 start and wait for him to join us and we're just going to do the minutes first of all so I will call a meeting to order it's just a 701 according to the computer and we do have the minutes some of March 16th 2021 to review and is there a motion to approve? I move we approve them subject to modification second and page one page one the first two motions we usually in fact later on in the on the minutes you'll see that the vote is unanimous but the usually we put in the numbers four zero so we should do that on both of those first two motions page two and page three and page four so hearing no other corrections and all those in favor of approving the minutes of March 16th 2021 with amendments raise your hand one two three that's just what we need so we have approved the minutes it's now time for public comment if anyone in the audience has any public comment on any issue this is the time to do it and Eric is there anyone who indicates there they have comments to make yep I see uh Ryan Allen has his hand raised Ryan I'm thinking want to make a public comment uh one moment I'll connect you to speak welcome Ryan can you hear me all right lovely to the Williston community my name is Ryan Allen and I'm running for the open select board seat that ends in March 2022 while there are many issues I hope to address the wave of hate crimes is the most urgent of them while I'm not a gun expert I have had the pleasure of getting to know you the residents of Williston I believe there are actions the Williston government can take that will not only reduce hate crimes though also increase the quality of life for you the reader please consider reaching out to the town manager and select board the first step is Medicare for all it is inconceivable that your healthcare is dependent on some middleman's whim or if your employer graces you with the service that is guaranteed to most European countries why do we let ourselves be pimped out by a job that only sees you as a means to a profit instead of the infinite human being that you are the second is quickly raising the minimum wage the minimum wage is a national security issue here in Vermont I propose 15 hours now 17 hours on 20 the 25th of august 2021 $20 an hour on the 25th of october 2021 and then dollar increases each year until 2025 when we will then increase with inflation if congress will not give you a living wage then you must remind your local government that without you it cannot survive you must remind the Williston government that it depends on you to survive with your tax dollars without a living wage you and your local government will not survive universal income distribution of $500 each month to as many people as we can the experiment in Stockton California has shown us that the $500 payments help bolster the economy imagine the positive impacts on your community number four freeze evictions until the first of january 2024 the pandemic has been hard on everyone in your community I know that you care deeply about your community and the people in it this is a chance for you to help give peace of mind to your loved ones and the fifth step is the schedule all drugs open safety injection sites by one june 2021 and offer state tested drugs by one july 2021 while this is a short timeline I know that you know that the war on drugs has failed you know that addiction no longer is seen as a criminal offense though a medical issue you know that it is impossible for kids to get regulated and taxed alcohol without help from someone who's 21 or older or has a fake ID why do you let unregulated substances continue to be distributed in your community why do you let funds go to the illicit market where they don't help your community why do you let your community members suffer from addiction when you know that they could be as infinite as you with love and support why do you continue to let your community be oppressed by the war on drugs I am an imperfect person though I believe in you and your power to better your community please join me in protecting your community with wisdom justice and love please join me in bettering your community I believe in you with great privilege comes the greatest of responsibilities thank you thank you Ryan anyone else who wishes to speak actually I don't see anyone at this time Terry Eric I know Gordon just texted me that he's having trouble logging on and that his screen is saying waiting for host I don't know if that means anything yeah I just I just sent him the link again I wonder Gordon if you can hear me I'm not sure what's going on I don't see you in the waiting room just yet we had two different sites to log on to tonight one for the executive session as well one for the general session the issue well we can we do have the next issue is one that we do have a rather extensive memo from Matt and so I think we'll go on to that and then hopefully Gordon can join us and listen to the rest of the the things that Matt has for us looks like Matt is here so hi thank you I'll work with Gordon he just sent the other message so okay here this out so Matt Balange our director of planning that's here to talk about the sewer allocation ordinance and attachment a that we do each year about this time so Matt the floor is yours thank you and I'm looking at my document while I'm speaking to you my apologies for it being 11 pages long tried to get a fair amount of information in there and hopefully I can go through it fairly quickly and and turn over to questions and clarifications so what I've prepared for the select board tonight is the proposed attachment a to the town sewer allocation ordinance this is the attachment that would be effective for fiscal year 2022 beginning on July 1 of this year the sewer allocation ordinance specifies that the select board will consider this attachment and adopt one for each fiscal year identifying amounts of sewer treatment capacity that will be allocated to various types of uses within the town as well as the establishment of a emergency reserve and so in in order to have a discussion about what that allocation should be for the upcoming fiscal year what the planning staff has traditionally prepared and is prepared in this case is an accounting of current flows through the system a committed capacity that's not yet online the reserve amount and a recommended allocation of sewer capacity to various use categories as specified in the sewer allocation ordinance so I'll I'll get right into it with a discussion of the number that I'm proposing to use for available capacity this year so fiscal year 2022 represents the final year of a five year cycle in which the town has been purchasing an additional 10 000 gallons per day of capacity each year from the village of s-exjunction so the total amount of capacity reserved at the s-exjunction plant for the town of williston is one million and 80 000 gallons per day capacity there's no additional purchase currently agreed to or planned so this this would be a static number for the time being and it is the number that we'll use in beginning our calculation for fiscal 22 um there is a connection between what is done in sewer capacity and sewer allocation tonight and residential growth management allocation a component of willis in subdivision review process and without getting too verbose about it essentially in the town plan it states that the select board will um agree to or or establish under the zoning bylaw a certain amount of residential capacity to be built on average number of units of per year over a 10-year period and will allocate the necessary sewer capacity to support that amount of growth so there's a connection between the two residential growth management allocation which we do every year in march with the drb is also about trying to achieve some concurrence between the provision of other town services such as emergency services schools infrastructure et cetera et cetera as well as sewer but there is a connection between sewer allocation and growth management allocation in that the sewer allocation recommendation that i give every year in attachment a is based on an understanding of of what may come to the town in terms of new residential growth through the upcoming fiscal year i already mentioned the the cycle of capacity acquisition we we've had several rounds of purchase from s-exjunction over the years a very large purchase of 200 000 gallons per day capacity over 10 years ago a round of 10 000 gallon per day per year purchases totaling 50 000 gallons and then the round that's concluding with f y 22 for another 50 000 and again total a million and 80 gallons per day of capacity so to understand how much total capacity is available for allocation and then make a decision on how much of that to to make available for the upcoming fiscal year we look at that total amount of capacity and we subtract the amount of capacity the town has sold and committed to provide that's currently being used and there's some graphs i'll talk about in a minute about current use there's also a small amount of capacity that the town sold to users in the past that's not yet online and those users pay a holding fee to hold that capacity until they they put it to use that number has generally gotten a little bit smaller over the years as as folks holding capacity have have put it to use but there are some new gallons per day capacity added to that for pending projects like the northridge subdivision for example has purchased some capacity that they will use in the permitting of the houses in that project probably fairly soon and then there's the reserve calculated at seven percent of the total capacity available for the town at the plant and that was as recommended by aldrich and elliott our consultants on overall sewer planting back in 2017 so thinking about existing flow i've provided you with a chart and i don't know eric if you want me to screen share i can do that i'm just going to talk over the these two graphs in the memo for a second i gave you permission that if uh if you want to the the visuals might be helpful for for folks watching at home too sure so um i promise i won't linger on this too long the first chart on the top of the sheet is a comparison between uh the daily average flow for every fiscal year from 1992 through calendar year 12 or sorry calendar year 1992 through calendar year 2020 and the gray line that begins a little bit in there is a five-year rolling average so typically the select board has used either the average daily flow for the most recent calendar year or the five-year rolling average as the amount calculated for calculating what's going through the system now you can see that for this year despite a decrease from calendar 2019 which i'll talk a little bit about in a second the average daily flow does still exceed the five-year moving average and i'm recommending using that number to calculate what's going through the system at this time a little later i'll talk about why my guess is that black line is going to hop back up in 2021 but i wanted to talk a little bit about you know why that why those flows change and and why they haven't changed all that much we've had some success over the years repairing infiltration into the system sewer systems leak in not out we have had widespread adoption of water conserving fixtures and you can really see that in that the line that was increasing quite steadily from the mid 90s through 2005 has somewhat leveled off since then despite a really significant amount of development taking place and connecting to the system from 2005 through present so water conservation efforts and repairs to the system reflected in that that increase being so much less over the last 15 years or so but i wanted to talk a little bit about you know how variable this can be just based on rainfall and i wanted to note that we had six and a half inches less of rain fewer six and a half fewer inches in calendar 2020 than we did in calendar 2019 and an economic downturn of course related to COVID-19 and and probably both of those things play into that reduction in flow but the second chart that i'm sharing with you is i graphed the percentage departure from the five-year average for rainfall against the percentage departure from five-year average for sewer flow and this is this is not a rigorous statistical analysis it's just comparing those those two deviations across the same time scale and you do see some correlation that you know when it's a when it's a wet year we see somewhat higher flows and when it's a when it's a dry year we tend to see somewhat lower flows i attempted this with rooms meals and alcohol receipts i didn't get a chart that showed a strong correlation so i i didn't include it and you know that i'm doing at that point i'm doing dollars to gallons and trying to take a guess on that but i but i do think the economy has has something to do with this in terms of you know water and water usage and wastewater production but you know rain continues to have an impact on on what we see year to year and you know of course as we go you know continuing to add users to the system i would anticipate that we would you know continue to see increased demand so last year uh dry year an economic downturn um but a lot of people staying at home and you know using using water and sewer at home too which may have padded that a little bit you may recall that when i was giving this report last year we were at 705,000 gallons per day average daily flow for calendar 2019 um that was a high number um and it was a number that exceeded the the yearly um the the rolling five-year average and we had been exceeding the rolling five-year average for some time and that when that number was 705,000 gallons the answer to that question can we keep selling sewer capacity for the next 20 years uh in the same way that we've been selling it for the last 10 the answer was no um if we keep selling it at this rate we'll we'll run out before 20 years is over um this year with this somewhat lower flow the answer is yes you could keep selling it for the next 20 years like you've been selling it for the last um 10 because we're we saw that reduction in usage um and I just for the fun of it um turned that into years um so the capacity you know if we were to keep using sewer capacity and adding new use of sewer capacity to the system uh as we have been for the last 10 years we would be able to do that for the next uh 23 years so sewer sewer capacity my opinion is remains the greatest constraint on growth in the long term in Williston um and there are some things that I've identified in the memo that over time the select board may want to think about um may want to think about as a component of the 2025 comprehensive plan in terms of you know as that as that supply continues to dwindle uh what does the board want to do about it um you know thinking about some buildout scenarios for the town and for its growth center thinking about whether uh if there is additional capacity available to purchase does the select board want to do that um and I think finally maybe a little bit of a longer look longer outlook prioritization of the areas of town and types of users that the select board might want to prioritize or de-prioritize uh to spend its limited sewer capacity on the achievement of stated town goals so you know when we get into the into the categories we have a set aside for affordable housing we have a set aside for residential commercial industrial etc and we may want to start having a conversation about cutting that a little finer there's there's industrial that uses almost no sewer capacity and creates lots of jobs and there's industrial that uses lots of sewer capacity and and creates very few jobs um for example if that was the goal um there's there's residential capacity that creates affordable housing and there's residential capacity that that does not so I think having that conversation every single year doesn't probably make as much sense as having it as part of a comprehensive planning effort um but I would highlight that as a as something something to come and um just I know I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the Taft Corners form-based code project tonight but I will say that you know we've identified this with the consultant team as well as when you're thinking about your your sort of grand vision for Taft Corners you're thinking about what the infrastructure can support what the economy can support what the economy might demand and then you of course you're thinking about how much of that vision do you have the sewer capacity to serve or are you exceeding it so we're we're aware of that limitation so then within the allocation memo I provide the select board with I'm going to share this again as well a history of how many gallons per day capacity have been placed in the various categories under the ordinance over the last 10 years um this is this is mostly just to take a look at um where we where we've been um and you know what those what those mean numbers are and as much as anything to show that there's there's some difference over the years in terms of what the select board's placed in the various categories um it has in total increased a little bit um the reserve allocation has increased over the years simply because that the total amount of capacity has increased we've we've been at 7% for a long time um and then going to my next table much much smaller numbers reflecting what has actually been sold by the town in each of these years going back to fiscal 20 so um some things about this as I said uh what what is actually sold every year is quite a lot smaller generally than what is allocated um some categories are utilized closer to their total allocation every year than others um in in years when the residential market is fairly high um residential new residential allocation is often all purchased for example in in years when there's a large commercial or industrial user that comes in you might see a bigger number there but you know in general the mean we're looking at here is you know around 12 and a half thousand gallons per day capacity sold by the town each year but fluctuating from as as little as just over 3 000 gallons per day capacity to as to as much as 20 23 almost 24 000 gallons just depends on what's coming online and so you know when you see those larger numbers in the recommended attachment a for fy 22 in part that's why we we know there's a history of of putting a fairly large cushion in those numbers um and generally not coming all the way up to the limit in every category every year it's very much like budgeting so then um in terms of the recommendations that I've prepared for the board to consider tonight many of them are identical to recommendations I've made in the past and or adopted sewer allocation amounts I did want to share this for a minute and just talk a little bit about the predictions on um residential new residential and the reason I wanted to do that is um I I have a little more in there this year than has been adopted in the past and that is partially just a some a little bit of a reduction in the number of one bedroom units although I've still been pretty generous there recommending a total of under 12 000 gallons per day in this category I don't actually think we'll see quite this much build in that the one residential subdivision that's in progress right now is northridge and they've already purchased a quite a bit of their capacity but catamount golf and the micho subdivision next door to it 60 units under growth management in catamount and 20 allocated for micho some of that might come online or be permitted before the end of fy 22 so I did want to make that recommendation um someone might be asking but what about the growth center what about taff quarters as far as we see it right now cottonwood crossing has purchased all the allocation they need for their for their current residential path finny crossing is is all done with um residential and has been for a little while um so that's kind of that's kind of where we are we we may have some other residential projects in the pipeline eventually in the growth center but nothing went through growth management this year nothing went through pre application in 2020 so um we're we're likely not going to see much happening there these will be units that mostly are constructed in the rzd similarly a little bit of a different breakdown for possible affordable housing allocation this year and I am recommending continuing to place some capacity in this category affordable housing is identified as a component of both residential subdivisions that were proposed under growth management and pre application in uh 2020 and again in march at growth management so both catamount golf and micho'd have affordable components uh including some 80 percent median or below units proposed in catamount golf so the the sort of affordable housing we talk about is being fairly difficult to achieve in town um so I would recommend having some capacity in that category in order to um support that uh encouraging specific development is another one it's it's the same recommendation it's been for many years at 10 000 gallons per day my main reason for that is just because um that is the category where if somebody wants to purchase allocation from there they need to return to the select board and ask for it we don't know of anybody in the pipeline right now who would be doing that um we don't know of any large users of wastewater capacity in the commercial or industrial pipelines where I would suggest either increasing those categories or planning for it to come out of this category so I would just leave it at 10 000 and again with reserve we're talking about seven percent of a million eighty seventy five thousand six hundred gallons per day and then we have a few other categories that I've kind of glossed over tonight because they're the same as they've been for for a number of years um pollution abatement and new industrial so in this table that I'm sharing now this is the historic allocations um and also the proposal for fiscal 22 so again 7500 just like last year for new commercial industrial a little bit more in new residential reflecting um some larger units that have been permitted over the last year uh same number 1500 for residential additions and minor subdivisions that it's our history has been this is more than supported um people who add a bedroom or um an accessory dwelling unit 4750 for affordable housing it's slightly different from the number last year just because it's reflecting a little bit of a different bedroom count based on my best prediction of what we might see 1500 in pollution abatement 10 000 and encourage specific development so that's a total allocation of 36 900 gallons that would be available for purchase out of the system add in the 75600 gallon reserve and you're at a total allocation under attachment a of 112 500 and I'm sure uh someone on the board will tell me if I've done my arithmetic incorrectly and then that person knows who they are um and then I just had prepared a a um you know a motion to approve that um and happy to answer any questions so any questions from the board for uh for Matt if I can just share with the board um Goren sends his apologies to the board in the audience suite because some technical things going on that we can't get them connected yet we're not sure we'll be able to have them connected tonight hopefully he'll he'll make it at some point in time but uh well we do have the quorum so we'll keep on going so uh questions from Matt on his presentation Ted or Terry? Pardon me? I said I wanted if Ted or Terry wanted to go first I do not want to dominate but have a feeling I will I'm not a good politician but okay um and um so Matt you know same as as every year good job I like that uh new analysis you put in I didn't quite get it at first but you explained it well you know figure two uh um yeah I think there is there is a correlation there um so my one comment my one major comment is going to be about what to use for the existing flow and you made a point uh in this document that um 2000 calendar year 2020 might have been an anomaly due to several factors including COVID and it was a very dry year I guess my point is um given that it was an anomaly why would we use that flow figure versus the previous year which very well might be a better indication of what we'll see in um 20 calendar year 2021 so that's probably my main um which ends up making our um making our making the calculated uh reserve capacity a little bit smaller I a little bit more conservative and that usually for me works things being a little bit more conservative uh just one um do you mind if I point out what I think might have been some minor errors yes go before it yeah I wanted to get you these these to you before but that just didn't happen I apologize I'm looking under the um uh capacity committed but not yet online and I'm seeing a small discrepancy what's in the text versus what's in the table and that yes um enough said yeah I I believe the table number is correct Jeff yeah and it's minor it's just now there's always a little bit of a little bit of juggling to to make that calculation yeah I will double check that yeah actually I I'm going to take it back about I have another major comment which is um I'm on the part where you're talking about um potential strategies and I actually wonder if we have uh another potential strategy that we really ought to be looking at and that is um you know it's unlikely we'll ever be able to get a new treatment plant in terms of one that is uh discharges to surface water because of the whole Lake Champlain TMDL issue but we might be able to get permitted um smaller but uh wastewater facilities that discharge uh to a a leach field type system uh also known as an indirect type system and a couple scenarios in which that could happen is let's say we get a small housing development that comes to us and they might say we will build our own on-site community type disposal system as opposed to connecting to the municipal sewer system um I don't know if there's some legal obstacles to that happen because they would be in the sewer service area but there's an avenue that that could happen another option being where the town itself develops a um onsite not onsite I'm sorry that's the wrong word but a community type disposal system where a portion of what used to go to our pump station and pumped over to Essex instead goes to this system and I could easily see where a system along that line could you know be permitted in the 50 to maybe 75,000 gallons per day range so we do have some options I think in addition to what's listed here um and in fact I mean who knows how accurate I would I am but they might be as as um as likely as as the ones that are listed here as fruitful maybe that's a better way to put it I think the build out analysis is is is something we really ought to do along with our planning that I guess is going on with Tritown about how Tritown wants to change or continue with the current allocation between the two three communities that are part of it okay um moving on to page um oh I'm sorry one other minor mistake I'm on page um mistake miscalculation page 10 table five if I add up the number of units I end up with 45 not 35 uh I saw that too but I thought because of the one better immune units those are only half uh counters half are they correct and that is correct but that's accounted for when it when it it's um the 30 dwelling units equivalent it's 45 the total yeah very minor no I I got it it should be 45 dwellings and it's 30 du e yeah and it when I go through this information I kind of have to go through it with a kind of a fine tooth comb to make sure I'm really understanding the numbers and where they fall out and then you know it's the same as every year this is a very robust uh system for calculating um what should be an attachment a but I always wonder when I look at a number like in this case I'm going to focus on the 36,900 as the total new allocations not including the reserves and knowing that our our planning window is is only going to get shorter you know from 20 years before we run out of capacity uh at at the sx treatment plant um 20 years might sound like a lot of time but in terms of wastewater um it isn't um we'll be there quickly and it's kind of like that concept with you know things like global warming is if we keep on putting it off we're just bigging ourselves into a deeper grave and I kind of have that same feeling about sewer allocation we really need to be putting in place now whatever measures are necessary for when we come to that day where we no longer have capacity at sx and that that's it great um if if folks want I can try to address those those two broad brush comments and then go from there yeah go ahead um so the first question was you know why why use the average daily flow um from from the last calendar year rather than the higher number from the previous one um I can give you a two-part answer uh the first part is in the last many years this is the way we've done it um so I went I went for consistency but the second part of the answer is it really doesn't matter that much except the math is different and and reflects conservatism around I think the coming constraint and um I honestly was very close to recommending that and decided that I would leave it this way and let the let the board discuss that a little bit um you know we can we can start with whatever number we want um that we're going to subtract from the total plant capacity and at the end we can divide by 20 or you know we could divide by 25 or whatever um and while there still is quite a bit of headroom it's it's kind of a theoretical conversation it's it's really just providing the board with some perspective about how much of that capacity that's remaining to sell to users does the select board want to put out on the table for the upcoming fiscal year so you know another another analytical tool that I think would help this conversation is is to talk a little more about the build out and the end game of sewer at Essex um vis-a-vis Williston's growth and start thinking about what are the other pieces of information that the board would like to have or that the staff thinks the board ought to have to make some informed decisions about what to do with the capacity that's remaining um Jeff to your specific point um exploring allowing um a user in the sewer service area to provide their own septic system um that is accommodated in our zoning bylaw um at this time the way that works is if somebody physically cannot or feasibly cannot connect to the town system they can ask public works for permission to build a private system um we have a commercial redevelopment the house that's next to a brian store on williston road is coming before the drb to become a dentist's office with an accessory dwelling unit above it um they are proposing a ground discharge you know mound septic system or in ground system um there's sewer right there in uh south brown l north brown l road um but in south brown l it's a force main and in north brown l to get to it you'd have to go through the gas station property so the applicant made their case to public works it's really not feasible for us to connect um there is there is no gravity line in williston road headed down towards industrial it doesn't exist um there's there's no sewer down that way um so our zoning says at that point yes somebody can do that um why might you not want somebody to do that well what's the old saying about septic systems they start failing from the day you you start using them you know they they they all will will fail or need significant maintenance eventually um and you can end up with an entity that's too big to fail and the only the only uh entity big enough to save them is is the town so you know we we set aside some capacity every year when we do long-term sewer use studies um we are always talking about what are the what are the big shared systems especially residential shared systems out there that might eventually come looking for treatment from the town and how much how much of that um you know remaining capacity should the town plan to have available for those failures should the town become the the viable option for someone like that and you know folks here have been here for um you know when meadow ridge had the need to connect and and that sort of thing so there's a balance sheet right of of the risk that you take when you start allowing that um and you probably wouldn't want to risk so much of that that you that you couldn't um fulfill some significant portion of it because then you you know you really have a problem um so you know I think I think that's the other side of that um in terms of the town exploring its own options around treatment um I think the town should explore that at least have some general answers in terms of what's feasible what's permissible and and what costs might look like um you know it's really fun to go back and read taft corners history like I do and have the pyramid mall in 1973 saying oh wastewater don't worry we'll we'll pump it up north of industrial ab somewhere there's lots of sand up there I mean that was that was literally one of the the other was aerial spraying of sewerage on the forest uh behind what became hurricane lane uh which is kind of an interesting disposal method um grows big trees um so you know I think in a in at least an informal way getting some technical assistance over the next five or 10 years that question of you know I don't think you should open up examining sewer again without asking that question like what happens when we do reach the end and if there is another purchase of capacity available at ASICS there's still there's still an end um you know beyond that um I do hope that what we do around the taft corners growth center will give us a fairly refined picture of how much sewer capacity is needed to support varying levels of a of a buildout scenario um I think it's very important to make informed land use decisions based on what's what's feasible in terms of that you know what I view again is the you know the number one constraint um and we can look at you know build actually build out outside of the growth center is a little bit easier to figure out um but as you know if you talk to our public works director I don't know that we want to see a whole lot more breweries in the industrial district either uh or other you know high you know high strength waste producers um things that things that might produce um challenges that way yeah okay yeah I had always been under the assumption that um there is more when when um Willis when this the sewer system sewer service area builds out there's always going to be more sewage generated by that buildout than there is capacity but maybe that's changed that may not be that may not be true anymore maybe not as true as it was once to the degree it was before so I like the idea of doing a buildout scenario from sewer needs perspective and other perspectives too yeah yeah okay all right good thank you anything else for over matt tonight unless I uh unless I hear differently uh the there's no recommendations from the board to change anything in the uh attachment a uh no I I'm I'm happy with it to go to public um comment like this matt I'm sorry one question has a d or b seen this um we usually show it to the planning commission planning commission sorry planning that's why we've talked we've talked about these um these numbers and general concepts with the planning commission um I'll actually be be showing them this memo a little later but um you know the other the other thing to remember is that um the the main thrust from the planning commission is that we keep this in accordance with the town plan and the growth residential growth limits outlined there okay so I've been looking for a motion then to uh or a public hearing there is a proposed motion I've moved to schedule a public hearing to receive comments on the proposed attachment a of the sewer sewer allocation ordinance for fiscal year 2022 is there a second there we have a second is there any discussion on the motion if not all those in favor of the motion raise your hand one two three so we've done it thank you matt then we'll continue on then with you with the forum based code project update before we get to that mr chairman does anybody remember the 1980s when killington was thinking of using uh wastewater to make no oh yeah the bumper sticker was killington where the affluent meet the affluent yes uh we could have had that in willistan I had no idea I remember it well so matt you're on uh great so um the the memo I've provided for this this portion of my visit with the board is a update on the process of the taff corners growth center forum based code project and I've provided a brief project timeline this project really really began uh with the beginning of fiscal year 21 that was the year that the select board voted to begin the funding on this we are in partnership with the chitinam county regional planning commission on this project and we have a significant amount of the funding for this project coming through federal transportation dollars which is which is terrific even even before recent events that have released a lot more federal transportation dollars into the wild um so uh this project will take place through um all of calendar 21 and probably into the beginning of calendar 22 at this point um we've we've been through a request for proposals and hiring of our consultant team um and really since about Thanksgiving until um our March 25th kickoff meeting what our consultant team was doing was meeting in in both groups and individual interviews with town boards volunteers uh owners and stakeholders in the growth center and other other interested parties that that sort of have a you know unique perspective one way or another on on the growth center um and and in the in the couple months leading up to March 25th the staff effort other than coordinating with rpc and the consultant team has been to promote that kickoff meeting in the upcoming process that's uh forthcoming as we as we continue with the project so what I've outlined for the board is is the highlights in the memo um of that promotional effort the my taft corners dot com website uh article in the observer advertising the kickoff meeting um we employed a bunch of our volunteer board members as our street team to go out and get posters up uh around town uh some of them some of them had some very insightful walking around taft corners experiences um you know this wow I tried to walk from you know this place to that place and that was really interesting or there was a sidewalk gap there you know it's it's it's really different when you go out um on the ground um we've also scheduled some of those volunteer board members you may have noticed in front porch forum these my taft corners story posts so we've we've we've deputized our members to really try to try to write some words about their their personal vision and hopes and dreams for taft corners and share those in a way that would hopefully uh spur a conversation and we are seeing responses to those come up on front porch forum um it was quite active in both front porch forum releases for williston today um as well as the last few days um so we're going to be continuing that we've been out on um town meeting tv with the what's up williston program eric eric was kind enough to interview me for that um and we've also done some announcements on the fire station message message board uh the town library was talking little flyers about the program into their book packages that they were providing uh to to library patrons for for pickup um and on and on um you know really trying to get people uh to join this process and you know i think driven driven by a genuine desire that the vision that comes back to you the select board and ultimately the land use code that comes back to you fulfilling that vision is something you can be confident um has been has been really put before the people of the town for for vigorous input and participation and that's that's really our goal here um one of the things that i'm really excited about in regards to this project is that we're starting with that open visioning conversation and we're with with one staff team and one consultant team and one ccr pc team we're taking it all the way to adoptable regulatory language um in most communities and certainly in williston um what often happened around taft corners or these growth center type areas is there's a there's a visioning session and then maybe some of it makes it into the municipal plan and then eventually maybe some of the municipal plan makes it into the zoning bylaw that's that's a typical path this kind of wraps up the the preliminary public engagement in the in the same package as the ultimate um land use code and you know that's important because that that form-based code is is going to be asking quite a bit from the development community and from the town um and you really want to be able to say yeah that's that's what people really meant um when they said they wanted you know this building feature or that site layout etc um you know that's that's really important from the staff level of when we sit down with you know an architect or a developer or an engineer and say no you know you got to move the building over five feet and here's why um we we want to be able to say that we're truly representing uh a broad-based participation by the people of the town so in that kickoff meeting uh some of you i know we're in attendance thank you for for doing that um you you got kind of a form-based code 101 and a williston form-based code process 101 for me uh we had some some pretty fun public participation i might screen share a little of that in a minute and then at the end a call to action to return to that mytalfcorners.com website um and there are two options for engagement there you can do one both uh one is a map of the growth center area and folks have been very generous dropping comments on that map and i'd love to see more it's really fun to to read through that and the other is what's called a visual preference survey so here's five pictures of buildings or streetscapes which one do you like the best and also some some opportunity to editorialize at the end of that so those will be up and available through nearly the end of april at least through uh probably friday the 23rd and we'll keep pushing people to go and check those out and participate in them you can return to either especially the map over and over again as you as you get ideas and and want to add things to it and where we're headed is a week-long workshop with the consultant team publicly accessible to take all of that comment and interest and hold a virtual open studio event so in in non-covid times we would have the consultant team and the staff in a big room together with big sheets of paper and you know citizens would be coming in with post-it notes and saying you know i like this i don't like that why are you drawing that that way etc we'll be doing that virtually a similar map-based interaction here live meetings and check-ins throughout the week that's april 24th all the way through may 3rd i have a meeting coming up this week with the consultant team and regional planning commission to flesh out the details on that so that we can promote if there's any particular times um or or inflection points throughout that week that we really want to try to get people there we'll do that um another thing that my office does every year is we hand out the green-up day bags um green-up day is may 1st uh we're going to be down onsite uh in taft corners probably in the empty field at finney crossing next to union bank handing out bags uh we're hoping to have k9 duke come down for a visit maybe um and also you know continuing to solicit input about taft corners right right there standing in taft corners um and hopefully promoting the the tail end of the vision exercise that runs through may 3rd so that's where we're headed um the the vision plan that is developed out of that week is what will be shown to the planning commission and to you folks okay we heard everything the citizens had to say we've taken into consideration everything we think we can that we know about taft corners the economy the infrastructure the street layout the topography the natural resources everything we know and then we've illustrated it um you know in 3d 10 years out 20 years out what's this place going to look like what's it going to feel like and it and that's a question back to you and to the community um did the team get it right are there adjustments that need to be made well well now that you show it to me like that i'm not so sure how i feel about that element of it or i like that i wish there was more of that um that's part of that cycling back of not just take the public's words and then the public doesn't see it again until there's building going up three years from now take the public words illustrate them did we get it right when the answer is yes then move forward and start developing the actual land use code which is also illustrated so again there's an opportunity to visualize what's happening did we get it right um i really my main goal in this process is that when this comes to you as a bylaw amendment um you've got some confidence that everybody was heard and and that it was a well informed process so that's the goal that's the timeline vision plan over the summer several rounds back and forth on regulatory language over the fall and early winter um maybe in front of the board uh january february of 22 to start thinking about adoption okay thank you matt questions comments for matt the the meeting that we had a couple of weeks ago was well attended and i thought well done um i listened in and i tried not to comment to put my comments forth because i'll be looking at it when it comes comes back to us but any any other questions or comments oops to the part where the select board wasn't supposed to comment we could but i just you know i i appreciate um input from anybody and you know i've i've said this before too to you know when our as our planning commission has sort of said well you know what's my role in this i said well you're a planning commission member but you're also a citizen and you know you've had a front row seat to a lot of what goes into a project like this over a lot of years and i would never want somebody with a with a qualified opinion like that to feel like they had to completely sit out it's you know it's your town you live here um you experience it as a public um official but you certainly also experience it as a resident and the other piece is sometimes your um you're the recipient of people's comments you know i certainly get plenty of people saying you know tell me what they like what they don't like and and it's both it's not just you know one or the you know complaints or accolades it's it's a combination yeah and and it can change depending on venue so what somebody wants to tell you in the grocery store they might not say in a big meeting and um you know this is one of those things where i appreciate the flow of conversation on front porch forum because it's it's people talking about this project in a in a forum that i'm not managing you know i'm not at the front of the room running the show um and it's you know we are um in in all cases so with comment and i guess i should say this is a housekeeping item if you do receive an email that you feel you want to pass on um to the staff we're tabulating all of the written and as best we can spoken comments and questions and concerns we're getting and just try to keep that together in chronological order um and we'll be eventually converting that into an FAQ and getting it out on the website um you know that today there's a vigorous conversation about drive-throughs happening um why have them why don't have them should we have them should we not have them um we'll we'll catalog all of that and um you know at a minimum raise it with the consultant team that there's there's conversation about it we we kind of predicted there would be um and that's that's one of many many issues um that we'll be talking about with them okay good thank you matt we appreciate the the update and um we'll hear a lot more about this as we go along great thanks thanks so much for having me tonight thank you good job so next on the agenda is the select board vacancy update and i'll ask eric to just start us off on that and then i have a few comments and we can discuss this a little further sure thanks terry um we received 11 applications for interest in the appointment to the select board since then we've had one person withdraw their their application so the board has before it's 10 folks who are interested in serving in the appointment until town meeting day 2022 i will share i had a number of conversations with members of the community the last couple weeks some who applied some didn't um just we had some good conversations about town management town governance and everything in between so um unless there's a lot of interest in the dialogue around around the something on the board good thank you eric so a couple weeks ago we discussed this as to whether or not we might have a subcommittee of the the board a couple of people that would be willing to sit down or view the applications um and perhaps make some recommendations as to who might go forward and who might not and so i think that's going to be one of the things we need to discuss and decide upon tonight and if we do then i think uh or whether we do or we don't whether we don't we need to establish some kind of criteria to um on which to base the uh our decisions to either um have people interviewed or not and i was thinking um similar to what we did for uh hiring the town manager was to put out a some kind of a proposal to the people who um end up being interviewed as a type of a problem solving type of um a single one page that people would fill out in prior to hire um our deliberations with them and then what's the timing uh on all of this so i'll leave you with those things to think about do we wish to have a subcommittee i think it's so there are 11 people now 10 10 i still think that's too many people for us to interview all 10 um and given that if well i i so i i guess i'd be leaning toward a subcommittee jeff how about you um i'm okay with the idea of a subcommittee i i i wouldn't say i read through the applications to the degree that i i i need to and will do but i did read through them and um i think the difficulty is going to be is we we got 10 good applications um i i'm not really looking at it like it's evident to me it's going to be easy to you know there might be a couple where i'm immediately like you know they they missed the point or you know they um i i don't have a good example of what i mean you know but where they i'm just like yeah i i'm not feeling like um we should go further with this candidate so that's going to be the difficulty with the subcommittee and well that you have to come out with one person exactly and there's going to be nine disappointed people indeed yeah right so um i would also agree that a subcommittee would be appropriate the so sounds like we have consensus on that question is who are the two that are going to be on that subcommittee gordon isn't able to be on tonight to um defend himself don't miss meetings by the way he texted me uh and said that he's continued to try and he's not going to be able to he's not going to be successful so his technology has failed him the way we we go we need more broadband so and hopefully we'll be getting that next year or so um so yes the subcommittee um the the question is who uh i'd be happy to volunteer along with someone else to to uh to do this if anyone wishes to do to be part of that jeff if you want to do it i will defer to you if you don't want to do it i will volunteer and if we both want to do it the same degree we can do rock scissors paper it it might be do the same degree i i'm sure i'm feeling the same as everyone just overtapped right now um with with responsibilities going on but i do want to help and this is important so are you saying you want to do it yeah i'll agree to do it okay sorry it took me a long time to get there didn't yeah ted would you rather do it i'd be happy to step aside i i think the chair would be a the correct choice for it um okay uh and so it'll be the two of us uh jeff and myself the criteria um i wonder if we should uh during the course of the rest of the week come up with criteria that we think are good and then funnel them into um eric's office uh and see if we can come up with some consistent criteria to evaluate the the uh candidates on yeah i think i would i'm all i'm in favor of that but i think we should leave it so that it is the subcommittee uh terry and jeff who decide what their criteria for their yeah is going to be otherwise um i think we run into some logistical issues but um i also for that matter i was thinking i'm probably gonna uh weigh in with each of you as to people i think might want to make the final cut but i will defer to the subcommittee um but i think in terms of criteria it should be uh guidance and not mandatory yes okay and one question about the guidance uh slash criteria is i realize we're we don't have a lot of time so that that might be a key factor here but would it make sense and eric this might fall on you so um just to put a a posting in front porch forum about what criteria would people like us to use that's not a bad idea actually um given that it is generally an elected position again keeping in mind that it would be it would be you know recommended criteria yes thank you you know to qualify that eric seeing how that might fall on you what are your thoughts i'm happy to do some public outreach on it this week for the board um so it sounds like i'll last the community what recommended criteria they would suggest that the board used to evaluate the applications for appointing the okay board member yeah okay and and hopefully the participants your attendees uh listening tonight you know if they have opinions way in well means sure and um so um also think about a and i invite eric to think about a question that we would ask all of the at the candidates that that are going to go forward to um to answer before the uh the time that we have interviews with them and timing i guess that's the big question is can we get all just done in two weeks to interview people at the next uh select board meeting jeff you're gonna i would think this take um two or three hours uh of us getting once we once we take a look at them ourselves and form some kind of opinion and have a discussion with the two of us yep yeah um i'm less i'm i'm less worried about the time it takes us to do it than i am the quality of what we do so if we can't get this done by the 20th um i mean i don't see why we can't but that's just you would need to get it done um a half a week at least a half a week earlier than that to notify that we're going to be that's a good point right there if we we'll see what we can do between ourselves and if we can't do it on the uh at the next meeting we'll do it the following meeting okay sounds good okay i think we're good tonight on this one and we can move on then to the black lives matter flag display protocol and um i know that we uh that pat brown would like to speak uh on this matter and i'm not sure if anybody else wishes to as well or i think kind of i see pat pat i'll get you connected right now just a moment am i good yes you are okay great how you all doing tonight busy you guys are busy yes we are i'm i'm part of the group that forwarded the request back last fall um and i wanted to do a couple things one is i want to i think i sent you all emails i want to you know recognize the approval of the flag um i know i've talked to a lot of people in my circle but i'll say beyond my circle who have had pride in our town because we are displaying the black lives matter flag um i also want to thank you for creating the racial equity partnership and having that as part of how we're going to move forward as a town um i know that some of you may all maybe all of you had heard about some of the unintended impact upon towns folks as uh as the flag was removed because of the situation of putting the flag to half staff so i'm not going to dwell on that but i know that every time i do something i always have this question my mind is like what's the impact going to be on people so i think probably you all have looked at that and learned a lesson about that which i think is really really good and i really want to uh acknowledge that you took that at at hand and communicated with the public and said this is what we did and why we did it and this is sort of the reality of the situation and and in my in my perspective apologize for for what happened with the flag um i think that there's probably a reasonable solution that you all need to figure out um because the half staff i mean it's gone to half staff because of murders across the country twice in the last what five weeks um so i there's probably two things i'll throw out there and then let's get underneath the business one is um i know the flag is supposed to come down June 21st and i also know you may have conversations before then about extending it um but i guess i would sort of throw out there if if the flag has been down and there's been no town recognition that black lives matter for a number of days either way can we add those days on to the June 31st date you all set last time and i think the other thing would be that you know sometimes the solution may be the simplest one if the flag has to come down because you don't want it to touch the ground maybe a simple um uh lawn sign like you see sort of around another plate um i've got one in my front yard putting it by the flagpole when you have to take the flag down would be a quick and easy way to solve it it's a lot less expensive than putting a new flagpole in and expenses are always an issue and uh and i'll i'll sort of leave it right there so i think those last two things is extending the time and trying to find a simple quick solution um given the timeline that we have and and trying to recognize that black lives matter thank you pat um and tonight we're trying i think we're going to try to rectify the problem that we have with the flag on the on the ground when it's at half mast uh and i guess the question is is a sign uh appropriate and if it is there's it need to be same size as the the flag is right now um and um if we were to use a smaller flag on the flagpole would that be a problem with the the community because we're not recognizing it as as an equal size but anyway um we have a motion proposed tonight to give us some leeway as to what we can do and get some input on uh what we would consider uh what would be a good solution for the the problem okay thank you so um members of the board what are your thoughts you have i hope you've seen the memo or the memo that was put together um by uh eric in our agenda and also there's an emotion a motion proposed to hopefully to take care of our problem okay um well before we discuss the the motion um a question i have is um does the black lives matter flag have to only be raised on the flag that's used for the american flag in the state of vermont flag uh stated a little bit differently is could it have its own flagpole either permanently and then you won't get into the issue of this conflict between what needs to happen with the american flag and the state of vermont flag versus the black lives flag matters or maybe on a temporary basis there's some sort of a temporary way in which it could be continued to be raised high in evident um for that short time in relatively short time in which the american flag and the state of vermont flag need to be at half mask now that might fall into uh as determined by staff in circumstances when it is necessary to remove the black lives flag from the flagpole in which those uh this um us and the state of vermont flag are flowing on so we have at least two different reasons to remove the flag because of the half mask and that's when presidential proclamation or a gubernatorial proclamation to fly at half mask yeah sort of lump those two together yeah and well so we know that the 19th of the month i've probably i'll look the next several months anyway that the governor will mandate that uh who knows what's going to happen in this country and too many shootings have occurred in the last few weeks and i would not be surprised that we'll have more to raise a new another flagpole would be a relatively large expense i think and i'm not sure that would solve the problem i guess there's another question of should we put a another a smaller flagpole on the town hall building which i'm not sure will do what might be intended to do that it's sort of another flag another place to display a flag rather than along with the other flags from the town so i don't have a good answer but other questions yeah i'm i'm thinking it would be a good thing to lean toward a combination of a sign when the flag is at half mask and the black lives matter flag can't be appropriately displayed and extending the time that the flag would be up for at least the number of days that it can't be displayed because of because of the half mask situation and possibly longer than that but i think those two things would be a good way to good way to start i think that's my thought so we're going to have a discussion about extending the time for displaying of the the flag either in the late may or early june at that time i think that would be appropriate time to take into consideration the number of days that the flag was not displayed and perhaps extended it beyond that but we'll have that discussion later on so are we ready for emotion to make sure i understand is the concept is is up until we make a decision later on about extending the black lives matter flag being flown um to rely on staff to determine what's the best way to continue to fly that flag when the other two flags need to be at half mask is that correct that would be the motion and they would staff would hopefully get information from the partnership as well as those others okay i'm not going to object to that motion my preference would be we do find a way to accommodate flying the black lives flag matter because i think there is significance to that concept of flying the black lives matter flag so i hope whatever mechanism comes up it's it's in that spirit you know that fly um uh you know wave it high wave it uh so everybody can see it um and then when it comes time for us to make a decision um about extending it it might be time to revisit that could well be okay so if you're willing i'd be willing to entertain a motion i'd move that an alternative method of displaying the black lives matter flag message is determined as determined by staff in circumstances when it is necessary to remove the black lives matter flag from the town paul flagpole due to a proclamation for flags to be lowered to half mask zero second i'll second that is there any more discussion on the motion yes or not although it's in favor of the motion raise your hand one two three thank you so we're uh have taken care of that issue we're up to dog license late season eric going to talk a little bit about that wait can we ever shift gears quickly here a variety on the board's agendas yeah pull up my notes on this one here so this is uh um just kind of a point of order for the board to consider dog licenses are typically due April 1st and after that a late fee of four six dollars is applied after that deadline last year the legislature passed act 92 to allow towns to extend any deadline that applies to the town itself extend or waive any deadline to a licensed program permit or plan issues anything of these items expire during the current state of emergency they automatically remain in effect for 90 days after the end of the emergency um means that dog license that expired on April 1st of last year or later continues to stay in effect until 90 days after the state of emergency ends so the select board has the authority also to waive late fees for dog licenses our suggestion from staff is to waive these late fees but not extend the deadline past the 90 days following the end of the state of emergency we're not exactly sure when that will end but some items the board has to consider regarding dog licenses this year so the motion that you're proposing is to extend the uh the dog registration weight fees so that we will not collect them just this whole uh year until next march in the next march yep that's a suggestion Terry to just kind of get open for for this year and just encourage folks to license their dogs when the state of emergency ends and that that's certainly a big uh a big thing that we need to have the dog's license so that we don't have to worry about rabies control and um for sure so we wouldn't want to um put us something in the way of people licensing their dogs other other comments questions based on that Terry I mean is is there the proposed motion is for extending it to march 31st 2022 um yet wondering if that if that should be shortened or if it can be shortened I wonder if it should reflect what's in the discussion above which is 90 days past the state of emergency certainly that's an option yeah yeah it does it does have a um uh it does have a health consequence that's the reason the doctor licensed is is the rabies issue yeah yes right um certainly up to up to the board to make that termination uh I if we extended it just be on it for the 90 days beyond the um the uh emergency order um we can revisit it I think at that time as well okay and to be clear we're talking about the the late fee not the we're not waving right yeah just feet yep so what's what's your pleasure for emotion I would move to wave dog registration late fee for the license year uh for a period of time to extend 90 days past the end of the governor's declaration of emergent the pandemic emergency is your second I'll second so any discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor of the motion raise your hand we have three so good thank you that uh take care of that we're then up to the um manager's office staff position title update Eric yep so I'm looking to start recruitment for filling the staff position in the manager's office in the coming month I've been working with staff to look at the job description we had for the assistant to the town manager position a position I filled here a couple years ago um I've reviewed it and made a couple changes um with staff and we're looking um operationally to fill more of the human resources tasks with with this position and as part of that work um asking the board to consider changing the title of the position to human resources coordinator and assistant to the town manager um to reflect the responsibilities and qualifications for this role um this position would receive supervision from myself and also surely going to lack here human resources director and as part of our qualifications we look for someone with with some experience um professionally with with human resources and then this type of dual role is one that a number of communities use I filled a dual role under under this title in another community a few years back myself I I see it as a way to um look to bolster our human resources um operations with with some more staff dedication and and also use time to to assist me in some manager's office operations as well. Questions for Eric to hope there is a chance to read the job description I did the the only I think the job description reads well from my perspective the only question I had is I don't know the town's pay grade whatever schedule system well enough to know whether I agree that this should be the the pay grade that it's indicated at if that's appropriate or not to me the human resources aspect of it knowing um what I knowing what the people I work with in the agency I work for their human resources capabilities that's a pretty that's a they're pretty capable people um so this person is going to have to be a pretty capable person is the pay grade appropriate for the capability this person will need to bring what we'll need to have. Yeah um I left the grades the same as it was when I filled the role a couple years ago and I came to the role with some with a human resource experience background similar um what we will do before we finalize this is just to be sure run it through our our our pay grade analysis system um my with the changes we made my my expectations it's not going to shift it one way or another but just to be sure staff will analyze that to make sure before we post it. Okay good good enough you know the other piece of it is we want to make sure we get good candidates applying. Yeah. If there's no further questions or comments uh a motion has been proposed. I'd move to change the title of the assistant to the manager position to human resources coordinator and assistant to the manager. Zero second. One second. Sorry for the discussion on the motion. If not all those in favor of the motion raise your hand and we have three so very good thank you and we're up to manager's report Eric. All right had a a number of items in my written report for you this meeting and I'll highlight a just a few here um I wanted to follow up on federal COVID aid for local governments. The rule the rulemaking for this for the American rescue plan is underway in Congress and my understanding is the Treasury was given 60 days after adoption to make the rules and what I'm hearing this week are going to take the full 60 days so we can probably expect around May 11th that we'll have the rules for how we'll be able to spend these funds. But additional good news to share. I reported last meeting we expected a million dollar allocation directly but Vermont being a state with county governments without a strong form county governments the eight dollars that would go to counties are being allocated on a per capita basis to municipalities as well. So one one I haven't had an official number I'll practice this for for the board and folks watching at home but the one estimate from from a partner organization has Williston's allocation up to approximately 2.8 million when you factor in the direct aid to counties so I'm kind of waiting to see the official number but pretty pretty good indication it's going to be more than a million and wow yeah so this is a significance aid to the community and you know the understanding is that there's going to be a lot of rules with this but one of them will be allowance for capital projects for water sewer and maybe some telecommunication infrastructure as well so I've asked staff to already start coming up with some project ideas and once we know the rules my plan would be to bring the board some projects and recommendations from staff to consider with how this this money may be spent but you know we're not going to have to spend it right away either there's going to be a I think a three-year timeline of some of this money so I'd have time to make some evaluations and decisions there. Okay nothing more to yep did you have a comment Jeff? No just very good news yeah yeah uh other thing update the board on the brooch and airports installing a noise monitoring system it's part of a sound mitigation program I think we had discussed this last summer a bit so uh one of the three noise monitoring stations is going to come to Williston the FAA consultant that's working on this reached out to us and they're working with public work to try to find a suitable location for it it does need to fall within a certain noise contour in the western side of town so we're trying to see if one of our pump stations might might accommodate that within within that restriction so that's forthcoming. One other thing I wanted to share I've had some communications with with folks in the southern part of town regarding broadband access and I know this has been a discussion at at the state level with some eight dollars as well but one thing I'm looking into the house past age 360 currently in the senate that will create additional funding and supportive opportunities for communication union districts and these seem to be a tool to to unlock additional resources and funding that the state has provided in the past that they require at least two municipalities to function as a government entity to bond together for building communication infrastructure and service to the delivery wasn't a funding by grants gifts loans to be backed by revenues derived from the operation on the cd or the cd itself so I'm in the early stages of looking at this what what I'm finding is it's really looking at a critical mass of potential users for this and it can you need at least two municipalities and as you think about putting some infrastructure in you would look at road connections and other connections to put the infrastructure in amongst these towns and what the critical mass is for users to support such a system so I've reached out to a couple neighboring towns that start to get the sense of what they're looking at and as I gather more information that this becomes something for wilson to consider I can I can bring back to the board for for their discussion so Eric I when I read this I guess I didn't pick up on this is the concept would be that this cud would basically be like a municipal broadband service provider yeah it's it would be its own government so there's a number of these that have been established around the state and by the by having this own government itself it unlocks the opportunity for technical assistance and eight dollars that's flowing from a state level to go to this this entity but um you know I'm not sure if it's the right structure for wilson to be a part of but it looks like it warrants some further investigation to to see okay that's cool and one other thing that the legislature the senate has passed s25 related to retail cannabis sales and a provision in that bill would automatically opt in and municipality to the retail cannabis marketplace after march h 8th 2023 which is following town meeting if a vote did not occur before then to the side so the board discussed this and the planning commission is looking at retail cannabis in the bylaws so I just bring this up with the board want to offer any opinion on the bill to share their to our delegation as it's making its way to the house and I just want to make sure on this I make sure I'm reading it correctly it's the bill would would say that if any municipality does not choose to vote on this that it automatically is opted in yep that's correct Jeff yeah I just wanted to make sure I I could you could see where they might do the opt out and uh whatever um way of doing it in this case it's automatically opt in you you're automatically in if you do nothing uh in terms of a town why vote okay this has a ways to go home so it's only the senate's past okay all right well good thank you for that clarification yeah so it's uncertain whether this will make it yeah and it looks like if I could read the body language there very uncertain yeah it is in the house so if the town want to take a position on this week we could send a message to our delegation okay um the the other piece is Kathy DeLuca stepped down from the library board of trustees she was elected to that position at town meeting and then she said to go she's a step down so the select will need to appoint someone to fill that seat until the next election for the charter and so would Terry about this last week and staff will advertise the field thing okay that process so that's all I have um in my uh written report this evening to share thank you sir so before we go on to a possible executive session is there any other business that we needed to chat about tonight if not then um there are a couple of motions uh proposed to get us into executive session well I'm sorry hold on I'd move that the board enter into executive session and find that premature general public knowledge of the union contract negotiations strategy would clearly place a select board at a substantial disadvantage I'd further move that we enter to discuss the union contract negotiations under title one section three one three a one a one a of Vermont statutes annotated and invite town manager Eric Wells and finance director Shirley Goodall Lackey and fire chief Aaron Collette to join zero second I forget sorry discussion on the motion if not all those in favor of the motion raise your hand and we have three so we will be in executive session as soon as we can be with getting in our into a different location I'll come up and get you set up Terry and town meeting tv I know you usually ask about we won't be coming back after a second of session no right all right see you in a little bit