 I can see it up there, but my notes are all on here. You ready, Seth? Yeah. OK, Seth. Yes. OK. Everybody, select board. So let's follow the November 6, 2017, select board meeting order. We invite you to rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing afterwards, please. You would? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So I'd like you to please join me in a moment of silence for the tragedy that unfolded yesterday in Sutherland Springs, Texas. It's killed 26 innocent people. Our sympathies go out to the many victims, their families and friends, and we commend the heroic actions encouraged by the first responders. I'd like to welcome everyone to tonight's select board meeting. And just remind you, if you have a cell phone, if they could turn it off or to silent or to buzz, we would appreciate it in case it goes off. It doesn't disturb the meeting. So do we have any additions that we need to? No, but I did bring a prop. OK. OK. But no, no additions. OK. Very good. So nothing to approve. Next slide, one. I noticed that in the consent agenda, we had two memos that were sort of gathered under the Howard Community Outreach Program. But they were numbered individually, and I just wondered if we could set one of those aside, which was the Community Collaborative Summary of Conversations on Mental Health and put that particular agenda item right before the existing I. Because it preceded it logically, but it was sort of tied together with it, with the Howard Community Outreach Program, and it was included afterwards, which didn't make a lot of. So you want to just change the consent agenda as defined here? Yeah, I'd like to break that out separately, if I could. So have I and I sub one or something, or? I make it the new I and then make everything else renumbered, if we could. OK. And what would the title be for the one for that? The Community Collaborative Summary of Conversations on Mental Health. Which is taken from what it says. All right, so any other changes? So we have change. So I need a second to approve that addition or that change. Second. Thank you. You make the motion then? I'm sorry, I thought you said you needed a second. I'm sorry, I didn't mean a second. So we need a motion to approve the change. So move on the motion. Thank you, Mike. I'll second it. And I'm going to second any further discussion on that. All those in favor, so you're probably saying aye. Aye. Aye. OK, sorry about the confusion. OK, next up is public to be heard. This is the time for the public to speak to the select board on any topic that's not on the agenda. Is there anyone here tonight wishing to speak during public to be heard? OK, then I will just say something real quick. Last Monday, the select board received their brand new tablets to move into the 21st century. So we're going to be getting our select board packets electronically instead of by mail and then or by paper and then delivered by senior bus. So this is our first meeting using them. A few little matches, I'm sure we're going to have to work out. And Sue's identified one of those. I mean, anyway, I just want to let you know that that's why she's in front of us tonight. OK, anybody else? OK, hearing none, we're going to move on to our first business item of the night, which is we're going to invite Will Don from the Energy Committee up. There's a request to join the Vermont Climate Pledge Coalition. Welcome, Will. Thank you very much. So I'm wondering if, I don't know, Greg, do you want me to explain it first? Or you would produce a memo for the? My memo is mostly just introductory. Sure. So my name is Will Dodge. I'm the chair now officially of the Essex Energy Congratulations. Thank you very much. And thank you again for pointing me and all of my superb and hugely motivated energy committee members. Are you up to full? We're not up to full, but we certainly are in terms of energy. The battery is totally recharged, but we can always take a little more capacity when it comes to getting more members on. What's nice is that we have a good balance now between Essex Junction and Essex Town, and we're trying to just obliviate that distinction altogether when it comes to a lot of our planning. And so in that vein, we're starting, we're here before you as the town tonight to talk about the Vermont Climate Pledge Coalition. Just to read to you sort of where that comes from. On June 20, 2017, Mayor Murrow Weinberg of Burlington joined by Governor Phil Scott, members of the Vermont Mayor's Coalition and other community leaders launched a statewide coalition, the Vermont Climate Pledge Coalition, to help achieve the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement Pledge by the United States and to mitigate the impact of the federal government's recent withdrawal from the agreement. The coalition leaders invite all Vermont municipalities, nonprofits, colleges, and universities, and businesses to join the coalition and do all they can to help Vermont meet the US commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions levels from 2005 by 26% to 28% by 2025. Now why join? According to the materials that are put out by those who are organizing the coalition, Vermonters are proud of their environmental stewardship as well as their Yankee frugleness. They take care of what they have so they can pass it along to their children. Joining the coalition is a way for businesses, farms, municipalities, nonprofits, and institutions across the state to take part in each of these traditions. By adding your pledges and registering your actions through the coalition, your organization will make a commitment to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions and save money on energy and equipment maintenance costs and inspire other organizations across the state to make similar commitments. So what does all that really mean? On the one hand, I think in recent weeks, we've talked a little bit about the fact that Vermont has a law Act 174 that talks about the whole state meeting a goal of being 90% renewable energy by 2050. So this is basically not all that different from what, in other words, that goal lines up pretty closely with the Paris Climate Accord in the first place. So what we're being asked to do by joining the pledge is not all that different from what we're doing already or what we're supposed to be doing already as a state. The reason to join the coalition is because rather than it just being a top-down exercise, this is a way that one by one, community after community, institution after institution makes an affirmative pledge to try to actually achieve these goals. And instead of having it kind of foisted upon us, I think the idea is really to try to engage in the planning at the local level or in sometimes the regional level in order to basically achieve that goal much more organically than would be the case if either a state or a federal or an international government, for that matter, try to get us to that 90% another way. So let me try to answer a couple of questions that have come out of this that actually Greg was the one who raised them before, and they're all good questions and I had to definitely do some research to answer them. One thing he asked is what other towns have committed to the pledge besides Burlington? So as of right now, the other municipalities are limited to city of South Burlington, and let me check one more, and this is kind of interesting, and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns as well as the Vermont Mayors Coalition. So the number of communities that have actually made the pledge so far is relatively small, but the other coalition members include the Burlington Electric Department, Green Mountain Power, the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, Local Motion, Seventh Generation, the University of Vermont Health Network, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont Clean Cities Coalition, the Vermont Electric Cooperative, Velco, VIC, which is Efficiency Vermont, the Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, and the Vermont Ski Areas Association, as well as the Vermont State Colleges System. So when you put all that together, that's actually quite a lot of organizations that are both in and out of Essex making that pledge. The reason to get municipalities involved in particular is because that's where so much of the work is done, whether it be by volunteers or by municipal staff, to work with those businesses and those institutions to try to actually achieve the goals of the pledge. Real question on that, Tommy. Do you know if other municipalities said no to doing or they just haven't come up on their radar yet? This is my best understanding of this with the caveat that there may be circumstances in which a municipality actually said no. But my overall sense is that what's been happening this year is not unlike Essex, many municipalities have been starting by joining into the button up program and then have been putting this on the agenda as kind of the next thing to do. Part of the reason why I think it makes sense to jump in now as opposing to wait is frankly because we will get a splash from it. There is a all day conference at Champlain College on Wednesday where a number of different organizations are gonna be presenting pitches for what types of things can we do to try to move the agenda along and there's a number of different utilities and other stakeholders who are gonna be talking about what is the best way to track this and how do we measure the milestones and so forth. Since there's so few other municipalities in this right now, my thinking is it's best to get in sooner rather than later where it's just a wash and we get kind of no real splash from it necessarily. The other question that Greg asked, which I think it makes sense is what actions can or must we take after actually joining the coalition? So and how does all of this get tracked? So right now the Vermont Energy Action Network is a volunteer organization that basically has every community in the state tracked for how do they actually achieve their renewable energy goal and they divide everything into how do they reduce their energy use, how do they increase their level of renewable energy and how do they make goals on transportation. Interestingly enough, Hessex is already going the opposite direction from where we were supposed to be going and we're still trying to get to the bottom of why that took place. But we think it's both, in some ways it's a good thing. What we think is it's new businesses coming in that are using more power during the day and that's obviously a great thing and is a testament to the work that the Select Board and the Planning Commission and everybody else who promotes economic development the community is doing. But we don't wanna be here if all of our competing neighbors in South Burlington and Williston and Burlington and so forth are headed the opposite direction and are using that to pitch getting more businesses in the future. So part of why we think that this whole enterprise makes sense is because we have this tool to track our progress. The other great thing about it is that it's one thing to make a pledge like saying let's just get to 90% renewable or reduce our greenhouse gases and not have any idea how you go about doing that. One of the things that the Energy Action Network gives us is a checklist of all kinds of different actions that you can take most of which are actually in the action plan sections of our town plan already. So things like adopting a residential code or a stricter residential code to deal with efficiency changing up transportation so that we have more bike routes dealing with renewable energy facilities so that we have more of them but that we keep them out of the scenic corridors. So this is consistent with our town plan? It's entirely consistent with the town plan and actually I looked at it again today because I wanted to be certain about that and the part that stuck out for me was I think it's section two S19 says and this is talking about specific energy policies of the town. The town shall support regulatory and non-regulatory initiatives that result in decreased greenhouse gas emissions reduced energy consumption and increased renewable energy generation. And it says as the primary source of regulation and enforcement in Essex as well as a source of guidance for the community the town government can champion energy reform and efficiency. I think this is entirely consistent with that. The difference is that it's both showing that the if you will the pledge is coming from the grassroots as I said before but also that we have the tools to actually figure out how to get there and gauge our progress against some of the other communities and get the splash from it that quite honestly we should get it if we're gonna be early adopters of this. A sort of related question that Greg asked that made a lot of sense is well what happens if we don't get there or what if we're just do we have to specifically reduce by 26 to 28% on our GHD and or is it just okay to move toward the goals? I would say that it's really about moving toward the goals. There's unlike the button up campaign that we were here about a couple of weeks ago there's no MOU there's no agreement that needs to be signed or reviewed by legal counsel. It's purely just kind of putting our chips in and saying we're into this and we'll help out and we're gonna follow the guidance that you've provided and chart our own way as opposed to an obligation that would come back and result in some kind of consequence, legal consequence or monetary consequence. Now Greg also asked what type of what any idea of the staff time that would be required on a municipal level if we're to move towards this. It's very difficult to tell but I would say certainly Greg and I email a lot more than we did before the earlier part of the year. But I don't think that it's any real difference in how much municipal time is spent. I think it's more a question of hopefully getting David and others that are on the energy committee to devote their time to working with town staff to achieve goals that are both in the town plan already as well as new ones that we adopt as part of things like convincing some of our restaurants to install energy star equipment in their dishwashers or their cooking equipment. Or to work with different businesses to do weatherization. I did my first weatherization project of my house this weekend with a lot of trepidation at first and now I'm like I am ready to go and I'm already feeling like my house is so much more comfortable just because of putting $20 worth of plastic on the bottom of my door. So there's a lot that can be done and this is really about a focus as opposed to sort of an extra commitment that's over and above what the Essex Municipal Staff does already, I think. And Greg, if you think otherwise, you know, I kind of tend to think it's... I think several of you know that energy committee does not have a staff person. So it's going to give me too much credit when you email more, but that's just because there's somebody there to email with and it's mostly helping them get into the building and schedule stuff. So it's really been volunteer. Yeah, it defines a lot of staff time at this point, but if you have a group of volunteers, that sounds like you do it at this point. All right, welcome to the staff standpoint. Questions? The data on there, who puts the data in? And you know, if it's going in the wrong direction is whether we're participating or not, is it a bad thing or if we think it's wrong, how do we correct it? What's the data come from? So the answer is the Energy Coalition Network gets it from a combination of sources. So they're getting a lot of it from efficiency Vermont, which is the efficiency utility that we all pay for and that is collecting data in turn from utilities, right down to the car dealers who are selling electric vehicles. So a lot of it is coming from there. We actually, we've had the folks who put a lot of this data in come and visit with the Energy Committee twice now and we poked and prodded on a number of different things like has the hydro facility and as ex-junction been included in the total or does this represent all of Essex or just Essex Junction or both? There were a whole number of things we looked at maps where we were trying to gauge certain evidence and they came back right away and gave us answers on pretty much everything. They are, it is a superb group of people who are monitoring this and doing this. Basically, they're getting paid a little bit but not very much, but they are entirely committed to using all the best available data to keep putting this on and fine tuning it. I think the main way that we could make sure that the information is right is to keep doing that. Just keep testing, just keep asking questions, making sure that they don't, but also populating this webpage with data. So what they ask us to do is for instance, if you take an action at an individual level, right? If I weatherize my door, put up that story and they start tracking how many people are taking similar actions. If somebody buys an electric car, you put that on there, put that on too. The data is gonna get better as we move forward but it's only gonna work if people really start to use this thing as it's intended. And what's great about it is because they are not just tracking data but also working on the campaigns like the Vermont Climate Pledge Coalition and ButtonUp, they have an interest in working with the other organizations in having this serve as a clearinghouse for everyone. So even when you go on to ButtonUp, it kicks you right back over to here to actually track data, same with the Energy Pledge Coalition. Another anecdote that I'll give you is two weekends ago I was over in New Hampshire for an energy conference, very similar to some of the ones here. They don't have anything like this and they are hurting because of it. They don't know how to track their data. They don't know how to start getting traction in their communities and they were all kind of salivating and having an organization that puts this together and that makes it so much easier for folks like David and I who really, we had no exposure to this before volunteering to actually use it and be able to track and send out information and post it on Facebook and all of those things. I hope that answers your question. Sue? What is it, what involvement does the Energy Committee have to take on? Like what's the responsibility and do you feel the Energy Committee is kind of just getting its gears back and getting going? Is this something that they can chew at this point? Well, it's a great question. Although like I said, I think this is basically just a way of promoting and getting more splash out of what we're doing already. So, and of course the other great thing about it is in joining up with that pledge, we get more information, we get more exposure to what other communities are doing and throughout the state, the communities are all over the place, right? There's South Burlington that feels like they're on the edge of getting Google to come and city of Burlington who says that they're 100% renewable already. And then you have other communities, like I noticed on this, that Westford is having a, they're having an Energy Committee meeting where they're gonna try to push the button up stuff and there's not very many people there but they're just getting started as well or just trying to sustain those interests. So, but this is a way that I think the more the merrier and the more it starts to look like an imperative for more communities and more institutions, the more likely that this is to get funded better, the more overall traction we're gonna start to have. So you don't feel it's committing you to something that you can't achieve it? If anything, it's just a way to better promote what you're trying to promote. A platform. Yeah. Yeah. Other questions for work? Yeah, you have a chance. My sense is that it's a lot based on soft reporting. So I can see that not picking up a lot of staff time if the individuals who are doing things are actually putting them up, but when it comes to what the town has done, yes we spent many hours as soon as on the street lighting projects and yet logging those would take mere minutes and yet the project itself took months and again, it wouldn't take any staff time to log it but it sure took a lot of everybody's time to do the project. The other thing I guess I would mention would be, I think town initiatives like this, when we joined something like this coalition show that we're going the extra mile. We've talked about going the extra mile and I think that potential residents, potential businesses, potential employers are looking to see who are the forward thinking towns in Vermont. And so if we can have this on our webpage or somewhere else that it shows, we're out there folks and we're working really hard to make these state initiatives real in our town. It can't hurt us. I would say that one of the first things I think we should put on the website is the fact that you all got these surfaces and you're gonna, I mean, I don't know if there's been a calculation of what the reduction of paper is, but I've got to believe that that would register on the greenhouse gas just in terms of something that's definitely gonna save energy over time. It's been calculated. Has it? Right? Yeah, I think it's somewhere, I don't want to say a number off the top of my head, but please look at it. That's excellent. Eddie? Yeah, a couple things. I did go to that website and I think Essex Junction is in there by itself and it says there's no data. And you mentioned being a seamless committee of village and town residents. I believe it says that the population of Essex in there is too low and I think they've, the data that they have in there is town outside the village. So I think that's something to look at that I think it should, if you want to be a seamless committee that maybe ask them to try to combine them. The other thing, yeah, it says population 11,400 I think that's way too low. Or it's many, many years old. The other thing I wanted to bring up is this, you mentioned in your very early in your comments that this is a reaction to an action of the federal government. Is there any downside to doing this with regard to, similar situations have come across when folks want to establish sanctuary cities or whatever? Do we have any exposure there? And what was the other point? Can I address that one? Yeah, so I thought about that a lot too. Because I think it would be a big mistake if this would come across as being an ideologically driven political action. But that's I guess why I see it much more than notwithstanding what that promotional material says and what maybe Mayor Weinberger has said. I think it's pretty interesting. I think the approach is very different, right? The Paris Climate Accord was supposedly something that the federal government entered into but then didn't really know how it was going to necessarily implement ultimately that it was just gonna do it. What I like about this so much is that this is basically community by community, institution by institution, affirmatively stating that they're going to move forward with it in their community. It's not organizing a protest, it's not a new type of tea party. It's really basically trying to proceed with a goal that other countries, other parts of the world are trying to achieve but doing it from the ground up. So I think if it's broadening the broadcast that way and that's how I think we've talked about it in our energy committee and that's how we propose to at least look at it ourselves, I think that insulates us quite a bit from saying that this is an attack on the federal government. I really think that's the last thing that is. And all of the literature that the climate pledge has put out, their conference that they have on Wednesday, none of it suggests that it is trying to go at kind of a real ideological angle or send kind of a blatantly political message. I mean after all, just saving money, weatherizing your house, I mean that shouldn't be ideological at all. That's literally talking about money in the pocket and doing something that's really cool and actually makes a lot of financial sense after kind of doing it yourself. And all of these goals are basically in line with that sort of trajectory out of you. Did I see that our Republican governor is also on board as well as the Democratic governor, the Democratic mayor of Berlin? I mean I see this as sort of a bipartisan effort. That's correct, yeah. I think in my sense is too, looking at those institutions that have joined up, I mean it's not to say that there's not going to be some disagreements about things, right? Green Mountain Power is dedicated to this but on the other hand they're trying to get a rate increase for four to six percent because of renewable energy facilities. I was thinking about that as well in terms of our largest employer who is facing a fairly, in Essex Junction, you know, global families who's facing a fairly hefty rate increase but I've got to believe that at the end of the day, they too, if we pushed it, would like to see things to bring down their energy costs and ultimately keep our community at the forefront of positive energy developments and a shift toward renewables. They do a lot of work there to reduce their energy. And they're outside of the efficiency of the money. Right, right. And they're also the only transmission level customer in the state, so the only one that's consuming at that level. Condition their own power, yeah, right. I did remember my other question. Okay. Yeah, it's my understanding that our current president has signified an intent to withdraw from the Paris Accords that it doesn't actually, it can't actually happen until the beginning of the next presidential term. So I guess there are certainly folks who would view that the signal is there that things would not move in favor for the next couple of years in the direction of reducing greenhouse gas emissions or whatever. But I just want to be clear, you're nodding and agreeing with me that that is the fact, it is true that we can't actually withdraw until the beginning of the next presidential term. Not formally, yeah, that's my best understanding and I'm not a... Yeah, that's the way I understood it, yeah. Okay. You know, enough about international law to know that it seems like it's always a little on shaky grounds, but that's my understanding of how the Accord works. Other questions, who are? I had a couple. So by committing to the coalition, is the municipality really now being responsible for the energy of the entire community? It's only, all that it's doing is pledging to, yes, to ultimately make sure that the energy or to do its best to try to change, you know, get us to that greenhouse gas reduction toward the renewable energy goal by 2050. So it doesn't literally mean that if a certain customer, like a large industrial, a large commercial customer doesn't want to play ball that somehow we failed, it's simply that we've done our best to try to convince them one way or the other. Okay. And as I see it, Mr. Chair, the whole, the charter of the Essex Energy Committee is basically that we function as the vehicle to try to make that happen. And that's the same as with other energy committees. So obviously we'll be working with the town manager, we'll be working with DPW, we'll be working with everybody, but I sort of see it as, in a sense, you need a vibrant energy committee to try to make that happen. Because I thought the energy committee mission was kind of focused on the municipality's use of energy and how we can reduce that. So this seems like a much broader application beyond that. I mean, it sounds like, you know, it doesn't sound like a bad thing, but it just seems like it's beyond the scope what the mission was as defined. Let me see if I can find that. And then while you're looking at that, the, you show, you know, the trend chart where the energy consumption is going up, I would hope those data get normalized somehow because if we're bringing, say, more businesses online, energy consumption is going to go up and we certainly don't want it to say businesses don't come to reduce that energy footprint, right? So how do we, you know, how does that chart take that into account? It would have to somehow, right? I think so. I think that's one of our challenges is to say, are their assumptions correct about what is going to happen to energy consumption in Essex over time? Like, for instance, if we experienced some kind of big boom, is that what looks like a sort of a plateau, does it actually going to go up? We can still make a lot of progress toward this goal even just by changing the mix or getting, you know, more electric transportation. I've been carrying around with me right now the brochure for a electric motorbike that I saw a little while ago in New Hampshire, or a motocross that apparently all the sort of expert bike racers say is the best bike they've ever tried. And since so many of our vehicles in Essex, our motorcycles, this could be a boom to see if we could change that in the mix. But yeah, as I see it, you've got to use a chart like this to try to be constant, just as Mr. Watts was saying, be constantly sort of testing and prodding and making sure that everything in there is correct and recalibrating. And it's consistent with town plan, it sounds like the energy section. So you're looking just sort of for a feeling of the board, do you, we support this? There's no MOU that you're going to sign. Are you on the right track is kind of what you're asking us here? Absolutely, absolutely. And at least support that if I were to go forward, you know, as the chair and say, we're going to join the pledge that I'm not going out on a limb, that we would have to select board support. And it doesn't commit us to any particular item that has a cost to it, per se, right? That's correct. But anybody uncomfortable with them doing the pledge? No, but I'd like a formal motion on it. Do we need one? We might as well make one. You want, sure. I would move that the town of Essex join the Vermont Climate Pledge Coalition and task the energy committee with doing all they can to make sure that staff as minimal as work to do as possible. They're with. Okay, I have a second. I'm going to sue any further discussion on this about allowing that pledge. Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying, I pose. Okay, much best by zero. Good luck. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing those charts updated and you can get them into our consent agenda even. Absolutely. Would be great. Can I ask a parting question? Will, do you know if any other countries have stepped away from the Paris agreement? Or are we the only ones? I think Syria stepped away. Great company. They have other issues. And I don't know why and that could have changed since just somebody could talk. Thanks, I was just curious. Thanks for coming in. Thank you very much. And thanks for what you're doing on the chair of the energy committee. Thank you guys too. Appreciate it. Okay, we're going to move on to our next item, which is 5B and that's a contract with Spyglass Group, LLC. And Greg, you want to kick that one off for us please? So Spyglass Group is a company that takes a look at communications bills and has defined cost savings, cost recovery for companies or organizations that have bills. Greg, Gary and I and the IT director have been talking to representatives from Spyglass which is worthwhile opportunity to have them come in. It takes about probably two months or so for them to do their analysis. What they'll do is they'll take a look at all our communications bills for the past two months. They'll look for cost savings in three areas. One of them is overbilling. If you can overbill it for any reason, over the past five, 10 years, they'll try to track down and recoup those costs. We'll also identify fines or accounts that we're not using. I think they'll shut down and save some money and bills going forward. And also they would make recommendations about other ways to reduce our cost. There's not much downside for the town. It's a chance to save money that there's, if the Spyglass fines area were then overbilled, they would take 50% of the cost recovery and that would get the other 50%. If they find cost savings where we can go forward, they would ask for 12 times the monthly cost by year's worth of savings to the town already. But you did for that and after the next year's up, we can start seeing those costs. So the ROI is a year. Yes, correct. And they might make some recommendations that we don't take. For instance, Rick has been pointing out to them that we have pump stations that have phone lines and that never get used. So we'll probably identify those as accounts, but we still need to do stuff so we have a chance to go through it and accept any recommendations they may take or may make. Rick spoke to some of the municipalities who have worked with the group, no bad reviews. There are some groups that said that they wouldn't necessarily do it again, but it would be good exercise to go through. That's kind of what we feel like that minimum it's an exercise to go through and see if we can identify the cost savings. The county attorney has looked at the contract and what of authorization he's fine with it. So recommendation is that you let the municipal manager enter the unit. Thank you. Any questions for Greg on this one? Anybody? Sue. So I'm just curious if there are any other services like how did you come up? How did you conclude spyglass and was anybody else considered? They approached us. We looked around a little bit and they seem to be the only one who's providing the service. They're based out of Ohio I think. And yeah, he didn't find it and what else he was doing is. Okay, is that it, Sue? Is that it? Okay, Mike? Was there any reason given why they wouldn't do this again? Did they feel like they got the information they needed and it was a one and done kind of deal? Yeah, it's gonna take a little bit of staff time. It's gonna take a little bit of staff time to get the bills together and then have each department take a look at the accounts. I think it's something you can do once and not worry about for several years. No negative experiences, just seem like there's something that's worth taking a look at. The accounts that we have out there, they had out there and seeing if it's worthwhile to change that at all. And is your plan just to find out what their recommendations are? And is that coming back before us again? Or would that just be something that staff would handle? It would probably be something that staff would handle. Can't speak and say that 100%. I think it's up to give us a little bit of trust if there's something that needs to come back to you. But for the most part, it's just handling our accounts entirely that we do. I have to say this strikes me as the 3.30 or four o'clock in the morning TV commercial that you see that just sounds too good to be true. Or if it's, it sounds that, I don't know, I have my doubts. It seemed to me that the rate structure and the payback and that kind of thing just, I don't know, it just rang a little hollow with me. Are you concerned about the financial risk maybe to the town, is it? I'm not concerned about the financial risk to the town as much as I am that if we contract with these folks, I'm just, I would want to take or would hope staff would take a very, very good look at the payback and what they're charging for what they're getting us. Yeah, so a couple things is that we get to take a look at the recommendations and she really wanted to implement her not. Right. So that's part of it. And another thought that's debating me at the moment because we know how maybe, oh yeah, that's what it was. Rick made clear to them when you talked to the representatives from Spyglass that they're not renegotiating the contracts on our behalf. They didn't make any recommendations to make any changes to our contracts, to be able to have conversations directly with our providers. It's not going through Spyglass to have them negotiate anything on our behalf, as we mentioned that. And then the cost recovery is, yeah, 50% of anything they find. So we get some of that, we get some of that and cost savings going forward. It's, yeah, the year that says max out, it's a one year return on investment. So there's not really any cost to the town apart from foregoing some savings for a year that we might not have found otherwise. Other questions, Sue? Yeah, sorry, I have another question. Before Spyglass approached you, was this something that was on the list of things to do and where would be in terms of priority? Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, they approached Doug, it wasn't something that we had been aware of. To be honest, we sort of put it off for a little while until we could really find time to sit down and take a look at it. But yeah, they approached us, it was not certainly in my radar. So they approached Doug first. I don't think it was something he had reached out to them for, and they were doing cold calling. Other questions? I mean. Just reading so many checkpoints we have to look at. If we get some bills consolidated, we'll have one provider because I'm all for it or something. We'll probably still have the different providers, but you might be a couple less colonized. It's kind of good. Great. So if we go forward with this, would you think you'd have the information back in time as for the next budget discussion? It would be pretty close, but probably about that time. Okay. We'll take us a little bit of time to pull together the bills and have each department look at the accounts. And it sounds like it takes them about two months, maybe a little bit less, to get recommendations back to us so that we can start to decide what's going to make some of the costs for us. Okay. I mean, ideally, if we go forward with that, that would be nice, but not quite. Okay. So. One more question. Sure. Is there any concern about them having access to information that either shouldn't or don't need to and then somehow refusing that access to information? It sounds about that as well. The sample that came up was please to have ongoing investigations where they might have a phone number from a witness or a suspect. Stuff like that would be redacted. So we'd be giving them our numbers and our accounts, but nothing external. We'd be going for them to make sure they're within them. Should be private, stays private. And you're comfortable that staff time is the return on investment would be worth the minimal staff time that sounds like the beginning? So like, doesn't the memo in my group heard if it's an exercise that's worth doing? Yeah. Okay. We might do it and decide that it was worth doing once, but I think it's worth doing it right now. Okay. Thank you. So what's the board's pleasure in this one? I'll make a motion if you'd like. Sure. I would move that the select board authorize the municipal manager to execute an agreement with the spyglass group LLC to analyze the town's telecommunications accounts to seek cost recovery, service elimination and cost reduction recommendations. Gary, do I have a second on that? I'll second. Thank you, Sue. Any further discussion on authorizing Pat to sign this agreement with spyglass? Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Any motion passes five to zero. Thank you. Hopefully we'll find some good savings there. So good luck with that. Thank you. Okay. Then we're gonna move on to business item five C, which is the fund balance policy update. Great. Clarify some fund balance policy based on some discussion that came up in the summer. Come through, made a few changes to try to clarify when this is gonna, when it would be used, how it would be used. Couple of significant changes are specifying that the unassigned fund balance should be 15%, or no more than 15%, generally the accounting standards are between five and 15 to try to cap it at 15%. Also clarifying the fund balance for any given fiscal year is not really known through the computer audit, which is usually in December, January timeframe. So try to identify when that number is known and how to apply it going forward in the future. Since I made the corrections, Andy pointed out a couple other suggestions that you can probably improve it further. So one of them is that in the last paragraph here, it talks about how the required 15% balance should be applied to unassigned fund balance, that should probably be recommended maximum of 18%. And then the other item is that before that unassigned balance and the 15% show upon the recommendation, the finance director and municipal manager and all the revisions of the select board be assigned as needed or as appropriate. It's not, the intention was not to say that the select board can make a recommendation. Yeah, the intention of the select board has to authorize it ideally upon recommendation from finance director and municipal manager. So the board wants to go forward. I can forward submit that a little bit. I mean, if it's accepted tonight, bring it back. It's the next meeting to be adopted with all those changes. So that's what we're looking at. I'm happy to take out your comments or your other thoughts on our revisions. Anybody? All right. I thought I was curious that we are now defining restricted as non-spendable and restricted when we all know that non-spendable can't be spent. So I just wonder if you wanna tell us about that change on the budget. That's just not a change. I was in there from the last one. Oh, it's underlined. So I just didn't know that meant something got changed there. It's just a paragraph of the service when both restricted. Yeah. Yeah. That's just clarifying the definitions of the book. Not restricted to capture the first to non-spendable and restricted. If the sentence reads when restricted and unrestricted accounts amounts are available for specific use, whereas non-spendable really isn't available for any use. So I thought that was a curious addition. You know what I'm saying? If those two words in parentheses were left out, I think it reads better. And what the underlying tells me is that we've just added those for some reason. So yeah, if it's not added in clarifying. It's confusing to me that we would add what's in red there. It's kind of like you look at the unrestricted and then parentheses that's committed assigned on the side. So that's a true definition. So then up above those there's the non-spendable and the restricted that's just specifying as though the doors are considered. Right, but it's odd for me to see restricted being used in two different ways. So what it says when both restricted and then brackets unspendable and restricted because the way restricted is they use twice there. Yes, as well as the fact that as the sentence continues to read it acts as if we would consider spending them which you cannot spend a non-spendable balance. So I think it was fine as it was originally written. That makes sense. Yeah, two percent. It doesn't really take away the room. I mean, I'm just not sure why I was at it. Maybe somebody was overzealous in trying to find it. The restricted which can be spent, I'm certainly sure. Okay, yep. Is anybody else having network issues? I am. I keep going in and out and out. I think we're fighting each other. Internet spending. Yeah, it's a lot of power. I can't get to my notes because, I mean I've finally gone on, but I can't get to my notes because it. One way around that is actually what Andy did at our training thing, to turn your updated one with your notes into a PDF and then just download that. And that's what I've done. So I'm not even on the internet at this point. But is there a bandwidth in here? You shouldn't be taking a lot of bandwidth, right? I would think so, but I can ask IT about that tomorrow. Okay. Pardon? I can't get to anything. Any other comments on this fund balance policy? I took a whole bunch of notes. I just can't get to them. Okay, can we maybe discuss this again with the next meeting? Why don't we all have access to what we need? Didn't we all? Oh, I printed the copy, so I have a hard copy of this particular item. I'm fine with this particular item. That's your question. I'm fine with it. And Irene, you have yours. Right? You have the hard copy, so. If it's just me then fine. I have a comment from a resident, but I'm just trying to parse how that fits into what I have to be able to do. Is there some trick to opening Dock Hub? Because sometimes it opens and edit, and sometimes it just spins. I'll have to check with IT on that one too. Okay, are there any other comments, Irene? Okay, so the comment from the resident has to do with the fact that the select board can apply anything over 15% into reserves, and I guess the frustration there is that we're once again assigning a high fund balance as a select board if we allow ourselves to do that. So I'll just voice that. There's someone who could come to the meeting who had a question about our ability to assign more money than the 15%, and they thought that should be an Australian ballot decision, not a select board decision. To spend. To assign more than that 15%, to tuck away more than that 15% as an assigned fund balance. Greg, Greg had seen that first. Oh, I'm just thinking that at Andy's suggestion that a recommended maximum of 15% might capture that concern in which case you could. Are you saying that's one of the changes you talked about, and you just read aloud that I didn't parse? Correct, so yeah, so you'll see that again. I think that would capture the concern about being able to allocate more than temperature, maybe temperature. I guess in the future it would be nice if we could update this in real time with that change. Right, if Andy said it, could you be over here typing and so that we can actually see what Andy has proposed? Because if we do have access to the technology, I think maybe the way we work can change to help us and the audience see what Andy proposed, read it in real time and understand. Rather than you reading to us what you're gonna change, which is really hard for me in real time to parse. Thanks. The advantage of that would be that we could then act on the changes that night. All right, that's supposed to be right. Eddie? No, I think our policy says that we have to wait till the next meeting to approve any policy that we change in a meeting. You can. Right? Well, sort of. I think we can decide to approve it, but I think our policy tells us that we, I think if there's substantial changes. If there's substantial changes. And at the end, that would be the discussion is it a substantial change. An area on the side of caution, maybe that's the way to go, and then Sue could have her questions for next time. Andy, you had to leave. Well, the other thing is, I think the way we've defined fund balance is all of the unassigned monies. And so it's my understanding that the intent is when we're doing our budget discussions and we're talking about that that's the, and that timeframe is when we will have the audit complete, so we will know the previous year's fiscal year ending fund balance or unassigned. I should say the, I guess to say it more clearly is the unassigned funds that are available to either leave as fund balance or assign to something else or apply to revenue. And I think the, it's my understanding. Well, it would be my understanding that the intent would be to, if that number was something over 15%, that we would choose to do something with all of the funds that would bring us down to 15% at that time. That was the way I would look at it, so that we would not intentionally have a fund balance unassigned monies of 17%. That would be, that's the direction that I would go, but I know others have, may have other opinions, but that, so it's kind of kind of, I guess responding to Irene's comment about the fact that we could, and yes, we can choose to have a 17% unbalance in a given year. But I think if we do that, we have to explain why. Absolutely. Sue? So one of my confusions was in one spot here, maybe Andy's updates cover this, but the balance up to 15%, and then in another area it referenced required 15% balance, so. Yeah, it's record. I think that required was changed to recommended. Will be changed? Will be changed. Assuming that you accept that tonight changes for, we should go with changes. Okay. What else? Just for the record, I agree with Andy's point. I think anything over 15% should be, the select board should decide where those monies are gonna go, whether it takes the form of reducing the tax rate as we've done in the last three years, or whether we decide to bump up the capital account, or we decide to put more money toward storm water, or something like that. I would agree that by the time we get done, it should be at the 15%, and that anything above that should be allocated. And since the auto will be done in time for the budget discussions, and as part of the budget discussions, it would be, where are we with the unbalance? Exactly. And what should we do with anything that's accepted? Oh, I think that, and this policy would suggest that that's what you. Exactly, and I'm just agreeing with Andy. I think that's what we should do. That's the way I'd like to see it go. Okay. Actually, the policy catifies our practice. Right, right, which is good. It clarifies, right, it clarifies. That was the problem. Right, and that's why we wanted to update it, because Andy pointed out this area wasn't so clear, and this certainly makes it more clear. Right, right, right, I asked the question at the time we were setting the tax rate, and at the time we were setting the budget. Right. And now we've got a. So, you want to just review the changes we talk about, and make sure everybody's on board with those, and then we can have those come back for. So, not live update, because we have a PDF here, not the word version. But the first one I have is this paragraph here, when both non-spendable and restricted, we'll take that back out, and see what it was, and then this section here, I'll clarify that the select board has the right to authorize any use of unassigned fund balance, preferably with recommendation from the finance director and or municipal manager. And then lastly, this required will be changed to recommended maximum of 15%. Break up that, like there's like a sentence where you had a semicolon, did you keep that, or to me it. This sentence will change, I didn't specify any language yet, but basically to get across the intent that it's the select board who authorizes the use of the fund balance, but ideally with recommendation or consent from the finance director and the municipal manager based on finances and what their expertise might. It's possible to break it up into two separate sentences. I just, yeah, I'll play with it. I found that like the language logic wasn't a little hard to, oh. Okay, so, yeah, there's no reason why we couldn't approve it with those modifications, and then have it come back to us for signature at a later date. So should we accept it and I'll do that later? Sure. Yeah, that's great. Accept it with the changes and then approve it once, and adopt it when it comes back. Right, add to subsequent. So I want a motion to accept those changes. Either Mike or Andy. Okay, I move that the select board accept the revised fund balance policy with the aforementioned changes. Thank you, Mike. Do I have a second on that? Second that. Thank you, Andy. Any further discussion on the fund balance policy update? You're now in all those that favor signify this hangout. Aye. Aye. Opposed? You're going to specify zero. Excellent. Thank you. Good, thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to business item 5D, which is town issued email addresses provided to select board members. Last week, we were getting our tablets. I think Andy brought it up and made some comments too about the possibility of having municipal email addresses for each of us as opposed to our personal one. You know, that way you could keep your town business stuff separate from your personal one. The other advantage is when you write an email to somebody, say to staff, and then you're, you know, if I'm coming from my homeowner's association hat on, I would do it for my personal one. But if I were going to, you know, send somebody to Pat about something, it would be on the municipal one. So I think it would just kind of help clean things up on both sides. It would be easier for us, I think, to have them separate from personal. And it would give more clarity to whoever's receiving a note to know which hat you're wearing, even though you can never take out the select for half, but at least it would help with that. And the cost is $3.50 a month for mailbox per select. Correct. So. What do we get? Do we get something on the mailbox, or is it Google, or is it, I mean? Yeah. What would it be? It would be at sx.org account, I believe. So how do we access it? We can access Outlook. Going through the town website, you can get to employee email link. It would probably be how you do it. I can talk with IT to see if they can set you up a direct link on your tablets. Our home computers. Not the tablet. Not the tablet. Not one. What? We'd want to be able to access it from everywhere, not just the tablets. Oh yeah, well you can access, you can go through the website to access them. I'm thinking that they might take and set up a direct link just to, yeah, Outlook. Since then, who are you calling in? Eddie. Just to be clear, the Vermont Supreme Court just affirmed that any device that you do government business on is subject to seizure relative to public records requests. So it may be, you can choose to do what you will, but it's my intent to only use the surface for town business. Because of that, so I can hand it to you and I don't have to worry about losing my phone or my work laptop, which would be a big problem for me. So just to, you can definitely access it through the website. I would check with IT to see if they can set you up with Outlook on that account. So it's just easier. So you don't have to go through a couple of different clicks. You can just go right to the email. We might need another session like we had last Monday. Sue? Well, I mean, certainly if that's gonna be the case and it's not gonna be like right now because I get it on my phone and I have my phone with me at work, if there's something last minute or something that somebody needs like quickly, I'll have it. This is not gonna go with me to work every day. Sure. So. Well, you can put it on your phone. Access to it if you want it. I think we just talked about it only being on the tablet. No, no, not only in addition to, in addition to you have it on your phone, your home computer and your tablet. You can choose to do, but if there's a public records request that where there's some concern about whether or not you've provided all of your materials, you will have to provide all devices that you did any town business on. Supreme, the Vermont Supreme Court just. I mean, at this point. So then it's fine. You can choose to do that. And at this point, how many years have you been doing that business on your personal equipment, right? Are we all that? I mean, I guess I'm, why now? Because the Vermont Supreme Court just passed, it just did a, there was a case, I think what was the right term? They just ruling there you go. That you, yeah, you have to turn over your personal devices. Is that the one that came from Sorrell? Yes. You know what other municipalities have for their select men municipal email? I tried to do a brief little perusal of the web, self Burlington does, trustees do over in the junction, Colchester does, Williston does not, Shelburne does not, and that's as far as I got in my research. Okay, that's as far as I got in my research. I think it's a, Irene? How will I know when I have mail? You've got mail. Checking. You've got to be checking my device. You can put it on your phone. I don't want my phone confiscated. I'm losing your equipment. I don't want people taking away my equipment. Access to the real world, yes. Well, they, they were, you left a list? I use multiple computers in my house. I, you know, I, I mean, there would be a daylight or darkness. I, you know, I think realistically, realistically, I don't think people are gonna be complicated. If IT is able to install, I would look same as use that look at home. It has a little icon that you've got mail and it's open. If you're checking through the website and going through that portal, you just have to be, we're diligent on checking, I guess. And I think if we're gonna do this route, I would suggest that we all apply, you're required to do it, I suppose. The other thing is the policy that we signed last week says you can't use, you cannot use this device for campaigning for public office. And so the email address that I use, the whats.new for you is the one that I opened for and it's the name of my campaign. And so I cannot use that email address on this laptop because it has all my campaign stuff for two campaigns as well. So I have to change my email address either way. So I'm in favor of, I don't give me an email address and then I can just hand them this when I'm done. I like to see it separated. So I thought we'd have this discussion to see what the board's pleasure is on this one. The, you gave us, I got a new email address that's a was.selectboard.sxgmail. Is that not a usable or not an appropriate email address to use, it's already on this, it's a gmail account, it's already on this thing. It's free, right? It would be something like a was.sx.org But you've already, you've already just last week gave me a new email address that's a was.selectboard.sxgmail.com It's already on here. Can we use that? We each have them, right? Good question. Do you have any downside to that? So we all have it. All right, all right, yeah. Well we would publish it then on the webpage next to your name so people would know how to access it if they want to reach out to you. And you can do gmail on your own phone the same way just to get to your phone. Can we do gmail on our webpage? Create hyperlinks. It's okay. It would go straight to that gmail account. You'd have to be using your personal computer. I would think you'd have to sign into your gmail, that gmail account from your home computer or your phone or whatever you might be using otherwise. So you want to give it a, before we say we're going to make that official so we see how we can all get comfortable with it and get it on the devices we need and so on. So I hate to do that and then people have access trouble to get it in that email, that would be bad. So you need to check with Rectacy of Gmail. The one that's already on here. We should come back to you with something specific. I'd like to run it by a team. Yeah, okay. Is that sound good? Yeah. I'm gonna run it by, come back. All right, cool. Thank you. Can I ask Andy a question, Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. You seem to have followed this case, Andy. With the finding of the Supreme Court, when does it take effect? Is it retroactive or is it immediate? I don't know. There was a cartoon in seven days last week that where I learned about this and then searched a little more about it. But actually there was an article in the same issue about it. Yeah, sure. But I don't recall what it said about when it's effective and whether there's retroactive. Is there gonna be a lot of municipalities who aren't on Greg's survey and they're scrambling to do just what we're doing right now just to make sure, just to protect all of us from losing personal things. So if you have a personal conversation with each other or with a member of staff, that's gonna be on a certain email. You have a business conversation electronically with the member of staff or with each other. That's gonna be on a separate email. And then this new email would be for all of your legislative, political and contacts and communications. Is that where we're headed? Is that the understanding? What was the middle one? I didn't understand what the middle one was. That was communicating with us about work related things. So Irene emails me and says I could you put something on an agenda. That would come from this new town thing from Irene by whatever method she chooses to use it or computer A, computer B, or a phone or carrier pigeon, right? That's the same as the third one. I think there's just two, right? That we have our personal ones that if we're actually doing something that's not related to the select board we would use. And then there's- Well, I was having a subset of if I'm gonna tell Irene a joke, I'm gonna send it from my personal computer to her personal computer. It won't be in any of our business computer. Well, what email address would you use if we didn't do the business one? No, it would be a personal one. Yeah, and that's kind of a separation that this potentially can do. Sorry to pick on you. No, but if I send you something from A, well, are you not gonna read it? I mean, are you not going to answer it? Are you gonna say, please resend this? I don't know, it's just send- No, I've already gone down this path before it and what you would do if you accidentally got something that wasn't there, you send it to your business thing. So you're safe. That's all. And then you notify the person that you accidentally sent me this and I send it back to my business thing and I respond to my business thing. It is quite silly, I agree. What do we want? Rick to come back in with information about if we can use the Gmail on here. Yeah, I'm seeing. And Mike, I'm seeing Irene laughing, too. I'm fine with it. I don't feel strongly about it, so, okay. I'm a little frustrated by this device I'm not going to use here. And the whole reason that we went to this was so that we could use it. I think it's easier, yeah. Practice, practice, practice. No, it doesn't have, there's no network. Oh, see, that's one. I'm not willing to try it. I just think if the FBI wants to come after me, they're coming after every computer in my house and every device in my house, I mean, and every one of us is gonna face the same thing. It doesn't matter how diligent we are. Right. So, I don't see this solving anything. Well, I think that you can try it. It would help with, it'll keep the town business stuff out of your personal stuff, right? So when you're getting email and it's on this official one, you go, okay, that's town. It's not gonna get mixed in with your personal stuff. And two, when you're sending email out to whomever about something that might be town related, if they see it's coming from your personal one, they know that, oh, you have a different, you're not talking as a select then. And if you send it on the official one then, and this is, you know, the official select business. I could use my phone and call you, Max, and say, yeah, you go in the rotary, and do you need a ride? We have a different relationship, but we're also in rotary together, so. But after 13 years of people contacting me about town business and the things I volunteer in here, I'm not gonna not answer somebody, you know what I mean? Like you said, I'm gonna copy maybe to my other account, but I'm not gonna not answer. They're gonna know, they're gonna contact me the way they always contact me. But when you respond back to them, that's what's changing. And. There's a, you know, I had asked Greg one time what the limit was for records retention, and I guess it depends on the type of record. So it would be helpful to have some clarity on that, if I could go and delete, you know, a couple years worth of emails, then those don't exist anymore. I mean, I mean, we're. We'll be happy to provide it for everybody. Yeah, at work. It's gonna be thrown away in seven years. Yeah, at work, we're told not to keep anything longer than the recommendation, because if you have it, it's subpoenable. But if you don't have it, it's not. Maybe old, so if you rely on it, you may have old information that's been updated, so it's even worse that way, too. So when you bring this back, that would be good information we have to share at that time. Okay. Sounds like a topic. Okay, we good? Ready to move on? Yep. So let's go on to business item five, E, and I think this is where the profit's coming in. Am I right? Yes, yes it is. The issue is whether or not you'll declare items from the manager's office and the deputy manager's office is surplus equipment. This jewel has been around probably since the late 60s. I even know those. It is very sturdy. I don't know, maybe we could sell it for scrap metal and get something, but the springs have long since been gone, and it represents pretty much what my furniture looks like in the manager's office, and some of it in the assistant manager's office. You would probably want a legally curiosity ask the question, why didn't I change it when we had furniture and fixture expenses on the remodel? We didn't have a lot of money. We only had 250,000 for furniture and fixture, so only those people that really, like you, needed something new and better and more comfortable and the citizens I decided to keep the austere look as long as possible. However, I'm a short timer now. I think the new manager, whomever that may be, will want to be able to set up their own furniture with something that's more geared towards the technological approach to how you do business these days. So my 1970s desk is probably not gonna be a very good thing. So I don't know when they'll all find their way into the landfill. They're gonna wind their way through the organization. There may be something other departments would use as is our practice. And then if it gets down to the last minute, maybe we'll have a little town manager office, equipment, tag sale, and you can come in and make your offers of a dollar or whatever. So I would need you to authorize the desk. Desk, six small office chairs, seven file cabinets, and one bookshelf that's surplus equipment to be offered to department heads or dispose at a later date if no interest is expressed from the staff. Okay, I mean, that's a whole, it's kind of retro now. It is. It is. It's a prop in us for a player or something. It's a history. It's a history. It'll be a post string. Yeah. Well, if somebody wants to buy it and do that, I mean, they can probably get another 40 years out of it. And we do this. I don't like that anymore, Pat. They don't. We do this. So questions, comments. What's the board's pleasure on this one? Make a motion if you'd like. I would recommend the select word declare one desk chair, six small office chairs, one desk, seven file cabinets, and one bookshelf that surplus equipment to be offered to department heads or disposed at a later date if no interest is expressed from staff. Thank you, Irene. Do I have a second on that one? Second. Any further discussion on this surplus equipment? Hearing none, all those in favor, signify. We're saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Sentimental value, huh? Yes. It is sentimental value, but. Okay. Business item 5F, contracts, possible executive session. Yes. Again, I'm a short timer, but I do have need to have a short three or four paragraph MOU on my last months with you on maintaining my current benefits. And to do that, the habit discussion is probably more relevant in executive session because it also involves personnel matter need. So, okay. That's why it was targeted as a potential. And it's a contract, so that's. Yes, it's a contract. Executive session material. Okay, then let's talk about 5G. We'll go on to the approval of minutes and we have a number of them to do, including October 16th, 2017. Do I have a motion for the minutes? All right. I move approval of the select board minutes of October 16, 2017. The select board member corrections. All right, a second. Second. Okay, Mike. Let's start on page one. Page two. All right. On line 94, please, I'd like to change the words you get to read. Mrs. Renner would like the public to be able to see the minutes from Essex rescue meetings. Okay, else on two. Okay, moving to page three. All right. At line 109, I'd like to delete every word after appointed, including the next line's word board so that it now reads Mrs. Renner told Ms. Ash that if she is not appointed by the town, there is a seat set aside for us extinction as well. Anything else on three? Page four. All right, so I'll sue the mic. 184, I think it's 20 years, year 20 cumulative utility savings versus kind of looks like in the 20th year yet, get that big one. So put. Cumulative after 20. After 20, I'll sue it. Thank you. Mic, you had something? No, I was pointing to sue who wanted to be recognized. Okay, thank you. Anything else on four? Okay, we'll go to five. Irene? Down on line 227 to 228, I'd like to change the word large to many, so it's many users. And then after the word because I'd like to introduce the next words that will end the sentence because we have the second largest population of any Vermont town, period. After the therefore on the next line, what I saw in the videotape was whether or not, and then answer the word town residents are aware, keeping us positive as what I actually said. Anything else on five? That would be the largest town. Yeah. Eight six, seven. Let's see, how about online starts on 384. It says Mr. Levy commented that this policy was a living document that could, that could and will be updated by the members in the future. We could just add in the future. Might as well, next April. Anything else on eight? Page nine, Irene? At the end of the first sentence fragment on line 434, please, because it was highly likely that the trustees would nominate five village residents. What line is that, Irene? 434. So what did you want to change that to? I'm gonna just add words after the village there. Because? Because it was highly likely that the trustees would nominate five village residents. Because you thought it was highly likely. That's what I said, I said it was highly likely. And then at the end of 435, I'd like to insert the following sentence. This is a runner pointed out the recent example of Max signing off on a census report on behalf of the town outside the village only. I have to do it for nine. You said that at the? I did. Any else on nine? 10, 11, 12, and 13. All those in favor of the October 16th, 2017, select four minutes with corrections. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, most passes. Five, zero, now we're on to the October 24th, 2017 minutes. Do I have a motion for that one? I would move approval of the minutes of October 24th. That's like we're member of corrections. Irene, do I have a second? Second. Sue, okay, let's start on page one. Page two, all right. Online 89, I believe the word two after MOU should say passed. So we're extending MOU passed July 1st. I just want to verify with people that that's true, but that was my understanding, because it expires. Yeah, I had a question that went too. I didn't know if we said that at that point, we said we wanted to extend it three years or if we just said passed the July 1 date. I believe it was proposed open and that it was going to be extended beyond July 1st and it was going to be open-ended. And then later on in the discussion, I raised the question of three years. Okay, so this and Patrick responded. Actually, it was the next bullet that addressed the duration was tied to achieving benchmarks. Okay, so 89 then should say MOU beyond instead of two? Is that what you recommend? I was going to say passed, but yeah, whatever. Something besides two. What do you have to that say? So either passed or beyond. Okay, anything else on whatever, page two? Okay, we'll go to page three. Sue. So after 120, I would like to put in per Sue Cook. It was the committee's recommendation that Mr. Lutz provide detail to the select board of the proposed village highway budget line, which gets passed along to the town budget and Mr. Lutz agreed to do this going forward. I'm sorry, that's a lot of words, but I didn't know. Did you get all that, Sue? I can certainly try. Anything else on page three? I can show it to you. Per Sue Cook or Ms. Cook, however you like to, however it is in here consistent. Could you speak up a little bit, Sue, please? Sometimes you say miss or miss. I think this. This is Miriam. Yes, no, I would follow the same format. Per Sue Cook, it was the committee's recommendation that Mr. Lutz provide detail to the select board of the proposed village highway budget line, which gets passed along to the town budget and Mr. Lutz agreed to do this going forward. Anything else on three? On line 119, Max Levy suggested that trustees explain to the select board, take out the word the and say their village highway payment to the town public works budget. So just take out the and say their village. That was confusing otherwise. Okay, then page four, page five, six, seven. Actually there's no seven, there's no seven, there's just six, okay. Well, that was in favor of the October 20, 2006, 2007. Oh, sorry, yes, please. I wasn't at this meeting, so I don't think I'm not gonna vote, but I had a question about some of the content. Can I ask that now or is that not appropriate? There's lines 177 to 179. It says there will be a standing agenda item on the information compilation. Each board member will research their suggestions and forward information to staff for inclusion in a document. And can somebody explain what I should be doing? In your packet on the eight or the eight, there's a memo that George summarized what people said they would want to talk about when we have this discussion. And it was suggested that that person do some research on it so that when we do have the discussion, they could share their research with the group. So if I have suggestions to whom do I send them? Well, we'll talk about it on Wednesday. Okay, that's fine, I can wait for that. Since it's too late to get on that agenda. Okay, good question. Did you have something else on that? Nope, that was it. Okay. Okay, so I think we were calling for a vote on the October 26, 2017. 24th? 24th. October. So it's wrong on our agenda. Oh, it's wrong on the agenda, yeah. Okay, October 24th, thank you, 2017. Minutes with corrections, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, most passes are fine. Zero. Just to clarify, I abstained from voting. Oh, sorry, you could vote, actually, technically, if you want it, you'll have to. I know. Okay, so it passed four. Zero, one. Zero with one abstention, commanding. Okay, thanks for that. Okay, now we're on to October 3rd. Okay, it says November 2nd. That's a consent item. No, you're up. No. Oh, that's a consent. Oh, yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Okay, bye bye. So I need a motion to approve the October 30th, 2017. Minutes, select more minutes with corrections. Summoned. Thank you, Harry. Second. I just lost my point. Second. All right, page, well, there's just page one. No changes. No changes. Okay, and all those in favor of the select board minutes of October 30th, 2017, signify by saying aye. Aye, aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes. Five. Zero. Did we have a motion? Pardon? Did I sleep through the motion? Yes. I did, okay. Yeah, it was good though. It was a good one. I was focusing on my tablet. It's a shame on me. It's quite all right. Okay, so let's move on to item six, which is a consent item. Do I have a motion? I would move approval of the consent agenda with select board member comments. Very. I have a second for consent. Second. Thank you, Andy. Okay, comments on it. Andy? The budget work schedule. I try to bring this up every year and I want to focus or mention it again as we have very specific list here of what items we're going to talk about on which days. There have been times in the past where we finished early and we pulled the items in from later work schedules. I'd like to encourage us not to do that and to maintain the schedule so that we can all be prepared and so that the public knows what topics are going to be discussed on which days. Just wanted to say that. Okay. I agree. Other comments too. I wanted to pass along my thanks to Gary for providing the back, you know, the follow up on the dog bite incident. It was good thorough information, so. We'll be done. Thank you very much for saying that. Yeah. Yeah, and the bottom line is the dog no longer lives here either. No, but I mean. But you needed to get all the positives. I wanted to pass along the problem to Colchester. It sounds like the problem got actually handled. The address, yep. Second. All right. I wanted to thank Ruth LeBlanc for her years and years and years of service on the trails community. She's resigning. And if, as we've done for everyone who's leaves, if you want to let her know that if she'd like to do an exit interview, we'd be happy to do that any way she's comfortable. Okay. Okay. Ruth is an old neighbor of mine. I've known her since I moved to Essex. Good person. That's the question of Howard Center memo, but I don't know if anybody's here that can answer them. So is this going to be an agenda item at some point? It might be an agenda item at some point. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Just a brief thumbnail sketch. The police chief in South Burlington and I think the police chief in Essex and Colchester had mentioned to folks at the hospital or each other or somebody that is an ongoing problem with mental health and it's tied directly to the opiate problem and much of the interaction by and between people on the street and the police have been made worse or exacerbated by the fact that mental health issues are there. Moreover, and I think far more importantly, when it comes time to bring somebody into custody who's in that capacity, there's no place to put them. So there's a double problem. So the hospital, Howard Mental Health have put together a program. We've pushed a little bit by the managers and the chiefs in Chittenden County to address this issue. And to that end, there've been a couple of fairly large meetings identifying the problem and identifying potential solutions from the Howard Mental Health Professionals. So yes, at some point, it's gonna come before us because we're at the stage now where Howard Mental Health is pretty much ready to go forward with a street person who can act as a referral agent for somebody in crisis or somebody who is in the process of being put into a cruiser. And that costs money. And Howard Mental Health has so much money. The city of South Burlington has figured that they would probably run about $91,000 for that person for the current year, unbudgeted money for the current year. They would be willing to pick up $41,000 of that cost and then parcel out the rest of the cost, the balance, the $42,000 balance from the original cost of $90,000, between and among the communities who have been involved in regional dispatch based upon the same formula of the funds that we came to you many moons ago to look at the regional dispatch approach. That was about 6,500 bucks, I think initially. This one is gonna be $12,000 for us. I've talked to Brad. Brad went to the most recent meeting. It was at that point where there was some hope that we would come to the police chief myself and maybe others, maybe some of them from Howard Mental Health to come here to request from the board money from where else with fund balance for $12,000 for the first year. And then that's just year one. And then entertain perhaps a little bit more for the budget year that we're working on for the next fiscal year. So that's what I think I have come to know. My involvement has been through the managers' meeting initially. When I went to the first main meeting, Brad has been directly involved. He's gone to the two big meetings. And the report that I put on the consent agenda is the outcome of the last main meeting at the hospital. And so that's why you've got the two documents that you received. So we will see this. Well, I was hoping that you could look at it and read it and if you have questions or something, we might get some answers between now and the next time. So my number one question is, so I'm very familiar with the program in Burlington on Church Street. How does the scale in a suburban or even slightly rural community like Essence? It's, ours would be less than Burlington and then less than South Burlington and Manuski. But I mean, so in Burlington, they are present in the Church Street environment and walking around and there's a lot of people. Where do they position themselves in Essence? Well, the idea is to have 24-hour access. So they wouldn't be physically in Colchester or Essence. They might, what would be somebody on Church Street is the biggest area. But there'd be somebody that the dispatchers could reach out to and have the service available at any time 24-7 from Howard Mental Health. And they said, Howard said that they were ready to roll it out starting January 1st. So it would be more of an active participation. Yes, it would. Yes. It would kind of pass it. That is the program. They have a presence on Church Street, right? Yes. And I think they used to have a certain number and the button is a budget issue and they had to reduce that number to some lower number. Right. The program is really effective. It's on the Church Street. And it's a kind of a win-win for somebody that needs help. They're there to help guide them into the system where they can get help. And it helps the businesses too where they don't have somebody out in front that might be keeping them. Yes. It's a way. The difference is that they're out there walking around and observing and finding where there's a potential issue. And that's not what it would be here, though, right? This would mean they didn't be sort of on all, or on demand. So if we ran into a situation, we'd be in the police department, for example, at the fairgrounds during the fair week. We'll get somebody right away. And didn't we sort of apply that already when we had the situation at the fairgrounds? We did. It was a situation that's, I think, a little bit different because the individual had an access to funds, and therefore, you know, could go to an ATM, get funds by food. So there was no vacancy issues or anything. So it was slightly different. But this is more drug-related. OK. I don't know who's handling it, but I haven't heard from Mike. I have a question. And again, it kind of goes back to Sue's point. I'm not sure there's anybody here to answer it. But on page four, under financials, I get the salary infringes and the operating costs and the supervision and that type of thing. And then all of a sudden, there's administration to the tune of $8,918. I'd love to know what's under that heading. It's administrative? Yeah. Yeah. OK. And also, on that topic, I saw Sue and Irene. What do we do? Irene and then we'll come back to Sue. I was wondering, he wrote this lovely summary because there's no one who signed up on it. And I always like to know where to get credit for it. So you guys are new author of that? Yes. It's a nice summary of all the points of all the meetings that they went to. OK. I don't know, but I'll be happy to pass that out once I find out. And I also note that on page three of the document that's called Howard Center, talks about four community outreach specialists being hired. So four, at the top of page three, under staffing and scheduling. So I'm thinking we're multiplying $81,000 by four. No, I think the greater cost in the next year is in the $300,000 range. But again, please don't hold me to that number. I was just reading here that Howard has experienced a loss of funding and a decrease in their team members and their street outreach program. So it sounds like this new program would make up some of the loss. Yes. But we're all going to be sharing just these four outreach specialists. We are. That's six or seven communities, which watered down may not be a lot or enough, but it's a start. It's a start, right? Yeah. You can check it in, Jasmine. And it'd be good to know what the increase in budget might require in the years going forward. This is pretty much the same path that the CUSY started when it first started back in 1991. So we're on that same path. And the biggest thing for elected officials and people like me, staff who are in these meetings is to say, well, we're paying money. But what are we getting direct service to us? And it really isn't calculated that way. It's having the ability to have people, should you have an incident that needed to be investigated, allow the CUSY incidents. You have the resources there that can get on it quickly and cases can be adjudicated. Here it's the same principle. We're not going to fund somebody ourselves or provide the service as an individual municipality. So if we could partner up with the hospital and Howard Mental Health, then we can have that same kind of instant reaction to a need for the service. And I think it has a great deal of attention. More to follow. And if you have other questions after the meeting, you can send me an email from your professional select or email account. Yeah, there you go, sir. Eddie? I just wanted to remind us all that last year when we were talking about human service funding. And Doug came down and told us the exact amount that we had. We had some small number of dollars extra. And we did give them to Howard specifically because of their funding loss in this program. So we had that discussion. Thanks for reminding us. Sue and then Harry. So if and when this comes back on the agenda, is it possible to get somebody from SXPD because I would like to understand how it interfaces with their services? Yes, you definitely will. And maybe if we can spring lose someone from Howard or somebody who can speak to the level of the service that we're getting, you could get a better than a thumbnail sketch. Yeah, you could arrange that. Sue, did you have anything else? No, that's it. Harry? I'm looking to move to a different topic, but I want to make sure everyone's done with us. You done? OK. On the windstorm debris thing, I want to just give a shout out to our dispatch team. I hear someone came in as volunteer. Voluntarily came in. They were not called. And we did not have the same issues that some other towns had being short staffed. I'll just leave it at that. When the calls were coming in, fast and furious. So kudos once again to our dispatchers. On another. Can I? While we're on there. With the windstorm, that happened. And Indian Brook had some trees that were not down, right? Absolutely. And I know it's going to take time to go in there and get rid of the problems. But my question is, has it been assessed for safety? Because are there any where you might refer to as widowmakers that are hanging in there waiting to come down and just sort of got hung up? How do we protect our residents? So, holders, look for mine, some of these to maybe get your passes for me, if I'm not sure you got them. So if you don't have a pass, then you didn't get the email. But one went to all of the active users saying that we were closing the reservoir at the moment until it was at a safer, usable state. Most of the trails are impassable, meaning on the west side, we have approximately 25 to 35 trees down or in dangerous position just on the west side on the perimeter trail. And then this past weekend, we had one of our Indian Brook gate attendants go around and take additional pictures of the overlook trail as well as the outer loop and McGee. And again, another total of 25 trees or so. Widowmakers that are 20 feet high with their root system, totally uprooted trees that are completely down. And so we put barricades at the trail heads with signage. Additional signage was made laminated for our parks crew to also put around at other trail heads as they were checking the status of parks and trails, like Trowbridge and Schillingford and things like that, Mathew Town Forest. We have we got the majority of any responses that came in were positive and thankful for the notice. You always get a couple that are unhappy or claim that they're going to go in there with their own power tools and clear the way. So we communicate that we appreciated the fact that many wanted to help at the park, even though they were still cleaning up their own yards, but to please stay away. So we have a contractor who this past weekend worked at Pearl Street Park and the Fort. And they're able to help us on weekends at this point, but they were the ones that came in to be able to do it the quickest and most affordable. And then they are starting at Indian Brook on Saturday this weekend. Sounds like a great job. Well, we try. Everybody, you know, parks and public works crews and fire and PD all worked really well as a team, clearing roadways and then parks and all of that. So we're still working on things, but we're getting there. Excellent, thanks for that update. Okay, so you want to move on to something else? Well, when you're ready. Yeah, so. I appreciate the update on the tree farm. That's great to see. Yes. We're still, we haven't forgotten about it. No, we forgot about it. We're freaking out, but we're still doing it. And I'm grateful for the memo from Tom Chittenden. Hi, I want to talk about the, Yeah, sure. It's hard to say. Go ahead. On the tree farm building, is that seedling building? How soon can that get raised? That's a disaster. The snow starts to fall. How heavy the first storm is. That's good. It's about to collapse, right? Yeah, that's part of the point of the memo was just to, first of all, let you know that it is on the point of collapse, but then secondly, rather than spending money to tear down and try to fix it or anything like that, right now is to, the idea is to put money towards a broader study with recreation fire department. Public works to see what else might take its place. So right now it's fenced off. That's changing, that's changing. So again, protect public from that collapse. Correct. I'm gonna go to Mike and then I'll come back to Aaron. I think I read too, so. God. Two things, I think the memo, if I could pull it up, I'd read it, but I believe there's going to be fencing put around that building. There will be. No trespassing sites. Do you know what's going on? They're actually going to do, Shane Lincoln talked to Aaron afterwards and there itself, they had to order the fencing and get it in, so it was a little bit, and take a little bit longer than just the snow fencing. Okay. And then the second question was, I believe there was reference to 30 or 40 grand to find out. And use the cost to find out the three departments. So that's, that's. And the use. It's the idea of hiring somebody to come in and take a look at those three departments, public works, parks and recreation and fire department and to do a space needs assessment. So looking at the public, for public works, how much square footage they need for highway garage. All right. There's a senior center big enough to accommodate all the seniors at this point. And taking a look at that whole big picture then making an assessment based on all that of what should happen at the tree farm, that highway department at the fire station, if or else and how do we figure out when what's the recommendation for modifications, new facilities, what have you based on that? Yeah. I get that. It just seemed a little rich to me. The 30 to 40. I just wondered how that number was arrived at. Is that gonna be a, well that'll be a budget line item, I would assume. It would come back to you, it would come out of the capital budget. So either Aaron or Dennis would come back to you with a more formal presentation. Better cost estimate, but that was based on their initial early estimates. So it'll come back to us in a few minutes. Okay. Anybody else? I was under the impression that the state wasn't gonna let us take down any buildings. Will they let us haul away and building if it falls down by itself? I think that's, yes. That we're pushing for? Okay. That's what we're pushing for. It's the red barn theory on the corner of River Road. Yes. That'll be good. Yeah. You can take it then. Okay. Other comments I can say? So I'd like to get the precursor article on the special districts, which would be a lot more relevant to what we're doing here because the California special districts have all kinds of special legislation and special oversight committees that we don't have in Vermont. Plus we voted not to do a special district. So I think the prior article would be even more relevant. So if you could get that in our next packet. I don't have it. I sent you the link to it. Thank you. From my AOL address. Maybe it's being, you know. And this is only here. This is only here because I stumbled across it and looking at it at the current PM Magazine, but it will be very soon that we'll be talking about the district for regional dispatch. So I just wanted to refresh everybody's memory that the issue that's going to come back before us is going to be a governance issue once again. And the proposed or recommended form is going to be similar form to us. So there's lots of research if you want to do it yourself. I really don't have time to do it. I found this article. I gave it to both the trustees and the selectmen. And Irene said there's a more complete one from the same source. So I'll be happy to send it for you and send that to you guys. But just a question, wasn't that already provided last year? No, that was April 2017 after the vote. So when that came out. Okay, so it wasn't. Okay, anything else on consent? That's it. If I hear none, all those in favor of the consent agenda signify to say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, most passed by zero. And we need, we have that contract discussion for executive session. So we'll need a couple of motions to get in there. Yes. So yeah, if I didn't want to use my thing, I'm bringing up the, are you bringing it up? Yes. It's page 23. I actually got it. I have it here. Okay, Sue's got it. All right, I'll make a motion that the, I move that the select board make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the town's positions concerning the proposed contract discussion would place the town at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you, Sue. Do we have a second on that? Second. Okay, I think Mike had his hand up. Any further discussion on motion one? All those in favor signify saying aye. Aye. Okay, Sue. And motion two, I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts pursuant to one VSA 313A1A to include the town manager and deputy town manager. Thank you, Sue. Do I have a second on that one? Second. Okay, I read, thank you. Any further discussion on motion two to go into executive session? All those in favor signify saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion pass five, zero. We're good. I want it.