 Great. And I hope there's no feedback then going on out in Zoomland. So hello everybody, and welcome to the City of Essex Junction City Council meeting for Wednesday, January 11th, called meeting to order. Thank you all for being here. If you have not yet signed in, please feel free to, or please do so. I believe the sign-in sheet is being passed around currently. There is still one more chair up front, sorry for the lack of chairs. I would also say feel free. If you want to take one of these other chairs that are up here, please feel free and be comfortable. Do we have any agenda additions or changes for tonight? Yes. Do you want to go first? If you have it, if you have it. I don't have any. We've got the, you folks received an earlier agenda on Friday without the dog hearing. On Monday you got an updated agenda, which is posted online with the dog hearing on it. Great. I would just ask that 7C come out for the business item discussion. Yep. And so why don't we put that at 6F? And so then our executive discussion on the discussion consideration of CSWD would then go to 6G. Sounds good. Anybody else? I move we approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, Dan. I'll second. Thank you, George. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. As opposed to say nay. Great. So that passed unanimously. Thank you all. Now we'll bring us into public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting where if there's anybody from the public who wishes to bring something up to the board's attention that is not on the agenda, now is the time to do so. For things that are on the agenda, there will be time for public comment. Is there anybody in the room who wishes to bring something to our attention that is not on the agenda? Not seeing any hands up in the room. I'll turn it over to the Zoom world. If you could please go ahead raise your hand if there's anything that you wish to bring to the board's attention that is not on the agenda. Not seeing any hands going up on Zoom. So we will come back to the board. And we will start off with agenda item five, which is a vicious dog hearing. And we have Rick Gehry from the Essex Police Department who will help us with this process. I will say just at the onset, I will ask for everybody's patience and understanding with us as a board in full transparency. This is the first time since becoming the speed of Essex Junction we have had to do this. So we up here are going to be learning as we go through this process. And so we appreciate Rick for being here to help walk us through this. Can I pause us for one second? Jordan, Cindy, do you see that chat from Cindy online? She can't hear any sound. Cindy, can you hear us now? Yes. Thank you. Oh great. So Rick, good evening. Hi. Good to see some familiar faces. I don't know how. That was good to see you. See the smile on my face? Looking good. Thank you for your time. So I'm going to try to walk you through vicious dog hearings. We've had four of these in my 30 years over in the town. I will try to provide some background. It is a little bit complicated. We'll start with is this is a quasi-judicial hearing by statute. So basically this is governed under title 20 chapter 193, specifically chapter 193 deals with animals. And a couple of things that are important for folks to know under 3559, specifically the law says that the legislative body of a city or a town by ordinance may regulate, license, keeping leashing, muzzling, restraining and pounding, and the destruction of domestic pets. So wolf hyrids and they're running at large. So that basically is where you folks, the governing body has the authority to regulate and set rule. They're specifically under same title, same chapter under section 3546 is the investigation of vicious dog complaints or wolf hybrid complaints. And it outlines in that section how the investigation will happen. So in this case, the trustees serve both as a jury and at the end as the judge in determination as a quasi-judicial process, there will be witnesses that will be called. They can bring people that they themselves can provide evidence. They can bring people that if they have evidence related to it, we will swear them in for their testimony. And then we will move through each of these. We'll start with the animal control officer and how the process started and the report that we got. The trustees have the ability to ask questions of each of the witnesses. And then we will introduce the next ones. And then we'll have an opportunity to clarifying questions if you need to or additional questions. When all the evidence has been introduced and all the questions have been answered, it then gets turned back over to the trustees to deliberate. The key in the deliberation is obviously if they have met the elements of the statute, I bring your attention and you have copies to under section 3546, specifically under subsection A. It says investigation of vicious domestic pets or wolf hybrid orders. When a domestic pet or wolf hybrid has bitten a person while the domestic pet or wolf hybrid is off the premises of the owner or the keeper and the person bitten requires medical attention for the attack, the person may file a written complaint with the legislative body of the municipality. Under subsection B, the legislative body when getting that notice, within seven days a receipt of the complaint shall investigate the charges and hold a hearing on the matter. Under subsection C, if the domestic pet or wolf hybrid is found to have bitten the victim without provocation, the municipal officials shall make such order for the protection of persons as the facts and circumstances of the case may require, including that the domestic pet or wolf hybrid is disposed in a humane way, muzzle, chain, or confined. So those are basically what you're looking for, the elements of it for the hearing. There is, under subsection 3550, penalties can be issued under the state law and then you also have, as the city, also have city ordinances, which quite frankly are dogs running at large is what apply for your ordinances, referenced to this matter. Any questions on the process and how we get there and deliberation and judgments? There are some, I'm sorry, there are some examples in the back of the packet, at the very back of the packet of three orders that were issued by the town in the last 15 years. Examples, if you find that it's met the elements, examples that you could use in reference to muzzles, this is like what is required, muzzles before, chain length fence, remedial dog trim, and in two cases they actually order the destruction of a dog or the removal of a dog from the municipality. Just a couple of quick questions. In terms of the, our capabilities in terms of ramifications or impact, so the, yes, the statute lists disposal in a humane way, muzzle, chain, or confined, but those are not the only things that we would be allowed to do, correct, and it can be a combination thereof. Correct. That is what we have been advised in issuing that, that it can be pretty much whatever the board sees fit, it's that order of protection to, in order to protect this. And it's as long as a dog wolf hybrid has bitten a person off of the owner's property. That has sought medical ascension, correct. Ross? Does this decision have to be made during the hearing? And does deliberation have to be in public? Our advice from the town attorney is the deliberation does have to be in public. It is, there's no exemption for a closed hearing. I don't know the answer to your question about whether it would have to happen. I can tell you it always has happened, the times that we've done it, that happened at the meeting, but I do not honestly know the answer of if it could be deferred. Be creative. Any other questions? All right. Okay. We're going to start with our animal control officers. Stacy is a vendor for the town and for the city, and he is our animal control person that handles when we get a problem with the dog, the officers sometimes will deal with it. And then, in this case, you'll actually find that one of our officers initially handles the first call, and then we've got ahold of the animal control officer that followed up with the investigation. So she's going to pry the information in reference to the initial call we got, what she's done for an investigation, what she was told, and what she's learned. Can you raise your right hand? You swear the testimony you're about to give would be the truth, the whole truth, but nothing but the truth to help you guys. I do. Okay. Can you please state your name, what you do for your job, and talk about the incident that you started to finish in a chronological form? Yeah. My name is Stacy Carson. I've been an animal control officer for about four years and started doing animal control work for Essex about a year and a half ago. So I was first notified of this incident on the third, I believe the incident itself happened two days prior on the first. So at that time, Officer Winkler had gone out after receiving a call from Janelle Racine that her dog had been attacked by a neighbor's dog. So he responded to the initial call and spoke with everyone then. So what I was sent in the email on the third was actually a video from a camera on the Racine's house that captured just the main, I guess, contact between the two dogs, the attack between the two dogs. So we have the dog entering the frame up until both dogs leave the frame. So I followed up with that email. I spoke with the Racine's kind of about what their options are because in terms of follow-ups for dog-on-dog attacks, as opposed to dog bites on humans, that looks different for us. There are more, I guess, things we can enforce in terms of dog bites on humans than dog-on-dog attacks as an animal control officer. So I followed up with them. They answered a lot of questions I have. I believe Kevin Kavanaugh, the dog that we were told was the attacking dog, was a dog that was identified as Juno. So that dog, I believe, belongs to Shana Brady and then Kevin Kavanaugh, I was told was Shana Brady's partner and he paid the vet bills for the Racine's dog, who I got the footage of as well as a photo of the dog's lacerations like after veterinary treatment. You talk a little bit about follow-up in reference to any stuff you did related to previous incidents, previous complaints. Yes. So there were no, so the dog is registered currently in Winooski. I believe it is moving to Essex, in the process of moving to Essex, but it is registered in Winooski. There are no police incidents in Valkor for going back until, I think, the earliest record we have is like 2012. There's no record of this dog anywhere in the police database. So I did also follow up with the Winooski Animal Control Officer to make sure on a personal level that she had not dealt with the case, but it wasn't like an official call or anything. So there were no previous animal control involvements before this incident. From your review of the tape, is it clear what dog bits the individual? It is not clear to me. It is a lot of movement happening in a very short period of time. On the film, I believe are five dogs at one time, so two belonging to the racians. And then mostly in the video, there's their one Labrador Retriever. And you can see a tan dog as well as a black dog. Kind of all three of them are kind of in like a deadlock. And at one point in the video, you see Kevin Kavanaugh put his arms and his legs around Juno, the tan dog, to try and release her. And then you can also see Janelle trying to get the dog off as well. I believe the black dog on the video is also right in the mix, but it is very difficult to see with all of the movement that's happening. Who is exactly biting who? But then at the end of the fight and everything, the dog did have lacerations all around one side of the neck and then as well on the other. So I guess to answer your question, no, it's not very clear. Can I ask a question? So you are trained in dog animal control. You're used to working in this. You've had some training and some understanding of dog control. Is that correct? Yes. I just want to just, you could address it briefly. And just what you said, in order to get this dog, clearly it was not under voice control. I think we can establish that it was not no one, no one was able to say stop it or heal or it had the dog had to be physically pulled off the other dog. Is that correct? That's what seems you're saying it would no one was able to. That was the only way you could get this dog to be from what you could tell from the. Yes. Okay. The video was quite, it's quite a short video with a lot of things going on, but from what I could tell, yes, that's the case. Okay. Is there generally speaking in your work, is there some kind of a standard where dogs have to be that are out and maybe can get loose or under voice control by the owner? Is that ever an issue that comes up? Yes. So, I believe, so in Essex, right, there's, we've got like a leash law in South Burlington. It's a little bit different. Your dog can either be under leash or voice control and outside of that, your dog is at large. So the dog was definitely at large at the time of the incident because it was off of its own property. Okay. That being said, there are no other, you know, police reports of the same thing happening. Okay. However, that is, that is something that we have to follow in our statutes pretty often is a dog off its own property under no voice or leash control is a dog running at large. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Questions? So, I will add our health officer, friendly Jerry has retired, I think you all know. And so Sharon Kelly is currently the health officer for the town in the city. And so, when we have a dog bite, state law requires that they're quarantined. That occurred. The health officer is involved with the animal control officer to make sure that that process is done. They check registration, rabies certification and the dog is quarantined for a period of time to make sure it's okay. Sharon actually completed that quarantine today. I want to read an email that she sent back to us just so that you have that as part of your information. So just one question that this dog is a human and the fighting dog is Juno just realize that so I have emailed Sharon to see if she can clarify. Well, and we can ask when if Shana is a chana braiding, yeah, we can probably verify with her that they came and did a check today. So I think the other thing I noticed in there is the date that Shannon has written is incorrect. It says November 11th and it's actually it was done today. So I think we have a couple of typos in there, but I think we can verify that the quarantine was done today. But I think the other piece of this is relevant and important. So she writes that she did it today. The date in the email is incorrect. She says I checked with the dog, Luna, correct, wrong name again. Residing at one South Street Lane upon approaching the house, the owner and the dog were waiting for me outside in the driveway. The dog was on on a leash in a sitting position as I parked the dog remained in a sitting position. I noted the leash was not strained. Once I was out of the car, the dog approached me with its owner and was wagging its tail in a friendly manner. I put my hand out for him to smell me and he immediately began to lick my hand. I did not observe any aggressive behavior. There were no visible signs of rabies at this time. The dog owner was provided the same findings of my inspection. So she has notified us that it the dog is met the quarantine level and that is what she is provided for information. And that's Juno. Pardon me? That's Juno. No. Well, she writes Juno, but I believe it is a typo that it was the dog that bit. Yes. That bit. Yes. The aggressive dog. Okay. Yeah. Shannon's dog. Okay. Right. That's the dog because it's bit someone. It has to be under quarantine. So we have a couple of typos in there, but we're going to be able to verify that that happened today. Any further questions of the ACO? I just want to get just clear. So the dog that was wagging its tail in the driveway was the dog that bit the other dog. That is what? And that dog is Juno. That dog is Juno. But I thought it was quarantined in Winooski. It was the actual owner lives in Winooski and initially it had to be quarantined in Winooski. Is that not, that's not correct. I believe that's the way it initially was. What you're going to, maybe we didn't explain it is the dog was at the boy friend's house, which is at this location. The owner of the dog lives in Winooski. I believe she has since moved and now lives with the boy friend. Okay. Got you. Okay. So I think the quarantine, the inspection was here. Because she now lives here. Okay. So I'll clear now. Thank you. Sorry. That's all right. And then if you have, you may end up having follow up from other testimony, we can bring the animal control officer back. Okay. Thank you. So one, actually one quick question. So you were saying earlier that it wasn't clear from the tape what dog bit Juno. Sorry. It's not funny. I'm just having trouble with the names. But we've quarantined just one dog. That is correct. The aggressor is corn. So we're sure we know which dog we're, everybody's agreeing on which dog bit the other dog. Yeah. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure I was clear on that. And you'll not, if that's generally, I just want to make sure. There is a video that's available that if folks want to see that they can play that. Thank you. We're all set. Okay. Thank you. We'd next like to invite Janelle and Cody or if there are other witnesses that you want to bring up if you want to come up. Hi. Hi. So I'm going to ask you to raise your right hand. We swear the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to help you down. Yes, I do. So what we'd like you to do is introduce yourself and then explain to the trustees as much as you can and as much detail as you can about what's happened and anything that I think is important for them to understand about these things. Okay. Thank you. Hi, my name is Janelle Racine. So we'll play the video in a minute that our ring camera captured so you can see but basically to give you a little bit of background, we, my mom, my brother, my five month old daughter, my two dogs and I were getting free for a walk on January 1st. We were in our driveway still. My dogs were on leash and my mom started screaming to me and I looked and saw that the three dogs at my neighbor's house were coming and charging over and I had remembered my neighbor Kevin telling me previously something along the lines of his girlfriend's dog having aggression towards other dogs. So immediately I was worried as soon as the dogs came into our yard, which was within seconds, there was no hesitation. They weren't provoked at all. The tan dog Juno immediately lunged at my yellow lab's neck and latched on. And then as you'll see in the video, the black dog begins biting at the other side of my yellow lab's neck, which explains why she has punctured wounds on both sides. My finger was also bit. I'm not sure by which dog and all the chaos. Luckily, Kevin, my neighbor was able to get there quickly to help break it up. But even with his help, it took 25 seconds to get the tan dog Juno to unlatch from my dog. There's several times where I go out for walks with, you know, my daughter, my dogs, and I'm by myself. And if he hadn't gotten there as quickly as he did, I think that that dog would have killed my dog. I wouldn't have been able to get that dog off on my own. So that just leaves us extremely worried for our safety, our daughter, our dogs, other community members that walk up and down our road to the dead end street. So we have to walk by that house to go out for walks. I'm scared now to go out in the driveway even because this was an unprovoked attack. It wasn't like a couple of dogs snicking each other to the side. They don't like each other and then start attacking. That dog ran over on a mission to attack my dog. There was no time for intervention. And, you know, it's just extremely traumatizing and makes me very afraid for future occurrences. Counselors, any questions? How many stitches did you just tell about the injury to your dog a little bit? Just describe that. I know we have a picture of it. And I don't know if we want to put that up or not. But it was not a, there were puncture wounds on one side, but it had a pretty serious, it looked to me like a very serious gash. Could you just describe that a little bit? Yeah. So there was a gash wound on the right side and also a puncture wound on the left side. The left side didn't get stitches, but the right side did. I'm not sure how many. Okay. So both dogs bit your dog? That's what it looks like to me pretty clearly in the video. Do you have some video? Do we? I think just my personal opinion, just telling you how I view this. I'd like to hear testimony and get testimony from all sides here before we see a video. I don't want this video to taint our opinions. I want to hear what people say. And then video in my career is fact. People can, you know, forget things, but pictures don't lie. Okay. That's just my opinion. I'm fine with waiting until the end of individual testimony before we see the video. I know for those of us at the table here, we have seen pictures as well. Just one more question. At what point in that did you receive an injury? Towards, well, I don't totally know, but I think it was probably towards the beginning of the fight when I was trying to separate the dogs. Is there no other questions? I appreciate you being here to speak about this. And I know that's not an easy thing to speak about. So thank you. Thank you very much. Do you know, was there anyone else that was here to testify on your behalf that you wanted to call? The writing information? I mean, my mom was here, was there, if she's here tonight, if you have any questions for her as well. But I think the video will. So we have no one else from the victim's side. Shannon, are you? And then again, if you have anybody that's with you that you want to provide, you have a prayer. Okay. So we're going to start with, can you raise your right hand, please? Do you swear the testimony that you're about to provide will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you God. I do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And who you are and then provide the details you have. My name is Shannon Brady and Juno is my dog. And I wrote something. I hope that's okay. I'm going to be emotional and I apologize. I'm torn by how to start the statement. And obviously very emotional. I'm in shock that I'm out of this dog hearing from my sweet boy. I could literally stand here for hours giving testament to the human cats, multiple chickens and multiple dogs. He's around my young niece and nephew played with my elderly neighbor's dog next door. He's been to schools that have raised funds for passion for pause and laid in the ground by 10 kids rubbed his belly. I have multiple people behind me who contested the gentle nature of this dog. The incident that occurred in one one is something that Kevin and I take complete and utter responsibility for. We are in the middle of moving with both homes had been really stressful for a few weeks with packing and such. The only home that you know has known was suddenly really chaotic. And anyone knows that when their humans are stressed, dogs are too. Juno was anxious and not himself when this wobble occurred. I completely blame myself for this insulated, isolated event. Since last Monday, Kevin and I have done our best to take care of the situation as best as we possibly can. We gladly paid Bowie's vet bills. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet our new neighbors and I dropped cookies and dog treats and flowers to their door because we were beside ourselves. We understand this incident was so scary and I cannot apologize enough. That being said, the allegation that Juno bit Mrs. Racine is without evidence and virtually impossible. Juno was engaged in the altercation and during it, Mrs. Racine unfortunately thought it was a good idea to repeatedly hit Juno on the head. After the dogs were separated, Juno was calm and led to the backyard by a friend who was here. At first, Mrs. Racine was also very understanding, claiming she had experience with her own dogs, having food aggression and said she understood accidents happen. I cannot tell you how terrible I feel that Maui had to go to the vet and the injuries that he sustained. We take full responsibility for this accident. We are very responsible dog owners. It was Kevin who will elaborate more on the process of how it happened. But since that day, we have taken extreme precautions to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. We have a fenced in yard and the gates are now locked in bungee cord just in case the wind or a guest accidentally leaves them open. There is a gate installed to the garage door so none of the dogs can get out from there and we are getting an additional electric fence around the perimeter in the spring when time allows. This is also the first time that I even heard that another dog was possibly involved which definitely throws me off and I know it throws Kevin off a little. This was only brought to our attention two days ago. But this was an accident. It was a horrible accident and it was an isolated incident and there is no way to tell how Mrs. Racine got the wound. But Kevin and Anthony can attest they had eyes on Juno the entire time. I am truly sorry for the stress and pain this has caused. My boy is so sweet and so loving and he really has made me understand the saying who rescued who and I am willing to do what I can to keep him and our neighbors and ourselves safe. Thank you. Thank you. I do have a couple of questions. How long have you had? Juno. Yes. I rescued him about four years ago. In that time has there been any other acts of aggression? Have there been any other either reported, not reported in any other place against another dog against a human? No. Is there also a dog there named Luna? No. I don't know where Luna comes from. That just helps to clear that portion of the video. Those were my questions. I ask a few questions and I might go back and have to ask Mr. Racine the same question I'll ask you. We have it in our file report that Kevin had told Mr. Racine that the dog had a history of aggressive behavior. I think when this was communicated we were more concerned because I have two dogs in my own and Kevin and I recently are moving in together so we have three dogs against the fence line which sometimes we were more scared of off leash dogs would come to the fence line that something can occur which sometimes happens to dogs. So that was kind of our more of our fear of that happening. And she also said that if you see my dogs get out it might be a good idea to pick up your dog. In other words if one if I'm out walking my dog in your neighborhood and I see your dog get out I better pick up my dog. That's what I implied by the letter. I have never said that so I can't attest. I don't know. I'm curious you said something to the effect that you don't know why she decided to be on your dog's head. Do you have a suggestion for how someone gets a dog to stop biting? I understand. Because it feels sort of to me like I understand your pain and your terror and what's going on here I believe you but that really troubles me that you would throw that in there. I'm being really honest. I hate to think what I would have done and I've been in this situation twice. So I'm just saying that I'm not sure what to do with that. I understand that. I don't know what to do with that. I'm just really clear that if she didn't have the injury before I'm just expressing what I've seen in the report and the pictures and she had it after. I'm a little I was shocked to hear that. That's all I'm saying. I just believe that Kevin had control of the situation. I don't know what I would have done. It's a scary time. I think I'm being honest. I don't know what to do with that. I think we have to understand that we don't have to listen to everything happening. Has the dog had any professional training? I'm here today. Can you confirm that you now live officially as of this weekend? Is the dog registered? Not yet. dog. Do you know the history of this dog? Or there's somebody here that knows it's just a local dog, this dog come from a state. Is it a woman or a hand up? Yeah, passion for pause, which I'm also a member of. Robin would be speaking and she has his extensive history. He came from the south. So he came up here. Let me get this straight. So he comes up here. And I understand somewhat because I've got family members or, you know, relatives who have done dog rescues. And there are a lot of dogs shipped to Vermont because we're no kill state. But is this dog something that was multiple owners? You know, when you say you know the history, you probably don't know full history. You just know what you got from whoever shipped this dog to you from whatever rescue place. I think we might need to wait until she's sworn in. Robin will have a much better idea. When we get to that, I'd like, I'd like to get some of that. So any other questions for Shannon? Thank you for sharing them. Thank you. Someone else on behalf. I would ask you to come up if you're going to speak. Thanks. If you want to speak, you can speak. What we're interested at the moment is is the people that are providing evidence related to the dog, to people that are there that saw, that may have some history from that. So, but certainly after that, if the trustees would like to open it up for community discussion, it's fine. There's someone else that would like to speak on behalf of Shannon. Shannon, sorry. Hello, Kevin. Yes, I am Kevin. He raised your hand please. I swear that testimony that you're about to arrive will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guys. I do. Thank you. Can you introduce yourself and explain how you were connected to this? I sure will. My name is Kevin Cavanaugh. I am the property owner at 1 South Street Lane. I am going to read what I had previously written. If you will, please just don't mind me being so nervous and sweating and shaking. Very nervous here. So, this statement is, was written and not edited. I had no knowledge of any video. So, this is how I saw it. I said we'll start here. My name is Kevin Cavanaugh and I am the man at fault here and I take full responsibility. I would again like to apologize to my neighbors, Janelle and Cody Racine for the stress this has caused. I apologize profusely, kept in contact, paid the bad bills and will continue to repair relations by doing whatever I can. Shannon and her two dogs have been frequent visitors at my house for the past year. They get along with my dog more importantly, my family, my friends, including my two nieces, age three and seven. As people here today can attest to visitors and people that Juno has never met before, agreed with wagging tail and kisses. On January 1st, a friend and I were moving furniture into my house. Stress was high, both for me and the dogs, while we were a shuffling property from one house to another. When my neighbors appeared in their driveway, the dogs were in the backyard barking. So, to minimize the disturbance, I put the dogs inside the house from the back door, only to quickly realize that the front door was left open from moving furniture. This was an accident on my parts that I have owned and apologized for immediately after the altercation. Janelle also reassured me that accidents do happen. As I immediately realized my mistake, I ran out the front door and witnessed the altercation from start to finish. I arrived at the altercation just as it had started and it took me about 10 seconds as I remember it to remove Juno. And from what I recall, he only interacted with Janelle's dog, Maui. Janelle tried to assist me from removing Juno by striking Juno in the head with her hand. From start to finish, Juno's head was completely restricted from movement due to my grasp and attempt to remove him. And therefore, it's my opinion that it would have been impossible for him to have abitted anyone. As I suggested to Janelle after the altercation, it's quite possible that Maui may have nicked her as he did just under the eye. Precautions are being taken to avoid this situation in the future. Shana has already explained most of them. We have extra gates as the entrances to the house and extra precautions around the gates. And once again, I feel absolutely terrible about this whole situation and I never wish to relive it. And I will never relive it again. It will never happen again. That's what I have to say. Thank you, Kevin. The question that I had, George, had raised earlier. We had the report that you had spoken with Janelle about Juno having aggressive tendencies and if their dogs are out, when Juno was out, that they should pick up their dogs because of this aggressive tendency. Is that something that you had said? And if so, what led you to say that? I don't remember the pickup part, but I do remember speaking with her about an aggressive nature. If I recall, it was something along the lines of Juno just having a protective nature towards the other dogs, protecting the other dogs. And that is what I believe I was referring to regarding the nature of Juno. Have there been any other incidents that Juno of, in which Juno may have acted in an aggressive manner, biting somebody's clothes, anything to that nature? So when you say an aggressive nature, what behaviors have you seen in the past that would have you used the phrase aggressive? Introducing him to Juno to my dog. They would just take a few days walking side by side. Because as I said, Juno is just a little protective of his owner and his other dog. So once that initial barrier was broken, they are now best friends, my dog, and Juno. Counselors, other questions for Kevin? Can you just describe when you went over there and Juno, as far as I can and we'll see the video in a while, but if I don't want to use the wrong word, but Juno was locked on to the other dogs now. Is that an accurate way to describe it? Yes. And how did you, could you describe how you and you, did Juno was not under, you are not able to say to Juno release or sit? It didn't, Juno was not under your voice. No, that was, that would not have been the quickest way. So you had to physically remove, you had to grab Juno and how can you just describe what you had to do to get Juno off the dog off the other dog? Yes. So I approached Juno almost immediately after the incident started. And from what I recall, it probably took longer. It just seems like it happened in an instant. But it was about 10 seconds that I had wrapped my arms around Juno's neck. And I just gave a little squeeze there. And eventually he let go. And he was in my arms, in my grasp. And when he did let go, we were still, I was still holding on to him. And I remember him being on the ground and like looking up at me. So it's not like he was flailing, flailing, flailing around or anything. Okay. Okay. That's a question. Can you explain, is the gate, a locked gate completely around the perimeter of the property? I'm mostly asking because I'm wondering if both the front door and the back door are closed in by a gate? Yeah. So the front door going outside of the main house is just goes right out to the street. The gate is around the backyard and around the garage as well, except for the front of the garage. The house and the garage are connected by the gates. And there is a door there. And on the other side of the house, there is a gate there surrounded by the fence. Does that answer your question? I think so. Yeah. So a dog could escape out of the front door of the house and leave the property. If the door was left open. Yeah. That's my question. But not anymore. Why not anymore? There's going to be a gate. I got a question. Can you just like a fence around the front yard of the gate or a child gate? No, child gate. Sorry about that. You have children, sir? Do I know I don't? Does your girlfriend have children? No. Okay. Are there children or other people in the household or other people visiting the place? Or you guys just, she's nodding her head back there. I see. So, okay. So people are coming. I just want to clarify something here. I've heard you. I've heard her say you take full responsibility. She does take full responsibility for this. You too. You as well, you know, the front door being open during the move of whatever you're moving furniture is soon getting moved in, what have you. But other people coming and going, I understand you guys being here now talking about all the precautions you're going to take. But to say that it'll never happen again, when people are coming and going, when a mailman or somebody's doing work on your house, somebody comes to do, open up the thing to say that you're going to be able to secure your property is a bold statement in my opinion. Okay. Well, rightfully so. In the process of moving, we hadn't set up the crates that Juno has, we will set up now. It's just a matter of putting all the pieces in place during this stressful move. And once that's all set, like I said, the precautions will be certainly enough. Do you walk the dog routinely? Do you take the dog out for walks? Yes. And when you encounter, because we're got a lot of people, as you know, walking around South Street, walking their dogs, how does that work? Is Juno fine with other dogs or does Juno get aggressive with other dogs? No, he's, I would just hold them tight and give a little space for the other dog. It's not like he would lunge at the dog or pull away from me or Shana. It's just a matter of tightened up that rope a little bit and given a couple feet of space. But I know a little hesitation in your voice saying when you're walking Juno, you're kind of on guard, you encounter someone else coming down, another dog owner coming in the other direction, you have to be careful that Juno doesn't go at that other dog. Now, he wouldn't go after another dog on a leash. All that we have to do is make sure there's a couple feet in between Juno and another passing dog. And that's fine. He wouldn't react. Okay. Any other questions for Kevin? Thank you, Kevin. Are you sure you're being up here? So Robin, you have some history on it? Can you give me your name? Anthony Pierce. Can you raise your hand please? I swear the testimony that you're about to arrive will be the truth, the whole truth, and if we want the truth to help you out. I do. Thank you. Can you give us your name? Can you please say how you're involved in this incident? So I was at the situation that we're talking about. I'm one of Kevin's and Shanna's friends. But one of the most important things I'd like to say today is I was in the military for 26 years at the military working dog handler and kennel master. So I have some experience with dogs. So I'd like to refer my information to the question that you had about why she shouldn't have punched the dog is because if you focus your attention on punching the dog, the dog might turn and focus attention on you. So Kevin, once you get to see the video that Kevin was actually securing his dog and she should have tried to control her own dog. I understand that her dog, one that was defending itself, but she should have been trying to get her dog away while Kevin was trying to maintain control or get control of his own. So I understand that. I think my issue was expecting someone whose dog and themselves being attacked to understand how they should react like someone perhaps with more dog training as a kennel dog operator. Right. I can tell you that most people don't respond with that level of training, nor should they be singled out for responding normally to a trauma like that. That was my issue. Not so much that whether it was right or wrong. She was doing that. She was doing whatever she felt she could do for that dog was my understanding. So I hear your point, but that was what I was going to say. Okay. Something else. I was in the garage upstairs on the second floor and when I heard the commotion, there's a window that I could look through to see what was going on. So I looked out the window, I ran downstairs and Kevin had already secured Juno. So after I'm not sure, it was a very quick situation. So I told Kevin to let me have Juno. Now I've been with friends with Shana for about five years, but when a dog gets into that mind frame of biting another dog, they lose their sense of hearing. They're not going to listen to their owner as much as you think you're going to be able to tell your dog to let go of the other dog. They're not only fighting between themselves, but they're also defending each other. So they're not going to listen to you. Okay. So when Kevin had secured Juno, Juno all of a sudden gets this strange hand, which was mine onto his collar and I just walked him right over the gate. So his thought process, whatever it was, there was no vicious to another human because all of a sudden he had this strange hand coming to his leash and walking him back. So first what I did before that, I walked the other two dogs back and then I came back and got Juno and just walked him back, put him in the fence. As far as the precautions that Shana and Kevin are making, they've already done those precautions. And what Kevin didn't say is when we were moving, there's a storm door that was propped open as well as the door. So if they have the TV guy coming over, if needed, they can secure the dog outside where the TV guy doesn't need to go. And if a lot of people are going to be coming and going, they will secure that dog because Shana has had that dog for four years and she has a very close knit group of friends and we go over to our house in Winooski quite often and we're always going in and out of their doors. They don't have a secondary door, a storm door, they just have one door. And we constantly go in and out. There's a neighbor to the right and we would have fires. The neighbor's child that was 12 years old would come, run around in the dark with Juno there and Juno would have no problems with that child running around, not even knowing who he is because it's dark. That's about it that I get to say. So if you'd like to have any questions. I'm good. You looked out the window but you didn't actually see Juno run out the door, run across the yard and attack the other dog. You didn't witness that. No, I didn't. And you didn't witness Kevin pulling the dog off the other dog. By the time I got there, Kevin had already secured Juno and then I just grabbed the other two dogs and walked him over to the yard and then got a hold of Juno and walked him back. Yeah, I'm not trying to put you on the spot but I'm just trying to get a sense of this. But you said you have an army background in dealing with canines. Is that correct? Yes, I do. So how typical is it for a dog? My dog gets loose. It's going to head up into the woods. It's not going to go, hey, there's a neighbor's dog. But all dogs are different. So just give me a sense. How normal, how typical is it for a dog to make a beeline and go right at another dog and attack another dog? Is that normal dog behavior? It depends on the breed. It depends on their past. It depends on a lot of things. You can't just say that breed is going to do that or this type of breed is going to do that. You can't isolate one type of dog and say that is what that dog is going to do. It's going to depend on the other dog's behavior. If you'll ever pay attention to the way the dogs look at each other. Also, when you're walking your dog, as Kevin was trying to explain, if he tightens up on the leash, the dog is feeling Kevin's stress of walking the dog. So that stress is going to go down the leash to the dog and kind of stress the dog out a little bit. So all he's going to do is just give that dog a little bit more space because he knows that Juno might do something. I'm not sure what he might do, but they're very cautious because he's just that breed has that background. In this instance, though, the other dog, as far as I can tell, and again, we'll see, but the other dog had a big harness around it and was on a leash and was in its own yard. It wasn't like threatening Juno. It wasn't trying to get onto their property. It was a dog, I don't know how else to put it, that was under control, and maybe it's anthropomorphizing a little bit, but was minding its own business, so to speak. I can't really say what or really answer that because I was upstairs, so I can't say anything. So the harness that they have is a walking harness, so there's no control on that type of harness because it goes to the back of the shoulders. So when the dog's walking, you can't correct the dog because it's behind their shoulders. Right, but my point wasn't to talk about. It's just saying, I'm just saying the dog that was bitten was not running around for you. The dog that was bitten was under the owner's control on their property with a harness and a leash on. Correct. It was not in Juno's yard. It was sitting right in their yard. And Juno came shooting over and attacked that dog on their property. I can't say anything to that because that was in the garage, so I'm assuming that's what happened because of the situation, but I can't say that. That's what happened because I didn't see it. Thank you, Anthony. Rose, Robin, I'm Shari. Robin, thank you. You have some history related to the dog, is that correct? Yeah, he's like, Robin, what's your last name? Shover, S-H-O-V-E-R. Can you raise your right hand, please? I swear that that's what you need a rock for ride. It will be the truth to the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you go. I do. You can please talk about, I think you're connected to the dog and where the dog came from, a little bit of that history. Yeah, so I am the founder and president of Passion for Claw's Dog Rescue. We've been in business for almost nine years as of April, rescuing over 2,800 dogs and adopting them out to families. We always do temperament assessments with people and other dogs because we have to make sure that the dog is social, friendly with other dogs before we can commit to take them because we're not a rehabilitation center, we're an adoption agency. So Juno's name was Bruno when we rescued him from Gas in North Carolina from the shelter down there. He was found with two other dogs as a homeless stray that had been abandoned, which is very common. I would say probably over 90% of the dogs we get are abandoned because a lot of people just dump them off. So he clearly was dog friendly in that environment off leash homeless. So I got brought to the shelter in 2019 and there's plenty of animal control shelter staff. We sent him to our rescue partner in boarding until he could come up on transport at no time during this. Did he have any negative behavior whatsoever showing aggression, reaction to other dogs or anything towards humans? Nothing. I did want to say that just a reminder that Kevin and Shanna are putting in an underground fence for the yard that is not fence. So I have one of those at my house in Shelburne for I have a few dogs too and it works quite well to keep them in their boundary and in their perimeter. I also want to mention too based on our experience we've done a lot of dog-to-dog introductions because people do have resident dogs. In a visual introduction running over to greet a dog, which is primarily probably what his intention was at first, run over because he saw another dog, didn't say it was appropriate or proper. It was an accident but it starts out like that. They get excited and they run over. But then you get the visual, you get the other dogs ran out and so he probably got a different mindset at that time. So our introductions are always done on leash. We go for leash walks, socialize them, acclimate them to each other using their nose and that's how we do countless introductions. We can have two dogs just at each other and by the time we're done they're friends. So I did want to say that I'm so sorry for what you went through because I know that's traumatizing and I've seen it. It's very alarming and I understand where you're coming from. So I'm sorry that that happened. But they are great dog owners are very responsible before this happens. Shannon is working with our trainer who has her own business which I would definitely recommend hearing from her because she knows him too and Juno's been nothing but a positive dog. So you mentioned that the dog was adopted four years ago. How old is the dog currently? He was five at that time. So that would make me nine. Thank you. Nine years old now. I don't have a date of birth. I always keep a profile sheet for every dog we call because I pull the dogs. I assess them. I talk with my partners, make sure that they are adoptable dogs and this is hence original from August of 2019 and all the notes on here is nothing but good notes. He's smiley. He's social. He wags his tail. He greets people. He's good with other dogs and this is original and we've known him since he arrived here on transport and he only went to Shannon's home and that was it. He has not been bounced around. He's been with one owner since he got here. He was the foster and then she adopted him. And so we have that four-year history from adoption or from coming to you and then adoption by Shannon. We don't know the five years beforehand and I don't think we're going to be able to ever get to a point of knowing the full history of an animal when they come to us. If we could get that, we would be so far ahead of ahead of it. But when animal control picks up a dog, they can have a lot of different reactions. They can be very fearful and they can be very defensive just because they're scared. He did not show anything towards animal control and being brought into the shelter, which is a very scary place for dogs. And when Juno was in the shelter at that point in time, are they around other dogs? Yes. Around other dogs at that point? Yep. They have a play yard. They have big open panels with screening walls. Dogs are walking by constantly. Dogs are barking constantly. Some are super stressed and scared and some are just waiting to go out into the play yard to play. So again, this was an accident. It wasn't a super by incident that had control and I think they've taken quite a bit of responsible measures to make it more foolproof. And the underground fences is a big priority because that is a professional way to keep a dog in a yard to avoid this happening again. So I just want to remind you that they are doing that. Goddamn. These underground fences, I'm somewhat familiar with them. It's a shot collar basically. Dog wears collar, I assume. There's all that. It has different levels. Different levels. You can crank it up. And in my experience, talking with dog handlers that I've worked with in my career, when a dog is driven, a dog will go and once they break beyond, there's a certain boundary and they can break through that. If they're willing to put up pain, they will go through that barrier. They can't get back into their yard once they clear that because the shock goes both ways. Yeah, I understand. Just listen. So when you say it works, it works for a dog that doesn't have something driving it or something that's really got it, just like a human being, when your adrenaline is pumping and you do amazing things, a dog and dogs, as much as you do your analysis of dogs coming to you, just like human beings, when people are under stress, you can try and analyze a person all you want. But then all of a sudden, boom, they snap for whatever reason. Something happens and I've heard it from people describing their relatives or whatever that I've dealt with in my career. Oh, they never did this. They're shocked that they ever did this. Are dogs really any different? I understand your point because some are very stubborn, yes, if they're that driven and they are actually aggressive, I guess. I have six dogs at my house. I have one of these fences and four of my dogs are hunters. So a chipmunk, a rabbit, that is a prey drive and it's very strong and that fence stops them. Well, I'm glad it works for you, but I'm just saying to say, to use it as a definitive, when I hear these definitions of this is not going to happen again, this is not, this is, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. I'm very skeptical about all these definitions about how they're going to prevent and blaming themselves. You can do all you want. A dog has its own mind, makes its own choices for whatever reason. We don't get into the animal's minds. We think we know what they're thinking. We don't know. Yeah, I was just at testing. They're putting another layer in place to avoid this happen. That's great. D, D, if I just ask a question, but the, a shock call, you put a shock caller on the dog when you know you're going to put the dog outside. You don't, the shock caller isn't on the dog 24 hours a day. Mine were at all day. Yeah, we're all day long. Okay. And they go in and out of the door. They were professionally trained by Dog Watch of Vermont. He trains them. It starts out with a B. It's professional training. There are store bought fences that people try to put in and they try to train their own dogs. It's maybe not quite as effective and those fences are not quite as good, but this professional fence, it's excellent and he does the training. He's done it with all types of dogs, German shepherds. He actually raised and trained German shepherds as well. So, you know, I agree with your point that if a dog is going to be red line, whatever driven, if they want to go through that fence and get shocked, I guess you're not going to stop that on, on an occasion, but generally speaking, they work very well. The only problem is we can't, we can't live our lives on General Adelies and just saying generally speaking. So this happens again. And we say, well, no, we're going to do this. We're going to take this next step. No, there is no next. I think we can all agree that there's the only few things that are, are finalities and 100% are deaths and taxes. Right. Other than that, correct. Everything else. There you go. There's an error zone somewhere. Yeah. A lot of people own dogs and we, you know, nothing is perfect and full proof. I think being a responsible dog owner training juniors and recall training right now. So, you know, I would urge you to talk with his trainer to a testament as well because he's the first time offender and he's got an excellent history of being a good dog. Other questions for Robin? No. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Robin. Rainer. Yep. We call it trainer. Hi. Raise your right hand. You square the testimony you're about to provide will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you out. Yes, sir. You provide your name, what your qualifications are and talk a little bit about the training and information you want to share with the trustees. So my name is Katie Anderson. I'm training without conflict, certified professional trainer. It doesn't mean anything to anybody in this room except for me. But basically, I got my training through a high level. Again, word salad, IGP, Shitsyn trainer in Florida. IGP Shitsyn is what you see with the protection dogs, the dogs working in their highest level of drive, being able to call them on voice control out of a bite command, which they're supposed to do or call them in or tell them to hold. He is the person that trained me as a three-time world champion in that sport. So we work a lot with dogs and drive. So I've been certified for two years. I worked with Shana and Juno July 2021 and August and September. And I was initially contacted for recall training and we did do with an e-caller and we also used to address the question about walking on leash. We've put in a leave it command. So if Juno was fixating too much on other dogs on the sidewalk, we could say Juno leave it and he would look away from the other dog and breaking the stare of two dogs staring each other down will break that tension. So even if the other dog is acting barky and lungy, if we can say to the dog that we're handling leave it and they do, it tends to diffuse that other dog and diffuse the entire situation. If you're walking your dog down the street and you have it on leash and it's kind of foraging ahead and there's another dog coming toward you and both dogs are staring at each other and foraging and both humans keep walking that rewards both dogs state of mind of I'm going to get you know I'm going to get you everybody's rewarding it as they're walking closer. If one person in that situation can say leave it and the dog actually does then the other dog relaxes just a little just a little usually and then when that dog relaxes we can say leave it again and then this is this is you got to get ahead of it a little bit but that's what we worked on we reinforced it both with positive and negative reinforcement positive reinforcement being leave it we say leave it the dog gets a cookie good boy we keep walking the continuation of the walk is also positive reinforcement stop me if I'm getting too far into this I'm just trying to lay a groundwork negative reinforcement is we layer in an adversive most people are familiar with the e-caller I actually used a prong collar or pinch collar they're designed to to pinch over the dog's neck like the mom dog communicates to the puppies they say no thank no thank you don't do that the dog says sorry I won't so negative reinforcement the most important thing is the dog has to be able to escape and avoid the reinforcement so we say command first leave it they leave it they can actually escape the thing that they don't like the correction so the absence of the reinforcement is the reward if we want to double down on that we can reinforce with a treat typically negative reinforcement is more powerful and more of a lasting way to communicate with our dogs because the absence of a treat is the reward so if we're training with treats eventually we fade the treats out now they're no longer getting paid but if we're actually training with the lack of a reinforcement they're still getting paid even if they're not getting anything because they're escaping and avoiding in addition we can build dogs confidence when taught negative reinforcement correctly imagine you're skiing and you pick a hard line you don't fall and bust your face if you fell and hurt your face that would be negative reinforcement you don't fall you don't hurt your face feel a little jazzed up you feel good you want to hit that run again the same idea anyway that's the basis on which we did the leave it command and the recall command that was as I said July 2021 training dogs training behaviors just like training and working out at the gym or dieting is prone to extinction and it's you know you have to stay on top of it um like I said negative reinforcement is significantly less prone to extinction because the lack of the reinforcement is the reward but every once in a while they do need to be reminded question for you Katie sorry are you saying that beginning in July of 2021 was when you started this recall and leave a training with Juno and how long has that been going on or when did so we did it July August at September of 2021 okay yeah and are you still currently training Juno or was that the time I'm guessing we will be like since yes September but since September of 2021 you have not no uh other than answering questions to shana over the phone or in right in conversation but no official training while we were doing that training we were working off of I have I had three dogs at the time I have four now we were working off of three of my dogs two of medium to large size and one four pound Yorkshire Terrier Juno was able to recall off of on verbal command without an additional negative reinforcement off of all three dogs and I keep one of my dogs a little hot meaning um he's vocal he barks he lunges I keep him that way so that I can work him off of dogs that are nervous of that so if you have if you're working with a trainer and they bring out their perfect dog that's great my dog's great with perfect dogs too if I keep one a little hot a little edgy and we can work off of that then it's a good sign you know if he can walk by Brody who's barking and lunging at him and he says leave it and he does that's that's a test it's a good test it's not walking by the one that doesn't look at him so um you had asked a question about if you open your door and your dog goes out he runs in the woods that's this yeah yeah yeah yeah so that um that certainly happens um what I think happened and I of course was not there haven't seen any videos but I'm just interpreting what's being said um so there's something called barrier frustration so fences are very they create this leashes create this you walk through a neighborhood and all the dogs in the neighborhood are barking against their fence they bark at their fence they don't have a lot to do during the day their owners are working they're bored in their fence they figure out oh this gets a little exciting they bark at their fence the other dog goes away now they think they accomplished something they think they scared or caused that other dog to go away so dogs will get into this bad habit of barking at their fence line scaring other dogs away scaring they're not really the dogs out for the walk but that's what they think they're doing they get wrapped up they get fired up they have a good time doing it um somebody had mentioned Kevin had mentioned when they were moving he heard the dogs barking outside of the fence okay then he puts them inside and the dogs like oh the door's open it's our chance this is I don't think I think if they were in it's hard saying not knowing but I think they got fired up out here and then went inside and realized the door was open and that's what drove that hot hot attraction if that makes sense trying I'm trying not to use too many word salads just I mean the positive and negative reinforcement conversation alone was probably too much but um so that I think defense situation ignited the drive in addition to that there's three dogs and not just one so they're all feeding into it but those three dogs are going to be together and my point was that the other dog I don't have the sense that the other day they were arguing across the fence with them no the other dog was planted seated waiting to go on a walk with its owners and Juno made a beeline right to the dog it wasn't so I understand what you're saying in terms of the dog behavior but yeah it it still seems like to me there's a there's a dynamic component there of Juno seeing and seeing another dog and going right at it I'm not totally sure I get what you understand the concept you're saying but I'm but I don't think any of us can say that that's exactly what happened we're theorizing this is something of course always but it but there's also an explanation that Juno went out and saw another dog and made a beeline and very aggressive moved right at that another strange dog went right at yeah um that I'm not yeah I the video will definitely show I'm the video will show um sometimes it's I sometimes it's two dogs start the momentum and then the third dog goes in I mean again yeah there were three dogs and there's always going to be three dogs let me ask you and maybe I should have asked this of another but you're you're you're you work a lot with dogs so I'm out walking my dog and another in let's just hype since we're dealing with hypothetical another dog attacks my dog and it's bite it's got my dog by the neck already biting now in question already biting you already biting already biting the dog yep so as was the case here so then I reach down and as we said you the dog basically goes deaf the dog basically is is totally full on it's sort of like its limbic system is kicked in so to speak it's it's in for the bite so but I'm an owner this has never happened to me before I panic and I start hitting on that dog doing everything I can to pull that dog off my my the dog that I love mm-hmm what's the chance that I might get bitten it usually does depend on the breed so a German shepherd probably you it depends on the breed and the training of the dog some some breeds will bite and lock on to that one dog and they typically do not exchange their grip they will bite and lock some will usually terriers are snappy all over and they'll redirect on you um it depends on the dog but typically when a dog is locked on that's what they want again hard saying not knowing but but we could understand in that situation it the dog and the dog isn't necessarily biting the person the dog is just biting and and it's biting everything it it's both comes in contact with and a human reaching down trying to pull that dog off could get bitten by one of the five dogs in the situation I mean there were five dogs here you know I mean it was it was it Juno was it one of the other five I mean well I'm I'm asking again you know and it just because if if if Juno was was to go back into this neighborhood and Juno somehow gets loose and there's a repeat of this situation with someone else's dog and Kevin isn't there to pull Juno off and you have a little old guy like me okay and I'm struggling to get Juno off of my my little dog and it's very likely I might get Juno might I might get my hand in there and I could get bit see that's what we I have to consider to concern myself the history is great and the dog behavior is great but it's it's in a sense it's almost you know I have to deal with this with the situation as I as I see it and Juno went out and went out another dog and it's very plausible that Ms Racine was bitten trying to pull Juno or trying to intercede to get Juno off oh she definitely was bitten trying to get Juno off I'm just not sure if it was Juno or not I think in the case that you're talking about you I would be much more concerned for your dog I I think you would have a hard time actually getting Juno off of your dog right that would be the harder time okay you might I mean you that would be the harder challenge I you said dogs lock on so this breed the American Staffordshire Terrier or some derivative of that breed I assume this is what we're talking about Staffordshire Terrier uh yeah the the bully mixed breed yes whatever I don't think there's been a DNA test on the dog maybe you have something maybe the owner does the mix the mix of different breeds in it but is that a breed that locks on the Staffordshire Terrier and the the bull type dogs typically yes yeah they have the big jaw muscles correct yes do we have any other questions for Katie no I'm good okay thank you guys anybody else is either a witness to the event we'll have direct evidence to the dog we would be interested in talking to them I correct your raise your right hand you swear the testimony you're about to provide will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guide absolutely please provide your name and context of what the information is you're providing let's see my name is Lindsay Lindsay Musia thank you I have been involved in dog rescue for about 10 years for two different dog rescues I have been with the national animal rescue team working in areas across the country with dogs that are coming out of fighting bus dogs that are coming out of hoarding situations I have owned dogs with aggressive histories I have worked with dogs with aggressive histories I don't interrupt yeah sorry yeah is this specific yes I'm introducing myself and my correct all right thank you I'm introducing myself I'm also a medical provider in the community I'm a nurse that has worked on a burn-shock trauma floor for many years I've seen smallings of people in many dog bites so I do have extensive history in this I have not only been a part of the rescue process for Juno I have seen him interact with other dogs in a positive manner I have seen plenty of opportunities in which a dog that has true dog aggression in those situations would have acted out but Juno had not I think that's a true testament to his character and his capabilities around other dogs there are a couple things I'd like to point out to clear the air as this was a very good scary situation it is extremely rare when we see dogs with dog-to-dog aggression that they also have human directed aggression had the other dog not been standing out there I think it would be highly unlikely knowing Juno having seen him in multiple situations over the years that he would have be lined up for a child or a human and what we need to remember in this situation this is a case of dog-to-dog aggression the pounding on the head while it was entirely excusable and most people would resort to using any physical measures to separate the dogs did unfortunately send the dog into further drive I think maybe we'll see that on the video and I think any dog regardless of breed when being physically altered is more likely to bite down and create more damage every day at dog parks across Chilling County we see multiple dogs at large there are actually a very small percentage of dogs that can go to a dog park and not get into a dog fight I have seen dogs run across the dog park and attack another dog unprovoked if I were to run up to you right now and get in your face it would not be a receivable you might act funny I guess why are you acting funny I just want to give you a hug and it might get weird we would have a lot of dogs needing muzzles needing fences needing to be euthanized if we were to have this discussion every single week with every dog fight that happens at the dogs at large at dog parks across Chilling County okay I understand your background and what you're talking about here yeah a little while ago I just brought up the thing about this dog being the prior speaker being a dog that locks these dogs from my experience and what I've seen and learned from talking to dog handlers these dogs will lock on they have the most powerful jaws and of dogs out there the bold breed and they lock on once they lock on it's it's like a vice grip and they'll shake and they'll you know they they're tearing their the intent for that animal is to kill that other dog not necessarily well it's its intent going for the juggler being going for the neck it's not like it's biting its tail or biting its hind end it's going to the neck the neck is a vital area just as it is with human beings if you want to take somebody out you go for their neck or their eyes you go for sure and that's what when it's locked on you don't know what it's going to do so you're saying that if the human hadn't been there she wouldn't have been bitten but if the human hadn't been there you can't tell me that that dog her dog would not be dead and you can't tell me that that dog would not be a lie there are a lot of instances where dogs grant listen listen please please please listen where spiritualized aggression i hear what you're saying i can't guarantee the dog maybe it did did it but we got to use what happened we know for fact that this dog ran on to other person's property unprovoked and attacked this dog so that we know for sure the facts we know is that other dog didn't go on the other property correct didn't provoke this is an unprovoked attack that's a fact correct so what goes from there we can we can go on what ifs if this if that all these ifs you know but at the same time you guys are speculating that that dog would have died there are many instances could have died could have but do not um and i want to clear something it has been long refuted that pit bulls do not have lock jaws we don't even know that i don't even know the breed makeup of this dog but we're talking about breed specific stuff now and it's getting a little i'm not saying lock jaw i'm just saying that i spoke to the woman that was up there prior said this is a breed that locks their when they bite their tend to lock on to something i'm saying it's locked jaw but it's it's got an incredibly powerful jaw sure many and tend to like you like she was saying i think it was you maybe you said something about the nip nip nip with the terrier different breeds tend to have different types of behavior okay so this breed has a very strong jaw and can do severe damage to to whatever it locks on to and whenever decides to release as kevin's stated when he got on there he's trying to pull this is a full grown strong man trying to pull this probably what 60 70 i don't know how big this dog is you know but but just a dog that's in a in a state where it wants to attack this other dog for what to what end to just to attack it and walk away after it's attacked it who knows but thankfully there was human intervention and somebody got hurt and i don't want to see that ever again ever anybody absolutely that being said it's this dog's first offense and i i will i cannot understand or fathom that another that any dog any human would not be given a second chance based off of the situation to two quick things i would just caution us about over generalizations in particular when dog breeds can have general behaviors humans of certain characteristics can have similar behaviors but yeah we are all unique in our own way so we can't broadly say because this one fits into one bucket this is exactly what's always going to happen i would also just ask us be mindful about interrupting each other to be mindful about allowing people to have to say what they need to say especially when we're trying to go through the evidentiary hearing part um so that's the only portion i want to say i have nothing else raj did you have a question you can you can still stay up here uh lindsay in case for another question that was where i was gonna go oh okay okay thank you lindsay thank you i've got about anyone else that has direct evidence related to the bite of the witness again there'll be an opportunity with the trustee long after comments that are unrelated if you have a comment that's just for direct evidence at the moment i'm sorry am i heard i'm i'm on zoom i if you can hold on just a moment i think katherine that yes that's me we'll come we'll come back to zoom in a little bit awesome okay thank you can you raise your hand you swear the testimony you were about to arrive will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guys yes please write your name and provide the information you're writing what context how you connected my name is jacob sabio i'm a brand of shana's and kevin's and have uh this is basically just a character um attachment for the dog i have some experience with the dog we have small children i have two 15 month old twins that have both been around the dog um about face height to his height and it's never been any issue uh i've dog sat for juno three years ago so probably a year after and we have a dog of our own that we allowed to be dog sat by shanna um to share the home with juno any other dog and there was never any issue um we've always i've never seen any aggressive behavior but that's only my experience um the only second part that i had was a question to get some clarification from the statute because i'm not sure if i heard it correctly but does the statute say did i hear correctly that the only reason that we can rule on this is if it's unequivocal that you know which dog fit um the human we know that juno fit the other dog state statue is clear that our capability here is in relation to a domestic pet or wolf hybrid uh bite to a human okay that part is clear and so if if you cannot determine which dog fit the human it would be up to us to determine whether or not we have enough information okay yeah thank you yep questions no thank you uh i believe there was a kathryn on yes kathryn on zoom do you have testimony uh or direct evidence in relation to this situation um i have known juno since shanna adopted him um and i lived with her summer um can you hear me hang on go ahead rick kathryn i need to if you're going to provide evidence i need to swear you in okay can you raise your hand please can you see me yes and see you can you raise your right hand please you swear the testimony you were about to provide will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the true self you got i do thank you if you can introduce yourself and then provide the information you want to thank you um hi my name is kathryn um i have known juno since he moved in with shanna four years ago um and i lived with her this summer for a few months so i was around juno um and buddy and hazel and um the three dogs together for months and i took them on walks and i spent plenty of time with them um i'm five feet tall and 110 pounds and i never had any issues watching walking juno on a leash um with hazel i never had um the third dog with me as well on a leash but i would quite often take the two of two of them on a walk and um i can testify to my experience with him seeing other dogs me in my small stature never felt discomfort or threatened or that i felt like i didn't have control of him thank you is there anyone else that has direct evidence or it was a witness to me i swear you in please raise your right hand you swear the testimony you were about to provide will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guys yeah you can please introduce yourself and provide information as a place to the incident um my name is i'm on demelo dennery and i work for shanna i've been working for her since like i think september um i had only met juno maybe like once or twice really briefly um and she had asked me to watch him and kevin's dog buddy for one night and so i went over and i did that and he was totally fine he was snuggling up to me and barely knew me and i think it's safe to assume that most dogs take a little while to get to know someone before they just cuddle up with them but juno is a people person he doesn't he i've never seen him once harm any person before um and my girlfriend came over that night as well and he had never met her previously and he was completely fine with her and in the morning i woke up and he was cuddling on top of me um he's a great dog and before before i even met him or knew who he was um shanna would talk about juno and hazel and i had no idea who they were she talks about them as if they are her children which i think is like so awesome and it's it just shows how much he loves them um she also has an instagram account for them and she dresses them up often and um she just loves them so much and she cares for them so much she has like so many treats for them she has mind games for them she has toys for them like everything that they could possibly need she has and she just she loves them so much um and earlier we were talking about the precautions that they are taking i used to work at a jail and i don't know how to word this but they i feel like it's pretty hard to escape from jail right um so with all these precautions i think it's really similar um as it is like for humans escaping jail i don't think that juno is going to just like hop over a fence or like dig a hole through a fence and then get shot i think that he will like learn to stay there um so i just wanted to put that out there um and then two more things um the correct term is not aggressive for a dog it is reactive that's just the correct term i um i'm a member of passing for pause as well um and i've like learned a lot about that um the next thing is i don't know how to say your last name but mr chala right it's fine okay um you were getting a little bit i don't know i don't know how to word it but you didn't like have um Anthony was talking about and shanna was talking about how the woman was like slapping juno on the head right um slapping an animal on the head is only going to provoke them even more um and like we're talking about an animal here if you slap an animal on the head i'm not saying do know bit the sleeve here anything we don't know what dog bit her but that's going to provoke the dog and make them want to bite you and i i don't have a lot of experience with like dog behavior or anything and you were kind of like saying that to anthony like well not everyone's going to know that that should be a common like that's just like common knowledge you don't slap a dog on the head especially a rescue dog that has been through fairly a lot but i just want to put that up there as well and i'm trying to be polite i'm not trying to be absolutely i appreciate it i just want to be clear again that when you are in the middle of a dog attack what a shoulda coulda um when you're dog that we're all talking about how much we love our dogs and your personal safety is at risk i think that was insensitive it's all insensitive like saying to say to question her reaction and to question the logic and to assume logic is going to come and play we don't have to get out of this room i hear what you're saying i don't disagree necessarily but i think when you're in the heat of that and that's happening i've been there what should i do i wonder if this is a rescue dog should i hit it on the head or should i kick it what's available to me i'm not going to pull its jaws off so i i think that that's a little bit unrealistic to expect the perfect response when you're standing in your yard with your dog and then our dog comes to text so it's all i'm saying not mad at you not mad at anybody i just sounded surprised and it keeps coming up so i'm keep talking that's all so i'm just gonna recommend we leave that part there what what has happened the person's reactions that's come and gone we're not here to critique that that's a totally separate conversation i can happen outside the meeting is there more evidence that you have to provide um thank you still what still scoring in oh i have to say it or yeah you swear that test when you're about to provide will be the truth whole truth and nothing but yes i do you can please provide your name and the information i believe in sure so my name is jessica frank um i'm sorry that we're all here tonight i think we can all agree no one wants to be here for this reason and i'm very sorry that this did happen i think we've all been in interactions before where we've had dog on dog interactions or dog on people interactions and they're not but i'm very sorry i am sorry that happened too but i do want to provide some just general knowledge and character for juno i've also been with passion for pause rescue just to introduce myself with about four years now and i'm actually just wanted to start out with a question to all of you and how many of you i think i've heard a few do you say but how many do you have dogs and how many of you have rescue dogs what rescue dog i would ask is if you're providing evidence that you let us know what the evidence is thank you so i just wanted to say it was going to just point out that i think having a rescue dog there's a lot of learning that happens and i know that shana personally has done a lot of learning as we've gone through this rescue i've known juno for probably almost two years now and i also just want to just speak a little bit about some of the precautions and things like that as well i've been to juno or shana's house and when you ski a number of times and i've had all of her dogs including kevins when they were still over there come to the door to greet me and i would also just like to point out that none of them have been bum rushed the door to get out of the house and run across the street they're there to greet me they say hello and they have had opportunities at shana's previous residents residents and get a best-off area in her deck area none of them have come out in a charging way so i also just wanted to let you all know that just as a character of juno he is probably the sweetest most lovable dog i have often gone to to her house and said man i wish i could have this dog he is an absolute love bug i think we can all agree is everyone has stated this is a very isolated incident it was an accident and i just wanted to encourage all of you that as you consider this and make your decisions that you put yourself in both shoes and just try to understand both perspectives and where everyone's coming from juno is an absolute wonderful dog and just to speak on shana's behalf as his owner shana has worked extremely hard with all of her dogs to make sure that they have the best life possible as you guys heard before these dogs are coming from some situations we don't know their history she has worked so hard not knowing that history to give juno and her dog hazel every opportunity to learn to grow and to be the best dog that they can be so i just wanted you all to know that shana as well would do anything for her dogs and whatever you guys consider at the end of this meeting i know there's been lots of talk about electric fences and whatnot and i hope that when you guys have a potential recommendation as well that you consider those and i know that both shana and kevin will take those into considerations implement them and put them in place as soon as possible so i appreciate your time tonight i really do and i hope you guys make a really great decision on the on juno's behalf thank you just thank you we're gonna we're gonna hold on we've been yeah not not this moment in time okay so we're gonna close the portion of the hearing where we're taking evidence and we're gonna move to deliberation um i would remind or the trustees um the statute under which we are ordering and specifically if a domestic pet where a wolf hybrid is found to have bitten a victim without provocation the municipal official shall make an order for the protection of persons persons as the facts and circumstances of the case may require including that the domestic pet or wolf hybrid uh is disposed in a humane way muzzled chain confined and as we discussed the board has the latitude to do other things such as training and that type of stuff yeah we also talked about watching the video yeah watch the video yeah before we do which as that's coming up i guess i would just also say that for those in the room if it's is something that will have um graphic details possibly sounds pictures that might be disturbing um to anybody online who'd be watching that as well uh if that bothers you or something you do not want to see please feel free to turn around walk out of the room turn off your computer do whatever you have to do for yourself and just make sure these folks are going to see it because we're we're not seeing offering we're still seeing Catherine started sharing your screen i haven't yet so there is sound it didn't come through i have a question um is it janelle the you're janelle right um it's your right hand that was bitten and you were pounding on the dog that was locked on with your right hand okay just wanted to clarify that okay any questions i i i want to keep doing this is could we watch it in slow motion a little bit i'm sorry it just i want to just be i'm trying to there's a whole group of dogs in the air and i just wanted to see the who are the who are the other dogs around the top of the frame the big black dog i know you should the person holding it that's our other the one with the hackles up okay all right on the left i think it's this dog here and that's my dog up in the left with the person of the leash okay thank you okay let me know if you made a pause at a certain point to figure out who's here okay because i don't think i can okay so can't see Juno no Juno's i'm assuming being covered by kevin at that point in time possibly blocked a little bit by janelle as well and janelle that's you with you with the with the blue coat and a hat and you're reaching and looks like you've got your right arm reaching down into the middle of the dog contest right there okay okay the fray can you stop it and so janelle you were right there you were at first you had your hand down there and you were reaching towards the dogs because the one dog had the other dog by the neck and you i'm sorry do we need to i just want to clarify i'm just trying to understand so you were reaching down and what can i ask a question what were you trying to do when you were reaching did were you trying to pull the other dog off or what were you trying to do and that was the hand that was bitten yeah okay okay Regina is there any chance i mean in our packet we were given these still photos of this incident yeah and i think it would be beneficial if we could pull up that package and if you could go to those specific still photos they give us a better viewpoint of what dogs are doing what you know which dog is doing which you know because i'm looking at the pictures here and it's much easier to to see and you know this you know a full frame and and with movement it's difficult to really discern what's happening here i've got it on mine if you need to be but whatever that's your hand yeah and now here these pictures here keep going right there so i don't know if we can yeah i'm just trying to see if i got the one that i'm looking at right here there's one below those i believe let me see and who do you enlarge it maybe a little bit there we go sit down right there so this is june this is you know here i sit right here yes okay right too close to it okay and then there's another picture where it looks like both dogs are okay right here in this picture here it looks like this black dog but i can see it hackles it off but the hair is a lab it's kind of bent over that that kevin's dog is in yeah okay did anybody need anything else no okay okay yeah i think we just had it there so all this is for us at this point in time i appreciate the comments but we'll bring it back to this council on this one thank you rick um so there's no other evidence is does everybody feel that they're ready to have our liberation yeah i mean andrew could i just one question for you could i ask rick question regarding the statute on this when we're talking about this dog bite situation when when you say a dog in the you know a bite of a human does it necessarily have to be the dog i mean we're saying which dog did the bite do we have to establish which dog did the bite or just that there's a dog bite asking for my personal opinion well i think you have to establish which dog yeah so i'm just gonna ask that it's not a conversation for the audience to this point in time it's a conversation for our city council here to make a determination so your victim is reporting that it was an injury that occurred from that okay and she has an injury then and she called a doctor so i think one of the questions was about medical attention the statute requires that so i think you fulfilled that okay i think the burning question for the trustees is um is that a dog bite and did one of the uh owner's dogs where did the bite come from because if it doesn't meet that then you can't i believe you cannot if the ascension you can't determine that because you can't officially say that you can't determine that and while it's very clear that there is a a dog on dog act another very clear that another dog has been significantly harmed um that is outside the purview of the hearing it is outside of the of what state statutes allow for us to do no matter how personally we may want to intervene we are not allowed to um buy state statute to intervene on dog versus dog that is absolute correct this is only about two of them correct okay we do have a person telling us that that's how it happened okay we we had a lot of folks and they out was all great testimony and i appreciate it all but miss racine's father had wanted to speak and i i would it be okay to have him before we begin our deliberations and we had some of the other people spoke who weren't actually at the scene and i'm wondering if mr racine would or i'm not sure as mr racine or her dad had something important to say that might help us is it i think what you had said before is that it's not evidence about um the event that happened uh is it a character uh testimony about the incident those involved in the incident i i'm just gonna speak for myself counselors tell me if you feel differently i i've heard a lot of evidence i've seen the video i don't know if anything's going to impact the way that i feel okay from what i've seen i hear what you're saying and i agree with you there i've heard a lot but i heard a lot of information from people talking about the character of the owner of the owner of this dog the dog itself instameter i think her father can contribute as much to that or more so he there means his daughter he's known her for her whole life obviously you know and the dog i presume is well through the i don't know how long you know maybe we could find out how long she's had that dog i mean from a puppy on so she she knows the character of her own dog pretty well you know it's not like it you know so i think there's stuff he could bring why aren't you coming up you can raise your right hand please which way the testimony you're about to provide will be the truth of the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you back please provide your name and then provide the information related to the dog and the character witness for you hello my name is julielle i'm janelle dad she was pulio before she was married to her name change machine um i just want to talk just a minute about janelle herself um she doesn't have one mean bone in her body she doesn't like dogs she loves dogs she had three of them she had three of them until one was put down like two days or three days or one day right before this happened for old age and health issues so she loves dogs and for her to be here she's very shaken she was a very traumatic experience for her father i watched that video too many times and i watched the still shots too many times she's now afraid to go out of her house she's afraid to walk by that house there's no margin of error you saw the video if you'd like like you pointed out the still shots of the actual photographs describe it well we're talking about one dog here one dog bite one dog bite those still shot that black dog was on one side of the neck the tan dog was on the other side of the neck we're not talking about a dog bite here dogs bark dogs bite each other this was a dog attack i felt like i was watching a movie they were both on one side of the neck and the other side of and and we're also talking about i understand passion and compassion for a dog and i expected that testimony to get tonight i was just i'm going to use amazed and shocked to hear the aggression the transition to my daughter striking a dog to get off her own dog that dog was a loving labrador retriever that wouldn't hurt a fly but there was a dog on him and i heard testimony about 10 seconds it looked to me like 15 20 seconds that dog would not release i don't know anybody in their right mind that wouldn't strike a dog that wouldn't release so there's a lot of focus on the dog i'm sure these people are very nice people and that dog may have been a nice dog but that dog attacked without propulsion and was aggressive and would have killed that in my opinion because they both got a hole in both sides of that neck and in my opinion that dog does not belong in a residential area does not belong in a residence i'll just leave it no one should live in to be a walking out of their house and it the talk has been talking about like flipping the tides and flipping the situation around but any of you want to have that dog next door both of those dogs living next door to you with a five month old baby and two other labrador retrievers i hope you weigh that into this decision as well thank you thank you okay so back to the the matter at hand personally no matter how much i can i would not want to be in your shoes i would not want to have my own now 13 year old son when he was five months old we've always had small 13 pounder or smaller dogs i would not want to have to walk by and feel that's every every day i'm not seeing anything with any unequivocal evidence that shows what dog caused that to your hand so personally i cannot in good conscience say that's because of this very clear evidence of what dog did this to you this is what i would recommend or this is what i would like for our board to do if we could based on the dog versus dog aggression that we've seen and if state statute allowed us to i would have a completely different statement or completely different things to say to you but i don't and so from that i'm personally sorry and that's the way i feel that unfortunately i don't have enough to vote to recommend some kind of an order i would turn it over to those of you who can feel differently so if if we had this happen and you can perhaps speak to this with experience how often do you get video with these situations almost never yes of one thousand yep so what happens when you have a group two groups coming in and saying that this bite was the result of this incident what has the board done in the past you have one person janelle saying i got bit by this dog multiple dogs whatever you have this other group saying they're not i mean with that video i mean i think the video is muddling the situation it's not helpful it's not relevant that's what i think and were it not for the situation starting in the first place then andrew probably would i have no reason not to trust her but now i've got this video that doesn't help it's failed uses in that in this particular question so really it doesn't belong here so i'm wondering what would have happened if it was determined that the video was inconclusive and we shouldn't see the first place you know i mean and we the trustees have had two hearings where they had people come in and testify and gave completely different stories about what happened the trustees then had to deliberate make a decision about what they felt was accurate or not accurate and if it fulfilled the statutes and then issued the order to that so again i think the issue comes back to i think you've met the dog off the owner's property piece you've met an injury to a person you've met medical attention i think the piece that you have to deliberate on is can you are you uh do you think there's evidence to be able to say that that dog caused that injury in which case you can then issue an order well i i i i can speak from i thought actually say thank the video helped me because i could see that the dog that was being bitten um if you say three dogs are in a in a fray but the dog that was being bitten was basically screaming trying to get loose and the other two dogs were biting its neck and janelle reached down and tried to grab one grab those other dogs off so to me it helped me i can't say which of those two the black lab or the the uh the pit bull did the biting and which ones tooth may have have punctured her her finger um but i think that based on what you're saying in terms of dog bite incidents it's it's it's about as convincing as anything can be that one it what the tooth the teeth of one of those dogs did the damage that was biting her dog um and so i you're right i we we focused on we heard a lot of testimony about one dog but we didn't hear about the other dog and and i don't want to go back and and go and talk about the other dog but it seems to me you we had a legitimate dog bite incident that again with that met all the other standards where the where the dogs both dogs left the property and came onto her property and and they they attacked her dog and she did anything that any and this is why i kept asking all the questions i asked any person in s6 junction who's out walking a dog or i had this happen to them they're not going to take they're not chances are they're not going to be a professional dog trainer and they're not going to react calmly they're going to react in in a way that could wind up getting them getting them bit and that is exactly what happened um and so i think we've met the standards here um i you know the concern i have with just putting an electric fence in is the issue that you raised in which is that um what happens if the the racine's dog is out in the yard one another time and those two dogs get loose and they say doesn't matter i'm going i'm going through the fence i'm going to go through the fence and i'm going to go back and get and get go after that dog again that's what concerns me how do you and we can say make all kinds of promises but how do we make sure that doesn't happen so my only thing george the order is uh on a specific dog yeah so who do you who do you put the order on i i can that's what i'm saying i can't i can't say what dog caused this i have assumptions but like there's no proof as to what dog did this well i mean looking that the reason i asked janelle the question about her hand being bitten and you know the right finger the right hand and i didn't see her dog's head near her and she was reaching i assume that that area but still even the fact that these dogs came on the juno the initial attack i assume with some juno coming across the property and then this other black dog that belongs to the owner of the property next door came in as well i assume they're they're friendly with each other and continued you know one the other side of the dog to attack that dog to attack the victim's dog i agree with george i don't think as rick has brought up in past they haven't even had video they've depended it's dependent upon what evidence is brought to you you get a victim here that's saying this and we're trying to this is not a criminal proceeding this is a civil well it's pseudo civil i mean in civil litigation you have reparative you know damages and you have punitive damages reparative damages would be what kevin and his girlfriend have done to pay for the medical fees punitive would be the punishment that's doled out punishment isn't going to be necessarily doled out on them it could be doled out in the on the animal itself obviously i don't want to see anything terrible happened to the either dog any of these dogs but i just my concern is the safety of other dogs people walking up and down that street i've done it i used to live in that area um and you know or children god forbid that i've experienced that in my career i've seen you know bites and the predictability of a dog any dog doesn't matter what breed it is you never know and i just i'm very concerned and i think something needs to be done i hear the i hear the concern i don't know how to write an order against an animal that we can't identify then then i you know because then it's outside of state's statute well we know this is what this is we're not we don't have to identify exactly the the fact we got we're identifying based on statements and information we've gained okay that my opinion that's enough for me and it's not proof beyond all doubt okay it's it's enough for me personally can i ask a question and you know and i apologize for asking this but can you tell me which dog that you don't know what i can do to them i this is horrific but it's so it's so bizarre because there are multiple dogs it it is the way the law is written it is a particular situation it is there's i don't just i don't want to hear any of the i'm sorry but this isn't the time for more public comment it doesn't make sense to me to say you i mean just again just just hypothetical you you two dogs i mean just let's let's put this situation aside what we're saying here is that one dog can go off someone off someone's property and attack you and that and that meets the statute but if two dogs who have someone's property and they come at you and you're fighting with them and you get feel yourself getting bitten you don't know which dog is the one that bit you we can't do it our hands are that seems i mean absolutely i may i may you know if i don't want to kick the can down the road but if that's sticking if that's the conclusion we're coming to then i might say let's let's take a time out and we'll get our our wonderful city attorney to give us a ruling on that because that doesn't that doesn't make sense to me to say you know a pack of dogs can attack somebody but only one does the biting and since we can't identify which one in the pack and then we can't hold the owner or the dog we can't our hands are tied until it happens again and we can isolate which dog did the biting that doesn't make sense to me Virginia you had a conversation with Claudine right yeah so i can offer that i talked with Claudine and we we talked about this concept of identifying if it was possible to identify the dog that did the biting your question that you're answering you're asking a slightly different thing but Claudine's take on this situation is that we are we only can work from the ordinance as described in state statute but if nothing if you can't reach if you can't pass the test that's been described there's nothing that prevents you from at least making a recommendation and it's not it's not in order and i understand that is not the hope here but a recommendation that keeps three dogs from coming unprovoked from one property to another property is at least something you can do and there is also the municipal ordinance where these three dogs were off their own property and out of control of their owner and you can the police can issue a fine on that it is a very small amount of money and it's not going to satisfy the situation but that's that's from her opinion what can be done at this stage i think i mean i'll i'll just move this along you know all of the things i wrote down that i wanted to that i would recommend we think about ordering it sounds like we're going to be done or i've already been started you know we've got if i understand it more secure backyard higher end consumer electric fence with good training for the front with the collars which i'm assuming is both dogs three dogs i don't remember at this point how many dogs there um you know and everything else they describe doing i i don't know this isn't a situation if i'm honest or i would have asked for the dog to be euthanized so i i think that the strange comfort here is that they're they're doing at least in my mind much of what i would have wanted them to do but i don't without it's a strange situation if this were i feel this would be a lot easier for me if there was just one dog on one dog because it's clear that the yellow lab was not doing any of that so let me pose this you're sorry go ahead just pose this to you roge um one of the things that we have possibly to answer this is to order the dog not be allowed in the in the village or the city and that is potential right there the dog was rescued once and the dog can be rescued again by somebody that lives in a more rural environment that won't be engaged with constant stimuli from pedestrians neighbors so close abutting their property that it gives it temptation to something can happen again that's one one way we can respond to this but i'm saying i don't think we can do anything i'm kind of with this right now i think um i just don't think we can do anything are you saying dan that we have the authority it's if you look in the thing here it says that you can we're well you find it under we can order the dog is not allowed in the within the municipality where are you referring to that there was somewhere in that let me pull it up here just a minute i think that's a few established it's a bit and the dog i bit something you i believe that is accurate yeah i think it we have established down that that which dog did the biting and we were what the issue is we can't right now so i don't we that that only applies if i i could just say i mean i think i think that just for for the record and for process my recommendation would be even though it's it's minimal i think the fine would be a good idea if we could do that under our ordinance but my concern is that um the the folks uh the the resins now have to live in kind of a fear situation and uh i'm not sure an electric fence i mean i would like to recommend that they put up a very big fence right across the front yard and so that this doesn't happen you you that's my that would be my recommendation and if i could enforce it that would be my enforcement to say one one one stop short of putting the dog euthanizing the dog would be to say we want to see a real i i would recommend putting a real physical barrier because and i would appeal to to the dog owners i don't want to go through everyone's you know go go through this all again and and we've been at this long enough but the one thing that i i saw was that that huge gash on that that dog's neck and the first question i had was what if that was a child what if that was a human you would be heavens you would have someone in intensive care right now and i don't think listen to all of you people you are good responsible people i don't think you want that on you and you're you got to understand as much as you have emotion about the dog i mean you got to understand that's fine and the character witness is fine but nevertheless this did happen and this dog mauled another dog and you just have an electric fence and this dog goes out and ask yourself how you're going to feel if that was a five-year-old it could happen so i would say you you should put up a a fence that that dog cannot electric fence is fine but i would put up a a fence that that dog cannot escape from no right across the front yard because if it goes out the out the front door it's it's free yeah i mean if there was a there was a child handling the lab in its yard that could have been even if the child wasn't the original target i mean it's yeah if the child reached his hand down into the these are just these are accidents that happen when other things happen and that's the that's the worry right so to help wrap that up yeah if what you would like to do is to at least ordinance is to make a make a motion that we would recommend not in order but that we would recommend that there be the installation of a stockade fence or a similar type or can be offensive there that prevents the dog from escaping as well as behavior training that would be approved of as i saw in a previous order approved of by the animal control officer yes uh within that shall be completed within six months yep go for that anything else so i think they're trying to do that sounds about that's another I mean and the enforcement of the city ordinance yeah yeah don't you think yep yep just just to have that as a record and I know it's not it's not it's a it's a small it's a tiny amount of money I know it's nothing it's just a but well thanks for saying yeah yeah so then Regina did you happen to also make those notes uh fence across the front of the property large enough to keep the dogs in and uh that was six months of training from a trainer recommended no within within six within six months that would be approved by the animal control officer just good clarification yeah when we're saying fence across the front of the property I'm fucking encompassing the property well not the front of they have a fence that goes around the back but I'm saying so there's no way the dog can go out any door and be out into the world can I can I escape it it can't get on the property however that fenced in however that works on the property correct it's a property encompassing fence yes George would you like to make that motion okay I will move um that the um s6 junction city council uh um impose the is it defined for the oh yes defined for the for the city dog ordinance for loose dog ordinance and recommend that the owner uh build a physical barrier such that the property that such that the dog cannot escape from the property and that the um the dog receive obedience uh training uh approved by the dog officer uh within the next six months I'll second that council is there any further discussion this is only for the council at this point in time no further discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed say nay great thank you I'm really sorry I wish that it could have been different if I may um the town has changed their animal ordinance I think it's worth taking a look at we will yeah there is specifically a thing that allows for complaints against animals that would potentially solve some of this okay something worth looking at thank you that section yeah that section e of uh title 20 chapter 193 some chapter one three five four six party about yeah if the voters of municipality allow for there to be additional ordinances um that we could then enforce those here within within the council so I think we have our new community development officer starting in February maybe we can prioritize that sooner rather than later great thank you all for those of you who came out and testified or attended uh I know that we have some people waiting um so let's jump to business items six beat uh six yeah six a now sorry the fetal square presentation on Whitcomb Woods renovation concept proposal and Cindy Reed I appreciate your two hour two hour and 20 minute patience absolutely you guys have you have got a hard job and I appreciate your service to your community a lot of thoughtful discussion um so thank you for this time I'll try to be really brief just given the time um so I'm the director of housing development at cathedral square um I think you all know who we are but we're a 45 year old um nonprofit um engaged in affordable housing for older adults and services and we own and operate Whitcomb Woods um which is 65 apartments over on west street um and we offer sash program there which is support and services at home um to help keep people um safely aging in their homes with wellness and prevention programs we're very appreciative of the city senior um van that provides transportation for the residents um and we're planning a renovation uh the property is 41 years old we purchased it and renovated it in 2003 um but now it's been 20 years later and we need some roofs and boilers and a number of other modernization features to improve the property and the living conditions there and um right now because we're in such a housing crisis um the push for many housing funders is for new units and we are developing new housing but in addition it's critically important that we invest in our portfolio and maintain um the quality of our existing housing so um Regina wrote a really positive letter of support which we appreciate to include with our funding applications and I basically um we're required to have a public hearing as part of our funding application so I wanted to just let you know that um this is a important community for us and it serves um an important need in the town we're committed to preserving the affordability and the condition of the property and also protecting the residents um first and foremost we have 229 people on the wait list it's um generally 100 occupied unless there's someone in hospital or go to nursing home that kind of thing um so really that was the purpose of my wanting to meet with you tonight was to talk about our plans to renovate the property we're hoping to pull together funding and permits this year and start construction around February of 2023 but that may be delayed if it takes longer to get our funding so we may be we may be needing some more support from the town just to um for our funding applications but um I'll keep in touch with you and I just wondered if anyone had any questions or concerns for me about this property and our plans. Plea appreciation for the fact that we have Woodcombe Woods here in our community yeah it's absolutely uh trying its best to help fill a a gap that exists within our community within our county within our state um the services provided by Cathedral Square for not only just the physical four walls and a roof but then also the sash services are just absolutely instrumental um and greatly appreciated that that exists in our community and I wish that there was more of it um at the same time needing to rehabilitate those units is also equally important to make sure that they're living with with as much dignity as possible um and that they're they're treated humanely uh and that their living corridors are as as wonderful as they can possibly be so just nothing but appreciation excited that this is going to happen great thank you so I'll keep in touch with you and appreciate your time tonight and um all the good and hard work that you're doing to um keep your community healthy and safe yeah yeah I'm sure all right thanks Shabin thank you very much thank you Cindy okay um do you mind if we take five minutes yeah I yeah okay we need five minutes uh we're gonna take a about a five minute break give or take a couple just to give us some time recording in progress thank you all and we are back uh George I just had a question Andrew in terms of process because I see that we are supposed to have uh conversation with Chelsea Mendingo um later on it but do we do we want to maybe release Chelsea and have a conversation with her some other time uh since we want her bright item bushy tail tomorrow to work I think I see that she's on I would I would appreciate that to be honest because it's turning into a pumpkin and I feel like I'm gonna ramble much more you want do you explain to me the nuances of the chemical treatment of I'm sorry we want to understand we want to understand ionic filtration a little bit no yeah I don't know I'm a little scared wait what might come out of my mouth to be honest but I do have no I'm making a motion that we move Chelsea either I'll second that motion whatever the table the table either table or move her up but do you Chelsea do you want to go now or do you want to go another day I'm flexible you your choice dealer's choice um I think you still have the budgets to go through um I know Jess was hoping I would mention a few things but um I think I guess I can just I can give you a brief I'll just fly through it should we just all right budget first so she can how about sure uh if you want to fly through if you're if you're doing up for it yeah I mean mostly we could move the essence recipe to the end right as express you can wait um there's nobody here for that uh the the up whoop is with you virginia right yeah and some of Chelsea's stuff too but I think I got that yeah it's not complicated okay no it's not yeah okay great all right I mean I would appreciate that I guess if you're willing yeah hi Chelsea how are you good how are you great uh so I yeah um I was planning on giving you updates for both the wastewater facility and stormwater um and both what happened in 2022 and what we're looking at here for 2023 um majority of what I'm talking about is regarding the wastewater facility um so as we all know 2022 was a year of change for the facility or for the municipality and the facility with our two uh large retirements of experience uh Jim and Bernie had over 70 years of experience for the facility um but with Jim's retirement we did take the opportunity to reorganize a little bit and um split his position into two supervisory positions one being uh chief operator and the other being water quality superintendent um and we also reorganized um with adding four personnel besides management um what mostly backfilling how we reorganized and then addition of one operator um one of those positions was also full-time admin so before it was part time shared by Joyce and Maddie and so now we have a full-time admin that supports not only wastewater public works and also the water billing for the city um so in this past year we really focused on finding our new way of navigating as a team with adding so many new folks to our team and um learning from the people that were getting ready to retire uh and focusing on non-critical maintenance projects because we had a bit of a backlog and that was a great way for folks to learn um about the facility by working on those. I also focused on some capital projects we didn't have any capital projects in the wastewater fund for FY23 for whatever reason I think it was really due to the change of guard and so um we had several in previous years that had not been moved forward but the funding was there so I focused on some of those and a lot of them or the majority of them have been with energy conservation measures which was something Jim was really focused on with the facility and we want to continue his legacy with that and try to achieve net zero with the facility. In the future we've hit it some days um but we'll get closer um and then the other issue is really the impact of inflation um that we're noticing in several key areas um parts is one um availability, lead time on getting parts, and the cost of parts. Luckily we have a really we have enough storage to keep critical parts on hand and that has become a lifesaver this past year um but we are seeing the effect of the cost of those parts. Also chemical costs are skyrocketing with um the trucking and price of fuel and we do do a request for quotes once a year for that but we're looking to switch that model to two times a year so that we can hopefully and that was a suggestion from chemical vendors so that we can take advantage if the price does shift that we can hopefully get some savings if it shifts in the right way might not shift in the right way but let's hope um so yeah exactly so we'll see what happens this coming here um and then biosolids is another issue um for several reasons one is the cost of managing biosolids is also being impacted due to inflation and trucking costs um but uh it's also becoming an environmental issue not with biosolids itself and just as a reminder biosolids is the end product of our wastewater management so besides cleaning the water every person produces 47 pounds of biosolids that we are then responsible of disposing of and it's full of all the nutrients we're keeping out of the waterway so right now we recycle it all back into the environment as fertilizer with the wickham family and not they take two million gallons a year and then we also truck we do water and truck about 130 tons a month to a facility in upstate new york that also works with local farmers um to recycle that as fertilizer back to the environment um the issue with that is a chemical called PFAS um if you're not familiar it's a compound that's used to make anything water repellent or non-stick like teff on pans for instance or Gore-Tex rain jackets it's been used for a long time but as science advances more and more is known about its harmful effects with on people on humans and also it doesn't break down in the environment uh you need extreme heat to break it down just from the nature of the compound and so you're seeing it in groundwater we're seeing it in biosolids and our wastewater effluent in small amounts an EPA is creating stricter uh testing requirements we're basically eventually we're not going to be able to have any in our biosolids and that's a great concern because that means that our land application program could be revoked it's already happened uh in the state of Maine the whole entire state that's been banned and the real worry for all wastewater operators is that in this state and we've been talking about it more recently uh is that it's it's only matter of time what it's going to happen here um and there's a lot of the facilities in this state rely on land application of biosolids to manage their waste or their biosolids and um it's a problem that the state really has to start looking at and so it's trying to get the attention of the right people to find solutions um so that's going to continue to be a focus of 2023 um and then also high strength waste management working with the tri-town communities to help develop an ordinance for better regulating our high strength waste users on the system um and we're going to be conducting or I hope if it stays in the capital plan for FY 24 a 10-year evaluation of the facility so I can't believe it but we're already hitting year nine since the last maintenance upgrade in 2014 and so we're starting to see some areas that need attention like biosolids management for example or other alternative ways um to reduce our chemical use to aid and cost savings they do not think chemicals are going to get to pre-pandemic prices so working with a local engineer to start to look at some of those issues hopefully will occur this next year and then we're also for sanitation going to be looking at a sewer capacity study for the sewer system which will help in approvals of development so that is my wastewater update I know that was really fast but I could talk about storm water if you unless you want to ask questions now biosolids is going to be keeping me up at night it was already starting to keep Jim up at night and just just more recently we've had some conversations with other facilities because one thing I forgot to mention is is our current we have a regional contract with uh the ginsullad waste district with several other chin county municipalities um that so right now our pricing for hauling that material up to new york has kind of been sheltered from inflation because we've been in a contract for three years with castella and ginsullad waste district and that's set to expire at the end of this year so we're all um really worried about what that price is going to look like because other facilities in the state that are not in a group like us are paying upwards of 200 a ton to haul that material we're paying 95 dollars a ton right now and how much did you say we ship out we do 130 tons uh a month and that is actually not keeping up with what we really need to be um processing especially if land application was to be revoked we're like we're just staying above water I guess so yeah it's a real headache all these thoughts coming out of my head sorry I can't stop them so late um what do you need to stay happy and um what are the alternatives like what so what are the alternatives um we don't want to get done a long road but like yeah well we could send it to the landfill but still i'm going to be a truck in cost um but our landfill has very limited space left in this state and then the alternatives for our facility in general is we um we got to figure out how to treat that there's a side stream that comes along with that and our facility process can't handle it in the quantity that we need to stay up with ourselves management so it causes our process to go out of whack and not we could we're at risk of not meeting our permit essentially so that's another thing I'm working and be working with engineer on um is looking at solutions for that uh and it's also changing the way we do water we could try to set we could change right now we have a center fuge and there's newer technology in just the past 10 10 years and even a couple years where you have um these like high power drier dryers of the material and it will lessen the amount of weight that we are hauling out and then that would equate in cost savings so chelsea just to clarify this when you're talking about the um what we're output what you're saying whatever 130 tons a month whatever it is yeah um that's the total for the tri-town right you're talking wilson or that that's okay yeah okay i just want to clarify so that people out in tv world are in in the cyber it's for three communities yes right so it's not just sx junction here so that costs will be burdened spread across three communities if this is a this is an issue facing every water treatment plant in the state it sounds like it should be a we might i mean not the state the obvious it should be a state there it should be some state level solution a collaborative doesn't that makes yeah you're nodding your head like yes yes we just have to get to the right people that's that's the challenge yeah okay is this and the solutions aren't that easy right so no correct like you got to have space to it and you're still going to need a waste bar facility that volunteers for instance to bring the solids from all these other communities and process it like so you could do a regional approach but it's still um going to be a capital investment yeah it's a lot of this is going to be the ms4 communities they're going to be impacted and across a very rural state Vermont that we are there aren't that many ms4 communities yeah it's so it's well yeah interestingly it's yeah the more developed you could say ms4 but it's not a ms4 permit that's more modern but you know basically it's going to be primarily communities that have some type of treatment facilities that they're you know tied into correct because 60 of the state is on septic tanks correct um but we also have to be available to take that material to treat it and so it is that's why the state is involved because it's a it's a statewide issue because um if you don't have people taking care of their septic tanks then you're going to have a even more water quality problem myself or at the very least a chitin and county issue because that that's you look at all the other water treatment plants we have here rillington yeah yeah so anyway i didn't want to sidetrack you but that sounds like when when lori is asking because you know where their hands are in her pockets looking for stuff to do we said well we can tell her that this is what she needs to be working yes um yeah that is one focus of our local trade organization is really getting the word into the legislator this year um because every just about every year in the past recent past there's been a bill to try to ban land application but it hasn't succeeded but i really think because it's already happening in our region it's really only a point of time can i ask you a question chelsea um yeah in regards to this whole issue as i said with the ms4 thing and with the regional planning commission and the epa standards that the tmdl or total maximum daily limit for phosphorus going into lake shamp plain that's a big issue as rejina can attest to and what i've seen in my time on the board um we we hit one one way to to address that issue was to have retention funds so you're talking about land application why how maybe something i'm just rhetorical question here but when we're talking about retention funds to to address runoff from impervious surfaces parking lots where contaminants oils whatever what have you are being you know on on those parking running off and you put in a retention fund isn't that equivalent to the land application going down into the the soil well what how is that different george i mean that you're talking about what runoff water that's that's on a surface and i think you're talking about i think i think you're talking about huge difference in terms of total volume of salt right chelsea i think you're talking about a really really yes huge huge difference we we uh we generate millions of gallons of solids in a year um i mean it's and i don't that's not it's not quite the same and you know well good to know that everything's gonna be solved yeah and i have a really brief update for stormwater not as much because a lot of my um a lot of my attention was it with the wastewater facility this year um because that is where i need to get a better understanding of all aspects um the stormwater was more of what i was really focused on prior um being stormwater coordinator but so in 2022 um we had two great summer interns that were able to that we shared with the town of s6 and we were able to inspect a lot of our stormwater infrastructure which we're required prior to do annually um but we also started doing some groundwater monitoring for our phosphorus control project or a potential phosphorus control project um which is meeting some of our state permit requirements for stormwater we have to reduce amount of phosphorus by 20 into uh lake shampoim watershed and we're already meeting it on the like indian brook side of town pretty much it's the winewski side of town where we really have a further reach so we're starting to do some monitoring on that side of town near the high watha school to see um if we can get a really large stormwater project underground there to get us a lot of our credit and the school is partnering with us and so that's really exciting um we also replaced the next culvert on dens more drive that was identified back from the 2019 halloween fema event when we found those three culverts in that general area two on dens more one on brick yard at their end of life and really close to failure and one did fail as a result of that storm so we replaced the second one and then this coming uh summer we're replacing the last one in that series which is on brickyard road um and then we also had some outfall stormwater outfall stabilization projects which were grant funded that um were implemented and then this next year the main focus is going to be really like figuring out a way to fund stormwater moving forward in the capital needs since now we will be on before a lot of our budget was tied in with the town stormwater capital budget and their their general stormwater budget and so now we're really standing on our own so the focus is going to be how to fund uh our future needs to meet permit for crime it's so that's something i'll be working with just closely on and we should be getting a new stormwater permit this year um but the state's been pretty silent on it so i don't know if that's good or bad in previous years they start to talk to us a lot if they're going to change a lot so i'm hoping it's going to be good and they just tell us to keep on trucking um and then we're also going to look at slip lining some stormwater pipes as a result of the upwp program um we've been doing that for two years now to being some the condition of pipes and so we have a list identified of pipes that need to slip line so looking at getting some quotes and seeing if we can do that and one other thing is i have it in the budget to have two stormwater interns to help me inspect stormwater infrastructure this summer and this year it would be they would not be shared with the town it would be solely with the city work so i think we could get a lot of great work done um with that sounds wonderful yep yeah yeah is is that the piece that you wanted to talk to us about relevant to the budget oh no it's more wastewater because you're going to see when you see the budget uh in a short while you're going to see um biosolids the line item chemical costs the amount in that line item almost doubled okay and that's just the true it's not even buffering it significantly it is the true cost that we are seeing right now okay for the for those those needs so that's that's not for the uh the periodic trip to check out the Tahiti wastewater uh unfortunately not maybe yeah maybe for lefty anything else for Chelsea no i'm i'm good i i was gonna ask you how um um the teflon molecules get into human waste but i i i don't want to go there right now we can have an aside bar on that georgia could like i know we'll save that for another day okay all right great well keep her healthy thanks for tonight good night have a good night all right thank you bye uh seeing that jess is also sticking around and rightfully so shall we jump into sure item in the presentation of the 24 uh yeah budget stuff i'm not gonna read it hey jess hey um Regina hey how are you guys great um Regina do you want me to share my screen or are you gonna pop the if you have it ready to go that's great but i'm happy to have you jump okay i have it ready but just uh sharing is disabled oh okay let me just uh i think that should work for you perfect yep i got it great great okay um so you guys should be looking at the um enterprise funds budget summary on your screen yep you can see it perfect all right so um as chelsea mentioned a lot of this is going to be talk about inflation and um that also relates to our admin allocation as well across all three budgets so there's a brief summary at the very beginning of this document that just explains how that admin fee is calculated um i used the same formula the same process that has been used um for several years now um and just made note that we will be looking at this admin allocation for the fy 25 budget cycle but just didn't have time to really dig into it for this year so that calculation for fy 24 um is resulting in about a 46 increase to the admin fee um that is basically revenue on the general fund side but expenditure on the enterprise fund side and to summarize it it basically covers the admin and finance time um and overhead at Lincoln Hall for the work that's done by other city staff not out not coded directly to those enterprise funds um so a special note in this fy 24 budget is that that admin allocation appears to be increasing dramatically this year mostly in part um mostly due to the fact that last year's allocation was not put into place as calculated by the the traditional formula um i'm going to bring up that file here just to illustrate because it can be a little bit confusing um so in the initial budget day presentation that happened last year the admin allocation was calculated and came in at a 56 percent increase over the fy 22 um allocation so from what i can gather during the budget uh creation process it was decided that um 56 percent of an uh 56 percent increase wasn't doable um so what happened is that admin allocation was dropped down to basically just result in a 12 percent increase um so what you're seeing this year in that 56 percent increase is actually um a cumulative effect of basically two years worth of inflation and general increases um hitting all at once um and we've had discussions so we presented budgets to Tritown earlier this week and we made it very clear to them that this is not our final budget we know that we have some work to kind of look through this and Chelsea and Regina and I are going to meet um early next week i think and try to just see see what we can do see what we can come up with um although i don't know that Chelsea prefaced this really well thanks for teeing that up um that uh i don't know that we can get this down very much from where it is right now so looking at the rates that are charged to users um the combined rates so this includes water wastewater and sanitation are resulting in about a 10 and a half percent increase which would calculate to um 61 dollars and 85 cents per year on an average bill in the city so of that the water fund um the operating budget is increasing uh just over 15 percent with an 11 and a half percent increase in user fees um again as just explained this is basically an increase uh driven by the administrative fees um there's also a significant increase in CWD rates for FY24 those rates have not been approved by their board yet they're in that process right now but we were told we have a memo from them um stating that they this is the increase that they're proposing to their board so that's what we included in the budget and um two other increases within the water fund we have a $50,000 increase which is a planned uh capital transfer increase and then we also have the addition of the main street water line project that was approved by voters uh April that's adding um just under $60,000 to our operating expenditures for FY24 um in the wastewater fund the overall budget is increasing about 17 percent um and again with just over an 11 percent increase in user fees uh and again as as chelsea mentioned the um inflation impacting our supplies and our materials and our testing are driving all the majority of of this cost so the chemical increase of $145,000 our equipment maintenance is increasing $65,000 and that's for parts shipping and some labor as well and then the biosolid's disposal increase of $60,000 and that includes the testing that's required as well so it's it's the disposal cost that's increasing as well as the testing requirements um and then again the admin fee increase and in wastewater we also have a planned annual increase of $20,000 to the um transfer to capital in the sanitation fund um we have about an 11 percent increase here and uh just under an eight percent increase in user rates um in this fund the primary driver is that admin um fee increase the only other increase in this budget is uh $9,000 for the IT contract that was approved and um instituted in the beginning of FY23 um for pump station communications and monitoring and then you'll see we don't have we're planning on presenting the EGRP programs and senior center fund uh at the next council meeting does anyone have questions that's a lot of information to digest all at once and like I said it's it's we're aware that it's a significant increase and um definitely plan on doing some more work to see what we can do to bring that down just basic question um I know the federal government has a strategic reserve of fuel is there a way we could have our little strategic reserve I mean obviously the admin fee you know insurance all the other things that are out of our ability to control would it make sense to buy I mean I don't want to buy when it's super high but the stock pile chemicals or are we already doing so uh is that is it possible to do so or do they have an expiration date you need to use them buy this or whatever um just trying to think out of the box here um so that would definitely be a Chelsea question I'll make a note to to have that as a discussion point when we meet um but I do know that just in my experience with with wastewater prior um storage is definitely an issue um and uh I'm still here if you want me to address that oh cool I didn't even know you were there I thought there might be questions just because it is a significant increase they don't um we already that was already addressed in the upgrade in 2014 we have full size tanks now and that it's um I guess we've already added some in the past few years so in order to further store chemicals I mean I guess we have some space but it might be difficult and um but we can't look at it yeah all right we only use so much at a certain time like so yeah it could be examined and there is Chelsea in the 10-year plan that you were talking about before that will do in FY 24 um is looking at some other alternatives yeah I didn't mention that like yeah UV light and so maybe we can't see if that's a alternative again for disinfection and move away from chlorine and bisulfite and that would result in significant cost savings um especially when the more energy conservation measures we put in um I think that might be a more viable option in when we re-evaluate thank you maybe you're gonna need really strong UV lights and those those take up a lot of energy they do take up a lot of energy yeah but other a lot of other facilities do use that so let's get some students okay that's good I like it Raj is gonna put on his bike I'll generate some electricity with my bike it's a good thing to look into I think that's a very progressive thing to look into it's a good idea any other questions not seeing any on the enterprise I just want to get the sense of the process though because we said I've got some other questions but not about this component of the budget so but we're going to be talking about other components of the budget at future dates is that correct or tonight right now right now right okay yeah I who already know wreck is gonna be uh no right not recreation and not the senior center we're not gonna talk about recreation and not the program funds but but like the general funds yeah yeah okay I yeah I just wanted to get a sense of that yeah okay all right yeah okay so are you ready to move to that yep um do you want me to share my screen sure yes tvland viewers okay so what you've got here in the packet after the enterprise fund sections uh is essentially the transmittal for the general fund budget and this describes the changes between what we talked about on budget day and points out some outstanding issues and there were just some other questions too so those answers are in here as well so generally speaking for the rest of the schedule for the budget the intent is that on january 5th you'd have your budget review and preliminary adoption so you could set your public hearing public hearing would be on february 8th um and february 22nd is the night you get it all ready for ballot um okay so budget changes um I don't know how much folks uh considering the time want me to sort of like really talk through this um I'm assuming you've you've all sort of taken a look at it yeah um but essentially this is just a really great quick way to show you all the different pieces and things that we've adjusted along the way and the sort of main point being up here on the top is that from the changes that we talked about on budget day what you've got um is now just a 0.5 percent um tax rate increase over what people are paying in FY 23 can I jump can I interrupt but we we had asked the question of we moved a whole in the way you achieved this is it is we moved a lot of stuff it to be funded by the local option tax yes with the presumption that we're going to have scads of money in the local option tax but we but but I don't want to be silly we but we had kind of thought that we might get some estimation of what that's going to actually look like and I don't know um if Jess just was going to look into it but I don't know if she's had it but it was going to take a while and it might there was a timing issue so has that happened or that has happened and on this I can see it's page six of 39 embarrassing me I didn't I what I didn't see that okay sorry about page number it is well 32 yep yeah okay Regina can I just jump in um cool so these are preliminary numbers that I think we're estimates when the city was first considering instituting a local option tax so I will have good numbers like actual today numbers but it won't be probably until the end of this month the contact that I've been working with at the state um their quarterly reporting is due in January and then we will get our reports early February so she said that she'd reach back out when she has um actual numbers for the the first quarter of us collecting that tax senior bus to visit local attractions they do think most of those people would qualify for ssta it is a little bit more complicated you do have to go to a physician to get eligible but they do think they've got the staff at the sash program that could help folks get eligible for or go through the process of determining that so again big picture on the van the van itself costs about $77,000 a year for a relatively small number of people using it so the recommendation for you is to uh put a slight amount of money in to just give us some wiggle room if our ssta usage goes up but we don't fund the van that's staff recommendation okay because in a in a nutshell just expand on that little bit it's $77,000 for over fiscal year 2340 people yeah which the the math on that is a lot yeah yeah there must be an answer besides that yeah right um so that's the van the other side of this equation is the senior programming so hopefully this is a little bit more clear in here basically um what the you all know you've got a agreement with the town at this point through the end of December 2023 for both the senior van and the senior center and the staffing for the senior center that is going to go at the end of 2023 uh the city has real needs for making use of the senior center um area for more multi purposes uh because we definitely need more space in here for um offices but also as we saw tonight you get any kind of actual number of people that are showing up to your meetings and this room is just inadequate um what you had in your uh original budget and what's basically still in there now is a full-time adult programming person in parks and rec uh that could accommodate some senior programming the thinking of what we've got in there now is that it's um more a true spectrum of adult programming um and ultimately what could be done is that the programming itself is built into an enterprise fund just like the other e-j-r-p programs are um there is also a about $23,000 in a fund that um to the best of my understanding was put aside when the 501c3 non-profit senior center was dissolved and the services were taken over by um the town in quotes because that was at the time was sort of merged a merger on the management side um so uh from our end we think there's a solution there it doesn't look like the way that we've been thinking about it from a staff perspective is that it doesn't look like what it looks like right now um where there is a set space to come and um hang out for a while and have uh food and that kind of thing um but that is um discussion for you folks in terms of what it is that you want to be I think that from just my perspective around the percentage of population who does qualify for senior services and while the number of people who currently utilize that space in the city is not high um and the numbers aren't in the packet so I can't reference them I don't want to rely on my memory um we know that there's we know the data on seniors on loneliness on the need to have connections and I would hate to their to not be a place for seniors to go even within certain time periods where they can do things like play bridge play bingo play cribbage um what have you where they can have regular meals so they can socialize congregate and be around peers and not uh isolating in their own home so I would love there to be some place for that to happen though it doesn't need to be the same defined time period I can I just ask a question just get some facts straight here yeah so I'm looking at I don't know which page it's page seven of the of the thing and it it's telling me that there are 26 people in the city who are members of the senior center is that correct which page seven page seven it's uh oh it is there uh page 26 of the pdf packet that's how you know okay sorry paid yeah all right all right so there are 20 so there are 26 members you do not need to be a member right to actually walk in a member the membership is a voluntarily paid thing um the visitors and you can see the overall numbers visitors though visits by residency for September there were seven or 87 that were from the city right it but it's but my my my question Andrew is though it what I understand the town is has decided they're put they're not going to collaborate they're pulling out after their commitment is over but I've also heard that they're going to try to create their own program or something up in the town now I don't know if that's just talk or if there's a real plan of foot for that but the point is is if they do that I mean looking right now there are more right now there are more town um significantly more town town people involved who have seen your center membership and one has to assume that if the town is seriously if they're going to pull out and they are going to create something up in the town then we could potentially see our our use go way down and that doesn't mean we're eliminating it but my question is that it's it seems like the it seems like we're we're kind of trying to impose a a we're trying to come up with a budget and programming and a decision and yet the we don't really have I have a lot of questions about exactly how many people are involved exactly what is the service we're trying to provide for these 26 people or maybe an additional 20 or 30 how much do we want to spend it and I don't and I don't this this isn't really the format you know figuring out using going through the budget is not really the format for managing sort of broader questions like that programming questions like that I mean do you know what I'm saying I do it's it's yes and no the budget time is when this is our like policy and document release right this is what we believe this is what we fund staff go do the grid sorry microphone go do the great work and implement this budget but we need to figure out monetarily how much do we want to provide the final visit what is essentially a a tri-town multi-town senior center do we want to try do something for only the city of a six junction residence and that's where ultimately we need a number to pay people to do the stuff right it's a it's a blended conversation it's a big it's a big conversation um you know and again what's implied here is again and and and as you're saying in here the the ejrp's number one priority is acquiring a new building well okay but you're talking about a a million million and a half dollar expenditure at the very least and then permanent permanent staffing and maintenance of that building to do what to serve 30 people you know we we need to get right the the the need has to has to be justified and I just don't see that rising to the surface right here now maybe it's there but it just isn't popping out in the numbers don't you think I think that part of part of the the trouble is um during COVID or since COVID the numbers have not gone up to what they used to be right the numbers were higher when Luanne was the senior coordinator yep and after she left there were some I don't know how many but there were people who left right after she after she left um so we don't have a we don't have that comparison right now but ultimately yes it is a small number of people who do utilize space from the city and that's where what is the problem we're trying to solve was the thing we're trying to create of do we want a city senior center do we want one that is also then open to other community members yeah I guess I'd rather twist this a little bit and we've got a recreation department that is serving you know incredibly young to just before senior yeah I mean seniors can still do the program do take part in the activities I guess I'm curious without what I think was the addition of another FTE for for that I mean are they bare bones for that or can is there I guess I'm I'm not seeing here uh I think I called it an audit and emailed to Andrew but just you know like maybe the we're not trying to make a senior center maybe we're trying to make sure that we're addressing senior loneliness and and the fact that there there's not a lot of contact for them by asking our rec department to sort of look at their offerings and say can we ship some resources to make sure that a couple time that we have programming that may be still sign up an activity like appointment programming right you know so it's not just come and hang but it could be and I don't know where they're supposed to do it yeah and I understand there's complications with if the staff are all on Maple Street but they're going to have a two-hour bridge time here that somebody has to come and do it yeah I know that there's major complications there that I'm not considering I can imagine that they're they're large but I I'm just I'm curious about like how can we look and say you know what we've been serving the 18 month to to 16 or to 13 crowds so much yeah I know that maybe we need to back off on some age group somewhere so that for the time being we can serve this population in a way that we haven't without you know and it's not to say that there are only 30 seniors in our community that want services right we're just they're just these are the 30 people that find what's offered interesting and then so that doesn't mean we have to go and create you know do market research and serve every one of them but I think that we might want to look at this differently and maybe buying time I don't like the idea of not having services out there for even six months I hear Rodgers yeah I hear what Rodgers saying I agree with him but having a senior center just to have a facility or to pay to maintain a facility just seniors can hang out very few from what I understand whereas the activities activity based events doesn't necessarily have to occur and they don't all occur right at the senior center all the time they go the band they take the band they go somewhere they do whatever but to address it that way there are a lot of seniors in this community that have means to go do these things on their own whether it's physically they're capable of doing it or they're financially in a position where they can do that on their own so we don't truly see the need as as it really exists and as the senior population increases exponentially greater in these years going forward it I agree with you it's something we gotta look at yeah I think we just need it because I mean I look at the recreation budget this is coming out of the recreation budget I mean the recreation budget went from $690,000 three years ago to one point almost 1.2 million that's the biggest growth of any any of our departments in that time period and we've had some other big jumps but we've almost doubled the recreation budget in three years and it's fine I'm supporting it but on the other hand when I see this growth and it's the same with the senior I'm going have you actually talked to these 26 people and seen who they are and what do they want and what what I'd like to get a better I'd like us to get the the to get a better handle on the the need not us not us staff saying here's what we think we should be doing for everybody but I would like to see the people who we are trying to serve try to contact them and say what do you want if they they may not want again I keep saying this they may only want a place to hang out they may not care about offering senior other programs or something and we just don't know another way to look at this though is to address what they do want I know right for some people some some elderly people or seniors would rather be around see young children maybe we can kind of unify things with these young you know these pre preschool age kids with seniors who may have been parents or grandparents and that would bring them joy and pleasure just to see that experience that in some fashion we could combine things here and address an issue to to placate or appease a segment of our population so that they're happy and they're getting something out of it that doesn't require you know a separate building where they're over here just a bunch of seniors by themselves when maybe someone would say boy it'd be nice to be hanging out with some young kids or doing something combining things I don't know how we do it yeah I'm just throwing it out yeah that's fine I just just in terms of just to bring it back to the budget discussion I've just I just look at this and I'm not I'm just going what what is it what are we trying to do with this this particular thing it seems like a just a little foggy and cloudy and that's all and I I didn't want to get into it because we've got a lot of other things we have to do tonight but it just seems that there's more we should be asking some more or we should have a little bit more discussion about this but not not under these circumstances it'd be nice to know what the seniors want you know again because we keep ending these conversations and with a certain amount of uncertainty about this I did have a conversation with a senior who does attend the programming on a regular basis and is well involved in what happens there and what they were talking about is what they what this person and those who use the facility want is what they have and don't want to lose what they are using for this one in particular when their spouse had passed away this is where they then get social interaction and for many of their peers that's where they get the social interaction that they don't have otherwise at home when they're by themselves that is one voice who of course then that's their experience from somebody who's using the senior center for bingo bridge the occasional meal yeah that's not the the 70 year old who's not are taking in the senior center programming for whatever reason right yeah so I can I just add a few things just to um clarify so I do think to your bigger point that having these conversations uh makes makes a ton of sense I do think some of that could come out of our uh bigger strategic planning effort where we're talking to the community now we're a city what is it what do we want to do um that those conversations are not going to happen before you have to make this budget right um the uh thing that can happen and uh I I see Brad he's got his hand up um the um he's watching the I just want to make sure this is not conflated as one thing the um addressing the senior programming issue is a separate issue then needing a new building much more broadly for many other uh type of sports and programming happening at ejrp the point we were making is just that if uh there was a request to expand or do something new there's a real need for that um that's not to say that there isn't a need for uh senior programming in this new world that we haven't been in and don't know quite what that looks like so that doesn't help solve your problem um but just to offer that we will have those conversations if and we will even have conversations if we decide to do some kind of programming more so than we have a capability for right now that's that's very helpful and at the end of the day February 22nd we need to figure out what we're going to do and how much the line item is going to be right I guess the thing that I just I'm uncomfortable with is that gap is like leaving leaving a gap and yeah people sort of in the wind uh we don't have to make that decision necessarily tonight like you said but I'm but just don't know what but not tonight I'd say next meeting yeah no I know but some but some funding would give us some flexibility to do something when we get to that point yeah I get it I understand but Brad how are you good how are you guys good lovely uh huh I believe you um thanks sorry it just I appreciate Regina you clarifying George's comment the uh and and Regina kindly put that in there about space needs and I just want to continue to reiterate that's our our number one pressing issue at recreation right now is we do not have our own space that we have access to where we're beholden to other parts of the community and we you know as much we love our school partners and we couldn't do what we do without them but obviously and rightfully so we're we're second to school priorities and and that you know is often uh having a major impact on our programming and our staff um so and the reason I asked her to put that in there George and she kindly did is you know I don't want to have a conversation in in six months or a year from now and for folks to say well we just gave them a program director last year we're not we're not adding now adding looking at space needs and whatever and you know the the reason the catalyst for all of this is that we've come we've developed over time a system for providing services to the older adults in our community which has a dedicated person who provides senior service manages senior services they're a town employee who does that for both the town and the city currently and that expires in in less than 12 months and so the question is what to do and you know we've already talked about you know I think the staff recommendation is to transition from the from the town bus shuttle model to the ssta model so that's a change for seniors we've talked about the city needs for space in to Lincoln and that we no longer I think can continue to dedicate 24 7365 a space for that's only accessed by seniors I think it it can serve seniors in different ways and capacities but it can't only do that and so that's a that's going to be a change to our adult services and so the third possible place that there's going to be changes is what do we do when there's no longer a dedicated person leading and providing and organizing programming for that for that same community and so the current staff recommendation is is to at least continue to have somebody in that capacity working towards that and I think it will look very different and I think a lot of the things that currently exists are things that are pretty time consuming on staff's part so whether you know it's it's setting up for for lunches or bingo or different activities that really require somebody who is physically engaged in setting those things up is present at those things it's a little bit different than a lot of our other models of programming where we're working with a contractor or an outside vendor we're setting programs up from the start but they provide the staff and the setup and the location and those kinds of things so I think we want to weave more of that kind of programming into our adult services offerings but if we want to honor what's been going on we we definitely need somebody to do that and so that's where I think that's where we're coming up I think I agree with all of you that the analysis you know we want to kind of see the direction of the council and if this is the direction they want to go absolutely we'll meet with with folks at the senior center and identify the most important programming that that has support and and even there's some small groups you know that play mahjong that play cards on certain days of the week maybe that senior center space will still be the place that they can do that maybe it will be us working with them to find them a new home to do that whether it's the cobalt room or the multi-purpose room at rack or a spire or or a local business those will be the kinds of challenges that we would kind of work through and help those groups facilitate if some of the things that they have come to appreciate are no longer there okay thank you thank you brad yep so does that help to add any clarity on this yeah it does it does it did we've got we've got some good points in here so in terms of meaning this forward are we thinking stick with the staff proposal as a tentative decision on this particular thing or overall with the budget on this particular item yeah i senior coordinator i think that generally speaking it's fine and i i'll go so far as i say the i'm pretty cool with the rest of it too okay good to move on to the health officer it's like you're not yours i'm good you're good sorry thank you brad thanks brad bike thanks brad okay um let me share my screen again okay sorry lost our page okay so next up thing is basically community development department what we talked about on budget day and what is currently in your proposed budget is a uh additional staff in the community development department full time starting halfway through the year um we have been having some trouble filling this health officer role sorry this is killing me page 23 of thank you yep um and although we may have a good solution by the end of this week but um the the thinking is we could do some of the things that have been a struggle for a while enforcement generally speaking potentially concept of a rental registry and inspection program and get the health officer more as a in-house position that is a part of a full-time position which seems like a smart way to go to me um we could uh do this additional community development director uh community development position full time in the budget um starting july 1 as opposed to january 1 that would be a 22 and a half thousand dollar increase over essentially it combines what you had in there for the health officer plus what we had in there before um the other thing i just wanted to put also put in here because it did come up on budget day is the bigger question about a lot of that committee work that uh is happening at the town side that we do not have the capacity to take on on the city side certainly not currently um uh one additional person in community development department will be a big help and perhaps that will create some flexibility um but i do think taking on a lot of that other um committee work energy economic development um energy energy economic development uh equity staff uh is housing is going to need i i okay i'm confused about i thought we were not going is this the joint um city town economic development committee no so we're going to create a new economic development committee potentially this is something that we could do so during during budget day we talked about like the potential of creating a city as economic development committee commission possibly a downtown commission having there be a our own housing commission yeah blah blah blah a few different things yeah and so this would be to have to be a staff member that could actually help and do that okay i i was just just the way this and i and i remember there's just the way this was talking i didn't know if we were still connect trying to connect with the town and that was we needed uh our community development director to be going up to the okay all right so so we're not clear on exact we know some of those committees we want to keep going but the economic development committee that might be something else that that might that might not be a thing that might be uh a downtown revitalization committee as opposed to an economic development committee okay yeah i think the bigger point is that we yeah we don't have any staff to do right this work and we have people chopping at the bid for for all this call it committee work and we need to we need it yeah yeah and currently so what's clear in my mind what's is what's going to happen to the housing commission that will split uh what's not clear in my mind is energy and we had will dodge suggests that that does not split um and also what's unclear in my mind is economic development what could potentially be a separate thing still have a combined thing whatever might be out there but regardless for economic development and energy the only staff for those right now is on the town side right and so if those are going to be joint committees where we have also contributing to the agenda and talking through items we've got to have somebody there yeah we Regina can only fit so many hats on right there's this so this also included um in the base was the was an admin correct yes all right and i mean i like this idea um also because the more i look around the things that we have coming down you know we we had a we had a we had a side conversation about maybe i want to my wife and i want to build an ad u in the back to the department and we're not participating in a grant program i'm just thinking about all these things that got me thinking like we really could use some focused attention on getting us into some programs and and really staffing the housing commission and really doing some of this where they're being proactive and going after grants and doing all that work i don't think we've got those people right now no and and we could potentially wait but i think that would be i think because the way regina's pointed out here i think this makes sense now yep um and the other really tired explanation of how i feel sorry that's only 10 jointed yeah um the other the other thing is so by starting the position by having some of the positions also starting july 1st compared to january 1st of 2024 what that would allow for then is it would remove the guaranteed then increase that next fiscal year yeah so this just but it eats the total cost up front yeah sounds like we're good on that okay so the other outstanding issue that you wanted to touch base on is the park street mill maybe you didn't want to touch base on this but the another thing that has to get figured out is the main street park budget um and what the economic development fund looks like uh today and uh our two big needs that we are aware of which is the amtrak train station uh six hundred thousand dollar match and the potential of that budget being six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that park um we are going to apply for the two hundred thousand dollar grant but that still requires four hundred thousand dollars from this budget um which doesn't quite work out if we are trying to retain this for six hundred thousand dollar for amtrak if the park budget stays closer to four hundred fifty four hundred seventy thousand we can squeeze these two in and the other point i wanted to make about this fund is that currently as adopted by the voters it goes through FY 24 right so we don't have to ask the question this year but it would come up for for a question again next year yeah right so these are the only two years guaranteed right yeah well i don't know up to me this this looks like a good strategy um and again i go back to the local option tax um we we said that money is to be used generally want to see it used for for capital projects and this is the the the match for the for the amtrak is something that sounds like a right target for that um and and you're not too far off anyway it wouldn't absorb a lot of that so you know absorb a little bit so it's to me this looks like a good strategy i mean i think it's important it's it's it's you know you you it's a lot of money for the amtrak match but on the other hand you don't want to leave three and a half or three point two million dollars on the table when you can you can do a pretty significant project with that it does feel like a big match doesn't it does feel like a big match but it's gonna end up owning that building the railroad for us definitely not us no i don't think it um it's amtrak i think i could be wrong jennethy wyoming right no i i think it's i think it's new england central but which is owned by jenneth so we're putting six hundred thousand dollars into the a building that the okay yes yeah yes that's right but that's how that's you gotta go to the amtrak you gotta you gotta this is what happens with train stations it's they there's this funky stuff i know no i think it's it it's easier to look at it that expensive say that but it also generates a lot to our content so you gotta look at that that from that perspective that lens and say well yeah hope that they maintain it better than they maintain that one yeah well certainly yeah okay so to be clear here what we're saying is trying to put some parameters around the main street park to keep it closer to 478 for now yep okay um okay i think so just to just to clarify so that 478 what you're saying is to try and figure out ways to cut that budget to not do what we saw but to cut back on some of the amenities within the budget by possibly adding some things later on like down the road facing some things things in over say a three or four year time period oh for the park yeah right that's based the 478 is based on the 200 thousand dollar grant right we thought we were saying six hundred seventy eight thousand yeah so what we have available right economic development limits what we can put in the main street park and that's 478 if we get that successful at getting the 200 thousand right correct yeah so if we don't though that when we come back revisit either cut the project down or just phase it into the longer but we but we don't even but we as i recall we still don't we don't actually know that the all of this the actual cost of the park is is a very broad estimate is conceptual but pretty clear working that in as it is right now with the brick yeah fence the steel it's not called pavilion no it's called something thing pergola pergola all of those things collectively are we're definitely getting us closer to 650 it's going to be a magnificent project we just got to tell ourselves that it's going to be fine in terms of the is this so i remember hearing we've got the crescent connector coming up and i i thought that there was going to be a need for some of this fund for some of that benches trees things that weren't covered by the project are going to go along that i remember our previous economic community development director we always say that when we start talking about this because you know we remember we have to so i'm right i want to know sort of is that 50 is it 100 is it 25 i remember it not being a ton but i don't know what's it being i i don't i think it could be anything we wanted to be it's just the the the downtown team with the street lights right yeah is that's not included that i guess that's what i mean that's what we want to do and we want to put other landscaping or benches or like that and and again that could be done over a number of years it doesn't have to happen well we need if we have if we have people walking and lighting off right away um so yeah we've probably won the seating i think right if anything i would wait on the scene obviously like rajas and the lighting the gas right right so i just i'd my only point was yeah i don't know yeah where that stands for this and that could change the calculation well that's why in 2024 that that fund needs to be renewed or that just keeps going okay we're gonna make sure that you're leaving that garbage you're gonna be around for that so the next one on here i think that's if for the budget these were your other there were there's another page here answering some questions but you also had um but that's it in terms of the issues that i would that i am appreciative of getting your input on any questions from the board good i'm good good great jess anything else you needed from us nope i think i'm good great thank you jess thank you jess you're welcome let's have a good evening all right i will i'm headed right to bed someone should yeah we're getting to the punchy side all right so let's go to six b and discuss sx rescue um do you want me to take this one virginia uh sure so you've hopefully read the the memo that i wrote as to how we got to where we are from that that meeting to review the draft a response from the uh the market title right the president of the board for sx rescue and Colleen the executive director in their response um as i i didn't say specifically in my my letter to the board um after the meeting when i was thinking about the conversation that was ensuing the four asks of sx rescue what was going through my head is we've had this relationship with sx rescue as a city for all of a few months and our only my only relation with them was they came to our meeting they presented a budget that yes was higher than was anticipated but they presented a budget to us um so for me it felt really hard to just advocate for signing on to an operational assessment when i don't have the 15 20 years of knowledge or experience with sx rescue that some other board members may have from other communities uh so from just my perspective as well as george thinking about the things that you talked about uh when when they were here we talked about a collaborative approach to address things like governance to address things like the budget right this doesn't seem as collaborative as it could be and so to try to help expedite this process i'm wondering would you all be okay if regina or i responded back to that group that created the letter to say thank you we're not going to sign on but we would like to meet with all of you and sx rescue to address these issues and figure out how we can help to move this forward i i would be okay with that but i i i'm going to let me get back to you in around a kind of a roundabout way one of the one of the big questions that that jumps off the page to me is the the member communities for sx rescue you know we all got a big bill from them an unanticipated bill you know relatively speaking our bill was much bigger than westford's bill but i'm sure westford doesn't see it that way so my question is um and this this speaks to the need for collaboration what happens if one of the catchment community says yeah we're not going to pay our share well then does that cost get shifted onto the rest of us and uh and and the problem is we have no there's no inter municipal mechanism for us to to meet with westford and under hill in essex town and work that out at least within the time frame of trying to uh budget season the way this thing happened right so my feeling is i would i would say and i i agree with you i don't think um you know as i've said it several times and it's nothing it's not a dispersion to sx rescue but a company could be on the verge of bankruptcy and have a squeaky clean audit that audit doesn't tell you a whole heck of a lot it tells you about their accounting practices but it doesn't tell you you've got a good business model right um but on the other hand if getting a an audit and all the other things that essex town uh has requested if that gets them around that that lets the helps them write the check uh and doesn't put us in a position where we're having this squabble right now if that eases their mind uh then i i would say we support it but i don't see it solving the the main issue which is the municipalities needing to take on more and more of sx rescue's funding right um and that's and again that's only going to be solved by a collaborative effort when budgets are over getting together with sx rescue and maybe the other municipalities and and coming up with some ideas about what we're gonna how we're going to solve this because it looks to me what they're saying uh is that yeah we're going to be i mean we're and we're already funding them at the level of a small municipal department so they have to understand that that at a certain point we've crossed the threshold of just no longer a donation you're we we want to be party your operation and it's not like we're looking for stuff to do uh it sounds like they it sounds like they understand yeah so i think we need to we need to have that conversation and i would go so far i mean now they've just and i'll stop talking but um i i one of the big questions that comes up is what what are the other what are the other organizational structures that sx rescue could have is there some other way of doing things that um wouldn't necessarily save money but it would help us anticipate budget growth and have a allow the member communities to have a conversation so that we're all on the same page when sx rescue sends out that bill then we all know then we all agree on what the per person charge is and all that stuff it seems like we need to have that conversation so yeah green mountain transits uh chit and solid waste district these are all entities in which they're municipal members on the board right it's territorial right so we should be able to get that information right on a regular basis yeah and so that might require them changing and becoming more of a municipal like the chit and solid waste or like one of those things that might require them to be restructuring their their organization try town agreement right so but that's fine i don't think that'd be i think that'd be cool with that i don't know maybe they wouldn't but i don't think it's problem i don't like the idea of asking an organization that's not i'm just struggling like but that's that's having this issue to pay for a pay for an audit when i don't necessarily believe it's financial mismanagement no that got them here i mean they're they were pretty clear on their on their pressures and their and their and their the issues that they're causing their problems i'm not crazy about the fact that we didn't get more notice i mean we all agree everybody agrees on that i don't think abby's asking them to pay for an audit and go through all this operational assessment stuff that's going to cause them more stress is right the answer to that right so yeah i think we agree on that in the same no i agree i mean the the cost and i think as i recall from the letter was $18 per resident and then they also did a fundraising campaign which i admit i did i put money towards that i don't haven't always done it in the past but if you're you know knowing what i know yeah it's it's beneficial but um yeah i i'd like to have more input and like we looked around said like the tri-town agreement and uh any other county-wide you know or mutual or multiple municipal entities that you know are operating in our county um that would be nice to know exactly what's going on before we commit to yeah i'm sorry i always feel like i'm facing this direction that's all right never see you sorry it's all good so along the same line then is there some i've said my piece as a part of this process i don't feel completely wedded to being the representative from from our city council on these conversations does somebody else want to do that not currently you know okay the other thing is to look at is is like a uh you know a separate taxing district you know you know you know a special taxing district specifically for that yes for a fire rescue type thing well that's i mean it's i mean it's a little different yeah it's different there's other ways of operating yeah i mean if down the road i may be interested in and being one of the board representatives that's what it comes to but in terms of the conversation if you've got this if you're there already yeah i mean i i don't need to i i'm happy to do it too but if you feel like you've got the time and you you're already working on it it's fine it's fine with me but i would like to as ratchett i would if it's a broader conversation in a in a in a like a study or a group i would like to be part of that great yeah sounds good so i'll let them hold the group no uh discussion and consideration of shouldn't county region up what i just like to say that so essentially this is um every year cc rpc puts out their solicitation for projects these are kind of column grants they're really not grants but essentially we are thinking that we will put in for three types of projects one is sort of a continued tv condition assessment of the stormwater pipes chelsea touch base on this a little bit earlier in terms of this kind of helps set up that slip line process gis services so with the separation with the town we won't have any in-house gis services right off the bat anyway potentially we'll we'll get there with um with staff particularly for that more staff so this there's 10 000 in your budget to sort of address this we can put this ask in and it can be very flexible we can sort of think through the right way to get us set up with gis services basically in future then um uh cc rpc is running this very large raise grant from the federal government to really look at the train station towns and figure out how to do some better to d transit oriented development planning around those areas um this is really a probably a two-year project um and so i'm suggesting that we put in for that with uh ten thousand dollar match that we've gotten that is in the f y 24 community development budget for the first year and then this would likely be another ten thousand dollar match f y 24 for this program as well if we get into it great right i think that's great sounds good anybody anybody want to make a motion is there a motion i didn't see a motion yeah sorry to recommend the city council authorized stop to submit the upwp requests for phase three tv condition assessment of stormwater pipes in the city gis services and transit oriented development plan so moved second any further discussion hearing none i'll never say hi hi anybody folks they may great pass me this 10 30 night let's go last this thing we talked about uh so next is the green mountain transit representation that we pulled out of consents and moved up you i can i can talk about that yeah you i think um i sent you all the goal basically i was a little surprised well two things i was a little i was a little surprised that um to see the memo to see the request back from gmt on their behalf for us to change our representation for their board that was odd to me um and that was pretty much the same day i found out that they were gonna make permanent some uh schedule cutbacks that had been implemented during covid and so i was also surprised to hear that so i was a little bit the two together and i was kind of feeling like why didn't we have someone come if the if we have a board member you know i know we're in transition i i i guess i could have asked select board members if they heard from from our rep you know as to whether this was coming so between the two i was i just kind of wanted to talk as a board about you know what's our a i think we should reach back out to gmt and ask them to reconsider some of those cuts we have i'm gonna say hundreds of uvm health employees in this community i've heard from a whole bunch i had four of them stop in my office at work today yeah to say i saw your post on facebook i do a 12 hour shift i get out i have to wait over 30 minutes sometimes for a bus and and then i have to come home and do it all over again in the morning um so at least coming up with some kind of letter and i'm happy to draft one over the weekend to say you know at the very least push it back consider the shifts on some of these routes the williston route that's not the willis in essence i don't think and the essics route of the two top routes by far um so but secondly so people are okay to that i'll try to come up with something maybe we can send them to consider when they're considering their budget but also just just the representation part you know we i have nothing against the person who's doing it but i've only i think i've only met the person wasn't he just here just recently it seemed like it's august yeah i looked john more and he were here um to talk about that talk about gmt and talk about the fact that we need to start paying yeah but then after that nothing as far as i can tell at least i don't recall i haven't been able to find anything in the america and we haven't had that many meetings since so no um so that's just kind of why i wanted to pull it out it seemed like a simple thing but then it was a little strange the other thing you had reminded me of is we've also had every other person who we've appointed to our committee of some type we've had come and to talk to us right they've applied for it they have told us why they're interested in we've had somewhat of a conversation to make sure that our philosophical stances are aligned and if our board wanted to have it be cut into lines in our community or not that should be a conversation that we that we would have here um we want to make sure that the voices is carried on our behalf i'm a little blown away i mean we've got a counted 61 18 24 we've got nearly a hundred new apartments coming online in the next 18 months to 24 years on pearl street along yeah and at least well half of those are proposed right but they'll probably happen um so the fact that they would do any cuts to that line just blows my mind um and i feel um i feel we need to be more in touch with that board but this is what's going on i know what you're saying i i mean i've ridden the bus a few times in the last you know a couple years but with covid they've went away from the fee fees and i wonder how much and i you know depending on the route i we don't i don't have the exact numbers you know certainly in the morning certain hours shift as much as we see the traffic coming out of global or whatever certain hours you see that but then there's that big wall wall and how you how you do that i don't know um i know this is way off in the future light rail i know Dave Crawford our former marriage was big into it but that would be so nice very real mom player over to burlington just a you know i think they're trying to be creative over there yeah you know and i i'm not necessarily saying they don't have an issue but we i i would uh totally support and think it's a great idea if you want to go ahead and do that i think i think it's a good idea i i'd like to know why what the rationale is and so forth so yeah i think it's a good thing to do Regina offered to have to ask the two of them john and paul to come in tonight and i just thought talk to andrew about it i thought it was probably premature yeah um it's a good thing we didn't tonight yeah um anyway so we want to try to have paul come in for have him apply for the spot and have him come in for our next meeting sure do we want to have him come in and present why they're changing their budget i think it's a too too busy because we we didn't nominate you yeah i guess we can still continue with that if we feel differently but sure yeah we can do the next meeting or whatever you're feeling appropriate i say next meeting in the sense of as of right now then if we don't change it i am our our lead rep and paul who is their current treasurer and president of their finance committee can't actually fulfill that rule so i don't know from that sense if it's impacting them at all but it's a nice dollar nice to hear how like you know yeah i mean i think i i feel badly on this because i think if i had done some research beforehand and realized that the town it didn't even really occur to me because we have a list of who is the appointments on all the regional boards and didn't even see it and oh we have a new seat and we have a position we have to fill um it didn't occur to me to check to figure out if the town rep was a city resident um so this is it's definitely i think because of the particular role that paul happens to play this does create a problem for them and i think uh not to say that we shouldn't take a different approach but it does create a problem for them uh perhaps this is we just make sure the process is set up correctly um next time through and that was one thing i wanted to try to figure out i didn't get a chance to do that i don't know if paul has a particular term that he's serving i guess philosophically too i mean part of the interview process is to a sort of assess are they really representative i mean paul was probably a perfectly fine individual and but was appointed a by the select board which is fine i know we know that but it's yeah i mean part of that process is for i guess for for the board to decide representing the city the way we envision that representation for that particular service yeah sounds like i'm picking on i'm not i'm not trying to it doesn't sound anyway um so yeah i'm fine if you want to write that you want to write that letter do we want to come back here or just trust you i don't i'm good comfortable so i don't appreciate that um spell check it okay oh yes there aren't term limits on the website anyway so i can't answer that okay so i don't think we need to have a motion we now had appointments to cswd which we were going to do an executive session or first talk about executive sessions and come out to make an appointment so we'll do that in a moment uh is there a motion to accept the consent agenda it's moved it's moved i think roge has a motion second and second any further discussion hearing done on favor sign if i was saying hi i was supposed to say nay great pass unanimously reading file anybody else want to talk about anything else thank you for having the minutes in the reading phone um trustee comments in the rebound so i will say it here just i know marcus is here um and i was had an email from um somebody in the community asking about this but i will not be seeking reelection to the board um been here 12 years and five years on the planning commission prior to that seven years on the rec advisory council and i'm still going to be engaged but not going to be in this role wow that's my news and and likewise i'm not going to be after 15 years i'm not going to be run seek reelection um i think otherwise uh you're you're probably gonna have to move me out of here with the shovel so uh i think it's time i think there are some great candidates and i think you need to build up a good back bench and i think there are some um i think it's got some great people who can be on this and bring some new energy and new perspective to this these seats so i will not be seeking reelection i'm just gonna say worst damn meeting ever i'm throwing up there this is for various reasons yes 12 and 15 years 15 years yeah yeah i thought it was 12 and other was let's not get it let's not go all philosophical okay let's end poetic okay i i i will there's time there's time with that later yeah we still have a we saw you both for a few more months so we can we can incorporate all that in our next yeah yeah yeah we have a committee to check it out yeah i'll talk to you afterwards yeah don't don't there's no need what we can talk about if i do something nice yeah well anybody want to follow that there is that yes yeah yes the institutional knowledge that the perspective you both bring will absolutely i'm not sure that about the brain i'm not sure they're the institutional knowledge you might look up there and open up not lot there's nothing you make it really well yeah yeah yeah i have nothing else anybody have anything else good all right so then you're gonna find that language for one yeah looking oh yeah sorry oh it's all good i move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointments in accordance with one bsa section 313 83 and include the city manager second any further discussion hearing none all in favor of signify by saying aye aye those are both saying that great so pass unanimously uh so town meeting tv i think we're just gonna do adjourn second all in favor say aye aye those are both saying a great pass unanimously thank you all have a good night thank you thank you but i was getting there recording stopped you know the different