 Good evening, I would like to call the regularly scheduled Berlin Select Board to order. To my left is Justin Lawrence. Hello, Smith. To my right is Jeremy Hansen. I'm Brad Town. We also have Dana Hadley, our town administrator, and Diane Isabel, the town treasurer. Any additions or changes to the agenda, Dana? I do have some changes, Brad. I'd like to add, we have an additional Peddler's Permit application that I'd like to add in with the Peddler's License MVP Healthcare is one, and this one's for Mike Moeller. I'd like to add it in that section. I'd like to add, I need signatures on appointments that you made at the last meeting, so I'd like to add that. I'd like to add a short discussion on the new sewer ordinance, or sewer ordinance in process. I'd also like to add a discussion on the budget schedule and town meeting, a town meeting concern. I'd like to add a letter you received for resignation from the Development Review Board, and I guess that is it. Any public comment? Hearing none, Treasurer's Report, Diane? Okay. I've scheduled two properties for tax sale that will take place on December 12th at 10 o'clock at the town office. Like I said, there's two properties. I think these people are really working hard to get this paid before it comes to tax sale, so it's very possible I will not have a tax sale. However, the first meeting in December, if they've not been taken care of, I will present it to the Board as far as the two properties and give you the information so they'll be on December 5th. And then a few weeks back, maybe a month back, you asked we were looking at either a birch loan or arbitrage as far as the sewer project. Right, the sewer project, yeah. So I went to three different sources. Northfield Savings Bank was not interested in the arbitrage part. They didn't want to do that. They just wanted to do the birch loan. And the arbitrage is just for my edification. We would borrow the entire amount now and put that money into an investment vehicle with that bank. With the same bank in an effort to have a profit from the interest. However, as you start spending the money, then obviously they have less money available to you. And so I did Community National Bank so that they were interested in that as far as the arbitrage goes. And they were joining me. Okay, that they would give us a fixed rate of 2.05% and for the loan, 2.25% for the investment rate. And that's just based on the whole amount. And then as you start taking the money out of it, well then that will decrease as time goes on. So I think that you and I calculated the best possible case scenario would maybe be $6,000 as the best case scenario. And that I strongly doubt that would be the case because you're going to be withdrawing large sums. I think that once we break ground, that's where the big money comes up. And then it starts trickling after that. What was the rate from the previous bank? From Northfield? Northfield did not do the arbitrage part. But if they just gave us a straight line of credit? Yes, a straight line of credit, 4.25%. And with Community National Bank, if we went with a straight line of credit, it's 2.05%. And with Community Bank NA, which is one we deal with the most, they would also do the arbitrage. And they said that their rates would be 2.95% for the loan and 3.25% for the investment. And that was veritable though, that was their top, so that's not a guarantee. And right now, and this rate is only for as far as the line of credit, this is only good until next week. It's 1.85% from Community Bank NA. And obviously if we go with the line of credit, we won't start drawing from the line of credit until we're just about ready to break ground, which would be in the spring. So we certainly wouldn't get that rate? No, probably not. But we'll have to, you know, re-bid it at that point because the most are going to hold it for us two months anyways. I think we were trying to see what advantage the arbitrage would be for us. I don't see it myself. Plus, why do you want to borrow money before you need it? Yeah, unless that somehow makes your bookkeeping easier, which I can't imagine. It does not actually make it harder. I'm just going to make the audit a little more difficult as well. So probably when we are ready, and we weren't sure how the USDA would look upon that arrangement for bridge loan, when we're closer to needing the money, I guess what I would suggest before that we don't consider the arbitrage, that we just consider the line of credit. And what's nice about the line of credit is we only draw what we need and pay interest on it as we need it rather than hold loan. That's my opinion. We'll be down here. There's other stuff in here, I guess. People are still looking at the licenses. Economic Development Council tax stabilization application. Great tour. We set up here. No matter what. Good evening. I'm Torn Olsen with the Berlin Economic Development Council. One of you. Life is great without interest. We need more people volunteering. So I think you're familiar with the project itself. I think you've been briefed on it before. 98 units out there in the Berlin Mall property. They approached the town for the tax stabilization agreement. It's part of that process. It has to go through the Economic Development Council. First, we're reviewing the application. I'm sure it meets the requirements of the program, which we probably did. Then it goes to the select board for the final approval. So basically what we did is went through the requirements of the program line item and felt that it didn't meet the requirements of the program. The one item that wasn't was the financing in place, but that's going to be required before they can proceed with the project anyway. So we felt that we could recommend it for approval based on the contingency that they get the required financing. They asked for the five-year, we'll call it Batement, five-year agreement where they would pay 10% of the increase the first year, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% after the fifth year. Then at the sixth year, they would be paying the full amount of the meanest what tax. The meanest tax only is what they're looking at. That's only what a program allows. It does not affect the education rates. So I guess I would recommend the board approve this agreement. If you have any questions, if it does meet, the program itself does meet most part of our economic development plan from 2008 to have the tax dilution program. Basically all the projects we've approved so far have been up in the plateau area in Berlin malls, so that's an answering question today. So this is not really a question, but the predictable answer and then what we sort of talked about at the meeting too. So it is in the economic development plan. I think the select board needs to take another look at that plan and make sure that that still makes sense 10-ish years later. I'm not convinced that forgoing $160,000 in tax revenue is a wise use of taxpayer money. I'm not sure that this is the best way to go about doing economic development. I think it's too broad and unless there's actual... Unless we're doing something targeted, some sort of targeted economic development, I can't see it as a particularly valuable tool. So my intention to vote against this, even though the application is, certainly, it checks all the boxes. It meets the requirements for the application, but it's still up to the select board to approve. I know I'm getting a chance to look over it as much as I should. You have a motion? Do we want to ask any additional questions of tour law this year? No, it's time. So when you say it's going to cost the taxpayers $160,000, it's all new revenue, though, isn't it? Right, so that would be revenue that, presumably, the construction was going to happen. And if they were taxed, like everybody else, at the full value of their development, then over the five years you would be giving up $160,000 of that new revenue. Sure. What were your thoughts on that? We're looking at giving up $160,000 over the five years versus the additional revenue over the lifetime of the project. We're looking at 30, 50 government years. But that's also assuming that if they don't get this incentive that the project doesn't get built. Correct. Well, I think we can do incentives like that so that people choose to build here, right? Isn't that part of the reason for the town center? That is, and that's why we're looking at raising revenue and doing that focused concentrated economic development activity in building the town center and by building the sewer and by building the water system. These are all things that the town is spending money to do to incentivize economic development. It's one of the reasons that I'm working on building Better Broadband in central Vermont. We have all of these tools in our toolbox. For this particular, this tax stabilization, I'm not convinced that this is the right way to spend, yes, it's new revenue, not the right way to forego $160,000 in tax revenue. We could, you know, it would be more than that, but what if we had that tax revenue and we were able to hire somebody to help coordinate the town center? Like we had talked about before. I agree with that, but how much revenue will this, Jeff? I would just like to add that one of the concerns, I understand that you may think that it may not stop this project, but there are some others that are percolating and I would hate for them to not fall through with their project because they see this happening, just a thought. But I mean, are those projects that are going to get built in Berlin regardless of us approving something like this? I can't say. Berlin's an attractive place to build because the property is reasonably cheap. It's not monthly or it's not very, where those places are heavily developed already. We have good interstate access, we have an airport, we have a train station. Hopefully we'll have the town center designation reasonably soon. I also think one of the things that makes Berlin attractable is that we do have on the books and have utilized in the past this tax stabilization program and I think that's one of the things that helps bring the developers to looking at Berlin. But so do many of the surrounding communities here in Central Vermont. I mean, it doesn't really distinguish us much. Being new to the board, can you help me understand the tax stabilization process and how it has benefits from your perspective? This has been around since early 2011. We've used it, we've had, I think this is our fifth proposal that came before it. The Northfield Savings Bank project was one Vermont Mutual. When it came before us was coal, but they didn't meet the requirements. And then Walmart, when they expanded to the Super Walmart, they approached us, the board approved it, but the increase in the assessed value did not trigger the requirements, so they ended up not getting it. So the board has approved some and the board has turned a few down. I agree with Jeremy that I think it's a good time to take a look at this program. Is it doing what we want it to do? Are there tweaks that we can make to it? Maybe, so one of the reasons why the Coles was not approved is that it has to be approved in advance of construction starting on the building. Coles had started construction before they approached us and I feel right they turned that down. It's solely a technicality on the part of the program, they didn't meet the requirements, but that's clearly what it states in the program that it has to be approved before construction began and it didn't meet that. Is that something we want to look at? Maybe so, maybe not. Jamie Stewart, I'm the Executive Director for Central Mono Economic Development Corporation and I was part of your Berlin Economic Development Committee. I worry a little bit about what Jeremy is referring to primarily because I've seen how that works at the state level. The state's incentives have a clause in there that is called the But 4 clause and it states that But 4, this incentive, this activity would not occur or would occur in a significantly different and less desirable manner. And what it does is it forces companies to go look at other options. It forces companies to physically go and talk to other entities, other states where we would not see the benefit in Vermont. And that has been a concern. The reason it's there is precisely to answer the question that Jeremy is, is that would this happen without the incentive and the applicants have to declare that in fact it would not happen or if it did happen it would happen in a significantly different and less desirable. It means maybe it takes 10 years to build out instead of two, maybe it's a smaller project than originally envisioned. But you don't have a But 4 in your rules and ranks and really I think that's what Jeremy is describing. And I would not want you to impose that restriction and this is something we talked about within the committee and the committee agreed that we should not impose a restriction on this that did not exist in what you had written in the rules and regulations. And it does and could potentially impact if the perception is that somebody who fully meets your rules and regulations comes before this body and is denied. That that will change the perception of how people and developers would look at doing further development here. I have, my next question was going to be anyway, have we ever turned down an application that's met all the criteria in the past? Gold didn't meet it so we weren't able to do it. We haven't turned one down. I agree that maybe it's a good time to look at it. I can't think of anything turned down. So the last time this came up knew why is there a vote of approval from the select board because the select board ultimately gets to make the decision about whether this is a wise move. If it was just, excuse me, if it was just they fill in the blanks and it goes it doesn't need to go in front of us. It just gets approved and off it goes and Diane changes the tax bills. So we have discretion here and I understand what Jamie's saying that if everybody, if all the check boxes are checked then we should just go ahead and do it. That's what I'm hearing. I just don't agree that we ought to just say yes to everything that comes across our desk. Especially since we haven't really done any sort of economic analysis of the projects that we have that have gone through. So we can say anecdotally, sure, Northfield Savings Bank, they have an office. Great. From what I'm usual, they have an office and they took advantage of these programs so what's the benefit? Is that money well spent? Or money well foregone? Well, but when I think about it, I say it takes long to build out a project or somebody doesn't build there for five years or they look at something else. I mean, there's a lot of delays a lot of times and we have the program in place now. I mean, I don't know why we wouldn't look at it on an ongoing basis, but I don't know why I can't understand why we wouldn't approve it. So I want to make the motion to approve the Ducevich Tax Stabilization Application pending or the financing. Give me a second. I was going to lean for additional discussion, but I will second the motion. No, we can have more discussion. So what I take to her is that as long as it's meeting the requirements and your committee has okayed it, that we should probably follow town policy on this. That'd be my recommendation. This is right there at the mall. We're going to talk about the town center designation. It provides affordable housing, which is what I call crisis in this state. You know, it's going to bring in people, bring in additional traffic at the mall, not just the residents, but people visiting the residents and stuff. They're going to be shopping at the mall and stuff. So I think it's a good project for the town. Any further discussion? All those in favor? All right. Those opposed? No. Motion carries. And, uh, next on the agenda is the municipal ticketing to municipal ticketings for zoning and fractions. Mr. Whittle? He is getting something out of his briefcase. That's right. I assume it's him. Oh, Mr. Whittle. All right, folks. Let's see. Now, Tom asked me to bring a projector. Ooh, we don't have a very big room. So I think maybe we can just talk now. I think we can mic master it. Did he also said that he printed off the presupposition I brought? I think I've got six. So if you don't have them, can I have them? Okay, but whoever doesn't have them, please. Because I want to refer to them. Thank you, Trump. I love one. And I can refer to my computer over on short. Okay. Good. From computer distance. So how hard is it to enforce these vocal ordinances? So we've started, in my new job with the league, they're taking advantage of some of my experience because we did this in Barrie. We did some of this in South Burlington. Not necessarily just with zoning, but with a number of tone ordinances. It's not necessarily that difficult. What, and we can go through in detail. We can just have a dialogue. I mean, really what it comes down to, and I've exchanged. I haven't met Tom in person. He's not here. No. Okay. All right. So I just talked with him. So what it comes down to is you just have to craft the ordinance with specific legal language because the statute allows you to develop a town ordinance that specifically says that we can enforce it through a civil ordinance violation. You can enforce it through the judicial bureau. It's 10th amount to, it's almost the exact same processes. Your officers next door, writing speeding tickets, writing tickets for going through a red light, that type of thing. The idea behind it was when the state crafted disability was to allow towns and cities, allow municipalities an additional enforcement option that was one step higher than a simple letter of notice of violation, one step higher than a warning, but one step lower than taking somebody to the environmental court. Because being one of the taxpayers, I appreciate maybe doing things through a little less expensive way than hiring an attorney who is now going to drop a complaint and get somebody into court. You're going to have to pay for hearings. So, I mean, this isn't, it's not a panacea, it doesn't fix everything, but it does provide one more step in a potential enforcement process. A pretty frugal one, actually, because, and I shared the information with Tom and there's some in this presentation too, is that you can craft the ordinance and you can write into the ordinance what the regulations are. You can write in what the penalties are. It's a fine. You can craft it as long as it's under $800. This process can be used for anything that has a fine up to $800. So anything less than $800, you can use this process for. And you, as you craft the ordinance, you actually write into it who your enforcement official or officials are. So in South Burlington, we had a pretty aggressive zoning enforcement officer. I don't know if anybody ever knew Ray Belair, but Ray was, he was the leader in this and because he was enforcing zoning ordinances, it did say, and the council up there wrote in that law enforcement officers could enforce these. That was kind of the blanket. But they specifically wrote in that the zoning officer, the zoning enforcement officer, many had the health officer, an animal control officer. It depends on which ordinance you're looking at. But in our case for zoning in South Burlington, we really looked at the zoning officer to be that enforcement official because if you wanted to go out and assess, first of all, is there a violation? You need to be pretty savvy with what your zoning bylaws are, what your zoning regulations are. And then should an individual get written, an ordinance violation, get written a ticket, they have the opportunity to appeal it. It goes before the court, before a hearing officer. And you would want to make sure that you had someone with the expertise to speak to what the violation was. So we, the police officers, the men and women who worked for me in South Burlington, we did not enforce zoning just because they weren't zoning experts. They didn't understand, and I think they would have struggled a little bit to testify in court. But, you know, this is a presentation, not prepared just for you. We gave it at Town Fair. We're having, I think it was December 4th, we're having a day-long training conference right down at the Capitol Plaza. I'm pretty sure it's the 4th. But the idea of this municipal and enforcing local ordinance by this municipal ordinance process is just to give the municipalities the option. One more tool in the toolkit so that you might be able to just encourage someone through education. You might be able to take the next step and give them a written notice of violation to the next little fraud if that doesn't work. Then this is a next step where you can write them a ticket and say, okay, now you're accused of violation. We're going to take it to the first level in the judicial process. We're going to go to the local, to the judicial bureau. The hearings are right down in Barry. And then your zoning officer, whoever you decide is the enforcement official, is the person that writes the ticket. They're the ones that prosecutes the ticket. So you don't have to pay for a lawyer. This system is designed for the regular municipal employee to go up against the resident or the violator, whoever that is with. Now, the violator has the option to bring a lawyer if they wish, but many do not. They just appear on their own. So, you know, I don't want to go through the whole presentation with you unless you have a different question. Was it successful in Shelf Spurlington? I'm just wondering how successful it was. I think, you know, Ray has gone. He retired, but I think it was, I think it helped. Because the point is, if it's not successful, you're really not that much further behind. Particularly if you have an already on the payroll municipal employee writing the violation, potentially going to court. So you're not paying legal fees. So really what you're doing, you're giving it teeth because there's money involved. Correct, yeah. You're giving it, and the way the municipal enforcement process works is that you folks would decide what to find is, usually it's increasing depending on number of violations. So the first time it's, you know, maybe $100, the second time 200, third time 400, whatever you want, up to 800. So that kind of gets people's attention. First time it's 100. Now, if they don't show up at court or if they go to court and contest this violation and lose, then the court awards the judgment to the town. And if that individual doesn't pay, then the state eventually, it wasn't there initially, but they found that there were a number of folks that were just kind of thumbing their nose and saying, I'm not going to pay. Now, written into the legislation, is that the court administrator is authorized to send any of these uncollected fines to a collection agency. So on behalf of the town, you don't have to do that. The state enters these into the collection agency that the state is contracted with. I don't know the outcome. I'm sure they probably take a percentage for their work, but they do the work for you. I was wondering, you know, we had one case. We didn't have the system, but it was cleaning up a junkyard. We ended up in court with it, and we spent a considerable amount of resources, and we still have no results. This is no fix that. And you can't get blood out of a stone, as my mother used to say. Correct. Yes, yes. There are some people. If you don't have the resources, frankly, if you write a ticket for $100 fine, and this individual doesn't have $100, what are you going to do? Even if the state sent it to the collection bureau, you can't get blood out of the stone. But the idea is it's just another option available to towns and cities that choose to use it. And I've shared with Tom in this presentation, there is a link to, you can go on to our MAC, the Municipal Assistance Center. The attorneys there at MAC will help the town if you need guidance on, if you wanted to craft an ordinance so that you could use this process. They have some samples. They can provide some guidance on how to do that. We have some wording in our zoning. So in other words, Tom and I were wondering whether we actually need an ordinance. Sounds like we do. This is in the zoning code, which was approved by the voters. And I don't mean to put you on the spot. No, no. I do know that, and I'm not the lawyer, so I'm not giving you any legal advice here, but I do know that the key elements needed for this process are not in this ordinance. Okay. That is my question. That does speak to tickets. I don't know what it speaks to. If you had just a local level ticket that you were writing, and I don't know how you would collect a ticket for this process, to go through the state, the judicial bureau, that is not up to... That's my question. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It would have to be enhanced a little bit. Yeah. I don't want to make sure I'm not missing anything. But again, you know, it's you folks beside who has this ability. I think some smaller communities even give the town administrator the ability that just crafted into the ordinance and the town administrator has the authority to enforce this if you so desire. I can't tell you how many times I've lost. I can't tell you how many times I've lost. And this, you know, and this presentation is for a... It's a more robust discussion, certainly, that I'm happy to have and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. But I think that really covers kind of the highlights of it. I think we're struggling to enforce... Our biggest problem is enforcing our own rules. Yeah. And I think that's pretty common. Certainly. Yeah. But if this gave us some teeth that maybe would help us do that, although I'm thinking about violators and they have no resources. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, but on the other hand... Just some comments. On the other hand, I don't know the folks that you're dealing with on a regular basis, but, you know, is a process like this maybe the threat of it? I don't know that, hey, you know, if we have to... If I have to come back, then I'm going to write you a ticket and the violation is $250. So rather than risk that happening, why don't you just come into compliance? Yeah, certainly. I know there's a number of people I've encountered in my life. That's not going to make a bit of difference. Right. But there are some that maybe, you know, that little gentleman is enough to get their attention and say, I don't want to go with that extra step. Yeah. And, you know, but as I said in the beginning, the purpose behind it was, it's a pretty affordable, pretty cost effective, lower level of enforcement, available if a town chooses to use it or not. It's just an option. Yeah, Bob. I just... I've been a BRB now for some 20 odd years and too long. But we have a lot of what I call petty violations. My sense is a process like this would deal very effectively with what I call these petty violations. In other words, people who have the means but choose to sort of assign ordinance by examines. We as a town for some and problem with people putting up signs that are illegal. Chasing them down is just costly. It's time consuming. That time ought to be compensated for somehow. Yes, there are going to be people out there who have... don't have the means. And so the blood out of the stone applies to them. But there's a whole host of folk that suddenly realize I'm doing something petty but I could get fined $150 for it. It isn't worth it to me. I'm done. So I suggest strongly that we can share this. I don't know all the aspects of it. I don't know what the ordinance would look like. But certainly over my years of issuing findings, it's a fact only to have them violated in some way or another. It's kind of annoying. And recognizing that town officials really kind of have their hands tied because it's an expensive process. It's a time consuming process. You almost need like a whole other employee just to chase these people. It doesn't work well. So I think what could be simply issue a ticket would make a lot of sense to me. What's the average or how small community have these ordinances that are enforced? Oh, Lord. I don't know, Mr. Chair. I'm not prepared to answer that. I think that it's random the people I've encountered and we've not done a survey to say who's already done this process. I know I was up in Lowell a few weeks ago. Lowell, much smaller than Berlin. They don't have it yet, but they're very anxious to get just some baseline ordinance and just things that are routine problematic to their community. And it's like, no, we just think this is that little push maybe that will just help those folks to realize that we're serious about what we say. And we have ordinances, we have bylaws for a reason and we just want you to follow them. So I actually followed one of your links to where the Vermont Judicial Bureau actually reports the municipal ordinances. So you're right. We're using it. So Burlington, Essex, Rutland City, Berrytown, Bellows Falls, Wilmington, Thetford, West Windsor, Westford, Georgia, Jeffersonville, Brattleboro. That was just for that was just for the month of May. And those can be, there's also a lot of animal control ordinances that are written this way as well. So some of those are probably not in those rural communities' legal violations, but that's also an option as well. So you can use them for any ordinance. Pretty much all across the board as far as size. Yeah, yeah. And that actually, and Jeremy, leave it to the data guy, those communities would also potentially be good resources to reach out to and say, what are you using this process for? How effective has it been for you? We could talk to Yeah, and the idea is that even if you did want to try it, the cost is minimal. You have to write the ordinance, you have to go through the normal ordinance warning and adoption process, but really there's not much expense to that. I'm not worried about that expense. I'm just trying to understand and I'm just maybe reading things in that aren't there, but I'm just wondering when you come and it goes to the court and you've got somebody that has to prosecute, as I would do the word you used. And I'm thinking of myself who, you know, I'll be lucky I can find the courthouse and remind them to prosecute anything. But how much effort that takes and how expensive it's going to be, and is there legal cost? And I'm hearing you say no. There doesn't have to be. I mean the way the design is, so let's say in the perfect world you're talking zoning and what's Tom's title? Zoning Administrator. So you write into the ordinance, would make sense, the zoning administrator would enforce your zoning ordinances, he's the expert. So he writes the violation, the person contests it, he goes to the court, it's routinely a 10 or 15 minute hearing, he presents a case, the evidence saying this is what the person has done, this is how we have to investigate the violation, the individual being accused gets the right to mount whatever defense they want, plead whatever they want, and then the hearing officer makes a ruling. So the only cost there is his time to get out of the courthouse and bury, and most times municipal employees, he's already on the clock. Sure, it's juggling workload perhaps, but I don't know that there's any added cost. If it even gets that far. If it even gets that way. I mean the person may decide to pay by waiver, they put it in the courthouse, okay, I guess I won't do that anymore. And that would be work ideal, I think, for what Bob's talking about. Sure. Yeah, and we had I mean, we regulated signs like, you know, it's no tomorrow in South Brooklyn, and we did, you know, and they gave sign tickets all the time, and it was pretty effective to get people's attention. And we also found that for some of the entities, and I don't know if you folks service the local liquor board, but we actually ended up when the liquor license renewal came in. We had some businesses who we wrote local violations to. They thumbed their nose at us and we said, well, then we can't approve your liquor license, you've got outstanding tickets. And it's amazing how quickly they resolved when a restaurant wasn't going to get their liquor license. So sometimes there's other mechanisms. We would never admit that. It was the reality of it. The BLT BLCT have any of these audiences on record? They have, they can point to some language, and if you talk to the municipal assistance center, the attorneys over there, they said they would be more than happy to talk with Tom, with whomever about, you know, here's some samples that we have from other communities, or let's look at what you have and see what it takes to really make it fit into this legal mechanism. We'd be happy to work with Tom on that if you wanted to come up with a recommendation even, to say, hey, how much work is it going to take to get the town of Berlin into a position where you could utilize this system should you please. Has Tom shared his thoughts on the program? He is in favor of the program. I wasn't sure. You know, and I'm also in favor of it. I'm not, I'm just trying to think of the downfalls down the road. I'll see you on December 4th. You know, we've got all day of coming on in, but I think it's a way, I mean for a long time, it's our hardest job is to enforce our own rules and I deal with the people that are not cooperative and that's where I'm going. So I'm looking at very town's ordinances right now and they have one on the regulation of junk and it has some of the same languages as what you're talking about in here. I mean, first is $100 and so on. This would apply to junk vehicles as well? Abandoned vehicles? That's actually, those are my biggest tales. And so they have language that specifically talks about taking titles on unclaimed motor vehicles and that's that statutory link from there. Sounds like the DRB has a completely different perspective too. I never thought about the signed violations and the businesses and I don't know why. Take down those signs. That's interesting. I guess I would say to the board is this something you wish us to pursue and we'll go ahead and we'll work with either the league or our own attorney on the ordinance structure. I'm definitely in favor of it. I think it would be very beneficial. And I think it provides you an option. Just because you have the ordinance it doesn't say you have to go that route. You could go the more severe environmental court violation if you chose to. So I guess we have a consensus that pursue this. So I'm thinking maybe we'll go forward we'll craft an ordinance and then have you look at it and go from there. And I don't know how long that will take but maybe by December 4th we'll know a little more about it. That will be a more robust discussion on the 4th. Yeah. The question for you my concern is about zoning because of some of the DRB but we do have many other ordinances that are not articulated by the police that we don't have a technique process for is like dogs or something like that. Is that something you want to consider at the same time? I would say one shot deal. You might have a very good point because we have many ordinances that talk about civil fines and I'm not sure exactly how they do it. So I just I mean my concern is about the violations to the rules we write but I think you ought to look at the arrest law until we know. Yeah. The alarm ordinance comes in the mind. Yes. Yeah. We used it extensively. Yeah. The alarm ordinance. When you did that, who did you have enforce it? For the alarms? Yeah. We chose to have the police enforce the alarms because we were the ones responding to the alarms, tracking the alarms so we did it on the police side. Now did that include the fire alarms also? We didn't have a fire alarm. We only had a security alarm ordinance. We did not have a fire alarm ordinance. So we can empower the chief I mean currently the ordinance is written we empower the chief of police to issue those tickets so we can make him the enforcement one of the enforcement officers. Or I would encourage you to even list at any law enforcement officer. Sure. And that way if you were to ever get a constable again or whatever. Well it's here. Yeah. Strike that. Run while you can. Too late. The only I was wondering is our fire department is not part of the municipality. It's a it's a separate entity. Right. Right. Now these ordinances as far as the fire alarms go could they be the ones to enforce it or do they have to be a municipal we've empowered an animal control officer that's not a municipal employee to do to enforce animal control ordinances. Yeah I mean I guess I would have to look at the statute. I don't know the answer to that. For the animal control officer to issue fines is that In most communities that use this they list the animal control officer as an enforcement individual for the animal ordinances. Because it was listed in here to the animal control officer. I don't know because the fire department here is so unique. I don't know I mean if you were to put in I don't know if the statute requires maybe a municipal employee or not. I would guess that you could simply say the fire chief has the authority to enforce the fire alarm ordinance. I'd want to check that for sure Yeah Just thought we'd ask a question before we skip that That's a good question. Give it to me two minutes. Yeah I'll figure it out He's all in it. I'm on it. We certainly could figure that out. I just don't know right now. Any other questions for Trevor? Thank you for your presentation. Good to see you folks again. Good to get out. Hope to see you in the forest. I will be there. Great. Well thank you. Thank you. If we can help in the meantime or after we don't know where to find me. Trevor is that available online? I don't think so. I don't need that. I'm going to take it home and recycle it. I'm happy to email it but I don't think we have it posted online. Thank you. Play commission with Newtown center? Go ahead Paul. I'm going to let you talk. No no no You're the chair. I talked too much. We're just here to flee again to getting a person to sort of head honcho the Newtown center and we really we sort of discussed it at the last meeting and there's enough work for a full time person because it's not only the Newtown center but economic development recreation conservation all that is related and you know Tom as you know is just stretched way too thick at this point so he's not even a full time person on planning at this point and I did look at, I don't know if you remember when I was here last but I see the parallel between Berlin and the towns in sort of the outer rim of Chittenden County. I did look at I went online and looked to see what kind of planning staff they have and many of them have two people who work and all all the towns that have downtowns have dedicated persons to the downtowns and I think the Newtown centers both Colchester Colchester and South Berlin have full time people and just to add to what Paula said we were talking at the last meeting about staff she's referring to staffing the conservation commission and the recreation committee and I because right now we have Tom and honestly when I first joined the planning commission we didn't have staff and I feel like we really floundered we didn't get a lot done so it's a tremendous help to have that person that's always reminding you and keeping things moving and I'm not sure what the recreation committee I think that's disforming and the conservation commission I'm not sure how much I don't know what they're doing but I do think that it helps to create opportunities to do more if you have a staff person getting grants for the conservation commission to work on stormwater type issues we're going to meet with them next week and we're going to talk about how we can maybe develop a plan to incorporate recreation conservation issues in the town center so I think there's opportunities for them to do more if they did have a support person and so we talked about this person could and actually Tom I agree I think what one thing that I would like to see and I will certainly help with it but a job description what is working what is the job what's expected I almost forgot I did ask Tom and did say she would give us her job description and I asked Tom if he had gotten it yet and he hadn't so he was supposed to reach out to her again exactly that's what we wanted to see too what her job description said and the other question I had and I think it's a good idea but it's hard to go from zero to a hundred in one year we had talked at one point about hiring a consultant to help us with we don't have the designation yet now I'm optimistic and think we're going to have it but we don't have it yet so I was going to talk to the board about putting in the budget for this year money for a consultant to help us because Tom and I cannot we don't have the expertise to do this application correctly well that's we've done the application but you don't have the grant but if we get the grant that should help I understand we all know until December yeah we're sort of looking at grants to help along but they're just good for doing specific I'm looking at the logistics where are we going to put this person in this building where are they going to work I'm not saying it's amountable but I'm just saying it's things that because I've been away for a month and having great time if we had a new town center and we had new offices there'd be plenty of room exactly as you hear what you're saying you do have to have that person to keep the momentum going on the town center and frankly a lot of these things that we want to do we can do without the designation the designation makes it easier and provides more incentives so in some ways they're obviously linked but timing is a question obviously part of what we're talking about I think is Berlin is growing up and where it's growing there are more services required that here before have been handled by volunteers that's right well that's why I kind of compared Berlin with the Chittenden County towns because they've been going through those growing things too it's exciting because it's inevitable it's coming the question is now versus later in terms of bringing on someone full time now before the designation or is there a way to start out small and then bigger as we go also giving incentive for that person that came on as well to really be impactful and build I'm just wondering if rather than a full time if it might be beneficial to start small and then build into I'm not sure how hard it would be to get a part-time person that was one of our concerns is somebody going to take a part-time obviously you don't know until you try but that was the concern is if we can get a quality person if it was a half-time job sure that would be excellent I think that's the next step we would probably share the job description and I went to South Burlington with you and it's pretty impressive and they've been working on a long time and so I understand we're not at that level and obviously they're bigger than we are so there's a lot of differences and was the lady from South Burlington willing to come and talk with us about what she has done her experiences and why it's beneficial cooperative I don't think we asked her that but I bet she would be she's great to talk to I think that might be beneficial for the board I'd be glad to talk to her she's willing that's a good idea so do you think we're missing out on substantial grant money or anything like that in the meetings that we've already had or well the ones we kept talking about when we came to the park and there was it seems like there was a lot of money they got a lot of money for those types of projects sometimes the bricks and mortar projects can get but we're sort of at the planning stage and there are grants but there are little grants this person also was instrumental in coming up with some partners as well a good thing to do is you need private industry not just public money you need private money in there too you need to give them the incentive we will because the mall is definitely interested and the hospital is interested there already is talk of private money and the housing projects too I'm very excited about this project but I'm just there's a lot of detail that I think we need to think about I'm not saying you have it we don't have the expertise we're just sort of and I think it's part of it whoever said we're a small town growing we still have a small town way of doing things this is a whole new game so you're right we need to really think this through I think South Burlington is a good model and as far as the town center the planning mission is hoping to start being regularly with the landowners and sort of particularly if we because part of it will be instrumental and sort of figuring out what that's going to look like we want to make sure we keep them involved engaged so that we can keep the momentum we're hoping to meet as often as we need to maybe it won't be regularly at first but hopefully at least quarterly and you said you'll know by December if you get the grant early December I think so it's not that far away keep your fingers crossed because that will help a lot getting the designation sort of getting the recognition so it sounds like you're saying in addition to helping drive the downtown project to kind of give staff time for these other committees that really don't have much assistance from us i.e. the conservation commission there's new recreation we've not done much they'll have a lot to do with the new town center actually because there's a trail pathways and all this I thought it was a sort of work together if you think about recreation bringing activities can bring people to town so it creates can create economic development so I think the idea was that those things were in some ways linked and so that would be a nice mesh for that person I also understand the idea of possibly having somebody start half time and then building up over time the other thing that I'm concerned about is if you offer someone a job and have them start then you don't have work for them I think there'll be plenty of work but it's yeah and funding positions I mean is an expensive process I understand that it's not about the money but it's still an expensive process that has to be sold just my thoughts was there an amount that you were thinking about for the budget so when we talk about budget time I don't know I don't know enough about salaries at this point I think Tom did have a number he had a number of 60,000 but I'm not sure where that came from well I think that we'll talk about that Diane before we present it to the board but we know we can't afford Ilona I don't know what she makes and as I say we were very aware that we need to have some sort of professional help and I think we had talked about the consultant that you used for the zoning project I don't know who else is out there to help with the application absolutely designation and then how our budget works we're going to be budgeting for FY21 which is July of 2020 to June of 2021 so you're saying probably before then you'd want to have someone well I think we were definitely thinking we were hoping to go into this budget cycle we thought about it at least in this budget cycle while you're creating this new budget in other words thinking that this designation application if we can get a consultant then that will sort of tide us over until the 2021 budget well that's what I'm thinking too that you might be able to ease into it gently and that way get people used to what's going to happen and so that you can get buy in the town is very generous I think the town is very generous but you're going to have an explanation of what you're doing thank you we'll be back at some point just to keep you updated on what's going on thank you very much recreation committee appointment is that from Ferrell yes thank you Jeff Ferrell has asked to be pointed to the recreation committee you did point two people at your last meeting Mike Noyes and Hannah Connor which I would like you to sign their appointment slips while I'm thinking of it and maybe you could sign this one because I fixed Jamie Stewart's name and Jeff has also wanted to be appointed to this committee and you know him he was on planning submission motion second motion discussion all those in favor all right those opposed motion carries I'll give you that yes yes I am thank you thank you thank you next on the agenda is the cross Vermont trail support and I think Greg is here Greg is speaking to you about is it a grant that you're applying for and you need to have a public it needs to be discussed in a public meeting so here you are so this is for the same project that we talked to you about just a few weeks ago I think it's the trail along connecting the monthly by path up to U32 and then across these multiple about a few hundred feet or so so while we're still fundraising the contribution from the town it's much appreciated it's in our restricted account waiting for construction to begin that are final of the last of the many permits that we needed is active 50 and without the draft active 50 was issued last week and barring unexpected it should be final in November the VTrans clearance letter saying that their preliminary engineering process was issued also last week so we can bid it out as soon as we have the money the we're raising the local match obviously from Townsend local donors and then the local match is matching federal money we have a giant federal grant in 2005 which we've been saving all these years and because the crisis deal went up single largest contributor and just time passing but steel was the jump and so when we got our final estimate from the engineer the cost of just the steel for this bridge over the Wenuski river was up by six figures so that amount of money we go back and get another federal grant is the fastest way to get that amount of money so we're applying for a transportation alternative grant and one of the requirements normally it's a town that applies so the select board of the town that's applying needs to publicly say yes we're applying so we're obviously not a town so the project is in multiple towns so we're going to just the select board slash city council of all the towns just to check the boxes to say that we're informing the town so that the public knows we are applying for this grant it's for this project which if you have any questions you can ask me but otherwise I'll assume that you remember basically what we're doing and I'm also trying to create a paper trail for the reviewers of the grant who are folks who work at VTrans and who may not be familiar with this project and so they may say cross from our trail what's that so I just wanted to if possible a letter of support or some sort of note in the minutes of this meeting or if you're willing to have the town say even though you're not the applicant and it's not a town project the town is supportive and has contributed some to the match and that kind of thing just so the grant reviewers know that if not just coming out of left field it's a process that's been looked at so I'd like to move that we authorize the town administrator to write a letter that is supportive of the cross from our trails project second that motion any further discussion? all those in favor? aye motion carries thank you again thank you consolidated communications working the town right away? we have gotten a right-of-way application for consolidated communications but is it fiver they want to vary at the end of Comstock Road and they have discussed this with the highway superintendent and with Tom and they both Tom and the highway superintendent are satisfied with the method that they propose there'll be a trace of wire to find it it has to be found in the future there'll be signs posted of where the optic cable is and which is a lot of it's the dig safe rules too but how deeply put in this? 36 36 I think it was yeah I'm just saying here 36 inch depth they're just plowing it yeah it's going to be actually not in the road it's going to be on the side of the road going up the ditch line so I move that we approve the permit for digging from the town right away for consolidated communications that's presented any further discussion? a little favor motion carries a lot of association with snow travelers I bet these guys are from Vermont the guys is this the item that Josh gave to us about the yep there is a in order for us to cross any property public or private we need to have written permission from the representatives or the owners themselves which that's what that form is here and it does appear that I did get the right message on that Josh is going to be here himself to talk about that and getting that sign that he's out of town he has a new granddaughter congratulations pretty awesome place to go it's kind of like Vermont on steroids last year as you remember you did an amendment you made a snowmobile ordinance allowing travel on a town road from Cross Shed Road here down Cross Town Road under the I-89 overpass to turn by itself and it was done with the stipulation that it would be reviewed yearly I don't think you used it at all last year I was just going to say is it being used you approved it on January 3rd my memory of it is it was either 60 or 90 days waiting period is probably not the right phrase before anything by then snow was gone so it was going to be starting for this year I do know that Josh as well as I helped him some have been out getting signposts up and getting these forms signed by all the local folks and everything I believe that we've crossed on that phase property so I'm thinking that the board would need to extend it for another year or however long you decide to do it wouldn't it make sense to have a policy like that renewed in the summer we could extend it to December 2020 again if we catch it early enough and just keep renewing it we could say it expires in July well I think the advantage actually of having someone come in from the club is that you can if there's any sort of issues you can get those worked out then so I think that's they may not know they may know things that we don't approve that we extend permission to use those town rights of way from December 2019 to December 2020 and I second the motion on this do you want to take in put a different end date on it we were reviewing it annually as I understand that was that stuff so you want to do it the calendar year it only happened to be the calendar year because you approved it January 3rd last year when is your season at? around from December 15th April 15th so that's why I was curious about so you could extend it for a year and six months or whatever so that way you're theoretically if we had an issue with it as a town right now we probably know but we were also well you'd have the ability to use it for half the season and then that would also have an issue so do you want to extend it just to May and then we come back at the end of the season and we re-up it in May does that make sense and other places where you do this I usually do it somewhere that you have a chance to get ready for the next year and then you have the troubles I mean certain but then the sub board and the police will know about it there's a couple there's two separate things that we're looking at here the ordinance itself that we went through the process and you're actually right it just happened to end up in January so that's when it started so that's how it got going and the other is in order for us to take advantage of what you've granted us permission to we actually have to have it signed annually by form that goes with it what normally happens is that we have pretty good relations with any of the towns if there's something going on we did sit in here there wouldn't be any issues because somebody to call them it either got worked out or we didn't know don't bother coming back is December to December okay then if we just press the reset button as it's on the I don't see any reason that wouldn't work and chances are we would be here before like now so that we would everyone would know ahead of time how things are going and by all means if anything crops up big or small and so we got us locally I know how to get you things can't happen but we've got pretty good relations with law enforcement locally Dave our club president is very active in the community so if anything comes up because we don't want to be causing any trouble for anybody that doesn't really help anybody anywhere well that's not what I was wondering just so you know or whatever I just didn't know well no it's not like you're trying to line up the time it seems all over the middle of the year but you don't have an issue with it you may as well leave it the way it is I would think I just try to be more accommodating no I whatever works for you there but normally we try to do this in the fall so that before the season opens everybody knows what's happening and what's going on and we try to be preemptive in that sort of so the motion was to extend it to December of 2020 and I can put in my tickler file to think about it in the fall when do the other towns when do you go to them to read it oh is it kind of spread out through the year it bounces around some I mean we're getting Berrytown covers a great chunk of what we do but Dave usually gets usually in the first meeting of the year one of his items is I'm going to get all of the town and show up at the meeting so we can for next year I'm not sure of any towns that don't do it year to year it gives you it's a lot easier for you guys and it helps with you know with the citizens as it was that people don't feel like they're signing up for a lifetime commitment for anything that comes along the form that he's given us we need I need to fill some things in regarding the ordinance on to this and but he does need to have it signed so I'm wondering if you would give me permission to sign it for you I don't seem to know if you would motion that would be great so I will amend my motion to include and authorize the town administrator to fill in the landowner permission form I second that any other discussion on this for those in favor aye motion carries what do you need for us to do from here would we wait when Josh comes back and down to have him contact you for that or how however you want to do it I'm going to do it tomorrow so it will be ready tomorrow okay I didn't realize there were going to be yeah so whenever you want to alright alright thank you thank you okay Heather's license for what let me have MVP health care yeah I was wondering if you were going to be there in the mall were you going to be at the mall talking about health insurance the same woman that came before right no you're thinking of the woman that had parties and there was another insurance we approved one already and it was with MVP and they were bringing out their motor home great deal yeah that's the one did I miss something was I here someone to look like me maybe it might have been when Tom was here you've already approved it this is MVP for the mall starting the 30th of November to December 4th was it not a different could be a different broker this thing already happened though no I'm wondering and I'm just piecing together I think we were waiting for a check from them which is now coming so maybe that's why it didn't get forwarded so if you've already approved it would you just approve it again just to confirm and that way I'll move to approve the application for peddler's license for Sarah to Jean at MVP my second motion any further discussion hearing none those in favor motion carries yeah October 3rd it was on the agenda for October 3rd okay I'm sorry I missed that okay it's definitely that didn't sound familiar to me I'm like oh yeah it's done now I've got a deal okay and Mike Mike is the gentleman that sells his applications to sell Christmas trees at the mall he's done this many years he's got his plan you haven't seen it because he just gave it to me the other day we've never had an issue with Mike and moved to approve the application for peddler's license for Mike Muller my second motion any further discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries I'm just if I can just jump right on this one move to authorize the select board chair to sign the small business Saturday was it declaration I guess you know the resolution you know second the motion any further discussion all those in favor those opposed motion carries what else is coming in here sewer I just wanted to make you aware that and I think Tom has mentioned this to you we don't have the final version yet but the public works board it's going to be reviewing this at their meeting coming Monday to see if they accept it this is a rewrite of the sewer ordinance the sewer ordinance that we have is a result of many years of adding to it and changing it so it's a hodgepodge of things and it's just a natural progression so Tom has worked to get some a more concise ordinance as soon as I have copies I'll have you take a look at it and see what you think but you haven't seen that yet I just wanted to let you know that it was on the way I spoke with Tom these ordinances like anything else it has a 60 day and I forget what they call it grace period where someone can get together a petition of referendum and contest it so it does take a while to probably be in the spring when it would take effect if we get it done in the next few weeks so I just wanted to think you're aware that they're going to be approving it on Monday well they wouldn't be talking about it on Monday and I assume they won't approve it maybe not but once they do I'll send it over here next thing you had to the conditions was the budget yes well we have to do a budget it's budget time again so I've done a tentative schedule for the budget and in the past we've started I'm trying to keep the meetings to be to compliment the select board meetings and I've got them at six I'm not sure last year we started at 5.30 I was thinking 6 was enough time I've also filled in the budgets to be discussed on those dates as well as at the end there are a few dates that maybe a little extra in case you need them one thing of note which is the special appropriation of petitions January 16th is the deadline for petitions to go to the clerk and so she'd have them that day we'd like to have the budget final and the warning final by January 23rd we do have a little more wiggle room it has to be posted it has to be posted by February 2nd but it gives us a little wiggle room in case we have some last minute okay is the time work for everyone coming at 6 I'll be out of town I could come earlier if it's determined by everybody that we want to start early I guess that's what I'm asking the board did you think we needed more time than an hour let's take since we've got a fair amount of meetings why don't we just take and try the first two and see how it works and what did you think that you wanted me to do on this person I'm thinking of like doing something part-time until we have more information or a consultant I think it would be interesting to see what they have for a job description before we actually make I have no idea what it is I think it's really hard to make any kind of rational or educated decision or thought right now for me to say I can see with that job description it's going to be a flux well, they always are but I think it gives you some sort of framework to start with the thing that gets me about this the town center and everything it's going to be very dynamic it's going to be changing monthly the concepts it's important to have a leader and to tie everything together like they said I don't know let me do it otherwise if you have somebody who is coming to the zoning zoning D.R.B. and recreation and conservation go to those meetings have somebody who can take and go chart the course so to say the other question I may throw out and I don't expect you to give me an answer but is the board looking for some sort of guidance on budget growth what they'd like to keep it to I mean our problems are yes, nothing like that I think we all like to do that but much of our budget is fixed costs that we don't control very much we're just reassurances and I don't think but I'm trying not to discourage people who have projects, ideas for projects I would like I don't know if it's possible but I'd like to have you follow that how the that went up in South Burlton just to kind of see how much possible revenue they're going to generate from I think that Flo's idea of having, I forget her name Iona or it sounds like it might be Iona Iona to have her come in because she was very knowledgeable and very good to speak with and she had a lot of things to say which I've forgotten probably through quarters of them but they had a lot of connections with different things that I think would be helpful for us to hear one of the things I remember about Iona when we first were discussing it was that she spent there for quite some time and she started out small and worked and developed into a position that it is now and I think that builds incentive for an individual that's definitely true and going back to Brad's question what's the cost benefit does it make sense to hire somebody at whatever level if we're sort of never going to see the fruits of that labor or if we are seeing fruits are we paying twice as much as what we're getting in return we're going to see the fruits for a number of years but even if we had just a scenario I'm just thinking like remember when we were talking about regionalization of public safety and they had all the different forecasting models like here's how this could work and it never worked out and we were able to make an informed decision based on like I'm not saying it would never work out I'm not saying that it wouldn't be worth it I'm just saying it's not going to happen and there's intangibles that you get to increasing the grand list and the tax base and all that there's also if we incentivize smart growth rather than just everything just wild west everything just flies up everywhere which I think the town center designation is hopefully going to do that the rewriting of the town plan is hopefully going to do that and if we have some kind of shepherding that there is that value there but on the other hand if we're paying $100,000 a year plus $30,000 a year in health insurance or whatever that ends up being for paying $100,000 a year and in the long term we can only see breaking even after 25 years in the best scenario maybe we want to think about scaling it back to something part time longer term or not at all or reconsidering how we might spend that money more effectively than that economic plan if we revisit that and part of the revisited economic plan involves us hiring somebody who is the economic development champion or the planning champion or whatever we're going to call it I think there's a lot of parts of the puzzle that we could put together and have a coherent effort We're right on the edge of we're going to have to decide if we're going to be in charge of going out over there or just let it go and we can't wait really that long maybe this year, right? But we can look back at that economic plan and we can decide then if that's the model that we want to continue to follow or if there's something different that we want to do I mean the new town plan sort of overrules some of the stuff that's in that economic plan so I think it needs to be revamped for other reasons too but as we're looking at the budget starting at a part-time gig and maybe if it works out and we find that it's it's working that person can go from the 20 hours to a full-time thing as more stuff comes online it makes more sense to give them that again we wouldn't want to hire somebody there's no work for them to do so 20 hours could become 30 or become 40 or whatever and then the next thing would be is if we could find somebody who would want to work for Bloorfield and us that way there they have the basically a full-time job between two different entities one of the municipalities has to take a lead or something like that paid through them it would be great if it was in Northfield because there were some towns recently I think five of them they're sharing an energy coordinator really? I mean that can work I have found though many times when you share resources it's like having one bicycle for three kids you know they're the oldest kids that we get to ride at least get to help but the only thing I was thinking is that I don't think you're going to be able to find somebody who can do the writing and everything unless you can have a way for them to have a full-time unless that made sense like on a scale where we could incentivize them but if they knew they had 20 bill of hours with us every week and they could go to 20 bill of hours with Northfield and we just had them punching in I mean it's not like we don't have other employees that work for other municipalities in this case Washington County Sheriff Orange County Sheriff that happens it could also be somebody who works in another job but is great at grant writing and wants a sideline they might be passionate about that but but even I think with what you're saying Brad even if a municipality like Northfield or somebody like that they're probably struggling the same way we are so if we were able to identify them and even have a contract with that employee so they knew they could get 20 hours here and they knew they could go get 20 hours over at Northfield and they maybe you could advertise it together at the same time there are other towns around that may want to be able to hire into this I think it would help us a lot when we have a job description and know what it is we need most definitely so I'll leave that question to a surprise we'll come up with a figure also I'd like to add to this a discussion on the pre-town meeting we have the pre-town meeting every year before the town meeting and it's an opportunity for us to talk about things that in the past hasn't been able to at the regular town meeting because the voting is happening at the same time with the school this year they're having a meeting the same night that our pre-town meeting would be and the clerks have to be there so our clerk would not be able to be at our pre-town meeting and theoretically maybe other residents would be able to be there and I thought at some time that the pre-town meeting I like the idea that we have a chance to present the budget and I'd like to see more people come to it but is there another time maybe we could do that rather than just the night before Saturday afternoons something like that to try and get more people to come and no matter what it is you're always going to have people that can't come at a certain time I think it'd be nice to have it on a weekend and maybe tie it in with a potluck you know, like a community social well and depending on the Saturday that it is like at the Grange for example I'd like to have a potluck one Saturday a month well I would think if you're doing it on Saturday you'd want to do it on Saturday right before the town meeting absolutely mark whatever it would be so are you that's the tail end of the school that's not the tail end of the school that's the tail end of the vacation probably I don't know I'm fine with anything other than I think you'd want it close to the meeting that's what I'm thinking basically the last few years it's really been kind of we've done it by rote and I'd like to see it a little more exciting which is partly my job but I don't know what you wish for I know, I might get it right so anyway do you know the date of town meeting be the first Tuesday and March whatever that is I think it's the fifth I think so the first Tuesday first Tuesday is the third and that is the tail end that's the last day so in other words if we would go with the Saturday that would be the February 29th so that is not a Grange potluck day not that we have to synchronize there or anything Flo could whip up something in the kitchen for us he would whip up something but you're a good cook too what time is the school meeting I don't know the answer to that it's in the evening on Monday how long does the pre-town meeting usually last a couple hours an hour and a half maybe depends on the conversation is it possible to do it before once we know what time they're going to be doing there before their meeting you mean on that night on the Monday I suppose it would be where they held their meeting U-32 is where they've been holding I think it's going to be at U-32 but I don't really know one of the problems is that you know I think Rosemary should be at the pre-town meeting absolutely the only other choice would be if you were to take and do it on a Friday night or a Thursday night at least then people are still holding the meeting coming back from work so you think that Saturday wouldn't work because of school I'm just thinking there's maybe a lot of families that will be on vacation I mean I know a lot of them come back over that weekend that was my only time I know I was going I don't think I'm going away this year at that time but I was last year with all the kids before we had to work at the pre-town meeting well we do it at the same time at the town meeting and what do we have until February 2nd I'm hoping by the 23rd we'll be done but so we have some time we can think about this putting it on the preceding Thursday or Friday it's not going to change the school thing you know anything you might want to do is ask Rosemary what she thinks about it well she and I have talked about it and she said for me to come I think we should ask her you know but I will talk with Rosemary there's going to be probably the same way that they all have pre-town meetings she also exposed her she did check with the Secretary of State's office and interestingly enough they said well you can have your pre-town meeting the same day as town meeting and I'm surprised because of the vote I mean how do you do that you just have to have it in a different place than the polling place and you have the polling over in the cafeteria you could probably pull it off and it wouldn't be interrupting people while they're voting what do you think it's mean about pre-town meeting I mean you would think you'd want to have it advanced to me it would make more it makes more sense to have it advanced enough so that people who are doing absentee ballots would have a chance to be on the discussion a little bit whereas by the day before town meeting the absentee voters have already voted right it's hard to have it's like having two town meetings then I always appreciate the people that come to these meetings but they're the same people that come to the town meetings yeah right that's all I just wanted to say oh the town report which I'm putting bids out for to get quotes we'll have to do that we'll be actually half the size of what we're used to because the school will be having its own report so it will be just the town report literally will be just the town report it's turning it right into the town meeting actually it's only half the size do we know who it will be dedicated to this year not yet so I need all the suggestions that you might come up with nothing else then Nina I have a resignation I need to tell you about bear with me little at sixes and sevens ok here we go we got a note from Josh Fitzhugh he was a member of the development review board and he is expecting not to be available for these meetings for a number of meetings and has decided to resign he is willing to serve as an alternate and so I'm asking the board if they would accept his resignation and appoint him as an alternate on the DRB move to accept Josh Fitzhugh's resignation and then appoint him as an alternate to the DRB any further discussion all those in favor aye motion carries that's all I had my special add-ons so now we're down to approval of the board minutes approval of sub board minutes nine, five, nineteen Flo mentioned to me that she had something to change in there and also ten, three, nineteen the change on the for the fifth was adding the name that is correct where was it Flo? it was, I'm just turning to it right now it is right under Kuo's trail he started discussion on Kuo's trail, he said that the intent just putting in the name of the individual that's probably a good idea I make the motion to accept the Thursday, September 5th 2019 minutes with those changes as presented second any further discussion? I think that he in question with Kuo's trail was actually Brad I think so too that makes sense if you read the previous sentence as a continuation so the board chair Bradtown over the public hearing at 7pm he started discussion on Kuo's trail so just change he to town sure, that sounds fine I was thinking there was another gentleman that had started the discussion but that was Steve Morse further down yes, absolutely wonderful that gives me an out when I read this of course I make the motion we accept the Thursday October 3rd 2019 minutes as presented that's right, we got interrupted didn't we okay, though any further discussion on the ones for the 5th all those in favor? all right it was a public motion carries and now we move on to the October 3rd I make the motion we approve the Thursday October 3rd 2018 minutes as presented any further discussion hearing done those in favor? motion carries and town administrative report David I have a very short report thank you for allowing me to go on such a long vacation I appreciate it, I had a wonderful time I think everyone did a great job when I was gone keeping the home fires burning I've given you the class on December 3rd which we did receive for the ordinance drafting or the ticketing procedure I've already discussed with you our plans for the budget we're coming up Diane and I will start that on the 21st and you have the schedule that's all I really have to say that was short I'd like a short one round table Justin? just back to the tax stabilization thing I'm all in favor of looking at all those policies and procedures the way I view it is they're just trusted advisors with discretion and they can come to the town for us to so there was some leeway I was looking at them as the advisors that we've appointed to do that to follow through with what we had so I would be happy to have further discussion on it and maybe things like that the discussion at the Economic Development Council was strictly it was far ranging but the actual motion was strictly to say that they've checked all the checkboxes so tours advocacy for that was different than the motion that passed the rest of the council not that I care that motion probably would have passed with me opposing it but I understand what you're saying well perhaps sometime along we should just have an overall review of some of the that's what I'm saying because the procedure whatever absolutely I mean it's got to where Barry and Monk Hillier for the most part they are built out the Monk Hillier has saved this pasture left but that's about it and being built out as they are and Barry's the same way we're kind of the only game in town very attractive and maybe as we do get the designation then it's ultra attractive at that point so I understand that I just think while we have that as our policy and that's why I was feeling strongly so I'm looking I'm thinking of like Barry and Monk Hillier they also have vacant storefronts, more in Barry but we have vacant storefronts too so are there ways that we can incentivize economic development that doesn't require additional development so do we want to think about a way that we can get the staples building for just taking one example of that revitalized doing literally anything because otherwise it's just a it's just light I think you have taken Delvin to see why it hasn't been developed there's a lot of rumors flying around and the other question is just what the cost per square foot of the rental it may just be that's half the reason why Barry's got some vacancies the people who own it would rather have a business model is different than a lot of other people's business model and they have the cash to support it so they'd rather sit on a vacant storefront and pay all the money versus get it occupied but are there smart incentives that we could look at that would incentivize? Well if we don't that's where Barry's struggling right now with Swidney's buildings because they've gone so far but I completely agree with that looking at private enterprise from the public's perspective it's a public private partnership though you can do it right as the public we want to have our storefronts filled so it looks robust and successful but on the private side because they're business people they may look at a vacant storefront as a tax incentive you know they could just drop off some extra income and get down in their completely different bracket absolutely depreciation everything what you need to do is find a way so that them renting that space actually benefits them and so there was a policy it was in Michigan or somewhere in the Midwest it was some large company that owned so much of the land in the town like you hear these stories over and over and they left they didn't go out of business they just left or consolidated operations somewhere else and the town's left with all of these vacant places and it's like what you're saying and they changed and I'm not saying they would do this or should do this it just popped into my mind they changed the way that the taxing worked to they taxed the land and the property differently so that there was an incentive to keep it going and it took seven years after that policy and they're like oh wow crap we actually have to do something with this or there's no benefit to just sitting on it and writing it off and so they started selling off parts of that and then other smaller businesses came in and used the space they were a policy probably taxing vacant spaces at a high rate somehow but I can go find the news article that was an analysis that was done not terribly long ago I don't know if that would make sense either but I'd be interested to see but anyway seems like we're all in favor of that it's not as a further discussion I had brought to Dana's attention I just thought I'd let you all know I had a resident that lives on East Road contact me because of a concern coming down East Road and making a left on Scott Hill Road the concern is that there's a hedgerow of the house that's on the left and that years ago the branches and everything thinned out and now there's a camper that's parked there too and that when you come to the end of the road and you're making a left onto Scott Hill this individual feels that it's virtually impossible to see the oncoming traffic from the left and that it's an accident waiting to happen so I reached out to our police chief talked with him and also Dana and I've been up there and driven it and Dana was going to look at it and see what possibly could be done this person said they didn't know what to do other than to bring it forward to someone who's on the board to see what could happen it sounds like it may be something that has been brought up before things have been done and now it's resurfacing I spoke to the chief about this and he and Tim and myself are going to go up and look at it together and if it's simply a matter of keeping us out of the right of way obviously we don't have any power however we certainly could write the resident a letter I think maybe they don't realize maybe they could move where their camper is parked or something very simple like that is it the camper or is it the hedgerow that's causing the trouble well when I go usually it was the hedgerow and then the camper has been put there as well and I almost think that years ago I think I saw the camper on the other side this is the same intersection we saw this in 2013 and they did and so back in 2013 they they thinned it out and it was you actually had sight lines then I think you could see through the hedgerow it started to and the police chief said there's been no accidents that's what he told me but I just wanted you all to be aware and that's it, thank you anything in the I need you to approve the warning the warrants please we approve general fund accounts payable warrant number 20G08 with checks 19684 through 19741 a remount of 168,804 dollars and 63 cents also payroll warrant number 20-09 for payroll from October 13th, 2019 through October 26th, 2019 the amount of 42,161 dollars and 5 cents also October general entries and tax admin also October reconciled bank statements for the general fund super commission and water division you're second thank you any further discussion all those in favor motion carries any executive session days yes please okay, move to enter executive session to discuss a personnel issue I second that all in favor aye