 the Tuesday, February 16th, 2021, Essex Select Board meeting to order. And I will bring a slide up on my screen and then I will ask our clerk, Vince Franco, to please read that slide. Hang on just a moment while I share my screen. Can you see that, Vince? Yeah, well, I have it up on my... Great. Let me go over. Yep, we're good. So it says public to be heard. Can you see it now, a different one? No, it says public to be heard. It still says, hold on, my apologies, there we go. How's that? Thank you. We are gathered together in civil assembly. We gather as a community in the oldest sense of the word. We gather to come together and try to make decisions about what is right, about what is wrong. Let us advocate for our positions, but not at the expense of others. Let us remember that there is an immense gap between saying I am right and saying I believe I am right. And that our neighbors with whom we might disagree are good people. With hopes and dreams as true and high as ours. And let us always remember that in the end, caring for each other in this community, is of far greater importance than any difference we may have. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you, Vince. Are there any agenda additions or changes? Nothing from staff. Nope, I'm from staff. Board members, does anybody want to pull anything from the consent agenda to make into a business item? Andy? I just have one question. One of the consent items involves the reclassification of West Sleepy Hollow Road. If it's in consent, there's no opportunity to discuss that. So I don't know if there's anybody currently on who would plan, would like to make any comments on that, whether we should pull that out. I understand that folks may join later and perhaps we need to ask this question again later, but. Well, we can also offer public input at the time of discussing the consent agenda. It's a typical, but I guess we could. What is your pleasure? I was just, I guess I'm asking if there's anybody on who wants to talk to that question of reclassification of West Sleepy Hollow Road. If they're on right now, please let us know so we can pull that out now. But if nobody's speaking up, then I'm fine with leaving it in consent at this point. I'm not seeing any hands for that. So let's just plan to offer it up at the time. Thank you for asking about that. Are there any changes to the agenda otherwise? Okay, then we won't need a vote to approve the agenda because we have not made any changes to it. So what we will do now is move on to public to be heard. This is the time for the public to talk to the board about items that are not on the agenda. So if you have something that you wanna talk to the board about that is not listed on tonight's agenda, you can either raise your hand or indicate in the chat that you wish to speak. I'm not seeing any hands. Oh, wait. Annie Cooper. Hi. Go ahead. Hi, sorry, I couldn't, the hand app thing is new. I just wanted to thank the select board because I'm really grateful that Merger is on this ballot and I know that it was a long haul to get there. And I'm really, really excited for our community to move forward and I'm an absolute yes on merger. Thank you so much. I think that merger is on the agenda, isn't it? I'm thanking you for putting it on the ballot. So I misunderstood and thought that that was an appropriate thing and I didn't in any way mean to do anything undercutting. So I apologize if that was weird. I was excited. Thank you. Margaret. Sorry, took me a minute to unmute. Can you hear me? We can Margaret. Okay. I just wanted to say I was really disappointed in your decision to limit comments to two minutes. The guy who spoke a couple of weeks ago who spent a lot of time looking at Sarah's budget and you guys spent quite a while discussing it. I mean, you would have cut him off and I think that really would have been too bad. So I mean, I understand if there are a lot of people willing to speak but if there are only a few, you might consider allowing more than two minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak on items that are not on the agenda tonight? I'm not seeing any other hands. So I will open the public hearing on the second of two public hearings to consider the plan of merger of the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction dated January 11th, 2021 and the proposed charter for the merged communities. And I'm gonna share the rules for public to be heard because we are expecting a large group to speak. So I'm just gonna share my screen real quick and review those with everybody. So each resident may have, oh, we can't see it yet. Each resident may have no more than two minutes to speak. Each resident may speak once. Residents may not seed their time to other residents. Residents should have their cameras and mics off until it is their turn to speak. And then after speaking, they should turn off their cameras and mics. Residents should address the chair and not engage in dialogue with board members or the audience. And please do not use the chat feature for comments. The chat feature is just to ask to speak. Thank you. Okay, so I will stop sharing my screen and then I'll call on folks as I see their hands come up. And remember, if you're not speaking, please turn off your mic and your camera. So if anyone would like to start, the public hearing is now open. Ross Miller, Ross Miller, you can speak. Go ahead. Okay, he took his hand down. I just had to let him back in the lane so he might have dropped out of the meeting for a moment. Okay, okay. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. All right, so I'm gonna ask a question that's probably been asked before, but this is, I think, a major issue for many people. Can somebody succinctly describe what are the benefits to the town outside the village? What are we gonna get for our increase in taxes every year? That's my question. Thank you, Ross. You know what? I realized in my jumping to get to the public to be heard, we wanna do the presentation of the slideshow for you so you see it. And hopefully, Ross, you will get your answer because we do have a slide on benefits to the community and challenges as well. So why don't we do that? And I bet Vince and Pat are sitting here going, what happened? I will share that. I was too busy admiring Vince's awesome shirt. And Andy's beads. Okay, all right. So let's begin the presentation then. So this is, again, the plan of merger for the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction. A small bit of history, the village and town have worked together over the past couple of years to do consolidations of various kinds, starting around 2013. There was a study outlining opportunities for shared town and village administration. I think you're talking to the second slide, you're still on the first one. What happened in the last meeting too? Oh, geez, all right. Hang on, thank you. Let me just re-share my apologies, everyone. Second slide now, Andy. No, we're still seeing the cover slide. And we're seeing it in presentation. It's not in presentation mode. It's the... Not in presentation mode. Okay. Hang on. Thank you, everybody, for being patient. How about that? The top is cut off because you're not in presentation mode. Okay, well, I'm just gonna stick with the... I'll reduce my screen resolution here so that folks can... There we go. At least we can see that. It's very tiny. Can you click on the... The right next door, it says 70%. There's a little screen there that puts it in presentation mode. Does that... Right there. Does that do it? Yeah, apparently not. Must be showing in your other screen. Yeah. I apologize, everyone. Greg, do you have this version of the slideshow? Okay, we'll open up this in the packet. Okay. Let me just... One more time. What it's not letting me do is be in the slide presentation mode and then switch over to share my screen. It's not letting me do that. Is it in presentation mode now? No, it's not. No. Okay. Greg, it does have it. It looked like you had it. That's... There you go. Not presentation mode, but hopefully it'll... That's the PDF, okay. I just wanna make sure it has the additional slides that we added. I have what's in the packet. Okay. All right. Oh, I'm not sure. Okay. Well, we'll go through it and if worse comes to worse, I'll add those slides as we go along. So next slide, please. So the history of our consolidations with the village started around 2013 where we had a shared services report. And then around 2015, the town manager of Essex became also the manager of the village. Around 2016, the public approved transferring the public works budget for the village into the public works budget for the town or into the town general fund. And at the same time, we also consolidated finance and the town and village clerks positions due to attrition. Fast forward to 2018, the town and the village jointly hired our current manager, Evan Teach. And then the select board and trustees appointed a governance subcommittee to explore additional options for further consolidation. That subcommittee came back around 2019 with recommendations and they were tasked with beginning work on a merger charter. And so here we are today with that conversation turning into a vote. Next slide, please. I'll hand it over to Pat. Thanks, Elaine. So stronger future together. Why are we considering merger? Again, you know, the communities have tackled this a number of times, but today there continues to exist a number of difficulties that we have approaching governance as two separate communities that exist in one town. We would have one government, more transparency, one set of ordinances so that we can assist our police department in having that one consistent set of rules between the two. The Australian ballot budget voting is something that to clarify, we did already pass as a vote in November. We can include this in the slideshow just to make sure that, you know, as going forward should merger pass or should merger fail that the Australian ballot voting itself is still going to be contained as we move forward as a community, no matter what happens. The difference would be, we would have an informational town meeting that's going to be going forward. Again, this is part of the Australian by that ballot budget voting, no longer a ballot vote from the floor on town meeting day. It would allow us have one land development code and more organized and consistent planning throughout the whole of Essex. Next slide, Greg. So why merger? It brings together a unified community with the common vision. It's a unified community that sets its course together on a host of different issues. Can ensure racial justice, equity and safety in a much more streamlined and consistent manner. Hope we become a more welcoming and inclusive community. We can address housing needs that impact the whole of our community, both in Essex and Essex Junction. Community and economic development could be brought together, preservation of open space and the stewardship of the environment in the more rural parts of town. Brings first class recreation of facilities to equal access for all of our citizens in Essex. And it's a building of resiliency and sustainability. We can address problem issues as they arise as one community rather than two that sometimes have to work patchwork. And then believe Vince, if you wanna continue. Yeah, thanks Pat. So yeah, we have some benefits for the residents of the village. They will see tax equity. The goal is after 12 years for everyone in our community to pay the same tax rate for all services provided by the town. They'll have predictable representation and an even numbered board of six members assures for the first time both the town and the village, or both the town outside the village and the village will have an equal number of representatives on the select board. Initially it removes the extra vote needed for the village budget and election of the village trustees. There are some benefits for the town outside the village as mentioned earlier by a resident. Again, like village residents, town outside the village residents gain predictable representation with an equal numbered board. Equal access to services and programs through the S6 Junction REC department. There are a few services that still don't offer equity of enrollment to town outside the village residents. Those would be shared by all. Town outside the village residents will have more say in spending, planning and development in all parts of town. So that's, you know, I mean, what's going on with the development in the junction, all town residents would have a say in those, in those discussions and it wouldn't just be open for village residents only. And better or less expensive childcare, currently the town contracts with EJRP for childcare services, that's kind of a gentleman's agreement or it's a contract, but it's something that's not permanent. As a merged community, EJRP or whatever the merged REC department becomes, that childcare would be provided to the entirety of the town without contract. Now Pat's going to speak. Oh, I'm sorry, I have another slide. Sorry, sorry, Pat. I could have done it, but you're much better at it. Our plan honors the high quality of services that both the village and town currently provide and we are committed to continuing that high quality of service. It also honors two community identities by keeping the name of the town of Essex and it includes an unincorporated village of Essex Junction. All right, now Pat, you can speak to some of the challenges of merger. Thank you, Vince. So obviously no plan this large is going to be without its challenges. For large ones in particular that we've identified, we have to find a way to integrate the $3.5 million Essex Junction tax levy into the $15 million town of Essex budget. We have to maintain the high level of municipal services that we receive in Essex and that our residents expect and pay for. We have to achieve eventual tax equity. And finally, we hope to preserve the identities of both the village of Essex Junction and the town of Essex itself. Next slide please, Greg. So this is how we want to phase this in. Currently the town of Essex love these taxes on all town properties. That includes the village of Essex Junction. The village levies taxis on village properties only. So as a result, the average village property owner pays an additional $925 a year, roughly in taxes. Merging the town and the village budgets all at once would result in a single one time increase of roughly $330 for a town outside the village properties. And all at once increase could also result in a desire for pretty significant cost cutting that would negatively impact the municipal services we have and undermine one of our primary goals, which was to maintain the current quality of service that we offer. Next slide, Greg. So this is a gradual approach was adopted to keep tax increases for the town outside the village reasonable, affordable and predictable. As part of this, the 12 year time period will coincide with the end of the village's bonded debt and is the length of time preferred by most town residents who responded to the 2019 survey on merger. Elaine. Yep, thank you. So what does the 12 year transitional period look like? Starting with the first merged year, the separate town and village budgets would become one budget. The piece of that budget that was formerly funded by village only taxes would be frozen and phased in gradually over a 12 year transitional period. This will cause taxes outside the village to increase about $26 a year for the average property assessed at $280,000. Village taxes would decrease about $35 a year. After the 12 year transitional period, tax rates would be equal for all taxpayers. In addition to any grand list growth, special taxing districts have been included in the plan of merger to help offset the tax impacts outside the village. One of those is a debt district to ensure that village debt remains with the village taxpayers until it's retired in 2035. Next slide, please, Craig. This slide is a summary of the total cost of merger if the two entities were to merge all at once without any districts. The numbers on this slide are calculated based on voter approved FY20 budgets and the final FY20 grand list. Shortly, you will see slides that have been updated to show FY22 figures. The figures have been calculated assuming no future growth in the grand list in an effort to clearly isolate the impact of merging. Tax rates are calculated by dividing the budgeted tax levy by the grand list. Therefore, any increase in the grand list results in a decrease to tax rate. The mechanics are the same for the FY22 updated figures you will soon see. You can see that if the two budgets were combined all at once, the impact would be large, which drove us to explore a longer timeline and the inclusion of special tax districts. The two primary benefits of spreading the tax change out over 12 years are to lessen the annual impact to taxpayers and to leverage the growing grand list, which will also serve to lessen the impact over time. Next slide please. This table shows the annual change in taxes when the tax change is spread out over 12 years and the village is designated as a special taxing district for debt, sidewalks and capital during that time. Again, these are FY20 figures and you will see updated FY22 figures shortly. At the end of the 12 years, these districts would go away. In calculating these numbers, we assumed that the dollars raised by the capital and sidewalk districts would then be included in the overall budget causing one final increase in year 13. However, it will be up to the future select board as to how they wish to handle this. We've chosen to make this assumption to get a conservative estimate of the cost, but it's equally possible that the future select board could eliminate these funds entirely, which would eliminate the year 13 column in this chart and change the averages. You may be asking yourself, how were these numbers calculated? With many moving parts, including the challenge of projecting future years, dealing with new budgets during the process and the complex interconnectedness of the two budgets, it was no simple task. In calculating the total impact of merging the two budgets, we started with FY20 numbers, assumed the first merge year would be FY23 and projected out any known changes, such as eliminating expenditures that are in both budgets and accounting for decreasing debt in the town. In determining the annual change over the transitional period, we use the same method and factored in the known changes in debt. We attempted to eliminate any variables that were guesses in order to provide a simple conservative estimate. The most significant consequence of this will be that the grand list growth over time will decrease these numbers. The town has experienced average grand list growth of 1.6% per year for the last seven years. Next slide, please. This slide shows how the convergence would happen. When looking at the graph, the top line is the FY20 annual tax bill for an average property in the village. The bottom line is the same for a property outside the village. You can see over time, those two lines remain stable with the village being about $925 more per year. The middle two lines show how the taxes for that same average property would decrease gradually over time in the village and increase gradually over time outside of the village to meet at a midpoint at the end of the 12 years. Now this graph is very simple and does not factor in any anticipated grand list growth. Its purpose is to give the viewer an illustration of the impact of the 12 year transitional period. Next slide, please. The town was asked to update these figures to reflect proposed FY22 budget numbers. The next few slides reflect these updated figures. Now that we have an FY22 proposed budget, which we will be voting on soon and is not approved yet, we have created new slides. This slide is an update of the slide shown before, now with FY22 numbers. This update shows the average property of $280,000 in the town outside the village is now estimated to have a total increase of $373, compared to 329 using FY20 numbers. Again, this is an estimate that does not factor in grand list growth or the impact of special taxing districts. We have also recalculated these figures to account for grand list growth and the special taxing districts and you will see those figures shortly. Next slide, please. This slide is an update of the annual increases and decreases using FY22 numbers. The yearly increase has changed from $24 to $26 per year in the town outside the village. The yearly decrease for town inside the village properties has changed from $34 to $37. The estimated average annual change based on the new FY22 figures is a $29 increase for town outside the village and $44 decrease for town inside the village properties. The estimated total increase for town outside the village properties is $373 and the estimated total decrease for town inside the village properties is $568. Next slide, please. When we factor in grand list growth and the special taxing districts, these figures change. This slide shows three different scenarios. The high range shows the cost assuming zero growth in the grand list and that the sidewalk and capital districts are moved into the town budget in year 13 causing a final increase. This average is calculated over 13 years. If you look at the table on the bottom left, the high range shows the $373 that I mentioned in the previous slide, total cost for town outside the village, average annual cost $29. On the village side, the high range is a reduction of $567 total and average $44 per year. The middle range shows the cost assuming a one and a quarter annual growth in the town grand list and assumes the sidewalk and capital district funding is moved into the full budget in year 13. The average is calculated over 13 years. If you look in the tables, the middle range for the town outside the village property drops to an increase of $309 total or an average cost of $24 a year. The middle range changes for the village as well. It increases to a reduction of $630 total or $48 per year. The low range scenario shows the cost assuming a one and a quarter annual growth of the grand list in the town, a half a percent growth in the village grand list and assumes that the sidewalk and capital district funding is eliminated in year 13. The average is calculated over 12 years for the town outside the village and 13 for the village. This is because eliminating the sidewalk and capital district funding would have one final decrease to the village but no final increase to the town outside the village. Scenario three, as you can see in the table drops the total increase for the town outside the village to $259 overall or an average of $22 a year. The village impact would be a reduction of $674 overall and $52 per year. Next slide, please. The town has been asked to talk more about the cumulative impact of the taxation plan. This slide shows that the total amount paid by a town outside the village taxpayer over the course of 13 years will be approximately 12% more as a result of merger than it would be without merger, assuming zero growth in the budget and zero growth in the grand list. For a village taxpayer, this would be an overall decrease of 10% looking at the sum total of all 13 years and comparing it to that same total without merger. This is not the annual impact but an impact over multiple years. If you decrease or increase the number of years in the time period, the numbers would change. Over that same timeframe, using the same assumptions, if there is no merger, a town outside the village taxpayer would pay $19,500 in taxes during that time period, while a village taxpayer would pay $31,200 over the same time period. With merger, those figures would be $21,882 for a town outside the village property and $28,213 for a village property. Now I will turn it back over to Pat, who will talk about the special taxing districts. Special taxing districts, fascinating. It may not sound exciting, but some of them are really important for us to have, especially in this merger plan, some of them are required, which is what we'll talk about first. The debt repayment district. Actually, apologies to skip the head a little bit. The merger charter itself includes five special districts, the first of which is the debt repayment district. This district is established in order to pay off the village's bonded debt and is only going to impact village residents. Only the taxpayers who voted for their debt will pay those payments. So this aligns with the term of the village's outstanding debt and would be accomplished by establishing a debt service fund and calculating the specific tax rate each year by dividing that year's debt payment by the grand list. The amount of the debt decreases annually and will be retired in fiscal year 2035. This district cannot be renewed once the debt itself is retired. The second is a tax reconciliation district. This district allows the town to assess different tax rates to the village in order to phase in the village tax levy over that 12 year transitional period that Elaine talked about. So instead of town outside the village taxpayers receiving one merger and one large increase, this is how we are able to accomplish a slow phase in. Next slide, Greg. So while the first two districts are required by the state, the next two have been decided by the work of our joint boards and the governance subcommittee while designing the plan for merger. The third one is a sidewalk district. The village itself has a completely interconnected sidewalk network, which it fairly aggressively maintains throughout the year to promote health and safety. Declaring the village, a sidewalk district helps maintain this policy, $125,000 a year. This amount would be accounted through a sidewalk fund which would be budgeted each year at cost and a separate tax rate only charged to village residents would be established similar to the debt district. At the end of the 12 year transitional period, the fund would come to an end and the elected board and community at that time could seek to either continue, expand the district or eliminate it, which would require a charter change. Next slide, Greg. So the fourth, the capital improvement district. Lost my notes, one moment, here we go. So the villages were designated as a capital improvement district to keep a small portion of its capital infrastructure expenditures separate from the town budget to help decrease the financial impact of merger on taxpayers outside the village. At the end of the 12 year transitional period, the costs of all capital projects will then be borne by all taxpayers. And the last district is a downtown improvement district which does not have any specific tax implications. But as part of the merger would remain in place to allow village residents to continue to facilitate the village redevelopment plan. At the end of the 12 year transitional period, this district too would end. And next slide, Greg. And I believe we are back to Vince. Vince, you're muted. I just can't escape it. All right, sorry about that. So after, let me talk about representation and governance. After the legislature approves of merger, the then current town select board and then current village board of trustees will merge into a single interim governing body for a limited time until elections for a new permanent select board are held. The proposed plan of merger outlines the creation of two new voting wards. Ward one includes all areas outside the boundaries of the unincorporated village. Ward two includes all areas inside the boundaries of the unincorporated village. In the proposed plan of merger, the new permanent select board would have six members with three seats elected by Ward one and three seats elected by Ward two. This governance structure differs slightly from the merger charter passed by the village more on this later. Next slide, please. An even numbered board honors the proposed three plus three charter change that was approved by a townwide vote in March of 2020. We include three plus three in this proposed merger charter to make sure that the state legislature knows that this governance model continues to be the will of the people of Essex and should be used in the new merged community. Three seats for each ward assures residents of both newly created wards will be equitably and predictably represented. Ward boundary lines can be adjusted in the future to address variations in population growth between the wards. In November of 2020, village voters approved a merger charter that includes an odd numbered board with three seats for Ward one, three seats for Ward two, and an additional seat to be elected by all residents of the new merged community. We will work with state legislature with the state legislatures, legislators, sorry, to reconcile the differences in the two merger charters. Back to Pat for some additional information on the plan of merger. Great, thank you, Vince. A few other features of note, the name of the new community would simply be the town of Essex. The incorporated village of Essex Junction would then become the unincorporated village of Essex Junction with the best examples that we can use in the state before is that Essex Junction is an unincorporated, or excuse me, White River Junction is an unincorporated village within the town of Hartford. Another example where clearly the name continues well past the point of unincorporation. A voter approved Australian ballot voting for the town municipal budget and one informational annual meeting to happen in March. We would reorganize town and village departments to reduce duplicative services, building codes, municipal plans, ordinances, policies, et cetera. Current town and village water and sewer rates are not impacted by merger. Water and sewer costs, including repairs, are paid by water and sewer bills, not property taxes. The new town of Essex, however, will own the Essex Junction Waste Water Treatment Facility, which is nation class, as well as all assets currently owned separately by the town and the village. And Elaine, if you'd like to wrap up. Thank you, Pat. So we talked earlier about some benefits of merger, but we must also acknowledge there will be challenges. Challenges for the town outside the village related to merger include higher merger related taxes over 12 years. Municipal property taxes for the average town outside the village resident for a house valued at $280,000 would see an annual temporary increase of $26 for 12 years. That merger related increases the temporary part. This would be on top of regular annual tax increases based on community need. After the 12 years, the merger related tax increase would end and only regular annual increases would occur. After 12 years, town outside the village residents would be paying approximately the same tax rate as village residents. Shared responsibility for all capital projects. After the 12th year of merger, town outside the village residents will share with village residents the full cost and responsibility of all capital projects townwide. What are some challenges for merger for the village? The village would be dissolving their government. There would no longer be a board of trustees and there would no longer be a planning commission for the village. The village would be giving up priority for certain services. There would no longer be the ability for village residents to sign up for recreation programs first or pay less for those same services. There will also no longer be any committees that are just related to the village that only village residents could serve on. And the Brown L Library Board of Trustees would be open for town outside the village residents would be eligible to run for seats on that board. And the village would lose some of its autonomy in that all expenses for the entire town will be voted on by the entire town. The village will no longer have its own budget that only village residents can vote on. And what is a challenge for everybody? Potentially longer wait times for infrastructure projects. What's the Cronkite and the like? Capital project lists would be combined and re-prioritized possibly resulting in longer project timelines. Next slide, please. So next steps. This is the second of two public hearings that we've been holding. Ballots are already arriving in residence mailboxes now and residents can vote by dropping their ballots in the mail or taking them to 81 Main Street and putting them in the ballot box at the door or by coming to the polls on March 2nd. We will have a town meeting, informational meeting on March 1st. It will not be in person. We do to COVID restrictions. We will be doing it entirely online. Voting on the budget and the merger plan will also be via Australian ballot on March 2nd. If merger passes, the charter and the charter the village residents passed in November will both go to the legislature for consideration of reconciliation and approval. Last slide, please. So you can learn more by referring to sxvt.org, sxjunction.org or greater sx2020.org. The materials that were sent to everyone's mailbox, including the packet that people received are available online. You can reach out to any select board member at any time with questions. Their email addresses are there and they are also on the town website along with our phone numbers if you'd like to call instead of email. So thank you very much for listening and we can take the slides down and go back to the public hearing portion. Are there any comments or questions from the public? Just raise your hand or indicate in the chat that you'd like to speak. A hand from Doug Wilson. Hello, good evening. Just a quick question about the taxes for town outside the village. It looks like there's only gonna be a $326 increase. I apologize, I didn't get to take a snapshot of the slide. I was wondering if that $326 is total throughout the 12 years or if it's gonna jump up. So $26 one year in the second year you multiply the 26 times two. So 42, I'm sorry, 52. And do you add the $26 the third year to that already 52? And then on year 12, you added up the $326 everything which comes out to be a roughly $2,000 increase not just 326. Right Doug, thank you for that. We had a slide about that in the presentation and what I'd like to do is collect everyone's questions and then we can go back and review the answers but you're right, it does compound over time and you will talk about that, we'll show the slide again so that folks can see that more. That slide is very, very misleading to me because it looks like it's only gonna be $326 throughout the whole 12 years, not compiling throughout the entire 12 years. Okay, I understand that. I think this slide should reflect that the total amount not just every year, how much it's gonna be difference. I understand that. We do have a slide that shows that the average expected compounded total is $2,374 and after everyone's had a chance to share their questions we'll show that slide again, okay? Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome. Margaret. Hi, I thought there'd be a whole bunch of hands up and I would be last, but oh well. I understand that the village charter that they passed has representation of three plus three plus one and I am very concerned about equal representation. The one could be from any place which could again, swing the balance of power towards the village, which is where it is right now. Our select board has three village residents, is that correct? No, that is not correct. Two village residents and three town outside the village residents, but when the merger passes and they combine the boards there will be seven village residents and including our illustrious chair who is a village resident. But the two budgets will then go to the GovOps committee who will decide. We don't get to decide whether it's three plus three or three plus three plus one, is that correct? Very briefly, yes, it is up to the legislature. No town in Vermont is able to make those decisions on their own. So we're kind of wishing that it will happen, not voting that for sure that it will happen. Thank you. Thank you, Annie Cooper. Hi, thank you. Can you hear me? Yep. Hi, thanks. I am enthusiastically voting yes for merger because it has taken us so long over the course of so many years to get here. And I don't believe that there will be a quick, right back on the ballot again. And this whole idea of no merger now, I don't think that that is a possibility in any real sense. The number of people involved in- Where's the question in this? Excuse me, Annie Cooper has the floor. Please go ahead, Annie. You still have about a minute and a half. Thanks. I was just really surprised. I thought Andy had said that and I see that you did. I know, I know, Andy, I apologize. I just heard, to be clear, Andy, I know you didn't. I got surprised and thought I was like wrong again. I felt rude, you know what I mean? Because I respect them so much. That's okay, I'll just throw the- Andy, let's reset. I'm gonna let it go. Andy, let's reset. You have a minute 30, go ahead. What I was trying to explain was that I knew it wasn't Andy but it threw me and so I have to stop because I couldn't get to the question. Thank you, sorry about that. Andy, I apologize for making that sound like that. I didn't mean to. Thanks you guys. So, Annie, did you have anything else you were going to say? Yeah, I was just so surprised by that, that I'm like embarrassed that I'm crying. I apologize that someone tried to cut you off but did you have a question or a comment about merger that you want more space to say? Thanks, I did. I appreciate it. My question was along the lines of, no, I can't get back to it. It's okay. It's fine. It's fine. It's probably not something I haven't said before. Thank you, sorry for the wasting of the time. Thank you. It was not a waste of time and I'm sorry you were interrupted. Thank you. The next person is PD. I'm guessing that's Patti Davis. Yes, hi. I just have a question. I saw your whole presentation and the only part I really question is the length of the transition period. Let's just pretend they pick, they pick us, they pick the town outside the village charter. We can go, yay. Okay, but my question is the transition period, I would like you to explain that in detail, please and how long that will be and who comprises between the trustees and the select board. Go ahead. I wanna put the ball in your court and let you explain it and the length of it, please. Thank you. Thanks, Patti. If I may, I'd like to do that after everyone's had their questions. We'll come back and answer that in more detail. Gil Allen. Elaine, I'm sorry to jump the line. This is Greg. Can I just make a quick comment about public to be heard? Yes. This is a public hearing. So it can be questions, it can be comments, whatever people wanna speak to on the topic of the plan of merger and the draft charter is valid. So it can be a question, it can be a comment. Just wanna make sure people are aware of that. Thank you and sorry to interrupt. That's okay. Thanks, Greg. Gil Allen. Thanks, Greg, for clarifying that. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. So this is more of a rhetorical question and public comment. The no merger flyer that went out in the mail last week was funded by nomergernow.org. I had to go to their webpage to understand a little bit more about them. Going to the webpage first line of the page states follow the money. This line kind of seems to imply shady and nefarious backroom deals going on in town administration that residents need only to quote unquote, follow the money to gain better understanding. Later down the page, they quote Senator Mitt Romney as saying the best way we can show respect for voters is by telling the truth. And this seems to imply that we, the voters are not being told the truth. And for the record, I would just like to say that I personally do feel like we're being told the truth and that we are not being lied to by our select board members. Thank you. Further down the page, the author asserts that the village currently, the current villages current fiscal challenges can only be addressed by cutting expenses and resetting priorities among village residents, not by shifting taxes onto others. So this is my rhetorical question, aside from a potentially unfair accusation of fiscal irresponsibility, is the proposed merger really shifting more village taxes onto the town taxpayers? It's my understanding that village taxpayers pay the same town general tax as town taxpayers at rate of 0.5067. Some of this is for services they don't receive and on top of a village tax rate of 0.3026. So it's my understanding that the village were to completely separate from the town, my town municipal taxes as a town member would immediately increase by a substantially larger amount than the incremental annual adjustment proposed by this merger plan over 13 years. So in fact, the town all in one swoop would suddenly lose the 0.5067 subsidy currently paid by every village taxpayer to the town. And I'm just trying to follow the money here. If the merger falls through, it's my understanding that many village residents- Your time is up. That's fine, thank you. Thank you. Brian Sheldon. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. All right, well, I wanted to start with a comment and end with a question. First, my comment is thank you to the board for all your hard work to put together a very good compromise that is fair to both sides of the village line. So thank you for your hard work and I support the compromise that has been built. And then I have a question based on any negotiations you all have done with House government operations. I'm concerned that if we send the... In the past, we've sent conflicting things to the state legislature, like first one merger and then another merger. And I'm concerned specifically for 3-3. We have sent them a town-wide support for 3-3. And I was wondering if we vote down merger, which contains 3-3. 3-3-1 wasn't voted on by the whole town, by the way. If that is a concern, that that would show that we wouldn't get 3-3 at all if we were to send them that conflict and what your opinion on that was. Thank you. Okay, we'll answer that after everyone's had a chance to speak. Next, Ken Signorello. Hello, hello. So over the last year, I've made a few village friends, believe it or not. And a few of them are concerned about the asset liability aspect of this plan. Specifically, that all village assets will become shared with the entire town. And that's a much more diverse population. So just how much are we talking? At the end of fiscal year 20, village assets hold $55.8 million. Liabilities, $21 million. If all the assets and liabilities transfer, that comes to a net of $34.8 million. These assets include things like Village Hall, Rennell Library, Fire Station, Water Treatment Plant. Some of these have strings attached. So these are assets purchased and maintained by village taxpayers over the years. The question is, will any potential future tax benefits be worth it? Post merger, what will the future of these assets be? Oh, and about those liabilities, not all transfer under this plan. The general obligation bond, about $2 million, remains with the village taxpayers, making it more like $36.8 million that actually would transfer. Now I've said that debt remaining with the village while transferring all the assets was not a good deal. The counter being the bonded debt must remain with the voters who voted for it. But I believe with some creative negotiating, the debt could remain with the village while the town could pick up the debt service. So I- 30 seconds. And I stand with my village friends. It's unclear that the financial benefits that the village taxpayers hope to see warrant sharing the control of $36.8 million in historic net assets. Thank you. How'd I do? You having a mind on time? 10 more seconds. Bingo. Good job, Ken. I practiced. Tracy Delphia. Good evening. First of all, thanks for taking the time. Thank you for including the notice of the two minute limit on the feedback on the agenda. This is helpful. And because of that limit, I'm gonna be moving pretty quickly to make sure I hit all my points here. Like the last public hearing, since this hearing is happening after the merger plan is already finalized, it cannot be changed based on anyone's comments here tonight. In my experience, many people tend to wait for a final draft to be presented at a public hearing to give input and hopefully inform the final draft and make change. I hope that the select board takes this into consideration when scheduling public meetings in the future, public hearings in the future, excuse me. Onto the comments. Having the sidewalk district boundaries specified in the charter will require a charter change. At the last public hearing, Evan spoke at how involved the process a charter change is. If you think of it this way, if the need or desire to expand those boundaries and is identified in May for existence or example, residents would have to wait until the following year for the legislature to approve a charter change. If merger passes, I would ask that you please immediately start the process of a charter change to allow for this flexibility to extend specifically the sidewalk district to other areas. Also in the plan, the five year transitional district or transitional period in which the fire department, community development and planning departments, parks and direct departments and all other town and village municipal services will be consolidated. I'm assuming that this work will depend heavily on the expertise of the consultants, project managers and such. I'd like to know if there will be an RFP developed in order to allow for a competitive bidding process on this consulting work. And if so, when can we expect that to be posted? How did I do? Perfect. Thank you. You're muted, Elaine. Sorry. Any other folks who have not spoken yet? Mike Sullivan. Mike Sullivan. Okay, sorry about that. There was a comment earlier that says about how the compounded tax rate is. It's really not compounded. It is accumulative as you did in note Elaine, but it's not compounded. If you looked at your mortgage payment in the same manner, you might never buy your house because one year's mortgage payment is not what you look at. You look at your mortgage payment, which is the tax payment, which is the $322 increase per year. Democracy is not easy and not always fully satisfying. Our elected officials, both select board and trustees have been tasked with uniting two municipalities that have for decades, struggled to find the best ways forward for the benefit of their constituents. In the most recent vote, the residents saw a favorable vote for merger pass and then get recalled. Now for numerous reasons, the village residents have come to a point that seems like a watershed moment. Knowing the burdens of the taxes we all bear, they are voluntarily asking one more time of their fellow town members to allow a gradual 12 year transition for parity in tax rate. Please vote in favor of merger on your town meeting ballot. Thank you. Thank you. So Gil Allen has his hand up, but it is going to be Lisa Allen who is speaking. Yes, that's correct. Thank you. I live in the town outside the village and I'm voting yes on merger. And I wanted to thank you for giving us so many opportunities to arrive at this decision. We were at a whole bunch of informational meetings. I think it was in February of, I mean, I'm sorry in the fall of 2019. And some people will vote no and that's their right, but I just wanted to urge residents not to go down the path of personally attacking elected officials. I want to thank all of you for helping us and for doing the work that you do. I know it's not easy, especially just in our stressful pandemic lives right now. And I just wanted to let you know that people appreciate what you do and I hope you know that. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who has not spoken yet that would like to speak? Did any Cooper wanna restart? She does, but I wanted to first make sure others who haven't had a chance and then I wanted to confirm with the board that they were okay with Annie getting another turn. Okay, two more hands. Irene Renner. Thank you. First, a couple of points directed at folks who've asked questions, if I may. This increase to folks out there. No, apologies. I don't wanna interrupt, but we were very clear in our comments at the beginning that comments must be directed to the board chair and not to individual residents. Thanks, may I have my time restarted? I am directing these at the chair. I'm just referencing who I'm answering. Thank you. That's fine, go ahead. This merger increase is forever. In the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th years if this merger plan passes, people outside the village will continue to pay that higher amount of taxes. The merger tax never goes away. It's just now become what's called a town tax. The reference to a mortgage payment. If I signed on for a mortgage payment, I'm getting a house out of it. I never signed on to voting for village based expenses that I don't usually use. If I had signed on for them, I'd very willingly pay for them and very willingly vote yes on a merger. The town outside the village will actually pay more of the village general fund budget. If a merger happens, then village residents will because the grand list is weighted heavily, more heavily to the town outside the village. Currently, town taxes are paid 59% by the town outside the village and 41% by the village. And that will continue because the grand list continues to grow faster outside the village. Separation is not on the ballot. Please refrain from referring to that straw man. We are voting for merger or status quo. I'm voting no on merger because this merger plan and the village merger plan were written by a village trustee, George Tyler, who presented them early this last summer. He rewrote what the governance subcommittee had drafted. A village based charter is not appropriate for the entire town. I would like to speak to the village debt. I took reasons. Thank you. I noted the reasons for the village debt repayment district. The concept, as I understand it is simple. Debt must remain with those who voted for it. This makes sense. And it seems like a fair and responsible idea. But then I started to think if debt has to stay with those who voted for it, what about the expenditures in the village budget? Your time is up. Thank you. Next is Bob Bates. Thank you. Madam Chairman, I'd like to request that you show that chart you promised that shows the word isn't compounded but the cumulative year by year and do that as soon as possible. Number one. Number two, I think it was Mr. Sheldon that referred to government ops committee is absolutely right. We'll decide this matter once and for all. And the history, if you go back and look at the history of government ops functioning over the years, historically, when there are conflicts in a town around charter matters that come before government ops, they basically laugh and throw it back to the town. That happened one other time here. And so I think we need to be aware of that. There's no guarantee that what we send them is what we'll get, number one. And if they see conflict between the village version and the entire town version, the three plus three, in other words, then they may very well not accept either. So thank you very much. Thank you. Sarah Stoltz. Hi there, Elaine and everybody. Thank you for all your hard work. First of all, I just wanna comment that status quo as a village residents is unacceptable. So I don't care what's on the ballot, it's unacceptable. Second, a lot of the people, some people here who are opposed to merger, excuse me, for certain reasons that they're raising, I don't believe. They're opposed to merger and they will never want merger. So I think people need to think about that. Nothing's gonna ever be good enough. Not even if they try to develop a merger plan. Nope. I also would like to rhetorically kind of ask, what's the problem with having the chair live inside the village? That for many, many years, the chair of the select board has lived outside the village and that's been fine. I don't have a problem with that. And lastly, could you answer me or find an answer? How much has the village resident paid over the past 12 years more than a TOV resident in taxes? Yeah, I find it shocking that it's $925 for this year. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you, Sam. James Charbonneau. Hi, like others, I wanna thank you guys for all your hard work. I certainly have no feeling that there's, someone mentioned follow the money earlier. I think you guys are being as forthright and honest about the whole situation as possible or given the best information. Living outside the town, I can't support the merger simply because, yes, the village pays whatever that $900 a year number is, but the village, every penny of that has been from village choices that they made. They've had to say in every penny that the village says pays, they've had to say in every penny that the town spends. And now the town outside the village is being asked to subsidize their choices. And that's just not something I can support. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else who has not yet spoken? Gabrielle Smith. Hey, everybody. I wasn't sure if I was gonna say something, so I haven't practiced. So just let, I'll listen for you, Evan. I've truly appreciated hearing from residents and voters across Essex and Frontport Forum and Facebook and in conversations and in public. Evan really appreciated the dedication of each of you on the board. I'm really grateful that each of you have worked so hard to do what you believe is in our best interests. I've read the charter, I've read the booklet, I've read a few of the websites like the Essex Retorder that I hope helped me to better understand the perspectives of others in the community. I've talked with Andy and Dawn about their dissent and their responses were really well thought through and reasoned, not that that surprises me. And they've given me pause and they've caused me to think more about where I stand. Well, I understand many of the reasons to vote no to this merger plan. Those reasons do not outweigh the opportunities and benefits that I see for the future of our community if we merge now. I don't think the continuation of the current taxation situation is fair and history has shown me that if we say no to this situation it's gonna keep festering and we're gonna have divisions and confusion and it's holding us back. So it's not gonna happen overnight but a yes vote gets us moving beyond what has divided us towards a better future. So I'm gonna vote yes to moving forward. Yes to seeing what I see as a reasonable compromise. Yes to a chance to finally be a single unified community that remembers our past, our present and look to the future with hope. Yes to representation by awards that I hope won't always be along those old lines that divided us. Yes to no longer having to clarify that I live in both municipalities and why. Less to less confusion about overlapping municipalities, taxation and services, new and old alike. So I say yes to 1SX with a vibrant village downtown that's fully part of Essex and no longer partially separate. I say yes to all my neighbors and I say yes to merger now and I thank all of you so, so much. Thank you. Time. Deb McAdoo. Hi, I wasn't gonna say anything, but I have to say first of all, thank you all very much for everything you're doing. I appreciate the select board and the trustees are doing the best they can for us. And I know that we're quite a collective group of characters and so I thank you very much for continuing. And the only other thing I really wanted to say is that I love Gabrielle Smith and everything she said. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else who has not spoken that would like to speak? I'm not seeing any other hands. So board members, Annie Cooper has requested if she could speak again because she was interrupted last time, would you be accepting of that? I'm okay with it. Yeah, I'm good. Okay, Annie, if you're ready, you can go ahead. I am. Thank you all so much. I apologize. Number one, I was feeling a little embarrassed that I had spoken during the first public to be heard and I don't like to ruin protocol or break rules about it. So I apologize for that one and thank you for this restart. I appreciate what Greg came on and said about how it can be a comment because it actually was lost and thought about whether or not I was gonna ask a question. That all being said, my point was really about the beauty of the base of how we got here. The shared meetings at the subcommittee, the shared conversations, the ukulele playing, the jokes, the arguments, the all the things, all the things that made up this path. Mortone sandwiches between Vince and I, like all those things that we have done together to get merger on this ballot are beautiful and hard. They're really hard. Getting merger on the ballot again, it will not be a simple task. And so I believe that in Montpelier, if they see the village and town mergers both voted yes on they're gonna say to us how they're gonna just be thrilled. I think that they would just be thrilled for us for this cast of characters to be united and go forward. And while I have this opportunity, I would like to thank Jim Charvino because I really value and respect his opinion. And I appreciate that we stand in different places and I'm voting yes for merger. And thank you, Shariah. That wasn't to the board, I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Any other members of the public that wish to speak on the merger charter? My teams is freaking out. I don't see any hands at the moment. So... I see no hands. Okay, thanks, Evan. I don't know what is wrong with teams in me tonight. Okay, well, last call for questions or comments on the merger plan. Okay. We will, I will accept a motion and a second to close the hearing and then we'll answer, we'll talk about the questions and answer some questions. I make the motion. I close the public hearing part of this meeting. Thank you, Dawn. Is there a second? Second. Thanks, Vince. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. So, Andy, I saw you, excuse me. I saw you taking notes. I took notes. So between, and probably Evan and Greg did too. So between all of us, we should be able to get the questions. The first one was from Doug Wilson regarding the increase annually versus cumulative. Greg, can we put that table back up on the screen? It was slide number 17. The one with the fine print, yeah. That one, yeah. Can we make the table a little bigger? So what this does is it shows from every year the cumulative increase of the tax for the town outside the village, year 125, 76, year 251, 52, et cetera, et cetera. And then at the bottom of that, underneath it, it gives the annual total. And then if you go all the way to the right of that table to the end, you'll see the cumulative amount. Thank you for correcting my words. The cumulative amount comes out to $2,382. So that is the annual or the total merger related increase itself is the $330 around there, the estimated, but the cumulative amount over the 12 or 13 years is 2382. So I'm hopeful that answers Doug Wilson's question. Thank you. You're welcome and a couple other folks had the same question. Evan or Sarah, if you're still here, there was a question about assets and liabilities. And I don't dare answer that because I'm sure I would be inaccurate. So. I have the next question about the transition period and explain the transition period and length. Oh, you're right. Thank you. That's why I figured I would answer that one. I'll try to do the second one, but. So if the audience can bear with me, this is a, it's an oddity. Okay, so think about this. The village in the town, or as you want to call it, the entire town votes on March 2nd. The village in town then send their certified elections to the state, secretary of state, and a bill is introduced at the state legislature. And that legislative bill goes to the House Government Ops Committee. That's the mechanism. After the people vote, the people's process is done. It is now a legislative function of the state. We have no idea when the state will take it up, how they'll take it up, what questions they will have, and any concerns that they will have. We do know that they are concerned about three plus three and three plus three plus one. So that'll be something that's gonna have to be worked out. We have heard from some people that, that is something that they would want to hear from the village in the town. Still about timing. So, normal years, the ballot to be on the ballot to run for elective office in the town is the end of January. Because of those timings between the state and ballots and budget, there was a creation of the Intergovernmental Board to try to balance you running, you serving, and then the two boards coming together and reducing down to six members. So there's the need for this Intergovernmental Board that is likely to be about nine months and could be as much as 13 to 14 months, depending upon when the state, if they approve the merger. And that's how you get to, how you get to give proper notice to people of what seats they're gonna run for, what term they're running for, and the budget that's being proposed at that March 1st, the 1st March of the new community. I hope I've explained it as best I can. I don't see any nodding heads, so I'm not sure, but that's how I understand it. And so the five members of the village board along with the then five members of the select board. Now think about this, there's an election next month. Two seats are up on the village board. Those two seats can change to whoever's seated in them. There may still yet be another election March, next March, if the GOV-OPS has it, hopefully they've weighed in by then. So that's the Intergovernmental Board and their terms. Thanks, Evan. Do you wanna just continue right along and talk about assets and liabilities? I don't quite understand one of the questions, but I'll tell you about assets. Sarah, you popped on screen, are you here to save me or do you want me to give it a crack first? Maybe could you repeat the question, please? And I'll do my best. I think the question was, what is the future of the assets that are being brought over from the village into the town? Okay, I'm gonna take the first crack. So both the village and the town own property. We both own parks, we both own village hall, a village hall and a town hall. We co-own a police station and a park called the Tree Farm Park. I will tell you, we both have public works yards, we both have fire stations. Except for the town hall that was remodeled a few years ago, most of our buildings are aging, and in general, we've never really looked at all of those assets in totality. The one asset that is specifically owned by the village, which is the treatment plant, the town owns capacity within that plant as does the town of Williston. So ownership is a good thing, but it's really just a place where waste is treated and it's basically paid for by the users of the sewer systems. So it's hard to just kind of look at it as an asset in liability, because here's the last part, I'm gonna turn it over to Sarah. Villages and towns very rarely sell any of their assets. They're there for the public's use. There may be a piece of property that the village or town has bought that they might sell at a future, but it's very rare and it's very hard to put value on it, because usually then what they're doing is using it to create more value in the taxes. It's usually for either development or stormwater or something like that. So I've been trying to explain this, but I don't think anybody is taking on anything that is detrimental to them, because the people of the village would be paying their own debt until that debt is over. And then what's left is property. So I'm willing for anybody else at the board to jump in, especially Sarah. Go ahead, Ms. Finance Director. Well, the only thing I guess that I would add is that each of these entities exists currently. Each is audited. Each has its own set of financial statements. Each has positive net position. If you look at the government wide financial statements in each of the audits, which is my semi monthly plug to get someone to read my financial statements, you'll see that they each have assets and offsetting liabilities, and then residual equity or net position, retained earnings if you're in the business world. When or if the merger passes and these become one entity, there'll be a consolidation of the balance sheets, which is the more permanent side of things. And there'll also be a consolidation of the income statement, which is the year to year budget. And so really what we've been talking about, I can't, we've been talking about, so if there's a thing up there, he came off of, we've been talking about really so far the budget, which is the income statement and how those costs change annually over time. We haven't really talked much at this point about the balance sheet, but all those assets are gonna come together, all of the liabilities with the exception of the debt district that's gonna remain in the village and then the net position as well. And so I don't know if that answers the question, but that is some mechanics of how the balance sheets will come together and become consolidated. Sarah, can you just describe some examples of what would be considered liabilities? It comes across as bills and bad things. Can you just explain what the liabilities of the village and the town are in excess of the construction bond that the village has? Absolutely, so if we're looking at our government-wide financial statements, which is really from a business perspective, the full accrual valuation of your government, we have two different categories of liability. So we have current liabilities and those are things that are gonna come do within the next year. Those are accounts payable. So when we close the year at June 30th, we usually have some invoices for expenses incurred in June that we haven't paid yet that are due at the end of the year. We also have items such as accrued payroll and benefits. So people who have worked days in June that hasn't been paid until July, because when we're looking at the balance sheet, we're looking at a snapshot as of June 30th, so the end of the fiscal year. The other thing that we have in current liabilities is the next one year of any debt payments we might have because current is coming due in the next 12 months. Our non-current liabilities are accrued compensated absences. So as employees work and they earn leave time that they haven't used yet, there's a dollar value associated with that. That's a non-current liability. There is a current section, but the majority of that is non-current. And then any debt payments do after the next 12 months through the maturity date of the debt are the non-current liabilities. On the town side, in addition to those things, there are pension-related liabilities for the town's participation in the March, which is the Vermont Municipal Employees Retirement System. Does that help really? It really does. So basically those are just the day-to-day liabilities that every municipality carries and the village has some and the town has some. And then when if there's a merger, then they just become grouped together. It's not like there's additional debt that's being added to the town because of merger. Okay, thank you. Thank you both for explaining all of that. So I think Bob Bates was also asking to see the cumulative chart. Bob, do you want us to put that up again? We're able to do that, it could be helpful. And Bob also had a question about house government ops and Evan did touch on that. And I was curious, I just wanted to, while Evan was talking, I went to the town website and opened up the letter that came to us from the house government ops committee. And the one that said that we're not gonna deal with it now, we're tabling your proposal H944. And at the end of that letter, they say, we look forward to revisiting a charter change once the voters of the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction have approved a plan of merger. As you know, the title 24, chapter 49 requires the development of a charter for a consolidated municipality as part of a plan or merger. It is our hope that our concerns can be addressed as part of this more thorough process and that we can work with you to ensure passage of the plan of merger in the general assembly. I just wanted to read that so folks knew that they addressed it, like they're expecting us to come to them with something but I don't know what that means if we don't. So as Evan said, we don't know what the next steps are once the vote happens. If it's a positive vote, it goes to the legislature and they will talk with us about it and make their decisions. If it's a negative vote, I do not know what they're going to do with the three plus three bill that has been introduced that we all approved back last March. So it's an unanswered question and we'll find out as soon as we can. Pat, go ahead. Pat, are you frozen? Sure looks frozen. That's frozen. Sure looks frozen. And in your hand is up, you're not frozen. I just wanted to go back. Tracy Delphia had asked if there would be RFPs for consulting work. Absolutely, we would look to do request for proposals. We think in terms of looking at departments, we would be looking for consultants that have expertise in those departments, like somebody who does recreation, somebody who does fire. I wouldn't necessarily want a general list. So just thought I'd go back to that one. And Pat, I'm sorry, you're still frozen. He just, he's trying to come back in now. His team's crashed. I had one other question that I heard a resident ask. They want to know what village residents have paid versus what town outside the village residents have paid over the last 12 years? That says Sarah to me. It does. I'll need some time tomorrow to pull up the tax rates over the last 12 years and then just throw it in a spreadsheet. So that's not something I can produce on the fly. Okay. My favorite as much. Oh, there's Pat. Excellent. Go ahead, Pat. I'm sorry about that. I'm not sure. If it was teams or my internet connection, so if it's my internet, it might go down again. I did want to, I thought it bears mentioning that we did hire Dan Richardson to give us some practical advice on that letter that came back from government ops. He was of the very clear opinion that the phrasing of that was that as stands, he did not believe that three plus three would pass muster with government ops. For what it's worth, he clearly is not a ruling from government ops, but he does have an extreme amount of practical experience in this field. So I think it is relevant to know that us doing nothing is very likely to result in government ops, or at least in Dan's opinion, as a lawyer who handles this, may very well result in nothing as well. Okay. So I think, Evan, did you see and hear any other questions from residents that we haven't answered yet? No, no, I don't think that there's any questions that need to be answered. I wanted to take the moment to thank the people for their comments and their questions, very thoughtful. And we're still available over the next 13 days before the election. I think it's actually two weeks from today. So ballots have been mailed out. And anybody's welcome to contact anybody on the select board or myself. And we'll try to get them answers to help them make a decision. Thanks, Evan. Andy, did you hear any questions that we haven't tackled yet? Just trying to find my mute button. No, I'm all set. I think we got them on. Okay. All right, then let's move on to the business items. Business item 7A, consider approval of the first class and second class liquor license, Silver Hospitality LLC, DBA, Salt and Bubbles Wine Bar and Market. Get myself on camera. So we have a new liquor license applicant in town, Silver Hospitality LLC doing business at Salt and Bubbles Wine Bar and Market. The application has been reviewed by the police department and the clerk's office and no concerns. So they are comfortable with select board approval. I believe I earlier saw the owner, I guess, Kayla Silver. Typically when there's a new business we give the owner an opportunity to introduce themselves and what the business is going to be about. But beyond that, the select board has any questions about the application, hopefully myself for Kayla and I believe our assistant clerk, Jenny Willingham, is on to hopefully between the three of us we can answer any questions there maybe. Kayla just popped up in the chat. So why don't we have her join us and talk about her new establishment? Can you turn on your camera and mic there? There you are. Yeah, it took a minute for it to freeze. Thank you so much for giving me a minute to introduce myself, it's really exciting. And this is, I'm going to be totally honest, I'm a two year Essex town of Essex resident. It was really great to hear everybody's feedback. It's really exciting to be a community member like this. This is awesome. Salt and Bubbles Wine Bar and Market is, you know, I'll kind of, I guess I'll start with the slogan. The slogan is drink wine, break bread and share community. So it's kind of right in line. We're really all about sourcing wines that are made consciously, whether that be for the environment, for the people who are growing it, the stewards of the land who are actually making this beautiful product. But we're also trying to be approachable. The wine scene in the wine world is kind of a bit bipolar. Sometimes it's rose all day t-shirts and sometimes it's kind of snobby. And we want to be this really fun middle ground where if you know a little, if you know a lot, you can come to us with whatever you do know. And the point is for you to gather with your loved ones and friends and enjoy. That's why we called it Salt and Bubbles. All the salty, delicious snacks that you have with wine. Obviously that defines the salt part, but the bubbles piece, we obviously don't sell just sparkling wine. Now, as much as I like sparkling wine, we don't sell just that. But sparkling wine tends to be what you welcome people with, what you celebrate around. And it reminds us all of better times. Which I think we could all use these days. The, it'll be a small wine bar. This is not gonna be a late night spot. Final seating will be often at 8.30 PM or 9 PM on the weekends. Final seating does not mean that's when we shut our doors and kick people out. It just means that's when our final reservations will be, this is in no way, shape or form meant to be a watering hole. It's meant to be a new addition to the community that people can feel welcomed. All races, all genders, all backgrounds. And we also are doing a new and different kind of staffing model. Tipping is something that Salt and Bubbles does not do. In lieu of tipping, we ask that you consider as guests to donate those dollars to one of six nonprofits that we'll be partnering with throughout each year. It's a voluntary thing to do. You certainly don't have to donate any of those dollars, but we're paying our staff fair hourly wages that they are happy with and sustained by. And we wanna be one of the first in the area to try and move into this model. If anybody has gone to loss and fine liquids, they've been doing this for a number of years and have been extremely successful with it. And their staff love it too. So some of the nonprofits we'll be partnering with include the Humane Society. I don't have all of my creatures behind me, but they usually are. And others include Vermont Works for Women, the Intervail Center, the Vermont Food Bank, Vermont Adaptive for their Veteran Program and Vermont Land Trust. So and more will come after that, but that's just year one. So we're excited to welcome everyone in and I thank everybody in the town for being so helpful in my application process. Kayla, it sounds like you have a great model going. Are you, you're in the Essex experience? That's correct, yes. We'll be taking a portion of the Van Huisen location. So to familiarize people, if you didn't know where Van Huisen was and maybe you now know where Art Hound and Uncommon Coffee are, we'll sort of be in that block there. Okay. And has it been a challenge for you to start your business during the pandemic? Oh, absolutely. I think we need an entire other committee meeting for that story. No, it's been challenging, but it's also been a rewarding experience. I'm very familiar with Teams and Zoom, so I'll go there. And I'm just so excited to actually meet people in person and welcome them into the space. We will be doing everything we can to be safe during this time. We are being positive and hoping that things get better by summer, but I think for now, until my staff can at least get a vaccine, I think we'll be looking at patio seating only for the very beginning and then hopefully come fall, be looking at opening up the indoor seating quite a bit. Okay, yeah. That's great. Board members, any questions for Kayla, Andy? Yeah, Kayla, thanks for coming. Do you have an opening date? Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish. Andy, we'll be starting construction, I hope by the end of this month. And if you've ever done construction, if they say two months, I hear three. So my very greatest hope is that we're gonna be grand opening mid-June. Left in time for summer to kick off. So I have one question for staff. Is we usually renew liquor licenses? What is it, April 1st? Or is it May 1st? I forget anything is, is this for, I mean, are they gonna come back again immediately? Or with Kayla, I have this cover for the full year. How's this work that way? It is April 1st for the renewals this year. And Jenny, do you know if this would cover, be covered within the renewals, or Kayla would have to come back? No, this will be her renewal. It'll go into effect on May 1st. The Department of Liquor Control is asking all applicants for this period to have their applications in by April 1st. So that's why a little bit earlier. But yes, so Kayla, that'll be May 1st, that that'll be ready for you going forward. Gotcha. And I'll receive a notice from the DLC for that, correct? Sorry. Pardon me? I'll receive a notice direct. So the other thing is that I don't actually think I'll be getting my DLC liquor license until June because the health department has to come in first. So I don't actually think that I'll need a renewal until 2022 because I won't actually have a liquor license until that time, correct? Well, Martin Provost, who's the Investigator, he'll come out and he will tell you things that need to be done. And then that should be done before May 1st. I mean, so even though you won't be starting, you'll still will have a pending license for you and it should be ready to go at that time. Okay. Based on his instructions. Gotcha. And that's even without the health department or? Correct, because that'll be pending. Okay. So they'll both be pending until they're both not pending. Exactly. All right. Thank you. Evan? Kayla, thank you. Are you, I thought I heard you might be serving out on a patio. This is correct, yes. And you've applied for outside consumption. I believe so. It's not something that's on the initial application I don't think with DLC, but I will definitely be making sure that I'm compliant on all levels. And so that outside is, is that just gonna be right in front of your space? You're not gonna be going out into the parking lot or bleeding over and past your storefront? No, I will not. So at the moment, there's not a tendency on, so if you're thinking about the venues in space, we'll be taking half of it and there's another half to it. That other half at present does not have any tendency. And so with approval from Peter Edelman, my landlord, right now the patio space will occupy directly in front of my store. And for the moment, be potentially bleeding a couple of feet over to my left-hand side. Okay. In the venue. Sorry. Would you please send us a sketch of your outdoor seating and generally the area and any defining mark of where people are able to be and drink and not drink if they're outside of that, that we find, because basically we approve liquor licenses for inside consumption and a separate one for outside consumption. And therefore I think tonight we'll be able to approve it with both. We just want to see that drawing. We'll make it condition on that drawing. Sure. And that drawing can essentially just be emailed or should I draw it up right now and screen share it? You can draw it up and email it to the fabulous Jenny Willingham. Okay. I will most certainly do that. And I will say that for the moment, the patio situation, this is a plan for this coming. Yeah. Listen, and if it changes. Yeah. We'll work with you. And I'm not asking for a 3D model or like what the tables are going to look like. Just give us a rudimentary. Just a layout, I understand. How many tables, how many chairs, what's the space? You got it. Thanks. And to be clear, there's a separate permit you have to ask for outdoor consumption. Yes. Yeah. There's another form you need to submit that allows for the outdoor consumption. This is not part of the initial DLC application, I don't believe. It wasn't. No. And Kaila, I'll just email that video for that tomorrow. Thank you, Jenny. We're pretty easy to work with as long as you follow some rules. Okay. Well, that's what I've heard that at least. I've got lucky, I'm dealing with you lovely people and I'm not in Burlington. Burlington's a good community too. We will just arrange them. I've heard they just learned a little. So thank you. Madam Chair, hi, I'm the author. What's that, what's that, Evan? I have no other comments or questions. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Board members, any further questions for Kaila? Andy, do you want to do the honors? You're muted. Sorry, just want to make one clarification though. I think Evan, you said we can go ahead and approve outdoor consumption pending form. Or do we want to? If you want to, or we can put it on the next agenda if she submits it, but she- We can just do it in consent and another agenda. Yeah, sure. Yeah, okay, okay. So I move that the select board approve the first and second class liquor license for Silver Hospitality, Silver Hospitality LLC doing business as Salt and Bubbles Wine Bar and Market. Second. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Dawn. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Thank you, Kaila. Best of luck to you. And Jenny, it was very nice to see your face. Do we need to read the admonition? Or did she leave? Aw, geez, Andy, you are good. Kaila, are you still there? I am. Okay, I'm gonna open the admonition. Hang on just a second. I've got it on my desktop, I believe. Here it is. So Kaila, when we have a new establishment that comes to town that is serving liquor, we give them the following admonition. The select board takes the issuance of liquor licenses very seriously as should the area establishments who serve alcohol. We expect you to not serve alcohol to minors nor anyone who is obviously inebriated. We thank you for doing business in Essex and we wish you a very successful year. Well, I think you handily and I certainly do not intend to do any of the former. Okay, thank you, Kaila. Best of luck. Thank you very much. All right. Okay. Next, this is item seven B, consider request from Andy Waz to post merger information to all front porch forum neighborhoods. Andy, you requested that this be put on the agenda? Yeah, and I just, yeah. So, I guess I wanna make it clear up front that this isn't my idea. What happened is a neighbor of mine, a good friend of mine posted a question on front porch forum and I responded to it. Elaine actually helped me find the decoder ring for the grand list so I could sort out TOV from village so that I was able to actually get some better data so I posted again. And I also included example calculation using my own home as to how folks outside of the village could figure out what their tax increase is gonna be. At that point, that was the second post. At that point, I got a couple of questions from folks saying, this is good material. It should be posted across all front porch forums. I said, well, I don't think I can based on the communications policy. Elaine was encouraging, also encouraging me to post these. So, I went on, the question series went on for 12 additional or 12 total posts, a total of 33,000 characters. And I've gotten a lot of requests to again, to post it across all forums. And my rationale for not doing so is that the communications policies says that select board members can say whatever they want as long as they identify it as their own position or opinion. And so I was doing that. And I assumed, I interpreted that to mean also that I could only post on my home front porch forum. I'll select board members. One of the superpowers we get is to post across all forums if you want to. I just did not feel it was appropriate. People could certainly interpret some of what I've posted as reflecting my opinion or my bias. And so I didn't wanna post with my name with select board next to my name without permission of the board. So that's why I'm coming. The 12 posts and the dates that they were posted are included in the package. I don't know if folks have read through those or had the time to look at them or have any concerns or comments or whether there's any thought about whether I should post them or not post, I don't know where folks are with that. Okay, board members, go ahead Pat, you're muted. So I'll go first. I mean, I'm sorry, Andy, it's gonna sound critical of me, but I got a post in my front porch forum today from you. Yeah, yeah. And frankly, that reads really poorly because if we decide not to, then I think everybody in this community is going to say the select board did not let Andy post. And I realized that may not be the way that you intend it, but I think that more people saw that post of yours than these previous posts that you were just putting in your home forum and that puts the rest of the board in an extremely awkward position. I say that honestly, with my opinion is that I don't believe you need the full consent of the board to use your select board authorization to post across the communities as long as you identify that it's your opinion. There's been clearly a lot of discussion on social media and in the front porch forums and stuff over the last month, two months or so. And I would say social media is arguably something that I deal a lot within, but except for one post about whether or not I thought a select board member can represent their position or not, I have not taken any specific position I've just let the materials that were approved go out for themselves. So seeing all of these posts from you that you put in your front porch forum and I mean, honestly, I appreciate that you gave them all, but I mean, I didn't see any notice on the post from the 27th, the 7th, the 8th, the 9th, the 10th that you were identifying yourself only speaking as an individual, not as a select board member. There were, I had pretty serious issues with your consistency with how you describe some of whether or not, or the justification of the economic development person and whether or not that was something that benefited village or not village. And I mean, those are personal things that we can talk about, but those are definitely I would argue biased. And the fact that I, you know, honestly, I didn't see them. I wasn't really aware that they were being posted. I saw some people say that they were sharing info of yours, but I've been trying to be very hands off with this. So the fact that you're now coming tonight after you've already posted to every community in Essex saying that maybe after tonight, I'll be able to tell you more puts, certainly puts me in a very awkward position about whether or not I could say anything. So I mean, I'll just say straight out that I don't believe you need our permission as a board to post your individual take. I don't believe I need mine to do it. I'm just letting what I think we've approved go out, go out. But if you're going to do it just as long as you give that caveat, then I'm okay with that. But it's just, I hope you understand that while I'm frustrated, it's not directed at you. It's directed at the fact that the position that we're in right now, or at least the one that I feel that I'm in is that, you know, if I say I don't think that you need this permission and you decide that, you know, after this, you're not going to post to all of the forums because the whole select board doesn't agree with you doing it, then that feels like I'm putting a muzzle on you. And that's a really bad position for me to have been placed in because you've already posted to every community in Essex. Like, does that make sense? I mean, it's just, it's a hard decision for me to make. Yeah, I get it. I really, I'm sorry, I guess I'm interrupting, I'll let you finish. No, no, I was done. It was just, you know, again, like, you know, the information that you have, some of it is really great. Some of it, I think, you know, you and I could debate over for sure, but it's information that people may find valuable and there's nothing wrong with sharing it. I just, I don't think you need the board permission. What I do, what I do resent is being put in a position where now this is out in the community and everybody who gets front porch forum is going to be looking for their notification tomorrow to see whether or not the board let Andy talk. And that is a common theme in the community right now. People think we are muzzling you. It's along the same lines that some people don't even believe Vince exists and they say that the select board is made up of two village members, two TOV members. And then if the communities merge, there will be five trustees. That was an actual conversation I saw happen on Facebook earlier this week. And I still didn't step in. That's hilarious. Yeah, but it's very common. Someone is under the impression that when three plus three comes in, that there will be a negotiation fairly because there will finally be, and this is the exact quote, there will finally be an even number of TOV members on the board versus TIV members on the board. Discounting the fact that right now, TIV members make up the minority of the board. It's just, it's, there's lots of things like this that I feel are out there right now. And I've been very careful about not trying to step in myself personally, you know, on to these because I've wanted the communications to be consistent. I apologize that this is coming off as like a long rant, but there's so much disinformation out there that I am choosing not to correct because I'm trying to be respectful of how we present communications to the community to see a post like I saw earlier tonight, go out to everyone and then know that this was on the packet tonight was, it was is tough, it's tough for me. And okay, I'm done. I'm sorry, I apologize. I spoke for a long time, but you know, there was a lot, I think that needed to be said about it. So, you know, please lay at me, you know, anyone has any differing opinions or you know, if I'm way off base, please don't hesitate, you know, I'm, I need to apologize for your opinion, Pat. Honestly, everybody has one and we're all allowed to have them. But I appreciate you're being honest and frank. Any other board members? Vince? Yes, cast for the friendly select board member here. I'd like to, Andy, like I think you did a lot of great work in those posts. There's just one thing I'd ask and you don't have to change it, but I'm just asking that you change it. At the end, when you talk about school taxes, you kind of mentioned some things about the nature of the way that the tax structure could change in Vermont and how the select board might react to that. I wish, if you wouldn't mind just neutralizing that language a little more, I'd really appreciate that. And I don't mean to like block anything, but just that. Yep. Thank you. Dawn? I don't have any problem with this posting as long as the posts are factual. And actually I've enjoyed reading some of his past history. So I don't think that our policy requires a vote of the board. I think that it's extremely clear, extremely clear in the policy that you are absolutely entitled and you have full permission to publish whatever you want as long as you say, which you've been doing, that you're speaking on behalf of yourself. Vince asked about a particular section that he was concerned about. I mean, I don't wanna vote on this because it's, a vote implies that we're endorsing your opinion and this is your opinion and you already have permission to share your opinion. You make some statements about how the village children are being prioritized over town outside the village children and I disagree with that vehemently. I don't want my vote associated with that and you don't need my vote for that. I think you have a consensus from the community or from the board that we all are fine with you publishing your opinion. But if you could, as Vince suggests, temper some of the more statements that put the select board in a very bad light and I don't feel accurate, but that's up to you. But again, identify yourself and as a board member speaking on yourselves on your own opinion. And I just wanna point out that you refer to the superpower of front porch forum and it's a really cool thing that elected officials are allowed to do that. If front porch forum didn't exist and all we had was the Essex Reporter and you wanted to publish your opinion, you would put it in the reporter and everybody would see it. So this is a different vehicle. It's just segregated into different parts of town but I think you might wanna look at it as if you had published in the Essex Reporter for all to see. So in that respect, front porch forum really isn't any different from the Essex Reporter. So can I respond to some of this? Absolutely. Yeah, so again, I mentioned that I felt like I could post as an individual which means having access to my own, only my own forum. So, for example, I'm just gonna pick on Patty Davis, sorry Patty, that if Patty wanted to post something across all forums, she would have to pay for an ad to do that. That's why I mentioned the number of characters that I wrote. To put a thousand character ad across all nine posts would cost something under $400 and some dollars for an individual to do. And so the fact that I'm an individual, I'm posting as an individual, I'm not posting as a select board member. I have concerns with taking advantage. I have real concerns, it's an abuse of power to post my opinion or something that could be interpreted as my opinion. I've certainly got some flavor and I understand, I completely understand the points that have been made and that they could be interpreted as biased and or trying to influence the result of an election. And so again, if I'm posting something on a front porch forum that has the potential of influencing an election, I think I'm also constrained by campaign finance law. So that's where I have, I'm struggling with this is without agreement from the boards, the board, you know, it's not town business. I mean, I talked to Front Porch Forum about this as well and they said, you know, if it's not town business, you shouldn't be publishing, you shouldn't be posting an across. And I struggle with saying that my opinion is town business. So in Patrick, in spite of my coming to this, I may choose not to and I'll explain completely to everybody I chose not to because I didn't feel comfortable doing it based on the response I got because there's another piece to this too as I'm supposed to make sure, you know, ask staff to make sure that things I'm posting are factual and they don't have the bandwidth right now to look at it. And so it's not just select board agreement. It's also, you know, some endorsement by the, by staff that the content is factual. So I'm stuck in a spot here. Again, you know, first thing I said when I started is this wasn't my idea. I just wanted to leave it as it was. And, you know, I've been accused of doing this, of intentionally posting only on my forum in order to cause division. And so I'm just trying to figure out, I'm just trying to figure a smooth way to get around that. I guess it's unfortunately seems to be proceeding poorly for me. So I don't know where to go. I mean, I would argue, maybe not even argue, but this is my take on it. And with complete respect that yours may be different. You used the Patty Davis example. Patty Davis is an individual, certainly. You Andy Watts are an individual, but you are also a select board member, you know, and just like the governor is one individual who gets, you know, his one vote, but if he calls a press conference, the news media is going to show up. That's not going to happen if I decide I want to announce something about the town of Essex. I don't expect WCAX is going to, you know, break down my door to see what I'm talking about today. I think that because of your position that, yes, you are granted certain avenues of communication that an individual member of the public may not have, but that's because you're a select board member and people have voted you into office with that power. And as long as you are identifying that you are yourself are speaking as Andy Watson, not as the full board, I think it's maybe where there's a disconnect where I would see that as being okay, because just like me, and I use this often, you know, I feel people vote me into office because they respect and they want to hear my opinions and I feel that the exact same way for you when you were given avenues to explore those, all you have to do is just make sure that, you know, it's not, you're not, you are speaking as a select board member, you're just not speaking as the majority of the select board. And I think that the communications policy, I apologize, I don't remember it verbatim, but I think that's kind of exactly what the language uses, isn't it? It's like the majority of the select board has taken X position, I believe Y position, you know, again, as long as people know that you're a select board member, you know, they're gonna see that come up and if your name's beside it, okay, as long as you're within the text of that saying that you're not speaking for the majority of the board, I see no problem with it. I think that's where my clarification is or at least where I feel okay with it. And so these provisions were put in after the direct governance effort a while, you know, many years ago, where various select board and our staff were posting things that, you know, and I don't even remember if Fung Porchhorn existed back then, but, you know, I'm so struggling and I'm sorry, maybe I should have just left this lie and just asked that all my content be put in the reading file and not bring up the question. Andy, might I suggest the Essays Community page if you wanna- No, I will not go there. I am not a member. I will not participate in that. I think that's a violation of open meeting law. If any of us go look at that. Really, okay. Absolutely, absolutely. If three of us see a discussion about town business on Facebook, I think it's an open meeting violation. So I won't. Andy, I think you have a consensus from the board that- Yep, it's coming down to my personal position. Right, you know, I empathize with your, all of the considerations you're weighing. So I think we just need to let you do that and you have the latitude to do whatever it is you decide to do, okay? Yep, and I guess I already have staff's position that they don't have the bandwidth to look at this right now, so I'll weigh that as well. Pat. I would also offer, Andy, for what it's worth if you want to give me a call or text or whatever because you want to talk about the decision, you know, just one-on-one as individuals, please feel free. Like, you know, I don't want to, as much as I felt awkward being in a position, I don't want to put you in an awkward position if I can help. So it's an offer, I guess, just nothing more than that. And I guess I want to make it clear that that post that went up today, I didn't plan for it to be today. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't intentional that it came out today. I submitted that three days ago and it took a while to get actually posted. Content was the same, yes, but it wasn't intentionally planned to be tonight while we're in this meeting to come out and make everybody feel awkward. Sorry about that. Vince. So I have a quick question. What's the difference between, and excuse my ignorance here, but what's the difference between Front Forge Forum and like a Facebook group like that, Andy? I think the difference is the interactivity. Yeah. On social media, you can comment. Ah, gotcha, all right, cool. You can on Front Forge Forum too. It's a good point, it's a good point. The Secretary of State's office has some guidance on social media, but I think they're hesitant to wade into those waters in a significant way. And so it leaves all of us with a, you know, judgment call. There's currently no specific case law about the Front Forge Forum either. Right. Emails, yes, but not Front Forge Forum yet. See. Greg? Yeah, just a couple of points if you'll indulge me. To answer the question of social media and an open meeting law, I can't remember if it was the Secretary of State or some other entity, but the determination was basically that having a conversation on Facebook, for instance, even if there's only one board member participating, if there's two or three or four others who are watching it, it's similar to being at a board meeting and having one member speak and three or four members listen before you have a vote. So that's part of the other reasoning there as far as meeting law and social media. And I just wanted to weigh in a little bit on the staff capacity to weigh in on some of these materials for accuracy and absolutely we are stretched in. It'd be a tough lift to get this done. I do want to point out it's also, it puts staff in a little bit of a tricky position where some of this stuff is opinions. It's potentially putting us contradictory to what the select board has approved as the official position or official materials. When there's some comments about disagreeing with some of the information was in there. So it's putting staff in a position of having to wait into the political waters a bit and places to stand with, but also that piece of it as well. And I just wanted to make everyone aware of that. Evan, Evan, did you want to speak? My apologies, I was muted. Pull the pet on everybody. Andy, I thought I have no problems. I think your motives were pure. I don't think you intended to do any of this in any ways that other people may want to paint it in. Greg answered the, addressed the question. For me, yeah, we don't really have the bandwidth. I don't know where this leads. Every day five elected members could send me five things they want me to review. And, you know, I just, it's just a very difficult thing. I will throw out if there's something one specific thing you specifically want me to look at, I will do that, but I really have to treat everybody the same. And therefore there's five of you. There's five village trustees that are not subject to this policy, but could certainly ask me and our staff to do things. And we try to say to them, is this a board document or is this an individual document? So if you want to call me tomorrow, I'm happy to talk with you as well about this, but thank you for at least bringing this forward and having the discussion. It took a lot of, it took a lot to do that. So. Thanks. I'm going to pull on Andy and start crying here. Seriously, I mean, this is hard. We appreciate the struggle you're dealing with. So thank you for asking. Thanks, Kurt. Yeah. So this does not have a vote at this point, but I see some hands up in the audience with the board's approval, we'll go to the public. Okay. I mean, only Andy is comfortable with it. Yes, please. Yes, yes. Okay. All right. Irene, Ben, Annie, then Gabrielle. Thanks very much. I've enjoyed seeing what Andy has written on the front porch forum in Essex Center. And I have shared some of his pieces with friends, one of whom lives in the village and tried to repost something that he had written, giving him credit for it. And so to me, it doesn't all fit in my window. And I said, well, that's interesting. Andy posted it all in a single forum. And she said, well, I'm going to have to divide it into three parts. And I said, well, that's bizarre. Maybe your front porch forum is broken. So I wrote to front porch forum because I know that the town and village together spend over $5,000 a year supporting front porch forum. And I thought, how could one neighborhood not have the same access as somebody else? And the response I got was, a member's character count is tied. This is reading directly from a letter I got from front porch forum support. A member's character count is tied into our software. And can have to do with a number of factors, activity level, posting length, topic variability, civility, et cetera. I don't know how you're going to decide on this, Andy. And I don't know what the board is going to do going forward about these kinds of postings, but I would urge you to contact front porch forum and notify them that we as a town need to be assured that every single person for whom we are paying these fees out of their tax dollars, deserves to have the same character count when they go to post in their forum within Essex as you do in yours. Thank you so much. Thank you. Annie? Yeah, Andy, I saw your, by the way, I what a great compliment, Paul and Annie, that's great, I love it. I saw your post today and the only thing that struck me was I was like, I wish I could communicate to someone, you know, how deeply, seriously, Andy takes his work on Dries and then this evening, we're in it. I would say, Andy, that was supposed to be light and fun. I would say to you, Andy, that I have seen you really open this evening and really, I think that you should open your own moral door here more than you normally do because I think this is a good idea. I think that you do belong with your voice where you want to put it. Everyone's agreeing with you. You know, let it, let it go, let it happen. Go tell people what you want to tell people. You'll feel better. The community will feel better. Let people know what you want to say. Say it the way that, you know, phrase it so that it's clear, that it's your personal opinion and let loose, Andy, crazy with it. We want to hear what you have to say. Your voice is valuable. Oh, I should have talked to Elaine but I don't even care, Andy, I just broke a rule. There you go, just kidding. Anyway, we really appreciate you and I feel that this discussion has been, like you said, beautiful and I really, buddy, go for it. Do it, do your thing and feel better that you did. I don't think there's anything that should be stopping you. The fact, the front porch for it is town business because like Pat said, it's your, you get to, you know more in your seat, you know more than the average person. And so it is, it is a thing to go, I'm talking too much but anyway, I think just go ahead, be thoughtful about how you engage in it but do it because people will be glad that you did and this conversation has been valuable. I think it's great. Thanks, Gabrielle and then Tracy. Hi, first I'll totally, I'm gonna just say to what the earlier person said about reaching out to front porch forum. I think that's really important and that was really interesting informationally and I think that's really important. But to this issue, huge thanks to Andy for talking about this and for talking with me. And I've been communicating with Andy about this because I was really troubled to see the information and feeling that one of the select board members, and you are Andy, you know, you have personal opinions and but when you post about how business even though you're not posting as you kind of see the conundrum you got yourself into, right? And it just spread across the community now already and I think the cat side of the bag in a way and somehow I found what you posted to be really important and yes, there's elements of it that show a bias or show your strong opinion that is a voice of dissent from the majority of the board as is your right as a dissenting board member and I wanna know what you have to say. And for me, what I found really hard was would I ever have seen it if it hadn't gone viral, you know and then who gets to see it? Who's seen it now? Who hasn't seen it? It's like this whole like, I feel like we're playing a game of telephone or something and I would just really urge you to in this situation I really do hear you and I respect your assessment of what the policy, how it applies. In this situation, I think that it's just it's kind of gone beyond that now. And I think the community needs to hear from you personally and not have it be reposted. I know that was not your intention but that's what happened. And I think that now it's time for the community to hear from you and to have that put forward in a way that is respectful of the entire board and making sure that everybody hears from you, Andy. You're a really great select board member and you have really important opinions and I think we all need to hear from you. So just thank you so much and thank you for being vulnerable. I know that you all may have superpowers but you're really just human beings. We're trying to help us all. So thank you all very much. Thank you, Tracy. I'm not gonna reiterate what Gabrielle just said. So I'm just gonna say do on that piece of it. And I sort of wanted to focus on an email that I had sent on January 28th, Andy, excuse me, Eileen about Andy's, he sent out a front porch forum about how to calculate the tax impact on a specific tax bill. Currently, my family is going through a refinance and I found this extremely helpful for calculating the impact to our specific house site value. So I think if I could just focus the potential for just putting out that information, since that did come from staff, I think that that may be more or less of an ethical dilemma for you to consider. Thank you. Okay, thank you everyone. And our next order of business is the consent agenda. So- Can I just make one last comment? Sorry, I just wanted to thank the folks that spoke and then thank the select board for your comments as well. Sorry, I'm pulling in Andy here. And Andy, I love you. Okay. Thank you, Andy. All set, Andy? Yeah, that's enough, thanks. All right. So we have the consent agenda. Let's move and second it so that we can get it on the floor and then if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on it. Would that work for you? Dawn, was that a motion? Sorry, I make the motion that we accept the consent agenda. There's second. Second. Thank you, Vince. Okay, so we can now discuss. Is there anybody in the audience who wishes to address any of the pieces that are in the consent agenda? Okay, I'm not seeing anybody raise their hand. Board members, do you have any questions or comments on the consent agenda? Madam Chair, I believe Dennis is in the audience if he wants to speak to the road change. Sure. Dennis, would you like to talk to us about 8C? Yeah, I guess I'm on. Yeah, Erin and I put this together but most of the work is Erin's and it's taken us actually a significant amount of time when you follow the state statutes for, it's pretty easy to accept a regular road that a developer builds and place it in the certificate for the annual road mileage. It's a little harder when it's an existing class four road and you want to do it to a class three. And so we had to go through the entire process of notifying adjacent landowners, making sure we had a survey, which we do have. We have plans for the work that was done and it's a very small segment of mileage but it's important because there was a commitment made at a number of different times and places that to the residents along West Sleepy Hollow that our road policy, the way it's stated says the road and this goes back to prior to West Sleepy Hollow was really built, that the town was not gonna accept any more gravel roads and that was done for many reasons but 23 of the town's 70 miles roughly are gravel. And the intent at that time was there was discussion and the village was involved with some of the discussion that it was important to have in that ordinance that we were not accepting additional gravel roads because the concern was at some point in time what if all those roads had to be paved? Now that has not occurred over the last tenure that I've been here except for a couple of very small sections. So the intent was that if a class four road was to be accepted, the gravel road that a new road and this was a new road even though it was a class four right away if a new gravel road was to be accepted it couldn't unless it was paved. And so as the development occurred on West Sleepy Hollow road, developers contributed money towards paving and we utilize that money I think it's two years ago now to pave a small section at the lower portion and it wasn't just pavement it was reconstructing the base putting inadequate drainage, stone lining the drainage. It's also one of those areas that falls within our stormwater requirements. So at some point minus the paving we would have had to probably do that work anyway. And then this last year we got a grant to do another portion of the roadway and improve the drainage, put stone in the ditches widen the road some take some trees out unfortunately but we had to essentially again meet our stormwater requirements but the paving was agreed to and so when the planning commission approved lots up there they approved funds specific for paving of a section of West Sleepy Hollow road. And so those funds were made available we bid out the project and we constructed it. And on a number of occasions when we met with the residents of West Sleepy Hollow road at a number of meetings the commitment was made that we would once that road met the town standard and for a paved class three road which is what was designed to do we would in fact take it over as a town highway. We plowed the entire road in the winter anyway. We plowed essentially all of our class four roads in the winter so that there's access for emergency vehicles, fire, police, whatever. So it's not a winter time issue but it is an issue that says going forward we're responsible for that now the town is not responsible for that 400 and some odd feet of roadway as far as maintenance goes and we are responsible on other portions of the road under our stormwater permit if they were to wash out or if we had to do drainage work on the ditches. So it's changed drastically from when the town highway ordinance was written but we've tried to keep faith with what we agreed we would do and that's why it's in this year's highway certification every year you certify the highways to the state we have to do that anyway and so we've added it in this year so that we'd go in and as you can tell from the memo I think it brings us from the state aid that we get for a whopping income of $42.51 a year from the state. So it's definitely not a money maker for anyone. $0.42 would probably a $42 would probably cover I don't know maybe a tentable load of salt or something like that up there. So it's really following through and what you agreed to do earlier. Dennis thank you very much. Board members do you have questions for Dennis on this? Hey Dennis don't spend that all in one place. Trust us we won't. It all goes into the road network so it's gonna get spent someplace but it'll probably get lost. Spread very thinly. Well if there aren't any other questions for Dennis or questions on the consent agenda we have a motion and a second on the table. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay we've approved the consent agenda. Now we're onto the reading file and any questions or comments from board members? Evan. I don't have one on the reading file but there was a question I think that we missed in the public hearing from Irene about a question about if you don't mind I'll. Please. The question goes something to the effect of if the voters vote for debt and the debt stays with the voters that did it what about annual budgets? Paraphrasing. I will have to ask legal counsel for a definitive but in our early discussions the state basically has a thing the people who voted for debt it stays with them unless someone else decides to take over that debt which I don't think would happen. The state you create a tax reconciliation district because you have two different tax rates until they merge into one tax rate the state wants one tax rate for a municipality unless there's some other reason like that or something like that. I will have to check with Dan if there is any other provision for that but I don't have a better answer tonight and I'm sorry that I missed it in the list other than that ready to if there's any questions on reading list. Thanks Evan Pat. It actually came up earlier but I wanted to stress it again just because I have seen a lot of communications around that the select board is five members and that Vince, Andy and Don live in the TOV Elaine and I both live in the TIV. Vince does exist and I just want to I realized that again as we've by and large been trying to stay out of conversations I think things important as that we do need to be vocal about clearing up some misinformation it's just we can't have people believing that there's an untruth to the number of board members or if people twisting or misrepresenting where we live it's just it's a fact that Vince lives in the TOV Andy lives in the TOV Elaine and I both live in the TIV it's hard to stay quiet when some of this is going on so I'm bringing it up now during a portion of the meeting where we as board members can comment that I do think it is on us to correct not the opinions of individuals but the facts of individuals that are inarguable. So just while we have time that's what I wanted to say. Thanks Pat. Any other comments Vince? I do want to say that while I live in the TOV I vacation in the Astral Plane. So that's all I have. Have a great one. Thank you Vince. All right, if there aren't any other comments or questions from board members I'll take a motion to adjourn. Make a motion to adjourn. Thank you Dawn. Is there a second? Second. Is that Pat? Yes. Okay. Any further discussion? Evan has it. I apologize. Reminder March 1st informational meeting. March 2nd is town meeting day which is now an Australian ballot vote. Ballots have been sent out. Yes, you can decide to mail them back in drop them off at town hall but if you are going to drop it off at town hall it has to be there by the first. And if it's on the second you have to take it to the polling place. Please. And the town office ballot box is at 81 Main Street. Just so everybody- It's on their lock and key. Yeah. And annual reports Evan are going out in the mail soon. They were mailed out today either today or yesterday they will be in people's homes by the 19th for sure because that's the state requirement but they were mailed out. Actually they were mailed out today because yesterday was a holiday. Okay. All right. Okay. We have a motion and a second on the table for adjournment. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Have a good evening everybody. Thank you very much. We'll see you at town meeting on March 1st.