some minutes, but I don't make them wrong. I thought that they were wrong. So March 28th was a joint meeting? Right. They're having, okay. And so sometimes, yeah. I was doing these things, I was curious. Yeah, the joint meeting is something to complicate the timing of one. Okay. I'm going to get them to get on sound. There are any other comments? If we're good. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Consent agenda is approved for zero. Reading file. Any board member comments? Can be on any topic? Go ahead, Greg. There's no board members. I sent you all an email earlier this afternoon. And for anybody for the public to be aware, Marguerite and I met with Brad Luck and Wendy Hisco earlier today, the co-inter managers of the village. We don't have anything for the April 25th joint meeting agenda. So there's no meeting scheduled for next Monday. We also agreed that going forward and we'll try to give each other notice. If there's something coming up on our radar that would require a joint meeting, we'll try to give both boards at least two weeks notice. But in the meantime, we're not going to have any set or scheduled joint meetings. We'll just take them up as they come and hopefully give plenty of notice to the boards and the public for when we're going to have to have those. All right. Thanks, Greg. Any other board member comments? Hearing none. And there's no need for executive sessions. So I make the motion we adjourn. Thank you, Don. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Ethan. It's non-debatable. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. We're adjourned. Thank you.