 Okay. So I will call the meeting to order. It's just about 7 o'clock. And the first thing on the agenda, of course, are the minutes and the minutes of July 10th, 2018. Is there a motion? I'd move to approve the minutes of July 10th, 2018, with any amendments or additions thereto. Is there a second? Second. Page one. Page two. Page three. It's just bloody. It's on page three. So the health risk, is it clear that chicks are baby chickens? Is that the right nomenclature? Is that what that means? Because that was the only health hazard she raised, right? Was handling baby chickens, right? When they're like, when they're first, I guess they're first born, they're the most dangerous they handle, I guess? I don't really understand it, but seems like the chicken expert knew. I'm not sure when a chick becomes a chicken, so. Okay. Is it okay with the way it is? I'm okay. If that's what it means. I think that's what it means. Okay. I see a typo in the first paragraph. Yes, the first bullet. Two problems, yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right by that. I'm page three. Page four. Hearing no other corrections, all those in favor of approving the minutes of July 10, 2018, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed and one abstention? Abstention. Next on the agenda is public comment. If there's anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on anything either on the agenda or not on the agenda tonight, this is the time. Why don't you have a seat and introduce yourself. My name is Mike Finifrock. I live on Unity Lane in Williston. And I would like to make the select board aware that the construction company that was hired to install the centerline rumble strips on North Williston Road has installed them in the wrong location. Based on all available public information. It has created unnecessary noise in our residential pocket. And I would respectfully request the select board take immediate action to correct the situation. I provided you all documentation and a little packet of information. I can hand it out to you all now. Oh, great. Have you talked with our public works department at all yet on this? Aye. So we'll, in total managerial, we'll certainly check with the workforce department as soon as possible to try to get this straightened out. Excellent. So thank you. Thank you. Can you just maybe just take us through just for a second here? Of course. It would be my pleasure. All right. What did you expect them versus? The first page is the proposed traffic calming measures that was proposed in February. This would be their final draft. And as you notice in yellow, the centerline rumble strip starts halfway between Peterson Lane and Williston Woods. That's what the commission decided would be best based on public comment and safety measures required to slow traffic. Oh, I see. This is the rumble strip. I see. Okay. In the next map, we have the staff map. This is what the Department of Public Works presented in May, May 15th, 2018. And as you see in pink, they've highlighted where they expect rumble strips to be installed. And again, it's roughly partway between Peterson Lane and Williston Woods. It ends near the Chevron sign marking on their map. Next is included pictures, a photograph of Peterson Lane, where rumble strips are clearly seen in the center of the picture. And next is a picture of a fire hydrant and a residential home on North Williston Road. This is going in the southern direction from Peterson Lane. The rumble strips stop about 100 feet from Unity Lane, which means there's about a quarter mile of excess centerline rumble strip that was not part of the publicly available information, nor part of the information this select board voted upon. I see. It's way up. So you're saying they put the rumble strips way up here? On that map, it would be off the map. Okay. It just wasn't clear. I'm glad I asked. Yes. Glad you asked, too. Wow. That's quite different. Yeah. It's about a quarter mile. I remember some discussion about this, that the people at Unity Lane didn't want the rumble strips at that point. That's correct. I'm going to take the first department and see if we can get this straightened out. Excellent. Thank you. You guys need Manila envelopes to store this. Pardon me. Manila envelope to store it. Oh, great. Thanks. Excellent. I'll reuse those. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Have a good night. Hope to stay cool. Thank you. Yes. Any other public comment tonight? If not, then we'll go on to the interviews and appointments. And we do have three folks here asking to be appointed to the Community Justice Board. And if you all three would come to the table. And I have, we have applications from Mia Morinovich and Thompson and Cody Benoit. And so our usual practice is to ask you to each to identify yourself, give us a brief outline of your backgrounds and why you'd like to be on the Justice Board. So if you'd like to start. Okay. Raise two children in Burlington and worked in healthcare for a long time. So an editor and writer at the University of Vermont for about 15 years. And I've been interested in this whole idea of community justice for a long time. I've been reading about it and think, oh, we thought it sounded like a really good thing. And so this came, I actually met Jocelyn Dubuque through friends and we were talking about the Burlington one and she said, oh, there's one in Wilson. Maybe you can get involved in that. I'm Mia Morinovich. I have worked for the Burlington School District for the past 20 years. And in that tenure, I have also been the homeless liaison for the, for the district. So I feel like I have a lot of experience with all ranges of the socioeconomic class in, in our area, I think. And I also feel like the community without community justice. I feel like our communities are just going to continue to get worse. And I feel like with community justice, you have people acknowledging, you know, what has happened and a group taking responsibility for things and making amends. And so I wanted to be a part of that. Hi, good evening. My name is Cody Benoy. I've been a Wilson resident for around three years. I'm also a recent graduate from the Community College of Vermont where I majored in criminal justice. Through my schooling, I met Crystal Lee, who is the director of the Wilson Community Justice Center. And I worked with her and Steven as one of the panel members learning what community justice is under them. Through the process, I really enjoyed it. I think it does wonders for, you know, particular communities and the individuals that inhabit it. And as I learned more and worked with them, I wanted to continue doing so, which is what brings me here today to hopefully be part of the board. So our three candidates have been interviewed by the police department and by the criminal justice, the director of the criminal justice board and come recommended to us from them. So any questions from the board? I'll have one question for all three of you, but first I'm going to make two comments. Me, I don't mean to count you out, but, and I loved your comment about being a pretty good team player. And Cody, I'm impressed with your interest in being a police officer in Wilson. My question is, and this falls on my shoulders. I ask it of just about everyone who comes before the board to be appointed. And it's a conflict of interest question. So how would you recognize a conflict of interest and what would you do about it? And I'll let you choose who first. Assuming that means that you are familiar with the responsible party or the victim or, you know, some of the people involved. We might have some association or benefit that you would gain by making a decision one way or another. Yeah, or ask if it's, the others believe it's a conflict. Okay, okay. Yeah, I would do that. And I would also, you know, there's confidentiality that you that you that I've worked with and you have, I hear a lot of confidential things in the school districts. And I, those things are just not shared. It's part of my responsibility of holding the job. Confidentiality is imperative to making the system work. And it's part of the integrity that goes along with it. So I would also recluse myself if I thought there would be a conflict of interest, I would violate the individuals going through the process. Your questions seem all qualified and interested in, you know, in the job. So, and good, good feedback from the other interviewers. Steve, any comments from you? I'm watching them as observers and processing with them after cases have been heard. I think it's really safe to say that they're very much invested in the process and have a really good, as a result of their training, have a really good understanding of what the process should be. And they've seen, you know, they've seen some entanglements and how we as board members have to kind of navigate those entanglements to get a good, to get a good result for the clients that we see. And I think they're very willing to do what's necessary, keep some of the long hours and, you know, when a case goes an hour and a half, two hours, you can be drooling at the end of it. I think they all have what it takes and I think they're going to be great board members. Any other questions? If not, a motion would be in order. I moved to appoint Ann Thompson, Mia Marinovich and Cody Bonight to the Community Justice Board to unexpire three-year terms through June 30th, 2021. Second. Sorry, discussion on the motion. Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you very much indeed. Can I ask, if it's appropriate to ask Steve a question? Yeah, sure. Steve, do we know restorative justice programs started in the country? I didn't hear your question. Do we know where the restorative justice program started in the country? Yeah, actually it started in New Zealand and then spread to Canada and it came to us basically from Toronto. The whole restorative justice idea came to us. It was actually, the beginnings were founded in a church group up in Toronto, I believe. And Vermont has been a leading state in restorative justice now for the last six or seven years. And, you know, various sites around Vermont have taken, for lack of a better term, my old school background, field trips to various parts of the United States. And Kristalie is going to Spain very soon to be speaking about restorative, our practices of restorative justice here and how. So, I mean, it's spreading slowly but surely, but the idea is spreading. That's great. Thank you. You're welcome. And it's nice to meet you for the first time as a select board member. So we have a handout that we got right on the statistics. I just wanted to take five minutes to quickly go over some statistics of the 17-18 fiscal year. There's one small error on it. You'll see the 117 total number of cases at the top. In red down here, you'll see 116. It should be 117. It's the only one I didn't match up. So it should be 117. So the 117 cases that we saw in the past year, nine were from probation and parole, directly from the Department of Corrections. 75 were direct referral cases. Those cases came directly from officers next door and from Richmond, a couple from Vermont State Police. Direct referrals are directly from the officers. They make a decision in the field to send them directly to us. We had 15 major school referrals last year. Most of those students, a couple of faculty referrals that we had to help the school with and we did a good job with those. We had 10 referrals from Rapid Intervention Community Court. That's the alternative program that's located in the courthouse on Cherry Street. And their function is to look at a case and if they're extenuating circumstances driven by alcohol, drug use, substance abuse, any of that stuff, they take care of that piece. We take care of the criminal piece and helping to make repair. So that program has gone by the wayside. It's been transferred up to the LaMoyle County CJC. They're running that program out of there. So this next fiscal year, I doubt that we'll have any RICC stuff at all. So that may lessen the numbers in total. There are eight other cases that were referred by parents. Some community stuff that we help deal with. So in total, if you add it up, it's 117 cases. You see that I've outlined the cases, how many of each type of case that we had. So there were 33 retail thefts. That was 28% of our caseload. When we started 10 years ago or so, more longer than that, 95% of the cases that we heard were retail theft cases. Walmart and everybody else just sent them in droves. So this makes up about 28% of our caseload. There were 34 cases that I would classify as mid-level felonies or serious misdemeanors. And that made up 29% of our cases. 50 cases or 43% of the cases were misdemeanors, mid to low level misdemeanors. It could be retail theft less than $3,000. It could be any number. You can see that as you go through the numbers. And on the last page and in the right hand column, I guess going back to the top, our completion rate is 90%. When we are able to hear a case, when we can get a case in, and that includes the intake, hearing the case and completion, we complete 90%. It's been a little bit higher in some years. Maybe it's never been below 90%. But some cases when we get, they just aren't a good fit. So we have to shift them out. So we take that number off the top because we don't get to work with them. Can I ask what completion means? Oh, yes. What does completion mean? Sure. So after the intake, we assign a night. A client will come. A responsible party will come before the members of the board. Each panel is about three members, sometimes four members, if we have a specialty case that's going on. And the members will hear the case. They will listen to all the facts. They will determine if the candidate has walked through four gates. Can they talk about their incident without making excuses or alibis? Can they identify the people that have been affected? Can they suggest ways they can make repair and then following through to make repair? So that's done in that middle meeting. One month later, after establishing a collaborative contract, and I do mean collaborative, we want them to drive the bus. So we, in the intake, we really look and work very hard trying to determine what their interests are, what they can contribute to the process. For example, if somebody's really good in woodworking, we had a fellow who made a beautiful coat rack for us up in the thing, because they involved a great deal of time for our office. So he wanted to make repair of making, and there's a really interesting story how he pulled it out of a barn. So he did something like that. We had another gentleman who was good in woodworking. He built a card table for the Tafts Corners senior residents at, not Tafts Corners. What is it? Across from Rite Aid, what? Cornerstone Drive. Off Cornerstone Drive. So he built a card table for the game room because that's where he committed his offense and he wanted to do that to give back. So we try to use the interests of our clients to make repair. And so this time span, generally speaking, we get them in. Within three weeks, we try to see everybody that we do an intake within three weeks. Sometimes that's a little difficult because we have, you know, a progression of cases that either are open or closed and in various stages. And then from the contract, we try to assign a 30-day period to get that done. Our job is to help people be successful, not jam people up. And most of the time those contracts run really true for 30 days. But there are cases where we go 60 and we never exceed 60 for probation parole case. They don't want us to go beyond 60. So if that candidate hasn't done a good job, they want them back there and they'll deal with the conditions of probation as they deal with them as not a successful completion. But the run-of-the-mill client, generally speaking, has 30 days to complete a contract and they do most of the time. That wasn't too quick, was it? I go on and on, I'm sorry. I picked up on it. So the last page then basically are the other services that we provide. We've done sexting assemblies at both Williston Central, CVU, the Garvin School here in town. We do an awful lot of budgeting and financial management stuff, how to live on $2 a day. Most of the crimes are committed because people are hungry. You know, they're crimes of, I call them crimes of necessity. They just don't know what to do. So we provide them with navigational services. Okay, one part of the contract might be visit these three food shelves, what days are open, what times you can get there and come back to us. Develop a personal safety plan when you go into a store. That kind of thing. So there's all, I mean the contracts are pretty creative. And so, I mean, I think we've had a great year. I think that with the reduction of our ICC cases, we might not have as many cases as we had this year, but this was kind of a banner year. We had 84 cases the prior year and so we had 117 this year. So it, you know, so we average about 10 cases a month. So for the month of July now, we've got seven on the board with a week to go and there are three cases still in waiting that still have to be processed. So we'll have another 10 or 11, which will match the total of last July. And last and not least, I'd like to thank all of you for your continued support. And if Crystal Lee were here, she'd be saying the same thing. We know how lucky we are, you know, being associated with the town and having our ties here. We have it better than any other CJC in the state of Vermont. And I think, you know, I think our work shows that. I think our work really does show that. And so thank you very much. I'll love you. Much appreciated. Thank you so much. We're a few minutes before we need to go to a public hearing. I have some more appointments that I neglected to take care of. It's an oversight. We were supposed, back in June, we were supposed to have made reappointments to the Clean Water Advisory Committee, James Sherard and Bruce Merritt in serving. It's a two-year term and their term expired. And we just didn't add it to the list of people who, so we'll be looking for motion to appoint both James and Bruce to the Clean Water Advisory Committee for a two-year term starting July 1st. Is there a second? Is there any discussion on motion? If not, tell us in favor of the motion to say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? So just hear that. Good. Okay. Can we skip over to, I don't know, the old stage of State's storm water loan? I think that we heard that two weeks ago. There's just been one change of the amount of the loan, I believe. Yep. The board heard this, like you said, two weeks ago. The bids originally thought it would come in around 120,000 and the low bid came in for 180,000. So we want to take a little time, staff, to check and make sure that, look what the numbers there. Jennifer took a look, looked at the fund balance for the storm water moving forward in FY19. There's adequate funds to make that loan now. Staff supports approval of this. I checked with James today and this should be the last one that we're going to look to fund this year. And that's in the queue. Yep. For this year anyway. I think we've, maybe our fifth one so far, fifth or sixth. So staff permits approval to make this loan. Any questions for Eric on this? If not a motion would be in order. Move to authorize the manager to sign the storm water loan agreement and related documents for a loan in the amount of $180,000 with the old stage of State's homers association after approval to proceed from the town attorney. Is there a second? No second. Sorry, discussion on motion. If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We're taking care of that. Sorry, this part. Pardon me. 33% increase. Yeah. Or actually 50% increase right on the base. The bids just went high. So how about if we'd go to the capital budget fund transfer for Rosenthal Park to the skate park? I thought I was going to do that. Yeah. I guess I'll have to do it from memory. We have a brief. Back when we did the budget. This project was proposed and actually approved by the select board as part of the capital budget. And the plan was that we're going to fund it through a lease program rather than buy it outright partly because we had a lot of other projects at that point and we didn't want to overburden one year with a lot of projects. So we said, well, let's spread this cost out by doing a lease purchase. And the problem was that we, in all the moving of money and everything, there was no money specifically put in the budget for the lease purchase. And it's something that does need to get done for safety reasons. And so, and looking at the budget, we took a look at the money that we already have. And one of the projects is for the Rosenthal Park, which is substantially complete. So we at this point figured maybe the board would consider transferring the money from that fund into this project. And that won't use up all that money. What we'll probably do with budget time is taking a look at that and what remains from Rosenthal and put that towards other projects as well. But right now we're just proposing to do this project. And our recreation director has consulted with the kids on this and what he's proposing meets their approval. And it'll be a company that specializes in making this kind of equipment so it will be safer than the equipment we have now. Plus the stuff we have now is aging. It's, gosh, it's got to be 15 years old now, I think. So it's time to replace it. Do we have a skating rink at Rosenthal Park as well? No, no. So where do we put the equipment? It's behind, well, it's where the outdoor skating rink is. In the winter months, at Wilson Central, we had Wilson Central. Right. There's a big asphalt pad area. That's where we put the equipment? Yes. Not at Rosenthal Park? No. When I read this, I thought it was for Rosenthal Park. It's for taking the money from them to, I understand. That's why we're asking for a transfer. Yes, we walk by their area. Yes, they do get used all the time. Okay, I understand. Just to verify, the $71,000 remaining in the Rosenthal Park fund or whatever the fund is sufficient. That's not a concern at all. Like I said, that project is pretty well done. And so we're going to be looking to transfer the remaining part out to other projects. Oh, okay. Because we don't have any new projects planned at this point. Right. Rosenthal Park. And I'm good. Motion would be in order then. Move to transfer $46,600 in the Capital Improvement Project Fund from the Rosignal Park Improvements Project to Skateboard Park Project. Second. Second. Sorry, discussion of the motion. If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So we've taken that. And it's now 7.30 and it's time for the public hearing on the traffic ordinance. And I will read the awarding. Pursuant to articles 6, 7, and 9 of the Lawson Motor Vehicle and Traffic Ordinance. Lawson Select Board will hold the public hearing. At the Wilson Town Hall Meeting Room. Tuesday, July 24th, 2018, at 7.30 p.m. Pursuant to the public hearing is to receive public comment on proposed changes to Article 9 and Appendices B and C of the ordinance. And the proposed changes include the following. Article 9 prohibiting through truck traffic, traffic, through truck travel on the following roadways and less authorized. Nats of Brown Hill Road. Section of Southburn Hill Road. Walker Hill Road. River Cove Road. Butternut Road. Appendix B. The global changes to formatting of state routes, stop-signed additions, creating a four way stop at North Willisdon Mountain View Governor Shitton Road and adding existing stop signs on U.S. route 2 in the Village. Appendix C. traffic signal addition for existing signal that route to a and James Brown drive here is now open for public comment and Rick or Eric would like to make any opening statements on this I can summarize from the last meme the board had this kind of the two main areas We're looking at the through truck traffic is probably the major piece here and that comes down to looking at enforcement measures Right now someone gets an overweight permit in town We were strict through truck traffic on River Cove Road and North Brown out of it as a condition of the permit This would add the other roads listed Onto the conditions of the overweight permit and these are all discretion of public works can allow a vehicle on one of these roads Say if someone needs to make regular deliveries there What we're trying to do here is eliminate the cut-throughs on these roads and by having any ordinance It enables enforcement to take place if something is in the ordinance then we couldn't the police iron couldn't take it for it so someone Has an overweight permit conditions don't allow through truck travel on say Butternut road truck is found to be cutting through butternut road then at that point Without it being valid in the condition of their permit. They could be issued a ticket for that Trying to keep truck travel off these roads and keep them on to the main state routes For example someone was coming up 116 staying on route 2a and not cutting down South Brown L Road to get to Taft Corner area of Marshall Avenue area So this enables a vehicle to do so for enforcement The other major piece is cleaning up some global changes Independence be related to stop signs in town And this is with the board's decision for North Wilson Road corridor to include those two stop signs that we discussed previously this year This would enable the signs to be put up after this ordinance is in effect this amendment If no appeal is heard and we create the four-way stop intersection there and also in reviewing We want to make everything consistent in the appendix be relating to town roads and state routes So the formatting is consistent and we notice the out front here. We didn't have those stop signs listed It's on a state route. It's enforceable But to have it there the town can enforce that as well by our local ordinance In Appendix C. We're just adding the stop light on James Brown Drive Really to the stop sign question As I understand it, but I I don't have the experience there from law enforcement Wow On the stop signs if it's on a state highway You can enforce a bit only using state law and so the town wouldn't get any money from that But if we have a town ordinance then we can use Let's go to the audience if anyone has any comments to make regarding the proposed traffic ordinance amendment. Yes, sir You just identify yourself Where I am now for 50 years, and I was brought up next door I don't I think that the The truck traffic on South Brunel Road is Forensic I think it should be posted at least from Omega Drive To root to At the corner Should be no trucks at all unless They haven't the reason to be there for a delivery or You know pick up Trash or something, you know of that nature I know years ago I don't know how many When Marshall Avenue was put in in the first place Was a former Select work member told a lot of the neighbors there that as soon as Marshall Avenue was completed that the truck traffic would be Basically eliminated from South Brunel Road From Marshall Avenue to the corner unless they had business there Is the former select board member is no longer with us But that's what we were all told back then so I Put my two cents in to You know truck traffic at all But I will come in SD Ireland Their trucks seem to be the only ones that really Follow the speed limit on that road The others and there doesn't seem to be any Good evening, my name is Kevin Mizzuz and I live at 1120 butternut Road I've only been in the community now for a year and in that time. I've seen a number of Through trucks use it as a cut through between the two major roads, okay? This is a very precarious road to begin with As we saw this winter with a school bus that slid off the road So I do support the ordinance in preventing Through trucks at least on Also wish we'll speak thank you If I may I'm Peter God, I also live on Butternut Road. I've been there quite a while I would support the ordinance change and also Point out some of the characteristics of the roadway. I Think ever since I've lived there I've pulled someone out of the ditch as Any no steep slopes and horses of the roadway and sometimes in the past it's been coated with a Washed gravel which acts like marbles and so that contributes to the people that's in front of me and other people off the road It also has hazardous sections there's some dips in the road up toward route 2a that make traffic Disappears and go over the over the top of the hill and It becomes a serious safety hazard One point the avoidance kind enough to have some No parking signs placed in the along the roadway which prevented some of the hidden vehicles, but They've disappeared and people do stop and park in the road sometimes creating a bigger problem I would mention also Guard rail which is rusting away Years ago Burton off that actually mentioned to me that he He would see to it that we had an attractive guard rail There that same piece of metal is still there rusting away It's also that portion of the road doesn't be any Standards any reasonable standards as to shoulders And roots of travel quite hazardous It's too narrow for passing vehicles Often people do drive down the middle of the road Probably the biggest concern I have I would echo the comments here about heavy truck traffic It's the tandem sir in a hurry The use it as a shortcut, but we now have a lot more kids Are you grown up? But I know Personally there are six new children They play in the road or pass play in the road. We have walkers there every day often walking dogs And it really was with certain conditions particularly freezing in the wintertime Icy no one could stop so I would urge you to consider This ordinance and actually looking into lowering the speed limit A few years ago, there was a petition circulated by a neighbor that we signed Asking that the speed limit be lowered. It's the same speed limit 35 miles per hour as Paying the cat and roads with much greater visibility I think it's a serious matter Some questions about from the police department and the other My previous comments weren't for You know Liberty, you know Permits for overweight trucks my comments were for Talks period Thank you We need further comments today before we close the public hearing if not the motion to close the public hearing would be in order Is there a second second Almost in favor of closing the public hearing say hi So move on then to considering adopting the proposed amendments are there questions that you wish to Have answered tonight or are you ready for? One quick question and I should have asked this when you're giving your introduction Eric on article 9 the description of South Bernal road where it talks about south of the E 9 1 1 address 1804 to town line Where is the where is you E 9 1 1 address 1804? Good question Estee Ireland has a pit there at the pit is located in South Burlington and the highway access is in Williston And the next driveway is 1804 and that goes to the Lacasse limestone quarry right there So we've cut it off basically at the town line Well just over over the highway, so that there's still from The pit down to South St. George I'm not sure how many miles apart that is but it's the thought is trucks using the quarry would then exit out That way so you need to access the quarries still they have access to quarries, but not along South Bernal to root 2 they'd have to go through St. St. George, they'd have to go they'd have to go north and have to go up. Okay. I'm sorry They'd have to go north on South Brunel Towards Marshall Avenue so over the highway back to Marshall Avenue as opposed to Butternut cutting over on another road there over a route 2 are going down the 116 route 2 Unless they were granted permission to travel in that direction by public works department. Okay Okay, I see so it's preventing them from going towards St. George. Did you mention it as St. George? I don't think that's Okay, I may have it wrong when I still learn my exact geography Okay in the suddenly direction questions for Eric or anyone Emotion to adopt would be in order Move to approve the amendments to the town of Willisons motor vehicle and traffic ordinance I'll second Mr.. Discussion All I would say is that the issues on butternut. I think it was butternut Yeah, I mean is is there I don't know how these comments get back to like Bruce Well, I made notes. Okay, so I'll get back We'll get those back to Bruce because we can't do anything about them, right? Right, let's take a look at what's going on in that road And that's sure it's if there's no parking and that would actually require an ordinance change to let me know So it's enforceable, but We'll have to take a look at that discussion of motion If not all those in favor of the motion to say aye I Were a little bit early for the route to a project update Sure we have to for consideration this evening the first as an event scheduled for August 4th and As that's scheduled to be held at the Mike. I should barn Okay, road Catering is CBD events doing business as catering by Dale It's for a wedding and the staff has no objections Are the questions for Rick on that one So moved You know one motion it's all I say because I can't remember what the motion exactly should be So if you'd like to make the motion Jeff I did The discussion of the motion If not all those in favor of the motion say aye Second one is for an event scheduled for September 8th same caterer different venue This is the red barn, which is located on Wilson Road and It's for a wedding As I said same caterer which is CBD events doing business as catering by Dale September 8th is the event And the location again was the red barn Just before you crest the hill going down. Oh, okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yep Yeah, okay And I'm sorry, you probably already said this but staff has no objections did not say that Okay, staff has no objections. Okay Is there a motion then? So moved second Discussion on the motion if not all those in favor of the motion say aye Create catering permits Well, it's getting close to eight o'clock, let's go to the group to a project update and tonight we have from ALT or in Parazote Physically, sir Stephanie Bernhardt is here from the consulting firm I Yeah You guys about the roadway improvements at Vermont to a And James Brown Drive and along that roadway corridor there And you know, we're basically just here to give you a little project update explain that construction is scheduled to start pretty soon in the next month or so and just Give you guys a quick rundown of what we're expecting from the construction side and see if you have any questions concerns or things That we can help clarify for you guys So we'll do some introductions. Let you know who the key players are give you a quick project overview in terms of what We're actually doing for improvements Talk about the specific schedule in terms of what's going to be happening this year and next year and then go through some Other details and you know talk about any questions I guess if it's easiest to hold questions for the end, maybe that'll be easier and we'll kind of see how it goes It's a pretty small group. So We have a sign-in sheet over by the door if you're interested in signing in and getting Weekly updates about the project. So if you're interested feel free to sign in we also have Project fact sheets are those over there as well So we'll put some one-page fact sheets over there Just kind of with a brief description of the project and again some contact information for if you have questions concerns want to get in touch things like that so I'm Erin Perrezzo from VTrans. I'm the project manager for the project. I've been working on it for a couple years It was in development prior to that but I'm the current project manager We've got Stephanie Barrett next to me who's our public outreach consultant and she's with count on it business We've got her contact information here. You'll see it all over the place. She's she's got business cards over by the door as well Joey Appleton is here from ECI engineers Engineers Construction Inc And he's a senior PM there and then Chris Achilles is a VTrans resident engineer So he'll be out on the site, you know every day as well as Kurt Hutchins who's here He'll be the chief inspector as well So Stephanie, I'll let you talk about your your business and your role in this if you like so I'm the go-between and Especially for the town as well because I'm sure you folks will get a lot of phone calls as the project gets going I've had some business cards made up Please feel free to take them has all my contact information on that If the town gets calls, please have them call me directly and I will take care of I don't have the answers I usually don't usually have the answers, but I know where to get them and I promise I will get back to you with any concerns or questions that you may have as Little or as grave as they may be so feel free to reach out to me anytime I'm You know if I'm not in my office. I have an answering machine Usually have my cell phone number on that so you know providing it is at midnight. I would probably respond Regardless of the the timer day So thank you pretty incredible having her Again, so her contact information weekly email updates will be once the project gets going We'll be sending email updates to our distribution list So if you want your name added to that go ahead and sign up get in touch with her at any time We've got a Facebook page that she set up So if you search route to a safety improvements, you'll find it and I'll just kind of have project updates and some photos All that information is on that car So you can you know reach out if you sign in there's a little box if you check the box And you want to get updates weekly updates via email then I'll add you to the list Lots of ways to get in touch and get information and then ECI and I'll let Joey talk about his role I have Joey Appleton. I work with engineers construction. I've been with them for several years now So I'll be overseeing this project along with a couple other project manager teams Performing all of the work on the projects will be there from day on day one and we'll be seeing it through all the way to We'll talk a little bit more about schedule and about what to expect during the construction phases We have a fall phase and we have a spring summer phase next year as well Safety is our biggest thing It's it's our most important value that we have as a company So the safety of not only our employees, but the traveling public. So it's one thing that we're going to be making sure that Never never is there any risk to the safety of the people around the job? Whether it be a resident nearby one of our employees one of our subcontractors or any of the traveling public So if anybody does ever see anything if there's anything that doesn't look right all of our people are very approachable And and we're more than happy to chat with anybody Explain what we're doing. Maybe there is some reason that we're doing something that may not look as safe as it is And then we'll go from there, but we'll definitely So just to give you guys a quick overview, I mean, I'm sure you're all relatively familiar with the area, but The project runs approximately from the bridge in Essex onto a down to bittersweet circle So essentially the limits of route to a in that photo there And this project was scoped back around 2009 originally in terms of looking at preferred alternatives and looking at the concerns and Mobility and safety issues in the area. There was a lot of crashes at James Brown Drive specifically You know, there was a lot more vehicles coming through There's about 18,000 19,000 cars a day that drive through to a and I'm sure you all know what gets pretty backed up now We're looking at increasing the capacity of that intersection and the corridor to get people through more quickly and more safely Just to kind of give you a quick shot of what's existing today, you know, we've got James Brown Drive There is a temporary traffic signal right there. It's the span wire style Which is, you know, it was kind of a temporary installation to help mitigate while we were developing this project You know, there's just a through lane in both directions on to a which is part of the issue and then The shared use path along the right-hand side there, which is the that, you know, the main bike head facility in the area Of you out from James Brown Drive. This is before the temporary signal was installed But you know, just again one lane going in and out And then down towards River Cove Road, like I said, the project extends out past River Cove Road and a little bit at bittersweet circle So just another shot shows the continuing shared use path and again, just the one lane in each direction on to a Bittersweet circle. I'll talk about the improvements that are going to be at this intersection also So in general, this is kind of a zoomed in shot at James Brown Drive We've got a graphic that I'm happy to zoom around to of the whole project area that kind of shows the improvements but at James Brown Drive We can really summarize a lot of what's happening here. So in general, we're going to be widening the roadway to the East side away from James Brown Drive is that east so we'll We'll be widening the road quite a bit to add a left turn lane and at James Brown Drive and at River Cove Road It's going to be a designated left-hand turn lane as you're driving north. So you can get into James Brown and River Cove easily Where it's not a designated left turn lane, it's going to be a two-way left turn lane There's a lot of businesses and residences in this area So accessing them will be a little bit easier to be in the middle of the road and let traveling You know the other traveling vehicles get through there The new signal at James Brown Drive is one of the biggest improvements So with the new designated left turn lane, there's going to be a new signal And it's going to be the massed-arm style is that that we kind of see popping up more these days that are the black You know single massed arms and there's going to be three of those and Kind of the the smart new fun technologies that it's going to be in the signal is that it's going to have advanced detection For vehicles so as people are coming on route to a it'll be able to sense far in advance to detect the queue And when folks are coming through so it'll allow people to come through with kind of the maximum efficiency So it'll it'll be smart in that sense And it'll also have the radar detection on James Brown Drive So it'll sense when there's vehicles there and be able to let them go And it'll also have preemption for emergency vehicles So as emergency responders are coming through the area It'll go to all red and try to allow for folks to get through there more quickly In addition to the the vehicle signal itself will have new pedestrian crossing So we'll have a new pedestrian head signals as well You can see that the three there You can see the three crossings there and it'll have pedestrian timings incorporated into the signal phasing Additional pedestrian facility that'll be new is this sidewalk on the east side So this will be a five-foot concrete sidewalk that will run from Morgan Parkway to Eastview Circle Kind of connect to those two neighborhoods With crossings on to Jude Brown Drive So again the roadway widening along with that. There's a new drainage installation And some new stormwater improvements to capture the stormwater appropriately and then new pavements So not only will there be new pavement on the widened section But kind of a fresh overlay of pavement along the whole project still it'll be nice new lines new signs and kind of a whole new Look and feel to the whole corridor So at River Cove Road just as another example this again you can see the Designated left turn lane onto River Cove. You can see the two-way left turn lane here where you know outside of that You're gonna have bi-directional traffic allowed in there Morgan Parkway and at River Cove. We're doing these do not block the box pavement markings And you know that'll that sort of indicates that folks are not supposed to block the box from the queues are backed up and hopefully It'll make getting in and out more easy for Morgan Parkway and River Cove folks You know, there's not gonna be a signal there And again, so there's an existing pedestrian crossing that we're gonna reinstall So in terms of construction details, you know, these are all the improvements And we're gonna be starting in early September to really hit the ground running on this project before winter hits We're gonna be starting with the improvements at bittersweet circle. So at that location where essentially just installing a Little bit of a new sidewalk connection to a new crossing on route 2a That you know, there's no pedestrian crossing on route 2a Until you hit James Brown Drive So in order to accommodate that, you know, there's a bus stop there. There's the big neighborhoods there We're gonna install that new crosswalk with, you know, the ADA accessibility and then also a rapid flashing beacon So those pedestrian signs that have the the flashers When you when you push the button and and you can say more safely cross the road So we're gonna start there in September We're we're gonna move on to some vegetation planting that we want to you know We've got some new trees going in with this project So we want to try to get out and widen the roadway a little bit in the area of Of James Brown Drive right across the road there So we're gonna do some preliminary work there to get some new trees installed and make sure that they can establish themselves Well in the fall so that way when we're coming back and coming back in the spring We'll make sure that they are growing substantially and And then we're looking at some drainage work this when this fall as well You'll probably notice the utility companies are out there relocating utility poles There's there's quite a few poles out there now, and they're still working on relocating those they can remove the old poles So they're hoping to wrap up around October But that doesn't necessarily impede the work that ECI is going to be doing in the meantime So we'll be working with the utility crews and ECI out there throughout September probably so then we're going to shut down for the winter break and we're going to come back in April of 2019 in the spring and you know, that's kind of dependent on what sort of winter we have We all know it's kind of unpredictable. Maybe we'll get out there earlier Maybe it'll be a little bit later, but coming back as soon as we can in the spring and then just really gearing up for the widening of the Roadway, so that's going to be a lot of you know, relatively deep box cutting and what we can expect is you know concrete jersey barriers along the side of the road and And we'll talk about this more but in order to do that widening there will be that barrier and then we'll be widening out behind that barrier And kind of working our way south to north so starting at the south end of the project working north Then we're going to be working on the traffic signal and installing that a James Brown drive Looking at the concrete sidewalk and then looking at you know the drainage improvements along the way And then by the end, you know, we're thinking maybe June July time frame We're going to have the final paving in the new signs We do have a contract completion date of August mid-August So it will be you know no later than that we can expect to have a completed project next year So in terms of a few more construction details we Realize there's a lot of traffic in this area There's a ton of people that drive through in commuting hours and the am and pmp periods So during the day, we're going to be requiring ECI to maintain two-way free-flowing traffic So the lanes will likely be 11 feet wide but because we'll have those concrete jersey barriers We're going to be able to be doing a lot of the roadway widening off You know off alignment and then keeping traffic moving during the day Because there's some work that we need to do that will impact traffic And we don't want to have to impact the really busy time of day We will have to do some night work through here. So from 7 p.m. To 6 a.m. We're considering that our nighttime period after traffic is slowed down for the evening and Before it starts back up in the morning and we're allowing construction You know with that there's an appropriate lighting plan for safety. There's You know some noise restrictions that we can implement and there's things that we can do to try to mitigate any impacts to that But we really are trying to focus on minimizing impacts to those, you know 18-19,000 people that are driving through there every day and and just trying to get the work done efficiently to get it completed by August and have the best product So you can also expect, you know the the construction vehicles There will be a little bit more truck traffic during the day and night when they're working So you can expect to see more trucks coming through the area There's always going to be traffic or traffic control, you know flaggers or uniformed officers there So, you know to get people through safely About the team Driveways residents as businesses, you know, I know there's a lot of you guys in the area So we're always going to make sure that somehow your property is accessible You know there is going to be times when we're working right in front of your properties likely But we'll make sure that we have a plan with you You know if if you're going to be gone for the day We can probably work around that to make our schedules coincides that Somehow you'll have access to your property and we'll be able to You know work together on that kind of as we go and as we foresee those impacts And then just the existing intersection of James Brown Drive with the signal That's going to be maintained until the point when we get the new signal installed and up and running So, you know, it'll be a little shift period in there when we're when we're actually making the change over But there will be a functional intersection there the entire time So again, you know, we just this project came to us as a circle alternative to look at capacity and safety and really increase the efficiency in this corridor and I'm pretty excited about the improvements. I drive through here a lot myself and it's Starting in the fall is going to be great so we can get some of the early groundwork accomplished But then really hitting it hard in the spring is going to be a big benefit to just getting the work done and getting us out of there by August So, you know, like like Joey said and like Stephanie said, we're all totally in Chris We're all totally here to work with you guys and be collaborative and you all have Stephanie's phone number So, you know, just let us know as things come up if you have concerns or questions or anything and we're here to help So I guess with that I'll open it up to anybody who has specific questions or something. I didn't cover Yes Yes Right, so I guess what I could say about that in terms of our, you know, we're doing that crossing at better sweet circle But in terms of our widening in our major road improvements, we're extending just a little bit further past River Cove road probably to here. So we're really not doing much for expanding the roadway or altering the roadway in that area So if that's an existing issue, unfortunately, we're not going to be doing anything to fix it You know, there is another project. I'm not I think I've mentioned to Sharon But there's another project in the future that'll be looking at similar roadway widening for the rest of this corridor down to Mountain View Drive And that may be an opportunity that that we can bring that up and look at it But we won't be making your problem worse, but unfortunately we won't be able to make it any better through this project That would be good At better sweet, yeah better sweet circle that's that's the first that's the first thing we're doing September Yeah To correct that because Yeah, so unfortunately, you know without a signal there's nothing you can do to really enforce it, but like I mentioned that there's This is a huge Constructing the coming out of neighborhood of cars that are coming from Jim's well, so even if somebody would be conscious enough to let you get out what you can see if it's safe for Cars coming From Jim's well, I almost got hit three times Yeah, so coming out of there turning left turning right is not so much a problem But turning left is almost like Right and of course when you're turning left out of a place like that you're crossing more more vehicles lanes of travel So, you know in this case we're gonna have like I mentioned the paint markings for for you know Be respectful don't block the box is what it indicates and there's only so much that you can do Yeah Yeah, oh right I've forgotten about that so so we're putting that back I mean the other benefit here is that there is that the two lanes or the additional lane and you know You'll likely have folks using the lane as left turns But there's a little bit of relief space and you know I know I as a driver tend to if I'm having a tough time getting out I'll kind of cut into that space and wait for the next gap. So you're you're moving across one lane of traffic at the time Again, it's not ideal, but without having a signal there Which isn't met by warrants From the right in front of the left Yeah And you have to kind of eke your way out and wait until there's gap Unfortunately, there's not much beyond you know those those things that we can do at that intersection right now Yeah, I think I think the only other benefit, you know We're also going to be because we're moving vehicles through more quickly and there is a designated left turn lane You know, we're going to have not no queues there during the peak periods But we're going to have much shorter queues and so you know more gaps in traffic and getting in and out between those gaps And it'll I think it'll feel like a lot less congestion a lot less traffic and hopefully that'll help Yeah And again, I think the widened the extra lane and You know the the less Traffic, it'll be a little bit of a help. It's not going to totally fix that sort of issue But that you know that happens on busy state highways with a lot of Foot in the camera Yeah Yeah What we do here on Horton Parkway has competitions with the habitat store and Ingressing and egressing at the same time how you're trying to make a left hand turn This is the whole problem here. If we could get the gas station That egress from the back side and also the habitat store. I don't know Back there out to James Brown Drive You have less traffic coming this way so that and going out an inch of theory But we want to go across to make the left hand turn right another thing too is right now the light is not processing enough Red light for a car to get out of work in Parkway We just about get it and then turns green again Because you've got cars coming from the gas station and have it at a store So you can't pull out in order to do that either that or not more than Parkway If they put toward a sensor in the road that if there's a car sitting there that that light will stay red Until we can get out a left hand turn there was a development that was supposed to go again That development is not going through the wheel development Because we were going to go through the development out to the light and make left hand turn I believe that's still a work in progress and I don't know as much about that But but I know there is a lot going on. Okay, but for right now if you're going to do the development There's not enough time and there's accidents because and every other week There's accidents and some of them are even reported because people are speeding up to go past that light and it's right there They're off the road. They're off to the side and they don't even call the cops anymore. Yeah So I can't run in the traffic was moving Now it's passionate. Yeah That's why I said it was Paving the road if you could put a sensor in Inside the road to make sure that that light stays red until the cars made a left hand turn for more than Parkway Until the development can go in because if the development goes into we can go sideways Into there out to through the development because we were allowed if the development goes through we were allowed to go through that development Anything that was interesting is still come off the two-way and go into Morgan Parkway Yeah understood I think in terms of Some of the bigger developmental type, you know connection roads and things like that You know, there's probably not much that we can do right now It's good things to consider moving forward in terms of mobility You know behind the scenes taking traffic off of 2a like you said, but thinking about a sensor at Morgan Parkway That's not something that I had thought about or you know I don't know if that's something that we've done in the state to sense a close proximity intersection But I can look into that a little bit more as as maybe if you could keep that light red so that the cars are coming out of the gas station and they're coming out of it and They have a test storm last night the right hand turn to go into Essex so we're We have a conflict and have a test is very very busy For the train track on to a All look yeah, I'll look into it and see see Yeah Yeah But when I was further So something like that, maybe it would be helpful for us. I don't know. I take good idea. I don't know. It's very dangerous. It's just like You can't see the car coming. Even if somebody else on the left, it's not just enough to let you go But the ones coming from the other way doesn't even see where you don't see that So I don't know One of them is the signals are going next year. So if that is a possibility something we might be able to Yeah, we can definitely look at this winter and see if that's an option to help them ability and definitely during the construction period will make sure we have Measures in place to let everybody in and out and safely because it is only going to be with the road Jersey barriers It's only going to be harder for you to see Especially when you're trying to make a left hand turn. So we'll make sure to put measures in place to Allow an escort for you to get out safely without having to Look both ways and cut in front of anybody About 150 cars And with the number of say two cars per family, you've got 150 cars coming out to that section here So you've got congestion from the parking parkway itself Like I said, if the development goes in, we could go through the development out to the lights in the view of no problem And the disability would be there, but right now visibility is poor I mean, there's going to be more accidents But again, the development is a solution for people that are sort of in need to work on the problem But if you are, I mean, they didn't have to go at the airport in the wrong way And trying not to go to that development just to turn left I mean, come on A lot of people It's just, I mean I know I'm talking about her too, but a lot of people, we take a right hand turn And we go over to Edway Yeah, I've added not to I'm surprised that the Edway store hasn't complained Because the traffic in front of Edway So they go in there and turn around and go out All of this is what's happening If Edway should not have to put up with their highway traffic And another thing I can do is, you know, I mentioned I've been on this project for a couple of years So when it was scoped, I know there was a lot of alternatives And, you know, they looked at accessibility in terms of other locations You know, cut-throughs and things like that And for whatever reason, you know, that wasn't as part of the preferred alternative So I'll go back and read through that again and just see, you know, what the concepts were That they were looking at at the time And if there's anything in sight there that we can glean And in terms of the wheel property development We actually did coordinate with them, just a small side note We coordinated with them in terms of, you know, they had a potential development And we couldn't necessarily accommodate them in any major way But we did a couple of tweaks at James Brown Drive So that in the future, if they do come through and create that fourth leg Our project's not prohibiting them from doing so So we made sure that we were not prohibiting that I'm not sure where that stands So the development said that we, as we work in Parkway Could go through their development in order to meet the light But they want to come in from working in Parkway They don't want to hit the light They want to come in from working in Parkway And go into their development because there was a slight interest On working in Parkway So we agreed that the traffic would flow that way They'd engress How is Morgan Parkway into their development But we would enress to their development Interesting Did you have another question? Yeah, may I ask where the development is supposed to go in? I'm probably not the best one to answer that But I can just really quickly Yeah, essentially right across from James Brown Drive The property owner is looking at developing a fourth leg Into new residential type properties I'm not sure where that stands But that was this concept about eight, ten months ago Thank you So, big takeaway looking at Morgan Parkway I'll look back at the scoping study in terms of Anything that they had already looked at there And thinking about what we may be able to do in that area Is there any other question or concern at the moment? So what do you anticipate the impact During construction on traffic? If anything it's going to probably slow down traffic Yeah There's not a lot of options But one of the things I would like to know And you may or may not be able to answer is People coming from Essex who are using Route 2A To get to the Tafts Corners area Will they choose alternative routes Because it's just going to be so hard to get through And I'm wondering if North Willison Road is going to be Yeah, I guess I can't picture real good alternative routes Either, but you know traffic always kind of finds The path of lease resistance So, you know, definitely we can expect some delays Our state standards call for 10-minute delays or less I'm sure some of you folks have experienced more than that at times But, you know, we are choosing to allow night work Because we want to minimize impacts of traffic So when the volumes are less between 7pm and 6am That's when we're going to be doing a really impactful You know, like paving, the stuff where we've really got to take up a lot of road Real estate Keeping two-way free-flowing traffic during the day Will be good, there will still be delays You know, people tend to drive through construction sites more slowly For safety reasons and curiosity There's not much we can do about that But, you know, we'll have the advanced messaging And the construction signs and the portable message signs and everything So hopefully folks will understand that there's construction ahead And if they want to try to find alternate routes, they can You know, we're not going to have any sort of signed Alternate routes or anything Okay, alright, thanks Curious how it will go I am too Being the speed limit from that construction Are you going to reduce it down to 30? Right now it's 40 I know the state highway has to be 40 miles an hour But if you reduce the speed And it goes back to the town So the town will not be responsible for maintaining the road While the construction is under Right, I don't think we've actually looked into a temporary speed reduction there That's something we can talk about And see if we, you know, it might be warranted I'm sure people will travel slowly anyways But, yeah, I mean, you hope so But we can look into that too Thank you Any other thoughts, questions? Great Thank you Yeah, yeah Nice job Thank you Sign up for updates if you guys want more information Yeah, please sign in So that concludes That concludes the project two-way update Right That's done And then we'll see how that goes And I think it's within the next couple of years And from where we're going to To the next one Excellent tone charter That's a very common problem when we're describing When we have a light When you have a bunch of businesses that are egressive Light turns red, it allows these other places to empty And you have to keep an eye between them emptying And getting out before the light turns green This Two-way listen Then when you have the traffic block up on the road It's all the harder The extra turning lane If people use it right it can help Because you can pull in there And wait for a gap If you're turning left, let's say Right, that's a typical center lane kind of situation When you have a center lane you can get in, right? But moving steps It's still that ideal for sure Yeah Folks, I'm going to ask you to move along to sign up And you'll be out So we'll move along into the proposed charter revisions And Rick has a memo for us As well as a copy of the proposed changes in the charter Sure The charter, as I said, my memo is first adopted And I'm going to move along to the proposed charter revisions And Rick has a memo for us As well as a copy of the proposed changes in the charter As I said, my memo is first adopted in 2003 And at the time it was designed To essentially mirror state law The thought was that And the town had been trying for years and years To get one adopted And the thought was at the time To really limit the issues And just the only issue is Do we want a charter or we don't And by mirroring state law That will eliminate that And then once we had a charter Then not allow the town to make additional changes Fortunately, we haven't made many changes There was a change in 2007 and one in 2009 And there's a couple little things That I became aware of right after the last change But I didn't build Excuse me, people by the front door Can you keep your voices low, please? Thank you, sir, I just remembered A year ago It didn't make sense to pursue those Little tiny changes until we had A little bit more substance to address So there are Last several years there have been Some changes in state law That do not apply to Williston Because we had our charter And I think there are changes That are worth considering So that's why we're bringing forward These changes now I've summarized the changes And some of the rationale in my memo And then on the charter I've shown the actual changes Using the usual markup type approach And so I can quickly go through them If you want The first one is so minor That it's just we referenced A long-stain statute The second one is in section 13 And in the charter It references a starting time for town meeting Or annual town meeting at 7.30 Well, I can't remember the last time We started the meeting at 7.30 We've been starting at 7 And looking through the charter I said We may want to consider changing that And so I added language that was Near the Select Board's authority To address where the venue is for this And so it now would read The time and venue would be Determined by the Select Board My expectation is we stick with the 7 o'clock That we've been using That's right now in violation of our own charter The next change is section 14 on page 6 And this is the position of treasure And this is probably the most substantive change In this list of changes The town, the state statutes Were changed a year or two ago To allow towns to vote on whether or not The position is elected or appointed Our charter clearly says it's to be appointed And so in conversations with Our current town treasurer She is advocating that the town actually Vote to have that position as an Appointed position You said the town was elected Before you said it was appointed You said it backwards Sorry about that So our current treasurer Which is elected is advocating That this position changed An appointed position And frankly there's been times in the past Where I was a little nervous Because there was one time Where our town treasurer Who also serves as town clerk Neglected to put in a petition For town treasurer And so I was concerned that If we had a town clerk And a different town treasurer How would all that work? So that was one concern Unfortunately she was able to win By right and vote that year It only happened once But perhaps a bigger concern Is that over the years Our finance director has taken More and more of the burden That the town treasurer was handling And it's an integral part Of that office Although it does make sense I think to have two separate people Because the town finance director Can't do all the things And one of the functions with town treasurer Is to take in the money And you don't want the finance director Handling that piece of it So there is a need to keep them separate But in any case This change would Actually have the town vote And from elected to An appointed office So Rick can we talk about this a little bit? Oh sure I'm trying to envision So the town treasurer right now is elected Every two years is it? Yes Some relatively short amount of time Which to me is a reason maybe To get away from the elected Concept because you really want your town treasurer To change Every three years potentially But if we go to appointed Do I think of the town treasurer more Like staff Yes Like a public works director Or the assistant town manager Or It's another employee That would be under the direction Of the town manager Right now the treasurer Is not Right And would this person be appointed By a public board or That's To be determined I have a proposal in here That says it's to be appointed by the manager Because it's an employee that's going to be Working for the manager And all other positions That work for the manager are appointed by the manager Sorry I didn't pick up on that piece of that Okay It certainly doesn't have to be that way It's just a proposal at this point The concept is to move Out of words this position to more Of a town staff type position Then yes I think it would make sense For the town manager To Go through your process And what have you Okay So the next change Is Somewhat somewhere but different It's section also section 14 On page nine And this one involves the town clerk's position Right Where it's different is we are not Recommending that this position be changed From elected to appointed We believe that it works Fine now as an elected position And we believe it should stay that way But again the state Law has changed It allows towns to have their own Vote Whether that should be elected or appointed And our charter does not allow for that And so all we're doing is creating The opportunity at some point In the future if the town wants to change That and the trend There's more and more towns that are considering Appointing Colchester's one Just recently Essex has An appointed town clerk Again we're not recommending that But we are saying that you Wouldn't it be acceptable To have the town The townspeople themselves decide That at some point in the future If they want to change it And I'm sorry I'm tired so I can't really I'm not thinking well but Are they at the same position Or not filled by the same person right now They're currently filled by the same person So doesn't that create Maybe an awkward situation Where you have somebody who's Town staff appointed To be the town clerk A town treasurer But they're elected Their role as the town I see where you're going with that The intent is that they would be split In two different positions And filled by two different people We'd have to move some The town clerk would still be a town clerk And still elected But one of her staff People most likely Or one of the positions Not necessarily one of the people Would stay on Or we'd hire someone But that person would leave Or that position Would leave the town clerk and be part of the manager's Office Or however he designates that We're not talking about adding any new people But the duties Would be split between two different positions And two different people I'm sorry I didn't pick up on that It's easy to understand Right now It is the one position For both positions And one person So that's That's that change And then Next one It's my item number 5 Page 10 also section 14 There was a reference To election of treasurer And so that's just consistent With the change suggested earlier Section 14 Page 10 This is my paragraph number 6 This is the office of Lister And again we're not We are not recommending That we get rid of the office of Lister Because in our town That is working quite well Other towns it does not work as well And they have got rid of the Position of Lister With a professional Assessor We have a professional assessor But we also have Listers For us But our charter does not allow us To make that change Other communities they can do that by vote Until all our suggestions We have the capability Allow that also We have right now Three elected Listers Elected but you're not full time They're not full time and our Assessor is not full time either And so if we were to choose to go This route in the future we may Have two full time Assessors versus four part time Or We don't even need to spend time on I'm just thinking this through In my head a little bit And actually at one point in time We did have one full time Assessor And maybe some clerical help And that model Would work for us for a while But then when our full time Assessor left And it didn't work all that well The candidate pool Was pretty small So we actually switched it And contract for that service The Assessor service and hired A part time assistant To the Assessor And a part time clerical person That model has worked very well In fact a number of other communities Have adopted that since we started That process Built in those one communities Okay Anyway Let's see So the next one My paragraph number seven also Section 14 By the way the numbering system On the charter I Don't like at all But I had The original charter had a different numbering system And the state legislature changed this on it I don't know why they will let us Go with the differing system The rules on how things are presented So It's really hard to follow When you're trying to go through Anyway that's a side note I'm not proposing to change the numbering system So I know they'll change it right back So Anyway With all the discussion recently About the town constable I thought why shouldn't the town Get a chance to vote on that as well Whether or not we want to keep that position Again I don't think we're recommending that As a change But it lost us the town to vote Did we ever have any discussion On that feedback we received From our constable On what he thought his duties were Versus you know The fact that we actually voted Those law enforcement duties Out of that position Did we ever discuss it here? No Eric's been having conversations He was a little premature in sharing That with the board because he hadn't really Talked to staff about it I don't know where that stands at this point Him and I had a good discussion Before I went on vacation a couple weeks ago Just kind of thinking of different opportunities Not law enforcement coverage But looking at ways to be involved And see from a staff perspective There might be some other opportunities For him to be involved So we're discussing a little bit more And kind of looking to see how other towns Utilize constable There's no law enforcement duties But still looking to see what their role Can be beyond just kind of minimal As it is right now I think there's some opportunities to work with Commander's office a little bit Police department a little bit On some pieces without reach as well I made a mistake in what I just said too Because this proposal Does eliminate this position Yes I'm sorry I misspoke a moment ago Obviously Another option is to Keep the position but follow the same process That's being proposed for Time Clark and Treasurer Where the town would have to vote After we changed the charter They would have to vote to eliminate the position The town constable I'm sorry I'm throwing a blank on the name I remember going through That process of do we really need this Why are we going through this And what I would My faulty memories recalling There was actually a role that this person Played Serving papers if I remember correctly They could also serve So can Attorney Sheriff I think When I'm getting from Eric although you're not stating I think is that he would like this to be Much more of a role than in fact it actually Making it into a bigger role That is going to create a problem And that there are not the parameters there For that to do that so In turn I'm looking at what Rick's proposing going This is actually a good idea You've got a lot of outdated positions That are in the charter That may or may not We don't have that One of our previous charges That may or may not be The best things to be leaving there And if they're there and you should have An elected person and someone goes I want that because that's there on the charter It may not be the best thing I agree with you from the standpoint That there is not a real role Or valuable role Then it's more It's more of a liability to have it in the Charter than not to have it This is allowing you the flexibility to decide What you want it there This takes it out The nation is taking it out But the board has These are just proposals and the board can change I was there for the counting And there were a bunch of write-ins But I don't think Anybody got enough To go over the bar I guess There are many years we don't have someone Running for the position Some years you actually have somebody On the ballot We used to Moving along here The next position is the town service Officer I believe Actually this is This position The town used to have to Appoint this The state always required it The state changed their Rules and they no longer Require this position We actually believe it's a useful position But the reason I'm suggesting it Be taken off the required list Is I made another change Or suggested another change In the wording Let's see where is that Anyway what I was going to say Is just because we're Removing it as a required position Doesn't necessarily mean the select board Can't appoint it as An elected position And what does the town service officer do again? If we have Someone who's struggling financially Or having some other Problem maybe they can't pay Their fuel bills Or some problem like that They can help staff In trying to find some Help for this individual Connect them with other resources That kind of thing And fortunately the person we've had Serving for many many years Was a social worker And so that it was a good fit But even with that There weren't many cases That we end up referring to that individual And there are other resources Now that are available I would say though That I would still like to have a position filled And just because I'm recommending Be taken off the required list Doesn't mean that the board Can't appoint someone In fact I do propose Some language here Somewhere But there was some language That allowed Just before That list of Required positions That the board could have Create its own positions That wanted in the point Oh yeah there is 15A thank you That the select board may create Such a point of officers Not provided for by this chapter Or required by law as it deems To be in the best sense of the town So that gives you some flexibility And so I Combined with that flexibility That's why I suggested I also am recommending That we take off the pound keeper I've been 20 years Working with town I don't recall anyone ever serving In that position And so it kind of doesn't make sense To keep that on this list I've been jumping around A little bit here but Some of the other Changes like My paragraph number 12 Is just Adjustment if the position Of Lister is eliminated Then there's a reference there Would have to be adjusted Paragraph 13 Similar If it's position of treasure Selected position then the reference In that would need to be modified My paragraph 14 Also is related to town Treasure And I think that's pretty much it So this is your first reading Of this and I guess I'm going to be looking for some guidance How you want to proceed The process for approval Is fairly extensive There are minimum Two public hearings required And there's very specific time periods As to when they have to be held And so There are two opportunities To put this before the voters Coming up one is Which I think is not enough time To get all this done Would be the November election The other time Which probably is enough time would be March And so those are the options But the question is How do you want to proceed Your review Of these Just for some guidance I'm okay with all of the Changes I've had to think A little bit about the treasure But I guess as the town grows Treasure is more like a little Small organization kind of position Seems like for a town the size of Willis and you need to make sure The person is probably trained In some financial aspect In some background That's probably the biggest change That makes a lot of sense That was Deb Beckett's position The constable thing I was a little concerned As I shared I was On the duties Versus the professional police So Still In the constable That's not a paid position All volunteers It's nice to have people that want To volunteer to do things To eliminate volunteer positions By eliminating it The board could still Create a point Someone to that position If it wanted Yep There's a difference between Having a position that somebody Might volunteer for And actually having a duties Assigned to it as well I sit this on Rick I only have one Or I'm not sure And that actually is number Seven on your memo And I don't think I'm not strongly I just at this point have Just some mixed feelings But I do think having An unfilled Elected position Is awkward Which speaks a bit to It being an appointed position Or us choosing not To appoint somebody because Nobody's interested or we don't feel The duties Weren't appointing somebody For lack of a better word So what I'm saying is I'm Pretty much behind this This is the one area that I just have Some mixed feelings about What I would suggest then is that We sit on this For your next meeting And give you a little more time To think about it If there's anything you want to See addressed or changed We can sort of talk about it At our next meeting Or meetings after that You can take as long as you want You can tell a chance to be in this That was part of the thing And If the board is interested then we can start The process of hearings You can always change things after You get a public hearing and everybody says No no we don't want to do this Or that kind of thing We can start the process over again And make a change There's some room for changes here So moving ahead with the town clerk Makes sense to me The town treasurer makes sense to me The town clerk Is Is there a benefit to having the town clerk Appointed also or Right now I would say no No because Well because Our current town clerk Leaves that it should be a pointed position And Trust her and I don't want to It's the same person right She's talking about You're here I get it This would give the option For the town to have a vote To say we want the town clerk To be appointed rather than Elected But it would take a concert effort On people's behalf To put that on a ballot She still feels like it's valuable Being elected I'm actually wondering Since we're doing this with the town clerk With the town treasurer does it make sense To do with the town clerk also Have he or her I would not support that either I would not support that either I like it elected as well I think the treasurer adds Certain financial aspects I think a professional Somebody that has some time In the position as well But doesn't the clerk have to be Have professional qualifications too Not the same way a treasurer needs A treasurer needs some finance background And ability to do their I mean having consistency Is a positive thing in their position too Oftentimes the people you see Coming up through town clerk ranks Are assistants in the office to begin with So they're already getting groomed For that position to go run for it Yeah that could It's certainly a possibility I just Yeah I Yeah well it is an issue As Williston is growing and expanding And becoming more complex And what have you We'll say we's over the responsibilities Of elected and appointed positions I will say that we've been very fortunate You know we've had Two clerks serving for I don't know how long Ali was here but You know it's Well more than 40 years between So it's I mean I'm going to Make this facetious comment But try to make my What happens if you get a real dud Of somebody who gets elected People can vote them out after three years I don't think it's right to have The select board or somebody else Appointing that position all the time I would Feel as a resident of the town That I'm not having nearly enough say What's going on in my town I think you're taking more and more things away from the town I don't think that's right Okay And I respect that and that's why I'm not proposing that But there are towns that have made that switch As I said Colchester and Essex Have made that switch Colchester most recently You can sleep on it right Or mull it over for a couple weeks Or over a month It's almost a month 21st of August Really that long We generally try to get toward a little break Although I will say I still need to try There's a couple things I need to schedule One is a tour And the other is a retreat So That may not be as much of a break That's all I had to Move on to the manager's report Alright Let's see You have in your pockets The financial report Which is probably one of the more important ones You'll receive during the course of the year Because it features Very preliminary numbers Showing the end of fiscal year The next one you'll receive Will be almost meaningless Because at the start of the new fiscal year I really won't tell you much This one is important And probably The most noteworthy thing Is while we are Under on expenses And over on revenues Which generally is a good combination And the reasons why We've been talking about Kind of all during the course of the year Especially the expenditure side Particularly in the police department The staff shortage has resulted In A lot of money not being spent That is changing though We are getting really close To being fully staffed there We swore in another officer today And we've got I think one more slot That we're looking at Never happened with the adjoining community Was it Richmond that lost Officers as well as the Chief They're also losing the manager So I He's moving to Colchester As assistant manager So they are Going through quite a change there We're not Spending a lot of time on Richmond But if there's an emergency Where someone's in trouble and they need help We're going to send someone We do that for any community We'll have an approach to you for We have not yet been approached Today about Richmond Pretty significant write-offs I missed it too Welcome back While we're on the topic Of police though I should come back I guess On revenues we saw some overages The local option tax was one Generally when the economy's going well We're going to be over We'll be under Recessions coming I can't tell you when But It will come eventually And Right now The combination of all that And all the development that occurred Caused our planning fees To Be much higher than anticipated Which also is related to the economy It meant that the amount The plan to use from the front balance Is not going to have to be used I think Things will be different this year Because of the police Being fully staffed We hope For the current fiscal year budget But we will have to At budget time take a close look Most likely the staff Will be recommending a larger amount Of that being applied Directly to reduce taxes That's good. Can you clear up the last Bullet point on revenue? It's written funny on that. I asked about that before we came in But he can explain that. I forget what the question was. Maybe just decipher it. It means we're not going to spend it. Does that mean any? That's correct. We're not going to spend any of the reserve. No kidding. Which means we have an operating surplus Operating for one year only Of more than that. Wow. That's when operating surplus Is a balance of expenditures For the one year. I just explained some of the big reasons. Why? Under expanded police Planning fees Were over by 100,000 I think Local option taxes are up. So that's a good part of it. It will require some Close look when we do our budget For a year or 20. And those numbers are all preliminary By the way, so as we get The audit underway, they may be subject To change, but I have faith in Jennifer And hopefully there won't be Any significant changes from that. So I Started to talk about one police Thing when we were talking about Richmond And Nothing may come of this, but We were approached by The CBU in high school. They are looking into the possibility Of hiring a resource Student, what do they call it? Resource officer. Thank you. And they are talking to all the Different communities. The lodge Of community might be Heinsberg Because they're located in Heinsberg And they might not be in a position To add an officer, partly Because the deal would be The school would pay A significant percentage Of the officer, but not The entire cost of the officer Because they say that they Would don't need the officer All year long During the months of July and August For example, they don't need someone And for vacations they don't need someone And so There are some times What that percentage is I'm sure we'll have to Take a close look at that But I said Wilson was At least interested in talking about it I do think We'll find We can use some additional support And this is the way of getting some additional Support without initially paying For a full cost Of a full-time police officer This is an officer At the school They have to be Worked through a police department And be certified as a police officer But yes, they would be assigned At the school, that would be their job Except for Vacations and holidays And vacation I mean Putting aside some of the national events That have occurred What's the reason? Do they have fights Or do they just worry about something happening? Well, we didn't Get into the rationale as much Because that's a school decision But a little bit A security Concerns are certainly part of that But also there are Positive side effects of having an officer Get to know The kids And interact with the kids And bullying Might be an issue That might help out a little bit On Just familiarity And if there's other crime outside The opiate addiction problem Also Filters and downward schools And Frankly, there's another initiative That We're having very, very Discussions on And I don't even have I can't even describe what the initiative is But We had a presentation at the Local Rotary Club meeting just recently From A woman who's a doctor And I don't quite understand She's a medical doctor and I don't quite understand Her relationship to this initiative But I know I'll be learning more There's a country Iceland Had 20 years ago had a horrendous Opiate addiction problem In Europe And right now, they're the best And so They did something in between those 20 years And A lot of what they did also saved money They used to have, it's a small country That they had, I think, five treatment centers Countrywide, now they have one Because the problem has diminished So dramatically So we want to study What happened there And see if there's some lessons The schools were aware Of this initiative already And so they're going to be taking a look At it and I've invited This doctor to come in and talk With the chin and managers To see if something we might want to Look at as managers as well So I have no idea what that's going to All mean but The school hires this police officer The school district hires the police Officer Well, actually Yes The town would If we're hiring A school resource officer though I would say that we probably want the school Involved in that decision process Because we want someone that's A good fit for birth organizations But this is all very preliminary Because, you know, it could be The Heinsberg says we want to do it And fine, we'll let them do it But if they don't And if Shelburne has no interest Which is the other town that has The department then Williston might be interested in A lot of conversations would have to occur On how that's funded and who shares What part. Anyway Also in your packets was A quarterly report I've added a few more Data points in there. I've added A couple data points for the Community justice program I've added a data point For the health officer And Oh, I've Let's see, that's The town finances From Doug Beckett, was that Investment report We decided on a quarterly basis Including the quarterly report And I'm going to be adding at some point Some data points from our community Outreach program, but it's way too early I saw some preliminary numbers But the numbers don't mean a whole lot At this point because they haven't been Really scrubbed yet You know, we're not sure we're Comparing out those margins and so They need to work through that process Because frankly the program's really Only been active for two months now I think it will eventually be very useful And I know our officers Have been raving about the program So we're excited to have that Continue Traffic calming policy This is something I'd hoped I Just know it's It's not a simple policy to put together What we're hoping to do is Provide some guidelines And some criteria And some methodology Procedures For people who are interested In pursuing traffic calming to work through And for the staff to use And for the select work to use And so we're presenting this As a select work policy Not as an ordinance We hope to have a draft For the board's next meeting So that'll be a It's a work in progress right now Yeah The You may have noticed that the Mabel tree has been taken down For the process It's very sad to see it go Several weeks at the last Minute we've received several calls from People who are interested in saving Little bits and pieces of it A couple got married to a church They want to save little bits so they can Make a bowl out of the tree We did some pieces of that Bowl to be at the town garage So people are interested So I expect to see some Things made out of The tree trunk was actually in Pretty good shape I didn't I don't know why it will kill the tree But anyway And finally We had our first Edition of the Wilson TV show What's up, Wilson We didn't have a name for that show But that is the name we settle on Eric was the host And I guess It was supposed to be live We had a little bit of a technical problem And so The next day But I don't know if anyone caught it I thought I thought So it featured Primarily an interview with Marty Fisk Talking about all the many programs And there were many of them And then at the end We called a community notebook Where you can talk about two or three Or whatever number of things In a fast pace And give information I think one of them was the project on Route 2A I think No next one If you do get a chance To see them Because you can see them online Even after the fact Show 17 It will be The second Thursday of each month Live at 525 And then I get a link shortly after So I put it on our Facebook And new Twitter page Never going to our Facebook page I always go to the town Websites will there be a link there There's a Facebook link There and I'll put it in an I'll add it to a news brief Our next We're talking about Bringing in celebrating a couple Anniversaries I think right Yeah I'm looking into the town band And I'm feeling to go meet With them tomorrow night do some interviews And film some band practice in the concert next week Try to do kind of these video packages As well I'm trying to edit that for like a 5 Minutes segment to play and then Working to get a guest in the studio To from a local non-profit We might do the food shelf because I think They're celebrating 10 years The community band 60 years this year A lot of good stories out there Oh yeah That's all I have for this evening We did some of the other businesses There any other business that need to be Talked about tonight before we go into Hearing none And I would appreciate a motion To go into executive session To talk about the collective bargaining agreement With the firefighters To suggest a motion In your packet To go into executive session In accordance with 1VSA 313 To discuss a labor relations agreement Where premature knowledge would put the town At a substantial disadvantage And to invite Rick McGuire Eric Wells to then