 So the bill is trustees to order. Agenda additions weren't changed just tonight. Announcements are just one minute. So we have an executive session 5E to discuss a real estate matter. 6C approve a temporary COVID-19. This is a holdover from last night. As I mentioned, the executive session then becomes 8A. And then there are some handouts. Trustees, are there any concerns about any of this? Somebody wants to make a motion? The move, we approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, George. Is there any discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Thank you. And thank you for the patience and willingness to put this off from the emergency leave policy for putting that off to tonight so that we have a chance to read the policy. So I appreciate that. And that brings us to public to be heard. So this is a portion of the meeting where if there's anybody from the public who wishes to address the board about something that is not on the agenda, then this will be the time to do so. I see the participants who are here are only using Microsoft Teams. So if you would like to speak to the board about something that is not on the agenda, then please take the moment using Teams and raise your hand and I'll be sure to call on you. Please note you will have two minutes, a maximum of two minutes and time for speaking is now. All right. No hands are up. So we will go ahead and move off of public to be heard and into the first business item, which is business item 5a, a discussion and possible action. Stop moving the screen. Discussion 5a, economic development tax. In your packet is a memo from the finance director, Sarah Macy. You had asked to discuss whether you would want to ask the voters to extend the economic development tax. I believe it is one penny on the tax rate. We have a little bit of history in the memo. And then, so I think George might even be able to, George is here and Robin is also on to give a good history of what the tax has been used for. The projects that we have in front of us. And then down at the bottom, there's some more stuff about how we address special funds. So I'll answer any questions. And so we did talk about this at our last meeting. Hopefully everybody has had a chance to read the memo as there were questions about should merger pass, what can the, or how can the funds be used and whether they are required to stay within the intent of the funds, which thank you for reaching out to Dan Richardson and finding that yes, it should merger pass. Then yes, those funds would be required to be utilized for their intended purpose. So we got that answer, which is appreciated. And also just appreciate the details here that are on the screen now about all of, how all the additional funds, what the impacts of those funds would be in a merger world. So to get the, I guess the conversation started at the last meeting, it seemed as if there was a general interest in continuing the economic development tax. I would suggest of the conversation starter that we ask the voters to extend the economic development tax and I would propose a three year time period. By doing so, that should allow for merger to be solidified, should it pass or not. And then should it pass, then that would also get us through the transitional governing board. So then that way that is one less thing that that initial board needs to worry about and should put us up into the first year of a merged entity where then the new board could figure out whether to put this on, whether to continue this or not. Yeah, I don't know if you're inviting comments, Andrew, or I support you. I think we hit on some of these arguments last time. I think as one of the things we said is that if and when the Crescent Connector Project gets back on track, there's going to be need and opportunity for us to come up probably with some additional funds. I mean, the roadway will work fine and it's got parking spaces and it's got some state funds that will provide basic lighting and sidewalks and stuff. But I think if we want to kind of continue the theme that we have in the village core of the nicer looking lights and some other amenities like that, we're going to need to come up with the additional funds. I would also point out one of the things that occurred to me is I was sitting traffic next to the Firebird many, many times throughout the week and gazed over lovingly at the big dirt parking lot behind Firebird that Mr. Handy is allowed us to use as a public space, but we sometimes forget when someone gives you something, they can take it away. And if Mr. Handy decides to develop his property sometime, we're suddenly going to be out of like 20 parking spaces right in that immediate area. And I think it's been a great thing that he's done and it's a great service, favor he's done for us because I think all the businesses on Main Street have benefited from that because it's quite full a lot of the time. But my point is that I think there's going to be a need for this fund, this kind of spending for at least for the next few years when we get the Crescent Connector built and see what else happens in the Village Core and the idea that after merger you would still be designated just for this purpose that couldn't be exploited for some other reason in my mind speaks to keeping it going. Trustees, other questions, comments? Raj. I mean, along that line, I think you know, we're going to be looking at improving pedestrian access. You know, I kind of see under economic development for that core area improvements for pedestrians, facilities for cyclists, especially as we get more residents. And with more businesses coming in, if all works out, we may have needs arise that can't be predicted, but I think it's definitely worthwhile. And I think we can point to some thoughtful uses of the of the fund to date for residents so they have an idea of what we're doing with us. Absolutely. Go ahead, Amber. I'm just going to keep it short and say I agree with what has been said and support the proposal for three years. Sounds like there's general consensus. Before we vote, we can turn this over for public comment unless anybody has anything else burning to say. Andrew, I just want to clarify one thing. So if merger is approved, I understand that the residual money can only spend for this purpose, but obviously the taxing mechanism changed. We can put a it's a penny on the village tax rate. So there's no longer going to be a village tax rate. It would be a different tax rate. So the funds would stop. Is that correct? There's no idea that you would put a penny on the entire town tax rate. That would have to be a completely different decision, a completely different vote. Is that correct? When you're saying to put it onto the town, do you mean everybody within the town in a post-mortem world? Right. This absolutely has no bearing on. There would have no bearing. The money would stop if the village is no longer has a tax rate. The village no longer has a separate fund, I mean a separate general fund. Then there's no more money coming into this economic development fund. The money that's in there would only be used for developing the village core, but there'd be no more additional money coming into it. Correct? Without an additional ask to the voters to ask them to approve of that specifically correct, which in that theoretical work, in that theoretical world, sure that could possibly happen. Yeah, and I'm only asking this not because I don't know, but I just want us all to be clear on that because I'm sure that that question will come up at some point. Right. Good question. Go ahead, Raj. And the should merger happen, the three districts that the sidewalk and cap, those don't count as a tax those don't count. In other words, those will still be collecting, but this wouldn't be attached to that. It's only attached to general fund. Right. I mean, I don't want to take over. I don't want to let you go ahead, Andrew. I don't want to. No, I think Evan, go ahead. Wait, Raj, you asked that question again. I missed that. Sorry, Evan, I'm just taking George's question comment one step further and making sure that this would only apply to a general fund budget, not any remaining should merger happen. The village will still, the way it's written, the merger will have a debt sidewalk and capital districts and taxes collected for those. This one percent would not, one penny, excuse me, would not apply to those taxes. It's only the general fund, which under merger would disappear. Does that make sense? Am I asking that clearly? I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to give you give me a moment. Okay. The village, yeah. So those districts that are enumerated, those get created upon the effective date of merger. The village can, so if you, if you agree to three years and let's say the effective date of merger is before the third year, we would just have to check to see if you need to either take action. I believe you can always take action to cancel attacks. So I did just have to check that, but you may have a reason to continue it for its third year, which I would have to check on that. I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sure it's automatically gone because of merger. It's automatically gone because of its three-year sunset. But let me give you a different one. You don't have to levy attacks. So you could just take action to say, I know we're authorized to levy this one penny. We are not going to levy it. So, but without a general fund. So if merger takes effect, the village is gone and there's a new general fund budget under the town of Essex, the town at the new town of Essex, and we're talking hypothetically, the new hypothetical town of Essex those districts are actually under that entity. So that there's no village entity, anything. Those districts would be entities or districts of the new town of Essex. And I would suggest that as we go forward, if merger happens, and as we go forward, interim governmental board may have some issues of that transition. All right, thank you. I suggest three years is a good, still a good length of time. And if it ends up being one year into the transition, again, the downtown is not bereft of needs. Thank you. All right. So it seems as if we are ready to move on from this. But before we do, I will turn this over for public comment. So if there's anybody from the public who wishes to speak to the item of this economic development tax, then now will be the time to do so, similar to before. Everybody who is participating right now appears to be using Microsoft Teams. So please go ahead and raise your hand if you would like to speak. You will have two minutes to do so. And again, go ahead and raise your hand if you'd like to speak. Hearing or seeing no hands going up. We will go ahead and move back to the board. If somebody would like to make a motion, please go forward. I can do it. I move that trustees place a question on the 2021 annual meeting ballot asking voters to extend the economic development tax. Do we need to get any more specific than that? Possibly for a period of three years. For a period of three years. Thank you. Thank you, Ross, for the motion. I'll second. Thank you, George, for the second. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Thank you. The past unanimously. Thank you again, Evan, for the research. Welcome. And again, procedurally, we also would recommend a new MOU and a resolution with the joint board, with this board and the joint board. That's a procedural thing after the election. And that brings us into the fiscal year 2022 budget workshop and schedule. Sarah, I believe I saw you before. I combed back through my notes at the end of last week to try to capture everything that we had been talking about in early December because time flies. And that's the last time we talked about budget. So a quick summary. Where we left things, we were looking at a $5.6 million total expenditure budget. That is just shy of a 5% increase. The driver on the increase. Oh, I can't remember that right now. So I'm going to keep going. The tax levy would be less than a 2% increase over FY21. Because of the transition of the rolling stock. Moving into the highway budget and then into the town budget and then having the town highway tax be eliminated in that whole initiative that we've been talking about. We're looking at less. We're looking at an estimated tax rate. That's a quarter of a penny. Give or take over FY21 using average grantless growth. And that would be about a $7 increase year over year. One of the things in my memo, I tried to hit on all the things that I came up that I could find in my notes. And there was a question about what would it cost if we budgeted for an 100% acceptance rate for the stipends at $50 per person, per meeting for all the village boards and committees. So I just want to shout out to Linda who recently updated all of the boards and committees on the website. And that was super helpful for me to get in and see how many people were on each of these committees. They put this together. So here I've put in the table what I was thinking. I have included Social Security taxes after checking with the LCT. These all would be paid through payroll the same way the trustees are paid now. I actually can't remember how much. Oh, we put an additional $10,000 in the budget for stipends. And we would need another six to fund it, assuming 100% acceptance rate. And then a number of estimated meetings per year is an estimate. Let's see. We had also talked about increasing the amount paid to the trustees, the Zoning Board of Adjustment and the Planning Commission, which are the only boards right now that are currently being paid. We received clarification from the village attorney that any change to the trustees stipend would have to go as a separate article on the ballot. So we would include that in the budget and on the ballot. We had talked about in this budget and the numbers reflected above, we have $75,000 going to the building's maintenance fund after hearing about some big large-dollar priority projects, specifically for the Brownhouse Library Roof and for electrical redistribution between two Lincoln and the Fire Station. And we had increased that transfer from $50,000 to $75,000 in order to accommodate these projects to one in 22 and one in 23. However, at a meeting recently, the trustees assigned some fund balance toward building's maintenance purposes and transferred back into the building's maintenance fund, which gives us an additional $63,000, which means we have sufficient funding to tackle both of these priority projects in the upcoming year. Those are all, I believe I have answered now some of our lingering questions from Budget Day. I did put on here as well where our timelines, one of the things that got away from me on the town side was the timeline a little bit. In prior years, we've had to warn village annual meeting in a way that we didn't yet have the results of the town budget vote. And this year, because we're doing Australian ballot and we could warn annual meeting on our regular meeting at March 9th, which would give us, which would allow us to know the outcome of the town vote. So there's a little bit more flexibility here. So I did put in here in case you want to do two public hearings instead of one, some dates. So here's what I want to do tonight. Now that I've yammered for a few minutes, I want to get back into the budget and I would like us to get and just to do some more work on it if we get to a place where we think it's good to go, then great. If not, we could work some more on it on February 9th, but I have the workbook here. I'd be happy to pull it up and we can tackle questions or outstanding items that you guys have and see how far we get. Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate that. Before we dive into it, I do just want to make a general housekeeping note. If you have joined the meeting, please make sure to mute your microphone if you're not speaking. It helps to make sure we don't get background noise and interference. Appreciate that. So I'd have a couple of questions. So my recollection or I'll start with the stipends for board members. At our last conversation, one of the things I had expressed and I want to I want to re-express again is I'd really prefer that we have this be an opt out as opposed to an opt in. So in essence, I'd like us to plan on everybody taking the stipend and if they choose to not take the stipend, then they can make that happen on their own. That would help to ensure that we don't create the lunch line problem where the child with free reduced lunch has a shout to the cafeteria person, hey, I'm the free reduced lunch kid. Let's remove that stigma from happening. That would just be my preference. Moving down with the stipend for trustees, I thought we landed on a thousand for trustees as I thought we were doubling or I thought my proposal was to double everybody's. So the zoning board, the planning commission and us would all be doubled, which would be in a thousand instead of 750. I can change that. I couldn't remember. That's all, man. I know that said we talked about maybe stepping into that doubling, but it has to be a separate article on the ballot. So do you want to do that multiple years? You guys make that call. I'll change the numbers. Again, this is only me. I would prefer to do it once and likely not again for a few years, regardless of what happens with merger. I feel that if we do it now, wait a couple years, do it again. Wait a couple years, do it again. It sort of feels like is this going to end at any point in time? So I'd rather just do it once. Yeah, and Andrew, I do believe you are right. I think we said $1,000. Okay. Yeah, that's what I had in my mind. Thank you. My last one is a question, and that's about if we wait to warn the annual meeting for March 9th, with mail-in ballots, does that give us enough time to then print and mail the ballots to then get the ballots back in time? Because I assume we then can't send anything to the printer until the 9th, which that's going to take a little bit of time to get those back, stuff, mailed. I love the concept. I have no comment. I don't know. I would love to get... I'm already thinking about next year and could we get this all done before Christmas? But so I would love to have it... Just let me check something off the list. So I would be okay with not waiting until March 9th. I just wanted to make sure you had the timeline. That's a really good question, Andrew. I don't know how much time the printer needs. Well, what if... Can I... Just looking at the schedule, the budget schedule you've provided, do we... Could we possibly warn the first public hearing on the 26th after we finish that? Or do we... I'm not... I'm saying this without knowing exactly how much more work needs to be done. So I'm wondering if we warn it on the 26th, that's the 9th and the 23rd of the two public hearings. That doesn't get us to after the town vote, obviously. Never had that before. Maybe we just do... This is a provision that it has to be right, Sarah, within no less than 30 days and no more than 40. Tammy, yeah, it's the warning. The warning has to be posted between 30 and 40 days prior to the meeting. Yes, I'm sorry. I was just raising my hand and Evan just took the words out of my mouth. So, yes. And ballot voting is on the 13th. So 30 days brings you to March 13th. And then another 10. So you're... We're talking six days, seven days. And that's for warning it. Yeah. Raj, I'd like to answer your question. Certainly. So I would like to know from the trustees, do you want to hold two public hearings since we're moving to Australia ballot from floor vote on the budget? And then if so, what are the dates for those? And if you want to vote to warn the first one tonight, while we're... You know, tonight's the 26th. You could warn it for the 9th. And we could make that happen. We could have the public hearings on the 9th and the 23rd. I'm going to just come out and say it because I'm embarrassed, but I... I forgot today was the 26th. I thought that was like two weeks from now. Take a talk. I want to go home. Oh, well, in that case... Please don't have... You know, I don't have any more real changes to this budget. I mean, I can pull it right up on the screen. Andrew has made a few suggestions. I'm here to workshop it with you if we get it to a good spot where we're comfortable with this tonight. We could mourn the public hearing. We can still make changes after that. It won't be adopted yet. And so I don't see any reason why we couldn't get to that point this evening. George, you've been waiting. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm going to jog everybody's memory because you were all here last year at this time. And we didn't need two public hearings. I'm going to say that. And I'm going to say the year before that we didn't need two public hearings. I can't remember the last time we've had a highly contentious amongst ourself, amongst the trustees, and between the trustees and village residents, public hearing scenario about the budget where we really needed two public hearings. So I'm going to suggest we just have one public hearing. Three that we... I don't see this as a contentious budget. I don't see this needing to have two. One thing I'm curious on though is, so if we warn the public hearings, if we do warn two, one for the ninth and one for the 23rd, if we warn a public hearing, does that then mean the budget has to be finalized before the public hearing? Or if necessary, can we still amend the budget? I don't have any go. No, you go if you want. Because you have a public hearing, you are, in essence, the quick... Let's take a step back. Two different types of hearing. Is it an informational hearing where the budget is not going to be changed? Or is it a hearing where it might be changed? The one thing that I would suggest is if you're going to be open to changing it on the same night you have on the agenda adopting the budget. And so if anything changes, you still have the opportunity to go into session, make the change, and adapt the budget. So I guess the impetus for the question or really the motive behind it is, if there's really no difference in calling the ninth the public hearing or not, then why don't we just call it a public hearing? It'll function like every other conversation we have, even similar to what we're doing right now, but we call it a public hearing, and we have two public hearings, two public hearings. Largely in the sense of one of the things that I recall being discussed in social media, at least, is that the town's version of the merger has two public hearings instead of one. And for that sake, why not just have two public hearings? I don't have any problem with that. My only thing is, and I think maybe for Sarah, if we're doing this, which is great, let's do them early so that we could then get our warnings done, and as Sarah might say, check off that box. I'd say let's do the hearings on the ninth and the 23rd, but that's just my proposal. I'm sorry, now I'm getting back to the screen, and I'm seeing that Roger had your hand up. Tammy, did you, you were reformated, did you need something or have something? Sorry. Well, I was just going to say that according to what Susan has for a schedule, the ballots have to be ready by March 23rd. So you're saying public hearing on, you're saying February 23rd, right? Yes, say February 23rd would be the second and the last public hearing. So February 23rd, and if a second hearing notice, and then the second hearing would be March 9th, and then you would adopt on the 9th. Tammy, we're going to have the first public hearing on February 9th, the second public hearing on February 23rd, and adopt on February 23rd is what the public hearing is. Oh, I have Mark. That's what we're currently discussing. That's different from what's in my memo. Okay. Your reading skills are fantastic. So I was just going to say, you know, I agree with George, not a very contentious budget, and very little attention paid in the past, but because of the change this year to Australian ballot, it very likely will be a very, very short public hearing, but we'll be there anyway, most likely doing other things. So we might as well make it, you know, and if the worst thing that can happen is people want to talk about it and have input. You know, so that would be great, but I would say let's err on the side of this is the first time we're doing this by Australian ballot and have two if they're needed. And if not, we'll just move on to other business. You know what I mean? So yeah, it certainly wouldn't be the first time we've had a public hearing where the public comments were zero. And we then just moved on to the next agenda item. That works. So Sarah or somebody else, if at some point, one of you could check with Susan though, just on that timeline and ensuring that the 23rd, I mean, I assume that the 23rd is plenty of time to adopt the budget, get the ballots together, and mail them out. But just to get that confirmed. Yep. I'll take care of it. Thank you. Looks like Sarah may have frozen. That or she's being a really good statue. Yeah, frozen. As all right, I got Susan's going to respond. I think that's going to be plenty of time. Great. Probably the next morning then or whatever, the ballots will go to the printer and we'll be good. She's actually responding now. Wow. Or at least those three dots going across the screen say somebody is responding. It's probably her cat. It's her cat. I'm just guessing. There's a cat. I don't know. It could be a guinea pig. She could be watching. She could be watching at home. When Sarah gets back, I do have a question about the building fund. Why? You don't think I can answer it? Let's test Evan on this. I think she'll feel cheated. Raj, I probably cannot. But yeah. Oh, Evan, were you going to do the budget workshop? He was. Sarah, I hung up on you. Sarah, I had a quick question about the building fund. I just wanted to make sure I was clear. So we did increase the transfer from 50 to 75, but then we moved some fund balance. So are we not? Oh, wait. I think I just answered my own question. The increase is sticking. But we just moved up when we could handle them. Okay. It's been that kind of day. I apologize. You don't need to apologize to me. I've had a number of those. Correct. The trend we, yeah. Okay. Thank you. We could, let me take a look though. Awesome. We could go back to the 50,000 level though. And with the additional fund balance transfer, still be able to do the two priority projects? This year, but I have to say, my dad always says, double your timeline, double your budget, cut your enthusiasm in half. And he has not been wrong yet. So I don't know if we want to cut it that close. That's what your dad always told you right there? Yeah, that's one of them. That's a pretty complicated thing for you to remember. Was he a co-creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm? No. How to get to a realistic spot on your project management. And just for everybody's thing, Susan says, if you complete everything by February 23rd, all good. Perfect. Yeah, that's going to happen. Yeah. All good for ballots. It's going to happen. Gives her plenty of time for what she needs. But did you get your question answered, Raj? It seemed like we tailed off there about the building thing. I think I did. I was misunderstanding the English language. And I was thinking that we could just remove the... I wasn't thinking about the transfer to the building funds properly, basically. So yes, I'm all set. Evan, did you have anything else? Or was that... Okay. So as Sarah had said, this is also a budget workshop. If there are other portions of the budget that we want to review or have changed, now is the time. And I can pull it up on the screen. Andrew, I'm going to just real quick say, I made the two changes that you suggested just now, which is to fully fund to assume that the stipends for everyone would be fully funded at 100% and assume it would be 100% acceptance rate by having it be an opt-out instead of an opt-in. I increased that dollar amount. I corrected the 750 to 1,000. And with those changes, the bottom line just changed from 4.9 to 5.1%. The tax levy is now an increase of 2.1%, looking at about $9.80 increase on the average property, about a 1% tax rate increase, or 0.0035. So just so you know, that's where those two changes landed us. I can pull that up. Is it helpful for you guys to see? Yes, I agree. If you could do that, Sarah, that would be great. Sometimes I feel like maybe I flip screens too much and it's not helpful. So just okay. So here's a summary page where we're looking at that. So I've made those few changes and they're reflected. So what's next? Do you, for those at home, do you just want to walk through what we're seeing here a little bit? Be happy to. So this is the summary page. So we're just talking about the general fund budget tonight. We'll get back to the other ones eventually. So the general fund budget is what you're seeing on the screen. We have revenues are summarized by revenue type at the top and then expenditures are summarized by department at the bottom. We have our primary source of inflow is property taxes. This is the village tax levy. The top line, we're looking at $3,750,000. I'm rounding right now in the current proposal. That's a $78,000, $79,000 increase over the FY21 budget, which would be a 2.1% change. So even though that bottom line number is changing 5%, the impact on the tax levy is 2%. And that after we factor in average, grantless growth would be about a 1% increase on the tax rate or a $9 per year increase. One of the other major changes in this budget is that the rolling stock, the transfers to rolling stock for highway and fire have been moved out of the transfer miscellaneous line and into their respective departments in order to facilitate the change to the way the highway rolling stock is funded or the proposed change to the way that's being funded. Is that what you had in mind? And you're, I'm sorry. You kind of caught me off guard with that. Yeah, that's perfect. That's exactly what I was looking for, this good high level overview. And it's great. So trustees, do you have any other questions on this or desires to review any other parts of the budget? I do not. And I just want just to go back just, and we are going to do, for the building, we are going to, we move money and we're going to do the Brown Hill Library Roof Repair and the Lincoln Hall Electrical whatever we're calling it, reconfiguration or something. That's going to happen under this budget. That's what we moved, that's going to be happening this coming fiscal year, correct? In addition to other, whatever other capital projects we have. Correct. Yeah, okay. So trustees, if you don't have any other questions, we can turn over for public comment if you're ready. Okay, so again, it appears that all of the attendees are using Microsoft Teams. So if you would like to speak to the, if you'd like to speak to the board on the proposed budget here, now will be the time to do so to indicate you'd like to speak. You can do so by raising your hand in Microsoft Teams. Now I will have a timer going so each person can have two minutes. So please start raising your hands if you'd like to speak. And I see that Irene, your hand is up. So go right ahead. Thanks very much, Andrew. My question is not directed to Sarah. I'm learning, but I wonder if this increase from what it started at the beginning of the meeting, which was $7 to $9.80, would somehow impact the merger estimate number she gave us last night. My guess is we would take 59%, 58% of 980 and assign that to the town for the FY22 number. But I'm just putting that out there. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah, please correct me if I am wrong. By increasing the village budget, this will absolutely have an impact on merger. And the fact that for the village budget to go into a merged budget means that if the village budget goes up, the merged budget goes up. So yes, there will be an impact. Yeah, but it has much less to do with that $9.80. So I see no other hands from the public. I'll give it another few seconds in case somebody else has a question. It does not appear so. So we can go ahead and close the public comment portion on that. So for tonight's, please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not getting the memo up here quick enough. There's, oh, we do need to have a motion in terms of the public hearing schedule. Yes, please. So I think I've pulled it up for you. And then these dates are just changes. So I would just request that you take care of voting to warn the two public hearings now. And then that enables us to do what we need to do. And then we can go forward. The dates, like we talked about, are February 9th and February 23rd. Your faces changed for me. I could do that. Go ahead, Raj. I move the trustees warrant a public hearing on the FY22 general fund budget for Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021, and a second public hearing on the FY 2022 general fund budget for Tuesday. Wait, I messed that up. February 9th. Sorry, I'll start over. Move the trustees warrant a public hearing on the FY22 general fund budget for Tuesday, February 9th, 2021, and a second public hearing on the FY22 general fund budget for Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021. Thank you, Raj. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dan. And is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Anybody opposed? Thank you. Passing unanimously. Sarah, thank you as always. You're welcome. Thank you guys so much. It's kind of hard to take such a long break between our workshop day and then getting back to it, but it is what it is. And I appreciate your willingness to add the way you remember it to get to. Anyways, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. See you. Thank you, Sarah. Bye. And so that will now bring us to consider approvals of Hold Village Meetings by Australian Ballot. Evan, did you want to introduce us? Sure. So New World here in Vermont Act, I think it's 162, states that municipalities can hold their annual meetings by Australian Ballot. The Village Board already stated that they wanted to do their budgets by Australian Ballot. Now there was this conversation. Did that mean the annual meeting as well? So we are recommending that you take action to actually approve the annual meeting by Australian Ballot as well. And just to let you understand, because of this year's COVID pandemic, that you may also want to state that it's going to be virtual. But in general, the motion for this is that the annual meeting would be by Australian Ballot. And you have measures on your ballot that you just discussed tonight, as well as the budget. Thank you, Evan. One of the questions I have is this is also asking about special meetings during 2021 being held through Australian Ballot. If we don't, so as of right now, we don't have any other special meetings to be warned. And we aren't planning any. So do we have to do this now? Or could we wait until the time arises where if we need it, we do it at that point in time? Well, I could turn my camera on and it realizes off. There's one potential special meeting later on in the year, and that would be about cannabis. And I don't know if it's been, it hasn't been discussed whether it'll be a townwide decision or a town and village decision. March might have something to do with that. But that would be required to be done by Australian Ballot. But I'm not aware of any others. So I think it potentially at some other point in the year you could decide how a special meeting was addressed. So I would just recommend or I would just offer that we just take the special village meetings out of the of the recommendation at this point. But that's just me. Trustees, if you feel otherwise, please chime in. Or if you agree, up to you. I don't really have strong feelings one way or the other. So you could you could decide on that in advance of those special meetings if as needed, I'm assuming. And just to be clear, this is stating that you would not have an annual meeting in person where there's a floor vote. That's what I think the state is trying to get people to avoid this year is floor voting. You can do it at the time that something pops up. You just need to have the proper notice, which you will anyway. Sounds like there's really no strong opinions on this issue. Yeah, I mean, I think if we're if we're saying we this sort of covers us in case we have to hold some kind of an emergency special meeting instead of having to shuffle and find something really fast. So it sounds like this covers us. And so it seems like a reasonable thing to do. Yeah, I'm not close to it. Sir, should we make a motion? All right. I'll make a motion that the trustees vote to hold the annual meeting and any other special village meetings during 2021 entirely by Australian ballot. Second. Thank you, George. Thank you, Raj. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All rules in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right. Passing unanimously. Andrew. Yo. I mean, Renner's hand is still up. I don't know if she wanted to say something or... I'm so sorry. I'm good. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm sorry, Irene. I didn't see that. So my apologies. Thank you, Dan. And that will bring us now to 5D, a discussion and possible action about the clock and village kiosk right over the main. I, you know, this seems a little silly, but, you know, as far as I know, I know the clock portion of the sign has been broken a couple of times over the years. For whatever reason, this is just really just sort of getting people's thoughts on, do we just replace the clock? Do we put something else in its place? I don't want to cause any consternation or trouble. Just thought I'd ask. Yeah. I mean, could you put the current state of the clock up there right there? There you go. I mean, this is my doing, folks. I'm sorry, but it just sort of bothered me. And as I said, we got this nice sign. And when they put that clock in, I gave it. I was actually surprised. It lasted way longer than I thought. I gave it about two weeks. And it lasted a couple of years. It just pretty much says, hit me. The clock that they put in there is really nice, but it's pretty delicate. So just replacing it doesn't seem like a great idea unless we want to replace it again. I just could just be part of our ongoing budget. We just replace the clock every year. But you might want to think, I'm not sure what else we could put in there. You know, maybe a portrait, maybe a bust of someone, someone we really like. I don't know, a sign, maybe a digital clock. I'm thinking of all kinds. I don't have really good ideas, but I mean, if the best you can just replace the old clock, I think that's fine, but I'm going to suggest that it's just going to get busted again. But I wouldn't like to leave it in this state either. And was there something burning? I'll wait my turn. No, I'm done. I don't care. I'm fine with it. I just would like to do something and not leave it exposed and totally, totally hear you, George. I have two suggestions. The first one is you can put the year that the village was established. There you go. Two, you can do your logo, which is on the left as well. The sign, but just one suggestion you do the year you were established. So Raj, why don't you go ahead and then Dan will be after. Yeah, so I was going to suggest one of those things. And I can't honestly remember what this is made of, but we've got a circle there with some, what's the logistics around changing that? So that's another question, I guess, is, it seems silly to keep replacing the clock as it even needed anymore, but it's a circular spot. You're not going to change the shape of the sign. What are the logistics around doing some of these other things with it? We probably don't know, but... Well, my answer is you tell me what you want there and we'll make it happen. I'm thinking something weatherproof. Like, it might be nice. We'd have to figure it out, but we'll get somebody to fit it in that space and affix it so that it doesn't pop out, but whatever it is, it's got to be weatherproof. It has to be vandal proof, Evan, too. I think that's really the key. George, that's a high bar. Well, or casual vandal. Serious vandal is nothing, but the other one is just so delicate. I mean, everyone's got their hands up, so I want to hear some creative ideas. Roger, you all set? All right, Dan, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I go back to Montpellier so often with my conversations about things I'd like to see in our village, because that's my hometown, but they're on Main Street or State Street, I should say, in Montpellier, right off of Main Street, there's a clock, a large metal clock in there, probably 150 years, but beautiful clock. This little thing, I don't think anyone has the ability to see it when they're traveling by, unless you're walking or maybe on a bike, because bikes can go by pretty quick, but you're really not going to, unless you're walking there, you're not going to look at the time and say, oh, there's the clock. I agree with Evan. I think either the year of our founding of this extension or our logo in the center there, or whatever else, I mean, the board is happy with, but it's relatively low. It's not super high above the ground. It's easy to hit it with something. I mean, there's power, obviously, the lights there on either side, so I don't know. I'd be happy with whatever the board wants, I guess. Thank you, Dan. Amber, go ahead. I have no creative ideas to share. I was actually going to say something totally different, which is what's staring at me is that big blank spot where there's somebody's little business card just right there in that community. I saw, and what I was thinking was, we had this discussion last night about putting up some of those flyers about the informational meetings and stuff. I think that's a great spot to fill that in so it doesn't look like that. Amber, you stole exactly the only thought I had in this full time. Sorry. No, I appreciate it. I mean, I honestly don't pay too much attention to this because I don't really walk through there very often, but maybe using that bulletin board, again, this is not the conversation we're having, but using that a little bit more frequently for some of our events and stuff. It is normally has things in it. I think whoever took today this picture caught it just at the moment, but normally there are stuff in there, but the other thing I would say is that one thing is that's a very small box, and maybe as we're doing things, we could look to see if we can get the next size up to fit in there so that we can fit a little bit more in there, whether it's width or height. I know Terry can't get to the high part, but we have other people who could fill the box, and so we could look into that too, but my main focus of this was what do we do with the clock? And so just tell me what you want. I'm not going to worry about a budget. Just give me the direction and we'll get her done. It sounds like the year, the logo, something in general that helps to keep the village heritage, if you will, the village history alive and well. That's what it sounds like the things are. Well, I'd go for that. That'd be fine, but you might, does anyone think about just a digital, maybe not even a digital clock, but a digital thermometer saying the temperature or something like that? I mean, it's wired, and if you put something fairly rugged in there, not a hand clock, but a tougher clock, that might be okay too, but it probably wouldn't tie in with the old 19th century design of the bulb lighting and the little filigree rest of the sign there. So I don't know. I mean, you're going to have to get someone to hand carve that properly, which is an appeal. I agree with you, George, in the sense that if you did put a digital clock in there and a temperature, it would be lit. During the night, you can't see what that clock is reading unless you go up to a flat plate. So a digital, I mean, it's not, doesn't really fit with the old motif that we have around the village with buildings and such, but at least you'd know the temperature and the time, and kind of handy. I'm not going to lie, every time I pass by one of those digital thermometers, you go by one of the larger banks in Burlington and you have the clock with a temperature, I already know the temperature. It's either cold or it's hot or uncomfortable. Whether it says it's 32 or 50 or negative eight, it just is what it is. Well, here's an idea. We could put a really, really small news feed, you know, local news, but maybe just three letters at a time. You'd have to stand there and just carefully read it or maybe in really tiny letters, just joking. George, we could take Haiku submissions. Yes. It would appear. Yes. I was going to ask Evan if this circle could be hollowed out and we could get a welder or some metal artist to create us a floating iron or other metal take on our logo, on portion of our logo, or maybe it's near the train station, some kind of artistic take on that. I mean, look, why not? So that's another thought. If the innards of that can be made hollow, so you see right through it, then just have somebody create what looks to be a 12 or 14 inch really cool piece of metal art and stick it right in there. Like it. A train, something to do with the train maybe would be nice too. That's what I'm thinking. Train station's right there, I think. I mean, she has an idea. I was waiting for the board to finish our conversation. Oh, sorry, Dan. Sorry, sorry, Dan. You want to, you think that our logo to try to have somebody somebody that works with metal and to put some kind of a, I don't know, bronze or whatever, metal structure, looking like the low would be kind of difficult. I think with the brown out block and the church steeple and everything, it'd just be kind of awkward, but maybe just a train or something along that line. Yeah, silhouette of a train or something, something that would go along with the look. Yeah, especially considering its proximity. Definitely. I can recommend a couple later, but I'm sure Robin can find someone or whatever. I don't know. We could put it out. All right. So why don't we hear some ideas from the public who are here? If you have thoughts on this, please feel free to raise your hand to Microsoft Teams. Let us know. And Irene, go right ahead. Thanks, Andrew. In a show of unity, I thought it might be interesting to put in the logo for the town of Essex that the cops have on their sleeves with the old Seaxes, which is a very old idea. It harkens back to the logo in Essex, England. It's very classy looking. And then it would reinforce for folks that Essex and Essex town are joined as nested communities. Thanks. Thank you. Andrew, anybody else from the public? If you have thoughts on this, please go ahead. Raise your hand. All right. I'm not seeing any other hands coming up. So Evan, do you feel that you have, or Raj, is that hand to hold over? Is that still a clear guy in seven? Clear as mud. Yeah, let me tell you what I've got. I got four options here. Year, logo, digital time, clock with time and temperature, and an artistic metal art. What I'm going to do is I'm going to investigate these and make a decision. That sounds like a good call, Evan. Just make sure it's a culmination of all those things. Yes, yes. No, that's not going to happen. I am leaning towards artistic metal art. Yes. Maybe artistic metal art that will rotate. That tells the time. No, it'll rotate through as a bust of each trustee at the time. Artistic metal art is totally going in the minutes. Sweet. I appreciate that. Raj, you can give me the names of people you want me to contact or think that might do something. Okay, I'll email you. Thank you, everybody. Can we please move on? Yeah, good luck with that, Evan. So we have now reached the end of our business items as the next one's executive session, which will bring us into the consent agenda. Someone wants to make a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Thank you, George. Tammy, I see your hand is up. Yes, I just wanted to remind everybody that part of the consent agenda was added at the beginning and that is that policy. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Tammy. So George, you've made the motion. Second. Thank you, Amber, for the second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Thank you. The pass. And on to board member comments and the reading file. It's been a long time since we've last met. Does anybody have anything they want to make sure to talk about? Evan, why don't you go ahead? Just I mentioned this last night, but we are looking into vaccinations for seniors. We're asking the Department of Health whether our currently closed senior center could be a vaccination site. And if it, and either way, we're also looking at the ability to give seniors rides to their vaccination appointments. Hopefully they'll be local, but if not, they may go to Williston or somewhere local, but we want to be able to give our seniors the ability to get to those vaccination sites with the senior van. So that's just one thing that we're working on in that space. And one other thing we're also looking at whether we can try to help them make those appointments. Apparently, according to many people, the process is very frustrating. So as I mentioned last night at the joint meeting, the Youth Center AmeriCorps has a mission to help seniors as well. So we're going to reach out to them and see between our staff and theirs whether we can help seniors get their appointments made. Because I believe a vast majority have to be done online, and everybody who's tried to reach them on the phone has just not had much luck. So just to let you know that. Thank you, Evan. Appreciate that. And I do appreciate the efforts to do what we can around ensuring that our seniors and most vulnerable are able to get vaccinated. So I really do appreciate that. Do any other trustees have any other comments? Andrew, I don't have a comment, but I do notice that we actually do have an executive session. I just wanted to point that out for any members of the audience that are looking at the agenda. We do have an executive session for after this meeting. Correct, Evan? That is correct. And there will be no business coming back to this board. So you can adjourn this. You can adjourn from executive session. But this meeting, you will not be coming back to this meeting. Yeah, correct. The only thing that I wanted to highlight within the reading file, I just wanted to highlight the unemployment numbers. One of the things that we hear in the news is just how terrible things are economically with the pandemic. Just want to point out that in Vermont, while our numbers are not exactly what they were pre-pandemic, they are really close. So just wanted to point that out that no, things are not perfect. Not trying to say that they are, but things are better than it certainly could be. Do we just a quick question on the office available offices for the upcoming election? Yes. Do we have two trustee terms coming up? Yes, we do. Who? Those whose names start with A. So Amber and I. Okay. The Village website lists Amber's term expiring next year. I did mention that to Susan, and I thought maybe she wasn't the right person to mention that to, but that is the term. It was one year. Okay, all right. Yeah, it is wrong. It is definitely wrong. Yeah. Who has the one-year term? On the board. I did. How many times? I thought you got real. I thought you, okay. All right. So you, okay. Yeah, basically, I was filling Elaine's three year for the term of one each time. And so this is my last time running for a year, and then it'll be a three-year term. So it's Andrews and mine for three. That makes sense. Yep. Yeah. So there's nothing else. I've been trying to find the Executive Session Memo language, and I am unsuccessful at the moment. It what? It was just there a second ago. No, it was just up. There you go. I will go ahead and I will move that the trustees enter into Executive Session for the purpose of negotiating or securing of real estate purchase or lease options pursuant to one VSA, Section 313A2, to include the Unified Manager, Village Engineer, Village Attorney, and Community Development Director. I'll second. Thank you, George. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? So again, just as that housekeeping item, we will leave this meeting as trustees and we will go into Executive Session. We will not be coming back into this meeting. So members of the public, thank you for joining us tonight. We bid you farewell. I will be in in a minute. I'm going to close out this meeting, and I'll see you on the other side. Thank you. Thanks, sir.