 Welcome everyone to the meeting of the Waterbury Select Board on Monday, October the 3rd, 2020 at the Steel Community Room. First of all, I have a couple of announcements that I would like to make. One that I'm very proud to announce that our existing town manager, Bill Shepluk was awarded the Vermont League of Cities and Towns Lifetime Achievement Board, and he will be presented that this coming Thursday at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns town meeting. So if everyone could give Bill a big round of applause. And secondly, I just want to make an announcement. We have our upcoming new town manager that will start on the 1st of January, but he will be starting as a deputy under Bill on October 31st, Tom Lites. No further ado. First thing on the agenda, can I have a motion to approve the agenda? I will move to approve the agenda. For a second. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the agenda? I believe we're taking outside consumption permit off Consent. Karen, is that correct? That's correct. Because it's not needed. OK, can that off consumption off the regular business? Off of consent. Agenda. There was an exact consumption. That'll be up for discussion. Right, up for discussion on the subject. No, yeah. We're eliminating it. It was, do you want to? It was a consent agenda item for the Leahy celebration at Rusty Parker. And they don't need an outside consumption permit. So it's not necessary. They have outside consumption. They just don't need your permit for it. No, no, I thought it might have been for another business. Thank you for that note, so we'll take that off. All in favor of the revised agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes. Now we'll move on to the consent agenda items, which is solely the minutes of the September 19th meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda item? So moved. And seconded. Motion second. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Now is the time in the agenda where we have time for the public to make brief comments. Does anyone from the public, either on Zoom or in the audience, have something that they wish to say? I've got one here. Opposites, want to come forward and state your name. My name is Linda Grovel. I have been appointed by the select board to be the delegate for Waterbury on the governing board of CD5. I would like to give an update about the ARPA funds. The deadline to ask for commitment on ARPA funds was September 15th. We had 13 towns out of 20 that contributed committed funds for a total of $833,000 with matching funds of $833,000. So you can see this is a significant funds for bringing broadband to our towns. I brought you a tracker so that you can see how we are keeping track of all the money from the different towns. And I hope that I want to thank the select board for committing the funds. Thank you, Linda. Thank you for all that you do for the town. Thank you. And it's very nice to meet our new town manager. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Linda. Anyone else have a comment? Please, if you could step forward and state your name. John Petrosky. I'm a resident of Nine Meadowcrest. And I know you're business. I won't take up a lot of time. But I'll try to speak up a little bit. Sure, we'll do. So I've been thinking a lot about our police force. And I'm on the fire department. So I get the opportunity to chat with the state troopers that are housed out of the fire station. And I think an expectation that at least the people that serve over the firehouse had was that in a couple of years, Waterbury would start developing its own police force, maybe with hiring a police chief and some troopers and start to build back something for the community. And my thought was this, with watching all the terrible things that have been happening in our country with school systems and there is drugs rampant, even in Waterbury, unfortunately. And my son's a Burlington firefighter. So we're seeing some really bad stuff happening in Burlington right now, almost at a point of where, when he goes out on calls, a lot of the medical calls he goes on, he's putting on a bulletproof vest and a metal helmet. So it's getting bad. It's not bad in Waterbury. Waterbury is an awesome place to live. But my thought was, instead of waiting for something bad to happen, maybe it's time to be proactive instead of reactive. And the other thought I had was our school systems, some terrible things have happened to school systems. And if we had a few more of the right police officers, you're not going to get more state, my first choice would be get more state troopers. And I'd be happy to pay more taxes for that. But the harsh reality is they don't have, they don't have the staff. But checking on the school systems more frequently, if we had the manpower would be extremely wise. That's a precious commodity that we have our kids. And with all the terrible things we've seen happen in our country, we're not immune to it. And so we can wait for something bad to happen, or we can start being more proactive. And the hiring process, figuring out what you need and when to get it takes a very long time. And I would hate to see us start that process when something bad happens. I kind of wanted to just pitch it to you guys that maybe now's the time to think about it. I know some of you have already been thinking a lot about it. And it's not just police officers, there may be other components to that, to solve the kind of problems that we have in our society. But that's what I wanted to, I've been meaning to come in a couple of few times and I just haven't made it. And I just wanted to encourage the select board to think about more police. Thank you, John. Anyone have any comments? I know we are meeting with the state police, Lieutenant. Chris was telling me that, yeah. And it's not something that we understand, but the high cost of policing is also something that we have to be concerned about. You know, times are changing. Times are changing. And if what's happening in some of the larger communities near us, Burlington and South Burlington, start to get further and further out in the suburbs, we'll wish we had done something sooner. We really will. Yeah, John and I spoke briefly there about the whole thing. And I'd suggest to him that I wasn't necessarily a proponent for more police officers because that's not where the problem lies. The problem lies in the justice system, the problem lies in the policies that are being put forward that are allowing these criminals to re-offend time and time again. And there's no accountability in almost any form to deter any of this. And as I said, they're at the last meeting, if we don't get a handle on this, it'll consume our town like it has so many others. Burlington is reaping the benefits of bad choices right now with policy making. And as this gets to be a deeper and deeper problem in Burlington, they're gonna regret. Ever walk in the path they did and not taking a firmer stance upon dealing with it before it got so infected that there's no solution now. This is a huge conversation. I would like to think that people sooner than later will get the stomach to do what it takes to deter this problem. And yeah, and I appreciated my conversation with Chris and I agree that it's just like raising a family. If there's no consequences for the actions of your children, they're gonna keep doing the bad things. Well, same with the criminals. If there's no consequences, bad things keep happening. But you guys can only do what you can do. You can only change what you can change. And I respectfully disagree with the part that more police wouldn't help. I think it would help some, but it's not the problem's much bigger than that. And I do concede to that. Just from both of your notes on a recent newscast and one of these incidents, I think, I believe it was in Burlington. The person had 170 and not 17, 170 contacts with the police for something. This seems to be something wrong. You bit your little fender. What? You bit your little fender. Oh yeah, it's something like, you get the 10 and it's like, he gets ticket and release again and again and again. Just keep on sending him back out into the community. And that's a bigger problem, but just a presence, especially in our school systems, the two police officers that we have now, I would say are doing probably a better job than the force we had here before. So we are better than we were. I believe that with all my heart and every firefighter on my department probably say the same thing. But if we found the right people to be detectives for some of the drug problems that's going on in town or a bigger presence in the school systems just as a deterrent, it wouldn't hurt. Cost money though. We'll show you. Just my suggestion would be if we as a board wanna discuss this within the context of what we have the ability to control from a policy or spending standpoint as a local municipality, I would suggest we schedule an agenda time. So thank you for raising it. I think I would wanna go into that conversation. I know we've had discussions around costs and staffing and policing and availability and other mitigation efforts. So I would just wanna make sure we're having a comprehensive discussion about that, which I don't feel prepared to do certainly, but right now, but I appreciate you raising it. I just wanted to plant the seed that it's something we should start thinking about. And if the schools are concerned, we wanna invite them into that conversation. So thanks. I think we will agree with you, Jeff. Thank you. I was just, we have asked Bill to get in touch with Lieutenant White and see when he might be available. Yes, so to answer that, and I have just a quick comment. So I have reached out to Lieutenant White and based on what I thought folks schedules were, I've asked him if he could come here on December 5th. I know that, and he hasn't responded yet. Just send an email. And I chose December 5th, I'm sorry if I said September, December 5th with a second meeting potential on the 19th. Rogers talked to me, other board members have talked to me and trying to get the tenant to come earlier. I was surprised to see Tom here tonight. He's not working for us yet, but here he is. My statement back to some of the board members has been, well, I think it would be helpful if Tom were here when we have that meeting. So he starts on October 31st and maybe we can do it in November, December. And then a member of him was reminded that Chris oftentimes is away in November. So I have reached out and asked for December. So that's my whole December 5th. We'll see, I expect I'll hear from him anytime I can. I did ask him, he is the point person and he's the one who makes the decisions about how the troops are deployed. So I told him the troops would be welcome to come along with him if that's something that he would likely have happened. But we can't be near that. To your point, John, just to close the loop because you said something about the fact that the expectation is or was that we would hire a police chief and then move towards hiring a police force. The committee that was set up to look at policing needs after the village disbanded and went away, the village dissolved. The committee made a recommendation that there'd be a contract with the state police and the first year would just be the state police and then the second year they'd be the two troopers and the town would hire a chief and then the third year they would try to hire some officers. And then over time the state would phase out. Well, that was the committee's recommendation. That was not what the select board who was sitting at the time decided to do with that report. And that board simply said, we wanted to agree with the state. Chris is the only board member who was on that board that is still on the board now. So we had a three year contract that expired in June of 2021. And we have re-upped that contract. The same two troopers for the same 80 hours a week at a little higher price for three more years. So we've just finished the first year of the second contract. So we have two years to go on the existing contract, which doesn't mean that the board can't necessarily decide that they want to create a police department, but there's two years left on the existing contract. I may have misunderstood. I was shooting the breeze with one of the state troopers. So I may have misunderstood. Maybe he was talking about that. And, you know, Alissa raised costs and then just throw it out now at the high watermark of the village police department when they had four and a half full-time officers. They were spending $487,000. And that was about, I want to say, 2,000, eight, nine, somewhere in that vicinity. I would expect that for those four and a half officers would be a million dollars today. And that might not even include too many benefits. And the other thing is that the police department at the time was dispatched 24-7 by Vermont State Police. And you as a firefighter know that the state is going to offload all dispatching, not only fire, but the few police departments that they currently dispatch. And we're going to see a proposal here sometime in the before-mudget time from somebody from Capitol Fire Mutual Aid about future dispatching costs, which for the fire department won't be going up. So the cost is a real, it's a big elephant in the room, so to speak. And I'm not here to say we shouldn't consider it, but just right off the bat, you have to realize that the state contract that we have is in the $400,000 range. And if we went to a full-time police department that would be able to handle 24-7, which we don't even get now in the state, would be a pretty big ticket. So. And then you got all the issues of improvement and training and everything else that, that, you know, the big cities like Burlington, I don't know how many offices, the same office now. About 15. 15, and what's the police budget there? That's just the city, right? Just the city, a little bit of neighboring town, but I was in Overns Town, just Highgate, about $4 million for the police budget. Yeah, $4 million for 15. So divide that by three is, you know, 1.25, yeah. Well, maybe it's a bigger conversation with some of the surrounding communities that they participate in, like Dr. Berry and, you know, the communities that go to the school system maybe might be the same communities that would participate in there. You know, because that is, in my mind, that's a primary focus is better protection for the kids, better presence. No, here it's from a whole lot on your idea, just letting you know where we kind of are and what hill there is to climb, if you like. There's always hills to climb. So I was telling John earlier that my son and I, coming back from Holland, we believe we disrupted a crime. There was guys, one guy got out of the car, went Subaru and was walking down by some houses, misses out in the back roads, and he was, this was mid-morning, we were down to T-shirts, my son and I. This guy had a big trench coat on and a full face mask. And when I drove by him, the car went one way, the guy got out and started walking down the road and I'm thinking to myself, something ain't right about this. So I got down the roadways and I started to turn around, my son said, what are you doing? I said, I'm going back to see what the hell's going on. I said, because these guys are up to no good. And he didn't want to get involved. I said, I'll tell you what, he said, it's not our problem up here. I said, it most certainly is your problem. Is it in Holland? Yeah. I said, because sooner or later, it's going to be on your doorstep. And I said, do you ever hear the phrase, see something, say something? So we went back and we caught these guys and they made a bolt. The guy got back in the car and they took off. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a plate number. But I did stop down just down the road by the Holland Elementary School, talked to a resident there and he told me they had been, he'd been broken in several times, had a lot of stuff stolen. There was a gun shooting just around the corner a couple of weeks ago. So it's rampant every day. And to Alyssa's point, what bothers me is, then I get it, you talk about doing whatever we can do within our means. And that's where the part of the problem lies because nobody's taken this bull by the horn. It's always, well, we're limited to what we can do. It's somebody else's ball game. And they'll come back with the same thing where nobody's putting pressure on the right people to start making the necessary changes that we need to protect our people in this community. And it frightens the hell out of me. I mean, I'll be quite honest with you. I'm totally protected. You don't make no mistake. You'll defend yourself. I will defend myself and my family to the fullest extent, but I worry about a lot of people that. So with due respect to all of us, I'm just gonna offer, I think this has been raised. I think we wanna have discussion. I know we actually maybe in fact ask some interview questions about policing in Waterbury. And so we might be able to have an informed discussion, which I am certainly happy to have that discussion. We've had some data points here. We've had sheriffs and contract enforcement for speeding come up other nights, but I would propose we put it on a standard agenda for another meeting. Yeah, this is fun. We appreciate you bringing it up and we can go for a new discussion job. Thank you. Have a good night. Good night. Yeah, hey, Mike. This is Glenn Anderson here. You guys don't wanna stay in line. Are you guys there? Hi, Glenn. Hey, I just wanted to weigh in too. As far as the policing issue, with the state troopers, I'm up here by the trailhead and the waterworks in the back here with the EFUD land. And since the state trooper contract has started up, we used to see some pretty Wallace stuff back here, shootings at three in the morning that I had to go and chase people out of there. So I just gotta say, since the state trooper contract started, that has gone down immensely. They've done a fantastic job on their patrols up here. It's not to say more can't be done throughout the entire community. I understand budgets, but I just want to weigh in on their behalf just to say that it's really kind of changed dynamics as far as what we see up here and the types of activities. So I appreciate it of them and just wanted to share that. And I'll meet myself now. Thanks. Thanks for bringing that up, Glenn. Thank you. Thanks, John. Thanks, John. The one thing I just wanna add is that I know with the state police, with their contract, they are prioritizing more major crime issues that are occurring within our community. That's where we see some of the more lifestyles, the speeding issues and stuff like that, maybe not having the attention that they should, but we do have to have some critical discussions of what the community does need and what we can afford to expect. Moving on, we'll move on to select board items. The first item is discussion of possible application to the state for bylaw modernization grant, which is due the 1st of November. Yeah. So just in an attempt not to deliver to you a last minute plea for a grant application and for next meeting, Steve asked that he'd be allowed to come on the agenda tonight. And it looks like there's a couple of folks with him to talk about the opportunity for this grant and what it would mean and how it would be used so good for it. Okay, good. So Martha and Katie are here with the Planning Commission Chair and Vice Chair. And so I'll just give an introduction and let the two of you talk a little bit more about the project. As Bill mentioned, this is an introduction to a grant application that the Planning Commission and I would like to apply for. The program is called bylaw modernization. It's geared to the higher density areas of our community. It's geared to updating bylaws which are out of date and are certainly are when it comes to encouraging more density, especially housing, but also a commercial development in and around our downtown area and the neighborhoods that surround the downtown. So the program is, the grants are up to $25,000 and the local match, it's a required cash match and it's a minimum of 10%. And so the project could be a $27,500 project. It would be this case to hire a consultant and help with our outreach for the first phase of the unified development bylaw project. So we've developed draft, the Planning Commission's been working on the first phase which is basically the area between Interstate 89 and the Winooski River. So it takes in the downtown area and the surrounding neighborhoods. So with that, I think I'd like to turn it over to Katie and to Martha to talk a little bit more about the project and then the Planning Commission and I are working on the application and we would come back to you on your next meeting on October 17th with more detail, a budget, and a proposal to hopefully authorize this in the middle of a grant application. They're due by November 1st, so we have some time and so this is really an initial conversation. So the two of you like to jump in? That would be great. Sure, okay, thanks Steve. So I think we feel that this is a really good opportunity for us, one just because it's very, the grant is specifically applicable to the work that we're doing and also the timeline that we're on we're wrapping up this phase. So it's coming at a really opportune time and as we discussed what we might apply for we decided to really narrow the focus so that it's specifically related to increasing our effectiveness and engaging with community members so that this isn't just us kind of throwing out these in some cases kind of significant viola changes with just the bare minimum required public meetings but instead we're actually able to have a consultant to help us open up more of a dialogue with community members to have things like surveys, maps or kind of graphics and images to showcase what things could look like, side by sides of our current zoning violas and what their proposed updates are. So different materials, avenues to try and meet people where they are and actually engage them in the process instead of just feeling like we're putting something on them that is a big change. So that's what I would say, you wanna add anything else? Yeah, I reiterate, well first I have to thank Katie and Steve for doing the hard work on pulling this together. And I think that we as a planning commission felt that the ability to inform rather than just push it down public's throats if you will would be very advantageous. It also allows us the opportunity to engage with a consultant that is familiar with this kind of work and familiar with the amount of the types of changes that we're proposing because as Katie said, some of them are significant and I think because it is in the downtown because we're looking to increase density, those kinds of items make community members nervous. And so we wanna make sure that we articulate them in an informed and open dialogue way. And we think that having an expert help us to get that through the process because this is the phase one which is the downtown and that's the stepping stone for doing the next phase of the bylaw rewrite which is significant and the rest of the community. Any questions for us? Work members. What's the grant period? We would be looking to execute securing the consultant and engaging with them so we have to solicit for it, we have to engage with them and then we have to execute and it's basically next year. Beginning right off the bat, the awards are in January I think it is and so we would go right out based upon the award, go right out with trying to secure a consultant and then their job would be to come in and work with us to develop the outreach strategy to identify the materials that we need and then turn around and go out to the public with a survey, we have it sort of mapped out and that will be in the proposal. We'll provide the proposal to you for the next meeting. And is it the state funding or? Yeah, ACCP. Right, it is the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, so it's their program. And I don't think that you mentioned if we do pass the phase one bylaws prior to the beginning of 2025 then the town's matching funds would be refunded back. By the Agency of Housing? They have federal funding, they don't look at it. Yeah, they do, but we still have to budget it. So we don't get it with them. This would be for our 23 budget? Right, this would be for next year. So the commitment would have to be to provide the local cash match for the FY23 budget. Correct. And can we use ARCLE funding for this? I don't know, that's something we'd have to explore. Sometimes they disallow federal funding probably for match. I don't think we can, yeah. I thought we would. It's like, you're talking about $25,000. $25,000. $25,000 brand, $25,000. Correct, that's $25,000. $25,000. Yeah, $25,000, that's right. There may be bigger fish you wanna catch with ARCLE, just one. No, that's the question. And I wanna be careful because I know all three of you and Alyssa and former life have worked really hard on these bylaws. But just so you're suggesting that we need a consultant and we need to spend $27,000 to do public outreach for the unified bylaw in the village. And we've been working on this, I don't know how many years we've been working on it. Oh, painful. Yeah. So is there any way this can use $25,000 to help get the whole bylaw passed in a couple of years as opposed to one section? How long is it gonna take to do the rest of the unified bylaw? Well, that's a good question for the Planning Commission. I think. You asked my question. It is a go-take-in. Well, that's when we're going to explain why. I got into the Planning Commission as this was just going and wanted to turn around and run out the door. I mean, I'm right there with you, Bill. And I would say there have been plenty of obstacles that have come up along the way that steer us this way and then go do this. And so it's really hard. One of the other elements of this we've had discussions of and I would like to see happen in the grant is to have this consultant say, you know, are we on track? Are we, you know, use their expertise to get us through some of the items within the bylaws? I don't think we can get through all of the bylaw, the whole document, because it has literally in it, you can't even take the old bylaws and this new document and put them side-by-side and go, oh, that's only a little change. Oh, that's a big change. It's a complete, it's like, I don't know how to describe it. It's like, comprehensive. Yeah. Well, no, it's two completely different documents, completely different, completely different format, completely different definitions in some cases. So it's, it's you know, it's very frustrating. Strap the whole thing. I would love to. Bring it on. Oh my God. I would love to. I had a couple of questions. One was when you first started this conversation, how is this money supposed to help you? But then you told me by hiring a consultant, is this consultant an expert in bylaw criteria or is he an expert in planning in general? Yeah. And how to articulate the process to the community? So, and how that, so I want to, we're talking about more downtown density. Maybe you, Melissa, could you've been in on the EFA discussions with 51 South Maine? What kind of reception? Well, I was at that meeting. So that's where the reasons I think it's important. Are they getting from that proposal? Is it a lot of pushback or? Yeah, so it's pretty loose. Yeah. It's pretty what? It's pretty loose. And I would say to use Chris's question, because I wasn't going to start with it, but Chris raised the point. I mean, in my mind, I would just say baseline. I'm very supportive of this. I appreciate the planning commission working on the bylaw rewrite, which is a really fun way to spend two Mondays a month for anyone else who would like to join and also bringing this proposal forward. And to me, honestly, the current conversation around 51 South Main Street, to me is the reason why I support this grant application. I think what we're seeing is some of the public discourse is folks feeling like they weren't informed. They didn't know this was happening. They didn't know how they could participate. So we have a process that is legally meeting all of eFed statutory requirements. There is no bathroom dealing. There's no closed door meetings. I was one of the two people at their public meeting and said, what are you doing about this? But not everyone does that. So to me, this is saying that, posting the agenda, yes, you're doing what you need to do legally to warn a bylaw meeting. But that doesn't mean that someone off the street who hasn't spent two Mondays a month with these folks can pick that up and know what it means. It doesn't mean they might agree with it. And I think Martha weighs one point, which is, I mean, one, I want to know, Steve's an incredible municipal staffer. He has a ton to do, like making sure with Neil development review is happening and that applications coming in the door is happening. We have an old set of bylaws that define one, we had a village at the time and the village had zoning and then the town had zoning. So part of why it's complicated is we have to go from a village plus a town to one set for everyone. And like Martha said, it's apples and oranges. So someone came into a public meeting and said, so what's the difference between what's there now and what's being proposed? And I was the chair of the planning commission and said, I can't tell you because I haven't taken a youth table and gone, well, we used to define cabinet manufacturing, we're actually not gonna define cabinet manufacturing anymore. We also didn't use to define brewery, but we think we should define it now. And so paying someone for a decent amount of hours to sit there and do that, because we know Steve doesn't have the time to do it. I think that's really valuable and I think that helps our average community member. They might say, well, I hate that, you no longer have cabinet management, so I'm not voting for the bylaw, but helping them get that information cleanly and clearly from an expert, that's why I think this is a great proposal. Well, and I would just add to that, I lived through the historic, what was it all about? It was good for you. Well, it was the district review that was proposed. For the historic districts for design? Yeah, and we had a public meeting that people, I've never seen this room that full. I mean, I know you folks probably have, but I've never seen this room that full. And we had no idea where they came from and just were completely blindsided as the planning commission. I think that was like the first year I was on that committee, so. Bringing their pitchforks and torches? Oh, my gosh. A couple of them were. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think that for the planning commission to go through this bylaw rewrite and not think that we know how to do it, and he's leaving, I'm gonna resign if we don't get some help. Is 100% of these grant funds used just for the consultant, or is there any purpose? That's how this would be. Yeah, it would be entirely for consultant budget. Yeah. And I think it answered here. I know if it was like a pizza party for informational things. Oh, gosh, no, they're expertise. I mean, I really in particular have driven on. To your point, it does sound like we're, you know, making pretty posters and stuff like that, but I. I just want it done. And I do, I think all three of us. Oh, my gosh. We can lie on the cable, get her done. I just really think we need the expertise that Steve doesn't have the bandwidth. And he's going to be gone. And, you know, Neil is new to the community. And I know he's got really good expertise and I'm excited to have him be in that role, but it's not going to be two public meetings and a vote and come to you guys and say, please pass us. It's just, I don't see it happening. Well, the bigger, the bigger issue too for me is, you know, the current planning commission continue to have to wrestle with this thing and continue to really get nowhere. Before you know it, you'll see burnout and we'll lose you and that's, doesn't help us either. Cause then you have a whole new staff coming in. Right. Start all over. Well, I will say to that comment, we have two very new or not new, very good, new, informed, educated. I'm very excited about our new members on the planning commission. Katie's one of them and Dana Allen is another and they have our huge help, huge. So I think we're tied. They've been dragged through it as long as you have. Yeah, right. No, that's not right. You'll be in good hands. So you'll be coming with a final thing at next meeting, right? Yeah. And I think we'll come prepared to answer your question, Bill. I think it is a good question, but I think some of the controversy that you're seeing around 51 South Main Street, we're going to run the same issues with this vital proposal. And I think it helps to have visuals and as you know from that discussion, that can help illustrate what you're trying to achieve and what you're maybe not trying to achieve and then try to get some buy and get common and come up with a solution that the residents can buy. And I was really, you know, trying to to help you. I'll say, you know, President Kennedy said, let's go to the moon in 10 years. And we did. The hell with this. We did. We did. That was relatively simple. We got it. We got it. We got it. We got it. There's a lot of get it done. Regardless of what people think. Yeah. That was really hard work. We thank you for all your efforts and hard work, but I do see a little bit of bills. You know, we all want to see something done. And if consultant is going to help, that's probably a good thing. But the problem is getting people to some of these meetings, because they could be meeting after meeting after meeting. And then you'll have a vote and then people will all like, you know, they don't show up and then they complain. We know. And it's all part of the process. Yeah, that's right. Just say it part of the process. We're just going to soften the blow though. If it would help, I would request that we have a timeline built into the proposal. Yeah, there'll be. There is a timeline. We have it already involved. That includes a vote on the stage one zoning. Yeah, we can look at that all the way down through. Sure. Good idea. Absolutely. Thank you guys for coming down. Okay. Next on the agenda is the outside consumption permit. What? Manager's item 720. I don't want to know. You know. It looks like consumption. No, we struck it. Okay. I thought they said move it to the select board. I know it's not needed. I didn't think it was, but I said, we can move on to the manager's items the closing of visual lane on December 18th, 2020. Yes. So I think, Karen, you have the little email I don't know what it was. So this event occurred last year. It's a bridge side books. And anyway, on December 18th from 11 to two, they would like to close the upper part of the bidwell lane. So basically from Stowe Street to just after the parking lot turn out behind the parking there. And anyone who comes up from Foundry Street will have to stop and either drive through the parking lot or turn around and go back. So they're just going to have, this is a Christmas event for Rainbeer, I think. Rainbeer? Yeah. Have you brought library? Yeah. There's a lot of fun stuff. I went last year. I went last year. Yeah? Yeah. Did they come back? So last year I scrambled and got bidwell lane closed for our Rainbeer event. I didn't want to get ahead of it this year. I've confirmed the date. Is it too early to request December 18th? She sent me that. Katya sent me that on August 16th. And I told her it wasn't too late. Thank you for joining us quickly. So, you know, she drew a little map here. We did it last year in last minute, Charlie deal. So I would just recommend that you agree to allow the event to half-patch and close the bid. I move that we approve the request to close bidwell lane on December 18th from 11 to two. Thank you. We have a second. Yeah, I'll say that. You just want to see who you're off, don't you? I'm hoping that he comes back. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion? I would just say I'm friends with Katya and I went to it last year. I'm happy to refuse myself if anyone on the board wants me to, but I support it. Just, I don't think you need to refuse yourself. We're gonna learn to. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. X is group petitions for funding on the 2023 ballot. So, it's never too early for people to start making requests about special articles. And for the new select board members and for everyone to just refresh your memory, the town has had a law-standing policy that first-time comers for special articles that will be voted on by a town meeting are required to get a petition. And if a substantial change is going to happen. So, for example, a few years ago, Leap, I think they get $1,000. They thought I might ask them to go to $5,000 and select board say, well, we'll put you on warning again for your $1,000, but if you want $5,000, you gotta go get another petition. They didn't do that, so they didn't need to get. How many signatures are there? 20. 25. 5% of the checklists, so it's a couple hundred. I know I did that, but we're friends and we don't know where we're at anymore. We're about 250, 256 because. So, we had a request last week, which was a unusual or different request for me. And it's from Michelle Cursey, the director of development in Downstreet. And it's not necessarily for Downstreet. They're already on our special article list, right? But she wrote to both Karen and me and said, I'm coordinating a group of several non-profits that would like to petition voters of Watering to have an article on the warning for the 2023 ballot. Do you have a written policy or guidelines you could share with me? And is it possible for not-for-profits to file a joint petition that we each need to submit them individually? So, my immediate response not to Michelle was to Karen and Carla saying, oh no, they've got to have their own petition that I was wrong. And we got the according to the Secretary of State and Carla, and I think Karen has written stuff. I attested that they may. So, the Secretary of State's, the law allows them. Oh, they allow the town? They are allowed to file a joint petition. So, in other words, if there's five groups out there and they all want $1,000, one petition with 250 signatures, we get all of those articles on the ballot. So, the question that we have to you is, is that in keeping with the select board's policy, or do they all need to get their own petitions if they're on the, and I won't tell you how I feel until you ask a few questions. How do you feel about the board? So, we have about 50, I think close to $60,000 of special articles right now. It's just shy of a. Is that been growing? I've already know how to do it. 20 applicants or something like that, it's growing. Yeah, I didn't, I don't have the kind of point. It used to be too where we had each individual nonprofit would make their case and it was that kind of meeting, but then it got all the small ones got grouped into one kind of massive, you know, vote. You know, the ones that were $250, 100, you know, et cetera. That kind of sped up the thing. I don't know if people in the Grange like that because it made the meeting quicker. But it didn't do, and anyone who had a problem with a specific group, they could make the case to not include, right? And have there been refusals? Because when I've seen it, everything gets passed. It got the words out of my mouth. It's just like, send them all through. Well, there actually have been a couple of refusals over the 30, 50 years. I know. And you're almost, I can't remember them, but there were a couple that were turned down. They were almost, for a number of years, one resident who I'll tell you who it is after the camera's off, and it's not a public meeting anymore. But there was one resident who just hated to see an organization not get their money. So, you know, the moderator would read $1,000 for X, Y, and Z, and nobody would get up to make a motion. And it looked like it was gonna fail, and then this one could again get up and make the motion, and then it would pass. But yeah, there have been a couple of them that have been turned down. I will say that using, and I don't mean to pick on LEAP, but using LEAP, and there's probably a couple of others that have wanted to up the ante, and have not been willing to go out and get $25,000. Certainly more than 250 signatures in order to get three or four or $5,000 more money. So, all right. To me, I think they should all get their own petitions, but that's just me. I agree with what Bill just said. I think we're seeing in the special articles, there's been a general creep on, you know, increasing number of groups. I know it's due to fundraising. There are a lot of groups that are very worthy, but I think people have forgotten the old bake sales and stuff, especially if they're looking for $250 or something like that. You know, some are looking for more, and I understand, but I, especially if you have five groups together, they should, to me, my personal opinion, they should, each of their petitioning us, they should each get their separate petition. Because I think, also, I think it's very hard, like when we had these groupings of the small groups, everyone's hesitant to say, no, I don't really like this particular group. I want them excluded, because, you know, then you get kind of an uproar and stuff like that. We thought, we thought that there were people that wanted to vote no on special articles and were hesitant to do it publicly. But the last couple of years, we've had Australian balloting, and I don't think any of them got, you know, just a handful of, if there were more than a handful of no votes, I mean, one of them, I would be surprised. They don't know. They wouldn't be surprised. It was a bug of a mind for a long period of time to special articles, because I always said, people never want to be the one to say, no, this is not a worthy charity, and everyone just voted the affirmative. And I'm personally a very charitable person, but I always think I'm concerned about that creep. How many people and charities can the municipality afford? And it's sometimes just a tough thing to say no. Well, I was just going to say, I wonder when the economics, at what point do the economics need to get bad enough for people to start to question how they're spending their money, you know? Yeah, and to have all lumped into one, I mean, these organizations need to stand on their own two feet, as far as I'm concerned, if they're going to operate as a non-profit, they need to make the case that, for why they need the money, you know, instead of piling on somebody else's back. Yeah, well, it doesn't. I'm fine with requiring each group there. I guess I'm unclear, like, is it for a joint proposal? Because I guess if everyone's concerned is the length of town meeting day, in one sense, moving a package of related non-profits, we can make each of them get the signatures. But if the goal is to say, hi, Bob, Sally, and Sue are, I don't know what, I don't know if we're allowed to list them together after the fact. I guess there's a, I don't feel strongly, we want just two, all right. No, I just think it's two different issues. One is, do they need to get their own 250 signatures to be considered? And then the other is, how do we group the vote coming through? Which is a different issue. Right, and the practice, Alyssa, has been that, as Mike said, these small organizations, groups that are asking for less than $1,000, either of us, we one vote together. But anybody that asks for the first time, we usually vote on that independently. And then maybe the next year, we include them in the vote. On our side. Roger's right, it's two issues. The question before you tonight is, do they need their separate petition to get on the ballot? And I don't necessarily know that they're related, that these are related issues, right, or Roger? I'll move that we continue the current practice of requiring each organization, each new organization to get the required number of signatures to be considered, yeah, 5%, to be considered for a special issue. Thank you. We have a second on that second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? I think we should have it written somewhere as a policy if it isn't already. Do we have it somewhere where, I mean, I assume people just can email and ask. I think it's not a bad thing. We have a banner policy. Karen is here now, but the reality is that, it's my institutional memory and Carla's institutional memory. So we should write it down, but. Right. And that's all I'm requesting. You can find it in the minutes if you look. Karen? Yes. If we pass this. And with all due respect, I think the hard enough is that we're making them get the 250 signatures. So understanding what that threshold is to get there, we don't have to make it any harder. It can be a publicly accessible document saying get 250 signatures. That's fine. 5% of the final one. That's state statute. That's not town. Right. OK. So. And I agree with you, Alyssa, but I do think it's a person. Yeah, it's not understood. So it'll be in the minutes, so I bet just. So you say it was 5% of the voting. That's 5% of the vote. 5% of the voter checks. That's an interesting thing. Which is about 250. Right. OK. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, say yay, yay, yay. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Next item. Town EPUD-MOU for the Catwoman County Act. Yeah, so this is going to be mainly an education lesson. Can I tell you where we are? And here's our teacher. Sure. So I think everyone knows, after the long recruitment process that you went through, that we have two municipalities here in Waterbury, the town of Waterbury and the Edward Farrar Utility District. And the Edward Farrar Utility District used to be the village of Waterbury. And when I came here in 1988, it was a full-service municipality and had almost as many departments as the town had and one more, the police department. And we had a street department and a highway department. We had two fire departments. One village had a police department. We had two zoning boards of adjustment. There was two of almost everything. And the one police department was in the village. So since the inception, I believe, of the manager form of government in Waterbury, there's been one municipal manager who has managed both communities. And that one municipal manager has had one administrative staff, as far as I know. Certainly in the time that I've been here, there's been one administrative staff to do the administration of both municipalities. So when I came here in 1988, the village was paying the town about $25,000 a year for the administration. And by 1992, that increased to $50,000. And I think I was partly responsible for getting the village to pay about twice as much to the town, because I looked at the books and I just felt that what was happening, really, the water and sewer department was paying for their administration. That's separate, right? Well, the water and sewer department was part of the village. Yeah, I know. Was the administration of the water and sewer department? It was $25,100 that was being paid in 1988. Half of that was coming from the water budget, half of it was coming from the sewer budget going to the town. But there was no kind of acknowledgement that managing the police department and the fire department. So by 1992, after I've been here three or four years, the price went up to $50,000. And then by 2004, the village was paying almost $135,000 to the town for administration. And we had, as always, we had complicated formulas back then. And then what happened after that was there was decided to be consolidation. So in the late 90s, the highway department merged into that. We moved enough expenses of the village highway department into the town for us to the street lights that was some heavy equipment. We moved more and more of those expenses into the town. The town started paying for the sidewalks that the village paid for. And ultimately, the village amended its charter and did away with this right now, the street department now had everything. So there was starting to be less and less administrative overlap, if you will. And the fire department, we did the same thing with the fire department. That happened in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010. Maybe it was six. Anyway, by 2009, the payment from the village to the town had dropped down to about $117,000. And in that formula, if you look at the third page of your handout, you'll see that what the formula was basically established in 2009. And this formula for the village administrative service was earlier than 2009. But you can see there was 35% of the compensation for the manager, 67% for the bookkeeper, and so on and so forth. That formula stayed in effect until around 2017. And the payment that the village was making to the town was back up to almost $180,000. You can see that in the fourth paragraph from the top on the first page, the paragraph before the LLI. Then in 2017, the village, I believe it was 2017 that the village voted to dissolve itself. And July 1, 2018, so they voted in November of 2017, I think, and then the legislature had to act. The village went away on July 1, 2018. And at that time, because the police department was going away, the only thing the village had now was the water and sewer department and the irrigator fund, the boards agreed that the administrative service fee in 2018 would be $100,000. And in 2019, it dropped a little bit. And I honestly can't tell you why it dropped, but it was agreed to during the budget building process that it dropped to $98,000. $98,000. What's that? $98,000 in 2019. So the boards then asked for a time study, if you will, to be done. And we did it. It was mainly Karen and I who kept track of our time. She probably did it better than I do. But and then just talking with Carla, Carla was the town clerk. She was the village clerk, the village treasurer, the town treasurer. Carla said, I really don't do a lot for EFUD, except balance the checking accounts and the investment portfolios. That's inside the checks. So she said, it's about an hour a week that I spent $4 a month, so it's the minimists for her. And Michelle, again, because the payroll went, well, when Michelle was here, there were only a couple of police officers. But back in the day, the bookkeeper, who is a town employee, was doing payroll for the village. And oftentimes the payroll, especially when you added the fire department, was almost the same number of checks, not necessarily the same size as the town had. So Michelle, she's the bookkeeper for the town and EFUD. And it's basically water and sewer now that she does. So she estimated about 20 hours a month is what she spent for time. So this formula, and all the formulas when we use that formula that's shown on page three there, they're all retrospective formulas. Because we don't know what people's compensation necessarily is going to be in the coming year. We don't know if we're going to have a vacancy, and have to hire somebody new and a lesser or a higher salary. So it's retrospective looking. We haven't done the time study again. I know for me I do about the same amount of work now for EFUD that I did in 2019, when we kind of kept track of this. And I think Karen's job hasn't really changed too much now the last few weeks. I'm not talking about the shoes that you chose. Substantial. She was the ability to learn. Just the utility. And you'll see in a minute, this is only going through, I've only kind of looked through August right now. So anyway, that's what the formula is. And the formula, 55% of my time and, I mean, Karen's time, which was actually going back to our 30% of my time in that little bit of time for Michelle and Carla, resulted in a $96,391 payment to the town in the 2022 budget. And it was EFUD who kind of asked for this time study because they thought they were paying more than they needed to when the village went away and we agreed on $100,000. They said, that's good, but we should look at this a little deeper. And yeah, they say a couple thousand dollars by looking. So that's where we are now. What we've done since the 2019 study, you can see all these handwritten notes here. We've simply raised that by the cost of living since then. We haven't applied the formulas to the total compensation and everything else. We've just used cost of living increases. And in, you know, 19, in 2021, the payment was $91,800, I don't know if I put that on here or not. But so when we went into 2022 with inflation that we knew was ramping up when we were doing the budget pack, we increased it by 5%. So anyway, that's where we are now. I think we're in a situation where now we have, we'll start working basically over the first. And we've had a lot of shifting of players right now. So what I propose we do at your next meeting is invite the trustees or the EFED commissioners for a joint meeting. And I suggest that for two reasons. And this is the easiest of the two reasons, coming to some conclusion about this. And truth be told, I have in my computer there's three more paragraphs here where I've made a recommendation, but I'm not sharing that with you tonight. I'll share this same memo with the EFED commissioners at their meeting on the 12th. And then on the 17th, if we have a joint meeting, I'll share what my recommendation is and why. And I feel it's important that I share this information with the commissioners before I share my recommendation just with you. So this will be the easiest one of the two things that we have to discuss with the EFED commissioners. The more difficult thing, we do this every October. So we're right in line with last year. I think it was October 18th. Well, it was actually this meeting last year that I talked to this, like what about health insurance rates for the next year. And then so the past several years, what I've been able to do because inflation has been next to nothing for several years until we get into 2022. And the last couple of years, health insurance rates have increased from the perspective of health insurance rates moderately. I've been able to make a proposal to the select board at one meeting with full confidence that the commissioners are going to make the same agreement at the next meeting. We're in a situation now, inflation through August, if you look at all the CPIU unadjusted for everything, August 21 to August of 2022, that's right at 8.3%. The health insurance rates we offer, both Blue Cross and MVP, we allow our employees to choose any plan in the exchange. MVP's rates are averaging about 20% increases. Blue Cross's increases are less, but when you see what the rates actually end up being, they're fairly close to each other. Blue Cross had a, MVP had a lower increase than Blue Cross last year and their bigger increase. They're going to be much closer this year together in terms of what the premiums are than last. Right now, a little family plan costs about $24,000 a year. That's what health insurance costs. So we have an allowance, Roger and Alyssa, this may be new to you, you may have seen it because I did provide this information to Rick McGuire at NLCP, but what we do with our employees is we provide an allowance and it's scaled from a single person to a family because it's built basically reflecting the fact that in the old days, we'd pay for a single, two-person family plan. So we scale it from in 2022. The low was, I think, $847 or $857 a month that we offered the employees and it goes up to close to $2,900 a month for family plans right now. So with the current increase? No, that's in 2022, a forward increase. So we're going to have to make some, we're going to have to have a joint discussion about this because I can't, from being down, it's one organization and I feel very strongly that we have to offer the same benefit package to the town employees as we do to the village or the refined employees. And if we don't, then we're going to have bigger difficulties with employees than we already have. And when I say difficulties with employees, I don't think we have any difficulties with employees. We have high turnover, much higher turnover now than we've had in the past. There's lots of, all of you are out there in the work-a-day world or at least know about the work-a-day world. There's lots of jobs available, people are moving around. The Fed keeps jacking up the interest rates, hoping that they're going to drive the unemployment rate up a little bit to cool off the labor market. But right now, the labor market's pretty hot. And for the position that Karen has, that Karen just left, and she became the talent clerk, the utility billing clerk's position, it's in the $48,000 to $15,000 a year range in terms of wages. And it's got a full benefit package that brings it up to probably about $80,000 is what the retirement, social security, health insurance, workers' comp, unemployment. It's about 80 grand that position. And before the pandemic, if I had advertised that job I wouldn't have 15 to 20 applications anyway. We advertised that. We got four applicants. One of the applicants was from Oklahoma. And when I said to her that you've got to move halfway across the country where you have no ties for a job that pays $50,000 and where you're going to live. So that went away. One of the applicants emailed me and said, is the salary negotiable? And I said, well, of course, anything's negotiable. It has to kind of fit into our schedule and our team. Do you advertise the range? The first time we did. But anyway, and I told her, well, this is what it pays. And she came back to me and said, well, isn't negotiable? It can be. And she said, well, maybe $90,000 now. You can pay me that. No, a third person who I thought was really good. And I thought she would take the job. And I called her up and I said, you know, we forgot to talk about what the pay is when you're here for your interview. And I said, this is what the pay is. Oh, the pay is fine. And she said, but I'm going to withdraw my application. I said, how come? She said, well, I need six weeks vacation to start. We offer somewhere between one and two to start. So anyway, in the fourth person, I didn't like because when I asked her a challenging question about how she got along with others and would be able to step up to do other people's job, she just waited me off and told me, oh, I can do anything. And I didn't believe her. So I did my job. We've got three more applicants now. We re-advertised before September 2nd. And we had these interviews the first week of September, I believe. We re-advertised. We have three new applicants. And all three of these on paper look good. We're interviewing tomorrow. We're over the ranges. I hope that we'll be able to fill the position. But having said that, this job, where we would have had 15 to 20 applicants before, in two times, we've got seven. It's challenging. So you can't, as much as you might want to say, oh, health insurance is too expensive. We can't do it. You've got to think about, we've got to fill these positions, too. And Scott Gayet, long-term water plant operator, he resigned last day was last week. He's going to work for Howard Union High School. He's going to be there, facilities manager. So we're down a key position there. Pete Krolczak retired from the wastewater department. We've got two group employees there. But they're rookies. Both of them are less than, I don't think either one of them has worked a year yet for us, have they? Matt might have been a year. Just a year. Anyway, and then now we're facing issues in the water plant. So we've got some challenges. I've already shared all this with Tom. We had breakfast last week. I told him I hope when I finished breakfast that he doesn't decide to move away. He's kind of indicated that this is happening in a lot of places, which we all know it is. But we have others, and I'm hearing rumors. So for the first 20 years or so that I was here, we had a very stable workforce. Almost no turnover in that group. And then of late, it's been quite a bit. The last three or four years, it's been a lot of turnover. And I think it's going to probably continue. So anyway, on the 17th, we've got to talk about those things with EFUD commissions. OK? Let me ask you, I thought in this subject, well, I know we have to also do an MOU with EFUD. Well, that's what this is about. Right. But I thought for Tom's initial position, do we have to get anything different done with Joe McClain about just making sure? So the Tom has signed the agreement that you offered at your last meeting. EFUD on the 12th, and I talked to Tom about this the other day. EFUD is also going to have an agreement with Tom that makes it plain that EFUD employees Tom directly. They're not buying managerial services from the town. He is the district manager. That contract, which isn't available for public consumption yet because it hasn't been approved, it's still being ultimately worked out. But that contract basically stipulates that Tom works directly for EFUD, takes his direction from EFUD, that EFUD will let him work for the town, just like your contract says, you'll let him work for EFUD. And then there's a section that says EFUD and the town agreed to allow the town negotiate the compensation package, and that there will be a separate MOU between the two entities, the municipalities, not Tom, to talk about how you share his compensation. And that's what this is. Now for me, it's part of this. I think it's easier to incorporate it into this. I think if you just have one for Tom, then you're going to need another one for everything else other than Tom. So I think the MOU that you put together should be what EFUD will pay the town for administrative services, which includes what they'll be paying for Tom and then how to work out the, hopefully, never, never to be seen, you know, severance stuff that you both have to put here in place, which means that he's leaving on other than good terms. I don't expect that. So anyway, I think it's easier to do it kind of at a universal level, Roger, as opposed to a separate one. Thanks, Bill. Any further questions from the board? If not, we'll move on. I would just, I don't know if we need to move this, but I would agree that we should try to work towards an MOU that is comprehensive rather than just dealing with the town manager. We need to move on. I think I'm going to have to come up with it. Well, I think that's common, you know, I think everyone's agreed with what Roger was saying. OK, next item is to consider joint representation requests from SBNF, PC for property transfers. Right. So earlier in the year, the town and EFUD had conversations about EFUD transferring properties that it owns that are not used for water or wastewater purposes to the town. There's five properties that meet that category. EFUD asked the town if they would, if the town would agree to take over four of those by the 1551 South Main Street, which is not subject to this. The select board agreed that it would take over these properties. And EFUD went to its voters at its annual meeting in May to formally ask, will the voters approve this transfer? And the voters didn't approve the transfer. So we've engaged Stitzel, Page and Fletcher. It's Dave Rue, who is the person who will be the lead on this. So at the time, if you remember, when the trustee, the EFUD commissioners in the select board talked about this, we all acknowledged that there would be some legal work necessary. And to keep it simple and cheap, my recommendation was that Stitzel, Page and Fletcher just do it and represent both municipalities. So this is an agreement that has not been before EFUD yet, but they'll deal with this on the 12th, which basically says that the EFUD and the town understand that the same attorney is working on this to transfer the properties and that you agree to this. There's no conflict. If you agree to this, you're agreeing that there's no conflict of interest. Now, in full disclosure, when I emailed Dave Rue back the other day, and I didn't bring the email with me, he said, while we are representing both entities, we will be viewing this more through the eyes of the town attorney as we would from EFUD because we don't want the town to accept the property if there's issues with it, if there's problems with the title. So Skip's already done a fairly extensive title search. He showed you a lot of it in the PowerPoint presentation a few months ago when the park was bought, all these things. I don't think there's anything to worry about. So I would recommend that you authorize me to sign this on behalf of the town and then I'll make it to EFUD and they will authorize Skip to do it so the same person is representing both. So we have a motion to do such. Chris? Yeah, I guess I'll make a motion first. To authorize Bill, to sign the agreement statistical page in Fletcher for the legal paperwork for the transfer of the properties from EFUD to EFUD. Do we have a second? Second. If the motion is second. Any further discussion? Yes. Even though I made the motion, I need to be. My hearing is bad, but I could have sworn that you said, Bill, that the voters voted not to allow the property to be transferred. No. I said that EFUD voters approved. OK, I thought you said didn't approve. No, they approved. OK. All right. So I was just going to say, Mike. Hey, Mike, can I just weigh in for a minute here? This is Glenn Anderson. Yes, hi, my name is Glenn Anderson. Ben, see that stand up. Yeah, I didn't raise. I apologize. I was just trying to get the tools here figured out. So I just wanted to share, EFUD is currently in a lawsuit in Superior Court with me, as well as I'm in a Superior Court environmental case in the environmental division. In one case, the statistical page in Fletcher have an attorney, David Rowe, representing the town. In the other case, it's Joe McLean representing EFUD. And I'm not going to get into those cases here. I think I'm curious about the agenda item of the Grayson case, as you have on the list tonight. But my point is, there's a conflict of interest as somebody that is embroiled in both cases. So it does create some legal issues for tax-paying citizens. So I might suggest pushing this back further. You may not want to go that route. But it does have complications that I think could muddy the waters even more than if we were to first merge a water department into the water very municipality. So I'll leave it at that. I think the key is that because of the shift in the 2018 charter change or the charter dissolution in 2017 to allow extraterritorial water sales, in this case, it doesn't necessarily pertain to the five properties. But in my case, it does. And so I'll just leave it at that. Thanks. Thanks, Klein. We're going into that as a next topic. So we will be discussing that further. So two things. One, the transfer of the property. And so the issue that is before you tonight is not the transfer of the property. It's having the same attorney do a simple process and cost a couple hundred bucks for each community probably. Yeah, but as you know, when Bill, I just want to say that as you know, when this environmental superior court case was in session and days away from a trial, when Joe McLean is being hired by EFUD and you, Bill, rather, it's literally an attack on a town tax-paying citizen that I had to file counterclaims against. I mean, it's really disconcerting on so many levels that government can operate this way as a personal perspective. You know, it is what it is. If you feel that the best, most efficient approach to town management is to hire the same firm to handle, you know, two separate municipal boundaries, like it's municipalities. It's really, it's an issue for us. So I'll leave it at that. Thanks. Thank you, Mike. Let me finish my statement, please. Yeah, go ahead, Bill. And I'd like not to be interrupted again, please, Glenn. So the point is that if Glenn's concerns are about whether the town should take these properties from EFUD, if you agree that the town shouldn't take the properties from EFUD, then don't sign this agreement and make a motion that the town doesn't want the properties from EFUD at this time. That's what Glenn is asking you to do. If you want to live with the decision that you made with the EFUD commissioners back in the spring to have these properties transferred to the town, I see no reason why you shouldn't allow Stitzel Page and Fletcher to do the simple transfer and do it very inexpensively. So there are two separate issues. And I understand Glenn's issue, and I understand his concerns. But this is a pretty straightforward proposal right now. Bill, I think if you articulate those five properties as far as MOU is fine, but I think ultimately what we're looking at here is a conflict of interest by having the same firm represent two separate municipalities engaged in land transfer property transfer. If there's another attorney bill that had an issue with land transfer itself in those five properties, I just want to be clear. It's causing me a great deal of stress to have this law firm coming after me. And I'm glad this isn't about you. This isn't about you. And it's four properties. It's not five. It's four properties. Well, no, but it is about me, Bill, because you're suing it. You literally hired that firm to sue me a week before a trial in the environmental court. So you can't say that it's not personal. I'm just saying, use some common sense. Hire two separate attorneys from different firms. So it doesn't read as a conflict of interest. Thank you. So didn't you just suggest, Glenn, that it was basically a violation to the taxpayers to pay the same firm to do, because I won't call it a money grab, but you're paying the same firm to do this MOU as to deal with the lawsuit with you, I guess in my defense, I'd have to say that if we hired somebody else to do such a minor transaction, it would cost us a hell of a lot more than $200 per municipality. Well, it's gonna be more than $200, but it's gonna be a lot less than if you have to get. Right, if you hire somebody, it's like hiring me to go put a couple scoops of stone in somebody's driveway. I mean, it's gonna cost them a hell of a lot more. I'll say this and I'll laugh. I know Melissa wants to say, Stitzel Page and Fletcher is a town attorney. I think the town has the right to hire a specific attorney to deal with all the town's business. I think your lawsuit is within the gauge of town business and they're representing the town for that. So I don't see any conflict of interest. Melissa? Yeah, Mike and Chris, just if I can address those two points really quick, I'm not trying to say that Stitzel Page and Fletcher representing the town is wrong in that case. What I'm saying is it, sorry, Melissa. I was just asking for order, Glenn, with all due respect, I was a select board member trying to make a point at a select board meeting and we do often generously allow members of the public to speak, but unfortunately, it's hard when we're not able to conduct business. We do adopt rules of procedure. So I was asking the chair for order because the order would be that the chair runs the meeting and recognizes speakers and that comments are directed to the chair. And I do recognize that we do stray from that at some meetings, so I'm not gonna suddenly try and crack down. I know that's hard to do, but it is challenging when we're not able to make our points in conversation with the manager that we hire to administer the town's business. Thank you. Yeah, Melissa, I didn't mean to interrupt, I apologize. I didn't hear you. Okay. So in my recommendation is you've heard Mr. Anderson's concerns. You've heard my recommendation. I don't think you need to talk about it any longer. Thank you, Bill. There's nothing else we'll move on to the next subject. No, no, no. We need the excuse me. I know it's motion made and seconded. We've had discussion, any further discussion? I would say my comments just clarifying that this agreement is outlining the process transparently for both sides. About who's representing, the purpose of this discussion is to ensure that we are all aware of it in a public open forum and to, if we so choose via a vote, authorize our manager to sign. Thank you. Now we'll come on. Yeah, any more? Glen, would you please, would you come into a vote? Please, I don't think there's much more you can add at this point if you want requests to become beyond the agenda for a specific item. Thank you. Okay, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? Motion carries. Thank you. In regard, I assume this is what we hire the attorneys for is doing things like there isn't any like brella issues with the ice center property. I know we've gone over this. Brella is like the state limit liability if you're taking on a property that might be a Brownfield type thing. I assume that's the type of thing they as trained professionals look into. Next bill, do we need to be an executive session for the update? No, I don't think so. I just was checking to make sure. If you could give us an update on the Grayson versus Waterbury legal proceeding. Yeah, this is on here because one of the select board members asked for an update. And the update is very simple. The appeal of the permit that the DRB issued to Mr. Grayson, which was appealed by Mr. Anderson, has gone to trial. We had court proceeding last month. Yeah, it was last month. And the judge heard the testimony from all parties, including the Pellan. And the judge has taken another advisement and indicated that a ruling would be made when it gets to it. So our attorneys have indicated that they think that unlikely they'll be making a decision made before the end of the year. So that's the update. So am I going to ask a question on an off-user? Can answer it or not? There was some concern by Mr. Anderson about the traffic buildup, parking buildup on Sweet Road and pertains to, well, I didn't know that I had suggested that the town maybe purchase one of those lots to accommodate that parking. And that question was supposed to have been posed to the property owner. Mr. Grayson was just wondering how that turned out. I don't know if you can speak to that or not at this point. All I can say is that the proposals for settlement that were discussed were all put before the parties and we went to trial anyway. So and settlement can happen at any time. The understand while it says that it's that water rate, you know, Mr. Grayson essentially through his attorney is defending the permit the town issued to him. And Mr. Anderson is providing testimony to the court and evidence to the court suggesting that the permit was issued in error by the DRB and the judge is now acting as the DRB. So his proposal is that the judge should not issue the permit. The judge is in the process of weighing the evidence and deciding whether he's going to issue the permit to Grayson or not. Until the decision is made by the court, it can be settled at any time. The settlement offer was discussed. Grayson knows about the offer to buy parcels. And we went to the trial and we're aware of how it can happen. OK. All right. Can I do that? Bill, can you just clarify the name? I had a question about this name on the agenda. Is that in reference to the case? So just ask, why is it titled this? And I said, Grayson v. Water Wright, is that the case in court? Yeah. OK. Is for anything that could legally come before us? If not, I would work in the after. If it's not, I'll let you know. I think you need to. I just received that in court. Glad you could be brief. Yeah, I think you've spoken to what came to terms. Yeah, Mike, I just really quickly want to say first. I wasn't in the previous matter necessarily trying to shut it down. I was just trying to say if it's stipulated, I want to make sure the board's aware of the circumstances of potential conflicts ventures. I'm sorry if that didn't communicate. Regarding this case, though, I haven't reached out to Attorney Roe. We are shifting our settlement entirely. So there are new terms from our end. And I don't think we're going to reach a settlement before a decision is reached. So personally, I'll just be very transparent and quick. For me, for this to work, that parcel, the Hunger of Beings, has significant environmental and natural resources on it and wildlife migration corridors. That would need to be, and it's in 1.1 mile adjacent of the Hunger Mountain Hike Trail, which is one of the top five in the state. So for me, Agency of Natural Resources needs to step in with Waterbury. We need to protect that parcel entirely and shift the hiking trail. And keep in mind, I've been the hiking trail adopter for 30 years and a member of the Green Mountain Club since the 90s and staff there and volunteer, coordinator, marketing chair there, et cetera. As founder of the Worcester Range Collective, I think the better, more optimal location is to work with EFUD and put a trail head in the back area there that can be managed safely, efficiently and in cooperation with Vermont State Troopers. And we could hold, you know, have a trail that's a loop trail that one picks up to StoPenicle. The other connects with the existing hunger trail and it's an asset for our community. So that's the settlement that I'm now offering, but I don't think the original settlement offers on the table anymore. That's it. Thanks, guys. Glenn and I think that's just part of the appeal process that you have to present to the courts. And I don't know how much more we can do on our end here. As a general statement, the last time we have legal proceedings, the more time we have for a strategic planning about community priorities of interest to residents. Right. Thank you. Thank you for your input plan. Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight. And I'll move to adjourn. Thank you. So second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion to have a meeting adjourned.