 I will start. We're recording. Okay, great. I will start the select board meeting for February 1st, 2021, 7 p.m. We have four members, so we can start our meeting. First motion I'd like to ask is for an approval of the agenda. I make a motion to approve the agenda. Is there a second? Second. I'd like to add one item as be under select board items, just a little update on the board education. So I'm just going to add that under B if it's okay with everybody. Hold on a minute. I'm taking minutes here. So this is under select board items, you said? Yeah, I can just add an item B. Board items B, and that will be to discuss the education and training for the board for anti-racism and inclusion training. Mark, along that line, before we started, can I just make a statement if I can? Sure. Should I do it now? Maybe, I don't know if we want to make a statement at the beginning of the meeting. You could do it under the public forum. Okay. Is that okay? Sure. Okay. So hold on a minute, Mark. Sorry, I'm trying to catch up here. So, Kate, you made the motion to approve the agenda. Nat, did you second? I did. Thanks. Okay, I'm good, Mark. Okay. As long as everyone's okay with those changes, can I get, I do have to remake a motion. I can't remember if we'd make a change. I can just, I make a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting with the addition discussion on board sensitivity training and a public statement. Great, thank you. Second? Second. Thanks. Thank you for the discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Consent agenda items minutes from the January 25th meeting and liquor licenses for Kenny drugs and Woodstock farmers market. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Public? I'll let Tom go first. I saw Tom has hand up. Well, if somebody else wants to go, that's fine. Is there someone else online? Nope, I was just going to make a statement, but you want to go first or I'd go ahead. If you're all prepared, go ahead. Okay. It's just a quick thing, although it's very important. I just want to say make an apology at the last select board meeting. I used a term that was not appropriate and I am extremely sorry for it, especially because I was the one that brought up the inclusion mission statement for our town. But during that discussion, I used the word Lynch mob, which was an inappropriate term. And it wasn't in reference to a formal Lynch mob. It was my saying that there was a piling on and it had no reference to what the term Lynch mob was. And I am, it's regrettable that I said that. I learned a lesson. As a matter of fact, I'm probably going to be sending something into our local publications with also a formal apology. So I do apologize and I'm sorry for that. And I guess more formally I'll have something in writing that the whole community can see. Thank you. You're welcome. Tom. I'm just curious if the select board has gotten anything from Frank Spalding for tonight because he had said that he needed to make a pitch to Bill and the select board by the end of January. So I'd like an update on if anyone knows what the process is and where we are in the process if there is a process regarding the multi-use area. This was in reference to the disc golf course. Right. The multi-use area. Yeah. Her guess. The multi-use area. I have not heard any updates and without Bill on the line or our rec coordinator, I don't know of anything. Does anyone else on the call know of any updates? I do not. I haven't heard anything. I know Tom this meeting was put on last minute to address the interim zoning bylaws. This meeting as of last week wasn't supposed to take place but I know we can certainly get it on the agenda and get an update and have that discussion on our next meeting. But I personally don't know of any. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. I just, there may be decisions being made with some group input but if it's being forwarded without being visible to the people that have been involved in the discussion, I hope that's not happening. And that would be great if it all sort of comes public and there's a chance to discuss whatever is being proposed. One of the things that is difficult is this is the slowest use period of the course. So whatever observations are being made aren't really relevant to May and June. And if collectively including the select board people wanna try and get this right. We have an opportunity to get it right now as opposed to like 2009, 2010 when all of this was already gone through in great detail, changes were made, many parties were involved and yet here we are hammering on it again. So I guess I just would like to see and the process be very public and very, have it be very inclusive. So I'm glad to know that there's not some other discussion happening tonight. And if there can be some collective thought around it and a part of the next meeting, that'd be great. I can pull up with Bill, but as far as I know is that something that you heard Nick might be working on? Is that who you would heard? No, that's what Frank has put out to the committee that he needed to have a pitch for Bill by the end of January. So I don't know what that means because whatever the pitches hasn't been shared. So I just felt like if there was something that was coming to a conclusion tonight I wanted to hear whatever it might be. Okay, as far as I know that's not anything that's on tonight's discussion. Okay, all right. Well, thank you for informing me. All right, have a good evening. You too. All right. Is there anyone else on the call that'd like to speak during the public session? All right, we'll move on to select forwarded items, discuss process of adopting in-term zoning bylaws and consider calling a public meeting. Mark, would you like me to introduce this topic? Yes, please. Okay. So this is a follow-up to the request that the select board made at your meeting, I believe on January 4th to have interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district prepared as soon as possible. So in a follow-up discussions that was agreed to have a draft completed until you by the end of January, that was the direction that I got from Bill Shepulak. So I sent you all a draft on Saturday evening. And so I've been working with the planning commission on this draft. And so I can't speak for the planning commission. I was directed as staff to prepare this draft. So they may, they will probably have some additional comments on the draft, which is fine. So the goal this evening is to discuss it. And my request or recommendation is that the select board schedule a date for a public hearing to receive public comment. We'll warn that in both the Times-Argus and the Waterbury Reader. And we'll get the draft on our website, the draft that I sent to you along with the map and open this up for public comment. We have to warn the hearing for a minimum of 15 days. And we could warn a hearing for Monday, February 22nd, if the planning, if the plan, sorry, if the select board desires. It is a regular planning commission night. I've told the planning commission I could meet with them on March 1st, Monday, March 1st if they would want to schedule either postpone the meeting or have an additional meeting on March 1st. But that would give us time to warn it in the newspaper. We'd probably warn it this Thursday. I'd have to check on the Waterbury Reader that might be, we may not be able to give the full 15 day warning, but we could certainly put an article in the Waterbury Reader about the public hearing, but it would meet our statutory requirement to have it in the paper of record, which is the Times-Argus, at least 15 days before the hearing. Otherwise, I know normally you don't meet on the Monday before town meeting, which as I understand is by Australian ballot this year. So when I talked to Bill Shepulok about it, I think he also felt that February 22nd would be a good option. Otherwise, we'd be looking at March. Your next regular scheduled meeting in March would be the 15th, I believe. In your next scheduled meeting in February, we don't have time to warn a hearing. So with that, I'll let all of you discuss it, ask any questions that you might. Yeah, just to the board know, this is why we had to meet tonight was probably the time we worked out with town meeting that if we didn't meet, then it would have pushed us back significantly. So unfortunately, I appreciate everyone taking the time to come to the meeting tonight. Steve, just so I'm clear, it's not just changes to the, and I think I am, the laws themselves, the bylaws themselves, but also you're asking for the math change at the same time. That's correct. The part of the draft interim bylaws is an amendment to the district that would expand the district. I've got the map on the computer. If you want me to share the screen, if you're interested in seeing the extent of that, it's a modest expansion. It's the downtown zoning district that is recommended in the way this is structured. It's the, can everybody hear me all right? I'm getting a message that my internet's unstable. Good. So it's a modest expansion, which is recommended in the unified development bylaw. It includes the buildings on Foundry street, the end of Foundry street, and it extends the district down to the, more or less the first drive into the state complex at the big horseshoe. If you're interested in looking at the map, I can certainly bring that up. Does anyone need the map? I have it on my computer right now. I don't know if anyone else needs it. Yeah, I have it on mine. I have it on mine too. The public just doesn't necessarily have it. So if you want me to screen share, I can't. Steve, this is Dana Allen. If you could share that really quick, that'd be really interesting. Thank you. Sorry, Dana, I didn't think I didn't see you in there. Oh yeah, Jason and Danny. Okay. So this is the, this is the map. I can try to enlarge the downtown area if you just bear with me a minute. So I'm just outlining the district, the proposed district. It's the pink area. And this is North Main, South Main, Stowe Street. Maybe I can enlarge a little bit more. Hold on just a minute, bear with me. Now that you can see pretty much where it is. Okay, I think this will be easier for you to see. Everybody see that? Okay, it's up on your screen as well. Here's Stowe Street, North Main, South Main. This is the gas station. The gas station, top of Bank of the former Harbor Medical Associates. Then it goes down to Warren Court just before Warren Court. And this is the horseshoe in front of the state complex. And this is the last building here. I think it's maybe, I'd be guessing, but it basically goes past the end of Moody Court. And then the railroad tracks border it on this side. It just takes in the, basically the lots, fronting North and South Main Street on the South side or the river side. Now I just enlarged it again. So Steve, can you say why the lots that include the town offices aren't included in the downtown or the proposed downtown? It seems like that's out of the flood plain. It's a safer place for future development and why that would have the same zoning as the part of Stowe Street that's over the bridge near the school. Mark, you're talking about Parker Court, the houses behind the, whatever you're saying. I'm talking about, if you go up on your map a little bit, I'm talking about the, basically all the properties north of what is now the intersection of Stowe Street and Main that include the town offices, I believe, like basically down through Winooski Street. We are mouses, if you go up, yeah, just past that area, the part that's yellow, why that- This is the Corrigational Church, right here, or this, that's not in the district. This is the current boundary of the downtown commercial. I guess I'm just wondering why if we are expanding the- Oh, you're talking about down all the way down. This direction. Correct, because you're out of the flood zone. It seems like it would be a smarter area to try to expand the downtown as well versus going farther down past Park Row in an area that might be more apt to flood. It just seems like, I don't really understand the difference between the Park Street area and that area north of what is now the downtown. Right, so this area as proposed in the unified development bylaw is a mixed use district which allows development at a somewhat lower density. So I think the rationale behind it is that the downtown, current downtown commercial district and the proposed downtown zoning district that shows here is a very high density district. We're not really recommending any maximum density for residential use. There are a lot of commercial uses. The buildings can be very tall. So it's really defining the core downtown area. This mixed use district, which takes in a lot of the current village mixed residential has larger setbacks. It has larger lot sizes, a more modest density. So, and there are light industrial uses that would be allowed in this district including a food and beverage production light industry and so on. And we don't really want to have those uses in these other areas. I think it could be potential conflict. There's single family homes in those areas and so on. So this is the way that this has been structured. I think we'll have another phase of the unified development bylaw that will where we'll address these other areas along North and South Maine. And then tonight, we, like you said in an email, we're not necessarily discussing the details of the actual proposal as much as just do we want to move forward with the warning and get in the meeting where we can discuss things in more detail, correct? Correct, I think, right. We want to get this draft out to the public and make it widely available and then give people an opportunity to really look at over ask. They can call me, ask questions, provide you with comments, see the written comments or comments at the public hearing. And then with interim bylaws, just to go over the process, you have to warn a public hearing. Then once you've taken public comment, close the hearing, you can make changes or what we call substantive changes to the draft at that point. You can adopt it either at that meeting or a subsequent meeting and the bylaws are effective immediately. So it's really interim bylaws are designed to deal with an urgent situation like we have with the pandemic that we had with Tropical Storm Irene and so on. So that's, it's an expedited process. So right, I think the goal tonight would be or my recommendation would be to schedule a public hearing and then we can really dive into all these issues and a lot more detail at the hearing when the public's adequately warned and invited. How about the other board members? Well, I have, I went through the draft in pretty much detail. I think it was a really good stab, but I guess a lot of my questions are the devils and the details. And if we're not discussing that, I don't know. Maybe we should go to a public meeting first. Maybe I have comments that would be specifically related to that I may refer to Steve and the planning commission. I don't know, would that be the way we as select board people should proceed, Steve? Well, I think without a consensus of the board on changes that you would wanna make, my recommendation would be to warrant this draft and then take comment and provide your own questions and comments as well. Right. Absolutely. This is like any bylaw amendment process we want your involvement. If you would like to approach me or the planning commission for that matter, they're meeting next Monday and they're gonna have a further discussion about this draft. So there's some opportunities there, but you can certainly ask me directly. I've spent a lot of time on this draft and trying to put it into a forum that's where I see that it's near final. But yeah, and your prerogative is certainly to, for your role is certainly to make further changes, but it would need to be something agreed to by the board. So maybe that would be the appropriate thing is to attend your next week's planning commission meeting and presents, I could get just to the planning commission, just some comments in general for them maybe to respond to. That would be up to you. I mean, it's really, it's been put in your hand. So how you wanna involve the planning commission is entirely up to you. We want them involved. They have been involved up to the point of this, getting this draft out and it will be on their agenda for next Monday as well. And I appreciate, I really appreciate how quickly you've gotten to this. That's, I never expected it to come out this quick. So thank you on, but at least on behalf of myself and I assume the rest of the select board, I think we're pretty pleased that something came out in a fairly, you know, quick time. Yeah, I second that for sure. I have another comment, but I don't wanna jump in front of anyone else. Do you want me to take down the map for now? Yeah, I think you can take down the map. You can have it discussion. I've gotta get everybody's names here too for the minutes. Okay. Steve, when it comes to the process and maybe I, maybe you already said it just now that what is worn can be changed in the public meeting, but making changes during that public meeting, do those delay anything? Or is that a typical part of the process? And then does it go back to the select board for final approval? Right. So, so you would hold a public meeting, get public comment, taking any written comments that had been submitted prior to the hearing or during the hearing. And then typically you would close the hearing. You could continue it if you chose to do that. And then after you close it, then you can make subsequent changes, modifications to the draft. And then if you all agree on that and have a motion to adopt, then your final draft in essence is what is adopted. So that is the process. And that could happen in the same night or is it typically? It can, it certainly can if you choose to do that. Correct. And then what's, you know, for example, if we have feedback on this, when we warn, if there are changes between the warning and the actual meeting, that's okay. Or do we need to come to the meeting with what was warned? Well, we have to post a draft for you to warn. And that's available to the public. So I've sent you a draft. It's dated tonight. If you choose, you can warn that draft. It's not, it doesn't have to be what's finally adopted. It can be changed. That's your prerogative. So, but there would need to be a draft published in essence. We don't put the whole draft in the newspaper, but we make it available on our website. It's available here, paper copies. I can give to people and so on. That would be the process. Correct. Steve. Yeah. Would it make sense? I don't, I'm just speaking out loud. For any of us in the select to actually approval tonight to any of us who did have kind of questions or additions or comments, make them to you and the planning commission, attend the planning commission, then the planning commission at their, you know, your requests, you kind of dwell upon what the feedback was and possibly amend the draft. And possibly amend the draft. And then we come back on our next select board meeting to, you know, go forward. I don't know if that's going to set the timing off too much. Well, yeah, I think if the planning commission has recommended the changes to this draft, they could formulate them on the eighth or formulate them before you have the hearing and bring, you know, bring revisions to the hearing. That's fine. I think the select board's role is to hear the public comment and then make your own decisions about how to move forward with the draft. So I think the select board wouldn't want to make any formal action on any changes. I think until you've heard all the public comment, you get that whole body of comment, concluding further comments that the planning commission may have absolutely. And then go from there, that would be, I think the best process. Yeah, I'm all for warning and meeting. I think that people need to be able to comment on this and add their input. I would echo what Nat said. And I would also thank you, Steve and the rest of the commission for working on this and I'm looking forward to seeing more comments and opinions from the public and just acknowledging Jason, at least I have read your email and what you have said is interesting and I can't wait for more input from the community on this. Yeah, I would echo those comments and I agree that I think we should warn this and get it in front of the public and get public comment and continue this process. I think it's been a long time in the making and I would hate to see any additional delay. So I would entertain a motion if the board is ready. Before we have a motion, what does the board think about the possibility of warning and hearing for this 22nd? As I mentioned, we can get it in the Times-Argus for the Waterbury Reader, we wouldn't put a 15 day warning but we would probably work with Lisa, work with you Lisa and get an article in the Waterbury Reader as soon as we could about it. And you said that was a planning commission meeting night as well, typically. Well, it is, it is. Yeah, unfortunately or unfortunately, I guess it right. It would be their normal meeting night. I've talked about it a bit with Ken and Mary and I told them I would be available March 1st if they chose to meet March 1st or they could choose to meet. I would expect to staff your meeting but it depends on how quickly you want to move this to a public hearing. That's the soonest we could hold a public hearing. I think that's the bottom line. Otherwise it would have to be March 1st, you typically don't meet the evening before town meeting which is in an Australian ballot vote this year. Otherwise it would have to be in March sometime. Yeah, I'm in support of the 22nd. I don't know if the rest of the board has an opinion. I'm in favor for that. Is that going to be at seven o'clock or is it a different time? My suggestion would be to make it 7.15. You could take care of your other regular business, the first items that usually have on the agenda first and then warn it for 7.15 on Monday, February 22nd. I guess I'm a little confused because if I'm not mistaken, our next meeting is the 16th. That's correct, Mike. We don't have time to warn the public during the 16th. Okay, so you're saying having a special select board meeting for this 22nd. Right, it would be a special meeting exactly. Just making sure I heard right. Yeah, you could know, okay, that's good to discuss. I mean, Bill's not here so I'm kind of playing the administrative role but you could delay your meeting on the 15th to the 22nd if you chose to do that. I don't know that there's anything urgent for that. Bill did mention that as an option rather than meeting three times a month. You could shift your meeting. We could cancel the meeting on February 15th and hold it on the 22nd instead. Then you could take care of your regular business first and do the hearing at 7.15. This will probably involve some time for a hearing and maybe working out any subsequent details but that's a possibility. Yeah, I'd be in support of moving that meeting and merging it to the 22nd. Me too. And everybody see Lisa's comment in the chat about the paper and the notice? Yeah, Steve, does that work then? Let me read it. Hold on a minute. She said the reader could have a notice and or article next week. This week's edition goes to press in the morning FYI. Right, perfect. That's what I would do. I would work with Lisa on, I can work with you Lisa on an article. So it works within the timeframe that we're talking about. Well, it would publicize the hearing. I think that's the important thing. It would help the reader goes to every mailbox in town. Plus some. So it's a great way to get the word out. I'm all for that. All right, so it sounds like everyone on the board is okay with the 22nd and we'll move our select board meeting to that day as well. At least that's the plan but we would at minimum hold this meeting for the interim bylaws for the 22nd. Correct. I'll take a motion. So moved. There a second. So I heard Mike first. Second. So with the motion be to, to warn a public hearing on the town of Waterbury interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district dated February 1st, 2020. Does that sound right? Mike. Yeah. Getting a nod. Okay. So a D on Monday, February 22nd at 7.15. Does that sound good? Yep. And then a QT second. Yeah, got that. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. The only other thing on the agenda I added at the beginning of the meeting which is a follow up to an email. Maybe the other select board members received, but we hadn't followed up on the training for implicit bias for the board. And I know we talked about getting that training in before the board might change over come town meeting. So I called the human rights council and they did say they might have availability in February, but they didn't get back to me on what their availability might be. I know we discussed doing this training outside of our regular select board meetings. So I think what would be helpful is if the board could email me their availability and maybe any dates or times of the week that they would be unavailable. So I could try to figure out what would work. I'd like to get all the board members to participate. And it sounds like there's really no cost or that they just asked for a donation but it's in the hundreds of dollars. So it's, I don't think we have to think about this as any kind of substantial cost, but I think it would be a really good thing for the board to do. And I'd like to see us do it before we have any changes of board seats. I think we also probably are going to have because we may have some changes on the board that those board members probably should be included in that kind of discussion. Yeah, I talked to the Human Rights Commission about doing an additional training sometime in the summer with the new board members, knowing that Nat is not going to be back. So we know we're going to most likely have at least one change. So I think that makes the most sense and I really do think we need to have one as soon as we can and then plan for another one in the summer and the Human Rights Council said that they would be on board for that. Great. So you want us to email you our schedules for like the next week and a half or so? If you could just give me an idea of if days or nights are better. I'm assuming this is a midweek thing. Just help me to try to coordinate some kind of schedule and I can reach out to Chris after I maybe see everyone else's schedule. So I'll try to do the best I can but I might have to reach out to you guys to figure it out. Would they be doing this training evenings as well as days? I believe so, but I'll confirm that. But if you just let me know if days are available and if not, and I tell them evenings, I'll see if that's an option. If not, we'll have to figure something out. And I'm also gonna talk with Bill about training within the town employees as well and what we are currently doing and how we might be able to include certain members of the town employment as well. At least managers, but if we can get as much participation, I think it's worthwhile. So more to come, but I just wanted to give an update to the board and start this process. The different department directors, I think are really critical to have as part of this conversation. Yep, and if we can't do it all together, if the board has to do a different time, but at least we can start to get everyone on schedule and start to get the process in place for a regular training as we move forward. So. Exactly. Okay. Thank you for jumping on that, Mark. Yeah, no worries. Okay, I don't think we have anything else on the agenda this evening unless I missed something. So if nobody has anything else, I'll take a motion to adjourn. Almost. Is there a second? Second. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone. I know we said we weren't gonna meet tonight. So thank you for doing that. Thank you everybody. I really appreciate you meeting on chat notes. Thank you for helping run the meeting, Steve. Okay, you're welcome. Thank you, sir. Thank you for getting on this. Eight minutes. Yeah, I'll get Carla to help me. I'm pretty good at it, but so I'll get her to help me polish them up. Okay. Good. Thanks so much. Have a great night. Bye. Bye.