 order at 7 o'clock. We have two sets of minutes to deal with tonight. The first one is July 19th, 2022. Is there a motion? Move the acceptance subject to modification. Is there a second? Second. Page one. Page two and page three. Very no corrections then. All those in favor of approving the minutes of July 19th, 2022, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And we have the minutes of August 2nd, 2022. Is there a motion? Move the acceptance subject to modification. Is there a second? I'll second. Page one and page two. So here are no corrections. All those in favor of approving the minutes of August 2nd, 2022, say aye. Aye. Any abstentions? And no opposition. So we're up to public comment and this is the opportunity for anyone in the audience here in the room or on Zoom to make public comments on any issue they wish to. Any comments from in people in the room? Seeing none. Anyone on Zoom who wishes to make any public comment? No. No one on Zoom, Terry. Okay. So then we'll move on to item number four. That's interviews and appointments. And I think we have one person in the room for an interview. Helen. Okay. Helen, Morgan, Parmet, if you want to come to the table. Terry, Shannon's in the room. Helen's online. So Helen's on Zoom? Yeah, would you like me to go to Helen first? Okay. Yeah. Helen, I'm going to connect you online just a moment. I'll make you a panelist so you can share your video if you like. So welcome, welcome Helen. Can you hear me? Looks like you might be muted Helen. I'll fix that. Let's be a setting here once I can hear. Sorry about that. Helen, try that. There we go. Yes, I can hear you all. Thank you. Good. We can hear you too. So welcome to the Select Board meeting and tonight we're interviewing you for the Town Meeting TV Board of Directors. And we do have your application in front of us, but for the people who haven't seen that before, we'd like to have you give a brief description of your background and why you'd like to be a member of the Town Meeting TV Board. Sure, thanks. Yeah, so I'm associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Vermont, where I'm also the Edwin W. Lawrence Forensic Professor of Speech and the Director of the Lawrence Debate Union. My research is in critical media studies where I look at TV studies specifically, and I've done quite a bit of research on public educational and governmental access TV, a big project that I'm engaged in right now, look specifically at the history of CCTV or Town Meeting TV. So it's an organization that I've been involved with for a long time. In terms of I've brought my classes there many times, and I've also sort of worked with them through, you know, doing doing the primary election coverage and various other, you know, panels that I've been on that they've hosted around media literacy and such. And so it's an organization that I care a lot about. And I want to see them be successful. And I know that right now is a particularly challenging time for public educational and government access programming, because of the phenomenon of court cutting, where people are less likely to subscribe to cable, because they can, you know, purchase streaming services directly from content providers. And so because that's such a big part of access, televisions, funding, their future I think is really sort of uncertain or it's in a moment of flux. And I feel so invested, I think, especially in Vermont's peg programming, that it's something that I really want to be involved in. And I'm particularly impressed with the kind of advocacy work that they've been doing at town meeting TV, like boring Glenn David, and has just been, you know, really amazing. So when they said that there was a position available as a trustee or on the board of directors, I thought that was a way that I could kind of give service, give back to to town meeting TV since they've been, you know, just really generous with me with that my research and their time and and so forth. So that's a little bit, I think about me and my interest in the entire meeting TV. When I applied, I didn't know that there were other people that were interested. So I'm happy to, you know, I'm happy. I think it's great that there are multiple people that want to want to support the television program. We certainly have great credentials to bring to us for the appointment. So any questions from members of the board? I would just clarify Helen and the board, there's just Helen's the only applicant for this position. The other interviews from the other. Oh, okay. That's right. Jenny has been our representative for many, many years. So we appreciate her all of her hard work on this as well. Yeah, questions from the board. Well, Helen, hi. Jeff here. First question kind of I assume an easy one. What does the acronym PEG stand for? Public educational and government access programming? Okay, okay. I got the PE the G I was so clear on. You know, given your your qualifications, it's hard to envision how you wouldn't be really good as our representative. So my question, usually I'm along the lines of asking questions to see why you're good. I'm going to ask it in a different aspect for you, given that you are so well qualified. What are the liabilities of you being so well qualified? If any, I that's a tough question. I thought you were going to say, you know, where do you sort of lack? And I think the budgetary stuff is where I lack like, even though I know a lot about where the funding issues and holes are, you know, when I look at those numbers, sometimes, you know, I'm in the humanities, so it's not necessarily like, I am an economist, you know, or in finance, so then I, you know, know exactly, you know, that I can like spot like small financial errors. So I think that's something, but I have been on boards before. So I've looked at a lot of financial documents. I was on the board of a nonprofit cinema when I was at Western Washington University. So I do have experience in that area. In terms of my sort of maybe over involvement in the research of PEG. What is the liability there? You know, I think that in some ways, it's nice when boards really don't know the work because they don't they don't get over involved in like programming or determining them, you know, the, the mission, because I think that the people who are there on the day to day really should be doing that. And I think, you know, maybe it's a liability that I, you know, I'm over it. I know probably more about, you know, the history and the practice and the, you know, the sort of production capacities of, of television that that might be, I guess, you know, a little bit of a liability, but I, you know, would knowing that, you know, especially having been on boards before, I think that it is important to kind of like take that step back and use that information when it's helpful to the people who are on the ground doing the day to day work running, running the TV channel. Which is you mentioned the the challenging times and the challenging what you see as some of the challenges facing, you know, the organization faces, what are your thoughts on how do you address that? I think that it's a really a legislative solution and I'm impressed with the legislative or advocacy work that both the media factory and town meeting TV have been doing. And I know that they're currently, you know, a lot of their the funding that they're, you know, sort of missing from some of those cable subscriptions is being made up through bridge funding that was like COVID funds from the legislature. I think looking at more long term legislative funding is probably like one of those areas and thinking about, you know, being coming part of a regular line item budget. And I think during COVID, like, you know, right now, right this legislative session is being streamed thanks to town meeting TV. So I do think that it really is a public service. And so that it deserves some form of public funding. And then I think the second avenue is in philanthropy. And I know that town meeting TV has already been doing a lot of that work. And so trying to sort of kick that into gear, probably some, you know, fundraising and philanthropic work is going to be important as it is for like any nonprofit organization. Okay, good. Thank you. And my last question. And for some reason, this tends to fall on me to ask it. It's a conflict of interest question. And, you know, simply stated, how would you recognize a conflict of interest? And what would you do about it? A conflict of interest in terms of, for instance, what you might be doing for research, right? Yes. Oh, okay, absolutely. So there was some sort of conflict for interest where my research, you know, would be interfering with if it would influence in some way, what they were doing in a way that seemed unethical, I would remove myself or accuse myself from any discussion, right, that had anything to do with my research that that would be, you know, anathema to right of it would be like I was trying to get my research to have a particular answer, I would have to remove myself from those from those conversations. I mean, my research is mostly historical, and about the sort of larger like landscape of the political economy of television. And so I don't see there being a real conflict of interest, but certainly if there was, I would just wish to use myself from those conversations. All right, good. Thank you. Any further questions? Yeah, thanks for those questions. If there's no further questions, then there is a suggested motion. Move to a point. Helen Morgan Parmet as the town's representative to the town meeting TV trustees. Is there a second? Second. Sorry, discussion on the motion. Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations and thank you very much for your interest in doing this. Wonderful. Thank you so much. This is a great honor and I am, you know, I've been a resident of Wilson for a few years now and I'm happy to give something back to this awesome town. Good. Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, I'm my son's off to college tomorrow, so I'm going to leave the meeting and go finish helping him get packed. But yeah, I appreciated meeting everybody and thank you all so much. Yeah, thank you. Right. Take care. So next we have for the Cemetery Commission, Shannon Hiltner and Shannon. Sorry, I guess you can choose. So if you would, the same thing for you, if you'd give us a brief description of your background and why you feel you'd like to be on the Cemetery Commission. Why I volunteer for this. Um, I moved to the town in 2010 and did a stint with the town planning commission for several years, did a couple rounds of the town plan meetings and also have been on the Friends, the library board for most of my tenure in the town. Active resident had a child go through the system and I believe strongly in public service. And I was looking for a way to pick up some additional service that I wanted it to be meaningful to me. So I thought this would be a good opportunity since I grew up in a family where my father was the one that was on the Cemetery Commission. So I know what it entails. He was the one that put the flags on every holiday and took them off. So the respect of it from my family is very significant. And I'm also a huge history dork. So from the perspective of Vermont Archaeological Society and other making sure that the cemeteries are well maintained and that the histories are preserved. And I'm also being on the various boards. I've been through multiple rounds of the budget for the town. So I am very comfortable with the budget process and understand it. My life history, I did IT risk security for the Department of Treasury in my prior life before I came to Williston. So again, very comfortable with budgets and hearings and meetings. So that's really most of it. I went and sat at the meeting with the Cemetery Commission last week just to get a feel for it and get to know the group and make sure I asked questions and that there weren't any surprises. There were a few, but I'm good with them. So that's pretty much and I do know it's a five year commitment. Good. Thank you very much. Questions from members of the board. First of all, thank you for your extensive service to Williston. We, you know, this folks like you or what you do, you know, make this town really so wonderful. Just quickly, what would you see as, you know, some priorities or things that you might like to see as priorities for the Cemetery Commission? Well, I think the first off, I'd just like to say I think they're doing a really great job. And I see that our cemeteries are well maintained. And it is a reflection of a community to quote someone I spoke with recently, that I love the history of our town. And I love that we have an opportunity to do this. And sorry, I'm a little nervous. I haven't spoken in front of a camera ever. So it's, I just went blank. Sorry, Greta. I don't remember the What would you see is, you know, things you would like to see as priorities for the Cemetery Commission? I mean, just making sure that the maintenance is handled, I actually would like to work more with the Vermont Archaeological Society and maybe work with the schools as an opportunity so that the history isn't lost for an integration there in the community. There's we have as a history buff, we have people in our cemeteries that date all the way back to the 1700s and every single war, including women in the Revolutionary War, that I think there's a good opportunity for crossover. But it's meaningful to make sure that people are protected and that respected. And that's really my biggest priority. Other questions? No, I guess more of a comment. I was going to ask you, are you sure you know what you're getting into? But the way you answered Greta's question and gave your introduction, I think so. It's there were responsibilities that I didn't know it entailed, like being there for the certificates during interments. Okay. And that was something I had to think long and hard about because it's it's hard. Yeah. And death is a serious, difficult thing that unfortunately, in my family, we've experienced firsthand. So it's a little deeper in a little more personal. But you know, once I reflected on that, I felt that this was it's a straightforward way of giving back to the community. It's a function I did not realize. Me either. Okay, good. I'm guessing it's not appropriate for me to ask the conflict of interest or may not be appropriate to ask the conflict of interest question. I don't know anybody buried there. You might though. I might. I might. I have to go look. But one thing I would think be interesting to hear as as you have more of an opportunity to be in the cemeteries and in looking at the at the gravestones and your own personal interest in the history and archeological, if I said it correctly, aspects of it next year's cemetery report could be a very interesting one. I do have a journalism degree, but don't hold that against me. Not me. I'm an engineer. I have trouble speaking plainly sometimes. Yeah, I look forward to using my skills right away to help out. Great. Thank you. Sure. There's no further questions. There is a motion suggested. Move to appoint Shannon Heltner to Cemetery Commission for an unexpired five year term through June 30, 2027. Is there a second? I'll be interested to see who got it. You know, next meeting. So I have a motion made in a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Yeah, if not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Any opposed. So congratulations. We look forward to having you on the commission. Yeah, so moving on along to the temporary event permits and we have three to look at tonight and Eric, you're going to start the process going here. Yep. Three permits. I've previewed a couple for the board and we've got a couple of folks either on Zoom or in the room to answer any questions the board might have on a couple of these and some minor for folks watching at home. This is part of the town's temporary event ordinance that certain permits will be reviewed by the select board. It depends on the scope of the event. So the first one is an event this weekend at Redbar Gardens, the Night Shade Festival. It's and there's also a catering permit attached to it from Foam Brewers. Staffs review the application represented some police fire and the manager's office performed a site visit. Week and a half ago. There were some conditions placed on the applications from staff that event organizers have met and they shared some photos today with me that they made some of the all of the site recommendations from staff, additional fire extinguishers and egress and events around the small pond. So staff is very comfortable with that result of the process here. I've got the event organizer Guthrie over Zoom that I can connect if the board has any additional questions for this weekend. Good. Thank you. I think there were possibly some questions regarding the bring your own issue on this one. Guthrie, I'm going to connect you up. I'll just hit allow to talk. Then you be able to speak with the board. Guthrie, if you could just unmute, please. There we go. Sorry about that, Guthrie. Can I have it out? Yep, we can hear you. Okay, great. Well, welcome to the select board meeting and we've been had the opportunity to review the application during the course of several days anyway that we've had the information. And I know that there were some questions that came about from the select board regarding the BIOB policy for the event. And how do you how do you feature regulating that? Well, as it stands, there actually is no there is no BIOB at the event. We've announced foam brewers as our official beverage partner and provider for the festival. So they are going to be the only source of alcoholic beverages permitted on the site, you know, under our purview. And I have a few ways leading up to the event. And during the event that we're hoping to enforce that and supervise that. And of course, I'd be open to hearing some more suggestions. Would you like me to kind of go over those points that we're going to be putting in place during the event? Yeah, that would be helpful. Great. All right. So in addition to just featuring foam brewers very prominently as our beverage provider, you know, making a point of advertising kind of anywhere we're putting out the event. We are also going to be doing a few things that directly mentioned the restriction of BIOB. The first is a little FAQ kind of things to know sheet or graphic design that I put together. And this will be put out on our social media accounts. And it will also be emailed to all ticker, ticket holders leading up to the event. And I'd be happy to share that FAQ, I'm not sure if the share screen is available or if that would be helpful or not. But it just details some important info to know. And among that is a mention of there being no BIOB at the event. And also, if all attendees could avoid bringing glass, something that we're trying to reinforce there. So this FAQ sheet will also be presented on display at the admissions booth. And we'll have staff at the admissions booth who are verbalizing a few of them of the major points on that FAQ sheet to ticket buyers and attendees who are coming in the door. And additionally, you know, beyond the admissions staff, we're going to have between 20 and 25 other volunteer staff on site. And all of them know about our policy on BIOB that there is none. And that foam is the one handling the sale and distribution of alcohol. And they'll be able to observe and remind people if needed to, you know, of that policy and to turn anything that they do bring to their car and just let them know, hey, you know, we're very happy to have foam brewers here. They make great stuff. And we don't want to put them in risk or the property owners or ourselves in any in any jeopardy. So those are just a few of the things that we'll be doing leading up to the event and during the event. I'd be happy to take any questions or comments on that as well as suggestions for other ideas to to make that as clear as possible. Good. Thanks. Any other questions for the organizers? I have one and I'll try to be brief here. My question is along the lines of how important or seriously should you enforce the BIOB, for lack of better words, policy for this event. And specifically, I'm thinking of festivals that I've been to where they actually will search any bags or backpacks bring in. Do you feel that's necessary? I don't feel it's particularly necessary to be searching bags. A few reasons for that. You know, foam brewers is a credible brewery. They're well known within the area. And they just us very straightforwardly putting out that, you know, there are beverage partner. They're the ones handling the alcoholic beverages. I think just as people would acknowledge that going into a bar, they'll, you know, both respect it and acknowledge it as a rule going into the festival. But I think it is a serious, a serious point to enforce. Because obviously, safety is our number one concern. And while we want to create, you know, a fun environment for people to be enjoying the music, enjoying the food, there are some things, there are a lot of things that we could be doing that people might not be thinking of. You kind of guide that experience and to make it make it safe and to make it better for everybody. Other questions? It just seems to me and this more comment for everybody is to the degree that BYOB is enforced is up to the event organizers, not for us to necessarily dictate. Okay. Yep. If there are no other questions, then regarding this particular event, there is a motion. I'll move to approve a temporary event permit in a catering permit for the nightshade festival to be held on October the 27th, August, August, what I say, October, this year is just going on. August and I'm making it go even faster. August 27, 2022 at the Red Barn Gardens. Zero seconds. There is a second. It's very discussion then on the motion. If not, I'll close in favor of the motion. Say aye. Aye. They opposed. All right. Moving right along to the next event. The next one is a cycle cross event at Catamount Community Forest coming up on October the 8th and an accompanying catering permit from the Zen Barn. Staffs also reviewed this application and Friday conditions of approval for the select board's consideration. The fire department chief Colette from the site visit on Monday made an EMT coverage plan with the organizer to include one EMT level provider and keeping our UTV on site if needed for any response during the event. We've got Ben Coleman's here. Ben can answer any additional questions that the board may have in this application. So before we start discussing it, first of all, I live on Governor Chinton Road, border, well, not the community forest property, and also good chance I'll be attending this thing. So I don't know if that means I should be closed myself. People have to live somewhere. I don't think that I tried the homeless thing. It didn't work out. I don't think it's a problem with me anyway. Okay, good. Thank you. So are the questions and for the organizers on this particular event? I think this is happened before. It's not the second year. Correct. Yes. Yeah, it was a long standing event years and years ago. Any other questions? Do you want to describe the event slightly because I just thought board members know what cycloprost means. Yeah. So it's sort of a niche sport within cycling. So it's a bit of a hybrid between mountain bike racing and road racing. So the bikes look more like a road bike. But the courses are primarily it's mixed surface but they're mostly off road. Short circuit. So racers will do multiple laps in a short circuit. The races last about 45 minutes. So we'll have different races throughout the day for different categories and age groups. And it's it's about a one and a half mile course. So it's it's it's well contained. It's it's spectator friendly. You can see the racers quite a bit. It's mostly all in the meadow side of catamount. So people come through. It's about a seven to 10 minute lap time, depending on your your fitness and abilities. So it's it's fun spectator friendly racing. So the question I have and maybe this is unfortunate that I have some knowledge of this type of racing and the audience participation in what would be the right words, how they support or not the racers. So really what I'm getting to is I want to make sure I phrase this correctly. Alcohol can be a big part of that audience participation. With that said, how will you be able to monitor the participants to make sure that there is not excessive consumption of beer? Yeah, to the best of our abilities. I mean, like it's like I said, it's a fairly compact contained race course. So it's not like people are two miles out in the woods. We have Lawson's as our beer sponsor. And so we have a dedicated alcohol provider. So people will be encouraged to support them. So they know what they're doing? Yes. Yeah. And then as far as it's now town property, and I'm assuming that that there's no outside alcohol permitted there so we can we can communicate that adequately within within our media to participants. So and I mean, similarly, if similarly, if someone is out of line, we can we can ask them to remove themselves. Okay. I mean, good. Thank you. The cycle across originated for those that are familiar. It's a very Belgian sport. So Belgium and beer go hand in hand. So so that cycle cross racing and beer history go go hand in hand in Belgium. So yeah, yeah. And some of that has come over here to the States. Yes. Very good. Thank you. Any further questions? If not, then I'm looking for a motion move to approve a temporary event permit and a catering permit for the Green Mountain cycle across race to be held on October 8 2022 at the Catamount Community Forest. Zero second. Second. Sorry discussion of motion. Just that when I was a younger man, I used to play basketball with people who would be drinking Zima was a vodka carbonated. Oh, didn't last. Either the basketball games or the Zima product. So yeah, keep keep an eye out on course, I think Zima was ahead of its time. It seems to be the thing now trying to sneak Zima into the it was a thing. I didn't do it. All right. If there is no more discussion, then all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Congratulations. Thank you. And we're up to the third one. Yep. Last one is a wedding at Red Barn Gardens on September the 10th. Staff also reviewed it similar at the same time for the music festival this weekend. Similar conditions. The applicants prove that they meet all these conditions for mainly fire life safety on the property. Motion for the board to consider along with their caterer for for the event American Flatbread. And any questions regarding this particular event? If not, then I will be wild for this one. If not, then I'm looking for a motion on this one. I'll move to approve a temporary event permit and a catering permit for a September 10th 2022 wedding at Red Barn Gardens. Thank you. There's very discussion of the motion. Very done. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So we've taken care of all of the temporary event and catering permits for the ones that were on the agenda and we're moving on into item number six, the diversity, equity and inclusion, town value statements. And Eric, you're going to lead off on that. Crystal Lee is joining us as well. So I'll give an introduction here. Welcome, Crystal Lee. As the board may recall, a group of community volunteers have been worked with the community justice center. They drafted possible town value statement language pertaining to diversity, equity, inclusion, the select board's consideration included with your agenda materials, a memo and additional materials from community justice center executive director, Crystal Lee McSweeney, that outlines the process to arrive at the value statements and a proposed plan forward. Crystal Lee will give an overview this evening. Staff is seeking feedback on the value statement language and direction for the group to consider finalizing its work for the board. And looking at next steps here with value statements once finalized would then be incorporated into a new select board town values policy that staff would prepare for consideration at a future meeting. Then this policy would be the basis to seek community feedback on visual representation of the town's values, a process that the community justice center would take the lead in undertaking starting later this fall. That will turn over to Crystal Lee to provide her overview. Sure. So good evening everyone. So as you know back in March of 2022, we came forward with wanting to talk about how to bring the town of Williston closer to having some values around and visualizations around diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism. And since then, we have undertaken what I would consider to be a pretty in depth process within the town of Williston. We attempted to distribute, it was close to 175, if not more, flyers to various businesses and organizations throughout the town. And 73 of those flyers were accepted and the remainder of them were declined for various reasons and within that scope, we also did some community outreach seeking people's input around what they would like to see, what they cared about most that include phone calls, emails. We posted things to front porch forum. The library had assisted with that, the federated church, as well as some other organizations. And we came together with a few more community volunteers, which I thought was great and talked about the feedback that we received from folks and went through a pretty intensive process where we worked in teams and we kind of took the language that people shared with us, the values that they shared with us and tried to incorporate them into something that was a little bit more clear and succinct for all of your viewing. And what I can share is that it wasn't an easy process, one we think that putting together a sentence or two could be pretty quick, but it wasn't. But it was actually, it was really enjoyable to get together with some new community members and see what we can do to elevate Williston to a better place. So we have shared with you in your packet what are suggested value statements would be. There are, you'll note that some of them have only one statement while a few of them have two or three. And that's because it was difficult to come up with one statement that we all agreed upon. And also wanting to take into account the process and wanting some feedback from all of you in terms of what might feel best for the town. So those are included here. And then once we, as Eric shared, once were able to get to a place of accepting and adopting these values, we have a plan moving forward for how to engage the community and finding the best ways to visualize these values. I mean, part of that proposal is that I have applied and been accepted into the Cornell program for DEI leadership, which will, it's pretty intensive, but it will start in a couple of weeks and hopefully the end of November with a culminating project, which I would request that the culminating project really be the visualization for Williston and creating that process and how we can do that successfully and through a reputable organization that helps leaders in the community bring us to this place. Well, congratulations on being accepted into that, to the Cornell course. It's a great thing. So tonight you're looking for feedback on the value statements. And so there are, essentially, four different categories that you're looking at and I presume you're asking us to try to come up with our particular favorites on the ones that have more than one part to them. Correct. So I can, we can start with some discussion at the board level at that night. Unfortunately, we're missing one of our our members tonight due to illness, but he can watch this all on TV. So who would like to make any comments? So the idea is like looking at the anti racism headline, the goal here would be to give the input as to which of the two options the board, if I can go first on that one. I would say the first one I like because it is more specific, identifying, addressing, eliminating policies and procedures that have contributed to institutional structural racism through education, community engagement, restorative actions. I think that is a well-stated and specific enough statement. So it's not that the other one is bad. I just like this one better. My thoughts were similar and I would agree that I would rather have number one as well. Other comments? I overall agree. I think that number one is probably addresses more, although I will say I think that number two kind of takes a much more firm and clear acknowledgement of the existence of structural and institutional racism that exists within most, if not all, governmental bodies. And so maybe if there was a way to add that we as a town will acknowledge, this might be a little bit more clear within statement number one. Chris, please. I can multitask. One general comment is that I'm not always sure I'm going to be able to choose between two statements under each of the headings. So one question may be do we have to always choose one over the other? The answer may be yes. The answer may be no. The other general question I had is these statements are all more proactive. And I understand your shared values. So our values tend to be proactive. And my question, and it's an honest question in the sense that I don't know the answer to this question is, is it possible to have statements that are also somewhat, what's the right words, where we won't tolerate type of statements? Eliminate is along those lines, but it's different. And so I'm just looking for feedback on that. Yeah, great question, Jeff. And I think this is some of what we were struggling with too. And we believe that in order to move forward, we do need to have kind of a solid value that we can fall back to. And we believe that anything that we do will be reflective of that in terms of language and putting in tolerance. I think there's other things that we could do within the town that state that we're not tolerant of racism. And I think that one of those ways is to accept the state statement. That's one thing that we could do. But I think, again, just looking for your feedback around, are there words that are missing words are really important in this process? And I think that there's a difference between having the value and then creating what I would say is more of a commitment statement to the values, which is what I think would come next because I think as we go along, there will be different steps in our accomplishments. All right. That makes sense. That kind of answers my question. Yes, the values are more the positive proactive and then the commitment will be, you know, these are things, may include these are things that will not be tolerated, that type of, okay. Right. And I also think, Jeff, that it's, you know, as we continue to move forward and we take more actionable steps, I think that that also will illustrate really clearly what our tolerances are and are not. Okay. All right. Fair enough. So I'm in favor of one over, for lack of, sorry, one rings more, whatever, true to me. And I raise some racism heading. The second one is diversity. There's only one suggestion there, but does anybody wish to add some words or strike some words from that? Just that there should be a period of silence. Well spoken. I couldn't even concentrate. I had to give you something, Ted. This is a, when I read this sentence, without even really thinking about it, I added the words and encouraged to the end of it. So that's something that would work for me. So to read where all, where all, where are all celebrated and encouraged. So can I ask grammatically, what would that, you'd be encouraging all? We would be encouraging all kinds. It's not only do we... So all people are celebrated and encouraged. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, encouraged, which is kind of the more celebrated is, is to me, we celebrate what we have and encourage is we are recognizing that, you know, we can change and grow in terms of diversity and the positive values of that. Yeah, I agree. I think, I think not, I'm not sure if it's encouraged is necessarily even strong enough of a word to, to indicate that diversity is maybe a core value of our community. So, you know, that, that to, to indicate that we, you know, we want and are, are with our actions and policies trying to grow to be a more diverse community. Positive about what language that would be, but I think that it's important to have a more forward thinking kind of language item there. Okay. So I'd be, I'd be happy to have it replaced with a stronger word. If it encourages it, that's fine. I just, I think encouraged is almost a little passive for the importance of this. And I think these, these suggestions are really helpful. So then, you know, I can go back to the group and say here are the thoughts of this elect board and we can work Smith a little bit. The next one is equity and there's two different statements on this particular one. My preference was number one and that I think that, well, I think number two is, is fine, but I really appreciate the thoughts in the first statement that will strive to be fair and impartial with consistently viewing and redefining talent policies and procedures. Again, he had a period there too. Other comments? It was my thought as well. Number one has more specificity. Other thoughts? Period. Again, number one, but also I would love to see, and I think number two goes a bit further in acknowledging what equity might mean. And so I would love to see a greater acknowledgement of that in number one. You know, I appreciate that it's, you know, there's the, especially the line that some may require more than others. And I think that is a core piece of equity and equity driven work. And so I would love to see that included in number one. But then with the inclusion of that, number one would be preferable. The key word I like in number one is every, well, key words is every decision. I like that. But I also like that last part of number two, recognizing that some may require more than others. So I don't know if there's a way to add that last part of number two to number one. I'm going to ask that recognizing that some may require more than others. More, more what? More needs? Right. I think there, you know, again, there's groups that have been marginalized and oppressed for a really long time in that who currently are. And so I think their needs might be different. And at times might require more care and attention within certain things, for instance, housing. That's something that we know requires a lot of care, a lot of attention, a lot of empathy because so many people have been without housing and without affordable or fair housing. And so when we were talking about that, we just recognized that there definitely are people, especially if we think about the LGBTQIA plus members of our community, people of different races. So wanting to recognize that depending on what the topic is, that there are certain people who might need more care and attention than others. And that it really is a responsibility and an obligation that we have to meet those needs. And the last one is inclusion. We have three different statements here. I was particularly like number one and number two. And that would be my preference. I leaned toward number two. Again, it was the more detailed and I thought that was, you know, the more detailed. But I think that they're all very different. And I would be remiss to say that one is preferable to another because I all think they address different things. And with some overlap, certainly. But I think that I know we're certainly trying to limit to one sentence for each statement. But I'm not sure that this would be best served by being a single sentence statement. I think that, again, there is so much that each addresses. Yeah. I wouldn't want to limit us in that way. I can just quickly share that one of the things that we were trying to do was just stay consistent with what the structure of the current values were. And, you know, as we just to share it's kind of a funny story. But as we were working on the values, we did kind of pre-work. And when we came together, some people had like a whole page and we were like, wow, like we really are making really strong statements. And how do we kind of we take this really powerful right, like need an expression and shrink it down into something that is clear and concise. And so I appreciate what you just said because that's really where we all landed in why we gave you three. One of the difficulties in this work though is that, you know, and I'm going to use the term and I don't mean it in a disparaging way at all. But it's hard to be doing this kind of stuff and not stumble over yourself to try to be, cover everything. Because, you know, like, well, it doesn't say that this is our core value. Well, the fact that we're putting it down is our core value. I can't imagine somebody looking at this and saying, well, didn't say core value. And likewise, you know, I was on a committee once where we fought for over an hour on the phrase health care, fighting for health reform or working for health care reform. It was an hour, fighting versus work. And it's like, wow, okay. Words are powerful, Ted. But I mean, I say that because, you know, number two is committed to creating people opportunities, etc. Inherent in that would be identifying an overcoming barrier. So as I see it, inherent in that would be, you know, making sure that town programming and opportunities and leadership positions are accessible. So I think number two is actually more inclusive. But again, I just, I'm not, I don't say this in any way that I know these are, this is a lot. So it's a big lift. It's heavy work. So I thought I'd just say, you know, we're not going to be able to fit every word into everything. So Crystal Lee, this inclusion is the one where you know, I my preference would be if we could somehow combine two and three. I like the way under number three is committed to identifying an overcoming. Yes, I get it. You could you know, you could read that or infer that into the above statement also. But sometimes when you say it, I guess it becomes a little more real. So I don't know if that's possible to do that to combine the two. I'd certainly say if you're going to like, we're going to eliminate one just to make it easier for yourself, one would definitely be the one to at least work with the two and three. Okay. You know, it's interesting because as I read one, I looked at and I said, you know, it's kind of interesting we're starting to define who who this applies to where everywhere else we said will a step. And once you explain the concept of the values, I think using the term Williston or our community, something like that as opposed to trying to identify who we mean by that because in number one, we start to talk about who we mean or what we mean. I don't know if that's at all helpful or more confusing than anything. So I'm reinforcing that I'd like the idea of two and three for inclusion. Somehow working that into one coherent poetic what are the words should I throw in there? So I think we've given you some feedback on the project. So look forward to sorry just one more thing and I'm not sure if this is something discussed or if this would be the DEI value, town value statement would be the place to do this, but did you discuss doing a land acknowledgement as part of our value statement? So we did talk about it as a value statement but we did talk about wanting to have that acknowledgement within the town in some way so we thought that that would come as part of the visualization and so once we get to that piece but I think that's a great point around land acknowledgement and certainly happy to go back and speak to the group if that's something that you should go in as a town value because I think the request because I think the request really was around this piece around anti-racism and then bringing in the DEI but certainly we've talked about the more so the importance and the necessity for us to have land acknowledgement. So the course that you're going to be taking at Cornell will you be attending that in person? No. No, it's all online and it's a 16-week course shrunk up into 8 weeks and so you get a professional certificate that I think will be really really helpful for us to have within the town and be able to help lead this work and I think also as I shared in the memo some other things that I'm involved in working with the Chittenden Regional Planning Commission on their DEI board and working on the state with the state level as well to kind of look at how do we bring this really important work into our local towns and do that in a way that feels really solid and unique but also following best practice and so I think that the Cornell certificate program will really help us do that work in Williston. Okay, thank you. Good luck with that. Thank you. Thanks for coming tonight. Thank you. Moving on to the VLCT Welcome and Engaging Communities cohort we've discussed this in the past and asked Eric to proceed with this and come up with a letter of support and Eric you want to talk a little bit about where we're at with this? So the program that VLCT is launching as Terry mentioned it's a competitive program it's led by the consultant firm of Abundant Sun working with VLCT and they're creating a cohort of 15 municipalities in Vermont with two representatives from each to go through the DEI training over the course of I believe six or seven months the first will be an in-person session at Town Fair in Killington this year by VLCT and so the requirements the applications do by the end of this week I've drafted in your packet responses to the application questions I've drafted a letter for the board's consideration as a letter by the board is required for the application I didn't notice a typo before I printed it out so it's communities cohort not community cohorts I caught that one today so I'm looking for feedback from the board is there anything the board would like to see changed in these materials and also I'm willing to serve as one of the two people for the town that we need a second person to be a select board member the select board member is not able to commit to the requirements of this staff in the manager's office Aaron is willing to serve as well in this so just we have to include the names on the application by the end of the week so I have to figure that piece out so we do have the proposed letter and also the proposed things to go with the application that Eric has drafted for us any comments on either one of the documents I'm glad we're applying thank you for getting it together so quickly yeah so I guess the question is well once we have a motion to approve to ascend the letter do we have a select board member who is interested in putting the time in on this and Jeff you would suggest that you might be interested but concern about the time time and when the training will take place because if it takes place during the work hours I am much less available than if it were to take place at other times do you happen to know where I know for instance the town fair will take place during work hours yeah it doesn't they don't have a time defined for the zoom sessions that I can see in it does say 7 virtual 2 hour EPIC education workshops between October of 22nd and April of 23rd no time defined at this point I wonder if that might be to be determined based on the core participants I could also ask that would be great I would appreciate that thank you I have the exact opposite reaction so if it was during the work hours I it would be much easier for me to participate and so if you are able to find out that information and does not work for a drug schedule I would be happy to be considered I think it's great that we have two select board members at least I suspect no matter what whoever participates will get a lot out of it so we need to know this by Friday for the submission of the letter and the application right? yeah I'll give Ted Brady a call tomorrow and see if he can I don't want to be out of the office okay I'll reach out to someone else you know we're stuck to somebody who really knows the answer so in the meantime we do need to act on the motion that we have before us we would be willing to make that motion move to approve the letter of support and authorize the town manager to apply for the VLCT welcoming and engaging communities cohort is there a second? second motion take the motion say aye aye so we've taken care of that and Eric will get you information and we'll be looking back for your input both Jeff and I brought a lie Friday so moving then to the development bylaw amendments we're going to use code overlaying so I'd like to take up the six items that we can if we can tonight and see whether we'd like to make changes since there's only four of us tonight I'm thinking that if we wish to make changes it would take two of us at least tonight to say yes if you want to change until we have a full a full award if we have three or more that wants to make a change then we could discuss that tonight and obviously if there's no changes requested on any of these we could also work on those tonight so Eric why don't you just lead off and then we can have Matt we can go do one at a time for a brief introduction as to what the opportunities are yep so just for for the board and folks listening and watching at home let everyone know where we are in this process the select board has been reviewing and discussing a development bylaw amendment to establish a form-based code overlay district in the Taft Corners area of town over the course of several meetings this year at the last discussion on July 19 the board received an overview from staff on some possible changes to consider to the transmitted amendment by the planning commission this agenda item this evening as Terry mentioned is a discussion from the board to consider any possible changes to the transmitted form-based code and the official map and staff seeks any direction on possible changes to make as a reminder should the board reach consensus to make any substantive changes to the new public hearing would be required under this process should the board not wish to make any substantive changes to the action item consider adopting the bylaw amendment as transmitted could be added to a future select board meeting agenda upon direction of the board staff will then prepare for the next discussion either consider action to warn a new public hearing adopt the bylaw amendment as transmitted or continue discussion on possible changes to the transmitted form as being discussed tonight I've included in your packet a copy of the planning director Mapillan Jay's memo from July 19 outlines these discussion points this evening there's process questions great thank you Eric are you able to screen share the memo yes I will figure that out if there's if there's a request to I think you'll be able to do it more quickly than sure than I will keep me busy as I'm trying to talk so chair McKay if you would you like to just jump right into the first item and go from there without any other overview or do you want any more overview of the six items on that I think I'd like to take the one at a time starting with number one and then a very brief overview of the what the planning commission has proposed and what the options are sure so item one is related to the Essex Alliance church property approximately 55 acres in the northeastern portion of the form based code overlay district this land is proposed in the draft before you to be part of the regulating plan and building form standards etc that are proposed in this draft there's been a request from a developer with interest in this property Mr. Chris Snyder to remove this property from the form based code overlay district Mr. Snyder has a pending application before the development review board as illustrated by the pictures that you see on the lower half of the screen right now the upper the upper image with the yellow streets is the regulating plan map in the draft code they are they are different Mr. Snyder's proposal is vested under the current file laws because a complete application was filed prior to the first hearing of form based code and that application includes the overall layout as shown in those lower images as well as about 75% of the dwelling units proposed in the project so the request before the board is fairly simple one take it out of the form based code area leave it in the taft corner which is the underlying zoning district and make it subject to those remaining development standards thank you so I'm interested in knowing whether there is support for changing and doing what Mr. Snyder has recommended and in my mind I would support the change to option to go back to totally the code that exists right now for this particular property is there anyone else who wishes to support that the one thing I want before I answer that question would be if I understand correctly about 75% of the property would be covered by the is already vested and it would be about 25% of the property that would be not vested so if this parcel of land stays within the form based code area it would only affect 25% it would affect that 25% of the property correct and it would affect essentially about 25% of the dwelling units in the buildings they were contained in so the first phase involves a complete subdivision of the properties, the utilities the entire overall arrangement of the property where the various dwelling unit types would be installed so what's left is you have a vested layout possibly even building footprint you might be applying the architectural standards of the new code to those unpermitted buildings to the extent that that code does not conflict with different means of access etc. and other things that are determined as part of the first phase okay just so I'm clear I'm sorry if this is a stupid question and yes there are such things the 75% of the project is not going to be affected by the new zoning regs because it's already vested so long as the project proceeds to the permitting process that's correct thank you so the planning commission this March 15th decision that was 2022 decided to keep the remaining 25% in the form-based code they decided to keep this property and at that time the application hadn't been fully filed okay I'm inclined to you know trust the planning commission's decision and to keep the property within the form-based code my question and I know it's only I can answer it how I feel but my question would be is how significant of a benefit is it of keeping it in the form-based code if the project were not to proceed I think there is a pretty good benefit of doing that if the project is going to proceed meaning 75% is vested and if that's the case and that's what I have to assume the case would be I'm not convinced there is a large enough benefit to keeping the property in the form-based code right there that's my thought as well I would agree with Terry to exclude it so I believe I hear your agree with my interpretation yes that's correct maybe using different words or different rationales but I'm agreeing with it should not be included this property should not be included in the form-based code area so I think I hear three of us that say that which would be a majority and so we can we'll think when we have a full award we can come back to all of these and take a full vote and then go forward with a proposal to submit back to the Planning Commission anything that staff's thought is preparing a kind of updated version so then the board could consider that updated version based on these discussions to direct staff to a new public hearing at which time the Planning Commission can provide comment to the board as for that process and can I ask another question I assume this would be considered a significant change would be any of these items the board is looking at this evening would be a significant change moving on to number two alright so this is the Burr Oak Knoll and Lapeer lands Allenbrook Development Incorporated surrounding the Cottonwood Crossing Development and the request that the Planning Commission and Select Board have heard here is related to adding more developable area to this property on the regulating plan if we go to the graphic if you could scroll down just a little bit Eric thank you so those two near the bottom of the screen show on the right the regulating plan for this area as transmitted by the Planning Commission to the Select Board and the large green area you see in the middle of the graphic is the Burr Oak Knoll the small roundabout toward the top of the screen above that is the existing roundabout or squareabout of the Cottonwood Crossing and then if you scroll down just a little bit Eric so in the graphic on the left you see a regulating plan with some added red areas those are added developable areas that the Planning Commission considered but chose not to forward to the Select Board and then finally what's on your screen now is on the right a drawing submitted by the landowner requesting added developable areas and an area shown in blue that would be removed from the form-based code area that area is abutting the right of way of Interstate 89 and the Velco power line easement and then on the right side is just a version of that that was drawn by the town's consultant essentially in regulating plan form so again showing added developable areas on the regulating plan in red and an area to be removed from the form-based code area would revert to base zoning which in this case is the mixed-use residential zone and that's what's under consideration in this change so I guess the question is then is there support for any kind of change that's been requested by the developer well I'd like to start that discussion by talking about the regulating plan itself and the ability to modify the regulating plan over time that's a question for you Matt and what I'm getting at is my understanding is the regulating plan is and should be modified over time so here's a specific request from the property owner I'm not sure I'm ready to move ahead with his thoughts his desires, his request but I like the idea that leaving it open for discussion over time is kind of the bonus option that you're talking about in your memo you're discussing the option so I'm not, my personal feeling is I don't know I don't see a significant reason to change the regulating plan now as long as we have the option to do it down in the future if we can mutually agree to do that and there is a efficient method in which it can be whatever revised so that's where I said I guess the simple answer is I'm not in favor of it but I like the option that you threw out there so what you're alluding to is there's a bylaw amendment process that's always available to the town under conventional zoning regulating plan, official map whatever tool the town is using here the town can come back if there's new knowledge or a desire on the part of the property owner to work with the planning commission and select board to come up with a different design what is drawn in the regulating plan as transmitted by the planning commission and most likely in some of these possible amendments is a statement of policy that this is what a walkable Taft Corners looks like the block dimensions are there the area where the activity is there in the draft transmitted by the planning commission there are some public viewsheds to the mountains off to the east that public comment said were important to people in Taft Corners there's conservation of some of the area on the Burrow Knoll which is a long-standing town goal so the things that underpin that you have in front of you a couple of different drawings that achieve those goals to different degrees there are constraints on this parcel that don't have valid delineations right now we know that things shift around when people identify those constraints I would say that the further out into the future you go when you're considering what might happen in portions of Taft Corners the more likely the board or future board is to consider changes to that layout based on what people discover about constraints what technology is all of those things so contrast to the last item you considered where there's you know a pending development proposal that's actually quite a long ways along in the process here we have a piece of land that's been looked at but that we don't have a pending proposal on I see this as an integral piece of the Taft Corners area and so I think that I would say not to make any change at this point but I agree with Jeff that I you know obviously as with everything you know there should be opportunity to reconsider and amend as necessary and so I appreciate that the process is clearly delineated for doing that and that this is you know a working living thing why was the planning commission tied 3-3 I think going going back to see where they landed on that they were first tied 3-3 then they then they sort of talked it out I'm sorry I just wanted to read the notes that I gave you on this and recall that I think I think there was a feeling that on this property as Mr. Seneca stated to the planning commission there's an awful lot of green there's a lot of land in the transmittal draft considered for conservation or to not be developed part of that is that resource delineation of the borough know part of that is as we move to the east we run into wetlands and so I think you know that said and in hearing the applicant out there were planning commission members who felt well you know looking at the different quadrants of Taft Corners this is one where there's quite a lot more resource protection land identified is there a way to add more developable area I think the other consideration they gave was that there's quite a lot of linear distance of street in this piece of the regulating plan the transmittal version is only developable on one side so you still have to build the whole street but you're only unlocking the development potential of land on one side that you know changes how much development potential is available to support the cost of constructing that infrastructure so I think there was some consideration there as well I think I'd either lean toward revising the regulating plan or directing the staff to draft a select policy for efficient transparent process and changing considering regulating plan amendments okay and I would agree to keep the regulating plan as is with the the possibility of more information coming forward and the plan being changed and also support the getting a draft of a policy for the the transparent process for considering regulating plan amendments so it doesn't get tied up for months and months I presume that would come as a separate item rather than being part of the of the the vote that we would have that's correct as a policy it would not be part of the bylaws it would be something we would draft for you to look at separately it sounds like we have four of us in favour of keeping the plan as it is right now great moving on to Taft Corner as a commercial part okay so now we're in the southwest corner of Taft Corner southwest quadrant this is predominantly lands owned by Jail Davis Realty or Taft Corners Associates and there are really two core requests here and they're sort of interrelated one is a request to change the southern boundary of the form-based code overlay district and TCA or Mr. Davis have suggested the centerline of Marshall Avenue as a place to relocate that boundary to that would leave more of the area between Marshall Avenue and Interstate 89 in the underlying mixed-use commercial zoning district one possibility the Planning Commission considered that we also show here is the idea of moving the boundary boundary north but not quite all the way to Marshall Avenue but rather 150 feet south of Marshall Avenue this would allow for the same kind of development to be built on both sides of that street in other words without the street being the boundary at the same sort of height buildings same scale, same character on both sides over time so that was something the Planning Commission considered the other thing that really underpins this is that in the form-based code overlay district regardless of which color street you are on the regulating plan you have a minimum building height of either two or three stories and usually three stories and Mr. Nick and Mr. Davis expressed that they are aware of retailer interest in Taft Corners interest from retailers who would develop sites in Taft Corners who do not find that what they do is compatible with a multi-story building and I think that's been expressed to the select board as well so two thoughts to hold in your mind here one is that one story buildings are absolutely allowed and okay in the mixed-use commercial zoning district so where that boundary lands between the form-based code overlay and the mixed-use commercial district affects how much land remains where single-story buildings are allowed the other thought and the board may want to talk about this more when we talk about building height is for the board to think about where or how or why a minimum building height might be required and there are some reasons to do that in terms of encouraging efficient use of land encouraging mixed-use and or predominantly residential build out in the district encouraging buildings that form a cohesive streetscape and gaining the kind of density in Taft Corners that starts to give it the vibrancy of a downtown as expressed as a town plan goal so when you're thinking about where this boundary might land it could be the boundary between single-story buildings and multi-story buildings being allowed but you may also think about building height ask us to present you with an adjusted draft that allows single-story buildings as a minimum height in some parts of the district so two ways of approaching a similar development standard two ways to skin the bird if you will so following up on your last statement if we were to approve the plan as it is you would ask the Planning Commission to come back with a different model is that what you're suggesting if you were to approve it as transmitted there would be a minimum building height generally in this area of three stories and then when you crossed the boundary at the Harvest Lane Circle or Depot Road you would be out of the district and you'd be in the mixed-use commercial district where the development standards allow for single-story buildings and allow for a number of other site arrangements and other things that are not allowed in the form-based code area so that's what you have if you were to choose to move the boundary that's a substantive change goes back for comment from the Planning Commission so that's what we're hearing sounds like we're headed that way anyway but the other thing I think to understand is that some of the discussion of this boundary move has been very much about the requirement of minimum building heights in this part of town and I think what we're hearing from the landowners is they think that multi-story mixed-use or residential build out area is a really really long way away they don't see that as a potential for this part of town thank you so could I, I want to follow up on this concept allowing single-story buildings and perhaps a part of the form-based code area kind of the concept might be is that we would, the code would allow for and I'm going to use the word that the big-box retail sorry if that has a negative people would rather I choose to describe the retail other ways but that somehow conformed with the form-based code in terms of architectural whatever features somehow and I don't know if this is even possible conformed with the code regarding parking is that possible well I think the town has experienced challenges with particularly that issue about relating the building to the parking even under its current standard so the current development standards in mixed-use commercial generally say bring the building up to the street bring the building to the sidewalk this tends to push some or all of the parking to the rear of the building there are retailers who would like to be in buildings in Williston who having the parking behind the building or having a front and rear entrance to the building just doesn't match what they do they may not like the logistics of having a rear entrance they may really desire the advertising of ample parking that comes from having the parking in front of the building that's why big box and strip mall development has the parking in front because the customer driving by sees that it will be easy to park there it's seen as an amenity so that's intention with the town's desire to gain that walkable downtown feel walkable downtown generally have buildings fronting on their streets but not generally parking lots the the image that's behind Greta on the left which I have labeled in mine as the compromise version which would move the form based code area to the north to 150 feet south of Marshall Avenue would I I'll start I'm sorry I'm going to take a step back I was initially not in favor of the concept of moving any of the area between Marshall Avenue and let's say the interstate out of the form based code but I've come to understand what the feeling is about allowing there to be this use remain this use to remain in Williston there's a reason for it there's a need there's a function that's being met what I'd like about the compromise is it allows that to be expanded somewhat but also what are the right words I guess I might as well be blunt by having the the line be south of Marshall avenues the buildings that do meet the form based code because there'll be at least three stories or higher are going to hide in a sense I mean that may not be the best word but you're still going to get good separation between the form based code area and in its function and the the large retail single story establishments probably with their parking maybe in front that really defines that type of retail but it's still again my words may not be the best but it's still kind of made it still well managed to a certain part of Taft's corners I don't know if I express myself well there at all I guess after vocalizing that I'm in favor of the compromise solution now I have no idea if that will work for the landowner it just works for me I was just for me I think you know from the feedback we've heard from the public from all the input you got in the development of the form based code process I think that the town the vision that folks have for our town is this blockability this more efficient town with more housing and so I think the idea that we could just separate this part of town and just say well you know single story and that's going to be it you know I feel like you know we want to include this as part of our town and want to be able to not just say well it's the the big box section of town you know I would love to see this become a source of pride for our town and a place where we don't just say we're Walmart is so I'm in favor of leaving the plan leaving it in the form based code as is because you know I want to be proud and I want I want folks to feel excited and invigorated about all parts of our town and again not just say well that's that part I'm intrigued by Jeff's proposal I like the idea so that would be me I do I hear what you're saying Greta I guess my thought is there are different parts of town I mean there's the agro part and there's task corners and Jeff's idea I think kind of makes it rated I also I am concerned that the well I'll just stop there and I just want to add to that I'm not the author of that idea I just might get really should get credit to I believe you Matt I think probably our consultant and coming out of our process with the planning commission they certainly wrestled with this issue I was going to say we should call it the fears amendment as long as you don't call it the fears of the memorial amendment let's see how the rest of the evening goes I guess so I do support the compromise as well option two which is shown in moving the line to the north so that gives us three votes for the revision and one for keeping as in and so that's majority and we can move along all right we're going to move on to talk about building height I think it's fair to say that most of the public comment directed at the planning commission and select board in the negative about the form based code project is about allowing higher maximum building heights so what we've tried to do in your memo is summarize a little bit about what those are in the transmittal draft how they are measured and why they are what they are and why the planning commission transmitted a draft to the select board that includes maximum heights of five stories with a potential sixth attic story on top and really I think struggle the planning commission had was wanting to present a plan that did provide some flexibility on height in the hopes that greater amounts of housing and hopefully eventually more affordable housing could be produced within that height more dwelling units split the high cost of the land underneath the building and maybe make the project more feasible so you have two districts within the code area that allow five stories with a flat top five stories at 64 feet to the top plate above the clear sidewalk we wanted to remind folks that we are measuring from that sidewalk elevation up and provide the image at the bottom of this page of Finney crossing showing on one side of the street a building that starts relatively at grade with the sidewalk versus a building that starts five feet above the sidewalk it's been mounted up around the foundation so today we measure height from the average finished grade we literally just look for where the dirt touches the concrete run the tape from there so part of this is that's not how anybody walking down the street experiences the building so this draft has a slightly different measurement technique that's probably only going to be about a four five foot difference most of the time but it's worth thinking about and we're going five stories max or 64 feet max to the top of the top plate essentially the top of structure that holds in that fifth story and then there is an allowance for an attic story on top of that if the building uses a pitched roof format we have a minimum pitch allowed and a maximum 1412 pitch that means it's a real pitched roof that looks like it from the street and it means that generally to create that attic story you're going to need to use some dormers and create some architectural interest on that upper story the pitched roof interaction with building height comes from the planning commission's interest in having something be uniquely Williston about this form based code and most denser downtowns tend to have a lot of flat roof buildings so the thought was what if there was an incentive to do some pitched roof buildings in there as well so all that plays into building height these maximum heights are taller than what's allowed under today's zoning today's zoning allows buildings up to 52 feet above the average finish grade and it allows them at three or four stories generally so best worst example the Blair Park Hotel currently under construction four stories pretty much dead on 52 feet from average finish grade to the top of a relatively flat pitched roof we've we've gotten comment that some people don't like how that looks or that looks over large out of place there's a bunch of things about the architecture of that building that wouldn't be allowed or would be different under the draft form based code but it's an example of a four story building in Williston so the maximum in the transmittal draft you have is five plus one and remembering that under between those minimum and maximum pitched roofs if there is a sixth story the volume of the building that occurs above that fifth story is greatly and rapidly reduced while theoretically adding some visual interest to the building and we gave you four options actually sorry it's numbered one two four it's three options plus a bonus option as ways you could think about addressing building height it is true that for example allowing a very very steep pitched roof on a building at its maximum allowed depth could result in a building over a hundred feet tall which is a lot taller than the tallest building in Taft corners today so you could impose an overall maximum height in feet such that even if you had a pitched roof you still had to come under that and we could prepare some options for you to think about that way you could think about revising building height in terms of the maximum number of stories that are allowed dropping from five to four for example that's a relatively easy edit for the staff to make it has all the implications that the Planning Commission thought about when they came up with the Air Transmittal Draft and the other way to do things is much more complicated which is we look at the colors of the streets on the regulating plan which do correlate to some different allowed building heights and we start rearranging them but that is a way to adjust height if we capture the overall building height to 81 feet would that impose significant limitations on the ability to have that sixth story usable attic space in any way so 81 feet gives you about 15 feet I think above that 64 foot top plate it's probably a little tight for a true attic story you're probably starting to compromise on some ceiling heights or something like that we calculated that at assuming that the roof pitch happens on the short side of a rectangular building maximum allowed depth is 80 feet so the other part of that calculation is that's an 80 foot max depth building with the flattest possible roof it's pretty likely that most buildings will not max out that 80 foot allowed depth what we call a double loaded apartment building where there's a hallway down the middle and apartments on both sides of it 65 maybe 70 feet so now you can have a little bit of a steeper because the gable has gotten narrower so theoretically at that max depth building the flattest possible pitch roof you're starting to get a pretty tight squeeze but maybe it's not happening on the max depth building it might be happening on a 65 foot deep building in that 512 pitch can now be something a little steeper get a little more height and you can access the pitch roof so I guess in a really general sense another thing to understand about building height is there are a whole bunch of variables underneath this driving the maximum size of that building so there's the build to line size of the lot the need either under the minimum standards of the zoning or developed preference to provide parking the requirement for minimum open area 15% of the available area of the lot the need to provide access and a number of other design constraints so planners we're always living in the worst case scenario where someone says what if somebody maxes out these standards and that's certainly what we're talking about here but we know from experience that there are usually other factors that will prevent something from being built in all of the maximum dimensions so Matt the question I have is the four areas is that the right word yep or form based code district names the four of them those are part of the regulating plan they are and the regulating plan could be changed over time as we start to see how tax corners is building out how it's starting to feel we may want to alter for instance what is the town center part of this I assume we can also change the building height if we start to figure out it's too low whatever it is the difficulty I have is to envision what is the impact of these stories number of stories yeah five stories sounds like a lot but I don't know that it is a lot if it's done in the right way these buildings how they fit together type of thing so I guess I'm having trouble I guess I'm having trouble with the concept of we have to change it from what's being proposed but I do like where you have your bonus option down below because it would add some maybe some more definition to what is the maximum height the building could be so that's where I sit on this so I'm not sure which one is your favorite what it means is don't change anything right now leave as is because we as with all aspects of the regulating plan it's subject to change down the road as we start to figure out it makes sense to change if we start to figure out it makes sense to change it I'm not sure which one you want I'm not in favor of changing the maximum stories I do think that consolidated growth is what most folks in Williston we've heard from have been advocating for and that increased housing and affordable housing and those sorts of things and this the maximum five stories I think allows for that as a greater possibility obviously no one can make any guarantees on that but I think it allows for greater possibility I do think again the 81 foot potential is somewhat of a compromise I could see because again there is that limitation to the maximum building height you know that it's not going to reach the absolute threshold of but that attic space is appealing and that is another potential residential unit that is desperately in need in our town and our state in our country right now is housing that is a real problem so I guess I'm in favor of leaving it as is so are you saying leaving it as is and not putting the 81 foot and not putting the 81 yeah I mean yeah my preference is to use the bonus option with the maximum height of 81 feet that was me too that's where I go so we'll be waiting for the fifth boat the next meeting we have a two to two moving on to green spaces before we do is it really two to two or yeah okay unless you want the bonus option well I guess my my I'm not sure I mean we all seem to be in favor of keeping the building heights as they are currently three to four which is current we're all in favor of keeping the five story maximum right right depending on what area you're in of the right I guess the only thing we're disagreeing on is how the bonus option should be done I'm not sure we should limit to 81 feet I just don't know if that's the right number right now so in terms of keeping the the plan as is in terms of the building height I think we're four zero which it's what we might have a little bit of difference on is how we want the bonus option implemented does that make sense did anybody follow that not what I heard but when we have a full board we can revisit this so everybody wants to keep it as five stories right as the maximum allowable stories could you put up the screen again that has the building height but Jeff Ted and Terry are saying limit the roof pitch possibility to 81 feet for total building height as far as I can tell you and I are both saying don't limit the roof pitch I let it to the maximum allowable roof pitch which is 100 and whatever it can go a little over 110 I think with the steepest pitch on top 64 at 80 so it's more about the slope of it than okay but okay so kind of the why we're 2-2 is because if we keep it if we keep the regulating plan the way it is right now it allows over 110 feet or 110 feet plus or minus and Terry and Ted are saying no we want to limit that to 81 feet okay all right great and we can present you with some pictures of what those max limits look like and how they interact with roof pitch so topic five was green space and I think this was an item of significant discussion with the select board mostly in terms of potential cost to the town of acquiring and or developing and maintaining these green spaces versus some of what the public input and planning commission said about Taft Corners which was given the strong desire for a significant residential build out in the area it was important to the planning commission that the bulk of the area be easily accessible to public green space either the form of a structured park or a more primitive park with trail walking opportunities etc so the maps you see on your screen right now one shows the regulating plan with the proposed green spaces mapped on it and remember that those are also reflected in the official map and subject to the official map process requiring that development accommodate those green spaces given a short time frame in which the select board can decide whether to pursue their acquisition or not and if the select board chooses not to pursue their acquisition then the development no longer has to accommodate the map green space the map with circles on it shows a two and a half minute walking distance from those green spaces essentially showing the coverage of the plan area with green spaces so I think when I was really hearing from the board here was the desire for some more explanation about how official map works and what is the town committed to in terms of these spaces so I think I've used the term wish list or statement of policy regulating plan in the official map are both well understood that way in that it says to the select board in the town the town of Williston would like the opportunity to have these green spaces created accommodated by future development and conveyed to the town as part of future development but in each of their cases and each time a development is proposed that's either going to accommodate or conflict with these the select board would like the opportunity to make a decision at that time so a couple of things about in terms of that process one is what official map statute says is development shall accommodate it does not say that the town has to immediately develop that space into a public park or take it over right away or do anything in particular with it but it does say that the town has to have the chance to acquire that land to create green space reminding the select board that also in this draft underpinning this is the concept of adding these mapped green spaces to the project list in the recreation impact fee making their provision something that makes the developer owner eligible for offset of the recreation impact fees that would otherwise be due per dwelling unit on any residential development so the hope here is that the incentives have been set up in the best way possible to encourage the gradual development of these public green spaces as part of new residential and commercial development that comes into Taft Corners giving the town adequate time to plan for their either acquisition or for their ownership to come to the town and for the town to ultimately take on their development and maintenance so this issue there was a lot of debate at the planning commission about how much green space how big the green spaces should be and how they should be distributed throughout the area with some planning commission members wanting to see quite a lot more on the map some feeling that what was there was adequate I think when we came to the select board conversation it really shifted to just what are we committing the town to here and how are we going to pay for all of this and the answers to that question are number one hopefully you don't have to pay for all of it hopefully some of it comes to the town as part of new development that accommodates these planned facilities the second part is you always have a choice when a new development is imminent you can always say well we said we wanted you to accommodate this green but we don't think we're in a position to have it or we agree with you that it's not the right place for it our goals have shifted that's part of the official map process so again it's a wish list it's a statement of policy does it have enough green on it there were planning commission members who felt no it should have more but the reality of Taft Corners as I reminded folks is the town of Williston owns almost zero land in Taft Corners and so this is a big shift of policy to plan for these public green spaces in this area of town good thanks so I remember Ted saying that the civil answer is this gives the town the first recusal on the property and I would see Jeff Kevan as it is that would be my position as well I do anticipate that as development actually happens with this that the town is going to be confronted with any number of situations where it says boy that's a great green space we can't afford it kind of the concept I'm in agreement it's almost kind of self-regulating in that way not self-regulating but self-limiting you know our financial resources are going to be a piece of the puzzle of whether it can actually happen or not it also gives us the opportunity to as the development happens to see what folks really want and need and what we can utilize and all of that in terms of the green space and what might become priorities as far as green space in this area and so if there's certain spaces that we want to concentrate our dollars on then we can do that and I think we've heard from folks that they're concerned that form-based code is potentially like taking the select board out of this process and I think this is one way that the select board is remaining in this process and we have a choice yes well right but I think you know yeah I'm in favor of leaving it as is four to zero so moving along alright well we're at our final topic of the memo which is the administrative approval process so as drafted and transmitted by the planning commission site development the arrangement of a site and the design and development of a building on that site which today would be reviewed by the town's development review board is proposed to be reviewed under a process that is still publicly accessible but is done by the zoning administrative myself or deputy or successor so we talk about permit as something called a certificate of conformity in this process we talk about the public meeting that is held which is which is warned and noticed to a butters just like a DRB meeting it's not a hearing call that a project review meeting and it's a different process it is a little more streamlined that project review meeting is likely the culmination of many months of an applicant meeting with and working with the planning and zoning and other town staff to hash out all of the various design things that need to be figured out when somebody is developing a site where the utilities go what's the access going to be like for the fire department does it meet the form based code etc so at the core of this the question for the select board is are you in favor of the drafted process in which the permit to build the building is issued administratively and not by a citizen board but rather by a town employee the zoning administrator and understanding that that process lives within statutory permit procedures in Vermont which means any decision made by the zoning administrator is appealable to the development review board can be taken to that level and anything done any decision taken by the development review board is appealable to the state environmental court and then to the supreme court if we're really really going for it so we tried to give some context in the memo here of what development review board review of major sites and new buildings looks like today not to sort of toot our own horn but there's an incredible amount of staff work that goes into preparing those reviews for the DRB to look at at this point and there is all of that preparatory work with the various commenting departments etc culminating in a public hearing that is often 95% a recitation of the ways which the project complies with the town's bylaws and the other 5% is there's a couple of judgment calls for the DRB to make and we do our best to staff to highlight those and give the DRB what we think their options are or draft conditions we think they might need to consider in order to complete that review so that's the way that works today we hear feedback sometimes that citizens believe the DRB process is a rubber stamp process and it can look like that if you just come and watch the hearing because somebody spent a month and a half writing a 30 page staff report and working with the applicants say no you got to change this before it comes to the DRB it won't be approved unless you do that etc this process with staff report application checklists and detailed review that the planning commission asked us to build into the administrative process is as rigorous as the DRB process but having had the sneak peek into some of the application review materials consultants developing for us I would say is even more accessible what lives underneath this process that we're having developed by our consultant is a line by line checklist for compliance with this code literally the applicant needs to say yes I am meeting you know A sub D in the building form standards and I'm meeting it on page A1 they have to tell me that I have to look at that and then I have to initial the third box that I concur that that's been met and this was really strong feedback we got from the planning commission we don't just want people to be aware that there's been a permit approval and have the opportunity to appeal it we want people to know what were the findings as plain English as possible that staff was making in order to generate that approval so that if there was something they did not like about that approval they would be able to look at that review and understand the relevance of what had happened and be able to make a pointed argument and an informed argument in favor of their appeal should they choose to make one so that's what we've built underneath it the goal has been to have a little more efficiency and a little more transparency at the same time but it's not a public hearing it's not subject to the warning requirements or the advertising requirements under statute it's subject to the policies that are adopted in here this is one place where we disagreed with our legal review because we added additional folks who would have to be notified in the notification so it wasn't just direct to butters meaning property owners adjacent but also anybody who lived in the properties adjacent which is not something that statute requires there's been a couple of bills couple of attempts to change that in Vermont but it's not happened we often hear from the butters in the DRB process well I'm in the condo association and this building is right next to me and I never heard about this proposal well it's because the association president got the letter our legal counsel said he struck it and he said don't do this you don't have to do it and we went when we had our conversation we said well the reason that's in there is because the planning commission felt really strongly that there be broad notification of any actions taken administratively under this so that's just a little bit of context here that said we do as I said run a very efficient DRB review process the change here that you could consider would be to change that permit review process and essentially take everything here that the zoning administrator does and instead say this is something that the DRB needs to do as public hearing all of what the administrator does would be available to the DRB that's correct the checklist you were just referring to in order for it to result in a I forget what the term is certificate of conformity would they all have to be yeses or yes or not applicable for some reason but yes you have to meet all the requirements the standard of review that the DRB would use for the administrators findings would that be like a de novo review we're going to look at this again and see whether we agree that you got it right or wrong and if we don't agree with it then we're going to substitute our own judgment or would it be like looking like a appellate court does saying well was there a mistake of law did he make a mistake in applying this probably more like the latter so what we typically do when a zoning administrator's decision is appealed is we build a wall in the office I assign one of the other staff to review the decision generally that I made and they look at what the appellate is contesting so they might say I think Matt misapplied the building height standard and the staff person would say well what was the decision that Matt made and under what what are the applicable standards of the by law and if there was an interpretation how did that happen and then that's presented by that staffer to the DRB so it's not quite like an environmental court de novo review where we just say this entire application is now before the DRB for consideration of all things it's a focused review of the finding or conclusion or condition being appealed would that describe the process that would come into play under these that it would be a very focused review somebody would be able to appeal saying I disagree with the decision that was reached by the administrator decision one, two, seven and nine but not like the whole thing like the environmental court comes in and says I am the DRB it wouldn't be that but the environmental court under the state statute would still be able to come in and say I am the DRB and then they'd ask us to write a brief about one, two, nine and seven which is what they always do but yes generally DRB's reviews of zoning administrator decisions are focused on the particular items at issue I don't have a problem with that but it really comes down to in a different sense which is more appropriate to be issuing the certificate of conformity a town staff or the zoning administrator or this volunteer board that has different opinions and viewpoints and that type of thing if I understand correctly the concept of the form would be very prescriptive and what it is requiring so which to me means there's less opportunity for there to be differences of opinion about whether that requirement was met or not correct so under today's rules use a variety of materials but with restraint how did Matt interpret that how does the DRB interpret it under the form-based code the primary facade material shall be at least 75% of the material used on the street-facing facade it's math and it's really the development standards are intended in here to as much as possible be go-no-go right okay good thank you so were you able to understand on this as is I support as is and I think we have enough safeguards I think the problem that some people raise was what happens if we have a rogue zoning administrator and I think there's enough safeguards built into the process so I'm in favor of leaving it as is as well so that takes us to the end of this subject tonight we will certainly bring it back for one more meeting to resolve that one issue that we have on the the building height and hopefully send this off to a public hearing terrific thank you so moving on to manager's report before we move on so we can't on at least some substantial changes so we can't transmit it to you to we're clear on all eight issues my preference would be to send it off in one package so we only have to have one public hearing I get that it's just I'm thinking from a timing standpoint the DRV is going to need to start thinking about the response to our changes you know if they know seven of the eight maybe they can get started on those and wait for the eighth to come maybe that's not practical or maybe that's illegal no the planning commission's role at this point is to correct the bylaw report which is the document that describes what's happening to reflect any changes made by the select board and submit it back to the select board in other words they have a ministerial duty here and then they can give you comment but we'll keep them apprised of the direction so they are going to get started recording in progress 150 days start again when we warn public hearing for the second time or I mean not that we should need the 150 days theoretically at that point but or is it just included in the current 150 days it would be that the 150 day clock does not restart because what you're doing is you're holding a series of hearings you held a hearing on July 5th you're you know but statue says something like prior to the final hearing you know if you've made substantive change the planning commission's had the opportunity to correct the report comment only I think if you truly sent the whole thing back to the planning commission and said we want you to redraft things and hold your own hearing and retransmit then you have a new first hearing and the 150 day clock would restart I think looking looking ahead at the calendar should the board take this up say at the next meeting and this issue is resolved and direct staff to warn a public hearing I anticipate with the warning requirements that hearing would likely double check this would likely October the 4th if not the second meeting in October but the board's work from the rest is on this last item I can see that once your final public hearing concludes at that point you can consider an action item or repeat this process moving along thank you thank you Matt quick items that I'll turn on my written report here got our last local options tax report for FY 22 all good news here receipts for FY 22 were $3.7 million which is the highest the town has ever brought in for a fiscal year for local options tax I can tell and it's 20 years so all good news you might recall in the budget process staff we budgeted $3.1 million we try to always take a best conservative approach we can with this very hard to predict we were we projected to go we bring at least $3.5 billion based on the first half of the year by 23 budget we recall that help try to estimate where our fund balance would land as the board landed on the budget proposal so overall this is good news that we exceeded that number I'll get an update on how our books ended in here from the Shirley issues working on that audit prep here but all good news we'll continue to watch it though just seeing how last quarter we still exceeded expectations especially rooms and meals coming exceeding pre-pandemic levels a bit but this is always something for the town to get a close eye on so good news but it's quarter by quarter our community center scoping library assessment RFQ I originally had those do a couple weeks ago and I got some good feedback from potential applicants that a lot of people are out of the office for the vacation so I extended the deadline to September the 2nd that will likely garner a number of additional applications so those that we do next week and we plan to advertise this during committee openings next week as well and hopefully have some applicants from the board to consider late September early October that I anticipate this we'll start really pick up speed probably in November so at least getting started before the holidays then really pick up steam in the new year so the word updated on that when nit picky question about this it's an RFQ RFP process trying to find the best partner for the town and then worry about what's the cost after you choose the best certainly we'll look at costs and what's budgeted but something like this the lowest bit proposal isn't necessarily the best proposal absolutely agree we're doing a project Erin and the manager's office is working on a quarterly report data review manager's office prepared that for number of years for the board we're kind of looking at our performance indicators and the data on how the report is put together meeting with each department head initial feedback is also looking for the board's thoughts on the quarterly report so that's the board if you have feedback on what's contained in that report what these performance indicators are is there something additional staff to think about including is there something maybe we should exclude I think it's a good time to at least review the board might say it's great the way it is it's looking for feedback and we'll do some more staff research too on performance indicators and data driven decision making really I feel important in public governments so giving policy makers good information to make informed decisions so that's one thing we try to do for the board each quarter to look at how operations are going and help you plan for future so if you have any feedback please give me an email or a call next couple weeks as we'd like to prep this any changes for the end of the first quarter for that report to have it cleaned for this fiscal year so it won't be a project we're working on good news to report the fire departments received a FEMA fire grant and $106,000 this is a great grant and a credit to Lieutenant Baker for taking the majority grant writing here this is going to allow our department to have training on all our equipment pumper apparatus aerial apparatus so our personnel can have the same level of training this will cover the training course and also overtime for the staff to be hired back for additional training on their own time so it really puts the town in a good condition of all our staff well trained on all our equipment especially all our new staff as well and one more item let's see we're going to make a title change for DPW staff positions we still use the word foreman for our supervisors in that department so we're going to change that to supervisor to be gender neutral and more inclusive we're going to be reposting now the highway supervisor position Mark Russell retired from we had one process earlier this summer but we're looking to see if there's some additional applicants to consider so I'll be posted this week that's all I have this evening for the board good thank you under other business I think you have a temporary event catering permit to talk about yep it's at the red garden gardens again this is a rehearsal dinner on September the 3rd it is Shane hospitality doing business as deli 126 I'm working with these folks to get it's estimated about 50 people so that would trigger a temporary event permit it's not over a hundred staff could have considered that administratively we've been working with red barn gardens we're comfortable with all their setup right now for safety so if the board would consider a motion to approve this catering permit I might suggest on the condition that staff also approves a temporary event permit which we need to attend to no moved with the proposed condition do we have a motion to wear a second discussion on the motion 50 people for our rehearsal dinner I was just saying that the wedding size I just wanted to know is it the rehearsal dinner for the wedding I should get the date of the wedding I believe so I believe there's another wedding coming up though I have a catering permit for them as well that will tie to a temporary event permit we'll get to see at your next meeting we have a motion and second all those in favor of the motion say aye no opposition any other business brings final item we had a temporary event for the touch of truck event last Saturday sounds like it was a very good turnout but we did this outside of the meeting based on the timeline here board's retroactive approval of that temporary event permit for posterity oh okay second hearing no discussion all those in favor say aye any other business bringing forward tonight if not thank you all it's been a good meeting we're adjourned