 So I will go ahead and call the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees meeting for Tuesday, May 25th to order. And Evan, I know we have some agenda additions or changes. I did actually take some notes. So do you want me to go through those? If you wish, that'd be great. Oh, the first one, 6C, the CCRPC Board and Committee appointments. I wanted to pull that one out for an actual discussion as I thought that there was some email conversation, Evan, that you and I had about a different appointment. So I'm gonna wanna pull that and put it into 5E with 6D, 6E and 6F. I'd like to take these off of the agenda and put them onto a subsequent meeting so that that way we can actually interview the individuals to again make sure that their priorities align with our priorities and to have that opportunity to have an interview and a discussion and to not just have a blanket approval. And then from 6J, would like to remove check warrant 17251. And if I could, what we really only want is the whole, is check 37680 be the exception from 17251. So we can then, if you prefer, we could take 6J and make that 5F and then we can have that conversation. Right. That's a mouthful. Marguerite. Yeah, I just wanted to, about the reappointment, and this could just be because it's my first time around the sun with you all, but that if they can't, they might not, some of those people might not be able to comment some of the June meetings, you've probably had that happen before, but just to make sure that that's all in your minds, especially because I think that the process, I guess, last, I don't know, the idea of the thought was that this was the process now. So there is some good discussion. I think that's been happening and that some of the staff, and I know Evan's been involved in on ideas for how to just, I think, around equity, but also a bunch of other reasons that have been mentioned in the past few meetings, how to kind of make sure that process is still efficient, and inclusive of new ideas or new, that we're not also just sinking into a process because we've been doing it forever that way. That kind of thing. Right. I don't know what your thoughts are on that. What would just, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure to say that here or whatever. Yeah, no, I personally, I appreciate the opportunity to interview and discuss the appointments with our committee members to one, make sure again, that the direction that things are going in is the direction that we all want. It's, you know, we advocate a fair amount of responsibility to our commissions. And so we wanna make sure that those we appoint have a similar philosophy to what the majority of the board wants. Okay. Staff or trustees, was there any other agenda additions or changes tonight? Okay. Any concerns with anything that was proposed? Well, actually, Andrew, I did send you at the last minute, I sent Brad some documents that were kind of abbreviated documents of the ones that I sent last week. I don't know, did you two get them or? Yes. And I don't know, I don't know if they're really, they're just sort of rearranged documents, similar to the ones you are in our packet, but I was just thinking that it might be, I kind of rearranged them to make things a little easier. So they're really probably not new, but when we get to that section of working on the charter, you might wanna use those instead of the ones that are in our packets. Does that make sense? Yeah, okay. So you'd wanna add, you'd wanna add those documents to 5A? Yeah, I think maybe for the record, maybe we should do that just to be on the safe side, if you've got them. I don't have them, I sent them to Brad, I think. Brad and you. Do you have them, Brad? Yeah, I have it ready to bring up when we start to go through it. So these would be revised version of draft charter and revised list of legal questions to be added to the agenda item 5A. And I will make that motion. To include what you, to include the ones that I had proposed as well as the ones that you're offering now? I'm not sure. I just thought I'm not sure if they're the same ones. Since we can't physically see each other right now, I'm not sure if they're the same ones or not. Well, what I just mean is, are you making one motion for all the changes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So yeah, George, you've made that motion. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Amber. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify it by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. I'll have an agenda, thank you. And that will bring us into public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting where if there's something you would like to address to the Board of Trustees that is not on the agenda, now is the time to do so. So if you are using Microsoft Teams, you can go ahead and raise your hand, and I'll be sure to call on you. If there's anybody who has called in, then I'll ask for your patience as we get through those using Teams first, and then I'll get to anybody on the phone. So go ahead and raise your hand, and I'll make sure you have an opportunity to address the board, okay? I'm not seeing anybody putting their hand up. As I look through the list, I don't see anybody who has called in, so no need to go to the phones. So with that, we can go ahead and move off from public to be heard, unless of course I'm missing anything. So do any of the trustees see a hand up, or if I'm having the Andrew issue? Let's go. Then we'll go ahead and move off of public to be heard, and into Business Item 5A in the work session on S6 Junction Independence. And hello, Brad, and welcome to the show, and Brad, you're muted. Hopefully, can you see the memo now? Yep. Yes, yeah, great. So here's kind of tonight's plan, just a reminder of our goal here to create an independent S6 Junction and sharing it as a foundation that provides for economic and political stability, reflects the village character, has opportunity for growth and looks towards the future. And this will be a village led process that's future oriented, will steer clear of distractions and act with civility, transparency and deliberateness. Trustees will work to develop consensus and speak with a consistent voice. We'll engage, bring together, seek input from and work to inform our community and work with the select board and maintain a healthy relationship with our neighbors in the town. So tonight, we're gonna look at the document that George was just referencing the draft charter and discuss some next steps. We're gonna review the timeline and consider scheduling additional work sessions as needed. We're gonna talk about some outreach strategies and hear from the community conversations group, Chair Elaine Haney. So as it's said here, George, kindly has drafted a charter with you all. I think we're able to provide individual comments and edits too. And so we're gonna switch over to that document in just a minute. And basically we're gonna kind of look through and George has highlighted sections that I think are noteworthy of either discussing or our changes. And then the sections, some sections that are boilerplate and just need to live in there and probably don't require any discussion are highlighted differently. And so we're also kind of simultaneously generating a list of questions for legal counsel as they come up so that we can kind of put together a complete list and get that off to Claudine for them to start to review. Is that pretty much a summary, George? Yes, yes, that's a summary. And the list of legal questions I just wanna add. What I did was I took out basically the entire transition section of the charter since most of the legal questions that you and other that folks came up with were questions about transition port and how do we go from village to city? How do you transition the government? How do you transition records and so forth? I put a list of those, I put all those questions in, sent them to Claudine and I thought until we get answers back, there's probably not a lot of value for us working on the transition section. So, and you'll see that in a while. That's one of the documents. I think that all the list of questions that I sent to Claudine and we can certainly add to that. And then the other piece is, as you said, Brad, the charter I've left, I took the sections that we don't need to work on that are boilerplate, that were non-controversial. Yeah, there it is. And you can see, so this begins at sub chapter two. So the transition is sub chapter one, that's out. And we'll get that back from Claudine. And then I faded, as you can see, we're under general powers. All the stuff that we accepted, no one had any comments about, none of you had any edits or questions. And then all of those sections where there were questions or we do need work, I've left in just regular font set. I thought this would make it a little easier to work on. That's not how we're seeing it in the PDF though, so. Yeah, that's probably, yeah, go ahead. I just emailed you this document, Raj, if you wanted to follow on your computer. Yeah, sorry, that following on the team screen is just. Right, yeah, hi. Hi, Kathy speaking. Is it possible for somebody to email that document to me as well for any secretary? What's your email, Kathy? It's Kathy C-A-T-H-Y-L-A-I-N-S at gmail.com. Thank you so much. So before we get into the charter, I just wanted to talk, last time we, you guys reviewed that merger charter that failed from back in November. There were 15 sections. Yes. If I can just interrupt real quick. I think what we were gonna do though when we have these work sessions is do that high level overview of what we're gonna talk about, then ask if there's any public input and then jump into these kinds of details. Is that, am I remembering that accurately? Okay. Correct, yeah, thanks. Yeah, no worries. So if you just don't mind scrolling back up a little bit so we can go back to what the main topics of our conversation are. So as you can see with the highlighted portion there, those of the topics we're gonna be discussing with the work session. And so again, the way that public participation will work for this is if you have a concern or something you wanna make sure we hear about these topics, then please address that now. Otherwise, we're not gonna be taking public comment on these again during the work session. And so for other comments, you'd have to email us or contact us outside of the work session tonight. So again, for those of you using Teams, please go ahead, raise your hand. I'll be sure to give you an opportunity to talk to the board about this topic. While not seeing any hands up, I still don't see anybody that has called in. So Brad, now that I've ruined your flow, go ahead and take it back, take it back up. Oh, good. So just recalling, we reviewed those 52 sections of charter and we kind of identified these were the big five items that really needed some discussion and both board and or community input. And so there was some comments here and the KSV quantitative survey was also in your packet, which again was about merger and involved people from the village and the town outside the village, but I think was at least a reference point that there's been some outreach on some of these concepts. So I don't think I need to rehash these things per se, just talking about that. Some of these changes in form of government or election officials or body composition or term of office could be pretty significant. And so I think we just wanna be conscientious about that as we proceed with this conversation. So with that, and Marguerite, I don't know how, if I also email that document, this document to you, I don't know if it's possible to post that in the chat or something, but if it is and you're capable of doing that, that would be great in case there are some people who don't have access, but would like to follow along on their own timeline. You mean just the document itself? Yes, this working draft charter. I can work on that while you keep going. Okay, thanks. Evan, did you wanna chime in? Yeah, I'm getting a thing that the Teams link isn't working from the agenda and people aren't actually able to raise their hand to speak. I don't know how to address that particular issue unless they call in. Right, so if anyone is watching on YouTube, they would have to call into the meeting in order to participate. I don't know why the Teams link isn't working from the website. That would be the way for people to participate at this point. Elaine Haney has a message saying that the link in the calendar on the village website sxjunction.org is correct and works. Yeah. So for any of you watching on YouTube, if you go over to the sxjunction website sxjunction.org, there's a calendar feature there, which will show this meeting that is happening now. And apparently that link will work to get you into the Teams meeting. Maybe in about five or 10 minutes, we can come back and see if anybody has any comment or kind of adjust a little bit if people were intending to not to kill the flow, but... Yeah, maybe we could just keep going and before we finish, we'll just have another opportunity at that point. Great. So our plan here is to walk through these sections. So again, the ones that are in regular black ink are ones that are up for discussion. I think we want to be efficient with our time. So if we can... For example, this is the first thing up. There are two options available. If we can select one and move along, that would be fantastic. Certainly I think we have time to have a short discussion, but if we find ourselves, I think getting into a lengthy discussion, we may just want to say, okay, that's something that we need to come back to and try and get through as much of this charter as we can tonight and see how many things we can kind of check off as there's consensus to. Yep. With this one, personally, I don't have any strong opinion. I know that there are some words that are clearly different, but other than that, I don't get what the difference is. And frankly, I think either is fine. Yep. Great. Want to pick one, one or two? How about the shorter one? Okay, great. There you go. Good. Let's hope it just keeps rolling like that. All right. Just keeping the shorter ones. Now, oh, okay. So, Raj, we made this, you just, Raj had a comment here about police protection. And I think this was, so it doesn't really affect this paragraph. It was just a note regarding this paragraph, but let me add that one of the questions I included for Claudine was if we come to an agreement about sharing the police department with the town of Essex, where should that go? Should that be in the charter? And if so, where should it be in the transition? Or should it be in a separate document? So that particular issue about how to phrase the police is something that we might want to wait until Claudine responds to us. But I just wanted to put any of the bits that even had one small question or comment, I tried to include them. But I think otherwise, unless Raj wants to comment, I think this one is probably all set here too. I think it's all set. I just want to make sure we circle back, obviously. I think this is going to be something we talk about. Yeah, yeah. And again, it was something that Raj had a comment. Sorry. I think that this may also be another question for Claudine. I don't know whether we need to have that or not. Well, this appeared in the merger charter. And I think this was something that found its way in there because some communities, larger communities actually eventually create their own power systems. I can't imagine doing it. But I guess just for the sake of it. The only reason I brought it up is, why revisit it if it's a simple addition now? So we may never do it. But if it's a simple addition that allows us to move forward one day, then we don't have to come back to this. And that's not worth a half an hour discussion, obviously. But if it's, again, like I said, simple, then we've covered our base and we don't have to return. We can just move on at that time in the future. Well, I would say that back a few years ago, we had a committee and I was on it. And we spent a whole year looking at trying to create a municipal broadband wireless service. And we figured it was just too expensive and the technology was changing too rapidly. So I don't know. Maybe there's something you could put in there. But my only question is, do we need it in a charter? That was my only question. I know that there are other communities, Woodstock. There's Windsor, Barrie. They all have their own downtown Wi-Fi system. And I haven't looked at their charters. But I'm assuming they did it without making an amendment to their charter. That's what I didn't know. So I just wanted to. That's what I meant by if Claudine could tell us whether we need to have it in a charter to do this work or not. Because the other side is if it violates any other state statute, then that kind of puts us in a bit of a pickle when we go to GovOps. I'll let Claudine weigh in on it. But my understanding from working for Burlington was that it had to be in the charter. And it is in the city charter. So maybe we can just add that to the list of questions and move on. Yep. That's good job, Brad. OK. OK, so this is obviously is the big, probably the main topic of the night. We have to work on this. We have to decide what our former government is. In the note I sent to you, I looked at all the other city charters. It's not a lot of them in Vermont. It's only nine cities in Vermont. And the four that are ours, roughly in terms of population and population density, Barry Montelier, Inaldon, and Winooski, they all have council manager forms of government with mayors. Three of them have wards, voting wards. One doesn't. Winooski does not. And so I just wanted to mention that. But this is obviously the form of government is the main, is the big decision. And once we make a decision on this, probably a lot of the other paragraphs that follow could be dispensed with or accepted. I don't want to leave the discussion on this, but I will only say that of the four cities in Vermont that have kind of mayoral political mayor systems where the mayor has more than that. It's in a straightforward council manager government. Burlington, Rutland, Virginia, and Newport. Virginia and Newport are tiny little cities. They're old. They're quaint. They're very small. They probably have limited resources and probably have limited resources for a manager to manage and to have a professional full-time manager. Although I think that Newport actually mentions that they have a manager who might also serve some other function. Burlington and Rutland are the big ones. They have political managers. I think they also have probably have, I mean, political mayors, but they probably also have managers. But their arrangement is not to produce a no-counsel manager form of government. But as I said, Barry Montpelier, St. Alvin, Gnuski, the council manager form of government is the standard form of government across the state. Evan can probably speak to this probably across the country. So what I wanna go to with this is I absolutely would love to see Essex Junction or the city of Essex Junction join in the suit of having a mayor. As I do see that there would be a lot of potential in Montpelier. There's a lot of lobbying opportunities in terms of making sure that our message is well heard. At the same time, I wanna go back to what the intent of what we're doing is and that is to have a successful, well hopefully to have a successful separation exploration and to go through independence as our main goal. And so what I also feel is having a mayor now adds a different variable into when we ask the community whether they want to separate or not and to form an independent city. So for me, I think what we wanna do at this point is have the exact same form of government that we currently have, have the same ward system, have the same election system, have the same years in office. So that that way when someone goes to the polls really what we're asking voters is do you wanna separate and form an independent city of Essex Junction? At the same time, what I think we can do in a transition portion is within say three years, four years, we can then have these conversations of do we now as an independent city want to have a mayor? Do we want to have wards? Do we want to have the neighborhood planning assemblies? So I think the more we deviate away from just a separation conversation the more variables we put in and the more we really open ourselves up to more contention in this process. I'll jump in in the silence and say I agree with you but I would love to see that that revisitation be a concrete part of the charter because I think that there's a big appetite for that for some kind of ward system in the village and look at increasing representation. It's a big topic of what's happening with the equity and inclusion conversation as I managed message as I related last night. I mean, it goes back to the Essex governance group which did have some village folks on it. So yeah, I mean, if we can figure out a way to add that to this and make sure it happens then I'm all for it. But right now I think you're right. Efficiency is what we need. Continuity and buying some time in the future to really explore what works. Thanks, Rosh. If you don't mind me jumping in. I would only add, Bridget Meyer was kind enough to send me a copy of the 1999 charter for the city of Essex Junction and one of the things they called for, they basically had the same system but they called for the city council to have a president. So the president, as we now have president or the board of trustees as you are Andrew, but the president was a separate election. So in other words, the board, the president wasn't appointed by the board within the board. The president had to run separately every three years. Other than that, they retained the same structure. They didn't have, they didn't call for awards and it was a five-member board. Again, in the silence, I guess I would say either way is fine, but if we're gonna do a full exploration later, we may as well just stick with what we have. Yeah. I guess. Yeah, I don't know. Obviously I'm curious what everybody else thinks. Dan has his hand up. Yeah, I do agree with you, Andrew. And I think the less we can confuse our constituents with changing the whole format, you can work that out later. And as far as dividing the community up into awards, it'd be interesting to see how you would divide the community. It's not a huge community. When you're comparing us to Barry and Montpelier, I grew up in that area, I grew up in Montpelier and it's much larger than our little village here as far as land and it's different. So I don't know, you know, we fit population-wise with those communities, but with land mass, we're more along the lines of the gens or something of that nature. So it's just interesting. Anyhow, I agree with you, Andrew. That's what I'm gonna say. I agree, but Dan, just for the record, I don't want to jump in and I don't want to interrupt, sorry, I just want to do one correction though. In terms of population, Barry, Montpelier, St. Albans, Winooski, I think we would probably be at the top. I'm gonna guess or we're near the top with Barry. I think we have more population than St. Albans or we have more people than St. Albans or Winooski and I think we're right in the mix with the other two. I'm not gonna debate numbers, I'm sure. When I was in Montpelier with around 8,000 people, but I don't think it's much more than that now, but we're about 11,000, 10,000, 11,000, so we're within a reach, not so far, you know? Yep. A huge plan. All right, Amber, why don't you go ahead? I was just gonna agree with everybody else and say, yeah, let's keep it simple, do what we've been doing and I think it allows us, if we put it in the transition, it allows us to also get some more voter input. I know I keep looking back at that KSV study, but that included town and it also was focused on merger, so I'd like to get some more thoughts of the Village Future City folks. Go ahead, Rush. Yeah, and I just add to what Amber said, you know, the KSV survey was excellent, but it didn't have a lot of, there wasn't a lot of discussion on what different forms of government mean pros and cons, so it was sort of like, mayor, nah, but I'm not saying we should have one, I'm just saying there wasn't what I hope would be a larger community conversation over a period of time as to what the options are. It was sort of a picture in time of what people understood it to be and I think Amber's right, if we do that, we'll have time to really dive into it and see what people think. Go ahead, George. Yeah, I agree. The people were very confused about a mayor too, because it has, people have a lot of preconceived ideas about what a mayor is, and trying to get across that most of the time in most of these communities in Vermont, the mayor is just a glorified board member that doesn't have any additional authority. That's a shock to most people and I think if you just wanna simplify the message, I think by all means it'd be fine, it's probably a good idea to not throw a mayor into the mix, even if it's just a weak mayor system. The only thing I wanna add back into this, George, I think you were asking a specific question as well about the election of the board, the board chair, the board president, whatever the city council chair would end up becoming to have that be its separate election. In all honesty, I think it should be decided by the board, similar to how we do it now. Frankly, I could just see that being a little late. Yeah, like getting a bark and agreement. I could imagine what that must have been like when that was the scenario, as you have a couple of potential current trustees who then run against each other to then become the village president, who then if one of them loses, they're off the board entirely and you, yeah. I can throw that out there, just to give you a piece of information. I wasn't really saying, even suggesting you do that. So, no, yeah, so we're good. Yeah. So I'm gonna- I'm gonna go back to what I thought it would. Yeah, that was good. And Raj, I just wanna comment on what you were saying in terms of how people measure in the future that good governance conversation, whether a mayor is valuable or not. And I'm channeling the sumacormic thoughts out there that the work that Elaine's group is gonna do in terms of developing values and a vision for our community, that will give us something to kind of reference to. So when people are having that conversation of the number of people and wards and districts and mayors or not, I think there'll be some things that people at least can reference and say, well, our community really said we value X, Y, and Z. And this is our vision of the future. And does having wards or electing at large is that congruent with those vision and values? So if there at least be something that we can measure against, because otherwise it really is, it comes down just to kind of individual opinion, right? And how much you know or understand about those systems. I love that approach. And I think this, what we're trying to do buys us that time to let that process play out. I think that's great. And I guess I'm sort of assuming that that's what we, I just don't know what people want on that yet. And I think doing what we're doing just really lets that process play out without a rush. And yeah, I think that's great. So George, do you want to comment on this part? Yeah, I put in, we had one, the lower paragraph is the one that we had in there already about voting districts. And the upper one is one that I borrowed from the Barry City Charter. It seemed a little more direct, but since we're not going to do this, I think you can just eliminate this 301 altogether for now, right? I guess we'll need to see if we need to specify that members are elected at large. Yeah, okay, good. Yes. Yeah, that's a good question. I assume whatever we have in our current charter would likely work. I know I don't have it in front of me. I want to say I recall this conversation with Dan Richardson. If you don't specify wards or voting districts, then if you don't say anything, then it's just that the default situation is at large. But I'm not positive. So that's probably a good question, another question for Claudine. I do recall a meeting where he had said that anything that you don't specify in your charter defaults to state statue and state statue on municipal boards is a three-member at-large board. Right, that's safe and sorry. Great, do you want to talk about this section, George? Yeah, there might only have been in here. I only put this in because again, I thought it kind of flowed from the form of government. It might be something that we want to make sure that we read through tonight and we don't want to add or subtract anything. It's pretty boiler play, but it might be smart just to have us all read through it real quick to make sure we're all okay with it. And this is pretty similar to what we have in the current test extension charter. It's similar to what the town has. It's fairly straightforward. I think there's a number five. I'm going to go down. Yeah, yeah, there you go. So anybody have any questions or comments on 302? And for what it's worth, our current charter sends five members elected by the qualified voters in large. There you go. Did we specify five up here? So we'll want to, is that below George? The number of? I think it might be right here. There you go. Yeah, so again, we just want to revise this if you want to go to five. And you can say five members elected at large. Do we need to spell out the stagger? I think we did. I guess that was enough transition plan if I remember correctly. I think you're right. Okay. Most of this is fairly boilerplate. Once you accept that we have a council and all that, it just blows. Yeah. I think 304 is pretty boilerplate as well. Here we have the councilor-fellow elected chairperson, vice chairperson and clarified majority vote. So if you want, we want to maintain our current structure, we would say president and vice president. Does there seem to be a standard? Most of it is there. The president is little unusual, but I'm trying to think, I didn't see any other city charter that had council presidents, most of them were council chairs. I'd be curious of South Burlington as I know that they're a... Yeah. Go ahead, Brad. Yeah. Go ahead, Henry. You're on. I don't know what the answer is. I was just going to say, South Burlington because I know they have a council manager, but yet they don't have a mayor. No, they don't. We're going to be looking like them. Yeah. That was in the packet last time. So if we can represent that sometime. Are we good with all of these? Yep. Yeah. This is the compensation piece project. I did try to include, but I guess you didn't have a question. You had a question to lower down in the charter about compensation for other committee members, but not about this, I guess. That's what I left it highlighted, but I mean, unhighlighted, but if we're going to keep this at 1500, to you guys. What's the select board do? 1500. 1500. Okay. What are other cities our size do? Well, Brattleboro just went up to eight grand. We heard that. Why don't we... There we go, Anne. Split the gas. That'll really make it popular. That'll win the voters hearts and minds. Just to go back, I'm looking at the city council's website for South Burlington, it's city council chair and vice chair. Yeah. I guess, again, from an equity lens and from an inclusivity lens, it would be interesting to consider, we don't have to do it now, building in some language so that that changed to reflect annual changes. I don't know how to do that. It's just occurring to me now, but either start it higher or allow it to change regularly somehow or build in a process. And that's something we can think about and come back to, but that's less every year and over the course of a term or two terms, if there's a term limit, again, future hint, then that wouldn't necessarily need a chart change to come back to either start it higher or... If whoever had just joined the meeting, if you could please mute yourself, that would be greatly appreciated. We're getting a little bit of feedback coming in. That's something we can think about and come back to. So Andrew, in a previous discussion with Claudine, you could put language in here that future salaries can be adjusted through the budget process and the annual meeting. You don't have to do a chart or change. And I think that that's what the Towns to Life Board currently does. And so I think if we just, if we follow that, and I think having a minimum makes sense, what the, at the time council decides to do, if they decide to use a minimum or not, that makes sense. Raj, to your point, I do believe, and I want to say it's the city of Burlington, but I'm not 100% confident in that, that they do have a cost of living adjustment every year where theirs goes up, I believe three to 5%, something like that on an annual basis. But it's not Burlington and I know there is another Vermont community that does that for their elected board as a way to recognize that it's not actually the same amount every year given inflation. I would recommend something, considering something like that or taking Evan's suggestion and just making that a policy of the board that budget season to make that just one of the things that's reviewed. That does leave it a little bit up to the board and if someone's feeling in the minority on the board, that may not be what we're trying to achieve in terms of fairness, but so I would rather lean to something that's gonna happen every year, but we could start with a minimum and see how that maybe that conversation is part of the overall transition conversation in terms of how government's made up. Go ahead, Dan. I think we should just leave it as is right now and like Evan said, address it at the annual meeting. The start is what's fair, fair is ambiguous. It's not what would you consider fair? It's like, what's fair market value for something that depends on where you are. Fair is not a code definable thing. So I think we should just leave it as is. We have consensus on leaving this as is and I'm making a list of things to include in the transitional provisions. So, you know, the only thing I would add to that is that, you know, this is going to come back as part of the, whether it's in six weeks or six months, I can't tell you as part of the task force work and it probably won't be presented as fair as a word. It'll be more along the lines of how does it keep up and how does it enable an entire community to participate? It's not intended to be a full-time job. We all know that nobody is intending it to be. So it is going to come around as a topic. We can leave it and include it in the transitional conversation, which is great. And that'll give the task force plenty of time to work through its conversations. Evan, is your hand to hold over? Sorry, hold over. No worries. Dan, you? No, I was just going to just say that I realized it's going to come back up or I was in other board members and this isn't going to go away. But as far as who decides what is keeping up, keeping up with what, I mean, everyone's living costs and situations are unique to the individuals. So to try and create something that placates the community at large, it's not, I think it's just, like I said, it's the end of the year, it's difficult to really, I hear what you're saying, Raj, and I realize it's difficult for some people, but where do you draw the line? I don't know, it's very difficult to say. No, it's a great conversation to have and I don't think we have, we certainly can't have it now and I know that you're open to having it. And I think as long as there's a, it's going to be very much a guess, right? What's the starting point? But as long as then after we set a starting point that we're willing to, this community is willing to revisit it and or increase it as costs go up every year, I think that that's kind of what we're looking for. I don't know what to tell you, what an amount is, it's going to be different for everybody, like you said, but that's why I think let's do what we're doing here and then have that larger conversation when there's an opportunity to have it and really explore it. After perhaps that subcommittee has had time to do some research and make a presentation and people have good luck, you can consider it. I don't want to belabor this, but the other aspect to this is when we start going down this path of what's good enough or what's enough for people to be able to get on this board, like you say, it's not a career, but then people look at individuals and say, well, he makes this much money or she makes this much money, they've got this much, why are they getting the same amount? If you make it standard across the board, everyone's at this rate, I think that's the fairest way to go and to try and make it so it is enough for the most destitute member of our community is not to say it's what we call, quote, fair or normal. I think what we have is consistent pretty much with our community as a whole, the town and other communities around us. Like we said, broader worlds at $8,000 that's insanely high in my opinion, but anyways, I don't want to belabor this. I was just gonna say, I think we're starting to get into a conversation that in all honesty, we don't have a lot of information to really have all the facts on. So if the board is okay, I'd like to wait and have this conversation until after we can have some additional resources to fully have this conversation. Yep. So is the board okay with what is currently on here? I know there was one question about or one comment about whether this would allow for this to be determined through the budget or if this is the same process that we just had to go through by having it on the through the special article on the ballot. And I don't know the answer to that question with how this has written. Or better yet, what do board members think? Do you want to be able to do it or require it through the ballot or just do it through the budget? I personally think it should be done through the budget. I think it's a little cumbersome, I think at Hawkins to an earlier error when things were much simpler and all board members were paid very little and it was probably a much bigger topic of conversation than it is nowadays. And I think it's just easier to put it into the budget and people can go down the budget if they think the increase is too big. Certainly highlighted there, but to make it a separate item for a vote is kind of cumbersome, I think. But just my opinion. I would agree with you, George. I would also say that as we develop the budget we have a minimum of two public hearings on the budget every year. In addition to the actual meetings where we develop the budget where there is ample opportunity for the community to say that no, you should have put it up to a certain amount. Right, yeah, it should be part of that process. I would agree and just set a minimum and maybe this is a minimum and then say, you know, and it will be set in the budget after that if that's possible. Dan Amper, any other concerns, disagreements? No, I agree with it. I think, as I said, for the longest time we were at $500 and maybe for 20 plus years or further. And now it's three times that. So I think that's funny for now. Let's start again. Amber? I'm okay with it. So I'm not sure, Brad, if we need to make some kind of a note about through the budget, but in general, yes, in spirit, I think this works. Okay. Again, it was just because of the, we hadn't figured the former government. So we saying president, vice president and this was just depending on how large the board was. So yeah, right, so it'd be three. Now this was one where you had a question, Raj. Sorry, I think we just talked about it, so. Okay. Are we good with 312? I think we're good with 312. Here, again, this is probably unnecessary now, but I noted that in some of the mayoral systems the mayor served as moderator at annual meeting and they didn't elect a separate moderator. In a sense, we're not, yeah, you could probably have, I'm gonna guess that you could probably have the city president or council president serve as moderator, but it's a departure from our current model. We've had it, obviously, y'all know, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. So just that's why this is here. I don't know. I honestly enjoy being able to just be a participant in those meetings. Yeah. George, I don't know how you felt, but it's kind of nice being able to have Steve there. Yeah, it's fine. Just got into a little bit of dialogue about annual meeting, city and town. There's a tradition in Vermont of town meeting, but all of the city charters, every single one of them, when they referred to their annual meeting, they said city meeting. They did not, there was no language, there was no reference whatsoever to town meeting, but there were a number of questions from some of you about, and I was confused too, even though we know it's gonna be a city, do we have the city meeting on town meeting day, but that actually doesn't show up in any of the charters. So I think we just, I think we hear, the correction I would suggest is just you have, that shall be held on city meeting day as defined in one BSA 371. Roy, if you get your hand, why don't you go ahead? Yeah, I just wondered about aligning, how do we, so that would align with the town, but where would that, how do we go through the process of aligning with the school board, if possible? Are we just kind of get the parties together and try to get everything on town meeting day? Well, if I could speak to that, I don't wanna interrupt, right now, if you understand it, we had our annual village meeting, we have that, now we have it by Australian ballot, but previously we had it on a certain day, and then we suspended the meeting and then continued it on the day that the school district had its vote. And you could do, if you wanted to coordinate the actual Australian balloting with the school district's Australian balloting, but then again, the whole thing becomes moot because if we're going to be voting by mail from now on, I don't know, so those are all good questions, but are we going to be voting by mail from now on, or are we going to go back to voting and by Australian ballot over at the high school? I don't know how it's all gonna work. I think the mail is only for general elections in November, so unless the community opts into wanting to do it, and then of course, I don't know who pays for that, but yeah, I mean, again, we don't have to know now, but I just didn't know if... I do think if I can just chime in there, Raj, that I would prefer that we really align our voting to only have our residents come out once, should there actually be in-person voting. That's one of the things that we heard loud and clear from the budget development group. It was one of the things with merger is that we would reduce the number of times that people have to come out and vote. And so as such, I really think that we don't want to force ourselves to have our community vote once in March, and then once again in April with the school district. So I don't know how we do that here. We just say something like the annual meeting date will be fixed by the council if that's vague enough. And or if it has to be done by the voters at the annual meeting, at the preceding annual meeting. But something that gives us a flexibility so that we can work with the school district, I think is very important. So is that a question we wanna pose to Claudine? I mean, we do it now. So I assume whatever we have now when our charter would also work, but if it makes more sense to ask Claudine, I'm fine with that as well. So is that fine for in terms of a revisit? Yes, I was wrong, I mentioned the budget development group, it was the Essex government and it's group. So my apologies. That's fine. So we had several questions from Raj and Andrew about the adoption of ordinances, the rescission of ordinances. There, they, all of the city charters had lengthy descriptions about ordinances, adopting them, processing them, resending them. But there's not a lot of consistency. This language that we have is the same language that we worked on with the select board to put into the merger charter. The only difference is what ended up being put into the final town's plan of merger was different than ours with this one. There's had, I believe it was a minimum of one of one public hearing possibly two, but frankly, I've, my head moved on to other issues at this point. That was my only concern is the way that the state statue has it, which is a process we have now is we can have one meeting on it. And in that one meeting, we can approve of the ordinance, whereas the public hearing requires us to have basically two conversations about it. So that was my only, my only thing. Right. And Raj had a question up there too. And I remember your mature question. Same topic. Yeah, there you go. Same thing. So we could either look at what the town's merger proposal was for ordinances or we could do this, which is a practice that we currently have. It sounds like Raj and I would prefer to go with what the town currently has, but George, Amber, Dan, I'd be curious about your thoughts. I'm happy with what we have now, but I have certainly not fixated on it. This is not, I think it's an open process either way and I'm fine either way, but if I just go for what we have now, it seems simpler. I would go with the proposed, what the town's going to move. I mean, it's fine. I think we'll work well, so we'll go with the plan. Consistent with what the town's doing. We were going to do that. Amber? I'm happy to go with what the town's doing. Okay. If we're going to share the police department, it may just make sense to align that process as much as possible. And Amber just had a technical question here. It wasn't about the content and I plead with you and I made the change there, Amber, but I want to make sure that I got what you understood what you were saying. I'm not sure I understand what I was saying myself, so. Okay. Yeah, it looks fine. Okay. I think we're good there. And if I could just jump in. So, virtually this entire section about the manager, I think we probably just want to glance through it quickly, but this is all, these are all the powers, responsibilities of the manager under a council manager government. Since that's what we're going for, I don't think that we'd be looking to change anything in here because this is similar to what's in the village starter now, similar to the town starter. And I only left it this way to be worked on because I wasn't absolutely certain that we were going to go with the full regular council manager government. So, we can, I wasn't looking to, we could probably quickly just go through this and make sure we're all okay with it, but this is pretty boilerplate stuff for the duties of the manager. I think 701 makes sense. I think Georgia absolutely right. This is about as boilerplate as it gets. Yeah, and this is a big section. This is a big sub chapter. It goes down pretty far. So, seeing as there were no questions in the document up until 704, maybe everything we just saw, everybody okay with what was there? Yeah, sorry, yes. Amber Dan. And then, well, I had a question here. There were a couple of questions about this particular one, about just the absence. And I think Amber had a question in there too. Okay, I'm not sure Amber could explain yourself there. You didn't think this should be working. You accepted it. I think my comment was really just about the coloring and that this was for the discussion, not just a boilerplate, but I think it's been resolved based on our conversation regarding the type of government. And Raj, are you do you have something to add to this or? No, I think I'm good. Okay. So, are we good with 704 as written? Yep. Sounds like we are. And this, again, there was some controversy here. Some of us thought we didn't need to be working on this. Some of us did, so I left it since there was some degree of controversy. I left it as is. I don't want to speak for anyone. But again, Raj, you had several questions about this. So I'll let you take over. You know, to be honest, with what we've been talking about about trying to move through this process, I don't know that this effort is the time to take this on and certainly something the city council can address at a later date if they choose to. And that was basically just reimagining all of these services and seeing if there's another way to deliver them and think about them and budget them and all that. And clearly not enough time in this effort, but it would be an interesting topic for a few years from now. So I take it back. Okay. Raj, out of curiosity, are your comments about Brownell and recreation? Or is it also about Planning Commission and DRB? I think I could have probably with DRB looked up what the statute is. I didn't know, I guess with DRB, I was wondering if we wanted to specify how many and or just, but I didn't, I never bothered to look up. I think after I wrote that what the Vermont statute calls for. So I probably shouldn't have left it in there. And not a huge deal either way for me. The overall concept I'm for. Okay. Yeah, my only, because it's my only question or my only deviation from my earlier comment about having as little change from the status quo as possible was gonna be, I do think that it's time for us to have a DRB. I think we've been very late to this game. And I think that our community, our new community and current community would be better served than the Planning Commission and DRB. Yeah. And this is the, and this by the way is the, this was the recommendation of the TGIA process back a few years ago that we participated in. So, and our zoning board, I don't think they've met once this year. So, I mean, yeah, I agree. So to Raj's question, do we need to specify the number of members? If I can jump in, most of them that are reviewed, they don't because it gives you the flexibility to expand or contract it as long as you think that you're gonna do it. That would be my thought there. If you don't, if you're not required to, then why do it? I think that last question is the crux of it for me is are we required to, if we don't, what is it then default to, similar to a select board defaulting to three members? If you don't specify how many members are in it? I don't know if this list stays statute anywhere. I'm just looking at the statute right now. I don't see a number in the statute. It says if the legislative body creates a DRB, that board shall consist of not fewer than five nor more than nine. There you go. Such a lawyer. Love it. Right away. Sorry. There you go. Isn't it great to be able to use electronic devices in our meetings? Because we can just Google whatever we want. Wonderful. So we have five to nine according to statute that leaves some leeway that's probably comfortable. Yeah. Contato five. Interesting odd numbers to the right. I only, this is, I only put this in because there were a couple of questions about it. And we dealt with the Brown Hill Library before but it was about the election of the library board. And this speaks to there shall be a Brown Hill Library board. And we've been through this a lot about the Brown Hill Library. And I, they are, and I had a question, are the Brown Hill trustees paid and they are not presently compensated? That could always change. But I, unless something has changed in the last few months but as far as I know, they're not compensated. They are through our, the. But now they will be, okay. Yes. They're, they will be the, the permitting stipend. Yeah. Art, does that trust call for at large outside would out of village membership? Yes, the truck that anyone can be a member of the Brown Hill on the five permanent members. Anybody can anyone who's on in the trust the trust can appoint anybody. They can live anywhere. But the elected board members have to be from within this extension. Okay. Thanks. I find it quite interesting that it's dated May 25th, 1925. Yes. 90, 90, what is it? Six years ago. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Today. Yeah, it's still here. Wow. Good with 805. Yes. Yep. Roger had a question about this person led to this paragraph right here. So I see Roger's question about the HR professional. My only concern is I'm recalling the seven days article where the, the city manager of Winooski was saying or was quoted as saying that they had to go through a charter change because they had a HR manager and the HR person they had was really acting as a director but in order to properly compensate that person they had to then have a charter change and through that process they lost the HR manager to a place that was able to hire that individual as an HR director. So it just goes back to my earlier comment that if we don't have to have something in here I'd love to not have it so that way we don't find ourselves down the road trying to have that tail wag the dog. Sounds great. I think I probably read that article after that would be preferred. Okay. If I can on the next one here I actually included or if there were questions about this Andrew you've had a question about it. I actually included this because there's why variation on how different charters approach real estate appraisal in the assessor's office. And so I actually included this as a question Claudine if she could make a recommendation. What does she think we should do? I appreciate that. Goes right back to the exact same statement I just made. Yeah. Here's that question. Yeah, that's it right there. Yeah. And Evan I don't actually know if you know the answer to this portion of real estate appraisal because I thought that there was something about the town's charter and real estate appraisal and that was why this was being put in here. Is that, am I not remembering things correctly? I would need to see it in a much larger font at the moment. The trifle goes out. Not a different or a different font size. So I'm highlighting that in blue as a legal question and something to return to. Sure that works. And again, this is just the city versus town meeting and okay, but you did have a question here though at Raj. Let's chalk that up to not having to be in here and something the council can ask for. Okay. How's the offer? Moving on. So, and there was some criticism. So just because the city meeting, we don't need to put town meeting in there at all. All right, the rest of those comments resolved. I think Amber had one in there. No, Amber did not. Okay, sorry, Amber didn't mean to. I think you did. I don't know where it went, Amber. Oh, I think since I just changed that to city, it's been resolved. Okay. I think she was asking, should it be an informational meeting? Should we specify this as an informational meeting since we're not actually voting at the meeting? Is that what you meant, Amber? Uh. Gotcha. Yeah, you did. Okay. Yeah, I think for me it was, it's so confusing to read all of these references to annual city, annual meeting, city meeting, and try to figure out what the heck they're talking about. And so, yeah, that's what I think I was just trying to, I don't know. It is an informational meeting, but it is the city meeting as well. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, Devin looks like he's... Just going back, going back to appraiser, can you go back there a little bit? And Brad or whomever's running the screen, do you make it a little bit larger in terms of font? Cause the only thing that is somewhat, I just read the town charter, basically the town charter says that the, the department should have a licensed appraiser. I would stay away from that. A qualified real estate assessor, that's it. I would stay away from that particular line, but everything else in there is probably fine and correct. Thank you. You can either say real estate assessor or other qualified or something else, but I wouldn't specifically say they have to be an assessor. Okay. That profession is very limited in Vermont, as we've noted maybe a couple of times. There's a lot of people qualified to do the work, but they may not be an assessor. Appreciate that. Thank you. Good. Do we want to change that now? Just put that word in, even though we're going to ask Godin, so is that right? Is that what you're saying yet? Yes. This is the appraiser. It should be appraiser. Yeah, here we go. Is that right, Evan? I'm just saying be very careful. Yeah. About what word we put in there. So I would highlight that word and have Godin give us the most latitude for the qualifications of the position. I can't help this one. Ready? We're good on this one, right? I do believe we are good on that one. Yes. Can you speak to this one, George? I cannot. I don't know why. No comment. I don't know. It might have just escaped my cursor. Sorry, there is a comment up here, but I think. I think that comment is about the capital. Yeah. Capital budget. It's certainly not an expert on the capital budget and how that works. We've got Andrew and Amber here and everybody else, frankly, but me. But I didn't know if we want a longer term window on this. Does it need to be in the charter? Does a time frame need to be in the charter in the first place? Again, it's after our conversation tonight. But would seven or 10 years be more useful or too long? You could say at least five years. You could do that. Or no, no fewer, no fewer than the effect legal language. No fewer than. And I think it gives us an opportunity to do that later. Let's see what makes sense. Yep. Yeah. I don't know why I had that. I didn't. Okay. Okay. That out. Sorry. Okay. Again, this is the town city thing. That satisfies. So you added that in, George? No. Amber added that in. No, that was just my reference to the town versus city. It's, it's good, Brad. Okay. Good. Looks good. Channel five. And again, I only left this because we were speaking. It had to do with the power of the manager. And I wasn't sure if we hadn't said, since we hadn't settled on, you know, for the government. So I think this is acceptable the way it is. Sounds like the comments were addressed. Yep. And here's the, I think the Raj's first question. Yes. If that would, that would be in a transition plan. As far as the second one. I think we can change the. 1201 a to at least or whatever we used from above, maybe. Yeah. No fewer than. No fewer than. That's right. Sorry. That's going to be tricky. Yeah. You can just say a capital program. Yeah. Because it references above, right? Yeah. I want to just say a capital program. Yeah. I think you just saved capital program for now because it references it above as Raj said that we put, we say when we want capital program to be at least five years. So. And he was saying at least three months. It's going to be updated and changed and modified every year. So, but the manager has to submit it every year, even though it's the same, much of the same one. I mean, it changed B2 as well probably. That's what I was going to say. Oh, sorry. Go ahead and say. Took my thunder. Just saying I haven't seen the cat in like an hour and 20. Good with 1201. Yep. Let's do it. That's it. That's it. Well done everyone. That wasn't too bad. So I think we're all going to be getting in the honorary master's degree in charter verbiage. Yeah. And please, for goodness sake, please do save this. Yeah. That's what I'm doing right now. Everybody make your at home charter family. George, you could host a master class on this. Easily. Yes. Yeah. He's written. He's a master for months charters if you didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. Easily. It's not bad. So. Yeah. And so here are the here are the legal questions. You might need to blow them up a little bit. That I, we all, some of you had and that I also tried to come up with. So the first thing that I, I said was, do we need to spell out an interim period? In other words, how do we transition from a village of sx junction to city of sx junction? And the questions, I, I, if you look at the dotted list, does the existing board of trustees automatically become a city council or do you have a one year period where the trustees have to set up the election for the city council for an annual meeting? Does the budget of sx junction automatically become the budget for the city of sx junction? And then the next one is moot because we, I was thinking if we had an extra board member or call for an extra board member and a mayor, that we don't need to have that in there. And then if these and other transitional provisions are required and they need to be spelled out as introductory sections in the charter are going to be in a separate document, that was someone else's question. Again, we can go through the other ones here as a new city. Do we become a new federal tax entity or do we retain the incorporated villages tax liability status? Don't know. In the charter, can we just use some inclusive language that we will take on all the debts, contracts, you know, policies, commitments and everything of the former village or do we need to spell that out? For example, do we need to make sure that we specifically say on the village's death contractual agreements, for example, with the employee association and other legal contractual commitments, do we need to spell that out? And where does that get spelled out? We're assuming that's in the transitional piece. Again, do we need to spell out that we will just continue all of the village's current ordinances, the land development code, municipal plan, other legal operational regulatory policies? Where does that get spelled out? Does it need to be spelled out? The same thing for the next one, land records, title of deeds, they're all presently kept in the Essex Town vault under the jurisdiction of the Essex Town clerk. Seems it's okay to me, but I don't know. Just thought I'd throw that in there to make sure that we don't miss something, that we don't have to create our own vault and somehow sort through hundreds of thousands of records in the town vault and figure out which ones have to be transferred. I'm hoping that doesn't have to happen, that's herculean task. If that has to happen, I can't see why it would, but I think we need to ask the question. I also was just curious in terms of real estate transactions that occur within Essex Junction, are there functions, and Evan might be able to speak to this, that the Essex Town clerk performs now, since we are within the town, and if we become a completely separate entity, are there things that we don't aren't aware of that the clerk does for real estate transactions that would then fall upon the new city clerk? I don't know if anyone has a problem with that. Amber, any thoughts about that? Yeah, I'm trying to think about, I mean, the town clerk is recording the property transfer tax, they're recording the deed, so it goes to the other question that you just asked. I don't think there's anything specific in a real estate transaction that, I mean, if we transfer, then we would transfer, and if not, then we wouldn't kind of deal. Okay. Assuming, are you establishing a village clerk? Well, it would have to be a city clerk. I'm assuming it would have to be. With all the functions and roles and responsibilities of a town clerk, including dog licensing, records, et cetera, et cetera, you just need to, when you ask Claudine, just make sure that she understands that it's going to be basically a city clerk slash town clerk with all the roles and responsibilities of that office, including elections and certifications, dog licenses, missing sense. So probably, this probably needs to, she just could probably give us a review in case there's something we need to know. What are the responsibilities of the, what are all the functions and responsibilities of the city clerk? Something I don't know. Or do we, maybe we, maybe Evan can, we don't need to ask Claudine that question. Well, I just think we can look up some standard charter language for a clerk. Okay. So maybe we can omit that question. I just have a, based on this discussion, maybe a stupid question, so I'll just omit that, but going out and becoming a city, do we then, do we need to spell out or is it just automatic that the city council then becomes, I just lost my train of thought, licensing for alcohol establishments, all of that. All those roles that town select boards have, does the city council assume in that respect? And does that spell out? You've become the board of liquor commission. Thank you. All right. Here I asked again, I'm not sure there are, there are intramunicipal agreements that we have as a municipal village, but there are some that the town has on our behalf. For example, the town pays county taxes. We do not have to pay county taxes, but that would change. So I'm wondering, I don't know, and this may not be for Claudine, maybe our staff, Evan and others, can answer this question, but how do you make this transition and whose responsibility is it? Who does the county automatically know about it? Do we have to talk to the county? What other intramunicipal agreements that are out there that we don't know about, because we don't deal with them as a village, but the town does. So this just occurred to me that I needed to put this in here. I'm not sure it's a question for Claudine necessarily. Yeah, we can, we'll make a note that that's a staff question. Okay. And here I, as I mentioned before, if we, this, because the police is such a big department and it's such a big commitment and it's such an important role, is it appropriate to have it spelled out in the charter if there's an agreement with the police for a shared police department? And that's the end of it. And then obviously any other questions you have? I know personally I don't have other questions at this time, although I'm quite sure more are going to be arising as we continue through this process. Is the intention to have Claudine look at the entire proposed charter at the end, like when we're done? I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. Just want to make sure. Do you think it would make sense to ask her if there are things that, well, no, this is what we put forward already for the plan of further. So I can't assume that I would assume that there isn't anything else that we've missed. So never mind. But I would like to, if you don't mind me jumping in, Andrew, I would like to recommend it just, just my, please, I'd like to hear some discussion about this, but besides sending Claudine these questions, send her a copy of the transitional question or the transitional section that we did not work on tonight that had all that transitional stuff from the merger charter. And I would maybe recommend to have her draft up a transitional section based on the answers to these questions and her review of the other charter, draft something up for us to look at. I don't think it'd be a huge piece of work. And then that might really help us move this along because she's going to get back to us, answer these questions for us, and then we're going to try to, you know, model our way through writing a transitional section. Why not have her do it and bring her professional expertise to the task and then give it to us and we can review it. That's just a suggestion on my part. I see Evan has his hand up. I don't know if I did or I didn't see it. Do you have any sections on taxation, abatement, and other functions about taxation and abatements? I'm not aware of them. And I've read them in other charters, but I'm not aware of that. Because you will be a city and not under the town, you will be levying your own taxes. Yep. And the school district's taxes. So you may want to put in there. You might want to review that. You could probably just take the town's charter language and just build in a chapter. And then have Claudine review it. Yeah. Go ahead, Amber. I was just going to say, if we're going to have Claudine work on the transitional section, I think we should just send her the whole charter right now and have her look at it all and make sure there is nothing glaring that we're missing. Sure. I mean, she shouldn't be doing one section in a vacuum, essentially. So she doesn't need to see the rest of it. Yeah. And maybe she could add the piece that Evan just spoke to. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, I would add, I would just add it in at the bottom and let her decide what she wants to do. But it does, it should be there. Because you, again, you are not currently collecting the taxes that one is and then distributes it. Therefore, if you're an independent city, you'll need it in your charter. Okay. Good times. So are we good on the charter for tonight? Great. Good. Good job. Thank you. Yep. So the next step is to review the timeline and consider scheduling additional work sessions. So we, I think we've reduced some of our expected time on the charter by selecting to go with a lot of the same components that are in the existing charter. I do think we still need to add a meeting or a meeting and a half. The nice thing about these would be that they're fully dedicated to work session stuff and not also a business meeting. So these are the four options that kind of came up. Staying after on June 5th. Although I think you're starting at 8 in the morning. I'd like to just cut that one out all together as an option. Great. Do you think that Brad, do you think given our agreement at this point to have as much of a status quo charter on governance that we've eliminated the need for two of these and that we could just have one? I think we could start there and see how it goes. That would be fine. Okay. I would propose, what do you all think about doing something a little different and doing it on Thursday the 10th? That means anything. I'm not available. Yeah. I can't do it. So would you rather do back to back nights or wait until the 14th? I am away on the 14th. Not that I have to be there, but. Just to note, there is a board meeting on the 7th. So that would definitely be a difficult thing for those of us in the village to be able to participate in two meetings at the same time. So Evan, you said you can't be there the 10th. Roy, you said you can't be there the 14th. Correct. So we have our regular meeting on the 8th. And a one hour work session during that meeting. But from the sounds of it, we need additional time to be able to dive into some of these topics. Can we start earlier on the 8th? And do we think we're going to get information back on the 18th by then? In order to facilitate all of that. I'm not sure that's going to be totally relevant. Really what the next big pieces, let me just pull up the timeline. So we were going to spend time on the 8th looking back at the charter. But if given what we've talked about tonight, we can now focus on the 8th on talking about, you know, the goals of developing an organization, and then we can start looking at some of the options with Claudine in terms of how potentially some services could be shared if that's a desire. And start to look at kind of the current village departments. So if that's all we're doing, that's all we could probably accomplish in an hour. If we could start earlier, we could probably get further. And we could then see how far we get on the 8th. So what if we started at four on the 8th? On the 8th to align with what you had previously proposed. And see how we get from there. I think that would be great if that works for everybody. Good for me. I'm going to just be that guy and say, I may have to come and go. I've got to drive a kid up to Saint Almond's and I can't get out of that. So I was planning on going back in time for trustees and I may be in the car. I may be out of service, but that's fine. I just wanted to make you aware. Actually, as long as we have a form, I'm good with it. I think we're going to keep in touch with Raj. So we're not going to take any way from anybody. And then in case we need us, why don't what if we have a backup of having the 14th as a backup date, which Roger understands you wouldn't be there. But I think we do just need to move forward at some point. Yep. Great. So the eighth will start at four and then after the meeting or after the work session on the eight at that point, decide whether we need the 14th. Perfect. I'm assuming Brad will let or Andrew, you'll let us know sort of what you're thinking or who you need. If that makes sense. You mean who's drawing the short straw to join the meeting? Just yes. Right. Agenda wise. That sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I assume you and I will chat about that. Yep. I think we can revisit this another time. I think these were just some comments. I don't know if one of you asked last time for, it was suggested that Claudine review the timeline that we had proposed. And these were the comments that came back. I don't think we need to do anything with them tonight, but I think we should circle back at some point. I think that she was concerned about the public hearings and then having a meeting. I guess in my head, I was, I was assuming that at the public hearings, you would hear public to be heard and then make decisions and have conversation on the, at those meetings. So her concern was whether or not you're going to schedule a meeting after the public hearing to discuss what you heard at the public hearing. And my assumption was that you would do all of that at the same time. I think that your assumption aligns well with typically what we do. I would, yeah, I think that would be fine. Okay. I think. Wait a minute. I think normally what she's saying is if you're, you're scheduling a public hearing, you also schedule a meeting, you know, right after, and that gives you a warning that you're having a meeting to discuss what happened at the hearing. Yes. Yeah. That's the plan. I mean, this document is very brief, but I just wrote public public hearing. I think that's what she's, that's what she was probably referring to. So if you're going to take public comment at the hearing, you would then adjourn the hearing, open your public meeting and discuss the previous hearing. Yep. So essentially what, what, what I think, what's the best idea is to have a meeting to discuss the public hearing. I think that will technically, is two meetings on that the same day. Correct. Yeah. I think in terms of outreach strategies, just to remind you that we'll continue with the sessions, summaries, the village website and, and roll out place speak, hopefully between now and the next meeting. I think the big question tonight is whether or not you want to mail a postcard. processes happening. And we are very fortunate to have Linda on staff who has graphic design skills. Let me just see if I can get there. Sorry for the scrolling. And the question really for you all is, do you want to send a postcard at this time? And if so, how do you want to edit it based on the current content? I don't believe I had any concerns with what was in the postcard. I don't recall. I assume if we do that we have that there is money available for this in the budget and that we're not preventing ourselves from doing something else. Correct by doing this. Yeah, there's you know, I have gone back and forth with the printer on the exact cost. I don't have it in front of me. It is, I would say a few thousand dollars in order to print and mail this. So yes, there is a cost to it. I don't think it prevents you from doing anything in the future. Amber. I like this. The only comment that I was going to make is that on the page that you actually have up right now, Brad, on the third paragraph, second line, there's a typo. Great. Working with. I think, thank you. Trustee, is any other questions, comments, concerns on sending a postcard? No, I'm good. Looks good. I like it. My question is when are you looking for this to go out? Is it going to be before July one or after July one? If folks are good with it, I would suggest we mail it as soon as possible. So before July one. Yeah. So it's in this fiscal year. Yep. Good to know. It's an important detail. It's only a couple thousand dollars, but it's just hopefully I assume we have that kind of room in the in the remaining budget. So and even if you go over, we'll deal with it. We'll deal with it. It just means there'd be that a little less fun balance. Yeah. Okay, so we'll proceed with the postcards with the edit that hammer suggested. I don't think sorry, at some point on the agenda, this was a separate business item. I don't think it is. I'm seeing and hearing consensus. I don't think we need a formal vote on proceeding. I would agree we've already I believe we've had like agreed to allocate money for this purpose. In general, and so yeah, no, it's you're asking whether to use the money that's already there and you're seeking feedback on the card. So no. Great. And you know, I just these can sorry. These continue to be some ideas for the future, but I think we heard again at the select board meeting last night, the citizens speak out that the chat options are a good informal way less formal way for people to participate. So I do think, you know, as we get a little bit further, so maybe have a little bit more meat to talk about that these might be some strategies to use this summer for you all to one or two of you to host a chat somewhat regularly over the summer months. I would agree. And I think that we should do something similar to what I know the select board and the trustees did as well. A little bit few years ago during the budget time of having a schedule and agreement as to who's doing what and when. And now that the legislative session has come to a close, the the Essex legislators coffee chat time would also then be available, which I know from the reasonably well attended. So we could piggyback on their already created idea. Great. So that's it for me. And the next the last piece is to turn it over to Elaine. Hi, everybody, thanks for having me. I appreciate the time. And thank you, Brad, for all of the work that you're doing to hurt all of the various cats. So you're doing a lot of great work from. Thank you so much for that. So I'm here to tell you about our village, our voices. That is the name of this citizen led volunteer group that has sprung up to talk to the community about separation. And we are a group of four people that we're all neighbors, friends of the village live in the village. Myself, Gabrielle Smith, Elise Serda and Bridget Meier. We have been working together on some planning and where we've begun outreach to volunteers. And so I'll talk a little bit about that as well. But I want to emphasize, though, that we are not a government entity. We're not, you know, directly affiliated with the trustees. We're not working directly with the trustees. We're not working on the charter. And we're not working on advocating for a specific way to separate, but just on the desire to separate that was indicated by the voters in April. We're moving very slowly and intentionally at this moment. It's an early stage and it takes time to set up the tools we plan to use, like website and the website content, social media platforms and plans, villagers, a volunteer system for all of our villagers and a schedule of events. So we want to ensure that we've laid the groundwork thoroughly so that we're ready for all of the volunteers that we're anticipating. And we will have three primary ways that volunteers, residents can volunteer to participate. Events, community outreach and communications. So we've done a preliminary call for volunteers who have directly indicated a desire for help to help us. And we'll be holding two video orientations for these volunteers in the next week to gather their input and begin planning events. And we'll have a recording of the orientation available for those volunteers who can't make a live meeting. We will have events throughout the summer to bring village residents together to celebrate our community. And those events will also be outreach and education opportunities. We hope to build to have our first event in June. And we plan to engage village neighborhoods, community groups and committees to keep them continually informed and to hear their questions and ideas and bring answers back to them. Village residents will be able to communicate with us online with a moderated Facebook page and an informative website. We will invite community leaders to answer questions with factual information that can be found on the website. The website will also contain links to essential information on the village site, including official documents, meeting minutes and other essential official information. But we will amplify the work of the trustees, not duplicate it. We will assist in keeping residents informed of what you are doing and of the timeline for the charter vote. And we will share facts about the village and the new charter to assist residents in understanding what's being voted on in November. And we will include a get out the vote effort in our work and we'll be offering opportunities to register voters whenever possible. And so I'm going to put in the chat some email addresses that people can contact us at if they want to participate in any way or ask a question or whatever. So I'm going to paste that in there right now. And folks should stay tuned for more information. We'll be we'll be announcing the launch of the website very soon. We'll be announcing we'll be launching our Facebook page very soon and there will be lots and lots of opportunities to volunteer. So whether you are somebody who wants to be a social media person or you want to be at events setting up chairs or selling popcorn or walking around with a clipboard in your neighborhood talking to your neighbors, there's going to be a role for you. And that is the gist of what we're doing. And I would be happy to answer any questions. And again, I thank you for the opportunity for us to do this for the community. Well, Lane, I know I greatly appreciate you and the rest of the group in doing this, especially the outreach side and helping to amplify what is happening here. We really do I really do appreciate that. In terms of questions, the ones that I already had planned, you already answered. So I don't have any. And I don't know what their trustees do. I don't have questions and I'm just excited about it. I think it's a great sound that you're really doing a good job organizing it. I think it's really going to be interesting to see the kind of feedback you get. So I hope this is an ongoing conversation because I would like to know what's on people's minds so that and what are some of the key questions so that we can answer those questions and then get that information back out there. We do expect to receive lots of questions and some of them are going to be technical and we're going to send them directly to you for those kinds of things because we don't want to confuse people with, you know, a new group giving out information about separation. That's your job and you are the charter writers. And so we want the answers to come directly from you. So you'll hear from us about that. But we're also actively looking for people's thoughts about their vision for the city of S-Extension, what they want to do in the future, what they're excited about, what they love about our community. We want to make sure that this is positive and fun, as well as informative. Elaine, I think you were too well prepared. How could you tell? Could you see the eyes going back and forth while I was reading? No, no. Just sitting here like, great, which I had a good question for you. I'm just really excited about it and looking forward to having this kick off. So thank you so much. You're welcome. And thank you very much and we'll be in touch. Absolutely. Thank you, Elaine. That's it on the work session, I think, Andrew. Great. I just need to find our agenda. As always, thank you so much for helping to shepherd us through this. Problem. And so we are now at Agenda Item 5B, a discussion possible action on the July 4th fireworks permit at Champlain Valley Expo. Yeah, so we, you know, in light of everything that is changing and anticipated changes coming up, we would like to host our annual village July 4th fireworks and community celebration. We constantly evaluating, you know, how to best accomplish that. And in light of, you know, we're coming off from 15 months of a pandemic. And also, you know, over time, we've seen that having that celebration here at Maple Street Park, while we absolutely love it, has become more and more challenging as it's become more and more popular. And so we wanted to move that event this year over to CVE. They fortunately don't have fortunate for us. They don't have any other scheduled events. They are happy to partner with us. They are not charging us for the use of their grounds other than any direct costs that we cause. And so I think it's a great opportunity. We would be on the midway lawn. We would just like normal start at six o'clock. We'll have all sorts of activities and events. We'll have a band. There'll be food available for purchase. And the fireworks will go off at 9 30. And I don't think fireworks permits typically become before the board. But given that there's been conversation historically about fireworks being over at CVE, I think we all wanted to make sure that it was formally discussed and approved. And so that's the question before you. Thank you, Brad. I do appreciate that. Um. I from my perspective, it seems like this is just a change of location, which makes a whole host of sense, not given just the pandemic, but having also participated in the past few years of this event, I would also say that having some additional space would be nice. Not to say I don't enjoy seeing many of my friends, neighbors, uh, out and about, but a little extra shoulder room would be nice. Yeah, yeah, and I'm very appreciative of CVE for being willing to to to be a part of this. Go ahead, Amber. I was just share, um, that I did reach out to, uh, Chief Kaborio to ask him some questions, just because my had some concerns about the weather and how dry it's been, um, and whether the the I know that the chief does sign off on the permit and he hadn't signed off on the permit when we got this in our packet, and he has indicated to me that since that he has signed on it. Um, but he's he's assured me that the fire department is prepared. They will have, um. They will have some trucks at the, uh, at CVE and there should be no concerns about, um, the weather, even though it is dry. So I just wanted to share that with folks in case anybody else was having the same, um, thoughts that I were, especially since this is my backyard. Appreciate that. Any other trustees have questions, comments, concerns? Yeah, along with the fire department, the police department is on board with everything as far as security. I mean, it's unlike the village property this is the CVE, right? Make sure it brings culture. It's the two A or Lincoln Street, whatever, in case as well as 15 girl. Yeah, well, we're going to have all those conversations. Um, um, Deputy Chief Kissinger has been and involved, and they are very excited for us to relocate to the fairgrounds. Yeah, through everybody, the fairgrounds is a lot. We're used to events there. We know how to do traffic control. We know how they have all the parking you need inside. When we were doing it next to 75 Maple, it tends to clog the streets because people just start parking everywhere. And then after the event, you have 3 to 5000 people who all try to leave at the same time. Um, and that clogs the streets. So CVE for this particular year is a preferred location and in the future, if it works out well, which we assume it will, we would like to continue talking to them. They just have trouble giving updates where they could do concerts, but usually about 60 days in advance. They know whether they are available on the 4th or some other day. Sounds good. Amber, which port should we direct a shell or a sparklet? Should you just put actually going to send Van Halen over to your house? So. Is he is not going to be happy? Right, trustees would someone like to make the motion? I don't want that cat to be mad. It'd be. Yeah, I have to summon up the motion here. Here I've got it right here. I'll make them. I'll make the motion that the trustee support the fireworks and community activities for this July 4th to take place at the Champlain Valley Exposition and advise a municipal manager to sign the fireworks permit. I'll second. Thank you, George. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Thank you. Pass unanimously. Great, thank you. Thank you, bro again. Thanks, Brad. Alright, finding my agenda. I know we've got Jim Jutris here with us. Now he's got to know what we're talking about. Business item five C to consider the approval of supplemental grant funding through yet. Hi, Jim. Jim, I can't hear you for some reason. Not sure if that's just me. Got nothing from you. How about now? Oh, there we go. Okay. Secondary control. Alright, thank you for having me tonight. What we have are two items before you. One is a specific request and another is a conceptual request as a next stage for the Vermont Agriculture Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets Vermont Phosphorus Innovation Challenge. You folks have generally generously supported the grant program that we've been working with UVM on and developing a process to address some of our phosphorus issues and phosphorus recycle control problems at the wastewater facility. And we've been invited to apply for one final grant to complete the project and develop a mobile facility that can be used both temporarily at other facilities. Moved around on the extinction site and provide the basis for permanent installation if we choose to do so. So what I presented to you tonight was a grant request, a budget in round numbers for the budget would be 300,000 with 150,000 match from the village. The numbers in the presented budget are a little bit less than that, but we're still refining those numbers to make sure we have everything covered. Okay. One of the items actually in there is for some UVM fees for the spring semester, which is now concluded. So it'll be in arrears and that money could possibly come from the outstanding funds available from the last grant that you approve for us. So again, the intent is to wrap this thing up by December 31st. And that's what this request is for. And we need to get in before the end of the fiscal year for the state fiscal year so they can assign funds to the project. Okay, so that's a request for the grant. One difference in the past, the village has been the matching source and UVM has been the grantee. But in this case, the village would become the grantee as well as the matching funding source. The reason for that, we're going to be procuring some equipment that would be mobile. And to do that within UVM is very, very cumbersome to get that through the process for purchasing and the ability to use it offsite doing what we propose to do with it. So in this case, we would utilize the UVM students, grad students, laboratories and many of their operations. But we would be the sole actor active person for both the grant as as well as the matching funds. Okay, one other item that's pertinent, but I'm not specifically requesting any action on tonight. As you know, we're in the business of running a municipality not running business to do phosphorus treatment or anything else. And part of our discussions with UVM this morning were on how to proceed to develop something that might be marketable, assailable with the revenues coming back to the parties that helped develop it. And in that discussion, it was presented that we might be better off forming a business as a joint venture that could become a saleable item. Patents have been applied for and some supplemental patents will be applied for in the coming days. That'll protect the interest of all parties. And we will have some formal documents for both staff, attorney and board of trustee review on how revenues could possibly be shared from such an item. There are grants out there. One in particular I noted in the memo was America Seed Funds, which is a National Science Foundation grant program where we could actually apply to have the market feasibility and all the marketing trademark and final patent work potentially developed through this grant at nearly 100% coverage. But in order to apply for that grant, we would have to form a company in advance of the application. So we need to definitely look into this in greater detail with the village attorney to determine just what we could do within our legal limits and within the charter limits. So again, that's a thing to come. But I think it's important to point it out now so you have a bigger picture on how we can wrap this thing up and get some return on investment back to the community, not just in operational savings. Okay, so with that, I don't know if you have any questions you'd like to ask or any discussion like to have with me. Jim, I think that this is just yet another example as to why the facility that you run is such an award winning facility. But the idea, I mean, the innovation that comes from from you, your staff and our partners just continuously blows my mind. This opportunity sounds wonderful, happy to be a part of it in any way that we can that makes sense. Well, thank you very much. So that's very nice to say. And it's been outstanding that you've supported these ideas. These ideas all came out of being told that on a request from a manufacturer that we were too small and they weren't interested in us finding solutions is essentially the thing. So we did. And we're hoping with what we found here and discovered by this preliminary research and the way the patents are filed that these national manufacturers that turned us down would interest in us now because it will enhance their process. Great. That sounds lovely. I mean, what better way to say haha than to have them buy you out or to the benefit of the community? Absolutely. Fantastic. Yeah, we just have to find that way now and we are working on it. So with your approval and approval, we'll bring those documents forward to the attorney to ever start looking at it. Yeah. Trustees, any questions, comments? Not fantastic. I think it's really exciting. Yep. Yep. And then. Go ahead, Roche. No, no, it's great. Just gonna say hearing no, no other questions, comments, concerns if one of the trustees had the memo up and wanted to make the motion. I would so entertain it right here or whatever. I move that the trustees authorize the unified manager to sign the V a F F M grant documents for the project for a project total of $300,000 to fund the final phase of the P H L O project and to further authorize the match funds in the amount of $150,000 to be able out of the wastewater facility capital account. Any supplemental project support funds secured in the village name are to be returned to the wastewater treatment fund capital fund or treatment facility capital, I should say. Second, thank you, Dan, and thank you, Amber. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Everybody opposed? Pass unanimously. Jim again. Thank you as always. Support of this. Thank you, Jim. The operations in general. We really appreciate it. Yeah, well, these these help to help to keep us safe, healthy, so on and so forth. We're not just today, but for years to come. So really appreciate it. Thank you. I keep saying the facility. As efficient as we can. Thank you, Jim. Right. So now the next item is going to be one that we discuss in executive session. And so going into our agenda changes that we made, the next one is what is listed on our Consent Agenda as 6C, the Jenner County Regional Planning Commissions Committee and Board Appointments. And I asked to have this pulled out. Evan, I was under the impression that there was somebody else who was interested in my seat, that I am happy to relinquish. And as such, I think it would be more appropriate again, though, to have that moved to a subsequent meeting so that we could interview the individual as similar to what we would do with the other appointments. But not seeing that person's name on here. I also don't know something changed and I don't know of. OK, I don't like to know for the next meeting. Yeah, we'll we'll put it on for the next agenda. OK, I appreciate that. So we move on. One other thing that I just wanted to note is that the memo from the CCRPC requested that we have an alternate as well. And it doesn't look like we have an alternate for the TAC. So I don't know if we want to think about who that would be when we also have that discussion the next time, unless I'm missing something. But it looks like it's just Robin and then no alternate. I think there are a few other names out there. I'd have to confirm with Linda. So yeah, let's just make sure we have all that that's right and we'll get that for you for the next time. OK, I appreciate it. And typically with the the Transportation Advisory Committee and the Clean Water Advisory Committee, those are not ones that we we interview their staff members who attend those. They have a professional expertise that none of I'm going to say I don't have in a stone or make an assumption the rest of us don't. But I think I can. So for those we typically don't interview or put those out. So that's the end of it. Anybody else have anything on that agenda item? Good. OK. And so then we were going to go to what is listed within our agenda as 6 J. Which is a check warrant and. Evan, you were we wanted to remove. Yeah, we wanted. Yeah, one seven two five one. But specifically item three seven six eight zero. Everything else is good to go. Great. I think just one minor change. I think that's the vendor number that you read off. You want to you want check number three four zero five five. OK. That's the one and then we're at just that one. Everything else in the that was in the consent is good to go. And then this will come back at your next meeting. If necessary. OK, so four six J would someone like to make a motion to approve up the check warrants as amended? As amended. I'll move. Thank you, George and Dan. How about Dan that one? All those in favor or is any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone oppose? Great past unanimously. And so now I think we're at the place where we're approving everything else on the consent agenda and so for those following along that would be six. What is currently listed as 6A. 6G 6H and 6I. I'm over here. Prove the consent agenda remaining our items. Second second. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Amber. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. So pass it in again. Thank you all. Into the reading file and board member comments. We haven't talked in a while. Is there anything anybody wanted to discuss? Not at this point. Well, I guess just throw a congratulations out to Mernie Flurry. Oh, yeah, for the 2021 GMEA Vermont Operator Excellence and Wastewater Award. That's pretty cool. Yep. And to and Kastandi for the Bob Young Professional Award. From the Green Mountain Water Environment Association. Yeah, felt like those should be verbalized in our meeting to recognize them. Absolutely. I appreciate you doing that, Raj. As again, we have some fantastic employees here who do not only great work, but continuously do fantastic work for the residents of our community. Ever thankful to them for doing it. So thank you for making sure that we verbalize that. Evan, I see that you have your hand up. Yeah, just a couple of things. This coming Monday is Memorial Day. Unfortunately, because of COVID and planning, we are not they're not doing the Memorial Day way. But nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that Monday is Memorial Day and we have a Memorial in our town in the Village Five Corners for the people that have served their country. So I'm sorry that there won't be the parade, but your service is not forgotten and the sacrifice of your families. Second, before your next Village Board meeting, our village buildings are going to start being opened. They have been closed for the better part of 12 to 13, 14 months to the public or by appointment. We are trying to do a slower opening in the libraries. They have to realize that all people are in different places of vaccinations or not being vaccinated or children who are under the age of 12 who may not be vaccinated. So we're trying to keep the employees safe or as safe as possible. So probably by the time you have your next meeting, all of our buildings will have been reopened safely. And we will be working through some of the oddities of many different types of operations of a village. So if you can imagine, the recreation department operates different than the library, which operates different than the clerks or the community development department. So but we are getting back to work. We are also looking at instituting a remote work policy that is going to allow people that through their department, their department head and the village manager to work out a interim work schedule and try to address that with the spacing and the work that we have learned to do very well during this pandemic. A few things got a little wonky like every once in a while the agenda or a link. But in general, the rest of the work got done, got done well. And a lot of our employees do not live in Essex Junction or in the town of Essex. They have commutes. And if this helps them get through the next period of time where they're not quite sure where their kids are going to school or are they going today or not, we're happy to try it out and see if it's working. So that's what I had for all of you and happy to take any questions. I appreciate that, Evan. I think that given where we are, one of the biggest lessons learned has been that remote work really is capable in so many industries that it wasn't previously. I think that makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint as well as just a human resource standpoint and a good employee employer relationship standpoint. So I appreciate that. And one last thing. We are working with town TV on hybrid meetings. We are in the midst of purchasing equipment for the rooms. The one of the main things is while you guys are on your computers and you have a microphone and you have a camera and it goes directly into the feed. If someone is in our audience, that's an interface that has to be created because they won't necessarily speak into a laptop. And so Greg and town TV and Rob Paluba, our I.T. director are working on that. So while we don't think it will be available in July, it very well could be available this August as the board is aware. Attendance is way up now that we have gone to online meetings. There are people who do want to show up in person though, but attendance is way up and we have heard from a lot of people including the equity and inclusion committee that this is a way for people of all walks of life, whether they want to join for five minutes or the two hours, maybe they're bouncing the kid on their knee or feeding them or getting the kids ready for bed or whatever time they have, they can hop into the meeting. And so we're seeing it and so we're very intrigued with going forward with a hybrid in person and virtual meeting to at least try starting August ish if we can get the installation done. That's great. Looking forward to that. So. Trustees, anything else? No, I just had Andrew that as we come out of COVID, I want to also commend Evan for doing a fantastic job. I you really did a just masterminding all of these little parks and getting us through this very safely was magnificent and you were in the background pulling all these all these pieces together and as we're coming out of it, I want to just make make a point of saying what a great what a great job you did. I appreciate that, but it was a huge team effort. All the department heads, all the deputy manager, the assistant manager, Tammy, Linda, everybody, but thank you. And a big shout out to Chief Hogue. He he is he is fantastic. And between him and Travis, everything that went on, but thank you and the board support because it's not it wasn't easy to just close our buildings. We really want to be there in person for the public, but we also wanted to keep them safe, but I appreciate the comment and it's a great team effort. And I again, I don't want to be a negative guy and I don't think it's quite over yet, but hopefully it is tamped down and manageable. Yeah, hopefully everybody came out safe, family members and those who did get affected and have long haul issues. I hope you do get better. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for your support. So with no other questions or comments from the trustees before we get ready for the executive session, I'm noticing that I don't have a link to the to the executive session. It was emailed about 15 minutes ago. You got it? Yeah, I got it. OK, I appreciate that. Also being your calendar and teams. Yeah, I didn't have my email open, so thank you for that. Do not have your email open. I will go ahead and I will make a motion that the trustees make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the villages position concerning ongoing contract negotiations and labor relations agreements with employees would place a village at a substantial disadvantage. Could I get a second for that motion? Second, thank you, Raj. Any further discussion? Hearing none of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Great, so just so you know that the negotiating team will that for the village will be in that will be Travis. And I. A couple other the members will be there if and to answer any questions I see the positions in the second motion here. So I move the trustees enter into executive session to discuss contracts and labor relations agreements with employees pursuant to one VSA section 313 a one a and one VSA section 313 a one B to include the unified manager, deputy manager, HRP director, assistant manager and HR director. Second, thank you, Amber. Any further discussion? Hearing none of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, and I do believe we may be coming back after. Okay. So it's going to take us a little while. I don't know when exactly we will be back. Kathy, I was just going to say I think you were going to have a question about whether to stick around or not. Yeah, who would like to volunteer to give me some some notes at the end, unless there's going to be a significant discussion at the end that I should be part of? No, I don't force either being a significant discussion at the end. I think that we'll arm wrestle virtually to figure out who's going to send you the info. And we'll videotape that. Have a nice evening everybody. You as well, Kathy. Thank you all. All right. I see the board is packed. Does anybody have the motion up? I do not. Do. Looks like an ambulance. I do. You got it? I thought that's what you were grabbing. Huh? I thought that's what you were grabbing and looking at. Yeah, I was actually. So I guess I could do. I move that the trustees authorize the Unified Manager to execute a contract with the Yes, Extinction Employee Association for 2021-2024. Second. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Dan. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed. Great. So that passed unanimously with no other business tonight. Would someone like to make a motion to adjourn? So do we need there was a second? There was a second motion on our agenda here. So I don't know if we need that one or not. For beavers. Everyone talked about a pension of details. Yes, that is that is needed. Yeah, so what? So then I move that the trustees authorize the Vermont Municipal Employees Retirement System. Beavers Group C effective on October 1st, 2021 for all eligible village of S Extinction Employees, both within the S Extinction Employee Association and outside of the S Extinction Employee Association. Our second. Thank you, Amber. And thank you, George. Any further discussion on that much needed motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Great. So that passed unanimously. And now would someone like to make a motion? Thank you, Dan. Second. Thank you, Raj. Any further discussion on adjourning? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Too bad that didn't pass or that passed. Second long. You have a relaxed pooch behind you there. It's a late night, another late night. Yeah. All right. Good night, guys. Have a good night, everybody.