Okay. Hello everyone and good afternoon. Thank you for the coming my sessions and I'm glad to see you in face-to-face the conference. During the COVID, we continue to develop the HGL. However, there is no chance to explain to our activity. But today I want and introduce to the activity using Linux container in the HGL community. This is today's topic. At first of all, I will introduce myself and background of the HGL and instrument cluster activity at first. And second, this is the main topic of today's session. I will explain about Linux container. Third, we tested a feasibility study using this container and the HGL. So I will introduce and explain what happened. Fourth, I explained the issues and this result. Finally, I conclude. So my name is Harunov Kurokawa. I'm working in UNICEF Electronics Compilation. I live in Tokyo. So I worked for over 10 years during UNICEF. I'm working as an embedded software during that first, the mobile platform in the Japanese domestic future front. And from 2013, I worked to start the working Linux and open source community for automotive development. So from 2016, I started the HGL development. And now I'm interviewed the BSP developer and provider to the HGL. And I'm now the reviewer and asset member. That is the system architect teams. And so the latest, I joined the instrument cluster expert group from 2019. So this is the background of about HGL. So HGL, this is the HGL development policy. So HGL and we collaborate and aim to rabbit development for automotive software. So policy is code first and upselling first and unified code based. Unified code means that we are together all of the software from the open source. It means the reuse and create the product, not only their own, so new software. The final target is the product. So we are framed to the product readiness and development. So this block diagram is just reference software component layers. There are several layers. The upper side is the application using the reference as the HGL component services. And the framework service layer, the bottom layer is the OS and the kernel driver in the sole. So this stack is basically open source. The HGL target is this integrate and creates the product for the automotive areas. However, current HGL is mainly focused IVI. So last previous block diagram is basic six on the infotainment component. So now we would like to, next target is a new, we want to create a new profile to next to IVI. So we are target is create the cluster profile. So we will, we are developed cluster profile platform of course based on Linux. So we are continue to discuss to how to create the cluster software so architectures. So policy is two point. We are not only focused high end model as well as low cost model. And we are forked and reused original from UCB. So we are create variable platform from UCB and combine and new create the new product. For example, low cost model is using only the low cost cluster. High end model is using provide from the high end IVI, high end cluster and ECSOCs. So several profile is provide many kinds of platform. So that ICEG cluster expert group was launched 19th. So however, how to create the IC cluster profile? But there are many issue and many puzzle in the automotive system. There are different future in between IVI and cluster. For example, IVI need to require the repeat innovation or various function. Rapid innovation means the most of application is basically so the IVI require new feature and it was installed. And develop viewpoint is a limited short-term development phase. And if we have to find the bug, quickly rapid bug fix is required. And of course IVI is required to summarize the entertainment of futures. So many future is required. So many pre-installed application is required. And after release, some application was from installed. By the way, so the cluster is very, very different from IVI. So cluster side is required, very quality management is required. So for example, full pass coverage testing need to high quality. And formal verification is required. And even if the big fix find the bug, but need to take care of the query bug fix, not laboratory. And not only the cluster requires the selected future only. For example, first boot up and combinational verification is selected. So in order to resolve these many issues, so ICG may but approach to using the need to isolate method. So now we select is a Linux container technology to separate these items. So IVI and cluster are different. However, if we are running on the one SOCD, we need isolate. Then we select it. It's a background of this concept. Next I introduce the Linux container. So Linux container is as famous as called LXC. So LXC is a system level virtualization software. LXC provides container. This container includes shared library inside container software. And also multiple application is inside in the container and running. So it means it's most similar as OS system level. And LXC is a user space interface for support the Linux container maintenance. And so multiple container is running on the single kernel. It's the main point in this session. So for example, container can copy from another operating system and it running on the single kernel. So that inside the container, container does not have own kernel. So multiple containers share one single kernel. And LXC has a future. So the main future is the future. So from using the set root, so it can isolate several root files system. And she groups is the main topics. So LXC can control the resources, CPU or memory or so on. And name space. So some high resources is another container. So that separate the isolate and separate the other systems. In addition, LXC is easy to use the embedded future environment. So the user can only go to the Linux BSP. It means if user want to use, no need additional virtualization driver into the kernel. So that user can available enable to the necessary kernel configuration. So it means most of the BSP is based on the Linux version of LXC. So LXC is already using LXC. And the user space viewpoint. Yacht recipe is already supported in the meta virtualization layer. So very few lines are added following the description in the host site. Then you can use easily LXC your system. So license is LGPL plus answer 2.1. So using LXC, so we can separate the IVI and the cluster. So we can select a root file system. Because IVI is using reused build by standard software from the existing IVI. So it can be changed after product release to upgrade to the product, upgrade function to the market. In cluster site, build high quality and achievements software. So basically keep to the one system to the product. So no change after product release without pre-fight bug fix. So Linux container can provide these isolation mechanisms in automotive use cases. This is just roughly example for multiple container use case in automotive. As I explained the IVI and cluster, basically so to main topics. Additionally, we can create and separate additional container. For example, so the left side, I described the web browser. Browser is a very, very heavy and high end system in the automotive use case. So to keep the container site, cluster, resources, then, for example, web browser only uses limited resources, CPU or memory, to isolate the block. LXC can block the cluster site container resources. And IVI and any, sorry, so because of the, we can separate the container, we can upgrade and separate each container one by one. Then in automotive use case, LXC is a fix acceptable. From this point, we are debug for the feasibility study using the LGL use case. So several years ago, we start to investigate using existing LGL profile. LGL profile is already created as IVI and cluster for the reference. And this, we selected based on the CES 2020 mechanism, demonstration mechanism. So three years ago, we demonstrate existing LGL to profile. However, each profile used the one, each SOC, IVI side using the RKH3 and cluster side using Raspberry Pi 4. So it's separated and needed to hardware. So our investigation, so we are trying to unify the one system to a container using the one running on the SING SOC. So we selected, try to using the RKH3 single board. So how to find the good or bad point? So as a result, we can easily to create the mechanism. So good point is we can just, as I said, just install LXC into the host system. So of course, we need to, several related settings is needed, but it just relax container running on the, and launches each system, IVI and cluster side on one single board. And of course, we can set the amount, get the root file system and using LFSC configuration. And developer viewpoint, application side, we don't need to modify application, separate resources and any settings each side. It both gets container reused existing the LGL profile. For example, LGL application is specific and special API using. However, it's already inside LXC container inside, so that we can reuse to easily to the new system. So for example, API application requires app ID or layer application framework, API or layer management is needed. So user needs to select and each layer and control and management inside. And there is two, several different containers in each system. However, it's not conflict in the single SOC. Then we can run each, both IC and IVI system integrate one single, one SOC. And next one, its reboot is very, very fast we can find. So for example, we can compare system reboot and container reboot. Left side, the system reboot is used. Right side is container reboot. It reboot only the IVI. So this system reboot takes over 30 seconds. However, container reboot only the five seconds. Container site, no need, no any optimization. So as that is using the original LGL. So let's start the movies. Go. Three, two, one. Right side is already rebooted. This system is running a keep, kernel site is a keep. So that only the container site rebooted. However, system site is as well as known, so all rebooted. Then kernel is restart. System already restart. And container site is restart. So there are many hopes. Then heavy. So there are very different point in the container and normal case. However, not only the good point, there are several issues occurred. So main topics issue is DRM issue. So in NVIDIA's viewpoint, peripheral or some resources required, so shared. So DRM device access is a main big issue occurred. For example, container use cases, each container require need to each display. IVI have one display. Cluster also one display. So cluster, each system require the compositor and display accesses. However, DRM device is controlled by only one process. So this container inside is a waste land compositor. We are not compositor running on the other process. So in the kernel view point, there are two, another different process is controlled and access to the kernel DRM device. However, DRM master is only assuming compositor. Then secondary compositor cannot access and cannot show the displays. In demo use cases, we decided to hack the use of nested backend compositor. We called it waste land backend compositor. So it means there are three compositor inside. Each container and host side. The fact happened. Host read it when the compositor and in addition, the several library is required. Then host side, five system is huge. And the cluster, sorry. And cluster view point. Cluster need to keep the rendering and not affect the other system. However, the nested compositor is strongly affected another system, hosted rendering or IVI side rendering. And then boot up cases, boot up sequence case. Cluster compositor is waiting for the host side compositor. Then need to wait time. Then it's not a good approach for this. So how to resolve these issues? We decided and create a DRM manager. So IGEC, we select and develop, create DRM manager. DRM manager supported realize multiple containers. It bases using DRM, DRM, kernel futures. So basic design is master side. Master is created and this from the host side. And these resources release each container side. Then container compositor can control resources each display. Then both container can access independence, independence. So each displays. It's a data flows. This manager opens the device as a master. And if request from the container side, this manager releases the resources. Then each container where compositor can access like directly DRM back end. So now current status was this DRM release manager. DRM release manager is already supported from HGL. And not only that, more DRM client can access same time. So additional future, dynamic transition future, it means one DRM client can transition another process to the same one displayed. It's already supported. And this configuration file is not only how the first release is harder coded. However, latest in the latest activity, so we can create the configuration file easily to select the kind of the display is required and mapping to the fetch kind of the container. The container and display is mapping by configuration files. And this future is described in the documentation in the HGL. And latest needlefish is already supported. And second one, second issue is occurred in the HGL application framework. So HGL is required supported API. This API provides, is called service library. So HGL service is provided HGL future to application. However, this future is closely with LSM. Previous HGL strongly combined is SMAC. SMAC is used in order to use protect from the un-starting application. So security viewpoint, it is a very important point. However, it's because of this future in force, it needed to install and share some database. So previously, so HAC viewpoint, host needed to should install to the SMAC level and database in advance. It means we should mount SMAC level and the database and shared from each both container. It means the isolation is broken. So all and in advance, we need to install the container information in the whole society. Then it's very difficult to the container upgrade after product release. So that it is just a demonstration case, but need to resolve its issues. So however, so current HGL switch to the HGL application framework and SMAC use case. So product viewpoint, we select the, HGL select the S3 Linux use case. So now already in this year already set to the SMAC to the S3 Linux. So we can use a new future in the LXC container activity. So it can try to using the latest HGL, 14 NINDIRFISH. So it's already supported LXC, so that we try to integrate and exchange each parameter, each container of your system. First of all, I try to integrate, I try to integrate the LXC container. It is just a HGL feature, S3 Linux features inside only the whole site. And create a bit back from each system. Only add the idea with future. And other future no need to create and modify to create, to support running to running on the LXC. It's just two line is added. And S3 Linux almost so similar, need to share to the information, so amount, entry is required, only one line is added. So it's just two line is added. And we need to share to the information, so amount, entry is required, only one line. As a result, we can combine to, sorry, I can running on the latest HGL profile. Currently, HGL have four separate different profile for IVI. Most simple IVI is provide from ICEG. It's just simple application inside. Very, very light demonstration container. Qt IVI is very famous for the HGL. It means legacy IVI for HGL. The future we create two different new HMI. One is HTML5 profile. It's running based on the Chrome and based on the HTML framework profile. So last one is the new future, Flutter. Flutter is the latest activity in the HGL. So HGL is contributing, we are contributing the Flutter profile. And now, newly, HMI framework. And almost done the fourth profile, HGL is inside. So we select a success to combination for IVI and cluster. We can exchange for container at the same time and exchanges. In HGL booth, we are demonstrate exchange the profile. So the demonstration is just Qt and switch to the Flutter was simple NABY profile. So please go to the HGL booth. So we can explain this activity. And also the similar demonstration, almost same demonstration, demo is ex-habit. But in the booth, we explain the HTML5 profile. So we collaborate with us contribute the activity in the futures. So the status was the cluster profile. So historically, so we are step by step, we are the cluster LXC future and release to the HGL. Initial release is from LAMPRE. In this version, it supported only LXC, some software. So we only display on single display. Second is the marine. It was merged in the DRM release and similar in futures. So we can launch the two displays and separate the container. And third release supported a new hardware. HGL difference hardware is provided in the Panasonic and so on. This hardware is supported and merged in this year. So finally, just working in progress, we will contribute the latest activity into the HGL and demo code for the future. Please wait that much and contribute in the HGL. So if you want to create and test these futures, please contact me or you can contact me. Next, access to HGL documentation. HGL documentation described to the future. As I mentioned, most of the future is based on the IVI. IVI supported QM last part and so on. So you can use and check easily from HGL document. You can build IVI demo, HTML, Flutter, and so on. And the cluster IGP point, our member creates an example of the setup, not only the build, and set up a method in the HGL documentation. For example, what kind of equipment needed for demo to display? How to connect some equipment and board? So this documentation already described, you can use what and create these LXC demonstrations. Please contact this URL. Finally, it's conclusion. So we selected LXC for automotive system as system container because we want to use it, isolate both IVI and cluster root file system. And LXC can separate and other IVI and cluster and other profile select, separate to control resource usage. So we tested and easily studied. We understand it is easy to upgrade and exchange containers. It is a right way to upgrade the file system instead of the system. And easy integrate additional IVF profile for the demonstration. So future work, we will add other peripherals, devices for embedded system, sound video, and so on. It's a specific issue in the embedded and automotive use case. And we will develop another future container like plaza and so on to because high load container. And finally, we wish to develop more systematic isolation mechanisms using other RTOs, open source RTOs inside in the AGL or collaborate with another Linux project. And it's just last slide. So one more message from you. We are create a new account. Automotive Great Linux JP account is opened last month. So we will help anyone's questions about AGL in Japanese, not English. So it's a localised activity, but we want to help to the many newcomer to coming to the AGL activities. For example, what is AGL? How to join development called or so on in each event? How to run AGL? Difficult, which is better to how to run? And what is the most important future, interest future in the latest AGL? So many, many issues is occurred, but question is you have, however, there is no approach is inside. Then we are create a new account in the Twitter. So please follow the account right now and let's join and develop AGL with us. That's all. Thank you. Any questions or advice? There are three questions. In term of development of a new IVI container, any idea on how? Sorry. And for the Linux system we use the LXC. LXC is a normal future, not only the AGL component, then no need to modify from into the LXC. We can just use inside AGL, no need to modify. Sorry. It's a time up. Since later I will answer these questions. Thank you.


I see the trustees here, so I will go ahead and call the village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees meeting to order for Tuesday, March 23rd. Mr. Manager, can you go over the agenda additions for tonight? Any changes? All right, what do we have? Yes, sure. We have just to add, to discuss the annual meeting, the upcoming annual meeting, and also the informational meeting that would go ahead of that, but. Great. Do that as a, make that as 5D and have the existing 5D move down one to 5D. Trustees, any other additions or changes? So point of order, just because I wanted to say that. Wow. Uh-oh, I'm gonna get my game face on. So I was questioning whether we should be removing the appointment from the consent agenda and moving and having an actual vote on it. Yeah. Because I don't recall ever having an appointment be in the consent agenda. That's a good point. Yes. Very good point. Yeah, we should. So how, yeah, we can do that. Has anybody, I assume that Steve is not here looking down at the attendance list so far? No, he's, sorry, go ahead. He's not because you already interviewed him. He's the one that then, yeah, so exactly. He was told that he didn't have to. So then how about, why don't we make that one 5E so that would follow the annual meeting thing and then after that, then we can get to the executive session. Does that sound good? Sounds good. Great. Any other additions or changes or point of order? I really would like to come up with another one, but I don't gotten a point of order. Can't use that too much, you know. This is a calling, then. All right, so why don't we have a motion to amend the agenda? So moved. Second. Thank you, Roger. Yeah, Amber Beach. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, so pass unanimously. Thank you. That brings us to public to be heard. And so this is a portion of tonight's meeting where if there's anything that anyone from the audience would like to bring to the board's attention, now is the time to do so. And so if you are using Microsoft Teams, please raise your hand or type into the chat feature that you wish to address the board. And then I will be sure to call on you. And if you have called in, please be patient and I'll get with you after Microsoft Teams. So go ahead and raise your hand or type into the chat feature if you wish to address the board. Okay, I'm not seeing any hands. There's nothing in the chat. I see we have a someone who is calling in. If you wish to address the board, whoever that is on the phone, please go ahead and do so. Nobody has the voice that they wish to speak to the board about something that is not on the agenda, no hands, nothing in the chat. So we can go ahead and move off from public to be heard and go into business item five A, the consider approval of street vending permit for Mr. Dingling Ice Cream. Marguerite Evan Herb. I'll be, I guess I'll take this. Oh, sorry. I was trying to find where my dear screen thing was, but it disappeared. Well, what? Do you want to take this one, Marguerite? Yeah, sure. I got it. Sorry. Let's see if I can get it to show up. But essentially, yes. And I think actually Mr. Hathaway is on the line here if you have questions, but this application, you had this last year as well, but this is for this summer. I think I found the share screen. Here we go. And essentially it is the same as last year's just approving or requesting approval of the certificate to serve ice cream in the neighborhood. And with COVID restrictions, you had spoken with him last year. So we just invited in here just in case you've had similar questions this year. Thank you. The only question that I had was the certificate of insurance that was received, correct? Yes. And that's, I thought so, but when I saw that the box hadn't been checked, I just wanted to make sure that that is what that preceding document was. Okay, great. Harry said she had it, so I think we're all good. Great. And I remember last year we had some concerns about the ability to follow COVID guidance, especially during the point in time when COVID was so new. My only concern is as long as the social distancing is adhered to and that they do their best to follow the social distancing and state guidelines. That is my only concern.  I was just gonna piggyback on your comment about the certificate of insurance. And I agree, I think the proposed motion had language about following guidelines and stuff. I would only add that the insurance expires on April 1st. And so I'd ask that you provide a new insurance certificate immediately thereafter or soon thereafter to the village. We did fact a new certificate of insurance for 2021. I assume that's Mr. Hathaway. I just, I assume that is that Mr. Hathaway speaking? Yes, I'm sorry. I've never done this before, so. I'm pretty sure you guys received the new insurance, certificate of insurance from us. The document that we have in front of us that is provided to us by staff shows that it expires on April 1st of 2021. Staff, do you know if something has been received that is beyond that date? Oh, that's all I have right now. So I can, we can work with Terry, but that's all that I have, yeah. Okay. Yeah, if it's a problem, I can, I can have the company, the insurance company fax over another one just to make sure. Okay, great. We can work on that. And I don't mind moving forward with approving of this with the caveat that's the insurance be carried beyond the insurance be updated.  Yeah, no, I mean, I'm just gonna say, why don't you make the approval just conditional on receipt of the new, if they haven't received it yet, just make approval and conditional on receipt of the new certificate. That sounds like you're ready to make that motion, George. Okay, just had it up here. I will make a motion that the trustees to approve the 2021 street vending permit or is it Mr. Dingeling? Should I say Mr. Dingeling ice cream? Yes. With the understanding that all state guidance regarding COVID-19 protocols will be followed and unconditioned that a new 2021 insurance certificate be received by the village office. And is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, George for doing that. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Great, passed unanimously. Thank you. And so again, we just do wanna make sure that you are able to follow the COVID-19 protocols to help ensure the safety of everybody in our community. We know you did last year, so keep it up, please. All right, thanks a lot. I can get them to fax over another certificate of insurance tomorrow. Thank you. And that will bring us to business item 5B to consider an approval of easement to Green Mountain Power on Park Terrace in Park Street. Robin? Hi, this is pretty standard operation. They have lots of easements throughout the village. What it actually does here is it resolves a problem for the three street project. It takes out an existing pole reduces the need to put an additional pole in on Park Street, which will make the streets get much cleaner. Sidewalk won't have as many poles and it'd be easier for people to walk there. It's going, you should have the diagram. It's going across the road, it's going down Park Terrace into a cabinet that's already there as part of the parking area for Pearl Street. So if this gets approved, then very quickly the three Maple Street project will be able to actually switch on the electricity at the moment they're using the temporary electricity and they're still using generators on site and it's getting a bit late in the construction for that. So it'd be great if this can get approved and they can move forward and we can move forward also with the 11 Park Street, it won't have a pole outside it and that'll just make the streets get but the extra 10 feet they gave us just more pleasant for residents. Thank you, Robin. Sorry, I should say maybe in the memo I can't remember that this is also the sort of agreement we're going to have with GMP over the connector road. It's exciting, it's exciting, frankly. I know the aesthetics of seeing the utility poles versus having them vary is starkly different. Also less problems with weather, sorry Andrew also less problems with weather than nothing's going to blow them over if they're not there. Right, right. But I'm thinking about even communities like Rafton where they have all of their lines underneath helps to really just make the streetscape and the overall community feel much different. The visions, the aesthetics are so much better by having them underground. Yeah, totally agree. Trustees, any questions, comments, concerns? Amber? I was just going to say, I think that's also consistent with the LDC and the intent to vary everything. No, absolutely. Thank you. I mean, in that sense, are there other, well, never mind. I was going to ask if there were other opportunities that we could attach to this, but no, it was a dumb question and it's way too complex for that. So let's just move on. I didn't say anything. Well, if you'd like to make sure that everybody understands it, we can go down that road. I'm good. All right. Thank you. So trustees, are there any further comments on this or would somebody like to make a motion? I will make a motion that the trustees to approve the easement with Green Mountain Power which will enable the streetscape on Park Street to be cleaned up and enable the three Maple Street project to come online with a permanent electric connection. Second. Second. Amber, beat you to that one. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Okay. They're passing unanimously. Thank you everybody. Evan, hands up. It's not necessarily related to this, but while we have Robin here, Robin, is there a timeframe when this sidewalk on Park Street is going to be re-established? Right? June, July this year, Evan. I was actually, I was a bit late at the meeting because I was talking to the developer at 11 Park Street and he was asking about maybe having a little event for the opening of that building with the trustees. Oh, fantastic. Sure. I was just wondering when they were going to re-establish that sidewalk since it's still closed and it makes people go around it. And while we don't condone people walking in the street, they are doing that. So the sooner, the better, please. Thank you, Ducky. Thanks. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Evan. And that will bring us into item five C about creating committee, about merger alternatives. So, I don't know, Marguerite, did you want to? Either way, whatever you like, I can do this. Yeah, so I just, this was just after your meeting two weeks ago now, maybe three, depending. This was just, this was brought up looking into what it would be like or what it might be to create a committee to study alternatives. And so these working with staff, these are some of the questions that came up in order to help, that should be answered to help form a committee that would be conducive to getting stuff done and doing what you may ask it to.  And wanting to make sure the committee is effective. These were the questions that we came up with for you all to discuss and to consider. And then Andrew also had some thoughts and I can share that here on the screen as well. If you want to talk about those, Andrew. Yes, I think that would be a good place to start at least as this answers most of the questions. So first portion, you can see the mission that I offered. I feel that that had, that aligns with what I had discussed at our last meeting when I brought this up. So why don't we go through this, I guess point by point trustees, do you at the spirit of it feel that that mission is what you would like? And by silence, I'll take that as it all sounds. Andrew, can I make a comment? Yes, I hope so. I think the last time we talked about this, I mentioned that on the governance subcommittee that we formed with the town, we did many, many hours. We, and I mean also with staff, did many hours researching municipal charters and all the municipal, lots of stuff around the formation of different types of government in Vermont and what the possibilities are. And I'm gonna hold up, here's a prop. See this great big thick book and we paid for this and it's all here. And a lot of the stuff that you're tasking this committee to do, they might want to look what's in here because they would just be reinventing the wheel on some of this stuff. So they may want to look at it. I'm just offering that up. I would greatly appreciate that and would hope that they, that the committee would. When I had thought about this and if there's a way that I can best or that this could best be articulated within this document, please let me know. I would want this committee to be able to take that high level governance scenario and drill that down to what does that mean for public works, for EJRP, for the library, so on and so forth. What would that mean so that that way when our community makes a decision about where do we go from here? It is one based upon not just the governance but also then the departmental impacts. So that way we can, as a community best understand what that would tangibly mean to us. Okay. I see Amber's got her hand up. Right. Just one question about timing. It sounds like you're, well, it looks like the mission is targeting those legal, the legal governance. And we are not expecting that we're gonna have an opinion as to, from council, as to what potential legal alternatives there are for several weeks. We'll have a good start at that in a, later on tonight actually. Okay. And so it's not doing necessarily the legal research as we have legal counsel and attorneys to do that work but it's to take that and bring it back down into the, what does that mean for the community and for departments? Raj. I think we need to include something in the mission statement. And I don't have the words with me right now but that articulate the goal. I mean, we just say we want an alternative governance model but what's the goal? You know, I think in my head it's, I'm not even, we want out of a situation where we don't have tax equity and that where we're paying money to an entity that's not providing some service I think is, so if we, I think we need to give this committee a goal as their or a framework for when they're looking at these alternative situations to judge them by what that goal, how they achieve that goal. So if it's, and I hesitate to, you know, is that resulting in a lower tax rate for residents and businesses? Is that providing consistent levels of service without raising the tax rate? So otherwise I'm not sure how they would assess the options that they're gonna come up with in terms of how they would work for us. So I kind of feel like, and maybe I'm the only, it's fine if I'm the only one without I can, but, and the second what George said, the thing that worried me about this committee was that just the sheer breadth of time that was taken to get to where we are, to have a charter before the last six months. I'm glad we have the research, a lot of that done, but I think that the timing and the coming up to speed portion of this might be extensive for folks. And I'm a little bit concerned about that too. So those are just my thoughts right now on that, sorry. No, it's okay. I believe I put a timeframe in here to have this done like June or July or something like that. And that is a very condensed time period. And it is a big ask. I think, yeah, by July 27th. So when we talk about an outcome or a goal, I guess, what do you, so for me, it's not to lower taxes. It is not to, it is not for that. It is to be able to, when we think about the level of services we currently have in our community, what would be necessary to do that within these scenarios? So with separation, for instance, what are the office space impacts for needing to bring new staff in? Are there other buildings that we need? Do we need to just renovate a building? How many staff do we need to hire? What, those types of questions, just getting into that level of detail. And I don't know how best to succinctly articulate that here. I guess I sort of feel like that's, I agree with you on that, but without a boundary or I guess, are we gonna take that information and say, okay, well, that's what you think we need. We'll take that report and then put, and then we'll quantify that in terms of what that means for moving forward for budgeting. That's a good question. Because it might extend the process out quite some time if they propose things that are just not possible. Do you know what I mean? Without some kind of markers or guidance in that respect, all sorts of things could be proposed that would just not fly potentially. And you're right. In order for, at some point, we would need to have a first year's budget. I don't believe that we need to get to that level of detail to have an actual budget developed. That's just a gut reaction. It's really to be able to, as a community, have an informed discussion about where we go. So in terms of how much detail we need, I don't know if I have a good answer to that. It's really whatever we feel is necessary to help inform the community and what the community tells us is enough. So in some ways, I would look to this committee to really help out with that. And it's also where I think the staff are going to need to come in and really help to point some of those things out and to help create some kind of level on that. Dan, can I see your hands up? Yeah, well, you said some of what I was gonna ask, but anyhow, I agree with Raj. I think that the scope of the project or what this group would be facing could be quite ominous. I mean, when you're talking the financial aspect of it, as well as the physical needs for space in to Lincoln and wherever else, I think it's a lot to ask. I know what George was saying, a lot of the work's been done before, but a lot of the work done before was under the premise of merger. So it's, well, it's not, okay. Well, then, I mean, as far as separation and specific to just the village, that's what I mean. Right now, that's the primary focus of this is depending on what happens on if this may be a moot issue. So we wouldn't have to even worry about it, but I just think that it's too broad to say to expect them to figure out the financial impacts and bring it down to departmental, that's a lot of work. Thank you, Dan. I certainly don't disagree about that being a lot of work. George, go ahead. Yeah, I know. First of all, we looked at 12 different governance options that between the town and the village, including separation, including completely separating the communities and we ranked them. And we looked at the legal issues around each of those options. So that's one of the things that we looked at. We looked at, for example, could the village become a special taxing district within the town? We looked at dividing, keeping the two governments separate but creating a whole bunch of special districts like recreation districts and library districts. So we looked at a whole host of different options and separation was one of those options. But I think that, at least for me, anything that I would say should be their mission right now with so much uncertainty around the upcoming merger vote a month from now. I know one thing for sure. I'm probably gonna feel very differently after that vote than I do right now. And I think I'm gonna guess that the rest of us would be in the same boat. On the one hand, we're advocating for merger and we had a huge turnout in favor of merger in the village but on the other hand, we're also saying we're thinking of separation. So I think we've got a lot of talking to do amongst ourselves. I mean, I think this is a good committee. I think they should go ahead. I think they should start doing research. I don't know if I'm quite at the level of saying they should be looking at office space. I think that there's a lot more questions to be answered. I would try to keep it very general for now and have them try to figure out what are the questions they need to be asking and what is a reasonable timeline. Given that if we're gonna follow to the spirit anyway of the petition that we would have a separation charter ready to be put in front of the voters in November, what would be the major hurdles that we would have to clear along the way? So I would try to, just my view, I would have them start very general and have them work on that and then maybe as they start getting into it they get guidance from us in terms of getting more specific. When George, you mentioned that you delved into 12 different scenarios for separation or whatever but I mean, I'm looking at it more of you looked at legally, can we do this? Can we do that? How far did you drill down into each scenario as far as the cost, the impact, departmental, everything?  Do I want to buy? Which car do I want to buy? What's the separate options? Or do you just look, can we afford to lease? Can we afford to buy? Do you do it in general terms? I mean, I think there's a lot more to do with that like you said, I think this could get to be a lengthy process, very in doubt. Yeah, we didn't look at, we kept one assumption and I've said this before in all the discussions we had with the town, we started out this whole process back in 2018 with a couple of fundamental assumptions. And one of those assumptions was that there would be no significant reductions in service anywhere. If someone, if you're talking about shutting down a fire department or a library, then that's not gonna fly. And so I think in terms of funding, if you look at the village right now, I don't know, I would assume that you would say with the separation, you would keep all of the village departments at approximately their present level. They're designed to serve the village. The two sides, the village and the town, most of our departments are just designed and staffed to serve the two separate parts of the community. The police and administration are the exceptions, but fire departments, libraries, recreation, they're all staffed and set up. So I would imagine that with separation, you wouldn't get a lot of change. I don't know how that really big fundamental change is there. But I mean, to me, just my own thought is that I think you've got to start and say, you know, as the folks who came up with the 3-3 charter proposal last year learned, you might think you understand what the law says, but there's a reason people get, study for the bar exam, just like there's reason people get engineering degrees or study chemistry, you think you can understand the language, but you don't. There's an internal logic that you don't necessarily get. And they passed a charter change that went down to the legislature and got tabled. And a lot of us were telling them, this isn't going to go anywhere because it's not going to pass legal muster. That charter last year was not adopted by the Select Board. The folks just said, told the Select Board, you're going to have to put this, they forced the Select Board to put it onto a ballot and it got passed, but it went down to the legislature and went nowhere. If the Select Board had adopted it, the first thing they would have done was had the town attorney put it into legal language and probably make some other changes in the town charter that would have accommodated that charter change. And so that's, I mean, the reason I'm saying this is you gotta, you gotta sort of understand what the legislature, because they hold all the cards. It doesn't matter what your vote is in November. If the government operations committee doesn't like it, then it's not going anywhere. So to me, that's probably the biggest hurdle. You've got to look at and then start from there. Worrying about space at Lincoln Hall and funding is, I mean, I think that's good research to do, but I'm just not sure about what's the process at the legislative level. We didn't really investigate that. So one of the things, a couple of things I want to address, one being about the timing in the April 13th vote. So my thought is this committee doesn't start until after the April 13th vote results are finalized. So we have some time to work through this, not a lot, but we have some time to work through this. But that as soon as the April 13th vote is finalized, should it, should merger fail, the reconsideration vote fail, I want us to be in a place where this committee can start as quickly as possible.  So that way we could meet that, as well as get this process started so we don't drag it out any longer than necessary. There are a few times where we make assumptions about what the departmental impacts may be about we may not need that many people. This department should have everything that they need. And I would love for those conversations to be, we know. Not we assume, not we believe, but we know. To use the analogy that Dan had made about a car. If we go and buy a car, generally we know we want a four door car or we want a truck or we want an SUV. And then we know, well, Ford makes this one, Chevy makes this one, Honda makes that one. And we use the information we have about the types of vehicles, the options to make an informed decision about which one we want. And so I'd like for us to make an informed decision as a community about which car to buy. And I don't feel we can do that if we only stay at that governance level and that we really need to be able to bring that back down. But with that Amber, I see your hand is up. I guess I was gonna talk about the timeline. I think we kind of touched upon it being a very short timeline, especially if you use the, which you've already outlined, Andrew. And one thing I wanna, I guess reiterate is we have heard many times, many times from staff that they are already taxed by what we're asking them to do. And we are now asking them to become more involved in another committee. And I'm hopeful, I don't know if this is possible or not but I'm hopeful that it's possible to have this committee meet during the day so it's not an additional evening meeting for Evan and whoever and staff are attending. And keep in mind that if we run on a schedule like that we're probably looking at weekly meetings to meet that timeframe. That concerns me just from the staff perspective. I completely agree. It was mentioned that our joint meeting yesterday about with the next strategic planning events about the number of evening meetings that staff have to attend to. And yes, we need to be very cognizant of that. My hope with this is that yes, there will need to be staff involvement but it really should be the committee members who are doing the bulk of the work. Staff are the experts in municipal governance. There's no doubt about that. And especially when it comes to the departmental levels they know it better than anybody. And so let's utilize the experts. Though I would see the homework being done by the committee members and not by the staff. As far as meetings during the daytime versus evening I think that that does make sense. This is a fact finding committee. They should not be making decisions. And so I'm not too too concerned about doing it during the daytime versus the evening personally. I think that that could help out with staff. Their schedule, the committee would be able to figure that out whether they need to meet every week, every other week. I think they can figure that out. Raj and then George. What kind of access to legal are they gonna have and how often like what's that gonna look like in terms of, I mean, imagine the process would go, develop a list of questions to try to minimize the amount of contact and back and forth, run that through somebody on the staff and then once that once enough of that is compiled that gets, are they gonna have legal availability? Yes, we have our attorney and if they need an attorney's opinion on something then they should have the attorney's opinion on whatever that is. Whether that, I don't believe that means that Claudine and or her staff need to attend every meeting. I don't think that's the case. Definitely questions that need to go to the attorney could be coordinated with staff. George, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I have a problem with staff getting involved with this because we have a shared staff. We deliberately, as I said the last time we discussed this, we collaborated with the select board to create a shared administration and you're gonna be asking them to participate in a process that probably the select board isn't gonna like. You know, I think you're gonna be very careful. I think you're gonna, you could very quickly put staff in a very implicated compromise situation with this. Secondly, the access to the way we did it with the government subcommittee, we understood that access to legal resources, that's essentially a spending decision. And the only people who should be making spending decisions are elected board members. That's what we had four elected board members on the government subcommittee, but that won't be the case with the citizen committee. And I would suggest that any legal questions they have, they probably come to the trustees and then we decide whether they get passed on. I know I'm being a stickler here for process, but I am concerned about, I've got serious concerns about going too fast, too far with this and putting staff in the middle of something that could really be a problem for them. So let me go to reverse order with that. So with the legal question about getting legal advice, I would see this committee having, and I think I put it in here in this document, having at least one trustee, a part of the committee, I would believe that the trustee who would be a part of this could the one or more could help to make that decision and with staff involvement, because the staff know the budget very, very, very well, frankly, the staff would best understand about if there is enough money to be able to do, to fulfill the request, as well as being able to know if staff actually know the answer and legal advice may not be needed. So I don't know if the question would need to come to a full board meeting to then just decide whether that gets sent onto our legal counsel versus that just being a conversation between the trustee and say Evan, for instance. With town versus village staff and how that would go, yes, it could be a difficult position. At the same time, we as a village have needs and if the select board doesn't like the fact that some jointly managed staff are dedicating some resources to village-only efforts, I'm gonna be honest and this could probably not politically correct. I don't care. We as a village have needs and if merger does not pass, we need to figure out where we're gonna go and we will need staff to help figure that out. Evan, go ahead. So I'm just gonna chime in a little bit because this discussion's going wherever it's gonna go. One, I don't think you should have this group. They should, if whatever legal questions they have, they should compile them and work with the manager. I will certainly work with the legal counsel to get those answers if staff doesn't already know them. They are not going over any new ground legally that I'm aware of. After working on this for three years, we're pretty familiar with what is the legalities of separation or merger or whatnot. Two, if they are working on what departments and where and how many people and they're gonna make a recommendation that's great, it's certainly something they could do and take a look at. I don't know what the essence of time is because one of the things that is evident to me is the same thing that would happen in merger. Nothing changes on New Year's Day. You have to get through the election. You would have to put together a plan of separation. It would have to pass and the legislature is not likely to do anything with it. And if they do, they are certainly not gonna make it effective till after the first budget year, they're gonna want you to put together your first budget with this new structure and give the other party time to address any changes. So while I think this is a very good exercise, I just don't think that timing works out the way people think it's gonna work out. And third, while I absolutely respect citizen petitions, I find it odd that they picked a November election that is not a November congressional election. There is no election this November that has anything on it.  So I'd have to talk with Susan but I don't think there's anything being voted on in November. So you may wanna look at the next election, whether it's the next April, but that's a technicality. Staff will help out wherever we can. We have a lot of this information, as George mentioned. I think it's really, a lot of this boils down to, what does the village see in its separation? What do they wanna perform? At least initially, or have someone else perform for them? And one example would be, do you wanna continue to share the town clerk and those records?  And then that would be a question. And so that's what I offer you. I'm here to help. I'm your manager for both you and the town. And of course you can direct me as you need be because I am both. And I think that ultimately, I think the select board understands that it's the citizens who asked you to do this. It was not the board itself. And but you do need to be prepared. All right, so I see George, then Amber, then Raj. Okay, thanks, Andrew. And I wanna make it clear, I'm fine. And I think as Evan just said, we got a very serious petition from our constituents. And so I feel very obligated to follow through and to pursue this with as much energy and commitment as necessary. But that's why I'm just, I'm just trying to lay out some of the hurdles we have to cross. And I will reiterate what Evan just said in terms of the timeline, because so everyone understands. I think in November, putting it on the ballot in November would be fine because presumably you would wanna get this if we went with separation and we did a separation charter and you'd want it to be arrived in the legislature by January of 2022, by January of next year. But then, and I know this, like I've been over this a million times and over this a million times with the merger charter, then you have a period of complete unknown. You have to assume that the, you have to be completely conservative and assume that the legislature may not approve that charter until the very, the last day of the biennium, the, you know, May 15th or something. So in that intermediary time, you have to write your next budget, approve your next budget for the village and you have to start working on that in December. So the time doesn't overlap. So in terms of budgeting and in terms of actually realistically starting up an independent city of Essex Junction, you're really talking at the very earliest, something like 2023. And that just needs to be, there's just no way around these hard time limits. It's, you gotta, the timing is out of sync between the way we do things and the way the legislature works. It, we could, we could put a merger, I mean, a separation charter, it have it approved in July or August. It's still, you still have to assume it may not get approved until May of next year. It's just the way the process works. You have to assume that. And so you would still have an interim year and that's why a lot of the departmental stuff, you know, you'd have time to play around with that. Thanks. Thank you, George. Go ahead, Amber. I saw a question. I'm not sure if anybody knows how has other towns handled the issue of separation and studying what to do? Have they formed, have they formed these types of committees? Or, you know, I think at one point we were talking about for if merger passed that we would hire a consultant to determine how we would, how that would look. So does anybody know the answer to that? I'm just curious. So what I know is that the Secretary of State's office has a document on separating in Vermont. It's only at the legislative level and the process that was used for Winooski, Rutland. And I believe there was another scenario or another community that was referenced in this article. But none of them got into the detail about whether there was a citizen committee that researched and then how they then created departments, but rather the overall legal process that was used is all that's mentioned. I think the only, the only other example would be the one that had happened over this, you know, the past 50 years that have happened between the village and the town. But with none of those being successful, I don't know if they really want to, you know, redo the unsuccessful effort. I'm not sure if our legal counsel has any better understanding on that one and or Evan, if you do. I have it in my notes from a couple of meetings ago. There are three communities that did this. We would call them, see what they've done. I've already had many conversations with Dan Richardson and others about services and departments. Believe it or not, all the departments of a municipality are not required, not even police. You're not required to have police service. You can have the state be your police department.  You do it because you want it and you want to protect your citizens, but you can have a private fire department and up until recently, Colchester had three of them. So there's a lot of different ways to do this. It's just really about what you want to do and you're also not like a lot of other villages. You would already be either the ninth or 10th largest village in the state. And I don't want to make any dispersions about any of our neighbors, but you're three times larger than Richmond. You're four or five times larger than Cambridge or over Underhill, all those places. And you've got a lot of industry. So that's how I would look. I would look to see what some other communities have done. I would be concerned only in about, I mean, obviously to Lincoln is where the administration is, but recreation is already in another building. Library is already in another building. And it would depend on who you are if you're sharing either with the town or another town or another village for services, space may not be the hardest factor to overcome. But George is correct. It's not going to be early and you are going to end up doing a budget and you're probably going to end up somewhere like we would have in merger where you are preparing a budget for the following year after you've even merged. You would be following a separation budget at least a year after legally you were separated. But that's how I mean, you have a staff. We know what you need to do to do your water building. We know what you need to do HR. We know what you need to do to run X amount of meetings and X amount of committees. The real question is what departments do you want? What do you want to do in-house and what do you want to share either with the town or with someone else? Thank you, Evan. Go ahead, Raj. Well, I'm in favor of this. I just wanted to have a good conversation about how it was all going to work. And I appreciate that. I think Evan brought me back down earth a little bit and reminded me in George too that a lot of this has been done. A lot of this information is there. And if anybody knows all of this, it's probably our staff. So I think what's missing here and I think it's due to the nature of how this came to us and where we are is community involvement.  I respect the petition wholeheartedly, but we have to make sure that we have enough time to have enough community engagement before we take a report from this effort and run with it. And I just want, I guess, some assurances that we'll take this report and use it to do that engagement deliberately and for as long as it needs to be done to make sure that we really understand where the village wants to go. I respect the petition, but I don't want to rush. And if for some reason we can't make November because we haven't been able to do the engagement we need to do, I think that's a conversation we should have. But I support the committee. I'll do what I can as a trustee to help them out with their mission. I just wanted to say that last bit. So thanks. Thanks, Raj.  One other thing to think about with this is, I mean, just to use another analogy of a divorce or separation and in a divorce when the couple is splitting up, the assets are split up, but also for a while there, you're kind of in limbo. And if somebody goes and spends money, that affects, you're tied to that debt. And what I'm getting at here is if, depending on the process, whatever projects go on in the town, we're still tied and we're tied to the debt, whatever is created, unlike the town outside the village would not be tied to any debt we incur. So that's something to think about. Thank you, Dan. Trustees, is there anything else or are we ready to turn over for some public comment at this point? Sounds like we're ready for some public comment. So if there are any members from the public who wish to speak to this item, now would be a great time if you're using Microsoft Teams to raise your hand, type into the chat feature that you wish to address the board and I will make sure to call on you. And if anybody has called in, then I will ask for your patience as we get through those of Microsoft Teams first. Deb McAdoo, I see your hand is up.  Hi everybody, thanks for being there. I don't really know what I want to say because I'm sitting here with mixed feelings. And so I, she's a pro. This is a big deal. I don't even know on the next vote if I even want to vote for merger. I just maybe go for separation only. So I can appreciate where you're at and I really appreciate that the wheels of government move slow, very. And I wish things went the speed of McAdoo, but they don't. So I think we should take our time, make sure everybody's on board and that we're making the best decision for the best reasons. And I wish you the best and I'm just grateful you're all there. Thank you for that. And yes, I think we all wish that, you know, government wasn't as slow as it is. And I like that phrase, speed of McAdoo, like other members of the public. Okay. I see no hands are raised, not seeing anything in the chat feature.  So I've taken a fair amount of notes and if the board is okay, what I'd like to do is try to summarize this into another draft of what I provided and hopefully at our next meeting, we could finalize it. So that way we could start accepting, well, so we could start the process of appointing people. One thing that I would love to get your input on in particular is that question on the committee composition and how we want to select members of the committee. I know that I have received somewhere between three and six emails from people asking to be informed of this process and already trying to put their names in the hat. So in essence, we could already have a full committee right there or we can do what we typically do, which is just, you know, put it out to the public, wait about two weeks for people to submit a letter of interest, interview and appoint that way. I mean, I would say we should be a little more deliberate with that process, perhaps engaging with a couple of different aspects of our community, checking in with the racial equity task force, see if there's anybody they've come in contact with. I think we need a good cross-section of the village to participate in this. And I think our usual post and wait probably won't serve us too well in this. That said, we do need some people with the amount of time to have a lot of time, potentially daytime. So it's gonna be tough. Thank you, Raj. Go ahead, George. Andrew, I have a sense that you probably thought more about this than the rest of us at this point. So what would you like to do? I think while I'd love for the committee to get started sooner rather than later, and I'd love to frankly just appoint the people who have emailed, I think that we then do a disservice to those who are waiting, to those who could be fantastic committee members. I'd rather, I'd say it was followed the process that we usually go with. It might delay things by a couple of weeks, but let's do it right instead of do it fast, I suppose. Dan? Yeah, I suspect the idea that four plus one, maybe five plus one or something, but I'm thinking there may be some expertise from outside of the village. Well, I would not be opposed to having someone from outside weigh in or help out with this project. Thank you, Dan. Personally, for me, I'm really looking into the village at this point. I'm only one person. I would not want to say no already without seeing the candidate, but I think just to put it out there, it would need to be one very special non-village resident. Okay. All right, trustees, is there anything else before we move on from this? Staff, were there other questions you wanted to make sure that you got answered that have not yet been addressed? Margaret, could you put the list up there real quick? Oops, sorry. There we go. Can you see that? Thank you, Margaret. We can work with that. Okay. I have to find my own. And I would also maybe suggest one last thing. It just came to me, so it's not fully formed. You five elected officials should also consider telling them what's in bounds and what's out of bounds. For instance, just as the police department off the top of my head, out of bounds, you're not leaving the police department if that's what you think or your fire department or your library. Whatever you don't make them work on something that you have no intention of changing. Just give that some thought over the next two weeks. It'll narrow down their focus. I think that's a good point, Evan, I agree. Definitely, thank you. So with that, we would now move to the new business 5D, which I did not write down. And I don't recall if that was our committee member that we were going to go to or were we going to go to annual meeting? You're going to do appointment. All right. So then that will bring us on to consider the appointment of Steve Rabar to the tree advisory committee. So this was pulled out of the consent agenda. This was a little bit of a unique situation as we had a non-village resident for the village property owner that requests to be a part of the tree advisory committee. We interviewed him and asked him to be patient while we had that subsequent discussion about whether we would be okay with appointing a non-resident to the committee. During that conversation, we said that we would, especially with this being an advisory committee and not a quasi-judicial committee like the planning commission as well as the fact that we had set this precedent a little bit with the housing commission. So with that, unless I missed anything, do any trustees have any questions, comments you want to address to this? No, I'll just make a motion if nobody else has any. Works for me. I'll make a motion to appoint Steve Rabar Steve Rabar to the tree advisory committee with a term expiring Marguerite, if you can go down. I'm sorry, I'm trying to see the chart. Yep. June 30th, 2023. I'll second that. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Raj. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Great, thank you. That passed unanimously. And thank you to Steve Rabar for putting your hat in the ring and look forward to the things that you've already brought to our community and what you will continue to bring to the community moving forward. So thank you. And we will contact him tomorrow. Thank you. And now we will go into a discussion about annual meeting. And so this is our last meeting that we have before our informational meeting, typically during this time what we have done is I'm just going to ask if anybody is not talking, could you please mute yourself? I'm getting some feedback. I don't know if anybody else's is kind of distracting. There we go. Thank you. And so what we've done in the past is we have used this as an opportunity to engage the community in conversations that we don't typically have the opportunity to engage them with. For a few years, we had talked about capital and whether to do the local options tax or bonding. We have talked about, of course, merger and the governance study work. There have been some other special initiatives that I'm blanking on at the moment. But are there items that we want to use this time to try and start a conversation with? That anybody is particularly interested in or do we want this to more so be the go over the budget, go over the ballot coming up, take questions and call it a day. And Evan, you're muted, Evan. Hold up Pat Murray on me. Myself, cannabis, opt in, opt out, as one thing to talk, you guys could discuss at some point this summer or early fall, we're gonna need to bring that up. We could, I know I personally would, in order to speak to the item would really feel the need to understand what we would be asking the community for at this point. If we wanted to do a straw poll or if we are asking for feedback concerns or just to say, hey, be on the lookout, this is gonna be happening. I was thinking more in the straw poll, what's your sense of, what do you need to know? There's really only two things to know, I think. One is if you don't have a local option stacks, you get no revenue and there'll be nothing from the state. I think $1,000 in permit fees is pretty much nothing. Like if you had permit fees, you might get upwards of $1,000. I'll just consider that to minimize. So there's no revenue in it if you don't have a local option stacks. So it's really just a matter of how do you feel? Are there any restrictions? If they did permit it, what restrictions would you want? So that's just one thing that came to mind. You guys did a great job a couple of years ago on local option stacks in that discussion. But if you were gonna have these things the staff would be prepared with some of that information. I think if we were going to go down the, what would you need to know to make an informed decision about permitting cannabis in our community, we would need at least a slide or two about what the question will be when we say permitting cannabis. Does this mean that everyone's gonna be allowed to just smoke on the sidewalk? Everybody can, we can start a growing operation in five corners, what are we talking about? And we also need to be able to talk to placement, which I think in the village is frankly, vastly more critical than whether we allow it or not is where do we put it in a community as dense and as riddled with schools as the village is. I'm just saying, we're still a walking community. We still have riddled with schools, they're everywhere. They grow like weeds. So I'm serious, I think one of the questions we need to be able to speak to and, is there any ability to control as a community where you cite and permit these establishments? I'm not saying we shouldn't have it. I'm just saying, we had this conversation, I don't know how many years ago with the place on railroad street and had no ability to do anything about it. And I know people are still pretty upset about that. And it's a slow slog of a process and really hard to understand. And I think that keeps people from engaging. But with cannabis, I think it would be welcome, but I think we just need to know from people, are they comfortable having it and where? And yeah, that's all. Okay. Go ahead, George. I agree with Evan and Raj. I think this is a good question to have because if I understand the legislation and I think, I'm not sure if Lori is still with us. I think I saw her show up and, but I'm not sure if she's still here. But the way it looks, what's happening is that the decision for us, for whether we're gonna accept this and even though the specifics aren't clear yet, we discussed it last night with the Economic Development Committee, but it's not really, because it's sort of a moral and political and cultural issue associated with it, it kicks it to a higher level. It kicks it to the elected board level. And so I think we do wanna get community input so that later on this year, if we have to make a decision and if we're making a decision as a merged community or whatever, we already have a good sense of what the community wants. So I think it would be a good idea and maybe talk to get the best information we can from Lori and Karen about what they think it's gonna look like when it finally comes to a community decision. So how about if we have questions, if we ourselves have questions, maybe we could start it off by just having a slide of existing questions that we don't know the answers to. Right. Maybe us trustees could email them to Evan now to at least get those out there. And if the answer is known, then we could address that during the conversation. But if you could do that within the next week. That would be great. So get it done by the end of this weekend. Okay. Are there others besides cannabis? I think we should have some kind of conversation on where people are. We've like, we just talked about, we got a separation petition. But that's a subset of the population. Some kind of moderately facilitated discussion about where people are at. Also answering questions because some may not have voted yet. And being prepared with some really solid answers to some really good questions. I think we're prepared for that. I don't know how many slides we need. I don't know if we need to go through the whole slide deck again. It is a town vote, but I'm also curious what people think if this fails again. One of the questions that comes to me over and over is how much tax equity is enough tax equity? Or is it an all or nothing thing? So I don't know how that conversation goes down, but maybe we can start it off. Maybe we can think of some good prompts. And basically frame it as we just want to hear what you think, we don't have any answers for you. We're not going to speak to your questions, but we want to know what you think. And I think out of some of that will come opportunities to provide some background information and education on how things are actually set up because that's still confusing for people. So some kind of conversation around the failed merger vote, the upcoming merger vote and what happens if it doesn't pass and what people think about that. So doing something like a here's where we are, here's how we got here. And I don't mean the whole seven year review as to where we are, but the recent history of here's where we are. A high level overview of the merger scenario in terms of if it passes, here's what this means. A high level overview of the separation non-binding resolution that we have, but then more of Justin open it up of with all that said, where are you at right now?  Where are you concerned with sort of that type of thing? I think so, and I might add just one slide, if we can do it in just one slide in the first part of what you were describing to illustrate why we keep having this discussion. Just one good info slide that says, this is where your money goes. And just to go over that, not the whole slide like on merger, but this is why this keeps coming up. This is where you're paying and perhaps not getting back to service level that you expected already. Just so people have that framed in their head, we don't have to spend hours on it, but. Thank you, Dr. Dan, I see you're here. Like what Raj was saying, one issue, obviously there's not a lot we can do about it, but with the pandemic, we're kind of limited as to gathering people together. So it has to be a virtual gathering, which really lacks. I think there's a lot more engagement and just success or people feed off each other in a more actual physical gathering as opposed to virtual. But anyhow, yeah, I agree with what Raj's saying. And I think it's important to get that stuff through. There's the tax savings and tax equity is, what we have right now is not, as I keep saying, it's not codified, it's not bound, we're not held to anything, everything can collapse. And I think there's a non, you can't really quantify the value of autonomy and being able to act as your own community separate of another municipality. That has value in itself right there. We've already discussed issues with departments and how, as you said earlier, Andrew dealing with the village staff, I would be interested to hear from some way we could find out what they feel about this whole process. I know they're not necessarily residents of our committee, but it would be interesting to hear if we could somehow get that input. Thank you, Dan. So are there any other topics that you think we should discuss? So I know, so I'll be happy to go over the high level overview of the budget. Oh, thanks for putting up the articles. No problem. So I'd be happy to do the high level overview of the budget. Do either one of you wanna tackle the cannabis and or the merger separation portion? We could do that. Staff will take care of cannabis and merger separation. In terms of facilitating the conversation. Yeah. I appreciate that, Evan. I know in the past, typically we've had this be a trustee thing in terms of an opportunity to help engage the public. And so I have a suggestion. How about Steve used us to moderate? That's what he does. So when I say, so let me back up. I guess what I mean is to present the slides, to get the conversation started. Steve absolutely needs to be the moderator. That is his role. That's his elected role. And I don't want any of us to take it away from him. So what I'm saying is from a, do any one of the trustees want to present the slides and or present the information to get the conversation started with cannabis and or the merger separation. Such as Raj, I know, I think I know cannabis may be something that you're interested in. There was a topic. Sorry, reframe that. So if Raj is interested, but I'm curious. I know you wanna keep it to the trustees, but what about inviting Laurie or Karen to give us the perspective from the legislature and then, you know, we can kind of pick up from there. I can check in with them to see if they're interested in that. That's an idea. That's a good idea. I mean, really what we're doing right is we're collecting, we're giving them a basic level of information but really collecting input, right? Yep.  I mean, just so in speaking from personal experience, I'll say that the times when I stood up in front of the annual meeting and gave the presentations on local options tax, where we're going for the bond vote, those are some of the most fun and engaging times that experience on the board. And so that's also one of the reasons why I'm asking if other trustees want to is, I found it fun, you all might like it too. Although virtual meeting, it's not as engaging. So, Rog, you've got cannabis and I'll check in though with Lori and Karen if they want to provide an intro. Go ahead, George, I think you were going to say something. No, I wasn't sure. Do you want, I mean, I'm happy to do the bit about the land acquisition fund. If you're looking to have lots of people participate, I'm happy to do that, but I'm also happy to not do it. It doesn't matter to me. Yeah, why don't you do article two? Sure, that's fine. And three? I don't care. Three. You know more about the economic development tax than anybody. Who does?  I'm not sure how to take that. I didn't say that. I was around when the intended thing, you know, back in, yeah, it was, yeah, sure. I can do that. I mean, that's fine. Okay, Amber Dan, do either one of you want to talk about article four? I don't even know how to, I don't even know how to go down that road. You could, never mind. I'm not going to. Yeah. So, in the past, when there isn't really any kind of a presentation from staff, Steve just says what it is. And that's probably, I don't know if we need to have something, but if we wanted something, if you wanted some kind of a slide, but. We could, you know, Steph could probably put together a slide of how many meetings on average you do a year and divide it by whatever the amount. I think you'll get like $12 a meeting or something like that. 14, 18. I will. It's worthwhile to also frame it in the overall community effort to do this across the committee so that with the hope of long-term attracting, you know, more participation, yep. Along those lines, did you see what Brattleboro disapproved of? No. Brattleboro has approved of their select board stipend at $10,000 as a way to help encourage the diversity increase upon their board. Wow. Well, not a sales sign. When do we venture into bribery? That's appropriate. $10,000, really. Well. Anyway, so yes, I think that that's a good idea. It's about framing it as the overall, making sure that, yeah. We definitely want participation and we understand that you all have lives and you might have to have a babysitter or a child sitter or whatever it is, or buy them a pizza, which we recommend buying local. So article five is really just a, there's a schedule thing. Article six, is that the time that we want to have that conversation about merger separation and the overall gut check of where are we? Or go through article six, see if there's any questions, then go into merger and a gut check. I think maybe the rest of this, I don't know how much we can speak to article six, but sort of in the regular annual meeting, there'd be an end to business and then people would get up and leave and then we'd have this conversation after, I think maybe we just keep that same model, get through this and then dive into the other, more back and forth, slightly less formal portion. Sounds good. So did either one of you in that other business, besides cannabis, so when you do the merger separation, did either one of you want to tackle that? Me if you want.  I'll step up. Okay, sounds like we have a meeting at this point. So is there anything else on this item? I feel like I should probably do something because I'm the only one that's not doing anything. So I can do, I'll do, I know, I'm not doing cannabis, Raj. I'm not. You're helping me with cannabis. I'm not doing cannabis. So I need a lawyer. Claudia. So if staff can help me with the slides for four, then I'll do that portion. Thank you, Amber. Marguerite would be happy to help you with those slides. All right, we all have some work to do. So in terms of any kind of slides, so I'll take care of the budget ones in terms of George, Article two and three. Well, in general, if I assume let's try to keep it to one, maybe two slides for each item, except for the budget. If you have to go over, just try to keep it condensed to the best of our ability, but get your slides to staff, the final slides to staff, no later than what would work just to make sure that everything can be in on time. Early first week of April. What is it? The 23rd, probably mid next week, not next week. Yeah, mid to late next week would be great. So before April 2nd, Friday, April 2nd? Yes, please. Preferably a great April Fool's Day, Joe, day before. And then Marguerite and I will talk tomorrow, but we have some of these slides from other presentations before you guys start working on it tonight. Let us send you some stuff out tomorrow or the next day of what we already have. That would be great. Do you already have the notes as to who's doing what? No, you'll send that to me, won't you? I have some of it. Yes, I've got Amber doing cannabis, but that's wrong. Oh, no, that is absolutely right. Nice try, just because my camera's off doesn't mean I'm not listening to you. Is this gonna go bad for me? I think the meeting is going downhill quick, so let's... With that, thank you everybody and we are gonna have a fantastic meeting on April 7th. So this is our last meeting before then, so for any residents who are still with us, April, right, April 7th? April 7th, at 6.30 p.m., we will have our informational meeting. Yes, Marguerite. 7 p.m., sorry. 7 p.m., my apologies, on April 7th, you can see on the screen how to connect. This information is within the meeting packet. It is also on the village's website, so please check that out. And I look forward to seeing you there. Yeah, seeing you there virtually. Yes. No spaghetti dinner. No, we'll see you two-dimensionally. So with that, I believe that is the end of our non-executive session items, and so that will bring us into the consent agenda. I'll move that we approve the consent agenda. Second. Thank you, George. Thank you, Dan. Any further discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? Great, pass the unanimously. Thank you. And into the reading file with board member comments. One thing I wanted to point out real quick, or George, why don't you go first? I just want to mention very quickly with great enthusiasm for the record, fabulous project, research project that Jim is doing at the Water Treatment Plan in collaboration with UVM. They're looking at a new and highly efficient way of pulling phosphorus out of wastewater. And I know it sounds boring, it's boring chemistry, but it's incredibly important. We've got new state guidelines coming down that are going to even clamp down even more on how much phosphorus we have to remove. And they collaborated, they matched a grant, a research grant from UVM, and they're going to have a sort of big experimental apparatus set up. And it's, I know it's chemistry and biology and stuff, but if you get a chance, you should look at it. It's really cutting edge stuff. And I'm glad that the village is part of this. I just wanted to mention that for the record. Thank you, George. Go ahead, Amber. Right, your hand is up. Oh, I took it down. I was just gonna say kudos to George for understanding beyond wastewater because I couldn't understand anything in that. But it sounds really, really good project. Thanks, Sam. We're just gonna do 20 slides on that at the annual meeting. All right, I think we should. Because it's, we're all contributing to the phosphorus problem here, you know. I know where the emoji is on my phone. That's about as much as I'm gonna do. There's a phosphorus emoji. It's not phosphorus. Clearly not what I meant. Nevermind. All right, everybody. So the only comment that I wanted to do, I just wanted to clarify something as I've had a few people reach out to me and I've encouraged them to reach out to other trustees if they have concerns as this relates to our joint meeting that we had last night. We know that the village vote with regards to separation is only an advisory vote. However, I myself will look to carry out the will of the voters. And I want to be clear that while it is a non-binding vote, all personal feelings aside, it's a majority of voters are seeking separation. I personally view it as our responsibility to carry out their wishes. So again, I really want to make sure that I didn't leave any ambiguity in terms of my personal statement that I made during this agenda item yesterday. And I just wanna make sure that from my perspective, that's the way that I see our future playing out depending upon how that vote plays out in April 13th. And again, if anybody has any questions, please feel free to reach out to any of us about that. Staff, Evan, anything else you want to add? No. Great. So, well, not great. Now we just need to move to the executive section motion unless another trustee happens to have that ready. No, go for it. I got to wait. I got it. All right, go for it. I move that the trustees make the specific finding that general public knowledge of confidential attorney, client communications made for purposes of providing professional legal services to the body would place the village at a substantial disadvantage. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, George. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none of those. And you are not coming back. You have no action after this. So thank you. I'll be closing out this meeting and then joining you. Okay. So all those in favor of motion one, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Oppose? Thank you. And motion two, I'll go ahead and make that one. I move that the trustees enter into executive session to discuss confidential attorney, client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body pursuant to one VSA 313 81 F to include the village attorney and unified manager. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you so much. All right, everybody. Have a good night. Claudine, do you have the executive session link? I do. Okay, great. I think I do anyway. I'm not there in a minute. I mean, something went wrong. We'll send the rescue boat. Good night, Marguerite. Good night, everybody. Good night, everybody. Good night, everybody.


Benzene is a colourless liquid at room temperature. Its boiling point is 80 degrees celsius. It's found naturally in crude oil and in fact smells a little like petrol.  Each carbon is also covalently bonded to one hydrogen. This makes it a hydrocarbon. Carbon usually forms four single covalent bonds and these carbons at the moment only have three. The molecule now does something very special. The one unpaired electron from each carbon becomes conjugated into the ring. This means they have three movements around all six carbons and this gives benzene the property of aromaticity. You might have thought aromaticity simply meant nice smelling and while that's often true, scientifically the term refers to conjugation in ring shaped molecules. There are various ways of showing benzene's aromaticity like these for example. The most common way you'll see benzene drawn in a textbook is like this. But be aware, this is done only for convenience. Benzene can be dangerous as it's carcinogenic, that is known to cause cancer in sufficient doses. The magic happens when we're able to join benzene rings to other organic molecules. Some of the most important and useful drugs are made this way. For example, here's aspirin, one of the most famous painkillers in the world. The important thing to remember here is that it's almost impossible to do an addition reaction on benzene. Addition destroys the aromaticity of the ring, a process which needs a lot of energy. What does often happen is substitution reactions where one of the protons is kicked out of the compound by another species which takes its place and the molecule keeps its aromaticity. This can happen more than once and the benzene is said to be mono, dye or trisubstituted. What sort of chemical species will we need to cause a substitution reaction to happen? Remember the atom in the benzene being attacked is one of the carbons and these carbons have lots of electrons moving around them. Pause the video and have a think, then resume. The answer is we will need an electrophile, something that will be attracted to all those electrons. Benzene is quite a stable molecule as it is, so we need a strong electrophile, so a species with a positive charge is often necessary. For example, have you ever heard of Cl plus a cation made from a chlorine atom or this nitronium ion NO2 plus? Well, they exist and are widely used in benzene chemistry. In fact, NO2 plus is reacted with benzene to form trinitrotoluene, also called dynamite, a very powerful explosive. Oh dear.