 session. We were now out of it and the next item on the agenda is the minutes from October 7th and October 30th. Is there emotion? I'd move approval of minutes of October 17th on the necessary corrections. Is there a second? Second. Page one. Page two. Page four. Hearing no corrections all those in favor of adopting the minutes say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. October 30th is their emotion. I'd move approval of the minutes of October 30th without any necessary corrections. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor of accepting the October 30th 2023 minutes say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Next is public comment. This is a part in the meeting where anybody can make a comment to the board. It can be about what is on the agenda. It might be wise to wait until that agenda item is up but there is no limits to it. So that being said, does anybody in the room have a public comment to make? Eric is there anybody online? Nope, no one online. Okay. Next we have an interview for the CCRTC alternative. Michael, come on over. Come on down. Welcome. So generally what we do is we ask somebody, we have your submitted application but ask people to kind of give a thumbnail sketch of themselves and why they're interested in the position. So you can do that. Sure. I moved to Williston October 1. So I'm relatively new to Williston. I've been in Montpelier for about four years prior to that. I lived in Durango, Colorado. I went to Vermont Law School, graduated 2010, moved to the Western States, did a number of different things, and then came back. I currently work for the Town of Stowe Electric Department where I run the legal and regulatory affairs program, which is just me. So I manage the renewable energy standard for the town, which is, for me, it's predominantly tier two, tier three. Tier three is the rebate electrification program. So I work closely with LaMouille County planning permission, a bunch of stakeholders, efficiency Vermont, so on and so forth. And then I obviously have a handle on what Vermont's trying to do in terms of decarbonization, electrification, renewable energy. My time at Stowe, I've brought in over two million in grant funding for the utility, which means the ratepayers don't have to pay that. And on Monday, I'll submit an application for an additional 6.6 million in a loan program through USDA, which is the first of its kind for municipals to participate in. And if I do it correctly, we'll get a 20% loan forgiveness on that number. And what we'll be doing with that is we'll be installing renewable energy projects and distribution system upgrades, which includes some automation to help us shift load during outages, grid resiliency pardoning. And what we're most proud of is a low income on bill generation credit program utilizing a new hydroelectric facility that will install at our headquarters in Moscow. When I was in Montpelier, I served on the DRB in the conservation commission. So I have a strong background in all these issues. I managed the EV charging program for Stowe, which includes two fast chargers that are at the Alchemist. One doesn't work. The other one kind of works. And then of course, we have large issues like bail, transportation, traffic, so on and so forth. So for a small town, we're deeply immersed in all these issues. I also serve on the Jericho Underhill Land Trust board. So I'm familiar with Jericho Underhill. And now I'm getting to know Williston. I'll stop there. Great. Questions from the board. Could you come for another one? I did. Yeah, the other guy was a little more. I don't have like seven years or generations of Vermont tides. So, yeah. How did you find the, tell me a little bit about your service on the DRB conservation committee? When did you enjoy, which part of that did you like doing? I don't know if I liked any of it. But no, I, like I said before, I enjoy working at the local level. You know, obviously being a town employee and being a municipal utility, you know, I'm well-inversed in all the politics and neighborhood disputes. So I took sort of a perverse joy in it all, right? The landowner that wants the neighbor to remove the fence on their property, even though they don't have property rights, etc., etc. But no, I think what you learn is just to be smart. I can talk to a wall in my sleep, but I try to be, you know, respectful people's time and just speak when I have something to add. And then the conservation commission, you know, is a good experience. It's tough with a volunteer board. It was hard to get projects going, hard to get engagement. But we did, if you're familiar with Montpelier, we did, I was able to seek some funding for a rain garden, which is at VSECU as you come in. And so I got flooded over on the July floods. But it's those types of things that we try to bring, like those innovative programs like rain gardens to the area. Have you had a chance to review kind of the pending projects and the scope of the projects at the CCRPC is considering for not only our region, but also for Williston specifically? You know, I've taken a quick look at the plan and then the Williston town plan is obviously for revision. You know, I'm not going to pretend like I read it all, but I'm well versed with LaMoyle County, their plan. I've been working with the town of Stowe on their plan revision. I also worked on the emergency management plan for the town of Stowe. So, you know, I'm generally well versed with the issues. Obviously, Chittenden County is a different county than LaMoyle and Washington. You have much bigger issues, broader base, more funding opportunities. But again, Stowe and Montpelier for small communities, they face a lot of these same issues just at a smaller scale. Thank you for all of your public service. What do you see as the most difficult issue in the town of Williston as for the CCRC? Yeah, I mean, I think it's always going to be transportation, smart growth and moving people in and out of the town in a smart way. You know, what I see here is that Williston is well cited, right? You're in between South Burlington, Burlington, Jericho, Underhill. And to me, it seems like a bit of a pass through community. Just the month that I've been here, you know, I think it would be great to find ways to keep people to come to Williston. Williston is the destination of the pass through. And I think you can do that with a variety of things like pocket parks or linking the trail systems together. It does seem like you have a lot of sidewalks in your residential areas, which is great. I think it would be interesting to see if you can link them together. So get the locals moving on bikes or on foot and then allow folks to come in and park. You know, I'm sure you face the same parking issues as Stowe. And what Stowe struggles with is how to move people in and out and how to actually serve the locals. I think what gets lost a lot of times is we don't serve the actual people that live here. You know, we're concerned, especially in Vermont, about bringing folks into Vermont, spend money, drive the economy. I get it. But I do want to see us serve our neighbors and our residents more. Great answer. Thanks. Other questions? I have no questions. Thank you for coming in. We generally make these decisions later on in the meeting. Give board members a chance to ruminate. Sure. So we'll take it up later. But thank you very much for coming in. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda, police services report. We're going to be receiving a transmittal and overview of a report from a consultant. Our consultant is coming forward now. Jim, if you could introduce yourself to people, including their probably people on the viewing audience and and take it away. Certainly. Good evening. And first, I want to say before I introduce myself, I appreciate the opportunity to do this project for the town of Wilson. It was a privilege to work on the future of your public safety here in Wilson. So my name is Jim Baker. I own and operate a small consulting firm, JW leadership consulting based out of Arlington, Vermont. I've been in the state since 1978. Now I won't pour you because my bio was in the report, but for the folks that are home watching, I spent 31 years with the state police retired in 2009 as the colonel. I went on to to several agencies and that were in what I would describe as crisis. The first one was the Vermont Police Academy where I served as the executive director for about a year and a half. And then I was the police chief in Rutland for about three years. And then I went to Washington DC where I was on the executive staff of the International Associations of Chiefs of Police. And my latest, my latest stint was the Interim Commissioner of Corrections here in Vermont. That was supposed to be 120 days and then this thing COVID it. And I was there 23 months. And that cured me of ever running another agency again. I continue to consult both for myself and private practice, but I also work with the International Association of Chiefs of Police and a few other organizations nationally on various projects. If I may, before we get started, Chief Foley is joining us over to zoom. He's not a few of these chiefs conference today. So he's connected on great. Okay. Jimmy, you have a presentation for us? I do. If I think Eric is at the control panel here. If it works. Yeah, excess. So the engagement with you through your town manager was to take a look at the police department and take a look at the growth of the community versus the growth of the police department. In essence, that's what the the ask was. The focus ended up being on the staffing structure and scope of the police department. And it was accomplished. The work that we did. I have a few associates that worked with me on this project. The work that we did focused on qualitative and quantitative data analysis. And we did that through interviews, data review from the police department, data review from your planning director, Matt Lanjerk, who I must say made my life very easy. The planning that you do here is pretty impressive. Not that I'm a planner, but it made my life fairly less complicated in getting information that I thought I needed to understand the growth of Williston and be able to look at the police department against that growth that has taken place. We conducted focus groups. And as I said, the planning information, the data reports, including reports such as the work that was done on TAF Corners was very helpful in the work that we did. I conducted ride-alongs inside the police department, interviewed the leadership of the police department, including the sergeants and direct observation while I was here. And just riding around town and observing what goes on. And finally, there was literature review that I did based upon the direction that the assessment started taking. The approach again was to understand how the growth of the police department has been compared to the growth of the town. From the beginning, I kept hearing about these two assessments that were done that no one could put their hands on. And I was able, through former town manager Rick McGuire, who I just happened to bang into at the Vermont League of Cities and Town Fair, gather some information about those studies. The information, I've never seen the studies, but the information was contained in a study that I believe was done in 2002, taking a look at the building of a new police station. So I was able to gather some information from that. Eric, you can go to the next slide. So again, right up front, talk a little bit about these previous studies. 1989, T. Mark Associates recommended that the department consists of 15 sworn officers by 1995. In 1996, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, I'm assuming they had a subject matter expert come in to do an assessment. I don't have that information. I certainly don't understand the reasoning behind what these recommendations were. But at the time, they recommended 41 sworn members by 2016. And also recommended a structure that I'll get to later in the presentation to support those 41 sworn members. And then, you know, by 2023, you, you were at 17 sworn staffing members or sworn staff inside the police department. With the same structure you've been had in place supporting the operation of the police department for a number of years. And you'll notice in a report that I made recommendations on how to utilize the report. And I would urge you to be looking at the report as a planning document. Obviously, the recommendations I made about the staffing, you know, there's no expectation that you're going to be able to fill that staffing immediately, either from a recruiting standpoint, because of the nature of recruiting right now, nor from a financial standpoint. But I mean, I would not be wanting to leave here tonight and not say to you that two prior studies were never filed. And I think it leaves you in a pretty various situation right now with staffing inside the department. Some key findings. Now, next slide, please. I've shortened these up. The findings are in the report. But these are ones that I want to emphasize to you. You have a safe community. The crime data shows that it's a safe community. And I don't need to tell you that your growth has been significant. I kidded the first trip I took here to meet Eric and the chief. I hadn't been probably as far as Starbucks when I was the commissioner of Corrections. I think I stopped there a couple of times on my way to St. Albans to get a coffee. Never turned the corner. And when I turned the corner, I didn't know where I was. I had no idea that growth had taken place in Welleson. I'm in the southern part of the state. I don't get up here that often. I don't need to tell you that your growth has been significant. And that's a good thing. It's a good thing for the community. It's a good thing for Chittenden County. And there's a shift I know from interviewing folks, including developers in town, that there's a shift of where you're going with your developer to include housing, mixed use housing, housing that's more condensed, potentially going up and not out. It presents different challenges for a police department to provide safety to that type of community versus the community that they provided safety to for the last 20 years or so. Spread out larger residential neighborhoods that you drive through in patrol. This is going to bring on different challenges for the police department from the standpoint of being able to provide safety. One of the things that I was kind of taking back with, and I shared with Eric and the chair when we met the other day, and all the planning documents I read and I read quite a few, no mention at all about police department or the growth of the police department. And that's why one of my recommendations is that in the future there should be more conversation as this growth goes on about what the police department can handle and what they can manage when it comes to providing safety to the community. To a person that I worked with inside the police department, some of them are here tonight. To a person, they are professional, respectful, polite, and hard working folks. To a person. They were very cooperative. The ultimate finding, you know, I think is that the police department has not grown nor is the structure structured nor is their scope designed to meet where Williston is in 2023. Nor will it be designed, scope, and staffed to meet what the challenges will be moving forward. And I'll talk a little bit about data. The turnover in the leadership in the police department put aside the fact that Chief Foley's been here, I think, for five years, six. Prior to that, you had a lot of turnover in leadership of the police department. Now, I don't know this, but I would guess those reports that were generated in 89 and 96 may not have gotten a lot of life, gotten legs, because of the turnover in the leadership in the department. I don't know that. You've also had turnover in staffing inside the department. And I bring that up now because it puts you in the position of not having the structure inside the police department to have a succession plan. You have two sergeants that are due to retire in the next 24 months. You know, the Chief, I've known the Chief for a long time. I know he's watching. He can't throw something at me, but I'll say it anyway. The Chief is my age. We've been around a long time. You know, you don't know when he's going to decide it's time to move on. And so, that turnover in staffing has put you in a position not to have a succession plan. And when I get to the recommended structure that I'm recommending to you, there's a reason why, and I'll explain that when I get there, about why that's structured the way it is. Not to put yourself in a position where what the Chief does every day is trying to fill vacancies. It gives you a chance to have a little bit longer retention of staff by having opportunities inside the department and then start to develop what it looks like four, five, six, seven, eight years down the road what the leadership of the department's going to look like. Another finding, the majority of your calls are non-criminal. I mean, you saw the chart that's in the report. I like to use bar charts because it really stands out. The majority of your calls are non- criminal. With that said, there is an issue in the department with the quality of data. And it's not, again, I say this in the report, I want to say this here. When you ask somebody to do an assessment of an organization, obviously you're looking for things to improve and it can come off as being real negative. And this is one of these things. The quality of the data, it's most, a lot of calls are getting generalized. And what I mean by that is things like citizens assist, suspicious activity. And there's not enough detail broken down without going into the reports to figure out what the activity is. And I'll talk a little bit more about this in a few minutes. But that lack of being able to tell exactly what's going on in town doesn't allow for proactive pro-production of safety with the community. So data is a point that I'll come back to. For the most part, when I did the focus groups, there is a desire in the community for more interaction at the police department. Everyone talks about the police department responds quickly. They're polite, they're professional. They get to a situation in a hurry. But there is a desire to do more interaction with the police department outside of when they're called for a service. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. You've been very supportive in this community. I know this from being the Commissioner of Corrections of your restorative justice practices. And you make a commitment in this community to restorative justice practices by having the Executive Director as an employee, housing them, providing in-kind services to them to support the restorative methods that CJCs are known for. There could be a better strategy between the police department and the CJCs. And that's where the recommendation that comes later about co-locating the CJCs with elements of the police department closer to where the activity is that requires intervention by the CJCs. I would be less than honest not to say you have an emerging crime problem in your community. And it revolves around varsities, shoplifting, and those type of nature of crimes that you see across the state. I mean I'm currently working in other communities in the state. I just want to be clear what you're facing is not unusual for what's being seen in other communities. But it still will rip away at the social fiber of the community. No one wants to go to Walmart. Have to deal with someone that's confrontational as they're leaving the store stealing property. They're going in the home depot. They're going in the marshals. They're going into any of the other locations. That's an emerging issue that needs to be dealt with. And you know the final finding I just want to mention right now is that the police department is not sized staff structure or scope to be able to deal with some of these emerging issues. And I want to pay particular attention in a minute to the calls that the fire department are doing around overdoses and overdoses of substances to include alcohol which is an important indicator of some of that social chaos that I'm referring to. So Eric if you can move on. This chart shows the data from the police department. My copy I think it's probably my age with my glasses but the blue is I believe agency assist. The next one down the orange color is directed patrols. The silver is suspicious activity. The yellow is alarms and the last one the off-color blue is assist the public. This accounts for a good chunk of what the calls from service inside the police department are. And when I talk about generalizing it's hard to tell when I look at agency assist what does that mean? What did that involve? Or assist to the public suspicious activity what's that mean? It's generalization that happens a lot in police departments. Here I think from interviewing staff and taking a look at the data it's because you don't have the staff to do the work that you should do around data. I'm a big fan and you probably can tell from reading the report. I'm a big fan of data driven models to impact quality of life and safety issues in communities. Can I ask you to blow for just a second? Sure, sure. Agency assist I assume that that they go with the fire department or if they go to the fire department? That's my very point ma'am. Could be they went to the fire department. Could be another police department asked for help. It could be that a security company asked for help. So not to be able to break that down to a geo level makes it very difficult to understand what's going on. Directed patrols is a pretty standard practice in law enforcement. Mrs. Jones is complaining about speeding in her neighborhood and they go out and they do a directed patrol to address that. But I'm glad you asked that because that's an example of not having a good understanding of data. I understand why agencies do directed patrols but just to go out and take a shot at when that activity is going on is not very efficient versus if you had data that showed a trend, a time, a day, you could better utilize your resources to impact the activity that the citizen is complaining about. That makes sense to you. Any other questions on that? I know I go rather quick. I want to be respectful in your time. Yes sir. The assist public. What is that? Look it could be somebody comes in and they've got a question about registration on their car. It could be that somebody's car is broke down on the side of the road. It could be a whole host of things that an officer takes a case number for. Does that make sense? Yes sir. Thank you. One of the things about and again I'm not I'm not saying this is happening here but my experience when I see data like this is there is a culture of mentality in law enforcement that they think and I'm not saying it's happening here but it's the impression that I'm getting that it's ingrained that you take a case number for whatever you do because it's a time management thought process. The record management system you have is not a time management record system. It's not meant to keep track of how much time an officer is spending on a given task inside the department and I I've done assessments before where chiefs will come into select boards and say our calls for service went up by 25% last year. Hence I need more police officers and without drilling into that information and figuring out as I've said what the data is telling you I am not a big fan of that approach because I don't think it's effective and I don't think it's efficient. So one of the suggestions is as you see a recommendation is about cleaning up the data and providing resources to be able to do that inside the department. Any other questions on that slide? Eric you can go to the next slide. This is just again to demonstrate the graph of criminal calls versus non-criminal calls and you can see when you see that amount of non-criminal activity I could not you know officers that I spoke to that I interviewed could anecdotally tell me that this is what's going on but the data does not reflect that nor can you make decisions about resource application without better understanding and just looking at a chart like this what's contained in that blue what kind of activity why does it become important because a lot of that activity inside that non-criminal work is stuff where you can intervene ahead of time to prevent crimes from happening suspicious activity in a neighborhood you get a license plate you talk to Burlington PD and you find out it's a serial burglar right you're preventing something from happening in your community and that's why the data the data is important it's criminal but you also you know what I think you know that Tom Ager I've talked a little bit about helping out around the merger of the CJC with an outreach unit and I'll say this and I know it's corporate policy but your retailers are not being good neighbors when they're not reporting crime to police department they are not good neighbors when they do that because they're allowing a situation they're part of the problem and they need to be part of the solution when I hear from the officers that some of the retailers are not even calling when there's a shoplifting and it's their corporate policy well you know and I'm not saying all home depot here but you know they can absorb a half million dollars a year you as a community can absorb that type of social chaos and they're not being good neighbors by not calling the police to report crime you're telling people in neighborhoods if you see suspicious activity call the police but you've got retailers that won't call when a crime occurs it's not being good neighbors and I think it's something that needs to be worked on you believe that's not a frustration um I I I don't know because I want to give folks the benefit of the doubt if I understand it from talking to the officers and from talking to the chief it's corporate policies that's being developed across those corporate organizations that they're just willing to write off a certain amount of loss in a given year and okay so they take the loss but I'll remind you every time somebody doesn't pay for something you're also losing a chunk of money as well and never mind the social chaos that comes along with that that affects the quality of life in Walliston so I'll say it again and I know I'm being repetitive but those folks are not being good neighbors by not reporting crime very the next slide please one of the things that I was trying to figure out is what is the impact on the police department as a result of the challenges everyone in the state is facing around substance use disorder calls for mental health and so on and I couldn't discern that from the data so I was able to get this data from the fire department and again I threw 23 in there up until I believe it was August when I got this data from from the fire department so the the the blue the blue is is overdoses to include alcohol not just the legal substances but alcohol as well and then mental health calls are the orange the gray is is when the police department was on any scene at all with the fire department the fire chief could have broke this down but I told them you know I didn't want them to put that amount of work into it so the gray is anytime that the police department is on the scene with the fire department but it's hard to discern are they over those calls mental health calls and those those are the reality of where law enforcement is in the 21st century in 2023 in Vermont where the bulk of the work is centering around these social issues that intervening the criminal justice system is having little to no effective impact on them so it's hard to pull that data out the reason why I put that slide in the package is again to emphasize that the quality of data matters I often say to folks that you know I'm a football fan I will tell you who my team is because there are two and six right now now but you know Monday night football doesn't have a game and that keeps score and if you don't keep score it's only practice and I think data becomes a very important piece of how police departments are going to have to function moving forward in Vermont in the future so the next slide any questions on this again I condense these recommendations in the slide but you have in the report I'm recommending that the town managers start working on a five-year plan to increase the size of the Williston Police Department to 11 more sworn members to non-sworn support staff and to take a look at expanding or doing something different around the social work and relationship and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute the second piece is to open up the criminal investigative unit open up a community outreach unit I think both of those are a priority but if you were to ask me to question I know the chief is working diligently to get back to the 17 authorized now when you get to that number or when the chief feels comfortable I think the first thing that needs to happen is get a criminal investigator in place inside the department much of the shoplifting and the social disorder I believe from interviewing staff and talking to other people in Chittenden County these are inter-jurisdictional crimes that are occurring that requires a level of coordination and investigations that does not exist so it's just a free-for-all and it shouldn't surprise anybody that your shoplifting college is going up because it's a free-for and so I'm recommending those two I'm also recommending that the Wilson Criminal Justice Center be co-located with the community outreach team and that that be moved closer to TAF's Maple Tree somewhere down there closer to where the action is at the other recommendation is to leverage more restorative practices between the police department and the CJC stand up a committee inside the department I know from talking to the chief the other day that he recently sent staff the training and they started doing this already stand up a committee internally on looking at hiring and retention there's no sense in me sitting here and talking about 11 more positions over five years when you've struggled to fill the 17 you've had now I will caution you as folks that make decisions not to use that as a pass on acting and moving towards upping the staff inside the police department and some of my prior life I've been in front of governing bodies where they said since you can't fill the positions anyway we're going to cut them from the budget save money I caution you not to move in that direction because you're operating from a 1996 study that never got any traction and you're finding yourself in this position now that's going to put you a couple more folks leave the department and it's going to be very difficult to get to my recommendations so the message that I would say that you would want to send to some of the folks that are here in the room and the ability to recruit is that the willing Williston police department is on the move and if you want to come work somewhere that's moving forward you want to come work in Williston and you have a lot of say in when it comes to messaging that message out we're a cross-section community you'll see in my report where I name some of this and I talk a little bit about co-production of safety in the community community policing is one thing when I talk about co-production it's a much deeper relationship with the community a much more involved conversation every day with the community about building relationships that raise the quality of life lower harm to the community and provide safety in the community it's deeper than having and I'm not criticizing this I know it happens here once in a while I'm not talking about coffee with the cop I'm talking about a prolonged lasting relationship with neighborhoods businesses developers I'm talking about how do we work together to make Williston the safest place it can be you are a safe community but you're starting to see some of the creep from what some of the other challenges of other communities have I'm also recommending a system of accountability and I'm not for one minute insinuating or saying that there's not accountability in the police department it's not what I'm saying but I'm a fan of models of policing working with co-production of safety where you assign geographic areas of town to leadership inside the police department and they own that real estate it is their job to work with folks within that area to resolve issues prevent crime and make sure information is flowing from the police department to the community so in the recommendations you have four sergeants are in patrol I'm recommending that those four sergeants own a quarter of the town not that that's the only place where they work and I'm sure sergeants are probably saying right now how in the world am I supposed to do that because we're shorthanded that's the point of what I'm going to talk about in a minute about structuring the department to support that type of work in your community next is focus on data the quality in the analysis of data you know I can talk to an officer I can talk to the chief they can tell me what they think is going on and they're probably fairly accurate but they can't dive into the data to give a real assessment of how you're going to use your resources more effectively to deal with pressing issues that you have and then the last piece on the data is create a create a dashboard that is seen by everybody you know this sounds like it's a minor thing and why would it be a recommendation my experience in this business is that not only is data important but when everybody can see the data and I'll use the football analogy again everybody understands what the play is when it's called because they've seen the play and they've practiced the play and data does the same thing when it comes to figuring out how to use your assets inside your police department Eric the next slide so this is your current structure right now that that I replicated from just where you are now you have the chief I mean you currently have a lieutenants position that is open there's administrative assistant that sits there off that stem coming down from the chief who I think is here in the room tonight I think I saw Ashley here I want to call Ashley out towards the end I was calling Ashley every other day in a crisis looking for something and within hours she had the information for me Ashley's asked to do a lot not making this into Ashley I'm making it into the position and this is part of the reason why the quality of the data is not where it should be because there's nobody focused on that she does things like discovery for the court and entering traffic tickets and meeting people at the door and taking care of other business inside the police department and that there is not the focus on data that it should be if you go down is your emergency communication staff which is now housed at Essex I will circle back to that in a minute and then below that is the four sergeants and the four platoons that you have and so some of the platoons have I think the way it works out is to get to 17 I think one of the platoons don't do not have the same amount of staff authorized to them on the shift that's what the structure looks like right now so when I talk about the inability to meet the scope of what should be going on data is one community outreach is another and you can see from looking at the structure why that's challenging Eric if you can go to the next slide please this was actually the table of organization that I found in the 2002 report recommendations on building a new police station and this is from the 1996 Vermont Leagues of Cities and Towns proposal where they proposed 41 sworn officers I can't even I don't know what the reasoning was or the rationale or what the analysis was but in 1996 that number sounds awful high to me in 2023 the number sounds awful so I don't know how they got to that but notice the structure of the department they did recommend two minutes in fact I believe in the writings they recommended an assistant chief along with two lieutenants and if you one thing on the side to the left where you've got people in the patrol division for lack of a better description that's understandable they recommended corpus I'll come back to that in a minute but if you go on to the other side that structure that structure may have worked then and again I don't know what the reasoning is but that structure on the right cannot support what needs to be done in my opinion so that's what the recommendation was in 1996 and the recommendation was that that's what the department would look like in 2016 Eric the next slide this is what I'm recommending for a structure this is where the 11 positions are added to bring you to 28 sworn members not 41 if you look the chief coming down with an administrative assistant to support the leadership of the department on the left hand side is that lieutenant that I'm referring to as the patrol commander who would oversee the patrol functions of the department with the four platoons underneath it and each platoon would have a sergeant corporal I'll come back to this in a second and three officers that would make up a platoon in a shift so you would have five officers and you know again on any given day you're not going to have five officers training sick leave annual leave you know work miss comp all the kind of things that you deal with inside the department but that would be the structure and the recommendation of the structure of the platoons that I would recommend if you move over to the right hand side of the chart there's a lieutenant there that that I'm referring to as support services and community outreach and if you look underneath that the recommendation is that support services be supported by or support services would support emergency communication I didn't delve deeply into emergency communications I did meet with some of the staff at Essex talked to them a little bit the only thing I'm going to say about emergency communication is that at some point there's going to be a decision point what you need to do about emergency communication I know from talking to the town manager he sits on the the regional authority looking at emergency services I'm not optimistic from the people I talked to and even talking to the town manager that you're going to resolve emergency communication and this is a discussion that I didn't take up in this report because it's serving you okay right now but you're going to be needed to be thinking about this is as time goes on how you're going to resolve that because the growth of the department to this size probably may not be able to be supported by three folks working out of Essex PD also under there is opening up that criminal investigative unit that I talked about ultimately with a sergeant supervising it with two detectives as growth goes on not something that needs to happen right now but I believe with the growth that you're seeing that you're eventually going to need that type of criminal investigative support in the community as you move as you move across there just excuse me for one minute because I can't read my the data work with data analysts would also fall under the support services and then where that work that we talked about earlier would be done around cleaning up data better quality of data analysis of data and deployment of resources based on that data and then the final piece moving across is that piece about reaching out to the community a community outreach unit with a sworn officer there and a non-sworn community service specialist that many communities are operating with that I think could have a real impact on helping divert people out of the system but hold them accountable for the behavior that's going on right now especially around the shop lifting piece and the CJC would also be co-located with them so that's what I'm recommending over the next five years on that right hand on that yes hand side which are sworn officers I assume the three under the criminal investigation unit correct the outreach officer and the outreach officer yes I also think that that let me talk a little bit about succession planning retention of officers that structure especially with the creation of the corpals is starting to get to a point where you're starting to build a succession into your organization where people want to come and they want to stay the union folks probably I don't know if anybody's behind me representing unionists so I'm running the risk of getting something thrown at me I'm I'm not always convinced money is the answer why people jump around if you take a look at the resources being done around and I mentioned this in the report the targeted population that you should be recruiting right now has a whole different look what they want out of quality of life in their workplace and they want to feel like they're part of something bigger than them they're part of a team that's making a difference and when I started thinking about the structure I'm thinking about that where you're creating opportunities for people in the department to do something besides go to home depot every day and process somebody for shoplifting you're creating other opportunities for them creating opportunities for them to learn creating two lieutenants positions that eventually can be trained to become the next police chief that's part of the reason why I envisioned the structure looking like that so I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there and open it up to questions the questions so I read that you I read a comment here that said we shouldn't use police calls as a way to decide the size and you shouldn't necessarily just pick your neighborhood neighboring town and pick a special you kind of get a lot of ways not to choose something your organization should be so how'd you go up with this name? I started with the structure that I think you're gonna need I started with the structure that I think you're gonna need over the next five years facing the challenges you're facing and then fill the staff in to meet that structure if that makes sense to you in order to define the scope of what the work will be some of that scope is already here you see that in the fire department data and you see it in the shoplifting data but I started with the structure looking back at those other two reports because your record management system doesn't allow you to do time management studies number one number two I'm not a fan of those and I'll just be blunt people gain those time management systems right when you when you know I've seen it many many times doing a staffing assessments they will gain how much time they spend on something and I think it's not a good measurement why isn't it a good measurement to like compare yourself to South Burlington for example is because I'm sure Chief Burke is collecting data much different than your data being collected so to try to compare apples to apples when you're not collecting the data the same way makes it almost impossible to make that comparison well I guess your whole data from the number of persons that I wish there was more data to when you talk about having quadrants of the town it would only really make sense to me if we weren't doing it to congratulate me and we weren't doing it maybe by population but by me right and so can't do that without I didn't see anything here about the geographic spread of all these calls well it's hard to do that when you don't have the data go back they did but that's correct correct what do you think about the Essex Junction Police Department and their citizens police academy that they've been doing generate more interest in the police department but in the public see what the police are doing you know I think that's an example of when I talk about co-production of safety a much deeper understanding of what and ironically I just happened to have a conversation with Chief Holt a couple weeks ago about that it's a deeper understanding of how the police department operates so for me it would be an example of co-production of safety you think from what I've heard talking to different people when part of the morale problem is the catch and release of the shop windows you see that as a problem absolutely that's why I'm recommending to you that you you uh there's a shared consciousness and understanding I think those are the words I used in the report about how the CJC interacts with the police department because in many ways right now there is zero accountability for the folks that are committing those crimes there is nothing for them to fear and as a result of them going into committing crimes you don't even have merchants who the victims are calling the police the system from COVID is overloaded I mean the courts are backlog and so cases sit three, four, five months before there's any type of action at all and most of the studies that I've read are accountability for misbehavior social disorder communities the quicker the consequence comes consequences come to behavior the more effective it is to control that activity and it doesn't necessarily mean people need to go to jail it means there needs to be some consequence for the behavior that's damaging the community they've heard that there's a local merchant that is actually hired in Chippin County Sheriff's Department I don't know but all of their stores yeah I don't know that sort of and that might possibly be coming something more common like we've seen in Burlington of some of the crime-ridden areas where people are hiring protection I thank you for this report I think public safety is a very important factor in this town I think you know people in this town want to feel safe thank you for I thank you for doing this thank you thank you for the feedback I appreciate that thank you so and I really appreciate that the broad look at this the police department has is more than just the sworn officers and that was one of the things I was really hoping to see was you know that the policing isn't just the officers you know that it does involve you know social work and our CJC and we're really lucky in this town that we have a system in place but you know certainly you know there's room for expansion as your report suggests too one of the things obviously we all know in this room is that staffing statewide nationally is is an issue and so and I appreciate you you know saying that don't we need to not be responsive to the lack of available you know personnel right now in considering future staffing needs but any any insight I know this is maybe beyond the scope of your your report and your analysis about how kind of you know best to you know make these gains in staffing and and to you know to fill the the vacancies but to potentially fill you know future positions too yeah I I I really well first of all some of my other experiences are I'm starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel for organizations you know going back to my old organization at corrections you know they you know vacancy rates where when I left when I left them was up around 40 percent they're down I think the last time I heard 16 17 percent there is some success I know some other organizations that are having some success at recruiting but what I would say to you is Williston police department has to offer something that no one else is offering it's that competitive and I think that from my conversations throughout this assessment that moving in the direction of being co-production of safety and I want to overuse that word embracing the restorative practices creating an outreach unit creating an opportunity to the department for advancement is going to put you in a better position than a lot of other agencies are you may be all the I know this you know this is distasteful but it's the way it works you may be able to get more pre-certified officers to come if they see the opportunity to move around in the department to do stuff that may be a little bit different then you know the day I did the ride I was just it was four hours in the car and I mean we just went from one side of the road to the other from Home Depot across the street to Dex back across the street just chasing shoplifting for four hours that is not going to create a situation where someone's going to want to come work here I wouldn't want to do it and even in my youngest days I wouldn't want to do it so I think you've got to create a situation where you've got something that no one else has got and I see I think creating a vision around a real aggressive outreach to the community is going to help you bring people here and create opportunities to more importantly retain people here and not lose them you know every time I talk to the chief through this process you know when I first came six months ago seven months ago you were fully staffed at 17 within a month you were down to 15 14 and it's been up and down and I think figuring out a way to retain people is going to be really important thank you kind of along those lines I was I was intrigued with the whole outreach concept but really comes down to it it's staffed with two people in your proposal is that did you self limit that for some of the reason or am I missing that that's going to be yeah there's two people on this chart but it'll all be the four from the quadrant or yeah it seems like it seems like we have we have a lot of needs in a very compact you know busy part of town that two people is not going to be able to think of that yeah so I appreciate that question right some of that was just like shock value right right I didn't I didn't want to shock Eric with the number of people but on the other hand I believe by co-locating people and making that kind of investment you're going to see other organizations that want to come and be co-located and it's force multiplying public safety and public health because the issues you're really talking about are more public health than public safety and I think by creating that space you're creating opportunities for other organizations to come in co-locate force multiply and focus on where public safety and public health are meeting and getting people diverted off to those services that you know the CJC has been working with for a while out of necessity I think you're going to see the opportunity for other folks to come in I'm a big fan of general the crystals book the team of teams and I think you're going to see the opportunity for other folks to potentially want to be part of something that is only happening in a couple other areas in the state on the community outreach recommendation just a in the way it would actually work if we had a community outreach location in Tafts the Tafts corners area that also had CJC that's the idea right to have CJC people that they're at well correct so you know if somebody is detained for shoplifting at Dix and you know the officer recognizes the person as somebody who has a significant now criminal history but also significant drug issues and perhaps a mental health issues that person would be taken over to the police outpost yeah but tell me make a couple of points like you don't even know because the the way data is collected you don't even know how many people you're encountering you're addicted it's just anecdotal stories inside the department well it's it's you know Susie from such a such a town comes here all the time and she's heavily addicted that's another point on the data that I really think needs to be added to the data to figure it out to figure out what the public health impact needs to be to be able to move the needle on this behavior back to your original question the way I would envision this going is that let me talk about what happens now I think this is what happens sometimes cases get somebody gets picked up for shot sometimes depending on the officer the case will get referred to diversion even that takes some days in a lot of cases they're getting cited to court and then the state's attorneys sending them back and telling them send them to diversion two three months go by and people just keep right on going they're showing up again and that's why you see I mean I think you know this from from your work that's why you see people with 15 20 pending cases because their due date and court is so far down the road that they just keep going the way I would envision this going is when you process somebody for shoplifting and again you're not going to cover this 24 seven but again the stores aren't open 24 seven that you would bring someone to that center for processing and there'd be an immediate intervention by a step from the outreach unit to intervene to see if this person is as interested in getting to some services and they immediately start getting processed as part of the diversion process so there's some type of consequence starting to happen immediately after the behavior that landed them in the custody of the officer to be processed now obviously misdemeanor you know they can't be held beyond the processing and they have to be released potentially on a citation but by having the citation ability to hang over there there's this concept of focused deterrence that talks about using levers that's a lever to use against the individual I also think it presents the opportunity and I talk with Crystal Lee a little bit about this there's a difference between deflection and diversion deflection is a total those are like the Perry programs that police departments divert people completely away from the criminal justice system in the treatment but you've always got the lever at the pole because of the crime they committed but what happens now is these cases sit so long it doesn't mean anything to anybody so I hope that helps answer that question next just to highlight that I mean when I did criminal defense work not a public defender contract I mean that the phrase that we used and perhaps a cynical and I hope people don't judge me for it but the delay goes to the defense yeah the longer you can delay a case the better it is for the defense witnesses are going to memories are going to be anger is going to dissipate so what happens 12, 14, 16, 18 months down the road 20 pending cases they plead out the one and they get the version they get at the first excuse me at the first sentence the consequence does not impact the behavior of the individual you put a lot of emphasis on data collection and analysis and looking at the flowchart we're recommending two people to do that and the fire department also has some problems with data analysis is this a job that could be across the spectrum of both police and fire I think it would be I think it could be again you know I didn't talk about the fire department because the scope wasn't the fire department it wasn't the engagement but you can't separate out your EMS arm of the fire department from the impact on the community so I mean I think it would have to be a conversation between two chiefs but I don't I don't know why you couldn't share someone to take a look at that data because if it was me I'd be taking the fire department data and merging it into my police data anyway to get a better picture of what's happening at a given location thank you so let me ask the board we have another significant agenda item that we are rapidly approaching there is no action step for us to consider tonight but I'm wondering I would like to hear some I mean all of us would like to hear from other people who are in the room but I don't know that we can do that tonight and not get out of here after midnight so I'm wondering if it would make sense for us to schedule another significant in terms of time a significant encounter with this issue on another in another meeting agenda as soon as we can I think it's a great idea yeah so I think if people were hoping to contribute their thoughts tonight I hope they are because I would like to hear what they have to say but I also we have we have other things that are going to take a significant amount of time tonight as well so if with the board's consensus I think really says thank you for your presentation and we'll we'll not we're just going to adjourn this and then take it as soon as we can again and I'll certainly make myself available too it's a lot so with that I wonder if you can move on to the next next agenda item the play of our specific plan transmittal overview part one part one part one yeah some of our books always a pleasure I'm Eric I'm going to join the zoom to share some slides yeah I'll make you a that's your counter planning zoning yep pick things off the board yeah Eric why don't you go ahead so tonight we're going to discuss a specific plan proposal we have time blocked off for tonight in the 21st regarding a Transpill for the Glazer often residential subdivision the specific plan is a mechanism in the town zoning that if approved results in amendments to both the zoning by-law and the town's confidence plan tonight we have our planning staff and the applicant to provide an overview of the proposal and the process that's heard I think over the past year or so to arrive at the stage of the review to the select board for what's been transmitted to you by your planning commission the action item for the select board at a future meeting will be like any zoning by-law or confident amendment to consider warning of public hearing on the amendments if this proceeds to a public hearing after the public hearing is closed then the select board can consider action to adopt this specific plan that decision point is later in the process tonight and on the 21st it's planned to be an overview of this proposal before you we've worked to build this to you a couple meetings so there's there's certainly a lot to cover starting with kind of laying the groundwork for the board of what is a specific plan and these are made the board every four or five years we wanted to come to the board maybe sometimes longer than that so trying to kind of build that for the board to review to understand what it is this process that you're going to review and then what the application is for you then we'll certainly be looking for questions the board has tonight to fall upon on the 21st and then part of this some proposals that we have some land in the town may require is a substantial public benefit in this we'll focus more on that on the 21st we want to make sure that all the board's questions are answered because it's a complex planning and zoning process the board would the decision point is whether you want to warn a public here with the staff middle and I'll turn over our planning staff we're going to start with an introduction of what is a specific plan we have Mr. Glazer here this evening who's going to speak to submit the application that you speak to that so that's why he pursued this pathway as a consultant team that we've been as well and then our planning staff really dealt with the process what the application of what the proposal is so while we're talking I'll probably do for a while thanks Eric and can you turn on screen share permissions so while we're getting the screen share going and and hopefully without overlapping what Eric just described to you I'm I'm also here to speak briefly and then turn things over to our excellent planning staff Emily really shepherded this entire process drafted the memos that are in front of you tonight and prepared all of the supporting documents that took us through this nearly 11 month public process involving neighbors applicant planning commission blazer specific plan advisory committee and of course the other other members of the Williston planning staff together everybody has participated in this defined adopted process that's part of the Williston unified development bylaw and just taking a moment to thank everybody who did come out and participate either as a citizen an applicant a committee member or as part of our planning commissioner staff throughout that it really strengthened the process for all of us and made that work go better and just to tee it up and then roll into Emily's presentation I want to just sort of emphasize that specific plan is an adopted part of the Williston unified development bylaw um it's about considering a proposed development that will provide a substantial public benefit in exchange for some flexibility in zoning and it exists for a good reason because not every parcel of land in Williston or any place is the same in fact none of them are quite the same as one another and there are many paths to achieve the goals of a comprehensive plan towns and municipalities everywhere do their best to try to capture that in their normal adopted regulatory scheme but paths like specific plan in Williston or if you've heard of planned unit development approvals in other communities exist to acknowledge the fact that different pieces of land may have different opportunities to help a community achieve its goals and zoning just by its nature cannot be one size fits all and with that I'm going to not talk for quite a while and let Emily roll into the presentation cool thanks Matt I'm so I'm going to dive deeper into what the specific plan process looks like an overview of the proposed town plan and bylaw amendments no action is required on those tonight but you have the option in the future to warn a public hearing and also give an overview of the proposed substantial benefit as Eric discussed we'll go over more details on the 21st so roll in process we are here with you guys to select board you are elected officials that adopt town plan and bylaw amendments town plan and bylaw amendments begin with the planning commission and ultimately zoning bylaws are administered by the development review board as well as the zoning administrator so the town plan plays an important role in a community it's its guiding vision and goals it informs a lot of different things like what the bylaws say in terms of development standards and zoning districts it also informs things like capital and operating budgets or other activities like scoping studies and the development bylaws are administered by the DRB by the zoning administrator as well as through this unique specific plan process so a specific plan is a set of amendments to a town's comprehensive plan and the bylaw that have been developed by a landowner working with the planning commission and the public at the landowner's expense it must go through the same process required for the adoption of town plan and bylaws this ensures that while it will as all land uses do serve private interests it will also serve substantial public benefits the specific plan process cannot begin without a finding made by the planning commission that a substantial public benefit could result a specific plan is detailed performance standards and if the proposed development doesn't move forward the specific plan standards cannot be applied to a different development so typically a bylaw amendment is townwide or zoning district wide in this case it's only for one parcel and that one type of development proposed on that parcel specific plan can refine and add detail to the goals and objectives of the town plan and it can refine the standards of the zoning bylaw or create a new district and again it can't begin with that finding of substantial benefit so what is a substantial benefit it's an action taken by the applicant at their expense that implements something in the town plan and mere compliance is not a substantial benefit it needs to be an action that is above and beyond what an applicant would be required to comply with the bylaw chapter nine in the bylaw lists five options for substantial benefit open space affordable housing infrastructure town center and jobs jobs is one that can only be used in combination with one of the others in this specific instance the applicant is proposing open space conserving one or more open space assets identified in the town plan or another asset that is acceptable to the conservation and planning commissions in terms of the timeline chapter nine spells out that how the process works an application is submitted in this case it was submitted last September the planning commission initiates their review and they make a tentative determination a substantial benefit could be there and then they decide to move it forward to community meeting community meeting is informal but it is noticed so abutting property owners get letters we put an ad in the paper we put up notice signs on the property we do we went above and beyond by putting it in front porch forum and our planners corner knows newsletter to make sure that the information is publicly available in this instance the community meeting was held over three nights in November and December of last year and following the community meeting the planning commission again must decide could a public benefit result here and they said yes and they move forward to establishing an optional advisory committee the planning commission is allowed to establish an advisory committee and they set a deadline of six months and the committee worked from January to May of 2023 with the applicant and his consultant and engineering team we had a site visit in April and the advisory committee presented the specific plan so they presented those town plan and bylaw amendments back to the planning commission and the planning commission decided we'll warn town plan and bylaw amendment hearings those happened in October and here we are today at an informational session for the select board to decide if you want to adopt the town plan and bylaw amendments I'm going to pause there and turn it back over to Eric and then dive in deeper what the benefits are and what the bylaw amendments are shortly so that kind of gives the board a you know a starting point of what is a specific plan and we thought at this point like the applicant Mr. Glazer it came up to say why be pursued and processed and to take it off and then staff was interested in not some bold subject Thanks Emily and Matt and Eric for talking a little bit about the what I wanted to say a little bit about the why so my wife and I purchased the property the 97 acre property in the early 2000s we had adjacent land prior to that where we built our home and around 2000-2002 we learned that the property was being considered for a pretty large development so my wife and I talked to the current landholders the current then current the Esimans and we plunked down a large part of our savings to basically keep the land open so 20 years later I have a little less hair and what hair I have is a lot grayer and it's really it's like we have to move on to the next phase of our lives and my wife and I have given a lot of thought to what we wanted to do with this land which we actually have really come to appreciate and love and we also have really come to appreciate all the work that the mosses do with the windswept farm to keep the land open and we conceived of an idea and we brought it to the town and we learned a little bit more about the specific plan what we wanted to do was something I'll call it responsible we wanted to be responsible with the land we realized that responsible given the current housing shortage wasn't to keep the land open especially land that was in the residential district in the sewer district which had all the town support so yet at the same time we didn't want to do a traditional development we wanted to basically do something that we thought we would be proud of and would basically represent our values over the long term and by long term I don't mean 10 or 15 years I was thinking hundreds of years out into the future so what we started to do was think of ways and we that we could keep the land open that we could do responsible development we engaged in consultants I actually met a very responsible builder Tom Shepard who understood what we wanted to accomplish and we took that idea eventually to the planning commission and in the process as Emily said we were very eager to work with the the town and the representatives of the town and through that process of these community meetings I learned that what I thought was going to be really good for the town was not what everyone thought and we came to a lot of I think really important compromises and made changes to what we originally were trying to do that would keep the land as much as possible open and available for the windstrap farm to continue to use and also to really preserve the view on Mountain View Road that is like this beautiful view that people drive by every day but not a lot of people actually have been on the land and appreciate the beauty of camel sump and you know some of the long vistas that we have there so with that I wanted to thank you for at least considering our plan we think that we do have something that we can bring to the town that would be something that would really benefit the community not just the current residents but the long term and you know I have to say working with the staff has been also very informative they've been very respectful about our wishes our desires and and have really kind of directed us in a way that I think has been a much more fruitful way to plan what the the land could be eventually with a very responsible development so thank you thank you if you have any questions I'm happy to address are we ready with questions or should we go on with the presentation let's have the presentation continue are you still on? um oh I think it thought it stayed it probably crashed pop back in there we go so as Jack mentioned it was truly a collaborative process with the landowner the advisory committee town staff and the proposal is a residential subdivision that includes an open space donation to the town that open space donation is their proposed substantial benefit and looking broadly what does the town plan say about open space and it says a lot of things in chapter three land use this goal reflects the important of protecting open space from neighborhood parks to working farms the town of willison will continue to protect open space resources and provide outdoor recreation opportunities chapter nine recreation and park resources says conservation areas are publicly owned open space landscapes that are used recreationally but primarily managed to conserve natural ecosystems community parks are public open spaces developed for intensive recreational uses like playgrounds and ball courts chapter 13 also states that maintaining significant natural and cultural resources including open space is one of willison's most important goals and further in this chapter it talks about scenic view sheds where this view the field southwest the intersection of mountain view and old stage road is not protected from incompatible uses chapter 13 also goes on to talk about working landscapes the protection of food forests and earth products and outdoor recreation including fee based outdoor recreation like the current user on the property windswept farm or other haying pasture uses on the land shifting from the town plan the residential zoning district takes the goals of the town plan and implements them in development review the residential zoning district includes willison's suburban neighborhoods the goal is to encourage a compact diverse pedestrian friendly pattern of residential development that also protects open space and it has a density of three to five acre dwellings per acre there is no quantitative minimum requirement for open space every site will be different in the rzd when you're designing a residential subdivision you must protect watershed protection buffers streams and wetlands you must protect slopes and you must conserve rare and endangered species areas then things get a little squishier you should protect to the extent consistent with the landowner's rights things like unique natural communities habitat areas which is like core forest and wildlife corridors and less steep slopes between 15 and 29 percent then the development standards get even weaker and provide the weakest protections for viewsheds scenic viewsheds partial protection of a view may be combined with development through good site planning people should expect to have views that include residential neighborhoods in this district and the mitigating measures that it references are typically developments where you're up on a hill and homes would otherwise be outlined by the sky and fitting them into a lower landscape lastly the rzd states protecting farmland is not a primary goal in the rzd it is assumed that residential development is desirable in the zoning district so in summary what is open space the town plan and bylaws don't specifically define it there is no one-size-fits-all fits all definition and it largely depends on the characteristics of the land it's broad ranging from sensitive ecosystems where human activity is discouraged to highly developed or modified landscapes for sports and active recreation and what is substantial the planning commission advisory committee spent a lot of time with this word and though chapter nine lays out a really good public process it doesn't define the word substantial but the planning commission and the advisory committee the essence of their discussion sent around their concepts that substantialness of the benefit should be proportional to the requested amendments and the substantialness should be based on the nature and extent that it goes above and beyond the bylaw requirements so what are the town plan and bylaw amendments being proposed that could go for a public hearing in chapter 13 of the town plan we would amend it to refer to those fields as protected rather than unprotected and also reference the other open space resources that are protected as well therefore bylaw amendments the first one is substantive in nature we would amend the growth management chapter that this project would have to uphold a score of at least 50 points and that they could receive no more than 18 permits per year for dwellings following construction so this is slightly different than how growth management existed for a long time until your amendment last meeting on October 17th typically a conventional project must score 30 points and the planning commission felt that if we're going to create a unique phasing schedule for this one project it shouldn't be a minimum project it should go a little bit above and beyond and they said planning commissions advisory committee work with the applicant to achieve a 50 point score and then this limitation is on the number of administrative permits per year which is a more discrete and understandable phasing schedule whereas growth management happens before all of the permits are finalized administrative permit is that last step before you actually start digging in the ground chapter 26 street trees we're just clarifying here that the exemption to exclude street trees applies here to protect the scenic vistas along mountain view and old stage roads street trees will still be required along their new proposed streets chapter 39 we codify the existence of the specific plan that it'll provide 53 plus or minus acres of open space and it codifies how they will provide that by giving it a revocable offer a discretionary permit as well as some minor things like floating trail easements lastly appendix k so every document from your process the planning commission's process will all be neatly bundled in appendix so that if the drb has any questions when they are reviewing the discretionary permit they have a complete record to look back on amendments that are not proposed so chapter 13 access initially they requested to change the limit on number of units on a single point of access so our bylaw says no more than 40 on a dead end the fire department did not support that change and the applicant working with the advisory committee revised their layout so they no longer needed to amend that chapter they can comply as written a specific plan cannot exempt a project from drb review local permits filing deadlines statutory requirements for noticing hearings and appeal deadlines or fees it's going to have to follow the same permitting process as any other development in town and lastly sewer allocation sewer allocation ordinance is a separate ordinance therefore specific plan cannot amend the sewer ordinance they must purchase sewer allocation the same as every other new user in town and that means that if allocation is sold out in a given fiscal year they'll have to wait like everyone else to the next year to purchase allocation now the fun stuff what open space is being provided the first one is 15 acres of view shed that front slowing mountain view road as well as old stage road this is a photo of two of the advisory committee members and land consultant ken during our site visit back in april you can see camels hump in the distance so it's about 15 acres the appraised value is 1.85 million it is the distinct view that's mentioned in the town plan there's no major wetland constraints you can see in the map there's a couple little class 3 wetlands otherwise it's highly developable currently it is used as hay field by windswept farm and the conservation commission and specific plan committee made some recommendations ensure in the short term if the town were to acquire this continue leasing it as hay field and long term they felt that the view should not be solely accessible to people who are passing by on the road but could be acceptable to provide modest park facilities it's somewhat hard to see on your screen but there is a small dash line representing a building envelope if the town were to own this land and pursue a park that building envelope shows a possible location open space number two is pasture this parcel in the middle is owned by Mike and Tina moss of windswept farm and the pasture surrounding their property is vital to the operations of windswept farm some of that land is suspected to be class two wetlands so it's development potential less so which leads into an appraised value of 35,000 for the pasture and forest it's currently used for pasture and the open space and subdivision layout do accommodate the town's official map where there might be a desire for a path or trail though wetlands might make that challenging the conservation commission and Glazer committee recommended that the highest and best use is continued pasture in support of agricultural working landscapes so thinking back to the back to the town plan where some open space goals are farms and agriculture lastly the other half of that 38 acre open space is forested in wetland this was a view from our site visit when we took a hay ride through the bumpy wet fields in April looking westward to the forest where the town plan excuse me where the official map may desire a future trail connection or a path connection over to the existing path that dead ends near coyote a lot of that land is also expected to be wetland it's not used by windswept farm it's forest and the conservation and Glazer specific plan committee both recommended to maintain this area as a forest there is a section of delineated class 2 wetland which is open space but it is not a substantial benefit so that would remain in private ownership of the future homeowners association and to quote chapter 9 mere compliance is not a benefit so when you're designing a residential subdivision we say you've got to put your class 2 wetlands and buffers in open space we don't want houses there and we want and we discourage road and utility crossings there as well so it is open space but it would not be desirable to the town town land above and beyond so mere compliance with the bylaw is not a substantial benefit and the planning commission identified 2 ways in which it goes above and beyond by donating land to the town where the bylaw incentivizes permanent protection and that's usually accomplished by an easement or site plan designation on private property and that's incentivized in the growth management criteria second by conserving view shed land that is minimally protected by the rzd open space development standards and otherwise developable developable thinking back to farmlands aren't protected here and people should expect to have views of neighborhoods in view sheds lastly after the planning commission transmitted to you guys I noticed a third way that specific plan goes above and beyond the bylaw by conserving farmlands of local importance by minimizing encroachment and clustering development per chapter 27 which is our conservation area standards chapter and that chapter is trumped by chapter 39 that says farmlands are not protected in this way but they are developed so with that I conclude my presentation about what the proposed substantial benefit is and what those town plan and bylaw amendments would be thank you you have questions I just think that in any type of development you have to properly define the land I don't understand how it can be possible wetland class 2 when it might not be or it might be should that be properly classified because if it's properly classified as a wetland then that takes away the third you know specific plan open space substantial benefit so if you go back Emily to that slide where you said planning staff found a third benefit is that the one there was the last one so if it's wetland I mean it's wetland it's wetland it's easily it could be easily defined whether it's wetland or not so that bottom discussion doesn't refer to the potential wetlands on the site it refers to the developable uplands on the site which we have a chapter in our bylaw that says we want people to conserve farmlands by not developing on them we have farmland here that's proposed to not be developed but we also have a zoning chapter that covers this particular piece of land that says we don't expect to conserve farmland here so this is about the upland at the corner of Mountain View Road and Old Stage Road and what Emily's identifying in that statement is part of the bylaw wants to save farmland everywhere but another part of the bylaw points to this zoning district and says we don't we don't plan on trying to save farmland here and we have a proposal that would maintain this land as farmland going forward so so there are other parts of land on this parcel that are potential wetland where nobody's proposing to do anything with it and so you know the applicant delineated the wetland you see there in the middle of the parcel because it's near where they want to develop they did not perform a formal delineation on the lands that are you know either forested or in use as pasture by windswept farm because right now neither the town nor the developer has a lot of interest in doing anything with it that makes sense a little bit this is defined as wetland and what about the wetland buffer there's this housing going to the what would be determined as a wetland buffer area so there's there's wetland and buffer yeah I'm always going to zoom in you'll see a dashed line inside of the dark green and then the edge of the dark green so that sorry the heavy line inside the green is the actual wetland edge and the dashed line is the buffer so that's a 50-foot wetland buffer to the class 2 wetland so none of the dark green is understood is developable under Williston's bylaws what about the other side of the road there you know proposed roadway that's also going to buffer I see your picture there Pratt yeah so there is there is a line all along that yeah it's probably let the applicant talk about that a little bit among other aspects of the site could I just address this question yes for the record Ken Belevo 683 Maple Street Waterburst Center I've been working with the applicant as a consultant for the last couple of years so Mike to answer your question we had a wetlands delineation done for the property when an application for residential development goes through the DRB process you have to do an assessment and a calculation for what is considered to be developable land or what's sometimes referred to as a constraints analysis as part of that constraints analysis you need to map out steep slopes which we don't have on this property but also class 2 wetlands and wetland buffers so we did that and the dark green area that Emily and Matt were just talking about there we are very confident that that's a class 2 wetland and a class 2 wetland buffer and it's been delineated as such now the land that's in the more pale green area which would be to the west and the southern parts of the property we suspect that there may be some upland areas in there it's questionable as to whether those upland areas are located in such a way or are large enough that you could actually do anything with so we made a decision for the purposes of doing constraints analysis because you have to subtract all that land from the base lot area before you calculate density that's how the wilson bylaw works so we just said we're going to concede that this is all class 2 wetland there may be some upland portions in there but we're not going to assume that they're there we're just going to assume this is all class 2 wetland and that there would be a class 2 wetland buffer is required by the state along the perimeter of that so it's a it's a perhaps a more complicated answer than you want it but so the as I mentioned that dark green area we're absolutely certain that's class 2 wetland we're absolutely certain that that's that you can't do anything with it and it will be protected as required the area to the west and the south there may be some upland areas in there but we're not assuming that they're there we're assuming it's all class 2 wetland okay thank you that assuming it is answers my question I think that was reflected to in the appraisal where that 15 acres of viewshed is 1.8 million and then the remaining 38 acres was only at 35,000 because of that assumption about wetlands so it down against the wetlands well some of the wetlands are budding moss that are are used as pasture land and then some of that forest might have potential to in the future put a path or trail and connect over towards between north ridge and martel but it's minimal to the camp that's your point I think most people can see that that parcel is a minimal benefit nothing's not I mean it's gonna be open regardless of what happens because if we are wetlands yeah and I think that's how the advisory committee and conservation kind of sussed it out like viewshed is definitely number one here pastures definitely number two wetland and forest are kind of number three but the 15.3 acres that have but view an old stage are not correct that's correct that's correct you've mentioned that that 15 acres of the viewshed will you're considering or in the plan right now it's it's currently being used as hayfield as well as that what I understood so the the mosses will continue to pay that field so you know the idea from the applicant perspective is we're offering the land to the town free and clear right and then the town would be free to make whatever decisions you want to make about who would do what on that land um we see it as providing a potential mechanism for the continuation of windswept farm they do hay that area that's there along mountain bureau if the the town felt like that was a good a good thing then then you could continue to allow windswept farm that would also of course free the town up from having to pay somebody to hay it yourselves kind of self self-maintaining but that would be a decision ultimately up to the town we're presenting it as it provides the potential for those things to continue the operation of windswept farm including the hang but ultimately once the land is dedicated to the town then the town is in control of the land and we'd get to make that decision so then for for emily and matt I guess in thinking longer term beyond I mean that the windswept will eventually pass to new ownership or potentially become something else so you know what would be um you know in place of where we're saying you know this parcel will be past your land for them I'm not even going to worry about the hangfield because that's easy enough to to deal with what would be in place to um you know for for future beyond when the mosses own windswept right um the advisory committee and the planning commission thought about it of working landscapes so the town would could lease it to windswept farm they could lease it to a different agricultural user in the future the town could make another decision about maybe we just you know hay it once a year or allow the wetland to restore so the town could make that decision in the future I encourage the advisory committee to think about it broadly in terms of working landscapes and I think that structure in one of your transmittals from the planning commission is part one official and part two unofficial and part one the real thing that the official thing that's being looked at is town plan and bylaw amendments but there's so much for the select board to consider about acquiring land and having a lease agreement and they provided those recommendations and talked with windswept farm to give the select board if this land does come to you you're not starting with a blank slate they've done some due diligence on what options would be the best the only other question at this point I'm sure I'm going to have eight million questions along the way would be about did the planning commission did the glazers committee did they talk about like equitable benefit to the town um you know um obviously you know I can I can see that you know that how it fits in conserving open spaces and things like that but equitable access to this land or equitable benefit to you know the town as a whole I'm not was that part of the conversation yes it was and I think it came about when talking through some of the growth management criteria and we were scoring the project so the great criteria do have a standard for provide neighborhood space but it says quote need not be maintained by the town so they do see a real benefit when something's owned by the town the town can make a decision for its entire citizenry versus an HOA owning private open space is managing it for their residents and in some instances discourages or prohibits outside users they felt that they wanted to think about the future use of the open space view shed because right now that view is only accessible to those who are driving by maybe if it's town on land there's a much better opportunity to create public access for people to enjoy the view rather than just private HOA residents or people passing by on the road so it was a big consideration and and they were also thinking about equity in terms of how can this housing score or how can this growth management score push it towards providing some affordable units providing a diversity of housing types to meet the multifaceted town plan goals that are actuated through development review thank you other questions so 15 acres three to five gallons per acre so if the town it would mean possibly another 15 times three or five homes in that space possibly so the density analysis would allow 130 to 218 dwelling units yeah so at three units per acre and I'd have to look at the the density calculation on this site plan it's 47 acres 47 buildable area 43 so what Ken was talking about at calculating out those constraints there's 43 acres of developable land 43.6 times three is 130 units 43.6 times five units per acre is 218 and that density bonus in our bylaw there's requirement that 30% of those units be affordable I will note that that there are a pre application has been submitted to the development review board that includes this concept as well as two other concepts that are 130 and 180 units I think maxing it out at that two in 18 because of that wetland constraint in the middle makes it it challenging so if I could what I would add is that at three dwelling units per acre times the developable land area that we have after doing the constraints analysis you could get a dwelling unit yield of 130 dwelling units the proposal is for 109 and while that's not part of the specific public benefit criteria that's in the bylaw it is part of what's being offered as part of the proposal is a willingness to concede the development to only 109 units versus 130 units so for those people and there were some people that were involved in the process that were concerned about how much development would be there and what its effects would be this project would result in fewer dwelling units than you would get under a more maxed out DRB driven process in addition to the open space and the open space that would be given to town for town ownership if you did go with the five homes per acre for the higher density would this affect the home price would there be more affordable homes being built in this development yes that five units per acre requires that 30 percent of the homes be affordable their proposal which is that's part of the density bonus their 50 point score was calculated on part on the growth management criteria that 10 percent of the homes be affordable so they they didn't provide the growth management affordability points but not the density they didn't achieve that density bonus because they're below the maximum density that's what he's 13 versus 30 affordable homes approximately yeah yeah versus 30 percent of 218 is this going to be is this part of the inclusionary zoning where they just pay the the penalty or are they required to build the affordable homes that's a great question so the way that growth management statement is written the drb must make findings of 50 points based on the criteria as amended october 2022 so that's the older version of the bylaw they could score points in the new categories that you just amended so that new energy efficiency criteria but the rules for this specific plan shall supersede all other rules of chapter 11 so there's the inclusionary zoning track there's the new growth management with pay and loo and then there'll be a statement in chapter 11 says blazer specific plan you're subject to this specific rule where you got to score 50 points and you don't only get administrative permits for 18 houses a year and that's its own track separate from inclusionary or or growth management they still have to meet the growth management score the planning commission didn't want to seed on the the scoring incentives but it would be separate it did strike me that when I was reading it it's like if I understand this correctly and I may not but they couldn't scrap by the way thank you I know you're a really good citizen you know I know you love the town and I don't mean anything to say if it's a very splendid move there they're putting their hearts where they live which is great it did strike me though that they could add five more affordable housing and skip this whole thing and just go right through the inclusionary zoning right theoretically yes and and that pre-application that's going to the DRB next week proposes three concepts the specific plan and two other concepts I didn't include it in the slides here but when the planning commission went for the review I had a train track analogy so you can go down the conventional process you can go down the specific plan process you could go down whatever route you want a landowner has a right to pursue multiple permits at once they really don't start getting him until they finalize their permits and their subdivision flat or go to act 250 that's when they really start to get him then if they win inclusionary right theoretically they could go through the conventional review process right now and go with the inclusionary zoning track and there would be no offer of open space to the town that would be a conventional project so on that note if I could all of this was unknown back two years ago when this process started now the application was submitted last fall but the work started a whole calendar year before that all of this was was unknown and in fact that's only been passed what a couple of weeks so it was never discussed at any point with you know the discussions whether it was with the staff with the planning commission with the advisory committee all of the you know so we went through this process with that not even being an option that was on the table so I would just sort of throw that one comment out well well I think that was somewhat intentional this is a legislative process with the planning commission but in a way they're putting on their development review board has and when the DRB looks at a project they are looking solely at the development standards as they exist in that moment that's right and I think it was going to get too complicated with the citizen advisory committee to start playing through these multiple conceptual realities so it's okay let's look at the criteria as they exist today and do the best that we can with them and give it a discrete phasing schedule that that works for the town and and not try to create multiple options with the whatever the zoning could be in the future no I wasn't going down there we should have done that or you should have you know it's been able to fall or something it's just it's it's interesting to me that putting all this time and energy and I think this too well these guys have all been like lot of late nights on this I've practiced stuff on Zoom watching the planning commission meetings and I can't get through all of them they're so long but it it just it struck me when I was reading it five more horrible units and it was that all after like that last two years it is pretty wild that these two very long bureaucratic processes kind of converged like within weeks of each other and then it's going to the DRB for something else next week it's like quite interesting something to keep in mind which is that you know to to not be too redundant the proposed substantial public benefit is the dedication of this land to the town or an applicant to just literally give the town roughly two million dollars of land as part of a subdivision approval I don't know that that's ever happened in Williston if it did it was a long time ago but I but it's not the north and so that's something that the town has an opportunity to gain which is the ownership of this land which affords permanent protection it's just something that doesn't happen so in my view it's a big deal and I and I don't know that it it should be minimized that there might have been you know had we been able to look a little bit longer and and deeper into the tea leaves and imagine what could or might have happened you know back in our crystal ball a couple of years ago could have been you know what it could have should have but we looked at what was available at the time and the plan as it's developed as Jack has you know pointed out it really fits with what he and his wife would like to do with the land they've tried to be good stewards of the land for the last 20 years and this presents an opportunity for the town to continue to obtain some benefits from the land that was what they really envisioned for the land all along so I I really see it as still a really a good opportunity for the town to get something they wouldn't ordinarily get and I also thank thank thank all of you for your patience in explaining this complex issue to us there's going to be something there I hope you know I have been following Green Mountain Power and what they're doing in Penn Vermont with you know the uh this you know GMP announces a pioneering micro grid designed to keep the lights on with clean local power we hope you know all that you know Williston with this development can we not follow what we've been doing in Williston I'd like to see this be a lead this development be a leader and what you know we can do and see it's you know spread to our a little faster go to the mic or not please yeah you won't be heard I know I do I really thank you for pointing that out because that is what we want to do my wife and I we really do want to set this as an example of responsible development for future landholders for you know for people who can look at not just the financial gain of a piece of land but of the public benefit for the land so our hope is that we can do that with the town you know yes we could have we could have gone the more traditional development met route and we could have had I could have had a lot more evenings and you know frankly I put a lot of time into this but I'm pretty much at the end so you know I really I really do think that it's worthwhile but it's not my life's mission so with that you know we we are presenting this as an opportunity as Ken said that we think is a great opportunity for the town and if if the you don't decide that that that you agree with us that's fine we'll go you know a traditional route but again I think that what we're trying to do is set the stage for a much longer term higher community value what the land's going to look like in 200 or 300 years none of us can envision it I mean I deal with the future like in research and you cannot imagine what no one can imagine what it will be like it would be just a guess but having the town become the stewards of the land will give the people who like you in your seats 100 or 200 years from now the ability to make the decision about what is the best use for that land as society has evolved at that point or devolved but it can be the town can at least adapt to those times thank you thank you so there are other people here tonight we don't have a lot of time left to go deep into this but does anybody here wanting to say something we are going to take this up again on the 21st but seeing no nobody jump up okay great so where where do we go from here yeah so on the 21st I was planning to go through a little bit more of conventional subdivision for a specific plan in terms of what the development options would be here the mechanics of the open space conveyance future use of the town own land whether that be agricultural winds up farm kind of things or view shed as well as dive a little bit more into how the proposed subdivision evolved through the specific plan process through the advisory committee making sure met all the standards of the bylaw and then got that 50 point growth management score there's anything else you want on that list we're happy to add it anybody want to add something that's not on the menu I don't know where this falls in but my rough understanding is that this would be an additional 18 units not this slight thing there's there's 20 and I always get mixed up these are real units or equivalents but there's 20 available units in this area a year this will make it 38 yeah that's a that's a good way to thinking about it yep this the sewer service area outside the growth center there's that 20 on that allocation table there could be additional inclusionary units in that district and there could be laser specific plan units when I was analyzing this with the advisory committee I looked at the utilization of allocation from 2016 to today and for projects that because projects had either built fewer units didn't build at all I called it proof of the proof some units just went proof because that allocation is a 10-year rolling cycle so town-wide enough units either fell off the table because they weren't allocated to anybody or the project went proof there are more unutilized allocations and that 80 DUE growth target then there are proposed in the the laser specific plan so when you look at the intent of that growth target is to average out the number of units in town over a 10-year rolling basis and more have gone proof in the past and would be as part of the laser specific plan in addition to what would happen in the future so that just could be something I'm still like with all the developments I know are coming into this part it's hard for me to believe that those aren't going to up to 20 and then it's going to shift to 18 so that I'm putting that on the table to help me with what that looks like yeah definitely I'll include that and that that proof of the proof and then those other projects that are going on in this part of town okay anything else from people okay thank you very much thank you everybody for all of the work and I'd even say passion yeah proof of the food coming to you on November 21st thank you guys thank you thank you thank you thank you very much for all your late nights too next on the agenda the vast agreement for the winter of 2023-2024 the hill hawks I'm noting just humorously again that the hill hawks used to show up in person gosh now the room the room is empty we can't really hold that against them actually I learned that surely our finance director is full hawk oh I saw that in the record she mentioned it last year she picked a bad night to be on vacation I can't see this thing going anywhere yeah can you just make her come back yeah we'll see what the board decides okay all right Erica every year this is a local snow field club town this is like where it grants permission to use the public lands the crosstown of land each year we have the conservation commission public works look at this every year we have the proposed agreement the upcoming winter season and a memo from Simon our conservation planner there's one change in the prior's agreements was adding an insurance a proper insurance requirement this has gone on for many years no issues from staff of recommendation for the board to authorize the manager to have the speaker any questions there is a recommended motion since I want to remain on Shirley's good side I'm going to move to approve the use of public land by the Williston hill hawks and the Vermont association at snow travelers and to authorize the town manager to sign the agreement the 2023 2024 season is there a second second further discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye well as opposed to the ayes have it next up the appointment so two candidates one that we had last week one that we heard today open it up for discussion what people are thinking I'm a tad torn because I thought I'm thinking that Karen bring interesting big picture maybe new ideas to the post but Michael seems a lot more connected to the Vermont size of these kind of discussions and things and so I'm a little torn other comments thoughts they seem to be both well qualified as far as planning issues go Karen when I asked her about can you downsize your thinking a little bit from millions of people to sit in the county she seemed to think that she couldn't and Michael is pretty new to town but the understands I think the aspects of the county anyway Michael's idea of connectivity trails and sidewalks one of the notes they took from Michael they're both very well qualified one of the things I was most impressed by was that they're both really very very recent transplants to our community and that they already like really want to be involved which I just think speak so highly of our town and I do think as you've all said that they're both very qualified in bringing a wealth of experience in different ways I think I'm leaning towards Karen simply because I think that she just she had a vision and I think that might bring some fresh eyes to some things that Michael certainly has a wealth of experience too but I'm gonna think I think it can be helpful to have somebody who's not in the thick of it all the time bringing those eyes to something so we do have to have an official motion but I'm wondering either we could have dueling emotions or we could just I could ask people who they would vote for and then we'll have a motion that way Perry you have more experience at this than I do what do you recommend well we could have a straw vote as to which is our our favorite candidate and I have a motion after that okay well yeah you know what let's let's do the straw vote then I'm just going to start in that corner Mike well I gotta go with Mike it's tough but I think I think Mike could hit the ground running even though I'm pretty excited about Karen's experience I'm sure she'll continue to weigh in I would I would favorite Karen at this point would favor Karen as well Karen so the straw vote is Karen three Michael two so would somebody like to make a motion sure I'll move to a point Karen Peterson as the alternate to the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission for an unexpired two-year term through June 30th 2024 is there a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed nay the ayes have it Karen is appointed the manager should I'll be pleased our housing committee had its first meeting last week they're getting organized as committee um they're going to attend a round table lunch event by Champlain Housing Trust and I'll join them with the planning staff on Thursday at that same mic so good opportunity to network with other housing committees at Champlain Housing Trust reminder your retreat is coming up next this coming Monday 13th right here from six to eight and I'm just planning with a facilitator today and on on with with them tomorrow to to outline a good evening washed out for the board here and you may recall you authorized staff Ron can be your applying for the for the grant money and the $850,000 grant or rather the tower has been awarded for the $850,000 grant for the pre-treatment system so the next step there before we can consider before we can consider accepting grants and identities to a sub grant agreement legal counsel is prepared to draft that we're going back to the bottom we'll likely have to the board later this month or the next month to review does that amount represent the full amount that was applied for I feel like it's less right a little less okay patients maybe for 1.1 million of all the grants that were made eight or 10 so the highest amount that was awarded relative to the retreat one of the things that came up in our meeting is we didn't mention whether there would be any kind of refreshments food dinner or cupcake or maybe a single potato chip but I do think it would make sense for us to have something there but what are what's the thought that people have about that just because it's starting early that should be dessert yeah and it's it's you know it is a retreat so it's also you know just kind of a less formal maybe not exactly breaking bread but something you said dessert term okay good idea I mean I'm not gonna turn down a cookie the poor man okay I'll find something other business okay anybody else okay final thoughts on the on agenda items from this meeting very certainly the at least report needs more work yeah really interesting and thank you for having that done I think it is kind of a turning point with public safety in our town right about now so so I don't know what you have to give a little thought I'm sure if you too how you how you want to go about that but not letting this sit for 15 years that they can say and then the third report I think we should try to get it back on the agenda as quickly as we can yeah and for a significant amount of time we don't use all the time then we can be ahead of schedule for a change but yeah I think it's I personally want to get to keep the momentum going on this I was very fascinated by a number of specifics and a number of concepts in it I really meet on the reform I'm seeing very coordinated but anyway so yeah that will do everything again to get that on as quickly as we can yeah even if we're not even if we're going to take obviously take time to talk to staffing and new locations and all that I was frustrated myself reading through the report about like oh we need else policing but there's not much criminal activity it's like how does that work you know so so the data the missing data is it's going to be important if we're going to go back to the people in town and say we need you know 68 right you have a real initial thought of that there might be an opportunity to engage around to win students from VM maybe another institution to help us with some just initial data analysis just even pilot having some personnel that that's going to task for that really to see how that just initial of one of the shift models short term looks for and in terms of space this preview to me a couple months ago we look at a couple of possible locations place something to get some price on I should have that that week or two and then like be another potential consideration for some part of money maybe that seeds at least for the first year for a space there's also a grand opportunity I'm chatting with folks from the hospital about what do I hope the communities grant where you can get up to could be $1000 programmatically for for a kind of help nexus-based project conduct and work we're going to that CEDO and I think this might be a potential for an application to help I mean just kind of launch things and kind of decide how we're going to launch as well so I know the those grant that do the next month or two so I should have some pricing and ideas just to conceptually the share of the board is I think if that's something to pursue in the short term at least start some of these conversations you just receded tonight so no it's in the background it might be something that that that spare time I mean it's got to be as far as the data it's got to be it's not just analysis of data gathering that systems thing right you you don't want somebody like I'm going to write a report with somebody type but it's got to be like I'm this is what happened on the call and that's got to exist that kind of stuff it might be super expensive because most of the bigger police forces that have that kind of stuff but something's got to be out there yeah different records management systems for the alcohols the systems used by most agencies in the state part of what the kind of thing found in some of that data in the systems one of the things to the fire services analysis report had done which I really found beneficial was a breakdown of you know recognizing that like you know I think you know we we onwarded nine additional firefighters but I think that the ultimate recommendation was like 27 or something I mean it was it was a massive number right but it was helpful to break down you know that to see okay well we recognize that 27 is not feasible but but you know starting here with this pool and so if there was some way to look at you know with the police services analysis to say okay we recognize that you know that on morning you know 11 you know sworn officers immediately is not what's the the most immediate priority number and you know of the other things that you know we talked about too like you know as the community resources specialist or a social worker like what are the priorities in in what order how to do things timeline wise would that be possible yeah I I asked Jim that when I was going to where would you start as soon as say next just a few years of blood was being considered and his recommendation was the focus on getting someone in the BCI detective position from the uniform standpoint and to look at creating that second lieutenant position so that person will build out that that wing of the community resources where it's being built from the top down where this is an achievement completion and certainly thinking about that trajectory will be really important when we add cost wise and how the problem is kind of I did read just she can look at what she's just having your thought but there was I was reading that as Rutland had a big meeting town meeting about property crime and some of their representatives were picking around ideas that could happen at the state level to address some of the issues so let's just keep an eye on that because that would be an interesting you know it does to it does when the problem is that it's not getting to the courts fast enough having more police isn't gonna help but right so it's just you know working as a whole system as opposed to peace meeting and solution we're not gonna move fast enough to get the way of that I'm sure that it was a class which student I think it was a bigger so yeah no no no no no Jim was at that meeting last thursday and that friday so I'm sure a bit about you know there was a certain frustration yeah of course at the meeting I'm just like that'll like this Friday meeting let's not have one of us because there's a more police presence deter crime at all I mean we can't arrest early out of it if we catch and release but if we can somehow deter maybe stores are gonna pop story we'll get together fire security private security I've heard that anifers is fired in the chitin county sheriff's department someone that you buy the door the problem is all you know that's what that's where I mean I decide that's the only game you've got to come to solve a problem anything else if not then we'll declare us adjourned