 Well, now that we've thoroughly embarrassed you a little bit, I'll get ahead and look at it. He's totally embarrassed. Wow. I'm not embarrassed. I'm thrilled. Thank you. It was very kind. That's pretty clever too, by the way. I'm certainly appreciative of those that planned it. So thank you to you secret elves. Thank you. And so on that note, I will go ahead and call the village of trustees meeting for Monday, March 22nd to order. And I will call the select board meeting to order. To the staff, do we have any agenda additions or changes tonight? I do not have anything. No. Trustees. That was good. Select board members. Okay. I guess I will take this moment to also just remind members of the public, if you are not speaking, please make sure your microphone is muted so that way we don't get any cross volume or cross wires, which can make our speakers all go a little haywire and make hearing everybody a little difficult. So we now have no need to approve the agenda as it hasn't been amended. And as has been done at the select board meetings recently with the reading of the civility invocation events, would you like to do us a favor and read that? Will do. Does someone mind putting it up? Thank you. Thank you, Greg. We are gathered together in civil assembly. We are gathered 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 a far greater importance than any difference we may have. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for that, Vince. And so with that reminder, that brings us to public to be heard. And so this is a portion of tonight's meeting where there are members of the public who wish to speak to the boards about something that is not on the agenda. This is a time to do so. And the way that this works is if you are using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature that you wish to speak. And I will go ahead and call on you. For those of you who have called into the meeting, I will call on you after Microsoft Teams members have come through. And I see Ken Signorello, your hand is up. Why don't you get us started? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think my question is to the trustees. Can you tell me what is the status of Memorial Day Parade or who I might contact to find that out? I don't want to answer incorrectly, as my understanding is it isn't the village who does it, but rather a committee and would look to Evan to answer that more accurately than I. Our understanding is that there will not be a Memorial Day Parade this year based on COVID, but they are looking to bring it back next year. Thank you very much. Thank you, Evan. Are there other members of the public who wish to address the boards about something that is not on the agenda tonight? And now for those of you on the phone, if you would like to address the members of the board about something that is not on the agenda, go right ahead and chime on in. Let's please let us know who you are. Nothing seems as if we can now move away from the public to be heard portion of tonight's meeting, which will bring us to Business Item 5A, a presentation of racial equity work in Essex from Creative Discourse. And I see that we have Susan McCormick in attendance with us. It's so nice to see you. Hi, Andrew. It's nice to see you as well. And thank you so much for inviting me to be here with all of you tonight. I just want to say, first of all, that my colleague, Tabitha Moore, is taking a well-deserved vacation. So she won't be with us. But I did have a chance to speak with her before and to make sure that we were on the same page about some of the key things that we wanted to talk about and share back with you. And I think I'll just start by telling you just a little bit. I know many of the people on the call tonight, but I'll just tell you a little bit about myself. So I'm Susan McCormick, and I'm the founder of Creative Discourse. And I've lived in Essex for 30 years and care deeply about the community. I founded Creative Discourse about 11 years ago to do work in Vermont and New England that I was doing nationally with an organization called Everyday Democracy. And we were working with communities around the country, helping people do community problem solving, always with a racial equity lens. And our belief is that in order for strong local democracy to do well, people, it doesn't work well when people are marginalized or underrepresented. So that's always been core to my work. And so more recently, we've been working with municipalities and school districts and nonprofit organizations in Vermont. And our work is really designed to help dismantle barriers and create opportunities for everyone to contribute in a meaningful way to the success of the community. And as many of you who know me know that I've always been really passionate about the community having a meaningful voice in decisions that impact them. So that's a little bit about us. I wanted to let you know that tonight, what I'm going to do very briefly, I think the trustees and the select board asked me to take about 15 minutes is to talk a little bit about why the leaders of Essex contacted Tabitha and me and asked us to help with this work. I'm going to talk a little bit about what we've heard from the community so far and then share briefly some of the initial outcomes that have happened and a few next steps. And I am hoping to get permission from the chairs after I finish up very briefly to see if there's any task force members who are on this call who might also want to just very briefly share their experience because I'm very aware that I can't speak for everyone. So I'm hoping that you'll maybe indulge in that. So with that, I'm going to share my screen and use a couple of slides to help. And as I was telling people before the meeting, I am very comfortable with Zoom, less comfortable with teams. So let's hope this works and you can all let me know if you're able to see the presentation. Yes, it looks good. OK. So I'll start by just briefly setting the context. As we know, it's been quite a year and last year when the pandemic was really in full force. One of the things that was happening was some of the inequities that have always been with us were really laid bare and people were really struggling. And Black, Indigenous, and people of color, unfortunately, were experiencing disproportionate impact, both in terms of being affected by COVID, rates of getting COVID, dying from COVID, but also disproportionate impacts in a lot of other ways around job loss, access to broadband, all of those things that were happening. And so with a community that was already really suffering, there were three killings of African-Americans. And right during this period of time, most the one that was all are impactful, of course. But the death of George Floyd at the hands of police really sparked a worldwide response and a renewed call for racial justice around the world and in our country, too. And at that time, people all over the country were calling for significant change in policing. Some people were calling for abolishing the police, defunding the police, reforming the police. And here in Essex, the community was really concerned. And the select board and the trustees, I think, had a couple of opportunities for the police department to come and talk. Sorry about that. We just get back to my place that I was in. And the community just didn't feel like what their response was really adequate given what was happening. And I want to just share with you an excerpt from a letter that Essex leaders wrote to the community. And this came from the manager and the assistant manager and the chief of police. And I'll just be quiet for a minute and give you a chance to read this excerpt. And so to the credit of our leaders, they really realized that the way that they were trying to respond was not adequate and something different needed to happen. And that's when they reached out to Tabitha Moore, who reached out to me. And we decided that we would, if the leaders wanted us to work with them, that we would step forward. And so I want to tell you a little bit about our process, what we did and what we heard. So the first thing that we did is we really wanted to make sure that if the municipal leaders wanted to listen, that we first did some basic work to build some shared understanding among municipal leaders and also members of the police department about the history of racial injustice in this country, about implicit bias and how that works, about the impact of dominant white culture and how that influences the way business is conducted and municipalities. And so we thought that it would be helpful for people to listen and understand, especially the experiences of BIPOC and other marginalized people if they had some foundational learning and knowledge. So we held a series of three workshops with municipal leaders. And then we also held three full day trainings with all members of the Essex Police Department. So each member of the department participated in one of the three days of training. And then after we did that training, we worked to engage with the community. So we started with an initial survey and that survey basically said, we want to hear your thinking about policing and safety and racial justice. How do you want us to listen? And they told us, they said, we want to have some listening sessions and we'd like a survey. And so we held five to our listening sessions. We held an affinity group for BIPOC residents, an affinity group for members of the Nepali community and two general sessions. And I just want to name the fact that the affinity group space is an opportunity for people who hold a similar identity to be able to have a very open and frank conversation. And the BIPOC affinity group was a very diverse group. We had people in that group who identified as Asian-American, Indigenous, African-American, Black. And so I just want to make sure that we named that that was a very diverse group. And then we did a fielded a public safety survey. And just to give you a sense of the demographics, the listening survey happened right after everything was happening in the country and we had a very large response to that. In the listening sessions, we had 58 people and 28 of those participants identified as Black, Indigenous, or people of color, 30 identified as white. And then in the public safety survey, we had 36 people who identified as Black, Indigenous, or people of color, 145% identified as white and 33 people preferred not to say. The key questions we asked when we were doing this work, what we were really trying to learn were three things. First, how do people envision public safety in Essex? We wanted to know, was there a shared vision or a shared understanding about this? Or do people have really different views about what that means? And then we also wanted to find out what are people's experiences with safety and policing in Essex? And finally, we wanted to gather some ideas. What do people think we can do to make Essex a safer place to live and work? So what we heard was some really strong themes across all of the groups we talked to. The first thing that I do want to name is we did hear one theme that is not surprising because this is a theme that we could hear anywhere in the country. So some people, especially people that answered the very first survey said, we think Essex is fine the way it is and we think talking about racism is the problem. And respondents who shared this view were significantly more likely to be white. And we just want to pause here for just a moment and just share with you a quote from Isabelle Wilkerson who wrote a really important book called Cast. And what she talks about is that for 400 years in our country, slavery was the country. It wasn't just a short period of time. And that was the foundation of how we got to where we are today. And she argues that we can avoid looking at the cracks in the foundation and close the door to the basement. But if we do that, we are really in trouble. We really need to be brave and take a look at our history and how it's impacted where we're at today. And, you know, Tabitha and I both feel that only by taking that look and having the courage to see it and discuss it and acknowledge it, can we really make progress and just become the community that we all hope that we can be. So another key finding was that people to have very different experiences and Essex based on the identities that they hold. And so here's the question that we asked in the survey and you'll notice that there's just a really big gap here. 90% of the people who identify as white or prefer not to say, say they feel somewhat or very safe in Essex. And only 69% of people who identify as black, indigenous or people of color said they felt safe or very safe living in Essex. And I just want to pause here because that is a really big gap in experience that I just think we all are paying at very close attention to. And then another question that we asked is whether people have experienced or observed racism in Essex. And you'll notice that a majority of people who identify as black, indigenous or people of color have and also significant number of people who identify as white have also experienced or observed racism in Essex. So while white people and people of color overall feel that Essex is a safe place to live, people of color have experiences that make them feel less safe in Essex. And when we talked to people in the listening sessions, what we heard was that those experiences aren't limited to policing. That they experiences of racial harassment and inequity pervade many areas of the community. So policing, education, municipal government and other public spaces. The other thing that we heard really strongly was that people who identify as BIPOC are more likely to have negative experiences with police. And we asked people to just first share their overall experience with police anywhere. And what's interesting here is that all of the people who identify as BIPOC had reported having some experience with police. We have 9% of people identifying as white who hadn't had experience with police. And then in the next slide here, we asked specifically about experience with Essex Police Department. And so the majority of people who identify as BIPOC and identify as white report that they have a positive or very positive experience with the police. But there is a gap between the experience of white people and people who identify as BIPOC having a negative or very negative experience. And again, there's also a gap of people that have not had experience with the police at all. So 20% of white people reported not having any direct experience. And a much lower percentage of people who identify as BIPOC experienced or excuse me reported no direct experience with police. So while Essex residents have had some really different experiences, lived experiences here, we found a very strong shared vision for safety. And this vision was consistent across all of the groups and all of the people that we talked to. So basically there were six things that everybody said mattered. First of all, people want everyone to feel safe and comfortable for both physical and emotional harm. They want people to feel like they can travel freely around the community to all parts of the community, whether it's a school or a business or a public space. The second element of a shared vision is that there's a strong sense of community and belonging and that this idea of safety is seen as a collective responsibility. So not just the responsibility of the municipality or the police, but that it belongs to everybody and we all have to work together to achieve it. The other thing that people said was their vision for safety included a low crime rate and also adequate and responsive police fire and rescue services. The fourth thing, people want to see equitable access to resources and people having their basic needs met so that there aren't people in the community who are really left behind and struggling to get by. Then the other thing was people, it was very important to people that individuals are not discriminated against or singled out because of their identity or position or background or views. And there was a very expansive idea about all of the ways that people can be singled out and that people don't want to see that in our community. And then finally, a lot of people did talk about the importance of sidewalks and roads that are safe and well maintained and adequate lighting. And again, what's significant about this vision is this was true for all participants. So while people had different experiences in the community, this vision for safety was very similar. So when we looked at all of the data, the qualitative data from the conversations we had and also the data from the survey, a couple of patterns or themes emerged from the community of the things that felt most important that people wanted to address. And so one thing that I just wanted, we wanted to lift up is that people in the BIPOC community and also the white people who participated in these conversations all said that they really want to see a community where people of color and people from other underrepresented groups feel secure are able to be visible, active and collaborative in the community, in the life of our community. So overall, there were four priorities that emerged. One, people really want to ensure that community leadership is representative of the population. So right now about 8% of the population of Essex is non-white and very, very, you know, there's hardly any people who are not white, who are serving in leadership positions right now. And so that was important for people to see that change. And then of course, this isn't surprising because this is what kind of led to this work. People are interested in looking at a range of strategies to improve policing. So citizen oversight, improved data collection, improved training and then resource allocation. And that one really was about looking at whether there were ways to invest more in human resources, mental health and all of those kinds of things so that police were not being called on to solve every problem. The other thing that was a priority was for the community to build a commitment to equity, inclusion and racial justice through ongoing conversations and education and training. And then the fourth priority had to do with the education system. People talked about changing curriculum and other improvements they would like to see to the education system to make sure that it is more equitable. So those were the key themes that we heard. And I wanted to just talk about what's happened so far since we had those conversations and the survey. And so let me go through this really quickly. So one outcome that Tabitha and I are seeing is that through this process, we believe we are observing that Essex is building a shared understanding and commitment to these issues. When we did surveys and evaluations after the workshops, people who were in those workshops, municipal leaders and the police reported having increased understanding about issues related to racism, diversity and equity. They reported that they had increased confidence about addressing those issues and talking through these issues. We developed a baseline understanding of communities experiences and priorities related to safety policing and racial justice. And we believe that we're beginning to build a shared vision for racial equity among community members and municipal leaders. The other thing that's happened through the process is that new relationships and connections have formed. And Tabitha found that in the BIPOC listening session it was just a really wonderful opportunity for people to get to know each other and exchange emails. And there's a communication and support channel there that may not have existed in the same way before. The other thing that happened that I think is really consequential is that through the process, we started meeting weekly with people across municipal departments. So when we were trying to organize the listening sessions and the survey, we were meeting with the director of diversity and equity at the Essex Westford School District, the chief of police, the community justice center, the town manager and a couple of other folks. And this conversation about racial equity across departments felt to us like a new conversation that hadn't quite happened. And it fell to us that we were starting to break down some silos and as we know, trying to make progress on racial justice is complex and it really helps to have the whole community working together. And that group that we started talking with to help us plan our listening sessions actually formed the committee on equity for Essex. The other thing that's happening because of this work is that new leadership is emerging. And in particular, I just wanted to lift up a couple of things that have happened. Participants in the BIPOC affinity listening session are now working with the Essex Westford School District and they've been advising the board on an equity policy for the school district. And one participant from this group who became aware through some other people on the task force about an opportunity to serve on the Essex Community Development Commission was just appointed to serve on that commission. And as we know, one of the priorities is to increase representation among leadership. And so we felt like that was something important that we should celebrate. And then the other leadership that's emerging is the Essex Safety, Policing, and Racial Justice Task Force was formed. This formed after the listening sessions and the survey. And it has made up a listening session of participants and representatives from the police department, the school district, the community justice center, and town staff and some elected officials. And so in terms of what's next, there's two things happening, right? So the newly formed group of municipal staff and leaders continues to meet weekly and I will let them speak to what their work is. I won't speak for them, but I just wanna lift that up because I think that is an important group. And then the Essex Safety, Policing, and Racial Justice Task Force is meeting and what they've been working on is establishing a solid foundation for the work. So getting clear on the vision and the role of the task force and building relationships. And Tabatha and I believe this is especially important when we're doing this work. And as any of you know that have been involved with this work, it can get really hard and messy, especially when we start to think about creating changes and people have very different ideas about what needs to happen. And so being able to have a solid foundation is going to be very important. The other thing this group did was it reviewed and prioritized all the community feedback that we gathered. And as a task force, they identified two broad priorities that they want to address. So Policing is one of the priorities they want to address and they also really want to address this idea of building representative community leadership. And so the task force is going to be meeting four, we have four meetings scheduled over the next several months so that they can continue their work and move from creating this foundation to actually working on these specific issues. And I just thought I'd end with this quote from Gwendolyn Brooks. And just to say that Tabatha and I are really excited about this work. We feel like it's an opportunity for our community to work together and just become the best community that it can be. Not just for the benefit of BIPOC and other residents who've been underrepresented but for all of us. We think that addressing safety policing and racial justice and improving it for all of the community is going to strengthen Essex as a whole. And so we're really excited about the work ahead. We are privileged to be able to work with this group. We have a contract with the municipality to help facilitate the next four meetings of the group and then we'll step back and hopefully the group will continue on doing its work. So I'm gonna stop sharing my screen now if I can figure out how to do it. And I don't know how much time I took Andrew and Elaine but I wonder if there's time. It was really nice if any of the task force members could have just an opportunity to see if I missed anything. Yes, I would absolutely speaking only for myself and Elaine please, I mean, if you feel differently I think it would be more than appropriate to have the members speak to their experience. Absolutely. So, Sue, I don't know if you want to call on them as you know who they are better than I do. Or if you want to invite them. I think through the list. I really would love for them to, I don't want to put anything in the spot because I didn't ask people ahead of time to be prepared so I don't feel comfortable putting people on the spot. I'll jump in, so this is Raj. I joined as a representative for the trustees and it's been a very interesting and powerful experience to get to know a group of people that are interested and passionate about the subject. And I think we have a lot of work to do but I feel very confident that the communities is in a position to really start engaging with this topic, these topics. And I think I'm very happy that they identified getting some diversity in our leadership and our representation on various boards. That means a lot to me and I think it will ultimately mean a lot to the rest of the community. So I've enjoyed the process and look forward to more of the task force meetings. Thank you, Raj. And yes, if there are other members who would like to speak to your experience, please, that would be a great time and if not, I totally understand. But at this point, I don't see hands being raised or hearing voices. First off, I really appreciate the work that has been done to this point to bring us to where we are and also to start what I hope is just the beginning of the foundation and the beginning of a much longer process and that this does not turn into any kind of a report which gets put on the shelf to collect dust and we check a box and say, all right, we've done that step as we can't change a culture and we can't change the history and the path that we're on by a one done process. So I really appreciate the work that hasn't done up to this point. And also the fact that our municipality, our leadership is working to break down these silos between our departments, but also with the Essex Westford School District as we can't do this alone. This can't be a village thing. This can't be a town thing. This has to be an entire community thing. And so I really appreciate the intention of breaking down those barriers. Other board members, questions, comments. I'll just echo Andrew's comments. I'm so proud of the group so far and I look forward to seeing it become a permanent part of our community leadership process that it's something that we look at all the time, as Andrew said, and not put back on the shelf once we've accomplished a certain number of things. And thank you also to Pat Murray for representing the select board on that commission or the task force. And thank you to everybody who has stepped up to take part in this process. Go ahead, Pat. So I kind of purposely stayed quiet. One of the things that we are learning is that we're trying to let leaders who get a lot of voice in the community step back to give other people a chance. But echo everything, absolutely that Raj detailed out. It's been really transformative. There's a lot of important work being done and will continue to be done. Yeah, we're working on vision statements for the group itself. That's just, even as recently as this last week. So it's something that, as you both said, is gonna take a long time. But we're, I think, as a community dedicated to doing it. I guess there is one person I wouldn't mind putting on the spot, which is, and she's actually not on the task force, but she's leading this work with the Essex Westford School District. And I think one of the consequential things that's happened is the Essex Westford School District and the municipality are starting to have a conversation that they weren't having before about equity. And so, Erin, I don't know if you'd like to add anything, but I thought it might be helpful. Sure, thank you, Sue. And I was sort of following in line with Pat's comments, the opportunities that have existed over the last many months between the district and the municipalities related to this topic have been exciting and connected and integrated, sharing a lot of stories and experiences and also opportunities for collecting different voices in many different ways. And so, the school board has been very involved as well. And I know that was invited to some of the trainings that happened with the municipality. So I think the opportunities that are in the future continue to be bright. And I also just want to recognize the necessity of diversifying our educator workforce, our workforce in Essex and our leadership. All of that is really critical and an important part of the work going forward that we need to focus on. The Committee on Equity for Essex is a body of work that is in formation. And so, I'll look to Marguerite and Evan to share some of that maybe as well in the future because I think focusing on the task force is really important, but there is much more to come and the shared opportunities across the community are endless really. I think they may be worth a conversation for this group at some point in more depth. I know we're out of time tonight. Thank you, Erin for sharing that as well. So, board members, if there are no other questions or comments on this, we could turn it over for public comment unless Susan, there was anything else you wanted to add? I just, I could add one more thing. I just really want to acknowledge the task force. It's an incredibly talented and dedicated group of community members who have really stepped forward and started to build relationships across different roles, different identities, and they're just showing up in a really wonderful way for this work. And I really want to just give a shout out to all of those members and appreciate them and what they're doing for our community. Thank you, Susan, well said. So for members of the public, if you have a question about this, please go ahead and raise your hand if you're using Microsoft Teams. I'll make sure to call on you and please make sure to direct your questions to me and I will take them from there. All right, I'm not seeing any hands being raised, nothing in the, oh. I'm sure there's one from Betsy Dunn. Yep, I just saw the notification. All right, Betsy, go right ahead. Thank you. I am so pleased that this has happened. I just think it is a step in the absolute right direction and I, given the path that we have been on in over the centuries with our belief systems, I think we need to do this and we need to kind of take a step back and look at who we are and what we really stand for. And I think that's important. And I think that I want to be sure that we also involve the Asian community because so much right now has happened in the United States that they have also been victims of racism and nobody deserves that at all. Thank you very much, all of you and Susan and Erin for doing the work of helping them get forward. Thank you. Thank you, Betsy. Any other members from the public again? Now it's time to raise your hand to type into the chat feature. And just as a reminder for those who may not have already read it, if you look at the packet for tonight's meeting, there are links to the documents that Susan has already shared with us. So if you want to review those at another point in time, they are on the town and village website. And not seeing any other hands or comments in the chat, we can go ahead and move off of this agenda item. So Susan, members of the task force and everybody's helped to get us to where we are. Thank you so much. And thank you for your continued work and future work because we need it. So thank you. Thank you, Stu. And so that will bring us to business item 5B, a presentation from the Economic Development Commission about ongoing work. And I believe we have the chair of the commission, Annie Cooper with us tonight. Hello, Annie. Hi. Hello, it's yours. Thank you for having me. I apologize for not being as visually prepared as Stu. I was a little jealous of that, but I think I'll do all right. So thank you for having me here this evening, the select board and the trustees. I'm appreciative of the appointment to the Economic Development Commission and appreciative of my opportunity to serve served myself and my family well. Within my role of chair of the Economic Development Commission, I stand gratefully and proudly alongside Vice Chair Brian Sheldon, Votor Kusimi, Commission Member Jeff Benjamin, and now newly appointed Commission Member Tatanisha Radhita. Our discussions are lively, energetic, and we are working together collaboratively, positively and with joy. We are currently engaged in our work for our 2021 work plan. We will continue to outline peaks in newer supportive items as we go. May I ask that anyone whose microphone is on, turn it off only because I have lose my focus and then I will talk more. I'm so embarrassed and sorry to ask. Thank you. Sorry. So as we are currently engaged in our work and our 2021 work plan, we're also continuing to piece in newer supportive items as we go. We are strengthening local business contacts, building out our business contact database, and soliciting local business feedback. We are promoting economic initiatives and developing partnerships and resources. We're collaborating with other boards and committees throughout the town, which of course includes the village. We're working to coordinate all our media content online and on site so that when someone were to visit the Economic Development Commission page, they can find more information as a business or as a resident about the work that we are doing. So that is work that we are on task for for 2021. We are very fortunate at our meetings to have staff and public. And we also have Sam Anderson of the GBIC helping us regularly and updating us regularly. It's an absolute pleasure and a joy to wake up early on a Thursday morning to be prepared for our ADM meetings. We're very lucky for the joy that we have. We are currently building capacity and cross-pollination with other boards and committees. As I said, we invited and we're fortunate to have at our February 18th EDC meeting, Will Dodge of the Energy Committee, the chair of the Energy Committee, Alan Botula, vice chair for the Conservation and Trails Committee and Bike Walk Advisory Committee chair, Micah Hagan. A very lively and wonderful discussion occurred due to all the cross connection. And I would like to specifically thank Nick and Bridget Meyer who first spent 45 minutes on the phone with me, like, I don't know, a year ago, talking about a vision that they have for community collaboration for boards and committees and simultaneous to that. Are we so, Wukuku, our town economic development director? Sorry, community development director also was doing the same work and it all just kind of tumbled together and it's just been so fun. So at that meeting, Energy Committee chair, Will Dodge, talked about Essex having adopted the energy plan that calls for some major changes, summarized that the best hope we have of improving energy to get to the state's 90% by 2050 goal is by dealing with transportation. He said it essentially means getting vehicles electrified and people walking and biking as much as possible. Then excitingly, Micah Hagan began to speak from the Bike Walk Advisory Committee about connectivity and paths, how the Bike Walk Advisory Committee is working to build minor infrastructure items around the core of the village, redesigning five corners with safer crosswalks, bike parking and bike repair stations to enable more people to feel safe walking with their children to school, walk the area, going to restaurants and businesses, trying to build that network for safe biking all around. Which of course, Oviso is also having a similar conversation up towards the town. And just a little add-on I had been speaking just a few weeks ago with both Ron Hunt and, I'm sorry, names are kind of about bike repair and walkability and functionality of paths and ability to safely get around throughout the town. And then the Conservation and Trails Committee vice chair, Alan Botula shared some information about cooperation with staff and inventory and studying of all different natural, historic, cultural resources that are available as well as preserving, developing and maintaining through their mission that involves connectivity of natural areas, trails, sidewalks, greenways and such and providing recreational opportunities for residents. So as you can imagine, there was a very exciting morning and conversation with all that connectivity. I just can't, it's just so fun. I just can't tell you enough about how, I just feel like the most fortunate human to be in a room where people are talking about this. We as the EDC are currently and have been reaching out to the housing commission, not as in deep as I'm about to say so we're getting to that, to the housing commission knowing that housing that people can afford is important in businesses being able to attract and retain employees working with housing commission because businesses are concerned about cost of housing and being able to get workers to the area, but also as humans, of course we wanna make sure that people can afford to join us in our community and to remain in our community. The town planning commission welcomed myself and Katie Ballard of the housing commission and we got to speak and engage with the town planning commission at one of their meetings where they asked us what they could do to help the economic development commission. So we will be talking with them some more to iron out what that might be. The village planning commission also invited the economic development commissions to chat with them. And while they are working on updating the land development codes, there was a suggestion that the economic development commission consider what it might mean to us as the economic development commission were there possible fees in the codes for buildings and businesses that could incorporate economic development commission work to engage and support and invite businesses within our community and how that might affect the surrounding residents and area. So that was a really exciting and fun thing to discuss also, so that's in discussion. Yeah, so one of our biggest and first tasks that we worked on very quickly just in the past few months was building out our contact list. And so from the out and about in Essex contact list that we had generated solidly with full information, that was a list of about 40 or so businesses. And then Greg Morgan, past economic development commission share had provided us with more and then between our commission members, we reached out and got more and Botorica Seamy crushed his work and we now have a list of 1500 businesses that we are defining more carefully to make sure we have the right phone numbers, websites, contact people, email addresses and all. And so that project took shape very quickly and we're really proud of it. And we look forward to working more on that so that we have a really strong contact list for outreach and input to and from businesses. Sorry, I feel like I talked a little bit too long and I just won't check in my list here. Okay, so I also wanna check and see if I'm actually in frame while I'm talking. I am, hi. We are currently also in a discussion about local option tax because we have been advised by the board by both boards to do so. In our study of local option tax we have learned for starters to always call it local option tax because sometimes acronyms can get away from us and people might not understand what we're talking about. So we are very clearly defining the language use of local option tax in our discussions to ensure that we are communicating clearly and visibly and transparently about what local option tax is. We're currently working with staff to build off a conversation from the select board of the trustees back in October of 2020 about local option tax. And we also had some recent additional thoughts sent by Andy about housing, Andy Watts, select board member Andy Watts about housing, tax impact on lower income residents, et cetera will be taking Andy's thoughts, Andy Watts's thoughts into our survey plans. And we welcome and invite all select board and trustee members to do the same as select board member Andy Watts as we really wanna know what y'all are thinking. We have, I had an idea that we decided upon to create surveys so that we have a business, a local business survey, a resident survey. I would like even a staff survey and a board survey because I would love to know, we would love to know we want information, right? So no one can determine the local option tax without the voters voting on it. And so the work that we are being tasked with by both boards is to find out what people want in a local option tax, if they want it, how they want it, all the things. And so we encourage all feedback about local option tax. We have meetings every first and third Thursday of the month at 8 a.m. on currently virtually online. We invite those who are curious about local option tax to attend, share your thoughts because what we wanna do is build out a survey that reaches 200s or thousands of residents, businesses, everyone. We really wanna get feedback on what everyone thinks. And so while we're building out those surveys, we would like input to know what y'all think we should ask. And so that's what we're working on now and we're pretty excited about it. And in that work, we are planning to provide information to the select board of trustees so that you can determine your next steps about whether to put local option tax on a future ballot. We ask that the public keep an eye out for surveys about local option tax. We wanna collect input. Again, I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous. And so we wanna make sure that the public understands that there is no one at the Economic Development Commission or on staff or on the boards deciding what local option tax would be. It's only a discussion of input now and surveys going out and input coming in so that we can give that information to the boards who can then determine whether or not this goes to ballot to be voted on. The word tax is in local option tax and I wanna make sure that everybody's clear that there are no decisions being made that the public doesn't get to vote on. I'm so proud and pleased to be serving Essex as a successor of me and my family, as I said before. And now, I wonder if Greg or Evan need to support anything I might have missed and I wonder if after that there would be questions that you might have or what else we need to answer and what are we missing? Thank you so much. Greg, Evan, as Annie had asked, are there things that you wanted to fill in? This is Evan. The only thing I would add is that they did a fantastic job of supporting the out and about event this fall. Boy, they were out there giving out the vouchers. Annie was everywhere checking in on bans and it really was a community event, both residents and businesses enjoyed it. And so thanks for crushing it, Annie. And thanks for reminding me, Evan, about how the Economic Development Commission was sitting at those tables, getting that information out. Freezing, freezing at those tables. And also Elaine and Andrew and George and Robin and Oviso and everybody that was out there. I think, did I say Don Flurry and Brian and Rotor and Jeff and Vince? Yeah. Thank you. Hopefully the first of many successful out and about events. Yes. We'd be so excited about more. Greg, anything you wanna add? Annie covered most of it. Yeah, Economic Development Commission is doing a lot of good work. They're up to full capacity now, which is great. And as Annie talked about with the local options tax, EDC and staff are really just starting to get going on that. So surveys to come and more information to come, but ask everyone to keep their eyes out and hopefully participate and take those surveys and be part of that conversation as it ramps up. And as a quick follow up question, Annie, when you were asking, I think you were asking about feedback from us about the survey for local options tax. Are you looking for that feedback now or should we just email you our thoughts? I think an email would be best. I think there's a pretty full agenda this evening, but I'm open to having a discussion now, but an email is probably the best thing. And maybe what I should do is put my email up on the Economic Development Commission website also for people who would like to email about it. I think that'd be great if you'd be open to that. And thank you for the update, Vince. I see you've got your hand up. Why don't you go ahead and take it off. Yeah, and I just wanted to thank you for all the work that you've been doing. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to many more out and about in Essex events during the summer, maybe. Thanks, Vince. That last one was pretty cold. I don't know how you were doing it. You were just rocking around like no jacket or anything. You were just... I was just working on your joy and love of Essex and all things music and business. And Annie, you may wanna throw a shout out to Oviso and Robin who... Thank you, Evan. I did, in my nervousness to do well, I do have a tendency to lose names in the process. And Oviso and Robin were like a team of genius work. They just were always everywhere together as a team. And from quoting poetry to being passionate about community and to making sure that we were all where we were supposed to be, making sure that residents had what they needed and keeping the connectivity of us all. Oviso, Makuko and Robin Pierce are just rocks our team of community development. We're very fortunate to have both directors. Thank you, Evan, for reminding me. Andy Watts, why don't you go ahead? Yeah, I just wanted to bring up that. Annie mentioned some of my comments. And I just wanted to make it clear that until January 30th, my former employer restricted my participation in discussions about that. And since I'm no longer employed by my former employer, I can now talk about it. And that's why those comments came out now. I didn't get anything around that other than I'm now free to speak my own mind. So I'm on that topic. So thanks. Andy, I have to apologize because it's actually in my notes to say that I'm super excited that you can be so comfortable and free to speak about it. Because if you remember, there were times when I sub-doubted the subcommittee governments made it right. So I actually have in my notes, and I'm sorry I was panicking a little. I did mean to thank you. And I'm really excited that you have this freedom to speak how you wish about local option tax. And I'm excited about what you shared with us. And I'm grateful. Please forgive me for not mentioning that. I was just panicking a little. Go ahead, Elaine. Thanks, Andrew. Andy, I just want to commend you and the committee, the commission for jumping up and moving so quickly. I'm really just so excited for what's going to come next with all of your energy from all of you. And I just wanted to highlight two things that you said that I thought were really impressive. One is that you've brought together all of our committees in such a really interesting way and have highlighted the fact that they're all interconnected. We have a very robust committee system in Essex and it's a lot of opportunity for public participation. And to have all of them realize that they are all connected is going to raise at another level and make them all even more effective. So I'm really excited about that and commend you all for that. And the other thing I just want to mention is the number 1500. I don't know if people are aware of how many businesses are located in Essex. Essex is an enormous economic powerhouse for the entire state of Vermont and it's not just because of global. And it's really important that people know that and thank you for keeping us aware of the breadth and variety of businesses that exist in our community. And please just keep it up to date and keep us informed of how much our business community is growing and I'm looking forward to seeing all of the relationships that are going to develop with the businesses in our community as a result of this new energy and the commission. So thank you for everything. If I may thank you so much, Elaine and thank you for your gracious comments and your comments reminded me to state and restate that the collaborative nature. Are we so, are we so, and we can't go in Robin Pierce or over there, getting us going like that. And again, I do have to reach back in my mind to Nick and Bridget Meyer who have this really incredible vision about committees coming together and out and about and Evan. And like, well, I mean, we could go on all day. Connectivity is relationship is community and we're just so fortunate. I think I talked myself through and out the other side of what I meant to say. Sorry. Board members, anything else? All right, any members of the public have questions, comments? And if so, please, if you're using Microsoft Teams, go ahead, raise your hands, use a chat feature and make sure to direct your comments to me and I will take them from there. Sorry, for some reason, my participants list keeps jumbling around. So I saw that there was a hand up but now I can't see who it was from. It's Mary Beth Redmond. Okay. Representative Redmond, why don't you go ahead? Hi, good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? Oh, great, great. I just really appreciate the work of the Economic Development Commission and the fact that you have some new slots filled. I wanted to just bring news from the legislature that last Friday, the Senate approved a COVID recovery package that a number of businesses in Essex are very, very interested in. There's a $10 million package of COVID recovery aid for businesses that are new, that have just begun in the last year. So all of that is intact and there's just a small reconciliation that needs to happen with the house and then that will be onto the governor to sign. But I did wanna mention it because I have heard from a number of Essex businesses, particularly in the Essex experience who are really interested in accessing those tranches of funding. So I just wanted to say that we've been working all of the delegation really following that bill to make sure that that money stayed intact and we're feeling very celebratory that it's cleared the Senate and shortly we'll be reconciled to be on the way to the governor for his signature. So I just wanted to add that, but thank you to the Economic Development Commission for all of your work. May I? Annie, go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Andrew. Maribeth, thank you so much for that information and I'm confident that Oviso, Darren, Greg and Evan are probably ahead of anything that I am doing about it and we will make sure to get information out as well as yourself, I'm sure. And yeah, that's just really exciting. I think living in Vermont is just an extraordinary thing and we're so fortunate that there's constant care for each other that happens and thank you for being part of making that happen, Maribeth. We're fortunate to have you. All right, I see no other hands up. So on that celebratory note, thank you. Thank you, Representative Redman for informing us, but also thank you so much, Annie and I jumped too soon to that. As Irene, I see your hand is up. Why don't you go ahead? Thanks so much. First, Annie, congratulations on your recent successes on the committee and I'm glad to hear you'll be taking surveys of a variety of different groups in town. Being fully aware that the local option tax failed in 2009 townwide as well as 2010, I believe, in the village, I would encourage the boards to have an advisory vote, perhaps sooner rather than later before this goes too far down the road since we know how people felt 10, 11 years ago, I'd like to make sure that we're not going down this path and spending too much money and time on it before we're aware that the voters want to stick it on that path. Thanks. Thank you. Annie, something that you want to address? Are you saying Annie or Andy? I said Annie. Sorry, that's our Andy. I would like, yes, just to thank Irene, she's been a great presence and thoughtful communicator during the Economic Development Commission meetings. I just want to remind that we had a similar conversation at the Economic Development Commission meeting and the Economic Development Commission is our volunteers. And so any work that we are doing does not cost the taxpayers any money. And I feel strongly that I will not be interfering with anybody's work, that it would be collaborative and communicative with work that's already being done by staff. And I feel solidly that it's okay for us to ingest information from a variety of sources before going to that. But I just wanted to balance that statement out and I'm open to wherever, whatever directives the board gives us. And I am really grateful to Irene for her consistent participation in our community. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Betsy Dunn, go right ahead. Thank you. Annie, yes, you do a great job with your presentation and obviously with the work you've been doing. My question is given that the whole marijuana field is coming up, is that gonna rest on the Economic Development Division working with the boards? Are you gonna flush out what it is that we're gonna be doing over this next year? I'm just serious. It is absolutely a topic that our boards do need to discuss as we really have not had that discussion yet. And during that discussion, we can then figure out whether to or how best to involve our committees as many of, we will need many hands really to help make light work of a not so light topic and of a very consequential topic. So for sure. But Greg, I see your hand is up. Why don't you go ahead? Yeah, the boards last week talked about the Canvas issue back in November. So staff is planning to do some work on that. I believe Comdad might have already started to do so. So that is definitely on our radar and we'll be doing some outreach and some work on that as well for the boards to be able to make an informed decision on that. Thank you. Great, so I see no other hands up. So Annie Cooper, thank you as always. We really appreciate it. Thank you for being here to help provide us an update as well that you and your committee have been doing. Thank you very much, Andrew, if I may. Go ahead. I neglected one other thing that was in my notes and that is if anyone else from the Economic Development Commission needed to say something, I see that, I see that Vice Chair Brian Sheldon is here. I see Tatanisha is here. I feel like I maybe didn't do it right. If I don't ask that, sorry to take the time. If there are things that other committee members want to make sure are heard by the boards, that was a great time to do so. Just a nice job, Annie, and welcome Tatanisha. All right, thank you all again. Okay. And Elaine, were you gonna take it from here? We'll do, thank you, Andrew. So the next business item is 5B, Presentation of Changes at Indian Brook Park and Allie Vile has just popped on. Welcome, Allie, good to see you. Hi, good to see you too, thank you. So in, I don't know how the memo was distributed, but I'll just give a brief summary of it. It's an absolute alley. Okay. I know it wasn't as an attachment on the agenda either, so I don't know if other people have questions about it. So Indian Brook this season is going to try a new park access system from what we've been doing for about 20 years. For that timeframe, we have always required, it started out as resident or non-resident passes. It was a vehicle pass. It was a year-round purchase, but really an owner system about six months or so out of the year, maybe seven, eight months. And we would have staff there about four to five months. And it's increased over the years, but that's how it started. The park is very well loved. It's kind of one of those parks that is loved to death where it requires a lot of maintenance and upkeep and attention to keep it as beautiful as it is. So we as a whole group at Essex Rec, Essex Parks and Rec staff, as well as Essex Junction Recreation to collaborate, like what could be better and what can we improve on? A big one was Indian Brook Access and the reason being it needs better customer service in regards to pass holders getting their passes and getting updates and changes made, still needs to be doable for the staff at the gate, but also manageable for staff at the office. And it's often just been a very hectic time when Essex Parks and Rec staff were at 81 Main Street, it would take all four to five of us attending to customers with Indian Brook pass needs. And it's kind of how we always did it and how we knew to do it, but it didn't necessarily mean it was the best way to do it. So this year we came up with, it was kind of always called this reimagining Indian Brook Access. And we've kind of, you know, there are organizations out there that do this all the time and it's reinventing the process for us so to speak, but not the process that works for a lot of parks and agencies. And so similar to state parks in a way, there's, you know, we've decided to make it a season pass instead of a calendar year pass. And it's not something that is renewable year after year that's going to require changes and not losing something and kind of that management of it, but it'll be a seasons pass from roughly April to October, kind of based on the temperatures and how we can get staff out there, but to extend it a little bit on the bookends of the warmer months. And we've come up with vehicle passes still that could be fixed. It's the only one that you have or it's the only one that goes in that vehicle. We've created flex passes for vehicles that can go from one vehicle one day to another one the other day. We've created specific pedestrian passes. We have a lot of non-drivers who, such as, you know, my 13 year old son who will want to bike there and have a pass of his own to go in or those who live nearby and are using the connections to bike, run, walk into the park. Those pedestrian passes do not mean that you can park on the road and walk in so that that will be monitored and not allowed. And then on top of all of those, there's the option to have a dog endorsement or not. So you could have five dogs but you pay the one time endorsement for the season. And yeah, it gets you in. And a huge part of this in the past, our staff have taken the time to do the whole meet and greet and that's always going to continue. I know that there are a lot of regulars that go to Indian Brook that just get a quick pat on the head with their dog and, you know, they've created a friendship but it'll also be able to count kind of heads and tails is how we're calling it. So as vehicles or people come in, we're gonna basically click how many people and how many dogs are entering the park so that we really start to capture the use of the park which has been missing for quite some time, you know, on average, we have about 45 to 4,800 active passes to the park, but that really is primarily vehicles and it could be a vehicle with one person or it could be a minivan entering in, you know, that's full of people and dogs. So we really wanna capture that and really start to provide for Indian Brook in a better proactive way than a reactive way to the use of the park. So I don't think I'm on blurry anymore. We have these really nice passes made up. This is an example, this is a fixed one so it has the car picture, it stays in that car. We write the plate number on it. We have the flex ones that looks very similar. This one has the dog endorsement so it's got the paw print and with this we'd write the last name. So, you know, it would say Brown and it could go between Andrew's car and his wife's car and still really one vehicle at a time based on this pass. And then the pedestrian ones on top of that and that sort of thing. So it really was a big collaborative project, continuing to change and morph how we do things and keeping in mind the customer service of all users regarding the access to the park. So that's the gist of it. Allie, thank you very much for that. I know you guys work really hard on it. So, and Indian Brook is such a, just people own it. They really feel strongly about it. So this is a big change and I appreciate how much effort you've put into making sure it's gonna work for the town and for the users of the park. So, board members, anybody have questions or comments for Allie, I see Amber and then Andy. Hey, Allie. Hi, Amber. Couple of questions for you. What happens with folks who have current passes? Great question. Those who have current passes, so we have lots of different communication ready to send out to our resident passes, those who just expired in December and those who have that second year still. So those, anyone with the remaining year left on theirs will be, what's the word? We're basically giving you this pass, right? So you're going to get communication. You're gonna show up either, you know, have to figure it out. You'll show up at the gate one day and you'll say, hey, I have a pass waiting for me and they'll check you off the list and they'll give you your pass and then you're good to go any other time for the rest of this year. And then by the time we're done with our open season for staffing, similar to kind of how it is now, there's a lot of people that we asked to be on the honor system, but we know that there are a lot of different users that enter the park in the colder months or the unstaffed months. So this is obviously still capturing just one section of the year at the park, but we are honoring those who have already paid for two years to have their access as planned this year. Thanks, Sally. The other question that I had was, I'm not entirely sure from the memo, can you pay at the park now or is that not an option? Yeah, we're in the process of that's our plan and it's going to be card only. So just card based daily pass, daily access only and that will be an option. So anyone who wants to get the fixed pass has to still come into the office or do it online. So the gate staff will be able to do transactions for daily use as well as selling the season passes themselves at the gate house. So they'll have a stack of those pass options, figure out what that person needs and sell that pass to them so that they're all set, which helps a lot because our office closes at four, it's only open five days outside of a pandemic. Right now we have certain window hours. This really helps on the weekend of that convenience to be able to say, hey, let's go and be able to access the park. Thanks, Allie. You're welcome. Angie? Hi, Allie, it's good to see you earlier today too. Yeah, I know. The back on December 21st, the police department asked us to make Indian Brook no parking the entire length, both sides. But the whole, the discussion about updating the traffic ordinances has kind of been stalled here for a while. So I'm assuming that if you need to enforce people not parking beyond the line of sight of the people sitting in the shack, we need to go forward with that, at least that piece of ordinance to put some teeth behind not wanting people to walk in, right? Right, I mean, I would say that our staff have not had those sort of issues in the past and we have had people using their vehicle card passes to walk or bike or run in. So that access is kind of the same. It just looks a little bit different with what you're holding in your wallet or your pocket. What is also interesting is a couple of years ago, we shifted our gate house. We call it a gate house, there's no gate, but we'll go with it. We shifted our gate house because it actually wasn't quite on town property and with that land being sold for development, we shifted it so it really is in our property and not just on the side. And there are two houses being built right next to the gate house. So I think a lot of that will, I'm hopeful that that will deter the idea. And with bike patrol and a new pass system that Essex police will be communicated on we'll be able to take care of it. Would it be helpful if we... There's a lot of ordinances to be updated. I don't want to rush anything. I mean, it should be able to... Yeah, we pulled out a speed limit change specifically because to address a specific issue, we could do the same with this one. And since it's not, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Yeah. We could throw a public hearing in some point and do it. Well, I know the residents would appreciate that. I don't want to speak for them. I believe that they would appreciate that because there is so much traffic already in general. And even our staff don't park on the side beforehand before the gate house. They're within the park right near the gate house. So it's pretty clear. My apologies for calling it a shack. It used to be the shack back at 81 Main. So it's okay. Raj? This sounds really cool, Allie. So this does sound like a pretty hefty increase in relative terms, but it sounds like it's definitely like a 60% increase in what people are used to spending for a two-year pass, right? And then with the adorespence and everything else, it gets a bit more expensive. Was that... It does. I think... I'm not on your oversight board, but I just want to make sure I appreciate letting the village trustees ask questions on Indian Brook Park. But I'm curious about that aspect of it. Sure. I mean, it is a gem for all of us in the town. So it is something that we want to keep in mind. I think the reality is that the fees for this now 700-acre park have never been realistic to what the needs are for access and amenities to continue updated signage, the water quality tests, the dog mit receptacles and the staffing and the cold weather work that is done out there for cleanup. I just don't think it's ever been a realistic price. And this really shows that for this size park and what it brings to our community is just a much more realistic cost. If you were to enter a state park, I don't want to throw my state park colleagues under the rug or anything, but that's a per-person rate, not a vehicle rate. If you were just to go, so $4 for an adult, two for a kid. And if you're going to Waterbury Reservoir every day, that can be pretty hefty and even their season passes are more, with more options, of course. And this is, Indian Brook is its own toddler and we love it and it's so cute and so great, but it can be a bit of a beast sometimes to manage. And this is really what it takes to make it as great as it is and keep it going. I like your comparing it to a toddler. That's good. People think, people call it my baby, but it's really a toddler. Really, it's a toddler, please, or higher. Will there be changes in how many people are let in per day? So that later see how it goes, kind of like if necessary sort of thing. You know, we're definitely not like this is how it is and it can't morph, but we do have to see how things are going to fall into place, so to speak. Again, if I go back to how many active passes we have had previously, we don't have 5,000 parking spots at Indian Brook. So that doesn't really change right now on, the parking spots we have or the parking spots we have, it's similar to a lot of other parks where if the parking lot's full, you got to find a walkable way to come in that's not going to disturb other people, the residents. We don't really know how many people are actually using the park. And so it's going to be a really good tally this year. It'll be really interesting. Thanks. You're welcome. Any other board members with questions for Allie? Allie, do you think that the increase in the revenue coming in for the park with this new program will come a lot closer to the improvement needs and the maintenance costs or are you thinking that's still not enough? This is just a step. Yeah, you know, it's going to be this, what's ideal is to get this in its own enterprise fund eventually to offset, right? So, only certain amenities at most of our parks can offset some taxpayer dollars. And really it's just trying to supplement it a little bit. This would eventually give us a good self-sustaining down the road amenity to our community. And another, I mean, right now, there's a little bit of money every year going in for dam repairs, but that's a high risk state level dam in regards to the flood zone. And we have to keep that in mind. It's not just about the trails and it's not just about the water tests we do every now and then or if they're doggie bags or if the trash is taken out. That's a big dam. So we have to think about that too and what's realistic if something were to happen because the capital fund for it right now is not enough to fix it. I appreciate you're mentioning that. That was going to be another question of mine. I'm happy to see that it's sort of, you're taking steps towards moving this towards an enterprise fund, which is a much more realistic way for a recreation amenity and safe taxpayers' dollars for sure. Yeah, especially one of this size. We can't do that with all of our pocket and neighborhood parks, but for something like this, that's our goal. Yeah. Well, thank you. Board members, if you don't have any additional questions, I think there are some hands up in the audience if that's all right with all of you. So go ahead, Margaret, and then Betsy. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, so I was a little concerned when Allie mentioned that the dog rider would be any number of dogs. In the past, there have been people who used the park as business location and would come in with eight or nine dogs off leash, and this was very intimidating to other people, not just dog owners, but just walkers having a big herd of dog come by. And in addition, there's no control over where the dogs poop. So I would love to see you maybe consider limiting it to two dogs per car or per person because that business just really bothered a lot of people. And I had a question. Right now, if I understand it right, Indian Brook is closed to non-residents. Is that true? And is that still going to be the case? And if it is, how will you check for residency at the gate for passes? And one of my concerns was the same as Raj's, which was usage limits. I was actually there on, I think it was New Year's Day. It was the last day before we had a big bunch of snow and the parking lots were full. So this was the end of December and it was just absolutely packed. And so, I don't know how you would think about that, but my last question is, what about maybe thinking about senior rates? So, and thank you, that was all of my thoughts. Thank you. Why don't we collect questions and then Ali, after everyone's done asking, we can go through them, okay? Okay, Betsy and then Natalie. Thank you, Elaine. I'm sorry that I have to ask this question, Ali, and Elaine, but my computer got me out of the conversation just as Andy was asking his question, which I find the conversation after, I assume he asked about the pricing. And I just was asking about, what is the pricing for these tickets, you know, the flex tickets and whatnot. Thank you. Okay, Betsy, maybe we can have Greg. Greg, can you put the flyer from the packet up on the screen so folks can see? Thank you. Natalie, go ahead. Thanks very much for allowing me to speak at the select board. I'm actually one former Essex resident and a longtime probably 20 plus years non-resident pass holder at Essex for Indianbrook. So when I read the memo, saw the agenda item, I obviously read it very carefully and I'd like to make some comments on what I understand as the change to the non-resident pass situation going to a daily user fee. I currently find that the proposed increase and change is pretty, pretty stringent. We were talking earlier about the impact to the residents but the impact to the non-residents is a pretty major deterrent. So currently, I usually walk with my dog. If I go for five trips, I will be already at the annual fee that I pay currently, which is higher than the resident fee as it should. If I go once a week for the season, I will be paying in excess of $180 to bring my dog to walk once a week, which is a pretty moderate use of the park. So I guess I have a question. Why is there such a dramatic change? For the non-residents, could we consider other options, mainly modifying the current pass situation? Maybe if we're adding all the options that the residents have, maybe that's asking too much. Maybe we can just have a single option. We don't over complicate Ali and her staff's situation. Should we increase the cost of the pass? Probably, as you say, it's a very valuable thing to have an access to Indian Brook. I don't know how else you can go. Some were so close to so many communities and kayak walks, no shoes, ski, ice fish. We all know the attributes of this wonderful gem. So I would ask that we think of other options for the non-residents. And I worry that when you make such a strong statement to non-residents, really deterring their use, it begs the question, you know, Essex isn't in a vacuum. There's been a lot of talk in Jericho where I live about limiting access to Mills River Park, to Mobs Farm for, you know, also concerns about overuse. And I just fear that, you know, Essex putting up a barrier is also gonna cause all sorts of other communities to put up the barrier. And that's not in the interest of anyone. Essex residents, Jericho residents, Richmond residents, whoever uses all of our parks. So I just wanted to bring that forward as, you know, an outsider, but not an outsider to this question. So thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Tracy Delphea. Really a quick question, I'm wondering- Tracy, we can barely hear you. Can you come a little closer? Oh, much better, thank you. Yeah, headset issues. I'm curious as to whether the season pass or the daily pass, if you have to choose one or the other. And what I mean by that is, I only wanna bring my dog a handful of times. Can I do a flex pass or a fixed pass and pay the dog endorsement under the daily rate? So that's one question. My other question was sort of in keeping with another person, how I understand this is, will this do away with the current existing senior discount that's on the passes up until the season? That's it, thank you. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from the public? Oh, hang on, wait, I think I see another one. Ken Singarilla. Thank you very much. I'm interested in the Indian Brook Dam, heard that mentioned a couple of times. So I see from the capital plan that the estimated cost to repair it is going to be $205,000. We currently have $131,416 in the funds and we're putting in $10,000 per year. So my question is, will we have enough in time? When is that repair of $205,000 estimated to be needed? Okay, thank you. I see, wait, hold on, I'm just having a little trouble with teams. Irene. Thanks a lot. Some of my family members use Indian Brook Reservoir fairly regularly and I'm aware that there are some issues with dogs, there are some issues with dog waste and I'm wondering what sort of penalty system is there in place right now and would passes be revoked if people weren't doing the things they're supposed to do when their pets are with them? Thanks. Okay, okay. Anybody else with questions on Indian Brook? And then we're going to bring it back to the board and talk with Allie some more. I don't see any other, Greg, do you see any? Cause I just, I'm having some issues with teams right now. No, I don't see any others. Okay, thank you. Okay, so Allie, we have a few more questions for you. I have a list. Okay, we can compare a list cause... Yeah, why don't you go ahead and we'll answer each of those questions. Sure, try and go in order here. Margaret, you had talked about the dog limit. We can definitely consider that and evaluate that as we go along. A big component of a true caring capacity, how much the park can handle is evaluating, making a change, evaluating what that change did and continue to move forward or go back in certain aspects. But we can definitely check on that and CF modifications need to be made. I do know that at least one of the businesses you could be referring to is a non-resident business which makes me wonder if they will continue to use Indian Brook as often as they have in the past. I have a note saying resident status. Oh, so the only, I believe Margaret, this was yours as well. Only residents of the Essex community can purchase the season passes. So whether it's the flex, the fixed or the pedestrian options, only residents can. And so for those purchased online or through our office that is already indicated with the household, ID, some sort of proof of residency as we've typically asked in the past will still be required if someone wants to purchase a seasons pass at the gate. So I hope that that answers those two questions for you and senior rates, we can look into that. We have had a senior rate in the past for our residents and so that was brought up a couple of times. What we can do is definitely do some sort of discount, look into what that discount would mean. Going forward for our residents who are, I think it's 55 plus is what we've done in the past. Natalie, I got your email this morning, thank you. I apologize, I did not get back to you today about it but I'm glad that you're here today. Again, we will evaluate and consider options as we see how this change affects everybody involved. So one thing though is that at the end of 2011, the select board at the time approved a hold on any season passes for non-residents unless those non-residents continued to renew, which I know you have over the years and you've been very dedicated in doing that. This has decreased non-resident season pass renewals from about 300 to 150. So you're in a very small group with those renewals at this point, this new system with a daily pass purchase actually does allow more non-residents to access it, but not on a seasonal pass basis. So it's a little give and take at that, so to speak. You can choose one option on a daily aspect if you have a seasons pass. So if you don't wanna bring your dog very often, but the day you do, your pass in your dashboard won't have the paw print, but then you can pay the gate staff for the dog. Damn repairs, 10, great question, not on my radar tonight. Happy to look into that for you. Before COVID, well, actually it was fall of 2019. The state contacted us about being part of a grant that they were doing and wanted to include Indian Brook as its only municipal dam in regards to those high risk, high priority dams in the state. And so that project that they were working on basically will make us eligible for grant opportunities because the department of dams at the state level are working on creating what these high risk ones really do need. We haven't had a dive, any research and divers down there for quite some time now. And that was done a while ago and the dam is inspected every year and we're told what to do if any other cleanup has to happen, but there is some internal stuff that would need repair, not necessarily saying that the dam would need complete replacement. And Irene in regards to dog waste and behavior, that is a constant issue at Indian Brook at all parks. You could walk up and down the sidewalk along main street and where there are no receptacles and the bags are left or they aren't even bagged. So I will say in the past, without any sort of patrolling and enforcement, so to speak from staff on a regular basis, I have been there before to talk about leaching, I've approached people, I'm not confrontational. So I've approached people pretty nicely. Their response is not equal to my tone and in regards to the waste, it's someone else's problem is often what I hear. If I am able to identify who they are, I have revoked passes before or I have made sure to have conversations with them if they were to renew in the past as that will be taken away and I have done that in the past. So that's more about individual and dog behaviors. It's not specific to your dog just went and you didn't pick it up and now your pass is revoked. We just haven't had that sort of capacity for staffing enforcement. Rapid fire, how'd I do? Did I get everything? Is that all of them? Okay. You got all of them. Anything else? Thanks for telling me. Okay, I see one more hand and then we're gonna wrap up the Natalie, go ahead. Real quick, please. Yes, I'll be quick. So Ali, I guess the still the question that is in my mind is why was this change made for non-residents? If we're such a sort of small bit but very dedicated obviously with us carrying on, this seems quite a change that we're all sort of put in the same basket as anyone who's a non-resident. I guess I don't have a specific answer to that. We didn't look at that specific number at the time of discussion. It was more about there's actually, we're actually increasing accessibility to more people to enjoy the park. That's what I have. And I think what we need to do is what Ali suggested which is see how these changes play out over the next season and adjust accordingly if necessary. But we really appreciate everybody's input because Indianbrook, Ali said it's a gem and it's very closely held by all of our residents and everyone who uses it. So we will do everything we can to make sure that the changes work and adjust accordingly. So, well, Ali, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you also to your staff and everybody who has worked with you on this. So thanks. Yeah, big team effort. And thanks for everything. Congrats on your flowers tonight. Oh, thanks, Ali. I'm gonna go. Thank you. Next item is 5D discussion about potential merger and other scenarios for village of Essex Junction and town of Essex. So for this, I think this was just sort of added to the agenda as a discussion item if the board so choose. And so from the select board's perspective, basically where we're at is there has been a petition presented to the select board for a reconsideration of the merger vote and the select board acted accordingly and approved its placement on the ballot on April 13th in conjunction with the school board vote and with the village annual meeting vote. So that is what the select board has done at the moment. Andrew, do you wanna talk about what the trustees are doing right now? Sure, thank you. So really we're preparing for our annual meeting and our informational meeting is happening on April 7th. And then the vote as was mentioned of April 13th on our ballot is a non-binding resolution. And I wanna make sure to get the language correct. So if you will bear with me for a moment as I read it by a non-binding resolution, shall the Essex Junction Board of Trustees be advised to draft a charter to create the independent city of Essex Junction for consideration by the village of Essex Junction voters no later than November, 2021. Should efforts seeking a vote for reconsideration on the issue of merger fail? We advise that the charter shall not include any union municipal districts, inter-local contracts, special tax districts or other relationships within the town of Essex for the provision of village government services. The only exception may be for the consideration of police services. So that will be voted on by village residents at the same time that village residents will also be voting on the reconsideration of merger. And other than that, that's what we have in front of us. Okay. Board members, do you wish to discuss our current status or any questions or comments? I'm not seeing anything from either board. So we're having the select board is holding an informational meeting on Thursday regarding the reconsideration vote. So we'll have information there and we'll have questions at that time or we'll field questions at that time. If board members don't have any questions or comments. Elaine. Go ahead, George. Yeah, I think it's important and Andrew mentioned it, but I think it's important, I'll reiterate. This is a non-binding resolution. The separation by the village voters, the question on the village ballot, and that's important to make that clear. It's a resolution, it's sort of a survey in a sense. It's not a, we're not compelled to do this, to automatically do this and I think it's important for people in the audience to understand that. Thanks for clarifying that, George. Andrew. Yes, I have to figure out how to lower the hand, sorry. The only thing I wanted to add to that is we are all elected by the community and by our residents and as a petition was brought forward to the trustees of at least 5% of our village population, which is a 400 and somewhat signatures, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the exact amount. We don't get 400 village residents telling us anything outside of our voting. And so to get that kind of input and to not follow through with it, I think would raise some significant concerning issues, both as a resident, but then also a philosophy of representing the best interests of our community should that then pass. So yes, it's non-binding and it's would be a very, it would be interesting should the trustees not act on that should it pass. That's all I would just say from my own personal perspective. Understood. Well, board members, if you don't have any additional comments or questions, we'll open it up to the public real quick, make sure that all board members have had a chance, okay. If there are members of the public who wish to speak on this agenda item, now would be the time. You can raise your hand or we can, is there anyone on the phone at the moment or you can jump in from the phone. I'm not seeing any hands. Greg, am I missing any hands? No, I do not see any either. Okay. All right, well then we'll move on to the next agenda item. And this is a select board only item. Consider approval of FAQs and postcard mailing about upcoming vote on reconsideration of merger. So in the packet, there were a postcard and some Q&A. So staff put those together on their own and have presented those to us for our consideration. So select board, any thoughts or questions or comments on those materials? Dawn. My concern is that people need to know to look at both sides of the ballot and I think that should be on that postcard. I thought I did see it somewhere. Oh, I looked, I didn't, but maybe I missed it. Yeah, Greg is highlighting it right now on the screen. The merger question is located on the other side of the Essex Westford School District ballot. We can certainly try to bold that and make it a little bit more visible. Thank you. Yeah, Greg, that would be a good idea. I believe it's also printed on the ballots. Okay. Andy. Talking to my mute button. I guess I think it's only written on the town ballot because there's a big blank empty space on the back, on the one side, but I don't think there was enough room on the other one, but anyway, that's here and there. There was a comment about ballots being mailed to all voters or all registered voters. Is that what we're doing or are we mailing to all active registered voters? Does that need to be clearly stated or does it really matter? Go ahead, Greg. I believe it's all active voters, Andy, but I will check with Susan, the town clerk and make that edit if we need to. Okay. And then my other comment is, I'll answer, we're gonna double check that, but I believe it's active, the people on the active list. Yeah, that's what I thought too. But it may be irrelevant whether the word is included or not, I don't know. Right, well, and just for the people who are listening, the active list is less than the total amount of voters. We have people who are registered to vote, who haven't voted recently, and that's what makes them not active. Okay, then my other comment is I'm a little hesitant to, or maybe more than a little hesitant to generate new informational materials without going through a whole editing cycle. Should we just reference the prior information that's already been provided rather than the Q&A thing? In case we get anything wrong or different, there's something in there that's different than it might have been used before, or I didn't take a detailed look through it to see if there's anything specifically that I really object to. Maybe it's just, I'm just being me and I shouldn't be. I thought that there was new information in the FAQ, sort of like, why are we doing this again, kind of information? I would want that to go out to the public for sure. Yeah, but then there's also the stuff about separation. That's right, that's the stuff that I do have concerns about because it's a lot of speculation, and it just asks more questions, it doesn't answer things, and it's a long, it feels like it was, and this is not, and I'm sorry, I'm not, I don't want to impugn anybody's efforts because I know this was not thrown together, it was put together with somebody's very valuable time. I understand that, but it feels a little bit like it was made longer just to make it a little filled space, the discussion about separation and then, and I just get concerned that all those questions about separation are just, are gonna add confusion because of the way the, the village ballot article is worded, it says that none of the, it answers all those questions by saying we're not gonna do anything but police, and that's the request, right? So in the article, so if we have all these other questions about shared services, possibilities, I think it just adds confusion. Great. Sure, Amy, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. We, staff can, and we do put this together, I'm trying to, I thought of the direction of this left-boarding conversation recently about trying to inform people why we're voting again, that the vote's happening, why it's happening, that's another reason behind having given the FAQs. As far as the separation piece, obviously we will of course defer to the board, because it's the board's decision as to whether to approve this, how to use it, whether to distribute it. One of the questions that we've kept hearing about is what, what about separation? And if we don't merge, does that mean separation? And, you know, the attack that I took that Tammy Getchell took and putting us together was, we don't know, we just don't know. And it's a question that people are asking and we didn't want to ignore it. So we wanted to at least bring it up to a discussion here with the board. That, like you said, Andy, it is speculation. And so we tried to answer some of those questions about why we don't know, what we don't know. You know, the services that are in there, we don't specify police. And yes, that is the one shared service that is being talked about or considered in the advisory vote on the village ballot. You can take that from police and apply it to, in my mind, just about any service, any department. If you limit it to just police, what we share costs based on the number of calls and where they are inside or outside the village, are we doing it per capita? Is it by the grand list? Is there some other metric or something all combined? And if it ends up some other sort of separation share, and again, we don't even know what that'll happen. We don't know what those options are, but on and on down that road, the short answer is just, we don't know. So I'll leave it at that and let the board discuss, but I just wanted to give some reasoning behind how staff got to what we got to in terms of this update that we updated on that, thank you. Evan. Well, first, thank you, Greg, for that. And Andy, thank you for your questions and your concerns. One of the issues is I don't know who contacts elected officials on a day-to-day basis. And as you all know, I'm not a big fan of Front Porch Forum or Facebook. But having said that, I'm told by many people that these are the questions that are on Front Porch Forum. These are the ones that are on Facebook. These are our residents asking us, is there any information on this? And so we took a crack at it. If it's not ready tonight and you wanna take a look at editing it, certainly there's time until your next meeting. But the ballots are gonna be going out any day now and you were working on them today to go out. We have over 14,000 of them to mail and get back. But these are the questions that are out there. And if we don't answer them, then the people may or may not be as informed as they'd like to be. That's just our take. And it is clearly up to the board to decide or boards to decide whether you wanna put this up on the website. Pat. Thanks. I mentioned this last meeting and I think this kind of holds true here. I actually appreciated having this information on here. I talked that I feel we're no longer in a situation where the answer is black or white. To use all of my analogies are dramatic but to use a dramatic analogy, if you're falling out of a plane, you have the option at any point to pull a parachute or don't pull a parachute. But at some point, inevitably, you're going to hit the ground. There is a consequence coming. And I think explaining, because this is prevalent in the community, they wanna know what are the consequences? I don't think that people are asking anymore, is this yes or no? Is this black or white? They wanna know if it's yes, what happens? If it's no, what happens? Having this information in here, I think covers the large scale details or excuse me, the large scale of what we do know, which is that the village does have a petition signed by a large chunk of its residents about how they wanna proceed. I think to not acknowledge that is to ignore the reality. And I think we owe it to our constituency to get that information out there with absolute appreciation about making sure all the information is factual as we can make it. I think not including the inevitable possible consequences of what happens in a yes vote or a no vote within this information is doing a disservice to as Evan put it, the questions people are asking. Thanks, Pat. Any other questions or comments from board members? Select board members? Okay. I'm sorry, did I miss a board member? Okay. Before we make a vote on this item, I see a hand up in the audience. So board members with your permission will turn to the audience. Go ahead, Jill Evans. I just wanted to echo what Pat Trick is saying. As someone who's new to this town, this merger conundrum is like baffling to me coming from having lived in a place that was completely unified. And what I'm hearing from a lot of village people is that they're sick and tired of this fight and that I think adding the piece about the separation allows for people to not just be thinking about this in a short-term vision kind of way, but to think like one step out and another step out there, what the consequences will be because I don't think if we really examined separation and how that would affect the town, people might feel differently. And because it's out there, I do think that it's important to acknowledge that it's out there. Thank you. Irene. Thanks very much. I think it's wholly inappropriate to talk about separation on the town website. If the village trustees would like to put out a postcard or information on their website about separation, I'd say go for it. But this is a town vote about a town question which is merely being re-voted from March 2nd. There is no separation question whatsoever on the town ballot and this is wholly inappropriate to discuss on a postcard or on the town website or anywhere, even this meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Ken. I'm looking, oh, thank you. I'm looking over the list of on the merge municipality side, the table, and I'm looking at all the things that will happen if there's a merger success. I don't see the tax savings or the tax increase for the village or the town outside the village. Seems like that's kind of an important item. It's what's spoken about the most and it's just not listed there. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? I'm not seeing any other hands, Diane Clemens. I would say that as far as I knew, I never left town today, but I did cross the town village line and I feel represented only if the slack board recognizes that I live in the town. I worked at the town office for a better part of the day for a town purpose. I should be represented to reflect the pros and cons of the issue that is on that ballot that I stuffed into envelopes. So if the slack board can't provide me with objective information on the pros and cons of all the issues that they've put on that ballot, where am I to look for that? And quite frankly, I already know the answer to that, but I would like to see it objectively from any of the boards of which there are free on that ballot that have put stuff there. So I take somewhat of offense to somebody say that it's none of our business from the town perspective and I hate to say it, but all of the business that occurs within the town at any point in time will affect another section of the town. I live in a district on that front porch forum that has both village and town in it. And I would like to recognize that, yes, okay, I live in the village, but I also live in the town. So please provide me information so I can make the best decision that I can to guide you when you get all that information back. Thank you. Thank you, Brian Sheldon. Ms. Haney, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Honestly, I want to mostly agree with Ms. Clemens just from the other side of the village border. I believe that from what I heard in this meeting, neutral information to answer a common question from Essex residents about the, about a obvious consequence of this vote has been composed. So I think it is an important bit of information. I agree with an earlier speaker who said that many people want to understand what half of the town of Essex is voting on in this upcoming vote. So I think it's important information that belongs on town provided information to voters. And I hope you would conclude. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any, Sarah Michelle? Hello there. Hi. Hi, I just want to make sure my volume is working. Okay, great. I think if you do not get that information out, I think that people in the town and in the village could criticize everyone for not giving all the information out. So I think you could be held accountable for hiding something. And I don't think the select board wants to be put in that position. So let's get all the information out there for anybody who wants it for full transparency. Thank you. Thank you. Gabrielle. Gabrielle, did you want to speak? Your hand was up, but now it's gone. Hi, yep. Sorry about that. Okay. That's the wrong button. I apologize. That's right. So I just wanted to say that I'm probably not going to say anything you all don't already know, which is that I think we're all in kind of a variety of places on our readiness to vote. There's a huge chunk of people who are feeling pretty lost. They're either new or they're carrying a lot of information and they're not sure where to go to get accurate information. And there's folks who are pretty entrenched in their narrative of what's happening in our community, whether we matter where we live. And it's those folks that are seeking understanding that we're trying to reach with this information. And I really appreciate the struggle that you have as a town select board about whether or not to include information about what the village is doing on your information. Traditionally, I think we've all been a little bit separated in that sense. However, I think that I'm tending towards asking that you do include some information about the reality of that ballot question that the village will be voting on on the same day if only to be responsive to the volume of people who are asking the question. Because they do see the relevance for themselves in making their assessment about how they wanna vote. I do think it's a tough question. I appreciate y'all deliberating about it. Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public? And if not, we'll go back to the board and, okay, Evan, you had your hand up first and then Greg and then Dan. So, and Mike, I know I'm supposed to direct my question to the chair, but I wanna ask Greg something real quick. So this is for our website, Greg. So it's not gonna be printed on materials. The plan was that we could absolutely have it on the Greater Essex 2020 website, the town website. And certainly if the board wanted to discuss other options, we are open to that. So the reason why I asked that is that if there is anything in those documents that a board member wishes for correction or change, we can make that change because it's electronic. It's not in print. It's on the website, so it's an electronic document. And we can hold not putting it up for several days until we hear comments. So I just wanna let you know that. Can't hold it forever. So if the boards want us to put it up, it'll go up. But if there's something that needs to be addressed, we can make that correction, which we couldn't do with the mailer on the Q&A and other things. So I throw that out there and just as a FYI, it's electronic, it could be amended if necessary. Thanks. So, Evan, real quick, Dan, just a quick second. The, and Greg, they're in the packet. There is the postcard. It's a single eight and a half by 11 sheet, but it's white on one side and then it's green and yellow striped on the back. That's the postcard. But then the timeline and the other document is just for the website that is not being mailed. Elaine, if I can answer that one, I'm gonna have to pull it up now. The postcard is intended to be an eight by 11, two-sided. So here's one side, probably folded in half. So you'd see WECR, WSS, Postal Paste in the one side, the information on the other side. And then as it pulls open timeline and what happens now with the repo, we're gonna find the question out about it. So it's a two-pager, fold in half. Okay. One page, two-sided. Okay, thanks for clarifying that. You still have your hand up, I'm sorry. Go ahead and then Dan. Sure, and I'll ditto everything Evan just said. I also just really wanted to emphasize something that Evan said earlier that the FAQs, the questions and answers that are included in the sheet, it's really stuff that we've been hearing for weeks, for months. We've been hearing that separation question, why aren't we separating? Why are we considering separation well before the village advisory vote? So yes, there's some questions in there, Q&As in there about what's up with the village advisory vote, about separation, isn't the village voting that separation? Even without that, there's still a high likelihood that based on some of the comments we've heard, questions we've heard, that Tammy tracks social media, Fred Forchmore on Facebook, these are the questions and items that she is seeing and hearing about. So quite possibly we would still be drafting up this Q&A about how come we're looking at merge or not separation. So I just wanted to point that out to you, thank you. Thank you. Dan, thanks for waiting. Yes, thank you. As George stated earlier, this language on the ballot for village voters is a resolution regarding potentially looking into separation. Along with that, the whole tax equity issue, and as we heard from a member of the public, stating something about the tax savings, he doesn't see where there's any big savings. The current existence between the two municipalities is basically any of the tax balancing that has occurred through shared services exist under an MOU. An MOU is not much more than resolution, it's non-binding. There's no legal binding agreement between the town and the village for any of the municipality services that we're sharing right now. That's just an MOU. So that can fall apart pretty easily. And depending on the boards and what's going on as we know, there's been a lot of strife and a lot of emotion in this whole issue of the years. By merging, that codifies agreements that brings everything together in a legal document. By separating, if that were the case, that also codifies things and that creates two separate municipalities. And either way, I'm for either or. I'm just not for the status quo. That's been, I've been stating that since I got on this board nearly 11 years ago. So the people need to be aware of that. That's what we're saying. That's my opinion at least. Thanks, Stan. Board members, any other questions or comments before the select board votes? Raj? Yeah, I would just say that, I think I've said this in past meetings that, you know, this, you represent the 11,000 or so residents in the village as well. And I think your constituents, all of them want to know what the possibilities are. And since one half of the community has said to its other board that they want to explore some pretty serious ramifications if this fails again, I think that means that as much information needs to get out as possibly can. And it is a reality. It is a real possibility, excuse me, that it gets pursued. I think most of us would rather it to not. But as Dan said, status quo, as we've been told is just not tenable. So, you know, seeing as how, you know, I get where people are coming from. It doesn't belong in a town ballot. But your constituents are village residents and you really can't separate that. And when I hear Heming and Hawing, you know, I start to, as a town resident, I start to feel unrepresented when I, when I start to hear some of the beginning of this conversation didn't read the materials. So I was ready to edit, you know, I did. And it's not even on my agenda. So I really encourage you to get as much information as you possibly can get out there. Let's make sure it's accurate, obviously. It's a tough nuance, but I think we can do it. Thanks. Thank you. Andy? I want to clarify that I wasn't saying that we should not mention separation anywhere in any of our documentation. That wasn't what I was implying. I was just asking about the words, whether we had an opportunity to edit them and review them. Also, I don't regularly go read the village's website. I don't know if there's anything comparable out there about explaining the whole separation thing. It seems like it should be the same material, right? I don't know. Is there a village Q&A about separation or it's on your ballot? It's just wondering. I just want to make sure we're consistent. If staff wrote both of them, I'm sure they are. My point wasn't to say, don't talk about separation. It was just, let's look at the words. And I truly appreciate it. I hadn't thought about the comments that were made about folks that are monitoring social media and collecting the questions. And that's where all of the content that to me felt like filler because I don't go to those Facebook pages so that I don't, just, that's just me. But so anyway, the question I'm going to get to here is can we separate the postcard vote from the Q&A vote if we have to vote both of those tonight? I'm fine with the postcard. But I do have, and some of my reservations about the Q&A is that some of the material that's in there is the same material that was, or condensed material that was in the mailer, which I wasn't very happy with. So, and I'm just one vote. So, I'm not going to, I don't stop a majority if I'm in the minority. So, but anyway, can we separate the two votes? And I'm happy to, if folks want me to take a look, a more serious look at the document. And as I said, it's not just the separation content. I also have concerns with the other part, which just circles back to an old discussion that nobody probably wants to have. So, there are some mixed messages coming here, Andy. And so, help, forgive me if I'm misinterpreting, but what you're saying is, you're just one vote, but you want to edit the materials. If no, no, if the vote is, Andy, can I please finish what I'm saying? Thank you for your time. I just want to identify that the last time the board voted in the majority about materials, you took an unprecedented step to post lengthy disagreements with those materials, which is your right. I just want to make sure that you are understanding that when we vote on these kinds of things, we are not hearing you and we are not valuing what you are offering, but we are just disagreeing with it and that you may feel that the materials are not sufficient in their explanation or they're not nuanced enough to get the message perfectly across, but that is a conversation that has been on our table for months about the perfect versus the good. And we are on a timeline, which is, I'm very grateful to Evan that he indicated that there is time and that's great, but what I'm hoping to avoid is that we have an agreement that the majority of the board decides these materials are good, we're gonna go with it, and then we have the experience of a board member who was not in the majority going out and actively working against the will of the majority of the board, which is what happened last time. And so I'm just expressing some fears and concerns. It changes nothing about the validity of your concerns and if the rest of the board wishes to split the vote, I'm totally fine with that. And if the rest of the board decides to change language, I want the majority of the board to make that decision and I want the full board to do what a full board is supposed to do and go along with it because when board members diverge, it doesn't serve the community at all. And so I just want us to remember our most recent experience with this and take that into consideration. So board members, two questions. Do you wish to split the postcard versus the web content vote? And the second question is, are you okay with the web content at the moment? So Andy, go ahead. I'm just gonna say that I'm not, I don't really want to edit this stuff. I mean, if folks vote, the rest of the boards votes tonight to go forward with the content as it is, I won't edit it. And that's the reason why I didn't edit it for tonight. I didn't want to, it didn't take the time to do that. And I'm sorry, Raj kind of called me out on that. But so, yeah, if the majority votes to leave the languages is then, yeah, what can I do? Well, what you can do is go out in the public and make a lot of disagreeing comments about the work of the board. And so even though that is not part of this vote, I just, that situation last time did damage. And informed a lot of people, you informed a lot of people and your opinion was valuable. I just, I'm not sure you were fully aware of the impact of your commentary. And I'm trying to in advance find out if more commentary is gonna come out after this vote. Please go ahead. I came back to the board and asked permission to share that content. You did. And so, I was, there was a fair amount of reluctance to, on my part to do it. And as I said at that time, I will not actively campaign against the majority position of the board. But then I said, in addition though, if folks ask me questions, I will offer my opinion. And that's what all of that was, was me answering questions that folks posed to me. Well, that clarification is important. And you did say that in your posts, but it had impact. And we can't ignore that. So, all right. So board members, do you want to split the vote of postcard versus web content? And I can't see all of you. So. Don has her hand up. Oh, Dawn, thank you, Evan. Dawn, go ahead. Madam chair, I have no problem with doing the postcard as presented and getting in the mail because technically we really don't have a lot of time. And as far as the posting on the website, I don't have a problem as long as the taxation information is added into it. So question on that, Dawn, I know that it refers to the September 20th memo that Sarah gave us in her presentation that contained all the tax information. So is that not sufficient to direct residents to it or do you want to add another page with all of that information? No, no, I just want them to be aware where they said we're on the two squares where they said this is happening with separation. This is happening with merger. I just need to make sure that the tax, they know the taxes will change for both. I don't think that's on there right now. I get it. I get what you're saying. Okay. Thank you. Greg, hang on just a second. Board members, any other questions or comments about splitting the vote? I'm fine with doing it. It's two separate votes. I have no particular preference one way or another. Okay. I see this now, so, okay. Sorry, my next bothering me. So I've been reclined most of the meeting. Oh, sorry to hear that. Okay, Greg. Sure, I was just hoping to get some clarification from Don as far as the tax information. If the board wanted to go that route, I think I got most of what she's looking forward on. I guess the second follow-up question to that would be, are you looking for something to the effect of if you're, to learn more about the tax implications of a merger, please visit such and such. We can link to some of the numbers that was provided. Correct. That'll work fine. Yes. Okay. Is that okay with the rest of the board? I guess I can help wait to see what happens in the votes. Thanks, Don. That sounds like a good addition. Okay, so then how about we have a motion on the postcard? I motion to approve sending the postcard to residents of Essex Junction as presented. Is there a second? Oh, thank you, Don. I think we need to, isn't this to the town of Essex? It's to the town of Essex. Yeah, you're right. Apologies. I don't know where my head is. To the town of, I- And I guess we're going to send it to the town of Essex. Active voters of the town of Essex. All right, now let's look at that. Okay, got it right. Thank you. Thank you. And we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, postcard is good to go. And web content, how about a motion for that? I motion approval of the web content to be placed online with the amendments that Don has requested. Is there a second? Seconded. Thank you, Vince. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Okay, let's do a roll. Andy? No. Vince? Aye. Pat? Aye. Dawn? Aye. And Elaine? Aye. So the web content is approved by a margin of four to one. So thank you everybody for the conversation and thank you trustees for your patience while we worked this select board only topic out. And now let's jump down to item 5F discussion on future strategic planning sessions. Evan or Greg, do you want to discuss? Sure, I can kick it off and Evan jump in whatever you want or if you want. I didn't know if we were gonna flip it going. You go first. We'll do the heads and tails. We'll take Ali's advice. So this is something that we've talked about as an administrative team, management team for a long time now. Just trying to do some strategic planning. Most of the board members probably remember the strategic advance that we had a couple of years ago. Haven't done much strategic planning since then. But really the idea of trying to do at least once a year, not a couple of times a year, just sit down, really think about what's important. What's coming up? What do you want to work on in the coming year? What are the projects? Thinking a good time to do that is right out the reorganizational meeting. So middle of spring, late April, early May, just sit down and do the same page, kind of come up with a work plan. What are the priorities that the boards want to focus on? Come to fall right around the budget season is potentially a good time to do a check-in. How is that work coming along? Is there anything else that has come up throughout the year that there should be added into the budget cycle for the next fiscal year? But just trying to keep on task in terms of what are we working on as a board, as staff? Oh, what do we want to prioritize and really beat the goals for the year? This becomes in our mind even more important with what we started thinking about this after the March merger vote. Now we'll have to see what happens in April. But as we told you before, the status quo is just really not sustainable for staff. Two, three night meetings a week, every single week that it's time-consuming for you as board members, but certainly for Evan in particular, who needs to attend most of these meetings, myself, Sarah, Margot Reed, who needs to have meetings, and then just the preparation of it. Getting everything ready with the number of packets that we have for Tanny, for Linda, for all of us. And so if the boards remain separate, if the merger does not pass or even if it does pass, trying to figure out a way to do this more sustainably, to support the boards, to support the work in the community of all of Essex townwide and how can we continue to do this? We talked about the websites before and the number of postings that we have to do and posting this information to three places, making sure it gets out on and on and on and on. So hopefully the boards will buy into the idea that we should do some strategic planning and hoping tonight to have a little conversation about what that might look like, what you all would like to touch on, some questions of do you want a higher facilitator? Do it that way? Do you want to meet together and just do the whole thing as one strategic planning session for both boards? Do you want to do it separately and then come together? Just trying to get a sense of what might work and what do you want to do? You want to do it on a weeknight, on a weekend day and just trying to figure out some of these things so we can start to plan. And once we have some of those questions, we can get into in the future some more details about what should this strategic plan focus on? We'll know some more direction after the votes in April and figure out what might make sense. So that's my overview and like I said, jump in if you have anything to add. Gosh, I'm glad you went first. And then, you know, you guys do this every week, every other week, the citizens who are still watching here, maybe, you know, jump in and come in and come out, but this will sound weird, but merger is not the only thing that should be on your docket. You all know that the state is going to either allow you to opt in or opt out of cannabis. Sometime this year, you guys are going to need to look at what type of vote you guys are going to put on a ballot for opt in or opt out. And it would be great if you guys were unified in that stance as a village and as a town. There are plenty of other issues that are coming up. Town fire department wants to start talking about the future of, you know, what are they going to do? What's the town vision for their station and for their coverage? And, you know, we just fixed their building, and which is great, but that's not a long-term solution necessarily. So if there is a desire to look at their station and look at their coverage, we're going to need to have a plan, obviously not immediate, but in the future. And we have all these other issues that are not getting airtime that we would like the boards to talk amongst themselves and give us their priorities. And then hopefully do some gatekeeping so that when things come along that maybe are not high priority, you self-police yourselves and say, yeah, that's interesting, but we know staff is working on these things. Maybe we could hold off on this for a little while. And so, hoping you'll have a fruitful discussion with the time left tonight. Thank you. You're muted, Elaine. Thank you, Evan. Board members, what is your pleasure? Go ahead, Andrew. Now you're muted. There we go. I think that regardless as to how things go in this reconsideration vote in April, it's important for our boards to meet together, to forge a plan ahead in whatever that should look like and that should likely wait until May should, again, depending on how things go in April though, I would say the trustees would absolutely could possibly need our own strategic advance or strategic retreat independent of a joint one. So I think in some respects, these answers will really need to wait until after April while only a couple of them could be answered now. George. Thanks, Elaine. I am all in favor of us having some kind of a strategic meeting in late April or May as the two boards together. I think we have a lot of, and this ties in, I didn't want to get into, as you guys were discussing, let me lower my hand while it's on my mind. As you guys, as a select board was discussing what to do about your postcards in your website, I didn't want to jump back in, but I do want to clarify, but at least it gets to the point of having a strategic planning session. The reason I wanted to emphasize that the petition that came before the trustees was a resolution and not binding is because frankly, I think it asks us to do some things that we can't do. Let me give you an example. The tri-town committee that oversees the wastewater treatment plant, the town of Essex and the town of Williston are on that permit and they're in the committee and that committee is not going anywhere. Separation merger doesn't matter. And that's not something we would be talking about, but that's an example of something that would have to continue, regardless of separation or merger. The village still owes, if we were to separate the village taxpayers would still be responsible for town debt. For example, the police station. So that's not going to go away with separation. I could, I mean, all I'm saying is that no one has really looked into all of these binding agreements, debts. We talked a lot about the village debt during merger. We never talked about the town's debt and we're all responsible for the town's debt. So there's lots of committees and agreements that would continue. And I do agree with Andrew. I mean, obviously I'm not making, I don't think anyone's surprised. Obviously the outcome of the vote in April will determine the very nature and the fundamental questions of a strategic planning session, but I still think there's going to be a lot for us to talk about. If you want one specific thing, I would say, for example, the tree farm. Again, another example of something the state gave us, the town and the village, the tree farm, that's not going away. We're going to have to operate that. And I think we've got some decisions and some questions about the tree farm. I would like to certainly discuss, we've had a lot of issues come up in the village. For some reason they come more to the village I guess because the village side is more accessible to the public. But I think there are some issues there that we need to discuss with the select board. So that would be one specific thing I would like to talk about. But anyway, I would be in favor of having a strategic planning session regardless of the outcome of the vote. Obviously if it's in favor of merger, we're going to be a lot closer. We're going to be spending a lot of time together in the coming year. So I mean, as I'll get used to it. And if it's not, I still think it's very, a very good idea for the two boards to stay in close contact because we'll still have a lot to talk about. So I'm in favor of doing it. I don't know when. I don't know about a facilitator because I'm not sure what that person would be facilitating. I may want to hold off on that until you figure out what is actually going to be on the agenda, but I'm in favor of it. Thanks. Any other board members comments? Vince. Yeah, I think it's, I would really like it to continue as well. And my kind of comment on the discussion or the format of the discussion, I think we just get all the boards, we get both boards in a room with staff and we just kind of like go over what the needs of staff are, what the needs of the trustees are and what the needs of the select board are and then try to like come up with like a cohesive agreement between all three of us. And then that way we're all kind of in agreement. So like not everybody's gonna probably get exactly what they want, but at least we'll come out together with like a plan. That's my comment on that. I don't know, what are the other boards and staff or maybe Elaine if you could kind of shepherd that discussion, Elaine or Andrew shepherd that discussion, the trustees and staff or what everybody thinks of that. Sure. Well, I'm kind of hesitant to participate in this conversation since I will not be a participant in whatever meeting comes forward. So I think we've had a strategic retreat in the past, it was very successful. It gave us a lot of really fabulous information from the staff and it gave the staff what I hope is an idea of where the boards were at the time on things. And so I think it's very high time that it happens again. But in terms of how the last retreat, the staff had a great agenda and we did have two facilitators who helped with the conversation and helped make sure that we didn't get off target. So perhaps facilitators not necessarily to help us answer specific questions but rather to simply run an efficient meeting and make sure everyone has heard would be a good idea. And we've done it before. Pat, why don't you go ahead? I had to unmute. So maybe speaking more to the skeleton of this, I think we're all generally in agreement that we need to have at least one meeting together as a board and May sounds good since it's after the votes in April. Should we, I mean, I would propose that we at the very least do a May retreat date, maybe for a Saturday. So we have enough time to kind of work through without feeling like we're jotting up against people's bedtimes. And then after that, if we decide to do more, I think depending on the vote would be again, whether we do them as joint again or if we would break off and do them as separate boards. But I feel like we could decide that at a meeting in May. Andy? Yeah, the last thing that Patrick said was to decide something in May. And I'm worried that we might need a little bit of a cooling off period. And I know it's not, it doesn't help when there's time constraints on anything to call for a cooling off period. And I think there needs to be to figure out, and maybe it's just me how to heal. I think there's a lot of, it's not just board members, it's the community. I like the idea of a facilitator because I think there's that healing process is beyond many of our skill levels or scope of understanding. I like the idea of it being on a Saturday, so we have plenty of time. I will bring my Yucca lately. I hope others bring other fun things. If it helps with our ability to move forward together and also to move the community forward, whichever direction we end up going. Thank you. Raj? I just said, I believe we did the last strategic advance right after I joined the board or soon after. And I have to say, I found that incredibly useful and a great way to get to know well, most everybody, staff and management and board members. So I think for Tracy's benefit, I think it'd be a great idea. And I would second the weekend. I'd be hard pressed to take a weekday off and I don't think we'd have enough time in the evening, but I think it's a great idea. How we get there, whether it's one or two and then coming together, not sure yet. But I agree, we still have a lot to work on. And regardless of how things pan out, we still will for quite some time. Sounds good. Because every board member had a chance to weigh in. Evan, do you have what you need? One last question. You don't have to answer tonight, but take a look at May 22nd, Saturday. That's the weekend before Memorial Day. It's late in the month. It gives us time to put some stuff together after the vote. You don't have to answer tonight. We'll send out a doodle poll. But yes, I have the direction I need. Thanks. Okay. If I can jump in. Elaine Don has her, or had her hand up. Let's move these down now. I'm sorry. I didn't want to get in the way. And I'll just say, now that I said May 22nd, don't go fill your calendars in with something you just thought of. George. I'm just curious if by May, and the interesting, I mean, these online meetings are wonderful. I gotta say it, it's convenient being able to go into the kitchen and get a coffee. But I mean, is there any chance that by May 22nd, if that's when we had it, that we could actually figure out a strategy to meet face to face, maybe in a group, maybe socially distanced, because we're all very good at it now. We've been doing it for a year, so we're very skilled. But I'm just curious about how people would feel about that if an opportunity came up, would that be something we'd be interested in? I'm not lobbying to do it, but what are people's thoughts? That might be something to think about between now and then, about trying to actually see each other as human beings and not as digital images. I've been there. I've gone into my work now a couple of times the past few months and I have to say, seeing people in 3D is a bit weird again. But it's a great way to build that relationship as Rod was saying earlier, in trying to meet board members and really haven't had that opportunity with Dawn either from and or Vince. So really being able to have that opportunity, I think would be a great chance to do it in public. And we know that CVE is a great open place, plenty of outdoor capacity, maybe even in Indian Brook, could all be at different ends of the reservoir and just shouting together. We need to get permits, Andrew. I don't think we have, yeah, sorry. Oh, sorry. There's plenty of opportunities though. Yeah, we all get bullhorns around Indian Brook and we just yell at each other. It'll be great. Yeah. I might be able to get you guys a few passes. Still be muted. I'm envious. I bet there'll be t-shirts too. So it sounds like we have a good deal going on now for this. So have a wonderful time, all of you. We have a executive session to come up, but we're gonna skip over the executive session, do consent and reading file and then we'll come back to the executive session if that's okay. Select board, consent agenda is just for the select board. So would anyone like to move that consent agenda? I make the motion we accept the consent agenda as presented. Second. Thank you, Vince. Thank you, Dawn. Any further discussion? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. And the reading file, comments or questions from board members? Okay. Then let's move on to getting into our executive session. Each board needs to make a motion. Madam Chair, are we coming back here after? I don't think so. Okay. Thank you. And also for the motion, Travis is our HR director. He is in the motion. He is on call if we need him, but so we'll put him in the motion, but he may not join us if we don't need him and we will not need Evan or Greg. Okay. So would select board member like to make a motion? So Elaine, I have it up. I can read it. Thank you. I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public official in accordance with one VSA section 313A3 to include the select board and the trustees and the HR director. Thank you, Andy. Is there a second? Second. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. And we will adjourn from that meeting, I'm assuming, from that session. Madam Chair, can I ask Evan a question? Absolutely. Evan, do I have a link to this or Greg? Don, are you using your s6.org? No, my service pro does not connect to consolidated, which is what I have for a service. Executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public official in accordance with one VSA section 313A3 to include the select board and HR director. All second. Thank you, George. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right. So since you guys are not coming back to this meeting, I'm gonna close out this one, you'll be in executive session.