 the trustees raps coming on. Everybody all set, I see Wendy. Yep. Great. And I will go ahead and call the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees meeting for Tuesday, March 8th, 2022 to order. Thank you all for being here. Do we have any agenda additions or changes for tonight? No additions or changes. Just I recently sent you all a copy of an updated item in the consent agenda that will add to the folder, an updated street closure request that's been signed by PD and FD. Anybody have anything else? All right. I would entertain a motion to, we didn't really amend the agenda. Wow, let's just, why not? Just to amend the agenda. We'll be approved the agenda as amended. Second. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Raj. Any further discussion? Hearing none of those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. Passing the items. Thank you all. And that will bring us into public to be heard. So this is the fortune of tonight's meeting where if there is anything that the public would like to present to the trustees that is not currently on the agenda. Now is the time to do so. Please make sure to go down to Zoom where you see reactions. Click on that and you can raise your hand there. You can also type into the chat feature that you wish to speak. So go ahead and do so now. I am not seeing any hands. There is nothing in the chat. Nobody is calling in. So we will move on from public to be heard and into business item 5A. And a welcome to Colleen Dwyer. I hope I pronounced the last name right. Not seeing Colleen on here. You did pronounce that correctly. And I think she was anticipating coming. So she may be joining us. And if we see her pop on, oh, she's having technology issues but she's going to keep trying. So if you want to move on and then just come back to her at some point that would be great. Sounds good. We'll check in on her in a little bit. Thanks. Yeah. So instead we can go to 5B a presentation of the audit reports. And I do believe I saw our auditor here Yes, I am here, Andrew. Hey, nice to see you. Thank you for being here, Bill. Yes, no problem at all. So I'm not sure if this is a, if you're going to be leading this, if Jess is going to be leading this. Jess, do you want me to just introduce myself? We haven't formally met in person yet. So. Yeah, yeah, that would be awesome, Bill. Okay. Well, welcome Jess to the village. So my name is Bill Kaiser. I'm a principal at Cattel Browning and Insurgent. We've done the village audit, I believe now for the last four or five years really since the merger talks really got underway in the finance departments merged. We were on site in the village in October for the audit, which at the time was still with, being done with Sarah Macy who was the finance director for the town in the village. And she's since moved on. And we completed the audit reports in January, 2022. I'm happy to announce consistent with prior years though that for the audit we issued an unmodified opinion. This is a clean, it was a clean audit and there were no material adjustments that had to be proposed by us as the auditors of the village. There were a few adjustments that were made throughout the audit, but it's really just timing stuff being finalized after we sent the initial trial balances were sent. Nothing of concern though overall for all the audits testing that we had done. Consistent with prior years also there was a single audit required by the village because they expended in excess of $750,000 of federal funding. The total grant revenues and expenditures were just over 1.8 million for this year. And our major programs consisted of the DOT funding for the Crescent Connector as well as the FEMA funding for the Densmore Road project. Both of these programs in excess totaled over $1 million because the Crescent Connector has been tested in previous years as well. The village this year qualified as a low risk single audit. And in that single audit we found no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses and no findings to report. I did want to note the low risk piece because in 2022 assuming that the village again would need a single audit depending on the amount of COVID funding that becomes available and received and expended by the village. They may be bumped up to over $750,000 in those grant awards which because it's a new program would require a high risk audit. And really all that means a lot of boards get concerned when they see the entity was deemed high risk. All that means is there's additional testing required on our part because the program hasn't been tested in the past. So really no big deal at all. And a lot of these projects we test well in excess of the required thresholds just because of the volume of invoices that we have. Getting into the financial statements first you'll see the MDNA. That's really just a year over year comparison. And then future plans for the village. And then that's followed up by the government-wide financial statements which is really the accrual basis of accounting the way you would see it normal business with accounts receivables. Both the proprietary funds and the regular general fund and financials are on these sheets. You'll see the net investments in capital assets are $22 million down in the equity section. This figure is net assets not available for spending. That's part of the capital assets net of the related debt. You will also notice on these financial statements and as you flip through to the general fund there is no cash listed in the village of Essex although there is a due to due from the town of Essex which is a seven and a half million dollars. This is gonna be important as separation years. I mean, essentially we're there but the town does have seven and a half million between mostly made up of receivables and cash balances that are being paid interest to the village on. And that cash is available in the town to be sent over when the time comes. The village also it doesn't maintain its own receivable accounts receivable obviously for property taxes although it does for the utilities. And during the audit procedures we review collections after a year and a significant portion at year over year significant portions paid in full and we don't deem an allowance necessary typically. Going forward there will be other considerations. Actually let's go to the fund financial statements next where those considerations take place. The fund financials are a modified accrual on a modified accrual basis and more similar to a cash basis financial statements. Receivables are low and consist mostly of a build grant revenues. Going forward like I was just mentioning when separation occurs in the accounts receivable for property taxes come back over to the village to be reported. There would be what we refer to as a 60 day reserve on property taxes right now because the village doesn't have any property taxes in its accounts receivable that reserves are not necessary. You'll also notice down in the bottom in the equity section there are various restrictions the village currently has a general fund balance of $865,000 approximately of that amount. $136,000 has been assigned for specific future expenditures and the rolling stock funds and the capital project funds are also committed in full there. For the specific purpose assignments and the $562,000 of unassigned there are a footnote in the back detailing out what those assignments are specifically. I believe it's pages 28 that begins on. And then 2021 general fund operations resulted in a decrease in the fund balance of $58,000. The property proprietary fund financial statements the business funds they're meant to be self sustaining. So the water and sanitation funds in 2021 had income while the wastewater fund had an $18,000 loss. Revenues were up in 2020 due to rate increases as well as usage increases in each of the funds. And then the recreation fund had income in the proprietary statements of $75,000 in 2021. There is last year there were adjustments that created a deficit in the recreation fund. That deficit with the $75,000 of positive income in 2021 is now under $100,000. And with the impact of COVID kind of behind us and those programs starting to ramp up you would think that if 2020, the 2022 fiscal year is similar to 2021 that deficit would become a positive going forward. Then over the footnotes there were no new footnote reporting requirements for governmental accounting in 2021. However, you will see that we still do have the risk and uncertainty footnote in there for related to COVID just because the future unknown uncertainties due to the pandemic. In the supplementary information schedules there's a budget to actual schedule which is a good reflection of the annual results by department and compared to what was budgeted for. Expenditures did exceed what was budgeted for in 2021 by $120,000, $117,000. But that excess was made up by excess revenues as well. And overall there was a net of $4,000 about approximately budgeted revenues over budgeted of expenses. And then there's other supplementary information that's not required in the financial statements. This is combining schedules for various funds in the fund financial statements as well as the budget to actual schedules for all of the business type for proprietary fund financial statements that go back to that proprietary fund statement that we discussed previously. That's all I have for the review of the financial statements. But if I'd like to open up to any questions. Thank you, Bill. For those who haven't been a part of the board and or might be hearing this type of information for the first time, can you just talk about what the process was that you use to develop this report? So like what the audit consisted of? Yeah, so yeah, before we schedule field work with the finance department and before field work, they said it's what they call a trial balance, which is really a very summarized portion of what you probably received by department for your budget review meetings. We go through really line by line, especially specifically on the balance sheet and test and audit all of the figures on the balance sheet and do analytical review as well as audit procedures on the income and expenses for the village. And then all of that really gets grouped up into a summarized form into these financial statements. For the most part, the village staff or Sarah and Courtney, the previous finance director and assistant finance director write a lot of the footnotes on their own. But that's what the audit consists of, mainly testing and verifying all of the balances that are in these financial reports. Does that answer your question, Andrew? Sorry. Yeah, that helps. Thank you, Bill. Trustees, other questions? I don't have any questions. But a comment. No, sorry. Just a comment for Sarah and Courtney that appreciate all the work they've done. I mean, during this year with COVID, it was extremely difficult and I really appreciate it all. Thank you, Dan. Bill, were you gonna? Yeah, Andrew, another piece to the audit, more specifically related to the single audit is the testing of internal controls. So with that, we test the actual controls in place within the village. A lot of those controls are in place at the town and the village, but we get really in depth with making sure those procedures are being followed and part of what I mentioned with no findings and material weaknesses, nothing was noted that would cause an issue with those controls. And so when you're saying that basically, you take a look, you take a sample of the receivables, you take the sample of the expenses and you make sure that what gets billed or paid from one account and or to one account is the right account. And that's, there's no improprietary and there's no money going to or from the wrong accounts. Yes, and it's been brought up in the past, but one of the concerns is always because there's all one bank account. How do we know that expenses are being properly paid for by the village in the town? And we've never seen an issue in these, the few years that the finance departments were emerged where there's certain GL codes that segregate the village from the town. And we've never had any reporting issues where one expense was paid for by the town when it should have been paid for by the village. So overall very strong controls. Bye, George. Thank you, Andrew. I know you don't fail, you don't have the audit report memorized. So I'm not gonna ask you to just immediately know exactly what I'm talking about, but under the section called financial analysis of major governmental funds, there's something about the Whitcomb Terrace Loan Fund. And I've probably asked this in the past, but do you know what I'm talking about? This is a surprise. We made the village made an interest-free loan to the Whitcomb Terrace and they're gonna be paying back the loan by 2034. Is that, am I being really too picky? Nick, Picky, could you explain that? And I don't wanna put you on the spot at all because I'm sure there's a lot of whole bunch of details that you don't have everything memorized here, but if you could maybe enlighten us a little bit about that if it's possible. Bill, you're muted. Sorry about that. It was a grant, I believe the history of that is it's grant funds received by the village and passed through to the housing entity in the form of a loan. That loan is, the terms of the loan say it's gonna be paid back, but what we've done or what's been done is it's been allowed for 100%, meaning it's a net zero on the financial statements, basically assuming that that would not be collected or not accounting for the future collections of that. Does that answer your question? Sort of, yeah, I'm trying to understand, I never mind, it's probably not, the provenance of all this is sort of interesting to me about what exactly this was about back then, but that's our problem, not yours. Okay, sorry. I believe it was just money that was used to build Whitcomb Terrace by the developer. Okay, and we just acted as a pass-through, looks like. Yes, that's just a pass-through grant. Okay, good, thank you. You received the money probably from like VHFA or an entity similar. And just passed it on to them. Okay, great, thank you. Trustee, is there any other questions? Staff, any other questions? Comments, concerns? None here. And with me. I'm good, thank you, all very clear. Absolutely really, really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem, thank you. Yeah, so Bill, appreciate you being here, appreciate the work that you've done, and it's always nice to see that our financial statements are strong, the internal controls are strong, and that we really don't have much to worry about. Nope, just separation, right? Exactly. Yes, and if anyone has any questions of that, I've already told Jess that we're here to help out. I know she's still working with Courtney pretty closely. So yeah, we're here to help out. So if there is any issue, please feel free to let us know. Appreciate it, Bill. Thank you. No problem, thank you, Andrew. Andrew, before we lose Bill, do you want to take any public comment? Sure, sorry about that. So yes, if there are any members of the public who have any questions about the audit report, please feel free to raise your hand or type into the chat feature, and please make sure that if you do direct your questions to me, I'll do my best to answer them. Bill, frankly, I may call on Bill or Jess to answer them instead. I'm not seeing any hands going up. I see nothing in the chat, nobody on the phone. So no public comment in this one. All right, thank you. Okay, thank you. Have a good night, Bill. You too. Okay, and so that will bring us, do we have Colleen with us? Oh, hi, Colleen. Hi, I'm so sorry I was late. It's only been 24 months with COVID and I couldn't get on the Zoom. So thanks for your patience. I'm Colleen, I'm the village HR director. Is there anything you want me to share or questions you have for me? Really excited to be here. We're excited to have you. No, there's no grilling, there's no expected presentation or anything like that. Just really appreciate the opportunity to have a face to the name, to welcome you to the village and future city of Essex Junction and really look forward to having you be a part of the team and especially as we build the city. Thank you. I look forward to the work unfolding over the next couple of months and then see what the future holds is really exciting. Absolutely. Go ahead, George. Thanks, Andrew. Colleen, I'm just curious. Where are you? Are you gonna be at 81 Main Street? Are you moving into Lincoln Hall now? I am currently at Lincoln. Oh, okay. Yeah. How are the accommodations there, everything okay? They're great. Okay, good. I, Brad put me in a really great office. I have windows and natural light. It's really nice and terry. I don't know if everybody knows her, but she's been a great office mate and excited to have the rest of the team or whomever back into the main Lincoln space and getting to know everybody. Yeah. Well, it should be getting busier over there as time picks up. Yeah. It seems, I don't know. I don't have a good frame of reference, but from what I can gather, the other day it was like Wendy, Rick, Terri, and I in one space together, so that felt really good. Great. Well, welcome aboard. Thank you. Trust me, is there anything else? Hope, just go ahead. Colleen, any questions for us? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Colleen, is there anything else you'd like to share or? No, I mean, the one thing I would say is feel free to reach out if you have any questions or feedback for me, definitely open to hearing anyone's perspective and willing to take feedback to do the best I can to help the village grow. Really appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much, Colleen, and look forward to chatting with you again. Thank you. So we will now go on to Business Item 5C and to consider the sound waiver of public nuisance ordinance for removal of commercial trash for Champlain Valley Expo. Yeah, so just a quick introduction. Recently, the public nuisance ordinance was passed by the trustees, which does not allow trash haulers to pick up trash in the village before seven o'clock a.m. Tim Shea has requested from CVE if there could be an exception made a waiver for the days of the fair. He is asking if they can pick up at six a.m. And I believe Tim is on the call if you have questions for him. I hear. Thank you, Brad and Tim. Thank you for being here. Is there anything else that you want to make sure to add into this or chime in on? Impact of not doing this, for example. Anything else you'd like to share? Yeah, no, thank you, Andrew. I appreciate that at the time and I know you have a busy agenda. And I saw this come across and it just caught my eye a little bit only because I got a barking dog in the background there. My apologies. I think they shut the door there. You know, 10 days is unique with us because of just the volume of everything. You get trash, people, traffic, et cetera. And over the years, we have a pretty good understanding with our neighbors that we don't pick up trash anytime before 7 a.m., 355 days out of the year. And they are, in a nice way, quick reminders of that happened, that there's a driver who's substituting and may not know the routine. But during the 10 days of the fair, just because of the volume, we do come in a bit earlier than that. And we're just wondering if there's an option to come in, you know, use 6 a.m. instead of the 7 a.m. for the 10 days of the fair. There's a lot we need to get done before staff volunteers and fair growers arrive. So it's more of a logistical thing, but I don't want it to be that here, CBE asking for one more thing. I just thought I'd, you know, come back and see if it's something to have a discussion on. Absolutely. Thank you, Tim. I would also just add to its having driven by, run by, walked by around that time in the morning, there certainly is a flurry of activity, not just from trash haulers, but also as you mentioned, volunteers coming in, delivery vehicles going in for food products, for other products to help ensure that the vendors have what they need. And that for those 10 days, the community certainly is not business as normal, both in terms of delivery vehicles, other vehicles coming in and out, but also people coming into that area around that time. Trustees, any comments or questions for Tim or staff or others? Go ahead, George. Yeah, I just want to completely echo your comments, Andrew. I think there is a whole lot of activity during those 10 days and I can imagine that probably before you want to get any of that activity, the most important thing to do is get all the garbage from the previous day out of there. So, and I also note that, although it's dark at six in the morning through most of the year in Vermont, that happens to be a time of the year where it's still by six, it's really pretty light out. People are up and around, so I wouldn't really have a big problem with this, in my opinion. Anything else, trustees? If not, happy to take any public input. If there are questions, comments on this. If so, please make sure you raise your hands, clicking on that red Actions button and then the Raise Hand function or type into the chat if you wish to address a question to the board. Anything done? Again, I'm not seeing any hands up. There's nothing in the chat. Nobody has called in, so I'll take it there, so public comments, questions. Last chance, trustees, anything else? And if not, I would certainly entertain the motion that is in our packet. Okay, I'll do it. I'll move that. We grant the trustees grant a sound waiver to Champlain Valley Exposition and allow trash haulers to begin no earlier than 6 a.m. from August 27th to September 5th, 2022. Thank you, George. Thank you, Dan. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Great, pass unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you as always. Next up, going 5D, consider the approval of the village annual meeting warning. Yes, so you have the warning in the packet that is the most up to date and has been reviewed by all, by finance, by clerk, treasurer, and by legal. There are three articles that are normal, that are always on this ballot, the budget, and then the question about annual meeting next year and the election of officers. And there are four new ballot initiatives that are just relevant this year. There are memos. I don't know if you wanna go through each one of those, Andrew, but I'll just list them off. There's increasing the unrestricted fund balance to 15% assessing a local option tax. There's a question about whether or not to allow cannabis retailers in the village and a question about a bond for them to replace the main street water line. Thank you, Brad. And just for our context here, articles 234 and five, these are ones where, as you mentioned, the wording has already gone through to our legal. So trustees, if there are any questions, comments, or proposed changes, I assume, depending on the nature of them, they'll also need to go back through to Claudine. Yeah, we would wanna double check. However, this also needs to be go to the printers tomorrow morning. So it can be done, you're certainly welcome to, and we'll just get on it and make sure she has that information tonight, so it can be reviewed in the morning. So if we'd like to, we can go article by article, the article one we've already done that. Article two, we've talked about this previously and agreed to going forward with moving the fund balance to 15%, any concerns? Okay. Article three is the local option tax. Any concern there? Okay. Article four, article five. Oh, sorry, Andrew, in article four, just so you know the updated version, there's an extra space after the S in VSA between the S and the A and that legal caught. And so in the most up to date version, that space has been removed. I would hope in the grand steam of things that would not prevent a... Send the whole thing back. I mean, that's not acceptable, that's horrible. That's all they caught on it, so that's good. Love it. With article five, as you saw in the packet, this was something that we hadn't talked about in a few months. I know that it completely slipped my mind and really appreciate the village, I almost said it's already, sorry, our village engineer catching this and reminding us that, hey, we need to circle back and how's that going? So I appreciate you all for doing that, thank you. But if there's any further discussion on this, we can certainly have that now. And just to remind the community, this was something that we talked about back in September, in terms of the need to replace this water line, the continued, the continued hotspots that it has, the continued issues and repairs that have needed to happen, they're only going to get worse. And so this is to stop that and prevent our need from having additional water breaks there. And I just wanna let you know, Andrew, Jeff is here from Hamlin, if you have questions. Appreciate that, thank you. Roger, your hand is up first, I believe. Go ahead, give me the bill. Yeah, yeah. So the only, not for this year, but if we're gonna continue mailing ballots, our informational meeting is nearly two weeks after we've started mailing ballots. My understanding being that they're going out sometime at the end of this week, beginning of next. So I'd love to work on adjusting that because I really do believe that we're on to something with mailing ballots out. I'd love to make that a permanent thing. I don't wanna get into it tonight, but I just wanted to bring that up and plant the seed because I feel it's a pretty big disservice to folks if we're having this informational meeting after many people may have voted at a concern of getting their ballot in on time. In fact, I can imagine a scenario where we're encouraging people to get their ballot in before April 5th due to the US Postal Service. So I just wanted to put that out there, it's probably too late to do anything about it now, or is it? Kind of. Yeah, I know, I know. It kind of, it came up in conversation when I was working the polls over it for the town vote, you know, and how it appeared that most people probably had filled out their ballots prior to the town's informational meeting. So. Oh, I'm not trying to cut you off. It is too late in the sense of in this very ballot, Article 6 is to basically have that informational meeting. And so last year, when we voted to approve to have our annual meeting, that date is the April 6th date. And so that's why we're doing it then. I will say that doesn't prevent us from doing additional informational meetings and additional Zoom meetings. And I think that it's actually a really good idea that we do and we make ourselves more available to reach out to the community as the various articles in this ballot are different than what our community normally has. And so it may be beneficial to have some of us be more available and to have some of those conversations. But I do see your point and hopefully we can do something different in the future. I don't think we have the time tonight to try and figure that out though for this morning for next year. Amber, go ahead. I'm gonna ask a silly question and I hope somebody else was thinking this and it wasn't just me. But does the word subject to available grants in the aid, does that mean provided that there's bond money available? Or what does that mean? I believe when we've done this before and it's been a few years, that means if we were to get grant money or other funds, it sort of acts as an up to amount. So the 3,070,000 is the most that we would borrow. And then if we get additional funds, then I believe that we would then not need to spend all of that money. I would look to our staff to correct me if I'm wrong and I will not be offended if I am wrong. Yeah, Jess, I don't know if you wanna chime in. That was specifically, Amber, added by Claudine. And that is just to acknowledge, I think as you were saying, Andrew, that if there are grants that they would be, if you get a million dollar grant, then you're only gonna borrow 2,070,000. Thanks. Thank you, Amber. Go ahead, George. First of all, Andrew, I think your explanation was correct. I think that's generally what it means. And I'm only, I don't have any question about the ballot. I just want to second Raj's point. We, our information, our process for getting information onto the voters is not in sync with getting mailing out ballots to the voters. And so we're gonna have to, we are gonna have to do something about that going forward where the information arrives ahead of the ballots. That would be probably the best way to do it. So I totally agree. There's nothing we can do about it this year, but long-term we need to make a mental note for next year that we just have to speed things up or rearrange the process so that the information goes out to the voters in a more timely way. Thank you, George. And to that point, Brad, we do have the newsletter that I believe is also gonna be going to the printers tomorrow. Correct me if I'm wrong. There is going to be some information on each of these articles within that newsletter. Yes, that's correct. And that will hit homes. It needs to hit homes by the 23rd. Great. Thank you for that. So trustees, any other questions on any of these articles? If nothing from the trustees, we'll go to the community and to the public. If there are any questions on any of these articles, please go ahead, raise your hand and type into the chat feature. And I'll make sure that you have some time on who addressed your questions. Harlow, I see your hands up. Go ahead. So mail-in ballots. Everything's still happening out of 81 Main Street, right? There's not gonna be a box to drop our ballot off at two Lincoln. It's getting a little confusing, right? Exciting and confusing. Becoming the city of Essex Junction. But our clerk is still located at 81 Main Street. So our ballots will be heading there. Understanding is yes. They will still be at 81 Main Street as that is where the clerk is. All right, thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Don't see anything in the chat. So I don't see anybody calling in. No other hands, okay. So with nothing else, do you have a recommended motion on this one? You know, I don't think we do. And there is another motion that we need to pass. And it has to do with the local option tax. And so I'm bringing that up now. The trustees do need to recommend that we do this before we can place it on the ballot before the voters. And so that language is up on your screen. So we need to pass that. And then we'll need to move to pass the annual meeting morning. Great. So if one of the trustees would like to make that motion, it's on the screen. All right, I'll make the motion. I'll make the motion that the trustees recommend that the village of this extension assess a 1% sales tax, a 1% meals and alcohol beverages tax and a 1% room tax pursued to 24 BSA subsection 138B in place this question for consideration by the voters on the April 12th, 2022 annual meeting of Australian ballot. I'll second. Thank you, George. Trustee, is there any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. Okay, so that passed unanimously. Thank you all. And so then for the annual meeting in the ballot, is it, are we just approving of the warning for the village of this extension informational hearing April 6th, 2022 and annual meeting April 12th, 2022? Or is there something more specific we need in terms of the actual ballot itself? Oh, that's it. Okay. Somebody would like to make that, or I'll go ahead and I'll make the motion that the trustees approve of the warning for the village of S extension informational hearing April 6th, 2022 and annual meeting April 12th, 2022. I second. I think Raj had that one. Is there any further discussion on that motion? You sure I got that one right? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. All right, so that passed unanimously. Thank you all. Brad, please pass the appreciation onto yourself as well as the others who helped to get that finalized and approved of was not a normal ballot. Certainly appreciate that. Next, we will go to the website redevelopment. Yeah, so I'll pull that up for you. But in the meantime, we, the village website has not been updated in at least eight years, if not 10. And so, I think you all held strong and were adamant that when the town moved to a new web vendor that the village remain as it is and not be combined. And clearly that was a wise decision. But at this point, I think we should start to think about whether or not you would like to redevelop the website. The backend stuff has been far updated and there's new versions to make things easier on those who are loading things up. And there's lots more features that we could be utilizing if we were upgrading the software. The ADA compliance is not good. And so there's lots of updates that need to be done in order to allow all users access the website and understand it. So the question really is both timing and provider. Would you like to see this work accomplished or initiated now? There is funding in the current budget to pay for that. And do you want to stay with EcoPixel who is a local company who's been the website provider for a long time, do you want to stay with them? Or would you like us to put out an RFP and shop it? Those are the two questions. Thank you, Brad. I've been talking first quite a bit. Did somebody else want to go first? Andrew, if I may, so if we just, if we stay with EcoPixel, that would be sort of the way we would understand that is that it's just Eco, our current vendor, we're satisfied with, but we're just having the current vendor update the site as opposed to purchasing a new site. Is that how we're kind of imagining this or what? Because that, what would our policy tell us we have to do? I'm, let me put it this way. I'm comfortable looking at this as an update, sort of a renovation of our current site to bring it up to current standards as opposed to purchasing a new one. Like my first thought, my second thought is I only, I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts. I think EcoPixel did a great job. It looked, this whole thing was great to me. The one thing I do like about our current site that I would hope gets retained is that it doesn't have a great big giant Essex Junction logo on it. It just invites the reader right in to look at stories and pictures and it's flexible. The one other question I do have though, if we begin to upgrade it now, right now we're the village of Essex Junction, but when this, by the time this comes online, we could become the city of Essex Junction. So what's, what would be the plan for that? Because you'd have to, it's not that big a deal obviously, but it would mean going through and changing a lot of village to city kind of thing. So anyway, those are my three thoughts on this. I'll stop there. Thank you, George. I think that you're right in terms of the overall thought of this being an update of the existing website. As Brad had mentioned with things like ADA compliance and upgrading to more user-friendly things for the backend. Trustees, other questions, comments? Personally, I have no concerns with retaining our current vendor. For one, frankly, it's nice to have a vendor that's also located within our own community. And so there's some also personal buy-in into the success of the website. So personally, I like that. In terms of the timing, I do agree with George where my only concern would be, and I don't know if this is an easy thing or if this is something that would require much work from the vendor, but about updating from village of Essex Junction to city of Essex Junction. And if it makes sense to hold off on the actual work, what to just allocate the funds this fiscal year? I could probably answer some of the questions about it. It would be an upgrade. And I think as far as George's concerns about the city, I think that badging would be easy to change if we have a logo that we can just update the graphics on. And it will be undertaking, but I think it's mostly an update into a new, then updated CMS. And it appears that the CMS, we could have more administrative privileges that could be varied between users. So it would be, I think there was a committee, I believe, for the website before. I think generally it's held up really well over time compared to some websites as far as just, it hasn't really, I think the usability could improve from the ADA compliance, but I do think that it would be doable. I don't know, it seems like EcoPixel is more interested in sort of an upgrade. And I'm sure they could tweak whatever we needed. I have not spoken to them personally, but it will be work, any website upgrades work, but it also is they're gonna be doing the bulk of it. Thank you, Wendy. Trustees, any other comments, questions, concerns? This is Raj, I'm comfortable moving this way. So Brad, from the process stance, are you looking for us to make a motion at this point in time, or are you just looking for a general consensus and then- Yeah, just a consensus. Yeah, just a consensus and then we can proceed. Haven't heard any objections. Comfortable to me. Great, sounds good, we'll get that work started. Great. Before we move off of this, if there is public input, and I do see Andy's hand up. So others, if you have questions, comments, please go ahead and raise your hand or type of the chat feature. Go ahead, Annie. I have zero reason to put my hand up, except that I just wanna agree. I'm just really excited. I really wanna thank George for holding his ground when he decided to, when he spoke up and said, we're keeping the s6jumpson.org and everyone agreed. I think that was a really bold move. I was a little baffled at the time, but good job. And I'm really glad that you're staying with Igor. I'm just really excited. So I don't know why I need to tell you that. I'm just excited and wanted to share it. So thrilled, thanks. Appreciate that, Annie. Thank you. I've seen no other hands up. I've seen nothing in the chat. So we can move on from that item and go into 5F and to discuss the contracts for the town of Essex. Yeah, so as you all know, there are four outstanding agreements. And fortunately, we both boards have agreed to go back and forth in between this next joint meeting to try and get these agreements hammered down. So that when you do meet on the 28th of this month, it will be more of a formality, hopefully, and just approving these. So what you saw in the packet are the select board's most recent updates that are highlighted in green. And as well as an email from Greg about shared boards and commissions. So tonight is your opportunity to talk about those four things for us to make any changes to those agreements to get back to the select board for their next meeting, their meeting again before the joint meeting as are you on the 21st and 22nd. So trustees, as we as we do this, if you have any concerns about talking in open session, please interrupt whatever trustee is talking and we can have that conversation about going into the executive session. But otherwise, I encourage us to stay in open session here as long as we're comfortable. And so with that, while it's slightly different than the order of the memo, if we just wanna go into the shared boards, commissions and committees email next, just as that flows next into the packet, I think that that may make sense. In terms of Essex-Best, it's great to see that they're willing to discuss staffing. I think that this one may warn some further discussion. I think it's worth keeping and doing jointly continuing to do this as a joint effort, though as it's noted here, this was not a select board appointed for this group. This is not a trustee appointed entity. This was a group, if my memory serves me correctly, that Evan had worked with others. I think it was some guidance and help from somebody like the officials. But this was not us appointing people. And so some of those logistics would need to get worked out. I don't think that should be a barrier in any sense of the phrase. Overall though, what I would really like to see is an agreement to just remove this item from the overarching MOU that we have. And I say that in, I don't know if we're gonna be able to get to the tentative agreement level that we have with all these other agreements before the March 28th meeting. So it just makes me think that this is something that we can continue to talk about. And I would just personally like to not see this be a part of potentially holding that process up. So I think, Rog, you had your hand up first. Yeah, I agree with you, Andrew. I think, the Essex best situation because it's the first bullet, that is gonna take some time. It's as currently set up, mostly volunteer, a few staff. So that has issues around, how does that look and how do members, how are they appointed? Is there a budget? I don't think that, I think it'd be great if the two boards could put these other agreements to bed and sort of work on this throughout the next year during a transition period and give it some good thought instead of trying to rush through to some decision for some arbitrary deadline. I don't disagree with the rest of the recommendations in the memo. I am curious what the housing commission's gonna say and I prefer to see that together. And I agree that everything else should probably separate. So yeah, I just wanted to reiterate kind of what you were saying. I think, you know, I don't mind seeing this be part of the overall group as long as, you know, we don't have to rush a decision on something that they're really just, you know doesn't need that kind of speed. So saying that for our benefit and if select board's listening. Thank you, Raj. Go ahead, George. Yeah, I agree with both of you Raj and Andrew about, you know, wrapping this up and maybe continuing talking about the committees but wrapping the rest of it up and talking about the committees for extending that conversation. I only just have one kind of technical question about Essex Best. They said they would like to discuss staffing and resources. Who's, does that mean? I'm assuming that means the staffing of Essex Best not staffing of the village and town governments. I'm assuming that's correct, but I'm not sure. I just wanna make sure that the way this is worded. Well, there are, yeah. What are they talking about? What do they mean by that? The select board is allocated money because, you know, I think on the theory that, so in the approved budget there's money for this in the town budget. And I think that's on the theory that we've been operating under for a long time that it includes the whole community, right? That town budget. Okay. It is staffed, it is sort of staffed by, by our great, I believe, and perhaps other, I know Chief Hogue is a very active participant as is Rob Kissinger. So there are, so, you know, I think what they're probably getting at is, you know, how, what does it look like? Kind of what I was saying, what does it look like going forward? How, how is it supported? What's its structure? How would people appoint it? Are they appointed, you know? It's, right now it's sort of this weird entity that's kind of out there that just had money allocated to it, but we haven't come up with a, for lack of a better term, governance structure for it. Okay. So. I'm good, that's fine. Any other questions, comments, concerns on the shared boards from these commissions? So my only thought on this then is, I wonder, I wonder if what a tentative agreement could be is that the boards would agree to work on the, the logistics of Essex Fest, including things like staffing, mission, appointment, funding, and we'll engage Essex Fest in this effort, as well as the boards agree to engage in a, engage in a conversation on a shared housing commission and that that in and of itself could just be a tentative agreement. Otherwise I would look to just again, removing this from that overarching MOU. George. Yeah, Andrew, the only thing I'm gonna, I know this is just an oversight, but you cannot, we cannot, the last bullet point to select board wants to separate all, and all other boards, commissions and committees, you can't separate the tri-town committee. That's not possible for us to do. Yeah. I mean, unless you wanna shut down, I don't know how, I don't even know where you'd begin to direct because that's on our ANR permit. I'm sure that's just an oversight, but I just wanna point that out. You need an asterisk in there that says to tri-town, you know, except for the tri-town committee. I think that we did that within the stormwater agreement. I believe that one of the components of the stormwater agreement is that our permits are separate and that the tri-town, thought that that was referenced in there, but I think that's a good point for us to look into. Isn't it? Yeah, it can. I do hear you. You can't, it can't. The tri-town sort of created out of the, isn't that sort of an entity of a different agreement? Yeah, it's a completely different, it's way before stormwater. It goes back to the 1980s or something like that. I couldn't even tell you where the original agreement is, but you can't bust that up. I mean, that's, there's one discharge permit for the water treatment plant in the town of Williston, the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction are on that permit. And there's a contract intermeasible, longstanding intermeasible contract that says representatives from those three communities regulate the, and determine the water, the sewer rates for the, for the plant. So you can't, you can't separate, you can't separate that, has to remain there, has to stay in place. Yeah, at the end of the day, we'll make sure that it's understood that the existing tri-town can't go away. Right. Go ahead, Rod. No, I forgot what I was gonna say. We're still gonna be around for a while. Yeah, it's not too long. Oh, sorry. Because the town took that tack of adding funding to their budget for this next year, since we're still working together, we may want to be open to any language they put in that says it will be funded, by both entities, if it moves forward. I'm just putting that out there as an olive branch. We should acknowledge that if we're gonna participate in this that we're willing to pay, what's the- 42%. An equitable share of per capita share. I don't know, you know, whatever, but I think that that's probably something we should expect as part of the discussion for that particular effort. So just, I'm sure you know this, Raj, and just, I guess I'll say this for anybody else who's gonna be listening, we are paying as village residents who voted on the town budgets for this upcoming fiscal year. We are going to be contributing our portion of funds to the town's budget. No, no, I meant, I'm sorry, you're absolutely 100% correct. I meant for FY24. And if we, you know, so beyond this upcoming fiscal year, if this continues to be a joint thing, we will not be hanging down and we should be open to a conversation about what that would be. I'm just, so for that reason, they may wanna see this somehow as part of the package. It's my only point. Gotcha. Anything else on the shared boards, committees, commissions? So my takeaway, go ahead and make up. Take away from that was that the first choice is to remove that from the MOU, but second choice would be, you'd be open to saying that this is something that you'll work on and consider moving forward. I think given how long it takes our two boards to agree on a tentative agreement, we would need to agree to a very skeleton-based tentative agreement that would basically say, we'd agree to thank you for that. So why don't we then go into the, I believe shared financial services as the one that's next in the packet. And so the green is the only, the green are the only places where there were changes. Correct? Great. Yes, that's correct. I personally did not have any concerns with this one. Do you mean the whole agreement or just that first green highlight? With the, just look with on the screen, okay. You do have there this agreement shall commence and then it's all crossed out. Is it commence upon execution of this agreement and expire? Okay, I see. I see what you did. All right, thanks. Stop, stop talking, George. In the fifth, whereas I would like to recommend that it's this one here, that it says may each operate from 81 main. I don't, I think what we're saying, what we're trying to accomplish is that we can continue to operate with shared finance in the same space. But I think there may be a point where we can operate out of separate spaces but still be a part of this agreement, still be shared. And so I don't want to just lock us in that our finance department can't move. Fine by me. Let's hope that nothing bad ever happens to 81 main street. And if there were a fire per se, I would really like to think that this agreement wouldn't require the town finance staff to operate in a building that's filled with smoke. Still, I'm still scratching my head over the federal court language at the end. And so far as we're seeing this language in just these two or two agreements and nowhere else. And I absent explanation on why it's important all of a sudden on something like this. I'm not inclined to support it. Yeah, and Raj, because this has come up a few times and at Georgia's suggestion, Claudine has reached out to Bill to try and get clarification because obviously this communication between boards when both lawyers are arguing it should or should not be in hasn't been too productive, not for anybody's fault just because they're not in the room when we have the conversation. So hopefully those two can iron it out before the 21st and 22nd. Great. Appreciate that, Brad. I didn't see anything else in the the share of financial services agreement that concerned me. Are we good to move on to the perpetrator? Looks like we are. So one, one heads up is in all of the places based on the conversation we last had we are changing the end date to June 30, 2023 and not having the confusing language of one year after the charter passes. So anywhere you see that anything talking about the fiscal year following the establishment is being removed. We'll send that back in this next edit to the select board. Sounds good. I think it's page looks good. And Susan had weighed in on that highlighted bullet there about shared oversight. Yes, yes, we spoke with Susan and Greg and Travis about shared oversight and we're all fine with it. I appreciate the addition of this underlined text here in terms of the finances and that's the allocation of revenue can be determined by the clerk and the finance directors that make sense and is in line with the share of financial services agreement. And that language did come from the town. So they're on board. Great, great. Looks good. We'll go to that section for that page. There was one piece sorry to scroll in this section. I don't know if we want or need to say and village or city manager in theory, we'll sign the contract while we have a village manager and then hire a city manager. I think it's six of one half dozen of another. Yep. Happy to just say we're good with this. You could say the Essex town manager and the Essex children manager. I think it's keep it consistent with whatever is in the other agreement. I believe there's some language in the overall overarching MOU for all of this that makes everything village city when the city becomes a city. And I would assume that that would I don't have it in front of me, but I just recall something being there that not sure we need to worry about it. Perfect. The only I think that keeping it as village just makes sense. And the way that we talk about this is it's to codify what's already happening. Good to go on to the last one. Yep. On to the recreation, Indian Brooklyn senior center and senior bus. And trustees and Brad, in my reading of this, it appears as if what we're seeing here is what we had proposed originally. And so the changes that were then counterproposed by the select board were then deleted and changed back to our prior version. I would say very close. There's one clause. It's in the very bottom that I just don't wanna lock us into. It says the city shall, we originally had written the village shall provide space at to Lincoln for the senior center. It's been changed to the city shall continue to provide the existing space at to Lincoln for the senior center. And I just, while the trustees obviously have always promised to keep the senior center at to Lincoln, I just don't with renovations forthcoming and such, I don't wanna lock us into the existing space. I think that that makes a whole host of sense. We don't know if what's going to need to happen is during the renovation, if construction needs to block off the game room, for instance, that room that's just on the other side of the hallway from the meeting room. If I would hate for that to then put us into breach of this contract and we have to enter some kind of mediation for arbitration process. It's simply because we're renovating the building. So yes, I think that it makes sense to provide space at to Lincoln. And if I can jump in, and if that presents a problem because we would really like to wrap this up and if they say, no, we want that, then you might maybe put in an additional, you could say the existing space or equivalent space at to Lincoln. Yeah, if there is equivalent space during. Well, no, just for the Andrew's point because you may have to move people around. So we're gonna say, we're not gonna cram it into a closet or something. But I can't imagine that they're gonna object to this, but it's possible. I don't know. And we'd like to see this get wrapped up, but we, it is an issue. If we're gonna be renovating the building, we may have to move them, the senior center out of there for a little while. So, but we would find some other spot for it in the building that's already renovated or something. I don't think it's a big issue. Shouldn't. Thank you for pointing that out, Brad. I did wonder why was this one changed to a termination date on the calendar year compared to the fiscal year when the others were fiscal? Sorry, is that, I don't know if those of us who were not in the room. I'm not sure. I don't have the answer to that question. I think it's, you know, the most noticeable change here and it's very interesting and challenging. You know, to do that mid fiscal year is a little bit strange and challenging. It also really makes this agreement only last for, well, I mean, it'll last for the transition year, but then it really only lasts for six months once everything is totally separated. So it's a little bit interesting. I'm not sure the rationale we can ask though. I think that would be great if that can just be a question to go back. And I think I have a, I don't want to say that I know, but I think I have a hint as to why it might be. And you might ask if you're going to ask them what they were thinking that I suppose it wouldn't be a huge deal to have different end dates for different aspects of this agreement since it includes Indian Brook. It includes different entities that they may have reasons to want to end sharing at different dates. So we may hear back something like, you know, forget it, I'll shut up. No, to me it was one of those different kinds of things. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's just, yeah. I can only speculate that maybe they're thinking that date if they were gonna, if they had to budget something differently, getting out of the agreement would give them enough time to work that change into their budget for the following fiscal year. That's the only logic I can see and maybe that's it. But otherwise I don't understand, but you're right, not a huge deal for me, but it is interesting. I mean, it does present a budgeting problem if we're trying to, if this does end and we need to find staffing for mid-year staffing for senior center and SSTA funding and that we didn't plan on, you know, 12 months before that. So it is odd. Yeah, well, I don't have a problem with it. Yep. We'll see what we get back and that's it. So I was just gonna say, I believe that's it. So trustees, any other questions, comments, concerns that we want to make sure are raised on this back to the select board? I'd only say I'm grateful that they kind of heard what we were saying about, you know, wanting to, wanting to remember the logic behind what we originally proposed and keeping it simple. So I'm glad they discussed it and came back with what you said. So that's great. Yep, appreciate what they did. Also, thank you, Rosh. So before we move off of this agenda item, if there are any members of the public who wish to have any or have any comments to wish to raise to the board on this topic, now's the time to do so. Go ahead, raise your hand, type into the chat feature. Make sure you have time. See no hands up, there's nothing in the chats. Nobody's called in. So see nothing, come back to the board. I don't believe we need a motion on this. We can then move on, which that brings us now into the consent items. I'll move that we approve the consent agenda. Second. Thank you, Rosh. Thank you, George. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, a little bit of favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. Great, so that passed unanimously. Thank you all. Next step brings us into the reading file and board member comments. And really the only thing I wanna mention, Brad, Wendy, congratulations. Thank you both for being here. This is the first meeting with the two of you as the only management staff for our village. Really appreciates the two of you being here. Again, appreciate you stepping up and your willingness to take on this role. Really look forward to the next few months and hope to then find a permanent manager so the two of you can have a life outside of work. Thank you. Trust to use any other comments. I would also open it up, Brad, Wendy, if there's anything else that you'd like to mention, it doesn't have to be a board member only comments. We've had other managers who brought other things up if there were things that you wanted to just raise some attention. You know, there's lots of interviews happening this week for both wastewater and public works. So they're both short and so hopefully they are able to pick up some people there which is encouraging. And also, you got to meet Colleen earlier. She's fabulous. She's here after a week, which we talked to her yesterday. She basically joined a family that's in the middle of getting a divorce and met with every uncle and aunt and grandfather and grandmother and cousin in the last week and got every dirty low-down story. And she was still here on Monday. So she's doing a great job and we're looking forward to working with her. I really appreciate that analogy, Brad. Thank you for that. So then, if... Oh, it's a quick comment. The elections last week, when as smooth as it could that, I mean, I was over at the high school and considering what we're going through, it went well. Great. And on that note, Diane is already agitating. So anybody that has even a couple of hours on the leading up to the 12th or on the 12th, she'd love to hear from you. I'm actively trying to avoid her walking around the neighborhood right now because I haven't committed to a time yet. So... Roger, are you saying on a recorded public meeting that you haven't put your time in yet? I haven't. I mean, I took time off to do the town one. And so trying to figure out how I'm going to swing the other one. I heard him say he's trying to avoid something. That's what I heard. I couldn't care for the rest of it. I'll be standing with my little sign out front for a while. One point I'd like to just put, we have to plant in our heads here. The new city charter calls us to transition away from having a zoning board and a planning commission to having a development review board and a planning commission with very different roles. And we are going to have to... I think, assuming knock on wood, everything goes well. But I would imagine that because that is in our charter that applications that might be in... We're going to have to just have a discussion about this. In other words, an application that's in the works right now that is probably, that might be... The planning commission looked at it, but they're not going to see it again until July or August. We're going to have to make that transition. And we're going to have to figure out who wants to be on the DRB, who wants to be on the new planning commission. Are there other regulatory legislative things that we need to take into account? So Brad and Wendy probably get together with Robin, I guess. And I don't know. I mean, at some upcoming meeting, we are going to have to look at that and figure out how we're going to make that transition. And we don't want to... It might seem like it's a really easy thing to do. And all of a sudden when we do it there's some big snag that we have to work on. So I don't make to make work for you. And it's nothing that's immediately necessary, but it is something that we're going to have to probably look at and probably have some discussion about at the board level at some point. Good point, George. Andrew, I just want to... I would feel totally remiss if I did not say this earlier. Tammy started working for the town and not the village on the 28th of February. So a week ago, and she has been pouring in hours to complete the village newsletter and the village annual report, working all weekend, working very late at night. So she really is doing a fantastic job and something that's not technically her job anymore. So very much appreciation to her. Thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, Tammy is a loss to the community to not have her on the village's side and on the village's side, but being a village employee any longer, certainly do miss her and appreciate the work that she has done and continues to do as a town employee. She was a fantastic person who really did a lot. Sorry that she's gone. Anybody have anything else? If not, I would certainly entertain the motion to adjourn. Thank you, Dan. I'll second. I'll second. Any further discussion? Hearing none of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, too bad? No, those opposed, say nay. Passing unanimously. Thank you all. Have a good night. Good luck coming out. Good night, everybody.