 with tonight's meeting first thing I guess on our agenda is to call to order the public hearing for what I believe is the last public hearing for the municipal plan update that correct yeah we hope so so having said that I'll turn it over to Steve okay thank you Ken Belvo and Mary Cohen we're planning on coming but you're not here on behalf of the Planning Commission this is really your public hearing so why don't we move ahead and if they if they show up and and their questions that planning commission members fine if not I would be glad to speak to that so this is as you know is your second public hearing you held a public hearing back on October 15th and took public comment there was some very good comment that meeting I think especially related to the housing task force or working group and energy working group and we can certainly follow up on that that there is language in the next plan I've got three copies here so if anybody in the audience is interested in a copy please come and get it and if any here's a copy for the slide for it I didn't make a lot of extra copies I've asked them out before so but we definitely have copies here for reference if that's necessary so I think what I'd like to do is just give a quick recap and then turn it back to you to ask for public comment that's really the purpose of the meetings it's extra that's one copy okay so one of the reasons that this document is is fairly large is that we produced an energy plan we were required to update our energy chapter to be in performance with the state's act 174 that was passed a couple years ago and we also had the option of having a local energy plan so that plan was produced with the help of the Central Monterey Regional Planning Commission and is incorporated in this draft and it's really designed to show we have preferred areas for certain types of renewable energy facilities plans designed to help meet the state's goal of using our have had a 90% of the energy use in the state from renewables by the year 2050 that's the target and our local energy plan includes local targets to achieve that we really can say what our preferred mix is for renewables every town is different in terms of geography and suitability we know that solar energy has certainly been very big and water very and most of the rest of the state over the last 10 years or more both on a commercial scale municipal scale with the facility they have to make a lot of facility up at the wellfield on the sweet road and for private individuals hydro is then factor in energy generation in water for a long time with the water very damn we now have a micro facility that's in our water main on a belt or roads you may have fun those to do facility there both of its the workings are underground but that facility is is operational and is converting the excess pressure in the water main that we would have to just reduce and dissipate its energy into electricity so those are some examples the other aspect of the plan that the planning mission members members work long and hard out we've got Ken bellow the chair and very common vice here here to answer any questions that you might have the other aspect that we addressed is force fragmentation this was required in act 171 by the legislature and as we said before the the intent of this municipal plan is is really not to prohibit development in forested areas but is to design to try to minimize the impact of development especially in some of the important floor for us box especially where there is wildlife connectivity there's been a lot of discussion of the shoot spell hill area I opened my complimentary copy of nature conservancy magazine they have a lot of section and there was an article on the shoot spell while I quarter in nature conservancy magazine for everybody in Vermont that that goes to so I think that kind of speaks to the importance and the high profile for that area so so we've incorporated language goals objectives and actions into the plan relating to the shoot spell while I quarter to other areas around town as I think you know the planning commission is in the midst of a zoning update and the municipal plan provides the basis for our zoning and subdivision regulations and so the some of the goals and actions that are in the plan will be reflected in some of them are reflected in the current initial draft that the planning commission is is working on so the other aspect that they'll help us with to a large degree is reflecting the fact that the village of Waterbury no longer exists in municipality and those assets have been taken over by the ever for our utility district and are overseen by the district commissioners so we reflected that fact in the municipal plan we talked about our public facilities and updated that aspect much of the plan did not go through a rewrite or any kind of major rewrite we certainly corrected language that dealt with references to the village take that out but we did a major rewrite in 2013 utilizing the 2010 census data we'll do another major rewrite sometime after the 220 2020 census and but there are key areas this plan which were clearly rewritten one thing that people interest you this is now a plan with an eight year life legislation passed about four years ago five years it was right after we did our 2013 plan I think not too long after that as I recall that changed the requirement for municipal plans in terms of the expiration to be an eight year time frame with a check-in at the four-year mark with our regional planning commission looking mainly at implementation so I think that's something to be aware of we can amend either sections or the entire plan prior to the expiration in eight years but but it's not required other than the the check-in process with the regional so did do either do you have anything you want to add before we turn it back to the select board for public comment I think I thought most of what you were saying okay we're favorite the plan being approved by the select board conclusion the public hearing so if I recall back at the last public hearing there was a decision not to change a whole lot of the language and get into the weeds of any other issues you basically just kind of tighten this the last draft up and presented it as as a final that right right so there weren't any any changes made to draft number two the discussion primarily focused around implementation of the draft and we had incorporated language dealing with both the energy task force and a housing working group the housing working group was already in the 2013 plan we got a lot of input from Waterbury Leap on language that went into the planning commission's final draft and so that energy task force is incorporated into this draft so there were any substantive changes to the draft in order to have this draft adopted we can't make any substantive changes without holding out another public hearing now I want to thank Ken and Mary and the rest of the board for doing a spectacular job I mean five years is a pretty short window from the last time to now and it's good that eight years is the next time frame in which we have to redo this hopefully things won't change oh heck of a lot that gentleman often listen to DEV in the programs there talk programs at a gentleman on the other day talking about the comprehensive energy program he's talking about what's wrong oh carbon tax oh and I had done some reading on the comprehensive comprehensive energy plan that Duncan McDougal had sent to me a link to it so I read into it a little bit they had some great graphs and in conversation there in writing on how we were going to get to the end game of 90% renewable by 2050 and I spoke to the guy on the radio the other day and and made some comments about the effort to move forward with this comprehensive energy program and the fact that the information that they gave to how we're supposed to achieve the end game but there was no real information about the impact on the switchover how much carbon is going to be introduced into the atmosphere by moving in this direction and information as to how long it would take to I guess even tip to scale even to a point where after the renewables are put in place to achieve this 90% you know how long does it take to get to that point and then how long afterwards before we start to have to invest money and time and resources back into either maintenance or upgrades in the systems the force fragmentation issues involved in wind turbines just issues that I felt were important to you know putting us in a direction that's really going to make an effect the guy didn't have any answers as to my questions as to you know the lack of he said he basically said that you know we don't have everything worked out well but having said that I'm thinking to myself so is this actually going to do the job you understand what I'm saying and now with the carbon tax their efforts to kind of push that hard you know there's implications on that that are going to affect us in more ways than one and you know will the carbon tax you have any opinion on how the carbon tax will affect this plan moving forward is there a possibility we might have to revisit that in four years to try to you know offset or comply with the regulations that they may put forward you know dealing with the carbon tax you have an answer for that yeah so we did not discuss the institution of a carbon tax and so it was not part of our discussion we haven't had any discussions about it whatsoever you know whether or not the state of Vermont institutes a carbon tax I don't know that I would consider that to be a feta complete there is probably some discussion about it but there are no states in the country as far as I know who have instituted a carbon tax and there is a lot of debate as to whether or not a carbon tax would actually be feasible and could be administered satisfactorily at a small an increment as a state and of course we are one of the smallest I also know that there are some individual communities that are discussing this I think I think all of that those are good discussions to have but this idea that it's imminent I don't know that I would necessarily think in those ways my own personal opinion and this isn't the opinion of planning commission but my own personal opinion is that if there were going to be a carbon tax that were instituted and it was going to be effective it would need to be enacted at an increment that's greater than an individual state especially a small state like like Vermont mean if we were California you know we could we could drive things in a very very different way but so so it hasn't been a part of discussion of the plan it may very well be that the discussion that you heard ends up being the case and four or five years from now it may cause us to revisit our plan and think about some additional implementation strategies for how we would help to reach those goals that the state has established in the state energy plan but at this point I think this is all it's just discussion and I don't even know that there has been a piece of legislation that has been introduced now maybe after we get to January and the new legislature takes takes their seats that may change but at this point as far as I know there hasn't even been any legislation introduced the short answer is we didn't we didn't really we didn't really take it up we were looking at things I think it'd be fair to say in a more broad brush sort of way yeah well I mean from my understanding the state house is now basically control controlled by progressives and Democrats and I think you're gonna see a harder push towards probably implementation of some of these issues you know some of these goals I guess so we'll have to wait and see how things turn out my other concern the only other concern I had and it's just for discussion here is shoot still hill that specific corridor you know my concern has been right along the development ability of that part of the forest the impact of residential housing from what I understand there's there's not much that can be done to to protect that from future impact is that my understanding well I think the strategy and we don't have any members of our conservation mission here but the conservation commission is part of a coalition of groups with the still land trust with the Vermont land trust so conservation commission and their their approach is certainly to work voluntarily with landowners that are interested in doing conservation projects and there has been you know significant amount of conservation that has has been done in that area and so it's the program is a voluntary program and education is a big component of that so I think kudos to those groups for working with the landowners but I don't think the plan certainly doesn't anticipate pressuring people I think where the planning commission will look at these issues not only in the shootsville hill quarter our shootsville quarter but in other areas is what we can do through zoning especially in our higher elevation areas to minimize the impacts of development again the intent is not to just not to prevent or prevent development but to make sure it's appropriate so that's my long answer to your short question with what I would add to that Chris is that so the conservation commission did talk with us you know really wanting to kind of push the envelope a little bit more on whatever the regulations or whatever might be in the shootsville hill area and they mentioned that they had been doing some work with individual landowners you know part of what Steve was just talking about they really wanted to see that to be advanced some more our the planning commission our take on it was that that was all great that they were doing that but what hadn't taken place was some sort of kind of a town sanctioned planning process that would include public hearings that would give that process a much greater degree of legitimacy number one and then the other is that it's great when you're having conversations with people that are like-minded and predisposed perhaps to want to work together with the town because I'm sure you know when you have a public hearing it's not always folks like that that that are going to show up and so there may be other people that may have very different ideas and they need to be given an opportunity to participate and an opportunity to raise whatever their concerns are before we as a town you know take any kind of official action whether it's to you know articulate additional goals within the town plan or of greater concern would be to enact any legislation you know regulations I guess I should say so so that was the intent of all in the gist of our conversation which is that we would look at there being some sort of an action item where we could have a town officially sanctioned town process to have all those kind of discussions before we as a planning commission would come forward to you with with a set of recommendations for you know potentially take some action so it was I would call it sort of a small step forward but an important one because of the process implications of it unfortunately probably the real the only real solution for a situation as delicate as this is having the of the financial affordability to perhaps purchase the land and keep it as a you know either piece of town owned land and conserve that that corridor well Chris I think for private landowners who have an interest have a very they're they're often the ones who are in the best position to be stewards of the land that you know certainly we as town we have the waterworks property that you know managed by the the e-fed commissioners but are overseeing but I think I think that's really been the goal of the conservation commission I think the role of this plan is more you know how we map and how we potentially regulate these areas and I think we took the first step by having this forest resources map which does identify the forest connectivity blocks in the Shooksville Hill areas is one of those areas this is a came from state madness so so I think that's really the role of the town is to support efforts and to do what's reasonable and agreed upon as far as anything on the regulatory side anybody else have any comments just two things I have draft number two so you may have caught this but under housing of 5.4 of the last paragraph you say there are currently two residential care homes and you mentioned the Squire house and the Squire house is for all intents and purposes closed down okay and it was a political now the maple maple and the other thing is Vermont is in the top 10 of carbon sinks of all the states we have more greenery for as a carbon sink than most of the rest of the nation while we don't live in a bubble you know while the topic is about Shooksville Hill I gotta notice that the green at the Green Mountain Club a week from Thursday on the 12th is going to be Tom Rogers who's from I think the Stowe Conservation Commission he works for the agency natural resources to it's they're gonna be talking about climate change and impact on the forest as well as Shooksville Hill that's that's the 7 p.m. on the 12th 13 13 thank you Thursday Thursday it is on Thursday it's a week from Thursday where is it again at the Green Mountain Club and it's free I'm sure they'd be accepting some donations but it's free what time now 7 p.m. I can forward the announcement came from the Conservation Commission anybody else anything this page a page or about 41 okay looking for public commentary sure yeah public as well 5.4 last paragraph on the mountain so all of them again yeah y'all said hang on just a second okay all right so you need your name first yeah okay thanks I understand I live on sweet hill I'm also a neighbor with Debbie she asked me to present some her thoughts on this one sure Debbie moldy my neighbor just speak close to the microphone yes sure so Debbie has asked me to forward her thoughts on this and first off I think you captured this was to essentially take the village language out of all of the records as far as referring to the former waterway village as it relates to each 716 have passed my suggestion I do in downtown also speaking about the leash law she mentioned the ingenuity of owner versus guardian I guess this is a political debate so there's no consistency that report so maybe just something like pet stewards I don't know and then she also had issues with the wildlife quarter shift so specifically with the shootsville hill and that's something that you know all address as well but yeah we're in the long Supreme Court dealing with the number of beans and this is something that's frustrating for me so that was her stuff and they all sort of add to that same quarter thing so when we talk about the shootsville hill but you know I'm in that and these plans basically dissect my property and mass do that over and over and over again so there's a narrative that just keeps being presented that this is and I think there's a lot of people that are looking to these experts of the wildlife community and there's a lot of social validation happening and at the same point these ideas are not really consistent with what we see in the number of things and what we see in the actual shootsville quarter so if you talk to some of the old-time hunters in that area there's a quarter that's being mapped out is actually not correct and it actually includes the number of beans and so it's frustrating as we watch the southern number of beans get developed and here we have you know basically this this push to control the water the units of economics and at a certain point I'm now living next to two corporate global powerhouses in Unilever and Curd Dr. Pepper and these are people that are being serviced by a water company that was created to service this village yes but now this non-functioning village is basically defunct right so what's happening the wildlife quarters changing when I moved in 1994 they were loose walking through my backyard every day but it was very consistent now there's none and when you look at what happens with the water extraction coming out on the west side of the waterworks road being piped out to the waterworks it's not sustainable and I know we've worked on getting the data I do look forward to checking out the water data seeing what is being consumed where how it's commercially being used first how it's being used for the public I look forward to working with the town and figuring out a way to make that sustainable but as a local neighbor sitting next to these for-profit enterprises working through this for-profit water company I'm now saddled with having to fight to actually keep a corridor intact and so we're in Supreme Court challenging a subdivision that's meant to make it seem like it's just all subdivision you know residential housing in an area that's not it's a wildlife corridor and I've been a steward in the space as has Eddie but he's not gonna be that way if we keep pushing through so I never was contacted by the planning commission and I would like to have been as a as a landowner I'd like to get more involved with planning but at the same point you know I have a list here that I feel like nobody wants to really listen to you know I mean it's very clear that this draft has been basically all said it's gonna be rubber stamped the slide boards and say yes and I'm going to put it to the town you know large vote and like what we're in a rubber stamp something that's gonna impact a whole lot of people I remember that for every bit of that document and I looked at pieces like you know for instance I may have to go on and on and on but the energy plant itself it's basically saying anything that happens in the shoes to the corridor is gonna be basically impacting such a way that even though my neighbors to my south the form of village we're able to put in a 1.1 megawatt solar facility now what we're not allowed to because we're in this quarter but at the same point we're then forced with more development and not to mention 80 cars on average every day of the summer on the weekends maybe on the weekdays definitely over vacations and it's just it's a madhouse out there now and when I moved in there's to be three cars on a July 4th weekend as really refreshing because I don't want to be the sort of lone wolf the person that's like ostracized into having to protect these resources but this is one of our most important recreational resources in the town of Waterbury not a hunger is a significant resource in the hunger of beans if any of you walked up there and you know I know some of you are on the DRB committee that oversaw that and if you actually walked up there and saw the actual natural resources you understand how important it is to save this this space I mean I can go to the list right submitted by writing but it's it's one of those things where as I keep going through I got you know so many specific questions things like you know we want to give the DRB more oversight what is the rejection rate of DRB proposals today I mean is everything just going through or are we actually seeing some pushback and stuff and that's an important thing because not everything should be developed and we've what we have right now is 200 jobs leaving this community from curbing up leaving this is real these are people's lives and jobs at stake right before the holidays so I'm trying whatever I can do to try to take our water rights and to create our product and I want to make sure that we're able to help this community grow but I feel I all turn everyone is like trying to push back and like reject our rights and the one monopolize if you go back to the 2013 town plan I mean effectively the VNRC can and instead of it you know the water effectively is going to be monopolized so that only one group of users on this village on land utilize that water for agricultural purposes and extraction I mean it's basically taking Debbie and shutting us out of the door and saying no you have no rights and she's lived there since 19 what 66 so those are some points that I just bring the ground talks to the table here because just a rubber stamp was going for us and I'm going to roll my sleeves and reach out I spoke to the lieutenant governor today I reached out to him it's what to another individual that's interested in bringing maybe a few tens of millions of dollars to this area so I'm doing my best to try to create economic growth through this area but at the same point I feel like you know there's a plan that's just getting a rubber stamp to rush through this process one thing I really want to state for the record is the wind farms and the whole idea that industrial wind should even be part of this is disgusting to me I'm sorry but like this ridge line we should have a border tour in about 12 feet and that's it I mean I know like this ridge lines getting parceled out and parceled out and everything I drive down Lewis Hill going up the hill and looking at all these lights in the upper regions and I'm thinking to myself you know this wasn't long ago when it used to I look up there and I'd say this is a really great place to live because it's not beautiful backcountry and I don't have a lot of neighbors that play in the backcountry all around the world you guys probably know them too and this is a really cherished place we should not be just letting that development just climb up that ridge line so that's that's an important piece I think all mentions of you know wind packages like anything over 1200 feet I think this was out of the question I think why are we thinking that especially industrial scale I mean maybe community scale if it's probably sighting mr. Gearview oversight but geez let's not start beating in things that all of a sudden open the door for massive fights down the road so that we can what look at more towers after everybody in the survey is saying they don't want to see stuff on the range I'm sorry I just I think that's something that needs to be part of this and you know if I can submit this I don't want to run over time but if you want to be writing I'm happy to you know a few other points that you know I wanted to make or we we just experienced this downsizing of the current bar in the factory and we know that what's coming next for the production plan is probably very real and yet we're still talking about you know 20 million dollar monho for a school and a district that like what's gonna happen we're gonna see so much gentrification as community so many people that have lost their jobs they're not gonna be able to like throw down and make their their bills so I just want to see those things addressed I want to slow the wheels a little bit on this plan I don't want to necessarily rush to ratified but you know millions who roll up my sleeves like I said and help out but I won't feel like people are asking I mean my form you know what I've done for a living is market research I was retained by the brand group at Curry that's when I realized just how exploitative behavior was and it is to this day so I'm trying to change things from within when I get stiff I'm gonna just do what I have to do but at the same point when I look at the story of methodology I mean there's there's what 146 apparently like responses measured but when you break it down it's like 82 people had answered but because of the way in which the random sampling is measured and you know aggregated with the general responses average so there's like a lot of problems with the process that I could have helped with along the way and I'm looking at this data and saying there's no statistical significance to like really truly base it off of anything you know to represent this community of 9000 you know some of the other pieces you know I just I guess I don't know I think there's gonna be people are gonna be able to read this in the transcripts or see this and you know I just want to remind people that I'm literally living next to the impact of the Unilever and Dr. Peppercurry or Curry Dr. Peppercurry but remember there's no green mountain coffee on that letterhead anymore all right so this is like massively impacting me and when those headwaters get drained out and what class 2 wetlands try up the animals the wildlife but you know coming on to our property so we have a couple of choices a we can be we can address our concerns open the hunger of beans and we can try to incorporate that into this town plan you know or I'm going to be forced into a position and it ties into a lot of things and the reasons why I'm in this frame of work now where we will have to take legal action could you explain what the impact that you're talking about is this water with the water has to be depleted yeah I just don't understand what you're referring to also is that the basis of this lawsuit well so okay so let me backtrack so basically you know the water extraction that happens when it was land right and that water is piped to a water plant and that's traded and I think just the other day there's a big chlorine flush you know everybody that has water piped water now knows that they're on that town service because well they felt the chlorine flush and so that water gets extracted and what ends up happening is like for all of this summer and I know it's a drought here but this isn't just this year this is every year after year after year when the water is extracted it basically was from mid-July to mid-October there's no running surface water and so when that happens consistently it basically dries up the class to wetlands on the other side of the room and in doing that too long and too long you basically destroy all aquatic habitat and that will shift the court without question so what we're going to you know basically in a conversation about is the fact that well we've had the impact of that quarter shifting into our backyards and so as a result we're trying to protect this land that has a quarter on it that uplots to a very well-recognized agency of natural resource and asked beach to the state and beach nuts form the habitat the food source and bears and wildcats and we have plenty of those we've seen links come through their bow cat no more moose anymore we have plenty of fox with lots of deer and it's a quarter that if you look at the maps and where is it it's not uh isn't for a second one of the maps I think it's like 14 well okay so is it the forest connectivity map now it's the northern boundaries one town map one five and town map one six so on town map one five it's the water center village which I think you know that needs to be labeled I think that conversation it's a whole different conversation but it's in that one six where you can see you know basically our boundaries are clutched right in half and you know there's another piece that like I look in with like things about page 134 of the Fort Stratification basically we're talking about downgrading all the last four roads to trail you know wherever possible like is that going to mean that that road that now gets heated in the wintertime so that you know all of us that live up there they depend on that to get through the stove we now don't have that half the time of the year and a lot of people that work in water very and travel into so this for instance snow flowers need to keep that open because they need to get to those places so that they can like not have to go all the way down around but you know what like nobody seems to care I mean I've seen a man flit his life petitioning both towns water and so and he went to make sure that that was kept open every year and he had to fight for that that man didn't make a lot of money but damn you know he was so gentrified by this community and it's frustrating to see that I could live at the end of the dead end road and be happy so I think that's a show excuse me that's a stow issue it's not a lot of great issue well it's the name it's planned we can then maybe strip that out and say that back to me was the upgrade to a class three no it's not a stow issue well it isn't it isn't because it is on their property and I understand you're saying I went to the stow select board as well and I know and I had a petition to keep it open but they said well we have no resistance from water very so we're not going to listen to you so if you maybe listen to me and stuff you know with us and advocated for us then maybe we could get stowed to go on board with us and get charlie to say yeah we'll keep it open right because we need to focus on the plan well okay and so this is the general state so let me say one thing here before you go any further I understand your concerns and I have sympathy for what you're talking about you know the problem with society is we want our kid can eat it too and there's you know to get into the weeds of this thing would take all literally all night and I don't believe that everybody out there is ignoring what's taking place and you're right to some degree the people that are looking to speak out hard against issues that most people either ignore they you know go through daily lives and don't pay attention to it I mean I've been here I'll be 59 here in a few days uh been here forever since I was born and the changes that I've seen have frustrated through frustrated me through my entire life but there's so much complication to the whole system that's put us to where we are now that to solve it in you know 15 minutes is going to be impossible and I'm happy to submit right for for that reason but at the same point I want to be heard we need to right so we need to but we do need to limit the time frame of the discussion you know we were already over so I don't want to like step back and submit writing but at the same point I would like to invite the committee to come up to their meetings to see the Debbie and to talk to us because you know for a town of our size that should be something that a resident that's been here since 1966 you know she lives alone um and she deserves that respect so you know I hope that that can come of this conversation and maybe we can be human about this and find a better path forward Bill you've got some questions this is the first time you've expressed these views or have you met with the planning commission I've been I was here at the last poll here and you know I'm definitely involved in trying to advocate for a number of people go ahead Bill so um I just want to make three three points um and Glenn I don't know when you when you said that you weren't invited the planning commission started this process months ago it's been advertised generally uh we don't send indications to every resident of the town to come to these meetings so the planning commission has held many many meetings for many many months and maybe you've been to some of them maybe haven't been to any of them the select board this is the second public hearing and I just want you to be I just want to be clear with you because you said a couple things that concern me one the the water company is not a for-profit company it is a Vermont municipality it's a municipal corporation the village dissolved and a new municipality took its place it is owned by the same people that owned it before it is a public entity with elected commissioners and it's not for profit it's it's a it's a municipal entity so that's the first just correction the second thing that you said that I want you to be to hear tonight the second thing 16 or before 8 age 7 16 is what made it into the municipal yeah it was one municipality the village of Waterbury that dissolved and a new municipality the Edward Farrar Utility District took its place it is a municipal corporation it is not a merger oh no that's right it's not my life it was done by the village voters who said we want our jiffy 7 16 that's what can I've got the I've got the can you just listen Glenn please okay then keep your mouth closed while you talk that's listening okay the village voters amended their charter and the Vermont state law says a municipality cannot amend its charter unless the legislature ratifies it so the village municipal government said we don't want to be this anymore they gave up their general government functions and said we want to be this and they have the responsibility to have a water and sewer system it is still a municipal government and the legislature ratified the charter of the village of Waterbury just like they did in 1894 when the village first voted to become a village so I'm just letting people know it's not a a for-profit water company the second thing that I would like you to understand is the select ward doesn't have to take action tonight it's their decision to decide upon after they close the public hearing whether they want to vote on this whether they want to send it back to the planning commission that you suggested in your statements that in March we the voters would ratify this and that is not the process the process for the town plan is the planning commission generates a plan submits it to the select board and then select board can adopt the plan it does not require voter approval if you don't like it after the select board approves it there's a process by which you can you can bring it to the town voters to reject it but I just want you to be clear that it does not go from here to town meeting no I do understand that okay well you said it's going to be ratified in March and and it's not going to be ratified in March there would be other sequences but I mean the whole point of what I'm trying to establish here is that like if you look at the water that comes out of that base we're talking about something that dictates a whole lot of monetary flow we could lie about that or pretend that that doesn't exist but there's a number of reasons I don't think it's for like but it does it absolutely does no you don't want to hear it but I'm saying like when you look at the town plan let's not talk about water and the town resources of water my my point wasn't that I knew with you about the water you have your opinions about the water and that's fine and I don't disagree with you I just want you to understand my comments were simply that it's not a for-profit water company and the process the process is the select board gets to adopt the town plan it doesn't have to be ratified by the voters and to which I would add to the select board if that would be something that you fast track the vote on this and pass it without due process of course we're going to bring this back to the public for rejection well can I excuse me this cannot be appealed to the town voters there can be a vote of the town voters that they the town voters adopt the plan that has not happened in water very to my knowledge there's no appeal that I'm aware of and can you correct me I think you have to get a petition of I'm going to be wrong on the percent I want to say it's like 15 percent of the voters there's a very small window of opportunity that that appeal would have to be but so there is a potential avenue of appeal it's not necessarily an easy one for somebody to do but if you get 15 percent of the voters to sign a petition in the amount of time that's allotted by state law then then yeah then it could be basically a rescind process in a sense you know I think we have to look into that we would have to just finish up and I'll keep to be right so I would say this I would say that since this merger not merger since this town has become a non-village entity through age 716 I think instead of rushing to use that process they would like you to use to modify this plan to just make it happen I think it's upon the select board to put this back to the people make sure that this is done right and then say how does this really move forward if we're really going to truly merge I mean quite frankly I voted for the merger back two previous ago and then I voted for the rescinding of it and you know why because the water district is treating everything separate but equally I mean separate but I mean I mean if you look at it the fundamental core of what that water district does it generates property values that are increased for certain people and decreased for others that's not right so I'll leave it that thank you thanks one is there anybody else has any comments on this particular item on this flight board okay looks like that we can officially close out the hearing then on the third draft of the municipal plan and that's fine I think in all due respect we have the current this whole plan is due to expire on December 9th the plan mission is followed the public process you follow the public process we have I think the planning commission has made a huge effort to incorporate public comment into the plan I would encourage you to adopt this draft this evening so that we don't face having a plan that has expired I think that's important and we've talked about that I think there's been a public process we can look into the statutory requirements if you're interested in that I can get I can print it off in my office and I I'm not I don't have in my memory exactly what the process is but the town is not elected to have a town vote on the plan it's your prerogative to adopt the plan as as it moves through the process and the amount of it in the future yeah and I think it's important to note that two things it's the one he just said and then one he said about 20 minutes ago is that we need to have a town plan that's effective and this will our current plan will expire December 9th so if we if you don't take an action to approve the plan then we'll have an expired plan and there are consequences that go along with that the other point is and I'm not suggesting that if mr if you approve it and mr. Anderson decides he wants to appeal it that he shouldn't but what I would remind you all of is that simply adopting this plan doesn't mean it has to stay in place for eight years if there are concerns that rise in the interim you can ask the planning commission to go back and and you know fix something again I think that is I don't think that's I hope that's not necessary in that in the near term but it is much more expedient to have a plan in place as opposed to an expired plan and if there are issues you can you can revisit the concerns that you have I guess I would ask this would that be a more appropriate time or process for perhaps Glenn's concerns would what be a more appropriate process to possibly look at amending some of this in the four-year time frame or well that that's that's that's up to the select board I think right but I'm saying if he has concerns to bring it to the table at the 11th hour basically here tonight it's difficult for us to just put a brick wall in front of the front of the train that's running and and bring it to a complete stop well I think there's I don't think there's any way to resolve the issues that being raised tonight before December 9th it's December 3rd now you're not going to be able to address any of those issues so there's opportunity for him to I mean he can ask you to he can ask you to put on the agenda you know he can come in and ask you to talk about some things if he wants to make presentations and then once once that conversation is had if the select board feels that well we should reopen something or revisit something you can do that and you can consult with the planning commission about what their feelings are and what that process would be but to to not approve this and allow the plan to expire I think would be detrimental to the community from previous testimony the plan does not have enforceable aspects to it it's an inventory of resources within the community and a statement of proper intent going forward for future development but there are other entities within the community that deal with that the zoning commission establishes what can be done within certain tracks of lands the development view board is there in place so this is basically a guidance document it's a it's a guidance document and again I'm not expert enough to to know what happens I believe if the plan expires your current zoning will stay in place but you can't amend the zoning bylaw if you don't have a an adopted plan so there are things that you know the planning commission is the same entity that creates the zoning bylaws and they've been looking at the zoning bylaws for for quite some time in fact they were they were working on and you know some amendments to the zoning bylaw and they put that on the back burner so that they could get the town plan adopted before it expired and I would imagine at some point their planning go back to the zoning bylaws so the bylaws would not be able to be amended if you didn't have a plan in place that is what enables zoning bylaws my my sense from Mr. Anderson's comments is that zoning related activities are probably a more appropriate venue for for trying to address the particular issues there and this just provides that overarching architecture for that process to take place is that a fair yeah I I mean I don't want to speak for Glenn I don't want to speak for Glenn but yes you can you can more specifically speak to the development of particular zoning districts through amendment to the zoning bylaw and and making changes there the plan as you said is kind of a broad document that that points that shows the direction the town would like to move into hang on just second Glenn want everybody to have a chance to speak so barb you go ahead I'm far far the plan is a bit more than just guidance it's also the requirement if you're applying for any grants that are out there do you have an effective plan in place an adopted plan so for transportation projects any community development projects historic preservation projects all require a plan and also when you're undergoing any projects undergoing Act 250 review we'll look towards the plan for what the guidance is for moving forward with any projects on land use so it's not just it is guidance but it's more than that it's a requirement if you're going to be taking the next step for any either funding or Act 250 okay two seconds Glenn yeah I think you know it is putting words on my mouth I think I would say that it's not worth passing this tonight I think you know regardless of grants that might be passed or presented within that time period between the third and the ninth or whatever we resolve a new plan that addresses these issues I mean I think there's there's a concern that it sets a tone for what is permissible development permissible infrastructure it sets a tone for what the shoot still hill actually is and we can test that we're in the courts right now contesting that so to rush this into passage right now I think it is disrespectful to the process and I think it's not just my voice there's a number of people that are you know at stake here so I think part of this problem that I have is that there's been you know if you look at the udak loans and you look at the village development and the disappeared village you have a whole lot of investment into businesses that benefited from this water and at the end of the day when this water is not sustainable we have to address that and I have ideas of mine that's why I got the data for the water right for the water and sewage data but I think there are ways that we can create a better water product and have more sustainability and I think that can incorporate into this point I'm willing to do that but not if we rush through this and fast track this if that happens then the question I put back on you is who has the liability for the words that are created from the stock because I know in 2013 the emergency said that there's going to be a use of land zoning to a municipal zoning to allocate to to restrict the use of water and the extraction of water and essentially create a monopoly so those words have liability and consequence and anything that goes into a ratification state anything that you pass that becomes a document represents intention and significance right so now we're sitting in a space where if my uh recourse is simply to say look you're all screwing me but putting me next to this big massive water empire of people that are working in the billions of dollars people I don't want to have to be put in that position where I have to sue the town I live in and file emotions of harassment so I'm gonna leave it at that I respectfully ask the select which would take your time we could figure this out any grants that may be coming up probably with all due respect maybe should you put on hold as well because we are rushing to develop and rushing to implement this plan and it's backfire and we've seen jobs lost over and over and over again and I'm not limited to russian to something just so that we can like what run for 2003 thousand dollar grants thanks okay um thanks fun so I guess it's the board's decision as to whether or not you wish to approve this tonight and if so then take a motion to approve the final third and final draft of the updated municipal plan as presented there would be a motion to adopt the plan all right I will make the motion to adopt the plan as represented in draft number three dated November 5th 2018 is there a second all second okay a motion has been made and seconded to approve the municipal plan as presented all those in favor hi hi hi very good see you okay thank you very much thank you I think you'll have other opportunities to prove your point in uh do you think it's all about proving my approach no I I know where you're coming from Glenn okay we could have a personal conversation outside of a meeting at some point time I think it's just like one of the most egregious things I think the amount of manipulation has gone into the people's lives to tear their lives apart now you don't understand no it's real don't trust no seriously Glenn so no time to take this up here now um my number is in the book you're welcome to call me anytime okay um so I guess we'll begin the uh select board meeting but before we do so for December 3rd 2018 I want to thank Mark for kind of what we're seeing things here while I was gone on vacation um and I appreciate it so moving forward take a motion to approve the agenda as presented unless there's any changes or additions hearing none seeing none uh motion to approve make a motion to approve is there a second all second back uh no further discussion all those in favor say hi hi hi consent agenda is the next item on the agenda the minutes from November 19th meeting and a liquor license and outside consumption permit for big assist LLC a motion to approve the consent agenda I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented okay second I'll second that um any further discussion I have one I don't know if my mic's working the green yeah keep turning on but Bill do you know the details and why the DLCs requiring them to get two licenses I don't okay I just thought that was odd that they were now requiring that when they weren't previously requiring that just the complicate I don't understand the complications that could be created behind that and we need to say anything against it but it was I mean I just happened to be standing there when he came in and handed it to Carl and he just said well they consider it two locations so whether whether you know when Chad built the uh place in the back uh if you didn't ask I don't know so yeah okay that's all right so there's been a motion and seconded to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say hi hi public the public has a chance to speak um at this moment is there anybody from the public that wishes to make any comments I guess not so we'll move forward 738 a little behind but discussion on vorac grant fields and facilities we're back yes so so go ahead and sure what you got for us absolutely so uh in your last meeting Nick and I presented a proposed grant application and this is to the Vermont outdoor recreation collaborative commonly referred to as the vorac it was an initiative of Governor Scott to build a partnership or collaborative between the state between nonprofit organizations such as the Green Mountain Club and the private recreation sector if you will Kingdom Trails up in Burke other uh companies that sell recreation products so they set up a grant program uh it's a pilot there's a hundred thousand dollars available and what they're saying is that they would like to give either one or two grants to municipalities we're obviously eligible so we brought a project to you last time this is the same project that we're bringing back to so we have a little more detail we have a more detailed budget and the grant application is due December 14th and so we'd like to just go through the budget there's a project description here this will be part of the grant application and there's also a project narrative on the backside that it addresses how this will achieve vorac's vision for outdoor recreation friendly community we see ourselves as an outdoor friendly community certainly and so this project is designed to enhance our existing facilities and so we're trying to make the case that there will be an economic benefit to the town of Waterbury and its citizens and to the business community as a result of this project so there are basically six components to the project the five of them are on the ground improvements and then the fifth is a planning project and we also have Dana and Amanda are here representing the Waterbury area trails alliance commonly referred to as water and Alyssa here is here as well and she's been a partner in putting together this project and drafting the language so I'd like to just go through this fairly quickly with next assistance and just remind you what the basic components are we refine the budget in a nutshell we're like to get authorization to apply for a $50,000 grant that we would be matched with $14,600 in local cash match water has offered to at least we'll take to their membership the possibility of some fundraising private fundraising but it would be a modest amount probably maybe $2500 would be a modest amount so we've gone over this with Bill in terms of budgeting some of these are projects that we need to do anyway and some of them are what I would refer to as optional projects so we'll try to share with you how that breaks out the first item is trailhead and recreational wayfinding signage this would be supplementary to the wayfinding signage and the kiosks that are part of the Main Street Reconstruction Project they're actually part of the contract that State of Vermont will be establishing with with the contractor for Main Street Reconstruction these would be signs with maps that would help people orient to two trails the cross Vermont trail that goes from the end of Wenuski Street to the back of the state complex or that's a segment of the cross Vermont trail that's in Waterbury and then the community path so we want to try to boost utilization of those paths then replacement of new park entrance signs this is a project that Nick has been working on for three of our parks it would be a total of four signs and then would be a renovation and resurfacing of the community path certain sections have grown in the grass there some areas are poorly drained so we want to resurface that path with the gravel base and crushed stone surfacing to help utilization especially when it's used through the Wayfripper's half marathon and the gravel grinder race which are very popular big economic drivers in our community and then lighting fixture replacement for the the lights on the poles at Dacro softball field at Anderson Field tennis courts and outdoor ice rink that would be an energy efficiency project and I'll turn this over to you Nick in a minute to talk a little bit more about that pool building renovation for handicapped houses and for a family gender neutral bathroom and changing room we've downsized that a bit to a modest project that would we feel would meet those requirements that the state has established and then the last project as I mentioned is a project to take a further step to plan and lay the groundwork for the Waterbury village to lower river state park nectar trail working with landowners to further defining a specific route for that trail working with a trails builder to establish budgets and then alignment for the segments that are on existing trails and to establish either easements or agreements this is a project that we would work closely with water they have a keen interest in seeing this project move forward so Nick do you want to add about the a little bit more about the energy efficiency project with the lights? Just that the lights interview it's what we talked about last time when I think we would place a lot of them around then we'd like to just be more efficient so it's like a win-win and the bathroom renovation against what we talked about last time was adding another option so if you look and get through the pool change of their family is handicap excessive. We would also apply for a efficiency Vermont rebate that's been built into the budget that would help pay for the the light fixtures that may be a limited window on when those rebates are are available so this project would allow us to if we can get the grant to move forward with the entire project and then we would hire an electrician to rewire those lights as needed and then the pool building renovation will need to be some electrical work so we built it built in a contingency there to do electrical work in the pool building make sure that any new new wiring meets code and anything else that has to be brought up to code such as the panel would be taken care of at the same time. So real quick before I forget if there's an energy efficiency rebate how does that offset doesn't sorry it doesn't okay yeah it's factored in we would have to cover the cost up front we'd work with bill around budgeting right but the $28,000 whatever that number is already is net of okay of that rebate I was I was hoping to decrease that we factored that and it's not an expensive project but obviously I understand that you said that this is a lot of this was work we were going to be faced it forced to do anyway we don't if we don't I mean all of that can be done I don't have it in front of you but it's around 14,000 something local sure extra yeah so if if the grant is received we can do all that for 14,000 local share but if we don't get the grant some of the lighting and the bathroom stuff will have to be done and then we'll have to so you know we're not going to probably will not know about whether we've received this grant before we do the budget so we're going to have to kind of have a contingency budget and and then if we get the grant we'll we'll do more so do you need a motion yeah what we would ask is a motion to authorize bill to sign a grant application and also to as part of the motion to put $14,600 or approximately $14,600 in the budget as a local cash match that's a good and the application has to be in by December 14th is to do date so I've got a question and a comment are you going to include a map is there a is there a process by which you add a little map here showing where some of these things are yeah well we have in addition to the description we'll we'll do yes there's attachments that would include maps photographs to be able to make sure to do that make the case about the connectivity of these trails and yeah okay including I think every one comment I'd have for number for your third item on your first page here about the community path okay because you you went to a lot of description and I totally agree the it's inadequate and it needs to be updated it's time to do that and it's great I totally support it but I think you need to provide just one sentence that it's about the critical link that it's will provide between the the village an elementary school and the center and an alternative to route 100 okay because it has a very different role than the other connector trail you're talking about right here is the so it's really critical it gets upgraded right the second because it's not being used the way it is right the second sentence refers to that maybe we can just beef it up a little thank you sure what's the feeling on the grant getting approved well we don't know we don't know what the competition will be it's a pilot program so they're only going to be one or two grants so it's hard to know we're going to make the best case we can with the list of health on the economic side there's doesn't ask for a match but we're trying to be competitive there's some questions that deal with underserved populations and you know we are a somewhat affluent community we're trying to make the case that we're vulnerable because of our experience with the state complex being vacated largely after topical storm iran and knowing that jurid green mountain may have further layoffs and water barriers so we're trying to make that case that we're vulnerable and this will help provide some buffer in the community but we don't know is is the answer is there a chance is there a chance that it could be partially funded or is it an all or nothing I don't know what they say in the guidance is that they're probably only going to give one or two grants I think they what they want to do is they want to see a real strong impact in one or two communities they have a hundred thousand dollars is it so it's going to be the one one of the thousand dollar grant to a project they choose or maybe two fifty thousand so we're we're banking on it being one of the fifty thousand we certainly have a shot at is there any role to talk about how we have a lot of young families in our demographic at our school is you know we've been very fortunate because we have full enrollment at our school growing enrollments so the rick rick programs are really important to our town as like an economic factor to draw families here keep people here it's really a big attraction in our in our town though be careful about saying that Jane well I'm not saying you say it exactly enrollment and now it can't change but I'm just I'm not saying it that I'm maybe you don't phrase it quite that way but I think the point is that recreation is really important to our town and we need to stay current or upgrade what we have because we have so many like so popular in so many young families here so maybe lay off the thing about the school but you get my my you get my yeah yeah there's a whole set of criteria that we were we've been working on addressing and I just think that's a big selling point the rec program the summer lunch program that this helps support it's all tied together thank you we got to go to them with the microphone please state your name too please uh dane allen um the president of the water barrier area trails alliance um I wanted to talk a little bit about the trails and the connectivity piece um in a little bit more detail we've been working with steve on this a little bit and um just to sort of let the select board know what's going on there's an initiative right now that's being sort of spearheaded by a lot of small line profits from out mountain bike association is one um the vermont huts association is another vermont backcountry alliance is a third um it's an initiative called the balamont trail um so we're trying to link killington to stow with a purpose built uh mountain bike and backcountry ski connector so mountain bike trail multi-use trail that's worth it um and eventually they're going to be adding huts in along this trail so it's going to be a hut to hut network much like you'd see in like the white mountains of hampshire or in some of the alpine you know regions of europe that's worth it so what we're trying to do water barrier sits right in the middle of this we're kind of in the northern end we've been working with stow trails partnership in stow for a couple of years now i'm figuring out a connector through little river state park um and so what water really wants to do is start to connect the village water barrier with little river state park um and then eventually south towards dowesville area um and the mad river valley so to contextualize this whole grand application vorac um and the governor's initiative for this program kind of came out of this whole versioning mountain bike backcountry skiing outdoor recreation scene um so that's a lot of the impetus there not to discount the traditional outdoor recreation that we're talking about that's really important as well um but this is the sort of thing this this veil amount initiative has captured a lot of imagination and we have a very strategic part to play in this to connect into little river state park to connect to stow to connect south to the mad river valley so this grant if we get this money to improve the community path to conduct additional planning on what's already been done um to get you know over the blushill corridor to little river state park is very very important i think that waterbury has a very good shot um at getting this grant uh because of that strategic importance and because of this initiative there's a lot of awareness at the state right now about veil amount um there's also a lot of private companies that are interested in this like cabin she used to put a lot of money into it um or we'll be putting more money into it in the future so just wanted to sort of put that out there um because that's really why wada's involved we you know we love the community path we love using it during the gravel grinder um we promise to inform you guys of when the day is and not clog up the roads like we did last year i'm sorry um but we want to see the community path improved because that's going to also provide a great connector into any sort of quarter over blushill into little river state park so it's going to be really important for this whole veil amount initiative so just wanted to provide some context there um and just kind of keep you uh up to the um some of that stuff that's going on which is pretty exciting right now so that's my piece if you have any questions or oh well do you think that we should be going for more money for the whole hundred thousand yeah seriously i think we can make a very good case for this budget bill maybe you have some comments but i don't think so well again um if you had wanted to do that i would have asked you to say that when steve came to your last meeting well i had heard about the veil amount well yeah but this application is due on the 14th of december and to come up with 50 000 more of a project that we know that we can do i don't think is possible right now so yeah i think with the veil initiative we're trying to lay the groundwork for the trail and build it in steps and we don't want to get ahead of ourselves because we're dealing with private landowners they uh right now we've got a group of private landowners that are are supportive and but i think we have to build those relationships and set up the agreements and possible easements but we'll you know you'll continue to be involved yeah my comment on that would be i think going for half of it and hoping that they pick two is a better odds and if we can get all this done for 14 000 on ours then we should give ourselves the best shot at getting the money yeah we're trying to be reasonable about our maps and the maps so moving forward is sorry i'll be very quick sorry amanda uh from wata um to answer your question the grant is looking for a lot of shovel writing projects and um this will set us the screen will set us up for the veil amount connector but this point belmont's now the state where we can start really digging into the ground to make the trails so i think this grant what we're proposing is really our best option and it will open us up to more funding down the road for these connector trails so thank you okay so is there a desire from the board to uh make a motion to authorize bill to sign the vorac grant and also put in a budget number of 14 600 in this following year budget i'll make a motion on budget to allow bill to sign the grant application as stated including the local cash match of 14 600 all second okay is there any further discussion i got a question for you bill um hypothetical question perhaps but nonetheless push comes to shove we have to make some cuts in the budget um if this 14 600 ends up going on the chopping block does that also kill the rest of this grant well as was said uh there's no there's no local match required by this grant so you could apply for $50,000 without a local match we think it's more competitive with a $14,600 match um if we get to the point where you're thinking that you have to cut $14,600 out of the budget it's going to be disappointing because there's a $15,000 bathroom renovation that needs to happen and a portion of that $28,500 lighting upgrade that needs to happen so if we can't afford $14,600 we won't be able to do either one of those things so i think let's see what the budget looks like before we worry about where we no it was just a hypothetical question but i'm just saying there's things on here that we're going to if we don't get this grant we'll be paying more than $14,000 for only a couple things on this list all right the motion's been made and seconded uh unless there's any other discussion all those in favor say aye thanks Steve thank nick appreciate it all right so i'm here and on the agenda tonight to have you or ask you to approve the municipal policies and codes for the um we received a grant from the Vermont community development program for the feasibility study to conduct a feasibility study for a community center um we had asked for $45,000 they awarded us $35,000 and one of the um there are several stipulations before we actually received the grant agreement from the organization um to move forward with this but one of them is to sign updated municipal policies and codes i think carlos sent everybody a copy of those over from last friday um the the town has had these in place for other prior grants from the community development program um this is a new version and it includes a whistleblower um clause at the very end of it but it's basically things like uh equal opportunity employment fair housing policies um they're pretty standardized federal requirements use of excessive force policy which means don't use excessive force uh policy use uh for federal lobbying lobbying do you want to do code of ethics uh drug free workplace um monitoring for um sub recipient sub recipient oversight monitoring policy make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing and then the whistle so it's a formality um there are a couple of other items that are required that will happen behind the scenes but that's steve's working on the sam.gov registration is one of them we need to fill out a form that says who's going to be doing what and steve and nick are also part of this so as this project gets underway you're really going to be two of you're going to act as the leads um steve primarily uh nick you're coming in under the way here um to look at all of the different partners on this and a whole public um outreach on doing the feasibility study so that's kind of where we are so this is basically a boilerplate uh document for uh part of the grant acceptance process yes the grants everybody's required and does bill need to have authorization to sign off on that no there's a carla has the policy and each one of you would sign it the select board does yes this mp1 uh requirements there i read through it um is that a complete new new version of the oh the only new addition on that is the whistleblower policy it's the very last page everybody receiving these federal funds is asked to update their policies policies in particular oh i had a couple of issues with some of the stuff that was in there but um i think i'm going to uh stick with my consistency and this is on the community development center right this is on the community uh well i'll be abstaining from it anyway okay well so i should probably mention that and for those of you who are aware um the issue has been well is it going to be a town or a facility is it going to be a burden on the facility on the tax or on the municipality it's going to be a burden on the taxpayers um this feasibility study as the we're going to be hiring out we have a draft rfp that is ready to go once we get the um grant agreement in place but if there is no appetite for having this be a municipal organization there the plan is to look at all other types of ownership possibilities which could be non-profit it could be a public private it could be a private completely privately owned so we don't know so i'm just i just wanted to right and my objection isn't the fact that there's a desire to have this my objection is that there's no guarantee that the taxpayers as a whole won't be on the hook for it if that guarantee was there then be more acceptable to it you know today i can't guarantee but i can right and i it's not your yes absolutely i'm going to be evaluated along with everything else yeah i understand that's part of the process the rfp also looking to identify sites where this could exist or not um the rfp the way it's drafted right now is not to go into detail with any particular sites it's to do a kind of a first brush it um what sites might be available but really the intent of the feasibility study is to look at who else is interested in being a partner in this we know the senior center is you know the children's room is we know the recreation facilities need to be enhanced or changed we know the school lunch program or the lunch summer lunch program that is looking for space so we're really looking at what is who are the other groups that might want to be involved how big should this facility be what is a likely square footage how much of the synergy can be obtained by different groups saying okay there's one commercial kitchen but all these different user groups can use it for different purposes i don't know that um it's intended to be multi generational and multi facility so um so i'll just while we're talking about this i'll convey a little bit of what concerns me um i attended a harwood school budget meeting the other night michelle baker is the bookkeeper financial director whatever you want to call her she went through the budget very for the most part fairly detailed um i came out of it a little frustrated uh watching what was taking place there through the night and uh some of the lack of input as part of the budget process and some of the discussion about possibly cutting minor costs and areas that could be cut whatever but what i came away with was uh on a 37 million dollar budget for harwood ducksberry waterberry moortown wastefield warren feaston we are nine million dollars over the statewide average per pupil spending just in in this district alone um out of the 37 million dollar budget 28 million over 28 million dollars of that was just paying teachers and staff uh just the just the the idea of being nine million dollars over the statewide average per pupil spending was hard to take you know what got us there uh and and why and now they're asking for another 15 million dollar proposal to uh for cost to renovate harwood um you know the budget right now so you understand i i'm it isn't just what takes place here tonight that affects my attitude about cost of property taxes and the cost of living in not only just the town but the state as a whole um you know glenn was talking about curing and these guys pulling out of here you know there's reasons for that and uh i just hope we're not making making bigger problems for ourselves so um moving forward um there's a desire from the board to approve this um and they want us to make the motion what it what is that motion uh motion to accept the mp1 adopt the mp1 uh requirement for community center feasibility study grant excuse me i think it's the codes that you're it's there well it's the same things the municipal policies and codes which is for mp1 but it's not specific to just this feasibility study and once the town adopts these new ones with a whistleblower language they wouldn't have to do it for another grant we will not need to do it for another grant unless they make another change right but they're they're not just policies for the grant they're policies so that becomes the town policy ethics policy um these are the motion is the acceptance of this for the town right yes i have a question yes so the difference between the thirty five thousand dollar funding that's available versus the forty five thousand that we had requested in terms of shaving some off in terms of um the scope of work it's you don't feel that it's significant in terms of impacting what the outcome will be or what's what would change uh well i think the scope is ten thousand dollars less yeah when we when we were applying for this grant we asked a local company who does this sort of work to just give us a ballpark number of what might be expected or anticipated for a cost of a feasibility study and the response came back fifty thousand dollars now that's a we can tweak that but that's pretty much a number you know pulled out of here this is a bottle that's going to cost you so with this funding and the cash maps that we have for it brings the thirty five plus another six thousand two hundred fifty brings it up to a forty one thousand dollar so it's very comfortable yeah thank you so the the one that was previously in place as basically all this boilerplate language with the exception of this one segment that's on the end by the signatures concerning the whistleblower policy correct is there anything in that policy is folks have looked at it that you find objectionable because i guess that would be the the question for us as a board well i can oh yeah uh so yeah i think it's article a paragraph one the last sentence attempts will be made to contact known sources of minority and women potential applicants to maximize the participation yeah if you read if you read the entire paragraph i didn't see a reason for that being there because this is supposed to be an all-inclusive document and it seemed like that singled out a particular group of people to actually emphasize on which seemed you understand i'm saying if it's supposed to be all inclusive then why do you need that that's why do you need that language the other because they want you to solicit from from women's owned or minority owned businesses equal opportunity document yeah these are this is um with regard to employment so we don't anticipate really employing anybody other than a consultant for us but it doesn't mean just this is the policy of the town that's what i want everybody to understand it doesn't mean that we have to seek out minorities or women's own groups to do the study it it means what it says if it's about employment when we employ we're supposed to seek out actively those mentioned groups that should be that should be given based on the language prior to that but anyway but that's usually standard practice with your advertisements anyway doesn't it well it depends on who reads it you know there is there are sometimes i mean there have been grants and i'm looking at steve i we don't need to know which one but there have been grants where you know we have been required to make sure that we sent a proposal to a business owned by women or minorities you know that's different than just saying equal opportunity employer you know it's seeking out as opposed to just accepting from every anyone that applied and i don't think it would be difficult for us to implement this but it is uh the policy of the town that we're adopting not just something for this grant and the other question was the excessive force thing if you read that paragraph it just came to mind that who determines if there's been a civil rights violation and protests typically are supposed to be what civil but there's been instances where a civil protest can turn into hell so if you let the authorities let somebody through the door and then all hell breaks loose boost of light you know maybe i'm looking maybe i'm reading into this too much but in today's world there's no such thing as reading into too much yeah but those are my concerns okay no the rest of the board has any concerns then uh entertain a motion and move forward i'll make a motion to adopt the mp1 as presented for the town of waterbury oh second pet motion been made in seconded is there any further discussion seeing no no is all in favor please say aye thank you so the next time i come out it'll be well the grant agreement well thanks next thanks steve thank you thank you good night the rest of the night's yours bill okay said with such a deep sound um i won't take anywhere near as long as barb took we don't get to see her that often so um so two quick things uh i did not i did not print this out for you or even send it to you uh this first uh item the amendment to the solar solar agreement for a sweetfield solar array um it's really a very minor change as you know there's a 500k w solar away array up on the sweetfield that the village of waterway um um contracted with uh green lantern four back in 2011 or 12 i can't remember exact year and green lantern sold that off to a company from colorado aes and uh they do business as the village of waterway solar one llc uh the off takers of the solar array are the edward for our utility district the town of waterway and the school district and we entered into an agreement and uh what we're what i'm asking to do is authorize me to sign an amendment to that agreement that simply shifts the way that we make payments uh to them um the town only makes or saves somewhere in the vicinity of three to five hundred dollars a year on this agreement it's not a huge deal um energy is produced um credits from that energy hit the town uh electric meters as well as the schools and the villages and uh and then because we don't own the array uh we turn around and we send 90 percent of the money for those credits back to aes who built the array they they built it they own it so when this was enacted it uh was determined that that waterway would probably have to pay about uh 20 about $2,600 a year back to aes the the value of the credits were estimated at about 2,960 uh credits and 90 percent of that we would have to pay aes would be $2,665 so the town was going to make or save $300 in electricity um when green lantern entered into the agreement with us uh they had a mortgage on on the they had a loan to build the facility and they wanted to make sure that they had a cash flow monthly to pay that loan so the village has to pay them $8,400 a month i'm not exactly sure what the school pays uh i think it's about $1,000 a month or so and the town has been paying aes $222 a month and times 12 months that's about $2,600 uh and then uh the current contract says at the end of the year uh we're going to look at the amount of electricity that was produced what the value of the credits were and then if if it produced more electricity than we thought it would we would end up having to pay more money and if it produced less uh they might owe us something back so we don't do that true up until uh march or april now of the following year so it's a calendar year contract on december 31st uh we'll close the books and then it takes them a couple months to gather all the information and they look back and last april or may they sent us a bill and said well you owe us $1,044 more and um the fact that we owed them $1,044 more really meant we saved more money than than we we thought we were gonna because uh you know we got the other 10 percent of that of that difference so to the town it's not that big of a deal it's not hard for us to write a $222 check every single month and then at the end of the year the true up is a thousand dollars either way but the village uh unfortunately is they're paying $8,400 a year and the village ended up getting about $35,000 back $8,400 a year is a little more than a hundred thousand dollars um a month $8,400 a month is about a hundred thousand dollars and then the village didn't get anywhere near as much benefit from it as they thought so they ended up having to they got a a big credit and for the village to have to write a check every single month for $8,400 and then wait until may or april of the next march or april of the next year to get money back is is a big ask so now what's going to happen starting january first if you approve this agreement um they will just send a bill for the credits 90 percent of the credits that are generated that month now for the village that's going to mean they're going to have payment that goes like this in the winter months they're going to be paying a little in the summer months they're going to be paying probably $30,000 or so but they're going to pay as they go and they won't have to have sitting in somebody else's bank a lot of their money so it's a big deal for the village it's not that big of a deal for the town but all three entities really need to agree to the change school district agreed the other night i think the night that you were there whether you saw them vote on it or not but uh they sent the contract back to AES today the other thing that is changing in this contract i turned out to be too interested in making sure that the village in the town got treated fairly when we entered into this agreement i wanted to make sure because it was the village's land and the village had the biggest costs for electricity the wastewater treatment plant and the water treatment plant are two big users i wanted to make sure that the power first went to the village and then i wanted the power and he left over so all the all the credits would go to the village until the village meters couldn't take any more and then i wanted it to go to the town and then after the town i wanted to go to school because some of the school people live in duck spray and why should they benefit on paper that was a good a good thing to do to try to make sure all the credits went village town school unfortunately what made the the monthly payments a skew especially for the village is that we're not at the equator so in the winter months there's there's not enough electricity being made it was just hitting one meter and that meter got everything and if you look at this spreadsheet you know the town really got power in two months the rest of the time there wasn't enough for the town to even get so the agreement changes that and there's an attachment to this contract which basically lists all the town and village and school district meters and you know meter 87 74 which is a town meter is going to get 1.44 percent of the energy generated every month so if there's 500 kilowatt hours generated in january the town will get 1.44 percent of that for that meter and it will again it will take away these bumps and ups and downs so with that brief and confusing explanation i would recommend that you authorize me to sign this agreement i'll answer questions if you have them but somebody like to make that motion i'll make a motion that we authorize bills to sign evening okay is there a second i second that all right does anybody have any further comments or questions nobody okay i guess it was confusing you know what like it was confusing when you said it was good that we were paying more because we were making more yes yeah the ups and downs and ins and outs or trials and tribulations what do you why do you think the problem is that it's a it's a prorated split now instead of loading one bucket completely and not that i follow better to do that than that's why the people in renewable energy business are making loads of money it's too confusing kind of like politics all right motion has been made and seconded to amend the solar array agreement for the sweet field solar array uh all those in favor say hi hi hi okay um letter b this ties in a little bit with uh mark's question mark fryer's question when we had the the first public hearing on the town plan and this housing task force um alissa came to see me uh week or so ago and let me know that that wendy night the commissioner of tourism and um department of tourism and tourism and marketing for the state had been uh looking at a uh research project uh they were going to uh contract out and they were looking at a proposal from a company by the name of vintopia and it's a it's a short-term rental research project so um i talked with alissa a little bit and um wendy's email commissioner night's email to alissa basically said that they were looking at a fifteen thousand dollar project and uh were thinking that maybe some of the local communities could come up with together five thousand dollars towards this project the her department's budget has ten thousand dollars in it she was looking at a fifteen thousand dollar project and and without reading all the emails uh to you word for word they were basically looking at still as kind of the hub of where a lot of more than likely the short-term rental air b and b if you will are existing and then they were looking at you know maybe they could look at waterbury at johnson and at cambridge uh those communities that surround uh stow and and on the other side of smuggler's notch that has the ski area over there so i looked at the intopia proposal and um you know the fifteen thousand dollar project um i was a little bit concerned because it was a fifteen thousand dollar project but it was going to really analyze two of those four communities so i sent an email to commissioner night and i said well you know if you're looking at the fifteen thousand dollar project and you're looking for money you know from from these other towns you know splitting the five thousand dollars by four it's about thirteen hundred and seventy five dollars each but i said the problem is you're going to analyze two communities so we're all going to kick in thirteen hundred dollars but what if you decide to look at stow and johnson as opposed to stow and waterbury so i wondered whether it would be better for um you know the four towns to kick in um thirteen hundred and seventy five dollars and that generates fifty five hundred dollars which was intopia's first proposal lowest price proposal and i said after you get that information then maybe you decide to go to the next step so i sent her a fairly lengthy email expressing what my concerns were and i said i think we're interested in this based on the conversation that we had at the uh at your last meeting when the planning folks were here and then on your decision that you'd like to solicit folks for this housing task force so i thought that you had kind of expressed enough interest that if this was going to go forward i said i can probably find thirteen hundred dollars right now if we had to anyway after she saw my email and i think saw the concerns that i pointed out that the fifteen thousand dollar project was only going to focus on two towns and you've got four towns she pulled back a little bit and uh you know she sent me an email back and said you know thank you very much for your concerns we're going to adjust this a little bit and we're going to do a project with intopia that kind of is a more baseline look that will give us some information statewide and then from that we may decide to uh you know come down from fifty thousands feet to twenty thousand feet and at that time she said we might ask the towns for some uh some assistance if they wanted to to be involved and she said what we probably would do is share the statewide information with a with towns where it seemed that this was an issue and then ask the towns to join together and kind of move forward with the more expensive plan in the town in the state rather than fund ten thousand of the more expensive plan would maybe fund five thousand of a more expensive plan and let the towns that were looking for the information to fund the rest of it so there's nothing to approve tonight it's my only question is given that i'm starting to work on the budget and you've talked about this task force um is this information the type that you might be interested in and if so i've probably included the budget maybe up to five thousand dollars to do something i'm not here to make a proposal that would jump in with intopia to do anything the the state is going to do something right now with their ten thousand dollars and after they get their information i'm sure they'll share that with us we may want to move to a next step so i'm just wondering if this is something that the board has any interested in or not if not it's easy i can just drop it if you're have some interest you know i'll i'll work with elissa to keep in contact with commissioner night to see where they are in this process and then we'll be able to make the next decision but it might require having some money held somewhere that we can act with so is the goal of this study just to clarify is to try to determine the impact on the short term air bnb if that's what you want to call them uh in the housing market is that what it's yeah i think um this is this is her email to elissa the initial project would not include an assessment of how short term impact short term rentals impact housing stock or for availability in a community however the project would provide a benchmark for us to then do a further analysis so um i don't have all the answers chris to all these questions it just seemed timely based on what we talked about before and as i said i felt based on what we discussed a couple weeks ago that if they were looking for you know a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars before the end of the year to put toward this program i could probably find that and and we would jump in for that minimal amount of money i think after her reading of my email she decided that well we need a little bit more baseline information before we can we can assess that the the proposal that they were thinking of which was the fifteen thousand dollar proposal option includes identification of individual online listings for airbnb home away vrbo by using third party technology develop an algorithm it uses more resources and time to capture all necessary information the purpose of this option is to provide a set of one-time statistical benchmarks of the current situation gain more detailed information about rbo's and then infer an approximation in annual lodging taxes and fees that are potentially not being collected from vacation rental marketplace so i think the state is looking at this to make sure that there's a more level playing field between the vacation rentals and and the traditional lodging facilities because i understand that airbnb is already supposed to be collecting those taxes whether they do or not i don't know actually yeah they do yeah okay because i maybe i should i was going to say are they authorized to pay the tax to the state and is there any oversight whether it's to okay what happened was it used to be you had to send the tax in yourself quarterly as in self-report and there was an agreement made with the state and now it's just directly taken out and the airbnb host never sees that money just goes directly to airbnb to the state correct me if i'm wrong they also made you file a rooms and meals number for your property and what airbnb pays on behalf of that yes that's what it is we have a number but we don't have to pay the tax anymore so actually it was a it was a win for the property owner who had that was the host because we used to take nine percent out of the revenue and mail it in quarterly and now we charge the same amount and we pay a fee to airbnb but and the fee is is charged to the customer and it goes directly to the state so we get the same amount so mark get the full amount i guess my question to you is i understand the concern what do you what would you i think ultimately the hope would be to get an understanding of that impact i understand that this study doesn't have it but i think that there is a significant impact to supply demand in our community based on not only current property switching over from long-term housing to short-term housing but also the creation of additional properties for the short-term models but also people going to our community to buy properties to also not only people that already own that are transitioning to that but people that are coming into the into the community and buying i know it's definitely happening in stowe and i assume it's also happening here is that there's a certain price point of home that is also being purchased for an income model that can be created via these short-term properties so if we don't have a full understanding from a municipality of what that impact is and we talk a lot about affordability there are potentially things that we need to be doing to help with the demand side to keep affordability where it needs to be because i think when we look at data for example what's in the town plan and it says hey our vacancy rates are good but maybe they're not and maybe they're actually unhealthy maybe we need to be doing more to make sure that housing units are created to help with the demand of who's actually living here and trying to work and live here which also ultimately helps build grand list and you know further our ability to afford to live here and to to pay out our budget for for a town so there's there's a challenge there that i think stowe recognizes is the problem is that there isn't until recently there wasn't a lot of the ability to actually understand how much that income was was a self-reporting requirement it was similar to amazon saying every year you're supposed to tell them how much you spent on amazon and how many people were actually you know so there is more happening that i think there will be more visibility to understanding that i think what it sounds like this is going to do is they're going to scrub all these sites that because i think arabian bees following but i don't know if the rule was that you know is every single way that you can you know some people post on craigslist you know like there's a bunch of other ways that you can create income on short term that you can still maybe skirt the ability to report to the state and so all of the incomes probably not and i don't know if this report will be able to do that as well but i'm i'm all for trying to i think ultimately it's a it's a smart investment as a town to continue to learn what this impact is the dollars that it sounds like for this initial it's it's kind of unfortunate because it sounds like when you went to them and said hey if you're only going to pick two the sound then they're like okay we'll go this high and you're like well great now now it's almost like why isn't the state just fully paying out the fifteen thousand dollars if it's going to be this high yeah the state i think right now the state's going to do something for ten thousand dollars to try to get some statewide information commissioner night called called me the other day after i sent the email and she said wow your email was you know kind of eye-opening and those are kind of some of the things that we're thinking about so we're going to move away from this we're going to pick kind of looking at two towns for fifteen thousand dollars and we're just going to spend our money to get some information that's helpful to us kind of statewide i don't know how much they're going to be able to get for ten thousand dollars if they're going to look at the whole state but i think what i'm saying is um you know alissa and i will continue to monitor what's going on with this particular study from the state we'll try to understand exactly what they're asking to get and we'll ask for you know it's going to be public information obviously we can get it all i'm trying to do at this point is ask that once that state um uh the state funded study is done it may help identify some areas that might be easy things for us to look at i mean i to get everything that you're looking for i think is you know that's going to be a really big project and i think i'm just asking is this something that you'd ask us to continue to monitor and maybe put five thousand dollars in the budget for some type of housing study next year and then we can maybe we can collaborate with stove and the state and and you know leverage our money that way that's all i'm trying to find out right now i don't i don't have a specific scope of work in mind at the present time now based on what you were saying before i mean it would make sense that they create some sort of solution with an algorithm just to pulse what's out there for information and kind of create a heat map of the state for lack of a better word that would give them at least a starting point of where stuff is and then be able to hone in on it but i think it it is in our best interest to be prepared to try to do something like that if we can be a little more surgical in our area i mean basically you're at i absolutely supported i think if we just put five thousand aside for the potential of being able to buy into the data that is important to us i think that that absolutely is something that we should consider um yeah i would imagine that once they create the software that allows them to to scan these websites and try to get as much data i'd imagine it's just like zoom in like i'd imagine that it would be much easier than to pull some localized data as these websites build that within to their their own algorithms when you go to try to book a place is that you pick a radius dependent you know choice so i would imagine that information potentially could be a done rather easily once they've built design whatever they need to do to be able to start to try to create those quantities and and just what that data is so i mean i i fully support it and i i would say that i would hope that we could we could have that information i think it's going to be really important in the future well i could see the research and monitoring of this issue being uh relatively easy compared to the solution yeah sure yeah i mean i think i mentioned in the other one there are communities in the us that have created and i think some of it unfortunately has gone to the state supreme courts i i know austin texas created rules surrounding new real estate and and the ability to rent it for certain periods of time to try to curb new construction fully focused on short-term rentals so but i i did recently read something that it either was at or already out of the supreme court potentially was challenged in one that you can't do that so i don't know out of that's a state issue or you know specific to the state but i know that communities are trying to slow some of this to try to create order because like you know imagine i mean stow is a great example of like it's completely different even up there in terms of what short-term housing is doing to their real estate market imagine if you're anywhere else in the united states that's a up super popular tourism and trying to live amongst that is you know we see those challenges here and it's it's going to continue i think as vermont becomes a very tourist focused state and hospitality and tourism is one of the largest economic drivers of what's happening in the state we should be ready for that because of our you know our locale compared to stow and we're on that exit in that corridor and i had a gentleman just tell me the other day that uh he was going to start uh advertising his property as you know for airbnb and uh he had somebody come along that was willing to give him more than what he was going to get through that process for an entire year and only be here on weekends and uh let me tell you he didn't hesitate i don't understand where people are getting their money but i guess they don't live here only on weekends yeah they want to live here full-time i guess that's their goal but bill did you want oh sorry no i think elissa did you have something no i was just at mark's point i think the biggest thing is just having the we don't know what percent of the housing stock event you know i think the state doesn't even know that but in some ways has to do with revenue attachments as bill alluded to but i think locally like mark said part of it is just if we're looking to staff a housing task force whether it's steve or i or whoever done the line knowing we have x units of housing is it five 10 15 25 percent i do as soon as i start it it's just understanding what percentage of waterbury's housing stock may or may not be involved having that even if it is a static benchmark to start i think would be really helpful enough to that was i think the lens of bringing it to bill initially was just and you know bill was going if you can get this data for this amount of money like that would be great versus again one of us doing more time and without the technical expertise so i think that was just kind of the impetus initially was that it would be a good way to get some data right off the back so that we know more and now hopefully the proposal tweaks in a positive direction all the boards in favor of you know least tentatively sticking that number in i don't think you need to make a motion tonight i just wanted to bring this to your attention see if it was something that this kind of anger was of interest and when we get into the budget process we'll talk about it again but i think it's an issue that we need some information and it's an interesting conversation to continue to put pressure on the state to take it seriously and understand our concerns and have them spend a little bit more than even ten thousand dollars on researching this a little bit more i think that's a small number for the impact that it's doing to the state and ultimately could could be profitable for the state and communities go into agency about this because obviously the department of tourism has a different interest than the folks who are worried about affordable housing you know so i'm sitting down Phil Scott on wednesday so you should mention it to it you suppose there's a question there that there'd be some form of a fee that would impact fee that would go towards communities based on those types of rentals rentals yeah i think again with a level playing field question mark is if you select them out specifically as impact fees then you know they might say well why aren't you charging in the hotels or you know like there's i think there's a there's a yeah i think let's just start by hoping that the state can figure out how to make sure that everyone's paying their proper taxes and then maybe there's some easy numbers that can be back calculated on usage identifying properties just through requiring properties to register and pay their taxes on income i'd be curious to know what the state's getting in current taxes through that process right now through airbnb you know you just had a release i think that so if you google the offices back in airbnb i think they just you know i'm sure it's much more than last year yeah i don't want to do my top nine percent of wednesday okay okay so there's no other items then uh somebody can make a motion to get out of here i'll make a motion to adjourn i'll send it okay all those in favor