 village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees meeting for Tuesday, February 23rd to order. And do we have agenda additions or changes tonight? Tammy has one. Can you guys see this? I've been a little lost since I've done this. Yes, we can. Okay. This is from Travis. He just sent this out. I think you all received it, but he's looking to add this onto the agenda so that you can make a motion down here. So I guess you would have to add this. I would say we should add that as 6E before the discussion or before the discussed evaluation of public official. So the current 6E would become 6F. Yeah, at first I thought this was the executive session, but this this isn't as part of the whole point of this. Correct, right. It's to make your motion out of executive session. Exactly. Board members, are there any agenda additions or changes, including moving things from the consent agenda out? Nope. Okay, if someone would like to make a motion to amend the agenda as presented. So moved. I think George had the motion. Second. George had the second. Is there any discussion on that motion? Hearing none of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Anybody oppose? Great. Pass unanimously. Thank you all. And that will move us on to the public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting where if you have something that you would like to speak to the Board of Trustees about that is not on the agenda, then this is a time to do so. The way that this will work is if you could raise your hand using Microsoft Teams, I would be sure to recognize that you would like to speak and I will call on you in the order that you appear on my screen. So again, if you'd like to speak to the Board about something that is not on the agenda, go right ahead and raise your hands and I will call on you. Okay, that has been a few seconds. Nobody has raised their hands. There are also no callers calling in so I'm not going to ask for anybody on the phone. So seeing as there are no members from the public who wish to address the Board, we can go ahead and move off of that. And I am trying to stall for another 20 or so seconds. Oh, there we go. And we are at 635 according to my phone. So with that, I will go ahead and I will open up the public, the second public hearing on fiscal year 2022, proposed budgets and capital programs and turn things over to Sarah Macy. Awesome, thanks, Andrew. Tammy, I have a PowerPoint here if you want. I can share that while I go through. Thank you. Let's see. I can get in presentation mode at this moment. Mr. President, Steve has his hand up. He is on the agenda for the position for the tree advisory, I think. That's correct. Thank you. We do have the, yep, I do know that we're supposed to get to Steve after this public hearing. Yeah, Steve, I'm thinking about 15 minutes, but do you have a question? What time will that be? About? About 15 or so minutes. From now? Yeah. Okay, is it okay to stand by? Totally, yes. Yeah, up to you. Okay, thank you. That's what I thought your hand might be. Thank you, Sarah. You're all about the budget. Sarah, what do you think about 15 minutes? I think I can manage that. You got it. All right, since this is our second public hearing and the faces were down when I asked, is everyone seeing my screen in presentation mode? Cool. Yes. I had to find the faces again on all my screens. Okay, so my plan here is to run through a quick PowerPoint presentation, which is exactly the same as the one I went through two weeks ago. There have been no changes to the budget since then. And at that last meeting, there were no questions. So I'm interested to hear what we have this evening. So we're talking about the FY22 proposed budgets for the village. Oops, wrong screen. For all, the largest change to this budget is that the highway and the fire department rolling stock capital transfers have been moved out of the transfer segment and into the individual departments. The impact of this is that dollar amount in highway, which is about additional $140,000, would then be funded by the town budget per the public works MOU between the village and the town, where the village highway department is set by the village and then included an alum sum in the town budget, which has the effect of having all taxpayers on the grand list paying effectively the same tax rate for highway services. This is still pending voter approval in the town, which will have or in the vote on that happens next Tuesday. We did increase the amount of the transfer to the building's maintenance fund by $25,000 to address two priority building projects, which is the redistribution of electrical service between the fire department and Lincoln Hall and the roof at the Brownnell library. Staffing levels remain the same. There are no new positions proposed in this budget. And one of the things that also remained relatively stable from the prior year is the budgeted cost for group insurance and other benefits because the estimated increases this past year did not materialize. And so what we do is we take the actuals and then we budget a projected increase on those actuals. Overall, the budget, the bottom line budget is proposed at $5,641,000. This is a $273,623 change or 5.1%. This is the total expenditures in the budget. And these are funded through a number of sources. So that is not the ultimate impact on tax levy. In addition to the large items that I touched on on the last slide, which were the planned, we have planned increases to the capital transfer. We also have a new initiative, which is to pay stipends for all board members and to increase the stipends paid to the trustees, the planning commission and the ZBA. In the FY22 budget, we have $30,000 in additional professional services, 15,000 of which is for the land development code update and 15,000 of which is for the every other year salary study that we do. We have some additional costs in highways to address some paving projects and to get our salt costs closer to what they actually are. So that was the bottom line. That was the overall expenditure budget. The tax levy is being proposed at a $76,000 or 2.1% increase for a total of $3.746 million. This is less than the bottom line because of the increase in the amount his other revenue sources have increased, particularly the funding from the town of Essex, which pays for the highway and the stormwater budgets and with the inclusion of the rolling stock capital transfer for highways, that has gone up to offset the impact on the tax levy. Assuming that we have an average grand list growth in the village, we are looking at slightly less than a 1% tax rate change on village residents. What you're seeing on your screen right now is a graph of the current year property taxes in the village of Essex Junction, which just shows that you are the breakdown of that $6,900 tax bill on a $280,000 assessed value home, 65% of that is the school taxes, 21% is the town of Essex taxes, and then 14% or $953 are village only taxes. And those are current actual tax rates for the current year. That's my overview of the general fund budget. If the general fund budget only, that's gonna be on the ballot in April, all the other budgets in the village are approved just by the trustees and those are the capital budgets and the enterprise fund budget. So I'm gonna hit quickly on a summary of our capital funds and of the enterprise funds before I turn it back to Andrew to look for questions. So the big project in the capital reserve for the village is the Densmore Drive culvert replacement and partial road reconstruction project, which is a result, it had been on the list but it got moved way up as a result of the Halloween storm, ooh, 2019, that washed out and closed that road. This is the year that we're gonna be replacing the Super Sucker 5000 and that's hitting the rolling stock fund, the water capital fund, wastewater capital and sanitation since that piece of equipment is funded through multiple sources. EJRP has its own capital fund and some of the projects there in the coming year are going to be some new playground equipment, fencing, building repairs, some landscaping and additional and some replacement pool chairs for the pool deck. In the enterprise funds, in addition to the vector truck and debt payment, we're looking at some manhole rehabilitation and some energy conservation measures as well. The village has four main enterprise funds, water, sewer and sanitation are probably the ones that most resident or people are most familiar with and those are funded through the quarterly water and sewer bill, which is now triannually and those are user fees for people who are on village water and sewer. Those budgets are all proposed at around a 2% increase in the coming year, most of which is driven by personnel costs and increases to chemicals and also plan transfers to capital in all of those funds as you can imagine infrastructure replacement projects for water, sewer and sanitation infrastructure are quite costly. The fourth program fund or the fourth enterprise fund is the EJRP program fund and that is looking at a considerable increase. Again, these are all 100% funded by user fees. These have no impact on the tax rate and EJRP is expanding the childcare programming and that's what's driving this increase. In the enterprise funds, we definitely were governed quite a bit through our wastewater permit and regulations from the state. We are also in a tri-town agreement with the town of Williston and the town of Essex for the wastewater treatment facility and as flows vary from each of the three entities, the rates are impacted to village users. The wastewater treatment facility also has a bond payment and the sanitation fund has increased capacity built into the rate year after year to make sure that we're able to make those payments. And we're also hopefully finishing up our meter replacement program in the coming year. I have some tech initiatives from the finance department we wanna implement to help make user interfacing more user friendly. And so we have about 500 meters left. So I know I said this two weeks ago, but if anyone's listening and you haven't had your meter changed out yet, please give us a call and we'll get you set up to do that. Utility rates are not final yet. Those won't be final till closer to the end of the year when we have the whole year's worth of water usage and new number of accounts. But at this point, we're looking at about a three and a half overall or three and a half percent overall change to rates. And that's just to give everyone an idea of where I think we're headed, but these are not final. That's the end of the flat show. So I will be happy to answer any questions or anyone remembers something I said two weeks ago that I left out tonight? Thank you so much Sarah, I really appreciate that. And as this is a public hearing, we will first ask for questions from members of the public and then we will come back to the board. When you have a question, please make sure to address a question to me. I will do my best to answer it. If I need some help, I will certainly rely on Sarah to assist me with that. So again, if you are a member from the public and had a question about the budget that was just presented, please go ahead, raise your hand using Microsoft Teams and we'll be sure that you have the opportunity to ask the question. Okay, since there have not been any questions, I will go ahead and I'll ask a question or maybe just a clarifying statement, Sarah, that 38% increase in the program fee or the program revenue for EJRP, again, that does not mean that all programs are going to see a 38% price increase and it is not going to cost 38% more for my child who tends to say archery. Instead, it's to account for the expansion of childcare beyond just a village boundaries. Correct, it's an increase in available programming, not an increase in the cost of existing programming, if that helps to clarify. Absolutely, and that program fund is again just 100% paid by the people who use those programs and that $2.6 million or so is not coming from the resident in taxes. Correct. Great. So, seeing again as there are no questions from the public, Raj, why don't you go ahead? Thanks, and just another clarifier. The Densmore project at 800,000 from the capital budget, we're expecting a portion of that to be reimbursed by FEMA, correct? That's correct, and I do have numbers from Jim and Chelsea and the amount that we're looking at from the capital fund is lower than that 800,000 and then in addition to, so we're gonna be spending funds and then we're anticipating a 75% reimbursement from FEMA for a portion of it. Great, thanks. And we may also be getting a few dollars from the state as well, but that gets a little, it's a little in the weeds, but for the residents over there, Raj and others, that's a very difficult place to work because it's a stream and there are utilities that run across that stream, and it was available for federal funds, which as Sarah just mentioned is about 75%. So by waiting and getting this done, we are getting 75% of an 800 plus thousand dollar project paid for by the federal government and not put on taxes. So kudos to Jim and Dennis and Erin and Jim and Ricky and all the gang that were working on that. So thanks for the question. So I'll do one more ask if there are members from the public who had a question on the budget before we close the public hearing. Seeing that there are no other questions, I will go ahead and close the public hearing on the budgets in the capital programs. And to that, we will come back to the budget later on as we will now go on to business items 6A, the interview and consider appointments of volunteer Steve Rabar to the tree advisory committee. Steve, it is great to have you join us. Thank you for being here. And before we go ahead and get started, I do just wanna go ahead and clarify one thing for expectations sake. The tree advisory committee policy that was created when we created the tree committee states that all members of the tree committee are to be village residents. And Steve, in your letter of interest, it states that you are not currently a village resident. You are a property owner, but you are a resident of Williston. So whether allowing somebody who does not live in the village of Essex Junction to become a member of this committee is a conversation I would like this board to have, but we didn't warn that for today, so we can't make a decision on that today. So because of that, I'm happy to still interview you for this or have you be interviewed for the advisory committee slot? And at a subsequent meeting, we as a board can then talk about whether to allow a non-resident on the board, how we wanna go about that. And at that point, we could potentially appoint you then, but we can't appoint you today. I understand, thank you. Great, and I'm sorry about that confusion and what was some last minute running around. But with that, outside of the letter that you had submitted, I'd love to hear more about your interest in the committee, what you would hope to do with the advisory committee. Yeah, thanks Andrew. I have a love of the village of Essex Junction, a love of trees, I'm a native Vermonter. I have an active participant in the tree advisory committee with Warren and Nick for almost two years. I seek the help to support the mission and the help the committee increase the tree canopy in the village, promote improvement and preservation of the public trees. Also to help keep Essex a viable tree city USA, which I think that's a great thing. Help Nick with Arbor Day presentations and different things like that. I am a board member branch out Burlington, along with Warren Spinner. I feel this helps to tie Essex tree into branch out Burlington a bit because we do have a 600 tree nursery in South Burlington of which Essex has a couple of rows which requires some maintenance. I like to help with tree care in the village. I'm a taxpayer in the village as was said. I enjoy community engagement because I'm a retired UPS freight account executive from 27 years. And last but not least, I've got the time to commit and be helpful to the committee, dedication. Thank you. Thank you. Other board members have questions. Steve is George Tyler and I just your comment was interesting. You said you love Essex Junction. I just wanted to get a sense of what you, how you think we're, how are we doing over here in terms of our tree canopy? Well, that's interesting. I don't know the exact address but I'm disappointed at the setback of the new building that's where the sewing machine repair guy used to be. It's right on the first part of Maple Street past the service station. That building is so darn close to the road. We don't see any trees there and those are the things that I pick up on. I was from Newport originally, came down to Champlain and St. Mike's and lived in the junction for years before I moved to Williston. So I think the village is doing great but I want to help. I'm proud of the few that we placed on Brickyard Drive. There's a nice row of trees right there if anybody's on that street. So that's some of the things that make me want to do this work, George. Okay, Steve, I just do, I do want to mention and I take your advice on that one building but I think as of right now, unless I'm mistaken and other board members can correct me but setbacks and for buildings are determined by the planning commission, not the tree committee. So I hope you're aware of that. Oh yeah. That would not be a tree committee decision if you were on it and you wouldn't be able to overrule the planning commission. That would be something that would have to be revised in their building code and regulations. Yeah, I understand, George. Thank you. Okay. But it's a good thing to keep in mind, especially as a tree committee is an advisory committee and can certainly provide recommendations to the planning commission as well as to us when the comprehensive plan comes time for the readable. Right. Exactly. I have questions from other board members. This is Raj. I don't have any questions. I think I appreciate you stepping forward to do this. You know, and I think you're more than qualified and just wanted to say that I appreciate you already working with the committee and then volunteering to do that on a more official basis. Thank you, Raj. Appreciate that. Yep. Dan Ramber, anything else? Nothing for me. Thank you. Okay. So Steve, we will certainly be in touch. It's gonna take a few weeks in terms of our capability of talking about having a non-resident be an official member of the committee. But as Raj had said, truly do appreciate the work that you have done as the tree committee. The tree committee is not just a policy committee but a hands-on committee that, as you have said, really does do a lot of good work in the tree plantings and plantings and maintenance of our tree canopy. So I really do thank you for your volunteer work and would love to see that continue. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. If you'd like to, if you'd like to stick around, you can. But if you don't, we know our feelings. Okay. Thank you, folks. I appreciate it. Thanks very much. Bye-bye. Thank you, Steve. Okay. And so that will move us on to business item 6B to consider the approval of fiscal year 2022 for proposed budgets and capital programs. I assume Sarah, is this back to you? Back to me. Thanks, Tammy. I don't have this one handy. So we've had two. We had our budget day. We've talked about the budgets. We made some changes. We've had two public hearings now. And I am asking the trustees to do their thing and adopt the budgets so that we can warn the general fund one for the vote and then move forward with all the others. So all the other budgets only require adoption by the trustees. Later in the fiscal year, we'll come back with rate setting and potentially adjusting water revenues depending on the final global foundry flows. But at this point, my request to y'all is to consider adopting the budgets as presented. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. I know I personally have no other questions on this. This is a very responsible budget to continue doing the great work that the village does. No new initiatives, no cutbacks and services or anything like that. So this is a great maintenance budget. And I appreciate that. Board members, any other questions? And George to see your hands up. All right, I was just going to make a motion to approve the budget. I didn't want to, someone wants to say something ahead of time, I don't want to interrupt them. Any other questions? Seeing none, George, take it away. Yes, I move that the trustees adopt the various FY22 budgets as presented. Second. Thank you for that, George. And Dan, thank you for the second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? I'm just going to add one completely non-helpful comment. And I've said this before, the pay and classification study that we have to do every two years. I'd rather, I wish we could spend that $15 or $20,000 on employee benefits. Wouldn't that be a good thing instead of what do employees in other communities get? I've said this before, I think this is something that the state or VLCT could do and make available to all the municipalities in Vermont that are negotiating with their various unions. It just seems like a cost that we have every two years that it's just, it's not a huge cost. But I wish we could, it seems like a problem that has a little bit better remedy than just shelling out $15 or $20,000 every few years. But that's my only gripe, but I have no problem with the budget. Great, thank you for that, George. So all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? All right, so I passed unanimously. Thank you all. Sarah, thank you for all the hard work. Evan, you as well. I'm sure you didn't just sit back and that'll happen. Thank you all very much. Thank you for acknowledging that. But it is a lot of hard work by a lot of department heads, Sarah and others. So thank you for your support. Yes, please do pass the appreciation on to department heads, please. We grill them pretty good. And that will bring us on to 6C, the Considered Approval of Waivers for Concert Series. That's Robin. Is he with us? I am, yes. There you go. So as we all know, 2020 was the year of the pandemic and CVE really struggled. They had to let a lot of people go temporarily or permanently and they're looking to try and move forward this year, try and keep the doors open basically, as Tim Shea says. I think there's a way we can help them. They didn't have any events last year. They didn't have any waivers last year. So we could look at it as a two year and ask for last year and this year. So they can maybe get their feet on solid ground again and ensure that they're a long-standing member of the community moving forward. Are there any questions? Thank you, Robin. So you said that there are 20 events or 20 waivered events. What is the intersection of those events and the 10 days of the pandemic, I like to bear? Well, when we first started doing this, the fur was, they'd been going for a long time. It was a given. The waivers are when they have an event that they think is going to exceed the signed agreement standards. And that's when they asked for a waiver. They're hoping maybe to throw in a few more events this year to make up the difference from their losses last year. They had tried the non-amplified events and that was a loss-making activity but at least they provided something for residents and people in Chittin' and Conti to try and come to try and get out of the house. They have also been asked, last year they did the Essex High School graduation. It was non-amplified, they've been asked to do it this year and maybe it could be some amplification. This year, that would be part of these events. This is, do you want to use the word Phoenix? This is again, CVE rising and they're asking us to be partners in moving forward. So with the annual fair, just going back to that, so those 10 days are not a part of that original, a part of that 20 and that's just what I was trying to get at. Okay. No, not unless they have a concert in there. We set a baseline for sound based on the sound normally comes from the concert but it's concert, or sorry, it's fur noise, it's not concert, it's not concert noise. So that's a different thing. Yeah, I'm just trying to make sure that not just board members but members from the public who generally are not at the table from this conversation can understand some of the intricacies as to what we're talking about. Sure, sure. We've been refining it over the years. We're getting a bit tighter in some ways and getting a bit more obvious in other ways because I guess when we first crafted it, it was new. And as you know, every time you do something next time it's better because of what you learned the last time you did it. So I believe Raj has had his hands up and then Amber after Raj. Thanks, Andrew. Hi, Robin. Hi. So there's 50 events, 50 waivers. What's the date range they anticipate? Well, is this the traditional Memorial Day to Labor Day or is it sooner or later? Yes, and they're not even sure they're gonna be able to do it yet. So it's an ask without knowing if it's possible. We could structure it in any way we want. I mean, if the CDC, if the governor says that these things can't go forward again this year then so be it. How did they come up with 30? I think they started the inside of the maze and worked out words. It was a financial calculation. How many would they need to try and equalize new income last year and income this year to try and bring them to the point where they would have been if the pandemic hadn't happened. And, okay. I was hoping Tim Shea would be here. So we could answer some of these questions. But, Sam. I mean, do you have a sense of, you mentioned graduations now being amplified. I don't have much of an idea of how that would have been different since most of those are daytime events. But that's a pretty big cluster of events in one particular week. I mean, did you have any idea how some of these might be clustered together? Obviously, we know about the 10 days of the fair. We can imagine graduations being one week with multiple events during that week if they have to do it that way again. I'm just, do you have a sense of, I mean, I'm just wondering if every three days on average or every two days there's gonna be an event over the course of the two and a half months of summer that there'll be a noise waiver required. If we just did it by those numbers, then that's 50 nights of a three month period that's just trying to get a sense of how they're, what that would look like. Yeah, well, they're asking for 30 amplified events. They're not asking for 30 waivers. They may not all need a waiver. I think that's good for me right now. Okay. Amber, go ahead. I'm gonna ask the silly question. What is the difference between amplified and non-amplified? When it comes to, I know they did some of these, I mean, I know your memo refers, Robin, to non-amplified, which was the drive-in music events, but I guess I'm just trying to understand the difference between the two, if maybe you could help me out a little bit there for the non-tech person here. You're asking another tech person, a non-tech person. The non-amplified events were simply, what was happening was on a radio wave and you could get it in the radio in your car. So there was not actually any amplification coming from the stage or any speakers. This will go back to the way it was, if you can remember before the pandemic, where it would be a normal concert. Okay. So even though there might have been some, I mean, obviously they did have speakers and stuff, so the adjacent homeowners would hear some of it. It wasn't at the same level as it will be now. No, not even close. Okay. And then another question, I know that CVE works with adjacent homeowners to notify them about events and stuff. What is the plan in that regards for these additional events? Sorry, could you repeat the question? Sure. I know that CVE gives notice or works with the adjacent homeowners to CVE to talk about the events and stuff. What's the plan for notice to folks regarding the additional events that you're asking for? The SIM notice with GWAD for every event that has done in the past, there wouldn't be any event that there wouldn't be a notice of. Can you explain that process a little bit, Robin, just for folks on the call or watching that aren't familiar with that? Well, they do outreach. They've been doing a lot more outreach since Tim's been there and they will have a pre-season meeting where they invite neighbors to come to the meeting and try to explain what's happening. They've also been up in the ante in terms of getting in touch with neighbors within a certain range. And nothing's ever, is anything ever perfect? I don't think so, but I think, and as being a neighbor yourself, or I think you might say that it's been much better in terms of communication than it was previously before, Tim. And they're working for that. They're a part of the S-extraction community. They want to work with us. They want to work with residents. They want to provide something that we want and they also want to survive. Yeah, I think it will probably be, I mean, I'll just give my thoughts on it. I think it's probably going to be important for if we're going to extend this to have 50 events, I think it would be really, really, really important to have that. The feet of his property surrounded. If you were of a mind to approve this, you can make a condition that for every one of these extra events, he has to notify people within 250 feet of his property. Thank you, Evan. That would be consistent with the line developer codes. Tim Shea may be getting online in a few minutes. He's trying to work his way through the website. Go ahead, Roush. No, George, it hasn't spoken yet. Go for it. Evan, about the comment you just made, how would Tim notify all the people that live within 250? Would there be just a database? Everyone would be part of it and he would just send out an email or are you saying that he would have to individually call or contact every single home, every single time? What's your vision for that? As far as I understand, it's he has the addresses of every property that is within 250 feet. He could send a letter. Send a letter, okay, or postcard. Or whatever, yeah, sure. And so looking up, it seems Tim is here. And there he is. Hey, my apologies, can you hear me? Yep, just fine, thank you. Hey, my apologies. Scheduling error on my part here. The school vacations have a throat disaster continue. Thanks for making time to see you, Jen here. No worries. So Tim, to bring you, this is Evan, to bring you up to speed, they're talking a little bit about how, you know, how you might notice the neighbors on these extra events. I mentioned that we gave you an electronic file of all the addresses within 250 feet. And then the question was how you would use that and whether it's a letter or a postcard. Yeah, good question. And we do have the list there, which we would notify them of the plans for the summer. The challenge and an issue that we would need to solve CVE is that it's not as though we'll have the schedule on April 1st or even May 1st or June 1st for the entire summer because we'll be scheduling as we go along. So what I could see is something, updating the village on, so it could be posted on the website. Is there something we could post in the reporter so that folks, or I'm happy to do multiple mailings to the neighbors, but the schedule, unlike the fair or unlike our other special events where we know the schedule six months out, this is a bit more fluid. Thank you for that, Tim. Ross, go ahead. Tim, I'm glad you're here. Can you speak to like what you see as how these might be clustered? I mean, my concern is where I'm coming from is, this is 50 nights of a summer, which is more than half probably. So what I'm wondering is, our neighbors are people gonna be dealing with us on every other night for a cup. I mean, in the perfect world, if you get all 50 and good on you, if you do, then that's a pretty large impact on people throughout the community. I'm more than 250 feet away. I'm three streets away, but I can have a conversation with the dunker guy. Let me put it that way in my bedroom. So it's not that I mind, I just think this could be quite an impact. I mean, if there's three shows in a row during the fair, that's sort of normal. Everybody's sort of used to that and that's no big deal, but that's kind of what I'm trying to get my head around. And letting people know it's coming after, without just simply letting them know it's coming is great, but it doesn't really mitigate the feedback that we might get that, jeez, this is four nights in eight days. That's too much. I got to work, that kind of thing. That's kind of where I'm- No, good question. I'm not saying no, I'm just- I think George- I almost wonder if we should talk about this and then talk about it again after people have had a chance to hear about it so that we can hear about it from them. And that's all. I think we need to do whatever we can do to support the fairgrounds right now. I just want to put that out there. I just, I think this will be a little bit of a surprise. It was a surprise to me and I can imagine it would be a surprise for others. So that's all. Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead, George. Yeah, my question was the reason I asked about the notifying the homeowners, I, CVE wouldn't be asking us for this kind of waiver unless they really needed it and they missed their whole season last year. And they're doing this obviously to try to make themselves whole. And it seems to me, if we're going to grant that, we don't want to turn around and put restrictions on them that are going to wind up costing them more money. And if we say we really want to partner with them, I'm wondering if we might be able to help out with the notification part and work with them and maybe save them that cost and that hassle. I don't know how big a cost it would be. Maybe it's negligible, so it's not important. But if it's at all, it would all be helpful. Maybe that's something that we could figure out how to do in our staff. I don't know how exactly, but we might be able to help there. That was my reasoning. Thanks. Board members, were there any other questions or Tim, did you want to jump in and? Yeah, I'll comment on the scheduling piece there. Rob's question is a good one. We are at the whim and we're partnering with higher ground like we did last year on this. And there's still a number of issues need to be worked on the financial side if this is sustainable. But it comes down to we are at the whim of routing entertainers as far as what nights they would be here. So, and this is a challenge for us. It's not really an issue for you folks to deal with. We're at the whim of when these artists are available and where they are in the Northeast. So it would be a challenge for us to say, okay, we're only gonna have music on Monday, Thursday and Sunday. And that's the schedule will stick to it because we find like during the fair, the flexibility piece is so important because as these artists look to put routes together in the Northeast, it's a little bit of a puzzle they have to put together. So that's an added challenge or why it's hard for us to lay out the schedule for the whole 90 days. Thank you, Tim. The question that was brought up earlier, wondering if you can help to clarify a little bit. When we're talking about an amplified event, essentially what we're talking about is any point in time that sound is powered through speakers, right? It could be a comedian, it could be a music concert, it could be anything such as that, right? Right. And it's an event in terms of the sounds, the sound would still be monitored in the same way that current events are, which the sound limits are higher than a typical village day. And so the community could expect, say, a comedian, a concert, what have you to have the same level of sound as what may be experienced during the fair? Is that correct? Yeah, we've, correct, yes. We've hosted outside of the fair concert on the Midway lawn, and it'll be something similar to that. Last year was a bit unique with a drive-in environment. There was no amplified sound and why we didn't, the sound waivers, because there wasn't a need for them. This is different, what would be amplified sound. We've spun the stage around. As you recall, some of you may have been out on the fairgrounds last summer with the drive-in, the stage pointed, make sure you got my east and west, stage pointed east to accommodate the sunset because you can't have a western setting sun on a drive-in screen, it doesn't work. We knew we did not have amplified sounds, we spun it around the face east. This year, knowing we'd have, we know that we can never do amplified sound to the projecting to the east. This stage we set up projecting to the west because we have our buildings, and of course there's not as much resident, there's a much more of a runway, I'll say, between the stage and where we hit residential areas. So when we're talking about the amplified sound being projected towards the west, we're talking about leaving from five corners going to a 40th and alley, correct? That's correct, yes. And so during a normal year of what direction is the sound normally emitted? For our, what we call a midway lawn series, the conscious we typically hold in the summer, COVID aside, it all goes, we would all goes west towards 40th and alley. We would never project east because we know we would be, our sound waivers would not allow for that, and why we wouldn't do it. For the fair, out west, but again, it's being absorbed by a lot of the fair activity and the buildings on the grounds, where again, repeating what I said earlier, it would be east. So in many ways, the sound that people would experience is going in the same direction as to any other normal amplified event that has ever happened at CDE. Correct. Okay, trustees, any more questions? One quick thing Andrew, for Tim, just that you're still subject to the same decibel limits and everything else. It's just, you're just asking for the extra days, correct? Correct it, yes. And we would have our sound monitor there, making sure that we're working within the parameters that you folks set. So none of that change, it just the additional waivers. Yeah, just wanted to correct that, thanks. So if there are no other questions from the board, I'd like to see if there are questions from the public on this and then we can bring it back here. So with that, I will ask four members of the public to go ahead and raise their hands to let me know that you'd like to ask a question. If you ask a question, please direct it towards me and I will do my best to answer it. This is not meant to be a back and forth between any guests or any staff members. So please go ahead and raise your hands and let me know that you would like to ask a question. First up is Annie Cooper. Hi, thanks Andrew, can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. I hope I'm not too loud. I'm super enthusiastic and excited about this idea. Am I screaming? It's my first time trying this out. I got jealous of George and Andrew with the headphones. I'm wildly enthusiastic about this idea because you know, life, right? You know, to feed our souls and to just exist in some basic concept of connectivity is the value is unreal. However, like I don't know who said it, trying to put your kids to bed or needing to go to work or maybe even being that person who finally got their kids to bed and can only begin their work and you had that, you know? So I don't know if it's possible to just make some rules even though they're not fun for how to move forward but maybe for some days to have to be predictable. And then Tim, sorry, I shouldn't talk to Andrew. Maybe, you know, maybe there has to be some sideways workarounds or some creative thinking outside the box. I don't know if this is possible. I'm sure you all are smarter than I've thought of it but like, is it possible to have some sound be a drive-in capacity? Like can you have an entertainer that because of the day of the week or the schedule or whatever for whatever reason, you know? Can I go see, you know, stand up comedy by Pearl River? I just made that up. You know, but listen through my car stereo. You know, is that ever possible? I don't know. But I'm wildly enthusiastic about somehow making this stuff happen that if anybody needs me, I'm right over here and thank you. Thank you, Annie. And just for clarity, we are talking about amplified events. So the ones that do require significant sound amplification in terms of like the drive-in, I believe Tim can do that at any point in time. I guess I was trying to say that if you can't, yes, all the amplified ideas can creatively some of that solution be to shift where the sound goes, even though that's not a common way to do that. Gotcha. Thank you. Sarah, Michelle. Sarah, Michelle, your hand just went down, so I- Oh, sorry about that. I just realized I didn't turn the mute off. Hi, everybody. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Sarah. Hi, I'm Sam. I wanna say that I think we need to do everything possible to support the fairgrounds. I have a couple of questions, though. One is, would there be fireworks attached to these concerts? Sarah, Michelle, Dita, go ahead and ask your questions and then we can get the answers. Sure. And is this also kind of a one-and-done, just this summer because of COVID or with the understanding that there might be another emergency situation with them that they might come before the trustees? So I kinda wanna know that if it was a one-and-done. I wanted to know, does the summer include all of June, July and August? Just kinda wanna know the months here because the first, what, two, three weeks to June is school nights. So I wanted to just kinda know that. As far as my comments, my comment would be, there should be a lot of education and notification to the entire community because as Raj was saying, I live nearby too. And I think it's just, if I knew kind of, even a week in advance, kind of what's happening, then I can prepare myself and my family for that. And I think if like the whole community knew months ahead that this is gonna come, it would be so much better. And I think everybody would be like, we need to pitch in and help out this business. I think it's a really important part of our community. And then lastly, actually, I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. The ones that I think I can address, I'll go ahead and address and then I'll ask Tim to help me out here. So in terms of whether this is a one-and-done kind of thing, I don't think any of us predicted that we would be in this current situation. And I don't think any of us can predict whether we're gonna be here again next year or not. I hope not, but we can't really predict that. So I could completely see Tim coming back next year and asking for the exact same thing if we're in the same place again. So this may not be a one-time thing. In terms of months that this may fall within, and I think one of the things you had mentioned was about an intersection with the school year. Correct me if I'm wrong, Tim, but I believe that our agreement with the sound agreement is that there are not to be fireworks during school nights, but I don't believe that the agreement specifically addresses school nights and amplified events. That's what I understand, that on the fireworks piece, there will be no fireworks associated. An out-of-the-world scenario where fireworks have a return to the family of Palayakso without a very unique event. But these, we've already been in touch with, I should say, the high schools have reached out to us, Essex, South Burlington and CBU, the three schools that had graduations with us last year. And they are, I'll say, actively looking for venues to host their graduations. And we've been in preliminary discussion saying, if this occurs, there could be a scenario where we would love to be able to provide space to the high schools to host their graduations. But if this was to occur, it would start probably in a June 1st-ish timeframe similar to last year, so that we could accommodate the high schools. And I did say the high schools, if this doesn't occur, again, I mentioned earlier that we're still, the higher ground is still trying to work out the economic model. If this doesn't occur, CBU will provide free space to the high schools for graduation, albeit empty field. But we just want to make sure that those schools have a chance or some semblance of a normal graduation. Thank you for that, Tim. I believe those were all the questions as part of the end was, again, about notifying residents, which that certainly has been mentioned by board members and by Annie earlier. So next member of the public, I see initials of RM. I don't know who that is, but RM? Go ahead and... Hi, can you hear me? You're just fine. Okay, I'm Lisa Marin. I do not live within 250 feet. I live at countryside. And every year I'm on the phone with our police department. The first time it happened, I called when I got through to the desk sergeant. This is the summer, my windows are closed, my air conditioning is on, and the desk sergeant asked me to lower my music because he couldn't hear me. I said, I'm calling about the music. And his response was, did you try talking to your neighbor? I said, it's not my neighbor, it's the fairgrounds. And he said, ma'am, I can't help you if you're at the concert. I said, I'm not at the concert, I live on countryside. And he said, I'm sending the car, you don't need to walk out. I did walk out, I met the very nice officer. As he got out of the car, he said, wow. I said, I know, you know, this is, I can't hear my own music, I can't hear my TV, I can't have a conversation during far too many concerts. I give it three songs, figuring there's gonna be a baseline, there's gonna be a drummer, there's gonna be something that's getting really excited. On the third song, I call the police. I have had to call every year. The thought of there being 30 additional items has me thinking, you know, I guess the only option is moving. I appreciate all the questions that everybody has asked and all the thought that all the trustees have put into this. I would like to support CVE, if I felt that CVE supported us. Me, the expo is a sacred cow that we're not allowed to talk against. And quite frankly, I absolutely know that they have never been disturbed by my noise. The thought of 30 nights where I'm gonna have to find some place to go because I can't enjoy my home peacefully is very concerning to me. Thank you. Oh, and I'm sure that I read today or maybe yesterday that Darius Rucker has been postponed until hopefully sometime in 2022 because, you know, the understanding is, let's face it, the grandstand is not gonna be able to be open this year in all likelihood. We're looking through the end of Christmas before things are really hopefully back to normal. So thank you for hearing me. And I would also just like to mention that as we move on in the meeting and the next item is about noise, keep that in mind as you're considering how you're treating the Champlain Valley expo and trash haulers. Thank you. Thank you as well. Are there any other members from the public who wish to address the board on this issue? Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and bring it back to the board. Tim, in the memo on this, it's mentioned that you need an answer in the next few weeks. Can you tell me when you would need an answer a little more than just a little more specific than the next few weeks? No, good question. What's the date for the third? Just looking at my calendar policy. Could we say by March 12th, that's a reasonable time to have a decision? I believe so. I'm also pulling up calendar as well. So I know that we meet again on March 9th. And the reason why I ask is I know personally we've talked about a few different things where it may be beneficial if, so some of the things I've heard are about notifying residents within 250 feet of events. I would like to put some kind of a caveat about within a specified time period that residents should be notified within say five days of an event, not that they should be notified maybe day of. I heard about the amplified events and the intersection with school nights and how do we make sure that our children are not disturbed when they need to be up to get to school for the next day. And so I think that there may be beneficial. Tim, if you want to take some time and think about some of those things, how those may impact you. I think it may be beneficial for us to also think about to think about this as well and how we may want to require some of these things or not. But does that make sense to you, Tim? It does very much. I'm making notes there, I agree. School nights, March 12th deadline, how far in advance, and I will, and we can find this writing, there will be no date of or maybe before if they are scheduled well, I say well in advance, no less than a week in advance. But again, we can provide more information on that. Yeah, absolutely. And one example, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe there was the fish concert, the fundraising concert, that happened in like 48 hours, right? Before my time, but it was a little bit more than 48 hours, the result of fundraising Irene relief. And it was the week, if I believe, and Robin may know better than me, it was the weekend after the fair, and it was scheduled during the fair post Irene, but it was a very short lead time, correct? But it was more than 40 hours. And I only mentioned it in the sense of, I would hate to see that event not being able to happen because we said that residents had to be notified within five days, but yet now all of a sudden this fundraising opportunity couldn't happen. So just one of those little intricacies I think is important to keep in mind. George, I see your hand is up. I just wanted to answer, I was on the board when the fish concert happened, that it was about three days. We did really push it through, but it was an important event to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Irene. So, but we made an extra effort to get it out the door really fast. Thanks. So unless there's any disagreement from board members, I think that we'd like to take another two weeks to think about this, Tim, for you to think about how the logistics of this, what may work and then come back on the ninth. Right. Does that work for everybody? Right, yep. One more comment if I could, Andrew. Yes, please. Hey, just a brief feel of exciting UVMMC, the vaccine center has administered now more than 17,000 vaccines at the family expo. And many, many, many more to come. And they have a tremendously efficient set up there in what we call our Miller South building. And they started, it's been fascinating to watch and proud for us as CBE to play a small role in the state's response to COVID. And every resident of Essex should be proud of the role that Essex, the community has played. Starting last year, there were 13,000 COVID tests leading to the third hospital to food distribution events all summer long, graduations as we talked about and now hopefully closing the loop with the vaccines. But... Fantastic. Very exciting to be a small part of the response. Tremendous. That's great news. Yeah, certainly do appreciate the efforts that you and CBE, your staff have done to allow for those things to take place, to ensure that our community is as healthy as we possibly can during this public health crisis. That's amazing. Yeah. Very much appreciated. Great. Thank you, Tim. Hope you enjoy the rest of your school vacation. Bye, thanks. Bye-bye. Take care. All right, bear with me, board. Will I find our agenda? So this would bring us now to the discussion regarding municipal ordinance, section 718, noise and regulating collection of refuse. Hello. Do you want me to chime in? Yeah, I've only read the memo, so... If you could add a little more, that'd be great. So we've had complaints about the noise and the time that Trash has picked up. Terry did some research. She looked at noise control ordinances in Williston, South Burlington, Winnowsky. And there seems to be a pattern. Generally speaking, they don't let any trucks come around before, two of them don't let trucks before 6 a.m. One says 7 a.m. And there's a range, sorry, there's range between 7 p.m. through 9 p.m., where they can't operate after that. It would seem to me that 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. would be reasonable. And as they're all ordinances, people seem to get confused a bit. Planning and zoning really covers private property, ordinances cover public property more than anything else. And often with ordinances, it would go to the admin or perhaps the police, for example, if somebody parks on a street in violation of an ordinance, we may get the call, but we don't have the authority that the police do to make the car move or give them a ticket or whatever. But they seem to be what other communities have opted for that seem to be reasonable. We haven't got any answers back to our questions, is it working? But I can't imagine it isn't, because if they're told they can't be there at a certain time and there's consequences to it, then make sure that it adhered to that. So Robin, a clarifying question. If we were to go forward with this and if refuse trucks were not allowed from the hours of 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. and a trash truck pulls in front of my home at six o'clock a.m., who do I call? Police. And so if they can then come and see the crime in action, that's when they take care of it. Yes. Okay. Amber, go right ahead. I think the memo is obviously only for informational purposes, as Robin said, but I guess my thoughts on this are, we've definitely had some folks that have come to public meetings that have complained about this issue. I think it is an issue. I mean, I can recall them picking up my trash at 6 a.m. I don't think it's ever been earlier than that. It's been pushed back of recent. I don't know why, but I do, I appreciate Terry grabbing those other ordinances and stuff from my perspective. I kind of want to table this until we have a vote because we've been pretty clear that we want to try to consolidate some ordinances and whether the town will feel the same way as this is an issue for them, as it is for us, is to be determined, but I don't necessarily want to start too much work on this without having that vote. Thank you, Amber. Are there other board members of the questions? It looked like George and then Rush. Yeah, in my mind, I think this is pretty high priority. I just want to make a distinction here, though. I think that for most single family residential properties, it's probably not that big an issue. Maybe it is, but my understanding is that the real noise comes from trash haulers who are picking up dumpsters and really the real loud clanging and banging and the big trucks, is that correct? Or are we directing it to everybody, anyone who would pick up any trash whatsoever? The ordinances that we looked at doesn't differentiate. It's an H-lash truck. It's funny, I always thought this was a big city issue. Every time I stand in a big city, the trash trucks are coming around four in the morning. It seems like it's happening here too, Mark. Well, I think that for the Village Center, as we're getting larger and more buildings and more people sleeping in one area, it is an issue because you don't want to be waking up an entire building with 100 people in it at 5.30 in the morning. So I think it's an important issue for us to address. And I hear you, Amber, it would be great to align our ordinances, but either way, I think it's something that we need to push on fairly soon. Go ahead, Raj. Yeah, I mean, I think we should move on with this. I mean, if we wait to do this with the town, even at a positive merger vote, this could be the end of next year. So I would, the only question I had was our current ordinance is nine to seven for construction and things like that. So I was just going to suggest the ordinance. That's sorry, that's in the land development code. So it's a different animal, but yes. Well, that was the noise ordinance I'm reading on our website. Is that different than what I should be reading? Well, no, it's really when we have, we don't have anything that addresses trash demand. The noise ordinances we have at the minute are for the land development code is for private property. No, what I'm talking about, Robin, is we have a... You had section seven on eight. It is chapter seven, section four, paragraph G. Noise is emanating from the excavation, demolition, alteration, or repair of building structures, properties between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. Right, yes. So all I'm suggesting is that this is gonna be part of our noise ordinance, which I guess we're going here. Do we wanna make those two times match, just to keep it simpler for, because you could be demoing with a dumpster and schedule, it's moderately related. So just to not have different times and to look at, if we align them, then that's just a question. Gotcha, that's a good point. And actually, that is a good point because it would simplify things for the police because then they wouldn't have to be guessing which time slots they are. If they're the same, then it's easier to take, keep the code tough, absolutely. Go ahead, Evan. So just maybe a point of caution. Because this is a ordinance, it will pertain to businesses as well as residential. And we're not quite clear, that's why we wanted a discussion in the first place as to what impacts it might have, not only on retail businesses, but also manufacturing. So I just wanna bring that to your attention. And we're not, we have done no outreach whatsoever as to what any of this would do to businesses or residential for that matter. I can tell you, for a person that walks as dogs in the morning, I know the garbage trucks are out there before 7 a.m. Cause I hear the beeping all throughout the neighborhood. So I know they're operating, I just don't know the impact. Yeah, I mean, I can say, I think George was getting at before, do we want, it sounded like George was might maybe going to the fact that do we wanna, you know, isolate this and more of the village core. And I think what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of residential areas with rental units and dumpsters. And I can tell you that I would love to not have pretty much every day, every single day in some Saturdays in my neighborhood, there's trash pickup. I don't wanna make it a bigger deal than it is. It's really not that huge deal, but it would be great to sleep past six. Oh, come on, Raj. I just saying, you know, like every single day and most of the companies are two trucks, you know? So it's like one right after the other within a, I just, you know, it's certainly worth something worth looking at and seeing, you know, are there manufacturing cutouts that this shouldn't apply to the areas of the village that it doesn't make sense to implement and how hard is it to carve those out in a logical and sensible way, you know? I don't know what those would be off the top of my head, but like for instance, this wouldn't make any sense on parts of Kila, if we were the town, this wouldn't make any sense on parts of Kila, but sure would on Susie Wilson. Right. You know, so I'm not sure what a similar play, I can't even think of a place. And I mean, now that we've got apartment buildings around Mark Barbecue and that, we're getting pretty infilled. So I just want to imagine where in the village this wouldn't apply. I just wanted to bring to your attention that, you know, depending upon what you choose, 6 a.m., 7 a.m., it will have an impact as well with businesses. And this just came up, and that's why we wanted a discussion first before any action. Yeah. So my assumption with this is that part of the research that would be done is to do some of the calls with businesses, to do some reach out to businesses, including the trash companies themselves, the haulers themselves to see what the impacts would be because certainly those homeowners or those residents who live along post office square and the retail section of our community, that's where part of this originated, is you get the dumpsters back behind the post office, big lots, that area that are banging at five or so in the morning, that's certainly very disturbing. So there's no doubt about it. And then as has already been mentioned with the infill going on, we'd hate to have the newer buildings with a hundred or so people living in them as their dumpsters get emptied, waking up the single family home, two buildings away. Right. So that was part of my assumption. Yeah. If I could jump in, Andrew, I also think just the way you just in thinking about it, it might, there are probably lots and lots of businesses and homes to research. There are probably only a handful of waste removal companies. So it might actually be easier to start with the waste removal companies in terms of the research, because that might save the staff doing a lot of calls, something to think about. We do have, and for the life of me, I've used them, I can't remember their name. There is an Essex junction-based hauler. I believe. There's got there. Maybe there's two of them. No, it's not, it's not good. There's got there's clean green and there's Barnier. Thank you. That's the Barnier. Welcome. I would suspect though that the general answer from the haulers is going to be, we can't have our hands tied like that. So I don't know. You know, I mean, which one is going to go? Oh yeah, we'll start at eight. We'll have less tips at the transfer station and be happy about it. And unfortunately, I just, you know, we've, yeah, it's a tough one. Yeah. It's a delicate balance. That's the whole point of these ordinances, there's generally somebody going to be negatively impacted and somebody positively impacted. So if the board is okay with it, we can go ahead and turn this over for public comment. Yep. So if you are a member of the public and wish to address the board on this issue, go ahead and raise your hand using Microsoft Teams. And Andy Cooper, see your hand is up. Hi, Andrew. I don't know, I don't know what Evan's thoughts might be on this while I talk to you, Andrew, but the Economic Development Commission is currently preparing outreach to local businesses. And I think once we have that set up, you would be able to probably simply, we could figure out what the questions are and that same setup can just be re-triggered to, sorry, if that's not a good use of terminology, re-used to send out a survey with these kind of questions about what kind of impact that would have on your local businesses in particular, manufacturers or whatever. And so I'm thinking about that, that we're busy kind of setting up a systematic means for there to be a full list of businesses in all of Essex, but I don't know how much work it would be for us to figure out. It just occurred to me that we might as well figure out which of those businesses were in the village in particular and have that as a separate sheet. And then as a resident, so separate from the Economic Development Commission idea of us at least creating that framework because we were doing it anyway, I agree with George that working from the trash haulers first, but also I agree with Raj that the time it should be the same, but I do think more homework needs to be done until they're the same, but I do think that the trash hauling is more immediate. Having lived in a lot of cities in my life, Brooklyn and in particular in San Francisco, a 4 a.m. huge dumpster slam was terrifying, yeah. But I think that the challenges for the trash haulers are that while we're smaller communities than cities are, we have to traverse more land space, more distance to get to their whole route. That being said, as we grow, I personally wouldn't be shy to push for the 7 a.m. because it just has to get figured out. So those are all my thoughts and if the Economic Development Commission can be of help with the lists and things that we have as long as those that will lead us, Evan, would think that that's okay, I'm sure that we could figure out how to be helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Annie. And certainly I would say that if the Economic Development Committee wanted to help, we certainly wouldn't turn it away. I will, if I may speak again, it's commission. I'm sorry if I was saying committee, we're a commission, but sometimes I traipse through committee and commission. I will bring it up at the next meeting and have it open for discussion, but I don't see why at the very least, we'd have a format. Like at the very least, we would hand you, we would be able to hand you tools that were always for what you needed to do. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And any other members from the public wish to address the board, Ms. Bring it back to the board. There's no formal motion to do on this. Staff, do you feel that you have what you need? Are there any other questions you'd like for us to be more specific with? No, I think I've got your gist. We'll be making some calls to the haulers and some local businesses to see what the impact is. And it looks like you're leaning towards a seven AM from eight to seven. So we'll use that as a guideline and see what happens. Perfect, thank you. We'll be back in probably a few weeks. We'll be back in maybe two meetings. See you then. And that will move us on to our new agenda item. I don't remember what it's called. I'll just call it the evaluation mistake. Or we'll call it 6E, I suppose. It's probably the bit more official term. Tammy, do you mind? Thank you. I appreciate that. So the long and the short of this is as we've been going through the evaluation process, one of the things that came to light is back in 2020, all that long time ago before the pandemic, we had a joint executive session where we had approved some things with Evans contract, except we never then went out of executive session to formally vote on them. And as such, this item here is for us to vote publicly on the things that we had agreed to so that that way, they are official. I'd be happy to answer any questions if anybody has any. I'll just make the comment that I'm sorry, I didn't catch it. Oh, I meant it's not all on you on this, trust me. It's more than just you in that room. You weren't even in the room. I wasn't in the room, but I also didn't catch it that it was, nevermind. Anyway, so again, these are things we had already agreed to with the select board. They're going to be meeting on this at their subsequent or at their next meeting, if not even sooner. So if there are no questions from the board, we'll go ahead and ask for a motion. Fine, I will make a motion to ratify, is it okay if I make this? Don't make me read this entire paragraph, Andrew, and then say, wait a second, George, someone else has this book. I'm about to read this whole paragraph, right? Go for it. I'm gonna make a motion to ratify and reaffirm the decisions made in executive session to extend the contract of the unified manager, Evan Teach, with the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction from February 26th, 2021 to February 25th, 2022, to authorize a $3,000 bonus to be paid on February 26th, 2020, to authorize a 3% pay increase to be effective February 26th, 2020, and to amend the language in section 3e of the unified managers contract to require 180 days, parentheses, six months, notice of non-renewal made at the joint meeting of the town of Essex Select Board and the village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees on February 3rd, 2020. Thank you, George. And is there a second? Second. Thank you, Raj. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Everybody opposed? Great, pass unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you. And going back to the agenda that will bring us, our next agenda item would be the discussion of the Evaluation of Public Official, which we will have an executive session, so that will bring us to the consent agenda. If someone wants to make a motion to approve the consent agenda. No move. Thank you, Amber. Second. Thank you, Raj. And is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Anybody opposed? All right. Thank you all. Reading file with board member comments. I've got nothing. Anybody else have anything they want to discuss tonight? Evan, how about him? Just one quick note. Town meeting day and the merger vote for the entire town, including the village, is Tuesday. There is an informational meeting Monday. It is virtual, all virtual. So this is because of COVID and Australian ballot, but the merger vote is Tuesday, March 2nd, and the village is a member of the town. So they should, if they are inclined to vote, they should vote. Okay. Evan, can you remind me of something? For those of us, say maybe myself, who have our ballots still sitting on our countertops that have been filled out and turned in yet, when do I have to turn that in sign without having to do it in person? Oh, so here are your options. If you want to drop it off in person at 81 Main, there is a ballot box that needs to be there by five o'clock on Monday, March 1st. If you do not, but you still filled it out, you can take it to the polls on March 2nd, or you can go to the polls on March 2nd with your materials. They will swap it out for a ballot at the polls. Those are, or I would suggest, based upon the late hour days, I would not, you could probably mail it if it was tomorrow, but because of the way the mail goes, it's not like it goes to the Essex only. It may go to another sorting station. So the best way of doing it is really just pop over to 81 Main, there's a box there. It's right outside the front door. It's secure and there's a camera on it. So if you want to wave to staff, you can wave to us as well, but you'll be on camera and it is bolted down. So it's not going anywhere. Thank you, Evan. And thanks, Tammy. Yes, thank you for putting that up on screen. Thank you for putting that up and just one last thing. Now that it's on the screen though, I was just going to say there is no town meeting as we have been used to. And so what is that going to look like? If you don't mind just saying basically it was on the screen. So the informational meeting, which is usually held on the Monday before is virtual. So just as this meeting is virtual, there will be a presentation of the budget. There will be a plan of merger presentation. We will still have our moderator, Steve Eustis, taking questions. The interesting part is because we use Teams, there is some debate as to how many people Teams will allow at one time. So we are also working on an overflow of Teams Live. So we're still working that out, but it will be virtual. And people will have to raise their hand to be recognized by the moderator and they can ask their question to the moderator and then the moderator, as always, will turn to the chair for answer. And if the chair does not feel that they are the best answer, they will ask the manager. Thank you, Evan. George, I think you were gonna ask something. Oh, I just gonna ask, Evan, how many, do you have a sense of how many ballots have been returned so far? I do not, although I was in the office today and I would say several boxes full trays, I should say, I would say probably well over a thousand have been brought in so far. All right, thank you. And I wanna thank the BCA for all of their help in sorting. Oh, well, thanks, George, you don't know it, but you just let me... I just triggered something, okay. You did, you did. All right. There is a request that on your return envelope, you put your name and address. There's a reason for this. Because we're in Australian ballot and you have a name, you might have a very common name. And therefore, the board of civil authority may or may not know which Joe Smith voted. Which Joe Smith or Billy Smith or Martha Smith voted. And if you just put M Smith and they can't tell, so if you could possibly put your address on it, they're using that to try to figure out which Smith voted and in which district you were from. All righty. So thank you, George. I don't know if you knew. No problem, glad to do it. Glad I was here. Love that teamwork. Yeah. And full address, including the street. Yes. So if there are no other trustee comments, Sarah, Michelle, I do see that your hand is up. We don't have another public comment period. I don't wanna sound like a jerk and I'm really sorry. Oh, no problem. Don't worry about it. Something I can email you about, no worries. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Sorry about that. And then before we officially end this part of the meeting, Evan, I don't have an executive session link. I don't know if the other trustees do and if this is just a problem for me, but we're gonna need another executive session link so we can. Okay. We can do our thing. One second, Tammy. Yep, I'm looking. I don't see where Linda did one, but if you give me a minute, I can get that done for you. I can do my song and dance for two minutes. Just kidding. I'm gonna suggest you watch Let's Sarah Speak. There we go. Sarah, Michelle, we gotta wait on, we gotta wait a few minutes for the executive session link. Oh yeah, cool. Sure. Oh well, I just wanted to, I was just wondering if Peter Gustafson, I noticed his letter about the trees has been referred to the Tree Advisory Committee. And I also wanted to put in, I think it's awesome that, let's see, what is this name again? Steve Rivers wants to be on the committee and he has like an incredible background and I think we'd be really lucky to have him. And I think that like you wouldn't really, that a precedent or anything with him living outside the village because they, everybody has to come before you to get approved anyways for those appointments. So I just wanted to say I would support him. Thank you. Thank you so much. Evan. Procedural question. Will there be any votes or any action after executive session? That's good. So that I will close after you leave, I will close this meeting and then you can just give me the motions out of executive session for the minute sticker. Perfect. Tammy, are we good? I think I just sent it. I just sent it to the five trustees. I don't know as if you were having anybody else attend this executive session. Nope, it was just going to be us. Okay. Did you all receive it? I got it. I don't have my email open, but I'll trust it's there. Good to go. So thank you everybody. With that, I just want to make a motion and to, or I'll, now I'm going to get that language up. Yeah, you want to do it. Neal was too quick to get out of here. I will move that the village trustees enter into executive session to discuss the evaluation of the public official in accordance with one VSA section 31383. I'll second. Thank you, George. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none of those in favor, please signify by saying hi. Hi. Hi. Anybody oppose? All right. Thank you all. Have a good night. See you later. And trustee, see you in a few moments. I'll be a couple of minutes.