 Please listen to the first reading of the bills by number only H 491 to government operations and we are going to take a look at the the last charter that we want to take a peek at today. Rest assured, there will be others for us to work on, but this one is is one that brings a few of our colleagues. From the village of s extension here to help us understand the charter change relating to Essex separation so welcome to you folks and you're welcome to come and join us at the. table you. Representative Lori Houghton from extension representative Karen Dolan also from extension. And you're good i'm just going to read our prepared testimony and then we can answer questions at the end. Before I start, though, I think it's important to share two definitions, because it does get confusing when talking about the village and the town. So when I refer to town outside the village we're referring to those residents who live outside of the village. And then when I refer to the village it's the folks who live in the village, so the village is its own municipality, we pay taxes. We're also part of the town of Essex, but then there's an area which is not a municipality but we clarify it classified as time outside the village to make more sense as I read on. So thank you. So h 491 is a charter change to establish the city of s extension. I think it's important for us to review how we've come to this place and why 88% of those who voted wanted an independent community. Since 1892 the village of s extension has operated as a municipal unit of government within the town of Essex both are charter municipalities. Our communities have been voting on some form of merger or separation since 1958. I will spare you the details between 1958 and 2000. So I'll start in 2000 and this won't take long. In 2000, a five month long house government operations mandated mediation process ended with no agreed upon resolution. In 2006, a year long community led task force created a charger for a new merge municipality. It passed narrowly with town outside the village voting no and village voting yes. A revote overturn those. Over the next 10 years, the board's works collaboratively defined shared services. Then in 2018 created a subcommittee to again craft a plan for the future of our two communities. This is the plan to merge your vote we will discuss shortly and that failed. And here we are today with our charter change request that creates a path forward for both communities were fully recognizing the past history of efforts. Last year, the town of Essex was before this committee with a charter change to establish a three plus three governance model. At the time the decision by this committee was made to hold further discussions until the community held the merger vote that had long been planned. The merger plan we voted on in 2021 included the three plus three governance model and a 12 year financial phase in to limit the immediate financial impact to town outside the village residents. I want to be clear, the merger plan included the three plus three governance model that was before this committee last year, passed by the town outside the village, but failed in the village. That was the three plus three. I'm talking about the plan of merger close to 50% of registered voters participated in the plan and merger vote held in March 2021. The plan and merger failed in the town outside the village by 72% and passed in the village by 81%. Overall the vote failed by 19 votes. This action by residents throughout the communities we had to revote on April 13. Over 50% this time of registered voters participated in this vote. Again, the plan and merger failed for similar percentages within each committee as the original vote town outside the village voted no, the village voted yes. As part of the community outreach, three plus three governance and a 12 year financial phase in the town outside the village overwhelmingly rejected the plan and merger twice. As part of the revote village residents also voted on a non binding resolution to have the village trustees draft a charter to establish the city of S it's junction should the plan and merger fail that non binding vote passed overwhelmingly. The city of S extension charter vote was held by special meeting in November 2021. Again, close to 50% of registered voters participated. The charter passed with 88% of the vote 3070 yeses to 411 no votes. Equity and taxation has been a driving factor behind our decades long community discussion and votes. Clearly stated through public outreach that should merger, not pass separation would mean an increase in municipal taxes to residents in the town outside the village. In fact, at a joint municipal meeting on September 28 2020, the town finance director at the time said and I quote. The equity is in the way government is funded in our current situation. Village taxpayers are paying for services, they are not eligible to receive and are paying more for services that they and town outside the village taxpayers have equal access to. This means that town outside the village taxpayers are paying less than the true cost for some services, and quote. Recent votes were not just about taxes, both communities have spent a great deal of time and money over the years on our relationship at the detriment to important important community specific projects and each municipalities distinct community values. In March of 2021, the two municipal boards entered into a joint resolution to investigate amicable solutions separation. As written in the resolution and I quote members of the select board and trustees agree to negotiate in good faith throughout the amicable separation process. In the spirit of inclusion, all voices will be respectively heard and considered. President and Dolan and I have watched and engaged in the process and believe that the trustees and select board worked collaboratively to establish a transition plan that could be as fair as possible to both communities. It is time for our two communities who have tried almost every conceivable relationship to have the opportunity to thrive as two separate entities for the betterment of all residents. Dolan and I believe that both communities can and will thrive. Thank you. Can answer any questions. Questions from committee members. Thank you Madam chair I guess I'm still a little fuzzy and tried to follow along. I know it's been back and forth. Tell me if I'm wrong. My understanding is the last vote. Again, had the village voting yes and voting no. And so again what the village decided to do was include that incorporation in return. Right. Include the three plus three is that we are referring to. I'm sorry. Are you referring to the three plus three charter change. Yes. Yes. So that was included, even though the village had voted against it when that vote happened. We included it in the plan of merger, knowing that the town outside the village wanted that governance structure. And so, so again, my understanding is that still town outside of the village structure still doesn't wouldn't approve of this charter change. Correct. They voted twice to not approve a merger plan. Okay, yep. Thanks. Thanks. It's hard to follow. Any other questions for the representatives answering this charter change. Maybe. So this is the charter. Green circle, which is big. No, this chart changes for the little for this one. Okay, existing at this point, the original chart. So I'm going to, I'm not sure I'm following this. So the three plus three charter bill you had last year would have amended the town of Essex charter, which the village is a part of the village also has a charter. And so what we're asking now with H 491 is that we change our charter to become a city of Essex junction completely independent from the town of Essex. All the reasons we just stated in the years of votes we've taken. I think we will explain to me. What would this mean for like emergency service second right now I'm thinking like very bluntly like very city very town, there is a distinct thing that they have their own police and fire and rescue. So what about what this means for our great question, our police force has actually been shared since the 1980s, it was the village of Essex junction police force, and then we merged it and became one. So, and in the charter in the, it specifically states, I think in the transition plan that that we continue to be shared for at least 10 years. And, excuse me, our EMS is actually a separate entity that both communities pay into. And then the. So there's the fire station on sandhill and then there's the one in the junction, there's one in the city will not be the city. And so they would be able to maintain what they have. So, and the key thing to remember is that the village has always maintained our own services. So we've always operated as our own distinct municipality. So right now the fire departments are separate. Yes, we have the village we have the town. So yes, they would continue what their work is. I'm just trying to think out loud of anything that we could be missing for like a very blatant cost that like, but you guys I know from my size on as a rescue for many years. And I went to underhold your vote. And I went to as a sex. So like, I'm trying to think of something blatant that is not like it does distinctively operate on their own to. So something that does not operate on their own. Yeah, I'm trying to think of something that like this is going to. So we've had since 2000. I want to say I was a trustee so probably since about 2016, we had tried to bring together departments, administration finance human resources in order to try and equal out the tax equity situation. So that will be unwound, but honestly, it's starting to be unwound now, even without this charter change. So our, our, our unified manager contract is up in February. So we will each be hiring our own manager, our town finance director left for another position. So we are each, they have a finance director we are hiring one. And it's, it has been a lot of discussions and that's where the trustees and select board worked well together to ensure that when we unwind things, it's okay. But I appreciate that it was at, you know, highest point and all of the discussions and it was mine. Well, my question and then our inboxes have been very full of assets. And that was the only thing that I saw from somebody was like, you know, affirming that the police services. Yes. Yeah, that's the only thing that has been brought to me. What an active engaged citizen, right. You do have many years to, you know, get to the representative look Claire. Good morning, Madam chair, good afternoon representative so you touched upon it briefly but could you give us a quick, I guess, description of what has to be unwound, and what has to be stood up in order for this to transpire and everybody has a standalone entity. Good question so we. So administration, which is already being unwound because we're hiring our own managers, which, which before we had a unified manager we all had our own manager and in fact we have to department heads in the village acting as co managers now until we hire someone. The finance department had to be unwound, but at the same time we've always kept the ledgers separate. So the actual dollar finance you know the actual money is separated anyway. Our fire departments were never connected our libraries were never connected our school district is its own municipality so that's not affected. So we can go through, I will say that is what the two musical boards have been working through is a separation kind of document that transition plan that goes through all of it because we've been focused on merger for so I'm putting it together. There's tons of information doesn't prevent unwind it. So, there's a very detailed plan. I'm just not going to remember the details. I apologize representative look right up remember anything but represent Dolan degree mind me so there is an overarching agreement that has been signed between the boards that should the charter pass. There are about seven agreements below that that have been agreed to but not signed yet, because it was felt by the town select for that they couldn't have assigned because we would have signed as a village and not a city. But those documents have outlined the process of what will be about. Well, thank you because I seem to recall last time we heard about a relationship change. There was a lot of conversation around sidewalks, if I remember correctly. Oh, yes, yes, there's a reason for that so in the village, we are a walking community. We are kids always walk to school we had no busing until the school district merged and I don't know 2000 something, maybe five years ago. And so, and but the town was not a walking community. So, so anyway, so I thought so the village we always taught our sidewalks, like, that was the first thing that got cloud before the streets because kids had to walk to school. And the town they didn't have that in the merger plan we actually I'm sorry yes in the merger plan. We actually put in a special taxing district. So the village would be responsible for paying for their own sidewalks and the town outside the village would not have to pay for our sidewalks. Again they rejected the plan of merger twice. So very excited. Where we're coming was like, I'm having independent everybody can be in charge of what their priorities are what they want to have the top of the list and how they can make it work. Thank you. Representative Cooper. Oh, I don't know if you heard be mumbled with water and sewer cross lines or. So, we have a wastewater treatment plant that actually that's located in the village, but is a tri town wastewater treatment plant for the town of Essex will extend and us. So that's a joint authority. So that's joint authority. Yes, that will not be effective representative McCarthy. Because that has been such a big issue between the two municipalities that I represent the one owning all of the water treatment infrastructure and so just to be clear, the three towns already all participate together and this won't affect that in any way. So really, because I would never want to subject any other neighbor communities to the type of conflict that we have had in Saint August. Very large facility next to IBM. Maybe members any other questions for the representatives from Essex junction. Can I get the vote one more time on what this was for the divorce. That's how I put it together. percentages I did not do the same difference. For the village charter it was 3070 to 411. That was for H 491. This bill we're talking about my new way to describe this divorce versus marriage. Unfortunately, our language has been to vote on the force now. All right. So, unless committee members have other questions for the sponsors of this bill I think it would be helpful for us to shift gears and go to Tucker now to take a look at the next slide. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tucker for sticking around and representatives you can go back to your committees if you have committee work you need to do this afternoon and hopefully you can take a peek at the YouTube at some point and just see what folks questions were on the details and we'll be in touch if we need you to come back. Great. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good afternoon again Tucker Anderson office of legislative council. You have in front of you h 491, which proposes to create the city of s extension to approve the charter of the city of s extension, and to dissolve what was formerly the village charter. Let's start with section two of the bill, which contains the charter of the city of s extension. Before diving in, I will briefly remark that you all are experts now at dissolving villages, merging villages and dealing with village issues. It seems as though once a biennium, you all deal with a village. The most recent was the village of Perkinsville, which was dissolved and merged with the town of Weathersfield. And prior to that it was the village of Waterbury, which was dissolved and turned into the Edward for our utility district, affectionately called the e fud. In front of you now you have historically significant creation of a new municipality, the city of s extension section one declares the General Assembly's intent to create this municipality. Section two contains the charter, which will be the city specific corporate structures and powers. Later on we will get into the transitional provisions, which will provide specifically for the villages assets and relationship with the surrounding town, as it becomes the city over the year of the transitional period. Section two adds a new chapter four to title 24 appendix, creating the city of s extension sub chapter one. We have the incorporation and powers of the city, many of the sections that I will go through now contains some belt and suspender provisions, providing that as this city is created that the village is not going to lose some of the general provisions that it already has under law. So first section one oh one provides that notwithstanding the provisions of any other municipal charter, the inhabitants of the village within its corporate limits shall become the city of s extension. And then section one oh two, we have a provision that is contained in the general law for all municipalities that are chartered, and within many charters, it states that accept is modified by this Charter Charter, or by any lawful regulation ordinance of the city, all provisions of the statutes of the state that are applicable to any municipality shall also apply to the city of s extension. Essentially it's restating the general law applies in the city has access to it. Under section 103 we have some reservation of specific powers, the city shall have all powers granted to any city or municipal corporation by the Constitution and the laws of the state, together with any implied powers that are necessary. It may enact ordinances, not inconsistent with the Constitution, general law or this Charter. Subsection be the city may acquire real and personal property, including stormwater collection disposal, wastewater collection disposal, solid waste collection disposal, provision of a public water supply, and of parks and recreation facilities, municipal facilities for office fire protection and police protection, provision of public libraries, public parking areas sidewalks bicycle paths and green strips highways, public view zones open spaces, and other purposes that are provided for and addressed by the general laws of the state. The city may acquire property in fee simple, or any lesser interest and may purchase gift, devise lease or condemn, and may sell lease mortgage holder manage any property as its interests may require. These are provisions of general law that the city is making sure to reserve here. In addition, the city may exercise any of its powers or prefer perform any of its functions, and may participate in the financing of any of those powers or functions, and may do so jointly with other municipal corporations, or the United States government or the state of Vermont. The city may establish and maintain an electric power system and regulate power line installations, provided that the city shall have no authority under the provisions of this new charter that conflicts with the authority that has been under the Public Utility Commission, or any other state regulatory agency. In addition, the city reserves here the authority to establish a telecommunication system, and an enterprise to deliver internet or broadband services. The F here again contains one of these belt and suspenders provisions that we see in a lot of charters, it states that the mention of any particular power within the contents of the charter shall not be construed to be exclusive or to restrict the scope of powers that the city would otherwise have if that power were not mentioned. Section 104 concerning the reservation of powers continues this theme. That nothing in the charter should be construed to limit the powers and functions that are conferred upon the city, or the city council by general or special enactments, and that the powers and functions conferred by the charter in front of you shall be cumulative in addition, and in addition to the provisions of general or special enactments. A few years ago, this committee might have been six years ago, did the work of actually adding this language into title 17 to make it express that all of this was always the case and this is how charters would be constructed to avoid some of these provisions, but here we are. Section 105 concerning the form of government. The municipal government that is created in the charter shall be known as the council manager form of government. The provisions we're going to cover subject only to limitations imposed by the Constitution in this charter, all of the powers of the city shall be vested in an elective city council. That council will have the power to enact ordinances codes and regulations to adopt budgets determine policies and to appoint a city manager, moving on to sub chapter to which covers the governance structure of the city. Section 201 contains the powers and duties of the city council. The members of the city council shall constitute the legislative body of the city, except as otherwise provided in this charter where their powers reserved to other officers, and shall have all the powers and authority, given to and perform all duties required of city legislative bodies. The city of s extension council shall have the power to point and remove a city manager, supervised create change and abolish offices commissions or departments other than the offices commissions or departments that are established in the charter to appoint members of all boards commissions committees for similar bodies to provide for an independent audit by a certified public accountant to fire into the conduct of any of the officers commissions or departments, and to exercise every other power. It's not specifically set forth in the charter, but that is granted to legislative bodies by the laws of the state of Vermont. Section 202 contains the composition in terms of office for the city council. City council is going to be a five member legislative body. The city council shall reside within the city, and the term of office of it, an individual city counselor shall be three years, and the terms of the counselors shall be staggered. I have a question from representative yet. Is there a language about staggering terms in this charter change or is that it quickly referencing my notes, are you are you asking about transitional provisions. Yes. Yes, there are transitional provisions after the charter language. There are a series of session law sections that deal with the transition, including setting the first terms of the city council. Yes, specifically though the transfer of the current trustee terms to city counselor terms until replacements can be elected. They already have the staggered system that will carry over, and the trustees will hold their terms until they're replaced. Great. Thank you. Representative Cooper. Thank you Madam Chair Tucker. 2015 on age six. What's the difference between the League of Cities and Towns language it says we can do what anybody else does and this language that says anything that is granted to council or other legislative bodies, city councils and other things being legislative bodies. So that subdivision five is pointing to the general law, and it's another one of those safety belts that's built into this charter. It's saying that anywhere where the general law is giving us power to legislative body of any municipality in the state. We're also going to have those powers. This doesn't add anything really because that those powers would already be available to the city council. And the difference here is that they are not accessing special law that has been granted to other municipalities. They're saying we get to use powers that are given to us through general law. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go through section 203. In the case of a vacancy in a council seat. The vacancy shall be filled by the council pursuant to subsection 204 C, which we will get into now. Section 204, the election of the city council officers. The members of the members shall commence on the first day of the month following the election. At the first meeting of the month following the annual city meeting the council organize and elect the president, vice president and work. The president of the council, or in the president's absence the vice president shall be the presiding officer for council meetings and shall be recognized as the head of the city government for all ceremonial purposes. Subsection C, this is what governs the vacancies. In the event of death resignation or incapacity of any council member, the remaining members of the council may appoint a person to fill that position until the next annual election in capacity shall be determined by a vote of the council. And incapacity shall include the failure by any member of the board to attend at least 50% of the meetings of the board in any calendar year. In the next annual election, the vacancy can be filled, and the person so elected shall serve for the remainder of that specific term of office. In the event that the council is unable to agree upon an interim replacement, a special election shall be held to fill the position. Subsection D elected counselors who move out of the city prior to the expiration of their terms shall surrender their seats. I would like to notice at recognition that one of the qualifications specifically living within the city. If you move out, you're no longer qualified for the council position, and you are deemed to have surrendered your seat. So again, I have a question. So you're deemed so you do not have to take any action your part to surrender your seat if that's automatic. If you leave the city and you're no longer a resident it is automatic under these terms. Okay, thank you. Does this also cover what we distinguished for what rep Ganon did for Wilmington, because it sounds like that doesn't does it. So, in the case of wanting to know is somebody who is elected to a seat who chose not to be seated, which is different than this. Representative Lefebvre, both would apply. So the specific terms for the city council members here would control in the event a miss 50% of the meetings in a calendar year or they move out of town, but the general law as we've discussed will also be available to the city. So representative Ganon's issue and bill from last session would also apply in the event you had an officer that failed or refused to take their oath of office within the 30 days after election. Yeah, I just think it's important that people that are elected to do something show up representative McCarthy. Tucker does move out cover. Like, that seems vague to me is. So, like, I would want it to read change their residents or declare residents in other town or something like that. Just move out exists in other charters or other places in law just he's really big. No, move out does not exist it's not a term of art or a legal term that I would be familiar with outside of this context. So the terms that are used for purposes of title 17 would be resident or residency. So for example, an individual who is no longer a resident of the municipality shall not hold office something along those lines would be more clear and cut more closely to what we do in general election law. Yeah, we should clarify that. Does that sound like a good clarification to other committee members. If I may madam chair sorry. So, if we, it sounds like it would accomplish what they're trying to say if it read something to the effect of like elected counters who changed their red as residency, prior to the expiration of their term should be deemed to have resigned their seat. Yeah, or no longer resides yeah so we have to those would be the options right. Good catch. Shall I move along I can't quite see when their hands up in the room. I will do my best to make it to make an audible notation when we've got somebody waiting in the queue otherwise we will go right back to you so thank you Tucker. And thank you. Section 205 deals with the compensation of the council members, the compensation to the members shall be set by the voters at the annual meeting. This section establishes the minimum amount which is $1,500 a year. Council member compensation here is required to be set out as a separate item in the annual budget that is presented at the annual meeting. Council members are given permission to forgo the compensation or a portion of the compensation. The city council is granted authority and subsection be to fix the compensation of appointees and of the city manager, and to review approve and ratify collective bargaining agreements, which may be negotiated or fixed by the manager or their subsection. So this sets up what we will get to later division of authority between the manager who handles the day to day interactions and negotiations, and then the approval by the legislative body. Section 206 covers the conflict of interest policies for the city. Subsection a no council member shall hold any city employment during the term for which they were elected to council. They're appointed to represent the city on other boards, except as pursuant to the state's general prohibitions. No former council member shall hold any compensated appointed municipal office or employment, except for poll worker until one year after the expiration of the term for which they were elected to the legislative body. An important note there the council members for one year after they leave their office are not permitted to hold another office in the town compensated office that is, as an employee important pointed office or employee. Subsection be concerning appointments and removals. If the council or any of its members shall not in any manner dictate the appointment or removal of any municipal administrative officers or employees, who the manager or any of the managers of ordinance are empowered to appoint. So that is a long sentence getting at if the manager has the specific authority to appoint the employees the legislative body and its members shall not dictate those appointments. The city council may discuss with the manager the appointment performance and removal of those officers and employees in an executive session, if that is necessary. Subsection see, except for the purpose of inquiries and investigations under subdivision 201 before of this charter which we've covered the legislative body city council or its members shall deal with municipal officers and employees who are subject to the direction and manager solely through the manager and neither the legislative body, nor its members shall give orders to any such officer or employee, either publicly or privately. So again, we have another separation here between the manager and the manager's office in the legislative body, legislative body is going to have the power to appoint move the manager but none of the subordinate officers. And here, any communication or interaction between the legislative body and those subordinate employees is going to go through the manager representative Anthony. Thank you madam chair thank you Tucker, my recollection this is a little hazy. There are special protections or provisions for the chief of police of cities. I'm wondering if the non interference language that you just read in any way conflicts with the special provisions for the chief of police to to be afforded some particular due process and I can't remember the details off the top of my head. I just know that it's, it's quite specific and limited. Anthony, I'll have to look into some of those general provisions that you're talking about and compare it to what's contained here. But one of the things that we'll get to later in the charter are which of those officers under this model are going to be under the direction control of the city manager, and we'll have that barrier between those offices and the legislative body. So seven, a provision covering meetings of the council. As soon as practicable after the election of the president vice president, the council will fix the time and place of its regular meetings, and the meeting shall be held at least once a month. Special city meetings under section 208 shall be called in the manner provided by the laws of the state, and the voting on all questions shall be by Australian ballot. So here under section 208 special city meetings conducted by Australian ballot. This is cutting through the 17 vs a 2680 scheme where the voters approve voting by Australian ballot and one of the things I'll know is that the village of Assy's junction is one of those municipalities that have adopted the Australian ballot system. Section 209 contains the procedure for council meetings. The council under subsection a, it's given authority to determine its own rules and order of business. Subsection B provides that three members shall constitute a quorum under subsection C. The council shall keep minutes and according with the open meeting laws, and that journalized minutes shall be a public record. All meetings of the council shall be open to the public, unless by affirmative vote of the majority of the members. The council votes that any particular session shall be in an executive session or deliberative section in accordance with the open meeting law. Section 210 governing appointments. Council shall have the power to appoint the members of all boards commissions to similar bodies, unless specifically provided otherwise by this charter, the terms of those appointments shall commence on the day after the day of the appointment. Unless the appointment is to fill a vacancy. Section 211 contains some additional provisions relating to the city council. First, no claim for personal services shall be allowed to the officers elected at the annual meeting, except when compensation for those services is provided for under the provisions of this charter. The council is authorized to sell or lease any real or personal state belonging to the city. It is also authorized by the council at large. Moving on sub chapter three governing other elected offices within the city. First in section 301 we have the Brown L library trustee. This establishes the five member board of library trustees who shall be elected to five year terms members will be elected by Australian ballot. The qualified voters of the city of S extension shall be eligible to hold the office of elected library trustee. Section 302, the moderator, the voters at the annual city meeting shall elect a moderator who presides over the meeting. The term of the moderator shall be one year. The qualified voters of the city shall be eligible to hold that office. Sub chapter four governs city meetings. Section 401, sorry in subsection a. The voters shall at each annual meeting vote to set the date of the next annual meeting, at which time the voters shall vote for the election of officers to voting on the city budget and any other business included in the warnings for the meetings. General law that governs the qualifications of electors manner of voting duties of officers and all other particulars respective to the preparation for conducting management of elections shall govern city elections. Long way of saying any title 17 general provision. It's applicable to the municipalities the state and their elections is going to be applicable to the city. Under subsection C, the election of officers and voting on all questions that are warned for these meetings shall be by Australian ballot city clerk and the BCA shall conduct elections in accordance with general law. In chapter five we get into the ordinance authority of the city provides that ordinances shall be adopted in accordance with the general state law with additional requirements requirements that will be noted later in the sub chapter. So, to bring us back to some of the earlier discussion within another charter, the procedure generally is proposal of the ordinances notice and publication legislative body vote to adopt the ordinance, followed by the permissive referendum potentially of the ordinances of electors and a 45 delayed effective date. And of course ordinances must be designated specifically as either civil or criminal. Section 502 relates to public hearings for the adoption of ordinances requires the city council to hold a minimum of one public hearing prior to the adoption of any ordinance. The time in place advertised. The ordinance shall be introduced, and all persons interested shall be given an opportunity to be heard so there's a public participation component built in specifically to how the city is going to conduct its ordinance hearings. The city may pass the ordinance with or without amendment. It shall cause the amended ordinance to be published pursuant to subsections and be with a notice of the time and place of a public hearing at which time the ordinance will be further considered. Section 503 may finally pass the amended ordinance or amend it subject to the same procedures outlined in this section 502. Section 503 every ordinance shall become effective upon passage, unless otherwise specified representative Anthony has a question. Mr. Chair, does this depart from general law. I was under the impression that the most common practice is a is an introduction of first reading a second reading, and their time intervals between each before final adoption, and then passage of time and effect effective date, or am I not not well informed. You are very well informed and for the last part of what you said, the space between the adoption of an ordinance and its effective date is 45 days. Unless the voters bring forth that petition for permissive referendum, in which case it is not effective until a municipality wide vote can be held. And that has to be held within 60 days. This is different representative Anthony. Section 504 contains procedures for the rescission of an ordinance. All ordinances shall be subject to rescission by special or annual city meeting. Section 505 within 44 days after final passage by the council of petition is signed by the voters of the city, constituting 5% of the qualified voting population. The council is required to fix the time in place of a meeting. This is held within 60 days representative Anthony this is going back to what you were just bringing up. These are the procedures that are outlined in general law. Notice of the meeting shall be given in the manner provided by the law and the calling of a special or annual city meeting, and the vote shall be by Australian ballot. Here's a difference. The ordinance so referred shall remain in effect upon the conclusion of the meeting, unless the majority of those present in voting against the ordinance at the annual meeting exceeds 5% and number of the qualified voters of the municipality. Section 505 governs petitions for enactment of an ordinance at a special meeting voters of the city may at any time petition for the enactment of a lawful ordinance. The council is required upon filing of the petition to call a special city meeting or to include it in the business at the next annual annual meeting to be held within 60 days after the date of the filing of the petition. The warning for the meeting shall state the proposed ordinance in full or in concise summary and shall provide for an Australian ballot vote. The ordinance would take effect on the 10th day after the conclusion of the meeting provided that the voters vote to affirm. Prior to the city meeting, the proposed ordinance is going to be examined by the city attorney, and the city attorney is authorized under the subsection be to correct the ordinance. Subsection C states that the provisions of this section dealing conditions for ordinances do not apply to the appointments of officers members of commissions or boards that are made by the council. Sub chapter six this deals with the city manager. Section 601 deals with the appointment of the manager council shall appoint a city manager in accordance with the general law section 602 sets out the powers of the manager. The manager shall be the chief administrative officer of the city and shall be responsible to the city council for the administration of all city affairs that are placed within the manager's charge under this charter. The manager shall have the powers in addition to those powers that are delegated to municipal managers by general law. The manager has the authority in subject to appoint and under certain terms to spend to remove all city of s extraction employees, including the treasurer and other employees provided for under the charter for cause, except as otherwise provided by law. So representative Anthony this is where I'll have to look into the chief of police provisions that you were discussing earlier. This charter collected bargaining contract or personnel rules adopted pursuant to the charter manager is authorized. Excuse me, the manager may authorize any employee who is subject to the manager's direction and supervision to exercise these powers with respect to the governance in that employees department officer agency appointments layoff suspensions promotions demotions and removals shall be made primarily on the basis of training experience fitness and performance of duties. So here there is a built in requirements for firings and removals in such manner as to ensure that the responsible officer may secure efficient service. The manager shall direct and supervise the administration of all of the departments and offices of the city, and shall recommend the hiring of a city attorney with that is subject to city council approval, and shall hire special attorneys as needed. The manager shall attend all council meetings and shall have the right to take part in discussion, but may not vote. Someone of an ex officio member here. The council may meet an executive session without the manager for discussion of the manager's performance. The manager is charged with seeing that all laws provisions of this charter and acts the council subject to enforcement by the manager or any of those subordinate officers are faithfully executed. Submit the manager and submit the annual budget and capital program to the council. This is a component of Vermont's manager town manager system, the preparation of budget and capital programs. The manager shall submit to the council and make available to the public a complete report on the finances and administrative activities of the city. As of the end of each fiscal year. Subsection I, we're about halfway through at this point. The manager is required to make other reports as the council may require concerning the operations of the city's administrative offices. The manager shall keep the council fully advised as to financial conditions of the city and make recommendations to the council concerning the affairs of the city. Subsection K, a little repetitive, but it states that the manager shall be responsible for the enforcement of all city of S. E. Shunction ordinances laws. Subsection L provides that the manager may delegate to subordinate officers any duties conferred upon the manager. Subsection N provides that the manager shall perform other duties as are specified in this charter as may be required by the city council and shall fix the compensation of city employees. Finally, the manager shall recommend the appointment of the city clerk subject to council approval. Subsection O, that the village is one of the municipalities that has moved the clerk position to an appointed rather than elected position. Section 603 deals with the removal of the city manager. The council has given authority under the section to remove the manager from office for cause in accordance with the following procedure. The council shall adopt by affirmative vote of all of its members a preliminary resolution that must state the reasons for the removal and must may suspend the manager from duty for a period not to exceed 45 days. A copy of that resolution provided to the manager. Five days after receipt of the resolution, the manager may file with the council a request for a hearing. The hearing shall be in a public or executive session by choice of the manager, not the council. And the hearing shall be held at a special council meeting not earlier than 15 days or later than 30 days after the request is filed. The manager may file with the council a written reply, not later than five days before the hearing. So again, this is a hearing process concerning the removal of the manager. As soon as the procedure is triggered the manager has an opportunity to request the hearing and file a written statement. Representative Anthony has a question. Thank you madam chair. Just to go back slightly. Your phrase the trigger. Do I did I hear you correctly that the pulling the trigger as you typify it must be unanimous. No affirmative vote of a majority of the city council sets this out. Section 604 deals with vacancies in the office of city manager. The manager by a letter from the clerk may appoint a staff member to perform the manager's duty in the event of the manager's absence. The manager, unless the manager has previously appointed a staff member as an assistant manager deputy manager, who would automatically assume the manager's role in the case of an absence. And designates the boards and commissions within the city. Quickly moving through some of these because they relate directly to general law sections 701 702 and 703 relate to the creation of board of civil authority, board of abatement of taxes and planning commission as provided by general law. Similarly, section 704 establishes the city's development review review board. Section 705 relates to a specific library entity within the city, the brine out brown L library brown L library trustees brown L library board of library trustees that holds office at the time that this charter that you have in front of you is enacted shall serve until their terms are completed. Any existing policies of the library trustees at the time that this charter becomes effective shall become the policies of the new running the library board of trustees. The five permanent self perpetuating library trustees shall continue to function in accordance with the terms of the trust agreement dated May 25 1925. The authority to establish any new policy for the operational library or repeal or replace any existing policy and shall otherwise actor conformance with general law. The library is required under the terms of the charter to follow all financial and personal policies that are adopted by the city council. This library is one of those special library entities that we see occasionally, usually within chartered municipalities, where there was an agreement by gift or devise from a private entity to the municipality. That gift carry certain terms here. There's an acknowledgement that those terms under that specific gift will carry through the creation of the city, and will be applicable. Sub chapter eight deals with the administrative departments of the city section 801 personnel administration and benefits. The manager or appointee shall be the personnel director, we shall maintain personnel rules and regulations protecting the interests of the city. These rules and regulations must be approved by the council and shall include the procedure for many then, or for placing them in the practice. Every employee of the city will receive a copy of those rules pursuant to this chart. Subsection be the rules and regulations may deal with the following subjects or with other similar manners of matters of personnel administration. Job classification jobs to be filled tenure retirement pensions needs of absence holidays hours of work group insurance gallery plans and enumerated list of terms of employment and potential benefits. No person in the service of the city shall either directly or indirectly give render pay or receive any service or other valuable thing for or on account of or in connection with the appointment or appointed position. Section 802 a specific provision related to the real estate assessor. There shall be either a real estate assessor who is a certified real estate appraiser or an independent appraisal firm that is headed by a certified real estate appraiser appointed by the manager that shall carry out the duties of assessor in the same manner. As provided for listers under the general laws of state section 803 appraisal shall be reviewed periodically and kept up to date. Moving through these sections, the appraisal of business personal property shall be in accordance with the provisions of title 32. The same may from time to time be amended, provided that all business personal property acquired by a taxpayer after September 30 1995 shall be exempt from tax. You've dealt with a lot of these over the last few years, mostly in the context of repeals of business personal property taxes here the city is carrying over the existing personal property tax from the village, which doesn't touch property acquired after September 30 1995. Section 805 interestingly contains statement of purpose around the appointing of the assessor. The purpose of appointing an assessor is in lieu of the election of listers and the city shall be governed by and each taxpayer shall have the rights granted by the applicable general law concerning real and personal property taxation. Section 909 governs the city's budget process. Section 901 provides that the fiscal year of the city shall be the first day of July and end on the last day of June of each calendar year. Section 902 governs the annual municipal budget with support from the finance department. The manager is required to submit to the city council, a budget for review before the annual city meeting. The budget shall contain. We have an enumerated list of minimum requirements here. First, an estimate of the financial condition of the city. Second, an itemized statement of appropriations recommended for current expenses and for capital improvements with comparative statements of approach appropriations and estimated expenditures for the current fiscal year. Second, an itemized statement of estimated revenues from all sources, other than taxation for the next fiscal year. A capital budget for not fewer than the next five fiscal years showing anticipated capital expenditures financing tax requirements, and then any other information that the city council may require as part of that budget proposal. Section 903 city council will then review and approve the recommended budget with or without change from what they receive from manager. The budget shall be published not later than two weeks after its preliminary adoption by the council, and the council will fix the time and place for holding a public hearing on the budget. It is required under section 904 to hold at least one public hearing 30 days prior to the annual meeting to present and explain the proposed budget. And the manager, not less than 30 days prior to meeting shall make available the council's recommended budget and the final warning of the next final warning of the pending annual meeting. The annual city report shall be made available to the legal voters in the city, not later than 10 days prior to the annual meeting. Section 905 appropriation and transfers. The annual budget shall be adopted at the city meeting by the vote of a majority of the eligible voters. The total budget has been appropriated the council finds the additional appropriations necessary the appropriations shall be made and reported at the next city like city meeting as a specific item. The appropriations shall only be made in special circumstances or situations of an emergency nature from the effective date of the budget. The amounts that are stated in the budget shall become appropriated to the several agencies and purposes that are named in the budget. The council may at any time transfer an unencumbered appropriation balance or portion between general classifications of expenditures within an office department or agency. At the request of the manager the council may by resolution transfer any unencumbered appropriation balance within the council budget from one department to another. In this area, if you're interested in getting into the granular detail where you may want to look at some of the prohibited commingling of funds that will overlap this. While the charter provision permits certain commingling here. It will be read in the context of other general law. One example that comes to mind immediately is that highway department funds are not permitted to be commingled with any of the other funds held within the general fund. And that specific prohibition under general law would likely overlap this representative Anthony. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and I, I to which I would add in the commingling discussion of those that are specifically voted to fund the capital budget, as opposed to the operating. And it actually goes back to the use of the word appropriation and the fact or your reading of a process by which the council can meet and the exact language I think was to change in appropriation. My understanding is the general law essentially limits those appropriations to the overall budget cabinet. And then the other language that you recited confines the width of transfer, that is to say, but what I'm getting at is, it seemed to me that the, the language in enabling the council. To increase in appropriation seems rather open ended and yet, I'm pretty sure that the overall budget cannot be exceeded that's the permission that the voters have given the council and manager to spend. Am I am I off on that. You are not off one of the details that I went over and I apologize for getting into so much detail during this initial walkthrough. But one of the details that I went through is that if in those emergency circumstances, the city council is going to need an additional appropriation beyond what was approved, they must present whatever that emergency additional appropriation was as an item at the next city meeting. And one thing that I will point out there. And I did make a note about it is that there should be some consistency throughout the charter. Whether this is an annual meeting or whether a special meeting would be required to be called, and it just uses the term city meeting by default, that would likely mean the annual meeting section 906. This governs the amount to be raised by taxation upon approval of the budget by the voters, the amounts that are stated in the budget to be raised by taxes shall constitute a determination of the amount of taxes of the levy for purposes of the city and corresponding tax year and the council shall levy those taxes on the grand list as prepared by the assessor for the corresponding tax year. Again, these are echoing the provisions in title 32 and title 24 about that process and those officers duties. Chapter 10 deals with taxation. Section 1001 taxes on real property shall be paid and equal installments on March 15 and September 15. The council shall send notice to taxpayers not less than 30 days prior to when taxes are due. This is something that's permitted by general law here they're taking that general law authority and codifying it within their charter with specific dates. In 2002, an additional charge of 8% shall be added to any tax not paid on or before the dates that are specified in the previous section. Again, that is permissive under general law and 8% is the capped amount. Notwithstanding section 906 of this charter and any general law requirements the council is authorized and empowered to negotiate and execute assessment and taxation agreements between the city and the taxpayer or taxpayers within the city consistent with applicable requirements of the Vermont Constitution. I don't think they're there, but at the end I believe that what they are pointing to is the proportionality clause of the Vermont Constitution. So they can come up with specific assessment relationships with taxpayers, provided that it comports with Vermont's proportionality clause. I may want to hear some testimony on this but there are specific allowances under Vermont's tax law where municipalities can enter into essentially tax agreement contracts with certain entities that are paid over a period of time essentially a reduction tax rate to entice certain entities to operate within the town. That would come in the include what we call stabilization agreements Tucker. Yes, that is what I was getting at. And what about the somewhat murky area of charitable and public use kinds of exemptions, which oftentimes include portions which qualify under the benefits clause and portions of a property which do not. That all be governed by the general law that exempt certain types of pious and charitable properties from property taxation by the municipalities. So I would not see this specific section of the charter as being in conflict with those general laws. However, you brought up the perfect example of the stabilization agreement. That is something that I think is being alluded to here in this section. Now, I thought I was finished what a mistake. The proportionality comment applies to situations where a property is a judge by the assessor to be mixed between a pious use and not qualifying. Do I get that the proportionality clause of the Vermont Constitution and I'll try to keep this as simple as possible essentially says that taxes should be proportionate to the tax payer and the benefit they receive. Essentially, you should not tax one entity at a rate that directly benefits someone else. And I can bring you back to a discussion that we had three years ago, the town of Bennington Charter where they were proposing to expand taxing district boundaries, based on a municipal vote, but there would be a case that would be paying a special assessment tax if the boundaries were changed where they would receive no benefits. And essentially, you not only have a constitutional structure but a statutory structure that says, you know, for example, if you're going to be raising a tax for water utility lines and things like that, then those that are paying the assessment tax should be those that are receiving the benefit. You shouldn't use an ad valorem tax to give a benefit to a limited population of people. Thank you. All right, let's see if we can jog through the last few pages. All right, moving through sub chapter 11 deals with capital programs within the city. Essentially the city manager is charged with preparing and submitting to the council a capital program. This is prior to the date of the budget. The program shall include a summary of its contents, a list of all the capital improvements that are proposed cost estimates of methods of financing recommended time schedules for the improvements. There's an estimated annual cost of operating and maintaining proposed facilities. And there's the opportunity for revision built within this. Sub chapter 12 deals with the amendment of the charter, the charter may be amended as provided by state law for the amendment of charters. After 13 contains a series of general provisions. These are contained within many of the charters. They don't necessarily add any specific powers. This includes a savings clause section 1301 a separate clause in section 1302 and specific superseding language in section 1303. The commission states that the city shall be formed not withstanding language that is contained within the town of Essex charter within the town's charter states that notwithstanding the provisions of any other municipal charters. So it's pointing to the village there, the territory within the corporate limits of the town's will not be annexed to become part of any other municipal corporation, except as set out in the general. So within the town's charter, they were pointing to the general law, which allows villages to annex territory within a town by set of those who reside in that territory. And they're saying town territory can only be annexed by the village, pursuant to general law. And here, the city is setting that aside, our charters going to supersede that. I will say that each of those 1301 1302 and 1303 are examples of charter language that is not necessary to establishing the city or granny its powers. The next chunk that we will go through is a series of sections governing the transition from city. Section three governs the transition and assignment of village assets and liabilities. It essentially states that all of the assets and obligations that were formerly owned or held by the village, and that haven't been otherwise transferred or resolved by this point, shall transfer to the city. That includes real property interest and property equipment, personal property, rents charges, lean rights enforcement powers, and essentially any financial instrument including indebtedness that the village has all of the active contracts and trusts that obligate the village shall remain in effect and shall transfer to the city, cities essentially going to assume all of those liabilities. Section four establishes the transition period. So, when the charter becomes effective and the city is established according to this act, the transition period will begin on that date. So, July 1, 2022, following the General Assembly's approval of the charter, and we'll end on July 1, 2023. So we have a one year transition period here. During that period, the city shall continue to receive and pay for consolidated services with the town. For administration, assessing the clerk slash treasurer office finances information technology police public works and stormwater. The city shall set a tax rate and collect taxes to meet the obligations for the city's share of town municipal operations, and all of the city's municipal operations throughout the transition period. And this would be according to the budgets that were approved by the voters of the town and the village in the prior annual meeting. The city is selected by the city for the town shall be paid to the town into equal installments at the end of the transition period, the city is proposed to be fully organized. Nothing in this section is intended to limit reservations made in other transitional provisions throughout this act, essentially another savings clause. July 5 provides for the organizational meeting of the city. So the first annual city meeting shall occur on the date set forth by the voters at the most recent village annual meeting, which is up and coming. Following the approval of the charter, the shall be a meeting of the city of us extension and shall be noticed and warned to all the residents of the city. At that meeting that they shall present and discuss the budget only. That's all they're going to do. This other city business, but here it says expressly that the they will not be voting on other issues besides the budget. After presentation and discussion of the budget, the meeting will adjourn voting on the budget, and the election of counselors will be by Australian ballot. Section six contains the transitional provisions for the village center and neighborhood development area designations provides that the village center district and neighborhood development area. They will continue in the new city for the purpose of continuing downtown revitalization efforts as outlined in the village's comprehensive plan. And that the city shall retain any and all state designations for the purposes of redevelopment. Section seven transitional provisions for the trustees to the new governing body the city council on the effective date of the charter. The board of trustees shall become members of the council. So you have direct transfer trustee to city counselor and shall continue to serve in their capacities until they serve out their elected terms. President vice president Thark of the council shall continue to serve in their capacities into the board reorganizes. The ministers shall warn and hold meetings as appropriate and shall address all details and issues relating to the transition from the village to the city. The council wants it is formed will have our review consider and adopt all ordinances and plans from the former village of as extension as its own. So they're reserving to the council here, the opportunity to take all of those village ordinances and carry them for the purposes of the city. So the board with the assistant of the manager shall propose and more in the first annual budget for consideration by the voters at the first annual meeting. Section eight contains a transitional provision for budget and administration. Following the approval of the charter by the general assembly the manager self manager shall pose a budget for the city for the next fiscal year that addresses proper service levels contract obligations capital projects. So something to note here is that introductory clause is not contingent on the act becoming effective it is only contingent on the approval of the charter by the legislature. Next transitional provision governs the separation of the city and town departments. As you know the city is going to employ a city manager, the manager shall plan and hire for the separation of all consolidated departments within the town by the end of the transition period again that's July 1 2023. Unless contracts are signed stating otherwise in which case the contracts shall dictate the terms for the sharing of services between the city and the town. So going back to what feels like 10 days ago but was likely an hour ago, representative that was your question and you may want to investigate what contracts may be extended beyond the transitional period for the sharing of services between these two municipalities. Section 10 transitional provision for planning and development. The city board of village is zoning bylaws and land development code and any ordinances shall remain in effect until they're amended or revised by the city council. And further that the village planning commission and zoning board of adjustment shall become those boards under the city government. All ordinances in section 11 deal with appointed commission committee members. All current trustee appointed commission committee members shall serve out the remainder of their terms and new positions shall be filled upon the existing schedules established in the village. Under section 12 we deal with the unification and adoption of ordinances bylaws and rules we dealt with some of that in the context of development just a few seconds ago. All ordinances and bylaws of the village shall become ordinances and bylaws of the city. The city is fully authorized to amend or appeal any ordinance in accordance with this charter and general law. Section 13, this deals with personnel on the effective date of this charter employees of the village shall become employees of the city, and all contracts for employment with the village shall be assumed by the city. Personnel policies and regulations that have been adopted by the village shall become the policies and regulations the city. The dates of hire within the village will be used as the dates of hire for purposes of related purposes related to benefits with the new city of s extraction and all accrued benefits for village employees are going to carry over to city employment. Section 14 deals with finances. The city shall adopt any and all portions of the town of Essex grand list for properties located within the borders of the city. So for those properties within the corporate limits of what is currently village that will become a grand list of the city. Any and all property tax payments that are due and delinquencies incurred for the village prior to the effective date of the charter shall be payable to the town of Essex. On the effective date of the charter and the establishment city, any city taxes due and delinquencies incurred shall be payable to the city. So prior to that goes to the town. After the date of effectiveness that goes to the city. All contractual agreements, including tax stabilization agreements. Any agreements related to the conveyance of real estate within the village shall be assigned to the city of Essex junction. Section 15 establishes the future governance. Within three years after the approval of this charter the city council is going to be required to appoint a special commission to study governance considerations. And they gave an example here, forms of government elections of officials at large or through wards of districts governing body composition terms of office turn limits and counselor compensation. So board is going to be formed to give advice to the city council about how to move forward with city government in future years. We're at the end. And the end is first that the village charter. will be and will no longer be a corporate entity. Under section 17 the effective date here specifically unlike other charters is not on passage, but is July 1 2022, which will kick off that transitional period. Those are the words on the page. Thank you Tucker, I appreciate your thorough walkthrough and would open it up for committee members to ask any lingering questions that they might have right now. Representative the house game. I imagine I probably have a lot of questions but that was thorough and long and I suspect I'll have to process them but the first one that comes to mind for me is if in your view. This city charter given that the village charter has a relationship to the town outside the village charter if the enactment of the city charter would have would in any way force changes to be made to the town of Essex charter. Sorry if that was convoluted this whole thing is a little convoluted. I understood you perfectly it's a fantastic point and the answer is that the establishment of the city is going to require changes not only in any charter that refers to the former village, but also in a few provisions of municipal law that identify the municipalities of the state. So if this charter moves forward provisions are going to have to be included for example to add the city of Essex junction to the list of municipalities within the state. There's designation, for example, of municipalities for purposes of districting those statutes will have to be amended to recognize the city of Essex junction. There's going to have to be some cleanup if this moves forward. Yes. Okay. But aside from cleanup and the sort of technical changes it would not force any substantive changes to the town of Essex charter. There are places where the town like the town charter significantly has to change because of this. I have not looked into whether there are substantive relationships between the town and the village are specifically referenced in the town charter, but I will. Thank you so much my other question and this may be something that you also don't have the answer to is around the select board that is currently made up of residents of the town outside the village and residents of what would become the city. What would happen to those select board members who are now residents in the city and not the town outside of the village. I'm going to have to take a look at the town of Essex charter and see whether they have a specific provision allowing non residents to occupy their legislative body. My intuition tells me that they do not, and that that would be deemed a vacancy. Thank you. Representative Anthony. Thank you Tucker thank you madam chair. Thank you madam chair. I have a comment about the effective dates. Is there a failsafe position or provision. If for some reason, this process is not concluded by July 123. That is a question that should go to those working within the village right now, or perhaps the representatives of the village who have been intimately involved with the process. The failsafe built into the bill. In fact, some of the things that I highlighted aren't even contingent on the bill moving forward they are a reflection of plans that will move forward. Now that this is in front of the general assembly. So one of the things that I highlighted before this is signed and becomes effective. I think that they're going to be moving the town manager is going to be moving forward with some of the budget proposals. You know for the fiscal year which starts July 1st. So that's something that you should explore with representatives from the village. Other questions from committee members. Okay. So Tucker, this is a really my, I think it's a minor point on page 16 line 11. It refers to subdivision 301 b4 of this charter, which I believe deals with investigations but I couldn't find that. Well I went to section 301 and had nothing to do with investigations. Representative Ganon as always a keen eye that reference should be to section 201 b4, which provides that the city shall have the power to inquire into the conduct of any officer commissioner department. So that is a technical correction that should be made before this moves forward. And I just, I just thought that that was a very limiting session of when the city council can go into executive session without the manager. I mean only if he's under investigation. Or they're discussing his personnel record. I mean that's pretty narrow what if there's a whistleblower complaint. You know, it says there's embezzlement in the city, but it's not specific to the manager. Right. I mean, I would think that the city council would probably not want to have any personnel in that meeting. Representative McCarthy. I mean, if I was putting my city managers, he would say I would want to be in that meeting unless I was the subject of it. I mean, it's sometimes you don't know. Yeah. That's an interesting and maybe someone wouldn't want to come forward if there was anyone else. So all you know there's, there appears to have been an embezzlement, but it's unclear who did it. Like for example your auditor comes back and finds an account is missing money. That's all they know than any member of the city could be likely the treasurer the time manager or city manager in this case. That might be helpful. Good questions. I just think it's very narrowing to say okay, these are the only two times that city council can meet in executive session without the manager being present. That's a great, a great issue to flag. I think we're the village trustees who will become the city council and understand what their thoughts are on this. Any other questions for Tucker about the bill as introduced. Right. We are. Tucker has his hand up. Hi Tucker. I apologize. I had promised interested parties specifically the sponsor the bill who spoke to you earlier that I would relay to concerns that they wanted to highlight with the bill. And that justices of the piece are currently elected by the town and per the Vermont Constitution justices of the piece have to be elected at the November general election by the town that they are going to serve in. This is an issue that needs to be addressed as these two municipalities split. First, whether the current justices of the piece can serve across town lines and whether there's any problem with that. And two, whether because of the specific language within the Vermont Constitution and election or special election could be held immediately, not waiting until November to make sure that there are justices of the piece that can serve in the city. So that's what we've established. And let me, I'm so sorry to delay you pull up my notes really quickly. Yes, the transitional provision that we went through in section four, that some of the provisions should be removed. Specifically about continuing to receive and paying for consolidated services with the town for administration and finance those two terms administrative services and finance should be removed because those services have already been separated. So for that year of the transitional period they should not be added back into the mix. Remember, I think it appears to me that there could be other issues. And are we going to hear from somebody from the town of Essex as well. I think that we will hear from both the select board chair and the village trustees chair and and hear a little bit more about the conversations that are going on between the two entities about planning for separation. Thank you representative Anthony. Tucker on the heels. Thank you madam chair. The heels of your observation about justice of the peace not waiting until next November, because they double as members of the BCA together with members of the legislative body I'm wondering whether to be sure there's sufficient personnel to constitute the BCA, because there's some provision to include the village trustees explicitly as serving as if they were members of the council and therefore members of the BCA. So the BCA simply not limited to three justice for the peace. That can be addressed in a transition position, certainly, and I'll also direct you to the BCA provision within the charter I'll send you the language later but they reference general law authority within that section of the charter. Other questions. All right, welcome back. Thank you to the operations committee. We are meeting this afternoon to hear from a couple more witnesses on age 491 and act relating to the creation of the city of Essex junction and adoption of the city charter. So today, Mr Brown from the village trustees, who is vice chair of the select board I understand that the chair of the select board had a family emergency and wasn't able to join us. And so we wish him well. And thank you, Mr Murray for for coming to speak with us in his place. I think since this is the, the village separation charter proposal I'm going to go first to Andrew Brown who I gather is the president of the village trustees so welcome, Mr Brown and please share with us your perspective on why the village of Essex junction would like to become the city of Essex junction. Thank you so much, Madam chair representative Colpin Hans this vice chair representative again and ranking member representative Leclerre and the full house committee and government operations. Truly appreciate the opportunity to to be here and to really help advocate on behalf of the 88% of village of Essex junction residents who voted to separate from the town of Essex. And really what I'd like to do is I'd like to start off in the similar way that the trustees started off all of our work sessions, which we conducted from April through September, when we were creating this this charter to begin with. We started off with a review of our goal statements, which states to create an independent Essex junction, ensuring that it has a foundation that provides for economic and political stability reflects the village character has opportunity for growth and looks towards the future. Further the village trustees agreed to the statement on how we would get there, which states. The village led process that is future oriented. We will steer clear of distractions and act with civility transparency and deliverance. The trustees will work to develop consensus and speak with a consistent voice. We will engage with bring together seek input from and work to inform our community. We will work with the select board and maintain a healthy relationship with our neighbors in the town. Last point, one of the things I want to make sure to highlight is on May 24 of 2021, the village trustees in the town select board agreed to and signed an amicable separation resolution, which in part states the select board and trustees will meet in good faith to cooperatively develop mutually beneficial agreements as necessary to reach to achieve an amicable separation, along with the possible provision of sharing services. The select board and trustees agreed to negotiate in good faith throughout the amicable separation process. I say this to ensure all of you know that the intent is to ensure that the town of Essex and city of Essex junction remain cooperative neighbors, and in no way should this be viewed as a messy divorce. Madam chair, if you don't mind, you asked your original question is, or was why does a village of Essex junction wants to separate from the town of Essex and to create an independent city. I can certainly go into the, the why, although I believe that representative Houghton did a great job of doing so. If you don't mind what I would like to take some of the time at this moment to do is to go through some of the questions that I that I heard from the previous, the previous committee time on this, this charter change. That would be very helpful. Thank you. Yes. I believe there was a question around what will separation mean for emergency services. One of the things I want to make sure that is understood the village of Essex junction and the town of Essex currently have their own independent fire departments. They are not funded together. They are their own separate entities funded by the unique municipalities. So, I believe that Essex which provides the ems services as a separate nonprofit, and the police department. That is one that is slightly unique in the sense that the town of Essex oversees the police department for Essex, the whole. One of the agreements that the trustees and the select board have worked diligently on is an agreement to continue to have the Essex police department provide services to those in the town of Essex and to those of us that would be in the city of Essex junction. In this agreement is a multi year agreement where essentially the two entities would pay the necessary costs for the police department on a per capita basis, as our populations are relatively similar. But this would be a department that is overseen by the town of Essex. So essentially the city of Essex junction is contracting with the town of Essex for the police services. On a related notes, there was a question around whether our charter for the city of Essex junction would interfere with a conflict around the termination or supervision of the chief of police. Given the agreement that we have with the town of Essex, the police department would be overseen by the town of Essex and so the police chief would be an employee of the town of Essex. And so that individual would not be subject to the city of Essex junctions charter. There was another question about what has to be unwound, and what has to be stood up in terms of which departments are, which municipality has which departments. I've already mentioned the police department. We are, we have finalized an agreement with the town of Essex on an assessor through the reappraisal process. We're essentially the city of Essex junction will contract with the town of Essex for the, the impending reappraisal process should start in the next couple of years. The process has concluded our municipalities may continue to have a shared assessor or we can separate the assessing department or assessing function and have our own, but that would be a decision for a future board at that point in time. We have an agreement to separate the it functions and to ensure that we can extract all necessary data from town servers as necessary so that that way come the effective date of the charter from day one we can have a fully functioning access junction information technology infrastructure, which we would have contracted out through separate provider. We believe you heard at the last time. We have an agreement where stormwater, we will work together when necessary, but that we would have our own individual stormwater processes and funding. We currently are unwinding our finance staff in our finance department. We are unwinding the clerk in the treasure functions. Both of those are in are in an agreement that we have discussed as recently as last night. We are working on an agreement to share the benefits of recreation in our community so that way our residents are treated equally in terms of recreation services. Other than that, everything else is separate. Our finance will be separate after the transitional period as our previous books had been or previous processes had been consolidated so those are being unwound. Our staff though are going to be separate so the town has a finance director the village is going to be having a finance director starting on February 7. The town has a manager and the village slash city we are already starting the process to hire for a city manager. The village of Essex Junction has a wastewater treatment plant which I know was discussed at the previous meeting as a recap. The city of Essex or the village of Essex Junction wastewater treatment plant serves the town of Essex, the village of Essex Junction and the town of Williston in a very collaborative manner. In no way are we trying to replicate anything else going on in any other municipality. As I say a great collaboration has existed for many decades. We have separate recreation departments. We have separate public works departments. While the villages public works department is funded through town the town taxes. They are supervised by the village of Essex Junction. They are the best extension employees. We have separate community development departments. So planning zoning. That is all separate. So overwhelmingly, we are separate in many ways. And for those where it may expense we are working collaboratively with the soul to continue those those opportunities. There was a question around and around to move out. Sorry for the chuckle on that one. Yes, move out in terms of a representative. A city council member moving out of the more specific alternative would certainly support that. There was another question around section 503. Yes. I have a question in favor. Your audio. We adopt ordinances. That space between the adoption date is normally 45 days an hour. Is my audio becoming choppy. Your audio is becoming choppy. And I don't think we were able to hear your answer to the move out question. So if you could back up to that and try again. Yes, absolutely. Can you hear me any better now? Great. My apologies. So yes, with the move out statement, we would certainly support the, the recommendation from, I believe it was representative McCarthy. Or legislative council. Frankly, that is, we are amenable to that. So I was from there, I was going on to section 503 in the ordinances. And that with our ordinance proposal, it was slightly different than, in that the effective date would be effective upon passage. The intention there was that the rescission date would still be applicable. But seeing as that is different than what is common practice in the state, we would certainly be amenable to have that be the typical effective upon 45 days after passage. There was another question around section 1003. And let me take that moment to just say, I'm really sorry about how much time you all spent on this charter. It was certainly very lengthy and appreciate the time that you all took to go through it. Not a problem. That's our job. So section 1003 and around utilize tax stabilization and we have utilized the tax stabilization agreement for that farm. After the charter review, there were some other questions or any potential changes to the town of Essex Charter. And in looking at the town of Essex Charter, there is no direct mention of the village of Essex Junction municipality. There is a mention mentioned of the village of Essex Junction school district, which no longer exists. But other than that, there is no direct mention of the village of Essex Junction. There was a question around a failsafe provision. Should the charter not pass? We are currently planning on the best case scenario in that the House, the Senate, the governor signs off on this charter change. We need to plan for that as there are going to be some initial individuals that we need to hire. As I mentioned, we've already made the offer to a new finance director who was starting at the beginning of next month. We're starting the process for a city manager. And so we need to make sure that we are prepared for that scenario should it happen. Other than that. Should the, should this bill not pass this session? We will be right back here at the exact same place as this meeting. I think this is absolutely desirable by the village of Essex Junction community. And frankly, overwhelmingly so as there were more individuals voting for separation than there were for any of the previous merger proposals. There was another question around the investigative powers. Oh, I'm sorry. That was a question around. When the city manager would be in executive session. We would be in executive session. We would feel comfortable with, we are more than comfortable with. There are times where we do not want the manager to be a part of the executive sessions. I believe it was vice chair representative Gannon who had, who had talked about that. And yes, there are certainly times where we need to be able to do that. Not necessarily just in terms of evaluating performance. There was a. Another question. There was a reference to section 301. Where. That was just a, a typo where instead of 301, that should be 201. Certainly appreciate that being fixed. Apologize for that typo. And there was also a question around justice of the peace and BCA, which I believe that legislative council had already had already addressed in the committee time. Other than that, the, the main thing that again, I really wanted to, to drive home as you can see here. The select board chair, while unfortunately there, as was mentioned, there are some health concerns that are going on. I wish him and his family well. But we have the vice chair, the select board here to really help in and ensure that the committee understands that this is not one community trying to harm another. We are neighbors. Some of us like myself grew up in one part and now live in the other. And so we have a lot of, a lot of issues. We have a lot of issues with the community. Our children end up going to the same high school. So we root for them together on sports teams. We watch their plays. Many of our, our children become classmates in the high school. And so we certainly don't want to jeopardize that, that future relationship in any way, shape or form. And overwhelmingly, if there are other concerns around the charter that was provided to you all. We are very amenable to what the committee believes is in the community. We are very amenable to what the committee believes is in the community. We have more and more charters than we do. And you have that expertise. And we are very amenable to that. As frankly, we want to ensure that separation passes. Thank you so much for being with us today. And thank you for taking the time to look at the previous committee hearing that we had on this subject, because it's very helpful to, to have someone from on the ground. Help us answer these questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions. For Mr. Brown. Representative Leclerc. Thank you, Madam chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Brown. It looks like I'll be one of two that might potentially be reporting this charter change. So I just, I have a couple of questions. I just want to make sure that I understand that. Going forward, you're going to be continued to share the police department. The assessor, the rec department, wastewater. How about the Brown L library? Our libraries are separate entities. The Brown L library serves the village of Essex junction. The Essex free library is built to serve those outside the village in the town. And so those will continue to remain separate. Thank you for asking that. I forgot to mention that. All right. Are there any other shared services that you can think of going forward? Or even maybe shared positions. Not shared services or shared positions at this point. Unless I am forgetting something. And in which case I am, I would look to vice chair Murray to certainly correct me. Similarly in the future at this point in time. Our boards and even our staff have agreed that separation isn't the best interests as our boards in many ways have differing priorities. And as such, it's been a bit of a taxing experience for many of our management staff. I just have one more question. It's, I guess it's section 15. In the proposed charter. It's actually one of the last paragraphs. The transitional provision future governance commission. Did you speak to the intent of that? Certainly. You said that was section 16. Section 15. Yes. So the intent of this is early on, there were questions as to whether or not the city of Essex junction should have a mayor, whether or not five city counselors is appropriate. And the intention of this committee is to explore those, those concerns and to help provide a recommendation back to the city council. One of the things that we wanted to ensure as we were going through this process is we didn't want to change the experience of the village of Essex junction residents. We wanted to ensure that the city of Essex junction, frankly, is take away the word village, replace it with city. And that's what you get. And so we didn't want to change the governance structure at this time. We didn't want to change the city of Essex. Even though we had heard from some of our, our constituents that they would like that. So this, the intent here is to have that committee explore those opportunities. Okay. So this is just to do with the potential city of Essex, as opposed to looking at any shared governance structure going forward between the two entities. Yes, you are correct. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Other questions from committee members. I am seeing none. So Patrick Murray. Welcome and thank you for being here to speak on behalf of the select board of the town of Essex. And would welcome your thoughts on the charter proposal as a whole. And also would love to have you explore a little bit for the committee to help us understand the. Collaboration that has happened between the village and the town. To get to the point where. We stand today. So welcome. Thank you very much, Madam chair, Mr vice chair. I apologize a bit in advance. I was not anticipating needing to testify today. So as you can see behind me, my nerd is in full swing with the various. Comical, paraphernalia. Speaking more seriously though, it has long been and our chair, Andy Watts, uses exact phrasing that the select board does not wish to get in the way of the formation of a city of Essex junction. It is not our, not our intent or our desire to try to throw up any roadblocks or to prevent this from happening in any way. The select board's concern is obviously in what is now a bit of a tricky situation, we are representing both those individuals who live outside of the village in Essex currently, but we are at current still representing all of those individuals who live within the village of Essex Junction because they remain residents of the town. That creates quite a balancing act when we are going through all of our proposals and through working with the trustees in the various agreements that we've come to. I think so far, however, we've been fairly successful. We have worked continuously with the trustees since the results of this vote last April and have gone through a significant number of agreements that have been set into place. We continue to work on those, as Andrew Brown mentioned, police services, assessor, stormwater, clerk, treasurer. We continue to work on those, but we have made significant progress in what we classified as higher tier agreements, simply just a way for us to identify those items that are of a significant priority. Police services, for example, was the, I think, number one concern for almost all of the citizens that we represent. Now, I did not spend as much time watching your last meeting on this as Andrew did, so I'm not sure that I'll be able to go through each question. There was one in particular, though, that I would like to reference. There was some question as to, once the residency of select board members, should that change if the city of Essex Junction does indeed become a city? At present, I am the only representative on the select board who lives within the village of Essex Junction. Again, that tricky balancing act. However, in this case, I am not running for my seat. In April, my term will end at that point, so there will be no residents of this village of Essex Junction who will sit on the select board at that point. Our largest concern, obviously, has been limiting the difficulty and the, you know, financial aspects of the separation, losing roughly 42% of, you know, the tax base does come with its own unique challenges, some of which we've already begun to address. We have reduced our administrative staff, we anticipate in the time going forward being able to reduce some of the levels of service, but we will be able to reduce some of the employee numbers that we have. And ideally, we also hope to use fund balance going forward to smooth out the sudden jump in an anticipated tax rate. So for us who are on the select board, our biggest concern is simply timing. We can plan and we can, you know, theorize about a lot of the financial questions, but, you know, until we know a specific date, that's going to be difficult for us to speak with real certainty about, you know, where we may make adjustments. However, we are more than prepared to do so. Thank you. Questions from committee members? Go ahead, Rep. Pigley. Thank you, Madam Chair. This may be a question more for Mr. Brown, but either you, Mr. Murray, going back to holding the same assessor or assessors between the village and the town, how is that going to work? Does property evaluation or review consider each of those entities a separate grand list and so on? I'm just wondering how that works. Certainly. Not at present. You know, we as a select board will continue to function as if, you know, until we hear the word as if we will remain one town. It's just simply how I think we have to continue to move forward to, you know, give our citizens relatively, should I say, to try to avoid introducing, you know, as many elements of the unknown or uncertainty as we can. So in this case, yeah, right now and currently, and I believe until after the city becomes obviously its own municipality, we, our assessor will treat that as one grand list. Andrew, if I'm missing anything, certainly please feel free to step in. Yes. Thank you, if I may. The only other portion that I wanted to mention is that our town staff through using the geographic information system capabilities that staffing have already have the separated grand list of which or have the notation as to which properties are currently within the village and would then become in the city, which would be in the town outside of the village. And so they are well equipped to be able to manage that process and be able to distinguish which property is on which side of the line. Thank you. Other questions? Representative Leclerc. Thank you. I don't know which one of you this would apply to, but other than the proposed charter change, do you have like a master document that you're working from like a memorandum of understanding or what are you using to work from to agree on what are going to be shared services and then how you're going to unwind some of the other things that you have? Yes, absolutely. Andrew, if you don't mind, I'll begin and then Phil and we do indeed have a list. We generated an MOU and within that are the various agreements that we have worked on since late last year. That does include the police services that includes the stormwater, all the various departments, the unwinding and the untangling. This document contains, while it does contain all of those different agreements, not every single one of them is final yet. So it's something, it's certainly documentation that is available. I would just simply hesitate to say, we use that as a complete hard and fast list of this is the map, how we get from A to B. It is simply what we have worked on and created in the, for mutual respect between our communities and hopefully going forward to, as I mentioned, minimize the impact on all of our citizens. So I recognize it's kind of a working document. Is that something that's accessible to the public? It is indeed, yes. That documentation is contained within every agenda packet that we send out for meetings that we work on it and there is also a sort of a larger master plan as it were that was, is also available on our SX website. We're good. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. I have a couple of quick questions and then I actually do have to go because I have an appointment at 3.30. But my first question around the select board and who's on the select board, I recognize you are not running for reelection, but there is nothing barring another city or village resident from running for that seat. Is there? There is nothing barring that. No. As of, I believe yesterday, the deadline for those who are running for the upcoming seats has ended. And to my knowledge, there are no village residents who are running for the three open select board seats that we have in March. Thank you. I will certainly, slightly, I thought someone hadn't had announced, but maybe they didn't file the paperwork, but that is helpful. And then my other question around these memorandums of understanding, am I right that sort of the police sharing piece was voted on in the charter change and the rest of them are being negotiated between the trustees and the select board? Or is that incorrect? We have Andrew, please go ahead. Within the, if I may, within the charter itself in the transitional provisions, it does discuss some shared services. The details, but the details of those services were not voted upon. There was an advisory vote back in April for the village where the village of S extension residents had voted to share police services and had desired to only share police services. And so then in the subsequent conversations with the select board, we had agreed that there should be additional services that we share. Okay, great. And on these shared services that would share between the village and the town there, it was only the village that voted. There was no townwide vote on any of this. Correct. Thank you. All right. Any other questions from committee members? All right. Thank you to the Essex trustees and select board members for being with us today on what's very short notice. We appreciate you helping us understand the extent of the collaboration as the two entities work on preparing for what appears to be an upcoming separation would welcome you to reach out if you have any further thoughts after today. And the committee will continue working on this with the intention of moving it out as soon as we are comfortable that we've heard from the various perspectives. So anything else before we sign off for the day? I may have one question. Apologies. I believe Andrew touched on something related to justice of the peace. And perhaps this is my lack of not seeing the entirety of the last meeting. The select board did have some questions as to current justices of the peace. And as they were elected during a townwide election for the town of Essex, we do have JPs who reside both within the village and outside the town, excuse me, outside the village of Essex within the town proper. We were not sure if simply by the separation or the creation of the city, if those individuals living within the village would automatically become justice of the piece of the village, or if that was something that needed to be re-voted on. It was just an open question that we on the select board had that impacts the ability to run elections going forward should separation occur, specifically we're thinking of November and potentially March or next year. Thank you for raising that. The members from very city and very town are the dynamic duo who will be carrying this forward. And so I'm going to invite them to weigh in if they have a thought, but also to follow up with legislative council. It would occur to me that upon the completion of separation that any person who lives in the city of Essex Junction would no longer be a resident of the town and therefore would no longer be eligible to serve as justice of the piece. But I believe that your city would need to establish a charter or a transitional provision that would call for how you would stand up trust JPs within the city of Essex Junction. But I'm going to let the members from very city follow up with you on that to give you a sense of what legislative council says. This is a rare occurrence in our state for municipalities to separate in this way. So it's not something that we, it's not something that we have had a lot of experience with. So I thank you for raising it. Absolutely. Other questions, folks? I don't think I could have said it any better than you did. All right. Thank you gentlemen for being with us. It is Friday afternoon and I promise not to keep you all too, too much longer, but there was a request for a little bit more testimony to understand the plans that are in process between the town of Essex and the proposed new city of Essex Junction as the separation charter is in front of us in the form of H491. So we have with us this afternoon Susan MacMera Hill, whose town clerk from Essex. Susan, I don't know if you have prepared remarks or if you are making yourself more available for Q&A. I think the committee's testimony so far has been around, you know, focused in on the charter for the future city of Essex Junction. But if there are any considerations that the town clerk can share with us, we would love to hear from you. And we need you to unmute yourself. Okay. So the only thing I want to say is that I am the town clerk, but I'm also the village clerk, the village of Essex Junction, and I am still employed by the village of Essex Junction. So that was my first position was as village clerk and I've been, and I was then appointed to the town clerk and I've been doing both jobs for the last five years. And I don't really have any prepared statements. I'm here to answer any questions that the committee might have. Okay. Representative Leclerc has a question. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. So it sounds like it puts you in kind of a unique position there. So would it be appropriate to ask you if this goes through? Which way do you go? So I am still a village of Essex Junction employee and under the charter, I believe I would then become a city of Essex Junction employee and I see myself becoming the city clerk of the city. So then that would put the town into a position of having to elect their own town clerk. Is that? Yeah. Both clerks are appointed in both municipalities. We're in the process right now because my assistant clerk left for another job in December. So we're in the process of interviewing candidates for a deputy clerk position that we anticipate would be able to ease into the or learn the town clerk position and go into that when the time comes that I would be fully just doing city work. So you're anticipating that position with sort of transition into the towns. I guess the town clerk would be appointed into that newly created position. Right. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Wendy, any other questions for the town clerk of Essex? All right. Representative Vihovsky, thank you for adding a physical hand as well as your zoom hand. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here, Susan. I have a question and I admit it is a little bit because of my lack of knowledge about the processes around municipal tax collection. So in my reading of the city charter does tax, currently you do tax collection for the whole town. Right. And does, is that going to travel with you to your position as city clerk? My reading of the charter says that the, and again, I may be reading it wrong, that the city would collect all taxes for the whole town and that, am I misreading that? Yeah, I believe so because I think we split up and the city would be collecting taxes just for the city properties and then the town clerk would then collect for the town and the city would pay the town for the sharing services. Right. Okay. Thank you. I was trying to like manage through that like this doesn't make any sense. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So thank you for helping me understand that. You're welcome. Any other questions from committee members? Wonderful. Well, thank you for being with us. We also had a request to hear from the police chief because I understand that the plan going forward is for the two municipalities to continue to share police services. So chief, thank you for being with us and please share with us an update on how those transitions are going. Sure. So very welcome. So just the update that I would have is that the two entities have worked out an agreement or a tentative agreement if this was to go through where as far as law enforcement operations, they would look exactly the same as what they are now and have been. The only difference would be is how the two entities would pay for the services of the police department that would still remain under the provance of the town. So, you know, going forward, the citizens shouldn't see anything different than what they've been seeing. Excellent. Thank you. Questions from committee members, Representative Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief, my reading of the document and the understanding historically is that you are now and will remain an employee of the town. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Thank you very much. Other questions from committee members for the Chief of Police. Well, thank you for zooming to Vermont House Government Operations Committee this afternoon. We're going to do a little bit of walkthrough on the bill language that we'll be taking up again on Tuesday and it is our hope to vote the bill on its way on Tuesday. So, we have one other question from Representative Leclerc. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Chief. Sure. So, you're going to be working underneath basically, I guess it's a memorandum of understanding, correct? Yes, that is correct. And the anticipated time frame is about 10 years? Yes, that would be correct about 10 years and it would be a long-term self-renewing contract unless one of the entities chose to back out. Okay. And are you able to say how much of that document has been flushed out as far as how detailed is it now compared to how detailed it could potentially need to be? The iteration that I last saw was the last draft was pretty well flushed out as far as who would control what, how the financial aspects would be laid out. It was, it's pretty well detailed. I believe that the town and the village both agreed on that and there was some discussion but it wasn't anything too extensive. So, as far as I know, the draft that I've seen is pretty well flushed out for how it would look. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Any other questions from committee members? All right. So, I welcome committee members to refresh your committee page and on your committee page, you should have another draft and Tucker Anderson is with us. And, oh, Representative Bukowski. I don't have a question. I just wanted to let the committee know that I've actually asked the select board chair to submit those various memorandums of understanding to the committee. I know that Representative Leclerc has asked a couple of different occasions for sort of the detailed plans. So, I think we should have those in the coming days for people to look over. Great. That'd be helpful. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Rep Bukowski. Tucker Anderson, welcome and thank you for preparing a few amendments to the bill as introduced. If you could take us through that and help us understand what has changed. Good afternoon for the record, Tucker Anderson office of legislative council. You should have in front of you a proposed amendment to H 491 dated 128 2022. There are four instances of amendment in the draft in front of you. Each instance of amendment is drawn from committee discussion and policy decisions that you have made over the last few weeks. Starting with the first instance of amendment, this deals with the infamous move out phrase as it used to be in the underlying bill. This would amend subsection D in section 204 of the city charter. It would eliminate the existing subsection in its entirety and instead put in the following language in the event that a counselor is no longer a resident of the city prior to the expiration of the counselor's term, the counselor's office shall be deemed vacant. The council may appoint a person to fill the vacant office until a successor can be elected at the next annual election. This does two things. First, it replaces the problematic move out phrase with the term no longer a resident, which pairs more closely with the title 17 that's your election law statutes definitions of what a resident is and who may run for and hold office and vote in a municipal election. The second sentence refers back to the proceeding subsection, which unfortunately is not in front of you in the draft, but it is in the underlying bill and it echoes the existing process built into the city charter for the appointment of an individual to an empty seat due to resignation or the inability to hold the office. The second instance of amendment starting on line 14 is the technical correction that was found when we did the first walkthrough. It corrects a reference to section 301 subdivision B4 to the correct citation 201B4. The third instance of amendment eliminates two words in section four that deals with the transition period from 2022 to 2023. Specifically, it eliminates two terms for payment for consolidated services with the town. The testimony that the committee heard is that these two particular services have already been accounted for in separate memoranda of understanding and do not need to be included in the legislature's transitional provisions for these two municipalities. The two services that no longer need to be a part of this transition period are payment for shared administration and payment for finances. Those two services from the testimony heard are taken care of in an MOU. The final instance of amendment adds a new section 16 to address the issue of former townwide elected justices of the peace. As a municipality that has more than 5000 residents, the constitutional amount of justices of the peace is 15. And as we briefly touched upon in the initial walkthrough, the constitution requires justices of the peace to be elected at the general election for two year terms, and they must be elected by the town that they are representing. Under current law, there is a procedure in place for the governor to appoint vacant JP positions. So this proposes to add a transitional provision in new section 16 dealing with the appointment of justices of the peace to serve in the city until the November election can be held. The section states the governor may appoint up to 15 justices of the peace to serve in the city of Essex Junction pursuant to 17 VSA section 2623. That is the section that permits the governor to appoint vacant JP positions. The committees for the political parties of the justices of the peace of the town of Essex may submit recommendations for qualified justices of the peace to the governor for consideration. This acknowledges that under the existing statutory framework, whenever there is a vacancy, the political party that represented that individual JP who needs to be replaced is allowed to submit a recommendation to the governor for who should be appointed to the position. Section 2623 does not require the governor to accept the recommendation so long as a qualified individual is appointed to the position. This phrase here recognizes that the existing justices of the peace that are serving the village are townwide officers so the town of Essex JP political parties would be making the recommendations because they would no longer be serving within the village. The appointed justices of the peace shall serve until successors may be elected at the 2022 general election. At the end of the amendment, we of course have a line that says that the remaining sections need to be renumbered to be numerically correct. Thank you, Tucker. Rep Vihovsky has a question. I'm just trying to make sense of this. So right now the whole town has 15 justices of the peace. Some of them will no longer be eligible for the village. Some of them will no longer be eligible for the town in all likelihood. Both municipalities will end up needing appointees. Will this help the town and the city get the justice of the peace that they need? This is going to help the city. The existing statute 17 BSA 2623 is already going to come into play when the vacant seats in the town come up because if some of those JPs are village residents right now, they will no longer be justices of the peace in the town. So the general law is going to take care of the town. This charter provision is going to allow up to 15 appointments in the city so that they have a full complement of justices of the peace heading into the November election where they will have their first elected justices of the peace as a city. Perfect. Thank you. That was convoluted for me. Representative Anthony. Representative Vihovsky, as I recall, the representative of the village had said that he is the only village resident who is currently a town JP. He is not running for re-election. And I take it from that that all the remaining JPs are town residents. So that should, as a practical matter, work out. He was select board. He's on the select board and not running for the election. The justices of the pieces are from my recollection of the ballot a couple years ago are somewhat evenly split. And the justices of the piece that currently reside in the village that will now be residing in the city, will they have to be appointed for their positions or will they just automatically get to be justices of the peace in the city? The transition will not be automatic. So all 15 positions in the city, because there has been no election for the city itself, all of them will be appointed by the governor. The recommendation from the party committees in the town could be that the current town JPs that are in the village should be the city justices of the piece. But again, the process is going to be up to 15 recommendations coming from the current town justices of the piece. And then the governor will appoint up to 15. Thank you. Representative McCarthy. And so any of those folks who are appointed are only going to serve through the next election. So we're talking about just a few months. So they would only, you know, if there's an appeal, a tax appeal or, you know, they're helping administer the general election in November, they've only got that office for a few months before they need to be reelected, right? That is correct. Representative, like that. Good afternoon, Tucker. So what's the timeline with which this all has to happen? In other words, this charter passes and then is the current boards would have to get together and make their recommendations to the governor. Is there a timeline and statute that has to be adhered to? Because as the rep from Saint Alvin said indicated, we've got a pretty short window here that we're dealing with, you know, as a section 2623 does not have a timeline for when the governor must make the appointments. I will check to see if there's another statute governing a particular deadline. But to my knowledge, at this moment, there is no timeline for the appointments to be made. And you are correct that the window between July 1st 2022 and the November general election is short. Representative McCarthy. Am I right in understanding, though, that so I think the immediate concern would be if you need to have like a tax appeal meeting, right? As soon as the charter goes into effect, the new five member council that we're setting up for the city that they would would be the board of civil authority, they would represent like the people who are BCA members. And then once those justices of the piece were appointed, then they would be added on as the BCA, right? Correct. So the select board members and the city clerk, I believe, would both transfer over immediately. And then you would have room for the appointed justices of the piece as they come in. Yeah, so there wouldn't be like a lack of government for a period. It would just be that there would be the opportunity to add more people to that body by the governor. It's not like there wouldn't be anybody to do the meetings that would need to happen if you needed to have a tax appeal or something like that. Is there any sort of a quorum requirement in order for them to conduct business? And I'm just trying to think out loud here as far as we've got elections coming along and primaries and things that they should have some oversight and involvement in, don't we? I will need to take a look back through the BCA requirements to see what the quorum is for taking action. And I'll also take a look at the board of tax abatement as a separate entity to see what the requirements are there. Prep Bihowski. I just wanted to clarify and make sure. So the select board's the town. So they would transition out to the town, not into the city. That becomes the city council, correct? I'll just make it, yeah. Yes, the town legislative body stays the same unless residents of the village who are going to be a separate municipality now need to vacate their positions because they're no longer residents. The village trustees under these provisions will immediately become the city council with their staggered terms until their successors are elected at a city election in the future. Representative Gannon. So, and Tucker, correct me if I'm wrong, but I just looked at the board of civil authority statute, which is section 801, and also the board for abatement. And I think a majority vote of the members, whether it's just the select board members or the justice of the piece is sufficient for them to carry out the business before them. Okay. Representative Leclerc and then Anthony. Tucker, did you get the email I had sent you earlier looking to give you an opportunity to spend some time with Representative Anthony and I? I did and I did respond. Okay. Yes. Very good. I appreciated the call out as terrific Tucker, so I in turn referred to you as Rob of Remarkable Reputation. Well done. Well done. Remarkable, yes. Representative Bihowski and then I've got, sorry, Representative Anthony right after you. I think Representative Anthony was before me. Okay. Go ahead, Representative Anthony. Thank you. The alliteration is just staggering. My recollection is the quorum requirements and I think you want to confirm this are different between abatement and civil authority. And the problem I think is on the abatement side because the quorum includes the count of the council or legislative body. And so even though it's the majority of those people seated, the quorum requirement essentially may or may not be met in one of the two, perhaps Rip Ganon is looking, but I vaguely remember the quorum requirements are very different. And in the case of civil authority, you could have literally two of three people do business, but that's not true of the board of abatement. But again, you'll confirm that I'm sure. Rep Bihowski. Wonderful. So I have two questions. My first one is my understanding of the way this charter reads is that the town will hold all tax delinquencies including those in the city and will continue at this time to collect on those. Is that allowed? No. That's right. That's not the way I read it. Okay. Again, I'm trying to wrap my head around this. So if I'm wrong, just tell me I'm wrong. Is it okay? Sure. The way that I interpret that and Tucker, you can confirm how right I am and be gentle if I'm wrong is that up until this charter passes, then the then the town has that authority, but then after it all goes into the city of Essex. So then do this. I'm just right now the town holds those liabilities and does the city somehow buy like I'm trying to just figure out how this how they move from where they are now to where they need to go. So from the point that this charter passes into the future, all existing delinquencies belong to the town of Essex. So the town of Essex will be able to collect on all of them regardless of whether they're in the territorial limits of the city, right? That's as of July 1st, 2022. From that point forward, you have the tax collection in two separate municipalities. Your earlier question where things may get a little more confusing is that the city is going to collect taxes within the city for a period of one year and use the taxes that they're collecting under the currently approved townwide budget to pay obligations that they've agreed to as of the most recent vote with the town. So the easiest way to parse this out, if there were agreed upon expenses by the town as a whole by the time the charter is enacted, the city is going to remain obligated to them and take care of them until July 1st, 2023. And any obligations that are due to the town as of the date of the charter, going back in time, those will continue to go to the town. Okay. So the city will begin collecting on those delinquencies that are owed to the town as a whole and will pay them to the town? No. So any existing delinquencies will continue to be collected by the town because the town is the corporate entity that has those rights. July 1st, 2022 comes, the city exists. From that point forward, the city is going to collect their own taxes on any obligations that are accrued from that point forward. You have, again, the messiness that there's a vote coming up for a town budget that the village is going to participate in. So whatever obligations that the village agrees to as part of the town for that budget is going to be taken care of for the city's portion and through that transitional period. Thank you for bearing with me down this murky trail. Representative Gannon. Oh, yeah. I was reading the board of abatement statute and there is an exception to the quorum, which is this quorum requirement may not be met at the town treasurer. A majority of the listeners and the majority of the select board are present at the meeting. That's 1533 B. Bingo. Yeah, 1533 B is getting us out of our earlier conversation, I think, because then, like I said, if we have the new board in place, we don't need to have all the justices of the piece to have an opinion process. Good deal. All right. Other questions? Large and small. On the city of Essex separation bill. All right. So I want to check in with the duo who are going to be reporting this on the floor because it occurs to me we could report it as as introduced with a separate amendment or we could adopt this amendment language and request that Tucker give us a strike all so that you can report it a little more logically and sequentially. So I would give you the opportunity to tell me whether you would like to present it as introduced and then explain the amendment or shall we do a strike all? Well, you sort of sold me when you said logically and sequentially. It's a little easier to found them how to report this, doesn't it? Well, because it's already a little illogical and complicated. Yes, it is. It is complex to stand up a new municipality for sure. So I don't think we need to roll call this amendment because I think we probably pretty much in agreement that these are important technical changes. So can I just see a thumbs up straw hole on whether we should ask Tucker to make this into a strike all? And Hooper's nodding has said thank you. Okay. It is unanimous. So Tucker, thank you in advance for putting this all together as a strike all and it is our hope to vote this out on Tuesday afternoon after we have a visit with the chair of the select board who was not able to be with us this week. Welcome. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are finishing up our redistricting hearings for the day and now we are zooming back to the charter for the city of Essex Junction and we had a request from folks to please hear from the chair of the Essex Select Board that is the Unified Select Board that incorporates the town outside the village as well as the village currently. And Andrew Watts, thank you for being with us and would welcome you to share your thoughts on how the Essex separation charter is coming together and any particulars that you believe we should know about the negotiations going on between the village and the town select board. Okay. Thank you for inviting me to testify and my apologies for a couple of things here. One is I'm wearing a mask because I'm in a public place. The other is my availability has been limited in the background here. I'm at the UVM hospital up in an upstairs hallway dealing with a pretty severe family illness situation. So I'm hoping I'm in a quiet place so I won't be interrupted. But to talk about the separation and where things are going, I did watch the testimony from Tuesday and also Friday of last week. And it's my impression that Tucker Anderson has a very good grasp of the nuances associated with what's, you know, what the intent of the plan is. There are a couple of things though that I do want to touch on. You know, as is, you know, apparent month from today is town meeting day. The town will be voting on the FY23 budget, which means the, which is the entire town, which includes the village. And then if a separation or if the city is formed on July 1st, the stipulation in the charter is that the town would continue to provide the same services that it provides the village today based on that approved town budget. The one challenge that I wanted to highlight around that is that there's another section of the charter that says that the city will collect taxes and then reimburse the town for their portion of town taxes or the taxes that would have gone to the town. And the challenge there is the same people doing that work because it's a unified department and say one of the services that the town has provided to the village up to this point has been tax collection. And so it's a weird nuance that the town employers are going to be required to collect taxes for the city, which will then get reimbursed to the town. And we really don't have an agreement about how that's going to work. There was the delinquent tax agreement that was forwarded to you. I know you were given all of the agreements that we have. The completed one of them was the delinquent tax agreement, which talks about past taxes. There was a section in there at one point that talked about current tax collection that was removed because the trustees and the select board couldn't come to agreement. The select board's position is we'll collect our own taxes. Thank you very much. And the the trustees position was that the city would collect the taxes and then reimburse the town. And so that's just a piece where there's not agreement. And because I think it was taken out of the agreement, now it's defaulting to the words that are in the charter, which is a concern I have that the town employees are being affected by the phrasing or the definition of how things are going to happen in a charter for different municipalities. I just I want to make sure that we don't have things in the city charter that bind action. And that's that's one one instance that that was of concern that is of concern to me. The the other one that I had brought up was the the Justice of the Peace and I understand that I think that's resolved. I'm happy with with what I heard about that that in the very least the City Council would act as the BCA. And so my concern was that the town would then be asked to provide election support for the city if if as was stated in the last meeting that that the the City Council becomes the the BCA then I think we're all set up but they can run their election in a one-impact town. One one the position that the select board has has been espousing is that we don't want to stand in the way of separation um though in the the the second half of that sentence that we've been using is that we will do what we can to limit the impact to the remaining town. The agreements that we've been working on for to a large extent were an attempt to you know mitigate that impact. The police agreement is a big piece of that that's all that's you know on the order of a third of the town's budget and moving forward that's going to be about half of it's going to be paid for by the by the new city which which is a mitigating factor so that you know our we're losing you know on the order of 42 percent of our property tax base um that the taking half of our largest largest piece of our budget and having it paid for through a contract is is is very helpful to us. We had been working on a five-year finance agreement um it's where finance departments would be shared that unfortunately fell apart when the key individual left the employment of the town for another opportunity and so that was going to be another big piece that would allow the the the town to soften the tax rate increase that we're going to have to absorb with with separation. Assessing we we did get that one that's a very that's a fairly small small piece but we were happy to get that. IT we were also working on but that that's also falling on to the side with with the the village intending to contract those services out. Um so um with with what's left uh the the impact to the town is going to be on the order of a 20 percent tax increase in a single year so FY 24 uh we'll have to absorb it we'll either have to cut services or um absorb a significant tax increase. Now we do have a fair amount of fund balance at this point um that we can use to mitigate that but that's that's only a temporary fix eventually you have to you have to um the the tax rate we'll we'll eventually catch up to that um so we'll we'll be doing that during the transition year the other thing we'll be doing is is working on efficiencies to see if there are our cost savings we can come up with uh we also maybe do do some um uh targeted uh early retirement offers so we're we're looking at we're looking at things to try to to mitigate that that 20 percent bring it down um if it comes to it yes at some point we may have to consider cutting some services or or uh which unfortunately means people um and so I guess uh those are our major concerns um and I think that's uh that's about where I want to go with it and I'm happy to take any questions for anybody who has them. Thank you so much for being with us today and um and thank you for for finding a quiet corner um amidst your uh your your family emergency in the hospital I apologize for um taking you away from uh from your focus on that. Committee members any questions for the Essex Select Board Chair? Representative Leclerc. Thank you Madam Chair and good afternoon Mr. Watts um I I've had the uh the ability to have some of your um MOUs and agreements set and on one hand I want to compliment you that it looks like you've done a fair amount of heavy lifting here on the other hand you've got a fair amount of heavy lifting left to do um without a doubt and you know as you can imagine we've had several people reaching out to us um with varying views and opinions of this um and I don't want to speak for the whole board but you know it seems like our perspective is more to make sure that this was constitutionally correct and that if there is anything left to be done we don't want to get too prescriptive here and it's up to you folks to go through and figure out the nuances that you need to put amongst yourselves um other other than that I mean do you see more of a role for us to play here? Uh no we're not I'm not definitely not asking you to solve our problems for us that's that's yeah not not not looking for that um um kind of a decades old challenge isn't it? It it is it is and it's gone in both directions right sometimes the the town outside the village voted against it sometimes the village voted against it yes it's been uh been going on for a very long time um and and uh you know prior to the statewide education property tax taxes were lower in the village than outside the village because the school taxes were uh were handled differently back in at that point so um yeah it's it's gone both ways and so yeah um right as I said we don't want to stand in the way uh but wanted to make sure I guess you were aware of our our challenges and and that others were aware. Just so that I'm clear in my my own mind here is that you you're talking about your the the fiscal year your transition year there um and I I did see the thing about the liquid tax agreement but it is my understanding that there is more of this worked out than not as far as the transition year and standing up what you need to stand up from an administrative standpoint for the the tax collection and the administrative side of that. So um it's it's it's all doable yes it's all doable um the uh the question in my mind though is having to change things two years in a row because well as I said it's the same physical employees doing the work whether it's collecting town taxes or collecting village taxes and we'd have to come up with a new system to collect to to do it in such a way that we can have those same people do it and be segregated that the following year the city will be collecting its own taxes and it's none of our business how they do it or or or any of that um and so so what I'm what I'm concerned about there is that the the way the charter is written it requires the town to act in a certain way uh in regard to how we're collecting those taxes yeah yeah and I don't and I don't think that this the town should be bound by the charter terms of a different municipality very good thank you that's a good flag uh representative Bihowski that was actually my question if legally a charter of another municipality can bind a different municipality is that something that's even allowed and I'm hoping Tucker might be hiding behind his name to answer my question haha good afternoon tucker anderson office of legislative council the answer is yes if that's what the general assembly is inactive if that's the will of the assembly then yes you can control multiple municipalities through the act that you're passing and what I'll point out is that the provisions that you're talking about are actually not a component of the new city of s6 junction charter they are transitional provisions for the creation of the city and they may impact more than one municipality based on the select board chair's testimony I want to go back through and make sure that I have everything down pat so to speak but it's my understanding that the way that the charter language is written is that uh any budget that is adopted at this annual meeting will be effective for a fiscal year that runs coincides with the transitional period and under the terms of the charter language all uh tax payments that are due prior to the effective date of the charter which is July 1st 2022 will be payable directly to the town of s6 it is only those uh tax payments that are applied through a vote of the city that will be collected by the city if I am incorrect about that formula I would want to know so that I can go back through the language and make sure that that is correct so the way I have read it in the way it's been discussed in meetings is the the city would collect the town taxes for the properties that exist in the city and then pass those funds on to the town for the services that we're providing the consolidated services that were provided during that year so the the the budget that the village my understanding is that the budget the village is going to vote on in April only includes the village tax rate and so what those property with the properties in the village are going to pay is both the city and the the town taxes like they always have but it's a question of who's collecting them and how are they getting to the right place and as I said it's the same people doing the work um so I'm not sure we said the same thing or not I followed you very well and I think there might be a de facto difference in how this is going to play out because you're indicating that the employees are the same between the town and the city and how the law here is making a differentiation between the two municipal corporations right and there are also two transitional provisions that are worded slightly differently here so what the select board chair is pointing to for the committee's reference is in section four which describes the transition period and the obligations of the city with respect to collecting and collecting taxes and distributing payments for the consolidated services that will be subject to the MOU and later on there is a provision give me one moment to scan back through here later on there is a provision that relates directly to tax payments that are due to the town and I'm lost so I might need some time to track it down and point you all to the language let me give you a moment to do that and I would like to ask representative Houghton if she might join us and witness chair um I'm just wondering representative if given that you are um more aware of what is going on in the village uh if you might be able to shed any light on on this issue I can try thank you representative Lori Houghton so how the taxes are collected today um in the so the the town of Essex which includes the village votes on the budget in March a town meeting day we pay taxes for that budget the village votes on the budget in April and we collect taxes for that budget the the combined town clerk gets confusing is a village employee um and will as I think was test was in testimony last week when she was here will will be maintained as a village employee after the transition period so when we vote this coming town meeting and village meeting those collective taxes will be processed the same way they always have through the tax year of 2023 and then and then in March of April of 2023 when we vote our budgets they will be separate budgets they will be collected by separate municipalities starting in July 1st 2024 clear as month well representative look there I'm not convinced that's the way the charter was written but uh and I want to be clear we're talking about the transition plan not the charter language right the transition that's where my question is so if I understand it correctly then the transition year is pretty much status quo yes as far as adopting budgets and taxes and how it's allocated and then during that transition year is when you are going to go through and finalize things based on the charter and then you will have separate budgets and tax collection correct and that is correct so and as you stated very well a little while ago representative look there and I think we've all have stated in our testimony once this charter if it goes through then the overarching MOU will become effective and all those other agreements under it although they have been agreed to and voted on by both parties there is still discussions that will need to happen and details that will need to get ironed out and and I think both communities have proven you know the select board chair and the select board have been great partners through this process adopting this charter and this transition plan and I would expect that would continue so Tucker does that give you the time to find the other language you were looking at and looks like it's section 14 again under transitional provisions yes it is in section 14 and section 14 dictates that for any property tax payments that are due to the town prior to the effective date of the charter that the payments and any delinquencies that are accrued shall go directly to the town and now with a little bit more clarity in the mud so the timeline will essentially be that a unified budget will be adopted may be adopted at the annual meeting and that for any payments that are due this April collection date and it is an April collection date is that correct that's the first payment that's due uh go ahead Mr. Chair it's March and September so for anything that is due prior to July 1st if there is a spring collection date that payment and any delinquencies that are accrued prior to July 1st go to the town July 1st we have a new collection scheme separated between the city and the town where the city will be collecting on the payments that are due and paying for the consolidated services from July 1st 2022 to July 1st 2023 and those payments according to the terms of the charter transition provisions will be made in installments on or before October 15th and April 15th uh during the transition period representative Leclerc okay um so you you just muddied the water a little bit there for me Tucker um so then if I understand you correctly then this transition period really isn't a year that we're talking about something happening as of July 1st where the allocation of the monies would actually start around then or the reallocation of the money is that correct my reading of this is that for that fiscal year those budgetary decisions will already have been made at the annual meeting in 2022 really what we're talking about is uh two separate municipal corporations collecting the taxes and delinquencies and sending them to the town for the consolidated services in uh I guess that's fiscal year 2023 going from July 1 2022 to July 1 2023 right but what did you say it was going to happen differently after July 1st I think around like the delinquencies that would go to the to the village anything that is accrued until July 1st 2022 goes directly to the town yeah so if there are any outstanding delinquencies or any property tax payments that are due prior to the existence of the city on July 1st all of those payments go to the town the city is not involved in the collection of those it's just once the clock starts ticking midnight July 1st 2022 that's when we get into the scheme of um the city and town collecting taxes and paying for the consolidated services thank you if I can also just add to the mud hopefully clear it up a little bit so we consolidated our tax collection about six years ago and we used to have two separate tax departments and both collected their own we had our own tax bills about six years ago in the effort to move towards consolidation we put everything on one tax bill and everything was collected by one tax department so it will still be those same people who are doing the work through this process until July 1st 2023 when the full transition year period is over and we primarily separate those divisions unless during the transition period the two boards you know move to do something else uh Tucker I just wanted to note something from a legal perspective here that this scheme is something that is likely necessary for the city and town and the reason for that is on July 1st 2022 you're creating an independent new municipal corporation and to have the town collecting taxes would actually be the application of an extraterritorial form form of taxation the town would be collecting taxes from another municipality which is not a scheme that is smiled upon by Vermont law go ahead representative Leclerc this is a little off the topic here but yet it's still around this as one of the questions that I have is that we're going to create the city of Essex as opposed to being the village of what's the difference between the two statutorily and I see you're smiling so is that a good question or a bad question exactly it's a fantastic question that historically I can't tell you there's a good basis for Vermont's distinctions between what is a city and a town or a city and a village there is no population basis in Vermont law nor is there a historical precedent for what population a city has to have there's no basis in population density however it appears that villages and just sections of towns that have separated have routinely become cities so in Vermont you have cities with populations of more than 40,000 and some with less than four or five thousand so the answer is there's no good answer and so therefore there's no real difference they're not treated differently taxation wise or any other statutorily no and you'll find with many of the municipal powers that we discuss ad nauseam together over these many years that city town and incorporated village are always bundled together when we run through who can exercise powers yep very good thank you tt representative anthony thank you madam chair i wanted to follow up on a temptation that my colleague representative leclerc was tempted to that is to say prescriptiveness when we started the conversation today i got very nervous that we were going to be called on to be more prescriptive since there seem to be different interpretations as to what would happen between March of 22 July 1st of 22 and then the transition year July 2nd 22 to June 30th 23 but now i'm getting the sense and i hope talker can confirm this that there's no need for us to step in because frankly there seems now to be general agreement as to what happens in the current fiscal year and the transition year and are the parties pretty well clear on that because we're reporting the bill but we don't have to settle the vaguenesses if they show up later i just want to be sure there are no vaguenesses if we can anticipate and hit them off that's all i wanted um and if it requires prescriptiveness i'm okay i don't want vagueness because i think that's where trouble comes in so i guess i'm asking tucker and i'm asking the gentleman from uh the town are we all clear what's going to happen the rest of 22 and f y 23 because the answer is yes and there's no reason for us to intervene further yeah tuckers tuckers comment about uh extraterritorial taxation cleared it up very quickly for me it's the first i've heard that and thank you for that for that we've we've had that question on the table for uh quite a long time and uh that i think that that absolutely resolves it in my mind and and um i think i i'm i'm i'm all sad thank you presented with air and then i'm clear that additional work needs to be done and i'm also quite clear that the additional working needs to be done it needs to be done by these two entities cool um so i grew a part of what you said that um i'm clear in our regard but i think that there's still some vagueness left as far as some of the uncertainty yeah very well yes yeah so in that regard i think where we need where we need to be representative lefaye thank you madam chair and good afternoon mr watson thank you for being with us i want to make sure that from your perspective we have heard from everybody that you feel the town should have you know had shared testimony with us i'm sorry i missed i missed that question sorry i wanted to make sure that we have heard from everybody that the town feels should have shared testimony with us are you asking me that question as the representative from the town yeah okay so um so you heard from uh from patrick murray who was a duly elected representative of the town you've heard from me i know that there are many who would say that there is no one from the entity that from the area of town known as the town outside the village there are those who will say that they've never been represented uh in any of these discussions i have always countered by saying that um i've been i was you know elected to represent all of the residents of the town whether they be inside or outside the village i've also made a point to the fact that i represent the corporate entity that is the town regardless of where his borders exist today or may exist in the future and so um i've certainly had my hat on with that with with that uh concept in in mind with you know with regard to representing uh the the remaining portion of the town um knowing that i have that the obligation to and i've always and i've often said that my obligation is first to the corporate entity that is the town and second to those who currently live in it and so i believe that you have heard from adequate representation and that those of us who are on the select board to to were elected to be on the select board and and represent the town uh have had that in mind as well thank you any remaining questions from committee members all right so tucker i am going to welcome you now to uh to take us on a walk through the bill language and um committee keeping in mind that we do have some folks from springfield who are here um it's probably going to be a bit before we get to them but i just wanted folks to understand that that uh going through this bill language is not the last thing on our on our agenda today uh we do still need to get back to springfield but um tucker we would love to have you walk us through the bill thank you madam chair would you like me to go through uh the entire walk through as we did with the bill is introduced or would you like me to walk through the strike all amendment and the four instances of amendment that the committee requested uh be incorporated into the strike all i think this the four instances of amendment would be most helpful since we have gone through the uh the original bill all right well the four instances of amendment are highlighted in the uh strike all amendment that i sent along that is draft two point one version two of the committee's amendment to h 491 the first instance of amendment appears on page seven starting on line three this is an amendment to section 204 of the charter in subsection d uh this was the move out language in lieu of the language that would have required a counselor to leave their seat when they move out of the city subsection d now states that in the event that a counselor is no longer a resident of the city prior to the expiration of the term the counselor's office shall be deemed vacant the council may appoint a person to fill the vacant office until a successor can be elected at the next annual election as i described last time uh this last sentence harkens back to uh earlier provisions in section 204 so that the procedure for a vacancy is the same no matter the basis for the vacancy in that section the next instance of amendment is a technical correction and it is again highlighted for you all it appears in section 602 of the bill and it corrects uh an errant reference to section 301 b4 of the bill and you'll find this by the way on page 16 line six it corrects that to 201 b4 and i can't recall if that was representative gannon or representative anthony found that but good eye for whoever that was in finding the job take credit for that you can both share the cookie on that one the next instance of amendment appears in the infamous section for the transition period in subsection a in the lines that deal with payment for the consolidated services the committee is removing two of the terms i highlighted the remaining terms the amendment is absent here you're not seeing what you're getting rid of but you eliminated the term finance um and administration from the list of consolidated services that the city will pay the town for the final instance of amendment that we walked through previously i failed to highlight for you so my apologies but that is on page 35 it is the new section 16 dealing with justices of the piece and appointment to bring you all back again uh this states that the governor may point up to 15 justices of the piece pursuant to uh 17 dsa section 26 23 that deals with the appointment of certain officers when there is a vacancy justices of the piece are governed by that statute and the process there allows the parties at the local level that represent the vacant justice of the piece position to recommend to the governor a replacement the governor can take that into consideration but the requirement is really just that the appointed justice of the piece be qualified for the position the section goes on to say that the committees for the political parties of the justices of the piece of the town of Essex as it currently exists may submit recommendations for qualified justices of the piece to the governor for consideration the appointed the appointed justices of the piece shall serve until successors may be elected at the 2022 general election representative behovsky has questions yes i have a couple of tax questions that have come to me from through my email that i'm just hoping can get cleared up so in that taxes the taxes being paid in does this charter specify whether the city owes the full amount regardless of delinquencies or is that something to be worked out between the town and the city so they're going to vote on a townwide budget did they owe their portion of that budget regardless of delinquencies they will owe for the value of the budget and for the value of the consolidated services that is the structure here i don't want to speak out of turn without doing a close examination of the text but i don't think there is anything in the charter that would prohibit an agreement between the parties for how to break up the 8 percent penalty for delinquencies okay and then my other question is a larger question there's been a lot of conversation in parts of Essex about a local option tax is there a way for if the city of Essex decides to enact a local option tax and the town does not but we share a zip code how would that be allocated particularly for online sales so i think that the zip the online sales are really the only instance where that is going to be an issue so there are two avenues that the city could take for a local option tax either the village would have qualified under the current scheme in 24 vsa section 138 between the years of 1997 to 1999 based on a series of financial and budgetary analyses to adopt a local option tax and i will remind the committee that there were fewer than 50 municipalities at the time that qualified under that statutory scheme in which case the city could adopt a local option tax again if they are legally permitted to do so under general law through a vote of the city at an annual or special meeting that is not very likely the other avenue is that they would have to amend this new city charter to adopt a local option tax the tax would only be applied within the city and would only be collected by the city and would be remitted unless the charter specified otherwise according to the general law and the only confusion there would likely be with online sales but i am not certain uh how that could be corrected through state law absent giving the city its own unique zip code keeping in mind that this bill will go to the ways and means committee and i'm sure that they will have the opportunity to do some work on this but representative gannon seems to have found an answer so um i went to the local options tax page on the department of taxes website and went to the towns that collect the taxes and the department of taxes not only looks at the five digit zip code but looks at the nine digit zip code so every town is divided with nine digits so i believe that the city of asex junction and the town of asex could be divided by those zip codes thank you representative gannon and thank you tucker any other questions from committee members for tucker or anyone else uh representative behosky this one's not tax related so i wanted to wait to see if anyone had a tax related question but tucker one of the questions that i had asked earlier on was your view on um the whole town voting and i know that your view was that because it was the city charter that was not required my question though is on the transition language given that that does bind the whole town may i ask a clarifying question is this getting back to whether there's any precedent for the town to have a say in what is happening so i did do some expanded historical research um in vermont there's really only one one to one apples to apples comparison and it is the city of winewski and that was a village vote um there are two other instances that came close but are not in apples to apples comparison and that would be brattle borough and st johnsbury both of those were right within the first two decades of the 20th century and in both instances the proposed city included territory within the town outside the village um so for example in st johnsbury the uh vote was expanded to include the town because uh a school district was being incorporated into the city that had a large swath of town property in it and also the town poor farm and the town farm were being included in the city so the town was given an opportunity to vote because there were properties and residences that were going to join the village and become the city and the same uh appears to be the case from section 114 of the act that would have allowed brattle borough to incorporate a city there were town property and town interests that were incorporated into what was becoming the new municipal corporation having said all that i will go back to my bailout answer on all of this the general assembly can make policy decisions on who should vote on these issues and you could say that the town should approve or should not have a voice in this that is something that you can decide as an assembly you have the power there is no legal requirement for the town to have a vote and based on historical research it appears as though the general assembly in the past when town property is not involved specifically in the creation of the city has not given the town outside the village the opportunity to vote on the creation of the city representative gannon um so tucker if if the town wanted to in some way take a vote on this they could have had a special meeting to either approve or condemn that in the months that have gone since the city of s exjunction or the town first announced that they were going to separate but i'm not aware of any vote that's taken place so i mean well i've received a lot of emails about votes i've not seen that the town has gone forward with any style voting go ahead chair watz yeah so the there was discussion about that yes a lot of discussion about whether a vote should take place in the the select board's consensus has been that in the past when there's been a a question about this there was a well there was a situation where the the the the village voted to separate and then the town went and had a town-wide vote to a different question that was the you know the the the village wanted to separate in the town the village voted to separate in the town voted to emerge right and so the the act of calling for a town-wide vote was considered to be an aggressive act or a malicious act or i'm not sure what the right word is something that would be done intentionally to try to thwart the separation and so the consensus of the select word was to not pursue going forward with the town-wide vote to because we didn't want to give an impression that the select board was taking the position that it didn't support or didn't support this the separation we're not we haven't we haven't taken a position either way actually we haven't voted on a position um but our um hard we did sign the you know the amicable resolution or resolution of amicable i forgot to put all the words are that we're in the total of the the resolution but we we agreed to you know to move forward with investigating the separation but we we chose not to do the vote very intentionally and tucker correct me if i'm wrong but um the voters could petitioned for a non-binding vote could they have not yes yes thank you any remaining questions from committee members all right i would entertain a motion also moved were you making a motion that would he adopt draft 2.1 of h 491 i think that's what he was saying or i am sorry i can't figure out who went first there by itself but yes okay any remaining questions about draft 2.1 of h 491 represent the clerk this will do a drive-by through ways of means it will be a full stop in ways and means okay complete with i'm sure witnesses and hopefully they get the full experience thank you it's all yours i've been there you're ready for that one thanks uh thank you to the members from berry city and berry town for being willing to um shepherd this bill to the floor it means you'll get the opportunity to uh sit down with the ways and means committee all right any remaining questions before we go ahead and take the vote all right mr clerk take it away i shall call the roll gannon yes marikki yes la claire yes pooper yes colston yes anthony yes fioski yes lafaye yes piggly yes mccarthy yes copeland haundes yes the bill passes 11-0-0 all right uh thank you chair watts for being with us today and thank you tucker for your uh good work on this bill and i trust that uh representatives la claire and anthony will come to see you tucker if they have any questions in preparing their floor reports we have a bill on the notice calendar for referral to a money committee pursuant to house rule 35a house bill 491 is an act relating to the creation of the city of essex junction and adoption of the city charter materially affecting the revenue of one or more municipalities the bill is committed uh referred to the committee on ways and means we are going to start our work on h491 which is an act relating to the creation of the city of essex junction and the adoption of the city charter and uh we are going to start representative uh come and join us so strange and before we go too far i want to say hello to uh andy watts and andrew brown both of whom are with us and have testified and other committees this is not your first committee testifying on zone i assume it must have talked to the government operations committees as well yep yes that's correct good before we start why don't because we have met you uh why don't we start by introducing ourselves and then we'll hear from uh from representative houghton then them so i'm janet ansel i'm chair of the committee um and i we're living callous and represent callous marshal thank you hi i'm emily cornheiser i represent braddle bro uh bill canfield i represent gasoline hovernan west haven fair haven carol odie the far new north end of burlington scott back to st johnsbury chris maddow smelton that running cold chester tayla bell there from starksboro representing four towns and county church toad from jericho jim mason deppard also sharon norridge strafford in deppard that's my town i was too simple so uh welcome everybody and uh represent houghton why don't you get us oriented and get us started on the discussion and then we'll we'll get as we learn more we'll have our questions great thank you uh represent will you vote in s extension so this uh charter team started in house govaps and was voted out 11 zero last week i believe um thank you for your time and taking it up today so as you know each 491 is a charter change to establish the city of s extension and before we take testimony from others i think it's important for us to review how we've come to this place and why 88 percent of those who voted voted for an independent community as a brief reminder since 1892 the city of s extension has operated as a municipal unit of government within the town of sx both are chartered municipalities our communities have been voting on some form of merger or separation since 1958 without we've had 16 votes three of which have been non-binding between 2012 and 2020 we worked closely together our communities to consolidate services to save money that consolidation effort led us in 2018 to um the bills trustees and town select board to create a subcommittee to craft a plan for the future of our two communities this is the plan of merger vote that we will discuss shortly but which failed last year the town of sx was before the house government operations committee with a charter change to establish a three plus three governance model at the time the committee decision from gov ups was made to hold further discussions on the government change until the community held the merger vote because it was being planned at that time in 2021 our communities voted on a merger plan that included this three plus three governance model and a 12 year financial phase in to limit the immediate financial impact to the town outside the village presidents if we merged i want to be clear the merger plan included the three plus three governance model that was before the government operations committee last year which was passed in an earlier vote by the town of sx so i'm gonna have to stop it because you've said it now four or five times and i don't know what a three plus three okay so yes thank you and i thought about explaining it so so currently the way we operate is we have a village trustee board five representatives that do the policy and manage the village of best extension the village is part of the town so we have a five member select board which encompasses all of that so 10 000 people in the village is under the trustees 20 000 of us in the broader community is under the select board the village trustees you can only be a village trustee if you live in the village of sx you can be a select board member from either community and so there's always been a concern about who's sitting on the select board and so the town outside the village voted to pass what was called the three plus three governance charter change which would be the select board would be required to have six members three who lived inside the village and three who lived outside the village the whole community voted on that the town outside the village passed it the village did not but the combined totals it passed thank you sorry about that it's okay so that um so the margin plan included that three plus three plus this 12-year financial phase in so close to 50 percent of registered voters townwide all 20 000 of us participated in the plan and merger vote in March of 2021 the merger failed in the town outside the village by 72 percent and passed in the village by 81 percent the combined passed it by or failed by 19 votes with swift action by residents throughout the communities we had a revote on April 13th this time over 50 percent of registered voters participated again the merge plan the merger failed with similar similar percentages in both communities and again it failed I don't have the exact number but it was not by by much with broad community outreach three plus three governance model and a 12-year financial phase in the town of Essex outside the village voters overwhelmingly rejected the plan on merger choice as part of the revote village residents so just the 10 000 of us also voted on a non-binding resolution to have the village trustees draft a charter to establish the city of Essex Junction should the plan of merger fail a second time that non-binding vote passed over well in length so here we are the city of Essex Junction charter vote was held by special village meeting in November 2021 again close to 50 percent of registered voters participated in the charter passed with 88 percent of the vote 3070 yes to 411 no equity intoxication has been a driving factor behind our decades long community discussion and votes it was clearly stated through public outreach that should merger not pass separation would mean an increase in municipal taxes to residents in the town outside the village in fact at a joint municipal meeting on september 28 2020 the town finance director at the time said and I quote there are inequities in the way government is funded in our current situation village taxpayers are paying for services they are not eligible to be seen and are paying more for services that they and town outside the village taxpayers have equal access to this means that town outside the village taxpayers are paying less than the true cost for some of their services and I'm happy to provide examples later in may 2021 the two municipal boards entered into a joint resolution to investigate an amicable separation as written in the resolution and I quote members of the select board and trustees agree to negotiate in good faith throughout the amicable separation process in the spirit of inclusion all voices will be respected respectfully heard and considered and quote representative Dolan and I have watched and engaged in the process and believe that trustees and select board worked collaboratively to establish a transition plan that could be as fair as possible to both communities it is time for our communities who have tried almost every conceivable relationship to have the opportunity to thrive as two separate entities for the betterment of all residents repped on and I know that both communities can and will thrive thank you if there's any questions um sanny at the moment I'm sure they're oh I'm sorry I do so just bear in mind that we're going to hear from our staff and then we're going to hear from folks from the village but uh if you if you want to wait until they all until they've spoken that'd be great if you want to go ahead I will ask it now just because I think clear out of my own head and it could probably it's a general it's a general question that could anybody could answer but the just so that I'm sure I understand right now the the the proposal here is to change the village to a city that a village is contained within a town a city is separate from a town right so so what would be happening is there rather than the kind of merger that's been debated and voted on unsuccessfully over the years this is a different approach correct we are we would be fully separated and really it's a city because that's what we need to be statue wise but um we have been operating as a municipality for all these years and not much would change and the question for us here is to it is approving the legislature will have to approve the charter which effectively makes the village the city correct those that the accomplish is what you're trying to correct yes okay yes thank you I want to go ahead go ahead we're just global founders why is it in the town and it is in the village in the village okay just okay uh there's nobody the biggest piece of y'all later I'm gonna go ahead I think I got the answer which is just about everything will stay the same like sharing services and all that no that is not the case so no no and and Andrew and Andy can probably give you more information about this but the transition plan that's in the document you have outlines what would still be shared and what would not good I'm just gonna ask you to run through those the numbers again sure out in village that that's a vote but the population oh we have about 20,000 community why total so it averages about 10,000 in the village 10,000 in the town I'm coming up a little bit I don't I shouldn't have the latest census but I don't put it down with people separately yes and can I I'm sorry can I just respond to yeah so yes global founders has a big piece of property but so does the town of Essex and that they are probably the one count one town in Chittenden County that has the most available commercial land to develop and so there is potential for great growth in the town outside villages um geographically is the town are they next to each other is one inside the other is it a donut it's kind of like okay um and we are about four and a half square miles and I think there's I don't know how many miles ever so much bigger it's a lot of rural they buy it up to Westford okay I've driven through it a bunch of times I just didn't have a sense yeah it's that if you've driven through the five corners yep that's about what we are okay thanks yeah there's maybe a question for you as a new member I'm looking at this 35-page bill and wondering you know looking at the seconds about taxing what is this committee really is there a way to distill the question before I think we will learn more about what that is as we learn more about the bill the the under the house rules so it came to us under 35a which is an automatic referral and under the house rules any legislation that affects municipal taxes as well as state taxes has to come into the committee consent automatically so um we'll we'll look at it um and yeah so that's what I understand turn up yeah there's no effort to bring it in it was an automatic referral yes where does the Champlain Valley fairgrounds is that down or village that's also village and if I can also just ask the question about taxes in this regard when you start looking at it and this does not affect school taxes there are there on municipality we do not have a tip and we do not have local option tax in other community yes I was just thinking how difficult it would be if I'm excited to pull that up aren't I actually glad you don't have here we are great thank you do you mind if I say I don't mind at all um glad you're here um so uh on a schedule we were going to go to Tucker Anderson next um and I'm just checking in on people's time is that going to be okay in terms of timing or uh you Mr. Brown and Mr. Watts okay yes thank you uh Tucker nice to see you um good afternoon nice to see all of you again I think it's been about a year uh Tucker Anderson office of legislative council you have in front of you age 491 uh and act relating to the creation of the city of Essex Junction uh the bill has three essential components the first is the approval of the creation of the city uh the second is the charter of the new city of Essex Junction and finally the repeal of the current village of Essex Junction charter uh there are 35 pages in front of you but fortunately I think we can move through the first 25 pages rather quickly uh by describing this as a charter that largely reflects general municipal law uh so through those first 25 pages you have establishing the corporate existence of the municipality the existing village is going to become the city it is going to have all of the general powers that are afforded to any other municipality in the state there is going to be a city council which which will consist of five members that will be elected to staggered three or terms and I'm assuming the city shows that because they are going to transition directly from their current village trustees to the city council members effective July 1st uh they are going to use the city manager form of government which many other Vermont municipalities use either a city or a town manager that town manager will have authority over largely the administration of the municipality and through the town manager statutes that will be incorporated within this charter you can think of that position as effectively a chief administrative officer that will oversee the departments and the employees of the city for the financial aspects of the bill can go to page 22 starting with sub chapter nine I will quickly note that the city is proposing to have appointed uh assessor lister positions that is something that municipalities are permitted to do under general law as a matter of fact the municipality can vote to completely eliminate the office of lister and just hire a professional assessor to fill that position sub chapter eight describe or sub chapter nine describes the budget process that will be used by the city briefly touching on section 901 the fiscal year of the city is going to be July 1st to the next July 1st uh the city manager is required to submit to the city council a budget for review every year this is consistent with what we see in many municipalities and under the general municipal statutes governing uh town manager position the budget is required to contain an estimate financial condition of the city itemized statements of appropriations recommended for current expenses and capital improvements I will note here that there are more specific provisions for capital budgets at the end of the charter in sub chapter 11 uh the budget must also include an itemized statement of estimated revenues from all sources uh and a capital budget for not fewer than the next five fiscal years section 903 then provides that the city council reviews and approves the recommended budget which would then go to the city vote moving ahead to section 905 it provides that an annual budget shall be adopted the city immediately vote of the eligible voters again consistent with general law if after the total budget has been appropriated the council finds additional appropriations necessary the appropriations shall be made and reported at the next city meeting as a specific item the appropriations shall only be made in special circumstances or situations of an emergency nature and there is under these terms no specific explanation necessary for any normal operating expense in any office or department of the city uh under subsection c within the section the city manager is given authority to at any time transfer unencumbered appropriations appropriation balances or portions thereof between general classifications of expenditures within an office department or agency uh and the council is authorized by resolution to transfer unencumbered balances section 906 governs the amount to be raised by taxation states that upon the passage of the budget by the voters that the amounts that are stated within the budget to be raised by taxes shall constitute a determination the amount of the amount of the levy for purposes of the city in the corresponding tax year and that the council will levy those taxes sub chapter 10 governs taxation within the new city section 1001 provides that the taxes on real property are paid in two equal installments one on march 15th and one on september 15th and that the council shall send notice to taxpayers not less than 30 days prior to the due date for the taxes the city is choosing in section 1002 to establish a statutory penalty written right into their charter of eight percent they will be added to any tax not paid on or before the dates that are specified in section 1001 of the charter section 1003 uh this is something that I will point out as the charter being distinct from general law governing municipalities that you are all familiar with it states that notwithstanding the section 906 of the charter any other provision of the charter or the requirements of the general laws of the state that the city council will be authorized and empowered to negotiate and execute assessment and taxation agreements between the city and a taxpayer or group of taxpayers within the city consistent with the applicable requirements of the vermont constitution when we walk through this in house government operations I pointed out that clause is put in here because the vermont constitution does have a proportionality clause that requires proportionality within for example ad vorum property taxes this may be something the committee wants to look into how this might section might be harmonized with for example the general statutes governing tax stabilization agreements and the contracts that towns are permitted to execute for example with industrial commercial agricultural or recreational open space properties uh within the municipality so this is of some interest and the representative elder has a has a question yeah you're just to clarify so that that section is basically notwithstanding all vermont statute and so the only thing it's not notwithstanding is the constitutional requirements is that right and that's the clarifying question this that question is is that difficult do we see that in other chargers typically the way that it's phrased is notwithstanding any law to the contrary and then you have a very specific provision that governs some discrete topic and that formula is not uncommon it came up quite a bit during COVID giving municipalities very specific authority to deal with you know their municipal budgets during COVID so no and it also would not be necessary so just by having the charter provision be very specific and give the city specific authority to execute these types of agreements you actually don't have to not withstand the general law you're already granting very specific authority to the city you don't have to put in anything in there because the more specific provisions of the charter will control over contrary general law question i have and i first time i've looked at this is is this granting some authority to negotiate and execute assessment and taxation agreements that would have an impact on the education tax so as i'm sure you're aware there's a provision in title 32 that deals with the type of tax agreements that do have an effect on the education property tax and i believe those are the tax stabilization agreements and the tiff districts do have an impact on the education property tax i would have to do some research to see whether there are other agreements that could be executed pursuant to this section it would impact the education property tax outside of that general so the reason i'm asking is because it says notwithstanding anything anywhere um and so i guess that i was focused a little bit on the the assessment agreement that is does this anticipate that there might be an agreement with the taxpayer to assess their property at half fair market value or something like that which in my clumsy thinking would affect the education tax i don't i don't think you can do that i don't think i don't think it i don't think it's out by statute i don't think it can do that but this is notwithstanding any other provision of law anywhere yeah i know right i'm saying current laws i don't think i don't think you could do that now right i'm just curious whether this is this is whether it's contemplated here and whether it's opening the door to that so that would be something we i think want to uh understand better yeah yeah i will send the committee a uh decision from the vermont supreme court from maybe 15 or 20 years ago dealing with a special tax district in rutherland and some of their charter authority around drawing the boundaries of their special taxing district and the determination from the vermont supreme court at that time gives great guidance on how special charter taxing provisions are harmonized with vermont's general law so i'll send that out with a brief blurb about how that could be analyzed and applied here and whether depending on the policy decisions of the committee this should be clarified to state that the general law restricting how the education uh tax is impacted by um assessment agreements would still apply if that's the way the committee wants to go yeah i think speaking just for me i just wouldn't need to understand what what was contemplated here and then um and to make sure that that this i don't think there's i don't think they have assessment agreements what they have is um tax rate agreements yeah for municipalities for the for the municipal tax yeah and municipal yeah it's still the same right don't change the value lori do you want to if you want to join us come and join us um so i can just um add some clarity as can you background on this one so um the purpose of this is for tax stabilization purposes when people come to us and nothing else so you know we are comfortable with language needs to be changed too thank you that's fine thank you i guess that's why it comes in here yes so to answer your question yeah um great other questions that committee members have about the language yeah go ahead i have one um talk to him at the top of page 26 sub chapter 10 i'm assuming that that this new city is going to be on a july 1st to june 30 budget is that correct that is correct so is that standard to say i mean i know that march comes before september because that's where it is on the calendar but september will actually be the first collection is does that is that how we normally do it or does that kind of create some sort of awkward way of stepping off i don't know if it's normal that's that's my response i could i could see somebody saying oh well you know we're starting so i don't have to pay much you know i don't know i'll take a look at the um general law there is general authority for municipalities at their town meeting to vote to uh break up their property tax payments in moments there's statutory dates so i'll take a look and see if it's in a different order okay good catch yeah i've got a teeny weeny little question did um did you hear me all right speak up better um i don't know if everybody in the committee got it they're not but i got a correspondence from someone wondering if the town and and city would have to have separate zip codes and i said well it's not our issue but i wonder if anyone else heard that too yes it was actually from a former rep yeah okay yes so i enter when it's appropriate but i just want you know that it'll all get ready it's not our issue i i don't know whether they would need separate zip codes but this question amazingly did come up in the slightly different context in house gov ops and someone either a witness or a member of the committee spoke up and said that there's actually uh subunits of a zip code and there is a different four or five number extension for the village and then other portions of the town around the village and i can look those up and send those out if that is of interest i'll be a little outside our jurisdiction so uh right so did you get through the parts of the proposal that we need to focus on or do you want to go ahead continue and then i want to hear from the other witnesses yeah the last section to quickly move through those were all the financial provisions of the charter as it will stand in statute there are a series of transitional provisions that i am certain you will hear about uh so in general the transitional provisions provide the following first that the assets liabilities debts property of the village are going to become the property of the city because the village is becoming the city the next few transitional provisions and for your edification starts on page 28 and goes all the way through the end of the bill establishes a transition period that will start july 1st 2022 and go through 2023 within that period uh the there will be shared services between the city and the town the city will pay for those shared services that the town provides through agreements that from what i understand some of them have already been executed between these two municipal corporations uh any taxes that have been assessed and are owed to the town will be paid to the town uh there is a separate collection process starting july 1st anything that's due to the town from city residents will be collected by the city and paid to the town beyond that those are essentially the large financial pieces of the bill that i would highlight for the initial walkthrough well i i may be touched on and i'm noticing the senate's in the middle of section four where it says the city council sets a tax rate and collects taxes to meet the obligations for the city share of the town of excess that municipal operation so that's just through the transition period though that's right and it goes on and this time they have october 15th and april 15th for the two dates good um tucker and here does it point to what happens um if during the transition or after the transition there's tax debt that needs to be either collected or um allocated so from what i understand there are going to be agreements for i'm going to target two different things that you've brought up here uh first um the collection of that debt is going to be collected by the separate officers of the municipalities where it goes depends on depends on whether it's a debt that was owed and assessed um by the town and the unified vote that's happening this town meeting day or whether it's one of these future debts that will be owed based on a budget and tax vote held with the separated municipalities a question that has come up that is not within the four corners of um this bill is what happens with the eight percent penalty that is applied to delinquencies um and who will be keeping that eight percent um that is something that i assume is going to have to be uh figured out in some of these mo use between the two municipalities unless this committee wants to dive in and amend this to state expressly that if it's a penalty on a debt that is owed to the town the penalty goes to the town versus separate budgets and separate years it stays within the separated municipalities is there language in here that's probably somewhere that um sort of anticipates uh more agreements and mo use and what have you is is this unwinds um sort of some general language or is that just something that is going to happen you're saying yes coming to us thank you just stay there thank you so the and andrew and andy you can talk about this as well but and i can send them to you there has been an overarching mou agreed to between the two bodies and then there's i think seven agreements under that one of them gets to the question from our president cornicer that will be um executed upon the city charter taking effect but there's room to have another agreement on whatever it is that nobody ever thought of yes um and so that that's the yeah so as long as that exists somewhere it sounds like it does and i would be yeah obviously that's a tremendous amount of work sort of trying to figure this out so um okay uh so are there any other questions for uh for tucker before we move on thank you for getting us oriented and here i really appreciate it um so i have next andrew brand who's the village president for the village um and welcome to the committee yes thank you madam chair representative hansel so um if you have any comments about anything that we've asked about or that you've heard or if you have anything general to say that's great and if you don't i'll see if anybody has questions and um if not oh okay yes thank you uh you all have had a long day as it is so i will try to keep uh i will keep any comments related to questions i've already heard um there was a question in regards to the intent of section one thousand and three about uh the taxation notwithstanding other laws uh the intent of this is purely for tax stabilization uh we have a few of these agreements already in place one with the last remaining farm that exists in our municipality uh which i assume our our future board would like to retain and so tax stabilization agreements for that that type of purpose we would like to be able to retain if the committee has a a concern with the language as it currently is uh the trustees would be more than happy to to take any amendments you all would would all provoke uh propose um as we certainly would not want that to stand in the way of of creating the city of Essex Junction there was a uh i said thank you that that helps yes yeah there was a another question about the delinquent taxes that is one of our agreements that we have with the town select board it is one of the agreements that we have already finalized in which the town of Essex if there are any delinquencies that are owed by then city residents to the town of Essex that the town of Essex will be able to collect those delinquencies from city residents this was uh what was proposed to us by our staff at the current point at the time that this was proposed we had one finance director who was serving as finance director for both the town and the village many of our financial uh processes and procedures are well intertwined with each other and as such that was uh said to be the easiest way moving forward for our staff to then implement so we wanted to to keep that in place and if you would like i would be happy to uh briefly go over the very high level of all of the agreements that we have in place if that's useful otherwise i'd be happy to take questions i i think so i think you know one senate so each of them at least will we'll know what's covered so that'd be great thank you absolutely so the town of Essex police department which is a department within the town of Essex will continue to provide police services for both the town of Essex and the city of Essex Junction the town of Essex assessing department will continue to provide reappraisal and assessing services for both the town of Essex and the city of Essex Junction through the completion of the reappraisal process which is slated to begin within the next couple of years the town of Essex will continue to collect any old delinquent taxes from former village properties uh both municipalities will work collaboratively to migrate any and all Essex Junction information technology infrastructure data and other resources uh the city of Essex Junction will have the right of first refusal for the current town of Essex municipal offices which are presently located within Essex Junction should the town of should the town of Essex wish to sell both municipalities will work collaboratively on joint stormwater projects when mutually beneficial both municipalities will employ and fund their own finance department the staff will work collaboratively at the town of Essex municipal offices while financial operations are separated from their current intertwined state and the last agreed upon agreement that we have is that both municipalities will continue to share the appointed not elected clerk slash treasurer currently a village employee at the town of Essex municipal offices until one year after the city of Essex Junction charter takes effect we have other agreements that are in the works those relate to recreation programs the senior center senior bus uh and possibly some shared committees but that is the extent of the agreement so we have in place as of today and of course there is the the open-ended if there are others that we would like to have thank you ambulance is that what you want to say i didn't hear what you said oh and what about fire and ambulance so our fire departments the town of Essex and village of Essex Junction each have our own independent fire departments and as far as rescue that is a separate nonprofit known as Essex rescue which does bill uh to each municipality or would build to each municipality Andrew did you you may have mentioned uh water sewer uh if you did i apologize how are they currently supplied to residents of both the village and the non-village so sewer and wastewater that is done by the Essex Junction wastewater treatment plant it is an Essex Junction department but we have what is called a tri-town agreement where that facility serves the village of Essex Junction the town of Essex and the town of Williston so there's actually three uh and there's three municipalities that have oversight over the wastewater treatment plant and our our drinking water is through the Champlain Water District so completely separate from uh from separation thank you are there questions thank you uh so we will move to uh Mr. Watts who is the chair of the Essex Select Board yep hi i'm Andy Watts uh i just uh mentioned the town of Essex uh town uh select board chair um uh i guess only the only comment i want to make or the one major comment i want to make is that the select board does not wish to stand in the way of the separation um but we did we are um doing what we can to limit the impact to the remaining that uh impact uh is you know to the fact that the on the order of approximately 42 cent of the property space will move to a new municipality so we're facing um in uh fiscal year 24 a 20 percent tax increase if we don't cut any any services so we're we're um that's that's our challenge we recognize that there the community is is aware of that um we have uh things that we're we're anticipating to do to address that as we have uh um it's fun to say we can use to smooth out that tax rate increase um we also intend to spend the transition year looking for efficiencies that we can use to hopefully moderate the the increase we also may offer some targeted early retirements um to again to get our our our costs down to try to mitigate that that big step function that we're we're we're facing um regarding a couple a couple other i'm going to respond to a couple things that that came up earlier in the discussion the the the zip code question was related to a local option tax where if uh if one of the other municipality chooses to implement a local option tax there may be some some concern about segregating funds um and in making sure that uh if if um if both municipalities don't choose to if one chooses and the other doesn't that that those that are in the other municipalities don't inadvertently get um taxed for online sales for example where the retailer may not know where whether a because we all have legally we all have an s-extinction mailing address because the shared zip code um it may be difficult for online retailers whether you're in town or not or in or in the city um the other thing is on the tax collection the the way that we've been collecting taxes is the town's been the tax collector for the entire town we collect the the the town taxes the village taxes and the school taxes and um we do make both the school district and the village hall and the town has retained all of the the delinquent taxes to this point and so the the intent of the agreement is that the town will continue to collect on all of those delinquent taxes that have accrued to the point where the new city is formed and starts collecting its own taxes we would collect those you know uh beyond that date regardless of whether the affected property is inside or outside the town um and then once the we didn't specifically stay in the agreement right who would get the eight percent uh beyond the formation of the city but I believe that the intent of the agreement is that in those those uh October and um April dates are the dates which the the city will have to make the town hall for its taxes during that transition year so my assumption is then that the the city would get that eight percent because then they would hold the delinquent taxes because they're making the the town hall similar to what the way the the town had done for the village for the um past many years um so I think that's I'm happy to take questions like this so um you said that there would be a 20 percent tax increase that's in your municipal rate is that right that's your municipal rate right because of the 42 percent loss of tax base right I'm just curious what your municipal rate is oh it's like 55 cents I think four yeah okay so there's a big difference all right uh let me see if committee members have questions I'm just amazed that this is just such a huge piece of work to make all this happen I'm involved in it um committee anything it's just a curiosity because I have a whole lot to do the bill you mentioned that the votes on urging who traditionally supports it and bill it so so it goes back and forth quite honestly um at this past time when we voted twice the village overwhelmingly supported it and the town outside the village overwhelmingly rejected it and like 80 percent 80 percent yes and the village and like 72 percent no in the town yeah prior to the implementation of the statewide education property tax taxes were lower in the village right that's right yeah you mean total taxes total total taxes if you include education taxes yes yes yeah yeah and and you're due for reappraisal in addition to everything else that you're dealing with yes that's going to be triggered here very soon yeah um I mean that is part of our world but I'm really glad you're doing it about us uh yeah go ahead yeah um Caleb started me thinking maybe all of us about the notwithstanding parts of the various statutes that have gone into your in this work and the fact that you're all I mean we rely on ledge council to do their expertise in the fact that you gentlemen are both here and seem very calm about all this I would say um I rest assured that it's being done well you seem to have dug into just about everything you know I mean it's it's not a trifle it matters but I'm impressed thank you anything else anybody else just when you vote for schools for your budgets when you vote because you're how will you vote together so because the the we were already we're in a unified union school district we previously had and there was previously or actually there still is an sx junction xx junction school district has a charter the sx town school districts is established by statute because of the borders of the town um we have been voting separately um I think that we we each well we each sorry we each vote I think we vote together on the budget but we have our own reps on the select on the school board on the it's a unified union yeah yeah westford that's right westford correct if I may jump in on that one yes we do elect our own representatives uh we are then given one budget for the entire uh xx westford school district to vote upon thank you and and that's not going to change functionally right I will not change that will not change yeah even polling places I don't believe polling polling places will not change either right yeah go ahead I think the only change would be that there would be a different name of one of the owners of that merge school district so instead of having seats on by sx village you'd be sx city but the but the school district will remain the same as just one of its constituent in this battle is a bit of a new name I think that's the only change correct so I'm a little bit curious why the municipal rates are so different in the village and the town so the village pays the town tax also it's on the on the average we use $280,000 as the typical as the so-called average household so a village uh homeowner of a $280,000 house I think Andrew the last time we looked at this was like 925 or $975 more that a village resident would pay than a town resident because they're paying the the the village rate on top of the town rate and if I may add basically before we consolidated the tax collection process the village of sx junction residents we receive two tax bills one from the town of sx and one from the village of sx junction so the the difference there is in part that we pay both uh outstanding questions committee we will hear a little more about the um stabilization agreement language um sounds like that might be something that sounds like what you intended would be fine and we want to make sure the language is consistent with that um and um I don't know if there were other issues that people wanted to dig into a little bit more ready thank you very much for joining us and thank you um because we'll pick this back up when we get some information on the stabilization agreement which I don't think will take long thank you for your time yeah all right thank you yep if we have a number of items that we're going to talk about today we're going to pay for 91 which is the sx charter I don't know if that's the official name for city charter for us and we've got uh Karen Dolan uh with us um and I understand it's with us with a redraft on one section I don't know that's the only issue that I was aware of that the committee was going to address if other people have issues kind of identify them this morning but I think it's just this one um and then we'll do that we'll take a break and then we'll come back to age 697 which is the juice bill we have witnesses set up for that then after a break we'll come back to tell health and we have staff on that one that's where we've at least have been sort of trying to get our arms around the fiscal note and figure out what that's going to look like so um any questions or announcements before we get started oh we have a bill on the floor at three o'clock so um is that right Pat we're gonna your bill is up on the floor yeah okay um so we all should be out there so uh Tucker why don't you go ahead and tell us what you've redrafted for us to look at and I assume it's posted this at right social yes yes good morning everyone Tucker Anderson office of legislative council you should have in front of you draft 1.3 of a proposed amendment to h 491 to bring you back to the last time you visited this bill uh the committee highlighted section 1003 of the proposed city charter as an area of concern in the underlying bill section 1003 included a notwithstanding clause that set aside every single state law contrary to the power that was granted in section 1003 and provided the city council with the authority to negotiate and execute assessment and taxation agreements between the city and any taxpayer in the city uh the concern was that the notwithstanding clause would potentially set aside statutes related to the education property tax and could give the city the authority to fix through contract brand list of values that would affect the education property tax in response to these concerns in draft 1.3 the committee's proposed amendment preserves the council's authority uh with the same underlying language and states that the council is authorized and empowered to negotiate and execute these assessment and taxation agreements between the city and taxpayers consistent with the Vermont constitution full stop so the notwithstanding clause has been removed a new clause is added at the end of the section to state that this section shall not be construed to supersede any provision of state law relating to the education property tax and to bring you all back to how charters interact with the general law this is a piece of special authority so any power that is granted that is more specific than the general law will control so this new sentence will guide courts uh and the city in the execution and interpretation of this section uh to state that it shall not be construed uh to affect the education property tax uh thank you um questions anyone has representative Dolan do you want to join us just for a quick second um I guess the question for you is this something that you want to check your how much this goes on before we vote or are you um I'm sort of putting you on the spot but if if we should we wait or should we just go ahead so representative Dolan I think that's so I actually was able to confirm with representative Tolman as well before this again um got confirmation that she had been in touch with um the chair of the village trustees and is on board with this language and I think there's appreciation for providing that clarity that there's no intention to you know go outside of the balance and appreciate that this committee can you just make sure we're in line with everything you did okay so feel very comfortable moving forward thank you uh George I'll go by this language okay uh so um so we have two votes I'm gonna wait for David to get his book we'll first vote the language and then we'll vote the bill and uh so is there a second uh George's motion um yeah any more discussion and let's say that's ready uh okay so we're voting uh on the language you're out 1.3 yeah it's one point yeah okay I will call the roll uh representative Beck yes representative Brennan yes representative Cantil yes Drifty votes yes representative Elder yes representative Maslin yeah representative Meadows yes representative Odie yes representative Till yes representative cornheiser yes chair Ansel yeah okay 11-0-0 excellent now motion on the bill George is there a second okay uh yes go ahead and call the roll okay representative Beck yes representative Brennan yes representative Cantil yes Drifty votes yes representative Elder yes representative Maslin yeah representative Meadows yes representative Odie yes representative Till yes representative Cornheiser yes chair Ansel yes 11-0-0 excellent very good thank you thank you thank you so yeah and I just I didn't say it because we didn't have any discussion but the these your town officials have gone through so much work to get to this place and it's actually good to be able to move something along so just in recognition about how hard this is thank you thank you many hands have been involved exactly I appreciate having yours as well yeah thank you good morning and welcome to the Vermont House Government Operations Committee we are meeting this morning to consider a uh very small amendment to the city of Essex Junction Charter that the Ways and Means Committee has put forward that we will consider on the floor momentarily so representative Meadows if you could explain to us what your committee amendment does yep for the record representative Chris Meadows and our amendment relates to the assessment and taxation agreement uh subsection 1003 and it's really just adding in language um about the education property tax as you know the education fund is nearing dear to houseways and means so we just added a sentence at the end to say uh the section shall not be construed to supersede any provision of state law relating to the education property tax there's a little ambiguity there in the original language where it just said about the Vermont Constitution so we just wanted to clarify that with with our one sentence we appreciate you being protective of our education fund um any questions for representative Meadows representative Leclerc um is there anything currently for the village of Essex do they have the authorization to enter into a tax stabilization agreement currently do you know representative I would I think I would ask you I think we well I think that might Anthony that question if they no if they haven't uh if they didn't discuss that specifically in the ways and means committee I think that's a good question for Tucker it this is very clear what you're doing I just was trying to anticipate if somebody would ask that question but it was not discussed okay in committee we looked over the whole amendment that government right before I don't know the vast majority of this is already in statute already so unless it's in general law it's not in the uh proposal any questions for either representative Matos or Tucker as legislative council um representative Dan I think this is probably for Tucker but um maybe representative Matos you also took out the knot not with standing clause out of um section one zero zero three so I'm just just wondering in case we get a question on that why that was removed refer to Tucker on the legal aspect of that good morning everyone uh I'll respond to both of the last two questions so first to representative Leclerc in the village of Essex Junction Charter 24 appendix chapter 221 section 6.16 uh the village had very similar language to what was introduced in the Charter the village Charter stated that not with standing a section of the Charter and the requirements of the general laws of the state that the trustees would be authorized and empowered to negotiate and execute assessment and taxation agreements between the village and any taxpayer taxpayers within the village so that was very similar if not almost exactly the same uh to what was introduced in the city Charter um that uh not with standing clause uh was concerning when uh House Ways and Means reviewed it and there was some concern that by not withstanding all the provisions of general laws of the state that uh the general assembly was effectively setting aside all of the provisions related to assessment for purposes of the education property tax grand list that is submitted by the municipality to the state for purposes of assessing the education property tax so the not withstanding clause was removed to make sure that there would be no ambiguity as to whether the education property tax was going to be impacted and it doesn't take away any of the special or specific power that's being granted to the city or that was granted to the village in the past because as you may recall any special power that's granted within a Charter already supersedes any contrary provisions that exist in the general law so the not withstanding clause was not necessary to provide the specific power so House Ways and Means took it out and then to clarify and remove any possibility for ambiguity around the education property tax that new sentence was added to the end to state none of the laws of the state related to education property tax are uh superseded by the provision of this power to the city represented Anthony and just to be clear Tucker I think I'm correct about this if the soon to be city of Essex Junction decided to grant stabilization in respect to the entire tax bill it's still true that the remainder of taxpayers will have to make up the education tax payment that is not paid under the stabilization agreement am I correct about that I believe that is the formula under the title 32 provisions related to how certain exemptions to the education property tax grand list are calculated but again because of what was inserted by the House Ways and Means Committee you don't even have to get to those calculations because this is going to say that the education property tan grand list formula is not going to be impacted by any of these new agreements with taxpayers any additional questions for either the reporter from Ways and Means or legislative council all right I would entertain a motion move it favorable representative Anthony moves that we find the Ways and Means Committee amendment favorable any other discussion all right representative Colston I should call the roll Gannon yes Mariki yes Leclerc yes Hooper yes Colston yes Anthony yes Michoski yes Lefave Higley yes McCarthy yes Colvin Hanses yes we find the the amendment favorable 11-0-0 now we'll turn to House Bill 491 which is an act relating to the creation of the city of Essex Junction and the adoption of the city charter the bill was referred to the committee on government operations which recommends that the bill be amended as printed in today's House calendar the member from Berry City Representative Anthony will report for the committee materially affecting the revenue of one or more municipalities bill was then referred to the committee on Ways and Means which also recommends that the bill be amended as printed in today's calendar the member from Milton Representative Matos will report for the committee please listen to the second reading of the bill H 491 an act relating to the creation of the city of Essex Junction and the adoption of the city charter member from Berry City thank you Madam Speaker the town of Essex includes the village of Essex Junction and has since the chartering of the village the village in the town have struggled to create a system of equitable shared governance this goes back a long time measured in generations in fact your committee on government operations a score of years ago tried to mediate the disagreements between the village and the town that effort came to not unfortunately and moving forward in time to the present a series of merger talks took place and a shared governance model was constructed by representatives for both the town and the village often referred to as the three plus three proposal that proposal was put to a vote just this past March 2021 it passed in the village but alas failed in the town there was then a repeat vote in April again consensus could not be found as of this past summer or the summer of 21 merger negotiations converted into if you will separation negotiations and in November it was put to the vote to ask the village whether they wanted to separate and create their own municipality called the city of Essex Junction that vote passed by a wide margin over 50 percent of the registered voters participated and into the remainder of the year was a attempt by both the administrators of the town and the village to hammer out a way to transition to a separate city of Essex Junction so the purpose of the bill H 491 is to create the city of Essex Junction out of the village obviously provide for the transition of the village into its new corporate form of a city and lastly of course repeal the charter of the village I will now walk through the bill and its details the differences between the village and the city are largely organizational legislative but not physical that is to say all the citizens of the village will be the citizens of the city the boundaries of the village will be the boundaries of the city services which are now shared will for in some cases an indefinite period of time remain shared in the first section of the bill section 103 specific powers in addition to those granted under general law are articulated obviously the buying and selling of property the establishment of public utilities water wastewater roads municipal facilities parking public spaces all provided for and of course the newly created city can acquire and dispose of property in fee or a lesser scope can provide for electric distribution system can also provide for telecommunications not in conflict with the provisions articulated by the public utility commission the form of government is a manager and council form very familiar I think to most of us in Vermont the manager is indeed the operational head of all of the delivery of services however the governing body is entrusted with obviously the exercise of powers the delegation of authority to the manager indeed the hiring of the manager and actually in unusual circumstances the departure of the manager for cause I might add the council consists of five members a quorum is three and any action by the council must include those three there is of course a provision if for some reason one of the counselors no longer lives within the newly created city is a process of replacement by that council is a president of the council and in the event the president is not available or incapacitated provision is made for a vice president to take over participation and retention of membership on the council is contingent on participating at least half of the meetings compensation is set in a fairly common level of fifteen hundred dollars per annum is a conflict of interest clause which actually bars former employees from becoming counselors and vice versa for at least one year and of course the council is empowered to evaluate the manager but not empowered to intervene in the administration of the city services to the citizens of the city the boards and commissions appointments specified as responsible and and accountable to the manager are not if you will to be interfered with by the council the council on the other hand has the authority to appoint all boards and commissioners aside from those who answer directly to the manager meetings must happen at least once per month and meetings must comply with the open meeting law of vermont the library located in presently in the village will become a library under the auspices with the same number of trustees in the newly created city it's called the brown l library and the trustees um will continue on and they serve five-year terms the city clerk is of course the chief officer of all elections in city meetings that is an appointed position under the proposal under considerations ditto the board of civil authority under general statutes of course any ordinance adoption is subject to the open meeting law and the procedures of adoption there is one difference from the general law the effective date or the adoption and enforcement or a date of effect of an ordinance is upon passage that's a departure from general law there is a petition process for the creation of new ordinances at least five percent of the registered voters must participate in the part of the crafting and the adoption and submission to the city council of a petition on ordinance by petition and the action on such a petition driven ordinance must occur within 60 days moving along to the appointment and hiring of the manager as i had mentioned briefly sections 601 602 provide for the sole if you will authority of the council to engage and retain a manager the powers of the board are in articulated but also limited in the sense that they may inquire of the manager to produce records reports financial statements but not if you will to interfere with the execution of either ordinances or policies of the city and to the extent to which the council has decided that the manager is no longer satisfactory that separation between the council and the manager can only occur for cause the manager may designate someone in his stead if for some reason he is unable to discharge all of the duties that the council has assigned to him or her in section 201 it is articulated as i mentioned that the limitation of council expectations of the manager is limited to inquiries as to how the city is performing and whether the services that are promised to the citizens of the city are being delivered the budget when it's proposed is a responsibility of the manager and thus is the manager's budget audits may be asked or requested by the council and must be done under a by a certified public accountant but are not mandatory the clerk which is also an appointed position under this scheme is responsible for collecting and reporting to the council on all financial matters internal to the city if the manager is to be separated from the city during the time of a pre-existing contract uh that process includes a mandatory hearing and a um that event would be on request and voluntary by the managers to request such a public hearing and it would be in public by the way if the manager's office becomes vacant for some reason either uh voluntarily or not so the manager either may suggest to the council a current employee to take his or her place uh or in the absence of that the council will definitely appoint an interim manager with that the architecture if you will of the legislative and administrative structure uh comes to an end and discussions about boards and commissions starts in section 701 and Madam Speaker my colleague from the representative of Barry Town will finish the overview of the bill thank you the member from Barry City yields to the member from Barry Town um thank you Madam Speaker and please continue standing I will be addressing sections 701 through section 17 as the member had said earlier many of these boards and commissions and other things have been in place for decades a lot of this is just going to be technical changes basically going from the village of Essex to the city of Essex starting with subsection 701 the board of civil authority that currently exists subsection 702 board of abatement of taxes that currently exists subsection 703 a planning commission that currently exists 704 the development review board there is a development review board but they're going to um create a new one subsection 705 as the member had alluded to the Brown out library trustees currently exists subsection sub chapter eight subsection 801 personnel administrative duties the manager or the manager's appointee shall be the personnel director and then it just goes into roles and responsibilities of that position again that exists subsection 802 real estate assessor that's a position that's going to be shared with the town they have an MOU that addresses that issue subsection 803 appraisal of properties it just goes on to say that appraisal shall be reviewed periodically kept up to date that's already in statute subsection 804 appraisal of businesses property for tax purposes appraisal of businesses property shall be in accordance with provisions of 32 vsa 316 again already in place 805 the purpose of appointing an assessor in lieu of election of listers basically says they're going to use an assessor instead of listers subsection 901 the fiscal year shall begin on July 1st and end of the last day of June on the last day of June again very common in most municipalities and what happens with this one annual municipal budget subsection 902 with the support of the finance department the manager submit to the council a budget for review before the annual city meeting subsection 903 governing bodies action on the budget again current practice will continue subsection 904 the council shall hold at least one public hearing in 30 days prior to the annual meeting to present and explain its proposed budget again current practice just under another name subsection 905 appropriation and transfers basically says that the city council will have the same authorizations as it currently has and voters can vote on it by Australian ballot subsection 906 amount to be raised by taxation upon passage by the budget by the voters the amount stated therein as the amount to be raised by taxes to constituted determination the amount of levity of the taxes in the city again current practice subsection 1001 taxes on real property it gives them the authorization to put taxes on property and it should be paid in two installments the 15th of march and the 15th of september section 102 if you pay your taxes late you're going to get a penalty section 103 assessment taxation agreement there is an amendment that talks about that as far as that the municipality can enter into a tax agreement with a property owner however the part of taxes that go to education fund will have to stay the same subsection 1101 capital programs preparation of the capital program the manager shall prepare and submit to the council a capital program at least three months prior to the final date for submission of the budget subsection 1201 governing law basically what this is saying is that any future charter amendments have to go through the same process that all other charters have to 1301 the savings clause if there is a part of the charter that is found to be problematic that it does not render the rest of the charter inappropriate 1302 severability that just does go on to clarify that if there are cleared serviceable that if any part of it is found to be invalidated it doesn't affect the rest of the charter superseding language the city of Essex Junction shall be formed notwithstanding the following language meaning that all the assets of the village of Essex go to the city of Essex Junction and no other municipality can claim them transitional provision agreement and assumption of village assets and liabilities section three basically the village is excuse me the new city of Essex Junction is assuming all the assets and obligations of the village of Essex Junction section four is a transition period where for accounting purposes and tax collection purposes there'll be a year transition period starting July 1st 2022 and ending July 1st 2023 these services are all covered through a memorandum of understanding section five transitional provision organizational meeting the first annual city meeting shall occur on the date set forth by the voters at the most recent village annual meeting again current language as far as what normally would happen section six transitional provision village center and neighborhood development area designations what this talks about is the village center district and neighborhood area development as designated in the Essex Junction land development code shall continue with the new city section seven the transitional provision for the governing body what it says is that everybody who's in place will stay in place and then when their term ends is when you'll have new people elected section eight transitional provision for the budget administration following approval of the charter by the legislature the city manager will propose a budget for the city for the next fiscal year that addresses proper service levels and capital obligations section nine speaks to the transitional provision the separation of city into towns the city council shall employ a city manager the former representative had elaborated on that section 10 transitional provision and development on effective date the former village plan the former village zoning bylaws and land development code and any other village ordinance shall remain in fact until revised by the new city council section 11 the transitional provision appointed commissioner and committee members all current trustees appointed by the commission and committee members shall serve out the remainders of their terms section 12 the transitional provision of unified and adopted ordinances what this is addressing is that they will all stay in effect until amended by the new city council section 14 transitional provision of finances this again is an area that's addressed by a mo you where the city of essics and a town of essics will work through that year transition and then when that year transition is over they will both have stood up their own finance departments section 15 addresses says within three years after the approval of the charter legislature the council shall appoint a special commission to study governance considerations that's basically saying that the city of essics can go through and set up its take a look at setting up its own internal political divisions like wards or however they they need to do that section 16 it just repeals the village of essics and makes it the city of essics the vote on this in the village was 3070 in favor to 411 against this past out of our committee 11 0 0 the hardworking and talented government operations committee asks for your support the question is the member from various nope and now recommending for the committee on ways and means the member from Milton if members would like to follow along it's page 713 of today's house calendar we are recommending to strike out subsection 103 which is the assessment and taxation agreement but our strikeout of this section doesn't change the authority of the council to negotiate and execute the assessment of taxation agreements between the city and the taxpayer we're just strengthening the language around the education property tax so we're going to take away the notwithstanding subsection 906 language and replace that with the section shall not be construed to supersede any provision of state law relating to the education property tax now all that does is adds in language so we cannot affect our education fund we're going to keep that whole as everybody knows that's very near and dear to the ways and means committee and we're just adding in language to strengthen the subsection 1003 and we heard from legislative council um cosponsors of the bill village president of sx junction village the chair of the sx select board and on a vote of 11 0 0 out of committee we ask for your support thank you member from very city thank you we took up the amendment this morning in between during your recess madam speaker and we found the amendment favorable on a vote of 11 0 0 now the question is shall the report of the committee on government operations be amended as recommended by the committee on ways and means are you ready for the question if so please unmute yourselves for the vote all those in favor please say I all those opposed please say nay the eyes appear to have it the eyes do have it and you have amended the report of the committee on government operations now the question is shall the bill be amended as recommended by the committee on government operations as amended are you ready for that question member from sx thank you madam speaker first I want to thank our hardworking government operations and ways and means committees for their time and consideration on h491 today's vote marks a momentous milestone moving us one step closer to the creation of the city of sx junction h491 the bill before us represents a collaborative and thoughtful path forward in a decades old municipal discussion in the sx community it has been an honor to work with the senior member of sx junction to shepherd this charter change through the legislative process as h491 overwhelmingly holds the voice of our village with 88 percent a voter supporting its passage the creation of the city of sx junction will allow two communities who have tried almost every conceivable relationship the opportunity to thrive as two separate entities for the betterment of all residents I hold extreme gratitude to the many hands that contributed in the efforts towards today's vote it truly takes a village to create a city and I ask for your support and continuing that work by voting yes on h491 the question is shall the bill be amended as recommended by the committee on government operations as amended are you ready for the question if so please unmute yourselves for the vote all those in favor please say aye all those opposed please say nay the eyes appear to have it the eyes do have it and you have amended the bill now the question is shall the bill be read a third time are you ready for that question if so please unmute yourselves for the vote all those in favor please say aye all those opposed please say nay the eyes appear to have it the eyes do have it and third reading is ordered up next is house bill 491 which is an act relating to the creation of the city of sx junction and the adoption of the city charter please listen to the third reading of the bill h491 an act relating to the creation of the city of sx junction and the adoption of the city charter the question is shall the bill pass are you ready for the question if so please unmute yourselves for the vote all those in favor please say aye aye all those opposed please say nay the eyes appear to have it the eyes do have it and you have passed the bill h491 an act relating to the creation of sx junction of the city of sx junction and the adoption of the city charter which was introduced on january 7th and read for the first time referred to the committee on government operation excuse me shall be read for the first time h491 an act relating to the creation of the city of sx junction and the adoption of the city charter you've heard the first reading of h491 and the bill is referred to the committee on government operations all right so if you would like to kind of give us the context for this and what's happening and yes so i um thank you lori houghton from uh six junction so i have a prepared statement because uh the relationship of six town and sx junction is very confusing it has been ongoing but please stop me at any time if you have any questions you can just help me clarify it again when you say sx junction is that the town nope so the village of sx junction is encompassed by the town we are like a donut hole where someone took a bite where the river is and so village of sx junction or where that sorry i say sx junction is part of the town of sx and then i'll explain more hopefully it'll become clear although we have people who live in our community who don't know which community they live in so it is confusing yes and i've gotten a lot of emails i'm sure you have yes yes so um representative dolan also from uh sx junction will be joining by zoom but this is our joint statement so we appreciate your time today um but as i've said h491 is a charter change to establish the city of sx junction and i think it's important for us to review how we've come to this place and why 88 percent of the voters voted for this charter change wow since 1892 the village of sx junction has operated as a municipal unit of government within the town of sx both are charter municipalities and our communities have been voting on some form of merger or separation since 1958 we've held 16 votes three of which have been non-finding oh geez the recent effort started in 2018 when the trustees and select board created a subcommittee to again craft a plan for the future of our two communities and this may the merger vote which we will discuss shortly failed in march 2020 so this is a i have to take a step back this is a little bit um this is before the merger vote in march 2020 the town of sx so we all voted all of us all 20 000 of us voted to pass a charter change to establish a new governance model which would add a six member to the town select board which governs all of us and deter and dictated where those people lived they wanted three to live in the village of sx junction and three to live in the town um this was referred to as the three plus three governance model house government operations took testimony but as you may remember it was the start of the pandemic and we also were planning on a merger vote so they held off a decision until the merger vote happened so fast forward the merger plan that was put before the voters of the town in the village all 20 000 of us on march 2021 included this new governance model that the town of sx wanted and a 12-year financial phase in to limit the financial impact to the town outside the village so that would be the 10 000 people who live in the town separate from the village so i want to be clear it included merger plan included the governance model they wanted and a 12-year financial phase in and they voted it down town outside the village voters voted no and in the village we voted yes so overall 50% of registered voters participated in that march 21 vote and the village passed it by 72% and the i'm sorry the town outside the village rejected it by 72% and the village passed it by 81% with swift action by the residents throughout the communities we had a re-vote on April 13th over this time over 50% of registered voters participated and again the plan of merger failed with similar percentages within each community so the town outside the village voted no the village voters voted yes as part of the re-vote the village residents only also voted on a non-binding resolution to have the village trustees draft a charter to establish the city of s-exjunction should the plan and merger fail the city of s-exjunction charter was held by special so i apologize that non-binding vote passed overwhelmingly fast forward november 2021 the city held a special meeting closed to 50% of registered voters participated and the charter passed with 88% of the vote 3070 to 411 so why have we talked about this for so long equity and taxation has been a driving factor behind our decades long community discussion and votes it was clearly stated through public outreach that should merge or not pass separation would mean an immediate increase in municipal taxes to residents in the town outside the village in fact at a joint municipal meeting in september 2020 the town finance director at the time said and i quote there are inequities in the way government is funded in our current situation village taxpayers are paying for services they are not eligible to receive and are paying more for services that they and town outside the village taxpayers have equal access to this means that town outside the village taxpayers are paying less than the true cost of some services in may of 2021 the two municipal boards entered into a joint resolution to investigate an amicable separation as written in the resolution members of the select board and trustees agreed to negotiate in good faith throughout the process in the spirit of inclusion all voices will be respectively heard thank you representative dolan and i have watched and engaged in the process i believe that the trustees and select board work collaboratively to establish a transition plan that could be as fair as possible for both communities it is time for our two communities who have tried almost every conceivable relationship to have the opportunity to thrive as two separate entities for the betterment of all residents rep dolan and i know that both communities can and will try thank you so i have a very basic question because i thought we were i thought when it started we were going to talk about the merger too so it's clearly not what we're talking about we're trying to separate at this point because the merger vote and just this past year of your choice yeah i mean like i followed the debate a little bit i guess i missed that yeah it's sad it's it's sad um but it's the place we need to go at this right it's um we have a number of towns that find themselves in that long long standing debate Essex rocking ham vellas falls has been fighting about this for well i've lived here since 72 and they've been fighting about it since then waterberry did the same thing but the way waterberry solved it is they dissolved the village right right so they no longer have a village well i'm sitting around town too it's a familiar donut right um do you does the town control water and the sewer and on all those infrastructures or does the village so um it's a unique relationship we have a tri town waterways facility okay that's managed between the town of Essex the village of Essex Junction and Williston and we have completely separate municipalities we've always the village has always operated you know fully functioning with our own manager finance human resources clerk we did try in an effort back in starting i think in 16 or 13 to consolidate services and so you'll see when um Tucker walks through the bill there are some things that have to be pulled apart but for the most part we function as two fully separate communities you know the big thing for us is we pay two tax bills so we village residents pay a tax to support our community and we pay 42 percent of the town of Essex taxes and as i stated earlier we don't receive the services or are paying more for the services that we receive so by chartering into a city that resolves some of this we will no longer pay the 42 percent attempt they will that's a big one that's a big one they will lose that uh check space yes wow this is a little different than my situation i think we're i i understand there's you know communities villages and towns but i do think Essex is unique in the taxation piece of it and that and that's i know water barrier was very different in regards to that yeah and rock and gambles bosses also it's it's a difference and then we have testimony from saint alton city and town another donut shape entity but they had similar problems like they're not problems with issues with the water and that kind of thing right here we do not have this she's okay well okay any questions for laury no i see representative dole in this with us yes up there thank you did you have anything you wanted to add no this is representative Karen Dolan um nothing else i think representative houghton covered it and um thank you for taking the bill under consideration may i have one more thing and i'm sure you you will probably want to hear from both the town of Essex uh select board chair and village chair but they have obviously testified and the town select board uh has the statement has been they will not stand in the way of this separation well i'm not sure how they could but it's happened before so my i have not ever um asked my brother in law lives in i don't know if he lives in Essex or Essex juncture he lives on maple okay maple and maple wood well it's right out of the five corners yeah he's in the village so his tax bill would go down stay away from asking because i didn't want to get embroiled in a family fight yeah the high school's in the village right the high school's in the village but it is shared and that's a really good point um we Essex westford school district is now a combined school district with three towns so that's the town of Essex the village of westford and it is completely separate so what we do will not affect anything in the education system and we have no tip we have no local option tax um we just support ourselves so you'll save money to the town correct i just wanted to people have said to you oh watch out be careful because you're gonna regret this because of what like what's the downside i'd say you agree with the outside I would say um in the past that that question has has given us pause and so we've tried other methods such as collaborating and sharing services remember that global boundaries is in the village and there is always an option they will not be in the village so yes there is a concern but at the same time 42 percent of our tax base is going to another community and we can put that to us they really need to raise your taxes by 40 percent we could right and and we've done um the village put forth a sample budget before the vote and after the vote our taxes with having to hire some new people would go down about seven percent and the town of Essex estimates that their taxes would go up about 20 before factoring any cost savings that they may be able to take okay thank you thank you i see representative anthony were you the um reporter of the bill reporter of the bill and i see representative my choice of milk yes i'm the reporter Peter did you have something to add you have your hand up i yes i thought it important to point out that the leadership of both the village and the town outside the village have crafted and you'll see this in the latter third of the bill crafted a um uh a pathway a roadmap to both disentangle and settle up so to say for those services which are mutually provided i'll use the police as a primary example the police are actually employed by the town they will remain employed by the town but they will render services to both the town and the village for the meanwhile and i thought that that was uh representative of the good faith promise that uh representative hope and alluded to uh that both the select board and the trustees realized that while this won't satisfy everybody uh the the the worst thing that could happen is that this sort of collapses in in uh in some kind of disagreement so there's a very very complete uh fulsome uh runway so to say between now and roughly a year or a little more be july the end of the fiscal year year in 2023 when uh the the sort of more permanent arrangement uh between the town and the now city of s expansion will go on into the indefinite future unless and until they renegotiate some kind of different arrangement about mutual provision of services i thought it was remarkable and very mature thanks thank you representative matt hose is that and i believe you have never been in our committee before so i'm going to have us introduce ourselves to you um i'm janette white and i am from windham district i'm going to call in from the rublin district and we have senator kisha ron hensdale on zoom with along with you from chitenden district yes hi i miss allison wasn't there so sweet yeah she isn't here unfortunately sorry about that kisha and then senator clarkson um is off uh in finance i think or someplace just from winter so so thank you would you like to um you i see you're the reporter of an amendment from ways and means yep for for the record representative chris matt hose on the ways and means committee and we had one small amendment you can find it as passed by the house page 25 it's going to be subsection 1003 and we just added in language to allow for this section shall not be construed to supersede any provision of state law relating to the education property tax so before the bill was silent on any sort of education property tax it changes nothing about what the city of junction can do for assessing and taxation agreements between the city and the taxpayer it just adds in the language about the education fund to make sure it's clear about any funds that come into the town also have to be remitted in accordance as they are today to the state thank you yes i see that where that is it's on the very bottom of page 25 um okay thank you so much and um tucker do you want to walk us through the bill so you are in finance and parks and is someplace else oh i think if we have to wear masks yes i darted across the hallway to jump into the room then got a notification that i'm not allowed in the room so it took me longer i had to run unknown all right good afternoon tucker anderson office of legislative council for the record i guess we're at hour three now so i i'm really enjoying my company this afternoon we always enjoy your company you have in front of you h 491 which is the bill that will first create the city of sx junction then enact the city's charter and finally repeal the existing village of sx junction charter in that order an important note before i walk through and i failed to do this in the house i gave them virtually a line by line walkthrough of the bill is that many of the provisions that the city of sx junction will have in the city charter already exist in the village charter and that includes the section that was amended by house ways and aids can can you clarify for me what the difference is between being a village and a city because i i know in rockingham which is the one i'm most familiar with is a it is the village of fellas falls they're not a city it's the village but they're completely separate so what why and in ruffland it's city and in saint alvin's it's city so what is the difference so the answer is that an incorporated village is still within the territorial boundaries and technically okay regulatory authority of the surrounding municipality that's how so while you have independent municipalities with different local governments you still have territorial jurisdiction belonging to the town within the village right and additionally you have as part of that police authority taxing authority it can be applied within the village which is another one of the big considerations here so the view from space if you want to put on your astronaut signal is that the transition is going to make this city a wholly independent unit of local government from the town okay completely separated and they're going to have autonomous territorial jurisdiction within the boundaries of the city and the town will no longer have any of its current authority within those boundaries got it that way i should have known that and thank you you deal with it all the time right you have school districts that have territorial boundaries but you give them very specific authority and the way that the general statutes and the charter the village uh are designed the village has some independent regulatory authority but it's still couched within the town got it okay thank you that answer that i should have known that well i'm glad you asked it i didn't either uh within section one i we usually skip past section one of these charter bills because it approves the charter provisions adopted by the voters but here there's a significant piece to this which is that the general assembly creates the city of estuary and approves the adoption of the charter as approved by the voters on november 2nd 2021 section two of the bill adds a new chapter four to title 24 appendix and chapter four will contain the city of estates junction chart within sub chapter one we have general provisions regarding the incorporation of the powers that left the city um in each of the sections here effectively the city is setting out that the general law that applies to municipalities within the state is still being reserved to the city that the city has expressed powers that are granted within the charter and that the two will be harmonized section 101 states that the corporate existence of the village will be the corporate boundaries and existence of the city so effectively we're taking what the village is and turning it into the city section 102 is that general powers provision that i just described to you section 103 briefly and somewhat generally enumerates the specific powers that are reserved to the city of estates junction and i will note that although these are titled as specific powers that these are powers that are wielded by every municipality in the state so in subsection b you'll note that they're allowed to for example acquire real personal property that they can have the power to adopt wastewater collection disposal solid waste collection disposal provision of public water supplies provision of public parks and recreational facilities uh each of these is a general power that is granted to municipalities in statute and that elsewhere in title 24 there are provisions relating to the use of these powers in subsection c the city uh states that it may acquire property and be simple or any lesser interest so essentially that it can act as a municipal corporation in the acquisition of real property that it may exercise any of his powers perform any of its functions and may participate in the financing of those functions jointly or in cooperation with any other government entity that they may establish and maintain an electric power system and regulate power line installations this is in subsection b by the way provided however the city will not have authority under this charter that conflicts with the authority granted to the puc the city is also here uh granted authority to establish a telecommunication system and an enterprise to deliver internet or broadband services so subsection e contains those municipal utility routines uh under subsection for section 104 of the charter we have the reservation of powers um again this is another one of those boilerplate provisions that ends up in a lot of charters and it essentially states that the uh charter shall not be construed in a way to limit the powers and functions conferred upon the city by general or special and that it's currently in law section 105 uh describes the form of government for the city um they're going to use the council manager form of city government they're going to have for their legislative body it's also the city manager that is in charge of the administration of the city sub chapter two contains the sections related to the governance structure of the city uh in section 201 this is labeled the powers and duties of the governing body but it's the powers and duties of the city council so in subsection a the members of the city council shall constitute the legislative body for the city and shall have all powers and authority uh that's granted to other city legislative bodies or councils under the general law subsection b the city council has the power to first appoint and remove his city manager supervise create a change in the college offices commissions and departments other than those that are specifically enumerated within the charter to appoint the members of all boards commissions committees or similar bodies to provide for an independent audit by a cba to inquire into the conduct of any officer to exercise every other power that is not specifically set forth giving myself another technical correction for the center in this charter but that is granted to councils or legislative bodies by the general law of the state the city council is going to consist of five members all members must reside within the boundaries of the city and the terms will be staggered three year terms uh and there is no transitional provision specifically tied to this because uh later on it will be noted that the current village trustees will transition to the city council until uh their terms and they can be replaced on the current staggered schedule section 203 deals with the vacancies in the office of our council member uh in the event of a vacancy uh vacancy shall be filled by the city council until the next annual meeting and there are provisions later on that deal with the replacement of vacancy all right section 204 the election of the council members the terms of the officers commence on the first day of the month following the election uh the council is going to elect its own president vice president clerk by majority vote uh the president presides at the meetings unless the president is absent in which case the vice president presides in the event of the death resignation or incapacity of any member the remaining members may appoint a person to fill that position until the next election incapacity is determined by a council vote this is in subsection c within these specific terms incapacity shall include the failure by any member of the board to council to attend at least 50 percent of the meetings in any calendar year at the next annual election the vacancy can be filled uh in the event that there's disagreement upon interim replacement a special election shall be held to fill the open position at subsection d at the event that a counselor is no longer a resident of the city prior to the expiration of the council's term the office shall be deemed vacant and can be filled by the council section 205 compensation for the council members uh the compensation that is paid to the council members shall be set by the voters at the annual meeting with a minimum $1,500 near each the uh counselor's compensation has to be set forth as a separate item in the annual budget it's both about the city council then has authority to fix the compensation of all appointees and the city manager the council has authority to review or group ratified like departing agreements which may be negotiated or fixed by the manager so you have a bifurcated process there section 206 contains conflict of interest provisions related to city offices it states that no city council member shall hold any city employment during the term for which they are elected to the council a council member may be appointed to represent the city on other boards except as pursuant to the title 17 provisions related to uh specific conflicts for local officers no formal count former council member shall hold any compensated appointed municipal office or employment except for poll worker until one year after the expiration of their term the legislative body uh neither the legislative body nor any of its members shall in any manner dictate the appointment or removal of any officer under the authority of the town or city manager the legislative body may discuss with uh the manager any of these appointments uh the appointment performance or removal of those officers and employees in the executive session except for purposes of the inquiries that the city council is permitted to carry out according to this charter the legislative body uh you the council shall deal with municipal officers and employees who are subject to the direction and supervision of the manager solely through the manager so the manager is going to have the direct oversight and interaction with all of those subordinate officers and city council here is bound by non-interference all right as soon as possible after the election of president vice president by the council at their inaugural meeting the council shall fix the time and place of its regular meetings and those meetings are required to be held at least once a month uh under section 208 special city meetings shall be called according to uh general law and all voting shall be by australian ballot i was waiting for a reaction i know i was i've given up i've given up i hate australian ballots uh section 209 sets out the short form procedure for the city council meetings first the council shall determine its own rules in order of business uh quorum is three members three affirmative votes are necessary to take binding council action so if there's only three members present it's gotta be in this uh in accordance with the open meeting law the council shall keep minutes and the generalized minutes shall be public record all meetings are open to the public in accordance with promont's open meeting law except for those that are held in except executive section again to support it to the oml section 210 deals with uh appointment powers the council the council will have the power to appoint the members of all boards commissions committees are similar bodies uh and lessons are always specifically provided from charter and the charts of those points commence on the day section 211 a catch all section for additional provisions with the council city council is uh not allowed to make claims for personal services except when compensation for those services is provided either in this charter or under general law the council uh does have authority here to authorize the sale at least of any real or personal estate that belongs to the city as the corporate entity sub chapter three this is sub chapter dealing with the other elected offices there are two here the brown l library trustees and the moderator section 301 states that the brown l library trustees shall be a five-member board elected to five-year terms using the australian ballot system only qualified voters of the city shall be eligible to hold the office of library trustee uh the moderator shall be elected by the voters at the city annual meeting and that is to preside at the next city annual meeting uh the term of the moderator is one year and only qualified voters in the city shall be eligible to hold that office sub chapter four deals with city meetings 401 city meetings elections uh the voters at the annual meeting vote to set the date of the next annual meeting um they also vote at that annual meeting before the budget and like the officers the same as general law the provisions of state law related to the qualifications of electors manner of voting duties of election officers and all other particular law related to local elections shall apply to the city um acceptance otherwise provided and i'll note any exceptions they come up but i didn't have any one time so the general law was the election of officers um and voting on all questions at the city meetings done by australian ballot the city clerk and the board of civil authority uh shall conduct the elections in accordance with the state's election laws sub chapter five this governs uh ordinance authority within the city section 501 the general law will apply to the adoption ordinances section 502 public hearings related to those the adoption of those ordinances uh the city council is required to hold a minimum of one public meeting prior to the adoption of the ordinance um at the time and place uh that the ordinance meeting is worn or any time and place to which the hearing may from time to time be adjourned the ordinance shall be introduced and thereafter all persons who are interested will be given an opportunity to guard so the other meeting law will apply to this ordinance meeting at least one after hearing the council may finally pass the ordinance with or without amendment and the city shall cause the ordinance to be published uh with a notice of the time and place of the public hearing that must be held um the publication has to take place three days prior to the public hearing the council may pass the amended ordinance or again amended subject to the same procedures section 503 this is an exception to the uh general law here every ordinance shall become effective upon passage unless otherwise specified uh under the general law there is a 60 day lag so the day that an ordinance is adopted by a legislative body under the general law uh 60 days later is when that ordinance becomes effective and in the interim there is the opportunity for a petition for rescission or reconsideration by the voters that has to be filed within a 45 day window that petition opportunity is still available under general law but in the interim period the ordinances of the city will be effective until such time as a vote for uh rescission of health all right section 504 we essentially just covered it uh there's a slight tweak here with how this is written and how it harmonizes with general law and that's the 44 day window for the filing of the petition but otherwise the city is going to offer a um the same as general law for the rescission of the ordinance you know if the 44 days are very special significance i do not i do know it didn't come up in prior testimony there's an odd number of days it is weeks or months or there were the last time a special number like that came up in the context of the petition if you recall it was the city of burlington charter and the reason was that there is a shorter window when multiple items have to be put on the general election ballot so the petition for an item has a slightly shorter window in order for them to prepare the ballots for the next general election section 505 deals with the petition for an act of the ordinance and this is somewhat interesting the voters of the city may at any time petition for the enactment of a proposed lawful ordinance by filing petition and including the text of the ordinance with the city clerk um the council was then required to call a special seat city meeting within 60 days after the date of the filing uh so that the voters can vote on whether they're going to compel the adoption of the ordinance and this is interesting the city will effectively have a voter petition initiated way to exercise the authority of the legislative body to adopt the regulation how many voters need to sign it yeah i was going to ask that i don't see what's going on with thresholds two voters could i mean to make sure it's not going to come up with subjections there is no threshold percentage boy it seems like the council will be pretty busy yeah and i yeah i don't know what under subsection b the ordinance is reviewed by the city attorney to make sure that there aren't any uh technical or constitutional issues and subsection c clarifies that the provisions of this section around the petition for an act of an ordinance doesn't relate to the appointments of officers or members of commissions or to the governing procedures of the council i do would you like me to continue on what is your what exactly do you have to leave so for a very important date i think if you have to leave at four that it makes sense for us to stop here and then we'll pick it up next time yeah next time thank you all yes so you have in front of you uh h 491 we'll start on page 14 with sub chapter 6 to pick up where we left off last time and uh as a brief reminder based on senator Clark since most recent comment although this is a charter for a brand new city the majority of the bill that you have in front of you is taken directly from the existing village of s extraction charter oh okay great there's quite a bit in here that uh is currently codified that'll 24 out for the village sub chapter 6 broadly deals with the city manager section 601 states that the city council shall appoint the city manager section 602 starts to deal with the powers and duties of the manager uh it states generally that the manager will be the chief administrative officer of the city and be responsible to the council for the administration of the city's affairs uh subsection b deals with some of the specific powers of the manager the manager has the power to appoint and when it is deemed necessary suspend or remove all city employees including the treasurer and other employees that are provided by uh this charter uh those are for cause removals under these terms additionally uh well unless a cba applies to that specific officer or employee collective bargaining agreement that's an important caveat that they right right here the uh manager has given authority to authorize any employee underneath the manager's direction supervision to exercise the same powers with respect to subordinate employees within the particular uh office within the city the appointments layoffs suspensions promotions or removals uh it needs to be made primarily on the basis of training experience fitness and performance of duties so essentially a catchall clause saying needs need to comply with employment laws generally uh the manager under subsection c shall direct and supervise the administration of all departments offices and agencies of the city unless there's a more specific provision within the charter the manager uh recommends the hiring of the city attorney with the council's approval the member or a staff member designated by the manager shall attend all council meetings and shall have the right to take part in discussion and recommendations but does not have uh voting rights so an ex officio member of sorts the council in subsection e is given authority to meet an executive session without the manager for discussion of the manager's performance or if the manager is subject to uh the investigation powers that the council deserves in terms of the charter the manager is tasked with seeing that uh all laws subject to enforcement by the manager or its office um are faithfully executed and is required to prepare and submit the annual budget and capital program to the city council the manager is also required to submit to the council a complete report on the finances and administrative activities of the city as of the end of the end of each fiscal year the manager has other reporting duties and shall make other reports as the council directs and requires manager is tasked under subsection j with keeping the council fully advised on the financial condition needs of the city and to make recommendations to the council concerning the affairs of the city as the manager deems desirable the manager is tasked with uh being responsible for all of the city's ordinances and laws so this is the chief enforcement officer as well as the chief administrative officer the manager uh may discretionary authority delegate to subordinate officers and employees any duties that are conferred upon the manager by the charter or by general law the manager tasks performing other duties specified at the charter or is required by the council in general as we're moving through all of these the manager has duties to oversee the operation of city government day-to-day operation the manager fixes the compensation of city employees recommends uh the appointment of the city clerk with uh the council's approval city council has the authority under section 603 in the charter from page 17 now the council can remove the manager from office for cause the council is required to adopt by an affirmative majority vote a preliminary resolution that states the reasons for the removal and may suspend the manager from duty for a period up to 45 days within three days after the vote a copy of the resolution is provided to the manager there should be a folder there okay we're like two organized okay right thank you there yeah and we're on page seven okay thank you so uh within three days after the vote to remove or suspend the resolution has to be delivered to the manager and then within five days after receipt of the resolution the manager can file with the council a written request for a hearing which uh shall be in a public or executive session by choice of the manager the hearings are held a special council meeting within 15 to 30 days of the manager's request for the hearing and the manager has authority here to file a written reply to the removal or section council has authority in subdivision three to adopt final resolution of removal which can be made immediately effective by a majority vote all right section 604 on page 18 now at least in my unofficial and by house version deals with vacancies in the office of the city manager the manager has authority under the section to appoint a staff member to perform the manager's duties in the event of absence due to disability classification or vacation unless the manager has previously appointed a staff member as assistant manager or deputy manager if the manager has failed to make any of those designations the council can by resolution appoint a interim manager we're now on sub chapter seven dealing with boards and commissions still a frequent topic for this community these are boards and commissions of the city of estuary seven section 701 establishes the board of civil authority and ties into general law section 702 establishes the board of faith of taxes again uh echoes general law section 703 establishes the planning commission uh the powers duties and obligations of which are in accordance with general law so you've just potentially uh approved an amendment which would impact this members of the planning commission are not permitted to hold any other city office in important component section 703 and the city council is given authority in the charter to set the terms of the planning commission members an important note because we just went over it is that uh if the city has elected planning commissions that this would override the general law statutory authority for the voters to vote on and set the terms of elected commission members all right is it common is it common to say hold no other office like they can't be adjusted for the peace they can't they can't do anything else it depends on uh the particular municipality that we're working with but i would say that many municipal charters do have their own conflict adventurous policies that prohibit uh officers from holding more than one office this charter we went over one of them uh does have other prohibitions conflict adventurous policies specific to uh city council members we already went over so there's a few different prohibitions built into the city's charter section 704 deals with the DRB development review board it establishes the DRB and ties it to the general law members of the DRB will be appointed by the council for three year terms section 705 deals with the brown ale library trustees um the brown ale library board of trustees that hold office at the time this charter is enacted shall serve until their terms are completed so this is being codified but that's almost like a transitional provision there any existing policies that are in place uh for the trustees will continue after the effective date of the charter the five permanent self-perpetuating trustees shall function in accordance with the terms of the trust agreement dated may 25 1925 uh the trustees shall have the authority to establish new policies for the operation of the library or replace any position in place the library notwithstanding any of the foregoing is required to follow financial and personnel policies that are established by the city council so chapter eight the administrative departments of the city as you don't want deals with personnel administration and benefits uh the manager or an appointee acts as the personnel director just on page 20 by the way the manager uh maintains personnel rules and regulations those rules and regulations must be approved by the council and shall include the procedure for amending those rules and regulations each employee uh is required to receive a copy of the rules and regulations upon hire the rules and regulations uh may deal with the following subjects related to personnel administration job classification jobs to fulfill a tenure retirement pension leave of absence vacations holidays group insurance salary plans um your general enumerated and exhausted list employment related and HR related provisions subsection c no person in the service of the city shall either directly or indirectly uh give render pay or see if any service or other valuable things on account of or in connection with any appointment proposed appointment promotion promotion that's our whole conflict of interest section summarize section 802 the real estate assessor very similar to the assessor statutes there shall be either a real estate assessor who is a certified real estate appraiser or an independent appraisal firm headed by a certified real estate appraiser appointed by the manager and shall carry out the duties of the assessor and function in the same way as assessors under general law the real estate assessor is tasked with establishing the grand list of the city and following the general law that applies there to under section 803 appraisals shall be reviewed periodically and kept up to date this provision would be overlapped and overlaid by the title 32 provisions that went triggered which require appraisal appraisal and business property for tax purposes the business personal property shall be in accordance with general law provided that all business personal property acquired by a taxpayer after september 30th 1995 shall be exempt from tax most of these business personal property taxes that are in charge have been slowly repealed over the last five to 10 years including the spring field charter that was on the senate floor today they have repealed their personal tax which is personal property tax which expired 2001 section 805 explain some of the purpose of appointing that real estate assessor the purpose of appointing an assessor is in lieu of the election of listers so what this section is setting up is that way if any general law were to apply to require the election of listers that the city is instead going to have this uh city assessor of the listers i'm sorry business property it's sort of you know appraisal business property is called the inventory tax yes yes so i don't understand why it says that it shall be dealt with by these provisions but um oh so anything that was there before 1995 does have a proper tax on it yes inventory tax or could have the tax applied to it oh okay i don't know uh previous discussions of city operations or current village operations if there is any inventory tax being applied okay but under this legal mechanism anything acquired before that date in 1995 would be subject to the tax and the procedures would be those that are in general law we did away with ours because we were told that on March 31st this go farmer had all his cows over here in a different town because it was right on the border and then on April 1st he moved them back to putney because uh because he would have been taxed because he would have been taxed on the right they were so i mean that was one of the reasons but we just did away with it all right okay so that's an ideal city's budget process section 901 states that the fiscal year starts and ends on the first day of July that's similar to most other municipalities in the state with very few exceptions section 902 the annual municipal budget uh the manager submits to the council of budget for a review before the annual city meeting and that budget contains an estimate of the financial condition of the city an itemized statement of appropriations recommended for current expenses and capital improvements during the next fiscal year an itemized statement of estimated revenues from all sources other than taxation for the next fiscal year in comparative figures of tax and other sources of revenue for the current and immediate tax years a capital budget for not fewer than the next five fiscal years showing anticipated expenditures and any other information that the council requires as a component of that budget report the city council then reviews and approves the recommended budget under section 903 they can make changes the budget is published not later than two weeks after its preliminary adoption by the council and then the council shall fix the time and place for a public hearing on the budget and they'll give notice of that hearing which moves immediately in the section 904 dealing with the warning for the budget meeting the council holds at least one public hearing at least 30 days prior to the annual meeting to present you explain the proposed budget the manager not less than 30 days prior to the annual meeting makes available the city council's recommended budget final warning of the penny annual meeting the annual city report shall be made available to the legal voters in the city not later than 10 days prior to the annual meeting section 905 appropriations and transfers an annual budget shall be adopted by the city by the city at the city meeting by the vote of the majority of eligible voters they vote by australian ballot in accordance with section 401 if after the total budget has been appropriated the city council finds additional appropriations are necessary the appropriations shall be made and reported at the next city meeting as a specific item the appropriations shall only be made in special circumstances or situations of an emergency nature however no specific explanation needed to be given for any normally operating expense in any office or agency that may be increased over the budget by an amount not more than 10 percent of the offices or agencies budget from the effect to do the budget as approved by voters the amounts that are stated therein become appropriated to various agencies of city government the manager may at any time transfer unencumbered appropriation balances or portions thereof between general classifications of expenditures at the request the manager the council made by resolution to transfer any of those unencumbered appropriation balances within the council budget from one department of office or agency to another and again to bring this all together charters are harmonized with general law so for example the repeal the recent repeal that included in s181 of the prohibition on the commingling of town highway rights would come into play here so within the city the city manager would be able to come make all of us not i'm going to ask you to wait where our maximum here is eight oh i do apologize i'll have a whole second again that's a big so sorry i know i do count the amount of people in him i didn't i wasn't the site on the outside i can do that notwithstanding what we just walked through with the ability to move on covered balances around no unexpected balance in any appropriation that is not included in the council budget shall be transferred to the other purpose all right section 906 states that upon the passage of the budget the amounts that are stated therein shall be raised by taxes in the city in the corresponding tax year and that those taxes will be levied on the grant list so same as operation of the general law sub chapter 10 deals with taxation section 1001 taxes on real property shall be paid equal installments on march 15th and september 15th uh notice is required to be sent to the taxpayer it's not less than 30 days prior to when the taxes are due section 1002 uh the city is going to add an additional charge of eight percent to any tax not paid on or before the date specified in the proceeding section as you may recall from some of the work during covid uh in some of the emergency powers the interest that is applied to unpaid taxes is not automatic and it's usually uh based on a municipal vote to apply a certain percentage eight percent is the maximum amount that is applied under the general yes it doesn't say who will uh be responsible for collecting that they're not is there a tax collectivism uh there is nothing specific within the charter so that would fall to either the collector of delinquent taxes or the treasurer depending on the system that the current village and future city has in place it is likely a collector of delinquent taxes unless that office has been eliminated the treasurer tends to these days do all that uh well so there is there are some temporary provisions that will be in place for the city that we'll get to at the end of the bill about the collection of taxes and how that's going to carry out in the near future as the town and city separate section 1003 this section uh was amended by the house ways it means commitment to add a clause sorry may i just while we're on section uh 1002 normal melting does this not give the manager or the select board any opportunity uh to negotiate eight percent because it says shall eight percent that's what they wanted okay okay and i no interest in allowing any okay i can put together a summary because what this is doing is saying specifically for the city that the eight percent interest rate is in place yes the general law fills in all the gaps around for example how an abatement might play out for an individual taxpayer and i can send you a summary of how that works okay as long as there's some provision for that that's great well there would be for an abatement but not for reducing the eight percent that's just difference right it's it's pretty tough and there are extenuating well i i don't think we that's fine thank you all of it because that fight in here for the 20 years i've been here um so section 1003 authorizes the city council uh to negotiate and execute assessment and taxation agreements between the city and the taxpayer or a group of taxpayers these are the tax stabilization agreements that are uh generally authorized under general law there are specific types of properties that are subject to uh these agreements under general law here the city has authority to negotiate and execute these assessment and taxation agreements with any taxpayer in the city um this next component was added by house ways and means it says that this section shall not be construed to supersede any provision of state law related to the education property tax sub chapter 11 capital improvements section 1100 deals with the capital programs of the city the manager is tasked with preparing the capital program at least three days before the final special budget the capital program has to include a clear general summary of the program's contents a list of all capital improvements that are proposed we have to take them for the next five fiscal years cost estimates methods of financing and recommended time schedules for each improvement the estimated annual cost of operating and maintaining the facilities that will be constructed or required uh finally under subsection c the information that's required by the section can be revised and extended each year with regard to capital improvements so pending sub chapter 12 amendment of the charter and initiatives the charter this charter may be amended in accordance with general law that's all in sub chapter 12 sub chapter 13 and general provisions uh I quickly moving through the first two savings clause and separability these are boilerplate provisions that we see in a lot of charters essentially saying that if one section of the charter is found to be invalid it doesn't invalidate the remaining sections section 1303 this has superseding language uh it states that each city shall be formed notwithstanding language that is contained in the town of Essex charter so the following language specifically that notwithstanding the provisions of any other municipal charters territory within the corporate limits of the town shall not be annexed to or become a part of any other municipal corporation except by the annexation procedures as said forth and the statutes of the state of Vermont this refers to the annexation procedures for incorporated villages so essentially what the town of Essex charter says is that no incorporated villages can extend their boundaries or take new territory unless they follow the general law procedures for annexing the territory and here the city is including this in the charter to ensure that the general assembly is saying that that town charter provision is not going to be construed to prohibit the formation of the city oh okay we get into next the transitional provisions that will govern the uh the period immediately following the formation of the city in July and the formal separation of the two municipalities section three governs the assignment uh an assumption of village assets and liabilities it states that all assets and obligations that formerly belong to the village will pass to the city and that includes all interests so all real property easements rights rights and interests of land vehicles equipment other personal property cash insurance policies documents and records debts claims bonded deadness all contracts agreements trusts and other binding written documents obligating the village shall remain in effect and what's happening here is this section is setting out that all of the legal duties and responsibilities that the village had with their financial or other relationships will pass to this new corporate entity that's being formed and these are included within these sort of handshakes when you have a corporation becoming something new to make sure that creditors don't lose out because they can no longer hold the extinguished corporation uh while today section four uh sets out the transition period it establishes a transition period that will begin on July 1st 2022 and it will end on July 1st 2023 during that transition period the city shall continue to receive and pay for consolidated services with the town for assessing the clerk treasurer position it police public works and storm water so those are the enumerated services that will continue to be shared and paid for the city council shall set a tax rate for what taxes meet the obligations for the city's share of the town municipal operations and all of the city municipal operations throughout the transition period according to the budgets that are approved by the voters of the town and the village the previous march in april the taxes that are collected by the city for the town shall be paid to the town in equal installments on october 15th and april 15th and then this states that at the end of the transition period city shall be fully organized i don't know if that's aspirational or not i think it's probably very manageable give us more thinking together what were the dates of the new payments about march and september okay all right a month ahead of these two days section five contains a transitional provision for the organizational meeting of the city the first annual city meeting shall occur on the date set by the voters the most recent village annual meeting uh following approval of the charter this will be a meeting of the city of s exemption and will be noticed and warned to all residents of the city and it will be for the purposes of presenting and discussing the budget only other city business may also be presented and discussed but not voted on at that initial meeting after presentation discussion of the budget and any other business the meeting will adjourn voting on the budget and the election of counselors will be by australia section six transitional provision related to the village center and neighborhood development area designations so those village center district and neighborhood development area designations as contained within the current s-extruction development code shall continue in the new city for the purposes of continuing downtown revitalization efforts and the city shall retain any and all state designations for purposes of redevelopment in force at the time of adoption so this is the handshake for these designation areas between the village and the city section seven deals with the transitional provision for the governing body of this corporate entity when the charter becomes effective and the city is established full approval by the legislature the members of the village board of trustees will become the members of the city council and continue to serve uh out there elect the terms the president vice president clerk of the council will continue to serve in those capacities until the board reorganizes as we covered earlier in the bill where they'll elect their own president the counselors shall mourn and hold meetings as appropriate and shall address all details and issues related to the transition from the village to the city city council shall review consider and adopt all regulations ordinances and plans for the former village as its own so that's the regulatory handshake the city council with the assistance of the manager shall propose and warrant the first annual budget of the new city for consideration by the voters at its first annual meeting section eight contains the transitional provision for budget administration city manager uh is tasked with proposing the budget for the new city for the next fiscal year that addresses proper service levels, contractual obligations, capital projects, and debt and the reflect city change is related to the corporation of the city section nine separation of the city and town departments no more co-mingling city and town departments the city council is going to appoint the manager and the manager shall plan and hire for the separation of all consolidated departments within the town by the end of the transition period unless contracts are signed stating other works and I think there may be some factual giving to all of those contracts that are going to stay in place section 10 deals with planning and development so when the charter becomes effective the former village plan bylaws and land development code and any ordinances that are related to planning development will remain in effect until amended or revised by the new city council um the village planning commission and village zoning board of adjustment will become the planning commission and development review board of the city all current trustee and appointed uh commission and committee members shall serve out the remainder of their terms through this transition section 12 the unification and adoption of ordinances bylaws and rules all ordinances and bylaws of the village shall become ordinances and bylaws the city the city is fully authorized to amend or repeal any ordinance according to the provisions of subject for five the charter dealing with ordinances whenever a power is granted by any ordinance or bylaw to an officer or officers of the village it will carry over to those senior officer officers in the city section 13 personnel all employees of the village shall become employees of the city and any and all contracts of the village will be assumed by the city unless otherwise terminated re-executed or renegotiated uh personnel policies will carry from the village to the city as well the dates of hire uh with the village will be used as the dates of hire for purposes of benefits and benefit calculations for the city section 14 deals with the transition of finances city shall adopt any and all portions of the town of s6 grand list for properties located within the borders of the city any and all property tax payments due and delinquencies incurred for the village to the effective charter shall be paid town upon the effective date of the charter any city taxes due and delinquencies incurred shall be payable to the city so that july 1st 2022 effective date is the delineation between taxes they will be due to the town will be collected and permitted to the town and then taxes they will be collected or admitted to the city all existing contractual agreements including those tax stabilization agreements uh that we covered 10 minutes or so ago um within the village shall hereby be assigned to the city section 15 of the future governance commission within three years after the effective date of charter the council is going to appoint a special commission to study governance considerations including the form of government the election officials at large or through the lords governing body composition terms of office term limits and councilor compensation section 16 uh this is a component that was added in the house to deal with the very particular position of justices of the piece governor appointed that is how it operates under general law you're kidding you know i thought they were elected well they are elected by the municipality that they serve and that's a component of the vermont constitution and whenever there's an absence under general law and it's cited there's 17 dsa 26 23 the governor appoints the replacement and the parties at the local level uh make recommendations for who the governor should appoint to that open jp position so here it states expressly that the governor may appoint up to 15 justices of the piece to serve in the city because of course this city is a new legal school corporation will not have had a general election to elect a justice of the piece or justices of the piece excuse me so the governor will appoint up to 15 pursuant to the procedures established in title 17 the committees for the political parties of the jps in the town may submit recommendations for qualified justices of the piece to the governor for consideration so that's a component of the general law and because the city does not have any currently elected jps for that municipal corporation this is going to override that general law procedure and say well the committees for the jps of the town will be the ones that will make the recommendation because all of those justices of the piece in the town formerly served for the village as well the appointed justices of the piece shall serve until successors may be elected after 2022 general election and that is a four month term potentially if the governor acts very quickly after the effective date of this charter section 17 repeals the village charter section 18 sets the effective date of this act is July 1st 2022 very exciting too right Karen I can share one update that has come up I appreciate the timing that you've had of this meeting because as was heard there's the transition plans for a lot of the different things between the village and the town and they just had a meeting last night with both municipalities the boards met and both unanimously passed the agreements of how those things are going to transition pending attorney review so that that is positive as well great good good any questions or concerns it seems like the transitional things I mean I understand why they're in there but the chargers can go out forever these transitional things are still going to be in there just seems like they take up space the transitional provisions are not codified okay they are sectional are dealing with the transitional period for the next year so they'll disappear well they won't disappear they'll be kept in the 2022 acts and resolves which are kept in each attorney's office in the office of legislative council or functioned by the secretary of state and are likely mostly used by michael turnick in historical research so I will say that we've had a couple emails I have from a couple people who who live in the town and are very upset that this is happening and that they didn't have the ability to weigh to vote on this but this isn't a town issue this is the village succeeding from the from the town and if vermont decided to succeed from the union I think that we would vote on it but we would let Massachusetts and Connecticut vote on that for us so I think that's the that's a good compare it is a good analogy I haven't thought about this issue I did come up in the house and I did a great deal of historical research around what has happened when other new municipalities have formed from a separation between municipal governments and the way that this has shaken out is that when the new municipality does not contain any real property from the surrounding municipality then there's no vote in the surrounding municipality and the most recent example is the city of winewski the village of winewski voted to separate and the town of colchester was not given a the opportunity to vote on the separation it was just the village itself uh there is a similar situation for the formation of the city of burlington because the town of burlington at the time as it was constituted and there was a very small piece that ended up becoming south burlington uh voted in its entirety without taking up any of those outside pieces to become the city in other instances and these are all recent proposals that failed uh the town of st johnsbury was allowed to vote on the formation of the city of st johnsbury because it included the village but also two incorporated school districts that were within the town um that is not the case here where the village within its current corporate boundaries voted to become a city without taking or incorporating anything outside of the village boundaries and again the consideration is where the voters of that municipal entity given an opportunity to vote not becoming this new corporate entity and in the case of winewski and this present case the answer would be yes because the bounds are all within the village well that answers that so um does anybody have any questions or concerns or are we ready to yes thank you madam chair we mentioned departments that would be still shared if that's the right verb can i just get a sense of what those might be hi okay yes but you may want to hear from the representatives from s6 because i believe they have the most recent updated list and again those will be subject to an agreement executed between the two municipalities which i believe is what representative doleman just brought up thank you representative doleman's description um yeah so that's the piece that i was um sharing before that there's an mou that is being worked on between the village and the town and that's what was passed unanimously by both municipalities last night pending you know attorney review of just checking that all the i's and t's are crossed um and some of the services that are in that are there's a delinquent tax um agreement there's the information technology agreement police services assessor services stormwater clerk so they have it all set out of how in each of those areas is it going to move from you know we're working together to separating or how are we going to work together during this transition period do you know if the fire and ems are already separated yes fire is okay i'm just trying to take other departments that would be shared now highway may may i interject i'm sorry this is representative houghton um so just a couple quick and i i just know this because i was a trustee so fire has always been separate village has their own their town has their own ems is a third party police has been shared since 1980 and there is an agreement going forward for another 10 years of sharing highway has always been separated we tried to do or we did do a consolidation um but we will be separating those back out and they will remain separate the departments have always although they've worked together they've always been separate departments thank you thank you thank you okay any more questions or concerns i'm ready to vote oh right i'm ready to vote this is a visual question s6 junction which is going to become s6 city is that sort of what i think it was the five corners there again yeah it's going to get a sensible yes and there's more to it but yes like that and i know what i think is our talk yes and is that where um local foundry says yes yeah so it's that area of it it's more importantly is it where the train station is because it's because of the train it's called the junction exactly yes all of those things are true and the train station is right there too yeah so and remind us the population of the city uh i'm gonna have to ask um my my senior rep i want to say it's 11 000 something yeah it's about 11 000 and it's pretty even between the town and the village they both have close to 11 000 so it's one of the biggest cities in the yep next burlington aren't you number two i believe so i think so it's all brought to my local with this divide south burlington that's amazing divides s6 yeah and this doesn't no i mean this down becomes s6 city the city of s6 in the town of s6 yeah okay i don't move that we vote out h491 with no amendments stay with me i just want to celebrate all the hard work yeah this community uh i'm sorry i missed some of this but it's been a long time having it we're happy to be another milestone on this journey to getting this through the legislature you're here exciting so okay should i do you understand yeah we're not going to do a celebrate maybe i need some champagne first no i think we need to just answer yes so we can get on to our next issue because we're already 10 minutes late okay was that a yes yes i said okay so i'm calling mark yes senator plina yes myself senator ron instill yes senator white yes five zero zero thank you all so much we'll invite you to the celebration we're ready we have the the forks and the planks thank you very appreciate it very much well thank you so thank you guys lots of hard work and too many votes yeah we now have for action h491 and act relating to the creation of the city of s6 junction and the adoption of the city charter it was reported favorably by the committee on government operations please listen to the second reading of the bill h491 an act relating to the creation of the city of s6 junction and the adoption of the city charter for the committee on government operations the senator from chippenden is recognized thank you madam president it is not every day that we vote to create a new city in the senate and it is a historic vote in a 110-year journey for the relationship between s6 junction and s6 town and we do have members of both the municipal government of the community as well as members from the other chamber from the house here to witness and i want to recognize that and i also want to note that i will borrow heavily from their perspective and their words we gave this due consideration in your senate government operations committee but also relied deeply on the expertise and longer testimony in the house and the bill before you was not amended by your committee on government operation h491 is a charter change to establish the city of s6 junction it is important for us to review how we've come to this place and why 88 percent of those who voted want an independent community since 1892 the village of s6 junction has operated as a municipal unit of government within the town of s6 both chartered municipalities the communities have been voting on some form of merger or separation since 1958 there are some key details in the last 20 years that are worth discussing as to how we are now at this point in the year 2022 in 2000 a five month long government operations mandated mediation process ended with no agreed upon resolution in 2006 a year-long community led task force created a charter for a new merged municipality it passed narrowly with town uh with town the town outside the village voting no and the village voting yes a revote overturn the results over the next 10 years the boards worked collaboratively to find shared services in 2018 they created a subcommittee to again craft a plan for the future of the two communities this plan of merger vote uh which we can discuss in more detail uh then failed and that leads us to where we are today with a charter change request that creates a path forward for two separate communities while fully recognizing the past history of these efforts last year the town of s6 was before your government operations committee with a charter change to establish a three plus three governance model at the time the decision was made to hold further discussions until the community held the merger that had long been planned the merger plan uh voted on in 2021 included the three plus three governance model and a 12 year financial phase in to limit the immediate financial impact to the town outside of the village residents close to 50 percent of registered voters participated in the plan of merger held in march of 2021 the plan of merger failed in the town outside of the village by 72 percent and passed in the village by 81 percent overall the vote failed by 19 votes with swift action by residents throughout the communities a revote was held on April 13 over 50 percent of registered voters participated in the election again the plan of merger failed with similar percentages within each community as the original vote the town outside of the village voted no the village voted yes with broad community outreach three plus three governance and a 12 year financial phase in uh the town of s6 and uh the town of s6 overwhelmingly rejected the plan of merger twice as part of the revote village residents residents also voted on the non-binding resolution to have the village trustees draft a charter to establish the city of s6 junction should the plan of merger fail a second time that non-binding vote passed overwhelmingly the city of s6 junction charter vote was held by a special village meeting in november of 2021 again close to 50 percent of registered voters participated the charter passed with 88 percent of the vote 3070 yes votes to 411 no votes in may of 2021 the two municipal boards entered into a joint resolution to investigate an amicable separation as written in the resolution it was titled members of the select board and trustees agree to negotiating good faith throughout the amicable separation process the spirit of inclusion all voices will be respectfully heard and considered and that now brings us to a section by section and i'm going to call it a chapter by chapter outline uh of the of h 491 um and what should be noted as to why i hope we can do a broad brushstroke of a chapter by chapter rather than section by section is that this is largely existing language for the village of s6 junction and existing charter language that will now fall under the charter for the city of s6 junction sub chapter one creates the city and expresses the city's general corporate powers the city will use the council manager form of government sub chapter two sets out the governance structure of the city the legislative body of the city shall be the city council which will be comprised of the current village trustees until the expiration of their terms the sub chapter also sets the procedures for filling a vacancy in the council in the event of death absence or resignation compensation of the city council shall be $1,500 per year counselors are not permitted to hold any other elected or appointed office sub chapter three provides for the other elected offices of the city including the library trustees and moderator sub chapter four sets out the procedures for city meetings and elections the sections in the sub chapter rely on general law sub chapter five sets out the city's procedures and powers concerning ordinances these provisions rely on general law with the exception that the city uses a 44 day timeline for petitions to rescind in ordinance sub chapter six governs the duties and powers of the city manager the manager shall oversee all administration of city government and all subordinate city officers the manager is responsible for preparing financial reports the city budget proposal and the city capital expenditure plan the manager may be removed by the select board and has a right to a hearing sub chapter seven establishes the following boards and commissions the board of civil authority the board of abatement of taxes the planning commission the development review board and the brown now library trustees sub chapters nine and ten set out the budget and taxation process with a fiscal year that starts and ends on july first the annual municipal budget proposal is submitted by the city manager with approval of the council the city has authority to authorize tax stabilization agreements with any taxpayer in the city does not affect the education property tax list sub chapter eleven sets out the capital program procedures for the city which rely on general law sub chapters twelve and thirteen contain general language providing for the separability and separability of charter provisions the sections that follow contain transitional provisions for the separation of the city from the town and i will review some of those after finishing the section by section of the bill section sixteen relates to justices of the piece that shall be appointed by the governor pursuant to title seventeen section seventeen repeals the village charter and section eighteen is the effective date of july first twenty twenty two i again want to borrow from the good work of the members from sx in the house who have shared a summary of the agreements for the transition the memorandum of understanding allows for a negotiation of these tentative agreements and to execute these agreements upon passage of separation the town regarding delinquent taxes the town can continue to collect taxes owed to them when the properties were part of the village regarding information technology they the town and city will work collaboratively to transfer village data from town systems regarding police services the city will continue to receive police dispatch and community justice services from the sx police department for 10 years and renew for and renewals will be for an additional five years regarding reappraisal and assessor services the town and city are to share in reappraisal and assessing services through the upcoming reappraisal process regarding right at first refusal the city has a right of first refusal should the town want to sell 81 main street don't ask me exactly what's going on there but we can find out on a recess if anybody wants to know regarding stormwater the town and city will work collaboratively on stormwater when and if it makes sense otherwise they are separate regarding the clerk treasurer's office the town and city will share the village and city clerk until july 1st of 2023 at which time they will separate regarding shared financial services the town and city will have their own finance director and staff to support separating finances until june 30th of 2025 or sooner if agreed upon regarding amenities like recreation of uh indian brooks the senior center and the senior bus the city will have access to town recreation and indian brooks in the same manner it currently does until december 31st of 2023 and the town will have access to the senior center and recreation programs accepting pool the pool and licensed childcare until december 31st of 2023 uh there is an amended mo u upcoming that uh removed shared boards and commissions as these will not be shared beyond july 1st 2023 and removes the clerk treasurer as this is not dependent upon separation passing as it reflects the change in shared management madam president uh your committee on government operations voted 500 to pass this major charter change the creation of the new city of sx junction we heard from the delegation from sx sx town government officials x junction government officials and um we had uh materials that were emailed to us from the public at large who wish to weigh in um i would just like to end again uh with the words of our colleagues in the house who have lived this for probably many decades it is time for our two communities who have tried almost every conceivable relationship to have the opportunity to thrive as two separate entities for the betterment of all residents thank you madam president thank you the question is tell the bill a third time the senator from franklin is recognized thank you madam chair get the reporter bill senator from chitenden the reporter mentioned that there was a group formed between the consisting of members of the town and members of the village as a junction to try to come up with an agreement in which both parties agreed as to the structure of a separation is that the what created this particular format or did they in fact come to any agreement madam president to the best of my knowledge what i outlined toward the end in the memorandum of understanding about all of the various uh municipal services was the outcome of that amicable discussion on separation i see nodding heads behind you and um to my knowledge that is what created a phased plan that has components that are one year long to a decade long um so that that is what was discussed in may of 2021 between the two municipal boards after the vote was taken for the separation there are financial implications and equity and taxation has been a major discussion of all of the proposed separation or merger agreements both it has been part of the decades long community discussion and all all of these major votes as i will borrow again from the the process that was outlined by the members from sx in the house it has been clearly stated throughout public outreach that should the merger not pass separation would mean an increase in municipal taxes to residents in the town outside of the village in fact at a joint municipal meeting on september 28 of 2020 the town finance director at the time said there are inequities in the way government is funded in our current situation village taxpayers are paying for services they are not eligible to receive and are paying more for services that they and the town outside of the village taxpayers have equal access to this means that town taxpayers are paying less than the true cost for some services that is a quote from the town finance director in 2020 last week based upon what the reporter knows or based on testimony received as the bill was being discussed are there any well is there any likelihood of litigation that may result from this and if so what type of litigation might that be madame president um this has been a long decades plus long process and um i do not believe that we heard about any specific litigation that would be raised um i can get a better answer before third reading on that question if the member would like or we could take a brief recess if that's important before third second reading the question is scale the bill you read a third time are you ready for the question all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed signify by saying no the ayes have it and you have ordered third reading of h 491 we now have for action h 491 an act relating to the creation of the city of sx junction and the adoption of the city charter are there any amendments to be offered before third reading please listen to third reading of the bill h 491 an act relating to the creation of the city of sx junction and the adoption of the city charter you have heard the third reading of the bill the question is sail the bill pass in concurrence the senator from chitin is recognized thank you madam president on second reading the senator from franklin asked if there was any pending litigation or concern about litigation for this particular charter change uh having talked to officials in sx junction there is no pending litigation that anyone is aware of of course we live in a litigious society and there could always be litigation um but you know it is the prerogative of a municipality to make a decision such as this and to bring it to the legislature and given that there was an amicable uh mo u related to separation i no lawyer but um it does not seem like there would be favorable litigation around a amicable separation agreement that's already been established that we are now voting on and sending to the governor so the question is sell the bill pass in concurrence are you ready for the question all those in favor signify by saying aye those opposed signify by saying no the ayes have it and you have passed h 491 in concurrence