 ahead and call the meeting for the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees for Tuesday, July 13th to order. Thank you all for joining us as we try this hybrid approach to meeting. Hopefully this will go well. We won't have any technical difficulties. If you do, please bear with us. So do we have any agenda additions or changes for tonight? No. Trustees? Andrew, I would like to move one of the letters we got from the reading file, the letter from Peter Furkey out just for a brief discussion. I thought it was kind of an interesting suggestion that he made. And I don't know exactly where we could, I'll leave it up to you in a way we could do. Just sort of touch on it in business item A because it pertains to a separation or if you want it or separate. I think we can just add that into the work session material and just make sure that we address that. Dan, anything from either of you? No, thanks. No, we'll start. Great. Seeing none, could I get a motion to amend the agenda? Second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, George. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Great. Any opposed? They nay. So that was unanimous. Thank you. And now we will go into public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting where if there are comments from individuals in the public about something that's not on the agenda, now is the time to do so. For those of you on Microsoft Teams, please bear with us as I'm going to prioritize those in the room as I can physically see them, and that's just frankly easier. So for those of you on Teams, please go ahead and raise your hand. If you are on the phone, I will also call on you at that point in time as well. And for those of you in the audience, I would also just say please be prepared to only speak once. Please be brief as we do have a lot to cover tonight. And please don't expect a solution, but rather to present the information to the board. So for those in the audience, is there anything that anybody had that you wanted to present to the board? Okay. Seeing nothing of those in the audience here. Anybody on Microsoft Teams? I don't see any hands up. So just again as a reminder, make sure to raise your hand if you'd like to speak to the board about something that is not on the agenda. As I'm seeing no hands in Microsoft Teams, for those of you on the phone, if you would go ahead and unmute yourself if you wish to speak to the board about something that is not on the agenda now is the time to do so. And just go ahead and introduce yourself. Not hearing anybody from the phones. No hands are going up. So we will go ahead and move off from public to be heard and jump into business item 5a, the work session on S extension independence initiative. Hello, Brad. Hey, how's it going? Good. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Yes, it's good to be in person. I'm going to try and get this up on the screen. We got it. Thank you. Anyways, it's nice. I'll just give a preview and then, you know, we'll take comments. So tonight we're going to talk about contract options for services. We're going to talk about the police department contract and the bulls that trustees have in developing that. We're going to talk briefly about that some way along the way. What's what are some initiatives or directions that the trustees would like to take? We'll hear from Elaine Keeney about our village, our voices. And then we're going to look at the meeting schedule and discuss the summit concept. And there will be further discussion about contract of this town. And we're not sure yet if that's going to be an executive session or not. Great. And if we could maybe put in as, as F, the email from the last name for key, I forget the first name, that gentleman, I believe the, the issue is about the name of the entity of the city. That's right. So if we could add that as the F, and then so then the, the F would then go to G for the executive session. So with that in mind, what we've been doing as the work session is, this is the opportunity for the community to talk to the board and provide information to the board on those topics. Once we end that portion, we are not taking more public comment on those topics for this meeting. So this is that one opportunity to talk to us about those, those concerns. Again, I'll go to the room first. If there is anybody in the room, physically who wishes to speak to any of those items, now would be the time to do so. I can see a hand to see if that involves anybody. Okay. Seeing no, then we can go into Microsoft teams. So those of you on Microsoft teams who wish to speak to the board about our items in the work session, now was the time to do so. Please go ahead, raise your hands to let me know that you wish to speak to us. And I will make sure you have the time. I'm not seeing any hands going up. Those of you on the phone, if you wish to speak to the board about something, about the topics that we had just shared in regards to the work session, now was the time to do so. Please go ahead and unmute yourself on the phone and let us know your name. And we'll go ahead and make sure you have time. Hi, this is Polly Giancola. Hello, Polly. Why don't you go ahead? And my concern is the senior center. Is this the time I can talk about the senior center? The senior center is going to be two items after our work session. So our work sessions are typically lasting about an hour and a half. So if that's what your concern is for tonight, if you want to do other things for about an hour and a half or so, that would be perfectly fine. Okay. I will do and I'll go back, we'll go back on. Great. You're welcome. Okay. Oh, okay. All right. And I believe there was a second person on the phone who wanted to talk as well. Yes, my name is Paula Sargent. I also wanted to talk about the senior center, so I will come back on. Okay, great. Thank you both. Thank you. Yeah, Bernie has one. I also want to talk about the senior center, but I'll check in later. Thank you. Thank you. One more time for anybody on the phone who wishes to speak to the work session items. I think we can go ahead and move off of the public input portion for a work session. Back to you, Brad. Great. I'm not able to share my screen. Would you be able to share? There's not really going to be a lot of jumping around. We're just on the bottom of page three of the packet. So first order business for the work session was just to kind of review the contract options as we start to explore contracting for, you know, with the town for police services and also some other considerations. So if you recall back, I think it's from our June 18th session. We talked about there are really three different choices. There's inter-local contracts, there's union municipal districts, and there's an inter-municipal police service agreement. So those would be the kind of the three mechanisms. There was, I apologize, I put this information back in the packet, but there were some pretty good power points in there that kind of got into the weeds a little bit, which I thought was helpful in particular about inter-local agreements and union municipal districts. I don't see much difference between an inter-local contract and an inter-municipal police services agreement. They're essentially the same thing. It's just the legislature decided at one point to just call out police services specifically, but I think all of the pieces and parts that you read about the inter-local contracts, I think are applicable to the police services agreement. So kind of the lay of the land. I think it was just then for discussion about if there was a particular approach in general or a general approach or a particular approach for certain services that you all are to use. And I think that a part of this conversation may bleed into the overall topic of whether we wanted to go into an executive session to discuss the contracts with the town of Essex. If anybody feels uncomfortable on the side of trustees, please raise that if I get too far into that concept. For me, one of the reasons why I asked for this to be brought back up is based on some feedback that I know I had seen both in social media and on email that when we talk about sharing of something, these are the options we have. So when we're talking about sharing of let's say parks and recreation or some portion thereof such as senior services, I already had an example. What we're talking about is contracting through the inter, excuse me, yeah. Yeah, there's somebody that I just muted them. Are we all set now? So if you're on, if you're attending the meeting and you have not muted yourself, please do so. We're getting some feedback which is getting very disruptive. So please go ahead and mute yourself. We have tried a couple of times and you have unmuted yourself then. So please you should be able to speak up. So that person speaking now would be a So if you could go ahead and mute yourself, that would be greatly improved. If you can hear me, Andrew, there's a problem with the feet coming from to Lincoln. Dan, what is it you're hearing? If you don't mind? Nothing. Can you hear me now? I wonder if they could even hear you or if they just muted themselves by accident that time. I muted them. We're unmuted now. Dan, Amber, can you confirm you can hear us? Sweet. Thank you, Dan. I can hear you now. Thank you. So just as a reminder for anybody who is attending the meeting, please make sure you are muted unless you are called upon or until you are called upon. Otherwise, that is what happens and it becomes very distracting. So I don't know what the people not in the audience heard. So I'm going to start that portion over again. The reason why I asked for this to come back on to our agenda is to make sure that the community understands when we're talking about sharing of services, what we are talking about is having a union municipal district or having an interlocal contract. The exception to that is for police services, which is pretty clear in state statute that there is one option for police contracting of services. So with that, when we talk about sharing, that is what we are talking about. What have to be pretty well spelled out and clearly articulated agreements or contracts between the village or at that point in time, the city of Essex Junction and the other municipality. So we are not necessarily talking about, we're not really talking about anything besides that. Hopefully that helps to clear up any confusion or concerns that may have been shared to the board about that effort. So do we want to, if the board is okay, maybe what we can do is we can leave that portion there and then when we get into the specific details of contracting for the town of Essex, we can leave that for the executive session. Sure. I'm fine with that. Does that work for Amber? Dan, you good with that? Good. Yeah, I'm fine with that. Great. I think we're set with A. Okay, great. So the next is the police department contract and I think it's up to you all if you want to discuss some goals, some general goals right now in public or if you feel that that would be better accomplished in the executive session. Basically, the question would be, what are the most important components to developing a long-term contract with the town of Essex for police services? And so some of that is going to need to be negotiated and so you could decide whether or not the premature disclosure of that information is harmful in any way or not. Speaking only for myself, while I know we can talk about this in executive session, I think that it would be a good show of good faith for not only our work with the select board, but I think also with the community as a whole if we were to talk about this in an open session instead of an executive session. That may put us at a little bit of an undo or an unfair advantage or disadvantage, but honestly I think that for community building efforts I think it's well worth the risk. Other trustees have thought from that? Yeah, I agree Andrew. I think that I look at all the possible contracts and services would share and I think I look at them and look at what would it take if suddenly that contract were disrupted? How disruptive would that be? And obviously the police department is a completely different dimension. You can't just replace your police service the way you can or the municipal services. And I think for a sense of security and stability, I would say that's what we're looking for. We're looking for whatever kind of contract and I think I have to imagine the select board and the town would be equally motivated as well for that. So I don't think anyone wants to play politics with that particular point. So I'm perfectly happy discussing this in public and I think whatever it is we want to go for the maximum stability of our whatever agreement we have with them. Dan Amber. I'm fine discussing in public. I'm fine with it as well. So to that ends within it are not only the services related to law enforcement or policing, but also dispatch services and the community justice center. I see those as very very integral to the success of the city. In terms of and inclusive of that of course would then be the fact that we as a village helps you pay for the facility that's currently there. So I would assume then that we would also help to maintain the building the police facility that we would be stewards of that in regards to the oversight of it. To me that goes down the path of whether we're having a contract or a union municipal district. Again the state statute in my mind is pretty clear as to what our options are. So the way I see it is we're going down the path of an interlocal contract for police services. At some point if as a part of that there's a desire to talk about a study for a union municipal district relating to law enforcement and or public safety as a whole. Maybe that's something that could be talked about with the select board. But in terms of our more immediate concerns I would be looking for a long-term contract for police services. What are some other things that people want to see incorporated? In terms of the police contract or other contracts. I only add on to what Andrew said. I think a union municipal district or anything, any action that requires a vote would kind of present a complicated wrinkle. If you're talking about having a vote for voting on a separation charter and then another vote also for which both sides would have to vote on to create a union. I think you're asking for trouble by having too many votes at one time. So I would say in my mind probably the most predictable route would be to go with a contract and then as you just said if we thought that further down the road with the select board creating a union municipal district or something like that that would require a vote and a charter change or something like that. That's something that could be discussed along the way. I guess the only thing I would add then would be to accommodate the process that's already started with the equity and group in terms of I don't know what they're going to come up with. I don't think anyone knows what they're going to come up with and I'd say the chief is on that task force as well. And so I just want to make sure any contract becomes you come up with you to remember for that accommodation. And I think I brought I was probably the one that brought off oversight and I don't know that we can accomplish I think any kind of joint oversight and interlocual contract I think long term. And I think the chief asked the question and his feedback you know what is it working. I don't have anything to say that things are work. It's just that if we're going to be new communities fairly different needs. It would be nice to not have to rely on a board that's not community. It's not having our same experience to relay our desires back. It's just a nice role. I'm very open to what that might be. It might simply be some kind of beefed up you know citizen panel. I don't have a specific model. But I think that I think going to contract group right now keeping the relationship keeping the stability allows us later to kind of really explore that. And you can have an advisory group within interlocual contract. You can have appointed members from both boards. So all of that is feasible in this first contract or you can write it into explore later. I think the concern for and sorry Dan or Amber I didn't see your hand up. So I'm just going to go for a moment. I think the concern as far as oversight really came from a year ago when we ended up leaving a virtual meeting because we as a board were told we were not allowed to participate in a conversation relating to policing and relating to receiving feedback from the community which helps to create in some ways the equity groups that we currently have. And so as long as we can avoid that scenario from happening again then that's what I believe that's for me what I'm talking about when I think of oversight is ensuring that we as a municipality have say and some level of control over the ordinances and feedback from the community on the services that we are paying for and providing for our community. Whether that be through a contract through language and a contract or some other form I think that's one of the important parts of the oversight. One of the other concepts or concerns is about the budget and how that would be paid for. What I would hate to see is for any kind of a fee for service or some kind of a utilization cost where the village or the city ends up being assessed on a per call basis police and public protection as a whole are sort of safety nets for our community where whether you use it or not if you have access to it. So simply because one person calls for it and someone else does not regardless of where they live should not necessarily impact how much the community pays especially given how growth patterns are going what may happen what may be the scenario today it could be vastly different in five to ten years and so we don't want to necessarily be locked into something like that. If it's something that is reviewed on a regular basis through something that is more formulaic like the grand list they would I believe also help to provide some consistency some reliability for the budget building process. Andrew can I jump in and just convert since I'm we're not used to the the the informality of live meetings so I'm going to jump back try to get us back there. I have to assume that that the breakdown of the budget in terms of a contract would be on the basis of grand list we look at the total grand list and then proportion village proportion town um do you have something else in mind that's exactly I think that's that's what we have in mind I I I can't think of another way you do it other that wouldn't make it really complicated really fast. I believe in the memo we saw from the police chief either last meeting or the meeting before right I thought that was something that he had raised or it was a part of some other conversation thereof um and I just wanted to make sure that that when we talk about it it's clear that not what we're talking we are talking about the grand list if we're not talking about some kind of fee for service or right they are in politics an area right so I can't see your hand here it's going to be tough. So um the the thing that I would say is you don't want to do fee for service you don't want to be sitting on call volume um because at any given time property could have be in distress and make 10 calls or 30 calls by the way the police building is in the city of Essex Junction so when you go to the police station and file a report it would it would show up in the system that it was filed in the city and whether you're a resident of this city or Burlington or somewhere else it'll show that it was filed here so you don't want to do that um you will want to look at things that are stable or generally stabilizing maybe there's two or three or four things that go into the agreement as for cost but that are not volatile um in terms of making your your one year go up the next year go down and then you're going yo yo um so you want things that are generally predictable generally happen every year so if you're going to do the 4th of July it's going to happen every year I'm going to do a particular parade it's going to happen here that kind of gets put into a formula um you want you know generally you want the patrolling of neighborhoods and a response time and dispatch of your public works the wastewater treatment plant and I think there's one other department that gets dispatched to the fire department those services wrapped up into the police services and so collective predictability because you know obviously you don't want to go could I just one other thought the you um you know we have an example with the tri-town commission that operates the water treatment plant it's owned and operated by sx junction but sx town sx junction and willis and all have representatives and they set the rates and the fee schedule and um have generally provide a kind of a regulatory oversight of the whole thing and I don't I don't know by what uh mechanism legal mechanism that the commission was set up but it whatever it is that might be a good model maybe it can't be maybe it's got something to do with agency of natural resources or permits or something like that I don't know but it might not be a bad idea to sort of look at the the the guts of that and see how that works that that's been working extremely well for many many years Ann go ahead yeah I agree with what has been said so far pretty much as a whole speak to Evan's comments about the cost of services and such obviously one of the big things for police department reviewer is the fair in any any event at the fairgrounds which is in the city so-called future city of sx junction so that would be a heavy burden on services of police department but that in any major crime you know homicides or anything significant would take a lot of cost in police services but anyhow basically on the grand list and you know dubbing it up I think is the best way to go forward any other trustees on this wondering I think I'm sorry I was just saying nothing to add you guys covered it all because I was wondering about ordinances whatever leave us to online I would imagine we'd still want to align with possible I think so that would make it that makes sense to have the conversation it would be one police department and I know in some right of arms that they've been pretty clear that they don't always know where the line is in their given moment and the last thing would be I'd be curious to see not tonight but I'd be curious to see if they're in these agreements how may not be a lot of examples in Vermont but you know are there grants for public safety that apply to cities that don't apply to towns and we're the reason I ask is we're seeing this weird harpa distinction right from the feds with counties you know I wonder in the contract how we make sure that we can get those and they would pass through um UR unity as the city for the both versus we spread out through the entire department that thanks you know a little net about revenues just in general with police matters when a ticket is written speeding or violations are written revenues come back to municipalities if it's a municipal violation and would come back to the municipality particularly the city of Essex junction or the town of Essex revenues that were written under statute pertaining to a speed zone or a violation in that active area so I'm sure that would all be worked out at the police department and through the state of Vermont but one thing that one thing I'm trying to add anything else that we haven't talked about you think we should the relation to this uh that's a pretty good start um I mean I'm guessing this is the first priority of the joint meeting uh discussion but it's a lot of work so at least we have some things to provide them in advance so they can get that conversation and I had one last point I think I believe that and Evan can correct me if I'm wrong I think the community justice center is a pass through from the state through the town through the community to the community justice center I don't I think that might be complicated trying to change that so if you're going to continue to operate that yeah go ahead am I right Evan mostly yeah so there's a department of corrections grant that comes to the town right the town provides I would say all right their grant public covers about 90 percent of their operating costs okay the town um covers what the grant doesn't cover we also provide service to Winooski through that grant so their grant mounting now comes to us we cover their course in etc etc so it's about 90 percent uh the town currently pays a little bit of salary a little bit of benefit that's not covered by the grant and their rent okay um so it's it's okay it's about 90 percent covered by grant okay but the grant is not increasing and therefore the local share is okay but it's okay it's manageable right now but that's a good point and okay we uh the town considers the CJC as I want to say part of the police department they're just under the police budget right and they're a function that's also supervised and and integrated with the police services um for certain reasons maybe not always the best but that's where it is and so that's that's okay yes and back to your the comment about grants uh I think we're glad if you're taking notes probably what you're looking for is some type of shared revenue generated you know that goes back into the you know so you know whatever we generate a year in tickets just goes back into the department budget slash minus expenses and therefore shared uh like that and any grants or any um monies uh that are seized uh that we get back from the federal the federal government um currently if we do a uh an arrest that um cash involved in it that's drug related the DEA takes a charge of that and then eventually supposedly still waiting on it um they disperse funds that should also be something that you guys should work on as to how that gets put into the into the mix thank you thank you I think we're ready to go to the final date right um so the next item um is basically just talking about independence fails it's a really good full conversation because we it could fail on November it could fail in January it could fail in April and so we we don't really know at what which juncture but uh I think it'd be good just to start sharing some ideas um about you know what's possible um mostly in thinking that you know if it if it fails in November you have the opportunity certainly to go back to the community in April I mean if you can figure out what's going wrong if it if it fails in the legislature we're kind of back on this exact same timeline of if you want to do something again you probably go back out in November and so and then it goes back to the legislation the next year so what what'll happen is right now at the quickest past is you'll develop the town and village the FY 23 budgets will happen before we know the outcome of the um the city if it fails somewhere along the way then you'll also have to develop the FY 24 before any potential changes could happen so I think it's worthy of just starting to consider what some of your approaches will be to those budgets and to the departments in general and you know I again went back to the report from consolidated consolidated department heads who again feel like they're in the middle of do we still keep consolidating and aligning things or do we stop that because the future direction of the trustees and or select board is that we're actually going to unravel some of those consolidations and the village is going to have whether it's a city or a village is going to have more departments those are just some of the conversations I think would be worthy of for me I think the answer does largely depend upon the at what point in time does it fail if it's the if it fails in November and the residents decide not to then it's that conversation with the community of why and and trying to learn from that if it's that separation isn't tolerable or is not the desired solution then we have then we go down a different path if it fails though from the legislative side of things I would assume then that there is a technical or there is some other type of resolution that we as a community would be able to come to to fix that issue and then go back again that subsequent year and we'd be talking about you know just the charter process as the overwhelming majority of the work we've already would have completed so I think the the plan B is really if it fails we're still here we're still pursuing how to become an independent city of Essex Junction it has become clear that this is this is the path for us to be able to be the masters of our own destiny if you will or at least have the autonomy to do what we want and to be the the independent community and make our own decisions as far as unraveling yes yes just to that and to and I think it is just that in the legislation they might not give you their bite like that's the worst the worst like everyone now you go to the back or the worst so that I think is also there's something and it might be the same as if it were you know whatever but I think that that's something else that you know comes up with conversation how long have you sit you know and that we don't know right that right issue so and then that was just something else that just happened here because I think about that yeah generally when a when a bill isn't taken up there is a conversation as to why it hasn't been taken up and if it's because of technical complexity if it's because of um competing philosophies with the states then those are things those are pieces of information we can go back to the community with right right generally doesn't just hang out on the wall just might not not to resolve our staff like if that's all right exactly it's just being clear and and I say general yeah yes yes so I thought I heard the question perfectly so if if independence that are you looking to continue to share foreign departments that are being shared or are you looking to discontinue sharing however slowly that's that's that's a question so if the village tells us in November the residents tell us through voting that no they don't want to separate then that tells me that's one why if it's because separation isn't what they want then that goes back to that question if it passes in November then again the community has told us yes please separate and do what you need to do to make that happen okay I would say it's it's really going to depend on what they tell us it could be that they want to separate and discover maybe it's too expensive who knows and so you know in the meantime I see no problem continuing to work to you know work on tax equity I felt two and a half years ago when I joined the board any more consolidation or sharing while this process played out should be held and it's fine wasn't so I'm not sure I want to keep keep going down that road I think there are ways to achieve some tax equity because we're at least one maybe two budget cycles out of the lineup you know it's going to depend on a case-by-case basis if it's if it's a disruptive change or a major change and that's just going to be undone and the very next budget cycle may not be worth it it's a really difficult question so I want to work towards increase increasing tax equity I just uh it's going to depend on how what that solution is going to be and whether it's worth the the change how they could change and we'll find out in November I guess if you know if the November vote is overwhelming overwhelmingly positive for separation I think that's going to signal to the legislature and I think I think we may not have that much to worry about the legislature my feeling is I think I agree with everything that's been said here my message to staff would be as it's as it's always been I would not want to see certainly not see that have the village and not and also not the town lose good valuable staff because of the political uncertainty at the top and I know that it from my mind if if separation is successful they'll certainly all the jobs that are are needed or all the positions that are needed here in s6 in the village are going to continue to be there and I know there's been buzz that wow what will the town do let me be I've looked at sarah macy's numbers very clearly the s6 town has one of the highest grand lists and some of the lowest municipal spending in chitening county I don't realistically think that if separation is successful that the town is going to cut its own throat or you know cut its nose off to spite its face or whatever whatever the expression is I I have absolutely sorry I shouldn't say this but I I'm fairly confident that jobs in s6 town will continue I think the need for their services will continue I think that it's it's it's politics that's been presenting preventing this and but I I think that we are s6 junction and s6 town are both among the lowest spending communities in chitening county we happen to have one of the highest tax rates but that's politics but and and yet we are fairly well off so I just don't see in either community regardless of what happens some big loss of jobs and positions I think we need the talent I think we all appreciate on both sides all the talent and skill and experience that we have I don't see that changing so I know I'm sure I know I can't imagine working being a staff member on either side and dealing with this uncertainty my only message would be try to dial it out I think it's going to be okay whatever happens um and I I that's what I would say I mean I what we do if if merger I mean a separation fails it totally as as we've said it totally depends on the new what happens what where it fails and what was the reason if it's some technical reason if the legislature says we just don't want any more cities and for one that that's a very different thing and while there's some technical problem with your charge or something it's impossible for us to say but I think we're in for a long year and a half two years of uncertainty but I think all of the all of the need all of the staffing needs that we have in the village of the town are going to be are going to still be there that's my thing and you know I don't have specific examples and because we'd have to address them one by one but in general where they're and we know that's better there are junctures where decisions are made and the question you have kind of two options right you can go this way which is going to be making a decision that's better for everybody the town and the village right consolidated sense or sometimes you make decisions that are better for like you just look at it for the village or you just look at it for the town and say that would be best for the town long-term or that would be best for the village I think those are some of the examples of times in the next year or two where staff feel stuck and so and I don't know if you can answer that generally without knowing a specific example yeah I mean I think at this point we're we're preparing for separation and that that really should be the that should be the mindset at this point in time prepare for that like you know the only thing I've jumped in but I guess we should go to Dan Amber put one more quick thing any any co-located departments that are bringing full funding to the budget should be rectified immediately in the next budget cycle so I guess I would identify right if DPR is not bringing its full weight budget-wise to the to the party I think that my expectation would be that this budget cover that at least for as long as that situation exists that's the only one I can think of that's predictable and existing Dan Amber nothing to add me I don't really have anything to add I mean I think we'll know like you said Andrew come November what the result is and probably before that just with our meeting with the public for the public today and getting a sense of their feelings anything else you want to make sure we address on that you just I would ask Evan I'm already read if they are there I mean they're in the midst of those conversations more often than not I mean what what I've heard you say is you know and we didn't get this to this exactly but both the last check-in you had with voters voted 74 percent to separate or to advise you to the next check-in is in November and you're kind of you're operating to prepare for separation and would like to do everything in the meantime to support that and you know additionally addressing tax equity in in-term budgets would be a practice that you want to take on I would recommend tax equity be something to be discussed because again the title of this particular section is if independence fails be clear if independence fails you're still a village inside of a town you're still paying taxes to yourself and to the town so equity would be was important six months ago it was important to you know five years ago as you guys started on the journey so I would think that that would still be important I think just that I've said this before it's also very much about relationships the relationship of the village to the town and the village board to the town select board and working together for the betterment of the I hate saying two communities because you're not you really want community but has two separate municipality inside of itself but you do a lot of things together and you do a lot of things together very well and that's some of the things that I think regardless of the outcomes you should continue and find that way of working together because you will always need each other as neighbors yeah I let me if I can just ramble a little bit I agree with you and I think the relationships are good but I think what you what you need to have is a common narrative a common understanding of what the issues are and I would say the challenge right now is to go I won't use a political try to use use I think what we need is an evidence-based narrative not a spin-based narrative or a history based narrative or a political but we need an evidence-based narrative we need to look at actual total municipal spending in the village in the town tax rates forget the history that's all prologue just look at the current issue and so I think if we can start from there that's a good place a common basis for developing the kind of relationship you're talking about between the two points the well I'll give you that but what I'm talking about as well is two boards that talk and communicate to each other yes yeah I agree and respect each other and their their evidence and where they're coming from yeah and sometimes you do things just because your neighbor asked you do you may not believe in it you don't have to but your neighbor asked so you do it right yeah and then when the time comes and they ask you may not believe in it but you do it because a board asked you to do it and that was their decision so you respect it yeah those types of things need to continue to go on in this interim period and pass them yeah yes I would I would agree we need to be seen as equals entry to this such both ways let's see Dan I see your hand up hi um to speak to the whole thing of equity or um two communities and the tax rates and such the one variable in that whole scenario or the whole discussion is capital improvements and potential liabilities the the town liability never changes the town is liable for the cost of the town itself the village is liable for the capital in in anything in the village and in the town as well so that that aspect of this equation of this discussion is never going to change until there's something put in place to make that change and that's the crux of a lot of the issues here in my opinion thank you Dan uh Sarah Macy did you have your hand up oh I did um my video is a little bit spotty can you hear me okay here you just fine all right I just at the risk of going down a rabbit hole I was hoping Raj that you'd be willing to clarify what you just what you meant by what you just said about recreation um as a person writing these budgets during this um period of unknown I can't hear you whispering George and Raj I see you I was saying I'm sorry I spoke no I just so I'm no um I just think what you meant was that you want to focus on tax equity in places where we're already consolidated not new items but really take a hard look at what's there am I correct in that or was it something else and if you meant what I meant specifically is um is Essex is EPR being in Maple Street contributing to Maple Street's capital expenses sufficiently are they contributing to the overall expense you know are they bringing their share and I hate to that sounds negative I don't mean it that way but are they bringing what they're using to the to the table um my understanding from the last budget cycle was no um they weren't currently because we thought that this would rectify itself uh through murder it hasn't and the situation still exists and we still have one or two budget cycles so I guess my point is it'd be great to address that one way or the other um I don't have any negative feelings towards EPR at all um but we in the village are paying for two um so it'd be nice to you know reduce that a little bit while we can so um that's all I mean I don't the clarification is fine things just seem to be working but if if they are going to do that then perhaps the town could contribute more towards the presence there and the costs associated with those facilities I really that clarification helps me a lot I really appreciate it I'm glad I did ask um because we'll hit that in budget planning sounds like a uh something for Brad and Allie's to-do list so thank you Raj miss you Sarah I'm right here all right I think we are good with that item great so next up is Elaine uh to discuss our village our voices I know I saw you on there earlier uh it's nice to have you join us I assume you're still with us virtually I am can you see me or hear me I hear you there you are okay I'm really impressed with the new setup and how it's hybrid I'm you guys are doing a great job so and thank you uh town meeting television for that um so yeah thank you for your time this evening I just want to drop in and give you an update on our village our voices we are um working steadily away on communicating with our residents and planning some really good things for them to do and learn about separation so um a couple things I can share with you our first set of FAQs has been completed and posted to the our villages our village our voices website and thank you very much to George Tyler for vetting those questions and ensuring their accuracy and we are working on a second set of FAQs that we hope to post in the near future as well as an additional set specifically for businesses to answer some questions that they might have about separation and how it might impact their businesses um we're beginning our outreach to residents we have several upcoming events planned and we're also piggybacking on other events that are happening in the community for example the concert at maple street over uh in the next couple nights we have two really fun events planned one is on the 22nd it's evening swim for sx junction residents at maple street pool we're closing the pool to the public and allowing sx junction residents to come in and have a fun time with us swimming and then on Wednesday July 28th we will be descending upon firebird cafe for sx junction trivia night with free chips and salsa so I would like to personally invite all of you to come tonight to those events join us at the pool join us at firebird for some fun times and we are continuing to work on outreach uh to neighborhoods and I wanted to share with you um some questions that we have received from residents um as we've canvassed the area asking folks if they're aware of um separation and those kinds of things so I just want to give you a little flavor of the questions that we're asking if that's okay please okay um people and this is just general stuff like what do people want to know more about they're interested in hearing about what the cons are for for the village if we separate they want to know how will things be different for villagers and taxpayers what will change um some folks wanted to know what our new name would be they were just kind of curious um still an enormous amount of confusion about the relationship between the town and the village in general particularly how our taxation works and our services um questions about the fire department will it still be the same will we keep our services level you know at the current level or will they change how will separation affect our taxes and can we get mail-in ballots so um those are just some questions and we also had um one person who is having some difficulty with place speak getting in there and wondering whether his feedback that he posted has been acknowledged or even seen so I'm not sure what the process is regarding place speak but maybe a little bit more activity on that platform or some more explanation about how it works might be in order um that's really all I have for you at the moment I know that um Brad had reached out to me asking about coordinating some informational conversations like community conversations in public places for the trustees to attend and I'm happy to talk with you about how you might want to do that thank you Elaine um I know that in looking at the our village our voices website uh and hearing some feedback at last night select board meeting it definitely seems as if you guys are doing a fantastic job at um having having that uh that website and that presence to be able to help share this message so I really do appreciate that um and uh with your questions that you have um I appreciate the answers that George has been able to provide um keep those keep those coming and George if you want to keep those answers coming that's helpful too uh I I can only take I put some of the finishing touches on the questions I can't take responsibility for the principal effort but I'd love to but I can't so yeah no if Elaine I think most of we just want to make sure that we are accurate and that we all are saying the same thing so that we're not confusing people and so making sure that George at the very least has had a chance to look at them and make his comments has been hugely helpful great um with your question about uh the opportunities for for neighborhood conversations um some of this may bleed a little bit into our into our next agenda topic but if we just talk about it now I'm fine with it uh the the uh we originally have a village summit that's proposed for September 11th um and personally uh when I think about what we've done in the past with large one-time events we've done a pretty good job of getting the same people out that we regularly see at every event which not that there's anything wrong with that but I think of smaller neighborhood style conversations where we have been able to get many many people to come out and provide input to directly answer questions in a more comfortable setting where those who may be more introverted or those who are less likely to talk in front of a hundred other people are able to get their questions answered as well um where personally I think that kind of approach may be able to spread the message further uh and help to um engage more people so I was just curious about uh having multiple opportunities in small groups to replace this sort of village summit as compared to just one large event say at the high school I think that's an excellent approach we're finding that people are much more willing to chat one on one or in a small group of people they know and I think you've hit on something important there when we have a large event we do bring in the generally this the same crowd which is excellent because they're always there they're folks who are really engaged and who know what they're talking about they've been following things and they have real specific opinions but if we want to reach more people in the community and we want to make sure that the most people vote as possible getting out to folks who aren't normally attached to what we do is a really important thing I suggest in addition to possible community conversations similar to what our legislators do you know they hold them at nest and they hold them at other places around the community um and they get you know people coming there's two things that um I would like to suggest one is we are working on um neighborhood we're working on having neighborhood door to door people so we have volunteers in lots of different neighborhoods who have agreed to go door to door and so I think a lot of the outreach can occur that way and having trustees with them as they go door to door would be a wonderful thing and you have all stepped up to say that you will take care of that in your own neighborhoods but also spreading out to other neighborhoods would be a good idea and also having um I don't know if you recall during the um the election last year um Representative Houghton and Representative Dolan did um neighborhood walking tours where they just said we're going to be in Fairview farms on Saturday at between nine and noon and we're going to be wandering through your community and we'll have cookies and please come find us and we'll chat I think those more informal approaches where they know you're going to be there they can look out for you um I think a combination of those three things of community conversations walking tours and door to door would be super effective you could still hold a summit it it some people will find value in that but I think the more personal approach is is um more effective I think we're gonna need to figure out which trustee is a better baker and have some cookies and appreciate that Elaine I think as well if there are uh if there are events or opportunities that you all do set up and you feel would be useful to have one or two of us there um please let us know happy to try and coordinate that we do want to try and you know prevent the three of us from being in the same room at the same place talking about this um but just keep us informed us to that that need and we can figure out how to get someone there absolutely we'll keep you in the loop on that and uh uh Brad the play speak um Elaine there was a question about was it the use of play speak how that works I know personally I saw it and didn't want to participate because I don't want to skew the results the person who made a comment was simply um saying that they they got into play speak and it there wasn't much to see and they did contribute in some way and they're not sure that what they contributed was seen or acknowledged great yeah that's on the list of to get more information on there so we'll get that up in the next week or so great is there anything else that we can do to assist you in um getting the message out or our should we just plan on moving forward with scheduling some community conversations I think you should plan on moving forward uh and I and I hope to see you uh at the pool event and trivia I can't get the pool but I will be at the firebird cafe the trustees any other thoughts on this we'll have to schedule the fire thanks the three of us aren't there uh you know that you can attend social events and not be considered a quorum okay yes we'll be on yes no business show up in disguise dana rambler all good thank you all for your hard work we see how hard you're working and we see the effort you're putting into this and we truly appreciate it well lane thank you for all of your effort it's we really do appreciate it you're doing a lot of the work that I know personally is not within my skill set so I greatly appreciate it we're happy to help thank you thank you thanks so I think we kind of just discussed a portion of the next one um and we're going into the meeting schedule side yeah um just that it it seems like there's consensus on I'm not is there a consensus I guess I'm not doing a large village summit and instead packaging that information and utilizing that kind of a lanes networks to maybe try and get that information out there the intention so the summit was going to be a culmination a presentation basically of the our villages our voices outcomes from the conversations they're having to review the charter review the budget and review kind of the org chart it would be an opportunity for people to hear all of those different things and then ask questions and then provide some feedback you know basically you know probably three questions what you know what excites you um what um what concerns you and what questions do you have um and so the question is do we want to do that in in one large bell swoop or do we want to package that up and and allow other folks to take that to their communities so no part of the impetus for me personally also came from uh that date may not work for me uh and so I was um so there's that but I do think that's in having the the smaller groups would allow for more personalized conversation granted that may then mean a larger commitment from us to be at different places or at least be at multiple places but I think if we can commit to that it would allow for a better result in the end the four of you to say otherwise I I I agree with you I I would only say maybe you know since there's still time maybe sort of see how things go because maybe a large summit sometime in the fall might not be a bad idea to kind of refocus everything um I wouldn't say that's you plan on as your principal effort but maybe that wouldn't be it would be something we could kind of see how things are going and see if we we feel there's a need for it I don't think we have to necessarily put it all together right now we could put something like that together on a couple of weeks though and I'm curious how the timing plays in like you don't have a calendar or proposed um oh look it's right here um I'm wondering how that plays into uh timing for any public hearing so September 11th would be 27 days 17 days before the first public hearing yeah so the answer no you're fine right so the intention of the reason September 11th was selected is we start to get into a real definitive time crunch um if we're going to utilize these as not only opportunities to share information but to gather information um and so that's that's part of this idea is that there's opportunity for feedback before you actually finalize and approve the charter so um the charter does have to be approved at your september 14th meeting so we would come to that meeting and have a discussion you know review the information that we heard see if there's any final changes or tweaks you wanted to make before it gets um filed it does look though on this timeline like the last the last chance for charter visions would be the 13th of october 12th because it's our meeting agreed okay so we we still have we would still have a couple public hearings that make adjustments but really it's more of an access issue like do we think people will there'll still be a population of people that will only be able to get to that I think like George said we can probably wait yeah I mean I you know what how about the idea of possibly making your first public hearing a summit meeting you know combine the two you're not necessarily looking for feedback but you're looking for some sort of coherent message and answering other questions of lingering questions that people might have well that would certainly solve that september 11th time crunch and give us a couple more weeks yeah because it's only three days between that summit and when we finalize it right I mean if we think we can really pull off you know getting into the neighborhoods um with some of these volunteers I think that'd be much more effective than our amber I was just going to agree that with the original comment that George made to kind of hold off and and see if we're able to hit all the neighborhoods great but I do think um the summit might be a good idea just to hit um some additional folks sometimes sometimes more is better well that's helpful I think we can we can work with that and we have some time um if we want to look at the meeting schedule um there is now a joint meeting on the 26th of July or the potential to have that joint meeting um in the previous iteration we there was not a scheduled meeting for July 27th and so that's a question of whether or not you want to add that work session um and then a question of whether or not to on the 31st of august I think you I don't think we have to do that I think you know originally we were thinking that um on august 24th the community conversations presentation would pick up you know all of your time and there wouldn't be time to then talk about what you heard and make any changes to organization budget or charter I think that's going to all be accomplished so I'd recommend we not schedule the august 31st um in terms of what's on the agenda for the 27th of July so we need to have you know I think it'd be good to have some conversations about what committees the future city would like to have I think that's some valuable information that obviously is easy to change um but do you want to have an economic development commission um you you know we have bike block and the treat committee you know all of those other ones that are existing I think it'd be good to formally acknowledge which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to add that maybe are either currently shared with the town or some that maybe happen in other communities that um you're interested in exploring um and then we just need to have a little bit of a conversation on some of the intergovernmental and health and human service uh organization health and human service uh stuff um and then kind of return back after those two conversations with the select board of the organization the org charter uh and contracts otherwise you wait until august 10th to have those conversations so we will make the set a tax rate so like to meet on the 27th anyway you're gonna have to do that good point tax rate is mildly important so just if you're weighing your options so from the sounds of it it sounds as if we have to have another meeting in July regardless in order to set a tax rate yeah it's okay so no matter how much I was prepared to say maybe if we just utilize some more time regardless we okay I was really gonna try and get out of that one Brad I'm not gonna lie I mean we could maybe maybe do something on the 26th if you wanted it to I'll be on one night but the so the 26th joint meeting um there's two others so July 26th September 27th and October 25th I believe I had emailed you all on this if I did not I do sincerely apologize um I had uh in looking at our schedule coming to the realization that we only had three joint meetings scheduled with a select board and we have a lot we need to get through first before we have a finalized charter and transition plan I personally was just highly concerned we did not have enough time so I wanted to get a few more on the on the calendar so that way we had hopefully more and we can cancel it necessary so those would be added and that's why July 26th wasn't on a previous schedule uh July 27th um I don't know why we were only meeting once this month but because it was July and that was something yeah it was like you heard no complaints that was the idea of summer I don't know I think annually you only meet once in July and I happen to be the both of you we're only going to meet once in July but that was in you know January no worries so Brad your your question of July 27th um August 31st you're saying doesn't you don't need to worry about yeah and we'll take off August or September 11th yeah uh the public hearing on the 28th we could consider if I like George's idea of making it more like a summit and not sound like a public hearing because those um sound boring um so that we potentially could other than there's a statue somewhere it's still boring legally you know we'll be calling it a hearing but you can you could have any feeling you want well so I think we could move that hearing to either the if you wanted to do a Saturday hearing um you could move it to either either Saturday the Saturday before or after okay I think it's an interesting idea we can we can give it a shot see how it goes I don't care whether it's the one before the one after um I don't yeah as far as school schedules go I don't think that that time necessarily has any significant impact either no the one the one after is actually out and about weekend um so we if you wanted to do it this Saturday it would be the 25th of September okay I think that sounds good yep sounds good to me Amber Dan any concerns with that nope I'm good with it okay it would be incredibly helpful I think if at the end of this meeting within the next couple of days if someone were to just email this decision out to the five of us to make sure we get it on our calendar sooner rather than later are you just writing something yeah right up to Linda and Michelle copy it to me on that she's out both yeah just put them both on there yeah Brad sorry about the killjoy stuff about hearing and summit but the law is pretty clear as to what the warning needs to be after that format it however you wish we can we can you know present it as a summit and we can have the legal warnings that we need to at the beginning we can say we'll then yeah right I'm just saying that there's a legal prescription right that's what you guys do we're Parks and Rec we like that yeah that's why the clerk is the way she is and she's very good at what she does Susan's great so was any anything else on the meeting schedule have we agreed to adding the 27th I've heard agreement okay fantastic um so we're good with that one yeah we're good so the other one now was going to be the email um from from Mr. Ferkey about the name of the entity right which I don't know somebody who has a sharing one I can I can quickly summarize it Mr. I thought we we get lots of interesting emails I don't mean to pick one out but I thought this was particularly interesting as a regarding separation but I thought this was particularly interesting because Mr. Ferkey recommended that we he very much said he very much supports separation but he recommends that instead of calling ourselves the city of Essex Junction we should call ourselves the city of Essex similar to St. Albans City and St. Albans Town Rutland City Rutland Town my gut response is that it would be kind of confusing to do at this point but I thought it was an interesting idea I thought it was an intriguing idea they did I thought they might agree I thought so I thought I would least instead of just saying thank you very much for your email I thought I would I would bring it up and open it for any possible discussion that we might have I don't know if if anyone Amber Dan if you had any thoughts about it you too books any thoughts about it or what I know that I I did respond to his email and for me we are Essex Junction our our charter is Essex Junction we you know in our in the the website we are the only Essex Junction in the community we can't ignore the fact that the junction of the train tracks has been here longer than any of us have been alive okay I think we hear it's probably more frequently than the sirens so to not add you know the the ode to the history of what has made the village with the trains I think does a little bit of a what I would say a disservice no and so I'd like to keep city of Essex Junction as compared to city of Essex and have town of Essex or whatever they end up choosing okay city of Essex Junction has a nice frame yep I I just thought it was I think we should encourage this kind of discussion and I just wanted to acknowledge it it can also help to clear up the question that Elaine had raised to us earlier so what would the new city be called yep but but again those were just my thoughts Raj, Dan, Amber, George if you guys have other thoughts I think you've summed up my thoughts anyway I want to hear what people think yep thank you yep and so the I'm sorry Dan Amber I almost started moving on without asking either of you have any thoughts on that I'm fine with it I uh I agree with what you said Andrew the identity of this area of Essex has been the junction for you know all over a hundred years 150 years or a hundred and whatever odd years it's been so um yeah I continue with what we're doing but listen I'm hoping to listen to other people in the comments I mean but I'm just saying I think it's obviously like you said unique name Essex Junction there's only one six junction something I'd like to keep Jordan do you know where that feedback is coming from or all right Dan I think that issue's been fixed do you want to try talking again to make sure yeah no I just want to say that I agree with what was said and particularly what you said Andrew about our identity being tied to the railroad junction here in the village and continuing but I'm still open to listening to other people's you know opinions on it you know who knows maybe somebody's got something else that would well a little better than Essex Junction but I find it hard to believe but I'm still open to listening all good Brad maybe this is one of those play speak questions yeah great instead of just you either have an open text box or just how you feel about City of Essex City of Essex Junction what other thoughts do you have so I believe that was going to put us on to the last item on our on our agenda for the work session which is probably going to be the longest portion of our work session and before we do that though as we do have these departments that are listed here what I'm wondering is similar to what we did with the police department could we as trustees have that conversation for other departments and provisions of the transition have this conversation in open session or would you like to use executive session my personal philosophy and this would still stay the same as I think we could do this in an open session to help with building good will with a community as well as a select board but if you all would prefer to have this in executive session we can and I would just say let's do it at the the end of our meeting either either way whether we do it in open or executive session so let's do it at the end because I know we have other yeah guest waiting I would I would like to have it at the end of our meeting regardless because I think we've got other guests waiting in other business to attend to so I'd like to get on with that at this point I don't care we have an exact that might just my opinion it's um whatever you want good plan thank you Raj sure yeah Amber Dan I think we can decide later about the executive session versus public but I agree let's move on okay difference I think executive session would probably be a quicker discussion but I'm fine with open session as well okay and there's probably two you know there's this piece of the conversation which is really about departments and services which you've already been talking about in open sessions and I think it's just gaining gaining some clarity before the joint meeting next week of you know where where we left things on June 21st is we want to share a long-term police short-term finance um we want to examine parts and rep services related to senior services and tree farm and you're willing to listen to the hear this like word out about assessing so I think that piece would be important I think in the public session you know session we can easily ascertain if that is still the jothers of the of the board I do think that um so there there was a request from the select board or a proposal I suppose about uh having as much of a proposal to give the select board for our joint meeting on all of the items related to the transition plan um if we could come away from our meeting tonight with as much of that ironed out as possible I think it will help to ensure that we've given the select board as much time as we possibly can um to have these conversations agreed and the second piece I think beyond the the services and departments is there are other contracts that should be considered that haven't yet been discussed and there might be value in having that conversation separate from this about what other contracts we want besides departments and services okay we will tackle that later on sounds great thank you Brad thank you we'll see you later sounds good so now that will bring us on to item 5b a presentation from cathedral square about the remand development program grant hello again Sarah hello I am just going to come on really quickly um tonight we I have Kathleen and Cindy here from cathedral square who are going to talk to you mostly um about this initiative but in brief cathedral square and one other entity partnered about 15 years ago to build the Whitcomb Terrace housing project in the village of Essex Junction through a bcdp pass through loan um from the state to that entity and at this point cathedral square is looking to um take over the property from the partnership they are one of the entities in the partnership Cindy and Kathleen are going to give you all the details they have been extremely helpful um for me understanding this and they're looking um for authorization from the trustees to assume the debt um of Whitcomb Terrace and they're here tonight for that I they included a great um memo in the packet and some additional information and then I summarized just the recommendation when we get to that point and I'm going to hand the floor over to to Cindy and Kathleen who I I see on the screen as well nice to see you both after talking to you on the phone great thank you so much Sarah for the intro and um I wanted to just thank you first start by thanking you for investing in this properties creation 16 years ago um so cathedral square you're probably familiar with uh is a non-profit housing and services provider uh primarily dedicated to older adults and people with disabilities um and so we really appreciate your help in getting this community off the ground um Whitcomb Terrace is 19 apartments um and it's mixed income um and it's for this community is for all ages uh and and there's a preference for people with mobility needs it's highly accessible we call it uh barrier free um and there's a lot of really good accessibility features um some of the units have rental assistance there's a combination of one and two bedroom apartments um it's a great location and we also have sash services which is our um we architected that our design that program support and services at home to help people age safely at home or just thrive at home uh with preventive care and wellness programming we have a part-time wellness nurse um the properties in great condition we take care of all of our properties um really well we're really proud of that aspect of what we do and this this property was in a tax credit period which is one of the financing sources and Andrew knows very well about the tax credit program and so after 15 years of compliance with the tax credit program the partnership dissolves and so typically the non-profit sponsor exercises that are right under the right of refusal to purchase the property and then continue its operation um subject to all the obligations around affordability so we commit to permanent affordability in this property and we ask for your authorization to allow cathedral square to assume the debt so when we transfer ownership from the partnership to cathedral square there's no we don't take out any equity it's just for the the balance of all the debt and all the current obligations and then we continue to run the property as affordable housing with services um keep it in good condition keep meeting the intent of the program and um that's really all I was going to say unless you have any questions I know you have a big agenda just really wanted to thank you for your support of this housing community it really serves a huge need you know we're really seeing dire situations right now with the lack of housing and and being able to maintain and continue affordable housing communities is really critical in this time so thank you for your support and open to any questions about who lives there what we do anything at all Cindy thank you so much for that and thank you and cathedral square for having the property uh where it is um as we as we know our population is not getting younger and so we know that this is an absolute need to have in our community and allow people to live as close as possible to where they come from instead of having to go to another community so that they can help to maintain their their networks um I personally don't have any questions uh I worked for that tax credit organization for a couple of years and so I understand this work very well um so I I don't have any questions okay the rest of the board does it's highly technical we can really go over this like three hours if you want yeah I have read through all of the the information that Sarah and others sent to us and I don't have any questions and I other than saying I think um terrific job and I'm we're very glad to be able to to be part of this thank you very much yeah uh Amber or Dan do you have any questions nothing for me yeah you guys are too easy we try to I guess the other thing to do with this is you know uh we it took us a long time to get an affordable housing commission or a housing commission in general set up in our community and uh as such I think this is one of those ways where we can say when someone asks what have you done to help promote and or provide affordable housing in our community we can offer this absolutely and do great um and similar with Whitcomb Woods which is next door um we're hoping to you know we plan to renovate that property in in the you know near future I would say because it's it's getting a little older um and we might be looking to vcdp which is the acronym for remote community development program again um and and if you see other opportunities in your town where we can be a resource where there's a housing development opportunity um please feel free to reach out so glad that you have a housing committee that's a really important step and you all are really you're doing a great job on that so thank you for your commitment and for your support for this community well if you if you'd like a walking tour sometime with some possible areas in the in the village where we could use some more senior housing happy to do that awesome we'll take you up on that thank you and just just to sort of tie this up so we would make this transfer effective 10-1 because that's the start of our next fiscal year and this is one approval of a few so um we really appreciate your support okay thank you so uh sarah i'm not seeing a recommended motion i got one here tell you do okay and i'll make it i'm hoping this is the right one i that the trustees authorized cathedral square corporation to assume and continue to defer the village of s6 junction vcdp loan of 260 000 at zero percent interest is that correct right is that correct sarah yeah yeah that's the one right okay great second thank you raj trust me is any further discussion on that motion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye anyone opposed great pass unanimously cindy kathleen thank you so much thank you very much please say hi to molly for me i will thanks take care of you too thank you uh an update on the opening for the senior center brown ale and two lincoln as i see ali's here um and there hi do you want to pick that off or is there anything in the the memo that you wanted to summarize for those who didn't read it i hope you all read it um nicole didn't read it uh nicole did a great job putting the memo together that was on vacation last week but she um is the guru when it comes to this and i've been meeting frequently this spring um and obviously throughout everything crazy this past year but in regards to the center specifically our our priority was to make a proactive plan and reopening um schedule and plan for the center space at two lincoln um and not just jump into things and feel reactive and unsure if everyone who we typically see and maybe new people that we would see would feel reluctant to join us um so nicole has done has started some summer programming we're using memorial hall for better um floor space and we're going to some of the parks and just getting the interest and getting reconnected with those who may not use the van service but would use the programming um side of the services and have a plan for september it also aligns with our fall programming schedule and really when before co-location and then through transitions of co-location um you know there were probably three staff members working on senior programming programming for those 50 plus um and it's really come down to nicole so she's she's program director for senior services that's the transportation services but also the programming availability within the community at the center and otherwise because there is a chunk of the community that we haven't met and built relationships with um that we're hoping to do so in the fall so if you have questions about the memo or or anything um happy to answer those for you i think one of the helpful things to see within the memo and i just want to make sure to get this right is that under the protocols from the brevant department of disabilities aging and independent living that social distancing requirement for the 65 plus population within senior centers and community spaces requires a hundred square feet of space per senior i think that having those kinds of details are incredibly helpful for us so that that way when we when we are asked how come we how come people can't come back into the senior center it's well for one you need a hundred square feet per person so that can make having an open to the entire senior population community kind of difficult to do right yeah you know with the with the way that the space is kind of separated out at two link in four senior activities it does make it difficult and that space doesn't include the kitchen area and there wasn't sort of community-based tea and coffee and kitchen use as well so and it also included staff member so even though nicole has a separate office with her traveling through the three different spaces that really affected opening it up and being really restrictive um trustees any questions i don't have questions no i mean um amber or dan any comments or questions related to this word for ali i'll think for me no okay uh i do know that there were some members from uh the public who were on earlier who wanted to speak to the senior center in particular um if the the board is okay if we can just go through these one at a time um we can get to like brown l and then to link in after that i would say for those of you who have been patient um i think you were all on the phone um who wished to speak to the board about the senior center uh and reopening i would say now is a time to do so um please do address your questions to me and if i can't answer them i will definitely rely on the professionals here so for those of you on the phone go ahead and unmute yourself uh and introduce yourself and be happy to hear your question i believe there was poly paula and bernie that i heard who were here i'm not sure if they still are they are on the phone i see that there are the phone numbers and they look familiar um did we mute them and i'm wondering some of them muted themselves actually but we can unmute so how about this i'll say the last four digits of your phone number and when i do that if they could be unmuted that would be greatly appreciated so if we could start off with six seven five one could be star six if you don't have a mute function like if it's not a cell phone i'm pretty sure it's star six from like a regular dial and phone to unmute phone users okay so if your phone number six seven five one if you want to unmute yourself by pressing star six give that a shot give that a few seconds hello hello here we go uh i heard first hello can you hear me we can you hear me hold on a second um i heard first from two one six six so that's burning hi that's me one second why did you that's me so if i'd be greatly appreciated can you hear me yes okay my name is Bernadine Haslum there we go um i bought my first home in Essex in 1971 i've been paying taxes 50 years as of today i've lived this year and i um have heard that we were going to be the seniors are going to be limited to nine to two three days a week it's a senior center is that correct i don't know um if you don't mind would you be willing to ask any other questions you have and so then we can just answer sure okay i i'm mainly i don't have many questions i just have some comments and as you mentioned earlier in your meeting the population is not getting any younger and many seniors that i know enjoy coming to the senior center not just from nine to two that's really early for seniors i know the bus is running that time right now but later on hopefully they won't and many seniors enjoy meeting other seniors afternoons play cribbage bridge and other games there at the senior center and i i don't i hate to have that taken away from them i don't think it's fair i think that the youngsters the teens that you're trying to accommodate to be meet in other places maybe adl gym prospect street maple street facility or even at the high school maybe there would be space for them if you don't want them upstairs in the senior center but i don't think that you should take the space away from the seniors and i deeply regret that you know and hope that you don't decide to do that because it's very important when you become a senior there aren't many places to go to just enjoy yourself and enjoy your friends and do things like that and i think it's very important to our senior population thank you absolutely thank you um ali i cannot speak to the open two to three days a week or being open from nine to two so right now yes bernie you're correct our transportation days due to the two drivers we have are Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and we want to make sure that there is transportation available um during the same hour with center activities yeah i i'm just trying to make it understandable for everyone who's on the call too um so we're and it's not a permanent change it's just what we currently have and what we're currently standing on we are hiring for additional drivers and if and when that opens up more is when more will open up but it's more about being able to open more up as we go instead of shut more down as we start and so we're looking to open with what we currently have for you know capacity in our staffing i understand for now but am i wrong in in assuming that um we were going to have some of the space taken away from us there at the senior center so again right right now because last year um with everything coveted we were really limited in what school space we could use for after school what's the plan for the future i'd heard that in the future that's also going to be limited and we were going to have to come up to memorial hall is that something that's not true and it will be the decisions will be made later or if i had a crystal ball i could tell you bernie um right now we're utilizing memorial hall as an alternate location as the satellite location i know so the room is so the room is about our senior center being taken from us there where you are tonight uh is are not true so so i'm having a really hard the trustee who is not involved in these details being able to hear ali's answer um so i'd appreciate it if you just don't mind letting her answer the questions um and then uh we can go from there fine go ahead so right now with the schedule that is proposed for reopening um we are utilizing municipal space that is available for programming in case we cannot get into the school space which we have relied on for many many years and so that was a big help for us this past year with after-school enrichment programs and that's our plan right now not quite knowing what the school plan is and so similar to memorial hall we use it the same the same way for the schools um at fx elementary and founders memorial um as a satellite location that doesn't add extra expenses or extra fees to participation costs so i don't know the rumor you're hearing i just know that we are trying to utilize municipal space as best as we can um and again things may open up more than close down and that's our hope thank you for that ali uh george i know you want to mention yeah i just maybe i could clear up i don't i think what we're talking about here is a difference between um a how do you how do you ramp back up uh senior services but long term the senior center is here at lincoln hall um there is absolutely no plan to shut ultimately long term shut down the senior center here at lincoln hall the plan i think ali tell me if i'm wrong but i think the plan ultimately eventually is to get everything back as it was before the pandemic um how we get there might be a little rocky and maybe isn't going to uh isn't going to be as quick as we would all like it to be but ultimately there's absolutely no plan to uh cut back on space here at lincoln hall or eliminate the senior center as it's always been tradition that's great help yes that's great yes yes i understand having to improvise right now with covid and all that and certainly do very good thank you for your information right thank you bernie uh the next number i saw come up was one one two five yes um hi hello hi if you just don't mind stating your name so we know who this is and go ahead and let us know your question uh whoever that is on one one two five it looks like you've just muted oh now you've unmuted yourself right now yes uh hello um my name is uh carol hamill and i'm a resident of sx junction since 1962 been paying taxes um i am going to read from the memo uh that it says that uh well i would like to say that uh right with these changes in september the seniors get 15 hours at the senior center where before we were there from 10 to 4 and we've had 30 hours but i want to read from the memo it says that it will be closing earlier to allow opportunities for the space to meet community needs such as after school programming and it says the new hours of the center reflect staffing availability and community needs for safe facility spaces for the youth of our community so i mean i don't think that's fair that you're taking away from the um seniors to allow the um school kids to use that when we do have plenty of school you know buildings thank you for that carol i mean i'm just reading from from the memo that was set out and that's what it says so it doesn't say that there's any plans to bring back the full time hours i i hear your i hear what you're saying i i see that here i don't have much else to add to that ali i don't know if you do i believe we just addressed it in how we're looking to and carol i'm not sure if you heard um my answers to bernie's questions it was really similar to yours and right now this is what we're planning on and hoping that more opens up based on um availability of other spaces so that we can continue to reopen more and more of the senior center uh to the population that it's designated for right now but to me it sounds like um it's it's like uh kids get in there they don't have you know a place for you to put them then we won't be able to go back again we're just oh sorry andrew this is all you i'm just gonna say i think this is a part of that that rocky process that george was talking about um we have to try some things see what works and adjust as time as staffing allows um as one of the other things that i hear is that staffing challenges with relation to transportation is also contributing significantly to this um and as i we've as we've seen at least with the school district and finding bus drivers through that venue being quite the herculean effort i assume it is also as equally troubling or difficult if you will for your your van drivers as well ali so i think this is also a portion of we've all been well i'm not going to say we all as from my understanding the socialization of the senior center is absolutely paramount to your um to to well-being um i think just a continued patience as this is ironed out it's just going to be requested um could i just say one more thing um as far as my bridge group goes there's nobody that takes the bus and and i've been to the senior center a lot and there's very few people that take the bus to the senior center okay i know thank you for that i'm sure that is great feedback for ali and um and staff yes so i think another number that i saw next was ending in three zero four zero that's me my name is madeline arsini and i'm a homeowner in ethics junction um i'm also a senior and i'm uh calling for the same reason i had heard that that are ours to use the senior senior center we're going to be limited for the same thing i heard was so that they could uh uh offer youth activities and that was my concern that we were losing our senior center space and for the hours that we were accustomed to but now that i've heard ali's comments and everything i'm uh i understand the answers but i just wanted to have it noted that that was my reason for calling too was that i was upset at the cut in ours and the availability of the senior center so um ali has already answered i've already heard her response thank you for that man thanks mandy thank you okay uh the last four of six seven five one there was something you wanted to speak to the board about with relation to the senior center and your phone number ends in six seven five one please go ahead and unmute yourself we'll move on then to the last four ending in zero two eight zero there's something you wish to the or wish to address to the board about the senior center now would be the time to unmute yourself and do so so again that's the phone number with the last four digits of zero two eight zero yes great go ahead and uh let us know who you are this is angel cola and i live in essex town and uh we have we moved here in 1990 and uh the senior center has very uh i've been attending the senior center i've worked there under luan for different programs and uh what i don't understand is that why is it not good enough the the square feet uh regarding the seniors now why do you allow the a younger generation in that probably three quarters of them have not been uh vaccinated whereas probably pretty close to 90 to 100 percent of the seniors have been in that uh has been vaccinated and so why is that such a uh concern to move the seniors down to the uh hall and yet you're uh letting the the uh young children come in and and yet they uh they'll probably crowd the senior center way more than what the seniors would do at that time of day and then not extending the hours the way they were in the beginning even though you're only doing it like tuesday through thursday um you're doing it monday through friday for the for the kids and i don't understand the reason between uh having the children there who are probably not back not all vaccinated compared to the seniors that probably are all vaccinated ali i think i can try and take this one um thank you for your question and i'm sorry i didn't get your first name what was it uh pauline pauline thank you for that uh so i think one of the biggest reasons has to do with one of the um the the regulatory differences in our state as well as what i'll go ahead and call a frank inequity in our system uh in that right now children under 12 cannot be vaccinated um it's just not legally permissible under the uh federal authorization through the emergency process for uh youth of that age to be vaccinated um yet at the same time the uh agency of education as i understand it did away with all of their social distancing guidelines with regards to how much speed need to be allocated per student within that age group whereas those who are age 65 and older for senior centers the state's department for aging and independent living has said that senior centers must have 100 square feet per senior over the age of 65 even though the overwhelming majority of you in this state are vaccinated um it's not fair frankly uh i wish i had a better answer um but from as i understand it those two regulatory organizations appear to have quite different philosophies um on that process and ali okay i have another question uh if you are sending this the seniors down to the hall how do you expect some of the seniors who walk to the senior center they don't have transportation but they walk to spend time at the center uh how are they going to get down to the hall and you're concerned and i'm sure they're concerned about the numbers of people who are going down to the hall well probably there would be a lot more if they were open longer in the village where they these people could come because they live right there in the village so some of them walk there to play games in the afternoon yeah i think so how do you answer that one i don't have as good of an answer for this one i'm not gonna i'm not gonna pretend that one um what i would i would think that this is a part of that rock that rocky start that was mentioned before and a little bit of that learning process of we kind of learn as we go with this uh ali i don't mean to put those words in your mouth but i think we're we as a community are all trying to figure this out as we go given the staffing resources that we have well i i think it it better be uh rethought about on on also the hours for the center i mean some of the seniors don't get there until one o'clock and they would like to stay at least until four like they have in the past and they enjoy being there and a lot of work has been put into that senior center by a lot of seniors and it's really sad that they can't go back to it and enjoy their center it's really sad i'm sorry but uh we have a lot of seniors in both esics junction and esics center and they enjoy that center a lot we they used to have a lot of programs and uh they had i don't know if any of you on the staff have uh been to the senior christmas bazaar that the seniors have had worked so hard in the past to have um this is all thank you thank you thank you i appreciate that i'm sorry well i think it's not going to fit or how how senior center please it would help to facilitate this conversation a lot easier sorry i didn't hear what you said i was just asking whoever was interrupting to please not do that as it's it's very disruptive to the flow of the conversation and is not going to help with getting through this all right i'm about done but i just want to let you know that a lot of seniors have put a lot of energy and time into that senior center and they've enjoyed it and they've worked hard for it and if you looked in the past of what kind of christmas bazaars that our seniors had put on uh halloween parties that the staff and the the seniors have enjoyed uh i think that's something that the the board had really better consider and and look in the history of the senior center and talk to some of the seniors that have been there over the years and all the time they've put into it thank you pauline i do appreciate that okay that's okay thank you for letting me sound off thank you uh so anybody else on microsoft teams if you could please go ahead and raise your hands to let us know if you could let me try that one again those of you on microsoft mr speaker yesterday united states were suddenly and deliberately attacked by empire of japan that's a real senior wait i muted a song so we are muted right now too that was the fastest way to jordan do you want to unmute us no i will get to the room after teams i promise you are i'm muted thank you thank you jordan we'll try that one again question so those of you on microsoft teams please do raise your hand if you wish to speak to the board about the senior center um and i'll make sure to give you the time not seeing any hands go up all right we'll bring it back to the physical room members of the public who wish to speak to the board about this item you don't mind just raise your hands so i can get an idea as to how many please if you um if you want to stand up if you want to come up here if you want to stay seated whatever feels comfortable for you and just let us know who you are well actually you need to come a lot closer to this microphone or nobody will hear you outside oh thank you for that thank you i did call in so um i came down my name is paula sargent and my husband russie and i have lived in essex for 20 years and uh i just want to reiterate what these seniors have said about the passion and the importance of the senior center i think we should be building the senior center as quickly as possible because people in essex are desperate to be able to see themselves and there's no other place in essex really where they can do it the age well has gone to colchester and so those services are not as available for them as they were before um thank goodness some of the churches have been open and it's been a big struggle and now is the time the seniors need our support i will tell you i meet people at the supermarket i meet people on the street i know people that used to go to the senior center most people walk and most people drive ages 50 to 100 that age group is desperate in this community and the thought of letting them back to 15 hours a week is so shocking to all of them china has a fighting nation japan is in no position to dictate to britain i have we have five sons so i know about youth and i've been a teacher for years i run a nationally accredited daycare program i'm an advocate for kids but seeing the importance and the uh success of the senior center in essex it's it's the heart of our community and cutting them back to 15 hours a week is unbelievably cruel and i so i think we should i they most some people come on the van thank goodness for the van but most people come in eat lunch and are there when they're they're up you know they're in the afternoon they're uh there's education for them there there's health services there's a food pantry for there and there's really no other place in the community that they can meet like that so please think carefully as we go back into reorganizing these programs on the priorities i i really feel like this is important to have the space for them and to return to the services that they had before thank you thank you and i i think i can say with some certainty that i i feel confident our staff who uh oversee the programming related to the senior center and the hours related to the senior center and the services do wholly understand the research behind the evidence research behind social isolation especially due to covet and the fact that so many have had to um not interact with anybody and how many uh within this population have just been homebound for the last 16 17 18 months um and how detrimental that can be for someone's well-being uh i'm i'm fairly confident that it has been well well heard um and i do hope that yes we are able to have the center open as much as possible to allow for the health of everybody involved the seniors the staff um and that's uh it is able to be stopped what it should be so thank you i end up there thank you i'm just getting to that um deb mackadoo if you'd like to go ahead hi everybody yeah i'm sorry i'm this is really really what a what a great community we have we don't care about each other so much passion and compassion jeez i'm cruel i just had this thought and i just want to throw it it's worth is there any way we could use the fairground still trying to unseat the changkai center and still failing having said pan has both hands full mayors can we just set old news just yeah can you do that yes i will continue thank you thank you is there a way to firmly block somebody well they might be using a different sign or you know take a robot obviously but yeah continue okay sorry deb no that's okay i just wanted i just really appreciate the compassion that we all have for each other and i really thank you so much for speaking to the impact of socialized relation on older people and i wondered if there was um now that we're not giving shots out at the fairgrounds maybe there's room there we could do something there was a temporary just throwing it out sorry george didn't mean to scratch your head no thank you for that deb i'm thinking all right i think we have concluded the public info portion of this item thank you ali and uh please let us know how things progress can we discuss this a little bit yeah i mean i i but what i'm hearing is it's not having space it's having a very specific space it's having this space that's what these people want to get back to um just finding a an empty vacant area somewhere in the village or the town is not enough i'm trying to the reason i was scratching my head i'm trying to understand why a hundred square feet per senior for vaccinated seniors make sense that sounds like a holdover from something in the middle of the pandemic that just hasn't been addressed or something i don't want to make conjecture right now but i would like to suggest considering this that we stay right on top of this as quick as much as possible that that that just doesn't a hundred square feet person i mean quit what yeah so you would need a stadium to accommodate like a 60 or or 50 or 60 people um i would say you let's stay on top of that that particular ruling and be able to transition as quickly as possible back to normal and not get too caught up into you know elaborating the plans and relocating space i would really like that you know it would be bad if for example if that particular regulation change but we don't find out for two weeks i would like to sort of like get get daily updates or whatever on when that changes so we can quickly transition that interesting because it's not that that's not the case for my mom yeah i i don't get it i mean i don't know but i'm sure i don't doubt that i don't doubt your veracity but i'm just it's just a weird thing and it's it's a it's a little concerning and i'm a little concerned that we're going to go too far finding all this additional space and what maybe we really need to be concentrating on is is figuring out why this is necessary and how quickly we can get back get away from it we don't remember this song what do i do well i don't hear anything thanks margherie alie as soon as you can unmute yourself please go ahead um so nicole and i started planning this as we were planning the summer programming ahead of the center programming to get the interest in activity levels and interaction from the isolated population in our community um ahead of time so yes the hundred square feet per person which was only four people in the large room at the center um was back in may before restrictions were lifted in mid june restrictions have been lifted we've she's been really busy with the vans and the programming so this is our plan as of two months ago without you know with whipping up a memo to let you know that yes we're reopening and things will change and this was the plan and again there's a person again quick see what i'm um thank you you're a ninja so anyway it was we had this plan we did the summer programming start and our and we were revisiting this as nicole as a program director was going to be in the program's team meetings for the fall brochure so everything was in one printed resource from both rec so there were circumstances have been listed again as stated multiple times this is not a permanent change this is a lean in process um and this is not set in stone this is just how we were going to plan for it if nothing had changed for this specific population okay so i think i'm hearing you say that that plan may be changing did i hear yeah we yeah i mean nicole's on vacation this week i was on vacation last week we haven't connected in regards to the fall programming yet and that first program meeting happened last week um i wasn't here for that and there's a lot to be discussed with how the brochure is going to go out and who's going to be promoting what and this is our plan as of two months ago and we haven't we just honestly with the timing of the questions coming up we haven't connected because of our schedules nothing is permanent um she's been wanting to open the center for so so long and my advice to her was to do it in a proactive approach instead of continue to be reactive and look as though she is unplanned and isn't sure of what is correct and what is protocol and all that but to start and open the doors in a fresh inviting way thank you ali and if there's anything that we can do to try and help with facilitating the the reopening uh or expanding the hours please let us know all right let's thank you ali enjoy your evening thanks you too thank you uh wendy isko i see that you're you're here hi i'm here hello could you uh could you just elaborate a little bit on the uh the memo that you sent for um the public who may not have had a chance to read the memo yes we are working on um just finding a balance right now we it was it's uh i think as ali just pointed out it's been really hard to follow regulations and we have definitely been we've been open for curbside which has been really stuff intensive and we're open now for browsing hours four days a week um and we're continuing appointments we've gotten some people very appreciative about continuing appointments um and the curbside or it's not really curbside itself service pickup is um still very popular and we're just figuring out the balance we're also down three staff right now um so that is definitely impacting our operations as we can't we're hiring um and that is um i think we're getting closer to hiring but we're going to be doing a lot of training as well because we're not getting people that are um aware of all of our own policies and procedures change it feels like daily at this point just because everything's continuing to change um and there is a lot of um i think appreciation there's some people that are frustrated i think people are done with the pandemic but we are still in a pandemic and trying to serve the community is something we're really trying to find a balance for thank you wendy i think that in just some of the um the emails or uh social media conversations that i've that i've seen i think one of the general questions is trying to understand why the difference in hours between say brown ale and sx free are what they are and um as well as just the broader community into why it seems that brown ale is not as open as other libraries we are working on being open our appointments have been filling up which was not necessarily the case at other libraries um and we're just trying to find a balance of staffing what we have we've had a really high we're a destination for communities all surrounding communities so we have a lot more of an impact than um other libraries that do have um they're they're more open and we are working on it but we are our staff we were providing a lot more service throughout the year and we're trying to transition from that where oh some libraries have not been a lot of nearby libraries haven't really been providing as much service so we've been kind of going full force um or the self-service pickup requires a lot more staff time um and it's it's a balance our staff is not it's right now everybody's flat out and that is not something that you can see from outside the walls of the library but that's why we're working on it staff is very excited about seeing people but it's also trying to find what we can do because we can't necessarily have hours we're trying to figure out where the um the balance is because a lot of people have been very combative and trying to manage that is something we're concerned with um so it's just really trying to find the balance for our community we are the only library outside of Fletcher Free that has a public bus stop which brings different people in and we are definitely much more of a destination than other libraries when you're saying people are being combative are you saying from a safety perspective that your staff are like physically being attacked or verbally verbally attacked and that's why we're trying to do this slowly to find out really what the the balance is going to be of how we can manage the public when they do come in because we want to keep the staff safe and also find the balance if we can't have people at the desks because they're getting books for other resources that's not a safe um situation either before turning it over trustee's questions? I'm good I mean hang in there Ellen Wendy yeah I mean I this is Raj I can't imagine the difficulty in the transition that you're trying to navigate I'm wondering if now most people are getting back to normal people are back to work people are we're all in here there's probably 28 to 30 people in this room right now 20 I don't know um if if maybe the the um the book pickup the call ahead book pickup gets transitioned out um to help with well it's a service we've always provided we've always provided the service there's just a lot more demand now um so it's it's just trying to figure out where the balance is in the community of what people want I know that not everybody's excited about being in buildings and I would say that there are families out there that are less excited as you see more busyness out there with people not um taking not masking their children never mind um we don't know about who's unvaccinated so um it's it's a weird mix out there right now and we're just trying to manage and we are talked about trying to pull the book lists less but then they continue to fill up so we have to pull it multiple times a day um so it's really keeping an eye on what is actually happening as far as the demand and we've already to this week we opted to drop another day of appointments to have open browsing to see how that works um but the appointments today I know that the first section of them were filled even though we're open um four days a week so there's um it's everybody's in their own different comfort zone I think so is it is it really is it a difference in population that's that's really a difference between like Fletcher free Rutland um trying to think of the bigger more um diverse population libraries that are pretty much open is it is it the population is it the proximity above what's what's the I mean I guess I'm wondering how the other libraries are dealing with what I can only imagine as people responding to please put your mask back on comments for the combatant or please you know your 30 minute computer session is over or you've been in a library for 30 minutes we'd like you to leave because it looks like other libraries are doing similar you know you're doing appointments they're doing appointments I'm just wondering what you're hearing from your colleagues at other and other municipalities and how they're you know similar municipalities I consider Burlington maybe Rutland City the library you know how are they managing that what's the difference and I'm asking because I'm getting right Fletcher free has been open more throughout the year because they couldn't keep up with the demand of people placing holds and they also have a lot more staff to deploy they were and they have a lot different they're they have modern HVAC systems so it's a different scenario of trying to control people in the Burlington facility versus our own where we have one air exchanger for the whole building and we are they I think Fletcher free has like five times as many staff so they are just a different beast and they also have a security team at the door so there's a lot of differences so we're trying to do what we can with the resources that we have and and we're we're increasing so it's we're not we've not at any point we are be evaluating on like at least a weekly basis often more of what we can do and where where we think we can make changes to continue increasing the services to the community in the building instead of just out coming in the doors to get their resources but we do have every every building is very different as far as what they can handle as as far as the HVAC and air exchanging security something you think you need for a while I mean you know um we I think Evan has mentioned that I don't know like it would have to be all the hours that's the thing is like the people who are difficult don't go on a schedule there's not something that would be an easy solution or I do believe like Fletcher free has their hours aligned with the local service agencies and their security team hours aligned with the local service agencies so it's they just it's a different world with different resources I don't know but right right now we're just trying to slowly open and see how it goes that's it seems like it would be jumping a lot to jump right into security which would also be another whole thing to sort out of how you do that yeah go ahead Evan so in talking with Wendy and her staff and our staff if you want to go back a few months we took an ultra cautious approach to the pandemic a lot of our buildings were opened by appointment we realized that a lot of people were going to get vaccinated but not the youth and when you are dealing with a library you're getting not only the youth but you're getting of all ages including the seniors and a lot of our employees have that gamut of range too so some of them were vaccinated some of them were not vaccinated we have teens who worked for us they were not vaccinated yet and then we are now a short a couple of staff members so in talking with Wendy we wanted to be able to provide very good if not excellent service all the time that we were open versus opening and kind of being okay on some days not good on other days and then you can't get your reputation back so that's why we're also looking at a a little bit of a slower take a measured approach of this and you know I hate being a doom and loom guy but I see the news not everybody's vaccinated we do have the delta variant it is starting to show up in and around this area and so the library the Bernal library does get a wide range of patrons and so with that it's been a slow opening it's been cautious it's something that I have stood behind and I've told Wendy and others I would much rather you be very careful with your hours and give excellent service for the hours that you're open than uneven service and and be jumpy and Wendy also thank you to you and your staff for all that you are juggling and going through and it's much appreciated so as we did with the with the senior center we can go ahead and take some questions from the public for the sake of randomness let's go to those in person now and we'll go back to the the virtual world as long as we don't keep getting bombed and whatever that's called anybody here physically who had any questions comments on this okay that was quick anybody on microsoft teams if you have any questions comments please go ahead raise your hand let me know um I will make sure to call on you uh Jess why don't you go ahead and unmute yourself hi um my name is jess was laski I am a single parent of a kid living in the village and I find it unconscionable that the library is still shut um I I'm just going to rattle off the stuff that I know Shelburne libraries open for 42 hours now Richmond library 42 hours a week when you ski 40 hours a week Williston 45 hours a week Jericho 40 hours a week Fletcher free library 56 hours a week um you point and shoot at any library across the state of Vermont and you'll find a library that is struggling really hard to open their doors because it's a central tenant of librarianship to put access as your number one priority a like secondary tenant of librarianship is democracy diversity education and I'm disturbed by the conversation because it sounds like some people's personal preferences seem to be overriding the discussion and not what the needs of the community are what it means when the director of a library has a problem with people who walk in off the street from their own community what it means that there's a problem there's a public bus station right there I don't I don't have a very easy time believing that our library has a more challenging population that walks in off the street than the Fletcher free library does which like his open doors advertises their AC and lets people stay as long as they want now there's lots and lots of businesses that have opened their doors and like had limits have a person right at the front door keeping track to make sure no more than 12 people are in there at a time but to have the doors shut as much as they are and like I even signed up for some of these zoom virtual kits which like is the last thing I think my kid needs right now is to be on the computer more in the summer but like even just getting into that vestibule and knowing when the right hours are it's like you actually have to have no job to keep track of when the open time at the Brownhill library is and it is the like largest singular earmarked item that our municipal tax taxes pay for and I have a real hard time losing $20 a month in my taxes for a library I can barely access in the past year I appreciate that like there are people clearly putting tons of effort into these like bagged kits but I I would treat in all the bagged kits in the world to like be able to walk in the doors and not have to tattoo a like really random schedule to my arm to know when it's open it's the middle of the summer I worked in a school all year I was a librarian in a school all year I like it was scary and I had colleagues that got sick but it's not that anymore so many people have vaccines and it's no longer like in my mind a teacher being in a school all year an acceptable excuse that like we're following people's personal preferences around fear as whether or not we open one of our again like highest cost single items for the village taxpayers it doesn't make sense to me it doesn't the staffing seems to be the most realistic thing I've heard but then I also heard it's actually about security but it's actually about airflow but it's it seems like it's about fear of having to tell people to our masks or fear of confrontation and I'm like how much of this is about our own fragility and fear of our own community members like I'm I'm just like I'm concerned that what happens when this then eventually does open as we do lose library hours we do lose nighttime hours and we close at five because of the potential incoming public you know like it's I'm sorry there's just too many excuses here for me to think it's like all just about COVID at this point thank you for listening okay thank you Jess thank you comments anybody else on teams have any other questions comments uh seeing none uh Wendy I do want to thank you and I do want to thank your staff um as you all absolutely are the utmost professionals in this field and I do appreciate what you're doing for our community um your uh your guidance or your um prioritization of good customer service uh I do appreciate um and as a parent of an 11 year old who it cannot get vaccinated at this point in time uh to appreciate that you do consider those uh as well and their needs um I hope you get the staffing that you need thank you we do too trusty is anything else before we move on to to Lincoln well just thank you thank you yeah thanks for the comments thank you Wendy thanks Marguerite Evan who wants to go oh we were just discussing that we were just discussing this very topic there's a memo in the packet uh but for the people um basically as as many of you know uh that the we talked about the senior center that's one side of the building chips is upstairs uh there are tenants and the community development department is in this building as well as a couple of administration uh staff members um currently uh the we are doing the community development by appointment um and uh staff is now returning to the building we have office hours for uh people that are in this building like Marguerite um there's the assistant manager Linda Mons and Tammy Ketchum um we are reviewing uh putting in more of an intercom system at the back door one of our issues is that um community development Terry's usually the only potentially the only one here in the building and she does go out in the field for inspections so um Robin is down in the basement um not really uh knowing if somebody's upstairs unless they say something like hello we're in the battle so we're looking at an intercom system for the door we're also looking at getting our schedules so that we could have more people in the buildings um so that the doors can be open uh in um that um case so um I agreed to you have anything to add to that um no um I would just say that's sort of the office part that does not you know trips and senior they all have their own entryway and then this space um is being used for public meetings this one and then for the planning commission any of the other public spaces as well that has come up because right now we're leaving this set up up while we get used to it and I think that's going to be the way it is for the foreseeable future so that does limit a little bit of you know what who or what we're going to just um I guess allow in here for now as we kind of figure out how to keep these and our committees learn how to use it for their meetings and all of that has to happen too so um yeah and then we also put up some new signage at the drop box anybody who's got a water bill or in the future when tax bills hopefully will be more open at that time but you can put your tax bills or water bills in the drop box we do do uh transfers every day from two lincoln to 81 and 81 to two lincoln um it is not that terrible it's a total of three blocks but when it was raining the other day it was a very wet three blocks um and so we're we're moving in that direction um and uh keeping our chimpses up in the building trustees any comments questions no not at this point my only comment is I I I appreciate the complexity and I just urge us to try to get back to normal as fast as possible library to lincoln and the same thing that's all uh members of the public anybody on teams with questions related to uh the services of two lincoln please go ahead raise your hand jess I see your hand is up is that still the holdover from before is that a new one that's an o thank you seeing nothing thank you all thank you for the updates uh so I see on our agenda that the next item is the electrical upgrade do we have anybody from staff or public who's here for this and if not could we just uh do that later because I know we have other people here tom is here for it tom is here yes okay I I was assuming rick may have been here for no rick is here for of the entire yeah yeah yeah all right uh so we'll go to the uh bid for two lincoln and the village fire department um hi tom hello uh could you give us the elevator version the elevator pitch version of this for sure notes sure so basically this all started out uh year and a half ago when chips asked uh to put in an oven up in their space to do some educational training and then they also asked about some sort of an ad a uh minimal compliant access to their space from ground level and so I started looking at the electrical panels and there is no electrical space so then talking to an electrical engineer got looking at what we could do to make more space uh his recommendation was to add more panels well in order to add more panels uh the transformer needs to be upgraded and at the same time we found that the village fire department didn't have its own electrical meter uh so uh two lincoln and the village fire department swap uh month to month the electrical charges um so things compounded so um it was easy enough to have an electrical designer design us a true electrical redistribution uh with a bigger transformer separate out the village fire department with its own meter electrical meter and provide more amperage for two lincoln street for down the road and to bring the electrical service at two lincoln uh up to today's code great appreciate that and so it sounds like cutting into a uh hundred plus year old building reveal that there are some more issues than was originally thought what what yeah so the what's proposed it's within budget right yes great i think it's wonderful um having chips being able to do uh having a stove up there would be great for their opportunities and for our youth um i'm i have no questions concerns christies nope sounds great dan amber i see you shaking your head to know somebody wanted to make that i will make a motion that the trustees direct the manager to move forward with the electrical redistribution project this summer um and use pratt and smith electric with a total bit of 57 557 dollars and if you don't mind leave us room for any extras and leave room for extras but not to exceed 10 000 2000 i think is what's 2000 yeah thank you yeah this is an old building yeah thanks raj any further discussion trustees hearing none of those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi anybody oppose great thank you thank you tom thank you enjoy your night you too okay and now yes now we're on to the petition for traffic calming in the pleasant street neighborhood um thank you all for those of you in the public who are still here we appreciate your patience uh could someone help to introduce this sure this is the petition for traffic calming in the pleasant street neighborhood in direct staff to work with the neighborhood on the traffic calming measures and i think rick you're here if you speak to this yep so in your package you have a petition from the residents of pleasant street who for the people who are on teams cannot see our audience there's about uh 12-ish people in the audience which is uh quite a crowd for to link it and so pleasant street is scheduled for resurfacing you can all applaud that after all the years you've been waiting um it is scheduled for resurfacing from basically uh the uh western most edge of east and pleasant all the way down to um man's field and uh little edges of park um street there and um so again it's resurfacing and they have asked uh for the village to consider traffic calming measures and i'm not sure if someone if they have a spokesperson um in the audience but if they do uh please come to the microphone have a seat thanks for waiting and full disclosure i am a member of that neighborhood but i did not sign that petition because i don't sign that petition there are people who want to leave the road unpaid because it is unpaid yeah because it slows traffic oh you mean just bumpy bumpy oh yeah not gravel yeah a lot of people okay just to be clear not gravel no no gravel that would be interesting hey what if with your permission i'd like to read the letter that we wrote that accompanied um that accompanied the signatures and i'd prefer not to call it a petition i don't think we did it's more a letter of request because and as part of our letter we're asking the the village to cooperate with us to develop process whereby people can ask for these kinds of things crosswalk lights all the things that you get petitioned for if we had you know several processes safety um safety asks so we say it would be so much easier if we could do it that way but this because we don't um it kind of forces us to do it this way which actually feels a little weird to me to be honest so here i'll uh i'll read the letter and then if you have questions i've also uh they're done a lot of research around the state um many communities have these uh traffic calming measures applications on their websites etc etc some like uh adson county has them that will vary bravo bro danville williston burlington has a 32 page manual about traffic calming bravo bro has a 15 page which is probably more our speed um and and and really delineates the kind of traffic calming and the kinds of requests you can make of the board so i think that's that's the one we should probably use if we're going to use any of your ghost the residents of pleasant street and the adjoining neighborhood have long been concerned with speeding down pleasant street since it's a well-known cut through to avoid the five corners a desirable neighborhood with maple street and adl at one end and the town offices in ehs at the other pleasant street is a convenient bypass to waving at the community's largest intersection as many will remember starting in 2003 the neighborhood identified the need for traffic calming actions and after much discussion speed tables were established they have proven minimally effective in slowing traffic in light of this we're asking for more effective traffic calming measures in our heavily trafficked neighborhood pleasant street including east and mansfield are used as shortcuts and are particularly affected by school traffic the volume of residents including children passing through this neighborhood who walk and bike is astonishing we are requesting a partnership where staff from the village could work with residents of high traffic impacted streets and neighborhoods to create a process that would be a model to other neighborhoods in the future we envision a standard approach to evaluate and request traffic calming in an organized approach that ensures equity safety cost consideration and efficiency we believe forming a standardized process would benefit staff and residents alike for years to come there is a perfect opportunity to create such a process as the pleasant street repaving project takes shape as you can see in the attached signatures there's considerable interest by residents in engaging in creating such a process and we hope the village will share our enthusiasm we have lots of creative ideas used in other communities for slowing traffic and would appreciate the opportunity to share such a discussion could serve as a model for other road projects to come serving not just pleasant street but the entire village thank you for your attention to this matter and please see the attached letter signed by residents and neighbors of pleasant street as we look to a workable permanent solution to the traffic calming needs of our community and it's signed by Nick and Bridget on Bridget Meyer Nick is back there um but a lot and six pages of of signatures so what do you think thank you what you think I think I agree with you that it's it's awkward about having a petition especially I mean some of us walk by your house on almost a multi-times a day basis yeah so yes I'll hardly agree with that and I think that as a as a policy board it's important for us to look at where our policies don't really make sense so let's we should have that conversation about how can we best engage the the neighborhood with staff around traffic calming and not just the concept of a policy on speed tables I mean if I could suggest we could partner with um we probably have some ideas about this too but we could partner with local motion um you know other groups that are that are doing this Burlington contractor for the Canadian firm to develop their plan but um and I think that for me anyway especially during COVID I was just amazed by the by the number of walkers on our street walkers wheelchairs bikes and you know it just it's it is it's astonishing and what we need to do is a village and maybe we can do it better when we're a city um is uh is is make these make these priorities you know what I mean just run down these things that we want what is a livable community what makes a livable healthy community definitely one of these things and I copied bike walk and the police on this as well so they could see what our what our concerns were and hopefully respond as well um we I don't this isn't for traffic calming but I know we have some kind of a policy it might maybe Rick could tell us about if someone wants one of those things that gauges people's speed and flashes them there and there's a few other things like that and I'm not saying I'm not saying we have a policy but I'm wondering where where all that is and how that fits with you know can you sort of expand and include this in there instead of starting from the ground up I can yeah what is not traffic calming it's important to clarify potential treatments that will not be considered as traffic calming measures four common requests from residents include stop sign installation requests speed radar equipment installation driver safety education or speed limit enforcement efforts by local police while stop signs and other traffic control signs are means by which traffic operations may be managed they're not traffic calming devices because they are not self enforcing a regulatory traffic control device traffic control signs obligate the motorists to alter their driving behavior and reduce speed but require enforcement by authorities in order to be effective rather than the operator's voluntary modification of their behavior vehicle safety education is an essential requirement for obtaining a state driver's license but it's not in its in and of itself a traffic calming measure because it's not it's not a physical treatment that is self enforcing for these reasons requests of this nature will not be considered under the city's traffic calming program this is both Brailleboro and Burling I know I just thought that she was ready and you and you do understand that that I mean a lot of there is the snow plow issue and Ricky Jones comes in and says that's a fantastic idea but our snow plows would wipe that out in a heartbeat so that is the wrinkle that we have here in the northern hemisphere I do understand I do I really do some of the things we're talking about at least on the street maybe some of these other people could weigh in as well our curb extensions foam pouts maybe even putting big planters in the at the intersections and then pulling them up in the winter or something like that anything that will that will slow the traffic particularly at least my observation is during school time school hours it's particularly troublesome one of the things that I'd like for us to try and do is if we could try to not problem solve or design the street you know or design the street calming tonight I think we could all have fun doing it but speaking for myself I'm not really an expert in it yeah and I think that where we should really spend most of our time is looking at this example where examples from say Burlington Brownover open helping me help to incorporate that but in the interim staff how can staff best work with the neighborhood in ensuring that traffic calming is implemented um and Rick Hamlin I think uh you wouldn't mind so for you your request actually uh Rick I'm sorry you're gonna have to come to a mic because the people outside just like the neighbors that we are we are neighbors so um the foundation of what you're asking for actually was laid in 2004 and there is a policy for requesting traffic calming and there's a tiers of steps of how that happens so step one is the community anybody in the community can request a speed study to be done because that's the first step is to is to find out where is the level of the problem is it and and in technical terms we're talking about the 85th percentile there's the 85th percentile speed equal to less than the speed limit or over the speed limit that's a key trigger for engineering so because of your actions the police have already started to record speeds on the street so we can identify that which is the first step of the policy that was drafted by the trustees in 2004 and and right now just just is a some feedback for you that policy is not findable anywhere on our website and it would be good to get it there so that that you would know that it was there and not have to create the first part of the process yeah so that first process is is a speed study and then once those numbers are back then then then we can quantify what what needs to happen under the current policy I mean there's there's actually another step before that there was the 25 miles an hour in our neighborhood cones that could be requested you're obviously looking for something beyond that so so we'll move ahead in the policy which is a speed study once the speed study is back now under that policy there is essentially one traffic calming device that was approved in 2004 and that speed table which sounds like you're not too interested in so really what has to happen is happening which is the speed study and then the next step of conversation is whether the trustees wish to alter the policy and kind of take it from 2004 bring it to 2021 knowing what we know now which is a little more than we knew in 2004 and modify that policy because as as Bridget points out it's it's the groundwork for not just Pleasant Street or just East Street or Arlington or way really your park plays Mansfield but Iroquois West you know all of the you know brickyard and and all the greater and lesser streets within the village and so the next part of the conversation something probably is worth thinking about now is starting to take a look at that policy and revamping it if there's a will to do so to look at other other options so and we're studying the speed now but we obviously know and we all I live around the corner I'm on Mansfield so hi neighbors so we all know that and I think probably the last issue was brought up in 2000 beginning in 2003 I think and that was I think the last time it was paid is when it became an issue because there was new pavement again and so we know that the speeds especially with the speed tables are taken out and the new pavement goes down we'll be doing the speed study again which will also give us a comparison between rough surface and speed tables and smooth surface and no restriction and and most of the issues that were or the solutions that might occur can occur after that pavement is placed so it's not a question of waiting and most of the things and things that you refer to are can be installed after that pavement is put down so process steps started and then it's a further conversation where if staff's directed to to talk to you folks and and start to craft provisions if the trustees feel it's warranted to the policy I would say absolutely and with along the along the lines of the the policy itself I'd love for us to revisit that I think one of the things a pandemic has taught us is about how many people do walk in our community along the similar lines I think the policy around taking outside walks you may want to revisit as that's not really conducive especially given the reality that we're currently in so yes I think that from the trustee's perspective we should revisit the policy we should look into what other communities are doing around the state nationally internationally for traffic calming and how can we best integrate that and not rely on speed tables and I totally agree with the commentary that that the bridge of red you know stop signs are not to be used for speed control and that's actually you know contrary to MUTCD which is of course the guidelines that this state has adopted and we not for traffic control and so those those things don't equate to traffic calming but there are other pieces that should work in in junction passive yes but but enforcement is important maybe and again you don't rely on just that one leg to support this but it is an important part of the overall action to to control speeds within the neighborhood so and I and I think the chief is is on board with that also but once the speed studies are back then we have a great place to start our conversation is a real quick again I'm not sure I heard correctly as I thought I heard one of the concerns from from some residents is about the current paving project and that possibly impeding the traffic calming that is not the case where the current paving project should that move forward will not in any way hinder future conversations around traffic calming yeah I if if there is disturbance of the pavement that's required to the install something that's selected as an appropriate piece the amount the amount that's going to be disturbed is very minor compared to all the tonnage because it's it's pleasant Arlington east between pleasant and Arlington Waverley and and Park are all planned that whole neighborhood and so and to do a good job it should be all done at the same time so if there is disturbance to that pavement it's minor I wouldn't delay all the paving because of potential minor disturbance tonight am I understand I just want to understand the process here because it sounds like what you're asking for you folks are asking for is to participate in the policy making process you don't want us to make a policy and then say here's your policy and then here's how we think you fit into it you want to participate speaking personally for myself I can't speak to the rest of the neighbors that's what I would like I would like to work with you to develop okay she's applying so let's interview her right now for the like one all those are no rigid rigid that's the only way you go all those are there's two open seats we've got seats for everybody there is no curb work that I'm aware of in the area right so there's no concrete curb everything is pavement and rast or quay there there is for the most part yeah for 99.9 percent there's just the crosswalk there's a trace of curbing near the intersection of man's field and pleasant yeah that's I don't know why it's it's a remnant and probably by the time we mill and pave it may remain but it's it's a remnant there is no no new curving is going to be installed so any calming devices that are adjacent to the paved road is not going to interfere it either just go sit on it or be cut into it right it's asphalt so it's not yeah and very minor compared to the tonnage that's going to be put down in that area I guess I'd say this is fantastic please include like walk as much as possible they've had two years ago they had UVM students do a really interesting study on three different parts of the village that's still out there often those UVM studies can be rather quiet in the sky but this one was more tame didn't come for any bridge building and the other thing is I don't I don't I don't wasn't sure if I heard you correctly saying we should wait for the speed study before we visit the policy I think you know the policy is going to apply to the whole village so it might as well just get it's not going to be a fast process could I interject too that the speed study which I noticed today they were doing something out there in the summer right now I mean the road is rough there isn't as much traffic as there is when during schools right in session so I was a little kind of like oh no no listen I'm never going to show what we need to show but it's again it's it's baseline and and really the this is the first step then do the paving take the second set of readings because it'll be informative to say you know because we've got a combination actually of rough surface which we know does both people down and the speed tables but it'll be interesting to see what the what that difference is and it's data you know which is it's good measurable information that we can we can use so so I see Dan has a question can I make a comment I'll wait for anyone else to talk but anyways the whole thing of traffic calming and the concerns of that community or that area in the community and speed traffic calming my concern or my my question is is it so much the speed or is it the number of vehicles the size of vehicles that they're seeing a lot more of that due to traffic congestion in five corners not as much the speed might not be the big issue it might be more just sheer number of volume brick in all of you and also speed my experience in law enforcement 35 years when you're standing still on a roadway you see a vehicle go by it's a lot different than when you're actually monitoring it with the radar you see the speed it seems a lot faster when you're close to something than what it really might be um so speed speed studies will show that but as far as traffic coming the number of vehicles the number of vehicles coming is basically opening up more arteries to relieve the pressure and that's very difficult to do in a community like we have here where we can't just build a new bypass well I would respond um to suggest that you visit Burlington and uh see what they've done they've done an extensive job all over that city of traffic calming all the bump outs and all of the curb extensions that they've done they have just done a fantastic job and I'm not saying that we need to do that here I'm just saying that in some neighborhoods we will not be the last neighborhood who asks you for this so for me anyway developing a policy that you can easily um access you know to say okay we we qualify we don't qualify who do we ask how do we do this is the right way to go no matter what um we no matter really what we decide to do on pleasant street for for um and I mean we collectively decide to do on pleasant street for traffic calming I agree I agree with that and also one of the comment would be I travel to Burlington every day and uh there are a lot of one-way streets one way to relieve traffic is to change the street designs and increase but we have limited number of streets to utilize in the village and it'd be very difficult to uh to start re- redesigning the roads so that certain roads are one way and the other it just makes it very confusing and difficult I hear you glad rush just the only other thing I'd say is um thinking back to time on like walk and some of the neighborhoods I can't remember the street name but there's there's a neighborhood that goes between um the road that was late the road that the wastewater treatment plan is on to one cast chance in the west street just that neighborhood the road has to be I think probably almost as wide as Pearl Street yeah south south 60 right so the land development code is being re is being looked at again right now monthly and they meet at least once monthly so the second problem of your discussion after this should really be to kind of go and engage with the planning commission and find out where this conversation fits in with how these things are how these things are decided when these projects go in because that's going to be key because they can't say no if regulation says that they can say yes so if you know really engage with them to figure out what's that stuff and what what what can we get into the code so that when they're approving projects they can they can make those decisions developers know what they want to do because right now we're really there's not much left yeah do fill in but so for today's purposes um I certainly hear uh nothing but support for revisiting the policy as well as for having staff work with the neighborhood now um as far as I'm concerned if that process of working with the neighborhood the neighbors and neighborhood is the pilot to help create this policy I'm fine with that let's try to see how it goes something that can help get that process started sooner rather than later the other thing is just as we heard earlier thinking about the amount of work that this board is going to be doing with regards to independence I also don't know about the time that we're going to have to do a really good job on that policy and I just say that as a as a um I guess a caution copy of whatever the right word is um our bandwidth may be a little limited to really uh help that so we may need your help in creating that so this Brattleboro yeah yeah model would be very helpful good and you have all these oh yeah see many of my walks right after this to get started um are there things that staff you all need from us tonight to help get that process started no I if uh you'll authorize me to do that I'll reverse with my neighbor and uh and start talking about the process for the process yeah would someone like to make the motion to authorize the engineer recantment to speak with the neighborhood on this issue some okay I'll second all right trustee's any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye anybody oppose thank you that past um is there anything else residents that you wanted to make sure we heard you've been here for a long time and so my name is Sarah Gibo and I live in the pleasant street area and um I just want to just I'm sure you guys will think of this but as you're repaving these streets and then you're putting in these traffic calming measures they can do account drainage we've had big issues with those speed tables um mostly they're water dams they don't really slow I mean doesn't feel like you need to slow down going over them but they block the water pretty bad and there's big drop offs around the edges where you can catch a bike tire when you're going around the corner or your car tire take out the front end so that's all I want to say okay but they can also be very icy when they don't when they freeze in the winter time too oh yeah the drainage adds actually you think hazard from the lockers yeah well I I think uh Mr. Hamlin is all about drainage we've had all particularly in that area of ability yeah I think as we you know develop a policy I think we also have to be open to some creative ideas you know and we're seeing that around the state of what communities are doing for traffic calming and um I work a lot with Rick with uh tree issues and public works and uh we've had these conversations as he enlightened me of to the dreaded paving coming to Pleasant Street um and uh we've talked a lot about it and he is he's open to trying some things in terms and one of the possibilities is it might be a seasonal nature of what we're doing of bump outs on one side of the street and then bump out in the other but sort of uh framed by uh planters that could be done there that could be removed once the snow season starts and that might be a way to start in on some of these ideas that wouldn't be a permanent fix and uh bring us some results and uh I do want to say again what Bridget was saying that the traffic counts are so different when school starts and it is a combination of speed and volume no doubt so look forward to yeah can I ask you this is a quick quick clarifying question are you looking for a combination of solutions or are you looking for calming because it's come up a lot especially in that neighborhood especially you know we'd love to reduce volume too and that's a way more I'm assuming way more complicated conversation and some some of what the UVM study I mentioned was trying to tackle like how could you envision re-rooting a couple of different streets I think they looked at West Street and it might have looked at Pleasant and Mansfield as it goes into Brickyard um and at any rate I'm just curious if you're looking more for strictly destroying people or are you looking for changing volume I don't know for being able to change volume I understand the constraints over our village I think it is more that entering particular areas maybe we do welcome to the signage the beginning this is the Pleasant Street neighborhood please drive slow and then create because if you know Pleasant Street it is a straight shot all the way down there's no curves to it so your line of sight is down and if you can create some bump outs temporary or not changes your your pattern and you're more likely to slow down so I'm I'm thinking of those kinds of things that I'm seeing being done in other communities yeah thank you yeah thanks for hearing us yeah can I get your name for the record uh Nick Meyer thank you yeah I'm Jen Ellis I live on the Moyle Street not on Pleasant Street and um I would just like to say that I keep hearing the the thing about the plows and how speed bumps will slow the plows down but honestly I think the plows should slow down they bombed down our streets they bombed down the Moyle Street they go too fast and um so that's one thing I wanted to say the second thing I wanted to say is that uh you know when I'm not making mittens I'm out with my six-year-old riding my bike around the block like four or five times a day so I know all of my neighbors and you know I see all the time it's Pleasant Street is a straight shot to the high school and I can't tell you how many times I've seen high school students just bombing down Pleasant Street a lot of times they're looking at their phones and I agree with Nick like we need to change that straight shot and and make it something that people have to navigate and if that if that means that traffic will choose a different path like if that means the traffic will choose to either go through the five corners which I understand we're trying to make into a four corners or something like that's another problem that if we fix that it might solve some of the problems of people choosing to drive through our little neighborhoods but also traffic could go down to to the brickyard where there is a traffic light and it's a much wider road and it is built for that kind of traffic and so it would be really nice you know I agree with what Bridget said about making making a way to request these things but I also think that it affects so many people besides the people on Pleasant Street and the people around that block like people from other blocks are walking there too the last time I was here at one of these meetings it was to request that LaMoyle Street be paved and I can say firsthand first of all thank you that was gorgeous LaMoyle Street is wonderful everyone has roller skates now it's great however the traffic on LaMoyle Street has the speed has increased a lot especially with the development down at the end of LaMoyle Street we have more people going up and down our street and they're going fast and they're looking at their phones too because again LaMoyle Street is a straight shot I'm not asking for bumpouts on LaMoyle Street people who don't live on LaMoyle Street typically don't come down LaMoyle Street but Pleasant Street is like a freeway and and I I want to see less people driving on it and people slowing down and the only way to do that is to make it really inconvenient for them and if that inconveniences the plows too that's okay you know in Burlington and in many other towns in the northeast you know there are these traffic calming measures and the plows navigate them and in so do the ambulances and so do all the people and it does slow people down the speed table is useless thanks thank you thank you all thank you I'd like to see some pictures of the things that some of the traffic calming measures in Burlington when you get when you get around to it as part of your sure feedback to us I'd like to see what you're talking about yeah that that has to be a part of just to describe what some of these plows are really the the best way to do that so we'll start the conversation thank you all thanks for sticking around um what do we have next am track reopening celebration well that was um July 19th it's gonna be fun in all in all seriousness um George Marguerite Evan do one of you want to just a little overview of what's going on that day or I I'm happy to give an overview of what's going on but I'm wondering if anyone has seen the most recent email we just got where we were formally put on the um senator late let me read it to you we were put on the earmark list by senator lehi for three million dollars were we yes we were did you I I didn't know this just this is like hot off the press kind of thing oh yeah I was I was aware it might happen but not that it didn't yeah it went from Charlie it's from Charlie Baker uh and this says now what I I'm not sure in reading this I can't tell um and I didn't want to be rude and and not listen to people um but I I couldn't tell if we if this if this means we're just part of what we're part of what lehi is submitting for an earmark but what that means what what's the next hoop is it a is it a very low is it a little just we just step over it or is it a is it a three-story hurdle I'm not sure so for everybody so um we asked senator lehi to put the amtrak station on his list of projects for the senate transportation bill um amtrak has already received monies for ADA upgrades so they were going to do the asphalt um uh ad when you get on and off the train and bathroom updates inside the station we were talking about the outside multi mobile part and so we uh had a price figure of three million so there is a about 20 years ago earmarks went away in the federal government it was a bad they said claimed it was a bad thing but they're back apparently now in this particular congressional session and so we are in the next round of these of of our senators list now interestingly for gakes senator lehi is the chair of the appropriations committee which is a good thing for vermont and particularly for us considering we have a project on this list so we have not been kicked out of the process yet right we are up against a very big project right including 89 yeah so i i will go that was a sort of a back end way of approaching um what what's the agenda item which is next week there is a formal set of an event um celebrating the reopening of amtrak the the vermont the roots from vermont into mass in a point south massachusetts connecticut and new york um and i and i think technically speaking i think amtrak actually started up this week because i know i know that because i heard it go by my house um and i'm pretty sure it was amtrak because i know that i've been listening to that train for a long time and i know it's amtrak but um the idea is that there is going to be an event with some um some either of our federal representatives or their the representatives of the representatives representatives from v trans and local state representatives and other sorted dignitaries are going to start on the train um up in s in uh in saint alvin's and that train will go uh down all the way to brattle borough and so we're we're going to use that as an opportunity to kind of celebrate the reopening and um of amtrak and on this side of the state this is the line that goes down the eastern side of the state and then to massachusetts in new york and uh so we wanted to kind of use it as an event to first of all just celebrate the reopening of the train station but second of all we wanted to maybe attract some attention to the fact that this particular station which is the busiest station in the state um it sees the most uh arrivals and departures of any amtrak station in the state is probably one of the most rundown and nasty looking stations in the state um has got that going for it and we've been trying for a long time uh to get it fixed up um it it's it's been a centerpiece of a lot of and a lot of the things that we started when we started trying to fix up the train station we got all those other things done but this is the one thing that one piece that we didn't get done um and so we're trying to celebrate the reopening of amtrak but also hopefully um get some raise the awareness from um folks who are decision makers at state level and federal level um of the the really dire need for improving the the accessibility in overall appearance of this station it really needs some help and the fact that we made it to the earmark list is really good news and andrew is a village president is going to give a little speech up in saint alvin's we think and we are going to have an event here uh at the village and i don't we do i'm not sure of the time did we have did we have the time figured out and do you want to take it away from here andrew and you're doing a great job okay yeah take it away it's uh 944 at 29 railroad avenue right um maybe the arrival of the amtrak remontor right thank you for that timing margaret um but yes and from there at 10 o'clock there's going to start being um other presentations um i forget exactly who it is that's going to be speaking uh at this point possibly thanking um senator lady and others uh and then having a uh a short walking tour of the of the village center believe being able to show um what is and what will be uh having some i believe posters as well for the future of the train station and for the crescent connector as well we'll have some refreshments a little bit of speechifying yes um and um show some local uh dignitaries including one of the things that we're trying to do is because this starts in saint alvin's and you take the train and there's really no return train trip except for 12 hours later no we have to walk back up to saint alvin's again so the idea is that anybody who starts up in saint alvin's comes to uh sx junction we will bring you back yes to saint alvin's so that you're not waiting but we will first give you a tour show you what is going on in downtown sx junction and in our community you get to stop and see the current condition of our amtrak station in all of its non-glory it has some fresh graffiti on the plywood over the window it's just i am told they are considering yeah replacing the window uh that has been broken they were out there looking at it the other day um and so they were told that we were told that they were going to do it by the 19th okay so um but that's the general justin we will have some refreshments we have handouts we have a press release and uh hopefully these stars will align yes in the federal process yeah and um we could be looking at an upgraded uh multimodal train station upgrade for central street and railroad street in the coming years yes and just because the federal government gives you an earmark what and actually ends up happening if i understand the process is yes you get an earmark then it goes to a particular department of the federal government who then tells you and whatever the rules and the timings and all that and so it usually takes a bit before you actually get a um go on what you're doing but it is money it is it is a process and it's it's by the way it's a it's a rare yeah but we have a the thing is this the exception is we have a very shovel ready project it's not it's not like this is there we'd kind of like to think about what we want to do here it's it's a very specific project um john elton designed it um or helped design it um with some feedback from committee and other people um and so it's it's ready to go um which always helps as i understand of these things as opposed to someone wants to do something and it's a little vague when you really have a specific thing you want to accomplish a study of whether you could do it should do it or not right you don't have any endangered darter snails or right and and it does not no endangered anything over there um but the other thing is that it's it would also tie in with that we're just talking about traffic but part of it is that we also have a plan it was also a plan once we get this upgraded where you would change the um traffic flow around so you would go back and it'd be you try to make it one way railroad avenue and ivy lane so there no longer be two-way traffic on railroad street and then the other thing is uh we want to highlight the goal of re-establishing the vermonter go to montreal right um they and they have immigration um and border control issues but that's also senator leahy has been very instrumental in trying to get some type of border control at the new montreal station so that that train can be re-established and i think kovat and i've read some i think kovat really highlighted how much tourism and traffic we this area actually does with canada and so hopefully that will push this along and this event hopefully gives us a few minutes to talk with those people who are decision makers yep absolutely um so by the way before we got tanning et al yeah really doing a great job with this yeah and and mostly greg morgan greg morgan is the person who really you know sparked the whole thing and and got all the all the ducks in a row and made us all do our job robbins pierce as well yes robbins yeah okay thanks to all of them yes great you good yeah so people find themselves something want to do on monday morning around 10 o'clock we'll be on railroad street yep hope to see you all there okay so uh now we'll go back to our work session to um go through the contract list um although before we do that what if we take a five minute break yeah sound good all right so uh we will take a five minute recess to stretch um amber dan grab a coffee coffee all right we'll be back in five minutes i'm physically here i'm not sure if i'm mentally here oh you are oh you're yep you're here no give it a crossfit dan and all right uh evan ran out he said we could start all right i will go ahead and call us back to order so we are back at the work session regarding sx junction independence and uh we're going to uh rad why don't you want to yeah if we could start on page five one read if you wouldn't mind scrolling there so um i think the first order of business is just to get make sure that there's consensus along on the approach to the conversation with the select board um about contracting services between the two municipalities and so you can kind of see the timeline you know on june 8 we left that meeting with you all saying let's let's have a discussion with them to long term contract police and recreation short term contract finance clerk treasurer it the select board met on the 20th day school can executive session when they came out they made a motion that said they were willing to have a conversation about long term contracting police short term finance clerk treasurer it wrecking parks and i wanted to add assessing to the mix and it wasn't clear if that was a for a long or a short term at least in the in the correspondence and then you all met the next month the next night and we left that meeting i believe saying let's long term share police short term finance and we put a date as to the the longest that could be uh and still thinking short term it and then wanting to add senior services and tree farm to the discussion and you were willing to talk to the select board about what they were thinking about assessing that's kind of where we left is my recollection of things there's some information here just i met you know since the last meeting with two different it contractors it seems like there's several different options in the area it feels to me like that we can find an it contract that will suffice our needs certainly that you know we've talked about the having that 30 000 square foot view and making sure that they're factoring in all of the different things our needs and looking at five a year plan out while also providing day-to-day it tech support i think a contracting route is probably going to be a better route for the village or for the city i think i don't think there's a need for a multi-person it department and one with one person we've talked about the challenges that if they're out for any reason and there's no backup or support and full contractors had no problem saying that this could be stood up for the day one my recommendation is to not pursue a contract with the select board for it services so you're asking us to really look at that list of the police finance it recreation parks as far as senior services and the tree farm and assessing and confirming or or not yeah that's a 21 list is is still yeah i think we've all been clear on police i think we all were okay with finance up to that june 30 of 2026 as far as it goes we haven't had a unanimous agreement on this um based on what brad is saying uh would we be okay not sharing it with the trustees and instead you know what i mean not sharing it with the select board or the town and instead contracting out for these services with a professional entity i know i for want to a okay with that i i'm fine either way i don't have a strong um feeling one way or the other about this about it i've got strong feelings about some of the others but ember dan i don't have a problem with uh us contracting that out i think uh something we might find some savings i think you're talking with your muted well it is 10 15 at night come on so yes i agree let's contract it out okay so sounds like we're good at contracting that out um with the specific services with regards to seniors and the tree farm i think we were unanimous on that earlier can we revisit what we were unanimous on the willingness to share um for the long term senior services and the tree farm yeah good mr president the senior services would that also include senior van so what i'm saying senior services i'm thinking the uh center and van um trustees would you all agree with that yeah i i think i see it as one piece i i really do i i know as we heard here tonight people are very passionate our seniors don't care whether they live in i don't care whether they live in the village of the town in terms of that particular issue um and i think we should try to work with the select board in maintaining the entire network and as as much as we can as long as it's reasonable to do and that includes the the van as well as the center also just in that note for the senior center there's like comes from willis and you know you actually look at the numbers oh i know yeah i know but no yes i i'm not gonna get sicky about where they come yeah exactly that's my point i guess you can have that also are more likely to be able to expand services that we're in leverage besides maybe we are looking at most likely having to expand out at some point just trying to be there's no that's great great uh anybody feel differently okay so am i reading this right it says additionally recreation that's not wrecking parks it's just those particular services those two services okay thanks yeah the willingness to discuss with the select board about assessing um i had a conversation with andy after that meeting and what he was saying is that it was sort of like a an olive branch of uncertainty as to whether we would be able to have our own given the the difficulty that i guess the town went through and trying to find an assessor um and so that was sort of an olive branch of if you want one hey we can share it um i yeah i don't have a strong opinion i i personally think we should i would i again i would share the assessor for all kinds of reasons i think you have an office and entity that's already um familiar with with the village and all of the properties here i think you'd be losing a lot of institutional knowledge um i i think it's an economy of scale that that would benefit us as well as the town so um you know i think it'd be i think it'd be hard to do just then i have a consultant in just a part time i think it'd really it's really kind of a i don't want to say a full-time job but it's it's more than a part-time job it's one of those sort of in between things it's more than part-time and but you wouldn't if we each had to have our own full-time you wouldn't it wouldn't probably be enough work for that so it's i think it's an economy of scale kind of thing in my mind but maybe not for me i've i've said no on this and i it's not my top priority but it's also not the the map i'm going to die on um i think of ramon having having 251 towns municipalities in the state everybody has to do assessing so whether it be the tiny towns of uh the callous um rotten what have you um they're assessing so whether it's a in 11 000 uh population city village whether it's um 60 000 or 40 000 population burlington whether it's the entire town of sx everybody's doing it um and so regardless of size yes and i don't i don't think this is the time to get into but i think there are there's assessing and then there's assessing i think assessing for example global foundry's um is different than assessing a property on a you know a residential property and i think it can be a complex project to take on and a new business opens up somewhere anywhere um getting getting an accurate assessment and particularly if that business contests it and so it in a growing developing area i think it can be a different issue than in other parts of the state uh oh did we lose that i don't but i don't i i will defer to others i um it's amber dan any strong opinions i'm pro keeping it uh ensuring it went off so if you're talking i'm sorry we can't hear you all right we're back well i'll just say it again i support the idea of continuing to share the assessor services with the town thank you dan amber i don't have any real strong uh input on it i guess okay sounds like a lukewarm shirt that's what i'm taking from that i mean if you're one that's i the way i guess is you know uh the select board had asked for us or andy had asked for us if we could create proposals to start this conversation um i i unless i'm wrong i'm not hearing a really strong like yes we really want to do this do we want to counter and say hey if you want to let us know what you're thinking sure we can dedicate our efforts to something else yeah does that sound good yeah i mean maybe they was like maybe if it works out it works out okay maybe ask them to come up with a proposal and start that conversation back and forth yep um did i miss anything there brad nope uh that's everything that we talked about and i assume everything else that's not on this list is continuing to remain the office list that nothing is jumped back on um so that's good i think there's some good clarity and you know it just creates a real clear path for us for the next month okay so the next part of the conversation is as you know consideration of other contracts that are desired or necessary either for the transitional period the transition year of the new city um or you know settling on some things um with the town um we've talked about some of these things in the past you know we there's there's funds there's assets there's um there's certainly in the transition you know in that first year we've written in the transitional provisions that you'll continue with consolidated services for for that year and so you would want to have a contract that acknowledges that you not only put that in your transitional plan but also that they've signed off that they're willing to continue to collect taxes for the first year of the city being formed and and so there's a variety of matters like that um we haven't really you all haven't talked about them or even what should be on that list um so it's up to you we start to run down that list now in the open session or we could go into executive session to talk about what do you want in the list and what you're looking for in those contracts um and then we could get that you know some bare bones language over to the select board in advance of the meeting for for next week um I've talked first a lot I was just I'm just in my head I'm just trying to decide whether a couple um no I'll go uh I'd say let's we've done this in open so far I think that's um whether we uh I think we stick with that process um at some point in time we need the select board to hear what it is that we want and I think by doing it in open session now it gives them more time to think and process and absorb whatever it is that we finally come to terms with plus at the same time uh people in the the residents in the community will be able to start providing feedback to the select board and trustees at that point where if what we're saying is not something that they want and or is something they agree with we can start that public input process collection now uh as compared to waiting for that joint meeting next week so I think in my mind it helps to accelerate the process and again going back to um building trust I'd be fine with it I'm I'm just not I can I have to say the it's not the late hour it's just I'm not entirely sure exactly what it is we're talking about here that's going that's my problem about doing it in an open session because it's not so much I'm trying to cover something up I just don't want to sound stupid yeah uh so and I I'm not really totally sure um what what what's within the parentheses here that would be disgusting so things like assets okay money the very specific details of uh who pays for what how that should be determined for how long we received an email from Brad today is that what that one that was with a an attachment of contracts list if you open that up and just take a look at the the first couple of items that can give you an an idea as to what we're thinking we can play some jeopardy music while that happens yeah I'm sorry ew wasn't one of the issues also as far as uh the property within the village such as 81 main street taxation and anything based on that um just a comment on that subject growing up in Montpelier state of Vermont does not pay property taxes to the city of Montpelier so the city Montpelier receives in lieu of tax um amount of money I don't know what that amount of money is but maybe that's something we could discuss with this select board but I would say I'll weigh in on it you were spot on into the types of topics that we would be discussing yes and so the question is do we are we okay doing that now in open session or going into executive session I I think it's going to be uh each I mean depending on the topic itself it's going to be highly debatable and it's going to take a while I mean just this alone discussing how much money if we're you know depending they want to go down that road of payment in lieu of taxes such as you know kind of like what CVE does to the village but different um anyways that can be drawn out for quite a long time I mean we'd be into the wee hours of the morning so I should figure out how to talk about it now okay I still don't know whether everybody wants to do this in open or in executive session I think there are some in my mind to be going through this list in particular I'm going to be blunt and say I see a few things that I would prefer at least initially to discuss in executive session they might involve personnel um and so I I think we I'd be more comfortable talking and since I'm really kind of yeah just absorbing a lot of this now instead of exploring things and then saying oh boy we can't talk about I I think I'd there's some issues here that I think are are in my mind could be very solidly in the middle of the executive session that's just my opinion Amber Dan Raj yeah I'm for going to executive session to discuss some of these matters I mean as director saying there's some uh issues that may involve personnel and uh it's not I in my feeling it's not it's not like I'm we're trying to like uh uh like poker or not show our hand I just am I've just got a lot of uncertainty about some of this issues here and I I don't want I'd rather err on the side of caution I'm not when I'm not trying to you know keep keep things close to my best relative to the select board it's just I'm just not sure about some of these things if we can talk about some of these issues in open session sure Amber Raj you did with that sure okay so then why don't we because that would be the last thing that we have if the board is okay we we also have an executive session to discuss a public employee so why don't we go to the consent agenda and do that go through the reading file then we'll have our executive sessions and adjourn after that sound good motion for the consent agenda I'll second well give it a damn all those in favor signify by saying aye aye anybody opposed great with the reading file um we had a lot please take a look uh board member comments 10-25 at night anything I just wanted to say kudos thought that I'm trying to direct in any particular direction here he weren't trying to bias to you great so in all seriousness though is there something that somebody doesn't want to discuss I just said kudos to the library but it probably got lost and everybody laughing oh yeah that was very cool thank you amber for that yeah uh staff anything you wanted to add that we haven't I'm just trying to find the executive session motions but the the one for so there we go so the one uh so the one for the uh conversations with the select board it says to include the the trustees assistant manager and the recreation director Evan do you want to be in on this if you feel that you're you're our manager I'm fine with it I'd say at any point in time you're uncomfortable in your professional judgment as a professional okay 120 for the first one uh the second one 166 sweet so I move I move to find the premature general public knowledge regarding the villages contracts with the town of Essex and the future city of Essex Junction would clearly place a village at a substantial disadvantage because the village risks disclosing in its negotiation strategy it discusses the proposed contract in terms in public that's my motion second thank you Raj any further discussion hearing none of those favorite things by by saying aye aye okay pass unanimously motion two I move that the trustees enter into the executive session to discuss contracts to the town of Essex and the future city of Essex Junction in accordance with one vsa section 313 a1 a to include the trustees assistant manager Essex Junction recreation parks director and unified municipal manager second any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye anybody oppose okay one last one I move that the village board of trustees enter into executive session to discuss the employment of a public employee in accordance with one vsa section 313 a3 to include the unified manager of each second any further discussion on that motion you okay so friendly amendment are you okay adding margarine and Brad official titles right here yes great yes okay yeah all those uh you have the second second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye anybody oppose great so we'll go into the offices you don't need to stick around we won't be coming back to uh before like ending executive session and yeah we'll get that after you so we're going into amber dan if you can go to the executive session link we'll virtually see you on the other side