 The budget changes are due with the highway tax and the ability to increase the tax feature. So, let's see, in 30 seconds nobody has to appear, but nobody has to come to hear the difference. Nobody is going to take this. Take away those that are on our hand while we wait for those. As a review of the public works or the highway budget increase beyond 6%, then the town select board needs to approve of that before they can get onto their budget. Otherwise, if it is under 6%, it just goes on to their budget as it is. And there is a request to go beyond that 6%, which is triggering part of the need for this. And Sarah, are you back with us? You don't even need me. Oh, yeah, we do. Can you hear me okay now? Much better. Wonderful. Good. I need to put you on speakerphone. Excellent. Or I could put, oh, car audio. All right, all right. If you guys could see my setup, it's great. I've got my laptop on my lap on a blanket because it's cold and my phone is the wonders of modern technology. I think this is the most 2020 thing I've done all year. So some of you were at the select board meeting last night. So because this particular action involves actions of both boards, this is a multi-step process. And so last night, the select board received this exact same memo. And I walked through the mechanics of how these funds work, which I can do again in a second. The select board did not vote on issue one and two, but they did provide a consensus that they're in support of this move. The only hesitation I think was really not having seen the whole town budget yet, which is just not ready yet because the first focus for budgeting is the village budget. Village budget day is tomorrow in case anybody forgot. It starts at 8.30, right here on Microsoft Teams. But the third piece of making this happen is for the trustees to approve or consent to be okay with a change in the structure to the village budget, which just is going to move the piece of the annual rolling stock transfer out of that transfers in miscellaneous section and into the highway operating budget. One of the things that I didn't talk about last night, but this also aligns the way we do budgeting between the two entities, where if there is department-related transfers to capital, they show up in the department budget on the town side. So now that would happen on both sides. So that's another bonus. Let me back up just a little bit. This was brought up two years ago by Lauren right before she retired, and it did not happen that year. This is pretty much the same memo that she put together just updated for the current year. So currently, as Andrew talked about through the Public Works MOU, the highway operating budget in the village is set by the village, and then it is funded through the town budget so that highway operations between the town and the village are funded equitably by all taxpayers. This is sort of the last piece to making this switch. There's currently an annual transfer to capital in the village operating budget for highway rolling stock, so that's just funded by village taxpayers. On the other side of the coin on the town budget, there's the town outside the village highway tax, which approximates the annual operating transfer to capital for public works rolling stock on this town side. This change works because both of those go from being raised on a smaller subset of the grand list to both being raised on the entire grand list, and so the impact to the average taxpayer is very small. I think it's less than three dollars. Matt, I'm sorry, it would be a dollar 68 increase outside the village, and then a $2.86 decrease in the village. So I'm happy to answer any questions or talk more, since I'm the only one on the agenda. You're welcome, but really all I'm looking for is questions, comments, and if you are interested and willing to just give a nod that you're okay with the change to the structure in your budget. And again, just as the recommendation here does have three parts, just for clarity, what you're looking for is number three, where just us moving the village rolling stock into the highway budget, correct? Yes. Thank you, Evan. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I missed the last one. That's your action part, yes. No worries. As was mentioned at last night's select board meeting, for me personally, this makes a lot of sense, especially given how much sharing happens. So not even from a taxing standpoint, just how much the communities, both the town and the village, have utilized each other's vehicles, it makes sense that everybody who is benefiting from it pay for it. So from that stance, I'm all for it personally. And as Sarah mentioned, again, just for clarity's sake, the select board, they did not vote on this. It was a consensus of the board, which what that means is since there wasn't a vote, they didn't make a decision on this. Instead, basically, there were a couple of questions and a desire to look at the overall budget, no opposition from what I saw, just a desire to see the whole budget. That's at least my take from where the conversation went. And with that, George, I see that your hand is up. Why don't you go ahead? Right. I have a couple of questions. First and foremost, I'm sorry, I don't have the annual report here with me, but maybe I'm mistaken, but is all rolling stock in the village now considered part of public works? Do we not have some rolling stock that is not part of public works, but part of some involved in one other department? That's one question. In other words, if we have a rolling stock need, that's not public works, and you're moving it into the public works budget. What does that mean? So I can answer that one real quick while it's fresh on my mind. So the current rolling stock capital fund on the village, it funds public works rolling stock and fire department rolling stock. And so annually, there is a transfer from the operating budget to rolling stock. I think it's of the tune of $260,000 off the top of my head. It's more than what we're talking about here. I'm talking about just taking a portion of that that's attributable to public works and moving that into the public works segment. So this is an all-rolling rolling stock. This is just the appropriate, or just the highway rolling stock piece. Just the highway fund rolling stock. So we would still have a rolling stock fund in the village for the fire department. Is that what you're saying? You will still have a rolling stock fund in the village. Everything in the village is going to stay exactly the same with that rolling stock fund being funded but at the same planned amounts from the operating budget. It's just that the operating budget, you're going to see that there used to be one line for rolling stock in the transfer segment. Now there's just going to be two lines, one in the fire budget and one in the public works budget. Add them together. They're going to be the same as that old line in the departmental budgets. And then that facilitates the funding mechanism on the revenue side, etc. Okay, I follow your reasoning. And then this probably, my next question probably doesn't need to be asked, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So we traditionally, in terms of public works, all of our rolling stock, I know having put these budgets together for many years, we have sort of planned obsolescence built into this budgeting. In fact, it's the reason why we created, if I recall, why we created the rolling stock fund originally. I wasn't on the board then, but I believe this is the logic. So in other words, to put it in plain language, they buy a pickup truck for the public works department. It's like, okay, this truck is going to last 10 years and at 10 years out it goes. We just sell it. We don't drive it until the volts come off. It's not like our own personal vehicle where we see how many miles we can squeeze out of it. It's a service vehicle. And by the time it's beyond it's useful, it's predicted shelf life. We want it. We want to sell it. We want to trade it in and get a new one. And that's why we created this rolling stock fund. So planned obsolescence, sort of this planned scheduled replacement of vehicles is built, is a long standing village policy. And this is by no means judgmental or trying to, I don't know what the town does. I don't think that they do it this way, but I'm just not sure. And I just want to make sure that, and I know that this policy has served us very well in the long run. It means that our service vehicles are provide service and they're not in the repair shop when the service needs to be provided. So in the short run, you might say, oh, what are you doing? You're going to run over a perfectly good truck. But in the long run, we know that it pays off. And I just want to make sure I'm guessing from what I'm hearing from you, Sarah, and also Evan, that that policy is not going to change. But I just want to bring it up just to make sure. I just don't want to, you know, wish that I had asked this question and didn't. So maybe you can just enlighten me a little bit about how that might work. Yeah, Evan has to respond first if that's okay. Evan and George. So it's interesting because the town and the village actually do it very similarly. Our spreadsheets are just set up differently. The towns is set up with columns and the villages has rows. And I think that that, at least from my perspective, that actually causes a lot of confusion. But the idea is very much the same. I haven't, I've not heard it called planned obsolescence yet, but it's, so that's a new term for me. Well, that's the right term. I'm not going to give you, but it's anticipated obsolescence, I guess, is a better way. Yeah, it's a plan. It's a multi-year capital budget. So we know, we know how many pieces of equipment we have. We know what their estimated useful life is. And we know approximately when they're going to need to be replaced. And it's in our best interest at all times not to like have a surprise replacement or replace everything in the same year. So what we have is we buy and replace them in almost like a waterfall type of fact where every year there's a set amount or a growing amount set aside so that when we do need to replace things, we know when we're going to replace them. We have an idea of what the trade-in we're going to get for the old piece of equipment. We replace them in a way so that it's always staggered. That's what I meant more than a waterfall, but in a staggered, predictable way. Right, right. So, and I know now that you were talking about it, Sarah, and I don't want to gloat, but I think when Pat came on, when Pat Scheidel came over to the village, I think he liked our way of doing this. I think that maybe we were the inspiration for the town doing it this way. I think the town didn't really have a set policy and Pat kind of saw the wisdom of doing it this way. I could be wrong, but now that we're talking about it sort of jogging my memory. I think I cut you off, Evan. No, I probably couldn't say it any better than Sarah. The only thing that I would add is that it's an interesting term planned. Anticipated obsolescence. Yes, we know what the shelf life is of vehicles, and the problem with certain vehicles and pieces of equipment is if you try to get that extra mile or that one more year, that one more year probably will backfire on you. Oh, sure. Of course it will. You will probably spend a big chunk of money on a very expensive vehicle that you still then need to do get rid of. So almost dollar cost averaging, it's better to get to trade in a vehicle a little bit early than late. And when do you need a plow truck in the winter? When is a plow truck going to break down in the winter? So you really need them to be in tip top shape. So that's the kind of... So we have a plan, we have every vehicle on the plan, when it's supposed to be replaced. And then probably the only thing that changes that is did something happen to the vehicle that wasn't expected, car accident, something like that. Or sometimes you look at it and you go, well, this truck is, it's got less miles than we thought it would have. It's in great shape. Right. This other one is not doing so well. Let's switch them if we can. And that's about the only time we defer these things. And the other thing that I said at the select board meeting is because I'm the manager of both the village and the town, I make sure that high price tag vehicles are needed. They're necessary. They're not duplicates. So we are looking to not buy one in the village and one in the town. If we can avoid it, they can be shared. And that way we will save taxpayers money over the long run. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Ross. I can't remember my question. Never mind. Sarah, can I make a comment? Dan, if you're ready, go for it. Yeah, I agree with what George said. And Pat Scheidel did bring up the fact that we budget for our rolling stock differently than the town. And that we prepare for the future expenses opposed to wait and expend a lot of money at one shot. And instead we, as he referred to it, it's best to look at depreciation as an expense and build that into the normal budget so that you don't have this shock, as Kevin was saying, last minute, spending a lot of money to get rid of a vehicle too late and it's going to cost you a lot in the long run because it might fail or you're not going to get as much back on the trade as you would do early on a regular basis. And I'll throw one last thing in there. Large trucks like our plow trucks are very, very expensive to repair. There's not that many people that do the work. If you're doing it in the winter as an emergency, everybody has a truck that's in the shop as an emergency because it's winter and they're used for plowing. So it is a very difficult game. But again, that's why we try to be ahead a little bit ahead. And our goal is service and service levels. So that's what the people know and that's what we go with. And yes, the town does do it a little bit differently. And so we are also looking in the near-term future to align those two practices. Raj, you remember your question? I did. It was pretty quick. Just in terms of the select board not moving forward last night, what does that do? I mean, trying to recall what you said at the beginning, are they generally in favor of this? They just felt it was because we're getting together tomorrow to kind of figure our budget out. I know we're not finalizing our budget. I'm just saying. Are we feeling comfortable with here? Yeah, guys, thanks. I am. This is Sarah. I am comfortable with it. I think it was a reasonable decision on their behalf. I was hoping for a little bit more certainty, but I could understand wanting to see the whole budget together because what if I have some big surprise at my sleeve that they don't know about and that I don't know about yet? So I can understand that. I felt like they were all in favor of it. They gave a consensus. This has been talked about every year that I've been all three budget years. I've been involved now. This was presented in the exact same format two years ago. So it's been on our list of goals. I think it accomplishes a lot of things, and I feel comfortable with their consensus last night. Of course, all the pieces have to fall into place. Village, we're going to talk about our budget. Tomorrow, town, we're going to talk about our budget on after Christmas, and then we'll finalize the village budget after we know sort of where the town is headed and then warning everything for the meetings. But I'm feeling good about it. Okay. Thank you. And so, trustees, are there any other questions? If not, we can turn this over to public comments. So this would be the portion of if there is anybody in the public who had any comments for the board on this agenda item and only this agenda item, now would be the time to do so. If you're using Microsoft Teams, there is a raise your hand feature, or you can type into the chat that you'd wish to speak, which will notify me that you would like to speak, and I'll make sure that you get the opportunity. If you are calling in, then you'll just need to state your name so that way you can get into the queue. So if you have a question for the board, again, on this topic only, now is the time to let us know. All right. I see no hands up. I see no comments in the chat. And nobody has asked to speak who was called in. So would somebody like to... Andrew, there was a person before. I don't know if it's this topic. No. It was mentioned in the chat that it was a different topic as a part of public to be heard. Oh, okay. All right. So you're going to go back to that. My apologies. Yeah. No worries. So, trustees, would someone like to make a motion about recommendation three? I could do it. Go ahead. I move that the trustees approve moving the village highway transfer to rolling stock into the FY 2022 village highway budget. I will second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, George. Trustees, is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. But anybody opposed? Pass unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Sarah, thank you. And that brings us to me finding the agenda. That will bring us into the consent items. If one of the trustees would like to make a motion on the consent agenda. I move we approve consent agenda. Second. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Raj. Is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none for the motion. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay. That's unanimously. Before we get into board member comments, there were a few members of the public who have joined late. So if the board is okay, I'd like to open it back up for public comments. So for those who joined late, the way that this would work is if there is something you wish to speak to the board about, now is the time to do so. If you aren't using Microsoft Teams, there is a raise your hand feature. There is also a chat feature, and you can type into that that you wish to speak, which will let me know that you wish to speak to the board. If you are calling in, then I would just ask that you wait until you hear silence and then just let me know you wish to speak. And I see that Barb Kegel, your hand is up. If you'd like to unmute yourself, you can go ahead and let us know what's on your mind. Actually, this is Barbara's husband, Patrick. Hello, Patrick. Barbara is with me as well, but we have a kind of an ongoing concern, ongoing issue. We live over here on Cherokee Ave. We are adjacent to the post office plaza. I guess you'd call it the big lots. Every morning, pretty much, not every, I shouldn't say every morning, but quite frequently during the week, we are, we in the neighborhood, are disrupted at 4.30, quarter or five in the morning to the sounds of Cassella and Gauthier's trucking dumping of the trash. My understanding originally, years ago, a few years ago, we had the same complaint we brought it up and we were sent to the police department to discuss the issue and that there was an ordinance in place for things of this nature. Regarding noise, living in lifestyle in the community, I've been given kind of a run around, I shouldn't really say a run around, but more or less go deal with it yourselves through calling through the town as well as speaking with the police department and being told to just go address it at each of the trucking companies. I'd like to know if that's, I don't feel that that's appropriate, but I'd like to know on behalf from you folks if this ordinance is indeed meant for that. I've been told it was meant just for construction, but it clearly states in the ordinance it's not just for construction. So an answer if we could or a reply, something of that nature, please. Yeah, thank you for raising this. I would certainly say that in general, in our ordinances, we are not looking for residents to be the enforcer of our ordinances rather that this is how we learn of that. Evan, I see your hand is up. If you'd like to go ahead and address this, I'm specifically. Patrick, what ordinance do you have the number? Section, anything? I've got section seven, chapter seven, section four. It seems like line H would apply in this case, maybe. Yes, there you go. Yes, sir. Okay. I'll be happy to look into it for you. One of the village staff will look into it and we'll make a call. I'm sorry that you had that experience. Well, thank you. Thank you. I do appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for letting us know. Now, just so you know, garbage companies are, sometimes they get a new driver or they get a new supervisor. We'll do what we can and we'll try to stay on top of it. We've actually contacted them recently. My wife has actually, Barbara has. And they did oblige for maybe two weeks at most. This most recent timeframe. It had been in the past an ongoing thing for a substantial amount of time, I should say. And then we did the same process, like I said, we called. And somebody from the police, the police department actually dealt with it and took care of it for us. And it seemed to make things quiet for quite a substantial amount of time. And truly did appreciate it. I don't know, just saying I'm officer, such and such or whatever. But regardless, it was taken care of, very much appreciated. And then, of course, it returned and now we'll take care of that again. So my name is Evan, E-V-A-N, teach, T-E-I-C-H. If this happens again, when you call in the village, just have them find me or leave me a message and I'll take care of it. Very much appreciated. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Evan. Thank you for that, Evan. And is there anybody else from the public who wish to speak to the boards about something that was not on the agenda today? All right. I am seeing no new hands. I am not seeing any conversation in the chat window. I'll go ahead and assume that that means no. So we will go ahead and move into the reading file. First portion being board member comments. Board members, was there anything that you wish to address tonight? Yeah, this is a very minor thing, and I'm sorry to bring it up, but it's sort of like a little pet peeve. But at the top of Railroad Avenue, on the intersection with Main Street, at the corner where the bridal shop is, years ago we got this nice, I can't remember what non-profit organization. I don't know if it was the Champlain Valley Park District. Someone got us that beautiful community bulletin board with a very nice clock in the middle of it. I think we took bets at the time how long it would be for someone to vandalize the clock. I think it was about two months. I think we might have replaced it one or two times, but now it's been out of action now for, I think I first noticed it at the beginning of the summer. And it's not terrible. As eyesores go, it's not a really terrible eyesore. But I'm wondering if we can't look into it. And I don't think replacing it with yet another delicate clock that can be easily vandalized. But I'm wondering if there's some other solution, like maybe just a wrought iron insignia or something. Something that can't be, that isn't just like an empty bracket, which it is right now with a hole in it. If we can't just put something there, that's a little bit more attractive. Just out of respect for, and I'm sorry, this is terrible. I don't remember the organization that gave it to us, but someone went through a lot of trouble and I know village staff filled out a grant and we had to apply for it. And so it'd be nice to just sort of screw that up. Not an emergency, but I think something I'd like to see if we can't have someone look into. I'm happy to look into it, but probably not my job to do that. And I probably wouldn't have good resources, but just wanted to bring it up. We'll take care of it. Thank you. Champlain byways. Okay, someone just said. Irene, thank you. Trustee, any other comments? So the only thing I want to bring to the Trustee's attention, I ask you take a look at the upcoming meeting schedule. The last time we met, we were scheduled to meet on December 29th. We are now scheduled to meet December 22nd instead of the 29th. So if you were going by an earlier calendar, you're going to miss a meeting. So make sure you check that out. Also, I just wanted to thank, I wanted to thank Elaine Patrick and Vince at their select board meeting last night for agreeing to commit to putting the merger piece on the town meetings ballot. While they did not formally vote to do it, they voted to commit to doing that, which is something that I appreciate them doing and putting themselves out there to do so, especially given that they had heard from 3,453 of their town residents that they want this to happen. So I appreciate that. And Evan, I see that your hand is up. Is that a whole little bit from before? No, I put it up. I want you guys to finish. And then I want to mention a couple things, if you don't mind. Go right ahead. Floor is yours. There is a note on a press release that was put on by Chief Hogue about the recent car fires and vandalism that we had on Densmore and in other parts of the village. The police have arrested several individuals for those crimes. Not everybody, I don't know if they were watching or just hearing. We do have suspects that are being charged for those crimes. And so a lot of great work and a thanks go out to also the town of Williston because apparently we worked with them on the arrest. So great stuff in that way, thanks to the police department. Also, we're kind of looking just before these arrests, we were looking at doing some type of online forum in a week or two with the chief of police to talk about public safety issues of the broader community. So it has not been scheduled yet, but he's working with Jill Evans from the CJC to just have these types of forums where people can talk to the chief. He can talk back about what's going on in the community. And if there are any issues that he needs to be aware of. So it's something new that he's working on. So I thought you should know about that. Okay, thank you. Do appreciate that and really do appreciate the efforts of the police department for catching those individuals who are believed to or at least suspected to have caused the fire. My understanding is that they were also possibly responsible for a slew of car break-ins and car thefts that have happened in our community as well as others. So hopefully these situations will end and we will see fewer of these car break-ins. So we're really thankful that they found the individuals. We have one that's just sort of people, I think they sometimes think regular police is like TV police where we solve crimes in a 45 minute show or something like that. It's not, is it Dan? It's not like a TV show. Sometimes it takes a while and we don't treat people the way some TV actors treat people. We have to be respectful of the law. So it was some great police work. But it just doesn't happen overnight sometimes. No, it was a very good police work fire. Willis then they stopped the car. It's teamwork and the state police got involved with it as well. It's teamwork. So it's just funny, what's it taking so long? It's not a TV crime show. So they did great work. So that's all I had. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, trustees, if there is nothing else, it appears that that brings us to the end of our agenda tonight. Okay. But you wanted to formalize the end of this. All right, move me adjourned. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Raj. You guys are quick at that. Is there any debate on that motion? We'll see you all tomorrow morning, right and early. All those in favor of adjourning say aye. Anybody opposed? All right. Meeting is adjourned. Is Martins being delivered or do I need to come in? Yeah, exactly. I thought you were getting it for all of us, Raj. I didn't see the worksheet come in.