 So let's call the meeting to order for Monday, June 1st, 2020. As always, the first thing we do have to do is approve our agenda. If everybody's seen it and agrees with it. I would take a motion to approve that. Agenda as listed. I make a motion to approve the agenda as written. Not you second. Okay. Okay. Where is she? Right there. There's a little dark. Oh, there she is. Okay. Motion has been made and seconded. All of the wish to all the, all who wish to approve, say, I, please. Hi. Hi. Consent agenda items are only minutes from the June 1st meeting. Take a motion to approve that please. Second. Second. Okay. Any further discussion. Is that fish and fryer? Fish and fryer. Not over. No further discussion. All those who wish to approve it, say, I, I. Public meeting. Anybody wish to talk about anything that isn't on the agenda. Have any. Concerns, comments. That isn't under one of the agenda items. Hello, Maroney here. My mentor here. Yes. I would love to read a letter. From a new formed group. The Waterbury anti-racism coalition. Maroney, could Maroney, we have a agenda item. Dealing with racial inequity. If you wouldn't mind waiting until that. Topic comes up. We'd like to hear your letter then. That works. Thank you so much. Hello. He agreed. I think you might be frozen up. The joys of technology. And he's gone. Oh shoot. You should probably just sign back in. I'll text him. Text him that. I'm not sure if Chris knows he can call in if he can't. Get in on video. I'll text him. Okay. The numbers are on the agendas. You probably know. Yeah, I find zooms to me is so much easier from doing it either. From a desktop iPad. Or something other than a cell phone. Cell phone sometimes. Have some can have some issues. I'm coming. I got booted somehow. So where'd we leave off? Did Maroney hear me there when I said he could talk, read his letter at the agenda item? Yeah. Yes, he did. Have we gotten any further from there? Nope. We were waiting for you. No. I heard it then. Thank you. I appreciate the time. It's an overload of. Squares or what, but so, um, So the public meeting is, uh, I guess, or the public speaking time, uh, is, uh, It's complete and we can move on to the public hearing for the draft, draft, interim temporary dining tent and signed by law amendments. Chris, Chris. I think for the public hearing, you've got to wait until seven 10. Okay. I got seven nine and a half. Uh, what do you got? Seven oh six. Six. Yeah. That's on the cable. So that's usually pretty accurate. Okay. Well, does that have any, anybody have anything to say that we can shove into the public? Um, So I got some beautiful. Hey, I'm cutting. I'm cutting. I'm cutting. I was finally able to get my haircut, which is a big, big plus. Yeah. My wife, uh, I got tired of it and I gave her the shears. And she went to town. So it's interesting wearing masks and having, you have to sign in and I've never had them. You know, I go to old fashioned barber, you know, that's all new world. So I'm going to sit. I'm going to talk to you about something there that really kind of baffled me the other day. I was in a hardware store, getting some supplies. And unfortunately there was a gentleman in there working on in the cashier side. And he had a full mask on. And, uh, unfortunately he had very bad breath and I was all of six feet from him. And, uh, it almost knocked me over. It was that bad. And I said to myself, if, if you can smell something like that, what are the chances of this virus getting. You know, through the mask as well. It really kind of makes you a question whether the masks are. Uh, Really working or not. It's molecules that smells. Yeah. Well, I obviously don't know the, the difference between the two, but, um, they're both very small. Yep. And there's a resurgence or are there not a resurgence, but at least an increase there out in the Winooski, that kind of makes you scratch your head and wonder, and wonder what's coming down the pike, you know, if we're going to see a worsening of it or what. Yeah. Seem to have least stabilized in Winooski, which is a good sign. Yeah. Well, we're going to ask some nice weather for the week. Hallelujah. I don't think there's a farmer out there that ain't got some hay on the ground. I was up talking to a. Equipment salesman that sells farm equipment in Holland there the other day and he said that it's absolutely crazy with, uh, I don't know what he said. And I would have expected just the opposite by the way the farmers are being hurt, um, financially, but apparently all that printed money seems to be, uh, flowing into their hands and, uh, the guy told me that, uh, farming implements that he wouldn't even give $200 for. People are paying seven to $800 for him. He said this crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the buildings supply industry. Yeah, I heard pressure treated was, uh, The local lumber yards are 80 to 90 truck loads behind. Really. Yeah. And there, there's nationwide rationing. Of stock. I've got seven 10 on my computer. Yeah. I do. I think you're good. And let's officially open the public hearing for the draft interim. Temporary dining tent and signed by law amendments. That were dated May 28, 2020. But, uh, I'm not so sure there's been some revision since then, hasn't there, Steve? Yes, I'll go ahead and, um, I'll ask Bill to, um, participate as well because he's been very involved in this project. So this all started with, uh, some conversations a few weeks ago that I had with Noah Fishman. I know, no, you're, you're here at the meeting and you'll have a chance to comment here a little later, I'm sure. So, uh, and others, uh, Mark Fryer, um, uh, owner of, um, pro pig and end of the wood and so on. So, uh, of course, Mark's owner of the reservoir. So, um, what is really at stake is that, um, allowing restaurants to put up tents for outdoor dining in, um, conjunction with very limited use of indoor space for dining. So in the conversations that I had, um, about involving Zen barn and other restaurants, it became clear that, uh, this is an opportunity for us as a municipality to do something to, uh, facilitate getting these, uh, tents up and in use, but, um, minimize conflicts and neighborhoods and so on. So, um, we came up with a draft and, uh, warned this hearing, uh, this is an interim bylaw and what interim bylaw means. It's enabled under state statute. We've used it, um, actually numerous times. Uh, we used it after tropical storm Irene and, uh, previously where there's, um, either an emergency situation or an, an urgent need to, uh, facilitate, uh, some type of, uh, development so on. So, uh, it requires a public hearing by the select board. Um, it can be approved. My reading of the statute is the select board can make changes. Um, after the hearing and, uh, adopted, it's effective immediately and then, um, we can move on into implementation. Uh, the planning commission was also very interested as, um, you would expect in these bylaws. So they met a week ago and discuss the bylaws. And, um, I have the draft. So if, um, Chris, if you think it would be a good idea, I can, I can put the draft up and go through it quickly. And then, uh, you could open it up for comments. Yeah. I would like to proceed. Sure, Steve, but let me just take a second and apologize to Karen. Apologize to Karen. Uh, I was going to, uh, chime in on everybody that came on here tonight. Um, and that kind of got out of hand and when I got knocked off. Um, are you all set Karen with everybody that's. Um, I don't know. Hadley ski is. Hadley you with us. Could you Chris or that's, that's, uh, I believe that's, uh, from a Valley reporter. Yep. That's how this cow ski. Okay. That was the, everyone else I know. So thank you. So you're all set then. Chris, can you have, uh, everyone who's on the call. And that, uh, identify themselves please. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think she's got everybody. But I think for, for our purpose, you mean, right? Sure. Yeah. If, if, because we're seeing. Uh, so Hadley. You want to just state your name again. Everybody's on mute. So. Right. You might want to just read off people's names or. Hadley, Hadley, that must be an email. Um, right. Are there some people on telephone? No, I don't think anyone's on the phone. Um, they just have their audio shut off. Right. Karen. Karen. Karen, can you put me down as being at the meeting too? Certainly. Uh, I could list by the, by everyone's zoom. Do you want me to do that Chris for you? Yeah. Yeah. I myself, Karen Petrovic, Steve Lach, speech, Katie Martin, Chris VN. No, a fish man. Nat fish. Aaron Hurley. Uh, Bill your ingrid. Uh, but Bill Shep look. Naomi. Lisa Skagliotti. Hadley ski. Alyssa Johnson. And there's some work that's here. Uh, but it doesn't matter. Who it is. There's two orca media. And there's Dina Bookmeyer. Mark Fryer. And Maroney Minther. And, uh, Nick Nato. Canada. DeAngelo. Mary Cohen. And that's all I have. Mary Cohen. Okay. They keep piling on here. I didn't see that one. Okay, Steve, I'm sorry. If you want to, if you want to post, uh, the interim. So I'm going to do a, uh, a screen share with my computer so everybody can see the draft. And I'll run it through, run through it fairly quickly. It's not a long document. So, um, what we're doing is we're facilitating, facilitating, um, tents for dining. For our recreation program. This was, um, in addition that Bill and I are recommending. Um, and then also, um, banners that would be exempt from, uh, requirement for a zoning permit. So this is the latest revision. Um, it's, um, gone beyond what was worn. So bear with us and we'll go through it. The highlighted, um, changes are the latest changes since the. Planning commission meeting last Monday. So, uh, it starts with a purpose. Well, the authority, of course, under, uh, state statute, uh, like all other ordinances and bylaws are enabled under state statute. Um, it states the purpose, uh, for these bylaws, uh, related to the COVID-19 pandemic. And facilitating outdoor dining. Um, to try to assist the restaurants and getting back in business. And then also facilitating the use of tents for the town recreation program. This would be unmissable and privately owned parcels because of the 25 person limit. Uh, for camps. Uh, we're using a number of different facilities, including a St. Leo's hall behind the Catholic church. And, uh, we need tents in these locations for a variety of purposes for shelter during rain for, uh, doing temperature checks when kids check in and so on. So the applicability, uh, just states, um, what uses, uh, these are applicable to, um, we have existing temporary uses and structures in our bylaws. And, uh, they currently exempt tents that are up for, um, no more than seven days in a three month period. So we're, uh, amending those that section of the, uh, section 305 of our current zoning regulation. So one of the changes from the Warren draft, the planning commission felt pretty strongly that we should require, um, a zoning permitted administratively issued zoning permit for these tents. And, uh, as long as they would meet certain conditions. So we have a record of. That where the tents are, um, when they went up and, um, you know, who the owner and, um, applicant applicants are. So, uh, I'll run through this fairly quickly and then we can come back to any of this. So, um, the other aspect is that, um, the planning commission and, uh, other staff, uh, and staff felt that there should be a time limit. These tents should come down, uh, November 15th, especially if they're in a part of a parking lot. Uh, so, uh, there's a time limit. It coincides with our winter ban on parking, um, somewhat coincidentally. So they would have to be removed through the, um, let's call them winter months. Uh, lighting would have to be, on the interior of the tent, uh, just to help with, uh, shielding and impact to any neighbors. Um, entertainment is an important issue. Uh, entertainment as, um, the select board, as all of you well know is, um, governed by our town entertainment ordinance. So, um, basically, I'm moving ahead a little bit. Um, I skipped one actually. So, um, Any other state permits would be required. That was the one that I missed. Liquor license for outdoor liquor, uh, consumption, service, and so on, uh, would have to be obtained. Then, um, Well, let's go back to entertainment. So I'm, uh, sorry, I'm skipping around a little bit. Um, I'm skipping around a little bit. Um, Let's go back to entertainment. So I'm, uh, Sorry, I'm skipping around a little bit. So entertainment, um, is, uh, governed by our entertainment permit. So, um, That would be required for any entertainment that, um, Of any kind that's taking place in the, in the tent, as opposed to addressing that through this bylaw that might end up being in conflict with that ordinance. Uh, we talked about state permits. Um, and then, um, The number five, uh, These are all conditions of, um, The issuance of the permit since it's not going to the Development Review Board. It's an administrative permit. So, um, This just talks about occupancy, um, With the tents, the total occupancy indoors and outdoors, Uh, cannot exceed the number that's been permitted, um, In a, um, Board decision, this would be a developer review board or possibly a previous planning commission approval. And, um, and then all state COVID-19 requirements, their separation of tables, um, Any occupancy limits and so on would have to be followed. So one issue that, um, Would be good to discuss the planning commission felt that. Um, The permit or the majority of the planning commission thought, I should say thought that the zoning permit should be, um, Limited for a period of one year. And then if the tent were to go up for a, uh, a second year, It would require another permit. So that's an issue that would be good to discuss and, um, And resolve. Uh, size location, uh, This is really trying to provide flexibility where, uh, There's a lot of, uh, There's a lot of, uh, There's a lot of, uh, Tents could go up on a deck patio lawns, uh, Possibly parking areas. Um, Parking is, is not, um, Super active right now. But, uh, If there were a suitable area and a portion of a parking lot behind a restaurant, Let's say or in front, Then, uh, That parking area could be used. Um, And that would be, um, It could be, um, It could be, um, It could be adequate signage. Uh, could be municipal parking. Um, Could conceivably be some other arrangement. And, um, Then, um, There's no minimum or maximum size of, um, For, for these tents. Um, Setbacks would not apply. So they could be up near a property line. And then, uh, And, um, And, um, Um, Importantly, they couldn't block any, uh, Vision to an egress or ingress point where vehicles are, Are entering and leaving a parcel. Um, Couldn't block any circulation routes, uh, Just for safety purposes. And, um, Could be one or more tents located on a parcel. And it must be maintained in good condition. Um, There's no big deal there, but it looked like you had a little typo there on, On a six or B six. Six B there. You got two that's right there where it says setback shall not apply to These tents with the conditions that that. Oh, okay. Good. No big deal. Okay. I see it. Okay. Thanks. Good. Good point. Okay. So we'll fix that. I'll make mark that. So then, um, Exemptions, uh, This is, uh, For temporary banners we find that lots of signs are going up for Takeout for all different kinds of, uh, Aspects of dining. So this just provides, uh, An opportunity to create banners with some consistency. It's patterned after the interim bylaw that you approved for banners in The downtown. And there's some examples at the end of the bylaw, Uh, that, uh, illustrate, uh, They would be in accordance with, um, Some graphic design standards and with the brand guidelines for Waterbury. So that would, uh, dictate color options. Uh, but it would allow a restaurant to put up their logo and so on. So it's just a portion of the banner that, um, Needs to meet certain lettering requirements and so on. So effective period. Um, this also, uh, should, There should be some discussion, but in general, So interim bylaws are, uh, in place for, uh, Two years and then the slack word as the option of extending it for just one Additional third year. So, um, So what this saying is that these tents can remain in place, uh, During actually during the COVID-19 pandemic, But no longer than the two years. So the idea is if the governor declares that the pandemic is over, Everything's returned to normal, then these tents would have to come down. Presumably the interior of the restaurants would be, uh, Could be fully occupied. So, um, again, This needs the duration of the permit would need to be, uh, resolved. So then enforcement would be per state statute and, um, Our section three 10 of the bylaws in case there are any issues relating to, Uh, enforcement. Um, this, these are the guidelines for the banners that, Um, are taken right out of our banner interim banner bylaw for banners for the Downtown's. And, um, I won't go into this in detail, But it provides some guidance 50%. We added more percent here that it Could be used for the business name and logo, A little less restrictive than the one for the downtown banners. So you could use a big logo or business name or take out whatever wording Wouldn't have to meet the, uh, all the design guidelines gives some flexibility. And then these are just some examples. Alyssa, who I believe is on the meeting in the meeting. Um, and RAL provided these, uh, just gives you an idea of putting in logos. Um, you can see the colors and, uh, text, um, Um, Is some, you know, and keeping with our guidelines that allows businesses to, Uh, give their own identity as well. So Chris, that's all I have in the way of introduction. Sure. Um, first question, a couple of questions actually. How do these bylaws affect the overall capacity levels that were originally Designed for any of the businesses. Uh, in town, does it allow them to increase? Um, capacity. Right. Go ahead. Yeah, it would. So right now, um, Restaurants are limited to 25% of their, uh, Indoor capacity for indoor dining. And, um, so this allows, uh, additional space outside. The, the capacity of a tent is going to be completely dependent on the size The tent. There are certain spacing requirements for tables. And seating that are part of the, uh, the governor's. Directive. So, um, maybe I need this. I missed or misstated my question. I was just wondering if, if, uh, Businesses are allowed to increase based, you know, If they got the capacity to put large tents in. Increase the capacity that they were originally permitted for. Or they have to stay within those bounds. Right. So the way this is set up. Uh, it limits them to, um, The capacity of any, uh, board decisions. So, uh, these are the conditions for, uh, The issuance of a permit administratively and condition five is that, um, The tents in combination with the indoor seating, I shall have a total number of seats and bar schools that shall. Uh, Exceed the total number in the most recent zoning permit and associated board decision. So that's the way it's set up. Yep. I was just concerned about restrooms. Restrooms. If, if there was any portal, Let's say we're going to need to be required. Uh, you know, it's just, Just wondering if, and how that would affect parking as well. That was my only other. Well, that's the intent is that indoor restaurant. Restrooms, uh, should be available. And since the restaurants can open. Yep. Okay. Uh, the other question was, um, How many businesses in town already have tents set up prior to these. Regulations being. Um, Voted on. Oh, the Zen barn seat only restaurant. I'm aware of that has, Has tense up. So, you know, Any idea of how many, uh, Restaurants. Um, We'll be able to did anybody chime in on that as far as people that Are concerned that they didn't have capacity for. Tenting and that. You know, wouldn't allow them to open. Anybody expressed concern about that. Well, I know I haven't, um, Heard from other restaurant owners. I did a list for the planning commission and, um, Many of the restaurants in town, I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. And I think that's a good idea. And I think that those outside of Waterbury village and in the Village, you know, Have some or quite a bit of capacity to put up tents. If they desire some don't. So it's, it's not an even. Playing field, but I think, uh, This is something that would be at the option of the restaurant. And I haven't had, um, Conversations other than, uh, ones I mentioned. You can take down your screen share for us, please. Yes. Okay. Sure. Good idea. My mic working. Can you hear me? It is so I can hear you, Mark. So just to give you an idea right now. And leave a 20 by 40 tent gets you about six tables outside. Um, Steve, my one question is, you know, Tables and chairs that live in these tents will most likely be outdoor patio type furniture compared to what we normally would have in the restaurant. Um, Is there a way that we can make sure that it's seated capacity, but we could still have those chairs and tables. Sitting inside. We would just have to be conscious of not seating the inside tables. If we choose to do a tent and sit more outside, but, you know, typically those, we wouldn't just take a table and chair from and put it outside and, you know, forcing us to pull those off the floor or them somewhere verse knowing that we just can't seat past our capacity, but we would actually have more seats. If you walked in and did a count, does that make sense? Yeah, it does, Mark. Um, yeah, I think this is going to be have to be an honor system. I don't anticipate, you know, I'm one person doing two positions. I'm not going to be going into restaurants, counting seats. You know, if they're obvious situations with overcrowding, then, you know, we can address it, but, uh, or some complaint or something, but no, the idea is not to go around micromanaging. Uh, this, we really want to encourage restaurants to get back in business and survive. So that's really the, the thought. Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm going to recuse myself from the vote, but, uh, I really appreciate taking the time and. For thing for giving us safe way to try to reopen people, finding safe environment. I think outdoors is obviously the safer, safer place. Yeah, there was a news item recently that a lot of people are much more comfortable out of George. So, you know, then going into a restaurant. So I think that's going to work to the favor of this approach. Anybody got any thoughts on, uh, once we start to approach colder temperatures, I mean, um, Chris, uh, other than the comments that were already made, the only comment that I have, I think the interim bylaw is good. The only thing that I'm concerned about is that definition of when COVID ends or, or two years. Uh, I think there needs to be something that. Uh, a definition of when COVID ends because there may be a million different definitions from all the expert. Well, where this, this is bill, Mike. Um, section 1605 where it talks about the effective period. Right. Says that the bylaw will remain in effect. During the state of Vermont restrictions on dining. So we're not suggesting that we're going to try to figure out when COVID ends. Right. It's when the state decides to lift the restrictions on. Dining is when this interim bylaw gets pulled. So it's, it's not as broad as COVID ending. It's just stating that when the, when the governor's office in the, in the department of health, uh, drop the restrictions for indoor dining. So when the governor's drops the restriction for indoor dining, the tents have to leave. Yes. I'm fine with that. Could I make a quick comment on that? This is no a fisherman. Sure. Go ahead, Noah. Um, I think, uh, that very well may work out for restaurants when COVID, you know, when the state declares that, you know, we're back to normal, I guess, but I think the problem from a restaurant perspective is, is the consumer behavior may not change. People still may be very wary to go inside for, you know, I don't know. I mean, the governor could say declare this by August and it's not impossible that we're back to normal. And, and then, uh, we could be dealing with three more months of people just saying, well, I'm not going to make reservation if it's inside. Um, you know, I'm saying that already with the limited capacity inside. I've had some nights when we've opened up indoor dining and not a single person inside and everybody asking if they can get a seat outside. So if there's a way to have some, uh, you know, flexibility there, I mean, I'd be very happy. But if nobody is uncomfortable with it and I have to take all the tents down, it's kind of counter to, I think what we're trying to achieve here. Yeah. That, that is clearly in the prerogative of the select board. The way the bylaw is written that Steve has presented to you. All right. It says that when the state drops those restrictions, the bylaw is not a good option. And so, uh, I think that's why this temporary interim bylaw, uh, goes away. Uh, I'm not advocating for or against what Noah just said, but interim bylaws are, are valid for two years. So the support struck that language in the, in that effective period section where it talks about the, the state's restrictions. Um, that's really a policy decision for the select board to make. Um, Steve can do what the planning commission talked about. I imagine that there were some concerns expressed about, about this and my guess is that's why this language is in there. Um, it's not that outdoor dining is prohibited by our zoning bylaws. It's just a much more attractive, lengthy and complicated process that includes site plan review and everything else. So these bylaws will speak to the issue of COVID. So I think that's why staff has included that language in there about it will expire when the restrictions expire. But if the select board is with what Noah's saying, you can take that language out. I lost last for two years. I think the use of these tents to some degree might be tempered because of weather conditions. Um, you know, once you start to get into late September and October and November, unless you've got a way of heating those 10, uh, I think, you know, people might not want to be in a tent. Um, there and you decide that you're going to heat the tent. I guess I'd have to ask what's the difference between heat and the tent and being inside the building. Maybe I could just add that, um, this would restrict any use after November 15th. So the tents would have to come down, uh, November 15th. Right. But I'm saying up till then September on, I mean, you know, once we hit October mid October, you know, we're going to have a lot of restrictions on indoor dining. Um, I don't know, I don't know how many times are going to be pretty cold. So I think the concern the planning commission had with, and they're suggesting to make this a one year permit is then, um, let's say the, the pandemic. Um, has, um, There's the end of the restrictions on indoor dining. And then a restaurant wants to put up a tent for a second year, but there are no restrictions. So I think that's one of the reasons that they felt that, and, uh, Mary Cohen is on the line and she may have a, uh, more thorough recollection of the discussion, but I think the idea is that, um, Then the, the tents wouldn't just end up going up. You know, I think that's one of the reasons that they felt that, uh, Mary Cohen is on the line and she may have a, uh, a more thorough recollection of the discussion. And then the tents wouldn't just end up going up, even if there's no restriction for a second year without some more thorough review. Right. Yeah. No, I'd have to agree there. I was kind of leaning towards maybe just a one year permit and then the readdress because a lot of things can change in a year. You know, we may have to tweak the wording a little bit or, you know, we may have a redo, uh, depending on circumstance, depending on changes in, in, uh, the ability to operate tents, whatnot. So it's not going to be a big deal that revisited again in a year. I wouldn't think anybody else's opinion. Um, I would just say that I would, I'm concerned about other businesses in the area that might be affected by not having parking in front of their business for people who want to use their business. Like elderly people who want to go to Garfields and park there, but they can't because there's not as much cracking as there was before. Or if say on Sto Street, Casey Bagels has a 10 and so does blue stone. Well, what about those other businesses? Like axels in the boutique in the Sto Street Emporium? I think that those businesses should be able to have a 10 outside as well to like showcase whatever they have to sell to I don't think I work in the restaurant business. I think this is a great idea. I think that all businesses should be able to hone into this and be able to sell whatever services that they have. That's why Katie, Katie, um, Steve can correct me if I'm wrong. This, this temporary, this interim bylaw does not allow any business to put up a tent in public places. So you can't put a tent on Sto Street. On the sidewalk or in the parking areas with, with this bylaw. This bylaw is intended to allow property owners who have property enough to accommodate a tent, put it up. The parking that's being discussed in the bylaw is if they have their own public parking lot and they decide to put a tent up there, they need to make provision to replace the parking, but this will not allow the wholesale, um, um, Tents to be put up all over the, all over the community and certainly not on sidewalks or in streets. Yeah, Bill, Bill's correct. It's strictly on, on premises. And, um, I think you make a good point, Katie, I think other businesses retail and hairdressers and so on are, you know, you know, their restrictions are not as drastic as it is for restaurants. I mean, we really want to try to get the restaurants to survive. So, you know, they have to have a certain capacity, um, you know, during the pandemic from the retail establishments I've been in, even with restrictions there, you know, they're open and anybody who wants to go in, um, for the most part can, can go in, but, um, um, the reason it's focused on the restaurants. Well, the bylaws certainly seem to be fairly cut and dry. Um, unless somebody comment, this is Dana, book myer baker. Sure. Go ahead, Dina. Um, I didn't notice if it was, if the, uh, special flood hazard area or the floodway were mentioned for placing it, then I, Dina, So for those of you who don't know, Dean is our zoning administrator on furlough. So I'm not aware of any of these sites that I that I inventory for the planning commission that are in the flood plain. I'd have to double check that. Well, as Zen Barn has special flood hazard area, so does the Sider House on route two? Possibly, yeah. I know Zen Barn parking lot, I believe, is out of the 100-year flood plain, but we can check on that. So that's something we could definitely look at. With that impact, this tent is a structure that the water can flow through freely. There's no displacement of water being contemplated or allowed through these. Certainly the water can take the tent away as well. It's required to be anchored yet. It could become unmoored. Yeah. We can definitely look at that. I think these would not trump local flood hazard review. I don't think we can exempt anything from local flood hazard review. So I think there would have to be requirements for proper anchoring and so on in those situations. And regarding the banners, is it explicit that these banners are located on-premise? You might want that. I'll have to take a look at that, Dina. I'll look at that, Chris, while you're moving on here. Yeah, I thought that stated that they might be part of those design guidelines. Yeah, well, it's under the exemption. It says each banner should be located on the temporary tent facade of the principal building where the business is located. We're on the facade of an accessory building on the same parcel. They can't be freestanding. So they're on-premises. Good, good. Steve, can you do what the plan is going to be? Hopefully we pass this tonight. How much time and what is the process yet this permit? Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Mark. I mean, one of the things I think the select board should discuss is if you're going to exempt these from fees. Maybe just require a recording fee of $15. I would exempt these. I mean, I would expedite these, sorry. It's not an exemption the way it's proposed. So that's one thing to talk about is if you just want to waive the fees. We did that after Tropical Storm Irene for all flood-related permits. You decided to accept those applications from fees. We should require a recording fee to follow statute. But so I would expedite these kinds of permits. Yeah, I'm getting caught up. The bylaw is effective upon passage, right? Correct, correct. So if you pass it tonight, we could take an application tomorrow. So yeah, that was going to be my question. So if anybody had any concerns about any possible restaurant business that may apply for a tent permit, they either have to be here tonight or kiss a goodbye, right? Well, if you agree that a permit should be required, correct. Right. Yeah. I think Alyssa may have a question. Chris, I don't know. Did you have your hand raised, Alyssa? Sure, yeah. I just wanted to add, I think this is maybe a little more holistic. And if anyone doesn't know I'm the Economic Development Director, so I've spoken with a lot of businesses. I think there's a lot of forces against businesses right now. So I really appreciate the work that Steve and Bill and everyone have put in to get this on the table as trying to be some level of responsive and helpful to businesses. And so I appreciate, again, also the select board's positive reception and that note and think that to me, it's really just giving businesses additional options. And I think the question was asked earlier about the restaurants having that. Some people haven't even decided. And Mark and Noah can speak more to this. But I think by doing this, you're at least giving them something to consider in the short term. And I think that's really powerful. As to Katie's point about retail, Steve, you can cite the specific statute. But I also wanted to say there is an allowance for temporary tents. And in talking with some of the retail, it sounded like maybe if you wanted to do a tent sale on the weekend or something, they might be able to do that using the existing less than seven days within a three month period. So I appreciate that you raised that. And we were hopeful that some of them could fit in there. But overall, I just think as a water break citizen and community member, I appreciate the interest in looking out for the good of community and design and aesthetics. But I think right now, the real focus needs to be on anything that can be done to help support businesses and make this as expeditious as possible. And in terms of the banners, we actually have like 16 of these hung up in Main Street. And I think Main Street still looks pretty good right now. Construction aside. So I don't think they're interrupting the aesthetics too much. So just to say thanks all. And again, my feedback would be just to make it as easy as possible. Anybody else like to make any comments? This is Mary Cohen. I just wanted to add under effective period, if Steve, you had some language that you wanted to suggest a one year permit because that we talked about this for six, zoning permit for any tent shall be effective for a period of one year. And it seems to be a little bit contradicted by the language in the effective period. You were going to suggest some language that says may remain in place for the duration of the effective period of this interim bylaw, but it's really the effective period of the permit. Right. What I did is I added in the last sentence about any tents and banners. No, no, it's fine. Any tents or banners in place under these bylaws shall be removed no later than the expiration date of the permit or these interim bylaws. So yeah, I think the first sentence might be a little misleading, but it's meant to be general. There may be a way we could tweak that first sentence to be clearer. Should there be just wording that says for 2020, you've got only X amount of months left that you can operate on a tent. Then for 2021, the time frame in which you can put up a tent and have to take it down, I mean, you're talking about the year of 2021, but you're only allowed to operate with the tent in so many months of that year. Right. I think with this file, I've been talking with Steve, I thought that number six on page two talks about the effective period for a year was overkill. If it were me, I would have taken that out, and I would just leave it as what it says in the effective period. We're hopeful that the governor is going to lift the restrictions sometime within the next sometime this year before November 15th rolls around. And if that happens, then the tents have to come down. The bylaw is only good for two years. So in the worst case scenario, if the pandemic is still ongoing and the governor hasn't taken the restrictions off, the people who are permitted this year could just put their tents up next April and not have to go through the permitting process again. I'm not sure why we have to have a bylaw that's good for two years, but only issue a permit that's good for one year. If the conditions don't change, they're going to have to come back again, and the board won't be the one making any decisions about whether the permit is issued or not. It will be the zoning administrator, and the zoning administrator is going to issue that permit based on these bylaws. So to me, it doesn't make sense to restrict the permit to one year when you have a bylaw that's only good for two years. If the conditions don't change, let them keep their permit and put their tents up next April if they want. The planning commission, the majority of the planning commission was pretty adamant about six. So just to count, that it shall be only the zoning permit effective for a period of one year from the date of issue. Well, I understand that, Mary. And I'm not here to say that the planning commission is wrong. I'm just expressing my opinion that nothing is the only thing that may change that would, in my mind, and want us not to have this bylaw, I mean to have these tents is whether the restrictions that the governor has imposed are taken away. If COVID is still here and the restrictions are still in place by the governor, why do we need to have business owners go through the process again when there's nothing here that would allow Steve to deny somebody a permit? So why make them apply again next spring if all you can do is apply this bylaw? The bylaw says if the restrictions are in place and you have room for a tent, you can put a tent up. There's nothing in here that says he can deny the permit. Well, there are some conditions. So our discussion included the zoning administrator whether it be the permanent or interim zoning administrator would look again to be sure all the conditions are met. That is the reason that it was our conversation and our discussion and the reason that we voted to have that sentence in there. So to answer your question why, there was some discussion about ways in which some of those conditions may change in between this July and next April or next July. I guess it says for one year so I suppose you could put it up and then reapply again in the middle of next summer. Conditions don't change. So to that point, Bill, I don't want to complicate things, but is there a way that we could put some form of wording in there that just makes it retroactive that the people that have permits now for tents, if nothing changes, the board looks at the issue next year. If nothing changes, we sign off on it and it's retroactive. So I'm just throwing that out there as an idea. I wonder what that would just kind of make it easy for the restaurant owners. They don't have to apply again and just. Exactly. So here's the deal. You know, number six, the way this bylaw is written, the bylaws are in effect for two years. And let's don't worry about the ability to extend it for one year. The bylaws are in effect for two years. If you adopt this bylaw tonight and then the prohibition pig comes in August this year and gets a permit to put a tent up, the permit is good for a year, the way this is written. So he can put the tent up in August. He has to take it down in November. He can put it back up in April, but then he has to take it down in August or reapply next August. It just makes sense. The bylaw is a two-year bylaw. Let's hope that COVID is gone and the restrictions are lifted long before that, but it just doesn't seem to make sense to require somebody to go again to get a permit when the conditions that Mary's talking about that may change if a bylaw is issued and they're violating, you know, if there's too much light or there's nothing in here that really says what they're not allowed to do. So just doesn't make sense to me to have number six in there when they'll be allowed to put the tent up next April if they get a permit issued now. If you wanted to say the permit is only good until November of this year, then say that. But I think that's... That was to my point there when I earlier, when I said, you know, you got limits on the timeframe in which the tank can be up, but you're calling it a year. This is kind of a contradiction there. Bill, maybe I have a solution. Maybe we could just instead of having, keep it at the two years, which I agree, I don't think we need to be as supportive to the restaurant industry in town as much as possible, but have it be potentially reviewed after a year. So if you do have any bad actors that are abusing the permit, going to Mary's kind of suggestion that you can terminate the permit after a year, or if, you know, terminated after and the beginning of this season, I think we need to give them as much flexibility as possible, but that gives them the two years, but yet, you know, if there is a problem, you can terminate that. Well, it's the zoning by-law. So if there's a problem, Mike, the zoning administrator can... The zoning enforcement. Can enforce against the infraction. So it's, I just think that it's a lot easier just to make it as simple as possible. The by-law is good for two years. It tends to have to come down if the restrictions are lifted by the governor and that should be it from my perspective because it's these kind of issues that you're trying to inject seem to make it a more complicated process rather than a simpler process. Well, we all know politics is about, you know, end result is compromise. That's right. What can we do here to get to a middle ground? Alyssa's right. I think, you know, it's important that we do anything we can to help these restaurant businesses. It may certainly been hurt as much as anybody with this COVID thing and to complicate, you know, some permitting processes is probably something that they don't need to deal with other than the fact that, you know, the wording doesn't specifically speak to violations, but, you know, that's where Steve would come in, I guess. Chris, I think what I would suggest if the select board wants to take Bill's suggestion and just make this, they would be normal permits with a two-year limit or till the end of the interim bylaw, then I would just take number six out. That's all you would have to do is eliminate the requirement of the effectiveness of one year, period. And then the other issues would be dealt with either by enforcement or, as I mentioned, if a restaurant wants to keep the tent up beyond the pandemic, fine, they just have to apply and we'll go through the DRB process and then deal with any conditions that way. So that, I think, is the simplest way to address if the select board wants to make this a two-year versus a one-year permit. Mark, Matt, Gede, what do you think? My only question, I guess, would be what, what kind of bandwidth we would have if there were suddenly a whole bunch of tents out there and suddenly a whole bunch of noise ordinance violations or this and that violation for these outdoor events. I mean, I don't anticipate any, but obviously we're stretched a little thin administratively right now and are we going to be able to support the public if there are suddenly a whole bunch of things happening out of hours and later at night than normal and how are we gonna deal with that? Yeah, pushing the envelope. Well, not necessarily pushing the envelope. I mean, I'm all behind trying to get any, any foothold that these businesses can get downtown, you know, back up and running because I want, you know, hey, I want to see everybody open, but we gotta, you know, we also have to be respectful that, you know, there may be a little public pushback on some things that are not normally happening in people's backyards. All right, you know, amen to that. Well, I think the entertainment would be taken care of through the entertainment ordinance, Nat. I think, you know, any other noise, just normal restaurant noise that's outside, the only other way to deal with that would be to put some sort of time restriction on the use of the tents. I don't know. I think that'd be very difficult to enforce. There's an existing state noise ordinance, I believe after 10 p.m. that the state police can enforce if there's a noise issue in a neighborhood. So I think we can rely in part on that. Most restaurants wind down there serving around that time, but there could be, you know, ongoing, you know, stuff. But the entertainment ordinance is definitely the fallback that we would use in working with these restaurants. Yeah, and Nat, I'll say something where, you know, I've been in business 12 years downtown. I have an outdoor seating space. We try to be good neighbors. We try to be very conscious of access noise and taking complaints very seriously. And I hope Steve and Bill can agree that we try to be good businesses. You know, but, you know, we have a construction project downtown that's talking about doing night construction. You know, so it's gonna be a wild summer that we don't even know how to navigate that, let alone. You know, I don't anticipate this being a party. I think it's really just a way to give customers a safe place to dine for the most part. I don't think we're looking at it as a entertainment venue that will go late into the evening. No, totally, totally understand. I just more wanted to find out, you know, if there are suddenly a whole bunch of different things that Steve has to follow up on during the day, you know, given the fact that he's already working two jobs, you know, administratively, I don't know if that'd be spreading him too thin, but no, I don't anticipate problems either. I just wanted to bring it up. Okay, well, we're kind of pushing our timeline here a little bit unless there's any other big issues that stand out in front of anybody. We probably could take a motion to approve these interim temporary dining tent and sign bylaw amendments with, should there be some wording in there, Steve, as far as flood hazard concerns or is that not? Yeah, I don't think so, Chris. I think we can deal with that in the application process. No, I think the main issue to resolve is the, because these don't exempt a project from flood hazard review. So are we taking out number six as well? Well, I think that's a decision. It's your decision. Yeah, someone could make a motion to that effect and then you could discuss it. It's up to how the select board wants to proceed with that one. So could we make a motion to accept the interim bylaws without number six? Yep. Okay. I think you're adopting them is the term of art. Okay. You can, you could do that. You could make a motion to adopt the interim bylaws but remove number six. Yeah, with the exception of number six. Yeah. Right. Is there any objection from the rest of the board for that? Okay. If somebody would like to make that motion, we can move forward. I would like to adopt the interim temporary dining tent and signed bylaw amendments as presented here tonight with the exception of removing line item number six. Do I hear a second? Second the motion. Okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the temporary dining tent and signed bylaws, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. We'll officially close out the hearing, public hearing for the interim bylaws and move into, if that's okay, we'll move into the final public hearing, open the public hearing up for the feasibility study for the community center. Yes, that's my cue. I'm back on. Toss that in your lap against me. That's fine. That's fine. So this is a project that I think everybody has been been involved with in one way or the other. I know we have some members of the public who've joined us, Naomi Alfini, the coordinator of the children's room is in the meeting and others who've been involved from the start. This is a project, just a quick recap. It's funded with a community development block grant, it's federal funding that provides funding for projects that benefit people of low and moderate income. We match that up with funding from our own revolving, CDBG revolving loan fund. We formed a steering committee with partners from the Waterbury Area Senior Center, the children's room, our recreation program, and we held three public meetings starting back in December, one in December, one in January, one in February to provide input, worked with GBA architecture and planning from Montpelier. We looked at eight sites, did some preliminary site plans for all of those sites. We narrowed that down to two of Anderson Field and Pilgrim Industrial Park and ultimately ended up looking at the Anderson Field, the site adjacent to the Missville Pool in detail. We worked with all of the partners on operating budgets and then also developed a construction budget for a hypothetical facility. So this is really intended to really look into the future and see if an opportunity arises to have a facility. What would it, where would it be located? What would it look like? What would it cost? How could a facility serve multiple needs in the community within one facility? All of these organizations, including our recreation program are very cramped for space. Our rec program, as you know, uses multiple facilities around the village, especially this year. The schools, our schools are less and less open to having their facilities used on an ongoing basis. It's challenging with all the security issues and other issues. So this would provide a facility under one roof. We got a lot of great comments. As you know, it was not without controversy, which is fine, any large community project, they always generate controversy, whether it's a fire station or our municipal facility and library or this one. But our really, the intent of the study was to just look on into the future and see what could happen. There were two funding scenarios that were developed. This was added to the study in detail after the last meeting in February. So that's the main new part of the study. We worked with Bill and Barb Farg quite closely on identifying potential sources of funding. And we developed two scenarios. One with a modest amount of federal funding, more in the million dollar range. We got a million dollar CDBG grant for this building, for instance. And then we looked at a scenario with a much larger amount of federal funding because some of these facilities have received very large amounts of federal money in other communities. So, and then we developed a bond scenario that corresponded to those two scenarios. Bill worked on an amortization schedule at a 4% interest rate, over a 20 year bond and identified what the annual cost would be and that was built into the operating budget. So that's really the project in a nutshell. This final public hearing is a requirement of the funding. So it is also kind of a final opportunity for the Slack board and members of the public to provide comments. And I don't think we're gonna edit the study at this point, but it's definitely good to get reaction and comments from the public. And that can always be added into the record with the study. We have a comment section that catalogs all the comments we've received at all the public meetings. And this will certainly get added into the record. That's about all I have in the way of an introduction. I do have the study to screen share if there's anything in particular people are interested in looking at or referring to or have questions about. Any comments from the board or the public? Just a quick comment. As much as I'm supportive of a community center, I am very concerned over cost compared to, because there is some redundancy of services. And especially in this time of COVID, I know that this is something looking down the road, but I do have concerns. Yeah, and obviously we've learned that piling many people into small spaces doesn't work right now. So until there's some solution to this problem or cure, it's probably gonna set on the shelf for a little bit. Exactly. And I'd be curious to know with all the money that's been printed already here in the last short period of time, just how willing the feds are gonna be to put more money out for things like this. They may be trying to focus on other issues that I guess are more important. I won't say more important, that's the wrong word, but more dire. I think we really don't know. One of the things we discovered after Tropical Storm Irene is that there were a lot of opportunities to identify projects and to fund projects. Not that this project could be an outcome of the pandemic, but I think we really don't know how things will evolve in the future. I mean, clearly this is a very large ticket item and there are other priorities in the community, but sometimes opportunities arise when we least expect them. You know, this may sound foolish that I'll throw it out there. I mean, it's something that I thought about. I mean, depending on how this virus continues to plague us, you know, whether or not our education industry will restructure itself in some manner that shuts down a portion of the school or all of the school, you just, I mean, you just don't know whether or not facilities might come available. Other opportunities might come available to take advantage of to maybe substitute or with renovation work, fill this need for the community. Chris. Yes, Karen. Steve, in case you didn't see it, there is a request from Monica Callan and share that study, specifically the two funding scenarios. So I chatted back to everybody. For those of you who look at the chat, you can just hit the chat button at the bottom of your screen. So we have a latest news item on the homepage of our website. I'm quite sure that advertised this final hearing has a link to the study. It's a PDF file and you can download it off our website. If the funding scenarios are, I think page starting on page 32 of the study, as I recall. Okay. So where do we go from here? Well, this is just make sure. Go ahead, Bill. No, I just wanted to make sure. Chris, you asked if the board had any comments. It is hearing. Just make sure that the rest. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think they did hear you. Say that, ask if there are anything from the public as well. David, David Luce, you're looking to talk. You're muted there. I'll try to unmute me. There you go. Okay, okay. All right. Well, first of all, this is great. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this. Even if we're all doing it from our living rooms, it's terrific. So my wife and I are here, but my comment is essentially, we don't know what the future looks like, either from the standpoint of the pandemic or the standpoint of future funding possibilities or taxes or anything else. This was, I think this was always intended as a dream looking into the future. And I just would urge everybody to think of it that way to continue to look at it as a possibility in some form in the future. If we don't have to make any commitments for funding beyond what we already have done, then is there any reason to get excited about it now? I think we can continue to plan and think about it and keep people's interest up. It was intended as something for low and moderate income primarily a lot of seniors potentially benefit from this. Children's room benefits from this. A lot of townspeople could potentially benefit from this through the WREC program. I think it's something that's important for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is simply it's good for the community. It's good for the community's mental health. It's good for the community's physical health. And for those reasons, if nothing else, what I've learned through this pandemic is that you have to keep up your spirits and you have to keep up your body. And this potentially does address those issues. So I would like to keep a low flame under this for as long as it takes to flesh out where we could go with this down the road. I know it's not gonna happen. We know it wasn't gonna happen for years probably because of the tax implications, but what's the harm of keeping it afloat? I just think we should all look at it with a positive view for the future. No, I'll agree. It's something that we could always take down off the shelf if timing and funding seemed appropriate. And we have to plan for it now so that we know what we want and how big a space we need. So if something opens up in the future, we're ready to jump on it. I agree. Yeah, I would echo those comments by David. I mean, I know a lot of us have probably kept a whole bunch of projects on the shelf for ourselves in our own lives. And when this thing hit, a whole bunch of things suddenly got done around the house. And unless you were prepared for those things and unless you knew what you wanted to do, you could find yourself wasting a lot of time and getting nothing done. So yeah, use the time to plan. I obviously, this is not the time to think about spending a whole lot of money, but yeah, let's keep it on the, as David said on the low burner. I agree as well. That being said, should we close out the meeting then? Unless anybody else has comments. All right, no motions to be made or anything. No, no, the study is available and on our website. So no motions needed. Okay. So we'll officially close out the final public hearing for the feasibility study for the community center then. And move directly on to select board items. The first one being appointments of members to the energy plan committee. Duncan somewhere here. Yeah. So I sent you all out a memo on Friday and I listed a little bit of a guide to the agenda. So if you remember at town meeting, the voters directed the select board to establish a committee. So the energy plan that was adopted, I think it was back in 2018 could be implemented. After town meeting, the select board talked and met with folks who were kind of interested in pushing that forward. And there was an agreement that committee should be established to do this. And Duncan McDougal, who is very involved in Waterbury leap reached out to me and Steve a week or so ago and just said, you know, what's the status of this? Of course he understood with COVID where we are and that it was not something that we really had any time to deal with over the past couple of months. So the suggestion that I made to him was that the select board should direct staff to advertise for the two community members who might be interested in serving on the committee that we would ask people to make themselves known if they were interested before your meeting on the 6th of July. And that at that meeting, the select board would appoint the two community members and perhaps would appoint one of its own members to serve on the committee. The committee is suggested would be made up comprised of a couple of community members, a select board member, potentially a member from EFUD, member from the planning commission and a few members from LEAP. So really tonight, it's just to ask you to direct staff to go forward with the solicitation of those who might be interested in serving on this committee or put it back on the agenda for the 6th. I think Steve, you said the planning commission has already made their appointment. That's correct. Martha Staskas has stepped up and so they appointed Martha as the rep to the committee. And so if the select board appoints committee members in June and then the other organizations start to appoint their membership, I suggested to Duncan that perhaps given COVID and the fact that it's summer when it's always hard to get people anyway that the committee could have its organizational meeting in September sometime. So does somebody wanna make a motion then to authorize staff to advertise for two community members for, excuse me, to be members of the energy plan committee which will be, the two members will be chosen on June 6th meeting. I make a motion to approve the establishment of a town committee to work toward the implementation of the energy plan which was adopted by the select board in 2018. I'll second. That motion also include advertising for the two community members to be. I could amend that to include that to advertise to the appropriate members for the committee. Yep. Great, thanks. Okay, Mark, you seconded that. Then you have the further discussion. Seeing none, hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, we'll talk a little bit about a timeline for possibly opening up the municipal office and bringing back some staff, Bill. Yeah, so in response to this request that this issue be on the agenda, I again, in that memo or email that I sent out to you last week, addressed a little bit. As you know, tomorrow is the Australian Balloting Voting for the school budget. Carla has been very, very busy with responding to requests for absentee ballots, mailing out ballots, logging ballots as they come back in. And she's been doing pretty much by herself some assistance from some of us who gather the mail once in a while, but she's basically done all of that work over all. So we have begun to get requests from especially the professional community, lawyers, paralegals, engineers, architects, who are, you know, even real estate agents to a degree that are looking for a little bit more access to the vault than we have had. Carla has been working with all these folks for several months now, providing electronic scans and emails of information that can be found in the vault. But, you know, it's clearly difficult to do things like a full title search, especially on a complicated property that way. So she and I talked and a week from today, which is the 22nd, she plans to open the office to appointment only access to those professionals. And we'll start with that. I'm thinking that after we get through the July 4th holiday, perhaps around the 6th of July, we'll start talking about having a little bit more of a general public opening. There's some discussion, whether we should do that by appointment or whether we should just see what happens. But we're beginning to plan that here. The social distancing requirements are still in place. There's a number of protocols and requirements from the health department with regard to posting signs, having an officer, if you will, who's in charge of making sure that the facility is clean. We have purchased some non-touch thermometers that at least in the library and the WREC program, we know they'll be used there. We have some here. We are stocking up on cleaning supply and the like. So we're kind of gonna have to play this by ear. And we will be asking the public to be respectful and come in only if it's really necessary when that happens. The libraries in the process, they will probably be opening, I think again, the week of July 6th, they'll have limited hours. I don't have them in front of me. There are capacity requirements. I don't think the capacity requirements will impact the municipal program on this side of the building too much. But I think 25% of design capacity is what we can do right now that includes staff. So the library, this room, for instance, has got a 80 person capacity. So we could have 20 people in this room if we had to. We're lost to Bill. Bill's battery died. So Bill's gonna come sit here. That's okay. Can you get my papers, please? Oh, there you are over there. I apologize for that. I'm gonna blame it on my wife, it's her computer. Anyway, so that's what we're talking about for the municipal office building. And then as far as the highway department right now, five of the eight employees are working 24 hours a week. I told Celia last week that the other three could be called back on July 6th, and we would start with 28 hours a week. And again, for the outside staff, the highway department in particular, the restrictions are more with regard to preserving cash and keeping costs down that it is necessarily for social distancing or COVID activities. I'll be working with Bill Woodruff and Celia over the next couple of weeks here as we continue to plan for what we need to get done. Clearly, we're trying to concentrate on things that are essential. And we're gonna play that by ear as well. I would certainly be interested in any comments the board has to say, but at the moment, when they come back, as I said, I'm planning 28 hours a week, which would be for seven hour days. And that's what's happening there. The work program is ready to start a week from today. We are having to operate the rec program. I think we've said at the last meeting in three different facilities. We'll be using the Scout Hall for the youngest kids. And that will be limited, I think, to about 25 people there. And then the older children who would typically be at the Scout Hall will be at St. Leo's Hall. We have made arrangements with the parish staff for use of St. Leo's. We will likely be putting a tent up out behind that building or providing shade and shelter when the kids are outside. And then the third program, which will be the middle school age kids, where it was last year at the Wesley Methodist Church. So three sites instead of two, we're gonna have some expenses this year that we have not had in the past. We're in the process of renting two vehicles from U-Haul, one van and one small truck. We'll need to be moving lots of supplies around. Lunches have to be delivered to the three locations. So, and then the tent is an expense as well. We did receive a $33,000 grant from the state, which is federal money. Nick had been working with the other recreation directors and the state all throughout the spring, kept tabs on that, made application for it. And we have been awarded the grant. The expectation is the money comes by check probably next week. They're trying to get the money out to daycare centers who have one of these grants right now. So anyway, that's where things are at the moment. Pool will be closed. We mentioned that at the last meeting, the select board closed the pool. I think Nick is still working on arrangements with the state to try to provide swimming lessons up at the Waterways Center State Park there off of Route 100. A couple of things from me. I had a phone call from somebody who owns a place camp up on Woodard Hill. Apparently that roads in such tough condition that they're having a difficult time getting up there with their truck and trailer and wanted to know if something could be done to at least make it passable for them to get to their camp. It's, he said, another rainstorm, good rainstorm will make that road completely impassable. That in the road has always been a nightmare for us. Very costly and, I wasn't aware of that problem. I know we're working with some landowners up there on one of the roads, one of the side roads that goes off of Woodard Hill, but I was not aware that we had any issues there. So I have to have a conversation with Bill Woodruff tomorrow about that. Yeah, he just, I just spoke to the guy last night. He called and left a message there and I was looking back on my landline messages and his message popped up, so I called him back and I told him we would have a meeting tonight and then I would run it by there, let you know that he's concerned about that. The other thing is, Carl is having a tough time getting orders signed. I know it's, you know, to no fault of anybody's, but for me, obviously, I'm typically in no condition to, in no position to sign orders and fax them or email them to her because I don't have the capacity to do that when I'm out in the field, but there is times when I'm close by where I could scoot down to the office and to me, it seems like orders could be put in the community room, I can go in there and sign them by myself and walk out the door and she could pick the orders up if that would work. Yeah, I think certainly starting a week from today when things are opening by appointment, we can probably accommodate that. There are five of you, it seems that, you know, they don't have to be dealt with immediately. I'm not sure when she emails them out, but, you know. I've been, sometimes it's been a couple, three days for, you know, one of us finally gets around to taking care of them and, I know she typically likes it done as soon as possible. So that was just, you know, if something like that could happen, I probably could help out a little more with that. Yeah. And yeah, one other question is either you or Nick speak to swimming lessons at the lake, is that still taking place? I just said that, I said that Nick is still working that out with the state. I believe it's in place, but I'll check with him, but he's on the... I see him there, yeah. On the line. It's, we already secured a special use permit. Lessons are pretty full, there's a few spots left, but we've transferred all the lessons we could over to the waterfront. Our staff is going through a training later this week for the waterfront module to add on to their regular lifeguarding certification through the Red Cross, just so we're extra prepared. But yeah, they're ready to go. Okay, so just another question, just for information. How is that scenario gonna be safeguarded when it comes to boats and other people that shouldn't belong there or whatever? You've got your own little spot? Yeah, well, if it's the public swimming area of the Waterbury Center State Park, so no boats are allowed in there anyways. And then additionally, we're gonna be allowed to have a little sectioned off at the end of it. Okay, that's all I had. Anybody else got any questions? I agree, Chris, about the whole thing with Shining Warren. So I'm a better problem. I'm not one of these people that get tied to either my computer or cell phone. So sometimes I might not see Carl's thing for a couple of days, and then sometimes you think someone's done it. So if someone could go down to the office, that would probably expedite things a lot. Okay, nothing else? No. Okay, we're done with that one. And we'll move on to the one that's everybody's been, well, one of the ones that everybody's been anticipating and there's a discussion on racial inequity, or equity in this, yeah. There were a couple of letters that people have been waiting to read. Aaron had one, and then Moroni Minter had one, I believe. So Aaron, why don't you go ahead and kick the ball and start things off here. Thanks, Chris. I'm gonna let Moroni read the letter. We're actually reading the same letter, but we're also fine if you wanna start your conversation and we can read our letter. We don't need to kick it off if you have other, like had planned other things for this. Well, I'm not sure who put this on the agenda, whether you, Katie, or Mark. Just to be clear, it was on your agenda before this letter was written. So we needed to do it on your agenda. It was on the agenda at the request of, I thought it was Mark based on the conversation he had. I think this is Moroni. Hey, I think, you know, I'm happy to read the letter first and I think that might be a good way to set the tone for the conversation. Okay. Go ahead, then, Moroni. All right. Thank you all again. Thank you so much for giving us the time. And I'm reading this letter which I believe was sent to all of the select board member. And this is a letter from, again, a new formed group here in Waterbury. We are right now calling ourselves Waterbury Anti-Racist Coalition. Work, which is a pretty cool acronym, actually. And the letter is actually authored by different Waterbury residents. That includes myself, Ruan de Mentor from here in Waterbury, Damien Garcia, who is a hardwood high school Waterbury resident, Nicole Garcia from Waterbury, Ruben Garcia from Waterbury, Marlena Fishman from Waterbury, Noah Fishman from Waterbury, Noah Durman from Waterbury, Krista Bottles from Waterbury, Bife the Girls from Duxbury, Erin Hurley of the Children's Room. She's the Children's Room Board Co-Chair of also Waterbury, Heather Laraca, Children's Room Board Co-Chair of Duxbury, Kara Red, Children's Room Board of Waterbury, Katherine Wolfe, Children's Room Board of Waterbury, Angelin Coyne, Children's Room Board of Duxbury, and Naomi Alfini, she is the Children's Room Coordinator, also from Duxbury. Dear Waterbury Select Board, we are writing to ask for your support for the cause of anti-racism in our community. As you know, the world has erupted in protests following the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Med Harbor and too many others. The killings have highlighted the continued presence of racism globally, including internalized racism in ourselves and the structural races in our community. We believe it is our duty as individuals and communities to audently reject racism. We held a rally yesterday where we heard from people of color, including elementary and high school youth who have been traumatized by racism here in our community. 500 community members gathered and masked yesterday in Rusty Park, Rusty Parker Park, and made a pandemic which has, is proportionately killed black and brown people to listen their stories, show solidarity, and learn how to support the important work of anti-racism. As a group would propose that the town install a mural dedicated to racial justice on the concrete retaining wall under the new trend, Tresol Art. The piece would be a symbolic gesture of support for anti-racism, a welcoming call for visitor and resident people of color in our community, and daily reminder to all people who pass through our town and commitment to racial justice. We would like to organize a fundraising campaign, select an artist, and install a piece of art at this location. Below the letter, I believe you will also see some of the illustrative example from the murals that have been installed in our communities in the picture of the proposed mural location. Once you indicate that you are in support, we will submit the design idea to the town for approval prior to the installation of this mural. I hope you will consider this proposal. Now I wanna thank you so much for your time and I look forward to the rest of the discussion. Thank you, Moroni. This is the smart friar. I attended a rally yesterday and I found it quite powerful and I appreciate the organizing that you guys did, how open you were to telling your stories and I really do appreciate it. And I'm in support of the proposal. I need to take a look at exactly what you guys are talking, but I think that like many other communities, racism exists within our Waterborne community and it showed itself during the start of the day and it was just absolutely disgusting. And I think the more we can bring that to light that it does exist and it needs to stop is an important thing. So thank you again for your efforts. So Mark, you said you were exposed to it when? And in what fashion? No, yesterday I was at the rally and someone screamed out, I mean, a very racist comment from a car and just showed that it's very well and alive in the community around us. Well, I want you all to take a second and try to understand what I'm gonna tell you. I hope you can understand it. Being born here, a native of Vermont, growing up in a very, very rural setting where there wasn't a whole lot of people around. My parents raised my family to have respect for pretty much everybody. And I always was a big believer in having respect for people who have respect back to me. It's disheartening to think that we have to, oh, we have to get into these types of circumstances to get people to treat each other good. It's very upsetting to me and I quite honestly don't know how to handle it. I don't know that there's anything that you're ever gonna do to force certain people's mindset upon other people. You can try all you want, but in a lot of cases as of yesterday, Mark, apparently you infuriated somebody that lashed out in the manner that they did. And I see that a lot of times that's the case when you just don't allow people to manage themselves and you try to force, and I don't even know if opinions are the right word, upon other people, they tend to get offended. And I think that's where some of the problems begin. For me, it's a no-brainer. You know, George Floyd's death was an absolute travesty. And if I'd been there and I've told this to many people, I'd have knocked that cop's head right off his shoulders. Whether or not I would have been tased, handcuffed, shot, whatever, I would have taken that risk because it was a blatant act on his part to do what he did. You could see it in his face. It was the most disgusting thing I ever saw in my life. Having said that, to take, and there's gotta be better ways of educating people in more subtle manners to get the point across than rallies seem to quite honestly piss a lot of people off. I don't know if we can start better education at our school systems. You know, we have inequities in this state and a lot of them are based on employment inequities. I always felt like being here in Vermont, we were isolated from a lot of the outside world and we could keep all that nastiness away. But because of population growth and because of the governor's mindset that if we pile more people in here, we're gonna solve the tax problem, which is a joke. If I had my way about it, we would keep this just our own little secret and try to treat each other the way we should. And live a- May I please jump in? Yes, absolutely, Maroney. Thank you. Thank you so much. First of all, the idea that Vermont was never racist until the governor started calling on more young families, more people to move to the state. I'm sorry, with all due respect, that is part of the problem. Denying that there is no problem is part of the problem. Number one, point number one. Point number two, the rally, the protests, however you wanna call it, yesterday, first of all, we are not implying that every resident in Waterbury are racist or white supremacists. We are also not saying that they aren't white supremacists or racist in Waterbury because they are. I'm a person of color. My mother's African. I moved here to Vermont in 2004. My father is white, bill mentor, and I'm sure most of you on this select board know him. And I'm talking to you that saying it's actually very offensive for those of us who just moved to Vermont in the last 20 years, said that there was not such a racism and you were trying to keep this your own secret bubble. That's very offensive, with all due respect. You misunderstood me. I do think we have a responsibility. I do think we have a responsibility to educate not only our town, but the people who visit our town and show them where most of us in our community stand when it comes to racism. This is a simple act or we are asking for is just the location. We are not asking for the town to create a budget for this project. All we are asking for is the location. We will do the work that would involve this project. And what happens when it gets vandalized? I'm just asking. What happened when it gets vandalized? Just like what happened when the street in Montpel was painted, we will make sure that we have enough budget to repaint it again. And we will, we are, our hope is that although we would be willing to do all the work, but our hope is that the select board supports this, that this is a project that's supported by town. And so that we as the resident of Waterbury working with everyone, make sure that we protect this project. That's working with the police to make sure that if it gets vandalized, there are some investigation. We actually make sure that people who actually vandalize the project are held accountable. And we should be supportive of that and try to make sure that whatever final project comes out is protected from getting vandalized. So as I expected, somebody would take offense to what I said and they misunderstood what I said. What I meant was, I wasn't saying we should treat Vermont like a bubble. What I was saying is, I was hoping that the people in this state could keep all the badness out. Right. That implies that the badness is coming from out. The badness is coming from out. It is a fact, Maroney, that you have to understand that when populations grow, so do opinions. And... It is, I'm sorry, with all due respect, that's a very, very offensive language to those of us who have just moved to Vermont in the last 10 or 20 years. And it's the same language, same rhetoric that our president is using right now. The people who are coming outside, people who are coming into this country are the people bringing problems. And that's a very dangerous language to be using, with all due respect. You know, part of the problem is people don't recognize human nature. And in a lot of cases, you're not gonna change certain people. Oh, I'd like to speak to that if I could. I will not change certain people. I will not change the few people. Again, this is about showing where we, most of us, stand. Yeah, can I speak to that, please? Absolutely. Okay, so this is, my name's Erin Hurley, and I am the chair of the Children's Room Board. And I grew up in Vermont in a town of 900. And I know that I will never be able to change everyone's mind in my town about being racist and about being a white supremacist in my town and even in my family. So I understand that. And that is not something that I will try to do, but I fully understand that in my world, I will be living among people who think that children and humans that have darker colored skin are not equal to them. Yesterday, I had a rally, a beautiful, peaceful gathering with 500 amazing people. There were children, an elementary school student who had been at Fatcherbrook and left and now recently came back to our community who spoke, an eighth grader who just graduated from CrossFit spoke, and two high school students spoke about the trauma that they have faced living in our community at the hands of racism. What we can do as a community is wrap ourselves around those children and say, we see you, we hear you, we know this is hard, we want to do better. As a community, we wanna be a place where you can feel safe. As a community, we will be the community that stands up for people of color and we are going to work hard to make our schools and our select board and all the people that are leaders in this town understand the racism that's here and work to be anti-racist. This is not about changing the, I mean, if we could change the white supremacist minds in this town, that would be a very wonderful thing. This is not about that. This is about the many children in our town that are of color, it's about supporting them and having them have a wonderful childhood in this town just like my kids who are white. And we think that having a mural is a start. Having the select board say, we can do a beautiful piece of art in our town and we put examples of what that art might look like. This is just, this is art that is going to be inclusive. It's gonna be representative of these kids. It's not gonna be political. It's gonna be about beautiful humans that live in our town that are underrepresented and treated poorly because they have darker skin than you and I do, Chris. And so I feel like it's just really important to for us all to just take a moment and think about the courage that those children needed to have to stand up in front of 500 people and peacefully talk about how hard they have struggled and how much racism they've felt. And I also just wanna point out that we were all completely silent. 500 people were completely silent when the person drove by in a car and antagonized us with racist comments because we were having a moment of silence. So there was no yelling or screaming at that moment. It was just a racist person passed by in a car and knew what was happening and yelled. And that's fine, that happens. That exists in our community and was a good reminder of why we need to do some big public demonstrations to show that our community is not racist. There's individuals here that are, but as a community, our leadership can stand and say, we are not racist. That's what we're asking you to do by this show, this public show of artistic art on the railroad track. Well, I wanna jump in a little bit. I'm very supportive of what you wanna do, especially hearing that this is not gonna be political because I don't think our town needs to be political but I think this is a matter of it's free speech. And I support free speech. I don't support racism in any way, shape, or form. I have a number of friends of color. I look at people, there are good people in this world and there are bad people and they come in all shapes, sizes, colors, et cetera. And as long as it's something that's fairly generic and tasteful and not offensive, I personally, I know everyone has their own views and some people wanna fly black lives matter. I think this is kind of, it's like a piece of art that basically says something. And maybe I've changed a little bit my opinion and maybe I'm more supportive of this as long as it's not a political statement, which I don't think that has anything, our town shouldn't represent political views. Racism is a whole nother ball game. So in that case, if it was tasteful and supportive and it was not paid for by the taxpayer and as you said, if it was the faced, which I hope it wouldn't be, I think you have a plan that you could repair whatever damage would be done because I hope something like what happened on State Street in Montpelier doesn't happen. Well, I guess that's my big concern. My bigger concern is that I hope this just, for whatever reason, doesn't make things worse, just because of some people's mindsets. So it's a tough call. I think, yeah. I think. Okay, go ahead, Marene. I think first of all, Mr. Vieng, with all due respect, I totally, I hear you, but I would say that it's fair to say that the majority of us, the majority of the Waterbury community are good people. The majority of people here are good people. Right. There are a few among us who are racist. We're not talking about the entire community of Waterbury. We're talking about a few bad apples. I want to get that out. To go back to what Michael was saying, first of all, Michael, thank you. Glad to hear that we would have your support. I want to be clear. This is nothing political for us. This is not, even as we spoke, as I spoke at the rally yesterday, I made it clear that this is no time for politics. This is no politics for us. And I made it clear to the people in the audience and legislators who were in attendance. This is not about politics. Now, in terms of the images, making sure that they don't offend anyone, again, I did mention that you did receive the letter that I read to you, including on that letter are the images that we are thinking about. We're thinking about one of those images. So please take a look at it and make sure that the messages are not going to offend anyone. Yeah, I'm sorry, Maron, I'm going to cut in for a moment. Those images are examples. So basically we'll have local artists like we did for the railroad project submit proposals. But in the call for a bid, we would put in images like the ones we showed like people's faces and like, you know, they're very anti, they're not political. They're just about beautiful people, you know, or famous people like, you know, in Vermont potentially. So, Aaron, can I ask you, do you have specifics that you would like to see changed? I mean, or is this, are we talking about like a bullying type of things or what? I mean, you have to understand I'm ignorant because I don't have to deal with that type of thing at all, you know, it's just never entered my life. Me either, Chris, me either. Are you asking about my opinion from the children's room about what we might need to do beyond this mural? No, I'm asking more about specifics when you and Maroney talk about, you know, racist acts. What types of things are you talking about? Oh, so... Other than name calling and is it actual physical treatment? I mean, Maroney might be able to speak better to that than me, but what I... I'm happy to tell you, I'm happy to jump in and tell you about my personal experiences. What the racism is, not only it's not just about being called the N-word at Harwood on the streets here in Waterbury, but also having had the gun pulled to my head and being called names, being told you don't belong here. People like, who look like you don't belong here? Twice, being chased down the road with a gun to my face or being black, being called N-word. That has happened to me. It exists. Where there are school system, it exists that has happened to me in school. It's happening right now in schools. I have, let's talk about police brutality, for example. I have been pulled over, followed by police, been pulled over for no reason, racially profiled. The last time I got pulled over, I was actually coming out of my grandmother's road on Harvey farm, which is a private road. And the police officer happened to be sitting there at that little gazebo on his cell phone. And as I drove past him, tapped into my license plate, ran my license plate and pulled me over for no reason. According to him, I was driving with a suspended license, which turned out that it was something from DMV and we went to court and I won my case. That's just one of the many examples. So again, this whole project, this mural is not necessarily speaking to a specific policy change or anything, but it is a piece, a beautiful piece of art to acknowledge that, yes, some of these problems do exist in our community. And we have this piece of art that actually represent the black and brown children who attend our schools. That's what the project is about. It's not really looking at solving any specific policy or anything. Katie, you'd like to say something and you got your hand up there. It must be getting tired. I had to switch. Okay. So I'm for the art and I love that you're thinking about using local artists. I would love to see any mockups that you guys have if this does go through. I acknowledge that we have racial problems in Vermont. Like when this goes up, I feel like there's no doubt in my mind that this might be tampered with or vandalized, which is terrible. And I'm glad that you guys have that in the back of your mind and you're willing to confront it and work through it. And I think that it's gonna be tough for some people to get like, I don't want to profile all the reminders, but it might be tough for some people to get used to it, but I think you're starting a new age. And if you get more people involved, we've got a lot of emails this past week from interested community members who want us to put up the Black Lives Matter flags. And I think it's starting with something like this and it's art, it's visual. And if it's not political, I think it's a good stepping stone. I think it'd be really inclusive. And I think if you open this group up and advertise it more to community members, it might get more people involved. It may become more of a conversation topic that doesn't make people as uncomfortable as it can make it now. But as for the art, if it's nice to look at, if it doesn't make anybody uncomfortable, if it's not political, and if it's something that could better our community and not just the visual aspect, but general understanding, I think that is a good stepping stone. Yes. I just think that everyone should avoid using language that stipulates this will not be offensive. Art by its very nature is often offensive. If you're gonna use art to try to make a statement about a problem, it's going to offend somebody. And the fact that you're already talking about people are probably gonna vandalize it. Right there, it's kind of defined as offending someone. I'm not saying this to say we shouldn't do it. I'm just suggesting that you should not go into this with the thought that it's not gonna be offensive to anyone. It may not be a political statement, that's great. But just be careful what you promise, because I think it will offend some and you've already pointed that out yourselves. I think, I also wanna say, I think that the fact that we are already sure that it will offend some people when they get vandalized, or so reassure, it's also very reassuring because it does kind of emphasize that we know that they are racist and why supremacists who are ready to vandalize this. Right, I understand. Well, yeah. In some cases, it's not necessarily that they're racist, it's that they're offended. But we acknowledge that they are, they argue in whatever. They're offended, in some instances, that art is like free speech, like Bill said. It can be offensive. I was just hoping that, to pause, yes, I see, give me a second, to possibly approach this thing from a different avenue that wouldn't necessarily be in like everybody's face kind of thing. If there's another way of solving this problem without maybe starting a problem, I don't know, it's a very tough issue. Yeah, Nat, let Erin speak first and then I'll jump to you. Go ahead, Erin. Nat, you can go ahead, actually. I spoke a lot. The problem is, is that there is a problem. And we need to stand up with a unified voice and say, we see you, we get it, we're not gonna stand for it. Seeing the tears roll down the cheeks of my daughter at that rally yesterday, knowing that one of her classmates, it took every ounce of courage that little girl had to just physically walk up to that stage. She's terrified. She's terrified to walk down the same halls in the same school that my kids go to. We need to stand up and we need to say, we're not gonna take it anymore. And if this is what it takes, if it takes putting up something that's gonna piss somebody off, piss them off, we're not gonna take it anymore. That's what I have to say. Were you ever bullied in school, Nat? Because I was. You know? You know? I wouldn't put what I went through with my color skin in my high school up against what some of these kids' stories are saying. You know, I led a pretty privileged existence in my upbringing and I wouldn't even compare it. Yeah. Well, I hope this conversation is just that. It's a conversation. I hope people don't walk away being offended of what somebody else might be talking about here tonight because this is a discussion. And it's to try to solve a problem. And there's concerns. You gotta understand the legitimacy. Legitism, I mean, that is legit that there may be repercussions from doing something like this. And that's my bigger concern as chair of the board is to protect the town and safeguard the town from further abuse and try to make everybody live together civilly, you know, and be humans to one another. Maroney. You don't think, oh, sorry. Huh? Go ahead. No, Naomi had her hand before me. Yeah, Naomi. Let Naomi take, yeah, go ahead and Naomi. I'm a duck spray, oh, sorry. No. We lost it. Oh, shoot. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can. Thank you. No, I'm a duck spray resident, but can I speak as someone who works with families from Waterbury at the children's room? If the board has no objections, we could let her speak. I have no objection. No objection, so go ahead, Naomi. Okay, thank you. I would just like to point out that by not talking about it, which is what the approach has mostly been in public amongst and in private with nice families. We just don't talk about these issues very much. It actually continues on the racism. That hasn't solved anything either. Some people will be offended if we start talking about it out loud because they just don't like the ideas of renegotiating the social hierarchies in society. And it's gonna upset them to think that things are gonna change and everyone's gonna be equal and they feel like that takes something away from them. But if we don't talk about it and put images out there into people's minds, their minds will not change if they're never confronted gently by images, like thinking of this mural, this seems quite gentle. The only thing that could be offensive is the idea that you would see black people's faces represented beautifully in a painting. But anyways, I just guess my point is mostly that we've as a society and as Waterbury been quiet about it for a very long time and that has not kept our children in our schools of color and our families of color feeling safe and able to live up to their full potential. And Vermont incarcerates people of color at 10 times higher than the rate of white people. We're in the top five states in the nation for disproportionate policing and incarceration of people of color for our population. So it hasn't been working to not talk about it. I mean, I grew up with my parents being good friends with interracial couple. And so it just never plagued me that there were those types of issues. And I've totally, Mr. Vien, I've told you, I hear you and it's, we're talking about, and it's usually one of those things that if you don't experience it, you don't, it's hard to accept. Let me tell you a quick story. Hard to grasp it, yeah. Yeah. Let me just tell you a quick story. I was just part of, I used to work with Let's Grow Kids and we had our staff meeting where we decided to do racial. We did equity training. And in that training, two of our staff spoke. One, both of them are resident of St. Albans. One of them moved out of St. Albans about two years ago. And the reason why she moved out, both of these two staff are gay women. One who moved out of St. Albans, the reason why she moved out is because she was really, you know, getting a lot of attack from residents of St. Albans for being a gay woman. So she had to leave St. Albans. So she talked about her experience of that, of having to leave her hometown because of how she was treated for being gay. The other St. Albans woman who was also gay said, really, I don't believe you, I don't believe that's true. I live in St. Albans. I was born there, raised, I've been living there, I'm gay. I've never experienced any of these things that she's talking about at St. Albans. So she denied the problem because she's never experienced it. The other women had experienced it. She acknowledged the problem. So that is part of the problem. If you haven't experienced it, it's hard for you to acknowledge. And I totally understand your perspective on this. Now, to go back to what Nathan was saying, and I understand you're concerned about pissing some people off. And like I said earlier, the majority of people in our community are good people. The majority of people, and I believe we'll support this project. So if we have to piss off a few people, that's okay. And whatever we can have... One other thing in this conversation is if whatever we can do to prove to you that the majority of people in this community support the project, we are willing to do that. So I think this is, again, this is an issue that it is time to piss off a few people. Again, the majority of us here are good people. But if we have to piss off a few people, let's do it. It's just a few people. The majority say you're working for the town of Waterbury. And I guarantee to you, most of the people in this town will be supportive of this. And if I have to prove that to you, I'm so ready to do that. Can I say something real quick? Absolutely no. Yeah, so I guess I just want to say that just being part of the process of organizing the rally on Sunday and being around some of the other people, some of who are on this call, but we did think a lot about this proposal to this board. And we talked about various options. And the reason we chose this one is because we felt it would be something that would be welcomed by the community because we're talking about art. And yes, we want to represent black and people of color in this piece who are underrepresented, who are the subject of a lot of the oppression that we're talking about in these rallies. But we're specifically not proposing something that has a right, we're proposing something that does not have a right to be controversial. For those that think that's controversial, there's no opinion there, that is racism. If someone believes that you cannot, we have images of white people all around town. We have, if we can't put up an image of a black person or a piece of art that features people of color, if someone has a problem that, that is racism. We're not talking about a political slogan here, we're talking about a piece of art. So I don't see any opinions there. I think it's, we're looking to increase the representation and send a message that all people are welcome here, including people of color, people with darker skin. And that welcoming, that part of town also, that's a really ugly wall. We can make it more beautiful and we can contribute something that will be lasting for the town that every person who visits will see as they come in. There'll be a welcoming note for visitors of all types. There will be a beautiful piece that we can be proud of that our children can drive by and learn maybe a little bit, depending on the nature of the piece, but we thought about it, maybe putting on some historical figures like MLK and people like that. I don't think these are controversial figures. I think these are American heroes that deserve to be shown for all they represent. So I think we're, that's the kind of thing that we're talking about. And we also put a thought into what could we do that wouldn't cost the town any money that we're willing as a group of leaders in this town to step up, raise the money, get it installed, get you guys to approve, and do something. And I think the timing also is the last thing I'll say is really crucial. We're towns, some towns in Vermont have already stepped up. Communities across the nation are stepping up just to make their voice heard that they're in solidarity with this movement. And I think us doing this tonight, of saying yes, at least getting your support that we can proceed doing this is a really powerful thing that you guys can do to just show that, yes, we're behind the movement to end racism. I don't think that should be a controversial statement. And that's what we're here for. So that's all. Yeah, Bill, you got a comment here and look at it. Yeah, it's not really a comment, it's just logistics. And I would hope Maroney and Aaron and Noah will understand that I'm not throwing this out as a roadblock, but the abutments that you're talking about, the town can't give you permission to put a mural on them. The town does not own that bridge, like revitalizing library with the art that's on the train bridge itself, that the abutments are owned by the railroad. It's not town property. So whether the select board approves or disapproves of the concept is one thing. And I don't think anybody that I've heard is suggesting that the concept is not something that we would support, but you're gonna have to get permission from the railroad company just as revitalizing Watergate did. And I can help you with that. I'm sure that Karen Nevin at Revitalizing Waterbury will share some of the contact information that she has, but that's not a town-owned structure and those abutments are not something that we can give you permission to put a mural on. So just understand that. Thank you, Bill. We do understand that. We figured it would be the similar process as the revitalizing Waterbury took. Yeah, so I wanna just suggest one thing and maybe, and again, this is just a suggestion that may get you a little bit further with this endeavor. When you go to do whatever mural or whatever you decided form of art you do, to me to see a white man and a black man or a white woman and a black woman with their arms around each other or something like that, to me sends a better message than singling out one color from the other. If you're trying to create all inclusive tight mentality that it seems like to me to show that whether it be on the side of that abutment or whatever that black people and white people can be together and be fine, to me is sends a bigger message. Yeah, I totally hear that and I'm sorry to say, just like Noah said earlier, we have a lot of art, things like this where it's just white people who are future. Nobody gets offended by that, okay? So with all due respect again, where I hear this, when me, as a black person, when I hear what you just said again, it's the same people who said that the phrase black lives matter is wrong, that it should be all lives matter. It's the same people, like we can't do something for black people without offended white people, but we do things for white people without black people getting offended all the time. Come on! This is a piece of art that we're talking about, celebrating African-American hero. It should not offend a white person because there's no white face in it. There are so many pieces of art, whatever you call it, of just white people, but we don't complain because we understand there are heroes that needs to be celebrated and white people should also feel the same way if we have to celebrate black heroes. So with all due respect again, that concept of we have to have white in there is the same thing about people who tell me, well, we should be saying, black lives matter, it should be all lives matter. It's a piece of art to celebrate black artists, black heroes, and it should not be offensive if there's no white face in it. I'll stop there. Yeah, and it's just a suggestion because to me it's all color, you know? White is a color too, black is a color, yellow is a color. To me, we should all be color blind. Nat, do you want something to say? That's part of the problem. Nat, do you want something to say something? He's off, there he is. I'm all set, Chris, thank you. Okay, well, so if the bridge abutment is not town property, then how does this, how do we proceed, Bill, here? Well, I think it would be helpful if the board, expressed support for the project, if the board has support for the project. I appreciated very much what Nat said and what others of you have said. So I think if the board wants to say we're supportive of the concept, we understand the issue and we'll do what we can. To help out, I think that's fine. And then they'll have to work with the railroad and certainly myself and others here or others associated with the community can help with those railroad contacts. But I think if we're going to support it, we should say we're going to support it and then let them have that. So you're saying suggesting we need a motion then? Whether it's a motion or a statement by the board, it doesn't matter, you're the board. Motion of support for some form of art, because at this point I'd hate to say that it was a mural because you may come up with something different. Could I make a suggestion as another resident? I'm sure you all are ready to move on with your evening. Chelsea Bardo-Lewis, Waterbury resident. First wanna thank Moroni and Erin and Noah and all the rest of the organizers of the event yesterday. And also thank the select board for making the time, creating the space for this conversation. I might suggest that the board affirms something more broad which is a commitment to anti-racism work in town and that this support for this piece of art is just one step, a show of solidarity in making the black members of our community feel welcome and comfortable as we all go through this process of examining racism in town and working towards racial equity and justice. How does Nat, you're looking to say something now? I would fully support such an endeavor. I would fully support a statement. It needs to be more than a statement. It needs to have something that creates action items. But I would fully support standing behind any art project installation that would like to be presented and I would fully support the board's ongoing involvement in being proactive. So again, a concern of mine and whether it be any form of mural for any type of art, is there any limit to this? Or do we just, you know, what's our expectation there as to how much of this type of action endeavor can we expect? So let me, I would just say that in response to your question let me just ask another question. And this is a conversation, please let's be honest here. Mr. Viennes, what exactly are you afraid of? No, I'm just, I wouldn't care what it was as far as artists can. When you feel like it's the beginning of something, there might be more. You're not getting my point. You have to understand, I have to watch out for the community as a whole. And whether it be any kind of art, I don't care from anybody, there has to be a limit. You wouldn't want the whole entire town full of murals. I guess that's my concern. Or statues, one end to the other. Regardless what it was trying to represent. So understand me, please. I'm sorry, I understand. Okay, I'm sorry. I thought you were saying in terms of addressing this movement, racist movement. I mean, how far are we gonna go? So if we just talking about the art specifically, we have not discussed, and please, anybody else feel free to chime in. This is the only project that we have been discussing and thinking about so far. We have not thought about any other arts or project beyond this, but that's not to say that, you know, people with other interests might not come up. But in terms of what we're thinking, this is what we are thinking right now. We have not discussed any of the future projects. Or anybody feel free to chime in? Yeah, similar to train cars. You know, you've seen trains there that just got from one end to the other. And you just, in the community, we have to... In terms of the group, we have a diverse group that, you know, is involved a few different organizations in town. We wanna put forth an idea that also you are comfortable with. And I think that we can put forth an idea that really reflects what the rally was about, which brought together all ages, a diverse swath of the community, and really represents the anti-racism issue. So what we'd like is to approve the go ahead tonight so that we can go forth with the steps required to start to get an idea together and then present back to you with, you know, a sketch up of like, this is what we're thinking. And if you have problems at that point, I think we're willing to give you another, you know, we're not saying we're just gonna start painting. We're saying we wanna get an idea together and get you guys behind it and do this as a town. So this is how we'll move forward with emotion then. That emotion will be that we will allow a design of some form of art to your effect and which will be presented to the board at a future date for consideration. Is that appropriate? Because obviously what you're suggesting is you bring it in front of the board for our approval and until we have a design or something in front of us, we can't just say, you know, carte blanche, you can do whatever. So I think we can work together on this and help your effort. I would also recommend that you, early in the process, maybe touch base with Steve Lott's speech. We have to be careful if you're considering putting any kind of text words on this. There's a sign, both local and state laws with regard to signs that are off premises. We have other people in the community who have been working with the zoning administrator about putting murals on buildings. And I just wanna make sure that these issues are addressed early in the process rather than you think you have something that's all such a girl and then it ends up being a problem. So I would just ask that you work with Steve early in the process to make sure we don't have any issues with signage or off premises advertising in the white, that's all. I'd be glad to work with the group. I fully support this project. And I think it is important that I have three children of color and who've dealt with their fair share of racial injustice growing up. And I think it's important to recognize this project is part of an effort to fight racism in our community. So I have a question for our bill. Is there anything in our town charter that I'm sure there's something that some sort of non-discrimination kind of effect in our town charter? Do you know that, Bill? Well, we don't have a town charter, Mike. So there's nothing in it that talks about non-discrimination. Certainly, I thought it all down by restricting federal constitutions to discriminate, but we don't have a term. Okay, I thought all towns are chartered. Well, yeah, from the King of England in 1763. So I go back to an attempt at emotion here. I think you should be careful about making a motion, Chris. Okay, I was gonna say, can we just go and go ahead and do it? I think this is by consensus, we're supportive of the project. Okay. We'll work with the group to bring something forward and help with logistics with the railroad and just leave it at that. And when they're ready for the next step, they can come back. Yeah, I didn't know if they were looking for something more substantive. Maroney, go ahead. Yeah, I think you should make two motions tonight on the project and also on what Chelsea just suggested about crafting a commitment statement on being anti-racism. So if we can also get that motion tonight, I think that'll be two huge steps. I'll make one. Go ahead, Mark. First motions. Say that again. Pick those motions. We don't have a motion. So you're expecting us to write a motion, we don't have one. The first motion is we as the Waterbury community recognize that racial injustice is real and we need to go support for the community. You dropped out there a little bit there, Mark. Yeah, I don't have very good cell service, why not? We've got to racial injustice is real and then you've dropped off. So what did you say, Mark? And we recognize as a community, we need to support our members no matter what color. Is there a second for that motion? Sorry, I'm gonna push back. It's again, we go back to this whole notion that it has to be inclusive. So Maroney, excuse me, we need a second and then we can go back to discussion, all right? Is there a second to that motion, please? Second the motion. Okay, now Maroney, go ahead. Maroney, go ahead. Yes, I'm just saying the, I think the language that I heard there was that we, yeah, the language that I heard there was that we are committed to anti-racist no matter the color or can you somebody, can you, Mark, can you please repeat the language there? Apologize, I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm looking for something that supports your movement and shows that water raised in support of it. So I'd be happy if you wanted to craft it and then I'd be happy to move the motion forward. Maroney, yeah, I think that the beginning of that motion was spot on. Maroney, if you want to hop in the chat maybe and suggest the ending of the, I think that the part that was hard was no matter the color because we want to be letting folks know that we're supporting people of color. Therefore, the folks who are continuously discriminated by the people who have privilege. So I think that that was the nuance there and obviously unintentional. It's really hard to make a motion when you are speaking off the top of your head. And just because we're commenting on this type of motion, I think that you making a statement similar to this would be very powerful and it would give you room to do some of the inner work that I think we're all trying to do. And one of those things, one of the recommendation I could make for the select board is to look into having implicit bias training. The Human Rights Commission does, the State of Vermont Human Rights Commission does really, really good implicit bias training. And so I think that like, if you craft a motion and vote on it, a wonderful next step would be to invite the Human Rights Commission in the State of Vermont to do this training with all the select board members. I'm sure it could be done even over Zoom. And I've had that training in my school and it's really helped me as a white person understand these issues and be able to talk about them to, you know, in public. So, I guess that wasn't an emotion, but sorry. Yeah, Karen, what's the last thing you have for words so we can continue? I'm starting to get lost in the weeds here. All right, here's, this is what I wrote down. Friar made a motion. We as the Waterbury community recognize racial injustice is real and we recognize as a community, we need to support our community of any color. That's what I wrote. Is it any, Mark? Are you- Does that, does that hit the target? It's my error and I would ask if some help me reward the end of it with all due respect. I'm not, I'm trying to support the request. I feel like what I heard was you wanted the word any removed and you just wanted to say support our community of color. That's what I feel like I'm hearing from the community members that are nodding their heads. I'm very happy. Yes, yes. That's what we want, yes. Okay, Mark, is that the motion you want me to record? Is it there, Mark? Yeah. Okay, I hear yes. All right. Mike Bard, you seconded that motion. I still second the motion. Oh, thank you. All right. I think the right term there for the, for the movement is black and indigenous people of color. BIPOC for short, but I think that's the right word in that last section there. To the best of my knowledge, I can't take a motion by a community member. All right. All right. Somebody has to amend the motion. I personally, I personally think by saying people of color, you're being more inclusive. Yes, I agree with you. I agree with you too. Yep. Like I said, it's all color. I don't give it, you know, rats behind. All the question? Yes, Katie. No, I think we vote on it. Like, yeah. So the motion's been made and seconded, right, Mike? You seconded it? Yep. We're into, we're in discussion now. Any further discussion? Seeing none, hearing none. All those who wish to approve the motion, please say aye. Aye. Okay. I think we can wait for the committee to bring us something that we can review. And I look forward to it. Yes, Mark. Yes. What's that? Sorry, I just sent out my mic on mute. Okay. Okay. You also need a motion surrounding the idea of the art piece, correct? No, I thought we were gonna buy consent, basically say for them to, you know, develop something and for our approval, and that's when the motion would happen. Correct. Yeah. But I think by consent, we've kind of confirmed for them to go ahead. And get something to present us. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it looks like we're complete on that particular agenda item. We still got three more to go here. Managers items are the next topic. Traffic ordinance is the first thing on that list. Yep. Again, going back to the email that I sent out on Friday, the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation approached Bill Woodruff a few weeks ago, asking if the town would consider taking one side of the road down on Bush Hill toward the Cove as a no parking area. We have had some concerns expressed by residents that emergency vehicles might not be able to negotiate that road on especially busy weekends. I have a small boat of my own. And I think given there's so little to do that a lot of people have decided that fishing and boating and water skiing is something that they'd like to take advantage of a little bit more often. And it's been very crowded there. Part of the reason it's so crowded of late is because the Center of Side State Park hadn't opened yet. I believe that's open now or is about to open so that may alleviate some of the congestion on Bush Hill. The fact that Green Mountain Power at the state's behest improves the boat launch at Bush Hill makes it much more attractive. It's much easier to get boats in, especially larger boats into the water there. So there's a lot of cars and trailers that are parking on both sides of the road. They go from the Cove all the way up to at least Michigan Avenue and often has above that. So what I've put together here is a brief amendment to the traffic ordinance that the town already has on the books. There is a section of Article 10 that specifies where parking is prohibited on streets. There's about 43 or 44 places already identified as no parking areas. So I've added this language, no parking on the west side of Bush Hill from the intersection with Michigan Avenue for distance of two tenths of a mile to the entrance to the cul-de-sac adjacent to the reservoir. So the west side of Bush Hill Road would be the left side going down. It really doesn't matter which side you make no parking because the vehicles and the trailers that are parked there one way or the other have to turn around anyway. There's very few people that can back a trailer up unless they're tractor trailer drivers. But if you try to back up a trailer for two tenths of a mile it's pretty tough to do. So people go up the hill and they turn around. So one way or the other there gonna be people turning there. The reason I suggested we prohibited parking on the left side going down if we decide to do this at all is because on the left side the grade of the landscape outside the road very steeply. There's a ditch right beside the shoulder of the road. And on the right hand side the road slopes off much more gently. And in fact there are several places that are very wide on the right side or even turnouts. So the right side is a place where I think it's easier to park. With any ordinance that we contemplate enforcement is an issue. The state had asked us a couple of years ago to do this same thing on the reservoir road into the Waterbury Center side state park. On that road we've put up signs now we've got it in the ordinance that prohibited parking on either side of that road. The state takes it upon itself to hire a sheriff from time to time to try to enforce this ordinance. The ordinance allows any police officer which would the county sheriff to act on this. So they've asked us if we'd do it. And as I said, some residents on the hill there have complained about the fact that fire trucks and ambulances might not be able to get through if we continue to allow parking on both sides. So that's it, if you have questions I can answer them. I didn't quite hear you there earlier, Bill. Did you say that there's going to be some authority for the state police to deal with that or no? The ordinance is written such that any sworn police officer can enforce this ordinance. So the police could enforce it. What will they? I mean, that's not part of their preview or purview right now but would they? I don't know if they will, Chris. Okay. The county sheriff can also enforce the ordinance and the state parks have on occasion hired a sheriff to deal with the parking on reservoir road. And the person that talked to us about this one said that they would likely hire a sheriff from time to time to enforce this. It's not going to be, you know, tickets aren't going to be written every single day and vehicles aren't going to be towed constantly but we can't do anything if we don't have an ordinance. So that's really the first step in figuring out who and how it gets enforced is the next. I'll speak to this because this problem is a mess because I use that access very frequently. And there are a lot of bad actors on that road who park, you know, multiple people who come down there. The canoeers and kayakers sometimes don't have respect for the motorboat people. The motorboat people don't have respect for the canoeers and kayakers. It's just, I think we're going to have even, I don't know what a good solution is but especially since COVID, that access is seeing more and more pressure. Maybe when the center, you know, park opens and there's more access, some of the boaters will go there but right now there's just way insufficient parking. I know I was there, went in the afternoon. I was parked way up by Michigan Avenue and it probably was going to get worse than that. People are probably going to be parked, you know, if you eliminate one side, where are all those extra cars going to go? I think it's, you're going to create a real, you know, are you going to be having people parking way up there? Should you not have access for people who are handicapped down below? Because some people who have, you know, current crafts can't walk, you know, two, three-tenths of a mile down. I get it, Mike. I go there as well. I've done this at the request of the state. It's certainly up to the select board to decide whether it's a good idea or not. I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other. I do get concerned when residents there call and say, worried about the fact that a fire truck can't get down the hill if it were necessary. You know, if you prohibit parking on one side, that eliminates half the parking spaces that are currently being used now. I can't imagine that's going to drive people, you know, a mile up the road, but I suppose it's possible. It's not an easy solution. I know that the person who talked to Bill Woodruff said that the state is looking at some of the land adjacent to the road, which evidently they own, to see if they can make some parking lots there. But again, for vehicles that are pulling trailers, even small 14-foot boats like I have, there's not a lot of room in those places to get more than a handful of them off the road. You know, if you- To me, it would be a good solution if there could be some sort of parking area where you can group the non-trailer vehicles because they could be parked in a relatively orderly area. It's when, you know, it's with the trailers are gonna be a problem. And I don't know if it's just because of COVID, people are looking for outdoor things to do. And I know part of it is the center, you know, the state park access being closed. Maybe it's gonna get better. Yeah, but- So- And I think the fact that the boat launch was improved so significantly, also a big draw when you had to go down there and put into a muddy, gravelly launch area that was hard to pull out of, especially with a large boat, people just didn't do it. And now you can easily launch an aircraft carrier there almost now. That's right. Anyway- Yeah, for the sake of beating a dead horse here, or not beating a dead horse, I don't think there's a question that we need to limit parking on one side. And to your point, I was gonna say that it's about time that we put pressure on the state because they do have land next to them, next to the road there that's theirs and make them correct the problem if they can. That should be part of the solution is having, as well as I understand restricting because I'm very much for, because I don't know, as you said, with both people on both sides, it's very hard to maneuver a trailer back down that road. And you need this, if you're gonna have a motion to restrict one side, you need the state to step up with some sort of addition to the motion to have some sort of additional parking created. So just for, as a reminder and for Katie's first time benefit here, if you adopt an ordinance, which is before you now, no public hearing is required, it's 44 days before the ordinance is enforceable. We can put up signs tomorrow. If we put up signs tomorrow, the state would probably write warning notices to people, but no one could be ticketed or towed for 45 days. So you're gonna be... The lake will be froze over by then. Before you can actually do anything. And there is a provision that the public by petition could overturn this ordinance, but those are all unlikely things to happen. But I do want you to know that it's nothing that we can actively enforce right away. If you approve it, we'll get signs up as quickly as we can. We'll let the state know, I'll communicate with them whether you pass this or not, that they should look to develop some parking areas there. So should a motion be made to accept the changes to the traffic ordinance as stated and perhaps put additional efforts into contacting the state and pressuring them to consider additional parking there on property that they own? That sound appropriate, Mike? Yeah, I basically would have said exactly the same thing. I'll move that. Okay, and is there a second to that? Katie? Oh, sorry, seconded. Yeah, okay. No further discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Great. Mark, you're still with us, you are. Can you hear us, Mark? Mark Friar? Okay, I guess not, entertainment permits, Zen Barn. Bill? Yeah, so again, in that memo or email I sent out on Friday, talked about this entertainment permit. When the issue of the tents came up and as Steve started to work on the interim bylaw that you approved earlier tonight and the issue kind of presented itself where the bylaw that you approved indicates that entertainment in these tents is regulated by the town's entertainment ordinance. And frankly, I had forgotten completely that the town even had an entertainment ordinance. I sent it out to you last week, it was adopted in 1993 and it was a mirror image of an entertainment ordinance that the village trustees put in place to regulate entertainment in the village. Back in the early 90s, a few years after I first came, there were numerous places in the village, sisters too, in particular, where they wanted to have bands in the bars and those establishments were right next to and surrounded by residential properties. So there was concern expressed by the residences who lived in those apartment buildings about this entertainment. So the trustees adopted an entertainment ordinance. Of course, they only could regulate what was in the village limits and the select board asked that they would have an entertainment permit of their own. There was the Roadhouse Cafe or whatever the name of the place was down under too, which is next to the fire's field. They often had entertainment there and again, they have residential neighbors. And my recollection is that was the impetus for the town to adopt the same entertainment ordinance that the village has. It's fairly clear cut that, you know, the ordinance allows the board to regulate live music, mechanically produced music, productions of plays, concerts, et cetera. So when the issue came up in the tent by law, that entertainment would be prohibited and covered by the town entertainment ordinance. I informed Noah Fishman that if they wanted entertainment outside as it had got back to me that they did, I had heard that they were proposing that. I said, well, if you're going to do that, you've got to fill out this application and the select board have to review it. So that's how it got from there to here. And it's, I did receive an application from Noah today. I believe I sent it out this afternoon. I included a copy of the email that he sent to me where he advocates for the issuance of this permit and suggests that he'll try to keep the noise to an acceptable level. And that I believe it was in that email that he talked about limiting the time until kind of clock, but I don't see that late. Oh, it's on the permit itself. Yeah. So you have that before you. I sent that out this afternoon. He does indicate acoustic music outside with a 10 p.m curfew speakers pointed away from neighbors and decibel levels at neighboring properties at all below 60 decibels. So Mark, Friar, can you hear us okay? Sorry about that. My phone died, I had to go plug it in. Yeah, that's okay. So you're back with us, I take it. Mark had a number of these permits issued to him by the village trustees at the reservoir, by the way. Okay, so if you don't mind, Mark, I'd like to step down as chair and ask you to take my place here for this discussion if you wouldn't mind. Sure. Okay. So we're talking about the Zen Barn request for outdoor music. Is what's the timeframe? Is it end at 10 or before 10? Yeah, they're proposing that 10 o'clock curfew mark on the permit. Has Noah talked yet about it? No. Noah, do you wanna talk about why outside? Yeah, I think you might have broken up a little there, but why music, why outside music is important? Yeah, well, explain. I think I saw an email that came through to us with some bullet points, but if you wanted to reiterate those, just so everyone could hear. Sure. So yeah, I mean, I think there's a number of key points in my view. One is that the musicians themselves have been suffering just like a lot of people, but they've been hard hit as a result of COVID and there are not a lot of venues that pay them and not a lot that pay them as well as we've had, but we do because of our real focus on music. And I just wanna put that out there that this is also supporting musicians, not just bars and restaurants. Two, we, as Zen Barn, and just speaking for ourselves, we've built a business that really relies on and creates an atmosphere inside that has been music, food and drink together and create an experience around that and our customers really want that. And currently, even with the interior capacity loosening, people are just, it's just proving that even if the regulations get lifted, people still feel much more comfortable outside, especially a lot of our clientele is slightly older and they just don't wanna risk it. And when we've done even, I know it's still recent to the COVID outbreak and the peak of it, but people are asking us, oh, why can't we just do this outside? And so there's a demand for it. And I did, I'm conscious that we're part of a community here and we have neighbors and we certainly do not wanna disturb them. I do think that we are capable and I confirmed I talked to my sound engineer just yesterday to try to come up with a plan and we're very committed to being able to do these shows outside with a, and achieve a decibel level and a noise level that's gonna be very tolerable, if barely even audible for our neighbors. Part of that is that, we're just doing acoustic music, we're not planning to do big full bands outside, we're planning to do very mellow singer songwriters. We have a bluegrass night, that's really not very loud, doesn't have to be loud. Certain instruments need to be amplified, just part of the show, but I think we feel very confident we can make it work in terms of our neighbors as well. And this is just for us, this is part of being able to survive through this and keep providing the core services that we do and to keep the level of business that will keep us in business. And we feel like for this season, at least we're stuck outside, I don't think we're gonna be able to get a lot of business inside for the, for this season. Any of the select board members have any comments? I have some comments. No, although I'm very sympathetic to the music industry, I know musicians have been very hard hit, I think that that's really a shame, but I also know, I was on the DRB for a number of years. Originally the permit that your establishment was granted on was based upon an establishment that was gonna be primarily food, not an entertainment, it was gonna be an occasional entertainment. It's morphed into something else. And I know a lot of the members of the Development Review Board have been a little bit concerned about that. And I think this is kind of the reason why we're having, going to have a, you know, we're looking at tent activities is more to open up restaurants so they could have, you know, more of their clientele. Because I agree, a lot of people are gonna feel a lot more comfortable eating outdoors. But also as a part of this, I know your business relied a lot upon entertainment, a lot of businesses in this pandemic are morphing their business models. And I don't necessarily think, I think it's going to be an issue with a lot of the neighbors. There has been continually a parking issue there that still seems to be not totally resolved. I'm very concerned about having live music. The reason why we're allowing, restaurant establishments to have outdoor dining is so they could dine, not so much. There's a lot of places that are suffering, you know, the Champlain Valley Fair is being creative, doing drive-ins. A lot of people are doing, I think it's terrible that we don't have, that's one of the things I miss most is entertainment. But with large gatherings, it's very hard to control people. And I think the reason why we're having our tent regulation is to aid businesses and for what you're suggesting, I think is gonna further issues within that neighborhood with music. I don't, I've called me a skeptic, but I don't believe that it's gonna be as pastoral as you make it out to be. I'm sorry, that's just my feelings. So I could just respond to that real quick. First of all, you know, we started this business with no experience in the restaurant industry. We jumped in and tried to build a place for our community and the community wanted us to do more live music so that evolved there. So there wasn't, you know, that isn't something that, you know, we could have predicted either. I think people love music. So I love music, I've been to your establishment, but that's not what your original permit was for as for a nightclub. Right, well, so my second point is that that's not, we're not a nightclub. We have music and dinner. Often it's overlapping. People come, they are enjoying dinner and music together. It's not a separate entity. And in fact, the music for us is a lost leader. I mean, just doing music is because we're passionate about it. If I was smarter and wanted just to make money, I probably wouldn't do music. Ask Mark, he runs a music venue too. I mean, this is not a area you get into and try to do to make a bunch of extra money. This is to support art and music and to bring this into our community. And specifically for the tent, the whole point of this is to provide entertainment while people dine and while people enjoy their food and drink. It's really not meant to be a, and we're not talking about mass gatherings. We're talking about max right now, we're at 50 people. I don't think that's changing anytime soon. No, this is Bill. Mike alluded to it a little bit, but one of the concerns that have been expressed to me has been that the DRB went out of its way to include in your permit that if you had entertainment inside that the doors and windows have to be closed. And if they went to that extent to make sure that the music wasn't gonna go outside and be a disturbance to the neighbors, don't, how do you, how do you, is it just because this is a different time because it seems like it's a big step from saying if you have entertainment, you've gotta keep it closed and you gotta keep it inside to saying now it's okay to be outside. Mark, could I speak for a second? Yeah, I wanna respond to that. So, yeah, I just asked Mark if I could speak. Yeah, I wanted to direct us to Noah. I think Noah, you know that there's been some issues in the past that my wife has asked me to deal with with what's going on next door. And for the most part, I have refused to do so because the fact that I am a select board member and the chair, I refuse to, you know, use that whatever authority you might call it to try to pressure either compliance or whatever and I've basically suggested to my wife or my son or whatever, my mother-in-law to file a formal complaint, then it can be addressed, you know, either with me, by me or whatever. So up till now, I've tried to be pretty accepted of what's gone on over there. But if, you know, if I have to be subject to music at night till 10 o'clock during the entire summer months, I mean, for me, that's just simply crossing over the line because here at the house, we leave our windows open at night like a lot of people do because we like the fresh outside air and most generally, it's cooler so it helps cool the house down so that when we shut it down during the day in this, you know, if there's music coming up through the valley here, which it does, it pounds off that building and just shoots up here very easily. It's, you know, that's gonna be an issue for me because I didn't sign up for that kind of thing and I'll stop speaking. Bill, can you ask your question again? Can I ask my question again? Yeah, to know about. Yeah, I just, I wanted to, I wanted Noah to respond to the fact that given that the DRD went out of its way to condition inside entertainment, stipulating that doors and windows had to be closed, how do you think now it's justifiable to have the select board allow outside entertainment? And my question was, is it just because the circumstances of this COVID have changed and you're asking for something that you wouldn't normally ask for or is this something that, you know, that has to, should be expected as a request going forward because the DRB was pretty specific. They didn't want even the doors open if you were having entertainment inside and outside is just that much more intrusive to the neighbors. Well, I guess I would say a few things about that. Inside we would be, you know, the potential, the like the decibel level of a live show with a full band and that's with instrumentation like drums, you know, once you do that, I would never do that outside because I know that would serve the neighbors. So it's a very, you know, that once you crank up a full band, then yeah, you know, and we've tried, you know, I think we've followed all those DRB protocols. I mean, you know, I don't know, there may be, you know, the thing with the inside now with keeping, like now we're COVID regulations are telling us to open all windows and not use air conditioning. So that is a bit of a challenge, you know, but we also haven't had any, we've only had a solo performer inside since then. You know, I guess what I'm asking for, you know, in terms of is to have a conversation and come up with a reasonable solution. And, you know, I think that the idea that we should be able to do, offer what we've been offering of quality, live music for our community that they want and that is not harmful. It's good and it's not as a separate thing from a restaurant that offers food and drink. It's supportive of that. You know, I'm asking for some creative solutions here. I think outdoor music to me is certainly something that I would like to be able to do generally. If it's within the framework that is not going to bother my neighbors, which I think that we can create that framework. There's, I'm aware of a few times, like, you know, like Chris to speak to your point, you know, I've given you guys my phone number. I would encourage you to call me because sometimes, you know, things happen out of my control if a staff member turns up the outside speakers too loud by mistake, you know, because we have an app that controls that. And all of a sudden, you know, it's like there's something that happened. I can quickly resolve that, you know. You know, these anonymous complaints, I can't solve that. So generally, you know, whenever we have an issue, we quickly resolve it. But I can't change things if I don't know what they are. But I do believe, and I would love to, you know, I guess have the opportunity to prove that we can do, if I have a solo guitar player with a small amp playing into my tent with a little bit of sound reinforcement to deflect the sound, I don't think you're gonna hear at your house, Chris. I don't think, I really think we can set it up with a little bit of engineering so that you're not even gonna notice there's a show going on. Certainly not as loud as the equipment I hear in the morning outside of my window every day, which I've never complained about, and I wouldn't because I just feel like, you know what, I've been woken up many a day, many a day, morning with heavy equipment running outside my window for hours. But you know what? I respect everyone's, you know, business and what they're doing, their livelihood. You know, I guess I'm asking for a similar respect for what we're doing and a willingness to let us, you know, that's to me where the 60 decibels, that's a conversation level. So I didn't ask for, you know, the 85 decibels, which is more standard or 90. You know, I'm saying that I'm gonna commit to keeping that decibel level almost inaudible. It shouldn't, at the property line to Chris's house, it really shouldn't be audible. Can I speak? Yes, go ahead. Well, first of all, Noah, there's a reason we went to those meetings, all of them, and it was exactly for this. It was for the music and it was for the lights. And that's why the permit was set up like it was. I wouldn't have wasted my time going to those if I thought it was just, it didn't matter. I don't know that you're thinking about the fact that it's a amphitheater for you down there. When you're back against that barn, it comes right up this hill. And when you talk about, it's gonna be like people talking, we can hear talking down there. We could hear it back when it was Tanglewoods, but talking's different than music. And you're right, I like to sit out too, but I don't wanna sit out and listen to your music. I wanna sit out and listen to the things I bought this property for, which was not loud music. It was the peepers and the crickets and the owls and the bears. And, yeah, there's a car that goes by now and then, but not loud music. And the other night when I talked to you, that was loud. Can you tell me how high that was? The, In April, when the windows were closed. When, oh, so well, I think that, if I recall, is that that when you sent all the, you know, the Facebook posts and everything and you're yelling at us about that. Is that what you're talking about? I mean, yeah, the one I taped, yes. Okay, I don't know about any taping, but that was so, we had just opened after COVID. It was like, I don't know, early evening. And I think what happened is my staff got excited. They put a speaker outside and we're like welcoming people back and they turned on music. It was, that was just a, playing the Sonos speaker. And that was, and they cranked it up. That was the last example where I like, staff just cranked up the music, you know, and I apologize that that was. So how loud, what was the decibels on that? I don't know, but that was definitely, I'm sure, you know, cranking up those speakers, that would be way higher than I would ever have someone perform at. And it was pointed right at your house. So I can totally understand that that wasn't, that's not what I'm proposing at all. I mean, we got, you know, cranking a speaker and point it towards you guys would not be what I'm talking about. You know, intimate show, you know, in the tent where I can control the sound and set it up. And I can, before when I do the sound jack, I go to the property level and I can check the decibel level and make sure it's really not gonna disturb you guys. You know, someone playing an acoustic guitar and singing. I just, I really believe that it's not gonna be heard. I mean, we've, you know, I just, I think there's, and I totally understand where you're coming from because of those instances. But, you know, being able to do this and prove it out, you know, it's like then in having a measure that we can make sure that we know that what it is to do it right outside. I mean, we haven't done outdoor music. You know, we haven't been doing this. Yeah, you did it last July. What was the decibels on that? July 4th, you did it. Right, July 4th, that was the one show and that was loud. That was a big, loud show. That was actually not as loud as this one. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. Those direct speakers will shoot it right to your house, especially, you know, I know, we went and looked at it after I was like, what the heck's going on? I thought there was just those speakers going on inside the restaurant. And they were like, oh, we brought it outside because we were having fun and everyone was out there doing the drive-through. And I was like, no, we can't do that. Okay. So I, and after that, I was like, shit because I know I was, I mean, I didn't know why you were so pissed off. I thought, because I was sitting there inside, I couldn't hear anything inside. It was light music playing inside. So, you know, I honestly thought you were complaining about that and I was like, are you kidding me? Well, I shouldn't have to actually complain about any of them because there was a permit. That's why I'm, you have to understand. Yeah, that's what I'm saying though. But, you know, as a neighbor, you know, like, I, yeah, I've had times when I'm also not happy with the noise you guys produced. And that, you know, I think there's, that's just a, that's a discussion, you know. And yeah, we can, we can, I think, if there's a acceptable level of this, I think that's reasonable. I mean, everyone, I feel like as a business, we should be able to make a certain amount of noise. It shouldn't be unduly. It shouldn't be more than, you know, not asking for to put a, the band like you saw on July 4th out there every Wednesday. I'm asking for, I'm thinking of an acoustic, you know, bluegrass trio playing under the tent. You know, people can still talk and have a conversation while they're eating. Nice music in the background. That's, you know, that's the extent of what I'm talking about here. You know, and if there's, that's why I chose that 60 decibels to keep it. I couldn't do a full band out there and keep 60 decibels. You know, if you Google it, 60 decibels is really like a living room conversation level. You know, it's a, and you know, we're also looking at putting in even some extra reinforcement to keep the sound from bouncing back your way. Because you are right. You know, the, what you're, you know, the way that the sound points is huge. If we pointed the speakers away from you with nothing to bounce back to your house, I don't think you would even be able to tell it's on at all. So, but again, that's where that 60 decibel will come in. If we can achieve that, then you're not going to hear it. At the property that's not your house. Yeah. I'm just saying, we went to those meetings for a reason and this was what it was. We didn't want the lights. I don't want to blind in my sky and I didn't want that sound. Right. There was a reason why they said no doors and no windows open. I know, I know I want you guys to succeed too. And I understand. But I just is, can't you just keep the music inside? Can't your patrons go in and out? I mean, I don't understand that. Normally, yeah, normally, yeah, but not with COVID. That's why that's why we're dealing with it. People do not want to sit inside right now. They do not. And I don't want to either, but I don't want to listen to your music. That's why I'm saying we won't do the full bands. We do acoustic music. We keep it very low and just enough so people in there can hear it and enjoy music and dinner. And I really feel very confident that you're not going to be complaining about that. It's not going to be, it'll be louder if I put a speaker out there. It would be louder. I think it'll be, I can say this, it'll be less noise than you could hear even if we closed the doors for a big band, I imagine. I mean. Well, I guess, unfortunately for you, the fact that these mistakes were made in the past are what's concerning me that while you weren't allowed to do what you were doing and the fact that you're saying you have speakers out there, I don't understand. When the doors and windows couldn't be open, why is there speakers out there? But that's all I got. I mean, we went to the DRB for a reason. That's... Right. Well, I believe we've bet, we weren't doing anything. We did everything in accordance to the DRB. You brought like two examples which are valid that we weren't even aware of. Like, Bill obviously wasn't even aware of that there was this entertainment ordinance. We didn't realize, you know. I honestly, like the July 4th thing was somewhat of a last minute thing. We said, it's beautiful out. We just did the parade. Everyone's out doing fireworks. Let's do the show outside. That was like a last minute thing. And we did not think that would be an issue. You know, again, throwing the speaker outside and as we had just opened and all this chaos and trying to just bring some light mood. I mean, I had a friend downtown that brought out a full PA and did a full show downtown Waterbury and said they put it up at 120 decibels and just had the whole town dancing in the streets during COVID. I mean, people are trying to adapt to this difficult environment. And we are too. And we make mistakes. But at the same time, you know, I guess I'm asking the board to just consider that, you know, 60 decibels, I welcome, it's a challenge for us. It's not gonna be easy for us to keep music that low. We've considered just doing an acoustic guitar unamplified or something. I mean, it's basically in the realm of trying to almost like unamplified, but many instruments need some amplification, such as a keyboard. You know, you can't just bring in a piano. You need a keyboard with an amp. So unamplified doesn't make sense. So that's why doing some sort of low level of decibels to me feels like a reasonable approach where we can have a singer, guitar player, you know, or a piano player while people eat dinner, you know, and have it low key. What's gonna happen with the lighting? I have to guess that if they're out there doing that, they're gonna need some lights. You want a lot of lights or sound? Well, you know, we've got the tent out there. We did, I mean, I know the lights, you know, again, we're running the business. It's every day is another challenge and I didn't realize those lights were even, were an issue until being educated on it now. You know, the lights just went out for, those string lights that we had went out for a couple of hours the other night. We brought them right back in when it, when I became an issue. And now we see clearly in these bylaws that we have to keep them under the tents and everything and that's fine. You know, we can definitely follow all the regulations with the lights. That's not a problem. And we have new lights, you know, we just got the right lighting system that we've been wanting to get for a while. So I haven't seen the permit request. I'm curious to know a little bit about what it entails. And, you know, if a permit is issued, what kind of guarantees or recourse do we have if violations occur? Bill, do you speak to that or Steve if you're still on the call? Yeah, so the, as I said, the permit application, I sent that to you this afternoon. It simply allows the select board to approve it or disapprove it. If you disapprove it, you need to state your reasons. If you approve it, you can impose conditions. The conditions that are imposed usually have to do with the time the event can go on and the loudness of the music measured in decibels. I don't have, I didn't bring the full ordinance with me. I sent it all out to you, but if there's violations of the permit, there are probably enforcement actions that can be taken, including fines and pulling the permit. The permits are good from when they're issued through April 30th of the following year. So this permit has to be applied for and approved every year if you're gonna do it. Can I say one more thing? I actually have complained to Dean At and Steve about the lights that were not just up the other night. They were up for a long time and the times the music has been blasting and they've actually heard it. So I'm curious how come we can enforce this new permit, but we couldn't do anything about the things that happened before. Leigh Ann, can I comment on that? I was at those meetings as well. And I'm gonna be quite honest and very forthright with Noah. I love your business. I love live music, but the place that you have your business is not appropriate for the type of business that you're running. You have consistently, and I have recommended to the zoning administrator that there should have been violations based upon you not following your permits. Both parking, music, et cetera. I think there's a bad track record. And for us to take your word right now, I can't buy it because there have been promises before. They have not been kept. You've heard Leigh Ann and Chris say things have happened. I know their equipment probably makes some noise too. I'm sure that's an issue, but there are definite permit issues that have not been complied with. And I have a real hesitancy how I could even remotely vote for this. My piece. Well, I mean, just to respond quickly to that, I don't, I mean, all these complaints, I haven't gotten any notification. I mean, I can't recall any notification of any specific complaint about the lights until very recently I talked to Steve and we talked about the lights. And I said, oh yeah, we can definitely move those, change them around, put them beneath the tent. You know, anytime I've gotten any kind of notification of what we're doing wrong or need to change, we have jumped on and changed. We've always kept the doors closed for the music. You know, the only thing recently would be on Wednesday night when we did our first indoor show, which was a solo guitar player. We were thinking about that, like, well, you know what? They're telling us we need to keep the windows open for COVID, so we did keep the windows open. I don't know if what the, again, I'm not sure if that was an issue, what the sound levels are, I could check that. But I mean, I guess I'm not clear what you're saying, Michael, in terms of all these violations. The parking was always, for such a long time was an issue. And I know you and Dean, and finally, you put something forth and, you know, kicking in, you know, we tried to make even recommendations of what you should do and you really didn't wanna do them. And I feel for the neighbors. You know, as much as I said, I love live music. I think this community would love a place for live music. Where your location is, is probably the wrong location. And I'm just gonna be totally honest about that. And there have been issues, so there has been some trust issues that I think between the town staff, the select board and the DRB, I think there have been some questions. So I don't know how you're gonna change my, based upon the track record, I don't know how you're gonna change my mind. I really question whether there's gonna be 60 decibels. If they take a sound meter and you're above 60 decibels, are you gonna close your establishment down? I don't think so. Well, that's not even really the question, Michael. I know. I'm being a little facetious, but you know, they're having a bad history. I mean, you're not really, so yes. I mean, if the music is above that level and you take a decibel reader, and the difference between turning that music off and on is 60 decibels, which would be, I think the way to measure that. Like, yeah, then we can't do that because that's what we're proposing. So absolutely, we turn the music off. I don't think- We're gonna say no, we're not gonna do it. That's what my vote is, because you really, you know, you were looking for outdoor dining and that's what we're allowing by the interim bylaws. I don't think that's a good place for an entertainment purpose, especially on an ongoing basis. If it was a one shot deal or two shot deal, I might be a little more sympathetic, but this is gonna be an ongoing process. I know that's your business, and I'm sorry if I'm just telling the truth. Do any of you have- I'll share your opinion. Yeah, it's my opinion. Do any of you have- I think it's more, there's a segment of the population of Waterbury who agrees with me. And I know there's a segment who just want live music, but they probably don't live, they're not neighbors. And I try to represent all the people in Waterbury, not just a select group. Okay, so this is my first year on this, and obviously people have had complaints in the past about your business establishment. Like I've been in there a few times, I love it. I love the idea of live music and appealing to more people, but I agree with the parking concerns. I drive past that every day in the summer and late at night when it's still a problem. I think if you wanna do something like a scheduled event with live music outside and you get like a permit notice for that, but like a holiday or something, like a one, two time thing, like Mike said, I think that can be agreed upon or if you wanna do like a trial run for a year and see if you have no complaints, if you can keep it at desk level. And we come back a year from now and you have the same idea. And if you have been like good behavior wise with your neighbors and everything, maybe we can have this conversation again and maybe we can have a different outcome. Nat, do you have any opinion? I mean, again, I'm sympathetic to both sides, but having been on the DRB and knowing some of the hurdles that we jumped through to accommodate, I would be reluctant to let them have music outside. It's obviously a hot butt and issue with at least one neighbor, but I guess I couldn't support that right now. Let me just say that I want you to forget that I'm on the select board. And I appreciate the consideration. And like I said, I try to reach middle ground wherever I can, the equipment is an issue perhaps, but it's a daytime issue. It's not when, I mean, yeah, I guess if you're sleeping until eight, nine o'clock in the morning, it could be an issue, but in my world, I think you're supposed to be up by then. But yeah, I don't, you know, like I said earlier, if a permit's issued, what guarantees do we have that that's not going to be violated like other issues have in the past? And again, I tried to stay out of all those things. Figuring they might work themselves out. Yeah, I'm a, I'll step in and speak. You know, I am in your position. I had these permits earlier. I think my restaurant had a history of Argy restaurant town and it was made very clear to me very early that I believe the time had a decimal reader and they, they came by and did, you know, said that I would be checked on. And I kept it very, I took that very seriously because I knew that I was in a downtown community. So I think, you know, I was unconscious of my neighboring businesses, residents to try to figure out a way to do this, but also not the neighbors. And I think building those relationships and making sure that, you know, you're, you're not letting things slip. And, you know, it's you only take a couple of handful of situations and potentially create a problem. I guess my question would be to your neighbors are, are, are, maybe there was a way that you can report this if there was a rule book to play by, but I guess I'd ask you, is that something that you really, interested in trying to find a way to make it work for them? Or would you just prefer that it did not happen? Oh, you're asking me that, Mark. Yeah, just because you're, unless there are other. Yeah. I mean, let's be clear. There's never been any other neighbor can play except VNs, which I'm not trying to, that's just the fact. So I've, my other neighbors are there, they're psyched when we do music. They'll come over and hang out. You know, I've never had any other neighbor complain. So, you know, this is in VN and Chris, you know, you happen to be on the slack board and influential person, person in the community. So, you know, ultimately if it weren't for that, I don't even think we'd be having this conversation. So, you know, that's the crux of it. And to me, you know, like we've talked many times, Chris. I mean, neighbor to neighbor, I feel like we should be able to work this out. You know, yeah, I worked in a restaurant. So I don't wake up at, you know, crack a dawn every day. And yeah, I've been woken up by your machinery many a time. And I've never complained, not one lick about it. And I'm, and I don't, I'm not going to start doing it in spite of this at all. You know, but same time, I'm not going to start doing it in spite of this at all. You know, but same time, I would hope we could work something out that we could have low key soft music that you're not going to, you know, that's all I'm asking for. It would be, I'm not asking to do big productions outside. I'm not asking to do, you know, anything that. You know, it's going to be bothering you guys. You know, and you know, all these other concerns about our, you know, violations, you know, that to me that's a different discussion. I know that some of you feel different ways. I mean, we can discuss those. I haven't, I honestly haven't heard about all these violations. The stuff I heard, I think we have, we had the right intent. Maybe we didn't, you know, cross exactly the right T for you guys, exactly the way you thought, but you know, it's tough running a business. And we've been trying our best to, you know, to comply with all the regulations and all the policies and, and run a business at the same time. So I'm, I'm all ears for what that compromise could look like. But I would, I would really hope for the sake of us trying to survive as a business and for the many, many community members that want to come out and be part of what we've been building for the last three years, that we could come up with some sort of solution. The parking issue, you know, that's not relevant right now. We're not talking about doing big events. We're not doing the, the big shows. That's just not happening this year. They're all canceled. You know, the big, all those events is, we're not going to have a parking issue. I can, I wish I could say that I was going to have a parking issue. You know, we're talking about 50 people outside max, you know, but we're not going to have a parking issue. We're not going to have a parking issue. We're not going to have a parking issue. We're not going to have a parking issue. We're not going to have a parking issue. We're not going to have a parking issue. We're not going to have a parking issue. Max. And I'll be lucky to get that. Bill, you, um, you were recommending that we approve this permit. Do you have any comments? No, I, I've stated what I had to say. Okay. Um, Is there anybody else that wants to make a, is anybody want to make a motion or. I guess it would need a motion to pass, right? Yeah. Okay. So we're going to make a motion to deny the permit. Is there a second? What do we do in a situation that there isn't a second? Emotion dies for lack of a second. And another motion to be made. Is there another motion? I have a question. Is Chris voting? So does that mean we all have to vote? He's rescinded himself from the vote. So it would be the four of us. Running the running the meeting as far as I'm. Yeah. So it would be Nat or yourself, Katie. I mean, you can make a motion back. It's all right in the small group. Typically the chair doesn't, but it's allowable. Yeah. I mean, I, I totally feel for both sides and I, and I totally understand the frustrations because I've had, you know, I, I. I have a business that has neighbors. I've had issues over time. We've been able to figure out how to cause solutions. You know, I was going to suggest maybe we start with like, you know, a number of events. So there's a limit and, you know, we can. You know, Chris, um, your family could, if there was a noise problem, um, you know, notify the town right away. And, you know, this gives an opportunity for some musicians to get some income. And, you know, helps Noah. Along with his business model, which does include, you know, a certain amount of music with his restaurant. So, you know, I was going to maybe suggest that we offer just kind of a, a short run of events that he could try. And if there are any problems, then that's it. You're done. Um, but. Can I ask something, Mark? Go ahead. Um, I have complained. And it didn't seem to go anywhere. So I don't understand what, what, what does that mean? Yeah, I, and I understand that. And, and I, I, I think at some point we need to have a conversation. Meeting about how those complaints are filed and how there's follow-through and making sure that, you know, you as a community member are satisfied that your complaint is being looked into. I'm learning on snow street with a, um, an air conditioning unit on a commercial building right next to my house. It was terrible. And, you know, to be honest with you, it took quite a bit of work, but, you know, we are a small town. We don't have a lot of people, but I agree with you that there has to be follow-through. There has to be. Yeah. Once we approve these permits, there's a lot of conversations surrounding these permits. So, you know, I think people have to be held accountable to them because there's very specific decisions as you pointed out that you attended when this business. That, you know, You wanted them to be heard then and you wanted follow-through and making sure that that permit was held to. So, you know, I think we as a town should probably have a separate conversation about that. Um, and I think maybe we haven't done as good of a job as we needed to, to make sure that Noah was being informed. You know, I mean, you know, I mean, I'm not indicating with him, but as you went to the town, do we have. Yep. You have a record of just a paper trail of some, some, you know, and give, give business owners a chance or whoever a chance to, you know, rectify the situation. Hopefully we can all be good neighbors. So, you know, I'm trying to, you know, I'm kind of asking openly if, if that was something that, you know, within this specific, I do believe that this kind of thing is going to be pushed outside. I think it's the healthy and safe thing to do. I understand Noah's want to do it. I don't think I have interest in doing it. You know, if I put up a tent, but I understand why he's trying to do it. And I think he is trying to come forward with something that, and I understand that you guys have history and I respect that. And I understand Michael's position as well. Um, and Noah, I hope you understand that. You know, there is a belief that you're not following through with the things that you're agreeing to in these meetings. So, you know, group if they're willing and, and your neighbors, um, if they're willing to try to make this work for you in a, in a very small run, see how it goes and we can revisit and, and, you know, and try to fix obviously this is a problem. It's, I don't think we're here talking this late at night if it wasn't a problem. So how do we make, or make your business viable, but also make sure that the neighbors are protected and, and they can live in peace. So, um, Mark, maybe I have, maybe I have a solution and the one that I could live with and hopefully everyone can live with. I'll make them make a motion to allow the Zen barn to, and I know Noah may not be happy with this to allow him to have up to two event musical events outside per month that are less than 60 decibels in sound as he portrayed. And that gives him some opportunity to have some musical events. So we could have a track record and if things go well, maybe we could revisit it. Noah is, um, do I need to ask for a second or can I go to Noah and ask for his opinion on that? Cause I know it's not what he applied for. Right. I would ask for a second first. Is it right? After a second and then you can have discussion. Right. Did you repeat the motion? I make a motion that to allow the Zen barn to have up to two music musical events outside under under the 10. Forever. No, during, during this, uh, say that two year COVID. No, no, the, the permit that you're the entertainment permit expires on April 30th of every year. So, okay. From now until April. Okay. So. Well, I'll make a motion to permit up to two. Two musical events outdoors. For, uh, this one year. Permit that music not to exceed 60 decibels. That's the property line, right? Not at the ends of his house. So I'm talking at, at the, at the venue. I believe it would be. Right. Not even. Right. At the proper at the, okay. The edge of the property line. That's the language that, that Noah had put in the original. Ask. It's the parking lot. That's the property line. Right. The parking lot. Yes. So, I mean, my understanding is that's sort of the standard for noise ordinance is at the property lines. And that's where they typically measure the decibels to determine these things. I mean, that's why I put that on there. Um, you know, and I guess. I mean, two per month. Very little amount. I mean, I think if. I guess I would. I'm very, because I'm like, Noah. Sorry. I need to do a second and then we can discuss. But, um, Okay. I asked for a second. Sorry. Um, is there a second to the motion? So it seems like the motion dies again. Um, Katie, or do you want to make a motion or I will try to make a motion. You can try. So Mark, now we have, I mean, we've got a dead motion. Right. Maybe we could then. I just don't know how that. I, I. Maybe I can simplify this thing here. Well, I think we're all getting tired and exhausted. And, uh, I know my wife may not be specifically proven. Proven of this, but somehow I want to be able to guarantee that if there is issues that there's an immediate stop to it. Um, It would be nice to have some form of a trial basis. Um, I don't know if I don't want to subject myself to something that I'm going to regret, but, um, No, is there a, how many are you, how many days a week are you trying? Are you thinking you'd do this and, um, Could we put you on a trial period and see how it goes and then revisit this at a future select board meeting and hopefully everyone can come and say it went. And, you know, we can offer you, you know, more, more time, but that'd be something that would work for you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, here's like exactly what I've been trying to plan with a few key artists. We have a Thursday night, bluegrass night. Um, they played one time outside a couple of weeks ago, um, with no amplification. Um, it was kind of hard to hear in the tent, you know, it was a little bit like, all right, it was, it was fun, but it was, it was, like they wanted to amplify a couple of instruments because you can't hear the guitar and that bluegrass setup and you can't hear the vocals very well. It's a very, very low key thing. Um, I'd like to be able to do that as a tradition we've established Thursday nights really fun, family friendly. Um, we've traditionally did that in the past seven to 10. Now we were thinking of doing it six to nine o'clock, you know, bluegrass music. Um, you know, then I have a couple of solo artists that are interested in performing very small intimate solo guitar singer songwriter shows. You know, if I could basically ideally for me, I was thinking of doing, you know, you know, normally we do the Wednesday night dead, which is, you know, so far that seems like it's going to stay inside if people still are okay going inside. If I could do one day a week with Thursday night bluegrass, see how that goes. I'd be happy trying that out with that. I think it's going to be really inaudible. Um, some of it's the instrumentation, you know, I'm not going to be doing things that are going to carry. You know, I know, you know, what's going to be more challenging for this and not. So I would be, you know, obviously I know I'm on the line here, you know, if I piss off the ends again, I know it's over. So I'm going to be very cautious. You know, there's a couple of solo performers I'd like to do. You know, if I could do two nights potential a week, you know, that's the, that would kind of get me where I need to be, but I'll take what I can get. Obviously there's a lot of pushback here. I think I can set this up, but what would be helpful is if, you know, I'd be willing, like anytime I've gotten, I know for speaking for myself, you know, and, and, you know, Chris can say different, but like anytime I've gotten a complaint at all about the music from a neighbor and the only time I've gotten to actually direct complaint was from the VNs, I believe we've addressed it right away. If that's not the case, I'm happy to talk about that, but you know, I. So you're, you're, you're correct. No, and I won't dispute that, but the problem is, number one problem is the VNs is all of us live behind the Zen burn and that's where the both of the noise comes from. 100%. Yeah. And. Yeah, I mean, my, my mother in law wouldn't get on. Zoom and participate in this tonight because that's just not true who she is and my son and daughter in law were on, but they got tired of waiting for this. Agenda item. What I'm trying to suggest is. A trial effort here. But like issues in the past that haven't been addressed when. They've been asked to be addressed not by you. So much about the town. Kind of fell flat on their face. You know, what guarantee that we did have that, that won't happen again. I guess that's the only concern. So if you guys can form emotion. That will allow Nilla some trial. Effort here. With guidelines that say, if you mess up. You know, then, then it's going to be a, you said she said. Who's telling the truth here. I mean, we got no reason to say. That you're violating if you're not. Doing something you're not supposed to be. I mean, I'm not that kind of person. And Noah, can I say, when you said six to nine. Much more appealing than 10. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I look, I'm not, I'm, you know, I, I threw out 10 because I'm like, you know, you know, just as a. Yeah, it'd be nice to go. If you guys want to stop at nine, I mean, I'm. We're here to work with, with all of you. I mean, I'm not trying to throw something down your throat. So I'm not trying to make this difficult. We're trying to keep going with some. We're trying to keep going with some semblance of what we've been doing and for our customer base to keep them going. So hopefully by next year. When all this madness stops, we can keep people coming in the door. I mean, it's, it's really not, you know, this is, I don't want to be here doing this. This is not, you know, we've been just trying to make this work. You know, I think. Look, nine o'clock. Tried out for a month, whatever, till the next meeting, you know, I'll give you my cell number. Call me if anything's not right. Just call me and I'll change it immediately. You know. So are you thinking that Thursday? Is that what you're still saying? No, a Thursday night. I'd like to Thursday nights and, you know, if I could do a few, you know, solo shows like I was talking about, you know, with very, you know, I think those would be even quieter than those bluegrass shows. I'm talking about a singer, songwriter and the 10, you know, there's a couple artists that we're interested in doing that. You know, that's, that's the extent of what I'm talking about right now. You know, I don't have, that's about what I got for plans, you know, because there's artists out there, they're just like begging me every day, can I do something? Can we do some kind of show? Even if it's 30 people show up, whatever, you know, let's do something, you know, so that's, that's about it. Can I ask you though, is your intent then when this is all over and you can go back inside, but that's what you're going to do. You don't plan to keep doing the outside thing, right? I don't, I don't need to keep doing, you know, the inside is set up as a stage. It's a lot easier to do a show inside. Even now, if I, if I could get people to go inside, I would do it there. If like, if Thursday is during the summer, if it seemed like that felt like you guys after a month of this or a summer of this, if it worked well, if you're like, yeah, I can't even hear it. And it's not a problem at all. You know, having some, you know, fun, like a bluegrass band outside on Thursday nights that is really low key and people are hanging out when they want to be outside anyway, would I like to do that? Sure. You know, but I would totally be open to a discussion on that. I don't need to force that if, if it's still, if we can't figure out making it so you can't even hear it or it's like, you know, I just want to make sure the DRB decision isn't going away because of this. It's not. And to the, to the question that has been asked a couple of times about how can the town enforce this and be different than it is been responsive or not responsive to your concerns in the past. Not trying to disparage anyone, but the permit that he has to operate is a zoning permit and it's enforced by the zoning administrator. And I know you've talked to Dean and I know you've talked to Steve and I know Steve had talked to Noah just recently about the lights, but this permit that we're talking about now is issued by the select board. It's not issued by the DRB. The select board is the body that puts the conditions on. I just went in the other room to check what the enforcement capabilities are. There's fines that you have to go to the state's enforcement bureau, but it says that the select board can move to revoke the permit. So if the select board makes a motion tonight to do something, whether it's permanent or temporary and puts conditions on a condition that I would suggest that you include is a condition that allows the select board to revoke the permit if in their estimation the conditions are not being complied with. It doesn't have to go to the zoning administrator. It doesn't have to go to court. It's just the select board gets to pull the permit if it thinks that the conditions aren't being complied with. Do any other members want to make that motion? Or make a motion, including those items? All right. I haven't tried motion yet, so I'm going to try. I'm going to make a motion that Zen Barn can operate out. Outdoor music. On Thursdays and one other night a week. For the next six weeks. If there are any issues with neighbor complaints, this permit will be withdrawn. 69. I'll just say before nine. I don't know if you want. And then also with no more than a 60 decibel. We'll go back to that. I think we can get to that. I think we can get the audio at the property line. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion. Does that include the ability to revoke the permit if you're violating. I believe I included that. All those in favor. Say aye. Hi. Hi. All those. Not in favor. Not in favor? The motion passes. No, I hope you understand that, you know, this obviously was a please follow and hopefully you find success with it. And yeah, let's make sure that we keep Yes. Yeah. I know. Look, I really appreciate the support and willingness to compromise. And, you know, I know it's late, but you know, it means a lot to us just to have support from you guys. And we're going to do our best to, you know, meet all the conditions and keep up the dialogue. So I appreciate your compromise to Noah. Thank you. I'll even come to a show to support live music. I was going to say, can we get a pint? We can talk about it. I'll buy. I didn't back for the meeting because I'm terrible at it. So, Chris. Okay. So it's just the last item on the agenda, which is music in motion. More music here. Let's see if we can get through this one a little quicker. Yeah, I thought that Tammy Bass from the Rotary Club was going to be on this call. I know it's 1110, but I don't think I ever saw her on here at all tonight. So I sent an email out this afternoon that included daily quest. Evidently, this is something that they would like to do in lieu of a fireworks show. We are talking about music in motion, which is going to be a truck. I believe pulling a flatbed trailer with one or two musicians on the back. I'm not even sure what the band is. So they would like this truck to be able to drive through a couple of the neighborhoods of Waterbury, which would include Stowe Street coming down to the intersection of Main Street, then going up Main Street past this building over Union Street back to Stowe Street, then South on Main Street to Elm Street over Randall Street, and then Park Row into Pilgrim Park. They're trying to work out something with Wayne Lamberton to allow a drive-in concert there. And they're proposing that it be a concert that people pay to see, that they drive into the Pilgrim Park area, that they have to stay in their cars. They could get out of their vehicles as long as they are able to touch their car. The public would be required to wear masks, although they admit this would be difficult to police. It's the Chad Hollister band that they're trying to work with, which would consist of two people. The trailer would have a generator for the power necessary to do this. So they're not here tonight to talk about it. I don't know if they're making any headway with Wayne Lamberton. So that's all the information I have. They have not applied for an entertainment permit. I think given what I read of the ordinance that they probably should have an entertainment permit to do it, talks about, you know, one-time event shows and the like. But I don't know how you feel about it. They're talking about it for Saturday, July 18th with a rain date of Sunday to 19th from 7 to 8.30 p.m. Bill, I have a question from her email where I was a little bit concerned. She says, who's liability would this be events on their spruce peak performing arts? And she says, the town of Waterbury revitalizing Waterbury. I'm concerned about those two. I don't know if we want to have any liability. Yeah, I don't think that we will have any liability. The the event is not ours. It's not a parade. You know, my only I guess the only permission besides potentially an entertainment permit that you would have to give is how do you feel about this truck driving through the neighborhoods of Waterbury? They suggest that only residents along the route would receive a flyer letting them know about the event. But, you know, are they going to, those people are going to mention to their friends and is it going to draw a crowd? But I don't I don't see any real liability issues for the town. Mike, they would have to satisfy whatever Wayne Lamberton had as far as ensuring him and his property. It's their event. It's it's not a town event. So we would not be involved in this at all, except perhaps for the issuance of an entertainment permit, if you think that you want to have them do that. What what time was that again, Bill? 7 to 8 30 p.m. 8 30. July 18. So it seems like it probably a 20 minute or so drive through the community and then an hour's worth of music once they get to the venue. An awful lot of work for an hour and a half, two hours. This sounds like this is going to be for this year the future of live music, you know, these drive-in kind of entertainment events, you know, the campaign fairs doing them. I think Spruce Peak Performing Arts is doing an event like this in Morrisville on the 20th of this month. And I think that some people from the Rotary are planning to go and watch that. So it's really nothing to us, right? I mean, for the most part, we can make a motion to approve to approve the. I mean, there's time for them to come back and get an entertainment permit if we want to go through the process of that. Well, I thought I was going to ask, could we do it? No, we do that. And probably we should have them fill out the same permit for the one time event and condition it any way that you feel necessary. I told her mine, I wanted to select board to weigh in on the drive through the neighborhood. I don't know how you feel about that. Well, that's why I asked what time frame it was going to be. Because if it was going to be nine, 10 o'clock at night, then I'd have to question, you know, how people I mean, just a drive through is not like what I'm, what I'll be, you know, having to maybe face here or not. Yes, it's a one shot deal. Yeah, well, just to drive through for, you know, 10 seconds, 50, 20 seconds, whatever you're going to hear it for on their way to wherever they're headed down to Pilgrim Park, isn't going to be an issue. Yeah, I mean, if I think about the amount of moving procession events that have happened in the last two months on I live off of Stow Street, there have been at least two or three that I can remember that made an incredible amount of noise and nobody even asked me. Graduation parties and stuff. This is, yeah, you know, graduation parties when the boys won the hockey thing and then when the teachers were saying goodbye to all their students, they're honking up a storm. All three of things I would have said yes to, but you know, here, somebody's at least asking. Right. So do we need, do we need a motion to approve this thing? I mean, I'm getting so tired of you think, but yeah, okay. I think it doesn't hurt to say that you approve this event as proposed. All right. I would take a motion that we approve this event as proposed. And are we also going to say that they should apply for the one time event permit? Yes. I would agree. So the motion has been made. Is there a willing second? Any further discussion? Yes, not. All right. All those who want to approve it, say aye please. Motion to adjourn. Nothing else left, is there? So motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. Yeah. All those who approve, shut off your Zoom. I'll see you next time. All right. Thank you all very much. Good night all. Good night everybody. Thanks for being so patient.