 Welcome to ongoing election coverage by Town Meeting Television. This is one of many forums we are bringing to you in advance of local elections and town meeting on the first Tuesday of March 2nd, or the first Tuesday of March, March 2nd, 2021. Town Meeting TV election forums introduce you to local decision makers and connect you with the issues shaping your community. The topic of our forum today is the Essex ballot item, the merger. I'm Christina Bell and I'm your host. We are here today with Elaine Haney, Chair of the Town of Essex Select Board. Pat Murray, the Vice Chair of the Town of Essex Select Board. Vince Franco, Clerk of Town of Essex Select Board. Sarah Macy, Finance Director, Town of Essex. Evan Teach, Unified Municipal Manager of the Town of Essex and Andrew Brown, President of the Village of Essex Junction. Evan or Elaine, I wonder if you could comment on how Town Meeting will be different this year for the voters. I understand there's an informational meeting that will be live and it will be streamed on March 1st and that there will be voting by Australian ballot Tuesday, March 2nd. Is that correct? That's correct, Christina. Evan, why don't you take a moment to describe all the things we'll be doing for Town Meeting this year? Well, we are in the planning stages for trying to do a hybrid Town Meeting where we are going to be about 99% virtual where there'll be a presentation online via whether I believe it's Teams and then we're trying to work out with the school district whether we can have some in-person attendance for those who don't have internet access so that they can participate at the high school in-person and socially distant. But that hasn't been quite finished yet with the school district. Thank you. Thank you very much for clarifying that for our viewers. If you are watching this live, you welcome your questions at 802-862-3966 at the end of the presentation. And so now I'd like to turn our attention. Elaine, would you like to start a presentation and get us going? Yes, thank you, Christina. And also just before we begin, I want to say thank you to Town Meeting Television for providing this coverage and providing us this forum to reach our residents during the regular year, not just with COVID. We really appreciate this ability to communicate with folks and I just want to thank our town staff, Evan and Sarah, who are here this evening and Pat and Benson, the select board and Andrew from the Village Trustees for joining us this evening. We will have Q&A at the end as you said, Christina and Andrew will be happy to answer any questions that are relative to the village itself because they voted on their merger vote in November. So I'm going to try to share my screen now and we'll get started. Can everybody see a thumbs up or something? Great. Thank you. So this is the presentation of the plan of merger for the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction. And as Christina said, the vote will be on March 2, 2021 with an informational meeting on the evening of March 1. So I'm going to talk a little bit about how we got here. So over the last seven or eight years, the town and village have been working together on consolidating services to achieve, eliminate duplication of services and to achieve efficiency and to use our taxpayer dollars as wisely as possible. So we started with a shared services report that was prepared for both boards to talk about ways that we could consolidate to do that savings and efficiencies. The town manager of Essex became the town manager of Essex and Essex Junction around 2015 when both boards decided that we would share a manager and save the costs of that position. Around 2016, the boards integrated the finance and the town and village clerk offices for future consolidation and efficiencies basically because of some retirements and some changes in personnel, we were able to bring them together. In addition, voters approved transitioning the public works budget for the village into the town public works budget so that the entire community was voting, it was paying equally for all the public work services throughout the entire town. And in 2018, we were joined by Unified Manager Evan Teach who took over after Pat Shidel retired and we continued the alignment process and Evan had a directive to continue helping us with consolidation and at that time, the select board and the trustees began to meet jointly every month to discuss joint business together. And at the same time, we also appointed a governance subcommittee with two representatives from each board to discuss possible further consolidations between the village and the town. The first year of their deliberations between 2018 and 19, they talked about a lot of different scenarios and then in 2019, they recommended merger and the boards agreed and the subcommittee was charged with beginning to work on a charter and they proceeded to do a lot of public outreach with surveys and focus groups and we've had a great deal of public participation at the board meetings and now we are at 2020 having completed a draft charter and just this past Monday, the 11th, the select board approved the new plan of merger for the town and that is where we are today and that's why we are voting in March about the new merger charter. So I'm going to turn it over to Pat Murray to talk about why we're considering merger and some of the benefits that we will see. Great. Thank you, Elaine. I'm Patrick Murray. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about why we're considering merger. In particular, in Essex, we feel that merger gives us, in particular, one strength that it has is one government. Right now, the individuals who live in the village of Essex Junction nominate and elect a trustee government and the town of Essex, which includes all those individuals who live in Essex Junction, also nominate and elect a select board. One government allows one governmental body to oversee the entirety of everyone who lives within the town of Essex. This would come with more transparency. It would contain one set of ordinances to be common between the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction, which does not currently exist. We would be able to continue with Australian ballot budget voting, something that was voted affirmatively in November, and town meeting would now become an informational town meeting. In particular, it satisfies a large group of our citizens who were concerned that the only way they had to say into the budget approval process was to be physically in person at town meeting every year. Now we can present an informational town meeting and everyone can vote at the Australian ballot budget voting the next day. It would allow us to have one land development code and create a more organized and consistent planning. If we'd have the next slide, please. This allows us to see a unified community with a common vision. This unified community can set its course together on a host of issues, some of them we're just starting to tackle, ensuring racial justice, equity, and safety across the entire community of over 20,000 individuals. We can become a welcoming and more inclusive community by creating outreach within the diverse populations that we have living in Essex, where we'll be better able to serve the housing needs that meet the our entire community. The community and economic development will be under one umbrella and can be, excuse me, and we'll be able to preserve open space, continuing the stewardship of the environment so that Essex will contain its continued urban and rural feel. We have first class recreational facilities that will be accessible by all citizens of Essex and no longer will we have priority access depending on which portion of Essex you happen to live on. Finally, we'll be able to build resiliency and sustainability in the systems of our government and the various departments that exist within our town government. Next, I'm going to bring you further through the presentation is my colleague, clerk of the select board, Vince Franco. Vince, you're muted. I am so sorry. Sorry, we're going to talk about some of the benefits for the village and benefits for residents in the town outside the village. We'll start off with tax equity. The goal is after 12 years for everyone in our community to pay the same tax rate for all services provided by the town. A predictable representation and even numbered board of six members assures that the first for the first time both the town outside the village and the village will have an equal number of representatives on the select board. Initially, it removes the extra vote needed for the village budget and election of the village trustees. Now we're going to go on to the benefits for the town outside the village. Again, like the village residents of the town outside the village gain predictable representation with an even numbered board. Equal access to services and programs once offered by the Essex Junction rec department with no village priority and no additional fees for town outside the village residents. Town outside the village residents will have more say in spending, planning and development in all parts of town. Consistent quality of service, pricing and registration for childcare currently offered by EJRP without a waiting list which currently prioritizes village residents and their families. Next slide please. So what's not changing? Our plan honors the high quality of services that both the village and the town currently provide and we are committed to continuing that high quality of service. It also honors our two communities identities by keeping the name of the new merge community the town of Essex. It also includes an unincorporated village of Essex Junction. Now my colleague Pat will speak to some of the challenges of merger. Thank you, Vince. So as we began looking at merger specifically we saw there were a number of challenges that we seek to overcome. First we had to find a way to integrate the 3.5 million dollars of the Essex Junction budget into the 15 million dollar town of Essex budget. We had to find a way to do this while maintaining the high level of municipal services that residents expect and pay for. We want to achieve eventual tax equity. Right now there are a number of residents particularly those who live within the village who do pay for services that they cannot currently utilize. Finally want to make sure that we preserve the identities of the town and the village of Essex Junction itself. So we favor a gradual timeline for this. The town of Essex levies taxes on all town properties which does include the village of Essex Junction which is contained entirely within the town. The village however levies taxes on village properties only. So as a result of this the average village property owner pays an additional 925 dollars a year in taxes. By merging the town and the village budgets all at once this would result in a single one-time yearly increase of 330 dollars for those residents in the town outside the village. And all at once increase like this could result in a desire for significant cost cutting that would negatively affect municipal services undermining one of our primary goals for merger which is to maintain our current levels of service. So the alternative the way that we have come up with to proceed with this it's on the next slide. We favor a gradual approach to the tax equalization. This is adopted to keep tax increases for the town outside the village reasonable affordable and predictable. This is a 12 year time period which coincides with the end of the village's bonded debt and is the length of time preferred by most town residents who responded to a 2019 survey on merger. Next up I'd like to introduce Sarah Macy finance director for the town of Essex and she's going to walk through some of the numbers. Sarah. Thanks Pat. So what does this all look like? Starting with the first merged year the separate town and village budgets would become one budget. The piece of that new budget that was formerly funded by village only taxes would be frozen and phased in gradually over a 12 year transitional period. This will cause taxes outside the village to increase about $26 a year for the average property assessed at $280,000. And for a similarly assessed property in the village taxes would decrease about $35. After the 12 year transitional period tax rates would be equal for all taxpayers. In addition to any grand list growth special taxing districts have been included in the plan of merger to help offset the tax impacts outside the village. One of those is a debt district to ensure that village debt remains with village taxpayers until it's retired in 2035. At which time I will also be thinking about retiring. So what you're seeing on the screen now is a summary of the total cost of merger if the two entities were to merge all at once without any district. These numbers are calculated based on voter approved FY20 budgets and the final FY20 grand list. Just for clarification FY stands for fiscal year. Our fiscal year runs July 1st through June 30th. So FY20 would have been the year ending June 30th 2020. These numbers have been calculated assuming no future growth in the grand list in an effort to clearly isolate the impact of merger. Tax rates are calculated by dividing the budgeted tax levy by the grand list. Therefore any increase in the grand list, which is the denominator, results in a decrease to the tax rate. When we first started this initiative these were the most current figures and while we now have updated budgets for FY21 and we are in the process of budgeting for FY22 the mechanics are the same. You can see here that if the two budgets were combined all at once the impact would be quite large which drove us to explore a longer timeline and the inclusion of special tax districts. The two primary benefits of spreading the tax change out over the 12-year transitional period are to lessen the annual impact of taxpayers and to leverage the growing grand list which will also serve to lessen the impact over time. Next slide please. So this table shows the annual change in taxes when the tax change is spread out over the 12-year transitional period and the village is designated as a special taxing district for debt, sidewalks and capital during that time. At the end of the 12 years these districts would go away. In calculating these numbers I assumed that the dollars raised by the capital and sidewalk districts would then be included in the overall budget causing one final increase in year 13. However it will be up to the future governing body as to how they wish to handle this. I've chosen to make this assumption to get a conservative estimate of the cost but it's equally as possible that the future governing body could eliminate those funds entirely which would eliminate the year 13 column in this chart and change the averages. So you may be asking at this point how on earth were these numbers calculated? Well with many moving parts including the challenge of projecting future years, dealing with new budgets during the process and the complex interconnectedness of the two budgets it was no simple task. In calculating the total impact of merging the two budgets I started with FY20 numbers. I assumed the first merged year would be FY23 and projected out any known changes such as eliminating expenditures that are in both budgets now and accounting for decreasing debt in the town. In determining the annual change over the transitional period that we're looking at now I used the same method and I factored in any known changes in debt load. I attempted to eliminate any variables that were guesses in order to provide a simple conservative estimate. The most significant consequence of this would be that grand list growth over time will decrease these numbers. The town has experienced average grand list growth of 1.6% annually over the last seven years. Next slide please. Quickly I just want to show a visual of how the convergence would happen. When looking at this graph the top line is the FY20 annual tax bill for an average property in the village. The bottom line is the same for a property outside the village. As you can see those two lines remain stable over time and the difference between the two is the $925 more per year that Pat mentioned a village resident pays currently on their taxes. The middle two lines show how the taxes for that same average property would decrease gradually over time in the village and increase gradually over time outside the village to meet at a midpoint at the end of the 12 years. Now this graph is very simple. It does not factor in any anticipated grand list growth. Its purpose is simply to give the viewer a visual of how that 12 year transitional period would work. Next slide please. All right so I've mentioned the special taxing districts that will be included in the 12 year transitional period and I'd like to take a few minutes now to list them out. First we'll have a debt repayment district. This district will be established in order to pay off the village's bonded debt and ensure that just those taxpayers who voted for the debt are paying those payments. This would align with the term of the village's outstanding debt and would be accomplished by establishing a debt service fund and calculating the specific tax rate each year by dividing that year's debt payment by the grand list in the village. The amount of the debt decreases annually and like I said it will be retired in 2035. This district cannot be renewed once the debt is retired. The second district is a tax reconciliation district. This district allows the town to assess different tax rates to the village in order to facilitate that fave in of the village tax levy over the 12 year transitional period and set up all at once. This district also cannot be renewed once the transitional period is over. Next slide please. So while those first two districts are required by the state, the next two have been decided on by the work of the joint boards and the governance subcommittee while designing the plan for merger. This third district is a sidewalk district. The village has a completely interconnected sidewalk network which is aggressively maintained throughout the year to promote public health and safety. Declaring the village a sidewalk district will help maintain this policy. The cost of these activities is currently estimated to be about $125,000 a year. That amount would be accounted for through a sidewalk fund which would be budgeted each year at cost in a separate tax rate just charged to village residents would be established in a way similar to what I described for the debt district. At the end of the 12 year transitional period this fund would come to an end. At that time the elected board and community they could seek to continue or expand the district that would require a charter change. Next slide please. Fourth the village will be designated as a capital improvement district which will keep a portion of its capital infrastructure expenditures separate from the town budget to help decrease the financial impact of merger on taxpayers outside the village. This will be accomplished by taking the budgeted capital contribution in that final year before merger and annually funding that dollar amount each year of the 12 year transitional period. At the end of the 12 year transitional period costs of all capital projects will be paid by all taxpayers. The purpose of the sidewalk and capital districts is to decrease the cost of merger to residents outside the village. Current figures are calculated assuming the funds raised by the sidewalk and capital districts would be absorbed into the full budget at the end of that period. However the future board could decide to do something different such as eliminate the funds which would make the final year increase go away. The last district is a downtown improvement district which does not have any specific tax implications as part of the merger but would remain in place to maintain the village's downtown designation. At the end of the 12 year transitional period this district would also end. And while I would love to continue talking about municipal finance I am going to pass it back over to Vince to talk about representation voting and governance. Vince you're muted again. Oh man. So merger changes the representation voting and governance of the town. We're going to start after the legislature approves the merger the then current town select board and then current village board of trustees will merge into a single interim governing body for a limited time until elections for the new permanent select board are held. The proposed plan of merger outlines the creation of two new voting wards. Ward one includes all areas outside the boundaries of the unincorporated village. Ward two includes all areas inside the boundaries of the unincorporated village. In the proposed plan of merger the new permanent select board would have six members with three seats elected by ward one and three seats elected by ward two. This governance structure differs slightly from the merger charter passed by the village. More on this later. Next slide please. And even numbered board honors the proposed three plus three charter change that was approved by a town-wide vote in March of 2020. Three seats for each ward assures residents of both newly created wards there will be equitable and predictable representation. Ward boundary lines can be adjusted in the future to address variations in population growth between the wards. In November of 2020 village voters approved a merger charter that includes an odd numbered board with three seats for ward one three seats for ward two and an additional seat to be elected by all residents of the new merged community. We will work with state legislatures to reconcile the differences between the two merger charters. And now back to Pat for some additional information on merger. Great thank you Vince. A few bits and pieces here. The new the name of the new community will be the town of Essex. The incorporated village of Essex Junction would then become the unincorporated village of Essex Junction. We have something similar to this in the state already. White River Junction for example is the unincorporated village that contains or contained within the town of Hartford. Australian ballot for voting on the town municipal budget with one informational annual meeting in March. Again this condenses the number of meetings that our residents have to go to and with good conversations with the select board we hope to bring the number of voting days down to a single voting day as well. Reorganize the town and village departments to reduce duplicative services, building codes, municipal plans, ordinances, policies, etc. It's just a way to clean up and reorganize a lot of the currently existing departments that have existed for so long in our communities. The current town and village water and sewer rates will not be affected by the merger. Water and sewer costs including the repairs are paid by water and sewer bills not by property taxes. The new town of Essex will own the Essex Junction wastewater treatment facility however as well as all of the assets that are currently owned separately by the town and the village. Finally we'll go back to our select board chair Elaine Haney. Elaine. Thank you Pat. So we talked about the benefits of merger earlier in the presentation but we must also acknowledge challenges that merger will present and we can refer to them as pros and cons. So some of the challenges for the town outside the village under merger hire taxes over 12 years. As Sarah explained there would be a simultaneous increase in taxes for the town outside the village while at the same time there would be a decrease for the village but this would last only for the 12 years of the merger transition period and at the end of that everyone would be paying the same tax rate. In addition there would be a shared responsibility for all capital projects. After the capital project district ends after 12 years and the village will no longer be paying separately for the projects in that district all residents will pay equally for all projects throughout the entire town no matter where they are located. For the village the village has to contend with a few challenges as well. Merger will mean that they must dissolve their government. There will no longer be a village board of trustees. There will no longer be a village planning commission. It will still retain their state downtown designation however. They will also be giving up priority for certain services. You heard earlier in the presentation that one of the benefits for the town outside the village means that they will no longer be paying extra fees for EJRP recreation services including child care and they will no longer need to be prioritized after village residents which means that village residents will no longer have priority for those services. Everybody will have to sign up for them together at the same time and the village will also have less autonomy. There will no longer be a single budget just for the village to vote on. Everyone will be voting on all of the expenses and spending throughout the entire community together and everybody together as the entire town will also be dealing with potentially longer wait times for infrastructure projects. This is because capital project lists for the village and the town will be combined into one list and reprioritized so that the projects that need to get done first get done first which means that some projects might take a little longer. That's not definite but when we start combining the capital project lists we will need to re-rank them that way. So that's a summary of the merger plan itself and the benefits that we foresee and the challenges that we will have to rise to meet but on the whole the entire plan will be available for you to read and we'll give you some information about that now. First of all we'll talk about next steps. We will hold public hearings on the merger plan on February 1st and February 16th online at select board meetings. This week the legislature is voting on mail-in balloting for town meeting. We anticipate that they will be approving it and going to sending it to governor this week or next and we will be mailing ballots for town meeting to every house in the town. Town meeting itself will be an informational meeting on Monday March 1st both online and in person hopefully as we heard Evan describe at the beginning of the presentation. Voting on the budget and the merger plan will also be via Australian ballot on March 2nd at the polls. Village residents should go to Essex High School, town residents should go to Essex Middle School to vote. If merger passes the charter and the charter the village passed in November will both go to the legislature for reconciliation and approval. We will be waiting to hear from them when they will take them up and we'll work with them to answer any questions they have so that we can secure passage of the merger should it be approved by the voters. This presentation will be available online at the town website sxbt.org the village website sxjunction.org and also our merger website greater sx2020.org. Town residents will also receive a booklet in the mail that has a copy of the charter in it as well as a summary of the charter a lot of frequently asked questions and more reference materials including some of the data that Sarah our finance director presented this evening. Those will be mailed to every household in in the town because we want to make sure that everybody gets this information and we don't want to have to rely on meetings so that due to covid everyone can remain safe so please don't hesitate to reach out to the select board our names and contact emails are listed on the screen call us text us email us ask your questions if you want to have some one of us come talk to you and your friends on a virtual meeting to go over this presentation with you we would be happy to do that please don't hesitate to reach out and thank you very much for your time this evening. Thank you for that informative presentation if you are watching this live the topic for this forum is the merger we're talking about sx we welcome your questions 802 862 3966 is the phone number you can call if you have a question again that's 802 862 3966 I'm getting a note from the producer that says there are no calls yet. Christina if you'd like me this is Evan to fill a little airtime well we tell people that there will be in person at the informational meeting again the space is going to be very limited due to the Department of Health requirements we are looking at trying to limit it to those who cannot join us online and we would look to create if approved that we would do this by reservation only we do not want people to show up if they have not made a reservation because there's a space limitation and spacing in the seats in the auditorium great thank you that's so helpful but we do understand that there are people in our community who just do not have access to the internet and they should not be you know precluded from joining in in their civic duties great thank you that's really helpful information do you have any questions of us um a question I have is do you expect that you will have a good voter turnout this year um have you do you have any projections as to how COVID will affect the number of people who can vote and who will vote we were very fortunate to have a very smooth election in November our voters turned in and mailed in ballots in record numbers and the volunteers who are part of our Board of Civil Authority really stepped up to count the ballots to run them through the machines and it went really really smoothly everyone stayed safe everything was accurate so and the turnout was huge and it was a presidential year so obviously that had an impact on it town meeting in general is normally not well attended there's usually about two to three percent of registered voters in the audience at the time so this will be our first time doing Australian ballot approval of the budget so we don't know what to expect in terms of turnout with mail in ballots on top of that there's a lot of unknowns this year but with such a big topic on the ballot merger and then with our first time doing Australian ballot for the budget we're we're hopeful that we're going to have a really decent turnout this time around Andrew I wonder if you might want to speak a little bit to how the village turned out for their vote on the merger but before we do that I see we have a caller Andrew maybe we can come back to you and hold that thought let's see how this is going to work they're going to put this caller on and we'll hear them my question is if s-extruction loses its downtown designation does that affect the act 250 downtown designation Eileen did you understand the question I do um that's a question so the downtown designation is granted by the state of Vermont and it has nothing to do with merger at all in that in that sense it is something that gives a benefit of at waiving certain requirements of act 250 however it's important to be clear that the s-extinction has a village-centered designation and that also has act 250 benefits but the village has to and then the town government after merger we have to just continue to keep that designation up to date with the state so it just would mean um an updating process that happens I think it's every five years Evan perhaps um yeah so we just would have to continue to renew it and then those benefits regarding act 250 would continue to exist great thank you Eileen thank you for your question um we're going to go to Andrew he was going to speak to um let's see I can't see Andrew let's see if I can expand by screen okay good that makes me feel a little more like everybody's here hi so what was the question if I remember correctly the question was about voter turnout and in the village we were able to take advantage of our um of mail-in voting for this past annual meeting I say take advantage but given the fact that it was created by a pandemic I'm not sure if that's truly an advantage at this point in time but at the voter turnout we had over four thousand village residents vote for this this last go-around and in the time that we were waiting for the for the this last question to end I was able to find in the 2019 annual report where in April of 2019 the number of voted ballots was 455 so we had 455 people in 2019 who voted for their elected officials in 2020 we had over four thousand so I would assume that that's a better turnout for most of us as that means that we have more of our residents who are able to express their opinions and to uh authorize their opinions through voting um so to me that's a win and I would expect the same thing to happen on this oh andrew that's so interesting thank you for sharing that with us um that's good news it looks like we have another caller so um let's try again to see how the sound is caller you're on the air can you state your name and state your question hmm we may have lost that caller we're having some technical difficulties so if you want Christina one of the things that occurred uh I think it was November there was a question of whether the citizens wanted to go to australian ballot and while I don't remember the exact percentage I believe it was 70 close to 70 percent of the residents of the village and the town wanted to go to australian ballot which kind of says to us that they really want to participate in local government but they may not want to go to the meeting itself um there's no it's very difficult you know in people's lives they have kids they have other things we give up two three hours to come to a meeting not knowing you know how long is it going to take etc but they do want to participate um and um and and so it I think the voter turnout will be very good if not well you know exceeding in person plus if the state does do mail out ballots um for the pandemic I think we will see maybe not as high as the presidential election which is our highest vote totals but it might start to rival um congressional years sorry I'm getting the note from the producer they're saying that we um we have a caller so let's um let's see what they have to say caller you're on the air can you state your name and state your question this is greg morgan I live in the village and um have been involved in economic development in uh in in the town um on the economic development commission for actually three decades um ethics has an incredible business sector uh leader in vermont in advanced manufacturing with global foundries and gave bloggia to home how do you think this merger will impact our ability to present a unified um face to vermont as we try to keep our community a vital business destination elaine did you understand the question I did and I actually think evan would be a great person to answer that question okay thank thank you unless you don't want to I'll start and anybody could jump in afterwards uh greg thank you for your question and thank you for your dedicated service uh to to our community um I think merger will give a huge benefit that the village in the town combined can go in one direction we we have a plan and we say this is what we want to do um this is we can produce uh promotional materials to go out and recruit companies to come to our community we can recruit uh and promote uh available land that both the village and town have for uh economic development we can have a unified program for tax stabilization programs and other workforce programs that the state is providing to us it will also give us a singular voice to the state legislature right now you have potentially whatever the village may think about a particular issue and what the town may think about an issue but after merger there will be one official stance on an issue uh take cannabis for the instance there's going to be have to be a vote of the community do you want to opt in or do you want to opt out they have serious consequences and it could be bifurcated uh with the village in the town as if anybody knows where those boundaries actually are and you know exactly and what you're allowed to do in the town which are allowed to do in the village uh and with that i'll turn it over to uh elaine or anybody else who may want to jump in on that looks like we have another caller is it okay we go to another call yes okay let's see if we can hear hello you're on the air can you state your name and can you state the question hello hello you're i'm gonna have to put you on speaker because i can't hear you well my question was you mentioned that the town was going to be responsible for the water and sewage um facility and my question is how old is that facility the wastewater and the junction how old is that facility thank you for that question all right i love andrew to answer that actually since it's in the village what boundaries i don't i will admit i do not recall the year that it was originally built but i do know that there was a multimillion-dollar bond to refurbish and really ensure that the wastewater treatment facility remains the the world class facility that it is frankly it has won multiple awards throughout the the region in terms of the quality of the work that happens there as well as the energy efficiency that happens um so the the bond uh or that that loan has i believe been paid off at this point um if it hasn't that bond hasn't paid off at this point in time um so there are no outstanding loans on that and it again remains the award-winning facility that it has been sarah can you confirm whether that bond has been paid off i i think it is but i'm not sure and i'll jump in according to the website it's 1965 treatment started yes it is award-winning right now the wastewater treatment plant is owned by the village of essex junction but it is also operated by it provides sewage capacity for the town of essex and the town of williston who co-fund its operations um when if merger goes through the ownership of the village goes over to the town of which the village is still a member they will still have capacity that stays with that with the system and uh jim jutrus is our wastewater superintendent and he does a fantastic job thank you for your question hopefully we answered it elaine you would ask me about the debt and there there is some outstanding debt for the wastewater treatment facility that facility does service the town of essex the village of essex junction and the town of williston and that's in the tri-town group and all of those um entities contribute to paying the debts and they manage the operating budgets and i assume the debt is paid for by water and by sewer users absolutely so this is an enterprise fund and so it's a self-funded um governmental fund and it is uh funded entirely by user fees so there's absolutely zero impact to property taxes um the wastewater treatment facility and zero impact if you are not uh tied into the sewer system correct so if you have you know a septic and a well not you and just to be clear i the debt that i'm looking at i think is is from the upgrade and not from the original building the facility thank you christina while we're waiting for another call um i'd like to go back to something evan was saying regarding um business impact on mergers impact on business in the community and another thing that we'll be able to do is have a single voice on the um future of the train station and the ability to communicate with a louder voice regarding the um hopefully when the montrealer comes back through and because that was a very big deal for essex when that train came through and also it allows us to have um with with a single town we have a single land development code the single set of building those a single plan and so more consistency more predictability for businesses and that is really important for businesses thinking of expanding in essex or relocating to essex so that they have predictability in impact fees and taxes and policies and procedures so that they know what to expect when they're planning their own business expansions and that's really important and something that doesn't necessarily exist now thank you elaine oh it looks like we have another caller the producer has sent me a message um let's see if we can take this call hello caller you're on the air you have a question can you state your name okay let me lean in let me go ahead and ask your question yeah you're right now yeah go ahead and ask your question and um state your name we'd like to hear hi can you hear me yep you're on the air go ahead you're on here hi can you hear me okay yes yes you're on the air go ahead and ask your question okay hi sure sure hi everyone it's bridge admirer um i have a question about um can i have a question about merging the fire department's direct department in the libraries we can hear you the fire station the libraries why don't we give a little explanation about that and hopefully that will address some of the parts of bridget's question thank you bridget for asking um i'm going to turn that back to evan because as the municipal manager is his responsibility to maintain the organization and he there is a five-year window at the beginning of the merger process where the remaining departments that are not consolidated will be consolidated so evan can speak to that thank you elaine uh the first thing the uh plan of merger calls out is that the libraries do not get consolidated each has their existing boards the sx free library board and the brunel library board the one thing it does change is that town residents can be on the brunel board but they do have the brunel trust has some membership in there that stays um yes the uh plan of merger calls for the manager to present plans for the consolidation of the departments that have not been consolidated to date that would be the village e j r p uh rec department and e pr uh the town recreation department and then the village fire department and the town fire department as well as the last one would be the two community development departments um the village in the town want to be very thoughtful about how this would get done my approach for these types of things would be one to work with the existing directors um two in some cases i'm going to look to hire a consultant um i don't think it is best to just assume we know what's best for those departments they are very intricate they uh involve very intricate work and i'll take for the fire department for example they have different cultures and they have different histories just saying uh let's say in 2023 year can be combined and isn't going to be the right move you need to work with both of them figure out what's the best organizational structure um ultimately developing a unified plan for the structure of the department to provide quality services into well into the 21st century um and so i would be looking for uh a consultant to work with us on all of those aspects including having the fire chiefs and those firefighters and volunteers uh being involved in that and then having a report come to the then select board for uh review and adoption and thank you are you um is it okay with that we go to another call we have one we have enough time for one more call okay yeah let's do that hello caller you're on the air if you can state your name is i know two things in the presentation that the merger purports to provide one being australian ballot voting for budget my understanding is that that was already voted on and is a done deal and that merger plan doesn't really provide that it was already done second question is there was a mention that less fees would have to be paid for parks and recreation for folks out from outside the village my understanding there also is that's been reconciled by a fixed amount of money that the town pays now to the village so that they can pay the same fees so i think that cleaning credit for that maybe i'm wrong i don't think there's a differential currently maybe you can clarify that thanks thank you for your question so that's a question about clarification i can certainly take care of that because it's kind of um i can understand why there's some confusion about that um but if that's not entirely accurate so australian ballot yes was approved by in november we are making sure that it is included in the merger so that what was chosen in november continues into the new merged community we will not be reverting back to regular town meeting and voting from the floor so we include that in the list of things that are happening in merger because we want folks to to know that we are maintaining what they wanted when they voted for australian ballot in november and regarding the fees for sx junction recreation and parks that are paid by the town so on the whole town residents and anyone who doesn't live in sx junction is charged extra for programming by ejrp i believe two years ago at this point the town may even the last year's budget the town provided funding to cover the difference of that differential for programming but not for childcare if i'm correct so under merger every single program that ejrp offers will be the same price for every town outside the village resident as it is for village residents so while it is true that currently the town does provide a small subsidy to cover that difference in fees it does not provide the coverage for all of them so going forward under merger there would be no extra fees for any town outside the village residents to use ejrp programs i can just also briefly address that the other thing that merger does is that payment is also a policy a policy can be changed as boards change with merger that would no longer be a policy that would just be a practice that is ingrained within the organization so it would not go away whereas policies as i said can't change thank you andrew so it is just about 6 30 which means it is the end of our program today thank you to each of you for the information that you provided i know that this is a issue that people want to know more about and so thank you so much for taking your time to share what you know with everyone elaine pat ventz sarah evan and andrew yeah thank you so much and thank you to the audience for tuning in to town meeting tv ongoing coverage of local community candidates budget and ballot items you can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv don't forget to vote on or before tuesday march 2nd 2021 early voting by mail is available by contacting your town clerk's office polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. thank you for watching thank you thank you christina thanks to me