 I see we have the trustees here, we have our staff here. So I will go ahead and call the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees meeting to order for Tuesday, January 12th. Thank you all for being here. Do we have any agenda additions or changes tonight? Consider approval of fiscal year 2020 fund balance assignments. I believe Sarah's gonna cover that. Discussion possible action to extend the economic development tax and discussion of possible action and expansion of sidewalk plowing, dirt COVID and the pandemic. And then something for the reading file. Your letter, Andrew, to the select board. To like 5G and 5H are not additions. They're just being bumped down so that Sarah can kind of keep her things together on the agenda. Oh, it's all for Sarah. That's okay. Thanks. It was just, I was thinking if we could, if you inserted it there, she could not potentially have to stay the whole evening. Mr. President, those are the changes and additions. Are there any others from trustees just to propose? All right. Hearing none, would anybody like to make a motion to approve the agenda? So we approve the agenda amended. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, George. Any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Pass unanimously. Thank you. And this will bring us to the portion of the meeting of public to be heard. So during this, during this time, this is when if there is an item that someone from the public wishes to speak to the board about, now will be the time to do so. We will make sure to take about a 30 second pause so that people will have plenty of time to either raise their hand or to type into the chat feature that you would like to speak. And for those who are watching through YouTube that they can have a chance to catch up. So again, we'll take a brief pause. And if you'd like to chat or like to talk with the board, please raise your hands or type your name into the chat that you would like to speak. And again, on items that are not on the agenda. I didn't look at the clock when I said I would take 30 seconds, but that feels about 30 seconds. So we'll go ahead and call that as 30 seconds. Nobody has raised their hand. Nobody has typed into the chat. Nobody spoke up. So we will go ahead and move past public to be heard and begin with business item five A to consider approval the Champlain Valley Expo Sound Identification Agreement. And in addition to our staff, I see we have Tim Shea, the Executive Director of CVE here with us. So thank you for being here. Good evening. Yeah. Good evening, Tim. You know, as in your packet is the agreement. I believe it's a renewal from the one that we had before. I don't believe there's really any changes to the contract and other than dates. And maybe Tim, you can tell the board how you tended, how you do sound and checks and things like that for the events at the CVE when you're allowed to have an event. Yes. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and for putting this on the agenda. So we monitor the events that weren't being monitored, we do. We bring in a third-party sound engineer that really works for the village and we reimburse, but he's been at these meetings before. And for concerts are the German car show we host in the summer, a number of the events we host during the fair, we monitor the sound to make sure we're living within the guidelines established in this document. And those reports are first submitted to, I think, Robin and Evan. And they're also available for the public to view too, which I think they have in the past. So the model, the system seems to work well and I appreciate the support of the trustees. Timmy, can you scroll down a little bit? Thank you. So, Mr. President and the board, we have enjoyed a really productive and collegial relationship with the CVE, especially under Tim's leadership. From time to time, there are events that seem loud or they're very crowded, that was back, maybe pre-COVID, but all in all, we get a list of events. We work with Tim and his staff, we do the monitoring. He's very good about doing the notifications that he's supposed to do. And we work with him and his organization. And I'll be happy to answer any questions or comments about this agreement. I just realized I've been muted. How long have you been speaking? Oh, just the past hour. So the only question I had, and then I'll turn it over to Amber, is I see that we have this sound indemnification agreement to end in 2023, but the financial agreement ends in 2022 wondering if there is any concern from CVE or from the village about having those two align and so instead of having the sound indemnification end in 2023, just pulling it back a year to have them both align with the time periods. I'm comfortable that they're not aligned. It's a pleasure of the trustees, but they don't need to be aligned for each document to perform its role. Okay. Amber and then Raj. Hey, Sam. Can you speak to why you adjusted the time period, the term on the contract this time around? Yeah, good question. Up until last year, it was always been, and Robin's on the line, he can clarify too, it's been a three or five year agreement. It was just last year we did a one year agreement. And I don't recall the reasoning there because it really hasn't changed much at all. And of course the trustees always have the ability to reach out to us if something's not working, you know, the mid contract there, but I think more of an administrative piece there is just to give it, you know, selfishly it's easier at three years is something you don't need to worry about every other year. But I almost certainly, it was a five year agreement in years past. I know that there was some concern from some neighbors. Okay. Right around that time. And so that may have explained. But from an administrative perspective, I appreciate the longer agreements. Again, too, it just keeps stuff off your agenda, knowing we can always revisit if needed. Roch, go ahead. So I'm along the same lines and in wondering about that and I'm thinking in terms of should things pass in March and we start aligning ordinances and looking at ordinances again if we have a transitional board, if we're moving through that, I'm just trying to figure out the timing. I started to try to figure it out earlier this week and then I had to stop. But so I wondered if maybe a one year would align better with what may be potentially coming with ordinance work we're doing and any kind of, you know, should merger pass. I would give that. That's my only, I don't have an answer to that. I'm just wondering what the trustees think and if that really matters. I don't necessarily have a problem with doing two years, you know, but it just seems like with what's coming potentially maybe a shorter one makes sense. But this has been a weird year. We didn't have really any opportunities, sadly, to have any noise from the fair. Let's see, Amber, I think you had yours up first and then George. Let George go and then I'll circle back. Fine by me, if you're good with it. Thank you, Amber. Well, I had was thinking along the same lines as Raj, but I was coming at it a different way. I was thinking I would like to see this not have to come back if merger is successful, one less thing on the on the plate, I think it would be a good thing, not a bad thing. I can't, this is a lot of work. It would be a lot of work for people who are not used to collaborating with CVE and working with CVE to get their hands around this. And it's not really necessary. I think we've structured really, you know, we've learned this is an evolving process and we've learned over many years and Tim knows this. I think we've fine tuned the noise ordinance now in the contract with you. And this is a sort of a warrior contract that's had a lot of bullets and it's stood the test of time. And I can't see trying to renegotiate it all. I think there'll be so many other things if merger does go through, there'd be other things. And I think this would do, I'd be comfortable having this just stay as it is and not have to be something that's renegotiated right away. So I would hope, I'm assuming that a contract like this and our ordinances would continue post merger. I don't have a sense that any of that stuff just dissolves. I think contracts continue and they would be renegotiated at the end of their natural life. Maybe Evan, can you speak to that? That is how I read it that existing contracts will be honored by the new entity. So you are welcome to extend this to a different termination date if you wish and help the future board keep a few other things off its docket. I mean, I was only thinking in terms of if the new community wanted to revisit their noise ordinances in general, how that would go back and forth with this contract, not so much coming at this from limiting CVE or anything like that as opposed to just making contracts that push into that period of time, I guess was where I was thinking. So not in an effort to sort of tie the hands of CVE in our relationship with them, but more just to align otherwise, right? I don't have a strong feeling about it. I just wanted to think about it a lot with you. So I know that Amber had wanted to circle back around. I'm okay. Okay. Dan, you had yours and Evan. Ordinance for noise and if the merger passes, how that may impact this. But the way I look at it just as it is with any law as state of Vermont, once it's passed, you can't, something that's already been established is grandfathered in, anything new, just regulations with land development and code. The existing code only impacts new development. If you had a prior structure that exists there, it may be a violation of the current code, but as soon as you go to renew something or go for another permit, then it's under subject to the new regulations. And that's why I like this would be. And I don't foresee it being a problem to extend it for whatever period of time we want it. Evan, was your hand, you had your hand up and now it's gone. I did, I turned it. Totally fine with the time like, totally fine with what's on paper. I just wanted to see what people thought. So the only thing I wanted to add into it is if we play the merger timeline out in a, in the most expedited of scenarios, merger passes this March, this upcoming March, legislature theoretically could approve it before they adjourn in May or June of this year. At that point in time, we still have a year of the interim governing body. So that would then put us out into 2022, mid year of 2022, before we actually have a merged entity. In the most delayed of circumstances, legislature doesn't address it or pass it by the end of their session in 2021, which means it would happen in 2022. You then add another year of an interim governing body on top of that. And we find our way midway into 2023 before we actually have a merged community. So from, from just that sense, I think that if we keep it as it is, it helps to make sure that this doesn't get lost in that transition period and that the focus can be on other things. That's my two cents. George, why don't you go ahead? Yeah, thanks. I'm thinking on my feet here. So just something else occurred to me, but I, and I agreed with what you just said, Andrew. The other thing is I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a wild guess, Tim, but it probably financially hasn't been the best year. And the coming year probably isn't looking like looking, looking like one of your best years. And we can, I'd like to hear about that in a moment when we get through this business. But I think it would also be helpful to you, I'm gonna guess to have everything as stable and predictable as possible. So I, you know, I would say it's, I'm fine having this just go to 2023 as, you know, as written on paper right here, but I wouldn't wanna try to adjust it down, try to, try to make it lessness because I think we'd like to make sure that you have some predictability going in. Cause I know you, you know, booking groups and so forth is important and you need to do that ahead of time. So you wanna make sure you have some predictability about, you know, what, what kind of regulations you're gonna, are gonna be binding on you. So before we have Tim go into, go into that, if you don't mind, are there any other questions with the, the agreements? Or do we feel ready to vote on the agreement? So what we can do in Tim, if you're okay with this, if you don't mind hanging around for a few moments after we vote on the, the agreement, then just have a bit of a general conversation about CV if that works for you. Tim, would that work? Yes, it does, yep. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I don't wanna assume anything. Yep. Amber, go ahead. Are you gonna open it up for public comment before we vote? Probably should. Thank you for the reminder. Yep. So at that, on that notes, if anybody from the public has a question or a comment with regard to the sound indemnification agreement with the Champlain Valley Expo, now is the time to let me know that you wish to speak and the way in which you can do that if you're using Microsoft Teams is to raise your hand or you can type into the chat feature that you would like to speak. And we will go ahead and please keep in mind as well that this is a, it's not a back and forth. Please, what your comments are, please state your comments in full. That way everybody can have one opportunity to talk. And before you start Andrew, if you have one person on the phone, don't know if he or she wants to speak. I think it's a gentleman. So for those who have called in as well, there will definitely be an opportunity as well. I see there's one hand up after that hand is taken care of, then I'll ask for those on the phone. So Annie Cooper, I see your hand is up. Why don't you go ahead? Hi. I'd just like to thank Tim Shea for working with us without and about in Essex this year. He was just a pleasure and a so professional and so thoughtful and I really enjoyed working with Tim and I really admire the way you guys are discussing this, the long range idea and the understanding of the pandemic and I really appreciate and value the depth that you are having this discussion with and I just wanted to thank you all. And anybody on the phone? Feel free to go ahead and start talking, okay? I will take the silence as no comment. I see no other hands raised. There's no other chat in the chat feature. So we will go ahead and move this back to the board. So board members, any other questions before we vote? And if not, then someone can go ahead and make a motion. I mean, I'll move that trustees approve the Champlain Valley Expo Sound Identification Agreement as amended to expire December 31st, 2023. Second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, Dan. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, so that's passed unanimously, thank you. And so Tim as well, thank you for being here. Do want to hear a little bit about how as George was mentioning, how CDE is doing. Certainly, as Annie had mentioned, appreciate the work and the cooperation that you've still been able to provide this year, given what I understand to be a fairly difficult year for CDE. And one question in particular, I'm curious, is CDE going to be eligible for what I think I saw of a special carve out of funding for event venues and what I assume expels like yourself? Yeah, we're working on that right now. There's a criteria, pretty strict criteria where 70% of your revenues need to come from certain sources, ticket revenue, et cetera. So we're trying to, we're working closely to see what we can do to meet that criteria. In fact, the SBA has a webinar on Thursday going over the due, to define the criteria to see if we can qualify. So it's something we're certainly looking at. We were able to take advantage of some of the state's economic recovery grants, which helped us in 2020. And then looking forward to 2021 and beyond, it became apparent when we canceled the fair, laid off our 75% of our staff in June, and they'd yet to return, that we tried to piece together 2020. And we were able to do that with, we had some events in the first quarter. And then we did the food events and a couple of things here and there. And we still did our winter storage. So we drastically reduced our capital spending. We stopped it in March. We deferred our, we sold a loan balance with Northfield savings about a million six. We deferred that for six months. We're paying that, we're back on paying that and Northfield have been tremendous partners to work with. The long and short of it, we were able to piece together 2020. And our concern now is 21 and beyond, because right now we're not anticipating any events here of significance. I'll talk about vaccines later. Those are certainly significant, but not from a financial perspective. Any events here until the 21 fair, if that occurs. We've already had a big RV rally in October canceled just last week, which surprised us because we've already, you know, first quarter of the Yankee Sportsman, the farmer show, those were canceled for some time, the quilt show in June's canceled. But the October one surprises, especially when RV show, because you're in your own camper, you're outside. But again, it's a lot of senior citizens traveling from all around the country, so they've canceled. So our focus now is 21 and beyond. Right now we're budgeting a million dollar loss in 2021. That's with a fair, but no events till that, until then. And then what does 22 look like? Do we get back into some form of normalcy? You know, I think we can weather that loss. We'd have to go back, I suspect, to our lender at some point in time. And it's gonna come up to also, I think, does the community value CVE? Does the community, cause we can get some, I think some additional federal funds here and there, but not enough to solve that number there. So it's been interesting, it's been difficult. I'm pleased and every resident of Essex, should be very proud of the role CVE has played. Think about it, since we got that call in March at the hospital needing the standup testing right away. They call us on a Friday. And on that Monday, they're testing, we did 13,000 tests here from March through August and they relocated the Fannie Allen, only because they knew they needed a more permanent structure for weather, et cetera. Then we had the Surge Hospital last spring. We did three or four food distribution events here. We had three or four high school graduations. And now the Surge Hospital is back and now we're doing vaccines. And today, I think they did 500 vaccines in our millers south, building 500. And they wanna ramp that up provided the inventory is there. So you talk about the role CVE plays in the community. Again, every Essex resident should be proud to have this in your backyard because where else would this have occurred, these activities, if not for CVE? And it brings me back, how does the community value CVE? So we're gonna need some help moving forward here. I think we have a path forward. We're hoping the 2021 fair occurs. A lot's gonna depend on what the social distancing rules are or rules guidelines are at that time, as far as capacity, as far as spacing out. And we're in close contact with the state as those hopefully evolve and things loosen up. But they haven't quite yet and we understand fully why. But we need a big runway to get the fair going as far as we start making financial commitments. So those are the things we're kind of working through right now. Thank you, Tim. And along those lines of your story, one of the things that I really appreciate is the video that you all had produced to really help tell that story of the role that CVE has played as. In the community at times, I think some people forget that CVE is more than their Champlain Valley Fair. CVE is a lot more than that. And so I really do appreciate that the video really helps to tell the other side of what CVE does. Yeah, I became a parent this summer with all these things. We were saying that, you know, the phrase call CVE has been a common one amongst people in the front lines of the state addressing the COVID. And we're pleased to have that they call us when they need testing, vaccine, food distribution. They call us because just the way 130 acres of open space with buildings and power and all the infrastructure we have here. And we're happy to play that small role in the state's response. Raj, your hand is up, go ahead. Hey, Tim, I got a couple of quick questions for you. You know, that list is pretty impressive, the community service that CVE has been doing this year especially. And I didn't know if this is gonna sound probably naive, but so I'll admit that up front. But, you know, has the state been able to provide extraordinary support in lieu of that? Be financial? Financial, specifically, yes. I mean, because normally if that had been a private institution coming to you saying we need some space and considering the condition you're in and the benefit you're providing. I mean, has there been some kind of special, and this is, I'm sure happening, I don't know, I would guess this is happening in other public or other nonprofit spaces. I mean, perhaps it's happening in other fairgrounds around the state. I have no idea, but have they been offering or making available any other financial assistance for this? You do get reimbursed for some activities there, but it is a small percentage of what we would normally get for our rental space. And I guess the second question, that's a little disappointing, but the second question is, do you think you're gonna be able to do the drive-in concerts? Is that sort of a wash for you? Certainly it's not filling the grandstand. No, and we donated that space this summer to higher ground just to try to make something work and higher ground is tremendous partners of ours. They won't be doing that again. It was unique for one year, but the model just doesn't work. It's not sustainable. They really tried, but you just can't generate enough revenue to pay the act as well as pay that infrastructure we had. Here, if anyone saw it, that stage in screen was not insignificant from an expense perspective. And that was all borne by higher ground. We just again provided the space. So it was something that they wanted to support local artists and give them a venue to play in, but it was, I don't see a scenario that would return. Thanks. Thank you. Go ahead, George. Tim, you mentioned that, you know, how much the, we're gonna have to consider how much the community values CDE and we do, but I'm sensing that there's probably a little bit more of a substantive question there. And is that something you'd like to discuss tonight or would you like to discuss that at a future meeting or would we wanna, you know, put a little committee together to work with you or just could you just explore that a little bit? Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate that. I think, you know, we'll know more in the coming months what our full 21 is going to look like. A big thing's gonna be what happens with the fair and other events that occur. So I appreciate that opportunity. I think it does warrant a more engaged conversation on that issue specifically, but probably not tonight. And maybe if I brought a couple of board members together and some trustees and had a conversation that'd be beneficial for all. I think that's a good idea. Yeah, that sounds like something that needs to happen, huh? Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. Trustees, anything else? Tim, thank you as always. Really do appreciate it. Thank you for the support. I truly appreciated of the trustees as well as Evan, Robin and the whole staff. They've always been a phone call away on when issues come up and we appreciate that very much. See you Thursday, Tim. Okay, good night. Good night. And so now we will go to business item 5B about considering approval to amend the wastewater facility FY 2021 Capital Plan for Pump Station order control. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for having me on board tonight. Jim. As you recall, you may recall, I brought this up originally during budget day. Historically, the wastewater facility has been doing order control for the three communities that we serve. And we've had a problem kick up in recent years in the service trunk line that services Fort Ethan Allen through Suzy Wilson and West Street just last year during the warmer weather. We, for the first time in decades had complaints in the West Street extension area that prompted us to dig a lot deeper and figure out where the problems were coming from. And with the results of our evaluation, we came up with an alternative method for order control that's cost effective compared to the current chemical and bacteriological methods that we're using. Typically we can pull those two to particular items off the shelf and put them into place. And they work very effectively, but we're not being quite as successful this time around. So we're proposing to put in a mechanical aeration system that will also generate some ozone that will help destroy some of the local odors and provide more capacity for the balance of the chemical treatment that we typically do. So we don't have firm costs on the installation, but we do have costs on the equipment. So the budget is rounded up to $200,000 for over $75,000 worth of just equipment purchase alone. And again, we're using, especially during the summer months, we're using anywhere from 60 to 80 gallons a day of a product that costs about $3 a gallon just for order control. And we have chemical ways to monitor it. And we're finding we still have the odor and we have residual chemical, which clearly indicates the material is not being effective and we have to change gears and do something different. So I guess, are there any questions from the board that I could help answer? I have a couple of questions. One, with this new process, would this then also reduce the amount of chemicals that go into the system as a whole? The chemical we're using for odor control is calcium nitrate. It's basically a liquid fertilizer, but it tricks the pipeline into thinking, the microorganisms into thinking there's oxygen present. So it's not gonna reduce any chemical except for what we apply at that point. So we would expect to see the 60 to 80 gallon per day rate go down to below 20 and the odor control to stop. I mean, the odor complaints to stop at West Street. They've been intermittent. And again, as I presented, we would like to do Susan Wilson Road first to see the downstream benefits at West Street extension and then determine whether we would need to do the West Street extension as well. So again, I can't firmly answer those questions till we get into the heat of the summer, but we will definitely be reducing the chemical demand, the chemical load that we have been putting into the system. Okay, so the ask is to essentially have a set amount of money to try the Susie Wilson Road pump station, see how that works. If that is not solving the problem, then to try with the West Street extension pump station and see if that solves the problem. Correct, it'll be a phased approach. Take care of Susie Wilson first because that will reduce the chemical load on West Street while also eliminating the ambient odor problems that we've had there. Then we can then monitor the discharge on West Street, which is the pipe itself actually daylights on South Hill. And that has created some odor situations down through South Hill and the neighborhood there leading down into the wastewater facility. We had originally looked at about a year ago doing the odor control just at the wastewater facility, but we were looking at $300,000 to $400,000 for installation as well as operating costs. So we re-evaluated everything to find the least cost alternative, the most effective. And if we had treated just at the wastewater facility for the neighborhood and the park, it wouldn't have addressed the issues that we had come up this summer at West Street extension and Susie Wilson road area. That's going to be my next question is, so it sounds like the concerns of the odors are coming from. Is it just the West Street extension and the Susie Wilson area? Right now, yes, that's service lined. If you think of it, all of those homes pumped through multiple pump stations. So the sewage sits in those pipelines for really long periods of time and that allows it to go septic and without air and it creates these odor compounds that are really, really persistent. And those are from the neighborhoods of like Jackson Heights, the Pine Crest area, the Fort Ethan Allen area, Susie Wilson, all those developments. To a degree, the Pine Crest area flows by gravity into that pump station. In the testing we've done in the field with 24-hour monitors, very clearly indicates that it's coming from the pipeline from Susie Wilson road and then getting worse as it carries through the pipeline that leads to the plant. Trustees, any other questions or any questions? Does it look like there are any questions? Nope. Nope, I appreciate the excellent explanation. Absolutely, it's very helpful. I'm suddenly to make a motion. I will make a motion that the trustees amend the wastewater facility FYE 2021 capital plan for a pump station odor control in the amount of $100,000. Thank you, George, Mr. Thank you, Raj, for the second. Trustees, are you okay if we put the motion on hold? I didn't do, I didn't ask if there's any public input. Oh, sure. So if you don't mind just tailing that for a moment we'll see if there's any public input and I'm back to the motion that is current on the table. So just to reiterate, this is a portion of if anybody has any questions on this to either if you're using Microsoft Teams to raise your hand, type in the chat feature. If you are calling in, please hold on for a moment and I will recognize you at that point in time or at the point in time in which people who are using Teams have said what they wanted to say. And again, everybody will make sure to get one turn. So Ken Cigarello, your hand is up, go ahead. Thank you very much. Simple question from my article. The funds that are being allocated here do they end up in the water bill or are they in the village budget? They're actually in the wastewater facility bill. Thank you. That portion of the bill, excuse me. Thank you. And are there other Teams users? Does not appear as so. So to those calling in, if you would like to, if you have a question, please grab for the board, go ahead and ask your question. Hearing none and seeing no other hands up, nothing in the chat, we will go ahead and move back to the motion that is currently on the table. So the motion has been made, it has been seconded. So trustees, any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Thanks, I'll pass unanimously. Thank you, Jim, as always. Thank you, Jim. Thank you very much. Although in looking at the agenda, I assume you're hanging around for a moment. The next item, five C, the consider authorization of a revised warranty deed of easement on 14, quarter way. Yes, thank you. Going back to the October 13th trustees meeting, there was was an item put on the consent agenda to amend a property easement across 14, quarter Roy Road as requested by the homeowners. This had not been known prior to us doing some stormwater work up there, but there was a notation of a spring easement as in a drinking water spring easement that was probably erroneously recorded. It was probably stormwater or groundwater that had daylighted, but was called a spring within that easement. And the property owners were very concerned about our rights to develop that spring as a drinking water supply. And we have found since there are a couple of other properties that also have this easement wording on it, others have stormwater or drainage notation, not a spring. So in response to this one particular property owners, we agreed to present this to the board via consideration to release this spring easement or relinquish it. We worked with the attorney on this. They developed some wording and we just recently received the easement just a day ago. So we haven't even had a chance to reveal with the property owners. But what we're here to ask you tonight is we've gone through a public notice on this process with no public comment received on it whatsoever. So we seek your approval to authorize release of this spring easement for the property of 14-corderoid row. Trustee, is there any questions? I don't have any questions, it's interesting. Yeah, I've got nothing either. Just, Jim, can you just explain a spring easement? What exactly, I understand what you mean, I understand easement and I understand spring, but what would that allow us to do? What does that mean? What happens because we have that, that we don't want it anymore? Well, I think the concern could be construed to the municipal cell, the development rights for spring water, for bottled water or something like that. We might tap into that and bottle it and start. Or somebody we might pay release that, it's kind of like a mineral right. We could sell it to somebody else. Okay. I'm not sure, all I know is I've never seen that type of wording on anything for storm water or drainage or, but I guess I can understand how it might have been generated by the regional property owner before subdivision in creating that countryside neighborhood. Because if you have groundwater seeps and springs, there's a big change in elevation right in this area. And there's an awful lot of surface water coming in from the Corduroy Road down to the lower area. So I guess I can understand how that wording was chosen, but I've never seen it before. Okay, thanks. All right, trustees. So if there are no other questions, we can turn this back over for public comments. So again, same process. If you're using Teams, please go ahead, raise your hand, type into the chat that you'd like to speak. If you're on the phone, hang on. Once we get through Microsoft Teams, then we'll come over to you. And can I think your hand is still up from previously? Thank you. See no hands, nobody's typing in the chat. So our phone callers, if you'd like to, if they've asked a question on this item, now it's time to do so. Hearing nothing, if a trustee would like to make a motion, feel free. I will make a motion that the trustee signed the attached authorizing resolution and consent of the village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees document, and that the trustees also authorized the unified manager to sign the revised warranty deed of easement once received from the village's attorney. Thank you, George. Thank you, Dan. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? And that passed unanimously. Jim, thank you as always for being here. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the quick action on these two items. Good night, Jim. Enjoy your evening. You too. Thank you. And that brings us to 5D discussion and possible action on a postcard mailer to village residents with regards to the town merger vote information. I'll start this. There was a question as to whether the village board wanted to send out something like a postcard or a mailer to the residents, letting them know that they will be asked to vote again in March, now that the select board last night approved putting the plan of merger on the ballot. As you recall, the citizens of the village voted in November. That was the village portion of the plan of merger vote. This is the town's version of it. And so the village residents get to vote in both but they both count towards approval if it's in the affirmative for the state to take action on the plan of merger. So thank you, Evan. And I can't recall if we had talked about this during our budget meeting or if this was something that Evan, you and I had talked about individually, but regardless, I think this is a smart idea for us to do. I know that there is confusion in our community about within the village, hey, we've already voted on this. Doesn't it mean we've done our part? Doesn't this mean that we either are merged or are not? And so I know that there are residents out there who will be confused as to why they're being asked again to vote on this issue. So for me, I would say the $1,600 for doing this is absolutely money well spent. I would also propose that if the board is okay with it that we not necessarily wordsmith what a postcard would say tonight, but rather if we could agree on what the philosophy or the spirit of a postcard would be, should we go down that route? That then either a trustee or two work with staff on the actual wording, but just to keep us out of wordsmithing during these meetings would be my ask. So with that to start off with, I'm just gonna go and order us to who I think had their hand up first. It looks like Dan and then George and then Raj. Thank you. Last night's select board meeting, this basically the subject came up about reaching out to the public because the inability to get everybody together for town meeting or a public hearing on this matter to discuss the proposed charter. And I believe it was Sharon Zekowski came called in or was on and she commented about instead of sending the entire charter verbatim to every resident or every house in the residents in the community to send out a postcard and explain to people that either they have internet access, they can go online with their options, maybe something simple as opposed to a lengthy document that costs a lot more money. And if they don't have internet access and are unable to access it through the internet or such, then let them know they can call the town offices and obtain a copy of the charter to review it and just basically giving them the information, the opportunity. I thought it was a great idea, save some money as opposed to sending out a huge document. So, Dan, if I can just follow up a little bit. So are you saying you're okay if we send out a postcard and just keep it simple? I think it'd be nice Andrew if it was kind of in sync with what the select board would be doing. We could communicate with them so we're not sending something so different from what they're gonna be presenting to the community. Thank you, Dan. That makes a lot of sense. George, I think you were next. And then Rob. Yeah, I would just agree with Dan's last point. I mean, I'm fine with doing this, but I would just hold off and wait. The select board hasn't quite figured out and they're taking lead on the town charter vote. So I would just wait until they've kind of figured out what they're doing and then coordinate this with them. And I think that's obvious. I probably don't have to say this to everybody, but I just wanted to make clear I support it, but just I would just wait, get in line and sort of figure out an appropriate timing and get the messages straight and integrated with whatever the select board is doing. Thank you, George. And I'll add to that that I have an assumption which Evan, please correct me if my assumption is wrong that the staff who would be helping to work on this postcard may very well be the same staff who are helping with the messaging from the select board in the town as a whole. The very same. Yeah, so some of those synchronizations I think will be there, but definitely in terms of the message and making sure that we're, according to that makes a lot of sense. And Raj. Well, I was going to say, I'm torn. Well, I don't think we need to word Smith, but I think we should probably kind of potentially talk about the type of message we want on the postcard. The town is taking the lead on their on their town charter vote, but I think one of the biggest things we can remind village residents of is, you will be getting a ballot in the mail between the two public meetings it looks like. There's one before the ballot is mailed to them and one after the ballots mail to them. So potentially people are gonna have a ballot in hand before they've attended one of these informational meetings. I think the primary message we need to get out is that, yes, you do in fact vote in this and here's where you can find out more information all the different ways. I think that's it. It's a postcard, you know, but the biggest, most primary message as far as I can imagine is, yeah, yeah, you need to vote one way or the other. You have a say in this too, even if you've already, if you think you've already done it. So again, I think I appreciate that we're not gonna write it tonight, but I would just express that, I think that's the primary message and here's where to find more info period. That makes a lot of sense. I know one of the thoughts that I had is to ensure that the village residents understood that they are town residents and as such do vote in this. I think that's very similar to what you're saying as well as I wanna be clear, we can't tell people how to vote. We can encourage people to vote, but we cannot tell them vote forward against an issue. So that wouldn't be in there. Just rather, this is the question, but here's how, here's where you get more info. So it sounds like the board is good with going forward on that. Are there other thoughts into messaging? Other than what's already been said. Evan, out of curiosity and due diligence, we're sure we have the 1600 in the budget to do this. Yes. Perfect, and that comes out of my dinner font. I'm joking. Yes, I know you are. I don't have a dinner font. Just wanna make sure anybody listening knows that. We have the fonts. Great. So board members. My only comment is I think it's a postcard. We keep it simple. We keep it direction oriented vote. And I would be happy to have a volunteer from the board to be our contact. And we're good. I was gonna ask if the board would be okay with having one or two people being the point on this in terms of contact with staff and really helping to make sure that the message gets conveyed as expressed tonight. And so if the board is okay, would someone like to be a volunteer and or volunteers for this? Was that a hand, Raj, or were you swatting something away? It was a spasm. Just realized what I did and I'm calling it a spasm. Do it, Raj. Go ahead, do it. It's like, no, no. I know Evan doesn't want me to. Well, I would say that this is an auction and you just had the highest bid. No, Raj, are you? I have to have you aboard, Raj. Running for the hills. Yes, great. Amber never really, you know, I mean, she really mentioned it to stay in the corners on this stuff. What? Wait, Amber's here? Oh, you're just coming back. Oh, okay, Amber. All right, all right. Sorry, I woke up guys. What did I miss? Is there anything? I'm happy to be a second set of eyeballs aside from Raj, if you want. I would love to have our two newest board members be a part of this. I really, you know, it'd be great. Looks like the public wants to weigh in, sir. Thank you for their redirection, Evan. It's, well played. So at this point, we will turn it over for public comment as the board is deteriorating for conversation. So if you're using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature to let us know you'd like to speak. And those of you on the phone, if you can hang on a few moments, once we're done with those in Microsoft Teams, we'll come back to you. So, Annie Cooper, why don't you go ahead? Dean, wasn't that so great when Sharon said that last night, that was fantastic. So just to reiterate what Dan's saying, Sharon's suggesting that the town, because of course the village is not sending out. Right, doesn't the town, doesn't the select board, only the select sending out the meat of the information now? Right, yes. So Sharon, sorry, thanks. Sharon's idea, like Dan is saying, is that she thought that if they sent out a summary and then how would you like to ingest this information, phone here, visit this website, or whatever, email us and let us know what you want. So that would save paper, I don't know how you do it. But anyway, it was great. Thanks, Dan, for talking about it. On the postcard front a little, but I was thinking, oh, maybe that goes with the select board communication now. And there's just like a thing that says, by the way, if you, but no, I think that the postcard that you guys were talking about is right. Sorry, I'm sharing all my thoughts. But also, and I think that the postcard should be a certain color, not like the water bill, not like, oh, your inner ears and your water bill. I'm not saying why I know that color. I'm just saying, I've seen it. So like maybe like lime green or something like slightly surprising, but not emergency looking. So no orange, no red, nothing that looks like, or not pink, like you've got fired, like a color that's interesting, but not scary. And then very, very basically, yes, you all, yes, we, whatever, what you could just, I want to wordsmith it right now, to be honest with you. I'll hold back, but I really want to badly. But yes, I think that a postcard is an absolute, as a clear understanding, like Andrew said, that you do live in the town and that you are going to be voting on this, which you next see. Here's where you vote, here's when you vote. And yeah, thanks. Thank you, Annie. I'm not seeing any other hands up in Microsoft Teams. And there's nobody in the chat who's asking to speak. So for those on the phone, if you would like to address this item, please go ahead and start talking. All right, in hearing nothing, we'll bring it back to the board. And George, take it away. Yeah, I just had one final thought. Maybe the postcard we put Annie's picture on one side of it. There we go. There, how about that as a concept? Would that, would Annie be okay with that? So, you know, then people would notice it, Annie. What do you think? Then they'd read it. What are you thinking? Oh, they would either read it or throw it in the trash. I think you're playing a danger to my friend. All right. All right. So would someone like to, we're not asked to make a motion. I assume with the cost being well within the staff's discretion, but that's the intent as to why there is no motion. We just wanted to know the, you're welcome to make a motion to direct us to do it. I think you'll understand what would happen if you don't. I don't feel it. I mean, that's just my- I think I got the direction. I think so as well. I would say Amber, Raj, do you both feel that you, you have what you need on this as well? Yeah. Let's move on. What's next? Five E, discussion and possible action to repurpose the residual miscellaneous funds for downtown development. I'll jump in here. So the village several years ago created a land acquisition fund. Subsequent to that, they went on the floor at an annual meeting and moved some of those funds to another fund and they left a little bit of money left in there. And this is a idea that there be a ballot initiative to move the remaining balance of that acquisition fund to the economic development fund for the purposes of development and activities in and around five corners. And so because the fund, the land acquisition fund was created by resident approval, the general gist is that you need resident approval to move the funds and repurpose it. Thank you, Evan. And this came from budget day where George, I believe you had proposed something similar to this. And I think what your proposal was was to take it from the land development code from the land acquisition fund and to have that go towards the park at five corners. Personally, I like the idea of putting it into the economic development funds and having it be there to not hamstring us and label it for a purpose at this point. We may use it for that ultimately, but that would wait until that point in time. But I honestly, I like this, that land acquisition fund back in 2012 had a little over $320,000 taken out of it and put into the capital funds in large parts because as I call, there were not new developments going on. We were not hearing about utilizing the funds or we're not hearing about upcoming developments where 320,000 would have made much of a dent. And we find ourselves now where 80,000, that's not gonna make a dent in terms of any kind of large scale land acquisition. So for me, this makes a lot of sense to get this money out of just collecting dust, frankly. So George, with your hand up, why don't you take it away? I'm in complete agreement with you, Andrew. And I'll only add that this is nice because it uses the money. And Evan, it was a little bit more than a couple of years ago, it was 97 when they did this. But it spends the money on what I think, I'm guessing the trustees back then probably originally had in mind. So that's a nice way to close the circle on the fund. So I agree with you. I think it's a good way to move with this money. And I will add, it is, you know, the Economic Development Fund, merger or no merger should stay within the downtown area of the village. Those funds were, first of all, the land acquisition fund was voted on by the residents and taxed of the residents of the village only. Therefore, similar to when the village, if the village merges with the town, any debt that was voted on by the village residents stays with the village residents until it is paid. This would be the opposite, they raised it. It should stay for the purpose it was approved for. So when it transfers over to the Economic Development Fund should it pass, that it would be my belief that it would stay for the purpose that it was moved and for the purpose it stays in the village in the downtown development area. Absolutely. Trustees, any questions, comments? Go ahead, Raj. I think this sounds great overall. What kinds of things that just remind me what we were thinking we're kind of primarily interested in using this to ensure we can finish the park, the pocket park at one day. So yeah, that's the idea, okay. Yeah, so pocket park, we need to do a design plan. We'll probably wanna do at least one more charrette. We're gonna need to do a bid and construction. That's just in the pocket park. You could look at other downtown things like beautification, events. I know one of the things that we had also talked about back when Dan, George and I, when we were on the board with Lori and Elaine when we went to St. Albansity, one of the things that we had heard about was like a revolving loan fund about funds to help improve facades as long as this money would be given to businesses under the stipulations that we would buy the materials for them or that they would use only certain materials in terms of the color, in terms of the aesthetics so that that way their downtown would look more cohesive. So there are plenty of things that we could do with this but definitely one of the main things I assume is going to be that pocket park. You know, it occurs to me that if this is gonna be a special question for, and we're already doing a mailing it may be worth a mention to look for this information too on that. So people aren't showing up and going, what's this all about? I know we have an extra month past the town vote but just a thought. And Mr. President, Harlan Smith reminds me that the Memorial Fountain also needs repair. So this would come in very handy. Absolutely, and Raj to the point of how would somebody really understand what this means? There is also the Village newsletter that goes out, that gets mailed out to the Village households so that that way hopefully people read that when they get it and I would assume that we'll have something written in there to help explain what each of the special articles are. So trustees, are there any more questions or comments on this or are we ready to open up to the public? All right, so those of you in Microsoft Teams, now is the time, raise your hand, type in the chat if you have a question about this. For those of you calling in, if you can hang on until we're done with those in Microsoft Teams, I'll make sure there's plenty of time for you. So go ahead and raise your hand or type in the chat. Seeing nothing, I'll turn it over to those on the phone. Go ahead and go ahead and start talking if you'd like to talk to the board about this issue. Nobody spoke up, still nothing in Teams as far as the chat or hands. Bring it back to the board here. George. Yeah, Andrew, I just wanna mention that I don't know if Robin is still here or not. I can't tell, because my screen is smushed here. But I would really like us to see if we can't get the park ready by this summer. We are still gonna be, as far as I can tell, we're gonna still be under quarantine well into the spring and into the summer. And I think it would be if we can, and it might be too hard. I certainly don't wanna make a mistake by rushing it, but if we can, I'd like to get the board thinking that we use whatever political energy we can to try to get it done because it would be a fantastic gift for the community when they can finally maybe get out and walk around a little bit when the weather warms up to have this as a place for them to go. So I'd like to see if we can do that. It may not be possible, but I would like to give it a push if we can. Robin, I see you're here with your hand up. Well, I'm not there, but I am here. Yet, the reason that we did this charrette was to produce a design that would go to the engineer to do the corrective action plan and in one of the cap. So they're working through the corrective action plan at the moment. Once that's completed and I'm being friendly, but persistent, then the remediation of the site would happen and hopefully this spring. Now the remediation is based on the plan. So if we change the plan substantially and the village would be responsible for any additional remediation that would have to be done. But hopefully if the money's available, the parks should be ready early to mid-summer for a redesign. Okay. Sounds great. Yeah. Would somebody like to make a motion? I can do it. I move the trustees place a question on the 2021 annual meeting ballot, asking voters to transfer the remaining balance in the land acquisition capital reserve fund and the economic development fund for downtime development. I'll second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, George. The question on this, I assume that what this is saying is that staff will work on the language for the annual meeting ballot based on this motion. Yes. And then we'll vote at the later point in time on the actual verbiage. Yes. Great. So the motion has been made. It has been seconded. Any further discussion from the board? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? So that passed unanimously. Thank you everybody. And this brings us to the new 5F, which is a discussion in possible action to extend the economic development tax. Thank you for bringing that up, Tammy. No. We're gonna talk about fund balance, right? Yeah, that was it. So close. So close. I mean, we're gonna talk about this one next. Tammy, I'm happy to share. If you don't have it up, I have it right here. Yep, sounds good. I have it. You're quicker. All right. So thank you all for allowing me to bring this to you tonight. We are in the, the audit is just about finished. We're reviewing, or the audit field work is finished. We're reviewing the financial statements now on one of the last pieces that we put in or that we get in every year. So once we know what the fund balance is, we come to the board and ask for any assignments, the village has a voter approved limit on unassigned fund balance of 10% of the upcoming budget year. This memo should look familiar to you all. This is the same format as Lauren and I have presented it to you in the past. So the village general fund, I'm gonna walk through it since you're just seeing it now. The village general fund has a total fund balance of $923,000 at June 30th of 2020. Just rounded, rounded thing. Of this amount, we've about $150,000, which is non-spendable fund balance. So those are items that are not in spendable form. So inventory and prepaid expenses. The village already has five different categories of assignments, one for library purposes. This is the ends and the outs of library donations and the library book replacement fund. We have funds accumulated for termination benefits each year in the general fund budget. We've been putting $5,000 in to accumulate for when people retire and we have to pay out leave banks. There's an old lingering $10,000 to help offset the cost for the HRA, which has not been needed yet. We do have about $21,600 for governance and merger related items, which was established two years ago. We added to it last year. I'm not suggesting that we add anything to it this year. And then the last category we established last year, which is about $25,000 for building maintenance purposes. After taking into consideration those existing assignments and the non-spendable items, there is an unassigned fund balance of $643,000, which is 12% of the upcoming budget year. What we end up with is $106,121 over the voter approved limit for unassigned fund balance. During FY20 for a variety of reasons, we were under budget on paving expenses. And I had spoken with Ricky throughout the year. And we would like to ask the board to assign that underspend in that dollar amount for paving projects that will happen in FY21. That's $68,303. And then given the number of building related projects that we discussed with Tom on budget day, I would like to suggest that we take the balance of $37,818, add it to the building maintenance category that's already in existence, and then transfer that to the building maintenance fund, which is where we're gonna be doing those projects out of. So I'd be happy to, those are my recommendations. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Sarah. And to just take one step back, the funds, the fund balance, the point of it. Some in the past I've said rainy day fund, some have said emergency fund. Let's say, oh, for example, maybe there's a terrible flood around a holiday-ish, maybe Halloween, and there may need to be some emergency expenditures. This is the point of having some of that, of having the fund balance, correct? This is always an interesting question. That's really the point of making sure we have unassigned fund balance available. Those are for emergencies. So the Government Finance Officers Association recommends I think the 15% mark, so having a couple months worth of expenditures ready and tucked away just in case of an emergency. There, the fund balance is quite literally our equity position in a government. So it's the difference between our assets and our liabilities, and then it changes each year by any revenue in excess of expenditures, or goes down when expenditures are in excess of revenue. But to, I guess, more clearly answer your question, Andrew, yes, the unassigned fund balance, and the reason we have a policy of maintaining a certain amount in unassigned fund balance is to hedge against unforeseen emergencies. Thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate that. George, you see your hand is up. Why don't you go ahead? Yeah, Sarah, I don't, by any means, mean to put you on the spot. I don't expect you to be omniscient to know everything, but I'm just curious, in terms of termination benefits, I know when the last time we looked at this, it was pretty significant. It was one of our biggest liabilities. Maybe I'm getting that wrong, but can you speak to that a little bit? I'm just only saying, because I'm wondering if we needed to, you know, I'm trusting your judgment here, but I'm just saying maybe put even more money into that. But maybe we paid it down a bit. Let's see. So, who? And let me just get, one other thing, Sarah, so just so everyone's clear, termination benefits are when employees, long-standing employees retire, they have a lot of sick time and other accrued time coming to them, and it's owed to them, correct? That's correct. And what happens in, ooh, here it gets to the part that I really like. So what happens in governmental accounting? So with modified accrual accounting, we do not book long-term liabilities on the balance sheet, and we do not book capital assets on the balance sheet. And so what we end up doing is we budget each year just for what we expect to expend on employees. And each year, they're accumulating these termination benefits. So as you're going through your years of service, there is a benefit due to you that grows each year in normal accounting or full accrual accounting, such as our enterprise funds, the REC program fund, water, sewer, and sanitation or regular business. Each year, we would value that and we'd put it on the balance sheet. So what we're doing instead is saying, hey, we recognize that this is actually a problem for us because we don't really know when people are gonna be retiring and we don't wanna be caught off guard the year they do retire and have it blow up our budget. And so we're getting out ahead of this and we're tucking some funds away each year. George, I don't have handy and analysis of who is approximately retirement age, but I can definitely take a look at it. I have the audit documents. It's okay, I know you're busy. It's not really essential. I just wanted to get a little more discussion of that. That's okay. At some point, if you feel it's necessary to discuss it by all means, I think we'd like to hear about it, but I don't wanna give you extra work right now. That's okay. No worries. I actually think, I mean, I think I have it. I have it from the audit, but... Okay, all right. And just to relate to that, George, if I recall correctly, it was somewhere around like 2014 or 2015 we had an audit done when Lauren was a finance director and one of the things that was in there is there was a recommendation to increase the amount that was set aside into termination benefits because it was low. And there were some concerns about, I believe at that point in time with the manager at the time retiring. Yes. The amount that would be in there. So I know we put some in at that point in time to help bolster that account. Yeah. So actually, excellent, you know, just enough time for me to like look at my spreadsheet. So if I look at, so the balance of all the compensated absences payable and so that's taking into consideration the value of sick time for just employees over a certain age and then the value of all vacation time in the general fund. If we were to have to pay that all out, it's about $260,000. So, you know, that would, everyone retires last June. So I feel like we're in an okay spot, but I do think that that was a recommendation of Sullivan Powers when they were the village auditors. And I think we're doing a good job tucking it away. It certainly is worth a review. And if we do come to review it and we think, oh my God, we shouldn't have assigned fund balance for the buildings, we need to change that. The board is absolutely within the board's purview to do that. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Evan, I see your hands up. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, George, for that. I do think that it's important to be looking out into the future for our liabilities. But for those who heard the building's presentation, we have a couple of very expensive roofs to take care of. One is the Brunel Library. There's at least two sections of that roof that need immediate attention. So one of the things that I know Sarah keeps her eye on is this balance. And so I think we want to make sure we hit those roofs before they leak and before they cause any damage inside. And then I think as we look forward after we get those roofs done, we can sort of pivot out of maybe the maintenance and deal with some other long-term issues. But, and then hopefully we are not going to spend the balance of the governance and we can rebalance next year. Okay. Andrew, I just want to remind Evan that he's into England and the word is roof. It's not a dog road. Thank you, Rog. Like he was a dog, maybe something to do with him looking at his dogs in the south. Maybe pick up some of the dogs we know. I'm sorry, what's the word? Roof, like your dog. Well, we just were trying to tell you. Sorry, sorry, sorry guys, sorry. I mean, it'd be silly there. It's all good. It's been a great meeting so far. Rog, why don't you help us here? I'm not going to be any help. Sarah, off the top of your head because I know you can do it. I'm not second guessing your suggestions but I am curious if we were to return that $106,000. What would that mean for the village taxpayer? If I'm understanding that correctly. You are understanding that that is an option. Now, I would ask you to consider that $68,303 was underspent on paving projects for a number of reasons this year and those are projects that do need to get done. And so I think that that component, I would ultimately my decision but I feel strongly about that component. But to answer your question, let me get the other spreadsheet up here. I think Raj, what Sarah would say is, we're going to spend that $68,303, whether it's out of the fund balance or in a future year, because it's been necessary, we just didn't get to it. Yeah, I'm not again, I'm not second guessing the need. I just think it's an important thing to mention if we're going to, as we make a decision, I think we should say what that would have been. So where we landed after at budget day and we're going to start talking about the budget again, probably at your next meeting, I have that on my list here, is with a property tax levy increase of $67,527. That is resulting in a less than 1% tax rate increase because of increases in my grand list. I'm telling you that to tell you this, if we took all $106,000 and applied it against property taxes, it would actually be a property tax levy decrease. And it would be a tax rate decrease for one year. The challenge with using fund balance is that it's not a self-generating revenue source, right? Or it's not a regenerative revenue source. It's a one-time deal. Once that 106 is gone, I can't tell you that it's going to be back again next year unless we have a surplus of $106,000 again, year over year. So if we use that now, and then we didn't have it next year, we'd have to fill in that hole of $100,000 and then go on. I do think that when we're looking at, depending on the outcome of the market to vote, if we are looking next year to stabilize the amount of the village tax levy to provide some continuity going from two budgets to one, I think that that, we can certainly talk about some of these things. But if we were going to take that $100,000 and apply it against a tax rate, I would make a recommendation that we do it incrementally and not all of it in one year, but hold some backs that we could step back out of that if need be. I totally get it. I think for like Evan used likes to say for those watching at home, I think having those alternatives presented is just as valuable. So I agree with the plan. I just wanted to make sure that was out there. It's a good question. It is, Raj. It's a very good question. And so in along those lines, the other side of it is if that money is not spent on paving and if those funds are not spent on the buildings, the costs for those projects go up next year. And so that means that the 106,000 today would be higher when those projects come due. So then we could be going back to the community and asking for more than the 106 while at the same time, the conditions of those projects for its material rate. That is by no means to say that buildings are caving in. That is no means to say that roads are over sinkholes and are about to fall in, because that is not the case, but rather it helps to get the projects done sooner rather than later to prevent them from further deteriorating at a lower cost. So thanks for putting up with that. Appreciate it. So trustees, any other questions on this before we turn it over? Okay. So let's bring this for public comments. If you're using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand or use the chat feature. And for those of you on the phone, hang on a few moments and I'll make sure you have time. With nothing in Microsoft Teams, for those of you on the phone, if you have a question about this, now is the time to go ahead and let us know. Hearing nothing, we will go ahead and bring this back to the board. If there are no other questions, would somebody like to make a motion? I'll make a motion that in addition to the amounts already assigned, the trustees assigned $68,303 for paving and an additional $37,818 for building maintenance and transfer the balance in the building maintenance line to the building's maintenance fund. Thank you, George. Would someone like to second that motion? Second. Thank you, Amber. And is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, so that passed unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Sarah. And so Sarah, now we go to the economic development tax. There we go. Yeah. Evan, I see that my name is on this, which makes sense, because I did write this one last week was a long time ago though. Do you wanna jump in or do you want me to just set the stage? No, I'm happy to do it if you want me to. Go for it. Thank you. You're welcome. It is my understanding that the village's one cent tax for economic development is due to expire this year. It was created with voter approval for work in downtown economic development activities. And then the question for the board is, do you wish to go out to the voters to seek an extension for this activity? Thank you, Evan. Notable projects, I believe, is purchase of parking space in the downtown, the pocket park that you just spoke of at five corners, which basically prevents that parcel which has the firewood on it from building lot line to lot line and some other beautification projects over the years for lighting and some economic and some special events that have been held in and around downtown. George could probably go on a little bit more than I, but that's the general gist. And maybe Sarah can mention, if necessary, if you want, up there's the list. There is a balance yet on that of unexpended funds, but again, downtown's not finished. So I'll leave it there. Thank you, Evan. I for one, when looking over the memo and just in reflecting and thinking about the way that these funds have been used and some of the plans that we have, I for one feel that this has been a very successful venture, I think that this can continue to be very successful at the same time. I feel that with the merger question being out there and the unknowns with regards to that, I feel that this may be the time to let the sunset for now, wait until March happens. And then after that point in time, revisit whether to re-institute attacks like this as a merged community or not. But that for this upcoming year, I think that we should not go back to the voters and ask for extending it. George. I have two questions and one would be for Sarah. And that would be right now a penny, which in the way this is a penny on the tax rate. And so for the average village property to the standard average village property of $280,000, what's the actual dollar amount that I can't do? You can do the math quicker. You're- Well, I don't know my calculator. Yeah, go, oh, okay. You're cheating. Okay, you're gonna use your- That's a mold. One penny is on a $280,000 house is $28,000. Okay, and the other question I had is that if merger is successful, and as Evan said earlier, residual funds that would be in here would be carried over and they would be only to be expended for their intended purpose. They wouldn't get thrown into some other fund. But I would just like to pose the question. And I'm sympathetic Andrew and I'm not like pounding the table insisting we keep doing this, but it has been successful and it might not be a bad idea to have a little bit more money going in. I think it would only be one more year because if merger was successful, then it would only be for one remaining year that revenue would be collected on this and go into that fund and then it wouldn't exist anymore. So I would like to ponder that maybe doing it if it's not too onerous for everybody, just keep it going to renew it. I'd like to think about renewing it so that there's a little bit more money in it going in to have on reserve heading into the unknown if merger happens. Thank you. Thank you, George. And I do want to make sure I'm clear. I'm very much on the fence with this, I think. And I feel that sunsetting it may be a good idea. At the same time, as I said, this has been very successful and don't want to see the momentum end at the same time. So that's why I say I'm on the fence with this. Right. If you don't mind a little bit of back and forth, I want to just go and I don't want to bring up a touchy subject but we're hoping that at some point the Crescent connector is going to get completed. And I'd like to suggest that if we think of that the physical trajectory of the Crescent connector as it goes through the village if it gets under construction, I'd like to suggest that there may be opportunities to leverage that construction to create more green space, more a nicer walking area along the Crescent connector path, maybe some more parking spots. There might just be opportunities and to have a little bit of money on hand for the board to take advantage of that might not be a bad idea. So if we're thinking, why would we continue this fund? We don't really have a specific target in mind for it but I think there's going to be plenty of potential uses over the next three or four years. Anyway, I'll stop talking. Thank you, George. Robin, I see you've got your hand up. Go ahead. Lost my mouse. Thanks, Andrew. Just a few things. We had a connector road meeting today. In the original plan for the connector road we had hoped that V-Trans would fund EV stations. V-Trans have stopped funding EV stations even in the solely V-Trans projects. So that's something that would fall to the village if we wanted to do that. Also the amenity clause says that they will not pay for trees, they will not pay for benches, and they will not pay for the light that's typical. In the village center they only pay for the basic light. So these are all additions to the connector road that the village would have to pay for. Thank you, Robin. Dan, I think yours is next. There are just good unmute. Anyways, I hear what George is saying but those projects could be three years down the road. Like Andrew said, depending on what happens in March who knows who's going to be addressing the issues within the village, you know? And so I'm not opposed. I kind of on the fence as well as you Andrew with this whether to continue or not. I guess I don't see a problem with going after and continuing it but it starts what's going to happen three years down the road who knows. Thank you, Dan. Raj, want to go ahead? I'm on the fence as well. I think though that we have to keep moving forward and treat a failed merger attempt as a contingency and not lose momentum. That's kind of where I've been thinking the last little while. You know, the things Robin mentioned I kind of hope those were sort of budgeted in the village's portion anyway at the prior. You know, when the village has a portion of that project I kind of hope those were considered in that initial budget estimate for the village's portion. But you know, we've had a lot of talk about needing improved pedestrian crosswalks and blinky lights and sidewalk improvements and who knows what some of this density might present us with in terms of you know, we may need to come up with some interesting solutions around some of those issues as more and more buildings become built. So I'm sort of thinking, you know yes, it would be nice to not have an addition to be able to take this back for a year but we will still have the downtown we will still have the development and if you know, in a scenario I don't think any of us want but if merger fails we will have lost some momentum in that area. The second question I have is it more of a in terms of having those funds remain for their intended purpose that's more of a we're gonna do that because that's what's right or is that it's not like bond debt which needs to stay with the people who voted to take on that debt, right? This is more like those funds won't go anywhere. Those funds won't go anywhere. So to quickly answer that Raj, my understanding is that say there's X amount of money left over the community is merged we are no longer in the interim governing body we're just fully merged. Those funds are then at the pleasure of the board and those funds are not necessarily obligated to only be used for village purposes. Now that's my understanding but and I would look to Evan and or possibly the village attorney in terms of with them being voted upon by village voters whether that creates some kind of a legal precedent or not. So I'm honestly not too sure but that's my understanding. So I guess I would say I'm still on the fence but those are the thoughts that occur to me when I think about whether we should continue it. I think our budget came in fairly respectfully respectable in the voters taxpayers is here. So. Thank you, Raj. Amber? I would, I guess I would like to see that we continue it and just keep moving forward. It is beneficial. Is there a possibility to just do it for a year? Can we just extend for a year? And because of, I mean, if we can just extend for a year that kind of gets us to the point of merger discussions, where are we at with merger? And then we can obviously extend it if we needed to keep extending because merger failed or we stop extending because merger was successful but I do think the question about what happens to those funds is instrumental in making that decision. And so I guess I would ask, I think we've had this discussion before so I guess I would ask if we can ask staff to ask the village attorney as to what the answer to that question would be. And then do we, we don't have to make a decision about this tonight, is that correct? Correct. We don't need to make the decision tonight. We will need to what a relatively upcoming soon upcoming meeting in the fact that to make sure that the language correct and that we get the language on the ballot warrant properly. I believe that that happens late February or early March. So we do have some time. So if we could get that question answered in the next couple of weeks and then put it back on our next meeting agenda potentially. I mean, I'm one person that's just my thoughts. Appreciate your thoughts. Looks like we're gonna go back through the rotation. George, I think you're next. Yeah, I'm nodding big time because I'm kind of in agreement with Amber. I mean, and I'm hearing that maybe I'm wrong. I'm trying to read minds through the digital screen here. I'm guessing that Raj and Amber are thinking like me would like to see some continuance of this maybe just a year or whatever and get a little more clarity. I'm hearing Dan and Andrew you're a little on the fence. It'd be good to just be unanimous. So if there's no, if we don't have to make a decision tonight then why not table it, get a little bit more information as Amber suggested and finesse it for another meeting. Thank you for that, George. Dan, I think you're next. That's fine. And I went to the boarders with that and for a year or otherwise, being that we don't know what's gonna happen with the merger vote. But one thing that kind of came to mind when we were discussing this in any of the projects on the village and the money that we have, tax dollars from our village residents, when the school boards or the school districts can combine merged. Remember the Westford and the schools, all of a sudden they started doing stuff that they knew they saw this merger coming. You see a room coming with George that take the funds that we had and do our projects now before we're subject to help. Another board maybe want to repurpose these funds. So I kind of think maybe we could go down that road. I don't know if that's an option or something I thought of. Yeah, I'm gonna jump over, Evan. I had the same thought like just as we did with the asking the voters to approve moving the land acquisition balance to the economic development balance that I'm sort of wondering if this were to merger passes and we're in that period of time before the new board is seated that we asked the voters to transfer that to perhaps capital that would, that's just an example off the top of my head. Capital that would remain in the village or something like that where we could earmark those funds for the potentially not economic development but you could argue that some capital projects could be. So that's sort of a thought. So sorry to jump over you there, Evan. I know you were first. Go ahead, Evan. Happy to ask the question with the village attorney. If again, we're not on deadline tonight. It's a good discussion. I was thinking about the one year. I think that's also a very good discussion as who knows what the merger votes going to be. And again, the Crescent Connector is a large project. Downtown has several parcels yet to be developed. We have some parking issues that I still think we are going to need to address. And as I mentioned, from a staff perspective, we haven't finished it but our conversations but there's some thoughts about downtown events and some beautification projects. And when I say beautification, I mean things like flowers and things like that that bring a little color and life to the entryways of our community. So I'm absolutely okay. I think we have time. I could get that information and be back to you at your next meeting. Thank you for that, Evan. And the example that I heard a couple times about the school district, I just wanted to clarify when the school districts emerged, I believe it was the Westford School District who purchased their generator or something with regards to their generator and their funds to make sure that the generator, which I believe also was the emergency use for your town office, something to that extent, they wanted to make sure that those funds were used for Westford purposes as it was Westford residents who had voted for that item. So to make sure that the funds stayed with the Westford community as opposed to all of Essex and Westford. So we would certainly be within our right to merge our passes before we actually merge to spend the funding in line with the way that is intended or to ask the voters for an all part of the purpose. So it sounds like we'll get to this at our next meeting or if not the next one, one shortly thereafter so that we can get this resolved. Are there any other questions before I turn this over for some public comment? Okay, so for those in the public, if you'd like to ask a question on this and you're using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead, raise your hand or use a chat feature. And if you're calling in, I just ask you for your patience while we get to those using Teams first. So again, if you're using Teams, go ahead and raise your hand or type in the chat feature now. And Harlan, I see your hands up. Go ahead. Yeah, I was curious if we know how the, if the town raises money for economic development and if so, how they go about it. I'm a little concerned with the conversation about trying to extend it for one year. If merger to work fair, you would put it on the ballot again to then extend it for five years, which I think would be for me, a little weird going to the polls and saying, okay, I just approved this and now I'm approving it again. I feel a little encouraged. I feel like if merger goes through, even if we voted it in for five years, at that point, it would terminate and we would have one more year of it. I felt like Evan had kind of answered the question earlier when he said that when we moved money into the economic development fund that was solely raised by the taxpayers of the village and it was designated for the economic development of the village, that it would stay there, that it would not get absorbed into the town. But there again, I would also be curious as to how the town raises funds for economic development if we do become merged and it is successful. But ideally, I don't know, asking for one year, I would rather ask for five and if merger doesn't go through then it keeps right on rolling and if merger does go through, does it terminate at that point and becomes null and void. So those were just some of the thoughts that I was having on this process. Thank you. Thank you, Harlan. Evan, do you want to address that portion of how the town does this? I would, but I see George has his hand up so maybe you want to go to him first. Did not see that. I'll jump in, Evan, and thank you for letting me jump in. When we first created this fund, we call it the penny on the tax rate fund. And then we, and if you look at the wording, it's capital for improvements in the village center zone. I kind of at first resisted, we just out of convenience started calling it the economic development fund, but economic development is more overall sort of a generic term and it could mean just about anything. And this was a fund that was really for doing redevelopment and revitalization in the village center. So before we had this fund, the village spent money on what it would call economic development. Robin has money in his budget, as I understand it. I think Robin is still here now in community development to do economic development and the town just does, they have money in community development and Evan and Sarah can speak to it and they don't have a specific designated fund for acquiring land in the town center and doing specific projects in the town center. They just generally do economic development, which can be all kinds of things. I don't know if that helps Harlan, but this fund was created sort of in response to forums and the heart and soul of Vermont project where people said they wanted to see, we wanted really to make specific improvements, infrastructure improvements in the village center. I don't know if that helps, but that's why it's a little bit different than a sort of a generic economic development fund. Go ahead, Evan. Harlan, who are you gonna speak? Yeah, I'm sorry, I guess it's still, I kind of understand what the fund is for, but my question was more about if we do become merged, is there still a way, does the town do something similar? You were saying that they do have an economic or community development fund. How do they fund that? Do they do it the same way? Is it a penny on the dollar, or is it just another money on the budget? It's just from their general fund. It's just part of their, they fund it the same way they fund their fire department or public works department. It's just a part of their overall general fund tax. They don't have an additional penny that they don't have an additional, this is, we figure out, the way this works is we figure out year to year, whatever our general fund need is, we then, that generates a tax rate, and then we add 0.01 to that tax rate, and that's the penny on the tax rate, and that additional penny goes into this specific fund. The town does not do it that way, but I think if I can jump in a little bit more, I think what Evan is saying is that, if we had, if we merged, and there were still $200,000 left in this fund, that $200,000 would remain in this fund to be used for the purpose of doing renovation or redevelopment in the village center. It wouldn't be just transferred over into the town's economic development effort. It would be remain just for this purpose. If that's, if I'm understanding what you're saying, Evan, is that correct? That would be my interpretation. And that as your manager, that's how I would see those funds being used. Back to Harlan's question. Harlan, the town does not have any monies specifically budgeted for the activity of economic development, other than some surplus funds that it has earmarked designated for economic development. So there is no tax, there is no budget for economic development in the town. If the village in the town were merged, one could suggest that a one penny tax on the entire town with the purpose of economic development would generate a significantly more amount of money and be able to do projects throughout the entire community, village and town. That would take time and effort past merger. And I would venture to say, again, the board at that time would have to pick and choose what priority it has in, let's say, its first year of existence. Whereas this penny exists, it is doing good things. Whether it stays another year or not, I think Sarah generates about $110,000 annually, Sarah, something like that. That's correct. Thanks. So it's about $28 on the tax rate. That's significant, but downtowns. And I remember George, your presentation very well. Downtowns take investment. They take private investment and public investment. They are living things. And when they get old and tired, it's not good. And so you're constantly needing to invest in your downtown, whether that sidewalks, whether it's lighting, whether it's parking, whether it's a facade improvement program, you should always be working on your downtown. Music 20 years, Evan. Thank you. Is Robin crying? He is. He's just overcome with emotion here. You're getting me there, Evan. I still, do we know what would happen if we were to put this on the ballot for five years and we did merge in a year? Would it become null and void at that point? And that effectively would only have been one year? Harlan, I would have to ask the village attorney. One of the things that's going on in the merger, the plan of merger is the creation of districts. Right. And as a village downtown. The village becomes a district. But it would be very, I would have to ask Claudine. It would be very, it would be interesting. Let me put it a different way. Interesting to tax only the village residents for a downtown that is the community's downtown and not the town outside of the village. So I would have to ask her and Dan Richardson their thoughts on that. I would have my opinion, but it would only be my opinion. Yeah, and I would, which I understand, I would just be curious if we were to put it on the ballot for five years, it would be an effect for a year, but then what happens to it after that? It would probably, again, my opinion, I'd have to get a legal opinion, is that that would not survive the merger. After the merger is official, what I have always said is, again, that money was taxed, it was raised, it is in a fund, so you are no longer taxing people for it. Now you're executing the reason it was raised. That is much different than taxing people continuously. Right. But what I'm, I guess what I'm suggesting is that the board move forward as if merger wasn't even on the table. Yeah. Right. But I will get a legal opinion. I mean, I would be extending this fight. I will check with Dan Richardson. We have something to talk about anyway this week. I will add that to my list. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you, Harlan. Thank you all. And so still with public comment, if you're using Microsoft Teams, please raise your hand or type into the chat feature to speak and seeing nothing will go to the phones. So for those on the phone, if you'd like to speak to the board about this, please go ahead and do so now. All right. So hearing nothing, we had talked about getting answers to these questions for a subsequent meeting and then revisiting this topic. So there's no emotion necessary for anything else you wanna mention on this before we move on to the next topic. Seeing nothing, that will bring us to a discussion and possible action on expansion of sidewalk filing during the COVID pandemic. Andrew, are you taking this one or do you want me to take it? I'm just getting my screen there. This is something I had asked for or I'd asked about during our budget session about what it would take during the pandemic. Really, the ask was for those roads in our community where we have two sides of the road that have a sidewalk on them and where the road really functions beyond just a typical class three village road, but really as a more trafficked thoroughfare similar to a class two or the numbered routes, what it would take to plow both sides of those streets. So that was the ask in looking at this. It seems that it would take some time for sure that it currently takes about three and a half hours for the machines to do what they've got to do, but in addition to that, they're 16 hours for snow blowing. There's the budget implication up here as well. Of course, all that also then depends on the size of the storm. No two storms are the same. And I'm sure that there's also then additional impacts as to whether it is a one day storm or we get into a multi-day storm. As I'm sure there's also ramifications of that. So that was the ask. One of the other things to kick this off that I would be curious on when I was asking about this, I didn't necessarily mean for both sides of the sidewalk to be plowed with the same priority. And so I'm sorry for not saying that in that moment, but if we think about it as if today there's a snowstorm, the village does its normal thing, there's this normal plowing routine, and then that all gets taken care of. The snowstorm ends later on in the day, and tomorrow a whole new day comes around, our staff have gotten to sleep, they've caught up on their sleep, they've caught up on food and seeing their families. And then the next day they come back out and plow those extra portions of the sidewalk. That's really what I'm talking about when I'm asking about this. And again, with the impetus being for the pandemic, I've witnessed personally on brickyard road many times where we have people not always masked who are walking in the road as both sides of the sidewalk are not plowed and especially around school time when kids are walking home. On one side of the sidewalk, there's then a few couples who are trying to navigate how to cross the road, how to walk when there is no plowed sidewalk on the other side. So they're walking then in the road when the car is trying to navigate the people. Dan, I see that you've got your hand up. Last week's output meeting was a discussion about the sidewalk district within the village and the cost for the services. And I think if I recall, it was somewhere around $120,000, $125,000 for the sidewalk in the middle of the road. And that impetus is I heard Evan explain to the board there's two individuals, but divided the size and the cost of equipment and materials that would be utilized in the process of clearing the sidewalks. My thing I'd like to bring up is the cost of maintaining a sidewalk district in Lincoln is so many variables in it. I mean, whether we have a winter that's got a lot of ice and snow, whether we need a lot of salt, whether there's a need for plowing in that option. Who knows? When I first got on the board, it was really fascinating about this because I think it was maybe just after I got on the board or just before I got on the board, the village stopped plowing both sides of this street, the sidewalks on each side. And my concern was especially for children since prior to that, you know, just recently, we were going to get busing, but kids are walking and walking out, some of these snow plowing, so they're pausing themselves, so probably to them. So that was a good concern, but anyhow, I'm glad this is being discussed and opening up for other people in the comments. Thank you, Dan. George, go ahead. Andrew, I think I said before, I'm on board with this. I like the idea that the concern is not, as I stated before, it's not just the money. The money isn't that big a concern, but it's the sort of the health and wellbeing of the staff. We, back about a month ago or two months ago, right at the beginning of winter, when Dennis was here and Ricky was here, we were talking about what's gonna happen if we, you know, a couple of plow operators come down with COVID, what happens? It could, you know, we could potentially have one entire, you know, town department or village department, kind of, you know, out of commission for a couple of weeks. So my only concern would be to give, to make sure Rick has the, if we're gonna go ahead with this, he has the latitude to kind of, we make it clear to him that the priority is, in my view anyway, is the sort of the health and wellbeing of his staff, because we don't wanna push people, you know, I'm gonna knock on some wood here. We're having a mild winter. That could change next week, as we all know. We all know where we live and we know where, you know, winter can go well into May here. And so we never know what's gonna happen, but we could have a period in February or March where we have a lot of snow and that staff gets taxed, you know, physically in a time when we don't want them to be tapped out. So that's all I'm saying. I just would, if this gets, if we move forward with this, I'd like it, I would really, you know, urge us to make it very clear that we give Ricky and Evan a lot of latitude to make the call that if they think the staff is getting pushed a little bit too hard trying to keep up with this stuff that they can back off. It's not something that has to get done. That's my opinion. Oh, hard to agree with you, George, on all those points. Amber, go ahead. Actually, Rick is on the call, I believe. So I was just gonna shout it out to say, Ricky, what's your thoughts on this? Yes, I've been basically waiting the whole time here, you know, so I have your guys' opinions first, please. I have my opinions. I see Raj has his hands up. I'd like to get your opinions first, yep. And then I will definitely give you my opinion. So please go ahead, trustee's first, please. I'm done. I think I'd rather hear from Ricky. Yeah, Ricky, the floor is yours. Okay, Andrew, no offense, but we can't go back afterwards. These people are gonna be very upset if we plow one side and then we wait and go have a nap, whatever, and then come back and then plow the other side. These people are gonna be mad. They're gonna go, oh my goodness, you just plowed my driveway in again. But yeah, no, we can plow both sides. If you guys, that's what you guys want. That's what you think the community wants and we can definitely do it. You know, it's gonna take a little bit longer. I, like I said, I put in a memo there. Evan asked me to put these numbers together and these are my rough estimates what it's gonna take to do this. We can do it if this is what you guys want. But you gotta realize these sidewalks that we haven't plowed, that you want us to plow now, haven't been plowed in, I'm gonna say 15 years. So there's gonna be overgrowth. There's gonna be possibly trees and stuff that grew into these right-of-ways and stuff that we had to look at and there's gonna be, I'm not picking on anybody, but Mrs. McGillicuddy's going, what in the heck are they plowing my sidewalk for now? It's gonna be, I'm gonna need someone to mend, to catch these phone calls and stuff. Because once, if you guys approve this and we do it, it's gonna be like, oh my goodness, what is going on here? You didn't know? We can do it, we can definitely do it. I have no problem doing it. It's gonna take a little bit longer, but those are just some of my concerns. And then also these machines, once we get done plowing these sidewalks, I'll say on a bigger storm, these guys go out and we have these machines clear the fire hydrants for the snow. Say we get a two-foot storm and then they go plow the sidewalks and then they snow-blow the sidewalks and that's gonna add more obviously to that. And then they go out and they blow the hydrants out so the fire personnel can get to the hydrants. So that's just another thing I wanna make sure you guys are aware of. But, hey, whatever the board wants, we can do it. We can make it happen. But any questions? Let me know. Thank you, Ricky. I always appreciate the can-do attitude. Going back to the trustee questions, Amber, you are next, Ned. Gosh. Sorry, I don't really have any questions. I should have taken my hand down. I just wanted to hear what Ricky had to say. Okay, Raj. Yeah, I think this is great. And if they truly think they can handle it and I can't remember honestly at this point at night who suggested this, but yeah, just making sure that management, Ricky, Evan have the wherewithal to say, not this time. If you'd be, obviously, and I guess we'll just need to do some communication, the trustees and stuff, getting some front porch forums out there, making people aware that this is COVID related and what the reasons are. And because the next worry is that we're not doing a next winner or the winner after. And some people may not like it. Some people may love it. And if it goes away all of a sudden, it's gonna be that conversation all over again and keep them like it. No, yeah, you're right, Raj. That's the thing, you know, there's some people who are gonna love it but they're gonna hate it. But then there's also one thing I did forget about was there's gonna be probably an expensive cleanup in the springtime. I hate to say it. If we have to plow during the soft season with, it's gonna be a lot of sod damage and a lot of people that are not gonna be happy with the amount of turf damage that we do. So that's gonna create, I can't give you a number. I can't say it's gonna be 30 hours of four people, you know, cleaning this stuff up. But yes, there's gonna be a lot more sod damage, like I've discussed before, you know, this overgrowth from these sidewalks that have not been plowed in 15 years. So that's one more thing in the springtime. We're gonna have to clean all that stuff up and you're gonna have some, possibly some not very happy residents. I'm sure there's gonna be some happy residents that say, this is great, you're plowing my side of sidewalk. So just another FYI. I'm sorry, I meant to mention that before. No, thank you for that. And definitely one of the things I wanna make sure it gets that I stayed here is ensuring that your staff, Ricky, really do have what they need, both in terms of their own energy, their own capacity to do this work would be absolutely top concern. And as George mentioned about the discretion to you and Evan, when I think about streets like Brown Ale Thrive, for instance, it's a dead end street that I believe has two sides of the street with sidewalks on it. I don't foresee the needs, and this is my opinion, I don't foresee the need of both sidewalks that are being plowed. It is not a heavily trafficked street. It is a dead end street where you keep doing what you've been doing. There are other streets though where I can definitely see the need for both sides being plowed. And I would look to your discretion with traffic patterns with your own knowledge of the community to really help figure out which those streets are. George, I see you've got your hand and then Evan. I'm just, I'm gonna not say anything new. I'm sorry to keep going on, but I'm really feeling like, boy, I mean, I would say maybe if we're gonna break the visual pattern, focus on at least those main thoroughfares. As you just said, Evan, there's so many residential streets in the village that it's not gonna make a difference. It's just a lot of extra work and we're plowing an extra sidewalk that doesn't really need to be plowed. So I would really, really emphasize that Ricky have the discretion, and if he doesn't get to it, I mean, I for one, a month from now, we hear, yeah, I wasn't really able to get to it. We only were able to do a little bit. I'd be perfectly fine with that. I'm not gonna get, I'm not gonna hold anyone's feet to the fire with an expectation here because we're kind of changing a big complicated plan and a work schedule and everything sort of in midstream. So I just wanna emphasize my own personal feeling since we're not voting on anything, any specific policy change, I really wanna emphasize that Ricky and Evan have a lot of slack in deciding how much of this to do. That's all. That's my opinion. I'm concerned. Thank you, George. And I see what you say concerned. You're concerned about staff and... Yeah, I'm concerned about that the, you know, that residents get upset when their lawns get plowed and like a miracle, it grows back within two weeks, it grows back and tempers get calm. But I'm concerned about the burden put on public work staff when in the middle of a pandemic, when we don't know what the conditions are gonna be, we could have ice storms and, you know, they get the sense that they're supposed to be doing, keeping extra sidewalks, you know, cleaned. I'd just be concerned that they're gonna get stress. I'd rather have them, you know, the priority is the plowing plant that we have. And if whatever they can do, that's extra is much appreciated. But their health and safety is the most important thing in my mind right now to get us through this pandemic. Wholeheartedly agree with that, George. Yeah, absolutely. And yes, nothing to add there. Evan, why don't you go ahead? Thank you. I think Ricky said this, we will absolutely do what the village board wants us to do. I think the comments are appropriate in terms of, you know, some of these sidewalks on the other side have not been plowed in years. When we say overgrowth, again, for people that know or don't know, you know, if you have a four foot sidewalk and you have a five foot blade that got chopped down to about four and a half feet, one side of the sidewalk of the grass is gonna get edged that's just gonna happen. And we deal with it every spring. One of the issues, and I appreciate it, if we have latitude to do it as time permits, we can certainly try that. Messaging is gonna be a problem because we're gonna tell people we're only doing it during COVID. Some will like it, some will hate it. The ones that want it are gonna want us to keep doing it. So keep, bear that in mind. And then the last one is, Ricky and I were talking about this today. While we have not had a lot of snow this winter, there is a lot of accumulated ice on some of these sections that have not been plowed. So I wanna be careful that people don't think we're gonna be able to plow ice. I was walking through Brickyard on Brickyard the other day and the non-plowed side pretty much has a layer of ice underneath that snow, a little bit of snow that fell there. If it warms up, that would be great. And if it melts, then we could keep on it. But once it's iced over and Ricky, you can jump on this. I don't think we plow in those conditions or we won't be able to plow very well in those conditions. But other than that, we could try it. I mean, there's about what, six, seven months left of winter. I'm just kidding, was there about four months? 16 weeks. Our guys, oh, and one other thing. So just this week, the village crews collected 800 Christmas trees this last week and a half. 850, don't short us to 50. 850, thank you. And you got it all on one truck, I heard. Yeah. It's amazing. One truck. No, Mike did a nice job, he got 103 on one rig, it was great. I saw him down to the axels. I don't know if we have more to do. We've had a couple of minor. No, we're done. We've had some couple of minor water breaks that the guys have to deal with in the winter. We have other projects that go on. But if the boards amenable to giving us flexibility, we can try. Yes, no, we're definitely trying. Again, I'd like to see the board make a defined decision saying this is what we're gonna do. So there's no amen and hauling, I'd say it that way. So that this is what has been decided. This is what we're gonna do and we're gonna do it. And that's what we're gonna do. So people come to us and say, there's gonna be some complaints. I know there is. We go out there, the countryside area, for instance, you probably got four to five inches of snow and some ice on that. And we go through like, say, if you guys approved this, say tonight, say you approved tonight, the next day or two, we go up and plow off all those sidewalks, you want us to. There's gonna be some phone calls. We are gonna push snow balls and snow banks into people's driveways. This is what it's gonna be. So we've got to be prepared for that. And there's gonna be a lot of phone calls. And Evan, if you could take those phone calls, I'd appreciate that if we could put more numbers out. If Evan teach at eight, seven, what does that get? I think this is the perfect job for Amber. That's where she comes from. I hate to do this. Where do I keep getting thrown in this? I've always been feeling so I don't get this stuff. So now you see it. Now you see what happens in our office every day. Yeah. Evan, these folks know me a little bit. They've got to see this. They're gonna know what we're gonna do now, you know? Right? I missed the Ricky Jones show in person. I'm not gonna lie. It's... I'm saying, I miss the people. I really miss the people action. I didn't have any problems with them. He was in rare form today in the office. He was. I agree. I agree. No, I'm 100%. I really missed the interaction with people. I have a problem with that. I am a people person. But yes, we'll do whatever you guys want. If that's what you guys want. But I don't want to do whatever you guys want. But there are gonna be some phone calls when we go to do this. If that's what you guys think the community wants and needs, then we'll do it. It's gonna take a little bit of extra time. You've got that in the memo. But again, I think Evan Brett put up a great point. We do that this year, next year, and the year after, they're gonna probably expect the same thing. We've got a couple of nice cyber machines. We've created over the years some backup machines. We should be in fairly good shape to try to accomplish this. It won't be in the timely fashion. We've always done it because it's another seven plus miles of sidewalk we're gonna do. But you know what, we'll do what we can and we'll give it the best at the bill's difference. We'll put it there for you guys. One thing I really want to be clear though on my ask is, or when I brought this up and I still feel this very strongly now, I'm not talking about all seven miles of the sidewalk that's not being plowed. Countryside was mentioned, fair view. I've walked through those neighborhoods in numerous times with snow on the ground and personally, the traffic does not seem to be at an extent in which it seems like both sides of the sidewalk really need to be plowed there. Similarly with Wood's End Drive where there's a small portion of the road that has two sides of the sidewalk or the sidewalk on both sides of the road at the top of the hill. I don't see the need for both of those to be plowed. There's not enough traffic there where people are playing Frogger where Frogger really happens are in the areas, like I had mentioned, I know I've witnessed it on Brickyard Road and that's just because it's where I live and so I see it regularly. I've seen it as I drove through over near where Dan lives. I can't remember the name of the street and I wish I could. Those are really the areas I'm talking about. Nope, you're exactly right, Andrew. I've seen it. I was up there today in a countryside area and I saw probably eight or 10 people out. They're walking in their distancing and I need to say it, but none of them are on a sidewalk. They're all on the road. And you can because there's not much traffic and Dan's development, there's not much traffic. But yes, down like a Brickyard. I consider Brickyard is a class three road but I consider it myself and public works. We can consider it like a class two road like a West Street, a South Street. There's a lot of traffic that goes down that road. Maybe we can narrow it down if you wanna do that instead of just trying to do like if you wanna do the whole thing, like okay heck with it, we're doing everything and that's it. Maybe we can pick some spots. Yeah, we can do that. That's no problem. If you wanna sit down with whoever or we can do a video conference or whatever you wanna do. Same, these streets here should be like we should plow both sides. And so that's, we don't need you so much. And so that's what I meant when I said I trust your discretion and I trust your judgment where I know that you see that on a regular basis. And so if you want, we as a board, we could talk and really figure out what those roads are. But I think that one of the things I'm hearing from the board tonight is that we trust you. We know you know the community. We know that you see it. And so do you feel that with that in mind you would have what you need or do you want us to tell you which streets? No, I'll do it. I'll do it. You guys sign up on it. No problem with that. Yeah, I'll say, Rick said and I had a dollar for your time. Someone said, Rick said, that'd be great. I probably won't be working every now and be retired. But anyways, no offense. I love this place, but you're wrong. But if I can tell you, I can sit down with that and say, look, let's do this, this and this. I say, these probably the priorities. Let's try that and see what happens. And then what I want, I gotta have the backing of course because if someone calls up and says, what are you doing, blowing this? Absolutely. Or I can just say, Rick said, I can say, Rick said, I'm doing this. Go with that. Go ahead, Dan. Yeah, no, I just to continue on what you said, Andrew and what Rick's been talking about. I just, I agree. I don't think we need to plow both sides of the street throughout the entire village, but there are some areas that I think that would be helpful. But I would defer to Rick. And I'm just curious, Rick, if you explain basically why some areas are plowed on each side of the street, some aren't, I mean, whatever the metrics you use to decide that, but I'm sure you can make the decision and I'll trust your decision. But I'd be happy with whatever you wrote. Oh, I appreciate that, Dan. I've been doing this long enough. I've seen enough. If I'm doing it wrong, you guys would know it by now. You know what I mean? That's for Dan. That's for Darniture. So yes, we can definitely do that, Dan. That's not a problem. Like I said, Andrew, I think it's a great call as far as like brickyard. That's, there's a fair amount of traffic going down that that should, again, we consider that a class two highway. And then the same with pedestrians. There's a lot of folks that live on that road and walk it. And sure, I have no problem with that. There may be a couple of other ones we look at and God, I hate to, but if I have to, I can go with Evan and we can go discuss that, you know, but it really happened right around my truck with me with a mask on, but maybe right behind me, we could talk on radios or something. I don't know, but we can make it work, Andrew. I'll be a little bit of a little bit late. I got you. So just to make sure I get the language right, it sounded like you were looking for some kind of a decision. So some kind of a, some kind of a motion. And if that's the case, it sounds like to plow both sides of the sidewalk on the road. Rick says. Rick says, you've gotta put that in. I gotta have, you gotta put where Rick says. How about on roads identified by village staff based on traffic patterns and as staffing and conditions allow? Sure, Rick and Evan, if you want. Yes. For this winter. I'm sorry. I'm not having a little bit more fun with this than I probably should. For this winter during the COVID pandemic. For the winter during the COVID pandemic. Yeah. That would be great. Man, I miss Ricky. I miss you guys too. I'm missing him less and less right now. Evan, I'm coming to your house tonight. Don't worry about it. All right, so we've got some general language for emotion and it seems like at this point, it's a good time to turn to the public comment. Sorry guys. I miss you guys. So with that, if there are any members from the public using Microsoft Teams who'd like to speak to the board on this issue, please raise your hand or type into the chat feature that you'd like to speak. And for those of you on the phone, I ask for your patience as we have them at those on Microsoft Teams go first. And Annie, why don't you start it off? I know you guys are talking a lot. I don't want to waste your time, but I want to say that number one, I don't know that anybody knows our sidewalks as well as Ricky and Evan. Rick working them and Evan walking the town flat. I applaud the concept and the work and I'm so grateful that Ricky was on board because that was my concern when as soon as Rick said that they would absolutely do it. I think that's great. I think it is going to be a learning curve. I think we do have to expect to do it in the future, but also once it starts becoming our norm to plow both sides, I think it changes the walkability nature of us. Like it just makes us that much more who we are as a village, as a town, all those things. I think that the walkability feature being worked on on purpose during the winter makes it easier for kids, makes it everything. And especially during the pandemic, I can imagine the phone calls I'm not offering to volunteer my time to man those phone banks. I can imagine the bumps of 15-year sidewalks that haven't been plowed, but also I would imagine that it will open mines and doors just gonna get a little funny there. But I think that once you would get through the initial hard part, which Ricky sounds good naturedly prepared to face on our behalf. And thank you so much for that. I think that it will set a really nice precedent precedent, yes, sorry. I got carried away with that thought for a second. Precedent for the walkability that we are and continue to be. And as we grow and as we want people to move throughout our community, I think it's a great step in general, let alone the first reason why. That being said, Georgia is really nutty when the lawns get knocked around, but I do know that everyone on Facebook says that if you contact the town and village that you get assistance in that. All right, thanks so much, you guys. Thanks for the good natured discussion that's really been enjoyable. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Anybody else on Teams? Does not appear. So, wait, sorry, Harlan, go ahead. Harlan, did you wanna speak to the board on this? You're muted. All right, maybe. I'm muted. I'm sorry, I was having a problem with Teams. You got me now? I got you now. It's all yours. I just wanted to second Annie's vote to make Ricky president. I'm pretty sure that's what she just said. That's exactly right. Yeah, so I wanted to second Annie's vote to make Ricky president. And I believe that the complaint number should probably be Ricky's cell phone number. That's all I was, that's all I wanted to add. Where you live. I know where you live. I don't have a sidewalk. Yeah. All right, everybody, we're almost there. We're almost through this. If we don't have sidewalks, is Ricky gonna do our driveways? You don't want me to do your driveway. I'm just gonna let you know that I'm about to write down that the whole board of trustees and staff have gone gaffaud. And the record shall show that giggle attacks are happening. All right, I think that's a good note, Kathy. Thank you for that. And with that, it sounds like everybody on teams has said what they'd like to say. And so I'll turn this over to those on the phone if you'd like to participate in this very productive conversation. Now is the time to do so. You guys are all volunteering to go on the sidewalk machine. Have a nice night. All right, hearing nothing from the phones. So it sounds like the general consensus and the ask from staff is to have both sides of the sidewalk plowed on those rows identified by bill of staff based upon traffic patterns as staffing and conditions allow for the winter during the COVID pandemic. That's what I think I heard. If somebody wants to make a motion to that effect or change it, feel free. I'll make that, I'll make the motion. Thank you, George. Is there a second? Second. Great. And Kathy, I'm only asking as our recording secretary is that a question about the motion or is the hand a leftover? Oh, totally left over, sorry about that. No worries, just want to make sure. I got it, thank you. All right, so any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, so that passed unanimously. We did it, we made it. Thank you. Ricky, thank you for being here tonight and thank you and your staff for all that you've done so far this winter and all that you do on a regular basis. Thank you. Now I need to figure out where we are. Looks like that's the end of business items and moves us into the consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Raj. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, so that passed unanimously and brings us into the reading file as well as board member comments. It's getting late, but I just wanted to mention a couple of things. First off, I meant to mention this when Tim was with us from CVE. A few meetings ago, I believe we had the list of CVE events within our reading file or within our consent agenda. And one of the things I wanted to thank him for is I did not see the Wolfskart event on their list this year. I know that's event in the past, which has brought a lot of email, a lot of concerns from the community about the things that happened there or the happened at CVE during that event. And so I'm thrilled, frankly, to not see that on there, regardless as to whether CVE didn't allow them back or whether they're just not coming back on their own accord. We're just thrilled to see that personally. I also wanted to take a few moments to just thank those who went to the select award meeting last night and to spoke to their desires, their passions, their beliefs, regardless as to whether they aligned with my own or not. The meeting was very well attended. And frankly, the attendance at that meeting, in looking back at meeting minutes from the one public hearing or the one public meeting we had back at Essex Middle School, it appeared that the attendance at that online meeting last night surpassed the in-person attendance at that meeting at Essex Middle School. So clearly we are reaching out to people. And I appreciate those who have taken the time to come out and voice their opinions on that. And that was all I wanted to address tonight. Trustees, was there anything that you wanted to mention? Kathy. Hi, I just have a quick question. Could you tell me the name of the event that was not on the list again, please? I believe it is Wolfsgart, so W-O-L-F-S-G-A-R-T. Thank you. Got it. Evan, anything from you? No, sir. All right, well, there's no executive session. I need to send you all an email, trustees, for the evaluation. So be and look out for that tonight. Now I'm done with the comments. I'll move my adjournment. I don't know what to say. Yeah, I second that. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, Dan, for writing this in. Any further discussion on that motion? Kathy, is a hand up a holdover? Very much a holdover. All right, all those in favor of adjourning, say aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? I think there's some Wolfsgart wrong, but I think it's the Wolfs, like the Wolfswagen, your W-O-L, I think it's F-E, might be, but anyways, whatever. I'll go down in history, it's not going to happen. I'm okay with it. I have to say that I'm- It's the Wolfswagen rally or something like that, German rally. I think giggle attacks should happen on a regular basis in this meeting. I think that's a very good thing. Sounds like a challenge. Have a nice evening, everybody. Have a good one, everybody. Bye.