 Okay There's some of the clock. I don't call me into order first item on the agenda are the minutes of May 15th 2018 is there a motion You can make a motion yes, I make a motion to approve the minutes of May 15th 2018 with amendments and changes there, too Before before we get started I have a confession to make Well, maybe that's not the best word, but I pride myself on trying to be prepared for meetings, but tonight I am not My youngest daughter had a significant milestone graduated high school and family's been up and so I Just did not get to spending time reviewing the minutes Like I normally do it's totally okay if you don't want to but one option is to table these till next meeting When I do have the opportunity to spend a little bit of time reading them I don't think it's a big deal, and I'd be fine if you choose not to but it is an option well if you're not prepared to vote on the May 15th the minutes will have to postpone them because there's only That would leave only two of us. I mean I could vote just quickly as we go through them, but I'd prefer not to It's happen It doesn't matter to me I mean pretty miles minutes from absolutely they are but I just like to you know before we approve them I'd like to make sure I know what's in them I Am looking at them. I saw nothing to change at all okay So page one and page two Oh, I'm sorry. I'm page two is I'm looking at number eight north Willis in Rhodes scoping study under comments It mentions there were comments and it noted the speed of cars and impact on safety of residents I wonder if it also should note that all in attendance were in favor of the proposed of The proposed The comments were positive comments about what the town was proposing to do from the traffic study Yeah, and I just wonder if the minute should maybe reflect that Just amend them amend with a word positive. Yeah, yeah Yep, that makes sense. Oh, okay. You see what I'm saying. There was positive comments work work work. Sorry Well, you'll have to change it a little bit because that doesn't make sense then as long as the word positive is in there before comment Or comment on what it says there were positive comments from residents on the speed of cars and impact on safety So we have to change that to contents of the Williston Scoping study, right? Yes, that makes more sense. Okay. Good. Thank you Comments all those in favor of improving the minutes of May 15th 2018 say aye. Aye opposed and more extension enjoy And we'll move on then to the minutes of June 5th 2018 Is there a motion to approve the minutes of June 5th 2018 with any amendments there, too for a second Page one nice job on the public comment of Jeff Atwood These two And and the The person putting these together did it did a very good job I'm wondering under discussion the first sentence reach Jeff fairs express concern about the direction The district is going and that's perfectly fine, but I wonder if it should be expanded a little bit to say regarding Subsidation subs when you subsidize something Thank you of the recycling and other programs that the change their proposed change and Subsid whatever the word is Now I got everybody There's a One sentence in the next bullet down that talks about discussion, but continue into subsidized programs Okay Yeah, I just want I just want to clear what my concern was about and it's changing the way the budget will Subsidize program the recycling and other waste diversion programs in the future, which is a change from the past And I'm just not sure it's a great change, and I just wanted to reflect that it's it's that that come I mean I overall support the budget, but it was that aspect of it that I thought That I have concerns about does that make sense Yeah, I just wonder what What words you want to put in there to I have a draft here Affairs express concern about the direction the district is going regarding subsidization subsidization How are you gonna be of the recycling and other waste diversion programs? Rick? That's perfect. Thank you. Yeah Conunciation Thank you I'm right to Anything else on page three page four Hearing no further comments all those in favor of approving the minutes of June 5 2018 say aye Area of stains Moving on to public comment this is a time when people are in the audience or asked if they have any comment on anything On the agenda or on the agenda raised and we'll move on to Board applications reviews and appointments tonight. We have two people interested in becoming members one of for the Conservation Commission and one for the old Rick church trustees. So John Nittler There's a will it was the Winniskey Valley Park rap, right? No Mr. Nittler is interested in the valley park district. Oh a bigger pardon. I had conservation Sorry so Modify my comments. We'll send part So if you would we do have your application form before us and if you would just give us a brief outline of you why you would like to be on the the commission and the commission and You're some of your background as well. Okay I'm a forest economist by education. I did my graduate work at Yale University I've been working in natural resource conservation for the last 40 years most of that time has been overseas but I've Managed and developed a number of different types of programs related to natural resource conservation Including a watershed management project in Guatemala, which I managed for four years And multiple sustainable forestry projects and I lived in Bolivia seven and a half years managing one so I've Worked overseas for a long time. I've worked in protected area in park management projects I've been in Williston now for seven and a half years about the first five years of that I spent a Good part of my time overseas and so I wasn't able to really commit myself to doing things here in Williston I took a different job two years ago, and I'm now the vice president for operations for Tetra Tech and Well Consumes more time in some ways it keeps me home And so I can now look at other options to engage in the community and that's what I'm looking for Have you had any discussions with the folks at the park district? No, I have not Questions from the board? Yeah, I've been here before A list of Credentials that we recently seen so I don't have any questions Thank you so much for yeah Not sure how to ask this question so Maybe I'll be a little bit blunt. Our history with the the district went through a I don't know what the right word is but an interesting period Well last last election where on the ballot was a Item about withdrawing from the district that was not approved by the voters, so We are staying in the district, but there the concerns are still valid if you will And you know it's so it's just really have you had a chance to you know Yeah, I've been looking to that think about that I have and I you know, I think it's a perception that Willison is not receiving sufficient benefits for the contributions it makes to the the board having eight acres of land under management by the district and paying 10% of the revenue or the Contributions to the board So, you know, I think it is an issue. I think Looking at the minutes of the district They recognize that public outreach and awareness is an issue and I think it's a big issue If you look at their publications and news postings over the last well, since The three that are on there are from 1970 Sorry, 2017 and all of them dealt with this issue about Williston and so it obviously is a big issue that Both I think increasing the Benefits to Williston would be beneficial, but also making aware what the benefits are that might not be direct property management and so water quality Williston residents using parks outside of Williston that our park managed by the district I'm just you know overall good stewardship and regional cooperation. I think our key issues Whenever we get to watershed management, it's a difficult thing because it watershed span many Political boundaries and so the more engagement that the different political units can have is is very important And it was curious to me and I don't know the history here But why Richmond's not part of it or some of the other communities farther upriver and so I'm interested in finding out about this kind of things Thank you. And then my my second question and I probably already asked you this at the last time You were before us. Yeah, so repeat question. It's the conflict of interest. Hey, how would you recognize it? What would you do about it? On my personal part, I don't think there would be a conflict of interest other than the fact that I do own a residence and Mountain view or a middle Middle Ridge. Sorry mountain view is my last home and You know there have been stormwater issues and so I would recuse myself if there are issues related to that I don't suspect they will be given what I've read related to The minutes and things like that the actions that the district is taking I don't have any other economic interests throughout the The area influenced by the Winnowsky River So I think that part in terms of my personal conflicts. It's not an issue. I Do think that I can recognize conflicts of interest by other board members and and other participants because I've I've been around the block and I've done this work for a long time and I've dealt with conflicts of interest in both my current position and previous positions and I've worked with a large number of stakeholders in different capacities that did have conflicts of interest and I think Calling them out and recognizing them Something that I can do Sounds like you won't be shy and representing No, I mean, I think that's one of the the questions I would have to discuss with you is Selected is you know better understand your interest and and how they align with my interest and I think my interests are you know making sure that the water quality and and Management of the basin is is you know well done and so I don't have any hidden interest nice and those are compatible with yours In addition with making sure that Williston benefits from from the arrangement So Thank you very much Valley Park District for a three-year term from July 1 2018 through June 30th, 2021 It's a very discussion of motion just right there. No other candidates If you're ready for the vote all those in favor say aye Thank you very much congratulations Thanks, thank you And now Bob Pascoe who is a candidate for the old brick church trustee position Bob if you would give us a little bit of a background of yourself and why you'd like to be a trustee I Brought my children up in the village. I'm very much in Village-oriented person and trying to maintain the vitality of the village as The rest of the town grows I have a strong feeling for the old brick church from Way back. I remember the before before the restoration and I find that the building is just magnificently restored and I would like to seek Greater use as a community resource Through the brick church I work with the brick church music series now And And every time we have a concert or something like that. I think it's just a the heart of old Williston and My I I'm a former select board person in under hill I worked in the As former president of the lake air choir association or these guys are now I'd rather be with the old brick church than But so it is a resource that I that I have a great feeling for and Would like to contribute in some way to To having it continue to be an important resource Questions for Bob regarding the the trustee position I don't know if this should be directed towards Bob is that what is what is that what do you do in that position? Do you know what the activities or responsibilities are? Somewhat I know that sometimes the utilization of it is an issue. I was Denied use of it this year For what was essentially a prayer meeting and But it had an overtone which was a very politically charged issue of gun control because it was recognizing the The anniversary of the shootings in Connecticut in the elementary school and I Respect that but I also want to better understand it and realize that sometimes there is a tight rope that you have to walk in terms of Things that may be controversial in the village so it was a good learning lesson and I still I froze outside on the on the front steps that night, but We did it And so I understand that those that when Rick calls for a decision That those People have got to be available and they've got to consider the overall purpose of the resource and in the community and The other is an answering your question. I think so. Yes. Yeah, thank you Just ask a question is that one of the roles of the trustees is to determine What is appropriate and not appropriate use of the building? actually What happened it had nothing to do with the use it had to do with the fee Okay, they wanted the brick church trustees wanted to charge a fee. Yeah For a short period of time. It was a fair amount of money. I don't know exactly what the fee was. That's true Yeah, and that was the reason why they didn't End up using it. Yeah, not because of the nature of this for a half hour of abuse essentially, okay, so There was that that contingence also No, that is one of the things the church trustees do look at is the fee schedule and the maintenance Those are the two big things and I know Recently there they've had a little bit of a discussion about the fee schedule because there are certain circumstances like this where it doesn't make sense to Charge the full fee So maybe there's some other fee Schedule Yeah, what it could have input into that What it just since you've mentioned it what it what is the fee schedule for? There's two different there's an upstairs and the downstairs and There's a fee if you're gonna use it for a wedding for example, because then you need a Friday night Let's say the wedding's a Saturday. You need a Friday night Rehearsal and then Saturday at the reception and it can't be used at any point or by anyone during those days And then you have someone that might use it for a few hours Someone recently used it to do a recording. They liked the acoustics after performing at the brick church music series So they rented it so they could do a recording of their of their performance or their you know, they're playing a Music and we have another group that's actually interested in doing the same thing for the same purpose. So that's the kind of thing or there may be Memorial service and that's just one afternoon. So it really there's several different levels of fees But I think the trustees are looking at having even more levels than they currently have And is there any any relationship between the old brick church? Music series and the old brick church trustees or no, they're two totally separate groups totally separate groups other than the music series request permission to use it and and The series has been in existence for 10 years or entering their 11th season Okay, kind of the town in that case has donated Yeah, okay, and then Bob This question falls on my shoulder for some reason. It's the conflict of interest question Yeah, I don't know if it much how much potential there would be for a conflict of interest here But I'm still gonna ask the question of you know, what would you do to recognize it? And or how would you recognize it? And what would you do if you thought there was a conflict? I would absent myself from A decision if that were appropriate or if The brick church what I one party or another if I saw that was a Conflict and I had thought about that in coming here tonight that There's a possibility that that might be but I Also see that sitting in that chair. I can be an advocate for Increased utilization of the resource, okay? All right. Good. Thank you for the questions If not, thank you Bob We had tonight Sorry discussion motion Very none all those in favor of the motion say aye Any opposed no extensions. Thank you very much. We look forward to having you trustees So we'll move on to the Lake Uruguay district report Sarah Francisco our representative to the district is here to give us a brief report. So welcome Hi There's not a whole lot to report except that the beach is open We open the beach Memorial Day weekend and it will be open through Labor Day the Beach passes Cars the first pass is $30 and the second cars pass is 14 We added a board member from Richmond, so now we have all four towns represented Finally Bruce was going to help me. Is there anything I'm leaving out The beach is open We're still looking at In the Lake Iroquois Association, which is the homes on the lake is Expanding the beach swimming area Is that the next on the agenda so there's a little pre preview to what's next Are there any questions it kind of feels like business as usual. I feel I'm new on the board But I've lived next to the lake and it kind of all feels like it's flowing smoothly. Yeah, no pun intended Just a swim. Oh, sorry the swim area Okay They Also preview I guess to what they're about to say There are mats which will kill the weeds so they can expand where the ropes are this year How are sales of passes going? Okay Sales as far as the season passes Okay, hey, could you remind me what's the issue with the road? Sorry culverts Contributes a lot of Fosterists and a lot of the erosion issues that are going into the lake We've been trying working with the LIA even to get it grant To see what we can do about taking care of that condition Okay, and of course, I know this will be a little bit of there to be a little bit of overlap, but Kind of the question is along the lines of what do you see as issues coming up this summer? if any and a piece of that is how's the water Other than cold right now, right, and I think that's probably the only real issue is Water quality when when the algae starts blooming or the or the weeds start growing I Don't see any issues as a resident next door who you know, I jog on the road. It all seems lovely so far Have you been in yet? No, it's it's freezing cold It's that kind of cold. I have seen people in it though. There are little kids who don't feel the cold yet Okay, okay good For the revenue for the beach passes is out of town revenue I knew on the board, so Bruce can answer my questions I had a question and this may end up being a bruise question In the past there's been an issue with towns paying their fair share or carrying their fair burden and Williston had been carrying a maybe a little bit higher burden in some of the other communities So I wonder if that's being addressed Moving forward. I feel like we have talked about that in meetings. St. George is the tiniest piece of that puzzle It's not equally divided between the four is Again the other four town the other three tasks to participate and we have not been successful doing that We did an RFP to see if we could get product contractor to do it. Do you have anybody to answer that? So right now Williston is still doing it, but we are charging 100 percent of the cost to the district at this point Still trying now Hinesburg did step up to the plate. I don't want to make a sound They stepped up with the light by giving a little bit more money than they're normally giving But nobody's come up and stepped up to the plate to say this summer we'll take care of it next summer Which is the way we're trying to get it to be done. And it's still our work to do that There's still I think there's a little cabin there really so, uh, snacks and things like that Yes, no, we're still there. We haven't had a vendor in there for years. Nobody can make any money The last one we had there we didn't even charge rent for the building He just had to help pay the electric and uh, he couldn't even make it. I mean, this this is not enough revenue for somebody We had vending machines for a couple of years, but even the vending apparel apparently we took the vending machines away because they weren't made to do it People bring their own techniques And we as a town do the water testing the water quality testing for the beach We do a weekly test Any further questions? Thank you very much. Keep up the good work Should do a site visit someday, you know, one of those hot summer nights we're here Put our trunks on and go I learned to swim in Liguracoi as a grade school kid. We at the bus would drop us off at 8 a.m Oh my goodness, and you you froze I remember my summer camp was the same thing the little kids got I mean that first swim period was and we froze. Yeah strong So we have representatives from Liguracoi association talking about the aquatic nuisance program Chris Connick who's the president of the association and jimmy carol pressure or secretary this year And we're excited to have sarah not only a neighbor But on the board the lar d board very excited Thank you. We're here again. You're probably getting sick of looking at us and and Having us walk through this process But we were asked by rick to come in and and just kind of give you an Overview Not much has changed since we were here the last time which was what six weeks ago um, we still have yet to get a Written denial from the state for the permit of the herbicide We are moving forward like sarah said to um increase the beach swim area by putting in bent-seck barriers to block the weeds In and around the beach area. We felt that that was a good use of our resources But we also are using the diver assisted suction harvesting which is Kind of an interesting process because it's a very expensive process that we I think we can all agree at At five or six thousand dollars a week It doesn't go very far. And so we're We've been We have reserved the contractor to come in for three weeks or four. We're looking at four So the we've scheduled the contractor. It's going to come in actually next week for four days targeting areas around the beach and Starting at the beach area starting the beach area and then going to come back again in late august We have a grant from the from the lake shampoam basin program that's going to pay for the work in august And that's going to target the boat access as well as the kind of rock island in the middle of the lake so That they shoot for it really varies upon the density of the the plants so Um, it it really varies widely Last time they were here was two years ago And they were here for better part of two weeks. I'm trying to think of I want to say it was a third of an acre. They cleared so it's it's very Slow going and we paid about 12. Yeah, 12,000 dollars for that. So for a third of an acre So there's not you're not putting anything down, right? They're just harvesting those weeds up just harvesting hand pulling We had divers that are willing to go in and do that And the dance diver himself has been going about willing to go do that. Is there Do I have to get permission from somebody to go do that and not charge? You might be able to get Well the divers that want to go out on a weekend to to pull weeds happily so because they aren't we're all happy being under water So the the contractor has a has a boat and there's a big water pump on it with a siphon essentially So the diver down below They like individually identify the plants and pull them by the roots They don't they don't come back and then they can just put them in the tube and they go up on top of the boat So they they make round pretty well. Um, there have been some hand pulling efforts By scuba divers or snorkel divers as well We've talked about kind of organizing an effort of that And mainly for uh private landowners Have had either volunteers or hired Um people to come in and divers to come in and do in front of their properties, but we haven't used volunteers In and amongst the two public areas such as the beach. Yeah, it's probably a whole different thing I just wondered because I know there's a lot of divers that if you fill their tanks would be We'll go for you. All right, right. Yeah, but it would be great to have help laying out the blankets and then moving them We had to wait a little bit later in the year to install them But uh trying to install them in early july, you know, we have to get a permit to install the mats and to be able to Keep them in from a set date and remove them by a set date And it's not an easy process jimmy has done it a few times and it's uh, it is a lot of work So we may need some actually on our website. We just are posting this week a uh newsletter from the laa laa and uh requesting people to give us a hand on Installing the mats so at both locations both in front of the beach area and the access area Bit bit a bit of a controversial application because of the fact that you're covering the entire bottom It allows for the gases of the fermentation process and the deterioration of the weeds It allows for the gases to work up through the mat, but it keeps the the it kills everything underneath the uh The mat, so it's a bit of a not everybody is psyched about it Exactly. So that's that's why it's an appropriate use at the beach, you know the high use human use areas We're trying to reduce the Spread especially in front of the access area with the amount of boat traffic that goes in and out Um, so that we can reduce the overall Distribution of the cut plants that then can propagate themselves Throughout the lake and so that's our biggest. This is a plant or just pieces of it dropping down We'll propagate Talk about the greeter program that bit Just and that the the greeter program is up and running as well. Um, that started Memorial Day and Run the day like like lard. So that's Um, running the second year with the boat wash station in place. So that's a A good program that's continuing We're now washing all vessels that go in and out of the lake Which is great and the state has really uh promoted our our project our project because of the fact that we're using A trailer that's all set up by one of our members Set this trailer up and and it's really a great project that we're working with and Thank goodness to lard. We have hired Jim Johnson, which many of us know Being a willis and resonant all his life But he has also worked at the at the beach for lard Coordinating the staff at the beach And he now is working for us part time kind of coordinating the two groups of individuals and So it's some camaraderie there as far as their consistency with the staffing and So we're excited about that this year is that Working with again lard And we feel that we're we're really shooting for the same mission here and that is to provide great recreation use of lake ericoy And so this is Having jim be able to help us In this process is really a benefit for all of our residents and both boards so lard is lake ericoy recreation of this project. Yeah Okay, well it was in this document. Oh, it gets Yeah, so lard Basically owns the property surrounding the beach area 250 feet back In and around the access area and then 100 and some odd acres behind the beach That is all public access land Which is highly used throughout the course of the year And is a great resource for for our communities the four communities lia Lake ericoy association is specific working on water quality and the members are both landowners In and around the lake and also community Members that want to be members of the the association. So our mission is water quality And only water quality and education So Other questions And I Told the select board earlier tonight. I'm not as prepared as I normally am and I apologize for that Um Do you talk in here about Potential herbicide use down the road? And I assume you'd have to wait for the state to take action on the application That's already before them and it sounds like they haven't yet We expect them or you expect them to but they haven't And what's expected is the denial After that, is there any avenue that you see from a herbicide application standpoint? You're correct. We're waiting on the denial the last time I spoke with the gentleman at the state. He said before summer So I think that's thursday Wait tomorrow is it 21st, right? Oh, that's right. Thursday So all joking aside, we plan to do another plant survey in September timeframe kind of inform where we're at that'll be the third one we've done in that and There there are other herbicides we could apply for I think we're going to see what the denial Includes see what the public comments were that were submitted And reevaluate in the in the fall. We'll be back to See you in the fall Yeah, okay. Good. And you said a plant survey. Could you just describe that? Yep. So, um, we've Hired two different contractors. We're going to hire the same group again this year from RPI the Darian freshwater institute They come out with a with a boat and they have specific points They've identified with GPS in the lake and they essentially throw a rake over And pull up the aquatic plants that they find there and then they identify them So it's a good indication of the diversity of plants the frequency that they're in the lake And we had one done last year and we'll have another one done this year the same locations So it'll be good Good to be able to compare the data with what's happened. I see what changes are happening. All right. All right. Good. Thank you Any further questions? Well, maybe just for staff. So it seems from the memo that that The lake uroquois association is asking for $7,500 We have 20,000 in the budget for the next fiscal year and 25,000 this fiscal year and and they There's no need for them to come back and request any additional money from the select board at this point Okay, because that was in the memo. So yeah, they they didn't have a clear understanding of okay, so I think Further questions One of the points terry that I'd like to just make is that having bruce involved with both lard and now working a bit with us on um The bb lane is a is a Huge introduction of a problem area is both environmental and with a phosphorus runoff that we find In and around the lake and so, you know being able to work with bruce and his office on that process And we've been working since early january on this grant that we're we're looking at and One of our board members is working shan and kelly's working with him and I really want you to know that that is Very important to us as an organization But we appreciate his time and effort that he shared with us and it really does It's a big undertaking that we're that we're trying to achieve. It's a redesign and reconstruction of of bb lane and You know, it's used by many many residents during the course of the year Both people that visit the lake use the lake and live on the lake. And so We appreciate being able to work with bruce and that that's huge One of the controversial pieces is That you've taken bob pascoe away from us as a board member and now he's on the the church committee. So that's a problem He'd bob was great. He would many many years working with us We appreciate Being able to move on Maybe another question for staff is on if bruce mentioned the cost of maintaining the road and The issues there and that they're not being shared by the other towns. Is there any effort to get An ongoing effort that if you're asking me the question or bruce the question We're working together As community It's an ongoing issue and I think this grant process and being able to Obtain outside funds from the state and federal will help in that process And that's what we're shooting for because it's a it really is looking at redesigning the the entire road. So Can I just add the really tricky part is the bb lane is entirely in wilson And that's that I think that's why it seems more tricky than And I should be it's owned by the The district that like your district. So it's owned by the four towns. Well, it's kind of like the Winooski valley, you know much smaller of course authority, but but Seems like you should try to get some sharing there Is the road entirely being used for recreation or I forget are there houses down there? Is So it's really not before the beach itself. It's actually A residential road that also has a spur on it for the beach So they they have ownership of the road they they do help maintain the road From the beach access to the very end, which is stolen by the district but not used so they they take care of that whole Stubb is really theirs if you will and you in the district Recreation district owns the road. We maintain the road the district maintains the road from just before the morning Just after labor day So when I say before we go out and bring the road make sure it's ready for the season We'll grade it a couple times during the season if there's any washouts or things like that and take care of it After labor day, we'll go out between it up again And then that's basically usually the end of it because the district has we're not using the facility after So that's the way it's been since the the inception of the So the lake here according to the people that live out there Have some kind of homeowners agreement or something made cloud the road in the winter time stuff So they still have access We're the only road on the lake I live on baby lane and we're the only road on the lake that doesn't have an association and we all pitch in And we feel that we're fine with that Working with that. Thank you. Yep Further questions Thank you again. Thank you Much appreciated. Thank you So moving on to the traffic ordinance amendment which we Started to talk about a couple weeks ago and we had some we had some updates from Eric Versus here as well So after last means to remind the board looking at some proposed amendments to the town traffic ordinance Follow up on a few questions the board had In your packets a copy of the red line draft language and a memo for myself going through the questions that were raised last meeting The current practice in town in the overweight Permit section we're discussing on restricting through travel of trucks on a few roads in town Currently when we issue an overweight permit, we restrict through truck traffic on a couple roads already Now road and river cove road Um So we're looking to do here is to expand that to some other roads in town section of south brown ale road south of the quarry Ireland's pit there Walk a hill road and butternut road And so we would expand that with our current practice and we issue overweight permits to not allow through truck traffic here unless staff provide permission And the reason we want to amend this in the ordinance as well is we need this in the ordinance for enforcement So say a truck was invite had an overweight permit and then it went through one of these roads And was supposed to at that point our officers could ticket them for violation So that that's what we're looking to do with the ordinance amendment here To expand us to other roads and have have some teeth to it so we can so we can enforce Also had some questions on required signage from the mutcd have Provided in the memo On the overweight the permits were like five dollars a piece or ten I free it was five or ten dollars. It was really small What's the purpose of the permit? collecting five or ten dollars Seems like it would cost more to be ministered than Yeah, and that's um for the first on that because Probably doesn't cover evenings Literally somebody's already had a permit they sent us an appointment with a copy of their insurance Signed him has a stamp of my signature So, you know, it's done pretty Quickly as painlessly as can be the conditions are already on the permits So it really is a five-minute process Right. I just uh It doesn't really cover the wear and tear by heavy trucks or anything. So I'm just trying to understand the is it What is the kind of the purpose The purpose is so that we can control all the way trucks on our road without that permit We didn't have that permit that could be running What we have to have that permit to control Or we don't want anybody or our roads are 24,000 pounds and then in that case You're not gonna be anything done That's the purpose behind it So we can control the weight of those trucks going up and down our roads and which roads they can So Bruce if you don't mind me stepping in about how many permits do we issue? Okay, all right. I mean it's it's a lot Okay And and what what what is a 24,000 pound truck? Okay I'm sorry I'm page three of your middle. Yeah It's on page three of your middle It says in there. I give some examples. Okay. Sorry. Yes. No, that's okay. So, uh, I mean that's a small dump truck You know, uh, you know some of your larger ones could could be over 24,000 pounds already. Anyway, even empty, but okay, um Buses buses are over 24,000 pounds So I'm just trying to I'm just trying to understand. So that's what these questions are about. Don't read anything into them we just had a washing machine delivered And I mean, I have no idea if that truck had a permit or not, but it probably should have uh It sounds like At your house if it was still wintertime, he wouldn't have been able to deliver the uh Uh, well, I'm not wintertime, but for you know late april march Post the roads because and it goes down to 16,000 pounds because we don't want them going over our gravel roads Or even our secondary roads that even though they have asphalt on aren't really constructive underneath the support that way I'm just trying to figure out the logistics of how do all these companies that you have to have trucks Know to get a permit and will extend That's part of that's part of being in the business their operational part of the business estate And they only have to get stopped once And it's not just Williston. It's any town in the state of Vermont And and it would be stopped by either state police or our police or our police have the ability And the training uh to do overweight trucks now. So okay, that's right the scales Yeah, the pickup truck and uh, yeah, okay All right, so basically all towns have this kind of ordinance. So therefore that's why likely they're all getting these permits if they're operating there Oh, they get they get them and if they don't get them they they get stopped once they get them pretty quick after that It can be dependent on the weights and everything else But like if I was an appliance Store that had delivery I'd have to figure out, you know, how many what towns do I deliver in or not deliver in and I'm just trying to figure out the this whole system if you will not figure it out, but get a sense of it Okay further questions Well, they could just one other thing why we want some of these roads is we don't necessarily want trucks using our roads so that they don't go down Much quicker to run down south brown L road instead of going down two a to get to 116 So the question for us tonight is are we willing to schedule the public hearing? Regarding the proposed changes Need a motion for that Move to schedule a public public hearing to consider amendments to the motor vehicle and traffic ordinance That's very discussional motion Well, this just out of curiosity Well, most people be interested in this because you know, they run fleets or should we do any I'm just trying to know outreach. Just You never know who's interested in anything on these things, but it'll be posted certainly for the public hearing I just want to make sure if there are concerns out there You know, I hear them and we do the best job we can to make sure we we provide an avenue to hear those concerns Hearing no further discussion and all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No extensions great right on time we'll move to the Muddy brook crossing bridge replacement and local concerns meeting which is one of two that we'll have tonight and Our consultants are here to give us an overview of this Just do a brief introduction if I could yes This is between this is the muddy brook culvert between The city of south burlington and the town of wilson which we all know failed a year or so ago. We ended up closing part of the road at that point We went and looked for a grant along with the city of south burlington who's represented by time to petro And they they're basically taking the lead on the grant keeping us in the loop. That's why they're here Lisa's working with them more so than I am and then the consultant that's been hired is John owing from hoyle tanner and associates And I see christine's here. So that's where the money's coming from Thank you for having us here tonight. I don't think we're going to use the full time But i'm the municipal project manager for this. This is a part of the heat change grant And just so we're clear about the purpose of tonight's meeting We're not going to be presenting solutions rather We're just here to take comment to help us kind of scope out what needs to be done And then after we hear those concerns as we get into the project. That's when John and his team are An engineering group is going to start really doing the design work So this is just background and accepting comment. So i'll turn it over to john Okay And i'll i'll stand up Would you around me saying for this? Okay, I'll stand up just so we can see hear me better Um, so yes Let me talk for some of you to see but the project location more along Kimball uh kimballab and marsh lab The muddy burk crossing right the town line between city south brolington and town of wilson Hard to see on this map, but it provides a connection between kennedy drive And south brownow road And some of the other kind of points of reference. We have community drive which looks around Uh and the intersection of gregory drive. This is the project location here in that engineering engineer's drive and shuttle bike I'll move quickly through these slides. We'll we'll be able to come back to anyone these uh at the end when I get to the So a quick kind of idea about what's scheduled. Uh, we've been hired This is the first of our public meetings the local concerns meeting As mentioned before this is a v-trans municipal assistance bureau Um, the project initially came came through the water quality as being at the muddy culvert crossing Uh, the next public meeting or some of the milestones coming up will will be the october 2018 Um Alternatives presentation meeting and then the project definition reports And I do have a little bit more about what to think about looking ahead And it's a very rough schedule and a best-case scenario with uh acquiring funding going through design and then to construction You would see Uh the culvert replacement sometime in three years out or so But more likely you're you're in this six years or possibly more than that by time you get the funding and and permitting processes So I just kind of putting up there for a little bit perspective The background on it, uh, so it's uh currently this picture over here where we have an existing 15 foot diameter metal pipe That was installed in 1970 There's heavy corrosion along the spring lines of the pipe right down the bottom there Which has caused some buckling within it and eventually led to issues up above the road which led to the closing of the road in 2017 and uh in the same same year Wilson and south berlington v-trans worked towards getting A temporary bridge installed in august of 2017 150 foot long bridge would span just beyond the reach of the culvert Uh, there is an existing 2009 muddy brook Geomorphic assessment report of the of the entire length of muddy brook Uh, which was done by Fitzgerald environmental The measured bankfull width out there for the brook itself is 32 feet Which will play a key part in what the the span of the replacement structures will be And the depth from the road down to the the stream bed is approximately 30 feet So, uh back up at the roadway the other part of this project, uh, obviously There's a big bike and ped Component to it that we're going to be including in our study and so we have a class 2 town highway It's a major collector in the federal aid highway system It's uh, it has posted speed limits on kimba lab of 40 miles per hour observed posted speed limit Which means we saw the sign out there And uh, march alive. It's 30 miles per hour The bicycle and pedestrian facilities. We have a sidewalk on the on the north side of kimba live And i'll get to a map and kind of show where that is West of the project and then a shared use path a 10 foot wide shared use path on the south side of the project again stopping on the west side of the muddy brook In 2006 there was a shared use path study With a 2010 update which was complete for the rpc through the rpc So let's call this project base map one. This is a bit of a a close-up on the area It allows us to look a little bit more at the culvert itself and and it has some topographic lines on as you can see here The the blue outline is the temporary bridge And the muddy brook represented in this kind of lighter blue area here with the culver crossing limits Here and here we come back to this Now this kind of getting a little bit further away a little more of a global picture of what's going on It helps to when we talk about the roadway features and and the in the biking type features We'll call this project base map two So this is that 10 foot shared use path down here on the south side of the kimba lab And then this is the sidewalk here and they both stop right here just sort of the project Some of the other lines on here the purple represents some of the stormwater infrastructure that was available through GIS As well as the red lines are some of the property boundary information Not necessarily totally accurate, but that's what was available for us to put this map together All right, and that that's it. That was a quick really as quick as it gets as far as the presentation Brings to the end and what I want to say with regards to the public comment. So this is This is so that you know the local concerns being the objective is to solicit public feedback To better define the problem And we're going to open it up and please feel free everyone everyone to To come out with questions and comments and your input about what you'd like to see here Uh, and if you're not interested in saying anything verbally, we have some note cards out in the back You can write a comment and just hand it to us after the meeting Um, and if we do went when you do speak or have a written comment if you could just state your name Um, and if you're representing any organizations or anything associated project So that's that's it. If there's any questions, please Yes, sir That is well, yeah, that's what we suspect the the issue is as the engineering firm I shouldn't necessarily put that out as a statement for Our job is to figure out the replacement of the culvert, but yeah, okay. I just didn't know When that culvert was put in originally what year how long it's been there 1970 was the year it was installed Okay, and uh, is that normal for that? Um, doesn't that That type of culvert yet. So it's a metal pipe. It's not, um, it was galvanized, I assume, but it wasn't Protected it's not stainless steel or aluminum which have a better resistance longevity And I may be way ahead of time, but the replacements are bridged all so we're talking concrete steel on that Those options are wide open. Do you have a preference? No Yeah, based on the span at 32 feet that is a bit It's a bit wider than the 15 foot diameter pipe So that's the minimum for permitting uh with a and r And the V-trans hydraulics manual that we'll be able to put as far as a span of a structure So it does get into a little bit Larger scale of concrete and steel likely being some of the alternatives Yeah, and I can say I put the schedule is very loose right now because because we're only funded through the study phase And the next step will be to Define what the total project value will be on the preferred alternative What funding programs are available to help out both municipalities? Obviously, it's not in the budgets right now So we got to figure out a way to get there then Okay, good to see you when we're not uh We're came with FEMA So, uh, my name is Ben Rose. I live in Williston Village and I I'm here both as a resident and pedestrian and biker and as a board member of the cross Vermont trail association and I want to speak to this project and I welcome the opportunity to Brun the the scope of the conversation for the select board a little bit appreciate doing the public meeting in this forum Um, this is going to be expensive. We know that from the 2006 scope of stuff um I also want to say that when we look at this project in its proper scope It's going to be a very good and worthwhile investment to do this well and to do it for the next 75 years in a manner which is going to um work for the plan of chitlin county and create a crucial bicycle and pedestrian Connection which is lacking and dangerous through acting right now And that's a situation which has gotten worse in the past three decades And it's going to continue to get worse if we don't take this golden opportunity to create the same bike-ped crossing I believe i'm preaching to the client. This is not an argument and I think everybody wants to do this Well, I just want to make sure we take the opportunity to put it on the record. Why this is important So the question on trail was conceived. I believe in the early 90s It started out with its home in the agency of natural resources um, and It's major archeros paul left the agency of natural resources now works for the nature of conservancy um The legislature in the mid 90s created a small appropriation within the agency of transportation To create a part-time position to hire a coordinator to create the crossword trail What is the crossword trail? It is a notion of a 75 mile crossing over a lot from lake champlain to the connective river and vice versa connecting existing municipal paths and And roads that are safe for bikers and pedestrians and in some cases forces and in some cases snowmobiles All way across the street from east to west and that's really unique if you look at the demographics of it connects I don't know about a majority, but a lot of the people of ramaa live within a few miles of this path and On the east side it's using the old Railbed through ground state forest for example over the way to river alive. It already exists and is being happily used right now the big push is to Get a bridge across the bridge and create a bike path between my pillar and east my pillar Think about if you were a resident of my pillar or east my pillar how important that would be We'll connect kids to their school at U 32. It's it's a big project. We have a federal earmark We're trying to raise the last of the non federal match to do that project On the western side progress on the crossword trail has been slowed because the horse already left the bar in the 70s and 80s and a lot of development happened without us fully thinking ahead to how pedestrians would experience this county and The muddy brook we know is a tough nut because south Great bike path Wilson has a bike path network Which has improved and is going to continue to improve and in between is the muddy brook pretty big piece of water and I can tell you from personal experience that getting from willowston to south brolinton Is dangerous and stressful. I I don't want to overplay this but my parents spent decades living in brolinton We raised our kids in willowston and so I've had dozens of occasions to run or bike From here to brolinton and when you are approaching this Place your heartbeat goes up because you're going to be completely exposed to people not paying attention for a matter of several seconds and Sooner or later something bad will happen if we don't address this I I don't want to belabor the point but This is a golden opportunity to create a safer crossing and I guess my real point here is I would encourage everybody who's involved in this project to think about the scope of the project not just as Replacing and upsizing a culvert but solving A gap in The cross vermont trail solving the question of how people get safely between Burlington And wells river how people get safely between richmond and burlington and the waterfront It really doesn't exist this Shunt hike is the safest way to go. It's so shunt hike is low stretch. Shunt hike is fine right now It may not look fine from a from a design standpoint But when you're on a shunt hike you're not under pressure as a runner or as When you get to this place you're under pressure and Stay on that one. We know that Even with a new culvert, they're still problem They're still a couple of rough edges in terms of how you make the turn onto marshal in terms of how you connect from the west side of The new crossing to the existing bike path on the south side of marshal Those are Acknowledged issues, but they are solvable. They're they're small issues relative to the scope of this project But I would encourage that you solve all of that As part of this This project scope and thanks for the opportunity to come I'd like to point out that yeah, both the town of wilson and city south brongton made it very clear that a large part of the scoping study is to Incorporate that that thinking of how do we And also to look at the roadway and to think about how is the roadway performing in the geometry to For opportunities to always improve on any project as long as it's within the feasibility of the project itself And then before I let you go, I got some questions Maybe about the cross from on trail if you could talk a little bit about the the users What anticipated usage it would it would look like long term? And the on-road off-road facility If you have a preference or it can be a combined network sure So the cross from on trail Is is not fussy and in most cases it's and move jump in any time It's the tail not the arm Because you know we have burlington has a bike path south brown has a bicycle network wilson has a bike network The town of grumpen has its uses that are customary on The old railroad then and the cross from on trail is an attempt to link those up safely primarily for bikers whether fat tire or Narrow tire or hybrid But but also for walkers and in some places for stone bills and in a few places, I think even for For ATVs and it's really up to the local Jurisdiction through which the trail passes how the trail is used But in chitlin county it's pretty clear that it is a bike path And in terms of future use we Honestly don't know Yes First of all Whatever that said A couple of points with regards to your last question users Cross from my trail Opens up the idea of people traveling back and forth and doing long touring And that's what my jamblin bikeways is involved with and that's wonderful But this is also a place for Computers people going to work et cetera et cetera et cetera and Where does it go in the future? Sometime some place Somebody's going to be sitting in a meeting and they're going to say not that many people go through there Why should we do that? The fact of the matter is It's a classic case of you don't go there because then nothing there you go You know It's a build it and they will come kind of thing Friends outline it's the next I understand the relative to these projects you define A project limit I'm not sure exactly what it is here, but I would hope it would go from at least Gregory all the way to Shumpoint So that you looked at those those aspects Let me shift gears very quickly The most discouraging thing you've said or any of us I suspect so far is six years But you didn't mention a figure for dollars But the fact of the matter is For me and I'm probably considered one of the Don't work courageous white writers but I'll go places where other people don't When the temporary bridge went in I said man that is fine for me Not for everybody But for an average commuter and so forth who worked over the winter The payments deteriorated If we're going to have to wait for six years let's Make sure we do separate kind of maintenance That will allow it to function at least as well as it did last year and so forth so I guess we'll be back The end of the year see what you come up with it for all terms Yeah, the October meeting so that that I will give you some pricing at that point I hold it all in tight time in terms of looking for what What kind of thing If you look at the future in the same way that men has talked about it You've got to talk about them all through the summer And if you take a look where the South Burlington path comes There was a major discussion as to whether that path was going to stop at Gregory and a lot of Time was spent to get that path to go as close as we could to the proper So that it would go across Is there any concern with this crossing here with the sidewalk? Kind of tapers in the the other question I would have is is the potential for cyclist traffic on the northern side of the road Even if there were a facility on the south or vice versa too if there was an awful facility I heard I come that way went along on the screen And I try to get on that white man. Sometimes I do it with white man comes in Sometimes I go up to Gregory and sometimes I never do it because I don't want to get killed So yes, it's a challenge and to stop signs at Gregory Actually making it easier because everything's slowed down The feeling is So City planner also And I'm also the staff liaison to the South Burlington bicycle and pedestrian committee. I don't believe we have the formal members sort of With us tonight, if they got together a few comments that they'll want to get to you I could reiterate the general feeling it's been said I'll say times three after loose times two Of the general idea of connection. I do have a few more specific comments in regards to the technical nature of what That starts to look like for on-road and off-road facilities I don't think they want those later, so Unless we'll slow forward to here, but I think it's fine to get a technical question On and off They are both on the project to incorporate Yes, so on the South Burlington side, there are offers very narrowed at this moment, but we might be widening them this summer There are on-road lanes for commuters in both directions That exists then there's the 10 foot wide path That is a was a private path when it was built I was part of the technology part subdivision Not that long ago, probably from a lot of six or seven years They would like for those on-road lanes to Continue to exist and cross the bridge on both sides of the road commuters On their bikes and across the other side to stand on And also provide for some passageways for pedestrians for the bikes It's a big employment center there. I think that's something I have to remember I think that Williston is looking at some major developments on I'm looking at Ken I think we're looking at there are still hundreds of thousands of industrial commercial research space That could be built right there in that area It is quickly transforming into a research technology area I think this is going to be high quality employment those People need to get to work sometime And they'll be coming from all over. They may be living most of them. They may be living most of them right And they're going to come to get there We're also looking at almost 100 units that are already approved Housing just up the street from there less than a quarter mile I think from this site Before the next question I just want to point out that We are taking notes. Thank you, Rob. Our roadway engineer from Hyletiner is taking notes, so I'm not Just letting it all fly by Yeah, Ben, did you have another? Oh, yeah So Did you have one Terry? I did. I just wanted to make sure we get everybody else's coming. That's right Well, I was just going to chime in agreeing with something you said Which is that if you watch the behavior of people who are biking sort of long distances and using Shunt bike and marshal People stay on the road. It is it is designed to have decent shoulders now It's a lot quicker than crossing the road in order to get onto the off-road Path on the south side, which is nice if you have little kids tag the line or whatever. It's great, but I think that in the design in addition to any off-road trails or paths that exist through that Through along marshal We have to maintain a design on marshal that makes it safe for people who are East back or west back because you know, you can lose a lot of time crossing to get to a little stretch of stranded off-road trail And if you've got an out-of-bike ride, you're just going to stay right on the shoulder That's what people do and It's it's okay. Once you get up the hill from from this Temporary bridge, you're basically five staying in the shoulder all the way to I do want to point out though kind of quickly though As we go through the assessment of what the alternatives can be We are looking at environmental impacts as well and and by widening shoulders and and separating path it will Play into what can and can't be done Both from permitting and right-of-way perspective and then costs as well So that'll all be a part of the evaluation process that I will present in front that October of 2018 me short decision the crossing back and forth Yeah, it's a two-bottom riders. They're going to follow the road But you're crossing back and forth and the safety hazard. That's a whole lot bigger than the other Man, I did know that she was taking notes, but since you aren't taking notes You For two years down the road Don't put it great in the bridge You put a four foot thing there and you say it's a bike lane and you put a grade in there All of a sudden it's a two-foot and white plane and as soon as a couple big parts go wild in a one or five It's six inches of good asshole to ride If you can avoid getting your grade anywhere particularly on the bridge Any further questions from the audience before I go to the board? I guess you're right Yeah, so my question I guess I think it's partially answered but There are bike lanes now on the road On both sides of the current opening, you know the bridge area they exist today Oh, so there's nothing on the Wilson side But it's near So it's normal Vermont stripes shoulder kind of scary Okay, so it was just when you were talking about the so it doesn't sound like there's a full bicycle lane Sounds like there's some off-road pedestrian bike paths that are on opposite sides of the road, right? And somehow that you're asking for that somehow to be connected I'm not quite sure how or what you're what you're asking But you it sounds like you're also asking that when the bridge is contemplated that It's contemplated with some area for pedestrians that are and bicyclists Yeah, I think the meaning is that the bridge at least separated or protected pedestrian connection off-road And that they're being on both sides both directions of the bridge Such that the time though that Wilson Can create The connections on their side it's ready to go Like the one in the Colchester from shadow cross farms that kind of a separated with the fence or You know the idea but the way it was implemented means it doesn't get you Because it's hard to be it's narrow It's hard to get to et cetera and it was built before the modern standards, but you got the concept Correct. You just don't want to name a wide lane. You want a separate separated I think the committee wasn't specific as to whether or not it's separated by Landscaping or separated as a stand-alone bridge just that it's I would remind the Wilson folks, I think y'all know it But as soon as you get the ground out There is a separated path it keeps on going With a big sign she says cross from my trailer It's not far. I shouldn't say it's not far to your car this far What is the right way down It's a standard three rod from what we have, but I think it it bumps out. So that'd be 49 and a half feet Right away with but There's some old the old 1970 plants do show a bump out for the existing culvert The the available GIS maps didn't so that's why I say it It we need to confirm, you know, which one is correct To marshal out on our sides Anywhere from 66 to 100 feet right away And it's being paid this year from south front on our All the way to the tail line. So just before the bridge here, and then we are going to be putting It's 30 feet wide right now. We're going to be making them lanes And 11 feet wide with that extra four or five feet on each side Four bikes All with all you do Any further questions from the audience or from the board So a question I have I'm a little bit confused about what are the limits or the scope of this project because what I've heard is At least what I think I heard is some interest in having at least from the pedestrian bike standpoint the scope go from Gregory road to shun pike And I guess my question is is that possible? That's good news And then the other question I have is is for the the folks advocating for the bike pedestrian crossing Help me understand what would be the ideal Crossing that would be there. I heard I heard talk about a pedestrian a separated pedestrian aspect to it and then an on-road Bicycle What would that look like if I was looking at that? What would that look like? How much money would you like? Let's start with the very basics and then building up first first of all on road would be I assume two traffic lanes And at least four feet maybe five feet on either side for bicycles to travel It might even have a bike symbol on it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay then separate from that And how you separate it is where the cost and the aesthetics and all the rest of it come together but at least say a curve And some grass space will call it two feet minimum and then an eight or a ten foot Kind of a thing to get across now you can keep moving that up to a separate bridge that would look real nice You know et cetera et cetera et cetera But there are standards for those that I'm sure these folks know and I suspect that you're all part of that you come back At least one of those there may be multiples of those and plus some that are less than that But that answer That's that that's helping. I just want to It's big And I think what we hear from The regional planning commission from bike side groups is the I to think of the idea as protected You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be a step, but it has to be a protective facility and how you protect it will be John's job. Yeah With the support of everyone here So yeah, we can design anything, you know, and uh, it's and so here just a couple of examples So this would be You know a bridge crossing with a separate bike and pet structure, you guys can see up here on the screen This is an image that doesn't show quite quite right what what I wanted to have for this meeting but So here's if you had the roadway for a buried structure and this is all soil right here You could have a separated facility out over in the side over here You just got to Kind of change the look of that a little bit and then a couple of other ideas if it was a combined bridge Where you had a pedestrian rallying here and in a barrier here you could have still Wide and shoulders to have bicyclists inside the roadway as well as outside over here That presents some maintenance maintenance challenges with plowing and Okay, well plowing and you know, and I think what um Another point that as we go through alternatives. We're really thinking about Durability 75 year lifespans and things like that and low maintenance You know other considerations Cost obviously schedule impact constructability during construction So we're going to go through those and I think we'll talk maybe a little bit more about that during the alternatives presentation Here's another what what could be a striped alternative of an on-road System where you have the bike lane here and you can put a a striped buffer between So just a couple of ideas to keep in mind as we talk about totally separate grass space in between or in a separate bridge structure Or if you have a buried structure, you have the ability to continue the grass right through And that's kind of getting the getting some of the comments back here tonight allows us to think about The goals of the of the facilities And we'll present that as an alternative and then and then there may be some scalability from there as to different alternatives to think about as well Yes In the context of the chitney county the singular transportation network Shun pike and marshal are not ours But from the standpoint of a commuting cyclist This is going to be an artery. And so the ideal design from from my thinking is From the standpoint of the psychology of a cyclist This is a place where you want to be able to get from wilson road in wilson Or or marshal or whatever you're coming from to kennedy drive in south berlington Quickly and without having to make decisions where you're taking your life in your hands the more times you have to think defensively And and and make a decision The harder it is to do that and the less people will do it So really you want it doesn't for me It's not that we need to do something elaborate that's separate and more expensive. I I think that cheap is good As long as cyclists have the space and as long as the the road pavement marking is clear to Bicycles that they're in a place where they have the right to be and it's clear to Vehicles drivers that there are cycles cyclists there who have just as many rides on the road as as the cars And as long as cyclists have all the rights of any other vehicle Based on the design of The car I just want to have it kind of expressed in public, you know, what would be an ideal goal We may or may not be able to get there, but let's at least have that as out there Another way to look at it from that point of view Everything I hear says that what was done on group two with the repayment meant those objectives Yeah, okay And could you go back to the picture of the bridge? Just and I'll try to be brief here This picture this picture. Perfect. Thank you And this picture it shows the pedestrian Protected piece is pretty much only on one side And I just want to know From folks standpoint is that acceptable for this crossing or having it on both sides is that important The protected pedestrian crossing I get that I get that You can live with it Whereas the south side I'm sorry you got me. Can we go back to a picture to show which is the north Okay Okay, oh and it's coming in Runners use it Can we go to the picture that's a little bit of a blow-up Of this of this section of bridge This one perfect because I don't know wait So you see on the The other side I'm sorry the other side of the road from right there that path that comes in Is people who are traveling from Williston to South Burlington To get onto that path are going to have to cross traffic You don't do that That's an unsafe place to cross the road As a as a runner jogger walker, it's a it's a great place to cross. It's actually pretty easy As a cyclist before you're keeping up with traffic, it's more traffic But with that four-way stop For a walker jogger runner Mom is stroller mom Wait, where's the four-way stop right here, right that's the crossing there A four-way stop with the police stations within a quarter of a mile Okay Let me ask the question of then is will this crossing If needed that would be part of the scope of this project Okay, thank you Crossing is placed yes In the best way to do the crossing if a crossing is needed. Okay. Good. Thank you So I'd like to wrap this up On this point for this meeting tonight Obviously you have ways to communicate now either emails or whatever on your other concerns that you may have and We thank you very much for coming in with a presentation and you'll be back in six months Four months Thank you. Thanks for coming Oh, I had a request to go out of order a little bit to go to item number 13 And the golf link stormwater loan And rick you're going to talk about that or yeah, I think I'm like eric eric. Okay That we're going to golf links. Okay Someone from the golf links board was going to join us And um Okay, great Want to make sure he folks are here and you were planning to come So we've got um So the golf links homeowners association Stormwater improvement projects ready for construction this summer Work performed for the project involves modifications to existing stormwater ponds including grading piping Precast concrete structures and stone fill Homeowners association is requesting financing with $40,000 loan from the town All the dock required legal documents for this has been reviewed by the town attorney and the attorney for the homeowners association Recommendation from the town attorney and town staff is to move forward with making this loan Including with the agenda was a copy of the stormwater loan agreement as we've done for other ones that have come before the board This is nothing new to us except a new loan. That's all Questions for eric Motion them is in order Move to authorize the town manager to execute a financial services agreement between the town of wilson Oh I moved to authorize a manager to sign the stormwater loan agreement In related documents for a loan in the amount of $40,000 with the golf links homeowners association Sorry discussion on the motion Hearing none all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. I oppose Congratulations Thanks for waiting I'm moving on then to um that of member nine the user fee and charges schedule we have Memo's here from Eric I believe on all of the ones that we Need to consider under other under number nine Yep So I know we've done a little different than years past by having separate motions for each one We what we've done is the memo I've put together has comments from staff regarding each fee with some background information Bruce is here if you have questions regarding any of the utility fees that are proposed within this You'll also see in your packet. You have a user fee schedule included that kind of lists everything on one document where we are now We're proposing for f y 19 Asking for the board if it wants to approve these with one motion For the sheet right here that we're proposing or if the board wants to pull anything out for further discussion We can do that as well Mr. Dragas I'd open it up at the board. I have questions for for staff here on anything So I just have questions on the schedule itself So several of these things show show Units that I don't think are right. I could be wrong, you know as well I'm not the expert here, but the connection charges Those aren't in gallons. Are they are they it's 763 per gallon. Yes So what does that mean? So when you do a residential connection In connection your connection fees makes 1,600 gallons a day Oh, so this is a builder Yes It's one time only usually. Yeah, it's one time. Okay. I now understand them all and there's a standard one for each residence I assume each residence assumed to be There is depends on how many bedrooms you're being built. Okay. Okay. Yes. It would I'm sorry. Yes, it would flat fee It's not a flat fee. Okay, but it is a one time connection fee. This is just one time Connection the only time that might change is if you build a Unit behind your property or something. But anyway, it's it's basically a one time fee for 763 is per gallon Wow So for project had thousands of gallons that's a per gallon per Yeah, it's based on the program. It's based on your allocation So if you if you're allocated once again, if it's a three bedroom house, it's 230 gallons per day So it'd be the seven whatever times the 230 When you think about a connection a connection to our our services Uh deteriorates the life of that service just like cutting a road deteriorates the life cycle of that road over time period so it's There are any questions you have on any other part of the the fee schedules that are being recommended The only one I had was under the ambulance service rates. I wasn't It wasn't clear to me and again, I apologize for not being as prepared for this meeting as I would have liked to have been What the increased in the advanced life support is due to Is a I believe there should be in your packet a memo from Chief Morton Or is it covered in the memo from over to the middle probably It talks about if there'll be a 70 it's proposed that it be 75 dollars But I usually like to understand it does say it says for it's because of the expense of pharmaceuticals Where's that? I'm sorry. I don't see that age three age three in the second paragraph Or first first I see where it says on the second paragraph a 75 increase is proposed You know what none of the other fees under The paragraph above there's When you've got paramedics, they do a lot of first responders They're able to use a lot more medical supplies and medications therefore your price range is going up Right and he says basically the above is why they're you know the above Information that was shared is why they're increasing the rate Covers that rate Okay, so it's due to the okay chief had actually recommended a higher rate and I asked him to Bring it down a little bit because it was a huge jump And I mean I do get concerned at the rate at which the rates are increasing I mean I know there's there's a bunch of factors in here Okay, and again, I apologize for not being as prepared for this as possible So it's due to the met it's due to the cost of providing that service is what I'm hearing Yeah Okay, the sewer and water rates are based on the budget. They're very straightforward Doing the math Here I'm actually going to say Putting these all together as one Makes reviewing it. I mean from my stamp. I like it when it's each individual one That's just my style I'll actually go home and make a bunch of copies so that they all go into their own respective departments Versus One document Our concern is that Sure vote on the each one. I get that agenda. It was three pages long Okay, jeff. I have um separate memos for each one of these I combined of one I can just email you those separate memos. It's okay. I can yeah Yeah, but thank you for the offer I I had a question actually since bruce is here and the permits for the cuts and the um You know for the public works fees And it looks like you know, we're we're increasing the permitting from the 100 to match the 250 that shulburn charges South berlington's still charging a hundred And then we're increasing the pavement cut from 10 to 12 dollars, but it looks like south berlington is way above that point You know, what are we? What's the rationale for you know, where we set the different The different rates in other words it could it would have been nice to know When was the last time shulburn changed their rates in south berlington? So we knew if well shulburns is You know six months away from doing their five-year increase and it's going to go up you know from 10 to 20 dollars or I can tell you I can tell you south berlington hasn't raised their Permeter inspection fees since since I started that program in south berlington Uh, whatever it was 15 years ago now. They have raised their They had the same thing that we had at ten dollars a square foot now They're up to 22 dollars a square foot. So they have been raising those fees Plus south berlington has a green belt fee that we don't have So, uh, I don't know what that is. I haven't that didn't look at it. But um, so that's where they have a little bit of difference So I don't know, you know, if they've been raising theirs over the year They hadn't raised it until I left their terry. So, uh It was that way for six or seven or eight years and in the last nine years now It's gone from 10 to 22 as far as that pavement cut fee is concerned You know, I guess what I'm getting at is, you know, are we raising them? enough this You know, are you looking to do this in the stair step kind of over the next so many years or That actually was intent. We haven't changed these rates since 2010 Which is when they were first adopted and some of the well, some of the board members may recall that There was some controversy involved with adoption at the time including On the green belt, which is why we don't have a green belt fee because of the complaints we received from Individual who's now Time was working for the gas company is now. Oh, yeah What's the green belt fee Well, there was an impact there was a there's an impact to the green belt in our right of way Just like there is to cutting pavement or concrete Well, I mean they dig it up and then it got a you know It settles it has to be readdressed those kind of things So there was a fee for excavating in the green belt as well That we do the grassy area Right the green belt the area between the sidewalk and the curb Sorry about that or the area that goes 12 feet up into your yard Got it. Okay. Thank you That actually that fee is part of the permit fee schedule not the user fee schedule It's the next item So if there's no further questions regarding item number nine the motion would be in order Move to adopt the municipal fee and rate schedule for fiscal year 2019 as proposed Very discussion on the motion What was in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Moving on to the permit fee schedule Eric again Kent's here. I'll I'll put it for most of this to Ken Let's go out the memo in your packet from line director Ken Belvo that Belvo that goes through proposed increases to the planning department permit fee schedule Um So I guess one item of correction would be there's there's no Fee increases that are proposed What's proposed is a potential cap on fees number one And then also there are two exemptions that we have under our fee structure and The decision is whether the select board wants to rethink those in light of some additional information And also changing circumstances So, um, I was last year about two years ago Um, and we did a more I think going back four years ago. We did a more comprehensive review of our fee structure and updated a lot of our fees for Submitting applications to for drb Consideration and things of that sort Um, a couple years ago Uh, the select board approved where we lumped in a lot of really small permitting items Like fences sheds decks little backyard home improvement kind of projects From assessing fees based on What's the estimated cost of the project to adjust a flat fee? and We our recommendation was that a flat fee is it's much simpler for Joe and jane homeowner and understand Um, and and the most important consideration is getting people to get permits for these little things and keep the record in order And it's easy for people to understand. It's easy for them to accept Um, so that's worked, you know, very well in our opinion Um, we had a couple of uh permits recently That had relatively high dollar Estimates of the construction that generated large fees And that's what tends to happen in in our world is that A lot of stuff groups in the middle like many things in life And then occasionally you'll get these things that are just their outliers. They're they're big blips um sometimes The permit fee is expensive and there's a good reason for it, you know Finney crossing is building a two and a half million dollar road. For example, you know, it generates a big permit fee Um somebody does Uh an improvement to the inside of an existing building At the former site of ibm For general dynamics and the estimated project cost is two million dollars And it takes us five minutes to process It's the fee is completely disproportional to The sort of the work effort and you know, so there's there, you know, it's never an exact fit We try to you know get it so it's it there is a good fitness there as much as possible um, but the idea was to uh to cap some of the fees at 20 000 for an administrative fee And we charge five dollars per thousand dollars estimated cost of construction plus the recording fee um We did some quick research over the last 10 years and I think we identified Uh, I want to say five or six projects that would have generated fees in excess of that amount Um, one of those projects was the public works garage, which of course generated no fees um Another was a permit for the recent renovations to the wilson central school, which also didn't generate any fees So it's a fairly small number of things, but um The the idea is to try to address what seems like a a inequity in the fee structure So that's so that's number one um, the second has to do with the exemptions So, um going back. I want to say I don't know. I think it's four years. We've exempted both um The wilson schools and the state of vermont from from fees under our bylaw The rationale for the schools was simply that even though the school is a separate government wilson people are paying the bill. You're just taking the money from one pocket putting it in another um Do we really want to do that and the consensus of the board was No, it didn't necessarily make sense to do that. Let's just make sure we get all the permits done properly Um, so that's what we did and I remember the last time we visited this issue jeff. I remember you asked me The the the the the merger under the unified school district hadn't yet occurred But it had been proposed or it had been approved And well, what happens then and so that's where we are today And so, you know, we're all now unified so it's not just the people of the town of wilson. It's the whole district And uh, you know, I provide some additional information I think eric forwarded to you when I had kind of quizzed some of the other municipalities around here and It's kind of about 50 50 on whose exempting schools and who isn't And it's interesting that heinsberg which is in a similar situation as us They're considering the same thing which is to say they had exempted the schools now They're part of a unified school district. Maybe we might want to revisit that issue. So that's number one Um concerning the state of vermont Um, I had been led to believe that the the state was exempted from paying fees and the the folks from Buildings and grounds, whatever the name the department of state that those folks were very They were absolutely sure that they were they were exempt and and perhaps I should have done some more research on this issue Um, and so we raised it with the select board and the select board said, okay, we'll You know exempt the state now the practical matter The state does not generate a lot of permits through the town when they do highway work that doesn't generate a permit Application through the town. So you have a few things There's the boat dock on lake ericoy, which you believe is owned and operated by the state They come in about every five years for some little something or other But occasionally we get some some big big projects and one that is uh, we'll be coming in the door Probably in the next 12 to 18 months will be the relocation of the state police facility Um, that's you know, the state has purchased the property. That's known Uh, as terry knows the money has been budgeted by the the uh, the legislature. So that's something that has Legs to it and likely will happen. Um, you know, what's the cost of that facility altogether? I don't know. Is it five million? plus or minus Something like that. So There there's some significant dollars there that are at stake Um, as I quizzed all the other municipalities The answer was uh, very emphatic the state is not exempt And when I asked paul gillis and he said no, the state is not exempt make them pay So that's what I have questions for can any of those subjects So the one I have on the state maybe is better for the rick and and eric and that is you know, we get some services from the state police That I think we get at a pretty good price, right the dispatch So I don't know if there's any, you know issue with We start charging them for things like, you know, the state police barracks Will they decide that well We could start charging you for the dispatch and I know we're looking to maybe go regional dispatch within the next few years Um, which would make that a moot point, but I mean, we've been giving services from the state police Is this the really the only project that would really generate any revenue and is it I'm not besides the park and ride facility, which is already permitted That that horse is out of the barn I'm not aware of any other big pieces of land that the state owns in williston Again, the exception of the, you know, they own the launch ramp on lake ericoy, which is you know It's it's pretty inconsequential any fees that might be generated from that would be This also applied to the vermont technical college btc btc is an agent of the state But to address the question about dispatch services. Yes, we are getting a tremendous benefit from that But it's a statewide issue. It isn't a williston state police issue These services are provided to a number of municipalities including richman for example Is dispatch part-time by the state police and there's a number of other communities as well You're not affecting the department of state police or the Department of public safety because the money is going to be out of the Department of buildings and general services who applies for that money They won't even know we're taking it from them, okay So, you know what i'm asking i'm trying to understand whether we we could create some you know issue here Either that or we'll see legislation proposed next year So the first motion that's proposed is to Take care of reducing the fee capping the administrative fees And eliminating the exemptions for both the state and the schools Well, can I ask one more question? You should follow up on yeah, I got So the question is are any of those six projects and some of them are Had no fees at all. Do any of them generate anywhere near that kind of work effort? $20,000 worth of work effort I know you don't look to recover 100 percent of your fees per year report, but Do any of these things generate, you know large amounts of work? Well some things do so One of the things you you may recall is you know, we do our quarterly reports Over the last couple of years one of the first items that I list in what we did in the last quarter Is that we worked on permitting issues related to finny crossing Now there's you know, if you took that as a whole now they come in for their permits You know kind of in in drips and drabs, but it's a huge work effort You know, there's all kinds of stuff that goes into it the bigger the project the the bigger The work effort Assuming you know unlike my example the general dynamics example if something has to go through the drb From the time you start from the time before you start the first conversation that we have Before anybody has put anything on paper To the time you actually see a building on the ground There's a tremendous work effort that goes in there the fees tend to be collected at the latter At the latter part of it. So does it approach those that number? I mean does it approach $20,000 worth of effort? I mean Get in four person months. I don't know. Yeah, I could So why would we so I guess I'm just Why would we want to cap the fee then if if it's very few over the last decade or so? and They can generate That amount of work and it seems like there's an exception where maybe some can't like this general dynamics incident But if these other things like finny crossings Do generate that amount of work? Well, why wouldn't I guess I don't understand why well You know finny crossing perhaps wasn't a good example because finny crossing has clearly paid the town a lot more than $20,000 in fees because It comes in in phases, you know, they get a permit to build a road. They pay a fee They get a permit to build an apartment building. They pay a fee They pulled a permit to build another apartment building. They pay another fee It would be their fees would be You know, I just some maybe I asked it wrong so but we did have an example recently With the burlington emergency veterinary hospital where they had a fee that was I believe it was like around $28,000 And it's not to say that that the planning office staff didn't put any work effort into all of the ins and outs of the permitting on that because we did um But but that was it was clearly it was it was an example of where the fee Didn't really line up well with what the You know what the the level of demand for services from the planning office was and that this would would address something like that So can let me ask the question slightly differently and I'm okay with the idea of a cap because To me the cap would be set at a level where Somehow 50 of the projects exceed the cap and 50 percent are under or something along it's way less than that It's a again. These are outliers. Okay, but My question is is Why did why are you proposing 20,000 for the cap versus let's say 10,000 or 25,000? I'm just trying to get a sense why 20 is is a good number to use um We felt we looked at 10,000 and 10,000 would have been very low And at that point we wouldn't have just been capturing a few outliers We would have been capturing a lot of projects where They can get kind of complicated and there there is a big work effort that's involved in it And and that wasn't really the goal the goal was simply to take out a few of these outliers that there is this You know this cap and at some point the work effort plateaus and that was really where it came from Okay And then I I do want to focus a little bit on the exemptions First start with the schools What I would hope is that there's a unified consensus between is it five communities five communities that are part of You know either we all exempt them or none of us exempt them type of thing I I I think would be the approach would be the best approach Now it's probably impossible to know that right now Or into the chart Shelburton is part of this the district and you're not exempt right Shelburton and Heinsberg But we also have like sherlot and her lot and St. George and whom I'm missing. I'm sorry us little sin, yeah St. George doesn't have any facilities. George doesn't have his schools. They send their kids here Right, but the part of the district now So if if the district were to to do a project in st. George, I mean, who knows if they ever would but you know So right now we have a mix exempt and not exempt I mean, I'm tending to say now that it's a district and it's not a willison working with its own schools And also the whole act 60 68 piece You know where we're trying to I don't want to say shift But there was a conscious effort made not to put additional financial burden on the school because You know if they saved For for the reasons that had to do with act 60 68, but now that it's a district It's a whole different ballgame And I'm tending towards exempt, but I would also Feel odd if it was half the town's exempt and half don't that would just be an awkward situation So I don't know that lends any Any help here kind of tending towards not being exempt because it is part of it is a global, you know Not global, but district kind of resource. I would make it non-exempt And and what can happen there as wilson's says it's exempt, which is a perfectly fine answer Or it is exempt, but the other three towns or four towns Don't and we're just in this that awkward situation How's that awkward? Well, just because the other towns get revenue and we don't from it We we we treat We would make it not a well we're I mean And and ted you're absolutely right. Is it a big issue that we would be the We would be the only town that exempt some no it isn't but I just think it would be better Uh that all towns are unified in in this answer Just to be clear though. What we're suggesting is that we get rid of the exemption, right? Right, right. Yes, right exactly. Yeah, that's What I would be in favor And uh the state I think is uh pretty clear from my point that they Should not be exempt Didn't this happen with storm water? Yes Yeah, a little bit Okay, so just one one last question on the on the $20,000 cap So you feel there's just a few outliers and In general we probably with this formula even with the cap we still collect more maybe than we spend On general and projects we're not operating on a complete fee recovery basis Okay, so That's critical. Yeah that piece right there When I was first here actually prior to my being here my predecessor had um Made some recommendations to select board about revising the fees and one of the pass-ons to me was he really felt the fees were way too low And I remember sitting here in front of the select board at that time and trying to Carry the water on that issue and I you know, I agreed the fees were very low And I kind of little got a little bit of a lecture I think it was Judy Sassarosi We even put the name to it. Wow I think I remember that And she said she said these are services the town is providing. You're not operating on a fee recovery basis And it's like okay, that's it's good for me. So So we've tended to be somewhat conservative in in what our fee structure is It was just a few years ago that we bumped up some of our drb fees to where they are now so There was a time we were capturing I want to say about 35 to 40 percent year in and year out of What the planning office spends in its budget and what we would take in in fees Um If you look at the numbers over the last five years that number is higher and it tends to be uneven But if you average it out, it's it's probably closer to 50 percent right now We've had some some bigger projects that have generated, you know, significant fees And for some it's funny you mentioned it would not funny I mean I looked at your chart here the 50 percent feels about right to me Right and I know you you know bruce was here talking a little earlier and you're talking about you know Some of the fees for things like sewer allocation and water and sewer connection fees and their curb cut fees There's all those other kinds of things All of I shouldn't say all those most of those things are just one of the latter aspects of the development That was approved through our process. So You know the the amount of revenue that the planning office takes in is not the only Um Source of revenue that the town is taking in to pay for the various services that it provides To new development The final thing I should add is um We generally take a look at the planning fees on an every other year basis. So it's Yeah, all right. That's fair. I guess we'll come back and see whether we cut too deep or Capt it too much. There's not a big risk here So you're ready for a motion. I am The first motion would include as I said reducing the fee for final plans capping the administrative permit fees and eliminating the two exemptions If you choose to do that So the first one would be to move to adopt the plan and zoning fee schedule as presented It's very discussion on that motion Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye Aye any opposed And moving on to the second part then and that's the right-of-way utility fees. We really discussed that for sure a while ago Schedule for utility work in the town right-of-way as presented in the memo dated 6 19 2018 with an effective date of july 1 2018 That's very discussion in that motion If not all those in favor of the motion say aye Aye any opposed Great. Thank you. Ken When we went to the miserable tax rate, which was did we approve the exemptions then or was that hard of that was part of the first motion Right. We The non exemptions. Well, the removal was motion. Yes. Okay. Good So tax rate So when we set Uh proposed the budget at town meeting time We For my notes on this It's going to be a 2% was um, the uh, maybe I can get the electronic version That's what I was relying on here and just want the memo from Jennifer. I've got it here So um, the we're proposing for me. Yeah, I have a power point coming up You're going to see my what I'm looking at here. Um, we had a uh, uh proposed rate of I'm sorry an existing rate of 26 cents and we were Looking at I'm sorry 26 5 Yeah, 26 and a half right. Thank you. And we were looking at an increase of about just under a half cent I think when the budget got approved Um between then and now The grand list was finalized in fact it was finalized just recently last week and The it was it grew a little bit faster that we anticipated partly because I think there was some Some utilities Their values increased faster than what we had expected And so that's part of it. So um because of that the proposed tax rate is less than what we were saying um, and it's we're proposing is 26 point on point 2665 is the tax rate So, um, I wanted to uh, I have a very very short power point here So anyway the um, I just wanted to give you a sense of what this means for the individual property owners So this was the rate that we had proposed or looked at at the town meeting and it And it was like four dollar and forty cents Change per hundred thousand dollars in value And you can see Homer Simpson is not too thrilled with that But he's happier now because we're looking at a point zero zero one five increase in the tax rate, which is a dollar fifty per hundred thousand dollar value and that's a dollar fifty per year So um times if you're 300 thousand dollar home, you multiply that times three and that's your total municipal tax increase for the year so um, we're um Certainly happy to have this Go this way and you may recall Last year we had a somewhat similar situation with the grandest increase. So There was no increase last year. So over a two-year period. This is the total increase That we're looking at for municipal taxes um, where do we stand with the um Oshoot our policy on the um, it's not reserve. I'm drawing a blank on the name on Unbalanced fund balance. Yes. Well, we'll have to take another look at that But you may recall when we approved the budget we had included in quite a few new expenses One time expenses to be paid out of that fund balance And in fact the current fiscal year we had boosted that up also with some one time expenses and So our hope is that gradually that will be coming down The concern is that we don't use the fund balance for it to pay operating expenses because then That's not sustainable and you end up with a big problem. And this is somewhat Lower taxes and I have to raise them again. I mean that's you may have to double the increase I thought the last time jennifer came in here. She told us that we were collecting more money And spending less and their fund balance wasn't going down like we expected. So we I thought she told us that that's true. It's not going down. It will be going down But not as much as we had expected so The answer to the question of should we use more of the fund balance to reduce taxes further is not recommended Well, not at this point. When we get into the budget discussion next year Here then we have to take another fresh look at it. All right As I said, we did increase for next fiscal year the amount that was set aside for To be used out of the fund balance. Okay Was there a motion? Need to set the municipal tax raise six five Second It's your discussion on motion In favor of the motion say aye. Aye Any opposed Moving on to the annual employee wage adjustment I also had the sewer allocation ordinance So in the budget, we included I think it was 1.9 percent Cost of living increase for the employees the non-union employees and it's based on the Cost of living index That runs November through November So we know what it is when we set the budget And it's the same cost of living index that we use for the police union and for the fire union And so our recommendation is That same Change for the non-union employees as well any questions for rick on this The motion is in order Second It's very discussion on the motion All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed Moving on to the chitman county public safety authority agreement rick So, uh, we've had several iterations of this Yesterday, I sent you a revised version that revised version includes the comments from legal counsel And I think you can see the markup that's Chose the changes. This is a an agreement that we will be providing services to the newly formed Public safety authority at no charge We anticipate that the services will be very minimal because there are no employees Uh once they have employees that changes the picture entirely And I suspect the authority will have to look for a different arrangement because I don't think we're in a position to be able to do that But we're not there yet. This is just a one-year agreement Um, I think the major expense the authority will be incurring is to pay a consultant We're in the process of soliciting proposals right now for that. There's a few other This still has to get approved by the authority, but I In my mind it makes sense to have this board approve it first before because the authority for a final approval Questions for rick If they don't have any employees and we don't expect any services And it's only a one-year agreement that's the purpose of the agreement Well, someone needs to pay the two or three bills that we're going to get and, um, right Before at this point the regional planning commission was handling that But the feeling is that that doesn't really make sense for them to continue that By the way, this draft agreement is very similar to the one that Is currently being used Um between the city of wanouski and the chin and kelly Unit for special investigations kuzi They in that case though there is Uh, there are more services provided so kuzi does pay wanouski some fees for that service further questions If you like the motion was in order Move to authorize the town manager to execute a financial services agreement between the town of anilston and jitenden county public safety authority for fiscal year After approval to proceed from the town attorney second Was there any discussion on the motion just That that's fine that motion is fine. Um, but just as they said the town councils are already approved itself, but It doesn't hurt to leave it Hearing no discussion all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Solar tracker purgeous agreement Rick, I think that's you again. Sure. This is um a project that was uh approved by the voters in march and so, uh, we, um Notified the company that we in terms of fall through with this purchase And both parties felt that it would be good to memorialize that in a purchase agreement Um, the closing on this won't happen until the fall According to the contract that's how that's Window of opportunity for us to actually purchase these names And we plan to At that point Enter into an agreement for a maintenance services. We already have a proposal But we don't need to sign that yet because we don't know them yet So this is a Approaches And the amount rick the 3 45 6 91 Um I just want to make sure that's an appropriate number For this Obviously, you've checked that that amount or More than that amount was approved by the voters Well, you may recall that I don't sorry But you still made that's why I asked you still may recall once we start giving the detail The uh An appraisal was done um hired by the company And then we had that appraisal reviewed by our own supper consultant. Okay. This is before it was presented to town Meeting. Yeah, I think it was in january of this year. Okay. So it was that process that arrived at that number at this number. Okay So I should feel good about that number. Yeah So what is the same number? Yes. Yeah That was my question. Yeah, so on the warranty it says there's no warranty I when we had this discussion, I thought there was some warranty in some parts of this There is no warranty or is it maybe it's the Materials warranty to the companies that make things and not all are renewable It may have some warranty of it, but the company is selling to us So it's appropriate for that language to look like that And the company that we're going to be entering into the service contract with coincidentally Well, at least the one we have a proposal from is all our three nobles All our three nobles So that's the company that made these units They've been performing the service to date since they've been installed as well. Yeah Are there questions for rick? If not a motion would be in order Move to authorize the town manager to execute an equipment purchase agreement with green land and solar in the amount of $345,691 For 25 solar tracker arrays as approved by the voters of williston on march 2019 Pardon me a further discussion on the motion All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye any opposed Manager's report First on the warrants And I did figure it out it's That is our Membership fee for the entire year Last year the membership fee was $10,520 and now it's 11,000 something While we're on the subject of finances, I might also go to the finance report We have this as prepared by jennifer cannelli our finance director We are now 92 percent through the year And revenues currently stand at 88 percent and expenditures at 87 percent So 88 percent is Does not include One large payment we have coming yet for the final installment of the rooms of meals tax for the year Um It relates to the current fiscal So, um, I would say on the revenue side, it's all good news. Um, we're going to be doing better than what we anticipated on all likelihood On the expenditure side We um For the various reasons we've been talking about all fiscal year. We're going to be under budget And the police department continues to lag behind they're at 80 percent for the year and You know, what can you say it's been Turnover and everything else But I will say though that we are in the process of finalizing and getting just about all the positions filled So those numbers will be going up next fiscal year considerably. So we don't have a lot of turnover in those positions Um, the other things like uh, legal services, we um We're still running really low on that which is a good thing There have been a few years when we weren't pay over but uh, those are fortunate in the minority One comment that was made here on the expenditure highlights related to FEMA This relates to damage that was done as part of a storm that hit in early may And there were like six roads that were damaged as part of that storm washed out mostly And butternut road, um, oak hill road were two of them Butternut I think just wanted to have the most damage We're into we're expecting that when the numbers are all said and done it'll be Combined about $50,000 and to repair all those roads The FEMA money is not Certain at this point despite the way this may have read It does look like the FEMA Request for declaration is going to be submitted by the state And our hope is that we'll be approved how much of that gets distributed back to us We don't know but We're in line or our claims will be going in if there is money available for that Otherwise it'll be covered through our budget And and it's already from most part of it's been out of this budget, so The budget isn't Okay From that perspective We have had some turnover in the public works department as well and That is affecting less the The operating expenses for the current fiscal year. It is affecting more the expenses in storm water We just have not had the staff time and ability to do some of the storm water projects That they normally do some of the mineral maintenance work and So we're finding that our operating expenses in storm water are running below what we'd anticipated But that does allow us a little extra cash to pay for some of the loans We think having out so it all balances out and I'm sure the department will be paying playing catch up over the next fiscal year a little bit One of the issues we've had is our foreman the highway foreman has been currently out on an extended medical leave We do expect him to come back, but it'll be another couple months probably before he's able to get back to work So Let's see. Do any other I guess that's all I had under the financial board. If there's any questions And I'll move on here A little bit of good news we received Our ambulance service has been awarded the ambulance service of the year award Vermont Department of Health That's I'm sure in recognition in part to our part safe community effort along with a number of other programs our department's been involved in So at some point there'll be some sort of Formal recognition and ceremony That's exciting to have that Also exciting we were able to finally close on the Meadow Ridge loan It was a little dicey. We are down to the last couple days and it had largely to do between The way some of the legal documents were worded that in our attorney was Had some concern about some of that The two of them got together and Finally the wording was suggested and Joe found felt comfortable. So It was on the loan this past Friday And they gave authorization to proceed on their project yesterday, I believe Or maybe they did it Friday. Yeah, they were going to the engineer's office from our office So that's exciting. Now that this is work on just two ponds Two and three. They're still working on getting the very necessary easements for the first pond And some of them are way downstream. You wouldn't necessarily even think they're these are not necessarily easements within their neighborhood Are complicated because the land trusts They're working on Another thing I wanted to mention is there was a newspaper article recently in the newspaper about Domestic violence and a other question Process and they had surveyed a number of communities and I forget what the newspaper said, but it didn't respond. Well, that's not quite accurate But that that isn't really my point, but we did respond. It's just that Our chief wasn't in town and they called him. He got right back But then they weren't available and But anyway, that's not the point. The point is that we do have a program And we do use that checklist and our offices are trained in use of it. So that's really the important takeaway from that discussion And Another thing I wanted to mention is that my written report is It's past Friday. We had a negotiating session with the catamount outdoor family center on the license agreement I believe we've reached a tentative agreement Ted, I wasn't able to make it. I don't know if you had a chance to take that out. I've not had a chance But I will be passing it out to the board soon It's not certain because I think the negotiating committee on both sides were supportive of it. That's why I say it's a tentative agreement And I suspect the board will support it based on because I think there are some fairly significant changes are made But The there's a question about whether the catamount outdoor family center will accept it I think they will but You know, who knows And if they don't I don't know where we go from here So do you have a new draft that you'll share with us? Okay. So in the next couple days, yes, okay great And we don't meet again until July Yes, so it'll most likely be on the agenda for July time as as will the management plan And then the final thing there was a little blurb in today's paper Concerning the town of Richmond and their police department. Their police chief is retiring They are losing a number of their officers including one to the town of wilson We didn't actively recruit and that's our practice not to do that but we did have an officer come to us and say he wants to work for us and He's fully certified So we did hire him But it does put Richmond in a difficult position with their chief retiring and losing officers and so I know they're Struggling to figure out what to do I had a conversation with their manager about this and I said We're willing to talk about Helping out short term I don't know what that means because we haven't had to talk about it, but and I don't know if they're even interested There would be money. We'd we'd be charging something If it's a low level of service, we can probably do it if it's a higher level then that's a whole different longing and And most likely that would be a much bigger discussion involving a longer term commitment and everything else because to do provide any meaningful level of service Like wilson receives would involve hiring additional people And uh, that's you know, that's why I say that involves a much bigger discussion, but I just want to alert you to this the fact that there may be some preliminary discussions Richmond could decide to go in a totally different direction. Um, they can decide to keep their department and Hiring spring, although that's not so easy to do these days to find people Um, and especially um, someone who may be already trained to work to Richmond is That's part of the problem. So you're saying theoretically they could say williston. We'd like you to take over our policing Let's work out an agreement to staff and It's conceivable and they have other options as well. They're looking at the news program made no reference To willis then they talked about the kind of acting the state police the sheriff's department Okay, so Like I said, it's just something that might be coming up And I wanted to make sure the board was aware that we might be having these discussions We've we've had this kind of on and off over the years anyway Um, in fact, when they hired their current chief there was some discussion about whether they should hire a chief and Richmond at that point had a community meeting and said, you know what we like having our own department So they hired a new chief and then But anyway, that's been an issue in Richmond forever I Covered the Richmond town meeting when I lived in Richmond in 1986 for the free press And that was an issue that came up on the floor at town meeting to disband We disband the police department somebody seconded it and 45 minutes later There's added issues now because of the difficulty in hiring police officers And when you lose a good part of your staff How easy is or how can you rebuild that? It's it's going to be a really tough thing And it's tough for us to hire How many more current positions do we have open now that we've hired another? Wow new chief's doing well. Yeah. Yeah, he's good. Um, you made a good choice one person is fully certified We have one person that just completed the academy and we have another woman who is Starting I think July 8th And she'll have to go through the academy. That's great That's all I have for this evening Is there any other business tonight to discuss? If not, then we're adjourned Long meeting