 The select board meeting for Monday, August 2nd, 2021 to order first order of business is a then agenda additions or changes. Any changes from staff? None from staff. Any from the board? It's from July 19th. July 19th. We'll pull those up to make them, we'll do them above the, well, I guess we could just move it into, move it to 5B and we'll just do the executive session at the end anyway, so go ahead and do that, okay? For the 19th, you said? Yes. Okay, the motion to approve that? Motion to approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 4-0. I guess I should comment that I did get an email from Vince that he's unable to attend tonight, so there'll be the four of us tonight. Okay. Can you hear me back there? Sounds working? Okay. I wanted to make sure, I realized I was kind of mumbling to the crowd, to the local people here rather it wasn't projecting, so I want to make sure that I don't miss that point. Okay, so next point on the agenda, our next item on the agenda is public to be heard. This is the time for the public to make comments to the select board about items that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak, either raise your hand in the room or raise your hand on the, within, in teams, please address your comments to me and please keep them civil. I'll expect to speak only once. What else do I need to say here? Please be kind. Yeah. Time. Time. Oh, keep your, yeah, please keep your comments brief. If you'd like to reinforce something that someone else has already said, you can do that briefly. Don't have to repeat what's been said. I think what else? I guess that's adequate. So let's start here in the room. Bridget, go ahead. Yes, please. Yeah. If you're, those that are speaking, please come up to the microphone so that the folks at home can hear. My name is Bridget Meyer. I live at 28 Pleasant Street. Gabrielle Smith and I circulated this letter as it became very clear to us that that the policing in Essex, in the event of Essex Junction separation independence, whatever you want to call it, was the community's number one concern to the select board. I guess I should be Andy, but we, the 91 undersigned residents of the town of Essex, expect that you will assure the future of the Essex Police Department in the potential event of the incorporation of the city of Essex Junction, preserving the Essex Police Department as it now operates and is funded is the best is in the best interest of our community, whether the village of Essex Junction separates or not. The select board must continue to work with the trustees and earn us now to secure an agreement that ensures the continuity of our Essex Police Department in the event of separation. We expect a reasonable and specific response to the trustees proposal discussed at the joint meeting of the boards on July 19, 2021, and negotiations in good faith to region agreement swiftly. The potential consequences of not sharing services is unacceptable to us and is a concern expressed by Police Chief Hogue in his letter to the joint boards dated July 12, 2021. In that letter, he provides the three options that the village if incorporated into a city has for law enforcement services. Number one, contract with another agency. Number two, start a new city of Essex Junction Police Department or number three, continue to share services with the town of Essex. He explains, sharing the police department with the town outside the village. This is the option. This is the only one that would not involve the reduction of numbers of employees in the current police department and the legal and contractual concerns that would that would bring. Respecting the history of our organization and the significant investment that the members and citizens have contributed to a progressive police department with contemporary ideals and values. This is the most viable and recommended option in the event that the city of Essex Junction obtains policing services from another source. Future town voters would either have to approve a significant tax increase to cover the loss of revenue and the quality and scope of police services could decline drastically. The best interests of all of the residents of the town of Essex will be served now and in the future. If the select board and the trustees agree to share the costs of the Essex police department in the event of separation in keeping with the recommendations of the chief of police. We expect chairman Watts and the select board to come to an agreement with the village trustees in a timely manner that ensures the EPD can continue operating at or near its current level of service to our entire community in the event of the creation of the city of Essex Junction. We would also ask that this letter be entered as an agenda item on your August 17th meeting and open to public discussion and that a clear and transparent report out a report out of the progress being made to provide a response to the trustees proposal. We want to see our boards reach a tentative agreement in public at the August 23rd joint meeting. This gives staff and boards time to finalize the agreement. Thank you. Thank you, Bridget. Mary Post once in Delane and that was a great segue. Thank you. First of all, I just wanted to say to everybody that's listening via their computer that some of us went to coffee with cops on Friday. And it really is a wonderful thing to attend. And so I just want to urge everybody that, you know, wants to do that to do it. It was really very good. We were able to express some questions more questions and concerns we had. But we also learned from their point of view, some of the issues that they face. And I actually learned a lot. And so I, you know, recommend that if you can to go to that, it's a really good thing. Thank Chief Hogue and his police officers for being willing to do this for us. Secondly, I just, I'm concerned that Oviso Macaca is still the interim director of community development. And if I remember correctly, there have been a few of us that have been asking why she's still interim. And I want to ask again, and I'm not clear on who has final say on making her, you know, no longer interim is, is, is that the town manager or is that the select board? I just don't really know. But I'd like to know what's taking so long. And of course, there's the cynical part of me that says, well, if she were a man, she probably wouldn't be made to wait so long. And then there's the other party that wonders, and I don't believe this is true. And I hope it's not true. But is this a matter of discrimination? Why is it taking so long? And I'm very concerned about that. And I would really like to have some answers. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. To clarify one of your questions, this, the charter does not allow the select board to tell the manager how to run the organization. Unless there's a specific complaint or grievance applied or addressed to the select board from the employee, we, we can't address any issues. So I don't know if you want to, if you want me to, I'll be happy to address it. I've had conversations with Miss Makuku about removing the thing, her title and changing her title. We haven't come to an agreement yet. Okay, thank you very much for that. But it's been ongoing for quite a while. Thank you. No, no, our discussions between her and I. Not your questions. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mary. Other hands in the room, Patty. I just want to say something on behalf of Ron Hogue and all the policemen. They spent like three hours with us. And I want to do whatever I can to help our police. And speaking with Ron Hogue, I really like him because he has a connection from me racing so many years. One of his mentors who was Chief Police of Swanton, really, he looked up to as a kid. And so we go way back. So we have a lot in common. I really, really like him. And he wants to represent the town and he wants to represent the village. He just wants to be a cop and take care of us. What would help him? What would help him would help me and then maybe me helping you. We could get this done. We want the Saxon Hill ordinances and the Park ordinances to be the same in the 8-1 area of town as is in the village. And the reason I'm saying this, it would make his job a lot easier. He loved what we all had to say. The next day after we met them, they were at Saxon Hill for me. So I want to do everything in my power to assist Ron Hogue like I do with Essex experience by doing those 34 pots. I'm willing to pay for a leash sign on the gate at the end of Saxon Hill. Please leash your dog. This is a public road. What Ron Hogue was saying is if somehow the town could start working on some nuisance ordinance for us, because there's 11,600 of us, we don't want to wait until after merger discussions, separation discussions, all these discussions. I'll tell you why. These are my thoughts. These are my questions. Just chew on them. Don't answer them. Why is the select board driven by the timely efforts of contract proposals by the trustees when we have life or death situations, public safety, I wanted addressed before hunting season? Number two, when separation is discussed in the town, why can't it just involve participants of the town excluding the junction? Number three, why aren't we telling village that discussions about separation should only ensue after there has been a vote? If separation passes, then come to the table with the data, all the research I have that I've given to people and vote for board members who only live in town outside the village so that we get these ordinances passed. This is my sixth year here. I'm sick of it. Number four, why are we not as a select board stating the time our meetings take place between now and the vote on separation that the trustees are dealing with? Why can't our top priority be working on district equal representation that we've been working on? I just went to the town office today. Since so help me God, 2017. Number two, listening to the voices of the town of Essex whom I as or say I'm pretend I'm a select board member represents. I mean, I know I'm just a citizen, but our tax equity problem here in town is not a tax equity problem. It's a problem that's occurred over time with the village. So stop calling it our tax equity equity problem and start working on things that are important to town outside the resident village residents now. So we can help Ron Hogue do his job. All he wants to do is be a cop. Thanks. Thanks, Patty. Ken, do you have your hand up? A string of segues here. Let's mine a little bit. Thank you, Patty. I'll speak for about three minutes. A few weeks ago, I responded to the term tax equity. I just heard Patty talk about it. I said that use of this term was gaslighting. Now that may have been a bit harsh. Gaslighting is supposed to cause the victim to question their sanity. And I'm not quite there yet. Now I do realize that there's a tax difference between what town outside the village taxpayers pay versus what town inside the village village taxpayers pay. There is clearly tax inequality. That is taxes are unequal. But is it tax inequity? That is our taxes unfair. Now, I'm sure many of you have seen this illustration. Inequity exists when one group experiences a difference due to some factor they have no control over or when one group imposes that difference on another. Now, is the tax difference that our town experiences due to some discrimination directed at village taxpayers? Is there some implicit village characteristic that causes this tax difference? I suggest that what we have is tax inequality, not tax inequity. And here's why I think so. First, the village municipality and the existing tax system was created by founding village residents themselves. That decision by village founders sustained by current village residents is why past and current tax differences exist. Secondly, if the tax difference was due to inequity, how could it be that for all but four years between 1951 and 1998, the town inside the village slash a village taxpayers were paying less than town outside the village taxpayers when you include all taxes, all property taxes? That's right, less. Was that inequity or was it just inequality? Finally, no taxpayer in or outside the village is paying a tax. Voters did not get a chance to vote on. Oh, one other thing I noticed that in exchange for the double taxation that the town inside the village villagers experience, they do get double representation, something that is very apparent at joint board meetings. So is there tax inequity? I say no. Taxes are fair. Is there tax inequality? Yes, they are not the same. So I ask, please say tax inequality or tax difference if you prefer. The idea that the town outside the village taxpayers are somehow responsible for the current tax difference may not technically be gas lighting, but in my opinion, it is disinformation. Thank you. Thanks, Ken. Marcus. Thank you, Marcus Serta to Hiawatha. I am a town resident. Let me start by saying this that recently there was an incident as you're well aware on Pearl Street. I'm a little concerned that to this point, we have heard from the chief concerning the police response, which he admitted was poor. But what we have not heard is from either the trustees or from the select board as to how they are going to follow up with the police department to make sure that this issue doesn't happen again. Are we trusting the chief? Not to say that the chief is untrustworthy by any means, but how are we as a town making sure that our police department is doing the work that we expected them, especially in light of the recent work that both the select board and the trustees have been doing on equity and inclusion for the last couple of years. So that's my question to you, Andy, as to how the select board will move forward to make sure that the police department is doing what we expected. Thanks, Marcus, we want a response that we can provide to that. I'm what's my understanding that the situation is being reinvestigated by a separate officer willing to talk about it a bit. So thank you for bringing that up, Marcus. And for those at home, I have had multiple conversations with the police chief about the incidents at that property and what transpired that day, the next day, and at the protest and beyond. The chief was forthright, met with our equity advisors, made his statement, is working with not only his people, but also our consultants for more and more targeted training for incidents such as that nature. And we are working with our equity group and our overall group about this issue and trying to get to a better sense of when we do arrive on scene. We understand that while we have the authority to cite people, we really need to be cognizant of the situation. And maybe we don't need to be as expedient in what we do, but rather take the time to make sure we have garnered all the facts and all the evidence before we do any citing. And as many it's a nuance, but we don't charge people. We only cite them for a violation or a law is the state's attorney that does that. But the citing starts the process. And that's the type of thing we want to make sure we have all the facts and all all the issues at hand before anyone is cited before they would have to go to the state's attorney's office for the issue. So we are working on that and we will get better day by day. And I don't know, Pat, you're on our equity. When you know this has come before them yet. There was a discussion that happened with Chief Hogue as part of the racial equity group that was last Wednesday they met. I had a work emergency, so I was unable to attend it. But if you like, I can get a follow up because they had, I believe they were going to set aside about half of that meeting to talk about that incident. And Chief Hogue is on that committee as well. So he's there in the room with that group. And if I could, yes. And one of the things that the chief said early on is that they were going to back it all up, take away everything and reinvestigate it with new fresh eyes and make sure that all the information that was garnered since then was investigated and then it would be up to the state's attorney's office to give some guidance as to whether anyone was cited for what occurred. Also, for the people who may not know, the motorcycle in question was, through the police department, agreed to by both parties that the police would take possession of the motorbike from the person who lives at that residence and delivered to this gentleman at the cost of the police department, where he couldn't get that before one of the reasons why he was there. So the police department are working with both parties to get resolution to this issue. Thanks for having thanks, Pat. You're welcome. So we're doing what we can to address it. If the equity group needs anything from the select board, I'm sure they'll come to us. We're a lot of things that work through that process. Go ahead, Pat. Thank you, Andy. I'll speak very, very briefly on it, because I know we have a lot, but in regards to this as well, you know, I think one of the key things that in doing this equity work is that the first response isn't always necessarily the best one, you know, taking the time to, as Evan has detailed out with the police chief, make sure that we're talking with Tabitha Moore and, you know, bringing her in to do some more consult. You know, the knee-jerk reaction, I think, isn't always the one that ends up in the best long-term results. So I think everyone is being very cognizant here to make sure that we're doing it right instead of just kind of immediately, you know, issuing statements and then, you know, going from there. Thanks, Pat. Any other select board comments on that topic? All right. Irene. Thank you, Irene Renner. I just heard it said that the select board must continue to work with the trustees and earn us now to secure an agreement that ensures the continuity of our Essex Police Department in the event of separation, must, why? It's the village that initiated this separation push. The select board is under no obligation to respond to the village's offer with more than a yes or a no. And if the village is investigating alternative police service sources, as we heard at the last trustee meeting, the town should be investigating investigating alternative customers for our police department. I'm told Colchester is short a number of officers and we could certainly help them out in the fort, if not elsewhere. Certain village residents keep saying they get nothing for their town tax dollars. If that were true, then the village wouldn't be needing anything from the town now. Are you addressing what it would it forward with this topic or is this a. It's for your information that you understand how I feel as a town outside the village resident about this, but feel free to stop me. Instead, the more talk I hear about separation, the more demand certain residents are making of you, the select board. The trustees made more than it doesn't demands last month, and I'm guessing that's just the tip of the iceberg. Why is it that the village keeps coming to the town asking for things? I don't understand it. The village says they'll be ahead of the game with separation, yet they keep insisting they need to take more and more of what we the town own on their way out the door. The village is asking for real estate and cash and heaven knows heaven knows what else down the line. But what the village has contributed to town expenses has been even lower than 42 percent over time, such as when the town outside the village paid more than 20 million dollars, not adjusted for inflation from 1951 to 1998 alone for its own highway maintenance. Let's stop with a manipulation of truth, please. Anyone who can do nonpartisan math can see that 90 to 95 percent of the town's general tax revenue goes to fund services that village residents benefit directly from. Therefore, the village does get something for your town tax dollars. A heck of a lot, Brownie. If the village chooses to separate, that's their problem. But it should be a clean break without all this posturing and all this begging and all this strong language in the letter we heard tonight. Be brave, village, continue to forsake the economics, the economies of scale that Andy Watts and I and so many other select board members sat in this room seven or eight years ago and worked out. Feel free to give them up. But just go and stop making demands on the town. Thank you. Louise. Louise Serta to Hiawatha. I just wanted to point out on the petition that was given to you about the police police issue. The ninety one signatures are a collection of town and village residents, so they both came together to make this request. Thank you. You know, I want to comment on that. I'm not ignoring you, Bridget. I'm just was waiting to see if there were other comments on the topic before providing a response. Any other comments from the room? There's a couple online. The Lorraine Zulu. Thank you. Can everyone hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you, Mr. Serta, thank you for bringing up the least incident to really appreciate that. As I do work on the task force as well. Thank you, Patrick, for speaking to the task force work. I wasn't able to attend last week. I was at the concert at Fairgrounds, which was fabulous. But while I was there, a couple things happened that I was wondering about one. I misdirected one of our officers to the wrong inegrated person. And I have to apologize for that. But one of the things that came to mind was our of the are the hosts of the event charged back for the police having to get involved in things like that, because there's security there. And then secondly, on the way home, there was a used needle on the sidewalk right in front of the strip ball that's attached to Max. And it was still light out. And that was very concerning. And after I brought it up with a couple of people, I was told there were used needles also found at, I believe, Saxon Hill. So I'm wondering are those kind of things being reported out to assume hopefully to Evan and then to the town select board because are those things that we need to address? Do we need to start looking at needle drop off spaces? So it's just concerned about how information is funneled up to our select board in terms of there being issues. And then also I was wondering where we are with our committee work and the structure of committee work and how it how often the reporting happens to the select board so that there are deadlines and that there's oversight and there's actual work that turns into action items that are worked on. I am very concerned that the energy committee work doesn't seem to be coming onto the agenda now for a couple of years and I'm worried that we'll have a very good missed opportunity potentially with money that's coming through covid to work on those items that they have identified in terms of reducing costs to the town and also contributing to climate change. So in terms of that I'm also wondering is there a process in place so that citizens can also get agenda items added because it seems to me a number of times I hear I've heard a number of questions asked about the same items but I never see them get onto the agenda. So I'm wondering if there was a structure in place to be able to get agenda items at them. And if there are if you could review those with us. I thank you for your time. You got a lot of questions there. I don't know if there's any comments about revenue from services provided to the fair grounds that most concerts require the fairgrounds to enter into a contract with the police department for overtime services. Some concerts are small and they don't require it until the point where they do. But generally certain events if you see our police on the grounds after hours at night they are usually on overtime through a contractual agreement with the police department. And we do budget a small amount for revenue for those kinds of activities in our. Yeah. But it's it's a small. Small. No I'm not aware of needles found throughout the town. If people do find needles they should contact the police department. They have been found in different places at different times. And we could certainly talk about a needle drop off which I believe may even have at the police department already. But I can almost guarantee you they're not going to make it all the way to the police department to do that. That's why they dropped them on the ground where they were. But again it is disturbing to find needles on the ground or in bushes. Wherever we find them from time to time. We do have I want to say opioid because it's not always opioids but we have drug problems in and around Vermont. And we don't have the treatment facilities in and around Chinden County nor do we have partners for able to do that. Our police do a wonderful job where they can as well as Essex Rescue. But when they take them to UVM. They are released. And they are not treated. They are in fact sometimes back into our community before our officers finish the paperwork as to why they were there in the first place. We have had meetings with state legislators. We have had meetings with UVM and maybe in the future some of these funds they're coming from the federal government will be put to use to deal with people with drug addiction and mental illness at the same time. Which is what the reason is that they get not admitted is because of those two things at the same time. As for getting items on the agenda the town unified manager responsible for putting together the agenda people have things that they would like to be put on they can bring them to my attention. And then I work to see if there's time or ability to put it on at a proper agenda. Mostly I work with the chair or the board he doesn't actually get to say but I try to give him a heads up of what might be coming. And so we try to figure out what agenda item will fit in with the amount of time we try to get to in the evenings that we have. Thanks Evan. And Lorraine your other question was about the committee reporting. We do have an intent to review our committees how we select members what we expect of them and those so forth as we move forward with looking at providing stipends. The intent is to start those in January. I know we're very distracted right now with all the separation work and so it may be I don't know if we've made progress on that front or not. I think that's one of things that may be impacted by our ability to get to the things we want to do. So we'll unfortunately still work on that. I will put this under the category of no good deed goes unpunished because we want to give stipends to volunteers. You also have to fill out a W4 form. So you have taxes taken out of the stipend that you get. We also had to figure out how we were going to do it since we have between the village and the town probably a hundred volunteers that will now have to get into payroll. And there is an opt out provision. So we have a form that's being created that will give our volunteers the option of opting out of being paid if they so desire. So we are working on that is coming along and we should be ready for it starts January one not sooner. I think the village start. So I think the village started July one. We will probably have this ready sometime in August. And so we'll be able to do a catch up. But the town starts January the town. We didn't budget until January. Okay. Thank you. Lorraine Rachel. Hi there. My apologies for a somewhat two part comment. But I'll try to be brief. I unfortunately missed the live July 2nd meeting. And I'd like to make a clarifying point in regards to the Memorial Hall conversation. My understanding and I may be wrong is that that location was being considered for an emergency covid child care location as a result of school closures. This was not some top secret initiative to create more child care options. Not that more child care would be a bad thing for town outside the village families. However this was an emergent situation. This specific topic is moot now because schools are open again. But it is a great segue to a larger issue. I'm sure the board doesn't mean to do this. But the voices of town outside the village families with school age children are not being considered. This large population is vested in the future of this town. The schools and the community. We are a little harder to reach. Yes. But the points of view that this board advocates for are routinely not addressing the needs of this population subset. In fact there's a large group of people who may not know that separation efforts are afoot. No one no one group should dominate the political pulse of this town. It is the duty of this board to be more inclusive. And I'd also just like to point out you know wanted to thank the board and the staff who have made a concerted effort to publicize the upcoming forums for public comment. But I'd also just really like to note that again parents of children age 11 and under are living with the reality that our kids cannot get be vaccinated because of the increase in Delta variant COVID cases. I would respectfully request that more hybrid options be available so that we as parents even though we're vaccinated are not exposing our unvaccinated kids to more virus. Thanks. Think Rachel. Adam Newhart. Hi can you hear me. Yes we can. Oh great. So hey I just wanted to step out. It's a little bit like Rachel's comments but not perfectly in line. I did want to want to publicly thank Tracy for her efforts in getting out the word about the public forum on social media. And I do really appreciate seeing that there was concerns from various town residents about getting kind of a more inclusive group of individuals to sound out about where they want to see the town go regardless of if separation goes forward and you know coming right back from vacation and two days later having information available to people even throughout Facebook. And just my first point would be to just encourage the select board going forward because I've not seen it before to post this information to Facebook like the Essex Community Forum. Now there are 6,000 members in there. It's free. It's cheap. It's very quick. And I know that based on the comments that were popping up under that post a number of people had no idea that this was going on. And that kind of brings me to my my second point. And I want to preface this with I know that this was not the intent by any means. But I was surprised to see some of the comments about the timings around the public forums, whether they were going to be virtual, whether they were going to be in person made. Gosh, I saw at least 10 comments that said this really doesn't work for working families. Adam, Adam, we this this topic is on the agenda today. Oh, it is. OK, we will be talking so forums. OK, well, do you mind if I finish real quick? So as Rachel did, I yeah, you're you seem to be you're almost to the end. So go ahead. OK, yeah, thank you. So what I wanted to highlight was I would just ask that you consider doing more virtual forums around that. You know, the the actual in person forums, it's not only, you know, 630 to 8 and really not accessible to many people in person, but kids cannot be vaccinated. You have drastically increasing numbers with COVID right now. And, you know, frankly, I know a couple people who are going to attend in person that were actually available and they don't want to be in a poorly ventilated room with a number of other people and risk bringing that home to their kids. And so I just ask that you, you know, consider what could be done to expand accessibility of those forums instead of it having been, you know, kind of geared towards a small select group. And that's it. Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Adam. Gabrielle Smith. Hi, Andy. Hi, everyone. Thank you. Referring back to the letter that Bridget and I help to organize signatures for. I just want to be sure that you all understand this is a chance for town residents to communicate with all of you how important our police are to us and the future of our police department and all of the undersigned are confident that this is the best option for all of us. And I will speak for myself personally. It's clear you all are feeling the rush of time on this issue, in particular. But it is, in my opinion, much too important to allow that to become a factor in exploring other options when the best option is in front of all of us. So we're asking for transparency, as best you can in these negotiations or asking for as best you can assurances that this is what what will be for our community. If there's voices out there who think it's not the best option, I have not heard them. I believe that the vast majority of this community wants to see the Essex Police Department remain as is and not be changed in a significant way it would be if an agreement can't be reached. I will also say that this is this is not the village of Essex Junction making a demand of view of anything. This is 91 residents of the town of Essex speaking to our select board. And I personally have confidence that the five of you are in fact working on it, even though we're not able to necessarily be aware of all those conversations, but we do ask that you move this to your agenda on the 17th and ask that you make as much of your deliberations public as possible. It's reassuring for all of us in a time of some change so or potential change. So thank you very much. I appreciate your consideration. I think we're real. I see Mike Sullivan. I assume you can hear me. Thank you, Andy. First, I want to say thank you to the members of this board. It cannot be comfortable to be in your hot seat for the separation process. You haven't elected but you do have an elected duty to be representative of all the town voters. At the same time, you're in the unfortunate position of having essentially too large and distinctively objectively, objectively distinct constituencies with fairly opposing interests, interests that are real matters to household income. I would not want to be in any of your seats. If anything can be taken from the too narrowly failed merger votes this year, I think it would have to be that the town residents as a whole are not interested in the merger. Given the unprecedented 12-year rebalance plan, no plan would be acceptable. History also seems to support this. Bear this out. So what position will the board take in the separation process? You could take the adversarial position in bargain hard concerning the sharing of services in hopes of getting a better deal of constituents who live outside the village. However, this would mean working against the half of your constituency, your still constituencies, still valid constituents that live inside the village. I believe that would be a betrayal of basic principles of being an elected official. I feel the absolute best service that can be done on behalf of any and all of your constituents is to bargain fairly and reasonably, and expect no less, I expect no less of the same of the village board of trustees. This path is the best way to keep the acrimony to a minimum. God, I wish it was zero, but I have heard some, I also have heard some voices call for the select board to oppose the effort of separation actively and consciously. This is a very pernicious idea. In effect, this would be an effort to keep the village taxpayers as an indentured tax source, supplementing the taxpayers outside the village. I'm sure this is a minor constituency, and the idea will receive the little consideration it deserves. Finally, I call on the voices for those who have for many different reasons to separate and share town services to come out in support of this effort for separation. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. I don't see any more hands up online. I will make a couple comments about the police department. None of us have had any comments. We've never discussed dismembering the police department, changing the way we will have discussion later this evening in executive session. The comments from board members have been collected. We'll be discussing to see if we're all in the same page on things, whether we have things that we don't want to consider or do want to consider. We also all very strongly believe that we need to hear from the public, whether we have this letter. This is absolutely part of the input that we expect and appreciate. So we, you know, next agenda item or actually the second agenda item, we'll get one before that. We will be talking about how we're going to operate the meetings for the forums where we allow public input and it needs to be clear that that's both village and outside the village participation is welcome and will be appreciated. And we will, as you've requested, we'll reveal what we think we can when we can. But having the fact that the last public forum isn't until August 21st. It will likely not be before that. Okay. Moving on to the first business item. Five A. Consider approval of tax rate for fiscal year 2022. And I understand Sarah is not with us. You know, for all the fans at home and here in the audience, I know you're all hoping to see Sarah. But unfortunately tonight you get me because she's under the weather. I know. I know. She's the second reading of the tax rate. And so maybe I should have done a little better preparation. It's a, oh, you want it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I had lines and circles and stuff. I know, I see that. So yeah, so the finance department and Sarah have put together the tax rate for the coming fiscal year, fiscal year 2022. It's based off of the grand list. The grand list is 0.9% this year. Taking the general fund budget, the operating expenses. Adjusting it for tax stabilization agreements and the farm and open land contract and veterans exemption. That is how the finance department calculates the tax rate. The general tax rate this year before we get to capital and local agreements, the general tax rate is 0.5285 cents. Not cents, sorry, dollars. That's a 4.3% increase over the past fiscal year. Keep in mind that's basically a two-year increase since we had a 0% tax rate increase in the past year due to COVID. Without that decision, it would have been a 2.1% increase for this year, but it is at 4.3%. Once you factor in the local agreement rate, which is the veterans exemptions and the farm and open land contracts and the capital tax, the total municipal rate for town taxes in the coming year will be 0.5507. Kevin or I can try to answer questions. Any questions from the board? Our assistant finance director, Courtney Bush, is on. I'm just seeing that. Courtney, if you have anything else to add, feel free to chime in. You did a good job, Greg. So just want to reiterate that while the rate increase seems high, it is based over 2 years. Right as we had put together the budget last year, if you remember, COVID basically hit somewhere right around March, middle of February and March, we had already put the budget together. Staff was asked what we could do and so we moved some things around and did a zero rate increase. That's not sustainable. Not with contracts for public employees, material purchases, et cetera. So this is being proposed. All right, thanks. No questions. It looks like there's one question online in public. Deb McAdoo. Hi, can you just please remind me, the veteran discount, is that for disabled veterans? I would have to check on that and get a response. I don't know offhand. Okay, thank you. Courtney, are you aware? Pretty sure it's all veterans. I think it's all veterans. It's an extension of the state's exemption. Thank you. So if we only, because we level funded it last year and we only did the 1% or whatever was proposed for just this one year, what's the impact? In other words, instead of going 4.3, if you only go with the 2.18, what is the impact overall? We couldn't support the budget that was approved. Wouldn't raise enough revenue to support the budget that was approved. If we didn't increase the tax to support that budget. So we only did it last year. It was done last year. The legislature allowed select boards to modify their tax rate explicitly because of COVID. And we did it for that one year. And we use surplus funds to cover. Thank you. All right. I'm not seeing any other questions. There's a, I think we need to actually read the camera has a question or comment. I was just reading in the room. I just want to remind the board and Mr. Chairman that the town outside the village highway tax isn't gone. It's actually zero. The taxing authority is given by the state hasn't been rescinded. It's fine that it's zero tax. The town outside the village highway tax may very well be needed for tax equalization down the road. So I just wanted to remind you that it's still there just a zero. We need to actually read the rates. So if somebody could raise the motion. I'll move that the select board set the tax rate for fiscal year ending June 30th 2022 as follows. Town general fund tax rate .5285 local agreement rate .0022 town capital tax .02 and total municipal rate paid by all town taxpayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .