 Mike, you ready? You know what? I'm wondering if that's helpful. Eighth graders? Because we have so many people right on here. Okay, we'll leave you for this. I'll open the meeting and then we're going to... As you know. Okay. Okay. Thanks. As soon as possible. Oh, am I moving? Yeah. Well, no. You can stay there. I think Andrew Dan and I are going to move. Is everyone ready? Mike, you ready? Good. Okay. Welcome to the Essex Junction Trustees Meeting. Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And we have a nice special event before the other proceedings of the night. We have Amanda Eldridge's class from Albert Lawton School. They have a, I said, a year long or semester long governance project? Two weeks. Two weeks. Well, basically, it's going to be more than two weeks because I recognize most of these faces and I was there about half a year ago. So it's been going on for more than two weeks. But they must be real experts. They were pretty smart back then, so they must really know what they're doing now. You're going to find out. Okay. So what I thought what we would do is we would allow the presenters to come up here and the three of us, Trustee Karen and Trustee Andrew Brown and I would go sit in the audience. Is that okay? That's great. Okay, great. Thanks. Good to see you guys and welcome. Thank you. Just to give everybody a little bit. I'm sorry, Amanda. And for everybody other than the eighth graders, if you haven't signed in, could you please do so? Thank you. Just to make sure everybody has a little bit of background in the project. I teach eighth grade this year and our eighth grade curriculum is U.S. History. And so every year we try to focus on specific aspects of civics in some way. This year we examined local government in particular and we looked at the district-wide standard expectation of I can explain how individuals and groups have brought about local change. So we really honed in on that topic and Brad was fortunate, I was fortunate that Brad was able to blend his expertise and his assistance in the classroom. We started this project in December. We had two weeks where we really did focus in on local government and specifically in Essex Junction. We started with the concept of representative democracy and what that means. And we had just finished studying the American Revolution and how our founding fathers were tasked with the huge obstacle of trying to design a brand new government. And so it seemed like it was a really good fit. Students worked really hard in a very short and condensed period of time. This was a survey of what could have been a much longer and more in-depth class for sure. It's easily a semester or a year long course in high school or college. But we just skimmed the surface and got an introduction to some of these really important concepts. We started by looking at various levels of government, so local, state, and national and some of the similarities between them. And then we explored the history of Essex in particular so that we could understand a little bit about the history of the community that we live in. After that, students were presented with a hypothetical scenario. So we said to them, you're on a committee in charge of designing the best governing structure for a newly combined Essex Junction and Essex Town. Much like the founding fathers, you'll need to do some research, gather data, and come up with a proposal that creates a government structure that meets the following goal. To do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. So that was the sort of foundational information that they were given. And they had to answer the question. If there was one governance structure in Essex that factored in the history of our community, provided good governance based on a set of principles and could be passed by voters in this community, what do you think it would be? That was their question. And as we know, that's been an ongoing question. Students were broken into groups. They researched six different municipalities around the state of Vermont to collect data and then came back together in teams to design an answer to that question. They surveyed council members in those municipalities. They interviewed the chief administrative officer in each of those. They invited guests and panelists. Many of you were there with us, and we thank you for that. And they interviewed parents and community members to gather that data that they then drew from when designing their government. And this was a pretty complex task that we were asking the students to do. So at first, they looked at eight different sources of good governance principles, and they all read some different data and came back and discussed as a group what are some principles of good governance that we could try and structure this government after. They'll be sharing with you some of the principles they chose, things like transparency, things like equity, things participation. Those are just three of the examples of probably about 12 or 15 different principles that they had to select from. And so they worked with their classmates to make these selections. Their next task was to really design a governance structure that would support and meet these good governance principles. So if you think about that, it's really a pretty difficult task, right? We're trying to figure out how we can do transparency, equity, and participation in terms of our structure of our government. So it's a pretty big challenge that we asked of them. In terms of structure, we asked them to look at four components. First, the form of government. So a council manager system, a council mayor system, or a council week mayor manager system. In that case, just in case folks are wondering, is one in which a mayor is elected but doesn't serve as the chief operating officer, a chief administrative officer. They're just an elected person. The election system we asked them to examine. And so when we talked about election systems, we asked them to consider whether the counselors are elected at large or through districts or awards or some combination of that system. We asked them to look at the number of counselors. And so we looked at communities that have five elected members, like both of our communities here, and some communities that had up to 12 elected officials. And then we also wanted them to look at the length of term. And so the communities that we were examining had two or three year length of terms for their counselors or their mayors. The six communities we looked at, we tried to pick the communities that had a decent size population because I think it's pretty challenging to sometimes compare. Unfortunately, a lot of the village and town structures throughout Vermont are in communities that have really small populations, which makes it a little bit difficult to translate that information. So the communities we looked at, the smallest one had a population of 7,800 and the largest being Brunt in the 42,000. We looked at six communities. Two of each of the communities had one of the different forms of government. So two had a council manager system, two had a weak mayor council manager system, and two had a council mayor system. There was a mixture of election systems in terms of at large versus districts and awards, a mixture of the number of counselors ranging from five to 12 and term lengths of two to three. So ultimately, at the end of the day, after all the readings, survey results, interviews, discussions, they needed to pick the government structure that provided the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that's what they're going to present to you today. We have three presentations. So these are the three different students, and some of the students are representing their groups who are unable to be here. Each presentation is roughly five to eight, maybe a little bit longer, and it's in length. And then we ask that you wait until all the presentations are finished. So if you want to jot down about two questions per group, we can take questions at the end. The students are anticipating that, so they're prepared for that. We just ask that you keep in mind a couple of things. This was an intensive, and I say it was a two-week long, because this is the time that we spent that we had to focus on this project in itself. But we've been studying civics and civic engagement all year. They could have easily spent more time on this. They did an amazing job, but it was just an introduction. The second thing is that this project was six months ago that they wrapped it up. So since that time, they've been actively engaged in other projects, including the recent citizenship project, that they all had to do 10 hours of community service. And that's been demanding all of their attention, so I'm really proud of them for being willing to dust off their knowledge about this and come here tonight. But just please keep those two things in mind. All right, so I'll introduce our first group, Kaito, Alina, and Faye. Hello, everybody. This is Alina Hurdle, and this is Faye Alota. And we're here tonight to present to you our ideas of good governance. So first, we have our principles of good governance. We have participation, transparency, and equity. We chose the principle of participation because in order for the community to be happy, we feel like everybody's voice needs to be heard. We chose transparency because it gives news to everybody, and it helps the community know why the decisions that are being made are being made. And lastly, we chose equity because everybody needs different tools to get the same level of services and other things like that. So what we had to learn about was the different types of government structures, the form of government, council mayor and council manager systems. The council mayor where both the manager and the council are elected, and the council manager where the council is elected, and then they hire the manager. Also the two election systems at large versus districts and wards. And at large means like everybody in the community has the chance to become a trustee or part of the select board, whereas in the districts and wards, people from those certain districts or wards also have that same chance. And also we had to talk about the number of councillors that we felt would be the best decision for the community and also the term length. The form of government that our group chose was the council manager type of government, which is where the voters look at the council and in turn the council hires the chief administrative officer. We chose this because the council and the manager can work together to achieve goals that benefit the community. Whereas if we had a council mayor form of government, the council would be working behind the feeder head or the mayor. There will also be a good relationship between the council and the public and because of this, the public will know what's going on so that everybody's needs will be met, which meets our principles that we talked about earlier. There are many pros and cons in the system of government. A pro is that the chief administrative officer may have more experience in government because they are being vetted by the council. And another pro would be that there would be consistency in government because the chief administrative officer could keep going instead of having to restart every single time like a mayor would be elected. And then a con would be that the chief administrative officer may not be the person that the general public want because the council would be hiring or electing the mayor or the chief administrative officer. When tasked with choosing the election system, we were caught between in that large system in a district in Ward 1. Recognizing the pros and cons of each one of these, we decided a kind of mix of both. We decided to leave the village as its own district and that the rest of the town outside of the village would be another one. Each of these two districts would have three councillors each. But one of the most prominent concerns about a district in Ward system was that a divide would grow between the districts. So we added three more councillors who would be voted at large to create a sense of unity as their priority would be the town as a whole instead of just their specific district. So to summarize, we had a total of two districts each with three councillors and then three councillors voted at large for a total of nine councillors. If the village and the town would emerge and we were to agree on one government system, we suggest that there be a total of nine elected officials. We researched that together these municipalities have an estimated population of almost 20,000 people. This divided by nine officials results in each one person representing approximately 2,200 citizens. One survey found that the current town board members and village trustees suggested between seven and nine people and we favored the greater end of that scale with the idea of participation in mind. A clear pro to a large amount of people is that more voices are heard and there's a greater chance that minority groups are represented. Although this might not necessarily be the case, it creates the opportunity for such. And either way, the population, the specific individual is representing, will be focused and less difficult to manage. This makes the job itself more approachable to those interested in bettering our local government. Regarding our second principle of transparency, the job is available to a larger pool of applicants causing the decision making process to become more clear and understandable to the average citizen. With the general population aware of this system, we recognize what regulations need to be followed and when they're being neglected, aiding us as a society in our never ending battle against corruption. Finally, we look at equity with the theoretically diverse group of people with different experiences and backgrounds we hope to attract. The board will be more knowledgeable about contrasting groups and what they need in order to be given the same opportunities as everyone else. With this knowledge, they're also responsible for looking at the overall picture for the growth of not only the people they're responsible for, but for assets as a whole. We recognize that with non-officials, it will be difficult to make decisions and consensus won't be reached as quickly, but the policies implemented would be carefully examined and there's a greater guarantee that those policies advance the community. All in all, we think that the pros outweigh the talents. So for our term length, we chose to create a hybrid of two and three year term lengths. Since we have a mix of out large and districts, we chose to have the counselors that are elected at large have three year terms and the ones that are elected by their district have two year terms. For three year terms, the officials are more likely to focus on their work instead of being worried about their next campaign. Advantages of longer terms are that the council can get a lot done and do complex projects. We acknowledge that there are disadvantages, such as they might not focus on one single project. One advantage of shorter terms is that they have to be focused, be efficient and a disadvantage is that they may not have enough time to get projects finished. The shorter term officials would bring in new people every two years and that leads to more people understanding how the government works. Thank you for listening. So my group decided on three good governance principles that guided our work. This is an image that I thought was inspiring as we were going through our project. Governance was really important that it got rid of all the bad things in the community and this just shows one which is corruption. So our first principle is transparency. And transparency means it's the government's obligation to share information with the citizens and this is really important because if there is a low transparency or no transparency at all, laws can be passed without the citizens knowing about it and then it could all happen behind closed doors and then the citizens in the community would get out of hand because the citizens wouldn't know what's going on and then they could start things like an uprising. And this is crucial in order to have good governance because the citizens need to be involved in the community and what actions are being taken to better it. And it's important that everyone is involved. Our second principle was equity. Something that's really important that people get confused a lot is equality versus equity. And so equality is giving everyone the same tools to get something done or to learn about something but equity is giving everyone the tools they need to get to the same level. And this is important in a governance structure because we need to be able to make sure that everyone has access to the tools that they need to get to the knowledge about the community and the government so that they can all be involved in things like voting. And we can use this to create the very best structure by allowing people to have the tools that they need and access to knowing and learning more about the community so they can make more educational and informed decisions in the future. And so I'm going to pass around this photo that shows the differences between equality and equity. So the last principle that we decided to base our ideas off of was responsiveness. And it's really important that when you respond, you want to do it quickly, safely, and positively. And this is important because you want to be able to do it positively without you making your responsiveness being overly busy. And this is important because if you're trying to respond to this problem, that problem in the community and trying to fix things, it could be going all over and being all jumbled up. And no projects could be getting done and people could be getting off track. And this is really important because in a community we need to have things to be able to flow and we don't want it all here and there and jumbled up. So for the form of government, we chose a council manager system of government. So this means that the voters elect counselors who then hire a city manager who then hires department heads. So this helps transparency because we think that people need to know what is going on so they can elect the people that will represent them best and make the best decisions on the town manager. This can increase equity because the voters can elect counselors that will be able to best help them and give them the tools that they need to get them to a base level understanding of their local government. By having this simple yet deep understanding of their counselors, they can help them by responding to the issues, by speaking out about them and making motions to help get things fixed. Some pros and cons of a council manager system are that decisions are based upon good judgment and experience. So the people that they're electing to the council have more experience and know a lot more than the average citizen about government because they have studied it and they obviously got elected to the council for a reason. So they're going to make the most educated and informed decision on any manager. And the council also knows best what the people in the area need. But some cons of this is that people don't have a direct say in the decision. So they elect the people on the council but then the council decides who is going to be the town manager on their own. And the Board of Trustees also is in a full-time job. So the counselors might not spend as much time on their decision and focusing as they might on their regular day job. The Board of Trustees is in a full-time job. So we have chosen this election system which is at-large and districts and wards. We have chosen three at-large counselors which would be elected by Essex Village and Essex Town and four district counselors. Two would be elected to represent Essex Town and two would be elected to represent the village. By having a hybrid system of at-large and district wards we can have pros from both groups to minimize the cons of both of the systems. This increases transparency by having less people to focus on and to get to know the representatives on a local level instead of a formal level, just knowing their names and seeing on a piece of paper and be like, oh, that's our counselor rather than being able to interact with them more. Equity is increased with district counselors by giving voters what they need to succeed so the district counselors would be able to focus more on their district and then the at-large would be able to reinforce what the district was for what the district was able to put through for everyone in the village and the town. And it would give them a fair understanding of all the members. Responsiveness is also increased because district counselors can quickly respond to issues in the community and report these to the full council. Then from there, they can solve more problems at once. So if there's a certain problem in just one of the districts in the village or the town, those district counselors can solve it faster and quicker instead of bringing it to the full council. And the at-large members can use their job since they're elected at-large to represent both of the districts. They can identify problems that needs to be fixed in both the districts and the community as a whole so then they can bring that to the full council. And when the district leaders are taking less time to bring just certain district problems to the entire council, more things can get done. Some pros and cons of an at-large system are that everyone who votes has a voice and that the counselors, that best represent the community because they're based on popularity vote. But some cons are that there might be too many opinions in the people that are voted so there could be an imbalance in representation and their chaos could break out and voting and campaigning. Some pros and cons of district rewards are that there will be equal representation on both sides of the table and that different issues concerning only some of the districts can be dealt with and addressed separately, like I said before. But some cons are that it could potentially be more expensive and every district reward has to choose someone whether they're fit for the job or not. So if two people in the village are really fit for this job but only one person in the town is, they still have to pick two people which could potentially hurt the council. So my group chose to have seven counselors as opposed to the five we have now. But having seven counselors, this increases transparency because there are not too many people and our group decided to call it kind of the Goldilocks zone of the amount of elected officials because there weren't too many and there weren't too little. And this allows the voters to become more acquainted with the counselors because there's more of them and they can go to different places and become more acquainted with all of the voters. And this makes the voters know if they want to get re-elected, the counselors, they can know who they're voting for and they can know why they're voting for them. This also helps increase equity because it creates enough diversity to help everyone's individual needs and opportunities to succeed. So by having seven counselors, it increases the chances of more people being represented in the community and that they are given the tools that they need to be able to move forward in their lives and understanding what the government is which is really important. And having seven counselors also helps respond to this by having enough people in the community to understand what the voters want and need without having too many people and making the system disorganized. Also, these pros and cons have been coming from parents, educators, and community leaders that submitted data for us to study. So some pros of this system are that there can be more people to share the workload so by seven people you can have a better amount of each person having a little bit less work than the five now. And there could be a larger rainfall for ideas which would be the potential for more creativity. And this, by having seven people there could be a possibility of greater representation as I said before. More people could be represented and that could positively impact the community. But some cons could be that this could be bogged down in opinions, bureaucracy, and politics and it would be harder to reach consensus and it might take longer to make decisions just because there's seven as opposed to the five we have now. We have chosen a three year term like for everyone. This helps with the transparency of the local government because you have a better chance to build trust with your local counselors because there's a longer time for you to get to know them. This also helps increase equity because the counselors have a longer time to help people to get that base level understanding of local government procedures that I was talking about earlier. This also gives a lot more time for the counselors to be responsive. They have more time to respond to issues therefore producing a better and higher quality of work for the voters in the area. So some pros and cons of a three year term like are that there's more time to adjust and fully understand the job. So in your first year kind of learning about it in your second and third year you're able to fully carry out your responsibilities. And if you're a good counselor you'll be able to stay longer and by having a longer term like three years there's less change in policy and elected officials and usually if you're being elected again one or two people or even more might be elected again there could be those people who know about the policies and why they implemented them so there's not this back and forth of changing policies. And if with a one or two year term some people might always be in campaign mode so they might be able to focus on a project or two for a little but then oh I have to campaign again. So some cons of this three year term like are that they could have to hold on to ideas and get stuck on them if they're focusing on one thing, one thing after another. Someone's ideas or a few people's ideas might not get out and then it would be time to campaign again and you might not get reelected. So with a three year term like also it's longer you could run out of fresh new ideas where it might be going really good in the first two years than the third year people might be running out of ideas to help the community. And if you're a bad counselor and people didn't realize that you have to stay longer and the people would not like that. But hopefully since we're getting this equitable access of information to everyone in Dale, know who to vote for. So thank you so much for taking time out of your meeting today about our civic study and our gathered ideas from our data and it's greatly appreciated. My name is Matthew and this is my group's government structure that we came up with. So for our group's government principles we chose transparency, equity and participation. Those are the ones we decided to look at. So transparency is important for government because when they are transparent and they are open about what goes on people will trust them more and then they'll be willing to participate more which is our third option. And then for equity it's just a good idea to give people the tools they need and whether it takes more you might need to work more to give some people the tools they need than others then you should do it because this is a good way to balance your decisions off of the government. And if people don't participate the other principles just don't work. Some groups may have more power just because they participate more and that's just not good so we need everyone to participate in order for groups to be accurately represented. For our form of government we chose something a little different we chose a council manager system with a weak mayor, a figurehead mayor. So a weak mayor is like a mayor but the weak mayor doesn't have any power but is capable of representing the government at higher levels such as the state government being a figurehead, cutting ribbons at ceremonies and allowing and educating the public on goings on in the government. There is an independent, definitely openness to it in terms of participation because people are more people know a little more about mayors and the mayor system so people will become will be a little more familiar with that type of government if there's a mayor and they'll be more interested and if they're more familiar then they'll want to know more and the government would be more transparent to support that and more people will get what they need because more people will be wanting to get involved in the government because of the mayor. For our electric system we chose an at-large election system this is because ethics isn't very big and so in order for many people to be represented well and to have many choices for people well I'm excited that the mayor system would be best for that as in smaller districts there just wouldn't be as many choices and people could end now some conzo is that they could end up biased for one community but in a small enough community I don't feel that is a huge issue the system my group chose was seven council members because it is more than the current five and not it is an odd number meaning that for voting there can't be any ties and it's a you know there's a decent amount so that it'll provide accurate representation for different groups in our community here I have a couple of graphs actually I think they're pretty cool so the one on the top the one on the bottom shows on the x-axis there's the number of council members and on the y that's the percent number of those council members you need to pass a certain policy so if you have four council members you need 75% of those council members approval so this graph can be relevant because if you have two different political parties in a town and you have and there's only like four council members it wouldn't be that accurate of representation it would be really easily split and it could be a lot harder to get a policy to pass when you have to convince a whole other person but when you have more people such as six or seven that wouldn't be much of an issue because they would be more accurate and you'd be having easier time getting things to pass that the people would want to pass and on the graph on the top that's just the number of council members and then the number of council members six and seven council members you'd still need the same amount but seven provides more so you have more accurate representation and it's an odd number for no ties for term length I chose three-year term length because I know that with I know that with the governors here is they have like two year terms and I just don't really think that works there's just too much time devoted to campaigning and it works and it's really about the government is about it's not about competing it's about changing it's about running things and so people need time to be able to run things so some cons though would be that people may not have any new ideas probably not they could be harder to vote out there's a bad council member but the pros definitely are the pros in this situation thank you and at this time we'd like to be open to the question for all the groups so you looked at a bunch of towns and villages in Vermont other than Essex and Essex County which of course is the best place what other one did you like the most which one did you think was the best government any ideas? I would say Burlington because they're the most popular so I feel like they would have a bunch of participation okay anybody else? yeah I would probably say the ones that I looked at probably Montpelier because they had they had I don't know if it was exactly seven but they had around seven council members and a weak mayor system which is pretty much what I said in the presentation anybody else? no so each group talked about term lane for the council members did you talk about term limits and do you think there should be term limits on council I don't believe there should be term limits for things like this at a local level for councils because if someone is doing a good job then people will recognize that and if they keep being voted that's because they're doing good things and if they do happen to burn into a rough patch or run out of ideas then the voters will recognize that if they're being given the tools they need to access information about a local government and how it runs and they'll recognize that and not vote for them for their reelection again so I don't think there should be term limits at this level because if they're doing a good job then the voters will recognize that and keep voting for them anyone else? well to add on to what Elizabeth said well if I also agree that there should be no term limits because all of our council members are larger than what they are currently and still eventually you're going to run out of people I was running out of them now very good point two of the three groups chose participation as one of your principles what would you suggest are some really good ways to encourage increased participation? just maybe educating people more on how the government works and making people more aware that that exists I didn't even know that all the meetings happened in this building before things like that making them a little more advertised well so for participation when we surveyed councilors from other communities in Vermont and one comment that stuck out to me in particular was an idea that an at large voting system would help encourage participation and that is definitely a factor in why we chose to put it in our presentation this lesson civics study encouraged any of you to want to get more involved in your community or in the governance within AVL and high school I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to be like a councilor but it definitely encouraged me to make sure that I know I'm being educated like doing things like voting for councilors and just learning more about the government really helped me in the future so that I'll do my research before I just go blind and go like that sounds like a cool name good I think that after this project we did the citizenship project we were out in the community I think that since we said participation was one of the principles that was really important I think that really showed us that our community is really small but we all work together and come together and it just kind of helped me realize that even if I may seem I don't know a lot of people in our community it's small and we can come together through all of this if any of you maybe decided you might want a career in working in local government like a manager they don't have to be you know we have a lot of good jobs I mean finance planning ecology management personnel HR anybody or do you just want to be elected officials or just concerned citizens I think I just want to be able to participate more as a citizen because the government even with elections and things it's a lot of fun thanks oh so earlier we talked about the topic we touched on the topic of corruption within our society and it's definitely important to kind of participate and really understand what's going on in your society and as much as that's something I would love to do I'm also important so not even in high school I haven't really thought about it that much but it's something I'm definitely interested in and if I can just encourage you you might only be 14 but your voice is just as important as someone who is able to vote so keep that in mind and stay engaged and keep doing what you're doing it's great when you all graduate college will you come back and live here and be great citizens and participate well we want you to that's what I'm getting at we would love that stay with us I really come back here I think we will all keep this idea of good governance in mind and we will try to participate in our local government wherever we end up that's great just curious if you guys looked at town meeting and village meeting our budgets are approved at town meeting for the town and the village budget for the village meeting and do you have any opinion on whether that function of approving a budget at town meeting or having a budget approved by Australian ballot where it goes out to vote so that people don't have to be in attendance at town meeting they can vote if you're aware by absentee ballot so if somebody say they're going to be away or they're out of country or what have you in the military or what have you they still have a say on whether a budget is passed or approved do you have any opinion on that or do you guys look into that at all just to give you guys some context what was the number at village meeting how many attendance less than 200 less than 200 people were at village meeting understanding the question I think it's really important that absentee ballot and things like that go out because then you can get I didn't use participation but that's also really important for where I didn't use responsiveness because it can help these people absentee ballots is a way that the government responded to the fact that people can't always be at town meeting and just those numbers less than 200 we have like 20,000 in the combined village in town and that's not a lot of people so it's really important that you give the people the chance to vote and make their voice be heard and being equitable like giving everybody the tools they need to be able to to be able to be a part of their community and that's really important I have a question for you as we're embarking on this journey about consolidation and as we talk about a joint trustee and select board meeting having one community with one governing body from a process standpoint do you have any recommendations for us since you've already done this? I feel you it's hard I would say just when we did talking to other governments I would do that that seems like a really good idea and seeing what has worked in the past and what hasn't and putting it together just what we did on progress I think to just make it as transparent and honest with the community as open so that everybody is on the same level of knowledge as you are so that everybody knows so that they can give feedback and just have kind of work this out at multiple meetings like the EWSD when they were writing their vision statement they wrote a draft and then they sent it out a new thing at Fine Arts Night they redid it and just keep sending it out to the community and advertising that you are going to be sending it out and that it is out so that people can respond to that and give you feedback so that you can hear from the greatest amount of people and doing the greatest amount of good thank you that was excellent thank you okay we'll go back into session and first of all I think we need to know we didn't do agenda additions or changes do we have anything to add to the agenda any changes from what we have we do not so do I hear a motion to approve the agenda as it's presented so we don't have to okay no amendments so now anyone in the audience who has a question comment about something that's not on the agenda tonight okay okay so hearing none so we will then go on to I should have done this earlier in reverse order but my apologies so we will now go on to the business agenda Evan take it away thank you tonight is on the agenda number A is appointment of the village attorney and our annual appointments so tonight I have I am recommending that we appoint Claudine Safar of I didn't know I was going to be up first Claudine Safar if we can have her come up introduce yourself to the board we put together a search committee President Tyler was part of that committee along with Greg Duggan Lauren was in there Susan McNamara was in there and Travis Sabatoso they were grilled thoroughly by our group and we found that their answers and their body of work was excellent we are recommending that they be appointed for one year term I believe of village attorney they came tonight if you want to ask them any questions you can I have one question Claudia are we pronouncing your name correctly Claudine Safar and I'm also here with my colleague Ed Adrian who will be good to meet you and thank you for coming we heard about you all good stuff thank you I thought as I said to Evan your presentation that you gave to us you seem to hit all the right buttons on all the sorts of things we deal with all the time and it was very impressive so I really appreciated that we very much appreciate the opportunity to work for the village we're really excited and we're looking forward to a long relationship we certainly pledge to work very hard for your business and we're kind of here to be chosen to thank you Claudine can you give a little background with some of your other clients Sure so Monica's Farducham represents a lot of municipal entities so some of our other municipal clients include the town of Colchester the town of Shelburne Swanton Fairfax Wilmington Highgate What's your name? I don't know we've also done work for the city of St. Albans St. Albans Town we've done work for the city of Burlington and as needed basis so those are just kind of mixed we also do work for the league of cities and towns for municipal defense and so some we represent municipalities around the state and the defense of actions by all the good municipalities and a couple of your attorneys live in Essex? Correct so Steve Duchamp one of the new attorneys is Steve Well and so we obviously think the world of Steve is very connected into your communities and as those of you that know him he's an excellent real estate attorney and would certainly help if we had real estate related matters to work for the league Excellent And your offices are where? Our offices are in downtown Burlington and we do have an office in St. Albans which is a non-staffed office but we have that office so we're very close and we're We have a couple openings some space in town too in case of need a little bit closer Right across the street there's a nice door that is not required but just let you know So Brian and I Brian Monaghan and I live in Williston so we're really close just a few miles away lives in Burlington Steve as you know lives here so that kind of represents the sort of senior attorneys in our firm and then we have some associates that live in South Burlington respectively and we'll probably be adding some more associates as time goes on so I have a presentation of the folks all around the general area So a question in the past we've had one attorney who that is all we have dealt with and it sounds like this is more of not just you but your firm so how will that work in terms of a continuity of decision making and a continuity of projects Sure so I can I'm happy to be sort of a primary point of contact for Evan and I think we at the firm we tend to function as a team some situation that may come up here that perhaps the first thing if it's something I'm not familiar with I'm going to call my colleagues and say have you ever had this situation in any of the municipalities that you've represented or we get together every week on Wednesday for lunch no matter we're very collegial we talk to one another a lot and so it's something that you know we'll share if we're working on a matter sometimes perhaps there may be another attorney in the firm that's going to be better situated to work on a specific matter and I may if the director comes from Evan I may say Evan this is really although I can maybe be able to work on this you're going to have much better representation to have Steve work on that like transaction than having you do it and I think because we're just a group we all work together we don't fight over clients in business we just we work collectively and want to give you the best service that we can give you so that's really our goal is to but that person sort of spearhead whatever project you guys need thank you also if I could just add one thing to that which is that there are going to be times where somebody may call our office at Edmenean Court or Edmenean Court but if you have two of us that you can talk to it always ensures that if there's something things come up and sometimes they need to be handled right away that you have another person that you can say okay cladding's not there can I talk to Ed Ed's not there and you will always have the ability it's actually what also happens in the town if we have HR stuff Bill has an HR person in his firm he has others so usually I'm very used to that from other firms you know I don't think my village attorney is just sitting by their desk waiting for me to call they usually have other things going on so it's a nice but I have a question for Mr. President do you want me to present all four at the same time and take one vote or do you want to go individual why why don't we why don't we do individual let's do that yeah that'd be good I'd like to do that for the record let me know so any other questions for so let's why don't you go make the appointment so I look to make the appointment of Claudine Savard as the village attorney every firm I think that's it doesn't require a vote from us does it I think this is just your appointment this is entirely within your availability to make this appointment but my first year at this we I think that we would be we indicate our approval great thank you yeah it does say that trustees approval shall be required for the man for his annual appointments so we okay so I will make a motion that we approve the appointment of Claudine Savard as village attorney who got that Lori okay any for the discussion all in favor I wasn't aware that we had to vote on it but sorry we probably need to clear this up with an attorney welcome aboard thank you we haven't had a term in a while generally when it happens that we're approving it's not just the attorney we approve the auditor we approve everything so it all comes at the same time this is just thank you thank you we have Susan Mackamara Hill as the village treasurer tax collector and village clerk I make a motion that we approve Susan Mackamara Hill as village clerk and and the other functions as well second any further discussion all in favor I unanimous and Chris Caboreal as village fire chief I'll move that we appoint Chris Caboreal as village fire chief second any further discussion all in favor I and I recommend Hamlin Consulting Engineers who's here in the audience tonight as village engineering consultant welcome Jeff I do I hear a motion we approve Hamlin Consulting Engineers for the Village Engineer Consultant second any further discussion all in favor Jeff thank you thank you are we good? okay so we are now on to landfill leachate agreement uh leachate treatment agreement and Jim thank you for coming got my pen thank you very much the question is whether or not to renew existing landfill leachate treatment agreements we have five at the facility they tie up about 165,000 gallons per day capacity which could be sold or used by redevelopment or other potential projects um three of the five we haven't received two of them we never have received leachate from three of the five we do not haven't received any in several years and with the upgrade and renewal at the facility that was completed in 2014 there's some added value to that capacity so anything that's underutilized um should be reviewed and reconsidered and my recommendation is to cancel the landfill leachate agreements that we have but maintain the one with the Chidna Solid Waste District as well as Myers Container Service um the reason for both CSWD and Myers container is we are the only listed um receiving facility on their permits and the quantities are relatively small and there's no adverse impact so okay any questions for Jim? to uh your motion I'll move that the trustees renew leachate treatment agreements for Chidna Solid Waste District and Myers Container and further recommend not to renew the Moortown, CB landfill and Coventry landfill leachate treatment agreements so here's Andrew seconds any further discussion questions all in favor aye opposed okay unanimous alright so we are on to uh the amendment to on-course solar net metering agreement Jim okay we were approached by the town of s6 or through the town of s6 energy committee yeah for some surplus solar capacity out of a private project that's going on up off of route 15 towards the town village line I'm not sure exactly where it's at it's a larger facility than we have at the wastewater facility it's significantly larger and I can't speak for the town but I believe all of the town accounts are being taken in under this agreement and they've had additional capacity if that capacity is not utilized under net metering agreement my understanding is it's relinquished to the utility and as a private developer nobody wants to do that anyone is relinquished to the utility um we have some surplus accounts some of the larger accounts were tied up unnecessarily under the on-course solar agreement at the wastewater facility the reason they were tied up unnecessarily is we were working on estimates and frankly a lot of these estimates from the solar generation generators are pretty um generous and we tend to overbook on a frequent basis so um under Vermont law you cannot have one electric account under two net metering agreements that's considered double double dipping so what we're asking for is to revise the the solar agreement with Encore to be just the wastewater facility account which has sufficient capacity for all of the generating at the site and release the other accounts that were tied up under that so that we can go ahead and incorporate them into the Sand Hill project so again we're to prevent that double dipping that's not allowed by law we just want to release those and put them back the agreement right now is under legal review and Claudine had a few questions she just hasn't responded I responded to them but she was tied up right now so and so my favorite so if you are of a mind to approve it we would like it subject to final review by an attorney and now the accounts that the bill that she has not assigned will also be determined by the finance director and other people directly involved in this we just listed them in order of priority and we'll make sure to recover enough to gain the solar credits um there's been a change in the pro forma I had noted based on the information I have that the council made its savings was $3,000 it's more in the order of $7,000 or $8,000 right now I don't have the exact amount so it's still a bit of a works in progress but still savings that's significant and I know of you guys have heard but one of the things that the town energy committee has been doing along with this is with these solar arrays we are quickly becoming one of the largest solar entities s6 and s6 junction in the state we're one of the largest producers of solar energy we're also up at the top of taking advantage of getting the solar discounts through our agreements both town and village saving the taxpayers money on both ends of the deal and you can add to that the combined power at the wastewater facility as well so from a green power generation we're right at the front Evan we said that did that estimate include the, you may not know the Whitcomb solar, the Whitcomb farm or it does, okay yeah when these are built out we will be way up there in the top two or three of the state in solar power capacity any other questions? Do I hear a motion? Move that we authorize Is there something wrong? The unified manager to sign a dental member 2 to the on-core s6 junction solar agreement and to authorize a manager to Apple Lincoln Hall, Brown Hill Library and other electric GMP accounts as needed at the sand hill solar installation net metering agreement pending review by our attorney Do I hear a second? Any further discussion? Questions? All in favor? Aye Okay, thank you Thank you And I think we've got one more One more, thank you for bundling No, yeah Maybe we should have moved this one last and you know it's kept here the phosphorus innovation challenge grant program You've heard me talk about phosphorus quite a bit Yes It's a big topic It's an important bio molecule, Jim, as we know Yes We've been researching the new facility trying to find out how to proceed into the future without having to bond for additional capacity and to build on additional treatment that was designed inherent in the facility upgrades that we did and we are meeting the challenge right now, but as the community continues to grow we will run into limitations We've identified some of the internal limitations as the phosphorus recycle part of what we do with treating the wastewater that comes in is capture those nutrients then we process those nutrients to make them safer recycling back into the environment and by doing so we release the nutrients back to the wastewater process So it's a vicious circle That has been identified as one of the future limiting factors on the treatment efficiency So we've been researching a number of different opportunities to remove some of those excess nutrients to internally create additional capacity and kind of stave off the future upgrade requirements Our challenge is that we're one of the largest facilities in the state but we're way too small for anybody to consider us being business friendly or cost effective for any return on investment for their products So we've been kind of on our own looking into this We've been looking at a number of alternatives and we came up with one just by chance It's a commercial descaling operation that's used in Europe significantly It's invested in utilities where the utilities not just own the water and gas supply systems but they also own the boilers and the equipment inside the home So they're taking out the water hardness and these nutrients that can follow their expensive equipment using this type of technology The project partners would like to kind of turn that concept on its head and use it on a high strength waste stream to pull that material out and to make a recyclable material out of it in a more cost effective way We've been looking at it and considering this for about four to five months now and out rolls this phosphorus innovation challenge where the state is sponsoring lead programs how man make presentations and go through a vending process for funds to be awarded to implement this So the whole idea with this presentation is to have some project partners We would be the host of the facility The partners on the project would be the Chittinny Solid Waste District who was involved as the wastewater biosolids of the by-product of the treatment process of the phosphorus that has to be managed under the contracts that they have that impacts our land application program down at the Whitcomb farm some of the other nutrient recycling programs that we have Also involved would be Dr. Baderetti from the UVM Civil Engineering Department Dr. Baderetti is heavily involved in ultra filtration and reverse osmosis and this is something right up his alley with the type of filtration and the third person involved is Dr. Morris who James Morris used to be with the University of Vermont he's kind of a semi-retired independent person and I want to correct the record I was introduced to him through some research being done at Cornell but he is involved in this project in a advisory role only okay so it's not, I misspoke when I put in there in the transmittal the connection with Cornell so at this time we don't have any direct costs we're still developing the project but I'm going to be out of the office for a good portion of the month of June so I'm here to request your support and at least starting the process forward and if there are any costs or anything related to the village outside of hosting this we will be back to visit with you and provide the budgets in the details at that time okay yes we have in our discussions and our correct so the state of Vermont they set the rules right and so we we discharge into the Winooski which discharges into the lake and we're pretty close to that lake so our thoughts versus going to be looked at quite closely it is and so our charge over the coming years is to figure that out how to reduce phosphorus going into the Winooski going into the lake and this is the first and best um are the best we've seen so far as an opportunity there are other opportunities out there but they involve millions of dollars in construction this is a much smaller scale we did an economical $15 million just maintenance upgrade all right you're correct that we do know it's going to be a 0.2 on the permit that's pretty much established we're presently running under 0.8 performing at a 0.2 or better level the challenges are friends from conservation law foundation even though this was all settled as part of the lake Champlain TMDL they have now appealed every permit that's been drafted as 0.2 milligrams I'm sorry the TMDL is the lake Champlain limit for a total daily limit for phosphorus where wastewater facilities are being appealed again even though we're less than 3% of the problem so we're at financial diminishing returns for the kind of investment we have to get for the return on the balance of the lake the beauty of this product application if it works is it might have other applications not just at wastewater facilities but it could be in stream it could also be at farm registers or farm it's all part of what we need to sort out as part of this what's the, when you say a micro filtration what's the technology it means it's in chemical filtration chemical filtration or particulate filtration both the idea is this hydro flow unit is kind of an induction coil as the water flows through at different frequencies the particles in the water are excited chemically and physically and if you add the right mix of chemicals with it you can take things that won't normally settle and collect and force them to collect and what's the recyclable product that you would get out of this use of it would be a phosphorus based material that should be sterile or safe for reuse it may require further processing we really don't know but that could be marketed elsewhere as a phosphorus to be added it drops into solution or comes out as a solid it comes out as a solid some may remain a solution but that's what we need to determine and the best thing is if this is successful it could be bundled and shipped out of the Lake Champlain Basin and count as credit tolls and clients and instead of recycling within the basin it moves out and that's why it was one of those things where I approached it with the discussion regarding some polymer we use polymer to help with our dewatering operations this piece of equipment is proven in reducing polymer usage polymer usage is $70,000 a year just one little cowboy of this stuff costs $4,000 and it goes through one every two weeks so even if this scale doesn't work and fails miserably we'll still have a piece of equipment that's known to save us money in our operations and we can put it to use there so it's a win-win I was just curious on how long we take to get set up going it should be relatively quick we have storage tanks already we've also talked to the Whitcombs because they also have phosphorus compliance requirements they're doing a great job they've probably exceeded the requirements but they're always looking to do better so I'm proposing to the partners that we include animal waste as part of this so we can work in batch tanks it's just purchasing some pipe hooking this up with a couple of chemical feedpoints this doesn't interrupt operations it's all off to the side on the grass lawn off to the west of the facility any other questions? I just need to point out that I work directly for the agency and the individuals who will make decisions on the phosphorus innovation challenge I need to recuse myself on this both sounds good when is that going to happen? what's the process? the application process is open now if I understand and so decisions will be made over the summer first round selection then you go and you present to the group with the details and then there will be a second round decision we keep going and I have to start going we won't talk anymore we won't put you in jeopardy do I hear a motion? make a motion that we authorize staff to participate in the submission of applications to the phosphorus innovation grant program and to participate in the evaluation process we will report back with updates on costs as well as progress of the application if it proceeds beyond the preliminary round of review second any further questions, comments for Jim? all good? all in favor? opposed? recused run recusal thank you very much Jim thank you Jim thank you for the awesome go Jim so we are now, that brings us to requests for the 2018 steamfest in Kristen Holmberger and Julie yes Julie and Julie we just have Kristen down here so I'm not sure Julie welcome, thank you for coming yeah, thanks for having us so I guess the primary thing that we sent you a list of requests the primary thing that we're looking for I guess tonight is first week closure for railroad out for Saturday certainly as closure for the artist and maker market that we did last year but also as a request for Friday night to create a food truck alley as we heard from multiple participants they would really like to have more food and food trucks would be a wonderful addition to the experience that in conjunction with restaurants who said they had so much so many people coming that they had to turn people away wow so I can't really see because my glass is on but so those were the the street closure is primarily the main request and then simultaneously we have continued access to the things that we had access to last year that made what we did last year possible a little bit of help from public works a little help from Darby and Robin in terms of communication with the community and then also some front porch forum postings and development connecting us with people who have space that would would be good spaces to host art in and the other thing that we're asking for this year is having a little bit more support from the village and notifying the people on railroad avenue for the closure just as a we think it's a good opportunity for the village to develop more relationship with the businesses that are on railroad app and we would like to have a little bit more support in that closure aspect of it What is the weekend? It is September 21st and 22nd as far as we know it's not in conflict with any other major events in the area or Rosh Hashanah Right, yes My concern is if the managers checked with the chief Gary about closure of railroad avenue and police officers and how that's concern Yeah, we did contact them last year just to notify saying that we were going to make a request from you which went well and I did call them just to notify them that we were going to also make the same request again this year I would for it, I would approve it with the caveat or the condition that gets approved by the chief because otherwise it's not Police chief is chief Okay Could you be a little more specific of what you're asking for railroad, you say you would like a little more support in public notification What does that mean? Alright So I guess what we're looking for maybe is to have the village help with notifying the businesses and residents on railroad avenue a letter? Yeah, well the procedure has been a letter that last year we hand delivered it to all of the businesses and residents who would be affected by the road closure so every business on that street plus the ones around the corner and we had some pushback from one business who presented an argument that they felt like it was definitely there was like some they felt like the village shouldn't have been in touch with them over that and we felt like we were a little caught in the sort of in the middle and so we were trying to avoid putting ourselves back into that same Darby, what we block off railroad after the block party and what's the and we blocked off railroad last year also for the steamfest so what was the procedure what happened? We would put notices to the individual business to the businesses and to the homeowners. I believe what happened here is the business that was particularly concerned with the closure was not open would not be open during block party times I know we would put the things signs on the parking signs and the parking spots and put notices in the Essex or Porter, Pumplidge one, things like that When we do like the block party do you or Patty go around specifically and talk to each because it's not like there's tons it's how many businesses are there there's like six or eight We hand them a flyer which I believe were the same things we did last year If I can just add some perspective on the years of the farmer's market which we didn't close but we closed Lincoln Tours or whatever it is it really is a very touchy subject for the businesses that are on railroad avenue and I know they don't like any of the streets right there being closed so I do support the idea of having the village backing the steamfest folks so it's not on them this is a village sanctioned event we support and gave them enough notice I think to me it would be the lead time for the notices, the most important thing because it's I mean the idea is to ultimately help business because we're trying to bring people down here so it sounds like contradictory Thank you I just wanted some thought Did you have more questions any other questions so and I think that do we have Darby do you have any questions about this you clear working with them we'll get together, we'll make a plan and start next week if you want sure okay so I think we maybe we should have a motion or are we just giving our consent here okay so I think I would hit does anyone want to venture a motion I will make a motion that we support the closure trustee support the closure and ask the manager to do the logistics of closing railroad avenue Saturday September 22nd from 8 to 5 for an artist and maker market and also on Friday September 1st from 4 to 10 and if I can ask you to add with consultation with the police and fire with consultation from police and fire chiefs and also to provide bill of support in the public notification street closure to the tenants on the railroad avenue second any further discussion comments insights all in favor I opposed okay thank you guys great team we're all going to have a great yes we are it was great it was very good thank you thank you okay so new business so now we are on to the discussion Evan you missed a great meeting I thought the meeting last week was really good just to update Evan, Regina Mahoney from the RPC came and gave us a really nice overview of the economics of housing what's driving housing in Chittenden County how they're approaching it it was very very helpful understand the barriers about affordability for building affordable housing how much they're spending average cost per unit of just regular housing in Chittenden County and I thought a lot of it was really good to do it we then had a really nice discussion with the planning commission afterwards touched on a lot of different things I think a lot of these things were things we've heard before and I tried to write them down and I didn't know I didn't want to say we had a great presentation great discussion now on to the next thing I didn't know if there was something else and I also wanted to just I had meant to say it last week but Evan doesn't know this but there's a tradition in the trustees we normally have a retreat somewhere in April or May usually it's closer to June where we kind of don't have a regular meeting we just kind of stop and talk about stuff and we talk about initiatives that we would like to see go forward I'm going to suggest that I think we don't need a retreat this year seems like we're having a lot of a lot of the stuff we normally talk about is stuff that we're actually doing in terms of consolidation but I throw that open now but the reason I'm mentioning it now is that I thought maybe a lot of this stuff is kind of stuff that we've talked about in the past at retreats and I didn't know if we in terms of a follow up on some of these things if we wanted to make that like our retreat that was my thought on this stuff and now I'll listen to you folks so my comment is with all of the joint meetings we're having with the select board for another full day meeting and our meetings tend lately to be shorter than normal so to spend half an hour, 45 minutes on a topic at one of our meetings that isn't jam packed full I think is more beneficial than doing a whole day what I do want to make sure that we do though there are two things on here especially the housing committee and the parking committee I think we need to set some next steps to those and really start moving towards them okay no, that my I was just going to say we have a lot of meetings joint meetings and issues as you said George that we're addressing that we've brought up prior retreats and I think this is just continuing like what Gloria said taking some time at our meetings when we have two addresses as you come up I did see a presentation a couple of weeks back with this lady who did it at a regional meeting so I got a taste of it I don't know exactly she did the same presentation probably not maybe a little more tailored but one of the things that came out of that was back to like communications and communication strategies the village already allows accessory structures which is beneficial not only say to workforce housing type things where but it's also allowing some of our elderly homeowners to stay in their homes and be able to afford that by supplementing it with an income of a unit and it brings some density in and around the downtown which is needed but maybe not in the four store variety but on a unit by unit basis it's not going to provide the number of affordable housing units or even maybe qualify for affordable whatever that level is but it can be workforce it can be where downsizing it can be people who want to live on a certain maybe a one level platform or in any case start a workforce housing like some of the positions we have here at the village or the town or in our school systems where that is something that we can bring in people who could afford to live in our community and not have to drive 30 or 40 minutes where the workforce comes from so I encourage that we need to do a better job of communicating those benefits and those regulations that are available to people they may not even know that we have that availability so I would encourage that from my staff as well that we do some work on these issues as public infusion in terms of from our takeaways having a committee having a housing committee would be fantastic I think doing it in partnership with the town though since it's not something that only the village is experiencing but beyond that in addition I would love to see there be the need to say something that we talked about and whether that's something that the housing committee itself does or whether that's something that we contract for I think should be an early task by the committee to help then direct our efforts right I agree with Laura in the parking committee and that would just be something that I think we should do without the town it's an issue yeah I think that was the I think we discussed that at the meeting it was like Elaine said it makes sense since this is an issue that cycles for the select board as well why wouldn't we do this together and yeah so yeah I think that's Elaine on both the housing and the parking committees I would want them to have a specific charge from this body what we want them to look for so that there's some direction the thing about the retreat it does seem like all of the topics that we've discussed in previous retreats have caught up to us and we are actually doing that part of the purpose of our retreats was to do a little blue sky conversation about what we'd like to see in our community and we're making all of that come to pass so that's really great the one thing that our retreat we tried to do also was to assess our performance and how far we've come whether we need to keep going on certain things it would be useful for this body to assess our performance for example the select board has what they call a radar list which is a consistent list of projects that are of importance to them and some of them are very different from what our board tries to accomplish but they all have a percent complete which I find a little arbitrary but at least there's progress noted on it so I don't know that we've ever been that formal about it but I do think it's important that we check back on what we said we wanted to do and whether we've accomplished it kind of important to do that at some point we need to do that let's just carry that forward a little bit so how do we find out what are the things that we said we want to do how do we do that do we make up a list did we have our retreat last year? yes we did I would say we go through the minutes the minutes were very reflective of what we talked about and you tended to do a summary memo afterwards of every one of those retreats and so I would pull those out and just say did we do that did we do that and oh we didn't do that okay I can do that and I can bring that to our get that to Evan for the next meeting and while you may not need you may not need a full day to retreat you may want to either put it on an agenda or do a mini yeah bagels that sounds good a mini make one of our regular meetings and a retreat like so the idea is that we would put some of these have one of these beyond our next meeting to talk about get some parameters and move it forward is that the idea? and I did say Joe Weith had I liked his concern that if you create a housing committee it becomes a permanent housing committee and you don't want that to happen you want a housing committee with a short half life one that gets as you said you give it a charge it does the work it gets done but it doesn't become a permanent entity here unless we want to but that's a separate decision but don't let the thing morph into a permanent housing committee let it accomplish the things that you want to accomplish and then dissolve and if I can make a suggestion when we have a meeting to talk about what that charge would be it might be beneficial to have someone like more Collins come in who knows what the other communities South Burlington, Williston everyone else who has a housing committee in the industry it just might be helpful to have her part of that conversation regarding the housing committee obviously we would appoint 3.5 whatever number of people to it are these people going to be are we looking I'll put that through one but would you suggest we look for people already on the planning commission or reach out to people outside also on the other end of that do you want them just to report to us or to report to the planning commission and zoning who's who did they I would say I'd say I think that the trustees and the select board have the authority to appoint committees I don't think the planning commission does so I think the way it would work is we would appoint the committee who would be on it that would be a discussion discussion I think we're going to be doing with the town it's really going to be interesting I don't know what the makeup it's a good collaborative project I would say that creating the charge should also be done with the select board perhaps this could go on a joint meeting agenda but I would also like to add that if for some reason the select board does not need to move forward with this I would still like us to do it on our own maybe the way to approach this would be for us to indicate to the select board that we'd like to do this but for us to have our own meeting to say what's the deal with the village what do we want to know for the village because there probably are some pretty distinct things that we would want to know here so that we would then carry forward it's not like we're saying here's where it has to be we'd be willing to integrate what do we both want and what are common and what are not common to our geography Evan did you had a I thought I saw him said you're going to work with the town I think that that's a good approach find out what you really want out of it a lot of what I would suggest about committees is you establish a sunset not only what's their mission but what's a date that they dissolve unless specifically reestablished or re-upped by the boards in that way they also have a time limit whether it's a year or two years whatever it's like please work on this business very hard make your report and then you enjoy the rest of your sunset good points good point the other were there other things on here in particular I thought that Andrew raised the point about affordable housing and affordable housing for a lot of the affordable housing is single person young up and coming person kind of affordable housing but not affordable housing for families how do we get around that and I thought there was a connection there between what some of the things Regina was saying which is that for developers because they don't make it's a much harder hill decline to make back their investment presented by affordable housing one of the things that helps lower their initial cost is if they can do business with the municipality and not be trying to purchase the property privately it's not like I think we should run out and buy property but I thought it was an interesting point and something for us to talk about thoughts about that anyone's thoughts about that I guess we would have to say how important is affordable housing to us maybe this would come out of the study yeah that's what I'm thinking I would fall under the housing committee sorry to be thinking out loud I totally agree affordable housing we're thinking about it because like Regina said affordable housing for people that are living here working here and staying here living here but then spending the money and working somewhere outside which you know well that gets philosophical because I think what she was saying is that the regional planning commission is looking at they're looking at Chittenden County and saying economic development for the county we don't we don't want to go to Essex or maybe South Burlington or maybe it's Winooski but overall for the whole county to grow economically you need to provide affordable housing for new people to move in and help power and drive the economy and because it's one community versus another everybody's benefiting there's a philosophical political leap of faith in there the onus falls upon the county or the state you know as opposed to you know the separate municipalities, towns, cities villages whatever having to you know and trying to satisfy a different I think it's got to be that like she said the higher view the bigger picture from the 50,000 foot level they got a better grasp of what the needs are and can keep it consistent throughout the county or the area so that's not what we're building is a little different we're doing it different than the coal chester or whatever everyone's throwing their little spin on what they're doing I just think gotcha there are a lot of definitions there are a lot of phrases I get thrown around with affordable housing that I don't know if we all have agreement on what that means there's common knowledge of what people assume affordable housing means and their regulatory definitions there's the whole voucher system that gets put on to things and what does that have to do with the area of median income with the people living in there I'd rather at this what I'd love to see is make me think I'd rather have the housing needs assessment results so we can start the conversation with what does the data show we need and then we can have the charge of the committee to help address that need instead of us just doing something gotcha good point and I could just tell you from several meetings that I've been into with some of our that our local employers have been at this is at the top of their lives global foundries revision other companies are saying we love being here but attracting and retaining a workforce that is not driving 45 minutes or more to come to work or being able to attract them all is high on our list so it is economic development in and of itself it is community development it's a lot of things as I mentioned with accessory structures we're a pretty good employer as well at least we'd like to and we have jobs that start anywhere from $15 an hour and up and we have a job that we're going to be hosting in a couple of weeks that we're going to be in the $40,000 range and they're going to have to live somewhere and so where does someone who's maybe a single earner or whatever that makes $35, $40,000 where they live and can they afford to live in this community and then stay in this community as they grow into a family or whatever they do so concerns of ours as well and I believe there was a recent press release from Revision around their headquarters relocation not affordable housing but just the needs of attracting people for their workforce exactly, he was one of the speakers at the meeting as well as others and we take that to heart so when we go and do this commission and years of experience just as local government not necessarily housing types people say they want certain things unless you put it in their neighbor and they, it's very you have to be very careful with what words you use and the phrases you use and what you're trying to attract but affordable is in the eye of the beholder too, there's the government version of it and there's the local version of it so I think that all needs to be part of the review and working with partners in this because you guys are doing many things already with some of the apartments and other things that are being built here they're not single family homes they're not necessarily the typical affordable housing but they are a lot less expensive than living in Burlington or south Burlington so we are seeing some changes but as a holistic approach I applaud the effort for our commission I just have one more thing so the housing commission or committee we're calling in I think is going to take a while to get it going so more than a parking committee so I would love to see us have a meeting sometimes that decides our next meeting or the one after specifically on the parking and we can get that started because I think that's a much more concrete immediate shorter term okay what I'll do is I'll work with Evan to try to dredge up any information background reading stuff that we need for parking for the housing committee anything that you folks want to contribute to that and then we'll put it on an upcoming agenda and have background and then we'll have a more focused discussion about how to go forward with it at an upcoming meeting okay does that sound good alright okay anything else on the anyone else anything else about the planning commission meeting we have okay so we are now on to the managers report just for the second time Memorial Day Parade is this Saturday as you all well know I was having a conversation with the chief of police and just getting a sense of how much work goes into our lovely parade and it is a wonderful parade it is one of the largest if not the largest in the state it does require road closures a lot of road closures big ones yes just to let you know every police officer works Memorial Day every single one of them our fire department is working Memorial Day whether they're in the parade or helping with closures and other things Public Works is working Memorial Day Parade and administration will not necessarily working have a lot to do with the staffing and discussions and other things so we enjoy Memorial Day I just want to let you know you will also see our presence at Memorial Day from our police department and others because of recent events in other communities and other parts of the world we take that and are planning very seriously and when you do road closures and lots of people we have no specific threats let me make that clear but this is just the precaution of the world we live in today and how we try to deal with large crowds we do the same things for the events at the convention center we do the same things for the parade at the high school we do the same things for Steam Fest and other things but when you have this large crowd and street closures for the period of time it's all hands on deck but hopefully the weather will hold out and we'll have a lovely Memorial Day Fantastic Have we heard that our federal delegation is walking in the parade I'm not familiar with that I believe Chairman Levy is on that I think they prefer not to say too much about that ahead of time My only reason for bringing it up I'll talk to you if they are that will be an added level they will address and we will address George is absolutely correct they do not like that announced any time in advance other than to internal they may tell they may tell the chief but they're not going to widely publicize that that's at least been my experience Everybody else good? Are you going to be there Lori? I'll be sitting in the stands with you Great One last thing with all the meetings that we have on merger consolidation alignment we are moving forward we are working with a very talented Darby Mabel here on communications about alignment both internally and externally our committee the alignment group came up with some great suggestions for morale planning our first in service day which is August 1st all our offices will be closed to the public but our employees will be doing touring of all the facilities that they never get to go to and meet the people that they never get to meet but as a workforce showing them what equipment we use the buildings we work out of and things like that our government is going to bring out the grills so that's nice we are going to have an employee newsletter to be able to tell people about the progress we're making with alignment and merger new employees, anniversaries changes to benefits because we feel that more communication is needed as you guys have stated back to the public so we're working on a lot of that to do with things in an orderly fashion we are if you can imagine we have all different types of departments not in the fact that we have two community development departments two libraries almost two of everything but we also have different ways each of them is doing certain things that affect the finance department that affect the HR department that affect administration so we are trying to figure out ways to standardize how we do things and so a lot of this will also then be coming back before the boards as policy changes or changes to the employee manual or changes to contracts when they come up so that we are standardizing things and so it will be a lot of process but we work on daily, monthly maybe they will make it to a progress report like you just mentioned but those are the types of things we just do every day fantastic great great, good to hear everyone thank you that it? Evan what our schedule do we have it here? I can't load it I just want to make sure everyone has the schedule and everyone Jan you are gone but you are going to be back before so our next joint meeting with the select board is here on June 14th okay great so we are on to reading file and trustee comments and concerns I have one we do the minutes in the consent agenda almost there we do trustee comments and concerns that's right go ahead Andrew something that we had, I believe we had talked about at a previous meeting I can't recall if this was after the whole Wolf's Ark whatever the or I feel like after some other event but we talked about revisiting our noise ordinance and our waiver process and whether the noise levels are what we want them to be and I can't recall if this was something that was just in what I call interest utopia and I said I live in the world an ideal world and if we were going to have some kind of a demonstration from the sound engineers around what these sounds actually equate to because I know one of the things that I struggle with is when we approve either a class C or whatever it is I don't know what that means I don't know what a decibel level of giving me a number of what that actually means giving us an opportunity to better understand what we want so what would you envision happening like what happens after the we were talking about sometime this fall or what do we go back and test I would assume after the fall especially with the sense that CDE is doing their planning and done their planning for the fair and I would not want any of this to supersede any of that so after the fair and whether that's something that if we can recreate those scenarios here if we can recreate those sound experiences here if we take a field trip and go somewhere else can I just come I agree it'd be nice to know but the thing is there's so much that goes into it as Tim Shay brought up and somebody was here they were talking about sound and how I forget who came to us and was discussing it but depending on the weather there's so many things that play into it and how far away so certainly you can create a sound but depending on the environment in which you hear it whether it's in this room, whether it's outdoors whether it's humid out, whether it's windy whether it's what affects the you know it depends so it really is there are a lot of variables about it I agree with you there's a reasonable level at this range under these circumstances but then you know everyone's going to have an opinion but I'm game yeah I think the way to go would be to have Evan discuss it with Tim and set something up from the fall at some point and just to let you know I did meet with Tim on other matters and it was very amenable to making sure that they are not violating things they are very concerned with the time schedule of when bands wrap up because they know they are adjacent to residential neighborhoods they also know very well that when they have a crowd they only have a couple of exits and those crowds then leave their facility and basically bottleneck traffic through this our village they can be happening at 10, 11 o'clock at night and they want people to leave quietly so he's aware of these things I think he would be amenable that maybe even we could do something at a soundcheck or something like that so that you would get that and just please know that this is not to say that I think CVE is doing anything wrong it's not where the intent of this is but it's rather personally I'll say I don't know exactly what I'm approving and I don't know what that means it's also probably in anticipation of the annual conversation we have every summer when the event lists I'll just make comment also that the relay for life used to go through the night now they're ending it kind of like words that used to run right through to the next morning and not through that and I think that you should educate yourselves on what's going on at the CVE I went to one of their shows just recently at Tim Shae's invitation of what goes on on those fairgrounds on any given day during the week or the weekend and how many thousands of people have had the economic activity that is occurring at that thing they had the Timberland Wood Show basically all the people who are in the forestry industry it was massive it was well attended the people that are employed from it the hotel room stays the food and beverage and just how they package a show like that cannot be done just anywhere and it's well done and I agree I wholeheartedly support what they do over there but one thing they don't do is promote the local ethics businesses so I think that would be something that would be great to have a conversation with I mean when the fair comes into town businesses do horrible business when they bring in their different things like promotion even a flyer of these are the local businesses in S-Extension you could go to so I would love to have that conversation with Tim at some point I think he'd be willing to I think they're very amenable to collaborating with us I think no one's really carried carried the whole thing forward and actually done it I agree it's usually we talk about one of the questions I asked him is do you know how many hotel room stays you generate not just in our community but in all he goes no I don't really know that I should know that because room stays is a good predictor of academic activity and we've known we needed a hotel downtown for a very long time there's the Baymont which is a fairly recent addition I desperately need a hotel downtown and they've even gone through a strategic planning session of what their life is going to be and what they need and the idea of a hotel on property would help them attract more shows and keep them here and that's it the other thing is the other aspect whether it's the NHRA car show with the dragsters whatever the event throughout the year they attend the event as Lori's saying then they leave and go to South Brunton or Shubham Road and then leaving our community so like you said if they get the hotel here they walk from there to their hotel they walk through our stores we're just to know what's here a lot of our businesses are tucked but a lot of our businesses are tucked away and we all know that there's some great restaurants here that's a good idea anything else trustee comments concerns reading file we are on to the consent agenda I'll move we approve the consent agenda any further discussion all in favor I will make a motion that pursuant to the open meeting law and one VSA section 313 the trustees go into executive session to discuss the real estate matter where premature public knowledge would place the village of Essex Junction to invite the unified manager and assistant manager and Darby are you coming? just the unified manager to attend second all in favor opposed and we will take a short 5 minute break to clear the room