 Mike, are you ready? Everybody ready? OK, welcome to the Essex Junction Trustees meeting. Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome, everybody. And if you haven't signed in, please do so. First order of business, Evan, do we have some agenda changes or additions? We have two documents to add to the agenda. I have some comments for item 5F that I'd like to add to the request to amend sidewalk policy. OK. That was placed at the settings for the trustees. And then the second one is adding AP is an executive session. We're actually going to have two tonight, one in real estate, OK, thank you. Do I hear a motion to amend the agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great, thanks. First order of business after that is public to be heard. Anyone in the public have something to say, comment, question about something that's on the agenda tonight. Next up, we have an interview with Kathy Shearer. Come on up, Kathy, for the Bike Walk Advisory Committee. Good to see you. Thank you. Jessica here. Yes, please. Welcome. Thank you. So what sparked your interest? Raj reads out to me. OK. Fantastic if I was interested. But I do live here in the village, and I am a dedicated walker in the village. My kids have always walked to schools. My youngest is a senior, so that time is wrapping up. But we walk to the library. If it's in the village, we walk there. Yes, yeah. How's the walking these days? Slow down a little bit, but in terms of the sidewalks. In terms of the sidewalks. And that's another piece of my interest in this, is I'm a physical therapist by training, and I certainly am invested in people getting out to walk. And that's my clinical area of interest as an older adult, and one of the things I hear most often from them, how difficult it is this time of year to get out, which I appreciate. Right. Well, I, trustees, questions for Kathy. Go ahead. Hi. So what are your thoughts about what the Bike Walk Committee gave particular interest in certain areas of the village that need improvement, or what are some thoughts the committee might pursue? I see, well, I'm familiar with how they received the Bike Friendly Community Award, and I'm not sure if there's a similar award for walkable communities, and I think that would be something that we should be interested in. I think I'm interested in some of the blinking lights that they, and I know they've talked about, and I didn't walk by to see if it's already there across from ADL, but it'd be crazy if they didn't have one there already. What I'm particularly interested in is ways that we can encourage kids to continue to walk to school. I worry about obesity, and I think it's too easy to drop your kids off when there's so much to be learned physically, emotionally, from walking to school. So what I'm really interested in is keeping the downtown village peace very walkable for kids going to school. I like the walking school bus that Summit does one day a week, where you can drop your kids off at the town offices, and they can walk up, and so I'd like to see us pursuing more activities like that from a walking standpoint. From a walking standpoint, Raj was telling you about how a few years ago they had worked with the tech center about designing interesting bike racks when that has sort of fallen off, but I would like to try and get that, I would be interested in that moving forward again if it was possible. I don't know all the details of it, obviously. And this summer we were at a town in the Maritimes, and they had all of those very interesting bike racks, or they had a series of very interesting bike racks. I was like, this is what we should be doing. Awesome. I don't have any questions. I am just really excited because I know how much you walk, and I know your background. To have someone on the bike walk committee finally who is a walker. We have bikers, which is great, and it helps all pedestrians, but to have that walking focus, so I appreciate you stepping up. I think it was certainly at a much needed perspective onto the committee, so thank you for calling. We've been so pleased with everything that they've achieved. They've really been self-sustaining and done so much, and boy, for not much investment in our part, they've really done a lot for the village, so really appreciate it. I mean, you're stepping forward, Kathy. Really appreciate it. Do you have any questions for us? Didn't come, nothing in particular, or? Not in particular. Raj was able to answer a lot of my questions when I went before, about just logistics, about terms, and things like that. But what specifically is the process after the interview? Well, I guess we, you know, we normally, we kind of go back and forth on this. Most of the time, we used in the past, have interviews in an executive session, a command of an executive session, and make the, announce the decision. Then we switch, then we switch back. I guess we could, we don't have it on the agenda, as a business item tonight, to appoint you. We have it as a potential executive session decision. It probably really didn't need to be that, but it's okay. I think, sorry, you can. Can we just add it? You can just. Yeah, I would just, I think that we can just be called. Interview for a person, you can appoint them, it's pretty, so if you're of a mind to appoint, make a motion and appoint. Yeah, so. I don't make a motion that we appoint Kathy Sherer to the like, walk advisory committee. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, you're appointed. Thank you. Is that easy? Thank you. Thanks, guys. We don't even need to write a letter. You, you, you start immediately. Okay. All right, I'll be in touch with George. Do you want to, do you want to, do you want to bring David up? Yeah, for the chips. How about you do that? Sure, well, tonight we have the annual presentation and David, I'm going to bring out Vogle. Yeah. Aren't you? Vogle here and I believe you have anybody else with you? Just you? Come on up. Sit next to Kathy. For the audience at home, chips is a tenant in the upstairs of two Lincoln. Most of the times are quiet, except for Mondays. Mondays are when we have a tweens and we have a whole bunch of them and it gets a little louder at times. It's the point is most of the time you're quiet. Even when they make noise, it's a good noise. It's a good noise. It's a lot of noise. Generally happy kids. David, maybe just for the folks on channel 17 and for those who aren't familiar, if you could just, I know, I'm guessing you have a lot to say but maybe you could just explain what chips is and do generally what you do. Sure. Essex Chips is a youth agency, a very small youth agency that's been serving the community for a long time, decades, not under the same name. There are prior versions of the name that go back 30 years but Essex Chips has a mission to support, inspire, engage and empower young people and with a firm belief that engaged and empowered young people are good for the community and they're more likely to come back and be productive members of the community once they leave school. We do a variety of programming that includes after school programs, routines and tweens. Tonight we have our above the influence high school group which has grown from about eight to 10 people last year to about 18 this year and they get together to talk about issues, impacting teens but also to plan out community service projects and projects to educate their peers and adults about issues that are important. We also are operating a program in the summer called the Adventure Orientation Program for eighth graders who are graduating to high school and it helps them, it's a backpacking trip for four days on a long trail that helps them gain confidence and resilience that is gonna be helpful once they reach the ninth grade. We operate now the Teen Line and Safe Place program which are in support of you two are in distress in some form and we try to provide support system for them and link them to services that they may need. We are also running the mentoring program and the school called Friendships and whoever is not yet a mentor we still need a couple more to finish off our goal for this year which is 25 mentoring relationships and I believe we are just hitting 23 and we could use a couple more. The agency has coming up in January our birdie bash which is the second annual Vermont's birdie bash, there we go and with a bunch of happy bashers on the cover of the poster there. It'll be at the ADL school on the 27th and it's just family friendly badminton according to some quirky rules that provides a lot of trophies to people who win and to people who try. So everyone leaves pretty much a happy camper. We got really good coverage from the TV station 2244 last year and hopefully we'll have that this year too. One of the newest functions that I've taken on is the writing of a column in the Essex Reporter called Youth On Board and the goal of that is to highlight youth in the community who the community should be feeling good about and to provide a way of recognizing youth who are doing good things in the community because validation of good behavior is generally much more effective than smacking down for bad behavior. So we do as much as we can to encourage the community to support youth and encourage their the rather perilous journey to adulthood that youth are often confronted with. One of our newest initiatives that I had sent around a packet to each of you, I believe you received it related not just to the birdie bash but also sort of by annual summary of our activities and it included a reference to our latest project called the Quality Youth Development Initiative or Project and that is what we believe a first time attempt certainly in Vermont we believe New England and maybe the country to offer a certification process for a community similar to there are bicycle friendly communities and there are green communities and now there will be a essentially a youth friendly community certification. The Quality Youth Development Project which I finally refer to as the QUID Project sets out 10 benchmarks that the community can seek to achieve and in doing so the community will become certified as a QUID community and that will be a cause for celebration and community awareness and media attention and hopefully other communities will want to do it as well. And the theory behind it is based on sound practice we're promoting what are known as positive youth development qualities, the very important organization in the country called the Surge Institute long ago established that there are 40 developmental assets that are important to youth and that some of those are internal attributes that youth need to develop and some of them are external factors, external supports that the community puts in play. This project, the Quality Youth Development Project is really focusing on encouraging the community supports that help youth develop the internal attributes they need to be successful in life and we are excited about the project. We believe that this is not created simply for us as this is created as a credential that we believe other communities in Vermont and beyond will be entrusted in achieving there is a movement among two different groups in Essex for Essex to become the first quid community ever in the country and the world, who knows how far. And so there are leaders within the Healthy Youth Coalition and members of Voices for Education who have been talking about moving forward and sponsoring this endeavor in Essex. So we're excited about that moving forward. I think that's the overview you were looking for. That's pretty good, that's pretty, just one question, is there any way we could help with the quid program or anything you can? Well, one of the benchmarks has to do with, one of the benchmarks is the community businesses downtown demonstrating support for youth and creating a welcoming environment for youth. Oftentimes there are posters in the windows of businesses that suggest that they are welcoming of, there was a very poignant poster that I saw a couple of years ago of a father holding a child in it and it appeared to be a refugee and the poster said we welcome refugees, we welcome immigrants. And so we're looking for a statement by local businesses that they welcome youth, that they are not anti-youth, not against having youth in their establishments. So having a certain percentage of downtown businesses display some evidence, a sign or poster of some sort that indicates youth are welcome, that's one thing that would be helpful. The other specifically for the community, the other benchmark is that the community open to youth serving on official boards of the community. Currently there are two youth I believe serving on the school board and that's a wonderful commitment that's been made toward them. But the bike path advisory group or other groups that may be out there, I know for a fact from the youth that we're working with that there are 16, 17 and 18 year olds, highly intelligent, dedicated to furthering the health of the community that would love to participate on committees that might originate from this government body. So that would be one of the, that's one of the benchmarks is that there are opportunities for older teens to serve on government-sponsored groups of that type. Thanks, keep that in mind. Can I answer any other questions? Yes, hi. So I think this is, so you're saying that this is a standard that you've developed at CHIPS and you're hoping to create it here in Essex and then replicate it elsewhere. The design of this credential with this certification process actually began 10 years ago in Massachusetts when I was director of the Youth Agency in Massachusetts. And I left that agency before it came to fruition. So I've picked up on a theme that was going on at the time of, at the time it was being called a positive youth development community. That was gonna be the credential. I have, we came to CHIPS, I've had conversations with the Healthy Youth Coalition and we realized that the term positive youth development is open, it's never been clearly defined. It's open to interpretation as to what it means. And there's no one definition. So we decided if we were going to do, take forward a project of this type that we needed something with a very clear definition. And so we decided to go with the term quality youth development instead of positive youth development to designate how we would think of a community that achieved these benchmarks. And so we created the benchmarks and process by which it's all, there's a 40 page manual that describes it. But we didn't do it specifically for Essex. We did it as a way to promote positive youth development in communities in Vermont. Our hope would be that Essex would be the first community to take it on and achieve this. But there are other communities that also expressed interest. So we're hoping it goes forward within the next few months, but we believe that this is a credential that's valid not just for this community, but Rutland and Burlington and St. John's Berry, but also Massachusetts, Connecticut and beyond. So are you working with any national accredited institutions? You say credentials, so I'm automatically thinking that there's an institution behind it that offers a credential. We have just incorporated quality youth development corporation, which will be the credentialing authority, that it will be the authority that issues the credential and manages the project going forward. We have statements from several youth organizations in the state that are supportive of this project. We have some funding from the AmeriCorps program to support the project. So we have supports have come in a variety of ways. There was no prior institutional body that was offering this certification process. We have created a body for that purpose and there in fact is a credentialing committee that is comprised of three professionals, none of whom are in Vermont, so that our process in Vermont can be objective and have no one say that Essex's has stacked the deck in their favor or something. So we have an independent credentialing committee that will run this process. Now you said you had a manual for it. Would you be willing to share that with us? Absolutely, I can forward it to Tammy or however you want me to get it around. I have like one more question for you. I'm not familiar, forgive me if I don't give you the answer to this, but is CHIPS strictly an Essex Junction Village program? Like you serve students from all throughout Essex and do you also serve students outside of Essex? Westford is specifically or had previously been specifically identified as Essex, the village, the town and Westford. And so right now there is this sense of that being our core communities that we serve. However, our reach is always going beyond these core communities. We have a state contract to provide technical assistance to tobacco prevention programs in school districts across the state. We are offering a series of team mental health first aid training that has been taken advantage of by parties outside of the immediate region. So we see our role as we are deepening and broadening our impact on youth. And so that means that some of our work is now going beyond the immediate communities. So would this quick project be for the entire EWSD school district? Some voices for education. This hasn't come to the full voices for education. And I'm probably, I'm on TV now. So forgive me, everyone. But there have been conversations with some folks. And so I believe that there will be a suggestion and that a credentialing of this community would be defining the community as a school district. And that is, that's acknowledged within the manual that a community can be a neighborhood, a village, a town, a city, or a broader region that is defined in a certain way. Okay, well it's ambitious and exciting. It is exciting. Yeah. Thanks. Other questions? Thank you. Thank you. How is the space working? Is it good? Are we? Space is terrific. Friday night, probably, I don't know if any of you were part of the 350 people who came through for train hop but Santa was there and we, for the first time someone had a clicker and we were counting the people coming in and it was over 350 people who went through our space on Friday night and train hop. Fantastic. It's wonderful space and we continue to be in awe of the town, village's commitment that it be available to us. Fantastic. Great to hear. Great to hear. Any other questions? David, thank you very much and keep up the good work. Thank you. And let us know again if we can do anything and we'll keep the idea in mind when some committee is looking for some youth, we'll definitely keep them in mind. That's wonderful. And I'm sure the selector will go about it too. Are you a 501 C3? Yes, we are. Great. Good. Sounds like you're thinking about money that can come our way. I'm always thinking about it. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Talking Points for Arts in the Culture Committee and a Review of Steam Fest by Kristin Humberger. Welcome, Kristin. Hi. That's okay. It's not the most of the day and you cannot imagine it. It's okay. Hi. I think I sent some information to Tammy, which was kind of an argument. I think we have it. We should have it up here. It looks like it's kind of sideways. It was a Google slide. But I also didn't know how many of you actually were able to be at Steam Fest. So I brought you the actual brochure that was passed out because this is just sort of an important way of seeing what actually happened in the village during Steam Fest. And I thought, if you weren't there, this might be some good evidence for you. You were there. So basically I just am not sure what you would like to know, specifically if anything, based on the slide deck that I did send to you. So I don't know if you had a chance to look at it or not. Yeah. Yeah. So it's two pieces, as I understand it, but you are interested in possibly initiating an arts and culture council. Yeah. Do you want to address that first? Yeah, I think that, well, that probably would be a good idea. So now that we've done Steam Fest for two years in a row and we have developed the Main Street Studio where we have five artist studio spaces and people showing up saying we would really like to come together and figure out how to use this wealth of space for more arts engagement for young people and older people in the community, it becomes very obvious that one or two people sort of trying to sort of lead a community of creativeness is really just not enough for the village or the town or the community itself. So, and as part of the National Arts Strategies Creative Communities Fellows program, the conversation was frequently around what other communities are doing in terms of creating arts and culture councils or doing their sort of due diligence in making arts and culture part of the master plan for communities. And so, given that I'm not really 100% sure whether or not you have an arts and culture plan for the master plan, I thought it might be good to at least start at a certain point, which would be to gather people from the community who are interested in creating an arts and culture conversation. And also considering that the village itself seems to be kind of in a regeneration or I don't want to say revitalization, but it's a renaissance. Yes, thank you. There you go. With a lot of interesting space and new buildings being built and potentials for architecture or structures that could support more culture in the community. And as a downtown space, it really feels like that's where people want to go for arts and culture. They want to kind of go to the quirkier spaces for those things, which is a little different than you might find up in the town center, so which is also another place where great arts and culture could happen. But in terms of opportunities for artists, when you have buildings that are not populated and potentially have a slightly more economical factor for being able to put them into use. And then also some really interesting things that I've been observing down in Burlington right off of Howard and Pine Street. There used to be an old basically storage area there that has recently been knocked down in their building. Studio, studios that are also housing. So it's artist housing which incorporate a studio. And it's exactly that kind of thinking that allows for a community to create a more vibrant arts and culture community. The city is doing that, the city going with. I'm not sure if it's the city. I know that it's actually unsworth properties. I looked on, I took a picture of the thing that was happening there. I was like, oh, that's really interesting. But it also what it does is it allows for there to be a permanent opportunity for artists to live and work in a community without really having to worry about the costs going off and re-gentrification and then being scooted out to another community that it has to sort of figure out how to make cool and interesting that people wanna go to. And I think Essex has some really fascinating opportunities and I would just really like to see some effort, some consideration around how that would be possible because the village seems like it's a prime spot for that. So one of the things that I noticed about two years ago or more was the Essex Heart and Soul work that was done through the Orton Family Foundation. And I looked at that community asset map and just realized immediately that there's just a gaping hole in arts and culture and it's not because that population are people who are interested in that are not here, it's just that they haven't been resourced. They haven't sort of really been accessed or talked to or pulled together in a way that allows for that conversation to come to the table. So I think that if the village and the town really thought about arts and culture being part of the future and the longevity of what you're building out, now would be a kind of prime time to do a community asset map for arts and culture in the town and the village. And also I think probably it's one of those things that has substantially to kind of pull parties together because arts and culture have a tendency to do that. But also as to what David Vogel was just saying, we are actually, we have a student who is doing an internship with us through the high school. One of the things that we've asked her to do is to put a survey into the high school to query what are the kinds of things that they would like to see available in the community? What would kids like to see in terms of development for arts and music and culture? Because Essex High School is a remarkably interesting place. They have amazing, really professional people working in their theater department, in their music department. It's phenomenal. And to really be able to pull those students out or to pull those people out into the community a little bit more. Maybe even by utilizing the upstairs, the teen center for like a slam poetry for high schoolers or a regular ongoing music series which we hear all the time. We would love to be able to have music in the community without having to go to a bar. And so I'm hearing all of these kinds of things that are very suggestive that this community is ripe and would prefer really not to go into Burlington although there were great things in Burlington if there were things here that they would definitely be coming out to participate in arts and cultural opportunities here. And I'd like to even think about expanding the idea of arts and culture to sort of becoming more familiar and aware of what the new American population brings in terms of arts and culture. And we have just really fascinating things that are happening that if we pay attention to them and work with them, not them as new Americans but them as opportunities, then I think Essex is kind of like situated in this really interesting way in place and just because of the geography that it just, and because of the history and as being a sort of innovative center that there's an opportunity to really bolster this. If that's what the municipalities want to do. I'm sorry to dummy. So thank you, Kristin, for volunteering to be a part of our committee for the submitted grant for the Animating Infrastructure Grant that we submitted to the Arts Council for a mural on the side of the floor building. So Kristin is gonna be one of our esteemed committee members to work on that should we be lucky enough to proceed and hopefully make the grant application and be chosen and then be able to install our first work with Public Art in the community. It'll be really exciting. I'm wondering if that committee could be the start of something like this. If we have a committee that's already invested in thinking about art for our public spaces that once the grant process is over or possibly simultaneously, they begin to explore some of the suggestions that Kristin has, some of the ideas of what we could do in the village and I would love to expand it to the town. I think that we have 35 school-in-lives, we have plenty of opportunity for art all throughout the community. So I know that you had also suggested in your document a $10,000 budget and I know that it is budget season and we'll certainly take that into consideration. Oh yeah, I kind of threw something out there like 200 hours worth of work for community asset mapping if you were to sort of earmark something like that and also because grants oftentimes want to have a municipal match. And so if you have that money already, then we can apply for grants that would allow the knowing that that would come through. I'm always kind of like, oh, how did we do this sort of one step ahead instead of one step behind? It would be pretty cool if we could put our heads together with that committee and anyone else who's interested if the board is willing to charge it to exist and we could begin exploring. I think that's a great idea and thank you for bringing it to us. Absolutely. I know about a long time ago, Pat, and I talked one time at the prior manager and he always talked about Mystic Connecticut and their amazing arts council down there and what it's really done for that community. So I echo Elaine's comments if it's something that this committee can kind of talk about and see where it goes, I think it's a great idea. So the idea would be the committee we're working with now, we would just charge them sort of more formalize them and to dub them, the arts council. Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, we'd certainly have to gauge their interest, but since we already have found a group of people who are willing to talk about an art project in the village, if they'd be willing to continue that as a more formal process. And really we'd have to do some research about what our capabilities are and what our resources are, just like you said. Well, and there are other people who I've talked to as well just to say, hey, if this were to come about, would you be interested? And I mean, there are people who are Andy Koldos, I don't know if you're aware of him. He's the new executive director. He's been working there for a long time for the Vermont Folk Life Center. He lives right here in Essex. He's the executive director. Yeah, he's doing an interim position with them, I think for a year. And a few other people who have piped up, and there are some really fascinating and creative people who live right here locally. And I really feel like if there were opportunities for them to kind of put their work into the community, they would really like to be able to do it, but right now it's just leaking out into other communities because there's no home or that here in this one. I think it makes sense. And if my understanding is correct, in Brattleboro, there is an artist's residence and community that already exists, which may have started in partnership with the local housing trust, the Wenderman-Winsor housing trust down there. Yeah. So it's just an example of how a committee could not only help with an arts and cultural district, but then just so much more than what my preconceived notions were coming into it. Right. So the value is certainly there. And that's a great point because there are many places, in fact, I'm just waiting to hear back from the Vermont Arts Council about a potential opportunity, the Vermont Creative Network, which is a group of people who are, it's actually sort of like creatives moving up to government to say these are the kinds of things so that there may be some granting opportunities that are coming that way. The Northeast Kingdom got a USDA grant to do some work up there. And that's kind of related to this what we're waiting to hear back from the Arts Council. I was recently in conversation with Jim Lockfield. I can't remember his last name, but I'm from Big Heavy World and he's part of that organization. Lockridge, thank you. I'm always gonna say Lockwood and it's always wrong. So I'm reaching out into different sort of areas to get more information about what's possible for Essex. And as I get more information or get more connected into the bigger picture, but there are communities all over the place that are really great models that are demonstrating that these things are. And also, that just goes to show you that when you're starting to think about infrastructure and building new buildings, considering what you want to put in those buildings that actually keeps a community engaged versus just living in your community. So I can make a suggestion if the Board is of a mind, I think maybe some next steps is creation of a mission statement, some board structure, if it's going to be a board, a committee of the village or separate, either way, well, who's gonna get appointed, if there's gonna be appointments, et cetera, some things like that and come back with that. And it sounds like there's support for its creation. But maybe I have a few more details. And I think if we're talking about some funding, I'm guessing it's economic development, where does this come out of? If we, on budget day, if we're gonna start, because we wanna put some money aside for this effort, then what, with the department? That was probably. It's economic development, so I think that's where you need to keep in mind on budget day. We probably won't have everything lined up in a very clear path, but if we anticipate that we're gonna make a commitment to this, then we probably put the resources aside for it, just to keep that in mind. Do you wanna talk about SteamFest? Are you good or? Yeah, I mean, I did make an ask for SteamFest for next year as well. I did, I don't know if you wanted to just sort of look over that or if you need more information for me or if you want more. What did we do last year? 5,000? 4,000. Yeah. We learned a lot in this last year. We had to do a lot, we ended up doing quite a lot of juggling for multiple reasons, but the biggest one was the weather. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, that was, yeah. But we, you know, all along the way, we planned a really magical experience and it was about three quarters the magic that we planned, but it took more this year than it did last year. I think this year, last year people were excited about it. It was a brand new thing. We got more coverage for it last year. This year we didn't get quite the coverage for it and I think we kind of felt that, but we weren't really sure because of the weather. People who did show up again were just like singing the praises of it and how, you know, this is exactly what we need, more of in the community and more for the kids and more for everything. And what things that we were really proud of that we were able to do this year was not, we paid artists to actually do free-making takes for people during the Friday night event and also during Saturday. We were able to hire a local new agency that works part-time in the Essex Hub to do some social media marketing for us. We were able to, we were able to rent equipment that ultimately we didn't end up being able to use because of the weather, but we were able to pay for the kind of more bigger and exciting things that will pull more people out and be more magical. So, it's always a matter of crossing our fingers. We may make some logistical changes this year instead of doing it Friday night and Saturday. We may just do all day, Saturday and Saturday night just so that it's a little bit more compact because one of the things that we recognize that people don't necessarily understand that it's one event, but also what we realized this year is that people came on Friday night and then expected to go back to those same places on Saturday and those were all closed. And so I think if we're a little bit smarter about the way we plan the event, I mean, it's great that it can be a two-day event, but also I think trying to be a little bit more logistically sound in the way that we do it so that people have a full experience might be better, but all of those things end up with additional time and additional costs and all of that. We actually hired someone to do the maps this year, which was fantastic. She did a great job and we got feedback on those so there was tweaks on that, but did everybody get one? Was everybody okay? Yes. So this year, we were just asking, I went for the opportunity to have $6,000, a couple more thousand to play around with just to make it a little easier on all of us to work on. But obviously that's the, that's an ask. Okay. So, yeah, and I just just tell you that, I mean, we had big sponsors this year. Remarkably, we had dealer.com sponsored the whole the whole artist market, which was amazing. EarthLogic, again, Mama Va sponsored. We got money from the Vermont Academy for Arts and Sciences and we're in conversation with them about next year. Using this as the same opportunity that we used last year for the Vermont Arts Teachers Association to do their conference. And so they were interested this year, but the timing wasn't quite right. So we're in conversation about with them. And we had every business on that little chunk of Main Street participating this year. So that felt, that felt pretty good. So, well, every, in one way or another, everybody was, was holding us up. So, yeah. Well done. Thank you. You're very welcome. Well done. Is there anything else? I think we're good. Any questions? Good. Thank you. Yeah, great. Thank you so much. Okay, have a good night. So we are coming up next is EJRP accreditation process with Kirsten Santor, program director. Hi, Kirsten. Either way, can you hear me? So I'm Kirsten. I am one of the program directors at EJRP. And I'm here to talk about accreditation today because we seem to be on a certification plus accreditation kick. So we'll keep going with that. So EJRP is in the process of the initial steps of looking at capra accreditation. And that kind of came to fruition this fall when I approached Bradluck, the director, about a need for an idea for my master's final project. So to be honest, this is a two-fold thing. This is actually my master's final presentation that we're witnessing right now too. Okay. So that is where it came from. He suggested the capra accreditation because it's something that the department has been seeking for the last couple of years. But we're finally in a position where we have enough staff and we have the budget and the resources to kind of make this happen. And we'll talk about a little bit more of what it involves but you'll see that it's quite extensive. That good place finally. So for my project, I really just looked at the initial steps of what accreditation means for EJRP. There are 151 standards, so I looked at each standard and looked at how we would accomplish that timeline-wise and what kind of resources we would need for each standard. So that was really my final project. Obviously, the accreditation process will continue throughout the next couple of years. So it doesn't end there, but that is what I looked at. So we're presenting this today as an initial informational session because we will have to come and get some things approved as we go through the process. There are a couple of different processes that we have with the standards that will need board approval. So you will see us again, but this will be the initial overview of what to expect. So what is capra? That's the first question, right? So capra is the commission for accreditation of park and recreation agencies. Like I said, it has 151 standards for national accreditation. Out of those standards, we only need to meet 140. There are 37 that are fundamental. They're absolutely required. And then 114 that are non-fundamental. And ideally you try to meet all of them and but you can miss up to, you can only need 103 out of the 114. So you can miss some, but we are shooting for all of them. These standards are created by a board of about 15 people that's who run them at this point, but it's been a multi-year process. They're constantly in review. They've been updated a number of times. So it was created by professionals across the nation in different parks and recreation agencies and they even have a military branch now as well. So they're accrediting all types of agencies, not just municipal. And they really know their stuff on that. It is a five-year accreditation cycle. So once we go through it this first time, then we'll be looking to get re-accredited every five years roughly. However, there is also an annual report that we'll have to submit. So that's really the in-between years that's what we'll be looking at. So I wanted to provide, hopefully everybody can see this, an example of some standards. So the standards are pretty varied in how they are presented. So some of them are gonna be pretty simple for us to come up with. We have a mission statement. So this is one of them is the mission itself. So just the standard would be there's an established mission, the suggested evidence. They give examples of what you should provide. Provide the mission statement, very obvious. So some of them are really easy, but in general they are kind of varied in how they present. So for example, this is another one. It's a little bit more complicated. Outreach to under-deserved populations and diverse populations. So in that case, as you can see in the suggested evidence, you require is that you identify those populations, describe the barriers, what kind of participation limits might exist and then what you're doing to overcome some of those barriers and how you're gonna serve people in a better way. Really these standards are designed to create best practices within an organization. So nothing is out there to make us miserable in our process, but they will hopefully help us determine how we can be better overall. As I said, some of the standards are gonna be a little bit more difficult to meet than others, which is why I created that timeline so that we can look at, okay, some of these we need to address right away because they're gonna take the most amount of time and some of them we can hold off on and wait for a little while as well. So that's why EJRP wants to be accredited as I've talked about already. It does help us with our processes and make that a little bit more straightforward and just a better formalization of that, improves improved efficiency and effectiveness overall for how we're presenting everything program-wise to our patrons, to our community, for our employees. This really should be something that's seen across the board, less so in the community. We'll really feel it as employees having to adhere to these standards, but the long and short should be that the community sees a great deal of benefit from the processes that we're creating. And we have an opportunity to be a leader in the Vermont Recreation community. So interestingly, there are 174 accredited agencies right now in the nation and only one of those is in Vermont. So we have an opportunity to be pretty close to the top. I think there are a couple other departments in the state looking at accreditation right now. So if not the second, we'll be close to that. So that's really neat. And it's a huge prideful thing for our community to get that accreditation. So we're looking forward to that. But it is not just about documenting these things. We really have to live up to the standards that we set. So that's going to be the tough part is then implementing and making sure that we're adhering to them. The accreditation process is a five step thing. So the first is the preliminary application which is pretty self-exponestory. The department self-assessment is the part that gets more into the weeds of things. So that's really what we're in the process of right now which is looking at each standard and saying how are we going to meet that? So that's what they mean when they say self-assessment. So we then have to provide documentation on every single standard that they're putting forward. Obviously that's going to be a little bit time consuming. So this is the process that takes over a year in a lot of cases. So again, we just started that. We're looking to hopefully wrap it up by the fall of next year and then get into the actual onsite visitation which is the next step. Hopefully in January to May of 2020 sometime within that window and then accreditation ideally will follow, we'll see. So that's where we're headed with that. And once you are in the accreditation process there's obviously the option to get accredited. Hopefully they will grant that. You can be accredited with conditions that you might have to meet. They could defer decision or they could deny accreditation. So if they defer a decision or accredited with conditions there are some things that you'll have to improve upon and reapply, not apply, but meet those and then move on. But hopefully we won't get into that point. We'll just meet them all. That's the idea, right? And then finally the annual report in between the years of accreditation and reaccreditation. So let's talk about budget implications because I know that's what you guys really care about. Yeah, we care about more than that. Yeah. So the biggest thing is the upfront cost which would be the review fee and then the onsite visitation because you have to pay for the visitors, lodging and meals and transportation. So we're looking at $1,000 for the review fee, 5,000 roughly for all of the visiting fees. Those are budgeted to come out of the fund balance out of our program funds so that it has already been submitted and you should see that in the budget. Again, that's a one-time expense until we get reaccredited in five years. So it's a once every five years expense I guess. And then the $240 is the annual report fee that we'll have to cover which is not too bad. So I talked a little bit about the timeline but right now we have not actually submitted our application yet because once you do that the clock starts ticking. So we're trying to be a little bit strategic about getting some of the standards and some of the review work under our belt before we go ahead and do that. But like I said, we're already working on the standards that can happen anytime. There's a small committee of us meeting roughly every two weeks to specifically work on certain standards but it is going to be not only a community-wide project that we'll pull in a lot of different pieces but certainly within our department that's what we'll see the most amount of work in creating policies and forms and all different kinds of things. So that'll be a lot of work for us but we're excited about it. And then we're looking for the visitation January through May, 2020 sometime around there. It'll be three people that come in for about three days to actually make sure that we're doing the standards that we've said that we have met. And then again, after that we'll hopefully get a credit and it should be a pretty quick thing. So 2020, summer at the latest, so that's our timeline and we'll be working hard until then. Any questions? I don't know. You just keep going, keep going. You got it. Is this accreditation just covering your parks and recreation programs or does it also cover childcare? It covers all aspects of what we're offering. So anything that's under the EJRP umbrella is subject to this accreditation. Okay. And are there, the childcare is a state approved program but are there any issues with having an accreditation from, I'm assuming it's okay to have an accreditation from another organized organization? Yeah, we haven't gotten into the weeds of it but the capricreditation is more about the general department function and less about individual programs. So it wants to see what kind of programs you have but it doesn't have to be specific but you offer childcare, well that might be a conflict. So I think it's general enough that it will be okay. Because it's designed for so many different kinds of departments around the nation that can't really be specific about what exactly it is. And who will be in charge of compliance with the accreditation standards once you achieve accreditation? It's kind of up to all of us. Yeah, so both Brad and I are pretty on board with it. We're trying to rally the troops. Everybody's really open to it. But I think it's just a matter of all being on board and making sure that it happens on a day-to-day basis which is really gonna be the hardest part, absolutely. I don't have any questions on this, right? With the impending co-location of EJRP and Essex Parks and Rec or Recs and Parks how does that play into this with the timeline? Yeah, we've thought about that. The long and short is that we haven't really addressed it yet since the co-location is not a definite thing. But in our mind, we're like, okay, we know what we have to offer as EJRP. We should start with that. It's probably easier to ask to then add EPR onto that than it is to say, well, this is a potential that's going to happen down the road. What do you think we should do about this now? So that's kind of our approach is not to ask for forgiveness but to somewhat go that route. But we have thought about it and we're really excited and open to that and hopeful that that should be a pretty seamless transition when we get to that point. Would it then also mean that the town parks and rec needs to adopt the same standards and processes? Yep, in the long run, yep. It's gonna depend on how both departments are governed and what kind of rules and regulations there are so that it might require additional alignment in certain areas just because there are things the village does that the town doesn't do and vice versa. So we probably have to be more aligned than we are planning on, but again, that's not our goal right now. So we're not really sure how it's gonna pan out. Thank you. Yeah, my question was along the same lines. If eventually at some point the people around this place actually consolidated the two departments with you and you had your accreditation by then, would it transfer over to the town's program? Would you have to start over again or how would that work? Yeah, I think it's not clear. If the departments were actually consolidated, which I know it's not where we're going right now, that seems like a pretty easy, it would transfer to both. But if it's two separate departments, even if we're co-locating, I'm not sure how they would view that. It would probably still be viewed as two separate departments and they would have to get their own if they wanted that. But there's the potential they could tag onto ours or hopeful that that would happen. Well, I guess this sounds like a good idea. Sounds like a lot of work for you, but it sounds like it's worthwhile. So, good luck. Thank you. Brad, anything you wanna add about it or did she cover all the bases? She covered me. Oh, sorry, Andrew. So what master's program is this for? This is for my masters in recreation administration from Indiana University. Very nice. And so are they essentially watching this right now, judging how this is gonna come forward? They're either watching it right now or they're gonna watch it tomorrow. So, yeah. Maybe you think she did great. Yes, that's why I have these 12 pages of questions. I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's go. Thanks. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks. Okay. Now we have a memo, but we also have Darby here, not just a memo, but the woman who wrote the memo. Darby, come on up and talk about the pickleball grant. All right. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for having me. And this is, well, pickleball is a big part of this grant. It is not just a pickleball grant. Oh, okay. It says pickleball grant on the agenda, you know. You know, pickleball gets your attention. What can I say? I have no idea what to do with this one, too. It's... I should try it. It's... Check it out on YouTube. It's very simple to test. Yeah, it's all over the basket part. Yeah. It's a combination between a shortened tennis court and whiffleball. And maybe ping-pong. And sort of ping-pong. And it has some weird rules. But it's a much shorter space than a tennis court. Seriously, there are seniors on Kasky Park courts for hours every day. Really? I mean, it's... Yeah. This was actually a big brew, haha, within the village many years ago about people needing more space to play pickleball. Oh, okay. They play it indoors, outdoors. Yeah, really? Yeah. They actually rent space at the edge. They don't want your time to play it. Wow. Yeah, okay. They need business. There's special... There's special rackets now for it and balls. And I'm sure there's outfits. There's stuff... There are no pickles involved at all. Actually, it's just a... Unfortunately. They're good, babe. You're right around. Okay. I'm sure some weird, you know, but not that I know of. Sorry. Sorry about that. So this grant is pretty exciting because this is a pilot grant. This is the first year that they've ever offered this grant opportunity. And it's an outdoor recreation grant for communities to enhance their outdoor recreation assets. So we decided I met with Harlan Kirsten as well as some pickleball players. And we discussed also adding, changing some tennis courts into pickleball courts for Cascade Park because as Elaine said, that's really the hub of pickleball activity. But in addition, taking a look at Cascade Park and saying, you know, hi, what can we do to make this place better? Adding in indoor restrooms, which is obviously we all have to go. It's definitely a good thing for a park to have. And just some general things as far as the fencing and the storage sheds. And this grant is a fairly, it's a fairly large one. It goes up to $100,000. We are asking for the full amount. And the remaining project costs for about $46,000 will come from the EJRP capital plan. And we're hoping to bring that down even a little bit more by using some volunteer labor by little league volunteers and also the pickleball volunteers. Let's assume, my one question is, let's assume, this isn't going to happen, let's assume you don't get the grant. But the $46,000 was still going to be spent by the rec capital, the rec program still doesn't money put aside for renovation of the park for some other purpose or? I'm going to defer to Harlan. Okay. So there is a total of $23,000 that is absolutely committed to Cascade Park for this coming season. Okay. And then there's an additional $23,000 that is pending at the moment due to whether or not the grant is approved, whether or not we're able to apply for another grant if it's not approved this year. Okay. Ideally, the project we feel is sound for the whole community for not only Pickleball who brought this to our attention, but for Little League. We actually have a teacher that brings his students to Cascade for school projects. We have local preschools that are using Cascade Park. And we've actually started to utilize Cascade Park for some of our programming. As you know, Maple Street is very busy throughout the summer and our programs continue to grow. So the bathrooms, the benches, the amenities that we're discussing, I think in the long run, we're going to get to that point. But with this grant possibility now, we are looking to pump it up and move it quickly. Okay. Thank you. That was essentially going to be my question. Was this a part of a broader or a longer term plan that essentially helps it expedite it, which in essence may make it cost less? We have massive plans for our parks. Of course. There are so many improvements that we would love to do for the community and obviously we all work within a budget. But yes, Cascade Park has always been on our radar to improve for the community. Bathrooms probably being one of the biggest ones for the amount that that park is used. Having that one porta pot that we put down there every summer is a little rough for them. From those of us who have been in Little League, Todd, yes. One more. Bathroom facility will be great. Yeah. And the storage also is a combination for something that Little League needs and some of the other events that are going on. And then lastly, who is the grant through? I see Vermont Outdoor Recreation. What department? It's actually the state of Vermont. I think they're considered, I think they're state of Vermont Recreation, which is the forest in parks and the state of Vermont. Lori, can you actually help me? Elaine Ken. Elaine Ken. So this is the VORAC, Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative. And they have, that's through Fish and Wildlife and Tourism and Marketing. And so they have those task force formed by the governor to assess Vermont Recreation amenities, and then the next step was to offer grants. So, and now that we've said that it occurred to me as I was reading this memo, I can't vote on this. Okay. Okay. I have a question. Yeah. This is great. I love that you're trying to get this grant. And I apologize. This is going to be a question for Harland. Is this okay? Yeah. Any possibility of requesting additional money to fix the bathrooms at Maple Street Park at the same time? And so, when you say fix the bathrooms at Maple Street Park. They're just really bad. I mean, I hear a lot of complaints from people. In fact, many say that the Port of Paddy at Cascade is sometimes better than the bathrooms at Maple Street Park. That is new information. Okay. Okay. I apologize then. I agree that the original colors that we had picked out, which are a little bright, do not hide dirt very well. And I find some very interesting ways that our bathroom have been used. Yeah. Let's just work them up a little bit. But they, the bathrooms there are definitely on our radar. Okay. So, when you say additional monies, I'm just, I mean, are you hearing that we should be replacing fixtures or are you hearing that it is just not the most pleasant experience that they had? A little bit of both. Okay. And I apologize. I just assumed that you had been hearing the same things. I have not. So we can chat. I would love to. Okay. One more thing I'd like to add to about the grant. This was kind of an exciting grant for another reason because this is the first time that we've really had a partnership with ETRP and the village office on a grant. So I think that was pretty cool. That is very good. It's very good. Yeah. And Darby, you appreciate all the effort you're putting into all your, you're, you're just like a grant machine. So we appreciate it. No. Other questions? Yeah. I will make a motion at the, I'm sorry, did you have a question? Are you sure? I will make a motion at the trustees authorized staff to submit the remand after a recognition collaborative community grant. All second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. And three ayes and one abstentions. Or recuse. I have stating or recusing. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's recusing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Either way, it's a proposal. Not voting. Thank you, Darby. Thank you. Thanks, Darby. Thanks, Harlan. We are not on to, I think do you want to take this one for the request of the men's side policy? Yeah. I believe it was two weeks ago with Todd here in the audience, very quiet in the middle room. The board took up the request from the petitioner, and they asked the board to consider changing which side, the village plows on Rivendell road and to extend it. Now I have to get this. So you had had several questions of me and the staff, and then you had also tried to see if the school district had come and while Brian really did want to be here tonight is the same night as their transportation committee and he felt that might be a better place that he needed to be tonight. Although he did want to be here and he said. So we went back so a couple things the board asked us to look at the creating a definition for key connector. Mr. Odette said some possible language ideas to us and myself Ricky and Rick Hamlin got together and it's in your packet. We made a recommendation in our packet and so the real question is do you want to change which side you're doing on you want to change the policy and then for other things I would say that tonight is not tonight to review your entire policy but at a future date you may want to look at it but with the language that we're proposing from a staff perspective we're comfortable with that language as being for the future and I'll answer any questions in the petitioners in the audience yeah and trustees any questions for clarification yeah can you talk more about the recommendation specifically the second part we recommend adapting the proposed change so the word that's the policy okay that's we're gonna do that later I'm sorry I'm talking with Rick Hamlin the village's engineer the term key connector kind of is it was not defined I'm not sure and he said look I think if you change some language and you have the village board as the body that makes the determination you don't really need the term key connector in the policy at all we did provide the map that shows what streets are plowed on both sides one question for the school district is is there a map that directs kids how to get to school Brian is not aware of any map however his comment to me was though generally wherever the village plows and there is a crossing guard becomes the de facto route and then one of the questions was how long does it would it take to plow Rivendell the extra distance to actually plow it would be about six and a half minutes what we cannot determine is if we have to snow blow it and that's for larger snow totals we don't know one other question you the board asked are there any other policies that require either 100% of the neighbors approval or something less the block party request does require 100% but speed table only 70% those are the only two most others it is a determination by the village board questions I have no no I guess my my question is really to what I struggled with is essentially do we want to define key connector or do we want to not and just have what's happening today continue to happen I've personally struggled with this a little bit myself even coming into this meeting yeah that's frankly something I'd love to have some input in from the others so to me then that's just what's going through my head okay so I will ask my question and the recommendation a it says we currently do not have those sides of brickyard road so I so I can understand you know trying to make the comparison but my understanding that though it carries probably more traffic maybe people only live on one side of brickyard road so I I travel that multiple times a day there are generally kids that will walk on either side depending upon which side they live on and it's not uncommon where the kids who live on the side that's not cloud cross the street to then get to the side that is plan to then go up to the crosswalk cross back over to where the crosswalk exists to then go down Drury to the high school very rarely do they then go down to essentially the town office on Main Street and cross walk across where the crossing guard exists which is at the intersection of brickyard and Maine there's not one at Main Drury there's not one at Maine and by the town office there's one higher up by okay and that's where they cross there is a crosswalk at the town hall but there is a crossing crossing that's right flashing which is getting a lot of you yes yes it is the so no we do not plow both sides of brickyard it is a heavily traveled both vehicular and walking yeah then you have to plow the side that has the big main path on it right you know the thing about it is that on it you know we're kind of on school days they really do try to make an effort early starting early in the morning to get basic walking routes to all the schools plowed by seven o'clock and so six and a half minutes seven minutes may not seem like a long time but I'm guessing that's critical time at five o'clock in the morning when they're running all over the place so I think we have to keep that in mind adding adding any time to what they're doing might be difficult on the other hand there's nothing and I've noticed that I maybe I'm this is an illusion but it seems to me that after we have snowstorms it seems that sometimes the public works department goes back and they will do some sidewalks that they didn't they didn't necessarily have to do now maybe I'm guessing that's wrong I'm looking at a couple of the sidewalks in my neighborhood and both sides are done now I don't maybe the neighbors that I'm not sure but is there anything prevent stopping that from happening not as a policy but they know and it's that's interesting that you mentioned that no we don't go back and do sidewalks that are not on our sidewalk plan and we are straining to get done what we need to get done right which assumes that both pieces of our equipment are up and running right okay which is not always the case okay which is also one of the things that's been happening in the town they have now had to lease another piece of equipment they were borrowing a piece from time to time so no we don't we don't tend to do that so I mean we would appreciate if people did so if we if we stick with all your recommendations the deal is right now that that the snow plowing on the on Rivendell would stay as it is but in the springtime there would be a crosswalk put across the street at the intersection of Woods End in Rivendell right and then and then from that point forward up to Maple Street it would be plowed on the other side so kids people but not just kids but pedestrians would be crossing probably a safer spot further down we absolutely agree that they should be walking so that's all right but we would need to plow to be able to get everybody who's from that upper corner to cross at the crosswalk and then come down that side for adults crossing at Rivendell and Maple if they're going to global or wherever they're going to adults that's six and a half minutes is that from Maple to the intersection of Rivendell and Woods End or is that the full Rivendell the full ribbon so I will just say I'm I am really struggling with this because I feel we should make every opportunity available for our kids to walk to school safely the first part being walk and I guess and so I don't I mean I am leaning towards not accepting the recommendations I like I think the recommendations are good starting point we should implement them and then see how it goes I was leaning towards not going against or not going with the recommendations and having the taking the six and a half minutes and we're split because I'm concerned about the precedent of having and and I appreciate it but I'm concerned about having the precedent of having one resident is as much as we might think it's necessary you know on the basis of one request to change a whole policy this is when I started off of our we wanted to find key connector so then if we define it that it goes to stop to make the decision right or do we keep it loose and that just that comes to us oh well we don't have a timebreaker here I mean I would just add that Evan did you say that Rick Jones Rick Hamlin and you any other staff involved in this decision process just the three of us we've worked on it together personally again I made the recommendations I think it addresses what the petitioner was asking at least not all of it but it gets there it keeps us consistent with what we're doing throughout the community I think when you start talking about schools and I'm new to the community I get that part but all our sidewalks eventually lead to somewhere they lead to a school they lead to downtown they lead to other neighborhoods we need I think if you and one of the things Rick Hamlin brought up in our discussion was the reason why you created the policy in the first place is you make a an acknowledgement that we are a walkable community but you don't have the resources to plow every sidewalk and at a time frame when people probably need it the most people need to get to school the children need to get to school people need to get into downtown or get to public transportation they need to get to the library at certain points at some point I'm assuming this village board or some prior board said these are the kinds of resources we could put into this on a annual basis and provide a level of service that you're comfortable with and if you start doing more and more and more you'll just do more and more and then the level of service either will have to increase with it which means more equipment and more manpower or women doing that those pieces of equipment are about a hundred and forty five thousand dollars plus annual maintenance and blades and as I mentioned and this was Rick's comment to me he's like look we do the best we can every storm is different you don't know if it's going to be the wind you don't know if it's currently snowing we get done with our route and by the time we get done with our route it looks like we haven't even been out there and then the phone calls start coming we do and then we've got it and we also have a crew that's doing streets so that's kind of what we're taking into account it's not that and we felt that this was a good mixture of getting them on to the west side of Rivendell ultimately and connecting all of those neighborhoods could you go to the map I'm struggling to get it on the screen I think I can't get it any smaller than well that's how my man you know when you close enough when you have woods end and what's leading into woods end unless you have that crosswalk across woods end they would get stuck on the east side and so by doing the crosswalk it brings into the west then you could do the whole west side and then the people from the east side could just cross over and and make that connection and it gets them on the school side this just feels like an appropriate combination of what's being asked and what we're capable of doing it's a midway point and I see your hand the other thing Rick mentioned is like no offense to anybody who's listening on on brick care we really don't want to plow both sides of brick you know it's too long can't be that's definitely six minutes and if you're going to do room in Elgin what's the argument for not doing so I have a compromise okay I will accept the recommendations if we also put one in that says if Todd and others in his community come back with more people than just one we would be willing to take it up again listen isn't there a requirement in here about requiring there already is that right right and we had talked about it last time and the reason I'm thinking of this is you know Hill Crest really wanted a sidewalk and Hill Crest came together as a community and came here and petitioned for a sidewalk so there is I can't say this word press so much trouble with that word for us listening to a group of people who come forward and I know it's also part of the system I'm raising the bar but I that's would be my compromise my struggle is I understand that of course we're resource limited the policy was written with the exception of you George you may be the only trustee on this board oh yeah and in that I don't know if you were not I know I think the times have changed I think at that point in time the recession was high and everyone's mind has changed I think that we are in a different position in the community and if we don't have the six and a half minutes I really struggle to see how we don't and I can see that this sets precedence for brickyard road and frankly I understand the village doesn't want to and time that would take at the same time community that has to sidewalks and promotes walkability should and so maybe we do we need to do something different to put our money where our mouth is and make sure we're walkable community well and if I could rebut that's why we're looking at the crosswalk which would be handicapped I would have the handicapped ramps etc in the crosswalk to get that safety faster cut across it is not generally really honest six and a half minutes doesn't sound like a lot and it generally is not that's if we plow if we snow blow which is usually something more than two to three inches we have to snow blow it debate and if it's wet we have to I have no idea how much time it's gonna take when we're talking about the snow blowing though he was talking about is those are the big ones those are the ones that generally school shuts down those are the ones where we're all figuring out how are we gonna get to work today we're gonna do with our kid there's a lot of life disruptions that happen at that point where I am assuming that then walking to school and getting that cloud six and a half minutes yes that waits because frankly the rest of us aren't dealing with it at that point in time we're all doing other things so I yeah I hear you I would still just vote no minority this I want to make a motion or do you want to keep talking about this move that the trustees approve the recommendations made by staff but what you want is already in here so it's not part of the recommendations it's right here so I want to be clear that if we accept this as the motion we are willing to to take this issue up again that this is not it already says you know it's right there but if we make this motion as this is our plan right and they come back I want to be clear that just because we voted that this is our plan we will take it up again okay fine that's that's a friendly amendment it's exactly the same thing I'm saying so I'll move that we make the recommend we follow the recommendations of the staff with the understanding that as is already written in the street plan the sidewalk plan residents of a class tree residential street can request that the village switch sides for plowing at all households on the street sign a petition and submit it to the village manager if that happens we will revisit it okay in the lorry seconds and I would like to give Todd a chance to Todd did you want to say something here first I'm not sure if you're aware of this but the village according to the winter operations plan has 38 miles aside the plows 32 so the plows 85% of the sidewalks adding the second side of Rivendell would be I think it was about an extra 2% of the sidewalks so the idea that there's gonna be a cascade of requests that are required a whole bunch of extra manpower infrastructure I think is a stretch because you're only talking about another 15% you currently have two routes that are probably 16 miles each I'm just guessing you have a few miles it's not necessarily another person and another machine and I also think that the recommended changes to the policy from staff are going to put you in a worse position because you're taking away the school connector criteria and you're saying that any street that has two sidewalks can be plowed on both sides if it's up to the trustees with no criteria so I think it's more ambiguous and you're more apt to have more of these requests if you revise the policy as presented by staff whereas you know I just put some words together to kind of close in and justify why some mystery is plowed because that's not a class 2 road it's not a class 1 road and it's plowed on both sides brickyard I'm not sure about most of the students who are gonna be using that are probably a high school one and driven to school I don't know I don't live on brickyard so I don't get to observe the number of students there but it's sort of an in between road and you know I came here asking with a request under the policy has written which is talking about key school connection so sort of changing the rules under my feet is a little different I think I didn't come in asking to switch sides that came in asking for both so those are my comments so just something to consider I think you're gonna end up with more ambiguity with the policy changes as recommended by staff as opposed to remember people motion on the table yeah so can I just clarify something to that mission and I apologize I thought we and I'm just reading now that it is in part B that we adapt the proposed changes to the sidewalk policy but I thought we were going to do that at a later date we weren't talking about the policy per se tonight the entirety of the policy there was a conversation to revisit the entire policy we're not prepared to discuss the entire policy right so we could take this up later so rather we recommend adopting the proposed changes to the sidewalk policy as a red line in section 8 so just that section Russia's dealing with the term okay I'm gonna I apologize I had a man grain all day and so I'm on some heavy medication so I'm not thinking as clearly as I should how about I withdraw my motion and Laura you go ahead so I would like to take that part out which I'm gonna make another motion that you withdraw on your motion Elaine I have okay we all set with that we go to that okay go ahead so I would like to make a motion that we adopt the recommendations of staff in section second recommendations a cd and e and should there be a petition of all residents we will reassess the situation I said yes okay do we hear a second second okay can I ask a question yep is the intention in the motion to keep a hundred percent of all residents in to ask a hundred percent of all residents of Rivendell to come or a hundred percent of our residents I think that was assuming that and what's the other but we have two standards well it's a hundred percent well what 70 70 yeah 100% for a block party 70% for these on the table you're here if you want to make it something less than a hundred percent a lot of room between zero and a hundred there is the language in we're trying to find where that is in the in the recommendation it's D you know it's I don't see it in the recommendation about having all residents come to petition it's just it's in the policy instance so that's fine okay so I don't know if you're gonna get a hundred percent we're really really confused here let me let's try to get some order here so we have a motion on the table and are you comfortable with that motion are we ready to vote on this or do you want to amend it again okay let me just if I can yeah I'm gonna allow Todd has his hand raised if I could just ask you to just keep it fairly brief what I sense is going to be adopted for the staff's recommendation about I just want to clarify that the recommendation is that after the crosswalk is installed you'll plow all of the west side of Rivendell and stop plowing any anything on the east side no it would plow it would plow it would plow Rivendell from Maple Street to the intersection of Wood's End on on your side of the street and then people would cross over and then it would then they would continue plowing Rivendell down on their side is currently being plowed so it would zag over in other words people instead walking all the way up Rivendell instead of crossing over at the intersection with Maple would cross over at the intersection of Wood's End and that would be plowed the rest of the way out understand can I make a recommendation here okay how about we make how about we divide this divide and conquer since we're struggling here how about we have one motion about whether or not we are going to plow change policy for plowing Rivendell and if not then what might be the conditions we would reconsider that have that be one motion and then let's look at B.C.D.E. as a separate motion whether to adopt or amend those can I make that recommendation okay why don't we someone anyone want to take a shot at a motion for the first piece you go for okay okay yeah saying a I will make a motion that we continue plow only continue to plow the only on the east side of Rivendell Road to stay consistent with current policy and practices but if if we receive 50% or more of the homes on on the east side of Rivendell come back to us we will reconsider this decision on the east side or on the whole street on the east side that's my motion currently it's all household households on the street okay just making sure you know that I will second that okay can you say it again I will say that we continue plowing only I'm sorry I'm not the product is in here just the 50% we will plow only on the east side unless we receive it but if we receive a petition by 50% or more of people on I'm sorry on ribbon let me just say on God I'm sorry I'm withdraw my emotion this is so confusing I'll draw that first motion I'll say we will keep plowing on the east side of Rivendell and to stay consistent with policy unless we receive if petition fifty percent of more more of the households on Rivendell Avenue then what we will reconsider our decision I will second that but it's Rivendell drive driving I've got to be good percent of everybody on the street yeah fifty percent of every one street can I just point out one thing yeah the recommendation D does say after the crosswalk is installed the plow then and then plow the west side sidewalk from Boyer Lane to Maple Street. So it's the west side. It's the whole west side. We would only still be doing one side, but it would be the west side. I don't think it's the greatest solution, but that's where the traffic is, the majority of it, so I think that's where the service should be. And that's the school side. Yes. We keep things as, basically, we're going to keep things as we are. We're going to keep, oh, Evan, we're going to keep things as we are. Okay, we're going to keep plowing the thing as it is, but if 50% or more of the residents on Rivendell sign a petition asking us to reconsider the sidewalk plowing policy, we will reconsider our decision. Okay, and Lori seconded that, right? Yes, right. Okay, any further discussion? I will call for a vote. All in favor? Aye. Oh, nay. Nay, okay. So three to one, that's a decision. We've made that decision. Now we are looking at BCDE. Do I hear any motion or any interest in trying to make a motion on BC, on staff recommendations for BCDE? I'll move that we implement recommendations, C, D, and E, and that we revisit the entire policy at a later date. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Nay. Okay. That passes. So we're done. Good? Happy day. That's what- Sorry about that. That took a lot longer than it was on the plowing. We could have plowed it a whole bunch of years. That's the last meeting. Just so I understand, and thank you. Like, yeah, this was gonna be such a thing. So for this year, nothing changes. Unless you get more signatures. Right, okay. And then next year, if I don't do anything else, it'll be switched. It's gonna be a crosswalk, going right from Wood's End over to your side of the street. And then from that point forward, on your side of the street, it'll be plowed up to the corner of Maple Street. But that's not what you just passed. That's my understanding of what it is. Didn't you adopt D? No. Not adopt B. No, C, C, E, E. C, D, and E. Yeah, D. We didn't need B. Okay, maybe we'll need to change that. That was our understanding. So maybe some of the language in here is messed up. E is the entire West Side. Right, we voted to keep it as is for now on the East Side. And then come spring, we'll install the crosswalk. And after the crosswalk is installed, we will switch over and plow the West Side. That's what we passed. Okay, sorry. Can something, people coming down from Wood's End are gonna have to cross them. Okay, all right. Thank you. Sorry, got it. Okay, got it. I'm gonna make sure we're all on the same page. Thank you very much. Thank you. Update on progress of unified manager goals, Evan. To be honest with you, it's in your report. If you want me to touch on anything, I'll answer any questions. We have several other, or we can come back to this. We have several other items, but happy to answer your questions. You mean you want to move this onto, I mean, there are some things I'd like to discuss in here, Evan, but sure. It might be prudent for us to get Lauren on board. So I will make a motion that we move, amend the agenda and move item G down to the bottom of the new business items list. I'll make that motion. I'll second that motion. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. So let's get onto contract building needs analysis. Greg is here. I was here a few months ago, a couple of months ago with Dennis Lutz talking about doing the building needs analysis, space needs analysis for the fire departments, the parks direct departments, and the public works departments. We put out an RFP. We ended up getting two bids back, two responses. The committee sat down, evaluated all those. Staff committee and the recommendation was to enter a contract with Scott and partners. Their bid proposal for the project was $45,650, which is above the $40,000 threshold for the purchasing policy, which is why I'm back here tonight looking for approval from the trustees to allow the unified manager to execute the contract going to the select board on this coming Monday night to ask the same thing. Okay. Questions? Yeah. In the past, we've seen the bids for some, for projects. So I kind of like to see the bids. Oh, good. Both of them? Well, especially the one that you went with. Okay. But in lieu of that at the moment, I'd like to know why you chose Scott and partners. I'd like to go to the other one. Sure. We went through and put together a score sheet and I'm not going to send the bids out afterwards. Sorry about that. But staff put together a score sheet and it was evaluated on several criteria. I think there was, don't have in front of me, experience, availability of technical discipline, past performance on similar projects, stuff like that. They were weighted differently out of a score of a total of 100. The six or seven staff people who weighed in, each put down a score. We basically just kind of went through and looked at the scores and Scott and partners came out on top. We didn't have too much discussion beyond that. To be honest, I could probably give a little bit more but it was really just kind of based on the scores. I appreciate that. So, Lane, you're saying you don't want to take any action on this until you see the rest of them? No, I trust the staff's assessment but I remember receiving seeing bids from other processes before and it's just helpful to know what's being bid on especially since we've changed the policy so that we're only going to the boards for approval over a certain dollar amount. We should see what we're improving. Right, okay. I know you said that the scores were different. What stood out? What made Scott and Parker stand out ahead of Wee Men Lamp Here? I'll speak for myself and not the entire committee but certainly for me, they were pretty similar apart from the price. Scott and partners was about $46,000. Wee Men Lamp Here was over $100,000. That's a good reason. And then at one point in time, we were talking about this, I recall that we were talking about an option A was just the public works and Fire Department option B was those two and Parks and Rec. This is the option B with all three. Based on the three back from the select board and the trustee, we decided to revise the RFP before it went out to study all three departments for the town and the village. So, this is all departments for the town and the village, which is option B. And regardless of whether co-location happens, doesn't happen, this will evaluate the needs and would help to that inform. Correct. Thank you. I will only say that I just still have a big component of doubt about this because we just saw recently a capital projects list that again, once again, we're running behind. It just in paving streets, paving sidewalks, doing basic fundamental crucial infrastructure work we're falling behind. I can only see that a report like this is gonna come through with the recommendation that we build a new unified public works department as a capital cost and part of the money's gonna come from the village, part of the money's gonna come from the town and I'm saying in my mind that would go, that would be way at the bottom of our priority list in terms of capital expenditures. I wanna, people have been waiting in neighborhoods in the village to have their sidewalks and streets fixed for years and I'm not gonna, I feel very uncomfortable saying, well, we're gonna replace a building that we don't, I'm not really sure that we need. We're gonna do that first before we fix your street so that's, I'm just telling you. Sure. And that's gonna be me. And so this isn't necessarily looking at a recommendation of you should do a unified public works building versus two, it's what's the space, what do you need? We met with Scott and partners Dennis Lutz and Evan and I the other day and it's looking at how much equipment do we have, how much you're gonna need down the road to do the sidewalks, do the new roads, how much space do we need to house all that. And it could be that you need a certain amount of space to do two facilities or a different amount of space to do one and then it's gonna be up to the boards to some extent to decide how do you wanna plan for that and how do you wanna budget for that. Part of it is just the public works building in the village. There's a restriction on the equipment you can buy. It's not big enough, it's not tall enough. They don't have the proper, the ideal ventilation when they're working on vehicles, there's no service bay. It's gonna come up with a lot of those things and yeah, you're gonna have to, the board's left to make some decisions based on how this comes back. And that's, but it's to inform the capital plan, yeah. Okay. I couldn't agree with you more. And in the village, we still have a review process that would rank these projects. So I wouldn't assume that this wouldn't go through that same process, correct? Yep. I just wanna add that this is not a binding study. No, no, no, I know. It's not a binding study. I just wanted to, I just wanna be on record as being, you know, cranky about the whole thing. I'm not saying it's not, it's not a good idea. And I've heard all the, I've made this argument before, but I just wanna keep bringing it out so that if it comes up, I don't say, well, where are you coming from, Jordan? I'm like, no, I've been talking about this all along. It's our job to prioritize those projects. And it took us what, 20 years to get a new police station? I mean, we'll pay for it when we can afford it. We're gonna pay for it sooner. Right, yeah, okay. So along those lines, if this is a report that sits on a shelf for 10 years, is it still valid and valuable? Good point, no. It could be very, it could be important, it could open our eyes to something that we don't know about, that's for sure. I mean, not to be a speed bump, road bump, whatever you wanna call me at this point, does it make sense to put this on hold until we meet next week with the select board and bring it up again and say, is it worth spending the $46,000 on this versus putting the $46,000 into other things? Is that what you're essentially making sure is? I will maybe break a precedent here and say, since we have a member of the select board sitting right with us here, I think the select board is pretty gone home on going forward with this. So I wouldn't wanna see it. And we did discuss this jointly. I'd hate to unilaterally for us to make an alternative decision. But if it's worth the conversation, I mean, again, if it's not something that's gonna be valuable, is it worth waiting? It's just a question to be devil's advocate. You know, I sure don't doubt the value of this study. And I think in the spirit of the consolidation efforts that we're making, it's a good idea to explore our future needs. It's not binding. And I realize there's a cost to it. It's going to be that expensive or even more expensive if we kick that can down the road. I would not recommend this board pulling out right now without talking to the select board. And since we have a joint meeting on budget next week, why not bring it up? But I have no problem with this study. Okay. Yeah, just a couple of points. So the study is ideally looking at 30 years out. So, and Scott and partners has told us that's a long timeframe, but that was part of the big. So is it valid 10 years down the road? Less valid than it would be today, but certainly it'll still be within the context of the timeframe we're looking at. In terms of if I can weigh in on whether or not to combine with the select board or do a joint project. As you said, the original option A was to do public works combined and then town rec and town fire. There's money in the capital budget for that, just $40,000. The village is contributing 10,000 to that as in the capital plan. That part can go forward, I would assume you know, the select board still have to approve the capital expenditure, but that was the plan. This is not much more money than that originally and the feedback was to do it jointly and then, yeah. Sure, go ahead. Greg, as I remember the RFP and it maybe helped me out here just to be clear. So like when we look at the fire department, they're to look at the town fire alone and the village fire alone and how much space would be needed if they were together. Okay, and part of that is they're both in different sites, but if the site needed or the space needed for that thing required land that we didn't currently, it wouldn't fit on any land that we currently own. Think about this, if we need three acres, four acres, five acres, the village and the town might want to think about, you can't afford to build the building, but you still need to own the land before you build the building. So you may have to use that time if it's decided you're going to combine them to buy the land that it's on, that it's going to be on in advance because they only come up every so often and you try to spend that time finding that right location. The current village garage isn't structured to be able to deal with the equipment that we're dealing with now. Part of the study is would the new one fit on that site still and how would you do it? So it comes with a good value just to know what you're dealing with and how to prioritize what you have coming. The Buick Works Garage was built in the 50s or 40s and it was donated by the state. It's not gonna last forever. I think your fire station is circa 1965. It too is either gonna need to have some upgrades and some clean up in there or you're gonna decide if you really wanna put the money into a 50, 60 year old building or you're gonna decide to build something for the future. Those will all be some of the things that I think the study could help you. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Okay, so do I hear a motion? I'll move the trustees authorized unified manager to execute the contract with Scott and partners for a building analysis. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Great. Thanks, Greg. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for dealing with me, Greg. Thank you. Assignment of fund balance, Lauren. Okay, so we had a small surplus in FY18, about 74,000. Our fund balance was below 10% when we started this year and it's now 10.8, which gives us, with the things that we've already assigned, which is termination and benefits that come from the budget. We've had this money for the health reimbursement arrangement. It's just in case we have run on medical, expenses, we have money put aside for that. Reduction for the taxes in this current fiscal year. We've used 35,000 and the library has money set aside for their lost book funds and the money that they get from the friends. So those are the things that we have assigned right now. They total 143,142. This leaves $39,698 to get us to that 10% of unassigned fund balance level. I'm talking to Evan. He was feeling that our buildings could use this money as your buildings maintenance because we have a lot of problems with our buildings. I just like to pick one, like for example. I think it was here where I was talking to him. What's he having in mind? Staying glass windows. Our fire department has problems from time to time with some of their doors. We have problems sometimes with HVAC. We are using REC impact funds for ADA, but in general, we don't have any funds set aside for ADA compliance. Oh, look, there's Ireland. The EGNRP is always scrounging around for monies, but in general, our buildings are getting older. Okay. I would only add to that. We had the request from the senior center to fix their door. Right. I mean, that's what you find. We're using REC impact fees from the town. Any of those things come up all the time? Any questions about this? Other questions about this? Do we hear a motion? I will make a motion that we assign $39,699 of fund balance for building meetings. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We do. Now Lauren, proposed transfer of rolling stock fund to street departments. Yes. So the town has talked about eliminating the highway tax. Right. We've been eliminating it in FY16 when we consolidated the public works departments. Sort of. We added the village budget to the town budget and at that time, in order to mitigate the tax increase, we lowered the highway tax at that time from eight cents to about two cents. Then the next year, we added paving into the village budget. And at that time, we then lowered the town highway tax to 1.1 cents. The town has indicated that they would like to get rid of the highway tax. And so it seemed like a logical step to at that time address one of the issues that the Public Works Consolidation Committee said that one of the things they wanted to look toward was one rolling stock fund. This would get it so that the town was then paying for the village highway rolling stock fund and it would be a step into that park. So when you, and the tax implications to the town and the village are almost nothing. I mean, it's a dollar 68 and two cents. It's a wash. So this seemed like a good time to do this. Now, in the memorandum of agreement, if the highway budget is gonna go over 6%, we have to have approval from the select board. The other thing is the MOA also states that it can't include transfers for equipment. So the select board will also have to approve that. But we wanted to get the trustees on board with moving that rolling stock transfer into the highway budget first and then approach the select board to agree to it. And if we have to move it back where it is, makes no difference. We still have to pay for it. But so just wanted to quaint the trustees with this idea that we are incorporating into the budget. Okay, but help me here. If the select board says no, if we don't transfer the rolling stock and we just keep the rolling stock as is and the select board eliminates the high, how much is the highway tax? No, a hundred and two. It's a dollar, it's a 1.1 cents. It earns about $165,000. $165,000? So then that gets, then so then the town general fund goes up. Boy, this is complicated math. Yes, it does, the town general fund. So the town general fund goes up. So then the village contribution to the town general fund goes up, but it's also split by people in the town outside the village. So, I, you know, I just did it. I've got another memo for next week where I've got the, I knitted everything on this one and then I think I was Irene asked that we recouple it and show the math a little better. And I've got another spreadsheet done for next week, which will show that if you just eliminate the highway tax, then the tax on the village goes up. I think it's $17 and so in the town. Okay, no, that's good. No, that's good. I just, we just need to make sure we understood the math. I'm just trying to think, is there some, other than the math, other than that calculation, is there something about, do we not wanting to lose the rolling, keeping the rolling stock where it is? So I have a couple questions. So, we would still, the village trustees would still make the decisions about the rolling stock fund. Yes. Absolutely. And this would be if, my, I have a couple concerns, but my main concern comes from our last meeting, our joint meeting when the lawyer was there, where we're continuing to operate under MOUs and now we're changing MOUs that we're working on. And so, my big concern is if something falls apart and something happens, it's one more thing we have to decouple. I guess I don't, other than the fact that the town wants to eliminate the highway tax, which is great, I don't necessarily see the benefit of us making this move. So maybe you could explain the benefits to me. Let me take your crack out. Can I do that? And tell you, you can tell her if I'm wrong. The benefit is, is that I see it, is that the highway departments in the village and the town need equipment. They have to have snow clouds, sidewalk clouds to do Rubendell and they, and they, we both need them. And we're keeping this part of the town clean. And the town outside the village is keeping the air into the bargain up. And so we're splitting the cost of, so not just the maintenance, but the equipment to perform the maintenance should be split 50-50. So we're basically saying, the town is gonna split the cost of our equipment purchases 50-50. We're gonna, we're helping them pay for half of their equipment and they're helping us pay for our equipment. That's how I see it. Is that, is that about right? Yeah, that's good. But there's no change in decision-making on what we purchase or no- Or when? Or when, or there's no conversations- It's in your budget for which you decide what to spend and where. And it's a revenue that comes in for the town. Right. It's, it's really, I mean, for, for us to be blunt, I mean, as it may have stated up front, it's, it's the, it's the select board that's taking the chance. We could say we all want to get a new, we want to get a new Rolls Royce here in the village. You know, we think maybe, you know, some staff, we could put it, I'm being silly, but we could put, we could make bad decisions about rolling stock. And under this situation, if the, if the select board agrees, they'd go, that sounds kind of dumb, but I guess we have to do it. But I think there's a- And they don't have to do it. No, they don't have to. But I think that there's an element, a component of trust here that because we're sharing public works, ultimately it's all under the same the same managerial administrative control that one side or the other isn't necessarily making bad decisions. You know, we, if we say we need a new bucket loader, we really need a new bucket loader. And the select board is not going to question that. So, and the cost of it's going to get split 50-50. But it is on, it is really up to the select board. They would be making the decision about whether to fund, to buy the equipment that we say we want, and they wouldn't have control over, they would just have to pay for it. They agree to pay for it. Right, I mean, we are, right now we're questioning that the select board would need to make a change from the 6% because this is going up significantly for this one time change. The select board can't say, no, you can't buy that super, super sucker, 500,000 or whatever, but they can say, does this 6% or less? Okay, thumbs up. I mean, there's no substantive input from the select board on what's being purchased or who's purchasing it or for what reason. If it follows the policy. If it follows the policy. And the MOU. Right. The down select board is silent. Right. Well, it is an MOU. So, and you know, the thing is, is that let me ask this question. So, if we, let's say the select board says yes, this year. Does that mean they say yes in perpetuity? What happens? Are we amending the MOU? Yes, we're going to have to amend the MOU. We're going to have to amend the MOU. This isn't a one time amendment, it's a permanent amendment. Yeah, I believe, yes. So then we would be raising it to 15%? No, no, but the increase would, the 15% increase is only going to happen this year. What do they have? No, they have to okay it for that. And then we'll go back to it because it'll already be in there. And then we'll have to amend the MOU. We need to change the language of the MOU to allow the rolling stock. If it currently does not allow it, we would then change the language to allow it. Right, no, my question was the percentage. Are we, are we raising the percentage? It's the one. We're asking for an amendment of one time, plus the language change. Plus the rolling stock, language change, right? No, but I don't think you want to. I just have a follow up question, so go ahead. One other thing, and we've talked about this, the other thing that Dan Richardson said is governing by MOU, Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, Memorandum of Administration or whatever you want to call it, is not a great long-term solution. What he did say was at some point we should look to codify those changes. Yeah, I know. So, so I get all this and I appreciate having the conversation. So, highway tax of one cent or whatever it is, we'll go with even numbers, one cent gets put in the general fund that we are now also paying for when we work before. So, it's a wash, and are we, so it's a wash. It is, pretty much. And we're just coupling even more when, where I don't feel there's a, I still have, I mean, I get what you're saying, but in my eyes, there's still no benefit because it is a wash, and we're further coupling our finances at a time when we're pretty unclear where we're headed. Ken, I'm sorry. Well, I'm just gonna say, if the town is rid of its highway tax and we don't do this rolling stock thing, then the village people are gonna pay a hundred times because they're gonna be, you know what I mean? I think that if, let's say, you know, ultimately two years out, we decide, look, it's just the consolidation just isn't working, we're still only under MOUs. So then things would unravel, and we'd have to go back to absorbing, you know, theoretically, I guess you could say, we would take back the cost of the entire public works department into the village budget, and the rolling stock. I don't think if they, if things are uncoupled, the town isn't gonna continue saying, yeah, we're no longer paying for your stuff. I don't think they're gonna do that. Yeah, I know. Logically, it all makes complete sense. I still struggle with- Well, we don't have to make a decision, we're just being informed about it. Yeah, and so I'm just letting you know. And we're gonna talk about it next week at the joint. Yeah, Elaine, you have a question? Yeah, we're talking about it being washed. I don't see it as a wash on the chart that Lauren provided, if both things happened, then the village tax rate would go down $1.60. That's the cost to a taxpayer paying with a $280,000 house. Their taxes will go down to $1.68. Right, $1.68. I get it. I'm just trying to be super accurate. That's not the tax rate. I'm trying to be super accurate. There's close enough. And the town outside the village tax rate for an average assessed house, it would be 84 cents of an increase. So I just want to, there are some impacts, and we have to be really particular about that. And the other thing is, I agree, I'm glad you reminded us about what Dan said about MOUs are not a permanent form of governance. But I do think that as we continue to progress down the road, we will continue to do it in such a way that we know that we can get out of it. That's my concern. I think that's what MOUs allow us to do. I know, it's messy. It is messy, and it's temporary and it's uncomfortable. Until we have something more permanent that all of the voters are happy with, then we have to have outs on everything we do. And I would just say, I want to go back to some of that conversation at the joint meetings where we talked about timeline. I mean, I think that's really important because we could do this as we have already forever. So I just want to make sure that as we're combining things, we're also, again, like I said, at the joint meeting, having this parallel conversation, there has to be an end in sight there. I couldn't agree with you more, Laurie, but I just keep bringing up the same thing. Keeping streets and sidewalks and infrastructure, that should be split. Everybody should be paying more or less the same for that. That shouldn't be something that is primarily seven, like before all of this started, if you really added up the numbers, the village was paying, the village brand list, about 70% of the cost of the entire community was coming out of the grand list to pay for all the rolling stock. Bucket loaders and plows in the town and the village, et cetera. So this is really bringing it down to more like a 50-50 split which I think people in the town outside the village, I think understand is fair. I think that's the message I've gotten. So I think we're, this is bringing us in the right direction, okay? I mean, I don't think we're not making a decision here. So this is just informative and we'll take off this discussion again. This is one of the key items that's gonna be on our joint budget meeting next week. Okay, anything else? Good? Okay, thank you. Oh, but Lauren, the budget day menu. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, we're eating. So no, no, I don't know. And that's up to you and my pet. There's always a big discussion where you guys wanna get your food from. So you tell me where you wanna get your food. I will talk to Tammy and she'll get a menu. I love maritones. Maritones? Maritones? Sounds good to me. Sure. Yeah. We had it done maritones in a while actually, had we? No, we had been doing pork and pickles. Pork and, well. Yeah. Maritones is good, huh? No, it's not me. Okay. No, right. It's really important stuff. I know. I know. It's really easy. Sounds like a lot of work. That is. It is. It is. It's a lot of work. All the businesses are doing the same thing. To have us good. That would be a good idea. I would be part of that. Do we wanna go back and so we did move things around and we have one piece to go back. And Evan, I don't know if you wanna, if you wanna do any more about your goals or you wanna discuss it any further. I saw them and there's not a decision to be made. No. There are four goals that the joint boards have put together where I was supposed to get those done. My evaluation is supposed to be in February. Yeah. Preferred by contract, although I'm not that picky if we get close, but as part of it, you asked for update of where I was on certain things. So I did that. I also threw in some information just sort of to tell you just how busy we are sometimes. Yeah. It's like all the positions we've done, some things like that, but I just wanted to give you an update that we're what I've been working on and answer any questions. Appreciate the update. Yeah, thank you. I'm only gonna make one comment, which is that I noticed that in terms of one of the long-term goals under alignment is website consolidation. And I'm a little concerned about Brownell Library website because that is really, I think that they consider that to be part of their mission. They don't consider that to be just a municipal thing. They consider that to be one of the services that they offer. So I just, I want to make sure that they have a lot of control over anything that happens with their website. We're actually gonna be having a meeting very shortly with IT about Brownell and IT. And in general, they do not want to be a website within a website. So we're gonna have to work some things out with that. I mean, currently, just a direct link to a separate site. So, and because of their database capabilities and downloading and streaming audio books, they would need to be a separate. Yeah. Yeah. It would be very... I would think the assets free would have a similar, they don't have quite as much of the IT... Not much of a presence in general, but that could be something in the future. Yeah. In fact, it could be something that they may work on together in the future, but take it, point taken. It's just, yeah, it's key. And we can talk about that more. Nothing is really imminent. We have had some very good meetings with the school district. Brian and I have met a couple of times. We've decided to have a monthly coffee, him and I. We are going to be talking about how to partner together with school resource officers. We're talking, we have a meeting scheduled for late January. After village school busing does start, in some form or fashion, we wanted to get back together with what's going right, what's not going so right, and where some adjustments need to be made. So we are really starting to talk one organization to another. They are the largest taxing body in the village and the town. I should like saying that. We're not the largest taxing party, but we do a lot of the same things. They have buildings maintenance. We have buildings maintenance. They do a lot of plowing. We do a lot of plowing. They do busing. We do busing. They do children and students. We do seniors. So we're just trying to figure out where we have some synergies and where some things we can work together and also get on the same page with a lot of things, including the school resource officers. Curt McClendon is retiring. And we will be assigning another officer. But ultimately, we would like to see more school resource officers almost to the point where we would have one in the town, one in the village schools, and then one for the high school as a goal. So it takes a lot of coordination and funding to do those things. Any other questions? We can talk more about this. Thank you, Evan. You're welcome. I am going to now make a motion. I think that does get us through our, oh, no, we haven't, sorry. We've got to get through our minutes of the previous meeting. I'll move, we approve the minutes. Second. All right, are we doing the consent agenda in general? Yeah. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry, can we do the board, the trustee comments? Yeah, let's do, okay. Sorry, I do. Well, you know what? Let's do the consent agenda and we'll do trustee comments. I'll move, we approve the consent agenda. I'll second that one. I'll choose. All for the discussion. All in favor. Aye. Aye. And so now we'll do trustee comments before we do the final. So I think everyone knows that the farmers market was deciding kind of what's to do for their future. And the board made a difficult, but I think really good decision to dissolve. The market was a success for the years that we did it. We did it at a time where we had a lot of our friends and no one was coming downtown and there was a lot of crime. And so it was to revitalize the community as much as it was to offer a farmer's market. And we met that goal. And now there are people in the downtown and there are restaurants and there are things to do and more places for people to spend money. So we have eluded our attorney that we are actually dissolving the market. I let Lauren and Evan know that the village was great about providing some funding for that. And we still have some money in our checking accounts. And so we have a plan, I will tell you at some point, but we have a plan to donate that money to various charities within Essex that have a common mission of what we did. So I just wanna say from the board, thank you for all the support the village gave the market from the community. It's been fabulous. We do hope that other people will come together and say we need some events in the community and do some things, but it will no longer be a farmer's market, at least from Five Corners Farmers Market. What draw for us the main thing to draw you to this decision? There are a couple things. One, it's hard to put on a 16 to 19 week event in the summer. You have weather issues that we can't control. We have vendors coming from an hour, sometimes two hours away. It is their whole day to get here and then and if we don't have the people coming because they're off doing other things, there's other places to spend money, it's really difficult to keep it going. So that was one. And then the other thing, although we had a great board and great volunteers, this year we had a lot of students helping us. It was just a bit unsustainable going forward. So I will say though, we loved the space and it would be great. And I'm meeting with Julie Miller Johnson who was our market manager to come up maybe with some other ideas of things we can do monthly or something in that space. But again, we're open to anyone coming forward with ideas of other things we can do. I'm so disappointed to hear that. That's really, it was a great market and an amazing volunteer effort. I mean, it was really impressive what you guys pulled off. I worry about the access to good nutrition that market provided over the season and how we might replace that. Well, one of the things that we noticed over the course of the eight years and we did studies as well as NOFA did studies, there's a lot more available in the grocery stores, local food, there's a lot more CSAs. One of the pluses we had for many years is that we had a vendor, a farmer who was bringing their CSA to the market. And so when people came to get that, then they shopped for others. And their life plans changed and so that no longer happened. So along with other places to spend their money, other community activities happening, it is much easier to go to a grocery store or get a CSA and not have to say, oh, on Wednesdays I have to be at the market to get food. So that was one of the things we saw. But I appreciate it. Yeah, it is, it's sad that at the same time I think we can all vote our heads high and it was a success and we really helped the community. Absolutely, yep, thank you. Please thank Julie and the rest of the board on our behalf. Okay, well, anything else? Well, on that unfortunate note, I think we are on to me making a motion now that we enter into executive session to discuss a real estate negotiation. Do I hear a second? The personnel. Well, I was gonna do the separate. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. And then after that we will also enter, right after that we'll enter into another executive session to discuss a personnel matter. Second. Any further discussion? Quick clarification, do we need to do all this long stuff? Section one, PSA, blah, blah, blah. No? If you want me to. I don't think so. Okay, let me see. No, I'm just gonna go with the executive session. I'm just gonna say, wait, I'm trying to do the executive session to discuss the personnel matter as that's my motion. Cool. And Lori seconded? Aileen did second one. Aileen seconded. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. And we will take a short break while we set things up and tear things down. Thank you.