Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Town of Essex Select Board meeting for Monday, July 19, 2021. That will call the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees for Monday, July 19, 2021 to order. Okay, thank you. And I would like to invite you to stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible. All right, thank you. I guess a couple of things is the audio there is no audio in the room so I just want to remind board members and staff to speak loudly and clearly so folks can hear. Also, Sam goes to those who are in attendance in the meeting if they want to address the boards. Okay, next agenda item is additions or changes. Are there any additions or changes from staff? Nothing from staff. Anything from either board? Andrew, we had talked about. Yeah, so the discussion, 6D, the Evaluation Public Official. Was that from you, Evan, or was that, no? So we've got nothing on that. Okay, no need. You're done? I didn't do my homework. Okay, no need. So no need for D. And then we would strike the strike 6D and then also 9B. Okay, can I have a motion from the select board to amend the agenda? I'm just making sure I can say this correctly because I've been having trouble with the words. I move to approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Don, for the second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. Trustees? Yes, I move to approve the agenda as amended. I'll second. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, George. Trustees, any further discussion on that? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That's 5-0. Okay, Andrew, take it away. And that will bring us into public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting. If you wish to address the boards about something that is not on the agenda, now is the time to do so, please anticipate only being able to speak once. And please keep your comments brief. If it's going a little long, I may cut you off to be prepared for that. We will start with Microsoft Teams and then we'll bring it back into the room. So for those of you on Microsoft Teams, if you wish to speak to something or speak to the boards about something not on the agenda, please go ahead, raise your hand or type into the chat feature. I'll be sure to give you the floor. Okay, Irene. Go ahead and unmute yourself. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thanks. I was thinking a lot about this question as to why merger didn't pass because that was one proposed topic at a future public forum. For those who don't recall, we just had a three-year process in which village elected officials devised a plan for merger and half the residents of the town, that is the residents outside the village, had very little if any say in what that plan looked like. That is, it was a proposal for taxation without representation. Now that we've gotten out of the way why it didn't pass, I'd like to propose that we talk about in the public forums why we're still talking about merger after 70 years. If there's something that the town and the village need to resolve, I would hope that we would delve deep and find out what that is and stop proposing merger and start proposing different ways of getting along better, of taxing better, of representing better, or whatever it is that the citizenry over all of these decades has been so frustrated in trying to do, but that merger has never been the answer. Thanks. Thank you, Irene. I'm not seeing any other hands up on Microsoft Teams. Not seeing anything in the chat.  I would just want to say that a little bit of what was said was a fair amount of opinion in terms of people not having a say. There were ample opportunities both in meetings, outside of meetings, on this board as members outside the village are on the select board. We've rehashed this numerous times. I'm not sure why it comes up. So for those in the room, anybody wish to speak to the board about something not on the agenda? Go first, and then bring it to Mike. No, no. I'm Patty Davis, nine hillside circle, and I just think this is really interesting for everybody because being new to this town only five years, it's way more complicated than Colchester. It's big. So I want to share the latest GIS map of total traveled highways, including class four roads and legal trails, because if you guys go to maps.vitrams.vermont.gov, you will find the most updated traveled roads by Jonathan Corliss, or I forget his name, but he's very interesting, who mapped out as of June 30th, 2021, an Essex Center urban compact map within the town of Essex map. So we have the town of Essex, we have the village of Essex Junction, but within the town of Essex, I urge you to look at this map. They went through the up-to-date mileage as of February 10th, 2021, but the chief purpose of these maps, I know, they are just to document classification and mileage of our town highways for purposes of calculating payment to towns for state aid, for town highway maintenance. So I'm speaking on behalf of, well, I'm hoping that the select board after last meeting was very good about listening to its constituents. And I just want to share with you after researching these facts that your constituency has continually, over the years, Andrews, just so you know, identified problems of unsafe, unplowed sidewalks and walkways during winter. They've gathered signatures. One of my clients told me this whole story. They gathered signatures in 2003 on Pomfret Road, Thistle Lane, Fox Run, the borders of, I think where the mobile station is, and then it goes into the junction. There's a line somewhere there, I'm not sure. And basically with Noa Vale, they had signatures that they, this was 2003.  The safety, health and welfare of our elders, our senior citizens in the town outside the village. Using a cane to walk on our sidewalks, demand action from our select board members that we elected, our municipality. During Tracy Delphia's campaign, a friend of mine who lived here since a long time, and I walked along Alan Martin to stab some signs into the ground. We had Zoe with us with her, both Tracy on her belly, but sign, but we stabbed signs and we saw this woman trying to walk across with one of those three pronged canes where there was a yellow blinking light. It's like across from Blodgets, I think. And she got stuck in her snow bank with her three pronged cane. We had to help her out of the snow bank because she walked along the crosswalk thinking on the other side of the crosswalk, the road would be plowed, the sidewalk would be plowed. Unless there is public support sharing services from all stakeholders, including this new area. I told you about the urban core of Essex, urban center core, compact, it's called. Do not sign any agreement, please, because policies are just based upon a consulting process that respects the constitutional rights of individuals. Thank you. Those are all facts. Thank you. Mike. Mike Sullivan. It's going to be not a member of the town of Essex. You guys aren't here to talk about merger. Village is not talking about merger. We're not merging. So that's that. I've heard a couple of times merge now and Mike, I don't know if your comments were referenced to the forums that are coming up as well. Those are not about merger. I just want to clarify for all of you here that I'm not referring to anybody at home. Okay. I just want to make sure that everyone's aware of that. Thank you. Great. Go ahead, Ken. And Signorello. When the complain about representation is made, what it means is that here we have 10 individuals, five of which represent a constituency in the village. The other five of which represent an entire town, who's that same constituency. The complaint basically is that the folks who would be left behind in this separation scenario are saying they would like some representation similar to what the trustees have. That's to try to make it clear. Thank you. See nobody else in the room. So I think it's safe to say we're done with public comment. And so going on to the first business item, number 6A. You want to take this? Yes. So just to be, just to be clear, I asked Pat to cover this topic from the select board standpoint and passing the gavel. Thank you very much, Andy. Business item 6A, we are going to consider approval of the joint resolution in support of the Essex Westford School District's equity policy for background information. Those who aren't aware, the school district recently barfed on other, I think probably a very sensitive topic surrounding the addition of an equity policy. Certainly in the community, they received a lot of voices at their board meetings, voicing various support, and the town as well as the village have made specific efforts to try to increase our awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion here at the local government level. Evan or Greg, do you have anything specific that you wanted to talk about before we move into what we hope will be a joint resolution of support for the district's policy from our side of things? My only comment is that the Essex Westford School District is a district that covers the entire village and town. They are responsible for the education of the children of this community. They did this project. They took on a lot of hearings, and it is appropriate for these boards to weigh in on whether you want to support that policy. And remind me, Evan, as well, do you believe that we have some members of the school district who are on our internal committee as well? Yes. Comments from the boards? Tracy. Just because the policy itself wasn't included in the agenda, could we put up a link or actually show it on the screen just so folks know what we're talking about and can see it? We can make that happen, Greg. Give me a moment. Is anyone else on the board have comments or anything they'd like to add to the discussion? Pat, I just have a question that I mean, maybe I missed it. Maybe you said it and went right over my head, but so I know that our own equity work, that we're doing it on the municipal side, how does that align with the school district? I mean, is it pretty well lined up, everything or is there something different about it? I don't think, I mean, there's a number of similarities. I think at least in regards to the end goal, which is bringing more inclusion and diversity into our staff, the administration, the school districts doing the same thing. Obviously theirs is much more detailed about the students, in particular, there's substantial, there's much more diversity within the student population than obviously there is within the town and city's employment. So they have a lot of focus on that portion of things. But I think overall, I think they align pretty well from a value standpoint. I think one of, you don't mind, the other thing is they're starting to use equity and inclusion in their decision making. And so we would look, again, I think there's a similarity here to what we're working on as well. And I don't want to make this just about race, it could be socioeconomics as well. We have neighborhoods that are socioeconomically different than others, and I think it's part of our work and our evaluations. We should also take a look at how it affects people of socioeconomics and how a policy affects them. So there would be a similarity. Thank you. Greg, you have that up for our audience at home as well? No, it's not at all. Thank you. Hopefully everyone can see it now. In the chat as well. Okay. If there's no other additions from anyone on the board, you'll open it up to public comment. Oh, no, I have not read the resolution. Looks like we have Irene. Thanks, Pat. I understand that many of us may be supporters of the equity policy that EWSD has put out. However, last night, there's a pretty big, bright line between the work the schools do in town and the work that the municipalities do in town. I thought we were doing our own inclusive policy development. And I'm not sure why, no matter how good friends we are with folks on the school board and how much we support what they're doing, why on earth when the select board and trustees have so many other things on their plate and potentially on their plate that we would spend time talking about school policies. And I don't think that's a good precedent for the future. When we have a merger or separation or other municipal policy on the table, I don't expect people from the school board to officially weigh in on it. And conversely, I don't expect the select board and trustees to be weighing in on an equity policy that's quite oriented toward the educational process here in the town of Village and in Westford. So I respectfully request that we remember where we are remember what our jurisdictions are and not have these things show up on the agenda because that puts everyone in a very awkward spot because now we want to honor the fact that school board members are on the call and we want to honor whoever decided to put it on the agenda. And it's kind of embarrassing if you don't now affirm it because it looks like you don't approve of equity and that's not my point at all. My point is let's remember what our jurisdiction is. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Irene. Is there anyone else who would like to speak now? Okay. Then we will bring things back to the board. And as Don very politely reminded me, the resolution itself typically is read by our alert. So Tracy, would you mind reading the resolution before we move to a vote? Joint resolution in support of the Essex Westford School District equity policy. Whereas the Essex Westford School District EWSD recently worked with the school district and community to develop a policy to create equity in EWSD and whereas EWSD adopted an equity policy C29 on June 15th, 2021. And whereas the town of Essex and village of Essex Junction have committed to being a community that embraces equity and is more welcoming to all people and whereas the town of Essex and the village of Essex Junction partner with EWSD to better serve the community. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Essex Junction Board of Trustees and town of Essex Select Board fully support the Essex Westford School District equity policy that was adopted on June 15th, 2021. Thank you, Tracy. Last call, boards. Anyone have anything they'd like to add? Yes. Sorry, Pat. Absolutely. Raj, please go ahead. I just want to say I'm grateful to the folks of the EWSD community members, faculty, staff, students for the work they've done on this. They set a great example and I'm just grateful for the work they've done and grateful that the board feels like he can do two things in one night. I'm sure we can handle both. Thank you, Raj. Then at this time, at least for the Select Board, I will entertain a motion to Andy. I just took my glasses off, but I'll go ahead. I move that the Select Board approve the joint resolution in support of the Essex Westford School District equity policy. Second. Great. Opposed by Andy. Second, Don. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Trustees, similar motion? Move the trustees approve the joint resolution in support of the Essex Westford School District equity policy. I'll second. Thank you, Dan and George. Trustees, any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Everybody opposed? Pass 5-0. Thank you. That will bring us to item 6B to discuss the Essex Junction Independence Initiative to separate from the town of Essex. So as we start this, one of the things I'd like to do as well is just go over the process as to how we're going to do this. First and foremost, this is the first time that our two boards have had this kind of a conversation. And so as such, we're kind of building the plane as you fly, if we will. And along those lines, we ask for your forgiveness as it may be messy at times. So please be patient with us as we go through this. Also, this is the first time that the select board has had a meeting since they've seen our proposal. So they have yet to actually talk about this among themselves. So I ask that we all keep that in mind. And that these are proposals. These are not contracts. These are not things our two boards have formally agreed to. So I ask for everybody to keep that in mind that our two boards have not agreed to the items that are outlined within these proposals. So the way this is going to work is I will provide an overview of one proposal. I'll go through one proposal from there. Our boards will have a bit of a time to talk amongst ourselves. Both sides to ask some questions as we try and come to some form of common language. When that conversation has concluded, we will go on to the next proposal. At some point, the boards may feel as if we have talked more than what our brains will allow us to continue discussing and or might just be getting kind of late. And if it comes to that point, we'll have to go through the process before we've gone through everything, but we'll have to wait and see how that goes. In public comment, we are looking to have that at the very end of going through all of these proposals and at the end of our conversations tonight. So I ask for your patience as we do that. Anything you wanted to cover that I do cover on that? I don't think you got it. So first and foremost is police. As we go through these proposals, you will notice after the topic, we have trustee priority. These proposals, except for one, the trustees did rank in order of priority, one being highest priority, 11 being lowest, how much of a priority there are to us, and then they are ordered in our packets along those lines. So police is, as you will see, trustee priority number one. One proposal we did not rank. That came in a little bit after the fact, and so that's at the end of our conversation. So with the police proposal, you can see the important components to us that when we talk about a contract for police services, we are talking about the police, the police departments, the community justice center, dispatch in the building. We would acknowledge the continued payment of the bond that we would share future maintenance and repairs through the budget, that future bonding would have to be passed by both communities, that the city of Essex Junction Manager would have influence and input on hiring police policies. We would look to create an advisory oversight board with three city and three town representatives appointed by the respective boards and that the board would be staffed by city and town managers. Lease direct expenses would be shared based on percentage of the grand list. Work of equity and inclusion group input is incorporated into the oversight board and since that work is not yet done, we weren't quite sure how to work it at this point, but just we wanted to make sure that it would be worked into whatever their findings are at the end. That the city council and the select board will work to align ordinances as best as we possibly can, especially in the feedback we've heard from the police department recently, that all police, community justice, and dispatch revenues and grants are shared and can only be used for these shared activities and that there would be no expiration to this contract, but instead there would be a five-year notice of termination clause by either party. And the rationale is that both communities would be better served by continuing to be served by one police department as compared to separating police services and having the city create its own. Like board members or trustees for that matter, but... Can I add something, Andrew? And I want to make sure, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what we also acknowledged, and I thought would be in here now that I'm reading it, is I think we did acknowledge that the police chief would have to answer to one manager and that would be the town manager. That we would not presume that the police chief in a council manager government would have two losses. So the police chief ultimately, whoever is the town manager, would be, since it would still continue to be a town department, the chief would be under the supervision of the town manager. That's correct right now. Like board members, any questions? I appreciate that clarification, George. I think in particular, Chief Hogue has mentioned that it's critical that they have a very clear chain of command as it were. What do you see, not you in particular, just trustees in general, what do you see as the city manager has influence in input on hiring? Like how exactly do you see that process kind of playing out if the chief reports to the town manager just kind of want to get an idea for her? I'm happy to answer, but I think maybe Andrew probably can answer just as well and do you want to have that? Sure. So essentially there would be a conversation between the two managers that it would be similar to how before we had Evan. So really that it would be a conversation between the two managers, that it would be something that's, even though the town manager does hire, does ultimately supervise the police chief, that there would at least be a conversation and opportunity for the two. John, go ahead. Well, following along with Pat, my next one is what would be the purpose of the oversight board, what do you see it doing or not doing? In terms of like what their purview would be. So some of this was, in a way the equity and inclusion group as we've heard, there's exploration into having an oversight and as a part of that we wanted to ensure that that was a part of this proposal. As that was the one, one of the things I think that had come out from the equity group that we knew was coming down a lot. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to add a little bit more to that. I mean, right now the group that's working with the police chief, we've talked a little bit about an advisory oversight board, but I mean, it's, that's something that I think is significantly down the road right now. As things are, our last meeting, we were pulling statistics and reports and just really starting to get a look at the numbers in regards to police stops and what race was the individual who was pulled over for incidences across, basically the whole of the town. So it's really data right now. I think that the idea of the oversight board would be to work with the police chief to tell him or at least, and also be able to go back to the community and figure out what the priorities are, what the town residents want to see within the lens of equity. So we can research those numbers, let people know what we found and then kind of get feedback and then bring it to the police chief so that he's not the only person who's kind of out there needing to stick his ear to the ground as it were. Excuse me. So just to be clear here, although you've included in here a discussion about a six-junction independence, it's not an oversight from the new city over the police department necessarily. It's a general, more general, standard oversight committee that other municipalities may implement and the request here is to have that the representation be equal from the town and the city. That's I think more the focus here. I guess the way I look at it is I don't know that I want to put together a contract that binds anybody in regard to how this or the activities that this oversight committee takes on. I think that should come from the equity group. And so I think I see this as the relevant piece of this is the representation that you're asking for should such a committee be developed in response to our equity activities. I'd be a little concerned about putting specific numbers on that because the equity folks may have different thought about that. One other consideration there, but that's just a small detail that can be certainly worked out later. Okay. I can move on to another topic. The Community Justice Center, we don't control their budget. They're independent, so I think you're any responsibility there. You need to negotiate with them. There is funding that they get from the town, but their mission and so forth, we don't define, right? They're primarily grant funded. Well, over $200,000 in the town has provided 16, 20,000, not maybe 10% the less. Right. So it's not something that we can say that you can have access to the community justice center. You need to work with them. Mr. Chair, if I can clarify something, about 90% of their existence is determined by the Department of Corrections. They do have some leeway beyond that if they want to and they have funding to do that. It is not from the Department of Corrections. So that's only one minor. So like if they wanted to do restorative justice and the town and the village thought that was a good idea and was going to fund that activity, you could. And the Department of Corrections would as long as it didn't appear with their grant and their grant. And the town has also talked about trying to increase the funding towards DTC in the coming years. It's not knowing what's going to happen at this point, but it's not a time to change the future. And for all that are here and listening at home, the state grant from the Department of Corrections has not increased in many years. But the employees who are town employees do get wage increases. So the amount that the town is paying for the CJC not placing any value on it is increasing the grant state supply. And the CJC's budget is included in the budget packet that we see but we have no say in what that budget is. It's in there for informational purposes and for us to understand what our contribution provides. You've included it here twice in this proposal but I think you really need to work with the CJC for whatever support from them. I agree. As I understand it, their jurisdiction is set by the Department of Corrections and the police, it's not really they take, right now, they take people from other towns. They take people from Williston and Colchester or something like that. It's not a strict S6 town, S6 junction organization. Right. Go ahead. I have two questions for clarification but since I keep hearing the Department of Corrections I just want to make it known that I have no authority for the Department of Corrections. I have no authority input or influence over the CJC grant. It's funding or the amount. Just to put that out there. So my two questions are around the police direct expenses. What exactly does that include? Does it include things like administration, finance support, HR, workers comp, liability insurance, things like that? I would say the things that are within the police department but that's within the town's budget. And my second question is I'm curious about the rationale of why you're focusing on a percentage of the grand list as opposed to population. You know, just from my own personal comment, the grand list doesn't commit crimes people do. So if you're talking about one apartment building, well that's one on the grand list but it may contain 150 families, it may contain 300 people. So I was just curious about your rationale there. I'm trying to go quickly back to the memo from the police chief. I believe that that was his request. And the memo from the police chief did caution against going for an incident-based split and he recommended either a grand list split or a population split. I think when we talked about it, we had discussed that the grand list is more stable than the population count and so it was really to help with providing a fair amount of stability in budgeting. Whereas with the population count, that can change. We believe a little more drastically than the population. I think you describe you say through the budget. I'm not sure what that means. Does that suggest that the select board puts together a budget and you're going to pay 42% of it? Or is it you're not sure what you're you've got an infinitely long contract here which I'll ask a question about later. I'll ask you through the budget. But how does that you know just like now where I watched a couple of the meetings at least chief in partnership with the administration put together a budget presented to the the select board. We discussed that it's paid for by the grand list and it would pay 42% of that. So I think if you want to kicker on it kind of thing it's you're willing to have the select board put any budget they want up and as long as the town voters pass that budget you're going to pay 42% of it at the plant. In theory with that since we would have to pay city residents to pay a portion of it we would put together at least chief says we need a new office that would be in the budget and it would pay 42% of it. I had another point and I was going to go on that one and I lost it. I have a question about I guess kind of along those lines what qualifies is in the budget obviously the police department makes sense but to have Travis does HR and the police department is by far the largest department in the city. So that's a good chunk of his time that would need to be quick towards that but that doesn't fall within the police department budget. I think there's probably another couple of scenarios like IT they do a significant amount of workload in the police station which doesn't fall within the police department budget. So there's a few I think kicker's additions that wouldn't necessarily fall under that I think that we might need to address somehow. I would imagine it would be something it would make it more complicated but I think it's doable to say what portion of town administrative time went towards police operations this year and that gets rolled into the bill you'd have to maybe cost that out into the police budget or something obviously we're still high level but those kinds of details would have to be worked out. I'm just mentioning it now because I don't want to surprise you guys with when we're like it's going to call so cost X, Y, and Z. No that George would say but it would be difficult to parse out exactly how much Travis's time was spent on that budget to put a number of figure on that. So there are scenarios where I could see expenses for the police department increasing beyond budget just thinking in my career back on the specific cases things that really are taxing manpower over time major cases that potentially happen here within our community within the city or within the town and we're just going to take that as cost I agree with this as far as whatever cost is and break it down by the grand list and whether it's in the town outside the city or within the city what have you single out say well that didn't happen here I would say that extra and I brought up I think meeting last week the things at the fairgrounds and stuff like that events there's going to be a lot of stuff about the city that could be very costly or time consuming manpower Right, yeah Dan was mentioning that you've got an officer at five corners twice a day of kids are walking through that's not something that you know if you're just paying 42% of the budget then the town is paying 56% of that time that's so there are some scenarios where we might need to think through a different way of handling or something I'm not suggesting we have that negotiation right here and I get it and you guys need time to digest this but what I'm guessing is that maybe if we put something in here in the contract we would say the funding and the the parsing out of cost would be reviewed for the first few years just to sort of compensate for these kinds of things suddenly there's something we didn't anticipate that's an additional cost that the town is getting more out of the contract then there's an unfairness so there would have to probably be some review clause in the contract where we get to rethink things if there's a real problem so it's not just locked into one funding mechanism and then like you said if we discovered that there are police that are being paid in Essex Junction that are there that are not present in the town and so we're getting a little bit more than our 42% or 43% we're getting actually we're paying 42% but we're getting 45% so it's going to be difficult to parse it out and see exactly the cost but I know from experience that on certain situations events like the fair or a special event that's going on communities that I've worked in actually contract with the agency to pay a specific effort of a budget make a contract and it's probably that entity deals with it so that could address special events but as far as day in day out your normal crimes and God forbid major crimes homicides and such that is catch as catch can and you know to say that well does it happen here you're going to have to pay a majority of I don't think we can what happens when it happens in the city of Essex just for all of you but it's a resident of the town that did it you know the kind of what do you draw the line here in these things that just think we can just agree I hope we could agree to say that generally we're looking at you know facing this on the grand list 42% whatever percentage however it sugars out and we'll accept that and then as far as the exceptions you know we'll deal with those I think we can come to an agreement hopefully communities I think that's doing it in the budget process and some of this you know not having it can go both ways but not having a set contract for a set fee that's for a set number of years and then all of a sudden discovering that you know we need to make some changes if it's in the budget process some of those changes can be handled at the annual budget time when the budget's being developed so if the town discovers that well we need to tweak this a little bit then some of those discussions will naturally be held every year when the budget process is going and that I would imagine would be also an ongoing conversation therefore with the city council between the select board and the city council and how that's working out if I'm not mistaken the 4258 breakdown is kind of how it works now and the officers at five corners you know that's how the financial breakdown is working at this moment so I don't it's not a drastic change those officers are there for through traffic reasons because it's one of the busiest intersections in the state and an awful lot of folks from Essex town, Jericho, Westford you name it are going to work through there so that's part of the reason they're there but anyway I just wanted to make the point that you know having a rock solid contract that's outside the budget that's just separately negotiated would probably make it difficult to adjust as this went on as opposed to doing it annually certainly pros and cons but just wanted to add that so you don't have any heartburn about the fact that the select board is going to propose a budget the town is going to vote on it and you're going to pay 42% of the you're going to have to charge your residents the amount of money to support 42% of that budget so in a sense the town is voting a tax free that's a way to look at that so I don't know if there's any you know how that works whether it's a concern and I'm just looking across at you because you're convenient personally I would say I would assume you would have the same motivation to keep your costs under control as everybody else so that would be it would affect the town just as much as it would affect the new city so unnecessary spending so I would personally think that's okay I'm not alleging that there'll be unnecessary spending what my concern is that essentially the town is voting for a tax that the village will pay in that scenario the way I'm looking at it and I don't know if that's legal that's a question I think that would need to be asked so that's where I'm not asking for a solution right now but I think it's a question that needs to be asked along that okay we propose this I knew what I was saying when I agreed to this and I assumed the other four to a piece to do okay and the other piece of it is you've suggested no expiration date and we've kind of been told that you can't bind future to a a contract of infinite length and you have to do a shorter term and I don't know what that shorter term is so that's another potential legal question that would need to be looked at I think from a contract perspective basically you would just have a, well I'm not an attorney but you would just have a clause that the agreement would auto renew every so many years unless terminated by and that would give you a set smaller term but it just auto renew so you don't have to do any work administratively in order to re-enter that agreement and hopefully we don't lose that document we lost the last one that had one of those clauses and I have one more thing I'm kind of just concerned about like shared liability with the police department if the police department is sued the town taxpayers are so I think we should probably have some sort of discussion around that go into it knowing hey this is these are the liabilities one other question I have is you've got a comment in here about aligning ordinances and I can't think of a scenario to represent this but there's a possibility that you could enact an ordinance that costs a lot of money to enforce or we could but I have some small amount of and I guess that's the case that's the case anyway in any case around this sorry I'm talking this through out loud and I may talk myself out of it soon but I know something to think about is I'm pretty sure you don't want to be constrained by the select board saying no you can't have that ordinance because it costs too much and so I don't know if there's a way to have some sort of assessment review maybe that's just the some future reconciliation thing that happens if something becomes more expensive than you anticipate in bandwidth just to speak to what you're saying Andy under state statue if when I was working if I stopped somebody on Route 15 here I could write them under the state statue speed code the funds the revenues go to the state whereas the municipal departments in the state they would write them under the local statute so speed zones you could literally have an area on state routes where revenues could come from traffic lines to the community being the city or the town of Essex whereas if trooper was out there stopping somebody they might not write it under the code that would go to which not always we didn't always do that but we could run it under the state statue so just one added thing so we would have to I don't know how we the revenues or the funds whatever but somehow would be divvied up that way too couple of things that weren't mentioned here maybe they're just part of the the police budget that would be developed is the Howard center the community outreach and maybe the CJC falls into that same category and maybe you don't need to do your own negotiations with them it just we would just administer it and pass the you know pass along part of the police budget so maybe I was I was out of that didn't need to be mentioned animal control also I guess would be all into that same category the event comment was made is do we need to have an individual some sort of individual agreement about events support okay we got hit all of my concerns in the I already mentioned the oversight board I think we need to have significant input from the equity groups before that gets totally defined there are some questions around that I had around we're going to start implementing stipends for some of our committees and whether we need to have agreement on that but I think that's more administrative how we're going to deal with joint communities or joint committees in the future so it doesn't necessarily need to be a detail hammered out for this question so questions for moving forward a lot there are expenses outside the police department budget that are in other budgets like workers comp and liability and other things sorry there are items that are very expensive that are not inside the police budget that are in other budgets like finance HR how would you like the town to respond to this do you want to see a listing of those of what the town would be responding to as these are some of the costs that are definitely in the police department for that next discussion I think that with anything that is unresolved tonight that the select board to come back to the trustees with some of the details what we're on discussion of costs so if we're going to parse everything we can go down to the road of fire departments and say how often does the fire truck go outside of the city up to the town for response so the cost associated with that for service itself I think I'm just saying that if we're going to look at the cost of things it really could look at a lot of things and try and break it down just to get very cloudy just so you know I'm talking about major things like the bond for the building the workers comp which is a very large ticket item the casualty and property insurance for the police department is a very large number those three things alone are probably over a half a million that is not in the police department budget they're in someone else's budget don't you think you could look at your workers comp bill and calculate what portion of it is for the police the town has that you'd have to do that I mean you're probably doing that anyway so I just want to know how you want to see it and so with the bond the second bullet is that we would that the city acknowledged that there's not but it's also not in the police department budget so when you say by the budget it's not in there it's in a different line so what I'm hearing is then put it in a proposal and show you the cost the town should be in that and then you can discuss whether you're going to do it by grand list or any other method yeah no just briefly the only thing I'd say not about the the items that Evan mentioned which are great but you know delving into the HR and IT and all of that certainly it'd be interesting to see what those percentages would be and if it would be possible to sort of shift that fringe over to the police budget but this is also this is a way to this proposal it keeps the police department intact and it keeps the items to pass with the police department of the same size that it had before with its full breadth and skill and resources to serve the town when needed and same for the village or the city so you know one way to look at this is you know this if done by grand list or otherwise and even if even if we don't end up rolling in some of those extra costs from IT and HR for instance you know this is a great way to keep that police department whole like I said and that availability for the future town to have that amazing resource so I just hope I'm sure you'll all keep that in mind but I just wanted to point that out you know this preserves that Thanks Raj and Amber since I don't have teams open in front of my face the whole time if your hands up am I getting to you please just interrupt and sorry to Dan One thing that might make the teams work better for all of us is if those who are attending the meeting if you're not speaking you turn off your cameras so that we don't the view is easier on everybody Betsy Dan or please turn off your camera so you're ready to speak, thank you Those are other questions on police proposal so the next one is bonding and from this one we would be looking for a moratorium on town of Essex bonding votes through June 30, 2023 which I think we would actually want to amend to be through legislative approval of separation and the rationale is given the independence effort we don't want to take on additional bonding debt that will stay with the city afterwards to be clear is this going to exclude the the sewer departments the sewer departments from what I understand they all when we bond for those they stay with their respective service providers with our water and sewer being then that wouldn't impact on city is general general fund capital fund non-interface my concern is that this kind of this ties our hands for an undetermined amount of time and so it's a really hard thing for us to commit to I don't yeah I understand that's a bind for you that if you're if we bond in the next year you're independent does that work I don't know if this one's going to take some thought yeah I actually agree with you Andy I understand your reasoning but you know I mean as we've experienced the you know GovOps can and does take the can down the road an indeterminate period of time it could go down there and you know might not see action on it for three or four years and if something comes up where the bond is a necessity I think it's unlikely but I think in this case having a specific date would make me feel more comfortable understanding your reasoning and where you're coming from just I think relying on the legislature to provide that for us is touchy at best nothing new to have yeah it's a hard one me coming for staff the caveat the caveat that it does not include enterprise funds is appropriate if anything's probably going to go wrong in an emergency that's where it's probably going to go and then my only other comment that I wrote in is that you know two comments actually bonds are general fund bonds are required to have voter approval so that's one check on that and then two what they're going to get used for and where but other than that it's not an unreasonable request well you've got I'm just throwing a comment in there you've got generally speaking my experience with both governments is we tend not to get too far into debt we've already got a significant bond out for the police with how many millions of dollars I don't know off the top of my head but you've got years to go on that and millions of dollars to pay so it'd be uncharacteristic of the town of Essex from my experience the town of Essex I know to take on another great big bond right now so that being said you never know what can happen something could happen as long as we understand the logic here see what we're shooting for ready to go on that one? yep thank you thank you the next one being transition period the components are the transition period of July 1 to June 30 following approval of the charter by the legislature that there'd be continued current consolidated services with work towards unraveling administration assessing clerk pressure, information technology work, storm water town to collect taxes for town and city for the budgets approved the previous March April city residents continue to pay taxes but are no longer citizens of the town during that transition period the rationales the city will need to form so that the city budget and elections can take place the city only ends town budgets and elections can take place with town outside the village only city will need one year to prepare and city voters will have approved the March budget and thus should pay taxes for the year so what makes you think that one year is enough? it seems like a daunting task to accomplish all that I think you reading ahead to finance you've allowed five years for finance why are these others easier or should we get some sort of assessment or should you get some sort of assessment of how long it should take and the whole we still have a town to run in this year that you're asking for and we're not going to put all our people through all kinds of overtime to meet a one year date for there's implications for other work needs to be done and to be for town staff to be doing work to support city in this time frame without financial support from the city I don't know is there way to budget think about who pays for the transition costs especially given that we need to still we need to still run the town in terms of the time frame during that time period one of the things that we need to talk about as a board is we haven't created that budget yet we have a little bit of this conversation is that we would budget in for for a manager we would budget in for staff as soon as possible that way after this one year time period it's not as if we need to hire everybody and on one day but rather we would have had this year where we've been hiring some staff periodically throughout the time the word unraveling that you have in there where you are going to need town support to train those new people you've hired this is the way that it's been done for the village or are you just relying on them to say this is the way we're going to do it's a new way you still have to transition if there's any information that the town has that city then needs to have there needs to be migration pass there needs to be all that support that you're going to need to transition from town support to city support is going to take town staff time and for all of these departments I have little confidence that we can do it in a year so what would happen though if a town person became a city person would the town then want city to pay to train the town person I don't know I'm not trying to negotiate it right here I'm just raising the concern that I think a year is very very aggressive to get all of that done and the secondary or the auxiliary question is if if this drives a boatload of overtime which people won't like because we keep hearing that we're overstressing staff anyway that's a bigger that's an expense as well just to meet an arbitrary one year timeline that I just think is very aggressive and maybe we need to maybe somebody needs to I don't know we've been asked not to do a lot of sizing either so it's a tough to to I have difficulty supporting a single year yeah and I think some of this is also we bring our own assumptions into this whether right or wrong are hard to disprove or prove at this point so I don't think anything that any one of us are going to be able to say to alleviate any concerns we have on it we're not at that point so then I hear what you're saying you also have included stormwater and I thought our stormwater agreement was also with the town of Wilson how do you plan on wastewater wastewater not stormwater thank you it's just going to speak if I could to the department so administration includes HR and the plan for the village is to hire both their manager and HR director at the start of that year so those two would be in place for an entire year the assessing department the board still need to discuss the clerk treasurer has indicated that she could prepare everything to transition on July 1 after one year and so she's prepared to make that happen the trustees have discussed having information an IT contractor so they wouldn't need to hire an IT staff public works is listed as a consolidated department but I don't think it's actually materialized yet and so I think that the village has its own public works department which would be prepared to operate independently after a year and the village also has its own stormwater coordinator and so just that function wouldn't be shared anymore so in terms of the services that would be consolidated for a year I don't think they're going to pull on many departments there would need to be a little bit but I think the village would be hiring professionals to take and step into those roles yes Travis would need to share with the new HR director how he manages all the employees in bamboo and that kind of stuff but I don't think that new HR director we would assume would take on those roles and responsibilities that's kind of been our our discussions in terms of that timeline I just can add something real quick the state requires the town and the village to work together on the MS-4 permit and that's not going to change we're both responsible for the ultimate discharge into the Wanooski River how we, what we do and everything but I think that there we would absolutely have to continue some kind of stormwater joint stormwater oversight coordination of our activities so that's going to continue but it would take some adjustment is separating the clerk that in that one year does that include all of the land records and all of the paper records that exist no so the records that exist at before the city is incorporated to stay with the town once day one of the city happens records would be stored from the city side all the historical stuff would hopefully have to go to two places so if I can so you got to envision this there's a book and you today a house in the town refinances and that's 101 101 goes into sheep 101 then five minutes later it's in the village refinances and it's 102 it goes in the same book so the I guess the concept is great it's in a book it's in a record digitally and it sits in the vault here from day one of the new city that transaction of the city property getting refinanced would be city number one in the book and city number two and city number three but anything that is done would have to come here and fill the town's book if somebody is doing a title search for a property that's in the city they are going to have to go to two places potentially if it's far enough back so just to be clear only new records would go into the city's vault so existing we wouldn't have to go through and sort through that's very helpful thank you there's a lot of other things that was a big concern there's a lot of other things there's a lot of other things record digitization I think IT is not going to be as easy as just hiring a consultant because there's going to be a lot of I think a lot of hand holding there moving data and so forth maybe it can happen in a year my other comment question is the last bullet in the top section there says city residents pay town taxes but are no longer citizens of the town is it I'm not sure I understand what this period is then so is this is this the I guess maybe the right way to ask is won't the legislature tell you when you're no longer a citizen of the town could they say well it has to be on June 30 July 1 of the following year after this transition year I don't know what the they want to do something other than what we proposed the thought that we've had going through this is just for argument's sake I think the math or timeline easier let's just say July 1, 2023 is the date that the city is important but yet we as village residents will have voted on the town's budget that would be in place what we're saying is even though as of July 1, 2023 will not actually be residents of the town as a separate city we would recognize that we would still pay the taxes as we were voting for that budget so from a timeline perspective you're saying that if sometime in April the legislature approves this and agrees that July 1 of that calendar year you can become a city even though you've already approved a town budget that's what you're suggesting and you don't think that they're going to say you've already approved your town budget you need to state that they might we just don't this is not something that I can commit to this you're no longer going to be a town resident and I guess we'll have to see how the scenario plays out because the way I might suggest is that if in April your charter is approved I think it should be for the following July not the July that's coming up immediately and in parallel we ask the legislature to generate or to create a temporary town voting district that's outside the village that votes on the following year's budget so that only people who live outside of your new city vote on that budget which becomes effective July 1st the same day that you become a new city so I think that's I like that idea a lot better where that's a what you're proposing is a scenario where village residents will vote on a town budget that they're not going to be members of for that full year whereas I would like to go the other way and say okay in parallel with them approving your charter they also approve a provision that makes the town outside the village a unique voting district that can vote on a budget that impacts that entity after you've separated yes but we haven't talked about it so that's and so that's going to be a frame that you would have to drive we'd have to figure out how that might work or whether it might work whether it's legal whether it's possible I also have to ask the rest of the board whether they would support that sort of scenario and you'd also need to know what constraints the government committee might put on so yeah there could be many other they could have a completely different view of the whole thing than I do as made these other four other people in the room I just think that I think you're right we're speaking the same language it's just a matter of how we get there right the point is that the village voters don't vote the next march for the budget that's that only the town outside the village pays for right we're both what you're saying is that's what you want to accomplish right but they will have voted on a budget that doesn't affect them prior year that's that's why I'd rather see it go the other way but again that's just me talking and for the trustees they'll have to this is written into the charter and so I think the tricky part for the trustees would be writing something like that in that's dependent on something else also happening in terms of the formation of the tax system whereas this approach fills two birds with one stone and accomplishes the same thing that they're still paying taxes and that they don't get voted to be my own account the next one the re-appraisal fund the re-appraisal fund the city will have paid a share of re-appraisal funds that have been collected for building properties by the town the city and town will agree to do a joint RFP for re-appraisal assuming both will need to be done at the same time now the town has collected a dollar fifty cents per parcel per year that's money from the state for re-appraisal for building properties the village has about thirty four hundred properties out of the eighty two hundred in all the town outbound so I think we haven't talked about how to do the slack board has offered the trustees the opportunity the possibility of going through this next re-appraisal with the town's assessor which is the another question coming back to the prior one where assessor is included in there if the upcoming likely re-appraisal is three years out it's beyond your one year possibly beyond your one year horizon is there should there be more discussion about that possibility before something like this is agreed to if the alternative way to do this is to for the city to contract with the town to do their re-appraisal we would hold the money at the end of the re-appraisal then we would potentially distribute any leftover funds rather than doing it up front and then asking for it back if we're going to contract together it's a different way of looking in the end it may end up the same I also had the same thought it seems as though it would be less resource intensive to do it that way as opposed to transferring everything first and then we have to get back together again to develop a joint RFP and go down that path it was just my initial thought when I was reading through it just to clarify the funds are here we do get them from the state we do not get them for every parcel I don't know the ones that we don't get I'm sure we don't get for municipal parcels I'm sure we don't get them for the state parcels that are in your community or anything like that but in general we do get $8.50 on a preponderance that money exists it is set for revaluation right now we are hearing within the next three years we're probably going to be made to do so the state spent a lot of effort in the school district to get our I think the term is CLA to be equalized between the town and the village so I strongly suggest you go through the revaluation assuming it's in within the next three years the town runs that revaluation through a service which we would do the RFP we could even discuss that process of approving that firm that does it we are hearing those costs roughly $100 to $110 a parcel and then whatever's left over in the fund the boards can decide what they're going to do with it on what basis they would share the remainder but it is at least in my opinion money that was given for the parcel it's a finite amount that is set by the state and by the way has not changed in I want to say forever but it's at least the last eight to ten years that amount so it's not like you say the village grew this or the town grew that it's been the same for a thing I would just suggest if you want to see a counter from the town the town would probably counter with something like that other than that it's it will also be very confusing to people of where who they're supposed to call it so if that's it one quick question confusion of reappraisal versus tax bill if the town is not doing this doing the tax billing for the next city is the city going to do its own tax bill which the what the town clerk does now for both city and for both city and education the city clerk would function the city clerk whatever the the school tax nothing that we would need to put the iron out can I ask a question the the school district currently pays the town to collect taxes correct the school district does not collect its own taxes is that correct that's correct and that's a pretty big contract correct yes and a town makes the school district all as they do the village I mean that's I think this is a point that we I will say we haven't discussed how would work because if Essex Junction has its own clerk Essex town has its own clerk what's the school district going to do is it going to divide those two things up because it doesn't recognize the school districts the town being separate from the village school district and it just recognizes one school district so this is something we'll have to discuss not a big deal but it's a technicality that will have to be worked out I'm making an assumption that when the city clerk would send out a tax bill for the district tax this is like the town clerk does now I would assume that we would make the education so we would make the school district full for the city portion just as the town does now instead of asking the town to now bill a set of taxes to the properties that it doesn't have on its own grant list we don't have any control over that we would just take that portion off the school district gets three checks one from the town, one from the city and one from westward but those are all assumptions next one being senior services when we are talking about senior services it is including the senior center at two Lincoln street senior bus service and general senior programming please use it as a hobby opportunity that sx parks in iraq would provide the management and oversight all related revenues deposited in town managed senior service enterprise funds that funds used for direct senior services services reserve funds from the sx area senior center would be transferred to the town and used for the end of senior expenses all direct expenses related to senior services would be shared equally by the city town town bills the city at the end of senior services the city would provide senior center space at two Lincoln street for drop in hours other times available portion of city annual budget or annual buildings expense associated with senior space is assessed reduced from 50% of the town bill that senior services advisory committee would have similar to the police department would have three city and three town representatives appointed by the respective boards or to be staffed at EPR program director services rationale being that senior services have been shared and has been working that EPR has a history of managing these services and has done so well way of splitting up the responsibilities of senior services and free farm people so I don't understand the next to last bullet I don't even know what those words mean portion of city annual buildings expense associated with center space is assessed and reduced from 50% town bill what does that mean I don't the bill from the town services how the city would pay for half of senior services bill or saying is that two Lincoln which would be owned by the city that they cost associated with that building and having services available instead of the town building the city for the services and the city building the town for the building so you're essentially proposing the same thing here similar to what you are for the police services that it would be a budget would be put together it doesn't say here it would be shared by grand list because now I hear it saying equally in 50% do you realize that there are seniors who attend from outside of town and city so I was accosted in the parking lot of price chopper yesterday by somebody I rate bridge player unhappy about the fact that they don't have access to the senior center anymore and so the question I have here though there's nothing no comment here about you know it says drop in hours but who decides those hours because it's your building and our program director so is that something that needs to be detailed out in contract or is it I don't want to detail out the hours so how that has arrived at just curious about the utilization rate is it 100%, 75%, 50% utilization just for senior services as opposed to other uses I don't know free COVID we can be looking at free COVID free COVID please correct me if I'm wrong yes it was 100% senior service and I think the intention is to have it 100% senior services right now we're going through some transition stuff but the idea is to get it back to the way it was from the bottom and components the last part of that is other times available for city municipal use that's the reason why I'm asking that question because it seems like it's not or it's not anticipated to be 100% so overwhelmingly I shouldn't say 100% maybe 98 somewhere around that ground and the reason I say it is I know that there were legislative forums that happened there was one two years ago that we in overflow room so we use the senior center when the seniors weren't there can't think of anything else it's overwhelmingly I think your description of free COVID it was 100% that that senior space was just utilized for senior programming and I think the center needs to reopen and reestablish its hours and its programming I think there's a conversation we have a conversation next week about Ali and I and Cole have talked just about probably needing to change that that space actually could be available when it's not being used by seniors that it could serve other municipal uses and so I do think that this contract should reflect that it would be for the time that it's being used for seniors I think would be appropriate yeah you were shaking your head at one point was there anything you wanted to say the senior center does get used for some after school programming as well it did for the first time last year during COVID when we couldn't be in the school that's always that over now that's not a normal use I could as we all probably know meeting space is at a premium I mean it's not even a premium we don't have it this room and the village boardroom is the only and maybe occasionally Memorial Hall are the only places the village or the town have flexible meeting space occasionally 75 maple but it's a catch as catch can and I guess the question is is that the sort of the idea there are nights there's weekends where the seniors don't have hours and the city wants use of that space yeah correct I mean there are AA groups there are religious groups there are all sorts of groups that are looking for space that don't charge their members and that space sometimes could be that would accommodate those groups as well just for clarification who's paying for that space in this iteration is there any rent or any electricity or is that the village's contribution or is that something that's also here so a portion of city annual buildings is associated with the center space is reduced from by 50% from that much a portion of it would be paid out of that contract it's going to be nominal at best if you look at the overall expenses of 2 Lincoln and figure out what percentage of space the senior center takes I think it's more on principle that if we're going to share everything all the costs then let's be honest about what those costs are my best guess is it fairly gets to it doesn't get to double digits in terms of thousands of dollars I don't disagree I don't think we track it at all no either way it's never a big deal to begin with I just wanted to understand so if you feel softly just flip it where senior services would be provided from EPR this time free farm would be managed and overseen by EJRP for the free farm services and all related revenues would be deposited if the city managed free farm enterprise funds funds would be used for direct free farm expenses that direct expense of the percent of the program director supports the salary and benefits for the free farm time would be shared equally between the city and the town the city would build a town at the end of the year for the actual expenses there would be a free farm advisory committee made up of user groups that would be approved by both city council and select board membership would be based on group representation not presidency and like city council and select board would both ask common ordinances of the property rationale being that EJRP has a program director, a force of fitness who could take on this work and it's a way of splitting up the responsibilities of senior services free farm between both the community and back to that advisory committee it's conceived of being the soccer organization the area the rugby organization the various sports and entities that are currently in the future using that property would be a part of it not necessarily just a three residents and to clarify for folks that may be listening at home or in the room this is a tree farm is a jointly owned facility currently managed by the tree farm management group which is an independent organization that may or may not be the case in the future but it is a jointly owned piece of property two clarification it's within both and it's not and it's not that the town owns the town portion of it and the village owns the village portion we both jointly own the entire thing although there may be clauses about if we ever decide not to I don't know I think the only clause would be Andy if someone wanted to if we wanted to build something there then you'd have to say which planning commission which development office in which planning commission reviews the application it would depend on where it falls in the town village line this plays into the last line here versus common ordinances I think it's in the town outside the village you can't build an indoor recreation facility but within the village you can so those are already not common ordinances are they zoning are they ordinances or are they zoning in the town and land development so it's I guess not technically an ordinance but it is different so I don't know if your intent is to have to that level things be common I don't know something we can talk about I guess it works for a long time like shooting right yeah firearms discharge I would be in it makes sense to have for that to be common not allowed at the tree park there's one I can't clear that right now in either side and currently no dogs so you mentioned in this one that there would be an actual billing at the end of at the end of a year rather than having it be a budgetary thing like the other some of the other scenarios we've talked about that billing at the end of the year makes it difficult I don't know how we would budget for that I think the intent with all of them is that they would be in the budget at the beginning of the year but actually billed at the end of the year because what actually goes into the budget doesn't always equate to what the actual expenses so I think the intent is everybody budgets for them but you're only paying actually an example of employees there for the entire year that have that employee would be billed if there's a gap in employment for a period of time he wouldn't be billed for a time that a person would okay so that any under spent okay so any under spending the fund balance associated with that would go to both communities equally rather than accumulating in this account that's the intent on this one I would say same for all of them same with police it didn't say that on the other one that's why I was asking that question I think it's a great clarification I would treat them all the same same with finance same with senior service what happens if expenses are more than in any of these scenarios so that's where I'm concerned that that point it made clear on the bigger ticket items we were talking about earlier that the intent is to have a reconciliation at the end of the year currently our highway agreement has that in there we've never done it what's the thing about that one I was going to say it would be I'm looking at tree farm senior police and I think that this may be what you're getting at but it would be nice to develop some sort of methodology that's scalable enough where you can apply it to IT HR support for police the sports facility sports and fitness program director for tree farm for staff supporting the senior center so that we're only developing one methodology rather than a methodology for individual contracts does that make sense so about the indirect cost I think with regards to indirect costs yes I'm going to have to excuse myself I have to take an early evening here no worries before you leave can you bring me one of those bottles of water over there sure you're up thank you I forgot my water bottle make that too George I'd like one too I'll take some orders thank you George delivery charge on this one have a good one George thank you you explicitly list that only the program director the program director is the only direct expense is that really your intention because there's surely going to be IT costs associated with scheduling and those kind of things is that maybe I'm I think it's similar to the other part so HR so we're halfway through our list of 12 items or is it 11 items we are halfway through and it's almost 8.30 do we want to keep going or do we want to folks feel these other ones have been shorter so okay anybody okay with keeping going services from the town city and town would each employ two full-time personnel and would employ the finance director and assistant director city and town would share the salary and benefit costs of the director and assistant director 5% of the grant list city manager and town manager jointly hire supervised evaluate finance director and would build a city at the end of the year for actual costs of the director and assistant director expire on June 30 4 years after the city is formed the rationale of the finance director is that time is needed to separate finance any questions I may have misread Sarah's memo but I thought she mentioned an extra FBE and how that would work and I thought she said three and three for staff she said she has six yeah so I spoke with Sarah on that so there would be two village employees two town employees and then the two shared employees does that make sense it does one thing I have concerns about is joining going into a contract with you that restricts how many people we can hire this specifically says we can only hire two people or continue to employ two people if we decide we need a third or a half a person or I'm is this another one where we're going to budget and then figure out a divider or we're all paying for our own employees and they're working together to separate things is that so the two kind of questions there one of the two people is really just in line with Sarah's memo Sarah's thoughts on that so it's to align with that from and then your second part was about how that shared yeah so employing them with the thoughts they're going to be separating that's one of the questions I mean these six people work together to pull apart so in other departments you said the select board sets a budget town approves it 42% of it or whatever the grand list division is that that's not said here so they're just asking how what's the intent I mean is it it almost looks like we're going to have our employees you're going to have your employees and they're going to work together and we'll just pay for our own employees and there's no other costs considered so town would have to city would have to the town would hire the employee or the employer or the finance director and the system director and then we would pay for I'm sorry we would pay for the salary and benefit costs by the percentage of the grand list what is in there percentage of the grand list is there okay so this is another one where maybe we need to look at IT support and so forth because the finance folks use computers right yeah just going to say that same for each department one advocacy so I so I guess I am you know yeah right this is you're trying to limit how many people we hire I don't know because you've got explicit number of people that were allowed to employ in finance just is concerning that you're trying to constrain us the intent of this is not to say you can hold the employee good evening in recent months members of my administration and officials of the committee for the re-election of the president on it that's great brigade affair these include charges of so the intent of it is that Sarah's memo has said that there should be that's all that if the verbiage changes changes to not more than I'm sorry not fewer than we're not trying to okay sorry I just have had extensive conversations with Sarah so I feel like I can represent right now there are five in the finance department one of them is a village employee and so she's talking about another employee and what we talked about is if she brought it on as a town employee we know within four years if everything happens that person would no longer have a job in four years and they would need to somebody would then need to apply for a village job so she thought it was cleanest to hire and establish two village employees for the long term hire and establish two long-term town employees and then at the end of the day her and Courtney who are currently the you know department head and the assistant one theory would go to the village and one to the town and that would be decided at the later date rather than have five town employees and then the village getting to hire two only speaking for myself here but I want to ask the question is it hasn't been asked what are yours meaning trustee thoughts about departments where I know you proposed a separation ending after a period of time but we've heard from Sarah that she thinks that finance could be stronger together in perpetuity obviously we're in theory doing that with the police department but would the trustees be at all amenable if the select board came back with a counter proposal that might include a long-term continuation of finance or is that a non-starter this is this gets a little confusing because part of what finance does or it's the police department too so then we're suddenly we're shifting from one department to another department essentially you're already paying for the other department so what's the thing through here makes sense but you can't have one without the other just a thought about how messy this could be you have a comment in here about the city manager and town manager jointly hiring the finance director similarly to the police chief that seems like it could be problematic having two bosses requirement does anything you want could I just clarify that's different than police the police chief would be providing police services to both communities the finance director would be leading the finances of two separate communities so that's the difference she would be responsible for managing all of the books and the assets and the audits for the city as well as responsible for doing all of those things for the town whereas the chief of police is not going to have any requirements to do anything for the city other than provide services the other thing that I could see being a little odd in this is when the city manager and town manager went to hire somebody in that seat and when I'm saying this I am not at all suggesting or trying to imply that person to be hired that would I would say just be there if that person decides to no longer be in a position during this during the time period we could propose some I think if you're amenable we could propose language to address if a vacancy occurred how long sorry it's been a long day if a vacancy were to occur we can address language of how a vacancy would be filled with both city and town and some type of hiring and supervision I too have talked to Sarah she's not going to take too kindly to anybody supervising her about her work I'm kidding she's wonderful but gotta follow the rules gotta follow the rules hers other questions on this the important components being that the town currently has $4.9 million in assigned fund balance city is not asking for any sharing of that at the end of this year 20 the town had just under $2.3 million in unassigned fund balance for each budget billage tax payers contributed 42% city is formed the town would pay the city $965,933 right over five years FY 21 1323, 42% of any town surplus before it is assigned would be assigned and distributed to the village tax city now the village tax payers have contributed to the unassigned fund balance couple questions what happens if there's a negative balance there's an overspend rather than a surplus if it's a negative number rather than a positive number something we need to think about another is that the town budget is not going to decrease by 42% and so the purpose of that unassigned fund balance is an emergency fund I do not know if the village has one of those at this point so if we were to start handing over cash out of that fund that brings us below 15% that puts us at some risk there's reasons why we have that 15% and it would play funny things with what the surplus actually is because we'd have to be feeding back into our 15% so there may be that almost million dollars you're asking for could put a hole in our 15% that we worked hard to develop and I understand that village residents as town residents contributed to it so what was the thing about I think we need to consider that and look at scenarios I'm concerned about handing over that much given what's the unassigned purpose of the unassigned balance is we're 23 budget the point is being that we would like to redo the town and the village manager MOU to reflect the current and anticipate the administrations it works towards a greater tax equity in the return of the village's portion of the town services that do not serve village residents return 42% of town capital taxes village slash city town community development budget to the village by city now that town and village manager MOU does factor in other administration related positions and functions it will also change the hiring of the city manager and city car director the village pays money for town services and departments that the village already has and do not serve village residents are you not getting new development I would argue that any development that happens outside the village mitigates your town taxes and so you are getting benefit from you say that the town is benefiting from village community development that's actually a rub and that's exactly the rub as I see it right is that the town outside the village benefits from the village community development department without paying for it absolutely so what you are saying as if there are services that we provide that you don't get rather than there are services you provide that we don't to us that we don't pay for it that's a different way of looking at it it's it's it it I'm just concerned that there seems to be some opinion that there are a lot of things that the town does that do not support the village and I think it's a limited number and it's not as big as many people make it out to be and and the language here I think could be clear on that regard that's why I've asked a number of times you know exactly what those services are so we can go and look and say well what do they cost or we I guess I'm not so this is talking about the upcoming year's budget and so what are you doing here that we continue to move you know as an example I think it's something that has been posed before move the village fire department into the town budget in the FY23 budget as an example just I'm not saying that's what we're going to do just as an example is that what you're talking about or is this your I don't understand what you're asking for here I guess so if you looked at pick the town capital budget or let's pick the town capital budget that's a separate thing do we have a page for capital capital tax they're in here okay but let's just pick the community development I think that one might be cleaner what we're saying on here is that the current village is paying 42% just a grant list for that budget so what we're saying is we're going to have a 3% of that budget and that's not how I read this at all you just want to read I'm imagining going to like people sorry that's why I think it needs to be clear which services you're talking about because we have no idea how big this bill is that you're thinking you need to get so I would say capital taxes right now but I think I think the community needs to know to get the exact numbers Andy you're going to have to take some work I'm not asking for the numbers what are the services like Andrew was saying I mean community development the capital budget itself and just capital cost the capital costs within the village are covered by village taxpayer in the town outside of the village covered by the town as a whole including the village that's what we're talking about go ahead I think if the boards do continue this discussion it's more complicated than just 42% comm devs come up a few times now and just in the past year year and a half I know it hasn't always been this much but the town of comm dev has provided some services to the village the Juneteenth event working on the thieves update working on the cannabis working on cannabis and village comm dev is contributing to those things as well my point being is that it's tricky and complicated in terms of the actual dollar values and who's paying what and providing what parks and rec I don't know if that would be considered one of those services the town maintains a lot of parks that are open so I just think it's going to be a hard difficult conversation complicated conversation as you go forward down this road to consider so to speak to what you're saying my issue is the potential liability capital liability capital liability for the village is capital within our community road washes out in the village the village is on the hook road washes out in the town pay whatever the village on the hook and the town as a whole is on the hook including the village so I'm saying we carry potential liability and capital cost that the people that live outside the village don't realize and that's what I'm talking about and capital is it just a straight 42% is there a way to update the capital plan and put some projects that are in the village big conversation big conversation can I ask for clarification I'm sorry can I ask for clarification on the first bullet under the rationale because the discussion that we're having doesn't jive with how I'm reading that first bullet so it would be helpful just to have you speak it out for me please so under the important components about redoing the town and village the town and village manager reflects the current and state administrations so and what that second bullet isn't talked about is we would be looking to then hire a city manager and city HR director and as such we would need less services from the unified manager we would be looking to redo that contract I guess where I'm going in my brain with that explanation is I don't think it's just going to be as of a date certain we have a city manager and that person is going to hit the ground running boom they're off and then the unified manager town manager at that point would just sort of run and walk away but there would still be collaboration or which scenario do you see happening so I'd be offering under an assumption right now so I just want to my assumption is that when the city would hire a city manager there may be some initial collaboration but we're looking to hire a city manager city manager here's the report are you limiting the ask to these two specific items only for FY23 for example capital and content it was the only two or are there other ones you're asking about but just hyperquitting here I just want to get the clarification about those were just the only two that would work towards a greater tax equity the portion of the town for services could I just some clarification I think looking back at the MOUs the original MOU for the consolidated manager happened way back in 2013 at the time there wasn't an HR director at the time Darby's position was 30 hours a week and Darby only did village work so things have changed a lot Darby's replacement Tammy is full time Tammy serves both the village and town equally but she's 80% paid for by the village Linda is the administrative assistant she serves both communities equally and she's 100% paid for out of the village Travis's serves both communities and he's 100% paid for out of the town budget the village pays for 50% of the manager's salary and not the benefits but then also pays 42% of the other 50% of the salary so I don't think it was anybody's fault or there wasn't a mall intent behind it I just I don't think the current MOU that the two boards have accurately reflects the actual administration and who and how they serve questions staff or board just to clarify I don't mean to be too nitpicky but yes things have changed Tammy was not a Darby replacement Tammy was here before Darby left to spend a between a bunch of turnover that's the way it check out I don't want to think that anybody was replacement of any one position when being assets being a town currently has nearly 29 million dollars capital assets that's any debt that the city is not asking for the sharing of any of those town government continues at 81 main for not more than five years after Carter passes a legislature and is based on the trustee's assumption that the select board will not want the government center to be within another locality city and town would agree to independent appraisal and sale the building city has the rate of first use of the buy that can be presented at the appraised value now being it is very confusing to residents both municipalities to have town government in another municipality city residents would still go to 81 main town would still go to transacts but this is another municipality I don't think this is the city's problem to solve and you have no say in when we sell this building or where we have our offices so I think strike this one as you said we have to share the records it makes it easier for the people to go from the village I mean Lincoln Hall to 81 main share a record you know municipalities can absolutely own property and other municipalities you know South Burlington can't tell Burlington to get out of the airport in five years so I sometimes I think they wish to I think they'd like to maybe I would like to I think the intent was do you have any questions or comments and then you'll put together a response I don't know with her he's just he's just one member of the board I'm just one member of the board and maybe I'm maybe I'm spilling my guts too soon I think you do have a one good point there's a lot of confusing things and so I think certain points may be something for the select board to discuss for a future counter proposal not to not to go against what you just said sir but maybe just get some other inputs moving forward about the future of this building should the town have a reason to move out of this building I would you know I would hate to pay a broker to sell to someone we already know may want it and work on that as well and the fact that both the village and the town have been served well administration whether it be clerk or finance manager, assessor it's a it's self-aggrandizing I put manager like third sir did I third second I'll go with clerk, clerk first next one the last is a prioritized one prioritized one last of the prioritized is Indianbrook access city residents would indefinitely wish to be considered resident pass holders now the village has contributed to the Indianbrook dam and water control and could continue to have access to these I would also just note that it came to the trustees attention that the word grandfathered comes from a place that's not intended and as such would not use that word again in this venue apologize if we were anybody by that for that use for a point of clarification going forward if the dam does need more work or there's more water control or treatments needed would the city be amenable to sharing those costs try to fill the room do you want me to say restructuring of Indianbrook your counter proposal if you're looking over at Amber and Raj I neglected the screen lately so I'm really sorry again great right last one tax delinquencies this one came after the after we had prioritized things so this is somewhere between 1 through 12 I would likely say it is the important component being that those tax delinquencies incurred through the conclusion of the transition period that the city begins to remain due to the town you can see Sarah's there'll be a counter proposal I won't divulge it now there'll be discussion I don't get to make that not about this one but I do have a question about things that weren't included here you had originally proposed parks and racks or interest in some aspects of it that's not here so I guess we can make a counter proposal or there's a reason that parks and racks was not included in any of these pages we will flesh out what we were thinking back to other things that were not included is green mountain transit train station over here that has a bus coming to it town page for that service now and then you would pay for what you want better so you may need to have a vote whether or not you join green mountain transit train get all that their charter specifically lists the people who are allowed to be in that I don't know if the there's an umbrella that allows you well neither is the city of esc junction isn't in their list of allowed okay there needs to be discussion similarly with Winooski Valley park district whether you want to be a member of that or not Essex rescue they there are a per capita health officer wasn't mentioned you're going to just have your own health officer I don't know I guess cannabis isn't necessarily related to separation but the vote needs to happen before you separate that's a different discussion we need to have but it could be associated with local option tax but I don't know again that's a separation question or just a potential new revenue question or if they need to be worked into the separation discussion some I often in my own mind link the two because if there's a local option tax there may be more incentive to approve cannabis anytime you want to talk about the flow I know I'm willing set this for years but I'm just trying to think of this separation I think the complexities of establishing local option tax are the same whether we separate or not set this out loud so I don't question myself sorry for the time it took me to say that some people don't like it when I do that you all have your own process of how things work seem like I do I just wanted to make sure Andy just housekeeping do you have a preference for or against receiving package proposals or counter proposals or should we assume that each of these stand on their own you should assume that we're not excluded you wanted to discuss I guess it's a good starting point can I ask Tracy to elaborate on that question so in negotiations if you want to take part of I'm just throwing out numbers here but if you want to take part or all of proposal one and combine bits and pieces of maybe proposal three and say this is our counter proposal but you have to accept both parts does that make more sense it does I just wanted to make sure I was getting what you were saying an example might be access to indian brook and trade for something right something that's not necessarily specifically associated with indian brook it allows for that flexibility to sort of mix and match from proposals and put them together as one counter proposal or proposal on its own great got it and I guess if we're not talking about the proposals anymore I do have another sort of housekeeping ish item just for both boards to think about whether you would be interested in going into in my world we call it proposals so just an open session saying would you be willing to but not have that be binding until the process is completely done so it just allows for brainstorming back and forth without the fear that anything is going to be binding until the entire package is complete we're very familiar with those in the union negotiation world maybe a few too many proposals yeah Dr. Husky think you said you would open up to the public at some point and then I would maybe suggest that if the select board or boards want to go into executive session or whatever I have two rooms set up I have the conference room up at the top of the stairs and then I have my office I brought up chairs those are the two private places that will have a room for six or seven so I just let you know that at least those are the two rooms available and you cannot hear from the other room unless you're absolutely screaming which I recommend you do before we go to the public comment if we could go to the next step here portion so I know that one of our next agenda item or our next agenda item is to talk about the July 26 meeting I'm not trying to get to that agenda building rather just to make sure we're all on the same page so what would be great is if the select board were able to have a list for the next meeting before July 26 regarding proposals there are things that you would agree to suggested changes, questions so on and so forth that we would need to discuss there are things that you straight up at the top agree to that would be great to know because at that point things can go to the attorneys they can wrap that up and start the voting process if there are things that we need to further discuss then that would allow for July 26 to be that discussion from the trustees that would be our desired so yeah so as Evan alluded to we will go into executive session and have a discussion about these items and I don't know that we'll resolve any of them but explicitly say what we can have available to you at the next meeting it's not like we don't have a meeting between this meeting and that meeting and so we're in a tight spot I mean it's you know I don't want to now kick off a select board meeting that includes public comment all of that on these topics so I don't know we'll have to talk about it we want to suggest with the next agenda item being one of the requests from the select board was that we talk about the next agenda item before we end this so what we could do is I know this was a request from the select board the select board would be okay we could not have that conversation tonight and rather take the rest of the time tonight for you as a select board to be either in executive session or open as you would contract choice and if you meet in executive session you can come out with that list for the next second and then the agenda for the 26 would be a further conversation I think we need to know that portion before we end this conversation to go to the next agenda item or to not go to the next agenda item I think we need to go to the next agenda item in order to make a decision on this agenda I mean a detailed decision I don't think that the select board at least I don't feel comfortable setting an agenda in saying oh yes let's have a meeting without going through the process of executive session or further discussion on these topics I think if we do find that we're ready to have a joint meeting next week that there's only just one agenda item further discussion of the proposal and I think we're fine leaving it at that and so the mechanics of that would be if we made that decision we'd come back out of executive session and we could state publicly whether or not we're ready to have a meeting on the stakes I don't know how that sits with the trustees I have no idea how long the discussion will take either if you want to be present for that discussion I don't know how you do that I think I can say with confidence that we have it on our agenda we have it on our schedules to meet if you want to if you want to have that meeting we're there if you don't okay I don't think we need to wait around for your executive session does it sound like we're ready to go to public comment to end this agenda item just a Rajnath has said to it and thumbs up nice thank you so from here we would go ahead and take public comment on all of this wonderful conversation you just heard why don't we start with Microsoft teams we will come back into the room so if you're using Microsoft teams and wanted to speak to the boards about what you just heard please go ahead and raise your hand type in the chat feature to only speak once if I need to we can limit the time please address your comments to Andy and I and please don't have the back and forth among residents if you agree with what somebody else has said please just say I agree so that way we can move on so I see Betsy done her hand is up I want to say that the trustees for this meaning the trustees have come armed they've been working on these proposals for quite some time and they have just said that they want this decision to be done and completed by tonight basically so you can come back tomorrow or next week to have this conversation I think that's ludicrous you have to think about what these things are and they've given you three hours as a review of these things and you're supposed to have an answer for them tonight this is nuts I believe these negotiations on the components none of which are important to the contract for their charter change for a city of the of S6 junction are required so this stuff doesn't have to happen right now and these components should be considered and negotiated when the separation has passed the legislature which may not be this year this coming year because they're going to be working on the reapportionments of the towns and the district redistricting you may not even get this through the legislature this next session and we need to have our representatives the five from the town outside of the village sitting across from the trustees who are all from the village and negotiating these very things I think we shouldn't be looking at this but I will say with the police when you talk about events you can hire out for that and have people from different districts in the state who want to work that and be police officers they are ready police officers in their own towns to hire them in as subcontractors you don't have to use our own police force and the no bonding you're talking about us giving up our offices that we own telling us we have to sell them then what do we have to build a new facility bonding but we're stuck with the bonding because you said we can't do any bonding I think this is flawed we need to really have a long look at all of these things but I do think we shouldn't be getting an answer and telling you what we will do unless we have the people and the separation has been voted and it has been accepted by the people of the village and the legislature has approved of it thank you very much Mary Post thank you I'm just wondering it seems to me that before tonight there was a lot of talk about forums and Greg had talked at another meeting about wanting to know what the people think and it seems like a lot of things are happening here without really any input from the people except people like us that are on this meeting tonight and I just it just again makes me think like there's a lot of verbiage coming from everybody saying we want to know what the people think but you're just really not asking for it or getting it one little example that came up for me that might possibly be an issue I don't know is maybe we don't want to share a senior center anymore I think someone mentioned tonight that some of the people in Essex say they can't get down to the junction maybe the town would want to have its own senior center I don't know but I just think is really not getting a chance to weigh in on this so why are we if we still are spending money for forums I mean it just seems like it's a sideline that's going to be shelved again thank you Mary anybody else on teams please raise your hand or type into the chat feature Irene go ahead you can go ahead and unmute yourself we can't hear you sound very distant how's that is that better can you hear me thank you so much for your patience I agree with Betsy that this feels rushed I agree with Mary that the public should be part and parcel of this conversation for those of you who are not part of the renovation process a small fortune was spent on renovating 81 main street including a fireproof and a flood proof vault for land records to repeat that in another building in another location would be foolish the town should continue to own that building as long as possible but my main comment has to do with Indian Brook access a lot of money has been spent some years to eradicate invasive species there will be a lot of money spent on the dam and if the village would like to continue to be seasoned pass holders I think there'd be nothing wrong with asking village residents to fully fund their share of the use of Indian Brook Reservoir and I think that's pretty easy to look at statistics as to who owns passes and who hasn't in the past and determine I'm guessing it's probably 50-50 but maybe it's even 60-40 as to who uses that but usage in the past and payment toward past repairs or past eradication of invasives has nothing to do with the future expenses there so I would insist that if the village wants to be seasoned pass holders they add that into their budget a contribution that's fair and equitable to their usage and to the needs of maintaining Indian Brook which is as we all know really heavily used and very popular thanks I'm seeing no other hands up on Microsoft teams so last call other hands nothing in the chat so we will go off of Microsoft teams and come into the room here there's anybody here physically with us who would like to speak to the boards about what you've just heard can you raise your hand so I can see but Patty? You all are doing great I'm hearing you this time and you're doing a great job so I want to say being a Saxon Hill person people come from all over and to me Saxon Hill is Indian Brook because that's where I go the procedure for adopting policy versus an ordinance by the way when you were talking about the police regarding ordinances a statute granting only enabling authority means the municipality must first adopt an ordinance pursuant to 24 VSA 1972 blah blah blah before it can be before it can exercise control over the matter we need an ordinance at Saxon Hill and we need consequences governed by our police force that needs to be in the police budget we have 11,600 of us in the town outside the village but everybody else comes from everywhere to use Saxon Hill we need signs on the gate that say leash your dogs when you're on a public road we need this enforcement Saxon Hill wasn't a part of our conversation Saxon Hill let me say well the reason I'm telling you about this ordinance I looked it up while you were talking about policing an ordinance is not too expensive for the town outside the village it is needed besides our sidewalks being plowed that our old people use every day and cannot walk on thank you I know there's a lot of inertia here inertia to come to an agreement a lot of pressure short deadline nevertheless I asked the select board to consider alternatives to a negotiated agreement make sure that you are taking into account what might be better than the negotiated agreement senior center is a very good example possibly better arrangement there might be not to include that in the agreement and simply go our own way I hope that you do that for each of the considerations it's not only important for the select board to consider its alternative to a negotiated agreement but also your counterparties alternative it may not be positive and it may help you come to a better negotiated agreement that's basically it it's called best alternative to a negotiated agreement batna you can look it up it's a negotiating mechanism I urge the select board I expect my select board to consider that sometimes the solution might be don't make a deal go your own way thank you there's no other hands no votes so I think we already talked about the discussion about whether to hold the joint board meeting the trustees had asked us to add these additional three meetings and select board we had talked about the conditions around that and we really wanted to close what the budget would be in the meeting prior and we already talked about the fact that we don't know what that's going to be until after we have our executive session we don't know if we're going to be ready to have more conversations or whether we need to wait until we have our own scheduled meeting and or get public input or whatever whatever we are talking about so I'm not sure we can close this until after that executive session I think the trustees have given their position that you're willing to have and it depends on our decision if I can there's one thing I want to add to that yep so along those lines one of the reasons why I had asked for these meetings is even with these meetings if we look at the overall timeline and I'm sorry I'm having terrible eye contact but I wrote this down so it's right on today's wrong after today we have July 26th we have August 23rd we have September 20th and September 27th those are the four meetings that we have left together until we as the Board of Trustees need to have our charter and transition periods solidified to go out to vote so that's why we've asked for these meetings if we take one away that just means that there is less time for trying to come to some level of agreement which will certainly put things in a bit of a bind so that's why we've asked for these meetings I appreciate your willingness to have them and hope that we can get through this as quickly as possible if you remember when we went through the merger process we had both the charter and the transition periods and transitional items part of that charter to be voted upon so we will need to do that again with your help hopefully we can do that I can't guarantee you can meet your timeline one of the items in the reading file or is it in the consent agenda is discussion about when our public forums will be in the last one is October sorry August 21st yep so that's something we'll have to discuss yes and in their memos language rights about the languages in there I am not seeing am I? so yeah I think at least there's any other comments from select board members about the agenda for next meeting I think we covered adequately yeah the trustees are going to meet and and we removed the consent agenda with the trustees like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda second thank you Raj for the discussion hearing none all those favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed zero select board motion to approve consent agenda we approve I move this select board to approve the consent agenda second discussion those in favor please say aye aye okay moving on to the reading file any board member comments either board okay and that brings us to any just wanted to mention if you don't mind today many of us went to St. Albans and then to the village about the second service it was a good day we got to see a lot of our state elected officials and talk to them about the train station here in Essex Junction and its need to be renovated and so there was a lot of people in attendance and we got a lot of very good FaceTime with Senator Mazza President Dinden Lieutenant Governor Gray and several other people from Amtrak and otherwise so it was well done and they were appreciative that we were there and that we gave them time and information we are probably on the news tonight if we ever get to the news could you just express our thanks to Tammy for all her hard work on that absolutely she did a great job as did Robin did a tour of the downtown and several others and thank you to Essex Junction Rec for the use of your tents because it came in handy today with the rain but thanks for the time okay and I guess this brings us to executive session select board is going to want to go I don't know if the trustees will or not I think we're all set so we need to find the right the correct set of while we do that since we're not going to go into the executive session I think we're all set to that although I see Kathy's hand up is that about that motion to adjourn Kathy no not yet thanks so the motion is on the table any further discussion on adjourning from the trustees hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye okay so let's pass for zero thank you select board so Kathy what is your question good seeing you Kathy you have your hand up yeah I just wanted to make sure that we have a plan for getting the motions afterward to me so just putting that out there thank you okay so let's see we have it right here Andy it's the it's 6B1 is that the correct one there's two motions is that right to discuss contracts premature knowledge and the second one to enter all right go ahead Tracy I move that the select board make the specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the town's position concerning the proposed contract discussion would place the town at a substantial disadvantage thank you Tracy you have a second thanks Vince any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye next motion I move that the select board enter into executive session as potential contracts pursuant to 1VSA 313A1A to include the unified manager deputy manager assistant manager town attorney should I have included the assistant manager just you've got it right second thank you Don any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye go into executive session upstairs in the little conference