 Town of Essex select board meeting for Monday, November 7th, 2022 to order first order of businesses. Are there any agenda additions or changes from staff? None from staff. Thank you. Anything from board members? Should we pull out the minutes to make sure that we add Kendall is attending or can that happen absent pulling it out? I'm aware of it and we're going to correct it. I think if you want to make a comment or consent agenda that'll be okay. All right. We forgot to list you in the minutes Kendall. So we'll get your name back. Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering how the all the votes were four to zero with only three attendees. I wasn't here so I didn't know. Okay. All right. So no changes. So we'll move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time on the agenda when participants can speak to the board on topics that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard either raise your hand in the room or use the raise your hand feature in zoom to find that raise your hand float your cursor on the react in the lower part of the screen and click on the reactions and then an option to raise your hand will appear. Any any hands in the room? See any in the room? Anybody online wish to speak during public to be heard? Okay. Don't see anybody. So let's move on to the public hearing. I'll open the public hearing on the public nuisance ordinance. This is our fourth public hearing on this. Third, I believe. Third. Okay. Third. Okay. Come on up chief. Dennis Kessinger is online tonight. So I guess we've let's see what where are we with changes at this point? I think we had one word that needed to be changed and I think we added we wanted to make sure we included the or the rescinding of ordinances that would be duplicates as a result. All right. All right. So as this is a public hearing, any comments from the public? See any hands in the room? Any hands online? Any the board members want to make any comments on this during the hearing during the public hearing? Margaret's trying to raise her hand. Margaret. Margaret. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes. I had trouble getting in. Sorry to be late. I'm trying to track down something that I think would be really interesting. Somebody mentioned a possible app where they could put it on their phone and record sounds and I thought and and and relay that information. I thought that would be really useful because right now there's no clear path to making a noise complaint because and you know they often zip by quickly. So I haven't been able to track that information down, but I passed that along to you for possible future consideration. All right. Thank you. Is that it? Yes. That was that was my comment. Thank you. Thanks Margaret. All right. Any other? Is this this be the time of the board member to speak up? So we're the next business items for us to talk about passage of it. So I think at that point. Thank you. Since it's the public hearing, we'll have the public speak during this portion and I don't see any other hands. So Thank you. Motion we close the public hearing. All right. Thank you. Ethan. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Kendall. Any further discussion? All those in favor of closing the public hearing? Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Motion passes 5-0. Moving on to the first business item, which is considered final passage of a warning of a fourth public hearing for public news ordinance. So that would be the forward time to speak. So go ahead, Kendall. The only comment I had was under 6.11.050. If there would be any way to delete in a park, that is the only place that I think you're going to have folks not following the ordinance easily. That would be my only comment on that. I also wondered, did you have a chance to chat with the fire chief about no permit required in wintertime? Again, this isn't a change necessarily. I did want to note those two things. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other comments, Ethan? I just had a question about the spelling change that I proposed in 6.11.130 item C. This still reads, residents wishing to burn brush grass, natural, unpainted, unstained, untreated, dimensional, lumber, wood product shall obtain a permit online using the manner online or in person. So can you not get a permit in person? So I'm sorry, and I thought that we had deleted that. They added online or in person. It should say that she'll obtain a permit using the manner. Online or in person specified the Essex Police Department. I thought we really did that first online, but maybe strike through somehow, strike the first online and then take away the parentheses on online or in person. Would that be a major change or? I'm comfortable deleting that first online. I think that's just a just enough cleanup that has nothing to do with the was rereading through it. I'm like, they added the in person. Yeah, I'm sorry. I thought we deleted that online. I really did. I thought that we had. That was the only thing I had. We've talked about this before, but the express prohibitions for household trash. We talked about 500 feet of a residential dwelling between the hours of 9pm, 6am. Given that if you have 10 acres, does it really matter whether you're 500 feet from the property line? I think what really matters is your 500 feet from the actual dwelling. We talked about that last time. Yeah, it just wasn't updated. Do you have the section? Yeah, it's 61140B6. I don't see that as a significant change. We have talked about that previously. We have talked about it. It's probably all going to hate me and I'm going to hate myself, but we're having a public hearing on what was warned and published. This is, I believe, the copy that's been posted online and available in the clerk's office. I don't think that's substantial, though. I mean, yeah, I think we would have to. I agree. I'm in support of making that change because you could be up on rural parts of town and just mad that the trash trucks there are 6 o'clock. At least I don't understand, though. If you're not within 500 feet, you can start before 6am. That would be the catch, technically speaking. Right, we'll allow that. So like the industrial part, they can pick up the industrial part, too. I thought this was just more of the dense residential areas and the condos in the apartment. That wasn't there, so it really would impact rural areas. What I'm thinking is I see that more as cleanup language where I would be in favor, especially given that we had a recent inquiry that this would alleviate a situation of leaving the language as is, because nobody's going to complain, right, if they have 10 acres and they don't hear it. So I'm fine with just not doing anything with that, so I will walk my comment back. No, and I'm sorry that we missed it, and I think you both make good points, and my suggestion would be if you're otherwise ready to move ahead tonight to do that, I was going to ask the chief, I know you and the tenant Kissinger are working on other updates to ordinances. You might even have some after looking at the winter operations plan later on tonight. Maybe we can add this to the list of general cleanup stuff for the next round. Yeah, we can certainly do that, and I understand the concern around the two words between dwelling and residential property. And you just actually said what I was going to say is actually I don't think people are going to be complaining about a trash truck if they have 10 acres unless it's right up next to their house. And I just want to make sure we understand, I mean the folks that are going to be enforcing this really use common sense when they're doing that. So I did want to just address what Kendall had said earlier about fire, about the fire sheet. I haven't spoken to him specifically about this recently, but I know in the past his concern with having permits during the winter time was that still allows them to keep track of someone who's burning on their property. So that way the neighbor, if they call in that there's smoke coming from this property, that way they're not sending the fire department out there to that residence for nothing. So I didn't know that, but that was why he wanted that before. Does that make sense? Yeah, thank you. Okay, so there's a suggestion that we leave the language as it is, and any of these little fine tuning we might pick up in a clean-up revision later on. I think we can clean up the online one now and the rest of it. Yeah, yeah. Just strike the first one. So I make the motion that we can identify if we adopt how that the current public nuisance ordinance. Second. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? So do we need to state a specific implementation date or effective date? It would take effect immediately unless you specify otherwise. Okay, so I guess that's, I think, what we want to do. Yep. Anybody have any concerns with having it take effect immediately? I don't like it, so if you're in favor of the ordinance as presented, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. So much for the work. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Especially for the revisions and bringing it back. Thank you. Check that. All right. Okay, moving on to agenda item B, which is an interview for a possible appointment of volunteer to serve as Essex Town Moderator, John Sonic. He's going to be joining us remotely, I think. Yes, he was running around with election stuff, so he might be, he was here a little while ago and he might be in transit still. And the next item on the agenda, Charlie Baker from the Regional Planning Commission, is also going to be joining us momentarily. He's at Winooski first. Mr. Chairman, in light of full disclosure, I do work with John on the elections and I do know through scouting. Yep, I have the same situation. You do have a microphone. So the other thing that we probably should do is, I guess, are we prepared to move any of the other agenda items? Could we do the Housing Trust Fund? Just here? No. You're the Housing Trust Fund, yeah. All right. So I'll make the motion that we modify the agenda to move Business Item D up above Item B, so that we can continue progress in the meeting. Second. Thank you, Ethan, for the second. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Motion passes, five to zero. We've modified the agenda. So Housing Trust Fund, come on up. Hello. Katie Ballard, I'm the chair of the joint. I think we're still considered a joint housing commission here tonight just to give you all a brief presentation on the work we've done so far on the Housing Trust Fund proposal. The purpose of this today really is to give you kind of an update of where we've come from in our research, an idea of what we would kind of like to do moving forward and kind of to start making a plan if it's something that the select board is still interested in. When we were first created in our charter and part of the Housing Needs Assessment that was done, was it 2018 or 2019? Back then, one of the things that was identified as a priority was looking at a Housing Trust Fund. And so as a Housing Commission, it has been one of our priorities over the last two years. And so here I am today to start the presentation. First slide. So as I said, when we were created in the first year, one of the main topics we had decided to give a lot of consideration to was the Housing Trust Fund. And a Housing Trust Fund is typically a dedicated source of funding or subsidies that are dedicated by a local or state government for affordable housing projects and many other potential activities. Just to be clear, the Housing Trust Fund proposal and conversation, while it does really think about and is centered in affordable housing, it really has a wide range of different activities. We'll get into that a little later, but that is one of the things we wanted to talk about was just the different range of things that can be done with it. In addition to providing funding for approved projects, it would potentially provide a source of local match funds to leverage larger funding resources. If our community were to establish inclusionary zoning or set up a payment in lieu option for density bonuses, such payments could potentially be directed to the Housing Trust Fund as well. While not meant for large endowments as a funding source, this many communities do receive a lot of private endowments through their Housing Trust Funds, which would increase the availability of funding to our community. The advantage of a Housing Trust Fund is that it creates a flexible funding avenue that allows for creative and innovative resources to address a number of variety of purposes. This would be something that we would really want to structure and create uniquely for the town community. So we want to really have a lot of outreach to the community as well as other members of the municipality to really help us guide and figure out what the needs are that would most serve the community. They are proven to be most effective across the country. 47 states currently have a Housing Trust Fund as well as more than 750 cities and counties. By researching various models, we can create a structure that fits the needs of our local community and allows for the most municipal control of how resources are allocated. As you can see on this chart, we tried to capture some of the data from the local area. This is from 2019 and 2020 as well as early 2021. So we looked at the median home sale values. I apologize. I believe in your packet we included this so that you guys can see it more up close. Access to stable and safe housing is one of the central needs for every member of our community and plays a pivotal role in the quality of life people may have. This has only gotten worse since the pandemic started. When you're forced to spend significant portions of your income on housing alone, it can cause issues with finding childcare, employment, accessing healthcare and education, as well as limit someone's ability to participate in civic discussions. VHFA estimates that up to two thirds of households in Essex and up to three quarters of those in Essex Junction who qualify for rental assistance are not receiving it. This is largely due to limited amount of funding available. Not only are limited funds a barrier, but accessing those programs and resources can be challenging. There are lengthy applications, steps in the process in addition to many requirements for eligibility that can be overwhelming and difficult on those attempting to access the resources. I can personally speak to that as somebody who's worked through that after a house fire. If you don't live in certain zip codes in Chittenden County, it makes it really hard to access some of the funding. And unfortunately, my experience has been that Essex doesn't have a ton of independent resources. So we tend to get, I don't want to say lower priority, but we definitely didn't seem like a priority when it came to the limited funding. One barrier we don't often realize is the stigma that comes from accessing these resources. And that goes through both renters and those who own property and landowners. There is funding available for people who own property who need to bring it up to code or would be able to rent it out if it were up to certain codes. And a lot of places have access to funding through their housing trust fund for landowners and property owners as well. As I just said, the both renters and homeowners prices have skyrocketed in our community. The demand has far outpaced the supply. Our current existing available of housing is very limited and far from meeting the needs of the housing community at large. Next slide, please. This is really an opportunity. So I didn't go through a lot of notes on this because I didn't want to be stuck reading the paper. But a housing trust fund in Essex could really take advantage of the underutilized potential to increase housing stock. I think across Essex we've seen that there are a lot of properties that could be turned into other things or could be upgraded or updated to allow for people to be able to rent them or to increase their unit size. So that's one thing that we really looked at as an option for the housing trust fund would be to be adding funding to the community to be able to provide support for people who might also be interested in accessory dwelling units. I apologize, it has been a very long day. I apparently forgot how to talk. This would also provide a dependable source of revenue for the production, preservation or rehabilitation of rental and current owned homes as well as supports the services. So in order to access funding you have to have a certain amount of support services to be able to match the funding dollars for HUD. In Vermont that is one of the biggest challenges is that we don't have enough service providers or programs providing the services to be eligible to get the HUD funding. One way to get around that would be to create the housing trust fund which would be able to access some other types of funding which wouldn't have the same limitations that come from the HUD funding. Next slide. This slide gets more into how the funds can be used and accessed. We added a list of some of the different options but this is again a very limited list based on what we felt spoke to the priorities of the community which were low barrier funding for homelessness prevention which could be back rent. It could be in some cases places will allow utilities that are on disconnect in certain situations. For some families it can also be a back or a down payment to getting a first-time home. So some places do look at first-time home owners. Other places will pay a security deposit for a new rental unit for families that are eligible through the housing trust fund. Subsities are grants to make existing units ADA compliant. One of the things that we as a housing commission have really been trying to work on is how do we engage with our growing population of people who are living with disabilities or who are aging and require units that are ADA compliant that might need updating to prior existing properties. Grants for alterations to existing homes to create new housing units including ADUs. Subsidies for weatherization upgrades. We really looked at the different ways that some of those weatherization can really help support decreasing the amount people are paying for other utilities making it easier for them to make their rent payments. Subsidies for affordable units within otherwise market rate development projects. One of the things we as a housing commission have been looking at through inclusionary zoning in this process is a lot of the different developments that happen and the amount of affordable units and with the HUD grant and with the funding and all of the other specific density bonuses and pieces like that there are specific requirements that make it harder to allocate some of these resources for more affordable homes through the housing trust fund we could look at some of those resources that would allow us to subsidize some of those projects and create more affordable units in those projects without putting that burden on the developers all the time. Again this is just a very small window. One of the things that we looked at was the priorities laid out in the housing assessment needs and these spoke to and kind of matched the different needs that were listed in there as a priority but we would definitely be willing to expand that list and provide more options if there was an interest. The next slide I believe continues that list. Next slide please. Yep as I said down payment assistant for home first-time homebuyers similar to CHT's Community Champlain Housing Trust Shared Equity Program supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness domestic abuse victims and substance abuse recovery. There's a lot of stigmas that come in that group. We fortunately have a lot of different services in our community related to those. It would be great to be able to access housing funding to support the work of those programs especially for those that are in the domestic abuse victims and substance abuse recovery to be able to provide them a safe and dignified living space in a community that welcomes them felt really important to our group. Purchase and preparation of land for affordable housing projects. One of the things that our housing commission has been doing is we've gone to a lot of conferences and summits across the state on housing and in a lot of the southern part of the state especially there's been more and more municipalities that are looking at purchasing property themselves and developing it for housing and so one of the things that we could look at for housing trust fund funding would be to look at funding some of those type of projects. Municipally funded construction of housing or infrastructure upgrades again that's similar. We could look at any properties that we might be able to in the future purchase and we would be able to provide any upgrades through the housing trust fund. Housing quality enhancements. We talked a lot about the landscaping. We really wanted that to be about how to make people's homes more dignified providing trees for people who don't have a lot of barriers for noise and sound pollution on the lower levels of apartment buildings was one of the places we really talked about. Next slide please. How would the town pay for projects like this? So there are several possibilities not all of which involve property taxes although that is a common source since it is directly tied to the value of housing in the community. This could be included as a line item transfer in the operating budget or as a separate dedicated rate similar to the capital fund. Based on the FYE 2022 budget a new tax of one cent on the dollar of assessed value would have generated about $270,974 and would have increased the average taxpayers bill by about $23. Note these are pre-separation figures and that an increase of the tax rate is not the same as an increase in the overall budget which may include revenue sources other than property taxes. Our good friend Darren did this before he left so that all might sound like Darren and I absolutely don't understand all of it right now so my apologies on that. Other sources include part or all of local options tax examples on sales, meals, alcohol or hotels that could generate up to an estimated value of $1.2 million. Payment in lieu under inclusionary zoning for developers choosing not to construct their own affordable units if that would have to be implemented through inclusionary zoning as well so that would be tied to that. Charitable donations possibly that could also include fundraisers hosted by the housing commission a lot of places that cities or towns or counties that create their own housing trust fund their housing commissions will also serve as a group to fundraise and be a local voice for trying to seek out other funding options. Fees for documents recorded with the town clerk some municipalities will direct the money from those type of document searches into the housing trust fund. A local property transfer tax which I'm not sure some places allow that by statute that would be something we would have to look into more. Next slide please. So now we would talk about process and timeline the first step which we've been focused on now for the last several months is the research step this includes exploring the different type of uses structures funding and oversight by looking at existing housing trust funds we're working to create a beginning set of recommendations for creating a housing trust fund here in Essex town. As we get further into the research steps it's going to become really important to ensure we're engaging with our community through stakeholder interviews and other community forums the idea would be to hear directly from our community about what type of barriers or needs are currently a priority and to hear feedback about the idea of a housing trust fund in Essex. This is one of our next steps and we have actively begun engaging with local housing advocates non-profit agencies like CHT as well as finding several opportunities to hear from landowners renters and developers. We're hoping to create several avenues and opportunities for community engagement and input in the future as we move forward with creating a proposal or recommendations to present again the slack forward and or the city council. Before we did any community outreach really intentionally we did want to bring it to both the slack forward and city council just to kind of get an idea of if this is something that you would still be open to us pursuing and getting community engagement. Our hope would be that we would continue we as a joint housing commission are going through the separation ourselves so our hope had been initially to try and get this to to be on the floor vote for the spring. Now our recommendation and our idea of a timeline for this would be to look at the following spring to give residents in the community an opportunity to kind of get settled in that first year and also give us an opportunity to really engage with the community and take any feedback from the slack board and really be able to create a more specific and intentional proposal. Part of that would be hoping to kind of look at the way the town work town plan work group has kind of been created and moving forward and I don't want to say piggyback off that but kind of use that same model to engage over the next year while we really finalize this. So the next slide is really just questions for the board to consider whether or not you would want to talk about them or share tonight we would be interested in feedback on that. Do the boards generally support a housing trust fund? What outcomes do the board want to see from the housing trust fund? Specifically are you looking for more units, more affordability, more services or special need related etc? What level of funding and sources could the board provide or does the board feel like would be reasonable or feasible to ask the community about? Who might oversee the fund? That is one of the things we didn't touch base on here but we have looked at and the recommendation would be for us to create an authority that is outside of the housing commission and ultimately we wouldn't want to put it on the slack boards plate either but we would want some sort of probably I don't want to call it a task force but that's what some places call it that would consist of appointed members that would make a recommendation on each project that would then go forward to the slack board to ultimately decide. What additional information would the boards need to make these decisions and how involved would the board like to be in the public engagement process? And again I apologize I am missing my friend Darren who has been a big part of the housing trust fund work group as well as one of our members who's been ill so I am hopeful that you all understood that and if there's any questions please don't hesitate to reach out after tonight if you need to. Let me ask you a question now. You've been studying this apparently for some time what kind of startup money do you think you would need to create this? So actually the proposal that we had talked about would be that if ultimately we couldn't figure out a way to find a resource to help us create a startup fund the first step some places do is to actually just vote to create a housing trust fund and then once the housing trust fund is created municipalities can decide whether or not they'd like to direct funding or they can you know the documents the records fee that's another place where a lot of places use that and then they would create a place that could kind of hold that money but wouldn't allocate any money initially. I think our recommendation as of right now was going to be that way now that we're waiting a year I don't know that I have an answer for that at this time but just wanted to make sure I said you could do it either way. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I have a question and it might be kind of early in the game but like to Don's question how much like funding is needed in order to get grants like matchable grants or I know that there was a mention in there for dollar to dollar funding is is there anything that you can share about that? I definitely can get more information for you I do know at this point it varies there's a there's a wide range of options and I think the more that we put in as a municipality and the more that we had kind of skin in the game the more that we can leverage some of those other grants but that does not eliminate access to all of the resources if we don't have that in there. I do just want to say that one thing as somebody who has struggled with housing at times and has felt like there isn't a lot of places to go for resources. I know that our community has a lot of good intentions and they think when we start with the stakeholder engagement in those conversations getting some of the stories from people who've accessed funding through other places like the the Champlain Housing Trust in places like that and also hearing from them about folks that they can't serve that are in our community will be really helpful information for us just because that is a question that we have like how much money would it take to help in a meaningful way to get this started which isn't quite the same question but it is in the same line thank you. Chairperson I know that you had a question earlier to Greg I'm not quite sure that I answered that so I do just want to make sure. Yeah so I think you I think you did and I think well I especially in some of your following discussion the question was whether we would have to do a floor vote or a ballot vote because we the the town voted to put the budget on the ballot but didn't vote to put all of our town business on the ballot so and so it adds a complication that it takes it may take two votes to actually put money in the budget first to establish the fund and another one to put money in it but there may be we may not as I'm sitting here thinking about this we could choose at some point to put fund balance in there you know leftover money from the previous year just fold it right in there to get to get it to have it be a start but that's just that's for a future discussion um so so um so I think I answered my own question I think you also did mention that you thought it would need to be a floor vote and I'm I fully appreciate the fact that you're you're not trying to get us to put this on for for this coming March that is it would be an extremely tight timeline I think to get there um I it looks to me like you've put a lot a lot of very very very good thought into this um I'm fully supportive of going forward this I've actually asked for this for a couple years and I think now I understand why it's not as simple as um my naive thoughts were a couple years ago when I first asked about this that there is a lot behind it a lot of um you know understanding about what's what the needs are and how to do it what's legal what's you know what's really going to be helpful so um I really really appreciate what you've you know the progress you've made to this point I'm very supportive I don't know we did also meet with Polly Nichols who is the chair of the Montpelier housing commission or I think they're a housing trust group I can't remember what they're called she also was the one of the people who founded and created the Montpelier housing trust fund so we did spend a lot of time talking with her and with some other folks and we do have some draft rough language for a proposal but as I said I think time wise and hearing your feedback I think we made a good decision to kind of delay it so depending on what timeline works for you we would be definitely willing to continue this work and bring a proposal and more intentional information it would be helpful to know what timeline would be best for you all though and that Greg maybe could answer that later or share it with us but I want to make sure I get whatever you need by whenever you need it so yeah so um we started our budgeting process we just started it this past week um and so yeah uh early fall would be probably a good good time to start these you know to have start start the ball rolling um although we may not at that point be able to add money to it because as I said I think it's going to take two votes to get this going um or or some other action um so I don't know anybody else have any other thoughts I think your approach is perfect I do think there is a lot of opportunity for adding accessory dwellings and something like that I think there's a huge potential there can I comment and with with regard to what kind of public outreach to do I'm kind of clueless on that we are okay with making a plan we just wanted to make sure that we asked the the board in case there was any um thought that we should consider for that but we we are absolutely okay creating a plan um and we could also make sure that you are all invited to any of the public opportunities that we have just one thing if I could put a plug in very quickly it would be really helpful if we could make sure that we're promoting the vacancies and any applicants the town only currently has three members so it would be great if we could get that up to five members because um it it will be very hard for those three members uh post separation but just putting a plug out there for that great thank you thank you and will you have another look back you're you look like you were going to say something else I was just if she had two minutes to explain a little bit more about the payment in lieu from exclusionary zoning and is that an option in Essex not currently um one of the other projects that we as a housing commission have been working on for both municipalities is an inclusionary zoning uh proposal and I believe right now that is something that we are going to be moving forward um to both planning commissions but at this time there is no inclusionary zoning in Essex thank you I do believe there is some type of bonuses or density bonuses I'm not sure that they have been overly leveraged um in our communities I believe was the issue thank you anything else I have a kind of a question that you might share some knowledge on me on okay if if we if we are able to do a floor vote and then a ballot vote and then you know say that we were into next fall or not be the following year right it should be 25 right it would be right active would anything prevent the select board from let's just say that there was fund balance or something putting in a yeah we could we could absolutely do that we'd also we could also set up the fund potentially to accept donations and so it could get funded through other through other means and yes we we could uh the select board could um make action to shift some fund balance into there to get it uh to get to get started without a without a yeah I was just curious how that would and then right and then add it to the budget the next year to ask some funding to if we choose to or if the select board chooses to I shouldn't necessarily say we I think we will definitely make sure that we have some more solid information around the funding options and what would be feasible and and accessible depending on different choices um that's probably the next place that we're heading with our research anyway okay thank you so much thank you yeah okay charlie do you have a time constraint because because we could we could adjust the the agenda again to get you on next we we kind of shuffle things around because of availability that mr sonic is here you're flexible okay so we'll go back to our agenda as it was previously planned in progress john sonic is uh appears to be online and uh we're moving back to spider business item six b interviews a possible appointment of a volunteer to serve as the town of sx moderator um again we have john sonic online uh we do have my understanding is there's two other candidates um that are uh scheduled to come to our next meeting and so um we will be interviewing but then um deferring decision till we interview our other candidates so so john uh welcome uh thank you and thank you for your indulgence in your understanding yeah it looks like you are at the polling place right now i am i am setting up tables etc okay and so uh uh john go ahead and introduce yourself uh share whatever information you'd like to about yourself and why you're a moderator and go ahead of course so so my name is uh john sonic and i've been the uh moderator for the school district first uh e uh e t sd now the e w sd um for about almost 10 years i'd say between the two of them uh and i've been a a big poll worker not big in the sense that i'm a large man but big in that i love it it is uh civics is my thing america yay and so i've always been very interested in uh in the government and how it runs and i really think what we do here in vermont the way that we have a really good participatory democracy and how so many decisions are made in settings that are really close uh to to where they have an effect like the just select board meetings um and so anyway i've always enjoyed being a part of the process and i've always really enjoyed um helping people work through like understand what what is this process what's going on why is it working this way um for instance this year we had some new voting machines that we were using um dominion machines which are sort of the bugaboo uh in some people's minds um for various reasons and i it was really important to me as the person who has to run this election to say okay we need to have a broad group of people come in and understand how these machines work and why we use them and have them feel confident that the way that we process this information is uh is going to be fair and free and and that's just i so i've really bent over backwards to try to take all the questions and make sure everybody feels really comfortable with how things are going so in the moderator role it's a little bit different because we're not running an election it's not an australian ballot but there are a lot of people who go to a town meeting and they might not really feel comfortable asking questions or if they don't understand something uh then they're not quite sure how to ask the question they don't know whether it's something's a point of order or a point of information and i think that um one of the things that i'm good at and that i enjoy um is trying to be an educator of some some degree in that so i think steven eustis who was the moderator uh until the separation and now i think he's staying in the city um always did a great job at the beginning of town meeting where he'd take a little bit of time sort of go through the ground rules not getting into the nitty gritty of like which motions supersede other motions but just helping everybody understands that worst case scenario you don't know what's going on just raise your hands a point of order and i'll work i'll help work through how how to get what you want um if it's possible you know um there's no debating a non debatable motion but i can tell you that you can ask me the question i can say oh no we're not allowed to debate this um so anyway i just thought that this would be a really good opportunity to further contribute back to the town um which i love and um yeah so that's why i applied all right thank you john any questions from board members go ahead don what do you think your biggest challenge would be as a moderator um i think the biggest challenge is always going to be folks who do not are not comfortable with an explanation that you give and aren't quite ready to accept it and keep pushing you on the same point and trying to not be frustrated by by they're not processing that and just trying to stay with it i guess i should say that's one of the things that i'm good at so it's probably not my biggest challenge um but i think it's one of the is one of the reasons that i think i would be uh good at the job i think maybe the the to answer your the question you actually asked uh what is the biggest challenge it is in the orders of precedence knowing all the roberts rules inside and out which very few people do unless they're doing it all the time is just making sure that we are keeping track of everything that is happening and ensuring that we are following you know the um the the order of operations as it were for competing motions and points of order and and that sort of thing thank you have you had any contentious votes during your stint as moderator for the school district i am going to say no there have been a couple of points where people didn't understand why they couldn't like make a motion from the floor um because that's something that they're i mean when people think of in open meeting they're like well i should be able to go and make a proposal and have it voted on here and it's that's not that works but i wouldn't say that there was anything like a contentious budget vote or or anything like that no thank you ethan you got a question i don't leave me even much um um what's something important that you changed your mind on that's a great question it depends on how far back you would go but i would say one really big thing is uh boy i hope i'm not saying about stepping on a landmine is the value of using nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions a lot of people myself included were pretty skeptical for a really long time and i just think that the evidence over time is really overwhelming that if this is really a crisis that we've got to pull out all the stops and american nuclear power is is safe it's expensive um but i think if we were to support it more fully that it could be a a really good and it's a baseload solution which is one of the reasons that some of the renewable stuff is great when it works but it doesn't always work and when you have rolling blackouts in california because everybody's bought electric cars but the grid doesn't have enough electricity to fuel them so i i think that's probably the most controversial thing i've changed my mind on now let me install your question anything tracy um now i think i'm good okay there's some solid question yeah yeah so john you got any questions for us um is there any chance this is going to become a salary position not joking no no questions all right all right um so thank you john the uh as i said before we've got two other candidates interview them in our next meeting and um and uh make a decision from there and uh i see voting booths assembling in the background there yes yes the sausage is getting made fine i'll see you very early in the morning tomorrow yes you will sir and i've got a nice reflective vest for you so and 50 copies of the politicking rules all right thank you everybody and thank you again for uh for um being patient thank you john thank you all right uh moving on to the next uh business item which is a six c presentation and discussion about chitin in county regional planning commission and a report charlie come on up very much and so you want me to sit here over there with you since on the river i'll just stay where i am no offense well someone's gonna run the meeting just in the in the in the past jeff car would sit next to you and so yeah and he's still on our board representing chelburn right right um so thank you very much for uh making time charlie baker um executive director of the chinna county regional planning commission and um try to check in with our member municipalities every fall really to see how we're doing in terms of providing services to the town um and get any feedback from you in terms of how we can improve our services to you or or anything else um so i gave you a pretty long report for your packet thank you craig for including that um i'll just do a quick review of the uh what's what's in the report i'm not going to read it all but uh just give you kind of an overview the first page gives you some background on the regional planning commission the board a little bit about how we leverage municipal dues to bring in state and federal funds to the region um and then who your reps are including andy thank you for being the rep and tracy for being the alternate um on our board uh very important and um and thank you for the reps on the other committees uh and then the second page gets into and onto the third get into specific projects that we worked on with the town uh in the last fiscal year um and those range from you know transportation things to some energy some storm water water quality um emergency management um happy to take any feedback on any of those uh projects or services as we help the town not if you don't have any any comments and erin and greg field appears to be up to we appreciate the help it's been good yeah it's from stealing employees but we'll get over it i probably should have started with that it's uh it's up with the mercy of the court yeah so um thank you for letting uh darin go i guess um it wasn't our first choice but i don't mean that about negative about darin i mean we didn't go and try to pick him right he came to us so we're we're we're happy for him yeah yeah yeah yeah it's good glad that he's still in the area glad that we're gonna probably call on him because you do do great service for us and we do try to take advantage he'll be back right and i know he felt bad about missing the housing conversation that you just had so the the next section talks about the projects in the capital program and our transportation improvement program and i think you may win the award for the most projects that are in the capital program and we just kind of gave you a little bit about the money and timing if we knew it it's for those projects and then at the bottom uh or close to the bottom of page four is what you have in this year's work program with us more stormwater work and phosphorus control and also um looking at some build out with your zoning so i know we're working on that project right now and then the last few pages have kind of things we did regionally without regard to any specific municipality but kind of a wide range of topics uh from a legislative breakfast that's coming up in a month or so uh to uh dealing with equity issues or the building homes together campaign but happy to take any feedback or anything any questions on any of those ever any questions lots of i just noticed you have building homes together so you could partner with an s6 housing commission yeah so you know ours that's been kind of a partnership with shampoos housing trust and evernorth which used to be housing vermont is the statewide affordable housing developer and really just trying to encourage um state level policy and municipal policy change to get more housing production some of its policy a lot of the things that you were all talking about here um who have been encouraging municipal to talk about also and make progress on but then also some of the state level whether it's funding but also policy change to make um housing construction easier so just so charlie there is a isn't there a i don't know if it's still happening in their head and uh in past years a convening of a group to to talk about housing yeah um yeah as uh if things go around and come around the city stole regina who was kind of managing those housing convenings we called them yeah so uh taylor newton is our new planning manager um and with jaren joining us i assume we'll probably probably realistically be early in the year we'll try to have another one yeah and what andy's referring to is maybe two or three times a year we would try to get um the housing committee folks from all the towns in chitney county together and kind of share yeah how's it going to your town and and learning from each other um and sometimes bringing in some professionals too if there was a specific topic to begin to yeah so yeah thanks for that yeah and so so kindle i think that's where that would tie in our housing commission yeah yeah because i've been to a few of those meetings but yeah and in looking at your future plans are there any concerns either financially or material wise given the shortages and delivery surplus problems um in terms of like construction projects or things like um yeah and we're really at the planning stage so um you know we do see those things coming out i mean i think almost every month at our board meeting we're hearing from v trance about price escalation and project costs um yeah i think when the uh the infrastructure bill passed in washington whatever number of months that i'll go that was was like oh there's going to be more money for infrastructure um and we're thinking oh we're going to get more projects done i think it has just meant we're going to get the same number of projects done and they're going to be more expensive um so yeah but um beyond that i mean in terms of the planning phase of the work it hasn't had too much of an impact but definitely think about how fast things can get delivered okay it is thank you yeah i have a question for you sir because it's new to me but i i was reading through all this and i was i was curious in my in my little mind of mine was do you guys have any um turn off its goals or or the right way to raise it but have you ever tied in agriculture into the overall outlook of jenny canning planning commission and if so you're stristic you know i saw a lot with the clean water and and things like that so i didn't know that was all tied in together if you guys had yeah um it is something that we address in our regional plan so just like the town does a town plan we do we're we're actually required by say a lot to do a regional plan um and that is where we kind of look at how to protect land to keep it in agriculture so we have a strategy on working lands in our regional plan but a lot of it is about trying to decrease housing development pressure on farmland right and so so a lot of that was trying to get to a smart growth strategy of getting more housing where we have water and sewer and not so many rural subdivisions and you know i'm kind of curious that may evolve more with the global warming solutions act and there may be more on kind of the rural economy both you know civil culture and agriturism yeah all the expanding markets so yeah we do talk about it some future agriculture i like to call it because Vermont was built and supported by agriculture and then it turned more to tourism and now it's you know heading back to the micro farms and yeah and you know there's just so much to explore and i know i i personally did a lot of work with the state the state has some super awesome programs out there i was just kind of tied all together and think you know maybe that the planning commissions you know in the county and and regionally maybe that there's something more that they can work with state to find things that people don't know about you know things like the housing and projects yeah and we can take a look at that i think over the next probably 18 months or so we'll be updating our regional plan so that would be a good time to kind of look at anything new in that area yeah please send any thoughts you have things we should incorporate appreciate that thank you right i just put in the last plug um rpc we really get way more than our money is worth for for our dues each year um just some random stuff that couple conversations i had earlier today we're talking about capital planning kathryn and and aron and dan and i and uh upwp came up it's the unified planning work program right wow usually don't get that right um but that's been a tremendous resource for us in the past in terms of getting studies going projects going that help us do capital planning long-range planning um uh some maturely staff has helped kathryn recently as we're looking at some transportation type issues and be able to pick up a phone call and pick up a phone and make a call and get some some resources there charlie organizes a manager lunch once once a month um the different in the county managers in the area so just a very collaborative approach to all of it um community needs assessment you have the human services funding later on tonight that's partially driven by um the regional planning commission taking a look at the region uh community needs for for human services and where to direct some of our funding um as much as i was joking about really joking about um darin being stolen away from us uh charlie and the staff have sent us some other names um i can do this to try to look into too so it really is a very collaborative relationship and absolutely worth whatever flavor money we give them which is not a ton but worth every cent yeah well guys it's leverages the other state and federal funds here and thanks for mentioning the the work program we sent out our application before thanksgiving and asked our member municipalities to submit projects by january so just kind of a heads up if you have something that you're thinking about um working on with us and by 24 you know it's kind of this winter just as you're doing your budgeting um it's a time that we look at that also so yeah and i guess we also got communications union district that's right tomorrow right and other one of those things that kind of came out of those manager conversations but to do it we're a little late to that game with the rest of the state but uh we tried to resist creating another municipality but uh spelling we kind of had to to get money to flow into jenny county so thank you for all your work yeah thank you all for all the work you're doing appreciate it all right have a good night great thanks charlie thank you thanks oops step it on the court here okay uh let's see where are we moving on to business like we stood d already so six e consider approval of focus areas for fiscal year 2023 human services funding amy who's going to talk about that uh amy is on amy is on all right i am can you hear me okay yes we can all right awesome so good evening everybody um if you remember um earlier this year when we awarded the um f y 22 funds uh typically and and what we've been doing is having our focus areas approved at the same meeting however because we anticipated the university of vermont's community health needs assessment to be released in uh this summer we decided to hold off and until that was um out and be able to do a little bit of an analysis of that and then as well as a few other resources um meet again and then come back to you with our proposed focus areas so that's what we're here for um we already have fiscal year 2023 funds approved um in the amount of a hundred and sixty six thousand seven hundred and fifty three dollars the plan would be to open up our applications uh around next week um and then we will be awarding them in june of next year um when we reviewed um our committee met last week and when we reviewed the um health analysis um our assessment excuse me the health assessment um we were actually pretty surprised that most of the top priorities um that they came up with were very close to what we already have in our focus areas which is good if that's a really good thing um among the top were cultural humility and inclusive healthcare which is really the um the piece on diversity and equity and inclusion that we we have um housing mental health and well-being food access and security um so there were many things but one of the newest items that they that kind of came up as a glaring um new item in their assessment is workforce development um being able to support people to gain knowledge and skills that allow greater employment financial stability opportunity um which would be translated to what it is we provide for this to provide support services for child care for transportation you know any type of a nonprofit that may be able to assist with those sorts of things they would move up a little bit more into a focus area score a little bit higher um so with that in your packet you have um our proposed changes um and with that addition of increasing workforce development as an additional focus area we didn't actually take anything away um and then in the descriptions of the um each of the different focus areas we incorporated um some additional language that supports um the idea for cultural understanding for equity um rather than just having a separate focus area we wanted to have it just a little bit more interwoven into each of the focus areas um so I guess what we're looking for tonight is for um any kind of for review and approval of the focus areas and then once we have that we can um get our applications out and I'm happy to answer any questions all right thanks Tammy I know um Don you're also on that committee any anything you want to add that Tammy because we look because of our limited amount of funds we've lowered the top tier award yes that was true we did do that um that was from 25,000 down to 20,000 um I think one of the reasons was that we think many of the organizations have caught on to the fact that hey we can ask for more maybe get cut down last whatever else um I think that this is going to be able to um not only help eliminate some of that but also prepare people for possible drops in what we have for funding in future years um only because of the separation from the city um we may not have as much money to play around within this specific um funding so I just want to add that Tammy does a wonderful job of keeping us all on track it's really good thank you Tammy yes thank you I just might want to suggest because this particular year coming up with the budget increases with separation and everything is that it would be nice to really maybe focus on Essex that needed help I had mentioned this last time that sometimes if you you can give a little bit more to a local community support that really impacts the local community more than maybe a big company I'm just saying that some of some of the places that you award have a lot of funding sources and some of them our contribution means a lot it's just this one particular year because of the separation the budget impact um I can actually add I can answer some of that that we we designed a scoring system that um we can give a higher score to an organization if they provide more services to Essex residents or more direct service to Essex residents we actually ask that on the application to provide us with numbers tell us how many Essex residents you've helped in the past year how many do you anticipate helping in the next in the future year um and then we have a way to score them um they can get more points for the the greater amount of service that they can provide yeah that's what I was thank you that was what I was looking for yep any other questions or comments look like you're thinking I am and I'm trying to figure out how to say this just about one of the changes and inverting I just a little bit concerned with how in the top access to community-based resources the states about the central health and human services are underserved and BIPOC and then down below in version equity and inclusion specifically states only promoting BIPOC business ownership instead of business ownership and that was the only thing that I so well because it's about diversity equity and inclusion and specifically are you suggesting that you might add and promote underserved and BIPOC business ownership oh yeah just be inclusive of the entire community not just promote BIPOC business ownership but the wording I think that was in there actually so we may have not corrected it well it's it is under the the edited under the diversity equity and inclusion focus area so that's why it's specifically under that one because it that focus area would provide a higher score to a non-profit that supports the promotion of BIPOC business ownership yeah did language I mean when I think of inclusion I think of you know giving the opportunity to like it's worded above but I mean maybe I'm reading it wrong and I think I don't know the right wording to use so you're saying I guess I'm not understanding yeah and how I'm reading that is I mean it's exploring ways services to marginalized communities and or offer culturally responsive promote diverse staffing or like it's it's a lot of or statements it's not only specifically calling out right one it's diverse in other words okay I just I was thinking everybody included so we had the people or yes you know the the higher ground there ended there but then the or I guess events I see this I see this and or there's a lot of semi clones there yeah I would say some of those descriptions are more for the applicants so that they are aware that that these are the examples that we're looking at so if you are a non-profit that offers culturally responsive services this would be you know this is applied this is you know this is where you could be considered if you are a and or gonna a non-profit that provides you know that builds diversity equity inclusion into yours you explore ways to enhance so basically we're giving them the and and ors are just kind of giving them examples of it's not a you know if they don't meet these specific things it's just basically to give the applicants an idea that they could apply they could be qualified they could be eligible and then we score based on those things yeah I'm not the best with English to be honest with you 100% I just have a hard time reading it you just want to make sure everybody not including on the underserved that was you know it wasn't you know about the BIPOC or underserved it's just about making sure that the wording was the way when we put it forward that it's you know as long as it makes sense I got caught up in goings and everything else so it didn't happen yeah it's open to any non-profit I mean it can can apply for this of these funds yeah yeah and they'll they'll figure out which category to fit squeeze themselves into whether it makes sense or not yep right yeah right any other comments or questions any comments or questions from the public all right so you're looking for approval I've got the spinny wheel Mr. Chair I will move that the select board approve the focus areas as presented in the attached version of the human services priorities for FY 23 human services funding thank you Tracy thank you Ethan any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay motion passes five zero thank you so much Tammy and thank you Don for your participation in that much thank you everyone thank you we'll see you back in the in the spring when you're asking for the money that's right yes I'll see you before that but yeah yeah all right thank you moving on to business item 6f consider approval of the winter operations plan for 2022-23 and the winter policy resolution thank you all good evening good evening the issue before we folks tonight is to approve the shears winter operations plan and re-sign the winter operation of the winter policy resolution that was also attached in there um first off I would just like to address Andy had a couple questions and suggestions we addressed all those today I made those changes to the resolution and made those changes to the document and uploaded it back up to so to clarify what those questions were there were the the term select man or select men appeared in the document and it used to be that our charter read that that's what we were was the board of select men and then in the past year or two someone we don't know actually who changed the language to say select board members so we no longer are explicitly defined as select men so I think that was the origin of the that language in here and it's been corrected to say something more appropriate and it's in that the it's it's still in metal 19 of state statute so we edited out that one portion and re-quoted and it's changed the wording a little we're still quoting statue right right adjusted okay great um thank you public works has been coming to the select board for nearly 35 years to get this document approved we have two versions of this document attached in your packet is the external version we also have a copy of the internal version which you are more and welcome to get a copy of it has a lot of our home numbers and personal numbers and cell phone numbers that I'm sure my highway guys would not like to have out in public but but that is available for you if you if you do feel you need a copy of that the major change this year um at least with the plan itself was unraveling some of the content from the city for a few years now it's been a joint document between the village of S extension the town of Essex and now that we've decided to part ways we've adjusted this document to reflect that I know Dennis in the past has provided track changes that document would have been and completely read most of it so we gave you a fresh copy starting over I think this year it has been served us well Dennis put in place during COVID the status alert to somebody had there between the green yellow and red I think it's brilliant that we carry that forward and utilize that I think it was it was it was good to allow the public to have some knowledge of how operations are going during major storm events we may need it moving forward if we do run into issues with coverage caused by either salt or any type of other shortages other than that the the coverage area that we are doing this year hasn't really changed um there are a couple areas where we've readjusted some of our contract services in the town center and laying farm area we made a tweak on Billy Butler we're going to take back Billy Butler whereas our contractor may do a little bit more sidewalk and path planning for us and the other major change at least in coverage will be the new multi-use path on 15 a town of Essex is going to plow that from gate to gate so we will cross over into the Colchester side but we have an agreement and we kind of scratch each other's backs as municipalities when we're trying when we have overlapping areas so other than that it's pretty much uh as the document has been in the past um looking tonight to uh have the select board consider approval of this year's winter operations plan and to sign the resolution we have for you and willing to take on any questions comments you folks may have regarding this year's plan any questions handle you think you got a question yeah he's got a lift over here he's got a lift uh i was actually hoping that we would have a chance to edit this in some cases um there's a couple of things that strike me in your big time the first thing is that i think where i make friends i think that the select board has been negligent in funding the public works enough when it comes to their sidewalks you've got 56 miles of sidewalks to do and you pick and choose which sidewalks get done and you don't have a clear sidewalk policy i think that's primarily because you don't have the funds to do that right i also noted that you don't do a lot of sidewalks because they're four-foot sidewalks and you don't have sidewalk equipment to do smaller than four feet it would it would be problematic we'd be doing a lot of uh repairs to lawns yeah on some of the four-foot wide sidewalks i mean i look at it as your basic town operation should be water sewer roads police and fire those should be your priority areas that you provide the service for the community and when i looked at this there's a lot of sidewalks that don't get done for a long period of time and um to me that is discrimination because you have to pick and choose what sidewalks you're going to do when some sidewalks get done before other sidewalks get done and there should be just a blanket policy that includes everybody especially because you want you look at a snowstorm or something that's really the one time that you don't want the people walking in the roads and if your sidewalks aren't clear and clean they're walking in the roads so um you know i did have a list of stuff but really i i would just like to see the board figure out a way to fund public works so that you can clear all the snow whether you use contractors or you hire more employees or you change some of the equipment that you have or you utilize more personnel just i just think that's really important that's my two cents all right so the the the policy that we're looking at today is constrained by the budget that's been approved for for the the current year we we certainly uh have just started our discussions about the following year so you know i don't think we can change what we plowed this year because we haven't funded it this year so it's just so there's no way to affect that at all uh going into the winter and i just think that the community should know that because i've heard over the years a lot about sidewalks don't get cleared to the point where i believe the school district has said you have to prioritize these sidewalks for the kids i just think that it's the board's job to fund that we can have those budget discussions um as we work through our budget coming toward town meeting here today but again we can't we can't affect the current year's budget yeah we i mean we could i guess but uh and again this is this is clearly for the board i'm not banging on the staff at all i think it's our responsibility to give you the tools that you need to provide for the community thank you so i just want to you you did on something kendo with the schools it was probably two three years ago erin when the school was having really hard time with its busing and we we did um erin denis myself um it was evan at the time it was evan or pat i think i want to say evan um spent a fair amount of time with the school dot school district figuring out where a lot of those walking routes were where the school population was and the the um plowing schedule was adjusted to try to accommodate that try to at least make sure that we were um focusing on those sidewalks where the kids would be walking first thing in the morning to try to get to school there was to get to school or get to a bus route but it was a combination of those two things and feel free to correct me if i know yeah and i think there was a a certain radius around some of the schools that um where a child was uh may walk to school so that they we had to clear to make sure those were cleared at a certain time frame um the bus routes as as greg said um where they had pickups we tried to make sure that we could get there in time for before you know and the before we hit down to the lower end to go through the susie court a lot of that stuff is taking into consideration in this plan um and we plow what we can within the funds that we have available to the right right yeah there are only certain neighborhoods right that are walking neighborhoods yes and it's not yeah and they're up here in the in the town center yeah but i would just point out that if you have 56 miles of sidewalks and you're building more places that are building more sidewalks there should be funding mechanism built into that to cover that additional work that's going to be put on public works i i just i mean i i don't have a sidewalk where i am i know i'm on a dirt road this is a development i don't expect to see the public works as often but i do expect to see them clean the road off and to read that you don't have a it like if you get a couple inches of snow you don't even plow the sidewalks it's you should be sidewalks are very important i know everybody's like you want a sidewalk and but you gotta maintain them you gotta clean them up i just think that's important that the board looks at that going forward because there's a lot of people that if their sidewalks not getting cleaned and you're cleaning theirs that to me that's it should be even it should be equal all across the town that's an thank you anything else anybody about i guess and i would ask how the bike path from the town village line to countryside development got chosen as a priority for following any ideas it's a it's a link between the two communities you're talking between the other one that snakes around by the golf course and then back into the country must be i know it runs by say brook and nobody's ever on it but yeah except for people walking the dog not kids going to school yeah they're they're we kind of look at those as kind of major pedestrian thoroughfares within the town center those are chosen to be maintained and also the link to countryside it's it's it's we feel it's it's one of the few pedestrian links into the city if you will it was really not on a 15 or 2a or on 117 for that matter it's it's one of the very few links pedestrians can get again access from the city into the town center so it is maintained i just i it was just think that the priority would be closer to the schools to start and then moving out the other way i don't know that much about it i'm just we do try to get the the areas near and around the schools completed in the in a timely fashion in the mornings try to get that done before school oh and then we'll move out to the town center but has kendall had mentioned two inches of snow on the ground we do kind of prioritize the roads and say passage on the roads over sidewalks that's always been our our practice this document continues that i think i'm just so much with limited equipment staff yes no i was just because it said the areas inside about for a priority one plowing and it was that was the first one and i'm going gets you know other than like i said in the summer it gets a lot of use of bikes and people walking the dog but in the winter you rarely see anybody using it but thank you any other comments are we looking for soul i'm waiting for a few deliveries at this point found a place to tuck some more away so once we get a couple more deliveries in i'll be comfortable it stays like this i'll whenever we'll be good right kind of worried you see that though but any time we get weather it's going to be ice yeah yeah yeah all right any sand for us right thank you for your hard work on this air appreciate it and i have to uh give credit where credit is due uh one of our new engineering interns danis lots he did he did a lot of work yeah it's an excellent document to have the to refer to when somebody calls and says well this is this is what it is and it's and it's definitely something that will be continued in the future hey any uh any comments or questions from the public don't see any hands so what's the board's pleasure i make the motion that we plan with the resolution we have to read the resolution no i don't think i want to read the resolution i'll read it okay the data the clerk's job can we stumble over a couple words the average meter so the resolution reads uh be it resolved that the select the select board of the town of asics adopt the following statements of policy regarding winter snow and ice clearing operations number one notwithstanding the circumstances involved with changing climatic conditions the town will endeavor to keep town roads designated walkways and municipal parking lots in a reasonably safe condition for travelers and number two town employees will endeavor to exercise reasonable care indulgence in the performance of their duties consistent with the intent of the current town of asics public works winter operations plan and number three travelers who use the town roads designated walkways municipal parking lots are expected to demonstrate due care and reasonable caution especially under adverse winter conditions and so i was just i was just reading something but it's okay because that's where we are all right so let's see we have a motion is there a second second thanks ethan all right i'll think about that yeah okay um any any further discussion so the motion is to is it adopt before you call for the vote i think ethan is concerned because it says execute the asics junction instead of town of ethics well but it says in asics junction the asics select boards i think it's okay we are in asics junction yeah but it stumbled me pretty good well i thought you stumbled over yeah i raised that question and thought about it i hit the end and i was like okay as we're doing it yep no problem just thank you dawg second yeah so i get that well i think we're good yeah but where we are so the the sorry i just wanted to be clear the motion is to approve adopt what do we we're adopting uh to approve the winter operations plan for 2022 2023 after hearing any public input and to sign the policy resolution mm-hmm you okay with that that's what i said did you hear me say that i just wanted to make sure that i it is all the all the right words were with my intentions all right thank you and you're okay with uh you're good i'm that that's what you want that's where we are so okay all righty had to double check okay so uh yes vote next sorry comment on the motion so i'll yeah comment on the motion yeah any discussion yeah if you want to make a comment i would say um i am disappointed we didn't have a chance to look at this before we actually voted on it maybe i missed it place it was uh in the packet came out on friday packet so the meeting wouldn't have been where we would make changes to the policy we would just adopt it um you can ask for changes if you want i mean the budget's all set i just i would have liked to have seen it and known to make those changes before the meeting figured that we would look at go over it and everything and then bring back the final document for that's fine it's just a little clarity right okay um yeah just to respond to that kind of a little bit um certainly if you can't speak for the board but if you think there are significant changes that you want to bring up the board to consider now is the time to do it we aren't and i look at this and to us it's not a new policy so in your rules and regulations for um orderly conductive procedure if there's a new policy that's introduced we've talked about this like the facilities use policy that's when you see it and then you make any changes it comes back and then you'd see it a second time and approve it um we've taken the practice of if if it's an existing policy and we're making a few changes but it's not a wholesale rewrite and we just bring it forward and we take comments um depending what on the significance or other significance but the extent of your your comments tonight um you bring them up and if the select board's amenable to them we can always do a as a proof you know approve as amended and as discussed tonight something we've done in the past too um that's just some some background of procedure and and certainly if you think that this stuff worth discussing again not speaking for the board but um Aaron and I would be happy to hear it if the board is as well okay that's fine um I'll just know going forward a previous policy like this the time to make comments would be to send it to you as soon as I got the packet or to bring them up at the meeting we're bringing them up to the meeting okay yeah it always helps us to see them ahead of time so we can review them and comment and respond um certainly at the meeting is fine too we'll take that go noted thank you and and it's it these from the the comments that you made it sound like this is tied very maybe tied very closely to the budget cycle as well so certainly if you have things that you see in here that you think should be addressed in the budget oops sorry didn't hit the mic um bring them up as we're going through our our workshops here leading up to town meeting and then based on whatever we at wherever we end up there the policy may need to be adjusted to it to address that so okay thank you yep any further discussion all those in favor of approving the uh policy and agreeing to sign the resolution please say I I I posed a motion passes five zero can we get the sign does they have it ready for you I like that I wish we signed them up we used to then they got the electric all right thank you Aaron and your staff for that again especially that new one which whatever is down there's Aaron you want it well you're passing around the resolution right now if you want to grab it and put the date on it we didn't date it all right so as of this 11th day I mean 7th day 7th Russian thing 7th day 11 7 you're gonna be sprained in the public works office okay so the next item on the agenda is a discussion about acquisition of land for municipal complex and possible use of American Rescue Fund Act funding for purchase just uh-huh that's a welcome so there is a memo in your packet that planes one so there are two issues to discuss the first is that discuss with you the possibility of purchasing property for municipal complex and other community benefits using the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA and also to discuss with you about whether you'd enter into effective obsession to discuss this further and really to negotiating or securing real estate purchases or lease options on property so the discussion really I don't want to read my memo necessarily there's a lot of information in there but the town offices and other town facilities are really limited in size um or this building itself is also located within the city of Essex Junction so no longer within our municipality uh senior center is also located in the city and they are finding that they might have some different needs as well too for their the services that they're offering so we don't really have any good programming space um essentially this right here this room is is programming space that we have for recreation or any any other town functions um and then the fire station is undersized um they're in need of some larger fire equipment that won't necessarily fit in their facility currently um and in addition uh in town so if once we sort of back off from what we need particularly for municipal facilities we need more affordable housing um or just even market rate housing or workforce housing so putting all that together staff has done some research to look into some potential parcels that we could purchase or we could lease and looking really specifically within our town center area so the root 15th quarter and area that area is closer to existing services um especially if you're thinking about a fire department needing access to all parts of town and a municipal facility as well being really in the middle of where the the population is so we've we have a several parcels that we've considered and um we're also working currently with women landfair architects to think through really specific needs of our of a size of facility that we would need for all of the things that I had mentioned plus more um you know considering even our library might need to expand at some time in the future uh so the question is if we were to build a municipal facility we need a spot for it as I was mentioning there's some different locations we're considering but we need to figure out how we're going to pay for that and the the town has um I think it's 3,300 or so um from ARPA funding that we've received and I would like you to consider that as an option to to purchase land um I know there are a lot of different ways to spend ARPA funding uh the town actually did a survey and in checking with the community to see what they thought and so one of the things that that I keep hearing and I think we heard from the community was let's do something big something bold something that's really going to make a lasting difference and you know so some of the things specifically were infrastructure transportation town buildings um tax relief and projects mitigating climate change so I think we could hit on most of those if we were to invest in property that that we could then build a municipal facility um so if we were to not use ARPA funding uh there could be a vote um at town meeting a bond vote for money to purchase property for the these facilities that I was talking about um again though I I would recommend using ARPA funding so in my memo here there are costs there's no cost at this time so we're really I'm just asking you to consider that the use of the ARPA funding and I would also suggest that we could go into executive session and discuss that and so there's a potential motion um at the end of the the memo that you could use which we would ask that you do right so so we're we're I know you you said you've looked at there a number of properties have been considered we're not yet ready to discuss those any specifics around any of those or any specifics around um uh costs and so forth and so I think those are the discussions we want to have um an executive session and then the the uh I just wanted the uh motion okay that's the one to go into executive session and then yeah that's what we're doing so we we're not we're not looking for action and the public session tonight this is just to get the concept out there um I think it was back in May the select board brought up the idea of a municipal facility um we certainly talked about ARPA and how to use that and now's the time where we're kind of ready to pull it together and have that conversation and see how it lands with the select board but the public about using ARPA money for four land acquisition then we can explore some more of the options that might be out there okay all right yeah we're not talking about a particular option at this point it's just the idea of using the funding for purchasing land for your municipal facility yes no I make the move I move so we usually um we can do public comment yeah we'll go through the rest of the the the meeting and then we'll come back to the to the motions to enter into executive session no problem so uh if there's any public comment we should probably hear that as well Margaret's the only one looks like the only one attending I don't see any hands in the room Margaret you get any comments on this yeah I think finding a good place in a central location to do things like Senior Center and Town Hall and a big meeting space would be fabulous but good luck in in in putting all that together and I think it would be a great use of the ARPA money although you could always spend that money about 10 other different ways so yeah carry on thanks Margaret okay so we will circle back to executive session later thank you thanks Catherine okay so next agenda item is continued fiscal year 2024 budget work session so do we have anything specific we want to talk about here no Dan is here I know it's been a um whopping couple of days since we went through the budget wanted to put something on the agenda tonight in case you had any reactions a couple days to digest if there's anything you wanted us to talk about focus on kendall he brought up the winter operations plan tonight and we talked a bit on friday about going back to public works and figuring out what some of the needs might be so we haven't had a chance to do that yet so we didn't have anything specific in mind but did want to put something on the agenda just in it's an opportunity to have another discussion and keep the ball rolling and I know that Andy and both of you both have lists of things so you're gonna follow up on those before we actually discuss them is that the plan we'll be I'll be pulling together information about that with staff and um yeah we'll be able to bring bring that back to you um think by the next meeting we should be able to have a more in-depth discussion great have a question go ahead the memo reads that the select board may wish to continue does that mean we have to have a consensus no that's just uh we we weren't making any recommendation we didn't have a specific in mind so you you may want to talk about it or you may not need tonight since since it's on the agenda we can you can bring up any any question or concern or comment about the I did bring my book budgeting if you want any more any different questions that the you know things that we didn't cover just did it all yet yeah there were there were 21 or 22 or maybe 23 different uh follow-up items that I that we had accumulated uh on Friday when we went through this um just want to see if there's anything else you want to add to that also there's a opportunity for more public comment tonight too um that was that was going to be my comment is that usually with the budget I mean I'm throwing out a lot more money here and there or usually I expect more feedback negative or positive like um yeah just for transparency if there's no negative feedback on increasing the budget for all this stuff and that's probably the way it'll go you know if I can piggyback on that um great point I you know I've been here for 10 years now and it it seems like we we do these what we do do these workshops every single year and whether it's a bunch of might meetings in January or or an entire day workshop um in in the fall like we've done the past couple years it hasn't been a whole kind of public input until maybe we get to the public hearing and really until we get to town meeting a lot of years this year we're not going to have the ability at a town meeting to change on the floor because it's going to be done by ballot so um just to to jump onto what Kendall said and put in a plug that now's the time the next meeting that is the time um please want to hear from our residents and and I drew a staff I'm sure the select board does too but want to get input and feedback um as the select board works on finalizing its budget to present to voters so any any public comment that was the time anybody in the room Margaret any comments you you were at the session all day on Friday yeah pretty much it was the mind numbing um and and as as far as comments you know I don't have the the budget document well it was online and I tried to follow along but it's yeah I'm not an accountant so a lot of it escapes me but um I don't have specific comments at the moment but I'll I'll think about it I think one of one of one of the things going on right now is there's a major election tomorrow so people's minds are otherwise occupied so um sorry I don't have any any any other comments but carry on okay thank you Margaret is there any other way we can get the word out about what we're looking for input well we'll try front porch form we've got the community newsletter Facebook pages broad reach too I know that it's been more recently like they shared your newsletter there but I'd really love to see um that that Facebook page we use daily I mean honestly just one post a day about a current event or something that's going on because you know not gonna aim a certain town but I feel part of a group that the town you know anything major that goes on I mean the town manager comes on just gives a little message and they're talking budget workshops and you know just hey it's a world of technology right we're all here on the computer tonight we're sitting next to each other but it's the way it is you know I'd say absolutely open to ideas and we you know every time we try to do um any sort of initiative really we try to get the word out always looking for new suggestions um there are Tammy's been building up the Facebook page it's been like I said you guys it's been yeah yeah I just holds from the idol page it was when it was created so it turns into a capacity issue and so posting every day may not be viable with one person who's primarily doing it no but no but other towns do it and I've been to sessions before where yeah you've got to do it every day to keep people engaged um I think Tammy tries to do it a couple times a week at this point we try to get these these words out um on these different initiatives and things we're trying to do so we'll we'll do all the you know the front porch form the website the newsletter like we typically do and um like I said open to ideas and we'll try to balance with the capacity what we can do and take on my concern is not is reaching the people that don't do Facebook and don't do front they'll vote but they don't that's why they're computer every day and see what's happened yeah and that's where we've got the community newsletter out I'll put a plug out for that it's you know two or three I think we just have put out the second to third edition I think it's the third edition second print version we're trying to leave copies here at the town offices at the library different locations Tammy's going to be tracking to see which ones get picked up um so she can replenish them and adjust locations so trying to trying to do different things absolutely the the I don't know what they call themselves the senior center in the town what all the senior apartments and make sure you do a drop there because they have an outstanding voter participation and I'm a recommendation too I don't know if it's going to be an issue to like drop it with the business but I know uh to stop at PDB three early in the morning I just about every old timer in Essex going through there in the morning so that's where everybody gets their newspaper I mean really they're the only store I know around that has a full newspaper rack that we have the town newspaper any more first day but be a good location Kevin's it's pretty awesome good ideas thank you I thought it was great that it went on at least I saw it on front porch form the you know the manager's budget proposal here it is yep I was I'm I'm actually I'm I'm I'm I haven't gotten an email from anybody in a long time yeah nobody's nobody's commented at all on the on the budget surprising but again we got the election tomorrow so maybe people's focus will switch I don't know and it was seven the only thing it was just maybe just a suggestion on the budget do you think we might get a little bit more feedback if you like broke it down for a department instead of putting the whole thing out all at once maybe did like uh what is it here's the highway department here's the economic you know each the ones that we went through is that because we did that and it was very helpful to see just one department at a time we have to look at the overall picture but there might be some folks that would really focus on public work some that might generate a little more interest yeah that's a good thought too thanks all right thank you Dan for your support all right and then we done with that okay moving on to the next business item which looks like another executive session topic discussion and potential action at least agreement free firm management group going to executive session possibly come back out on that topic so moving on to consent make the motion we accept the consent agenda with corrections to the minute thank you Don for a second thank you Ethan any discussion uh this the question does that include the appointment of the deputy health officer consent agenda yes um should she be the health officer versus deputy we have a health officer through the end of the year um I've appointed Sharon as deputy health officer for the charter the select board now has to approve my appointment um so that'll carry through at least until the end of the year and going to be having conversations with her about becoming the health officer as well that was my question so then we'll likely have another appointment some point right thank you right and then the the minutes uh update that needs to be made is Kendall was at the meeting um and the minutes don't don't reflect that any other comments all those in favor of approving consent agenda please say hi hi posed a motion passes five zero reading file any board member comments Ethan I see all right I remembered mine from Friday I'm sorry that I didn't tell you before because I literally just remember remembered again on the way in um the crosswalk at Irene have been very nice and 128 yep I would like to figure out a way to get a message to get a minimum white lines painted on 128 but I really love to see those little flashy signs there and at the school crossing the technical term we've used historically is the blinky flashy like I like to see them right there and I like to see them at um I don't know the name of the road right there I regret what I'm sorry there I'll be all over all the Brooklyn because there's so many kids be careful it's Alder Lane Alder yeah Alder Lane um this is my mom yeah but anyway the other one Irene really works me because there's people that obviously it's 50 mile an hour road but people like to speed through there and I see you know many people in church and you drive that way all the time too but there's people trying to cross the road and I see it mostly when I'm going through my tractor and now as somebody physically stops and like holds up traffic there's people just standing there waiting the kids on bikes and there's a there's a population there that was a that was on my mind on Friday and I couldn't remember it um good comments and I actually drive that road every day too um let me talk to Aaron we've had a couple other requests we get them occasionally about where to put up the blinky flashy lights um and we were talking about trying to put a policy together to sort of figure out some combination of pedestrian traffic uh speed in the area proximity to schools those set to things um so I'll check touch base to see where that stands uh if it's something that the select board wants to make action take action on more quickly than that put something on the agenda I'll make a note to do that on the 21st as well this is getting into one of those areas where yeah it was just something I was thinking no it's a it's a good thought and your which avenue to bring it to and you're right on and and your yeah I I think it's it's a good it's a good concern to raise um and let me give some thought to what we can do internally versus what's the select board decision and the other complicating factor there is that it's 128 state highways we might have to work with beach rams on that as well and they wouldn't let us reduce the limit there so yeah they may not let us do anything but there is I mean in rub there is a a pedestrian crosswalk sign there I believe so yeah that um in both directions so that was my question was you have to have the white lines you have the signs I'll have to check I'll be a little leverage thank you all right thanks Ethan yeah I just wanted to say thank you to Greg Tammy and staff for the Essex news a lot of positive feedback it's great to see something professionally done that that goes out to the community so thank you and I can just jump on that that's really Tammy deserves all the credit I mean we she's getting all the information from whether it's me your department heads but she's the one who's compiling it all putting it together organizing it um sorry earlier tonight we're lucky to have her and yeah just the skills that she has to be able to do that it's great it's great to hear that it's it's being well received um and given that Friday is Veterans Day I just wanted to say thank you to our community members anyone who has served the other comments I had one by member in two weeks yeah okay I had two when I was gonna start talking but then like it's really 9 30 you know right that's right right so let's circle back we have a couple of executive session uh motions to make I have one I move it's just like board enter executive session to discuss negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with one BSA section 313 a2 and to include the town manager and community development director thank you don do I have a second second thank you Tracy any further discussion those in favor please say aye aye post okay motion passes five zero I move the name aren't they I move that the select board enter executive session to discuss negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options what's this not yeah it's the one that says parks and rec sorry real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with one BSA section 313 a2 and to include the town manager can you you can say um parks and rec director and parks and rec director that's what I was looking at that and I didn't I didn't think I had the right words okay trying to find that too yes thank you don't know a second thank you Ethan any further discussion um I think it's likely that we will come back to yes to make a motion Scott you don't have to stay but we'll leave the meeting um active and return to it um when we're done so uh any other discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay motion passes five zero we will go into executive session upstairs