 Okay, I will make the motion that we amend the agenda to move item 7C up into the consent agenda, make it item 6E, and that the select board approve such amendment. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. We have the agenda modified. Next thing on the agenda is public to be heard. This is a time when people attending the meeting can speak to the select board on topics that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, if you're in the room, you can raise your hand. Or in the Zoom meeting, use the raise hand function. If you'd like to speak to the board, please be brief, please be civil, please address your remarks to me as a select board chair. If you are attending remotely, please keep your microphone muted in your camera off to limit distraction, and I guess I will open up any comments for public to be heard. If you do have one here, Dennis, come on up. This is my last meeting with the board, because hopefully the next meeting I'll be overseas if the airlines cooperate. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but when I left the house, my wife said, that's the least amount of paper you've ever taken to a board of select board meeting, and she's absolutely right. And I won't take much of your time, but I wanted to speak directly to you because I wanted to thank this board and previous boards because the support that you've given to me over time. I'm not sure if you realize how important this is to employees and staff, but it's extremely important. And I think the feeling of trust has grown over time and the support, and when I look back, when I counted up the select board members, because I was curious, I think there were over 50 that I worked for over a long period of time. Unfortunately, many are not alive, which obviously dates me, so that's not necessarily good either. And I want to add that support doesn't always equate to agreement. And I think that's an important thing to remember. We may not always agree on issues, but at the end of the day, we've supported each other. You've read what we've presented. You've listened when we talk. In the end, you've given fair consideration to our ideas, and I think that's all that staff can ask for. Public works deals in a little different environment than you guys do. You guys deal with policy. You guys deal with, and ladies with stuff that I think is sometimes is ephemeral, but extremely important. Public works deals with more tangible stuff, and I think we're comfortable with that. But it's the roads, it's the water lines, it's the sewer, it's the storm lines. It's all the municipal infrastructure. Our employees plow the roads, sweep the streets, pump the sewage, manage emergencies, maintain the municipal infrastructure. We're trying to actually estimate a year in advance what those costs are going to be. And we're dealing with that now in terms of this year. And I didn't even look back to see what we budgeted for fuel. But my guess it was probably something like 260 a gallon. And now it's even at our prices approaching 460 a gallon or something like that. You just don't know. And so you have to, you're constantly in the middle of change. And I think we all are in our life, but especially when we're trying to get work done to benefit the community and you're dealing with things that you just plain don't expect. Another example is we had a storm line go out up on Heatherbush. And we knew we had to fix it. We were doing studies to fix it. We had a contractor looking at it. When he was looking at it, he fell through the pavement. It was that bad. So we knew we had to fix it, unbudgeted. We got prices. We compared prices. We started out at $85,000 and it went to 140. So we've had to adjust other purchases just to get that work done. But the guys have done it and it's now repaired. It's fixed. It will probably be fixed for another 50 years. And it's all underground. Nobody sees it. It's not like you go into a park and say, God, they put $50,000 worth of flowers there. Nobody sees it because it's under the pavement. But it's there and it's now working. We aren't perfect. We make mistakes. We try hard, but we're human. And I still think we've done a pretty good job at it. I kind of think of what we've done as being in the basketball world, where I think we've made more free throws than we've missed. And I think that's important. I wish the Celtics had done the same, but that's another whole issue. For myself, I've been proud to be the public works director for almost 38 years to have earned your trust and the opportunity to serve Essex. But I think it's really important and I want to leave on this note, the credit for any success I've had really goes to a truly outstanding, dedicated, professional, caring, and knowledgeable public work staff. Collectively, they do a better job at managing the operation than I can ever do. I would never be where I am or doing what I was able to do what I do if they hadn't been there to help me. And so I get a lot of credit when I come to meetings and things like that. But the people who are doing the work behind the scenes really deserve the credit. The good part is they're gonna be here and they're gonna continue to serve you. So my only request really is that you trust them as you've trusted me. Give them your support, but continue to ask them tough questions. I mean, they will give you straight answers. And I think working together, the community will be well served. She hadn't left. We'll get them back. Yeah, we'll get them back. I've only known Dennis for eight of his 38 years and he's certainly one of my one of my favorite folks to have come talk to us for sure. I think he may actually from a standpoint of a regular attendee, he's probably the only one who's been there the entire tenure. So everybody else is new compared to that. Okay, sorry, anybody else want to make any comments about Dennis right now? Well, it's one that probably few of only, maybe Dusty was here, but here when Dennis first started is an amazing trip for eight years to go. You're dad would. Why do so? Yeah, we are lucky to have him. Yep, for sure. He's going to be lucky to have him and we are going to honor him later on. As you've noticed or as you know, you've named the Public Works Facility after Dennis would be doing a little ceremony for that later on this summer to pull that out, have some other stuff in the works to give him the recognition that he deserves. And I also just want to thank Verily Stone. He's been a mentor to me. And yeah, the town of Essex is a much better place because of Dennis Lutz. So he deserves all the recognition he gets. Great. I would just add that that is a well-deserved retirement serving the town that long, but I also find it amusing that he thinks he's going to be left off the hook that easy. He's a walking encyclopedia and we know where he lives. All right. Anybody else want to speak during public to be heard? Seen hands in the room. I don't see any hands up online. So let's move to our first business item, interviews and possible appointments for volunteers to serve in the Economic Development Commission. Let's start with Brian Sheldon. Come on up, Brian. If you have the opportunity to introduce yourself, you're already a member of the board. You're looking for reappointment. Yes. Experience on the board while you want to continue. Yeah. Any information you want to share with us? Sure. I mean, I think everyone is from known speed. My name is Brian Sheldon. You know, this is my hometown. And as and for the purposes of this conversation, I'm the chair of the Essex Economic Development Commission. So I would I would hope to have the honor of being reported by all of you. I'm trying to make eye contact with Kendall, too. A couple of things that we have accomplished in my term, not all as chair, that I'm that I'm especially proud of. We sent a flyer to all of the Essex businesses. I don't know if you guys remember how during this was during the pandemic when the state house was passing things very quickly and often with 72 hour deadlines. Yeah, is this better? Sorry. Yeah. So we and we sent them to some of them specifically in this case, there were some sole proprietors that this that the state house had passed a law it was a sort of a PPP like benefit for sole proprietors. So we we sent a flyer to all the sole proprietors in Essex that we could identify, which leads to the next thing that was one of my big focuses. Once I became chair, we tried to generate what I call a census of the businesses in Essex as many as that we could find. We were slowed down again by the pandemic. We were planning on extending what Darby had done in the in mostly in the village and going door to door when then that became unsafe. So we have so we have since finished that and and released it within the last two months. We're slowed down by that and also trying to keep privacy fair. We don't want people to use that for, you know, to, you know, to sell to all the Essex businesses. We want that to be for the town. So we had to walk a fine line between transparency and privacy that there's a bit to figure out and and we've we've been active volunteers in events like out and about in Essex. I would like to if if reappointed, I would like to continue continue our new kind of new brainstorm, which is to promote promote a local Essex business. We we we during women's business month, we there was a there's a string of women owned businesses in the Essex experience. And because it was women's history month, we reached out to some of them and we use the the town website to promote them. I have Bramble will be next as a new business here in Essex. In fact, I stopped by to get the photograph to put in a little meme that I like to make on the way here, but they're not open on Tuesday. And also with with Jean O'Sullivan's help, we were trying to do a transportation study for the businesses in in Saxon Hill. And one of the, you know, a lot of Essex businesses are hurting for staff. So and one of the things that would help that would be to have some active transportation, like we talked to Jordini and how they have a lot of a lot of staff coming from Winooski. So there are ways that we could get them into Saxon Hill, which is sort of in a dead zone between the two bus lines that go through Essex. And and of course, whatever ideas all y'all would like to suggest, we are open. We we serve at your pleasure. So open open to ideas and suggestions and feedback. So I've enjoyed serving Essex in this way and I'm happy to keep recruiting businesses the way that I recruit developers when I was, you know, when to come work for me as a software manager. And you know, and I like being a positive voice for Essex. And and I'm helping promote the Essex business community. So I hope I can hope I hope you will reappoint me for another turn. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Brian. Any questions for members? I'll go. Go ahead. Tell us about a time you changed your mind on an issue. What was the issue and what changed your mind? Well, I am the the I think that someone, a gentleman, actually, it's Ken, who's in this room, came to came to an EDC meeting and he and he pointed out that one of the fastest growing areas of business in Essex are is farming. I really like his idea, actually, of of trying to get some of the farmstead type businesses. I mean, even probably know the terminology better than I do. Because, yeah, I think I think it was something as a techie that I didn't think of. And obviously, financially, we're dominated by some tech businesses over farming. But I think it's a but I think it's a good initiative for Essex that I hadn't thought. Any other question? Ethan, go ahead. What is the most important thing in your radar for the upcoming year? Or for the? Sure. I mean, the two things that that one of the things is that the is a volunteer commission and we don't have a lot of time or energy or cash, right? So the the promoting the large businesses in Essex is really handled better by the, you know, the GBIC. So what I'd like to do is help promote some promote some of the smaller businesses, as you know, as I mentioned. And I think we can, especially with Geno Sullivan, his big, big help to our commission, her connections at the state house help do some kind of triangulation and pull in some more some more resources, like just by knowing the right people, right? So that and which is a long winded way of saying I think that I would love to have like Jeff Benjamin would love to basically for us to stand up indeed, you know, Essex dot indeed dot com. I think that's that's too big for us, but I think promoting local businesses is something that is fits within the scope of our volunteer commission. Go ahead, Dan, the question as we know that you're running for seat in the Senate. How do you plan on splitting your time if elected? Or will you step down from this committee if elected? Well, I believe that and correct me if you guys disagree that there is not a conflict of interest by promoting Essex business, but a conflict, right? While I will if elected to the Senate, I will be promoting business in all four towns that I will represent. And I don't I don't I think that I my plan was not to step down unless you guys ask. I think I can do that answer your whole question, Don, or just have. Kendall, any questions? I was just trying to figure out a way to phrase if the committee has figured out or thought about any way that you could have more Essex businesses supply the municipal needs that the town needs. Local businesses kind of a kind of a come together, if you would. I'm looking through the warrant system items that are often purchased outside of town, but I think it's probably businesses in town that could supply. I just wondered if you had any ideas how you might go about that. I mean, that's a good idea that I hadn't thought of. If you if you send me that list, I can try to do some networking and hook up and find where Essex businesses can serve that need. I mean, I think I think I should work with Greg on that. Yeah, Greg's nodding. Yes. Good idea, Kendall. All right. So question I've been asking everybody is do you have any questions for the select board? I mean, I mean, I sort of asked it in my in my open, right? What do you need from us? What can we what can we do to help? I mean, I'm a I'm a software consultant by trade, not an economic development professional. So if you have any suggestions, I'm willing to run down. All right, great. Okay, any other any other questions? Hey, thank you, Brian. It's our intention to go into executive session at the end of this meeting. We'll have discussion about appointments since everybody's all the terms are coming to an end here with the end of the month. So if we come to a decision, we'll somebody will let you know from the manager's office tomorrow. Great. All right. Or you can stay tuned and and watch it live. I will I will save a little bit of that. Okay, all right. Thanks, Brian. Where's your hand for me, Greg? Just for the board. There is one more applicant for the EDC who's not here tonight. So I just wanted to make sure everybody aware before yet have one more that's about to come up. There's another applicant to July 11th. July 11th, we're looking at that. The person was not available tonight. Okay, Ken, come on up. Ken, again, it's an opportunity to introduce yourself. Tell us why you'd like to be considered for membership on the Economic Development Commission and any other information you'd like to share with the board. So you folks probably know me by my elementary education background, but you may not know that I run an information system business called Results Incorporated. I've been running that business since 1981 and look that up, double check it. 40 years. It's hard to believe it's been that long. When I was located in Burlington, I actually employed six people and so I really know what it's like to meet payroll. Here in Essex, I still operate results, but now I'm the only employee you know that I operate the darkroom gallery down in the village. And I do some photography on the side. You may have heard of my company, Green Destiny Images. You also probably know that I occasionally write and do media for the Essex Retroader, another local Essex business. I'm going to tell you what I hope to accomplish on the EDC, but before I do that, I just want to make a correction to something that I said, or more in addition to something I said at the last meeting interview. I think don't ask me how would I handle a situation where I was in the minority on something and I kind of was a little bit lippant in my answer saying that, you know, I would just suck it up and move on. But there's an important part of that that I left out, which is you have to always remember that the people that you were opposed to on an issue could be people that can be your ally on the next issue. You never want to alienate people. You always want to make sure that you're cordial, maintain a relationship, even in a situation of disagreement. You're up. Your opponent can become your ally overnight. That's an important addition I wanted to make. I'm appointed to the EDC. I want to try to do four things. One of them is to do some technical tightening. The commission website, for example, says that they meet twice a month. They don't. They meet once a month. In October, last October, they actually put meetings on hold for two months, which is something that I would resist. The agenda is consistent, sometimes has a wrong date that actually resulted in a meeting being adjourned once because of an improper warning. And the minutes can be a bit terse on something I'd like to improve also. Brian mentioned that that very same meeting that I was going to talk about, which is nice. We had Chris Kuleba from UVM come and talk about business trends. It was supposed to be business trends in Essex, but actually he reported business trends in Chittenden County. And I'm at that same meeting. I did point out that, yes, agriculture was what I was surprised to see, one of the fastest growing sectors in Chittenden County, but small. And the point that Chris May wish I thought was very astute is that, yes, it is a small component of the economy, but it's attracts other aspects of the economy. Having a working landscape makes for attractiveness to employees, people, and businesses. None of that got in the minutes. I thought it was really important. And I looked, not in there. So those are some of the things I want to do on technical tightening. The inventory, the business inventory, which is a wonderful thing, that business gene solvent is there and actually working on it and finally got resources from the state and is actually making some progress. But in addition to knowing how many businesses we have and what sectors they're in, we need to know deltas. We need to know change. So I'm hoping to get a periodic report of how many businesses we lose, how many businesses did we gain, and then what sectors. I think that's also very important. I want to get that added to the inventory process if we can. I want to make sure that we include those small agricultural operations in that inventory, which is something that's kind of difficult to do because they're not going to be listed in the state list of businesses typically. And I'm willing that particular item, I'm willing to spearhead myself. Kind of like what I did with the spongy moth thing and the conservation and trails committee, that's near and dear to my heart. So I would push on that, take their responsibility on personal. I want to try to introduce some better pragmatic problem solving. Good example of that is right now that the ADC is trying to deal with bringing in business perspective, possibly bringing in non-resident members of the business community. Obviously, that's a difficult thing to do. Non-residence is not a great easy way to sell. What was also considered was non-voting members. And what business operator do you know would want to come to an eight o'clock meeting for an hour and sit or not be able to have a vote on something? So I don't think that's going to be attractive. So what I would suggest is that what we do is actually invite a business operator in once a month to talk about their business, what we're doing right in Essex, what we're not doing right. People like Ron Convoy from Glauville or Mike McNeil from the Inn at Essex. But also people like Robert White from the White Tree Farm or Phil Murdoch from the Chapin Orchard really get a sense as to what's working and what isn't working. They'll come to one meeting and tell us their story. I'm sure that's not going to be a challenge and that's a better way, I think, to solve that requirement. A little bit more pragmatic problem solving. Finally, I want to develop Essex's brand. So brand is a set of strong associations that people have with a product, a service or a place. Brand exists in people's minds, not in the product or the place or the service. Really important, I went to Italy two years ago and they have a term that they use called agritorismo, which I think is really appropriate for us. Right away, you start thinking, what is that? It's agriculture and tourism together. That's sort of what Vermont's brand is all about, that they promote it actively. It's part of their story, their brand. People associate agritorismo with Italy. I think it's a great idea. So what's our brand? What is Essex's brand? But what associations do people have when they think of Essex? Is it that we're a developer town? Is it that we're a Burlington bedroom community? There are some hints as to what I think we think Essex's brand is. I went to our website, our website. Cape and Orchard, right on top. So agricultural goodness seems to be part of what we're trying to brand, I think, part of our brand. I looked at our logo and it looks like a lot of open space. Mountains, small amount of residential or maybe it's industrial, I can't really tell. And I come in these meetings, what, two or three times a month. Look at this picture. Every time I come in, I'm thinking that actually might be where our logo came from. I think that that's sort of the idea that we have possibly for our brand, or maybe it's we want to be an industrial powerhouse. I'm not sure, but I really think that getting that brand nailed down and everybody to understand it and be on board with it is very, very important to marketing. So those are the four things I think I'd like to do. Technical timing, expand our business inventory to include deltas, introduce some better pragmatic problem solving, and develop Essex's brand. All right, thanks, Ken. Any questions? Board members? He covered it. Gracie, go ahead. You mentioned that you are an owner of various businesses, but then Essex, how would you handle conflicts of interest if they arose on the EDC? I'll recuse, of course. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm about to change my mind question. I asked you that last time. I've got a new answer. I'm curious about the, I'm going to say it totally wrong, but I agree. Agri-Therismo? No, the Agri-Voltaics. Oh, Agri-Voltaics. That's incredible. In Colorado, I looked into this. This is actually quite interesting. You know, when we put up solar farms, you take up a lot of space, obviously. And the land underneath those solar farms, it's hard, it's hard to use. But if you raise those panels up and spread them a bit further apart, people are growing crops under those panels. And it turns out that some crops actually benefit from the shade or partial shade. If it's farther apart, it's partial shade because the sun moves. So that's working out really well in some parts of the country. And that, I think, is something to start considering. That would be something I'm going to talk about when I get into that one of those planning work groups, which I'm going to be doing from the Conservation and Trails Committee angle. I think that that would be something to introduce and say, hey, if you're going to put up a solar farm, it's got to be in this concept of thinking about solar voltaics. Make feet off the ground so you can mow underneath on such. Okay. The cattle would like that shade, I think. Any questions? I have no questions, but I would like to say that that was an impressive presentation. Well, thank you. I think I did use my good on the last one, so I prepared better for this one. Kendall, any questions? Oh, I would just add that he brings up a good point in that Jericho has a super vibrant farmer's market. Richmond has a super vibrant farmer's market. I don't understand why Essex can't top them all. So that was a great presentation. Thanks, Kendall. So, Ken, do you have any questions for the select board? No, I don't think so. I'd be excited to serve on the committee. I was at one time concerned at serving on this commission and the conservation and trails committee because they're going to have me on your table for both, but it was going to be potentially a problem. But as I've been watching the economic development commission, the demands are not really that intense at this point. So if it got to be a problem, I would just figure out which one to stick on. But at this point, I don't think it will be a problem. Actually, I was mistaken about that. That was my change of mind, actually. Thought I couldn't do it, but now I think I can. All right. Thanks, Ken. So again, we will go into executive session later. I don't know whether... Not today, though, because you have another... We have a number of positions to talk about tonight, but we may or may not choose to do the complete appointments for the EDC at this point because there's another candidate that we need to interview. Thanks. We'll let you know... Well, or you can stay tuned and watch the end of the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. Okay. Now, moving on to business item B, 5B, interviews and possible appointments to volunteers to serve on the planning commission. Joshua Knox, come on up. This opportunity to introduce yourself to the board. I believe this is a reappointment. So, you could discuss your experience on the board or anything you want to share with us. So, my name is Joshua Knox. I am currently the vice chair of the Essex Planning Commission. Before I go any further, Ethan, my son, Everett, would like to say hi to your son Parker. That was the only thing he cared about. He's like, when you go to your complaining mission meeting, I'm like, it's tech, please? He's like, no, it's a complaining mission. Okay, that's what I'm going to say. So, this actually marks my ninth year. Amazingly, I first joined in 2013, right after we settled down in the Cyprus Lane area. And what I brought this evening, I mean, you all have copies already, you've seen it, but this is the thing I'm specifically proud of that I've been part of accomplishing. And what I think I bring to the commission is a clarity of thought and a clarity of language. What this started out as, meaning the ETC, it was this wide-ranging thing that had both sort of a vision element and a policy, procedure, regulatory element. And sort of as we went, it occurred to us that we needed something sort of as a pithy. Here's the core of what we're going for, that we can build everything around. And what I'm specifically proud of, because I bolded it myself when we wrote this, better connected and more cohesive. I thought we should get t-shirts, the budget wasn't there. Because this was the core of what we were trying to do, specifically in the town center area. We wanted to build a cohesive and connected town center from which the other areas would naturally develop, making use of, as we've heard, so many different advantages we have in Essex and tying them together to make it one community. And I'm just, I'm very pleased how that proceeded, because this proceeded during COVID, when we had to suddenly switch everything to the online Microsoft Teams and then Zoom method, which, because I have Everett and another child at home, is incredibly challenging at times. And we have to pivot and we pivoted. And I think as a group, and I'm not speaking about just myself, but as a group, this is a fantastic planning commission and we did pivot and we work together. And so what I would want to do for the next, I can't remember if it's three years or four years, it's been four years, but it's still four. It's a four year term. Four. Is we have a lot of work to do to put this stuff into action in the regulatory phase, in the policy phase, and send those up to you. And that's really what I want to be involved in, because we've established a vision, I think it's a fantastic vision. And I want to see through putting the regulations in place that will make that vision a reality and then move forward. Because I really hope that 20 or 30 years from now, my children can walk around and I can say, this building was because of this particular code we put in and we're really proud of this and see how this street is designed. And this is granular nerdy stuff, but that's who I am. And like the streets designed this way and it's 50 feet away and it could be 30 feet away and here's the effect and look at this green space and just be proud of this community we built in. That's really what I'd like to do. And that's what we'll be talking later about some specific initiatives. I don't want to step on your toes. Oh, apparently I will be stepping on his test. But yeah, we've got a lot of ideas coming on how to make this a reality and I just want to be part of that. Thanks. And I've changed my mind sort of about Pink Floyd. They've grown on me. They've grown on me, to be honest. Okay, we really have. Any questions from board members? Ethan, go ahead. So I've attended a local coffee shop and listened to a lot of people and concerns of development and specifically the ETC next plan. And in regards to things happening, developers are in the area and maybe not having, like you were talking about the policy, I was glad to hear that, but not having the enforcement of, this is the guidelines that we want, but we don't really have a way to set them and enforce them. And I'm a little bit assuming here but I'm taking an understanding that that's what you're focused on to Right, exactly. Make sure that we have that. Right, yeah. Right now we have the vision and that's again what you as a board approved. And the next stage is to get specific regulations and policies that then of course, when a developer comes in and we have a hearing on a proposed development, we could say X, Y, Z. These are the terms, these are the policies, these are regulations. Exactly. So that's again, that's in process right now. Tracy. What is your personal approach to balancing or taking into consideration applications or requests from a developer when they're in opposition to either feedback from the community or what's in the overall plan? I tend to think without doing sort of ex parte discussion. I always start with what the staff report says because that's sort of the hat that we can hang on with. If a developer, for lack of a better term, isn't playing ball, what are the regulatory things that we can push back with? And that's my basic approach is again, start with the staff report and if what they're doing is clearly, use a silly example, like a setback has to be 20 and their setback is like five or something. We can say like, look, we can't approve this on this basis. And if say the staff report recommends a denial, which is a very rare thing as you well know, then I look immediately to what are the reasons for the denial or if the staff report recommends approve with the following conditions. I read those, like I said, granular things to say what exactly are we talking about? And things don't always go exactly as the staff report says because there's give and take in a meeting, but it has to come back to the regulatory component. And if say a waiver is to be granted, there's a request for a waiver, what are we getting out of it? And to bring it back to putting the vision into play, we want to make sure, I want to make sure that we always get something for something that we're giving. If a developer says, you know, we really for our building to work and they make a solid case and say we need this particular waiver, then okay, well, what are we getting out of it in terms of how the building relates to the rest of the community or the composition of what have you, something like that? Neither Don, you got any questions? Outside of the town center, what do you see as other areas in Essex that need future planning? In terms of rezoning or just keeping our eyes on? Okay, the idea of agriturismo is really interesting. And I'm not knowledgeable enough to say, let's rezone this area, but that's definitely something that in a collaborative way, we'd want to say to help this, I'll say industry, although that might not be the exact word, what sort of thing do we want to do? Because like I said, more cohesive, better connected, how to tie this part of the community which is a vital part of the community with what we already have and help it expand, help it grow. And so yeah, you'd have to look at what all the current regulations are and say, okay, we may need to tweak our AR zone a little bit. And that's the whole point of regulatory review is to tweak this and tweak that. Any other areas of concern? Concern, I don't know. Personally, I'm really interested in the old town center just from the historical perspective. I like the idea of making that more of a showpiece and on the same grounds off Fort Ethan Allen. I mean, that most people do not associate that with Essex Essex when they drive by because if you're a driver on Route 15, you don't know when Colchester stops and when Essex starts, but that's absolutely part of the town too. So rezoning that as necessary and perhaps having a collaborative approach with Colchester, so it's seamless zone because when we first lived here, we were renting out in the fort and it's just so many great old buildings there. Fantastic stuff and it's a community resource that this is sort of, every once in a while we remember it, like the Juneteenth celebration was there and the fantastically interesting archives and the Buffalo Soldiers and then sort of forget about it for a while and want to keep that a little more front and center as you're entering Essex. Here's what we have. Thank you. All right, Kendall, any questions? No, planning isn't my forte, but I do have a couple of comments. One is that as you know, the police water division is funding designated growth centers. I wondered if the planning has designated a lot of areas in Essex as designated growth centers so you can access that funding and to go along with that, we've heard a lot about water loss and pipes and leaking and stuff like that and some of the developments that have been built. Do you have robust communications with the public works department for specifications and to make sure that those are all 100% before the town takes them over and has to do in the maintenance to them? To the first question, the ETC different neighborhood zones can, if you want, and this isn't something we're going to accomplish very, very quickly, but can correlate to different growth areas of different kinds, like there's a state village designation, a state town center, a state growth area. So the bones for that are in the ETC. So if we want to proceed in that exact direction, it's available. And vis-a-vis stormwater particularly, I mean, Dennis Lutz has never been shy about what he thinks about things. And we always get very robust communication from him and I'm sure his successor will be the exact same way. All right, so last question. Do you have any questions for the select board? We're there. We're good. I think I'll simply say what I wanted to say. Okay, all right. Great. Thank you so much. All right, let's move on to our next interview. Patty Davis, come on up. Opportunity to introduce yourself and let us know why you'd like to be appointed to the Planning Commission and any information that you have that might be relevant to the select board. Sure. Don't touch the microphone. Oh, leave it alone. Sorry. Okay. My name is Patty Davis. I live on nine hillside circle in Essex. We lived here. We live here only six years, just over six years. I grew up in Mallens Bay, Vermont in Colchester and I became interested in the Planning Commission over time just from going to the meetings and listening and listening. I find it very challenging and interesting and my background really, well, I grew up in a family that's very, I want to say, my liberal arts background, both sides of my family. My dad's from the New York City. My mom's from Winooski, Vermont on a farm. So the whole city country thing, my whole life, I've traveled a lot and a lot of traveling and so I'm really happy to be here in Essex. My dad did work at IBM when we moved here from New Jersey when I was seven. So I'll go ahead and just, I can't just say what I want to say off the top of my head, like our last speaker, he was great. So I wrote, my background is in ophthalmology actually and research. So in order to articulate what I, why I'm interested, I actually had to write it down. It just makes it easier for me to deliver it. So I hope that's okay. I'm interested in volunteering on the Planning Commission because it has the ability and desire to collaborate with the other communities such as conservation, energy and economic committees to become, to encourage our town to become economically resilient, healthier and more environmentally sustainable. I was very interested in listening to Will Dodge. He interviewed for the energy committee and what I admired and liked about his presentation was that he said, the only disappointment I have with this town is walkability. It needs to be fixed and I really admire him for that. So that is the lens from which I am interested in becoming part of the Planning Commission. The lens I view as a focus is walkability and how I became interested in that wasn't my past with running and being very, very active in running and biking. But it's because in 2019 Jeff Speck, he's an architect and well-known planner out of Boston. His books are now written in seven languages in different countries that I've been to. And I really admire him so I'm going to quickly say in a nutshell that basically he says that what makes a place walkable? Not less than four qualities make a town walkable. It must be safe, useful, comfortable and interesting. So this fits in really well with the ETC Next plan. And before I go on, I have to say it's nothing short of spectacular the mixed use area of the ETC plan, the mixed used areas in the core that I very much admire for the reasons about I'm about to tell you. So Jeff Speck said in one of his presentations at UVM that I want to, he talked about that we had a history of great communities built well into the 1920s that bustled with people on main streets. People that, you know, there were libraries, schools, everything and they spoke seven different languages on these streets because this was before the Great Depression and World War II. But between the Great Depression and World War II, there was a lull in development. After World War II, when cars were on the rise, we became thoroughly a fan of the modernist concept that came from Europe of separating uses. And that is another reason I want to be on the planning commission. I believe it's been a hundred years that we've been separating uses. And I think in order to focus on connectivity that seems to be the core value of the planning commission, I don't know anything about writing code and regulations, but I would love to research and be part of that project. So anyway, he says any post-war development of any scale in the U.S., according to Jeff, was considered a pod, which is pretty much a subdivision of one use. It was either an office park and industrial use. It was either a business district like Saxon Hill Business District. It was a housing subdivision or something else which should not create community life because it was just one thing. One use, one aspect of daily life, isolated out of every other aspect of daily life. What caused this to happen? Well, he says that there was a collection of government programs in the late 50s, because we moved here in the 60s, specifically highway building and loan guarantees. So all those people that lived on main streets like my grandmother in Winooski, that's been here since 1910, everything, every job, small bungalow, business, every infrastructure that was on that main street ran to the suburbs at once. Once in the suburbs, the car became a needed prosthetic device to live your life. And here we are. So to make it more focused to Vermont, I looked into Vermont and in Vermont, it was especially in the 60s and 70s, right around the time we moved here when dad was at IBM, our communities moved from mixed-use areas, mixed-use, mixed-use like what I said about the middle of ETC, to single-use zones. The result was the isolation of housing from commercial services, civil facilities, schools, libraries, employment centers, as I said. So I don't want to bore you with that too long. So I not only researched that area of mixed-use, I also researched transportation. So because the Planning Commission has such a wide diverse responsibility, that transportation, energy, I mean, the list goes on. I wrote down exactly everything they do and you guys know it, bylaw development, news working landscapes, community and economic development, natural resources, climate resilience and adaptation, which is very important to me, energy and efficiency, greenhouse gas reduction, like what Bill Dodge was talking about, Will Dodge, and renewable siting. I think it'd be great to have him as part of our Planning Commission. He was great. So I did research. The Federal Highway Administration is moving toward what's called Complete Streets. It released a report to Congress in March, I don't have the exact date here, March 2022 that took initial steps towards making Complete Streets the default model for funding and designing federally controlled roads. So with Complete Street policies, I know we're talking about ETC, I would love to see it where there's 2,400 houses in our neighborhood along Allen Martin Parkway. That would be great to have that of Complete Street, not just because I live there, but hope somebody running along the road doesn't feel like they're going to get hit by a car. But anyway, I wanted to tell you about that. Oh, one more thing. I know we don't do rail, but this is really interesting because where the money is, is where we have to go. Modernization grants, get grants, $360 million in rail investments announced passenger and freight rail projects in 32 states as of Thursday, June 2nd, 2022, 3 p.m. It's called the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, where they'll triple the amount of funding for this consolidated rail infrastructure and safety improvement program. Now, I know we're not talking about rail, but I had to throw that out. So to make it close to home, not interviewed, I really looked into the modernization grant that I'm sure Dustin's going to talk about, but, and I shared with Dustin and the rest of the planning commission at a different meeting that nine towns applied for this bylaw modernization grant within the Wyndham County Regional Planning Commission. And what I found interesting, the reason I'm throwing this out is what I found interesting was that even though we're reapplied for the modernization grant, I think it's great. I liked how these nine towns, I won't read them all, just a couple, are very focused so that something will get done. If we have too many hands in the fire, too many things we want to do, I'm worried that nothing will, well, not that nothing will get done. I mean, these guys are experienced, but it might be harder to make a timeline to be focused. So Radleburg, for example, applied for the bylaw modernization grant specifically for a walk bike master plan to evaluate the pedestrian and bicycle system and create a prioritized action plan. Westminster, so everybody's got a different thing, it applied for its focus to be an update of zoning bylaws to keep up with the changing real estate market to promote affordable housing and environmental protection and to make the bylaws more user friendly. Wouldn't that be nice? Because I'm reading this stuff in, I'm green. And then what I really liked is all of these towns are also looking at resiliency zone. So the Wyndham Regional Planning Commission, it's not ours, this is Southern Vermont, they're doing something with Green Mountain Power, Josh Castongaway is Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at G Mountain, Green Mountain Power. And the resiliency zones, they're getting money to support a stronger grid with that'll help our communities transition faster from fossil fuels to clean electricity, especially for carbon pollution 75%, which is driving 25% heating. And if anyone is interested, if our Regional Planning Commission is interested in any webinars that Green Mountain Power offers, this Josh Guy who's the Innovation Officer said that anyone can learn how Green Mountain Power's battery storage programs can help you stay powered up while also reducing carbon emissions and lowering costs if your Regional Planning Commission is interested in improving your home's resiliency while cutting costs and carbon. So that's it for the climate change, but the main finale here is I looked at Milton's US 7 corridor, what they did for research and in a nutshell how focused they were to do this complete street. They call it a streetscape corridor because their main complaint is traffic's coming from everywhere going through Milton and the pedestrians have no rights, they can't cross the roads, it's just a nightmare. So basically our town, like Milton, I feel has a very suburban auto-oriented feel also. So here's what they did in Milton. They went to the CCRPC, which is our Regional Planning Commission, and one of the members there was the project manager of the US 7 corridor study. Then they organized the CCRPC, fostered the spirit of inclusiveness and ownership of the Milton corridor study by including the public very early in the process. And what they did is they put on the website right when they started the process. So people like me, just your average citizen could give their two cents. The consultant team was Parsons Brinkerhoff, the advisory committee for this road, Complete Street was Catherine Sonic, town of Milton Planning, the town manager, V-Trans, Milton Recreation, federal highway member, the Vermont Department of Health and Milton Planning Commission and staff. And here's a little tidbit I find interesting because they're all coming here. Milton is the largest exporter of workers by car in all of Northwestern Vermont. Little old Milton. All the cars, number one, go to Burlington, number two, South Burlington, and number three, Essex Town, not even the junction. Essex Town, we receive 663 cars per day just from Milton. Isn't that cool? In order to calm traffic flow on US 7, Milton created this streetscape. Let's see. This is where they got money. They didn't even get it from the modernization grant. So here's a tidbit. They got it from, they reached out and got grants from the following, federal highway administration, US Department of Transportation, under the state planning and research program, section 505, or metropolitan planning program, section 1048 of this title, title 23 code, US code. So I didn't realize that we hired Catherine Sonic. So I look forward to meeting her so she could share her experience with us on this corridor creation. How about making Route 15, our complete street corridor streetscape, like what they're doing in Milton. So our town will become a more people-oriented rather than otter-oriented character of town. These streetscape improvements would give our town a distinctive visual identity. Have it come from the Jericho line, all the way to Colchester to the four. Anyway, any relocation of any individual, like myself, family, or corporation, if another company wants to come from Shelburne or wherever, they come with an image of place in mind. That image is powerful, palpable, and it's resolutely physical. It's a picture of building streets, lively street life with cafes, squares, and a social life, those places and gender. And it's also a place where agriculture on my way to vacation, I listened to VPR, this is the last thing, and all the bite we are, we take in three billion, whether it be dollars in tourism from people coming to the rural areas of Essex, like where Ethan lives, because the rural areas of Vermont are very bike-friendly. They spend money, they spend money, they go to the pubs, they go to the farms, they go, even to a place like Ethan's farm, there's farms all across the Vermont, and they stop, they want to see the animals. This is such an industry, we can take these working farms and like Kendall said, not only should we have the farmer's market, but we can have, grow things and have farm-like things right in our ETC, and we're going to be a magnet, a magnet for tourism. But I want to tell you, the bikers tell me, and I'm an athlete, guess who the friendliest people are, not the ones in the city, that the places like Ethan's farm, all these country roads in Vermont, we billion, that's just over the summer. And our workforce, 10% of our workforce works in this tourism industry. So there's money to be had. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Patty. Any questions from board members? Go for it. Don't go ahead. If you find that your decision is in the minority when serving on the board, how would you handle it? Well, growing up in Mounds Bay, I was the only female on the sailing team since age nine. I raced sailing boats my whole life and had to deal with that. It was hard. And maybe, you know, I guess the only way, you know, I had to roll with it. I mean, eventually they were brothers, but it took a long time. It took a long time to feel part of the group. And I think when you're in the minority, as long as I can say my piece and say what I believe, and that, you know, I'm very open, like I said in the beginning, you know, half my life is New York City, half my life is on a farm. So I, and I've traveled a lot. I feel like you have to be open to anything. So I have to roll with it, you know? Thank you, Patty. You're welcome. Very sweet. Really quickly. How would you balance requests from a developer against needs of the community? I really believe that what the Milton, the way they were organized for that corridor, the fact that they had CCRPC involved and had a website up to make sure at an early stage the community was involved, I feel that it's crucial to have a balance between you know, yes, a developer wants to come and they probably have great ideas, but until we get these regulations, the way we want them here in Essex, if we want a walkable community and a business comes here and says they want to put a three-lane bank in the ETC and we say, no, we want a walkable community, we need to have some kind of compromise, which actually happened. Now there's only a two-lane bank and I have to give credit to somebody who's actually not on our planning commission, John Alden. He spoke up and said, this is our vision, this is what we want, so work with us. So until we have those regulations in place or until we expand our uses from mixed views to more uses where we'll never have connectivity with all these separate zones, it's crazy, it's 100 years old almost where we've had these separate uses. So I think we have to fix that before we can actually answer that question. That's my thought. I'm very outspoken and maybe it's from sailing with all these guys my whole life. The only reason they respected me is I could beat them in a 10k, but other than that, I was a pretty good sailor by the end of it all. Well, one of my closest friends in 1984 won the Worlds at J24 Series and he taught me so much tactical advice. It's a tactical decision. It's hard to balance. So I would have to confer to whatever the board decides and I'm the green one on the board. Green, no pun intended. Ethan, any questions? I'm good. Kendall, question? I believe you have covered it all. I look forward to seeing you on the commission potentially. Thank you. Well, I don't want to bump anybody else off. Maybe we can expand it like they did the conservation committee. I have so much to learn and I really look forward to these guys, these brothers and learning from them like I did as a kid sailing. Thank you. So Patty, you have any questions for the select board? Um, I guess I've never volunteered for a board before but my husband who's the chair of the Run Vermont and he's not, he's also the head trust. He's like, he's really good at this. I just want to thank the 10 people I've met in Essex that that talk me into doing this and I really like it here and I like this town and my heart's in it. So I guess I don't have any questions. All right. Thank you. Thanks Patty. Okay. Jonathan Schumacher, come on up. Introduce yourself. Tell us about your experience on the board, why you want to continue, any other information that's relevant to the board? Sure. So Jonathan Schumacher, I've been on the board since 2011. Um, I joined really because I really wanted to give something to Essex and really couldn't be a fireman at the time and for an ambulance driver or any other kind of thing and the planning commission or some committee seemed like a good idea. Oh, I got interested and that's how I kind of got involved. I am interested in being reappointed mostly because I enjoy it. I enjoy serving the town. I enjoy being part of the process of planning, making sure that we're doing the right thing. I've lived in this town since 1968 and I have an interest in making it as good as it can be and I don't have a list or a speech for you so I apologize. I'm going to have a lot fewer words. But anyway, I am interested in making sure that the town grows properly and then one of the reasons I did join was because I saw some things that I was thinking don't really like the way that looks. I don't understand why we would allow that to happen. Now that I've been on the planning commission for a long time, I know why those things happen. They understand how they get there and I also understand that the way to fix those things is to be on the planning commission and help work with zoning, working with regulations, work with policies that are handed to us and try to make those changes, not just in my interest but hopefully with the towns. We try to engage with the public as much as possible. We don't always get a lot of public engagement but the public engagement is really important to me and I'm often disappointed when there's just us in the room because I'd love to hear people say we don't like this. Why? Because I'd like to be able to react to take that work. I am interested in all the projects that we have that we've done over the years. I'm interested in the upcoming town plan updates. I'm interested in looking at how regulations are going to work for the ETC Next as well as how that could affect the rest of the town and the zoning and the uses. So not all I've got to add is late in the day. I start my days at 3.30. We work 10-hour days. I work 12. So I will take whatever questions you have and go from there. All right. Thanks, Jonathan. Any questions? Gracie, go ahead. How do you balance requests from developers against the needs or desires of the community? Well, if you mean by requests like something that's perhaps not something we agree with necessarily or it's something that seems like it's outside of the regulations or it's pushing the limit, then I mean really what you're doing is you're trying to understand what the point of view is both the public and the applicant understand what it is that they're desiring and then seeing how that fits with the regulations. And generally, as Josh said, there's often a give and take that has to occur. Like if you really want this thing that you really can't have if we were to go strictly by the regulations, what are you going to give us? And does that make sense? Does it seem like a fair balance? And it's usually fairly minor stuff but sometimes it could be something great. Like we can get a great right away for a path for the years down the road that the town now has that we can add on and keep them going until they're linked up and we can actually have a path. So those are the kinds of things that we try to balance between what the applicant is asking us for or the developer and what somebody in the town might want to say from the public how we balance that. Any other questions, Ethan? Excuse me. What are the... Trying to remember the difference. It's not the same as that question I asked him but what are the most important things about the policy and the process right now that you feel and should be different? Specific to like regulations that we're dealing with? Oversight as far as referring back to my comment about people having reached out to me several times about let's just say this property over here where they cut down all the trees. How can we for one either prevent or have in place a policy that penalizes putting the building up if a part of our ETC policy and is on a policy considered? Yeah but moving forward what are the steps to have that? So specifically for me I mean I come from a very environmentally conscious background so I'm really and I am very interested in forestry and conservation and that sort of thing. So when I see trees cut down that was one of the things that got me really kind of fired up about joining the planning commission was like why we just mow down these trees everywhere and put up the old buildings well that's what towns do that's what it happens across the U.S. we develop and the whole idea behind the planning commission is to develop within a set of regulations so that it's not just a run amok kind of thing. So near and dear to my heart are preserving green space having places to walk having places that people can go to that they can enjoy. The balance on that well there's the other thing that well the balance on that is that you have to understand that these people own the land. We can't just say no you can't do that because we don't like it. You have to say no you can't do that because x, y, and z regulation says Bosie judicial we don't it's not up to me to make a make policy on the spot when we're doing an application. However the other job of the planning commission is to to develop policy like know where the problems are so that's why I'm going to roll into the next thing is we have this rule that's actually a bleep camp comes from state statute about PUDs where you allow urban developments to have greater density if they're planned a certain way you give them give back certain pieces so you can you can actually shortcut some of the regulations that we have in place using these rules. I think the rules are way too loose and I think that we end up interpreting them more than we should they should be that we should be able to somehow nail that down so that's not we're not just allowing people to like cram a bunch of houses on a lot we just don't think that that's real I don't think that's what we all want and as far as cutting trees down you know I don't like it either I didn't like some of the stuff that we that I've approved of and I knew that was going to be the result was they were going to cut the trees down but they own the land they came in with an application that fit our regulations best we can do is say can you leave some but we don't it's not our job we can't that they own it so I don't mean to throw my hands up in the air and say we can't do anything about it because now that we know that that's a problem we can try to build build different policies and get regulations in place that can help us do that that's a good answer right Don Other than ETC are there any other areas in the town that need a comprehensive overhaul by the planning great question yeah I think there's I think all the town should well not an overhaul I will say no not to an overhaul I think we constantly have to keep looking at how things are developing and changing and keeping those things in mind as as days and years go by to make sure that we are taking care of you know what we want as a vision for the town which is in the town plan none of this comes from me or Dustin or Josh or anybody on the commission it comes from the town plan so we can update the town plan we can update the regulations we can check the zones make sure we have the right uses you know try to do what we can to make sure that things grow properly I will say as a long time resident in Essex and always having lived pretty far out of town I don't mean to be a knot in my backyard but we need to be careful what we're doing out in the AR district the impact of septic systems and stormwater and stuff is largely unregulated and it's a problem I think it's going to be a problem we keep letting it happen fortunately or unfortunately there are a lot of that land that's been used up and not really being developed anymore but there's still there's still pressure to especially now to use up some of that land and put some of these systems in that are not in the sewer core I think that that's we have to keep an eye on that thank you Kendall any questions I was just going to ask that as a long serving a long serving member do you have one particular thing that you might share with us that you hope to accomplish over the next four years well that's a great question I guess I would go back to the I would go back to the PUD thing I would like to see that we either upgrade that or do away with it so that we're not we're not foolishly cramming houses into weird configurations just because we're trying to jump through loopholes I'd like to see that be a much cleaner thing I don't know if that's a four-year plan or not but right now that's the only thing that comes to mind ambitious thank you so do you have any questions for the select board anything we can help with I don't think so I think I'm good okay all right all right thank you thank you all again we'll we'll go into executive session later we'll have a discussion and we'll see if we come to a decision all right sounds good all right okay so moving on to the next agenda item which is interviews and possible appointments for volunteers to serve in the Essex Free Library Board of Trustees there's two interviewees both three appointments Janet Watts and Bonnie Doble I am going to recuse myself during the Janet Watts discussion so somebody let me know when you're ready to have me back calm down Janet and one I wondered if they were related hello hello so Janet go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself while you're interested in the library board of trustees anything you think we should know I've been on the library board of trustees I think it's 12 years but I'm not positive it just seems like I've always done it I think the library is one of the important parts of our communities I know certainly one of the first places like we went to when we moved to Essex 100 years ago the somebody said once that the library is the town's living room and that's one of the things that I think is like really important about it it's a social space and it's a place for people to gather it's also a place for people to get information and now it's becoming a place for people to borrow things I love our new library of things that we've started with loading out everything from snow shoes to jigsaw puzzles and pickleball rockets are some of our library of things but we're also moving toward investment in more technology for especially during COVID times we invested much more heavily in ebooks and e-magazines and videos just to keep up with the times so that's kind of what I want to keep doing is to work toward maintaining the library's plan we had put together like a five-year plan just before COVID started and I we're starting to get back to that we've been talking about tribe trying to expand the library's space so we can have some more meeting rooms and just continue the new projects that we've had going that have been like super successful continue the more ebooks continue the library of things and really be the community's living room now that we're separating it's something we need I think we're the biggest public space for the community so I want to do any questions from the board what's your favorite book what's my favorite book I've got a lot of them I don't actually have one favorite book everybody anybody that knows me knows I like fluffy romances so I like like any Nora Roberts book and I have a really really bad habit I read the ends first my children think it's absolute that I'm a heretic but they think it's the worst thing ever if it's not sufficiently happy I won't read the I know it's okay if I follow that one or no I'm given the location of the current library Janet and you said they wanted plans for expansion how would you propose to go about that um we've had Tom Yanda looking at it and I haven't heard back yet on what that happened but one of the things we talked about very briefly this was just like spitballing was like raised the roof at another floor but it's also open to the side and there's always been a hope ever since I've been on it that the people that own the house behind it would sell that property to us so that we can expand back but I've been on the board 12 years there's no signs at all of that happening thank you and all any questions yes you have any particular program that you would like to expand um the library of things I absolutely love that Bonnie Doble who's on the screen and I went to the library trustee state library trustee conference and we saw a presentation on that we started that a couple of years ago with the we purchased some snow shoes and those have been really popular in the winter so that's kind of like the biggest thing that I see is the loaning out things we you know there's a possibility of even like loaning out tools you know cake pans there were just you know a hundred different ideas but right now we have this the snow shoes is our biggest one we have some pickleball rackets jigsaw puzzles which we've always had but I would like to see that expand some more thank you and if I may just to follow up on on that one how do you see do you have any specific ideas or communicating or advertising the library of things in a more direct and expansive manner within the community um the library has a facebook page we have a newsletter we have instagram and else do we have ourselves we use front porch forum and so those are all the things that we use and since there's not really a local deuce paper that's put out anymore I would have to think long and hard on that what other venues we could use because I kind of think we're using all the ones we can't that's kind of where I'm at we've been trying to like show our presence at different events that the town has we were at the one that what was that experience recently so and then we always show up for town meeting you know trying to be at those events is something we do we also have the the book sale and plant sale every year and this year I'm planning on we're planning on the craft fair at the library that we had pre-ovid every fall So we use those also to advertise what we do and and to open the space and get just get people into the space that, you know, might not be there for books or computers. Also, and also. Yes, I am. Thank you. Do you have any questions for us? No, I'm good. Thank you. Okay. And I'm sure you heard, well, we're talking tonight in executive session if a decision is made. We'll let you know if you want to stick around and hang out more than welcome to. Okay. Thank you. And would you mind grabbing Andy? Thank you. Now we know the middle name. That's my male name. Andrew Joseph. Welcome back. Sorry. All right. Okay. Moving on to the next interview. Is Bonnie online? Are she here? Oh, all right. Okay. Okay. Bonnie, go ahead and unmute yourself. You can turn your camera on. You know, there you are. You don't see her, Andy. I can see her in the little box up in the corner in mind, but. Can you hear me? Yes, there we go. When you speak, there we go. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Again, go ahead and introduce yourself. Give us, I guess, let us know why continue on the on the as a trustee and any other information you think is relevant that you want to share with the select board. Go ahead. Okay. Thanks. My name is Bonnie Doble, C-O-B-L-E. I've found the board like Janet forever, but it's been more challenging the last couple of years that used to be kind of he showed for meetings that it was pretty gross the last couple of years because of COVID. We've really had to up our game and pivot a lot at the library because like yet I've never heard it described as a living room with the community, but it really is Susan Overfield, who was the first director there. I used to call it the crown jewel of Essex. Our library is beautiful and a lot of people in town used it. And when COVID shut it down, there was there was an emptiness and the library staff pivoted and did a great job. I think we're about 80% capacity now, you know, up to where we were before in terms of circulation by doing things like Janice said, all of the all of the e-books and, you know, online things and also introducing they call it curbside pickup. It's not really curbside. You have to go in to get your books, but then you can get a book without seeing anybody without, you know, having to interact and expose yourself to whatever. So I think that the board has really had to, as I said, up in their game for the last couple of years, and I think that we work really well with the town and we have to work really closely with the staff at the library. So we all work together to to make decisions that hopefully affects the community in a positive way. What Janet was saying about all of the things we have going on, I think, is is really important. We the events that we hold, like the book sale and the plant sale and the craft sale, aren't really fundraised as much as their community events. So we're trying to get people get people involved. And I'm very excited because after kind of a stir of people being interested in helping at the book sale this year, we had like 10 new people show up who are just who just, you know, they're looking for that connection now. They're looking, they're looking for people, they're looking for ways to join ways to offer their services to the community. So I would like to continue that because I'd like to see it see it through going from shutting down the library, basically, just starting to get up again and starting in some new ways and getting some fresh blood in there, if you will. I'd like to just continue. Oh, that's my, that's my spiel. All right. Thank you, Bonnie. Yeah. Board members, you first. Go ahead, Ethan. You raise your hand. Oh, yeah, I was just stretching. What is what is the most important challenge for the library right now? The most important challenge, I think it's to be honest, is staffing. Staffing. God, you know, it's been that's been really, really tricky. Our director is out on maturity leave and we have a great interim director who actually ended up with COVID. So she had to take five days off and, you know, we have a short step to begin with and to get, you know, keep keeping the library open sometimes can be a real challenge. But that's something that they've worked through really, really well. And we've been able to do it. So that's probably the biggest challenge right now. It's just keeping things running. The other questions on as a library director. What are you actually responsible for? As you mean me or as Caitlyn as Caitlyn as a trustee, as a trustee, as I'm sorry, as a trustee, what do you as a trustee of this library because municipal library, according to Vermont statute, we run the library. We're responsible for everything. We, I, you know, I communicate with it with Greg and we, you know, we work with the town, but basically the board of trustees of the ESSIC library runs the library. We do our mission from you is to do policies and and and make sure that things run smoothly. So basically we run the library. Thank you. Gracie question. Good. Kendall, any questions? I was just going to repeat and ask if you have a particular program that you are enthusiastic about that you would like to expand? I'm really excited that this isn't something that is really part of the young trustees, but the friends of the ESSIC free library, the group that actually does like the social events and things like that. It's the interest now from the community is really is is floating. And I really want to take advantage of that to make sure that people have the opportunity to participate and that we get some people who are really excited about it because generally, you know, like I'm retired, Janet, as of like yesterday as retired, you know, we need some some different people who represent different parts of the community to come into it. And I think that that we're getting that at this point. So I'm very excited about how some new people be excited about the library and they are great. Thank you. And Bonnie, do you have do you have any questions for the select boards? I don't think so. I just want to thank you guys. I, you know, I've been sitting here for an hour and a half. And and you you're you're I'm not used to doing this. So you do a great job. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Bonnie. OK, so as I've said before, we will go into executive session later and we'll we will be coming home. For this any decisions that we do make during executive session we'll come out and make them in public or public, I guess. Thank you. So I'll let you know. Thank you. All right. Thanks. So let's see. That is the end of our interviews for tonight. Moving on to business item 5D presentation from Planning Commission about Town Plan update and work plan. Dustin, it is all right. For everybody else out. Good evening. The materials that you had in your packet really is they can speak for themselves. We undertook this year, an initiative to number one. We tried to quantify what we needed to get down over the next year or two. So we came up with a work plan for the Planning Commission. We looked at that. We also decided to try to do a shift in process from compared to what we've done in the past, which was to go through with staff and come up with recommendations for changing zoning subdivision Town Plan and then present them in public in public hearings to let people from the zoning and so forth. You know, we would solicit information, but it was really an after a reactionary process. This is what we're recommending. All these, you know, what do you think and so forth? We're shifting this year. We're really trying to see if we can come up with a process that allows us to reach out to the boards ahead of time, the beginning of the process. Instead of saying, what do you think about what we're doing? We're saying, what would you like to see changed? And it gives the zoning, energy, economic development an opportunity at the beginning of the process to bring recommendations forward to us or incorporation into the whatever document we're working on at the time could be zoning, could be subdivision, could be Town Plan. Could be T.C. next, but that's already that's already part. This is a very, very, very fluid process. Now, the letter that the memo that you got, I have to give full credit for Josh because I write in bullets. He turned it into prose. So he's he's the wingman of this process. If it came straight from me, you would have about six bullets and that would have been the crux of the memo. There's some real key elements of this. Number one is getting the the items from the various commissions and boards to us at the beginning. Early early adoption, early review, early discussion. Number two is and this is, I think, probably the biggest advantage is more public hearing opportunities. So the real simple process, simple process for today may change tomorrow or change the day after that. The simple process is a committee or board that wants to work on something, whether they how they do the work within their own commission, we've leaving it up to them that we're not dictating to anybody how to do that work. But we are looking to have those recommendations ratified in their public hearing process so that it is something that is in front of the public. For example, maybe the zoning board wants to recommend a change in use or uses in a particular zone. How they discuss that, it's up to them. They want to do it in a work group and they want to do it in front of their full commissions up to them. It's how they work best. What we would like back is a recommendation vetted in public hearing from the select board, not select zoning board that says we would like to see this change incorporated into X document, X process this time around. So when it comes to the planning commission, we've seen it, it's been ratified, it's been discussed, it's been worked on. There's really a good chance that most of that stuff will go through and be incorporated either as written or with minor tweaks. Again, an additional public discussion, public discussion on the planning commission. Once we get to the point of adopting a document, we then have to have a public hearing on that document as well. So we've just multiplied the the the opportunities that public has to engage on the discussions of changes and what they want to see, whether it's something that needs to be changed in a reactive mode because somebody doesn't like the way a builder put something up or whether it's a change looking ahead. Like what do we need to do to to maintain economic viability for the next 50 years? The other advantage is that when it gets to you guys because they all have to come up with the select board. You will have the the advantage over your predecessors of knowing that anything that's come through the planning commission on these documents or through this process has been viewed by multiple commissions and boards, multiple public input options, opportunities before it ever gets to you. So we're in the past. Has the Economic Development Committee seen these? Yes. Has the zoning board seen these? Yes. So it's it's a it's a it's a cost effective. There's no there's no added cost on this because we're not looking to hire staff or anything like this. It's really it's just whether or not a commission uses the zoning board because they are a dedicated quasi judicial group as well. They see and have to deal with the results of the subdivision and zoning regulations. They're the people that have the feet on the ground. They know what works and they know what doesn't work. We've heard from them before about what doesn't work, but we generally haven't heard from them at the beginning of the process. It's always at the end when everything is ninety nine percent adopted. And it's kind of like, OK, we'll put it on the docket for the next go around. We have a packet of of of zoning changes, subdivision changes that we've always had. Every time we start looking at them, we pull that packet out to see what can we work on? What can we include? But it's always been just the planning commission. If this works. And it is, I don't know the right word, it is a it isn't it is a developing process. We have we have gold. We have a process that we're trying to put in place. Each commission or board that we've spoken to so far, and Josh and I have spoken to a number of them has come back has pushed back or has asked different qualifying questions. What's the scope? How do we do this? You know, what do we work on? Really, the scope is pretty clear. We started with a with a work plan that I think was also in your packets. That basically listed the highest priorities that the planning commission felt was our target list for the next couple of years. ETC next, this is an example of change and evolution. ETC next was our top topic. And we felt that we, as a planning commission, would focus on that. That's streetscapes and. Form building forms and so forth. Well, the town plan update for 2024 is right there. We have to we have to work on that as well. There are feedback from Public Works has said that many of the initiatives in the in the ETC next, we can't achieve yet. We're not going to ignore them, but it shifted it from being our top priority while we're working on trying to find out how to move some of those items forward. You're just being OK, we're going to look at elements of it. So we're going to look at are there zoning subdivision rules or changes that we can put in place that might enable the ETC next when we get to the point of moving forward? The other commissions can all help with this. Our PDI is always a big and always a hot topic. I have a number of your questions. Other commissioners are, you know, we're or what were some of the things that the key points in the community that need revision? Quite frankly, the RPDI is a very. Hot topic. It is the single largest undeveloped industrial space in the community, even though it's well developed. It's balancing of community use versus industrial use. It's always in conflict. Some of the questions were, how do you balance a developer's request against the town and community requests or desires? Quite frankly, that's an ideal example of a conflict point, continual conflict point, because it is privately owned land. A large amount of it has been has been given to the community, but there's a large amount that's still left for industrial development. There happened to be some trails on some of those lots. That's always a point of contention. We don't want to lose a trail. It's a private lot. It's an industrial developer. You've got somebody who wants to build here. You know, there's there's always a balance. Economic Development Committee has their pulse has their finger on the pulse of that zoning has their finger on the pulse of that. They hear some of the things coming in energy. All these things, all these other commissions and committees. We really wanted to just actively engage. The key word for us was collaborate. Bring them in, give them the opportunity to jump on, to to engage and contribute at the beginning of the process, instead of having to wait and be reactionary. Then why didn't you think about this? Why didn't you think about that? Well, this is your opportunity to tell us and guide us. But that was more, more long winded that I anticipated. So, thoughts, questions and questions. That was great. In your collaboration matrix, Dustin, I think maybe I just figured this out. There seems to be some gaps as to as far as who's going to which part of the planning committee is going to help with it. Yep. Oh, it's it's there's in that part of the work in progress. OK. Right. Is who has time who who it's it's really we're trying to work out interest. Josh and I have gone to a number of the boards and engage directly with them to give them our thoughts on what this was intended to do, not tell them how to do this. That's a key thing as well, is we're not going to the housing committee, housing commission and say, you need to do this. All we've dictated is how we want something delivered. Beyond that, we want to make sure that we have a planning commissioner as able to participate with any of these commissions and boards. If they have a question, that person can bring it back to the PC in real, close to real time, twice a month, anyways, and not just go down a path that is after maybe not be fruitful. So I think there's the opportunity is we're trying to structure this so that the commissions and boards can work on items that they feel they need to or want to do it and the structure and way they want to do so, but also still may not paint a conduit so they can either put questions back to the commission or commission can can the member who's working with them can say, hey, they're starting to do this. Do we have any fears about this or concerns? Again, collaboration because it all needs to be seen. We've seen traditionally there's there are challenges in getting the public input. And there have been I have done this a few times and there's always been challenges getting input from the other commissions because it's a passive request. It's not giving them ownership of the result of the work. It's not giving them the chance to contribute the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way. It's always been passive. What do you think? And that's just the way it's rolled out. So this really is I think I know how to use this word correctly. This is a paradigm shift that we're attempting to put in place. How's that? I get that right. Yeah. So I know this is this is this is reaching out to the to the others differently. I know you guys do all the appointments and so forth. But, you know, this is this is a gauging in the community different. Eventually, the other questions and a question, just a comment. Thank you for front loading that input and opportunity to have engagement. I think that is true collaboration instead of just this is what we did. Give us your feedback. Yeah. So thank you. I think it's a big shift. It's it's been it's been a long time coming. And and frankly, the ETC next brought out really emphasized the need to have some of this stuff done and play some of the some of the work groups that we have internally are looking at, for example, the ETC next zoning regulation changes. We actually had a couple commissioners go and and look at some neighborhoods in the guise or under the under the potential regulations that the next would have put in place. And they came back and they were like they were kind of like very scared because the unintended consequences of some of those changes would have would have, you know, were not are not understood well. So that's another reason that the next itself. It still is a visionary document. So it's a valid, valid visionary document. Now we need to figure out the right enabling leg regulations to support it. Ethan, I have a rolling thought that it's been just like in a role and it's not really a question, but it kind of is a question. Is this going to be an annual practice and and being something new? How do we ensure that this is a practice moving forward? I guess that makes no, that's that's that's a real question. I think in my mind, which is very clear on everything all the time. Must be nice. Teach me ways in my mind that this becomes standard practice. This becomes an expectation of the other commissions and boards that they will participate in yearly isn't even the right term because we're in the process of moving to electronic documentation, which means there's no, we can only do print new regulations once a year or once every two years. We can update regulations as we need to and as we're able to because the electronic records are easy to update. What that means is that the regulation updates don't have to happen in a batch once a year or once every two years. If something needs to be updated, if the zoning board feels like it's something needs to be done, the housing committee wants to recommend something. If this process works, there's a conduit or a commission or a board to submit something to the planning commission for a regulation change. I mean, it's it. Planning does not happen quickly. The effects of planning people. The effects of planning and the public reaction may happen. 10 years after the after the zoning change went into place because build out can take a long time. And the current town center is a good example of that. It was it was well thought out. It was designed. It was before me, but it was it was planned out with a lot of care. And if you look at the master plan, there's a lot there that doesn't exist yet. The master plan was done 30 years ago, Don. It it may not have it may not fit with today's planning standards. It took that 30 years for that to be understood. But we can't necessarily it's the big ship. You can't change it on a dime. You have to plan. It's the planning commission. You have to be able to look ahead. We've had a number of planners work with us. And the the review of applications is one function. And the guiding helping, you know, the guiding of the planning commission as far as grants and so forth. That's really a staff role. We don't we don't look to try to write them for the staff. We look to staff give us that level of support. These work groups and working with the other commissions. That doesn't take staff time. That's already there. Staff already has a role with these other commissions. So we're actually trying to leverage our dollars better. Anyways, I've rambled a little bit. I still have a little other thing that I was thinking of is that with the collaboration partners in the breakdown here. Are these all strictly members of commissions or committees or Essex? Or is this well, it's it's it's commissions and boards that are recognized here. So I know like the economic development committee spans two communities. You know, but they are one of our our group. So we are actually, you know, we reached out to them. The breakdown of members and that this is this is a very, very serious. I'm just curious about about Nick Martin in particular. I'm not sure. He's on the zoning board. Yeah, zoning board. Okay. Perfect. That's my wife's father's name too. But he's on the planning commission in Georgia. So I was like, are we working on Georgia? But really, it's it's this is this has been our first pass on engagement, right? That we've reached out. We've had a number of meetings. We've invited folks here. We've reached out actively to the different commissions and you know, the list of people and names and even things that they want to work on. Don't expect that to change over. I excuse me. I expect that to change over the next six months of the next year. And this becomes a standard process. It really won't matter what the names are used right now because they will become that will be fluid as well. All right. So I guess I should have disclosed at the start of this that Dustin and I have been friends for 35 years. So it's that there's no conflict here. I'm just giving you a presentation. We get along. The one the one question I wanted that I wanted to ask you this sounds like a maybe I'm hearing it wrong. Sounds like a lot more meetings which are involved here. You're adding adding public hearings and doesn't have to be. So any commission or board that now that meets with public hearings, they would still be doing things in public here. There's their process. Okay. So the okay. So you right. Okay. That makes sense. Things could be managed by having it in a regular having a public hearing or work group of whatever two members. The catch all the safeguard for this is anything that we adopt has to come through the planning commission public hearing process. So if a commissioner board is informal or they want to do a work group of a couple members, if they have a process and they have a public process, we want it, we want that to come back to us in a publicly documented, you know, recommendation to the planning commission. If they don't have a quasi judicial board and I don't know if any of our commissions are like that. We would still want to memo from them indicating that this is our finding and we want we want you to include this. It's got to come to the planning commission. It's got to be reviewed. It can be reviewed when we look at them because all of our stuff is done in public forum. It would also be reviewed when we get to the final document. When we have the zoning, you know, divisions that have to go public hearing and I think it's just one, the planning commission. Once we have the final, final document ready, we have a public hearing on it and it would advance to you guys. So that that element of public review that exists today is still going to exist going forward because it's the planning commission public review process and zoning and select board public hearing process. Those do not change. Right. The other the other ones workgroups and if a commission wants to invite members of the public to be part of a workgroup, again, that's part of that commission's purview inside how they want to formulate those recommendations. Okay. Any comments, concerns, support from staff? Yes, support. I think it's great to be thinking about how to get more voices involved in the process and give the planning commission credit for taking this step as far as the public meeting laws. State statute is kind of vague and what constitutes or what requires a public meeting. I forget the exact language, but it's something like all official boards or all statutory boards, something to that effect need to have a public meeting. The way we've interpreted that and practiced that in the past is that if say the select board or the planning commission takes a vote and authorizes, this is a working group, it's a subcommittee of the select board, the governance subcommittee, for example, it's been created by the select board, it's kind of an official group. They've been abiding by open meeting laws and warning meetings, all that stuff. If it's just a group that wants to meet and chip away at something outside of a meeting, not formally, they can do that. The process is like Dustin said, when it goes back to the committee, that's when it's warned, that's when the decision is made, that's when the vote is taken to write their recommending memo that goes to the planning commission, where there's another hearing, another public process. I think they're fine as far as open meeting law and making sure that they're being open and transparent about the process and the decision making as it rises up to the planning commission and eventually the select board too. There's no resource concern with regard to supporting as proposed here? No, as long as they're meeting at regularly scheduled meeting, staff is typically there if it's outside of those meetings. I think each staff member can make their own decision about workload and time and whether that's appropriate or necessary or depending on the case. So this is informational and you're not asking us for anything tonight? No, this is just to let you guys know that, I mean, this is a, again, this is, I feel this is a very significant shift. It's a very positive shift. And I wanted you guys to all be aware of this. So it's not a surprise. And I feel that you're going, when you get recommendations for zoning and subdivision and town plan changes from the planning commission as is going to happen, you should hopefully feel even a greater level of confidence than you may have felt or not felt in the past because it will have been vetted more publicly and by the commissions that you've appointed to do the tasks that they do. And from a kind of a selfish perspective, you know, we don't want to do the work that the energy committee is already doing. We don't want to redo it. If it's already being done, let's get the people who know what they're, you know, what they're focused on this craft the right language. So that's my pitch. And Joshua would have said it a lot more eloquently and he would have put in, you know, better connected, more cohesive in there somehow too. But anyways, that's where we're headed. That's what we're trying to put in place. It's, as I said, it's fluid kind of learning about this as we go. And, you know, I think we've been getting very positive responses so far. All right. I'd like to offer the opportunity for public comment. Any public comment in the room? Oh, okay. Any anybody online want to make any comments? So raise your hand. Gabrielle. Thanks. I was going to wait till I was in the hot seat next, but Dustin, thank you so much. And to the whole planning commission, the housing commission has been a part of this process. And it is someone who works a lot in community engagement processes. This has been really terrific. It's lovely to, as Dustin put it, be invited into this much sooner and to be able to really see it at the front end. We could get the same information at the end and it just would be it would be a totally different perspective. So I'm really grateful to see this kind of leadership in collaboration among committees and among commissions. And it's been not an extra burden on us at all. It's been very helpful to be incorporated into our meetings. And I'm really appreciative of it. Thank you. Yep. Thanks, Gabrielle. Any other, anybody else? Okay. I'm not seeing any other hands, so thank you Dustin. Thanks for the opportunity to share this with you guys. If there's any point in time, if there's any questions, you can either have Greg reach out or you can reach out directly. Josh and myself are both well versed in this. And if Josh is reappointed, he will continue to be an integral part of this. Not. It's a process and we'll figure it out. But it's a need opportunity. So thank you very much for your time. All right. Thanks Dustin. Thank you Dustin. Thanks. Okay. Moving on to business item 5e, consider approval of amendments to housing commission charter. Hi there. Gabrielle, there we go. That's me. Katie Ballard, our chair, couldn't be with you this evening. So I'm Gabrielle Smith. I'm the vice chair of the Essex Housing Commission, which is a joint commission, to all know. And as one of the joint commissions between the two municipalities, we have been asked to follow through with the decision to separate all joint commissions to my knowledge we're all being separated. I know that for certain hours is. And we've given this a lot of thought as a newer commission. We've worked really hard these past almost two years to build up our individual knowledge and our collective ability to work together to collaborate across commissions and to have established partnerships and relationships with the municipal staff that support us so beautifully. And we I'm not going to read everything from your packets. It's late in the evening. So I'm just going to try to keep my part of this as concise as I can. What we what we're what we're recommending to what we'll be recommending to both you and to the trustees tomorrow evening is a transition period much of you all are doing yourselves. So this transition period is between the adoption of what we hope hope the adoption of our some of this proposed language to change our charter through at the latest April of 2023. Our interest is continuity not only over this next transition period, but as we divide our existing resources of commissioners and knowledge into two separate commissions. So our goal is not to start from scratch next July 1st. Our goal is to expand the commission can maintaining equal numbers between the two municipalities and continuing our work and and also helping to onboard those new members so that you have five ready commissioners next year rather than two or three for each municipality. So what we're proposing is that our charter be amended to expand from seven members to 10 members five each to be appointed by the board and the two boards the two governing boards. We ask for a form of five so that gives us all room for expansion over the coming months. It's we're currently we have a seven member board with with two vacants. Well, I guess we have one vacancy now and two seats that are mine and my colleague Michelle T. Garden who's not seeking reappointment. So so we we are asking to expand that number to 10 and have a form of five so that we can continue to business until we get ourselves up to 10. And that for each municipality three of those five be residents. And then our we're anticipating separating to be functioning separately as of April 2023. Of course pending any formal decisions by the two boards but functionally we're hoping to start to organize ourselves internally on the commission into that more five and five structure so that we really start to build that team. And once we fully separate we'll ask ask a view and also the city to expand those separate commissions back up to seven with a quorum of four. So we're asking for a temporary expansion to 10 with a form of five. So really our most important to us is to try and really ensure continuity on those things that we've been investing our time and resources and staff resources into inclusionary zoning housing trust fund community outreach and rental registry that we've been doing research and work on. So our hope is to really our goal is to have two functioning committees missions come next year. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you have about our proposal for a recommendation. Thanks. Thanks Gabriel. Any any questions? My only question is do you feel you will need the full seven members once the separation has gone through versus the five? Yeah. Great question. Yes. I can say that based on our numbers now our number now is seven. There's just an enormous amount of work to do. We not only are we a new commission but housing is is a huge topic area. There's a lot of collaboration to be done as you know as you heard described from the planning commission. That's also true for other departments and the other other areas. The energy commission. So we need enough members to get the work done. We do a lot of small group work. So we can really get make progress. So we are very active. We're a very active commission. Thank you. Tracy. So from a staffing perspective will both community development departments be represented at each meeting of the committee? Yeah. That's what happens now, Tracy. Yeah. Because we're a joint commission. So yes. We have Robin Pierce attends our meetings pretty regularly. Darren Schribbler is almost always there. And we often have Well, Oisa was there regularly as well when she was the development. I mean the yet the development director. So hopefully we'll be seeing Catherine when she's starting. So yes. We do have both. We do know in the in our memo to you that there are hope as a commission as a joint commission is so long as we remain a joint commission that the staffing remains the same. We're very hopeful that you all will continue to support Darren's. You know, he he helps with agenda development and more posting meeting minutes. So that's invaluable until we are able to, you know, once we separate, of course, then where that that will be totally separated. But while we're still joint, we're hoping that the current staffing arrangement can can remain the same. So I just want to understand. So you're asking to expand the current housing commission to 10 people. Yes. For one year only or until July 1st, 2023. That's correct. And yeah. Or yeah, or until such time as you all decide to formally separate us. Well, technically July 1st, 2022, you become a city. So and we are formed with the trustees that they were not interested in continuing. There's this weird one year overlap where there's still paying taxes where it's unclear as to whether. That was my. So because I know right now as a member of the BCA, we're going to mess because of this. And I rather not have it happen to other commission. So I just want to understand what they're asking because I don't. So this this is going in front of the trustees tomorrow. Right? Correct. That's correct. That we asked the same question and then yeah, it could become awkward if. I'm sorry, Don. I just want to make sure that. Yeah, I'm Oh, I apologize. And I just want to make sure I understand your your question, Don. I'm happy to answer your. Because all of a sudden you're asking us to extend this committee and we were expressly told by the trustees or commission that they were not interested in any joint commissions and his hand up. So now I'll be quiet. Okay, I just want to clarify. We're not asking you to extend the joint commission. That is not what this request is. Go ahead, Greg. Part of this request, Don, is that by expanding it, it'll allow the trustees to appoint those village representatives and allow the city representatives and the Blackboard to appoint the town representatives. It was getting unwieldy as the applicants are coming in and the seats are opening up of trying to schedule joint meetings with the trustees and does it make sense to schedule just for interviews? Do you coordinate everybody? Do you make applicants go to both boards separately and get appointed separately to the same shared committee? So it is a step towards that pulling apart and separating the committee. But like Andy said, it's taking advantage of this next year while there's still kind of a transition period happening anyways with taxation and whatnot to take advantage of that to get there and to allow each board to start to populate the housing commission with the people it wants to see on its individual housing commission a year from now. So we would pick our own five then if we expand this and they would stay in place after whatever date they choose to... Whatever term is in place. Yeah. It's under term, yeah. The other important factor here is that we ask the housing commission to come back with their recommendation of how to make the transition and this is their recommendation. You know, whether the trustees go with this or not, I have no idea with the... They're saying this tomorrow night at their meeting. I mean, I'm sure they've already have it or if they're already looking at it that they'll discuss it tomorrow. I do have one odd question though that when the two commissions are separate, someone could be on both commissions which is okay, which is perfectly okay because we allow non-residents. The question is and I assume this wouldn't be I don't know if we need to be explicit about during the period when there's 10 members whether both municipalities can appoint the same person. Does that become a... I would... I would... I mean, I suppose that's the technicality that you all would have to address but I can't can't imagine anyone. I don't see how that could work because the person would... We're still a joint commission. What we're asking is to really understand that we have this transition year. We're going to be a joint commission. I don't see how somebody could be taking up two seats on the same commission regardless of... It's not the same as like if I, you know, what before we separated when a person could both serve on this left board and the trustees which are two completely separate boards. This is one board and this is really quite temporary. We really are seeking only to really answer the question of what is in the best interest of both municipalities and for the cause of safe and affordable housing in Essex. And this is our proposal back to you. That is our only interest. Okay. Thanks Gabriel. Kendall? Yeah. I was just going to point out that since you are going to change the charter about that residency is preferred but not required. That has come up before about whether that was going to be looked at whether we're going to require residents only on these commissions. But I could see the value of leaving it on this particular charter because housing benefits everybody and I would have no problem with one of those past Essex Junction residents being pointed to the town of Essex permission. Just I just thought I'd make that aware because that question did come up about residency. Yeah. And for this for this commission that's not a change. It's always it was written originally because of the expertise that we would like to have on the commission may not be available from a resident and so we explicitly allowed that from the start. So that's not actually not a not a change for this commission. Have you got it Gracie? I did I was just going to chime in with the same benefit of having experts in the field be able to participate and be full members of the commission despite residency. I just have a curiosity question of how many members from the town currently are on the housing commission? Thanks Ethan. Great question. So currently through the end of this month we have we currently have six members. So two are residents of the town of Essex outside the village. One is a staff person at Champlain Housing Trust their the property that they manage on Susie Wilson so she doesn't live there or live in Essex but she her full time job is serving residents of the town of Essex. And then three of us myself, Katie Ballard and oh gosh I'm like Mia and Mia Watson are residents of Essex Champlain Housing Trust. So we've been mind the boards have been mindful to have equity between the two parts of the town of Essex the village and the town outside the village up to this point and the housing commission is strongly recommending that you all maintain that and have this five and very intentional five and five because we will be separated and the point is to build our capacity and have a really hopefully fluid handoff once we all separate so it's not a case of you know a couple of us having been on the commission and then having five colleagues who are brand new we just did that it's a lot of work it's a it's a big up ramp and so we'd like to really try to minimize that impact on our on our work in progress. Awesome and a follow-up since you have the info for us um how many people are or do you say aren't seeking reappointments we're gonna only have five members a person total so we have seven seats there seven seats one is vacant and then two of us are up for reappointment myself my seat is up for reappointment and then the other is Michelle T. Garten's seat Michelle is resident of the town of Essex and she is not seeking reappointment and then I think you have several applicants who are interested in these open seats okay right yeah and then the question is right I'm just curious we're gonna need to find four members the current situation we're in if we don't change the charter we have to have a joint meeting with the trustees in order to to jointly appoint folks if we if we do what's recommended here then we can independently point our own members and we're gonna need four members well there's there's the we'll need three additional three additional members yeah I mean yes you have a vacancy if you were to expand and you still have to appoint seven so you still have to have seven members right so it's just another three seats that we're requesting or are recommending and um yeah and just to to alert you all if I'm not reappointed by June 30th I will not be a voting member of the commission my term ends the end of this month so I that's been a known factor you've all known right right yeah since we haven't been we haven't right yeah at a joint meeting we haven't been able to reappoint you oh yeah so we we suspended we're not going to hold a meeting the week of July 4th July 6th is one of our regular meeting times we've decided not to have a meeting that day so we have a little breathing room we're not meeting again until uh July 20th okay okay um is there anything in the document about effective date is it a no there's we make uh it is not that's blank open okay so we we would do it on engine rule for the trustees any other questions board board member questions any yeah I just handle I would I would just throw out there that if by some chance the trustees don't appoint you that you consider putting in your name for the hat on the town housing commission that's very flattering thank you Kendall yeah right right right since we're going to appoint non-residents yes absolutely I will say we're we're all we all understand the reason for the separation and we've accepted it but it's not easy we've built wonderful relationships and just with separation doesn't mean that those of us who live inside the village or somehow now feeling disconnected from the town really hopeful that this new commission on both sides will be will be really productive the real asset to both municipalities we need to vote on this is that we're well I was going to go to public comment first no I just and then I think the intent would be for us to vote on it okay close my yeah so any public comment any hands in the room any hands online so very soon I move that the select board approve the revised joint housing commission charter anticipating that the final resolutions to separate the housing commission and propose new charter will be provided by June 1st 2023 contingent upon approval by the sx junction board of trustees second thank you Tracy thank you Don any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye candlelight didn't hear you aye all right opposed okay motion passes five zero thank you Gabrielle thank you all thank you very much thank you to your the entire commission for putting such thought into it it's very good moving moving on to the next agenda item five have consider approval sx parks and recreation program fund budget I see Allie online we're gone ready hi Allie we can barely hear you I don't hear you guys oh it's still like your computer I don't think it's coming through your mic I mean like your headset right that's better much better okay that's dead so go ahead Allie yep we can okay great sorry um all right a couple weeks ago I was in and presented the update on the program budget that included regular programming as well as extended school programming I haven't received any questions since so I am here to see if there are any last minute questions I can do my best to answer otherwise the recommendation would be to approve our program budget hey any questions from board members Tracy just a quick question and a problem promise I'm not going to ask about pie charts this time oh my gosh I even made sure Courtney wasn't going to throw a zingering at me okay go just curious with separation if all of the activities like Halloween, egg hun all of those will those only be put on by town rec? um you know we've gone the last eight months or so our last in-person combo one was the Halloween trick-or-treat trail and we haven't done other ones together except kind of the giving tree around the holiday time we both did separate spring egg related events so I think moving forward the plan right now is to continue just doing our own special events either some of the classics or adding in some new ones and so the budget items the budget lines reflected you know kind of more of what we have been doing since we're at the end of the fiscal year and it was a little bit more accurate than you know a much sooner budgeting plan so our plan is to to be separate unless there are other discussions or the communities together want to do something together and the reason why I ask is I just want they seemed a little low so I just wanted to make sure that we had enough set aside in order to really have you know robust and in full programming on the town side yeah my staff and I have talked about you know doing things that are simpler and more cost-effective and they can still be robust and well received without having to spend a whole lot of money and also doing new things where you know there will be free aspects to upcoming events but there will also be a way to get sponsorships and certain things will have fees related to them great it's hard it's hard to know this this one is is tricky but we've been talking about it okay thanks any other questions any questions from the public any hands make the motion that the select board move to approve the future year 23 recreation programs fund budget and the amount of 184,565 dollars thank you Ethan thank you Don for the second any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes 5-0 thank you Allie with a big great good Allie and big big thank you to Allie thank you thanks we're we're excited for what's to come so thank you all right all right good night moving on to item business item 5G discussion potential action regarding the creation of a charter committee so this is a topic that has come up residents have brought to you in the past came up a bit during the strategic planning session about whether the select board wants to create a charter committee take a look to the charter review charter there's some specific ideas that have brought up then brought up around for perhaps a recall provision there's been other talk about planning commission zoning board versus a planning commission DRB model Andy went a year items that you've always brought up has been addressed by the legislature but just for example to go through and call them and for for general updates such as getting rid of selected men calling it select board having some of that gender neutral language in there the legislature has taken care of that there might be other instances of just general cleanup that that might be appropriate so brought it to you today to see if you want to move forward with that I think you could make a general motion now to create it and start advertising for this position staff and start getting the word out if you want to discuss and brainstorm come tonight we can also take that feedback and put something together a little bit more formal for your next meeting about what the charge might be and and advertise there so this is really just to start the discussion but if you want to take action tonight option is there right thanks great any I firmly believe we need to do this and so I would like to see us tonight wrote to in the search for a charter committee I know it went and involved our participation in it I'm assuming that was part of the so I'll be a select board appointee to this certainly could be recommend Don no problem I just say given all the input and because this is all new and and I will say having lived here for forever this is really the first time I sat and read stuff that you sent about the charter and I was like oh this is a little outdated and a little and some of it but yes we do need to and it's it's in a definitely in a weird order and it's some parts of it are quite confusing no either I agree I've been in a lot of conversations about this but I don't know that's a brilliant but I'm glad to see that it's here in front of me can't hear you Ethan no I'll just touch the mic off to oh geez no I was just saying I had a lot of conversation with with members of the public even before my time on the board and this has been something a lot of people have been interested in and I'm just glad to see it in a material form I second Don's feelings on this you thought Stracie I'm all for it I I would prefer to have an entire package with a mission statement and make up at the same time but I think that it's more important to form it advertise it I mean we've talked about it it's no secret what we sort of want it to be so I think that those can happen in conjunction with one another and any thoughts yes I'm in favor of it my personal feeling and I think that the charter should reference more about water and sewer fees there's not really any reference at all in there about your water and sewer and there are some issues coming up with your treatment facility that you share that you're probably going to need to have some power to make some changes to adapt to new things coming down the bike so I am in favor of it so I am in favor of it too but I'm a little more on the side of wanting to see the the a mission statement first or a charge as to what I don't know how we advertise for a committee that we're not telling yet I'm telling people what they're going to be doing yet so I'm a little hesitant to just go ahead and vote tonight without seeing a this is what we're going to ask people to do kind of thing I'm willing to work with staff to come up with one would make me feel better it would make me feel better but I'm just one vote right so next meeting is July 11th which is about three weeks today if I can question about how long do you want to wait next opportunities to vote would be November that should be a pretty quick FD turnaround I think to get something on the ballot for November which really needs to be ready by August so you would have it by town meeting you're probably looking more like town meeting of March right I'm just as far as getting a mission statement and then finding people to serve on the committee that would be the way to start correct is that what you're saying that's what I that's what I'm thinking but you know I think even even if we decide tonight to vote to do it and then go asking for people to we're not going to have interviews to August anyway so I don't think we'll I don't think there's any way we could have a charter proposal of any kind ready for August for a November vote no that's what I said we would shoot for town meeting so I think that's that's probably the more feasible time frame right and then I think I'd be more comfortable again that having a having a mission statement ahead of time so that people know what they're signing up for and one that we've all agreed we've all agreed on so if we came up with a mission statement by our next meeting that we could tweak and then if if it was approved we could then put it out to the public and maybe have our people start to volunteer before our August meeting that sound doable yeah there's a big after from July 11th to your first August meeting will be about another three weeks so that should be a good amount of time to advertise only one meeting in in July right so I mean I'm willing to work on that that's what you know the other other folks have thoughts on that based on the timeline I don't think it's going to make a difference whether we do it tonight or in July so I'm fine with waiting I'm just glad we're having the conversation so all right we want us to do a mission statement and have it ready for the July meeting and then we vote I guess I missed what you're did yeah no that's okay there there's no even if we do it tonight it's we still have to advertise we still have to appoint it's not as though we're realistically going to have anything in place where something could be on the ballot in November all right so we have to wait until March anyway so I'm fine with with waiting until we have the mission statement in July okay to both okay I got it now sorry I didn't understand so the Kendall anything any thoughts there nope that sounds good hey the other the other thing that was brought up which could be controversial is having a select board member on that committee we have our practice has generally been to not put select board members onto appointed committees because of the potential that the select board member could uh unduly influence the decisions of of committees so that would be a change from our our normal practice it's not a policy but it's been a practice so that's where and I know you know that was mentioned in the memo as possibility and I know you're down to you did you also just mentioned it so I don't know what folks feel about that Ethan you're gonna what about uh oh it worked oh that's why you're going to well what about what about like any obviously that the change that would be done would have to be authorized because there's what so so committee would make a recommendation the select board would would vet it and then and have to approve it the the the the you know committees don't have any a committee doesn't have any any authority to change it to change it to write a commission is is different but what if the select board member didn't have and I'm not saying didn't have any input but was just here to sort of guide them along to keep them moving so we we have allowed ex-officio members that a non-voting members right so um an example is we for a long time had a select board member on the energy committee a non-voting select board member in the energy committee so that that I think is is something that we have done in the past again it's not a policy it's a practice whatever you decide I'm just whatever I mean I'm happy writing a helping with the missions helping yeah that's a yeah helping with the mission statements and then being a member but if you decide you don't want a select board member on the charter committee that's I would be more comfortable with a non-voting member because it does written I mentioned this before when we were talking about the recall proposal that was brought to us that it it there's a fine line between making a recommendation to yourself that ultimately affects you as a select board member and I think it could create a little bit of a slippery slope if a select board member has a vote on the committee given it's only one voice in however many but having a vote on the committee and then having a vote at the select board level as well I'd like to steer clear of that potential conflict but non-voting I don't see an issue with I'm going to move that we table this to the July 11th meeting and these writing and then we can okay if I write on the mission statement if you keep doing okay we don't have anything to go we don't have a baseline so see you made a motion I really wanted to go to however we may not be any public left there's a couple I'm sleeping I just wanted to live a lot of the opportunity but you've made it I can I can read back my I think that's staff we're going to do anyway I think yeah I think we we don't yeah we just yeah we can ask the staff to go forward and do that and with Don's help but any comment from the public and come on up looking through our current charter and apparently you can create a commission on your own don't need to go to a ballot doesn't mention committees I assume since that's a lesser of an entity you can do that too yeah so I just wanted to point out that you know you don't have to do it in November ballot to create this oh no no no no that was for charter changes that that's the that's an output from the committee that we're talking about forming right but this wouldn't be a charter change no we're not we're the committee man I'm sorry sorry yeah sorry and maybe I'm interrupting the committee made a recommended charter change then I'll go got it all right yeah we're not we're not looking to have a townwide vote to establish this committee yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and you know that all right yeah all right thanks thanks for that clarification I apologize I'm sorry no no no worries any uh any comments any public comment online I think Margaret Smith you're the last hold out who's Kate Kate Kate's Kate's uh Essex Reporter oh okay reporter all right so then I guess one other comment I wanted to make is just about what the the charge should include it potentially could include if you as you discuss it is is reviewing other available charters to see if there's things that other municipalities are allowed to do that we might want add into our charter there at one time there was a such a list available from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns they had a an intern go through all of the charters and write down all the unique things that that are available and if that's still available it might be helpful just as a something to look at it was also I think it was uh 581 I remember who was House 581 or Senate was Senate 581 I think that uh that had a bunch of stuff in it and included the the recall provision it never made it through that through the the Senate um this term that might have other things in it that that that was a VLCT kind of sponsored it um that had some things and that they thought that municipalities should be able to take advantage of without having to go to the legislature to ask about okay so those those those are things that I don't know if you need to get that specific in the charge sorry no wait it's good ideas I'd rather have too much that you can strip down all right anything else on that got what you need thank you okay so next item on the agenda is appointments and this is for appointments for positions that we've interviewed for in previous meetings we also have the ones that we did this evening that we need to consider we'll go into executive session to have that discussion and then there's also five I which is discussion of contracts to labor relations we'll have that in the executive session also moving on to consent Tracy both to approve the consent agenda thank you Tracy okay thank you Don any further discussion I just had two things that I was curious about the warrants and the amended resolution those were in the consent agenda right this would be when I would mention those yes go ahead uh first I mentioned it earlier but there is a lot of money available from the clean water state revolving fund if you have specific designated growth areas in the town that need any kind of water and sewer but specifically sewer I was thinking like maybe the um 40 for now I might qualify for one of those so I just mentioned that the other thing was I had two questions about the warrants what is a velocitire and what is a rocket tower I had no idea what those were Kendall I'm probably not going to be able to get you an answer tonight but if I can touch base you um and find the the uh line number the amended number and get some more information I can try to track that down with the right staff perfect yeah I wasn't there's no problem I just was what are they thank you all right and um Kendall I don't know when you when you uh read the check warrants but if you can uh get those questions ahead of the meeting maybe okay get you an answer but I will so if I have questions on that I can just send that right to Greg ask Greg yes yeah yes please if you if you um yep okay oh thank you all right uh so we have a motion in a second right that was our discussion any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye opposed okay consententent has approved a reading file any board member comments I do I would like to thank Greg Marguerite Tammy Tammy's daughter Blake Annie Cooper Essex best the view and whoever else was involved in the Juneteat celebration it was awesome you guys missed out big time except for the flying cat it was really wonderful it was a job well done I know a lot of work went into it and it was truly appreciated thank you thank you yeah congratulations anything else um I wanted to make a comment about that uh I saw this week in seven days that Paula de Michelle passed away June 2nd she used to come to a lot of our meetings she did move to South Burlington I believe in 2019 she was also very active in planning commission meetings was it economic development planning commission meetings yeah so was sad to see that very active in the community and I think that's all I wanted to say was there anything else all right Ethan are we ready you want to make a motion to go on an executive session yes yes okay move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointment in accordance with one BSA section 313A3 and to include the town manager and deputy manager second thank you Ethan thank you Tracy any further discussion close in favor please say aye aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes 5-0 do you need the next one now do we have two more two more oh Tracy's gonna have to do it Ethan try to try to I move the black board make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the town's position concerning ongoing contract negotiations and labor relations agreements with employees would place the town at a substantial disadvantage second thank you Tracy thank you Ethan any further discussion close in favor please say aye aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes 5-0 I move that the select board enter into executive executive session to discuss contracts and labor relations agreements with employees pursuant to one VSA 313A1A and one VSA 313A1B to include the town manager and deputy manager is that everybody okay thank you Tracy have a second okay thank you Ethan discussion we need to come back into session to make appointments but I don't think we need to make Scott stay that long so we will just rejoin the meeting online and but it won't be available on the on meeting TV feed to the final appointments correct so all right said that any other any other discussion it's like our videos frozen and I will send you to a breakout room and we'll see you upstairs