 I would like to call this meeting to order. I want to begin by reminding everybody who wishes to have interested party status in the matter before us tonight to sign in on the table there so that you protect your rights to interact going forward. My name is Doug Johnson. I'm the Chairperson of the Development Review Board. On my left, I'm going to do this from left to right and introduce the other members, just in case someone here doesn't know them. Harlan Miller, the Secretary, Kevin Mumkin, the Vice Chair, Erin Villette, one of our members, and Matt Asgut's fifth member of the committee. We have an alternate who participates but is unable to attend this meeting. We have, however, a complete quorum of voting membership of the committee. I want to begin, so I've called it to order, I've introduced the committee. I'll just remind you that, let's see, okay, so the DRB has one case to hear tonight. This is the mansion main case, which is here on appeal. The Development Review Board is a quasi-judicial board within the city of Winooski. We will, in a few minutes, call that mansion and Main Street case. The applicants who will be giving testimony to the board will be sworn in. The board will ask the applicant's questions. Those of the audience after the board is finished asking questions can also ask questions after being sworn in. It's important to know that if you want to be an interested party, in this case you need to declare that before the board makes a decision about the case. Either by signing the interested party list that is available on the side table or by notifying the city by letter. Once the board makes a decision the case can only be appealed by the applicant or by those who have declared themselves interested parties. The Development Review Board is the last stop in the city of Winooski. Appeals are heard by the environmental division of the Vermont Supreme Court. Next order of business is to consider changes to the agenda. The reason for beginning with the change or discussing change to the agenda is that there is an issue affecting the status of the DRB's review of this particular appeal. I am not the best person to describe the legal intricacies of this. But the issue is whether the environmental court, because it has appeals related to this particular case before it, does not now hold jurisdiction over any subsequent appeals in the case. We would like to talk as a committee a bit about this and try to decide whether we think we should take testimony at this point or whether we should press on, take testimony, whether we should take testimony or whether we should adjourn to a time certain when we could hope to have a decision from the environmental court that would clear the air on what we do. Is that a reasonable expression of where we stand? Bob, would you agree with that? So I open up the committee discussion on what we ought to do. So my understanding is that the last time we were here on this case we had about three issues or so in front of us. We decided them in different ways and two things happened at the same time. On the two issues that we decided in favor of the applicant, I understand that the challenger petitioner, you folks over here, took those up to the environmental court. At the same time we decided one issue that went back down to the zoning administrator. The zoning administrator has now made a decision and that's back up in front of us at the DRB. They're all part of the same case, the same application. So the concern is because the environmental court has these two issues over here, we may lack jurisdiction to hear this third issue. I understand that we have asked the environmental court to have jurisdiction back. They have not yet ruled on that. And so we're in a funny position where we don't know whether we are empowered to act tonight or not. My take and it's only one of five is that because they're different issues and not kind of stacked stages of an application, we can take testimony tonight and we can make a decision. Worst case scenario, we didn't have jurisdiction to do it and we have to do it again. Best case scenario, someone gets a decision. That decision probably gets appealed to the e-court and now the e-court has all of the issues to make a final ruling and give everyone some clarity on how this project is going to proceed. But that's just my take. Personally, I'd rather hear the e-court's decision before we hear any testimony and save people their breaths. I prefer to adjourn the meeting to a time certain because I would like when and if we take testimony and make a decision to make the decision as close as possible to taking testimony so that I feel as current and up to date when I make that decision rather than rely on my memory of something that might take a couple of weeks or more before we actually make a decision. So I am in favor of adjourning to a time certain. I am for adjourning to a time certain as well. I think any jurisdictional, jurisdictional questions need to be addressed before we can start taking testimony and open up anything having to do with this case. I'd prefer to hear from the e-court first. Who asked the courties what they think? What does a party think? So, each of the rest of you are an applicant, Jeff Mongeant. My concern and I raised this originally for the city is that when the e-court has something before it, there's a divesting of jurisdiction and there are a host of cases that have played with the scope of that divesting of jurisdiction and they come out generally on, you know, the DRB doesn't have authority while part of the cases or at least the undermined questions are before the environmental court and we've asked the environmental court to clarify sort of that and remand the determinations under ZP 060 back to the DRB to allow everything to be heard at once and sent up in one column. Coming back and doing it again, you know, the concern is that if this body were to make a decision now and then six months from now the environmental court were to say, you know, G golly G, y'all didn't have jurisdiction to do that, we really do have to go back to square one and that very inefficient and if we're talking about continuing for a short period of time, which I think we can push the environmental court, you know, we can poke them and say, hey, just clarify this for us real fast. It seems the most efficient overall for everybody. I want to hear everything at once. Everyone has a right to be heard 100% behind that, but let's do it one time without any dispute. That's the way out. Yes, Joe Dimash on behalf of Mr. Carter and myself, we would agree. There's no reason to do this twice. And quite frankly, if there's any issue with regards to jurisdiction, jurisdiction is a building block on which everything else takes off from. So if there's a question about that, I think you need to err on the side of caution and let's only do this once. Do we need to vote on this one? Yes, I think it's important. I'll entertain a motion then as to, well, wait, wait, we should think about what the time's certain. Because we have, if we're going to close the jury, we have to have the time's certain which we would need to consider this and hope to have the jurisdiction issue. I heard somebody say October 7th was the possibility that the e-court would have a decision. So yes, there is a status conference scheduled for the 7th, October 7th. The e-court could decide the pending motions before that date, but if it does not, at least the parties have an audience with the judge where we can implore a decision to be made so that a hearing can be held as soon as possible after that. If I can make a suggestion, it seems to me that what's going to happen now is the case is going to get put back in the vault and nothing's going to be done until the 7th. So if you're looking to schedule something now, I think you should be thinking at least the 7th or later. I mean, that only makes sense. We have a meeting, a regularly scheduled meeting on the 16th, the 17th. Right, it's right here in front of me. We have a regularly scheduled meeting on the 17th, which is only a relatively short time after that meeting. Would that be acceptable to everybody to put this as the agenda item? I know we have three other hearings, but if we can't cover them all, we would have to put them off until the next month or a time certain between the October meeting and November meeting, which I would be willing to. Do we have a sense of those three other hearings? Are they, like, compared to this one? They are small. They should be fairly minor. Two are for conditional use for detached cottages. One is for a waiver from a side guard setback, roughly, so pretty benign. We all know that they shouldn't take much time, but we also know that there always are potential for a small issue exploding into something bigger. I'd like to make a motion that we continue this discussion on October 17th. Second. A motion has been made and seconded that we adjourn this meeting to a regular scheduled meeting on the 17th of October. All in favor? Aye. I hear unanimity. The motion passes. So we are adjourned and we will meet on the 17th of October. God and the environmental division of the Superior Court being in agreement.