 six acres. And it was over 23,000 acres actually of land. And he granted it to Samuel Willis and a whole bunch of other people. And I'm not quite sure why Samuel Willis was the one that the town was named after, because as I said, there were a bunch of other people, but he was the first on the list. So I guess they decided they would call it Williston after Samuel Willis. My recollection, or looking at the history, Samuel Willis didn't even live in Williston. He lived in Jericho. I don't quite understand the connection there totally. The first town meeting was held in July, 1763. And at that meeting, they voted to extract three shillings from each subscriber, which I think was taxpayers at that point in time. And the shillings, the three shillings, were going to be used to pay for purchasing a book for the purpose of keeping the town proceedings and records. So that was the first expense that the town approved, was three shillings for a book. And then finally, I'll leave you with this. And this is a question, what is the biggest lie in the universe? The other one, that's maybe there's two of them. The other one is, I have read and agreed to all the terms and conditions as outlined herein. And with that, I will call for nomination to the chair of the select board. I move to appoint Terry McKay as chair of the select board. The motion is made in second. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, I will call for a vote. All those in favor of Terry McKay as chair of the select board, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? I don't hear any. Terry, I'm going to pass the proverbial cabinet. We didn't even ask you if you wanted it. You're just getting it. Well, thank you all. Appreciate the opportunity to serve again. And so we need to elect a vice chair. So are there any nominations for the office of vice chair? I nominate Joy Lamoge. What's that? Are you sure? Yep, I'm quite sure. I'm honored to be here. Is there a second? Second. Are there any further nominations for the office of vice chair? Hearing none, all those in favor of electing Joy Lamoge as vice chair say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations. Thank you, sir. If I may, a ruffle one. There'll be some documents as the board goes through its meeting. I'll get those ready. Sure. Good luck. Thank you. So we'll move on then to the minutes of February 19th, 2019. Is there a motion to approve? I move to approve the minutes of February 19th, 2019 with any amendments there too. Second. Page one. Page two. There are no additions or corrections then. All those in favor of approving the minutes of February 19th, 2019 say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And Gordon is usually a customary to abstain when you're out here. So we have one abstention. And moving on to public comment. Is there anyone in the audience who has any public comment on anything on the agenda or not on the agenda? Yes, ma'am. Identify yourself. Identify yourself, please. Yeah, I'm Mary from Jeff Behr's last week. And I understood he was on vacation. He did get back this day. I think it was last night. And I appreciate that. Thank you very much. And he's going to bring us later. I presume this will be in other business? Actually, already part of the town manager's report also. It's part of the town manager's report. So it's actually in the agenda documents for tonight. I don't know if it's on the agenda, but it's in the report. But it will be discussed? Okay. Briefly. So just to make sure on the same page. So I did write a letter back and I addressed it to all of you. But I apologize for not sending it to Gordon. I was a little confused on who was on the select board still and who wasn't. I misunderstood the newspaper report. So anyway, I'm sorry you didn't get it. No worries. Thank you. I thought since I was at a half meeting next door, I would just pop in. I don't have any prepared remarks. But the issue that I'm bringing up is the need. I feel strongly about to have the town create some sort of regulation. Outlawing forbidding whatever trapping in and around the village or in areas of town where there was a high population density. I don't know if you saw it on the front porch forum last week, but my husband and I were out walking on the ref path along North Willis to Grove right where it crosses the Allen Brook at the end of a fave lane. And he spotted a kill trap in the water about 10 feet from the bridge. My husband grew up as a hunter and a trapper and he was familiar with it and explained to me how it worked. I looked into it further, long story short. My understanding and thank you also Melinda for providing information. My understanding as of last night was that the town can do nothing about it because the state regulates hunting and fishing. And that the firearms ordinance that was passed years ago had to do with the type of firearm and not where they can be shot or something. I do not have the time to pursue this at any great length right now so I'm trying to dump it on you guys. I think it's really important that this not be allowed to happen. Where we saw the trap, my kids used to play. People let their dogs get a drink all the time and the way this trap works is when an animal gets down in there out of curiosity or a child. It clamps up, breaks the spine of the back, the spine of the animal and it kills it instantly but that could be your child. So I think that we live in a different time now. There are certainly places where people can hunt and trap appropriately and this is not appropriate. The argument that was made was that it's regulated by the state and we can do nothing. So I started looking a little bit because it occurred to me that this is a trap that's set in water and I don't think you can own water. And it turns out that I found a document called the Law of Water. I don't remember the name of the organization but I cited it in the letter that I sent. I think what the Law of Water in this organization summarizes legal outcomes and their point was, and I quoted it in the letter, that basically you cannot do anything in water that can result in harm to people. I feel as though this qualifies. So I am here tonight to ask you to take it seriously. I think that we shouldn't wait till some child gets hurt or somebody's pet gets killed but the liability of someone's child getting hurt is certainly much greater than that of a pet and I think the town should take it out of way to prevent something like that from happening. So thank you. Ted responded to your letter. I've been out straight all day. Thank you. Any response? I asked the town manager to get our town lawyer to analyze what we can do about it. Thank you very much. Thanks. Anyone else who wishes to have any public comment tonight? If not, then we will go on to the use of the Environmental Reserve Fund on the page property. Melinda, are you going to talk about that? You have a memo to us, I believe. So I believe it was the last meeting when we discussed the town holding a conservation easement over eight acres of the page's remaining land in order to reduce the tax that would be due. And I think the Conservation Commission recommended that the town pay whatever the fee is. I think it's going to be around $2,400 to cover the land use change tax. And they feel that way because the pages have already donated over half their land to the town forest and in doing so allowed the town to apply for a federal grant that it wouldn't have otherwise been able to get. They've given quite a bit and it just would seem a shame that they would have an additional cost to pay. It shouldn't cost them anything to donate land. We had some questions, I think they were answered by Rick and his report regarding what this would do to the taxes on that property. Yeah, and I think I can answer that now because we had to do a calculation for the tax proration. And I believe what they pay on taxes will actually I think we figured it out for the 17 acres that they were donating the town and it was like $58 a year or something. So it's going to be even less for the eight acres. So any questions for Melinda on this? There is a suggested motion if we wish to do this. Just a quick question. So the amount being requested or the suggested motion talks about an expenditure up to $3,000 which is greater than the amount you just talked about. But the concept is that the ERF would only be used to pay the land use change tax that the pages will incur for this no cost to the town donation that they made. I just want to make sure I got that. And then the other piece of it is is last time we I know there was some talk about are we treating the pages maybe any differently than anybody else. And I just want to verify that anybody who would donate land to the town will see a decrease in the property taxes since they no longer own that land and it is in the town's hands and thus. Correct, yeah. That happens every time somebody donates land to the town. That's it for me. I thought according to Bill Hinman, it's less than 500 in tax revenue, but you said like $56. So what I had to calculate the tax proration for the 17 acres that they donated and according because it's in current use. So I guess this would be a little bit different because it wouldn't be. I already had a view of that. I see where you're going. Thank you. I'm sorry. I just was wondering. You don't need to clarify any further. So those of us who are trying to catch up. Sorry. So the calculation for current use versus regular. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, I apologize. I guess I hadn't realized that you're still looking for information about the tax revenue loss. I kind of thought that that was that since you decided to accept the conservation easement. And so I hadn't we had done the research. That's the research. Okay. All right. I don't know. Surely you also had some familiarity. I don't know if you recall the details of it, but. Yes. Property. Yeah. Yeah. She started speaking like, oh, I see where I may be. So that's why it went from 58 to the fourth. Correct. Okay. Sorry to end you off. Any other questions for Linda? Is there a motion? I move to authorize the expenditure of up to $3,000 for the, from the environmental reserve fund to reimburse the pages from land use change taxes on acres of land. The town will hold a permanent ease and permanent conservation easement over. Second. So discussion on emotion. Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed. And no extensions. Good. We'll move on to the catamount property conservation easement again. So back in on February 5th, you may recall that we announced that we had received a grant from Land and Water Conservation Fund for catamount. And because of that, certain revisions needed to be made to the conservation easement to better reflect Land and Water Conservation Fund requirements. On, on that night, proactively, we had inserted some of those revisions. We had a chance to review them. And we did note that additional changes would likely be coming because the conservation easement had yet to be reviewed by A&R who oversees the Land and Water Conservation Fund on behalf of the National Park Service. So after lengthy negotiations between A&R and Vermont Housing Conservation Board, Vermont Land Trust, those parties did agree to subsequent changes to the conservation easement, which I have are in the A red line document in your packet. And I've outlined the changes in the bullets on this memo. If you would like, I can go through each change. And so I can suggest that substantial changes, not just the inconsequential ones. So there was a question about that, but I think in the interest of transparency and just making sure that you understood what these changes are, we decided to bring them to you tonight to take a look at. And a lot of them aren't really substantive. There's maybe one or two, I think, that could be. So I can just go through them if you'd like. Please. So on the first page, there's a paragraph. Yeah, so there's some sentences, a second paragraph. Basically, inserting, deleting reference to a potential grant, you know, before it was if the town gets this grant, then such and such. So it's been replaced by actual language, the town's gotten this grant, and there's reference to a project agreement number in that paragraph. The subsequent paragraph is basically, that's probably the most substantive change in the whole document. And it basically states that the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant agreement takes precedence or basically is number one in priority. And that the conservation easement is subordinate to the requirements of the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant agreement. And their main, I guess, priority is for public recreation. And they wouldn't want the property to be forever protected for public recreation. And that cannot be unreasonably restricted by other uses of the property. I did flesh this out a little bit with the A&R staff member asking her some questions. What if we want to close the trails during mud season? That's okay. What if we want to do some forestry and do a timber harvest and close a certain portion of the trail network for two to three weeks to do that? That would be okay. Other things like removing invasive species, what if you have to close a portion of the trail network that is fine as well? I think the sort of the line gets drawn when the example that she gave me, if the town were to close the property, the entire property for six months or longer, that would be considered a violation of the grant agreement. So that was reassuring to me that we could use the property for other things as long as people still had access. Was there any concern from a different direction of we aren't using this property just overall for, I don't know how to correctly put this, but we aren't doing allowing enough for a creation on the property like we need to put it in war trails or a soccer field? No, no. Stadium or something? No. Okay. Yeah, it's, you know, what's there today is, you know, they think it's great and wonderful and they want to keep it that way. Okay, good. So moving on, page three, there's under the statement of purposes. Basically, they moved up to provide non-motorized, non-commercial, recreational, educational and other appropriate community uses on the protected property. They just moved it up on the list to number one from, you know, down, it was down further in the list. They moved it up as the top priority. We move off of this. I'm sorry. So with this at all, the license agreement that, I don't believe we're looking at the license agreement tonight with the Catamount Family Outdoor Center and the potential commercial activities they're proposing to do. Is there any violation, any concern there? No, they're aware of the license agreement. There are certain requirements for licensing agreements. Okay. Yeah. Good. Thank you. And then they also added another number, letter E, to ensure the protected property will be owned in perpetuity by a public entity approved by the National Park Services and the grantees. And then on page eight, under number six at the bottom of the page, restricted uses of the protected property. Okay. It states that the town cannot convey, sell, or subdivide the property without written approval of VHCB, VLT and Land Water Conservation Fund National Park Service. This is inconsequential because the U.S. Forest Service grant already prohibits the town from selling or subdividing the property. I mean, or if we did, we'd have to pay back the grant funding. Page 11, this was something that was, let's see, page 11, under number nine. This had been added to the best of my knowledge. It was something that was mistakenly taken out and then discovered that it had been mistakenly taken out and it was added back in by VLT. It says members of the public shall not be charged a fee for pedestrian access on the protected property as provided under section four. And then on page 12, under number 12, oh wait, yeah, section four, cross country skiing was crossed out because they didn't want people thinking that it was free. And then on page 16, at the bottom of the page, it's basically the same thing that I previously mentioned under the first bullet point, that the reference to a potential grant agreement was crossed out and the grant number was put in, project number was put in. And that's pretty much it for the changes. Page 18, page 17. Page 18, okay, yes. Yeah, again, it's just inserting a reference to the actual grant number as opposed to a theoretical possible grant. So unless you have questions about those specific points, I just wanted to back out a little bit and kind of just make sure you're clear with what it means, what this all means. So essentially with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, that means the town is going to be responsible for compliance with the conditions of three separate grant agreements on the property. And we'll need to get permission if we want to make substantive changes to the property, such as instruction of a recreation building, permanent closure of part or all of the trail system. Changes to the license agreement, changes to the trail managing entity, or the addition of a new use, those are some examples. And it means that we need to ask permission to do this from three different entities. And then there's a separate memorandum of understanding also in your packet between the town, Vermont, A&R, and VHCB, VLT, basically establishing a framework for how to ask permission for significant changes. And namely that sets an order of priority, that the Vermont A&R, we have to ask them first. If they say okay, then we ask Vermont Housing Conservation Board and VLT. And then the U.S. Forest Service Grant is not part of this. They didn't feel the need to be part of this MLEU. And then the other thing to mention is that this conservation easement does refer to a grant agreement with the Land and Water Conservation Fund that the town will not actually have the opportunity to review until June. And that's part of this whole strangeness of the retroactive, the waiver of retroactivity that we're buying the property before we have an actual grant agreement with Land and Water Conservation Fund. They did provide us with a template agreement and an example agreement from another town for another acquisition. We also currently have a grant agreement with them for the Mudpond Conservation Area. And so these agreements are all very similar. The main requirement for acquisition projects is just maintaining the property for public outdoor recreation in perpetuity. And so while it seems a little, I don't know, it may seem a little bit strange to be accepting a conservation easement that refers to a grant agreement. You haven't seen it yet. It's likely to be very similar to the one we have now with Mudpond Conservation Area. They're pretty standard. They're based on the Land and Water Conservation Fund manual guidelines. It's $280,000. So accepting the conservation easement doesn't lock the town into accepting a grant agreement that they haven't reviewed yet. We could still reject it if it's objectionable. Doing so would come at a cost, obviously. Yeah. The only question I had along these same lines is I'm looking at the Mudpond Agreement and it talks about a single audit. Do you believe we'll be subject to a single audit if we accept the grant? Not in and of itself, but there's a lot of other grant money involved. So I would say we'd be able to limit because of those in combination. Okay. I mean, I'm not objecting to it, but that will come at a cost to the town to do that moment. Okay. So just something we need to be aware of. I mean, that's the cost of doing business, the cost of receiving all this money. So I'm fine with it, but I just want to make sure I understood that there was that cost down the road. Just heard me. Are we actually receiving all that money? No, some of it has gone to TPL and they're bringing to closing. The grants the town is receiving directly are the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the US Forest Service Grant. And the VHCB VLT grant. Well, those two would, well, three would push us over the fund. That's 500,000. So 400,000. What is it? It's not all federal. VHCB is state funds. TPL received the VHC. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. All right. So, you know, we're about that. Okay. So we're going to be involved in some activity with our other grants we have. So there's a good chance it's maybe a way to put that. And the other grant they come in next. Oh, that would be, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The way to get out of that. The question that is, what does a single audit mean? And I think. So it's an additional audit of our federal programs. I've not gone through one here, but our big dollars, they focus on the big dollar grants and that primarily will be the grants related to the catamount purchase. We have some other grants for the police department, but they'll be smaller in comparison. So it's just, you know, looking at revenues coming in, expenditures going in on those grants. Okay. Single audit is a proper name. It's something the federal government does. It's something the federal government requires, but our regular auditors will do just that. We've done this in the past a couple of times. So that figure is receiving 750, 750. In federal funds. Okay. So state funds don't hurt wildlife. They can help from federal through the state. They qualify as a local passport. So direct or pass through federal funds are the dollars we're talking about. This project would be 70,000. Federal comes to town. So the number of smaller grants are more than 70,000. And this will be on occasion of applied for community development grants for various projects. And that would be included in whatever monies we receive for that particular fiscal year through those programs as well. The advantages from those programs. They will cover the cost or at least a portion of the cost of the single audit. The North End Community Center is one and as we have a project here in Wilson, although that won't be received for a while because it hasn't been approved yet. That's interesting because who are we for lack of a word, sponsoring for that potential grant? Because didn't they agree to do to pay for the single line audit? Yes. To the extent that pushes, you know, if that was only grant, it was under the 750,000, then they wouldn't be it. So it's... We'll have to figure that out. Yeah, we'll have to figure it out. But if they're contributing towards putting us over, then they will be on hook for sharing some of the extra costs. But we can't say you got to pay for all of it. Probably not. Okay. We wouldn't do that. Right. Yeah. All right. We wouldn't. Any further questions for Melinda on the conservation easement? We have a suggested motion for... Let's move to approve amendments to the Catamount Property Conservation Easement and authorize the town manager. Thank you. Sorry, discussion on the motion. If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No extensions. So I'll keep you on the hot seat here and take a look at the MOU. Sure. So, yeah, as I stated earlier, the MOU just establishes sort of the order by which we get approvals for significant changes to the property. And, okay, so in the event the town or its licensee proposes a new use or development of the property, the town shall first seek the approval of forest parks and recreation under the Land and Water Conservation. And then let's see the process by which the town seeks FPNR approval. So we contact the Land and Water Conservation Fund Program Administrator. And then they may also decide they want to contact the National Park Service if it's something really big prior to rendering a decision. And then if forest parks and recs give its approval, the town then seeks the approval of VLT and BHCB under the grant if that's necessary. And process by which we seek approval shall be initiated by a written request saying that we've already gotten approval from forest parks and rec. We can make a written request to the stewardship manager, VLT stewardship manager overseeing the stewardship of the grant. So it's pretty basic, just establishes a process. From Linda. Chair, entertain the motion. I appreciate a motion if there's no questions. Move to accept the Catamount Community Forest Memorandum of Understanding and authorize the town manager to sign on behalf of the town. Second. Second on that motion. If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Very good. Thank you. Closing on this is all supposed to happen next week. Monday. Congratulations. Thank you. Everyone. How long have you been at this for? Two and a half years. Well done. Thank you. We do indeed. We have a presentation by Sarah Reeves, the executive director of the CSWD. Talking about compost operation and expansion updates and the possibility of relocating the MRF. So welcome, Sarah. Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to come talk to you about some things that we've been talking about internally. And this is the ward. Well, I'm going up here. My name is Sarah Reeves. I'm the executive director for the Chittenden. Chittenden's Halloween District. Sorry, it's been a long, long week. Just out of curiosity. That's the tone. Will Craig be attending tonight? Just out of curiosity. Craig actually is out of town. Okay. He did send an email that I don't know if you were aware of that. He had some comments about the MRF. It's been about traffic along Redmond Road. Yeah, we will talk about that. So no, I was not carpet on that side. No idea what that was. He may have told you, but I do know what he brought up with us. Sorry, let's see if I can move this over. This is not helping me here. Technical difficulty is always, of course. So I'm hanging out so close over here. I'm going to get my thumb drive. There's an anniversary trip that my husband and I took a few years ago to Bordeaux. Highly recommend. The one time I went to Paris, I took a picture of their city hall, hoping that maybe, you know, we could do something like that here. Yeah. Nobody seconded the motion. You know, the amazing thing is it was probably built in like the 1400s. Yeah. The entire thing is not moving over. Let's see. Thank you for your patience. So I'm just going to go right on. So the Chinnesellaways district for the audience and for new members is a municipality. And we were created in 1988 as part of Act 78 to implement the solid waste management mandates legislated by the state of Vermont. We are governed by a volunteer board of commissioners and each representing the communities in Chittenden County. And we are, I believe, the only solid waste district that actually is the entire county. It's a little bit unusual. So I just put up there as well our mission and our vision. So the mission reducing and managing the solid waste generated within Chittenden County in environmentally sound, efficient, effective and economical manner. And then the vision is just kind of in general that in general products are designed to be used or recycled. And this is what is very important from my perspective is that the community fully participates in minimizing disposal and maximizing reuse and recycling whenever possible. And we really feel that is our charge is to facilitate that to the fullest extent possible. So tonight I would just want to go over some of the infrastructure conversations that our board has has been undertaking over the past year. And last year we held three strategic retreats. So it was very, very busy. And the reason that we did that I came on board in August of 2016. And one of the charges of the board of commissioners was for me to take a look at all of our structures, internal structures and external structures. So we started with Green Mountain Compost, mainly because we've got this deadline coming up next year, July 1, 2020 with Act 148 finalizing the last piece of the universal recycling law, which is on July 1, 2020. All food scraps generated by all generators, everybody within the state must be kept out of the landfill. You will no longer be able to dispose of food scraps in the landfill. So we had a real hard deadline. So that's why we started on Green Mountain Compost. In June we started talking about our drop off centers. We have a system of small convenience centers or drop off centers located around the county. We currently operate six. We generally have seven. Hinesburg has been temporarily closed while they built their new garage and they have finished that. So we're now moving back into working on Hinesburg. And then December we had a retreat about the materials recovery facility. So for Green Mountain Compost and the MRF, GMC is the largest processor of food scraps in the state of Vermont by far. And the MRF is one of two facilities that sort and process the blue bin recyclables that people bring to us. And each retreat started with the same question, do we still want to do this? Because our charter does not require us to operate anything. It actually only requires us to educate and to inform and to manage the flow of materials. It does not require us to operate a compost center or a drop off center or a MRF or anything. Our SWIP, our solid waste implementation plan does have other requirements. So we do need to manage household hazardous waste. But other than that, we have very few actual infrastructure and operational requirements. So we've really felt staffed in, particularly myself, felt it was very important that we reconfirm our commitment to these different, these different operations. Can we ask questions? Yeah, for sure. For sure. Go back to the slide. And I heard the part where you said, you know, we felt these three areas were of importance because back 148 and deadlines in it. Do you foresee the board having a discussion whether it should be in the business of disposing solid waste? As far as a landfill. So that was because we don't see that as a looming crisis. It was not on the let's talk about this right away list. So we do have land on Redmond Road, as you know, that has been set aside for potential future landfill use. You know, again, we don't see that as a near need. Coventry has been in the news, obviously, for their expansion. Quite a bit. They, from what I understand, are continuing to move forward with that. And that does seem like that expansion of the landfill and Coventry will go forward. If it does, that new cell should provide at current disposal rates approximately 20 to 25 years of disposal, adding on to the existing capacity that they have right now. So presuming that there's no great monkey wrench thrown into that, that's why the landfill or a landfill here in Wilson is not on this list. Also not on this list is our depot, our household hazardous waste depot on the rover. It doesn't mean that we're ignoring those facilities. It just means that they're not in as a crisis mode. And quite frankly, neither do we anticipate that the Murph would be in a crisis mode. So ideally we would have started with Green Mountain Compost, taken a year or two to work on that. Moved gently into the drop off centers, taken a year or two to work on that. Moved ever so gently into the Murph. Other items popped up in the global world community to say, okay, you need to look at some other things more quickly. So that was why. So again, we did our board did commit to wanting to continue to provide these services as a district. So there were, you know, a bunch of different bullet points and caveats and charges that came out of those retreats. But these are some of the common features. Again, everything has to relate back to the district's mission. And some of our commissioners felt that, you know, maybe we had started to take on too much and doing too much and spreading ourselves too thin. So the chart was, you know, bring back. Let's take a look at the basics first and then see are there basics plus. Is there something that maybe we're doing that maybe the private sector is also doing and we're duplicating efforts. Or that the, you know, the nonprofit sector is doing and we're duplicating efforts. Taking a look at all of our offerings and really seeing if it's something that we need to continue to do as municipality or can those municipal efforts and dollars be better used to do other things. And again, you know, we wanted to make sure that we were we're still providing equal or better service that it moves the district forward. A lot of our infrastructure is 20, 25 years old. We were created 25 years ago. So it's not a surprise that things are starting to age out. And that, again, times have changed, technologies have changed, people's habits have changed, demographics have changed. So we needed to take a fresh look and say, okay, how are we situating ourselves for the next 15, 20, 25 years. And then getting back to recognizing who we are and we are solid waste management professionals and making sure that we're using industry best practices wherever we can and wherever we need to. So again, starting with Green Mountain Compost. We are located right here over here on Redmond Road. We are currently over capacity. And by that, what I mean is we when we built the facility. We built it a similar size to what it had been operating at as interval compost products back in Burlington. So we, and this was before I 148 kicked in right so we did not anticipate the significant growth that we have had. It's a good problem to have a bad problem to have. That means a lot of people are diverting food scraps and that isn't that's wonderful. It means that we are challenged by having to make sure that we are constantly on top of the movement of materials within our site. I mentioned the July 1, 2020 deadline that is looming. So just in the past maybe five years or so we have doubled the amount of food scraps that have been we're managing at the facility that's going to increase. We are just guaranteeing that that's going to increase. I have a map a little bit further down to show you to that will show you the inefficient layout. Generally when you build a compost operation, you're going to build it from scratch. You make it a nice square or nice rectangle so that things come in they flow through and they come out the other side similar to a Murph. You want to make it easy and easy out. You'll see on the image that we are a bit of an S curve. So it makes it very difficult to manage material in an efficient manner. We adopted the interview compost products retail sales model for composting. And so we decided at that time to just replicate it. They knew what they were doing. We did the same thing here. And I think that was a misstep, quite frankly. I come from municipal waste management background. It is not how I would have approached the operation. Traditional municipal compost operations are really only managing leaf and yard waste. And it's on the management first. They're managing that waste first. And then if there's a compost product on the back end, that's great. And currently we are doing the opposite because that was what was known. We're changing that. So that is one of the big changes coming in the next couple of years. We are going to turn the ship and focus again on managing the waste on the inbound. And then if there's compost products on the outside, then that's great. It's more of a bonus. So we're needing to change that. We have an undercapitalized meeting. We have a lot of very old equipment. Having to do multiple things. All our equipment wears many hats. So it has never really been supported properly from the get-go. And we've struggled ever since. And because of that, the district heavily subsidizes this operation. And my board has said we need to get that subsidy down. And that is the goal. So some of the changes we need to make is in looking at the food scraps and the food waste that's coming in and taking a look at the leaf and yard debris that we manage. The leaf and yard debris, it pretty much stays very constant over the years. There are no big spikes. It is not growing at the same rate at any rate as the food scraps are. So we have a limited amount of carbon. And to make good compost, you need a certain amount of nitrogen food scraps, a certain amount of carbon leaf and yard. So what we do to keep up with the food scraps is we're buying, we're bringing in additional carbon sources. Every composter in the region is struggling with that and will continue to struggle with that. There may be a kind of a one-time only boon thanks to the emerald ash borer. If some of those trees get shredded and chipped, there may be some additional carbon available, but that is not a long-term solution. So we are looking more instead to matching the volume of food scraps with the leaf and yards that they are together. We don't have to worry about carbon sources. Another change is we need to raise the tip fee. We are still undervalued on this service. The general tip fee at the tip fee is a disposal fee, the price that you pay to dispose the waste. Coventry is around $125 a ton, not including transportation. We are currently charging $52 a ton to dispose of food organics at Green Mountain Compost, and that is too low. So we recognize that we are below the market rate, and we need to start to approach closer to a regional market rate, and we'll be raising that tip fee this year. And again, the inefficient layout, and I'll be able to show you that, means that we need to improve both our processing, which is our turning where we turn over the compost as it's being made to aerate it, and then where we lay it down to sit and finish off. And then again, I mentioned we're changing the retail model looking at wholesale and bulk, and working with fewer customers, selling them larger quantities at one time. So I've thrown a lot of it at you about GMC, so we'll see those questions. Under the challenges it says overcapacity. The question is, are you under the agreement with Willis-Dan? So overcapacity means your facility is smaller than the amount in the agreement. Correct, and we are under our town's permit capacity, and the overcapacity is related to the efficiency and what we can physically move in any given eight or nine hour day. And so that's what we mean by that. Thank you for clarifying. Okay. And then at some point, I know the district has the ability and does charge, I forget the term of it, but it's like a franchise? It's not a franchise. It's a solid waste management fee. Management fee, so for every ton of trash. You get, I forget what the amount is. How does that enter into how you look at capitalizing things or subsidizing them? Because you collect this amount that I assume is being collected, one, to run the district, but also two, to lower the cost of activities that divert waste from disposal. Right. So you're referring to our solid waste management fee, which is a per ton fee tax on every ton of trash that is disposed at the Coventry landfill. And right now the fee is $27 per ton. That has been $27 per ton for the last four years. And we do not anticipate raising that fee. We are, I believe, the third highest Addison County, then central Vermont, and then Chittenden solid waste. So those fees do certainly help pay for just the general administration of the district. It pays into capital. So that is partly how we pay for the capital improvements. Green Mountain Compost also is a revenue generator as well. So both on the inbound as far as disposal fee and on sale of materials, as are some of our other operations that the ones we'll talk about tonight, the MRF and the drop-off centers. So all of those revenues come in as well to supplement the need for having to rely, overly rely on the solid waste management fee. But Green Mountain Compost is subsidized. Would I say they're subsidized? It is coming from that trash fee. And you mentioned, I heard you just say that you're not anticipating raising that fee anytime in the near future. Well, not this year for sure. Not this year. Okay. And so I guess part of I say raise tip fees, which will make bringing, you know, compostable materials to the facility more expensive, i.e. a distant center to bring them there, versus raising the solid waste management fee, which makes disposal more expensive, thus a distant center to dispose. I guess I'm losing the logic a little bit. Do you get my point? I do. I do. And it would be, that would be, I think, much more applicable if the actual user, you and I were paying either the $27 or the $52, which is what the tip fee is now. Many of us either pay those fees embedded in a subscription fee if you hire a hauler to pick up your material, or if you drop off at the drop off centers, they are embedded in those costs. So it's not a direct incentive, disincentive. The haulers pass it on. And when you call to say, as I do, why is my bill going up? They'll say, oh, the district made me. They don't tell you exactly why. And it could be a number of things. So there are some incentives, particularly at Green Mountain Compost, where we don't charge residents, if you want to bring your fruit scraps directly there, it is no charge. So the fees are by the bulk of them, are paid by commercial entities. They generate more of the materials, and so they end up paying more of the fees. All right, good. I have a question. Under your changes needed, it goes with bullets one and three. I, you know, in its initial startup a few years back, I was a purchaser of some compost. I don't know if this has been a concern that's come up again, but they, it wasn't a recall, but they were asking folks to, you know, take a look at what they had purchased. It wasn't unsafe, but they offered a reimbursement. Have any of those issues come up again? And if so? Yeah, no, thankfully they haven't. We had a very rigorous testing protocol, though we continue to this day, even though we have not seen any hints of that persistent herbicides since that time. And that is what you were talking about. It was back in 2011 or 2012. It was quite some time ago, but it has not been an issue exactly. So we identified what we felt was the source of the herbicides and eliminated that out of our compost recipe. So since then, even though we're still nervous, right? So we test every batch and we make sure that if anyone has any complaints, we still do have set aside in our budget, you know, customer satisfaction and we will reimburse folks. We will swap out products. It doesn't happen often, luckily. We don't really tap into that part of the budget very often, which is what you hope you don't have to. But the larger scale herbicide issue has not been an issue for, again, since probably 2012. Yeah, thank you. So here is Greenmount compost. Here is the facility. So you can see Redmond Road is the road that kind of loops around. And you can see that we're not a rectangle and we're not a square. We are pretty much in an S shape, which is not at all ideal. So folks will come in around that little blue blob up there and there's our containment pond and they'll come up around that road. There's a scale. They'll weigh in. They'll come around and they'll tip and then we'll move things in and out of our bays and then we'll scoop up some compost and move it over here and then we'll go back and we'll move it more over here and then we'll go back and move it back. Not ideal. Not ideal. So we are working on some plans to be able to improve the efficiency and improve the flow and still manage more of the food scraps that are participating in coming. So that's what we look like right now. The open area that's just on top of, if you don't mind my way of describing that, that's not a resident. Is that a residential property? No, not at all. The neighborhood is above and then off to the south of the hill. But that's what we look like. And when we're looking at different options for Green Mountain Composts, we were looking at brand new site because we're weighing the options of, well, how much is it going to cost to reconfigure where we are versus just start new? And they weren't that far off, but they were still pretty hefty in the $5 million range and that was a bit much for my board to want to swallow. So they say, back to the drawing board for you. So again, the opportunities that we're looking at is just turning the mindset and focusing on what we do best, which is waste management, organics management first. And composting second. So not a lot of municipal compost operations do what we do as far as produce a very high quality premium product that we sell in the retail market. Highly unusual. We're backing off of that. So we're getting back to basics. We'll be reducing our product sale, our product offerings. Right now we offer 12 different products and two mulches. It's too much. So we're going to back it down to probably three products. Compost, topsoil, and then a raised bed or a garden mix. And then again, focusing on our wholesale customers. Another opportunity that we have, the ANR through GEC has issued a very significant and substantial organics infrastructure grant, which we have been conditionally awarded a portion of that. We'll be presenting this to our board next week and seeking authorization to sign that grant. And that would be about $500,000, which would be a huge, huge help to making some improvements at the site. And then we're also looking at the emergence of some public-private partnerships. And there's a lot of activity, because the deadline is approaching, with different ways to manage the food scraps that are coming. The interrupt digestion is coming back online, not intended, but they're starting to get more headway. The Millbury College just signed on with the farm in Salisbury. To build a digester there. And so that digester will need material. Montec continues to work on their process. There is a need in or near Chittenden County for a digester, as well as probably in the Montpelier area. So there's a lot of activity around this. Hauling activities are also growing. So we're seeing, I think, business opportunities springing because of this. Now people are at the table and talking. And so we're being approached as well, hopefully particularly to be some form of a partnership or at least have a seat at the table. Let me just see the table. So that is where we are. So we don't have any firm decision from our board as far as which path to go, but we'll be much clearer, I think, next week. And then certainly by, oh, I would say, August at the latest is when we will know what the next step will be or what we hope will be. And then, but prior to that, we come back to this group, right? And we talk to the town and say, okay, these are the two options that our board is considering. And we will have already looped you into that and had you identify any issues that there may be from your perspective and go from there. So that's GMC. Sir, would you know at this point, and you may not, you very well may not, would, it sounds like no matter what the compost operation is going to expand in some way. Do you foresee it or you may not know yet if it expanding beyond the amount that's in the, whatever the agreement we have with you over the compost? I, boy, the DSM study that was done for the state almost 10 years ago when they were looking at the quantities that they thought could be generated in Chittenden County in total is about 14,000 tons of food scraps now. Right tons, what tons, I'm sorry? Probably wet tons, the thing was wet tons. However, that doesn't mean that that is, all of that would be composted through Grimond compost. A significant amount will be backyard composted as is happening right now. Today, last year, and one of the questions that we asked participants was when this ban happens, how do you think you will manage your food scraps in your organics? And over 55%, close to 60% indicated that they would be backyard composting. So we don't at all expect to get that amount. I would be shocked if that, we're looking around the 10,000 ton possibly, but we would not be composting all of that material there. So again, we'll be talking with our board about the different options next week, not making any decisions because we still need to hire a consultant and have them really work through the, whether it's the design or doing performer for sure. That has not happened yet, but that's the next steps. Drop off setters, this will be somewhat quick because we realize that we need to take a lot more time to look at the drop off centers. It's a little bit trickier when you've got six to seven individual units to take a look at and they each are special in their own way. So we realize that we need to spend some more time and pump that one a little bit because GMC and the MRF really have more time crunches involved. But some of the charges from our board was to focus on safety, whether it's the materials that are being left there for us to manage or traffic, which is a huge issue. Not as much in Williston or in Essex, where you've got the nice long lead up to the drop off centers, but Richmond has a very short queuing line. It's tricky. South Burlington can back up on Patchin Road, so it's at Burlington as well. So that's one of the things that they want us to focus on and we need to research the county demographics to see where the people are. Are the people still where they were 25 years ago? No, we know that they're not. So are the drop off centers in the right locations serving the right demographics of folks? And we've had some interest from Colchester and yeah, a lot of folks are moving up that way, so there could be a need for something in Colchester. Again, they're also reevaluating the suite of materials that are being managed at the docks and are there things that are being better managed out in the private sector and the nonprofit sector that we don't need to manage? We're also recognizing that again 25 years ago, we didn't have extended producer responsibility programs for compact fluorescent bulbs and for batteries and for electronics. Now we do. We anticipate more of those programs will come out. So we need to take a look at how our sites are laid out to better accommodate some of those items or do we need something different? Do we need to have a central location where those special items go and have the drop off centers focus on trash, recycling, leaf and yard waste and organics? So those are some of the conversations that we need to flesh out more that we've realized we need more time as well. I'm sorry, I hope we don't mind. That's okay. That's great. How would you characterize interest in drop off centers or use of drop off centers? Steady, decreasing, increasing? Steady to increasing. Again, so we, our drop off centers are heavily used. Anywhere from, it's about 28 to 27, 27 to 20 percent of the residents of Jinden County exclusively use the drop off centers for all of their waste management. Upwards of 75 percent use them for something. So the occasional drop off of, I've got a bureau or I've got a mattress or I've got a TV, I've got to get rid of. But almost 30 percent, which is a very high number when you have other available subscription services. So yeah, that was surprising for me. I thought maybe it might be 25 or 20, 25 at the most. Almost 30. So that's why we really need to figure and take a look at are we serving folks where they are? And we may, I think we mostly are, but there could be some changes we might want to look at. And it may be not necessarily removing a dock but it might be adding one. So materials recovery facility. Again, we are one of two facilities in the states that manage what's called single stream recycling. So putting all of your recyclables in the one blue bin, the blue cart. Challenges is, you know, that building size. It was, again, built 25 years ago to process about 25,000 tons of material. We are now processing 48,000 tons of material. So not only have the tons gone up, but the volume has gone up. And that is an important factor because if you think about plastic water bottle, for example, 10 years ago, 7 years ago, it was much more sturdy. That's because they're using less and less plastic in that water bottle. Well that means it takes a whole lot more water bottles to make one ton of plastic. So it used to take 12,000 bottles to make one ton. Now it takes 19,000 bottles to make one ton. So we're not only seeing more actual weight, we're seeing more volume. And this facility is about 38,000 square feet. It needs to be 65,000 square feet to manage the volume and to manage the throughput. So not only is the building size inadequate, the condition is 25 years old and it is showing its age. The site is very small. We're at the end, almost the end of Avenue C. And I have an aerial photo I'll show you in a moment that you'll see we are hemmed in and we can't go out. It is an inefficient layout, just saying it's similar to GMC and it's an inefficient process. It is very hands-on. We do not have, by and large, with the exception of glass, modern sorting technology. We are still hand sorting our bottles and our jugs. We have to run material through twice because we physically can't pick everything out once. And that is very costly. Change is needed. We need a new building. The board has asked us to actively look at what that means. We need optical sorting. We need to be able to use technology to help us see the materials as they float on the conveyor belt and to pick off by technology rather than hand the correct materials. That will improve the quality and it will have our folks who work at the MRF be focused on quality control versus active sorting, so it makes it a better job. We also need some sortation flexibility. Packaging is changing and we need to be able to take advantage of markets as they emerge by changing how we sort to be able to grab materials, to be able to sell them. And this little bullet down towards the end there, we're going to need to bond. The little bullet? The little teeny tiny bullet separated away down at the end. It's going to need a bond. The GMC work we can probably do out of our capital reserves. The drop-off centers can be done over time so we can manage that. We don't have the cash in the bank to build a MRF for sure, so we'll be talking about that a lot more with our member communities over the next year. What sort of ballpark figure are you looking at? Yeah, well it depends on if we need to buy land or not, quite honestly. So if we do, and depending on where it is and what kind of a deal we can make, that could be anywhere from 2 million to 6 million, just for the land. And then you have to build it and you have to fill it with the equipment. So gosh, low end, 13 million, high end 20, low end 14, high end 25. I don't know. But that is something that we will have more clarity on by the end of this calendar year for sure. So there's the aerial of our nice little MRF. And again, you can see that it is hemmed in on all sides. So the southern, you see it, and you see there at the, there's one building at the very end of that lot and that's it to the top of the image that looks like it might be able to move out, but it's a very steep in back minute and it drops down pretty precariously. To the left-hand side is Baker Commodity, so that's another business. And then to the bottom is the Cassella Transfer Station. So there's nowhere to go. And so generally what happens with MRFs like this, older MRFs, they would build up and that just adds to the inefficiency. You want to build out. Again, it's that going all the way through on this long conveyor system that gets you, you come in one side and you go out the other side. So we just, this is a great building and it's a great site and the zoning is exactly what we need. So we would probably want to look at reusing it for some other district purpose. It is valuable, so it could be part of how we, if we have to buy a land, that's part of how we pay for it perhaps. So there's still some life left in it but just not as a MRF for much longer. So then again, some of the opportunities and over the years, the past 15 years in particular, municipalities have gotten out of the MRF business and that is now wreaking a bit of havoc. So there's been a call for more municipal, either partnerships or actual municipal facilities just to provide stability for recycling programs when you're at the mercy of the private sector that doesn't always work well. The opportunity again to clean a product and market stability. We are lucky here in Vermont in that we have not been bitten too badly bad enough but not as badly as some folks on the West Coast with the Chinese National Sword program where they have stopped accepting Scrap which is a problem because Scrap is the number one export of the United States. So when our biggest customers stop taking our largest export that sent shock waves through the industry, the only material that Vermont, that at least our MRF sent to China was our fiber products, our paper and some of our cardboard. So we're not shipping to China. We have not been shipping to them for over a year and we are continuing to look for local solutions to that. All of the other materials are domestic whether it's the United States or Canada. So we're still in a good position there. And again, I mentioned recovery of flexibility for the future. We want to be able to do a better job at public education, provide a location that's a destination for folks to come and learn more about recycling and participate and to do some research. We have some pretty great B-Corps here in Vermont that want to do some research with us and we just aren't able to do that right now. So building in that capability which could help as well as some of the financing whether it's a private public partnerships or just some grant money from them will help with expanding. Again, it gets back to our mission, expanding our mission. So when we're looking about where we can go, this is a map made by the Jinden County Regional Planning Commission. The purple blobs are areas that are currently zoned light industrial and that's what we're looking at and there's not much as you can see. So that's part of the, that's like the number one criteria that we're using for the MRF. We use it also for Vermont compost. We didn't think that agricultural uses would be open to us because we are technically a solid waste use. So we had to look for industrial and solid waste usage. So we're starting there for the MRF criteria and then we're going on. We've identified about 30 potential properties but those potential properties will quickly become not viable due to the different citing criteria. Obviously Act 250 is a major criteria for us and so we'll be following all of that plus. So is it already currently zoned? Local permitting, proximity to I-89 is very important. Again, local access, are the local roads suitable for heavier traffic? Traffic in general. Neighborhoods, a lot of the industrial, even the light industrial are next to neighborhoods. So we want to make sure that we're not infringing there. But this is, there's not a lot available in Jitton and County but there's some. So we'll be looking at that over the next couple of months. And these are kind of our most immediate next steps. Again, talking about the grant with our board next week, presenting the MRF citing criteria to our board next week and then diving a little bit deeper into Hinesburg and Burlington drop-off centers with our board in April and May. That is everything I have for you. Craig's email. Okay. Which I guess you didn't see. I did not see. I think he mentioned that for the MRF, there are five sites under consideration. I can only tell you what he said. Spell the beans. Ah, Craig. Tour in Williston. I'd have to look back on the list. I don't have it memorized. And so I was just, but it sounds to me like you don't want to, you don't feel we're at a point yet where we can start talking about the site source. There's so many factors and, you know, we presented just one possible method of whittling down. When we get to our, the full board, they may say, well, hang on a second. This criteria is actually more important. So put that, that property back on the list. So we're not settled on, on any certainly singular location or even those five. I would, I think there's probably more like eight that we want to take a harder, deeper dive, look on. And our board did ask us to, to look outside of Williston. They said, make sure you're not just focusing on one community. Make sure that other communities who might want the opportunity to host the facility have that opportunity. So we are looking again throughout the county, not a lot to look at, but we're not just focusing here. The opportunity issue, the way she phrases, or phrases opportunity, it is an opportunity in one sense because we do get revenue from this. And if it moves out of Williston, we will no longer get that revenue. It's about $50,000, I think, just from the MRF. It's around, around that, I believe, for fiscal 19. We've been using that to help underwrite our capital program. We just went through the budget. I remember, as in many years, that it is one source. But that, as you might remember, that is a concern of mine. I don't know if I, the rest of the select board shares that. And so I'm happy to hear that you are at least trying to communicate with the other member towns. Oh, yes. You know, my frustration is I think that the other member towns should step up. And because they, like us, are part of the district. Absolutely. I sometimes feel that we are I don't know what the right words are. And it's a little late, so I probably won't choose them correctly. But we are a little bit put upon by the district in terms of being kind of forced into having to have the solid waste facilities and not having a lot of leverage when it comes to the discussions because of the way statute is written. They really, in my mind, favor the district over the town. Well, I do want to make something very, very clear is that we don't, we won't put a facility anywhere where the host community does not want us to be. So we don't go into a community and say, we're going to build a drop-off center here. The community comes to us and says, hey, we think we might want a drop-off center here. So believe me, that is a very strong factor. And I want to make sure that this board understands that. Great. Thank you. And I put drop-off centers in slightly different category than maybe a MERF or a compost facility. I also would add your predecessor and the way I think he approached us with a compost facility, I would not at all characterize it as we won't put a facility here if you don't want it. It was very much the opposite. We're going to put a facility here because, you know, we can and we think it's the best thing to do. That's my opinion, at least. It was a different tenor than that, which you're describing now. I'm a different person. Any further questions for Sarah? Oh, great. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. So let's move on to another interesting topic of the sewer allocation. This is like Christmas for Jeff. Solid waste followed by sewage. We're indoctrinating the sewer allocation ordinance. Oh, yeah. Good stuff here. Oh, it never gets better than this tonight. So we're going to launch here as the planning director with an offering of the amendment to Attachment A. So, Matt, go ahead. So Attachment A to the sewer allocation ordinance is the annual essentially sewer capacity budget adopted by the Select Board as an attachment to the ordinance. It makes allocations of some of the town's available capacity available for the town to sell to users under varying conditions for varying kinds of land uses throughout the upcoming fiscal year. So this is Attachment A that would become effective for the first day of fiscal 2020, which would be July 1st of 2019. So to come up with some recommendations about what kinds of capacity, what amounts of capacity to allocate or make available for different land uses in different parts of town, the Select Board has to take a look at what it has available to give out. So the first part of your Attachment A memo talks about available capacity. So coming into fiscal 2020, we're looking at having at the Essex Junction plant one million and 60 gallons per day of capacity total. One million and 60,000. Yes, one million and 60,000, sorry. And that represents a little less than a third of the total capacity of the plant. It's shared between us and Essex and Essex Junction. And you know, a few things that are a little different about thinking about this this year are, you may recall some of you anyway, we just went through some changes to the town's residential growth management allocation system that could have the potential of making demands for residential capacity a little more variable than they've been in the past if certain sorts of development are proposed and approved in town that don't have to go through growth management. So, you know, affordable housing units that are made affordable at 80% or less of the area median income or projects that are deemed high flyer, quote unquote, projects by the DRB and not subject to growth management. So in all of the years past that I've been in Williston and going back before that, there's been a little higher degree of predictability about what the new residential demand is going to be because we know right now what's going to go through growth management at the DRB next week and what would likely be the maximum number of residential units that would be looking for allocation coming up in the next fiscal year. We still think we have a pretty good idea about that but there is the possibility that either an affordable or one of these high flyer projects could come into the DRB, gain approval, gain final approval and be actually seeking sewer allocation say, you know, a year from now toward the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2020. So there are some decisions to be made now in sewer allocation about how to address that potential and the proposed attachment A that you have reflects some recommendations made by the Planning Commission and worked on in conjunction with myself about how to do that, so I'll get into that. So back to, you know, what do we have? It's worth briefly mentioning that the town is currently in process of a 50,000 gallon per day purchase of additional capacity from the plant. We're buying 10,000 gallons per day per year. The last year of that purchase is fiscal 2022 at which point the total town's share of the plant would be 1,080,000 gallons per day. So there's been a number of these purchases of additional capacity over the last few years to continue to ensure that the town has enough to support the new development that's coming in and connecting to the system. So to figure out what might be made available for new development in the upcoming year, the first thing you have to do is figure out what of that 1,066, or 1,060 that we're, 1,060,000 that we're doing now, what of that is actually available to use. And so you take that number and you have to subtract everything that's already in use. And that's the biggest number that you have to subtract and I'll go into that in a moment. You have to subtract a somewhat smaller number for what's been reserved by users. They purchased capacity, they're holding it, but they're not actually using it yet. Under today's rules, you can do that but not very far in advance of connecting. So there's not this lag and there's not new users buying and sort of hoarding capacity. But there was capacity sold by the town to users in the 1990s and in the mid 2000s that has been held by those users ever since then. So you can't give that to anybody else, it's been given out, but it's not going to show up at the flow meter at the Essex Junction line because it's not being used by anything yet. So that's a number that has to be considered. And then an appropriate reserve amount to deal with whatever variabilities the system might experience from leakage heavy rain years, unanticipated additional flows from users, etc. And that number, as long as I've been involved in this has been recommended to the town as 7% of the town's total capacity. So you take the total capacity and multiply it by 7% and get that number. So that number goes up a little bit every year that we're purchasing gallons because we're setting a little bit more aside. At some point I'd like to have a discussion about that but maybe not right now. Sure. 7% and whether that's appropriate. So the big number that you have to subtract is that existing daily flow and that's what starts on page three. And the way the select board has done this for at least the last 10 years is to look at the average daily flow for the year and compare it to the rolling five-year average and use whichever of those two numbers is greater. So it's a fairly conservative way of saying how much are we already using. So I'll note that this year the greater number was the average daily flow. It came in above the rolling five-year average. It's the second year in the row. It's done that. It's the first time we've had two years in a row above the rolling average since 2006-2007 or rather 0506 coming into 07. Is that indicative of a trend of increased usage maybe it's a small bump right now. It could be part of a pattern. The overall trend as you can see from the graph is that things have been flat and measured in absolute terms declined down from the high in 2006. Now if you think about everything you've seen constructed in Williston on sewer since 2006 that's pretty remarkable. And our best guesses at why with all those new users connected are we not seeing a commensurate increase is declining household size, aging population, installation and retrofit of water efficient appliances, faucets, et cetera. And continued fixing of leakage issues by public works. So sewer systems when they leak they leak in lots of rain would be reflected by more leakage happening coming in or a big leak coming in and our public works department's been pretty assertive about managing those problems and keeping them under control. So that said at some point if you keep adding users you should see more wastewater utilized and at some point if you keep fixing stuff you're going to get to an equilibrium where you're kind of fixing things about as fast as you can as compared to how they break and I would expect generally with the rate of added users to see a small increase as we've seen in the last two years. So anyway, in figuring out what to do for the upcoming fiscal year the recommendation here would be to go with that higher number which reflects the average daily use coming out of calendar year 2018. I'll note these are calendar years when we look at average daily flow so that means we've encompassed all of the information right up till the end of December in this judgment. So then capacity committed and not yet in use this currently stands at 56,192 gallons per day so we've jumped down in order of magnitude from the big number of what's in use but we do have some that's committed not already in use. I did note that number is down from about 65,000 gallons per day last year and that reflects some nudging by public works in terms of encouraging folks who do have reserved capacity who are under development to go ahead and use it and I will note within that 56,000 gallons per day as you think about new residential that hasn't connected yet or that hasn't come online yet all of Cottonwood Crossing lives in this category so while we're at a point now where Finney Crossing is for the most part needing to purchase allocation to continue its build out and it's reaching the end of its residential build out Cottonwood Crossing as it comes in will be dipping into stuff that it brought either in the 1990s or the mid 2000s but won't be new sales coming out of the new residential category going forward. So kind of the point will be is what's the term we use? The average daily sewage flow will be going up but this committed but unused reserve will be going down so they'll kind of almost like offset each other in a sense which will give us some buffer over the years in terms of what's available to give out in future years. Interesting concept. It's a little hard to watch it at a degree of granularity where you could make this judgment but I would note that there's another layer of sort of conservatism in this in that the amount of gallons per day you need to go forward with a development is based on a number of gallons per day per bedroom when it comes to residential and that number is conservatively estimated. That's a factor safety built in. Yeah, so you might see 20,000 gallons come out of this 56 but you might only see 15 at the meter as a result. The 56 that's committed that's not yet in use does that include... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there a major box store that is still on the books that could be built? Yeah, there's a significant chunk of that is owned by JL Davis for the Taft Quarters Park as well. There's cottonwood, there's that. There is about 4,000 gallons going back to the... There was a senior housing proposal on the Finney Crossing property for 4,000 gallons per day back in the 90s. We actually think the Finney Crossing folks may spend that to get the last of their residential off the ground. So... And we changed the ordinance so that you can't just get your allocation and then sit on it forever. That's right. You really need to have something that you're going to do with it in pretty short order now just to avoid this exact issue. The last number in that table, table two I'm looking at is the 7% reserve at 74,200 gallons. And so that gives us a remaining capacity that we can look at of 266,941 gallons per day and for the last couple of years, the Select Board has wanted to look at a long-term horizon, a 20-year horizon. Well, if we sold that evenly over the next 20 years, what would it look like? It would look like a little less than 13,000 gallons per day each year. So that's a good number to kind of have and hold onto as we move forward and look at what the town's record has been over the last 10 years or so. And so the two big full sheet tables that you're going to get into in a moment and the language in front of them describing some of what you're seeing, tables three and four, are the town's history both in terms of the allocation decisions made by the Select Board for each of the most recent 10 years where it's done that and the actual allocation sold for each of the 10 years we have for that. So you know there's slightly different timeframes. Allocation is fiscal 09 through 19, but we don't have a total allocation sold for 19 yet. So for allocation sold, it's 08 to 18 or 09 through 18. So when you look at these tables, what you see including the reserve is an average, a 10 year average of about 100,000 gallons per day allocated by the Select Board. A 10 year average of about 12,000 gallons per day sold every year by the Select Board. And if you, or by the town. So if you look a little bit across the 10 years of total allocation sold, you see numbers as high as 17,000 gallons. You see numbers as low as a little over 3,000 gallons. In a recent year. So the amount allocated by the Select Board has gone somewhere between 95 and 103,000. But the amount actually that gets sold in a year has fluctuated significantly compared to that. One of the main reasons that you see the amount sold go up and down as dramatically as it does is there are a few years, every couple of years, that a large commercial user comes in and looks to purchase allocation through the Encouraged Specific Development category. And that's the category, every other allocation category in this system, the Select Board makes the decision, it becomes a line item in a table kept by Public Works and Public Works can sell out of that category administratively next door as users come in for permits. The Encouraged Specific Development category is a little different. If a user has a project and wants to use allocation from that category, which has typically had 10,000 gallons per day put in it, they have to come back to you. And the Select Board has to make a finding that what that person wants to do with that capacity is in service of important goals of the town plan. Most recent use of this was to allow for conversion of the Currie Green Mountain Plant in Williston to move over toward the cold beverage work that they were doing there. And, you know, so there was a jobs argument and a stability argument in making that large allocation that year. And so, you know, that 10,000 gallon swing can change things significantly. So I sort of foreshadowed a little bit about the staff recommendations this year, and I'll go over sort of the major differences from years past. And all of those are really based on these changes in the way the town is looking at residential growth management allocation. So when I was before this group talking about changes to residential growth management, there are some things that add some flexibility to the pace of residential development. You know, people can build their allocation schedule once they've hit year one and not necessarily do a stop-start, as they had to in the past. Folks can build affordable housing units without going through growth management, and we have this high-flyer incentive that could take an entire project out of growth management. And we had a little bit of a conversation in those meetings here about, well, sewer capacity is still a limitation on all of that, and that's absolutely true. And I did make one comment at the time and say, well, you know, for example, one of these high-flyer projects, they might come back to the board and ask for gallons under encouraged specific development. And that still is possible, and some of the feedback I got from some folks on the board was, well, yeah, but we really don't want to make the land-use decision with the way we're giving out the sewer. We want to make the land-use decision in the land-use bylaws and then support it with how we manage sewer. And so the recommended allocation schedule I've prepared here, which predominantly is different because it puts gallons per day back into the affordable category, a category that's been allocated zero for many years, is an attempt to support that land-use decision made by the board with a decision on sewer allocation that doesn't require necessarily everything that's been created by changes to growth management to come back to the board once again and ask for gallons out of that special category. So with that, I'll go through them individually and just describe the recommendations. We're keeping the recommended allocation in new commercial high at 19,500 gallons per day. And the reason for that, it was increased last year in anticipation of a new hotel that was going to need about 12,000 gallons per day. This is not the hotel that's under construction right now. It's another one in Blair Park. Oh, okay. The other one has purchased its allocation. It's under construction. The Blair Park Hotel is still a live project, but it's taking some time. And it's very doubtful in my mind that they will be able to come in and pull permits and purchase that allocation before the end of this fiscal year. But it seems that the project is still viable and therefore the recommendation is to keep that category high so that if they do come in at the beginning of the next fiscal year, the gallons per day would be available to purchase under new commercial. So let me ask the question. So it's at 19,500 in anticipation that 12 might go to a specific project that could move forward this year. So let's say some other commercial activity happens so that it uses up, let's say instead of the 75 that is anticipated for the other types of commercial, that one hotel, so that there isn't 12 available for the hotel, they'd be out of luck. They would. I mean, the backstop of all of sewer allocation is first in line with money in hand. And if you're not, you're not. And that, you know, in part incentivizes applicants to move through projects efficiently. I would say that looking at the record of what's been sold out of new commercial over the years, the mean has been 2,350. We did have a year in fiscal 17 where we sold 7,300 out of that. So it's unlikely we'll reach the 7,500 for a non-hotel use. I don't know of anything in the review pipeline that's likely to do that. And usually something that big, we would have seen a pre-application by now if we thought it was going to be, you know, ready to permit by the end of the upcoming fiscal year. So you have clues out there that clearly indicate what, I shouldn't say clearly, but give you a pretty good view of what's going to be coming in. Okay. Yeah, and especially for new commercial and new commercial that does something like that. Now, you could have a carried green mountain-style thing come out of left field. You know, you could have an existing industrial building that suddenly is going to go to a wastewater-heavy manufacturing process. You could have another brewery decide that it wanted to be in Williston with, you know, high volume, high strength waste. But that's just part of the deal would be, you know, who gets in the door first with their money. It's a lot of money. It's $10 per gallon per day. Does our ordinance allow us to do that to somehow, I'm not sure what the right word is, but for a high strength waste, you know, even though they might generate, let's say, 10,000 gallons, we actually look at it as more gallons because it's high strength. I'm not saying that really correctly, but... No, I believe that was part of what was looked at for Keurig. Right. And I think what has to happen, though, with them and our breweries is it's been more about what kind of pretreatment they end up needing to do on site and what actually will go into the system versus what gets trucked off site. So some of those high strength waste producers actually end up having to truck some of it out. So it's been more about that, but we... I know with Keurig, at least initially, we had a conversation where, how are we going to assess these gallons because it might not just be that volume gallon. It might be what's in it. And I think there is some ability to do that. So that's new commercial. In new residential, this is the same allocation recommendation as was approved last year, 10,390 gallons. This would support a mix of dwelling types, and this is the same mix of dwelling types we presented to you last year. Remembering that another little wrinkle in our bylaw is the dwelling unit equivalent that counts of one bedroom or studio apartment as half of a dwelling unit. So you could have, in this case of this table, 108 new front doors, which could add up to 68 dwelling unit equivalents and could be supported by this allocation. We are seeing proposed in projects a mix of unit types, and we are seeing more smaller units proposed. I will say, coming into growth management next week with the DRB, we have no new projects proposed in the growth center right now, and only conventional single-family homes in the sewer service area coming in this year, nine of them. But that doesn't mean we won't see more in another year. So leaving that category capable of supporting a relatively full allocation schedule seems to make sense, and also any headroom in there that might end up going to a high-flyer project or to a otherwise outside of growth management project makes sense to us. And then in affordable housing, as I mentioned, this is a category that for many, many years the allocation has simply been zero. I think the reason for that hasn't certainly been that the town doesn't want to support affordable housing. It's been that each year there's been nothing coming down the pipeline, therefore no reason to put any gallons per day in the category. So given the flexibility that's been adopted into growth management, the ability of units that are affordable at 80% area mid-income or less to circumvent growth management, I can't tell you as firmly that there's no affordable housing units coming down the pipeline. I would hope that there were. I don't know. So this was another recommendation from the Planning Commission. I will say that again, going back to the high-flyer projects and growth management, there's almost no possible way to do a high-flyer without doing some affordable housing. So this is another way to support that is by making some gallons available in this other category. And I essentially reduced the numbers out of that possible residential allocation table, five up above, and thought about a small infill project, 35 dwellings, a mix of one, two, and three bedrooms, and came up with the 4,775 gallons. So if you had a project like that every couple of years, you'd be making some progress on the town's affordable housing goals, it seems to me. There's very little liability at least this year and maybe in another couple of upcoming years of putting some gallons in there and seeing if somebody steps up to spend them. And then the encourage specific development category recommend 10,000 gallons per day in this category. This is what has traditionally been put in there. And again, any user that wants to spend this, they need to be achieving some kind of a town plan goal, and they need to come back to the select board and get findings from the board that that's what they're doing. Some years this gets used, most years it doesn't. There are no gallons per day proposed to support planned public facilities for the upcoming fiscal year. We don't have any planned public facilities that would come online in this next fiscal year. Ted, that's the real reason why that town hall suggestion had it like nowhere. It would have taken a lot of bathrooms. I would predict that we'll have a lot of advanced warning if we start to think that the board needs to put gallons into this category. And for instance, might be if there were ever a satellite like fire department facility or something like that. If there were a school expansion, a community center, new library, expanded library. Did you just let some cat out of the bag? Any facility like that, we would know in advance of the fiscal year in which the allocation was needed. The 7% reserve, again, just coming straight out of the engineering firm, Aldrich and Elliott's recommendation that that's the reserve you ought to have. I don't have a lot more to offer on that. That original percentage came from a study done by Mike Munson. I think we may have consulted with Aldrich and Elliott. I think he did. My concern about that is, I mean, I understand when you use a percentage and as the amount of use of the system increases, maybe you want the reserve to increase. But the other way to look at the reserve and say, what is the potential liability we have out there? What could cause us to have to dip into the reserve and what would that mean in terms of the amount we would need? And certainly things like inflow and infiltration or one component of it, a large community system that's a soil-based system now if it failed. The example would be a metal ridge. We had to give them capacity on a very near-term basis. That's the type of thing it would come out of. And I just, me personally, I just have a very hard time imagining we would ever get close, even under the most dire circumstances, worst case scenario, we would ever get close to 74,000 gallons needed in a year for that. So that's just why I have a concern for that. We're putting something in reserve where the likelihood we would ever need that reserve is minimal. That's just my point. I mean, is it a bad thing? No. But it does mean that there's less sewage available to give out. And we know that ultimately sewage is a limited. The ability for Essex to give us additional capacity is maybe we've reached that limit, maybe not. I don't know. You know, it's a limited resource. The thing I would say is that in order, if the board were to consider any changes that I would suggest that we undertake a study of that. Sure. And I can't tell you right now what that study would cost or how long it would take. And in terms of my supporting this, you know, this year probably in the next couple of years, I don't see it affecting that. But if we were to have limited ability to buy additional capacity or maybe no ability from Essex, and we start to see that squeezing, you know, as in our 20 year horizon, I might start pushing for that if I were on the board. That would be the time to do the study because if you do it now, at the time you need that. Right, you want it as close as possible, right? Yeah. Yeah. And Matt, the only other question I had is the high flyers. We talked about where the affordable housing would come out. We actually have a specific line on them. The high flyers could come out of category 5.2.1, 5.2.2, or out of the 5.2.9. Correct. So, you know, there's typically, and I think going forward, given that Cottonwood already has everything they need, there's capacity in just plain old new residential. Most high flyers will contain an affordable component. There's some ability there. If they need more than that, there's ability to come here and do it under encouraged specific development. Yeah. I like the idea that we wouldn't be saying to somebody, well, if you're going to do a high flyer, you're also going to have to go to the select board and say, you know, a smaller high flyer project might just fit right in. Yeah. Okay. You know, our track record on growth management allocation is that we don't typically, under growth management, allocate the full 68 dwelling unit equivalence a year into the sewer service area. We're at something between 65 and 70% of that over a 10-year horizon. So there's almost always a little bit of headroom in the system anyway. You know, when I asked the Planning Commission, and I sort of said, well, at some point, should we be actually amending the sewer ordinance and coming up with another category, and the feedback I got was no, you know, things actually seem to fit pretty nicely. Just put a little bit in affordable and try to get there that way. You know, I would think, you know, to your question about the reserve and the ability to build out, that nearly 5,000 gallons per day that supports about 35 units. I think of that as sort of a medium to large size infill building in a place like Taft Corners. And, you know, a back of the envelope. How many of those do you need to get to that design-conscious, pedestrian-friendly downtown? What if you did it over the next 20 years? Could you support it? When would you start having to ask hard questions about the reserve or about buying more capacity? That could be a study this thick. But just as a way of thinking about it, you know, what is the development pattern physically that's supported by this? And how much more is there left to build? And, you know, what would it look like? And what would you want to be able to support? And I think those are sort of the big picture questions. You know, when we do the next town plan, those are the kind of questions to be thinking about. Yeah, the hard part about that can change over time. Yeah. Certainly. And the last category is pollution abatement. 1,500 gallons per day in that category, which is traditionally what's been, you know, put in there typically would support a few failed septic systems for properties. We do have properties on septic that are in the sewer service area and other challenges like that. And that leads into table five number two, which should really be called table seven, and I'll correct that. Thank you to my planning commission for noticing. But the last table on page 11 is the recommended allocation for fiscal 2020, summarizing the numbers I've just worked through and comparing them to the last two years. That is attachment A. That is attachment A. Yeah. Any further questions for Matt? And a motion would be in order to schedule a public hearing. We'll schedule a public hearing to receive comments on the proposed attachment A of the sewer allocation ordinance for fiscal year 2020. That's for a discussion on the motion. None. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you, Matt. Thank you. Where's the hotel in Blair Park? Right along the edge of the post office parcel between the post office and Ashley furniture, like going the long ways. Right. It's going to squeeze in there. Yeah. Parking underneath, four stories. We'll see. Yeah. That's the corner of my building. Yeah. And I hadn't seen anything yet, so I was curious to see, wow. Yeah. We've got renderings, you know, views of what it would look like from the street on file if you want to check it out. Well, I'm chuckling because I'm on the south end of that. That corner, I'll be looking. If I'm not looking at the senior retirement thing, I'm going to be looking at someone's hotel room. There you go. Thank you. The Tory framed in the windows. It's all good. Thank you. We'll continue on with liquor license application renewals. Rick. Oh, you have in front of you a list of pending renewal applications. A couple of comments. First is the one of the businesses had not submitted their application at the time of this printing. They have since submitted their application. That is 19th whole at Williston. North Williston road. The other comment is that in the past, the board has asked if there have been any violations. Yes, good. We're not. Well, good year. Good year. So, I guess that's all I have. That's where rehab gym used to be next to. Oh, the new restaurant, right? We're in here a month ago. I remember that. I just couldn't put them back. Sure. Yeah, sure. So if you are looking to approve these are two motions that we would need. Number one was being approved on the second would be to authorize the town clerk to sign them all. So moved. Which one would you like to do? Both. We can do both, but if you'd like them separately, we can probably do both at once at the same time. I'll avoid members. You're all right with both? Yeah. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Second. Is there any discussion on the motions? If not, I'll listen to the motion and say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. I'll go on then to the local emergency operations plan. And Rick, you probably have a few words to say about that. Very few. This is an annual plan. They've changed the name of it from prior years. And I don't remember what the old name was. But it's basically just a document outlining all the different contacts and procedures. There is one thing in there that we're going to have to address. And I've already asked Shirley to actually check into that. As part of our purchasing policy, we really need to have some sort of provisions. In that part purchasing policy. And we don't. Okay. So we'll be coming back at some point with revisions to our purchasing policy that outline. How we would handle emergencies and what levels of expense. Can we handle without slack board approval and what kinds of expenses would have to come to slack board. That kind of thing. Okay. Other than that, it's pretty much a repeat of what we've had in prior years as far as the plan. Questions for Rick on that. The motion is in order. Emergency operations plan. Same. Discussion of the motion. Those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Moving on. Resignation for examining and alignment plans. The last number of last year anyway. That was the person that was the primary signer and joy. I believe was a secondary signer. And for our new board member, I think I've been kind of somewhat explained this. This is the board is responsible for reviewing any payments. They're going to be going out to various vendors for things that have been sped by the town, including the equipment supplies, what have you. And in order to allow for the efficient processing of checks so that we don't get caught in binds where we're holding a check for 30 days waiting for a slack board approval, the board designates or essentially has two people that can sign off on that. The full board still gets a chance to review them and ask any questions you want. I'm happy to continue in that capacity. I'm happy to. Sure. That would be needed to approve the resolution. I just want to know who so you would join with the lead and Jeff the backup or vice versa. We don't think we care. Along with being the vice chair comes the responsibility of being the lead. Thank you. You knew that before you let me nominate you. Right. So the motion to adopt the resolution with joy being the designee and Jeff being the alternate. So moved. Second. Second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? We'll move on to the select board rules of transaction and the meeting schedule. Go start with the meeting schedule. This is pretty much just a carbon copy of what we had for this past year. I realize that the board is going to want to have an discussion about the budget review schedule. I haven't really made any changes that but the schedule itself could be changed if maybe as we get into the budget period we decide to do something different with the budget review schedule. So it doesn't block the board into these. The main point is that we're meeting first and third, Tuesdays for the most part during the course of the year with maybe Tuesday off in August and a few extra Tuesdays in November or I'm sorry in December and January. And as far as the rest of the rules of transaction, there is no change from your current rules. Opposed? Any questions for Rick regarding the rules? The rules of transaction? Yes. The questions and the motion again is in order. I move to adopt the select board rules of transaction meeting scheduled dated March 19, 2019 for the term of the current select board ending in March. Second. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And now we have a possibility of redetermination request of the equalized education property value. So if you remember that we sent a letter of appeal to the tax department back. Before I jump in, I just wanted to address Ted's question. The rules are under policies and it's under the word select board rules of transaction. You'll find it there. I can't imagine ever needing to look at it. Well, in case you do, it's right there. So the, we have an offer of settlement from the state, which is a slight adjustment to the one that we had originally received. It's been reviewed by Bill Hinman, who serves as our assessor. He's under contract with the town and he recommends that we accept this offer of settlement. He does qualify it somewhat though. He feels that the formula that the state uses is not entirely fair to certain communities, Williston being one. And it's a combination of things. He feels that number one, we have a very, very low coefficient of dispersion with COD, which is a good thing. That means the equity within, from types of properties within the town is very high. For example, if you take condos, it's extraordinary. It's right on the money. Commercial properties and not so much, but that's harder to get right on the money. But we are far lower than those communities. So when there's a sale at the commercial level, there's some big properties in town and there is a, an outlier number that the state uses. And I don't know what that is, but if it, if it varies from the traditional sales by a certain percentage, then it's considered outlier. They won't count that in the numbers. But for Williston, it doesn't have to be an outlier to have a huge impact because of the volume or the value of some of these properties. And so it has a disproportionate impact on our overall CLA. And that's, we had a sale, I think one sale during this time period that was slightly below what we had had to assess that yet because of the size of the sale, it has a disproportionate impact on our CLA, pushing it down lower than what probably it should be. Now Bill is saying that this would require a big change at the state level because they do this all across the state. And he doesn't feel at this point it would be worthwhile to pursue because we'd end up in the courts. And that's, yeah. Regulation that the state applies doesn't have any wiggle room for this contingency at all. They do, but it's called the outlier provision. And this particular sale that affects our CLA fell within that outlier at this point he's recommending. That doesn't say that we shouldn't have start discussions maybe with the state to see if there's a better approach. But at this point they are sticking to the process and the formulas that they have been using for a number of years. Regulation doesn't allow much more anyway. Any further questions? What were we asking the CLA to be adjusted? What was our value of the CLA? It was 94.7%, or 0.9, 470. And they are proposing it will be 94.9. So it's a slight improvement. So the motion is suggested. I move to accept the revised common level of appraisal set at 94.90% for fiscal year 2020 and authorize the chair of the select board to sign the stipulation. All those in favor of the motion say aye. All right. Manager's report. So just two things touch on this evening. The first is substance use form that we have scheduled for April 10th is fast approaching. If you haven't signed up already please do. We encourage everyone to sign up. I included little cards on your in front of your spot. There's a website. It's free. It includes a free dinner. And we've added something to entice everyone to attend. We have added a speaker from this select board here to open up the session. I'll bring a few comments. Okay. As we officially agreed to do that. Good. So I'm expecting that the number of people once they hear attention. That's it. Tremendously. Sign up now. So anyway, we also we're looking at the possibility of moving it from the auditorium to the cafeteria. Dinner is part of this. And we're trying to smooth out the transitions from dinner to speaker to video to small group discussion back to large group discussion. If you have in the cafeteria, people won't have to move very far. So that's what we have. Now the other issue was the issue that Marjorie brought up earlier about trapping. And I think at this point I don't have anything to add beyond what's in my memo other than to say that we have asked for a, he's given a preliminary indication, but he's, he's wanted to check with one more source. So I'm kind of waiting for that source. Okay. I expect to have something in a day or two. And I'll share that with the board. That's all I have for this evening. Is there any other business to discuss tonight? One quick thing. I'll try to be as quick as possible. I'm hoping during this legislative session, it doesn't have to be now or even in the near future, but I would like to have a discussion about house, how residents can get an article on the, on the ballot on the warning. You know how we have that. Last year, I guess we had a, we allowed, loud may not be the best word, but we accommodated a group to get a article on the ballot. And I'd just like to have a discussion about that. You know, when is it appropriate to do that? When isn't, you know, we could have a, a more strict concept if only if it is a town issue. Do we put it on the ballot? Of course, I guess there's statute that says if they get so many percent of the voters, then we have to do that. And that's very clear and easy. I'd just like to have a discussion about that and maybe even come up with some guidelines or maybe even harder than guidelines, policy about what we will and kind of won't allow what flexibility we want or don't want. So yeah. I think the legal cities and towns can give us some information on that as well. Great. Any further business? Wait once, twice. We're adjourned. Thank you. You're not running out the door.