wonderfully. Yes, I agree. Great. For those in the room, please make sure you sign in. Appreciate that. So we know who is here. And so with that, I will go ahead and I'll call the city of Essex Junction Board of Civil Authority to order for Wednesday, October 12th, 2022. Before we begin, I will just propose one agenda edition. And that is after the public to be heard and before the election of chair that we just introduce who we are, so that we can all know who we are around this giant table and virtually. Does anybody have any other agenda additions or changes tonight? Seeing none, then I would entertain a motion to approve of the agenda as amended. Thank you, George. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you, Marcus. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Say nay. Passed unanimously. Thank you all. So we've approved the agenda going into public to be heard. This is a portion of tonight's meeting where if there are any members from the public who are not board members and would like to present or bring an issue to the board, now it's time to do so. And I'm looking around the room. I think everybody here is a board member of the Board of Civil Authority. So I think we can go ahead and move past that item, which will bring us then into what I had mentioned of a brief introduction. So just as we go around, just who we are, be greatly appreciated. I'll start us off. I'm Andrew Brown, current chair of the Board of Civil Authority and the chair of the City Council. And how do we go to Marcus? Marcus Serta. I live on Hiawatha here in the city and I work for a company within the Comcast Embar. Robin Moore. I live on Dunbar in the city and J.P. Scott Moore. I live on Dunbar and I'm married to Robin. George Tyler, Essex Johnson City Council. Diane Clemens. J.P. and I am your presiding officer. Yes, we'll go this way. I'm dealing with you. I live over on Arlington Street. Brian Christie, point of J.P. I'm set out of Manly, also a point of J.P. Student. Since you're in the room as well, Virginia, would you like to introduce yourself? Virginia Mahoney, new city manager. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Regina. We'll go to the Zoom world. Amber. I'm Amber Tebow, City Councilor. Deb? Yes, good evening, everyone. Deb Biladu, I live on Maple Street. Just became a J.P. again in Essex Junction. Thank you, Deb. Raj? Hi, everybody. Raj Chala, City Council Member, J.P. Thank you, Raj. And last and certainly not least, Patrick? Pat, please, Andrew. Thank you. Pat Murray, J.P. former select board and school board member. Thank you, Pat. Appreciate that, Pat. We'll ingrain that in my head, Pat. So nice to see you all. To move into the next business item with an election of a chair, this is because effective immediately, I am going to resign as chair of the Board of Civil Authority. I do not believe I can fulfill that duty and be the president for the City Council and do both duties well. So I would hereby like to formally resign from the position of chair as the board or for the chair on the Board of Civil Authority. If you'd like to come up, join us at the table. Join us over at this table. Hey, there's Kelly. We have a couple more members of this Board of Civil Authority coming in. Please come on up. Find a space. Kelly, other members of the Board of Civil Authority, if you just don't mind introducing yourself so we can all just know who we are. Thank you for being here. So you just missed. So we officially now no longer have a we officially no longer have a chair. So as such, I will turn things over to Susan. I nominate Dylan. I'll second that. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I'll abstain. Okay. Well, great. Well, thanks. Just so everyone's clear, we are an appointed Board of Civil Authority. We have now taken our seats and it's for the new city that we now reside in. We have a lot of experience amongst us. I recognize any of you in different roles. You've been involved with participation and local government, maybe with some local election volunteer and whatever it may be. But we primarily serve as a board with different functions that are set out in state statute. We are in an unusual situation here in that we're appointed near the end of the term. There's an election coming up where a new slate of justices in the piece will be elected and on that ballot. So we are serving out the duties for in this unusual circumstance applications. So with that said, let me pull up this agenda so I can have it right here. We'll just go through it here. But it looks like the first item of business that we have after election of a chair is to appoint election workers. And Susan, this is a bit of a minsterial function, but it's something that boards of civil authority do ahead of election. Can you just describe it for us so we have this? So under the statute, this is a board of civil authority that appoints election workers. And so we can't just have people to show up in the board of elections without being appointed by the board. So we have a slate of previously appointed bunch of workers. Actually, we had the first thing we had before we got appointed. Most of the people that were already working. And so Diane is similar to a few more names. And in addition to that, the secretary of state's office, every kind of data presentation said, and your election or and your assistant clerks, if they're appointed as election officials, and I always thought they just were. So I'm going to add their names, make sure that because they're helping with the election, with the ballots that are coming in now. Yeah, I mean, I think just cross this question. Does anyone have any questions for the clerk? Yeah, I have a question. Are you keeping track of the political affiliation? Because I think the statute talks about as much as it's possible, make sure that there's a legal member, but of course, you don't make sure. You're driving a pool in the middle of a pool, right? Yeah. So are you, could you repeat the question? It's a little difficult in Vermont because you don't register as a member of the party. So if somebody's on the voter checklist and they want to help out the polls, we don't usually ask what party they're affiliated with. It's a little different with the justice of the piece because we know what party they are with. And if we have situations where we need to have one person from each party, we can draw from the JP's members of the board for that purpose. So just to clarify then, Vermont did not have party registration. So you select a ballot that you want to vote for if you participate in a primary election, but there is not actually a self-certification process as there is in some states. So that's an interesting part of our election system. That said, so I think to be responsive to the question then, we're not assessing party affiliation per se. We are looking at the available pool and then in the event that there was something where partisan affiliation might be important such as when you just strive, you would look to the elected members in that instance of the future. And it's a little quirky here. Was party affiliation described upon our appointment at all? Because we all received our appointment by the governor, I assume. So when you stand for election on a ballot, you have a letter next to your name because of the way the primary balloting system works and the general election system. But here it's an unusual circumstance. I think though, just in the future, what might make sense is we're going to have an election, a new board of civil authority will be sworn in to take their terms, I'm guessing early in the new year after the election in November. And I think that probably we assess best practices. I've been sort of wondering just as we set up a new board, it might make sense to a couple things just have an educational session with her. And I know we can't find the actions of future board, but maybe an educational session where the staff update us on procedures and the information available for the Secretary of State's office. I think actually as a member who served on the town board of civil authority, that would be welcome. And that way just going forward, we're all aware of all this. And then in the future, I would welcome a conversation about just our procedures in general. And I think that might be the forum to do it. But of course, tonight, I heard someone say there's a city council meeting at 6.30. Is that right? Chair, president? Okay. So February 1st, when that new slave would take office. So that's just helpful for information. I hope that helps in terms of just providing some time. Okay. So it was the suite of the slave office with the potential volunteers, I should say. Was that circulated? And can you read them all? I can read them. Okay. We didn't ask them. So the minutes are Marlon, Vera, Sandra, Solomon, Laura, Karen, and then David Santero. We have four names, plus the two assistant clerks to help the ballots count are Cheryl Brown and Jennifer Booker. And then of course, we all have the opportunity to volunteer for shifts, right? Yeah. And in addition to assisting up at the town board of civil authority in the past month, we wanted to make it clear that if you are on the ballot, normally if you're running for a state office, then you can't help out at the polls. But if you're running just for JP, you can't help out. So that doesn't include your helping. So if someone has previously worked out an election, are they are we including them already? We already voted them in at the last meeting. Okay. So these are additions to that larger thing here. Yeah. Being that we were a brand new city, I needed to have the workers authorized. And so I had that request in the city council so that I could have people in August through their thing. And just to clarify for that, members of the city council are members of the board of civil authorities. So prior to my appointment or your appointment, they were able to make an action. Yes. How many election workers do we need and do we have enough for all the shifts? And how much more would be needed? Diane runs the election. All right. At the moment, I have one individual in each of the slots that's needed right now. If more activity shows up, and we have more ballots that need to be processed or any of the other things that occur, I will indeed call the BCA as the next bit because I've already gotten the poll workers who are not BCA to step up. So my line of attack is the people who are appointed in the elected is next. Yeah. Yeah. I'm putting you on warning right now. So would it be no possibility that the emergency BCA meeting that we would call? No. No. They already are. I'll let you know. That's my job. And I think if I'm hearing you, Diane, I mean, so as the election officer, the day of the polls, Diane is vested with authority to ensure that what happens is sufficient to handle things. And you know, I know Diane has helped for years when we had town, village, administration of elections. Certainly Susan spent part of the team at the clerk's office. So we made it through the primary election. And I actually, I was part of the volunteer report. I think any of us who are available with you, I know many of us work or have life. But it's certainly a really important role. And I know Diane would welcome the help. So look for your email. It sounds like Diane will let us know if she needs any. You've got two of them. All right. Good. Yeah, you get a star. The majority of our board members for their at the polls. All right. So Diane, please keep us up to date on that. Thank you. Yeah. If anybody calls out, I'll let you guys know. Great. Okay. So with that, we have heard the names of the current election workers. So if there's any additional comments, if not, I would entertain a motion. So Kelly is moving that we appoint election workers to the slate that was just read off. I second. Marcus Serta is accepting that motion. Any additional comments? All right. Let's hear a vote. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? You're in. Okay. So we have successfully conducted a vote other than four chairs. Congratulations. The next item on the agenda is fairly valid processing. State statute allows the Board of Civil Authorities to decide if we're going to process ballots early, which would mean we would have election workers and members of the Board everything's being done right now for feeding the main street, but we have people there to open the envelopes and there's a process for doing so you can't see whose ballot you're looking at after you open the envelope. I'll spell that out in actually the document that I sent you guys. And start feeding them through the machines. And sometimes it works to do that. Sometimes it's better to wait till we know the polls, but to have the authority, I think right now, we're asking for the authority to do that if we deem it necessary. Who cares? So moved. And so the process that you just described, you're essentially seeking and the board is entertaining whether or not there should be authority to process ballots ahead of election day, following the guidance that's set out. It looked like you sent around something called the 2022 election procedures guide, prepared by the Secretary of State's office. I just want to note here, this is interesting. So it was revised in July 2022. So this is very current and follows all current state law because there have been amendments. I don't know what changes the last couple of things. So I would welcome some discussion. I would just say that this guide, I've done a skim. I have not read it fully yet. But I've read previous iterations of it as a member of the Board of Civil Authority. It sits out a lot of details, process and procedures, and it describes what's in state law. The state law is sort of the basis for all of our elections. And then in Vermont, we have local administration of elections. So it's up to us, it's members of the Board of Civil Authority and our clerk and others to play roles in that process. Diane plays a important role as the presiding officer. But it's all set out here. So if you haven't had a chance, I would encourage you to take a look at it before election day. It's a great guide. I know also that the League of Cities and Towns, which is a municipal advocacy organization, provides trainings. The Secretary of State's office is there as a resource, as questions arise. So there's a lot of ways to get information on this topic. I am aware that there's great interest in elections right now in the news and elsewhere. So I think we all take this very seriously. But I am heartened by the fact that there is a process spelled out in here. And Susan, just to reiterate, if we were to process ballots early, we would be following all of the procedures and guidance provided by the Secretary of State's office and set forth in law, and you would be overseeing all of it to ensure that it's done. Okay, so any questions? Yeah, this is a point of process. I heard Bernie say that he would move the motion forward. So there's a motion, but we can have discussion on the question before us. I think it just needs to be seconded so far for the process. That's a good idea. It sounds like Andrew Brown is happy to. So thank you for that bit of process as I get up to speed here. So I saw first there, and then I saw a hand over here. Sure, yeah. So I just would like to speak to this topic. So just in general, the Australian ballot system that was adopted hundreds of years ago by most democracies in the world, there's two components of it. One of them is being able to vote in secret. In other words, your name is not attached to a ballot. And the other component of that is ballots aren't counted until all the ballots are cast. And that system has served democracy very well for hundreds of years. Now, I understand that we can't change what's been given to us or legislated to us. The only thing that we can do is do what we can to ensure security. And one of those things is to not count ballots early. Now, I fully understand that we would be following procedures. And I actually helped certify witness certification of machines. They certainly seem from what we can see to be secure. The biggest problem with these machines is that they're definitely network capable. So what that means is it has the circuitry in the machines to be connected to the network, to any network that's available possibly. And none of us in this room can fully guarantee that those things can't be connected, which would allow that if they're in operation counting ballots, we cannot guarantee that a third party can't hack into them somehow to see how the count's going. So my recommendation is not to do early counting. I know Diane, if you've expressed concern that it would cause a lot of headache as far as extra work. And I'm fully... Yeah, I understand. But that is the same as counting. That's what the calculator is doing when you're feeding those ballots in there. Nobody in this room can guarantee to anybody that the machine can't be breached through a network. Can I just ask a question? Because I take your point. And I did hear a question in there. Are the machines at all connected to any networks? I just sent an email to the Secretary of State's office while sending. I got six categories of vulnerabilities for our election system. I documented court proceedings, court documents, DAB documents, with a bunch of new questions. One of the court documents is that the Attorney General admitted in the court that they tabulated a machine that has connectivity, even though it's not connected to the Internet, can be hacked. So these are facts that are on the table and are concerned. So I agree with my colleague here. You shouldn't have preprocessed any ballots due to the vulnerability. I'm waiting for an answer from the Secretary of State's office on how to deal with these other bugging of the polls that are documented in the DHS report. Okay. So we've heard a couple of comments. I think I see one over here. Oh, and yeah. So if you don't mind, did I see your hand? I have a question for my colleague. I'd like to know if those court cases are Vermont court cases. They are not. But thank you. It doesn't change the technology of a modem that is not connected to the Internet. It's capability of being hacked even though it's not connected. It doesn't matter if it's a machine in Oregon or Vermont. I think one thing I'd like to do is I do want to hear from other folks in the meeting. And I see a couple hands up with Raj and Patrick. But then also I do just want to make sure that as a group, I think it's appropriate to provide oversight and ask questions to present opinions. I think that's completely valid. I would avoid debate amongst us. I think it's healthy to have a discussion. But instead of in the legislature, for instance, you speak through sort of a presiding officer to diffuse any conflict, as other boards do. And I think that's just important, as we tackle issues. So Raj, I see your hand up. Yeah, thanks, Dylan. I would just say that we have a procedure set out by the legislature and the secretary of state's office that we're going to follow. And that procedure really isn't up to debate or change. So let's just move on and either call the question. I don't think the debate about theories on the machines is appropriate for this body at this time, especially with the time we have left. So I encourage us to call the question and move on to the last agenda item. Thank you. And I saw a hand from Patrick, but it looks like it's down. Patrick, did you have a comment or use all set? I did, but I concur with Raj. I do work in network security. That's my entire job. Again, I would be happy to go over the specifics of the technology at a later date with anyone to describe how simply having the ability to connect to a network does not, in fact, make it hackable. Again, I think it's for a later time. I agree with Raj. I see a couple more hands. Yeah, yours first. No, so you first go ahead. So, yeah, you know, and I totally understand. I believe that Raj called the question. Well, I might have to turn to my parliamentary for a second. I made in terms of process how installing a question impact discussions. Well, we vote on calling the question. Yeah, if the question is called, all future debate is done with. You vote on the question. So I think we should, given the process here, I would like to have that vote. And then I would like to just have a moment for reflection on this. So the motion on the table was called question. So all those in favor, please signify. We're voting on voting. You need to second the motion. Oh, apologies. Is there a second for the motions? Thank you. So the question is, shall we call the question? And all those voting in favor to do so, please signify. Hi. Hi. Those opposed to calling the question, please. No. No. So the motion has passed. No, if you're online, you have to do a kind of a roll call. Sorry. So for those online, no, this is very good. Thank you, George. We're going to point you out. No, you don't need to do that. And Susan, can we make sure that the meeting minutes are plugged in? For those online, can you please tell us how you vote and trying to do this in an orderly way? I don't know how the council does it. So with the law, everybody as a part of the board has to do a roll call vote at this point in time, because since everybody isn't in the room, so if you just want to say our names, we'll then respond with how we would vote. Okay. That's all I would offer. So the vote before us at this time is we are essentially holding a roll call vote on the motion to move the question. But essentially to let's debate and proceed as is with the question before us. So given this, I don't have a roll call sheet that's alphabetical or anything. So I will do my best and I might do some pointings since some of us are doing this. So what I will do is I'll do my best here with the names before me. And if I miss anyone, please bear with me. I know we want to wrap up this meeting shortly to the council. Thank you. So the first that would be Kelly Adams. Hi. Deb Billigam. Hi. Marcus Serta. Hi. Raj Shala. Hi. Brian Christie. Hi. Diane Clemens. Hi. Bernie Kutcher. No. Dylan Jiamatista. Hi. Seth Mann. No. Jason Malucci. He's not here. Ryan McLaren. He's not here. Robin Moore. Hi. Scott Moore. Hi. Patrick Murray. Hi. Catherine Stevens. Hi. And now I'll do my best to go to the folks who are on the screen. Amber Peebo. Hi. Yeah, we're going to look here. Well, we have Andrew Brown. Hi. Raj is virtual. George. Hi. We already have Raj. Am I missing? Okay, so Dan, Karen. Okay, so the motion is passed. So now we will hold a vote on the question before us, which is should we approve the early ballot processing procedure as simple? I would. And do I get motion on that? Yeah. That was Bernie and me. Yes. Back a ways. To process ballots. That motion already happened. And whether it was seconded. Okay. So if you have heard the question then, shall we approve this measure? All those voting yes, please signify by saying hi. Hi. Hi. All those voting no. No. Now I want to make sure from a roll call expected, do we need to now roll again? Because it's not unanimous. Well, this time I will try to do it a little quicker. So if we are now going to hold the vote because it's not unanimous, so I'm going to start reading the roll. Kelly Adams. Hi. Deb Billido. Hi. Marcus Serta. Hi. Raj Shala. Hi. Brian Christie. No. Diane Clemens. Hi. Bernie Pucher. Hi. Dylan Geometisa. Hi. Jeff Manley. No. Jason Malucci is not here. Ryan Claren is absent. Robin Moore. Scott Moore. Hi. Patrick Murray. Hi. Katherine Sevens. Hi. Let's see if I can do this. Andrew Brown. Hi. George Tyler. Hi. Amber Peebo. Hi. That's it. I believe that concludes the roll. All right. So with that the motion passes. So the next item on our agenda and I will draw attention to the fact that the city council had a meeting set at 6.30 and I do just want to quickly reflect we have another item on our agenda but recognizing there was discussion tonight. I mean I think it does underscore an opportunity for some education going forward and of course there will be an election of a new board coming up in November. We'll take the C February 1st of coming year and I think at that time just given some of the discussion, I do think it's worth applying for clerk's office staff and others to provide that education to make sure that folks have it at hand and I also just want to let folks know I'm happy to take any of these conversations offline since I pointed to this position of serving as your chair and certainly encourage you to be in touch as well. I know some had said they had talked with the secretary of state's office. That's our statewide election official, certainly the clerk's office and I hope that we will all work together in a spirit of partnership to do this work because it's very important. It's been going on for hundreds of years and many of us have participated for years here in the community. Too good at that. So just take my personal privilege there to say that and I'd like to move to the next agenda item which is the politicking policy and Susan and I know there was an enclosure with board material minutes for that as well. Yeah so that's a policy that was adopted by the town laws authority and they are still using that. It's worked well for giving direction to candidates at the polling places where they can't do with their signs. So I guess I was wondering if we're going to adopt that policy as well. I'll make a motion that the board adopt the policy on politicking, campaigning, and signs of the polling place as presented at the meeting. Second. Okay. Motion second. Any discussion? Okay. So seeing no discussion here, all those in favor of supporting the adoption of the politicking policy as provided in the meeting minutes, materials, please seem by myself. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Well that was unanimous folks so I don't believe we need a vote. Okay. Thank you for that. So I see no further business here in New York State. We'll adjourn we're a few minutes over but my offer statement, anyone would like to discuss this? I'm certainly adjourned if I can do so. I know Diane is always happy to respond to my materials and I have questions. So Diane, thank you for that. And without any further discussion here, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Oh, hurry. I had a question regarding you said sometime in November we need to BCA. Is this board good until February 1st? Do we have no further meetings? Look for email from Susan in the event. Good. Motion to adjourn. All right. So David made a motion to adjourn until we need a second. We do. So we have a motion and second all those in favor of BCA. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you BCA. Thank you Dylan. I'm here to address my ducks. I spoke with Terry Haas and she received a complaint from one of my neighbors regarding the ducks and specifically well I'm here to ask the council for an exemption so that I can keep my ducks. As I understand it, the current ordinance is only allowing for chickens and right? I believe so and my apologies for that. The reason why I got ducks was my misinterpretation of the code and that's completely my fault. I'm sorry about that. When I looked into the code, the municipal code specifically addresses chickens but no other animals and I also saw that section 1702 says that all agricultural processes are exempt from the code so I thought I was in the clear. However, when I spoke with Terry Haas, she explained to me the land development code and why I was. Got you. Well so when I spoke with my neighbor, she told me that her only concern was smell and what I believe she didn't realize was right on the property line between our houses I was keeping 200 gallon compost bins. Since during the summertime, I moved those. Those were one of the reasons why I moved them was because it was emitting a particularly foul odor. And so I moved them to the completely other side of my property and I don't have any problems with smell and when I asked friends and family for a subjective or objective opinion, they told me that they don't really smell anything. So given that I believe that the source of the odor has been taken care of, I hope that that would right. Yeah, so just in terms of even just a process portion which maybe should have started off with this in the beginning. So this would be the opportunity for us to hear what the concern is for us to hear and understand a little bit. From this point in time, we only have a limited knowledge of what really the intricacies are of this and we are only able to make, we only have so much latitude to make a decision on something that isn't publicly warned on our agenda. So basically we can hear the information, receive the information, we can ask staff to do some research, we can ask for some other steps to happen and then on a future agenda item, what we can do is then address this in a more formal capacity where we would have the decision or the capability to make a decision of a yes or a no. So just even for tonight's portion, we can have a brief dialogue to try and understand a little bit but this isn't going to be the end. Okay. So you know that somewhat coming into the conversation. Makes sense to me. Can I ask you a question? Sure. Are you and if this takes a couple of weeks for us to make a decision to give you an exemption or not, is that okay? Are you in imminent danger of losing your ducks right now? The only danger of me losing my ducks is from you guys. Okay. So no one has taken ducks, that's a doubt. Ducks are still there. I don't have any problem. Okay. Great. Sorry to make light of it but. No, it's a completely fine. Great. Raj, Amber, any questions at this point in time? If the board is okay, what I would like to see happen from here is an opportunity staff, if you can do a little bit of research, Regina, you and I can talk offline to help set the direction and then it'll probably take a few weeks before it comes back. In the meantime, ducks are there. Sure. I would just like to say that in addition to them providing food, one of the main reasons why I have them is for a permaculture so that I can produce my own fertilizers in a green fashion. I mean, there's no system that we are aware of that is sustainable that is greener. And given the current state of the economy and shortages and everything, fertilizers have been particularly hard to get a hold of and they've been extremely expensive. So I can create my own fertilizers and add them to my gardens. Something that may be helpful is if you have resources that help to explain what the benefits of, I don't even know what the right phrase would be, but for raising ducks in your home and keeping ducks on a residential property, if you have those kinds of benefits, it would be beneficial for us to have for a future conversation to help inform us of all sides of the equation. Sure. I mean, speaking from personal experience, other than distant relatives having a farm in other parts of the state, I have no idea what the benefits are for ducks or cops. Well, for gardening, it's fertilizer gold. Great. Yeah. And it's working really well. I also have the city's first and only craft cannabis cultivation. I have a tier one cultivation this year. And the fertilizer has been extremely helpful for that, depending on how the council has voted and what the zoning will be next year will determine whether I can continue with that or not. But in terms of benefits, it's been extremely beneficial. Appreciate that. Thank you. Any other questions? Raj, I see your hand is up. Yeah. Do any of you longer term counselors recall the process and the length of the process for approving chickens? I think George and Dan and Andrew, you were on the board at that point. Well, we do, but we have the person probably in all of S-Exjunction who knows more about it sitting in the audience. But I don't, so I'm going to, at risk of making a terrible mistake, Laurie, if you don't mind, it was back, when was it? It was very early on in my career. It was early in your political career. So it was like 2009 or something like that. Yeah. And we had a request for a lot of people to have chickens. I guess I'm getting at it was a deliberate long public hearing kind of situation where it was deliberated and all of that as part of the zoning. I think we just passed it as a separate ordinance back then. Okay. Sorry, great. Great. Just to elaborate a little bit more, it did take a few months of public hearings, of public comments, of that kind of process. It was not a quick thing. It was also a new ordinance as we did not allow any other livestock outside of the agricultural zone. So that also likely added to the time that it took. Any other questions, counselors? Do you have any other questions for us or things you want to make sure we know today knowing that this is the first part of a different process? Not that I can think of. But if you do, please reach out at any point in time. Our emails and contact information are all available at sxjunction.org. You have Terry's information. I assume Regina's as well. So please let us know if you have other questions and we'll make sure to be in touch with you as to what we're going to do from here. Okay. Thank you for your time and consideration. Yeah. Thank you. Have a good evening. You as well. I did not see any other members of the public with questions or comments. So we will go ahead and move into business item 5a, which is a presentation from town meeting television. Welcome, folks. Thanks for having us here, even though we're always in your room sort of in a bell running the camera tonight. So I'm here to just give you an update on what this last fiscal year has been. And I think I've talked to most of you and then just run down our request for municipal contribution. As you know, we have been doing this work of diversifying revenue as an organization and a service that gets its funding primarily from cable subscribers. So folks that buy cable, they get that little peg fee and that money comes to the trustees who hires CCTV to manage a contract to provide services, both meeting coverage, but election coverage. We just wrapped up 30 election forums with local candidates and internships, training and public facilities to help from the doors to local government. And so that work that we do is primarily funded by the folks who buy cable and, you know, as cable subscriptions are going down and the increase for our services, certainly over the last two years, how we run meetings has changed and we hope that this helps you feel at least somewhat, you know, most of the time this is a somewhat seamless and enjoyable process to meet and not be always on Zoom or having to exclude people from the process who can't come. Briefly, I guess I'll just pause there and find out if you have any questions, because there are a number of points on here in this memo that I sent and that you all should have received. Yeah, I only had just a couple of questions. But first of all, as I think I said last year, really appreciate the work that Megan, you and your staff do to really help to open the doors to democracy to the broader community. And in particular, helping out with our hybrid meeting process to ensure that again, those who can't be here or choose not to for whatever reason can't participate from the comfort of their own home. Really do appreciate that. Curiously, how are we doing on utilization in terms of the number of meetings that we are allotted for? So I don't have I have unfortunately have the Essex. So on your memo that you have there, it should say that we have produced and my computer died right before I got here. So let me just let me know. It should say they're a number we've live streamed archived and 42, 42. And so you have three meetings a month. So you do three times 12. We're doing well. You're doing well. We could. We did in the last contract negotiation decide to move we have a big basket of general programming and we decided as part of our outreach strategies to move an individual program into the general. I mean, I count them by community, but unfortunately our location and not unfortunately, but, you know, Burlington being the center of a lot of activities gets a lot of coverage. And we would like to do more coverage for the city. So things like Juneteenth celebration or dedication at the park. So that's something where we encourage you to let us know. And certainly Amber as a trustee can let us know. And Regina, we have a relationship as your new city manager. It's hard to say city manager. You know, just let us know if there are other programs to do outside of that meeting coverage. And along that line and thinking about for next year's budget, if we did want to increase it also in the sense that historically we've had our we've had our municipal board, but then we've also had a planning commission. Now we also have a development review board. And so there might be another reason to have additional coverage of our various municipal meetings, let alone the things that you're talking about, where if we decided to do that, when would you need to know from a budgetary standpoint? Well, you need to discuss it as part of your budget. And that if that's something that you want to do, that's where you would then switch over to hiring CCTV to do that additional coverage. And it's outlined here the per cost. And we do a municipal rate because we're using the same equipment that the trustees own. So that municipal rate of 95 an hour, we do about seven hours per meeting. Although we can build that on a, you know, we keep that we keep track of exactly how much time. So if a meeting takes, you know, if it's three hours of time, three hour billing. So that's one way to cut that. So, you know, for example, we cover some meetings and it's in it's a precise number and or you could set aside a certain amount and say, you know, we want to give you 10,000 extra to do 10 extra meetings. Although be, you know, that's not the right math. Yeah. And we can and we can talk about that more if you have more questions, you know, I can have that conversation with Regina. There's also, you know, if you have community meetings that are being held completely virtually, and I don't know at what point, January, if it's going to flip over that you have to have them in a high, you know, if you have, if you're allowed to continue to do them completely virtually, but meetings that you're recording yourself, you can submit to us to archive and be part of our well, you're really repository of content. We're just finishing up. We got a grant from the National Endowment of Humanities. And our archivist is just finishing up the work of really rationalizing our archival system and how we're bringing things in and making sure that we have reliable and redundant storage. And that's, you know, that's the thing that, you know, when you think about like what's the legacy we're going to leave for the future, it's going to be all of these archival resources, community events, meetings, conversations, you know, the conversation that just happened at the Board of Civil Authority. I'm like, this is so interesting to have this conversation archived at this moment in history of part of our kind of the community dialogue. Those are all my questions. Counselors, any other questions? We'll say that, you know, we will, one of the big things that CCTV is undertaking on behalf of Town Meeting TV is this continued work with the legislature, the legislature in FY23. It was actually a combination of a special allotment in FY22 and FY23 awarded 900,000 to the 24-axis centers around the state. So just Town Meeting TV is one of 24 centers that do this kind of coverage. And we are, we will see another 900,000 and then we're going to go for two more years of what's called bridge funding as part of this work to support cable access. That it's about 30, this year, it's about 36,000 that came into Town Meeting TV or CCTV on behalf of Town Meeting TV. That's all, you know, the long game is to come up with another funding mechanism that would replace this reliance on the cable right-of-way legislation. So if you think about it, changes in gas tax, the lowering, people driving less or people driving electric vehicles, we're seeing a change, right? So we're in this big policy shift as we modernize the world and have to come up with different funding mechanisms for different services that we find important. And that's one, and your help, your support at the legislative level, it's helpful. Yeah, I'm sure Lori's hearing it. Thank you. Yeah, we've talked about it, yeah. Regina, was there anything that you had? That's it. No, I don't have anything else. Great. I'm not seeing any other questions. So thank you. Thanks, folks. Appreciate it. Right, thank you. Have a good evening. You're in good hands with that. Absolutely. And we will then transition into the next agenda item, which, sorry, taking me a moment here. We now have a presentation from Essex Rescue, and I believe I see that we have Colleen on the screen with us. Yes, good evening, everyone. Thank you for... I have also Peter Matolo, who is our president of our board with us. I don't know if you see him up there. Hello, everyone. Hello, Peter. There we go. So I understand that our time is a little bit short this evening. The past presentations we've done, this has certainly taken a bit more time. So I figured I would start at kind of the key points and then take the rest of the time to answer questions if that works for everyone, unless there is something specific that you would like me to address right off the bat. I think if you want to hit the high points, that's great. We should have all read the presentations, so if there are certain points from that that you want to make sure that we hear, please... Sure. Excellent. Okay. So going to page seven of the presentation that I provided, which is reimbursement and billing terminology, I think what is most important with this is understanding the terminology that is there and what exactly that means. This is probably one of the biggest factors which is impacting our ability to meet our own operating budget year to year because what we're billing out is not what we're able to get back in reimbursement from insurance companies. So when we talk about charges or when you're looking through the presentation and it's mentioning charges, the charges are what, when we provide the service, what we're actually billing out to the insurance companies and that we don't change the rate based on who the provider of the insurance is or the carrier is. It is billed based on a defined service level or itemized level of service we provide. The allowable is what the contracted rate is of the insurance company that they will cover. So the most obvious and well-known carrier that this impacts is Medicare. Medicare is the federal standard basically who says regardless of what services you provide, at this level of service we're going to reimburse this much and it doesn't matter any other factors. So when we talk about what is allowed based on what we charge there is a certain percentage of it which is written off by the insurance company immediately and that is we're never going to be able to reclaim that amount. When we talk about expected that is based on the allowable. So what the insurance company says is allowed to be reimbursed. The expected is what we can go after for reimbursement collected is what we actually have in our bank account that we have been able to retrieve from the service that we provide. The next important piece to understand is that Essex Rescue is our primary primary source of revenue from insurance is Medicaid and Medicare and that's 64 percent of our annual income and that is a fixed rate. So regardless of what service we are providing the max that we will ever be able to recover from care would be $495 from Medicare and that would be at the 80 percent and the patient themselves would be responsible for 20 percent of the remaining of that. The Medicaid covers 100 percent but again reimburses at a lower rate at $389 so the rest of our insurance revenue is commercial insurance and things like that but those pieces are probably the most important factors to understand as to why we're struggling to meet our end of year budget because regardless of the call volume that keeps going up the reimbursement rate doesn't change and not all of the calls that we're responding to are actually billable. I was able to have a meeting with Regina and it was a pleasure to meet her but to explain some of the things that are not well understood about yes our call volume may increase by 200 maybe 300 calls we still have to respond to those calls and even though we don't transport doesn't mean that we haven't rendered some expense in providing a level of care and the best example would be a cardiac arrest victim or someone who has overdosed for somebody who's experiencing a diabetic emergency where we provide care and aren't going to change the outcome and don't transport so we have put everything into that individual that we would have had we transported them but it does not change the outcome to transport them in a cardiac arrest scenario so that revenue we'll never get back the diabetic emergency or the overdose victim we treat those individuals as if we were taking them to the hospital but if they decide that they no longer want treatment once they have reached a level of implementation that is acceptable and safe to leave them at home they are legally they have the right to make that decision not to go those are also costs that we can't recover that doesn't mean that we're not going to take care of those individuals when they call and treat their life threat it just means that those are costs that we will we will have to you know occur without without reimbursement so it's just important to understand that not yes we bill insurance but that that doesn't mean that we're going to recover all the costs so out of last year we billed 1.8 million dollars which would help us significantly with a 2.4 million dollar budget but when we're only able to recover between eight and nine hundred thousand dollars of that or that's what's allowed we're really at a loss we're not in this to make money we have done our best to keep our per capita rates as low as possible as long as we could and I can't speak for my predecessors that have kept our rates where they have but it with COVID and everything else it became very apparent that we were not going to be able to continue providing the service if we didn't ask for what we needed to meet our budget at zero and I do understand that those are big numbers and big jumps my hope is that getting this next increase to where we need to be is going to get our budget to a point where we can stabilize ourselves and make smaller incremental changes as we go without in a sense stealing from our reserve account which funds ambulances in the future and necessary equipment that we have to replace without having to ask for loans, liens and bonds and things like that so I am happy to answer any questions people may have I just hope that that would if the terminology and things didn't make sense help to explain some of that yeah thank you Colleen and just before even going into any questions just that we haven't spoken before just want to extend an appreciation for the sense of the last two years in the work that you all you your staff the volunteers who are the first responders who have gone to calls once in a hundred year pandemic not knowing whether you yourselves are going to be in harm's risk the condition of the people who you're going to and just the amount of stress that you all experienced so just want to name that and appreciate you all for that work so thank you for that thank you that's very kind um so now I'm going to get a little other questions of course of course that's okay and I a couple of just questions on the the presentation on the slides uh in the slide that's titled organizational efforts um there's a couple of things I just am wondering what they mean one is prioritize spending to reduce operational costs when I hear that that makes it sound as if maybe expenses aren't being prioritized and so is that what is intended no it's just you know I think that always runs through people's minds to say you know this this organization is hurting and it appears that you know they're bringing in reasonable amount of funds you know how come this is still still the the situation and um I just want to ensure everyone that you know we are cognizant of the general economic situation everybody is sitting in and um we're not just throwing funds out the window we are very aware of our spending and you know the last few years we haven't even provided our volunteers with a service or recognition banquet um which I think is um it's it's downright not okay when these people are giving hours and hours for nothing um so I just want people to understand that you know they're not sending me to conferences they're not um we're not spending you know money on things that aren't necessary we're being very very careful with the things and and making meaningful purchases that are necessary right now we were fortunate in this last two budget years ago to take the part in a grant that funded putting paramedics through paramedic education um because of COVID and everything it really messed up some of their hour their clinical hours which provided a lot of funds that didn't end up getting used we were able to purchase a brand new life pack for $52,000 and some other necessary equipment by utilizing that grant um which hopefully will make up for some of the money that we haven't been able to put into our reserve because we've had that deficit in our budget um but you know it's just using things as best we can to to make up those deficits yeah and just at the top of what Colleen said here uh been treasurer for two years president uh second time around I think the point there was just to make sure that we were reiterating to the community that we're being as fiscally responsible as we can and we can go into more detail beyond even what Colleen mentioned about deferring ambulance purchases um extending as much as we can into the length of time that we can use the equipment that we have and wanted to call that out so that there is really no stone left unturned as we come forward looking for contributions to meet our bottom line great I appreciate that and on that that same slide my only other question on there was uh there's a the the bullet where the words of um uh inappropriate utilization of the ambulance a chuckle just thinking as to what that meant um I want to rely on that um I am I am sure that it was in the best of intentions um it is exactly what you're imagining it is being called for things that are um what would have been in the past deemed completely inappropriate to call an ambulance for the problem is um our healthcare system is in crisis and it is not set up for to support all avenues of our socioeconomic um makeup and um whether it be a facility that it is their job to take care of individuals and unable to meet those individuals needs or it's somebody in the community that is um mentally needing more assistance either at home or um emotionally and those are the types of calls that um you know we're getting the cruise up at night to go which for people who are volunteering and have to go to work the next day three calls in a row for um a nose sore um a toe injury and um somebody not feeling well who we've seen three times throughout the day um those become stressors that it's hard to continue to convince volunteers and our staff for that matter to want to keep doing this job I have met with some of the facility leadership to discuss them calling us rather than using the appropriate transport methods such as their own transport methods that they fund or um the individuals family which I know was a problem during COVID as well as um utilizing the patient's healthcare team to proactively prevent these inappropriate calls to EMS we shouldn't be used as the last resort um we you know we we are for emergencies um so yes we we definitely have an uptick in calls that don't necessarily meet the criteria of what we would call a life threat yeah that's actually a lot better than what was in my head when I first read oh good lines of joy rides and having great memories so oh no no that's thoughts and that makes me feel a lot better than what I had in mind and so I guess really the the last thing I wanted to mention um I know when we were here in this in the city when we were a village separating from the town one of the things that we had been told is that uh you all had gone to the town of Essex Select Board and said that there was going to be an increase again in a future year so we kind of knew that there was going to be a budgetary ask that was going to be bigger than what we were anticipating um I will say that personally I was not anticipating a near double uh as to what's we as what had been projected uh and in looking at just the FY 22 23 and 24 budgets all of which are are running deficits um in some ways curious as to how you can sustain that while at the same time it raises the question around this isn't going to be like a sustainable practice of once a year coming to our board and asking for a near double increase and I know you've heard this from other municipalities as well other member municipalities but it makes me wonder about the overall governance structure and especially since a third of the the funding is about to be coming from municipalities I'm it makes me think that what we might want to start looking and talking about is should our boards be appointing people to your board so that that way we can be better connected so that that way we can help to ensure that things are are going strong because we need emergency medical services whether it's somebody falling and not being able to get up somebody having a cardiac arrest and arrest in a true medical emergency somebody needs to go when 911 is called that's in my mind a basis of the basic level of supports that our community needs to provide and so just to help solve that dynamic I think that that's a venue we're going to need to explore within the next year or so I think that is a very fair statement and one that especially peter and I have gone back and forth with many times I think peter could probably speak to the best of this given that he's on the board and some of what you brought up is is very is very much in line with where we're going so peter go ahead yeah thank you and it is a really good question and I think the the transparency that we look that we're looking for and also the interaction that we're looking for is following those same lines so one of the things that we were coming to you and the other communities that we represent to to ask is how best to get representation and inclusion on our board is it an appointed person in a community advisory position what other opportunities can we use to provide more of a voice from the community within the agency and more of a regular flow of information from the agency back to our represented communities and I do just want to address a couple of things because it's a fair question about the management and and how do we go from double digit growth over the past few years and I think the Colleen was very kind talking about like the basis of fiscal responsibility that we've come from one of the biggest things that we've faced and it is a complex number of reasons that have brought this about but our workforce model has flipped on its head I've been with this agency for 10 years and when I started we had volunteers in the numbers of 60s and 70s and full-time employees in the three to five range we have now completely flipped that around and we have volunteers that are close to half that amount and we have doubled the number of full-time employees that we require to get that ambulance staffed and out on the road so right off the bat our workforce model has changed underneath us and one of the biggest reasons that you're seeing the jump that you are is this past year we've been proactive for the first time that I can remember about getting ahead of that change so without going into too much of the detail during this time I know we're limited but happy to share more details with you about what that looks like and why we can at least stand here before you with a prediction of saying we're not going to expect double digit growth from a personnel standpoint we're going to be in line with economic indicators and the overall economic growth and requirements of the of the country based on like a CPI rather than you know totally retooling our workforce so I hope I answered both questions the first one is definitely looking for your support on how to get some board representation and happy to continue that conversation and then also about the workforce yeah I do appreciate hearing that thank you and I also appreciate hearing what I had assumed anyway around that flip of the reduction in volunteers and that increase in full-time staff just given some of the experiences we see in other communities who have tried to create their own emergency services and have frankly failed because of their inability to find people to actually then fill up the ambulance so I do appreciate that I would point to in terms of just other examples uh Green Mountain Transit, Winooski Valley Park District, Town Meeting Television who was just presenting earlier, all of whom are entities that we have and will have some level of representation on within their board some level of decision making then within that board and they've come to us seeking seeking money. I think those are models that could very well work similarly for for Essex Rescue to help ensure the sustainability of the organization especially given this increase from FY22 of a less than 10% of your your revenue coming from municipal contributions to now over 30% two years later if that's just going to continue to be the pattern where it's becoming a municipal service nearly exclusively instead of the previous model of insurance donations and subscriptions. Absolutely yeah and I can understand the the need for uh and and we share that need as well to both understand how to best serve the communities that that we are representing so completely open to that and again if you want to appoint somebody directly if we want to take that conversation beyond this meeting there are a lot of different models that we can follow we do have a provision in our bylaws right now for our community advisory board that we can reactivate it has been inactive for a number of years since I've been on the board so I think that might just be an oversight of you know we didn't keep that thread going with our community so I know at one time it was populated but for whatever reason it has gone out of favor and and that is something we can reinvigorate immediately as we pursue bylaw changes to reshape what our physical board makeup is yeah I think that that we could take that conversation offline the possible future ways to to be involved of course unless other city counselors want to continue to have that conversation I'm not trying to squash it and I would take that as the opportunity to just turn it over do other counselors up well I if I if yeah thanks and that's a good segue because I I think I agree with Andrew but I'd actually like to take it a step further and I'm wondering if at some point and and nothing I'm about to say is it should be interpreted as anything like a criticism but it it looks like your funding is unpredictable your costs are unpredictable and I'm wondering if it might at some point since we're talking about potentially putting having more more representation on your board do you think by question to both of you do you think that maybe a sort of a global restructuring of how you do things and coming more under the municipal veil so to speak would benefit you in terms of predictability of funding and and let me ask this other question I have if you let's let's just say let's take it to a go go to an extreme what if what if we worked with the other four communities that you served and said you know we're going to create a kind of a municipal district a municipal emergency rescue district so you become very very different than what you are now but it might would that benefit you but we're doing something like that and you might not have looked into it would that preclude you from collecting money from Medicare and Medicaid do you need to be completely independent from any you know government structure no so you don't I mean I'm just curious if that at some point this almost this almost looks like we want to have a kind of a summit meeting with you not not try to patch something up together for you right now but definitely we all need your service your costs are going to can probably going to continue to go up and we and probably if we really looked into doing it some other way would be much more expensive so I think generally speaking my understanding and oppression is is that you're you're providing great service but it you're every year you're you're you're scrambling trying to find and anticipate more funding and coming around to us and looking for more for and maybe a sort of a global restructuring of your organization might benefit and and again that's not meant as in any way as a criticism but I don't know if you've thought about doing something like that not taken that way at all and I very much appreciate the innovative thinking on this I don't think it would prevent us from seeking any other funding right I am not quite sure how that would impact something like our subscription plan but I do think at this point it would be foolish of us not to to investigate all options that that we could do I think it would be great to get all parties in one room to to share and express and and just kind of talk through all of these pieces and perhaps that's something that Peter and I could work on I know right now is a busy time for people but but to maybe start thinking about what what options are out there and I think just further I'm sorry yeah just just to further that I think two things that I'd like to make clear one is you've you've hit on the exact thing that we've taken on over the last 12 to 18 months with which is a recognition that our organizational structure our workforce model is historically proven but not able to sustain future expectations so we have taken on a major internal restructuring both at the board and the operational level and having said that that that is not to say that it shouldn't continue to evolve it it has to we are also a nonprofit organization whose primary goal is serving the community so there's no ego in this situation at all about how we do that we're open to the best methods in order to accomplish that goal and I appreciate you recognizing the overhead that it would require to pursue an alternate means of of starting an agency I'm here because I do still think that this is the best game in town for the services that we provide having said that it's it has to continue to innovate and we're open to and in need of that support so 100% I have a lot of ideas about what you might do but I think I'll zip it up right now and maybe we'll have a more substantive discussion later on. It is Raj, Amber, any questions? None for me. I do not really appreciate their services. Great. Did any members we haven't haven't directly turned anything over lately? Did any members of the public want to ask me questions on this matter? Lori? Thank you for that and I want to ask a question just to give you a suggestion of Lori Hogan. I appreciate the conversation. I did the needed service but I also know the situation to be counseled in so it's great to have this conversation. Colleen touched on Medicare and Medicaid and that is one of the biggest issues. One thing that I think was in the presentation that she did not touch on is that they're not considered an essential service and that's a big problem. So I know as the the legislative delegation we plan to write a letter to our congressional delegation and explain that we need some support in that regard both for Medicare and for essential service and it would be great either a city council would join on or write their own letter to you know to the congressional delegation because without Medicare or Medicaid increasing I do believe we're going to keep having this. Yeah happy to to put that to us to to sign either on to or sign our own if you don't mind let me know what you think would be best and we'll we'll go that fast. Great I appreciate it. Thank you Lori. All right Regina anything you had? Colleen, Peter, thank you for being here. Look forward to our future conversations and continuing the relationship. Absolutely thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Great and next on our agenda we have a discussion and possible action around two Lincoln renovations. Just another small talk. Lots of small topics. Yeah so I think as everybody knows the hope and desires to get everybody over here as of July 1st and really what that means right now is essentially the clerk which is one individual person right now but there are also two other staff people that we're trying to manage in addition to who we have now by July 1. So essentially that means 10 staff the plans that you folks have looked at in the past just so you know as a as a reminder included 13 staff so that would also be a assessor an enforcement officer and a I believe it's the admin staff for for the manager. So we're trying to look at 10 at the moment just to see what exactly we have to accommodate for July 1 and thinking through that trying to figure out what this building can accommodate. The other real hope is that we're not putting staff in the basement. So given that it's it's really not possible in the space that we have without something giving whether upstairs senior center or this this room and then if we lose this room how do we accommodate that. So John and Lynn in his office have put just a couple more plans together. We have also had discussions with staff that's why Harlan is here as well just just thinking through options but but in terms of what would be really helpful on my end from you folks tonight is just some kind of overall direction what what is flexible in the scheme and what's your real hope and desire for this building both near term long term or make the long term happen faster faster and just get to that more quickly. So hopefully that's that's a good enough kind of ground for you to get started. Appreciate that. Yeah I know just quickly some of the things that we've talked about in the past are things like wanting to have a meeting space that can fully accommodate a municipal meeting today it's going well for the people who we have who we have currently there have been times or when we've had more than 15 or 20 people this room just does not function for that purpose anymore and so something that can accommodate a larger group makes sense even in this world of hybrid meetings staff not being in the basement I know with something we've talked about in the past I don't think we've we've said yes no either way but ultimately I'm fairly certain we can say we want to do what's best for the health and well-being of our community including our staff and those who come into the building and so we don't want to have people coming into a portion of the building if there's mold mildew asbestos other things that just people shouldn't be working in other than that we just want to make sure that we can accommodate staff in the way that is the best way possible. I just have I have just one just one question about if I can John in terms of if I look at the very first diagram and I don't think we don't have it up we don't need to put it up one of the questions I had from early on is that we said we're not going to do any renovations to the existing senior center or teen center and I'm wondering how we came to that decision probably obvious but why should we since they're not part of the city government we're just not going to touch them but in looking at the total space and I'm looking at your your big diagram it's almost half of the entire building edifice here is senior center downstairs and teen center upstairs and it and I'm I'm wondering since those organizations moved into those spaces back long ago in the 20th century and they were just allowed to take as much space as they needed and because the trustees I guess weren't using the space so they kind of just spread out and I'm wondering if if we renovated those spaces if we put parentheses around the whole business of not renovating those spaces and said we could do some minor renovation to the teen center and the senior center such that they would lose some of their existing space but the space that they move into would be optimized in other words if they're doing like upstairs in the teen center it looks to me when I've gone up there half of the space is just storage there's just desks and chairs stuck in offices and bags and there's a whole room full of snacks and stuff like that and I'm wondering if you if as an architect if you could go in and reorg look at what they actually need what they actually use what they're actually daily populations are and so forth if you couldn't reorganize if we paid for it if you couldn't reorganize those spaces in such a way that their total footprint could be reduced but we would have more space for city government to move into that's a great question and it and it is leading because we we started our various designs and this is I've been joking in my office is probably the fifth time I've done a study on this building or municipal offices whether it's village or village bus town or town collectively or one entity alone or what have you so I've done the exercise a number of times I know there's a lot of square footage in here that is currently not used for municipal government purposes we have not programmed the teen center or the senior center to see what their ideal size is I'm sure that they would you know like to have as much space as they have now because that's kind of the mentality but but that's an interesting idea that would say well we could maybe trade you some space and your new arrangement would be better you know it might not have as much space but it'd be better I think the biggest unknown is upstairs yeah so our concept and and some of the previous concept tried to use some of upstairs and you know we had a few extra people and then there were some ideas well maybe the some of the major spaces like the meeting room goes upstairs and and that that the rework of the building itself that had to happen to make that come to life was seemed to me a lot you know it's a big lift to do that but you could move staff upstairs in a heartbeat change name on the door to staff office and you know you don't really have to do anything else so that's an easy one if the arrangements can be made with whoever is in all the offices upstairs or whatever they're using them for if you just said look we we need a couple more offices you know let's see what we can do I'm sure that would be productive and fairly inexpensive so so the challenge we've had a couple of different challenges the first one was don't go into those spaces but I think in our you know two or three plans there I think we start to sneak a person or two up into the upstairs offices right if I could just have a dialogue I mean it's when I went up there it seems like the place where the the main the main city office is now where Regina where everybody is upstairs from there that's just one big open room and there's a table and there's some chairs sort of scattered around it and I'm not sure it's actually being used for anything it doesn't look like it is it's just a big I've been uh over the course of the last couple of years we've been up there three four times just sort of checking it out trying to make sure we understood the building right uh and most of the time I would say time I would say most of the spaces were not populated with people right uh there were a few times including the large room where there was something going on and so again I have no idea exactly what their program is or who's there or how many days a week they're they're on site but those are all normal questions that that one would ask a user group about their facility to see what size it should be right and whether they had extra space that they were downsizing or needed more or what happened whatever right and I I mean that's and that's been the the issue with this we started talking about this and then we get on to other things back in February and I was going oh wait wait why why why who said we can't look rearrange the space upstairs or knock down some walls with some of those offices up there and put a few municipal offices up there I understand that it means you have to put an elevator in which but again that's not the end of the world that's a tricky question now I just have to be careful with that one because you actually have the obligation right now today to have accessibility but if you move office to office you know different people up and down as long as that program or service or individual is able to do what they need to do with the public who's coming to the building you didn't change anything from today's expectation that you're accessible to a new arrangement but as soon as you put a major primary function like a meeting room or something else of significance up there that changes the picture so you can rearrange your people you still have the obligation to be accessible at some point you will decide you're doing enough that you want to put the elevator in and at some point you may be required by some challenge to put the elevator yeah I mean I do if you don't mind me just just going I I mean I do wonder if we're saying okay we're we're going to make this the seat of city government for years to come we're going it's a legacy building and we're going to coddle it and take care of it and renovate it it just seems like pretty obvious right now that we would want to make it accessible throughout I try to figure out some configuration like well if we don't do this and we don't do this and we keep this empty and we don't use this space then we don't have to build an elevator it seems like we're right it seems like a really dumb thing to be doing I mean at what point do you bite the bullet and see you if you it's a public building it needs to be accessible throughout the building um and I understand how much that adds to the cost but maybe could you on it on average what will a small elevator in a building like this cost you um you won't be able to put in a small elevator you will probably want to put in the smallest one you're technically allowed to put in but still an elevator okay and it's going to cost you somewhere in the hundred thousand dollar range the hundred thousand dollar plus or minus let's say 20 like the elevator's less but you've got to build a shaft sure we've got some other things to rearrange so we could have one of those fancy glass elevators on the outside of the building that's lit up and you see all of it five corners yeah that would not get us exciting and we can charge people yes maybe five stories tall see that's it you get you charge for the ride there are many options and and i'm putting one outside the building is actually not a bad option right because it preserves the the build okay yeah otherwise you had to cut a hole in it yeah yeah okay but it's not an it's a hundred thousand is a lot but it's not a by any mean in terms of the overall expenditure we're talking about it's not a backbreaker right okay so there's if i can just interject yeah two quick things um in terms of the teen center or in terms of the of sx chips monday's tuesday's wednesday's and thursday's after school that is a teen or tween center where when school ends that upstairs area minus the office space is used by kids after school who run in here like crazy and enjoy the spaces right beforehand it's generally used for for staff to do the things to prepare for and some other other programming but ultimately it would be good to really have this conversation to have christina from the teen center help to inform this process to make sure that we're we're using as much factual information as possible the other thing with the with the elevator um and touching the upstairs spaces our original plans that you provided had those so we we have talked about it so i don't recall saying we can't touch those spaces and i don't think we have talked about not touching those spaces so that's it's on the table i've i've gotten different direction at different study points okay so uh when we had more people and we were trying to do more with the building uh and the elevator was an option uh there was a scheme that had the the meeting space upstairs so that was the definite you know you have to you can't you know make that kind of renovation without the trigger for the elevator so um those are the kind of things that i i think the one piece that miss is missing from the current uh couple of schemes that you have is really the larger meeting room so we took this as the basis we said if we can keep this what does that mean it basically means some staff has to go upstairs if that works out great you know this room can stay the way it is and be as utilized as it is now but doesn't get bigger if you want it to get bigger it really kind of moves somewhere and my preference is to keep it on the main floor somewhere but that has an impact immediately on the senior center and so until there's a resolution to what's moving where can it go what how long term is this uh and and what are the pieces that in play right uh you know that's that's where we stop okay yeah it it again completely um the different different direction i want to get back to this but i just just it might be good to know in in what virginia started talking about is what's the time what's the window for construction um if let's say let's say by the end of this year we have a very firm plan of what we where we where we want to go and it goes out to bid and everything wait what what's the total window for for this kind of a renovation well that is a and i know what we're doing i understand well generally speaking harlan can tell you how many bids we got for the brownhill library re-roofing which seemed to be an easy project and the number is less than desirable uh today but what's going on is the construction industry is very busy you need to give the design side and the construction side extra time to be able to create a project you know just because i put it out to bid doesn't mean anybody's gonna show up it's i've never seen anything like it in 25 years it's been uh you know not quite that tricky but right now uh you know we have to call contractors we have to beg them to look at the drawings we have to really offer it up to them on a plate to try and get their interest because they just frankly are are too busy and they're real trouble as they can't find the adequate subcontractors uh who are who are basically handpicking their jobs now because it's it's a labor issue way down the you know all the way out so um you you could have drawings finished let's say if i hadn't finished like i'm trying to put a a little project for the school district out to bid this month so that maybe i can get it done next summer boy yeah that kind of thing it's not gonna be done and it's yeah so so when when and when we say july one this something needs to be in place because we've got staff moving in july one that tells me that we need to be very efficient at how we do this and and we probably don't want to try and get the elevator and everything else into the the picture that fast it might be possible but i'm i'm not seeing uh you know strong evidence in the bidding community that that they're willing to to jump that fast george are you at a point to take a look to take a break i know roger's been yeah yes oh yeah absolutely sure yeah only if you want to keep going though no no i i um i i just wanted to just before yeah excuse me roger's just just the the the one point i i did want to make is that so we haven't it would be good to have the teen center and chips to get a sense of their population their needs how much space do they actually need um and do you have you know in your your magic magical architectural uh mind do you have is there are there algorithms for saying well it's this activity it's this many people they therefore need this much square footage do you have those you have those kinds of things so if we had a sense of their population in the teen center and in and for and for the senior center what's their average daily population what's their use what's the total square footage you could give a a pretty good estimate of whether yeah we this this is a reasonable space for them to occupy if we can divide it up and condition it the way we need to and let's say for example they have they're using a lot of the senior center is storage well we put some really really nice storage bins in the basement because storage could go in the basement and then that would free up more space that sort of thing you can you can provide that information okay okay thank you roger yeah thanks um so just quick priorities for me because the lot's been talked about already so i'll just give you my my thought process on this it sounds like nothing's going to be quick so we'll probably be dealing with two phases which is a little disappointing but totally understandable um hundred percent for the elevator um i think we really ought to ought to think about with uh because the senior center and the teen center use the space at times that can be shared um for the most part i think we really need to be thinking about how we lay them out how we set them up they might have their own particular spaces but in the middle is some common space they share we have limited you know the community ask us to separate and do this and we have limited space so the other thing we might consider is going to the school board and talking to them about you know getting a conversation about about the teen center with them um i also know the sounds like the school board's interested in increasing multi-generational opportunities for their students they may also be open talking about something around the around the senior center but i think it's going to take some time which i don't know if we have to kind of flesh all that out but i i do think that those two entities can share some space they may still have their own dedicated but maybe somewhere in the middle is a common room that they share um common space is also really hard in this community and we have the cold ward room i can't really think of any other municipal space people can rent except for the the main child care room at ejrp in maple street so as we're thinking about this the meeting room needs to be sufficiently large for a good meeting and we also need to be able to you know service the community as a community center of sorts so you know i think we're going to need a big space for that um i'm hoping we're going to plan on having more employees we're doing this now for a few million dollars a couple million dollars that we're you know creating space at the end of the second phase you know that is expandable and i guess the last thing i'd say which i don't know how popular this is going to be but i think we really need to start thinking about as we welcome more people downtown we really start need to start thinking about a public public facilities you know we have a railroad station renovation that we actually won't own so i don't know if we can impact that design but we can certainly consider some kind of potentially you know exterior entrance for some kind of bathroom facility in this building as we renovate maybe not in the first phase but i think that as we get more and more people down here it's not sure it's fair to rely on the businesses to provide that burden for the people that are spending time here i had a couple things i can't quite remember what they are now but you know i'm i guess i'm all forgetting what we can get getting our employees back over to Lincoln as soon as possible um if we can manage that thank you rash uh amber were there things that you had i think most of my thoughts have been covered i mean personally i i know you mentioned andrew like the the basement i i would prefer to keep the folks out of the basement have that storage as George indicated and for me the goal has always been to to shoot for what our end goal is not to not to do a you know hey we'll do 10 this time and then maybe we'll add a couple of employees the goal is to be at 13 so i think we need to we need to be going for 13 spaces for folks and then some so as rash said you know if we have to do two phases it is what it is but that's that's where i see this going thank you amber right George let me uh so i i want to get uh just to be clear so it sounds like what and regina i think that you're suggesting usage kind of alluded to this so what we're saying is that we want to do one phase one which might be sort of a minor renovation in order because by july we are going to just need to space and so this wouldn't be part of the real permanent rebuild but we're just going to do a kind of a a minor rebuild to make sure we have accommodations for everybody by july 1st next year and then the major rebuild of other parts of the building that would take that's phase two is that is that what you're saying that that was my thinking in the reality of july 1 right and how to make that work okay um it doesn't it's not the only option necessarily um we could certainly be thinking through how to just do figure out our ultimate end goal um figure out how to make that work the reality is just not likely to be july 1 so um there is a second part of this agenda item where we could potentially go into executive session to figure out if there are other lease type options that we need to be thinking through and you know certainly without a doubt big picture if we're doing one renovation that is ultimately cheaper than two renovations so that um that makes some sense it's really more just how do we accommodate this july 1 deadline and how best do we accommodate that and just along that line looking to the experts in the room who do this on a regular basis my assumption is is to accommodate 13 people coming in here the only way we're going to be able to do that is by july 1 is to have there be a smaller renovation to get the bodies in here to to be able to function and that the longer term ideals of things like a larger meeting room things like possibly an elevator so on and so forth those may need to wait for a phase two would that be a factual statement given the economy given the capabilities of labor small project to get people in here as a phase one is probably the only realistic thing to get done by july 1 that that is your best bet however i would characterize phase one as being it can be a lot more attractive than just something to get the bodies in here because you actually space you have and and it's it's more of a reconfiguration it's fairly minor i think it's a really good plan because it allows you to uh to keep going use the space you actually have and i think if you can begin discussions with the utilization of the upstairs offices you're all the way there with with very little renovation that affects fabric of the building which i think if you're to get to your phase two and your long-term goals we've got to really study what parts of the building you're willing to give up or change if any and you know you guys are stewards of this building this is a this is a public building that's been here as in one form or fashion for for a long time it's it is your a namesake building for the community it's a real feature so you want to be careful with the modifications that happen to it and and i think that's what's going to take a little time because there's some movement in these plans towards creating more of a staff area and a public area and i think that's good but uh you know i just did a tour of i just did a tour of the uh state the state capital last night and it was fascinating because they gone they went through all the same questions about how do we keep this old beautiful building a functioning municipal you know governmental facility and essentially a museum for the people right how do you do that and and it's fascinating to see how they've wrestled with that over the years and the things that they've changed so you have a similar situation here where the more municipal activity you're looking to do here the business of of the municipality you need those faces but you also have a public face to to present and and you're you've really got to balance that carefully especially if you're planning on disturbing things and building things so i want to i just want to just say this phase one gives you a chance to get to get our people in here to get to get them working again without uh you know a lot of rearranging especially if you know for example if you put a few people upstairs you don't have to touch this from right so so the discussions on who's upstairs and how does it get used and is it efficient or can we consolidate and share is is a really important one and you know i can help guide that discussion but it's it needs to be the principal players here the people running the programs and and yourselves and it was it was pretty loud and clear to us it loud and clear to me where our community said be an independent municipality have few ties to any other municipality and so as such to fully see that through we need to have this be the center of government and along that line we have tenants who are utilizing to some degree some of the spaces but we've heard loud and clear from the community that we need to make this happen so yes we need to have those conversations with our our tenants to make sure that they then can continue to do some of the great work that they do and at the same time we need to see the community's voice through of providing a hub for municipal government so i only offer that in the it's great to hear that the phase one can be more than just get warm bodies in the building to do the good work that needs to happen but it can be a part of a a broader uh broader improvement yeah and i one of the things that was mentioned as well about not touching the spaces uh like the senior center or the main room upstairs um what i think we talked about is to not improve them for those uses but also i think about things like in that main room for sx2 so when i've had some tours up there and my own child who goes up there there's a giant beam of some kind that is causing some buckling which sounds like there could be some safety issues and so i i wonder as well about do we while we're here make some improvements like that to ensure the long term use viability and safety of this building so we're we've looked at that a number of times i think somebody actually analyzed it before you saw like i'm relatively comfortable that it's not a significant concern although it's it looks odd and there's a column in a very strange spot um i my understanding is that used to be a fire station so the whole bay arrangement is different than what it looks like now but uh one of the photos right across the hall here is or maybe one in the the books that we have it's it shows fire station yes right so uh if the modifications again to this building have been extensive over the years so you could do a lot and still not be completely out of character in the life of the building but uh we just need to be sure that's what we want to do so uh we can analyze anything you want and we know who can can do it but but i i think you're seeing a vestige of some previous life that is still still there yeah gotcha and that was only the 20th century you know yeah so what i think i'm taking away from the the conversation is a general consensus please correct me if i'm wrong counselors to move forward with a phase one of some type to do what we can to ensure july 1st that this can be a functioning municipal hub with that mindset of it being a warm inviting space to the public uh to be that that municipal hub so more than my articulation of getting of getting our staff in the building stopping there but making sure that they have good adequate workspace and and the basement and no is in the real issue with the basement is it just as dampish as many basements are and i so i think part of the conversation should be about some air systems that improve the yes air quality down there whether there's anybody down there or not i mean it still is a decent research and temporary space if you're not assigned permanently to it it should be fine but but air quality uh should be you know we have the tools to do better yeah it should be part of the input i think that's right yeah totally on board with that that was something we talked about in one of our first conversations was about ensuring that the age back system or that the airflow system in general is something that given what we know about air quality COVID concerns things like that that our staff are able to work in as healthy of an atmosphere to breathe in as possible yeah good what else one one question this is probably like a um glass ball not real question that can be answered but um any thoughts in terms of um our ability to get somebody to bid on a project does that go up significantly if we're completely out of the building and they can renovate it uh in a much faster time frame versus if we're trying to accommodate people here and slowly shift um the they like it'll be less expensive for the construction activity and faster if you're not in their way yeah uh so i can't remember what happened when we renovated um the clerk's area last time whether they temporarily set up in some of the other spaces but uh that that happened in a couple of months or something it wasn't very long um and then the mostly cosmetic and new counters and flooring and so forth but um it can be done with you here but it's i mean you have you'll have an expense to move and temporarily set up somewhere but um it can be done good question and certainly if we got as extensive as elevators and major reconfiguration that you would probably want out of the building see rosh yeah go ahead rosh um john is there has there been any kind of this has been a long drawn out conversation multiple times as you said so i apologize for if we've already talked about this has there been any kind of look at sort of future proofing the efficiency of the building and really kind of taking a look if we're having to move h vac i mean are there any steps we should be taking we haven't talked about that are going to add significant expense to to give this all this work a longer lifespan and and and be cheaper to operate it would be a nicer building a lot of those questions come down to the um mechanical and electrical system so um we would want to bring in designers that would handle those trades you know for example the building doesn't have any hollow spots that you can run ductwork so do you create some you know do you take over old chimney shafts i mean there are a lot of ways to do it but but they all require some pretty delicate coordination to avoid being obvious and so so there are many challenges like that with these old buildings that's done all the time it's uh kind of a sliding scale between how much time and energy went into thinking about how to do it in a clever way versus just making it happen and putting in drop ceilings well i guess i guess i'd want to you know try to preserve the character but also make sure that you know again we're sort of future proofing this and and while it may be a little expensive up front you know over the next 10 or 20 years lifespan of some of that mechanical that we're we're saving over time yeah i'm just wondering if that you're doing some mechanical uh certainly mechanical upgrades uh the new newer mechanical systems are evolving very quickly in terms of efficiency and fuel source and so on and uh so we'd want to get get on that and maybe look at the whole holistically at the entire building i think your your heating actually is pretty pretty good down there that has already been redone and it's fairly efficient but the cooling side and ventilation side probably is where the improvements could really stand to be looked at well thank you so it sounds like next steps there'll be conversations with senior center and chips around space needs how to factor that all in is there anything else for today's purposes that anybody needs to continue to move this process forward so we can make july 1st happen good i'll continue to work with regina to get any particulars about what you're really saying about what spaces are good or bad or details on the plants but uh that's that's fine we we can keep going are there decisions you need from us today sure i gave you three plants other than that i think we we have some more just more talking to do okay okay great thank you john again for coming and your work so far i know we're gonna get it right because we've done it so many times yes right the real key is to ask the right questions so that the direction is where you want it to go right and the planning is important to get it done right so we don't want to screw that up right um so thank you for your question tonight they were good um if i need clarification on anything i'll i'll reach out i one last question yeah at all of these plants you show and it's just just curious you show a large seating sitting area around the vault and my question is there's there's actually nothing all of the village of s-exjunction documents are going to stay in the town vault so the only the only documents that will be going into the into the city vault the city vault will be documents that are created as of now and post july 2022 and all of those i'm assuming are going to be digital i have have digital files so they'll at my point is is that yeah it has been do you really need a very large seating area that you could put the terminals for the digital files anywhere in the building and those few older folks or people who insist on having i know i want to see the paper document um did they need that much space what what are your thoughts on that uh i i like those questions because i had the same questions and i think the indications initially were that um there would start to be pages that come here okay uh as of next year and in july or sometime next year of 2024 there's an arrangement where everything up until then stays stays at the town vault and and after that things start to show up here so you're absolutely right the vault's gonna have nothing in it but you know a page or two as i forget how many pages a year that end up getting filled in but yeah the vault itself if that's the the story the vault should be relatively it'll have capacity for a long time to come yes you know if we definitely have to figure this out with susan so she definitely has started city books over there at the town and so they will come and that to me in and of itself means she is still taking paper i think they are also digitized right away and put into a digital system but i think there is still going to be paper but this is definitely a question we've got to work out yeah because that in my mind you know we can look up almost anything now we're all used to saying okay well uh you know i i don't have to be i could be at home i could be anywhere and find what i need but that's sort of a legal question in some ways like what what is the real legal title search person have to see in order for it to be yeah considered valid and you know as so so i would that's something that i think regina and i already identified as as a process that affects space and and you're right if the answer isn't they need to be physically and and in individually supervised by somebody in person while they're holding those documents you know and they're not allowed out there's a space requirement for that yeah if that goes away you're right much more all right any other questions for john i'm good thank you for your time i know this is a lot of work so thank you you're the one doing a lot of work john thank you i think next is the budget one so i don't have the right language yes right yes uh discussion on fiscal 24 budget ideas from city council and updates on earned efforts yeah so um really the main point of this agenda item is to get uh your folks feedback on your ideas and thoughts for FY 24 budget but the memo itself just gives you a little bit of an update on a few things uh just so you can kind of keep those in the back of your mind um to lincoln was one of those um and then in the memo you see a arpa funds balance report just in terms of what's actually been um spent on that and um what has been thought of but potentially not needed for example you had at some point talked about 40 000 dollars your masks that may really not be as necessary moving forward um so that's that amtrak station renovation um we are working on that uh between rick hamlin just and myself um and uh really the what we've got to figure out is a 600 000 match for that particular project um uh finance separation just just a heads up that um so that full plan for finance to be completely separated requires three people so we are thinking that we're able to hire that third person and really get separated quicker more like january one which is great then um this isn't really a current project so much as a we know that this is on FY 24 to start thinking about what we're going to do about a public works facility going going forward all right um so just sort of brief updates on that and really the thought process here is is what is your what are your thoughts about FY 24 needs desires um before we bring the department budgets here i've been speaking first does somebody else want to go first um i i he don't mind i don't know i'm get since i'm live i guess i can jump right in um yeah i i just i just as a side note regina and um the m track station renovation um i believe that there were you know there there was an actual plan and it's not just the renovation is track there's a whole traffic pattern and uh reconfiguration of the traffic and i think that was all part of the package that went with the application for the grant that you and i you probably know that but i'm not sure you do i'm not it is in my inbox i have not digested it yet okay and then i'm i'm i'm very i'm delighted to see that we're going to begin the conversation on on the public works facility upgrade um and i note that andrew got you the copy i i quick and and the only thing i'll say is that um john um did an estimate of the of the the space needs and the the estimated cost was pretty broad it was somewhere between three point like it was like three million to six million so it's a pretty wide window depending on what what needs what we decide on but and it's it's a big leap but it's not huge it's not an insurmountable amount of money but it is leads me to my last point and then i'll let amber and rash talk that's why i i look at those two things and that's why i'm very interested in trying to keep any new costs since we've got so many new moving parts in the with the city and new sources of revenue but great big new expenditures um i'd like to keep personally just my opinion i would like to keep any new expenditures um limit limited as much as possible and just try to deliver some kind of a bit of a tax relief to um our constituents since that's what we promised them and separating from the town we didn't promise them we kind of said that would probably happen the the numbers to maintain the services that were being provided in fy 22 that's as a separate municipalities that there would be a reduction for those services overall yep new things were not at all factored into that and that was one of the cautions of if we want to do anything new then that would not be part of the analysis right that would be a totally external factor that would come into play right and that's why i'm such a curmudgeon about doing any new things right now gotcha roger amber do either of you want to go or you want me to go i think i see amber saying me go i'm not seeing roger's hand up go ahead thank you i guess so i'll go so to go against what george has said around not doing new things um to at least have to at least have an informed conversation um i asked a couple of years ago and it's been asked from the community for years around having proactive uh ordinance enforcement um and code ordinance enforcement in a proactive way beyond just uh increasing the amount of money that we give to our our legal council to have them send letters um in addition to that something that we've talked about george i think it's like six seven or so years ago um but we've talked about having a rental registry yes have we had when you ski come and talked about their process right potentially that can be a way to be cost neutral if it's done in a in a certain way um and at the same time there could be some alignment with code enforcement as well as with a health officer um something that the state has failed to really improve upon for years similar with rental housing registry uh and i don't think we're at a point in time where we can just continue to wait for the state to solve this problem similar we're going to be hearing later on about a housing trust fund but if there are funds that we need to prepare for separating our housing commission to have our own and potentially for our own housing trust fund at the same time something i've talked to a few other committee members about not in the council but just on other committees having training dollars for our committee members to attend various trainings to help them improve their own capabilities to help serve our community uh and theoretically if we all wanted to attend trainings i don't think we've ever really had the conversation about how to do that other than hey this thing from BLCT came up so potentially having some dollars for our committee members council members regardless of where they are to be able to take advantage of some training to help improve their public service um um the other thing that we also haven't talked about in a long time is the fire department building as well uh is similar not as bad as the public works building but certainly is not something that's um can really continue for uh the next 20 years as i understand it and so having some level of conversation with uh with chief gaborio in the fire department around should there be some planning for fiscal 25 26 on design and when to really start that process in this in this case interfered just mind me just as i i agree with the code enforcement but i'm just curious if that should be part of an expanded community development office and if we look around at other municipalities of our size they all have larger community development offices we've been getting by with a two-person operation for years um so i would i would i'd support that i think it's a good idea but i'm just just a configuration of it i would assume that it would likely be some type of an expansion of the community development department so that that way it's not you know the same person uh approving all of the applications is the same person forcing to separate that duty and that's where there could theoretically be some alignment with that rental registry in some capacity yeah to also look at ways as to help reduce that cost for our community those are my items all right i'll go keep things moving along um i'll say i agree with everything that's been said so far just to move things along um maybe add to the rental registry i've been hearing um i've been hearing from some of our new tenants and some of the some of the stories about what they're enduring and some of the new buildings as tenants um so for rental registry include some sort of inspection or other method for them to seek some redress um or have have an ear and municipality for for some of what they're dealing with i think that would be a good thing um happy to talk to anybody offline about it um trying to think if there's anything else that hasn't been said already but i think the code enforcement's going to be really important um moving forward and and also enough funds in that department not just the salary and benefits to to follow up on some of those um actions because it's as it's been explained to me over a few years it's it's it's one thing to send a letter but if you can't follow it up for weeks or months then it's it's sort of useless um i i guess the only other thing would be you know we have to figure out what our relationship is with the with the joint group that is working on dei work um sx best uh as of now the town funded this year for that group um so i guess you know getting input from you regina um from staff and from the counselors on how they how we want to move forward um you know a lot of that work that's happening in that group right now is looking at citizen advisory boards um for our police department it's been a great conversation chief fogue is is very much involved in that um so how how does that look and what does that work look like i don't want to just drop the dei work um because we separated um so i think that needs to be part of the conversation on budget day or or before um and and you all agree with your training um for committee members and for us um you know we we want to welcome more people to the table and more people to committees and elected office and get some more voices in and different voices and if we can't support that um i don't think we're talking about huge amounts of money but if someone could apply for a small three-figure grant to to to learn something about the committee they're serving on or the board they're serving on i think that's valuable um and we we might be able to start slow with that and see what goes i guess the last thing for ordinance enforcement was we've talked about this a number of times and i think we're going to talk about it again when we review the ldc but i think i think we need a really good look at those fees to help offset um some of that enforcement uh action and really come up to date i think john said the last time we talked about the ldc that they were way behind um and very low compared to other communities so i think that's all i got right now thank you rosh amber it took a lot of my thunder but i agree with everything that's been said the um one thing that hasn't been talked about is the stipends that we did um for committee members and i do want to see make sure that we are continuing to do that moving forward i think that's been significantly beneficial we've seen a lot of new committee members um and i know i've had folks that have said specifically to me on how much they appreciate that stipend um i agree on the code enforcement piece and i was going to say exactly what rosh said about revenue because that's my i'm a broken record and i say this every single year so this year is not going to be any different we always focus on the expense and we never focus on the revenue and so i know we we did just increase fees on the planning side um but even just taking a look at those again um costs have gone up everyone or everyone is increasing fees um i always i always use the example um just because it's one that i i'm thoroughly familiar with um you know we charge $50 to get a zoning compliance certificate to to issue that to a person who's selling their house and we're sending an employee out to that house to do an inspection are we recouping any at $50 granted we just increased it from $25 so we are seeing you know some benefit of that um but just thinking about thinking through those kinds of things um in the fee structure thank you amber great great uh great thoughts anything else any questions or Gina i don't think so that is super helpful um i would like to get a little bit more information from folks and i don't need it right now um about when you when you meet when you say code enforcement and what's not being enforced i would i would love to hear specifically what that means so but don't need that right now but um unless you're ready to to get me some specific right now i'm sure i'm sure we could all give you a novel so yeah i mean we're meeting with you individually right so maybe be careful what you ask for well i'm happy to to share one just for the the community who's who's listening either physically here or remotely um there's uh a dumpster for instance from a construction project where uh whether the construction project is still continuing or not the dumpster has historically been in a place where it should not have been um and has been there literally for six to eight months uh and it took a community member to say to us hey this has been going on for a while can somebody enforce it and it's that kind of thing where we shouldn't necessarily rely on our community members to have a concern or express a concern uh to ensure that the rules are being followed you know another another example is my neighborhood on one street as i think maybe now 10 cars on two properties that that are unregistered junk uh five or six of them maybe four or five of them up against an impaired stream for over 10 or 15 years um just you know that kind of there's a there's a property on west street there's a couple properties on west street um just just a way to to have someone that can receive these calls and you know research whether it is actually an issue and try to follow up with the landowner to work with them to see if there's a way to to to correct any possible you know potential issues and if they're not willing to rectify anything then to follow up further i think we're also welcoming you know we're also welcoming cannabis and that's taking up an enormous amount of time it'll it'll smooth out i think right i think we'll get into a rhythm with that just like everything else but um yeah that's the point rajas you just hit upon it's when we want somebody here to take the phone calls it's going a step further we want somebody to be proactive and driving down pearl street see the number of violations of the ldc and stop and say hey you know you do recognize that sandwich boards are a temporary thing they're not a permanent thing right we've got that kind of situation yeah along that that line is a slight aside with sandwich boards something that again a previous iteration of this board had talked about was do we offer a municipal sandwich board yeah where there might be a fee associated with it but it would allow for some additional um additional opportunities to be out longer or or something along that line had been floated around as another way of not just looking at the expense side but as a revenue potential revenue thing well isn't it help service the community isn't it sort of up to the property owner if they have more businesses than the sign they originally applied for i mean shouldn't the landlord be coming back and applying for a larger sign if they've added businesses to these places because i think a lot of them for instance on pearl street are because i mean they're out there because there are no there's no signage for them there's no space on the commercial sign that's been that's been put out on pearl street and i'm thinking of i'm not going to say what i'm thinking i don't i don't think that's it i don't think the sandwich the sandwich boards are out for advertisement purposes they're not out for for signage purposes right well i mean the donut place does too on pearl street it has no sign because it's behind and there's no room on the post office plaza so that's you know that's that's the only that's the only it's advertising but if glenn if the property owner increased the size of his sign and put that business in a sign or her sign then that you know it's just just one of those yeah that's the other incorporated because nobody's been out there doing anything about it right the other three sandwich boards that you can stand in front of that sandwich board and throw a stick at are all advertising though right i think the question is that if we have a sandwich board ordinance right and and it's never enforced and what's the point of having the ordinance right correct but then how much of that do you want to do right so that's that that's that was just an example george just an example i could think of a whole lot of other ones but if we have other specific examples um then yeah let's send them to regina uh would you say by the end of this week is a reasonable time or do you need a deadline i i don't need a deadline it's this this is not going to be a simple yep solution uh that is solved immediately but it would be helpful really in thinking through for f y 24 budget purposes so it does not need to be immediate but um uh yeah sounds like a problem exactly all right well thank you for those ideas that's really helpful thank you regina uh i believe the next item on our agenda is a discussion and potential action on tree farm management um as is outlined in the memo and i would just reiterate i really think it would be important for our board to have this conversation executive session so are we okay just continuing on with the rest of the agenda and then doing the executive session at the end yeah i'm fine great yeah so into the consent agenda i'll move that we uh approve the consent agenda second thank you george thank you amber is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi those those opposed please say nay unanimously and we will move into the reading file as well as board member comments one of the things just to to point out again uh the all hazard mitigation plan that teeny tiny little document um that if anybody is having any uh any sleeping issues please take a read uh just to get that out there sooner rather than later um because it will be coming to us for our next meeting correct yes yeah and we have to have it memorized right absolutely there is a quiz at the end oral presentation um i do have one update on that uh they have changed us to city of us exjunction brad luck is no longer manager for the town um and so there are we've made some improvements there so yes it's it's good to know i never talked about this there's a lot of frustration i appreciate hearing that um it also just wanted to point out the the permit amendment for the 92 to 100 pearl street also to make that plug for the cswd uh warning on the bond vote for the recycling facility and to also just explicitly state for anybody listening uh that is not a proactively mailed out ballot and so you must request that you can do it through the secretary of state's office you can contact susan mackamara hill our clerk uh to request that ballot otherwise you will need to uh to show up to votes um either at the high school or through early voting and then uh something that i didn't mention at the end of our last meeting uh was just the appreciation on junction jam again i don't think we had the opportunity to appreciate this staff who really helped to put that on yeah uh so uh ashley harlin brad i know that there were a slew of other people who were who were significantly involved in the planning the execution really appreciate that it was a fantastic event really appreciated being there from what i understand it was certainly the first day was very well attended from what i saw and experienced i would love to just see an updates at some point in time around how the how many of the vouchers end up being used instead of curiosity but to the staff thank you again also to the the volunteers who helped over the years to plan that thank you all and on that when i see hamber hamber hamber's hand is up because i don't think we talked about ordinance is enough tonight i thought i would uh bring up again the trash ordinance and i would really like an update on that at the next meeting or the meeting thereafter because i feel like we've had this conversation multiple times and regina obviously this is the first time you're you're probably hearing this but um we we passed a revised noise ordinance to not allow trash i'm not going to get the right word for it but basically them using their the truck before seven a.m and uh i i know personally i'm still hearing it at six o'clock and earlier so in the downtown core so i'm not sure where we're at with that and um um the level of communication we've had with the trash haulers the the um the larger trash haulers etc georgia roge anything i'm good no i'm also thank you all right does anybody have the executive session motion andy we're gonna ask you'd think by now i would have it in a piece of paper oh wait i got it i got one you got it yeah i'm just gonna do both motions at once um i'll i'll move to find the premature general public knowledge regarding contracts associated with the tree farm recreation facility would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage because the council risks disclosing its negotiation strategy if it discusses the contract terms of public i further move that we go into executive session to discuss contracts under the provisions of title one section three one three a one other remote statutes and to negotiate two yeah and to negotiate or secure real estate purchase or lease options under title one section three one three a two other remote statutes and to include virginia mohoney brad lukin harlan smith i'll second thank you george any discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed please say nay great so that's passed unanimously thank you all uh i'd like for us to just stay in the room here i think it'll just make it easier yeah we'll take a few minute break though um i at the ends i are we're gonna make a motion to approve of anything do you think possibly no we just have feedback yeah yeah all right um so then yeah we won't come back into the public session afterwards so thank you all have a good night in terms of uh that portion the zoom though we have control of zoom through this computer here right yes okay so if i shut this down and either you see or you know i should be like okay so all i could test that out now i can move too well yeah great yeah we'll just have i still see it perfect yeah there might be some audio yeah five and a break we need to figure out some what audio things but okay i'm gonna i'm stopping recording