 a meeting to order at seven o'clock. And we do have the minutes from January 5th, 2021. Is there a motion to approve? I moved to approve the minutes of January 5th, 2021, with any amendments or additions there too. Thank you. And seconded by Ted. Page one, page two and page three. And just one addition at the very bottom after the executive session and the motion to authorize the settlement agreements. We need to have indicated that we adjourned at roughly 10, 0, 1, if there are no other corrections then, all those in favor of approving the minutes of January 5th, 2021, raise your hand. One, two, three, four, and enjoy your outstanding. Good. Okay. We'll move on then to public comment. Eric, is there anyone out there that wishes to make any public comment, you know? Just asking to chat now, Terry. I saw a couple of people just logged in. Okay. Let's go ahead and have a moment to see if Han would like to make a public comment. Sure. I don't see anyone indicating they'd like to speak during public comment. Okay. And then we'll move on to item number four. That's the Retail Cannabis Town Meeting article. And last week under public comment, Tim Fair introduced the subject of a, putting something on the ballot or on the warning for ballot purposes for the town meeting. And is Tim ready to talk a little bit about that? Yep. Terry, I'll get him connected as a panelist here and also at the board. No, we also have our planning director, Matt Boulanger. He's here this evening. And I think after Mr. Fair's presentation at the board, is there any questions for Matt regarding a land use component? Matt's, Matt will be available to answer any questions from the board. Good. Okay. Mr. Fair connected right now. Hello, Tim. Hi there. Pete. Hello everybody. Thank you so much for having me tonight. I really appreciate the time. Well, thanks for coming back. And we thought it would be an opportune time at this point for you to actually formally give you the proposal that you gave us under public comment last week. So it's your opportunity to give your introduction again. Of course. And please feel free to ask any questions that anybody has. Don't feel bad about interrupting me, I'm used to it. I enjoy answering questions that's, you know, part of this is one of the big issues here is a lot of unknown factor, a lot of the fear factor that people have of the unknown. You know, I know you guys are very busy. You know, there's a long agenda tonight and I'm not going to keep you long here. I've really kind of whittled this down to just a few minutes. I'm not really into arguing the pros and cons of legalized cannabis. I think people can go down that rabbit hole and spend hours. The reality is that the legislature has legalized cannabis. We are now in the process of establishing a legal marketplace. What that's going to look like. Vermont is unique in our laws. The one license limit will keep corporations out. Any business operating on the economy's scale are not going to be interested in one single dispensary license. But your average entrepreneur is. And that's the way Vermont has crafted our system is to try to keep out corporate interests and keep this locally owned. Our clients are almost exclusively local small mom and pop entrepreneurs. Williston has a unique opportunity here with retail cannabis. Now you're going to hear a lot of fear, a lot of scary stories about addicts and crime. None of that has actually flushed out to be true in legal adult use jurisdictions. There are some issues that the communities have found with introducing adult use dispensaries. Primarily traffic congestion, parking, and encroachment upon residential areas, schools, parks where people just simply don't want this type of thing. I want to remind everybody else alcohol is a more addictive and dangerous intoxicant. There's a liquor store in the middle of that efforts. So proximity to day to day operations isn't something that I think needs to be concerned about seriously, but traffic congestion, and encroachment on residential areas is. We have an area in Williston, the big box zoning districts. Big box retail is on its way. How? I think everybody knows that. This is reality in terms of what Williston's going to be looking at. I've been living here now about a year and a half, almost two years, and we'd be buying a house here. I love this town. I really do. And there's a lot of opportunities here. We have an area where we could place cannabis retail that is near the expressway, that we don't have to worry about traffic congestion because the traffic studies have already been done. We don't have to worry about parking because there are hundreds of parking spots in the areas. We don't have to worry about encroachment upon parks or schools because there's already a retail area. And there's a retail area that over the next few years, we're going to see revenues decline from. How many packages did you guys get from Amazon this past year? I lost count in the month of December alone. How much longer is that bath and beyond really going to be able to make? However, and cannabis is not a panacea. It's not going to cure everything. It's not going to hurt ladies' all of that, but it will offset. And the fact that Williston also has local option tax already means that we can immediately start drawing revenue from overall sales. This country will do significant sales. We are positioned better than South Burlington. We are positioned, frankly, better than Burlington for retail cannabis. We have a section of town. We can get off 89, drive in, get their cannabis, get whatever they need from Walmart, get whatever they need from Home Depot, get right back on 89. In terms of overall pluses and minuses, this town in particular is so uniquely situated to be able to maximize revenue, maximize the positive aspects of cannabis retail, while absolutely minimizing the drawbacks. You're not on Church Street where there's a large pedestrian population walking back and forth where we have, like downtown Burlington, where they could potentially be a desirable elements. You've got an area that's basically accessible by vehicle only, where you can place it. You've got law enforcement in the area for shoplifting violations for all the retail controls. So you've got law enforcement there already. There's no schools, there's no parks. I don't see too many people hanging out in the park in the park in between Home Depot and Walmart. So we are uniquely situated. I can't think of another location. And this is what I do all day. And I'm trying to highlight everyone. I own a cannabis law firm. I work with Vermonus in the cannabis industry, CBD, Adult Use. But I've looked and done site surveys of a lot of towns. Waterbury Center is a very big one right now. And I would say that Williston is probably the number one spot in terms of minimization of negative effects and the maximization of positive impact. So I just kind of want everyone to keep that in mind. I also want to remind everyone, and this is one thing I hadn't heard in any of the discussions, Williston has the ability to appoint a local control. And that control board can regulate and issue local licenses to cannabis retailers under nuisance, zoning, signage. So it's not like this goes on to the agenda and the town votes and approves it. And all of a sudden it's out of the select votes hands. I mean, my friend who ended the League of Town and Cities likes to make this out to be a little more dramatic than it needs to be, but the town does retain control. And at least any of my clients will be working closely with the town. Nobody wants an antagonistic relationship with the location, especially at the onset of this industry. Anybody who comes in here, and I don't represent anyone and I don't know anyone personally who is interested in Williston right now, but I don't know why not, because the opportunities are huge. Where Vermont Sandwich Company used to be, on Williston Road coming right up in that abandoned shack in the closed down chiropractor's office. Beautiful location. The Thai restaurant on route two that's been abandoned for about the last year and a half, two years. I sent you guys some pictures too. These are not shady looking spots. These are gonna be high-end boutiques. They're gonna make Apple stores look like your convenience store. I mean, they're beautiful. Custom design, wood interiors, the exteriors are going to be gorgeous. These are gonna be high-end products. This is not cheap drugs. Average retail sales anywhere between $50 and $60 per person per transaction in Massachusetts right now. We're anticipating a very tourist-heavy business. People coming up spending $200, $300 a night on rooms, but no problem spending $70 or $80 on some cannabis to go along with their Vermont vacation. So, I just kinda wanna put a little bit of perspective about the opportunities that Williston has. Now, sometimes we're electing to wait and put this down. This can either take place, this vote of the public can take place at town meeting or especially called meeting. The town would have to pay for that, especially called meeting. And the business people who are looking at this need some clarity. They need some idea that, okay, we can invest in purchasing a property in this town. We can start our discussions with the town. We can start our planning knowing that cannabis retail will be allowed. If this gets kicked down the road, those entrepreneurs are gonna go to the towns where they know that they have that safety, at least if I buy a property, I know I'll be able to utilize it for this. But the window for licensing will only be about 30 days when it does come around next year. And there's no guarantee that there's gonna be a second round of licensing. We don't know what the state is gonna do. There's still a lot of unknown since the cannabis control board is not formed. But again, I just wanna reiterate, you will have the opportunity to create a local cannabis control board, which will be funded by the fees you can collect from the local licensed. One or two then they come. This is not gonna be a deluge. We're not gonna have 80 cannabis dispensaries opening up. The reality is one, two, maybe three applications of which the town can decide how many of those they want to allow. So then that's really it. I just kind of wanna throw that out there. I know there's still a lot of questions on certainty. I know some people don't like cannabis. I don't like alcohol. I don't drink. It's not my thing. I do like cannabis. I'm not trying to allow alcohol. And more than what about two people? I think people make a lot of dumb choices when they're drunk. But that's not what we're here for. We're here for what is best for well as them. And I think moving forward, we stand to gain a lot more than we stand to lose by at least allowing the people to decide and to vote on this at town meeting. And if it wasn't for COVID, I would be having the signatures to you 10 times what I needed because of the COVID health crisis I would ask that the council elect to waive the signature petition requirement and allow this to go on the agenda for a vote of the people. And if the population says no, well then the population says no. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. So tonight we're charged right tonight as to whether or not this is gonna go on the warning for town meeting and not necessarily whether we're in favor of or not over the period of it. So, Eric, anything you'd like to add if before we get further questions? No, not this time, Terry. I've got a couple procedural notes if those questions that come up later. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time and the consideration everyone. I really appreciate it. Thanks, before you're going on, any questions from the board for Tressa? Don't, yeah, Jeff. Okay. So Tim, hi, Jeff. Jeff Fares here. Thanks, Chris. You made a point already about the ability to buy alcohol in Williston already, that it's a more addictive and dangerous drug. I would point out the other aspect about it is we can probably buy it in Williston, that convenience store from six in the morning to 11 at night if we need it. I don't know how appropriate it is to make this comment but I also know we have four pharmacies in Williston which some by prescription you can get some pretty dangerous drugs there. So my point is the selling of drugs has been happening in Williston for years. I got two questions. The first is, do you have any thoughts? What's in it for Williston? And by what's in it from Williston, I'm primarily meaning from a local options tax perspective. Do you have any thoughts on what we would be looking for, looking at in terms of increased revenue? I don't, and that's because it's impossible to say what the average sales are. Yeah, one of the, you know, and that leads a little bit into my second question, which is my concern, and you point this out in your letter how it's controversial. People have strong opinions. My sense is that there's, you know, three groups of people in Williston, those who strongly oppose it and no way you're gonna convince them that they should vote for it. Those who strongly favor it and probably there's no way you're gonna convince them to vote against it. And then there's gonna be some middle ground folks. They may be, I suspect cannabis is the type thing where nobody sits there and goes, nah, six or one half dozen of the other. But there are people who would be convinced by having one way or the other by having good information about cannabis, what it means, you know, as you said, the liabilities, some of the mistruths that are out there. And my question is, if we want to, we want the vote to be as, and I don't know what the right word is. When I'm gonna use the word accurate, it's not really the right word. We want people to make as informed decision as possible when they're voting on this. And my question is, is between now and March, is there really the opportunity for voters to get informed? I think that's limited by the individual voter. I think people who wanna be informed about that opportunity, they can get online. And like anything these days, you're gonna find propaganda. You're gonna find the biased information from pro. You're gonna find biased information from against. You're gonna try to parse through everything and come to a decision that makes the most sense to you. I think people are gonna vote their conscious. I think people are gonna vote their experience. I think people who've consumed cannabis have a different perception for people who have never consumed it. I think people who care about it will take the time to do the research to see. And ultimately, I'm still not seeing where the downside is. We've got now 17, one in three, 33% of Americans live in a legal adult use jurisdiction at this point in time with the onset of New Jersey. With New York, Pennsylvania, and most likely Florida, also legalizing adult use cannabis within the next few years. We're not over half of Americans living in an adult use jurisdiction. We know what happens. Colorado's had legal adult use for five years. There are some good things. There are some bad things. And I think most of the things you find online and the research you do are gonna try to emphasize one or the other. And it takes an intelligent voter to parse through that information and come to that decision. Maybe they can do it in a week. Maybe they can do it in a month. Maybe they can never do it. And I'm sorry, and this is more general questions. I don't mean, Tim, you don't have to be the only one to answer these. Should I be concerned that the vote, whichever way it goes, may not have been an informed vote? I think you could say that about any issue ever. I would say people are gonna be more informed about this than say the effects of a tax incremental financing project is going on or what a $6 million bond could potentially impact. I think this is going to be a lot more informed than a lot of issues that unfortunately voters have to vote on all the time. Yep, I'm not gonna promise, but I think this is my last question, which is what is the select board's role or the town's role? That's more a better way to put it. The town's role in providing information, if any. You know, at 64 calls for this to be a decision of the registered voters of the town. That's what the law states. That's what the League of Town and Cities insisted upon in order to get this legislation through. We would have preferred a opt out as opposed to opt in. However, this is the way things are to stand. Where the town stands is, obviously this is going to fall within the town and this is going to have an impact on the town. I don't think it's gonna be nearly the impact that some people think it is, but there will have to be an impact. And I think that's why Act 64 also allows for the creation of the local kind of control board to make sure that this doesn't, you know, no one's saying let's open this up next to the church or even in the residential part of the village. You know, that obviously, I don't believe that would be appropriate. Very pro-industry. That certainly would not be appropriate. Next to the marshals in a closed down strip mall where we have plenty of parking, that is an excellent opportunity. And that's what the town and the select board has the ability to do with this formation of this local county control committee is make sure that where it is, it's appropriate. That if there are buffer zones that you want, those are in place and make sure that the actors, meaning the applicants and the license holders are following through with their commitments to the town, whatever it's known as may be, because you can revoke your local licenses as well for the violations that the statute gives you. It's not full authority, but it's significant in terms of zoning, in terms of nuisance and in terms of signage. I mean, I can't imagine much else that the town would be really interested in with a retail location. So, you know, I think that this is a, and it's a partnership. I think you're gonna be working with the entrepreneur, the owner, to make this successful both for the town and both for the person who's gonna put a lot of time, effort and money into opening this thing. You know, nobody has any illusions. There's a sale to a miner, they're not. This is a one-strike and you're out proposition. We have fully anticipating that. This is not going to be some shady operation. This is not gonna be some Mexican cartel or something ridiculous, even your neighbors. More people than you guys know some on cannabis, I'm sure. Not all of them want to broadcast that fact because there is still a significant stigma to it. I was told I was gonna be disbarred two years ago when I left my great job with Paul, opened up a cannabis law firm, you know, but I did that because I believed in the industry and so far it's been incredible and it's been a great opportunity. It's been an eye-opening opportunity for me, I've learned a lot. And that's why I'm here today, saying I do believe this is the best for all of us. I hope that answers your questions for the rest of my ability. It does, but if, no, actually, and I'm not gonna say no. I know, there's no real answer. No, allegedly. My question was along the lines of, we know that we have the ability to do a local control commission. Is that the right word? For a control commission, I think, I forget exactly what the language is. We know that the town has been thinking about if we were to do retail cannabis, you know, how to zone that? Where would they be located? Is that, and I'm not asking this necessarily, Tim, I'm asking this of everyone. Is that something we should let the voters know that, you know, the town has put some thought into it, not that we're supporting it or not supporting it. We put some thought into it where they would go. We put some thought into it, or at least we know we have the option to create this committee. Did I get that word right? You know, that local control committee to help regulate it. And again, it's open question. Well, I think the town, when we have a question on the ballot, such as the budget and other things, the charter changes, we have made an attempt to at least inform the public of what it is and what it means, but taking a no particular side to it. It's a kind of school commission. That's the language in Act 164. I kind of is controlled commission. Commission, okay. One of the C words. All right. I'm sorry. I feel like I've rambled on too long. Any further questions for Tim? Well, Tim, I guess I just have a couple of questions. I mean, are you aware that our planning commission has not finished the work on zoning? If we did allow cannabis to be sold in Williston, that we don't know where it would, you've thrown out these glorious locations, but the planning commission hasn't said that that's where they would go. Oh no, absolutely not. And I was just throwing examples of places which would again minimize the negative. If we don't know whether or not those places are viable or whether that's where the zoning is going to be, what are the examples of? Places where should it be allowed, again, would minimize the negative impacts that we have seen within communities which have opened to these dispensers. Okay, but we don't know about the examples you've used. You would agree we don't know if that's actually what would actually happen. Because that would be up to the select board, I assume, when planning and zoning in the town. And none of that work has been done yet. My knowledge, I don't know. I took some notes. You said at one point that these stores would make Apple stores look like convenience stores. How do you know that? Because I've seen the interior designs, the current trends in cannabis dispensaries, specifically in Massachusetts, but more specifically the planned models that we've seen here in Vermont. These are high-end locations. These are high-end buildings. Again, the pictures I've sent, you were just sampling. Granted, some of the higher-end places in California and Arizona, but this is certainly the industry trend. So you're, they really are really an assurance though, right? I mean, you're assuming that they will follow to form what they've done in other states. I, exactly. I am expressing what the trend in the industry is currently, what our recommendations to all of our clients, and the mock-up models that I've seen from potential dispensaries here in Vermont and some other areas have all followed the same theme, which is the high-end boutique theme. Okay. And then the other thing that you said that I took a note on said, the reality is that there will be one, two, or three applications. Absolutely. There will not be a deluge was the word that you used. I don't believe so. Not from what I've seen thus far. We work with a significant portion of the applicants, current applicants. Applications are going to be due within the next 14 months. The law firm does? Yes, the Vermont Canada Solutions. We are the only kind of law and consulting firm in the state. So we do work with quite a few. Where we've seen, we've worked maybe 50 applicants, 60 applicants at this point statewide. Out of those 60 applicants, I would say probably 40 had a viable chance at licensing and that spread out over the entire state. The majority of the applicants right now are looking at tourist areas. We have 600,000 people in the state. That's not going to support a large adult use cannabis industry, but we have pre-COVID numbers of 14 million tourists. That will support an adult use cannabis industry. So majority of the applicants right now are looking at the Watesfield, Warren, Waterbury Center, I can't tell you. So Morrisville, they're looking to bookend the resorts. There are a smaller contingent that are looking at Chittenden County in this area, which is why I'm saying, I don't need this stage of the game where we're telling people they need to be moving forward. I don't have one single client that is interested in the Williston area. If I was here advocating on behalf of any particular client, I would certainly disclose that. And the fact that we haven't even heard anybody mention Williston yet leads me to believe that there will not be an inordinate amount of applications. But even if there were, that's still up to the town and the local kind of miscontrol permission to determine how many lowest licenses are being issued. Stop the authority to say, we're not going to oversaturate Williston. We're going to only allow two. We're going to allow three. We're going to pause and using a metric select the best. So that's why I don't believe. Now, the grantee, once opt-in, opt-out, vote has occurred. Once towns have started to opt-in, once there's been an identification of towns that are going to allow cannabis retail, will that potentially increase the interest in a particular area? Sure, that could very well happen. But regardless, if it's 10 or if it's 100 or if it's two, it doesn't really change the reality that the town has the opportunity to select how many are going to be here. It's not going to be a free fall. Are you saying that the law allows us to just reject a cannabis operation if we opt-in? The select board is allowed to do that just because we feel there are already too many in town? Under what we have, I mean, you can read what actually. Is that true or is that false? I don't think it's as black or white as an issue that I'm selecting Kenny. It does give the cannabis control board the authority to issue licenses, which are necessary. It does not say the board must issue every license for every application. And the board does have or the cannabis control commission does have the opportunity to limit those licenses and to regulate based on zoning, nuisance, and signage. So if there was the town to zone cannabis retail in a very one specific area, that's the town's product. And in that method, we would assume that the number could very easily be limited. We also have yet to see from the cannabis control board what limitations on retail licenses may come. The reality of Act 164 is that it did not dive into great detail. It left quite a bit to be determined by the administrative level by the cannabis control board, which is good because that allows things to be shifted to see what works and what doesn't. I guess that would be my last question though. Is it true that no cannabis retail establishment could be open before but May 2022? May 1st, 2022 in the current timeline would allow the existing medical dispensaries, should they get an integrated license to open? That would be limited to those five into five locations. Then October 1st, 2022 is when private retail would open their doors again, according to the current timeline in 164, which may or may not be held to. Well, I guess this may be kind of a rhetorical question, but feel free to answer it. I'm just wondering why we would put this on the ballot now for March of 2021, when we have until October 2022 to see what the regulations that control these things actually are, what they're zoning, are we willing? That's the question and not a rhetorical one, business planning is an incredibly difficult business to plan out, timing to get to obtain real estate. See the other major problem is that a cannabis retailer cannot exist in a building currently that has a lease on mortgage that's held by bank or financial institution. And that will pose a significant challenge even in what I have proposed is a drawback there because until the Safe Banking Act passes, which may now have some opportunity with the current wins in Georgia, but until that passes, banks will not allow kind of sales in a building they hold a security interest in. So real estate is an incredibly difficult problem right now. This is why I really think that one's a sandwich company. It needs to be owned outright. In order to do that, in order to come to you, they need to get a plan together. They need to have a security plan together. They need to have a traffic evaluation done. There's a lot of work in this industry that does need to happen, especially for retail. And when we're going to have a 30-day window of licensing, by the time those license applications are ready, prepared by the Tennis Control Board at the state level, our clients, we're going to have our clients day one prepared. We want their business plan. We want acquiescence with the town. We want everything, all our T's crossed and I stopped. That does not leave us a whole heck of a lot of time. So if we have to wait another year, sure, we could call a special meeting in October and deal with this, but we could even put it on town meeting for March 2022. But at that point, we'll miss those license. Anybody who's trying to get a man who doesn't know whether or not they'll even be able to open their doors into town is going to be so far behind the other applicants, they have no chance of a license. They'll have to wait for a theoretical second round of license, which may or may not happen. So are you saying that we have to weigh the business planning concerns with what the town voters know now and that would be that we don't know what the regulations are going to be. We don't know what the zoning is going to be. We don't know that kind of stuff. And that, given the... I mean, there's certainly going to be a little bit of a leap of faith there. We have to make a leap of faith. A little, not much. And again, I'm not seeing a whole dramatic drawbacks. It's not like we're going to see Nick Pop popping up in the village. You know, there's a lot of opportunities here to make sure that doesn't happen. I don't think anybody wants that to happen. We're not going to be doing with corporate entities and we're going to be doing with normal providers who are going to be involved in opening these businesses. Again, because of the one licensed lender. But there would be nothing legally to stop them from doing that, true? Zoning. We don't have the zoning. But you will. We don't right now. No, no, that's true. Okay. And listen, my questions have been, maybe they've even approached being sharp. You and I go way back in court. I don't take it personally at all. Believe me, it's a lot less sharp than I usually get in my presentation. Thanks. That's all I have. Of course. Any further questions for Tim? Tim, quick. What is, do you and believe there is a liability if we were to either, let's do scenario one, we put it on the ballot for, hypothetically, we put it on the ballot for March, 2021, it gets voted down. You know, the will of the voters informed or not, votes it down. How difficult would it be to get it back on a ballot? Just follow another minute. There's no, I mean, at that point, I wouldn't, I personally would not pursue it being once the voters are voted. That's it. Unless the voters of the town decide, as you know, I mean, at that, I pretty much would say, that's it, because if they vote, you know, at this point, there's, you know, unless there's a second round of licensing opening, a 30-day window for the, to submit these licenses at the beginning of next year, that's close. If the town vote decides not to put it on right now, given COVID, well, we're done. You're not, I mean, this is a yes or no at this point to see cannabis, you know, at least it's a definitive no. If the select board chooses not to put this on the agenda, there won't be cannabis retail in most, at least not for a while. Though it would be very, very, very difficult at that point to see how it could possibly happen. Once town meeting has occurred and the people, at least the clients we're working with and the entrepreneurs I know, are gonna be focusing on the towns that opted in. Towns that opted out, or towns that refused to put it on their ballot, I'm not just not gonna be even considered. People will be looking, you know, where they're welcome. And then down the road, are there gonna be more? I guess that's gonna depend on how many licenses are issued. There's so many factors, it's impossible to tell. Supposedly there was gonna be a sixth medical license issue when our patient count hit a certain number, which it never hit and was never issued. And we're of the mindset that that's most likely what's gonna happen now is there'll be a number of retail adult use dispensary licenses issued that'll open. And there may very well not be or maybe a very long time before more on our issue. I can't think about how many more, you know, liquor outlet licenses are issued or how often, you know, new liquor store licenses. I think that's a set number and pretty much, you know, so I can't help it think that's gonna be what cannabis is gonna be like as well. So again, there's a lot of unknowns. Councilman Kenny's right. And Councilman Kenny, I just, you know, I wanna remind you of a book you gave me once that was Reptile, the Reptile Strategy and Trial and people being dictated by their fears. And I just wanna kind of come full circle. I read that book. It was a phenomenal book. Kind of cuts both ways, you know. Absolutely. Any further questions for Tim? Seeing none, thank you very much, Tim. We appreciate a lot of your time. I know you have a lot to get to tonight. So appreciate it. Thanks. Have a great evening. Thank you very much. So are there any questions from Matt? We can bring him on as far as questions regarding zoning and stuff like that. But we have things that we were provided in the kits or the packets for today. Don't see any requests for Matt to be on then. Oh. Well, it'd be helpful to know where we are with the work with the Planning Commission. Okay, Matt has just signed in. Matt, welcome. So did you hear Jeff's question? You're muted. It was just a touch cut off as I transitioned into the meeting, but I think you were asking about where we're at in terms of the work with the Planning Commission. Exactly. Okay, great. So the first thing I'll say is, Eric provided you again with the memo from November and in particular, it's enumeration of some of the zoning tools that the Planning Commission select board might consider. To one extent or another, the Planning Commission has showed interest in almost all of those strategies or some mix of them as a zoning amendment response to potential legalization of retail recreational cannabis in Williston. I will be providing them for their meeting next week with draft bylaw language that shows them what that actually looks like in a zoning bylaw. And I've told Eric, I'd be happy to provide that same draft to you. But our procedural timeline at its fastest, if I got it all right in that draft and the Planning Commission nods ahead on it, we're four to six weeks to a hearing, hold a hearing informational meeting with the select board a couple of weeks to a hearing with the select board. We're probably into late spring or being realistic early summer for a bylaw to be adopted. And there could be a window of time following an opt-in vote where the zoning that exists is the zoning we have today, where retail cannabis sales is a subset of the allowed retail uses that is currently allowed in the Taft Corner zoning district and in the parcels facing route to in the Business Park zoning district. So I have that map in my head, I can clarify it for you but that's the default. It has a retail classification that is acknowledged in our bylaw already. There is a part of town where it's permitted, there are other parts of town where it's not. And I would say that among the strategies that the Planning Commission is considering, things like outlet density, conditional review by the Development Review Board, et cetera, et cetera. The one that they've probably not landed on agreement on is the geographical location. And I think it was a version of the same conversation we had with the select board. Do you quote unquote stick it in the middle of town? Do you put it off in the Gateway South District around exit 12? Do you push it off towards Essex or out into the industrial zone as was done with medical dispensaries? I would anticipate that either the Planning Commission or yourselves or both may take some time to come to agreement on how you want to address the allowed zoning district or subset of a zoning district if you wanted to map an overlay where you would want this to be allowed if it was going to be allowed somewhere, which is really what Act 164 asks you to do in crafting a zoning response. And I do agree in the question on limiting the number of facilities, I think the tool is zoning and more specifically some sort of an outlet density or minimum spacing requirement. I think without speaking too far out of school on Act 164, that's the strongest way for a local control commission because it ties back to zoning which is specifically called out as a appropriate compliance check for the local commission to be making. If the local commission were to just throw up its hands and say, we're denying you because there's already too many of these, I think that would be a harder decision to defend than rooting it in zoning. So we're moving on it with the Planning Commission, we're moving about as quickly as we ever do on a bylaw amendment along with a couple of other things we're working on right now. And so late spring, early summer for the select board to have something that you would be ready to adopt would be my prediction right now. Tim Fair, I believe what I heard him say is the first open whatever it is that 30 day time period in which licenses can be applied for will happen essentially a year from now in the beginning of 2022. Is it reasonable to expect that we would have a zoning ordinance in place that deals with cannabis retail by a year from now? Oh, I think so, yes. Okay, good, thanks. That depends largely on you all coming to agreement on it, Jeff. Yes, I get that, but it's more, yeah. Yeah, I think you would have something in place well before a year from now. It's not unreasonable to expect that that would happen. Yeah, okay. Okay, good, I'm good. Any other questions for Matt? Don't see anybody who wishes to speak. So thank you, Matt. We appreciate you hanging in here. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have a good rest of your meeting. Yeah, see ya. So, Eric, you had some procedural things to comment on. Yeah, just more of a context of the request here. So the select board, this request is coming before the select board as the select board controls the town meeting morning. There's not a formal petition that's been made and the state hasn't waived any petition requirements during COVID. This is something if the town received a petition that met the statutory requirements, the 5% of voters and other items, then the select board would need to place it on the warning for the town meeting or call a special meeting for it. So as a request that came from a resident, the board's deciding whether it was purview to control the town meeting warning, whether it wants to warn this question or not. So whenever we have a vote on this, I would prefer it to be at a town meeting or in November, but there isn't a November election coming up next year. Special meetings are notoriously low vote counts and town meetings at least are reasonable representatives of the town. So sort of what needs, I think a straw vote tonight to see whether or not we want to put this on the warning because we'll be deciding on the warning next week. So comments from members of the board. So this would be actually to put it on the warning and then actually have the vote as part of the town meeting as part of the Australian ballot. It will be on the Australian ballot, yes. Yeah, well, I would not be in favor of that. And the reason I would not be in favor of that is because regardless of what people think of marijuana for or against, there are strong feelings on both sides. But it is a big decision. And I think the decision has to be made with as much knowledge as we have. Now, right now, under the law, the governor hasn't even appointed the people who are gonna make the regulations. The regulations don't even exist yet as to how these things are gonna be governed. So we'll be asking the voters of the town of Williston to vote on letting an industry come in that it's gonna be regulated, but we don't know to the extent what those regulations will actually do anything. We also don't know where it's going to be. And we just haven't had enough time to get this done. And the third thing is all in the context of the fact that these things can't open up until October anyway. Now, I know Tim Fair made valid points about business planning. And I run a business myself. I know business planning is very important, but I don't think that should outweigh the voters having the full knowledge of how this is gonna be regulated, what the town can or cannot actually do relative to regulations and where it's actually gonna go. Because what we'd be saying is, hey, it's a leap of faith. And make this leap of faith on this highly emotional and impactful decision. And we'll find out in October 2022 if your leap was worthy of faith. So I just don't think it's a good idea. Other comments? Well, I have to admit, I'm a bit conflicted. On the other hand, I absolutely agree. We need, you know, I'm not absolutely agree. I concur and know it. We have to get the voter input yes or no. And we have to abide by that yes or no. I wonder if on the one hand, I think having that vote earlier than later is good. I worry that it won't be an informed vote, but I also worry that it will never be an informed vote. The voters are pretty much gonna know now what they're gonna know in a year from now, which is there will be regulations and the town will have zoning. We don't know what those are yet, but they will be there. Most voters are probably not going to look so much at where would it be allowed? Or and what are there's state rules other than there are state rules and it will be limited where it's allowed in Willeson and it won't include places like parks or close to schools. So I'm not sure what to do right yet. Valued others input. I feel that we're not doing, we're doing a disservice if we were to put something like this on without knowing what the regulations might be. When you don't have infrastructure, you have no idea of knowing how this is actually gonna play out. And there may be people that will make a decision now that would not have made that same decision once the regulations and stuff are put in place. I completely agree with Ted on this one for like for so many reasons. Gordon. I think one of my biggest concerns, I know things are not gonna be near parks and schools, but there's also other shopping places that kids and families are around. And when we don't know exactly how that is going to be zoned, that's, I guess that's one of my worries. I mean, I lived in town my whole life and this is a big one. And I see your point, Jeff, where maybe on the regulation side, people won't change their thinking much in a year from now. But for me, it's the where, not so much that regulation, but it's the where for me and how that's gonna impact where people and kids are. I'd wanna know more. So I always kind of side on the side of caution on things. And I know getting an upholst on the community is really important earlier than later. But in this case, I'd rather wait till later. The point, and I'm not disagreeing, what I'm conflicted by is right now we have a system where you can buy alcohol. Many of those establishments were created before we had zoning and they're still there. So if you use, let's say the sale of, and I forget what it's called, where you can buy beer and wine versus hard alcohol, spirits, whatever it is. I guess I liken cannabis closer to that than I do. It's gonna be a free-for-all type system. I guess part of what I'm trying to figure out is what should I be afraid of? And I'm not coming to a lot. We are not gonna regulate this any less and we're gonna regulate other, I guess, addictive, dangerous substances such as alcohol. I mean, we, that's the general way, the state plus Williston. So I think that you have, right now, we probably have people who are violently opposed to the sale. There are people who are greatly in favor of it and we have the great middle ground that people are not either for or against. And the good thing I think about waiting on this is that the planning commission will hold public hearings on the issue as far as where they could possibly be located and get public input on that. And we would have a more robust discussion, I believe, by waiting until a year from now to put it on the ballot. That's my thoughts at this point. And it sounds to me like we have four that would prefer waiting to another time at this point. Okay. So if we're in agreement with that, it will not appear on the warning for this town meeting and we can move along then to the review of the budget. Hearing no objections, we'll do that then. Moving on to the budget review with Eric and Shirley. All right, I'll get Shirley connected here and I'll just, Shirley's gonna go through the details on the accounting side here, but I just wanted to kind of preview the conversation for the board. Last week's meeting, the board requested for staff to take a final look through the budget, look at additional possible reductions in operating expenses and revenue sources. So I just want to say that the department heads did a great job and Shirley too, leading that effort in this past week, just want to recognize their hard work and a final review of the budget here before the board meeting tonight. So Shirley will go through, there's a number of possible changes staff has identified on both the expense and revenue side of the budget to examine. So overall what we'll present to the board tonight is a net $80,000 change with expense reductions and revenue additions. So I was trying to think of a way to try to sum this up because there's a lot of complexity in the accounting side that you'll see on some of your materials that Shirley can answer questions on. But in the original budget proposal that was transmitted from the manager's office and included a projected half-cent tax rate increase to raise another $110,000 in revenue. This work in the last week's identified about $80,000 of that through expense reductions and revenue additions. So as the board considers these possible changes, the question is this remaining $30,000 or a new amount based on the board's discussion tonight after review and that $30,000 or other amounts to be funded through additional taxes be raised, additional fund balance to be used or a mix of the two. And in your materials, Shirley's prepared three approaches to consider just kind of in the overall concept here. And again, these final numbers can change based on the adjustments the board like to make to the final budget. And just from a number standpoint, this latest budget draft reflects the $90,000 reduction from the FY21 expense budget or about a 0.77% reduction. So I think I'll turn it over to Shirley unless the board has any questions for me as we get started here. Eric, the $30,000 you mentioned, where, I'm just confused by what that number is. Sure, in terms of, so trying to think of that, we were going to raise $110,000 potentially with a projected half set tax rate increase. And then of that 110, the possible changes present tonight will cover 80,000 of that to offset that whole proportion of the $110,000 that was originally proposed with a potential tax rate increase. What's remaining is $30,000 based on these possible budget changes proposal from staff. Okay, okay, I think I understand. Okay, just one way to think about it, trying to remove a lot of the accounting piece of it as well. And I could turn it over to Shirley. Hello. I'm gonna start by just reviewing the memo. Actually, I'm gonna start by having a confession here that I found two mistakes in the work. Uh-oh, here we go. Everybody sit down. First of all, our FY21 tax rate is actually 0.2750, not 0.2749. And in the schedule that shows the FY21 operating budget, our original proposal, and then the options, in the very first column, the FY21, the total expenses should be the 11 million, I had a formula error, so hold on. Let me just get to the last page there. Should be 11,671 to 10. So revenues and expenses match each other. So with those corrections, so at our meeting last week, one part of a discussion was about the Chittenden County Public Safety Board and funding that 34,000. And the board agreed to fund that. And the conversation last week was we were gonna use unassigned fund balance to fund that. So that was essentially 35,000 we didn't have to look for. But so that's in this budget and used fund balance. So when we get to that, the report page with all the columns, I'll point that out to you. Also as discussed last week, there's, this looks a little more complicated because the host town fund and the cemetery operating budget need to be part of the general fund budget. They are not separate funds, they're part of what the town does as the town services. So we had to step back and bring in the revenues from its cemetery fund, the revenues that we get from host town revenues and then include the related expenses within the general fund budget. So it's making it look a little more confusing because we want those in this budget. So when we get to FY22, our accounting is correct. Let's see, for capital projects, we found a decrease of 27,500 and some of this was accomplished by shifting budgets to different years based on when things were gonna be purchased. The police department held off the purchase of one of their fleet vehicles so we could reduce their budget a little bit. And let's see, and then we made a small reduction in the fire department to its turnout gear. So that was the majority of that 27,500 that we found. In regards, we had a full-time rec creation coordinator that was set to begin in the FY21 budget half a year. And because of COVID, we put off that position. Now we've put off, and so in the FY22 budget to begin with, we had the position starting in January. We're now deferring that to the middle of May, hoping that we're past COVID. Todd has time to hire someone, bring them in prior to program starting in June. So that amounted to $23,510 cut. We reviewed fire call wages with chief and the budget was 75,000 and we moved it down to 60,000. FY20 actuals were 45,000, just actually under 45,000. December year to date this year was only 15,000 and they do have four new recruits and they're gonna try some different ways to attract uncalled fire personnel. So we moved the budget down by 15,000 and chief thought that was a good place to be. So that was a big part of the savings. We talked about the sidewalk bond last week as well. The sidewalk bond fund is a separate fund. So we need to, again, this is an accounting change. We need to show that 100% of the transfer is a transfer in. And then we show the sidewalk bond principle and interest payments at 100% of the payments and no more netting, which is what used to happen. Let's see, I'm turning to the second page of the memo and I'm looking at that graph in the middle because last week we did a roll forward of what we thought the unassigned fund balance was gonna be. So I really, I started this table from the estimated June 30th, 2021 balance and just said, here's what we, again, with the assumption that all other operations are gonna be net neutral. We don't think we're gonna have any revenue go into fund balance, but we don't think we're gonna have loss. So with that assumption, these are under the three different options. This is what we'd be using from fund balance. The first one being we reduce the tax rate for the budget changes. The second one being we left the tax rate flat and the last one we split the tax rate between the fund balance. So what those three scenarios, I'm ignoring the 130,000 for a moment because those are assets that you can't spend. So I'm looking at those other four lines above it. So in the first scenario, we'd be using 660,000 of fund balance and keeping the tax rate flat, we'd be using 690 of fund balance and splitting between taking that 30,000 that Eric was talking about, splitting it between using part of fund balance and increasing the tax rate. We're using fund balance of 675. And my point for putting this table together was really to say that going forward, this kind of use of fund balance is not sustainable. We'll bleed our fund balance to the point where our liability from significant events happening will erode it. So I just, as a conservative accountant, just wanna mention that we just need to think about, even though in the prior couple of years we've actually designated more than that, we actually haven't used any because our bottom line has been positive. So we didn't actually touch any of those dollars as we said we're coming from reserves. I am 100% believe that is going to be true in 2021 that what we've designated, we're going to be using. And 2022, it's just everybody's best guess, but probably we are definitely gonna dip into that as well. So below that table, I went and said, okay, here's our new estimated June fund balances under the three scenarios. And I took the operating budget that we are presenting right now with the 11,581,355 and went to the fund balance policy and said, okay, here's 10% of the FY22 budget. Here's the 20% high. So in both cases, our fund balance in all three scenarios would remain over that 20%. The other thing to mention is part of the reason that we're going to remain over that 20% is because the host town fund balance is coming into the general fund balance. That's like 330,000. So that's helping to increase our unassigned fund balance. Any questions on that before we move forward? Oh, Jeff, yes. You brought up, if I heard you correctly, even though we're keeping the fund balance above that magic 20%, we're still spending it in an unsustainable way. I believe that. Okay. Because another year of that level, another two years of that level and we're somewhere in between, but we certainly don't have the liquidity and flexibility we do when we bring that fund balance, the unassigned fund balance down. What would be your estimate of what is sustainable use of the fund balance? Oh, that's a good question, Jeff. I hate to answer that. I really am perplexed by that question. I'm not sure I have the answer without running some numbers to see where we are. And of course, the other is fear of the unknown. What's gonna happen? Yep. Okay, fair enough. Should our fund balance policy, I think it's a policy. It is. Include, it's only been based, if I remember correctly, on the 10 to 20%. Should it include a sustainability aspect to it? For, I think that's probably a great idea. And so I wrote on my long list of things to do is to look at other fund balances around town because what makes 10 or 20% of magic numbers? Right, yeah. I don't know the answer. I just know that the town of Williston has been really lucky and that report that came out, right? We were number one financially, but part of that was because we had such a healthy fund balance. Right. So I guess this is just an observation is it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I deal a lot with things that sustainability is a big word these days used often and unsustainability is a big word also that has real negative connotations to it. So I'm concerned about hearing your thoughts that the rate in which we're using the fund balance is unsustainable. So my comment is the only way I could agree to that is knowing that we'll visit that in the near future so that we can address to the degree possible the sustainability issue or question. And so that's really putting something else on your and Eric's to-do list. Sorry about that, but. That's okay, it was already on my list anyways. All right, let me feel a little bit better. Yep. Yeah, we've been watching this for a couple of years and truly I mentioned earlier we've the town's budgeted $500,000 for the last few budget cycles for reduction of taxes. And then because we brought in more revenue through local option taxes and other revenue sources we didn't need to go into those reserve funds for the offset because we had revenue in other areas. Right. So we knew we were going to get to this point and COVID's kind of exasperated that to bring it along further. So I think it's appropriate time to read this up the policy and then come. Okay. Yeah. And then totally changing gears surely is right in the beginning when I was reading your memo, you know, 73, 250 in revenue additions in $7,710 in expense reductions. What struck me was the magnitude of difference between the two. Me too. And I guess my question is, what does that mean or why or, you know, what should I think about that? So Jeff, I think what I wanted to do was the spreadsheet that has the many columns. I think looking at that, it will help to make those numbers more meaningful as to how we got there. Because you can see it by line. Eric and I were talking about, so your next one of your documents is that sort of the typically what you get is here's a list of revenue changes and there's a list of expenditure reductions. And there's so many of them, it's sort of hard to see it. So seeing it and the other spreadsheet is a little bit easier for me visually anyways to look by line item. And then, you know, I can talk about them a little bit there. So a couple of the, I'm not gonna talk about the revenue, your sheet with the revenue changes, but I wanted to highlight a couple of the possible budget changes that we came up with for expenditure reductions because these have been in the past, but it's, you know, we looked at everything. Thank you, Eric. So one of them being that the Lake Yerakoy Association, there's currently 15,000 in the budget and that would bring this down to 10,000. Actually, let me look at that again. Yeah, 15 and that would bring it down to 10,000. The FY21 budget has 15,000 and prior to that, we were 5,000. So it's FY21 is a big jump and it's kind of bringing it back down. The affordable, yep. No, I'm sorry, I was just saying, okay, I see. So the affordable housing trust, that one and FY19, we funded 15,000 of that which is basically that and some interest that sits in there. The budget from full disclosure, and in case you don't remember, the budget for FY21 we cut because we were looking to be able to reduce our expenses to match our revenue decline. So the original FY20 budget was 20,000 and so we're decreasing it to 15,000. So there's the 5,000 that we saw there. Or that we're recommending, proposing. Let's see. I talked about, I talked about some of the capital projects. I talked about the full-time additional recreation coordinator. Some of these are smaller. So let's see. You see that the cemetery we're getting rid of, the subsidy and instead I'm bringing back in all of the operating expenses, but on the revenue side, you see me also bringing in the lot sales, the memorial garden sales. So the net position of the cemetery is really zero. And on that one, can we spend a little bit of time? Sure. Hopefully be quick. So I'm on the page where it's expenditure changes. Yeah. Cemetery subsidy at the reduce it by 27, 900. But I'm not seeing where that might be. So is that a cut to the- Next stage, next stage. Yeah. So Jeff, keep looking. So under the cemetery you see, that's the subsidy. So that's in the old world when we used to put the cemetery into its fund as if it was something different. So we're really just eliminating the subsidy because we're not transferring money anywhere. And then we added the 350, the 29,000, the 1550, the 5,000, all those things that have a description of cemetery. Right. Those are the actual cemetery expense items. So we're gonna create a department called the cemetery and all of those will sit in there. So the net of the minus 27,000 all the way down to the 2,000 is $8,100. And then on the revenue side, if you look under department called cemetery, those three lines, memorial lot sales, memorial garden fees and cornerstone fees, those equal 8,100. So the cemetery is net neutral in this budget. Okay. I apologize, that was hard for me to, I mean, not your explanation right now before hard for me to follow. Okay. That's no apology necessary. So, but I do have a question about the cemetery, the proposal to make it into a department. Yep. Making it into a department has me a little bit concerned in terms of what does that mean? And particularly in terms of the budget, in terms of additional cost or are there none? There are none. Okay. So basically we just move. So, and I should say it's very confusing because within the cemetery fund that is this now, it's actually was three pieces kind of lumped together. So there was the real operations of the cemetery, which is, you know, mulling the cemetery lawns and selling logs. And then within there, we've had some donated money just from for East cemetery capital purposes. And then we have a truing down. So there were a few things mixed in that fund. So we're trying to take the things that are operating part of the normal operations of the town and put them back in the general fund where they belong. Okay. And will this have any impact on the cemetery commission? Only then I'll have to send them the cemetery fund, which we'll have this, we call it the Asseltine fund. That's the fund that is donations that are meant for East cemetery capital projects. So I'll have to send them the cemetery fund and then I'll just send them a budget report from the cemetery department. So they'll get the same information just in two reports instead of one. Okay, okay. All right, good. Thank you. Because we've switched to having birds lawn service, we don't have a group of employees who mow and maintain the cemeteries. We now contract that service and Bruce typically signs off on those, but other things like if they're buying cornerstones or cornerstone installation, those invoices all come signed off from the cemetery commission and that will not change. We will, because they're the ones who know that we're expended. So we look for their approval. So if I'd like to now walk over to the multi-column spreadsheet. Okay. Actually one, it's a sticky one. I may not be, it's not a popular thing to talk, not popular, that's not the word. It's a little bit hard. That's the word I'm looking forward to talk about. I had forgotten that we are creating a new position in this budget, which is the full-time recreation coordinator. Last week we had a discussion about the energy coordinator. And we just, at least on a straw vote, we decided not to include the energy coordinator. I guess my question is, and if people are like, hey, we made a decision, we're not going to discuss it anymore, that's fine. But my question, I guess is, and I'm questioning is, given we're going to create a position, what is the more important, for lack of better words, or the least, I don't want to say it's one's more important than the other. Well, I guess actually maybe I do. Take that back. Are we comfortable making the decision, the recreation coordinator is more important to hire now than the energy coordinator? Does it make a difference to you that position was actually approved in the FY21 budget? Okay, there you go. Yeah. That was because of COVID, that was one of the cost savings because Todd can't create more programs. He's got no way to hold them with any spacing. So basically it made sense to defer that one and try again. Based on the request back then, was that- Yeah. Looking for more programming and him being a one-person shop. And I don't doubt that it's an important, position, I didn't mean it that way. I know you didn't. Yeah, it's that question of- Yep. Now that we know about things like climate change and the ability to move ahead and hopefully get funding for initiatives around sustainability and that type of thing and resiliency is the energy coordinator something we would rather fund than the recreation coordinator. Realizing whatever position we don't fund has negative repercussions. And I don't know if anybody is interested in weighing in on that. I guess I have an opinion, but if nobody else is interested in weighing in then my opinion isn't gonna change anything. In this budget, and Eric can speak, but in this budget we'd be looking for recommendations from the select board as to how you want to move. I am swayed by our energy plan. I'm swayed by the need to move ahead on items that are in the energy plan. So if you hold a gun to my head and make me vote, I would vote for the energy coordinator. And that's because of the risks that we're facing in realizing this has a negative implication to Todd and his running camps this summer, which may or may not be happening to the degree that happened last year. We just don't know right now. So what would be the difference in the amount that we would need to put in the budget and take out the energy coordinator? My recollection was about $100,000 with wages and benefits. I think that was for a full time, full year. That's correct. And we talked about maybe doing it for half a year. So it's very similar to what's being proposed for the recreation coordinator. Right. Well, this is actually now was half a year and now it's moved to just a month and a half. And we've reduced it even further, right? Or you are recommending it be reduced even further. Yeah. Right. I guess this point on considering a appropriate salary for an energy coordinator position, staff hasn't had time to fully vet what that pay scale would look like, what that classification would look like at this time. I do think there are, when the board wants to have this conversation about the position, maybe more tonight as well or in the future, trying to think if there's potential other models to explore as well with whether it's starting out with having a position that might take on that role with some other roles that are needed in departments or maybe growing it over time or starting it out to one degree then expanding its scope. I guess at a staff level, haven't had a lot of time at this point to really look at what that job description would entail and what that job would do on a day-to-day basis. Understanding it would be working to implement the plan ultimately. Right. And the other thing is more short-term as you're saying, Eric, do we look at some of those tasks that can be done by a consultant and save the town the salaries, the benefits, which cost a lot? Other questions for Shirley? Yeah. So I guess silence is golden in the sense that I'm hearing there's not support a consensus on the select board that that's the way to move forward is funding an energy coordinator position and not the recreation coordinator. I think we covered it. Next week, Jeff. Go ahead. I don't think there's any support for that proposal. So eventually tonight, we need to agree or not agree on the expenditure changes and the revenue changes and which of the proposals of the three proposals are favored so we can have staff have a budget ready for us for next week. Okay. So if you want to go to the report with a lot of columns, I'm not going to every page of this, but yeah, thank you, Eric. Oh, it worked. All right. I see the green outlines. That means I'm doing something right here. Yeah. So, Jeff, how did we get so much more revenue? So I'm, so I have mind printed a little different than yours. So I'm going to have to look at the screen here, but so if you zoom down a little bit, Eric, you'll see that we have the host town fees. Go down farther, Eric, still, please. So you'll see the host town fees, the compost fees, the MRF fees, that's the revenue coming in. And again, we get rid of that host town fund because those revenues are unrestricted revenues of the town. The other changes, the transfer in, the 45,000 for the traffic impact fund against that, that's just grossing it up and grossing up the expenses there. You'll see that large minus 355,000 that's getting rid of the old. We transferred this money out. It was a flip flop between the host town fund and the operating budget. That's now gone because we don't need that anymore. Those dollars are within the budget. And the, for the reserves for capital, I'm just gonna, we used to have that just one line and now we've just split it out between the two. So if you look at the changes column, one's a decrease of 43 and one's an increase of 43, that's just us splitting the line items to make it much more clear about what's a capital project and what's a capital equipment project. So those things are what creates the bigger increase in the revenue than expenses. But the reason the expenses decreases looks so small, Jeff, is Eric, can you go down a couple of pages? Go back up one, let's see. I'm sorry, no, go up back up a little bit more. I want the debt service page. So here is the 33,000 increase and the 11,000 increase. That's the offset to the 45,000 we just saw a minute ago. That's just bringing up the side of up on principal and interest to their gross amounts with the revenue to offset that. I'm just gonna look at the big items here. So Eric, if you go down to the outside services section. So in here, we have the 34,000 for the CCPSA that's been included with the budget. Below that, you'll see the 5,000 decrease for Lake Iroquois, a small increase for the Chittenden County tax because we got the actual invoice or their budget showing us what that's gonna be. Again, the change column reflects the 5,000 decrease for the affordable housing trust. Let's see. If you wanna go down to fire maybe, Eric. Just a couple. So here in fire, the 2,000 increase for administrative is the deputy chief position has been filled and the salary was a little bit more than we projected. So that's just increasing the salary. The computer applications and development, that's an increase of three, but they took it out of their training budget because they forgot to budget a piece of software. The equipment maintenance chief looked at that again, made a $5,000 decrease to it, looking at actuals from the prior years and thought there was some room in there to decrease that a little bit. You'll see the 15,000 decrease to on-call wages we talked about to bring that number down closer to what is probably more realistic. And then, why don't you go down another page, Eric? Police, there's the 3,000 decrease in training as the offset to the computer apps that I just talked about. PD looked at their budget again for building maintenance, looked at it in regards to prior year actuals and thought they had 3,000 there to decrease their budget by. And if you go one more page, Eric, there's the 27,000 down at the bottom of that page. So that was the old cemetery report support that we're just saying that goes away because now we have the cemetery expenses built into this budget. Go another page, Eric. I'm sorry, go one more. I wanna get to recreation, there we go. So there's the recreation. So actually at the start of the page, there is the bringing the cemetery operations into the general fund. So there's all those expenses. And for parts and wreck, there is the decrease of the wages and the benefits moving that person to begin to be in FY22 budget for a month and a half versus six months. Okay. In that, so now, Eric, can I ask you a favor to go to the bottom of the revenue page? So I'm gonna have them jump back up to the top. There you go. So these couple of lines are highlighted because this is the use of reserves for tax reduction just like in the chart that I had and the use of the reserves. I'm looking at the three columns. Now, and I wanna be clear that these three options are purely just options. They're not meant to say that you have to select either of them. As Eric and I talked, we thought these were sort of getting back to the no tax increase at all and changing the taxes. So the first one is we just changed the taxes on the increases or increase in revenue, decrease in expenses we found. The second one was use the fund balance to keep the tax rate flat. And the last one was, okay, let's increase the use of the fund balance and the tax rate in equal proportions. So now if you go back up to the top of this page or to the top of the revenue page and yeah, one more. Okay. So I also highlighted the property taxes that need to be generated. So remember I told you at the beginning that the approved FY 2021 tax rate what people actually got billed was 0.2750. So if you look at the last column, equal increases in both tax revenue and the fund balance, that's actually a 0.22% increase when you have the right tax rate. So it's not 0.27, it's 0.22 and becomes a 0.0006, six of a cent increase. And the very first column that 0.53% increase is actually a 0.48% increase. So for a 0.0013 of a cent increase. And what was the one that was 0.27? No, not the 0.001, the one furthest to the right, the 0.027 that's actually. 0.22%, so the 0.2756 doesn't change. It's just the percentage increase is wrong because I'm subtracting it, looking at the increase from the wrong number. Yep, okay. So these, so just to look, so we initially gave you a budget proposal on 1128 with 5,777 million property tax raised for 0.28%. In this column, that's 112, 2021, I didn't do anything with the tax rate there. The whole purpose of that column was to be able to put in all those budget changes because there were so many. And I didn't change the tax rate, I just wanted to focus on, let's get all the revenue and expense changes and see where we are. So the taxes reduced for the budget changes. So that 5,696, that number is truly just taking the 80,000 in savings that we came up with and reducing the property tax revenue by that number. And that's how we got to the 0.2763 with a 0.48% increase. And in all three scenarios, of course, that expenses are staying the same, at 11,581,355 dollars. So down from the FY21 approved budget, which was our goal to be less, okay. So in the scenario of equal increases in both, like I said previously, we increased the property tax revenue by 15,000 and the reserves from fund balance, from unassigned fund balance by 15,000 so that we could get the total revenue to equal the total expenses. Yeah. Do you have questions for me? Which is better, which of the three is better? You know how, what I'm gonna say, well, okay, you want my honest opinion? Yes. Okay. So I know that you were looking for no increase in tax revenue, but I would have to say, I disagree with that because in reality, all of our costs are going up. Nothing is staying flat. And what I would, and we talked about this last week a little bit, so if our fund balance declines more than we would like it to, we'll not be able to rely on those reserves for tax from the fund balance because it won't be there. So I would not want to have a tax rate that all of a sudden jumps up a couple of cents because we don't have that fund balance there. So that's my conservative side talking. So I like the last scenario the best, with just under a quarter of a percent increase, but a small increase. Okay. My worst conservative side would say, I'd go with the first column, but that's a little bit more of an increase than we were looking for. Okay. And just to remind the board, this is our projection based upon the factors we put into this budget, one of the most significant being a grand list growth as flat for next year. So if the board approves to warrant or raise through the property tax levy when the board goes and set the tax rate in June, we'll take what we know from the assessor's office at that time and that could shift things on the actual rate as the grand list is set. Yeah. So it's time at this point to give a impression at this point to give a impression on which of the three scenarios you're most comfortable with and we can go and produce a budget next week. We'll reflect that so we can go on. Shirley, can I ask if we did use the fund balance so that there was no property tax rate increase this year? We would still be within the select board's policy of what that should be, right? We will, yep. How close to the bottom would we be? Oh, we wouldn't be close to the bottoms. We're still slightly above the 20% ceiling. Okay, all right. Okay, if I can just jump in, I would, given the economic circumstances that we are in and the fact that the fund balance is what it is, I actually would be in favor of using it to keep the property tax rate flat relative to last year. I don't think this is, it's a public policy argument or decision for me. The numbers obviously are important. You can't do anything without them, but they're good enough so that we can make this allowance this year and I think that we should make it this year. I do think that's, a lot of people have not been immediately affected by the pandemic and the recession that happened because of it, but a lot of people have. I'm lucky. I have a government job in the attorney general's office and nobody's told me that my position is being cut, but a lot of people have had their positions cut and a lot of people are in a lot of economic uncertainty and I think it would be good for the economy. I think it would be good for the town and I think, and we can afford it. As you folks all know, I've never been one to use the fund balance like a drunken sailor. I still come back to that stinging rebuke in 1988 of Ronald Reagan complaining about Democrats. I can't imagine he was talking about me, of course. When he said that they spend money like drunken, I'd say they spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be insulting to drunken sailors. Drunken sailors spend their own money. Anyway, I'm not in favor of spending down the fund balance just to do it, but I think the economic situation, the situation we face as a town, I think would justify it this year. So that's my two cents. Thanks. Looking for other input because we need to make a decision. I'm basically gonna concur, but with a little bit of a dire, a little bit more dire, I have a feeling when we start looking at the sustainability of the fund balance, we're gonna be in for a bit of a rude awakening. And so this ability to use about $500 to $600,000 a year to reduce taxes is gonna go away awfully quickly. And so that concerns me. But when I look at the numbers that are thrown out, we're planning on using between $560 and $590,000 of the fund balance. That's not a big difference between the three amounts. So that's why I'm okay with the 590, but I do think we, when we start to look into this question of the sustainability and how long will the fund balance last given the way we are spending it, whether we're spending it like drunken sailors or not, it doesn't matter, it's how long will it last. And I think these days of feeling comfortable with this amount of money are gonna be short lived. I would also agree with Ted and Jeff on this one. I think I would also like to see us not using quite as much of this. I agree with Jeff, we're in for a very rude awakening in the next year or two, but I also think given the circumstances, I'm not sure people could handle a tax increase right now, given the year that they've had. And we're in as equally rude awakening whether we spend any of the three amounts come the summer, you know, going between one rate and the other is not, or one proposal and the other is not gonna change that. Jordan? I'm in agreement as well to use it this year. I mean, I have, certainly I don't think I have been affected as others have in town, you know, I'm fortunate to still be employed. I haven't felt the impact, but I know it's out there. And certainly not one to just, you know, use that fund and, you know, a way that we're gonna, I think you're right, Jeff, I do think down the road, it's gonna bite us and it's gonna bite us quickly. But, you know, it is a pandemic. This is an unprecedented time that we're in right now. And we, I think we're lucky that we do have, you know, that reserve to at least use it one time and hopefully, you know, things to get brighter down the road. That's a big hope, but I'd be in favor of it as well. Thank you. And I concur with everything that's been said at this point, we certainly do need to take a look at the fund balance in the coming year. But this is an exceptional year, just as it was in 2008. And hopefully we get past 2020 better than we hope for, but at least we can give the taxpayers a break this year. So we have unanimity on that. And I think that- Can I make one correction, Terry? So while you were talking, I brought up my spreadsheet. So as you look at it, I went back and I played with the property taxes to get it from your middle scenario, no tax rate increase. Yep. I just wanna know, just so the numbers will tie out nicely. The total revenue raised will be $3,000 higher. So it'll be $5,669,389, and then the fund balance will be $3,000 less. And that'll be exactly the same tax rate we have now, the 0.2750. You'll have that for us, I'm sorry. Yes, I wanted to make that correct because we wanted to keep it the same as FY21, which is 0.2750. So little tweak there, but- Yep, and that's our projected rate, Shirley. And we'll have on the warning, we have to warn the budget bottom line and the amount to raise by taxes. So the raise by tax number will be important one too. Yeah. Good, thank you. I think we've done the budget review for tonight. So the next to the last item is the Committing Warning, and Eric, I have a few minutes to explain that. Sure, and I'll try to get this up on my screen here. I think it won't work. Here we go. And just last on the budget, I want to thank the board for all the work over the last couple of months here. I know it takes a lot of review and time to get to this point every year. And what staff is going to do, Shirley and I will give a final look over everything just to make sure all the numbers are correct. We're pretty confident with them at this point, a double and triple check is always a good measure. We'll do that this week. And you'll see that final number in your proposed motions for the meeting next Tuesday. So pulling up the draft warning, so I distributed this on Friday and I sent this version I've got on the screen now this afternoon. And I did a review from the town attorney Bob Fletcher with a couple of changes. Most are minor, you'll see these red lines. Really the major change in this draft, not a surprise with COVID, not being able to gather at the central school auditorium like we usually do. So in lieu of that, for the board to consider as holding this public information hearing over Zoom instead. And the town can't conduct any formal town meeting business virtually. So it would accomplish holding our public information hearing virtually, which is allowed. But some of the articles I looked at voted from the floor. We would need to have those as articles on the Australian ballot. So those are reflected in article one and two in this draft, dates for taxes to be paid to the town treasurer and accepting the report of the town officials in the town report. And from there, you'll see those gaping holes in article three will be filled in by next week after tonight's discussion. And then local elections rounding out the warning. And I guess I've looked to the board if there's any suggested changes or any procedural differences that the board would like to do to conduct the annual meeting this year. It would be helpful to see if the legislature may pass between now and next week on age 48, which deals with town meetings. I'm not sure there's any language in there that would affect us, but it's a possibility. Okay. We'll stop and keep an eye on that this week, Terry. Hey, Eric, question for you. So I am looking at the Capital and Equipment Fund budget just for FY 22. And we have the possible fire roof. We were going to borrow 100,000 in the ambulance replacement. Do we have to have those on the warning? No, that wouldn't be a bonded article, Shirley. It would be a short-term borrowing measure which doesn't move from for the bank note. Yep. Any other comments or questions that you have that the board has? If not, we'll go on to Manager's Report. No, I don't know much this evening. I believe I put in my written report last week just thinking about scheduling. Usually around this time of year, we plan for our legislative breakfast. Fortunately, if we want to hold it this year, we can't have the breakfast part, at least the breakfast that we can provide, but we could still hold something over Zoom with our delegation on the select board to discuss the issues in Montpelier this year. Just looking for direction on the board if that's an event you'd like staff to facilitate and get on the calendar here the next couple of months. We usually do it in early February or so. We may want to wait and see what the legislature is actually doing before we have our legislative at-home breakfast. Mine will not be as good as it was at town, but I think we still should do that to give a chance to see what's going on. Other comments? I agree. I'm frankly not all that enthusiastic to do a replacement to it, but if there's something that's workable, fine. But if we can wait and see what the legislature's gonna do and then I'd say let's not make a decision tonight. Sure, I'll keep an eye on it and certainly there's flexibility when and if to hold it. So I'll come back for the board once we will know a little bit more once we get into the session. That's all I have for my report this evening, Terry. And under other business, did you, Eric, did you get results from the board members regarding the town report dedication? If I heard back from three board members and the three members I heard from all have the same recommendation for the dedication. I don't, if you haven't gotten back to me, feel free to send a note as well, but I guess seeing how three board members concur as a consensus for what we're gonna do to move ahead here unless there's any objection without approach. Sounds good. Okay. Well, I sent out a draft of the select board report to all of you and asking you by Friday to get back to me with either your ol'key-dol'key or revisions that you may request tonight. Be happy to do that. And Sarah will be happy to get that early next week. So thank you. And any other business that we need to talk about tonight? Hearing none, well, we will now speak in adjourn until next Tuesday. All right. Bye, everybody. Good night, everyone. Good night.