 So I'll call the meeting to order, it's 7 o'clock. And first thing on the agenda, of course, are the minutes this time of September 19th, 2017. Is there a motion? I move to approve the minutes of September 9th, 2017, with any corrections thereto. Is there a second? Second. Age one. I have a slight correction on three in the bottom sentence. It's the understanding that the DRB member did recuse himself and admitted he did not explain why on each occasion. I think it should be clarified because he did explain the first time, but did not on future occasions. On each occasion, yes, okay, and I'm not sure how to handle this. But I made a statement that the select what has no authority to remove a member of the DRB and that is not true. So I think if we strike that, then I can explain why under other business perhaps. That's fine with that. Jeff? So strike the whole sentence. Strike the whole thing. It starts with me. Yes. Okay. What? I'm glad you said that. Is this under public comment? Yes, it is. Okay. Just don't go for your comment. There it is. Second sentence and under donor. Okay. Page two. Under item number four, liquor license application. I'm actually going to suggest that we delete the last sentence, the standalone paragraph. That's a sentence that reads the select board cautioned against over serving patrons. I think that, you know, we would say that anytime. The discussion really was about the concept that as brought by the applicant that it was a tequila. Not based isn't the right word, but it's an emphasis on the tequila drinks. And that's more what we were talking about. I agree with that. So I would just suggest striking that sentence. It's on page two. Page three. And page four. Hearing no other corrections, all those in favor of approving the minutes of September 19th, 2017. That's correct. Say hi. Hi. Hi. Moving on to public comment. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to make any comment on any issue tonight? Whether it's on the agenda or not. Seeing no hands raised. We'll move on to the board applications and interviews. So we have five people to interview tonight. And I think we have, so we have four present at the moment. We're running a little bit ahead of time. And we have four people interested in the social organizations committee. And a couple of are interested in something else as well as the social organizations committee. So perhaps we can start with one that's only for one thing. And that's Kailin McKee who is interested in the Chittenden Solid Waste District alternate seat. So if you want to come up and we do have your resume in front of us. And if you would give us a little bit of your background while you'd like to be the alternate team. Sure. I don't know if I sent a resume. He's referring to your application. Okay. I actually brought a resume if I could. Hi. So I'm Kailin. And I'm a relatively new resident here and looking to get more involved and in my community. And I'm interested in waste systems. I work in the sustainability field broadly. And I've interacted with Chittenden Solid Waste District a little bit in that realm. And when this came about, I just thought it was interesting and a good way to get involved at a level that felt comfortable for not having had a position like this before. Good. Thank you very much. And so just to make sure that everybody knows we're not going to be making appointments tonight because we do have five more people to interview for various things. And we also have an opportunity for more people to apply. So what we intend to make appointments, hopefully in two weeks. So questions from the board. Sure. And just always appreciate that we certainly have the right background for sure to be a valuable asset. So thank you again. Okay. So I guess I'm going to explore a little bit. Don't read anything into what I'm about to ask. But it's along the lines of how much do you know about the district? And also how much do you know about, for lack of better words, that's not even the best way to explain it. The relationship you as a representative have as sort of the in between between the select board and the district. Because there might be times in which the select board's wishes and what you think is the right thing may not track absolutely parallel. In fact, sometimes they may diverge significantly. So if you could just talk about that a little bit. I think the, I should preference this by saying, I think the representative on the Chitlin Solid Waste, representing Wilson on the Chitlin Solid Waste District Board is probably one of the more onerous, if you will. Not necessarily in a bad sense, but there's a lot going on. There's a lot the district deals with. There are a lot of district facilities in our town which has its benefits and its liabilities. Our relationship with the district has, you know, it's had ups and downs like our relationship with any regional entity might over time. This one may be a little bit more so because of that relationship where they have a lot of facilities in town. And their goals and our goals may not always, again, that same thing mesh. So I'm sorry, I took a long time to ask just your thoughts. So I guess I do understand that I'm not there to represent my own interests, but the interests of Williston and keeping in mind the interests of the entire region and all of the different towns involved in the district. And so I think I, I guess I would just be careful about sort of checking my own interests at the door and making sure I was representing the town. And in terms of, yeah, the unique pieces about how Williston is a host town, you know, I don't know a lot of the details about necessarily history or sort of the inner workings of the district, which I guess for me, I see this very much as a learning opportunity, especially in an alternate position. And I'm hoping to learn a lot of that from the position, not necessarily coming to it with that knowledge. I think I'm my experience with the way district is more as, you know, a customer and as a sort of a business customer through my work as well. And I do think I have a bigger understanding of the bigger systems, but not necessarily in the scenes. Okay, great. Thank you. Then the other thing, oh, have you had a chance to speak with Craig or you have? I have, yeah. Oh, great. Oh, good. Good job. So, yeah, I did get the sense that he was fairly active in the role and had, you know, had taken some strong positions in the past. And I am not necessarily sure I'd have the history to make as strong of positions necessarily, but I was really interested to hear what he had done regarding the landfill and his work there prior to actually having the seat and sort of getting him involved. So, yeah, I enjoyed that conversation. It seemed like there was some, you know, he misses a decent amount of meetings for travel, and it seemed like there was a comfortable opportunity to be involved. Okay. And you know what you're getting yourself into in terms of meetings and that type of thing? Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Thank you. Further questions? Thank you very much for coming tonight. We'll be in touch. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, as Michelle Dessertal is here, as well, and Ruth Schiff, I know, is Michelle here? Why don't you both come up to the table since you're both applying for the same position for the social organizations. And that way we can, you can hear the questions at the same time. So, again, if you would introduce yourselves and give us a brief thing about your background and why you'd like to be on the Social Organizations Committee. Ruth? My name is Ruth Schiff, and I'm a long time resident, longer than I'd like to admit, resident of Williston. And long enough to have raised four children through the town and village and had well, well, satisfied with their current position. So, and I've spent all my good career years working with the chronically mentally ill in the community. So, I'm quite experienced with community resources and the demand for them and the process of having to decide what's right for any particular resource. So, entertain questions. Good. Thank you, Michelle. My name is Michelle Dezutel. I have been a Williston resident for five years. I currently am a realtor at Cobalt Banker-Hickacken Boardman and a stay-at-home mom. So, a little bit of both of those. So, I guess not stay at home too much anymore. And I also help run a nonprofit and well, it's at our DCF, but it's here in Williston for foster children. We stuff backpacks and give them to them as their place in a home after they leave the courthouse. So, as far as, you know, the social aspect goes, I really enjoy doing that. And I just want to do a little bit more within our community. I'm pretty involved with just rounding up donations for our food shelf and things like that. And it's just something that strikes an interest with me and being able to do more and be more of an acting member of our community. More than I am now. Thank you very much. Any questions? Really, I don't other than to say thank you for volunteering, which I sure echoes. I guess the only real question I have is, you know, similar to a previous question I had, do you know what you're getting yourself into in terms of the time commitment and what will be asked of you? I suspect this, I don't know if the word is, I don't want to say it's more enjoyable, but I can see where there's some real rewards to serving on this commission. We probably don't know, but I think if it's interesting enough to encourage someone to apply, then I think it's interesting. Interesting way to put that. The actual time commitment is pretty minimal, actually, for this particular board. A couple times a year. Yeah, that's what we were reading. It was three to four, two, three, four times a year, which I think is. They're very, very long meetings. I think it's something I can handle. I figured this would be a good first step. And then if it's, you know, maybe get more involved, but this is a good way to get my feet wet. I don't know about you, but. Yeah. I will absolutely second that. Yeah. Any further questions? Thank you very much. We'll be in touch. So we have two more folks. Sydney Provost. Why don't you come on up. And you're interested also in the social social organizations committee as well as being a lister. Yeah. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and why you'd like to be on do both of those things? Well, I think as far as the social commission, very similar to what the previous people said, sounded like the time commitment was a little less. So maybe from my schedule, that would work better. I remember in this community or community in this community since it's 2001. So I've been here a long time. My kids are now a senior and a sophomore in high school. So I feel like it's a time where I can get back to the community a little bit more. So that's the reason for the social. I mean, I'm not sure. I to be honest, I haven't had time to really research a whole lot about the lister. Qualifications or how much time is involved there. I am a property manager. I own my own property management company and as well as maintenance as well. So I do both my own three apartment buildings. So I'm familiar with buildings in general and all of the aspects that go into that. I've done that for many years. So that's basically my background and what I do now. Thank you. So the lister is a an elected position as we should probably know so that if you were appointed now, it would be until the next election in March for that position. I think probably the lister's job at this point in time until the newest new tax bills come out probably is less. I come that time of year when the bills come out, people do appeal their assessments. And so it could be a busy time for you at that point. So questions from the board. Same time before. Thank you so much for your interest. Appreciate that. Ditto. And follow up a little bit on Terry's question. I'm going to focus on the lister's primarily position and the concept of. I just want to get a sense of your capabilities. You're using the software that they use to assess properties, the concept that there aren't people are going to quite often disagree at how maybe an assessment came out came out. They may be kind of upset about that. You'll be dealing with everything from upset homeowners to, let's say, very savvy property owners who own, you know, large commercial properties or something like that. And I just want to get a sense of how you see yourself fitting into that role. If that makes sense. As far as how to handle different situations. The different situations. The, my understanding is the lister's use a very set software to, and I assume it's a very good song about the valuations. So it always comes down to the details. You know, what is what is the condition of the house? Is it good versus very good? Hey, no, it's good from my opinion. And you're sitting there saying, I see this is very good. Those types of, you know, I just want to get a sense of your comfort, maybe doing that or your. I feel like being a single mom with two teenagers and raising them. Say no more. It's a lot difficult. I feel like I, I feel like personally myself, I can handle and manage people quite well. And, and I look for the win-win situations and I feel like I can compromise well as well. And I'm very detail oriented and like things to be the way they should. So it's kind of a little bit about how I feel like, I feel like people don't really intimidate me. I'm sorry to say it again. I feel like people don't really intimidate me. If I'm in a situation like that, I feel like I can kind of turn things around or. Or the, you know, you have to offer the right questions and the right narratives for somebody to take it the best way and to understand and to. Just understand how both people are thinking and that there's no one's ever going to agree always. But there's a compromise in the middle that you can arrive at. And sometimes that's what you have to do. Okay. That answers your question. It's very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And the time commitment. Are you comfortable? Because I suspect at times it's not a huge time commitment, but at times it is going to be a very demanding time commitment. Yes. And that works for you. Yeah, I think that works for me. Good. Great. Thank you. We were to, since we have a number of people that are interested in the Social Organizations Committee, if we were to, would it be your preference to serve either on the, as being Lester or on the Social Organizations Committee? Well, I'm interested in both because I'm interested in both topics, definitely. I'm interested in the background with housing and that a little more. To be honest, I'm not a social worker in any sense of the, you know, I just, I'm not. But I can relate and have certain points of view in that area as well. But I think the Lester position would definitely be more challenging for sure and be kind of a little more down my alley. So I definitely would be up for doing that. Good. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thanks. James Thornton, if you want to come up and again, introduce yourself. You're interested in both the Social Organizations Committee and the Historic and Architectural Advisory Committee. So if you could give us a little bit about of your background. I thought we do have your application here and you're interested in doing both of those things. I'm James Thornton. I've lived in Williston for a little over two years here by choice after driving the realtor crazy. I can give you your name. My wife and I lived in Burlington for a long time and we made a choice to live in Williston after living in Burlington. Tax rates and taxes were a critical part of that. But I've had a long interest in involvement in Burlington. I was on planning and zoning. I was on Waterfront Development Board. The public market now called City Market. Planning phase and site selection. Church Street Marketplace for two terms. So I've had experience. I've been on hiatus from that. We took care of my mother-in-law for about four years in Burlington. And so I've had a long term involvement with these types of activities. This would be a twist for me. But many of the things particularly on the planning and zoning and Waterfront Development and Church Street Marketplace dealt with historic and architectural situations. So I've got some background in it. What I have to tell you is I've looked at the changes. There'd be a learning curve as far as learning the new statutes and laws and so forth. But I feel very comfortable doing that. Thank you. The question is from the board. Just my thank you again for your interest. Welcome. I appreciate it. I did owe that. My question is going to be along the lines of the Hack Historic and Architectural Advisory Committee. It sometimes can be a bit controversial. It's that when things, whatever the word is, collide. The goals of trying to maintain a certain, what's the right word, feel to the village versus a private property owner's feeling that it's their property they should have more say in how they develop their property or their home or what have you or not. So I'm just curious about your thoughts about that potential conflict and kind of how you would handle it and how you would, I guess for lack of a better word, stand up for what need, and I'm trying to think of the correct document where the guidelines would be established for the Village Center. I forget if it's our zoning ordinance. Rick, maybe you can help me out. You know, where we establish, you know, the guidelines for the Village. You know, for instance, you know, you cannot use vinyl siding, you know, that type of thing. Most everything is in our unified development bylaws now. That's the term I was looking for. It happens. It goes back to what you were talking about with the Lister discussion. I look at it as above average. You look at it as average. I don't know any other answer to that except we go back to the statutes. We go back to the town definitions of whatever. And we start with that as a baseline. There are reasons those statements are in place. Discuss it with the other person? Absolutely. But I think both parties have to come to an agreement that this is what was intended. This is the law. This is the statute. And work from there. I don't have another answer for that. That's a good answer. Thank you. Other questions? Thank you very much. Again, we'll hopefully make a decision in two weeks. Thank you. So we'll move on to the Catamount Conservation Restrictions Agreement. And well, in the Scott, our conservation planner is here as well as Bob Heiser from Mount Land Trust. And someone else, maybe? Of course. Of course. I shouldn't have recognized you. So Melinda has written a nice memo to us regarding the project. And perhaps the first way to start out is to have you explain your memo briefly for us and for the viewing audience. Sure. So this is our conservation easement for the proposed Catamount Committee for us. As you know, the primary reason for the town considering acquisition of the Catamount parcel, and the pages parcels, is to protect its natural resource values and to protect public access in perpetuity. And so the conservation easement is the mechanism that does that, that essentially establishes that protection permanently. And in order for the Catamount Community Forest Study Committee to contemplate and discuss various ways that the property might be used and various, make, start to formulate various management decisions, they really need to start with the conservation easement. What is going to be permitted and what is going to be allowed under the conservation easement. And that's why the drafting of the easement is happening now versus later, is that it really needs, is going to be the framework by which. So I, my memo summarizes, basically summarizes the permitted and prohibited uses of the conservation easement. The one thing I did not get into any detail, or I really didn't even go into it at all, is the protection of vernal pools and wetlands and riparian buffers. And so I, this map is actually included along with conservation use. So before presenting this to you, the conservation commission has looked over the conservation easement. I've looked it over, the town attorney has looked it over, you know, obviously, BLT and Vermont Housing Conservation Board reviewing it. So there's been a lot of vetting of it thus far. But now, you know, we're asking you to have a look at it and to decide whether there's anything in the conservation easement that you think is, would not be acceptable for the town to, you know, have in a conservation easement. And I guess if you want to add anything else, like you might, I don't know if you want to go into a little detail on the riparian buffers. That would be helpful. Sure. So again, I'm Bob Heiser from Vermont Land Trust and first, it's great to be part of this project. I know how important this land is, the community and how much the McCullough family has poured their lives into it over the years. So it's great to see this happen. I was just going to also say at the outset, the, we think about the purposes of the section of the conservation easement to be very important. So protecting the land for recreation, productive forest land, wildlife habitat, and to kind of ensure community access and management that drives the whole conservation easement. And if anything is ever vague or up to question in the future, it'll all come back to those purposes and activities need to be consistent with those. And then, as Melinda said, we do list some of the restricted uses that are the biggies that could really threaten the public's use and enjoyment and the resource and also the allowed uses that we all agree are going to be okay in the future. When we do get to the sections about the vernal pool, wetland and riparian areas, hopefully you can locate those on the map. Those are three types of areas on the property that are particularly sensitive and add to the diversity of not only this area, but the broader landscape. And so around the vernal pools, there's 100 feet around the vernal pool that is essentially saying, let's not do any active management in here unless it's required to kind of keep the health of the vernal pool going. And similarly, there's an area around the streams of 50 feet and around the wetlands that say there can be some management in here, but let's have all that management be geared toward maintaining the aquatic habitat, the water quality and the vitality of those streams and wetlands. And then lastly, I'll just say there's a secondary zone around the vernal pool that is basically contemplating the town. If the town does forest management in the future, it wants to recognize that those breeding amphibians in that vernal pool do stray further from the vernal pool than 100 feet. And so any management plan that you create to do any forest management, we'd like to see what practices you're going to do to maintain that habitat for amphibian species that breed in that pool, like things like leaving some what we call large woody debris or logs down in the forest for kind of moisture OECs for amphibians and not creating a lot of wide open openings to dry out the forest floor and things like that. And then finally, there's a public access section that basically says that we want this land to be generally open for people to use for recreation, education and all types of kind of non-commercial uses that the community might want to use. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions or Kate, do you want to add anything to that? No, and after we discussed these, I'd be happy to answer any questions about the overall project and how it's going at all if you've got any questions about that. So tonight we were looking to express any concerns that we might have and asked as many questions as we possibly can tonight. So, open the floor for questions. So first of all, don't read anything into my questions, please. As I was reading through Melinda's memo, I came up with sort of a basic question that I just feel is important to at least ask. So we have a common understanding, not a common understanding, just an understanding of why is an easement needed in the first place? And particularly an easement that the town is not a party to. So I just, I know there's a good answer for that. I just would like to, and I know we've done this in the past with other parcels in the town. So forgive my faulty memory and not always understanding or remembering why is this important? Is there an option not to have an easement? If there was an option to not have an easement, what would that mean? Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And great question. You know, I think there are a couple of dimensions of that. One is I think as conservation organizations, we want to see this, if we're going to kind of pour our efforts and hearts and souls into helping make this happen, we want to see this continue on into the future as a community resource and make sure that it continues in that direction. And also the funders. It's required by at least two funders that are making significant grants towards making this happen. The Federal Community Forest Program and the Open Space Institute required that there be a permanent easement. Can you hear about those in a little bit, I assume? How we're doing with those? Great. The Vermont Housing Conservation Board is actually a co-holder on the conservation easement with Vermont Land Trust. So as a funder, they want to know that their funding is going towards something that will be kind of a permanent. If I could repeat back using different words as these entities who are significant players because of funding and other reasons feel much more comfortable moving ahead when they know there's an easement in place. I don't want to use the word require, but the easement, it may be they require it, but let's just focus on it. It's part of what helps them know that this is a good project to continue to invest in. Right. Okay. Well, I just wanted to, I heard you say that an easement to which the town is not a party to. And is that, I'm just wondering if that might be a source of confusion related to the first paragraph? It very well could be. So it says the trust for public land is granting the easement and I mean, maybe Kate can speak more to that. Sure. So the structure of kind of the whole acquisition, how it's going to happen on closing day is trust for public land is going to buy land from the McCullis. We're going to accept donated land from the pages, combine it into one, then donate a conservation easement to Vermont Housing Conservation Board of Vermont Land Trust. And then convey the restricted property to the town. And a conservation easement cannot be held by the same entity that holds the fee land because the conservation easement is really like, because then you would have the Fox watching man house kind of thing. So it needs to be two different entities that hold those interests in land. So there's actually 685,000 of the project budget requires a permanent conservation easement, which not only helps secure the conservation values on the property, but there are towns that have sold their town forest and completely kind of removed public access and overall protection too. So we want to make sure that doesn't happen either. And just to set the record straight this minute when I may have heard you inhale when I was speaking, so that the federal grant does not require a conservation easement, but Vermont Housing Conservation Board and the open space. And TNC curate money too. Right. So several do I got one thinking back to what I said. Okay. I have some specific questions about that are in the memo, but let me get my next kind of general broad question out there and you touched upon it Melinda, which is I know we have the committee that's forming the management plan. And I just would like to get a sense of how consistent is is the easement with the thoughts of the committee at least so far. Do you see there being the potential for there to be some conflicts I guess really is the the big issue between what the committee is coming up with as the management plan and what the easement will say. Maybe I should add, I'm probably not a good negotiator from this standpoint, but I didn't see any anything that that struck me. But I still you're more in the know than I am. Yeah, no, I, I, I've read it over pretty thoroughly a couple of times and I didn't really see any red flags that would cause the committee any consternation. I don't think I mean, there were some questions, I think there are some questions related to structures and you know, what type of structures are going to be permitted what size of structure. And I think those still need to be kind of worked out and you know, just clarified. But yeah, as far as I mean, I didn't really see anything. And in the second meeting that we had with the committee, we reviewed the general tenants of the conservation easement and explain them so that they kind of knew what the sidebars were in terms of what the management plan could fit under. So does it make sense? I have some specific questions about the memo. Does that make sense to do that now? So don't worry, they're not too many. On number A, the paragraph A, it says to conserve productive forest land. And can I read that as meaning logging or, I shouldn't say logging, good forest management practices are okay that might include some types of logging. That's right. Yeah, forest products of all types, including timber management, as long as they're done under a forest management plan that we would need to approve. But we just want to make sure that's done by a qualified forester and to state levels. And I would use the county forester and asking to be very conservative. But I think the idea of using the land productively, you know, including forest, you know, some forest activity is great, is wonderful. Anyway, I support that. So I'm on page two. And quite often it talks about something cannot be done without permission. And it doesn't say permission from who. So I want to... And that would be the easement holders, which would be Vermont Land Trust and Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. And we, anything that would need permission would be going back to the purposes and we'd be making a determination is this consistent with the purposes? Okay. Is that something... I'm throwing this out as a broad question. I should be concerned about. Again, it's that concept of the town seeing, you know, I mean, I'll be facetious. You know, we think a international mud bog is a great use of the property and you think an international mud bog is the worst use of the property. And we would be at loggerheads, but I'm assuming that the times we would be at loggerheads would be probably few and the issues would be relatively minor. That's right. I mean, I think it's our intent is to structure this so that the town can manage this as a community. And, you know, within the breadth of what we think is acceptable on there. But there are times when resource damage would come to a level that, yeah, we would feel like we would need to say, wow, this really doesn't look like it's consistent with the purposes. Hopefully it would never come to that, but there is always the never say never type thing. Then I'm on the part where we talked about this easement permits. And I was a little bit confused because at some points it talks about non-commercial activities, but it also talks about the potential for the Catamount family center. And I just want to make sure that's not a conflict. It's a great question and it's the intent here is to say, you know, we want this to be open to people for recreation education, all those things we talked about. And we don't want it to be a commercially run venture that only people that can afford to go can go. And yet we also want to be reasonable with the town that wants to be able to offer the resources that the community wants to see, but would be more costly to provide such as groomed cross-country skiing, you know, more intensively managed bike trails, things like that. So we want to enable the town to charge reasonable fees for the cost of that management. Or to have to license it out to somebody who can do so as well. But not to the level where there's profits being made on the property at the expense of community access to the land. Okay, I think that makes sense. So it would be different than, like for instance, the Hinesburg town forest, full disclosure, I'm a mountain biker. And you go park there and use these great trails. This might be different because you go park there, but there might be a nominal, I assume it would be fee charged. And that fee would be used to maintain the trails used for mountain biking where a walker or somebody like that, somebody interested in birding, somebody interested in vernal pools, would be able to use the property without being charged to fee. Okay. That's it for me. The fees would be established then by the town at that point. It would need to be a cooperative agreement between the town and Kadman Outdoor Family Center because they need to help set their annual budget. And I mean, they're not making money on it. They're non-profits, but it definitely needs to be in collaboration between the town and whoever's managing the trails to make sure they can make it work. Any further questions? Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that you're coming in and giving us the glory details on this. Thank you. Do you have any questions about the project? The first question I have, and actually I picked this up on this map, I was looking at the map Melinda you sent and it wasn't clear. But when I look at the color map with the nice, with the boundaries in yellow, the one we just received. And what's interesting is the parcels aren't contiguous. I'm looking at the 90-acre parcel, which is not contiguous. We always knew that the Governor Chittenden Road was separated them, but it's not contiguous with the 269-acre parcel combined with the 16 acres from the pages. And I'm just wondering, is that at all an issue? For instance, getting from one parcel to the other, you're going to have to cross somebody's private land, I'm assuming. It's the first time I've noticed that, I'm just curious. Sure. People can either walk down the road or there's a right-of-way, which is shown, it's not really shown on the color map. There's a little red trail there, but in kind of the dark black, if you go west from the parking area, that's going to be a right-of-way that the town is going to have the right to use and then across the field to the southern trail. So that was designed so that when the McCullis no longer live in their current house and someone else does, it is likely that their driveway isn't going to be able to be used anymore. They're happy for it to be used while they're there. So that will give kind of the trail access to the southern parcel, as well as the trail access over on the eastern side of that southern parcel. But yeah, there will be people walking and biking likely in between the parcels on the dirt road, but not on private land. Right. Okay. Midland, you don't see that. None of this worries you. No. No. Okay. As long as there's a right-of-way. Yeah. Okay. You could end up with a person owning the property. Jim McCullow owns it. Isn't totally happy with that. But then again, they bought it with all that there. Full knowing. Right. But it's, you're right. They may sit there and say, know that driveway that gets you around along the house and to the back fields might very well be closed. Right. Okay. And then let's hear how our things going. How we're doing. Well, we were with incorporation with the town successful with the federal grant. We were ranked second in the entire country and received 400,000 through the federal community forest program. We also got a grant of 325 from the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, the state funds. And then we've raised a number of private grants to date. We haven't really started the private fundraising campaign, but so far we've secured 69% of the whole budget. And now we're ramping up private, private fundraising with the hopes to close ideally, June or before. So we've, we're working hard on the due diligence, all the title work environmental phase one survey. And we'll get that to the town when those are complete for your review. We've been working with colors and kind of our door family center and that the town on a draft license for which we'll explain kind of the relationship between those two entities for management and roles and responsibilities and that will come to you eventually when we're we're ready. And then also working with the management committee, which has just been great. They're really engaged and ask great questions and I've been really impressed by the quality of interaction in that group, which is, which has been fantastic. Am I missing anything? The TNC curate that was so that another grant that was received was a grant for 75,000 80,000 80,000 from the nature conservancy. slash curate Green Mountain grant. And that was to protect the wetlands and riparian areas specifically on the property as part of kind of their mission to help clean up Lake Champlain. So they recognize that these are some pretty significant wetlands and they want to make sure they stay, stay clean. Actually raises a question I should have asked this before. And it's a question for Melinda the, I think it's for Melinda. It's actually looks to me to be a relatively small amount of the property that is being that should be preserved, you know, through buffers or secondary zones. What have you, I just want to hear is, is the amount of land and where it's located, proposed to be protected, you know, no trails, you know, minimal if any use. Is that going to impact sort of the town's enjoyment of the property. I guess I may not have awarded that well. Let me see what I'm trying to get at. Is this is this going to become overly onerous for what some of the goals for the property might be. I don't, I don't think so. It seems like looking at this map. I mean, I'm looking at the number of trails. Those trails can continue through the. And very few of them seem to be impacted. I mean, some do, but that's that's to be expected. At this time, they've tended to avoid the wet places just by virtue probably of. I hate hard and difficult. Like up here where the riparian buffer zones are, that's all like really steep review. Oh, yeah, you look down that. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And I'm not, yeah, I mean, I'm seeing one trail that currently goes through the wetlands or maybe actually two trails. So, you know, either they would be allowed to stay, but not be expanded or maybe they would need to be relocated out of wetlands. Yeah, they're fine to stay there. And if, you know, there are any issues with erosion or anything like that, we obviously like to see that. And even new trails can be approved through there. It's just, we want to make sure that they're done in a way that maintains the kind of vitality of those wetlands. And we wouldn't want it to get to a level where it really starts to impair them. One last thing I wanted to mention is that there's currently a UVM class, a group of students through the capstone program who are working on doing a trail assessment. And so they're going around and documenting or walking on the trails, documenting all the features and any areas that might need help. So I think that'll be a big help to us. Yeah, they've done good work. I know we've had some very positive experiences with UVM students in the past. And then my last question is Kate, you mentioned 69% of the funding has been raised. Does that include the town's contribution or is that independent of it? Yes, that includes. That includes, okay. And what is the underst... I guess maybe I should ask the other side. What is the understanding of the town's contribution? Right now I have it in the budget as 400. One of the grants we would really like to get, it's another federal grant called Land and Water Conservation Fund stateside. And the timing of that, unfortunately, is every other year. And that we were hoping for $200,000 from that. So there is a chance that I may ask later in the process, the town to front the money. And this is allowed through the LWCF stateside program to front the money and close as planned. And you get a waiver from the National Park Service saying, we know you closed ahead of time to wait for our process to happen. And then we'll work with you to apply next. It would basically be winner of 2018-2019 with that money to come back in early 2019. And the state typically has about 600,000 to spread out. And it's just four towns to apply to for land acquisition. So we have a really great chance at getting that money, but the timing is just a little off. There's no guarantees, but it's looking good. Yeah, and the coordinator of that program, Jessica Sargent, has been on the property. She really loves the property and is really interested in helping work with us to make that happen. You want me to come up with something else? No, no. Thanks very much. Yeah, great. Thank you very much. We'll move on to the managers report. I have a number of things I want to touch on in my written report and one or two items in addition to my written report that I want to mention. I guess I'll start with personal matters. I didn't mention this, but the process for the recruitment process for the new position, the assistant to the manager, is proceeding. We had the first round of interviews yesterday and we had an excellent panel. Terry participated in that and we spent all day interviewing candidates. There were seven candidates that were interviewed. We've narrowed that field down to three. The second round of interviews is being scheduled. I have a tentative date already set up and pretty much most people are already lined up. Within two weeks, we should be able to get the next round of interviews completed and hopefully soon thereafter a decision. So we'll see. I think that the interviews went well yesterday and I think there's some really strong candidates that we have to be interviewed further. One item I mentioned in my written report was a proposal involving social workers. This is an effort that we're working with a number of municipalities. I think I said four or five in my memo here. The idea is that four or so maybe five social workers would be hired through the Howard Center. The town would pay, when I say the town, the towns would pay some if not all of that cost. The cost for four, for example, would be about 80,000 per employee. That includes everything. It includes the wages for the employee, fringe benefits, supervision by the Howard Center, and supplies and everything. And so that cost would be distributed amongst the various communities that are participating. The thinking is that this will be somewhat tailored along the lines that Burlington has set up with a street outreach, except this isn't a street outreach program. This is more a community outreach, whether if there's a crisis situation involving family, mental health issues. The social worker might very well go to the call with the police. The police would obviously be the first responders, but the social worker might be called in to provide assistance in that situation. I also envision, and I believe that the communities agree with this as well, that these outreach workers might be able to do work with families that are known to have issues and work with them and maybe even prevent calls from coming into the police department. Because when a call comes in, that means something hasn't worked. Whether it's a family dispute or someone who's addicted to opiates or some other factor, mental health issue, then something is broken down if the police are called. And they're not the best group to be dealing with these kinds of issues. So that's the thinking is to develop an alliance with the Howard Center and actually bring social workers into the picture. How we fund this is a question, and I've talked to our new chief about this. Short term, we might be able to do is take money that we have for police officers that we haven't been able to fill and funnel that money temporarily towards the social worker. But before we actually enter into any agreement on that, obviously we bring it back to the select board. This is in the early stages, but our hope is that we might be able to get this up and running fairly quickly. So we'll have to see. And by fairly quickly, I mean possibly January. So I'll be coming back if that does happen, I'll be coming back fairly soon with some sort of firmer proposal. But I wanted to tip you off that this is something that we're thinking about. I think it's actually an exciting opportunity. Do you see it work as falling primarily under the police department? For instance, the whatever funding is needed would fall under the police department budget? At this point, yes. Yes, I do see that. Whether it stays that way long term, I don't know. Or even if there is a long term, you know, it's something we may after six months or a year decide, hey, this just isn't working. It doesn't make sense. Or maybe it's going wonderfully. There's lots of different issues, but I think the risks are pretty low in trying something. And I think the potential payback is it could be very high. And ideally, in my mind, it would be great if we had this program up running and it actually reduced the need for more police officers. But I'm not willing to make that commitment at this point in time. I don't want to say yet. I mean, it may not be, you know, it may not be either the number of municipalities that might participate or who they are. Sure. South Burlington, Shelburne, Colchester, Williston, possibly Wynoski. Okay. All right. Another issue that in my written report is just to note the rumor we had talked about doing a swap of ag mitigation land. We have some land that was behind one of our developments that we wanted to develop a series of trails, but it was protected as prime ag soils. Although the likelihood that ever be used for agriculture is pretty much non existent. So we, in order to develop that series of trails, we look to see if there was an option to trade that off and the property we've been referring to as the Mahan Farm property. And I'm talking about the property that's south of Route 2 and it's currently serving as cornfield. Yes. Lo and behold, it is being used for agriculture. So it made sense to maybe designate that as prime ag soils. And so it can be used as ag. So in any case, Act 250 seems like they've accepted the idea and so they've noticed it as a minor application and have noticed so that if someone does want to file for a public hearing, they can so do the deadline for that as October 23rd. Okay. So I'll let you know how that works. Stormwater funding. Let me get my guess of the water here. I included in your packet, I believe a report that just shows the grant money that we've received so far and based on our distribution formula, how that money would be distributed so you can see the benefit that is being gained by each neighborhood. There's some qualifications on that because we may end up not spending the full amount of grant money, in which case, because maybe the project has come in under budget. So, you know, we can't say that these are the actual numbers that each neighborhood is going to get. But it gives you a rough idea of where we're at at this point in time. And is the 260-101 that's the amount of total that we've got receiving grants? Okay. Yes. The next round of grant applications have gone in. They went in earlier this week, I think Monday. And so we'll see. I'd included several neighborhoods that did not receive grant funding this last round. So we're hoping we'll be more successful on those neighborhoods this next coming round. But even if we aren't, there's other grants, other programs, and we're being very aggressive in pursuing those. One thing that I wanted to note is that because of our success and our loan program, a number of these neighborhoods are moving up their schedules to get the work done, which is a good thing. But when I did cash flow analysis to show how much money we were going to have out of our stormwater fund to loan out, I did not anticipate an accelerated schedule. So we run the risk of possibly running out or short of money in the stormwater loan fund to loan out. I won't say that we will run out or when I say run out, it's really a cash flow issue. But if we do come into that situation, there is an alternative that we can do and that's to do an interloan borrowing. And it's not unusual for municipalities to do this. And we can set up a specific loan agreement. And what I'm referring to is let's say we need $200,000 or whatever number, $400,000. The stormwater fund can borrow that money from the town general fund because we have a large fund balance. And then the stormwater loan fund or the stormwater fund itself would have to pay back the town general fund with interest. That's correct. Well, the risk is if we're loaning money to a neighborhood, then if the neighborhood refuses to pay, then we're going to have to go out to the neighborhood. And we have protections within the loan fund for that. But that can get messy is, I mean, obviously we're working in good faith for every neighborhood and assuming they're doing the same. But ultimately the general fund will be owed the money regardless of whether or not the money is paid back to the stormwater fund by each neighborhood, in which case eventually the loan to the general fund could be paid back through stormwater fees. So I think either way it should work out. And as I said, the town general fund won't lose any money because right now if we're lucky the best investments we get right now are about 1% return. And if we're borrowing at least in the near future, I envision the stormwater loan fund paying the town general fund at the rate of one and a half percent, which is the amount that the town stormwater loan fund is getting back from the various neighborhoods. So it all works out. And this may not at all be necessary, but we have begun to do a little research and we do know it is possible. And there's mechanisms we'd have to develop and we'd have to work with the legal counsel to get it all put in place. And as I said, this is not unusual. There are many municipalities to do this. It's just it's been unusual for most and we've not had to be in a position to do that kind of thing. Let's see. Another item I wanted to bring to your attention that's in my written report is the stormwater system for the school. At the board meeting, the select board meeting in July, there was talk about setting up a task force or study committee or whatever you want to call it. I'm at this point, I'm not sure that's going to be necessary. I had a discussion with Jean Jensen about the various issues. That isn't to say we have a resolution, but I'm optimistic that we will be able to resolve it without having to have a study committee. So we'll have to wait and see, but I'm optimistic at this point. And just a reminder, we have a swearing-in ceremony for our new police chief scheduled for Monday, October 16th at 10 a.m. This will be a public event. The public is invited to attend. We'll have light refreshments and there was a press release that had been issued. And so we're kind of excited about that. And of course, I do also want to offer special thanks to two board members, well, three board members actually. Ted Kenney, Terry McKagan, Teresa Zittrich for their contributions to the recruitment process. Two items I want to touch on that were not in my written report. Actually, one item, because I already touched on the other. I had a meeting this morning with a representative from the Gun Club, Bob Odie, and we had a good conversation. He shared with me some information that I found somewhat surprising. He said that their records seem to indicate, and they're talking about in the range of 2006, which is the date that the Vermont Supreme Court mentioned. They said that their number of special events were far greater than what has been the historical number over the past eight or nine years. And so I thanked him for that information, but I said I'd like to see the numbers. Because my concern is that some of those special events might have been on Wednesday when they're shooting anyway. And so I want to sort through the information. And so he was going to check with his board to see if that's something they were willing to share at this point in time. And there'll be more information at some point in the future on that, I'm sure. So that's all I had for this evening. Rick, just one quick question on the town manager's report. Item number B, it talked about somebody resigning as police dispatcher. And I was just curious if that had anything to do with item number F. No. Is this time for other business? Yes. I have something really quick. Everybody got the email today about the chickens? Chickens, yes. I asked Rick about that right before anybody got there. You all want to know. I'm going to write a response. But the first part of the answer is that we haven't been able to address this issue until recently because we didn't have an adopted town plan and that we couldn't make any changes to our development bylaws. The issue has been referred to the planning commission. They will be taking it up. I would think later this month and they will be coming back with a recommendation to the select board probably in November. The this may involve multiple changes. The bylaws change may be simple. But then you get into the whole issue of about regulating activities. The bylaws deal with land use. But what if you want to prevent them from having roosters? What if you want to protect from flies and smell and noise and all those things? Our development bylaws aren't really geared for that kind of thing. So what is can be used is a town ordinance. So there may be two steps if the board really wants to move forward with this change of the bylaws and then adoption of an ordinance. So what I expect to do what I expect will happen is that the planning commission will review this and come back with a recommendation to how to change the bylaws. And say, oh, and by the way, the board might want to consider adopting some regulations on this. And there are examples out there of a number of municipalities that have regulations on this kind of thing. What happens to all of the protected governance and all of these subdivisions that say absolutely no, is that ordinance now going to override that? I don't have to. And there's also a big health concern with that because there is far more cases of salmonella than you got. There is and there's avian flu as well. So there are great public health concerns. Yeah, I have some huge concerns about this. I'll be the first person to say that. That's why I'm bringing it back to the board before I spent a lot of effort and time in developing an ordinance. But anyway, the first step is to the planning commission, I think, to take a look at it and see what their thoughts are on it. Thank you. So that, you know, on the surface, I'm a huge fan, but that's because I don't understand the liabilities yet. And I'm just, that raises a question with me is how do we figure out what those liabilities are? I mean, is there... There's a lot of written material out there explaining the health risks. Yes. The case studies and throwing dementia has gone wrong for that very reason. It starts out as a great idea, but nobody's looking far enough down there to see what the ramifications are dark and they're not good. That's my concern and part of it's going, if that's what you want it to do, you may have wanted to think about where you were buying before you did that. Yeah, I get your point. Don't get me wrong, they're great sides on both sides. Let's just make sure we understand hopefully both sides of the issue before we do that. That's right. The negative, the health impacts that I want to make, because I don't understand those and make sure I do before I just... Whatever decision I make. I'll echo something Joy said. Whenever you have neighbors and you have animals involved in the mix, there's a build-in potential conflict there. We have it with dogs and cats all the time, particularly dogs. In fact, I was researching some information just the other day. The number of reported dog bites seems to be way up over the last several years. I don't know whether that's because there's better reporting or what, but it does seem to be a trend, an upward trend. So far, this fiscal year running quite high. From just a personal perspective, because I'm out on the path with my dog all the time, she's highly trained. She sees Rick down there, she's going to stop and wait by my side until he's gotten past me. But I can't say that for 98% of the other dogs that we get that come flying at you. I think that's what you've got. A lot of people, all of their dogs, they all want them to run, but they're not under any sort of control. And I think that might be part of what's causing this. So there's a little bit of a pack mentality, in my opinion, of these dogs that are running now that are just having a good time playing, but they're a pack of them instead of. So hence we're at it like five in the morning in the dark. Because my dad couldn't handle it. That would not do well. Her instinct would be, I got to protect mama. One other question, does anybody know just because while we're talking about the chicken thing, and I'm afraid I can't remember the article I was reading or where, but there is something, and I don't know if it's dogs that promotes the transmission of some of the health risks that are inherent with having foul or whatever on your property. There's something there, and I'm sorry, I'm not articulating it well, but there is some factor, whether it's a dog or a cat, or something that helps transmit the possibility of a health thing faster. I'll try to see if I can follow up on that, but it was something that I was reading somewhere that I was like, oh, I didn't realize that. There was a pretty good segment on Channel 3, maybe a couple weeks ago. I remember that. One of the health problems with chickens, I don't think that was necessarily in Vermont, but there is a concern. Certainly here, salmonella, dogs and cats can be carriers without showing any illness of it. I think maybe that's what I was thinking was the carrier possibility of health. Sure. So, or humans could be carriers for that matter as well. The big problem is chickens and little children. Yeah. So they're chicks. They love them. And that's one of the bigger transmissions of it. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So, you know, we may wish to have a discussion with somebody from the Department of Health. That's what I was thinking. Is there somebody we could bring in or we could bring in to help us understand both sides of the... Sure. The Epidemiology folks are certainly willing to come out and talk about that anytime. Sure. Sure. We'll look forward to. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yes. So, under other business, I mentioned that I had based my comment two weeks ago to an individual who asked about the conflict of interest ordinance. And on the face of it, I read the conflict of interest ordinance and I said, well, no, we don't have any way that we can rescind an appointment. Well, that's not true. Rick was good about researching the statute, the same statute, 24 VSA. A different section, it says that each member of a Board of Adjustment or a DRB may be removed for cause by the legislative body upon written charges and after public hearing. So, in fact, we do have... Since we do have a DRB, we can do that, but it would take the same type of thing that the BCA would do. She needed written complaint and an investigation in the public hearing. So, just want to clarify that. Okay. Thank you. One other thing, I'd like to go up to a different topic. Sure. The whole airport issue. Yes. Is that completely off the table or is it likely to come up again or can it be brought up again, I'm asking. We can certainly bring it up again. Because I think there was still discussion that the Board may be interested in having. It was the fact that they didn't like the wording of that particular resolution, but I don't think the discussion was necessarily done. Did I get that wrong? No, I think you're correct. The minutes actually reflect that. It doesn't seem that Theresa was interested in potentially looking more in that. I think Ted was pretty clear where he stood at the moment, but if possible, I'd like to see that brought up again. If we have more information to look at, then that would be an appropriate thing for another agenda item to be reconsidered. It would take a person who voted in majority to bring it back as a motion. I'm doing something a little bit different. It's a whole different, it's maybe along the same lines, but it may not even be resolution. It may be some other type of way of conveying. Yeah, I'm not necessarily. Information or concern. Correct. I'm not necessarily saying that resolution. I think that we were all in agreement. We weren't keen on it as written, but I'm not against the idea of a regional commission. And I believe if I have that right, you are not against it. I am not against it. But Rick, is that going to cause a whole? I'm not the intent to cause a whole host of problems. I just would like to see discussion had. Well, it's not my call. I understand that. It's what the Board wants. And right now the majority, the motion was, do you want staff to draft a resolution? And that wording was chosen carefully so that, because I knew the board wasn't going to like the resolution as had been proposed. So I gave you the option of, you know, giving direction to staff as to what things you might want in a resolution might be very different than the one that already been shared with you. That motion was down. So as far as I'm concerned, the issue is dead. My concern though was that I think the Board thought, or at least my impression was the Board thought they were voting as the resolution as written, not on you drafting something different. Jeff, do you have an opinion on that? I'm sorry, I was reading, trying to read. My impression that evening was that the Board thought they were voting on the resolution as it was written, not on the idea of having something rewritten or drafted by the town. We were all against what was written, but we were not against the idea of a resolution of some sort. I would agree, although the part I wouldn't agree with was we were all against the resolution as written. I would have supported that resolution, but yes, but that's a different issue. And I'm sure it's different than that. It was, they got amended too, and that's why I felt the discussion, and everything was not online with what was being discussed. I felt like it got off a bit. Well, I'm reading what Terry, this is attributed to Terry in the minutes we approved earlier tonight, and I'm just reading what it says. It says, the resolution as worded cannot be supported. Correct. And that to me is the core. Is there a different wording? It may be a resolution. It may be some other form of communication that we could support. The word may want to look at the Robert's Rules of Orders as our basis kind of things. I think in order for it to come back, it has to be the group that voted in the majority. For reconsideration of the motion, that's correct. Now, I suppose there's ways around that by creating a whole different type of motion. I'd rather have the straight, direct approach. So for example, Teresa, because she was against it, if she were to raise that it be reconsidered, or is that, are you saying I or Jeff need to do that? No. It was one of the three that voted in the majority. So for example, if Teresa were to do that, and I'm not picking her up for any other reason other than she was the one that seemed to think there may be some more discussion. If she did that, then it could be reconsidered. That would bring back to the floor of the motion that we had, which was to ask staff to repair a different. Okay. Is that possible to have that discussion at a meeting, or some, I mean, I don't think, how is that done? Sure. So a motion to reconsider would be taken up as part of the agenda item, and it would take a majority vote to reconsider. That would be brought up either by Kented or by Teresa, because I can't make a motion. And then majority would vote to reconsider. Is this the appropriate time to bring up that sort of a thing in another business, and then it goes on an agenda item? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I just didn't know the protocol. Yes. I'm not forcing the other two. The two people you need to make that motion aren't here tonight. So that's all right. I just, it was more, it's a general learning curve. And so I know in a future meeting under other business, provided it's not too late, I can sit there and go, can we do this again? So, okay. Any other business? That's all right. If not, then we are adjourned. Nicely done, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Gentlemen, a pleasure. I'm going to show up.