 I'll call the meeting to order and it's seven o'clock. And for those of you who wish to speak at some point in time, I'll ask you to de-mask in order to be able to hear you. And if you wish to come to the microphone, that would be very helpful to us as well. So the first thing on our agenda are the minutes of July 27th, 2021. Is there a motion? We accept the minutes. Subject to modification. Is there a second? I'll second. Page one. Page two. Page three. Very on page three under item number nine, TAF's corner's form-based code vision plan. The very last sentence didn't make sense to me. Also the Baroque community on the hill. And I wonder if he meant to say Baroque, B-U-R-R, space O-A-K. I have no idea what it means either, but Mr. Sumnicolle was the person who made the statement. Okay. But the Baroque community. Perhaps we can... I'm not saying I know Williston as well as many others do, but I never knew there was a Baroque community in Williston. Me too. That's what our recording secretary got from his comments. And perhaps we can check for her regarding the statement or check the tape. Okay. Then you also on page three. If not, I'll vote in favor of moving the minutes of July 27th, 2021 and say aye. Aye. Aye. Three ayes have it, there are no negative votes. So we'll move on then to pull the comment. Is there anyone in the room who wishes to make any public comment on any topic tonight? If you would just please identify yourself. My name is Jasper Wood. You can take your mask off so we can hear you. Thank you. My name is Jasper Wood. Welcome. My name is Jasper Wood, I'm 14 years old. Williston needs to hire a town energy coordinator and this is why. In the past few weeks, the air quality has been so poor there were days I've been advised to stay inside and not go out and play with my friends. This is due to a warming climate and the effects of wildfires out west and in Canada. Without fresh air to breathe, what do we have left? This is a sign that things are getting worse at a rapid rate. We need to act fast and we need to act now. The UN IPCC report states that the planet is in dire shape. We can no longer wait, we need to do something. We need to reduce emissions and sequester carbon and carry out the town plan. It is my generation that will be dealing with the worst effects of climate change such as increased natural disasters, mass extinctions, sea level rise, worsening air quality and lack of clean water. You have a responsibility to my generation and you have the power to do something about it. You know what you need to do. Be on the right side of history, do the right thing. Thank you for representing me. I'd like to send this to the staff. Any further public comment from people in the audience? My name is Brian Boris. I just have a couple of questions. One is last month's meeting, there was the consideration of the Energy Committee was kicked to September sometime. Is there any clarification on which meeting is September that will be taken up? And will the board also be considering funding a full-time energy coordinator? Our plan is at the point to come up with a plan for the public to look at, for the board to look at. I think by mid-September. The funding of position would be a budgetary issue and we would be discussing that during the budget sessions that we have. That will be discussed during the budget sessions you have? I'm sure that you folks will want us to discuss that during the budgetary session. And Terry, just to be clear, if we talk about during the budgetary session, that would be to be included in the fiscal year 2030. The next fiscal year, that's correct. Any further public comment on any topic tonight from the people in the audience? I'm Reed Parker. I was on the energy task force over the past couple of years. I want to thank this young man for his presentation and fully support his position. We do need an energy coordinator in the town. Thank you. Is there anyone on the Zoom connector that wishes to speak? Nope, Terry. Just have someone monitoring for their community merit bench from a troop 692, but no one to make a public comment. If there's no other person wishing to make any public comment, we're ready to move on to the next issue. Seeing no hands raised, we'll move on then to interviews and appointments. And we're looking at two different things tonight. One for the Historical and Architectural Advisory Committee and secondly, the Catamount Community Forest Committee. So our first person, the one candidate we have for the HAC committee is Alex Pinsair. Alex, join us. Welcome to Select Board meeting. And we do have your resume in front of us, but if you would just give us a, and the folks listening in a brief description of your background and why you wish to be on the HAC committee. Sure, I've been a Williston resident for about 21 years. Built a couple of homes in Williston, most recently one here in the village. That process took about seven years due to some problems with the neighbors. So it really gave me a pretty good education into the process of what happens as far as in the village and development. And this seemed like a great opportunity to get back to the community. Yep, thank you. Questions from the board? I have a question that may be considered irrelevant. I apologize, but is that the Lampman house that you renovated? Yeah, that's the, were Dr. John Lampman? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, he was my doctor and as a small child, I have a recollection of being in your house, being treated by him. Amazing. And so there've been lots of people getting physical exams in your house. Yeah. He was a political community. I don't know what that does for you, but yeah. Well, we renovated that house and then sold it. It's now a Ritualine real estate and we built the duplex that's now behind there where the horse barn was. Yep. Yep. Yeah. That's my line of inquiry for time. Yeah. So my question has to do with, how do you view the process that, let's say a developer or somebody trying to do what you tried to do, renovate a home, convert a barn into a duplex, how is the process? Is it a good process, bad process? Does it need a lot of work? I think fundamentally it's a good process. I think Williston has done more than a lot of towns to really lay down some laws that everyone needs to adhere to in order to create anything that's new in the village to represent, to have it sync with what's already here. And I think that's great. I think there's some improvements that could be had because the route to corridor, which is the historic area, is pretty, you know, the visibility, like our building, for example, is 300 feet back. You really can't see it from route two, whereas, but we still had to sort of go through all historic laws. I think that could be looked at and maybe considered a little bit different because I know there are other deep lots in the village that sort of go back a ways that if somebody were to try to develop that in the future, maybe they don't need to have the wood siding or the, you know, the true divide windows, that sort of thing. But I was just honestly as frustrating as the process was to take so long. It was fascinating for me personally just to see how the process worked. And that's why I'm here. Okay. All right, good. Thank you. My next question is a question that for some reason has fallen on me to ask. It's asked virtually every person who sat in that tier URN. You mentioned you've built a couple homes. It sounds like you could build other homes. So my question is a conflict of interest question. And it's what, how would you recognize it? And what would you do about it if you were sitting on the committee? Yeah, I mean, I don't anticipate doing another development project in the village if one day for some reason that were to happen. I think the usual process, like I know Scott Riley who's on the DRB just recuses himself and that seems pretty simple. Okay, all right, good. Thank you. Any further questions? No. If we're ready to apply tonight, there are some motions to guess it. I had moved to apply Alex Pinter to the Historical and Architectural Advisory Committee for the unexpired three-year term through June 30, 2024. Is there a second? No, second. Is there a discussion on the motion? No, a perspective I think would be helpful. If there's no further discussion then all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Three ayes have it. Congratulations and thanks for your willingness to serve. Absolutely. Thank you. And next we have candidates for the Catamount Community Forest Communities. We had three to begin with, two, one is withdrawn. So Reed Parker and David Sella, you know, would approach. I'm not sure if you want to sit together but there's a microphone over here too as well. And Terri, if you don't mind before we interview, as you may remember, I am a member of the committee they are mindful and the select board representative on that. And I don't feel comfortable at participating and choosing the member because a committee member shouldn't, probably shouldn't choose those who are on, are going to be on that committee. So I realized tonight that it is an issue with there's only two select board members who possibly could vote if I do choose to recluse myself. So I don't know if that's an issue or we can put it off till the next meeting. Both. Well, I think the, since we had our candidates here and the people who the select board members that were not here tonight. That's true. And watch this rebroadcast that we can do the interviews tonight, not have to have them come back a second time. And we'll postpone the nomination or like the appointments until we have a full board. Great. Thank you. And the other piece is, is there any sense in me participating in the, in the interviews but not in the selection process itself? I think it's server would be very helpful since you're members of any of the, you know, hopefully in the right question to ask. Okay. Great. Thank you. Apologize. I lost track of which one of you gentlemen is which. I'm read Parker. I'm sorry. These things I do. So the same situation will follow the same protocol. As we did for, we'll ask you both to weigh in and say, give us a brief background of yourselves, even though we do have your applications in front of us. And then a good reason as to why you'd like to be on the, the catamount community forest committee. Then we'll open up the question board. So read, I have you with us start first on my list. Sorry. Good evening. Thank you for having me here today. I've been a resident in five years here in Boston previously in Essex. I was on the energy task force for its inspiration that put together the, the energy plan that was presented to the select board a year or so ago. This I've used catamount as for my own recreation cross country skiing, hiking, most recently, burning with my wife who was on the nesting committee. And when this opening came up, I started looking into it, read through the, the plans put together by the county forester and the town itself and found that it's, it's much broader and more interesting that I thought. One first, first take is it's a, you know, a biking recreation area, but there's a lot to it. There's a forestry management aspect, a wildlife management, the recreation, the lumbering. And I thought, this is a really well put together plan. I'm looking to expand my participation with the town. And I thought this would be a committee I would like to work in because I also use the area. I took my grandchildren hiking up through there this year. You know, we go through the trails, check out the birds. And it just seems like a very interesting committee to work on. Thank you. Dave. Thank you. So Dave Saladino, I've been in Bullistan probably six years, six or seven years, serve on the development review board for about five of those years. So we're in a couple of other boards and a professional capacity, the Insulting Engineering Corporation Board of Directors and Institute of Transportation Engineers Board, both very thrilling boards to be on. I can vouch for that. So familiar with kind of the board interactions and discussions, background is civil engineer, professional licensed civil engineer. And probably the most germane piece here is moved recently, well, three years ago up to just off of Catamount. So Jeff, I think they were technically neighbors. I live up hill in the Blue House. Okay, okay, yeah. Just off the grounds of Catamount. So in those three years, I've just had lots of opportunity to get out and explore and then reading through the forest management plan and just being able to kind of see how you manage the growth and evolution of woods and forest and kind of watching that evolution, seeing some of the historic photos has been very enlightening, very interesting to just understand very selfishly kind of where I live, kind of what is the history of that piece of land? And it's been very intriguing, very interesting and would love to have an opportunity to give back. I would say I do have quite a lot of other things on my plate, and so I read sounds very well qualified. And so if it's at the end of the day, if it's a toss up, I'd be happy to defer in this instance and look for an opportunity where the next seat opens up. So I just put that out there. I'm still very interested in serving on the board, but if you, you know, if we're equally well qualified, I'm happy to step aside for this. And thank you very much. Questions from the board? I'm gonna ask a similar question to both candidates. Read your application and statement so that you were at the Wunuski Valley Conservation District. What was your position? That was a volunteer position. That's where they send out notices and say, hey, we're planting 700 trees today and you think that's insurmountable, but it's really done well with a lot of people. So I've done some here in Williston, I've done some in other parts of the Wunuski Valley. So that hasn't been on a board position by any means. That was shoveling and planting trees. It's a great thing to do. That's good too. What about the energy task force? Energy task force, I was one of the members, Brian, I think is left, Brian Forrest and he left the room, but we put together that all plan with the Chittenden County Planning Commission went through all of the, what the permutations of that of putting together a energy plan that meant state standards. It was, that was a real challenge. I think it was a lot of learning that went on there because we were taking that from the ground up in a town that didn't have an energy committee prior. And so a number of us that worked on that worked with professionals from the county, folks who came in. I thought it was a very interesting project. And as I spoke when it was first surfaced earlier, this meeting, I would like to see an energy committee and a coordinator go forth. David, similar question. Your board experiences, could you describe those and how any skills that you've developed that were honed on those would apply to this position? Surviving long meetings, I think that's what it's one. Finding ways to find interest. I've really enjoyed my time on the Development Review Board. I think it provides an opportunity to weigh in and kind of employ my practice and be able to look at development review, look at engineering plans and help craft the best development that we can for most of it. So that it feels rewarding. And I think it's a really great board. I think the board operates very, it's a well-functioning board. So that has been very good. The other two I serve, I'm currently vice president on both of the boards, the transportation engineers and consulting engineers. And those, we have subcommittees, so it's staffing the subcommittees, it's preparing and reviewing minutes, it's kind of the typical routine activities. And then in my nine to five world as an engineer, a lot of work I do is presenting to boards as we do. Planning studies, so a traffic calming study or a roundabout design or something, we usually typically will go before a select board or planning commission. And so in that role, fairly familiar with kind of the interactions with various boards. Thank you. Okay. This question is for both of you. Don't have a preference, which one goes first. The question is some of the ideas that might be presented to the committee for consideration might be controversial. For instance, allowing dogs at the community forest or horses or maybe limiting one of the current uses. So my question is, is if that were to happen, what would your approach be to deal with that issue? Question makes sense. Yes, it does. And in fact, in reading through, I attended the meeting last month via Zoom. So some of these things were discussed and I understand people with dogs. I'm a dog owner. I like taking through the woods. And some, a lot of people in the town might be interested in that. I hadn't even really considered horses, but certainly there are trails there. Those are things that you have to weigh for what is the greater good of the plan for the town for the Catamount Forest. And really look to you say, are there other opportunities for dog walking, for horse riding and those kinds of things? Or does it make sense? So you really can't just say, I have an opinion today because honestly I don't one way or the other. And it really has to take in public comment, looking at what the plan is for the town that's been written and does it make sense to amend that to say, oh, dogs are allowed but on a leash or horses are allowed during certain times of the year. And you just have to look at all of those options and make a recommendation. It was very well said. You know, I would concur with all of that. I think I would also, you know, check my biases at the door and try not to bring those to the decisions and really try to keep an open mind and try to reach an objective decision as well as possible to the point it was early made, you know, looking at weighing the pros and cons, what are the human and health issues, environmental issues with, you know, droppings that don't get picked up, right, what are the costs versus opportunities to increase, you know, attendance and use of the facility. So I think as objective as possible, I think as an engineer, you know, that's kind of how I like to look at things. So look at kind of what the real pros and cons are. Yeah, okay. And then my next question is, and it isn't necessarily a question more just to feel out how you might approach this. And what it is, is right now you have the Catamount community force that the town owns. And then there is a license agreement with a nonprofit, the Catamount Outdoor Family Center. And I guess my question is, is do you have any thoughts on that sort of a relationship, the license agreement relationship with a nonprofit who is continuing to provide uses of the land that are, I mean historic, I guess is a way to put that. I don't really know where that question is going, but it's, I think it's a very unique aspect of the Catamount community forest and you know, one that unique and important, maybe that's a way to put it. And that's the question. I think it's a very valid way to maintain the recreation, I assume this nonprofit is for the recreational side of using the forest. And it gives a town control, because you have to have a written agreement says what should they do? What shouldn't they do? What are their plans to advance recreation there? But alleviates the town of that management side of it. And it being a nonprofit, I think that's probably for the benefit of the recreation area as opposed to a for-profit. We don't want to turn Catamount into Disney World. And so, it's a great place. I biked not on their trails, but on the road there, the Chittinette Road there and over the hill. And you just see all those kids on those bikes this summer and it's too tremendous to see that activity. And if you've got a well-organized nonprofit group running that and coming to us and saying, oh, but we'd like to change this trail, does that fit into the plan? Well, then that's a good question. But having them make those recommendations, manage that whole recreational piece, I think is a good place for the town to be right now. You see the only piece, and just picking up on the last piece, I think having that feedback mechanism or the loop where the nonprofit, the outdoor center can be providing feedback back to the committee so that the missions stay aligned. And so that the, or ideas that come up during some of the bike classes during the day that they can, or feedback that they're hearing from some of the people who are coming to visit get feedback into the overarching, back to you, back to the town and kind of the overarching management committee so that those can stay in alignment. Okay. And I promise this will be my second to last question before the last one I always get to ask is a couple of times this winter, we walk the road a lot, we walk by your house quite a bit, by the way, nice job with the yard. Thank you. And there were a couple of times where the parking lot was full. In fact, it was so full, people were parking on the road. So my question is, good problem, bad problem? A good problem, because it's probably not all the time. You know, this is like the summer, there was lots of pedestrians, the parking lot had a lot of people in it, but occasionally you see other cars on the road, I think that's other distance bikers who are just parking their car, taking their bike off and maybe riding through Mountain View and other places. If it's something you have to address if it becomes problematic and is occurring so many times, but you can't plan for the maximum parking lot. I think that in a reading through it holds 90 cars. And if you had 110 a couple of days or a few days, that's in my mind acceptable. If you found it happening 30 or 40 or 50 days, you have to readdress how big is our parking lot? Do we limit capacity of attendance, which is probably a bad thing. It's like any other public event. I went to the antique car show in Waterbury, Bar's Field was so crowded this week and thousands and thousands of people just having a good time. And yet most weekends with the flea markets there, it's much less attended. So I think you just have to try and look at it and say, how often does that happen? How much do we have to address it? It's not the kind of road where parking on the edge is going to cause major traffic jams. I would say it is a good problem, but I think it is a problem nonetheless. Seeing some of those, particularly on the race days when people who are unfamiliar with the area have watched out front of my house, they'll park on the side of the road and they'll get out of their car and there's very little room and there's cars flying by. And I've definitely seen many near misses with people darting out between cars and they're tightly packed in. And I think there's an opportunity to potentially look at some overflow parking locations. Several come to mind, but looking at in those cases or if there's a big event or a race that's happening, having some shuttle service or something from a remote location. Certainly on a given day, if there's a few cars, it works and there's not a lot of traffic. But I think on those real peak days, it would be ideal to have some kind of satellite or nearby location where it can park. All right, good, thank you. And then my last question is the conflict of interest question. I assume you heard it before. If there was a conflict of interest, how would you recognize it? What would you do about it? Well, I don't see that have one right now. But just as you raise your question for accusing yourself of the voting on these appointments, it's something that you certainly, being on a committee, you have to be aware of. If something came up and I was financially involved with a proposal for there or even became involved with the non-profit that's running there, I would have to address that with the committee. Good, thank you. And yeah, similar. And being on the development review board, being an engineer, those conflicts do come up. So I'm fairly comfortable with that, with accusing myself and would be happy to do that if that came up on this board. Good, perfect, thank you. Any further questions from the board? I have a question, Jack. So as you were on the committee and you have a really well put together plan that's been adopted by the town and the ownership and everything. And Reed, where do you see the committee going? What are its next steps? What is it looking to do? So why should I join? What is the challenge that I would be faced with? Boy, great question, Danielle. Can you help? Danielle's also on the committee. That's a great question because it's still relatively new. So I think in a sense we are still filling our way. But we have some of the major pieces behind us, the plan, Ethan Trapper and coming up with a forest management plan. So hopefully we're starting to get into more of a status quo and we can start to address some of them, more nuanced type questions, such as maintenance of the parking area and what's the town role in that and that type of thing. But Danielle, you've been on a little bit longer than I joined. I'm not the original select board member who was appointed to it. So I would love to hear your thoughts. That's a great question. We have, I feel like we found an overarching plan and now we can't figure out how to actually achieve it. We're still trying to figure out how to take care of the amazing teachings that we know are there, but how are we going to get to that point? Are we going to get that over and then we'll be able to do it to learn everything? We're going to need you right now. That's a letter. That's, yeah, and reading through the forest plan, I did notice that and I listened to Ethan last month about that invasive species. That didn't even occur to me. You know, it's a forest. And suddenly you recognize there are things to be done. So thank you. Sure. Any further questions of us from the candidates? If not, then we'll revisit the appointment. In our next meeting in September. And thanks both of you for coming tonight and being able to serve on this great committee. Thanks, John. Thank you very much. Thank you. So now we're moving on to the Animal Trapping Policy discussion. And this is something that we started quite some time ago to discuss. And tonight is the first of a couple of meetings that we'll be having to get some more information from various places that are having an interest in this. And tonight we'll be dealing with the representative from the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife. But before we do that, I'll ask Eric to lead us into where we're at tonight. Thanks, Terry. And you hit some of my points here in your brief introduction here. Just a reminder for folks watching at home as well. And in the room, the select board started had an initial discussion on this topic last winter. There was a petition from community members asking the town to consider a band on trapping on town property. And as a per Vermont law, a landowner has discretion whether to allow trapping to occur on their property. And the town's never considered what, if any, trapping to allow on public lands as the property owner situation. And currently a conservation planner receives a couple of phone calls a year asking about trapping. There's a number of instances for trapping to consider including sport wildlife management. So we have Kim Royer here tonight for presentation. She's a wildlife biologist from the state of Vermont. And as Terry mentioned, a couple of other groups have contacted the town to speak to the board on this topic. And staff would look for any additional information questions the board has tonight to help prepare for those other discussions at future meetings here. So I think I'm all set. Can we get you connected here? Please look right up to the table here with the microphone. I think I'm just gonna get you on the water. And that does not broadcast sound to us. So if you just speak loud, you can demand and speak. Okay, terrific. Is there a, is there any person? I'll see if I can get it to stop. Should I? Yeah, I'll let you try. This is great, I'll just offer you this. Oh, yes. Yeah, brave new world. Thank you, I can get through it if I can. Can you see that too? I did, I'm, it's still looking on, I hope. What I'll do is I'll make you a panelist and you'll be able to just share your screen then it will come up on that screen for the board and for folks watching. Okay, great. If all goes according to plan. Oh, I have to enter my email. I think we did it. I see you, all right. So it'll be a panelist. Okay, so I can now, let me just, it's gonna ask you if you wanna become a panelist. Oh, it is, it's out, now it says rejoining, okay. Yep, now you're coming as a panelist. Do I need to start the video? Nope. Thank you. Thank you. You wanna, I'll move into my office with me. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you, I apologize for the delay, but appreciate you inviting me to speak and I'll speak rather quickly cause this is a pretty nuanced topic that's hard to do in short sound bites as you'll see. And I really found your topic really interesting that you were just talking about and I'll sort of get into that a little bit. So let me just put this on, there we go, I'll put it on, there we go. Okay. So I just usually start with the department mission, which is the conservation of fish wildlife plants and their habitats for the people of Vermont. And the reason why I start with this is because this is what motivates us. This is what motivates our staff. This is what's motivated me for almost 40 years and why I'm still doing what I do because it's important to me that my grandchildren have access to the same species and forests that I've been lucky enough to have at my disposal here in Vermont. But a lot of people think of the conservation of fish wildlife and plants and their habitats as the iconic species like bear and deer and bobcat. But there's really over 25,000 species that we're responsible for, which is a daunting task and something that goes from, like I said, the iconic wildlife species, but invertebrates, all the invertebrates, natural communities, plants and the habitats for all of those species that depend on those. So we do a lot of habitat work rather than specific species type work because that's how you protect the species is by protecting the stage. But unique to North America, who owns wildlife? We do. You folks, our public owns wildlife. And as you most, as you probably know, in Europe, that's not the case, the landowner owns wildlife. And it's very important, I mean, we're the trustees, the Fish and Wildlife Department, our board, are the trustees of these species and we're responsible for managing sustainable populations for future generations. And again, like I said, we take that task very seriously. What we have found and what I can say after 40 years of doing this is that people tend to really love wildlife until that bear is on their back porch, the skunks under their deck, the woodchucks in their garden, the mooses cutting, breaking down the sap lines, the beavers flooding their driveway and then they want somebody to take care of it. And our goal is not only to maintain populations into the future, but to maintain public support for wildlife into the future. Because without that public support, we can't really protect the habitat. So why would a conservation organization whose role is to protect wildlife species and conserve wildlife species for future generations still support regulated trapping? And there's more reasons than the ones I'm going to go through here, but these are really the sort of the management driving reasons. And the first one is that population management, and I don't want to overstate this one, not every wildlife population has to be managed, but there are some that benefit from management and some that actually benefit from localized management and beaver and muskrat are two that I can think of off the top of my head. Habitat protection, this is particularly the true in places like along the coast of Louisiana and even up now in Chesapeake Bay, where Nutria, an introduced species, has basically eaten out all the wetlands along the coast and created real increased problems when there's hurricanes and tropical storms that hit the coast because those wetlands have been decimated by Nutria. And so actually the only thing that we have found to help control that population is trapping. Other things have been tried, but that's the only thing that works. Reducing human wildlife conflict, that's certainly something that we usually try non-invasive methods first. In fact, we almost always do, but they don't always work. And so this is one tool that we have for dealing with a coyote that's either become habituated and is starting to attack domestic dogs, which happens quite regularly in other states, Massachusetts. I just got some emails in the last few weeks from them that they basically have a dog attack almost on a daily basis and they don't have trapping. So they have no tool for dealing with that. So often those coyotes, you know, there's no way to control those coyotes in these suburban areas. Firearm discharge is not allowed there. So being able to get at the offending animal is pretty critical. Protection of endangered species, our non-game program actually hires trappers to, this is a spiny softshell turtle, the non-game program actually hires trappers to control raccoon fox populations that are decimating turtle nests along Lake Champlain. Reintroduction of threatened and endangered species, we have hired trappers many times to help us reintroduce the fisher, was reintroduced from Maine. We purchased fisher from trappers in Maine. The American Martin was reintroduced in 89, 90 and 91. I was part of that reintroduction effort and we purchased martins from Maine and New York and released 118 of them into the Southern Green Mountain National Forest, which actually I thought was a failure, but recently have found out that it's, we at least have a reproducing population. Beaver were trapped, live-trapped in the 1920s and 30s, and then brought into Vermont to reestablish that population. So an important tool for that as well. And research and monitoring, we've had a few studies. We did a coyote study in the 1980s where trappers helped us to trap coyotes with foothold traps, same traps that they continue to use today, only more improved. And trappers actually helped us on a bobcat study in this region in the Champlain Valley in the 2000s. Trappers actually captured cats with both box traps and with foothold traps. And then we collared them and followed them around for four months to determine critical habitats. So a lot of people, as are we, are concerned about the impacts that trapping could have on endangered species. And none of the animals, I think it's really important to state that none of the animals that have a legal trapping season right now are at risk at all. In fact, many of them are more common than they were 100 years ago. Fisher, obviously beaver, coyote, opossum, most of those species were almost extirpated. Of course, coyote didn't come in until the 40s and 50s anyway. But, and some are more abundant than they were prior to European settlement. Bobcat, probably the red fox, raccoon, those species that can deal with human changes and to the landscape are doing very well. We actually worked with trappers to rewrite laws up in the Northeast Kingdom when we had a surge in the lynx population to try to minimize the potential for take of lynx. And they also can be our eyes and ears on the ground. That Martin reintroduction that I told you about, we thought had failed until a trapper who was Fisher trapping in the Southern Greens saw Martin tracks. And instead of putting out a trap, put up a camera and he sent us this video. And this actually, we actually started to put out camera boxes down there. We've had camera boxes out. We just included several studies with Southern Connecticut State University to try to determine occupancy of Martin in the Southern Greens and have found core habitats for Martin. So we would not have probably known this without at least not at this point in time without that information. Animal welfare I think is the biggest concern for most people as it is and has been for wildlife biologists for decades. And so about 20 years ago, we began this process called developing the best management practices for trapping. And it was, it's actually an international process based on international standards that were developed by Canada, Russia and the European Union. And this is probably the largest trap testing study that's ever gone on in the United States. 41 states participated including Vermont for 10 years. We had trapper teams, a trapper and a field observer who was to make sure that the trapper followed the protocols, took the notes, we sent the notes into a centralized location. And the point was to develop traps that were better than the traps that a lot of people think about. I mean, the old tooth trap that's banned in Vermont has been for decades. So the point of these were develop these best management practices. This is the one for beaver. So there's one for every species. And we were looking at animal welfare primarily. We wanted them to meet certain standards for animal welfare, but also efficiency, selectivity, practicability and safety. And the goal was to create different types of trap designs. They look similar to the old design but they often have padded jaws or laminated jaws or offset jaws that make them meet these animal welfare standards. They have swivels, they have pan tensions that help meet selectivity requirements. So there's just pages of information about what types of traps pass. And we're working on converting trappers through education of both the trappers and the manufacturers. So manufacturers are starting to create these type of trapping systems. Selectivity is also a concern from a lot of people as it is for us. We don't want threatened and endangered species being caught in these traps. And as part of this study and we try to base our information on science. It's always not perfect science but we try to base it on the best science that we have. And this is the best science that we have. And in a quarter of a million trap sets on this trapping study, no threatened or endangered species were captured. New Hampshire actually was part of this process and they trapped, they tested beaver traps and the traps were checked 544 times. They captured mostly beaver but also three muskrat and one raccoon. So really very high selectivity. And in Louisiana where they were trapping for nutria, they trapped 957 nutria and four raccoons, one opossum and unfortunately four rabbits, three birds and one domestic dog who was released unharmed. So there was some incidental take there but very, very low compared to the numbers of trap nights that were out there. Human and pet safety, again, a concern for everybody. New trappers must take trapper education in Vermont, it's a requirement. During this trap testing study, no dogs or cats were caught 99.95% of the time and that's after a quarter of a million trap checks. Those that were were all released unharmed except for two feral cats. And trapping is highly regulated. There's upwards of 42 different regulations that address trapping. And so there are people that don't follow those regulations. I think you had an incident here in town. We have wardens who try to take care of those situations. Many of the cases where we have problems, it's with people who are, have not been through trapper education, don't have a license, they're not trappers. They're people who are using these tools in ways that they're not supposed to be used. So just quickly, I'm gonna go with case study that this was done in Massachusetts. Some well-meaning people wanted to ban trapping in Massachusetts back in the 1990s. In Massachusetts, they have referendums. This was called question one. Prior to question one, Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife managed their wildlife populations through education similar to every other state agency, research and regulated seasons and in some cases, back limits. They were harvesting anywhere from eight to 10% of their beaver on an annual basis which was maintaining their population between about 25 and 30,000 beaver which was about where they wanted it. And they were collecting data on these harvested animals on an annual basis. Question one passed, which banned foothold traps, body gripping traps and allowed the use of cage traps. I will say that the trap in the middle there is a fairly dangerous trap. If you caught your arm in that, you could break your arm. I know one trap where that actually got hit in the face with it and it almost took his nose off. So you're making a trade off there and actually the body gripping mousetrap was also maintained legal. So prior to question one, they were harvesting about 1,100 beaver and the first year after the ban, they harvested 98. Resulted in an increasing population and along with that increasing population. So by about 1999, they had about 50,000 beaver and by 2001, they had about 70,000 beaver. Their population had basically doubled and along with the increase in the population, the complaints from the public went up as well. And in response, the legislature gave the authority to the municipalities to give out permits to trap after the damage that actually occurred. So if you had flooding and you had tried to address that flooding through other means and you couldn't, you could apply it to the municipality for a permit to trap beaver using the outlawed body gripping trap. And you can see from this graph, by 2005 and 2006, more beaver were being taken with the outlawed body gripping trap and through this permitting system then we're being taken through the regulated trapping season. And a lot of these were being taken out of season and being wasted. So although people were hoping to minimize harvest of animals through trapping, it actually resulted in just the opposite and they basically continued to trap beaver with the trap that had been outlawed. So after 1996, more beaver, instead of being used as a valuable resource, they were taken as nuisance animals, which is something that we really are concerned about. We don't want people thinking of these animals as nuisance animals. They're valuable animals. Beaver create their keystone species. They create really critical habitat with the wetlands that they create. And we want people to value those animals and they don't value them after they start to become a problem. So 76% of the beaver are being taken under this emergency permit. Almost all of them with the outlawed got body gripping trap. Most of those are 54% are taken outside the regular season, which means they're not being utilized in general. Again, almost all of them with the body gripping trap. And what saddens me the most is that the municipalities can also give out permits or I'm not even sure that the landowner needs a permit to destroy the dam. And so many of these valuable wetland habitats are being eliminated because there's no alternative to living with the wetland. And they certainly have a beaver battle program, but it just can't work in every place. So they lost this valuable wildlife management tool. They can't access the data anymore. There's no requirement that municipalities actually turn in any information about how many permits they give out because it would be a burden on the municipalities, obviously. So there's no centralized location for data, high costs to the town and the public towns now have to pay to take care of the beaver. Trappers are charging upwards of $300 for beaver to trap the beaver because they're often being taken out of season. And so the costs to towns are anywhere from $4,000 to $21,000 on an annual basis. Loss of wetlands, increase in illegal activity by both the landowner and trappers, and that the band trap is actually permissible when human safety is at risk. The carcass is wasted. And so the fur harvester can't use the band trap, but it can be used in nuisance situations. So the access to the meat and the pelter are basically gone in many cases. So we actually have a beaver management program here that includes the installation of beaver baffles. We have a, for 20 years, I've had a technician, we put installed upwards of 300 beaver baffles where we work with landowners with towns to put these in to lower the water level so that landowners can live or town road, town road foremen can live with the wetland at a lower level. And it works quite well, although it doesn't work 100% of the time. It probably works about 60% of the time. And there are just cases where managing that population, that beaver population in those wetlands has to be part of the solution. It just has to be because the baffle doesn't always work. Some of these beaver are smarter than we are. So we have to employ something besides just the non-invasive techniques. So the critical thing here is that, and listening to your conversation before, we grappled with the same things you were talking about. We're responsible for serving all publics. So everybody from birdwatchers to landowners, to hunters and trappers, to people who like to hike, to people who like to canoe. And that's a challenge for people in your position and people in our position because it's how do you take that pie and cut it up equally so that everybody has access to the resources that they care about and that they have interest in. And hunters and trappers have been having access to these resources for generations. And really what it's about is figuring out how to share with everybody else. And our responsibility is to make sure that we don't take so many animals that other people who want to know they're out there for just intrinsic reasons or wanna be able to see them on the landscape or see sign of them to make sure that they still can have access to those animals. And so that's the juggling act that we go through. It sounds like it's the juggling act that you will be going through on the lands that you're responsible for in town. It's very similar. So we've tried to get people to work together on the real threats to wildlife habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, which is a big one and how to address these human wildlife conflicts as we find people moving further and further into these wildlife habitat areas. And we're gonna have more and more conflicts going forward. So we try to build bridges as much as we can. It's very challenging, especially challenging with social media because these kinds of discussion, these kinds of things require in-depth discussion and not just sound bites. And polarizing people is a real, I think it's a real concern and real threat to the future of conservation when these people get polarized. We all have an impact on wildlife. Whether we have an outdoor cat, whether we drive a car, whether we live in a house, whether we wear a cotton, we all have an impact on wildlife. And working together to try to minimize those impacts, I think is really where we need to go in the future. So I leave you with a quote from Aldo Lea Poll. My sort of guiding compass is that anything that gets people outside and connected to the outer doors, I think has benefits to wildlife as long as we're not doing something that impacts them in the long term. And that's our bottom line is what's in the best interest of this resource and what does science say is in the best interest of this resource? And that's how we try to make our decisions. And we change as science changes. So thank you very much. I really appreciate the time. Thank you, Kim. I'm sure there's other questions to be asked, but talk a little bit about the trapping laws in Vermont. And my understanding that we are not able to ban or outlaw trapping in general in the town. That's my understanding as well. And so legal trapping then can continue to happen. What are the, maybe you've covered already, but what are the most common animals that are trapped in Vermont? Beaver, probably muskrat, raccoon, box. I would say those are probably the top four. Is that for the pelts? Yeah, yes. And a lot of people eat beaver or use it for, use the castor glands. They may actually use the meat for other things like to feed their dogs. We've actually used beaver to feed Martin. There are wild game dinners around the state that serve a variety of things. Right. Other questions from, are there still a market for pelts? There's a market. It's pretty low right now. And COVID pretty much knocked the heck out of the Canadian market just because they were social distancing. They basically closed, as far as I know, they closed the ability to go up there and sell. So for the last couple of years, it's been pretty low. And I'm not asking for specific line by line, how, what is the regulation for trapping and getting a trapping license? Let me ask more specifically and then ask you to go general. Is it legal to trap without a license in the state of Vermont? No. Are there exceptions for ages or anything like that? Yes, there's an exception for the age. I actually would have to look up what that age is. Like if you're younger than a certain age, you don't need, yeah. Okay, is that, does that mean that people who are younger than a certain age don't have to go through the process, the educational process to get a permit or to get a license? Wait, you know, I'd have to check on that and be sure. I don't want to give you the wrong answer. So I will look that up. If you could. Okay, and then what is required to get a license? Excuse me? What is required to get a license or a driver's license? You have to pass a written test and do an exam, a driver's test. Yeah, you have to take a course, a Trapper Ed course, a Trapper Education course, and then take a test and pass the test. And the education course, I mean, does it cover a lot of the stuff that you're at your thing tonight? It covers, there's a whole book of, with a variety of chapters on, you know, there's BMP chapters, there's chapters on safety, there's chapters on ethics and landowner, you know, some of the laws and how you behave, there's chapters on actually how to do it. There's often a field portion of it. Prior to COVID, there was generally some kind of field portion with it where you would go out and have some hands on work. So it's about a six or eight hour course usually. And I, as you can probably tell from how I'm dressed, I'm no lawyer and I came right from work. But I actually don't have a private practice anymore but I did for a very long time and I actually did Fish and Wildlife Criminal Defense. Wow. So I know that taking big game out of season is a crime. I know that transporting big game out of season is a crime. Are there criminal penalties associated with illegally trapping or is it just a civil fine? Oh, see again, like I would have to ask for warden. You might know better than me what's criminal versus civil. My clients were all deer jaggers, so. Oh, they were all what? Deer jaggers. Oh, they were, oh, okay. Yeah, which I think is a unique Vermont term, I gotta say. Yeah, yeah. That, most of these people didn't have driveways, they had door yards. The colonel asked me if a warden should come and I said, I don't think so but I probably should have had one here. They are the ones that really, they know the laws. And I, well, I do know that wardens take their jobs very seriously. They do, yeah. Okay, and actually the, are there, do you know of any towns in the state of Vermont that have banned trapping on town land? I know that the town of, the next town down is Richmond. Richmond. I think they're grappling with the same thing. I don't know what they ended up deciding to do. There are towns that around here that are still allowing it, but I don't know who has banned it at this point. Hey, my questions are gonna focus on some comments we've received about trapping, mostly from folks who are not in favor of the town allowing trapping. One is the pain it causes to the animals. One is the, that it whatever captures non-targeted species. I know you addressed that a little bit. I'm curious how that data, you believe it applies to Vermont. And then the third is alternative methods. Are there alternative methods to controlling, I guess, nuisance animals as opposed to trapping? So I'm hoping you can address all three of those. Okay, I'll give it a shot. Okay, thank you. So the first one was, just go back. Pain. The pain, yeah. And that's really a difficult thing to measure. The goal of the best management practices was to try to minimize pain and suffering. The foothold trap is a trap that holds the foot, not the leg, but the foot. And with the lamination and or the offset jaw, which is like a gap in the jaws or padded. The hope is that there is less if any pain and suffering. I mean, I have put my hand in a trap with a glove on, a leather glove, and it's not comfortable. I wouldn't wanna spend a lot of time in it, but it's not for a foot like a dog or a bobcat. It's hard for me to say, I don't know, but those were the standards that were developed by the international committee. And those were the standards that we had those animals necropsy by veterinarians and they were blind necropsy. We sent the animals that had been tested to centralized areas where they did blind necropsy to determine lacerations, to determine any broken bones, any chewing and the traps that passed were the traps that had a minimal amount of those kinds of things. So that's the science behind it and that's the best that I know for in terms of animal welfare. Those traps, the foothold traps are designed to be holding devices. And you can't capture a canid like a coyote easily if at all in a box trap or any other trap. So that's why I was referring to Massachusetts where they have these situations where they've actually had people being bitten by coyotes in suburban areas where they've become habituated and they can't discharge firearms and they can't use traps. And so they have no way of really dealing with these animals that are habituated and not afraid of people anymore. So that's the animal welfare question. The second one was? Well, I think you hit two of them because one of them was about are there alternatives? And what I just heard you say, if you don't mind me repeating it back to you is that in some cases, no, there aren't. In some cases, there very well might be, but in some cases, no. And then the third one was a trapping of non-targeted species. And I will say that by alternatives, there are alternatives to if you have a coyote, if you're trying to protect your sheep from coyote predation, there are husbandry practices that you can implement that will minimize the chances. There's dogs, there's fencing, all sorts of things that you can try. And we recommend all of those things before we recommend that somebody actually try to eliminate the animal. But if the animal figures out that sheep are easy pickings, you're not probably gonna change that behavior. And then your only alternative is probably gonna be to remove that animal. So there's alternatives almost all the time to the removal of the animal through any means, trapping or hunting or whatever. But if those alternatives are exhausted and then there's nothing else you can do in my opinion. So yeah, so I think it's important to stress that alternatives exist, but they're not 100% effective. And the last one, I'm sorry, the last one again. Targeting, trapping, target's not, yes. Yes, and so we participated in that national research. We tested traps for coyotes in Vermont. We tested traps for fisher in Vermont for upwards of 10 years, I believe. And I don't think that there was any incidence of mortality to domestic animals through our, I'd have to go back and look specifically at that data, but I don't think so. We've also done a veterinary survey. We sent out surveys to all the vets in Vermont. And what we got back, we've done it twice now. We repeated it, I think maybe 20 years ago and in the last five years. And over about 315,000 trap nights, we've had an average of about six animals, six domestic dogs or cats trapped per year. So it happens, not always by people who are trapping legally or using the kind of devices that they should be using, but it does happen. Okay. And also capturing whatever trapping, not domestic, but non-domestic, but not targeted animals, is that a fair question? Sure, it's a fair question. And as with everything, I would never say never. It happens, I think it's at relatively low amounts because that's not the interest of the trapper either and they can set their trap, they can set the pan tension in the trap to try to minimize the take of raptors or birds or things like that. If they're targeting a heavier animal, they set the pan tension so that it takes a lot more pressure to push that pan down. And that's the goal, that's how you get selectivity. It's by where you set the trap and how you set that pan tension. Okay. And this is just a comment is one of the incidences that led to there being opposition to trapping in Williston was a particularly gruesome one where I don't know the details, but my recollection is the animal died and apparently died in a very unhumane manner. Yeah, and that is inappropriate. That shouldn't happen. It shouldn't have to happen and it shouldn't happen. And we would not support that kind of use of these devices. I'm not sure, the details would be helpful to know, but I'm not suggesting you tell me here, but it's hard for me to comment on it, but our goal is to educate these people to do this in as humane a way as possible and as responsible a way as possible and as ethical a way as possible to make sure that these animals don't suffer. That's the goal. Okay, good, thank you. Sure. So I've had two requests for people to publicly comment regarding the issue tonight, but before we go on to that, are there anyone in the audience who has any specific questions for Kim? Yes, please identify yourself. Take your mask off so we can hear you. Jason too, okay, and I just want to know, how much suffering is it tolerable? And it just seems like we can allow a little bit, of course, as we get bound, it can be the extreme. There is nobody in the woods to look at and suffer, and this was just that opportunity that my neighbor had to witness it. Is it the only time that happened? That would be foolish to think so. How much suffering? And we're not talking about private land, there's no, this is town land, this is my land, it's your land. I can't tolerate any non-ducer, and there are alternatives. And one of the major ones that wasn't even brought up is how we design development. Like I lived in old stages states, it was way too close to the neighbor habitat. So we can eliminate nuisance animals by not putting humans in the opportunity that they are infringing on the natural habitat. In that time, I lived there, there were less feeders, because every time it started again, the baby was left. And there is no humane way, there's no way to minimize suffering, and if you have a shirt or something animal. And a lot of information was presented about like a world in numbers, imagine how numbers were just, we should, we should stick to our town, this is our land. If you've got an animal that can deal with it, this is what the population that is comfortable for, is like for the same. I mean, say I have to even be here to just express the incredible anguish that I have knowing that there could be animals I don't want to vet in a trap. And there wasn't even mentioning it at the same time. Put yourself in a trap and have other parts of your pack or if you have family disputes, generally aren't loner animals. If the population is not acceptable, if you think about it in two different ways, it's a little bit, it's a frame, okay? So you just get a pet when there is a label, okay, we're going to tell her to get this much doctor. And then this time it's probably any thought frame that we can normally see this effect being. And so thanks for looking for questions for Kim to her expertise. We'll have a chance at another meeting to talk about. Well then the question is, does it lie down? In some cases it might. We actually, the only thing I can tell you is with the Bobcat study that we did and the Kite study that we did in the 80s and the 2000s, we use the foothold trap, the same trap that trappers use today, only actually, well, we use BMP traps for the Bobcat study. And we came the next day and they have to be checked on a daily basis. Trappers have to do that as well. We then put a collar around these animals and followed them for up to three to four months after they had been held in the foothold trap overnight. We got a lot of information about the habitats that they used. I think we might have had some cats in Williston that we followed around. And we did not see any evidence of disruption in the way they moved across the landscape or I can't speak to psychological impacts. That's just not a science that we have a lot of information. But I appreciate your concern and we have similar concerns and that's why we put our efforts into trying to improve the systems so that it minimizes. These tools are used across the country for research. And for reintroductions, we use the same foothold trap that trappers use to trap otter and reintroduce them into Missouri. And they seemingly were released and lived a happy life in Missouri after they were trapped with a foothold trap. I mean, that's the best I know I don't have. It doesn't sound like that, though. Again, we should stick to Williston in the town of Atlanta. And you mentioned the kind of only news company you can do. Well, when we talk about the canning firearms, it's confusing when we're talking about other places. It'd be nice to talk about what applies to us. And I do know there's darts. I don't think you have to necessarily put a bullet in an animal. You need to get them into a place that's better for all of all. There's live traps, there's darts. There's other means to handle wildlife in respect of their life. And we know how to science in animals. We are a lot. And there's a lot of videos you can search. And he doesn't take a real brand of brain to watch animals spot and trap being highly stressed. I do appreciate your comment about respect because I think that's critical is that everybody is one of the things that we talk about. Respecting these animals is critical to whether you're utilizing them for food or whether you're just out enjoying them. Respecting them is really critical. And I think that's, you're exactly correct about that. I'd like to know to go to a few people that have requested a quick question. Yeah. So you're just asking about the animal spot. So I'm wondering when we look around the church land, is that built in the church land used to be wild? So do you talk to the town about maybe not building the much and saving some of that? I mean, you talked about somebody and yet all of our land is being built and it's forcing these animals into other nations. So do you ever give comment to the town about what we've been doing and how we shouldn't be building the much and saving land for the animals? Yeah, thank you for that question. Yeah, if they ask us, we're there. We actually have a person who's dedicated to meeting with towns and working with them on your town plans. We have booklets on how to incorporate zoning language into your town plan. We have a lot of materials that are available to towns who want to look at, we look at the big picture and how to sort of manage development to try to minimize the impact on animals. I think you actually have to go down that path. Well, and then I have to in particular, but we, our police department, take a camera, shoot a gun off and a gun off right here. And from my understanding too, I didn't document the work. This trapper filmed this animal trapped. You posted it on YouTube or wherever. And actually, another trapper was so offended by the video that we kind of expected it to work. So when you talk about it not being a painful experience, maybe you shouldn't look at that video. I didn't desire it to, but if another trapper calls out another trapper, it must have been pretty painful. Yeah, and I don't want to suggest that there can't be situations where it is in human. And it sounds like this case was, I think there's ways to do it. And that's what's taught in our trapper education courses. I think there's ways to do it that minimizes that. And then we're counting on the person to whom we are. And they're not all we're going to do. And I agree with this one here. I think we're not talking about banning, trapping. We're talking about protecting our townland. We are all owners of this town. And I think when I talk to everyone, he has said that that person that's called up and said he's trying to put a trap on the townland. I think the townland is setting up if I understand the words of your mouth. But I believe that's kind of what you've said. So I think it's not unreasonable to say we respect the animal population. It is being pushed out of all their areas and to not allow this type of trap or trapping. I can see if the town has an issue with beavers or whatever, we may have to do something but to allow trapping for the general population on our own property. I think we could do that. Yeah, and I appreciate you saying that not everybody, as with most of our laws, there's people who don't follow them. And that's the role of our law enforcement folks to make sure that people are out there doing the right thing. And do people slip through the tracks? Clearly it sounds like this person didn't, but he got caught. And I'm thankful that he got caught. I didn't have to have to get it. They didn't force you to get it. We're getting into too much discussion at this point. Sorry, I saw a hand back here. A question? Okay, okay. So I'm going to move on then to the two folks who asked for a public comment. New McCullough, would you like to come up to the microphone over here? I've limited to this no more than five minutes. Thank you, Slipboard and town manager for your service, your time, your effort on this and all topics that fill your, feel not just your meeting time here, but your waking hours the other six days. And some of your not waking hours, I'm sure. I want to thank Kim Royer for coming and for the Department of Fish and Wildlife's work, managing their mission, which as I understood him to say, was managing the wildlife and the habitat for the people of the state of Vermont and for the habitat itself and for the animals themselves. And they worked very, very hard at that. We got a lot of information tonight from Kim about stuff with data from around the country and around the world and the Department uses data and uses science and I understand that. And I'm not here to debate what Kim has said today this evening, but only to suggest to you that the management of the wildlife that was mentioned tonight, coyotes could bite people. That's a scare tactic, excuse me, and it is really out of the realm of this discussion, I believe. And further, Kim Royer and others in the Department have said in my committee, now I've been Fish, Wildlife, Natural Resources for 17 years so far and I have never heard that from the Department that trapping coyote would protect people. In fact, trapping coyote and shooting coyote only increases their populations because they are very clever and they know what they're doing and that's a testimony we've actually gotten multiple times through the years. And why are we having to manage beaver and muskrat? Again, in all those years, in my Fish and Wildlife experience, the Department has never mentioned that we're being overrun by beaver and muskrat and that the habitat is getting ruined and we need to control that much less extolling the virtue of trapping. The data that, we've got lots of data tonight and I'll just leave you with this thought about data. And first, let me say, I think Williston, Williston's residence, a pretty good cross-section of the state of Vermont. That's just an assumption. The University of Vermont did a survey of Vermonters about trapping. 75% responded to the University of Vermont survey saying we don't want trapping. The very data-oriented Department of Fish and Wildlife disallowed that survey, it was somehow flawed. I'll just leave you with that thought. I thank you for your time. But, Gemma, are you saying that Fish and Wildlife is biased? I did not say that. Well, you said that they tried to scare us and you said they dismissed a poll. So I'm wondering if that's not your point, what is your point? My point is that they are biased, I did not say that. They are biased. They are. They are. And they are biased toward an ever shrinking population in Vermont that traps. Okay. And I would not have said that, really. You implied it. But I'm responding to your specific question. The reason I'm asking that question is, and I'm sorry that I'm getting upset, but I know that this is a heated topic for people. What I don't like is the stuff that happens in national politics where you say, I'm just asking questions. But the questions imply that somebody's biased. You have had the honor to admit that that was the implication that you were making. But I don't enjoy this kind of thing. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Gemma. Moving on to the person who's here on the line. Two folks on online, Terry, of Brena from Protect Our Wildlife, Peggy Larson, and Lynn in the room. To go to someone online. Next. I'll go to Brena from Protect Our Wildlife. Brena, I'm gonna actually be able to share your audio just a moment. Hi, Brena, can you hear me? Hi, Eric, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yep. You're on with the select board. Up to five minutes. Yes, I timed myself out of consideration and respect for your limited availability tonight. So I just, I do wanna thank you for the opportunity to, for me to provide a brief public comment and it is under five minutes on behalf of our Williston members concerning the petition to prohibit trapping on town-owned land. We are, to no surprise, very much in support of the petition because it'll prohibit the use of steel-jawed leg hold and body-gripping conurbair kill traps, thereby making it safer for not only wildlife but also people's pets. I do look forward to the opportunity to present a different perspective from Vermont Fish and Wildlife Set a Future Meeting where our Williston members can attend. It is important to mention that state fish and wildlife agencies across the country are tasked with promoting trapping. So a different perspective, such as ours, will hopefully help the select board make an even more informed decision. So I just wanna talk briefly about Massachusetts because we view the Massachusetts trapping ban as being a huge success. And the people that I speak with quite frequently from Massachusetts are very proud to be in a state that embraces 21st century wildlife management solutions and also elevated ethics. Unfortunately, we hear a lot of scare tactics shared by pro trapping advocates about the Massachusetts ban. But the trapping ban has been a resounding success. We're looking at countless bobcats and river otters and gray fox and other wildlife who are no longer recreationally trapped. This means greater biodiversity, less non-targeted animals like bald eagles getting trapped and also a more targeted trapping approach where only those beavers that are causing damage are trapped and killed. But most beavers cause no problems at all and are actually considered a keystone species for their ecological services. And Colorado, Arizona and eight other states have also banned trapping. I wanted to quickly refer to the January 28th memorandum to the select board. And I'm hoping that this might be helpful. So a concern, there was three different concerns that were raised. One concern was that trapping an animal as a nuisance under emergency conditions rather than during a regulated season usually results in less control over the types of devices used. That is not relevant in Vermont. The type of trap would not be limited in those situations here in Vermont that was specific to Massachusetts. Another concern was there'd be a cost to the town. There would likely always be a cost to the town to address an imminent situation that would be handled by a nuisance wildlife trapper. But these cases are rare. And the last concern was that the pelt would be wasted if not trapped during the legal trapping season. Pelts are not used now at all. I mean beaver pelts especially are not selling probably the only pelt that's selling on the market would be coyote pelts and at a very, very low price. Beaver caster can be used year round. So trapping and killing the animal as a quote unquote nuisance out of season that animal would not go to waste. And again, you'd only be killing those beavers who are causing problems, not just randomly killing beavers in the town forest who are causing no problems at all. You'll also hear trapping advocates talk about best management practices, but it's important to remember that those best management practices are merely recommendations and they're not required. And the department has very little knowledge as to who's actually using these BMPs. They're completely voluntary. And I would suspect that the activity that was portrayed by the coyote trapper in Williston was probably legal. I don't have the details on that, but and I say that because in Vermont some trappers use like hold traps that have been remained unchanged for a hundred years. We don't have toothed like hold traps anymore, but a lot of the other traps that are used lamb shut with tremendous force trappers may set unlimited traps and there are no limits on the number of animals that may be trapped. And there are also no requirements as to how an animal must be killed. So common methods of killing a trapped animal are bludgeoning, strangling, drowning. This isn't hyperbole. This is legal methods of killing trapped animals in Vermont and they're used by trappers. So in closing, I hope that no one here who is out recreating is unfortunate enough to come across a terrified animal in pain struggling in a lake hold trap. And here's a great chance to prevent that from happening while still protecting your infrastructure and elevating ethics around recreational uses. Thank you for the time. I do appreciate it. Thank you. I think I saw two hands for sure whether there are questions or comments. Gentleman on the back, you have your hand up before? Oh, yeah. Steve, you should come. You should say to find that there's kind of articulation of the which one lives all management policies across the state in rural towns versus urban, or suburbanizing them. It seems to be the crying media for a creation and articulation policy that recognizes the rural or urban character of the town in which the animals are living. Grant, do we have? I didn't mention it, but... Yeah, I don't interpret policies for towns. Policies related to traffic or policy related to wildlife or these kinds of things? Well, I'm not including the food traffic. Well, actually, a good portion of Vermont is still pretty rural. So we still look at most of Vermont as being a rural state. We don't have the problems that Massachusetts have yet, at this point, in terms of human wildlife conflicts, the cryo-human issues that they had in Massachusetts. What are my questions directly at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife? I guess I don't understand your question. Do you think that preserving the habitat in Wisconsin is the same level of protection as staff? Oh, you're asking me in terms of habitat. Yeah, sure, there's... How did that happen? We have developed something called Vermont Conservation Design. It's a map that identifies large forest blocks of rural habitat that if we want to maintain wildlife for any of the future, we need to maintain those large forest blocks and the connected corridors that keep them linked together from the northern part of the state to the southern part of the state. So fragmented habitats are not going to come out as high on that map in terms of things that really need to be protected for future wildlife sustainability as those large forest blocks, the Green Mountain National Forest, are key areas and then spreading out from there. So certainly, yes, there's a difference in how you might look at habitat protection in the town of Burlington, the city of Burlington versus the town of Chittenden or something. Right. Yeah, for sure, you're exactly right. That doesn't mean that the people of Chittenden might have an endangered habitat that they want to try to protect for an active community that they want to try to protect. But that's different. Yes, I'm saying that there would be, I think appropriately, we have a follow-up, I guess, greater than the specificity in the development areas where the opportunities for maintaining habitat are close to nil, close to much of the state's rural and the theater of the park. And in the hundreds of thousands of people that are in the community. Perfect, perfect scenarios, and that's where I think could appear as if there needs to be some more articulation of future wildlife policies. Yeah, and I just keep in mind that it's really the towns that make those decisions in most cases. I mean, we have some authority through Action 50, but the towns are making those decisions on where and how they want to develop their families. We have guide documents, we have recommendations, but the towns make those decisions in general. Fish and Violin really makes traffic. Yeah. The towns. Right, but I thought you were talking about habitat. Talking about, well, the animals are needed as well. Well, the corridors are so long, so it's getting in the final period we should be working on. That's very complicated, yeah. I'm not exactly how to do it, but I'll get you one. I think it's worth thinking about. You have a comment, lady in the back? Yep. Okay, I'll get one here, I'll set it. So if you would de-mass so we can hear you. Okay. Okay. Well, then we can go. Okay. We'll talk to you in half to five minutes. Oh, it won't be that long. Hi, I'm Lynn Blevins and I'm the person who read the front porch forum posts about, well, from the person who happened upon the coyote and it really touched my heart. And so I did send a statement out through front porch forum requesting that the town not allow recreational trapping on townland and very quickly that 280 signatures. And I'm sure that we could get more. And I just, I want to be clear that what we're asking for is for the town to not allow permission for recreational trapping on townland. Of course, this doesn't say, we can't say anything about private land or state land. This is only townland and only recreational trapping. So if the town needed to do, take some sort of measure or a demonstrated threat to infrastructure or safety, that's up to the town's discretion. We're asking for a limitation or to eliminate recreational trapping. So the town is growing. As you know, there's more and more of us every day and we have great public town lands. And people are using them more and more, especially since COVID has started. And all the evidence shows that people will continue to use these public lands. People have sort of fallen in love with the great outdoors, which is one of the silver linings of COVID-19. So of course, there's concerns to domestic pets, to children, but also to our mental health if we walk upon these or even if we read a post in Front Porch Forum about one of our neighbors who came upon an animal suffering trap. So I just want to be clear that many of the things that were discussed and I don't really apply to the policy that we're asking for. We're not, there aren't any invasive species to control in Williston that need to be trapped. There's plenty of invasive species. And so I hope that we can keep our discussion in the future focused on the ask, which is to eliminate recreational trapping on townlands. Thanks. Thank you. So we're at the closing point for this discussion tonight. We'll be discussing this further as we progress in the next month or so. And so Kim, thanks very much for coming tonight to share in your knowledge of fish and wildlife. Yes. I appreciate you being here. Well, thank you very much for inviting me and this one last comment you'll bear with me. I want to just say that I consider myself a wildlife advocate, not a trapping advocate and have been for 40 years. And that's been my career. And I care deeply about these animals as deeply as the people in this room do. So I appreciate your time and thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I had one more person who wanted to comment online. Do you want to take a comment or have them submit it? Peggy, I'm going to get you connected just a moment. Do I need the meeting here? The Zoom or Shanya? Yeah, you can leave the Zoom. Lean Zoom? Yeah, it'll keep it going. Thanks for checking. Peggy, you should be connected. You'll seem to unmute. Oh, yes, I've done this before. Okay, we hear you. Welcome, Peggy. Well, hello everybody. And thank you so much for letting me put my two cents worth in here. I've attended a lot of these fish and wildlife board meetings and I never see anybody on there, except people that are hunters, trappers and fishermen. The general public, which makes up about 78% of the non-hunters and the non-trappers is not represented on the board. And I think what I would like to see is I would like to see some changes in the board where the rest of us are represented so that we do have a voice in, you know, establishing some of these protocols. So that's the first thing that came to mind when you asked me to speak. Okay, I'm a veterinarian. My master's degree is in pathology and I'm also a lawyer, Mr. Kennedy. So we're kind of on the same page. And I have seen many animals caught and dogs and cats caught in these traps. The worst one I saw was in the Heinsberg and that poor little cat must have been in there three or four or five days. She was so dehydrated that her eyes were sunken in and the air was, you could pull her air up and it would stay that way. Broken leg, badly infected, terrible pain. I couldn't save her. But anybody who thinks that these animals that are caught in traps don't feel pain isn't using their heads or they're not looking at reality. Trapping is an extremely painful way to catch these animals. And many times the trappers don't check their traps as often as they should. A friend of mine who was also a lawyer lives in Middlebury and he found a big white owl in a trap. And by the time he found it, it was all disintegrated. It had been in that trap for probably a couple of weeks. Nobody had bothered to check the trap. And I think what Ms. Royer was saying is the ideal. And what I hear and what I see are two different things. I think that a lot of these ideals of hers are not being followed out there. So anyway, another thing that is kind of disturbing to me and you can see it on Facebook where these trappers will record their methods of killing these animals. It will catch these animals in a trap and then they'll yell at it or scream at it or something and the way they kill it is with a whopping stick. Instead of taking and shooting that animal and just putting a bullet through its head, they beat it to death. So the animal is terrified. It's in pain from its foot being trapped and then it's beaten to death. There was a trapper in Maine who finally went the other direction with trapping and he confessed to killing 28 cats in a trap. And he said that a lawyer, I'm sorry, Game Warden had suggested to him to kill any cat that's in his trap because if the owners find out about it and take it to a veterinarian, then it will reflect on the trapping industry. So there's a lot of things out there that I could refute that Ms. Royer had said but I'm not gonna keep you folks up all night. And I would just like to say thank you for listening to all of us. And I hope that as you continue to discuss that, you will invite some of us back who have the experience with trapping. And by the way, I used to be a trapper, I used to trap muskrat. Thank you again. Good night. Good night, thank you. Thank you. So thanks again, Kim. Thank you, thanks a lot. I'll leave you some material for me. Can I ask you just one question? It's come up a couple of times, the concept of not checking traps. Is there a requirement or a best management practices that addresses when a trap needs to be checked? A land trap needs to be checked daily, an underwater trap or under ice trap every three days. Okay, thank you. Yes. Kim, do you have two more copies of that booklet? Excuse me. Do you have another copy of that booklet? Oh, yeah. I have two more. Put you there. Good. Thank you. Good luck. If I can offer, if you need anything else, let me know. Thank you. We'll do. I'll try to follow up on some of the questions. Yeah, thank you. If you use email, Eric, with the answers to the questions. Oh, that would be great. Yeah. I hope you can answer any of them. Thank you. And Eric, do you have the PowerPoint? I can. I'll finish here. Okay. Great. Perfect. Thank you. Moving on to the Catamount Community Forest. The Worship Fund, Melinda is going to talk about this and the memo that she prepared for us in the policy and approval procedure. Welcome, Melinda. Hi, thanks for having me. So the Catamount Community Forest Committee has been working on drafting a policy for considering the use of the stewardship fund that the town received in conjunction with the acquisition of the Catamount Community Forest. Some $20,000 of funds raised were put into a stewardship fund for the property. And with the intention of using those funds for either trail stewardship maintenance or other land stewardship activities. So the policy, basically there's a statement that says that it's the intention to maintain at least $10,000 in the fund just for in case of emergency measures like a storm where you have a bunch of blow downs that need to be removed or something like that. But essentially the idea was to put into a place a policy for consideration of how the funds would be used. So I basically put all of the bullet points in the management plan about how the property should be managed generally and with relation to natural resource goals, wildlife habitat, recreation, educational and cultural goals. And just, you know, the policy, this policy intends to take those goals into consideration when deciding how to spend those funds. It also outlines a process by which to award funding to, you know, I guess the Catamount Committee could propose expenditure of the funds for a reason. The Outdoor Center could come up with a proposal. I guess any members of the public come up with a proposal for use of the funds or for some of the funds. And so the policy lists a number of questions to consider with how the, any proposal aligns with the goals of the management plan and the town goals for that property. And just a procedure by which approval could be granted ending with consideration. So kind of like the way there is a policy for the use of the environmental reserve fund and it's sort of modeled after that policy. It's similar in nature. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Any questions for Molyneux? Unless it looks like it works there. But when it goes to the select board, the last say, I'm gonna spend it on the funds. I read this in detail and I have nothing to complain about. This is good, well done. Well, Linda wrote it. The committee had lots of things to do. You were there, but well, good job, it's, yeah. You do want to suggest a motion? Well, before we run in mind, I'll motion is made. I'd move to adopt the catamount community for a stewardship fund priority policy and approval procedures as presented. We're seeing how it'll do as I'll second that. Do I have a motion made and seconded? Is there any discussion on the motion? The discussion I'd like to have is I am both a member of the committee that this vote is on, as well as on the select board. Is there a reason why I should, okay, good, thank you. I didn't have to even finish what I was saying, and they're like, no. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Three ayes has it and we're not thanking Molyneux. Yeah, nice job. I'm moving on to Maynard's report. I'll be really brief. I've got a couple of quick items in addition to my report, Steve. Good update on the ARFA funding. That's the county allocation money was a bit in limbo the last couple of months. And then we found out late in July that that authorization for the additional ARFA funds that would go to the county are going to be passed through municipalities in the state. I don't have an exact number on that yet. So one number that was floated to be earlier this year was upwards of $2 million full of money. So I'll confirm with the board once I have a final number there, but the town may be back to receiving upwards of $3 million through ARFA. We've received our first payment of about half a million dollars earlier or last month rather. So staff will be taking a closer look at the rules and looking to bring it back to the board with preliminary discussion on ARFA funding. Hopefully in the next couple of months or not, we know it's funny. Just a quick question on that. Do you mind, Eric? Do you expect or see or advocate for there being any sort of a public process about how to allocate those dollars? Yeah, VLCT had a webinar. And certainly that's what they advocate for. I second their recommendation. I think it's important to keep in mind, too, that we don't have to make a quick decision on this funding. We have until 2024 to allocate in 2026 to spend. So there's time to take some thoughtful deliberation to it. And there's a lot of rules to keep in mind. So my hope is to outline for the select board what those buckets look like and then run a proposed public process by the select board. And hopefully have that play out outside of our FY23 process to kind of separate the buckets. Perfect. And thank you. The COVID replacement projects off to a good start. Muddy Brook kind of have one more traffic over there, but I've got to inspect it with Bruce when I get a chance. But that's often an underway after a lot of waiting for that project. Well, yours truly ended up at the bridge and going, oh, shoot. On my bike. And then we'll quick notes here. Our fire station work replacement projects getting underway this week. We've gotten our 2020 census data. We're starting to look at it. Statistic I'll share with you this evening. Wilson's population grew 13.9% in the last decade, which is the highest, the greatest growth rate in Chittenden County. We're now over 10,000 people. I believe just around 1,400 residents. So I'll look at the exact numbers for the coordinate coming report. Our local option tax report we just received. At the end of last week, I'll get that to you for your next meeting, but good news. We've exceeded our FY21 budget by about $281,000. Looking at our last quarter, April to June, rooms and meals are starting to go back up. And we had additional option retail sales tax. So ended the year in a good position. And surely we'll relay those numbers that are coming up once we take a further look at it. So I'll have a seat there. Great. You'll give us a copy of that, the final report or not the final report. Will it really report? Yes. Okay. Other business, we have three catering permits to pick up tonight. Yep. So there are three upcoming weddings. The first at the Isham Barn on September 4th, catering by the Great Northern restaurant. It's underpined in Burge LLC. Staff has no objections, taking place on September 4th at the Isham Barn. Looking for a motion. Move we approve. Okay. Discussion on the motion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Next. Next, another wedding at the Isham Barn, being placed on September 18th. It's a 35 C LLC, business has bar anecdote. The Isham Barn against staff has no objections to it. Looking for a motion again. Move we approve. Second. Discussion on all those in favor say aye. Aye. The name of the bar anecdote. Yes, I like that. Yes. They're out of her jams. Yeah. That's her. And the last one, it's another wedding. It's at the, the red barn gardens. It's CBD events LLC, which stands for catering by Dale. And it's a wedding October 2nd. Staff has no objections to this application. I'm sorry, the location again. Red barn further down. Yep. Okay. Actually on staff. Correct. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Looking for a motion. Move we approve. Second. That's right. Discussion on the motion. You did say staff has no objection to the last one. Nope. Okay. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. And that case, chair of the catering permits. Is there any other business tonight? Before we go into the second session, I've not been looking for a motion to go into the next session. Move that we go into executive session premature public knowledge regarding a labor relations agreement would clearly place the town at a substantial disadvantage and further move that we enter executive session to discuss fire union contract negotiations under the provisions of Vermont statutes annotated title one section 313 a 1b and invite fire chief Aaron Colette finance director Shirley Goodell Lakey manager Eric Wells to join your second. I'll second discussion on the motion. If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. And we're in executive session and we'll get downstairs.