 Yes, Exjunction Board of Trustees meeting for Tuesday, June 22nd to order. Thank you all for your patience as we deal with the technical difficulties in trying hybrid meetings. And welcome to this soon to be new norm. So do we have any agenda additions or changes for tonight? Evan you muted. Evan we're Mark Cree. Can you hear me now? Yep. You hear me now? I would ask to add the item from last night's Select Board Executive Session, the topic of shared services. An email from Chairperson Watts to the business item 5a, the work session. And do we have anything else? Staff or trustees? Hearing nothing if one of the trustees wants to make a motion to amend the agenda? I move we amend the agenda. Second. I'll second. Just take your picture, Andrew. Is there any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Passed 5-0. And that will bring us into public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting where if there is anybody from the public who wishes to address the Board of Trustees about something that is not on the agenda, now is the time to do so. If you are using Microsoft Teams, please type into the chat or raise your hand and I'll make sure to recognize you. For those of you in the room and virtual at the same time, if you can just be patient, we'll get through Teams first and we'll come into the room. Please expect to only speak once, and if necessary I will impose a time limit, but I hope we don't have to get there. So go ahead raise your hand, type into the chat feature, and in the room I'll call on you in a moment, or I'll ask you in a moment. So I'm not seeing anybody on Teams raising their hands. I'm not seeing anybody typing in the chat that they wish to speak. So we'll go to the room. If there's anybody in the room who wish to address the Board, please go ahead raise your hands. And I'm not seeing any hands go up. So we will come back to the Board and go into Business Item 5a, Work Session on S-Extension Independence Initiative. Great. I'm just going to share my screen. So I'll just give you a quick overview, Andrew, and then we can see if there are any comments. Tonight we are going over three pieces related to S-Extension Independence. These are the items. I'll set A, B, and C here. We are going to review the draft charter, and we've received legal comments about the charter and the first section transitional provisions. We're going to look at the org chart and talk about some updates based on the Select Board meeting last night, as well as some other comments from the public and department heads. And lastly, we're going to have a conversation about the consolidated services and how those will continue and what the trustees envisioned for those moving forward. And then lastly, I guess I should add that there may be an executive session tonight for the trustees to discuss contracts potentially with the town of Essex as related to shared services. Thank you, Brad. So as the way that we typically do this, if there is any public comment on those items, now is the time to do so. So again, for those of you using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature. Those of you in the room, please bear with us. So go ahead if you're using Teams, raise your hand. Is there something you want to make sure we hear? We're typing into the chat feature. Okay, I'm not seeing any hands going up. I'm not seeing anything in the chat. Those in the room at two Lincoln, if you'd like to speak, go ahead and raise your hand. Gabrielle, I see your hands. Go right ahead. But I can't hear you. And I don't know if anybody else can. She's muted. Is there a staff member in the room who can help? Yeah, got nothing. Can you all hear me? Yeah, as you all could see in the packet, and I'm sure you all saw it before that, my communication with Brad about the how the recreation department came to be beyond just a co-location. I'm still not clear how we got to where we are now. I'm not necessarily voicing a concern. I want to understand first before I voice any sort of opinion on it. I don't understand how we got to this point. So when you get to that point in the agenda, since I won't be able to speak then, that's that was my question. Thank you. Thank you, Gabrielle. I'm starting that down. Was there anybody else in the room who wish to speak? Okay. Not seeing any hands there either. So go ahead, bring it back to the board for the work session. Great. So I'm going to bring up the charter. If folks want to follow along, this is all part of the packet. We are starting on page 30 of the packet, where there is a copy of the charter, the draft charter, and comments from legal counsel. We had areas highlighted in blue where where the trustees still had questions. Is everybody seeing the charter? Great. We had questions in blue that you'll see that the trustees had wanted to address. And then obviously there are other comments or corrections on here from legal counsel. I'm going to move through a lot of this relatively quickly. It's it's you'll see, you know, it's capitalizations here and there. Things that aren't really very significant into the actual content and what it's trying to express. So I just would say, trustees, if you want me to go back or if you if you were hoping we were going to talk about one, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to kind of scroll through and find the pages where we had questions and wanted feedback. That works. Okay, that works. Well, where should we? Great. So this first one, we can just do some work on. She suggested as to add in a some information about land records here, referencing a boundary map. So we can go ahead and do that if that's what the trustees would like. Yep. Great. So we'll go back and find some info for that for you all to review. This blue one is the first question we had. And this was related to future Internet or broadband services. And you can see that a sentence was added that the city of Essex Junction may also establish a telecommunication system and an enterprise to deliver Internet or broadband services. So hopefully that satisfies. That was your original concern, Raj. Great. And otherwise we're capitalizing the word charter a lot. In terms of governing body composition, in terms of office, I think we should have a quick discussion. Obviously, the attorneys have made some suggestions here that are different than what you all had previously discussed. So I want to make sure we get we get on the same page. Turn it over to you, trustees or Andrew. Yeah, so I with regards to five or seven members. I understand our legal counsel's recommendation that because other communities are doing it, maybe we should do it too. I my only thought on that is I think we want to try to keep things as close to our governance existing structure as possible to help alleviate any concerns or any potential. Well, I didn't vote for it because of this one issue. So I'm fine with keeping it at five. I will say if the rest of the board really feel strongly about upping it to seven, though, I'm not going to fight that battle. It's not worth it to me. Amber, I think your hand went up first. I was just going to agree with you. I think the comment that I had internally as I was reading this was we did agree to keep it simple so that it made this process a little bit easier for residents. So I'm with leaving it at five. I like the additional language, which I think we also talked about, which was revisiting this idea in a period of time. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Raj, see your hand up. Amber said everything. As far as I think that's that Adrian's comment, which I guess I'll just leave alone. If we do five and we do a couple of wards, one at large is okay until we have this other 302D kick in and that allows the community to dive into it later with more time. George? Yeah, I'm going to just I'll go with the group. I mean, we did have this discussion in the past with the merger. We thought that five was a little we sort of divided the five isn't if we think a more efficient number adding to more doesn't necessarily get you better decision making, but it does. I think it was Raj said it does provide more opportunities for people to get involved with local government, but I'd stick with five from now. That's my opinion. The only thing I've got it. Can I just ask a question? I'm just reading Ed's comment and he says besides the village would be the which is interesting to village be the fourth largest city in the state. But he's saying I do not think that the city would need to be divided up into wards. I would suggest three. So he's saying I don't think you should have wards and then he's suggesting how we should have wards. Am I what am I not getting there? Amber, you're not in your head or can you explain that to me? I don't think I don't. Never mind. I'm fine. I've said my piece. We're reading the same thing you are George. I don't know. All right. Okay, I'm good. Dan. I agree with what everyone said. Regarding wards, I tend to agree with the comment. We don't I mean, I'm not necessarily opposed to wards, but due to the square mileage of the community, I don't see the relevance, you know, between award per se. I mean, other than maybe the village center, the residential area outside the village center doesn't vary that greatly to my opinion to warrant wards. But it's not we're not that large of a city. You know, when he says it's the fourth largest, it's population based, obviously. So I think wards more for a larger area. But anyhow, that's it. Go ahead, Rod. Yeah, so I guess regarding 302B, it says wards. Do we want to keep this five at large for this process and let 302D kick in and really dive into that exploration later when there's more time? So just leaving a C and D and then C and D become B and C and just I mean, it just seems to we don't have a lot of time for this. So keeping it simple might be the way to go. And then I agree. I agree, Raj. The only thing that is also confusing about D is if we can, if we maintain a five member board, a five member council, but you're going to then look at wards, well, you're going to be stuck with the issue of how do you have equal representation with a five member board? How is that going to work? The idea of you'd have one, one and three or two, two and one. I don't know how you would do it. So I agree with you. I think we should just keep it simple and keep it at large. And this could be revisited at a later time. So it sounds like we have consensus there, Andrew. And we can clean up this language on D a little bit. I think we've talked about some other things that it's not just about voting wards and districts, but there were some other components that we wanted to include in there. There's this question in yellow here about incapacity. And I didn't know if members had any quick thoughts on that. I don't know what state statute is around this and whether we as an elected board would actually then have the authority to declare someone as not being capable within their seat. I don't know if we have the authority to take someone's elected seat away from them. I know that some communities have a have a recall provision, but that's completely different because it's a community re-voting their previous election of a person. So I don't know if we have that capability. If we, I think I'm going to make an assumption that the incapacity most likely relates to death, only some other states maybe paralyzed, maybe in a coma, something to that extent, and their duties, which I'd say let's just take it out. So that's just my thought. Amber, go ahead. The language that's in there, though, is what's current, the incapacity to attend the board meetings, right? That was my understanding, but maybe I'm wrong. So I mean, I don't think that we need to further define it. I think, well, death is covered, obviously, by the very first line. So if somebody dies, then, you know, you can appoint a new person. But I don't think we want to get into any more than incapacity of unable to attend the meetings. So I would leave it as originally written. And with what you're saying, the legislature, should they approve of, they have approved this language in our current charter, correct? That's what I thought, but I guess we could put a note to kind of look into that. I think this is the language from the merger charter, and I don't think, I think your current charter actually just talks about death and resignation, period. Yeah, I can't find it in our current charter. Okay. Yeah, so if we, if we can't find it in our current charter, then I would say let's just take it out. I do agree if it is within our charter, then yes, the legislature has approved of it in the past. So then yes, they've given us that authority. I don't want to test it, though. We don't have to. Great. We'll take a further, we'll take a further look into that and get clarification from flooding. I mean, there probably should be some mechanism to do something if someone's not participating. I know there was some proposed legislation this year that I don't think got out of, out of committee that was talking about changing some of the rules, particularly if somebody like took the oath and then just never attended a meeting that you could get rid of them like right out of the gate. And it was getting a lot of hits on the listserv, but I don't think it ever really hit this incapacity issue. Okay. So we'll look into that and get back to you. The next one is compensation. Can you go back up? Sure. Yeah, no, you missed one there, Brad. You missed one. Oh, this is just. Yeah, this just needs to be changed. Andrew, we had previously changed this from people who move out of the city. Yeah, OK, OK, OK, gotcha. So here is the question in regards to compensation for board members. Here is an alternative recommendation from Claudine. There was some board members expressed an interest in not having to vote on increases and trying to build it in in some capacity. I mean, that sounds fine. Sorry, Andrew, go ahead. I'm getting a little bit of feedback and it's a little hard to hear. You're not speaking to the board. If you could please make sure to mute yourself. Raj, can you repeat what you said? The annual increases sound fine. I'm not going to lie. I'm a little shocked at the amounts from South Bank to Newport and Hartford. Not. Not just personally, but. You know, a lot to make it possible for varied populations to participate. And if this is not unusual, then I would start to think that what we're doing is a little unusual. South Burlington. Hartford or similar, probably demographically. So I'm. I'm not saying we should. We should necessarily change it up to somewhere between six and eight, but. Certainly the precedent is there and. Certainly would would be worth a look if not now sometime in the first three to five years of the city. Yeah. And I say that again from the lens of really trying to make it possible for people that just can't do this for next to nothing. Out of the goodness of their heart and because they have a deep interest in their community to do it. I mean, those are great qualities and those people will also have those qualities, but. Yeah, we've had this conversation before. So I'll stop. Go ahead, Amber. I'm not sure if the question was answered. We've got a look at what other salaries folks are are getting, but are those built into their the increase into the charter or are those a voted on? Approval process because I know that Burlington is. I'm not sure about the other the other three. So. I think we I think we still need the question answered. As to what the norm is so that we can. I mean, again, we don't want to be we don't want to be. We don't want to be. Doing something that's out of the norm. We want to get this passed. The town sets theirs through the budget process and does not have to go out to vote to increase it. So it has that's how they do it. And so I assume we could, you know, blatantly steal that language. But Evan, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I was going to say pretty much what you just said. The town has it in their charter that they can set the trustee rate in their budget, which when you go to the floor of the town meeting, in your case, the village meeting, it is in there. It is known. And when they vote on the budget, they're voting on your salaries for the year. They get to vote up and down, up or down. So there is precedent for that. And that is done in several other communities throughout the state. And the government ops committee will recognize that. And if they have a problem with it, they'll strike it. But is that just setting that's not doing a whole separate article like we just did. That's just so isn't that what 305 a is saying is that it'll be a minimum. Yeah, that at the annual meeting. Yeah, you're setting the minimum, but then you're setting the budget and doing it that way. You do not. If you do it the way that was just suggested by Claudine, then you do not have to have an article. So I think what may be helpful is if someone were to review the town's charter and use that language. I believe what what this what the question still comes back to is how in 305 a it states that set by the voters at the annual meeting. And I thought that was the same language that we talked about, which Claudine's advice was that means it's a separate article. So I kind of agree that underlying question I don't think was answered, but I believe we can get the answer from the town's charter. So ours ours currently says the annual salary paid to the trustees can be increased from its present present level only by the voters at the at a village meeting. And it seems like as we have it written in 305 a that's different. I mean, the way we have it written says it's a separate item in the annual budget presented at the meeting. So they're voting on the budget with it with it within the budget versus the way the village charter is currently stated as a separate article. So the way we have it highlighted in blue here means it won't be voted on separately. It's just as part of the overall budget vote up or down. So it's essentially the town's language. I don't know what the town's the wording of the town, but it would seem to be the same. And I can look that up real quick. I have the town language. I have the town language if you want it. Okay. Yeah. Compensation paid to the select men shall be set by the voters at the annual meeting comma with a minimum of $500 a year each. Selectment salaries must be set forth as a separate item in the annual budget presented to the meeting. Seems like we have that language. Seems like we're set. I think the difference is as a separate item in the annual budget. So when you do the village's budget we will make sure there's a line within the budget that says village city council city trustee salary and that that and if there's a change you denote it. Perfect. Okay. I think we're good there. Sounds good. So this was a question about when to hold annual meeting. You can see there's lots going on here. But essentially here's the response from Claudine that the statute allows for the charter to set the annual meeting date as you would like. And so it's simply written in if you were to clean all this up it says the voters shall at each annual meeting vote to set the date of the next annual meeting at which time the voters shall vote for the election of officers the voting on the city budget is that comfortable for everyone? I think it was the flexibility you all were looking for as to whether or not it's going to be town meeting day or aligned with EWSD school budget voting. Yep. Works for me. There are no comments on this ordinance section but last time we had discussed people wanting to public hearings and so the current language reflects that and we just want to make sure that that's what the board wants. That is what we had talked about. I feel like there was also some update from Claudine that had talked about. One thing to bear in mind is that should there be a word change that that would then need to start this process all over again and would then mean two additional meetings. So based on the fact that we are all human and we make those changes, which we can always do more if we want and that way if we make some kind of a spelling error then it's just one additional meeting to fix it instead of two. I think that makes not hearing any disagreement. No. Okay. So we're we're changing 602 back to a minimum of one public hearing. And then that would I think 602C may then need to be changed. Yeah, great. Evan, I saw your hand to go up and then back down. Are you all set? All good. Just making sure it came down. Great. Okay. So here you this topic came up the last time and I think Amber or somebody looked it up and figured out that the terms were automatically three years. Not sure if you also want to set the PC term or not. So we simply gave you authority to set it. Either way is okay. Are people good with the way it's written in now or yes. Great. So there's some flex. She just there's a little bit of tidying up some things in the library trustee portion and then this highlighted section she added notwithstanding we're going just talking a little bit about the authority that library boards have. So here's the real estate assessor section and some of her comments we were wondering just how much we needed to specify and she again she's just put in here some flexibility. So it now reads there shall be either a real estate assessor who is a certified real estate appraiser or an independent appraisal firm headed by a certified real estate appraiser appointed by the manager that she'll carry out the duties of the assessor in the same manner and be subject to all the same liabilities prescribed for listers under the law in the state of Vermont in assessing property within the city of us extension and which shall establish the grand list thereof and shall return such list to the city clerk within the time required by state statute. Make sense. Again just tidying up some language here just says appraisal shall be reviewed periodically and kept up to date. And then I think there were some redundancies and some of the listings here. So it's just some language cleanup. Yep. Looks good. There's a comment here that we've I think this is an error and I think we just need to change it to 30 days. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Agreed. It should be 30 days. Yeah. Great. Okay. So that was everything in the charter as drafted previously. If everybody's good with that we can roll into the next part which is the first section which is about the transitional provisions. Obviously this is the first time we're reviewing this as a group. So there may be questions or comments that we need to go back to Claudine with. There are also maybe some things that we just don't need to figure out tonight and can sort them out and just recognize that this transitional provisions piece is going to be one of the last pieces of the charter that needs to get finalized. Yeah. I'd say that's good reasoning Brad because since we're still in some degree of discussion with the town about transitioning you might you know they're probably going to be some things that are going to be last minute with this section if necessary. So yeah I agree. Yep. So Andrew do you want to do you want us to kind of scroll through this section tonight or Yeah. That'd be good. Okay. Yeah. Let's let's look at it. One of the things I want to be cognizant of is we also have a public hearing that's supposed to start at eight and then I know that we have two interviews as well. So I wonder if we as we go through this if we maybe just do it relatively quickly. Sure. Yeah. Because I think there's other discussions regarding the work session that we want to have as well. Yep. Great. So this just this first comment on one a Plutine was wondering if just you know talking about these things non you know without being specific was sufficient and so she was still kind of mulling that over I don't think it requires any comments from us at this point. And we're going to see your hands up. Sorry Brad I have to throw No. Yeah please. I guess I was reading this section and and I'm thinking how in the world would we be able to do a list because I've seen these lists of acquisitions where it's like every single contract that you've ever entered into. I mean do we even know how to do that. I mean if so this is just me basically making a comment I don't expect anybody to weigh in on this it's just I looked at this and I was like I don't even know how we're supposed to do this. And then what if you miss one. Exactly. Exactly. One left out could be a huge issue. Go ahead Evan. Yeah I don't think that's the intent. The intent is that you're the successor if somebody updates that contract you change the language to be the entity that you are now not the entity you were before. You are legally the successor to the village. That was my thought too. I mean that's the whole point of putting successors errors assigned language in a contract but that's not how I read Claudine's comments. So I guess that I guess she did say she has to look into this stuff so I think we'll there's there's no I mean you've been you've been in existence since 1892 or something like that. Yes. I don't think you're going to be able to find all the agreements that you exist et cetera. So as they come up you will change them but you are saying you are responsible for all those agreements even back to 1894 and as your charter. So if someone were to go after you know whatever come back to you and say are you were you formerly the village of Essex Junction you're going to say yes and therefore your response for an agreement. So it's the language and Claudine's comment that said I would think contract need to be assigned needs need to be transferred between entities liabilities need to be assumed thoughts. That's the section that was like huh. Yeah right. So when we went through this with Dan Richardson he had an opinion that you deal with it as they come. Yeah. And Amber Claudine's just to share she did share with me a little bit on this thinking she was saying that if it was a corporate merger acquisition that they would indeed spell out every single one and that's where she was coming from is you know obviously recognizing this is this is municipality and it's different. But if that if it was a corporate merger then that's exactly what they would do is they would pull out every single one of them. So I don't think she really got that. But she thinks that we're okay with leaving it the language that's in their proposed now and not doing that. I I don't think I think to your comments earlier I don't think we have a choice. I don't think there's anybody who can can even begin to pull all of that information together. Okay. There's just some comments here you know about the transition to the merger. So when she says I don't think we can take an entire year I'm just trying to get my head around what I think it's just me. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how do we go from bill signing in July 1st coming around if that's the do we does it start right up or do we have do we have a period where I guess I don't know what my question is right now I'm just going to go back to the one I was wrapped up with with the merger but my my question about her was I was just sort of a technical one if if the budget obviously the budget for s extension that's proved for as extension village will become the budget for s extension city but can you do that is it and she's but by implication what she's saying here is yeah you don't have to go back to the village just automatically becomes the city budget if she didn't see a problem with that and I don't you know the rest of us don't that was thick but that was kind of the hang up with the merger charter because we had the impression that you had approved separate budgets for but that's probably because you had two separate budgets and now you're going to smoosh them together into one entity this is probably a good idea. So the next section is about about city meeting it's listed here as occurring on town meeting day following approval of the charter I think we just need to align that with what we have above great and I think similarly you know this was that previous transition plan for the merged entity and so it's just to being warned to all residents of the City of Essex Junction and unincorporated village that just don't apply anymore. Yeah we can clean that up. Yeah. Brad. Last line. 103 shall occur on town meeting day is that whose town meeting day don't you guys that's what I was referring to when I said that we just need to align this with what we add up above in that. Yeah I just want to make sure that that stays in agreement with the other section where you're having it in April. Right. That's right. Just connect just make sure that agrees. Yep. Thanks. So these transitional districts all basically go away. Yeah. We assume all village debt so you don't need the debt district. I would only say on number five I'm not sure I think she does need to check because a downtown improvement district does have a special designation in Vermont and I don't know about a city center but we specifically put downtown improvement district because that has gets a specific has a specific meeting with the state economic development agency whatever office deals with that I noticed that Elaine is here she might be able to speak to it later on but that's so that might need a little more investigation. Okay. And I wonder if this is something where if Robin's eyes would be beneficial. Yeah maybe. I can ask him. And I would also assume that the for a period of 12 years if we even need to define that or because the transfer. Yeah that just transfer. So you can just say the the former village centers that you can just start right from there the former village center zone is designated as extension development code shall be designated as a and then we have to figure it out I think it should be designated as a downtown improvement district for cities they have downtown improvement districts villages have village center districts or something like that needs Italy to be cleared up. Okay. So 105 talks about the governing body that the existing village board becomes the city council as soon as the council or as soon as the city is formed everything else is relatively straightforward here just talks about replacement and adopting all existing regulations and ordinances again vacancy and talks about the setting up the first city budget. That was good. So all of this section obviously on the town select board goes away so this next one talks about the separation of the city and the departments the previous merger charter talked about a five year period for the manager to transition those departments into merged departments you know there's a question here as to whether or not this is relevant I guess I think we could wait on this I think this depends on more discussions with the select board and maybe at that point we can weave something in again this is probably something like for a transitional period you have no more than five years yep yep so that's that's good yep again this is a lot of language cleanup from obviously we're working from the merger charter so anything that references the town is not relevant anything that talks about merging merging services kind of slowly scrolling but not really there's again it's all language cleanup there's no comments or questions from from Claudine makes sense that's it I think that's about it Brad yeah go ahead I just wanted I think section I'm not even sure we might need to think about if we even need section 111 water and sewer districts because again that's a kind of a holdover from the merger charter because we had two different water sewer to town and village and we were bringing them together but we were going to maintain the charges separately and again that's not an issue so I'm not even sure if we need to you might want to just put a note if we need to even discuss water sewer district in this charter okay I can do that in the interest of time I I think we can move off from charter and into or chart there are some questions and observations here that Travis submitted that I am going to summarize and include in a package to Claudine and then we can also look at those next time so there's just we can get we can get those there's probably seven or eight specific suggestions or questions that we can get legal counsel to review and then you all can consider and Susan McNamara Hill sent me a question she reviewed the charter and had a question about the clerk and no mention of the clerk being either elected or appointed and wanting to get some clarification around that so I will get that stuff but otherwise unless anybody has anything else on the charter we can move on to additional provisions for tonight we'll move on to or chart sounds good yep sounds good great hold on hold on I just lost let me stop sharing for a sec all of my windows just closed so just one sec let me open that back up while we're waiting to do that I guess I can highlight a few things that were in the packet I think we want to take the opportunity to review the stormwater summary and make sure people are on board for that stormwater is not currently a separate department but I think it's something we just want to look at given its current shared status as if you read in the packet there was an email correspondence with Susan McNamara Hill basically indicating not supporting a transition period for the clerk-treasurer basically saying it's not really possible or doable or desirable and so I think we want to have that conversation tonight that was on the short list of some to be shared in the short term and her recommendation is that it's not Raj I think you raised the question last time about any concerns about the HR director being also the one who then supervises department heads Travis provided a response to that basically indicating that he does not see it as a concern but certainly it always depends on who you hire in HR so assuming that we hire somebody good in HR that shouldn't be a problem you'll see a memo or a note in there from Sarah on finance and the transition plan she obviously I think put in there five to seven years which realistically between boats and everything is more like from the time the city's formed maybe closer to three to four years so the five to seven number I think is like from today we're starting a new fiscal year and so she has some clarity as to where she needs to get to in due time and can start to work towards that the library did not see that it would be feasible to run IT out of to Lincoln there you know in recreation and I can't get my screen to share here I have a couple of comments quick on recreation are you seeing the org chart or are you seeing it we are it's the team screen the team screen it's your yeah teams in the web got it yeah it's not showing me those we just try one more getting there it's not showing me the preview of the screen I'm selecting so let's try screen three okay so the last thing I want to comment on before I turn it over to you all to discuss so this org chart represents kind of where we left things as of last time and I took off the sharing a short transitional period with click treasure based on Susan's response you all can put it back in it just seemed very clear to me that that was not desirable or possible so on here you're seeing long term sharing of police in parks and rec short term sharing of finance and IT you there are several comments about rec first of all I want to express that I still you know stand on the memo that I delivered to you that I do think recreation is better shared with the town of Essex I think that there was a question that came up of how to share my recommendation is just as police is going to be a town department and you're going to figure out ways to have oversight and input as to how police functions and serves to communities my recommendation is that parks and recreation be a village department and you figure out ways to provide oversight and input from the town government and the town people we already you know our EJRP is a 21 full time equivalent department EPR is a 7 full time equivalent it wouldn't make sense in my mind to go the other way it makes sense that the larger organization would be the service provider I say all that to say that in the last however many weeks eight weeks that we've been doing this you've received very little feedback and pushback from the community and they seem to be pretty positive about the direction that this group has been going in I would say this is the first time that that there's been pause in that that there has been some dissent and concern expressed from community members Andrew posted in the village Facebook group there's at least 43 comments to the best of my knowledge. You had 10 responses or nine responses to your work session all of them pretty positive except for the direction that you were going with recreation eight of the responses had a negative feedback about sharing parks and recreation one of them had a positive things to say and so I think that should be part of your discussion tonight the last thing I'll say in Parks and Rec is that it sounds like from the select board's motion last night which I do want to share the select board motioned sorry it's right in this section it says that the they authorized the chair to communicate to the trustee president writing that the town is open to sharing police in the long term and is open to addressing how sharing of parks and rec clerk, treasurer, finance and IT may work in the short term the town would also like to share assessor so as part of this org chart conversation it looks like the two changes that have come through from the select board is they've moved parks and rec to a short term potential share and they want they want to add assessor back to the conversation for you all and so my last comment in Parks and Rec is I don't see any value in a short term share in Parks and Rec. I do see value in a long term but if the plan is to cut ties I would just soon do that sooner than later we don't have things that we need to unravel and it just would prolong an already challenging relationship in terms of two different bodies working in the same under the same roof and so I would just offer that as some feedback with all of that said I'm going to turn it back to you all to discuss the org chart and next steps. Thank you Brad so there were a few departments there I'd like to do them one at a time so we don't get too confused here so if we could start off with clerk I would agree with your assessment that yes if our expert is telling us that sharing doesn't make sense in a short term then let's not do it let's just have that be a separated service one. Is that agreed upon from the rest of the board? Yes. Okay. Yeah Andrew but one question is due to the need that we're going to have to have the clerk immediately it's not something that I believe we're going to be able to put I don't know how we create an election in the short term to have a clerk on and I think maybe if we decide that we do want to have clerk be in an elected position as opposed to appointed by the manager then we might write into the charter during the first whatever couple years it would be a transition from that appointment to an elected position but I have no problem with the appointment. Yeah thanks for bringing that part back up Dan personally I'm against having the clerk be in an elected position with how technical that position is I would much rather see that be a professional individual who does not have any potential political biases and is only in it for the love of the job. Great. Great. And so your other part about how to have a person in that role from day one I think some of that is in that transition period of we know from the legislature we can do it and we can then set the budgets for that subsequent year that allows for some time to hire or we'll have to have some kind of crossover time to allow for the hiring of a manager before we're actually a city to then hire some of these people or to get that process started. So it sounds like we're good on the clerk with it being in a pointed position with HR I think the question was still about whether the HR person should also be the assistant manager I also asked around a little bit my professional worlds and got a similar answer personally I'm okay with the HR individual also supervising other departments it would just need to be a really good individual and if what ends up coming out of it is a recommendation in a few years that no those are really two separate functions we should really have our own independent HR person and an assistant manager then we could have that conversation in the subsequent years is the rest of the board okay with that? Great Finance Brad correct me if I'm wrong I think it sounded like Sarah was looking for some direction in terms of what that end time frame is is that part of the question here? I think that would be helpful and yes I think we would want to minimize it as much as possible so if I think about that process where the likelihood of us being an independent entity slim to none before July 1st of 2024 I would think with where we are two maybe three years I would hope by then this could have been figured out any longer than that really I just don't understand the details to make that happen but again I've also never done that job So you're talking like 7126 Yes I think that's five years from now so I think you've met, you've honored her request of five to seven years I can relay that information to her Great rest of the board how do you feel about that? I'm good with that Okay great IT so other than brown ale not being able to host I'm not sure where that is for us we had the recommendation from Blaine gunner's name from the IT director now saying that sharing isn't most likely possible I see that we have it in a short term period or as little as possible Yeah Is there another question that I'm not understanding or is it just confirming what's listed in the chart now? I think it's just I've placed things where they where you wanted them as of last time and just confirming that after two weeks of thinking and everything else that's gone on whether or not you want movement I have met with three different IT contractors who are starting to do some analysis of what's needed to stand up the infrastructure to give us a ballpark of what contracting that service out would be so we'll get those numbers and there are a couple outstanding questions to Rob that I'm waiting to hear back from him on Raj's concept of kind of the hybrid from what I understood at Raj was a shared hardware but separated personnel kind of model and whether or not that's feasible Exactly So we're kind of waiting to hear back from Rob on that and whether or not transitional period is possible So I mean the only thing that I would say is from my perspective if we have to have it shared I would want it shared for as little time as possible if that's I would really think we could get that done within one year at the absolute latest Go ahead George see your hands up Brad have you this is just sort of out of the blue not really but did you have any discussion with Jim Chutris about potentially locating IT at the treatment plant they are very secure and they're very up to date in terms of all of their equipment I don't know if they have space but it might be it might be worth investigating since it doesn't look like the library could handle it but the water treatment plant is actually it's got a lot going on down there Yeah it's a great suggestion to ask Jim It might be something to look into Okay Andrew I would think with the one year transition that you could get there by the end of that certainly I would agree with that Brad Go ahead Dan Yeah I'm just curious Brad I mean I know you're kind of cramped in your quarters but George's idea of down to the waste water treatment plant do you think over at Wreck somewhere on Maple that you'd be able to how was that With a second story on this building Yes Otherwise with our current setup no with an addition it's possible Well it could be addition not necessarily the building but even the back the shop area the garage area over that Yeah you tell Harlan and yeah that's no problem I appreciate you asking Dan I think all of those concepts are just that it doesn't necessarily have to be housed out of to Lincoln it's just important to remember so I think it's a valid request Dan and I actually did have that thought because we have a fair amount of servers and all sorts of stuff going on here and we're also connected by fiber so it honestly might make sense from somebody's assessment Yeah I mean just the proximity to the village offices where the village center is is a good reason So from what I think I'm hearing please correct me if I'm wrong but with IT really limiting that sharing as much as possible in that time frame narrowing that down as much as possible if we ultimately don't need to have it shared for a transitional period then that would be fine but I think we need to wait until there's some kind of an assessment that Brad you're leading on that effort Yep So going on to Rec I know I said this last time I'll only echo what Brad had said about this is the only time we've had any any constructive feedback or any kinds of criticism of the work that we've done so far and so that I would just say again that I would say let's not share the recreation services. Let's allow especially with what Brad was saying about the memo from the select board about sharing in the short term I would also just echo again just because we would not be located or shared doesn't mean that we can't coordinate programming. Theoretically we could coordinate programming now with South Burlington and Williston. We don't need to be located in the same building Apparently I upset Maple Go ahead George I'm just wondering if there's if there's some level of cooperation that is between what you just mentioned Andrew and consolidated department with a little bit more discussion. I brought this up before I don't want to get too specific but I am so concerned about losing the really nice arrangement we have for the seniors where we provide the senior center and the town provides the senior bus to see all that go away maintaining something like that and maintaining a few other of those intramuniscible keeping that going some kind of intramuniscible agreement. I'm just wondering if we could have a little bit more discussion before we come to a final answer on this and I absolutely agree I mean trust me I know from experience recreation always surprising you think people would get upset about all kinds of stuff but recreation can make you or break you. I mean people get very very very very emotional and passionate about recreation so we do have to get this right Yeah I would just you definitely know as well as anybody Yeah I'll just echo what George said Sorry I'll echo what George said my first priority is making sure that we get police right and that agreement is rock solid and works for the community I would rather not lose access to town parks and I'm certain that there's folks in the town that would love to not lose access to village recreation services. I don't think that means we have to be one department but it sure would be great to have a good working relationship where we could still offer some reciprocity in that regard and yeah I think but I think the more I've thought about it you know we're going to have a lot to talk about around police services and I think that's just got to take priority right now Yeah right Yeah Regarding the recreation and shared services with the tree farm virtually we're going to have a shared operation there between the wreck as I see it so it just seems kind of like we're going to be sharing a very large facility with the town with another municipality why can't we extend that beyond that I just I think it would be nice if we could do that and I mean I think it just comes down to maybe discussing this with the select board and getting the message out to the people within the community within the city and the town outside Could I suggest I agree with you Dana I just suggest maybe this is I don't want to make work for people but I'm just wondering if Brad and Ali and Evan can sit together and sketch out some ideas about because I think you hear what we're saying and maybe come up with something creative three brilliant minds to see what you can do I mean the big things I'm hearing are maybe there's some kind of possible reciprocity that does not require a shared department what about the senior center and what about the tree farm and I think that those can all be parts of a conversation that we have with the select board and it would be very helpful to be informed by our recreation directors in that process at the same time I really do want to echo what Raj said about prioritizing the police department and making sure that we get that process right and I think that we really want to have that mindset does anybody disagree with that no I don't disagree okay so I'm not hearing a desire to have the recreation departments definitively shared but rather to have some of those those two specific portions of senior center and tree farm and then a possible definition of reciprocity yeah okay and then the one that was added from the select board is their desire to talk about sharing the assessor we have previously decided not to I'm not barring hearing something otherwise from the select board I don't nothing's changed my mind on that I still feel that you know with the assessor we want to have that as our own so that we can be a fully independent community yes there are funds that the town currently has set aside for the next assessing or for the next reappraisal I'm not sure if that is what is being referred to here but I haven't heard anything to change my mind well I thought about it Andrew is if we're looking for a negotiation in compromise with the select board then you know if we're making offers in there they look like they're willing to engage with us I think if they're extending this then we should be a little bit more flexible and and you know I can't I do think the assessor is a question of efficiency because I don't think there's enough work on either side in the town or the city in the city for example to have one full time person and and it may not be in the town to have one full time but together it might be it just might work better to be flexible on this I'd urge us to give this some consideration and I hear that you know this is a bit of a discussion back and forth with the select board and right now we're having it among ourselves so there's an entire party not here that we would need to have to fully have that conversation yeah I was just purely stating that from what we've seen so far I hadn't seen or heard anything that's changed my mind so was there anything about the process Brad or trustees the last time we got together I think Amber brought it up and I agreed with her about maybe looking to add to or augment the community development department a bit to be also more resident centric in a way so I'd I'd encourage seeing how the community felt about adding our person you know we talked a year and a half or maybe almost two years ago now about tasking tasking Brad again with doing you know community events and various things you know all the way through enforcement things so I'm not sure that could be the same person but it seems that we have some needs that need to be discussed you don't necessarily have the bodies to carry them out so I'd like that to revisit that consideration again for an FTE there to brainstorm how that could have an impact for the city and you know we can engage the community on it and see you know budget around it see if it's feasible or not but I think Amber brought it up correct me if I'm wrong in the in terms of some enforcement and I agree but I think it could be a little broader than that too yeah go along with what I was saying in Amber which the enforcement of the land development code and development but also just for parking regulations I mean I don't expect the police department to run around and I mean they're struggling to keep up with what they've got in their staffing but maybe if we had our own municipal parking enforcement to keep people in compliance and maybe we could broaden that scope of that position or a couple positions maybe part-time whatever to assist with issuing ordinance violations for the land development code as well go ahead George I'm just I'm curious about one thing and then I'll make a statement so department staff is two FTE that's one FTE more than we have right now correct because now we have Robin and God sorry and so we'd be adding one person wouldn't that person become a full-time zoning reg enforcer so aren't we answering this already and I think that I know that when we first back years ago when we looked into this we were told it was always a bad idea to have your community development director also be the enforcer because you're really asking someone to wear two completely different hats and that's but that's what we've had Robin do because we just didn't have the money to hire a second person so I think that if we having to if we're saying if we're comfortable having three people a director and two FTE staff that one of them could be the zoning enforcer that's what I'm assuming right I'm gonna jump in and say my bad I thought we had three I didn't realize that was a change right off the top so we'll embarrass by that but no don't be embarrassed Roger we're all figuring this out yeah it's kind of hidden in there but I appreciate you bringing it up Roger and it is reflected in that current order chart that an important conversation go ahead Evan Brad why is the department staff highlighted or what what is that because in my screen it's shaded that is Terry Haas's current position so there's currently two full time employees in that department but why is that highlighted that's what we were just talking about oh so you just highlighted it to talk about okay yeah the two department staff reflects an additional one person Terry plus one and then just for the board if you want to have somebody brought in to do zoning enforcement and other responsibilities I don't know if there's a full time position in that but whether you want to hire someone contractually or part time to do that that is certainly something a manager could look into Brad may that additional or Brad and or Evan could that additional capacity be taken through the rental registry the topic that I had brought up last time is that possibly one of the intents of having two FTEs there yes based on the feedback last time it seemed like a two pronged job of enforcement and rental registry management sounds great Evan is your hand still up or is that the just about to hold it take it off okay so is takeaway Andrew from the assessor piece is that that's just going to be a part of the conversation with the select board and you'll entertain it from there or it's not a part of the conversation I think we can certainly have it be a part of the conversation I mean if they were to bring it up I wouldn't yell at them for bringing it up we can certainly hear it and hear what they would like to see out of it got it great just want to make sure I'm clear yeah I think the only other piece just this stormwater memo was missing last time just because Jim and Chelsea and I were going around and so if you had the chance to read this basically the recommendation is that we continue the joint stormwater coordinating committee as you have to but that the responsibilities for stormwater management come under the city and it's it's no longer a consolidated or shared function just the committee just the committee work is right and if they don't mind me jumping in I also agree with what the spirit of which Jim is saying here because the demands the state regs for an EPA regs for phosphorus control are going to I think eventually we're going to have to have our own stormwater department whether you have city town whatever you have because the workload is just going to keep keep increasing so you may break it out and have it be a separate piece eventually and that's I think that's what Jim is trying to say here the only other thing Brad there was that comment about it earlier before we started about addressing how co-location had happened could you address that yeah I didn't know if Evan want to take stab at it or obviously I can't Evan what's the topic how co-location came to be for the rec departments no you're welcome great so Ali and I had been talking and this is actually a really strange concept that I never thought could work it was actually first suggested by Pat and I originally shot it down quick but the more and more we thought about it we saw opportunity and co-location we presented that to the manager Evan and we I don't know if any I'd have to go back in minutes and see whether or not there were ever board votes but eventually we we move forward and we started co-locating in August of 2019 I believe and so we're coming up on two years now as as co-located departments we just you know when we're in the office and you hear one person answering the same question 10 feet away we started to make some efficiencies so we started to kind of cross over responsibilities roles and responsibilities to make things more efficient and they're far more efficient and everybody is getting better services due to those changes that we've made those changes also can be undone and so you know right now I think the example I gave in my last packet was you know Pat's that are program director for sports and fitness he does all sports and fitness programs in all of Essex all ages if we go back to being separated departments we could come up with a working relationship where that still happens or we could just have Pat do all of the things that happen in the village and EPR can figure out how to deal with the things that happen in the town so hopefully that answers your question Gabrielle one other thing that I would add to that is that as vacancies occurred and conditions on the ground changed we changed we you know COVID changed the landscape when the YMCA stated to the school district that they were not likely to be able to stand up child care in September of 2019 2019, 2020 they just said they couldn't do it or weren't likely to do it and so you know Brad and Ali and the staff so the two departments figured out how to be able to do that and then as Brad said efficiencies so yes could it be pulled apart yes do you want to? debatable I would say one other thing but the budgets remain separate Marguerite Hey Andrew we just had a reminder here from the public that it is past 8pm and we do have a public hearing that was it so Andrew that's it on the org chart stuff I don't know if you guys can squeeze in an initial conversation about consolidated feature that's up to you I do believe that we are allowed to be late with the time that was posted yeah great so there was a question about you know this that stems back from those initial conversations with department heads in particular consolidated department heads you know you kind of saw it from Sarah's response at least at this point she knows that eventually finance is going to be separate and she has a timeline and can work towards it I think her next question is is that timeline going to change if separation doesn't occur for some reason should she be doing all she can to prepare separate finance regardless of separation or could that change with if the actual separation independence effort fails and obviously that spills over from finance to HR to IT to assessor to manager etc I think that that may get us into a much longer conversation in terms of what is overall should separation fail do we want to do next what I would say is from my understanding I would plan on there being a fully separated community and so yes we should prepare for that should it happen and I would not necessarily think that it is as steep of a mountain to overcome as what I've heard from others when they talked about this so I would say that yes let's prepare for separation and as far as a plan B I suppose maybe we should talk about that at a subsequent meeting but I don't think we really want to go down that rabbit hole tonight so I don't think it's going to completely answer Sarah's question but sorry it's okay she appreciates you at least taking it up if you're fine with moving this if you're fine with moving this conversation to a future work session that would be great yep is your hand still up as a holdover or is that a new one sorry alright Brad we're good that's it for the work session that's it hey alright so we have two interviews but we do have the public hearing do we have Sarah with us can you hear me not answer your question I'm going to withhold any comments at the moment I'm here to talk about water and sewer well I will go ahead and open up the public hearing on fiscal year 2022 proposed utility rates awesome thank you and I'll share my screen momentarily so as is the village's policy this is the second of two public hearings on the FY22 utility rates this is for the water the sewer and the sanitation funds in the village going to hit the high point and then I'm going to take questions going to start right off by saying the overall increase to the rate is about 2.88% that's the combined rates fixed charges and variable charges for water sewer and sanitation it's a 2.88% increase or about $15 and 67 cents per year for the average residential user and we're going to find average residential user as using 120 gallons per day in the village this comes in under our eight year average of about 3.6% year over year the budgets were nothing really out of the ordinary when budgeting for FY22 for these three funds the primary cost drivers were contractual personnel changes and planned annual increases to the contribution to capital the largest of which is in the water fund which is reflected here as you can see the water rate is increasing the most out of the three you will I'm sure notice that the sewer rate is being proposed at a level amount from the prior year as I detailed in these memos and I've talked about previously there are well established excel spreadsheet templates on how to calculate these rates given the budget that we have each year the wastewater treatment facility so the sewer rate takes into consideration an estimated projection of the flows that are going to come from Essex Town, Williston and the village of Essex Johnson for the upcoming year it takes a projection from the town and from Williston an overall projected flow and then whatever is left over is assumed to be what's going to happen from the village to the FY22 in discussing with Jim we had a shift that actually projected that the village rate would go down Jim and I both agree we think this is going to be an outlier but we're not we're really not sure and so we're recommending that the trustees just maintain the same rate as the prior year and the sewer fund as opposed to decreasing it and then if that is an outlier you know increasing it again subsequent years I'm going to flip real quick to this screen here that shows a few years in a row of costs and you can see just on the tail end of this we had about a 10% decrease back in FY18 in the sewer fund which was a similar incident and then subsequently we dug back up out of that and so this year we're recommending that we just maintain those rates and then if it turns out next year that no this really has a reversal in the trend then we can revisit it. Jim and I have also talked about a way to factor in a rolling estimated usage to help smooth out any of these sharp ups and downs I can't see you all there you are okay you're back okay so I'm just going to hit through the funds real quick so last year we were looking at about a 7% increase like I said this year we're looking at an increase under 3% which is under our eight year average about less than $16 a year for residential customers the water fund as I mentioned previously the primary driver for the 6.35% increase in the operating budget was a $50,000 plan increase and the transfer to the water capital reserve and contractual changes to employee costs and benefits this year we did see a 3.4% increase in the Champlain Water District and the sale rate which gets passed on to village water users in addition to the costs of the operating budget the wastewater treatment facility even though that rate is proposed to be the same as last year that budget did have a 2.1% increase the drivers were very similar to water where we had a $20,000 plan to increase to the capital transfer as well as contractual employment costs I have a note here about the decrease in the percentage of flow attributed to the village users which was reflected in all the stuff I just yammered about the sanitation fund similar to the others has a budget increase of about 2.4% this is driven primarily by personnel costs as the transfer to capital in the sanitation fund has been planned to be level year over year in the sanitation fund we are building capacity in the rate to pay for the wastewater treatment facility upgrade debt this is also a planned increase every year in the amount that's raised by sanitation users this grows by about $7,700 a year this is also reflected in the rate we just talked about that alright okay sorry I got lost in my sidebar here in addition to the water sewer and sanitation rates this is also setting the large user rate which is charged to global foundries on top of the pass-through water usage global foundries reimburses us for Champlain Water District builds us for the water that global foundries uses we pass that cost directly onto global foundries and in addition to that we charge them this large water user rate which covers about 13% of the water operating budget and it also includes a proportionate share of the annual unaccounted for water this is all reconciled in June of every year so if it ends up being significantly different from what we estimated those costs are either recovered or our refund is paid to global foundries the last rate that we're setting this evening is the wastewater treatment facility wholesale rate and this is for septage haulers and other companies that distribute or deposit to bring their waste directly to the plant and this is also calculated on a formula and this happens to be the charge this is also the way that the town of Willison and the town of Essex are charged based on their estimated flow for how much they contribute to the wastewater treatment facility I would be happy to answer any questions at this point thank you Sarah and so along those lines as this is a public hearing for members of the public who are joining us we started we've been starting on team so how about now we'll start in the room I would say if there are members of the public who are sitting into Lincoln who have any questions on this please go ahead and raise your hand so that way I can see whether there are any questions there and I can't see anybody on the left I think they're right side so if anybody sitting on that side has any questions I have no idea I'm going to assume not all good Andrew okay thank you so if there are no questions in the room itself then I'll turn it over to you it looks like Annie's got somebody's got their hand up in there there you go now you can talk can you hear me go ahead Annie I just wanted to express some surprise if there have been a request that we rush into this hearing everything seems fine here nobody seems to need to have this happen I was just passing that along thank you all for your hard work it's a pleasure to be here thank you Annie okay I have no idea what you said it was a pleasure to be here though I'd be happy to reiterate essentially what she had said is that she didn't see the need to rush into having this public hearing and Annie if I get that wrong please do correct me and appreciated the work that we have done thus far and appreciates being here so if there are no other questions or comments from those into Lincoln then we can go ahead and turn it over to Microsoft teams if there are any questions or comments please go ahead raise your hand or type into the chat feature and I will be sure to call on you so far I've seen a hand go up and down a couple of times Andy Champagne if you did want to speak you can go ahead and do so now it looked to me like he's just waiting in the lobby trying to get in and not trying to speak maybe okay then I am not seeing any hands going up I'm not seeing any comments in the chat about talking for the public hearing and as I am intentionally delaying for a last call still nothing so we'll go ahead and close the public hearing portion of the rates got a hand Andy second hand Andy Champagne's hand so Andy go ahead the floor is yours for the public hearing on the utility rates oh utility rates okay never mind go ahead and I will close the public hearing unless there's any other hands because I didn't see that one George do you mind I have a question when you get to the trustees I'm sorry I thought we were there sorry what we'll do is as we have this as a business item at 5D we'll go into the interviews and then we'll come back to this topic then that's good that's right so then we'll go ahead and close the public hearing on the proposed utility rates for FY 22 and Sarah thank you as always for doing that is expertise is truly invaluable thanks every year I feel a little bit more comfortable with it I'm gonna hop off and read to my son and I'll check back in after the interviews thank you Sarah alright so the first interview business item 5B the interview and consider reappointment of Phil battalion to the village planning commission Phillip are you here with us I think I saw your name earlier yes I'm here good to see you again you too so I'd be curious as to starting off points would love to know how things have gone over the previous years what has gone well what do you feel could have been done differently yeah so I started I think I came aboard in the fall of 2019 so my first year on the planning commission was kind of a weird one so I think it had been I think we had met a couple times January and February of 2020 and then the pandemic hit and it had been a long time since we met no applications coming in but since since this December January we've been working on the LDC and meeting at least monthly work sessions and it's just been a great experience I've learned a lot I didn't have any local government experience I didn't have any planning commission experience so I've just learned a lot it's been a great time for me to learn and feel good about having input in the community and helped approve a few projects that I'm happy about and I look forward to all the additional changes that are coming so I don't know if I could say what would have been done differently because still kind of in the midst of our first real big workload because of the pandemic so but I'm happy that we're meeting a lot more often I think that was the one thing that seemed to that a lot of the commissioners wanted to do and so that seems to be happening now so that's great nice my other question with this being a three-year appointment what is it you hope you would be able to accomplish within the next three years if Phil had a magic wand and could go ahead and just make things happen what would happen in those three years well I hope we could make the Crescent connector happen that that would be great a magic wand sounds like a great tool for that project but also I think I'm big on housing and the housing issues that are happening in Chinden County right here in Essex Junction and so just continuing to encourage projects for housing and just making sure that people in our community have affordable places to live and affordable places to live as well great so I assume it would be a fair for me to say that you have been completely fine with the development that hasn't been happening over the previous few years and the projects that have already been approved over the last few of your 10-year absolutely yep Raj, I see your hands up why don't you go ahead and take it over thanks, I guess I'm curious how the process is going for the rewrite of the LDC land development code and if if residents are showing up or if it's just largely the not just, if it's largely the planning commission are you getting any community input and if not any big ideas on how to engage as extension in the process yeah we definitely have been getting I don't think we've been getting as much community input, public input as I think we should we've got lots of department input which is important but definitely I think having community input would be important you know something we could do is have meetings other times maybe a single meeting once a month at 630 is not the best way to get a large number of people involved so perhaps trying to schedule other times that are just for public input potentially just to ask questions and provide provide input whatever we can do to make the meetings more inclusive to everyone so I know at one point there might have been talk of making the meetings earlier and I'm for one saying make them a little bit later so that more people can join them people don't have to leave work early just to make their voice heard so yeah I don't know what we could do but I definitely am open to figuring out a way to do that the meeting so far for rewriting the LDC I've been going great we've been concentrating so far on expanding the design review overlay in the zone in the zoning for the downtown district so just expanding that to the trunk roads of the village so that there's more of a review of designs for those roads coming into the village so that we can maintain that that community aspect that we want that sounds great I mean I guess I wonder if there's a way to get the reporter in to maybe interview one or two members to see what the big themes are for this rewrite just the main bullet points on what the big questions are in this process just to kind of get people hopefully to engage I mean it's a long drawn out I don't want to say complex but dry process it's not the most interesting thing going through a legal document line by line but yeah but they sure wish they were there when a project comes up so it's really hard on you all and I appreciate the work thanks yeah it's very easy to be vocal after the fact so figuring out a way to get people on the input before any changes are made definitely is important yeah thanks go ahead George thanks Andrew Phil first of all the cresting connector is going to happen five plus these are going to go out and build it ourselves if we have to but it is definitely going to happen we think most of the roadblocks are out of the way so it's going to go forward I've got two things I think that you guys have been hitting it out of the park with your applications lately I think you're doing a fantastic job and I also I was going to ask you about extending the design review particularly down Pearl Street and I think we know why and I just want to say I think it's a very good idea and I think you have a lot of support for that I think it's important I think as we're under a high pressure growth you can feel that's happening and it's only going to increase and I do believe if you want to talk a little bit about it I'd love to hear your thoughts but I certainly believe that we need to have a little bit more control over what's going on particularly in the roadblocks we don't want it to look like Susie Wilson we want it to look more like the Village Center thanks absolutely George yeah that was I believe we're on track to extend that review all the way down Pearl Street all the way to Susie Wilson Road to maintain that the trunk roads are how people enter the village and what they see is what they're going to feel so yeah it's important you know I think we could go out all the trunk roads to the border but yeah I'm on board with that Dan Amber any questions well Phil I certainly appreciate you applying again or re-upping and I also just wanted to state my appreciation for you attending the meetings as that's the it's a great thing when we have our planning commission members attend the meetings especially with the perspectives that you have so I appreciate that very much thank you do you have any questions for us I don't I don't thank you very much I apologize for not being here at the last meeting something came up but happy to be here tonight it happens especially in the middle of the end of a pandemic Phil thank you so much great thank you thank you for being here we do have I know we have Micah as well but before we move off from Phil as these are two different agenda items do we want to go ahead and make a motion now for Phil I'm trying to pull up them memo I found it we did just make a motion now go ahead do we what's the term three years three years it looks like three years to expire June 30, 2024 okay I make the motion the trustees reappoint Philip Italian for a three-year term to the planning commission to expire June 30, 2024 I'll second I think Amber Beach on that one George I have the motion Amber had the second is there any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor please signify by saying aye aye anyone opposed okay so that passed 5-0 thank you all Phil thank you again look forward to your continued service for the community and the great work you've been doing and next up we have Michael Hagen with the bike walk committee Michael thank you for being with us tonight hey thanks for having me Philip just met not that long ago yeah how's everything going I start off with the same what's what do you feel has gone well and what do you think or what would you like to see continue to happen in the next three years with your magic wand in terms of what's gone well I know I think the advancement on you know the funding that we've gotten for putting in you know more of the beacons that the public's been actively requesting for crosswalks is probably a big success lately you know I think we're coming off kind of a year where we struggled a bit with a lot of turnover in the committee and even at the you know bill of staffing level that kind of disrupted but I think we're starting to get back under us in terms of figuring out how to work everything for things I'd like to see moving forward I mean it's the same thing I say every time I come to these events you know the top thing is always going to be infrastructure related you know protected bike paths protected lanes anything like that that we can do is going to increase usage and make it much easier to increase ridership in the village I know those are also the hardest things to put in that's always going to be my first answer one of the things I'm pushing for that's a little more short term is again with those crosswalk beacons moving away from kind of the reactive state we're in now of just when somebody yells about a crossing we start looking at if we should put something in I'd like to build kind of a more empirical system that looks at you know road usage crosswalk usage things like that and kind of gives us a mapping of okay we'd have candidate crossings within the village based on those statistics that would be likely places to target in the future and more drive off of that list than just reacting to outcry and that sort of thing. Are there things that we can do to help you in any of what you have with the beacons or with any of that? In terms of the infrastructure I'm still trying to figure out all the options we've had I start I know there was one meeting with the planning commission which we just talked about that kind of opened my eyes to you know I hadn't thought of the fact that we can use some of that to try and potentially build a long term system that targets you know development in certain areas including a requirement to put in sections of path or something like that so I only have kind of the vague idea of maybe we can use that that hasn't really been hammered out into a well you know where could we build a path so I think those bigger ideas trying to wrap my head around how we even conceptualize where we could put something like that and how that could be implemented I know that's another long term thing so I think interconnecting with the other committees and resources within the village that might be able to help develop a concept like that I agree go ahead Raj. Yeah you know when you say that and we just interviewed Phil I mean I don't know if you all have met as they're working on the LDC rewrite but it seems to me you know having a half an hour 45 minute period of time in one of these meetings where you know is set aside for you know considerations like you brought up you know not so much we're going to talk about this one subsection of paragraph whatever but you know how can how can this rewrite make those impacts in general and then move from there you know so it's more theme based as opposed to section based and what they're doing and I say that not having I've only been to a couple parts of a couple of those meetings so not quite sure how they're doing it but I'm just wondering if there's a way to schedule you know even thinking about the committee you know where they they reach out and make a portion of that some of their meetings more theme based related to topics that some of our committees cover like bike walk pedestrian biking you know it's just a thought that way you know might foster some better discussion and future action and more of a relationship between the committees as opposed to you know what it felt like when I was there and what it must feel like which is fits and starts and very disjointed you know but I don't know if there's anything we can do to help with that but I think I agree with you I think the being proactive on the crosswalk issue is great and really just kind of taking that approach to the whole pedestrian cycling picture in the village sounds like the Athens corridor is going to is going out to bid if I heard right the one from the bike path that's going to go up from roughly Athens to 289 that's moving forward and you know moving forward to the snail space but it went to the next step it sounded like so that's exciting I think it's going to be one day west street to Susie Wilson will happen we can hope trustees any other questions no I'm good Michael with what Raj was just suggesting if there's anything we can do to help either with connecting with the planning commission and or anything else in general please do let us know I certainly will I think I just need to get more of their meetings I've only made a few questions you know whether it's just a request from the from you to Sharon Estico and or copying Robin you know what would make sense for our committee to meet with the planning commission that may be a a good step good point do you have any questions for us no I don't believe so thank you appreciate you being here and appreciate all that you've done for our committee and getting us to where we are in the community and being here with us now you're welcome thank you and so trustees along that line would someone like to make a motion to reappoint Micah yeah I will I would like to make a motion that trustees reappoint Micah Hagan to the bike walk advisory committee for three-year term to expire June 30th 2024 second thank you George for the motion Raj thank you for the second is there any further discussion hearing none just a quick big thanks Micah good capture George all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye anyone oppose okay passed unanimously five zero Micah thank you again thank you all appreciate and I believe that brings us to the consideration of approval of fiscal year 2022 proposed utility rates and story time is done it continues but he's reading to himself now let's see if we can make this brief you've already done the public hearing twice George you had a question yeah I did Sarah thanks welcome back and I do I guess what I did want to know what the story is if you don't I don't know what the story is I'm not sure if it's a question but I wanted to ask you a question the larger user rate for global foundries off the top of your head please this is not required any research from off the top of your head the increase this year how does it stack up to previous years for the for global foundries yeah the large user rate George this is like when I worked in a company firm and the boss and they would say what's the bottom line say I didn't look at the bottom line I filled out the forms correctly the bottom line is going to be whatever it is which is why in CPA world I don't have an answer for you off the top of my head I was looking real quick to see if this form had that year over year but it doesn't appear to and this is just a wholesale rate change but our the wholesale rate change over prior year residential rates over prior year are lower than they have been the last view right doesn't mean anything it's fine that's fine I'm only making a comment because I think as some of us know they're very very sensitive to their rate increases they're trying to keep all of their utility costs down and I just was just kind of anticipating are we going to be hearing from them but that's not your problem that's our problem yeah but we you know we communicate with them regularly on things and I have it handy I can pull up quick now last year Evan I see your hand is up well George you know you probably know this but we don't set the wholesale rate that's like the Chinden water district so I believe ours is a strict pass through we charge them an additional rate on time right yeah and then we yes they are sensitive to it they are as I understand it they are the state's largest water user oh yes last year they are also the state's largest electrical user yes I just pulled up the memo from last year and last year it increased by a penny which was 13% and this year we're taking out less than a penny for just a year over a year okay that seems they probably I'll do that okay thank you any other questions if not it looks like the motion is on our screen if someone wanted to make that nice easy one I'll do it oh wait I lost it where to go I'll do it go ahead Dan Acrobat just quit go ahead Dan I'll move that the trustees take 22 I'll second thank you Dan for the motion thank you George for the second is there any further discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye anybody opposed great pass 5-0 thank you all Sarah thank you again have a great night thanks everybody bye bye okay that will now bring us into the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda second I heard Dan so I'll give it to Dan all those in favor of the consent agenda please say aye aye anybody opposed pass 5-0 now into the reading file board member comments well one comment the the CCRPC metropolitan planning the congressional connector is scheduled to be starting so it will in the next year supposed to start George go ahead yeah thanks Andrew this is a sort of a blue sky the concept here I noticed that I live near ADL they have a large sort of permanent not tense but canopy set up that I think they're about to take down I know the brown ale library used to put up one of these things for their annual book sale before they we put in the pavilion and I'm guessing and sensing that there are probably a bunch of these things around particularly left over from the pandemic and I was just kind of thinking if we could get our hands on one or two of these and put them on the firebird property that the village owns for this summer I go by there all the time I see people eating at the benches we put there under the hot sun and I'm just thinking just throwing it up the other trustees to ponder if we could if someone's giving one of these away or we could acquire one cheaply if we could set up one or two of them because besides the coffee place now we've got the wood fathered piece of place and we've also got firebird and I see people wandering around looking for places to sit and it would be nice for the coming hot months to I think provide a couple of places with a little bit of shade just a thought Thank you George Evan go ahead Thank you today I attended a ribbon cutting for the new Vermont federal credit union that is up just next to the McDonald's off of Route 15 one of the things that we discussed today with their CEO and their staff is how excited they are to be back in S6 junction as a credit union and how excited they are to see what's going on in downtown in five corners and in the S6 experience and that they are looking to get involved in special events such as concerts and other things so we said that we would certainly be in touch with them about out and about and then other events throughout the year and they said give them a call so they took over I think it was the People's Bank up there so for all of those people who have accounts at Vermont federal you don't have to drive to South Burlington anymore Evan would they like to give us a tent with that do you think they would bring for that one of those I could bring it up as long as they're probably not liable for it when the People's Bank like announced it yeah thank you Evan but I will look and I'll talk to Robin and Ricky tomorrow or this week about what we could do there's one laying around me yeah thanks thank you trustee or Evan anything else seeing nothing from anybody else if someone wanted to make a motion to adjourn I see nothing else on our agenda I move adjourned second thank you Raj thank you Dan all those in favor of adjourning please say aye aye anybody opposed thank you all have a good night see y'all