 reconvene this meaning of the select board following our tour of our public works facility. As always, our first order of business is approving the minutes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from September 19th, 2023? So I move the approval of the minutes of September 19th. So with any necessary corrections? Second. Anybody? Okay. Any changes of note on page one? Page two? And page three? Okay. All those in favor of approving the minutes of September 19th, 2023? Aye. Aye. Aye's have it. Next we will hear public comment. We do have two public hearing happening tonight. But if anybody has any thing they would like to address the select board about at this point, now would be your time. Anybody online? Just that. All right. So we are going to move on to interviews and appointments. We have two candidates for the seat, one seat on the old brick church trustees. If both of you are Lauren and Michael, Michael or Mike, you're both here. If you want to come to the center table and we'll do your interviews together. Because there's two of you, what are the procedurally will do the interview now, and then we will make the appointment at the end of our meeting. So you're free to stay after the interview portion or you can go. So we will ask you a few questions and we will then give you both a chance to respond. If first we'll just have you introduce yourselves and a little bit about why you would like to be the old brick church trustees. So Lauren, have you go first? I'm Lauren Koonjian. I'm married. I'm connected to the town. I've been here since 1994. We live on Oakville Road. I have three kids who went through the school system. And my professional life, I've been a public health professional and taught it CCB until COVID. I'm retired. My interest in the brick church in particular is that there's a feeling this way and that it's an important historic building and it's so great that Williston had the historic district and the brick church is kind of set our point of that has not been changed really since it was constructed in the 1800s. And it's significant even to Vermont as a whole because the Chittenden family had front views and attended the church when it was the first congregation church. So and I have an interest in Americana and preservation. So that's where I stand. I was happy to see that there wasn't opening although I wasn't finding any of that. I don't know where that's written, but I'm moving to happen to be one. I'm maybe honored to be one actually and sit in the shoes so they're at this table where some other really great Williston people have sat. Michael? John, Michael, George, I moved here on Sunday. Well, I run the regulatory legal affairs for the electric department. We have a 18-22 mill building that I'm looking to restore. And I think the main thing is simple for everyone. What I would love to do is come back on the 17th for the Regional Planning Commission alternate position because that's where the lines are going with my professional background. There's no conflict of interest between Memorial County and Chittenden County and I'm clearly underqualified to my new name. And I think it would just be good for municipal sportsmanship, right? I mean, two positions left. The other folks have had it and I know, I mean, you guys have long nights. I got him. So I appreciate your quick meetings. And I've been working on the 17th with my life. And you will have been here for two full weeks at that point. So would you like to officially kind of remove yourself from consideration then for this particular board position or board of trustees position? Okay. Okay. All right. So then we, we're still going to ask you some questions, Lauren, but if you want to take a seat, Michael, you can or you can. I think the only other opening we have right now is for health officer, which if you would love to be a health officer, that could also be. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, we'll see you on the 17th then. Thank you. So any questions from the board for Lauren? Well, you may have seen in the observer that there's some controversy about the, the brick church and putting cell antennas in the, the staple and the proposals are going forth where currently a staff is looking to get more information from both the proposal maker and from other things that have been brought up to us. Do you have any, any opinion on what's going forward on that? I would, I too would like to see more of what the proposal is. I know that they approached Rick five years ago or something and it was, it didn't move anywhere. I do think it would be, it's a, it's a funny situation because it is such a historic building. I understand the height of it is what attracts them. You can see if you can get there, you know, whatever they need to go. But they didn't, they didn't talk about this structure that has to go into that in the last proposal. And that's, I think, concerning to the noise and the, I mean, there are people who probably don't even want to live near them. It's like living near, to me, it's like those trans due certain things. I wouldn't want to be there. So yeah, I guess I would be open to, you know, because I know there are people who complain about themselves. But it would be too bad to sacrifice something as old and historic to the city as the birth church just for that. You know, there should be another way to, to get better service than to pick the highest point in the historic village. So I guess, like I said, I go both ways. Thank you. I mean, we actually haven't heard from the trustees who, who were open to exploring it. And so I hope that if we point you to this, that you'll be open to at least hearing what their reasoning is, I think it has to do with, there's some, there's things that that that building needs, and this is the way to fund it. So there are pros and cons, I'm sure. But I don't, like I said, we haven't actually heard from them yet, directly on the old proposal. But I hope if we point to that, you'd be open to listening at least. Yeah. Yeah, curious as to what they, what information they had and come to the point where they said, I read that and they sort of said, okay, but it wasn't like a sprawl, okay, it was more like we had all this condition that related to that they were basing their information on an old proposal. So yeah, something new now needs to be put together. So, and more lives need to see it. I mean, that structure is listed on many, many different sites. It's, it is, it doesn't belong to the town, but it has significance beyond the town. And I think that other people at UBM and other, other places that deal with historic preservation would be interested to know that there is this significant proposal. Any other questions? I don't think there's any. I mean, I'm on the board of these. Yes, you don't have to list that building. I don't think there's any. I guess that's the only other question. The Jeff Ferris question. You know, if there was, was a conflict of interest, how would you handle it? And yeah, so how would you handle it? If there was, for some reason, a conflict of interest with, if you were appointed to the Old Brick Church Board of Trustees, how would you handle that with a conflict of interest? How would you, you know, if a conflict arose, how would you know? How would you recognize a conflict of interest? I guess is how he phrases it. I can't imagine there would be many for this position, but yeah. So unless there's any other further questions, we, because we just have one candidate now, if anyone would like to make a motion. I had a typo in the motion as well. It should be June 30th, not June 20th of the year. Just to know that. I moved to appoint Lauren Tomesian to the Old Brick Church Trustees for an expired five-year term through June 30th, 2028. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Yeah, I have it. I understand. Thank you. Yeah, we'll have staff be in touch with you. Typically, Bruce or the Public Works Director will organize the meeting with John Butterfield, the chair. Okay, we'll certainly be in touch for the next meeting. Thank you so much, Lauren, for all your service, for the listeners, for this. Thank you. So we do have a public hearing scheduled for 7.15. We should probably wait until 7.15 to start that, I imagine. Yeah. Is it okay if we start a couple minutes early? I don't know. Usually if you just ask for the presentation that Matt will do, it'll be about 7.15 by the time. Okay. So let's start then. So we have a public hearing. The first one will be on the Regulating Plan Amendment for Trader Lane. The Williston Select Board is scheduled to hold a public hearing to receive comment on proposed changes to the existing unified development bylaw to amend the Regulating Plan Map and Street Specifications Map contained an appendix F form-based code as well as the townwide official map pursuant to 24VSA442 and the Williston Unified Development Bylaw. So, Matt, if you would be willing to come up and provide a brief overview of the bylaw amendments, that would be great. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm shocked you think I can fill two minutes. This is a relatively simple amendment to the Unified Development Bylaws. It is an amendment to the maps that were listed in the hearing and warning only. There is no text change or change to development standards of the Unified Development Bylaw as part of this change. So I want to be clear about that, that the pictures in the memorandum and the hearing notice that you've looked at are all that's changing. The reason for this change is that when the form-based code was established for Taft Corners, it came along with a map of existing and proposed streets and some existing and proposed public and private green spaces. This street, Trader Lane, extends from where it ends today at the Hannaford parking lot, and a new street would extend from there all the way to just west of Texas Roadhouse at Route 2, crossing Williston Road and intersecting with Halina Drive on the other side. This is a street that the town has had in various towns and hands going back over 20 years, has wanted to construct. And when the form-based code was developed, we mapped this street in a sort of a speculative way as best we could with the information we had and also capturing the town's aspiration that the street become a focal point within Taft Corners that could provide an important public resource in the form of a green. The existing mapping of that street based on that vision included that green with a one-way circulation around it. You see that in the image on the left of your memo. Having that sort of street proved untenable for the town and a simpler layout was proposed and discussed amongst staff and property owner, that's the image you see on the right labeled proposed. It shifts the green a little bit to the north. It renders Trader Lane a straighter street without the one-way sections circulating around the green. And as you can see in the staff memo following from your memo, this still complies with the standards for new streets that the form-based code requires. So if we were a private developer asking to change the map to do this, I would take it through the same analysis and I would arrive at the same conclusion that I am on behalf of the town, which is this reconfiguration can be made without going outside of the boundaries we've established for ourselves in the code. And those are mostly about keeping streets connected and maintaining a relatively small 350 to 400 foot block size, which is understood as a manageable size for a village center block that is easy for people to walk through and navigate and get around it. In transmitting this proposed change to the Select Board, the Planning Commission did make one additional recommendation beyond the physical shifting of the green and changing the one on the left in your memo, which shows sidewalks, trees, parking lanes and driving lanes to the one on the right, which shows sidewalks, trees, a grade-separated bicycle lane on each side of the road as well as parking lanes and driving lanes. The overall right-of-way here is a little bit wider. We go from a 64 to a 78 potentially foot right-of-way. So the faces of the buildings, if they're developed standard, are a little further apart. But the Planning Commission felt that with the straightening of the road and the removal of some of the traffic calming elements of the one-way circulation around the green, it was important to go with a street spec that would provide cyclists with their own space rather than having them mingle with traffic. So that's the proposal. It's exactly the same as what we went over when we did the informational meeting on this some time ago. Now you've had a duly worn hearing. The step would be to take testimony in questions tonight, possibly close the hearing if the board feels they've had enough information. And then the way state law works is if you would like to make a decision to adopt this change, you do it after the hearing. Happy to stay up and answer any questions. Any questions from the board? So I just to be really clear on the record, the change that we're approving affects Trader Lane, the green on Trader Lane. Does it affect the cross street coming into it at all? It doesn't affect their locations, although when we shift things we have to extend some things straight out just to make sure the streets still touch. So right avenue, the street that accesses CVS, it gets a little shorter because we've pushed the Trader Lane green up into it. And then there are two potential side streets. This would be alongside where Bed Bath and Beyond is. I think we've called it Green Street. Just to the north of Bed Bath and Beyond. So that street and the other street unnamed to the north of it, we just had to extend to make sure they lead to Trader Lane. And we've kept the development standards. So those orange-red-yellow colors that have meaning in terms of what kind of building you can build, we've kept those basically the same. I just want to make sure I really understand the scope of what we're doing. By being two-way traffic off of Bishop Avenue, that would make it easier for trucks went in. On Bishop Avenue, yes. So Bishop Avenue would now intersect. People could make a left or a right from Bishop Avenue where before they probably would have only been able to make a right because they'd be lining into that one-way street. Keep in mind Bishop is right in right out where it goes to Route 2A for the requirements of the trans. So there's not a lot of traffic that comes in that way, probably accept maybe somebody who's trying to get into Panero. I think most of it's happening from either Marshall or Merchant's Row because those are easier movements. Bishop is pretty tight where it comes out to. And we're not changing anything about that. What I liked about the original was the traffic calming by the one way around the park. But your studies show that that's not going to be an issue. No, we don't think so. The lane widths are the same. So the actual space a driver has to be in is about the same. The other thing that I was looking at today is we have some other detail that goes into these streets that we'll be looking at as we work on design. In the public work standard specifications that were adopted to reflect these new street standards, there's a couple of detail sheets showing how the town can treat things like crosswalks and intersections. And this is where you can come out with the curbing and essentially narrow the road at the intersection to slow everybody down when they're coming into the intersection. And we do have the ability in our public work spec to do that. So when we look at these various streets that Trader Lane is going to interact with, there's more that can happen there than just the picture of the streets you see on the memo tonight. Thank you. I like the idea of the bike lanes. That's good. Yeah, and I should point out in the spec, those bike lanes are after the curb. So you have the two driving lanes and the parking lanes and then you have a six inch curb and the bike lane sits up on that. So there's actually some physical separation between the cyclist and any cars. It's hard for a car to pull into that. They'd have to jump the curb to do that. If there's no other questions from Matt from the board, we will open it up to public comments. So if anybody in the room has any public comments regarding the regulating plan amendment for Trader Lane, you can step up to the microphone, state your name, and provide your comments. Is there anybody online who likes to provide comments? Okay. Well, that if there's anything else from the board, be open to that. Otherwise, we can have a motion to close this public hearing. All right. I move to close the public hearing on the proposed amendments to the Farm Base Code regulating plan map, as well as the corresponding street specification map and the townwide official map to reconfigure Trader Lane and relocate the Trader Lane public green. All those in favor? All right. Okay. So the public hearing for the regulating plan amendment for Trader Lane has been closed. And now would it be open to discussion or a motion to adopt the amendments? So I'll move to adopt the amendments to the Farm Base Code regulating plan map, as well as the corresponding street specification map and townwide official map to reconfigure Trader Lane and relocate the Trader Lane public green. Second. All those in favor? All right. All right. The motion has passed. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. So we do have a second public hearing scheduled for 7.30. I don't know if you want to, I know we're expecting a few more people to speak at that. If you want to. Skip to 10 or something? Yeah. I was going to say if we want to just take a few minutes and yeah. Do you want a personnel policy? Yeah, that'd be great. So I shrived to the board yesterday just a minor personnel policy amendment, some cleanup language here. It's essentially adding language to include public safety support staff to positions where a paid lunch break may occur. This is due to the fact that these and other employees must be available during their break for work as needed. Currently have dispatch and library employees in those categories. Cleaning this up a little bit with reality we face with someone in those departments at times there might be, everyone else is out and there might be one person in the building and they have someone available. So brings to the board is some potential cleanup here for this part of the personnel policy. So one question would be we've talked about doing possibly regional dispatch or adding fire dispatch at some point into the fold. So would it be who of us to remove specifically where it says police and just have it say dispatch? Yeah, that's a good catch. Just pulling up the sheet here. Yeah, I don't see any issue with that. That's what the board would like to do. Good catch, Greta. But that's yeah, that's my only comment on that. Anybody else? I mean I just, the lawyers have looked at it, it must be fine, but it just said it says they have a duty, they don't have a duty-free lunch. They may have to step away from their lunch and yet later on it says and yet they're entitled to a break. So that. Yeah, that was advised when I looked at it with our attorney just to reiterate that's from the last sentence that was from state statute just to reiterate that. We have to certainly allow a reasonable break time for any staff member. Necessarily have to be their lunch hour or something. Right, right. All right. Any other comments or questions about the personnel policy amendment? If there's anybody who would like to make a motion? I move to adopt the amendments to the Town Personnel Policy as presented and amended. Is there a second? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, motion is passed. So we are still a little early. Could you manager's report? Yeah, why don't we move on to the manager's report. Sure, so I'll just highlight three minutes. I'll try to take the three minutes. A couple items in my written report this evening. We're looking to schedule the select board retreat coming up. One item I know from the board will discuss the overview for what the evening will look like probably at the next meeting. But one thing is goal setting and policy agenda here. And one thing that towns down in the past is bringing a facilitator to the kind of lead that discussion. So all board members can participate. I have one who's done this in the past for the town who's available. Let's see. The week of November 13th with Monday the 13th, maybe preferred day that week if available. So I want to see if the board might be open to looking at that date or we can start to look at other dates too to try to get something on the calendar here. For those of you who haven't been to the retreat before, it's like six to nine usually. It's in like evening. It's not, you know, or an all day. Right. Yeah. Usually in this room, unless the board wanted to go somewhere else in town, we could just really make that happen too. And if we wanted food involved or something like that. I should farm here. It's a fun place. And I'm sorry. What was the date again? Monday the 13th of November. That works from my schedule. It should work for me. That worked for you Terry, the 13th. I will just double check with Ted to make sure that date does work for him. I got to ask him today when I touch base. So the town, I left for the board just to remind you of the town plan. 2050 outreach is starting up. So there's a number of great events. The planning department is organizing. I think I heard today, though, if you're a couple of folks that help with facilitating some of the discussions there, it's the same unless my court might be interested in that. I can share more details with that as well. But they'll be ongoing around town the next couple of months. I mentioned at the public works garage when we were on the tour earlier, a reminder that the voters approved spending 125,000 of unspent on proceeds. Last town meeting day to purchase the solar panels on the roof of that facility. We have a seven year option that comes into effect on October 24th. So I've been working with the town's attorney and the attorney for ISUN that will purchase them from and we'll be in position to get to close on that transaction here in a couple of weeks. We're working to procure ongoing maintenance of the panels as well. Melinda Scott's working to get a contractor on board for that. So we'll get that aligned when we take ownership of these solar panels to make sure we have someone who can maintain them. Should we have an issue with them? That will be coming up and our EV chargers in the village community park. I think work's getting underway this week to install two charging stations in the parking lot right near the entrance to the park. So that's an ARPA project that was funded a couple of years ago by the select board. And it's a reminder the special select board meeting is coming up on Monday, October 30th at the Wilson Central School Auditorium for report on the community center assessment library scoping committee's reports that they'll be wrapping up this month. There'll be a seven o'clock and we'll also have it recorded by town meeting TT as well. And it's a reminder we'll start the next meeting early again for a tour of the fire station. Probably I'm thinking maybe 5.45 might make sense for that one. That's all I have for my report this evening. All right. Okay. Well, thank you. So now we are officially at 7.30 so we start the public hearing. The Wilson Select Board will hold a public hearing to receive suggestions of how the town should spend its remaining $1.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act ARPA funds. These funds were distributed in 2021 and 2022 to aid in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic to local governments. The town received just over $3 million in total funding and its uses to date have included projects identified in the town's capital plan, revenue allocations to the town's general fund in the operating budget, and launching a feasibility study to assess future spaces for the library and community recreation center. So as with whether other public hearing although I suspect there's a few more people to speak to this one. If those of you in the room or online who are going to speak and share some ideas, if you can come up to the microphone or sit at the desk, introduce yourselves and any organizations you may be representing and give us a brief overview of your suggestions and recommendations. And for the board process wise I'll be compiling a report for you at your next meeting that takes these public comments, other outreach that's been gathered, some staff projects that we've identified, put it together for the board to start your discussion and kind of preview. It might be a topic for the retreat as well to think about how to work through that policy decision process and I'll I can talk more about that next meeting as well. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Hi. Kevin Batson on the energy committee, me and Kevin are both on the energy committee and all those safe groups to school committee for the Russell school. And I'm here to speak with safe groups to school and also cycling. So sorry, safe groups to school, I was hoping to hear a couple of times about what the committee must move ahead with coming with some specific intersections, etc., that can be moved with flash and narrow lights and other possible work mechanisms. But and there's also, we also work with other means of getting students and people able to get around the town without using the cars, especially the schools. And that's why so we will come up with some specific recommendations, but I think I would really request that some money be put aside and thinking about this health. This is very important. If you look out, I mean, people through popping out, we need to be moving all over the town in different fashion, bicycle blocking, scooters and everything. The infrastructure that we have now, it's not really meeting that need. So some people, children crossing, not new road, well, stage road and, you know, scaring, maybe, it's only turning around from there, you know, flashing in the town maybe. In general, the town work standards are, you know, what's been done in the lab, you know, EON is being continued to be being done. And concrete is being put on sidewalks, which is sorry, I didn't notice this at the time, which is quite an expensive, according to the Department of Vermont, Trent and D. Trent, they have a spreadsheet that is pretty good and has all is half thoughts across the board with a very subtle, you know, dedicated side, half with recreation path, whether it's a sidewalk or whatever, it's a show, have a chart, and it also, because we look at the way people are moving now, it's, that would help in scooters, et cetera. And kids, I know when kids ride on a sidewalk, which is legal in town, it's, you know, it's, it's a lot of road fare, you know, and if you go to towns in, a lot of towns in Massachusetts, Lexington, and well-clean, healthy, wealthy towns, they have the bell on the edge and so if you, any cyclist, if he needs to get out of the way of traffic, he can pull over on the sidewalk, as we did. So I did think that, and in general, to look, compared to our town, to any neighboring towns that were held early in, our roads are really tight for cyclists. The white fog line, it's kind of a terrible fog line, it's also there, kind of separates, it gives cyclists a place to move. The, that is lacking. So if you come up on road, we call CVU Hill, which is a spray shot, is to put on the Oak Hill and then into town, which it will receive kids with high schoolers with electric cyclists that, you know, get there if you need to be on an electric cycle. Most, every cyclist I know avoids going to a road, and it always has. I know somebody died there in the 90s, cyclists, and it was just repaid, you know, so sad to see that. It's, you know, it's no favor than before. The state is, when they review a road, they're putting in 10% more road to make room for cyclists to halt them in transportation. And Wilson's not. And so the example of hot road, the reason why I think on that is, if you come up from CVU, it's through, in the high road, there's about a foot margin for park speed on the inside of the following. And you kind of feel a little bit saved. And then as soon as you get to the Wilson sign, it's gone. You know, then, and you're, it's not only dangerous or cyclist, but it's also dangerous for parks. Last time I rode a roadway, which is about a week and a half ago, it was through. It's probably trying to be lively around us. But the other car from the other directions didn't still get in time and had a forced hop to the road, actually. It's, you know, also dirt, shoulder, very sketchy. And so I just think going forward, you know, on probably our 2050 plan, it should be there making it alternative transportation. You should think about really looking at the public work standards and making them more, because the reason why we're going to the planning commission 20 years ago is trying to get better cycling and pedestrian. And it really has not much change. The state has done improvements. When I joined, we had the backup on PUA, so that was already there. There's not much else that's been done. So, any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Next. Hi, all. My name is Ginger Morton, and I'm the president of the Williston Community Food Shelf. The food shelf was formed in 2008 by a group of concerned citizens. We've been operating for 15 years, and through the end of August, we have served 39,139 families, which translates into 118,241 individuals. The food shelf is a 100% volunteer organization, and we have absolutely no guaranteed source of funding. We fulfill our mission of feeding our hungry neighbors exclusively through the generosity of our community and their donations of time, food, and money. We've never been a part of the town budget, although the social organization committee has given us a $2,000 grant for the past few years. The addition of affordable housing and transitional housing in Williston has contributed significantly to the dramatic increase in food shelf clients that we are seeing. In August of 22, which was a year ago, we were serving about 175 families a month. This year in August, we are serving 343 families a month, which is almost double. The town budgets for increased demand for police, fire, and snow plowing services. The school district budgets for expenses related to increasing the number of kids in the schools. No one, however, budgets for or probably even considers the impact that these developments have on the food shelf. Right now, our rent and utilities cost about $3,700 a month, and our food budget is running about $9,000 a month. With the other costs that we incur, we're presently spending between $6,000 and $8,000 more per month than we're taking in to feed our hungry neighbors. Our reserves are quickly diminishing, and the demand for our service is dramatically increasing. So I'm here tonight to ask you to consider giving a minimum of $100,000 of the ARPA funds to the food shelf. That would give us a cushion that we need to assure we can fund our operations through the next year. In addition, I would respectfully request that we could begin discussing how the food shelf could become a line item in the town budget so we might be able to receive some money regularly. Are there any questions I could answer? All very good data that you gave us, Ginger. Thank you. I hand out too. Ginger, since you're here, plugs for what you all are most in need of right now at the food shelf. Soup, peanut butter, juice, so much, pasta sauce, cans of things. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ginger. Hi, everyone. I'm Kim Fitzgerald and the CEO for Cathedral Square. Thank you so much for having my comments tonight. Cathedral Square is a non-profit organization. It's been in existence for 46 years. We have 28 communities in Chittenden, Franklin, and Grand Isle County, with two that we're associated with here in Williston. We have two of those, our license-assisted living communities, and one of those is our memory care at Allenbrook here on Allenbrook in Williston. And I'd like to start with some great news. When I reached out to Eric a year and a half ago, we were starting a capital campaign to pay off the debt at our community. And we have raised a million dollars, and we have paid off that debt. So that's the good news. Unfortunately, we still have significant needs. That's why I'm here, obviously, tonight. We continue to raise funds towards our therapeutic gardens, because everybody who lives there has a form of dementia. And so we need to be very careful about what the plantings are outside for them. And we're continuing to really struggle with the agency staffing costs, you know, prior to the pandemic. The agency costs are, if our staff can't come in, we have to hire an agency to come in to fill the shifts. We have to have 24-7 coverage. And prior to the pandemic, we were paying about $20,000 a year, maybe at most, in agency costs. And now this year, we budgeted $100,000, and our actual costs are coming in at $400,000. So due to those exorbitant costs, we are having to defer some maintenance items, and we do have subpoenaing and ventilation concerns at the property that we are worried about the safety and the comfort for both our residents and for our staff. So I'm here tonight to ask, to actually change my original request. It can be lowered, but to ask for $200,000 to go towards the heating and ventilation concerns that we have at the property. For those who might not know, Memory Care at Allenbrook is the only affordable dementia care community, assisted living community in the state of Vermont. And the reason I say that is because we take Section 8 subsidy for the rent, and we take Medicaid for the services. If you are living in this area and you're paying privately for memory care services, you're typically paying anywhere from $12,000 to $15,000 a month. And if you can afford that, which of course many people cannot, once you've depleted your assets and you've paid that out, you're asked to leave. So Memory Care at Allenbrook becomes the only option for many, many people. We have taken people who are living at the hospital who had no place to go. We've taken people whose family were worried they were going to become homeless because they're going to have to stay home to care for their loved ones. So it's just a really a gem of a community, a property, a community. And it's very magical, but we have to support it or it's not going to be able to stay in existence and it's critically needed. So any questions for me? And I'm happy to, once we get the, we're looking at folks right now, I'm happy to forward those along as soon as we get them. Thank you for my questions. I didn't know that there was a senior center for memory care in Williston. Yes, it's called Memory Care at Allenbrook and it's a community. So it's where people live with dementia and it's 24-7 staffing. So it's a licensed assisted living community. And we have, there's 14, we call them homes, but they're apartments. 14 homes there and we have a wait list of over 250 people waiting to get them. 250 people for 14? Yep. Yep. If I didn't have as much staffing woes, I would, I would be opening a lot more because there's just such a critical need. But unfortunately again with the pandemic, we have a couple hurdles for us for staffing. One is, you know, with the pandemic, a lot of people have chosen not to get into long-term care. They've just decided to either get out of it or not, not pursue that as career. We also aren't on a, we don't have a bus line. So that, that it's really hard for us as well to get staffing because, or hoping the microtransit might help us. But that's another concern. And then the third concern is you have to be a pretty special person to want to work with somebody with dementia all day long. You know, it takes special people and we're very blessed to have a phenomenal staff, but it's hard to find really good qualified people. I would suspect people go from the Allenbrook memory care directly to respite afterwards. Actually, that's a great question. In our, in, in the time we have been in existence, which now we're on year seven, there have only been two people who've gone to rest. Everybody else has died right with us, right at memory for at Allenbrook. Most of the people living there are nursing home level care and we keep them until the end of their life. They don't have to move. Okay, so it's, stay right there for, towards the end. They were seeing more and more people in need of this. Absolutely. The, I mean, the rates of Alzheimer's in the state of Vermont are just skyrocketing as well. Yeah. And like I said, we've had people who were at the hospital and, you know, I, we, one person had been living at the hospital for over six months. Another person had been over for eight months. It would be awful for any of us to have to live at the hospital, but if somebody with dementia, it's just exponentially worse with all the people coming and going in the lights and the beeping noises and everything. So when they arrived with us, they had a lot of behaviors hitting, fighting, you know, but literally within a month, month and a half to two months, the behaviors all turned around and they were back to themselves. Their loved ones said they really have their loved one back again and they were able to die with dignity at memory care. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. Anybody else want to speak? Have you introduced yourself and a little bit about your request? Hi, Dan Clark. I'm a resident. And first, before I say anything else, I wanted to compliment the select board and the staff for the well organized budget package and the transparency that's exhibited by making that available to all of us citizens. So I wanted to say thank you for that. So the remaining ARPA funds are a one-time influx of cash to the town. So I would really urge us to use it for one-time expenses rather than taking on a new obligation that will continue on year after year. Specifically, my recommendation would be that we use it to retire some of the debt that we have as a town. Eric, that was one thing I couldn't tell from the package. Do you know, Afan, what's the total value of our outstanding bond obligations? I find a structure right behind you, Mike. I know our debt service is about a million dollars a year, including principal and interest, but I wasn't able to tell how much debt we have as a town. Okay. So that would be, you know, I don't know if some of the bonds can be called early, but that somehow the remaining ARPA funds be earmarked to pay down the debt that we have taken on. I know we're not taking on any in this fiscal year, but there are plans for us to borrow again in the future years. And so to me, that seems like it would be an excellent use of these funds would be to pay some of our debt down and avoid the need to take on new debt. And that's going to reduce, of course, our ongoing obligation to pay interest. And that's going to make it a little bit easier for some of the ongoing expenses that we have as a town. So something else I just want to make sure I understood correctly, our tax rate right now is 33.91, right? So that's an increase of 75% since 2010. So our rate on property tax has really, you know, gone up dramatically in just 25% in the last two years. So I think it's important, and I asked the council or select board, sorry, to keep that in mind that we can't take on, there are, you know, many, there's infinite needs, right? There really are. But we can't take them all on. So even though our taxable grand list, you know, has increased pretty well too, which is compliments to the town and, you know, it's developing a commercial and residential property, our property tax rate has really gone up dramatically. So we won't be able to continue, you know, we don't really want to continue to take on new obligations. So that's my suggestion is use the ARPA funds, pay down some of the debt that we have as a town. That's going to free up some interest payments that, you know, we can use for other things. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for the 25% the last two years, putting it into perspective. Yeah. The engine price of 1.8 million dollars, but I have to ground down, y'all have yet, we share a gap in the water district and with the city. So I know the actual packages are 180 pages, but maybe 1.81 just to suggest that for next three years, lay out what obligations we have. I'm not the expert, just so you know, I want you to know, we heard you, I think there's technical reasons why you can't pay municipal debt early. But we have lots of other debt, so yeah, maybe there's something there. I didn't want you to leave when we don't, if we can't do it, I want you to know it's because we can't do it up because we didn't consider it. Thank you. My name is Danielle Doucette, and I expect that you probably think I'm going to hear to tell you to put on solar panels and electric vehicle chargers everywhere doing that already. So I think that's great. I hope other people are going to say that. I just was really moved by Ginger's numbers about the people that are going to the food shelf in the last year or so. Really, I was surprised by that, and I really want to support their benefiting from some ARPA funding. And then I was also thinking that I missed the old Rick Church music series, or just a way that builds brings the community together in town. I think that would be great to see ways to get together. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for speaking. Brian, are you waiting, or are you Kevin? Kevin Thorley, Vice Chair of the Energy Committee, also on the Safe Reads to School group, I'd like a better word, and we'll listen to the resident. I just want to echo what my counterpart Kevin from the Energy Committee said, and put it in the perspective of a parent who has right now a freshman at CVU and a seventh grader in WCS. And for the past six or seven years, living in Southridge, we really appreciate that our kids can get to school on their own. They have a level of independence that allows them to leave in the morning together while you speak together before Jack went to CVU with friends, et cetera. And that's not something that I think enough kids in the town have, right? And I think that's evidenced by anyone that drives Williston Road in the morning and sees the backup in front of the school and how many cars are waiting to get in. There's a very, I think relatively small amount of money that's been asked in the Energy Committee from Safe Reads to School, and I think Sustainable Williston also spoke out and paid for it. It's a small amount of money to increase the safety of the kids and make it easier for them to get to school and just have a level of independence that I think is just healthy for them. There's been a number of times I've seen kids without some of these things, without crosswalks, et cetera, going to school, coming home. I've seen it when I go with my daughter to WCS in the morning. We could really benefit from some traffic homing, some lights, and some better signage to get kids safely to and from school. Thank you. Thank you, too. My name is Brian Forrest. I'm Williston resident and a former energy coordinator. I echo the previous speaker about how this is special money, kind of one-time money, but I differ in his assessment of what we should do with it. I don't think it should be used for housekeeping, paying down our debts since Williston is the second low, has the second lowest tax rate in Jindic County, so we're certainly not hurting by raising our tax to want to pay down something to raise our tax to that. What I am concerned about is we have an environmental crisis. We just had a dash of it this summer when some towns were flooded, Montpelier, Barrie, and that's just the falling car for the environment. It's going to get worse, and I don't think that this town has really looked up and assessed its role. Williston contributes to this crisis, has the means, the resources to deal with it to make itself carbon neutral. I think it should get it started getting on the path. I think we should take this money and build a solar farm and replace some of the fossil fuels that are causing damage that we experienced with a solar farm, a community-owned solar farm, or we should take this money in and put it towards electrifying our school district and getting all fossil fuels. We need to do something. We can't wait until the town gets wiped away before we say, oh, we should have done something. This is a crisis that's coming. It's here now, but Vermont is kind of in a sweet spot, apparently, but we have experienced results of our lack of dealing with climate change, and we're going to get more. So I think that we should take this money and split it wisely and start dealing with our children's future and our grandchildren's future. I'm not going to have one as we start dealing with it, and this isn't the time to deal with it, and when is the time to deal with it? Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Anybody online that would like to speak? There's one person watching. Anyone online that's viewing, if you'd like to speak, please raise your hand or just let me know in the chat. Not seeing anyone. I'll watch another moment or two. I think everybody's voting. If you want to come, you can come back up. Yeah. I think you're going to give us a synopsis at the next meeting of all the feedback that you've received. I'm compiling a report right now for the Select Board, so everything shared this evening and sent to me via email and some chats I held last month, along with all the feedback from the policy advisory committees at the town has and any other groups that want to submit comments while going that report, the Select Board will have a lot of thinking and decision making to do off of that report and other ideas board members have. The board will be working through that process in the months that come, I anticipate. All right. Great. Unless there's anybody else in the room, thank you all very much for coming and for presenting. This has been really helpful and informative, and I'm so glad that so many people are engaged and invested in the future of our community and supporting everybody and what we can do with this money. So thank you. And if there's a motion to close that public hearing, you can I'll move to close the public hearing on the other one. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. All those in favor? Hi. All those opposed? Okay. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. So we've been through the manager's report, so I think we can move on to other business. One item under other business. This is including your packet of email I received last month. The airport is standing up a noise exposure map study committee, technical advisory committee, and they'd like representatives from the local jurisdictions, the whole series of meetings to provide information and receive inputs from towns as the airport reviews and discuss the existing and future flight operations noise exposure at the airport. So they've reached out for someone from the town to serve in this group, in my understanding is there going to kind of be a liaison between the conversations there in the town to make sure the town's voice is heard at the table. Assistant to manager Aaron Dickinson would be willing to serve in that role, but it's not, I thought it'd be for the board to make an appointment for that. So board's interested in appointing Aaron or you'd like to consider any other folks just just let me know. So does anybody have any strong feelings about other people who might want to fill a role or would like to make a motion to appoint Aaron to that role? Thank you, Aaron. If anybody does want to make a motion to appoint her. I would move to appoint Aaron Dickinson to be a Rosanna to the Burlington International Airport Noise Exposure Map Update Technical Advisory Committee. This is the longest ever. Is there an acronym for that? I'll second it. All right. All those in favor? All those opposed? Okay. I just have it. Any final thoughts on agenda items from this meeting before we enter into an executive session? I almost jumped into to ask this question while they were there, but I wasn't quite clear on the Sabres to School Energy Committee if they'd submitted anything because it would really help me in my decision making if I had more than sort of a we'd like some money for future improvements that if they get that feedback, if they haven't already submitted it. Yeah, I think they've been copying on a few emails. I know they anticipate sending something formal to me to include in the report. Right. I mean, I don't think I have to have like this is definitely where the crosswalk is going to go and this is what it's going to look like. But you know, three crosswalks and you know, something, the way my brain works, it would be I prioritize higher self-plan. Just feedback for them if you hear from them. And anything else you're getting when you're putting it together? If it's a little vague, you know, it would be good to solidify it for me. Okay. That sounds good. I think you've been keeping a file of all of the things that have been asked for from various organizations and people. So we should have a pretty good file on all of that. Okay. Unless there's any other business to discuss. I typically make the motion to enter a curriculum session. I can't tonight. So somebody else could let you know. Gosh, find it. Well, I haven't had a chance to do this yet. So I moved to find that premature public knowledge regarding the labor relations agreement with employees would clearly place the town at a substantial disadvantage and further move that we enter into executive session discuss a labor relations agreement with employees under title one. Sections 313A1B of Vermont statutes and a real estate purchase under title one. Sections 313A2 and invite Tom under Eric Wells and finance director really good to join. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, we are now in executive session and