 Okay, alright. So I will call the Town of Essex Select Board meeting for Monday, October 2nd, 2023, to order. Recording in progress. Just quickly, I want to make sure that folks online can hear us. I can hear you. Okay, great. Thanks for the confirmation. And so, first thing we do is ask if there are any agenda additions or changes, any changes from staff? None from staff. Okay, thank you. Any changes from board members? Don, you passed out a... That's just for information. Document if you want to. I just... those are branding ideas that Ken forwarded to me and I wanted to share them to the board when that logo discussion came up. Okay, so sometimes when we... if that kind of thing happens, we will amend the agenda to include it if that's what you'd like to do. I don't care. However, you usually do it. I just gave it to you, so I wanted to share with you. All right, well, we'll... it's not in the packet, so folks didn't have an opportunity to see it. So I don't know what the... should we... do we want to... We either have to read it or have printed copies here for the public. There's printed copies over there. There are printed copies over there. I mean, if there's sufficient amount of copies here, I think that's fine. So do we want to amend the agenda and include it? I think we should. Sure. So discussion of Newtown logo with branding suggestions. How's that? Thank you, Don. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Nay. Motion passes for one. I might get in stuff with the last one. Okay, let's move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time during the meeting where folks who are in attendance can speak to the board about town business that's not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, you can raise your hand in the room or you can raise your hand online by moving your cursor down to the bottom of your screen and a reactions button will appear. You click on that and it will give the opportunity to raise your hand. If you are participating by phone, I will... I don't see anybody doing that currently, but if somebody joins by phone, we can ask them if they'd like to speak. So does anyone in the room like to speak during public to be heard? Yeah. No hands in the room. Anybody online want to speak during public to be heard? Patty. Davis. Yeah, sure. Hello. I just want to make a comment about the technical issues when you're recording meetings. I tried really hard to attend some of the meetings, but because I'm retired and other people that want to listen to the meetings, that can't make it because they work like the economic development this past week. I spoke up to be heard and I didn't go to the meeting. I was online and granted it took them eight minutes to get going and I understand technical issues, but I've already dealt with this with Select Board. I had to go to two meetings in a row to get what I had to say so that it was being recorded properly. And now I'm running into the same thing with the economic development commission that they weren't able to capture me. And I'm going to Scotland on Thursday morning. I don't have time to go back. So I don't know what you guys want to do about it, but I thought I should bring it to your attention that it's a real problem. Thanks. I should have brought it. I couldn't read it. Anything more you want to say though? I've been attending the planning commission meetings for seven or eight years now, most of them. I think I actually have better attendance than some of the members. And I've been interested in it a long time. I have, you know, people were complaining to me years ago about what the quote unquote Newtown Center looked like as opposed to what it was first proposed to look like back in the 90s when that was approved. And so then I started coming to the planning commission meetings to understand, you know, what happened and why and, you know, a lot of it had to do with regulation and what I was told is that a lot of it had to do with lack of teeth in the regulations that they could make suggestions on how things could look, but they really didn't have the teeth in the regulations to enforce what people wanted. So I've been sort of following along, worked along with some of the different groups that were formed partly in anticipation of a merger or separation from the village and then also, you know, just the meetings and the previous town plan that was developed back five years ago or so. And I have a background in design and architecture, mostly residential. So I think that sometimes what I've seen happen is that people will come in and they will, you know, say they like one thing or another, but they don't necessarily understand why it is they like something. But generally speaking, there are actual design tenets behind what people like and what they don't like. And so having somebody on the planning commission who is able to describe that I think would be helpful on many occasions, which I have. Thank you. Any questions from board members? What do you envision the future town of Essex looking like, Paula? You've been here a long time? Yeah, I've been here for 42 years. And I'm a native New Englander. I really kind of agree with the extensive survey that the results of the survey that was done in anticipation of the town center focus. And but a lot of the questions were about also about the town in general. And it was it was pretty obvious that most people in the town wanted Essex to remain having the feeling of a New England town. It's sort of New England's brand. And I think it, you know, I agree that it looks appropriate here in our landscape. And, you know, there are certainly ways of doing it and modernizing things, but still maintaining some of the shapes that are traditional in New England architecture in general. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. What's an instance where you've been a part of something that you weren't really in favor of? How did you find common ground? Well, I think I guess I usually see the other person's perspective and but getting to know what that perspective is and why it exists is helpful in finding ways to find a solution that everybody can be okay with, maybe not everyone will be thrilled, but at least accepting. I've had to do that in my business for which I've been in for 50 years. So and sometimes it's finding solutions between differences in a husband and a wife and what they want in a new house. So resolving those conflict resolution is a big part of the job, but finding win-win solutions is just sort of second nature to me at this point. So and I think, you know, being respectful and looking for solutions that can satisfy everybody and you can usually come pretty close if you have imagination and you're taking the other people's interests and concerns seriously. Thank you. You're welcome. That was my question. I guess I would ask with the current situation in town, there is contention going on on the board. Do you have an idea of how you might work towards the resolution? I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear what you said. Right now there is some conflict in the town and the zoning regs and the planning and zoning commission as well. Do you have a plan or an idea of what you might address first should you be appointed? Well, I think this, I haven't become aware of the specifics of differences. I think that, you know, I mean, the community is a really well educated and generally well informed community. So I don't see a lot of concerns that aren't legitimate being brought forward. So I think as long as the concerns are addressed, you're never going to make everybody happy, but as long as people are people's concerns and their wishes are taken seriously and you make some effort to accommodate them, I think that's how you resolve conflicts. Thank you. So Paula, as you know, we do have a charter change outstanding the legislature which would include formation of a development review board or a DRB. So understanding that the planning commission as it currently exists reviews those development applications. If an application came in front of you that you personally disagreed with, what would you rely on to guide your decision making? Is that, I guess I'm a little confused about the question. I mean, my personal feeling is, you know, is not the issue. It's what the regulations say, what the regulations allow. And my general feeling in terms of what the community has said in recent years that the community agrees on and wants. So, you know, finding ways to resolve that conflict, keeping both of those, if the opinions are different, keeping, you know, the discrepancies in mind, but finding things that might solve it for both people or that they can agree on, but coming to a resolution is, it's generally a matter of respect and on the planning commission that was in a lot of town bodies. It has to do with being true to what the regulations say, but trying to find good solutions within those regulations. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Thank you. That's the right answer. I'm sorry. That's the right answer that the regulations are king. Yeah. Yeah. Regardless of your personal opinion. Yeah. So, do you have any questions for us? This is a, this is a, what we're considering here is a, an alternate slot. Right. And so you would only participate in the voting. When I was replacing somebody standing there for someone. Yeah. So yeah. I understand that, but I was also informed that I would be sitting with the planning commission and be able to contribute to discussions. I just wouldn't be able to vote in unless I was representing somebody. Okay. Do you have any questions for the select board? I don't think so. Okay. I've been involved in town governments on, you know, a number of different ways over the years. Okay. Which is in the application. All right. So do we. I just want to know if there were any other applicants this time. I think this is, I didn't talk about that, but Greg, I think this has been posted for quite a long time. It has. I think we've had it up for a couple of months or so. And Paula is the only applicant. Is there. Greg, is there a specific term for the alternate? We would treat it just like any other planning commission seat as far as length of term. So that's four years. So we can, but we, you know, the, the right, the planning commission has existed today won't, we'll be changing most likely. So, you know, fairly soon, but. I was going to do it. I'll make the motion that we appoint Paula Duke to the vacant alternate seat on the planning commission for a four year term. Second. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? This would clarity when the planning commission and the DRB split, she will stay with the planning commission. I think there'll be a discussion at that point as to where people want to go or if they want to go, we may need to, I don't know, we'll have to figure that figure out how that works. It may be the planning commission members are stay planning commission members. I don't think we can remove them from their appointed seat, even though their mission may change. But then people will need to be appointed to the DRB. So we have to sort out how all that will work. Okay. Thank you. And some people are going to be interested in all my reviews. Right. People can choose and there's no, nothing, nothing, um, that prevents someone from being on both. Will the charter allow for an alternate position on either commission? So I think, I think we're, we're, we're a following statute with this and Greg, um, I know one of those boards is alternates is not allowed. Are not allowed. Is it the, the planning commission can have alternates, but the DRB cannot set. No, the other way around. Term is called the appropriate municipal panel. And that's the one that's doing the development review. So right now because the planning commission is doing the development review, they're allowed to have an alternate. Once the DRB starts that position or starts that role, the alternate can be on the DRB, not the planning commission. All right. So we may need to reappoint or figure that out. Logistically, we needed, we need to do that. Thanks for that. Thanks for asking the question. Now it, it, it cements in my mind that it's the responsible or the, uh, I forget what the, I already forgot what the word was you used Greg. The, the board that does the design, the development review is the one that is allowed to have alternates. Any others, any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Both say nay. Okay. Motion passes five zero. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you for going forward. And I would add one thing, um, having to do with the whole discussion of planning versus DRB and, um, I have appeared before both the, um, but Burlington has also a design review. Um, so they have design review. They have a planning commission and they have a, um, the, uh, development. DRB. DRB. Thank you. Um, I would like to see at some point, not necessarily a board, but at least an advisory committee that would sit maybe with the, with the planning commission, um, no, with a DRB, if we have a DRB, um, they would be involved officially. Not for me, but just, you know, I mean, I'm old. I'll be dead by the time you get around to that. So. So you're talking about design review? Yeah. I mean, well, I did not official board, but just, I mean, you could have some appointed people who are advisory to the development review board. Thanks for that. Yeah. Along those lines, I would not be opposed to, and then that would take that particular piece out of the planning commission or out of the DRB's, um, take list. All right. For your comments. Thanks for your first time. All right. Let's move on to business item five B discussion about new town logo. Greg is at the. I'll kick it off and I'm going to turn it over, um, to, to Ethan and Don, who've been involved with this as well. Um, apologies, Tammy. I get she'll had had an injury and she couldn't make it tonight. Um, but she'd been working on this quite a bit. You've seen some options, had some discussions about the logo before, um, uh, Ethan, Tammy and Don formed a little working group over the past few weeks, a couple of months, maybe. Um, and, um, tried to make some additional adjustments and tweaks. Um, that's what you see in your packet today. I'll let Ethan and Don speak to that process. Uh, as they were working on that, Rebecca Robinson, who's also here tonight. She's the chair of the economic development commission. Um, she reached out. We had a discussion with her on Friday, um, and kind of had this, just a discussion about, um, the logo's branding, uh, kind of more big picture stuff behind the logo. Um, just to refresh you all, uh, there's been talk, um, since the separation of this extension about kind of helping to find the town of Essex has new identity, what the branding looks like, what the logo looks like. Um, we, we have taken a lot of steps towards identity, in my opinion, um, from the step in and coming together. Uh, then to explore Essex event from last year, what's happening this coming year. Um, doing some work around the logo, uh, plenty of other things as well. Part of the reason we were tackling, and Tammy in particular was tackling the logo right now is because we have a website redesign. Um, that's due, that's part of our contract with our, our web host. Um, the thought was that if we could get a logo in place fairly soon, um, we could use that color scheme to inform the website, uh, and take that step towards, um, the branding and identification. Um, all this is to say that it is potentially still a work in progress. Um, you know, we, we're going to bring it to you tonight, uh, for an update and spend some time over the next couple of weeks with explore Essex, getting the word out to the community. Um, after speaking to Rebecca, we think maybe we should delay that by a week or two. Um, Tammy's latest news and maybe to kicked out a little bit on that, if we can get something in place and hear feedback back from the community and have the community, if we can't, it has been taking up a fair amount of time and it might be something that's worth putting on the back burner while we can focus on some other things. Um, but so that's just the preview with that. I'll turn it over to Ethan and Don about some of the work they did with Tammy and then maybe Rebecca can weigh in after that. Um, and she has a background in marketing and branding and stuff as well. So she has a good perspective on all this. Okay. Um, so as Greg said, we started a working group, me, me, Tammy and Don. Um, really we went off from what we had looked at at our previous meeting. Um, and we took the three, four, five, six of all the ideas we had and review. I reviewed and, and Don did and I know Tammy did a bunch. We looked at, um, all the comments that we got from, from the public from the surveys and the things that they wanted to see and really just tried to simplify, um, this humongous town and all it has to offer in one picture. So we went with one of the largest voted on the survey, which was the farm and country. And then, um, we did a couple of variations of that one and two. And then we tried to mix in the recreation with, um, Mount Mansfield per se, um, with three and four. And then with the kayak, with just the mountain, it was more resemblance of, of Indian Brook. And then not necessarily the view that you see at Indian Brook, but the fact that we still have the mountain views and when you're travels and more of a recreation based logo. And then we kept it simple because I had remembered a wise guy said that the last logo was simple and there's not a lot that's contentious about it. So I threw it in there. I agreed. And, um, I mean, really we just, we tried the best. I think, I think the, one of the other things is, um, the font and the location of the font is still, you know, if you look at number two, um, I advocated for the, for that style font instead of on the side, that way no matter where you put the logo, the town of, you know, the name aspects is still part of the logo. But it was hard to make it as like a banner or anything. Um, but there's many variations that we could, we could do. We had our best to sit together. So a lot more to it than drawing it with a pencil and laughing the sticker on it. I don't know if it has anything to add. Yeah, good. We went out from 300. Yeah, there was over 300 suggestions that you see here. Different types of logos that we pieced into these. And we really only have, you know, there's really only three designs. There are four designs in the packet here. So we had come up with a goal. We were hoping to kick it off for the Explorer SX, but we weren't able to make that happen. So the question was, was would we be able to get it off to have a public vote on if we could agree on a certain amount of designs or depending on the EDC meeting, you know, like Greg had mentioned, we'd kick it back until there's another public outreach where we can get it voted because everybody's put a lot of time into it and there's no sense in continuing to work on it if there's not going to be a decision made. I'd prefer to see a decision made to know they're working on updating the website and we could at least have a color scheme and we wouldn't have to go out and redecal all the trucks tomorrow and print new shirts and everything else, but we'd at least have somewhere to start with and as you know, everything can be revisited if that needed a rose, but I feel confident that we could get the public input on these and have a desired logo in the public. I guess we would ask what you think of them. I don't know. I don't have any objections to any of them. I do agree that I like the ones where Essex is of the logo. We're going to have that be part of the discussion tonight because I felt the same way. It's just more inclusive of this as Essex and I think it would be easier print wise. I think it looks fancier personally. I have to say, my favorite was three if we could get Essex under them. I agree. That looks like an island to me. Really? You could envision the blue in the background as additional water in the background. I guess I do like the Essex underneath. You could even cut off Vermont in some instances if it doesn't fit. Right, exactly. In a public's work sense, I'm just using number two as an example, but you could go above or below and they could say town of easily. You just run through them slowly so that we can... That's great. If you change number two, say town of Essex underneath, that would be perfect. If I may, I can't find my raise hand feature. I'm sorry for interrupting. I hope Rebecca can speak to some of this too. Where the locate from my understanding after talking to Tammy and others about where the font is that the font might move depending on what you're doing, whether it's a banner, whether it's a sign, whether it's a logo. Part of what we talked about on Friday, which is after some of these logos were produced, was keeping things simple. Having a quick recognizable, identifiable thing that can be on the business card or on a big banner. It looks great. There's also a lot going on in there. I'm just trying to keep some of that stuff in mind too. I think what's here is workable, but as we were talking more, and again, Rebecca might have more insight into some of this stuff. What's going to be successful and identifiable to really kind out Essex? Hi, I'm Rebecca Robinson. For those of you I haven't met, I'm on the EDC and recently was nominated to be the chair. I'm here on behalf of the EDC as well as myself. I understand a lot of amazing work has been done, Ethan, you, Don, across the board and especially Tammy, who's been leading the charge on this. I know we're also as an EDC coming in at the 11th hour as we've been working through a lot of the key priorities and actions that we're working through for what we're going to be bringing to the town in the next year. And the big pieces was branding. And so just a few things that popped up and we were hoping maybe we could jump in quick with Tammy and Ethan and Don if it's working with you over the next week or so. But I think there's a few small tweaks that we can potentially make to ensure that it's multimedia, multi-channel and has the ability to be used across so many different platforms that are needed, including merchandise, et cetera, for the town. So you have a really great starting spot with actually some really small tweaks that we can make in best practices from a logo perspective that could then also be used across like different departments, commissions and committees. Sorry, it's my kids in the background if you hear them. And so I think that there's like a few tweaks that we could potentially make to some of the designs that you currently have for how we could then leverage that and use it across the board. And then also part of what we had raised is that the logo is amazing and understanding we have this great work that we're doing on the website. The one piece too that we should really be thinking about is the branding and how that comes to life for the town. So if there is a slogan or a one line and how we bring that to life for the town to use on whether it's signs or merchandise or how we pull everything together for our town and really identify. There's some small steps that we can take to incorporate that into the logo. And then we can take a little bit of time like some of the branding that we could potentially come up with and we can do that after the logo. But then there were some of the considerations that we were just hoping that maybe we could work with you to make some of these small tweaks to ensure that we create a logo that can really be used across the board versus having to constantly evolve and to change it down the road. Great. Thanks, Rebecca. Any other thoughts or comments or comments? I actually like number 7 the best because it is very generic. It includes everybody. I do not like the kayaker just because you're picking out one group and putting it on the town logo. I like the idea of recreation including everybody. And I do think it's important in whatever logo that we have we have it say the town of Essex. That's all. That's my opinion. Any other comments? I see a hand up in the public because I'm asking to make sure there's no other board comments first. Anu had wanted to talk about this. No, I just wanted everybody to be able to look at the branding suggestions that came out. And Rebecca just talked about branding. I do have a question for Kenda. What does that number 7 tell you about Essex? I think there's a lot of opportunity for say a lot of things about Essex because you could take and as you develop your brand you could add icons to that logo if you wanted to. It starts out very inclusive for everybody. But as you narrow in what the town of Essex is going to develop into as the town you could modify your logo fairly easily. And it's very unique. I like to be unique. Do you want to see that Paula? Are we trying to see? Yeah, it would be helpful to see what it's talking about. We don't have our other 2B on there. Can you bring up the number 7? I'd like to see it again. The one thing that seems to be missing are any houses. Paula, that's the one. Paula, it's up here. Yeah, nice. I definitely think that's important what you're saying about the kayak. But as far as updating the logo I think we're trying to get away from either we pick a logo and it stays the logo for a decent amount of time or we don't do a logo at all. Because we're not I mean we all made our workload for this year. We don't have time to talk about a logo every 6 weeks or 6 months. But I did want to point out the other day somebody had asked me about the barn and the logo. If you drive down every single major road in Essex Route 15, Route 128, Route 117 you can go down old stage, you can go down weed road, you can go down I don't think there's a barn on Sand Island. Oh, Brigham Hill. Brigham Hill's got one barn left. I took the other one down it was beautiful. My point is Essex is not anymore but it was a huge firing community and there's so much value in that scenery. The one I meant to mention was Chapin Road because I've been traveling down Chapin Road a lot down the old Matthews and every time I drive by Phil Murdoch's farm with all the out-of-staters there for the apple season and he doesn't even have pick your own apples. It just drives a point in my head and to Rebecca's point is there's a brand to be had with having his town center and having the hot air balloon landing in your front yard on an old stage road every night of the week. So I agree and I actually I hope we can and it doesn't have to be a week. I hope we can narrow this down pretty quickly and find a brand and make those changes because there's so much and that was actually the number I don't remember if it was exactly number one but it was one of the top ideas for what people see in the town. It was town meets country. I know it's not a Sally brand on a logo as words but that was one of the number one ideas of Ethan could you repeat what you said if you said something it's what was that? Sorry my voice is still a little crackly. One of the number one, two, three ideas that had come up when they did the survey for the logo and what people think of what they see was the main idea in the logo that was selected was one of the town meets country. But and I think the reason I like number two is it has buildings in it because it's not just a recreation area it's a vibrant community. I agree that was my my choice also but I agree there's and we worked up until this on Friday at I think it was five o'clock the last time I talked to Greg and Tammy did a couple things to get it in the packet there was just there's so much that we tried to change and add and I think Rebecca makes a lot of really good points that a few small changes and we could really have something that's that's printable and representable and I'm actually really excited to speak with her so All right Margaret Smith Hi can you hear me? Yes we can. Okay I just had some comments I was thinking back to the woman who came and talked to me last week and I can't remember what it was about but she seemed very confused about Essex and it is confusing there is an Essex New York and a town of Essex and the city of Essex and correct me but I think I also have a county of Essex in Vermont and so I really think you need to include town of Essex and Vermont somewhere on it to help clarify that confusion. Thank you Thanks Margaret and I think I saw Polly did you have comment? Did you have additional comments? Are you talking to me? Yeah Polly you're sitting at the table so I I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm used to it I'm one of the commission meetings I think just at the table. Okay I saw Betsy's hand next then so come on up Betsy and introduce yourself and make your comment. Betsy done and they're all very interesting and I agree that I don't think the kayakers should be there you want to give the illusion of you could do many things in the town of Essex but I don't understand why the silhouette of the mountain represents Mansfield because that looms over this town and it has hiking it has skiing it has biking then you have the water that's all the different water sports that you have and you don't have to see those people you just know that that's where you can do those things so I would rather see I don't mind the barn I don't mind the houses or businesses whichever those are I do agree the town of Essex I think that's really important but I just wonder why we changed the mountain a little to be generic and not be the silhouette of something that is every day we see when you travel on 15 just that Thanks Betsy and then I saw Bruce Post's hand next What you just need is another opinion generally speaking I like number two for a variety of reasons because the one thing that confuses me water really isn't much of a characteristic of Essex we've got the river and we've got Indian Brook but from a land use space it's not much so that big blue thing to me looks like somewhere else and I would de-emphasize that and make it smaller and I don't mind the generic mountains we're not under hill under hill Mount Mansfield really is characteristic of under hill I just like the more generic look of the mountains and I like the theme where town meets country I think you can play with that and I just said the other thing about two I didn't like the emphasis on the water when water is not a big part of Essex thanks Bruce and Ken Signorello Ken Signorello how are you so I produced this list and gave it to Dawn and a few others I think I won't talk too much about the logo itself although everybody's obviously noticing that some things just are over-emphasized yeah instead of kayaking obviously mountain biking might be the thing we have more mountain biking going on kayaking but getting back to the whole idea of having a brand before you have a logo I know I've said this plenty of times so I thought I would just ask chat GPT what kind of branding ideas it might come up with and shockingly enough came up with 10 incredible branding ideas and it really helped me understand how much we could potentially be missing really really important so I really urge you to take a look at these I'm going to just mention two of them which I think are very cool great idea Essex crafted highlight the town's artisanal and craft culture Essex Vermont could be known for local breweries distilleries, farmers markets, artisan workshops promoting a series of community of craftsmanship great idea and there's absolutely nothing and I hear gozzily talking about how we need to be developing our industry and our tax base and the logo that would tell a person from outside we are wanting to attract business open for business bingo so the very last one that came up I thought was yeah Essex Tech's Nexus embraced the tech industry's growing presence in Essex this brand could showcase tech startups innovation centers and educational institutions positioning Essex as a hub for tech enthusiasts and professionals yes we absolutely were and still are an agricultural community but we are so much more now and I think that's the challenge and the problem with coming up with a logo so the brand really should come first and then the logo should follow but it's going to be complicated and compromises are probably going to be necessary but yeah the mountains we're not Cambridge we're not under hill the mountains aren't right there it's off it's really big of a part of Essex as you might think it is the mountain biking I had no idea everybody has their personal perspective on what Essex is all about that's a challenge, it was a challenge for me I went over to Saxon Hill and sold 40 cars in the parking lot that were all mountain biking what the heck I had no idea so we need to be thinking about not ourselves and what we think of Essex it's very important to have a good sense of what everybody thinks of Essex and more importantly what we want people that don't know Essex to think about Essex because this is a marketing opportunity this is a way to sell people to come to Essex and industry to come to Essex the most important thing we're really interested in seems to be growing the commercial tax base why doesn't the brand town meets country doesn't say anything about industry logo doesn't reflect that at all we need to be thinking about that I asked one question if we don't update the website let's say in 12 months do we still lose that opportunity I'm going to assume that the company would be thrilled to put it off for 12 months and still and do what they promised us I think they'd put it up for 4 years it's every 4 years well maybe we can negotiate something because at least they'd be able to not do what we're proposing to do right away but I would want to remind you that this effort is probably something we'll have to live with for 10 years or so a lot of money will be spent on those logos getting on the trucks and on potentially t-shirts and hats and all the other stuff that's going to happen it's a big investment so it really makes sense to do it right and I spoke with Rebecca she's my chairman on the EDC and I have a lot of confidence in her perspective on the situation she's a little bit more politically correct than I am more diplomatic than me but I do appreciate all the work that's been done don't misunderstand me I do appreciate it but I really think that it's focusing too much on a couple of individual ideas on Essex it's so much more and a clever slogan like hike it, bike it, live it something like that would be just so much more catchy especially if it was a little bit more business friendly that's all thanks anybody else okay so I guess the intent here was to have a bit of a discussion but the request is to go back and do some more tweaking of it and have some I guess more discussion with the Economic Development Commission their meeting later this week Thursday, yep anything else you need Greg no I think this is um yeah I think it's good feedback thank you for everyone and Andy I think you just nailed it just wanted to do a check in and uh Don and Ethan and Rebecca and the EDC take another look at it see what they can come up with over the next few weeks and then kind of make a decision about do we keep going with it or put it on hold and just go ahead with the website update and come up with the logo and the branding so thanks for the input right great what time is your meeting on the 5th? EDC meeting is Thursday Thursday so it's uh Thursday uh the 5th he said 8am just saying that in the microphone because you don't have to repeat it I just said it next to he, yeah that's exactly what it is yeah thanks alright I just want to make a one quick comment about number two because that was a point of what we were doing when we were planning was the generic mountains that I'll help Greg pull it up real quick the generic mountains that we put there was agreed upon because we've thought it represented Saxon Hill the water was there because it was Indian Brook it was the Winooski River it was um you know we were asked if the barn reflected any in Essex and really structure wise it was based off the Wickham barn on 15 right there before the tree farm where the Browns River crosses and then the town center is obviously the Essex experience but then the rolling corn fields were kind of taken from the double ridges at 128 so just I understand there's a million things and that's been the struggle with this whole process but I just wanted to share those a little bit if you can envision where I'm wasting the town but we really did try and take actual sites from the town and they're not all going to be in one picture because this town is I forget how many miles, square miles 36 square miles so you're not going to have that view but I just wanted to add that in that those are real places these aren't we did try and be descriptive all right thank you let's move on to business item 5c which is discussion review of proposed town of Essex church updates chapters 9, 10, 11, 12 so this is the last remaining bit we'll be revisiting plenty of it later but this is to get through our first pass of the document there's not a lot in those chapters so we'll see where we go so I don't know Greg if you could bring up the side-by-side document there Mr. Chairman I can tell you that most of the changes for the assessment part of this and the assessor's description in real estate came from the appraiser's office she came and presented it and asked us to put it in the way she'd like it these changes came from there were comments on the side asking why the changes were there from probably from you Greg I guess the question is are we okay with making these changes to change any a lot of it is name changes Andy if I may I'm not opposed to any of the changes here I was just curious as to why I probably had a conversation with Karen a year ago and forgot what the reason was these are the types of things where once we get more deep into the weeds on the charter changes the lava lee review will have a more thorough vetting of this from a legal standpoint as to if they make sense those types of things okay so anybody have any concerns with the um so sub chapter nine looks like it's planning it looks like it's removed completely it becomes assessing I think chapter nine is what's at the legislature now right right right so we don't need to talk about that alright so then the um alright right right yeah chapter ten is name changes um changing from the real estate department of real estate appraisal to department of assessment there is a question here a consistency question where it says that the um the appraiser is appointed by the manager with approval of the select board we don't have that specific listed in the other section of who the manager raises I think that's a comment just to make sure we can become consistent there and add the appraiser to that list in the other section of the or take it out of this section right anybody have a preference on that something we can talk about later we just should make it consistent oh yeah I guess we make it I guess we should put the changes in the manager section so we can put an arrow to that one to bring it up in conversation when we review manager section yep yep think of myself and out about that and it looks like the second section sentence in 117903 was deleted in a different sentence was added so Don you remember anything about that was what was recommended by the assessor it kind of says the same thing I think different words I think is it okay with the objections to the word changes as long as there's no unintended I think because she wanted it to read the way the state statue did as well she had it established by the laws of the state of Vermont at the end she just changed it around um and then 904 there's no new language there it's just renumbered um 905 I only had one question for 905 and it was why it said the law of this state when the other one said the laws of the state of Vermont I didn't know that was just missing a word or it was just I don't know I was just curious when I was reading through the one after the other I just popped in my head too it probably doesn't make a difference I just didn't know so it used to say under the general statutes it says under the law of this state except as otherwise noted so it would just just write as the state of Vermont by the state of Vermont I don't know I just bring it up because I had underlined it to remember to say something put Vermont in that would be fine so do we want to make these changes so that this is kind of just recommended by the assessor I'm glad to see that I'm still having trouble reading this sentence as I did over the weekend because it's my brain is consistent 905 department of assessment shall have the same power discharge the same duties proceed in the discharge of in the same manner discharge of the responsibilities proceed in the discharge of in the same manner it could be set better yeah that is awkward to have two prepositions three prepositions three power discharge the same duties and proceed in the what are the things one of the things the government of the law of this sounds awkward half of these whole sections in this whole charter are one sentence I don't understand why don't we have periods halfway through and give you a break to think about what you read and then finish reading the rest of it there's commas in there I might just stop and end this but I don't know that's I'm not a grammar fanatic I just I'm dyslexic and I have a hard time reading when I read a sentence that's three days long I'd forget what the sentence meant you know what I mean the original wording really was the same way I get it we could go back to the original wording just changing the name of the department I mean I'm fine with it either way if that's what Karen suggested I just it sounds like we're missing a word so if we could just clarify that consistency and clarification if you didn't proceed in the discharge of the we've already got duties in it don't we that actually could come out it's a repeated statement basically so that line could actually come out should have the same power discharge the same duties which is the same thing you're saying again so that would actually come out a seed in the discharge I mean if you're discharging duties you're proceeding in the discharge same thing so you're suggesting remove the phrase seed in the discharge in the same manner I think so and just leave the end be subject to the same liabilities as prescribed that does make it cleaner clear mm-hmm I'm glad it wasn't just me yep yep thank you for that sub chapter 10 amendment of charter and initiatives just got renumbered it looks like I'm just wondering why the words and initiatives was added to there oh excuse me I was curious why is and initiatives needed I don't know okay somebody initiates the charter change that's not even what she does anything someone's attempting to initiate an amendment the rationale that that would cover like a petition to right like if somebody brought like the petition that came through and I forgot now whatever it was but recall no there was a 3 plus 3 one that happened a while ago there was one that Mr. Kenneson brought us oh yeah it's also a petition so that's an initiative to change the charter so that's why that's an understanding yeah but a petition brought forward that is something that somebody came up with and a petition that comes forward that has the legal amount of signatures that we require in our charter totally different things and that's covered in petitions isn't it it's going to recover our statute yeah the thing that confuses me is initiatives as it mentioned in the section and I guess I'm not sure that I mean I didn't understand what it meant I didn't either I'm going to add in why we're changing to state statute because I've looked back through a couple of other sections to see what words we use and for the whole update to this charter it goes back and forth between state statute one that says law of the state and the law of state law so can we just use are they all the same is the state law different than the statute is the statute different than the state law law is going to be defined by actually the judiciary but in the law of charter is it different I think we should just make a comment that it should be consistent throughout it screwed me off because I lost the difference and I'm looking it up and Google told me it's the same thing but it might have lied to me that was all I wouldn't it take an initiative to amend the charter initiative for somebody to introduce a change whether it comes from months or whether it comes from the public I don't know why I mean that's true for any I'm just thinking maybe that's why that's in there I'm not sure I don't know why it's needed anybody no we can the petition section has a lot of everything that needs to be in there for an integrated so I'm in favor of striking the words and initiatives yep put a question mark next to it okay and then chapter 11 it's completely new wasn't there before it says repeal and modification of this charter shall not affect the validity of previously enacted ordinance resolutions or bylaws well that's isn't that the whole purpose of modifying a charter well you can't make a charter retroactive I think that's what this is saying but I don't know if if statue already says that or not can you explain that to me can you explain that to me so this says that that you know if we establish an or an or if the charter gives us the right to establish a specific kind of ordinance and we establish that ordinance and then the charter has changed in the future do not allow that type of ordinance explicitly it wouldn't invalidate that prior ordinance because the prior ordinance would have been put in place based on the charter that was in place at the time that it was enacted that's what this says that any action you take prior to a charter change is not invalidated by the charter change but you could still change the ordinance absolutely yeah it doesn't prevent you I was reading that changing the charter itself doesn't impact if you change your charter to remove or the legislature changes your charter remove an action you probably should modify an ordinance to take it but I just used that as an example so this would say that if we take out the list of appointees that the manager has appointed it doesn't unappoint those it doesn't dissolve their appointments it still takes action I guess can we get a legal clarification that if we have I'm just using this out of the blue in ordinance to charge fees the charter is then amended to remove that does that ordinance have to stay as it's written in order to remain in effect or can we then amend and update that ordinance and still have it be viable that's a good question we do have the authority to generate fees can you ever change other than repealing it right it seems like that new effective date would in essence be a new updated ordinance that then would not be allowable for statute so basically if you don't want to lose your ordinance's resolutions or bylaws just don't change your charter the legislature could change our charter whenever they want without they've done that they took out all of the references all of the currencies of the word select man or select men got removed and replaced with select board member without us ever being notified I have no idea who initiated it or how it happened but it did it was never a legislative vote it was just a action that took place so they could again the real estate we can only do what we're allowed to do for the legislature so yeah they could they could change our charter whatever they want you definitely should have legal check that because that's kind of a conflict I mean you're changing your charter so that you can have a planning in a DRB that could be read as well you can't have a planning in DRB because your original charter was set up into planning and I'm just confused as the way the ordinance I mean good question right because this would suggest that we can still have a ZBA I mean to me that's saying that even if the legislature makes a change it doesn't apply you have the charter change in Montpelier already so that's going to eliminate if they accept it it's just an example it's not necessarily that's the thing yeah so Don do you know do you have any memory of why this was put in there Greg are you getting what we're questioning here I think so yeah basically I think Tracy's example that to me makes a lot of sense that you take something out of the charter do you then lose the ability to do that if it's already been enacted that's exactly what I'm saying capturing it well the other thing is the secondary piece to that is if you are allowed to continue doing what your prior charter said you could do can you make any changes to that other than repealing it oh yeah that's a good point yeah that's the legal alright I wrote legal review and what does this what does this allow or not allow and then the last sub chapter several several ability of proficiency there's no number and there's no subtitle it just changes the name that to which but there's no numbers and there's no subtitle 117-1201 that's not gonna change it's crossed out that was a mistake it might have been a mistake somewhere I captured it from what we got I think that's the type of thing that a legal review will turn up and say it should stay in there yeah that's so this is just a one word change from that to which changes the title of the sub chapter changes the title of the subseverability of provisions okay just makes it specific it just makes it right and matches up okay so this means you can slice and dice the charter up the legislature can invalidate one section of it doesn't invalidate the entire alright that's it next time we talk about this it will probably be exciting again I don't know when we'll be able to circle back to this because budget season starts here pretty soon and we'll work on assembling notes about all the discussions that we've had and some of the bigger policy questions to come back and have a bigger discussion on any other comments anybody wants to make about this in general do you think that we're still on track to have the package come back to us in time to decide whether to warn it for March I don't know I will comment then I'll give Greg the opportunity I think that maybe we could get some of the wording changes back around if we want to with some of the bigger policy discussions I think they take more time unless we want to have really long meetings going into the winter that's just my my opinion I could be I'm only one person of the five of us so Greg I don't know what you think about the possibility of getting substantial portions of this before voters in March I agree with what you laid out I think the next steps are going to be to take all your feedback have the town attorney look at that that's in clarification from staff as needed be able to bring that back to you and summarize and kind of see where we're at if you remember from last year we I think we needed to have the proposals done by December pretty early December in order to have the public hearings and everything in front of voters by March so you're really looking at about three meetings to try to have that done so small stuff probably if you're talking about big policy changes that you want to get more public input on it might be a tight squeeze all right let's move on to the next business item which is discussion of real estate which we'll do in executive session later so consent agenda make the motion we accept the consent agenda as presented thank you Don thank you Tracy any further discussion about consent I just had one question on the warrants there's 12 million that we paid to the school district do we get the interest from the money while we have it we collect it all we get interest from that while we have it or do we just hold it for them just curious I believe Kendall I'll get confirmation on this I believe we do collect the interest similarly we collect any link when payments and penalties that's part of the benefit that we get of being the manager and collector of all the taxes but I will confirm that for you thank you we have to give them all of their money even if we haven't received it also true we have to make them home okay any other consent comments hearing none all those in favor of approving the consent please say aye aye motion passes 5-0 reading file any member comments I have one and I have to apologize because I don't know the gentleman's name he is doing all the flowers around the town and all the various intersections and they just look lovely and I know he's constantly out there and I just want to say thank you I think he's probably an overlooked employee today the truth I don't know his name but I just want to say thank you Tom that is Tyler Atwood he's um he's gonna work for us through public works and yeah he does a great job of it he's all over the place making sure that things look good as you said so thank you I'll happily pass it on to him please do and I would also like to issue our regards for quick healing for Tammy oh yeah yes Ethan go ahead I got a comment because I heard Don ringing up earlier but can we add the November 14th budget day to the schedule yes yes perfect that was it I just wanted to call out explore Essex passport week now going on through Saturday I got mine too his passport up just wanted to call that out and I also Greg you may not know this but the investments memo I was curious what laddering the investments mean yep yep that means so if you can if you think about CDs they're typically a fixed term so rather than putting all of our money into a 12 month CD we do a year or sorry 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months kind of like that looks like a ladder that way when the 3 month rolls up and expires you go on to a 12 month and so then you have a another one that expires 30 months 6 months 12 months you kind of have this rolling cycle for your investments always the CDs always roll out and then you can invest and do a new one so you really kind of have money available every 3 months and you constantly invest okay I thought that's what it meant I just wanted to make sure because I've never officially heard that phrase before and I'll segue into that saying that I noticed last year during the budget in the audit that the town only made $33,000 of interest and I mentioned that to staff and they immediately Dan made a change where they increased the yield of the interest to 3% from 1% and now he has increased that upwards of 5% so you're looking at a significant interest jump from $33,000 in our audit to potentially $600,000 interest that is tremendous kudos to staff especially the Dan and the team and I would like to talk some more at some point in time with the board about what we do with that interest but kudos great that's fantastic that I believe is what the taxpayers want to see thank you Kendall and yes kudos to Dan and thank you also for giving us the push and making the idea come to life thank you anything else I was going to show off my passport here the stickers are good I don't know anymore oh my goodness six, seven of them so far make sure you buy your tickets too and yeah I bought a 50-50 ticket and a ticket for the painting of the Indian brook that's an amazing picture easy work piece of art okay anything else do we have oh I forgot one quick comment there's going to be cows in the gym that's what Tammy said she said we were inside if it rained if it rains alright cool cool I had a friend once who uh who claimed he could raise a pig in my basement without it smelling bad at all he was trying to convince my mother to let him raise a pig in our basement and then so that she could then get it slaughtered and put it in our freezer for the winter but yeah yeah I wonder why I have one more comment about the newsletter how is the subscription looking are we getting more and more residents signing up for the ESIC news I think so but I don't know I'm going to have to get back to you on that I have heard a lot of positive feedback from the people who are receiving it though there's a lot in there there's a lot in there yep brother alright now do you have a session now motions alright go ahead I want to go home really today I moved that the select board enter executive session to discuss the negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with one VSA section 313A2 and to include the town manager and deputy town manager second any further discussion so we won't be making any motions afterwards so we will adjourn we won't rejoin the online meeting and all those in favor of entering the executive session please say aye both say nay motion passes 5-0 and thank you all for coming tonight and hope to see you again in two weeks