 say October 26, 2021 to order. And do we have any agenda additions or changes tonight? I do not. No. Trustees, anything? All right. Then no need to approve of the agenda. And this will bring us into public to be heard. So this is a time of tonight's meeting where if there are any comments, questions, concerns from members of the public that have that are not a part of any agenda item, then that was that time. So for those of you using Microsoft Teams, please go ahead, raise your hands using Microsoft Teams. There's a raise your hand feature. And while you're doing that, I would ask those in the room, if there are any guests in the room, please go ahead and raise your hand if you would like to speak to the board. And I would ask George or Evan, if one of you could. Yes, no, there's among the audience in the room, no one's raising their hand. Great. Thank you. So then we will come back to Microsoft Teams. I saw a hand up, bear with me as I get to the list. And Harlan, go ahead, you can unmute yourself. The floor is yours. Hi, Andrew. Obviously, I've had this conversation a few times about executive sessions, and I see a few notated for this evening. And there's one that's very vague, and I'm just kind of curious as to whether or not a little more information could be enlightened before you go into an executive session on it. And that would be public parking and the purchasing of lands. And it actually, I'm not even sure it says public parking, it says downtown parking. And would that be the village considering to purchase lands, or would that be somebody considering purchasing village land? Or this is the first I've heard about it. And it seems like it's going to go in behind closed doors again. And I'm a little concerned with that, that I know the public has weighed in on public parking and downtown parking a lot. I think we'd all like to know what those discussions, I don't think we need to know a lot of the details, but some details would be nice. So that was it. I just wanted to bring that up. Thank you, Harlan. I would say when we get to that item, we will hear from staff, I would say, about the issues. I will admit that I don't know the details of this point. So I can't answer your question. Let's see. Are there any other hands? I don't see any other hands up for those. I'm not showing that I'm muted. Oh, good to know. So I'm not seeing any other hands up on Microsoft Teams. So we will go ahead and come back to the agenda. And first on the agenda is the work session on extension independence. Hello again, Brad. Just one item tonight, just the opportunity to debrief after your joint meeting last night. Thank you, Brad. So for members of the public, the way we have been doing these work sessions is we are seeking public input before we go into the conversations, and that is the only time that we are doing public comment on the work session items. So if you have any comments public, please go ahead in Microsoft Teams and raise your hands. And similarly, if you are in the room, please go ahead and raise your hand if you have any comments about that agenda item. George, Evan, any hands up in the room? Hey, we can see you now. All right. Great. All right. So nobody in the room, and I'm not seeing any hands up on Microsoft Teams. So we will go ahead and have that debrief. Yeah. So this is just the time for you guys to regroup. Your next joint meeting is November 22nd, and the only on there one that's currently scheduled is December 13th. So, you know, at some point, probably a conversation of if you're going to continue those meetings, getting those scheduled into the first part of next year. But it's the rest is yours. Thank you, Brad. I would say, yes, let's keep having these meetings. We need to have these joint meetings in order to have any kind of progress made on these agreements. I'm hopeful in the sense that, or hopefully we can get some level of agreement in terms of that tier one and tier two. I think that that may be a significant assist, if you will, in getting the emergent needs taken care of and some of those lesser issues, I would say, being able to wait on those, I think will be very helpful. In terms of a general comment, and Brad, I think to you, in terms of helping to make sure that all the edits are captured, I assume you're working with Claudine and or yeah, with Claudine to get those put in. Yeah, I think the three of us, Claudine, Kristen and myself will just continue to monitor those. Bill was going to take the first crack at making some adjustments to the four from last night. And so as soon as he gets those over to us, we'll review them and get them shared with you all prior to November 22nd. Great. Trustee, is it anybody have any immediate concerns or any immediate thoughts? I do, Andrew. It's George. I don't have concerns, but I do want to just two points. First of all, I just want to throw the question out there to the other trustees because I haven't gone back and done and looked at all the contracts and all the iterations of the contracts. But it seems to me that we get through, we get it down like with the police contract as an example, where there's just some language and there's just a few minor things. And then two weeks later, we see it and there are some new materials as another paragraphs, they've they're gone. Okay, you're back. We can see you. We see you. Okay. And so there's another, there's another, there are new paragraphs and there's a new way of explaining something. And so we then deal with that and we resolve that and kind of figure out what we're going to do. And then it disappears and comes back and there's new stuff. Now is that just my impression? No? Okay. So Raj is agreeing with me. And I guess I guess I'm just sort of saying my concern is that I it's great that the attorneys are working on this and there are others working on this. I encourage that. I think that I personally feel, since we have a little bit of time, I personally feel having 10, 10 elected officials working on a contract in this intensive meeting. I would, I would have, right at the beginning, I would have said I would have appointed a smaller, more lean and nimble committee with lawyers and a couple of representatives to work on it. I think it would have been done quicker. I think this is a very cumbersome way to do it, but that's fine. It's the way the two boards have chosen to do it. But I just wish that I would just cautioned, please be careful adding new stuff. Once we've sort of gone over some ground, it almost has the feeling that we're seeing new things getting added. And can we please not have it? Because it's almost like the goal line keeps getting moved further back. That's one comment. The other thing is Andrew, you last night looked at the contracts and you kind of made a division of the contracts into tier one and tier two. I understood what you were saying, sort of critical ones that are essential for budgeting and so forth. I would just caution you that, that I'm not sure that the select board necessarily agreed with your designation of tier one and tier two. That, that's a designation that maybe we have that works for us, but I'm not sure it's universally shared. So I would just, only you might want to confirm with the select board with Andy and Pat, if that's how they see things before we go too far down into that way of formulating all this. So those are my two comments for now. Thanks. Thanks George. And I think that both of those comments speaks to the overall process that has unfolded and that being, you know, our two boards come and we talk and then when the select board has an individual meeting in executive session with their attorney, that's when we then get new language. That's when we then get those new paragraphs and that's really when things are changing from the meeting. So similar to, or to expand then upon what you were just talking about with the two tiers, I am hopeful that they, the select board agrees with that approach. Believing that meeting, my understanding is the select board is going to meet with their attorney and then they will have a response to that. I did not leave that meeting in any way feeling that they had agreed to that process. Okay. Yeah. I think I saw you raising your hand. Yeah. And George, I agree with all of that. And I think, I mean, I went into last night thinking that we were probably going to put a few things to bed and I was looking forward to saying, you know, we agree in substance and we can move on. I went into last night feeling like we were done with police and it felt like we spent an inordinate amount of time on that, which is fine, I guess. I guess I'm wondering if there's a way to, so my understanding, right, is that they meet again in the first. We don't get together for weeks, but they meet again in the first and if they're going to be able to at that time check in with counsel, is there a way that we can have a check in very quickly after, you know, Wednesday of Thursday of that week and leadership of the, you know, Andy, you and Andrew, or Andrew, you and Andy, or something just to kind of get a good read on where we are. Because I think this is getting, dragged out is the wrong term. I'm not trying to assign it to anybody. It just feels like it's exactly as you described, George. Things keep getting added and thought of and I think that was verbalized by a member of the select board last night. We don't know if other things are going to come up and it sort of feels like, you know, until we can look at each other and say, you know, we agree in substance and we're going to move on to this tentative agreement, things are just going to keep being added. And that's, again, my second point is that's where the tier one, tier two becomes critically important. We have to get to a point where the tier ones are just done. You know, unless there's something so glaring and so obviously missed and I guess we should be ready for that sort of thing to come out of budget day. You know, we could get to the 22nd where they have a revelation on the 9th and decide that they have to revisit some of these. But as for your subcommittee, maybe the tier two agreements, that's how those can be approached to save some time for the both boards and for staff. I don't know if that'd be a staff time savings, but you know, maybe the tier two stuff can, the board boards can agree to have a subcommittee to deal with those items and move it along. Before we can do that, we have to do that. I hear you, Dan. I can communicate that, Raj, with Andy. Just float that by him. I don't disagree. I think it would certainly have expedited this whole process. Any other thoughts, trustees? I want it. I'll just add really quick. I mean, overall, I'm grateful to the select board for working with us and I do think we're making progress. And I do think the, I get the general idea that we are, we are working in good faith trying to find things. Again, just please, if we can, to try to restrain ourselves and refrain from adding new things, you know, creating new ground or anything that might introduce a new issue. But overall, I think our progress has been good. Thank you, George. Great. Well, if there's nothing else, this could be the shortest work session we've had yet. Almost, almost six months to the day of the first one. So that's it. Good luck with the vote and yeah, we'll be in touch with updates on those agreements. Yes, I do appreciate that. And while I know it's not related to, it's not on the agenda for the work session. I just didn't want to extend an appreciation to the work that's been done by our village, our voices in terms of reaching over 3000 households. I see that I am neglecting an email that Elaine had sent to me asking to be on this agenda. And as I'm saying that I'm seeing her hand is currently being raised and that may be what this is in regards to. Since I opened that can of worms, board, do you mind if we invite Elaine to speak to that for a moment? Not at all. Go ahead. Go ahead, Elaine. Thanks very much. We would like to speak with all of you, but not at this meeting regarding the overall results of our efforts, but I just wanted to pop in to give you an update that as of today, 2147 ballots have been returned. That's 30.6% of registered voters. We want to be at 60. So anything that the trustees can do to compel folks, motivate folks to return their ballots, perhaps a front porch forum post to everybody, more engagement from trustees. We've gone door to door. So now we're kind of at the point where it's in everyone else's hands. So any additional encouragement that we could all provide would be really effective, I think, in boosting that number. We have one more week to go. And thank you so much for all your work. Thank you, Elaine. And please do pass it along to all of the our village, our voices volunteers. So it may be a good idea, trustees, after this meeting, I can send around maybe a way we could coordinate sending things in front porch forum, just reminding people to mail in those ballots, but also so that we're not duplicating days. So I can send that out after this meeting. Can I ask a question on that? Sure. And Elaine, I think you're on the call still. Brad, do people feel like it's too late to mail? I did a front porch forum just before the meeting, and I was looking at the calendar thinking. So I did write that at this point, please bring it. It is definitely too late to mail. October 25th yesterday was probably the last really good day to mail in. So the push should be now dropping off at 81 main and coming to the polls. Thank you. Yep. Great. Great. So it looks like we are done the work session. Brad, thank you again. Thank you as always. See you after the vote. And so now going into business item 5B, a discussion on retail cannabis. Robin? I'm here. I've even got my microphone on. You should have a memo. Memo came about from discussions with Evan, Greg, Wiso, Darren. Also, I spoke to the attorney of the state cannabis control board, even out of his way to say that he could not give us advice, but he could tell us his interpretation of the rules. First and foremost, we would have this in the memo. We would have to have a majority vote from a warned ballot from residents that could either be a time wide vote or a town and village individual vote. The attorney told me that unlike liquor control, all it says in Act 164 is that a municipality can vote to have a local cannabis control board. We went on to discuss and it seems, you know, we would be voting for retail. There is a second category, which is integrated, which is cultivation, manufacture, wholesale and retail. Local communities have absolutely no control over that, except through zoning. We would not be asked to approve or disapprove of an integrated facility. We had looked in the past and it was our conclusion early on that zoning would be the best way. The village planning commission has already discussed an overlay district. The state cannabis control board a few days ago put something into practice that you can't have a retail facility within 500 feet of a school. Now, if you think about the center of the village, that would probably say no retail. Perhaps up, I think it's 159. That would be west of CVE. I have had close fix there a few times and paintings framed so that there are spaces there. I think there's a space that could be available there. Perhaps the new building that's going up with the old 197 more place was, but there would be very few places in the village where you could be more than 500 feet from the school. The planning commission would also talk about other retail activities that we perhaps wouldn't want in certain areas. We might include tobacco, liquor, I'm not so sure if we'd have much control over that, but we thought if we're really going to be looking at retail that we don't want in certain areas, we should be widening our lands and looking at all retail, not just honing in on cannabis. So that's where we stand at the minute. The two controls, if you want to call it that, a municipality would be to opt in. The other one would be through zoning. The other thing to remember is if a municipality opts in and a retail outlet opens, and then the municipality decides what's not really working for them and they want to opt out, which they could do, any retail facility opened during that time period would be grandfathered in. So we are going to put together a website which would be accessible from the town website and the village website, just giving people an overview of what's possible, what isn't possible, what control the municipalities have, and how the vote would come to decide year in a through a ballot. I think quite a bit if that's in the memo, what I've been saying. So there's also, oh yes, this is in the memo. There's a meeting November 1st where it's a joint meeting, whether it be a presentation that was given to the CCRPC, Chittin Country Regional Time Commission at Wildlock. So you'll be getting a presentation of that from Melanie Needle and another person. His name escapes me at the moment. I think I might have met her once, but as ever, the CCRPC are more than willing to come to our meetings and give any information they have that they think we might like to hear. Any questions? Thank you, Robin. Looks like Raj's hand was up first. Thanks. Thanks, Robin, for providing all this. I got a few questions and a couple of comments. So the integrated license would include retail and we'd have no say over where that goes because it's integrated that can get past the local approval but still provide retail. Yes. Okay. And can you or someone send, was it a recent meeting the Planning Commission had where they discussed this? I'd like to go back and see it. We maybe get a synopsis. Literally, two sentences. This is coming up. We should consider an overlay district. That's as far as we got. We're working through the chapters and we hadn't got to a chapter where retail is part of the discussion. We have a little while. I think it's changes, but last I heard it was May or June 2022 is the first time retail group netting municipality had opted in. Okay. So the reason I guess for something like this where you're, as you said, you're thinking about spreading this even beyond cannabis, that could be or should be probably more than the normal one or two odd planning committee meetings. It probably should be something with a little more intention for public outreach and drawn out a little more. And I would, one of my comments is I would love to see the entire zoning issue dealt with before this is even considered to be put in a ballot. I think we've seen in the village businesses come in and then kick ourselves because we haven't got around to the zoning. So I feel pretty strongly that we don't feel the pressure to get this going on this town meeting day if the zoning is not exactly where we want it. Yeah. And I have an indication from the attorney who the state that there was a sunset date on opting in, although the rules are changing. I mean, weekly, when we met, we saw Greg and I met with two members of the state cannabis control board 10 days ago. And there was no discussion of setting up a maximum distance from schools, the retail operation. That's something that occurred after after our discussion. So they're still working out the rules. The distance from schools works in a community that's different than ours. The distance from schools might work in a town of Essex or another different community where kids are generally bus, but in the village, they predominantly walk to school. And they walk just about every road we have in the village. So if you look at the CDC guidelines and others, they don't just talk about distance from school. They talk about proximity for walking routes and everything else. So I want to make sure that there's enough time to have those considerations in a district like ours where, especially in the village, we're not really looking at a strict, you know, as the crow flies distance from a school, which as you point out is most of the village. But, you know, where you pointed out in the old 197 building, that's a walking route for a lot of kids and literally right next to a bus stop. There's a bus stop right there for children and a park. So I really, I feel strongly that we need to be considering recreation spots, gathering spots for kids and everything else when we do this. And when you look at the village and you do those overlays, that doesn't leave a lot of space. And that may not leave any space. Yeah. And that's going to be a discussion that the community has to have and has to have time to have and get their head around. So I'm hoping we, we aren't feeling like we need to, you know, the town may feel like they have to do, which is my last question. If we're still a village and the town decides to vote on this, this coming spring, are we bound by that because we're not a city yet? No, my understanding is each municipality can have its own vote. Okay. It's different. It's silent, you know, as David said to me, the attorney, if you look at liquor, it says tons or cities. It's silent on that in act one, six, four, just as municipalities, which the villages. I appreciate that. Thanks. This was really useful, Robin. Yeah. And we have been talking about the overlay district in the village relating to roots to school and stuff, you know, which would be separate from whatever the state comes up with, but still part of our zoning regulations. Great. Thanks. Go ahead, Amber. Robin, I think we covered some of this last night at the select board meeting, but I think all of us have been kind of looking towards a March, April vote and a necessity to do a March or April vote. But I think from our previous discussion, it's my understanding that the rules and the regs really aren't developed yet. And so there is no actual push to do that. Is that accurate? Yeah, I'm understanding. I specifically asked David, three things. One was what the municipality mean. On the other one, is there a date that a municipality has to have a vote? And as of last Wednesday, the answer was no. I think part of the discussion was trying to, you know, see where the committee was going to end up, the cannabis committee, where they were going to end up on rules, including this, like 500 feet. And then kind of make a decision as to how that was going to, whether we were going to put it on the ballot or not. Because right now we're kind of, not only do we have any idea about zoning piece, we don't really have any, we don't have any idea where they're going to fall for regulations. Go ahead, Robin. I'm just not sure what value a local cannabis control board brings. The state will also be approving retail and if it's integrated. No, they can approve integrated and individual retail. So I'm not sure, I'm not sure what a local cannabis control board supposed to do. That's why the attorney suggested it's in the memo that he thought the two best ways for municipality to control retail cannabis was through zoning and through nuisance laws, regulations. I think that, I think that's in the memo. It's not, it should have been. Yeah. The other piece I just wanted to note was that, again, reiterating that there is a CCRPC presentation November 1st, which is not a joint meeting. It is a select board meeting. So just for trust me. Oh, really? My understanding was it was a joint meeting. It is not. Nope. Nope. And they were in mind that this, the presentation, I'm not sure whether it'll be refreshed or not. So things may have changed since the presentation was put together. I will check that tomorrow. Well, it'll be, it'll be taped. Town meeting will be there. So for those who can't attend, and especially for trustees. So we can always watch it after. I can't believe you guys didn't want to meet two Mondays in a row. That's a good one. Georgia Dan, do either of you questions, comments? No, I had my hand up earlier at Raj touched on what I wanted. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. So we're good. Thank you. Okay. The only things that I just wanted to reiterate or further clarifies Robin, when you were talking about creating a timeline or creating an overlay district, how long is that process from start to finish? It's very quick. I mean, basically we talk with the schools would get input from residents and where do your children walk? How do they get to school? We, you know, literally it's controlled by how quickly we get responses. The code is supposed to be updated before the new year. That's been the goal from day one. So the coach should be coming to the trustees for approval. Other just before Christmas or just after. Now, in that goal, is it also to have these overlay districts final by then? Absolutely. Okay. And, you know, that'll even be before there's a vote taken to opt in or opt out. And my assumption is if you vote to opt in, given what David said, you can vote to opt out again. If the first vote is to opt out, you can have another vote to opt in, which tells me there's no sunset on the on the vote. Hang on a few moments, Raj. I just wanted to clarify in that I saw a VT digger article that did talk about that 500 foot buffer. And it looks like it can be for that municipalities can expand that up to 1000 feet. So just wanted to make sure that's out there. One thing I would prefer is it's great to see that there's going to be a hybrid meeting. I certainly would prefer and advocate for more than just one. I'd hate to have there only be one opportunity for somebody to ask questions and or express their desires in a meeting. So I would certainly like to see more than one. Melanie, sorry, Melanie will be available on Tuesdays from mid to late November on. So she'll be able to present then. She's not available on Tuesdays to the minute. I'm sorry if I missed this in the memo. Who's Melanie? Melanie Needle. She's from the Jitton County Regional Planning Commission. She was the one that helped us with the energy plan. Okay. Other things. Okay. So the plan would be for her to run these and or facilitate these? Absolutely. They have they have they have the video. Okay. And then I interrupt. I think I saw Melanie. I think I saw a flash from someone named Melanie show up on your screen. She might be at this meeting. I don't know. Let me check. It's Mariah Flynn. Okay. We'll be we'll be I believe Mariah Flynn will probably be talking with them. Okay. The other thing I just wanted to make sure was was mentioned yesterday but just to restate it. The initial push was there was an understanding that communities had to opt out in order to to not allow for retail cannabis. And that that was an incorrect understanding and that instead in order to allow for retail cannabis we have to opt in for it. And so if we take no action then that in and of itself is an opt out. And so retail cannabis would not be allowed. And so there is no timeline to opt out if you don't want to. And as you said Robin there is no no timeline to opt in that could happen at any point in time as of now at least. So I think at least from the the meeting yesterday there's no rush on the select board's end to to rush into this. I can appreciate and I certainly do understand that we don't want to rush into it. I would say that I think this is something we do want to have our community have a vote on. I think our community should have a say as to whether or not to opt in or out or not. So I would like to see that happen. And I would prefer that we do leverage an existing vote for this or we leverage an existing opportunity to vote for this not necessarily create a special one. Unless of course we are unable to to come to some level of agreements with the select board in doing that. The other thing is I understand should we opt in the only way to have any kind of sustainable community revenue to help offset any costs that may come along with allowing for cannabis is to also have a local options tax. So I just would again reiterate my personal desire that's for the the village of Essex Junction if we can have a townwide local options tax votes come March then I think we really want to prepare ourselves for one in April so that we can get ahead of this. If memory serves there are 26 municipalities in Vermont or there had been last Wednesday who had voted to opt in. Yeah I remember when that legislation was passed there were some communities that jumped all over that bandwagon to get that vote out as soon as possible. But those were all my questions. Anybody else from the board? Oh yeah I'm sorry Raj. It's all right just a follow-up so I understand. So we can wait on when we the community can wait on when they want to have a vote to opt in. The state is doing integrated when is the soonest that an integrated license can be issued in Essex? I think it's May 2022 is when it could open and Magic Man again we so Greg and I met with Meredith Mann and that's when we met two of the the state cannabis control board members and she will have an integrated license. So Mariah is saying in the chat October so it looks like we have until if she's correct we have until until then to get our zoning in order because I'm going to assume that they can't once the zoning is in order they can't just approve it wherever they want it to be right that has to follow zoning. Yes okay and the only other thing I'd say is you know kind of what what you would your answer to Andrew about you're hoping to have everything ready for trustee review and approval by just before Christmas and it just doesn't sound like a lot of time for the public to weigh in on that I think I understand that's probably normal but I haven't been through one of these before as a new trustee so it is a very lengthy process it sounds like it will take probably about a year right we're going to have a public hearing on and I'm assuming or two before we approve it if that works absolutely we may want to I guess what I'm toying with is like you know it's something this major in terms of a zoning rewrite and this subject if we want to try to think outside the box and we don't have to decide that now just something to think about if we want to think outside the box a little bit about how to engage the community on that and is between Thanksgiving or between now and Christmas the right for the Christmas holiday the holiday season the right time to do that you know it's just a something that occurred to me when you when you mentioned the timeline on that again that doesn't have to discuss it tonight we don't have to answer it tonight it's just something I just saw something Mariah um kiped um the medical and marijuana dispensaries by May 2020 which is probably where I got my May 2020 from but she's got a lot more information on this than I do one thing I would just I would say as well um Mariah if there's if you want to add these comments um verbally you're more than welcome to do so I would say that in order to be a part of our record we don't uh a comments that are in the chat are not part of the record so um if you have other thoughts would love to hear them I would say I am not an expert in this subject and would appreciate hearing from somebody who has a fair amount of research on it go ahead Mariah sure hi I'm I'm happy to I just didn't know if there was an opportunity for that or not um so yeah I put it into the comments but the current medical dispensaries oh sorry I forgot to put my camera on the um sorry hello the the the way Act 164 was written the current medical dispensaries can be approved for retail cannabis licenses in May 2022 but full um retail is not available for all licensees until October 2022 so new licenses are not October 2022 um and I can certainly comment on a lot of the other things that have been talked about today or answer questions that might be helpful I so just to introduce myself I'm Mariah Flynn I live here in the village um but I'll be joining Melanie Needle who's the um CCRPC planner um to come and talk at the meeting next week um kind of as a representative who also works in substance misuse prevention and public health so I look at things from all share information from that lens Melanie will share information from a planning lens um next week um but I also just happen to live here so this is something that I'm really interested in in the community that I live in um and have been thinking about a lot um and so there's actually a lot of because other states have done this before us there is actually a lot of great information out there now to help us make some informed decisions as a village about what might be appropriate um and what you know from the lens of what what I'm most passionate about what's going to help reduce substance misuse among youths and high-risk populations um and help the community to thrive um and for you know just kind of in looking at how others have ruled this out I would say that those communities that didn't do a good job of planning ahead of time for the community that they wanted are really struggling now so I would kind of echo what Raj is saying which is get all of the things you can in place locally to um to think about you know not just cannabis but also tobacco and alcohol um and the impact and what um and what kind of local policies we can put in place now because if you don't do it ahead of time the industry or folks who kind of have those businesses are very influential in communities and kind of keeping the status quo so it's really hard to make changes later um but if we put that in ahead of time protections and then we're much more successful um and there's a great website called getting it right from the start that um the kind of puts together model policies for communities um has um uh just a whole bunch of a wealth of information that's really useful um that came out of California again they had some they struggled because retail popped up everywhere and they weren't prepared for that it came like a you know Starbucks on every corner um which wasn't what they wanted for some of their communities I don't think we want here either and I and just kind of also to piggyback on Raj the you know I think what's helpful or important to think about in the village is we also have the teen center here too which is another space I would kind of put in the same category as a school um the library things like that where a lot of kids are spending a lot of time um so you know when we think about local zoning I would advocate for things where kids are spending a lot of time as a kind of but what the buffer areas are um and we may get to the point I mean you know I'll maybe keep my own I mean I would say that the village is not an appropriate place to have some of this retail like it might be a better fit for other more rural areas but um save that for other public comment thank you Mariah I do appreciate you um bringing your insight and you said it was I would also just I think I shared this with Amber before but um so we I actually in the work that I do in prevention we contracted with um the regional or sorry with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to do a comprehensive overview of what are like local districts able to do around zoning for regulation of alcohol and tobacco this was prior to read the cannabis being a thing um but so that document has like guidelines for here's what you can and can't do and what here's what the statute say so that could be a really good tool for folks to look at as well great thank you and just to make sure I heard you correctly you said that that website was getting it right from the start yeah okay great uh Raj I think I saw your hand up yeah Mariah thanks for for chiming in um and I just you know this this I don't know what Robin for instance if this was on the radar for the planning commission but you know this also includes signage and advertising and the document that Mariah just referenced goes pretty in depth about where you can can impact advertising um point of sale um so I mean this it's it's much more than just looking at um you know where they can and can't put them it's what they can put up in the windows what they can put up for signage um how they can advertise in that respect and um the document VLCT did with I think was CCRPC was pretty thorough in that um and a great resource so thanks Mariah for for adding to that board members were there any other questions comments concerns or otherwise we can ask for public comment on this those seeing nothing I would say if there are members from the public who wanted to speak to this item and make sure we we hear your thoughts on this please go ahead and raise your hands let's start off with those in the room so again George I'll look at you since I can see you no there's no one no one has your hand raised thanks great so then in Microsoft Teams uh Mariah I see your hand is still up um if you don't mind I'll go to somebody else and it can come back okay so I saw a hand there we go Annie Cooper you can go ahead and mute yourself and the floor is yours hi thanks Andrew um during EDC meeting I invited Mariah to um give a presentation and I'm really grateful to Raj and to our discussion and to where to your discussion and to where we are with separation everything because I think that hitting the pause button on on on racing toward that that vote is a good idea because I'm mostly just agreeing with with Mariah and Raj and and all that's being said I do think um that the liveliness of the discussion at that EDC morning EDC meeting at eight o'clock in the morning um revealed a lot about how I think um public input should occur during the process I think there should be a lot of um open meeting and a lot of back and forth and a lot of there just be a ton of it because there was so much learning to be had and Mariah had so much information and obviously everything is more well versed even now and I just think a lot of dialogue a lot of interaction and a lot of patience and slow movement because like like they used to say with heart and soul um yeah I'm sorry I'm just repeating I'm just applauding what Mariah said I'm grateful for the slowing down of that thanks thank you Annie are there other members from the public who wish to address the board on this item Mariah you can go ahead sorry I did um think of one other thing I wanted to kind of um clear up to which is there is no date by which you have to opt in so um so just to kind of reiterate that again like October 22 is when retail licenses can start being issued but there's no if we decide to wait five years and do it in five years we can there's no there's no um limit on when we can decide to opt in just at FYI so there's so the only rush is when is you know from people who maybe want to sell and want to kind of put move things along but um but that's it great thank you again Mariah so I don't believe that there were any decisions there's no votes on this item and so trustees if there's nothing else we can go ahead and move on to our next agenda item okay all right Mariah thank you so much Robin thank you as well although stick around because I think you're up again so our next item is the discussion of contracts and negotiating or securing of real estate purchases for downtown parking um as was mentioned at the beginning during public to be heard uh I have no idea what this is pertaining to Robin without divulging anything that shouldn't be divulged is there any more that can be said outside of what's uh what's in the motion I'm not sure what's about either I know we have been talking about one possible um parking area but I don't know if this is talking about that or something else sorry I could I could shed some light on that Andrew this is Evan the uh board had asked for an update of where we were in the discussion with a property owner previous and uh so we'll be able to do that there won't be okay there won't be any action it's just an update okay great so an update on okay previous parcel that we had had conversations with an owner okay um is this me Evan yeah but it's gonna be an executive session Robin okay so I don't have the language for this I've got it but our hang I was gonna say hang on before we we do that um because if that's just an update uh business item 5d is just a discussion without action so I'd say let's then go through the consent agenda reading file and then at the very end we'll do our executive session yeah but that is an intro uh under the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda second thank you Amber thank you Dan is running for the discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye anybody oppose great so that passed unanimously thank you and on to the reading file and board member comments does anybody have anything you want to talk about Amber go ahead I just wanted to say I was really excited to see all of the vouchers that were returned from out and about in the check boards and I look forward to hearing more about how successful that was yes agreed yeah thank you for that thank you I heard of along the amber along those lines and to entirely put staff on the spot is anyone able to put an estimate or a guesstimate as to about how many vouchers we're still getting them in um so I don't have an estimate in fact we got two new submittals today so we're still getting them but it went I mean it went well it would have been helpful if it didn't rain on Saturday um but that's the breaks um but it is well received uh for those who did participate and go out and about the bands were fantastic um I have heard uh that like uh anybody who knows Turner toys other than Christmas this has been their two best days last year and this year are their two best weekends other than Christmas time um so that's one thing I know I talked to Jake uh from Firebird and the Nest and they ran out of lots of things that they they just ran out of food um I know that uh El Gato was packed on Sunday night um so other than that we will get some uh info for your next meeting we'll have a full update thank you Evan any other trustees or staff members have other comments questions or other comments I mean it's just a grid happy event everyone is just delighted to be there they look forward to it it's just a really good community event absolutely couldn't have it couldn't have been what it what it turned out to be without getting it started that first time so thank you you brought another staff who helps to make that happen and volunteers dammy gechels a rock yep right is anything else nope then if somebody has the memos I I do uh I'm going to read the the two motions but on the first motion I'm going to I'll just want to make sure I think I'm inviting the manager assistant manager and community development director is that correct okay so I will move that the trustees make the specific finding that general public knowledge of contracts and confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services uh to the body would place the village at a substantial disadvantage and I move that the uh trustees enter into executive session to discuss contracts and confidential attorney client communications made for the personal purpose of providing professional legal services to the body pursuant to one vsa 313 a to include the trustees village attorney unified manager assistant manager and community development director thank you george uh given that we also have that second um executive session do you mind just going into that just make it one vote I don't mind hang on let me see if I can find it uh all right I think marguerite got it up on the screen you've got it up on the screen hang on marguerite thank you I can do it yeah go ahead down well since george started making the motion if you hang on that yeah I see yeah let me and let me let me continue along and I also move that the trustees enter into executive session to discuss the employment of a public employee in accordance with one vsa section 3133 to include the village attorney unified manager and assistant manager thank you george for all those motions can I hear get a second second I think dan beat that one out any further discussion on all that hearing none from the trustees all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi anybody opposed please say nay all right so I passed unanimously um so as I mentioned before uh we're not going to be making decisions in these we're just going to be having discussions and as such we would not be coming back to this meeting so uh town meeting tv and the public thank you for your your time today and we will see you at another time