 Welcome to the town of Essex Select Board meeting for June 17th, 2019, and please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Evan, are there any agenda additions or changes this evening? No. No additions or changes. Okay. And we can move on to item four, public to be heard. This section of the agenda is for anyone who wants to speak about something that is not already on the agenda. If you have something you'd like to speak about, that's not on the agenda. Margaret Smith, I see you in the audience. Please come to the microphone. For public information, this is a meeting open to anyone who is concerned about the line. There are two nationally known speakers who will be present on Saturday from one to three. And the columns around all of this defendants, hopefully you can get it in the Essex Report for this week, because this is this coming Saturday. It starts at 12, runs to four. Thank you. Thank you, Margaret. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak about something that is not currently on the agenda? All right, we're going to move on. Our first order of business is the first class liquor license approval for Sukho Thai. Mr. Lee, would you like to come on? Excuse me. Are we ready to discuss that first? Yeah, we'll see if there's any issues with this. Okay. We have the application in your pocket. Do you have Max? On page three of the application under the education seminar, it has listed in the document 51419, but the accompanying information showing the certificate says it's actually 6519. So it's a minor change, but I think we should correct that. Okay. Otherwise that was good. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions or concerns about the application for Sukho Thai? And hearing none, Andy, you are generally our mover on these issues. I move the select order to approve first class liquor license for the N. Lee doing business as Sukho Thai. Second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Mr. Lee, you're all set, but I just want to give you an admonition that we generally give all of our establishments in the community that apply for a liquor license. The select board takes the issuance of liquor licenses very seriously as should the area establishments who serve alcohol. We expect you not to serve alcohol to minors, nor to anyone who is obviously inebriated. Thank you for doing business in Essex and we wish you the best. Would you like to take a moment to go to the microphone and just tell us about your restaurant and any pertinent information since you're a new establishment? I take a liquor license because some of the people come to restaurant and ask for a class of boring cup of the dinner. And I say I didn't do that. And they go to the next door to my competitors. So I can't let the happen time and time and time again. So we decided to do this. That's one of the main reasons. That sounds like a smart plan. Thank you very much for being here this evening. Our next item of business in the packet, you will note that we have a list of volunteers and multiple committees who are up for reappointment. So we have the Cemetery Commission, Conservation and Trails Committee, Zoning Board of Adjustment, Economic Development Commission, Planning Commission, Energy Committee and Library Board of Trustees. Are there any candidates for these positions in the audience this evening? I say Tom from the Planning Commission. Okay. What I'd like to do is, is it just the two of you? Anybody else hands for interviews for, and John? Okay. So one, two, three, we will discuss, you can come up to the mic and talk to us about why you'd like to be reappointed to the board or your particular commission. And the board members will be able to ask questions. And then after we have those conversations, later on in the meeting the board will go into executive session to discuss appointments. And we will come out of executive session at the end to make our votes. And you will be notified by staff after that. So Tom, would you mind going to the microphone? Mostly because I enjoy working with the developers who come through and applications. I like the opportunity to make Essex a better place. Tom, how long have you served on the Planning Commission? I have no idea. Perhaps your chair does? Several years. Well, here. Eight years. Eight years, that qualifies as still. Does anybody have any questions for Tom further? And then do you want to talk about the wrinkle? The wrinkle, yes. Let's talk about the wrinkle. I'm about to leave for a year. So we have a proposal to let someone from this currently in the village take my spa for that year. So they would consider that and improve that. So this would be to have somebody serve as an alternate to you. So you would not be stepping down from the board commission, but you would have someone serve in your place while you're away. Right. So for your terms first. And we understand from the chair of the commission that this is okay with you. Absolutely. We'll utterly endorse this. Okay. And does anybody on the board have questions about how they'd like to handle this? Nope. Okay. Pretty straightforward. I think having it thinking out a little bit outside the box like this is great. I think the cross pollination from the village planning commission to the town is a good thing. So thinking about that. I think what I'd like to do before we move off of the planning commission, perhaps if we could invite John Alden to come up to the microphone as well. John is the person being recommended to be Tom Berlin's alternate on the planning commission for the town of Essex. John, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to be an alternate on the town commission as well as serving on the village planning commission? Hi, I'm John Alden. This is an opportunity that's pretty interesting. I know that there are other public servants who serve both the town and the village. We're all trying to see that happen and go forward and it's a great thing. I've sat in on many town planning commission meetings over the last few years and it's a great group of people that are doing their public service there. I am on the village planning commission. I've been on that for somewhere around 10 years. I'm currently vice chair. I think it's a very interesting opportunity and I'm happy to fill in on Tom's absence if that's what the town select board would like and I'm happy to dispose of it. Thank you, John. Does anybody have any questions for John? Just one clarifying one. Were there any other applicants to the planning commission that put their names forward or was it just you, Tom, with the alternate recommendation? I'm just wondering if there's anyone who... We generally don't advertise the reappointments that are coming up, so it's never advertised as open and we have not heard of any other interest. Anybody else? Alright, John, thank you. Tom, thank you. So we will take this into executive session at the end of the meeting and you'll hear the exciting results when we're done. Sir, you... forgive me, I'm not remembering your name, but if you could please come to the mic and introduce yourself and the committee that you want to be reappointed to. I do apologize for not remembering your name. My name is Phil March and I'm applying for the internship. You look familiar. We just talked to you two or three weeks ago. Correct. I'd like to talk to you again. You are applying for a vacancy on the Essex Center. If you have a long interest in the committee, have sat in on multiple meetings over the last year. We have already interviewed you and you have been very patient while we waited to get everybody in together and done in one elsewhere. Thank you. Thanks for your patience. Does anybody have any questions about our slate of appointments? Andy? Just because I need to do it in an open meeting at Disclose that I have a potential conflict of interest. I know that my life is a library trustee, but I think I can be impartial in deciding whether or not she can continue in that role, so I will participate in the vote unless somebody on the board objects. I have no objection to that. I don't see anybody else has an objection. I trust that Andy is very straightforward and honest and upright as this is. Okay, so we will table these nominations for reappointment for the moment, and we will back up an executive session at the end of the evening. So thank you all for coming up and talking to us. Thank you for your service and being willing to volunteer for the town of Essex and for your long service, especially you, Tom and John. Thank you. All right, our next item is the energy plan, adopting the energy plan. Melanie Needle is here to discuss it with us. Melanie, do you? Oh, excellent, we have a microphone. Hi, thank you for having me back to discuss the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan. I'll just give you a two-minute overview about... Sorry? Nope, you're not in my mic. So I was here, I think it was two, three weeks ago. I gave a presentation on the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan, so I'll just go over the highlights. In 2016, the Vermont Legislature adopted Act 174, which authorizes municipalities to adopt an enhanced energy plan, and what that does is it gives the municipality greater weight, greater say in the Public Utility Commission's Section 248 state permitting process for renewable energy generation prior to Act 174. Municipalities really weren't part of that process, and so what Act 174 says is if a municipality adheres to the Department of Public Services energy planning standards, then they have an enhanced energy plan. The Regional Planning Commission has the ability to make that determination, and so this past year I've been working with Essex Junction and the town to develop the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan, so it's an energy plan for both jurisdictions. Essentially what it does is it advances the Vermont Energy Goals related to obtaining 90% of energy from renewable energy sources, weatherizing buildings, so making them more energy efficient, improving the thermal envelope, also helping to transition the transportation sector from one that's powered by fossil fuels to one that's powered by electric vehicles, people using transit, walking and biking infrastructure, and then also just reducing energy as a whole, so I think the goal is about one-third less energy by 2050. All the numbers and milestones along the way towards these goals are in the plan. So the Essex Community Energy Plan sets the actions that both jurisdictions can take to make these goals happen, and also land use is a big component of reducing energy, so focusing development in concentrated compact centers so that people are driving less and they can walk to work. So also the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan is part of the village's draft comprehensive energy plan that is currently going through its public process. The Planning Commission approved and made a recommendation to the trustees, so the trustees are considering it currently. They will have their first public hearing on July 23rd with final adoption of the comprehensive plan in August, and so their comprehensive plan will include this as an appendix. Currently, the town plan will not include this as an appendix. It'll be a standalone document until the town updates its town plan. But that doesn't mean that there's not a use for this at this point. So I could see the town using the siting policies that are in the plan to help them determine whether they want to support a developer who's looking for a preferred site status. And so what that means is in the state net metering rule a developer can be designated a preferred site and get an enhanced net metering benefit. But in state statute, there's not really a definition of what preferred sites are, and so I think that this plan does a really good job of identifying what a preferred site is, and so it's essentially if a developer comes in and they adhere to the siting policies, then the town could consider writing a letter of support for that. So it makes that process kind of transparent in the interim. Also, the Regional Planning Commission has substantial deference, and many of the ECOS policies that we have in our, the ECOS plan is the regional plan. So many of the policies that we have in the regional plan do bring in the local constraints that are consistent with local land use policies in Essex, and so we will review, and we've successfully done that with an application already. I think it was the Sand Hill Road property. And so we will review any application with our ECOS siting policies. So I think that is just kind of an overview, and does anybody have any questions? Thank you, Melanie. Just have a comment. I know there's a lot of important energy goals in there, and it's endorsed by the Energy Committee and the Planning Commission and the CCRPC who work real hard on these kind of things on our behalf, and I'm very pleased to see that this has been developed. It's an important issue that we need to tackle. It's not just a town issue. It's not just a regional issue. I mean, it's a global issue. So trying to do our part seems like that makes sense, and I appreciate the work that went into it. Thank you, Max. I hope at some point when our agendas aren't quite so overloaded that we have a chance to talk about this plan in more depth, along with the Planning Commission and with the Essex Energy Committee, because it's a really important conversation and I'm not sure that our greater community is entirely aware of everything that we're trying to do. And also, I believe the Essex Energy Committee submitted a statement in support of this plan as well. Okay, so thank you, Energy Committee, for doing that. Natalie's here to read it if you'd like to hear it. Oh, absolutely, yeah. We'd love a public reading. Thank you. That's what I was looking for, but I couldn't see. Natalie, come to the mic, please. Oh, sure. In the center. Well, let's do it for the viewers at home. A statement of support. I'm Natalie Braun. I'm a member of the Essex Energy Committee, and this is a statement of support drafted for the Enhanced Energy Plan that Melanie just outlined for us. The Essex Energy Committee is very pleased to support adoption by the select board of the proposed Essex Community Energy Plan prepared by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. And presented at various community meetings through Melanie Needle at CCRPC. The Energy Committee is a group of volunteers from diverse professional backgrounds committed to renewable energy development and to combating the global climate change crisis at the local level. The committee is charged under section 1F of its charter with assisting the town and village in pursuit of activities related to adoption of renewable energy resources and energy efficient measures. That assistance specifically extends under the charter to helping with the energy section of the town and village plans. Given the nature of the climate change crisis, the current two-page energy section of the town plan does not measure up. As an outgrowth of Act 174 of 2016, the state law setting the objective of reaching 90% renewable energy in Vermont by 2050. The Energy Committee members assisted in preparing the Regional Energy Plan over two years, mainly through participation at meetings with CCRPC officials and with representatives of other municipal energy committees and task forces. After the Regional Plan was adopted in 2018, the Energy Committee encouraged the Municipal Community Development Office to take advantage of CCRP funding to develop the Enhanced Energy Plan. Following its initial release, Energy Committee members developed comments and edits at its own meetings, joined work sessions with town officials, made a presentation to the Economic Development Committee and attended two joint meetings of the Village and Town Planning Commissions over the course of just under a year in connection with the plan. In total, committee members spent what amounts to dozens of hours working with regional and municipal planners, developing and finalizing the Enhanced Plan for Essex that sits before you, maybe, or is online or somewhere. Anyway, available to you. The Essex Energy Plan contains smart, aggressive goals and critical data to help this community move towards a livable future. Even that may not be enough. Climate change threatens our continued way of life as citizens of Essex, as Vermonters, as Americans and as human beings. The Essex Energy Committee remains focused on working together with the select board to achieve these goals while maintaining strong, positive communication with each other to avoid misunderstandings and to de-escalate any potential concerns that could distract us from effectively dealing with the climate change crisis. We take on good faith that every level of municipal government will work to implement these goals and measures to combat this existential threat. For our part, we're committed, as members of the Essex community, to use the authority vested in us through our charter, Essex Energy Committee, to use the authority vested in us through our charter to track municipal energy data, research courses of action, make and implement cost-saving recommendations, develop and manage educational programs, and promote and look for funding everywhere we can to implement this plan. But nothing can start unless our community leaders adopt this plan. We trust you will take the right action tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you to the entire Essex Energy Committee. And Melanie, thank you for being patient and coming back to us a second time to go over this with us. So, Select Board, we have a recommendation to adopt the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan. Would anybody like to make a motion? Sure. I move that the Select Board adopt the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan with the condition that any substantive changes by the Essex Junction Trustees will require review and re-adoption by the Select Board. A second, please. Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. We have adopted the Essex Community Enhanced Energy Plan. Thank you very much. Thanks, Natalie. It is a big deal. You should clap. Yes, Greg. Just one comment. If anybody is looking to make comments, Melanie's asked that they be received by July 12th so that she can incorporate them into the plan when the trustees see it. Thanks to the staff as well. Nice job. All right. Next item to be discussed under Business Item 5D, discussion of potential changes to the firearms ordinance. So, thank you everyone who was in the audience this evening for the discussion. I'm going to talk to you for a few minutes and tell you the lay of the land and how we're going to proceed tonight, and then we will begin. I'm going to tell you what to expect tonight in terms of a meeting overview, what we've done so far, next steps after tonight and how tonight's public comment will work. There will then be a Select Board discussion. We will have the public comment period and then we will return to the Select Board for further deliberation. So, this is a continuation of a Select Board discussion considering changes to the town of Essex Firearms Discharge Ordinance. Tonight, the Select Board will discuss and deliberate the Firearms Discharge Ordinance as it relates to sports shooting ranges. We will not be discussing discharge boundaries or dates tonight. We will also not be discussing starting up a town shooting range tonight. After the Select Board discusses its discussion on sports shooting ranges, we will open the floor to the public for comments and I'll give you more direction about that in a few moments. After the public comment period, I will bring the discussion back to the Select Board table to get a sense of the Board regarding changes to the ordinance related to sports shooting ranges. Depending on the wishes of the Select Board, I will then direct staff to draft a final, amended version of the existing ordinance to reflect the changes discussed this evening as well as changes discussed at previous meetings to be reviewed by the Board at the next meeting. Everybody good so far? Okay. So up to now, this has been a year-long process and the Select Board has received a lot of input from many sources. We have heard from hundreds of residents at public forums, online forums and multiple meetings and have received and read volumes of opinion, information, resources and concerns from all kinds of people. We also have the 2009 report from the Firearms Task Force and recommendations from three different Essex police chiefs as well as legal opinions from the town attorney. Passions and emotions run deep in the community on this topic. We recognize the difficult nature of this discussion and we remind everyone here tonight and who's watching on TV and online at home that it is the Select Board's responsibility to improve the safety of the entire town of Essex while also preserving the quality of life, traditions and freedoms that our residents enjoy. Here is a summary of the work done so far regarding shooting ranges and some key facts. By Vermont statute, existing shooting ranges established before 2006 are not subject to any new regulations the Board may decide to implement. At its November 5, 2018 meeting the Select Board began discussing firearms discharge ordinance in relation to sports shooting ranges. The Board discussed and the public provided feedback on a proposed shooting range registration process intended to identify existing ranges and establish basic safety precautions. No decisions were made at that meeting and no additional changes were made to the ordinance at that time. Tonight the Select Board will continue that discussion. As for next steps, we are looking at July 15th as the next meeting to review the firearms discharge ordinance. However if we do not feel comfortable with where we are at the end of tonight's meeting we will not rush the process of crafting new ordinance language. At the July 15th meeting the Board may vote to accept the amended firearms discharge ordinance or we may further amend it. Once the Board's accept an ordinance the public hearing process begins. By Vermont statute we must hold one public hearing about the proposed changes to the ordinance. After that public hearing the Select Board can adopt the ordinance and it will take effect. If there are no further changes to the ordinance we anticipate final passage to occur at the Select Board's August 19th meeting. Thank you. Residents always have the option to challenge any new adopted ordinance by circulating a petition calling for town-wide vote on whether to overturn the ordinance. Petitions must be signed by 5% of registered voters of the town of Essex and must be submitted within 44 days of the ordinance being passed. Currently there are 16,077 registered voters in Essex so 5% of that would be 804 validated signatures. The Select Board would then have to hold a special meeting on the question a town-wide Australian ballot vote within 60 days. The new ordinance would remain in effect until the results of the vote are known. So as for public comment this evening we want to hear your feedback on our discussion and at the appropriate time I will open the floor to audience comments. Please remember this is a Select Board decision. The Select Board will absolutely hear what you have to say but this is not a negotiation. We have heard your concerns and we will continue to weigh your input. We may not produce the outcome you want and we realize that it may be excruciating to watch that happen but please be assured we hear you and we are balancing many interests. Please keep your comments respectful and brief and focus on new things we may not have heard. Please do not interrupt or have hot side conversations while others are speaking and please direct all comments to me as a Select Board chair. Speakers will be given a limited time for their comments. If your time runs out we will cut you off. Evan is going to be our official timekeeper and please be respectful of other people's time. If someone ahead of you makes the point you wanted to make please just say I agree with that person or ditto rather than repeat it. Remember to state your name clearly when you get to the mic. I will ask it now and then I will ask it again when it's time but how many people in the audience this evening would like to speak? Can I get a show of hands? Okay, understood. We have about 10 people. Thank you. Excellent learning. I will raise their hands. It's going to be about a minute 30 seconds per person. So the Select Board is now going to start the discussion and I'm going to ask Max Levy who was the chair at the time of the conversation starting to bring us up to speed on what we've discussed regarding shooting ranges. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. November 5th at the November 5th 2018 Select Board meeting were outdoor shooting areas were the main topic. The Select Board discussed establishing a process to identify the locations and number of private shooting ranges or shooting areas within the borders of Essex and have this information available to the Essex Police in public. The Select Board proposed establishing a process to increase the awareness among shooting range owners of the need for safety standards. In the Select Board directed staff, town staff to draft up a notification form in collaboration with law enforcement for the Select Board's consideration to be reviewed and discussed at a future Select Board meeting. That's tonight. The outdoor shooting range area or shooting area notification form might consider requesting such information as but not limited to name of the property owner address and parcel ID number of the property date the range was established the intended use of the range a site plan of the entire property including the layout of the shooting area showing key attributes and structures and a method to help ensure the shooting area is constructed and maintained according to standards at least as stringent as those defined by the National Rifle Association range manual for private ranges. The staff has drafted up such an outdoor shooting range notification form for the Select Board to consider tonight. Now I'd like to ask Greg Duggan to share with us or to review the notification form and your memo in our packet this evening. Sure. So the memo in the packet brings a recap of what Max and Elaine just explained a little bit of history of where we came from and how we get to where we are. There's some proposed language for a new ordinance language in the packet. It defines a firearm. It also has language about outdoor shooting range conditions updates to the violations and penalties and the focus probably should be the language about outdoor shooting range conditions. The key component there being this notification form. There's the language about the proposed language for a draft ordinance. The notification form was put together in conjunction of myself the police department legal advice from the town attorney and some other staff members worked on this. A few others to try to pull it together to give the Select Board something to review and give comment on. As Max said the proposed notification form requests information about property address, property owner parcel ID number date the range was established type of firearms to be used intended use of the range expected days and week days of the week and hours to be used the site plan of the range showing applicable information drawn to scale about property lines the layout of the range including safety features such as shooting stations, firing lanes target areas, shotfall zones safety fans, backstops berms and baffles existing and proposed structures within a quarter mile of the range and any other appropriate information. The form as constructed also requests proof of homeowners insurance with the minimum liability of $500,000 and certification from the range owner that the property is constructed and maintained according to the standards that are set at least as stringent as the standards printed in the National Rifle Association range manual. That's where we're starting at the town attorney had pulled together done some research to look at existing ordinances and laws elsewhere in the country to give us something to go off of a lot of research into Vermont state law and that's where we're at from feedback on the Select Board looking for a way for shooting range owners to provide notification to the town over where the ranges exist and what type of use may be happening on that range so I can try to answer questions about that. Greg, thank you. I know that staff has done an enormous amount of work on this project so thank you very much for your continued attention to it. Alright, Select Board, how would you like to proceed? Would you I'd like to focus strictly on shooting ranges the materials in the packet today so if anyone wants to start off with comments otherwise I'm going to go right down the line. Okay, Max. This form at the end it shows that it would be signed off by the Select Board but I'm wondering if it would make more sense to actually have this be the purview of the police not to sign off on it but at least to acknowledge that this form has been filled out and received and if they have any questions or concerns about accepting that notification form for whatever reason that those special cases perhaps should come to the Select Board as the exception as opposed to the rule. So you're suggesting that the sign off at the bottom of this form not come from this board but rather come from the police department. Like the clerk would do when they receive a tax payment, they say received and then it's dated and then it goes into the file that they have, it's open to the public and I'd like to ensure that any forms that do come in that get put in our packet just at least as a reading file. Just have the exceptions that the police see for whatever reason they have a concern to then come to us to see what we should do. And what do you foresee as an exception and what do you foresee this board would do with that exception? Well, if we have these required to be renewed every, I don't know, couple of years say and similar to like a liquor license where you will look at the owner and see have there been any violations towards that. And I would hope the police could do something similar to see if there are any violations that were documented against that particular range and if there are then I would like to see those for example as exceptions to come to us so that we can better understand what's causing those violations. For example. Anybody have? I had some questions about the form itself just the level of detail. I'm wondering how much of that is necessary for the form itself. Like just as an example, like I think that it's clear that we as a select board kind of want to have an idea for where the shooting ranges are in town. But you know some of the specific questions I'm just you know because I'm obviously a little bit more new to the process what's the reasoning for having for example a type of firearm listed within the shooting range form itself or the specific times that we expect them to be in use because expected to be in use versus are we going to hold people who fail at this form to the expectation of what they put for the time of usage and if we aren't is there a reason to have it in there when we already have a we already know that there's a sunset to sunrise you know sorry lost the word you know on it. So I'm just I guess I want to get a little bit of a clear idea for why those are in there. I'm pretty sure this relates to the May 2006 standard that's set in Vermont Statute but I'm going to let Greg answer that more specifically. I'd say three main reasons first off asking for the type of firearms that goes back to the NRA range building manual and wanting to know for the police when the police take a look at it and can sign off and say that when somebody certifies that it's been constructed according to the standards in that range manual that the safety for the safety measures for high powered rifle are going to be different from a shotgun or pistol so that's part of it. Another piece is to give notification to the neighbors that's part of the point of this notification form is to let people know what's out there and what they can expect if someone's buying a house or moving elsewhere in town they can have an expectation of what might be near them as far as firearms as far as shooting goes at a shooting range and lastly is the historical record as Elaine mentioned the 2006 law anything in existence prior to 2006 can't be regulated beyond its historical use so if something's on record prior to 2006 it's putting that in writing also if anything ever changes in the future there's a record in place there whether it's state law or some other type of guideline there's some sort of documentation to keep track of that so that was the reason. If I then as a follow up I'm wondering if there would be a change for someone who's using a shooting range say they fill out the form and they only put shotgun on there but then a year down the road they want to use a rifle at their sport shooting range would that be a violation that would then result in some of the finer penalties here or would we expect that to happen that we want them to contact the police and let them know that there's a change to what they originally filled out on the form just procedurally I'm kind of wondering how that change would be made if it's something that we are going to just request let us know or if we would hold them in violation of the form as they filled it out I think the expectation would be that if there is a change in use you would have to come back and fill out an updated application form saying whatever it was that was changed Annie I think if that's so it should say like when you apply for state aid on the form it says if your income changes you must so I feel like I don't think we can just assume that and then it's confusing I think if we're going to do that it should say that or not say that I'm not saying it has to say that I'm saying if we decide that it either needs to say it or not say it I think we can just all walk around an assumption I think that's a lot to ask of people. Do you have any other questions or comments on this form? Quite frankly I see a lot of people deeply respect and plus a lot of people I don't know sitting here and I'm watching faces and I'm curious about what people have to say but I'm still listening a lot and keeping up with what was already learned so I have curiosity but I don't have I think Patrick did a great job. Thank you Annie. Yeah a couple things it's been mentioned that the intent of the form is to provide information to the police and to the public. I think that if we're going to collect this information we should also load it into E911 there's a designation in there for shooting ranges so I mean one of the intents for doing this is to improve public safety so I think if every shooting range that we have an application for also has a pinpoint in E911 so that if an emergency occurs there its location is quite well known to emergency responders. I'd like to add that if we go down this road to do this. With regard to the signatures I think if we do this again the select board should be the responsible parties for signing and approving it rather than putting that on the police to do that I think they certainly will review them I think the other thing is we'll have to have a discussion about what criteria we would ever use to reject one. Are we ever going to you know how would we decide to say no in any case? And I also question the I guess I understand that the 2006 date has to do with level of use and that's why the question in there is about what the expected days of the week and hours are in there I I'm just struggling a little bit with how we'll use that data if it's not if it's just filled out to be all hours of all days during daylight hours and all weapon types are checked and it loses some of its value at that point if there's a broad brush put to it by the applicant so and so I don't know I don't know what the value of those questions is. Okay, so Max I'm sort of leading where Patrick is about the types of firearms I heard what Greg had to say but the range manual I believe is specific to designs for type of firearms so if you have the big ones then it has a requirement to meet the least stringent standards for those and if it's going to be say a .22 pistol it would be self-correcting and you would have a different requirement so I think if the owners are signing off saying that they're going to comply with the NRA standards for shooting ranges for private ones and they know what weapons firearms are going to use and they need to be designed accordingly so I don't know if we really need that detailed information or police on that and then the expected days of the week we do have that defined by town ordinance right now and to have a lot of different ranges of time out there may make it even more difficult to for the police to patrol or not patrol but to take care of so if we have that in the ordinance already the time limit I would maybe we can keep it simple see if we can keep it simple and have it also be effective for what we're trying to do so there's a balance there so those two things I think we might consider eliminating from the form but I think having the police be the owners of this and saying that they received and accepted it here more from our police department on that I'm going to share a few thoughts and then I would like to ask Chief Gary for some input as well we have an item on here for date range was established and I know that's to establish the history pursuant to the May 2006 statute I agree I do not feel that it's necessary to itemize the types of weapons to be used I just don't think that belongs on there and we already as you've said we have ordinance that says sunrise to sunset is when you can discharge weapons so asking people to specify while I understand it's a kindness to your neighbors to let them know that's something that they should be doing anyway and that we should not be dictating that I'm curious about anyone's questions or comments about the site plan the range we want folks to designate you know bring us a map basically I'm wondering if you feel that one addition to that would be terrain should we be asking people to indicate that there's woods on their property or a hill or ledge is that relevant is that something we want to know that's a key attribute that you want to know I think does that sound like a reasonable addition to the map request and you know I also feel that this is something that should be housed with the police department and I do not feel comfortable asking the select board to sign off on these forms I am not an expert on any of this and therefore I will not sign off on any certification that's that I would have to agree that there's there's safety here the only thing I would be willing to sign off on is yes the form is filled out there's all the boxes are checked I strongly feel that this belongs with the police and if they are collecting the information then we can ask them for updates on the number of people who have registered the locations of the ranges but I and if there is as Max said an issue on one of the properties and there's a problem that has to be resolved that can come to us and we can talk to the landowner in person in this venue but I don't think that this belongs in the town clerk's office yes Andy having made comments about the content of the form maybe being irrelevant I do understand that from the perspective of somebody looking to purchase property to understand what's going to be happening next door that's one of the it's not specific to shooting ranges I mean it's also development where people have issues they don't know what can be built next door kind of thing and so from the perspective of getting information before you buy you know knowing that there's a shooting range next door and I suppose the next question could be well why don't you go knock on their door and ask them how they use it rather than have it be documented by the town sorry I'm wasting time talking myself out of it again but I just wanted to bring that point up well I agree that one primary use one purpose of this notification form is so that a potential home buyer who's shopping for property in the town they might want to know what's you know are there shooting ranges in the surrounding property and that's one purpose for this Andy by the way if you're concerned about who you are you might be excited to hear that people have got shooting ranges like let's not forget that it's not only you might be like yes I want to live in an area where I fire my weapon absolutely yeah okay just wanted to also comment that what was added here that all ranges shall have warning signs along the entire perimeter of the shooting range facility I think that makes it give people a heads up that one exists if they haven't looked up a map or whatever and if they're in the woods and they see that then they'll be made aware and I think that's important to both the property owner and for the person that happens to be walking by so you're in favor of including with this notification form that the homeowner will post their range post their property having range right I think we need to be if that's part of it we need to be specific because you know you don't want to make somebody go out there and hang off four million like be clear on the parameters of that how far apart must they be like I think otherwise again it's one of those things that's a little goofy and too much work for someone or be specific yeah it's actually the NRA has guidelines for shooting range she's in the posting of signs great and I think one of the ordinances that staff provided to us I think it was North Carolina has specifics in their ordinance about where to post so I mean it's something we can definitely say you need to do and we already have posting requirements for hunting properties okay so I'm going to pause on select board questions for the moment and I'm going to ask Chief Gary can I ask you to come to the mic and share your thoughts on our discussion so I'm going to give you feedback on what I've heard you asking questions about this thank you with all due respect and I think in agreement with the town attorney I would tell you that I think the the form needs to be at the clerk's office not at the police department's office I think we ought to treat it just like you do a liquor permit you know we're not looking to keep track of we want them to know that they're out there looking back as your subject matter experts but I think someone said basically this form comes in and it gets stamped and then you get opinions back from staff about whether it's complete or what are their concerns I see that process working the same way as you do with a liquor permit my recommendation and I believe the town attorney will tell you that that probably should sit at the clerk's office we would be happy the police department would be happy to review those applications to make sure that they're complete or the clerk's office could do it and certainly if there's some questions in reference to the standards we'd be happy to give you responses back to that the same way that we do with the liquor permits or if we've had complaints in that area in reference to violations in the past and then it falls back again to potentially the board make a decision about approved or not approved some of the questions specifically in reference to types of firearms and intended use Greg's talk dot on it that has to do with historical use that's a good example that or was the range over in Williston where Williston attempted to enact a new ordinance that was going to change regulations in reference to the firing range over there and that went all the way up to the Supreme Court who basically said you can't change the historical use if the range was established before 2006 what they can do is they can if they're going to be changes at that they could regulate that and so that's kind of where I think Greg's coming from the types of firearms and the intended use and the times trying to find a baseline of what is the historical use and if you want to change things in the future you've got to kind of have a baseline for that I think that's what the purpose of that is E911 they do have firearms maps on that it's not a registry the public can't go there and register it is simply the ability of the GIS folks in each town to actually put a pin on the map where those ranges are and is exactly what you talked about Andy is for safety purposes if there was an emergency and you type the address in in that general area if somebody called from a cell phone it will actually show that there's a range in that area and that may make the 911 folks or our staff be able to respond better about maybe what the resources are needed up there I actually talked to the E911 folks and they said yeah you want to upload pins on the map that say ranges we can do it but it's not a registry where either we can provide this information where they would accept information from the public getting back to the the date the range was established and the type of firearm we are not with this process trying to impose any rules on how people use their weapons we just want to know where the ranges are so wouldn't it be sufficient to just ask when the range was established and in the event that more information is needed we can follow up with the individual landowner at that time as opposed to having them fill this format with all this extra information Ken you've what this does is this in advance gives you some documentation of what the anticipated use is I agree that if you're going to have a change you've got to be able to have them come back and update it because they may change what they want to do there but again what it is is to give a baseline on the historical usage if you don't have that you have a complaint decide you're going to want to make a change you're now going to have to go back and try to see if you can determine what was the use there but that's what we're doing now we don't have any history at the moment so we just want to have that baseline which says yes I certify that my property had a range that existed prior to 2006 but beyond that I'm just trying to be devil's advocate here as to the necessity for collecting more information than we need to collect if you decided to want to change it later on you may then have to go and change the ordinance to start collecting that data so I think what this was is try to anticipate that and collect what you needed in order to be able to if you had a question about use changing you had the information you needed potentially you can choose not to do it and then if you decide to change you're going to have to go back and change the ordinance or figure out a way how you're going to go back and track that which is probably going to be tough in November one of the lines in the description of this proposed registry that we were talking about said that the proof of the existence of the range was dependent on the owner and there were some very unhappy audience members saying this was my great grandfather's property I have no documentation that says that we had a range here I think we're going to experience that difficulty regardless of when we ask for the information and you really think it should be at the clerk's office I do and I think the town attorney would tell you that's probably where it should be the intent here is to notify people of location and range as it should be in the same place where all of the titles property, land use, information is kept which is the clerk's office that's the intent does anybody else have questions for Chief Currie go ahead it's more a question for us so if I understand correctly like liquor licenses the way we do it is there are parameters staff decides if the parameters meet the guidelines that we determine whether or not that's also true and then we that's a good question and I struggle with that a little bit because that was why I was leaning towards asking the police to handle this because if a clerk has the application in front of them the extent of their responsibility should be is this application complete they should not have to do any judgment about the quality of the map or the ability to determine whether it's safe and so if they accept the application and then all the applications for the week get sent over to the police department are you saying that you would analyze these applications and determine whether the map that was drawn is safe that determination we would have our firearms range people and that's where we talked about before where you could potentially have a committee that did that that was not the police department if you had a group that wanted to do that that were certified experts or range I think it just needs to be subject matter experts that can look at that and say yes it meets the standard but yes that's exactly how we do the liquor permits they come into the clerk's office they come over to us for a review history backgrounds checked we see any if there have been any problems and they make a recommendation back to the board I see that operating the same way and what is the standard if you see a map that doesn't look right to you are you going to reach out to the owner are you going to come to us how I think that's some of the clarification that Andy was talking about is we're happy to assist you and actually work with the people from the community about what that standard is but yeah if there's something there that you're missing something on that map we would need to try to follow up and say hey we're missing this piece can we get this from you or we may have to make a site visit but I think that's part of the big one is what is that standard going to be what determines yes or no there's a problem it can't move further through the process so we've talked about having the National Rifle Association range manual be the standard and from what I've heard from various folks it's a very large manual I've heard that it's not relevant to private ranges that it's primarily for commercial and military use can you help us understand exactly what this reference material is and whether it is useful to the regular shooting range owner who has one in his backyard it's useful the problem is is the manual is this thick and so what I would propose is a working group together that involves the community and the police department and subject matter experts and set what that standard is that's using the NRA manual and if there's other stuff I saw some feedback in reference to providing suggestions I think that's a great idea in reference to setting up ranges and that I think we need to develop that standard that we think meets it and meets that NRA standard trying to flip through that manual I think we can whittle that down to something that's acceptable that the people that own those are it's more clear and concise so if we had a working group comprised of subject matter experts the police perhaps interested members of the public and they composed this checklist that you would then use as a checklist against all the applications that's what you're saying and then we wouldn't need a standing committee of people to look at every application as it came in because you'd now have a checklist that was approved by we could say it met this standard and then we would forward it back to you and say it's met what Andy or Andy, someone's hand went up so if I understand and I think I'm just repeating what you've just said is what you've all just agreed upon is that we would put together a working group to determine what the parameters were solidify that and then act like a legal license situation because we have parameters that are solid that we've agreed upon that we've passed as a thing I have to say I feel a lot better hearing that because my concern is we are trying to do something very basic to help ensure safety but then we're adding this complicated layer of well you need to refer to the range manual and having a simplified checklist that we can be assured has been vetted by members of the community who are involved who are going to be subject to this rule that feels like it's making it a more approachable, easier to understand accessible process so I really appreciate you're making that suggestion chief thank you Greg or Evan do you have any questions or comments for us or for chief Gary okay Andy so even if we have a whittled down standard at some point there's going to have to be a situation where a judgment call needs to be made which might imply liability so I just Bill is over there he's not looking at me so that's where the rub is for me is you know if there's, if we develop what we think is an appropriate standard and we make a judgment call are we then liable and what's the what are the implications of that judgment call that's I think the big thing we need to understand my advice would be to put the obligations on the poverty domain they should be responsible for their ranges and if they're not then they should be liable they should keep the ordinance on the range on their property do whatever they need to do to make sure it doesn't go off that would be why it likes so the only criteria is whether the form is complete or not well right because they're certifying with a property owner's signature how would it be wanted okay does anybody have any further questions or comments about the form because there's a couple other things we need to discuss as well are you good to go I just had to follow up chief Gary you had mentioned background check in there just speaking I mean did you mean specifically like a criminal background check if someone submitting this or did you just mean that like looking it says if we've had issues with someone who didn't fill out the form properly two years ago and now they're reapplying I just wanted to make sure there was some clarification about what you meant exactly by that it would not be us running a criminal background check I believe the town has the right to do that but it would not be through us we're not allowed to do that what we give back for feedback in reference to liquor and we could do the same thing in reference is if we've had complaints in the area in reference to shooting we could give that back if the board was going to consider or not and wanted to use that like liquor violations we may have over serving at a bar the board then uses that to make a determination about what they're going to do with a new license and are there going to be any conditions our records in reference to complaints about shooting or public records so again it would just take a little research to pull those and provide those to the board and then the board to make a decision about whether those are relevant and not a criminal background check that's what I thought I just wanted to clarify it for the absolutely so we had a couple other proposed changes in the ordinance that were in our packet this proposed changes to Essex Firearms Ordinance document do you have any questions or want to discuss this is right after the cover memo Andy primarily the changes are the fines just want to make sure that you've seen them whether you have any questions or comments Andy just a question about we've mentioned annual but we haven't mentioned a specific date and I note that on the fines the comment about calendar year basis is struck through so I guess that leads to two questions one comment I think we need to set a date that we would need to do the renewals every year and then the other is with regard to first, second, third, fourth offense is just cumulative I guess that must be cumulative through lifetime I guess I've answered my own question there I don't know I would defer to Chief Gary to answer that I would think it would be cumulative so I understand that the existence of a shooting range can pass with a property sale I assume that this is based on individual not on shooting range correct so if you had someone that's had a fourth or subsequent offense and then has you go by a calendar year should they go back to a first offense because you've gone to a calendar year if you already warned them four times so do we want to think about a date for renewal can we not make it June 30th along with every other appointment that we have to do please I would be willing to defer to staff for the best time of year for that to happen discuss that and figure something out propose something okay we'll be talking about annually or every two years or what's the right another question for the committee for the board annually by annually I would be comfortable with by annually and then with a change of use every other year unless you change your use that's what I was already thinking I felt like yearly might be a bit new applications new applications Andy look like you have a question I'm struggling a little bit with the you know same form two years later concept and we've had a little bit of this discussion before and I had thought that either change of use or change of ownership would be the only reason to require anybody to come back well I think for keeping the listings accurate and up to date perhaps there could be instead of making someone fill out the whole thing and draw the map all over again they could have a renewal certification because I certify that my application dated 2019 is the same with no changes dated 2021 I mean with that I don't see the need to repeat I think it's a once and done until you sell the property or because we're not going to expire we're not going to tell people you haven't renewed your shooting range you haven't as far as we know we haven't used your shooting range in five years you can't use it now it exists so I don't think there's any makes a lot of sense to require a lot of paperwork for us to collect and you know who's going to chase everybody around to try to get their permits in so that they can cite in their deer rifle so the one question I have for you on that is what if you are a parcel of land and you have a range and then someone buys the parcel next to you and puts a building closer than previously and now your range is not safe for that abutting building you're going to have to change your range you're going to have to do your application over is well yeah I don't know it's abutting changes to abutting properties I don't know again I don't think it makes sense to chase people around us spending a lot of time finding people telling them hey your things to bring it in if we're going to sign them we're going to have to sign a hundred of these things I don't see the need to do that every year or even every other year unless there's a change of use or a change of Max and then Annie if our community was static I would agree with Annie but we're still developing and growing so I think a minimum of every two years and the town knows where development is happening and we would be aware then if there is a change of abutting shooting range where now there's a building or something that was not there before so I think it's important to do that and as we do with liquor licenses I believe we send an email out to establish miss is that right Evan to let them know it's time to re-up because we are dynamic and changing I think it's important to keep those up to date if they're going to be of any value at all Annie does change of use cover the physicality of the range so let's say you submitted your application and think you're and you have a new vision or you want to build or grow upon it what are the parameters of you having to tell us that what if you were like oh this is going really well I wish I don't know anything I would think that if you wanted to grow your space a little so does the change of use also talk about the physical parameters and the design or just the use of what you're using I think it's the any variation from the application that's submitted so if you've drawn a map and you make a change you have a new vision and you want to expand or do something different you have to do a change of use and that will be clear in the language we would have to make that very clear in the language absolutely alright are we ready to open the floor to public comment any other questions or comments before we do so and Pat excuse me super quickly in some of the examples that we've seen there were application fees we're not anticipating asking application fees for what we have okay okay just a moment sir thank you everyone for listening and now we're going to have our public comment period please remember what I told you earlier you'll each have show me your hands again who wants to speak still about 15 maybe 18 a minute 30 seconds each I know that's not long but there's a lot of us here please keep your comments concise and brief and try to focus on stuff we have not talked about before if possible be respectful of your neighbors time if you want to agree with someone just tell us you agree with them and sit down and please direct your questions to me as the chair and remember to state your name clearly when you get to the mic so I'd love to hear from all of you now thank you please come to the microphone if you want to form a line certainly your name Tim Pham further down the list on reading files you have a bunch of lists I don't know what happens with that are you reading something coming in that section because there's a lot of ordnance stuff there so the reading file is just documentation that staff feels we should read prior to the meeting in this case it was communication from residents and they're just in the reading file for our information disseminated to us no it's in the public reading file so it's online okay I just wanted to know because I didn't want to we didn't want to talk about this now if we're going to go over more stuff oh no we're done thank you thanks for waiting good evening Eric Bailey I'm a certified US Army named safety officer former NRA farm instructor and NRA being a safety officer the NRA manual it's all about standards and those guidelines are formed like the best of commercial range few of any active commercial ranges in Vermont meet all those guidelines is my belief that that as a standard was put in there to make having a private range of assets cost prohibitive and basically shut them all down the ability to have a safe private range is much narrower than that manual if you go downhill into a bank of soft dirt with good sight line that's safe it's your property your bullets are being stopped against mother earth and no one can come in and get in the way I mean it's that simple okay I'd also consider not changing your first defense file double the rest of them just because it may just be lack of knowledge and we're talking about renewing this over and over originally it sounded like it was a just getting to know where these were basically a form to find out where these ranges are that we can not regulate thank you Dustin Bruzo just a quick comment following up on the renewals aspect if we're maintaining that it is the responsibility of the landowner to maintain the range and the necessity of renewing the form because the property the adjacent properties are changed for the usage is somewhat irrelevant because it is still the responsibility of the landowner to maintain the safe shooting zone whether or not the properties change the property change and you can't maintain a safe zone that is still your responsibility so I don't know that there's a necessity for the town to then redo that I feel that's somewhat redundant thank you Hi Ben Bro I have just a couple things I think that this was supposed to start out as just a notification of where ranges are and now from this checklist it's turned into this big long big long notice that's really going to turn into registration it's going to be kept in a clerk's office I feel that this is very much overstepping the authority that's been delegated to the municipality by the state with respect to sporting ranges but I guess that will be decided by a court eventually if that's how it goes but I think it's way overstepping what the state is delegated to the municipality also I know we weren't going to talk about the borders but I do want to say that when I was reading through there the 500 foot buffer language is still in the packet in October 15th we were told that that would be totally removed so thank you Hi Igor, Paul and I have 198 check and I just wanted to say three short things first of all you mentioned real estate and as a Vermont realtor I actually have clients right now that I've been working with that have a concern about ranges and safety I feel comfortable about guns and I showed them a home the first home I showed them was right next to the Burgess and I told them that and they were very happy that I wasn't trying to make money off them I told them about the thing which the other realtor didn't disclose but I also understand that it's not realistic for people in a real estate community to know everything about what is the range if I'm in the woods I would tell somebody who is concerned that listen about hunters this is Vermont you might not want to buy a house here and that's their choice but you can't really expect everybody to know everything it's just unrealistic and the second thing I moved here two years ago from Moncton where I used to shoot in my backyard all the time I enjoy shooting sports I'm a hunter I collect guns so when I moved people told me that my neighbors don't like noise because one of my neighbors is they have 50 pine scannels they have 50 dogs and my other neighbors have horses so I came to them and said how can we resolve this like neighbors because I was really looking forward I got 300 yards behind me and they say can you please not shoot guns unless you see a big deer and it's in self defense near our properties and you can hunt the back of our properties and we resolved that neighbors should with respect I don't see why we should make a big deal with that Bixby Hill wrote I agree that we could voluntarily provide the location of a range on a voluntary basis totally unnecessary to have all this information and frankly I think it's inconsistent with the statues this all precipitated from the accident 10 years ago by the professor also with a few bad actors we have in town that may be operating in a careless and negligent manner and I think it's important that law enforcement approach these individuals and enforce the statutes that are currently on the books if there's a problem in prosecuting I would suggest that Chief Gary the town manager the chair of the select board our local and state representatives me with Sarah George the state's attorney and Garner's support from her in terms of prosecution if you make an example of a few people in town you're going to solve this problem we're not going to have this whole issue which is spiraling out of control thank you Salatino, Brigham Hill Road I have the nursery on Brigham Hill Road it's a very peaceful place people have said they really love coming to my nursery they come from all over New England but one of the things that we have to deal with with shooting ranges is not so much the shooting range that goes for half an hour at a time but for four hours at a time three days a week it is obnoxious we have customers who are scared to death to come to our nursery and have expressed it we had on father's day we had an Afghan vet who was really having a hard time with the shooting that was going on down our road one thing I want to make it very clear to the select board there's a disconnect between the select board and the planning commission did you know the planning commission is putting in several cul-de-sacs on either side of Brigham Hill Road which a lot of these shooting ranges are facing right towards there's several houses for sale on Brigham Hill Road somebody called me and said what do you think of our road I want to buy these houses at these two locations and I said well in all due honesty in all due honesty they are right next to shooting ranges who fire often also want to remind you if I get hit with vodka it's very different than getting hit with a bullet thank you I'm Nils Giddens resident of Essex for over 11 years and most of the time been following this issue ever since being on the firearms discharge ordinance committee some time ago and I'm happy to see that at least we're continuing to attempt to talk about this I came in not knowing the specific topic I was hoping it was going to be more wide ranging but on the other hand I saw what you were talking about and I thought it might be a good idea but then I heard the chief say something like may need to make a site visit and I guess now I'm wondering not to spiral things out of control but if if we're getting into this policy for a safe community full disclosure I have a job at UVM hospital if we're getting into this for safety of the community I guess I'm not sure how you prove that it's safe without a site visit and I guess I don't know how you could continue to prove that you're safe without monitoring now I'm not saying that I'm aiming to get this spiraling out of control I'm just saying this policy brings with it a whole lot of stuff that a lot of other people may not have thought about on that note gave a really nice talk there I also worked in the health field for 35 years people that moved here oh Patty Davis all I want to say is all of us Essex Junction in Essex Town why don't we eventually work towards having that Australian ballot vote since there are 22,000 of us now living here and recreating here and Brian French was our realtor and I made sure to look at Saxon Hill Road very thoroughly being one of the top runners in Vermont for many years now I have to run on dirt and it had a sign that said no shooting zone and it's a class three public road and it is the select duty to be responsible for the safety of Essex and Essex Junction please let's all come together and vote I'm a stay at home often and I feel like the standard should at least be the same for the shooting range as it is for people who try to opt out of having hunters on their property we have to we have to as far as I understand it come and tell the town every year and pay $5 we have to post every so often and we have 58 acres and we have 26 properties that are about our property and it's darned impossible to do that for us with small children and that's just my experience I just want my kids to feel safe I'm really appreciated I'm sorry I would love to meet my neighbors and hear what you're up to and have a discussion about that so that I can tell my kids hey like John do you think we know his setup so that's my two cents the name is Gail Allen I live in Essex over in the Sexton Hill area so I have to comment that somebody said something about this potentially not even being outside of the jurisdiction of municipality and as you know it may or may not be it's a tricky business the real problem is that the state laws that govern this are outdated because the state continues to expand and residential communities are expanding and they're expanding in places that people used to hunt they always shot their guys and you know that's the same argument that the Native Americans have been using for 200 years you're infringing upon my rights to hunt these lands and to shoot my guns and the truth of the matter is that still doesn't necessarily make it safe now the bottom line is there's a guy right down the road for me that has a shooting range and a fire in a three wall 10 foot in magnets that is a safe fire range and my biking service is going to be noise there are safe fire ranges out there and there are unsafe fire ranges we're all here last year to hear the testimony of a person that was firing into a sand hill was directly in the line of fire for somebody's home and he wouldn't talk to his neighbor and he didn't get anywhere without them so we have to speak to the lowest common denominator here unfortunately not to the responsible citizens that are here talking about and trying to save their own rights for their own safe firing ranges that's a problem we've got to make sure that it's safe for everyone that's really all I need to say Brian Murphy 187 Towers Road extension I think everybody gets spoken here I've been listening people recall when I showed this map at a meeting and it kind of set off an alarm what prompts me is I think the notification form needs to and I don't know how it works with liquor stuff but if you submit it the adjoining property owners need to be notified because they would have some information to tell that someone within a quarter mile because I would show you the map later this is a thin slice of land between my house and the range that I was talking about in the past and I'm not an adjoining property owner but I'm within 200 yards of a dirt pile I think the statute and the attorney for the town could comment that I think it is problematic to use the word outdoor shooting range it conflates a lot of the discussion there is the sport shooting range which is a state definition I wouldn't mess with that because I think there's a lot of conflation I would use the back yard shooting area and I'm trying to be neutral if someone's got a more neutral term that's fine but to use the word shooting range it conflates it with the state definition which is very clear they're talking about commercial ranges that were in existence that were designed and operated designed for safety and they're operated commercially that's all I have to say thank you all thank you hi my name is Randy Barrow under full disclosure I'm not a resident of Essex am I still allowed to speak you're there go ahead where is he where do you live sir do you mind if we ask where you do live I live in Milton thank you I appreciate it the reason I came tonight is I live in Milton I've had a range for 40 years it's right on the village town limits thankfully we've not had any accidents there at all we encourage safe handling of firearms to save place to shoot the police department actually qualifies on my range I've been in this truck for the fish and wildlife for 38 years teaching hunter safety so we found that people that don't attend these classes are the ones that tend to get in trouble down the road so these private ranges are very good people get there they get one-on-one instruction as far as the insurance is that you're proposing that would basically shut most of us down the honorary manual this gentleman advise it's a great manual if you're going to go commercial and you're going to do big things financially none of us in this room could afford it being a good neighbor when I moved there it was kind of a rural area I now have an 88 house development across the road from me there's always concerns about the firearms shooting so I normally plan to have a shoot on the days if you're having an open house across the road so the potential buyers are fully aware of what happens in our neighborhood basically the chairwoman suggested the town of Essex open their own range I think that would be an excellent idea financially you probably couldn't do it but I think it would make a lot of the problems go away thank you and my end is sorry your time is up thank you Sean McEwen 21 turn very rich so I think one of the situations is like we had a range right behind our house and then we ended up by building in like 2000 so we had to put it behind my brothers we do a lot of just sighting in the rifles and things like that and we're right near the village even I don't really have too many let the neighbor next door know I'm going to shoot don't really have any problems and you think you're pretty close to Athens where I would have people calling the police all the time I'm using it that often but if somebody invests money and making a range really nice in their backyard then they're going to want to use it a lot because they invested that money it's not like they're going back out there just to sight the rifles in because they got to get something for what they've invested in there and I will say again and I was an alternate on the firearms ordinance and I know you didn't want to talk about it but I think a town range would alleviate a lot of problems and a lot of people were enthusiasts that went there they would become rotary they would get to know each other maybe some of the people would get a chance to go there that are kind of leery of guns but the guy sighting in his rifle I don't think is what people have problems with it's people when they're shooting a lot who would give more to the NNA standards thank you Richard Smith East William Street I'm a little concerned about saying the term that we're going to make policy down to the lowest level as we talked about liquor licenses we don't punish all the restaurants and all the establishments within a jurisdiction because one of them at the lowest level is known to continually break the law so I think we hold a standard but we don't punish everybody in a group every time that we go to our lowest level all of us don't lose our driver's license when somebody else gets to DUI so we have to start thinking about that we can't always say we're going to make policies to the lowest level or else none of us would do anything without the federal government telling us or the state government or our local government telling us what we can and cannot do so we need to get out of our heads that we need to policy down to the lowest level or else we will not get to make any decisions Brian Geldo, Franklin's here it's sort of a technical comment I'm not sure who heard some comments on the NRA range of animal I don't know whether it's a good or a bad standard and I'm concerned about sort of incorporating private organizations regulations into the Nordlands because they could change that out from under us I think that there was some discussion about using that as base although I know you don't like what was common denominator but as a basis for standards Max was talking about that but yeah I think we need to come up with some standards that are ESIC standards and use professionals like Brad TNRA in this case to start with Thanks I would ask the town to consider a hunting or shooting by written permission only form it would really simplify things it would put liability on the landowners as I understand it already is that way trespassers are not covered I'm not willing to cover somebody that walks onto our property and discharges a firearm without my permission so they would need a permission slip or basically that's a common form registered with town or even just left at the whole art level the people that are going to be dangerous are probably not at these meetings they're probably not even ESIC's town members they're going to come from other towns an animal discharges a firearm where they probably shouldn't be and I would ask everybody that how would you feel if you wanted to change a tire on your car but you first had to register your driveway as an automotive shop that's the way that we feel or I believe a lot of people would feel I totally agree with the college that was just made I find it kind of insane that as it stands today as I understand it and I'm relatively new to civilization but as I understand it I'm not a hunter I don't quote my property but I could be outside with my son and someone could shoot a deer 5 feet from my son and that's okay but if I hang a target on a tree and do a shooting and I don't sign up for this I get fine so it just seems that the allowances of discharging firearms for certain reasons or other reasons is not taking into account the property owner's rights in terms of using their property for the way they do not have to be used so they said I'm not a hunter I don't hunt but I don't post my property but at the same time I don't think it makes sense to restrict my rights you have to fill out forms to restrict my rights and also I have to fill out the same form to say I don't want someone else hunting on my property that seems crazy that I don't have to fill the same form otherwise so I can shoot on my property and I have to fill out a form so someone else can't shoot on my property that just seems disconnected Would anybody else like to speak that has not already spoken? Hello, my name is Scott Chapman I see this as a constitutional issue it's a prior restraint of the civil right whether you lock life firearms or not, no discharging firearms it is a right, it's an individual right affirmed by the Constitution of the United States and the State of Vermont you have no right to limit that the way that this is written you are forcing a person to ask the police department for permission to discharge a firearm on private property and in a sense pay a whole tax by providing a liability insurance policy you don't have the right to do that I heard the chief refer to liquor licenses this is a right, not a privilege would you apply this to practice a religion or a choice to talk to your lawyer are you going to enact ordinances that prevent that and make you prove that you provided financial responsibility to that that you get fined if that's not done in the way that you see fit you do not have the power as a community to infringe upon the constitutional rights of the moderates, period I know that some people don't like violence that's fine but this is a right, not a privilege thank you my name is Randy Draper I live in 184 tower extension right across the street from the Murphy's you've seen a lot of evidence over the course of the last six months about the unauthorized unsupervised shooting range backyard shooting range across the street from my house although I wasn't in a direct line of fire I was clearly in a tangent and I have myself asked that home across the street who has that firing range to please limit the sighting of his and his children's or grandchildren's rifles because of how nervous makes me feel and how dangerous I think it can be if you're irresponsible I respectfully disagree we're not talking about constitutional rights we're talking about public safety and I would just recommend that the board keep that in mind nobody is trying to limit the appropriate and safe use of the backyard shooting range we're just concerned for our families and for our children and for ourselves it's a public safety issue please don't forget okay one final call yes sir I usually get in trouble whenever I do this Kendall Chamberlain old pump road we've had a range on our property since 1948 where's my father now you know where I live you know I shoot there there's never been a problem I don't expect to be treated like a criminal until I commit a criminal act I do agree with that person it's a constitutional right to discharge weapons on your own property as long as you don't affect anybody else I don't agree with it that it's a safety issue because I don't see any evidence of it being a safety issue hunting is one of the safest things you can do in Vermont proven they're bound because you will find yourself in litigation you've already been threatened with litigation it's going to happen thank you thank you everyone for taking the time to be here this evening and to share your thoughts we have listened closely I hope you saw that many of us were taking notes we are absolutely committed to doing what's right for the entire town of Essex so we're going to take the conversation back to this table now we're going to deliberate and we're going to make some recommendations for changes to the ordinance or not and then we'll ask staff to bring back to us an amended draft for our next meeting you're welcome to stay and listen to our deliberation but the public input portion of the meeting is now closed alright does anyone have any thoughts to share based on what you've heard any further questions that might have come up Pat yeah I heard a couple of what I thought were really good points you know we're not looking to create a registry so I think that further solidifies in my mind that the types of firearms that should be used on the form is really unnecessary just the knowledge that they're being shot because I think that that honestly the whole idea of registry helps people the wrong way it's not necessary for the form it doesn't really need to be there and something that we didn't discuss before but it was brought up the insurance the insurance liability of $500,000 I'm assuming that was pulled because there was a similar form that we saw from Pitt County where they used the Pitt County, North Carolina and the state of Texas what I don't think any of us intend to do here is to have that listed on here as some sort of go around to prevent people from financially being able to have a shooting range so out of curiosity because I don't know off the top of my head what sort of financial burden is a liability like that placing onto homeowners insurance do we know that's the idea I'd have to do some more research because you know if it's going to add $500 a month to people's insurance bills then you know that's an issue so I think we need to have the answer to that question before we can really put any specific number on there okay I'd like to say that I really appreciate how and respectfully people spoke it was just really beautiful to watch the pattern of how everybody waited for someone else to go it was just so I feel that we have been so respected and our community has been so respectful and I'm so grateful for that I have learned more this evening than I've ever known before and I feel I need more time to ingest what I've learned but I know that we're not making an ultimate decision this evening I think and I don't know enough to really be saying this but I want to kind of toy with it out there that it's true that we can't really be looking at this it does have to be more backyardy we need to make sure that we're understanding financial costs for people respect people's rights to I do believe that there's a way to formulate a situation that feels as respectful as this felt and I do think that we need a working group and a way to start to have these bigger conversations that has a house even if it's not a regular one at least I can start with I don't know I just want to say I do appreciate all of the comments a couple things I learned tonight that are actually things I need to learn more about is posting rules are those state mandated or are those the town ordinance or no trespassing state I kind of thought it was and the unique thing about what we're doing here has not done any place else in the state so we don't have a local reference or any state ordinance or state statute to go by I think at this point the other thing I don't know some of the other material we received indicated and there were a couple comments here as well that a voluntary form sounds like would be more palatable to many it but again I don't know if you just get the well behaved people at that point so I'm stirring that around in my head Max? the NRA range manual is not the right manual for shooting range guidelines then we need to find out what the right guidelines or standards should be for Essex I don't know what that would be at this time but if the idea is not to make it prohibitive to have anyone allowed to have a shooting range and if that NRA manual would drive that then that's not acceptable so to try to define what the right standards or guidelines are for Essex I think we gotta figure that out I don't know where so Chief Gary made a suggestion of a possible committee that would help define those standards or guidelines so that those would be the enforcement as opposed to the NRA as a possibility is that something that is palatable to everyone as long as it's palatable to the attorney for liability it gives you the same if we define those standards we are liable for those standards and so I think it goes against what we said earlier what if the standards developed were derived from the NRA manual we're still picking and choosing what the rules are and so we've made a judgment and we're liable for those judgments so it would feel more it would feel stronger for you if we went with a specific guideline like the NRA manual I don't know I'm not convinced we have a path here to do this without taking on some liability I think rather than assuming that that's a real liability issue I think we ought to let the attorney not know but say if we did get a citizen group together to define that and then replace NRA range manual for, you know, Essex range manual is that a liability issue if it is that's a problem if it's not then maybe we have a path so what I'd like to do at this point in time is review very quickly the notification form and get the sense of the board about various parts of it so that we can give direction to the staff as to what to do next the top the top portion property address owner parcel ID and date range was established is that something folks are okay with? okay types of firearms to be used is that something you want? I personally don't feel it's necessary I think that the knowledge that the range is there is enough in my opinion you don't have to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down you're not ready to make that I really want to think okay thanks I appreciate that no problem that's always an option Andy I appreciate she's Gary's comments about about the having a historical record of use especially the one thing that might be missing here we should possibly have different questions based on whether it's prior to 2006 or after 2006 that the range was established to understand what rules apply so I think my understanding of the 2006 thing is that the range that the use of a range the way a range was used prior to 2006 we have we can't make any changes to that correct right and so I think if we don't know what that use was we don't know how we're constrained or if we are constrained and so I struggle with including and I struggle with not including because of that case but used to use their range for citing in their rifle and then somebody else buys the property and they start using automatic weapons on that property that's a significant change but I don't know what we can do about it anyway so we're not intending to make any changes to how anybody uses their their any range so I have talked myself out of the value of having that part in that part are you saying that just having the date the range was established was sufficient I think at this point yes I'll think about it more though okay, thanks I think in this version that's not necessary to have that type of firearms at this point I don't want it to appear like it's a gun registry that's not the purpose and it could be misinterpreted as such so I'd say for this version we could omit it okay so intended use of the range that's important who was the I agree okay so Pat Max Annie do you want to continue thinking about that yeah I I'm not super in favor of having that there but we're not voting at the moment right I feel good that we're not voting at the moment this is something you want to keep oh I'm sorry Andy what are your thoughts about I'm on the fence on that one that's fine and expected days of the week and hours to be used Annie sorry for squeaking I think that these are going to be public record right I think that's a little awkward like Patrick said we have an ordinance already I do think that living next to someone that's four hours and it's loud and it's whatever you got a neighbor whose dog is barking incessantly like I don't know I fear that if that's part of it that people will be mad that you're doing it outside of those I don't mind that we're asking it I think it's fine that we're asking what do you think you're going to be doing with it if it's not outside the laws then I don't want people to be like hey it says right here you're only going to use it but I do understand why we'd ask it so I stuck with the squeak what do you think about that one I mean to be honest I don't think it's necessary in there to have an ordinance already in place and it's just if someone wants to fill this out I mean they could easily put down everyone who turns in this form could easily put down from sunrise to sunset seven days a week just to avoid misrepresenting themselves on the form restricting it or this clearly isn't meant to do but I think that it's already in place it's just another unnecessary part of the form okay Max? I'd say we don't need it we have the ordinance out there or that says what hunting discharge of firearms can be I think we'll just we're okay by going with that it plays into this 2006 question again as to historical usage depends on how important we think and knowing what happened before and after that so you want to think about a little more or ask more questions about it I think if you go with it without it on this version we can see how much of an issue that May 22nd 2006 issue is and there may need to be a form you know 1.2 or something this is the first pass I think we can do without it okay how about the site plan requirements any issues, questions, changes you want to recommend to staff on this section I'd like to add a section on terrain just indicate what you have on your property I'm struggling with how we're going to use it because you know I think if we're trying to avoid all liability we're just going to say is the form complete or not and I know I fully understand that it seems like it should be good information to have but if nobody's going to make a judgment call based on what's on that map then what's the what's the sense but I thought we were discussing the possibility of either a citizen group determining this if that's the path we go then there's maybe somebody who's going to look at it but so you're okay with this as long as there's someone vetting it no I'm not I'm okay with it as long as it doesn't give it attach any liability to the town okay unless we're willing to take that liability on okay Max or Andy or Pat or Annie on the site plan requirements I mean I feel that that does go towards public safety knowing what it looks like you know where it's facing you know it's just relevant information to have if that's our goal here which I think it is yeah I think you could find a red flag if you saw that there was a house shooting range here and another house over here that's getting in line the cone of fire that's something you'd want to see even if we don't use all that information right away you may want to be able to go back and reference it so I think it's important was Eric Bailey like I'm hearing Eric Bailey was in the orange shirt I'm hearing the gentleman describe what he's shooting into it like if nothing else this conversation helps those of us that don't do this understand what that looks like and what's safe and what isn't so yeah I would like to know the terrain and stuff if for no other reason then I can appreciate the safety that my neighbor is using for what they're doing answer the question what's going on answer the question homeowner's insurance Pat you already want some more information anybody else want more information about this item or do you feel strongly either way I think it would be good to know understand what the cost would be okay cost to the homeowner assuming we get that information how do we feel about having this requirement on this form we'll have an answer at the next meeting I don't want it to be an inhibitor for people to be able to use the property the way that they've been using it I've got to think about that one are there any other activities that people do on their private property that this town requires them to have insurance does the town require that that's a good point mortgage companies require that kind of stuff I think liability coverage is a personal decision that's what I think Annie it's not on this topic I mean it's on this topic that's specific the only other questions I have for the group are did we use the sense of the board that we want a biannual process you wanted an annual no you wanted one and done biannual some type of frequency because again the community is not static it's growing and if there is a change in development that might impact that that's a good update Annie or Pat I actually kind of like the middle ground idea the full submission form and then every two years if there have been no changes just an affidavit there have been no relevant changes I lean towards the two year affidavit approach myself staff is going to make a recommendation as to a date for this Annie we're doing this in this way and maybe it's already got said if you're selling your home so I think that we need to be notified of change of hands because I want to know that the next person is going to I'm not right I feel strongly that whose hand it's in next if that's what we're looking at if usage also that that is part of the transaction that's a good question Greg or Evan regarding property changing hands when someone comes to the town office to get a deed or a parcel map is this information that would go along with that or is it transferred to the new owner it depends where we store it if it's filed in the land records it would turn up in a property search if it's just listed and contained like a dog license or a liquor license wouldn't not be there if it's kept in the clerk's office if you end up doing that I also think if a new homeowner wants to purchase a property and continue a range I would think that they should be asked to submit their own form it's not part of the deed it won't have any documentation alright and the last part I want to get the sense of the board on is the signature of the board members I am not in favor of having that on this form yeah I mean what do the signatures imply right if the application's coming in the clerk or her designate receives the application confirms that it's complete if a dog license comes in we don't sign off on those we sign off on liquor licenses because those are state mandated and we're serving as the board of liquor control and we have to do that but in that respect it's not the same as liquor licenses I'm concerned about liability for people who are just lay people who do not use weapons and don't know but if we have this committee that you're talking about somebody's going to tell us right and I think if somebody has to approve it it needs to be the select board I think the select board could sign off on that set of standards or guidelines that the committee comes up with I'm saying that they don't need to sign every single application but you're it's six and one half a dozen in the other at the moment I think we have some general questions about liability that would we should pose to our attorney to help us feel better alright so something that's not in the form that I mentioned earlier that I think if we do this we really want to add all of these locations to E911 I don't know do we need to have do we need to ask permission from the property owner to add them to E911 does that need to be a check box or something I don't know how this earlier this afternoon Greg you set us a response from Shannon about how it works and is that a permission based thing that we need to have on this form or I'd have to ask Shannon more about that I'm not sure specifically if it's an opt-in or opt-out I want to make sure that we have a clear path to get everything to get that if we're going to collect this information put it in an E911 so that it's all ranges are easily available by emergency staff okay thank you board does anybody have any further questions comments or recommendations good I will withhold all the ones I have right now are they relevant to what we're doing right now Andy? no I was joking Greg and Evan do you have what you need to proceed with a final amended draft of the ordinance I think so okay thank you for your patience while we went through it line by line I know that's a challenge to sit and listen to alright that's going to be the end of our conversation about the firearms discharge ordinance for the evening thank you members of the audience who stuck through the whole thing that was a lot and we appreciate all of your input and please know that we take this very very seriously as you can see we're deliberating over it we still have more questions I'm sure we'll see you all on July 15th alright next order of business pardon me well we have a consent agenda we're going to item 5e is appointing volunteers to the energy committee we're going to do that after our executive session along with the other appointments we have a consent agenda with a number of items on it would anyone like to move the agenda I move approval of the consent agenda with select board comments and would anyone like to second second okay would anybody like to remove anything from the consent agenda to discuss and vote on separately okay so we're going to keep everything on the agenda any comments questions or observations about the consent agenda Andy a couple of these involve changes in spending I'm just wondering if we should have some sort of discussion with relative to a criteria for what goes into consent and what needs to be discussed in open meeting or are we just going to leave it as a I suppose we could I'd like to have the discussion about how we make that determination well before we have that discussion I don't want to do that now I'm suggesting that at some point we have a discussion about that and I understand I've gotten the answers to my questions on these two one is a grant application that isn't really going to but the other is a safety issue you're hoping that we could at some future date have a discussion about whether something or the standards that we determine allow something to go on consent or we could have the discussion to say that I'm full of baloney and we don't need to have that discussion and I understand that some judgments have been made by staff I certainly don't Jade and respect their judgment I certainly don't want to call you full of baloney because I don't think that's true I am perfectly content to defer to staff's judgment in terms of putting this on the consent agenda but what we could do is ask Greg or Evan to talk about whichever items you had questions about so that we can discuss it in public so that everyone hears what it is that made it to consent Evan in general items on consent are generally supposed to be non-controversial something you've heard before in this particular case in terms of the garage it's a safety issue we've gone out to bid twice I don't think changing it in any way and putting it on the agenda for full discussion was going to change that discussion you've already approved us going forward it's just a matter of the price we've gone through the procedure in terms of other things I think that if it's not substantially different than what we were talking about you know you've got a $100,000 project that comes in at 105 or it comes in at 95 somewhere in that range doesn't change it to us especially when we hear the discussions of what we're trying to do etc but we also knew that tonight we had a very large audience and didn't know how long that was going to go right into this but normally it would also be in the memo and you have the absolute right to pull an item off the consent and have that discussion just fine with us whichever way you choose anything else about the consent agenda or pat left the room but that's okay and for the record we don't think you're full of money alright we have a motion to approve the consent agenda second all those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify by saying aye opposed alright the reading file select the word comments any additional observations Annie do you have anything extra you want to share you're good no you referred earlier to comments you were holding off on so no my head is so full of all the stuff about what people said I'm going to still hold off okay alright well hearing no comments regarding the reading file the last thing on our agenda is to adjourn into executive session to discuss evaluation of public officials do we have executive session language wonderful I move that select board enter into executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointments in accordance with a section 313 a3 and to include the unified manager and the deputy town manager it says and the candidates do you want to do that no that shouldn't be on there sorry unified manager and the deputy manager is there a second second all in favor of entering executive session please signify by saying aye aye all right