 So I will call to order this meeting of the Waterbury Select Board on April 3rd, 2023. And I will note that Danny Kellerman is not going to be able to make it tonight. We wish her a speedy recovery and she's able to participate in our next meeting. With the agenda, Tom has asked that we add a short executive session to the end of the agenda. So put that in at 8.55. With that addition, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. I also make a slight addition. It will be probably a two-minute discussion about board emails. Board emails, okay. You probably got stuff from Bob Butler. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah, let's put that right after the public session at 7.14. Anything else? No? Okay. Still waiting for a motion. So I make a motion to approve the agenda as amended. All right. And do I have a setup? I'll take it. All right. Moved by Mike and seconded by Cain any further discussion? All in favor of the amended agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The agenda is approved. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items? Okay. And again, seconded by Cain. Any further discussion? All in favor of the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The consent agenda is approved. Okay. Mike. Just Mr. Chair, this is maybe more for Cain's kind of, you know, if we could just talk about the differences between first and third class and second class licenses. I'm a little aware of that. You're a little aware? Okay. Mr. Chairman, we're in the restaurant industry. Then nothing further. I just wanted to make sure because those are all there if you don't know what they are. Our patient would be one. Alyssa. Well, that was just going to say Karen as our clerk does an outstanding job preparing them. And even last week, I noted that she had sent them two outdoor consumption permits for legal entities which bond with me because they have literally two spaces that had to be licensed separately. Karen does the behind the scenes. When it gets to us, I personally feel really good about it. Very good. If there's no further discussion on that, let's open up the public session. This is a time for anyone, our fellow public, to address anything that's not on the warned agenda. And we request that you keep your comments limited to three minutes. If we need more, we can add it to the agenda for the following meeting. Anyone would like to speak? Chris. Yes. Come on up. You say a couple things. First thing I want to point out, I'm not looking to throw anybody on the bus. Maybe there's a reason for it. But I didn't see the posting for the agenda until Sunday on the website. I can speak to that, Chris. I posted on Friday on the internet. And this is, please don't ask me for an explanation. I don't understand. I could see it on my computer. But when I got a text message from the previous town clerk, she couldn't see it. And I went back online from home and I could still see it. So I thought, I don't understand. And it wasn't until Sunday that I hit the little lightning bolt in the upper right hand corner of the typo page. And it populated on the internet. So I apologize. But I did have it posted at three public places for compliance. I figured as much thought. I just didn't want somebody to. I bet I never forget to hit that lightning bolt again. You can tell your wife I said that. That's how she trained me. I bet you never forget that again. And something happened Sunday because I was logged in from home and I kept getting booted out. So I wondered if there was other internet issues or power or something. I never had that. I literally could see it on my desktop. But no one, I couldn't see it on my phone or my personal. Anyway, I can't explain why it freaked out on Friday or on Saturday. There was a reasonable explanation for it. But by Sunday, I hit the lightning bolt. So a couple prior meetings, there was discussion about the town attempting to conduct a reappraisal of our properties. And I've since heard that the state has now decided to take that in their hands. I don't have much confidence in our state elected leaders. So I'm wondering how the town feels about that. Some comments? Alyssa. I was going to start by deferring to Tom, but just to say what I heard is that Ted Brady, who's the executive director of the Motley of Cities and Towns, on behalf of that organization raised concerns. And then I had seen that it had passed and not passed another body. So I don't track the legislature super closely. I understand it's evolving. So I don't know if Tom has the more up-to-date of that state. Tom. I think like any bill, it's evolving until it's law. So we have to, there's, I think the number is 156 towns have to be appraised right now. And Kane, the way it works is the state has a number called common level of appraisal. They update every year and essentially is a measure of how far off from the market you are. Once you hit 80% of market value, you've got to reappraise. So with housing going crazy, we're all there. And the ones that are not there this year, are they reappraised in the last couple of years or are they going to be there next year? Right. There's not enough appraisers to go around. This has been an issue that I think needed to be addressed at the state level or by VLCT some years back. But there's just a dearth of firms out there. If we had to do it, we're lucky because our appraiser is working with Stowe's appraiser right now to do it. And that team is in place so they could do it for us quickly. I actually think it's a great thing that the state would take it over for a few reasons. So the first is, it's a couple hundred grand. So the state wants to pay for it. Now, the state gives us a chunk of revenue each year to pay for reappraisal. 20, 25 grand. You're supposed to reserve that, which we do. I suspect a lot of towns don't and just budget the revenue. Either way, you've got to pay for the reappraisal when the time comes. So the state wants to intercept a $200,000 liability and do the work. I'm okay with that. We'll raise up $200,000 that we were going to use ARPA funds for. Correct. So that's $200,000 for whatever else. The other piece is, it's a bit odd, I think, going a town by town approach to reappraisal. Processes, you basically sample enough of the houses and businesses to get some representative sample of the town. And not only do you revalue everyone, but you create in our system what we call a system of uniform values. So if you're three years post reappraisal and you add a room to your house, we don't need to go see your house. We need to just know the square footage and the system tells us, based on everyone else's square footage, what that adds to your property. Same thing if you add a dad, Chris, and then pull that sort of thing. So you get really granular data, but towns don't exist in a vacuum. Right. So if the state, the state is proposing essentially districts here, and I think it makes sense to reappraise on more of a regional basis. Because that's how real estate moves. I mean, there's always some local variation and, you know, people move sometimes based on school districts. So that would influence things. So there's a lot of factors the state will come into play. But I think if the state could, you know, build a team, I don't know how many I speculate, you know, 10, something like that. They could do a region a year, every six or eight years, which is their plan. And I think that makes a lot of sense. It's never going to be perfect, but it's not perfect now. And the other challenge I think you have now is, especially in smaller towns, is there's sometimes a little bit of a gap between the horsepower you have and sometimes the counterparty who might be a multi-million dollar developer. And so I think if you've got more of a trained team, you've got a better ability to capture some of the really extensive stuff statewide. Just my opinion on that. So you said, I'm sorry, you said the town acquires how much from the state every year, 20, 25,000? Yeah, it's in that range. So in the time span that reprisal occurred, that 200 is basically almost a gift to us. You know, such thing as free money. So it's not like we're going to be accumulating an addition. We're not saving ourselves 200,000. We're just, the state's just not giving it to us. Right. So that's not, that doesn't free up additional revenue for the town. Right. And my only other concern is, and you just touched on it a little bit, is still one size fits all is not the case when it comes to town-to-town values, simply because of what each town represents. That's right. And again, then they're going to have to create a whole new number of staff at the government level, which in turn costs us, you know, paying benefits and all that, pensions and whatnot that they came in to cover now. The challenge- just bigger government. The challenge without it is, I guess the only way in the short term, if 156 and next year probably 175 or 200 towns have to reappraise is, somehow all the local consulting firms would have to staff up. But it's tough to tell a private firm to staff up for a real short-term crunch that is going to go away in a few years, because it's a training process for those staff. I think it makes more sense to stabilize it at the state level. And then, you know, you've got a bit of a crunch now, but once you get through it, you just know what your schedule is, whatever it's six or eight years or just, it's going to happen. Yes. Number one, we'll have to see if they actually follow through with it. I hope we don't lose local control and end up costing ourselves more in the world. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chris. I would suggest we put a reprisal in the parking lot, keep an eye on it, and see what does happen at the state level. Billy Bigdvar. You have your hand up. Thank you, Billy, and thanks. I'll try to keep this short. I want to just remind everybody who are actually informed, the board, that the Conservation Commission is doing the Community Values Mapping Program on April 11th live at St. Leo's, and April 20th online for those who can't make it. For those who don't know, it's run by Fish and Wildlife, and they're basically supporting us. And what you do is you try to get, we're trying to target and get 100 people in town to participate to sort of tell us basically what they really like about Waterbury, what values are important to them, and then we reduce that to those values on a town map. Fish and Wildlife has done this at least a dozen times that I see. It's part of their community outreach program. And so right now what I wanted to bring to the board is, first of all, I'm happy to answer any questions, but what comes out of it is a report from Fish and Wildlife with a series of maps, but think of heat maps. So if people want recreation, a lot of people on recreation, the maps will identify where in town the community wants recreation if it's scenic views, if it's commercial. And the data can be used, the easiest ways to think about it is talking to Karen Nevin. She thinks this is the kind of data that she's been able to use in the past to get grant money. So the one thing she's mentioned to me is she would hope that would help support the effort to get grant money for trying to build a connector between Waterbury Center and the village and that project. I could see the planning commission looking at this as they start figuring out what they want to do with their zoning bylaws. And I'm sure the select board would want to understand what areas of property are really important and for what reason in town really helps development. We're trying to get 100 people, so we've been pounding the pavement, putting up posters this weekend, front porch forum. I'm supposed to get in front of WDEV. And I guess what I'm here is to tell you about it, but to the extent you can help promote it, get the word out, get people out. The more people we get, the more people from different views we get, you know, my joke is if we get 25 tree huggers alone, the data isn't really very good. We really want to try to get as many people from as much diverse views as we can. So I'm trying to just pound the pavement to try to get the word out. I know Roger, you and I have been talking, but if there's something else you want to add or I'm left out for anybody, I have to answer questions. I think you did a good job. Any questions to Billy? Are these mostly fishing wildlife issues that are going to be discussed or is it wide open in terms of what people appreciate about Waterbury? It's wide open. They have kind of a template, historic views, wildlife. Some people do recreation and fishing and hunting, but I've got some flexibility in terms of what we've done. So we put some commercial in there, recreation, wildlife. Oh, I forget them all. Scenic views, historic areas. Oh, working lands and landscapes. Trying to think about places we might want the community to say, hey, it's important that we have working forests or working farms, or at least the few we have left. Maybe keeping on there. So. And those can be 530 to 730 at St. Leo's, is that right? So it's formally at 6 to 8 at St. Leo's on April 11th. I have the room from 530. And you can register on our website, the town website, under conservation commission. Look, I've heard there are people who don't want to register. It's a government registry, but if that's going to be an innovation, just have people come. Just have them come. The key about the registry is one, we need to know about materials, what we think we're likely to have, because we actually are going to have food or snacks. The other thing is, if we wound up getting a very small number, fish and wildlife wouldn't want to go forward. So I think we're past that threshold. And I meant to get a number for you, but a couple of logistics got in the way today. But we were at least up to 30, but I'm, you know, we still pound. But I can get a number to you if you guys are interested once I find out, maybe tomorrow or the day after. Great. Any other questions? Any comments that I want to make during the public session? Alyssa. I was just another event to plug because I realized it was before our next meeting. LEAP, our local energy action partnership, also the town's energy committee, also a nonprofit, has their annual energy fair on April 15th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at CrossFit Brook. I don't own a home, so solar panels and or other heat pumps are not in my personal future, but anyone else who might be interested in those types of things. They have a lot of informed folks. I think there's an addition at 11. Anyway, so just throwing that out there. Second, I wanted to just thank on public forum, M.T. House, who was a guest special reporter on our second paper. The water break roundabout and just let folks know that they should read that article very carefully. They should read not only the title of that article, but the full content of it and that there might not be any mega towers planned for anywhere in the water break. But really, thank you. It was great. I did get a text from several people saying, wait, what's going on? But just so folks know. Nicely done. Thank you. Alyssa and roundabout. We made our April 1st. Got much more fun. Three years in a row. My wife was fooled. At least it wasn't a roundabout being turned in the opposite direction. Oh, that would be good. We'll be more prepared next year. Okay, any other comments for the public session? Let's move forward. Next in general, it was yours, Mike. Yep. Just real briefly, probably all the select board folks have gotten an email about offering town email addresses to individuals. I know, as a matter of fact, Bill Butler got back to me. I said, I was surprised that he was establishing one because I know I've said in the past, I actually do not want, you know, a separate Waterbury email. And everything I was told was we didn't have to. The only thing I just want to find out and clarify and maybe Tom could. I know he said, you know, it's for, you know, for potential open meeting law, but we all know how we can't do. I think that that sounds anything because we have a Waterbury email address that we can multiples of us still can't get on to a same email link. Doesn't change that. I think the thought is it might make it easier for some people if your Waterbury work is completely separate from everything personal. Right. From a town's perspective, we could also always get a freedom of information request that could be post hoc. And so if someone is not on the board anymore, and we get a request two years later, Bob Butler could conceivably fish out those records. Otherwise, we've got to go to you, which might be a bit more of a challenge. So I think from his perspective, they're preserved on our server. And those things do happen towns to get those requests from time to time. For me, it's just more of a challenge to, you know, it's hard enough sometimes keeping up on email. And, you know, he also talked about your name being in the public domain. I don't care as a select board person. I have no problem with my email being in the public domain. I'm going to answer any questions from any resident or, you know, contractors, et cetera. Well, it just would make it a lot easier for me just, you know, if I search in one place, it's just another place that I might potentially miss, because I'm probably not going to check it. But it sounded like he said, we're not forced to do it. You're not forced to do it. So in my case, I think it's up to each of us to decide whether we want to or not. I'm going to opt for taking it just because I think I've become more of a target now that I'm serving as chair. And it may just be easier to have one day email and then other email. Understand. I think it should be a personal, you know, consideration. So all of us can get back to Bob within the next few days. Yeah, I guess the one thing I would say is that through Bob's work, we've got a lot better antivirus protections, things like that. So that's what concerns me. From a Waterbury email, it's pretty darn safe. I got like five phishing emails a day for the team forces, which of course we don't have. Are you planning to use? I'm just setting up today, so that's why I haven't emailed you yet. Okay, and you're still setting yours up? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if you can let me know when and if you choose to use it so I can update the web. And I'm still planning on opting out. Okay, that's perfect. And Bob said that sounds like fun. I just wanted to clarify because he said I know Cain, Danny's already been on. I know Roger has indicated for the examples. I wasn't sure about it. I looked today. I was afraid Tom was emailing me on it and I wasn't getting his email. So I said I best log in and make sure Bob, there's nothing in here. Sounds good. Okay. Great. Let's move on to the next agenda. Update on rows and paving. For the record, we could erase my email address. I'd be happy to do that. Great. I think I'll just start with a brief update on the gravel roads. As you may know, we had a terrible mud season last year. Things have done a complete 180 and it looks like this year is going to be much more tolerable. And I think it's all weather related. I mean, things we don't control, mainly. I'm not saying we're through mud season, but we're probably doing okay. I think we're spam to complaints. It depends. You know, this year we've had no issues where roads are completely not possible. Yeah. If the road's just pothole or just muddy, it's a question of whether it needs a treatment to get vehicles through or doesn't need a treatment. Sometimes the way it's worked this year, the weather has cooperated. It's turned cold at night. Right. We'll do some treatment there. We've added some gravel and stone where needed. So all in all, spring weather road conditions are, I'm going to say, excellent, but excellent for spring. But yeah, so that's the dirt road portion. I do know in our budget, we had lumped out a huge sum for gravel resurfacing. I think the discussion last year when we were talking, I can't remember if it was me and Tom or me, Tom and Bill, as to what road we might use that money on. I think the thought process was, let's see how this year's mud season is and see what road seems to be a priority. But there's monies in there to do a substantial resurfacing project. And I think perhaps at next meeting, if anybody's got ideas on where that should be, if Celia wants to change her mind or if she still wants to do Sweet Road or we've got other thoughts, we can reach out then, I think. Sweet Road is the priority list, is it? Yeah. It was the project Celia had put forward last year. And I think at that point, we were like, okay, maybe Perry Hill's a better choice, more traffic, more housing. And Perry Hill was impassable last year for long periods of time, actually, in several spots. So, yeah. Is Sweet Road on there because it gets so much traffic from the recreation folks? Not necessarily. I mean, Sweet Road's on there mainly, I think, because it's just there's not enough material to work with. There's not a lot of gravel left on it. It does get substantial traffic for the hiking season and what have you. But it's really just a question of, we have half a dozen gravel roads we could put on the list and, yeah. With that, we'll run to paving, or? Chris has a question. Go ahead. So, in the lieu of a little bit not supplying fresh gravel this year, unless you've heard otherwise, I spoke to Fred McCullough there a week and a half ago extensively about this particular issue because, for several reasons, the cost of aggregate is now going to be reasonably to substantially more. How does that, how does that illuminate our ability to do as much as we wanted to? And what, you know, when I saw the agenda tonight, painting the roads and updating the roads and paving the stuff, I thought this conversation might be about the impacts of the fact that the pole bit is closing. What's our next steps? That doesn't appear to be on tonight's agenda. So, kind of the cart before the horse year, unless we've got stockpile gravel enough sufficiently for this year to do what you're talking about, you know, just can you elaborate a little bit on how that all impacts what we're planning? Yeah, we've had internal discussions myself and Tom actually today about that very issue. I think we worked last year's numbers up assuming we would have a local source of gravel, but not throwing out the fact that we may have to haul gravel from Hinesburg or somebody further, someplace further away. So, and as you can imagine, trucking time and costs, if before we were going to be able to do a mile a road, perhaps under the new, you know, gravel at Bolton, we may be doing three quarters of a mile. Again, I don't mean, I don't want to go on about this, but I was hoping that we were going to have a discussion about what it means to actually look at options to solve some of these mud issues. Apparently, having a pass on mud season this year, it's not over with yet, but Bill's right. I mean, Ducksberry's roads are garbage. If you look at the road systems, and I've got photos and actually video of material that's being plowed off into the ditches and over the bank, that material, that's part of the reason why we don't have sufficient material on our roads. What can we do about it? I've got some thoughts. I mean, it's a longer conversation than what's going to happen tonight, but I think it's important that we address that as soon as possible. I brought some samples of the current products that are available now. I was hoping to talk a little bit more about it, but maybe it has to be another night. I mean, up to the board, I don't know that perhaps. I mean, we're not hauling gravel this week. We're not spreading gravel this week, rebuilding roads, dirt roads this week. But it's a discussion that should happen in the near future. I specifically mainly came for paving, but if the board wants to put it on next round. Let's see how we do in your presentation, and then if there's time at the end, we can give Chris a little bit more time to talk about agribiliterals, and then if we need time, we can put it on the agenda for next time. Tom, did you have anything to add on you spoke with the woman at the pit today? No, I mean, she's still selling sand. I'm not interested in selling gravel, or out of gravel. I asked her about her future plans for selling gravel, and there are none. I asked her about her future plans for selling sand beyond this year. And she said, stay tuned. So moving on to asphalt roads. In your budget, you have around 405,000 slated for asphalt roads this year or this season. I think Tom directed me to come and just give you a list of options or tell you what I thought was priority. I'll start off by saying we never completed the Blush Hill paving from last year. A section from just beyond Lonesome Trail to the end of the asphalt, about 2,500 feet. We just put a two and a half inch base course on that road. We had a large diameter culvert that we were able to change out towards the end of the year that kind of prevented us from doing that whole road. So I would say it's imperative that we do that section of roadway as it really is just a completion of the previous year's project. That was the culvert we put in really late in the year, right? Yes, I think November, as I remember, very late in the year. Which was a good choice, I think, to do it. We'll have a little patching there. There was a little settling over the year, but we'll top this off. And that Blush Hill portion is going to run you probably around $54,000 or so of your 405. You've allotted for asphalt paving. Then in my mind, the next most urgent one would be Howard Avenue. Howard Avenue connects Route 100 in Maple Street and Gupta Road and Hollow Road Intersection as well. I don't know how many years it's been since we've done Howard, but it's quite a long time. It's pretty bad. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Pumped a verb over the weekend. So I think Urgent Wise, at least, I think Howard is a definite on my list. Do you have an asterisk? Yeah, that one's about $106,000 or so. Of course, we can change things up a little. That depends on whether we strip the pavement ourselves or have a company reclaim the area. Reclaiming it would cost us a little more. We strip it ourselves. That's just our time and normal work. But it's definitely in need. You can see the waterline trenches from 1994. I think it was going still visible. Those were the two I had as priorities. And then I thought it would come down to the EFAT district is in the process of trying to get a waterline installed from our reservoir to the area just behind the best western. Portions of that waterline would go through Ashford Lane, Kennedy Drive. That's in dire need as well. I think if we can make the waterline happen, which is still looking like we can, but perhaps late in the season, I think it would make sense to do Ashford, Kennedy up there. After you put the waterline in. After we put the waterline in and perhaps just do two and a half inch base course and let it settle out over the winter and see where we are. And that waterline is an EFAT bond boat. Oh really? Yeah. It's pretty expensive. 600 grand I think is the number we're kicking around. So we have to have the EFAT community load on the bond before it goes forward? Yeah. Yeah. I believe that's Wednesday, May. It's either the 10th or the 11th. So the warning hasn't been adopted yet by the EFAT board, but that'll happen this week. Can I ask you a question? Sure. You said our budget for asphalt was 105? 404. 405. All right. We'll let you know that last week. Because I was like, wait. All right, perfect. Do you have an estimate for the Ashford land, Kennedy Drive portion of that? Yeah. That's around 150,000. And is that just the 2023 portion or is that the total? That would be the total. That's again, assuming we can approach it different ways with reclaiming some of this, or if we can make the waterline project happen, we can perhaps weasel some of that stripping of the asphalt out of the water section. We'll be ripping up the road and what have you. That's right. All of them. So there's that. In reality, Kennedy and Ashford and Howard are flip coin. Kennedy and Ashford's pretty bad. I don't think that's been done in 30 years. Yeah, it's been. So that's that. And I thought it was, I guess, if we did blush and we did Howard, and you say yes to both those, perhaps we can get those done early season, then if the waterline is going to happen, we could do Kennedy, Ashford. If the waterline is not going to happen or too late in the season, then I guess we move on to something else to pave. And there's a few out there. Little rivers been thrown up in the mix. Union. Union. That somebody asked me about union the other day. There is a little portion of high street extension. There's going to be a housing development. The main unit. Right there, which would be nice. We've got about a hundred foot section of dirt right there. That would be nice to pave if that's going to be in the village and make it easier for the Highway crew to take care of that. So we can we can piecemeal in some other ones if needed. You have a number for a little river. Yeah, little river, 128,000. And that would be just in that set up portion of it. Just around the past, what is the last of the six or seven houses there? There's a school bus turn around right down there. And that would we'd end it there. Do you have an estimate on what union would cost? I didn't estimate all of union out. I did kick around the thought of milling the worst section of union, just up top in doing a hardy shim on that, for lack of a better term, that would buy us four or five more years before union hopefully would have to be done. But I could price out union if Ashford and Kennedy or a little river or not options. Union would most likely require some milling to keep the asphalt grade at what it is with a curb line and drainage. But that could be done. Yes. Because if we do the numbers, if you're looking at Blush Hill, Howard, the EFUD section, and then if you add little river, we're already above that. Yes. Yes. Not much, but. Yeah, I know. In my mind, you can do Blush and Howard. Then it's to be safe, you're either going to do Kennedy Ashford or little river. And because the price tag of both those together puts you over. Right. And if there's been instructed to hit four or five, not overshoot it, not undershoot it. If we do want Kennedy Ashford or little river, we can piece mill in with perhaps the union street patching that. Perhaps the end of high street. And that as that housing development goes in and nine times out of 10 every year. So that spot develops where we just do an extensive sham or what have you. I've had some complaints about speeding in the river. So I think they want paved road, but I think they also want. I don't know if we can put speed bumps in there. Yeah, that would add to this price tag. Yeah. When you, if you do that, could you do? I don't know how you typically do it. But would you just put it as part of the order? Would you consider the removable type? We use the removable on Bitwell Lane last summer. We've used the removable on Gupto a couple times. Yeah. The removable one was free. The safety paving gave it to us. Just does it make your life easier to remove it in the fall? I think he does. Yeah. I think little river. I'm going to guess most of the speeding traffic's during the good weather. And you could certainly with a durable one or a portable temporary one, you still have to put up the signs and the pavement markings technically, I think. But makes the road easier to plow if those are gone. Yeah. They do make noise though. If you set the speed tables or speed bumps by the houses where they want people to slow down, they're going to have to realize there's going to be a, every time somebody goes over them. And there was another one up for the trailer. Well, we've heard loud and clear from the residents over there about the speed bumps. And paving that accompanied by some speed bumps, I think would, it's like we're not having deaf ears to what the complaints are. If we kind of ignore, you know, little river, I think that, I would be sure with that. Okay. You know. I want to smooth you drive real fast. I have some trepidation. Speed bumps, you know, how fast can you go? Removable speed bumps, they hear the sound of it. It's just the sound of safety. Yeah. Yeah. And then if we didn't do little river this year, it might, I would still like to perhaps, if there was money left over, do the first 300 feet a little river, the area under the interstate bridges gets ripped up. Yeah, that's pretty rough. Terrible. And that, you know, but also that we have to realize they're going to be doing that bridge down there this year. So the road might get marred up a little bit from that. From up above. They're going to route two road. But I'm just thinking equipment wise, moving in equipment, in and out, whatever. Staging areas for whatever they do. So, go ahead, Lisa. Oh, no, I was just asking, do you want formal improvement tonight? You could, I'll ask for Tom's direction on that. And I said, I think Blush and Howard are no breakers. Well, that's what I was just going to say. I feel like I feel comfortable with that too. So if you want to make a motion to that effect, at least to them, I feel like this second part is where I'm getting into a little more complication. Not even opposition, but more, it's a juggling balancing app for you personally. I have no reservation for that. I guess my position is, you know, on the EFUD project, we can't, you know, he's engaged the contractors working on that, but we can't tell them for sure we're hitting the go button until that bonfire passes. So that sounds like it's going to be tough to get that project done and get paving done this year, but it sounds like getting the project done and doing some work on the road is a more reasonable plan. So I'd rather, so that frees up a big chunk of the budget. So I'd rather give our public works director a more clear instruction than to, you know, wait until October and see what happens. It'd be nice to, if it's Little River or some other road, it'd be nice to just have him know, maybe not today, but maybe in two weeks, you know, Little River this year, Ashford Kennedy next, just to make his life easier. He's got enough balls to juggle. I don't want to make such a motion. Question, Chris. Oh, Chris, Matt. Two quick questions. What, didn't we turn some Little River into dirt? Yeah. Are we reasoning that? Okay. The reason we turned it into dirt is not to allow, or not that. That was so bad that it was just getting sets at that point. The second question is, you know, that ST Pavin had been bought out. What's the process? Are we going to still try to work with them? I've been working with them to get the rough figures for this. I think it's a good idea to still keep working with them. You know, there's always the question of if we put something out to bid, do we get a better price? I think last year when we did the grant project that paved all of Stow Street, things obviously went out to bid. ST Paving was not low bidder, but they weren't out of sight either. I think the bids were $272,000 for the winning bid. I think ST was $279,000 or something like that. So they were right in the ballpark. I will say, someone makes my job a little easier dealing with ST Paving and that if all of a sudden this water project happens, and we want to juggle some stuff, they're always very accommodating. Okay. Do you have a motion anywhere? I move to go ahead on the Blush Hill and Howard Street or Howard Ave projects. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Any thoughts on Glow River? Yeah, I think it'd be a good idea. From what you say, I don't think that we're going to be in a position to pave Ashford or Kennedy by the end of the year. And so I think that we probably can get that fixed up for the winter and then put it on the agenda for 2024. So I think it'd be a good idea to add as much as little river is feasible this year. So I'll add that as a friendly amendment if accepted. Okay. And then just a reminder for folks, we're probably lucky if paid in cost year to year go up less than 5%, even at 5%. We're going to add 20 grand to the budget to keep pace. Yeah. Which is a pretty heavy lift. So we'll try to do that. And we still have, if we look at those three projects, there is a pretty, you know, it's not enough to do, you know, any of the other projects. No, but I'll spend your 405 somewhere. We could do a shim on Union Street, for example. We can ask Ashford to make that one. It'd just be a waste of time if we're going to rip it up. Yeah. I just know I've had a lot of calls. Yeah, it's bad. I mean, well, good. Depending on, I don't have a price. I don't think I did a Kennedy price. Essentially most of the water on work covers after very little of it on Kennedy. You could do the first 400 feet of Kennedy. We can make it happen. Yeah. The only question if we go a little river, are we putting speed bumps? Are we... I think it'd be... Paving them in or doing temporary or what would you like? I'd like to engage some of the residents there in a conversation just to make sure they understand. I don't want to put speed bumps in and then have calls take them out a year. Yeah. I think they wanted to again, the question may be they were thinking speed bumps with the gravel road, not with a paved road. So as I think Alyssa said, you know, with a paved road, people may be more apt to be driving faster. And I think it's speed bumps regardless. I think it's during the summer season when you have the boaters and the people going up to the rest of the water. What's the speed on that road? 25. 25 on that road. We asked for extra signs. I was just going to say for the board's reference, we had residents come in last year. It was a pretty engaged discussion with regards to their need for select board at the time we went the radar enforcement method of trying to do more with the portable speed signage. So I would say like I have above anything I'd defer to Woody's expertise if you know the roads and if you think it should be paved, I will completely support that. Again, my reservation is going to turn around and have them back in here and say, oh my God, you paved it. It's, you know, worse. So I think some solution with speed bumps really mitigates that. And I think not losing track of the Indian and High Street extension as someone who lives in the village and is around there. I think those folks seem to make a lot of sense. There's not that many houses. I'll make it a priority to try to engage with those folks. If that's necessary, we can invite them in for the next meeting. Mike? A permanent paved speed bumps be made in Snikemare. Some of the ones we have now, they're in Snikemare and the fact that they changed the drainage of the road essentially. Yeah, I was thinking that, but even just them getting chunked up. Yeah. Not so bad that, I mean, it's, it's, they're, they're an issue. But yeah, they do their job as a speed bump first. Right. I will say the ones we have on Butler Street, Randall Street, it's a drainage issue is what it is. And they're not going maintenance issue is that you have to keep the lines striped in front of them. It's a lot less than you have to worry about with just a straight road. All right. We have motion moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Yes. Now, including Howard, Rush Hill and Red River. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Passes. Anything else? St. Street, Centerline. St. Street, Centerline, yeah. I feel bad. I know it was the state right at the latest. Yes. I just didn't know if we were bagging it entirely. No. It'll, you know, if we're in the mercy of the state, if we don't want to pay for it. And if we want to pay for it, it'll probably be late in the season. But yes, that's still on there. We would have to pay for the white fog line that we'll be going down through at a width of 10 and a half feet per lane. I can't remember. I said it was in a minute. Yeah. So that will happen. And just we had a brief conference call today on the removal. The line is supposed to come down. It's on the polls before April 15th. And the week after that, the project should start. They think they'll be done before the 1st of June. Great. All right. Thank you. I'm good. Oh, we've not been discussed road salt. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I think the damages of road salt are evident everywhere all over town. Bridges, sidewalks, curbing everything. Can we limit where we spread road salt and still keep the public safety? But it's an issue. I think we can. I think we can do our best to lessen our usage. Whether we want to designate certain areas to have less road salt or whether we want to just set an overall goal of using less road salt. In a lot of cases, we're at mercy of the weather. It's tough to track these things. No two winners are alike. So it's tough to get a handle on our usage, especially as the price goes up. We've more or less left the bottom line. We, you know, we budgeted 60,000 or whatever for road salt. Yeah, that could be less tonnage than it was a year before. So, but I would say if the board wants to direct public works to use less salt in certain areas, we're up for the challenge. That's what you'd like. Are we, I know there's been numerous discussions about this issue. And some of it, do we want to consider some areas of no salt versus limited salt for both environmental cost issues, you know, and some forward for flat areas. We might not be getting a bank for applying any salt. I know some places, you know, I see this a lot in New York State and some other states where they have all these sections, you see where it says no salt, especially because all the salt goes down into these riverine areas. And, you know, it's a challenge because a lot of people, you know, everyone says, well, you know, they look at their own little roads and stuff like that, you know, they're off and then they go out to some road and they say, well, why aren't you applying any salt? I think some no salt, you know, and maybe that deserves some study as to exactly where we want to do that if we're going to do it with no salt. Well, as you know, as you know, you only used on the asphalt roads and you just added 2,500 feet of asphalt road to us. But yeah, perhaps you want to take the approach where we look at roads that are hydrologically connected to a waterway or something like that. Actually, I was just going to speak to, as someone who has driven those New York highways with no salt during the winter time, it's miserable. It's some of those highways with bigger turns on them and some of the back, some of the state highways and some of the interstates with no salt are miserable in January to drive on. You're decreasing your speed limit by a considerable amount when your travel time goes through the roof. I think it would behoove us to consider maybe using lesser salt in our downtown areas and with the higher speed areas keeping our salt use where it is because if you're going 25 miles an hour anyway you're not going to, you know. Yeah. Paul, it's a road too hard. Yeah, that's true. I mean, we do, there are certain cases last week when we had a little snow and looked like the sun's going to come out. An older woman in town complained that we were out putting salt down. And you know. You're crying. I'm going to get you back for that. It was the day after your birthday. I think we can meet the challenges. I was going to actually say you can not salt in front of my house. There are certain people who, yeah. That was actually going to suggest, you know, if we think about speed limits, think about flat sections. Yeah. If we're going to pay. Riverine areas. That's pretty darn flat. Yeah. That might be a good candidate to just not, not ever salt. Yeah. I mean, I think we benefited over the last several years where we spent a lot of money on asphalt. The better shape your roads are, the less salt you have to use to bear them off. I think that's, that's coming to play over the last few years. Chris, I'm going to do the things that I witnessed over the years. I had actually proposed considering, an experimental process where we eliminate salt use on a couple of roads, except for once, once you get to that, you broke up to the town shed that obviously may require salt. And Neal and Flats and I mean, even Maple Streets is flat aboard up to there for the better part of the distance. A couple of things that I've noticed that doesn't seem to be happening is paying attention to what the weather forecast is for the day. When we have very little dustings of snow, those can be kind of slippery. But if a reasonable layer, not, in fact, just a dusting of sands put on that, if the sun's coming out, that sand will heat up and melt that road just as quickly as Saul will. But you're not poisoning the waters. We don't, you know, to Cain's point, interstate driving is completely different than what our roads aren't interstate roads. And this whole process for me was a process of education. Getting people to understand that salt is detrimental to our environment. The cost is getting worse and worse all the time in that people need to start to pay attention and learn how to drive appropriately. So to Mike's point, if we could look at not completely eliminating salt, but for the most part we say, you know, these couple roads are pretty much off limits, and absolutely necessary. But the other part is making sure that the guys don't go ridiculous with the sand either when they don't need to. It's, you know, it's a bigger conversation, but there's an education part on the highway crew as well that needs to be implemented in this part of this process. But I do appreciate you taking this topic up because I've been after it for a long time. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have a motion to, as a directive to the public works on the road salt issue? I guess what I'd suggest is I personally like the idea that if we could come back to you with a plan. Okay. And I, you know, it's hard to measure year to year, but I think a better idea is for the select board to come back and tell us to come back to you with a plan. Maybe not two weeks. I mean, we've got plenty of time to work on this. Right. Which roads would go no salt or low salt? And then the other question is, should we engage the conservation committee and have them do a little work on this to tell us are there certain sensitive areas that might not be thinking about? Like around Thatcher Brook on Guptill Road, for example. Chris, I agree with you, Tom. We're pretty much done with the snow. And I think this conversation is something that we could look at in a few meetings from that. All right. I think we could just forget even a few meetings. I think we could schedule this for September, October, and just put it on an agenda then. Make sure we do it. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good. And of course, I apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sounds good. And of course, I apologize, but we are a bit of a schedule. We could put it on another agenda. Yeah. I think that's right. I think we might want to revisit the gravel issue a little bit before September because we will probably need to stockpile or that might make sense to make sure we have a source of aggregate going forward. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Thank you. I'm going to get you back though. You didn't have to hold that. Thank you. Thank you. That was nice. Select for re-a-zones. This is a financial plan. Yeah. Oh, are you on this one? I'm sorry. Do you have one filled out? No. I don't have one filled out. I can pass it around. Move too quickly through the agenda. This is annual requirement. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is an annual requirement that we have to submit to the state or we lose, in essence, base aid, which is about $100,000 a year. Mm-hmm. So the financial plan is simply our budget for the year. A little break down between winter and non-winter. Some major projects outlined. And then the certificate of compliance essentially just says that we maintain our infrastructure according to state specifications, which we always have. Mm-hmm. So pretty perfunctory thing, but there's a fair amount of funding that hinges on it each year. All right. I will make a motion to approve the annual financial plan and certificate of compliance as presented inside my copy of the certificate around. Thank you. Seconded. Okay. I have a motion. Move consecutive. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those instants. The motion carries. And unless it'll be signing and circulating, portion. Copy. All right. Now select from the hazards. This is something that Tom had suggested a couple of meetings ago. And then we talked about it briefly. The idea being that But the slip road can be more effective in maintaining a relationship with the different time committees and commissions by having someone who is monitoring their progress, their goals and objectives for the year and for the quarter and provide timely updates to the board and also inform those committees of any activities that might impact what's going on with them. And I've had occasion to talk with all members of the board about where they feel they might best serve. I'll start with Mike, who's had considerable experience in economic affairs, was chair of the conservation commission and has had numerous other contacts throughout town. Mike, do you want to just speak to us? Yeah, I'd be, you know, I still kind of keep in touch with what's stuffed still. Informally that conservation being an ex-chair and, you know, I think I was on the conservation commission for eight or nine years and, you know, I know there's, there are little spits struggling. I know they're having a hard time with, you know, membership, but I think that's happening with a lot of boards. You know, I have also a connection with the Friends of the Waterbury Reservoir on that board. So I think that could be a good connection. The other part is, you know, I was on the DRB and I'd be glad to, you know, you know, I know most of the members on the DRB, you know, and also I've been very involved in kind of revitalizing Waterbury. I don't know if they're looking at kind of, you know, having a liaison with revitalizing Waterbury. And I know there's a number of people who express interest. You know, I have a long background in housing, but I think they're other people. Is this just for conservation? I apologize. Well, in our conversation we had a few different things. So it wasn't just conservation. It was also more the economic development and, you know, future of the community. I think the DRB does with a lot of future, you know, then along with the Planning Commission, you know, has a long, a lot to say about what happens in this community. If I'd be glad to help in any way, you know, anyone who has other interests, I'd be glad to step aside. But those are two definitely areas where I feel I can, you know, you know, assist. And again, I don't know where the revitalizing Waterbury, do we want to, were you looking at, like, something like just town boards. Okay. Yep. Okay. And I think Conservation Commission is a perfect fit and to the extended, maybe DRB as well. Okay. Alyssa, would you like to address your interests? I miss DRB. So I was like, oh, we're in the planning and zoning world. Well, different. Yeah, I guess when I would just that, I think this has been a board priority for a while. It was on the list of board goals. I think there's just in general an interest of two in part, we have various boards and committees come meet with us and there's certain things, particularly planning and zoning, shopping, everyone is one of my interest areas. We as the select board need to adopt those regulations. And there's been instances in the past where, you know, the planning commission proposes regulations that in some cases, don't receive select board support or don't or, you know, require amendment before that. And certainly we as the board have the right to do that. I want to maintain that. But I think personally, I would use success as having a board committee work on a proposal that ultimately we as a select board are going to be able to support and adopt. So I was on the planning commission prior to joining the select board. And I will say the calendar year 2024 aside have generally continued to or start 2023 aside, continue to attend the meeting. So I'm certainly happy to continue there. Part of that also has to do the housing over that. But I know Kane is also interested in that. So I certainly welcome support and leadership there. But I would say planning is an area of interest. I'm also happy to work on our development. I know Tom said he was planning to attend those meetings, which I think is really good. Having been in the economic development director role, I think that direct connection with the municipal manager is really effective. Correct. Okay, Kane. As Alissa said, yeah, housing is definitely the big one for me. We have spoken about charters on our agenda now anyway. So I think I can skip over that for now. But yes, housing is the big one. And I would like to focus on what we cover within the housing task force. I would like to focus my energy at least outside of everything else in the housing task force to focus on short term rentals and what we can and cannot do with regarding those. Okay. And I think we have heard quite a bit about short term housing and its impact on the overall rental market in Waterbury. So I think that would make good use of your energies and interests if you could serve in that capacity and potentially get back to us with some of your findings about what maybe other towns have done in terms of short term rentals and any recommendations that you think the select board should consider. Absolutely. So I'm sorry, Kane's going to be the liaison for the housing task force? Is that, do I understand that right? Yeah. Alissa has been that person. I like your issue of continuity. You speak for yourself. She's a member of the task force. But we'll also assign Kane to the task force with sort of special interest in short term rentals. And then I spoke with Danny and we're both interested in recreation. I said that in the short term I would take the lead on that and that she could also back me up as needed. And to the extent that we need to have a direct liaison with EFED, both of us are also interested in serving in that capacity. And I don't know if we need to make a formal vote on this, but those are our interests, Tom. Do you think there's a need for to make this official? But now I think that's official as we need to be. For the purpose of my minutes, can you please just define what your expectations of the liaison is? Because I don't believe I have that captured anywhere. Nor have we discussed it, so I thought I was going to say. So it does not, you don't have to go into great detail, but I made, you know, Mike is the liaison for the conservation, Alissa's planning, Kane is housing, and Clap is recreation. What's your responsibility? I guess from my perspective, I would say is that it's a, provides an avenue of communication to communicate the interests of the select board and also to bring the interests and priorities of those commissions and committees back to the select board and try to clarify particular objectives and goals for this, this calendar year. Okay, because also what's not on the list then is the development review board and the tree committee, the only other two board appointed. I kind of mentioned that I would consider, especially being a former member of the DRB. Yes, I, yes, you and Alissa both, I believe, said that, but I might. Oh, you could write DRB next to Mike, I think was our intent. Oh, okay, thanks for that. That's how I understood it. Sorry, that was me just being confused. I did not, so okay. All right, sounds good, thanks. Yeah, and tree committee, I don't know if we, not solve all the issues right now, but we can see what would make most sense for the tree committee going forward. All right, I apologize, we're going a bit over time on the agenda, but if they're ready to move forward, I'll ask Scott to come forward and talk to us about the little bit parade. Good evening, everybody. You'll have to just unpack it to find his stuff. Was that the maps with the hand drawer? Oh, yes, yes, you don't need to pick it on my stick, please. Oh, I love them. This is the cover. I was a big fan of the stick figures in the hand drawer areas. So the last time we met, we discussed making plans and, you know, pouring and having discussion regarding the parade from the Dachro field south down the park on the state drive. It had been done years past. I know we have other functions that try to, you know, parade down the main street or or whatever it's going to be. So what I did was I took my years of experience sitting in UNMU TCD with the state of Vermont. So I spent 31 years doing safety for them and I'm spending five years doing some more for private entity. And these are what I came up with for a mock plan to get us from the Dachro 47 North Maine to state drive using some some assets I have, some assets that I look for, and alternative routes. So the first thing I did is I took, I took this plan, put it in the place, and I sent it to Chief Dillon and said shoot holes and let me know what you come up with. He said, looks good. Can't find anything that we left it functional enough so emergency situations can be adjusted. So to me, that was win number one. So win number two was sending it to Tom and you guys to make sure you can have some time to look at it and said, we just come in here and, you know, showing you slides and little stick figure pictures and cones. That's not the way I want to do things. So this is what we had derived. It's a half mile. I've walked it several times. I met with members of the town and I also met with, well, I got the E&S transporters, the record service here. They're going to do blockers in the back. The fire department is willing to give us some coverage. I spoke to Sergeant Werner from VSP and he is willing to give us a leak car. And right now our numbers are sky high. We've averaged probably 80 kids a year for the last three or four years. Not, you know, pandemic wise, it's hard to say that it's good or bad, but we're up to about 135 kids right now. And we still got two weeks to go. So it's, I got a lot of community support banners and I just, like I said, I want to make sure we do this right and kind of build a report now. So if we do it in years, years to come, as well as, you know, other groups that come through here will do the same thing and follow some type of template. So we know we're protecting not only the people that are in the room, but, you know, our interests as a town owners and managers and, you know, in property owners and all that good stuff. So this is what I had. I hope you guys had some time to review it and, you know, love the, forward any questions you guys have. Yeah, I just want to thank you for taking it seriously. Taking the time to meet with the chief of both the fire department and our state police contacts, developing a plan that allows for alternative passage of traffic and addressing all the issues that were brought up previously. Any other comments from the board? How long do we get instead of take them to get through? You know, I'm just taking time. In my email slash report that I sent to you guys, I figured about 45 minutes. Yes, that's the little legs, of course. So I think, you know, we could probably do it 35. I think if we cut the traffic back at 10 of 12 or 10 of one, like we were talking, get everybody ready. I set up a TA, a typical application through MUTCD, which follows traffic north to south. The blocker vehicles are to keep people at bay behind, you know, look to parade as they go. So example, when we leave here, the blockers at the, you know, at the crosswalk. So Union Street will be by alternate route out down through, you know, into Pilburn Park. And then once we leave there, those backer vehicles will follow the parade and everybody can follow behind them if they see fit. So Winooski Street will be the first closure. We get by Winooski Street, people can take south, head up 100, or they can continue to follow them down through. And we open the roads up as we go. There's no sense of keeping them blocked for an entire hours. On a Saturday, it's going to be total chaos. My biggest take back was the four-way intersection at Parkwell. So Park himself. And I said to Gary, I said, I think that's where the fire department would be best suited because we would have a couple of vehicles down there. And then with my extensive experience and a couple more vehicles with lights, I'm more than happy to assist if they need to leave for emergency response. So I think, and I have a meeting with the sons of the American Legion tomorrow night, seven o'clock, and I'm going to look for their support to come and help us with the traffic control. And the northbound traffic would be able to take a right on Parkwell and then follow railroad and Union Street to get back to the traffic circle. And then anybody from Bidwell will be able to come up over Stowe down and make their way through. And we'll have full closure on the dry bridge side on Stowe Street and then a partial on where Union and Railroad are to get people in and out. And there will be no vehicles parked anywhere left unattended like we have had in the past. And I know that was a concern. And we'll make sure that those are taken care of. There will be a cell phone and radio response for everybody. If there's an issue, I'll be in direct contact with everybody and we'll make sure that we coordinate it as it goes. Of course. Great. Good job. Thank you. Yeah, this is really well done. Do you have a motion? I make a motion to approve the plan for the little inquiry. Good second. I haven't worn my baseball. Oh! What about the opening day? Beautiful. That's the Yankees hat, though. What are you talking about? I mean, that's it! I don't think that's what it is. It is what it is. I second the motion. Okay, we have a motion moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Congratulations. Thank you, guys. Welcome to the parade. Good luck to the kids. And then what I'll do is, what I'll do is a courtesy back to the board and the town. I will make sure that I have my phone report and set up in place. Let's let you know who's going to be here. Contact names so that we, if we need to make contact after the fact, we'll have to do this. We expect them to make an appearance in the World World Series. I expect them to come down and have a good time playing the ball. That's the most important thing. Or not painting buildings and breaking windows. Don't give me ideas. Thank you, everybody. All right. Thank you, Scott. Nicely done. Thanks, Scott. Yep. Next up is the Leaf Peoples Race. Half marathon and 5K run. Scheduled for October 1. Do you have anyone to take a snuff? Well, this is probably not something I've haven't done like today. That's not what it's before. So let's take a look. Yeah, I appreciate the fact that it's so late in the fall, but this organization was actually one of the first ones to reach out to me. So they've been waiting probably longer than anybody else to get an answer. And they've, I think, got a pretty reasonable safety plan they've had in the past. And in a fair amount of this, it's not a war barrier. It's all about the war and all this event. And it's never been a problem. Yep. And yeah, so a lot of this takes place in Dexbury. A lot of Gary's concerned with the little it's just the amount of people in it and close in the close in the road and getting rid of the vehicles who I don't think we share that concern with. But they're sort of ground up around here at all. And that was my question on time. It was more just like how it takes things. Do we have to be in communication with the town of Dexbury for security and fire? We provide dexbury fire as an hour of course currently. So contact with us. So that would be one of the things. Okay, hold on. The answer is that. But they don't, there is no complete road closure for this event that I understand it. So it would allow for the passage of emergency vehicles under any condition. And it's been running for several years. There have been concerns mostly on the Dexbury side as I understand it. Okay, I'm going to tell if you have any particular concerns about this? No. No? Mm-hmm. Okay. Any other issues from the board? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion. We approve the plan for the leaf paper's half marathon and 5K run on Sunday, October the 1st. We moved and seconded any further discussion. Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Leaf paper's half marathon and 5K ready application is approved. Next up, we have the 100 or 900 race. So it's an event to be run on Saturday, August 12th, February 3rd. Again, this is a race that's been run for several years through Waterbury, starting instead ending up at Akemo. Again, it doesn't require any complete road closures. It's just crosses through town. It goes through a fairly close to the beginning of the race. So in my experience, it goes through town fairly quickly. We'll have to hear any concerns or issues that someone would like to bring to our attention. I don't have any concerns, but do you know how leaf papers are going to answer on this? That's a good question. I don't think it's you. We have teams of six members per team and I'm going to guess that there are maybe 20 teams last I remember. My wife participated in a couple of times. I don't know if it'll make a difference in your telling them they can do it, but it's certainly something I can ask for just to memorialize how many winners they can. If it's what Roger said, that's small. I don't think it's going to be like 1,000 people. That might change some. No. Well, it's also, it's rose really. So they have, there's actually a handoff in the town of Waterbury, I think between the second and the third runner. So you only have one person of the six running at a time and the rest travel in a van to the next checkpoint. Yeah, right. So in my experience, it's not a big, it doesn't have a huge impact on the town circulation or anything. I'll entertain a motion. It's Chris. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So that 100 on 100 road race, that does affect a lot of 100 when it comes to the weekend traffic. So every one of those lead drivers have every participant that's in them plus everybody who has rooted the cruise on. So when you come rolling down for 100, every pull off turn off side street, driveway, business is packed full of people. And they're in the middle of the road. They're up against the road. They're doing just about whatever they feel fit to do. So whether that's considered to me a safety concern, I would say yes. Okay. So I understand it brings revenue into the town. So it may be, it's any kind of, I work at Bill and Bogle during the week. Right. And on Saturday, it's anywhere from three to five hours where we just have nothing to total chaos inside this yard in the hardware store next door and everybody would just parking where they want to be, where they're going to go, running back and forth across the streets. So there is a little bit of concern for me in regards to traffic safety, that these types of things are looked at and make sure that there's some set in rules when it comes to the traveling public at the same time. Is that also the same weekend as the car show? I haven't gotten information yet from the car show. That's about when the car show usually happens. So, and that's when they have their parade going around town. Like I said, I think it's a great event. I just wanted to say that we really want to change it. There's a lot of people running down the side of Route 100. There's also numerous vehicles and attendees and fans and family that are following and chasing and other cars are all marked up with paint and balloons and it's a festival coming down to 100. And when it gets by us, it's probably the same issue from every town from Waterbury to Akemo. But definitely something that should be thought about and maybe present them with a scenario making you a traffic control plan coming to the town of Waterbury about how they're going to mitigate some of that stuff. Whether other towns are going to follow it when they get out of our boundary part of it. That's not up to us to make that. I just would really hate to see somebody get ahead. And we people are actually putting in, it's a much smaller race, but one of their bullets. We people is that runners will be notified on race day and pre-race information that spectators are now to travel by vehicle onto the race course. Obviously it's different. It's our number but they call it out as we're going to inspire them. Let's say we were in the process. Now we're going to start trying to formalize. You can get a standard way of doing these things like the ability program parade. And I think that we should look at that at the same time just to make sure that we kind of follow a kind of the same role model plan to make sure that it's easier to devise and put together. The car show is that weekend. I just put out thoughts. I know when the car shows, it's usually not the beginning of August and the next weekend sounds like it'll be this weekend. You're not on 12th and 13th of August. Yeah. Well, perhaps we should respond to them and say that there is another event happening that was also going to impact traffic and that we'd like some further specifications on how they're going to address safety concerns. You want me to just ask them for a safety plan? Yes. And we can even say we've heard some concerns regarding in particular not just those running the race but those watching and spectating and impacts. And do they have a plan and why and conditions? Do they communicate? Yeah, I was just going to say don't get me wrong. It's a great community event. And just for that one incident, it's going to turn a time trip forever. So I can just not be that part of the race for that. I was saying, yeah. It happens, you know. I can check in with our state troopers and we'll approve it by seeing if they're available. Should we be coordinating this with the folks from the car show? I know the car show, have they asked for an appointment yet? No. Probably not. But the, I think the timing is a little bit different. This usually starts in the morning, the mid-morning, the right time. The car show for them is usually around 3.30. Exactly. And these guys are long gone by then. But we can get many more information about the timing of the race, number of people involved and how they're going to address some of the issues that Scott brought up about safety 100-100. All right. And we'll leave this pending until we get more information. Is that okay? And then the last one will be the gravel grinder. Circus, circus. Oh, I'm sorry. Circus, circus first. Circus, circus. Yeah, I think that when I sent you the PDF by email, if you had an opportunity to look at it, it was something like 35 pages long. You're not print that version for you tonight. I just printed, you know, a couple of the cover sheet and the tent sketch and things like that. So anyway, just so you know, that there was more information in the email than what I've printed here. But this will be fully contained on the forest field. Yeah. And it's going to be over the 4th of July weekend. Our own not quite independent state parade will be the previous weekend. So there won't be any particular conflict there. Circus, circus has been active in the state for, I don't know, well over 30 years or so. But yeah, I believe it's the first time that they've set up the forest field. Is that right? Yeah, this is the first time we've ever had a request for them here. They did ask me questions such as whether the town requires them to have an EMT there. Apparently some towns do require such things. We didn't have anything like that stipulated anywhere. But it looks like they have some safety compliance already in place anyway. And it does sound like in my emails back and forth with this woman, Michelle, it does sound like they want to make this an annual event. Did they have an event on 4th of July? Some place else that they've lost or? I don't know. They do change their schedule a little bit year to year. I know they set up in Montpelier there for seven years in a row. So maybe that's the change of schedule. They were in Montpelier for 4th of July. Right. So maybe for whatever reason they can't do Montpelier or they just discovered that Montpelier is a much better community than Montpelier is. I think we can all agree. So unlike many of the other ones, this particular one there is an entertainment ordinance that applied to them. It was very specific in the ordinance. I apologize if they bring them. But it was very specifically listed circus. So I did send them this entertainment permit which requires not your signatures to just an invitation that it was proved to be denied in a $25 fee. So she filled that out and signed it and said she would add it to her packet for next year which is when I was aware she'd be coming back next year. We have an annual service in town. I think that if there was an emergency, they're within fairly easy distance of getting those services as needed. Talk to them about if they want to have a presence there on a volunteer basis. Okay. Yeah. Any other concerns or issues that the Board would like to bring up? I lived in Montpelier for a few years while they were doing this. And it just like the town essentially filled up with people going to restaurants doing a thing and then they go to this Marcus thing or they go to the restaurant to have this Marcus thing. And from a local business standpoint, I think it would be a really good bring in for Waterbury. Okay. Economic development? Her note is actually right on this cover page. Does Waterbury require a police fire and EMT details to be present during the shows? What are your requirements for the number of police and fire officers per 750 people? Again, there was nothing for me to use as a historical document to answer that question. But if you have anything that you, any of the Board wishes to relay to her then. Has Chief Dillon reviewed any of this? I don't know. I believe I included Gary on an email when I first received this back in February, but I didn't ever have a specific conversation with Gary about this event. All this tent cunt, you know, these large tents, you know, I remember I wasn't involved with it, but I remarked when they had a big storm and tent came down, three people were killed. So I don't know enough about that. I don't know enough about that stuff. And I think someone like Gary, you know, in terms of some of the... They had to get a state division of fire safety agreement. I mean, she says that they have... That's actually in their safety plan. Yeah. That 29-hour plan as they evacuate the tent. Right. They have a list of things, but I think we should get an opinion from Chief Dillon on, you know, a lot of what they have presented to us. I'll say I'm not an experiment in these areas, you know, where I think Gary can do a much better job. And then could we direct Chief Dillon to review this and then be ready to look at this for approval in the final meeting? Two weeks. Yeah. So we're going to tell them that we do have an endocrine permit. She's already filled it out. Oh, okay. She's... I've got it attached to your documents. I said, I would just say, my overall takeaway, I think this is excellent. The point has already been raised, but just to say again, this is why a checklist is great. We don't have a noise ordinance. There isn't a noise permit. They have to meet the state ordinance. Hyperlink to the state noise ordinance. It's 10 p.m. There's a death bowl amount. Gathering permit is attached. Thanks for filling it out. And no, if you don't require, please fire in the empty if that's a policy change we want to make. We should make that and let folks know what it is. That sounds great. I'm going to pose... I was... And in particular, there's time on this one. Garville Granger is a closer date. Yeah. All right. Let's take a look at the Garville Granger. How about her? Mm-hmm. If you want a trooper report about this, please read that day to support this event. Okay. That'll be helpful. I know people have expressed concerns about people re-riding two and three and maybe even four of us. It says in here that they're going to enforce the civil fire rule. But, I guess, to date, maybe that has not been expected. I'm just relying, I think, on a portion. Yeah. It's not only a raise. It's more of a social event. And people do not ride four of us. I've seen it myself. So I think that we will need to call attention to that. Any other concerns that the Board would like to bring to our attention? I've got one. Yeah. I'm a Pair Hill resident. I've gone to Calvary Road. Right. And in past years, we never really knew that this was even going on. And the four and five of us is definitely impedes anything that people come in. And we've even had cars in our end of our driveways that would not allow us to leave our homes while these vehicles, while these bicycles were peddling up Pair Hill. So it's windy. It's, you know, it's a good grade from Calvary Road, where I live, down to Stone Street. And San Bernardino, like I said, is really, and that never seemed police presence up there in a number of years that this event has been going on. So no signage and not even to talk about garbage. So there's another one too. Water bottles, you name it, from there to the trailhead where they veer off. I spend, you know, countless times as well as everybody else that's doing green. I mean, pick it up, plastic water bottles. Papers, all kinds of stuff. So it's like, once again, it's another, it's a great event, you know, but you have residents there who, A, have to get, you know, from point A to point B on the day that it happens. Post in a time and keeping it available for emergency services to be able to get in and out of there if somebody up there has an event is pretty important. So that was some of the points that I wanted to touch. And I actually spoke with Karen about this a couple of weekends ago open session for baseball. But like I said, it's one of those things, a good event. It brings something to the community again, which is just some of those things that we need to highlight where, if and when the accident occurs, I would really not want to be that long to see the end of how come these types of things aren't being completed. Yeah, well, it seems as though maybe some of those issues have been brought to their attention because they do talk about the roads being posted and that notification being made in front porch form and other public films. I guess a quick question for a Greenup Day coordinator. It's Greenup Day May 6th. So if there's a littering issue on May 7th on this ride, it would be pretty visible. The day after Greenup, I'm the Greenup coordinator. The day after Greenup, I go out and I drive pretty much every road in town and I continue to pick up and I flag things and I often I'm picking up signs from the gravel grinder thing or I'm letting them know where they are. I communicate with them afterwards because they try to pick up their signs but they inevitably leave them around. So, yeah, we're aware of it. And I actually had to call the event coordinator one year to tell them to come pick up the broken folded table and left it at the bottom of my driveway. So, like I said, once again, not complaining, just, you know, if we're going to do this, let's do it in a professional fashion and, you know, everybody's going to have a good time with it. Residents shouldn't have to, you know, pay the burden of having to deal with trash and traffic and emergency issues that may or may not come up during this event. Where does it say this is a ride single file? I don't know why I can't find it. I don't know if that's on, I just saw it. The riders will be informed that the riders will go out of there under last bullet and the pre-event safety on people. Right. I guess, I think the rest is that if we highlight the issues that Scott and others have said about that, you know, they need to make sure that the single file rules are abide by and that they put an extra effort into patrolling the event and cleaning up afterwards. I think I'm feeling favorably disposed to letting this move forward, but opened up for the discussion. I think they have to have more people monitoring the course as Scott said. You know, there's not a lot of following that single file and unless you have enough people out on the course, you know, it basically says if you don't do that, you're going to be a woman from the race. So as I think people have said, this is more of a social kind of event than it is almost a race. So yeah, I'm favorable for events like this happening, but they have to also have the appropriate volunteer staff to police the event. And I think that's why, especially in this event. Do you want to put that in the form of a motion? I'd make a motion. I would agree to meet the Waterbury Area Trails Alliance to have their 2023 gravel grinder with the express condition that the organizing staff provide appropriate volunteers to have a safe event. I'll second with the friendly amendment. It's all volunteers. They don't have a staff in that we also get a day of contact and phone number. I appreciate the organizations that provide that. Your amendments for a friend. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. All we have a motion that's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. We have approval of this with the conditions stated in the motion. I'm sorry. Elisa, you wanted contact information? Is that what you said? Yeah. Just can we get a race day contact with phone number? Honestly, I would probably know who the under 100. I would ask the same about under 100. Okay. I probably have that on the email. Okay. Is my guess. Is there about I guess there's a form or maybe just be a line on the form of who to call the data. The point of email is not phone numbers. I'm suggesting that maybe on this. Yeah. No, I won't. I probably won't have this. I got you. But still, I need just asking. I just wanted to capture it. Yeah. The phone will be on. Can I have a little bit subtract a little bit maybe and then we'll have them get a little bit later. Well, that was a ambitious 25. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. I don't know what to do. I'm going to do it. It's all four issues so sort of combined. And I'll use to Mike. Anyway. All right. Appointment of the tree written. Give us Tom. Well, give a quick intro. Oh, yeah. All right. Tom give. Yeah. Can you hear me? Can you guys hear me on that? We can hear you. Tom is going to just give us a quick orientation and a tree written in position and everything move on to Todd with the cabinet. So Steve. Yeah, thank you. Steve Lachspeed retiring it leaves a pretty big void. And so what I'm hoping to do is step in a little bit and help him out. Tree warning. There's a possibility we could have a deputy tree warning, perhaps Celia or somebody that works in for the town. As our community grows, more people are moving into the area. Trees are in the way of public places. We can drive better volunteers by having a plan. And basically that's what my job is. And Steve's not retiring right away. He's still going to be part of the program. But, you know, I run a landscape company right now. The town contracts me for quite a bit in terms of the roundabout, the flower baskets, the Christmas garlands. I get tons of feedback from the town quite a bit. And I've had a lot of opportunity to meet some of the community members of the town. And we've got some pesticides and some issues and some things that require a little bit more expertise. And by having a tree committee, I've been on the tree committee for about a year and a half. And just being a good communicator between myself and the town officials, I hope that could be something that can bring to the table. Tom, that's about it. Is there anything specific on me to go into? I know we put together a tree care ordinance. I don't know if folks have reviewed that. I don't have the ordinance in front of me. Steve, how do we put out your last name? That's Mike. Oh, is that Mike? Yeah, Mike. No, okay. Both first. We'll see how long. Mike? We'll see how long. We'll see how long. Good. Great. Thank you for that. Tom, do you have anything to add to this? Yeah. We should at some point consider a deputy. We haven't had one in the past. Could be Bill Woodruff, could be Sylian Public Works. Generally speaking, I'd say my experience, you don't run into a lot of thorny issues when you're out of downtown, really. We are, for example, treating some ash trees in downtown, some older big ashes with some chemical treatment to hopefully make them less, give them some resistance so I'm going to ask for more. You sometimes run out of thorny issues. A great example is the sidewalk projects that we're working on every year. We reduce sidewalks who oftentimes kill tree roots. The tree warden sometimes will need to make a call about whether or not we take down that tree or not try to work with the homeowner in those sentences. Sometimes it's easy and the homeowner doesn't particularly care what you do with the tree. Sometimes the homeowner really wants you to try to save the tree. So the tree warden knows that this helps on navigating those issues. And we can also re-adjust communicate as soon as you give notification if the tree is going to potentially cut down whether or not one side of it. So it's just more communication. Yep. Great. Any other comments or questions from a little bit? Yeah. Like, just curious, Mike, if you know, like if we have like a storm like, you know, we had with Irene granted, we didn't have as much down trees. But does the tree warden do that? I mean, maybe Tom can answer that too. If there are a bunch of trees down, do you make the call on what trees could taken out or if there are hazards? Well, I think it's that, I think that is it's a the spectrum I mean, if it's a very big storm and there's, you know, really many multiple crews that need to be put out to do the repair work, they don't necessarily need the tree warden to look out for it. But maybe if we have a 95 year old that's being considered taking down, you know, and there's one-off scenarios is probably with the industry. I don't think anything can be involved in every one-off, but, you know, they can be back from the community and passing it on to you guys or whoever that that could be pretty important would be there. I'm just looking at last week's, like in the Midwest, all the damage that was caused by the tornadoes, not, well, hopefully not going to have a tornado. Yeah, it doesn't happen here. No. Well, might it be a climate change or something like that? And, um, just the way it is? Well, thanks for stepping forward and thanks for the update and your experience with this. Sounds like a good match to me. And does anyone on the board wish to make a motion? To appoint, like, Lociado as tree warden with thanks for your service. And I feel for our friendly amendment to that, that I feel if you add seconded first. Okay, I seconded. But a friendly amendment would be to add Bill Woodruff as deputy tree warden. Have we asked? What are you, that was a sad moment. That's the what are you supposed to do? I'm not appointing what are you to anything with that. This is supposed to consent. What is consent? On his consent. Other duties as assigned. On his consent. He might, Celia might prefer to be in that role. I haven't had a chance to talk with her about that yet. See, let's wait and just do Mike. We'll just do Mike then. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? Here are none. All those who have appointed Mike Lociado as our new tree warden say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Mike, congratulations. Are you related to the guy on TV who does cars? I don't know. He's going to leave me on the road. Yeah. All right. Okay. I've fallen with that name at all. There we go. There you go. There you go. Do we have a celebrity? We have a really valuable thank you for your time. Thank you. It's an interesting man. Sorry for the sorry for your man. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Million. A payment of the sort of amount regional planning commission representative. So with Steve's retirement, first off the town gets an appointment to CVRPC. CVRPC has a pretty big role. There is part of it is they have a role in endorsing our municipal plan. CVRPC has also a role in more mundane things versus grant applications we submit. They will oftentimes submit a letter of support confirming its comport with the regional plan. Your appointment does not have to be a town staff person. So you might want to think about this one a little bit. Traditionally it's been Steve. It could be Steve's replacement. You can sit on it for a little bit. You don't have to make any recommendation today. You can think about this and we can bring it up in a few weeks. I'm a little leery about making Steve's ultimate replacement the appointee just because that person will be new and I'm going to put too much on their plate. So I guess I encourage you to find someone other than that person. And it was Steve not serving, opting not to serve again. We don't have any other candidates. I just kind of screwed July on my card. Did you? Did you? Yeah, June 30th. She's going to start. To be clear, I don't think we've advertised that. We have not advertised it. So as point of reference, so being a planning disease, there's this we can also have an alternate. But I see our draft agenda that we're discussing later. I mean, it might be too soon for that. But I would propose we advertise it. Okay, we can do that. I'm willing to do it candidly, but I'm not trying to just appoint myself to go to more planning meetings. But I'm willing to do it if you don't find anyone else. It'd be nice to see if there's interest by a member of the community who has interest in that. Great. It's an experience. We would hope to go hand in hand. Well, if you look ahead at that draft agenda, you're going to see that there's one, two, three, four applicants right now for one seat on the planning commission. So at least some of them have an interest. Great. Okay. So I can do an ad for the CBRPC on with Lisa and on front porch forum and sort of mirroring the way that I put out word for these volunteers. Okay. Guess we need no further action on that. The schedule of fees for the steel room it has been $25 since it was first constructed, as I understand it. Okay. Other than I don't have town boards and commissions, I'm sure don't pay but like does a historical society pay what they use this for? No, not internal town agencies. Okay. Like revitalizing water very inside. Okay. They they pay. So non non municipal organizations. Which maybe the historical society is a stretch, but they occupied the building. So they've never paid. RW has paid. The state pays. Yes. To answer the question, everybody pays. Yeah. We don't we don't have a way to fee for anybody, whether you're nonprofit or Tom lights his best friend. You pay. I think it might want to be somewhat timely if someone's going to have a room here for a day, you know, a full day thing. I think they should pay more than $25. Okay. So I'm sorry. Let me go over the fee structure. It's $25 for the first two hours, $10 an hour after that. So all told us like $85 to use this room for a whole day, for a day. Which, you know, you have obviously access to this room and the it equipment not the owl. You have access to the caterers. There's restrooms outside. I think more than all that is that inevitably the staff gets sucked into the meeting in some way, whether it's we need more tables. We can't hear anything. Yeah. Inevitably staff time is used. And staff time cleaning staff. Yeah. Cleaning staff. Yeah. Yeah. Trash is left, which it's not the big deal, but we don't have a dumpster here or anything. So staff ends up taking that downstairs. Just all those little things that go with it. The fees are probably not paying the costs involved. I don't know. Tom had time. I pulled together 2021. So in all this room gardener, maybe $1,200 in rental fees in 2021. Which is was probably really a low year because the fee this room didn't get used at all through COVID. And it was just kind of very coming back in 2021. Going to start ramping up this year. Yeah. So we've already seen which is what we brought on this staff conversation because we're already seeing a big increase in requests in 2022. Do we have a recommendation from the staff? Did you have a recommendation? Yeah. $50 for the first two hours. $10 an hour after that. Should just increase the first two. Yeah. Deanna did me a great service today and found some other rooms available. I mean the prices range all over the place. But none of them are quite as cheap as this. Yeah. It seems to me like this is the best deal in town. Yeah. It is. The fishing game, I think they get like for a day though. Oh, it's like $400 but like for non-profits, I think they're like $2,250. So it's a lot more expensive than this. So, you know, this should be a community resource. Right. But, you know, I think it's being given away a lot through Deanna. So maybe to start with you would accept the recommendation of the town manager to avoid sticker shock that also recognize that we're a little bit out of the loop in terms of cost structure on public meeting places. So this would just be for CalD or 2023? That would be Until. How long until further notice? You already have reservations in the system. Right. So you'd have to make it apply to any new reservation. Something along that line. But it would end at the end. So like if we decide we have a lot more business than you guys maybe want to handle, maybe we might want to increase. Well, you can't. You can only have one veteran here at a time. No, I'm talking about more days and stuff like that that you might see. You don't want to reassess next year. Oh, I feel a little bit chunky. Oh, I'm sorry. Right. Yeah, I mean. So it doesn't, you know, if it's really becoming a burden on the town's staff, higher fees do make it. Yeah. Well, this will probably slow it down. So I'll move to adopt the manager's recommendation to adopt a revised fee for the steel community for $50 for the first two hours, $10 an hour back. Do I hear? Okay. We have a motion moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The fee structure has been amended according to the recommendation of the town manager. Town charter. I suggested that we add this to the agenda tonight because it can provide some additional flexibility on how we manage the affairs of the town. Runawayals would be the potential of looking at a local option tax, which could provide another avenue of revenue to gain revenue. As opposed to raising taxes, which may or is likely to become an issue going forward as we look at some higher costs going into next year. And then there may be some other issues that it would allow for us to manage towns affairs in a way that is going to be more convenient for the town. Anyone care to address this or have a particular issue or concern they want to address within this? Do you know which communities in the local sphere have options? I know Stowe does. No, not all of them. It's a grilling list. Give me a second. Though Stowe definitely has a chart. I guess I'm happy to speak to, I think, like, yes, I'm not negating or minimizing a local option tax to me. One, I'm curious what our goal for our conversation is, but I think what I have found interesting is that many, and this is what I'm more interested in, here municipalities with our size and level of staffing and use of the municipal manager form of government have charters that allows them to be more flexible. Maybe not quite our size, but I would say that my roommate works in Williston, and so her town employment is actually governed by the town Williston's charter. And so, in particular, I've said, I love planning and zoning. We have a funky part of the reason I was in planning and zoning director interviews is because since in the absence of a charter, in a dill and grill state, we default to state statute. And so there's scenarios like us having to appoint a zoning administrator, even though Tom is the municipal manager and whoever the planning and zoning director is effectively going to supervise them. And I would love to just empower him to hire him like every other person, but we're kind of handicapped by what having to follow state law. So to me, actually, that's, you know, the planning commission. I mean, when I was planning commission, we've spent three meetings interviewing candidates and not that the volunteers weren't able to do that effectively, but in terms of a use of time and who actually is most diddy day managing a staff person. I think it also creates a weird dynamic for municipal staff like it's just, but to me, things like that can't be addressed until we have a charter. So do I wish there was a cleaner, clearer, easier solution? Yes, but I think to me that's one of the reasons a charter is appealing is to have the tools to address that. I guess my thought would be I'm curious about do we have to start big? So the, I'll say it once, but the like Bill Shepplett joke would be you could have a charter that says we will follow the general laws of the state of Vermont and to we should, the municipal manager can hire a zoning administrator period and in practice, I don't think we should do that, but I don't know how much of our conversation tonight is about like vision or process or it's just checking in about like, do we think it's a good idea? Yeah, I mostly wanted to just get a general sense from the board as to whether this is something that we do want to explore and if so where we can go direct the talent manager to address some of these issues like you just mentioned if you could identify similar sized towns that have a charter and what the impact has been and then also what the process would be and I tend to agree with you that simpler maybe better and not make this you know go look at every possible opportunity but identify some key interests like the higher level of the town planner and I think notably the local option tax. Yeah, Kane. What I'd like to speak to on this issue just boil it down past the appointing of zoning managers and the local option tax and really just boiling it down to a town charter gives the townspeople ability to govern themselves outside of Dillon's rule. We as the town of Waterbury and the voters of Waterbury would be able to decide for ourselves what how and how we don't want our town to be run instead of having to look to the state house for all our answers and I think at this point with the size of our town growing and the need to be making changes that maybe the state doesn't necessarily have the answers for at this time it would behoove us to look into this issue with the idea that eventually we would agree on how we would do it not if we're going to do it. Okay. I guess I would add there's also some charter issues that are you know if you read the city of Essex Junction for example which just enacted a charter it has a lot of sections but a lot of those sections refer to simply state statutes as they'll follow the statute but there are some areas that may seem a little mundane but can clarify for example you could specify in your charter your process for filling a select board vacancy if it occurs midterm. You could clarify in your charter the interests and penalties and taxes enacted in your charter setting that up for a vote every year. So there's some smaller things that might be of importance to you. Every town does it differently it need not be in the end of a long complex document but you might you might find that in whatever there's certain there's certain examples from other towns that you like. So yeah I think that would be on hearing positive response would someone care to make a motion to direct the Mr. Roeiger to find some of the examples that we've just discussed and bring those back to us to outline some options to move forward with us. Yeah I'm sorry Chris go ahead. Alyssa that bill that was if you look on the computer there the one that you just gave to the bill. It's a VLT legislative summary week 13. That's why you're on the line. Speak to local options tax and the ability for towns to maybe not have to have the charter. Yeah there's been conversation about that and I believe proposed bills for some years don't quote me on some years but there's been a lot of charter chatter about that. South heroes what's listed. Where the legislature would give towns the authority to have a local option tax without a charter you just have to have a town meeting vote. I guess I guess to say that my other my other concern is if they kind of don't know what a charter entails but does having a charter require us hold our feet to the fire and things that we maybe are not interested in I guess that's my only other concern with that. Not necessarily because you can ultimately you can limit your charter which is the items of importance to you and the rest automatically defaults the state statute. So you know to you know what you said Bill Shepplick's example is nice in saying for the improved don't fix it. Mm-hmm Mike. That's what as I think has been said I think we need some more information on towns that have options taxes towns that have charters what their levels of charters are you know I think there are some things like what Alyssa said makes a lot of sense to have a charter but I'm I'm a little hesitant just to have a charter if we're just looking at an options tax as we just said and maybe the ability to have an options tax without having a charter so I think we kind of need to explore some information and before we kind of rush into a decision. Alyssa you have your hand up. Well in response to that like I think they're both really important and I think in my mind they are two separate policy issues and right now it is a required mechanism and maybe that will change but I think they're both important reasons personally I can find merit in both of them but I think they are two different I think to me having the conversation of charter is an important conversation to have on whatever its merits are and having a conversation about local option tax is an important conversation to have on its merit so I would move Roger made the motion so I want to say it's your motion though I know for each year formalities you don't but I would move that the select board encourage the manager to research comparable municipalities to waterbury's size and whatever other relevant characteristics with charters and do you have any other personally I would be interested in a potential proposed processes at Thailand if we were interested in moving forward with adopting one yeah do I have a second second okay any further discussion thank you okay we should build on it all yeah we've had any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye any post any abstentions very none we are directing the time around you to go forward uh as directed okay um hi Chris yeah thanks Chris uh the April 17th agenda uh so we are over time but I don't think it's yet April 5th in terms of the minutes uh so hopefully we can get out of here before the turn of midnight so that'll be the third I'll update that on the track um and this will be other consul agendas any uh any other particular concerns additions or uh items of note within the proposed agenda for the next meeting which will be the 17th uh yes I'll let's go can you do that or do I did that I so I yeah I signed that so there's um there's tobacco legislation settlement legislation that came through a few years ago I believe you could essentially opt to do it on your own or or join the the state's lawsuit I think if you do I think we opted to join the state lawsuit so I signed the documentation which would give us our share of the settlement money it's really hard for me to tell you how much that is and when it's going to come through um and then I'm not quite it appears to me that we have to we have to devote that money towards sorry opioid not out okay thank you I just VLCT was sending the like 5 to 17th which is why we can have to sit down there maybe some accounting about how we spend that money that opioid related but I also think there's a strong argument that our state police contract has a pretty substantial cost element that's really just that as does the ambulance service but we don't you don't need any action from us this is my question um my uh proclivity towards zoning aside I find 10 minutes in an unrealistic time frame for a readoption of a bylaw okay sorry I'm posing my yeah I wouldn't know I don't think that I don't I wish not to make this an expectation that I bring you a draft every time and I wish you don't want to discourage you but um because next week the two weeks from now is already so heavily uh taken I did want to put it in writing so it was very evident that it's going to be a heavy agenda but no that's finalist said what how much time would you like to devote to um the one year extension of the interim bylaw even 20 minutes just hopefully it's quicker hopefully okay I wasn't sure honestly if there was any real discussion or very just extending it so it might that's true so maybe it could be quite and we're so kind of following the times any okay okay so so optimistic optimistic how do I do 15 okay can we have along with that in that mode an update from the planning commission of where we are with the ultimate zoning right yes but I would vote at a different meeting yeah maybe that's a parking lot thing but I think maybe the family meeting but yeah but it's something that has to happen fairly you have to move that forward possibly got the grant funding you know the town so you figure out any grant yeah the plan for um keep uh making this a public process yeah so you want the parking lot an update from planning update from the planning commission on where we are with the uh town wide zoning rewrite okay okay is between now and next meeting ample time to get the info together about a charter or do we need more time on that I think it's ample time just for you to get your information to us I don't know if we may be ready at that point to do something but we might I think it would be helpful to have the information exactly the earliest possible time right okay we've been talking about for the last two years so we add you're adding that to the agenda uh I was going to ask if I would have support in that decision I mean if you want to give me more time I want to argue um I think you're going to end up doing interviews for those appointment just timing wise I think that's going to show I'd say come on share it but we don't discuss it or we discuss it briefly I support the do it sooner than later I'm just trying to yeah I don't know we need to have a lot of discussion about it as soon as we get the information here yeah we do do like check it on next steps on target just so that we put it on yeah let's do that check it on next steps um and then we also asked for more information on both 100 on 100 and the service makers permits so those got to be put and I put those you know relatively high up so that we can get past them okay well we with the input that we're looking for the this the 715 item um is actually been advertised at 710 so I can't move that too much drop it down below about them um but I can put 100 on 100 circa smirk is above the appointments the board appointments if you wish yes all right let's put it before the presentation of the quarterly finals then okay so this list that I've provided you on this draft agenda is current as of today um you'll look if you look you'll see that um most of these have a number of candidates for the seats so are you are you thinking that you're going to do interviews for all of them that's my question so we didn't have any questions you know in terms of the emails you just have names no I do have emails from everyone some of them are biographies some of them are one line sentences um I no one really gave me a we have a directive we have more than one person interested for anything but planning yeah now we have two for the tree and only one seat um we have a number of weird seats available for rec that we now have three people for so I don't know if they're going to take a three-year seat a one-year seat or a two-year seat it would be possible for our select board liaisons to discuss the positions with those individuals and bring back you know bring back one name for planning as as your recommendation all right throwing you into the bus right there I was saying you know speaking personally I don't I mean I have thoughts on who I think planning is but I think if it's uh I think this is my field would feel strange not offering all the candidates to select work is it okay is a select board decision my thought would be and I'm wondering again maybe on the liaison like I brought up an application before we haven't done it before but I do wonder at least on the ones that are contested do contested um with more than one interest an applicant do we ask for a paragraph I know some have already done it but do we like for each of them say hi margins in could you please provide background on why you would like to be on the tree committee just so we can I think what's hard and time consuming is when we're having that narrative with each of these people in the meeting and then for the ones with terms do we ask do you have a preference on a one or two-year term I mean again we've done it informally earlier the meeting which is fine but um I hear because I don't I don't I think to the extent we can stream I would just say at least for planning question which is a tough one for me for a variety of reasons but I would want to have the ability to offer my qualified opinion for whatever reason and not feel like I was imposing that on the board it'll just be for uh so-called contested uh possessions my question here I don't know if is it still open I'm forgetting what I gave them till the Thursday before the meeting that way I can get all these emails to you on Friday yeah the weekend to look them over right and get a sense of who is who and what they bring to the board many of them really did do like Zinn Wolf I know he sent me a nice long email Amy Marshall Carney did Monica Callendon did um Stacey Lambert did you know this I don't know Robert Adler but his his is literally like yes I'd like to be you know so I can write back to Mr. Adler and say look there's four folks vying for this one chair can you provide more information to the board I'm happy to do that um I also have big concerns about the fact that the conservation commission has no applicants nobody has reached out for me to me for that and they're um they also have a lot of seats don't they have like seven seats Tom well I from what I've heard they want to decrease the number of people because I think they they went up in the number of seats because we had a pretty full you're the liaison so this one I vote liaison that I come back with them I'm going to see Alan Thompson tomorrow Alan's resigning mm-hmm why speak to him of course you can I'm just saying he's so their seats are getting so I guess if you're okay I don't know what the point I'm not trying to propose on the half box but if you're willing for folks who didn't provide an explanation just for a question mostly because to me it's like so it's an even playing field like I might think I just need to send a thank you which does get them on this list um and then I don't know if in the ones with terms it should be part of just say like we have multiple different we have a one two three-year term would you have a preference or just do that in real time that may be easier in real time yeah it's really just the wreck that you're unless we can find some bodies for conservation it's really just the right I think it's a good idea to get information from every candidate who runs for a board or commission why with the provisor that it's a page uh a limited one page of that amount of money well I mean I'd not heard anyone propose the idea of a quasi application but certainly if there's a template well perhaps oh no no I am some thought it would be good and if there's specific things you want to know then I mean heck yeah it's a lot easier for me to say look these are the six questions they really want you to answer and anything else you'd like to contribute we welcome but it's a little late for me to go back to all right ready it's like to me it's like why do you want to run for this position and what are your qualifications so those those are the major yeah next yeah all right well there's only a couple there's only a couple of people who um I would need to circle back again circle so I'll do that tomorrow giving them plenty of time to respond and um I guess I just need to know whether you do you intend for me to invite them all here for conversations that night it sounds like we do okay and so we'll just try to keep it concise and to the point and maybe try to limit uh how much time we spend with each candidate I'm thinking it's there are mechanisms um I have deeply imprinted in my brain when we did brain choice voting for the housing task force which was 20 minutes of dead air on zoom and I'm still sorry to everyone but I'm wondering about like do we all I don't want to come on behalf of the planning commission but you know thinking once we get those wonderful responses that current willing to help compile how we I think we should invite them all but how do we keep that conversation you're asking if you're inviting the planning commission to the meeting as well oh no sorry I'm just saying I think we should invite them all in the past sometimes it's gotten like really detailed on certain policy issues certain things that just takes a lot of time and I'm wondering about how we just how we have that conversation efficiently but we could ask everyone to present themselves during a two-minute presentation and then if there are particular questions we can ask but also try to limit that to maximum of five minutes per candidate so that's unreasonable and I'm not sure that on some of these like the rec committee where it's not not contested yeah whether we need to hear from everybody I mean happy to have them there and to respond to any questions that may come up but they don't necessarily need to go through the full vetting process yeah not in that exercise you just got to vet out who's going to get the three-year seats the one-year seat and the two-year seat uninspired okay I can I can try to do that ahead of time yeah if you wouldn't want just to see if there anyone would like to put their head in for those those different slots in advance that would be helpful one other thing is that Monica Callan also asked to be appointed to the steering committee of the s e committee s e group study of the hope davie and ice center and I talked study which is near completion yeah and so Tom and I talked about it briefly on Friday our conclusions that the interest is to bring the artistic interest into that discussion which we think will and certainly can it should happen during the implementation phase but that at this point we don't know whether the direction of the steering committee can be altered completely uh listen yeah and I would just say there's actually a pretty long and short history as to getting to the current steering committee configuration that contested and other folks who've asked for seats so personally I would say one as a parking lot thing we have to get a public presentation of that right we asked in a public there's one more presentation of the final plan so just to say it will come to this group I think personally as the rep on it I think it would be really tough to reopen it and I think would welcome public comment I think you might as provide a public comment I know I know like conservation question in particular really wanted to see did not wind up with one so I think to suddenly add someone at this stage for a variety of reasons would be really hard okay all right I'll be happy to get up go ahead is there a vacancy I don't think there's a vacancy on that steering or if someone left or you know I don't think we could just add a different body we already have a working steering committee right plus you know the additional person would be up to speed where every of the other steering committee members yeah I think that that would be my concern as well you know I would just say like Steve has been really great in staffing it into forwarding to the entire steering committee every comment that's received so I would just say you know it's essentially wrapped up so there isn't going to continue my response would be steering committee role but all public comment is supported to the steering committee and include the right and Monica's input is one of the comments forward to the committee okay I'm satisfied with that unless we need any further discussion um I just want to like see the RPC to add to this list if we maybe got someone for that regional planning mission oh you want that one there for that week well I don't think we can have someone mm-hmm okay any further discussion next next meeting's agenda thank you for preparing this yes I'll try to to do that well and vivacious at this point we are looking at potentially going into executive session because anyone want to make a motion to add effect I'm looking to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing personality second peace out