 Okay, all right, so I'll call a minute to order, it's just a couple minutes past seven. First thing on the agenda, as usual are the minutes, we have the minutes of August 22nd, 27th to approve by the bartender motion. I'll move to accept, adopt, which is the right A word, approve the minutes with corrections and changes as noted. Yes, your second. I'll second. Page one. Just a quick note, I think I sent you an email on this. These minutes were created from memory, not from videotape, so I think I got most of the gist of it, but the thing I was least confident in was who made what motion. So page one. So if you want to be accurate, I did all the seconds for all of the, for all of the appointees to the justice board. That's on page two. Was that page two or page one? Looks like my page one. Okay. Must be paging different. I don't know if it matters or not, but it's accurate. So if there's anything more on page one, page two. I'll make a note of the seconds. Yes. Page three. Well, again, I don't know if it matters, Jeff, but I thought you asked the question about the long-term debt obligations concerning debt and capital. And I think I commented on it because it's similar to. And which number here? Number eight. Okay. I don't know if it matters or not. Just caught my eye. Was there any change recommended on that? I think it should say Jeff fair. Yeah. That's an explanation of the town's long term. Okay. Obligations. Capital expenses. And yeah, and I do remember asking about, thank you for picking up on that. I do remember asking about it. Partly because of my limited, but understanding of our agreement with or not agreement or obligations under our membership in chin and solid waste district, in which there's significant long term debt. That change will be noted. I think on some page two. Page three. I have a couple of things under the number 11 emotion at the end. It talks about for the, for the period July 1, 2017 through June 30th, 2017. Short contract. Yeah, it was very short. In fact, it was naked. Actually, it should be 20. It's three years. So it should be 2020. 2020. Yes. Right. And then under number 12, the last bullet, the second line that talks neighborhood submitted by the town should be totaling and not total. Totally. Totally. And under number 12 in the second line, there's an extraneous word. The first is for an event at 3515. Hill road and cater should be struck stricken. And also in page three. Yes. And page five. Just one very, very, it's not even a comment. It's more of a question. It says it's a special events permit. And it said there are four special event permit applications for switchback beer works. And I didn't know if they were the applicant or if I think that's a gardener supplied. They were the applicant switchback beer works with the applicant. They were the okay. Because it's a special events, which is different than catering. Which is a little bit confusing. But I also confusing because they aren't the owners of the property. They are the, I assume they're somebody holding event at their property with their permission. Okay. But. Also on page five. Very no more corrections. All those in favor of approving the minutes of August 22nd 2017 say aye. Aye. Any opposed. No abstention. So we have done that. Next on the agenda is public comment. If this is the time for anyone in the audience. Which is to make a public comment on anything on the agenda or not. This is the time. And seeing nobody raising a hand. We'll move on to personnel policy revisions and our director of finance. Jennifer can only has here or two. Over. This with us and I do have a. I closed in a couple of questions after we got through this. Okay. Great. Um, so the last time this was updated was in July of 2014. So we thought it was time to review. Um, what we had. Um, one of the biggest changes that we made is updating our personnel policy to. Um, So we've updated our policy to include that lock. We were followed. We've been following it since July 1st. Anyways, but, um, wanted to make sure our personnel policy matched that. Um, Another thing is we would like to add a new benefit for time. Um, I think we're going to be able to do that. Um, I think we're going to be able to do that. Um, Another thing is we would like to add a new benefit for town employees that would be of no cost to the town and that's vision insurance. Right now we don't offer vision insurance to our employees. Um, We can get it through the league and what we're offering it to our employees and it would be a payroll deduction. Other changes were. Sure. So it's a payroll deduction for them. Yes. But there's no contribution. No contribution by the time. Um, Right now we offer dental insurance and the town pays a hundred percent of that dental insurance, but we offer nothing for vision. So we thought this would be a nice way to add that benefit for employees without additional costs. And then the other revisions, a lot of them came from the league. They do have an HR consultant that works for them now and she was able to review our personnel policy and make some updates to language changes. Um, just things to line up more with what the policy that they offer at the league. A number of a couple of typos. If you looked on page, if you have the document, page 18 is the first one. And do you want to, maybe should we just go through this? Cause I have a couple very minor, no showstoppers believe me, but a couple of minor questions. And so I don't know if you want to do with the typos and then come to mine or just go through it, start to finish. I had some questions also. So we'll get to yours after you get through mine. Okay. Great. Page 18 under 4.1.1. The fourth line down seems to be a word missing. Domestic partners has defined by should be the town's insurance carrier. Okay. For an injury or illness may jeopardize your claim for workers cop. And every relative talks about the employee. I thought it would be consistent to say instead of your to make it the employee's claim for workers cop. And then I had my questions were on page 25 under 5.5.4. The last sentence talks about accrued sickly to the allowable limit will be paid to an employee's spouse. Should it also say or the or the civil civil union partner? And are we if neither one of those exists, would they be paid to the estate or just disappear? Okay. Okay. And then at the bottom of page 25 and to page 26, it has the whole list of the employee cares for a sick or injured parent and the whole list of things that doesn't talk about a civil union partner in this one. Part B 557 Part B. Somewhere else we define. We do way back under immediate family, but since we're specifying in this one and under C and also D we're specifying a whole list, but it doesn't include the civil union partner. So I'm concerned about that. This is the actual, this is the language from the law. Really? Okay. Too much for that. I'm happy to update that. But I kind of well. You can center either way to help. Yeah, right. So if you look into that for little B, little C and little D. Okay. I think was on page 27. And at the paragraph at the top of the page, at the last sentence, it says, we will not consider military status or service. Shouldn't it say the town will not consider. And I think that's all I had. Jeff, you had some questions? Yes. So I don't have page number. I have section number. So let's start with 5.2. 5.2. 5.2, which is holiday. And my question is, is that as long as we're looking at this policy and it includes regular holidays, I know some towns have chosen to either rename or not have some municipalities have chosen to either rename or not have Columbus Day as a holiday. And I just, I guess the question is, is have we thought about that? Or is that something we want to think about? You may not be able to answer that, Jessica. I get that. But it's just one of those questions out there. I had the same question along the lines of we provide two and a half time salary for working on holidays. And it includes all of these holidays. Many of these holidays are holidays that I would say a majority of people probably work already. Well, that's a significant change in benefits. I, but the, and if the board wants to do that, I think the board's going to have to have a longer discussion because this, all these changes are not intended to change any significant benefits. But to the question about the holiday, if you want to name it something else, I just don't want to take the holiday away. Because again, that's a change in a significant, it's a significant benefit change. It affects people's money and the money in their pocket or time off or health insurance. Right. But to some extent it's our job to verify that every right. Kind of go through this, right? Go through the policies. Generally, no. We don't go through this every year. This is something, well, like Jennifer said, it's been how many years since we even made any. 2014. And those, and when we did that. It's the policy document. Right. And in 2014, I think there were just minor changes. It's been even longer since we've done a more comprehensive update. I would be happy to provide some information to this board about what other towns are offering as far as holidays and what the state of Vermont offers for holidays to kind of give you some background. And that'd be helpful. But right now we offer 12 holidays. If I count correctly. And so it sounds like either, should we, 12 and then two optional kind of choice days, which I think many companies provide as, you know, if you have a special holiday, you want to, the push in the industry has to reduce the number of fixed holidays and give you some floaters. I think we give people a couple of floaters now. We call them personal days, but yes. Right. Yes. Same thing. And a piece of it also is that I assume people who've been hired, part of what they're hired into is a town that offers 12 holidays. And to take that, change that or take that away and make it 11, 10, whatever the number is, you know, does, does affect employees. Frankly, I like the idea of set holidays rather than personal days for the most part, because we're a service organization and our doors are open. And it just makes it, and we're small staff. So it makes it harder when we have, let's say, I don't know what day you'd take as a floater, possibly Columbus Day. That might be an easier day to make it a floater than some of the others, but some of the others, we'd have a majority of employees wanting to take off. Most of my comments were on the competitiveness of, of the package and what the survey results are for industry and other municipalities. So it seems like a very good package. You know, I just wanted to make sure that we're competitive and it says in here somewhere, when I was referring to the yearly evaluation, it's the yearly evaluation of salaries. I was kind of wondering how that was done. Is there a survey result that we get? As you know, managers in the business world, we would see, you know, yearly or every couple of years, we'd see a survey of similar companies in the region and look at the, at the medians. Well, we do a periodic survey. We don't do it every year. We do a, internally we do a survey. And we do it with the league every year. We submit our data and then we receive a report back that shows all the municipalities and where the ranges are for different salaries. But every four to five years or so, we actually hire a consultant, an outside consultant. And we did, the last time we did it was this December, I think it's past December. It's really recent. December, 2016. The results were shown. I think we've seen them. Yeah, I believe I shared them with the board. Yeah. You weren't on the board at the time. Of course. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we pay way too much. That's a joke. The good news is we were competitive. We did have to make a minor change for several department heads, the highest level department heads. They were a little bit behind and we basically moved them up into a one pay grade hire. And that was able to correct it. But all the other positions that we took a look at, it wasn't all of them. We selected key positions that were good indicators. So we knew that if those were competitive, then the rest would be competitive. And they did find out from that survey that they were competitive. So I have more questions. A couple more real quick. 2.3. Sorry, I'm not going in order. That's okay. Page 10, which talks about transfer promotions. And it says the town manager shall have the authority to transfer or promote a person to a different position between town departments without advertising. And I wonder if there was a limit on that. And what I mean by that is, for instance, would that apply to a department head? I don't know that it would be a good practice. I guess maybe the question is, do we want to limit it to not including department heads? And I'm not asking or saying as if I know the answer, I'm more asking. Because I know, Rick, you're very, very good. I think it's the right word. You have a very strong process in which town staff have been hired into department head positions. And I think that's great. I wish you were a mortal, but I don't think you are. And there'll be a day when you're not here. And there'll be a different town manager. He is mortal. He is immortal. I thought I said immoral. Did I say immoral? Anyway, you got my point at least. And so it's, do we want that reflected here? But why wouldn't you want to allow that? I guess the question is between? Well, because it's a department head. You know, let's just say there's a great staff person who we really like and think could be a department head. The question that comes is, do we still want to compare that person against what is outside the town? Or do we want to have that option? I mean, again, I'm not asking like I know the answer. I was surprised when I saw that because we do. I don't think you've appointed a department head from internal since I've been here. Not saying that's a good or bad thing. I'm not coming about that. It just, that's a bit what I think made this strike out to me. I guess I don't have, I have mixed feelings. You're correct that I haven't appointed people from within the department. However, I do think that that will happen in the future whether I'm here or not. Because I know what we're trying to do is build capacity with the younger, less experienced people within the department to eventually move into leadership positions. And if we've done our work right and if we've been able to retain these people, then I do see us being in a position at some point of bringing someone within. So the question is, do we advertise that? And as I said, my feelings are mixed because on the one hand, and I think we've done this, we had an internal candidate, we advertised. And truly whoever's the best person for the job is the one that gets it. But if I'm less open-minded about it and I feel strongly that the internal candidate should be getting the job, then it's somewhat misleading to potential candidates to apply for a job when the internal candidate is obviously the one that we're strongly leaning towards. So I don't know. I think personally I like the flexibility, but I don't have strong feelings about it. You've got to have career paths too, I would think. And you need some ability to transfer people into leadership positions, but it's a management decision. Okay, so we're going to keep it as it is. It sounds like the consensus is. Okay, I'll get to some easier stuff. Moving on to section 5.3.1, which is on some page here. There's no 5.2.1. No, the part that talks about added fiscal year. And I was wondering, is there a reason why we have to stick, I'm on the cheat sheet you gave us that, and it talks about 5.3.1 added fiscal year. Yes. And I was curious why it should be a fiscal year versus a calendar year. I don't think that's a big deal, but to be honest with you with somebody who has to deal with state and federal, states the same as the town, fiscal years, I get awfully confused, awfully quick. And I sure wish everybody would just stick to the calendar year because it'd make my life a lot easier. And so I don't know if there's a reason why it has to be the fiscal year, the language in there. Fiscal year, that is the practice that we have in place right now is every fiscal year. Fiscal years is when we also do merit increases and any cost of living increases. So it's a great time we're going in and touching everyone's payroll at that point to load in their personal days for the year. Certainly doesn't have to be that time. And again, it's not a big thing. It just, you know, when I think about how much annual leave I have left, I usually think more calendar year, but this year, but okay. And I think actually my leave is based on a calendar year. And oh, then the other question comes under five, I think it comes under section 5.4.5, section C. And it's where we changed annual to vacation. And I'm just wondering, is there a reason for that, annual leave versus vacation? Before it used to say vacation slash annual leave. We just took out the word annual because vacation leave, it doesn't have to be annual. You can take it at any point and it rolls over. Oh, okay. So it's the connotation of the annual. I actually like the word annual because, you know, it's actually going to take leave for non-vacation reasons. But yet we say it's your vacation that I have to, you know, go visit my in-law or something. Wait a second. That's not a vacation, but. Yes. So did you mean to say any kind of leave? Because it just says in the beginning, annual leave, up to 240 hours. Are you guys saying? annual leave up to, it doesn't say vacation there. It means vacation. It all means vacation though. Be great. May a crew leave up to max. You're right. Yes. It should have vacation. There's another place where you can get leave, right? It's from sick days. Yes. So this is only for vacation. That's it for me. Thanks. Any other questions or comments regarding the proposed policy provisions? I will update this version. I will also send the board a list of the other municipalities and what holidays they offer. That's something you'd like to consider in the future. This will be coming back then for action. Thank you very much. Thank you. So next is the airport and governance resolution discussion. And tonight we do have representatives from Burlington, Jean Richards and Nick Longo. I know are here from the airport themselves. And perhaps you'd like to come up to the table, introduce yourselves, what your function is at the airport, and give us your presentation. It doesn't amplify, it just records. We don't touch our microphones. So perhaps you'd introduce yourselves. And I see a former representative, Bill Kehoe, too, in the room. Go ahead, Bill. Introduce yourself. Go ahead. I'm Jeff Munger. I'm Chair of the Airport Commission. Jean Richards, Director of Aviation at Burlington International. I'm Nick Longo. I'm the Director of Planning and Development at the Burlington International. And I do have heart copies, too, if anybody needs any. So tonight we wanted to come here and give you what we perceive to be, if you're going to make a decision, we would like you to be able to make that decision on truthful information and the facts that are coming from the airport and not from a third party that doesn't work or participate in any way in the airport. We, for 100 years, have run the airport. It's the largest transportation hub in the state of Vermont. And when I say we, the city of Burlington, started it from a cornfield and invested in that until its current date. And I think has done quite a good job. There has been a, I would call it a dysfunctional relationship with South Burlington for years. Five or six years ago, you know, South Burlington came to the city with a tax bill of $79 million from $29 million and with no backup information. And I also did that to the University of Maryland, Carnes Arena. And so, of course, you know, that makes bad relations when you don't agree to do what they want you to do. We prevailed in court and had our tax bill, you know, reduced. It wasn't because we're the airport that had neighbor. It's because we have to represent the people, the region and the people who use the airport. So, what I did, I talked to Brian Searles today and I said, Brian, I said, how long has this been going on? Do you have any advice? He goes, Jean, this has been going on with South Burlington as long as long as is. And he goes, the best thing you can do is listen and do the best you can to appease them. And, you know, that's something that we try hard every day to help and work. There's many things that we have no control of. We do not, and regional authority won't change us either, but you have absolutely no authority over the FAA or the regulations or there are rules. If you get a grant like any other grant that you may receive even here, you have to follow the rules that go with the grant. You don't have the chance to change those rules. The same thing with the Air National Guard. We were given, we basically got into a relationship with them in the early 40s. That relationship will go 100 years. During that time, it was an economic tool that the region wanted. We all invested in this. You invested in this. The city invested in this. It was the best thing. It was jobs. It was our tomorrow. And we've been fortunate that they're there, I believe. I think they protect this region and do a great job. We're fortunate to have what we have. Yes, they make sounds that are louder than other planes. That is really what this is about, because when people tell you they're not here to, they're for the guard, but they're against the noise. You can't have it both ways. The guard makes noise. And we have no jurisdiction over them. Yes, we are the landlord, but this is not a typical landlord case. If you had the U.S. Army or the Air Force as your tenant, you would have very little power over them. Original authority will not have any authority over them either. You have to follow the rules of the lease in which you set up several years ago. So really what we do is we work very hard at bringing in new services. We have a region that doesn't have a huge population. So to be served by the four major airlines and have 60 flights a day to anywhere you want to go in the world is very, very... We're very fortunate to have such great service. There may be others that think that we should have Southwest. We should have other cheaper airlines like Platsburg does. Platsburg's doing an amazing job. We do not and don't want to compete with them. More air service in this region, everybody benefits. It brings down the pricing, and it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. So we should not be put up against Platsburg or compared to them. And so isn't Albany, so isn't Manchester, you know, the Montreal airport. Everybody, we're very well served here in this region by airports. Burlington picks up 47% of the employment in our catchment area. That's very good. We continue to work every day to make sure that we have and can provide this region with the best possible service there is. We do it with a mean, lean budget. In the last five years, we've cut $5 million out of the budget to make sure that we are able to run the airport in a good way. Most recently, Moody's has upgraded us as well as Fitch. We've also got an airline lease just last year, which is the first time in 30 years many airports don't have airline leases. The one that we have is a very, very good lease. That's why we lost the legion because it's, legions is a no-frill fare airport. I mean, airline and they will not go in an airport where they're paying large fees. The other airlines would not let them participate in Burlington, not paying the same fees that they pay. So I'd like to go over the presentation. I would ask you before you make the decision to get involved or not get involved. We did have this discussion five years ago where we asked all the surrounding communities if it was something they would be interested in and everybody wasn't interested back then because they had to participate in the financial way. You would have to in the future, too. This airport is owned by the Burlington taxpayers. We've put in hundreds of millions of dollars into the airport and because today we're not, because today we have the FAA and we've balanced ourselves and we've run the airport in a good way, doesn't mean that the city still doesn't put resources in every department that the city has. They contribute in one way or the other. And I'm talking, we do pay, like for a city attorney, but not at the level of the service that we have. So it's really not a fair relationship but they've contributed millions of dollars. So if you were going to get involved in this endeavor, you wouldn't be getting into it for free like you're being led by Thomas Chittin and Kevin Dorn to believe there is no free lunch and at the end of the day, the decision is made by the city of Burlington, not by the state of Vermont on who, when we go to the FAA and we ask for this, we say we don't want to do this anymore, we have to give that permission to the FAA to let go of that license. So it's not what you're hearing from Thomas Chittin and Kevin isn't necessarily the truth. It's more of a vendetta. It's more of a bad relationship unless it's beneficial to you. I mean, if your taxpayers don't mind you paying a million or $2 a year to participate in a service you're getting for free, if there's benefit there for you, then I would say look into it. But I think that we work hard, we do a good job, and certainly we participate with Williston. We've come to your rotary meetings, we listen to you, and we have never been told we weren't doing what we were supposed to do. So only this time with the South Burlington is not being happy with us. We'll go over the presentation with you and feel free to ask questions as we go on. Maybe a quick overview. And certainly the presentation isn't an all-inclusive package of what the airport is all about. What we wanted to focus on is some of the inconsistencies with the communication that you've received over the past couple of weeks, months from South Burlington. There's a lot of misconceptions in these letters and a lot of misconceptions on how well the airport is doing today, is listening to its passengers. That's really what we wanted to portray to you today in a very quick presentation. Will they be sending out more copies? I do, yes. So like Gene said, Moody's and Fitch both recently upgraded us. As part of that, we have a very consistent, this is our sixth year in a row of above average and certainly above the recommended debt service coverage that Moody's and Fitch both recommended. And certainly well above the debt service coverage that is required by our bond covenants. You can see that we really are consistent on that 1.5 times debt service ratios. Improved air service opportunities, I kind of left that open because in the next slide we kind of will go through that in a little bit of detail on year after year consistent improved air service opportunities for the Canadian community. We always have the factor in the influence of the Canadian exchange just like Plattsboro, just like any airport on the Canadian border. One of the things that has been in these documentations from South Burlington is that our employments or the number of people boarding aircraft is extremely low or lower than it has been since 2008. That's true. We have over 1,000 people boarding the aircraft. Today we're just over 600,000 employments. But a huge factor of that is the Canadian exchange rate. Excuse me. I do want to say one thing where we should be giving credit for that. At that time the airport advertised to the Canadians. I mean it was a brilliant campaign that Paul Kaza did for us and it brought those Canadians down. It was a great campaign that the Canadian airport is using now. It was brilliant, but nobody had really thought about doing it. So we did do it and it did work, but it won't work when you don't have a strong exchange in your favor. Does that make sense? And we strategically move that marketing money around based on these factors. So naturally if there is a lower amount of Canadian influence because of this exchange rate and the name of the airport currently Plattsburgh is identifying as Montreal's airport. We're Vermont's airport. This is our airport and you can see that every single day when you go through our airport. We call it reinforcing Vermont. Jean talked about our executed airline agreements with all of our airlines. This is unprecedented like Jean said. We've been doing this for years and we did it all internally. And it's a financial backing for the airport and not only helps us with our debt coverage ratio, the airlines back us with our cash in hand. Briefly describe what this is and really understand the concept. An airline lease. So typically airlines can come and go as they please. Obviously the lease commits them to in this case a five year period. But while the routes aren't defined in the lease, what is defined is the rates and charges. How much we charge them to occupy space in the terminal. To land on the airport, which is based on the weight of their aircraft. And also it provides us a backing so we come up with a budget. And at the end of the year we reconcile that budget with the airlines and if we're below the debt coverage ratio. It's a big deal because what you do know is today with mergers and acquisitions it gives us stability and it gives them basically it's a partnership and it's a partnership of success. So to have them say they believe in our airport. That's one thing they said when they came up. They said actually this is easy because Burlington is doing so well. Their numbers are good. Burlington is doing well. You're getting this from somebody who doesn't like us. Which is not okay. The thing is if you want better information I'd encourage you. We'll give you all sorts of consultants names if you want to ask how we're doing. We're doing very well. And like we said this isn't an all encompassing presentation on the airport and certainly we would welcome you at the airport as well to speak directly with us one on one or in a particular subject on the airline lease if that was it. The tax litigation with South Burlington Jean did touch on that already but that was an important piece for both communities to settle on that and it wasn't it was an unprecedented way of producing a tax bill as if you own a house and your tax bill doubled with no justification and that's really where that tax litigation came from. And remember it wasn't just the airport it was the university mall in Carnes Arena it was litigation three litigations that South Burlington got into so this has there's a history here of them making moves that don't make any sense they lost all three. And then Jean mentioned our certificate which is a requirement for air carriers or these major airlines to actually come into the airport so the FAA would have to see that the Burlington International Airport which is called the sponsor of the airport has to relinquish control over that asset before the FAA can turn over any of the grants or regulatory procedures into a new governance model. Go ahead. I did just a quick background on where we got 12 nonstop destinations today and Jean mentioned you really can't get anywhere in the world from Burlington. Granted you're going to have to stop somewhere but we serve major east coast hubs airport hubs in the country including Atlanta and Charlotte which is our newest routes to get out of the northeast weather patterns and we're proud of this. This diversity that you see here of airlines is vital to the success of the airport. Jean mentioned Southwest Airlines if you look at Manchester, New Hampshire they put all their apples in one basket and when Southwest starts leaving or regardless of what the name of the airline when that one airline starts leaving your employment factor your passengers drastically decrease. Manchester airport happens to be 50% lower today than they were in 2008 as far as passengers. 50% and that's because Southwest has been migrating towards the Boston Air. And that split that you see is actually a split of strength you know that is just what you want in an airport. You want it to be broken up evenly not necessarily having any one area. Our newest route and I said year after year earlier Delta in 2000 this is the fourth year of a successful service. They bring in a main line aircraft main line meaning Delta owns and operates their aircraft they hire their pilots they hire their crew and everything like that compared to what's called a regional carrier which is almost like a sublease to that airline. The crew is not owned by the airline the crew is not owned by operated or paid by the airline not only that but main line also offers typically twice as large aircraft as those regional carriers. So not only do you get higher class service meaning you have your first class seats versus your economy seats or what are the airlines used for that term. So you get more seats on a plane you get better quality service typically and then you get much more what's the word consistent service meaning less cancelled reliable consistent service less cancellations weather is usually less likely to cancel your flight because of the higher capacity and it's not likely that a feeder we're considered a feeder airport that we would get these regional I mean these main line aircraft. It's a pretty big deal we went to United we went to United we asked them we said we need less cancellations and I said how do we do it and it came out to be this they said you know it's giving you main line. So it's something that we worked out with them as well as getting additional service at the same time. So both Delta and United offers that service American just started our Charlotte flight in 2015 again bringing folks outside of that northeast weather pattern especially in the winter Friday we just learned that United also bringing a second main line flight another larger aircraft to the Newark airport this hasn't been done in almost a decade at the Burlington airport so that's great news and then of course JetBlue is still at the airport operating powerfully to the New York airport which is a very important factor for international flights as well as other domestic flights. So one of our breakdown of that word implements our passenger boardings as I mentioned 2008-2009 which I don't have on this probably because this was a portion of our Moody's presentation and I just wanted to see a 10-year history but so just the column right before that was our highest implements at around 750,000 implements. Last year we were right on target as far as projections went just over 600,000 implements and then 2018-19 and 20 we see a modest employment growth moving forward. This is all assumes that there is no new service but there's many many endeavors and initiatives to gain new service always. But the Canadian exchanges to our favor you will see it spike immediately. The Canadians like to migrate this way as you all know. I mean we all benefit from them. Which is one of the reasons that that 2008 number was so high. You mentioned earlier Jean in your summary that we get 47% of the travelers and you said in our catchment area some kind of definition our catchment area is big. It comes from Montreal to Brattleboro and from Eastern New York to Western New Hampshire. So it's a big area that has a lot of airports within it. So you would understand maybe why people in Rutland might go to Albany or Manchester because they're closer or get a better deal. So if we squeeze that down and we made it that big because we do get so many people from Canada during the good times. So we actually challenged ourselves. There are counties and I mean towns in New York for instance that we get 87% of their so it's a big area and where we do very well is with the business customer. And if you have a family of four and you don't mind you don't want to drive to fly you would fly out of Burlington. But if you're budget conscious you can shop around and you can use one of the other airports. But typically answering your question our catchment area is that. Sorry. So the catchment areas for different airports they all overlap. This isn't any defined. This is something you've just come up with to define your service. This is ours. This is the area that we market to. And if you purchase a ticket in Williston let's say we know that based on your zip code we know that that ticket was purchased in Williston. And we know where you purchased it. And we know what it was out of whether it was Burlington or different airport. Obviously we don't know it was you. But we know that that ultimate data figure and if those numbers are what define that catchment area. So the question I was trying to get to or the what I was trying to understand is are we getting the right share of how do you know from that number whether that's the right share or not what would be like the Chittenden County number. Is it 80% or? I don't remember offhand. Yeah, it's probably approaching 90% for the Chittenden County area. Obviously Chittenden County is going to be the highest percentage out of all of our catchment area. We could get that for you and get back. I don't know the number for Chittenden County. I was just curious as to what are you trying to measure there? So is there a meaning to the number? More of what we're trying to do is we're trying to keep ourselves challenged, make sure we're reaching out and providing service to the entire state and region. And we do consider New York part of our region and New Hampshire and a good part of Canada. It's vital to our economic health here. But it will be good to see a bullseye map emanating from each of the airports showing the how you take care of. Yes, I have it right here in multiple formats. But yeah, we're just curious whether that meets any, you know, what's the criteria? What are you trying to achieve or what? Ideally, we want to serve Vermonters at first. But we also, it's been a big part of our business here in Vermont, northern Vermont to serve the Canadians. So, you know, yeah. And what's important is when Jean and I go to talk to these airline folks that schedule the flights, they want to see a sustainable full wrap-up. So it's hard for us. We can show them based on our catchment area, based on these percentages that we know today, how many people use the airport, how many people use their airline, that's why their aircraft are full. Ultimately, how much revenue, et cetera, et cetera. So that's what's important to us. Of course, seats are always good for us, meaning more aircraft, more seats, is always better because typically that percentage will also increase. But we also don't want to show an airline, if you bring in another mainline service to California, sure, it might be 20% full, but it's not going to be sustainable for you. So we would never approach it that way. We don't want to see that because then our percentages to California might drop a little bit in that overall average when we're continuing. It's pretty fascinating when we do talk to the airline folks that are incredibly skillful at what they do. But also, just when we're stuck on it, you're welcome at any time to come in and have these discussions with us. We can give you more information than you would ever want. This is just a snapshot of our past two-year capital improvement program and our current CFP project. This year we have approximately $26 million in infrastructure improvements with an additional $6.5 million for major maintenance projects. Some of this is for for example, the QTA, this quick turnaround building, is for our car rental industry. Others are directly related to the airport, like this building improvement program, which is that $1 million in our fiscal year 18 budget is in relation to our parking garage, so we have a sustainable capital improvement plan for that. And you can see the past two years have been extremely heavy due to deferred maintenance that we're catching up on in these these two years. But it's important to show this because all of this has either 100 percent operating budget impact or operating capital impact or local shares as part of grants. And this is where these costs and financial risks and where Burlington backs the airport up with these local shares and costs to the airport directly. And it wasn't deferred purposely or that we're bad caretakers. We only can do just like you can with whatever money you have available. We've just been successful at getting the money from the FAA to do the work. None of this is city funded. One more time. None of this is city funded. A portion of it. So that $6.5 million will be. Any loans or leases that we have to obtain would come from the city of Burlington. And there are local share portions of that first portion of $26 million. That is backed by the city of Burlington and the Burlington airport revenue process. We get about $500,000 a year from the state of Vermont. And then we get our share from the city of Burlington to our projects. What does that show? Depending on the project. Typically is it two and a half? It's 4% of federal grants and then each other one is unique. What does PFC stand for? You might have said that. No, I didn't. That's a great question. Passenger facility charge. So that's another revenue source for us as well. There's a line on your ticket that says passenger facility charge. That charge goes to the airline. The airline keeps a small portion of it. The charge is $4.50 right now in the nation. Airline keeps 11 cents. The remaining portion goes back to the local airport. The FAA regulates that process and we're restricted on how we use that process. So maybe to ask the revenue question differently, how much taxpayers contribute in Burlington to operation of the airport, whether maintenance or any. Today is zero. So the money you're talking about coming from the city comes from somewhere else or through revenues from the airport or from about 1976. The relationship changed with the FAA but prior to that it was all city of Burlington money. Today it's run with the FAA dollars in funding. It's a business that takes care of itself. It's an enterprise fund. Burlington pays four and a half percent. Comes out of our dollars. There is no profit. There is no money that goes back to the city of Burlington. Everything stays at the airport. That's zero. Residents of Burlington. I think it has a lot of pride. It has several million dollars of investments. Not yet. But it's their investment. It's something that for years, for 100 years they've invested in. I hear what you're saying. We aren't having anybody offering us a return on our investment. Certainly like I said, if people want to start talking about writing checks to the city of Burlington, I mean that can certainly get people get our attention. I mean if we could go to the taxpayers and say $2 million a year, that could be a game changer. I mean that makes a lot of sense. But we haven't had those offers. The last time we, five years ago when Ed Claudney asked a question around the table to all the cities, not anybody mentioned a word about wanting to put any money in. As Ed said, if you don't have anything in, you don't get a seat at the table. That's true. How do you go to the people of Burlington and say you've been investing in this for 100 years and now we're going to recommend that we just give it away. That doesn't make any sense. When you say you've been investing in it for 100 years from 76 on, it's been a net flat. Not necessarily. I think if you're there every day like, I haven't been there since 76. So I've been there for the last five years. And what I've witnessed in the last five years, there's a lot of work to contribute, contributions that are made that aren't counted. Such as a city attorney, any city departments that are not compensated a dollar for dollars. So there's a lot of things that happen to mayor. I mean, there's a lot of things that are not given back but are managed. Does that make sense what I'm saying? I understand what you're saying. And those, that load would be covered then by a if you were to move this to regional authority, it would be shared by the region rather than just funded by Burlington. Whatever that cost is, I don't know. Absolutely. I mean, obviously, yeah. Absolutely. And that financial risk has to be shared as well. There's currently $35 million in bonded debt at the airport as well held by the city of Burlington. So that financial risk, of course, that discussion would have to be held on sharing that as well in the regional governments as well as any other future bonded debt or lease. Was this the last bond? Was that something for the parking garages? There's two parking garages and for the terminal building. Most recently refined in 2014. And the revenue from those as well goes into this enterprise. So that's not a, there's nothing on the airport property that's a cash cow for Burlington or so basically what you get into it is what you put back. What you get out of it is what you put back or vice versa. And that's required by law too by federal aviation regulations. The revenues received from the airport have to remain at the airport. Is that true for all airports? That's true for all airports. I don't know if I already said this, but as far as governance, there are 33% of the airports that are regional and then there's other. So there is a mix of different governance models out there. One of the important factors that we and of course here's our contact information if one of the important factors that we wanted to share too is and I mentioned it briefly earlier was the inconsistencies in some of the documentations that have been presented to you. There seems to be a lot of language discussing the noise compatibility program, the noise, the F-35s and a lot of statements saying that we don't listen to the city of South Burlington. But it's important to note that most of these items we have no control over meaning the F-35 is a federal government decision and it's maintained and operated by the United States Department of Defense. The noise compatibility program or the acquisition program is also a federal aviation administration program that has no while we have the control of the grants and the procedure and the process behind it it's a regulated FAA program regardless of governance that wouldn't change. So it's important to share that because most of these especially on Mr. Dorn's most recent letter to Mr. McGuire is of August 18, 2017 say that we've ignored or denied most of these factors. But it's simply not true that we've denied or ignored any of these factors and we consistently try to discuss that with them. Just like anybody we would open the door to any municipality, any traveler even to discuss alternative methods or of course discuss it with any homeowner next to the airport. And that right to sell as part of this program regulated by the FAA is that homeowner's right. So we want to make sure you understand them there are a lot of inconsistencies with these communications and again we'll of course open our door up any day to you. So you too are employees of the city of Burlington and the city of Burlington. Does that reimburse from anybody? Well it's paid by the Burlington International Airport so no funding comes from the city of Burlington. But we're city of Burlington employees from the city. So we're city of Burlington employees our salaries do get credited from the airport account into the city account to pay our salaries. So can I just ask a clarification question? This sounds very similar to how Willison runs its water department or Sewer's department as an enterprise fund. And for instance staff spends some time a public work staff even though the water department doesn't encompass the whole town they spend some time on water department issues sometimes on Sewer they're reimbursed their town employees are paid by the town but that portion of time that they spend in the Sewer department water department would be reimbursed by the revenue rates charged for the water department Sewer department. So this is a similar type model. It's similar but there's greater value because you have greater talents. Better value than the Willison water department. No, no, no, no, no. I don't mean that. For us what I'm saying is that we have an expanse to draw from and that we need often and have meetings with so it was not dissing the Willison water department anyway. Questions? So on these letters from South Burlington just some of the things and I'm going to ask you just why we were told these things so and I won't ask about the demolition of the housing because I don't know you know here and there but requests for noise studies it says denied requests for you know the make use of readily available free-fill to do noise berms denied to give Wenuski the city Wenuski who must be probably on the an extension of the one of the runways a seat on this board this commission which doesn't have necessarily there's no voting authority or anything right that was denied just why would you if you wanted to be good neighbors right and kind of men the fences if you will between South Burlington and Burlington why wouldn't you agree to some of those things if there are no kind of no penalty right to you. This is a great example of not having accurate information so first of all they're not telling you about conversations and I'm talking hundreds of hours we went right to the FAA and we requested that the next day they know this we've told them everything so he said we requested that the next day we have a letter and they have not answered the letter we let them know we're waiting for the FAA but everything we do like the noise map has to be approved by the FAA so it's not our and they know that they know that we don't make the decision the regional authority would not make that decision you would not be able to spend money that was not approved and the berm is the same way they requested a berm we cannot build a berm without FAA authority and they do not consider it a model they don't consider berms functional they don't think they work so they're not going to invest we did immediately call them write a letter and ask them about that as far as a seat at the table for Winooski it's not part of our charter it would be a charter change that we would have to do I believe there's discussions about it now I know the mayor talked with the mayor of Winooski I don't know where they're at with it but I know it's not something that we can just grant overnight I think it's something that has to go back and forth with discussions but with that conversation I did talk to the mayor of Winooski and I said you're welcome to come to all of our meetings and participate and we listen to people when you come I mean our commission is very sensitive and we know you say they don't have authority when they tell us to do something we listen and we end up doing it I mean we are it's a very good commission a very active aviation community that protects this airport so the answer is you're getting one side of the story you're not getting the true stuff the true side so when you say that the FAA has to approve these requests that South Burlington is making they approve they have to approve the funding or the using the airport revenue or funds or balance sheet to pay for these studies is that funding comes from the FAA or the berms or we don't have any extra money so it's not like we carry a surplus so anything we do there has to be grant generated to offset it so without that we can't do it the funding in the timing has to be approved by the FAA we just completed in 2015 relatively soon a very recent noise what's called the noise exposure map that map defines the area that makes it part of this noise compatibility program whether it's the housing acquisition or sound installation whatever that might but also the FAA would have to approve the berm even if it wasn't a funny thing if we were going to do it ourselves we would have to apply and it takes about 18 months to get it approved if we did have the funds to do it which we don't have the funds to do it we would have to take about 18 months for that approval from the FAA it's a lot of engineering it just isn't dumping a pile of sand out you know to make a berm there's a lot more to it there's a lot of engineering I think $250,000 is what they gave us for a quote I mean it's not cheap and if it's cheap you wouldn't spend the $250 if you didn't think you were going to get the funding to do it so those are the discussions that we've had with self-brokelings and so never did we say no we just said they said no our funding source said no and Gene mentioned that berms in the eyes of the FAA are not a justified solution for noise mitigation at airports they're great for ground noise highways you see them all the time on highways or fencing along the highways but airports have so berms and unless you're talking about a 50, 60, 70 who knows how high it would be to actually be effective or not effective at airports and more importantly I mentioned that it's the right of the homeowner to either sell their property to sound insulate their property as part of these noise grants when you put up a berm you immediately disqualify them from any other noise mitigation on their particular property because that may change the effects of the noise map and also the FAA is not only going to want to put in one area some funding here but not over here if you've done something to solve potentially or theoretically solve that we've also brainstormed with South Burlington as far as doing partnerships, water parks using rezoning the airport land so they would get more tax dollars these are all choices that they make that they don't want to do they're sitting the way they are not because the airport doesn't want to do anything we don't want to take on the fight of changing it we did not turn that land residential it should have been light industry all around the airport it was poor zoning planning but the FAA took the burden of that and basically has this program that buys these homes that South Burlington put there in the 60s when these were built you had the F4 louder than anything we have today and those homes are built there so you can blame the airport for everything that happens or you can say this was growth and this is where we've been and we've changed and what we're trying to do is take advantage of everything that we have to better serve the public and I'm not, hopefully you don't think I'm taking sides I'm just reading the letter from one of the gentlemen that you mentioned and sent to us and tried to understand your response as your side of the story you mentioned the earlier the F35 it's not the airport has no decision-making authority on the F35 in all the controversy that's that's entirely the government's decision in the FAA okay we really, I mean we can't cross the field it really comes down to that the runway is right down the middle of the field everything to the east of it is the guard and we don't spend a lot of time over there and it wouldn't be good for us to spend a lot of time over there it is theirs and they protect it as it's theirs we have a very good relationship with them they're amazing people but we don't have the luxury of managing them they have plenty of people to manage them and what we do is we participate with them we have fire services from them which is a great resource for the airport but that's what we get out of the deal and it's a win-win for everybody and by accepting all of these federal grants that we've talked about we also sign something that says we can be non-discriminatory on allowing any non-discriminatory on who enters the airport whether it's civilian whether it's personal aircraft whether it's military aircraft we are not allowed to limit people who land and use the airport is what Nick's telling you that we can't limit anybody from landing at the airport it's an airport that's open to the people it's very similar to our highways and it's open and used the same way is that applied to the airlines? so if an airline came to you for instance and said we want to increase the airlines that land here by 10 a day you might say hey here's the cost to us for that and you need to pay that but you could not say no to the 10 new we might not be to accommodate them but we have some discussions with them and we certainly work on timing to make sure that it's acceptable other airlines timeframe so that we are as disturbing as possible so we wouldn't ideally bring an airline in at 3 o'clock in the morning that's not good but what we're saying is if an aircraft needed to land at 3 o'clock in the morning they could do it I've been on that plane believe me you made it back the only historical question and I don't know if anybody's going to be nerdy enough to know the answer to it well I have two questions one is not what I prefaced South Burlington did not become its own municipal entity until 1976 1971 is that true I can't remember when Brian said something about that today I'm not nerdy enough to know the answer about the fact that we're proceeding from Burlington I didn't know that I don't want to get into a whole different thing but the other question is I just want to make sure so the airport sorry the city of Burlington south Burlington split from Burlington when the airport was a functioning airport and this would have been part debacle that went on when not debacle not the right word but the all the proceedings that went on this was a no this would have been a known entity I think so yes that's my understanding okay interesting and then the others is a the legal status of the airport I I have a vague recollection on the details but a firm recollection that had actually happened and maybe some of the senior members and former members of the legislature would remember this but I seem to recall in the 1980s that then Dean of the Senate Senator Thomas Crowley snuck in some language to some bill that would have taken the airport from the city of Burlington and put it either in somebody else's ownership the state or something else and it was he was called out on it and he said the wording was incorrect that's not what he meant to do there was a flood it was a misunderstanding making excuses like like that but I seem to have a distinct recollection that something like that happened and that it was actually when Phil Hoff had gone back into the state Senate in the 1980s so the question I have is is anybody impressed with my memory with that level detail yeah hey you didn't remember Tom Crowley was a state senator but the other question is isn't it true that the legislature could pass a law and undo Burlington's ownership if it wanted to I don't know that I can't tell you that I'm an expert I think yes you can do that it's highly unlikely normally any changes to the governance and make up of the air of the airport commission must be done by it must be approved by the voters if the voters so approved that it would then go to the legislature go through government operations on both bodies and that is about the only and then approved by the whole legislation that's a hundred but I might get a tad messy if the city doesn't relinquish its control through the FAA so I would say not likely and I can't imagine as being a Vermonner that a Vermonner would do that you know I think that's a pissed I've a very poor plan to start taking things from people you know that you know I've taken care of them for a hundred years I mean I think it would be a bad precedent to set or to participate in further questions before we wrap this up just one for me I'll be I'll be rather blunt but first let me my first was going to be a comment that I find it I find it not wrong but odd that Burlington owns an airport that's located well outside the city but I just learned why what caused that to happen my more blunt comment is along the lines of you know Williston does is impacted by the airport but we have no representation that I'm aware of and so I guess my question my blunt question will be along the lines of for a town like Williston where I mean we literally border the end of the runway where planes I mean I've been to the point where well sorry let me continue with my point what what would you say to somebody who says it makes sense for Williston to have representation on whatever board it is that runs the airport and if it requires that to be a regional entity versus the city of Burlington why wouldn't we pursue that I guess I'd ask you know what's the upside for Williston you know what do you what would be gained by you doing that that you're not getting today representation but I mean what I'm asking you is what are you not getting today is there something you've asked for that you haven't received I mean at the last rotary meeting that I went to there were 40 people in the room and we didn't have one negative response we asked that's why we're there we're asked how we were doing and we just got compliments galore lots of dollar bills so I hear what you're saying but I think you do get represented there's we've never been asked anything that we haven't done with Williston I hear what you're saying but I don't I don't know what you're asking for that you haven't already aren't getting besides representation and you are getting that through just the communication I think I mean I mean I'm not opposed to the representation I fully realize it takes two to communicate but I don't feel we have representation at all you know the same way I don't feel nor the same way I don't feel we have any representation in Burlington and in that case nor should we so you know I you know what would we gain it would be representation so you know I think at the end of the day I think you have to ask you know what is that worth to your community I mean if you want to participate in the activity of running the airport I think there's a financial price to be paid for that and if it's something that you're interested in that's the discussion we should be having but to you know the discussion that you're going with Thomas Chittin and Kevin to take the airport from the city I think that's a bad precedent to set in the state I don't think that's what Vermonters do I think that if you want to have that discussion that's the discussion we should have and I don't think that's a bad discussion to have yeah so I mean I guess we don't typically talk amongst ourselves but this is the only time we can do it right so I mean I've been thinking about this quite a bit after getting these letters and asking Tom for some more information and when we if we were to get representation I think the right question is is the one that was asked and maybe not exactly the way I would ask it but what would we be able to benefit from what would we get because the runway isn't going to change its direction it's still going to fly over Williston the F-35 is still going to be over Williston whether you like it or not I'm not saying I like it or don't like it I haven't heard it yet so I don't mind the F-16s I guess I don't see I don't know what we would change in terms of if we had representation we would have more headaches and we might have some have to spend some money some taxpayer money but nothing I'm not sure what we would change so that's I think that's a discussion we should have speaking of that point of order should we finish with the presentation I was trying to get through the questions for the presenters and if we're done with that that's fine thank you we should have a short discussion tonight as to where we'd like to proceed but we also have one member absent tonight I'm sure that has strong feelings about this as well so thank you very much for your presentation thank you appreciate your time thank you thank you very much so we have a proposed resolution to look at that we've had presented to us last time and in my looking at the resolution it calls for Burlington to do certain things and they may or may not do that if they don't do it then there's a third resolution that says the governor should appoint a commission that will come up with a plan to do the the regionalization plan which why would we is has something that we would want to do the support resolution that already has a foregone conclusion I'm of the mindset be careful what you ask for so I think it would be good actually as a group and if you think Joy needs to be here for the discussion but we should figure out what we would expect to get out of it yep and that before we because just being a part of the table it sounds wonderful right it sounds like we need to see the table well that seat has costs time evidently potentially money but maybe it's in that zero you know it could end up to be the same but the thing is what would we actually get I can't tell what would change and it's impossible for me to answer that question and the reason is is unlike maybe solid waste where I have a fairly good idea of what's involved with the airport I don't so it's impossible for me to say whether it's good or it's bad and I'd love to have something that would help me right figure that out well that's I'm saying we should have a discussion I'm not trying to make the decision immediately but we should we should know what it is we're asking for rather than just I think you're it's an important point that tourists is making and I think it's you know when somebody comes in and says look here's this established order of infrastructure and that person said we want and we want to change it the burden of proof is on them to show why and what we're gonna get and I'll tell you I was I don't think anybody's being an evil person here but I was I was disappointed in the presentation from South Burlington because I kept looking at the things that that they had for bullet points under their presentation and this isn't universal but a lot of times they'd say something was a economic point or that kind of thing and it was actually it wasn't it was it was noise it was housing it was that kind of stuff and I was looking at it thinking okay well I don't I hate to be parochial here but whether a berm is built or not is really not gonna affect the people in Williston and whether it's right or not you know there's only so much you can do and you know South Burlington the emotion that we got was that I thought anyway that it was a little more heated than I would have expected if it were an objective presentation and they may be right but it doesn't seem like it's something that we have to worry about and I don't again I don't want to say well gee you know that that starving kid isn't my kid but that's not what we're talking about we're talking about local and neighboring and neighbor versus neighbor quality of life type things that are the province of a municipal government but they're not the province of this municipal government exception to the last point on that list of bullets that said that claimed that Burlington City hadn't contributed money for I forget how many years but at the end of the day implying that money should be poured into that but at the end of the day they told us that Williston taxpayers would put no money into it so it was it was not there was a there was a neighboring municipality that told our fire department how much money we'd make from our ambulance service and that wasn't right you don't get me started on the ambulance please don't mention which neighboring city but you know and in terms of you know Jeff you're right the airport does affect the town of Williston absolutely does but there's a lot of stuff that does that we don't have a direct say in the interstate does the railroad beds that lead out of state affect Williston in some some way the state college system the secondary education system past CVU affects Williston hugely but we don't have a seat at the board of those places either we kind of do and likewise you know the last point there is I think the legislature is involved in this and I don't think anybody's saying well you know this is this is gonna make a barren wasteland of every municipality around Burlington but we don't care you know that's where our jet fuel jet fuel toxic stuff sludge has to go somewhere and darn it you know doesn't bother us where it goes long as not Burlington I don't see that I don't know if the correct word correct correct word is devil's advocate because I mean I have to admit I am totally on the fence on this I I don't know which is the right answer but the devil's advocate would be similar to let's say these union municipal districts that are out there Chittenden solid waste district it would be an example would be if there were no Burlington Airport let's say but we wanted to create one you know we're going to condemn a bunch of land and create an airport we wouldn't look to one municipality and say you run the airport we would want it to be a regional or statewide entity and maybe to kick it off you'd have to get all those different municipalities to do that because you didn't have that there would be financial gain for the whole area today the airport exists yeah well I get that funded and it existed when Burlington was one big city that included South Burlington and South Burlington might have a point there but I don't know if it's a point there it helps clarify why is in our port owned by the city of Burlington located miles away from the city of Burlington for me to look at that I guess I would like to see what we would think we could gain from it just to see is a gain not financial game but no so what would we change right from a governance perspective what would we change yeah rather than having headaches or having to apply I don't know who would be appointed say we got we did this who would be on that so I know what is he's asking for somebody from there like I don't know if it's select board it's a city council member one of their city council members so that would be an extra job for somebody to do it possibly could be I mean we have that right now with things like again the Chittin and Soloway's district with Green Mountain Transit with with those types of regional entities the maybe a good question is is I've heard and I tend to agree with I think relying on South Burlington because they are so emotionally and politically involved in this question is probably not the best place to get a third-party independent sort of analysis not analysis maybe that's not the best way but source of information on perspective perspective with where would one go to obtain that or is it unobtainable what does our legislature think of the Burlington airport it's our biggest biggest airport in the state right is it it is isn't it is it's not a state airport no no no but there's the largest airport they must care about this from an economic development obviously this legislature is worried would be concerned about income for the state people coming in to the state spending money keeping from that green and just the the economic development that goes along with an airport like Burlington international if it was crashing terribly and causing problems for economic development they'd probably be interested in seeing some change or some management of the concern both from Burlington itself and the state as well but do we feel that's a that's the situation now or have no idea at this point transportation committee probably takes a look at this but and there's a state part of the agency of transportation that deals with aircraft airports it's not directly related but if somebody could tell me that I'm incorrect in this I'd be curious but in all of the political campaigns that have been going on for the last 15 or 20 years we've heard all kinds of issues being raised about land use and regulation act 250 and wages and the minimum wage and all these all these other issues I have never heard a candidate for governor or federal office or the legislature say you know we've got to we've got to do something about Burlington International Airport that thing is just driving us down I have heard people say we have to increase rail that we have to increase infrastructure on that but I should think if this if either this is the most incredible sleeper issue silent problem or the economy or the information we've been about economic development is could possibly be more about berms and noise control and that kind of I also got to say one of the one of the president one of the points was something about a hotel and I thought well that was probably not gonna be most again you know I don't want to be too parochial but I am I'm representing the taxpayers of the people of Willis I just I'll say this I I don't know how the chair wants to proceed in terms of joys input or not I am I am concerned that you know every time we turn around we have another issue that we ask the staff to do we ask them to investigate this or get back to us on that I don't know that I'm inclined with what I've heard so far to expend the resources to do much more my thoughts are to have one more meeting to do some more discussion on this to Rick to see if we can find answers to that between now and our next meeting in two weeks and then take some action at that point in time we don't come up with any questions all right let's move on then would you send any reminder email to send you questions thank you very much thank you by no later than probably next Monday to Rick water system asset management report Bruce horror director of public works here people can live without water and sewer airplanes are more important Jeff jumped right in and defended anyway we had a water system taking a look at by Aldrich and Elliott they were hired to develop an asset management plan for for us and included you know conducting higher hydrant flow test updating exist existing mapping that we have and developing a hydraulic model of our system so we could see if we have some discrepancies or concerns in different places the existing system we've been in around since 1960 as far as the age of the pipes go back 1960 to 2016 they range from 2 inch to 24 inch and have three different kinds out there plastic duct on an asbestos cement about 50 my 59 miles of pipe in our system and our systems divided into a high and low side which just means that one side we have to use booster pump stations to get the water up to which makes the division between high and low all the water purchase from Champlain Water District and irresponsible for doing all of our testing that we have to have done underneath our license there there's besides having three tanks in town we have two pump stations none of which we own the Champlain Water District owns all that infrastructure we own one one pump station that's the one that's up one hill road to boost the pressure to go up to Thomas Chindenhouse Center and a few homes up on the road up there the results of the management of Alderton Elliott's work excuse me was that our systems actually in really good shape and whether you believe it or not our systems considered actually new newer 1960s and you know 40 50 year old pipes are actually not a bad deal compared to some places you know from doing a model and doing actual field test we found that the pressures in there were plus or minus 5 psi so it meant that the model that we put together actually was giving us good results compared to what we were finding out in a field there are two locations in our system that we actually knew about that do fail to provide adequate fire flow while maintaining system pressure and that's at the end of the line right here on Walliston Road because that system's not looped it comes to a dead end so we have no way of flowing that water around down there so it does it maintain the pressure where is that point Bruce when you say the end of Williston Road okay that's at the bottom of French Hill our last place on French Hill that has water is the school we're now the seminary or whatever we're calling it that's yeah sunset Sunset Hill developed that's where Sunrise Drive okay okay that area there and then they add down to the school and it's really it is important that you know even though we're below it's only 13 psi so it's not like we got a situation where if there's a fire we won't be able to provide fire service I'm sorry 13 gallons per minute I mean we're supposed to maintain a certain psi of 500 500 gallons per minute oh so it's 13 psi 500 gallons per minute I thought you're talking about the difference between 487 and 500 13 gallons per minute would be enough to put out maybe a campfire so the risk the report also points out you know where we have some water lines that are quite old some valves are quite old and hydrants the next steps from this plan then would be to use it to help with our capital planning and to develop long-term cost strategies for for the system so obviously the reports got quite a bit more information than that I tried to take take it in that memo and make it kind of an executive summary if you will Wayne also has a memo a technical memo in the report plus all the information that's in here so we can talk about anything anybody would like one thing to remember is that we have three tanks and we're building a new one but when we get done we're still only going to have three tanks because one's going to go away we don't we will not own the new one we're paying for half of what we want on that project has really gone well it's really was pretty neat to watch anyway that tank's going to be 600,000 gallons replacing a 300,000 gallon tank we're paying half of it we're paying for the addition okay I Champlain Water District will not pay for increased capacity so if we wanted to do that so it was the right time to jump on board because the tower lane tank is at the end of its life and had to be replaced so when this project is done they plan on leaving a tower lane tank online for the winter just as a backup to make sure that the new tank doesn't have any issues and then the tower lane tank will go away so that provides water capacity like a giant capacitor so because you can't pump enough water into the area or in case the water pumps go down or both Teresa we the tanks are used every day and then refilled at night yeah but it's so it is for storage volume in case something does go down it's also for fire flow protection if we have to start doing that but water tanks don't sit there static like a lot of people think they do they're used there they're constantly used so that it's turned over to the water that we use every day comes out of the tanks maybe and that's actually how we find problems in our system from time to time you know unfortunately we'll get a phone call say hey you're losing a lot of water and that's because Champlain Water District can see the tanks training so they'll see the tanks training and we scatter and run around to try to find out where we have a water leak and sometimes those aren't you know right on the middle road it could be on a field or somewhere where it's wet anyway so nobody's really noticing it so we that's how we actually find out about well when the school well the church seminary whatever we're gonna call it again broke a water line in their gymnasium that's how we found out about the place was closed nobody knew about it and the tank started draining so we ran all over town until we found the water pouring out of the building anyway we do have you know 681 hydrants in town 780 valves 59 miles of waterline once again we have right now two tanks on the high service side that are 600 gallons when the new tanks done that'll go to 900,000 gallons and then the low pressure side 500,000 gallons is the big tank that you see at maple tree place so the tank we're building right now is 100,000 gallons bigger than the one you see at maple tree place but when we're done you won't see 10 feet 10 feet up front six trees you know that's the other neat thing about it it will mostly be hidden by trees when you look up the road when you look up the road you might see some of it a little bit and there's still some telemetry that has to go up there where there may be a tree or two cut to make the telemetry work but there won't be any more real clearing up there that was the whole idea behind the tank that goes back in the back that goes back in the back fill the tank right now the tank is sitting in a 35 foot deep hole so they'll backfill that so when they're done all you'll see is a dome on the back six feet of the tank and in a dome and on the front about 10 feet of the tank in a dome. You're not you're not trespassing but if you go up there you just got to make sure that you see the office and let them know and they'll give you a hard hat and vest and make sure you have boots on they're very the company that has done this is quite quite impressive probably the best construction I've ever seen happen these guys are just so meticulous at the tank manufacturer yeah just incredible I mean really that you can tell they've done it before so they're willing to let people say you got to make sure you certainly if you go up there identify yourself so they know that you're just not somebody walking into the site I'm sorry town land but we have an active construction site no matter whose land it is right now and once it's done it'll be fenced in so we won't have access to it anyway. Are there questions for Bruce on this? Well so it seemed like there were no recommendations I was looking for you to monitor and you're putting together long-term funds I guess right to for what's the first thing that needs to be repaired in the system that's that's a little bit of a loaded question I mean our water line there's water lines that are past their their lifecycle cost that certainly you could start looking at replacing and or repairing most times when you start looking at replacing a water line you'd look at one of the one of the ways to look at it is the number of breaks you have within a certain time period so if you have five breaks without a mile of pipe within five years or something you might want to start saying okay this time to replace this pipe this section of pipe most of the pipe that's in the ground whether it be asbestos or ductal iron whenever we have had a cause to see excuse me to see those pipes obviously because of a break or somebody doing a tap or something into them the pipes are incredibly clean incredible shape so I wouldn't be recommending any kind of wholesale replacements at this point we don't have a scaling that you'll see you start with a pipe this big and some places they'll get down to holes like this just because of the buildup I've never seen any of that in any of our pipes that we have had to get into and dig up so that means that we have good quality water but we're having we have a good active flushing system which keeps scouring the pipes and keeps them cleaned out hydrants I think Terry would be the biggest concern we're starting to spend more money on hydrants every year so we will come in at budget time with probably an increased number in that and we did increase it last year we've already spent that money breaks and the hydrants is at the trucks cars and trucks we do get I mean I'm being a little but a lot most times it's an accident and you would think that if something hits a hydrant we would know who it is or find it but we don't right because they don't they don't like like in the movies they don't spurt out water because there's a value to dry no but if it's a car if it's a car usually we'll find out who it is they're not usually driving away but trucks in them I won't want to say all the time but trucks hit them and you just drive away and then we end up being the ones to replace one we're replacing one in lamp light right now that literally is just because of age and it's a kind of hydrant we don't even have in the system anymore so we're we've taken out on the replace that one I thought you're gonna say cuz Terry hit it yeah you used to what no no no I thought you did for some reason so hydrants would be the big thing the place we see failures aren't at the saddles or the connections to either valves or service lines are getting eaten away literally fall apart the bolt thing I remember yeah I have a still have a photograph from the valves that's the other thing we see at the valves the bonnets and the whole valve will probably be okay but the bolts the through bolts just get eaten away so then we get down there the valve it still looks like it's all in one piece but there might be one bolt through the bonnet where there was nine or something before so it's hot soils the way we've been dealing with that is nothing goes in the ground anymore now that isn't ductal iron and wrapped and and wrapped to keep the soils away from it with stainless steel so the hydrants will be the one that you'll really see the most we already had something in the capital plan to replace some water line up on yeah up in Southridge is it there chamber on Chamberlain Lane just because for some reason or is there is a restriction where the two sides come together that's been on the books though for a while we just haven't really chased after it but it is one section it's already recommended to be changed it's a restriction and flow because it goes from one size plate to the other for some reason there's a smaller section in the line does it show up in your analysis though okay I meant the I'm sorry the hydraulic analysis does it show that restriction be kind of interesting to find out it's not really one of the places that came out though the only place that we had any really hydraulic restrictions were at the end of that line where I told you about before and as a place where we can you know have to think and talk about whether we want to invest money down at that end for the little bit of our protection service the only the only way to do it is about a booster pump station loop the system which is no way to do down there really or increase the size of the line farther down there's there's stuff below that right that is still in Williston right but it's not served by water oh it's not in the Champlain water district on town water district outside the town system wells and my house is the last house on Governor Chittenden Road for instance that is served by town water everybody else is on a well okay in the only place we have plastic line is going up oak well going up Oak Hill Road that system somehow ended up having some plastic line in it because we don't allow plastic either plastic is hard to trace if you have a problem there are three private systems in town golf lengths has its own pump station Overlake view and woods and Highlands Drive they actually have quite a pump station it's up by our big tank off of route 2a that's a whole private system Rick's right I don't consider that so much a private system but Williston Woods is it well any private road I'm talking about places that are actually license have licenses do they have separate and the third one is Porterwood but we don't supply water to commoner question it's not really a question it's more of a comment I did not realize that the pump stations and all the tanks are owned by Champlain water district and which is a great thing because they would be our biggest assets our biggest financial concern in terms of you know having to have those items in the capital budget so we're very fortunate that way that was a good thing to learn I think you went through all the items that we're going to have to deal with in the future it'd be nice to kind of see a short summary of what comes out of this in terms of the hydrants the those two I'm going to say those two areas that have dead ends have I'm going to say moderate to light issues with fire flow you know what there was a summary memo but yeah well it I mean it's sort of in writing to put my file and and is are they going to come up with some costs for this or cost associated with everything because we did not get that there was the whole report was what 40 or 70 pages long and I right and what I didn't give you were all the different charts and tables and things there was no narrative in the rest of it will this be online we can the whole report sure we can put that online it's not online now but for people like me who might actually want to go through it replacement costs for all the vows replacement costs for all the hydrants so it's all it's all it's all in there it's not the report it's all the attachments yes yeah right yeah and and this will be a obviously a topic of discussion in our next budget you know what it'll be it won't yeah it won't be a separate discussion but it'll be we'll be guided when we're preparing the capital budget which will be just a few months from now that you'll be receiving it the staff is already working on it actually that's not why I brought it up my last question is is Bruce what is your what is your interpretation of what is asset management yeah what does that term mean well it means doing just what we've done here putting everything together so we know what's out there to start with and then building a plan from that on you know to keep moving forward and not just a long term capital plan but things we need to do immediately to keep things working one of the things I did that's a good question one thing I did want to point out is that in the very front of this document there's level of service goals and performance measures and there's three pages of that which we will use as a guideline to keep moving this forward to there are some things in here that need to be changed like the inspection of backflow prevention devices we've got an ordinance now that says that commercial places we still don't have them all doing that but it's not necessarily even their fault I don't think most will even know still that that ordinance exists so we need to continually reach out to them the ones that do or do it it's not an issue anyway that's what this the first three pages of this are so no we're actually doing an upgrade to our sewer sewer study right now too it's not going to be so much with full blown asset management but I'd like to have that done at some point also I mean we basically have it already for our roads so we should have it for all of our assets in town including the building we're sitting in just so that we can start to look at numbers get pretty frightening now when you start looking at what we're not doing anything further on the water assets okay thank you dispatch survey report and Rick has given us a memo regarding I did actually have one question not to the report but do we ever do a water quality test when I say water quality I mean for different contaminants or particulates or that kind of thing after you do we don't do them that's right we'll do them if somebody calls and they're having a complaint we might go pull a sample real quick but our quarterly or all the inspections or tests that are need to be done under our permit are all done for us by CWD including that data somewhere and it's just because you know all over the nation because of the things that happened in Flint, Michigan, you know people are questioning yes well though it's just as an example CSWD I don't know what frequency but they come here to the town hall run the tap in the bathroom and take a sample from that there are different locations throughout town that they have to go around and take samples from it's a huge matrix of analysis and timing that they have to do it's a yearly report yeah and they put out a very strict standard to do testing various things Champlain Water District is consistently known as one of the top water producers in this in the United States yeah now they really are they're very good at what they do and we're fortunate to have them as our partner right let's progress then to regional dispatch survey report and rex metal to us so with questions that we had from for him from last week speaking of regional cooperation this is a new one last meeting I had prepared kind of well I used a PowerPoint that had been prepared by representative of another community and added a couple slides at the end and it focused mainly on process and the key thing for the select board at this point is to judge whether or not the agreement to join the authority is something that the board finds acceptable or not that isn't to say I was looking for a decision at this time because I'm not a decision will be needed I would say in January as to whether or not the board wants to vote to add this to a town vote and so you know that's the decision you have to make so this meeting I thought I might focus just on the agreement itself and I try in the agreement it's quite lengthy so I tried to pick these sections that were most critical to or is from what I thought might be your viewpoint and I actually I in doing so doing I found one section or one sentence anyway that I didn't like so I'm going to bring it up and I'll mention that to you shortly so the I don't know what should I go through section by section briefly here so this is the agreement to create the Chittenden County Public Safety Authority yes yes that's correct and it's still at this point it's still a draft so we still have an opportunity although time is starting to run short and because we hope to finalize it before the end of this month because it's got to go through other reviews including I think the state's attorney's office or something some office attorney general's office maybe it wouldn't be state attorney so attorney general's office has to look at it make sure it's consistent with state law so anyway the first section that's of importance I would think is the duration and this authority once formed would exist in perpetuity unless dissolved by the members and much of what is in this agreement is actually kind of spelled out in the state statute and I gave the citation here as it relates to the duration the powers of the authority again are pretty much specified by state statute it includes the normal authorities that a municipality would have for the most part including the ability to borrow money and carry indebtedness and that's important part because that was raised as a question by I guess it was Jeff but also Teresa had some questions on that as well the board of directors according to the agreement would vote on various policy issues and as it's structured most votes would be a one vote per municipality in other words there's not for most issues there is not any weighted voting discussion of doing waiting rate well I'm going to get to that a little bit later because they're in one circumstance the city Burlington does want to have waiting but we'll get to that in a couple minutes here one other point under the board of directors today am I like let's say I cover the powers so I'm a board of directors section one other key point is that the directors according to the agreement would be the town or city manager of each community or their design a or the mayor if the mayor happens to be the chief executive officer there was quite a bit of discussion on this point and the the thinking is that this is a very close extension of a town service even even as a regional dispatch the services the police department and the police department is served by regional dispatch and so the feeling is that because of that close proximity it's a little bit different than the solid waste district which is pretty much fully a whole separate service it's not integrated within you know closely integrated to public works for example so that's why the feeling is that having managers as the directors for the most part makes sense the of course managers recognize that we're also going to need input from others including and specifically police chiefs because they are the ones directly using the service and so we envision having a subcommittee of chiefs providing technical advice to the board of directors the when I guess I maybe should pause after every time to see if there's any questions about each of these sections before I move on so I know that the board is going to be made up of town managers or their designate does whoever they designate to do that I'm just trying to get in then you mentioned the point about it's really good to get the input from the police chiefs because they're the ones who are really going to benefit from this service and we'll be able to best provide that input and bring that whatever knowledge and fire chiefs I'm sorry I'm sorry yes and fire chiefs too so my question maybe that answers my question my question kind of becomes is why shouldn't the police chiefs or fire chiefs be the board members but part of the answer is because Williston has one of each and then the you need a little bit broader perspective than just the parochial interest of either the fire or police because the the there's the broader interest of town involved to right and of course the manager is serves at the pleasure of the select board so the manager has to be responsive to the the select board's interest as well so yeah good so in your last go where do that say that the directors are town managers it should be in section 6 I don't have the full agreement right in front of me but I could pull it up but in section 6 it should say that because that's why in a lot of these cases I cut and pasted the actual language I don't know if this is one of them but as each director shall be the chief executive officer of the member or his or her does a knee I think that language is being changed to read town managers okay because the version we have doesn't doesn't mean might not say that yeah but the concept the same I think the later version was changed to make it yes officer for Williston if that happened to be the term that stayed there that's why I say it's intended to mean the same thing but I use the I think what it be the more up-to-date language right under budget and preparation the an assessment process it's for those of the board members that are familiar with the process followed by the Chittin and Salt Waste District this is kind of similar there isn't a whole lot of difference in that but here here's where we get to the weighted vote issue what section did you jump to it's section 16 budget appropriation assessment so on this section and this one does not show up in your version in fact it didn't show up in my latest version either because it came up at our last survey committee meeting and that is Burlington's interest in having a weighted vote in very limited circumstance and I don't exactly have the wording of this because again this is just talking concept but the concept was that if the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year the one that we're budgeting for exceeds a certain percentage and I I'm not sure what the percentage is it's like one and one and a half two percent so in that range if exceeds the cost living by that percentage then voting would let the directors would be a limit it might actually voting by the legislative bodies would be weighted based on number of calls for service they are billed for so in other words if the budget goes to the legislative bodies because and and there it does go each year and they vote on it if the number of towns want to vote against it then the vote will be weighted in that circumstance it wouldn't be the board of directors vote it's the legislative body that clear oh it's clear what isn't clear is how much sway does Burlington have over everybody else oh let's see I think I had that number here yeah it just is well currently they represent 31 percent of the calls Williston's eight and a half percent magic number that had me concerned which was 50% but it I mean it still is it's a third almost so it's still sizable yes yeah the next closest is Essex it looks like they're at 14.3 percent Colchester of South Burlington's 13 Colchester's 11.4 and it goes in Williston's next 8.5 and that well those are the list of current committee members now the percentage will change depending on who actually becomes a member initially Burlington may indeed have more than 50 it's like it's a possible yeah and which I would find untenable I just did well it but Betty remember it's only if the budget increase exceeds a certain percentage over the cost of living over the cost of living okay that's a key part right there okay and I can't tell you exactly what that percentage is as I said the language is still being worked on yeah I would want that I mean if we are if this has to be there this weighted average provision I would want that threshold that has to be passed to get to the weighted average voting to be as high as possible right let's see is there anything else on the section 16 budget and assessment process if not we'll move on to section 17 cost sharing formula and this cost sharing formula it will be specified in detail in the memorandum of understanding which is a separate document from this and the plans are right now to base it on the calls for service and and no other factor at this point some of the factors that had been talked about included grant list value which I was definitely opposed to population which I think is maybe a more reasonable approach but calls for service certainly makes sense as well that will be easily trackable yes okay yes the police chiefs had to define what a call for services and they've done that so we have a consistent number that they will be using so yes I don't think I have anything else on that any other questions on section 17 if not section 20 the assessment just a note on that the cost of debt service or payments under the long-term contract are included as part of the assessment so if there's a debt that's incurred by the organization Wilson will be contributing towards that that based on our calls for service and then section 21 withdrawal is probably the there's a lot of different steps and considerations there and and there's one problem I see with the way things are worded but I'll get that in a moment so if the town votes to join in March let's say and actually it's a vote to form the authority it's not even necessary vote to join but it's a vote to form the authority and Wilson would be a member of the party but we're not actually paying for any service or receiving any service until we sign the memorandum understanding we have three years from the point that we vote to form the authority to actually decide whether or not we want to become a paying member and in order for the authority to form I believe somewhere in here it says that three members have to three or more members have to vote to form the authority and the consultant has said that in order for this to work Burlington and at least one other community needs to be involved so Burlington is key to the success of this organization is he bit is the consultant saying that all the other communities with the exception of Burlington would not be sufficient for this to run on its own well I'm not I think that's an oversimplification it's certainly much more difficult because Burlington has so many calls it just makes it much more efficient regional region-wide and Burlington's certainly on board with wanting to get this one I just want to make sure I understood but it's possible Burlington says no we don't want to be part of this at some point in time and then it is going to be stretch I think the authorities then definitely going to be looking to gather as many calls for service from other communities wherever they can to be part of this and to a certain extent if Shelburne becomes a member for example they are providing calls for service already for a number of municipalities outside of Chittin County the town of Essex also is providing calls for service beyond just the town of Essex mainly for fire departments outside of well I think they're maybe in Chittin County but they're they're smaller communities so it's it's not necessarily fair to say that if Burlington doesn't join the whole thing falls apart it just it makes it much that much more difficult to make it economically viable so on the withdrawal there's a whole set of steps if we let's say we become a member and after so many years we decide we want to get out we can vote just like we can with the UNESCO Valley Park District but just as we're planning to do with the UNESCO Valley Park District the first full year following the vote to withdraw we're still a member we're still paying and that's exactly what we've suggested to do if we have a vote to withdraw from the UNESCO Valley Park District I don't think in that case we weren't required to do that it's just the fair and right thing to do and according to the Charter for this the agreement we'd be required to do that for this organization any debts that are incurred during the time we're a member of the authority at some point we want to withdraw we'd be responsible for our portion of that debt so pulling out does not relieve our responsibly for that debt any that we could negotiate along some payment but yes we're responsible for that even if somebody fills our position in that it takes advantage of those services according to this agreement we're responsible for it well I guess you have to evaluate that at the time you're trying you're hoping to withdraw right right I understand but no it's a good question I just it's the other problem the from the authority standpoint they they need to rely on that money for paying down the debt and you know if they get a seems like if somebody were to fill the position that that should would be could be moved to the new whoever filled that hole you know you actually you raise an interesting question I'm going to ask if you do have new members coming in how is that affect the distribution of debt and it seems like it should also affect the debt of people that have left of course the other point is true perhaps if others leave I guess they'd be still responsible for the debt so I wouldn't be a factor okay unless they find somebody they find somebody then you know they're you know they're no longer it's good question this I mean this exact language must also be in our part of being CSWD the one of the points that where I had the problem is on section 7 subparagraph E in my memo it talks about if there are unbudgeted costs and expenses arriving at out of activities authority during the time we remember then we're responsible for those which I understand but it says regardless of the costs or expenses may be discovered and I also understand that but I don't think it means probably withdrawing should be responsible for costs that haven't been discovered for indefinite time period you know so ten years from now they say oh gee we forgot about all these costs and these were incurred when you were a member no no but if it happened within three or whatever number of years I may be more reasonable I can see that might make sense so that's a point I'm going to raise the argument I would make is wait a second if it isn't part of an adopted budget these undiscovered expenses then I guess I have a hard time saying you can go back to somebody who paid their fair share of that budget at the time that budget was passed and those costs were incurred that you owe additional money because of this undiscovered expense so I wouldn't even put like a five-year I have a little trouble with this concept well I do too but I do I can I'm trying to think of it if I can come up with an example I suppose let's say you have a retirement plan for the dispatchers and come to find out that the communities haven't been putting enough into that account and so you have to play catch up and so during the time it had we been a member we would have already been paying a certain amount towards that retirement account during the time we were a member but this wasn't discovered until after we withdrew so it seems like then we maybe have an obligation to contribute towards that fund to catch up only for the time that we would have been a member then we would have been having to pay it anyway I don't know if that's a great example or not that's the way I get the point but I also get the point of where somebody says wait a second you adopted a budget and you know who's withdrawn and you know you know that budget went through your fiscal review it went through our review we voted to approve it we paid like we're supposed to and now you're coming saying we underpaid because of the district's fault of course that's the I'm talking about a cost I'm sorry I was gonna say the district is the member so that there is no you but once you've left everybody it's a different thing you know but these are costs incurred while we were still member I get it but you know well yeah I think the if we can put some sort of time a bit I'd feel much more comfortable about this if any right all right section 22 this is admission of municipality this is paragraph 8 of my memo I've pretty much covered this at our last meeting so I don't there's nothing new here other than I already mentioned it takes three or more municipalities voting in March to approve or form the authority oh I there is one other point in here if a municipality does not initially vote to participate let's say we either vote it down in March or we don't have the vote at all then we would have to essentially ask the members of the authority whether if we can become a member and it takes a two-thirds vote of the member legislative bodies to allow us to become a member so there's potential risks there although I would say that right now the authority is banking on getting as many municipalities as possible for the calls and the assessment that goes with those calls in order to make this become even more financially efficient and effective but it's a little bit of risk and of course the other point is that I'm guessing that we won't necessarily even if we vote of joining the form the authority we won't necessarily become a member paying member right away that doesn't mean we won't get service and I'm thinking mainly our fire department let's say we don't join right away we don't agree to sign the memorandum understanding and but Shelburne does they're doing our fire dispatch now so we would have to pay the authority for that service I'm guessing the fee we would have to pay would be higher than if we were a member because we don't have the risk of being a member but we are getting a service and so it would make sense that we be paying a higher rate right now we're paying like 40 to $50,000 a year and I don't know what that would translate in foot the new authority focus on that that's that we pay the town of Shelburne for that okay all right yeah I did make that clear and then the next last section I covered here is the amendment of the agreement section 24 there's a multi-step process the any amendment would first have to be voted adopted by two-thirds of the directors of the board then submitted to the legislative bodies of all the member municipalities and then it becomes effective upon adoption of a majority of the legislative bodies of the member municipalities and then last is the section 25 ratification and again it's takes a effect upon approval of voters of three or more initially authorized members and of course Wilson is one of the initially authorized members along with Burlington South Burlington and Winooski Shelburne Milton Essex Colchester those are all the initial group that are currently on the survey committee is a survey committee not who got voter approval that's correct any other thoughts or questions okay then I will take these comments back to the survey committee and we'll proceed from there you'll be seeing this again in January let's move on then to thanks for a city discussion this is something that Jeff wanted to be on the agenda and with other things that have taken president so this is the first time I'll have a chance to take a look at it and Jeff wanted to give us your thoughts on this and I think a brief discussion on this tonight no joy enjoy has some concern and I would prefer joy what would have been could have been here the concept is simple is I think it's simple is you know there are I don't know what's the right term to use I hate a lot of the terminology that's out there you know the illegal alien like what is it these people came from Mars and are now living amongst us without our permission I just you know the terminology drives me nuts but there are there are probably undocumented folks from other country who live in Williston who work in Williston and it's the concept of that and there I'm sure plenty of documented if that's the correct term folks from other countries whether they be refugees or whatever it is they need to escape who are poverty or you know what you and I all seek which is a better better life for our families who are here it's the concept of being do we want to be a welcoming community so these so folks who are in these situations do not feel can feel can feel safe I think maybe that's the key word right there and so that's the part of the sanctuary city that attracts me I that's how I would want my community to be perceived whether but by anyone whatever their status is and maybe the the politics have changed slightly since when this was more of a hot issue but I think the core issue is still there I don't know if becoming a sanctuary city is the best alternative for Williston I honestly don't know but I do believe there are steps Williston cannon should take and by steps I mean so that folks here can see it you know other than you know we say we have an ordinance that's great but that's not really great that's that's very positive but it's that concept of positively or actively letting folks know that Williston is a community that is a safe community is a welcoming community is I think the best way I can describe what it is I'd like us to move forward with all that I would say I think I don't know about public perception I guess last point that you made I don't know I do know that there's a lot of law out there that people think that they know that they actually don't hit that every single day yeah I'm saying they want to sue somebody for harassment there's almost no such thing I get people who think that this ordinance though statute is still driving the wall intoxicated DWI it's not it's driving under the influence of alcohol to the slightest degree I deal with this all the time that people have this conceptions I don't know what the government can do to a degree because we have freedom of the press and we don't have our own newspaper like the daily worker or something I do know though in terms of the policy I was pleasantly surprised and the second time I've read this that I think our general order from the police department is already there I mean I'm just going to quote a couple things that section 5 due process and immigration enforcement section B immigration is a federal policy issue between the issue is a federal policy issue between the United States government and other countries federal law does not grant local and state agencies authority to enforce immigration laws state law does not grant local and state agencies authority to enforce civil immigration laws subsection C therefore agency members that would be the Wilson police department shall not initiate or prolong stops based on civil immigration law matters similarly Williston shall not facilitate the detention of undocumented individuals suspected of being undocumented agency section D agency members will listen police department shall not comply with such requests for administrator administrative warrants victim and witness interaction Wilson police shall not ask or investigate immigration status of a crime victim witnesses unless the victim is also suspecting immigration and immigration status is a is necessary to the criminal investigation it just I was pretty happy with all that all right and that's great it's it's and first of all I'm I'm greatly pleased to hear your interpretation and how you feel about that but this is this is the concept of the sanctuary city is also a little bit different or at least what I'm trying to achieve it's okay so there is an ordinance on the book that's a very good I don't know if it's an ordinance or policy on the books that's very good but how do we make that known how would somebody know that about Williston it's more along those lines how do we well the question I guess I'm asking is do we want to promote this you know this concept of Wilson being a welcoming and safe community well can I just last thing I'd say on this is that the thing that I do get concerned about whenever we talk about these issues is that I think one of the things that Williston town government and the select board does well is the nuts and bolts whether we do it well or not I think we try to do it and we don't you know a lot of other towns and cities put things on their ballots about fetal tissue and abortion and you know this other stuff and I whatever my position is on those issues I always think what's that got to do with the roads and whatever and you can make the argument that you know all politics is local and you got to think locally but again you know we have we have 610,000 people in the state if you want to get on the phone with Peter Welch or Bernie Sanders and Pat Leahy you can try a little bit and you'll be you'll be able to do it and I just I don't know so I mean when you talk about promoting this stuff I I get concerns that we're gonna start promoting something that is not really a town issue I don't know I understand but I would maybe argue Williston is more than the nuts and bolts you know we are you know a we are a community in whatever sense that I mean I think the community is very difficult to describe and very difficult to describe how Williston is as a community whether it be neighborhoods whether it be you know Williston as a whole so we're the government we represent the community but we're not the community but we're the government of the town of Williston so but at times we aren't we aren't we don't we play a role and I'm yeah so what's the difference between the policy that the whole thing about sanctuary city is not supporting immigration right not backing immigration's plays to do these administrative warrants to over hold people for these administrative warrants asking people for immigration status isn't that the whole idea of sanctuary city for police departments and not to do that isn't that kind of the whole idea because otherwise you can't dictate what other people think right so you got the police you can you can dictate their policy right she's shepherd yeah I actually didn't see it before this time and it's it's it's written amazingly well and I think he used the template from somewhere else this is own but it was I was surprised we had adopted this so can I answer let me interrupt you and then stop interrupting you're one of the the major things about this this general order here that as I see it it's it's not a symbolic policy it is a law enforcement policy and by that I mean it keeps people in Williston safe because you don't want a witness to a crime running away because they can't afford to possibly have any interaction with the police you can't have a crime victim particularly a particularly vulnerable victim a sexual victim or some other not reporting it because they don't want to be deported and taken away from their children and and so when I look at it this way and I think that's one of the only ways to look at it it is a it is good law enforcement to have this there and so but I'm sorry I enter in my interest no I was just I was just saying I'm trying to understand the difference because when I read this I'm like oh we are a sanctuary city we're essentially doing implementing that policy what does advertising that we're I think what you're saying is we need to go out and politically advertise because me at the sanctuary city is almost today like a political statement against the reigning and I want to be careful I am that seems what want to be careful here that I'm because we've got the groundwork a political statement against the current administration is I mean I see in a sense where a lot of people see value in that that's a little bit where I start that crosses the line from for me a little bit about that becomes very dangerous for a select board maybe to start doing this is hopefully independent of the current administration it's more I mean for instance I realize this wasn't the Wilson select board per se but I think we did endorse the wing concept remember when we did Williston into the next generation in fact we might have even provided some money to help that happen I'm not at all arguing against that you know there were probably some cost and maybe my point that was a community conversation that was being fostered though right but it's more my point it's more along those lines that I'm thinking the select boards participation or or or promotion for lack of better words would be it's it's let and less so on the political statement side but what are we promoting this the concept of welcoming and safety how would we promote it I don't have a good answer for that yeah that's I guess that's that's kind of the point because it seems like we've we've done what I thought was or think of as sanctuary cities right cities where you're not going to be persecuted based on just being an immigrant because immigrants as well as illegal immigrants are the ones that are being targeted and so we don't do that here right Mike Mike and and the police probably piece of it is a big piece of it but you know probably between you know the seven of us eight of us in the room now and maybe a bunch of lawyers who have had to deal with this and the police department itself there's probably very few people in Williston who know about this it's true about a huge amount of what's that true about a huge amount absolutely right yes that's true that's not the only thing people think we control route to I probably should say too that I would say a majority of police departments have adopted something similar to that policy already because I believe it was required under state law so it's not a Williston thing yeah it's a state thing yeah so in general Vermont is yeah welcoming and yeah a safe place to be in general I actually didn't know that either that did any municipalities not do this do you know I don't know yeah so it's not like we're an island that we need to promote and come to Williston no I don't think you know because that's not it's yeah generally accepted but it's also it's kind of like to me it's the philosophy of the town it's you know what does the town believe in and the answer is I mean I'm being facetious right now but I suspect there's some communities where they would be you know somewhere some municipalities somewhere where they'd be happy to say no you know we think quote unquote illegal immigrants should be you know our police department should be seeking them out and finding them in and and taking the next step to have them deported I don't have there are municipalities like I want folks to really tell I would like it if folks felt Wilson was the exact opposite of that but I don't know yeah I truly am not I'm not sure what we should do either and frankly that's another I'm not completely sure it's what we should do and that's the probably the more better question yeah I mean one of you know we can dance around it but it is a you know this issue is only on the table because of changes that have happened in the United States since January 2017 and you know that in January 2009 we would have been taking this action so it's it's in many ways it would be a political statement for the town to issue some sort of decree or proclamation or something like that that a lot of people in town would not be comfortable with and you know the people who agree with the proclamation or whatever it would be probably wouldn't be ringing your phone off the hook but the people who didn't agree would be upset and I don't know that they'd be wrong from a procedural point of view to me it's kind of a political hot button it's making a political statement especially if Oliver for the most part Oliver Mount is kind of a sanctuary state standing up at this time and saying we're a sanctuary city I don't know what that I think the policies yeah yeah I'm obviously I'm offering a slightly different opinion there I would like us to see us to be more proactive not proactive in terms of we need to do another ordinance or just proactive in terms of the message getting the message out there Rick can I ask when this was done is there anything on our is there anything on Williston's home page that says or implies this policy you'd have to kind of go into the bowels of on our home page on the I'd have to check with the police department's page to see if they have anything this is not come to the select board either no it did and no general orders do from I wasn't suggesting it should they don't come to me either yeah I it wasn't until you sent it that I was even aware of it the chief did talk to me about it though and what he told me was that a model form had been developed by which group oh the I know at the Vermont training Council and the criminal justice cream whatever the full name of it is and so he pretty much took that and adopted it with a very little revision some communities have you know adopted it with more revisions but as long as the essence is there as and the essence is what the state law requires but we've done more than that we've pretty much adopted the with very little change is there anything else we need to find out before we if we need to discuss this again no I get the I get the feeling the consensus I can't speak for joy obviously but the consensus is not to do anything that would be her consensus as well I mean I like the idea of sanctuary city obviously I'm certainly in that area but I was actually surprised at how far this went so I was looking forward to this discussion tonight and when I read this order I was so very pleasantly surprised as I think Ted said as well but can I ask when the new chief comes in is this something that can be as quickly wiped away as was added to our violation of state law he could change it but otherwise yeah is this a state way he could make modifications yeah because I've heard some towns have adopted parts of it so that it can't be a statement well okay we're right let's let's monitor that situation can we make a statement that says we support and want to make could you make this a permanent policy or you know I'm just asking the question I'll make it a town policy versus a police police order general order general order yeah I had a good way to do that is to say that we would ask that the town manager can communicate to the police chief that he is directed to tell the town manager who will tell us if any changes to this general order are made I actually think it's yeah yeah yeah we would be kept in loop as well as a political you know as as not as political but as a leadership organization we could say we strongly support this policy and would like the opportunity as the leadership board to have yay or nay if this has changed or kind of you know I mean there's no harm in that so we good for this in other words it does not yes yes at this point we're I think we're good to just make sure that the the new chief is aware of that we like the policy so move on to managers report a couple items I want to highlight in my written report first is the assistant to manager recruitment process as this is writing I said 60 applications now and it's now it's close to 80 so the deadline is Friday so we're getting down towards the end of that I am going to be forming a panel and I would like to offer a slot on the panel to a select board member if anyone's interested moving on here community justice center funding the we've received word that the amount of money that will be available to Chittenden County justice centers is going to be decreasing the word I'm having I'm receiving from state officials is that the money will be reallocated to other justice centers outside of Chittenden County feeling is that Chittenden County is getting a disproportionate share of the money unfortunately it's going to have a potentially negative impact on the various justice centers that are in Chittenden County in Wilson is one of the in terms of the results it's one of the best in the state my concern is that it's going to pit multiple justice centers within Chittenden County against each other because they're creating it as a request for proposal so our justice center is going to have to submit a proposal in order to continue operating as a justice center and they will view those proposals as kind of competitive basis which is why I say we're we're going to be kind of pitted against other justice centers because we're going to be competing for the same pool of money and I think that's going to create some problems and we we are justice centers a little bit different in the sense that we serve more than just Williston and so we have a couple things one we have this whole competition thing and how that's all going to sort itself out but then we have the other thing is diminished resources and so we're going to take a look at what resources the town is putting into it above and beyond cash because we're not putting any cash into it but we are providing a space we're providing supervision by the police department and some supervision from my office as well and you know telephone and you know all the things that go with the building and space and so that's a resource we need to clearly identify the value of that and then secondly we need to begin exploring immediately the possibility of receiving money from the other municipalities that receive the benefit of the services provided through our justice center perhaps on a population basis and then there's other things we can look at too including charging a fee for some of the services we provide so we're looking at all these things and we'll be talking about it during the budget process but I wanted to let you know that this is something that's going to be coming up and they were trying to get all this done they being the state and have it in place for the start of next fiscal year July 1st and I said well that's not going to work very well because we're doing the budgets now for next fiscal year and we won't know until you know January February what whether we get the money and how much we get and that'll be too late for us to do anything so I my suggestive they could kind of get the process started now but work it in so that we have a little more advanced warning like maybe fiscal year 2019 it might work better for us we have no idea that's that's part of the problem I do not know off the top of my head well let's say we have one full-time employee and one part-time so let's say a hundred thousand you know but that doesn't include the in-kind services the town's providing you know because you know it's fun it's been there and essentially it's been treated as our contribution towards the grant because there is a local contribution required that's been our contribution but it's never been clearly defined and it probably should have but we will be defining it by necessity now because we need to know what the entire cost of the program is so for going to other municipalities asking for contributions they're going to need to know what that will be but we also need to know what the shortfall is because we're not going to be asking for the entire amount we're just going to be asking for the shortfall in revenue from what we're losing from the state so it puts us in a very awkward position on that count as well this comes from the department of corrections the money yeah okay make an inquiry from the commissioner as to what's going on with us since my committee deals with corrections all right and the final load is a couple of our firefighters went down to the Houston area to help out with the some of the emergency response activities I haven't heard I haven't had a status report from when since I wrote this report my understanding is they drove down and I don't know why and it wasn't just they're represents from other communities as well drove down as a group and presumably they have to drive back so I haven't got a recent report on this this is the first time we've sent members as part of this organized group we there was another hurricane in 2012 the hurricane sandy where we did send down I think one of our ambulances with a crew to help spell the emergency crew down in that New Jersey New York area that was not part of an organized group that was more of a less organized group shall we say there's we've done this in the past and I think it's a good thing to do and and I know when we had the hurricane Irene other states helped out not will stand because we didn't have any problems here but so it's a good good thing to do if you have the resources to offer the help so that's all I had for this evening thank you Rick is there any other business that Tony to talk about tonight if not and we are adjourned thank you for staying for the meeting