 I think here. Right on off here. Not using my phone. They're fast, I should say. I could call the Essex, the town of Essex Select Board meeting for Monday, September 12, 2022 to order. First item on the agenda, agenda additions or changes, any changes from staff? None from staff. Any changes requested from board members? No, Kendall. Okay. And then we'll move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is the time of the agenda when participants or attendees can speak to the board on topics that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, either raise your hand here in the room or use the raise your hand feature in the zoom application, which if you float your cursor on the reactions or toward the bottom of the screen. There's a reactions button that opens up or appears. And if you click on that, the raise your hand option is in there. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, please be brief, please be civil. And I guess we'll go from there. Any, I see one hand in the back of the room, come on up to the microphone, introduce yourself. Hey there. Hi. I'm Rachel Lizotte. I live on Two Saved Circle in Essex Town. And I'm here about the corner of Allen Martin Parkway and Sand Hill Road. And almost every week, almost every day, there's junk on that corner. People leave stuff for free and it sits for weeks. And unfortunately that what ends up probably happening is that the town has to pick it up. And there's tires, there's cars for sale, there's dressers that are broken. There was like a sporting equipment, flower pots, lamps, anyway. So it's been years this has happened. So I decided to write up a quick petition. And I took it around just our street in our neighborhood. And almost everyone was like, oh yeah, the junk corner, the junk corner. And we would ask that the town at least, at the very least post a no dumping sign there with some sort of fine. And what we would also like is to be able to landscape that corner. I'm happy to donate our time. And my husband owns a company that sells seed and plants. And we'd be happy to donate. And I know that our neighborhood would be happy to revitalize that corner. It also is where Saxon Hollow Park is. And another neighbor mentioned that it's also really a health hazard to have that kind of stuff there by the park. And the high school students, another friend mentioned that the high school students wait for the bus on that corner, which is also pretty gross for those kids. I have the petition here. Unfortunately, there were also 16 other people that I was not able to get to. But there was an outpouring of response for this corner to clean up. So we would just respectfully ask for that sign and the ability to landscape. Okay, thank you. Yeah, you want this petition or? Yeah, sure, we can take a copy of that. Is there any kind of response? I'd be happy to look into it and talk to our public works department and police. I'll have to check and see if we can associate a fine immediately with the no dumping that might require an ordinance change, but we can certainly look at getting a sign up and seeing what other steps we can take. Okay. And there are other no dumping signs just about not go by the distance, but just up the road on Allen Martin road, Allen Martin Parkway on the side of the on the left hand side as you're headed to like the condos back there. So there are no dumping signs just in the vicinity, but that corner is just really a blemish. Okay. Thanks. I really liked the landscaping idea too. Yeah. Just to kind of deter. I mean, I think if some people had their way, they had like a camera, but I decided to go the low cost route in my request. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We'll look at it. Okay. Any other hands in the room or look to be heard? Don't see any, any, any hands online? Actually, there are a couple of people there. I don't see any hands up. So, okay, let's move on to the first business item, which is a presentation from the Chittin solid waste district about the bond vote for the materials recover facility. Sarah, come on up, introduce yourself and have your say. Great. Thank you very much. My name is Sarah Reeves. I'm the executive director for CSWD. And we believe Michelle sent over a PowerPoint. So if that could be brought up, that would be great. I appreciate that. So I am here today to talk with the select board. As I promised that I would come back and talk to specifically about the ballot initiative that Chittin solid waste district has is putting before the voters on November 8th. It is considered a special election. We are seeking authorization from the voters of Chittin County to borrow up to $22 million. Recording stopped. Oops. I can hang on until it starts again. Please. Yeah. Right back. No worries. Disabled. Sorry. Do you want to make me those? We need to restart recording. Yes. Thank you. Recording in progress. Okay. We're back. There we go. No, it's okay. So as I was saying, we're requesting authorization from Chittin County voters to borrow $22 million to construct a new materials recovery facility. And go to the next slide, please. And I don't know that anyone here needs to be reminded of who CSWD is, but just in case there is someone new attending and from the public. This is who we are. We are a municipality created in 1987 by our member towns. And we do encompass all of Chittin County to manage solid waste created in the district on their behalf. And our numbers keep going up. The population is increasing in Chittin County as are the businesses. So we serve not just residents, but also businesses, institutions, schools, et cetera. Next, please. And again, I think probably everyone here is familiar with the facilities and the services that we either own operate in the services that we provide to the residents and businesses of Chittin County. And one of the key reason I'm here today again is that last bullet on the bottom there materials recovery facility. We own the Murph in, and we call it Murph, it's Murph. We own the Murph here in Chittin County. It is again a municipally owned facility. The other facility in Vermont is privately owned and operated by Kasella. Next slide, please. And what it does is it basically is a big plant, a manufacturing plant that sorts the blue bin recyclable. So anything that you put in your blue bin or your blue cart or that you drop off to one of our drop off centers and put in the recycling container gets brought to this building and then is sorted into different commodities. So we sort them into bottles, cans, jugs, cardboard, paper, tin. We own the building. We own the property. We own the equipment. We do contract with Kasella for the daily operation. And as I mentioned, it is the publicly owned facility in the state. So why do we need a new one? The last one that we have now is built 1993 was built to manage 25,000 tons of recycling. We are currently processing about 47,000 tons. It has, it is at over maximum capacity. We are still operating at one shift, but it is very, very inefficient. We cannot expand the location where we're at in Williston. We can't go up. We can't go out. We can't go back. We are at the end of the road, so we literally cannot move anywhere and do an expansion, which we would need to do in order to accommodate better what we're doing now and to be able to expand and have flexibility for the future. There is no way that in this particular facility, we could ever hope to take any more material or any different types of material. And that is critical for the future. Thanks, please. So again, I just kind of jumped ahead on the slide. But what we're doing is I'll skip to the inefficient hand sorting. And that is a photo of some of the Cassell employees who are doing the best job that they can given the circumstances of sorting bottles and cans. They are sorting each bottle, each jug, each can by hand. And the material is there's so much of it that it goes by so quickly, they literally cannot get everything that's going by them at one pass. So it has to be scooped up and brought back in for a second pass. Every container is sorted twice. It's incredibly ineffective and inefficient. Next. Also, we have very limited storage. This is a photo of the left side milk jugs and on the middle and the right are laundry detergent jugs that are being stored outside because we don't have room inside to store them. This is not at all ideal. It is not industry best practice. You always want to keep all your materials indoors however you can really at all times and particularly in Vermont with our variations in weather. This is not ideal and the new facility, everything will be kept inside. Next please. So this is it might be a little bit difficult to see, but this is the conceptual design. Again, this is being intended to be built on property that CSWD owns in Williston on Redmond Road just down the road from our admin building and our drop off center. And the blue square is the representation of the current Murph's size. So you can see that we're looking to add on either side on either end. One is the receiving area or the tip floor, which will triple in size. And on the other side is the storage area for the bales, which will also triple in size. So the entire Murph currently would fit in just the processing area of the new Murph. So we're looking to go from about 32,000 square feet to about 60,000 square feet. That's definitely needed. Next please. So we're looking at adding technology. The only technology we have in the current Murph is an old magnet that does wear out over time. We do have some glass cleanup system that we will be actually bringing to the new facility. So we will be reusing some of the equipment that we have. So that system and the baler, the machine that makes the cubes of recycling. But everything else will be new. Everything else will be up to not just today's standards, but really the standards that were in place 15 years ago. We are that far behind. So we need and deserve to have a modern facility here in Vermont so that we can continue to recycle as much as we can and to have some flexibility for the future as packaging does change. Next please. Again, more square footage means a higher quality output. This also means much more efficiency. Everything will get run through once. And the folks who are working there today, they're Cassell employees today. If Cassell continues to operate the facility, they will all come over to the new facility. There will be no loss of jobs. That has been a question and a concern. How will automation affect employment? And actually it's going to make the work much better. Right now, as you saw in that previous slide, that sorting room is extremely cramped. It is not a great environment. In the new facility, those sorters will become quality control people and the machines will sort to the initial pass and then they will just have to sort anything that is missed by the equipment. So it becomes a much less taxing job. The building will be taller, airier, brighter, and will just be a better environment for our workers. Next please. We are looking to future proof. We don't want to be behind again. So with the addition of technology, which can be programmed to read different types of material, whether it's different types of fiber, different types of paper, different types of plastics, we can adjust as packaging changes over the years. We think, you know, even 10 years ago, we have different kinds of packaging now that we did then, certainly then we did 20 years ago and certainly then we did 30 years ago. So as packaging evolves, we want to be able to also evolve with that. And this new facility will give us the space and the technology to be able to adapt for the future. Next please. Some of the environmental benefits have run through all of them, but you know, we are building the facility so that we'll be able to accommodate at least up to 70,000 tons of recycling a year. So it gives us a lot of room to expand and to take more material and keep more material out of the landfill again as packaging changes and as our population is growing. Next please. And I mentioned the better conditions for employees. We'll move on to the next one. And this is an important piece that I want to make sure that all voters are aware of and understand. We will not be sending a bill to any of our member towns. We will not be asking to put any fees or any taxes on property taxes. We are going to be paying for the bond out of our operational fees, operational revenue and out of the revenue that we receive from the sale of recycling. So we are not going to, like I said, sending anyone a bill will not impact property taxes. We're not going to be imposing any additional fees, no assessments to pay for this facility. And we have modeled this scenario, multiple scenarios to say, okay, what is the absolute worst case that can happen before we're in trouble? And it has to be extremely dire. Meaning, you know, we saw a pretty dire circumstances several years ago. It's got to be worse than it was back in 2008, but worse than it was in 2016-17. It has to be a real catastrophic situation to where we wouldn't be able to pay the bond. So we are, again, we've modeled at least a dozen to 15 scenarios and are confident that we will not have to come to you for any assessments or any taxes. Next, please. How are we going to pay for this is also the next question. So we are, again, we're looking for bonds from the Vermont bond bank in the amount of about $16 million. We are applying to and having the closed-loop fund, closed-loop partners for an interest free municipal loan in the amount of $6 million. And that is to basically be able to reduce the amount over the course of the 25-year payback over the bond. So it has an initial higher price tag in the first five years of paying back that closed-loop fund debt. But then in the out years, it's much, much lower. And again, we're kind of relieving some of that pressure in case there are some variations in the markets. We have about $3.5 million on hand in cash that we can put towards this if needed. Also looking to receive a grant from the recycling partnership of about $500,000. And this is before applying for any money from the EPA. The EPA is managing a very large recycling infrastructure grant program. It's a five-year grant program and it is for municipalities. So we will certainly be applying for as much as we can to that program. The EPA has not seen this amount of money available to them ever. So there's a good possibility that we will be able to receive some amount of money. The first round is a competitive grant. We are essentially basically shovel-ready. If this is approved by the voters, we are ready to go. So I think we have a very, very good potential application to the EPA. So I am hopeful that we will be receiving some money from the EPA. But we don't know and it's never guaranteed. So that's why there's a little asterisk there. But I'm very, very hopeful. Next please. What we're asking is for a yes vote. And it's a little bit different this year that it may have been in past years. Due to the new law that is having the Secretary of State mail out everyone's general election ballot, it's a little bit different. So there may be the assumption that when people receive their general election ballots in the mail, that they have everything they need. And this is considered a special election. So the Secretary of State has informed us that they are not able to mail our ballot because it is a special election. Even though we consider this to be a local issue, the Secretary of State's office does not. So unfortunately that means that voters do need to request our ballot, our CSWD ballot. They can do that either through the My Voter page or they can contact the clerk. You can certainly vote in person and the ballot will be provided to the voters when they vote in person. But it's another step. So we're doing a pretty significant get out the vote and just a voter awareness campaign to let people know that when you get your packet from the Secretary of State, there's still one more you need to request, unfortunately. So we're doing postcards. We're doing front porch forum posts. We are talking to people. We're trying to get the word out that if you want to vote for our ballot initiative, we do need you to take that extra step. And next please. I don't know if there's any more on that. Just questions at that point. So yes, questions. Thanks, Sarah. Any questions? Do you think you can come to the town clerk and request a ballot? You're at or a call and you're asking the clerk to mail it to them? We are going to be unfortunately, yes. And our charter does require that the local election officials in each city and town manage our ballot, our election. So we will be reimbursing the towns for any expenses associated with the ballots. And are you concerned that people aren't going to get the message and you won't have a... Yes, absolutely. Absolutely concerned. We need 50% plus one of the ballots cast in favor to pass. So it doesn't have to be of all of the ballots cast in general in the district. Just of the ballots cast on our initiative. But yeah, we want more people... For each town or for... The entire county. Yep, exactly. But yeah, we are very concerned. We were hoping we would be able to have them mailed with everybody else's, but that is not the case. So it's not approval and just to be clear, it's not approval in a majority of towns. It's all of the ballots are pooled, counted. Correct. That's right. Any other questions? Tracy? Just a comment. I went on my voter page just to see what the process is. As soon as you log in, you're presented with your options. 2022 general election and same date 11-8-22. And in solid waste district, bond vote. So it does seem to be fairly straightforward if you're requesting a ballot on the secretary of state site. And I want to thank the clerk here in Essex for making sure that they did that, because that was also another step for the clerks to have to add our special election to your My Voter page for the town. So thank you and thank you for checking. I'm glad that it's up there. Any other questions? Just a clarification on the 50%. You said of votes casted or ballots? Ballots for our and for so of the votes flash ballots of just our election. So let's say there's 100 votes cast ballots cast for governor, but only 62 of those people got our ballot. We just need 51, you know, like of the total of 100 to be able to to pass our ballots. So it's like the entire district was 100, only 62 people got them. We just need 51 of those people to say yes. I'm not being super clear that probably even worse. I just didn't understand the 50% or 50 plus one. So there's no minimum number you need or you need 100 people to vote. There's no minimum number. So if only three people cast their ballot and we get two, it goes. But ideally we would, you know, we would love to have had this in everybody's hands so that they, if they feel strongly for or against, they have the opportunity to let their voice be known. But thank you. It's not how it happened. Kendall, any questions? You have a plan for repurposing the existing murder. Oh, that's a great question. I love talking about this question. Thank you for asking. That is that is still in the blue sky realm. The board has not decided yet what to do specifically because the voters haven't yet cast their, their votes and made their decision. If we are successful in being authorized to borrow this money for a new Murph, then we could start having the conversation about what to do with the current building. And there are a bunch of different options. So it's a good asset. It's, you know, a 32,000 square foot building in the industrial industrial park right off industrial Avenue. So I think it would have some good marketability as a an asset to be sold if the district wanted to sell it. I think we could have other uses for it as a district. We could lease some spaces to maybe other kind of like minded businesses. We could take on additional businesses ourselves or additional lines of operations. We could use it for special ways, special recycling. We could use it for mattresses. We could use it for collecting special items that we don't want in the blue bin but have recyclability such as plastic film. It could be a great consolidation area for something like that for bulky, rigid plastics like, you know, little tight houses and turtle sandboxes that won't fit in your cart but are good plastic and could be recycled if they're not able to be reused. So there are several different possibilities as to what that building could be used for. And we'll have probably two and a half years, I think, to figure that out or at least two years to figure that out. And I would welcome input on, you know, what the district and what the members would like to see that used for. You know, if you think that there's something out there that a service that is not being performed or that we need to take a look at, it's a great opportunity. It's a good space. It's just too small for the blue bin, but it can certainly be used for the things. Excellent. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to suggest or some of the things that everybody recycles now, but that don't actually get recycled. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks Kendall. Yes, my question. Okay. It's a good. It's a big asset and it, you know, there's just so much more that we would like to do if we have the space. Maybe that's what we do. I remember questions. I'll open up to the public. Margaret, you want to come up? Sarah, if you could make a little space for her. On the other side of her. Yeah, actually, actually Sarah easier for you to move than the mic. I just found out yesterday. This was even an issue. And when I looked at the information and I may have missed. Read it. It said that you had to request a ballot by August 31st. Oh, and, and it looked like if you went to your town. It had to be by. Another date and, and. Somewhere I got the idea that you had to go to South Burlington to vote for this. There, there. That's the water. Yeah. Water. Yes. Which is also. Yes. Yeah, that one's kind of still different. I think this is great. So I guess my, my comment for you is to make sure that you get the voter information out. I don't know how you do it at this date because time's getting short. And have you really. Figured out that this is going to be enough capacity going forward. Are we going to run into this same. Overload. Thank you. Great questions. I will definitely address both. Actually, it's by three, but I'll, I'll do two. So, yes. CWD also does have a ballot initiative there. There's is earlier than ours. So ours is on November 8th. So there's plenty of time to certainly request the. CWD ballot, which is always district ballot as of August 31st, they were available to the clerks or that was, or that's what they were designed to be developed clerks. I think we, we missed it by a week, but they are now at everyone's city and town hall and they can be requested again, either through my voter page or in person on however your town manages that. And yes, there was confusion. So we want, that's why we want to make sure that we are distinguishing ourselves from Champlain Water District. We are doing a series of three direct mailers to voters. So one is going out either this week or next week and then another one in the next two weeks and another one just the week before the election. So if people do think that the deadline for ours has gone because of CWD CSWD, they'll get another reminder to say, nope, this is something different. And then a second reminder, another, something different. We again, we'll also be posting regularly in front porch form to remind people that this is something that does need attention that we are, and I am definitely going to take this back to my team to make sure that we are being very distinct and making sure that we're letting people know, no, this is different from Champlain Water District. We're also, we tend to be, you know, mixed up with Casella as well because sometimes it's because I always manage a CWM. And so we will, we'll make sure solid waste and recycling his front and center and people know to look for recycling. And then yeah, so just the awareness it's, there's a whole plan in place, but we could always do more. And, you know, again, it's being able to speak with you and to talk about it, you know, on your meeting is also really important. And, you know, anything that, that if you feel so inclined to even just let people know that this is something that they want to look for, we would certainly appreciate, appreciate that help. But that's, it was, that was a good comment. And I appreciate that. And I will definitely bring that to my team and just say, let's make sure there's not extra confusion. The water votes tomorrow anyway. Well, that should help. Yes, that should help. And what we want to make sure is that people don't think that it's, that ours is also done and they missed it. So hopefully they'll, they will see on our postcard recycling and they'll be like, oh wait a minute, that, that is something different. Okay. Maybe I need to take a look at this, this one too. But it is quite very well taken. I think the other part of, Oh, Margaret's question was capacity. Yes. Thank you. So we are, the facility is being designed to accommodate up to 70,000 tons of recycling on, again on one shift. So we always have the, well, I say always, I can't say always because it is reliant upon staffing, but we could potentially have the ability to operate a second production shift. If we needed to, if we ever got to the point of needing to process 90,000 tons, which would be amazing. We could do it on one and a half or two shifts. I, I don't see us getting there, but if our population really explodes in the next 15 years, it's possible. Packaging changes over the next 15 years is possible. We are building in extra storage space. We are building in again, the ability on the lines to add additional technology, whether it's robotics or whether it's additional sorting capacity, so that we have more room to sort even more products. And you know, I, again, we're designing for 70,000 tons. We're at 47. So we definitely have room to grow over the next 10 to 15 years. And, and because we have space on the property, if we need to continue to bump out, we have a little more room to also bump out on either end. So, or actually in the front. So the location, the lot will allow us to, if we need to expand the building, we can expand the building up, out in the other side. So yes, we are, we're doing it right. We're doing it right. All right. Thanks, Sarah. Any other questions from the public? I don't see any hands on line. Or in the room. So thank you, Sarah. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Great. Okay. Moving on to the next business item, five B consider first of two approvals to adopt public news ordinance, including authorizing staff to warrant a public hearing for final approval. I think, Lieutenant Kissinger and chief, I'm on up. Thank you for having us here. Yeah. I think we captured what the board recommended last time. And changes and that was what's presented tonight for the board. We came up with a better definition of public space. So I think that captures what the board was looking for to alleviate the and boot and believe it. Apparently I'm tongue tied tonight, but should properly define what people were looking for with their concern for what a public place was considered. So I think that captured that we also changed the times for trash pickup to 6 a.m. And we also included within a residential base. So any commercial property would not be affected by earlier pickup times. And if they were not dean residential, that would alleviate that problem. We also rearranged and cleaned up table a. So it's easier to follow and change some of the language in order to make it easier to follow as well. After further discussion with the chief, we decided to eliminate the noise ordinance regarding firearms. We felt there's enough laws on the book to prevent that, whether it's through hunting regulations or through title 10, which does protect the land owners. We felt that was something that belonged in probably a future of firearms ordinance down the road where that could be looked at a little bit more in depth and maybe create different shooting areas. Obviously getting feedback from the public when that does come around, but we felt it didn't belong in the public nuisance ordinance at this time. Any questions or comments from board members? Ethan, go ahead. The one thing I'm a little bit concerned about is, and there's two sections here. I was just on the one. I'm scrolling down what you're talking about, is excessive sound. It is under B express prohibitions. And it is B, B sub A, IV. And in there, it goes over machinery. And emergency, it's on page 30. Thank you. The only thing that I'm just was wondering if there should be more clarification for was that it talks about emergency situations for construction. It says, set up an emergency situations except construction sound, the excavation, demolition, correction, construction, alteration, repair of any premises. And the reason I bring it up in this section is because down a little farther, there is, I've got to find it here. I tried to highlight it, but it turned me back into this edited. So page 33, the top of page 33 is under exemptions, after the decibel reading. And it talks about equipment for maintenance of lawn grounds and lawn mowers, head streamers, weed streamers, chainsaws, all that. And then directly below it goes to snow equipment. That's exempt, you know, in the proper condition and noise levels and stuff like that. My question here to tie those three things together is, is there any, does, will agricultural operation fall under any of those categories and doesn't need to be defined? We can. It's in there. Don got me. I was too busy reading into the other ones. I didn't even read it. I love it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that'd be my follow-up. No, thank you for that because I've really read through this thing and looking for it. I didn't even find it. Emergency situations say, you know, like, I don't know if the operating hours are still going to be seven, but nine at PM to six AM is the quiet time. In an emergency situation, is that agricultural operation exempt at all times? I guess that would apply to standard agriculture practices. I know a lot of them harvest at night. So I would interpret that that would be standard agricultural operation. So you would be exempt from that because that is industry practice. Perfect. Appreciate it. I just saw it was reading all the things about the equipment. I thought that was great because no removal and all these things reporting like they don't really need to be mowing your lawn or weed whacking at midnight, but there's situations. Love it. Any other comments or questions? Tracy? One question and one comment slash question. In that same section around commercial trash haulers, I noticed that it's within 500 feet of a residential property. Now, given that we have some large properties, if I have 10 acres and my house is on one side, do I really care if there's a trash hauler all the way on the other side of the 10 acres? So my question is, should that be 500 feet from a residential home or residential building as opposed to just the property line? I'll add and we can just add to residential dwelling. Residential dwelling. You can certainly put that word in there if the board feels better with that. Certainly. I don't know if it matters because the decibel readings come from the property line. Just in terms of measurement and getting a stand there. So it would still need a decibel reading anyhow. That's right, just pick up if it's irrelevant. Right. But it would need a decibel reading. That's where that's ultimately how we would want to do that is for the 15 minutes anyway. Or, you know, obviously the, I believe it's called the instantaneous sound, something like that. But the, you know, I see where you're going with that a residential property because we're thinking that's we're in a state of mind, we're thinking that's a quarter raker, right? A quarter raker, you know, a lot. But that could be, you know, something like that. So certainly if we were to, if we were to change that to dwelling or something like that, that might be a better definition. We can certainly look at that and see if that would work better. Okay. And my other was I see in the excessive sound. Okay. So I can actually read the words on the page. So C. G. A. And then. Well, use of firearms when used for hunting. In accordance with state fish and wildlife laws. My concern this is. Well, I would suggest removing the, when used for hunting with the example of if I'm citing in a rifle, if I'm target shooting, if I'm teaching a family member safe and proper. Discharge of a firearm on my own property. So I would just suggest that that be the use of firearms in accordance with state fish and wildlife laws. I don't know if that would exactly be the way we would want to go with that. Okay. Because target shooting and, and citing in rifles and that type of thing aren't normally covered under fish and wildlife laws. Okay. Those normally don't fall in that. Those are another realm. So we've, we've specifically taken the references to shooting ranges out, which would contain that type of activity you're talking about more or less. And, and like the lieutenant said, we're the feeling we have now is that. The state laws that that cover shooting ranges themselves are sufficient to do what we want. And not have to specifically, but this is, this is in there to cover things that are outside of that shooting necessary shooting range. This would be somebody hunting on someone's property and shooting a deer or something like that. Okay. That connection. Yeah. For me. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Tracy. Anything else? Kind of anything. Yes. Actually, I have a fair amount. Thank you for leading into that. I appreciate. I appreciate your definition chief. That helps a lot. However, starting right down from the start in 6.11. 020 and definitions. The instantaneous under F. Maximum sound. That will prohibit any gunshot or go through the regulation. It will also prohibit roosters. Since they can do 143 decibels. So I'm just going to put out a few things here. Using both guns and death and roosters as an example. And I know that you find that amusing, but you'd be surprised how many people have roosters. In that same section under M. It says plainly audible. Any sound that would. Include a rooster or gunshot immediately under this. Public place is a road. I've had people on the road being very upset. When the rooster goes off. The source premises. Anytime the sound crosses the property line is going to create a problem. I've had good neighbors and bad neighbors. In section M where it says unreasonable sound. That would naturally include a gunshot or rooster. But my question is what is a reasonable person. Of normal sensibilities. That to me sounds like a rather subjective. Definition. And sometimes when you use subjective definitions. One person's idea of reasonable is certainly different than another one. When you go to section six point one, one point zero four zero for excessive sound, a general prohibition. That's that's just backdoor prohibition of the shooting range, even though you say that you're not going to regulate the shooting range. You're going to have some people that are going to reference that directly. The same thing applies to section C prohibition for residential premises. That's the same thing. You're going to have people guaranteed that they're going to try to get enforcement under the noise ordinance. I would have gotten these in written form to the board faster. If I had gotten the packet a little bit sooner and had known that this was going to come up again. This quickly. When you go to section D prohibitions for non residential premises. Actually a under that will eliminate any, any chance of having a shooting range for profit in Essex. Section D. Additional means everything. And that could include anything and everything that comes up in the future in the ordinance. And that has happened. E for the table. I just wanted to point out that we're the decibel limits that you have under there. That a 22 has a decibel limit of 140. And a rooster has a decibel limit of 143. So both of those would create concerns under this ordinance. And I, I can't emphasize enough that I appreciate what you've done with section X. I and trying not to refer to shooting rangers. I'm. I'm afraid it doesn't go far enough as far as this ordinance is concerned. I think you're going to run into the same situation you did before with a number of Essex residents coming forward. I also wanted to mention in section 6. 1.050 under the public urination and application. A that past and parks should be exempted unless there are public facilities. Because if you do not have public facilities, I can guarantee you that people are urinating in the parks and along trails. And I would also ask a question about section 6.1.1. 0.080. I'm sorry. And I would also ask a question about section 6.1.1.080 under C. Does that include your ice cream guy that goes around through all the developments? Because I know there's probably a lot of folks that like him and a lot of folks that don't. And I would ask. Since we're going to be going through a public hearing with this ordinance. Under section 6.1.1.3 zero where you mentioned open fires. There are a number of fire ordinances that say no permit should be required when the ground is snow covered. And I wondered if anybody had considered that. Thank you. All right, thanks Kendall. Seems there's a lot there. So if you can reduce all that to writing, that would be very helpful. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, get that submitted. I was going to ask a similar question about where. We're we're exempting shooting ranges by just emitting reference to them. We're not explicitly exempting them, right? We're not. We're not hearing it. So that's. And what we're relying on is state law that has held the shooting range existing shooting ranges are exempt are exempt from sound. And noise violations. Right. That's what we're relying on. Right. So I would I certainly understand Kendall's concerns and that's that's certainly been a huge concern for us working on this. Is that we don't want to infringe on those. Right. They are specifically exempt. So if we don't have that in our ordinance, then if somebody was to complain about a shooting range, my opinion would be that. Oh, that's that's an existing case law would prevail over our next true true. Okay. And the only ones by statute under title 10. Are the budding landowners are the ones that really can complain about the noise. And if that is only if the range was started after that landowner making the complaint was there previously to the range opening up. So it's very specific on who can file file a complaint regarding noise. So if you're down the road, Kendall, I understand what you were saying on that, but if you're down the road, if I read the statute correctly, they really don't by law have a right to file a complaint. That's a good question about that. Does that help at all? Kendall with the shooting range question that. Yes, that does. Yes, that does I'm just afraid that we're going to get into a big contentious meeting like we did before because there is a lot of concern in this community. As you well remember about that. So I just want to make it front and center. I think that our plates are full right now. And I don't think this would say all smoothly through, but I may be wrong. Light up my email. Thanks, Kendall. You had a question, Ethan. Yeah, just had a little. Same thing tonight. Little clarification question about what you just said. So under the existing shooting range. Say, you know, I shot at my house for 10 years and then I sold my property in the neighborhood. I didn't like that I shot at my house. The new landowner moved in. It's no longer an existing shooting range. I believe those rights go away when you sell the property. Yeah. Preface that if it's an existing range, someone like perils would have indoor shooting range or to business. That would not be nullified. The hard part that we ran into to try to answer your question kind of those last time is how do we go about identifying ranges? And one of the listeners last time brought that up that that they would have an issue with that. But that would be the only way for the town to I guess really clarify what protections are afforded to those. So if someone just says I have an existing range and they only shoot the one time, it's hard to differentiate between someone who has an established range who has been shooting on their property for 10 years versus someone who just started to shoot. And that's why we decided that this is better left for an actual firearms ordinance down the road. But we could definitely revisit it if that's the board's wish. Okay. I had one question or comment. I guess I think that it looks like the an edit was made to specifically address this. There's also a separate dog ordinance that talks about noise from kennels. So I see that there's a somebody had asked me that question. A resident had asked me that and we're still, you know, working on the question here. But I see you put it in there to explicitly reference that statute as taking precedence in that case. That's correct. Thank you for that. That's covered by their land of use. Right. The zoning permit for kennel or boarding. Right. Okay. That includes livestock. It's explicitly in the there's a there's a chapter four section four. Kendall held the cow of our ordinances are as explicit for dogs. So it is a the it depends on the livestock. But you'd be surprised how loud they could be. I know that that donkey you have with me over the sound limit. Yeah, I sometimes here here cows at night sitting on my back porch and where's my when I tell somebody that they say, oh, what were they saying? You know, it's a move. Yeah. So anyway, so I'm okay. Any other board member comments or questions like open up to public if they have any comments. I have one more question before we go whichever way we're going. Is there a way to put something in to eliminate this ordinance to prevail on any firearm? Do we put an exemption in there for firearms within with that with within we exemption for firearms outside of the no firearms own in Essex. If it helps clarify it, we could add language from title 10 with all the exemptions that are allowed. Because like inside the firearm ordinance in Essex currently no shooting zone. I don't know. I haven't looked into it further, but I've had a couple people ask me questions about it. As far as I'm understanding it, even though state law prevails to hunting and fishing activities, our firearm ordinance eliminates that right within that zone. Correct. So we could have our own exemption to eliminate the noise ordinance from firearms outside of the firearm zone and then it would be everything else in here minus a couple words about if they still mentioned shooting or injury or gun, which it doesn't it would eliminate all the problems that we would face by leaving it open to firearms. So what you're saying is you would you would essentially exempt someone using a firearm or reasonable firearm activity within hunting and shooting regulations. I mean if you want to you can't put it on like for me. We're just saying a personal situation, but raccoons are going after livestock or something and you have to use a firearm at night. Something like that. You'd be exempt by raccoons and coyotes. So that's one of the reasons why we got rid of that is because the state allows you to hunt those animals at night. Right. But that's my thought of the night is some sort of an exemption to make this happen not including firearms. So the question I guess for the board is are we okay with do we want to have an explicit exemption or have an essentially exempted because we're not mentioning it and state law is prevailing. That would be correct. And that was one of the thoughts that we had considered was separating shooting ranges from the activity of actually shooting. So I'm not sure how the board feels about that creating a specific exemption for that activity. Could there be could that be done? Absolutely. I don't know. That would be something you folks would have to consider because I think you may get into an argument about what is a firearm. There's a definition of what is a firearm. There's also different types of firearms which is okay, which is not. So do you go down that road as to what those activities are? Do you get into what Kendall was saying where you now have that argument now and we're trying to be respectful of the board's time as well. We're trying to get this what everybody's asking to be done without creating something that's really going to have a large argument behind it. And probably rightfully so. I just have one more question. Greg, did you want to? Yeah, and I just thinking back to the discussion about firearms from a couple of years ago and Kendall's right, I think this if it becomes a firearms issue it's going to turn into a long, long-term issue I think to part of that discussion though part of the issue and the concern back then was the excessive noise from firearms and people shooting for hours straight. I guess my question for you or the chief and the lieutenant our existing ranges would be exempt from this ordinance but it would apply to any new ranges and therefore if a new range came in and somebody started shooting for those long hours and it was an established range it would be asked to stop under this ordinance. Is that fair interpretation? Yes, to a certain extent it would be how do you properly identify what was existing prior and that's where the issue is without mandating people register and there was some feedback last time against that though it was prefaced that this would afford them protection as allowed by title 10 yeah there is no any answer if that was to proceed then yes, any new coming ranges it would be up to the board whether or not they allow them and they could do mandate conditions of times and hours that they could shoot maybe twice a week for five hours of time they could impose that but they couldn't do it to the pre-existing ranges so I think I mentioned earlier but someone bring it up because it ties in perfect right now but that does that does include any private land owner who buys a house in Essex and decides to shoot in their 100 acre property right the state law exempts an existing range but it prohibits a new range what is an existing range I know that's the thing that's the conundrum that we've been in trying to write this how do we define an existing range without people having to register with the town and then you get into a larger discussion with that so to me the board really has a choice either to exempt it all together like you've indicated or do what we've written here which is basically allow the state laws to dictate what an existing range is what is not and then make a determination if there's a complaint at that point and you guys can make the determination within the department or would that be under state jurisdiction it would be up to us to use the state's attorney and our legal advice the town's legal counsel to be able to determine how do we handle that specifically right potentially it could be decided by a judge yes we haven't opened this up any other board member comments we haven't opened up a public comment I don't know if there's anybody anything else Ethan I'm good I'm just thinking it all together like Kendall said on Friday I was worried about tractors any comments from the public on this topic Brad go ahead Brad Kinnison so have you spent about 90% of the discussion on firearms is this a firearms ordinance meeting or proposal or is it a public nuisance ordinance if you want to have discussion about firearms we already had that and spent nearly two years on it and most of these issues that you brought up were flatly rejected during the firearms ordinance hearings you know I'm in favor of excessive noise being addressed in this ordinance by someone who's shooting you know in their backyard range if they're not being respectful of their neighbors which is something that we strongly stressed during the firearms ordinance meetings and being respectful of neighbors and being safe and as the chief brought up this state law covers most of what has been brought up this evening and so you know these firearms ordinance firearms statutes into this ordinance it's already covered by state statute so if you want to have discussion about firearms and shooting ranges and so forth we can go down that road again but I don't see the need for this discussion as part of a public nuisance other than the noise issue thank you all right thanks Brad any other public comment see any hands in the room okay so what's the board's pleasure we have I know we have Kendall brought up some issues that haven't been necessarily raised to the raised before do we want to go forward or go down right I mean given that we've waited months for this to get done and we've asked them to go back multiple times to fix it I think we need to proceed because it is a public nuisance ordinance nothing to do with guns the firearms ordinances are all separate I just think we need to proceed and if somebody has a rooster crowing you know I like listening to them crow I just think we need to move on and I think it's time that we get to have our public hearing and get it approved we need this ordinance this noise ordinance appreciate you have a comment I'm in total agreement and tonight we accept and then adopt correct you accept tonight or you do first passage and then you want a public hearing if there's no changes after the public hearing then you can adopt this is not correct so with that said I'm going to make a motion that this left board accept the public nuisance ordinance with the change to 6.11.040 B subsection A subsection 6 changing residential property to residential dwelling and authorize staff to warn a public hearing to consider final passage of the ordinance on October 3rd, 2022 second thank you Tracy thank you Don I just want to look quickly you said accept right that the right term to use it says pass and the recommendation correct so I think we we pass it tonight and then what's the and you can adopt it and then we adopt it and then we pass with your policies it's accepted just in our charter I believe it says pass everything I just said but change accept to pass second okay thank you Tracy thank you Don apologies I just wanted to make sure we didn't miss the language before you vote I'm going to double check our charter if you can share with me for one minute alrighty what's the expression let's make sure we get it right thank you gentlemen absolutely yes thank you pass the language is in the charter any other board member comments any comments I will hold my peace thank you those in favor please say aye aye opposed no I'm sure I heard you Ethan I'm gonna abstain I'll vote for no okay so because we have a member attending we need to do a roll call so Don aye Ethan no nay Tracy aye Andy aye Kendall okay so motion passes 3-2 so we'll have a public hearing at our next our next meeting alright moving on to the next gentlemen before we move on is there a way to turn the AC down a little bit I'm sorry but it's a little chilly over a little hotter in my seat thank you Greg thank you Greg okay let's see next is thank you Tony Kissinger you're standing for the next round okay great okay business item 5c consider acceptance of facilities use policy for approval at a future meeting Greg is that you that is me so basically the proposed policy is trying to quantify and capture what the practice has been for many years but has never been written down or adopted it's something that used to come up in terms of buildings what's the when what's the process how are we approaching it those types of things and we always try to remember back to how do we do it last time how was it the time before that that sort of all got put on hold during covid because the buildings were all closed to the public anyways at that time we started opening up again a few months ago started to have some of those inquiries to use some of the community space whether it's this room the police station other facilities so staff wanted to put together a facilities use policy to document what is being done and how to do it going forward the model is based off or the policy is based off a model from the league of cities and towns that's how it was put together I understand there's been some questions about for-profit usage political usage, religious usage we've never allowed that in the past to my knowledge I guess I can't say forever and ever but to my knowledge that stuff has never been allowed for a few reasons it's kind of one of those all or nothing type of situations if you allow any political use any religious use you have to allow all of it this is taking a look at more keeping the facilities open to this homeowner's associations would often use them to have their votes on their annual annual meetings just to try to capture what's going forward so that's the background I'm happy to try to answer any questions about it Thanks Greg, any board member questions Don you're not in your head Go ahead I don't have a follow-up with religious groups not using it because they have their churches or people that are in it for profit they get paid to do their fun I have a problem with not allowing political groups to use it especially if they're designated like you're a Democrat to progress through recognized parties in Vermont I really think because they're all taxpayers basically and they pay for us to renovate for this building that they should be allowed to use it and given the fact that there's very little meeting space in the town of Essex for any group you know I just think political groups should be allowed to use it and for your information political groups have used this room and the police station You know how recent? Apart from the one a few months ago that part of what spurred this The police station meeting? Yes I can remember when another political group met here over here All that understood and it's one of those those are the three parties but I think there's also what a marijuana party I'm saying recognized parties in the state in the state right now currently has three recognized that have enough voting have had enough votes in the past to be recognized political parties and then you open up to the question I'm sorry I'm explaining them is it to hold their meeting to nominate their electors or their delegates or is it to hold a campaign rally campaign of them we've always said no political activity whether it's at Indian Brook Park I would assume I see what you're saying I would say you know especially for business meetings it's hard to find a place to meet around here for being such a large town you know and I'm sure if you attack the price on to it I don't I just think that I had a hundred dollar fee for political groups well whatever I'm just saying because these people that make up these groups are also packed peers within this town they've helped us get where we are today as far as just I'm concerned but thank you Don Ethan I was thinking the same as Don just in the sense of allowing the buildings to be used by the taxpayers but one of the other clarifying questions that I had was that the facilities are available to qualified users on equal terms without regard to race, color, origin, national origin or other status covered by applicable state or federal laws regulations we're living in Vermont we're living in a very mid to low income community let's just say you wanted to have a birthday party and you are certain of religion and there's certain aspects of the religion involving birthdays and holiday events where you have a large family with 30 people you want to get together and have a meal or any of these things my question is if that was allowed because it's just a family gathering but then it was twisted to be put as a religious event where would the fine line and definition be there I think it would probably be taken on a case by case basis and probably call to the manager to make those things and probably depends on how it's presented too if it's looking to have a family birthday party or a family dinner if we're looking to have a religious event that happens to also be a birthday you don't allow religious events probably ask the questions and try to figure out exactly what's being proposed it was like a Christmas dinner with 25 people technically a religious event or bar mitzvah or Thanksgiving you know just throwing it out there you and me there's no place to cook I know but I come from the community center where you can go and it's home by the community they don't we've done they're religious parties but they were Easter and they were first communion parties and they were I come from a Catholic family so I've never been to a bar mitzvah but I'm just throwing this out there for a policy that's going to be adapted to all present and possibly future town buildings if they're created if there was a line that we were going to walk there with how that would go about we got to have an area for family members for small families who have an option to use space that's the thought I hear it all and there's a lot of gray in this interpretation and that's kind of where it becomes the all or nothing do you see any of those any can you see them turning to my brain I had the same thought around what defines a political event I don't particularly see the harm in allowing a political organization a political party to have a reorganization meeting a regular business meeting do I think it's appropriate to have a campaign rally no however I think regular business meetings the residents pay for the space if they want to use it to conduct the business of organizations that they're a part of even if they do have a political purpose it's not that we are endorsing those individual views I think we could get around that by within the policy having a affiliation clause or something like that just to make it clear that groups using our facilities we don't have any affiliation to them we do not endorse those causes just to give us that space and I did have another question around the rates that are listed are those what they currently are or are those those look like new rates to me new I would have to double check on that I know Memorial Hall has been 25 hours I don't know if the rates have proposed to increase I'll have to double check on that and Don I think you mentioned it earlier but it may be worthwhile if a political organization or group would like to use the police station or this room perhaps we do charge a nominal fee because there is there are some resources that need to be utilized in order to book and use the space but I think if it's just a group of residents that want to get together and knit or have a book club I don't know if it would be appropriate to draw that line of you know actual business meeting versus you know just personal use so many questions I remember paying $35 for the sand hill park one so I think that is an increase which is good it needed to happen I remember paying $50 to use Memorial Hall when I live around the corner from it so I think there's changes it's probably tweaked up and down here and there I don't know I mean realistically though does $25 cover the electricity for four hours Memorial Hall I mean I think this is now we're in a budget discussion which this might actually be coming up your foreshadowing a little bit here about this but I can't answer that specifically somebody with a $400 bill every month for a barn these are good yes we've been looking at these which is why I think it's changed a few times it'd be the same as charging for this room or the police department they have to turn the lights on handle any thoughts yes my question would be does the town's insurance cover everything should this happen and looking at a number of policies all over the place I mean it's pretty much whatever the town the commission decides in some places where they allow everything and there's a lot of places where they allow nothing and there are probably the vast majority of places where they allow specific areas like say the police station and the board room as only municipal or municipal related meetings allowed but then they'll have a specific place in town that everybody else can use for instance you could say Memorial Hall and Sand Hill would be open to anybody but the police station and the board room would not so probably not that's helpful thank you I know some of the thoughts around the all or nothing comment is if you allow some use do you have to allow all use meaning it could be if there's an organization that people may find offensive and it's like my taxpayer tax dollars should not be supporting that activity and I think the case law is kind of mixed on all that too so I think it does come down to our decision on how we want to do it and I don't know if we can say it'll be open to political parties but only those that we like recognize political parties you know I don't know whether that's I can take some I can take the feedback and talk with Marguerite and Travis who did a lot of work on this and put our heads together and see if we can do something like political activity and try to define that such as campaign events or fundraising events are prohibited if that's the direction of the board I just know in working with multiple political groups they just need a place to meet not the campaign but just have an organizational meeting you know but they're supposed to have every two years so getting harder and harder to find a place for them to meet I just have a question who makes the I'll ask this in two parts how is the discretion made previously and how is the discretion made when this became an issue good question it's pretty much been a practice the town manager has made the decision whether or not to accept the reservation quickly go to the town manager there were often questions the requests usually come in through the clerk's office often just go there the first point of contact do you approve how did this organization meet at the police department and then that's my question what process were we using that didn't work so that one I believe one of the political parties I forget which one reached out to the police to rent out the community room the community room a similar request from a different party came to the town offices I at that point said in the past we just happened at the police station I talked to chief wagons and said this is how we handled it in the past he's fairly new to his position and I've been here mostly this policy that the town had was developed under pat shidel many years ago I wasn't trying to figure out if we decide to do a discretion going forward how are we going to make it there's been a lot of straight line that we've lost over the past couple of years so we're partially figuring it out and trying to remember what we've done in the past and set it up for the future as we were coming out of covid where nobody was using buildings and we had lots of new folks on board during covid our building was pretty much the only one that was available for like the last half of it maybe so there was a a miss to our practice we don't have a policy for it we haven't had a policy the reason I had asked because I was going off what Don had mentioned and what I was thinking was if you use the three recognizable parties and have them be established there's the independence republicans and democrats of each town so like Milton has around and Essex has around if you make it so it's available to those of Essex in a recognizable party in an established group there's only three groups you're in the group if you're not maybe you should join the group so you can go to the meeting to the police department we need a legal opinion just an idea I heard maybe relevant is for business meetings to clarify specifically what purpose might be allowed if we go in that direction do we like the PTA to meet there like things like that they use the schools essentially I mean the school district has their own policy which has its own language and ambiguities and is an interesting color associated with it the city has their own practice that they're performing I don't know if they have a policy or not they're meeting in Lincoln Hall one political party this week they seem to be pretty open to it I've seen a lot of from Fort Schwarm postings announcing meetings in Lincoln Hall so it is up to us to decide how we want to do this so I think I don't know Greg do you want to rework some of this and come back with it do you want us to I don't think we're I don't think we're willing to doesn't sound like we're willing to pass it as it's written that's fine yeah I'm happy to rework it I guess just look to all of you for a sense of the board of what I'm hearing is open to political groups as long as they're conducting business or organization because they have to reorganize it for two years yeah such as reorganizational meetings they'll know two religious groups the exemption of a birthday party maybe like a bar mitzvah but they would do them in the church and you will never find a bar mitzvah building like this never know we're by Sandhill Park hold on there's no pro they can use Sandhill Park maybe I can rent it resident or non resident but doesn't this relate to the fact of a religious event that's not the way I read it it was just the buildings that were that's all facilities is the way it's written right now you can't have a campaign event at Indian Brook Park but I'm just saying they could rent the part for a birthday party if they didn't um Indian Brook isn't even in here we could have a you could have a campaign event there's no structure there we don't rent the part my concern was because they are attack fairs but as far as like I said religion and the rest of it they usually have their own facilities but let me frame it is anyone on the board interested in looking for exemptions or allowances for anything other than political parties to conduct a business um I'll speak up and say that I might suggest that since the previous manager much authorized this off the cover his hand for all kinds of stuff there should be maybe you could set it up something like we do the licenses for alcohol or something where it's you have a group or a couple of groups that want to use it and you run it by the board for approval or something I mean I'm just thinking could you do that with liquor license yeah the um good good thought my reaction to that and they know that it's coming up or it's a new business that's coming in out of cycle so there's some time coming up a lot of times with these requests we'll get it and say can we rent it on Friday or can we rent it on Tuesday or next week and so then it's not that two week period or this time of year that you know even one month period or somebody might need it as soon as possible without waiting for a board decision and it also keeps it out of your your hands and um yeah don't have to yeah the liquor license is basically this is like I said before a lot of gray area so it takes some political heat off the U2 to just have a policy in place well I would be comfortable with you making that decision but if you run it by us it takes the heat off you so appreciate it so we didn't open up the public comment um I do want to allow that opportunity before we move on um any any hands in the room not seeing any anybody online on a speak okay not seeing any there either so I guess the consensus is that you have to go back and rework a few things right thank you I'm sorry that's why we talk about them alright uh move on to business item 5D discussion and possible actions to appoint select board member to Charter review committee Greg I'm going to turn it over to I was wondering if it would be I'm just like for a member that has requested to serve as a representative to the Charter review committee because I think it's important that um we keep in constant contact with them and that we keep some of them keeps things moving along not to chair it because they've got a wonderful group um they've met for one time um they couldn't do any business because of a problem but um in the future I think they will get you know better organized and I think they're ready to go but I just want to make sure that there's a slight word member present to keep it moving so we meet again okay thanks Don um before I ask for other board member comments I want to mention that in the past it has been a practice and it has not been a policy that we do not we haven't appointed um select board members to our volunteer committees as voting members in order to avoid the select board over over influence yeah yeah yeah I just want to get through this we did this for years and years with the energy committee for example Irene is actually online here was an ex-officio member non-voting member while she was a select board member that's a possibility I'm not saying that that's the direction we should go just that just to frame the possibly frame some of the discussion as to how we want to go over here um anybody have any thoughts, concerns, comments about Don's suggestion I think he's going to know there's nothing in the charter prohibiting no right there isn't there's nothing and we actually don't have a policy we don't have a policy it was a it was a practice that we did that really you know what the you know it was in place before I was on the select board Kendall any thoughts I like the ex-officio with no voting that sounds good Ethan I'm going to second Kendall on that idea not because I don't think that Don has the best ability here on sitting on the board to make a decision about the life long of Essex but I also think that it's a little bit inappropriate for like you said it's like a board member to be in a charter to vote in okay see Tracy nodding too that's my thing but if it's ex-officio I say we go for it any public comment Margaret Margaret said I think it's a great idea I'm translating into the microphone for you okay thank you Margaret any other you're fine any any comments from online attendees I don't see any hands up so Tracy move that the select board appoint Don Hill Flurry as an ex-officio member to the charter review committee second thank you Tracy thank you Ethan any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed I can't vote right yes you can I'll say aye all right so math motion passes 5-0 thank you all yep thank you for suggesting and be willing to do it I think they made an exciting group they're charged great okay moving on to business item 5e discussion of possible action to execute contract with Essex police employees association I believe we'll go into objective session discussion all right possibly the action afterwards all right business item 5f discussion about negotiating securing real estate purchase release options this is also executive session discussion and potential action about goals for town manager and fiscal year 2023 Greg is anything you want to talk about I'm happy to have this conversation at least partially in public session I think there are some pieces that might be more worthy of executive session but their member in the packet has some proposed goals happy to discuss those now or have a public discussion if you want to come back to them later after executive session discussion I'm fine either way I think ultimately those goals should be made public and have a public discussion about them whether or not you want to start that now or wait until after executive session is fine by me I remember thoughts comments makes a difference to me do you like the goals that are in the I think there's I think there's a few we could add yeah okay we can talk about that later I mean if you're comfortable saying in public you can choose to do that do so now or we can yeah I mean it's mostly that we have some existing ordinances and rules and stuff that are not quite being followed and that we should talk about those and work on and I would also again the broken record I think our delinquents are too high and I'd like to see a better policy that didn't put all of that onto the financial director for the agreements and everything and I've shared some other stuff with great as well this idea is general ideas would be good goals to work towards one of them that I keep coming back to all the time again is that I don't think the town should be in the business of doing any private work for anybody whether it's plowing roads or flooding hydrants or fixing water lines or any of that stuff and I really think that should be looked at so that would be a goal that I would put out there thank you thanks Kendall alright so what do you want to do into executive session and discuss more and come back have another public discussion I was going to say instead of having folks wait until after executive session do any members of the public have yeah yeah rather than ask what we're going to do next I should go to the public first okay any comments from the public about goals for our manager that the select board is required by contract to establish and then measure the manager's performance on during his annual performance review I don't see any hands in the room any hands online nobody hands up so then I guess we can have our executive session discussion and I suspect I don't know if we want to yeah I guess we'll have decided whether we're going to come back and have more discussion afterwards okay and whether it will be in this meeting or in the future one of them we have to come back anyway for one of them or yeah yeah I was exclusively talking about the goals question but yeah okay and then the last one is discussion on potential action about contracts this is a continuation of a discussion we had in our last meeting and then again we may come back after that for a to make a motion okay moving on to consent agenda I make the motion except the consent agenda is presented thank you Don do I have a second second thank you Ethan any board member comments yes I have a comment regarding the war specifically we have a new financial director I think it would be good to look at the way the budget and everything is presented to the board because as a new board member I feel like I'm rubber stamping bills that have already been paid as I look through the warrants I've noticed a lot of invoices that some go back as far as January February of last year I'm not sure why we are paying invoices from the previous fiscal year in the current fiscal year and is that because the audit hasn't been done yet and they do that themselves I have a lot of questions and I'm not questioning anybody that anybody's doing anything I just I don't feel that I have enough information about everything that's being spent in relation to what the budget is to be able to say A or N I just wanted to put that forth as a growing concern thank you thanks Kendall sounds like you might be interested in some sort of education about how we do our financials Kendall I'll reach out can be in touch yes that would be great thank you it might be helpful for all of us to see that actually but to get the specifics of what he's asking about great any other discussion we do have a motion right all those in favor of approving the consent agenda I opposed okay motion passes 5-0 moving on to reading file any board member comments Tracy I did have a conversation electronically this weekend around local option tax the person who commented had said that you were under the assumption that local option tax was based on voting district and I followed up to verify that it's based on municipality not voting district and also clarified when the city's local option tax for sales rooms meals and alcohol would go into effect that's October this year by the way but it got me thinking that perhaps some more education could be done but I think I'm going to go back to the comments and businesses to clarify that as well as the form on the state tax website if someone is erroneously charged local option tax that they can recoup that cost or request recoupment of that cost from the state and also just bringing mention of your letter it's in the reading file about the zip code update yeah to comment more on the zip code thing with the separation of the village from the town there's questions about the shared zip code and the US Postal Service has a system called the address management system that has every mailable address in the US in it and the system previously recommended using Essex Junction or Essex JCT with the zip code 05452 with the help of Bernie Sanders Senator Bernie Sanders office that's no longer the case Essex by itself is now allowed so you can choose to change your mailing address from Essex Junction to Essex again if you choose to zip code establishing getting a new zip code is a much bigger deal if that's where somebody wants to go I think this is the least painful option for most folks so anyway choose to you can use Essex my wife has used Essex for years and years and years there is a possibility that her mail was often delayed because the address management system notes a discrepancy between the city name and the zip code and kicks it out and requires a review of that that will no longer be the case so if you use Essex you can use it for 05452 and a lot of the online retailers use that database and so now they may offer you the option of picking Essex Junction Essex JCT or Essex as your preferred address because those are now all linked to 05452 zip code and this discussion isn't necessarily related to the local options tax, local option tax is keyed by a the 9 digits zip code and maybe we need to at some point send out the link to that list when it becomes available October 1st so that folks can check to see if they're on which side of the tax line they fall and yeah I understand there's a lot of confusion about Essex versus Essex Junction there's actually going to be something in 7 days this week about that problem that even people, businesses that are in Essex don't know that they're in Essex they still use I think they're in Essex Junction again a good example was the someone who thought that they had to charge the local option tax when they don't so yeah I think some education around that definitely would be helpful alright anything? Yes I had a question about the appraisal it looks like the appraisal is coming up because of our values or the way down I've heard concern from some communities that they feel that this is just a blip that they're not going to change I don't think that's going to affect Essex though I don't see our property values going down oh so Kendall there's a state law around property values and it ties to the common level of appraisal and if that's that 100 that means that the homes are selling for basically exactly what they're appraised at if it gets up above 120 115 or down below 80 85 that's when the appraisal is triggered by state law so right now our appraisals are the last fiscal year is like 85.0 something percent so we were just above that threshold where the appraisals are about 85% of what homes are selling for early indications that were down around 78-79% so it's been trending in that direction for a while so yeah I think it's safe to say that it's not going to change for Essex and we should get going with the reappraisal thank you just to note to that too especially right now because vendors are so backed up that it's not actually going to start still even if we had a vendor lined up it might still be a year out till they start here or something like that so it's just really smart because we do think the mandate is coming anyway by next year to just get the process going now because it looks like it's taking a while to roll out and to your point Kendall then the time will have passed if it is just sort of a COVID blip or we'll have some other time on the other side of that as well to just make sure that fair market values whatever doing whatever it's doing at that point I guess but what if it is going to bounce back or do something like that there'll be some time thank you and I just remembered one other thing I wanted to say about the zip code thing I'm sorry for talking so long about it but I'd like to put the content of the memo that's in the packet out on front porch forums anybody have any concerns with that okay I will actually just one comment it may make sense to put in how someone would change their address the memo references changing the address but it doesn't specifically say how one would go about doing that I just anticipate that that may be a question I want to do mine I want to do mine you can actually just start using ethics but there's also an official change that you could make alright thank you for the proclamation for ant dots well that's in the that was in the consent right right yeah yeah yeah great anything else okay so we got a how many executive session motions do we need here I got one I move the select board make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the town's position concerning ongoing contract negotiations and labor relation agreements when employees would place the town at a substantial disadvantage second thank you Don thank you Tracy any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye move the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts and labor relation agreements with employees pursuant of 1VSA 313A 1A and 1VSA 313A 1B to include the town manager deputy manager police chief and HR director second thank you Don thank you Tracy any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye both motions pass 5-0 you got more I move that the select board enter executive session to discuss the negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with 1VSA section 313A2 and to include the town manager and deputy manager thank you Ethan second thank you Tracy any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye any motion passes 5-0 I move that the select board make the specific finding that general public knowledge of contracts would place the town at a substantial substantial substantial disadvantage second thank you Ethan thank you Don any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts and the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee in accordance with 1VSA section 313A3 to include the town manager and deputy manager thank you Ethan for a second thank you Tracy any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed motion passes 5-0 I move that the select board make the specific finding that general public knowledge of contracts would place the town at a substantial disadvantage second thank you Ethan thank you Don further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts pursuant to 1VSA symbol means and 313 is that right A1A A1A to include the town manager second thank you Ethan thank you Don so discussion is that the last one last one I see that's a lot I think I hope so so the discussion here is we may come back to make some motions to Jordan you don't have to stay but we'll keep the meeting running so when we come back we will adjourn we'll potentially make a motion to adjourn from the meeting here we'll probably go upstairs to have our discussion so any other discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed the motion is passed 5-0 we will move ourselves upstairs and then come back after all of our discussions thank you everyone for coming and feel free to lurk about it if you'd like to stay either online or over here and Dylan Travis I will put you in a video