 Hello, everybody. I will call the special meeting of the public hearing for finding the local necessity to order on Tuesday, July 2nd from the Village Trustees. So I'll call it a meeting to order. And I understand in front of us we have a motion to continue from a Mr. Speery that we have that in front of us. Mr. Speery, are you here? I'm here on behalf of Mark Speery. I'm going to journey at the Mark Speery in Louisville along with Mark Speery. Okay, great. Before I ask you, actually before I ask you and everybody else in the audience about any questions or anything like that, I would like to ask that since this is a public hearing and we will be accepting evidence and testimony that everybody will be able to raise their right hand and repeat a phrase after me that would be greatly appreciated. So if you all will do me, if anybody is anticipating to speak tonight, providing a testimony, please do raise your right hand and repeat after me. I swear to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I swear to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Great, thank you. I will ask you if you have done that before you speak tonight. So thank you for being here and so again I saw that you did give the oath, if you will. So with that, is there anything in addition to what we have in front of us that you would like to comment on? We would just review the motion. The notice is insufficient on constitutional grounds because we can't tell with sufficient certainty what's being taken and what the proposed project actually does to Mr. Calange's property. The site plan was not included along with the notice of hearing and it's inconsistent with prior site plans. So there's really a serious difficulty with assessing both the necessity which we challenge and the damages as to Mr. Calange's property. So we would renew that motion and we would assert that this hearing is without jurisdiction, without proper notice. That's it, thank you. Great. And so from staff, Mr. Pierce, I saw you raised your hand with the oath, is there anything you would like to rebut? The notice was sent out May 24th, notice of the hearing was in the Essex Report June 6th. We believe that all the state statutes that had to be adhered to were adhered to. With regards to some of the things that were brought up about what is being taken, the impact on the property? Well, there's an improvement to all the properties that the road goes through. No buildings are being taken where actually the vast majority of the road on the east side of the tracks is following the line of an existing driveway until it needs to cross the tracks. And so all of these were things that were included within notices, within meetings. Yes, and it's what was called Alternate 1 in the scope study that was approved by the trustees 2011. And it shifted very slightly to say, actually slightly away from some of the properties, not too worse. Do either of you have any questions? And in terms of other notices, public notices, Robin, public notices in newspapers and other local media, was that all taken care of? Yeah, the trustees had two meetings to approve the scope study. First February and then March, I think that was 2011. Then the connector row was put into the Circle Alternative review. There were 13 warrant public hearings for that. 13 warrant public hearings? Yes. And then in terms of this particular hearing tonight, this evening, was this adequately warranted? When was this warranted? We believe so. The letter's like May 24th, and it was in Isks reported June 6th. Okay, thank you. And so with the site plan, was that something that was included? Yes. Within notification too? It was always included in the Ratic Way packet of terms. In something that was provided to either the attorney and or to the property owner? Yes. May I have a question for Claude Dean, if I may? Yeah. One of the comments that was made about not having jurisdiction. Can you confirm we have? Can you tell us if we have jurisdiction? So I think the trustees need to assess whether they feel that there was appropriate notice given to the parties. And so if your, however you decide on that issue, if you decide that there was appropriate notice, then there would be jurisdiction for the board to entertain, to continue the hearing as scheduled. If you felt that there was not, the sexual procedures were not followed, then that would divest the trustees of jurisdiction. If I may add to the record? Hang on one moment. I'll make sure you have that chance. I just want to make sure that signals too. So seeing that trustees I know are the questions of the witness at this point. If there's something, if there's a rebuttal or another question that you have. Yes. Yes, thank you. I just want to add that the fact that it may or may not be the same as an earlier site plan doesn't create compliance with the notice requirement. The fact that there is in fact an inconsistency leaves a question up to the landowner as well as to us to properly assess what it is that's being proposed. To be taken and the impact on the property owners. Furthermore, the notice itself said merely a road, not the width, not the location in particular. The notice didn't come with a site plan. We in fact had to pursue it later. And so there really hasn't been sufficient notice to the landowner. The site plan as well as the alternate one I believe was referenced there are substantially different. There are additions to a driveway as well as a parking area. There is presumably a different impact on the overall arc and scope of the project vis-a-vis the impact on Mr. Clanges. And the difference is difficult to assess with the information that we have available to us. Eliza Van Lep. I can leave my card with the board if you'd like. Did you sign in? I did. Along with that, anybody else in the public, if you have not yet signed in, please do so. Because that would be greatly appreciated and helpful to us later on. So, Mr. Pierce, I may come back to you again. With regards to differences from alternative one to what was finally approved, how are the ways in which the landowner was notified? Alternative one was a schematic. And what it showed was the road on the outside curve moving in more eastwards than it does currently. When we finally did design development, we took that eastward movement of the road out and just joined the curve up. And so how would the property owner be notified of that? Well, the plans that went to the property owner had to change. The alignment you have now with the plans that went to the property owner, which took two occasions. Okay. Once when we had the appraisal done. And then when it was announced, the plan sent. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I don't have any further questions. I would say that I think that all the, as far as I can tell from everything I've seen, all the statutory requirements have been met. And I would make a motion at this point to deny the motion to continue. I will second that. Okay. So with a motion on the table, is there any other questions from the trustees on the motion? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. So at this time, what we will do is we will have an examination of the premises. This will include a site visit to do so. We are going to need to leave this room and to go on a little walking tour of the properties that we are talking about. Another road that is being proposed. So as such, we will vacate the room. And then we will come back at the end of the tour. So that gives you a sense of the road to our 11 foot lands with bike lands on either side. And the eastern side also has a sidewalk. But this is a small green strip. So the yellow paint here is the center of, going to be the center of the road? Yes. Just the yellow paint you are walking to right now. Yes. Right. Every 100 feet is smart. The neon yellow, not this. The guard karate yellow. Not the orangeish yellow. The orange. So you can see from here it curves over to the stick. Just on the grass. How wide are the lanes? 11 feet. Here in the weeds. That is where the center line of the road is. Is it crosses the tracks? From there. Straight across? Yes. Straight across. It mimics the line of the railroad. More or less. Could you come down here? So what are the boundaries that are impacted here in terms of railroad and other properties? The real way, we were fine with the road. And Bill's property to this side, but that's it. There's a parking area on the map. Where would that be? These would be the open streets. The parking area is on the railroad. Right of way. It's something they gave us. Dove said the parking they took away up there. It's located approximately where we are. And where is the curbing located? Yeah, the two exterior boundaries where the bike lanes stop. Traffic management plan for the driveway that's planned for this area. During construction? For the permanent use of the property. In terms of stop signs? Required lanes, stop signs, what the turning radius is. Yeah, I mean this is a federal project that has to meet federal regulations in terms of design and construction. We want to kind of reserve questions for when we get back so that we don't have testimony going on on the sidewalk. Should just be for pointing out where we are and reserve cross examination for... I'm not actually intending on testifying. We legitimately don't know vis-a-vis the property where the expectation is for the lanes are going to go, how far out into the property they're going to extend. So I'm not trying to testify or be a part of the record. I'm actually wondering. Yeah, no, I think if you have questions as to where things are at the ground, I think to the extent that they can best answer it. I think we should just be pointing things out, but in terms of any cross examination of Mr. Pierce or anyone else, I just want to reserve that for back at the back of Town Hall. And I think it's helpful, Rick Hamlin, so it's helpful to understand that Mr. Calangi's property essentially runs along the edge of the pavement. Right now we're standing on a railroad property, and when we show the plans you'll see the different segments of the right-of-way and how the roadway alignment will be, so we'll actually show that graphically to you. But Mr. Calangi's property essentially ends at the limit between the grass and the pavement. It's a very good approximation. So we're a railroad decide, and as soon as we start on the pavement, we're essentially at Mr. Calangi's property and the impact. So then is from that edge of grass, and then as we move toward Maple Street, Mr. Knox's parcel runs right along the side of the garage closest to us, and so that's where the impact to Mr. Calangi's property will terminate. We'll point that out, but just so you can visualize when we have the plan up, the grass and pavement is that edge between the railway and Mr. Calangi's. The proposed parking that is on railroad, actually on railroad land is approximately... Mr. Calangi's is requested his curb cut to be approximately here when we'll show that on the plans. And again, we can show you the full diagram inside, so that the area that we're impacting is the pavement, the trailer are, and I'll point out when we get in where the parking is, and then again as we walk forward, we'll pay attention to the barrier, the difference, the transition between the grass and the pavement, and that's as we walk off railroad lands and on to Mr. Calangi's property. And so from that state to the other state that we were up for, essentially straight line from state to state, 11 feet. No, it's a curve, and we'll again, we'll show that. The majority of that curve is actually here on the railroad property, and as we get on to Mr. Calangi's property, it's straightened out and on to the alignment of the existing driveway to the intersection with railroad street. Thank you. That stake that we were just at, the center line comes through, and then the center line goes through the bright yellow mark just to the right of the grass, just to the right of that utility pole. And about where the arrows are is approximately where Mr. Knox and Mr. Calangi share that common property line. So again, our impact. So the railroad right away actually is right about where I'm standing. The railroad right away passes just past the end of the red building that you see behind you. So right now I'm on the railroad right away land, and now I'm on Mr. Calangi's property. So that, again, if the trustees would just look at that building and receive that alignment, we can point that out when we're looking at the plan. So you'll note the spaces that we're standing on here are actually on the railroad side. Thank you. An additional 20 parking spaces, public parking spaces inside this hook of the, so if you look here, this is where those parking spaces will go and we'll point those out to you on a site plan during the hearing. 20 parking spaces right here. That's correct. Again, public spaces open to all. The limit between Mr. Knox parcel and Mr. Calangi's parcel is here. It runs roughly within a few feet of the edge of this garage. So if you stand here and look down and look back. So when we stood back, I was telling you that it was the verge of the grass and pavement. Well, it's really the edge of this pavement. As I'm standing straight back to the red building, the limit of Mr. Calangi's property and we'll show that in a plan view, but this edge of pavement projected to the red building, to the right of it, railroad lands to the left, Mr. Calangi's, and if I put my arm back over here, this is Mr. Knox. The next thing I'd like the trustees to note, if they would, is that from this point, the Crescent Connector continues along the alignment of Railroad Street, crosses the tracks, comes to here, and then continues on to Main Street along the alignment of Railroad Street. And I just ask you to take a look at this view right now with the two lanes and parking, because there'll be some discussion about that during the presentation, what that configuration looks like now and what it'll look like and how the ownership changes after construction. So I just want you to look at that. Okay, so we are back. Thank you, everybody, for the tour. Thank you to everybody who helped provide the answers to those questions that we had out on the site visit. We shall move on to the course of the public hearing 4A where presentations and testimony by staff and engineers. Are we having an engineering presentation first? Yes. So if those doing the presentation would like to come up and remind you that you did take the e-hold earlier, and you can come up to the... Oh, you want the board or...? No, I just... I'll need access to the screen so the people can come down there. I'll go wherever you would like. I just want you in front of a mic. That's fine. Should we do it? Yeah. And once you are all settled, if you could also just identify yourself for everybody else and have some... I'm not even sure. I already hit myself three times. I would come up with a little error today. Can you stand? Just look to your head around. It's just me that's almost getting killed by him. You've been in the moment. That's your pleasure, Mr. President. When you're ready. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Hamlin. So I'll move around a little bit, but I'll stay seated for the moment. My name is Richard Hamlin. I'm a... Well, then we don't get one. Sorry. Let me know when you're ready. I think we're good. Thank you. My name is Richard Hamlin. I'm a professional engineer. I'm also the village engineer. And tonight, my capacity is the project manager for the Crescent Connector Project. So our goal this evening is to hold a necessity hearing. And with me this evening in the audience, obviously the project design team includes Mr. Robin Pierce, myself, John Benson, John, would you raise your hand? From Duoy and King, Brian Breslin. We've got Cory Mack from RSG. We have Andy DeForge, the V-Trans Project Supervisor, and Rob White, also the V-Trans has joined us. These are the folks that have been working on this project for many years now. So the next slide is just an overview. We just walked for your orientation. We just walked from the Lincoln Inn, or from the Lincoln offices on Lincoln Street here. We crossed the five corners. We came down, walked into the parking lot here, and retraced our steps. So here's the five corners. We'll be discussing Main Street, Lincoln Street, Pearl Street, Park Street, and Maple Street this evening as we cover the gamut and information related to the Crescent Connector Project. The set of rules that we're working under this evening for this necessity hearing can be found in Title XIX, the Vermont Statutes, Highways, and so all of the process steps that are to be followed come out of that statute, the Title IX team. So what we'll be asking you, the trustees, to do are to find on three things related to necessity, and the statute is clear, that there are three things that you need to find have a positive impact on the population of this community. One is public good, the other is necessity, and the third is convenience. And so throughout the presentation tonight, if you could just kind of keep those three things, public good, necessity, and convenience in mind, it would be very helpful. And there'll be a couple of points where we'll remind you of those as we move through the presentation. Can everybody see? Everything's all set, everybody good? All right. So, first a little bit of history. The project, the Crescent Connector Project, has got a fairly lengthy history, and one of the first landmark elements that pushed the project from a concept into motion in terms of the process of moving forward and ultimately having a design was the completion of a scoping study. And that scoping study was prepared by the CCMPO, the Jim and Karen Municipal Planning Organization, and that was presented and completed in 2011. So, and that report was presented publicly and comments were requested from the public and received. So, in the beginning, there were essentially two routes that the scoping study identified as potential routes for the Crescent Connector, the Southern Alignment and the Northern Alignment. So, ignore the red outline, which is the study area of the Phase A of the Crescent Connector, but there's a dark blue line and a light blue line. And so the light blue line represents the Southern Alignment and the dark blue represents the Northern Alignment. So, Alternate 1, also known as Alternate 1 and Alternate 2. The Northern Alignment, Alternate 1, ultimately selected, goes through the parking lot and just adjacent to the railroad tracks off Route 2A through the McEwing Land Holding, crosses the tracks into the railroad property, then into Mr. Klange's property, Mr. Knox's property, then on toward Railroad Street. And so the area that we were walking on Mr. Klange's property was right in here, in this area. So, Southern Alignment, Northern Alignment, Alternate 1, Alternate 2, and those phrases will come up another couple times in the report in the presentation. So, based on input from the residents and especially the impacted landowners, what was selected was Alternate 1. Two of the landowners felt Alternate 1 was a better choice. One of the landowners felt Alternate 2 was the better choice and ultimately, for many reasons, Alternate 1 was selected. So that's a little bit of background. So you hear about Alternate 1, Alternate 2, Alternate 1. Is that blue, is that blue route the ultimate selected route, concept route for the Crescent Connection? So, March 2011, those alternatives were presented and here is the minutes of the trustees meeting and I won't read through it. But in this meeting, you, the trustees, reviewed and made a motion to accept Alternate 1 as the proposed and accepted route. And so, again, that was all done through a couple of public meetings, ultimately with your action, to accept Alternate 1. So, after that, the project moved forward after the scoping study. The next phase in heading toward design is the preparation of an environmental assessment. And so, the environmental assessment... Yeah, so first, Mr. Benson's going to set on the table right here the scoping study, which we'll offer into evidence for tonight's hearing. And then right behind that, he'll offer the environmental assessment into evidence. So those are for your future reading. Again, the EA was presented to the public. The EA was available for public comment and public comment was in fact received. The EA is a very comprehensive document and reviewed many, many different elements of the Crescent Connector and how they might impact traffic, air quality, noise, socio-economic impact, historic impact, hazardous material impacts. So it's a very comprehensive report. And the ultimate goal of the EA process is to get a letter of finding of no significant impact. And so, in order for a project to continue this letter of finding of no significant impact, also known as a FONSI, needed to be issued. And so, in 2014, the EA was presented to the public. Again, comments were received. And ultimately, after that process was complete, the FONSI or finding of no significant impact was issued by the Federal Highway Administration. So that brought us a significant hurdle and again, we're offering that letter into evidence this evening. That passed a significant hurdle in the project to move into a design phase. So, oh yes. So this document, March 2014, since then has been re-evaluated and Mr. Benson will put into the record the letter that states that this EA is still good and is still an active document that we may rely on. And so it was a re-evaluation and that documentation will be in the pile of exhibits we'll leave with you. So, again, public hearing, FONSI issue. Here are just some, just a few, of the public meetings that were held, more meetings about this project where the public had a chance to weigh in. A local concerns meeting back in July of 2010, alternatives presentation in February of 2011, the preferred alternative meeting in March of 2011 where that alternate one was selected, the public information update in 2013 and then the public hearing on the EA on January 9th of 2014. And again, the EA contains full transcript actually of that last meeting. I should be interested in that. Okay, so with regard to the project process, there needs to be, once we get through the EA process, we need to do preliminary design to know where the roadway is going to go. Permits need to be acquired. We need to, once we know where the roadway is going, we need to acquire right-of-way. And then from right-of-way we go to final design, bid documents and constructions. And currently we are at the right-of-way phase. So one thing that I'd like to point out, although the list looks symmetrical, the timeline from scoping study EA through right-of-way is many, many years. The timeframe from the right-of-way through the completion of bid documents is probably less than a year. Once we get right-of-way clear and move to final design of bid documents, that process will probably take less than a year to complete, and then the project will go to construction. So we are very close to that goal line where we're starting to prepare the final documents for construction. So, as promised, here's a large diagram of the layout that we are talking about, the Crescent connector. The connector is divided into two segments, phase A and phase B. Phase A is from Park Street to Maple. Phase B is from Maple to Maine along the current alignment of the railroad street. And so, here is, you can just point out now some of the things that we discussed in the field if you can see the new public parking inside the curve of the Crescent is located right here. That's where those 20 spaces are going to be located. The spaces that Mr. Collenge was talking about in his parking lot, there are additional 10 spaces that will be located right here. This is where the trailer and the box, the cube van, the white cube van were located. So, right in here. So you can see the other element is a curb cut and a driveway access to Mr. Collenge's property. This is here. We actually, early on in the project, had it here. He requested that we move it here. And again, it can be located anywhere along this line that Mr. Collenge desires. Again, Mr. Collenge's property ends right there. We'll see this shortly. But again, the edge of the parking lot right here. So, if you recall that yellow mark that was near the utility pole, it's very close to the edge of the pavement. Well, there is the center line, the yellow line. And that's Mr. Collenge's property to there. And then again, limited at the Knox parcel. So that's the overall view, starting on Park Street. This is the McEwing building. We're pressing connected with the park from there. We follow parallel with the railroad tracks. And then we cross with a new crossing here and then continue on to Maple. One of the things I'd like to point out at this point is that this crossing actually represents two very special elements with regard to the railroad. The first is that it is a new crossing. So to get a new crossing across the railroad tracks is difficult. And the railroad is agreed to allow a crossing there. The other thing that makes this somewhat special is that typically the railroad requires new roadways to cross their tracks to cross their tracks at a 90-year angle. Or on a tangent if we're, or regularly if we're on a curve. In this case, they allowed us to skew the roadway so that we could pull the roadway out and tuck it up closer to the existing railway and get into alignment much faster with railroad skew. And if we had to come across with a curve and then essentially a reverse curve and then come back again. So by being able to skew that, by the railroad agreeing to that, we would have this curve up much closer and make our destination at Maple Street. So that represents some kind of special consideration by the railroad. So the next slide is the overview of the right-of-way plant. And every color that you see here represents a different type of easement or right-of-way. Some are slow-brights. Some are permanent easements. Some are taking. And the area that we're going to focus on eventually is right in here. And we'll focus in on that in a second. But right now, I'd like you to recall when we were on Maple Street and I asked you to look down Railroad Street and to observe the street and the parking. As you can see, this magenta area is a part of the railway acquisition. Well, presently, the railroad company owns more or less half of Railroad Street and all of the parking. So as a part of this project, should it move forward, one of the things that will be resolved is that Railroad Street now will become completely under the control of the village of Essex Junction. And the village will no longer have to pay fees for that area, or be concerned about the railroad not renewing the lease for the portion of the street as essentially it would close the street off if they didn't allow that second lane. So as a part of this project that's a key feature we'll talk about a little bit later also. So I just, since we're out there and you looked at that I just wanted to point out that this is another key part of this project. This is going to mean straightening out something that the village has actually been requesting in the railroad since the 80s to be able to purchase or to take over control of this parcel and it's only now in 2019 that the railroad has consented to allow that to happen. So for, and the other piece that we're seeing here is that right now all of the properties that had appraisals done have either signed a deed or a letter of intent to close with the village and to allow the construction of the project with the exception of Mr. Calangese and the property. And so all of the appraisal properties are complete of the four and we're down to just the one. So for this evening we'll focus on that particular one. So again, Park Street, Maple Street and we're going to start looking at this area. So here's the right-of-way plans for Phase A of the Crescent Connector, Maple Street or Park Street, Maple Street. We've walked through this parking lot here. The building that we were looking at, the red building was down in here. So this will help grant you. And then let's move in one more step and look specifically at the area that is Mr. Calangese holding. Here's a closer view of that drive access into the parking lot. A closer view of those 10 parking spaces and a better view of those 20 new spaces, all public parking that would be available to anybody in this area who wishes to park there. Going back to the right-of-way plans, let's focus now on just Mr. Calangese's piece. So in here there are one, two, three, four, five, six parcels that have different types of easements on them that we're requesting for Mr. Calangese. So the table that you'll see in the slide discusses each one and permanent and temporary. And so let's focus first on the permanent easements. We'll start right from the top and if you've got the slide in front of you. So the first is a drive easement and that's 3,988.25 square feet. And that easement is the purple area right here. No changes to the parking lot, no changes to that area. What that easement is for is to allow access from the crescent connector through the drive, the curb cut, so that the public might pull into one of these parking spaces. The magenta that you see above the line is actually the taking from the railroad. So all the parking spaces will be on land that comes from the railroad and only the drive aisle will be from Mr. Calangese and again that's the existing drive aisle that's there now. So that's the first, that's a permanent easement to allow access to those parking spaces. So the next permanent is highway and that's 2,679.44 square feet and that's represented by this light blue circular edged portion. And this is where the roadway will actually be built. And so this is, you can actually see on your plan the edge of the road, you can see the sidewalk and the right-of-way will be just outside, the final right-of-way will be just outside the edge of that sidewalk. So work here way down through we'll come back to the two temporary. There are two more permanent easements for lighting of 9 square feet and approximately 7 square feet and they're just two little bump-outs here and here to allow the streetlights to be located behind the sidewalk in this area. So that's about 16 square feet to allow the streetlights. So that encompasses all of the permanent temporary represents slope which is the yellow. So this is allowing the project to re-grade that area of Mr. Calangese property to ensure that there's proper transition between the roadway and his property so that the grades are all smooth and we don't have any big step-offs with grade. And then behind that is another temporary easement for construction. This is an area that construction equipment and construction workers would occupy during the construction, but once the project is over this area of temporary and this area of temporary will retain no rights to that after construction is done. So in summary, there's 6,684 square feet of permanent and about 2,502.4 square feet of temporary taking that we're looking at for this project. The permanent represents about 0.062 acres. So any questions for you? Are we good to there? All right, so just as a reminder as we move on to the next set of history and documentation public good necessity convenience those are the three benchmark mileposts that we're asking you to consider what we're presenting to you this evening and to use those as the scale of balance against your finding of necessity. So in both the EA, the Environmental Assessment and the Scoping Study there was a purpose and need description for the project and the purpose and need provides the target essentially in words of what this project should achieve if it's going to be successful and I will not only like to do this but I will read from the slide here the purpose of the proposed action is to facilitate regional travel to from destinations southeast and northeast of the village as well as improve local circulation in the village center improve safety and enhance opportunities for economic development and employment growth within the village center. The need for the proposed action is based on the current levels of traffic ingestion that exist within the village at the five corners intersection which result in extensive vehicle delays traffic volumes exceeding capacities of the adjacent roadways disruptions to adjoining businesses and a high vehicle crash rate of the adjacent roadway in addition there are properties located within the village center and along the NECR lines rail lines that have not been able to be more fully developed due to lack of suitable accessibility so purpose and need and so the next portion of the presentation will focus on those elements of the purpose and need regional travel local circulation safety economic opportunity and so the next slides will focus on those key elements so that you may weigh whether the project does in fact meet the purpose. Alright so with regard to regional travel the first benchmark was our goal we'll go back to the layout plan here here is route 2A also known as Park Street route 15 main street presently traffic is moving northbound from 2A going northbound on route 15 and a freight train comes through the village and heads toward the Burlington branch this track is closed this track is closed and this track is closed all of the traffic now moves through the five corners and the main is occluded by the train at these crossings with the Crescent Connector in place they will actually be able to bypass and continue northward on the Crescent Connector route so one of the regional impacts for this Crescent Connector is to allow northward and southern traffic movement to occur even though there is a freight train blocking the tracks through the village and also the Amtrak train blocking this crossing when they're parked at the station as the control arms are down so that's part of the regional impact of the project in terms of local circulation within the village center the EA contains pages and pages and pages of traffic study which are certainly available for reading and you may have already reviewed them when the EA was presented previously I'm not going to go through level of service or delays turn by turn by turn but in your package you can see mainly there were four conditions that were examined an AM peak no build so the morning peak hour if nothing gets built the PM peak if nothing gets built with this bigger slide I'll just point out to you what you're seeing over here in terms of LOS which stands for level of service F F F E F F so this is the five corners overall F so this is in 2015 so that's actually behind us 2025 in the future PM peak no build F so the next page this is a continuation of the additional streets so the no build summary says that if nothing gets built in 2015 we're at level of service F and again if nothing gets built in 2025 we are still going to be in level of service F and so no improvement and level of service F is an unacceptable level of service in intersection of passage of vehicles in addition intermittent train traffic would exacerbate congestion during peak hours so this is a direct finding right out of the environmental assessment the next table that you see is the intersection level of service with the Crescent connector and peak build and then again 2015 and 2025 again I won't go through this we'll get right to the summary and peak build and then PM peak build PM peak build continued and the summary is that about 650 vehicles in 2015 would use the Crescent connector total for bulk directions reducing that amount in 5 corners in 2025 vehicles using the roadway would increase slightly and in both in 2015 and 2025 traffic the 5 corners intersection would be reduced as a result of the preferred alternative and again that's alternative one that we've been talking about as evidence in the reduced vehicles delays improved LOS shown on table 3.2.4 which is what we were just looking at so forget level of service for a moment just step back what we're talking about is with under build conditions we go from a delay of 93 seconds in 2025 at the 5 corners to a delay of 63 seconds that's a 30 second reduction in weight times at the 5 corners so whether you understand level of service for your F really doesn't make any difference but 30 seconds is a huge amount of time in the cycle time of the 5 corners so in terms of of local impact certainly the construction of the Crescent connector won't make improvements now we want to be clear that the 5 corners you can think of the 5 corners right now as a heart with a lot of congestion and the solution for that with these clogged arteries is to put in a bypass and that's exactly what we're doing here we're creating a bypass this Crescent connector is another connection that goes around the 5 corners just like heart surgery so will this make us Olympic athletes and renovate our heart but will it give us longer life span for the heart that we have this 5 corners intersection absolutely yes alright so another impact that was reviewed is air quality and how this is impacted is the faster we move vehicles through the intersection the less impact there is to air quality and you can actually see let's move right to the 2025 table which is on the right hand side there's a no build and then a build and then a percent change and so with the Crescent connector we have improvement for example of CO2 of a reduction in 21% so we have a reduction in VOCs of 21% so we're looking at and also a reduction in the loss of energy of 21% that's fuel wasted as vehicles are apart so with the Crescent connector we actually increase air quality and reduce some of the harmful emissions that we might expect from those vehicles idling for those extra 30 seconds after 5 corners alright safety is another one of the categories and the needs and purpose statement clearly we're going to reduce train vehicle conflicts by creating this new crossing vehicles that previously had to cross at least two crossings now may only have to cross one and so anytime we can reduce the number of times a vehicle crosses the tracks that's an important safety implementation improve pedestrian accommodations we have what I would refer to as the old kind of historic part of the village which would be Mansfield Church, Pleasant East Street McGregor Arlington Elm on one side of the tracks we have the new residential development that takes place in where the Neckie educational facility was so we've got all the new residential units there plus the Indian Acres development and right now there's really no good connection between those two unless you walk all the way to the 5 corners and then all the way to down Maple Street or Pack Park to go to either of those people cut cross lots now there is shorter routes but it means cutting across private property means potentially crossing railroad tracks and signalized intersections it's not safe and again people are walking across private property with this press connector there will be a direct link between Maple and Park that will allow pedestrians and bicyclists to make a connection between those two routes without having to pass through the 5 corners as a part of this project all of the highway rail crossings will be improved and they're going to be improved in multiple ways but with regard to safety signals for the first time on many of our intersections we're going to have controlled gates that prevent vehicles from crossing while the train is on the tracks and not only will we have gates for the traffic but also pedestrian gates to keep pedestrians from crossing while the train is approaching or is crossing the roadway and last but not least the cruise street lighting as a part of the Pearl Street work, the Lincoln Street work the Park Street work the upgrades to the 5 corners to have many years ago each of those projects has brought the street lighting up to its current level and I think if you remember what our streets look like before those street lights were installed very dark, very hard to navigate at night if you're a pedestrian and so along with all of this new roadway will come improved street lighting so not traffic signals but also street lighting so new signalized intersections will be at Maple Street they will be at Park Street and those intersections will have pedestrian activated signals so you can cross C3 also so that's safety so just in summary reduced train vehicle conflicts so those conflicts occur here and they occur here we're going to reduce those conflicts by allowing some of the traffic to avoid those crossings pedestrian accommodations so you'll be able to walk on a cement concrete sidewalk from Park all the way to Maple all the way to Maine on New Sidewalk or bicycle in designated bicycle lanes working wide again that will connect you between Park and Maine so railroad crossings again we're going to summarize those actually later what those improvements will be and the street lighting so all the street lighting from Park all the way to Maine the other piece that's very important about the crossing connector was designed and will be built to village scale and so much discussion occurred very early on in the project on how to make this project fit within the village and so one of the things we talked about on the sidewalk typically roadways such as this wouldn't be unusual to have those lanes to be 12 feet wide and we said look within the village with the traffic that this will carry we believe 11 feet is a better choice and the 4 foot bike lanes and the 5 foot walk to mimic some of our other streets and to make the least amount of impact on our neighbors as possible and so it was designed very much to fit in with the village and not be a part of just processing traffic through the village and I know the trustees have had this conversation before but the counter point to this is the proposals that we've seen in the past to start at the Williston line and create 4 lanes in both directions on Park Street to get rid of on-street parking and just become a through way to process vehicles through our village core and that concept was rejected with the Crescent Connective so this is village speed and suitable for all users not just traffic passing through so enhanced opportunities for economic development and employment growth so this was another one of the goals we had lots of input on this this is a great letter this came from actually Mr. Klang's himself and I'll just read here the second paragraph I believe that alternate would be best for my property my plans are to keep this as a rental property and I feel that alternative one would give me the best exposure to the new road and would greatly increase the stability of my tenants with its commercial tenants on the property so here's the GCN Landowner saying I like alternate one I think that's going to be helpful and make my leasing of these buildings to commercial tenants make it more stable and if he continues let me know if there's anything that I can do with this new road it shouldn't be built as soon as possible so this is Mr. Klang's December 28, 2010 and this was offered up as a part of the Scoping Study comments you'll find a copy of this actually I think we have a copy for the exhibit but you'll also find it in the appendix of the Scoping Study alright so environmental consequences to socio-economics kind of a big mouthful but essentially what the EA requires us to do is to look at this alignment this construction and how is it going to impact or will it impact any particular socio-economic group does it advantage a certain group does it disadvantage a certain group by construction are we looking to move or have to relocate a certain group of folks in a certain socio-economic group and so the EA found that the preferred alternative introduces the potential for longer-term economic development by providing improved accessibility to existing underdeveloped properties that would be better positioned for future redevelopment or rehabilitation there are no changes anticipated to population data as a result of the preferred alternative and so here's two findings one is we are not going to have a negative impact but we'll have a positive economic impact so again in terms of the purpose and need right out of the EA it has been accepted by the Federal Highways Administration alright so back to the location that we're talking about and Mr. Calangese and just west of Mr. Calangese properties this new crossing for the Crescent Connector we talked about in length now this is a very special new crossing and not at a 90 degree so let's talk about what Crescent Connector will happen as a part of this project this is a single plant sheet from a big plant set that's going to be offered up is an exhibit that will be placed on the table which includes all the current railroad plants and both signal and track improvement plants so let's talk a little bit about what happens so again, here we are at 6 Junction we are right here we have Maple Street, Park Street Pearl Street Lincoln Street so improvements to the railroad very first it's going to be on Central Street Crossing so this is right near the rail depot right near our train station and it's going to be new concrete panels put into service so if you've been in the village for any amount of time you know that we've gone through paved surfaces we've gone through rubber matte surfaces that were great when they were first installed but don't last very long and then in some of our crossings the new concrete panels have been used in there much preferred they seem to hold up much better and ride much more smoothly and anyone who drives trains on Park Street knows what it's like to cross the existing track crossings that are deteriorated so a new concrete panel so that's the Cadillac crossing panels, improved signals gates including pedestrian gates and improved signage so that's Central next improvement will be at Main Street concrete panels improved signals, new gates pedestrian and vehicular, improved signage and another gate on Railroad Street so if you may recall if you're driving down Railroad Street toward Main when the gates close currently on Main Street some of the only we have in the village there's actually a clear shot from Railroad Street across to Railroad Avenue which is an unsafe maneuver so with this project there'll be an additional gate on Railroad Street to prevent that cross traffic from shooting across between those open gates on that skew angle so that's Main on Maple concrete panels, improved signals, new gates pedestrian and vehicular and improved signage moving on we've got the new crossing so again concrete panels, new signals new gates, new signage, a whole new crossing for the village of Essex Junction and probably the first new crossing since the turn of the century in Essex Junction alright so moving on to Route 2A this is Park Street North the crossing closest to the five corners again new panels and everybody who periods on 2A will be thankful for that improved signals new gates, improved signage the same for Park Street South so recently the railroad removed the second set of tracks, the old tracks that went to the GED, Rear House, Cocoa Plum Essex Junction Park Building and so that crossing will also get the same upgrade as all of the others and not to be left out South Summit Street so improved concrete panels will be installed there, the signals there are relatively new but that crossing surface again if you drive South Summit you will appreciate the new concrete panels on top of all of that this project includes a re-ballasting and re-regulating of all of the track under this dark red line so essentially starting beyond the storage building off-central we go all the way just past South Summit and we go way out past the village garage area here including the Y all of the track will be re-ballasted and raised and that helps railroad operation but it also improves the signal transmission of their warning and control devices right now the tracks and ballast are getting into the sub-grade where there is high moisture content and it disrupts their signals for their communication and control equipment so all of that will be raised as a part of this project so it's a very significant improvement just for the railroad as this project moves ahead alright so beyond the actual physical signal improvements of new signals new signal heads, new controllers new rail signals, new cross-arms those two elements don't exist in a vacuum in a vacuum from each other we all know that if a train comes through the village we must accommodate it with our traffic signals and so there has to be coordination between the railroad and between our vehicular signals to make sure that one isn't saying yes it's good to go and the other is saying no you need to stop so as a part of this and this is a huge project very complicated RSG is the coordination of rail and vehicular signal systems so if there are multiple possibilities multiple combinations of logic that must be addressed and that will be done as a part of this and all through a single controller here to five corners preemption for safety vehicles all of the new signalized intersections will include preemption so the emergency vehicles within the village police, fire, rescue can essentially allow traffic to push through to allow emergency vehicles to enter the intersection so preemption is a part of this project and park street cue detection so this is something that's a little bit odd and probably not something you're familiar with but something you're definitely familiar with is occasionally on park street a fairly regular occurrence traffic backs up from park street into the five corners blocking the pearl street lanes so when pearl street gets to green it's not in advance because traffic is blocked the stop bars of pearl because traffic is hanging out of the five corners because something has happened downstream to stop that traffic so the park street cue detection will actually be a camera or a sensor that will be mounted on park street and as that those vehicles start to back up toward the five corners and get to a point where they might include the five corners and stop traffic from pearl it'll release southbound traffic on park street to allow that traffic to clear and keep moving it won't solve all the problems but it will at least allow the northbound signals the traffic will still be shut down and turn to red and everything green southbound will be allowed to release so that's park street cue detection alright so costs this is certainly near and dear to everyone's heart the base project is funded 81.08% by the federal government the federal highway administration an 18.92% through the state through v-trans there is no local match so there is no match the percentage that the village must pay for the core of this work is zero the only payment that the village will make is any time where the village wants a special provision instead of a plain jane lamp maybe something a little fancier perhaps but the amount of expenditure from the village is very very slight compared to the overall project which right now is currently estimated at around $7 million right so $7 million is the rough number we're working with right now and probably almost 2 million of that is railroad improvements so to date $1.85 million has been expended toward this goal for the project this is construction cost plus there's the design cost so this is just construction alone it doesn't include the design fees but to date $1.85 million has been expended and we'll get to why that's important in a moment alright so consequences if the project is not built what happens if we don't build this project well first off and it's not even listed here but I want to make sure we get it on the record is if this is not built we require the other half of the railroad street so without this project we don't finish with the railroad the railroad does not allow us to take control of half of one of our streets and it still belongs to them and they can do as they wish and charge us as they like so that's an important thing to remember traffic levels of service will continue to decline there'll be no improvements traffic levels of service will decline and that F will just get longer and longer and longer no safety improvements enacted so we won't have any of the safety improvements that are benefited by the new signals new pedestrian accommodations bicycle improvements lighting improvements no rail improvements and no improved environment for economic development so as EA mentioned this new roadway sparks and makes possible development that is not available without it so without this a lot of economic development that would provide infill and development within the very core of our village would be greatly retarded would never happen we don't know but certainly this helps to accelerate it greatly and the village must repay cost expended to date so if we don't move ahead with this project $1.85 million the state will come back and ask the village if the project is to be abandoned so that's a very important feature to consider so in summary again what we're asking you the trustees to find is that with regard to public good and necessity and convenience this project has met the goals of the purpose and need and you can find positively under these criteria public good and necessity and convenience that are outlined in the statute question thank you Mr. Hamlin so as we go through this process I just want to be clear on how this is going to work or how this questions will work we will first have the trustees have an opportunity for questions after we have finished with our questions we will then open it up to anybody from the public who would like to have any cross examination again for all of those requesting cross examination please confirm with me whether you have or have not done the oath as I did at the beginning of the meeting if you're unsure we'll just do it again for things to be covered I ask that as you have questions please make sure you address them to me then they can be addressed to our witness at the time so with that Mr. Chair could I just enter a couple items into the record of what was presented so this is an actual copy of the presentation so you have a copy of that this is a set of the plans as they exist to date which of course are still in the development process and this is a copy of an email that we've received from Mr. Ford from the trans that spent out the amount of money that has been spent to date on the project and just for the record can you also state your name please John Benson and so again trustee this is just questions of Mr. Hamlin I would open it up if anybody has any questions at this point Rick and that was a great presentation it was very comprehensive and I really appreciate it one of the things and I know you touched on it so part of the CERC alternative program as you know Governor Schumlin initiated a program back I think it was in 2012 for the four CERC communities Williston, Colchester, Essex Town and Essex Junction for each submitted project as an alternative to because he had decided to not go forward with the CERC confidential highway and I just wanted to get a little bit for me was that in your mind in terms of the value in all of the good things that you've listed here about this was that like an extra set of eyes was that a separate vetting process that the Regional Planning Commission also brought to bear on this so this project was actually the very first there have been multiple CERC alternative projects so funding that was here marked to build the CERC confidential highway again that was the highway that would have gone from Interstate 89 in Williston through Mountain View Road crossing 117 near the sewer pump station on River Road and that would tie into what we now refer to as 289 and then that 289 loop would have gone to 2A and then passed through the edge of the existing town paralleled Kellogg Road and then ultimately ended up in Colchester so the concept of the CERC confidential highway as you mentioned through a couple of administrations lost favor and this project was the very first project offered up approved and granted given a push ahead by Regional Planning and the state to build this particular project as a CERC CERC so yes the genesis of this project is the termination of that old project that we refer to as a CERC highway thank you if I could just continue on that line of questioning so with that being the CERC alternative project was there an additional scrutiny on this project from the CCMPO depending on how that timing played out yes and so the scoping studies in fact this project was scoped as you may recall actually in two pieces there was phase A that was scoped individually and phase B that was scoped individually and then ultimately those two scoping studies were melded together in the process but the initial process was looking very closely at just one piece and then the second piece and so yes I would say that this got a lot of scrutiny with regard to both funding at the state and at the regional level and we have support letters and I believe Mr. Pierce has documentation from CCMPO that they support the project even today as we speak and are still supportive of the project I'll let him present that yes we have a digging letter from the Executive Director of the CCRPC we also got a support letter from JNC in Wyoming and during the Circle Alternative process when it came to voting Williston, Colchester Essex, Essex Junction all voted for this project groups that attended most of the meetings for the Circle Alternative process which was 13 months included Conservation Law Foundation Local Motion and a lot of conservation groups and it was an unanimous vote when it came to the end of the project and I assume those letters you're referring to either are entered into evidence they're all in the pocket trustee do you have any other questions I just wanted to shift for a second and ask a specific question about the Kalanji's property so is it safe to say Rick that the proposed Crescent Connector does not impact any of the parking spaces on his property so the answer to that is no there is some impact and so let me let me just point out I don't know whether you can see this yeah okay so so right here there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 perhaps 10 spaces that might be impacted in terms of access certainly there's parking that can be reconfigured here but assuming no reconfiguration I would say that 10 spaces are lost 10 spaces are gained and then beyond that are the 20 spaces gained across the street so within the parking lot itself in terms of spaces identified and controlled we'll call them legal spaces 10 lost, 10 gained for a net balance on Mr. Kalanji's site not on that and I should say we're at the two-step process so tonight is the necessity hearing and then the next hearing should you authorize necessities, should you find positively would be a compensation hearing and that's exactly where that type of conversation should take place as impacts to his property and its value if you have a question Amber not sure well it's not necessarily a question for Rick I mean Rick pointed out that if we don't proceed with doing this the village is responsible for $1.8 million and paying it back to the state so I definitely can admit that I don't know the budget that very well but I'd say that we don't have the money to do that and so my concern is what happens if what does that mean for the village correct and with our total budget in excess of $3 million not by a lot that would have a significant impact on taxpayers for sure yes so with regards to the necessity of the road are there other questions yeah I want to just clear down a little bit more in terms of the economic development improvement potential of the road so right now on the road as we walked over there it's a dead end it's basically as we went in to turn off Maple Street and go down into that property it's a dead end property there's no other way out you have to turn around and come back out and here we're looking at and I know you probably can't there's no way we can estimate how many cars per day are going to be going by the property now but this will become a completely through area well we know at least and there is traffic dead in the EA and one of the slides that's actually in evidence talks about over 600 cars using this roadway in a peak hour in a peak hour over 600 and even if they're not getting off they're cars that are going by these properties these are commercial properties and they're going to be seeing these properties and they have an opportunity to park and have access to these and the benefit is on this side and as you may recall on the other side of the tracks also this is the same situation they had one access point brought into the parking lot before they acquired the DEPO farm supply parcel so again this benefits the owners of these parcels along this all the locally owned obviously not the railroad they're the other boundary owner on the other side but yes we believe that there is a benefit to the property owners and I think Mr. Klange's letter back from 2010-11 that we put into evidence says look this is a good thing this will bring stability to okay thank you Mr. Hamilton in regards to the traffic improvements that you had mentioned earlier you were discussing about how it would be approximately 30 fewer seconds with the creation of this new road I assume is that's largely because of the ability to not have to go around or to not have to wait for the train should a freight train come through so that's part of the system we're also taking vehicles away from the five corners shortening those queues so that those vehicles can get through so that the timing now could be shortened to allow that shorter queue to that platoon to make it through the five corners so it benefits from many different ways and again would it make the five corners a totally new experience for drivers no but you will certainly feel an improvement in the timing the 30 second difference it's level of service E which for an urban intersection especially five one of the particular problems of our community is that our intersection has five legs so it's not a four-way intersection which is a much easier intersection to deal with so because of that extra leg we end up with extra timing segments to allow those five legs to operate and clear the intersection so any traffic that we can remove from those legs which this will help do will help us alter the timing and make improvements in terms of the driving public that has to drive through the five corners and so in addition to that within the calculated reduction in wait time was the park street queue I'm trying to recall the phrase that you used the park street queue detection was that also factored into so the modeling the modeling stands alone irregardless of the queue detection so the modeling was done the queue detection was actually something that was brought up by village staff and our working with the engineers and RSG as we got into the design elements because for us in the village we know that there are some very specific things that occur that you might not pick up in a traffic study so a traffic study done during the summer doesn't pick up for example Maple Street traffic when school is in session and so the original counts were done in non-school time and so we actually commissioned and had an additional set of counts to account for that 725 to 738 rush of people driving their cars to the Lawton and coming back again so that is accounted for but the queue detection was later and it doesn't really show up in the model it's just a functional thing that we know as village residents occurs that we passed on to the engineers so they could accommodate it the best they could with technology that's available so then there may be a chance that that reduction in wait time could have to be greater or an increased reduction I think what it's going to do is that the queue detection will help guarantee that many times will be achieved because if there's a queue and the timing signals saved for Pearl Street to release it's green and they can't go anywhere obviously your delays even though the light is green your delay is there so the queue detection is really going to help ensure that the projected delays are achieved I think it's the best way to put that trustee any other questions? just one more if you could just elaborate I know we follow all the traffic improvements but I know because I live down on the other side of the track so to speak and I know that one of the problems in the morning are the traffic stacking up down Maple Street and then people who want to take a left hand turn on the Park Street see the green light but they can't get to it because they're stacked so how often have we seen people jump into the ongoing traffic lane accelerate in order to get down there and take a left hand turn now this will provide a left hand turn onto Park Street for that so is this going to have an impact on that? so if we look at a slide that I have here that shows the complete roadway if you look at your slides that show again the roadways all the way from Park to Maine if you look at that slide if you focus on Maple Street one of the things you're going to note is that there is a single lane from Railroad Street to the 5 corners so as a part of this project the left turn lane those drivers to do as you say cross the tracks passing illegally within 75 feet of the railroad tracks to try to make it into that green light on the left that left will be eliminated all those left turners will now turn and so the queue that they'll be entering is prior to the tracks so again much safer we won't have people standing on the tracks two cars wide now as they often do in the morning and so that left turn lane and that rush to try to get to the left turn lane that the 5 corners will be eliminated under this project and all those left turners and as you know standing that line the majority of the vehicles are going into the right hand lane and so those vehicles now be able to go into the Crescent Connector and go left on park and avoid the 5 corners all together and the other thing that that does is by maintaining the curve limits now we can have a bike lane that will actually connect all the way from Park Street to the 5 corners right now as you may recall if you're riding a bicycle from the pool from the recreation facility by the time you get to Bushey's Automotive that bike lane disappears and often times what happens is vehicles queuing up trying to make space for those people trying to get behind the left encroaching the bike lane forcing bicyclists onto the sidewalk and it's a very dangerous situation so now that bike lane will exist all the way through the intersection all the way to the 5 corners so that improved for bicyclists there also thank you are there any other questions so before I open this up to comments from the public or not comments from the public my apologies for a cross-examination of Rick Hamlin from the public I want to just remind everybody that this is for the finding of local necessity in regards to public good necessity and convenience this is not that compensation hearing that was mentioned before so please just make sure that your questions are tailored to the need of this new road for our community and not with regards to compensation that can be done at another time so with that if anybody has any cross-examination could you first please raise your hand so I can see how many people would like to I think I'm on his behalf so I just wanted that John would you give me one of the slide decks thank you so then if you would be able to just again state your name for the record I do recall that you had done the oath in the very beginning so we are all clear on that please go ahead do you have any room for the ease of the room I'm going to be there for all that line I'll think but I just don't want to I just want anyone to there's no need to stand up I'll sit so I'm not sort of you earlier directed me to ask questions to you and have you direct them to Mr. Hamlin would you like me to do that okay Mr. Brown to your knowledge have these plans as proposed tonight and as presented ever been provided to the landowners or to the interested parties and the answer to that is yes I actually met with Mr. Calangese I believe it was in May you may be able to confirm that date and at that meeting I provided a set of both the project plans and also the specifically as to the Calangese plan that we were focused in on earlier excuse me for looking at both of you but I feel a bit torn that plan to my client's knowledge has not been seen by him nor has it been seen by his attorneys has there been any effort to distribute that plan specifically as it pertains to Mr. Calangese property on a more granular view go ahead again the right of way plan is depicted here was provided and actually the deed for the proposed takings which has a complete description of meets and bounds all of the areas what the takings involve has been provided to Mr. Calangese also so that's a fully written description of survey level detail of the proposed takings would you be able to clarify in what format that was provided to him so the deed the proposed deed for the agreement with the village there are a pair of routes within that document that described very precisely the limits of the boundaries just like a boundary survey meets and bounds for the takings so very precise description of exactly what is involved and specifically I apologize if you feel that I already asked this question but I want to be very precise as to the specific layout plan to the Calangese I believe it said layout plan comma Calangese earlier on your presentation has that particular image been provided to Mr. Calangese or to his counsel so that image that we saw on the plan is a blown up image much larger plan that he was provided with so what we did is we started in the presentation showing the complete plan which he received and then we drilled into phase A and then we closed in a little bit more and so was he provided that blown up very close in view of his particular taking know it was the complete plan showing all the takings both to the south and north of his property so there may not have been as close a focus on the parking the easements as well as the other rights of way that were necessary all of those elements are shown in the plans they're clearly visible in the plan so at the scale provided for that segment of the right of way drawing so you can actually see the limit of the right of way you can see the limit of the sidewalk his curve curve is clearly shown as that's part of the great accommodation to match his property regarding the six types of easements that you mentioned for the Calanges property so there's actually six separate areas that are two different types of easements so it's not six different types it's six areas two different types thank you there was an assertion that there was no changes to the parking lot made in the drive easement as to the purple there hasn't been a consideration of the use of the property currently in the fact that he currently has free use of the parking lot as it is the proposed plan forces a certain use of the property and forces a certain access to the roadway as proposed has there been a consideration of the explanation of the expected access and easement path that would follow according to the requirements of law so all of the project as was mentioned the site visit will be designed in accordance with the ABTCD that's the standard that the state has adopted so all of our geometry all of our markings of the project must be vetted through the ABTCD standards and guidance what your specific question about use of the property so currently and part of this I believe is probably better held in the compensation phase of the discussion but currently the area that we're talking about which is an access easement access to the 10 new spaces that will be built at the edge of the existing parking lot that area is currently used as a travel lane by Mr. Clangy so could that change yes if Mr. Clangy's came to the village with a revised site plan that said he wanted to relocate his parking that would be something that the planning commission would have to review and ensure that it was done again in accordance with the village standards very clear about minimum parking space sizes also minimum travel ways within the parking lot so the assertion that Mr. Clangy's can really do whatever he like in that parking lot and configure it in any way has to be said with the asterisk the caveat that the village must approve of it and it must be done in accordance with the site plan standards of the village so what we're looking at is using an area that currently is a travel way to access parking spaces as they travel way to access parking spaces so changing here slightly and I will just briefly cite a statute 19 VSA 501 for everyone's benefit it requires that the greatest public could be considered along with the least inconvenience and expense to the condemning property owner and that adequacy of other property and locations be considered as well as effect upon home and homestead rights and the convenience of the owner of the land I'm inquiring as to whether considerations and findings have been made on those principles and I think the answer to that is yes so if I may is this related to the findings of a local necessity or is this into whether this is needed within our community? so the necessity we are entitled to challenge on a constitutional basis and so whether or not these points of law have been considered are certainly relevant to the overall finding of necessity by the trustees my next question was going to be regarding the placement of the roadway and I'd be happy to ask those two questions together so I mean that's what we're doing here today this is a necessity hearing so just to be clear there haven't been any findings made by the trustees yet on the issue of necessity I think that's what this hearing is about and Mr. Hamlin's not making findings the board is making findings on this issue so I want to make sure that what we're doing right now is inquiring the witness about his particular testimony that he was presented and sort of staying within that scope to focus the mention of the statute I wanted to put the statute in the record as a relevant consideration for this trustees panel my next question was going to be the, I believe it was a 20 parking area, 20 spot parking area located to the railway side of the proposed connector area my question is whether there has been any alternate consideration under the engineering approach as to whether the roadway could exist somewhere that did not take Mr. Calange's property I'm happy to discuss that and so the answer to that is yes, it was consideration made however right now the alignment that we're showing is the closest that the roadway can be pulled toward the tracks and so we're limited by two factors one is the terminus which has to be the intersection of Railroad Street and Maple so we need to enter that intersection so we need to end the roadway there and with regard to the crossing of the tracks the only way that the roadway could have been pulled farther up and impact, I'll say less than Mr. Calange's property because even if we were to do that there still would have been an impact to Mr. Calange's property it would have meant that the crossing across the railroad tracks and as you may have heard me testify early on, this is a very special crossing for the railroad, they allowed us to actually skew our crossing very slightly and not cross the tracks at a 90-degree angle or on a radial line with regard to it being a curve and so because of that skew that allows the curve to be tucked in a little bit more one of the original proposals was to come across the tracks at a 90-degree angle and it encroached much deeper and further into Mr. Calange's property and so this was the the best compromise that could reach the railroad and still keep within a safe angle for crossing because the more the angle increases between a vehicle and the railway the more dangerous that crossing becomes the track of visibility both for pedestrians and for drivers and cars so much so that in many locations in urban areas where trains go through pedestrians are actually required to approach the tracks move parallel with the tracks and then turn 180 degrees to come back to force them to look in both directions because of the numerous cases of pedestrians being struck by trains because of a skew and not paying attention so this represents the very best compromise between minimum impact on the adjacent property owners and that's all the owners both Knox and Mr. Calange's and a safe crossing that is permitted by the railroad and can be designed by the railway designers and feel like it can be done in a safe manner Mr. Chair could I just add something to Rick's testimony or is that out of order? At the end of the question Rick, so at the very end of her questioning you may I consulted Mr. Calange and that's the end of my questions so the only other thing I wanted to point out is the question was about were other alternatives considered and as Rick pointed out within the scoping report other alternatives were considered and other alternatives were considered within the EA document and within the EA document it identifies why those alternatives were not pursued or carried forward so it's not like this is the only alternative that was considered to meet the objectives of the project. And let me just point out for the record again because that first drawing with the if you may remember the northern alternative and the southern alternative the dark blue light blue well the southern alternative departed Park Street just to the south of the McEwing building came down, crossed the tracks and then ran in between the existing buildings here the red building that we looked at that I pointed back to you said look along that edge the current alignment of the crescent connector so with regard to impact on at least Mr. Clanges property alternative B or the alternate 2 the southern option would have had a much greater impact on his property than the alignment selected. Thank you Mr. Hamlin. Is there anybody else from the public who would like to cross-examine the witness? Sorry Scott can't see her behind you. So here and none Mr. Hamlin thank you for being here today we appreciate it. Thank you. You are all set. Are there other is there anybody else who would like to provide testimony from the staff or engineer perspective? Careful standing up. I think I'm fine. All the documentation that we gathered over the years for the project are in the pocket. With the trustee Scott there's extra pockets at the table. It included everything for the circle alternative, the scoping studies emails that went on between our sales and property owners, meetings we had and the fact that everything we did all the warnings were sent out according to statute. The tickets that came back from people who signed off having received the letters and the notices. I already mentioned those and the fact that the June 6th Essex we're at tonight's meeting. Thank you Robin. Is there anything else? I don't know if I can think of. Okay. Trustees is there any question for the witness for cross examination? No, I don't have any further questions. I don't either. Does anybody from the public wish to cross examine the witness? Probably to see anybody. Okay. Thank you very much Robin. Okay. And was there anybody else from the staff or engineers to testify today? Okay. So seeing none we can now turn to public comment and public testimony just so I can get an understanding of how many witnesses we may have. How many people would like to provide testimony today? So then you may you may come on. The commentary would be from Mr. Kalanjee if I may ask him some questions or would you like him to Mr. Kalanjee if you would like to give us a couple of moments not to be rude, Rick let me clear if Mr. Kalanjee if you would like to come up here and join the table you are more than welcome to as far as so then if as we are comfortable standing you are more than welcome to if you would like to sit next to him you are more than welcome to I'm going to be asking questions about a case so I guess the camera would probably prefer to be next to him so I can accommodate that and then Mr. Kalanjee I apologize I do not know if you were here at the very beginning of the meeting when I had sworn everybody in were you here for that portion of the meeting? I think I was Are you confident in that or do you want to swear in again just to make sure? He was here but I'd be fine if you wanted to confirm his If you don't mind I just couldn't see him so if you don't mind raising your right hand and just repeat after me I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth Thank you so much Yes you did If you'd like to take a seat you are more than welcome to to stand that is up to you You may proceed So on behalf of Mr. Kalanjee's for the record we are formally contesting the necessity of the plan based on its location as well as whether or not it does need to impinge on Mr. Kalanjee's property and noting that the notice was insufficient to put Mr. Kalanjee's on proper notice as to where the plan would be on his property based on the information that he has available on any credit council Tonight was the first time that we actually learned where the road was planned for on his property and there has been no further information regarding the requirements of state and federal law regarding traffic plans easements how that would actually affect excuse me not easements but traffic plans and other requirements on the property which would significantly impact the current use of the property which is in fact servicing of large trucks on Bailey, Chassis and Spring those trucks require a very wide turning radius and the impact would be complete on that business as far as we can tell so for the sake of the record I want to make those objections plain and I'd like to ask Mr. Kalanjee's some questions when was the first time that you learned what about your property would be taken the first time I think it was about eight or nine years ago and did you write a letter of support at that time I did what was your understanding of the project at that time at that time it was relatively simple I looked at it they had a name of the Crescent Lane and it sounded like a small little road or something like that so it sounded okay at the time but again that was nine years ago did you understand that that plan would be taking any of the parking currently used on your property no I did not would that have changed your opinion if you had known that it would take your apartment wouldn't you receive a notice on May 24th from the town would that have come with any clear plan regarding what the road noticed as part of the taking would be good enough were you either explicit or implicit notice that there was any exact duplicate from the 2011 plans that you had been shown and now eight years later the 2019 plans it's very different from what I looked at you heard commentary earlier that there really isn't a problem here because even though we're taking 10 spaces we're giving you 10 more do you have a response to that well my response is it's relatively how do you say it it's kind of funny I mean actually the spaces the places they're taken online are usable and the other ones really I don't know they came up with that idea those 8 to 10 spaces over there I don't even know how they're going to get to them but in any event the other spaces that I have especially in front of the Bailey's property they're forgetting there's no way to get to them in other words there's a painted space there a parking space but you can't get to it because the road is going to be right up tight against it so you need to have another space to drive there to get to the other ones it's almost impossible would it be fair to say that you don't agree with the assessment of the loss of your parking done by the appraiser I don't is there a greater parking loss than the one originally appraised according to your estimate yes it is regarding your tenant what will the impact be on your tenant on that one they wouldn't be able to function are they based on the trucks that are serviced there would they be able to use the access to the road that's currently being noticed to you it would be very difficult very difficult I saw one of the maps they only got a curb cut in there and it's not necessarily in the wrong place but it's not in a very good space so it wouldn't be comfortable they wouldn't be able to get to where they want to go based on your observation of the property owning it and having your place of business there would those trucks be able to safely make that turn onto the roadway as proposed normally that I don't think that 11-foot width is going to be comfortable for truckers largely trucks in the whole way it's going to be very difficult would you lose income as a result of the impact on your property I think so, yes the necessity is the subject of tonight's hearing is it your opinion that the project as noticed is necessary I don't believe it is do you believe that there's a different location where the property could be decided I don't even think they would need it anywhere I can't think of another place to put that there but as the years went by you could say that to me it's a waste of money the whole project it's too bad but it's it's not going to make anything better as an extension it's the end of my questioning thank you in terms of cross-examination we will use the same process of trustees if you have questions we will go first from that we will then open it up to anybody from the public who would also like to cross-examine the witness so with that trustees I will turn it over to us does anybody have a question to pick things off with Bill in your letter December 28, 2010 you said you've been reviewing proposed plans alternate one and alternate two for a new road connecting Park Street and Maple Street so you were aware that this was a road not a lane that was going to connect Maple Street to Park Street correct that's a tough one George by the way it's nice to see you good to see you too but isn't that I mean it's pretty clear that you were aware it's going to be a road connecting two streets but not necessarily I don't think it was given you know Crescent Lane to me was like a little lane coming down through there now it's like sidewalks, bicycles the whole nine years and remember this was nine years ago almost ten years ago and I kind of actually forgot about it and for somebody to bring that up now and not even make it sound like it was yesterday no it wasn't yesterday it was nine or ten years ago and I just looked at it as a very small operation at the time and never gave it that much thought okay and when you said that it would increase the stability of your tenants what did you mean by that do you remember what you know by that why isn't that clear the stability of your tenants you said well we're talking about now nine years ago okay now the project is different now doesn't have that 90 90 what do you call it angle now it's just like a roundabout so to speak and if you follow me on that so no or I mean yes it is to make a big I think we're going to lose Baileys as an example because I don't see how they can operate over there and they've been there for 25 years they're aware of it I told them that might happen you know they're not too happy about it how do trucks get into Baileys now right now they go right in off from Mapleville and how wide is that road that's well I don't know exactly but I would say it's probably 22 feet wide so this is going to be 22 feet wide just wanted to point that out well two feet it's a lot but it also it's it's just a tough it's a tough space to get into the way they put in the new way to get into it so anyway that's my opinion thanks I have a couple of questions but for the answers of them I believe I'm going to need the assistance of possibly Rick Hamlin in terms of the engineering perspective one of the things that was mentioned is that turning into the property will be difficult with regards to the customers of Baileys Springs and a truck from Baileys Springs Mr. Hamlin can you discuss how you may come up can you discuss how the road was designed with regards to truck traffic that may be coming in as it relates to customers of Baileys Springs certainly let me talk about actually truck traffic in general with regard to the project I'm going to go to the 17th 18th 19th slide here so the Crescent Connector project has been designed to accommodate trucks of all sizes actually because again this is a route that provides an alternate route between Park Street and Main for north and southbound traffic so that at all of the intersections one of the requirements one of the things we asked the designers to implement was to ensure that a WB 62 which is the largest tractor trailer that you can move on the road can it be maneuvered through the intersections and so throughout the project for example turning off Park onto the Crescent the radii of the curb has been built to accommodate trucks also the radii at Main and at Maple have been designed to accommodate larger trucks so there will be an improvement with the entrance off of Maple and vehicles that are coming from the south that wish to go to Bailey spring and chassis now can actually take the Crescent into the parking lot and not be required to come to the five corners and make the 90 degree right which is actually fairly short radius if you look at that plan on the 17th slide in the deck so the roadway itself will accommodate larger trucks and with regard to where the location of the curb cut is initially we had placed that curb cut farther to the north or to the right on this deck toward Maple and in conversations with Mr. Clanges he suggested or asked that we move it further to the south anywhere along that route once we clear the tracks and have a safe distance away from the rail intersection that curb cut could be located and so if Mr. Clanges would like it moved southerly or easterly along the perimeter of the Crescent connector alignment it can easily be accommodated right now based on the imagery you can see trucks there are the entry points to Bailey spring and chassis are on would be the west face of the building so that would be the face of the building toward park street and currently those trucks come in and circulate through the parking lot to gain entrance and right now there's parking spaces in front of those doors and so what we're proposing would be no different in terms of the parking lot circulation for truck access to get there and we certainly would be more than willing as a part of our design work to ensure that whatever single unit and I'm assuming that most of the Bailey spring and chassis truck work is a single unit trucks that we can put turning templates in the parking lot and make sure that they can maneuver in and out but if they can move or in and out of the doors now and clear the parking spaces that are there we believe that they can maneuver throughout the rest of the parking lot to where the crescent connector entrance is and again that could be located wherever Mr. Clanges would prefer to be along the alignment thank you another I believe the last question I have that relates to you Mr. Hamlin one of the comments was about the difference, the plans being very different from the original plan to what we have in front of us the original plan is from the sculpting study so the one with the two shades of blue with the red dotted line that came from the sx junction crescent connector road final sculpting study is that correct that's correct that one I believe you said before the darker blue northern alignment was preferred because it would have less impact on the properties and in addition from the final layout I believe you said this final layout even further reduced the impact onto the current property of the track yes and the sculpting study schematic if you look at that that's figure one from the sculpting study that's in the slide deck if you look at how the crescent connector in the northern alignment crosses the track you'll see that that crossing is at a 90 degree or a radially along the radius of the curve of the track so that alignment would have driven the roadway deeper into Mr. Calangi's parking lot and then a turn accommodated that would direct traffic toward Maple Street with the skew we pull that bow that 90 degree bend as you cross the tracks toward the Calangi's property we pull that back and have a turn of much less than 90 degrees and are able to tuck that corner much closer to the railroad tracks and further away from Mr. Calangi's property so in concept is our current alignment different than this alignment and again it's schematic and I would say yes it is in that we pulled it further away from Mr. Calangi's property by being able to have that skew intersection as we cross the tracks with the new track crossing great thank you Mr. Hamlin those were all that I had did either of you have any questions no actually don't have any other questions myself is there anybody from the public that would like to have any cross-examination of the witness before they are dismissed I have one more follow-up question for Mr. Calangi before we conclude I don't believe there are any hands raised okay yes Mr. Calangi is based on the testimony that you just heard regarding the access to Bayleys would even more of your parking be impacted to allow trucks to enter and exit the building based on the plan just described yes they do based on the plan oh this one here based on the layout plan I believe slide 17 was referenced the plan is referenced allowed trucks to enter and exit the property but would impact more of the parking because you have low access thank you any other cross-examination from the follow-up question anybody in the public have any other cross-examination of the witness from the public okay thank you for coming today and just to recap there is nobody else from the public who wish to come forward to provide any testimony today okay Mr. President could I ask that you just review the process of where we are right now and what's going to happen next in the steps with regards to tonight's meeting so from here what we will do is we have received all public comment and all testimony as of today what we are going to do in pursuant with all the hearing for finding of the local necessities the trustees our legal counsel and our municipal manager will enter into what is called a deliberative session so that way we may privately discuss and deliberate the next steps from here after which we will then share what came out of that and the decisions that are made and for the next steps and to check the legal counsel is there anything more? yes so now that there is no other testimony to be received I will now close the public hearing I will now close the public hearing for the finding of local necessity and close all the evidence for today's hearing so with that being said we shall now move into a deliberative session in which the trustees our legal counsel and our municipal manager will deliberate the next session everybody else you may enjoy your day