 Minutes of December 14th 2021 are first ones and may have a motion. Move we accept subject to modification. Is there a second on page 1 and page 2. There are no corrections all those in favor of approving the minutes of December 14th 2021 say aye aye opposed. And now we have the minutes of December 21st 2021. Is there a motion? Move we accept subject to modification. Is there a second? Second. Page 1. One small change and others present. Jill Carberry C-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y. Which line is that on? Oh gosh. Two, three, fourth line down. I see it, Jeff. Oh yeah. Yeah, full disclosure. She's my wife. Yes. You're familiar with the name of the spelling. Page 2. And page 3. There's nothing really on there to correct. So all those in favor of approving the minutes of December 21st 2021 corrections. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, aye. Yes we moved to the麻將.existing in the minutes. At this point in time. The floor is open to public comment any issue that anyone has to bring up at this time. That either personally or on zoom anybody no, none zoom. Right. Uh, tonight we'll start out with the, um, uh, applicant for the UNISC Valley Park District and is she on zoom? Yep. Okay. Um, I read. I'll get you connected right now. Okay. And this is Florence Reed Willis and I think she goes by Reed. Just getting connected here. Okay. There we go. Welcome Reed. Hello. Good. We can hear you fine. So that's good. So we have your application before us, but other folks have not seen that from the, the public. So we should give us a brief description of why you, what your background is and why you wish to be on the UNISC Valley Park District. Sure. Um, I, my name is Reed Willis. I've been a Willis 10 resident for about six years, five years. Um, I live on set circle. So kind of in behind the fire station. Um, I've been attending the conservation committee commission meetings for since, since I moved here, basically. Um, and so I've been following their activity and I, I'm very interested in conservation issues. I participated in water sampling with the Winnowsky Natural Resources Conservation District and, um, have heard at the conservation committee meetings about the park district and some of the work that they do together there that the conservation commission does with the park district. Um, also know that there's been some, um, uh, strain, I guess, and communication between the two groups. And, um, when they said this vacancy was available, they asked if I might be interested because I've been attending their meetings. And I said, yes. And so I met with Nick Warner, the director of the park district and learned more about what's involved. And I attended their December meeting of the board as an observer just to hear the kind of business they were discussing and to meet the other members. So, um, I have a master's degree in city and regional planning. Although I didn't study land use planning, I studied social policy planning. So my career was in public health and public welfare program and administration. Sure. Thank you very much. Thanks for your interest in doing this. Any questions from the board? I'll go. Hey, Reed. Well, first of all, thank you. My question is, if you put on your Williston hat, what do you see that the district is doing right and what might they do better to serve, uh, Williston residents better? I can't say I'm overly familiar with their history. So, um, but I'm excited about working with them on the Jacobs property because that's sort of an up and coming project that's located in Williston. I know there's been tension that there hasn't been, uh, that most of their parks are not in Williston. So this is, you know, an early one, I guess their first. So that will be pretty exciting to work with them on that. Now that you brought it up. Um, that tension, there was a while a ways back when that, using the phrase you used, if you don't mind that tension caused us to question how the fees are assessed to the various member communities. And do you have any thoughts on that? If I could ask it differently, would you keep your eyes open on that, were you to be appointed, um, so that, um, it stays on the radar screen that, that something Williston is interested in pursuing? I would definitely keep it, keep my eyes open on it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Other questions? So hearing none, then there is a motion suggested. I'll move to appoint Florence Reed-Willis as the town's representative to the Winooski Valley Park District for an unexpired term through June 30th, 2024. Is there a second? I don't have a second. Any discussion around the motion? Thank you. Yeah. All those in favor of the motion say aye. All right. So congratulations Reed, and we look forward to hearing from you and having you attend those meetings. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to other appointment or interviews. No appointments tonight because we're only interviewing three people. One person who has withdrawn his application is David Howell, who will be interviewing Cindy Roy, Johnny Gonzalez, and Maria Jingras tonight. And I'm not sure who's in the building and who wasn't, are you? Cindy Roy. Yeah. And are the other two on Zoom? Oh, Johnny. Okay. So we have two in the room. And I've got Maria. I'll connect her on Zoom right now if she'll be going us from home. So what I'd like to do with the two in the room, if you'd come up to the table, you can separate each end. If you'd like, if you would like to demask when you're talking, that's fine. If not, speak very loudly. Either way, speak louder. Yeah, just grab a tear-share. And Maria connected from home. Hi, Maria. Hello. Hi, welcome. Thank you. So we have other two candidates. We have only three tonight. David Howell has withdrawn his application. So we have three people to interview tonight. And what I'll do is go down the line and ask each of you to give us a brief description of your background and why you would like to be on the Energy Committee. And I'll start with Cindy. Hi, my name's Cindy Roy. And I'm a 21-year Williston resident living on Ledgewood Drive. And I thought this was interesting because I was looking at the, just Will Stemper back in September. And there's a lot of excitement about this committee and about this work. I saw that about a year ago, the plan was approved and that it's time to kind of get it moving forward. And I've worked for IBM corporate and systems group. My specialty is demand generation and marketing. And I thought it had a lot to offer because it seems that education and awareness and things of that nature are very important to get this plan kind of moving off the ground. So I just could see why I could add a lot of value. And also it's such an upcoming topic. And I can see also that there's some pent up demand in the town, looking at the observer and reading the plan and went through it. And there's a lot of aspects to it. But I can see that education and awareness is a really key point. And that's really my strength that I've done for IBM marketing. IBM corporate competitively, you know, going to competitors and saying, Hey, switch to IBM. What are your pain points? Why would you switch? You're going to give you some reasons. So that's a little bit about the background. Thank you. And Johnny. Hello, everyone. I'm Johnny Gonzalez. I think I read the exact same Will Stemper. That thing brought my attention to the open position and like the efforts that the township is trying to do and, you know, go like towards a more sustainable and renewable aspect. My background is in math and physics. That was my undergrad. And I've always been tutoring like it's an early age. When I went into the military, getting out of the military and to this day, I still tutor every now and then. So engaging people one and one and educating them about anything really like mainly I focus on math and physics. But this particular topic is one that goes to my heart, you know, trying to make the make people more self-sufficient, have less stress on the grid, how to improve personal outcomes and enter the town's outcome and actually enter like the whole nation's outcome. So I've done a lot of good research on what the problems are where good innovations can occur. And I think I'll be a good asset for this project. Thank you. And Maria. Hi. Thanks for letting me join online. I'm very pregnant. So my doctor doesn't let me go anywhere right now. I'm doing about two weeks. So I'm Maria Jingress. I live in the Indian Ridge community. I've been here for about a year and a half now and moved in during COVID. So I was really excited to see an opportunity to really connect with the town and open up because it's been difficult with the pandemic. So my background is almost 100% energy. I worked for the U.S. Department of Energy and the climate climate change and international relations and then community relations doing renewable energy development and clean energy development. I worked for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission doing electric market work and my doctorate is actually in community well ecology but my focus was on how towns and states can how they participate in climate change mitigation through energy in particular. So I have a lot of background serving not only town leaders but community leaders and citizens and how they engage with climate change and renewable energy and what the key barriers are to the participation. I currently work for an electric market called Southwest Power Pool and I work a lot on their market design team and monitoring team work specifically on renewable energy. A big thing right now is what we call behind the meter generation. So a lot of how do we get communities that have solar on their roofs and have generation that's not necessarily utility scale. How do they get to participate in the market and what does that look like? So I have a background in both renewable energy technology and the policy part of it but also quite a bit of experience talking to towns and cities primarily in my home region of the Midwest but also to an extent throughout the U.S. on how to get people more engaged and so I think why I really want to be involved in this is that I would love to continue to use that skill set and actually apply it in my own community and see where the gaps in part make sure that it's something not just that the town does not just that you know it we're not just converting the town's fleet or the buildings but we get everyone involved so that it can be you know a joint effort and it's equitable because a lot of these initiatives that are laid out in the town plan have not just benefits for everyone but individual households can save money and really benefit from it so being involved on the ground to see how everyone can have a chance at participating and benefiting from it. Thank you. So questions from the board and if you could go in reverse order for answering so anyone has questions for our candidates? Jeff? I'll start. This is for everyone same exact question is and Maria you mentioned the energy plan your thoughts on well A. Have you had a chance to read it and it's not going to be held against you if you haven't been able to do that yet but if you have I'd just be curious I'd like to know what your thoughts are about it maybe what we got right what we didn't get right you know what excites you about it what doesn't excite you about it. I'm happy to go I have read it although not in depth I was actually really impressed because I've read a lot of town and city climate action plans from big cities to small and for the population size of Williston it's actually quite in depth and so I was really pleased. A few things that really stuck out to me were the emphasis on getting a lot of different people to participate and not just having that you know admitting that the town can't do it all I'm a big proponent of that there is a lot the town can do to set a standard and an example and a lot of the research I did that's actually a really good starting point but one of the things that really stood out to me is talking about new development. Williston's definitely a growing town and we have a lot of opportunity with potentially the new development going up on the old Essex Alliance property and a lot of with new residents and new development to kind of get it right and get people involved in the beginning and I think that was probably what stood out the most to me as far as like a big picture concept or a big idea behind it is like let's start from the beginning and get everyone involved but the other thing was also the emphasis on the agriculture because sometimes we forget that Williston does have a lot of farmland and that is a big part of Vermont's greenhouse gas emission footprint and that isn't something that we can ignore if we're going to make a big dent even though buildings and transportation tends to get the focus agriculture is really important especially given that the plan also seeks to really preserve and sustainably develop and agriculture has to be part of that. I'm not sure who goes next. I think I concur a lot with what Maria said. I read at the entirety of it but I read a good bulk specifically interested in like the statistical breakdown of like who's using propane versus gas versus wood. I found that very interesting but yeah like reiterating some points that Maria said that you have to engage on people personally to be able to pull off this ambitious plan which I do think is very much possible and also another great thing that she was pointing out is the agricultural component of it that there's a lot of land out there and the new development there's a lot of land out there and one thing that I didn't notice that was could be added onto it was geothermal energy. I see that free mountain power has a couple of incentives for ground source heat pumps but like with all the land and with the new development geothermal energy is honestly a big thing that we should not overlook. It's super green, super clean, super low maintenance. It's very much has a big upfront cost but right now the government at the federal level has like a 26 percent incentive as a IRS like write-off so that should alleviate it. So I've been doing either and I hope we're getting this stuff a little bit but that's one thing in the plan that I think that was overlooked that could be maybe reiterated or introduced at some point. Aside from that it's looks very good and vicious but you'll just you need to have the right people helping and engaging the community. Thank you. So I went through the plan and the the article of course is in the observer and I thought one of the really interesting points that I never would have realized was that the residents of Williston from it was like 2017 to 19 actually reduced the footprint the their emissions not emissions but their usage per capita. So I thought that was interesting because we're already sort of inching in that direction of saving and and death. And the other thing is that I think the plan it looks it's very in depth which is great but I think one of the things I learned in my IBM career is turning it into reality and milestones and results. And so I can see that you know almost like from working at IBM PDT is it's like a project plan with milestones with some deadlines building out the ecosystem of who all these partners are. I saw a couple partners which and I looked up their websites it was like govermon and green something and green vermon or whatever and I could see building out more that and getting more of a digital media campaign where it goes back and forth. So it's like you're using the state's website you're using the partners websites you're also then you know handshaking back to your own website and then also you know just kind of working on what are some chunks that to bite off and actually make some milestones happen because then that builds momentum and then it also builds the awareness with the community they can see things happening they can see you know whether it's the people's carbon footprints per capita reducing or it's events where they're seeing some examples of what people are doing just saving their own households where they're weatherproofing and things of that nature. So I think biteable chunks accountability project plan getting some milestones roles and responsibilities those are the things I was kind of looking at a more of an execution person so I was kind of taking it to that that level so that was my take on it very helpful and I think it's kind of going down maybe from the 50,000 foot level getting it down to 30,000 20,000 you know down to the actionable achievements. Good thank you. Other questions? So I had a question for each of you that Cindy you brought up the concept of education and thank you for doing that. One of the difficulties I think that everybody is facing in public life now even little select boards like Willisons is that there does seem to be a lot of emotion in every debate and one of the concerns that I have oftentimes is that we generally only talk to people that agree with us and I do that but my question is what you know there are people who don't believe the global warming is even happening. There are people who will say that this is not a town level thing that we should do even though this is something the state is implementing statewide but what would you say and actually let me go Johnny I'll start with you and then go to Maria and then Cindy to mix it up. What do you think about these issues and would you have any idea on outreach, education, forums things like that? Honestly with the background and education kind of that I have I see doing hands-on demonstrations the big thing that like makes people undoubtedly agree and you know having different viewpoints is not a big deal when they see reality they understand reality especially like under a demonstration format like to give a good example there's different chemistries available for lithium base batteries and if you can have like three different chemistries charge them up at a particular temperature and then charge them up at a different temperature and then you demonstrate to them like look we have cold winters there are certain things that you can or cannot do there's advantages with this one versus that one when they feel like they're actually learning and gaining knowledge from that experience makes them more willing to go out there and venture off and do things on their own that's what I personally think and like whether you believe in climate change or not there is enough in this plan for you as an individual as a household to gain from it that you could reduce your bills on a monthly basis you could improve your business you can you know give a better experience for your customers and like a better like ambience for yourself in your house give yourself more comfort at a cheaper rate so there's something to gain and you don't necessarily have to push you know climate change or whatever so like that's so one thing working with a lot of working under multiple administrations with very different and multiple different organizations with very different political bends and different views and then also different cities with very different demographic makeups there's always been a bottom line especially with governmental entities and that almost everyone can agree that fiscal responsibility and taking care of their citizens responsibly it almost everyone can agree to that being the role of any sort of governmental body and so a lot of times how I've seen other cities and I've definitely seen like the market I work in approach issues like energy climate related or not is fiscal responsibility to their citizens and one thing Williston will do through this is save money and save as the plan even said for every dollar you spend in efficiency it's much cheaper to do that than invest in new generation and to me and for every EVU buy you save this much in fuel cost exposure it's those sort of arguments of being fiscally responsible and independent and running the town well and responsible that gets to a lot of people before you even get into a more politicized topic like climate change the other way that I've really looked at it too is this idea of buy the town empowering citizens to do things whether they're low income high income having options for everyone to be a part of the game whether it's doing energy efficiency or putting solar on your roof like maybe providing a property assessed option for clean energy is that people trust their neighbors first and when there's a critical mass you actually can the town doesn't have to do as much of the preaching if they reach the people who are first in agreement and are those that are engaged already by giving them options to say put solar on their roof they then become the advocates for their neighbors and then they become advocates for their neighbors and you create you kind of create a new community or a new norm in your community without having to push an issue but making it accessible to some who then can be a positive kind of an positive influence so in both of those cases you're not pushing it as climate you can you can push it absolutely as a climate plan or an energy plan but it's so much more than that and any political bend can get on board when you approach it as this is fiscally responsible or you empower other people to lead by example and show the benefits without having to make it a we should do this because of a certain belief or of a or of a certain reality that some others don't agree with so I'm big about influencing people through by empowering others to do it as well so I hope that means sense thank you um the hands-on demos I think those are an excellent way to help people understand whether it's a at an event or at some sort of video or what have you but where people can actually see um I saw in the plan where they talked about taking folks through homes and showing weatherproofing whether it's a landlord how you can weatherproof your um your parent building or or a home private home and really showing those elements and then what did I say even here look at this bill look at that so hands-on here's here's the benefit here's what it actually looks like to do that um and when I worked in IBM competitive marketing one of the big things is we wouldn't have to go to clients that were almost impossible to see because they were their servers were their religion sun servers and what have you and so you would have to go in and you would have to figure out how do I start a conversation what's their pain point what's their biggest frustration how can I talk about that and then how can I go a little further a little further a little further and we come up with call scripts talking points that would kind of go to those things hands-on demos would be a you know quick thing on here's here's how you could start and not try to go too far too fast but just kind of start you know a little break in the ice and then go further and further so we did a lot of just disruptive things to get attention get the word out get people thinking get awareness and then with the awareness adding other things where people can then say hey I'd like to learn a little more I'd like to go to this event or I'd like to you know take a look at this little seminar online now that we do so much online take a look at this little seminar that's only three minutes on how to uh outfit my heater or something whatever it is but things of that nature so that again just starting to break the ice and taking it away from it turning into more of a deeper conversation but you know here's how this can benefit you as a starting point and also one of our biggest things client references everything was client references so if you can get as many of those out there as possible with all different elements of how to use this technology how to change from this part of that car or outfitting your home or whatever it is but customer references and having those just everywhere whether they're in person whether it's a video or or all kinds of ways but doing those thank you are there any questions of course so first thanks for all of you for throwing your hat in the ring on this because I think this is an extremely important committee I've heard education and awareness from all of you along with the demonstration piece which I'm a teacher and I think hands-on things are how we all benefit and learn I'm going to ask a loaded question so take it as you will but if you are appointed and there's so many things or aspects to work on when we think about climate what would be your number one priority be being on this committee like your first focus your first kind of charge something that's in our plan already or maybe not what would be your first thing I know it's a team committee but kind of your passion what would be your first pick let's get on the line with Cindy and right straight through again so I would say I mean one of the things I used to do when starting with a new team is what are the chunks the low hanging fruit that you can go off and you can actually make some accomplishments or some results so I can see there's a lot of results to be had in the partners the ecosystem the digital media doing the events I saw that was kind of the startings of some events that we're talking about in the plan and kind of going further with those but really working with those partners with that ecosystem and pursuing that and definitely the digital media because I could see that I did get on a couple websites and I got on the town website and I can see that that's some real untapped potential there so I would say again the things that look like they're low hanging fruit to start making a difference start achieving something start getting the town in the know is to you know get some customer references and little videos and things again to get that awareness going and also get a few results so that there's some momentum because that was one moment thank you um to be honest if I get a point in the first thing I'm going to do is just like try to educate myself and see the state out to get a better holistic understanding of where what the state of the township is in regards to the goals that we want and then I would start looking for the most impactful easiest thing to do for the residents on an individual basis like the policy for one for my own research like pride the power wall system that efficiency Vermont has and created a microgrid is one of the biggest impactful things that anyone can do for their homes they'll probably push that because I just know that that will help tremendously but it's not first educate myself so that I have a better understanding that look for the biggest impact get those things done first because when you see when you see people see the results people won't get on board then more changes could occur or that's that's my strategy more or less thank you yeah so the first thing that came to mind when I read it is to leverage the treasure trove of partnerships with organizations that exist in Vermont we're very lucky in this state to have some really powerful existing entities whether you know it's local businesses like solar companies but I'm even thinking more like efficiency Vermont which is an incredible for the budget they have and for the manpower they have it's an incredible amount of education and an incredible amount of assistance out to people of all income levels of all interests of all even types of dwelling types and they really really understand Vermont and our towns and our energy extremely well and rather than relying on just our knowledge in our report and what we have is tools partner with these entities that exist to leverage their knowledge and expertise to come in and help our town whether it's you know doing demonstrations which has been talked about a lot but also seeing how we can partner to use their programs and direct them towards our residents for example they have in the past on property assessment and energy with the city of Westford they've worked you know they're currently working with the local car dealerships to help them figure out how to better sell EVs to people because EVs are a very different mode of transportation the way of wrapping your head around range and around how an EV works even though in concept it's simple it is a big leap for a lot of people they're very good at that so leveraging those partnerships and then in concert with that figuring out what are some of the lower cost like big wins to get those buy-ins from our town's people so that they see hey you know I installed this I got a rebate it was very easy and this is saving me money what else can I do so that we build that momentum on easy wins with resources that we already have without having to you know spend a lot of town budget or find a lot of experts on our own you know use use what we have locally all right thank you thank you for the questions yeah so um obviously the position of energy coordinator is still a bit up in the air for FY 23 for us um you know something we're still kind of discussing whether that's going to happen so just want to get a sense of your comfort um your your feelings on whether or not you know the imperative nature of an energy coordinator or if you feel that the committee can function um you know independently without the coordinator at this point um and then also your comfort um you know if a coordinator is not going to happen for FY 23 your comfort with potentially pursuing opportunities for grant funding um partnerships um things like that so I'm gonna start with Johnny um good question gotta start off with that um that is a good question um it's hard to tell because it's like this project is kind of in its infancy stage uh so we don't know once this committee is fully assembled like what type of impact they can have so if that position is necessary or not it's like obviously having that position will always be helpful but is it necessary that's the big question I guess you're asking yeah I mean I I mean I think it's a big part of the the energy plan is having that coordinator um position and I think that's the the goal ultimately is to have that happen but but um do you feel you know you you all can at least get the ball rolling without that position in place if that was to be what happened and and again if it if there isn't an energy coordinator position um right now you know you're you're willing as an ability to pursue potential grants potential partnership opportunities that stuff independently I know me personally I would be willing to do that stuff I depends on what the group does as a committee uh and like the willingness to like partition that workload uh but yeah now like finding partnerships with UVM they have like a good engineering department that actually does like research on solar does research on geothermal they do uh there's we like I mentioned and Maria mentioned before efficiency Vermont like who partners up with three mountain energy they all these people we have a like bunch of solar companies right around the corner from us that it's a lot of work for one person to do just from the committee but split amongst the committee I think it's very much possible so after this moment probably not that we don't know like that's a the projected question that I'm not sure that's my opinion okay Maria I mean my answer would be yes and my Midwestern sensibilities don't like me to say this so abruptly but it's a job I could do the energy coordinator because I've been in roles similar to it in my a good chunk of my doctoral and professional career has very much been about figuring this sort of thing out and breaking it down and figuring out how you know what we need from an energy perspective whether it's policy or whether it's town or whether it's you know the technology and so I would feel extremely comfortable especially given I have quite an extensive network in the energy world here that you know I would want to leverage if we didn't have an energy coordinator doing that um that's what I would do is I I think I would feel comfortable doing it mostly because I I have familiar familiarity of the steps it takes to kind of get this sort of thing off the ground and what sort of first steps to take and where you know what sort of data I'm an analyst I'm a data analyst and an economist by training at the core of like how to analyze and figure out where to start and what the opportunities are but really just to leverage the partner or leverage partnerships with local experts and local groups to get things off the ground and to use those resources and also as a doctoral student writing grants and asking for money is not something I am unfamiliar with I'm all too familiar with it and I would be more than happy and more than comfortable seeking those out especially because I know that in this state we have a lot of groups that provide assistance and resources to help you find those sorts of grant opportunities because there is such an interest and a push for it. So um when I worked with IBM we did um SysMax and Linux which was x86 on Linux and the whole key with Linux was the partner ecosystem that was critical um and building this ecosystem so that a client didn't have to cobble together their own handmade Linux solution but they worked with the ecosystem and got a solution so I would look at it as finding the partners as we've kind of all been talking about that are involved in this like I saw go Ramon and green energy Ramon and the local networks of partnerships in the plan and so I think there's a few already carved out but what I found in the days I've worked on Linux was that they were extremely willing to work with us and very happy to and great to work with um because they love the visibility the extra visibility on a town website or a town activity because it gives kind of automatic credibility and so you know working for IBM they would get automatic credibility I kind of look at it the same way with the town is that you get to say well I'm moving with the town and we'll just move them on that's pretty cool you get a lot of cooperation so um I see that that could be kind of a starting point to see how much of a coordinator do we have time full time what does the team think after you know kind of working on it a little bit with partners then you know kind of the areas where we think we could make a difference right away and then maybe say oh my gosh you really need somebody or you know let's let's keep on this path until we get to the next phase of saying now we will go to the staffing area and add on to that so I think it'd be a TBD but there's a lot of things to figure out thank you thank you hey last questions for the our candidates thank you very much the plan is to interview the final four candidates on the 18th and then make a decision that night hopefully and point the last three uh candidates for the uh for the committee so thank you all for being here tonight and uh congratulations on your your coming coming baby so thank you very much for having me on zoom again I appreciate it given the the pandemic circumstances we're in thank you all for being here thank you thank you I'll move on then to the impact waiver uh feeding fee waiver request Matt and truly Gidele Lackey are going to give us information on this we probably will need to if we come up this up around eight o'clock that would be fine if not we'll do it after we have the public hearing at eight period I'm correcting uh connecting Miranda Lacasse from Champlain Housing Trust joining us on zoom hi there hi welcome Miranda thank you wasn't sure I was connected yet so I'm not sure who's leading this off Eric are you going to introduce it or uh I think about brief introduction um so Champlain Housing Trust has submitted a request under the town's unified development by-law for waiver of education and recreation impact fees for its project to convert town place suites to 72 affordable housing dwelling units um the DRB has approved CHT's permit application for the project before issuing the permit um by matter zoning administrator the matter of payment or waiver impact fees is required for the application to be complete we have in your packet a request from Champlain Housing Trust to consider waiving these fees and I think I can I can turn to Miranda to address that request before the board and then staff is here to answer any procedural questions as the board looks at this policy soon that's fine go ahead great thank you um my name is Miranda Lacasse from Champlain Housing Trust as Eric mentioned and thanks for the opportunity to make this request and to the town in general for your support of the project and for the ability to attend by zoom tonight um my daughter was just deemed a close contact so I thought it was prudent to stay at home uh as Eric uh described we're working to convert the former town place suites to affordable apartments uh we have worked with planning and zoning staff and the DRB to permit the change of use from a hotel to permanent apartments which will bring 72 permanently affordable new apartments to Williston's growth district the property is really well suited to transition uh to apartment buildings with minimal site plan changes needed uh we have a renovation budget mostly to join rooms to create apartments with full kitchens and also to upgrade building systems we'll also be installing a public sidewalk along the Zephyr Road property frontage we purchased the property uh about a month ago and have been working on the renovation scope and we're close to going out to bid for construction contractors we won't know the exact construction cost until we have bids in hand but our current cost estimates and knowing what we know about the material pricing and the construction cost environment right now we do already expect to have a gap impact fees for 72 apartments in Williston um no matter the size uh total 220 thousand dollars and we respectfully request a waiver from these fees um so that um we can help to advance the town's desire for affordable housing and help to address the critical need for housing in this region um the property will be restricted to households with incomes ranging from less than 50 percent AMI to 80 percent AMI and uh we uh as outlined in uh Matt's memo meet the criteria for the select board to consider a waiver of these fees being able to direct the funds towards renovations would really make a significant difference in the budget for this project so thanks for entertaining this request thank you the matter you want to talk about your memo to us um yes although I think Miranda did a great job just now summarizing most of it um select board members may recall that uh earlier this fall they you considered and adopted changes to the Williston development bylaw including a set of changes enabling the waiver provisions as discussed in the memo for affordable housing projects um so the the bylaw has been amended by you in a way that allows you to consider a waiver request like this um in the bylaw we um have three criteria for the consideration of this waiver that the housing uh that this be a waiver for affordable housing and that that housing be operated by a housing trust um that rental rates for the new dwellings would be uh at an affordable level to those making 80 percent of the area median income or less um and that there would be income qualification for the households actually renting those units in other words the trust would be qualifying people for those units and looking at their incomes so that's a that's a set of criteria that go beyond the criteria that Williston uses when it incentivizes the creation of affordable housing uh through its growth management system and some other regulatory tools by adding that income qualification as I said in the memo and Miranda summarized for you uh cht and this project do meet these criteria as laid out in the bylaw the select board may consider a waiver um the total amount is $220,000 roughly and that's roughly split between recreation and um school impact fees this project is not liable for transportation impact fees because the trips that are going to be generated by the residential use are actually fewer than the trips that would have been generated by the hotel and would have already been paid for under prior impact fee ordinance um that said you know there are some structural and architectural changes happening to the site that were reviewed by our development review board and in order to bring this uh site into closer compliance with today's zoning one of the conditions of approval was the construction of a sidewalk section along zephyr road which cht has agreed to make part of this project at their cost and you know we don't have a way to offset that um against an impact fee liability because there is no transportation impact fee liability but i think it's worth noting that in addition to bringing affordable housing to the town which is an often stated goal in the town plan and elsewhere the project will result in bringing a site in tap corners into closer compliance with the bylaws and providing a link in the town sustainable transportation network i'll stop there and answer any other bylaw questions you might have questions for either maranda or matt at this point before we go on the surely no matt your memo was quite good thank you okay oh actually no it's surely i have a question well surely you're really a good memo for us so if you wouldn't i will but first i'm going to say hello to maranda we work together at st michaels how are you saying nice to see you yeah um so my task was um merely to paint the financial picture of the waiver of the impact fees for the town not making a recommendation one way or the other um so as matt pointed out we have two impact fees one is the school impact fee that was established to help offset some of the debt from um allenberg school and um improvements at uh champlain valley school district so um as with any project right now we just collect those fees and we pass them along to the school district quarterly so that has no impact to the town at all um the um other impact fee the parks and recreation impact fee um those fees are collected and we do um use not quite 50 percent but we use no more than 50 percent when we're working on the capital budget for the rec the parks improvement projects we can't use them for new things i'm sorry um yeah parks improvement projects and and then we use a portion it's been 15 000 the last couple budget years it's 45 000 out of the fund to help offset the town's debt service for the sidewalk bond project um so i put a little schedule together here for you that shows you the commitments we have out of those rec impact fees and what the balance is and the difference but if you go to the bylaw or actually to the report that was done um those fees were um for two purposes one was the build out of allenberg park um which that scoping study is going on now and the other is um for some improvements that ross and all park and all of those have been done to date um let's see um i just add a little bit about the affordable housing fund gave you the balance that we currently have but there is no authority under the current ordinance to possibly you know think about using some of the balance in there to offset um this waiver request but you know just a thought for the future you know just a consideration um and i think i'll stop there because i know we're a few minutes before eight and the community starts so questions for shirley i think that very just that one um shirley you may um in your memo yep and and you just talked about it you talked about all impact fees are paid directly to the champlain valley school district each quarter and in this case the waiver would be about a hundred thousand dollars my question is is how does the school district feel when it will extend were to um grant the waiver i can't answer from for them jeff but i look at it this way whatever we collect there there's no determined set amount that they are expecting from the town so whatever we collect for fees we pass on to them and it just helps them offset their debt service okay so i great and i and i get that i'm not advocating one way or the other i'm just trying to make sure i understand sort of all aspects of this is it worth reaching out to them we could but would that change your decision if i did reach out to them i can't say it would or it wouldn't okay but i wouldn't i wouldn't mind knowing the answer also i mean i i thought about it from their you know if they lose a hundred thousand are they planning on a hundred thousand in their budget and what does that do to the budget i mean that's they're probably budgeting based on historical submissions that we've made to them and part of the reason why i bring this up is because i feel that whatever decision we make about this project really is setting a precedent and we ought to be doing it for similar projects in the future and so if the decision is yes we want to grant the full waiver for this education impact fee you know there's going to be other times down the road i assume i hope that we are the school district might learn here's x dollars that they might have gotten but because of the select board they're not going to get and again knowing their opinion about that that isn't a bad thing okay one other piece of information this particular impact fee goes away in 2025 correct ma'am yes i believe that's correct that it phases out in 25 that's okay that's right they have a life to them don't they yeah they do and so to shirley's point you know these impact fees were set up based on predicted future growth and sort of fair share of that growth across the towns in the district um i think over 15 years ago at this point um and so it's not necessarily a zero sum on how much money from the fee is coming from which community because the expectation of that revenue is entirely based on what happens in the future in terms of development over the lifetime of the fee so it's it's so approximate as to that hundred thousand dollar difference would not be felt as a hundred thousand dollar district difference at the district because 15 years ago who could have said which which way this would have gone right well so just out of curiosity you brought it up because we're not part because we're not the willis in school district we're now part of the champlain valley school district will our education impact fees go away we will never have another education impact fee because it's the district it's not the town anymore not the town the town school district anymore is that correct so if there was another expansion of a school facility um and and paying for some of that was a decision to be made by folks in the district an impact fee could be an option as i understand that the decision was made district wide around um the cv u project that all of the all of the communities that fed into cv u were going to fund a piece of that through a local impact fee allenberg school of course at the time that fee was established was a willis in school it was entirely willis in's decision i think where you're going and what i would agree with is it gets more complicated now that it's a district and so would it make sense to continue to use uh an impact fee or would it make sense that each community was going to bond for its fair share and then decide on its own how it wanted to service that bond um i i certainly wouldn't promise that there would never be another school impact fee in willis and there certainly could be itself okay but interestingly enough there was another impact fee it wouldn't go to the the school district it would be used to pay down willis in's bond i think that's how it would probably have to be structured okay yeah all right that's actually very helpful thank you yeah it's something we've been thinking about knowing that the sun setting on the education side so it's we can get some more permission for the board is okay comes up is is this an answer that's needed immediately the answer to the waiver well so my understanding and this is true of any applicant the the sooner a decision can be made on this the sooner we can proceed with issuing a permit um permit comes with a 15-day appeal period and you know can can create some other delays going forward and certainly uh i would think like most applicants the housing trust would be looking for some certainty on this as soon as they can get it and i guess i'm i'm looking to the applicant to ask is do you need an answer um when do you need an answer do we have the two weeks for our next meeting to obtain input from the school district or is that going to be outside the window in which you need an answer i appreciate the question i as as matt mentioned the the sooner the better to inform budget and and permits um so that we can stay on schedule for the renovations but that said we certainly um two weeks would not be make or break i'm surely i'm sorry it's it's about a hundred thousand dollars that the schools get from this okay um just doing some quick research on what the entire budget for the school district is it's it's over 80 last year anyway it was over 85 million dollars but i do know which is much bigger than us yeah i'm not sneezing at a hundred thousand dollars but i'm also putting it in context of a 85 million dollar budget right okay that i started to look at um but then i got distracted with other things was is this debt still in play that this service them as well so there's another question for this to be one other questions if the board wishes to go forward with this tonight there's a motion proposed if not we can take this up um either next next week or the week after all due respect to the school i mean i i don't know given the numbers we're talking about here how how how much weight i would give their objection if they had one we don't know um to you know win the weight against the the project um it's it's a lot of affordable health and if i could play the devil's advocate to a degree is you know we have what about an 11 million dollar budget that we'll be discussing and we'll be down to the couple thousand dollar additions or subtractions um so 100 i don't want to i don't want to guess for the school district that a hundred thousand dollars loss of revenue that they didn't anticipate but it's still a loss of revenue is there is not a you know something they want weigh in on so hearing no motion then we'll refer this to uh the following meeting and hopefully we can get this done uh next week thank you thank you and at this point then we'll go on to the public hearing because it's a little after eight o'clock and uh so it is eight o'clock we are looking doing that public hearing i'll read the uh part of the uh the warning notice is here by given uh that the wilson select board will hold a public hearing on tuesday january 4th 2022 at 8 p.m in the becket maguire meeting room at wilson town hall to receive comments on the proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2023 in capital budget and program for fiscal years 2023 to 2028 uh and so we'll bunch more words that we don't really need to talk about at this point but i'd ask eric to give a sort of a brief overview of the uh the pending budgets and then we can go to getting public input thanks terry and i've prepared a few slides here i can i'll just get this queued up on the screen this is similar to the presentation i provided the board with the transmill of the budget back in december but i i can do a quick walkthrough for folks watching at home in the audience for for a quick overview of the draft budget under consideration as the board prepares for town meeting day so some general themes in this budget proposal under consideration um want to service delivery during covid 19 and beyond we look at the ancillary effects of the pandemic including a tight labor market inflation and future service delivery by the town we look at addressing needs for services and the capacity of the existing resources we'll um we'll see in this budget the discussion about fire department staffing um with the career and call staff and needs to increase depth and availability to respond to the ongoing service delivery needs for for that department and we also look at the continued planned community growth and meeting that service delivery need um wilson's had a had a steady growth the last 20 years and um analysis by the planning department and to space that will continue we've been a little under a two percent growth rate and we expect that to continue in the years ahead here when we put this budget together we had to make some assumptions um one was looking at the cost of living increase um original draft budget was at three point three percent and reflected in the in the final um possible changes to consider as a three point five percent um based on the november data that came in after the initial draft was transmitted veemers which is the retirement system for municipal employees that they've increased um the employer contribution by a half percent some anticipated that's reflected in this budget along with growth in the grand list of about three quarters of a percent per town assessor bill hindman sort of estimate that we could see this grow a bit higher once the grand list is finalized in the spring before the final tax rate is set by the board and and may or june for the fiscal year and we spent a lot of time looking at our local options tax which accounts for about 25 percent of our operating revenue um trying to predict where it's going um with the pandemic the last year or so and as we analyze that um it's pleasure to inform by the experience of the past couple years with an expectation it's going to return to the pandemic levels based on the experience we've had over over the last multiple quarters here so look at the numbers um budget of just over 13 million dollars um so here under a 13 percent increase I'll speak more of the story behind that here as we look at the proposal including the nine additional full-time members in the fire department that accounts for about seven percent of that increase with a 5.81 percent for the other expenses there's a draft increase in the tax rate and with this draft increase the meeting behind that for a hundred thousand dollars of assessed value would be about 48 dollars per 100 thousand dollars assessed value median home value in wilson's just over 300 thousand dollars um on a dollars basis that that would that would translate out to about 145 dollars per year or about 12 dollars per month all right well that's okay I hurt myself but I'm just somewhere I have just have trouble seeing the screen oh sorry I can I can share it too and then just a visual here on our general fund breakdown by by departments all this is available online as well for folks watching it on there's there's a lot of detailed line item budget information on the town website expense by objects you know in our organization consistently wages and benefits are the majority of our our operating budget spend count for around 70 percent of the operating budget as mentioned on the revenue side we've been consistent for a number of years property tax revenues about 50 percent of our budget local option tax about a quarter and then user fees of the revenue sources use of fund balance and reserves about the last quarter of the revenue side of the equation to create a balanced budget so just a couple pieces here on the fire department service delivery the board has been looking at this the the last few months and chief Colette's available this evening to answer any questions as well just to remind we have a combination of department a very dedicated group of career staff and paid on call staff we run three 24-hour shifts and these shifts have four firefighters EMTs on duty with minimum staffing of three per shift our officers work daytime on weekdays on the chief deputy and the captain we have a roster of call staff members to respond when available and this roster of call staff and their availability to respond has dramatically decreased over the last five years this is a primary driver behind the need to look at increasing the career staff and we see this happening at Wilson's not the only community facing this this type of challenge we see it throughout Vermont throughout New England as we've looked at this fall to see what other experiences have been out there and and we have a certainly have a dedicated career staff roster and we're we welcome some new members they're in training right now and looking at this the members on the roster and availability it won't won't anticipate to replace the need for additional career staff to meet these service demands thinking about restructuring to deliver services today and into the future and how that staffing is structured so to support this we had an independent consultant AP Triton work with the the town this past summer to analyze our department and how we deliver services one of the conclusions was the need to look at adding more career staff and in the immediate term to be available for this service demand needs daily this will increase the depth and capacity of the station to respond to burn see calls with an effective response force of ill personnel the strap budget adds three firefighters EMTs per shift and we have three shifts this increase the shift size seven firefighters and increase our minimum staffing to five per shift and I'll share a visual that the cheese put together that's been shared with the board before but it looks at this call staff number and these are hours by month response on the the left side and in the vertical axis and then you look at the month throughout the last five years and you can see the trend line decreasing for that for that part of the overall service delivery by the department and then just another visual we look at is the tax rate in Chittenden County and where Williston is where we're certainly the town's done a good job throughout the years we have a tax rate that's the second lowest in the county right now the communities with asterisks are communities that have a local option tax including Williston and for folks looking at this may for the first time that the tax rate is per $100 of assessed value on a property and then briefly on the capital budget proposal it's about a 8% increase just under $120,000 to the general fund this proposal also utilizes about 250,000 in ARPA funds for capital projects in FY 23 to help smooth some impact with that revenue source there's no new debt proposed in FY 23 but there'll be a short-term borrowing article for consideration for an ambulance coming up for replacement but the replacement the first payment on that would not be due until FY 24 due to the delivery schedule of that ambulance and capital replacement addresses electric vehicles and equipment replacements throughout as as the town works to look at replacements into the future and electrification like in kind of the general overview and turn back to you Terry for thank you so it's now time for members of the public to weigh in on the the the budget and if there's anyone in the room who wishes to please come to the the table and identify yourself thank you for inviting me to speak uh i am here to speak about hiring an energy coordinator and it's my understanding that that's probably not going to happen um that hasn't been decided there's not another decision made either way on that okay okay um well then um i i guess i i just want to register my support for um for us doing that i'm i um i have a great appreciation for the work that you guys do um and um i know that you know facing the big budget increase over the the firefighters is a is a is a big ask of the town um but i i would say that um you know and i i probably i don't know if i'll be saying anything now that we haven't said already for the past you know year or whatever um but i i just want to go on record as saying that um i feel i feel like we have to do what we can we just have to um for for the future of willis din for the willis din's fiscal health i think i think it's been stated um a lot how hiring an energy coordinator would would um it would behoove the town to hire someone and not just rely on volunteers because there's only so much volunteers can do um and i i just can't help but notice that i i think our country is very good at responding to crises and being ready for emergencies but but for um like policy decisions and and for systemic sort of health we were not so good and and i would um encourage you to think of the future health and putting us on a really good footing going into the future in terms of making good energy choices um in in hiring someone who can who who can help us do the best we can um for this energy plan that we have adopted um and i i i guess i'd like to hear do you have a sense of um when when you're making decisions on the budget like how much you think about positioning us to go into the future versus responding to immediate needs right now do you have like a a sense of how you think about that i'd like to hear you talk about that we probably all have different thoughts about that but i think you know every time we develop a budget we try to think about what a town needs and uh in various different departments that we have going forward considering the size of the town the growth of the town and things like that so i think we all have that concept in mind i i think i i guess my feeling is that the energy coordinator isn't something like a firefighter it's like a back burner kind of a it can be seen that way um and so easy to sort of say well we can't afford it right now um but uh i think i would encourage you to um even though it might seem like we can't afford it it's i feel like we can't afford not to do that so thank you okay thank you thank you anyone else in the audience who would speak tonight on the budget we can go to anybody on zoom who who may be on there wish us to speak yep we had a couple folks i see with your hand raised kaylin mccamp will go to you first just i'll connect you right now hi there um thanks everybody there were really impressive candidates for um the energy committee and i just wanted to say kudos to everybody there and um remind you all about the email i i sent earlier today from vcan Vermont energy and climate action network which is a body that is really pro energy committee since supporting them as essentially their mission supporting energy committees throughout the state and just uh to caution that even though they're really excellent candidates there's only so much that volunteers can do in their spare and unpaid time um so in the words of vcan they said uh with so much work to do and significant federal and state investments coming the task of pushing forward with energy climate and resilience projects cannot be staffed by energy committees and or volunteers alone and i thought that was very powerful coming from them a group that supports energy committees specifically and um with the timing of this budget hearing i know um i was personally disappointed to not see the energy coordinator in the budget before this hearing but i'm also hearing um that it's not off the table and i think you know as just a citizen trying to navigate civic engagement it's it is um tricky to know where things stand all the time but just to reiterate that there's been so much um public support for this over the last year plus and there's been um so yeah support really at all levels really consistently and underlining the urgency and importance of the position um so i i guess i would love to understand what is possible tonight is and and kind of where things stand because um i don't i don't think it's clear to my i know it's not clear to myself and maybe not clear to other folks who are here to support um i'll also just mention that there's lots of people chiming in in the chat i'm not sure everyone really sees the chat um who are here for the energy coordinator as well in support thank you and i can tell you that the process is one that's been we've used for years as to putting together a budget so we have asked all of the department heads to put together their needs and the town manager has presented the budget along with our director of finance so now each year we come to this point where we may wish to add something to the budget or subtract something from the budget and that's where we'll be talking about in a little bit about possible additions and subtractions to the budget and asking staff to get the information for us as to the cost for next week for our deliberations next week great so any change that happened would be initiated tonight and decided next week that's the point that's my plan yes okay great thanks so much for clarifying there's someone else who wish we'll speak yep i've got uh kevin battson's hand raised kevin i'll connect you right now hello everyone and uh thank you for holding this hearing um i first like to say i have a question but i first like to say that with the influx of the federal infrastructure funding that we're going to have coming into vermont this year i think it's this is the time this is the year to have an energy coordinator even if it's not only it's for a couple of years as we use that money to build the best future for uh wilson and and for vermont i think it's very important to have a energy coordinator full-time staff person there during this time um and that i mean there's 2.2 billion dollars coming to vermont i believe it's you know we need to use that wisely not waste it but then i have a question it's why the way the tax is structured and is that the town residents are footing the bill for the emt and the police and the firefighters which i'm not you know i'm not saying we don't need them but actually looking in the the block the police block block blocker is that what they call it in observer um most of the resources or that's those services are are going down near exit 12 to all the commercial businesses so residents who are have to foot the bill for all the commercial activity uh in our town and i just i just don't think it's really fair uh whereas an energy coordinator could help our town save money help residents save money and make our town better you know the we really i don't know what the where the taxes is being done right i don't know that it's fair that we're footing the bill for you know the commercial part of town so and so that's a question is that the way we can arrange i'll ask eric to answer that but the commercial uh establishes all two pay taxes as well but eric can you give an answer to that yeah i appreciate the question kevin i um try to answer the the best i can with with any um person who lives in town or visits town or works in town that we we have to provide the same services for for everyone um also know what the value of the commercial district to in a local option tax front is certainly a value on our revenue stream as well um you know there's there's a lot of aspects to it um but uh it's how we answer it tonight i'm happy to discuss it further with you as well kevin you uh still there uh yes i uh okay thank you anything more to add um no no thank you okay anyone else on zoom yep i see uh then you'll do set then you'll connect you just a moment here hello can you hear me yes yeah all right thank you for taking my um my my raised hand i will try to be quick um i have two thoughts i'd like to echo kailyn's sentiment about how confusing it is somewhat to navigate um how the the civic engagement i guess as just as a regular citizen like how things happen in town government um and so i have been coming to the select board meetings for the last year so in support of the energy coordinator and have learned so much about just you know the pace and the expectations and just lots of things but while here i have you know i heard the fire chief speak in support of the nine of adding the nine um firefighters and was totally persuaded and have spoken with neighbors that have been shocked about you know the budget increase for for so many people but you know have been participating and have learned that this is you know seems like a a dire need i guess i kind of wonder hey if we're you know we've got nine ten people coming on next year what's one more why don't we throw that one more person in we have like i don't know 48 people came online last year to the um not last year to the last meeting in support of the energy coordinator we had 15 people in the room there's definitely town citizens in support of an energy coordinator which brings me to my second point reading this chat is amazing to me because most of the time chats are like you know kind of where there's some negative comments the chat is full of support for the energy energy coordinator position i've never feel like i've never seen anything like that in a but a chat before um i just i'm excited by this by this chat so thank you thank you anyone else on on zoom nope that's all those new comments very anyone else in the room who wishes to make any final comments come up to the table please sir good evening my name is brian forest most in residence sitting here tonight listening to the budget process and it's very coherent that department heads send in their requests and their needs and you need to shuffle through them and try and make determination about where those needs best serve the town um what's lacking here is an advocate in a department who will bring the environmental needs to the to the attention of this ward and make the case for an energy coordinator and doing something to prevent the the climate from heating up um anyway um and what's lacking is an advocate for the environment the environment is a crisis we know it's a crisis we've seen it on the news and yet it's ignored because the process of the budget process does not include an advocate for the climate now that you can project needs of the departments down the road but because based upon current needs and actions you can determine what your budget might be climate is a bit different because when we start to feel those needs when those needs start to hinge upon us like like the the the bridge of marshal avenue it's going to be too late to affect the outcome because their feedback loops that once they get started like the melting of the arctic ice and you know it's all underway and the melting of the tundra which will release the methane into the air those once those feedback loops are in full force you cannot reverse them so climate change is a bit different we have to look down the road and not look in front of us the next five years 10 years they're saying that we need to cut our carbon emissions in half by 2030 and if we don't do that the climate is going to the temperature of planet is going to reach four degrees increased by the end of the century and we've already seen what one degree means right now so I'm saying that this is something that's down the road and the count it's counting on you to make decisions down the road it's not something you usually do because we're wired to respond to the immediate danger in front of us we've got to put that aside and look down the road and protect our our community by reducing our carbon emissions or every house is spewing carbon emissions into the air every day and look at the chimneys they're all just doing cars doing the same thing we're not getting grip on this problem the problem is already there the question is how it's going to keep getting worse it's not a question but it's going to stay the same it's going to keep getting worse it's going to keep heating up because that's that's what's happening here we there more energy is coming in from the sun we're allowing out again so it's just keep heating up and heating up so the town depends upon you look to the future I'm asking you to have an energy coordinator in place that can take advantage of the money coming in the town we don't have anyone in this town who is going to be able to handle that money we don't have the staffing that that's capable of understanding that and addressing it you're all very busy we need a person who can you can take advantage of that money and and save the town money say the residents money and and help the future planet thank you very much thank you I have one thing that came in by email who wishes that this will be read tonight and this comes from Bert Moffitt who was a former town manager of Williston and he says please read these tonight because I don't zoom I have not commented on any local government issues since forever because I had nothing of importance to bring to the table and I know how hard it is to govern however if the reporting is true that if the municipal government tax rate is to exceed double digits this would from my perspective be unprecedented and a great disillusionment to most tax paying residents of Williston who like me trust the board and give little thought to the consequences of funding big ticket items or even substantial increases to ongoing operations I like the growth policy the town has implemented over the last several years and even had a beginning hand in it for better or worse however the overwhelming commercial growth and housing an economist might argue should have resulted in lower taxes rather than higher particularly because of an immense grand list increase meanwhile those who are trying to market housing and affordable services for those less privileged than us including me I am not at all sure we have succeeded in short the message we are given is the more commercial and acceptable growth the more it costs you just as Spike Lee famously said do the right thing for all the taxpayers so there remains continued support and empathy for local government which I believe is the greatest strength of the best state in the country this is merely a plea for a thoughtful scholarly discussion on cost versus gain and winners versus losers perhaps one could argue I have lost touch with the new government's reality but I'm not convinced of that thank you from Mark so last chance for a public comment on this issue Eric I've got one more hand on there okay Kenneth I see your hand up I'm going to connect you right now hello can you hear me yes hi good evening my my name is Kenneth I was just I wanted to say I think the public comment here was really focused on the the budget so I wanted to just comment that I I've been in support of the budget I did review the the new budget I think that it's very clear that these services are crucial and important to our community you know please fire you know highway maintenance all those things are critical and we all use them as citizens I do think you know the previous comments from another citizen in regards to you know us footing the bill for you know the commercial spaces I think you know obviously that's something to focus on it is you know we are as residents paying for a lot of the services that seem to usually focus in the more commercial area so I guess my only comment would be is you know if we are you know paying additional taxes as property owners and residents if those services are very crucial and obviously major support for our police force in our fire department and it's very we all use it and we all want to be able to have access to it and have great appreciate appreciation for them I just do hope that with the increased budget and those services that it does translate into a greater presence in the rural areas of town especially in regards to speeding and and individuals that are are recklessly driving especially on Oak Hill Road race raceway which is like what we like to call it you know speeding and you know recently having having the cameras out you know doing speed speed analysis of speeders and over 2000 speeders on Oak Hill Road in the summer which is insane so I know that that's affected by less police force capabilities so I'm hoping if we see that translate into a greater presence in the rural areas it'll help make it a better environment for people that live here but overall you know just want to comment that you know people don't like to see increases but we do need to recognize that overall we are in Chittenden County on you know in a lower tier as far as taxes when you break it down over a year the services that you benefit from that increase is something that we need and utilize but the main point was really you know I hope we see that presence in the rural area of town as well and and that's all thank you thank you anyone else here nope that's everyone there so at this time it would be appropriate to have a motion to close the hearing and move the hearing be closed just for a second second I'm sorry discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor of the motion and say aye aye be opposed so let's move one step backwards to the form-based code project update with Matt Vellange our director of planning great welcome thank you for having me and having having me back to provide the select board with an update on the Taft Corners form-based code project I've prepared a memo for you tonight and it's really an attempt in the briefest way I can to give you the very highest high points and the places where I think early feedback from the select board and questions from the select board will be most useful to the planning commission and the staff in this continuing process you know we've been working on the form-based code project for over a year and a half now and and really intensively for about a year in terms of process the planning commission as I told them at the beginning of their meeting tonight has all of the draft pieces of the code they need if they would like to warn their public hearing and transition the development of the code process into a public hearing process which as you know concludes with their transmittal of a draft to you for consideration as the governing legislative body so within that I did want to give you that process overview and just a little bit of a preview of what you might see when you do see it hopefully sooner than later but we're thinking this spring following public hearings by the planning commission and I wanted to talk about some of the things in this code that are really very different from the zoning that has been in place in Taft Corners really since there was zoning in Taft Corners and certainly in the last 15 years under the current unified development bylaw standards so if you'd like I'd like to jump right into those elements and drive right towards sort of the big questions and answer any of those and give feedback as I can in the time we have tonight certainly not the only chance for the select board to look into these things but an early introduction so the first thing I wanted to talk about was some of the really big deal elements of the code I titled this section walkable blocks public parks pitched roofs clear process and safer streets and the first one is walkable blocks so the long-stated goal of the town plan in Williston for Taft Corners dating back to at least 1990 has been that Taft Corners become a downtown area with a strong pedestrian orientation so one of the key ingredients for walkability is that you have a network of streets that are at a human scale and that generally means blocks in the three to four hundred foot dimension you know so you have a square of streets about three or four hundred feet by three or four hundred feet generally with a back alley running down the middle and most access for utilities and parking and things like that happening off the alley with the buildings pulled up to the street thus creating essentially an outdoor room where the buildings form an element of that of that feeling of being in a in a defined outdoor space so the way the code achieves this is through what's called a regulating plan the regulating plan essentially becomes the zoning map for the Taft Corners area and so as opposed to a zoning map where you have different areas that are mapped in different colors and you know this is allowed here and that's allowed there in this case the colors are applied to the street frontages so the type of building is dictated by what street frontage it's mapped onto and there's a little bit of flexibility in there and most of that's about building design there's a small amount of it that's about use there's one small part of town that has been identified as really needing to have a retail shop front use on the ground floor that's that's right avenue over by CVS but the really important thing about the regulating plan is this is a master plan for a network of bridge streets for Taft Corners these streets have been mapped with a high degree of precision their scale matches some new street typologies that are proposed for Williston that I'll talk about in a minute and the mandate in the code is that if somebody is developing a site where one of these streets is proposed to locate is that they will develop their portion of that street in the location that that street is mapped on this regulating plan plus or minus 50 feet for you know adjustments to make it around utilities and and other things but that's that's quite prescriptive as compared to today's zoning which sort of says here are the rules for building streets in Taft Corners they need to have sidewalks on both sides provide safe access etc this is saying here is the map and if this street is on your land you will build your part of it as part of the development that you're creating that leads me to the only thing I found it necessary to footnote in the memo this regulating plan the zoning map for Taft Corners and location of streets is also backed up by a similar regulatory tool and map proposed for adoption called the official map official map is a particular power that municipalities in Vermont have under state law and it allows municipalities to plan for public facilities including streets paths trails community buildings parks greens floodways etc so there's another map that reflects these street locations called the official map that's proposed for adoption and the way the official map works is that someone who's developing a piece of property where there's a public facility on the official map on that property needs to accommodate that public facility as part of their development and in practice the way that usually works is a collaborative process where the town says hey developer there's a piece of a street on the official map here that's where we want you to locate it there's some discussion about that and it becomes part of the development but the state law does go further and say if the developer says no absolutely not that's my private property I don't want to build a street there the town has a right to purchase that land that's necessary for that public facility it's not quite eminent domain but it's a similar a similar power or the town may choose not to you know that really leads me to the last thing I want to say about regulating plan an official map which is in addition to this layout of streets and alleys this map includes green spaces throughout the development of the vision plan and our conversations with the planning commission there's a really strong sentiment in the town that if we are going to have residential density in this part of town if we're going to be encouraging people to settle here make homes here they should be able to walk to parks and to do that we need to plan for some green spaces in Taft corners and we we probably need to plan for them to be publicly owned and maintained that's a fundamentals step it's very different from the way Williston has dealt with green spaces as a component of residential development the the party line in the bylaw is that most of those today are understood to be developed and and maintained privately such that the town does not need to take them on this is this is 180 degrees from that I think what I'm hearing from the people in town and the planning commission this is a really important component that the town be prepared to take an active role in the development of these amenities as it focuses growth in this area I have a map from our consultant I didn't want to share in this memo for brevity but it shows two and a half minute walk shed circles around these green spaces and it shows that the majority of Taft corners would be within a two and a half minute walk of at least one if not more of the green spaces that are shown on that regulating plan so a prescriptive map that says this is where the streets go this is where the alleys go and most importantly this is where the parks go with a coordinated master plan for development going forward in Taft corners that crosses property boundaries and ownership patterns and you know a number of other things would take a very long time to come to fruition but would be more coordinated with the town more in the driver's seat than it traditionally has been in regards to this so that's regulating plan I don't if you'd like me to stop at each of these I'm happy to and take questions or I'll just plow through them and I'm happy to circle back I think I'd like to have you go through all this Mike I think my my thought is that we would call you back for a special meeting on or a partner meeting to discuss this because there's a lot of stuff here and this is the summary the code is about 90 pages so all right well I'll keep going the next really big high point is building form and architectural standards we asked the question at the beginning of our public process back in March and April how do we make Taft corners uniquely Williston you know how do we make it something where you get there and you know you're in Williston and not just some rapidly growing semi-urban village anywhere in the in the country so we have a lot in the draft code that's about our building form and architectural standards and the really big defining feature that's in that draft right now is a requirement that new buildings most of them have pitched roofs and there's a there's a mandated pitch it's I think it's between a 512 and a 1212 but it's a real pitched room a pitched roof that can can be used to create an attic story of occupiable space and there are some exemptions to that requirement if somebody is planning for rooftop solar or to use their rooftop as part of their required open area we have a required private open area in our residential developments that can be met partially with balconies or courtyards or other things that residents of the building would have access to if you want to do that on the rooftop you can have a flat roof but otherwise we're looking at a pitched roof requirement this is an expansion of a long-stated desire in Williston's bylaws by law I've been administering for 13 and a half years that says hey we ought to have pitched roofs in Taft Corners and almost categorically when we've taken development proposals through the review process as it is today the developer says yeah I see that you like pitched roofs it's really not going to work on my building why because my building's an 18,000 square foot flat roofed midbox retail building well of course it doesn't work it won't happen unless it's required so the idea is to bring it a little more of a unique character into Taft Corners by getting some pitched roofs that sort of put and put skyline of the area would gradually start to look different from almost anything else you're seeing at least in this area and in part to illustrate this I we did pull in an image of a Vermont coffin window or which window as people call them not necessarily a feature we're requiring but we would be open to it if we had two gables up against each other and there was a way to put that in there even in sort of a more modern building it would be kind of a neat a neat feature some other things about building form while I'm on the subject we have a minimum building height in the entire form-based code district of two stories talk about a way to never have another big box built in Williston two usable stories on any new building in the form-based code area this encourages an efficient use of land it encourages mixed use in other words a retailer who wants a new building would need to be thinking about what they're going to use that upper story for and again it brings buildings with significant presence to the street turning that public realm the street space into a defined outdoor room that becomes a place where people want to be as a as a person walking around so minimum two foot minimum two story and we're measuring building height by stories otherwise currently in the draft there's a maximum of five in a few of our form areas with an attic story on top again a defined roof pitch on that and a lot of things we do under conventional zoning like residential density today we talk about units per acre intensity of development comes from the building height and the building size as opposed to measuring the units per acre or the lot coverage or floor area ratio some of those other ways so some of the other things we're saying about buildings in here maximum width 80 to 100 feet on the street frontage that's about a third the width of some of the larger newer residential buildings in town we got a lot of feedback from citizens of what we came to dub the land scrapers in other words it's a skyscraper laid down on its side it's not tall it's long you can have multiple buildings on a street frontage and they can sometimes even touch one another but they must be separate buildings you need a diversity in the skyline in the architectural design so minimum building width this also tends to encourage some things around how lots are platted that encourages a diversity of building types and forms as they come in and maximum building footprints in the I think it's the 16 to 20 000 square foot range so more buildings smaller buildings buildings closer together and closer to the street but a lot more diversity as that builds out more incrementally smaller chunk at a time than we've traditionally been seeing then I wanted to talk about the public realm standards these are essentially street standards I provided a rendering of the cycle track street in Lilliston and there are other street types mapped throughout this area they correspond to that regulating plan and a very similar map that just identifies the street types there is a complete circle of a street type like the one I showed in the illustration here that has off street cycle tracks and composed in it so that you could navigate all four quadrants of taff corners in a connected way on a piece of infrastructure that was separated from the car street on your bicycle all of our proposed street sections have sidewalks they have different dimensions there are some slight variations and setback of building whether there's a green or a hardscape door yard between the building and the public right of way where the sidewalk starts there's a few different lane configurations in our street types there's accommodation for on-street eb charging and an idea of how that might work but the important takeaway is not only are there right-of-way widths worked into that regulating plan but there are street types that go with them and there are building forms in the code that are designed to be harmonious with those street types so it's all meant to work as a piece permit review process clear and streamlined in the current draft the process to building new building under this code is an administrative process it does involve the zoning administrator holding a public meeting that's attended by a number of town staff this is the process used currently by the Winnowski town planner in the form-based code that he administers as part of our development of this we attended one of his project review meetings to see how it works but it is an administrative process it's a permit that happens currently without drb review that is a choice that's a choice for the planning commission and the select board to think about it's a major departure from how things are done today reasons for recommending this right now this code is incredibly locked down and prescriptive about what's allowed there's not a lot of judgment calls to make in this there's a lot of ways to comply with it but there's not a lot of judgment calls and so one of the things that is typically offered to the community when a form-based code is considered is we have a lot more requirements but we're going to try to make the approval process easier and quicker i wanted to touch on one other element of that which is if if we do want to streamline process we have to deal with the fact that we currently do growth management once a year which which adds anywhere from a year to an 18 months delay to any residential project in town again because things are so prescriptive here and because most of what we incentivize in growth management is going to become required in the code we're recommending that we keep the units per year limits of growth management that's 50 dwelling unit equivalents per year in the tap corners area but simply assign the allocation at the time that the permit is issued rather than waiting for the once a year competitive hearing so you meet the code you get your permit you get your allocation as long as there's allocation to give and and you move on and much as today a drb hearing on a project is often a culmination of six to eight months of conversations between the applicant the staff and other town departments i would anticipate this process even as an administrative process would similarly be the culmination of several months of conversations with staff town departments etc as i mentioned at the outset the planning commission has all the pieces they need to send this to a public hearing to their public hearing in the in the absolute most rapid of schedules you wouldn't see this till the middle of march if i had to guess it may be after that but it is it is coming there is time during the planning commission's hearing process for them to make changes to what they publish as their hearing draft and what they ultimately transmit to you certainly your feedback at this stage is really highly valued um and particularly guidance on some of these broad brush issues that i've talked about tonight um and i wanted to close out tonight in the memo by talking about work to come um you know the the tap corners vision process has really been a huge and comprehensive look at the tap corners area in williston and the exercise of developing this entire new way of regulating new buildings and streets has you know raised some issues for the planning commission that they know can't be fully addressed just by a form-based code but that they know will need to be addressed by the town as things change in tapped corners the first and most pressing one is i mentioned that we have these really nice street designs in the code of what we want the new streets in in williston to look like and rebuilt streets in williston to look like but they're sitting here in the zoning bylaw and they're they're not in the public work standard specifications and that is the document under a whole separate authority that governs what kinds of streets and public rights of way can be built in williston so we can take our inspiration from from these and and the dimensions that that they provide but to operationalize this piece of the code requires an update to a document that's not the zoning and frankly a document that's not administered by myself a zoning administrator it comes from public works and ultimately streets come to the select board for acceptance but we would identify that as our most immediate need going forward to harmonize the public work standard specifications with these new street types that the plan calls for we had a few other things that that we identified we had our letter from the racial equity partnership raising a version of the affordable housing challenge that i think folks have tried to address from a number of angles in williston over the years planning commission recognizes that while this plan and design creates opportunity to build more housing and therefore hopefully more affordable housing it doesn't dictate the creation of affordable housing you know at its bluntest that's a tool called inclusionary zoning that willison is thus far chosen not to pursue planning commission recognizes that more work would need to be done if there were to be an enhanced regulatory solution to gaining more affordable housing in town we can create a lot of opportunity through this plan but we're not telling anybody they have to build affordable housing right now so that's one and then a lot of thoughts i think the commission had when you look at a vision for taft corners that imagines a build out you know 50 or 60 years from now in 2070 or 2080 which is in that vision plan you're you're looking at a place that needs a different sort of municipal service in order to make it go i talked about the idea of public green spaces you know they need to be mowed the trees need to be looked after we have street tree sections in here that will work if the trees are trimmed periodically to keep them out of the way of the fire trucks but there's there's maintenance involved in this and when there's a density of people there are lifestyle issues that need to be addressed at a finer grain than williston has had to address them thus far so public health and safety issues health officer issues animal control parking and other sort of lifestyle issues will become something that the town would need to sort of coherently with the build out of taft corners grow those services or plan to grow those services at the same time so as i said in the memo there's no action requested from the select board tonight i leave you in the memo uh with my four big questions which i think i've covered in my summary i'm sure there are more and you may have some that are just as big as these we'd love to hear them um and i look forward to a continued dialogue with the board about this project thank you thank you and um if we were to call you back to like the first uh meeting in february would that work uh for the planning commission as well it it should they they could hold their public hearing that night but i'm i'm used to running between the buildings and happy to continue doing it we can look at our agenda to see when we can possibly get you in that for probably at least a half an hour i would guess to talk about this traditional half hour well maybe more i'm not trying to be for this is a major step for the town yeah oh absolutely yeah yeah so unless you have a burning question that's a short answer we'll see you uh hopefully in uh in a few weeks terrific thanks for your time tonight thanks thanks so this is the time for budget deliberations and i have a proposal i'd like to throw out to the board for um discussion or perhaps going forward with it and that is to request the staff to look at the the position of a planner energy and community development that we saw three weeks ago and take a look at that and figure out the the cost of the um the tax rate that it would be for both a part either a part time or a full time but include the cost for both and the cost to the taxpayer on a moderately expensive house likely have done about 300,000 or something like that and bring that proposal back to us with other things that we may be discussing tonight so i'll be looking for yeah an agreement or disagreement on that doing that oh so i agree i think that um as many folks have shared um there is there is widespread support for an energy coordinator in town um and i think that the proposal that had been presented to do it within the the planning department um makes sense in that there are lots of benefits to be gained from having future development and planning um you know coordinated with energy efforts um i think that you know in in looking at the budget um you know $150 more per year in taxes per for a $300,000 house that is not nothing that is a lot and for many folks that that um you know has huge budgetary implications for their household that said i think that the potential for an energy coordinator position to essentially help the individual household help our businesses help the town recoup that cost that they would ultimately spend in taxes is very high um so just from a fiscal perspective i think that this position is is unique in that while you know it might not self fund the savings will be brought down to the people of the town in a multitude of ways um and you know that is not to speak of the environmental savings and that the the imperative nature of this position for our planet so my two cents i'm all for it i think we turn our attention to not only head of department and what's needed for the town but this is not only town state in a country worldwide i would know there's implications on the tax side of things i'm always watching the bottom line that's just me i'm the resident lifelong resident uh but i definitely would uh encourage staff to look at full funding or that minimum partial funding i'm in support for sure others i i agree completely the only the only comment i'd make is that i i heard a number of people tonight talking about the difficulty of following along with the budget process and um i feel bad about that uh i i'm not quite sure what to do about it in the future but it's always it's always a pain uh and um it's you know what they say about you know watching the sausage get made but it's uh it's a deliberative process and uh to anybody that was frustrated by it i i apologize it's uh but we we we're getting there and um well you know my position about the energy coordinator so i'll focus on i want to make sure i understand what we are doing tonight and what we're doing this is my understanding so correct me where i'm wrong is we will be looking at fully funding a proposal to fully fund the energy coordinator i realize you've got a longer name to that but i'm going to use the short name the energy coordinator position in the planning department on a full-time basis and by full-time basis i mean you know 40-hour week type position for the entire fiscal year 2023 well the proposal is to look at uh a part-time and or a full-time but give us the figures for bills okay that's fine the other question i have is because that will potentially be and well not potentially there's an increase to the expenditures will you be able will is town staff able or willing to identify ways in which we might be able to offset those expenditures with what are are going to be cuts if you will from the current budget um all right you know come up with the recommendations is that something that's reasonable to ask we can uh we can certainly take a look um at the board's direction if there were some general areas that that's always helpful but if if there's a dollar amount to explore um i do know a lot of these budgets department heads did a good job looking at keeping increases low but there's there's always flexibility in things uh right especially capital we can look at capital again but uh certainly never direction the board walk and staff the one thing i will be try to be careful of is i evaluate any any recommendations you know you feel comfortable making is i want to make sure that we aren't you know that the death by a thousand cuts type of is the wrong way to approach you know how to balance the budget if we're going to add let's say a new part four hopefully full time position okay then my last question is this so this will be discussed next week when does the budget need to be finalized by so the plan is for next week to come in was something that we can take a look at and say yes we totally agree with it put it in budgetary form or we'd like to have you tinker with us or that and put it in budgetary form that we can all agree upon next week and the final decision would be the week after that on adopting the budget okay so we we have next week is not when we have to adopt the budget not to drop that okay and we're meeting next weekend the following oh it's a miracle i might say nights are spoken for if we if we do if you're following my plan we are scheduled for a meeting the last week in january we wouldn't need it if we if what i'm proposing works terry i'll promise you i'll do my best and don't forget that we do have some additions that right erica's oh no i know almost a little almost 41 000 just because of things that have transpired between uh now and a couple weeks ago so like we have an agreement to request the staff to do my proposal are there anything else that we wish to ask the staff to take a look at no no everybody's looking at you all right then um we will continue this discussion next week now we'll go on to the town meeting 2022 draft warning from eric all right not a a whole lot on this but i'll kind of paint where we're going uh typically at this meeting the board sees a first draft of the town meeting warning you'll notice a few blank spots in it as usual including the budget article but um so certainly with the pandemic a lot still unknown the board will need to decide in the coming weeks what town meeting will look like um in this draft warning i set it up to name last year without an in-person component the night before with historically the town vote some articles from the floor we did those by australian ballot last year i've included those on on this draft budget warning for this year i know um the legislatures um looking at a bill with some town meeting changes for the same as last year one of those being allowing a fully remote um public information session for town meeting which all indications are that will be that will be approved and to the governor rather quickly um so just for the board to start thinking about what what you want town meeting to look like um in terms of any in-person component to it um remind folks and folks watching at home that we would night before town meeting instead of being in the gym at the school to vote anything from the floor staff would provide an overview of the articles and provide an opportunity for folks ask questions on anything on the warning then everything would be done by australian ballot at the armory the next day and certainly early voting will be available for folks well before that as well within the parameters of when those are available um that's kind of the that's kind of the big operational question before you in the next couple of weeks we did uh we did reserve um the space in the school uh sarah reserved at sarah mason the town clerk reserved that um at the time the school said it would be available to us so don't know what the school is going to operate on space usage moving moving ahead either so as we know in the pandemic lots of moving pieces here to to figure out but uh something the board's got a sign on here in january as well article wise um the budget articles article i'll show up in the beginning um four votes are usually when the installments of taxes are are paid um so the article one accepting the annual report would be article two budget article article three article four um we previewed this in the capital budget but it's um asking to authorize issuing a short-term debt um to finance the purchase of an ambulance um this was in the capital plan last year and the ambulance has been on boarder and the build time is um i've got to talk about chief some more where the vendor is projecting but we don't anticipate it'll be delivered until f y 24 or late f y 23 at this point so that the debt service went hit until f y 24 um i've asked the i've asked the town attorney to review this draft as well and certainly looking to make sure this article is worded appropriately so this is draft form and then uh down the um down the warning from there just elections for um local officials that are that are up for consideration of town i do know the i can't recall the exact date but the petition articles deadline is coming up in a couple weeks um and it was a little early still but we have had any inquiries on petition articles at this point i think the date pali is the same one for the for candidates i think that's uh january 25th that sounds familiar right and the latest thing lies often the legislature is that the um the senate committee is dealing with uh this uh problem of uh town meetings is talking about having a bill out inside by the governor by a week from friday so well we'll see yeah sometimes it doesn't work and i think the warning as you posted uh between 30 to 40 days before town meetings that kind of lines up with your end of january timeline make any final decisions on any questions on this all right i'll go to manager's report we um please start here i distributed the finance report we're catching up on a couple months with the audit and budget here so surely um at the october financial but i sent out the email on hard copy and she's working on the november as well um right if you want surely to walk through that yeah just highlights for you so i'm just gonna focus on the the um online they're blue highlighted i'm not sure what you're seeing but um the highway revenue is currently so if you look at where we are october four months of the year through 12 months of the year that would be approximately 33 of budget a lot of things don't really work that way um and we have timing issues because the way payments received or expenses go out but the highway revenue was at 58 percent of budget because they've already got their first two class two and three roads payments plus we also have received $9,500 in supplemental payments that are not usual but COVID money that's being um allocated um the um highway expenditures are at 30 percent of budget but wages and benefits are only at 23 percent because we've had the unfilled um highway positions we are down to one right now possibly being filled and and one that was unfilled until less than a month ago um but also those are offset by um other expenses that are over budget like salt most of that has been or some of that has started to be purchased um in october and most of that is purchased by by december so favorable variances some places and unfavorable variances the other place make them look like they're pretty much on budget um the ccta fee is paid in three installments of 69 000 and we've only paid one um year to date so looking like we're a little under budget but um but we're not it's just based on timing but there is going to be an 18 500 favorable variance because um jam t or ccta has grant funding for our match so we have no town match for f y 22 that will change in f y 23 um debt service at 77 percent of budget again is just frit really front loaded we have um in november principal and interest payments on our debt and then um in may and interest payment only um water sewer the sewer allocation all I did was add one additional new property that paid for a sewer allocation in there for 24 300 dollars um sewer maintenance electricity budget 120 000 actual expenses at 20 that's to say 28 000 of budget um and that's a timing issue the um timing issue and the fact that we earn more solar credits from our solar fields in the summer than winter so those stuff we'll see those electricity charges higher um through about march um pump repair and maintenance budget of 30 actual of 48 000 just something hard to budget and you don't you know that could take one incident to turn that around but right now it's favorable to budget um and the maintenance of of lines 15 000 budget less than a thousand expended year to date and again it could take one incident to turn that number around um sewer treatment plant um upgrade at 98 percent of budget and that's just our payment to Essex for our share of the debt and that is a one payment once a year and once and done those are the big changes questions you're welcome and we'll sure as through the audit reports moving along I um you've been talking with the auditors surely but we're kind of looking at February 1st potentially at the auditors here to present the audit and uh no they responded back and said that's not going to be enough time for them okay I need to yeah yeah um and then the just briefly on COVID operations um has been everywhere we're monitoring it on a daily basis here um keeping all departments open for regular business hours I've offered some flexibility for staff who want to have somewhere to work just work in the department head if their job will um do is their position would would make remote work possible that some staff take us up on that and continue to watch each day here as we go um continue to monitor that piece um continuing to look at latest guidance from the CDC and the state I'll be likely issuing an update to staff based on that revised guidance uh tomorrow just to make sure we're we're in line there operationally um and just for the for the board we're still looking at that the OSHA emergency temporary standard you might recall we discussed this a little bit in December the supreme court's hearing arguments on it this Friday um what we're anticipating some final guidance uh by early the following week um so it's likely on your agenda for the 18th if it's upheld and really policy pathways here are whether to require vaccination for all staff or to um allow weekly testing for unvaccinated staff given their SART are some exemptions for the vaccination piece under the standard there's there's a lot to it I've been working with the town attorney on on just some different steps here and things to look at but this is kind of the kind of the final decision point with the supreme court so we're looking at preparing you for potentially making a policy decision on that once we have that final guidance so um to be continued on that and along with the the face covering rule you adopted early December it's good for the first 45 days and so this will be on your agenda January 18th because that's I think the 43rd day so the 40 decide whether to uh but expire or continue it for another 30 days and then it's a 30 day increment tell the end of April lots on deck as you well I have to see then any other business tonight we have done and we are