 Okay, I like to call the town of Essex select board meeting for Monday, December 4th, 2023 to order. First agenda item, are there any agenda additions or changes from staff? None from staff. Any requested changes from board members? Actually, could we move the grant application out of the consent agenda? We can do that. We put it after the budget work session. Just put it at the end of business items. Make sense? Do you have a change? Okay. Okay, so we have a request to move consent item C up into the business items. We'll move it up to the end of the business item list. Make the motion that the select board approve moving the consent agenda item C up to the final business item. I can make a candle for the discussion. Those in favor of amending the agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion passes 4-0. Okay, next item on the agenda is a executive session. We have the motions up for us. Mr. Chairman, before I make this motion, do you want to explain to the people that are already online? We have to look there. Okay, so for those attending online, we are intending to have the first hour of our meeting be an executive session. So we're starting the meeting off now. And we'll be going into executive session returning at 6.30 to continue on with our regular agenda. I'll let you know that. I move that the select board make the specific findings that premature general public knowledge of the town's position concerning contract negotiations and labor relations agreements with employees would place the town at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you, Don. Do I have a second? Thank you, Ethan. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion passes 4-0. I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts and labor relations agreements with employees pursuant to 1VSA 313A 1A and 1VSA 313A 1B to include town manager, HR director, and deputy manager. And two representatives from Hickok and Boardman. And two representatives from Hickok and Boardman. Don, do I have a second? Okay. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? All those in favor of going into executive session, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion passes 4-0. We will go into executive session and we will return as close to 6.30 as we can. It's coming up on 6.30 here. We're back from our executive session, like to resume the meeting. We did earlier amend the agenda to move the consent item C up to the end of the business section, but I've been asked if we can move that up further because Kent is here who can speak to that topic. So I'd like to further amend the agenda. I would make a motion to further amend the agenda to move consent item 8C to below business item 7D so that we can have the right staff here to address that. Second? Second. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? All those in favor of amending the agenda? Any voting? All those in favor of amending the agenda? Opposed say aye. All those in favor of amending the agenda? Mind the motion passes 4-0. We will move that agenda item up. Thank you for that. The next item on the agenda is public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time when those attending the meeting can speak to the board about town business that's not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard you can raise your hand either here in the room or use the raise the hand feature in the zoom application move your cursor down to the bottom of your screen and you click on the reactions button will offer you the opportunity to raise your hand. And so is there anyone who'd like to speak during public to be heard. Come on up introduce yourself. Don Lang Langfarm. My question of the board is the purchase of the land for the. New town center as you. What I'm questioning is I think pretty close attention to this. Not this but when you're having board meetings and such. I do not recall any meeting address to this. It's a lot of money and doesn't seem to me like you did due diligence checking out other possible property locations. Some me you can't make a town center where there is no town. It's just growing now it's never been a highly popular section of town and yet you want to pop this. Large developmental thing in there. I don't feel all the concerns have been met or really looking at it thoroughly. Where's the sewer going to go which direction is it going to go. Partying the cost. The cost is the people there are other parcels in town that would suffice for that point. Here is former flurry proper well so is the flurry property. There's a number of houses there that have become under one ownership now. I'm sure Lester pelki would love to move out of there and move his motorcycle business. I'm sure other people in that's the center of town. That's where a community is. That's where the corners are that's where the intersections. Where you're looking. Places is more of a much rural area. Then I fear once you for years anything on the outside of the circle anything on the outside of route 15. Was off limits because of sewer not the sewer core. They've been granted some limited exceptions that one being healers and things of that nature. But always been outside the core. All of a sudden did it all of a sudden become inside the core. And hearing no explanations. Now it seems like we've committed ourselves. I have seen no public meetings. I haven't been to any. I mean I keep a pretty good close eye on what's going on in the community. I'm really worried that you take it off the taxes. The tax roll. Our taxes are getting to be unsustainable. I mean we as a family are paying 100 grand a year in property tax. That's absurd. This is not money land that's been purchased for development. It's not slotted for anything other than to stay open and green. And that money is tough. Really is tough to come up with. And I know he's gone oh wow wow wow. That lands been in my family since 1919. Five generations. I want to keep it down. How can I keep it that way? Everybody loves the golf course. It's pretty to look at. Tax load on it. Not like we're contributing to the school system. I mean we're causing more kids like a housing project. For open space. I would like to know how it got this far. You've committed to this land. I don't understand yet how what level how much money so far than so long. But I would really like an explanation. So it was $3 million. Yeah. The details about how it will be developed are things that we need to have discussions about in the future. How do you say it is due to it is in the it is in the sewer car or portions of it are in the sewer car. As far as due diligence to the site we had consultants looking at traffic soil environmental issues. A lot of time researching the site making sure it was. I'm going to ask a question we have the property. I mentioned the Florida problem which had access on route 15. Now very close acquaintance of mine owns that he's in the room. Nobody ever approached him. Nobody ever approached Sally. I spoke with Sally today. It was like the secret agenda. That's how I feel. We spoke publicly about the property that we were interested. I went to a number of these local meetings that were held at uncommon coffee. I think there was no one held down at River Road JPs. Nobody ever. I mean these are community members. We said we'd like a city center. We don't have a city center. But is Butler's Corners a city center? You know. We have a 1992 Essex Town Center master plan that covers this area and focuses on that as the new town center. 1992. Which was just updated with the ETC. Which was just updated with the ETC next plan that the select board approved about it. I know what you're talking about. It's across the road. That's the land that was homesteads original development. That was slotted to be our new town center. Not across. Correct. No. That's the 1992 master plan. It was called the Golden Triangle. It went all the way up old stage road. Came back down Towers Road. Down center road. Included the. You have to admit that. Can I finish speaking please? Yes. It covers the HDI property. Which is across the street. It covers the property that the town has just purchased. ETC next master plan. Which was. Probably a four or five year study that the select board approved about two years ago. It was an update to that 1992 master plan includes this area. And it focuses on this area as being the new town center for Essex. So it's been in the town plan for 25 years. My recollection and middley show was the homestead property. That was supposed to be our new town center. And it's still. Lastly underdeveloped. There's a nine acre parcel that my family owns. Nobody ever. In Essex rescue is going to be building. And part of that. Nobody ever read the word to my parents. It just seemed like it was. A close society looking for land without looking at alternative. You always use them. You always use the terminology. We had consultants. We had consultants. That. The consultant was VHV, Vanessa, We hired them after putting up an RFP. We had. Use all these acronyms request for proposals. Yeah, a few submissions. We hired. The HP, which is the name of the company. Do the work. They did the work. The investigative, the site felt comfortable moving ahead with it. head with it. Blackboard was kept in the loop about that. And don't you think the public has a right to vote on this? Select part has the authority to purchase property. But on the other hand, this is a big move. And here's where I'm feeling with no trust in any of this. And we all watch police building get built. That is the most grandiose overbuilt over everything you can use of descriptive terms as a compound. It's way bigger than what Burlington has. It's the biggest lease station in the state of Vermont. I would be willing to bet. But when architects design, they design for maximization because that's what they base their fees on. Building comp. I'm just not really feeling comfortable that you have done a level of due diligence to the public. This is a big deal. It should be, it should be both. It really should be. The public has been given no chance. You guys have superseded that. We asked, I'm losing confidence. I can't speak through confidence. I'm sorry to hear that. She's losing it. We're using the $3 million and Andy mentioned is from the American Rescue Plan Act money. The town received just over $3.3 million. About a year and a half ago, we did a survey. We did to the community to hear where how people wanted to spend that money. Different ideas of how to spend that money. It came back to look for fourth town infrastructure. That was the subject. Can I finish speaking please? Yes. Thank you. We got a bunch of feedback from the community. We presented after hearing that feedback about how to use it. We came to the town, to the select board. We had public discussion back in, you can't remember the month, but over a year ago, without using that money to acquire a site for a future municipal conflict. That was discussed publicly for all the reasons we talked about. VTCnext plan, the town center master plan, the select one moved ahead. Didn't hear much from the public. The comments we heard were supportive of that concept. So we moved ahead with I speak now. I pay close attention to what's going on. I don't recall anything being put forward directly about the matter of a new town center, new office building. You are going to increase the taxes of this community substantially. It's just going to be spend, spend, spend. There will be votes on any additional spending associated with any buildings if we need to go for bonding. So no, we can't unilaterally decide to build a building and put you into debt. You'll have an opportunity to vote on that. My turn. Yes, sir. You didn't put it to the public about the purchase of this land. That's my big brief. You did. You have all these little bits and pieces that you think stack up to getting public approval. I'm pretty public in this and I do participate. You've seen me here a number of times before and I do pay attention. I had a few months. I was down with my suffered a stroke, but I just don't think you've done due diligence. So, John, are you asking us to do anything now? I mean, I'm asking you to put it to a public poll. It's already a done deal. You're done. That leads me to have a lack of confidence in our current board that I'm seeing sitting in front of me at this moment. Did you ever approach any other landowners? No. Did you ever ask any other landowners about possible land holdings? The number of properties were looked at. Considered properties. DAF recommended to move ahead with this property. We had an option to do so. The select board agreed with that recommendation and we focused on this property. You seem to have all the answers, but I'm not feeling very satisfied. Thanks for your comments. Sure. You've loved hearing them. Anyone else who'd like to speak during public to be heard? I see Lorraine Ziblin's hand up. Lorraine, go ahead. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't going to mention anything about property purchase. I personally think there was a fair amount of due diligence. I did know that it was a done deal last week, so I disagree with John. But given what John feels, it's probably a good idea to survey the public again because often what happens here, unfortunately, with public engagement, people find out after the fact can get mad after they can't change something that is upsetting to them. One of the things I would love us to promote is the town news letter that Tammy puts together, which is fabulous. I hope we can maybe send out a postcard or something to get people to sign up so that they're better informed so we can reduce the anger that happens when people feel they're not part of the process. I have signed up. It is fabulous. I highly recommend it to people who feel left out of the loop. I do see that Essex Reporter is publishing again as well. For people that have missed a paper, I could find that town news letter emailed to me as just a fabulous resource. What I really am dialed into is just to ask more about the Opioid Settlement Fund and where we are with that. I see in digging that we received the first settlement fund in November of 2022. I'm not sure which fund that came out of. I see it was approved to go toward the I believe the first call program that we had already budgeted for and it looked like that money was approved to be used for already budgeted money and that we shifted the money that was already budgeted to something else, which I'm not sure what we shifted money for but when I'm looking at the law as it is written in terms of Opioid Settlement Fund it is not meant to be shifted, it is meant to augment. So I have serious concerns about that shifting of funds. I want to make sure that money wasn't misappropriated. I want to make sure it was used properly and I want to make sure that we're expanding or reducing the opioid crisis that we're experiencing. I see that we had another opioid overdose last Sunday, which was in the police log. I still don't know how many overdoses we have per week because I don't see any regular reporting out from our party department or from Essex Rescue. I would love a dashboard. It has been mentioned in October and if there are more opioid settlement funds, given that the last years came out in November, just wondering what the plans are for those settlement funds. I also want to make sure that our staff corrects a mention about fentanyl getting on the skin. That's what the purpose of having Narcan is for is to protect our first responders. Narcan on the skin, that's not what happens. I want to make sure everyone here understands. I mean not Narcan. Fentanyl on skin, my apologies. Fentanyl on skin does not need Narcan. So I just want to make sure people understand what happens with fentanyl. It is not a danger the way it was reported out by I think our town manager said that during the meeting. I need that corrected to the public. It is dangerous to think that. Also see in the settlement funds that Narcan naloxalone is the first in line in the way the law is written. That is one of the first things that the funds primary thing that's supposed to be used for is actually stop death. So I don't I want to know where we are with putting money to the naloxalone program, which is free for everybody right now. Narcan is free with the testing strips. I understand that there's fear around the first responders feeling like they're enabling the words that I heard. I don't know what to say about that feeling other than the other alternative is potentially death. So then are we enabling suicide if we don't try to recover people. I'm not sure. And there was so I would like to know where what fund it was pulled from from November 22nd because the law says you're not allowed to shift funds for one of those one of those funds. I want to know what the funds were shifted to that we approved in in February as well. I want people to know that Narcan is free. The test strips are free. My son passed away from overdose. Well no overdose accidental overdose. He had an unknown heart problem. He had a 50% blockage on one side. He made a stupid mistake. He bought some coke from a friend. It had some fentanyl in it. And the fentanyl that was in it from the toxicology report was only doctor level. The amount that they give you in the hospital when they put you under. So it was very low level of fentanyl. They want parents to understand that it's very dangerous. We're seeing kids also are still experimenting with drugs out there. So I have very big concerns for the parents in terms of getting the Narcan boxes out there to parents. We've seen a few cases. One of them was a local. I grew up with her. She lost her daughter didn't know that she bought something and she was found dead in the room next morning. So it's a very serious serious issue. And I'm just not seeing a lot of information out there about that. Want to know what our plans are. I would also like to know who the internal safety committee was that the town manager referred to in the past and who we're consulting with because this to me really needs to be a public forum so that we educate not only the people who are at risk but also our leaders and our first responders so that we can gather enough data that sold this down. We've had 23 overdoses that I'm aware of in Essex. Crime has risen because of fentanyl increased use and we need to wrap our heads around this and get this kind of figure out how to how to fix it and we can't do that without good data to see what's working. Appreciate your time and I would appreciate some corrections and some good information. Thanks. Thanks, Doreen. Anything you want to respond to? I agree. Doreen, thanks for the comments. As far as my comment about I think I said before that I'd heard people can overdose from having fentanyl on their skin. That's something I heard from one of our first responders. If that's not the case then my apologies but that is something I heard from a local first responder. As far as the safety committee that is staff representatives throughout the town I think we have our HR director, at least one member for the fire department on the safety committee. I think we have one representative from each of the buildings within the town. So they had looked into what we can do with as far as the Narcan program and the recommendation from that safety committee was that we have some doses on hand at each of our municipal facilities in case of an overdose that we can respond to that overdose at that building. Is that something that we're working on on implementing within our facilities? Thanks, Greg. And I'm sorry to hear about your son. My condolences and apologies for that bad stuff. Sorry. There's no there's no we don't do that here. I don't know your process. Come on up and introduce yourself. My name is Sally Flurry and I read the the town of news the town of Essex News Flash and I had a lot of questions and I want to know the best way to get them to you other than asking you nine different questions this evening but but number one is I learned something tonight that the select board is authorized to purchase land. How do we fix that? Because you need to get the state legislature to change what the okay. So I give Irene a call, right? I don't know if it's in our charter. Anyway, because that's a big deal. I just came from the NSX and I met this lovely couple from Sydney Drive. I said, Hey, there's a meeting tonight. Did you know we spent $3 million on a piece of land? And they asked me where and this and that and they let no we didn't know. These are engineers from Global Foundries. Okay. So I can see John's point. Okay. And for a long time there was rumor we're looking at some land. Will someone please spit out the address? No, no, it's in negotiation. So the address was made clear. I do. I understand that. But so the legislature authorized select boards. In our case, five people speak for 11,000. All select boards are allowed to purchase land. I learned something today and I thought that was great. My question is why so much land? Why both parcels? Why didn't we just choose one? The seller wouldn't sell them separately. Okay. There's a red flag. The expectation is that we will not use all of them and that some of them may be developed in another way. Which is great from a commercial planning point of view or retail planning point of view. But are we going to dabble in that? Yes, sounds like we are. Are we going to be able to sell this building? Has anybody looked into what we can get for this building? It's been assessed, yes. Okay. Because we just renovated this building in the middle of a negotiations with the split. Why did we spend all this money here when we didn't know that we were going to be long-term tenants? So at the time that the building was renovated, the trust was to merge, not to separate. That happened long after the building was up. I know what it should have cut up. But like I say, I need to know why the fire station is small and outdated. I lived in 850 square feet for 10 years. It was small and it was outdated, but it met my needs. So I have a public grant right now to renovate my home, put an ADU in. Boy, am I spending that money differently than if it was coming out of my own pocket. And I think that's what we have here. I mean, I'm thrilled that I can buy quality for the long term instead of my own little budget and I'd have to buy the $800 refrigerator. Now I can buy my tenant a $1,500 refrigerator and it's a smart move in the long run. But I think we need more answers when it comes to spending that amount of money. I mean, what do I do with my nine questions? My phone numbers on the website or my email address can send them to me if you'd like. You can ask them tonight. We may not answer them. Well, I've been looking for a crosswalk for about six years now and finally, maybe, pertinent question. Are we going to have to change uses and zonings on that land in order to accommodate our planner's dream? When I said that this was a planner's dream, the last meeting I was here, I said this is a planner's dream. But I meant retail, development, housing. So my question is, are we changing uses in zoning to accommodate this comp? We do not need to. We can do, but the municipal complex has a mind, we can do that, but municipal facilities are already allowed to use up there now. We are looking at doing zoning changes for the ETC, the Essex Town Center area. That's part of the ETC next plan that I mentioned earlier. Which I'm super familiar with. Yes, you're thinking you're part of that? No, I think this is great. If we had the money, oh, this would be great. I would be all for it, but I don't think we have the money. When you survey people at these meetings. Sorry, sorry, the money for what? To build this complex. Oh, we don't. We don't. We're likely going to have to ask for a bond. I look at it as like a housewife baking a cake. Okay? Why would I go and buy all this stuff? And I don't know what I'm making yet. How do we do that? We have, there's no scope in mind. There's no budget in mind. There's no, let's just buy some land. So if you look at the later on in the agenda, we have our five-year capital plan on there. It includes $40 million for potential buildings on that property, plus some additional. So there has been some thought put into it. There's nothing in concrete yet. If that area, we get a Vermont State designation for that area, then yes, we will be eligible for some grant monies. So what is the criteria to get that designation? I don't know. It's part of what our community development department is working on. A few of the key steps, we have to have it updated into our town plan that we're going to seek a designation status. So the town plan, which is also on the agenda tonight, has that language in there. We have to create an official map. The select board has approved and our community development department is working on creating an official map of that area and taking some of the other steps that are necessary to apply for a designation. Because that property was on the market for a long, long time and they come along and tell you, oh, you can't have parcel one. You got to take parcel one into who's negotiating with this landowner developer. Walk away and see what happens. I just, I think it's way too much. I think it's overkill is my issue. Okay, but it's going to be gorgeous. I mean, we all love gorgeous, but can we afford it when everybody's screaming, low to mental income housing? And oh, we're going to put $40 million over here. And my heart goes out to Lorraine. Every family has been impacted by this fentanyl. And our police department has been handcuffed. I watched it. I watched it firsthand and rental. It was heartbreaking. The people that were dealing the drugs were heartbreaking and the people that they were dragging down with them was heartbreaking. And you ask any police officer off duty, off the record, out in the parking lot. And I don't even know why they work in law enforcement anymore, because it's that sad. I know it's not on your shoulders, but we need to support our police officers as much as we can. It's silly. Okay. Thank you. So thank you. What do I do with my nine questions, Andy? You can email them to me. Hand me a piece of paper. You can hand them to my wife. Yeah. He's in the audience. Anybody else want to speak during public to be heard? I'm not seeing any hands in the room. I don't see any hands online. So let's move on to our first business item, which is a discussion with the cemetery commission. Is there someone here representing the cemetery commission? Come on up. We've been inviting the members of all of our committees and commissions to come speak to the select board. We're working on putting together our budget proposal for FY 25. And so looking to see if you partly if you have any requests and also if there's any information you can share with us all things are going with your commission or anything you need from us or we didn't know we can make requests. Yes. So my name is Joe T garden. This is Susan Brown. We're the co chairs of the cemetery commission. Other members of the commission are Elaine Strunk, John Jansen, Elizabeth King, and our sexton is ever named evermore. So that's that's our commission. We oversee or if you will, we look over two cemeteries. One, the Mountain View Cemetery that's right across from the swimming pool on Foster Road. And the other is home and burial ground right across from the free library. That's the two cemeteries that we walk through and look at and worry about. You know, our priorities are pretty simple. We try to resolve any of the any issues that come up that aren't in regulation. There are times when the regulations need to be changed and the commission they'll discuss that and make those changes and vote on our main emphasis is the beautification of the two cemeteries. So we concentrate mostly on our meetings a lot. Grounds in general, we're in the middle of a beautification process right now, which means we are fertilizing. We are not personally we're not fertilizing. No, personally, but the grounds are being fertilized. I should say NBC. If you never walk through NBC, Mountain View Cemetery you'll you would not know that it's mostly sand, which makes sense. It's on Sand Hill Road, so it's hard to grow anything there. Anyway, there's a beautification program going on there with grasses greener, more lush, and we're in the middle of that. We're also in the middle of ensuring that every military grave in both cemeteries has a marker, a military marker along with a flag goes into that marker. That's another point of emphasis that we have. If you walk through the cemeteries now you'll see some flags are stuck in the ground. Some flags have no designation on gravestones, so it's hard to know who's military, who's not. So one of our thoughts is to make sure that we know who all the veterans are in the cemeteries and to make sure that their graves are marked with a military marker and that there's a good-looking flag on those graves. You can imagine what happens, the motors come by, blowdown markers and tariff flags and all kinds of things. So it's kind of an ongoing process, trying to make it look good. We also have the task of looking through the graves, through the cemeteries, to ensure that broken graves are identified and repaired. In general, broken gravestones or whatever are the responsibility of the family, but you can imagine in the common burial ground, for example, families of people that are buried in that particular graveyard no longer are around. So this commission wants to ensure that the stones get repaired. We also are involved with trying to, especially in MVC, but also in the common burial ground, ensuring that trees that are the huge maple trees that surround each one of those graveyards, we either take down trees that are about ready to fall or we find ways to make sure that the limbs are secure. So that's something that you probably think about when you walk through a graveyard all the time, but we worry about limbs falling off, breaking gravestones and knocking down fences. And we also then, with all these tasks, we also worry about where revenue comes from to pay for this beautification. You may or may not know, but we have two funds that we are aware of. One is a trustee fund. It has around $65,000 in it. The other is a regular budgeted fund that has about, starts out each year with $4,500 in it. So that's the two chunks of money that we work from. But also say that another one of our priorities is retaining our sexton. We've got a new sexton this year ever more and we're happy as can be with ever. But last year, about this time, we sent forth a request that the pay for the sexton be increased. It was not. And I fell at the time that it would be really hard to find someone. And I think it was really hard to find someone, but we did. So that is a general concern. However, we retain a sexton who is qualified to do the job. I don't know if you see, but I never could have imagined how complicated or how much knowledge the sexton has to have in order to do the job properly. It's one of those jobs where you don't really want to make a mistake. You don't really want to try to have an internment and then find out there's already, you know, someone buried in the spot that you're trying to enter or someone else. So anyway, the sexton has to have their lights on. Yeah, thanks for that. Well, I think we're very fortunate to have evermore. And he's very enthusiastic. But I agree with Joe that we really want to keep him. So that would be something we would put forth for you to consider in your budget is looking at him as a part-time employee rather than an honorarium. I believe he gets 2500 a year. So that would be one thing. And Joe talked about the beautification. We've had a three-year project for beautification where it's been two years and it's kind of been your baby. And it really is beginning to show. Thank goodness for all the rain we had last year. It really helped to get all the fertilizer and all going and hopefully it will continue. So, but I think one of the things we've talked about is funding. We're trying to understand the financing. You know, we have, as Joe said, we have this budget of $4,500, from which we understood was for the, would be for the committee to, for the commission to use as needed, depending on what the needs are. But one of our questions is what are our needs? For example, I think you've just found out today that we are responsible for the water in the cemetery, the water bill. Well, that's fine. But that's the, we just learned about that. So it's sort of trying to get a better handle on what commission's responsibilities are and the financing. And so that we can plan. That's our problem. Yeah. This one of our priorities going forward will be to reconcile those finances. You might, at some point in time, I think I understand it. And then other times I don't. And so the better that we can know what we have, the better we can budget. And so it will make it easier then to come forward to the select board if we need extra $2,500 or something to repair, bravestone, et cetera, et cetera. At least we know exactly what we have. And I don't think it's anyone's fault. It's just that probably the, I'm just guessing the cemetery commission is not really high on the priority list of anyone when it comes to budget season. I'm not being critical of that. This thing is probably not high on the list. But that would be helpful. But then also, again, we mentioned just the retaining of the sexton. And also then I would just want you to know that if we will go forward with some of these beautification programs, we don't really have like the broken gravestones, like the flags, like the building on the graveyard that needs to be repaired. We don't really have the funds to do that unless we tap into the trustee fund and spend it down. So those are some of the concerns we have going forward trying to make this thing work right. So take a question. I'm kind of going to convoluted way around to where we can end it up here. But maybe I have any questions about what we're doing. So we don't have to go out there answering any questions that you have. It's fun to go out there sometimes. You like to go sometime. It'd be great. Right. Go ahead, Don. I have multiple questions. Okay. According to the budget request, we've asked for an extra $2,000 to repair a storage shed. Oh, the storage shed. That is storage shed. Yes. If anybody's familiar with the Mountain View Cemetery, as you go in just before you go in, there's a little storage shed that is ancient. It even has a little latrine in there. Not usable, but that's how old it is. And I think does it have a dirt floor? No, it has a wood floor. Okay. Well, anyway, that has been an issue. It's deteriorating. And it needs to be we need there needs to be a decision on, first of all, who is responsible for it? And then what do we what wants to be done with it? And then out of fund, whatever that may be. So we're still not sure who's responsible for it. Yeah. Again, I think I think the latest word on right now is is that the the building does belong to the town. And the funding is going to come out of the the repair is going to come out of the trustee fund, $65,000 trustee fund. Really? That's that's what it was in the minutes of our last meeting. So those are some of the confusions we've got to get sorted out. So you didn't actually make up this budget? Do you didn't have any input into this budget request? The $2,000 for any of the cemetery needs. Well, the $4,500 was was, I believe, designated for the cemetery. And isn't that been that? I think you're talking about the $4,500 annual budget amount right now. $2,000 you're talking about. That's the first I've heard about this. So that's my concern. You need things for the cemetery, but they may not be in this budget request. My second question is we can let that go. I sort of have my answer now. So are you working with the VFW and your flags because they have a free program that does that? I'm not working with the VFW on the flags as of yet. No. Okay, because they they do that. No, thank you. As long as you can tell them that the veteran they come in, they take care of it. And they maintain the flags, they replace them when they're old. Do they take care of the flag markers? Yep, they plant the marker and they put the flags in. And that'd be great. And the VFW does that on Pearl Street? And the VFW does it, so. And my other question is the common burial grounds received an award. I thought that meant your gravestones were all repaired in there. Is that not what that was? They were repaired. They were all repaired. But everything changes with time, and particularly gravestones, which are many of those are a couple hundred years old anyway. So even with their repairs, there has been deterioration. If you walk through the yard, you can see where four or five have been repaired, and you can see where there are three or four that have been repaired are ready to be fall over again. So it's not really, I guess, a really good way to ensure that a gravestone will see a repair. Okay. Thanks. And thank you for the information about the VFW. I'm just curious to know how many how many blocks are still available as far as the need and any revenue we've received from having a section? Well, the common burial ground is inactive. You can't be, you can't fly a plot there. In NBC, there's a whole back end. You went into NBC cemetery, and you went two or three rows back up to 100 yards. There's a whole field of graze available. I would, I would guess four or five hundred graze available. There's plenty there. There's also the common barium, too, right? Yes. Yes. To follow up on that question, do you guys set the burial rates? I believe that they're set in the cemetery guidelines, which are then approved by the select board when changes are made. Oh, good. So I think it's in conjunction. When you say, when you say the burial rates, like, like what are you charging for a plot? What's the town charges for a plot? Okay. So I thought you're going, who sets the rates for who digs the grave? That's a different, that's a different fund or different cost. But the, but the commission, I believe sets the rate for the, the purchase of the grave. Okay. It's in regulation. Um, and you probably don't know the rate or the last time it may or may not have been updated. I do know the rate. It's about 600 bucks. It's about 600 bucks. I'll put a plus or minus. $200 for the cornerstones. Oh, right. 200 for a corner. Pardon me? It's another 200 for a corner or 200 for a corner. 200 for the corner. For the corner. Okay. So when you buy a plot, you're in it for about $800. Okay. From the commission or the town? Yeah, town. Okay. And then pardon me because I've, I've known this like words my second year here, but do you have history with the commission? Do you know like if this has ever been looked at for the pricing of what we're charging comparable to? We did look at it a few years ago and you're nodding your head. Yeah. I want to say at some time in the past two to four, maybe two to five years it was updated. And I think there's a, since it built in the next year we'll go up. That I can't remember. I can't recall. It's in the regulations. If it is there, it could be. Perfect. And I would say that money that it goes from the purchase of graves goes into the college trustee fund. It's a $65,000 fund that we have. And that's money that can be used for maintenance of the graveyard. We sell about, I think, three or four or five graves per year to date. Okay. Any money from plots stay within the cemetery? Absolutely. Okay. Perfect. My answer is more deeper into my question because I wasn't seeing any happening in my budget. Testing. Testing. Anything else? Any other questions you get? Yeah. I had three comments. How are the stipends working for keeping, how are your stipends working for keeping your commission staff? Well, we haven't, have we gotten there? I have. You have? I haven't gotten any. So I can't speak to that. Or even put a form in. I did. I put it in. But I thought maybe you paid at the end of the year. No. I paid after every meeting. I might want to follow up on that. I might follow up on that. Yes. I was curious if the cemetery is a little separate from other missions. Is there any opportunity to do like the library does where they have friends at a library? You have friends at the cemetery? Or some friends at the cemetery? Per funding? Hmm. I know a lot of communities, they reach out like that. And there's a lot of folks that are willing to do, you know, volunteer work or monetary. We've had a, what we've talked about volunteers. And one of the issues is to do hands-on work is a liability with the town. Our understanding was, but your idea about a friend's would possibly, in terms of we've been thinking about, we want to repair the mountain view, some of the stones there. And we were thinking about putting a sign up with a QR code, where people who wanted to be involved in the uptake, upcare of the cemetery, could donate. But maybe, you know, that's a good idea. That's an idea. We might talk. I know there's rules to probably check with Greg to see about it, but I know a lot of people value the cemeteries greatly. They do. The final, that would be a way of kind of allowing people to have more, some, be more, a little bit more actively involved in import too. Yeah. We'll have, we have no more meetings until February, until our cemeteries close for the year. But thank you. That's a good idea. The final question I had was green burials are becoming a lot more interested. Is there any opportunity for that, the cemeteries that Essex has? No. There's been a lot of discussion about that. And I don't think it's ever been looked at real closely, but general feeling is that the soil in the Mountain View Cemetery is not conducive to a green burial. That's what I've been told. Right. I've not been told that by an expert who knows all about that, but that's why I've been told in different meetings. So that could happen one way or another, but I know it's been tossed around once in a while. But never, we never really thought about it, seriously, turn it, looking into it, getting the information and, you know, come back with prices or that sort of thing or whatever, take to designate an area of it. I mean, not having gone that far. A few years ago, before you were on the board, we did look at it and we were told, I don't know if you'd call them an expert and I'm trying to remember who told us, but we explored it. And it was just as you said, the soil is too sandy and it just and also our cemeteries are fairly full. Well, one is full and there's Mountain View. We would have to take, we only have this back part that Joe described that we just plotted this year that's open with several hundred, well, many, many, many plots, but we would have to take that's the only area that would be available. And my understanding and I should remember who told us, but it was someone who I think had some authority, but I can look it up. Okay. But it really is not what I have understand to is that cemeteries, you mixing green burials and, you know, the traditional burial can get very complicated. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? All right. So sounds like there was a good exchange here. This is why we wanted to do this. You got some some ideas and some thoughts and maybe we need to help you understand your finances a little better. And thank you for your support. We really have appreciated it. It's made a huge difference to have that, I don't know, an administrative liaison. That really helps. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Next on our agenda is the Essex Free Library Board of Trustees. I need to disclose that the current president of the Board of Trustees is my wife. I'm not going to recuse myself from this discussion since no decisions are going to be made here. Welcome. Introduce yourselves and have your say. I'm Janet Watts. I'm the chair of the Library Board of Trustees and I'm Iris Banks. I'm one of the trustees. We're here tonight, I guess, to tell you a little bit about what we do and answer some questions. The Library Board of Trustees is responsible for reviewing and helping our librarian update the budget. We review and update all our library policies and bylaws. We evaluate the library director every year and if we need a new library director, the library trustees are responsible for hiring the library director. We also review the annual report and lately we've been working on the library's COVID response and how to handle COVID in the library. One of the questions you guys had for us were were there any budget requests for the fiscal year 2025? The library does have a bigger request, I guess, than normal for 15 more hours employees. We've had to close several times because staff would be on vacation and somebody would get sick and then we'd have somebody inexperienced and we have a policy for the library that we have to have two people in the library to be open. So there have been several times that we've had to close the library, so we're asking for 15 hours more and it would be split between two people. So I wanted to highlight that request this year. I don't really have a very long list of things, so you have questions. Harris, do you have anything you want to say? Just to talk about library use and it's been really interesting. I think you have a little graphic, but really it's pretty amazing that even during COVID for the most part, certainly since COVID our numbers are just continue to go up for all different for online loans and books and programs that we offer. So the library is very well used for sure and just keeps going in that direction. So we're really gratified by that. Yeah, we're at more than pre-pandemic visits to the library and during the pandemic the online resources that the library has, the audiobooks, e-books, movies, everybody got really used to being able to get an audiobook or an e-book or movies when they wanted and those are hugely used. So our overall sign out is actually up because people are using both in person now at pre-pandemic levels and using our online resources. We also have classes online. You can take language classes, you can do other kinds of classes online and I know Caitlin talked to you about the library of things. You can sign out a ukulele, you can sign out a sewing machine, you can sign out shoes, a ghost finding kit. I think that was a Halloween. No, that's their all year and there's the New England Association of Ghosts. I thought it was only for Halloween. No, no. Also I guess I want to say I took advantage of some of the children programming when my granddaughter visited last winter and those programs are full, the story hours, the singing, everything, it seems like whatever program we do we get a really terrific response. So we're really thrilled. We've been having a really terrific response to the art programs, the Zentangle. They've been offering Zentangle and rock painting and have been full. The Knitting Club, the Lego Club, there's a Canasta Club, there's a Rummy Club. So those are also quite popular. All right. Thank you. Any questions from board members? Go ahead, Kendall. I was just curious how your stipends are working to keep your board fully set. I don't really know. I don't ask people if they're taking them or not. Some people do and some people don't. So we do have three new members and we had, I think, five apply, right? So it looks good to me. It's hard to know. What, why and what. Also I think, so some of the new board members have a more diverse skill set. So I think that's really been terrific. Like one person is expert in contract or just it's nice that they bring different skills to the board. But yeah, that was encouraging that there were more can, significantly more candidates than openings because in the past it's not a position to be open for a long time. So I would assume that it's helping. Okay. That sounds like it's kind of an indication that it's popular. Thank you. Anybody else? Christian or Kamala? Ethan, go ahead. I kind of have a question. It's more of a warning for me, but what is the relationship between the trustees and the library? Like how do you get your feedback on hours and you know what I mean? I know a lot of, I know a lot, but some of the trustees work in the library also. No. None of the trustees work for the library. A couple of them volunteer. It's just not paid. No. Yes. I just want to know how you guys get like a lot of your information from the data that we're talking about. Yeah. Oh, Caitlyn. Caitlyn gives us a library director's report every month when we have a meeting. Yeah, every month and it covers a number of different areas. You know, the communication is wonderful with Caitlyn and that's how we get all the data. They track, you know, isn't it a clicker thing? I mean, they track how many people. Yeah. Like so everybody helps, I think with collecting the data, but and library director's report. That's every month. Every month. Eight times a year is what we meet and we have a plan. We've actually said it last time we met for what we're going to do every month this year and which policies we're going to look at and you know, when we're going to do our director evaluation and we have a plan for the rest of the year. I was always curious because I always see the request and stuff like that, but I was never sure how yeah, the function of the justice. Yeah, the library director puts the plan together. And if she has any questions or, you know, wants to discuss things, we're kind of the sounding board and also discuss like sometimes what's better ways to spend the library's budget as we've spent and the friends of the library has some money and, you know, when we first started doing ebooks online with Hoopla and movies with Hoopla, the friends of the library supported that to see if it worked. We also supported the friends of the library also supported e-news magazines which weren't popular and, you know, we dropped it and the library continues with Hoopla because it was very popular to the point that they have to like restrict the use of it because it's very expensive. And the way the way libraries work in Vermont is the select word, we set the budget, we give them a budget and then the trustees are on the library. Yeah, we hire the library director, the library director hires everybody else. And the library director just reports to you guys in Porta. I was always curious how the process worked because they did my head around it last year as well. It's a very weird thing. Any other comments or questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you ladies. Okay, we have one more commission tonight. Dustin, good to see you. Come on up. Is it? Yeah. So it's not my imagination. The whiteboard keeps going off and on. It's like, I'm not sure. It's like, I thought it was my imagination, but I'm sorry. I've seen it. I've seen it cut it out of the corner of my eye a couple of times. It's like, whoa, the door did get shut. So, yeah, we better open that door just to crack it. I don't think there's an open door. I want to make sure people feel welcome. Yeah. So what? Dustin, you heard what this is all about? Yeah. And introduce yourself and have your say. So my name is Dustin Brousseau. I'm the current chair of the Planning Commission. Been here for a while. I'd actually like to change that you're doing this a little bit. That would be giving you a dialogue that I hadn't written. I'd like to see what you guys have for questions for the Planning Commission. And then that might, you know, I got a couple of things to follow up with afterwards. But what questions do you guys have for me and or the commission as a whole? Can't answer them. I will absolutely defer. Any questions? I get a question. Go ahead, Kendall. I'm curious as I've been all along, the stipends keeping your commission fully staffed or less? You know, the stipends, they're nice to have. But as far as one of the points I wanted to touch on, so good question. Part of the process with staffing commission is we don't see them until you've appointed. We don't have awareness. We don't have visibility. We don't have any input. We don't have any engagement until you've appointed. So whether or not the stipends have an effect can't really say. Because it's not, we don't, we don't discuss that into meetings. It's not an practice. It's nice to have. It's not going to make anybody, you know, change their day job to come to work and work. So, you know, there's a, there's a lot of time that there wasn't a stipend. And we still had commissions and we still got work done. We still had effective people. And it's nice to have whether or not it's a rule in recruiting. I would actually have to defer to you folks, determine whether or not effective getting people in to the table to apply for those commissions. That's a good answer. Other, I have one other couple actually other than the town plan that you worked on throughout this past year. What else has the planning board achieved or accomplished or done? Well, applications are always the voice of applications. That's a, that's a key element of what we're doing. Town plan is, it's hard to say other than the town plan what it's done because that has been a driving, driving focus for the last year plus. And it's, it has colored a lot. I mean, we hadn't done significant zoning and subdivision changes waiting for the town plan to prove it. We did put some through and you guys did review them and, you know, there was a good process. We tried to make the process be more fluid, a little more less batch oriented and more small batches instead of big batch. We've got, we're electronically, our documentation is electronic. We don't need to plan for printing, you know, 300 copies or 600 copies, however many copies we used to print. Now we're able to be more flexible. So we're trying to be more flexible. The other thing that we did, it wasn't so much of what, but how. Again, one of the topics that follow up with us could lead it. We really pushed this year especially to be more public engaged at the beginning of the process. Instead of just inviting people to a meeting and getting to provide comment, we actually went out and solicited input in hell. Not just what do you think, but can you help us do this? And I will point out Mr. Signorello, who's in the back of the room right now, was a very key figure in that process and really a great example of engagement both as a other commissioner and as a member of the public who worked with us to try to put the questions, the ideas out there. What that allowed is that as we formed the proposals for the town plans and, you know, everything that we're doing, it wasn't us deciding and then seeing who liked it or not. It actually had people helping us put that input in. Not everybody's going to like what's there. That's a given. But what we put it, what you will be seeing and discussing with Catherine later is a plan that has had a lot of public input, not just review at a meeting for public engagement participation. When we had this idea, we really started bringing this to fruition. Josh Knox took a big lead role in it, by really forming the meetings and the process for the public to come together. It was not something that he did necessarily on his own, but he did it with the blessing and the endorsement of the full commission. It made the process be a lot more collaborative, a lot more engagement, and we feel it was a much better product at the end of this by having just a higher level. In the past, I've been through a number of the town plan updates. And in the past, the approach was work with staff, work with the commission, come up with a town plan update, and then put it in front of the people. And it's really hard to digest the plan. What's changed? You changed a word. Well, that could be really significant from a shall to a should. So in this process, we didn't do that. We didn't just dump a fully formed document as the components were presented. They were looked at. They had public workshops, open forums, people come in and play around with stuff. It was a different. Can we improve on it? I hope so. And I hope we can expand it. What we may be missed on this, and it's probably going to change as we have to change our model anyways, but I would look to have a greater engagement with the zoning board, per se, to come in and talk when we start talking about the zoning board, zoning amendments. We still have a zoning board, and we haven't migrated to a new model yet, and I would really encourage the zoning board to participate in the regulation updates. We tried to do that with us last time, but it was too big of a bite. We ended up narrowing our scope down to just the town plan, not just the town plan. It was a big bite all by itself. Okay. So we have heard over this past year, a lot of concern about the RPID district. RPID. I knew it was going to be backwards. Anyway, so what is your plan going forward? Are you going to have a more updated plan for that area, or are you going to leave it the way it is? There's so much concern. I mean, we just heard all kinds of that. We really need to do a deeper dive at RPDI. So in the town plan that you're going to be looking at, I don't believe Catherine will correct me because I'm probably going to miss speak, but there really isn't changes in the RPDI because we've had folks request new uses, but that can be a slippery slope. There's a lot of unintended consequences. We've had comments that we shouldn't have buffers and don't have buffers to lose control presentation, the content of certain spaces that we currently do have. Even though we've wavered them routinely, we've wavered them with intent. So it still allows the flexibility as projects come in. There's been concern voiced in public meetings about the uses that are currently there, and it truly should be an industrial part. That's a debate that's not going to be resolved quickly and easily. It is an industrial part. It is one of the premier areas in this, I'm going to say county. It is a source of potential source of revenue for the community that we haven't completely tapped yet. And in light of some of the discussions earlier about taxes going up, should we be encouraging more development in that area? Should we be restricting it? What's the right mix? And it is a mix. And the primary conflict that I think we have to address in any deep dive is literally the conflict between the recreation and the industrial usage. And it's not just overall usage, but it can be the fine line. Do you have expanded recreational use using Thompson Drive, which is an industrial road? There's a conflict point. We want to expand the biking that's currently going on. How are they going to get there? I don't think the road is Thompson Drive. Industrial road. We have big trucks going there by design. So do we look at a different route? We look at a different way to connect in and then promote the recreation use of that area differently. At various public meetings, folks have spoken about we should have a bike repair shop there. Well, what are we going to do for, I mean, we haven't gotten that in there at this point, that would provide usage. We've had folks talk about charging for use. We want to charge for use. Then we have a different level of service that we have to provide. We need to provide plumbing facilities. We need to expand the infrastructure to support broader recreational, these are all things that I think we can also lay some work on Alley coming up with the recreational projections. I was hoping that maybe because you said the experience of the public forums was so helpful that maybe you could do that kind of approach. I would like to see us do this sort of approach routinely. The challenge in any, I want to be careful here because I don't want to dismiss any viewpoint, but the challenge has been when small group has driven a larger agenda. I'm not talking trustees who are voted into office. I'm talking a small vocal group. We have to be cautious that that small group isn't perceived as the voice of the entire community. That is one of the concerns when a conflict with use is brought to us and it's accurate. It's a feeling that everybody, you bring a concern to us, you feel that, you can't dispute that, you feel it, you feel it, but is it represented across the community? In this process of engaging on a wider basis, I feel has enabled us to have a broader perspective of community, tent, feeling, thought, instead of just the people who come to meetings because the reality is there's not a lot of people that come to public meetings routinely. We have some and more often than not, people show up when they have something that they're very passionate about, not the day in, day out, meeting after meeting after meeting. And a point you made earlier was that there have been a number of hearings and so forth about the parcel. A lot of times people don't realize it until they're made aware when in Brazil published. So, again, back to the focus that we tried to get to was to put that discussion and that option and that target in front of people before it was done. It's a different approach to being transparent than we had necessarily used. I think we've always been transparent, but this was putting the questions, the discussions up front and letting that sort of drive where we ended up. How's that? Thank you. I would say that it was also, it's been encouraging to see some of the members of the select board either participating as with applicants, Kendall, Ethan, and or just observing during the process. I noticed that you've been in the process. So it's it's it's nice to see that there's some awareness. I'm just curious if I was going to wait Ethan, you cannot use the new tag anymore. I'm still new. It takes a year just to understand and then a year to like actually get really involved where you know what's going on. Yeah. And then you go and then I kind of can't I always was on for one year and had to start running for a campaign and get reelected. So I'm really I'm just I'm really just getting into it. Okay. So I was going to ask you what was working well on the board, but I'm going to save you from answering that because I heard a lot of the work you did and Don asked a couple of good questions. So I'm going to ask I'm going to ask two parts to this question. I'll try and keep it simple. What can what can be improved in in in your mind for the board itself? And then my second question is what can be improved from the board to staff to so I forward any of that process communications on the town side, but then also is there anything you think feel could be improved as a board? I'm not I'm not going to call out anything specific as far as improving. I think there's always room for improving communication. There's there's communication with the community. There's communication with staff. There's communication, you know, within the within the commissioners themselves. We have to be we have to be aware of our internal communications. We have to make sure that we're not doing the outside of the bounce. So we use staff frequently. I know when new commissioners come in, I've encouraged them to, you know, quote their ideas, concerns, questions to staff and let that come to the full commission if it's if it's related to application. As far as communication with we're doing pretty good. I'm just trying to look back and it's it's hard to say how can we communicate with the select board better because we have to be separate. So it's a restrictive process and it's we can't set really any any big goals with that because we we can't. So even you know this this is a conversation I didn't I did not take your list and write down a lot of prepared answers because I wanted it to be more of a conversation than a you know, coming in with a test lecture questions. Perfect. What am I missing? No, I'm just done made a good point about the communication, but I'm just making sure that, you know, there's that, you know, I think the reason why this was set up for I don't think there's a lot of budgetary things that you guys wouldn't help with, but I just want to make sure that there's the connection and obviously it'll be with with air to chair, but that the suckboard does have the ability to help if there's, you know, conflicts that arise or you need help or just making sure that your everything's going good. We're getting all the responses we need on in time and it's not selling anything down or any of these other things just that I think that's what we've talked about with a lot of the committees and commissions is just having that relationship that we never really know the chair reaches out all the time, but as a whole group, this is new. That's kind of why we set it up. So we saw how crazy is not here tonight. So that's her question is usually what can we do better to help you guys? Well, I think that in the planning commission as compared to other missions and boards, we don't look to you for guidance, right? We can't write a guide. So it's a little bit of a different relationship. Um, everything we do has to be filtered through staff and, you know, between Catherine and Greg, you know, that's our conduit into the select board routine that that's I don't think there's a problem with that. I think that's probably keep that that that appropriateness is the is that's the right path. Right. I'm going to cut to the chase. Jump. Can you tell me if Greg's doing a bad job? Yeah, okay. Tell you if you know, but I'm not I'm not like I wasn't trying to get into the whole like the select we're getting involved or anything, but I'm not picking on Greg, but I really was. But, um, you know, that's that's what the question is, is not that the select board is going to go around and and micromanage all these groups, just that there's a channel of, hey, we have a problem. Yeah. You know, I think can you help us get a fix because it ultimately, you know, I had to pick on Greg because he's the town manager. Greg is the only person that the select board has the ability to work with and we hired Greg. So but that's the only question. And I think that's that's we lose, you know, Greg is in our case, we'll we'll focus, we'll use the connection from Catherine to Greg as our focus to we feel we need interaction with the select board. We would go that route. We have to I feel that we need to maintain a more formal path to the select board. So yeah, I can, I don't have an issue because of the phone and calling Andy, but but I want to pick it on Greg. That's okay. You know, I think we need to be be cautious and be be aware that that the select board and the planning commission have jurisdictional differences and we can't we got to be careful over those lines. And I think, you know, we've worked with Greg before on items, and I think that's that's worked out. So I don't think there's any concern at this stage from that level of interaction. So if there's no more questions, I got a couple comments. I just wanted to just run on I won't take long. I'm open to any other questions. Okay, go ahead. One, I've touched it on the on the town plan. That was a very good process. That's coming up to you. So at this point at town plan, I want you to understand a field that that's been looked at early, not just by the planning commission, but it has been viewed by the community. The entire time that we did reviews on it. So it's not something that's only been seen through three times. Any one person might say they didn't see it, but it has been in the community the entire time that we've worked. I'm hoping that that helps you look at this and have some level of confidence that it's not just and the planning commission roll in dice and see what we can do. We talked about we don't have budgetary needs, but there are a few items that might generate some cost for us. One is Catherine needs a new laptop with a battery there. So she doesn't have to be plugged in in meetings. Is that all the tripping that's been going on? There's been a number of workshops that we've tried to get make available. In light of the change in our structure that we're looking at in the future, which I think that's a piece of help and understanding. But I think there should be some allowance for either bringing somebody in as an consultant to help work on what the new structure is going to require and what's the timing that we might realistically look at doing this under and finding the right path through. Because that's not going to a DRB PC model is not something that this current commission has. There may be staff members who are familiar with it, but there's a lot of history of not having. So what does that model mean? And we never really, during public forums and comments, I don't believe that this model was really fleshed out well, but well enough to actually put it into play. So I think that is a piece that's going to be one of our work efforts. As soon as we understand the timing that needs to occur, it's got to be one of our work efforts going forward. It's how do we manage the transition? I don't necessarily want to, but we need to manage a transition. So what is that? What's the timing that we need to get to? What are the right staff, right resources? And what's the most effective way to do it? I mean, I don't know. I think this is, again, this is one of the major things that I believe. I don't think we're going to make a January 1st target date. What is our timeline? What is what do we need? What is expected by the select board? That will be a point at which you guys, what is expected to be delivered? In readings, there are times that certain planning commissions have budgets. Does the planning commission get a budget? Question for the select board. So that level of detail needs to lead, we need to start going into finding out what the model is going to happen. We're not. The town plan review that you guys are going to be looking at, key for us getting into the zoning and subdivision regulations that we minimized, but now once that town plan goes into play, especially with the ETC next area that Greg mentioned a number of times, this is the, that is the tool that will enable us to start creating the regulations to support that effort. We're talking that I've done. So you've prompted me to wonder about the question of the schedule. As you mentioned, the legislature hasn't yet approved our charter change, which drives us in this direction. It has a date of January 1st, 2025. And right, is there enough time to do that? We've been asked to make ourselves available to testify to the legislature in January about those charter changes. And I'm wondering whether we should consider whether that date is still appropriate given that we haven't, I don't know, I don't know how far along we are in and or how much work it's going to take to make the transition. So I'm not saying that we need to change the date. I know, I know that was that was a big discussion. This whole thing started, given where we are and the Charter's not approved yet. Is there something, some other date that we should ask the legislature to put in that? It shouldn't preclude, I mean, from my perspective on the PC, it shouldn't preclude planning. We should be able to come up with the plan regardless of plan and symbol. It should be agnostic to the date. But we need to be able to know, you know, do we need to have it by January 1, 2025? Or we need to just start doing it now? I mean, in my mind, I would be reaching out to the zoning board to start having joint meetings to find out what it is. We don't really know yet. So again, would it be appropriate to hire a consultant to come in and it, you know, work with us to start crafting, what is the PC going to be doing? What are you doing today? What's the PC? What's the PRB going to be doing? Where are the current duties? How are they going to be distributed? Some of them going to go, I mean, all that stuff has got to be the actual details need to get into it now. So that would be if we're needing a dollar amount, that might be where we put some money into it is hiring a consultant because no matter, unless we're hiring new staff, we still have applications coming in. We still have a plan or working on that. We still have zoning coming in. We have a zoning administrator working on that. Catherine's still working on all the other grants and everything else that's going on. So do we have the staff to be able to do the shadow plan in preparation for the actual, you know, cuddle conversion? Thinking. No, I think he asked you if you had questions. I have all my questions just brought to my mind though. Can, and this is just curiosity, but can they have a joint meeting and conduct business? They could both review and make a decision on applications. As long as they both, as long as they warn the meeting and write, have separate votes. They each, you can warn a joint meeting. I was going to know what the, that may introduce. They wouldn't be, they wouldn't be voting on the same thing. They'd have to be, they'd be different. Yeah, yeah. They could, they could have a joint meeting and talk about the work together, how they wanted for addition to a DRB. But they had an application at the same time, but they just put aside the application. The planning commission review is very specific. There's an application, planning commission looks at it for X, Y, and Z. And that's it. Right. The zoning board looks at it for A, B, and C. And that's it. So yeah, I think the joint meeting isn't to do a, a application review. The joint meetings would be to have discussions about how to do the transition. What a DRB is and what we respect it. We call it workshop. So they're going to add in extra meetings? Not necessarily. I mean, we generally the planning commission, I don't know what the zoning board schedules are in the last few years. It hasn't been as full as other years, previous years. The planning commission generally has done one meeting a month with focus on planning. And another, usually the first meeting is focused on planning. Second meeting is focused on application. And that's allowed us to put, go into a lot, you know, deeper dives on the planning aspect. So it would not necessarily require extra meetings. For the planning commission, it may be extra meetings for the zoning board. Well, it may, right. It might be a one versus, maybe we cancel one of each. Whatever, you know, logistics to be determined. And the zoning board did mention that. We asked one of the, went, how off their meeting, they said, oh, we get an application for this. Well, and that, that would be a question. If we have an opportunity to craft a, you know, what this process is going to be, would you want to participate? And do we, we dedicate whatever, whatever works. And I think that depends on the people involved, you know, what works for them and how we do it and so forth. And our, I think our, I think our piece on this is, is we're going to say, yes, that's the date, go March to it. That's what was, that's what was going to go to the legislature and ask for a different date, but somebody needs to assess whether or not that's, that's necessary. Change the data. The charter change. No, no, no. When we decided the DRB would be in effect, not that wasn't part of the charter change. The legislature can change the language anyway they want. They could, if, if we need more, think we need more than, than one year to do it, we could ask the legislature to change that date before they approve it. We'd have to say why. So my, my question then would be, and in order to get this started with assuming that this is going to pass the legislature, would it be beneficial to both boards to have towns that have like South Burlington and who else has a DRB around here? Williston. Well, I know, but to have them come in and explain to you how they started it and what steps are involved in it? Maybe. The other, the other thing that I quoted the idea with Catherine, hadn't promoted it to the commission yet, was for the commissioners to start going and attending and just seeing how some of the other meetings operate. Okay. You know, but that's not necessarily the process. We, we actually have to do a process of changing the way we do business here. Right. And that's not the same as any other community. So there may be value in that, but it may be, I don't know the best way up to it. I would actually, I would actually suggest to talk to him sitting with Catherine who has direct experience. You know, what is the best? Do we want to do, you know, professional? Do we want to just invite other communities in? I'm thinking a professional only because we're going to want to not say, Hey, we did it like this. We're going to want to say you need to do this, this and this based on the way we're set up now. I think it, again, that whatever works is, is to be determined to be determined. I think the, the go ahead for us as a commission, if it, if we have to adhere to, to January 1, 2025, then we need to basically make that be the top priority is to start making the format. If that's a variable date, I don't think it means we wait and start working on it later. I think it means we start now, but we don't need to make it the top priority. We can make it be a regular event in a process and work at a more leisurely pace. It could impact, um, regulation changes, for example. Ethan. Yeah, I'm just curious to, to refresh my memory if I'm completely wrong. That's okay, but we set that date before the article went to a public vote. Yes, but the legislature can. The legislator can. That's not us changing it after we proposed it. No, we can't, we can't change it. We can ask the legislature to change it. We can ask them. They can say no. I personally don't think that that's So, so let's have that discussion. All right. So I'm saying no. Just remind, yeah, something no can change the vote. So that's a discussion you guys internally, but I would, I, one of the things that raises a flag for me on that is by picking an arbitrary date at the time, which probably sounded good at that point, but investing the work in doing it, we don't know what needs to be done. We don't know how it's going to be done. We only know that it's going to be done. So if on January 1st, 2025, we say all of a sudden you've got a DRB in the planning commission. What's what? Who's where? How does it, how's work get done? You know, not that it won't get there, but it's almost like, you know, for somebody who's never driven a car, give them a set of keys and say, here's your car. Or in today's world, you've never driven a standard. Here's this new car. Have at it. But I just think this is, this is, for my, this is the time we need to start planning this and the focus that you guys want us to put on this is going to be, is it a one year, essentially a one year turnaround that we need to develop a plan and have it ready to go and basically have that shadow process completely laid out and established? Or do we, do we look at it at a longer time and make it correct, but just over a little bit longer period of time and take the time to do it, do it right instead of just doing it. So that's my thought. Go ahead. See, my opinion is, this is just my opinion, but my opinion is there's a tremendous amount of experience on both boards, the planning and the zoning, as well as your planning director is very versed in DRBs and planning. So I would suggest that you start this very soon, right off the bat, and discuss how that could be done so that you could find out where there are any conflicts or issues that you would have to work on later. So that you were pretty much 80% done before whatever timeline that came in, you'd be prepared for it. Just a suggestion. That's basically what I've been saying, right? We want to get this started, but the time frame and the time that it needs to be fully established is going to change what we work on the rest of the year, what else we work on. And if it needs to be a top priority, if we need to have this done in a year, that's two meetings a month. That's 20, that's not even two meetings a month, because November and December get one meeting unless we do extra. But we're really talking about a very small number of meetings and steps to put this in place, which means everything else basically stops. It becomes their entire work plan for the year. But you might find out that it doesn't take anywhere near as much time. Well, we don't know, you're right, we don't know. But that's, it would have to be a priority to get to that level of understanding. If we bring in, if we have a resource, whether it's community resource, neighboring community resource, professional resource to help us be able to understand what the effort really is and do that assessment, help Catherine do the effort or turn Catherine loose on it. Either way, you've got to put a significant amount of effort to get the level of understanding of what the scope of this really is. And we don't have that yet. In my opinion, we don't have an understanding of what the full scope is. So it's really hard to pinpoint that target and without knowing that. So anyway, so it's going to circle in the drain, right? I mean, we're all aiming for it. Anything else? All right. Thank you, Dustin. Thanks folks. Again, good to see you. Let's move on to the next business item, which is just 2024 town plan review session. He's right after What's up for Catherine or cords here? Dragon something? She's got to be plugged in. So, man. Oh, that's what was going on back there. Oh, shut up. The one that was there was over by Don. I used one. Yeah. He just was looking here. So it wasn't outing you. I was just saying. So he didn't. There was a white one somewhere around. I know. Was it in the cupboard? Maybe under the was. We did have a white one to bring my own extension cord. We'll just cross your fingers. Well, I can give up this one because this might might hold my battery. It's good for now. Finish this fast. It's finished. That there's some inspiration. Can you allow me to share my Yes. So in your packet, along with my memo, there was a presentation that I'm planning on sharing to be awesome. Great. So hopefully help us. Town plan is something that our state allows and encourages towns to do. You're not required to have a town plan. If you don't have a town plan, though, you can't get grants from the state. You can't have any regulations or subdivision regulations. Just to name a few. A town plan is required to include several elements and those are all listed there. And so when you go through the town plan, you'll see that we talk about land use and there's a land use map, existing land use and future land use. There's an economic development element, transportation, housing, education, including childcare, energy, flood resilience, natural scenic and historic resources and protection of those resources. New element, a forest block and habitat connectors. That's new in our town plan. It went into effect, I think, in 2017. So after our last town plan was done, and then utilities and facilities and then just some general maps that relate to all of these items. Not all of them. A lot of them. Town plans are implemented different ways. One is through Arizona regulations. So you might see something that tells us to look at for example the RPDI district. So that would mean we looked at our zoning and figure out maybe some changes of uses or buffers, like Dustin was saying. Our capital improvement plan plays off of the town plan. So you'll see things that a public works really needs, really the town values. And so you see money going towards like trails and upkeep of roads. And then also town plans are implemented through initiatives of individual town department committees and commissions. We're very lucky and Essex to have very active and very involved boards that help us carry out some of the things in the town plan. And then finally there's a section about schools. And so school is implementing their section, although they have their own plan. So I don't think they're looking at our town plan that much, but technically they could. So I don't need to spend a lot of time on this, but the town plan really did go through a pretty thorough community vetting and outreach process. And I think one of the biggest things we did was some meetings that we had, there were eight of them in January of last year, so just about a year ago. And we sent out postcards to all the households in town. And then from that came our, the community vision. And so it's, this is worded in the town, what a town plan reflects, but it's really what our town wants to see. So that Essex can be, and there are ways in which to continue building a community that is connected, diverse, inclusive, sustainable, and a joy to live in. And there are five chapters in our town plan. Past town plans have had like 12 chapters based on each one of the different required state elements. So the last town plan that I think Greg was a part of was really a shift for the town and trying to simplify things, maybe connect things a little bit better, hopefully make it more readable and more interesting. So we have five chapters. So one is an introduction, we have an action plan, what is Essex as a community, how we relate to the land, and then serving the community. So just a little bit more about each chapter. So the introduction chapter, it's really set stage for what is in the plan and how the town relates to surrounding towns, the Chitton County Regional Planning Commission, and the state. And we have in here the vision of a bunch of different things. So you see in that first chapter, this came from our community outreach, different topics like development. People wanted to see affordable housing and aesthetics of development, economic development, a variety of local businesses was important. And conservation, climate and agriculture, a working landscape, green incentives, preservation of open space, infrastructure, and activity came up over and over. Recreation, the keyword was opportunities. So both expanding of opportunities, more opportunities, but also we have a lot of opportunities that are offered. We have a great, great opportunities, whether it's parks or programs. So also in the introduction, we've included the declaration of inclusion and then also just inclusive language throughout the plan. That is an important thing and it's something that's being encouraged throughout the state and town plans. And I think another big one, back to earlier conversation about trying to seek state designations for our ETC next area, so really help us implement the ETC next plan. Chapter one, this is what we want to accomplish as a town. So the actions and all the sections in the town plan have, there's sections, each section of the town plan has actions. So our transportation section has specific action plan, action plan. So actions of here's how we want to get our transportation network improved. Housing, here's how we want to improve the core detail from this, but just giving you a little bit of an example. And these actions were developed by boards and committees for the big part. The working groups that we had, town staff, all were based on community input. And also our town needs. And in some places it's just some state requirements. And chapter two, Essex is a community and this is how Essex sees itself as a community, as well as facts and figures of the town. So our history section starts off that chapter. We expanded a little bit to go back prior to Western settlement. There's kind of a new addition there. We have up-to-date census data. Now a big change in this plan was that Essex Junction was the village within the town at the time of the last plan. Now it's separate. Our census data isn't separate yet from the city. You can separate it for most cases, but it was difficult. So this is going to be a project to make sure the census is seeing us to separate independent entities going forward. And then again the sections in this chapter were developed by staff boards and committees and then tying in the public input that was heard. So some key items there, economic development. So it's really addressing the town's economic base after separation, importance of recreation economy in our town, needs for expansions of those things. And then housing. We've got some statistics there, but also some ways to increase the affordable housing stock. And then energy. We need a new energy plan. So there was an energy plan that was done, was in conjunction with the city, village at the time. The data is not separated out. And the Regional Planning Commission has agreed to help us do a new energy plan in the spring or late winter. So it's in there in the town plan that's something we want to do and we're going to be able to get to do that sooner or later. So chapter three, how we relate to the land. And this is how Essex should relate to our natural environment. Also the aesthetics, the visuals that we see and want to see in town and historic resources. And also what we want our future land uses to become worst day, I guess. So again, I'd mentioned the forest blocks and habitat connectors. That's Act 171 that was implemented that requires us to look at our forest blocks and thinking about how we're connecting not just to town, but also to other towns. And then the ETC next plan. So aesthetics and future land use and state designations are all things that we're that we're encouraged in that. And this is now really becoming, has become a priority in the town. And then the community showed support for agriculture. So just picking out a few things in this chapter that's inclusive of everything. There's a word cloud here that took, we took the comments that we had from the public and put them in word clouds. So all our different topics have word clouds. So this is just one example of one. It's not inclusive of every comment, but the bigger words are the ones that we heard more from people. And then finally chapter four. This is serving the community. For the most part, it's how the municipal staff are providing support for the community and, you know, explaining more about how that happens. So recreation. I've just pulled this out as one really key area and importance of the town in our listening process was that keyword opportunities that I mentioned before. So really, we have great recreation program. We also just have great recreation opportunities in town. So there are some new sections in this, this chapter. We added an administration section just describing more about what the really the office does, the IT department and the community justice center for all. So what's next tonight was just a little run through hoping to familiarize you all of generally the town plan. I know you've seen the town plan itself and hopefully had a chance to look at it. But also, you know, understanding the process that it's gone through, all the work that's gone into it and the community input. And you have two public hearings coming up. So December 18th, January eight. And that's the point where the public will come and have some more opportunity to weigh in. And that there's also opportunity for you all to weigh in. But just to remind you that the work has been done. This is kind of the icing on the cake, this point coming to you. So we're not looking to like dig in and pull, you know, roll our sleeves up and do a lot of re rewriting or changing. So after the January eight, public hearing, there'll be a vote for the select board. And then at the end of January, assuming it passes, you would warn it or the town meeting vote. So that would go on the ballot. Our town is one of not many that actually do it that way that allow the public to do the vote at the end. So I think that's, what is that? Last question. Any questions? So under the energy plan, are you planning on using current members of the energy committee also to work with the, okay. Yeah, I would really hope that they would be the ones who are doing those. Okay. And my other question is under the transportation part, you mentioned using school buses in your plan. But nowhere does it say you're going to involve the school department or school district. I found that interesting that you put school buses in there. But you know, when you listed the responsibilities of who was doing what, like, you know, this was state highway, this is town highway and all that. Nowhere does it have any mention of the school district. So I just, I don't know, it's just, I'm not sure I remember that section exactly. But I'll let them ask you questions and I'll tell you where it is. Yeah. I just had it and then I went, I think there's, it's good to make sure everything ties to you. Right. Page 14. What are the action goals? Page 14 is where it starts. I'm getting there. So is that the school, that's not the school section? It's transportation. Yeah, it was under the action. I should note one other thing and I'll pull it up, but the old town plan was a lot prettier than what I showed you for this town plan. And we are actually working with the traffic designer to get better. So here's an example of what the cover will look like. And then the side, we're just, we're having a landscape format so our maps can be bigger. Maps currently that you see are pretty eligible. They will be better. They are better already. Jen and just did another round of that. They'll be better. They'll be better online, better in in-heart copy as well. So anyway, they'll look a little prettier than what you I don't know. Okay, go ahead. I know you got anything. This isn't really the meeting to talk about the nuts and bolts of the plan though, right? That's for the public hearing. So public hearing, right? It's when we want to talk about more detailed stuff. Is that the I would say, I mean, if you have particular questions, you know, things that I come back with some answers for, maybe for the next couple, three things. One, it mentions a lot in there about being a bikeable and walkable community and a lot of development and everything, but it doesn't really speak to how the sidewalks and those facilities are going to be maintained funding-wise and planning-wise. I would note the same thing for both the water lines, the roads, and the wastewater infrastructure. I was particularly struck by the section that talked about the water lines where you have a lot of old asbestos cement pipe that's 60 years plus old and there is no plan at all for replacement. And it just, it sounds like we just expect to be spending more and more and more reactive repair money that doesn't get you anything in the long run. So I was hoping that that could be expanded by the Public Works Department. So at least it sounds to the community that there is some kind of planning that's going to take place in the next five years to address those those sections of the infrastructure. That's it. Thank you. So I have a couple, but I'm going to keep them simple as not to go into the topics, but for land use and agriculture and forestry, I found the information I needed to find for the mapping for zoning and stuff. But as far as land use goes, I checked everywhere and maybe I missed it as I'm asking, but the information provided in here says that we're basing it off from a map from 1989. That was the last time a study was done for land use and agriculture. And then under action, I saw it was prioritized in this slide show, but for underaction items, there's absolutely no action items whatsoever to maintain or even conservation or the only information I found was about the parcels that were subdivided. I was curious to see if any of those that information could also be expanded to show property that was subdivided in a still in agriculture, because it just said that 50% of the 74 properties were subdivided, but I know properties that are 200 acres and 10 acres was subdivided and then the other 190 acres is being fired. But I was really more curious to are we assessing our agricultural needs and conservation on a map, a study from 1989 under the agriculture section, which is AGD4, but more so on page 22 of the action items, there's three action items about Matthewtown forest, state incentives for tax relief, and forest blocks. That's it. Thanks. Anything else? So is this the time to take comment from the public or do you want to hold that kind of comments to our public hearings? Love to you, but I mean my recommendation would be the public hearing. I saw a hand go up room here. Does the board feel about making public comment or do you want to defer to our two hearings we have coming up? Whatever Catherine is most comfortable with, it's her show. Sorry. I can't. I'm going to allow it. Come on up. Apologize for Catherine. So I'm going to try to insert an additional action item. It'll go to the conservation and trails committee at the next meeting. I hope you see a lot of emphasis on working landscape in the town plan scattered throughout an emphasis on conservation agriculture, but I'm embarrassed to say that the conservation and trails committee did not include an action item to identify our prime agricultural land, which I think we need to do. So that's going to be an action item that I hope will be voting on come the next meeting. So hopefully that'll address some of the concern. Like we did for the view scape, if you remember, we went through a process for that. This would be like another layer, or at least, yeah, at least no, until you know where your best land is, to have a chance to potentially conserve it. All right. Thanks, Ken. Since I allowed Ken, is there anybody else who wants to have a quick comment? I don't see any other hands. So we'll be talking again on the meeting. Peter, stay alive. All right. Thank you so much. Okay, now we're going to move on to what was consent item eight C and is here to talk about the grant funding for the purpose of undertaking planning and design work related to the establishing multi-use trail network in the forest east of route 289. Kendall, you were the one that asked this to be brought into the business agenda. And what's what are your concerns, comments, questions? Well, I just by putting it into the consent agenda, it's pretty much just go ahead and do it. And I'm not sure that the town should go ahead and do it. I'd be more interested in just specifically how expensive that is going to be in the future because the grants are great and you can get some money, but you know there's going to be matching funds for it. You don't know the level of the funding that you could get for it. And frankly, a bridge over route 289 has got to be a million bucks. So I'm just curious to talk about applying for a grant like this, what it means in the future, fiscally. That was my main point was to have a discussion because with the consent agenda, you really can't. It's just. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think that's the number one reason of having this planning exercise. The previous plan that was done in 2003 was really like a free book called Prescoping. Really big picture trying to figure out what are even the elements to be thinking about the grant that we're looking at now would be to do the next level of the planning work. It's not going to design. It's not actually constructing anything but letting us know in more detail what are the cost estimates that we're really looking at and really trying to figure out what's an implementation scheme that makes sense. How is it going to be maintainable in the future so we really understand all the costs that we're looking at? Then we can decide after that this planning exercise is done. We'd have enough information to be able to decide what option gives us the best benefits or the lowest cost so that we can really make an intelligent decision going forward. So those would be some of the key things to come out of this grant by applying for this grant. Now it doesn't commit us to accepting the grant if we receive it and it doesn't commit us to doing anything else in the future. Right now we're just applying to see if we can get the grant. If we are awarded the grant you'd be coming back here to get your approval to accept. Okay and I just wanted to note that it's been 20 years since it's originally that the whole board should have a say on whether this is something that you want to pursue because it's easy to say no right now. It's not so easy to say no when you get the grant and then you have another opportunity for the grant and then you have to come up with a lot of money in the budget and everything to see the vision of the plan because you've already spent the staff time and the effort on this project. So I just think it's important that the board talk about is this in the town plan? Is this what the town wants to pursue going forward? Something else that we're trying to do with the way that we're developing the scope of work for what would be done in the in this planning exercise would be to have it set up so that in addition to knowing some of the big ticket bigger ticket items in the future that would go for grant funding for what are some quicker things that we could also do that maybe we could position ourselves to do right after this planning effort is done. That would be smaller pieces that we could sort of incrementally do. We could work with the school district. We could work with other groups and we have a good partner with Fellowship of the Wheel providing a lot of help over in Saxon Hill. They could maybe provide similar help for a project like this. So we'd look at what are some feasible shorter term projects that do not just really big projects. And in the previous plan they really did focus on that connection across Route 289 which would still be something we want to include in our planning exercise. But I think our focus would be more so really trying to get a north-south nectar going from the Saxon Hill area up to the Essex Experience area and where the new municipal offices will be in that area. You could then connect in with the school who was involved in the previous study. You'd connect in with the neighborhoods, Matthewtown Forest where Nantow Park is where the library is. Make a whole bunch of other connections that weren't those other connections weren't necessarily looked at in great detail in the previous study because it was so focused on the trail connection across the coast. Okay that sounds a lot more inclusive than that one section it was there so that makes a lot more sense. Thank you. Another way to another thing to possibly tie into and I was the active transportation plan of the Regional Planning Commission. I've seen maps that show where what they use paths are and then they actually took from an equity standpoint what are the most important sections to complete or to connect in order to allow people to get to work on a bicycle or get to the grocery store. Those kind of things so there's also possibility of having this plan comparing it to what the Regional Planning Commission focus their views at their highest priority and then they could get onto the Regional Planning Commission's work plan as well so there's all kinds of I guess other sources of funding from other places. I have connected with representatives from the CCRPC about this project and their support about it and it would meet many of those goals they have already. Any other comments or questions or concerns about this? I think they should go ahead and go for it. And he I want to allow the if you brought this into the business section what public comment anybody want to comment and come on introduce yourself again. Thank you very much. I'm going to be speaking on behalf of the Conservation and Trails Committee and the Economic Development Commission. We were both both were represented in the meetings for this project. I'm going to be voting on a document in support of it as well. I let you know that we're on board. Great thanks Ken. Any other comments or questions from the public? Okay we have the motion up in front of them. We do have since it's not in consent we need to uh no make a motion. I don't have it. Sorry. I didn't know there's a motion. Hold on I gotta reopen. I have it open. You got it? Yeah. Okay I make the motion that the Select Board authorize the town of Essex to apply for grant funding for the purpose of undertaking planning and design work related to establishing a multi-use trail network in the forest east of Route 289 to connect Saxon Hill area with the Essex town center area and other destinations. This authorization does not commit the town to accept accepting the grant if awarded. Thank you Ethan. Any further discussion? All those in favor of approving the application grant funding please say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Nay. Motion passes 3-1. Thank you for sticking around for the meeting. Yes thank you for moving me up in the agenda. All right we'll move on to the next agenda item which is discussion and presentation of Essex Parks and Recreation Fiscal 2025 program fund budget. Come up Allie. There. Adrian Martin and I are here to present the fiscal 25 program budget. Adrian is our assistant director. He's been crucial to our program success over the years and was an integral part in putting the budget together. So just a reminder the program budget is a self-sustaining standalone budget separate from operating budget from taxpayers and it operates from program and event registration fees. So this budget was last presented in the spring for fiscal 24 now moving the planning and presentation of the budget to the normal budgeting season getting a little bit closer to that full package deal. So we've we started to move our larger programs into a specific into specific budgeting buckets which you'll see with the Bolton afterschool ski and ride program ball soccer indoor swim and low cross programs. Budget is very fluid and as it grows the buckets may change but the detail will help along the way and so a lot more detail has been added to each line item. If you know you have any questions hopefully that detail helps clarify for you. The newest factor to the fiscal 25 budget is accounting for a portion of full-time salaries offsetting the operating budget by approximately $45,000. This does affect our bottom line for fiscal 25 but we still project to end with a small but positive response. Ultimately as this budget has done in the past we look to hire a part-time program coordinator which would be fully supported by this budget. This will be done as we continue to offer those opportunities as Catherine noted with her public forum feedback with the town plan with strong and successful programming and special events that are available to clarify and answer any questions. Any questions? Ethan go ahead. I have a question because I had a busy weekend I didn't get to read a lot of it until Sunday and finish today but um and I know this is probably isn't the way that it looks to me but did you guys really make 101,000 last year? Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I want to make sure that I had that right because that's totally awesome and then my second question to follow that up is is how come for fiscal 24. For 24. Yeah. Yeah. Projected. Projected. To finish out. And then my second question is going to be how come you don't see um you only see 3,000 for coming in. Yeah so um we have to balance you know as prices are increasing for our side of paying either instructors or let's give Bolton um Bolton Valley as an example right so Adrienne has worked really hard on this cost recovery program and a percentage you know guaranteeing a percentage coming back into this budget um but there are aspects of a large program like that where we also need to balance out how much we're bringing back so that the program is still affordable or accessible um to a lot of the participants and so um you know with school buses and their um the availability of drivers and struggling with that the last couple years um we've contracted with a different bus company um the reliability of them showing up and scheduling them um is really what we need for the program but it costs money for that and so really um you know there are a lot of a lot more expenses still going out um and it factors into how much revenue we're going to be making we're still you know we're not offering a program like Bolton and not making any money but um the parts that we can make money on we have to you know be smart about how we price that the rest of that package fee for somebody to do the program all goes to Bolton so if um the participant needs just a lift ticket um we're still paying that portion and not keeping any of it we're paying that full portion to Bolton um and so some kids you know need the full package of rental and lessons and the lift ticket and transportation and so it just gets to this price point that can be difficult for people to still want to be able to afford so it's a little convoluted you can you can touch on it I was saying I think part of that is like the what Allie was saying um with the $45,000 of full-time staff time and the proposal of a part-time program coordinator I mean those are two huge big chunks that that affect that um that bottom line so some yeah so some of the your operating costs have been shifted over there right so some of our operating costs plus you know the the amount we've budgeted for a part-time program coordinator plus the other seasonal staff that we hire throughout the year to help with certain programs um you know that's 78-ish thousand dollars in salaries and benefits um without the social security and all included and so that's taking a huge chunk out of our bottom line of that projected hundred right um and then you know we have to just price things the right way so you know revenues are different and expenses are higher so can I ask you a couple of clarifying questions about them um just because it's just totally no in general but so last year it shows it's saying last year I know we really are right I know I know we keep last year yeah um it shows $27,000 for for part-time and then this year it shows 33,770 but it adds in a regular salary of 29,946 so the regular salaries are a percentage of the four office staff right here um the 33 is our indoor swim staff for that program all soccer staff which are parking attendants and referees and some special event staff when we need some extra hands and then a bump of a realistic starting rate for that part-time program coordinator so while we wanted to have that person start this fiscal year that we're in um which is your last year um it's just increased a little bit more okay and then just so I'm not questioning what you guys are doing here I'm just trying to understand better so yeah and we just want to clarify that like who's involved in those words where I think I know the answer but like is all Bolton wrapped into the program instructor fees for the 55,000 or just is that different okay Bolton's it so um because there's another 55,000 programs just to have their own like Bolton has his own revenue line revenue line so it's not wrapped into the okay did you say instructor fee or did you say you said yeah so there's a 55,000 program instructor fees so just trying to figure out the for staffing time and and money is where so the program instructor fees are like change the yoga instructor um yeah so those instructors those teachers coming to do the course yeah no not beautiful thank you town staff are only in the salary so just to clarify also the reason that says new this year is because the line is new to help be able to see it exactly that has been in there in the past this just says it's not new like a new item in the budget yeah so there's a few of those all right any other questions from board members work I love to see the the huge revenue from last year I know it really doesn't cover all the thanks for time and everything so it's really nice to see the tech department have all this hard work going to be really self sufficient and the kids are always saying well not both but soon to be both always signed up for something so what I'm excited because we're not even halfway through anymore you know we're in 24 right now and you know especially with our indoor sim programs and the successful soccer season it's nice to see this so if you end up with a net at the end of the year where does the money go do you just stay in your budget yes it stays here you can't have it for no and I'm not asking for being transparent we're being real nice and giving you the salary amount so it'll stay in there so again for you know anything that we make it's going to help for the next year support programs okay so I just wanted to make clear that it doesn't go into fund balances stays in your programs yeah yeah I just want to say also I'll just highlight here this is something they've been working on because COVID depleted the fund greatly right so there was a lot in that fund then because of COVID need you know decisions were made I that's you know and so therefore they have done a lot to come try and bring this fund back those ask is sx youth basketball completely separate like the little football is too yeah I know junction yeah sx youth here's what does that's my wife to the name she's like what are you talking about this is like it matters you know we haven't gotten there yet but there you know we do soccer we do soccer they do basketball it's historically you've shared those large footballs it's own football and little league or you used to have a community basketball league that's funny because they use all the schools so it's just like the after school programs yep in time right are there any questions or comments from the public see any hands in the room I don't see any hands online so thank you very much for coming to talk to us spending your time in our audience all right next agenda I had a discussion about fiscal year 2023 fund balance assignments and because poor Daniel always gets stuck at the end we really need to move him up on the agenda I'm sorry it's for guys so I'll buy him something that we have cold we have cold but yeah we have really bad pizza how is it there the room's empty it's fine it's true good evening everyone so the first document I have for you is the fiscal year 23 fund balance assignment just to kind of go over in a quick overview here we do have a decrease overall on our general fund balance of $271,000 generally speaking this was a planned event because we had $300,000 assigned for tax reduction fiscal year 23 for fiscal year 26 try not to confuse the years there was also another $61,000 within my finance department for the transition time and you know using our outside moving on to the elements of the fund balance that we're proposing here the first piece is the 15% unassigned balance that we always maintain within our within our fund balance it's based on our fiscal year 24 budget so for this year that number is 2.31 million in unassigned funds this is lower than it has been in prior years because our budget shrank from 23 to fiscal year 20 into the next groups are the non-spendable and the restricted amounts non-spendable simply represents items that we've already paid for and we have possession of you know whether it be be paid postage meter or inventories of stuff that you know salt it's like that so those are really just auditor definitions of things that are spent and kind of in-house the other two elements that are considered restricted are reappraisal monies and our opioid settlement funds so those are just set aside by um outside sources for specific purposes so those amount to a little over 1.05 million dollars to kind of continue in the memo first table that I have here represents changes in things in what I like to call a kind of pre-existing or legacy type of fund balances so we have things for records preservation economic development community justice center things like that are just going to carry over from year to year so the fiscal year 23 changes column there represents the net activity within those groups during the fiscal year and then the transition from fiscal year 22 amount which is the amount that was previously approved by the select board becomes the fiscal year 23 amount um on the right hand side of that chart can I interrupt for a minute yeah sure so under the economic development one there was 9713 and then so the change was it took that money out is that what that means because it's zero no no there's been no there's been no change so no change still got it okay thank you yeah it disappears okay so think of it as an a plus b equals c kind of presentation sorry so we're yeah where did these changes come from are they actions that the select board took to authorize or are these whatever no it's just general activity within the general fund itself though so each of these usually has one specific dedicated mine item for the activity in there so records preservation for example I think we took in about 25 000 of revenue spent about 82 000 so it nets for about 57 and so that balance decreased from about 324 000 to 267 similarly like the accrued retirement benefits that amount increased a lot but that's just based on our portfolio of um employees who are age 55 or older so within our accounting and auditing world we need to set aside those amounts because those are potential retirees so we're setting aside amount for their vacation other accrues that we pay off of retirement so that's that's obviously a big riser in fiscal year so it's not really actions that you're taking it's activity within these kind of sub accounts that are making up that middle column some of these are are restricted or unspendable though is that um no they're not unspendable but they are for specific purpose so community justice center you know we have a specific restricted grant which is not represented here but at the same time we also receive unrestricted funds from you know neighboring towns who support coverage and possibly you know other other types of revenue that come in and we also have a net amount of expense activity that goes in that fund as well but we happen to gain 28 000 each year you know five yeah okay so so these are all all assigned these are not necessarily fund balance amounts that the select board has assigned so the fiscal year 22 amounts were assigned by the select board these are all these are all amounts so it like the reduced reduction of property taxes and 361 000 I just spoke to that as being 300 000 of direct property tax relief and then 61 000 was set aside for the finance department to have a consultant at the time of transition um you know the police vehicle there was a late delivery so we had you know we and we see that kind of annually from year to year um the assigned for future tax reduction 596 000 that's kind of the large amount of available um unbalance for the board to have a you know discretionary use for so you see here I have I show it as 596 000 adding 33 000 all of the random fund balance activity throughout the year and you have a you know an available fund balance of 630 000 there which we've already proposed to use 300 000 worth for future tax reduction so that's 200 fiscal 2020 so within that group there's a bit of a a layer of available funds that the board has questions so is the 1,844 000 the leftover fund balance after all of this is done that's available no no it's not yet the 1,844 000 here so I would consider taking out the 630 000 here and maybe maybe looking at the chart in the back to help out this within the packet it's on page 160 I can kind of tiptoe through the categories here would like what page is that of yours page two there's graph page three of three and I have three yes sorry so within these groups what I tried to do is layer these items from most discretionary on the top to least discretionary at the bottom so the bottom block blue there that's the 15 percent minus sign so that's you know by our rule can't really touch it it's there it's available for emergencies so that's the 2.3 million dollar they're there the thin red line in between there is the non-spendable group so that's the inventory and the prepaid items that's already been used it's about 271 000 the light green layer up above that are the opiods and the reappraisal monies about 1.06 million so those are spoken for already the purple piece here relates to your question so there's 1.2 million dollars in this purple piece here these are the one-time assignments that not not one time these are the legacy assignments the kind of rolling pre-existing assignments so out of this group 1.214 million out of that 1.844 million represents that purple bar there so all of these items added up excluding the assigned for future tax reduction represents that that piece there I don't know I don't know if that helps answer your question again it doesn't help answer mine because the graph is and thank you for putting it in there but the graph is absolutely no help without without a key with values okay because you have four you have four groups above with values and you have nine groups of the graph yeah there is there is some I will add these but the rest of it I could understand just when I got to the graph at the end I was like that makes no sense yeah and there is some stuff described earlier in the narrative which could help explain it but I do understand and that's why I kind of wanted to walk through the nine groups with you to try and help you decipher where those are coming and then I had a question about on page two there says the following table those new recommended great 97 is that the is that the left over from the 1.2 you just mentioned that was already pre-assigned no it's not so so the 1.2 million group so I'm going to refer you back to the chart here a few purple just to try and get you and that's that's the purple layer and that represents the top chart here which is the 1.844 million piece less the assigned for future tax regime piece so the idea with that is the 1.2 million are being spoken for in these in these manners the 897 thousand dollar piece is another additional but what's proposed here is that we use 400 000 for future capital projects which is that dark blue line a little bit higher in the stack 325 000 which we've talked about in the operating budget use this here it's one taxes and that's the orange layer there and then there's another 172 000 while the items below that in the chart that are these one-time taxes so which we've spoken about also like the main track it first response study economic development department elements fuel tracking intersection upgrade project so so those pieces are outside of the 1.844 million these are all pieces as well throughout the presentation that they're separate distinct they're not rolling into each other so to kind of conclude looking at the chart so that so there's a future expenses piece so this is so this is top dark green layer this is the 330 000 this 330 000 comes from the 630 000 less the 300 000 dollars proposed for future taxes so this is within that top art page too sorry I know this is I'm not gonna blame you on this one because I'm not the I'm not a finance guy I'm not a computer guy but if I was some random guy on the street I would have absolutely no idea what this means I still don't and I'm here at the table I mean I really do but the breakdowns is I can't I can't like if I got to go from one paragraph to the next page to the third page and the 330 comes out of the 660 which comes out of the 100 1.844 like come on I gotta have at least a chop chop of here's the total okay you know and so let let me let me try and break it down for you use you'd be better off for writing on a piece of paper for me you using the chart and the and the four numbers up above let me try and describe it back can you do it with the I'll use the chart because I think that's where he's getting lost it's fine it's fine so I get the I get the chart but I mean out of the the part that's confusing to me is which monies are coming from yeah from where I mean out of the 6.3 so let's let's focus on the four numbers here each three okay so our total general fund balance is 6.3 yeah that's what I'm estimating for the end of the fiscal year on so the the first two items that I spoke about were the non-spendable which are prepaid expenses and inventory so it's already money out the door we have stuff so that's you know done and taken care similarly with the restricted funds so that's the opioids and re-embrace the money those are funds that we have in hand they're restricted by an outside source for a future so those are set aside so that's 1.0 in there the assigned money is where you make your decisions so page two of this document represents all those assignments and it's the combination of those two charts and then the fourth piece is the unassigned piece which is 15 percent that we set aside by our policy for general fund balance setting aside that 2.3 million out of our fiscal year 24 budget so so really part that we need to discuss is the 2.7 million dollars of potential assignments that are here that's what is really presented on page two of the document with the two charts okay so you're asking us to assign all of the new values in the column on the the first chart on page two that says fy 23 changes no i'm asking you to assign the fiscal year 23 amounts so the yeah so so sorry suit to either add or subtract right the change so we've previously through our action defined the fy 22 amount yes and so you're asking us to add and subtract to get the column in the fy 23 amount and approve the column in the next chart that says fy 23 amount also correct okay okay and so we haven't taken any action to okay okay all right and that amount is higher because the 15 percent of our operating budget is now lower that we can keep then it would be so we're not going to have 900 000 next year to put into a signed we're going we're not going to have what 300 400 000 maybe on balance well i guess the quick way to look at it would be there could be i would say there'd be 330 000 based on the number in the top chart here where it's 630 000 assigned and we've already submitted a proposal that uses 300 the between fiscal year 26 one thing i would interject is that no in fiscal year 24 we're going to go beyond our interest revenue number that's going to be an amount available as well for fiscal year 24 that could help our general fund balance be in the positive overall obviously there's a lot of things to go on still in fiscal year 24 you know if we have a terrible winter or all the variables things that happen here but there's a possibility there that you know we gain or lose fund balance in in those ways and in the in the past one of our big funders one of the big funders for fund balances is under under staffing police department is heard from chief like today that we're going to be just one under we also have to if we are if we are under spent the police department we have to rebate it rebate half of it for a portion of it to the city so yeah we're not going to have yep the objective it's not to have any you should but yeah it's your budget right on yeah so we cannot we should that plan on fund balance it yeah and for fiscal year 25 as you know we've eliminated the debt 10 layer for dispatch it's still within our patrol group but we have made so i i now understand thank you for walking me through that and andy's comments really helped because i was looking at the first table that says the following table shows pre-existing categories none of that money is assigned right now correct none of that money right now is assigned the top part of it at a fiscal year 22 amount that was assigned and now i'm rolling over balances to present here's where they stand now to assign and do you want to assign it okay so there's 2.7 million if you looked at if you looked at the graph which is called a purple up purple in that term yeah but not all of it is but i understand yeah i'm just trying to yeah yeah think of how you present it okay we have 2.7 million dollars that we're able to spend this year where do you want to spend it no we and here's and here's the things that you have that you still have to pay for from before me some of that 2.7 million right it's 2 million of it is stuff that we assigned before right but some of that we've spent right and so it's it's really only 700 thousand that work additional it's in different places because some things have gone to zero and some things have gone higher some things have gone lower there's a and then there's the 897 of new and 630 that doesn't have to be assigned to future tax correct our recommendations that we do that we do pays down you understand yeah right but correct you can't but there's 630 thousand dollars there that's i guess that's so and that kind of came up earlier i should put two and five together but assigned is things that the money is already got a place assigned is that we have a bill that we've we've identified where it's going to be spent yeah we have assigned it okay so it's restricted then it's a different category yeah could be assigned in there and restricted okay so there's only six categories that are in that chart that assigned um yeah there are so yeah there's one group which is the legacy assignments so it's most of that first table we've been outside of the 603 and there's the one time assignments which are all those costs like the economic development report versus on study things like that at the bottom of the second pitch so that's about 172 thousand then there's kind of the decision points you know the operating budget we have 325 thousand dollars for tax relief and fiscal 25 and then i'm proposing 400 thousand dollars in various capital project here as well this is fantastic great work damn the only thing that i don't like on there is the 325 thousand for the property tax reduction as you can see it's coming we should just bite the bullet as a board and put that into the budget you took 300 thousand dollars of interest and this 300 thousand dollars of the property tax reduction the budget's still at five percent but we're short you know you're going to be short oh it's at 4.4 percent now you should pull that 325 out and put it right to your capital he's going to go into the capital explain explanation next and you're going to see that's where you really need that money to go especially because you're not going to have the fund balance if you put 20 thousand dollars that's what i was confused about too because that's what i was asking and i already jumped down the second one but if you put you have 630 thousand dollars for tax reduction if you put 20 thousand dollars in there make it 650 that gives you 325 and then 175 the year after and then 90 the year after that then it's gone we're closing something similar basically 325 and this in this current the year 25 that's nine and then 200 000 next year 955 total you have 630 up in the top graph and you got 325 in the second graph it's nine hundred and twenty five thousand nine hundred and fifty five thousand dollars no so that that well top cricket from wrong game that's 630 includes the 325 down below no no 630 includes the future two years totaling 300 000 but it does not include the 320 so then there's a 325 left over no the 325 thousand is in the lower it's in the lower chart in the lower chart okay so so in the in the top chart it only has it's 630 000 total it's kind of that's kind of in play for you but we don't we double counting that no i think we're double counting it's supposed to go 600 300 150 that's what we all talked about when we said that with the 20 percent increase because we've currently got 596 733 in there why are we why is that number getting bigger instead of smaller we have 33 3 3 to it well i've also combined some of the elements to here like the assigned personnel cost assigned merger related costs so i'm i'm eliminating those prior assignment categories as like the finance position i spoke about earlier for the 61 000 it's not you know i'm not going to hire a consultant to do my job that was a transition phase type of fiscal 23 so similarly personnel costs prior things for merger related costs i'm eliminating those specific line items and kind of calling them all into this assigned for future tax reduction so so with the plan that's proposed here that says 200 k in f y 26 and 100 k and f by 27 these 330 in there does leave 330 in there yes so bingo count on what you're talking about yeah there's more money there than imagine it can't understand what i see in the second one but i'm trying to explain everybody that this money is being counted on top of this money it's just put in a fancy graph to show you that it's a different thing but it's 2.7 million dollars the 2 million that we've already assigned before we're really only the new assignment is 6 with you 630 for taxes yeah on top of 630 is available discussion really the all the other elements up up there the 1.214 million all those other things are really the truer assignments like they are they're set for a specific purpose we've proposed to use 300 000 for future tax expenses within that 630 but there is that 330 000 piece that's available as well so really it in a way it's almost best to call that unassigned layer it on top of it it's really unassigned and so our policy says we can't leave what we shouldn't leave more than 15 percent we need we need to assign that I don't know if either I'm either confused or we're double counting that 325 now that the 325 is not being double counted it's definitely down below yep so then we're going to we're going to have an extra 330 we have 330 left over a future tax reduction after we do this 200 and 100 and next two fiscal years no because 25 was like 360 right 360 proposed or something we're proposing 325 325 in fiscal year 25 for 25 just down from 600 000 so in total we we've got 955 right well for future tax almost a million dollars we're assigning right and with your with your proposal at 630 you would you would be able to pay for that you'd be able to pay for the next three years without that 325 the way it's already written on the top if you eliminated the second 325 it would still do the same thing yeah but you still you then then you end up with 330 000 left over that's unassigned not if you eliminate the 325 though no but the money still like the money exists we're not creating no money here we're we're way behind on public works equipment replacement it's costing us money over your dump money in the capital so that's that's I mean it's simple that's that's that's exactly Kendall's point and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm your picture of so do we want to do that or do we want to ask staff to come back with a recommendation I'd like to see a clearer picture of like the police like the police car I know that that I thought that that was last year where half of it was 23 and half of it was 24 now it's 24 and 25 are we paying for half of that this year so no we we just received I think it was five vehicles in June and July one of those items in July it's the reason hold over that one fiscal year 23 vehicle comes in and July 24 we just want to be able to carry over that unbalance to say we didn't really overspend in fiscal year 24 we just had a car coming and so using that piece of one fiscal year 23 to to match that spot because when fiscal year 24 comes around police vehicles going to look like it's overspend by 49 50 and that piece of fund balance that we're using from fiscal year 23 it's going to okay and then just quick question of corporation on that so that money didn't come out the police vehicles don't come out of capital they come out of the operating budget so it's operating so we can charge that's why I always get messed up with the police cars because I'm like yeah why isn't it in the capital that's why thank you so so uh this this is was put on the agenda as a discussion you're not asking for a decision yes that's correct so I I think uh we need to maybe possibly uh the capital budget in in a budget work session at some point we discuss about what we want to I think there's an extra 330 thousand and 36 dollars of future tax relief that we should consider assigning somewhere else yeah but you need to remember the state is looking at an 18.5 percent increase in their property tax rate or something like that school tax school tax rate yeah yeah but still has an impact on I'm not suggesting we increase our our yeah I see what you're saying we want to uh so there there can there can be a I'm just in a discussion it's it's not the town balance business to balance the school Greg do you know but it still impacts people's ability to pay their tax bills at all that's true but like you can't short the talent really proposed for future tax reduction I think it's I think it's nine hundred and nine hundred nine hundred and fifty five and thirty six dollars we'll take this back and and um see your comments and see if we can make a more clear recommendation now I'll have a draft audit and we are sure since since Don brought that up can we consider or at least find an answer to can you send separate bills for the town tax and the school tax does it have to be on the same bill just curious I don't know it's a lot more expensive less less expensive it is and I do the same day but I can guarantee you like our residents when they get a hundred thousand dollar tax bill the majority of that's the school and if the school tax on my bill if it's going to go up 20% I'm going to see a lot bigger jump on my tax bill than I saw for a 27% increase from the town it's a lot bigger percentage so we're just had a disadvantage yes so and the in the the school district is talking about moving their voting date to the same date as the town budget vote so then they will act that people have been asking for this for years to be able to see their entire tax bill on the same day if people are apt to vote against the school budget they should have to put against the town there's there's there's yes there are considerations I mean it would it made sense when you know school budget was small and town budget was really small when your total bill was $700 but when you're talking thousands and dollars it's a huge you can tell just from the comments that we get from the public that they look at the bill as my tax bill and they come to us right they don't look at it don't break it down I'd also like to make a comment too that our policy says that we can't have more than 15% it doesn't say how much we have to maintain yeah and that's you do you just say we can't spend the 15% we could spend that right if we chose to we could choose to violate our own policy not violate it's not just to make an exception to our policy we could also just as you can't keep more than 15 it doesn't say anything about spending another million dollars absolutely we could we could choose just it comes with a risk clear money our our auditors recommend that we have 15% but we could we could choose not to look at it we look at it as a rainy day for the one that disaster hits that we did not foresee that's about 15% I think is about eight weeks of operating expenses um so so what it really does for us is when there's a when there's a big flood and there's a lot of damage we don't have to borrow money to fix our roads we can spend the money and then get reimbursed for it federal government I was just reading actually this morning about how municipalities that were hit hard with the floods this June are spending 8 interest loans that they had to take out to fix their roads we don't have we don't have to do that because we have the cash on so that's that's the risk you run with that I did have one more question about transfers to capital and now we're going into capital next but are those individual line items or is that all going into one fund so these these are individual line items within the capital funds and then my second part of that was going to be through the process and do more so with public comments I don't think we should be spending any money on the municipal complex until but well to fund balance you can always reassign that way right but it's a hundred thousand dollars to go towards the municipal complex what is that what is that we know we're going to do it you have no you're not going to stay in the city of Essex Junction forever you know you're going to do it but you didn't vote you talked about your taxes going on but you didn't vote to spend that money so the but it's capital for you didn't vote to any for any of the fund balance assignments that's why you give the money back right you're talking about a 40 I'm just going to use the words that were said earlier 40 million dollars right you go and take uh I know it's only a hundred this year but you go and start taking a couple hundred thousand every year they reduce the amount we have to borrow later we're close towards the roads of the but you're you're you're spending not spending it you're saving it you're saving it you're taking taxpayer money and putting it towards something that they didn't agree to spend it on we we are elected to make those I understand yeah I just think that that's a huge contract so that's a part of this and I would remove that but it towards public works if we had the the money in public works for equipment this year in you know a couple other things you could have saved your trucks coming up you could have saved yourself money just by placing I know we're going to capital next I'm just saying transfers to capital see I don't see public works I see fire vehicles and roads and the salt shed which I know we the roads are public work the salt shed okay that's not equipment it's going to be lined as roads it's like when you put it in there for municipal complex so we take that money when we talk about assigning this stuff in a future meeting then we can we can have that discussion as to whether these are the right categories that we want that that the categories that were recommended by staff if you we want to override the staff recommendation we can have those discussions I'm seeing hands going up in the public any other work member comments about fund balance or questions hey Ken I'm playing about this for a number of we've been watching this process now for a number of years and every year it's the same thing there's a surplus in a budget that was voted on by the public and then the surplus is allocated by you folks on things that the bud that do not get budgeted and the voters do not get to vote on of the allocations that are being recommended to 897,000 total 325 going back to taxpayers that makes sense that leaves about $575,000 of items that you will either allocate or spend without going through a budget process that means the voters are being bypassed with what they normally are not now if you were to take all those allocations and budget them and then apply the surplus to that budget as tax relief you end up exactly in the same place with one difference the voters get to vote on it like they do for all the other budgetary items I would like to recommend that you do that you budget these items instead and allocate all of it the tax relief in that same year that you're budgeting it for and that's out the same but you're going through the proper approval process you just heard about complaints about spending money on a municipal center not going through a voting process here you are bypassing money that was voted on not spent surplus and then you spend it in a way that was not in the original budget and thanks kind of any other comments from the public I just respond to that yeah and please correct me if I'm wrong here um that in some cases that that's correct the budget gets underspent and that's as you mentioned the staffing shortages of police or any other department and we don't spend the money that that was budgeted in other cases we we have fund balance because of unanticipated interest revenue or federal money that was received over the course of the year so there's other reasons that we have fund balance to assign at the end of each year if we have a fund balance that year yeah Ken it doesn't all come from underspending the budget yeah thanks for your comments Ethan yeah I just want to ask you a quick question but out of all the years that you've been part of the town do you remember a year where there wasn't surplus uh no and it's it's it's largely as it says in seven quarters by uh understaffing the police and you can you could probably go back like 20 years and every year there's a surplus and so have you used time okay because I just there was there was a there was a time there was a time when we had no fund balance and and we would go over budget a lot of times and up and down you have to borrow in the event of an emergency years and you get to borrow money and yeah yeah but right yeah and and I and I have been a an avid proponent of giving money back back to the taxpayers you've been back to them quickly rather than hanging out under it but I would add that we didn't have a surplus in fiscal year 23 we you know I'm I'm showing figures of losing $271,000 of general fund balance but we had planned for it you know $300,000 was you know tax right and we still made out with $30,000 of taxpayer money out of a 60 million dollar budget out of a 16 million dollar or I understand you can't you can't that's with the 300,000 I try to remember his name and I can't for the wife of me I feel like it's like Walter Adams yeah Walter Adams before I ever became a member of the select board my first time meeting this guy actually stopped coming to select board meetings in general because every single year he said the same thing and I had talked to him a couple times before was give the money back to adjust the budget when we had the in-person budgets that was what he stood up and said every year reduce the budget by last year's surplus and and you know I've always been told what's not always a surplus not a surplus it won't be next year because the police when the police serve full stop I mean we're one person away still 90% we get the agreement with the city it's going to be a surplus you can say there's not going to be a surplus even last year with the tax reduction there's still a surplus there's going to be a surplus next year so moments ago you were talking about increasing the amount going to yeah because you're not going to you're not going to send it you're not going to give us a tax deduction because you're talking too different you're talking because it shouldn't be there the money shouldn't be there regardless right and we just don't have that bad of a job with the budget I mean you just said I mean that you're gonna have 330 thousand dollars and 60 cents that this year on top would be doing the same thing again right so how do you get to zero do you give it all back in one year 2.7 million dollars I'm not recommending that because then you'd have a 40% tax increase next year so you've got there's there's practical aspects to how quickly you dole it back out so that's why I point to capital yeah so we can have that discussion when we talk about how to actually assign this that's going to come back with another recommendation that that that doesn't leave 330 thousand in future tax rate that's what I'm asking for but right anything else right thanks Dan he's got capital budget next time we have capital budget he's not going anywhere thanks for that discussion thank you for another discussion work session no no discussion about proposed fiscal year 2025 capital budget yeah and then he's on the next one too so three items okay so for fiscal year 25 budget capital budget what I've proposed here is basically the same patterns that we've used in the recent past I think it's a little easier to see this on the second page of this presentation with kind of smaller stack of here so the overall balance for the capital projects I'm projecting about 3.3 million dollars remaining because of the end of fiscal year 24 obviously we're still quite a ways from that the capital tax that's proposed there is 486 thousand dollars represents our current three percent rate in star 16 the next column for additions is 470 thousand this is the same carryover number that we have from fiscal year 24 I'm just kind of keeping that legacy number in place I think I allocated it a little differently among the individual line items but certainly that's up for discussion well I know we've also had to talk in the past about trying to whittle away that 470 thousand dollar number you know trying to make the capital line items stand up more for itself or you know do we try and use less operating balance you know general fund balance in terms of operating transfers to help us reduce HHS costs things like that but for this presentation you know this is still at 470 thousand dollars throughout the five-year plan the next column is grants and kind of other revenues so there's a variety of things here obviously the storm water item there is anticipated grant money related to the LPS program so that's an 80-20 split 80 percent of that project supposed to be grant money the 95 thousand dollar piece and undesignated it's the amount that I project for possible interest income during fiscal year 25 that would be allocated to capital projects directly as a piece of our over the next column is fiscal year 25 additions and transfers between projects this is where the 400 thousand dollar piece from prior presentation shows up um two with items are within buildings and then there's a highway piece in a vehicle and equipment piece the extra 85 thousand dollars in there is related to records preservation with the clerk's office so that's simply a transfer also from the um kind of operating area into the capital cover those costs the next two columns categorize the revenues kind of in different ways but generally speaking the overall revenue from all the prior columns is 3.08 almost 7 million and then we have estimated spending of 2.8 to 2.9 million so that would leave us about 3.5 million dollars of a fiscal year 25 ending capital project questions about kind of that specific first entry questions looks good I thought we had records preservation in some other part of this budget not in the capital plan because I imagine that or did I no we have income but the expense where we have a three-year contract this through your 25 would be so that's why it's kind of including final pieces okay each of the three years have been 85 okay thank you so there's there's both fund balance and capital records preservation what's in there I saw it I knew I saw it somewhere else so within alluding back to my presentation on fund balance as well there's a piece outside preservation and that piece that's within the general fund that's collected within the general is being used for this capital expense with this three so that's why it's in the group of these operating transfers for Ethan you look at here you have questions yeah I got a couple questions um I know we haven't gone down that far so I don't feel me to just wait the public works in fire department yeah if you don't want me to wait till we get there that'd be helpful I think it's fine okay um so I'm really curious well I'm all on board with the fire department I'm not sure that it's enough the way that it's written in with the public works but I'm really curious what the public works I don't see any spending happening vehicles or vehicles or equipment I see the vehicles but major equipment right if 71,000 that I gotta scroll up see what it says that's the balance this year yeah so estimated the estimated spend in fiscal year 25 under pw major equipment is 273,816 first first spend yeah the estimated spend for that for that fiscal year 273,000 so it's a little more it's the second to right hand column 278,725 273,817 273,816 yeah 273,816 yeah the major equipment that's the estimated spend for 25 okay oh yeah and it's at a it's actually running at a deficit all right that's opening the fiscal year I saw the negative I just couldn't find the spending but I I didn't see that was all the way over by the by the balance I'm on the wrong one too that's why I was looking just kept looking at 26 there we go I'm on I'm on the last one says 263 yeah okay so you're 105,31 negative for this year there's the 100,000 dollars from the municipal toolbox or we've got additional on the sign fund on the stick I think I asked last year the question about could we erase that negative number and was told that it was okay to have it there but yeah that's gonna be the special so so we put a hundred thousand dollars in that municipal complex category last year no we didn't know no this year it's a new one we've never done so why does it say future 24 balance estimated a hundred thousand dollars next year future 25 balance would be 200,000 dollars we assign it now it goes into the FY 24 well no that might that might be an error on my part actually because we are talking about assigning it for fiscal year 20 so I think let me look into that number there okay I know I have fiscal year 24 condensed and I can't really see it right now let me look into that because Ethan's right the fiscal year 23 assignments of 400,000 are in this fourth green column you know at 100,000 dollars each so I'll have to look back into that fiscal year 24 and see if I think I might something let me see it 25 where do you see 24 fiscal year 24 you're not going to see it it's all oh here never mind never mind I see it use this so I got it so yeah I guess that uh guess that makes me wonder about the soul shit too is that only 120 and then showing 150 and the proposal a hundred thousand dollars the proposal is for a hundred thousand dollars of the fiscal year 23 funds yes we put a hundred and 20 or we put a I don't know what we put in there's a hundred and 20 in it yeah I think there should be 20,000 was set aside in the higher total tax rate so the capital tax rate for fiscal year 24 includes 20,000 but I have a feeling that maybe I placed feel like I placed the hundred down the 400,000 items might have placed them in fiscal year 24 instead of 25 and it's being so for the salt shed for the road reconstruction fire department vehicles down below and municipal complex that you would notice first of all you those might each be overstated by um I just one quick clarification question I need to wrap my head around all those again the hundred and the four hundred thousand dollars in capital that was presented from the fund balance is that as any of those numbers reflected in so it's in the fiscal year it's in the fiscal year 25 fourth green column here that so there's a hundred thousand in the municipal complex and the salt shed road reconstruction fire department vehicles okay okay that's that's so that's where it goes to one carries out yes but it only shows it as 150,000 because it shows it as adding 30,000 for future year additions capital tax would be 30 okay capital yeah and then adding a hundred would be 150,000 so it starts at 120,000 and then there's an estimated spend in fiscal year 25 as well of 100,000 okay so it's projected start being expensed in so really it'd be 250 after adding a hundred in the capital tax but you're supposed to plan on spending a hundred in the same year which would bring it down to 150 just doesn't breed them how do you you know I mean how do you spend how do you have 120 right now you add in 30,000 you spend 100 and you end with 150 well I think I think the way it's shown here is there's 120 beginning at fiscal year 24 and I don't think that's going to be the 20 I think I've made assignment error that went into fiscal year 24 instead of fiscal 20 Ethan okay so that number should really be 20 we're gonna raise 30,000 through the capital tax to get to 50 then there's the fiscal year 23 unbalanced assignment which could potentially be another 100,000 to get to 150 and then we will spend 100 in fiscal 25 so the end of fiscal year 25 it'd be 50 would be 50 yes end of fiscal year 25 because fiscal year 24 is starting balance overstated right sorry I made I made that error I think oh okay what what happened all right okay yeah I get it now the assignment it looks like I've placed the assignment in both years and I need to take it out of 24 because it needs to be determined in 25 and that could be for for multiple things just the town municipal complex and yeah it could be all four items I think all four items could be in there I just can't yeah just those four items okay so really what it does in this presentation it doesn't really change anything in green it just changes where our fiscal year 24 starting balance is and where fiscal year 25 ending balance ends up 200,000 they're both overstated may I ask a question this is not related to your salt sharing what is the park asset replacement plan so this is swing playgrounds yeah so it's gonna jump from 30,000 to 100 and somewhat thousand here yeah so in fiscal 23 all he was not able to replace it so I've taken basically three fiscal years of activity combined and instrument so so there's two years that have a lot of activity and then it tapers down to a more normal a regular maintenance scandal thank you so in the timeline there's a timeline here that says today is a presentation of the capital plan the 18th is discussion of the capital plan again then on the 8th there's a question of whether to increase ask to increase the capital tax second year and more in a public hearing for the 29th so last year when we were asked to year when we were asked to increase the capital tax to three and a half cents we backed off on that partly because of the big tax increase that associated with separation but also because there is a reassessment that's afoot that will cause a step function increase in the amount of capital tax revenue and my thought was that we would wait to see but I guess I'm having this discussion three meetings in advance or because you don't know how much reassessment is going to affect things you haven't accounted for that in your in your five-year plan so it assumes a flat yeah so what I wanted to do in the presentation is really without looking at the reappraisal and we all you know we all know what's coming and it's in progress but what I wanted to show was that our overall savings have been enough so rather than think of things as a capital tax rate trying to attach a dollar amount to it you know if we have a 50 percent increase in our reappraisal we're going to go from 480,000 roughly speaking to 720 but I would contend later in this presentation that even 720,000 you can see that with the forex and the upcoming storm walk so you know there's kind of a later sheet on here that reflects that yeah the some of the comments in in here I think I want to the question about transferring stuff from operating budgets to capital budget I completely understand that that's impractical because the except for grand list growth capital tax revenue is flat I've been paying the same capital tax since 2007 exact same number every year and you're buying power with the money that I'm giving you it's less and less every year so I completely understand that you've got to you've got to have some of that in the operating budget and so I think also to say that the capital tax is insufficient it is very pessimistic because we have a substantial portion of it coming from the operating budget as well yeah so I'm getting ahead of myself in this discussion because you wanted to have it in January 8th well it's okay I mean say so take in my example we're talking maybe a 50 percent 280,000 ounce it's 400 so our capital tax revenue staying at 3% the 700 to 1,700 we maintain the same 470,000 dollars kind of in transfer you know that would take us to 1.2 million dollars it's kind of on that and you know I know in this kind of quick little spreadsheet I'm joining a need for 1.3 million so maybe we have a hundred thousand dollars of interest income that kills that yeah it's just to 1.3 million annually but I think also presented within the fire and the PW equipment we're already running deficits in terms of you know we we haven't saved enough we do need to cover to some degree so you know that with that 1.3 million dollar number is if we've started at right funding I think in those two areas I think there's you know interesting as well yeah I'd also say the we have been funding the capital through operating transfers for many years they increased a little bit now fire vehicles get more expensive haven't gets more expensive works people's get more expensive so those numbers have gone up was amounts gone up 10 20,000 dollars a year we've level funded them the past two I'd say that's really for two primary reasons one was just because of tax rate increases we were facing the separation and trying to keep that as palatable and manageable as possible partially because we've had those conversations about could we be shifting capital cost onto capital tax whether that's to reduce the reliant you know reduce the amount of health and human services contribution or to just apparently say to put on to the capital tax but for those reasons and more we haven't been increasing those capital transfers the past couple years and so that becomes a good question about what do you want to do and if you're not we're going to hold off on increasing the capital tax to wait to see what happens with free appraisal we go back to increasing the operating to it because either way we're falling behind so you don't really want anything from us today this is just a discussion and another discussion on the eighth general reactions today of you know how does this land how does it look there's a consensus of no product we don't want to increase the capital tax today and then okay we won't we don't need to talk about that we can move ahead with what we have but I think of what our first asset they the operating budget how does this look thanks for the reactions and going in the right direction or not I don't get anything else in mind yeah and I think you know the idea with showing five your portion of the plan with all the same types of operating transfers and the same capital tax just to kind of show that erosion and the fund balance that way you know by the time fiscal year 29 comes bound fire department has a million dollar engine so we'll have enough money to pay for it but what happens when the next thing kind of getting down so it's not it's not a cash flow issue it's a long-term planning of being able to save enough we can turn around and buy it long-term are we fulfilling the needs especially departments reconstruction storm water yeah I guess I would just clarify it's not a cash flow problem today the problem is it's a cash flow problem in 2031 or you know two years after that when the fire needs to buy three trucks within six years we are in this lucky space right now where we don't have one of those big ones happening so this has been okay to get us to that savings for 29 problem is that then we don't you know you don't have that gap again there are three big ones and fire alone that are pretty quick succession compared to what we're used to just now obviously those can all be discussed at the time you know maybe one you can extend one year blah blah blah but but just if you're looking at it right now in this snapshot I think the cash flow issue is present just it's in you know 2030 so I was just going to say that speaking as a resident who's paid the capital tax all these years I'm very disappointed that the town hasn't been very transparent and up front about what the capital tax has been paying my understanding way back when they put the capital tax in was that that was going to fund your capital you have a special thing on your tax bill that funds your capital and I believe that average resident in town feels that that three cents should be funding all the capital keeping half a million dollars in the operating budget and not funding the capital tax to the rate that pays for the capital going forward is not being transparent as a board I mean that's about probably the easiest thing for any resident in this town to understand is the capital saves you money because you buy your items up front and Essex does a really good job doing that but you're doing it kind of like you've got money over here that you put in you got fund balance that you helped to do it and you got this little tiny capital tax that only funds like a half to a third of what your capital needs actually are so I really think the board should step up this year and figure out exactly what you need give a realistic projection of the the appraisal and adjust your capital tax at least closer and realize because it's a lot easier if you have the capital tax turns out to be oh we don't need a nickel reduce it I mean this is capital is the one thing in the budget that saves everybody significant amount of money ongoing and we see that because we're talking about funding a salt shed funding this item we pull it right out and we've got the money between the fund balance and the thing that's the planning of the boards that came before us we need to keep that up and bite the bullet and fund the planning ahead so that folks in 2030 aren't looking and saying oh we've only got a million dollars in our capital we need all this money so that's my two cents thank you I just have a quick question um and I forgot from last year I feel like it was like a hundred and twenty thousand but what is one cent roughly it's about a hundred and sixty hundred and sixty thousand dollars right I'm not gonna quote you on that but I'm right that that was a rough memory I couldn't remember I remembered it was a hundred and twenty hundred and sixty something like that about fifty six dollars on my bill fifty six yeah and that's anyway six three dollars I have to look to see what mine is you know my taxes went up last year for building a barn so all right anybody else so uh what what are we what will we see will we see anything different at the next go around to this he's gonna fix his hundred thousands hey gonna fix his hundred thousand figure out right for the fund balances in the right in the right years yeah and then there's the question of whether we want to uh infer some sort of reappraisal oh well yeah yeah if they after some way you could you could do that that'd be great I don't know if it's comfortable doing that now there's risk in doing that because people will look and say you told me no I'm not sure but we could talk to the assessor I'm not sure we yeah I I'm a little reluctant to put something out there that those people gives people an expectation of right yeah we're gonna get to it yeah and that's every person's home is gonna change right and whether yeah you're sure here's Michael somebody else's are down in 2007 my type though went down because everybody else went lower because it's related to the fund balance there's that other 330 000 potentially that I'm kind of in favor of throwing at capital of that that's uh two cents that give you your nickel yeah and then we and then and then in fy 26 we'll have we'll know what the reassessment is and we can decide at that point whether we need more capital tax or more and fund that and in operating or we can figure that out a future select board can figure that out that would be nice but we can have that discussion I'm only two more years I'm only one all right any any public comment we'll be revisiting this a few times and then I think uh hearing on the 29th if you want it oh oh oh that would we would only need to we have to have a public hearing on the capital plan right yes but the question is we don't need if we don't decide not to go there's nothing to warn if we decide not to pursue that we've typically had a public hearing on the capital budget handle right regardless of the yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so there's no the fact that it's the memos suggests that we have a public hearing on the 29th isn't really going to win on me you know I like that you win it's a bit of both I feel like in the past we actually have that the public hearings in February um because it's the two cents of the past the two cents is the two cents now it's okay you don't have to think it's been three cents so it's you're not voting on that three cents but the select board is deciding how to allocate yes that's in the public yeah which yes you've done it before time meeting because it goes out in the annual report but it's not something the voters vote it's any hand so let's remove that should we move on to our budget work session uh the last the work session we had we deferred the parks and rec discussion in the public works I'm confused with some other some new comments in the comments the responses document so I don't have any problem with the comments but moving down to where it's a summary of changes where it says you added it in does that mean you're adding to the budget yeah so like the clerk's budget we're adding expenses and training okay and the reason I don't have okay but the economic development what did that go economic development is now wants $80,000 more than what they originally asked for nope so in that case we're adding $40,000 of revenue the balances okay one time items all right then the other $40,000 is the expense so it's just off their offset pieces so Dan if I say it properly so we talked about using that $40,000 putting $40,000 for an economic development study for the town of Essex we originally proposed that we talked about using fund balance to do that okay it didn't reflect in the budget this was this is Dan setting it up so that would reflect in the budget so it was $40,000 expense offset with the $40,000 revenue from fund balance okay that makes me I couldn't yeah it's an accounting change basically okay yeah so based on the changes that we've talked about to date the total budget increases by $47,627 and that $40,000 $40,000 of that was the what was just talked about there was the economic development piece that was just talked about and the others miss a couple of other miscellaneous things I think this was increased in the snow removal and then the human service grant increase and so the budget increased by $47,627 but the total tax levy decreased by $60,055 and that is because we've added in the revenue for the single expense items and the police fuel and the police fuel so you're now looking at a total budget increase of 4.8 is what we're saying so right budget increase of 4.8 percent and a proposed tax increase of 4.4 percent is down from the 4.9 something previous views of it okay do you have any questions about that just going to the the document the budget day questions document has some I guess the green text is new yes here is loading okay so if I find the first section of a green text I had asked about software being in the police budget and the response is that that's part of the three and a half percent overhead we're yeah we're just making sure there could be some movement but we're still getting a few more details from those specific budgets for the exact amounts of those software so we'll just make sure that it fits that description right so there could be a little movement next green text was the question there was a question about current use revenue um this is for FY 24 budgeted 27 200 um it was bumped up for FY 25 who asked this question I don't remember specific statement I don't think there's any question it was part of the revenue budget is my recollection and so it came up there as to why it's so small given that how big the current use program is obviously there's not a great answer for why it's so small but it's the state's payment to hold arm lifts yes exactly for for that program and the fact that people get you know okay there's some history here that says FY 22, FY 23, and FY 24 so that's for armless payments that's what they're called do you have any questions about current use it's about arts maintenance and arts contract those are in different those are ethans questions yeah those are in different documents so maybe we'll get to those in a minute Ethan did you get a chance to look at all that yeah I did I was just looking for a piece of uh I saw somewhere and I I can't find it now I had it circled and it was to do with um equipment purchase I saw somewhere with another two and like $225,000 for the next year and I don't remember where I saw it but the parks uh no not parks is that you're talking about what works trailer question what's that I'm deaf and thinking about something right now uh that was still looking into the difference rule state question about human service funding conflicts there yeah here we are this is yes the department purchased a tilt bed trailer to haul equipment around town is needed date seven or eight thousand for it yeah that's how I was looking for my excavator question because I came out of the operating budget the excavator was $225,000 and any excavator that fits on a on a 14,000 pound trailer doesn't cost more than a hundred thousand dollars I didn't know as my question before was was the associated cost for the trailer included with the large purchase of the excavator is it the same the current tilt bed trailer has sufficient capacity to accommodate the transportation of the new excavator of the new excavator so that's more to my point I really wish remember when I pulled it up and brought it up and he said wait wait it's he's talking about that I don't remember if it was with the capital or what but uh the budget it was it was budgeted in there for it was $225,000 in the capital I think there were two different lines one showed 135 and one showed 300 I think that's what you first and then the next one showed 220 which price is the real price right because that excavator only costs yeah 60 to a hundred thousand dollars right I gotta put sticky notes on here with all my questions I can't remember page numbers you do I take a note pad and I write down page numbers but we don't go there but that was my question and I am gonna save this for the capital conversation that's why I wanted to have it be brought up this way because I wanted to see the capital and bring this conversation to have the trailer no I'll save it for my capital I guess down any longer we got an executive session we got 40 minutes I'm tired okay we got uh we got a a budget breakdown from the historical society do you have any questions about this historical how much of an increase is that it's not it's not it's a pretty flat for years um yeah um there was a question about um we currently contract or we currently pay for three um um meetings a month from channel 17 what's the cost of if we wanted to add a fourth one um that really wasn't uh just a question in case uh it was asked about um county and regional um to working on trying to collect information yeah it's a little hard to quantify and I've sent it out to a few but have yet to hear back so just waiting and some responses there question about whether high school students still take public transportation yes they do there's no data because it's free fare so they're not they're not counting let me use it and then I raised the question about whether the town admin at the uh manager assistant position that was requested for half year be funded for a full year I guess to other board members think that's uh something they'd like to willing to like to support the other would be the uh the trails coordinator quite similar question it's just time they were proposed to be part time I would leave it at that for now but that's just money saving that's just me maybe we can still have more discussion on that all right so that's those were all the new green items um I guess um Ethan yeah so the only lot of materials added in here yeah um I wanted to go to um yeah remember which one it was on there now but the um cost for subcontracting the parks and rec um mowing and fertilizing my understanding they've gone out for bids and um does see attached but yeah there is somewhere in here I can't find the where I was reading a response um which there's a total of 371 dollars that was spent on rentals and then for contracting out like you mean um for applying fertilizer or what not that kind of thing yeah or do you mean what it would cost to have them mow and do all of that well it was yeah it was both because it was more of a question of it was um you know they mentioned staff the law staff time you know there's those staff time and then it was also we had paid 30 something thousand dollars in fertilizing and then we paid another $10,000 in fertilizer oh you mean it's a lot what the generic question was was for you know are we paying $10,000 the fertilizer fields and paying the $10,000 for the fertilizer on top of paying the subcontractor the 40 or would it just cost us 50 instead of 60 you know what I mean right um it's right $10,000 yeah I'm sure that they don't have that they haven't been keeping track of that but it's just at the point of I've seen a lot of other municipalities about cemeteries and parks and racks fields and all that stuff that's kind of like the tree farm where it costs more money to have two lawn mowers and 80 acres than it does to pay somebody who has 21 mowers and yeah yeah so in the graph um in the new materials attached it does have this is after Allie's memo here um it does show at least yes thank you trying to put it up on the board but you can't see it oh okay I see yeah so that was collected from the details like you know they went through every invoice that kind of thing to help get those to make sure that will help answer hopefully your question and then staff went through and gave the time over there on the right here this is the average hours that they visit the park you know that the number of times that are the number of people and then the number of times that they do that park so based on that they then went to three different contractor you know out to ask for estimates back and they didn't hear from two and one they did hear back from that said we don't have time to give that to you happy holidays yeah okay I didn't see the part to the right there but I didn't see that before and I was going to ask you yeah what's the contracted services for $5,000 I got that rental oh so that's no sorry that is a little confusing that vendor list doesn't go that's like all of their vendors so the 10,000 is through specific like many vendors okay for the contracted services and like you know we have that detail so I can you know find that if you really want like all they added up to that 10 what you know what the little small ones were for that 10,000 I'm happy to to put that that's how we got that number but those pages more of staff so summer summer you guys think we could serve 10,000 I'm gonna be a pain here I see in her thing that you do maintenance and Essex police department maintaining the grounds and stuff that shouldn't some of that be covered I'm sorry what did you say by the city police department I can't hear what it's for the police department it might fall into that three and a half percent of incidental he's saying that there's some mowing down at the police department yeah why wouldn't there be it's a town-owned building but the question is whether that should be oh I see what you think oh in their part of the budget and it goes but falls into the is that part of the three and a half percent overhead for the discreetly part of the way I see what you're saying if the town owns the buildings I mean they own the properties a part of the town no it's not you can own properties this bill is going on property just like but the why is that it's not part of it I'm good with um with the parks and rack it was more of just a question of if we had the information that we're spending a lot of staff time you know I see $13,000 and mowers I don't know if that's just maintenance or if that's replacement or no I'm pretty sure that's just maintenance given just maintenance I think I mean I put a figure on it of $40 to $50,000 double check back but um yeah it's what I figure for for all of them yeah for staff time mowers fuel so I mean I'm crazy here but if there's 10 15 well $20,000 that could be saved it's happening in other places and it's not because um they don't want their employees to mow the lawn it's just that one it's hard to find employees and for two it's cheaper to hire somebody that has employees that just mow lawns that was all for that public smirks there's another argument for next week but I just wanted that information publicly and readily available I don't think I don't have anything specifically to change the budget I'd tell you to punch it all in the budget but I'd rather use up all the fund balance that we have than increase the budget on operating to be a transfer to capital anymore that was where my real holds up on both of them was that one we could save money by possibly not doing the task ourselves and then the other one was we could save money by replacing the equipment that's costing us money but thank you very much for all this information because is a huge help and it shows people so much more than the one item and it really gives a full picture of you know we're not that far off or hey we could move some things and do some things you know just gives you make that decision I appreciate you doing that look all right any other comments or questions thank you for your hard work everybody how are you feeling about budget at this point we've basically got two meetings after tonight before you have to warn a public hearing do you think you want to try to pop with the final number at the next meeting or you think you're going to need more information and you feeling all right though do you want to have more capital discussion first well we're not talking about the capital we're talking about tonight I'm not saying tonight I mean at our next meeting before you're ready to submit to a budget number or I will hold you to I'm just thinking are we coming into the next meeting thinking we're going to come out with the final number we're closer than I thought we were going to be and I feel more comfortable having the information that you guys provided to lobby those fund balance and capital where the budget I was okay with initially issues um I'm good we'll knock it down a penny just to be a pain so the next discussion will be the public works the next budget meeting so that's a that's a capital question right yeah yeah I'm good with capital because the only questions that I had was was are the sidewalks added in which sidewalks are added in and that was a question that arose a couple weeks ago from the community members so that's covered in there which I would want to make sure of and then I just wanted this information for I wanted to put the money in the budget right but I'm not going to raise the budget and raise the tax increase when we have the money that's sitting in there checking account that we could transfer the capital and vice versa it's going the same destination if I can convince two other people I'm okay with the budget I really want to make sure that we had the numbers and that the request that was made by the public was sufficiently funded for this year and the following year before we moved on and Kendall did you have more you yeah I mean I really wanted to put some more money in there for sidewalks I think that's a disservice to the community that you're only taking care of a third of your sidewalks I'll give you an example the whole sand hill discussion you drive down there and you look at that there's a really nice sidewalk on Thomas Martin Drive it goes all away from the end all the way down to where the industrial section ends the walking path every time I go through there there's half a dozen people walking up and down that path and they're not in the road now I'm aren't driving you get down below there it's obvious that the town did not upgrade sand hill road because there's no sidewalks on either side of it it's just a regular road and it comes right down to a steep thing so you know that and the town doesn't plow that in the winter and you've got two crosswalks from your major industries and the folks on your new industrial they're walking there and using that all the time you should plow it it should be maintained so you know I'd like to talk about we should be maintaining the sidewalks we require the developers to build the sidewalks it's we have bikeable walkable communities that only apply to the summer when there's no snow so and I know that you say well they're gonna walk in a road anyway it's like yep there's a lot of folks that don't wear their seatbelts but for the safety and everything if there's not a sidewalk available there's gonna be more people walking that's just like two cents it it's it's a huge boon to any community having their sidewalks so you can use them you know he quoted of cost of like $89,000 to contract it to plow one side of the road and maybe instead of plowing both sides of some of the places that we do instead of paying $89,000 maybe we should ask Aaron to look at so just plow one side of the road and some of the places where they're plowing two sides and do more sidewalks one side of the road someplace something I don't think there is any place we're doing two sides yes there is through 15 through 15 center road maybe plow both sides okay but it'd be an additional $85,000 I mean those folks came in and complained and I mean it's like do we have to tell the residents that anybody that lives where they don't the town doesn't plow your sidewalks you got to come to the select board meeting with a couple of your neighbors and petition us to plow your sidewalks the problem can though before you were on the board and and Dennis explained to it they don't have the people trained to run the plows and they don't have enough plows to hit all the sidewalks right and that's why I asked Aaron to give a contract so I mean yeah we know the number he said it'd be $89,000 more to plow one sidewalk on all of our sidewalks I'm not saying we have to bite that bullet for everything but maybe we can make some inroads in some communities that have mentioned sidewalks in the past maybe sent us a letter and then didn't follow up on the letter did you vote it against it when we voted against it when we that request in here the other day well right because I don't believe that you should fund just one more section from the people that asked that we're supposed to be inclusive and equitable and it's not equitable if you can say subjectively we're going to plow this and we're not going to plow that because they didn't ask us so that's why voted against it it is when you go walk a quarter mile to the bus stop and and you're six years old and you're walking in the road well what about the folks that live out in other places there's probably other folks that are doing that but the bus goes to the mouth to your house with the way the busing has been I'm I'm just I'm just eating this year since we can get into a big discussion we don't have to adjust well that's all part of your capital which we're going to discuss later anyway so right well there's operating expenses too it's well that's okay it's just buying the equipment isn't full cost yeah oh Aaron was very his proposal was fantastic I'm not looking to spend two hundred thousand dollars in the public works to do the sidewalks but if you can contract it for eighty nine thousand dollars it's two hundred and nine thousand seven hundred and thirty five right for for our staff no no the quote new contract eighty five thousand existing contract thirty nine three two thirty five total maintenance costs eighty five thousand new totals two hundred nine seven thirty right for the whole budget of the plowing of everything that they do additional cost of the contrast of eighty five thousand five hundred we're already paying thirty nine two thirty five you're adding eighty five five exactly that's my point is that for that additional eighty five you can do everything one one side one one side two miles and again it just points out that we've inherited this from past boards that they were content with plowing a third of the sidewalks in town it's expensive but that makes a big difference to people I mean I don't have a sidewalk I live out on a dirt road but I know I'd be really upset if they didn't plow my road and they did plow another road that's all there's no easy answer but you know until until there's a groundswell but that's been one of the subjects that has come up every year folks of Santa's a letter or come in and petition to can you file my sidewalks and that that's great but I just can't help but feel that we're neglecting a public service if you do something for one of your residents and you don't do it for other residents and for you which we keep going that's it I'm good any public comments or questions I'm back with another more discussions later so all right let's move on so this this next item is a Greg you told me this might be kind of optional I did I told you that and that is true so it's 1041 we want to go could we say what the topic is do you mean the other executive session one is what you're talking about is something that can be deferred yeah I don't think you have to do you want to go into executive another executive session at the end of this or should be right next to me we've been here since 5 30 well if it's important enough to be executive session isn't important enough to hear what it is oh you don't know what you have right I guess we could decide oh because your board thing wouldn't show you what it is yeah you should know what it is but I think now yeah when I tried to look but yeah oh it's in the it's it it is in the it is in the confidential he thinks it's not working he's in the wrong hole he doesn't even have specific clerk he's gone into the public he's into the public part of it and that's why he can't bring up the oh I saw it I can see it I don't know is there a time limit on that because of what we all right okay I'm okay this is well I don't know his next week's agenda gonna be as long as it's not gonna be much shorter I'm not I'm not gonna it's it's looking very similar right now I don't have a problem staying and doing another brief so that you think it's brought up today okay so let's let's let's do that then we can I can get brought up today without the executive session it's only gonna take a few minutes we'll just explain it to you how's that but we still have to approve the consent agenda yeah I know oh all right I see it okay okay here we're doing the agenda or oh yeah no oh good okay so let's defer that okay that's your member next week when you're here forever okay consent agenda I make the motion we accept the consent agenda as presented thank you Don thank you Ethan the yes the further discussion those in favor of approving consent please say aye aye aye those say nay passes 4-0 reading file anybody have any comments of anything not important I always have the five-year paving plan is in there you were to be able to ask you about that Kendall the only thing I will say is that I would like to believe that we could get to the point where Essex doesn't have any very poor pavements that was mainly right that once more you want to get to the we have a lot of you turn your head away and I can't hear half we have a lot of rogues that are similar serious summer I don't think we have any failed now but we do have a lot of them that are very poor okay okay I see okay thank you I didn't hear what thank you I mentioned earlier about the charter review committee we have had Ray Garofano's reached out to us we have to her to make sure that that we're on the schedule early in the next legislative session to get our charter changes reviewed and the chair of the gov ops committee has said that yes they've got it got them they're going to have us on their radar for early in the session and they've asked for a list of witnesses I volunteered myself and Tracy does anybody else want to actually talk at that we volunteered you too sorry I was going to say how come you didn't bring Greg okay that makes more sense it's so so things are moving forward there but this this uh this discussion was about reconvening the charter committee to look at the remaining things that I mean we talked about this before I would ask so if somebody does step up and say they're interested can we at least talk to them just given the size of the committee I did have and the size that I now have I just think I'll make the work neatly easier and then the letter from v-trans about the proposal to move the speed limits to change to the bottom of the hill instead of the top of the hill at the word where it's pressed by Whitcombe meadows Whitcombe meadow there first sit there on the bucket dump it's compressed that's all well we'll come back anything else oh you can't step over your back okay question to adjourn I think it wants to be adjourned second thank you he's yeah I'm sorry he's just non-debatable all those in favor of adjourning please say aye bye